Court Duel (17 page)

I sighed, closing my eyes.

"Please, my lady. Do drink my elixir. It's a special
one."

Groaning and wincing, I sat up, took the cup, and sipped the
liquid in it. The taste was bitter and made me shiver, but
within the space of two breaths I felt a wondrous coolness
spread all through me. When I gulped down the rest, the
coolness banished most of the headache.

I looked up at Mora gratefully. She gave me a short nod of
satisfaction, then said, "I have laid out your dressing gown."
And noiselessly she left.

So I was alone with my regret. I sighed, and for a long,
pleasant moment envisioned myself sneaking out in my
nightdress, grabbing a horse from the stables, and riding hard
straight for home. Tlanth was safe. Tlanth was friendly and
honest and respectful.
Mother was right,
I thought
aggrievedly. Court was nothing but betrayal in fine
clothing.

I certainly hadn't meant to get drunk. And Tamara had
certainly made it easy for me, keeping my cup filled; but of
course she hadn't forced me to drink it.
Whether she meant
it to happen or not, there is little purpose in blaming
her,
I thought morosely. That was the coward's way
out.

And so was sneaking back to Tlanth, leaving Nee and Bran to
face the inevitable gossip.

No, I'd have to brave it out; and if people really did snub
me, well, a snub wasn't permanent like a sword through one's
innards. I'd live. I'd just spend my time in the library until
the wedding, and
then
ride home.

This plan seemed eminently reasonable, but it left me
feeling profoundly depressed. I rose at last, reaching for my
dressing gown so I could go downstairs to the bath. My spirits
were so glum I almost overlooked the two letters waiting on my
writing table.

When I did see them, my heart gave one of those painful
thumps, and I wondered if these were letters of rejection. The
top one had my name written out in a bold, slanting hand, with
flourishing letter-ends and underlining. I pulled it open.

My Dear Meliara:

You cannot deny me the pleasure of your company on a
picnic this afternoon. I will arrange everything. All you need
to do is appear and grace the day with your beautiful smile. To
meet you will be some of our mutual friends...

Named were several people, all of whom I knew, and it ended
with a promise of undying admiration. It was signed
Russav.

Could it be an elaborate joke, with me as the butt, as a
kind of revenge for my social lapse? I reread the note several
times, dismissing automatically the caressing tone—I knew
it for more of his flirtatious style. Finally I realized that I
did not see Tamara's name among the guests, though just about
all of the others had been at the party the night before.

A cold sensation washed through me. I had the feeling that
if anyone was being made a butt, it was not Meliara Astiar,
social lapse notwithstanding.

I turned to the next letter and was glad to see the plain
script of my Unknown:

Meliara—

In keeping faith with your stated desire to have the
truth of my observations, permit me to observe that you have a
remarkable ability to win partisans. If you choose to dismiss
this gift and believe yourself powerless, then of course you
are powerless; but the potential is still there—you are
merely pushing it away with both hands.

Ignorance, if you will honor me with permission to take
issue with your words, is a matter of definition—or
possibly of degree. To be aware of one's lack of knowledge is
to be merely untutored, a state that you seem to be
aggressively attempting to change. A true ignorant is unaware
of this lack.

To bring our discourse from the general to the specific,
I offer my congratulation to you on your triumph in the Affair
Tamara. She intended to do you ill. You apparently didn't see
it, or appeared not to see it. It was the most
effective—perhaps the only effective—means of
scouting her plans for your undoing. Now her reputation is in
your hands.

This is not evidence of lack of influence.

And it ended there.

Two utterly unexpected communications. The only facts that
seemed certain were that the Unknown had been at that party and
like Savona (maybe it was he?) had sat up very late penning
this letter. Or both letters.

I needed very much to think these things out.

Nee tapped outside my door and asked if I'd like to go down
to the baths with her.

"How do you feel?" she asked, looking concerned, as we
walked down the stairs.

I felt my face burn. "I suppose it's all over Remalna by
now."

She gave me a wry smile. "I think I received six notes this
morning, most of which, I hasten to add, affirm their
partisanship for you."

Partisan.
The term used by the Unknown.

"For me?" I said. "But I got drunk. Worse, I got sick all
over Tamara's carpet. Not exactly courtly finesse." I ducked my
head under the warm water.

When I came up, Nee said, "But she was the one who served an
especially potent punch, one they all knew you probably hadn't
tasted before, as it's a Court delicacy..." She hesitated, and
I hazarded a guess at what she was leaving out.

"You mean, people might want to see Tamara in trouble?"

She nodded soberly.

"And apparently I can do something about that?"

"All you have to do is give her the cut," Nee said quietly.
"When you appear in public, you don't notice her, and she'll
very shortly come down with a mysterious ailment that requires
her to withdraw to the family estate until the next scandal
supplants this one."

"Why would she do it?" I asked. "I am very sure I never did
anything to earn her enmity."

Nee shrugged. "I can't say I understand her, cousins though
we be. She's always been secretive and ambitious, and I expect
she sees' you as competition. After all, you appeared suddenly,
and it seems effortless how you have managed to attract the
attention of the most eligible of the men—"

I snorted. "Even I know that a fad can end as suddenly as it
began. Savona could get bored with me tomorrow, and all the
rest would follow him to the next fad, just as if they had
ribbons tied round their necks and somebody yanked."

Nee smiled as she wrung out her hair. "Well, it's true, but
I think you underestimate the value of Savona's
friendship."

"But it isn't a friendship," I retorted without
thinking—and I realized I was right. "It's just a
flirtation. We've never talked about anything that really
matters to either of us. I don't know him any better now than I
did the first day we met." As I said the words I felt an
unsettling sensation inside, as if I were on the verge of an
important insight. Pausing, I waited; but further thoughts did
not come.

Nee obviously thought that sufficed. "If more people
recognized the difference between friendship and mere
attraction, and how love must partake of both to prosper, I
expect there'd be more happy people."

"And a lot fewer poems and plays," I said, laughing as I
splashed about in the scented water.

Nee laughed as well.

We talked more about what had happened, and Nee maintained
that Savona's picking me up and walking out was the signal that
had finished Tamara.

This made me wonder, as I dressed alone in my room, if there
had been an unspoken struggle going on all along between the
two of them. If so, he'd won. If she'd been the more
influential person, his walking out with me would not have
mattered; her followers would have stayed and dissected my
manners, morals, and background with delicacy and finesse and
oh-so-sad waves of their fans.

And another thing Nee maintained was that it was my
forthright admission that I was drunk that had captivated
Savona. Such honesty was considered risky, if not outright
madness. This inspired some furious thinking while I dressed,
which produced two resolutions.

Before I could lose my courage, I stopped while my hair was
half done, and dashed off a note to my Unknown:

I'll tell you what conclusion I've reached after a
morning's thought, and it's this: that people are not diamonds
and ought not to be imitating them.

I've been working hard at assuming Court polish, but the
more I learn about what really goes on behind the pretty voices
and waving fans and graceful bows, the more I comprehend that
what is really said matters little, so long as the manner in
which it is said pleases. I understand it, but I don't like it.
Were I truly influential, then I would halt this foolishness
that decrees that in Court one cannot be sick; that to admit
you are sick is really to admit to political or social or
romantic defeat; that to admit to any emotions usually means
one really feels the opposite. It is a terrible kind of
falsehood that people can only claim feelings as a kind of
social weapon.

Apparently some people thought it took amazing courage
to admit that I was drunk, when it was mere unthinking truth.
This is sad. But I'm not about to pride myself on telling the
truth. Reacting without thinking—even if I spoke what I
thought was true—has gotten me into some nasty situations
during the recent year. This requires more thought. In the
meantime, what think you?

I signed it and got it sent before I could change my mind,
then hastily finished dressing.
At least,
I thought as
I slipped out the door,
I won't have to see his face when
he reads it, if he thinks it excessively foolish.

Wrapping my cloak closely about me, I ran down the Residence
steps, immediately left the flagged pathway, and faded into the
garden.

One thing I still remembered from my war days was how to
move in shrubbery. With my skirts bunched in either hand so the
hems wouldn't get muddy, I zigzagged across the grounds so that
no one would see me. I emerged from behind a scree of ferns and
tapped at the door at the wing of the Chamadis House where I
knew that Tamara had her rooms.

The door was opened by a maid whose eyes widened slightly,
but her voice was blank as she said, "Your ladyship?" She held
the door close, as if to guard against my entry; I expect she
would have denied me had not Tamara herself appeared in the
background.

"Who is it, Kerael?" The drawl was completely gone, and her
voice was sharp with repressed emotion—I almost didn't
recognize it.

In silence the maid opened the door wider, and Tamara saw
me. Her blue eyes were cold and angry, but her countenance
betrayed the marks of exhaustion and strain. She curtsied, a
gesture replete with the bitterest irony; it was the bow to a
sovereign.

I felt my neck burn. "Please. Just a bit of your time."

She gestured obliquely, and the maid stepped aside; I walked
in. A moment or two later we stood facing one another alone in
a lovely anteroom in shades of celestial blue and gold.

She took up a stance directly behind a chair, her back
straight, her hands laid atop the chair back, one over the
other, the image of perfect control. She was even beautifully
gowned, which made me wonder if she had been expecting someone
else to call.

She stared at me coldly, her eyes unblinking; and as the
silence grew protracted, I realized she would not speak
first.

"Why did you get me drunk?" I asked. "I'm no rival of
yours."

She made a quick, sharp gesture of negation. A diamond on
her finger sparkled like spilled tears, and I realized her
fingers were trembling.

"It's true," I said, watching her bury her hands in the
folds of her skirts. "What little you know of me ought to make
one thing plain: I don't lie. That is, I don't do it very well.
I don't fault you for ambition. That would be mighty two-faced
when my brother and I plotted half our lives to take the crown
from Galdran. Our reasons might be different, but who's to
fault that? Not me. I gave that over last year. As for
Savona—"

"Don't," she said.

"Why?" I demanded. "Can't you see he's just flirting with
me? I don't know much of romance—well, nothing, if you
only count experience—but I have noticed certain things,
and one is that in a
real
courtship, the two people
endeavor to get to know one another." Again I had that
sensation of something important hovering just out of my
awareness, but when I paused, frowning—trying to perceive
it—my thoughts just scattered.

"I think," she said, "you are being a trifle too
disingenuous."

I sighed. "Humor me by pretending I am sincere. You know
Savona. Can't you see him making me popular just to ... well,
prove a point?" I faltered at the words
pay you back for
going after Shevraeth and a crown?

Not that the meaning escaped her, for I saw its impact in
the sudden color ridging her lovely cheeks. Her lips were
pressed in a thin line. "I could ... almost... believe you had
I not had your name dinned in my ear through a succession of
seasons. Your gallantry in facing Galdran before the Court. The
Astiar bravery in taking on Galdran's army with nothing but a
rabble of half-trained villagers on behalf of the rest of the
kingdom. Your running almost the length of the kingdom with a
broken foot and successfully evading Debegri's and Vidanric's
warriors. The duel-to-the-death with Galdran."

I had to laugh, which I saw at once was a mistake. But I
couldn't stop, not until I saw the common omission in all of
this: my disastrous encounters with Shevraeth. Had he spoken
about my defeats, surely this angry young lady would have nosed
it all out— and it was apparent she'd have no compunction
about flinging it in my teeth.

No. For some incomprehensible reason, he hadn't talked about
any of it.