Delia of Vallia (9 page)

She felt an extra pang of disappointment that she could not see Velia. That sprite was out with her classmates on what was euphemistically called An Educational and Recreational Trip for Young Ladies. The description might fit a startling variety of activities. Velia might be picking wild flowers to press in her album, joying in the wonders of nature; she might be stalking another party of girls and both parties deadly determined to spot and attack the other first; she might be working in some tavern all heightened color and watching hawklike for the people she had been sent to spy on; she might just be indulging in simple swordmastering, perhaps snapping her Whip at stuffed targets, or slashing with the practice claw at opponents armed with a variety of weapons. Delia had given strict instructions that young Velia should be taught the bow to the highest standards attainable at Lancival. After that, Uncle Seg would put on the final polish that would turn an excellent archer into a superb archer. You could not start too young learning the bow.

Sosie ti Drakanium, who was a captain of messengers, stopped Delia on the long marble sweep of staircase leading up to the Reading Rooms of the Laypom Hall. Sosie, a bright and lively girl with cropped brown hair and those deep brown Vallian eyes, hailed from Delphond.

“Majestrix. Is the mistress—?”

“She is overworked, Sosie, and needs rest. That is all.”

“Thanks be to Dee Sheon! I am bid to ask you to see the Lady Almoner as soon as possible. She did not know of this dreadful news, of course, but—”

“She will certainly have more important things to do now than worry over me, I know.” Delia let a small smile curve her lips, a small smile only and enough to respect the proprieties.

“As the Lady Almoner, Wilma Llandrin will be particularly busy trying to fill the shoes of the mistress until she is well again.”

Sosie’s bright face remained serious.

“Or until we must choose a new mistress.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t worry over that for a long time yet.”

“But I do worry. So do others. There are some sisters who are undoubtedly most worthy and yet I would not wish to see them as the mistress. But, there is one sister I, and many others, would so wish.”

Delia simply rode this as though flying a saddlebird high above the clouds.

“I am sure every sister has her own particular favorite as candidate, Sosie. You are young yet — of the junior chapel, I know — so at least you do not have the alarming thought that someone might wish to elect you!”

Sosie looked away.

“Quite, majestrix,” she said. And said no more.

To rescue Sosie, Delia smiled again and said: “I will go straightaway to see Wilma. You are on your way to your Jikvar class?”

“Yes. I have to work at it. The rapier is more my weapon.”

“And mine.” They reached the corridor where the tall windows patterned sparkles across the carpets and marble. At the far end triple bronze-bound doors gave access to the working apartments of the sorority — working only in the sense that their work was generally regarded as work, as distinct from things like gardening and sewing and cooking and nursing which were not-work work. The distinctions were kept up, although at times they appeared nonsensical hangovers from another age.

Sosie wore black leathers instead of her usual tan tunic and she pushed the balass box straight under her arm before bidding Delia remberee in the SoR fashion of remberee, and swinging off with her long stride after the au revoir. Delia looked after her and shook her head. Sosie had an hour or two of strenuous exercise before her. The rules of the sisterhood demanded exact obedience to a rhythm of work, play, instruction and sleep. Periods of service in the outside world came as a culmination of and an enhancement of the training. Many people could not distinguish between the Discipline of such an order and ordinary discipline. That was their misfortune; sometimes it led to petty little squabbles and misunderstandings from women outside the sorority. Despite the claims made, and the undoubted truth of many of them, it was also manifest that all women were not considered equal with men — very far from it in some places and in the eyes of some men.

As a jikmer, a captain of messengers, Sosie had particular functions to perform. Yzobel, also, was a jikmer. Delia was aware that many men believed the women had set up a rank structure of delmer and hikmer and jikmer and chukmer aping the grades within male armed forces. That this was not so did not fail to amuse her.

Yzobel favored white leathers. This was her privilege. Trouble with white leather was that in moments of activity, stretching to days of action on end, it tended to become grubby. Only the very best quality leather and finish could be employed to resist dirtying; all the same, it looked splendid, no doubt of that.

The interview with the Lady Almoner was short. Wilma Llandrin did, indeed, have much to occupy her. Sisters did not go around calling each other sister this and sister that all the time. Delia expected to be called Delia; if girls chose to address her as majestrix, that, again, was their privilege.

“Delia! This is dreadful — before I can get away to see the mistress there are a thousand and one things I must do. Yet—”

Wilma, who called herself simply Llandrin, dropping all her worldly ranks and titles within Lancival, was a small, plump, meticulous woman. She could not be called fussy. Her hair was not pure Vallian brown but contained admixtures of a darker hue. Her face, which in the normal way was a model of understanding and rectitude and calculation, now revealed the turmoil occasioned by the collapse of the mistress.

“If there is anything I can do—?”

“Oh, everything here is under control. But thank you. I wanted to give you more information on what we know of the Sisters of the Whip and of Jilian Sweet-Tooth. But that must wait a moment.”

“Of course.”

Here in the wide office, with many girls at their desks organizing every detail, Delia was well aware of the arcane expertise employed. Wilma could do sums in her head that lesser mortals could never do, not with all the fingers and toes Opaz gave them, not with a regiment of girls and each one with an abacus. The sisters said that Wilma could look at a set of accounts, scanning each page as fast as her fingers could turn the leaves, and tell you at the end about every misplaced copper ob. That was a gift perplexing in its subtlety and, at least in many girls’ eyes, of downright torment.

For Wilma Llandrin herself, the reverse was true.

Looking at this wonderful woman before her, remembering her as little Delia Valhan, she was amazed at what the passage of time could accomplish, although this was a mere part of what the mysticism of the rose taught. Much speculation had followed Delia’s accident that left her a cripple, and more when she had returned, strong and fully fit and even more beautiful than before. No — looking at the woman before her, Wilma Llandrin gave thanks to Opaz that she, Wilma, had not been called to become Empress of Vallia.

Details of protocol were easily settled, as the two sisters talked for a moment only. Then Wilma, looking down at a ledger before her, said: “Of course, Delia, the mistress is actively seeking a successor. I must tell you I do not seek that honor.”

“Honor? Yes, it is an honor. But, also, it is—”

“Yes!” Wilma picked up a pen. “It can create and it can destroy. We all know that. The choice must fall upon a sister who is not only worthy, but one who can bear the burdens.”

Delia started to say something that might open Wilma’s confidence to her; then she changed her mind, and said: “I have so much to do, as you can imagine, and much as I love Lancival, I do not wish to remain here longer than I must.”

“I am sorry to hear that.”

“No more than I am to say it.”

There, said Delia to herself, perhaps that will clear the air a trifle.

The pen twirled. Wilma Llandrin was not the Lady Almoner for nothing. She looked up. “You have heard about the new curtains for the refectory?”

“Yes.”

“I am not going to ask you for a contribution to pay for them — or the thousand orphans.”

Delia held her smile in check, inwardly bubbling with joy at dear Wilma’s machinations. This method of exerting power, traditionally belonging to women down through the ages of a male-dominated world, need not be thrown away in a more modern age of equality. Some women conditioned by events and not by reason, saw only cheapness in trying to hang onto women’s role as the swayers of men’s actions through hidden and persuasive means. Any weapons were good weapons if they fitted the hand. Delia detested the idea of men and women having to deal in terms of weapons to oppose each other. But until all was in all, as the saying went, needs must.

Men and women were just different. That was all. It was nonsensical to claim they were the same. Provided each received fair dues from the other, and, in more enlightened areas, each received as much help and sustenance one to the other, one from the other, then Opaz would shine upon them. Men and women could get on if each had a fair crack of the whip. That reminded Delia.

“I have to attend Aimee’s grakvar class in a quarter of a glass.” She glanced at the clepsydra; the water was rose-colored. “I then have a jikvar class and then a hikvar — and after that I think I shall expire in the steam of the Baths of the Nine. Unless—?”

“No, no, Delia. You must conform to the rhythm. I shall call a conclave this evening.”

“Very well.” As Delia turned to go, she looked back. “And, Wilma, don’t you overdo it. Lancival cannot spare you. You may not believe it, we all do.”

Wilma Llandrin smiled and then took up the first of the incessant stream of requests for orders and instructions. Being the Lady Almoner, she had the last word. She caught Delia just as the empress’s fingers trailed from the door handle.

“Oh, Delia. I am not going to ask you for a contribution for the refectory curtains. We are opening a self-denying week for that. Nor for the orphans — that has been covered. I am going to ask you for a contribution for the repairs to the hospital of the Meek Sisters of Mercy. It has been in ruins since its destruction during the Time of Troubles.”

“And they cannot finance it themselves?”

“Quite out of the question. The MSM are not a wealthy Order, and we have helped them in the past. They are worthy women.”

“Very well. I will see to it, sell some jewelry, something like that. At the moment I do not have any saddle animals to spare. They are still dreadfully short.”

“All these wars! I know.”

“When my husband returns from these wars I will have him dip into his pocket. There are other projects in mind.”

“He is successful, thanks be to Opaz. Surely, Delia, he will return with caravans of loot from our defeated enemies?”

Delia, one hand on the door, shook her head. Her face remained perfectly grave.

“No, Wilma. The emperor is not in the habit of plundering cruelly. And our late enemies in Hyrklana and Hamal are now our allies. As for the Shanks—”

Wilma’s face reflected her stated distaste for them...

“As for the Shanks, they stink of fish and have little of value that we prize. They may have, in the future.”

Proving she was the Lady Almoner, Wilma said with a sniff, “Even if gold stinks of fish, it is still gold.”

Chapter seven

Unwelcome News of Jilian Sweet-Tooth

Being conscious of her own faults, Delia often became extraordinarily tired of trying to correct them all the time. She’d remained sweet and reasonable in dealing with her two Djangs, Tandu and Dalki, when all around she was almost overwhelmed by sickness and filth. Now, in the muted light of the arms salle where as a small girl she’d often thought this was how the world must be below the sea, she went through the regulation exercises with her Whip.

She slashed and bashed and knocked the stuffing out of the dummies. She did not sweat. Some of the girls at practice regarded her askance, and this, too, annoyed her.

She was the empress, true. That had no bearing on the way she ought to be treated here. Here in Lancival they were all sisters.

A robust girl straining her leathers like any heavy male Deldar, flicked her whip, took out a patch of canvas on a dummy’s head representing an eye, and then looked over a shoulder at Delia. Delia was about to flick at her own dummy.

“You wanted to ask me something?” Delia let her whip trail across the polished wooden floor.

The girl — Delia didn’t know her — flushed up in a bright wash of blood.

“No — no, majestrix—”

“And you may call me Delia like any sister.”

“Ah, yes — ah, Delia—”

“Now get on with your practice.”

The girl did as she was bid. She did not cry, for that was a practice frowned on except in the most special of circumstances. But her next three blows completely missed the target.

Delia felt mean — and she also felt liberated.

By Vox! She was no angel, no spirit of perfection. Do ’em good to get the rough edge of her tongue now and again.

Anyway, her bad temper was not just because she had to slash her whip about, and then slash her claw about; she was far more worried than she liked over Jilian. Whatever was to be said about that young lady, or what had not been said so far, seemed calculated to distress her friend Delia.

Since the evening she had arrived, there had been all a hustle and a bustle, what with the mistress collapsing and the consequent preoccupation with the consequences. Now, when Delia had finished up with the Whip, the Claw, and passed a pleasant period throwing other girls about the mat, really tying each other up in knots, she could go along to the pro-marshal.

Thalmi Crockhaden, the pro-marshal, stood up as Delia entered the small study room. Thalmi’s hair, which remained a bright yellow despite all, marked her out as being different from the usual run of Vallians. She was of Vallia, of course; but somewhere back along the line an ancestor had strayed, given the mores in use at the time. She was not overlarge, not over-pronounced, not over anything. It was not just because of her position within the SoR that she reminded Delia of Naghan Vanki the emperor’s chief spymaster. To most of the junior sisters, Thalmi spent her time arranging the most awkward timetables for training sessions. And, even then, they’d say, her assistants did all the work.