her instruments 02 - rose point (30 page)

Kis’eh’t snorted. “You are telling me that Hirianthial—who is apparently a rich relation to the Queen of the planet—can’t afford good horses? Or the Queen?”

Reese covered her face. “You are implying they brought horses with them from Earth.”

“I think they’re colonists, yes,” Kis’eh’t said. “And I have absolutely no solid evidence to back that guess up, but Aksivaht’h tells us to trust our instincts and I trust this one. These people came here on ships. And they don’t have that technology anymore. They chose this barbarism. So yes, I expect violence from them. They embraced a world that concentrates most of the power in the hands of the very few and sentences the rest to Goddess-knows-what sort of lives, but probably involving back-breaking labor. Why? I don’t understand it. It sounds sociopathic to me.” She shrugged. “But I come from a scientist culture with a Goddess who reveres life. We don’t think going backwards is progress.”

“Unless you think you’ve gotten something wrong and need to backtrack,” Sascha murmured, frowning.

“So what is it the Eldritch are trying to correct for?” Irine wondered.

“I don’t know,” Reese said. “But whatever it is, they’re failing.”

It was unsurprising to find clothing had appeared in his temporary quarters; no doubt Neren had seen to it, as he would have felt obliged. The retainer had not arrived with the clothing, however, and while court dress did not require the aid of a servant, it was designed with the assumption that one would be dressed by a valet or lady’s maid. Hirianthial bathed and began the laborious process of doing without help. White gloves of thin leather, white stockings of thin silk, white blouse, edged with thin, soft lace; vest and coat and pants the dark red of a claret, embroidered in bronze thread and sewn with topazes, citrines, garnets; he fingered them, wondering what they would fetch at market, and what Reese would have done with the money. They were beautiful, but on this world the only purpose they served was ornament, like the people they decorated.

Gentlemen wore pointed shoes with heels...or boots, and he had always favored the latter. Hair for men, always long and loose, required either braids sewn with precious stones or fillets to keep it back; Hirianthial wore the one piece of hair jewelry he needed at the back of his neck, and chose to go unadorned. Surely there was some value in being outrageous.

The swords came with him, both of them, and the dagger as well. He remained Jisiensire’s sword-bearer until Araelis awarded that duty to someone else, and he was entitled and required to wear them to court, one on each side. The dagger, of course, was with Theresa, but his Alliance purchase served him well enough. Few people would look at his feet carefully enough to notice its foreign issue, and having something there was better than not: it would keep the curious from wondering, given his reputation as a man who only ever gave a dagger once.

That he had done it twice now, he did not contemplate closely. Theresa needed a weapon; it was that simple.

He maintained his forest-won calm throughout the process; it stayed with him even as he regarded himself in the mirror and saw the man who’d loved and lived here before everything had fallen apart. His face had changed, had grown more lined, and his eyes... he’d seen things, leaving this world. They had pushed the horizon from the rim of a world to the edge of a galaxy emblazoned with stars finer than any gems a tailor could sew onto a coat. He surprised himself by wanting that for all his people... that sense that the universe was vaster and more astonishing than anything they could conceive. Of all the races in the Alliance, surely they needed that perspective the most, for they had so many more years to fill and so little to fill them with.

He turned from himself and the revelation that he cared, squared his shoulders, and went to the great hall.

Ontine had a throne room: a narrow gallery that ended in the Queen’s seat, a room small enough for thirty people perhaps, meant for petitioners and envoys and the business of governance. The palace also had a great hall for times when the entirety of the ruling class of the world needed to meet one another before their Queen, and it was there that the winter court session was opened. Hirianthial had begun attending the twin courts of the year when his mother had designated him the heir to the Sarel family, and he had continued to attend them after he’d succeeded his parents. He was familiar with the routine. And if the overpowering glitter of the courtiers in their multitudes was no longer quite so familiar, he could also call upon his new out-world experiences to understand just how small a gathering it was. Some two hundred and fifty people? Maybe three hundred at most?

Their numbers were fewer than he remembered, as well. They were dwindling. It was something he not only saw, but sensed, suddenly, shockingly: a taint in too many auras. Ennui? Sickness? Genetic disorder?

Araelis headed for him the moment she spotted him, hooking him around the arm with her wand and drawing him discreetly aside. “Cousin, thank God and Lady. Come bring the swords over and look intractable for me.”

“You and I should talk,” he said, pushing the tip of the wand down and away.

Annoyingly, her aura changed not at all, not even for the faintest hint of remorse. “Is this about that appealing young woman of yours? Yes, I think we should talk about her.”

Then again, perhaps broaching the topic had not been wise. “You spoke overmuch on things I would have kept private—”

“That woman is very attached to you,” Araelis said. “And all her people too. How can you not have told them anything about your life, Hirianthial?” She tsked. “You owed them something of yourself.”

His brows lifted. “You are discussing out-worlders, do you recall, cousin.”

“Yes, I know,” Araelis said. “Have you forgotten we are Jisiensire, Hirianthial? Or has your father-come-lately from Galare clouded your eyes to your mother’s legacy? We are the House that welcomed the first alien as kin. We are the House who supplies the Queen’s couriers, generation after generation. It is for us to cultivate the alien. That is done by mutual trust,” the latter two words punctuated with taps of her wand on his forearm, “and mutual trust is grown by confidences.”

“If the alien is so much your concern,” Hirianthial said, “do you go into the Alliance and seek your own. But don’t tell me how to manage my companions.”

“Ah,” Araelis said, cold pallor spilling into her aura as she stopped. “Ah? Ah. Your... companions?”

“Yes,” he said, irritated. “What else?”

She held up her hands, wand held horizontal to the ground in one of them, the symbol for yielding an argument. “Pardon me, my cousin. I see I did amiss.”

“You did,” he said, not trusting her withdrawal, for he didn’t understand what had occasioned it. Why had her aura washed so shocked so suddenly? As if she had made some mistake and did not want his attention drawn to it.

“I had thought you were closer to them than you were,” Araelis said. “Forgive me! I shall make no mention of you again.”

Before he could answer her, the fanfare played, announcing the arrival of the Queen. The rustle of the crowd turning to face the long blue carpet that led to the end of the hall prefaced the silence as Liolesa strode to the seat awaiting her, a less formal throne than the one in her throne room, but on an elevated dais. As always, she moved with purpose, climbing the dais and settling herself on her cushioned bench. She rested the scepter against her shoulder and said in a carrying voice, “The Winter Court is now convened. The Houses may now present to their liege.”

A herald called, “House Sovenil. Families Kiviel, Juran, Thani, Brel and Shin in attendance,” and began the long process. It was not the formal exchange that would take place in the days to come in the more intimate throne room, where each courtier would bring a tally of the duties he owed Liolesa for her examination, but it involved the presentation of newer members of the family and the explication of their lineage and credentials. Hirianthial found it harder to focus on the people than it was to sense their emotions: their feelings toward Liolesa as they spoke to her, their general state, their health. That more than anything distracted him; as each House was called forth, he was shown their true allegiances, felt their connection to others in the court like a web dewed with water droplets, a spangled light that had him looking into corners at places where no person stood but some line extended as tangibly as any silk thread. It was so involving he almost missed Jisiensire’s cue.

Following Araelis, he went to a knee as was proper for a sword-bearer, and one who’d personally served the Queen. And here, rather than sense his own party’s disposition, he felt the pressure of the court’s attention, their spikes of curiosity, their sudden interest, the fencing of their loyalties as they shifted to accommodate him as a possible player. There were many women willing to make allowances for his politics if they could capture him as a husband.

Liolesa’s aura surprised him not at all: a thing of steel, like armor, completely in control of herself.

There were only two Houses after Jisiensire to be called, and the last of them was Asaniefa, Surela’s House and their enemy. He expected something in her people to hint at their anger and frustration, but what he sensed instead was a smug anticipation that made his skin prickle. They were planning something—of course they were, they always were—but this plan they thought assured them success. Was this what Liolesa was determined to flush into the open?

Were they so convinced Liolesa wouldn’t use the technology of the Alliance against them, that they could scheme against her in relative security?

Araelis whispered, “You have your hand on your sword, cousin.”

He let it drop, folded his hands behind his back, felt the creak of the leather gloves as he flexed his fingers.

After the introductions, the courtiers were free to mingle or to leave as they preferred. In practice, the first session lasted until supper, and everyone would use it to see whether their alliances had lasted the year or if they needed reevaluation, if they had gained allies or lost them, who they should plan to invite to more private soirees. Hirianthial followed Araelis as if he was still a part of Jisiensire, mostly to prevent too many eligible ladies from descending on him. He hoped between his cousin’s known allegiance to Liolesa and his forbidding look he would not attract too many.

It was a vain hope. He found himself deflecting far too many women, some of them so young they’d probably only had their introductions to society earlier in the summer; the thought of marrying any of them was risible.

“Oh come now,” Araelis murmured when he’d shooed the latest away. “They’re not all that bad.”

“Anyone young enough to be my daughter should know better,” Hirianthial said. “It’s in appalling taste.”

“Perhaps,” Araelis said. “But you know you’re likely to attract such hopefuls until you settle down.”

He glanced at her, eyes narrowed, and was rewarded with her faint shrug.

“You might consider marrying just to take yourself out of the pool, you know.”

“I’m not interested,” he said. “I had Laiselin. One love in a lifetime is blessing enough.”

She sighed. “Yes. Exactly. One in a lifetime is blessing and rarity. One doesn’t marry for love, cousin, or why would all these children be after you? They want the prestige, and your proven virility, and the money you’d be endowed with by Jisiensire when you leave it. Marriage is an economic arrangement. If you are lucky, as I was, you marry a good friend. And you, Hirianthial, have a good friend.”

“I cannot imagine who you might mean—”

“I mean the Queen,” Araelis said.

He stopped entirely.

“She needs an heir. You need peace. And the two of you are well-suited.”

“God and Lady!” he exclaimed.

“You of all people should not fear our strictures against marrying a cousin,” Araelis continued. “If indeed you are a doctor trained off-world as you so said, then you know the Alliance has methods. It may be a touch scandalous, but people would accept it. And then both of you would be safer.”

Incredulous, Hirianthial said, “Enough! No more, Araelis, do you understand? Bad enough to overturn our own customs—and you have been soaked in the stories of Sellelvi too long to have even had the thought—but completely aside from that, it would be as if to marry my own sister!” He grimaced. “And God hear me, I have no desire to be king-consort.”

“You would be a good one—”

“Araelis!”

She sighed. “Fine. But don’t come to me later complaining of all these women throwing themselves at you. I have offered you a solution.”

“An entirely untenable one!”

“Only because you insist on being difficult,” she said. “If you did not have all these romantic notions you would find your life far easier, cousin.”

“Where are you going?”

“Away,” she said firmly. “I am off to speak female business with other women. Since you are so confident in your rectitude, I will leave you to the swarm. No doubt you can manage them.”

This he found himself forced to do, for he could either confine himself to the discourse of Eldritch men, which was limited in scope for someone who’d been touring alien worlds for six decades, or he could expose himself to the attentions of women, who wanted only to flutter at him and express their admiration of his astonishing courage in braving the terrifying worlds beyond the skies!

Liolesa found him with his second glass of wine near one of the tables, where he’d hoped the shadow of one of the stone columns would hide him.

“Ready to flee yet?”

“God and Lady,” he said, fervent.

“A very typical start to winter,” she said, taking up a glass from a passing tray and sipping it. “Though far more pleasing with you here. I notice you can’t seem to move without the pack snapping at your heels.”

“I feel like a particularly fat quail,” he said, wry.

She smirked. “Pity them, cousin. They’ve had no fresh meat lately. Certainly nothing as fine as a former seal-bearer.”

“I had hoped my out-world adventures would taint me in their eyes.”