Misery's Child (The Cadian Chronicles) (22 page)

The secretaries of
the other branches were plainly less interested. The cadia philosophes had
little concern for anything but theology and rhetoric. Their secretarie, Heubroni,
scarcely gave the girls a passing glance. The cadia-luminas, which encompassed
the scribes, the artists and weavers, considered the evening as merely another
opportunity for reconnaissance, as they were always on the lookout for women of
true talent. They had already looked over the initial reports from the techas
as to each girl’s aptitude for the arts. They had three names on which they
intended to concentrate.

Richada,
secretarie of the cadia-chatels—the lowest order of cadia who did the
cooking, cleaning and farming—was only present to oversee the dinner
service. The consecratia, all of noble birth, would never enter the
cadia-chatels.

For the first
time, Lendenican and the other cadia-techas were excused from their duties.
They disappeared into one of the wings were they would partake of their own
banquet with other members of the techas.
Each girl was
escorted to the main dining hall by the member of the cadialana
from her
own province.

Gevalini of
Kirrisian was in her seventies, tall and slender and unstooped by age. Her
pleasant face was kind as she took Lillitha’s arm.

“My dear, you’ve
grown into a lovely young woman. Yanna’s letters did not do you justice.”

Tears welled at
the mention of Yanna’s name. The older woman patted her shoulder consolingly.

“We were all so
sorry to hear of your misfortune. But you shouldn’t let your grief distract
you. It seems like only yesterday that I brought her to your father’s house to
begin your formal studies.” Gevalini sighed. “Yanna was a dedicated techa and
will be greatly missed.”

The evening passed
with painful lethargy, as if Lillitha were caught in a dream from which she
could not wake up. She could not shake the unease that had settled in her bones
from the first glance up at the palace’s
brightly-lit
windows. She glanced nervously at the other consecratia, wondering if she were
the only one who felt so awkward and alone. It had been so long since she went
anywhere without Yanna and her mother close by.

The dining hall of
the
cadian
wing was simple but elegant: floors of
polished chiate, the same pale pink as the columns that swelled from the
surrounding walls which were hung with scarlet draperies. On each column burned
a lamp similar to the ones on the bridge. Lillitha was amazed by the abundance
of light, which seemed to deny the darkness of the night from which she’d come.
She could make out quite clearly the portraits of women that lined the walls,
though she recognized only one, Shallanoma Brigheda.

Candles burned up
and down a table of smooth fen wood hand-rubbed to a golden glow. The table was
already set with plates of beaten copper, an extravagance Lillitha had never
seen before, though they were quite common in the wealthier homes. The napkin
placed in her lap was the finest weave, obviously the work of the cadia, white
edged in scarlet silk.

She scarcely
touched the food set before her though Gevalini kept urging her to eat. She
nodded and pushed the roasted tubers and slivers of beef around on her plate.
Occasionally, she lifted a morsel to her mouth and chewed dutifully, swallowing
it only by sheer will. The food was tasteless and caught in her throat.

The room seemed
very hot. She drank several goblets of clear, cool water in rapid succession.
All she could think of was crossing the bridge back into the darkness where no
one would stare at her.

As soon as the
last plates were cleared, a cadia-chatel appeared at her elbow and pulled her
into the dim hallway.

“Come with me.
There’s someone who wishes to speak with you.”

Her knees shook
with fear as she followed the girl up a flight of marble stairs and down
another enormous hallway. Soon, she’d lost all sense of direction. She only
knew that she was somewhere deep inside the maze of the cadian wing.

Lilli was shown
into a small sitting chamber, its walls lined with books and tapestries. A
crackling fire in the hearth added to the lamp that glowed on a desk.

Behind the desk
sat the cadia dedre. Lilli had not noticed the dedre’s early departure from the
hall and it gave her the strangest sense of lost time.

“Ah, Lillitha.”
The cadia rose and came around the desk to take her hands. The woman stood a
moment, looking into her with compassionate eyes.

Lillitha felt
guilty to be looked at so intensely, as if the cadia already knew all her
secrets and pitied her for them. Osane reached out a cool hand and pressed it
to Lillitha’s cheek.

“Are you feeling
quite all right?” she asked, her brow wrinkling. “You’re very flushed, my
dear.”

“I’m well, my lady
dedre. It’s very warm in the palace. I suppose it must be all the lamps and
candles.”

She hoped that was
all. She didn’t want to believe that a place could make one ill.

“I wanted to talk
with you about what happened. And about Yannamarie.”

The woman motioned
for her to sit down in one of the deeply cushioned chairs. The furniture
threatened to swallow her up. She sat uncomfortably on the very edge of the
seat with her ankles crossed discreetly under her skirts and hands folded in
her lap.

“I’ve read the
reports from Lendenican,” Osane said, settling opposite Lillitha in a similar
chair. The cadia dedre, however, looked perfectly at ease. “But we are still
concerned for your well-being. It must have been a very upsetting experience
for you.”

Lillitha nodded,
afraid to speak. She didn’t know what the woman wanted of her.

“Are you sure you
have quite recovered?” The cadia suddenly shook her head. “No, no, that was a
stupid question for me to ask. Of course you have not. You were very close to
Yanna.”

“I miss her,”
Lillitha murmured.

“It is a credit to
Yanna that you grieve for her. Not all consecratia and their techas achieve
that sort of bond. It was obvious from her letters that Yanna was very fond of
you as well.”

Lillitha looked up
from her hands, surprised. It had never occurred to her that Yanna had felt
anything but duty towards her. She was afraid to speak, certain that tears
would ooze out instead of words.

“Yanna was my
friend, did she ever tell you that?” Osane’s sweet face seemed genuinely
saddened. “We studied here in the palace at the same time. It was so very long
ago. I shall miss her too, until the day Oman sees fit to return her to us.”

“Do you really
think that might happen?” Lillitha leaned forward eagerly. In all the talk of
Yanna’s abduction, no one seemed to give that possibility serious
consideration. Instead, they spoke of the vanished cadia as they would speak of
the dead, in low, regretful voices.
 
“Do they... ever come back?”

“Sometimes, my
dear. Being captured by Tors is not always the horror most people imagine.
After all, they don’t actually eat small children... Oh, my dear, that was a
joke! A poor one apparently,
don’t
cry!”

The dedre perched
on the arm of Lillitha’s chair and put an arm around her shoulder.

“I’m sorry. I have
followed your training over the summers so closely through Yanna’s
letters—I feel I know you and all the other consecratia and forget that
you do not know me or my often-inappropriate sense of humor. But I was trying
to make a point. The Tors are very different from us, but having lived among
them for several summers, I can tell you that they are not savages—”

“You? You lived
with them?” Lillitha’s eyes were wide, her tears forgotten at the shock of such
an admission. “But how? Were you—?”

“No, no. I went
there of my own free will. Many of the cadia have gone into Tor, as have many
merchants to trade. With the right contacts, they can make a great deal of coin
from importing and exporting goods between the two realms. After all, we are
not at war with the Tors—”

“But the
bandits—”

“Ah, the raiders
are renegades who prey upon Tor and Omani alike. We’ve even had some talks with
the Tors about stamping them out once and for all. The raiders are from the
nomadic tribes, mostly. Men outside the circle of civilization who refuse to
surrender the old ways.”

Listening to Osane
talk so casually about a people who’d always terrified her, it was clear to
Lillitha that her views and knowledge about the world outside of Kirrisian was
dismally unsophisticated. Still, it gave her little assurance as to Yanna’s
fate. How could a civilized people buy and sell slaves?

“I don’t mean to
give you false hope,” Osane continued in her low, soothing voice. “The raiders
are dangerous. But it is in their best interest to treat Yanna well. She’s
worth quite a bit of coin to them because she is cadia. If she is in fact sold
at the markets, she’ll most likely go to a wealthy household who would not
waste her on menial labor. Kidnapped sisters most often find themselves
teaching their masters’ children because even the Tors admire our education.”

“But....” Lillitha
paused, afraid to say it out loud.

It didn’t require
much of Osane’s power to read the girl’s mind.

“Yes, it is
possible that she will be sold as a concubine. She’s young and fit. But in
either case, she’ll be treated with a certain amount of respect.”

“Because she is
cadia?” Lillitha ventured.

“Yes.
Because she is cadia.
I knew one such sister who spent five
summers in the house of a prominent official as his concubine yet he never
touched her. He only trotted her out before his friends to show he was wealthy
enough to possess such a woman. He was afraid to actually bed her because she
herself had circulated the rumor among his servants that cadia had the power to
shrivel a man’s member until it rotted off.”

Lillitha’s hand
flew to her mouth. It was horrible and funny at the same time, and strange for
the cadia-dedre to be telling her such things. She could have sworn that Osane
winked at her.

“So Yanna’s
chances are very good. There are worse things than serving as a concubine. I’m
told many Torian women sell themselves into slavery to a man who is rich enough
and powerful enough. And some eventually find a man enamored enough of them to
buy their freedom and marry them.”

She digested this
in silence as the dedre returned to her own chair and lifted a sheaf of papers
from the desk. Lillitha stared down at her hands. If she were a Torian woman,
would she sell herself to a man? She could not understand it. Then Scearce’s
eyes rose before her. Would she sell herself to man such as he: so kind, so
handsome? The idea confused her. She wished she hadn’t thought of it that
way.
 

“According to the
reports, you were carried to safety during the attack by Prince Scearce.” Osane
looked up from her papers as if waiting for confirmation.

Lillitha nodded,
her heart in her throat. She was paralyzed, convinced that any words she spoke
would betray her feelings. Yanna would have seen it in an instant, and this,
after all, was the cadia-dedre. Osane would have to be just as intuitive as
Yanna, probably more so.

“You need not be
concerned for the prince.” Osane smiled gently. “He acted heroically and
comported himself as a gentleman and a noble at all times. Wouldn’t you agree?”

Could the dedre
see her relief? She prayed not.

“Oh, yes, my lady.
He saved my life.”

Osane peered at
her closely. Lilli felt suddenly transparent as glass.

“Be at peace,
little one. It is only natural that you should feel gratitude, and in your
gratitude, protective of him. Lendenican’s questioning must have seemed...
callous
, perhaps. I regret that it might have upset you.”

Lilli nodded. It
was not necessary for Osane to elaborate on which of Lendenican’s questions she
meant. It was strange to be sitting with a total stranger and yet feel the
unspoken words flowing between them.

“The cadialana has
voted to award him the Shallanie Medal of Valor. I will present it to him
myself at the final ceremony.” Osane shuffled the papers in her lap and then
laid them aside. “He is an attractive young man, I’m told. Would you agree?”

Lying would be as
foolish as feigning indifference. Yanna had impressed upon her time and again
the duty of a cadia to speak truthfully to her sisters in all things. Word
games, she said, were for others, not for the cadia. She wondered if the
question were a test.

“Yes, my lady
Osane. I found him very pleasant to look at, though in truth I have few men
besides my father and brothers to compare him to.”

The dedre laughed.

“Well spoken, my
dear. Yanna has prepared you well.” The dedre was silent for a long moment.
When she spoke again, her voice was sober. “You told Lendenican you saw Yanna
defending herself against the bandits, but I found her report rather vague at
that point. Perhaps you’d like to tell me again what happened.”