Oracle: The House War: Book Six (36 page)

“Why are you asking if you already know the answer?”

Shianne’s gaze shifted; her silver eyes narrowed. “This has nothing to do with you.”

“But it does. Because Celleriant serves
me
.”

Adam stirred at the edge in Jewel’s voice; the edge and the heat. He blinked, wobbled, and reached out to grab antlers. “Matriarch.”

Jewel exhaled at the word. “Yes, Adam?” She kept her gaze upon Shianne as if it were a leveled weapon.

You will only humiliate Lord Celleriant
, the Winter King observed.
He will not use a mere mortal as a shield.

Jewel ignored this as well.

Adam leaned down. To Jewel, he said, “The White Lady does not bear children the way we do.”

Jewel looked at the very ordinary swell of flesh that implied Adam was wrong. The Voyani youth slid off the Winter King’s back, and the Winter King allowed this, although the boy’s gait was wobbly and likely to end in a fall. He came to stand by Jewel’s side.

“Is this true?” Jewel asked—of Shianne.

“Of course.”

“How—how does Ariane bear children?”

“She does not
bear
children. We are hers; we are her offspring. We are the firstborn of the firstborn. But we did not begin our lives encased in her distended flesh.” She spoke, now, with distaste.

Jewel
, Avandar said quietly.
Have a care. There are some things you are not meant to know.

Jewel also ignored Avandar. This was slightly easier; she’d had a decade and a half of practice.

“But we are not the White Lady; we are simply
of
her. What she creates, by will and desire alone, we cannot.”

“What do you mean, can’t? You’re pregnant.”

“Yes, Terafin,” a new voice said. Shianne stiffened. So did Jewel. Maybe for the same reasons. Blue sword and shield came to Celleriant’s arms almost too quickly as Jewel turned in the direction of the new voice.

Orange shields, visible to Jewel’s eye as the artifacts of magic, surrounded her and Adam; she reached out and placed an arm around the healer’s shoulder. She recognized the woman whose dusky voice now filled the hall with the wonder of its echoes.

Calliastra.

Calliastra, the daughter of the Lord of the Hells and the goddess of Love.

8th of Morel, 428 A.A.
Terafin Manse, Averalaan Aramarelas

‘‘J
ESTER?”

Jester was sitting in the arboretum that had been Alowan’s quiet pride. Clearly Daine had continued the old man’s regimen of care, although Jester noted no new plants. He was waiting with an easy patience, slouched across a bench, his back to the stone edge of fountain.

He’d been waiting for over an hour, figuratively cooling his heels. He did not trust himself enough to simply enter the healerie, but he needed to speak with the healer, and in this case, that meant Daine.

Daine was patrician, by look. Perhaps, in his youth, Alowan had been the same; by the time Alowan had met the den, it was impossible to discern the old man’s roots. He had been nothing at all like Levec, the only other healer outside of Adam and Daine with whom Jester had more than a passing acquaintance.

Daine did not, at the moment, look happy. Nor did he look as if he’d slept much in the last few days. Jester knew better than to ask; Daine was at that age. At twenty, he was not a child—and the boundaries he set to define himself as adult were prickly.

Jester rose as Daine approached.

“You heard.”

“In the right-kin’s office. The Master of the Household Staff was the appointment before mine—and let me tell you she was
not
happy.”

The sharp intake of breath told Jester more than he wanted to know, and he lowered his voice instantly, wincing. “Please tell me she’s not in the healerie.” When Daine failed to do so, he added, “No wonder you look a fright. How long has she been here?”

“Less than an hour.”

Jester whistled. “How much less?”

“Not nearly enough.”

“She’s with—”

“Vareena, yes. Who is currently mostly sleeping. One or two of the more senior servants have dropped by as well.”

“I’m surprised they dared.”

“They didn’t stay.” Daine paused; he ran his hands through his hair, pushing it out of his eyes. Jester recognized the gesture; it was pure Jay. “That’s not entirely accurate. Berald just left.”

“Can you tell me what happened?”

“She was found in time and is likely to recover.”

Jester froze for one long minute. He now understood why Daine looked so very haggard, and the ice became fire.

Daine caught Jester’s arm; Jester startled. He had not intended to move. He had not been aware that he had. “Let it go.”

Jester opened his mouth.

“Don’t lecture me. Don’t even think it. I
know
what Terafin men of power are capable of. That is not all of what’s happened here.”

“I want to know who was responsible for this. She’s twelve—she’s a junior servant!” Jester kept his voice level and quiet—but it took effort. He wanted to scream in fury.

It had been so long. So long. Jester exhaled.

“I know. But, Jester—it’s political.”

“It’s—” Jester bit back the words.

“Jay was twelve when she started to gather her den. You have never thought of Jay as a child. Don’t—don’t make the same mistake now. What was done—was horrific. I believe it was meant as a warning or a message; I don’t believe they expected Vareena to survive.”

“Would she have, without your intervention?”

“. . . No.” Daine looked away. “In normal circumstances, the decision to expend the effort to heal would be made by The Terafin—”

“Who’s not here.”

Daine nodded. “It doesn’t matter. These are not normal circumstances. I am—like Alowan—the master of the healerie, and the decision and its consequences are
mine
. I am not ATerafin.” He tightened his grip.

“And you are not, in theory,
capable
of saving her life. You have just revealed—to men or women who are capable of sending
this
message—that the Terafin healerie is capable of—”

A sharp, loud, clearing of throat filled the arboretum.

Two adult men froze, and both turned, almost in unison. The arch now contained the most terrifying member of House Terafin, bar none.

“Vareena is waking,” the Master of the Household Staff told the healer. “I believe she wishes to speak with you.”

Daine swallowed. “I—”

“Now.”

 • • • 

Jester was no longer twelve. But even at twelve he would have known better than to cling to the idea that there was strength in numbers. The Master of the Household Staff clearly didn’t understand the difficulties healers faced when forced to call the dying back to their pain-racked, ruined bodies. Daine obeyed what was, in its entirety, a command; he walked through the arch of the healerie, leaving Jester to face the dragon on his own.

She folded her arms. He stepped out of her way—although he wasn’t, strictly speaking, standing in it—to allow her to pass; it was a hopeful gesture.
Kalliaris
frowned.

The Master of the Household Staff did not make small talk. She did not chat. She barely had to open her severe, narrow mouth to send scads of servants fleeing in terror; talk was not therefore necessary.

Jester was, in comparison, the master of idle chatter—but attempting to generate successful idle conversation with this woman would be harder than trying to get the side of a cliff to chuckle. And he was too angry, by half, to humiliate himself by making the attempt.

“You don’t want me to speak with her.”

She evinced no surprise. He was wearing his House Council ring; she did not have one. She had the House ring, of course—but for a woman of her stature in the House, it wasn’t required. Stature, however, implied hierarchy; hierarchy implied rules. Rules forbid the servants from speaking with people like Jester, and if those rules were stretched, they were stretched by men and women who knew how to be flexible.

“She is a member of the Household Staff. She is not your concern.”

“Is she a permanent member of the staff?”

“I repeat, she is not your concern. The Household Staff is not your concern.”

“And I will repent of all thought of interference if you tell me that the men—or women—responsible for her injuries are
also
members of the Household Staff.”

She said nothing.

Jester, watching her, felt suddenly uneasy in an entirely different way.

“You are correct,” the Master of the Household Staff finally said. “The healer is too young and too impulsive. But had The Terafin been present, she would have, in all likelihood, made the same choice—and the same mistake—before she could be brought round. It is not a mistake her predecessor would have made.” These were more words—and more inappropriate words—than Jester had ever heard the woman speak. And he’d eavesdropped any number of times.

He stared at her. “You wanted her to die.”

“No, ATerafin, I did not. But I accepted her death as a consequence of her role in this House—and the healer should have done so as well. He is not yet as wise or pragmatic as Alowan.”

 • • • 

It was never wise, when dealing with dangerous men or women, to expose the weakness of fury; fury implied pain; pain implied vulnerability. To men or women who had proven themselves dangerous for a variety of reasons, compassion was almost as foreign as genuine sentiment. Jester, who understood what lack of power meant, understood best when to hide weakness.

He did not speak for a full minute. He expected the Master of the Household Staff to leave. She didn’t. She stood in front of him, her eyes narrowed, her nose lifted. There was—and had always been—something vaguely martial about the woman; it was impossible to believe on any visceral level that she was a servant.

He could pull rank on her, in theory; he had that right. But might made right, and it was all on her side at the moment.

“Carver would have understood.”

His jaw opened before he could stop it. The den didn’t mention Carver. The servants, when in the company of the den, didn’t mention him either.

“If you will not leave the healerie until I leave, I will leave.” She walked past him and stopped at the door; Jester hadn’t moved. He heard her exhale and could almost imagine, had she been any other woman, that she was praying for patience. Or luck. “Join me.”

 • • • 

Jester did
not
keep company with the dour and the humorless. Had he chosen to break one of the more important rules of his social life, a less likely companion than the Master of the Household Staff could probably not be found. But he followed, pausing outside of the healerie’s door to retrieve his daggers from the wall-mounted wooden box into which all weapons must be placed.

The Master of the Household Staff did not likewise retrieve weapons, but she didn’t require them. The halls were all but empty as she turned and made her way to the more secluded galleries; they were entirely empty when she reached them. It was not just Jester who was struggling with fury in silence.

He considered taking the nearest right and returning to the West Wing; he still held the report that Teller had handed him in one slightly shaking hand. But the Master of the Household Staff turned her glare on him at exactly the right—or perhaps wrong—moment, and he gave up on that plan. Whatever she intended to show him, he was going to see. He doubted very much that she intended to speak more than a few cursory words.

He almost lost his jaw a second time when she approached the entrance to the back halls. She glanced down the gallery at a section of paneling between two of the public function rooms, and when no discernible guests appeared, turned and opened a door. It was perhaps two inches taller than she was; she was not a short woman. It was taller than Jester.

She stood to one side and indicated that Jester was to precede her. Jester considered unsheathing one of his daggers, but decided against it; it took a surprising amount of effort. There were sixteen different ways that the servants could kill him, each of them less incriminating. He entered the narrow, short hall and stepped aside as she closed the door at her back.

The halls were not well lit; they did not—as the far side of the gallery did—boast windows and daylight. Magestones did not grace ceilings; lamps did. The uneven flickering of the light made it clear that they were entirely natural. In many ways, these halls reminded Jester of the alleys in the hundred holdings, except for the lack of sky. The floors were stone, although in some sections of the servants’ quarters, proper wood had been laid. Footsteps echoed; no rugs absorbed noise. Even breath sounded strangely enlarged.

He waited in silence as the Master of the Household Staff once again took the lead she’d momentarily surrendered, no doubt to make sure her victim wouldn’t turn tail and run. He was surprised at her use of the back halls; she was at the very head of the Household Staff, and had quarters for her use in the main house.

Unless, he thought, as he followed, it was not to her quarters that she now led.

“It has long been my contention,” she said, in her stiff, chilly voice, “that the entire West Wing has been coddled to the point of near imbecility. Arguments in favor of the West Wing have been made, and while I believe you are collectively about to prove my point, it is not an argument I now have an interest in winning. There are far too many members of your wing embroiled in all levels of House Terafin.”

Jester stopped walking. So, after a brief glance back, did the Master of the Household Staff. “Who was she working for?”

One iron brow rose. “Perhaps,” she said, “you are capable of actually learning.” She didn’t speak with any notable approval. “You will not, of course, ask that question of any—
any
—of the servants. I am aware that there has been a lowering of general standards where the residents of the West Wing have been concerned; in the absence of The Terafin, those standards could be raised.”

Jester smiled and shrugged. “It’s not a bet I’d take.”

This caused predictable narrowing of eyes. “Vareena was a very junior servant, and she was assigned to tasks appropriate to her seniority; she has been with the Household Staff for a little over a year. She had no prior history of service to one of The Ten; she had, however, been apprenticed to the staff of one of the more significant merchant houses. A background check—which is, of course, always conducted—did not raise any flags, and Vereena showed an admirable commitment to her duties.

“She was not brought to my attention by a member of the House. You will understand that, in the climate as it existed a year past, we were far more reserved in our external hiring practices.”

“You expected—”

“Difficulty, yes. The Household Staff does not embroil itself in the affairs of the House Council; the House itself must continue to run, and run smoothly, regardless of the politics in the front halls.”

Jester thought of the page who had stumbled—artfully and deliberately—in just such a way that she might deliver a message to the only man present who would be inclined to catch her before she fell. He said nothing.

The Master of the Household Staff noted this, but did not add to what was by no stretch of the definition a conversation.

“Vereena did not live in the manse itself.”

Jester was silent for a couple of yards. “She was too junior.”

“Indeed. She was expected at work at six in the morning six days a week. She was expected at noon on the seventh. She has, to my knowledge, never been late.”

“Not something I could say of myself.”

“No. But you answer to a different master.” And the Master of the Household Staff, her voice implied,
had
standards. Jester had no difficulty remembering why he avoided her—or why most of the servants did.

“Yes, sporadically,” he replied. He had recovered enough that he could once again offer her the lazy, nonchalant smile for which she had so little use. It bounced off her expression and fell beneath her notice.

They continued down halls that were conspicuously empty. Jester didn’t have Carver’s familiarity with the back halls, but he frowned. They had taken the first right, which put them somewhere in the vicinity of the small ballroom; he could see two doors that aligned roughly with the neatly linened side tables from which lighter fare was served. He did not expect that they would emerge from either of those doors, given the hour and the fact that the room was not in official use.