Oracle: The House War: Book Six (39 page)

“Fine. Duvari has spies within at least all of The Ten. He has spies here.”

Haval’s expression changed, then. Jester found Haval’s use of expression disconcerting. The clothier did not speak.

“If one of his spies were discovered—and killed outright—would Duvari attempt to use the death to his advantage?”

“Please tell me this is a hypothetical question.”

“You don’t like lies that waste your time.”

“Duvari attempts to use all events to his advantage. It would not be the first time a member of his
Astari
died in service to him. He will not take the House to task; he will hold a grudge, but as you suspect, the difference will not be notable in his actions.”

Jester wanted another drink. Haval did not keep alcohol in his workroom.

“If a member of the
Astari
were to perish here, Duvari would in all likelihood see to that member’s replacement. He would, however, be extremely concerned with the discovery itself. It implies incompetence on the part of the deceased, or superb competence on the part of the discoverer.”

“What if—purely hypothetically—the assassination was attempted, but the spy failed to perish?”

“Depending on the injuries sustained, Duvari would repatriate.”

“Let’s say, for the sake of this discussion, that this occurred. The
Astari
, dying, was discovered and taken directly to the healerie.”

The silence went on for a beat too long before Haval removed his apron.

 • • • 

The early dinner hour came and went. Jester was flopped on the couch in the great room; the low table in front of it contained two glasses; one empty, one almost entirely full. Haval had agreed to a drink in principle, but had failed to actually enjoy it.

Word had been sent to the healerie; word had been sent to the right-kin’s office. Word had not been sent to the Merchant Authority, because traffic to and from the Common was heavily congested; Jester felt that Finch would arrive at the Terafin manse before the message reached her hands. Haval did not agree with this exaggerated assessment, but was willing to let it be; he had said very, very little since exiting his workroom.

The only person Jester wanted to speak with at the moment was not coming home any time soon. He held his peace; he had asked Haval a dozen questions, interspersed by awkward silence, and as no answers had been offered he contented himself with rest.

Finch arrived first, and she arrived early. There wasn’t, at the moment, enough significant work to keep her in the Merchant Authority offices; too many people had perished, and the lines of communication were being rebuilt slowly. The richer holdings were awash with funeral preparations. She entered the great room to find Jester lying on his back and Haval sitting in the spine-stiff upright position he preferred when not working. A greater contrast could not be found.

Jester, who had opened one eye at the sound of the door, closed it again. “You’re early. Get yourself a drink; you’re going to want it.”

“I’ve been working with an agitated, excited Jarven for the past week. If Jarven hasn’t driven me to drink anything stronger than tea, I can’t imagine your news will. I have news of my own,” she added. At her tone, Jester opened both of his eyes and propped himself up on his elbows.

Finch was dressed for the Merchant Authority, which never looked comfortable. She had not paused to remove the netting and the pins that kept her hair out of her eyes. “What happened?” she asked, looking pointedly at Jester’s feet until he moved them. She sat on the end of the couch and leaned into the armrest. In this light, she looked fragile and exhausted.

Jester searched for words. One glance at Haval told him that if he didn’t find them, no one else in the room would. “We have a problem.”

“We?”

He nodded. “I spent over an hour in the company of the Master of the Household Staff while you were safe at work.”

Given the events of the week, safe was a very dubious description—but Finch cringed on his behalf anyway. Finch worked with Lucille, who was terrifying in an entirely different way, but Lucille didn’t bring out the big weapons until someone had actually managed to offend her—not that that took much effort.

“What did she want?” Finch asked, as if spending an hour in the company of that ancient dragon was a casual event.

“She wanted to let us know that a twelve-year-old junior servant who was almost murdered should have died.”

Finch blanched. Jester loved her for it, inasmuch as he loved any member of the den. “She didn’t say that.”

“She did. In slightly more condescending, vastly more chilly language.”

“When you say almost—”

“She was found before she died. She was taken to the healerie—to Daine.”

“He saved her.”

“Yes.”

Finch did not evince any particular relief. Instead, she turned to Haval, who had listened without comment—or movement. When Haval failed to interrupt or offer his usual dry sarcasm, she massaged her forehead. “You said she was twelve.”

“Yes.”

“She hasn’t been given the House Name, then.”

“No.”

“Let me talk with Teller.”

Jester blinked. “Jay’s not here.”

“Jay doesn’t handle most of the paperwork involved with adoption into the House. The biggest difficulty we might have is the Master of the Household Staff; the usual route to adoption for servants comes entirely through her recommendations. If she felt the girl deserved to die, she’s not likely to make that recommendation. I think she can be talked into accepting it.”

Jester was still blinking.

“I assume you’re concerned because she falls outside of the Laws of Exemption. She
could
refuse the House Name if she wished to invite magisterians into the Terafin manse on her own behalf—or her parents, if they’re clever and want money. But if she does that, she will never work for The Ten again in any capacity, and she probably knows it; the Master of the Household Staff doesn’t hire fools.”

Haval nodded, his expression neutral. “Admirable, Finch. You are missing one key piece of information, but your solution is sound.”

Finch inclined her head, brow furrowed.

“It is our working belief that the junior servant in question was—is—a member of the
Astari
.”

Silence. Jester counted three long beats before Finch said, “and she was taken to Daine.”

“Yes.”

Finch rose. “I’m going to get changed if I can pry myself out of this clothing. Grab Teller and Arann when they get in. I need to pen one quick message before we call kitchen. And,” she added, “I need to eat something.” She stopped in the doorway and then said, “Two messages.”

 • • • 

Arann was excused from his duties, as he still worked the later shift. He had, as Finch requested, brought Torvan and Arrendas with him. None of the three wore the armor of the Chosen; all of them carried the swords. Arann was about as relaxed as he could be, given Jay’s absence and the events surrounding her decision; Torvan and Arrendas, however, were not. Finch seldom asked to speak with them informally, and when she didn’t use the normal channels, it was never good news.

Daine was not in the West Wing. He had taken to sleeping in Alowan’s old rooms. Finch approved of the decision in principle; she understood that he needed to make the healerie his own in the eyes of the House. She was now feeling far less sanguine.

Teller, not surprisingly, arrived last. He and Barston had taken late dinner together, and Teller arrived with an armful of documents which were, no doubt, pressing emergencies. He had not been expecting a kitchen call tonight.

Only when Teller had entered the wing did Torvan and Arrendas leave to fetch Daine.

 • • • 

Although magelights were no longer prohibitively expensive for the den, they seldom used them in kitchen meetings. These meetings had been at the heart of the den in the most cramped of quarters, and in the most dire of situations—sometimes the meetings had been held in the dark because there had been no money left over for cheap candles, and daylight hours had been necessary for scavenging.

They used lamps, now. There were three.

Daine was drawn and almost jaundiced when he arrived with his escorts. He took the seat nearest to Finch. He set his hands flat on the surface of the table and slumped in the chair, and Finch slid her chair closer so she could wrap an arm around him. He leaned into her shoulder.

So, she thought, giving up the scant hope that the events of the day had been misunderstood by Jester. Daine had, in fact, used his healer-born gift to save the life of a person on the outer edge of death. Given his pallor, he had not yet recovered. He was not, however, in the grip of the mage fevers that plagued any of the talent-born who pushed their powers past their natural limits.

No, she thought; he was in the grip of the compulsion to remain joined with the patient, from whom he must be separate if they were both to recover. She said nothing; she simply strengthened her arm.

No one around the table spoke; they were waiting for Finch. Finch had not taken Jay’s seat, but she had taken—for the evening—the responsibility and the weight of the kitchen. “Torvan, Arrendas, be seated. You are not the guards on duty.”

They did as she asked in silence. She then turned to Jester and said, “Can you separate Haval from his nefarious clothing and bring him here?”

“I’m not sure we want him.” He signed
don’t trust
.

“I’m not sure we do, either,” she replied; she felt no need to lie to her den, and no need to manage them. “But if anyone has information about what we’re likely to face, it’s Haval.”

“Daine will have that information,” Jester countered, bringing up the point of the meeting in an oblique way.

“I don’t believe he will.” She signed
trust me
. She thought, watching him, that he would refuse. She would have gone herself, if she weren’t holding Daine upright, and her glance told Jester as much.

He exhaled, pushed his chair back—loudly—and left.

“Do we want Meralonne?” Teller surprised her by asking.

“I don’t believe so. If we need him, we can find him. He won’t sit in the kitchen without smoking his pipe, and I don’t have the sentimental attachment to pipes that Jay does.” She hesitated and glanced at Daine, whose eyes were closed. “And I’m not entirely certain his expertise is relevant.”

“Are you certain it’s not?”

“Sadly, no.”

 • • • 

Haval entered a relatively quiet kitchen, which served as something of a warning. His glance swept the room and came to rest, briefly, on Daine. The boy was pale and his pallor was appalling, which lent credence to Jester’s claims. Haval, however, had wasted very little time doubting Jester, and only a small amount of hope.

He took the chair that Finch indicated and sat in it; Jester had turned the back of his to face the table, and leaned across it, arms folded beneath his chin. He looked extravagantly bored. He wasn’t, of course; he didn’t generally take as much trouble to appear that way when he wasn’t expecting conflict.

Given the way Finch glanced at him, Haval understood that this posture was for the benefit of the interloper—Haval himself. He accepted it, as he accepted all else: with observation and no obvious reaction.

He returned attention to Daine, the healer-born boy. At age twenty, he had the bearing of a patrician—and Haval understood why. He had been forced to heal a man decades his senior. He had not been prepared for the experience—if one ever could be—and he had come away from the experience with rather more of that man’s thoughts and outlooks than was good for anyone. Even the man himself, who had shortly thereafter died of unrelated injuries.

But he had also brought Jewel back from the edge of death. In so doing, he had burdened himself with another person’s outlook and experience. The two could not be more different. Haval had heard—although it had taken effort to be in a position
to
hear it—that Daine had been sent at Alowan’s request for just this reason: he hoped to set Jewel’s view against the view of the unnamed Terafin patrician, and thus give Daine the balance necessary to navigate the scars left by the act of healing the dying.

And Jewel, of course, was not content to leave it at that. She kept the boy. She kept him here, in the West Wing, with the remnants of the den she had doggedly gathered. Had Levec forbidden it, Daine might have chosen to return to the Houses of Healing—but Haval thought it unlikely.

After the death of Alowan, Daine had stepped into the healerie, taking the duties of the older man and making them his own. What Alowan might have refused to do, Daine could not; he carried too much of Jewel in him. A dying child had been given into his keeping, and he had wrapped his power around her, pulling her out of death’s hands.

And to do so, he had to see her clearly; to do so, he had to open himself to her inspection. For as long as it took, they had to be one. Vareena, the junior servant, was
Astari
.

Daine knew. He knew what she knew, and he knew what the cost might be—both to himself, and to the girl who had failed.

Finch gestured. Arann’s reply was slower to come; even in the secret language of the den—a deplorably open secret if one had eyes and half a thought to spare—his use of words was sparse.

“We’re here tonight for a number of reasons.”

Daine shifted, pulling himself to an upright position when in Haval’s opinion he should have been abed—and sleeping—hours ago. He stared at his reflection, his gaze so focused it seemed to exclude anything else in the room.

Daine knew. He had not, to Haval’s eye, decided how he would handle himself—or Vareena. Vareena could, with little effort, leave the healerie unless she were heavily restrained—and Haval very much doubted that Daine had ordered such restraints.

But given Jester’s impromptu meeting with the Master of the Household Staff, Haval thought escape or disappearance would offer more difficulties for Vareena than she might otherwise expect. He had not yet decided how best to handle the situation, himself.

“Do not look for mercy or protection from the
Astari
,” he said, speaking to the young healer.