The Burning White (35 page)

“You really don’t remember the young artist’s name?” he asks, teasing.

So he hasn’t forgotten about the Guile memory. So many people do, no matter how they’ve heard it lauded.

I wince and offer a rueful grin. “Solarch,” I say. “Gollaïr ruined him, right? Drove him to suicide?”

“Or had him murdered,” Lord Dariush says. He waves dismissively. “Does that change your judgment of his work? Would you praise mediocre art crafted by someone because they are morally good? Or denigrate greatness because its creator was errant?”

‘Errant’ isn’t the word for a man who sets out to destroy a pupil who rightly looks to him for protection and friendship. “These are really deep critical waters,” I protest.

“Or these are real critically deep waters,” he says.

Not dumb, to shoot that back so quickly.

Maybe a fool, but not dumb. Dim people ride a mule to their conclusions, bright ones a racehorse—but not always in the right direction.

He’s still waiting. How did I get backed into having this conversation anyway?

“Growing up, I had a friend whose mother fancied herself a singer. A strangling cat would make more pleasing noises. She was . . . wretched. But I liked her very much. So. If I can like a person but hate their art, I can do the opposite as well. Those who can’t do so reveal their own limitations, not Art’s. So no, I don’t think Gollaïr’s villainy makes me judge him more harshly. I think his art deserves harsh judgment. But I understand he was a local here, and thus nets a bit more praise on that account. Just as every parent thinks their child is especially gifted, though at least half must be wrong.”

Lord Dariush weighs me, curious. “Am I in that half?” he asks. It isn’t clear whether he’s speaking about the painting or about his daughter. A moment later, I see that the ambiguity was intentional.

Well, shit. Trying to avoid a ditch, I seem to have fallen into a pit instead.

But you know what? To the seventh hell with him. All these games. Seven days here, and I’ve only seen Felia from afar, while her widowed elder sister, Ninharissi, and her mother and even her little brother have vetted me. These cretins and their
traditions
.

“How much honesty do you want?” I ask.

“
More
,” he says, his eyes fierce.

“More? Do you think me dishonest, or guarded?” I ask, dragging that accusation out like a worm to writhe in the hot glare of Orholam’s Eye. Very well, then. I can use the tool that’s fit for the job, even if it’s honesty. But I go on before he has to answer. “Felia is clearly possessed of superior giftings when compared with all the people in the Seven Satrapies, else I’d not have trekked so far. But whether you think she is especially gifted among the circle of other eligible young women of our class, that I do not know, nor to what degree you believe so. Certainly, I should hope a father would see what is laudatory in his daughter.”

And I expect it here, where there is a
traditional
bride price to be negotiated.

He doesn’t blink, nor back down from his accusation of me giving him half truths. “One might do well to remember, then,” he says, “that the feelings that affect our judgments that impact the value we place on what we’re about to lose also affect the price we wish to exact for that loss, depending on our affection or disaffection for our counterpart.”

“I’m not sure I follow.” Actually, I do. I just don’t like what I’m hearing.

“If I might inflate the bride price for my beloved daughter because of my love for her—perhaps even while believing my judgment is objective—how else might my other feelings factor into a negotiation?”

I’m not sure if he’s heading for a subtler point here, because this seems like the obvious dressed up in a philosopher’s garb. “If you don’t like me, you’re going to demand a higher price,” I say.

Which is why I was
trying
not to call you stupid or blind or a fool with bad taste, old man.

“I suppose, then,” he says, “if you are incapable of being a man unmirrored, then perhaps what you ought to have set as your first objective in this visit was figuring out exactly what I do like.”

“ ‘A man unmirrored’?” I ask.

“An old colloquialism. A man who doesn’t practice pulling faces in front of a mirror. A man who is himself. A forthright man,” he says.

We have an absolute imbalance of power here, the two of us. He can say anything, unless my pride and I want to pack up and leave without even having spent even an hour with Felia.

And then it dawns on me.

This is
all
negotiation!

The old fox. No wonder he’s rich.

I see it now. Frustrate me with delays and promises while he knows I need to be elsewhere, and raise the stakes of my own time investment. The longer I’ve spent here, the harder and harder for me to walk away empty-handed. I’ll be more willing to compromise—without him even having to broach the subject.

The manipulation of my emotions is lovely! Wonderful! Brilliant!

It’s exactly what I’ve been hoping to add to the Guile line. I might even
learn
a thing or two from Lord Dariush.

Well. Unlikely.

But now I know the game. You want honesty from me, you wily old weasel? No, you want me to open the door to the henhouse so you don’t have to go to all the work of wriggling under the floorboards is all.

“It really is sadly terrible, isn’t it?” he asks, pensive, staring at the painting.

“Huh?” I ask.

“Poor brushwork, uneven tone, what should be complementary colors ever so slightly off.”

I say nothing, disconcerted. It seems safest.

“But it’s not a forgery,” Lord Dariush says. “Gollaïr spent years figuring out his luxin pigments. He originally intended simply to sell his paints to artists, not use them himself. He knew he wasn’t a good painter. But he worked up a few demonstration paintings with garish colors, intending them only to show what was possible—and they caused a sensation. People called him a genius, and he quite liked it. He started acting the artist, hoping only to buy time, but the worse he behaved, the more he was hailed. The more he demanded, the more he was given. He very quickly trapped himself. He was a barely competent drafter with poor color differentiation. But he couldn’t get secret tutoring to become better at either drafting or at painting, because he was famous for both. It’s common for successful artists to fear they’re impostors, but some
are
impostors.

“And Gollaïr was their king. Finally, he was forced to take on a pupil by a patron whom he couldn’t refuse, and he found that the boy wasn’t just better than he; the boy was a master for the ages.

“For years Gollaïr had kept his fraud going, and he had almost begun to believe he was as good as he told everyone else said he was. Solarch threatened it all. After destroying the boy, Gollaïr publicly retired, but secretly he planned a triumphant return. He was studying the boy’s technique from the one small painting that he hadn’t destroyed. Not a figure study—Gollaïr knew he could never match Solarch on that—but a landscape using the boy’s sense of color and much better luxin-work. And this painting is what Gollaïr made.” Lord Dariush smiles sadly, then goes on. “This shoddy thing is the last Gollaïr, and the only one whose pigments survive—that at least he learned from Solarch. But it still has all the same fundamental flaws of his other work. It was the best thing he ever did, but he never sold this last painting. He never even showed it. After he finished it, he retired to his estate and watched his reputation wither. He never picked up a brush again. It’s said—but this part I don’t know for certain—that every day he went to see this painting and his last Solarch. He kept them side by side, a reminder of what was and of what could have been.”

“That’s a . . . great story,” I say blandly.

“You don’t believe me?” he asks, offended.

“How much honesty did you say you wanted again?” I ask.

His eyes harden. “Don’t insult me.”

“A secret painting, made years later,” I say in the same monotone. “Thus, it’s no wonder that it is slightly different in style, and features clearly superior drafting than all the others, or that it’s unknown to scholars. Thus it’s not just a very odd Gollaïr; it’s the best Gollaïr! It’s unique, precious, and has such juicy history attached to it. In truth, Lord Dariush, I don’t know whether you’re telling me a tale, or if someone told you one and you believed them. But if someone told me a story that drove up the price and addressed all my concerns about a forgery so conveniently, I’d keep both hands on my coin purse. Especially if this painting was only available for a very limited time before the seller had to leave.”

He stares hard at me, and I begin to wonder if I’ve gone terribly off course. Not with my guess, of course. With him.

Then he grins.

“Aha! Now we’re getting somewhere,” he says. “There’s that carving-knife intellect Felia praises, finally out of the block, its edge glittering in the light. Feels good to let it cut some meat, doesn’t it, boy? Feels good to speak your mind, doesn’t it?”

I grin ruefully again, like we’ve just had a breakthrough together. “I wanted to make a good impression,” I say.

Surprisingly, come to think of it, that’s true.

“What if who you really are was enough to do that?” Lord Dariush asks.

Who I really am scares people. But I take it humbly, look down at the floor as if in thought.

“Well, my boy, it’s almost time for us to conclude our tour,” he says.

“So soon?” I tease.

“One more, before we head back,” he says, “and I think you’ll find its story even more incredible than the Gollaïr’s.”

“But shorter?” I ask.

“Easy, son. A little truth goes a long way.”

“Aha,” I say. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”

Despite himself, I see Lord Dariush grin.

As soon as the lift departed with its smug burden, Karris sat down hard on the bench outside the checkpoint. She could hardly breathe. Ironfist. King Ironfist, asking if Gavin was really dead. Asking if Karris was still in mourning.

A marriage.

Andross was right. It was the only way Ironfist could be safe. It was the only move left open to him.

But . . . marriage? He didn’t . . .

No, surely not.

Oh God. Karris hadn’t exactly sent the assassin who’d killed his sister, but she had allowed it, and Teia wouldn’t have been serving the Order at all if Karris hadn’t allowed it. It was a fairly thin line between Karris and that particular blood guilt.

She took a deep breath. She should put her feelings aside now. She had to make plans. She had to take meetings. A full day awaited her.

At least, Karris hoped it did. She felt as if the earth had swallowed her, as if all her selfishness and shortsightedness was rearing up to strike her with poison condemnation.

She’d never done well alone, and now life had stripped away everyone from her. The burdens of her office meant that even amid those she loved, she was alone.

She took another breath, remembering a lovely day long ago when she’d gotten distracted and double-charged a musket in Blackguard drills. It had blown apart in another nunk’s hands, though luckily it hadn’t wounded him. Karris had gotten dressed down in front of everyone. Then she’d had a bruising quarrel with Samite, who hadn’t stood up for her.

She’d been hiding in her bunk having a cry when none other than Orea Pullawr had pulled the covers back.

Karris had wanted to curl up and die already, but then being found like that, by the White herself?

Orea had said, ‘Karris, isn’t it? Child, do you know what tears and kisses and fine underthings have in common?’

The question had baffled her so much she’d stopped crying.

‘They’re best enjoyed in bed.’

‘I was trying to—’ Karris began mumbling. Kisses and fine underclothes? What? Oh! ‘Well, the former, I mean!’

‘And doing so with such vigor that I thought you and a friend were enjoying the latter. But—’

‘What?!’ Karris asked again.

‘But,’ Orea Pullawr repeated, ‘I need a Blackguard, so put on your big-girl pants and save the tears for later. You’re on duty.’

And so I am.

Remembering Orea’s kindness helped a wan smile steal onto her face. It had been pure kindness, too. Karris had only realized much later that the ‘duty’ the White needed her for was some invented thing: the woman had obviously overheard Karris crying and came to distract her without shaming her.

And that had been how she’d begun her service to the older woman.

So. Duty now. Tears later.

She felt better.

But before she stood up, she leaned forward, feigning clearing a pebble from her shoe. She slid a hand along the underside of the bench. Not only was this bench a place she’d sat often when waiting for a Blackguard to get off duty (and these days to wait for the lift to arrive), but it was also outside the checkpoint on the White’s level of the tower. Both she and Teia had easy access to this place. It made an excellent dead drop.

There was a note there.

Aha!

Karris hadn’t seen the girl to get a report in person for a while. Any news had to mean good news in their secret war against the Order; if things went badly for her, Teia would simply
disappear
.

In her room a short while later, Karris opened the note and mentally decoded the brief message and the date it referred to.

Suddenly the air felt too thick to breathe.

Karris had only just—last night!—done what she’d sworn she would never do.

She’d finally accepted that Gavin was dead. She’d given up on him.

Worse, she’d admitted it to that old viper Andross, which committed her. She’d told him she would do anything to save her people. Many thousands of lives. The whole empire. She’d said she’d do anything, and she’d meant it.

If the terms for peace and an alliance against a mortal threat were so simple, how could she possibly refuse to marry Ironfist?

This
was how.

The note read: “Gavin kidnapped by Order. In grave danger. But alive. I’m certain. —Teia”

Such short lines bringing such bright news shouldn’t have the power to tear a woman’s heart in two.