The Lascar's Dagger (12 page)

Saker turned to see who he meant. The Lady Mathilda was heading their way, her bevy of attendants trailing in her wake. As she came up, both he and Lord Juster bowed. Juster took her hand and raised it to his lips.

“Lord Juster,” she said, her gaze fixed on Saker, “please present your companion.”

“With pleasure. Milady, this is Witan Saker Rampion, whom I understand is to be your spiritual adviser. Witan, may I present your enchanting pupil, the Lady Mathilda, Princess of Ardrone.”

She dimpled and held out a hand. He brushed her fingers with his lips and smiled at her. “I look forward to being of service, milady.”

“I hope you are not as dull as the chapel priest.”

“I hope I’m not dull at all.”

“I was expecting some elderly wizened cleric with a hearing problem, or a dribble. When I saw you across the room I did not dare hope
you
were my new adviser. Whatever possessed the Prime to choose somebody not yet decrepit?” Her eyes sparkled at him over her fan.

Va above, she was indeed charming. “I suspect you have the Pontifect to thank for that, milady. I trust I will not disappoint. Youthfulness in a teacher can mean lack of both experience and wisdom.”

She tilted her head and looked at him from under her lashes. “Do you know, I suspect you do not lack experience, Witan Rampion.” She tapped him on the wrist with her folded fan. “Come to my solar at ten o’clock tomorrow morning and we shall talk.” She smiled and walked on with her ladies.

Saker’s gaze followed her. “I think you maligned her, my lord. She is delightful, hardly predatory.”

“Oh dear, I do believe she’s already caught you in her net, so baited with an overload of sweet wiles. Beware, my friend, the court is no place for the wide-eyed innocent.”

“Lord Juster, I wonder your wine-pickled tongue hasn’t been the cause of the parting of your head from your neck before this.”

“Money, witan, money. If one is rich and dutifully pays one’s taxes, one can get away with being audacious.”

“Buccaneering pays?”

“You are looking disapproving again, witan.”

“The fact that a buccaneer carries his ruler’s letters of marque doesn’t make him any less of a thief and pirate.”

“Oh, you wound me to the quick! So swift to judge – I believe you’re a true witan after all. The word is privateer, not buccaneer, or worse still,
pirate
. My
privateering
career is a way to redress the present imbalance. Lowmians dominate the spice trade. They buy spices from one of the Pashali ports, a place called Javenka, but Pashalin won’t allow us the same privilege. So we must steal Lowmian cargoes on the open ocean.” He shrugged. “The law of both our nations recognises the legitimacy of privateering.”

“Lowmeer is now building more ships capable of sailing all the way to the Summer Seas, bypassing Javenka. Wiser, wouldn’t you think, for Ardrone to do the same?”

The mocking smile disappeared from Juster’s face as if it had never been. His gaze, now thoughtful, held Saker’s for a long moment. When he did speak, his tone was serious. “The Pontifect appointed you to this post? Not Prime Fox?”

“As I mentioned to the Princess.”

“Ah. Over Fox’s head, I imagine. I begin to see. My friend, we need to talk more seriously than this revelry allows. And I want to take you to buy that horse.”

He nodded. “Very well. Can you tell me – what’s a solar?”

Juster laughed. “Oh, the fancy word royalty give to their personal apartments. ‘Solely’ for them, not us common folk. Except their body servants. And their chosen favourite ladies, of course.”

Of course.

T
he Lady Mathilda, Saker discovered, had been granted her own solar in the royal wing of the palace, which she shared with four or five of her fifteen ladies-in-waiting and, he guessed, numerous body servants.

The woman who opened the door to his knock on his first visit was too modestly dressed to be a lady-in-waiting. She kept her eyes downcast and stepped aside for him to enter. Her plain dress was entirely grey, as was her hair covering. He would have taken her for a chambermaid, except that the neckline of her gown was low enough to display a simple silver chain, dangling a silver oak leaf. She escorted him through the solar to the Princess, then curtseyed and withdrew to a corner of the room.

With a wave of her hand, the Lady Mathilda dismissed the rest of her ladies-in-waiting, leaving only the grey-clad lady to chaperone.

“Witan,” the Princess said with a smile that made him think of warm sunshine and had him swallowing his saliva. “I am glad you’re here. I
so
look forward to your lessons and advice.”

“I am flattered, milady. I trust neither will disappoint.”

“I know far too little about the Way of the Oak. Prime Fox discourages anyone at court from going to shrines.”

Pox on the man!
“I hope I can help you, milady. What is it you would like to know first?”

“Come sit beside me here, and tell me all about witchery!”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the lady in grey jerk her head up to stare at them. By the time he turned to look, she’d already dropped her gaze, her face an expressionless mask, to stare at her hands in her lap.

Interesting.

“Witcheries,” he said as he seated himself, “are a gift from Va to the worthy. Each oak shrine has an unseen guardian serving Va’s wishes, and they choose the particular witchery granted.”

“Can I ask for a witchery? What sort of people are granted one? Tell me about glamours!”

“Witcheries can be many things. Glamours are very rare, however.”

She smiled and clapped her hands as if the answer delighted her. “Go on.”

“I knew a woman whose witchery was to mend broken bones. And a man whose witchery was to be trusted by all animals. In Lowmeer, I’ve heard of men who can attract fish to a net and others who can tell when a storm is coming. Witcheries are usually useful things like those. They often fit the people who gain them – it will be a fisherman who has the skill over fish. Shrine-keepers always have a witchery, sometimes more than one, usually something to do with growing things.” He smiled at her. “But I’ve never heard of anyone asking for a witchery and having their wish granted. It doesn’t work that way.”

“Then why are some people chosen to receive such a gift?”

“Perhaps those who have witcheries know why they were chosen; but if they do, they don’t speak of it.”

“So what do these people have in common?”

A sensible question. “Nothing that I know of, except they all dedicate their life to Va and the Way of the Oak. Or the Way of the Flow, if they are Lowmian. Or to a combination of both if they are from the Innerlands. But that often happens
after
they have the gift, not before. Forgive me if I am blunt, milady; I don’t think you’ll ever have one. A princess is destined to marry and raise a family, not dedicate her life to serving Va, or an oak shrine.”

Her sparkle vanished. For the briefest of moments her eyes appeared flat and hard. Then she pouted prettily, so he wondered if he’d imagined the hint of a different emotion. “You disappoint me, witan. But you are right, I don’t think I want to devote my life to Va and become a cloistered nun or a shrine-keeper! Tell me, what can someone with a glamour witchery do?”

Something about the way the lady in grey tensed up told him she was listening carefully. He wondered if she was a spy. The King’s? The Prime’s? When he glanced at her, she reddened and quickly looked away.

Sweet Va, what is it about the court that makes me suspicious of everyone?
“A glamour enables a person to mimic something or someone else. Such a witchery carries a great responsibility. Imagine the damage that could be done if a thief had the power of glamour!”
Or what a wonderful advantage it would be for a spy …
“Perhaps that’s why a glamour witchery is so rare.”

“Can someone who has a glamour disguise themselves and somebody else as well?”

“I don’t believe so, milady.”

“Do you have a witchery, Witan Rampion?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“I’ll wager Prime Fox doesn’t either. He’s always so sour!” She sat back in her chair and sighed. “You’re right, I’ll never be granted a witchery. I’d use it to play tricks on my brother, or some other silly thing. And Va would be angry with me.” She dimpled, and he smiled back.

As they chatted on, he was touched by the way she slipped between youthful exuberance and a maturity beyond her years. At times he was sure her charm was assumed and aimed to stir his sympathy and concern, but then he’d glimpse a girl afraid of her own future, a young woman who had no mother to guide her, and who was surrounded by courtiers who cared more for their position than for her reality. He had not expected to be so moved. He wanted to pat her hand, and tell her that she shouldn’t worry.

And he couldn’t, not just because she was a princess, but because it wouldn’t be true.

After a while, she turned the subject away from the shrine and witchery aspects of the Faith, and said, “Why is it we can have a woman Pontifect, but never a woman monarch?” The hardness had crept back into her gaze. “Were I the eldest child of the King, I’d still
never
rule. Ryce gets to be king, he can choose when and whom he marries, he can come and go as he pleases. But because I’m a woman, I can’t do any of those things. How can Va allow that?”

He was taken aback. A woman ruler? The idea was ridiculous! Then he thought of Fritillary Reedling. She’d make a better king than Edwayn was, and she hadn’t been the first female pontifect either. In the end he said, “I think history has given us kings, and somehow we’re stuck with the custom being law.”

“And what about a princess and her marriage?” she asked softly. “Is it just, or right, that I have no say in who I shall wed? Or who shall sire my children? Or even what country I’ll live in?” A single tear ran down her cheek and she turned her face away as if she didn’t want him to see.

Her sketch of her future brought a lump to his throat. Put like that, it was not only unjust, but something much, much worse. He said huskily, “No, it’s not fair. But it
is
something you can do for your country, for your people. Perhaps your marriage will unite another country with this one. It is a way for you to be the mother of kings, a way for you to be a woman of influence.”

She turned back to face him, her tear-filled eyes an accusation. “Do you think that’s sufficient compensation?”

“If you make it so,” he said. In his heart, when he thought of Regal Vilmar of Lowmeer, he knew he was lying.

When he stood to go soon afterwards, he felt he’d failed her, and in doing so, he was complicit in a crime that was to rob her of choice and freedom.

The grey lady escorted him through the adjoining room to the outside door of the solar. Before she opened it to let him out, she said, “And is it sufficient compensation if she is powerless and friendless in a land not her own? If her chosen husband is old or cruel or diseased?”

“It’s not your place to comment on such things,” he said, astonished at her effrontery.

“Then who will, sir? You? Where does a princess turn when her position of privilege becomes a cage?”

“Mistress, I do not know your name. Are you one of the princess’s ladies-in-waiting?”

“No, merely a handmaiden. Handmaidens do not have names. We are even lower than princesses.” She swung open the door, and the stare she gave him cut off the possibility of any further conversation.

He stepped out into the stone-vaulted passage beyond, disconcerted.

Mathilda looked up as Sorrel returned after letting Saker out. “So you were right. You can’t weave a glamour that will change
my
appearance. Never mind, you can continue to be my spy at court.”

“Milady, I may be able to blur myself so people don’t really notice me, but I’m still there. All it would take would be for someone to bump into me and they’d know. And it’s my head that’d be forfeit.”

“You haven’t been caught yet!”

“No, but it’s difficult to blur into the background if I’m moving.” With practice, she hoped to perfect it.

“Are you lying to me?”

“I don’t lie.”

“No, you just kill people.”

For one sickening moment it all came flooding back. Pushing Nikard; watching his astonishment that she would dare to do so turning to utmost shock as he tumbled backwards.
I wonder if you remembered Heather as you fell?

She clasped her hands behind her back to stop them shaking.
You have to cease thinking about this, Sorrel. It’s done; you killed a man. You killed the murderous father of your daughter.

And then the little voice in the back of her head said,
And he deserved it.

The witan had intimated that only trustworthy people were chosen to have witcheries. She didn’t feel like a particularly
good
person. She just felt trapped. Mathilda had her exactly where she wanted her. She said stonily, “Are you sure you want a murderer living in your solar? Perhaps you should turn me in to the King’s magistrate.”

Princess Mathilda appeared abashed. She said contritely, “Celandine, forgive me. I should not have spoken so. It was mean-spirited. But you
have
to aid me: I need to know whom I’m to wed, and when. You don’t know what it’s like to be so powerless. You don’t know what it’s like for other people to decide the whole rest of my life, even where I will live until I die!”

Don’t I? Oh, pretty princess, I know
exactly
what it’s like
. But she already knew it was useless to explain that to Mathilda. The Princess didn’t put herself in another’s shoes. She’d never had to. “You’re wheedling, and it is unbecoming,” she said. “I think I prefer you when you’re blackmailing me.”

Mathilda laughed. “And that’s not unbecoming of a princess?”

Sorrel shrugged. “Not if you get away with it.”

“All right then. Let me say it differently. Celandine, my dear, will you please try to help me, in exchange for the help I have given you? After all, we both know you swore to serve Va. And surely what Va intends is for you to aid me. Why else would you be here?”