Fray Page 15

  “I don’t disagree.” Theodor shook his head. “What’s his name? Who is he?”

  “Lockwood,” Ballantine said.

  “I don’t think—oh, right. I remember the Lockwoods. Very minor noble house. Small holdings, farmers. Barley, I think, or rye.”

  “Who else?” I asked. “At their ‘meeting’?”

  “He won’t give me names, but he said they had some common folk joining them last night. He was forthcoming on that much.”

  “Forthcoming,” Theodor repeated. “And no way to force more, I imagine.”

  His brother hesitated. “I’m not in the business of interrogation. My naval education failed me on that front.”

  Theodor shook his head. “And I doubt pressing would do us much good. If a lack of faith in the Crown is spurring these ‘meetings,’ stringing a noble up by his thumbs will only alienate the rest of them all the more.”

  “Fair point,” Ballantine agreed. “Especially if the king’s son is doing the stringing. So you put him off at the next port?”

  “I don’t think there’s anything else we can do,” Theodor said. “I’ll remit him into the custody of the city lord of Southlea. I wish we had time to follow through on this, but we don’t.” He rapped the wall with his toe, as though just recognizing the constraints of the cabin on his pacing. “Southlea is the last Galatine port we’ll pass before we cross the Midway Sea.”

  “I will write a formal report and make copies to distribute to the governance in Galitha City, as well.” Ballantine saluted and left.

  “A formal report. The last thing the council or my father is going to want to read—reports of resistance to the reforms and now something that brushes a bit too close to sedition.”

  Sedition. I tensed at the word, but Merhaven shrugged it off. I raised an eyebrow at his indifference, but he didn’t so much as look at me. “These are difficult times, Highness. Your father understands that. It might behoove you to extend more understanding to the nobles who are most grossly inconvenienced by these reforms.”

  Theodor returned Merhaven’s suggestion with a hard stare and stalked out of the cabin.

  23

  THE REMAINDER OF OUR VOYAGE WAS UNEVENTFUL, BUT WITH the eerie calm of a silence we all knew was imposed by wide swaths of water, not reflective of the reality in Galitha. There would be no news until after we reached the summit. Would reports of sedition wait for us? Red Caps recalled to action by the refusal of local nobles to implement reform? Chaos erupting once more in the capital city as debates broke into violence?

  No pressing news awaited us when we docked in Isildi, and there was little time to search out any rumors of unrest from home. We were expected at welcome meetings within hours of docking, and I tried to block the uncertainty of Galatine affairs from my mind and focus, instead, on the dizzying prospect of maintaining a good face with dozens of delegates.

  The summit was held in a diplomatic compound, once a large army fortress but repurposed and expanded. The reddish stone walls were built like the layers of a cake, with newer construction of brighter stone and at keener angles than the faded historic structure. We separated within minutes of arriving, Theodor and the admiral whisked off to the first of dozens of important gatherings, and Lady Merhaven, Annette, and I shuttled to a welcome reception for the retinues of the official delegates.

  We were received on a wide loggia, well shaded with thick-trunked trees. A breeze swept across the gardens bearing a faint hint of salt and, fainter, some coolness. I was grateful for the lightweight cotton chemise gown I wore, decorated with a red silk sash. It was simpler than what some of the other women had chosen for this informal reception, but the Serafan women and the women from the Allied Equatorial States wore lightweight clothing suited to the heat. I tried not to stare at the women and their clothing, but I couldn’t help but notice the elaborate draping of the Serafan gowns and the bright colors chosen by the Equatorial women. I wished I could understand everyone’s position and motives as easily as I could mentally deconstruct their gowns, made plain into patterned grids and draped silk in my mind.

  “I hope they serve something cold and liquid fairly soon,” Lady Merhaven said, fanning herself slowly with a sandalwood fan. Perspiration dotted her forehead and made curls of her dark blond hair stick to her neck. “Once this is over, I’m looking forward to nothing more than a cool bath. I do hope the porters arrive soon with the trunks—I’ll want my goat’s milk soap.”

  Annette made a face that indicated what she thought of Lady Merhaven’s soap, and I forced back a laugh that was half nerves.

  “I hope I’ll have a chance to explore a bit,” I replied.

  Lady Merhaven started and then regained her damp composure. “Don’t get in the way, dear. The gardens are fine for strolls, and there are public areas inside, too, but keep out of the official business, hmm?” Don’t embarrass us, she said as clearly as if she’d used the precise words.

  I scanned the gardens, spreading out on all three open sides of the loggia like a controlled jungle. Galatine gardens tended to be formal, with carefully shaped hedges and long avenues paved in pale stone or bricks. These were wilder, giving themselves over to the natural spray and fan of the plants they featured. They also seemed to favor heavily scented flowers; occasionally the salt scent of the breeze was accompanied by something intoxicatingly heady.

  “Ah, the Kvys,” said Lady Merhaven with thinly veiled derision. The small group arrived quietly but somehow still obtrusive, dark wool gowns and starched veils out of place among the color and movement of the rest of the party.

  “I believe we are all arrived.” A Serafan woman stood by the center columns of the loggia, her brilliant orange gown fluttering in the breeze of her slightest movement. “While the delegates are in their discussions every day, there is a light schedule for the rest of the delegations.” She distributed a stack of heavy ivory paper printed with a list of events that looked, for the most part, like social gatherings. I forced a pleasant expression onto my face, but if I had been nervous about Galatine social functions, the thought of the complexities here was unnerving. “The vast majority are, of course, optional,” she continued, “but you should consult with the rest of your delegations on which require your attention.”

  Optional social gatherings requiring attention—I digested this quickly to mean that alliances and relationships were made here, as well as in the delegation chambers. Already I perceived the divisions and hierarchies, that each of the women here represented not merely herself but a host of other interests. What would they think I represented, I wondered? Galitha, its government, the reform? Given Pellia’s clear absence, would I stand in some way for that ignored nation despite having never so much as seen its shores?

  A servant in pure white wheeled a cart to the loggia laden with fresh fruit, icy glasses full of various colored liquid, a dozen kinds of cheeses, and a creamy slush that Annette chose swiftly but looked like curdled milk to me.

  “Traditional Serafan nooning meal,” Annette said, handing me a glass. “Pureed goldenfruit. It’s delightful. And try the cheese even if you don’t want a butter pudding.”

  “That’s what it’s called?” I asked, pointing to the shallow dish of pale slurry Annette ate with a tiny spoon.

  “Mmm-hmm.” She nodded, mouth full. I selected a few cheeses. Modern Serafe was descended from nomadic herdsmen, unlike primarily agrarian Galitha. Its curve of coastline supported orchards and some farming, but inland the ground grew rocky and more suitable for goats than farms. Across the mountain ranges in East Serafe, the land was drier and more desolate, but, according to my books, still supported traditional Serafan herding practices. And, I discovered as I tasted a ball of fresh cheese sprinkled with fresh herbs, delectable cheese making.

  Lady Merhaven drifted away, greeting the Serafan woman who had welcomed us. She was, I knew, a high-ranking woman from a high-ranking clan given the honor of serving as a hostess, not an official delegate to the negotiations. Those,
from East and West Serafe, were all male, made up of Ainirs, clan heads, whose long-standing families were the nobility of Serafe. Lady Merhaven was swiftly impressing herself on the delegation as representative of Galitha; as the hostess moved away from her to give a coolly cordial greeting to the Kvys women, Lady Merhaven attached herself to a gray-haired Equatorial woman with enormous diamond earrings. I nibbled at a wafer coated in sesame seeds as I surveyed the crowd; Annette returned to the cart for a second dish of butter pudding and found herself face-to-face with our West Serafan hostess. The two conversed as I finished my wafer and immediately regretted the choice, as seeds had lodged themselves in my teeth.

  “Well, ask her yourself,” Annette said to the hostess, forcing cheer into her voice as she nudged me subtly with a foot. My fingers burned impressions into the frosted glass.

  “You must be the prince’s consort.” The West Serafan hostess in her blinding orange silk assessed me. Next to her, a wisp-thin Equatorial woman in delicately tailored white cotton and with regal bearing subtly turned her shoulders away from a nearby table of fruit and cheese to join our conversation.

  “I—yes, I am here with the Galatine delegation on the invitation of the Prince of Westland,” I said.

  The Serafan smiled knowingly, almost patronizing. “Is consort a term the Galatines do not use? I can admit my ignorance,” the Equatorial woman said.

  “No, it’s a—we use the term,” I confirmed. “We are betrothed,” I added, showing them the gold bracelet as though they needed some kind of proof.

  “I am Ainira Siovan ad Rhuina,” the Serafan woman said, and I was grateful for the tutelage about titles present in the books I’d studied—Ainira meant the wife of a clan head, but she identified herself by her natal clan, Rhuina.

  “Dira Mbtai-Joro,” the other woman said. Her status was less clear—the Allied States did not have the defined orders of nobility that Galatines and Serafans did, but princes ruling each island and a spate of high-ranking families that were, in any given decade, favored or out of favor. The books I had been given had not, unfortunately, given me any indication on the current ranking families.

  “It’s a pleasure to meet both of you,” I said politely, then remembered to add, “I’m Sophie Balstrade.”

  “Of course,” Dira said coolly. She assessed me with a knowing, not entirely comfortable, scrutiny.

  Siovan leaned in. “Now. Do tell—the story is that you were actually at the palace when the assassins broke into the ballroom.”

  “I—yes,” I said, flushing.

  “You should be warned, the whole revolt is the reigning topic of gossip currently. That, and the Ainir of the East Serafan Dar clan’s bastard son,” laughed Siovan before I could rush to explain that our attention in Galitha had turned to reform. Had she cut me off on purpose? Were political topics too heavy for an opening reception? Or did she simply not want to hear about weighty topics from me?

  “Only among Serafans,” Dira replied.

  “He has a harelip and some say a tail.”

  “In truth?” Annette set her empty dish down. “Poor fellow if so.”

  Siovan shrugged. “At any rate, he isn’t here, so we can’t confirm either rumor.”

  “How would you confirm the tail? Follow him into the bathhouse?” Annette said.

  “I can think of other methods,” Dira replied. “I am given to understand that your… arrangement with Oban is off,” she added.

  Annette flushed at the implied connection—she had been in the final stages of marriage negotiations with Prince Oban of East Serafe before the Midwinter Revolt. Now that she was no longer of the royal family, and Prince Oban no longer an appropriate alliance, a bastard was still far below her station.

  “You are correct,” she replied. “I don’t believe that anyone with a tail is on the rolls for consideration.”

  “Of course not,” Dira demurred. A glimmer of something—humor or hostility?—passed in subtly narrowed eyes, but she turned and took a glass of pureed goldenfruit instead of speaking further.

  “Miss?” A servant in white, a girl of perhaps twelve, waited at my elbow. “Your chambers have been prepared. Would you like me to show you?”

  I glanced at Dira and Siovan. “Please excuse me,” I said.

  Dira bowed her head. “Of course, yes. We’ll see more of you, I’m sure.”

  24

  DESPITE LOOKING FORWARD TO EXPLORING THE GROUNDS OF THE diplomatic compound, I, like Lady Merhaven, succumbed to a bath as soon as I had been shown my room. Built in a more open style than fine Galatine homes, with their specific rooms for sleeping, dressing, receiving guests, and private study and reading, the chamber was a single, open room with curtained spaces for study and dressing, a raised area with a curtained bed, and an alcove with a bathing tub sunk into the floor. An ingenious system of pipes ran water to each of the rooms, so filling the tub was little trouble.

  I had to admit that I did feel refreshed after bathing, and took the time to comb and powder my hair while a breeze from the open balcony danced into the room. The balcony looked out over the gardens, but the architects who had drafted this place had created a marvel of rooms, open to the fresh air outside, that still maintained privacy. I could see the hedged paths below, but the position of the trellised balcony ensured no one would see me.

  Someone could dance in the nude with the balcony doors flung wide, and no one would be the wiser, I thought with a laugh. How Alice would blush at that idea!

  I sobered—and immediately searched the delicate marble-topped desk in one alcove of the room for paper and ink to pen letters to my employees. The shop, the fabrics, the permits—had everything fallen into place as it was supposed to? A letter was unlikely to reach them and their reply reach me before I was back in Galitha City in any case, and it was no longer truly my responsibility. It was Alice’s shop. Even here, in a strange country, with flowers I couldn’t name creeping over the desk from a vase crafted in Serafan rather than Galatine style, with voices floating up from the garden in a language I didn’t speak, the strangest thing I could fathom was thinking of what was once my shop as Alice’s.

  A knock on the door interrupted me midway through the letter, and I had moved toward the main door of the room before the knock repeated and I realized it came from the door separating my room from Theodor’s.

  I cracked it and, seeing him on the other side already stripped down to his breeches and shirt and a banyan, opened it.

  “Room to your liking?” he asked as he strode inside.

  “It’s certainly different, but it suits this place,” I said. “It seems such an indulgence—this much space for one person.”

  “The whole estate is so large, I wouldn’t worry over it. I’m sure there are still empty rooms, even now. And don’t be offended, by the by—everyone gets their own room.”

  “I hadn’t even thought to be offended.” I laughed.

  “I didn’t think you had. But so you’re not surprised. Married or consort or second wife or first husband—there are so many variations on marital and nonmarital but official relations in the leading houses of the countries here that it was decided years ago that everyone should just be assigned their own room.”

  “You say ‘it was decided’ as though it was a major point of negotiation.”

  “It was. It took longer than a trade pact, if I recall correctly,” he said with a smile that I wasn’t sure meant it wasn’t true, or that he thought the truth a bit of a joke. “Say, who’s this?”

  I started, but Theodor was laughing. In the path of sunlight cutting through the room from the balcony opening lay a large black cat, his dark velvet fur punctuated only by white paws and, taming his fearsome face, incongruous pure white whiskers.

  Theodor knelt and let him sniff his fingers, then scratched his huge head. “He’s a funny little fellow, isn’t he?”

  “Are—are pet cats that common here?” I asked, watching the cat’s claws emerge and then harmlessly scrape the floor.
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  “I wouldn’t be surprised if they keep a phalanx of mouse police here,” Theodor replied. “I wonder if this one prefers your balcony for his off-hours.”

  I approached the cat warily. My brother and I had never kept pet cats, or any pets—they were another mouth to feed. Cats might prowl the alleyways for rodents, and we tolerated them there, but I never befriended any. This sleek, well-fed house guardian, however, was far from a street cat.

  He languidly stood up as I approached and trotted toward me, stropping my ankles with his thick neck before I could react.

  “He likes you,” Theodor said.

  “Does he?”

  “Of course! What do you want to call him?”

  “You mean name him? I’m sure he has a name, if he’s someone’s cat,” I answered lamely.

  “Yes, but it’s probably given him by a Serafan servant and we’ll never learn it,” Theodor replied. “Come now—if he hangs about, you’ll want something to call him by.”

  I considered this, not sure if I wanted him hanging about. He had flopped by my feet and was gleefully pawing at nothing, yellow eyes half-shut.

  “What about Mister Boots?” Theodor prodded. “Or Mister Whiskers? Mister Whiskerboots?”

  I laughed, and the cat lolled on its side to give Theodor a look that would have convinced me, had I not known better, that he understood the effect such undignified names might have on his feline reputation.

  “Perhaps Onyx,” I said, feeling charitable. “He seems a gentleman cat, he deserves a respectable name.” He scrabbled to his feet to resume rubbing his head on my leg, leaving black fur on my white stockings. “I don’t suppose there’s much of a good way to keep him out, not without closing the door, at any rate.”

  “Not particularly,” Theodor replied. “Onyx it is, then. Your cat for the duration of our stay.”

  “I suppose,” I said, unconvinced. Though plenty of the nobles and wealthy women who attended Viola’s salon and bought clothing from me kept pets, the thought of an animal inside still felt markedly unusual.