Our Lady of the Islands (22 page)
Read Our Lady of the Islands Online
Authors: Shannon Page,Jay Lake
“Perhaps my lady would enjoy a trip to the garden this morning?” Cleone asked as Sian finished yet another sumptuous breakfast.
Though as flawlessly deferential as ever, the inquiry grated on Sian a bit. Must Cleone always be guessing what Sian’s next want might be before she’d had time to think of it herself? It was the girl’s job, she supposed, to anticipate the wishes of others, but after more than a week of being so well managed … Sian was tempted to refuse, or to propose something else, just to assert herself, but knew that would be peevish. She did enjoy the little courtyard garden — or anything else that got her out of this
lovely
room.
“That sounds quite refreshing. Thank you, dear.” Sian grimaced mentally. She was even sounding like the woman now.
They left her fancy room high in the Census Hall’s east tower, and made their way down the carpeted back staircase toward the courtyard. Cleone led the way, as always. Sian was allowed to go nowhere unaccompanied, it seemed, even inside the house. For her own protection and convenience, of course. This had been made clear. Repeatedly. But it did leave her feeling five years old again at times.
As they descended, Sian eyed the adorable little leather-bound case clutched in Cleone’s slender hand, wondering what the girl would be offering up for their amusement today. She sighed quietly, reminding herself that Cleone had been charged with keeping her entertained, and doubtless felt obliged to fulfill Escotte’s expectations. But, oh, this sudden, enforced idleness was awfully challenging after so many years of fruitful, unmanaged productivity. She almost wished at times for the freedom and privacy of her overturned boat back on Pembo’s Beach.
Then again, it was much more comfortable here. And she had not been beaten or even arrested by anyone for more than a week now. She’d been attacked by no street mobs; she hadn’t even ruined any dresses. Perhaps a little less discontent was called for …
At the bottom of the stairs, they found Prefect-Sergeant Ennias waiting for them, as he seemed magically to be each time they left the confines of Sian’s upper suites. Yet another measure taken for her protection, she’d been told.
“Good morning, Sergeant,” Sian said, careful to sound pleasant, though she still had not come entirely to terms with the way he’d handled things the night of their …
escort
to safety here.
He gave Sian a short bow, then stood back as they entered the garden, doubtless waiting to see where she and Cleone would settle before positioning himself. If Cleone’s management had begun to leave Sian feeling rather like a child, Ennias’s omnipresence sometimes made her feel a bit like a prisoner.
Still, the courtyard garden
was
outside, and one never knew when Mishrah-Khote priests might start falling from the sky, she supposed. Better safe than sorry, as Escotte so often hastened to remind her. She glanced up at the walls to check for saboteurs, but found only frilled iguanas this morning.
“Would my lady like to sit near the pond, perhaps?” Cleone asked, as if Sian might not be able to decide without her help.
“That sounds very nice,” she replied, trying harder to adjust her attitude.
“Marvelous!” Cleone enthused. “The light is perfect there.”
Sian raised an eyebrow. “For what?”
The maid blushed prettily. “I thought — if you would like, my lady — that we might read a bit of poetry today.”
So that was what the case contained. Well, this seemed an improvement over embroidery, tatting, bead stringing, or painting little figurines — if the poetry was any good, at least. Really, the delightful girl was possessed of the most astonishing array of useless hobbies. How long had it taken her to acquire them all? Was there some school, Sian wondered, at which one trained to be so decorative, or was Cleone some sort of natural prodigy?
Well, Sian knew how to read, at any rate, which should make today’s entertainment less embarrassing than the past few. She walked over to the pond, choosing a wicker chair festooned with scarlet silk pillows exactly the same shade as the canopy of bougainvillea blossoms above it. The usual small buffet table had been set unobtrusively nearby, with a glistening carafe, several crystal tumblers, and, as always, two lace fans for further moderation of the day’s warmth and humidity — which, as always, Sian ignored, finding them a very continental affectation. A pair of brilliant dragonflies flitted about, inspecting the carafe before moving on to the pond.
Cleone sat in the matching wicker chair beside her, and, as always, picked up a fan and snapped it open expertly to flutter at her chin and breast as she set her case down on the low table between them. “Your cousin has a remarkable library, does he not?”
“Indeed.” Sian had spent quite a bit of time in it over the past week. In her opinion, Escotte favored rare bindings and gorgeous calligraphy over literary quality, but then, reading was a subjective thing, wasn’t it?
Cleone snapped her fan closed and set it in her lap before reaching out to open the case she’d brought, taking out several slender volumes. Exquisitely bound, of course. “I’ve brought some folios from the Moulena Era, translated by Daktylos.” She looked up at Sian, eyes cautious through her dark lashes. “They have some rather … poignant things to say, if I might be so bold.”
“Do they?”
“Of course, my lady might disagree …”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Sian murmured. Across the courtyard, Ennias shifted slightly, placing a hand on the pommel of his short-sword. Did he have some divergent opinion of Moulena Era poetry, she wondered?
“When we’ve read a few of them,” Cleone continued, seeming encouraged, “I thought my lady might wish to try her hand at composing a villanelle or two? It is such an
expressive
form, is it not?” She smiled brightly, already drawing several thick sheets of parchment out of her case as well, and a set of fine pens and ink bottles.
Sian swallowed her largest sigh yet. Reading poetry was one thing, writing it quite another. Was there something wrong with simply sitting in the light here, gazing at the plants for a while, listening to the birds? She couldn’t keep doing this. Just couldn’t,
couldn’t
! What would be next? Glass etching, silver smithing, cabinet making, tanning of hides? Pearl diving, rock quarrying, lion taming? At least those might get her all the way out of this house for a few hours. Even answering business correspondence again began to seem preferable to this endless gauntlet of idle entertainments. “I am suddenly very thirsty,” she announced, for lack of any more gracious escape.
“I will pour you a glass of water,” the maid said, setting her fan aside and rising at once from her chair to go to the buffet table.
“Might I have some fruit juice instead? Citrus, perhaps?” Sian patted the hollow at the base of her neck. “I often suffer a tightness about the throat that only tart citrus can ease.” Cleone glanced uncertainly at Ennias. “The sergeant will be ample company while you’re gone, dear,” Sian assured her. “You needn’t hurry.”
“I shall be right back, my lady.” Cleone gave her a bright smile, and hurried back into the Census Hall.
Ah! Blessed silence
, Sian thought. Then,
What a bitch I’ve become.
She turned to gaze down at the pond behind her, where rare and astonishing bloodfish and Graver’s carp swam lazily between the floating lilies. A siluva eel at least ten feet long wriggled sinuously in her direction, its violet and turquoise body wreathed in vivid crimson spots. Sian leaned down for a piece of gravel, then tossed it toward the eel, who showed no sign of interest, though half a dozen other fish came racing over to investigate the sound. Finding no edible treat to hold their interest, however, they went back to circling endlessly around the pond. Just as Sian had been doing here all week. From gilded breakfast room to well-appointed library to her feathered nest of a bedroom, accompanied everywhere by servants and guards, with no sight, much less news of the outside world.
It was undeniably good to be safe. Of course it was. But for all the comfort and luxury to be found here, she did feel so … imprisoned.
She glanced up at Ennias. “It must be very tedious to spend so much time watching me feed gravel to the fish.”
He smiled slightly, not quite taking his eyes from their ongoing examination of the courtyard and its undoubtedly dangerous geckos. “I’ve pulled far worse assignments, my lady.”
As have I,
she thought. “Did you have any further chance to talk with my friends before they were sent off that night, Sergeant?”
“Your friends, my lady?” he asked, still not meeting her gaze.
“Captain Reikos and the young man, Pino.”
Whom your men nearly killed,
she added silently.
Can you have forgotten them already?
“Sadly, no,” he said. “I was assigned many other duties that night.”
“I don’t suppose you’ve heard any news of them, then?” she tried without much hope. “Or how their mission for my cousin is proceeding?”
“Such things would all be far above my station, Domina.”
“Of course.”
The courtyard door opened and Cleone sailed through, a brilliant smile on her lovely face and a silver tray in her hands. “Pomara juice, only slightly fermented,” she announced, rejoining Sian by the pond. “May I pour for you?”
“Thank you.”
Cleone filled a tiny crystal glass and handed it gracefully to Sian.
Sian felt rather bad now about being so difficult before. The girl was only doing what Escotte had told her to, and quite well too. If she wished things changed, she ought to take it up with him, not take it out on her. “Won’t you join me, dear?”
The girl’s eyes widened as Sian picked up a second glass. “Are you sure, my lady?”
“Of course I’m sure. And then perhaps we’ll work on those villanelles.”
The
Alkattha Swan,
more commonly referred to as the Floating Palace, was essentially a gigantic state luxury barge built to impress important visitors. But the wealth and power announced by this floating building, bristling with undulating oars, could be intimidating as well, especially when its massive decks were lined, as now, with well-armed ‘honor guard’ — however smartly attired. To Kafahl’s credit, the enormous barge now moved ponderously toward The Well surrounded by half a dozen larger sailing ships, all armed with cannon, and twice that many smaller sailing craft, all manned with armed ceremonial guard as well, and extravagantly festooned in bunting, banners, streamers and flags of gold, green and blue: Alizar’s state colors. It had taken an hour longer to arrange than Arian had hoped, but Viktor had made no move to stop her, as she’d feared he might, and they had gotten underway in sufficient time to accomplish her purpose and get back to Home in time for dinner.
As the flotilla came around the windward side of Bayleaf, the entrance to The Well’s temple harbor came into view across the channel. Two monumental pillars flanked a darkened gap in the island’s verdant coastline, where the vast interior sinkhole for which it was named opened to the sea. The Mishrah-Khote’s opulent central temple and headquarters was built into the near-vertical rock walls enclosing this perfectly round bay — glorious testimony to the priestly order’s once preeminent political and economic power over Alizar.
For over a hundred and fifty years, however, the Mishrah-Khote’s authority and influence had been eclipsed by that of the secular Factorate. Ever since they’d made the error of remaining noncommittal during Alizar’s uprising against the continental Factor, by which the nation’s independance had been won. Arian had come here this afternoon to make sure the order’s now secondary relevance and authority in Alizar had not slipped their Father Superior’s harried mind.
When the flotilla was less than half a league from the temple harbor’s entrance, Arian stood and beckoned her two maids, now dressed almost as impressively as she. “I know we have a while yet, but I want him to wonder what burns so brightly at our prow.” She smiled as they made their way sedately to the barge’s bowsprit platform. The azure sky was cloudless, the afternoon light perfect. Better even than she’d hoped. Her dress and all the other golden trappings they had contrived around her perch would catch the sun like fire and aim it straight into the temple’s eyes.
When they were positioned at the barge’s bow, with her luxuriously costumed entourage arrayed behind them, Maronne and Lucia stooped to arrange Arian’s train to maximum effect, then stood, erect and grim, beside their mistress as the harbor gates drew nearer.
Far below her, in the barge’s deepest galleries, the vessel’s hundred oarsmen strained to achieve a final burst of speed, so that the barge and its festive armada all but flew between the harbor’s ancient pillars. The sunlight vanished as they passed from open water into The Well’s shadowed, vine-draped interior, startling flocks of black cormorants off cliffs and ledges. At that moment, the flotilla’s three largest ships, behind and to either side of the
Swan
, fired all their cannons, stuffed with harmless powder, frightening even larger clouds of seabirds into keening, wheeling flight above the bay.
The noise was deafening inside the sinkhole’s echoing confines, and doubtless terrifying to anybody not expecting it. That had been Arian’s very reason for ordering this ‘salute’ held until they were inside the harbor. The
Swan’s
captain had expressed concerns when she’d informed him of this plan.
My Lady Consort, I feel compelled to comment on the risk of our salute at such close quarters being mistaken for actual attack.
She had thanked him for his candor, and said she rather hoped it would be.
Though it should take no longer than an instant, surely, to see that nothing has exploded. And I will make very certain that my intentions have not been misinterpreted, of course, just as soon as I have disembarked.
Clearly alarmed by this response, the captain had deferentially expressed further concern that, while the temple harbor was certainly no fortified installation, they were not entirely without weapons.
There is some small risk, I fear, that we might be fired upon in return, my lady.
She had allowed herself an open smile then, and said simply,
How very embarrassing for them.
Whatever the good captain might assume about a lady’s knowledge of warcraft, Arian knew very well how long it took to prepare a cannon for firing — especially when its use hadn’t been at all anticipated. The fright she hoped Duon felt just now would be long past before anyone here was even capable of doing something so stupid as firing gratuitously on a well-armed fleet of gunboats with whatever lonely cannon or two they might have lying about. He should even have time to change his undergarments before the Floating Palace moored.
By the time their thundering salute had finished echoing off the harbor cliffs, Arian was gratified to see a great deal of frantic arm-waving and rushing-about on the temple docks. The barge was close enough now for her to see amazement on some of the faces of those rushing from inside the temple walls to either side of them, like disturbed ants. Wherever Duon might be in there, Arian felt reasonably sure that she must finally have captured his attention.
That’s right, priest,
she thought with satisfaction.
The full might of Alizar — at a moment’s notice, without a word of warning. Think on that before you trifle with me further.
Quite a crowd had gathered on the temple wharfs by the time the entire flotilla was assembled within the harbor’s confines. Only the barge would actually be docking, of course. What Arian wanted here was alarmed surprise, not utter chaos. Now that she was close enough to be both seen and recognized, she raised her gold-draped arms in regal greeting to all those staring up in astonishment from below. She made no attempt to smile, though, doubting that the gesture would be efficacious, given the fierce mask of kohl, rouge and gold cream with which her face was painted.
By the time the huge boat had been made secure, and its gangway erected, a flock of bewildered, mid-level temple functionaries had assembled, wringing their hands and staring up at her in open-mouthed astonishment as she disembarked amidst a cloud of elegantly dressed attendants and Factorate officials.
“My Lady Factora-Consort,” their apparent leader fawned as her crystal-clad feet alighted on the dock, “to what do we owe the, ah, overwhelming honor of this, er, unexpected visitation?”
“I have come to speak with your Father Superior.” She gazed calmly past them, then about the suddenly hushed assembly of onlookers. “He is here somewhere, I take it?”
“Indeed I am, My Lady Consort!” Duon called, wading toward her through the crowd, still tugging on the last few of his vestments, if she was not mistaken. He looked askance at his harbor suddenly filled with festively decorated yet heavily armed ships, then turned back to study her own remarkable presentation. “We had not expected you, I fear, in … quite this manner, or at quite this time. Can some crucial piece of correspondence have been mislaid, perhaps, without ever reaching me?”
“None that I’m aware of,” she replied.
He gave her another anxious look. “Then … I am at something of a loss, my lady …”
“The last piece of correspondence I am aware of having received from
you
, Father Duon, was this morning’s missive informing the Factor and me of your new prodigy’s latest affliction.”
“Oh, it is no affliction, My Lady Consort. He is merely deep in some extraordinary communion with the gods. If I failed to make that —”
“Wonderful!” she cut him off. “I was so concerned. But now that he is well at last, I would very much like to see him.”
“But, my lady, surely, I explained why that —”
“I’m sure you did,” she cut him off again. “You have explained so many things to us this past week, as our son lay dying, that I find myself no longer able to keep all those explanations sorted. That is why I thought it best just to simplify things by coming here to see him now.” She offered him a smile at last, heedless of its translation through her cosmetic mask. “Would you be so good as to escort me, Father Duon?”
“It would be an honor, My Lady Consort, of course, if not for the fact that —”
“Thank you, Father.” She extended her hand, no longer smiling.
“My lady, as I’m certain I explained in my last letter, disturbing him in this condition could —”
“But I have no intention of disturbing him,” she said. “I just wish to see him. How can that disturb him?”
“He is … secluded in a portion of the temple forbidden to all but anointed members of the Mishrah-Khote, my lady, and cannot be moved without risk of trauma to his —”
“Forbidden to the Factora-Consort? Here on behalf of the Factor himself? Why, Father, whatever for? Is something seditious being done in there?” She laughed, just a tad too loudly.
“My Lady Consort,” Duon said through half-clenched teeth, “were I to admit
any
un-anointed person, much less a woman, to the inner sanctum of the temple, weeks of costly cleansing ceremonies would be required to —”
“I believe the Factor and I have paid this temple sufficient sums to cover the cost of any such ritual, have we not?” she asked, careful not to let anger taint her voice the way Duon’s had. She had no intention of becoming
the hysterical woman
here. Let Duon’s discipline be first to fail. “You have repeatedly assured me that this extraordinary new healer of yours is capable of healing the Factor’s heir. Yet now, if I understand correctly, I am expected to continue waiting while my barely conscious son drifts ever nearer death, so that this order of
healers
can avoid some costly cleansing ceremonies?”
“I meant no such thing!” he snapped. “How dare you put such words into my —”
“How dare
I
?” she said very quietly. A collective step back was taken by everyone but Duon himself as Arian came further toward him. The silence became absolute. “Do you have some reason to wish our son’s healing endlessly delayed this way, Father Duon?” she asked with icy calm. “I have no wish to put words of any kind into your mouth. I merely ask a question so unavoidable by now, that it would voice itself, I think, if I did not.”
“My Lady Consort,” he replied, struggling in vain to match her calm now, “no one has greater cause than I to wish for your son’s swift recovery.”
“I would agree,” she said almost too softly to be heard by anyone but him.
“But …
why
, my lady?” he blurted awkwardly. “What can merely seeing him accomplish?”
The expression on his face just then was fleeting, but unmistakable, and caught her utterly by surprise. In all the years she had spent dealing with this man, she’d never seen it there before. Not the cunning or calculation, the anger or condescension or arrogance she had come prepared for, but, for one unguarded instant, unadulterated desperation.
She almost stepped back in dismay as the implications started to sink in. Until that moment, she had assumed with complete confidence that Duon
was
withholding access to some great new healer in retaliation for her slights during their earlier argument, or, more likely, in a calculated gambit for control of Viktor and herself. All her own calculations since leaving her husband in the breakfast room this morning had been based on those assumptions. Not until this moment had it ever crossed her mind that Duon might actually …
“Tell me, Father Duon,” she said, struggling to conceal her alarm and incredulity until she knew if she was right, “does this healer you’ve been dangling before us exist at all, or have you simply been too proud to admit that you have nothing left to offer?”
“My lady
jests
?” he sputtered, clearly trying to sound offended. But the truth was written on his face too plainly now for even her innocent young son to have mistaken.
“By all the gods you claim to serve, Duon,” she gasped, “what can you possibly have hoped to achieve with such a … moronic ruse?”
“My lady, you misapprehend the entire situation! I have invented nothing! The healer of which we speak is as real as you and I are — and every bit as talented as I have claimed!”
“Then show him to me! Now!” she snapped, abandoning all pretense of restraint.
“I … cannot,” he said, plainly struggling to think of some further explanation where all others had failed.
Wasted!
This entire spectacle. This ridiculous, horrifically costly charade! All wasted on a phantom. A mirage! She turned in fury to the entourage behind her. “We are leaving!”
“My Lady Consort,
wait
!” Duon called out as she stormed past her own attendants toward the boat. “None of this is as it seems! I swear to you!”
“Have you still not tired of toying with a grieving mother?” she shouted over her shoulder without slowing down. “Betraying your Factor’s good faith? Defrauding your entire country in its time of crisis?” Breathing fire — or wishing to, at least — she stopped at last, halfway up the gangway, and turned to glare back down at him. “There are alternatives to your spiritual carnival, Duon. And I’ll waste not another moment in pursuit of them. As for this …
travesty
you’ve perpetrated against us, rest assured that, just as soon as my son’s illness is resolved, one way or the other, my husband’s government will take whatever measures may be necessary to ensure that your unthinkable lapse of judgment in this matter is revisited. With a vengeance.”