“Is there something you’d like me to tell Elisabeth?” Gaultry asked, when Lily did not immediately volunteer the reason she had called them.
“Did she have some questions about the tamarin’s keep?”
“Not that.” For one moment, Lily continued to hesitate. Then her chin went up and her expression chilled. “I’ve brought you here for another reason. Caius Lepulio, the Bissanty Envoy, has petitioned to be granted an audience with your ward. I can think of no reason to deny him.”
At her side, Tullier stiffened.
“What does the Envoy want?” Gaultry asked, doing her best to hide her dismay.
“His intention is to inform Tullirius Caviedo, the publicly acknowledged son of Siri Caviedo, Bissanty’s Sea Prince, that Emperor Sciuttarus commands his presence in Bissanty. Imperial Sciuttarus wants your boy to begin taking on the duties that devolve from the throne of Bissanty’s Fifth Prince.” Lily added two stitches to her embroidery, then paused to thread a needle with a new color. “If the boy wishes to go, I will see that nothing hinders him. My dear Benet believed that he should remain in Tielmark where we could keep an eye on him. But Benet bonded the boy as your ward rather than indenturing him as a court-bound hostage. If Tullirius agrees to leave Tielmark, I will dissolve the ward-bond.”
“Tullier’s not ready to go back to Bissanty.” Gaultry avoided looking at him, even as she wondered what he made of the news that his father had at last publicly acknowledged him as his son, perhaps the final link in the chain that would lead him back to Bissanty.
“I would like young Tullirius to meet with the Envoy,” Lily said stolidly, tellingly avoiding anything that might sound like a familiar address. “The circumstances under which the boy left Bissanty have changed. His life is no longer in danger. The Emperor has recognized his claims to the imperial throne, rather than seeking to eradicate them.”
Gaultry was quite sure that was not what Emperor Sciuttarus had done, but she could think of no polite way to suggest this. The stubborn tilt of Lily’s chin warned that she had already decided that Tullier must meet the Envoy. It was, no doubt, why the Princess had called them to her in such a public place, where any argument would appear as a public challenge to Lily’s authority.
“We are yours to command, my Princess.” Gaultry made a half bow—not perfect, but certainly much improved from her first efforts in that area. If she did not respect the Princess’s orders, how could she expect the ladies of the court to do so in their turn? She risked a glance at Lily’s pale young face, touched a little by the fierce sun on the terrace. With
Benet absent, Gaultry had no doubt that many invisible forces at court had begun to home in, exerting invisible pressures, probing the young princess for her weaknesses—and finding her strengths. It was a position Gaultry did not envy, even as she had to plead her own suit. “Of course, in my capacity as the boy’s guardian, I must be present to hear what the Envoy proposes. Tullier will agree to nothing without my approval.”
“Very well.” The Princess gestured for the footman who had escorted them in to approach. “But I’m charging you to consider seriously what the Envoy has to offer.”
“I’ll consider it,” Gaultry answered grimly.
“So there it is.” The Princess plucked again at her stitchery. “I am glad you see sense. My man Savin will take you to the Envoy’s quarters directly.” Her young face hardened. She addressed Tullier for the first time. “I have not forgotten the day we first met. The smell of those poor boys you murdered will stay with me always, the sight of you clutching that bloody knife as you fought before my husband’s table. Benet is merciful. He has offered you sanctuary at our court, and I will honor his wishes. But you are dangerous to him, and I would far rather see you gone.”
“Princess—” Gaultry began.
Lily cut her short. “Don’t defend him,” she said sharply. “I won’t believe it if you tell me he wasn’t at fault. Do you think it matters whether it was this boy or his masters who cut the Laconte boys’ throats? Who mutilated poor Lady Destra’s corpse? He stood by and let it happen. Why should he be forgiven that?”
“Because he is a boy—” Gaultry hissed through her teeth, glancing at the footman, Savin, who was standing by ready to hustle them out, in the event that they offered the Princess undue disturbance.
“I’m hardly younger than she is,” Tullier interrupted furiously, voiding her efforts to coddle the Princess’s feelings. “Your Prince stole this silly doll from its cradle. If you expect her to know her own business, I have certainly earned the same. Don’t use my youth to defend me—I am man enough to hear her charges, if she is woman enough to make them.”
Lily flushed pink to the roots of her hair. Her embroidery hoop dropped from her hand, forgotten, and rolled away along the terrace. “You dare—”
“When I find you sitting in a less comfortable chair, I will countenance your insults.” Tullier did not make the mistake of stepping toward her. His naked anger was insult enough. “What can you know of the day
those boys were killed? How can you guess what I thought or did?”
Gaultry could only stand awkwardly by, wishing she could unsay his words. Tullier was too right about their ages. It was unlikely that Lily had been born more than a year or two his senior. But where Lily’s hardships had matured her early, exposing her first to the thin, hardworking life of the dock folk, and then to the backstairs life of court, Tullier’s austere life as a Sha Muira novice, for all the bloodthirstiness of his cult, had sheltered him from the intricacies of human relations. Between them, there would never be understanding.
And with Lily’s husband’s life in the balance, there would certainly never be sympathy.
Ranault’s duchess anxiously puttered over, her heavy body making her ungraceful. “You are unwell, my Lady.” She recovered the errant embroidery hoop, and laid a comforting hand on the Princess’s arm. “The sun and heat have drained you. If your audience is completed, perhaps we should go inside.”
“Savin will take you to Envoy Lepulio’s quarters,” Lily said curtly. The young Duchess’s deferential fussing had allowed her to regain her poise. “I follow my husband’s will. Think well on what I have said as you meet Lepulio and treat with him.”
“
F
isher-trull!” Tullier spoke loudly enough for Savin to glance back disapprovingly. “If she didn’t want to be insulted, she should not have cast the first stone!”
“Go on ahead,” Gaultry told the big footman. “We need a moment to confer before you bring us to the Envoy.” They were in glass court garden, a little distance from where Gaultry had fed the tamarin the peach the night of Dame Julie’s concert.
“There’s nothing to discuss,” Tullier said. “I’ll accept his offer and ship myself out of here. It’s clear no one wants me.”
“Forget it,” she told him. “And if I were you, I wouldn’t embarrass myself by trying to tell this Envoy that’s what you’re planning. If I have to stick half my own Glamour-soul back in you, I’m not going to let you go.”
“You can’t do that without asking Mervion to help,” Tullier said, sounding suspiciously snivelly. “Don’t even say you’ll try.”
Gaultry closed her eyes, trying to collect her wits. How to reassure him that he was wanted? Wanted enough that she would face down his
wounded pride to keep him? Of course he was right—she could not imagine herself going to Mervion and asking such a favor. Not after those hateful words that Coyal had spoken! She did not—she did
not
—take her sister’s support for granted. “Ask Mervion? I wouldn’t hesitate,” she lied. “But you won’t push me to that. Lily upsetting you is no good reason to slave yourself to Sciuttarus’s call. Elianté in me—can’t you admit even that?”
Tullier looked away. “Gaultry,” he said faintly. “I never told you about the spell Corbulo made that day we killed the family and their guards.”
Gaultry could not look at him—not even at his back. A perfect, ripe peach was hanging by their side, just by her shoulder. She reached out and twisted its stem, letting it fall into the cup of her hand. The peach fuzz was soft, its flesh warm, the color a perfect balance of pinkish yellow and red. “You never told me,” she agreed levelly. If she had asked, he certainly would not have told her.
Even now, she was not sure she wanted to know, but the boy was determined to tell her. “The spell didn’t come out right. Something happened, and Corbulo couldn’t finish it the way he wanted.”
“You interfered?” Gaultry said. She tried not to be disappointed when the boy shook his head.
“The mother did. It killed her, but it also stopped Corbulo from completing the part of the spell that was intended to cloak him. That was why he cut her body so—the frustration. Llara in me! Her sacrifice was brave, but it seemed so pointless. Her boys were already dead. Why should she even have tried to be anything other than a pawn to our plans?
“But if she had not ruined the last part of the spell, it would have been Corbulo, not myself, who stood in front of the Prince’s table that day the Princess remembers. Unlike me, Corbulo had enough experience that he would have seen the mission successfully completed. Your Prince would have desecrated himself and the festival, and then Corbulo would have finished our triumph by taking Benet’s life. Who knows how many my master would have brought down, before your Prince’s court overwhelmed him? Myself, cast adrift by Corbulo’s death, I certainly would have died, in some stinking ditch or gully, as the Sha Muira poison in my blood rose up and consumed my flesh.”
Gaultry inhaled the scent of the peach’s sweetness. Destra Vanderive had been Palamar Laconte’s sister. Thinking of Palamar, of all the woman’s awkward foolishness, it was difficult to imagine she had once
had a sister who possessed courage enough to outface a pair of Sha Muira killers.
“Tullier,” she said. “Running back to Bissanty because you’re feeling pangs of conscience isn’t the act of a brave man. This
should
be hard on you. The thing you and your master did—the gods can be cruel, but that’s no reason for men to follow their example.”
“Llara blessed our act,” Tullier said doggedly. “She gave it her direct sanction. That is what it means to be Sha Muira.”
“You can both believe that and acknowledge that what you did was disgusting.”
“Am I disgusting?” Tullier asked. “For what I did?” He glanced up at her with wounded eyes. “I won’t pretend that anyone forced me. Back then, my faith was not so weak as that. But when I remember that woman’s courage—”
“Tullier,” Gaultry said. “The very fact that you regret what your Sha Muira masters trained you to do means you can’t go back to Bissanty yet. I won’t lie to you. One day you will have to return to Bissanty. It’s in your blood; you won’t be able to deny it forever. But now is not the time.”
“How do you know?”
Gaultry pressed the warm peach into his hand. “It’s summer,” she said. “Give yourself a taste of life before thinking of going back to those soul-suckers.”
He stared down, as if trying to read a message on the peach’s velvety skin. When he looked up, his eyes were bright with unshed tears. “If that woman hadn’t died, I wouldn’t be alive today. I don’t regret that.”
She had no answer for him.
“Let’s go and see the Envoy,” she said. “What Sciuttarus wants us to think he has planned for you should make for an interesting discussion.”
C
aius Lepulio was a hard-faced man with a grey cast to his skin—the pallor associated with the highest born Bissanty noblemen. Above the hard features, the dome of his skull was closely shaved, making it difficult to guess his age. Anywhere between forty and sixty. He might have been a self-indulgent man during an earlier age of life—there were marks of dissipation in his face—but clearly he had toughened with age—toughened and grown dangerous. From the instant she first saw him, Gaultry disliked him, an impression immediately confirmed by his patronizing greeting. When he saw Tullier, he fell into an overelaborate genuflection,
the crimson velvet of his cape fluttering behind him like rippling fire. Yet his expression throughout remained cool and distant.
I bow to you,
that expression said,
but I am in control
.
Watch as you learn to heed me
.
“Most Serene Highness,” he addressed Tullier. “I delight to find myself in the gracious frame of your presence. Llara’s Heart-on-Earth sends you fair greeting.”
“Talk to me,” Gaultry cut brusquely across the obsequities. He did not like that, and his face briefly showed it, despite his polish. In Bissanty only a few women—widows with titles or those who held religious office—could speak with a legal voice. “I am the boy’s guardian. You must speak through me if you wish to talk.”
There was a pause. The Envoy rose and adjusted his clothes. “Lady Gaultry Blas,” he said, tidying his cuffs. His tone spun her name and title into an insult. “I have been instructed to commend you for your loyalty in preserving our young Prince’s person, but Bissanty no longer requires your services. Gracious Sciuttarus has welcomed a lost cousin back to the House Imperial. All Bissanty rejoices in the investiture of their newest Prince. As I am sure you already know, I have been sent to Tielmark to complete the stages of the accession and to return him to his homeland. There is nothing left for you to do.”
Gaultry’s eyes narrowed. “In helping Tullier, I have never served Bissanty. I take orders only from my own Prince. And as far as I’m concerned, only Benet of Tielmark can dissolve the guardianship I’ve been granted. Prince Benet, or the Princess speaking in his voice. I admit—I am most curious as to your offer for Tullier. But if you imagine I will allow you to return with him to Bissanty solely on your master’s command, you are sorely mistaken. So perhaps you will explain to me exactly what it is that you have come all this way to offer?”