The Adorned (21 page)

A few of Lord Loren’s household who would have ridden on horseback were allowed room in his carriage to escape the rain. We were not quite crowded, but were too close to ignore the sweat and snuffling of each other. It did little for our moods. No one was inclined to conversation, least of all with me. In a way, I think they envied me. I, at least, was going home.

I twitched at the curtains, gazing at the storm-black forest. Behind the rain, the trees were shadows, and the distant mountains mere ghosts. I let the curtain fall and gazed at my hands, linked in my lap. A small bundle was tucked at my feet: gifts, from Lord Loren and from Count Karan, who had been generous with all of his guests. They were display-clothes, mostly, and some pieces of glass jewelry in a Surammer style.

I was glad to be dressed in my own simple clothes, hiding most of my Adornment. The only true nicety I wore now was the hooded cloak that had been Tallisk’s gift to me. Despite the warmth of the carriage, I enjoyed its velvety feel around me. When I wished to drowse, I turned my head into its folds. It still held the scent of home.

The weather and the road had their own ideas about my sleep, though. Each time I’d drifted off in the last day, I had been jolted moments later by a thunderclap or a hole in the road. I was beginning to feel stretched and thin. Even the faces of my companions seemed distant and grey, as if they were also behind a dark veil of rain.

“Ill weather,” one of them—Lord Loren’s cook, a jowly woman called Divis—muttered. “Ill omen, if you ask me.”

“It is merely rain,” Istan said with a shrug.

She slit her eyes at him. “Mayhap you call this normal for a summer in Suramm. Here, it is ill weather for the turn of year. How will we light the fires to fend off Lord Winter, if everything’s soaked through?”

“And what happens if you can’t light the fires?” Istan’s tone was light, but harshness dwelled beneath it. “Winter comes early, and stays all year?”

“I’ll not hear your heathen talk with the thunder overhead,” Divis said. “We’ll bring it down upon us. Now they’re not getting their barrels of blood from our battlefields, they have to make their own.”

“Be civil, both of you,” Lord Loren said. I glanced up at him; he sounded as tired as I felt.

Divis snorted, but said no more. Istan turned away from her toward the rain-soaked window, his face troubled.

I felt an errant stab of guilt at Divis’s words. I was neither soldier nor sailor, to ask much from the Storm Lords, but I had not prayed even to the Lord of Stars for months, and he was my patron. Even Tallisk, who was no pious man, kept a small icon of him in his atelier.

After that, I must have slept, because I dreamed: I saw faces in the clouds, immense and iron-black, and heard cannonballs whistle and roar around me. I held a sword, but it was too heavy to lift, and I could not raise it against the coming horde.

I snapped to waking. Everyone was quiet, dozing or trying to; judging from Istan’s soft snores, he at least had succeeded. It was night now, and the worst of the storm was behind us. Every few minutes, the sky still flashed silver with lightning, but the thunder was distant, growling like a sleeping dog. I could not find my way back to sleep, and I watched the rain dwindle through a gap in the curtain.

It was nearly sunrise when the rest of the passengers stirred. Istan was the first to wake, sitting up with a jerk and looking about him, wild-eyed. When he saw nothing to be wild about, he settled back into the seat, shoulders creaking. “We’re near the vineyards, then,” he said.

“How do you know?” He had not looked out of the window.

“The ground feels right for it. And we’ve covered enough distance; how much further could they be?”

We had made good time, despite the storm. Soon we were on proper roads again. The walls of Peretim could not be far. I sat upright in my seat, aware of the pains in every muscle, but uncaring. I did not know when I had begun to see the city, with its smells and fullness, as my home, but I did, and I could not wait to return to it.

Chapter Thirty-Two

When we rolled into the city, I half expected to be taken directly to the house on Nightwell Street. Lord Loren’s courtesy did not allow it; I was taken to the palace, to his apartments, and would be fed and bathed. It seemed Doiran would be denied the dubious honor of teasing the travel knots from my hair. Istan, bleary-eyed himself, was assigned the task of my care, and he looked none too happy about it. After he restored me to some semblance of civilization, he nodded to me.

“Time to go,” he said.

I bowed. “Lord Loren?”

“Is asleep, after a long journey. I have been instructed to send you home.”

Again, I bowed, ignoring a small pang of regret. “Please convey all my regards to—”

He cut me off with a sharp gesture. “Yes. I
know.
I must make sure he hears all the niceties.”

I bit my lip and looked away. I had barely spoken to Loren, since he had come to my bed—since he had sent me to the Count, carrying his message.

Istan sighed. “Come now. Or your household will be asleep when we bring you home.” He smiled, a half-moon of bared teeth. “Your chariot awaits.”

He did not see fit to accompany me home. He had his own duties to attend to. I watched the palace recede from the carriage, all its lit windows blurring in the dark. They became pinprick specks then winked out of my view as I was rolled down the cobblestones to Nightwell Street.

The driver was an old man, with a nose like a blighted root. He smiled at me when he opened the door. It was kind enough, though smiles did not sit right on his ancient face. “There y’are,” he said. “To the door of y’r house.”

I bowed. “Thank you, sir.”

He clapped one of his crabbed hands on my shoulder and steered me to the door. “Been told to see y’ in.” He knocked thrice, loudly.

It did not take long for Yana to answer. She looked first at the driver, then at me, and did not quite smile. “Etan,” she said. “Good to see you. Come inside.”

Glad to be out from under the driver’s hand, I slipped inside. She tipped the man, then closed the door. I stood in the entrance hall and breathed, breathed in deep. The house held the same scent as my cloak; I was home.

Yana looked me over, smiling faintly. There was something hollow about her eyes, I thought. “To tell the truth,” she said, “we’d not expected you home so soon. Isadel said she’d seen storms on her tail.”

“Isadel? She is back?” I knew the Count and his retinue would have made better time than we had, but I had not thought she’d be comfortably ensconced before I’d even arrived.

“The Count has good drivers. And good horses, I suppose.” Yana sighed. “You haven’t the best home to return to, Etan. No supper’s made, since Doiran’s taken time to be with family, and I’m the best you have for a cook ’til he returns. Not to mention Tallisk’s in a right mood.”

“Should I go see him?”

“I’d not, but it’s on your back.” Yana took my luggage. I followed behind with a sense of unease. If she could not make a joke of Tallisk’s mood, it was cause to worry. The house was still, and it felt like clouds before a storm.

Yana took the bulk of my clothes to be washed and folded the remainder into my wardrobe. I changed into my house clothes, glad to slip into more comfortable wear.

“Do you want some supper?” Yana asked me.

My stomach lurched, and I shook my head. I did not even wish to think about eating; my innards were still churning with the rhythm of the road.

“Well, just let me know, before I head to bed.” She smiled wanly at me and left.

I sat on my bed for a few moments, breathing in the familiar scent of my room. The window was open only a little; the summer air of the city trickled its way in. I closed my eyes a moment and heard crickets somewhere in the garden. Though I should have been dog-tired from the journey, I could not sleep. The moon was barely risen.

I stood and went to Isadel’s room, mere paces from mine. For a moment, I remembered her eyes, flaring with something like fury...but she was my sister-Adorned, and the nearest I had to a friend.

I knocked on the door, soft, a little hesitant. There was a shuffling within, and a curse. Unmistakably Isadel’s, that voice, and her choice of oaths. She opened the door a crack, peering out at me. “Oh,” she said. “It’s you, then.”

“You returned quickly,” I said.

She shrugged. “The Count travels fast. What do you want?”

I blinked. “Just your company. We barely spoke, all our time in Fevrewood.”

“Come in, then.”

She moved away from the door, leaving it half open, and I followed her inside. The curtains were shut, and her room smelled of lamp oil and unwashed sheets.

I frowned. “What happened while I was gone?”

“Nothing
happened.
” Her tone was mincing, a vicious imitation of my voice. “I’m tired, Tallisk’s in a black mood, and Yana cannot cook worth a damn.”

“What’s wrong with Master Tallisk?”

“A sore head and a thwarted hand. He does not like his Adorned on overlong displays.” She sighed, and something in her softened a little. “You would have been better served spending the night at Lord Loren’s apartments.”

I almost laughed. “I’m not so sure of that.”

Isadel’s brows furrowed; she saw something behind my words, but chose to say nothing. I was grateful. I did not want to answer her too-clever questions.

“Well,” she said, “he chose to keep you for a plenty-long feast. That’s not something to mourn.”

I stood there a moment, swaying from foot to foot. Finally she sighed and patted her bed; I sat down beside her. “Is Tallisk angry with us? With me?”

She shrugged. “Who can tell? He’s not prone to sharing his thoughts with me. Or with anyone.” She leaned forward. “You’ll take my advice and not try to tease them out of him, yes?”

I laughed, uneasy. “Why would I?”

“Oh, Etan.” She laughed too, then. “Sometimes, it seems you know very little of yourself.”

I twisted my lips in a grimace. “Perhaps some of us don’t study ourselves in great detail.” I had meant it as a weak jest, but she took it in stride, nodding.

“You should try it sometime,” she said. “It may prove enlightening.”

Not feeling much reassured by her words, I went back to my room. Yana had lit the lamps. I smiled a little to myself; it was strange, how much I’d missed those small things, like the familiar light of the lamps in my room.

I took out the gifts from Lord Loren and the Count. Among them was a white vest, sewn with silver thread, which I lingered over longest. I held it to my face and caught the merest ghost of a scent, of warm, clean skin. I thought of the night air, and a stolen kiss.

It had been mine to give, that foolish kiss. No one had paid for it or considered it theirs to claim. That, I thought, made it sweet and worth treasuring, regardless of how useless, how impertinent a gesture it had been—regardless of how it had been more spurred by dreams and shadows than by the man I had given it to.

I sat alone in my room for a while, but I could not think of sleep. Nor did I want to bother Isadel again; she did not seem in the mood for company. I felt too restless to stay sitting quietly on my bed. I stood and decided to go to the library.

Opening my door, I glanced about the hallways. They were dark and silent, as if the hour was much later. I took a carry-lamp and shuffled my way out into the gloom. All I could see was a line of light from under Isadel’s door.

I turned, then, and collided with something hard. I thought for a mad moment the walls had moved, but then I knew this was no wall. This was warm and alive: a man, with a beating heart. I stepped back, startled, and raised the carry-lamp.

Tallisk stood before me in the darkness. His eyes slid over me, through me, as if he did not see me at all.

“Sir?”

He fixed his eyes on mine then, and it was as if winter had come in a second. My mouth went dry. I pressed myself against the wall, and he walked by me, fixing his cold gaze on some distant point. When he wished it, his footsteps were silent as a cat’s, nothing at all like his usual clumping gallop. He moved without a sound, cutting through the darkness like a ship through black waters, and turned down the stairs to the cellar.

I had little heart now for reading, my blood beating in my ears still. I slunk back to my room and sat there in the quiet. A single lamp cast shadows on the walls. After a while I undressed, doused my lamps and lay down on my bed atop the covers. It was a close, clammy night. The storms had not yet reached the city, or else they had passed, but failed to clear the air. It was still too thick, treacle-warm, making me aware of every breath.

The whistling-plague had taken many children of Lun. My father had bought the best medicine, kept me cool with shade and water, and I had lived—but every summer, I remembered. Did Madame Death feel cheated of me, I wondered, even after all these years? Would she pursue me, watching, waiting for me to fall?

With these thoughts weighing on me, I tried my best to sleep, but soon enough I saw the sky lightening through the window. I’d not slept a wink, and
now
I felt tired—tired and worn, though still not inclined to sleeping. My head was full of churning visions: the black stars of my heat-faint, the silver thread of my new clothes. And somewhere behind them all, a shadow: the shadow of Roberd Tallisk.

It was the sudden dark fact of him in the hallway I recalled, and something else, something I’d not noticed in the briefness of the moment when we’d collided. My hand had skimmed his chest, touched its hard warmth. His heart had been beating so fast under that hand. What kind of man, I thought, would stay so still, so cold, when his heart was drumming out a fury?

Chapter Thirty-Three

I had been home for two weeks now, and still I was a ghost to Tallisk.

I would rise and breakfast in the kitchen, then read, play games of solitaire, or drift about the house, useless. If I had a bit of luck, I could go to the market with Yana, or help the returned Doiran with a few simple chores. Isadel was kept busy under the needle, but had not been summoned to display.