Lord Carle said, "What you say is true not only of the Chara, but of masters in general. Among the higher ranks, of course, friendship may flourish, but I think that it is a mistake for a master to become too intimate with his servants. That sort of situation leads only to ill conduct on the part of the servants."
"Nobody could accuse you of having poorly trained servants, Carle," said Lord Dean.
"Thank you, High Lord. I do my best, and I think that the results are satisfying, not only to myself, but also to my free-servant and slaves. Servants do not really wish to be pampered and allowed to do bad work – they thrive on discipline and labor. The results are manifold: cheerful servants, well-run quarters, and the knowledge that my life is as orderly and systematic as the Chara's own—" He stopped suddenly, alerted by the expression of Peter, who was biting his lip in an attempt to contain laughter.
I stepped back from Lord Carle with the water pitcher in hand. Lord Carle stared at the table for a moment. Then, without looking my way, he beckoned to his free-servant and said quietly, "Henry, you have done an excellent job in serving us tonight; I am grateful. Nevertheless, I do not think that I need any water in my small cup, especially as it was already half-filled with wine."
"I will get you another cup, Lord Carle," murmured Henry, reaching forward.
I did not need to see Henry's quick look of instruction to know I must leave. As I neared the door, Lord Carle's voice, very soft, drifted back toward me: "Oh, and I would like to see you in my study chamber later this evening, Andrew."
I hesitated and looked back. Lord Carle had not bothered to turn his head to address me, but beyond him were the eyes of the Chara's son, watching me with sympathy.
CHAPTER FIVE
"Well?" said Lord Carle.
He was standing with me in his study chamber, his arms folded and his brows drawn low. The furiously burning fire beside him had turned his face even redder than usual, and I could see sweat on his forehead.
I kept my gaze carefully pointed at the wall behind him. "I am sorry for the mistake I made this evening, Lord Carle."
"Mistake."
Lord Carle spat out the word as though it were the bitter portion of a fruit. He put a hand out to lean on the table nearby and said in a caustic voice, "If that had been a true apology, I would have considered it a miracle greater than the Emorian victory at Mountain Heights, since you have never once apologized to me for any of your defiances for the past three years. But even the Chara's son, who does not know your Koretian talent for deception, could see that your actions tonight were no mistake. On the contrary, you were quite successful in your goal of shaming me in front of my guests."
He reached over suddenly and took a dry log from the wood pile, then thrust it into the fire, so that the flames blazed up in fury. Turning back to me, he said in that quiet voice I had grown to fear, "Lord Diggory's slave Patrick came by my quarters after dinner tonight to deliver a message from his master. He stayed to deliver his own message, which was that you were planning to kill the Chara."
The red-golden flames reached upward, tearing at the air in a futile attempt to escape the chamber. The room was hotter than before, but I felt as though I had just been ducked under ice-cold water. I did not move.
"I think he hoped that I would pass on a good word to his master about him," Lord Carle continued. "I was obliged to explain to him that I had no good words to say about anyone who would betray a confidence. He was also disappointed to learn that I was fully informed of your ambition, since you had revealed it to me yourself. I must say I was gratified to learn that I have a servant who is so single-minded in his designs. But perhaps it will give you greater incentive to put your thoughts to your service duties if I tell you that you will not be in any condition to try your assassination attempt if you do not learn to behave. As you know, in most cases I do not find that it is necessary to resort to physical discipline, but you have sorely tried my patience."
He turned then, as though he had finished speaking to me, and strode over to the leather-bound books that lined the whole of one wall. He stared at them for a moment, as though reaching into them for inspiration. When he turned and spoke to me again, it was in a voice so soft that I could not tell whether he was being very gentle or very vicious.
"Henry tells me that you are the hardest-working and most meticulous slave he has ever supervised in his years with me," said Lord Carle. "This matches my own impression of your work. I also know that you are discreet and keep your observations to yourself, a quality that is hard to find in slaves. For this reason, I have discussed with Henry the possibility of sending you to work in my country home, which is lightly manned, as I have no family and rarely visit the house. Since few servants work there, you would be given greater independence in carrying out your duties."
He paused. He was just out of reach of my gaze, and so my eyes wandered toward him in an effort to see his face. Then I caught myself and stared intently at the wall once more.
"Tonight's episode," said Lord Carle, his voice rising, "confirms the conclusion I had already reached, which is that you are ill-suited for independent duties. To be allowed independence, a servant must have respect for his master, and you have no respect for your superiors at all. Indeed, so deep is your insolence that I am beginning to wonder whether you even respected your Koretian superiors before coming here. So, much as I would like to banish your troublesome presence and rid myself of the Koretian blood-fly I was foolish enough to take into my care, it is my duty to keep you here at the palace. It is my obligation, as your master, to teach you your own duty, which is to behave in a civilized Emorian manner. I have told you before: If you want to plot in your mind the murder of the Chara or the watering of my wine, I will not interfere with that. But while you are under my care, you will keep those schemes deep inside you and never allow them to be witnessed by me or anyone else. Do you understand?"
"Yes, Lord Carle." My reply did not come out with cutting defiance as it usually did, but dully, as though the blade of my voice had been blunted by a heavy stone.
"If you understand, then by all the laws of the Chara, you will—"
He stopped abruptly at the sound of a knock. The door opened a crack, and I saw the Chara's son peering in.
"Welcome, Lord Peter," said Lord Carle, his voice instantly mild. "May I help you with something?"
I was still gazing rigidly at the wall, but I could see Peter looking between me and the council lord. "I did not mean to disturb you, Lord Carle. I can come at another time."
"I am your father's servant and will one day be yours; I always have time to speak with the Chara's son." Lord Carle glanced at me. "We will finish this conversation later, Andrew. Return to your quarters now."
I gave him the bow my duty required, and then turned to leave the room. My eyes were lowered, so I could not see the Chara's son, but I felt him brush by me as we passed in the doorway.
As the door closed, I stopped and let my gaze rise again. As a senior council lord, Lord Carle had several chambers in his quarters, all connected by the passageway in which I stood. To the right of me, the dark passage led north and then east to the palace corridor door, but I my gaze strayed toward the other end of the passage, to a window hidden in half-shadows from the passage lamplight. I walked forward until I was standing in front of the window; then I pulled back the shutters.
A frosty breeze swirled in. This night was midwinter's eve, though the weather had been so mild this year that the first snowfall had not yet arrived. The moon lay below the edge of the world, and the city beneath was as dark as though the night sky had fallen atop it like a blanket. Its stars were the torches that still burned through the night, most of them coming from the soldiers who were patrolling the streets. A subtle scent wafted in on the breeze: the smell of the grape vines clutching the palace walls for warmth. These were the same grapes that were harvested to make the Emorian wine I had watered that night.
I leaned against the stone passage wall, hugging my arms to my chest in order to protect myself against the cold. My eyes were not on the city below, nor on the countryside beyond, but on the border mountains, black against the black sky, still free of the snow that would block its passes in a short time. Somewhere over those mountains was the Jackal . . . but despite my words to Patrick, it had been many months since I had ended my futile prayers to the god.
I do not know whether minutes passed or hours. But presently, standing with my shoulder against the chilly stones, I felt a presence, as though a warm breeze had made its way over the mountains from Koretia. I turned my head and saw the Chara's son.
He was watching me. As I sighted him he took a step backwards, as though he had wandered into the midst of a secret and sacred ceremony. Then, when I did not speak, he said, "I didn't mean to disturb you. I was wondering what you were looking at, and couldn't see without coming near you, because the window is so small."
His voice was as quiet as moonlight, and his look was so respectful that I forgot to whom I was speaking and said, "All of the windows here are small."
He came forward then and stood beside me, looking out at the mountains. I moved as far as possible to the right to make way for him.
He asked, "Are the windows larger in Koretia?"
"They are much larger," I said, still caught in the spell of his quietness. "Koretians sit in their windows and look at the view outside. I suppose that the windows have to be larger because of the heat."
His eyes still fixed on the mountains, Peter stepped forward and leaned his elbows on the windowsill, and then placed his chin atop his clasped hands. "I've only been to Koretia once. My father thinks it's too dangerous for me to visit there again. Some of the council lords have taken me with them on visits to Marcadia and Arpesh. But one day, when I become Chara, I'll have to stay in the palace all of the time unless war occurs. I'll never be able to leave here, and that makes this place seem like a prison to me sometimes."
Something about the pain in his voice drew me closer, until I found I was standing next to him at the window, my arm brushing his. "But you'll be the Chara, and even if you can't leave here, you'll be able to do whatever you like."
"Will I? My father can't do as he likes. He says that he wishes to spend time with me, but most days he's in the Court of Judgment or the Map Room or the Council Chamber. From dawn until bed he is kept busy upholding the laws of Emor, and he can't do anything that would interfere with his duties."
I was silent for a moment, struggling to hold back the disrespectful words that were welling up in me, but I lost the battle. "I was watching you this evening, and you reminded me of a Koretian slave."
The Chara's son looked over at me. His face displayed only curiosity. "I thought you didn't have slaves in Koretia."
"We did in the days before the Chara took control. An old Koretian story says that the masters could see when their slaves were angry and hurt, and this enraged the masters, who punished the slaves repeatedly as a result. Finally the slaves begged to be allowed to wear masks so that their true thoughts would remain hidden from their masters. I don't know whether this story is true, but the slaves in Koretia certainly wore masks – and that's why you reminded me of them, because it seemed to me as though you were wearing a mask tonight, showing everyone only what you wanted them to see."
I was breathless by the end of my bold speech, dizzy from lack of air or lack of fear. Peter put his chin back down on his knuckles and said, "That's what it felt like just now, listening to Lord Carle explain to me the proper way in which to manage servants. I've no doubt that he told me much that will be useful to me when I come to power. But something about the way he spoke of his slaves angered me so much that all I could think was that I mustn't let him know what I was truly thinking. And so I kept nodding as though I agreed, and I think he was pleased with our talk."
"That's the best way to deal with Lord Carle," I said, as though the Chara's son were a fellow slave who needed my advice.
"I'll remember that." He was silent for a long while, and I had begun to wonder whether he wanted me to leave when he asked suddenly, "Have we met before? I felt sure that we had when I saw you earlier. I suppose I must have seen you around the palace, but . . ." His voice trailed off.
"It was in the cave."
Even as I spoke, I knew that he would not be able to remember an encounter that had meant so much to me but so little to him. And indeed, for a moment he neither spoke nor moved, so that I began to prepare a longer explanation. Then, with a motion as quick as though his life depended on it, he took hold of my arm and swung me round to face him. This time I took care to lower my eyes, though I could sense him scanning my face.
At last he emitted a slow sigh and released my arm. "Yes, your eyes are what I remembered," he said. "You were the one who ran away."
Something made me say, "It wasn't me who threw the dagger after that. My friend John and I had come across your hiding place by accident."
"Was there another boy there? I didn't see him." He was silent again, and I kept my gaze fastened on a rose-gold brooch pinning closed the neck-flap of his tunic. I had not noticed it before, but I knew that his father must have given it to him, for it portrayed the royal emblem, which can only be worn by the Chara and his heir. When the Chara's son spoke again, his voice was more hesitant than before, as though he was saying something he did not expect me to understand. "I told everybody that I ran after you that day because I didn't want you to reveal our hiding place. But really, the reason was that, when I saw you, I had a strong feeling that the two of us should talk."
My eyes rose then, compelled not by my own will nor even by the words of the Chara's son, but by the same voice deep inside me that had commanded me to stay and look at the boy in the cave. For a long moment we stared at each other.
It was Peter who broke away his gaze and turned back to look out the window, saying, "This is a beautiful view. But why are you standing here in Lord Carle's quarters, where he might find you? And isn't it a late hour to be watching?"