"I"ll bear that in mind," I said, giving him half courtesy.
"No, you won"t," he muttered as I turned to go. "You"re too like your mother."
Daylight failed impossibly early, a.s.sisted by a glowering cloud cover; more snow was coming. After a full day of errands and tasks, I had only the princess"s harpsichord lesson left. She"d had a hectic day herself, overrun with council-related duties; five messengers found me over the course of the day, each requesting a further delay of her lesson until it had been pushed back to almost suppertime. As I approached the south solar one last messenger intercepted me; I must"ve rolled my eyes, because the lad stuck out his tongue before scurrying up the hall.
The note had clearly been dictated. It read: The princess requests that you meet her downstairs in the second laundry. It is urgent. Come immediately.
I blinked at the parchment in confusion. Why would Glisselda want to meet in such an obscure place? Perhaps she was afraid of being overheard.
I ducked down a servants" stairway to the narrow, utilitarian pa.s.sages below. I pa.s.sed under the great hall and the chambers of state, past storerooms, servants" quarters, and the barred, gloomy entrance of the donjon. I pa.s.sed a sweltering laundry, but it was the wrong one-or so I deduced by the distinct absence of Princess Glisselda. I questioned a laundress, who pointed me further down the corridor into darkness.
I reached the furnace belonging to the hypocaust for the Queen"s bathroom. Three grimy men fed coal into its open mouth, which reminded me uncomfortably of Imlann"s.
The men leered at me, too, leaning on their shovels and grinning toothlessly.
I paused, the stink of coal heavy in my nostrils. Had I understood the laundress properly? Surely no one would want to wear clothing washed in such close proximity to coal fumes?
I considered asking the hypocaust stokers for directions, but there was something ominous in their aspect. I watched them shoveling; I could not seem to turn away. The heat blasted against my exposed face, even from this distance. Their silhouettes were dark holes in the frantic firelight. Acrid smoke permeated the entire room, making my eyes and lungs sting.
It was like the Infernum, the torments that awaited souls who rejected the light of Heaven. Somehow, eternal pain was still considered preferable to having no soul at all. I wasn"t sure I saw why.
I turned my back upon this h.e.l.lish vision. A dark, horned figure stepped directly into my path.
To my dumbfoundment, it was Lady Corongi; I"d mistaken the two peaks of her old-fashioned b.u.t.terfly hennin. "Is that you, Maid Dombegh?" she asked, peering as if her eyes were not adjusted. "You seem lost, dear girl."
I emitted a small laugh of relief and gave courtesy, but did not think I should confess that I was to meet the princess somewhere down here. "I was just on my way to Glisselda"s music lesson."
"You"ve chosen an eccentric route." She glanced toward the grimy troglodytes behind me and wrinkled her powdered nose in distaste. "Come, I will show you the way back." She stood waiting, her left elbow jutting out like a chicken"s wing; I deduced I was supposed to take it.
"So," she said as we walked back up the narrow corridor together. "It has been some time since we spoke."
"Er ... I suppose it has," I said, uncertain as to her point.
She smirked under her veil. "I hear you"ve become quite the brave adventuress since then, dallying with knights, sa.s.sing dragons, kissing the second heir"s fiance."
I went cold. Was that story going around too? Was this what Viridius had meant, that rumors gained momentum as they careered along until they were utterly beyond our power to halt? "Milady," I said shakily, "someone has been telling you lies."
Her hand upon my arm had tightened into a claw. "You think you know so much," she said, her voice incongruously pleasant. "But you are outmaneuvered, my pet. Do you know what St. Ogdo says about arrogance? "There is blindness in sight, and folly in cleverness. Be patient: even the brightest fire burns itself out." "
"He was talking about dragons," I said. "And what have I done to make you think me arrogant? Is it because I criticized your teaching?"
"All shall become clear, to the righteous," she said lightly, dragging me along. We turned west; we entered a laundry.
The second laundry.
The cauldrons were all upturned and the laundresses gone up to supper, but the fires still roared. Bedsheets hung from the ceiling racks, their hemlines grazing the floor, wafting like gowns at a ghostly ball. Shadows flickered grotesquely against these pale screens, growing and shrinking with the fickle firelight.
One shadow moved with purpose. There was someone else here.
Lady Corongi led me through the labyrinth of drying linens to the far corner of the room, where Princess Dionne awaited us, pacing like a caged lioness. This felt wrong. I stopped short; Lady Corongi hauled me forward. The princess sneered. "I suppose it would be fair to let you explain yourself, Maid Dombegh."
The room had no other door and only the tiniest window, high up the wall, completely steamed over. I began to sweat in the heat; I couldn"t tell what she wanted explained. My dodging the bleed? My rumored dragonhood? Lady Corongi"s other accusation? All of these? I dared not guess. "Explain what, exactly, Your Highness?"
She drew a dagger from her bodice. "Kindly note: I was fair. Clarissa, hold her."
Lady Corongi was shockingly strong for one so pet.i.te and genteel. She put me in a wrestling hold-"the belt buckle," it"s called, though it"s like a buckle for the shoulders and neck. Princess Dionne moved as if to grab my left arm; I quickly presented her with my right. She gave a small nod and sniffed, satisfied that I was cooperating. I expected her to jab one of my fingers, but she pushed up my sleeves, wrenched my hand back, and drew her knife swiftly across my pale wrist.
I cried out. My heart was galloping like a horse. I jerked my hand away and a spray of red splotches bloomed across the linens hung in front of us like a field of poppies or some hideous parody of a bridal sheet.
"Well. That"s irritating," said the princess, disgusted.
"No!" cried Lady Corongi. "It"s a trick! I have it on good authority that she reeks of saar!"
"Your good authority got it wrong," said Princess Dionne, wrinkling her nose. "I smell nothing, and you don"t, either. Rumor changes with the telling; perhaps she wasn"t the one originally implicated. They all look alike, these common brutes."
Lady Corongi let go of me; I collapsed to the floor. She lifted the hem of her gown fastidiously, pinkies raised, and kicked me with her pointy shoes. "How did you do it, monster? How do you disguise your blood?"
"She"s not a saarantras," said a calm female voice from beyond the forest of sheets. Someone began crossing the room toward us, paying no attention to the maze, pushing linens aside and barging straight through. "Stop kicking her, you bony b.i.t.c.h," said Dame Okra Carmine, letting the bloodied sheet fall in place behind her.
Princess Dionne and Lady Corongi stared, as if Dame Okra"s solid shape made a more convincing ghost than all the billowing sheets around her. "I heard a scream," said Dame Okra. "I considered calling the Guard, but I decided to see what had happened first. Maybe someone merely saw a rat." She sneered at Lady Corongi. "Close enough."
Lady Corongi kicked me one last time, as if to prove that Dame Okra couldn"t stop her. Princess Dionne wiped her dagger on a handkerchief, which she tossed into a nearby hamper, and stepped genteelly around my p.r.o.ne form. She paused to glare down at me. "Do not imagine that being human is all it takes to regain my esteem, strumpet. My daughter may be a fool, but I am not."
She took Lady Corongi"s arm, and the pair of them departed with the dignified air of n.o.blewomen who have nothing to be ashamed of.
Dame Okra held her tongue until they were gone, then rushed to help me, clucking, "Why, yes, you are an idiot for following them into an empty laundry room. Did you imagine they had a fine pillowcase to show you?"
"I never imagined this!" I cradled my arm, which bled alarmingly.
Dame Okra recovered Princess Dionne"s handkerchief and wrapped my wrist. "You do smell of saar," she said quietly. "A bit of perfume would cover that right up. That"s how I do it. Can"t let a little thing like parentage stand in our way, can we?"
She helped me to my feet. I told her I needed to get to the south solar; she pushed up her gla.s.ses with a fat finger and scowled at me like I was mad. "You need help, on multiple fronts," she said. "My stomach is pulling two directions at once, which is highly irritating. I"m not sure which way to go first."
We emerged upstairs in the vicinity of the Blue Salon. Dame Okra raised a hand in warning; I held back while she peered around the corner. I heard voices and footsteps, the sounds of Millie and Princess Glisselda heading away from the south solar, where they"d waited for a music lesson that never happened.
Dame Okra squeezed my elbow and whispered, "Whatever her mother may say, Glisselda"s no fool."
"I know," I said, swallowing hard.
"Don"t you be one either."
Dame Okra pulled me around the corner, into the path of the girls. Princess Glisselda emitted a little scream. "Seraphina! Saints in Heaven, what have you done to yourself?"
"Looks like she has a good excuse for being late," said Millie. "You owe me-"
"Yes, yes, shut up. Where did you find her, Amba.s.sadress?"
"No time to explain just now," said Dame Okra. "Take her someplace safe, Infanta. There may be people looking for her. And see to her arm. I have one more thing to attend to, and then I will find you."
The handkerchief had soaked through; there was a streak of blood all the way down the front of my gown. My sight grew dim, but then there was a young woman at each of my elbows, propping me up, moving me on, chatting away. They swept me upstairs into an apartment I deduced was Millie"s. "... you"re nearly the same size," Glisselda squealed excitedly. "We"ll finally have you looking pretty as can be!"
"First things first, Princess," said Millie. "Let"s see that arm."
I needed st.i.tches; they called the Queen"s own surgeon. He administered a gla.s.s of plum brandy, then another, until I had choked down three. I appeared immune to its dulling effects, so he finally gave up and st.i.tched me up, tut-tutting at my tears and wishing aloud that I had been drunker. I"d expected the girls to look away, but they did not. They gasped, clutching each other, but watched every needle jab and tug of thread.
"Might one inquire how you did this to yourself, Music Mistress?" asked the surgeon, a phlegmatic old fellow without a hair on his head.
"She fell," Glisselda offered. "On a sharp ... thing."
"In the bas.e.m.e.nt," added Millie, which I"m sure bolstered the story"s credibility immensely. The surgeon rolled his eyes but could not be bothered to inquire further.
Once the girls had shooed him out, Glisselda grew grave. "How did it happen?"
The spirits seemed finally to have reached my head; between brandy and blood loss and a dearth of supper, the room began to swim before my eyes. As much as I wanted to lie-because how could I tell Glisselda that her own mother cut me?-I could come up with no plausible alternative story. I would omit Princess Dionne, at least. "You"ve heard the rumor that I am a ... a saar?"
Heaven forfend that she had heard the other rumor.
"It was vicious," said the princess, "and evidently unfounded."
"I hadn"t been bled yet. Some zealous, uh, vigilantes decided to do it for me."
Glisselda leaped to her feet, seething. "Isn"t this exactly what we hoped to avoid?"
"It is, Princess," said Millie, shaking her head and putting the kettle on the hearth.
"Seraphina, I"m appalled it came to this," said the princess. "My original idea-"
"And Lucian"s," said Millie, apparently allowed to interrupt the second heir.
Glisselda flashed her an irritated look: "One of his Porphyrian philosophers helped too, if you"re going to be that way about it. The idea was that we should all be jabbed, everyone, from Grandmamma herself to the lowliest scullion, n.o.ble with common, human with dragon. It would be fair.
"But several n.o.bles and dignitaries argued vociferously against it. "We should be exempt! We are people of quality!" In the end, only courtiers of less than two years" tenure and commoners must get tested-and you see the result, my Millie? Vigilantism, and that b.a.s.t.a.r.d Apsig gets off without a scratch."
Glisselda ranted on; I couldn"t focus on it. The room swayed like the deck of a ship. I was thoroughly inebriated now; I suffered the illusion that my head might fall off, for it seemed too heavy to support. Someone spoke, but it took some minutes for the words to penetrate my consciousness: "We ought to at least change her out of that b.l.o.o.d.y gown before Dame Okra comes back."
"No, no," I said, or intended to. Intention and action were curiously blurred, and judgment seemed to have retired for the night entirely. Millie had a tall privacy screen, painted with weeping willows and water lilies, and I let myself be persuaded behind it. "All right, but just the top gown needs replacing," I said, my words floating over the screen like vapid, ineffective bubbles.
"You bled fearfully," called Millie. "Surely it soaked straight through?"
"No one can see what"s beneath ...," I began, fuzzily.
Glisselda popped her head around the edge of the lacquered screen; I gasped and nearly pitched over, even though I was still covered. "I shall know," she chirped. "Millie! Top and bottom layers!"
Millie produced a chemise of the softest, whitest linen I had ever touched. I wanted to wear it, which addled my judgment still further. I began to undress. Across the room, the girls bickered over colors for the gown; apparently accounting for my complexion and my hair required complicated algebra. I giggled, and began explaining how to solve a quadratic complexion equation, even though I couldn"t quite remember.
I had removed all my clothing-and my good sense along with it-when Glisselda popped her head around the end of the screen behind me, saying, "Hold this scarlet up to your chin and let"s see-oh!"
Her cry snapped the world back into hard focus for a moment. I whirled to face her, holding Millie"s chemise up in front of me like a shield, but she"d gone. The room reeled. She"d seen the band of silver scales across my back. I clapped a hand to my mouth to stop myself screaming.
They whispered together urgently, Glisselda"s voice squeaky with panic, Millie"s calm and reasonable. I yanked Millie"s chemise over my head, almost tearing a shoulder seam in my rush because I couldn"t work out where all my limbs were or how to move them. I curled up on the floor, balling up my own gown, pressing it to my mouth because I was breathing too hard. I waited in agony for either of them to say something.
"Phina?" said Princess Glisselda at long last, rapping upon the screen as if it were a door. "Was that a ... a Saint"s burthen?"
My foggy brain couldn"t pa.r.s.e her words. What was a Saint"s burthen? My reflex was to answer no, but mercifully I managed to hold that in check. She was offering me a way out, if only I could make sense of it.
I had managed to stay silent. She couldn"t hear the tears coursing down my cheeks. I took a deep breath and said shakily, "Is what a Saint"s burthen?"
"That silver girdle you wear."
I thanked all the Saints in Heaven, and their dogs. She had not believed her own eyes. How crazy was that, to think you"d seen dragon scales sprouting out of human flesh? It must have been something, anything else. I coughed, to clear the tears out of my voice, and said as casually as I could, "Oh, that. Yes. Saint"s burthen."
"For which Saint?"
Which Saint ... which Saint ... I could not think of a single Saint. Luckily, Millie piped up, "My aunt wore an iron anklet for St. Vitt. It worked: she never doubted again."
I closed my eyes; it was easier to produce coherent thoughts without vision distracting me. I injected some truth: "At my blessing day, my patron was St. Yirtrudis."
"The heretic?" They both gasped. No one ever seemed to know what Yirtrudis"s heresy had consisted of, but it didn"t seem to matter. The very idea of heresy was dreadful enough.
"The priest told us Heaven intended St. Capiti," I continued, "but from that day to this, I"ve had to wear a silver girdle to, uh, deflect heresy."
This impressed and apparently satisfied them. They handed me a gown; scarlet had won the argument. They did my hair and exclaimed at how lovely I was when I bothered to try. "Keep the gown," insisted Millie. "Wear it on Treaty Eve."
"You are all generosity, my Millie!" said Glisselda, pinching Millie"s ear proudly, as if she"d invented her lady-in-waiting herself.
A rap at the door was Dame Okra, who stood on tiptoe to peer past Millie"s shoulder. "She"s all patched up? I"ve found just the person to whisk her away to safety-after which I require a word with you, Infanta."
Millie and the princess helped me to my feet. "I"m so sorry," Glisselda whispered warmly in my ear. I looked down at her. Everything seemed shinier viewed through three brandy gla.s.ses, but the glittering at the corners of her eyes was real enough.
Dame Okra ushered me out the door, toward my waiting father.
The chill wind in the open sledge did little to sober me up. My father drove, seated close, sharing the lap rug and foot box. My head bobbed unsteadily; he let me rest it on his shoulder. If I were to weep, surely the tears would freeze upon my cheeks.
"I"m sorry, Papa. I tried to keep to myself; I didn"t mean it to go wrong," I muttered into his dark wool cloak. He said nothing, which I found inexplicably encouraging. I gestured grandly at the dark city, a suitable backdrop to my drunken sense of epic tragic destiny. "But they"re sending Orma away, which is my fault, and I played my flute so beautifully that I fell in love with everyone and now I want everything. And I can"t have it. And I"m ashamed to be running away."
"You"re not running away," said Papa, taking the reins in one gloved hand and hesitantly patting my knee with the other. "At least, you need not decide until morning."
"You"re not going to lock me up for good?" I said, on the verge of blubbering. Some sober part of my brain seemed to observe everything I did, clucking disdainfully, informing me that I ought to be embarra.s.sed, yet making no move to stop me.
Papa ignored that comment, which was probably wise. Snow spangled his gray lawyer"s cap; little droplets stuck to his brows and lashes. He spoke in measured tones. "Did you fall in love with anyone specific, or simply with the things you cannot have?"
"Both," I said, "and Lucian Kiggs."
"Ah." For some time the only sounds were of harness bells, horses snorting in the cold, and packed snow creaking under the sledge runners. My head waxed heavy.
I jerked awake. My father was speaking: "... that she never trusted me. That cut more deeply than anything else. She believed I would stop loving her if I knew the truth. All the gambles she took, and she never took the one that mattered most. One in a thousand is better odds than zero, but zero is what she settled for. Because how could I love her if I couldn"t see her? Whom did I love, exactly?"
I nodded, and jerked awake again. The air was alive, bright with snowflakes.