House War - The Hidden City Part 77

Haval nodded, but it was a slight gesture, framed by bitterness. "You will have to live with the outcome, whatever that outcome may be. Be certain that you can."

"She can," Jewel said again. "Let it be, Haval."

"And are you so eager to see your friend kill?" There was no heat or anger in the question; he might have been talking about the weather.

"Eager?" Jewel asked him, turning the syllables over on her tongue. "No."

"Then?"

"She's Duster. She is what she is. And she'll become what she'll become. But she has to do this, and because she does, I have to do my part."

"And you are so certain?"

"Always," Jewel replied, with complete confidence. Because at this moment, in this street, she was. If there was fear-and there would be, she could feel it coiling in the pit of her stomach, and waiting, biding time-she would face it then.

"Then you must learn. You are not highborn, and Ararath is no fool; Lord Waverly would not touch a highborn girl for all the money in the world. But you cannot be lowborn."

"What do I have to be?"

"The nave child of grasping, merchant parents," he replied. "Parents who are ambitious enough to desire any means of elevating themselves above their circ.u.mstances."

"You've talked to Rath."

"No, Jewel. He will say nothing at all to me of this; he gave me the name, and that was a surprise to me."

"You wouldn't have helped him without it."

The old man favored her with a sharp smile. "You've got good instincts, girl," he told her. "And you are, of course, correct. Remember this about Ararath: He gives what must be given, no more and no less."

"And me?" Duster asked quietly. Quietly enough that Jewel turned to look at her. "What do I have to be?"

"You will be, no doubt, a waitress or a barmaid, possibly even a servant." He frowned for a moment. "A personal servant would not be unknown; the highborn have their attendants, and merchants who are desperate to be a.s.sociated with the highborn will often ape them."

Duster shrugged. "I could do that."

"You could, yes. But you will have to do it well. Lord Waverly must both see you and see through you; you must be in all things what a capable servant is: invisible. Part of the furniture. Nothing you do must draw attention to who you actually are. Everything you present must be a surface, a mask, and it must fit you so perfectly it seems utterly natural." He paused before the rounded curve of a wide, wide tree, and reached out to touch the ice that smoothed out the surface of ancient bark. "If I had two months," he said, almost to himself. "If only I had two months."

"Why don't you?"

"I am not entirely certain. I a.s.sumed it was because your friend, your Duster, will seek redress without patience or concern for her own safety. But . . . it is never wise to make a.s.sumptions based on so little knowledge. Rath is not hasty," he added, "except when the need forces haste upon him.

"And he has chosen the time. Could he, I believe he would choose differently. But enough idle chatter, and enough of this d.a.m.nable cold. Let us return to my shop, and let us begin there as we must continue."

And so it began: Jewel, seated, her back straight, the folds of her dress arranged and rearranged by a very focused Haval, and Duster, fidgeting and agitated, carrying everything: trays, silks, cups, and-yes-a duster. She was not, Jewel thought, good at any of it; she resented the lessons.

But she did as Haval ordered. It gave Jewel an odd sense of hope to balance a growing anxiety.

Ararath Handernesse sat, once again, with Andrei. They did not dine in the formal rooms of the Proud Peac.o.c.k; instead, they chose drinks by the fireside in the round room that was the Peac.o.c.k's pride. The mantel that surrounded the fire was a gleaming piece of redwood, oiled and stained so that it caught and transformed flickering light. Above it were silvered plates that were polished and obviously unused. Above those plates rested a painting of the seascape, waves battering the seawall beneath the proud rise of Senniel College.

Rath recognized the scrawl of a signature in the corner of that painting, and was impressed in spite of his dislike for the pretensions of the Peac.o.c.k's owner; this was not a masterwork, but it was the lesser work of a known artist. Emory Blackwood. A man who, in his august years, was often invited to paint the portraits of the patriciate, and whose brush strokes and fine sense of light had captured the likenesses of even the Kings.

Andrei nodded in recognition, if not quite approval. "It is small wonder the man can afford so little potable wine," he said grudgingly. "It is a lesser work, but it is unmistakably a Blackwood."

Rath nodded as Andrei touched the round stone that was a constant third party in their conversations. He did not allow Rath to touch it, which was wise; Rath wished to see how it was marked, and by whom. He would not ask, and Andrei would never volunteer the information.

There were other questions to be asked, however. "I received your note," Rath said quietly. "And you must know that it is not to my liking."

Andrei nodded slowly. "You've been speaking to Haval."

"And if I have?"

"You've been in the company of two young women."

"Andrei, do not play these games."

"They are not games, Ararath. You are canny enough to pa.s.s through the streets unnoticed should you desire it; they are not."

"You think I'm being hunted."

"You don't?"

Rath shrugged. "I would play another game of distraction," he said softly, "but I fear that it would end in a fashion less to my liking."

"I a.s.sume that your timing is due in large part to the presence of the young women."

"In part," Rath replied uneasily. "But only in part. There are games being played in AMatie's circle, and if I am not privy to them-and I am not, yet, in such a position-I fear they are coming to a close."

Andrei frowned. "Your information?"

"That is unlike you, Andrei."

"There are things at stake that you are beginning to understand," Andrei replied evenly. "Why do you feel the time is pressing?"

"We were hasty in our burning of the brothel," was Rath's reply. "And in the timing of other ventures. I do not pretend to understand the nature or goal of our enemies, but were I in their positions, I would not now sit idle. I would find me," he added, "or those around me."

"Not so easily done."

"Nor so difficult as it would have been a few months ago. I will have to move," he added softly, "before the month is out. But the fact that I cannot be found should be cause for concern."

"It almost certainly is."

"And such concerns are often enough to force a hand that might otherwise remain hidden."

"You could wait," Andrei replied.

"So you've said. Would you?"

Andrei said nothing, which was answer enough. "I've come with the information you requested. I do not think my inquiries have yet come to light."

"But they will."

Andrei shrugged. "It is hard to see how, but having seen what you faced in the market, I would not say anything was impossible. All of the men of whom you made your queries, save one, have had business dealings with the Patris."

"And the one?"

"He is a friend-a cousin, I believe, once removed-of Lord Paletos. Who is involved in some fashion with the AMatie concerns."

"Paletos is not one of the names I was given."

"No."

They watched the fire for a long moment, drinking idly as they did; they were somber, but men who drank in this room often were. Rath missed The Den, with its boisterous shouting, its offhand lewdness, its poor food, rich ale, and stacked games of chance. Inasmuch as he had a place, it was there.

But it had not always been there. The past was a burden that had bothered him so little in the last few years he thought it had been laid to rest; it woke now, to his very real regret. You could leave many things behind, but one of them was not yourself.

And who was Ararath Handernesse? He had not paused to ask himself that question for decades. And yet, had he never been worthy of the name, avenues of information that opened naturally at a single word would be not only closed but invisible.

"It's the magery," he said at last. "I understand blackmail as well as I understand any game that men play. But magic is no necessary part of those games."

Andrei nodded. "You've spoken with Sigurne and Meralonne."

"And Haberas, poor fool," Rath said bitterly. "And although I cannot see how, or perhaps cannot see why, they are connected, this game and the games the Magi play. I feel that time is short, Andrei, and it does not run in our favor while we labor in ignorance."

"What, then, would you do to alleviate that ignorance?"

Rath smiled and shook his head. "Faithful servant of my G.o.dfather," he said, "there are questions which you know better than to ask."

"It is not from the answer that I expect to glean information," Andrei countered, the sudden stillness of a face that was never very expressive lending him a patina of a power that Rath had always felt, but had so seldom seen. "But rather, by the way you decline to answer." He reached for the stone and placed his hand upon it, but did not remove it from the table. "You have never followed advice, Ararath, and I respect your choice, for in this we are somewhat alike. But I ask you now-as a favor for anything that I have done, rather than as advice: Do not do this."

Rath felt surprise, but did not deign to show it. "Ask anything else," he replied at length, noting that Andrei's stone still masked their conversation.

Andrei looked down. When he lifted his face, it seemed aged. "I am not the man you think me," he said softly. "Nor am I so young that loss does not grieve me. You will, of course, do what you feel you must.

"But you have given me leave to ask a question, and I will ask one. Why, Ararath?"

He began to say I don't know, but caught the words and held them; they were not the truth, and he had offered, in an oblique fashion, truth if it were requested. "This must go no further," he said quietly.

"Do not feel the need to insult me, Ararath."

"It is not need, but habit," Rath replied. "And accept my apologies for it. You saw the girl in the alley the night you came to my aid."

Andrei nodded.

"She lives with me, and has since I found her. Were it not for her interference, I would already be dead."

"For her, then?"

"Yes. And no, Andrei. Nothing is ever that simple. For her, I would wield sword and kill if the act were required-but it would be a blind act, an instinctive act. It would require no planning. She is special. She is aware of the ways in which she is special-but she is also unaware of the ways in which she might be more."

"And you are not."

"No, to my regret, I am not. I see much in her, and perhaps I, too, am old-addled by the past that has always decided my future. Her future is tied into these demons, as the Magi called them." He watched his G.o.dfather's servant for any flicker of surprise the word "demon" might cause; there was none.

Andrei said, "And you know this-how?"

"I have answered the one question you asked," he replied, thinking of the statue that had flared to life in the undercity, and thinking as well of Amarais, the sister who had deserted him for reasons he had not-then-been willing to understand. "Trust that I know it. She is part of this, and if she is to survive, I must know more than I now know."

"My information-"

"Not even the Astari have the information that I believe I will be able to obtain." The silence that the single word caused was textured and heavy. Ararath, like Andrei, knew when to keep his peace; it was in the abandonment that all risks were taken, and some less wise than others.

"I see," Andrei replied. "I will aid you as I can."

"I know. And I know to ask is to burden you. But I can achieve two goals in our meeting with Patris Waverly."

"His death?"

"That, yes, but it is not his death that is of interest to me now; it is the manner of his death, and only that. A test," he added quietly. "What I do from that point on will be determined by whether or not the test is pa.s.sed or failed."

"a.s.sume that it is pa.s.sed."

"I will join the AMatie circle. Jewel's presence, as a gift to Patris Waverly, will be a sign of my intentions."

"His death will surely cause some difficulty when they question your sincerity."

"Perhaps. Perhaps not. I chose Waverly for a reason," he added.

"And if the test is failed?"

"I will live as I have lived," Rath replied. "It will be a welcome-and peaceful-change."

But Andrei knew which of the two outcomes Rath now desired. He lifted the stone, palming it. His hand seemed to tremble, as if the act were final. "You should have stayed with Handernesse," he said quietly. "You doubted yourself much in your youth, but I see in you now a Patris that might have lead the House to glory."

"Had I, I would never have met the girl," Rath replied, and he said it without rancor. "She shows me much that I refused to understand in my youth; had I stayed, I would have been a bitter-and weaker-man. I will never return to Handernesse; it is no longer my home. But I regret its pa.s.sing now, in a way that I did not; all thought, then, was for what I had lost."

"Many a man would have thought, instead, of all that he had gained, for your sister would have inherited the t.i.tle and the responsibility had she not left."

Rath nodded. "I understand her better now than I could then, and in a fashion, this is all the apology I will ever be capable of making."

"And she will never know of it."

"No," he said quietly. "If pride is a sin, I am still a creature of sin." He, too, rose. "It will be difficult to arrange a meeting with Patris AMatie, and in truth, it concerns me; I am not entirely certain I will pa.s.s unrecognized, for all my skill."

"That is your only concern?"

He nodded. "I will linger in the outer circle if possible. Thanks to his generosity in the purchase of a few broken pieces of stone, I have funds with which to entertain the men I despise. They will last some time."

"Then I will find the information you requested."