“Ah.” She looked around the other side of the stringy-haired head. The men with the guns were glancing inquiringly at one of their number. Though of similar age, with his flashing eyes and ironic half-smile he stood out from the rest of these youths as a professor might stand out from his students. “Hello,” Venera said to him. She withdrew her pistol and holstered it, registering the surprise on his face with some satisfaction.
“You’d better hurry with your packing,” she said before anyone could move. “They’ll be here any minute.”
The guns were still trained on her, but the confident-looking youth stepped forward, squinting at her over his own weapon. He had a neatly trimmed mustache and what looked like a dueling scar on his cheek. “Who are you?” he demanded in an amused upper-class drawl.
She bowed. “Amandera Thrace-Guiles, at your service. Or perhaps, it’s the other way around.”
He sneered. “We’re no one’s servants. And unfortunate for you that you’ve seen us. Now we’ll have to—”
“Stow it,” she snapped. “I’m not playing your game, either for your side or for Spyre’s. I have my own agenda, and it might benefit your own goals to consider me a possible ally.”
Again the sense of amused surprise. Venera could hear voices outside in the hall now. “Be very quiet,” she said, “and snuff those lights.” Then she stepped back, grabbed the edges of the doors, and shut them.
Lanterns bobbed down the corridor. “Lady Thrace-Guiles?” It was Aday.
“Here. My lantern went out. In any case there seems to be nothing of interest this way. Shall we investigate the upper floors?”
“Perhaps.” Aday peered about himself in distaste. “This appears to be a commoner’s area. Yes, let’s retrace our steps.”
They walked in silence, and Venera strained to hear any betraying noise from the chamber behind them. There was none; finally, Aday said, “To what do we owe the honor of your visit? Is Buridan rejoining the great nations? Are you going to restart the trade in horses?”
Venera snorted. “You know perfectly well there was no room to keep such animals in the tower. We had barely enough to eat from the rooftop gardens and nets we strung under the world. No, there are no horses anymore. And I am the last of my line.”
“Ah.” They began to climb the long-disused steps to the upper chambers. “As to your being the last of the line… lines can be rejuvenated,” said Aday delicately. “And as to the horses… I am happy to say that you are in error in that case.”
She cast a sidelong glance at him. “What do you mean? Don’t toy with me.”
Aday smiled, appearing confident for the first time. “There are horses, my lady. Raised and bred at government expense in paddocks on Greater Spyre. They have always been here, all these years. They have been awaiting your return.”
9
Venera was nine-tenths asleep and imagining that the pillow she clutched was Chaison’s back. Such feelings of safety and belonging were so rare for her that by contrast the rest of her life seemed a wasteland. It was as though everything she had ever done, every school lesson and contest with her sisters, every panicky interview with her father, all the manipulations and lies, had been erased by this: the quiet, his breathing, his scent, and his neck against her chin.
“Rise and shine, my lady!”
Garth Diamandis threw back the room’s curtains, revealing a brick wall. He glowered at it as scraps of velvet tore away in his fingers. Dust pillared around him in the lantern-light.
Venera sat up and a knife-blade of pain shot up her jaw. “Get out!” She thrashed about for a second, looking for a weapon. “Get out!” Her hands fell on the lantern and—not without thinking, but rather with malicious pleasure—she threw it at him as hard as she could.
Garth ducked and the lantern broke against the wall. The candle flame touched the curtains and they caught fire instantly.
“Oh! Not a good idea!” He tore down the curtains and, fetching a poker from the fireplace, began beating the flames.
“Did you not hear me?” She cast the musty covers aside and ran at him. Grabbing up a broken splinter of chair-leg, she brandished it like a sword. “Get out!”
He parried easily and with a flick of the wrist sent her makeshift sword flying. Then he jabbed her in the stomach with the poker.
“Ooff!” She sat down. Garth continued beating out the flames. Smoke was filling the ancient bedchamber of the Buridan clan.
When Venera had her breath back she stood up and walked to a side-table. Returning with a jug of water, she upended it over the smoldering cloth. Then she dropped the jug indifferently—it shattered—and glared at Garth.
“I was asleep,” she said.
He turned to her, a muscle jumping in his own jaw. She saw for the first time that his eyes were red. Had he slept?
“What’s the matter?” she asked.
With a heavy sigh he turned and walked away. Venera made to follow, realized she was naked and turned to don her clothing. When she found him again he was sitting in the antechamber, fiddling with his bootstraps.
“It’s her, isn’t it?” she asked. “You’ve been looking for her?”
Startled, he looked up at her. “How did you—”
“I’m a student of human nature, Garth.” She turned around. “Lace me up, please.”
“You could have burned the whole place down,” he grumbled as he tugged—a little too hard—on her corset strings.
“My self-control isn’t good when I’m surprised,” she said with a shrug. “Now you know.”
“Aye.” He grabbed her hips and turned her around to face him. “You usually hide your pain as well as someone twice your age.”
“I choose to take that as a compliment.” Conscious of his hands on her, she stepped back. “But you’re evading the question—did you find her? Your expression suggests bad news.”
He stood up. “It doesn’t concern you.” He began to walk away.
Venera gnawed her lip, thinking about apologizing for attacking him. It got no further than thinking. “Well,” she said after following him for a while, “for what reason did you rouse me at such an ungodly…” She looked around. “What time is it?”
“It’s midmorning.” He glanced around as well; the chambers of the estate were cast in gloom save where the occasional lantern burned. “The house is entombed, remember?”
“Oh! The appointment!”
“Yes. The horse masters are waiting in the front hall. They’re mighty nervous, since neither in their lifetimes nor those of their line stretching back centuries, has anyone ever audited their work.”
“I’m not auditing, Garth, I just want to meet some horses.”
“And you may—but we have a bigger problem.”
“What’s that?” She paused to look at herself in a faded mirror. Somewhere downstairs she heard things being moved; they had hired a work gang to clean the building, just before fatigue had caught up with her and forced her to take refuge in that mildewed bed-chamber.
“There’s a second delegation waiting for you,” Diamandis explained. “A pack of majordomos from the great families.”
She stopped walking. “Ah. A challenge?”
“In a manner of speaking. You’ve been invited to attend a Confirmation ceremony. To formally establish your identity and titles.”
“Of course, of course…” She started walking again. “Damn, they’re a step ahead of us. We’ll have to turn that around.” Venera pondered this as they trotted down the sweeping front steps. “Garth, do I smell like smoke?”