“If you’re done, friend—” A groom in Den Haurient livery was waiting, the horse he was exercising gulping from the trough for thirsty beasts.
“Of course.” I walked more slowly up towards the D’Olbriot residence. The usual stifling stillness hung over the ever narrowing strip of parkland clinging to the bottom reaches of the hill and tiny black flies danced in swirling balls beneath fringed leaves. But the shade trees offered welcome respite from the heat, and as I reached the top of the rise a breeze freshened the air. A well-tended highway winds between the spacious preserves of the upper city. No cracked slabs are allowed to trip the privilege of the oldest noble Houses—Den Haurient, Tor Kanselin, Den Leshayre, Tor Bezaemar. I walked past tall walls protecting extensive gardens surrounding spacious dwellings served by more lowly lodgings clustered close by. At this time of day there was little traffic, the only cart already nearly out of sight as it headed for some distant House built in more recent generations to escape the ever increasing pressures of the lower city.
As I drew closer to home I saw sentries walking slowly along the parapets of the walls. The watchtowers added in the uncertain days under T’Aleonne were fully manned and the D’Olbriot standard flew from every cornice. All customary pomp was displayed for Festival, to remind any visitors just which House they were dealing with and to bolster far-flung family members with pride in their Name.
“Ryshad!” The man sitting in the gatehouse hailed me, a thick-set, shaven-headed warrior with a much broken nose. He’d trained me in wrestling when I’d first come to D’Olbriot service.
“Olas!” I waved an acknowledging hand but didn’t stop or turn up the stairs to my new room. Elevated rank warranted privacy and that meant I was sleeping in the gatehouse rather than the barracks that filled one corner of the enclosure. Though I’d found privilege could have a sour aftertaste. With so many of the D’Olbriot Name arriving for the Festival, the noise of the gate opening and closing late into the night had disturbed me far more than the familiar bustle of the watch changing at midnight in the barracks. Still, with any luck most of the family would have arrived by now.
Turning sharply on to the gravelled path I hurried towards the tall house at the heart of the precisely delineated patterns of hedges and flowers. Temar had this reception to attend and I wanted to show him some small progress towards our shared goal before he left. Then I reckoned I’d earned half a chime out of the merciless sun for a meal and more than one long, cold drink before I went to see what I could discover from the Names on his list.
Leaving the grand reception rooms behind me, where the ladies of the House were catching up on half a season’s gossip by the sound of it, I passed lackeys bringing laden trays of refreshments up from the lower levels. I hurried up the first flight of stairs leading to the private salons reserved for the Sieur and Esquires of the Name. They were as busy talking as the women, open doors revealing older men deep in serious conversation, sons and nephews in attentive attendance, news and promises for later discussions exchanged on every side.
I bowed my way down the hallways and gained the second storey, where the corridors became narrower, with softer carpets underfoot and the intricate painted patterns on the walls giving way to plain plaster sparely stencilled with leaves and garlands to complement the ornate tapestries. Visiting servants were busy with trunks and coffers, some calmly hanging dresses and setting out favourite possessions while others went flustered in search of some missing chest. Resident maids and lackeys went steadily about their business with arms of lavender-scented linen and vases of flowers to make ready rooms for unexpected arrivals who’d changed their minds and accepted the Sieur’s invitation at the last moment.
I turned down a side passage to see a page was sitting on a cross-framed chair by the door at the end. He jumped up but I waved the child back to his hornbook. He’d spend enough of his day on his feet without me insisting on due deference and I could knock on a door myself. “I’m here to see Esquire D’Alsennin.”
“Enter.” Temar answered my knock at once and I opened the door. The Sieur had decreed Temar was to be treated with Imperial courtesy and thus warranted the finest, coolest quarters available. Windows broadened when this northern façade had been rebuilt filled the room with light and Temar was standing by one, arms folded crossly over his creased shirt and looking distinctly mutinous.
“Good day to you, Chosen Tathel.” Demoiselle Tor Arrial sat on a gilt-wood stool upholstered with damask that matched the curtains of the old-fashioned bed dominating one half of the room.
“Demoiselle.” I made a low bow, mindful of her Imperial heritage.
Her bark of laughter made me look up. “I am in no mood to be flattered by a title more suited to those coveys of maidens cluttering up the place. Avila will suffice.”
“As you wish,” I said cautiously. Informality was allowable on the road, but I wasn’t going to call her by her given name in Messire’s hearing. “Are you fully recovered from the journey?” She’d looked fit for her pyre the previous day, every year of her age weighing heavy on her head.
“I am quite restored,” she assured me. “A good night’s sleep works its own Artifice.”
“Ryshad, I really should come with you this afternoon,” Temar appealed to me. “This is my responsibility and my Name will lend weight to our requests.”
“How so, when no one knows your face?” demanded Avila acidly. “You need to assert the dignity of your House with these lately come nobles before you can claim the right to speak for Kel Ar’Ayen. That means exchanging the usual courtesies, just as Festival always demanded.”
“I was never any good at such things,” the youth objected.
“Because you never applied yourself and there was your grandsire to do the duty for you. You cannot escape the obligations of your rank now,” challenged Avila.
“Making yourself known will certainly smooth our path, Temar,” I interjected. Messire D’Olbriot would hardly thank me if Temar absented himself this afternoon. “And I’ve made a start on tracing the artefacts already.” I placed the box on a marble-topped table and opened it with hesitant hands to reveal the armring within.
Temar reached out an eager hand but then withdrew it.
“What is it?” Avila asked with a curious look at us both.
As one man Temar and I glanced across the room to a scabbarded blade resting on a walnut cabinet by the dressing room door. Artifice had confined Temar’s essential self within that sword through nine Imperial eras. No, he was no more about to risk handling an artefact holding a similarly imprisoned mind than I was.
“Let me.” Avila came to pick up the armring and turned it to examine an engraved device, dark lines blurred with age in the tarnished metal. “Ancel fashioned this badge when he and Letica married.”
“Maitresse Den Rannion, as was,” Temar whispered hastily to me. “Her sister, you know.”
I nodded. I’d made it my business to know all the long-dead colonists regardless, but I also seemed to have Temar’s own memories lurking in the back of my head supplying such answers. I wasn’t sure I liked it, but it was undeniably useful.
“This belongs to Jaes, the gate ward. He helped Letica plant her herb garden.” Avila ran a creased finger over the incised sea eagle’s head and tears shone briefly in her faded eyes.
“One more will be rescued from the darkness,” said Temar hoarsely.
“We can spread our efforts this afternoon,” I suggested. “I’ll take your list and try to talk to servants, men-at-arms, people like that. You make yourself known to the nobility and charm a few likely Demoiselles.”