“No,” Vicarian said. “You didn’t.”
Elisia snorted and raised her hands in an amused despair. “So what did I have, then? If your goddess sees my mind so well, tell me that.”
“That’s not how it works,” he said, scooping another small pickle from the tray between them and popping it into his mouth. Chewing it didn’t keep him from speaking. “I can’t see your mind. All she can tell me is whether what you’ve said is truth or a lie.”
Clara lifted her pipe to her lips, sucking in the smoke. Her mind raced, cataloging all that she could remember saying since Vicarian had come back from his initiation. She had known from his voice that the rites had taken her from him. Understanding now the depths and implications of that transformation felt like waking of a morning to find a viper under her pillow. What had she said, and when had Vicarian known she was not speaking truth? Had some petty act of deceit exposed her plots? Had her long court life protected her by making deflection and careful wording as natural to her as breath? She honestly didn’t know, and her only evidence was that she hadn’t yet been hauled before Geder’s secret tribunal…
Her heart went cold. The secret tribunal, where the high priest was always in attendance. Geder would know every lie spoken. And this had been going on since… since his return from the Keshet at least. Her knees trembled and her stomach clenched until the bite of sweetbread she’d eaten when first she’d taken her place by the fire seemed as indigestible as a stone.
“Well that hardly seems useful to me,” Elisia said. “What’s the good of knowing that someone’s lying if you can’t find out what the truth is? Do you remember that cunning man we saw at court who could tell your future? Now that was something useful.”
“That was a cheap fraud, sister,” Vicarian said. “He had Sorran Shoat feeding him information in code all the way through the evening.”
“I don’t believe that,” Elisia said. And then, “Was she really?”
“What about you, Mother?” Vicarian said. “Care to try?”
“Absolutely not,” Clara said.
“Why not?” Vicarian smiled, but he also seemed a bit hurt. As if he were a boy who had brought some vile insect to his nurse only to be told he had to put it out and wash his hands. Despite herself, Clara felt a tug of guilt, and then more deeply of sorrow. She could still recall quite clearly what it had been like to have the newborn Vicarian placed upon her breast. It wasn’t much harder to conjure who he had been as a boy, sneaking out with Barriath to ride their father’s horses and play with his hunting dogs. He’d been such a beautiful, joyful child. To see him eaten by monstrosity was more than she should have to bear. “Because,” she said gently, “I was raised to believe stealing secrets was rude, dear. And so were you.”
The thing that had been her son laughed with his warm laugh, and clapped his palms together as he had. But any hope she’d kept that he might return to her was doubly gone now. If her crimes were exposed to him, he would not shield her. He couldn’t have, even if he’d wanted to. The cruelty was monstrous.
The afternoon was a little farewell party for Lord Skestinin in whose house Clara was now permanent guest. Elisia had come now that Jorey was Lord Marshal and having once been a Kalliam weighed not so heavily upon her. Lord and Lady Skestinin’s daughter—and since the marriage to Jorey, Clara’s too for that—sat across the room from the three of them, her hand on the swell of her belly. Outside, a spring storm had come in from the north and was dropping tiny chips of ice from a low, grey sky. Sabiha shifted her hand and smiled. The babe was kicking, then.
“Is that all your new goddess can do?” Elisia asked.
“It’s one of the best tricks,” Vicarian said. “But it’s not the only one.”
“Because everyone says that Geder Palliako can speak to the dead. I’ve heard that he consults with King Simeon every night. They’ve been seen at the royal crypt, ever since the Timzinae tried to kill Geder.”
It was your father who tried to kill Geder, Clara thought but did not say, and I wish he’d managed.
“Well, that isn’t something I can do, but there may be more secrets than I’ve been brought into.”
“Priests and their secrets,” Elisia said, rolling her eyes.
Everyone and their secrets, Clara thought, and God help us all.
A servant boy announced the meal was served. Clara left her little clay pipe to burn out the remnant still in its bowl and allowed Vicarian to help her to her feet. Her flesh did not crawl when it touched his. He seemed no different than he had been before his induction into the mysteries of the spider goddess. And still she could not afford to pretend that was true.
Jorey and Lord Skestenin were already at table, Lady Skestinin at her husband’s side. A warm beef soup was already being served, the steam from it rich as smoke and good, the cunning men all said, for a woman bearing a child. Sabiha eased herself into the chair beside Jorey, though strictly speaking etiquette should have placed her by her mother rather than her husband. No one commented on the lapse, Clara least of all.
The talk was light and empty. Lady Skestinin was staying in Camnipol for the season to be with Sabiha when the baby came. Once the meal was done, Lord Skestinin would begin the long carriage ride to Nus and the fleet, and from there halfway around the world to Birancour. Jorey and Vicarian would begin their journey to the south in the morning, the Lord Marshal at last taking the field after his consultations with the Lord Regent. They made the usual jokes about not getting lost on the way, and Clara laughed with them politely, the chaos of her mind hidden behind years of form and etiquette. She had to tell Vincen. As soon as she could, she had to find him and warn him to say nothing. Not even to lie. And how many, many lies had she embraced in these past months? Half of her life was fabrications. Her mind spun like a child’s top as she tried in vain to recall everything she’d said and whom she had said it before.
“Clara? Are you well?” Lady Skestinin said, and Clara became aware it wasn’t the first time her name had been spoken.
“I’m sorry,” Clara said, and then very nearly, I was just thinking about what the storm might do to the garden. It was the kind of simple, social lie one told all the time. She flailed for a moment. “I was just thinking… about the war.”
And then, damn them, damn them, tears came to her eyes. She recognized that she was on the edge of panic, but was unable to draw herself back from it. She looked down at the soup. I have not been discovered, she said to herself. If they knew, I would not be here. Even if they only knew of Vincen, I wouldn’t be welcome at the table. My secrets are my own. The room was silent. Sabiha leaned forward and took her hand, and when Clara looked up, there were tears in several eyes besides her own. Lady Skestinin, Sabiha, even Jorey’s.
“We will end in victory,” Vicarian said. He meant it as reassurance. It was a threat, and for a moment, she could not help but believe him.
“I’m just frightened, dear,” Clara said.
The thing that had been her son smiled at her, misunderstanding. It was good enough.
Once the meal was ended, Lord Skestenin said his farewells to Clara and her sons, then took a private moment with Sabiha and Lady Skestinin. Clara would dearly have loved to know what he said to them when he believed no one else could hear. This new plan to blockade Birancour couldn’t have pleased him, but precisely how displeased he was would be of interest. That she was curious was the best indication that her shock was beginning to fade. It was afternoon now. As much as she wished to find Vincen, going to him now would be a danger in itself, so instead she took to her withdrawing room and sat at her writing desk, pen in hand, uncertain what if anything she should do. The storm was thicker outside. The bits of falling ice were turning to hail, the rattle of ice bending and breaking the new grass and bruising the buds of the flowers.