“Understood,” I said. “Now, I shall require privacy for the interviews. My master would not wish his business to become public prematurely. I’ve certainly no fear of anyone in the family speaking out of turn, but servants…” I shrugged again. “And you have frequently expressed your disinterest in anything from my lips. Unless that has changed?”
I thought his teeth might grind to powder. Mighty is the power of fear and gold to a pureblood. But Claudio’s pride and hatred won out. He spread his arms. “Wherever you like.”
Despicable gatzé! What kind of man would even consider pledging his young daughter to a master of Osriel’s foul repute—a daughter who had amassed no history of violence or disobedience as I had? Even Max, though arrogant beyond bearing, had been the most dutiful of sons, deserving no such fate.
As I waited for Claudio to summon my young sister, I tried to think what to say to her. Bringing Max to the neutral ground of our family home, out of his master’s hearing, had seemed a more reasonable course than tracking him down myself in war-ravaged Palinur. I had foolishly assumed Bia’s father would wish to shield her from a monster, making this bit of playacting unnecessary. On the other hand, I wished again that I had some excuse for speaking with Thalassa, but this lie was elaborate enough without working Samele’s high priestess into it.
Footsteps hurried through the tiled passages of the family wing. As I stood, the walls of the room wavered and bulged. I closed my eyes for a moment, breathed deep, and blessed the potion Saverian had offered me that morning to tame my nausea at sitting indoors. The insidious panic of collapsing walls, I had to manage for myself. The symptoms seemed much worse since taking on my Danae gards. Or perhaps it was only my approaching birthday.
“Serena pauli,” I said, offering a shallow bow to the young woman who appeared at the door, her arm firmly in Claudio’s grip. I motioned a servant to bring her a chair, and then waited as Claudio dismissed the servants and guardsmen. When he saw I was not going to begin until he’d followed them, the glowering Claudio whirled and withdrew.
My younger sister Phoebia, a plainer, less womanly version of her mother and elder sister, wore her heavy black hair wound about her head in tight braids like a warrior’s helm and resentment about her shoulders like a mantle. She had been so young when I left home, I did not know her well enough to read beyond her sullen facade. The only time I’d seen her since my recapture, she’d spat on me.
“Our conversation will be private, Bia,” I said, drawing my chair close so we would not be overheard. “Patronn told you why I’ve been sent here?”
She jerked her head in acknowledgment. Her knuckles were bloodless, and a thin film of sweat sheened her copper-colored skin.
“You’ve naught to fear from either me or my master,” I said. “He is hard, and a man of fearsome mystery, but fair to his servants who carry out their duties…” We spoke for more than an hour of the tasks she performed for the family—coloring Claudio’s maps, inking lists of place names and distances, using her Cartamandua bent to smooth curves and add in details he thought too unimportant for his particular attention. She did not travel, did not publish maps of her own, and had attracted neither a contract nor an offer of marriage. She blamed her sorry lot on me. I could not deny the responsibility. Despite my rehabilitation by the pureblood Registry, my years as a recondeur had made alliance with our family a risk for other purebloods. Petronilla’s beauty had caught Bia’s twin a lucky match, and Max and Thalassa had the talent and determination to gain them favored, if not excessively profitable, contracts. Which left Phoebia alone with a despicable father and a drunken mother.
Though she did not warm as we spoke, her fists unclenched. In the end, I felt sorry that I had no contract to offer her. When I heard the bustle of an arrival from the front of the house, I stood and, to her astonishment, kissed her hand. “I doubt my master will take you on this time, serena pauli. Right now he needs particular skills. But if this succession is settled favorably, he will have need of many services.”
She touched her fingers to her forehead, then wriggled those I had kissed, examining them as if half expecting they might break out in a rash. “The city…out there…is very bad, is it not?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve heard that Harrowers burn books, so I would guess that they’ll have no use for maps. And they despise purebloods.”
“All true.”
She looked up at me, her dark eyes troubled. “What should I do, Valen? Matronn warns of this danger—a dark veil, she calls it—that is coming down on Navronne. She sees purebloods sent into the countryside to dig and plant…to labor in the fields like villeins. Patronn refuses to listen. He calls me stupid to worry.”
I shivered. Josefina de Cartamandua-Celestine’s divinations invariably made me shiver.
“You are not stupid to worry,” I said, touching Bia’s shoulders, wishing I could do more for her. “Go to Thalassa. Patronn can’t stop you going to temple. Temples are little safer than anywhere else, as it happens, but Lassa understands what’s happening in the world as well as anyone. She’ll see to you.”
Bia didn’t question how I knew all this. I was no diviner. But she ducked her head and hurried out of the room a great deal livelier than she’d come. Then Max strode through the doorway, leather and steel gleaming from beneath his cloak, and I could think no more of frightened little sisters.
“What in the name of the blistering bawds do you think you’re doing?” he said through clenched teeth, as he whipped off his mask. “If one word leaks out linking Bayard and Osriel, this little game is up. Are you as mad as your prince, or is this his imbecilic idea?”
“Sit down and speak normally,” I said, as I bowed and touched my forehead. “Patronn believes I’m here to discuss a possible contract between you and Prince Osriel, and we would not wish him to learn differently. Hear me out, and all will become clear.”
Though seething, he greeted me properly and lowered his compact bulk into the chair. “We are involved in no alleyway scrap, Valen. The witch has left Grav Hurd, her favorite ax man, here in the city. He’s pushing Prince Bayard to close the temples and alehouses and ship any man, woman, or child convicted of crimes into the countryside where they can ‘heed the voice of the Gehoum.’ He threatens to bring down the Registry tower. We are drowning in madmen.”
“I understand,” I said, leaning back in my chair as if settling in for a long interview. “Prince Osriel has sent me to hear the terms of the solstice bargain you’ve worked out with her.”
He leaned back, twisting the corner of his thick mustache where it tangled in his well-trimmed beard. The beard was Max’s only true rebellion of his one-and-thirty years. Claudio hated it. “Why now?” he demanded. “It was your master who chose to confirm the agreement on Coronation Day.”
I’d never seen Max so serious. His private face had always been a snigger, and he met every circumstance by boasting of some way to turn it to his advantage. Only a few short weeks ago, he had twiddled magical dust from his fingers and joked how sorcerers would be exempt from any harsh future by virtue of the awe in which we were held. Yet, in a way, his sobriety might make my task easier. I quickly rethought my approach.
“Prince Osriel is a hard master, Max, and more clever than you can imagine. He will do anything to accomplish his purposes. He’s told me I need to prepare—” I leaned forward and dropped my voice even lower. “Great gods, Max, tell me that you’ve talked the priestess out of having me.”
His black eyes sharpened. “Why would you care? I assumed from all he said that this bargain was but a feint as long as we got Sila into Evanore by the solstice.”
“It is and it isn’t. He wants her focused on the solstice and will do whatever is needed to convince her that she’s won. Indeed that is the night that will prove who holds power in Navronne. But he also wishes—” I stopped. “Tell me the bargain, Max.”