Of course, Alazon hadn’t been given an opportunity to peruse the guess list when they accepted Darcel’s own invitation. She supposed that should have raised warning flags, but it hadn’t.
She’d wanted to wring the Seneschal’s neck when she figured it out. Instead, she walked politely around the room on Darcel’s arm greeting recognized supporters and being friendly with the rest of the crowd of faces. Being the candidate’s wife was harder than she’d expected.
Relatives of the soldiers from Fort Salby and other forts farther down the chain dotted the crowd, recognizable by their red eyes and obvious discomfort. They’d been trickling in throughout the evening, with honor bells rung for each new group while the Order of Bergahl’s musicians played variations of the Mother’s lament for her children.
Needing a few minutes away from the pressing throng, she let go of Darcel. The crowd drew him away.
Alazon wondered if the invitations for the guests of honor had been timed for quarter hour arrivals or if the Seneschal had all the bereaved sequestered in a side room to arrive a few at a time as pleased his sense of political blood theater.
The next one to enter was dressed as elegantly as any of the local powerbrokers, but Alazon nearly lost the light supper she’d worked so hard to glean from passing hors d’oeuvres trays when she heard the majordomo’s announcement.
Dr. Shalassar Kolmayr-Brintal kissed the Seneschal of Othmaliz’s cheeks as warmly as if she were merely a dowager socialite. Shaylar Nargra-Kolmayr’s mother, the whispers swept the crowd immediately, but the longtime ambassador slipped into the crowd with much the same ease as the cetaceans she normally Spoke with slid below the waves.
…and with much the same smiling menace as the black and white whales, Shalassar emerged from the crowd not by Darcel Kinlafia but just in front of Alazon. The Voice barely avoided snapping the stem of her wine glass.
* * *
The finger marks on Alazon Yanamar forearm were likely to bruise by morning and despite her frantic looks at the assigned imperial security not one of them had come to rescue her. Looking for physical threats, they dismissed Dr. Kolmayr-Brintal entirely, but at this range Alazon wondered why the Calirath line hadn’t been exterminated already if the guards couldn’t recognize the raw menace in Shalassar’s expression. Only Kelahm, the intern newly assigned as Darcel’s personal aide, had even looked her way.
“Sit.” Shalassar pointed at the chairs in the little alcove she’d led them into. “I’m not going to bite, Ms. Yanamar.”
Alazon sat.
“My daughter is dead,” the woman said, watching her intently. “Your husband received her last transmission. I Saw it myself half a dozen times, until it burned into my nightmares and I couldn’t watch anymore. But would you believe the tales I’ve been receiving about what those Arcanan negotiators said and didn’t say?”
As former Privy Voice, Alazon Yanamar did, actually, and she froze. There were bits and pieces which had led to guesses about Arcanan military capability, but most of that had been rendered thoroughly obsolete by the much less theoretical experience of fighting Arcana to a stop at Fort Salby. The rest were guesses about how Arcana was politically organized, the rare details with which Emperor Zindel might arm future negotiators at another peace table, but only if Sharona could be convinced to attempt another peace.
Ambassador Kolmayr-Brintal didn’t look like a woman willing to countenance any peace with her daughter’s killers, and if this woman wanted to unite Sharona’s will, Alazon was afraid she might very well be able to do it-even if Emperor Zindel threw all his own power into stopping her. But surely she had to understand negotiation had to happen again sometime, or did-?
The intensity of Shalassar’s eyes, boring into her own, worried Alazon. How much of the ambassador’s telepathic Talent for cetacean speech transferred to humans?
“That seven-times damned reporter was right then.” Shalassar’s fierceness faded and those fiercely erect shoulders sagged ever so slightly. “They’re going to say she could have still been alive, and you won’t have a thing to say back. Not one. Still no body at all, and where she died is five universes beyond the front now.”
Alazon cursed herself silently as she abruptly recognized the core of Shalassar’s anger. This woman needed her help, not her suspicion.
“Ma’am, I’m so sorry for your loss. Darcel and I would be delighted to host you and your husband-”
“No.” Shalassar forced her face back to blankness and straightened her spine before continuing softly. “I’m sorry, dear. I don’t believe that would be a good idea. This is just scum-eater politics. A VBS reporter came to me for confirmation, probably knowing the whole thing was a farce. He’s lucky I didn’t toss him in the ocean and make him swim back to port.”
Alazon nodded uncertainly, not sure how to calm the alternately infuriated and grief-stricken woman before her.
“Then after I heard the idea,” Shalassar confessed, “I just had to ask. It’s an entirely foolish hope, I know. Thaminar tried to talk me out of even coming, but I had to ask.”
“Of course.” Alazon Yanamar looked Shalassar Brintal-Kolmayr dead in the eyes and said, “We are absolutely certain Arcanan military forces killed Shaylar and every one of her companions.”
“And there’s no doubt at all?”
“None. I’m sorry. The Arcanans burn their dead.” And in a momentary lie designed to ease Shalassar’s pain, she added a small embroidery on what Sharona knew absolutely, “They burned each one of ours too. It’s how they do respectful funeral rites. A kind of purification from their perspective, I understand.”
“Please, no one tell the cetaceans that.” Shalassar shuddered. “Only demons would use fire to consign their dead. It’d be like praying for the departed to be accepted into hell.”
“But the smoke rises to the heavens?” Alazon suggested.
“Heaven is in the deep. It’s a warm place with a gentle current full of kelp and fish, where lungs never empty, and dorsal muscles stay strong forever. I’ve explained to them that humans hope for a different kind of place, so they’ve allowed that heaven might have an island or two. If, that is, the better humans aren’t reborn with fins.”
A few guests drifted near their corner alcove, heard the mention of death and just as quickly found reasons to melt back into the crowd. Shalassar laughed a bit bitterly.
“I’m not the light-hearted dolphin lady they used to love to have at parties anymore,” she said. “I suppose I have too many other things I care about now.”
They sat gazing at the crowd for a few more moments. Then Shalassar stirred and turned to look at Alazon once more.
“Oh one more thing,” she said. “Watch the Order. The Seneschal in particular. He seems to think I’m here to humiliate your fiance and destroy his political chances.”
“And why would he think that, Madam Ambassador?”
Shalassar’s smile once again reminded Alazon of oceanic predators. It was comforting to see the flashes of old confidence showing through her grief.
“I might have mentioned that I wanted the invitation in order to tell candidate Kinlafia I expected him to do his very best to turn the bastards that attacked my daughter into shark chum. I trust you’ll convey the message for me.” She clutched Alazon one more time. “I can’t have my Shaylar back, Madame Voice. But I will have the Arcanans who murdered her and desecrated her corpse pay for their crimes. Tell your fiance that and tell that to the Emperor.”