Making Peace, page 8
To me, this mishmash of fashion only confirmed the picture of a young woman grown up without a mother or any feminine influence at all. She was too old for people to just pardon her social mistakes, but too young yet to spot a faux pas or how to correct it.
Vapor caught me watching her smooth out her skirt and she smiled uncertainly. I smiled back and turned to regard the clock. Fifteen minutes now. About right for a fashionable entrance. Any minute then…
“So sorry to keep you waiting.” Sarenna Covina glided into the room, perfectly on time. Her skirts did not even rustle as she moved over the polished stone floors. She was dressed in a blue dress with black lace trim, all puffy skirts and narrow sleeves, with a high neck. Jewelry adorned her in every fashionable place, which in Tiers means the neck, wrists, and hair, though she did not wear so much as to seem gaudy.
A man with a shock of dark brown hair standing up in spikes and dressed in an expensive tailored suit made from colors to match Sarenna’s dress walked beside her.
These were the leaders of the Second House, Andre and Sarenna Covina.
Ugly rose to greet the two House leaders, surprising me by taking both of Sarenna’s offered hands in his own and kissing them in turn. He did this not with any affection, but with something of a practiced ease. Sarenna offered her hands to me and I performed the same gesture, as was expected from one in my status compared to her own. Vapor dropped a clumsy approximation of a curtsy.
Andre did not offer his hands or any other courtesy, looking at us instead with his lip curled in silent contempt. Introductions were made all around, and we settled back into our seats. Sarenna took the wingback chair at the head of the long coffee table, and Andre stood behind her chair with his hands in his pockets.
“It is not often I am given the pleasure of hosting a party of Keepers in my own parlor,” Sarenna said, stirring milk into her tea with practiced grace.
“Indeed. Nor is it often a party of Keepers is given to take tea together at all, Your Grace,” said Ugly.
“It does seem very fancy,” offered Vapor. I cringed inwardly at the dropped honorific.
Sarenna smiled at Vapor. “My dear, I hear you are a nano-mage specializing in water. Is that correct?”
“A hydromancer, yes ma’am.” Wrong honorific, but at least Vapor remembered this time.
By her smile Sarenna may as well not have noticed Vapor’s multiple faux pas at all, though that was highly unlikely. “That sounds absolutely fascinating. May I ask for a small demonstration?”
Vapor positively beamed. She set down her teacup and raised her right hand upward in a sharp motion. The tea rose from the cup and hovered in midair. Vapor began to separate the drops one by one and set them rolling around her left hand. The droplets looked like strings of brown pearls. She danced them back into her cup, then picked it up again.
Sarenna clapped her hands in soft applause, and I thought Vapor might burst at the seams the way she was grinning. Ugly, of course, said nothing, but I believe I saw the corner of his mouth try to crook upwards.
Andre coughed into one hand. “Well, charming as this all is, that’s all I’ve got time for. I trust you’ll finish up here, wife.”
Sarenna gave him a nod without looking at him, and he strode to the door, not even glancing at us.
Andre pulled open the door, and a blonde serving girl stood there in a little black maid outfit, holding his hat, walking stick, and a pair of white gloves. Without pausing, he took the gloves from her hand and slapped the girl across the face with them. “Stupid girl. These are white. Do you think white gloves go with the suit I’m wearing? Honestly.” He tossed them on the floor.
The girl’s cheek was pink where he’d struck her. I rose from my seat, offended at this display and about to demand Andre apologize to the girl. Ugly quickly shoved me back into my seat before Andre noticed and silenced me with a gesture. Vapor did not visibly react to Andre’s abusive behavior. Sarenna’s eyes shifted back and forth between us as she observed our reactions, but she said nothing.
Andre brushed past the serving girl. Tears rolled down her cheeks as she scurried to collect the gloves and follow him, shutting the door quietly behind her. The rest of us sat in silence.
I looked to our Hostess, who was quietly sipping her tea. She turned to me next. “I have heard,” she said, putting a smile in place, “that you are an author, here to write about our town.”
I searched for the proper words. She didn’t want to discuss what had just happened, and it would be exceptionally poor manners to force the point. I just wondered how she had heard about me. “Your Grace is exceptionally well informed. I had not realized my secret was so well known.”
She smiled at me, lowering her eyelids. “Most of Tiers is still unaware of your secret, but I do like to keep informed. There are certain advantages to being in the top three Houses, after all.” She turned next to Ugly. “And you, sir. I suspect this is no social call merely to entertain or grow social connections. You are here about the recent attacks.”
“Indeed we are, Your Grace,” Ugly answered.
“Hmm. I wonder if you had heard all six of our family members who were attacked last night made it home safe and sound? They claimed a young man with sandy-colored hair led the band of soldiers who saved them. I told them young men are hardly in the business of saving anyone without being directed by someone older and wiser.”
Ugly inclined his head to her. “I thank you, Your Grace. I wonder, how are your servants?”
Sarenna’s smile held, but her eyes went blank for a moment. “My servants?”
We all waited a few heartbeats, but Ugly did not explain. Unable to bear his rudeness any longer, I stepped in. “Your Grace perhaps remembers there were three servants accompanying your family members, who also survived.”
She turned her smile on me, now dazzling. “Ah, yes. I do recall. Thank you, author.” She turned back to Ugly, still smiling, though not as radiantly. “Indeed, they are well and resting. It seems I owe you for nine lives.” She took a delicate sip of her tea. I doubt she got more than three drops. “And please, no more Your Grace for this visit. Please, let me be Sarenna to the people who have safeguarded my family.”
Ugly gave her his own hard smile, but inclined his head in a slow nod.
Sarenna took another sip, watching him over the rim of her cup, then spoke. “You are wondering what I make of the multiple daylight attacks on my family.”
“Indeed, Sarenna, I am.” His tea sat untouched on the table, no steam rising from it now.
She returned her teacup and saucer to the table, then folded her hands in her lap. She regarded him for a moment. None of us spoke, then:
“I suspect another House to be involved, naturally.” Her eyes dropped to the floor, lost in thought. “They hired a veritable swarm to ambush my family in public, and in broad daylight.” She touched the fingers and thumb of one gloved hand to her chin, thinking. “It is clearly a House without fear of reprisal. It is either a new House who have not learned the value of subtlety, or else a powerful House who have allowed their ambition to overcome their caution.” Her eyes rose to meet Ugly’s gaze, eyebrows raised in a question.
Ugly drew in a deep breath, and let it out. “I agree with this assessment.”
“You wish to know whom I suspect?” Sarenna asked.
Ugly nodded.
“Either the Third or the First House, naturally. Either would have the resources to hire such a plague of mercenaries.”
Ugly and Sarenna regarded each other. The hands of the clock on the mantle clanged loudly in the quiet room. Vapor fidgeted, turning her teacup back and forth on her saucer. Her leg chimed softly. Even I began to feel the strain as the two regarded one another.
“I’ll speak plainly with you,” Ugly said.
“Please do,” returned Sarenna.
“There has been a brutal attack on the First House. You’ve seen it reported in the papers.”
She nodded.
“I have to wonder, because it’s my job, if that attack and these are related,” Ugly said.
“Do you mean,” she asked slowly, “it could be the same party responsible for both, or do you mean to accuse the two Houses of attacking each other?” Her smile was still in place, but her eyes were sharp. Vapor stopped turning her cup, and her leg chimes fell silent. I held my breath.
Ugly smiled, tightly. It didn’t touch his eyes. “I would never presume to make such an unfounded accusation, Your Grace.” He had returned to the use of her formal address. An apology? No, covering his bases. This was dangerous ground. “It seems to me that one isolated attack certainly does not constitute a House war, in any event. I only meant to ask if someone as well informed as yourself might have heard something more.”
Sarenna regarded him for a long moment, measuring him. She rose, clearly marking the end of the interview. We all stood, as was proper in response to one of her status. “I will tell you this,” she said, turning to Ugly, and this time she wore no smile. “The First House has made some terrible enemies, and not only from other Houses. If they do not mind the darkness of their past, they will suffer greater pain. And it will not be from the hands of anyone in my House.”
Sarenna looked us over as we variously bowed and curtsied. I saw her and Ugly nod to each other. Then she swept out of the room, leaving the servants to see us out.
CHAPTER 11
I DECIDED TO have dinner alone that night. I went down to the mess hall and found an empty table, which wasn’t hard to do because most of the staff were down on Tier 7 for some sort of festival. Something to do with the harvest of local radishes, I think, big red ones which only grow in this climate. I was glad for the quiet. I had found myself valuing quiet more and more since coming here. Maybe something about constant violence and danger turns a person inward.
When I walked into the mess hall, only a few people were around. Sen and Vapor sat at one table playing some sort of card game, taking turns dropping cards into three separate piles. As I settled into my seat, I heard Vapor squeal. She slapped the table with her palm bare seconds before Sen did the same. Watching Vapor stand up and do a little hopping victory dance while Sen groaned and slid over one of the copper coins from his dwindling pile, I couldn’t help but smile. Even in the middle of so much violence, the Keepers were finding ways to make life bearable.
Shield sat at a table with Ugly. Ugly sat sharpening his collection of blades, the weapons spread out on a cloth in front of him on the table. Shield was seated with comfortable poise and sipped her tea as she read aloud to Ugly from a thick book. Periodically, they’d both burst out laughing. I tried to see the title from where I was, but she kept it held mostly flat against the table.
I remembered my desire for dinner alone and turned back in my seat to face the far wall. I was amazed at how I’d begun to regard these people as something like friends, even enjoying their presence. Letting my eyes close and my head lean back, I listened to the sound of life going on around me and found a strange comfort in it.
“People is people, Bel,” Ved had told me. I supposed that was truer than I had first suspected.
“More soup?” Cora’s voice woke me from my thoughts. In truth, she had just woken me in general, for which I was grateful. I’d been plagued by nightmares lately and had no desire to have one in full view of other folks. I looked up at her and found my own smile to match the one on her face.
“That would be lovely,” I said. “Thank you.”
Cora nodded and went to fetch the soup for me. She was back quickly, but instead of just setting the bowl down and leaving she slid into the chair to my left, wrapping both hands around a mug of tea she’d brought for herself. We sat quietly together for a few minutes, watching the antics of Vapor and Sen at their game as I ate my soup.
“Why do you think they do this, Bel?”
Her words made me freeze, the spoon halfway to my mouth. I decided to finish the bite and use the extra time to mull over her question.
Finally, I had to swallow. “Do what, exactly? Relax together? Or the job itself?”
Cora looked a little surprised, then laughed. “Both, I suppose. They go together, really.”
“Well…” I looked at Shield and Ugly. “They need to relax, and to bond. Time spent together makes them comfortable with each other. That’s important for any social group. I’d guess it’s even more important for people who have to coordinate together in combat.”
“Sure, but that’s not all it is.” She took a sip, the steam drifting in clouds across her face. “Experiences like the ones you encounter on this job can hurt you. You see terrible things, and those things are taken into you. You can’t get them out again.” She gestured toward Vapor. “That girl, by most opinions, should be too broken to be here spending time with a young man, much less doing a job like this one. But here she is, not only proving them wrong, but thriving while doing it.”
I considered. “So if they can’t get the images out of their heads, they… What? Cover them up?”
“In a sense.” She drew her brows together and looked at me. “It’s like with cooking, I suppose. Do you cook?”
“Not if I can help it.”
“Hm. Well, when you’re cooking, things don’t always go perfectly. Sometimes you find you’re unexpectedly out of an ingredient, or someone comes along and puts in something you didn’t intend. You can throw the whole thing out and start over, if you want to be wasteful. But the best thing to do, the secret to cooking, is to learn to improvise and find the right balance. So if you’re missing an ingredient, you find something that’s going to substitute well. Or if someone adds something you didn’t expect, you work around it. But both things are going to change the overall flavor and texture. Once it’s in there, you can’t fish it back out again.” She took another sip of her tea.
“So, they’re improvising?”
“In their own way, yes. You see, making one change to a recipe isn’t enough. Any change will alter the balance of flavor and texture. So you need to figure out where other changes need to be made, too. And adding one thing will usually mean finding balance requires a second new thing, too. If you accidentally add onions to what was mean to be a sweet bread, you’re going to have to change the entire recipe to suit the new taste of the onions. Some folks would say to throw out the whole batch and go on making sweet bread, but some of the best recipes are actually discovered by accident, or by improvisation.”
I chewed my soup, thinking. “What you’re saying is, they’re finding a balance point. Spending time together like this, it’s adding something to counter the bitterness of the violent images.”
“Exactly. You’re sure you don’t cook?”
“There’s a court order barring me, after the last incident. Too many casualties.”
She laughed, and we sat quietly for a few more minutes. Ugly gathered up his weapons and left, passing Tavel who was just coming in. Tavel walked up to Shield with what looked like a copy of the Valkyrie scriptures. He held it out to her and asked a question too quietly for me to hear, to which she nodded and gestured to Ugly’s empty chair. They scooted their chairs together and began reading from the book together, pausing to point out certain passages and discuss them.
“So, why, Bel?” Cora asked.
My brain was far away at the moment and her question reminded me we had been talking. I tried to pick up her thread. “Why what?”
“If doing this alters their recipe so much they have to work to find balance, why are they doing it in the first place?”
A good question. “I think,” I said, “their balance was already off in the first place. To be drawn to work as Keepers means they’re working to find what’s going to balance them. To come here and do this, maybe it was something extreme that set them off balance in the first place. Or maybe they’re just really hungry and need a bigger recipe but are missing some ingredients, and are here looking for them.”
She nodded in approval. “And what about this work would help them balance?”
For that, I had no answer. “Beats the hell out of me. Seems like hard and thankless work that no one wants them to do anyway. I’ve only been here a short while, and I’m already…” I swallowed that confession, not wanting to sound like a child.
I’m having bad dreams. Oh, poor me.
From the look on her face, she seemed to guess the gist what I had been about to say. She nodded. “No, you’re absolutely right. Most Houses seem like they’d be happier without the Peacekeepers. But you haven’t seen what happens when the Houses aren’t kept in check.”
I perked up a bit. This was something I’d wanted to understand. “No one likes talking about it, so I haven’t heard much. What goes on when peace is interrupted and the Houses go to war?”
Cora shook her head, looking down into her cup. “It’s bad, Bel. The rich folks start their little tiffs, arguing back and forth. Then they start hiring mercenaries. ‘Follow the mercenaries,’ Captain always says, ‘when you can’t find any to hire, things are about to happen.’ Private armies and trained killers get sent back and forth. People start dying. Collateral damage tears up the city. The worst is when they get someone with magic. Have you ever seen magical gas which melts a person’s insides but leaves their outside intact? It’s horrible. Just horrible.” She shivered, her tea sloshing in the cup.
“The poor folks, they’ve got it the worst. I mean the ones working at the bottom levels of the Houses, or dependent on the Houses for their income. Mercenaries start wiping out supplies at the bottom level, killing whole little families. When one House finally wins and overtakes another, everyone in that House is either put to the sword or put in chains and repurposed. That means a serving girl can go from mopping floors in the Seventh House one day to being a pleasure slave in the barracks of the Sixth House the next day, just because her House leaders got greedy and overstepped their bounds. The Sixth House may burn her home with her family inside it, because they had links to the fallen House and weren’t useful for the wealth of the surviving House. Or they could be enslaved too, considered property of the House by extension. I’ve seen whole city tiers burn, Bel, when a Keeper cell gets careless.”
