Living With Ghosts (9 page)

He bit his lip. “No, Quena. He doesn’t deserve it.”

She laughed. “He doesn’t deserve to be . . . pleased by you? Do you dislike him so much?” Her hands were traveling. “Will you deny him the pleasure of your talents?”

“He doesn’t want . . .” Gracielis began and broke off, gasping. “Stop it. This isn’t fair.” He had opened his eyes again. The lieutenant’s ghost watched them avidly.

“To whom?” She took one of his hands and kissed the palm.

To both . . . “To Lord Thiercelin.” She licked his wrist. Raising her head, she smiled at him, then kissed his lips. It was hopeless. He could barely move, and she could still do this to him. He said, “Don’t.”

“My poor Gracielis.” She had taken off her shoes. Now she slid to lie beside him. “I don’t deal in fairness. Only in truth.” Her hands were on him, sweetly tormenting. “Do this for me.”

He shivered. “I don’t want to.” The lieutenant’s ghost leaned over him in lubricious spite. “I can’t.” Even Gracielis was no longer sure to what he was referring.

She kissed him. “Oh, you can,” she said, softly. “Let me show you.”

Thiercelin missed breakfast, but arrived downstairs in time for lunch to find both his sister-in-law and his wife present. He kissed the latter’s hand before taking his place. “This is nice. I didn’t know you were home today.” A servant placed soup before him.

“I came back midevening yesterday,” Yvelliane said. “You were out.”

“I wish I’d stayed in, in that case.” He raised his wine-glass to her. She looked tired. He wished the servants would leave so that he might take her in his arms and kiss her worry lines away.

“You’d have been bored, home with me.”

He could never be bored in her company. He said, “Are you here this afternoon? You could bore me then.

I’d like it.”

For an instant, a smile flickered across her lips. But then, she sighed and looked down. “I have to get back to the palace. I’m sorry.”

“I wish you’d woken me.”

“Was it fun, your party last night?”

“Not really.” Thiercelin stirred his soup. The royal aisle. Valdarrien’s ghost and the message he did not understand.
Tell Iareth Yscoithi she was right
. Perhaps Yvelliane would know what that meant. He could not tell her, not now when she was so anxious.

There was a silence. Only Miraude was eating. Thiercelin said, “And tonight?”

“It’s the reception for the heir to Lunedith, remember? I told you last week.”

He had forgotten, somehow. It would be a chance, perhaps, to speak with Iareth Yscoithi. Did Yvelliane know she was back in Merafi? He did not know if he could risk asking. Yvelliane went on, “You don’t have to come, if you like. It’ll be very formal.”

It would be an evening with Yvelliane. And if she did not know about Iareth, then he would be there to support her. He said, “Of course I’m coming. I want to see you in your party dress. And Mimi, too, of course.”

“Yviane’s intending to wear that dark gray thing again.” Miraude sounded disapproving. “I tried to make her get a new one, but she kept being too busy.”

“You have enough new dresses for both of us,” Yvelliane said, a smile in her voice. Thiercelin looked up, just to catch it on her lips. She went on, “Besides, I don’t want to stand out. Kenan Orcandros and I have met before. He disapproves of me.”

“He has bad taste, then.” Thiercelin said, hoping to keep her smiling.

He failed. “No, he just has bad politics,” Yvelliane said, and sighed. “Firomelle needs me there. She . . .” Her voice died.

He looked at her. “Is she worse?”

Yvelliane looked at Miraude before replying. Then she said, “I can’t tell.” She rose. “I’m sorry, Thierry; I don’t feel like talking. Later, perhaps?”

Later. When she was weary from work and wanted only to sleep. There would be no time at the reception. She looked tired and sad. This was no time to speak to her of her brother or of Iareth Yscoithi. Rising, he held the door open for her. She smiled at him in passing, but her eyes betrayed that her thoughts were elsewhere. He sighed as he sat down again, and Miraude looked at him curiously.

Later. He was losing his faith in later.

Miraude said, “Thierry, is something wrong?”

She was watching him with a certain caution. He said, “No, I don’t think so.”

“It’s just . . .” Her tone was thoughtful.

He put down his spoon and stared at her. “What?” She evaded his eyes. “It’s just something I heard yesterday, from Mal.”

“From Mal?” He was baffled. “My so-called friend Mal? As in Maldurel of South Marr? The one with the big mouth and the small brain?”

“You know another one?”

“River forfend! Are you going to tell me what he said?”

“Well . . .” She fidgeted with a knife. “Apparently one of Mal’s sisters is supposed to have seen you in a coffeehouse with one of the professional kind. The beautiful Gracieux—Gracielis de Varnaq. And you’ve been preoccupied lately, and I just wondered . . .”

“If I’d taken a lover?” Thiercelin was torn between outrage and a species of bitter amusement. Dead for six years, Valdarrien, it seemed, was still nevertheless capable of getting him into trouble. He said, “Well, I haven’t and so you may tell Mal!”

She considered him. “Mal said he was holding your hand.”

“It was nothing like that.” For the thousandth time, Thiercelin found himself regretting having ever introduced Miraude to Maldurel. “I love Yviane; you know that.” Miraude continued to stare at him. “Do you want me to swear on a holy book or something?”

“No, I don’t think so. Men aren’t your thing. And I believe you wouldn’t hurt Yviane. It’s just Mal . . .”

“Mal talks too much.Valdin always said so.”

“Oh, Valdin,” said Valdarrien’s widow dismissively.

Thiercelin was still dealing with his outrage. “If he’s going to be telling everyone, I’ll . . .”

“Oh, he won’t. I convinced him it was nonsense. And anyway, he always said that his sister had too much imagination.” Miraude had charming dimples. They appeared now, as she smiled and leaned forward. “So: tell me about Gracieux. You
do
know him? He’s supposed to be absolutely fabulous.”

“Well, he’s fairly unlikely, anyway,” Thiercelin said. Miraude pulled a face. “I don’t know him well. My connection with him is just . . .” He hesitated, unsure of what to say. “He does translations.”

She raised her brows. “You’re interested in Tarnaroqi literature?”

“No, but . . . it’s for my younger brother.” Miraude still looked disbelieving. “I swear it, Mimi, I’m not having an affair with him. Or with anyone else, for that matter. And so you may tell Mal!”

“All right, I’m sorry.” She leaned over and kissed his cheek. “I didn’t mean anything. I was just worrying.”

He looked at her, “You, too? Is something wrong?”

“Not really. I suppose I’m concerned for you and Yviane. And this weather!” She gestured at the window. “All this rain. It makes me restless.”

“Like Valdin.”

She looked interested. “How?”

“He hated to be bored. Weather like this . . .” He shrugged. “He was always more . . . excitable at such times.” Her expression suggested that she had noticed the euphemism. He looked apologetic. “More violent, then. He had an abominable habit of fighting duels in the rain. Very unpleasant for the seconds.”

“Poor Thierry.”

Thierry, forgive
. . . Abruptly, Thiercelin said, “It was worth it. It has to be.” He had to face Iareth Yscoithi, tonight, if he got the chance, and without Yvelliane knowing of it. He could hardly burden Yvelliane with his present problems.

“What is it?” Miraude sounded concerned. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

I could tell her
, Thiercelin thought, looking into her wide eyes.
She was Valdin’s wife,she’s young, she might understand
. It would be easier, shared. Then he remembered Iareth, who had abandoned Valdarrien when she had learned that he had a wife. Iareth Yscoithi, and a chill autumn night, and slim fingers holding his. He shook his head. “It’s nothing, Mimi. I’m just . . . I’m just worried about Yviane.”

It appalled him that this was, in the end, a lie.

It was late afternoon before Quenfrida left. Her potions and caresses had eased his discomfort, but Gracielis found no peace. The lieutenant’s ghost mocked him, and he flinched from it, afraid of shared comprehension.

She was planning something. She was using him to some purpose that he did not understand. He liked it not at all. Dressing with uncertain fingers, he went over it in his mind. Good blood . . . He had never studied the pedigrees of the lesser nobility of Gran’ Romagne. He did not remember hearing that Thiercelin’s duLaurier line shared Gracielis’ own kind of blood. That was the kind of thing he was schooled to know and to recognize. But his out-of-practice eyes had seen no such traces in Thiercelin.

A ghost out of time. Out of order. (A glance, there, for the lieutenant’s ghost, watching him as he drew black lines below his lashes.) In addition, it was raining too much, unseasonally. There was something wrong. Something in Merafi’s air bespoke change.

It was not his concern. He was Tarnaroqui, bred to beauty and artifice. There should be no place in him for compassion, for Thiercelin or for dead, murderous Valdarrien. It was nothing to him, what Quenfrida schemed.

Except when she reminded him too sharply of his dependencies. He stroked color along his cheekbones. It was folly, this compassion, in either of his professions. He was merchandise, no more. In him, attacks of conscience tasted only of sophistry. What right had one who lived through the sale of his body to any dominion over his soul? He could not afford the luxury of integrity.

He was, after all, no better than the rest. The lieutenant’s ghost watched him, its face expressionless, as if it distrusted this sudden bitterness. Well, and so he did himself. He was better accustomed to fear and dissimulation. They had honed him to be a weapon, the priests of his people, and cast him aside when he failed. Cast aside, but not lost, as long as Quenfrida lived to bind him. The gift and the burden of the
undarii
, the perfumed ones, servants of love and death. They were bearers of the other blood, the true blood that was feared in Merafi, bound together in heritage.

He ran a comb through his disordered hair, and caught the eye of the ghost in the mirror. It took no part in his life, save in its self-appointed role of mockery. Whatever it knew of the changes, it would not share.

No more than Gracielis might share any of his own suspicions with Thiercelin of Sannazar.

And yet . . . There was more to all this than Quenfrida revealed. He did not doubt that she sought to harm Yvelliane, but her course was oblique. There was something else here.

He laid down the comb, and turned to face the ghost. “So,” he said to it, to himself, “you have a recommendation?” It made an obscene gesture. “Quite. But that is sadly impossible, given your noncorporeal condition.” He spread out his hands. “I must forgo your advice, I think.”

He hesitated before opening the chest that stood at the foot of his bed and taking out a small box. It was folly to seek to outguess Quenfrida, especially by these means. And then, his physical condition was weak.

He had no other recourse. The box was not locked. From it, he took a small deck of cards and began to shuffle. Quenfrida had left cups on the table. He had to pause to clear it. Then he looked across at the ghost and began to deal. “I hope you’re paying attention. You won’t often see me do this.” It began to drift nearer, affecting scorn. Gracielis smiled. “So. You never know, you might even learn something.”

Privately, he doubted it. He used this method seldom, finding the symbols imprecise. It was too easy to reach generalized conclusions, unless one possessed the necessary mastery, which, frankly, he lacked. He had never been good with cards. As a ghostseer, he was better at reading the past than the future.

Well, it was the present he must try to see now. That was often the hardest of all. It would not stand still. Inexperienced as he was, the reading was made harder in that he lacked both Thiercelin’s presence and any possession of his to facilitate contact. He laid the cards out Mothmoonwise, in the spread that divines character, and stared down at them, frowning. The lieutenant’s ghost peered over his shoulder, disarranging his lace with its insubstantial breath.

“Opinion?” he said to it. It sneered. “Ah. Too much privilege, you think? Were you a leveler?” The ghost made a gesture of distaste. Gracielis shrugged. “Perhaps not.” Anyway, there was little here of privilege, if wealth was meant by that word. Thiercelin’s fortunes had lain in friendship, and in his own reserves, not so much in worldly things. The past was clear on that. The future was confused. Even to himself, Gracielis could admit that the disarray lay in more than his own shortcomings as a seer. Change, quadranted in water and earth. No obvious line of continuity. And as to the present . . .

There was a shadow on that. Too many cards of mixed meaning. He could make no sense of them. A slow turning, a journey without forward motion. A joining; a meeting with an enabling stranger . . .

He pulled a face. This was too glib. As ever, he was blinding himself by viewing only the expected. Shaking his head, he passed a hand across the cards and jumbled them. The ghost watched, impassive. He was too remote from his subject. There were too many variables.