The Gantean (Tales of Blood & Light Book 1) (5 page)

“Yield,” Costas demanded.

“Oh, all right.” Jaasir pushed the blade away, looking irritated. “Let’s get some water. I’m still reeling from last night. It’s your fault. Too much akavit too late.”

Costas laughed and helped his opponent to his feet. He gestured in our direction. “We have spectators, Jaasir.” Turning to Ghilene, Costas said, “Lady Ghilene. I’m so glad you came to watch. Have you met Jaasir, Lord Amar? He’s here for the Brokering to seek a wife.”

Jaasir scowled, but Costas smiled wickedly, as though he took pleasure in his friend’s obvious discomfort with this revelation.

Ghilene offered a haughty bow to Jaasir Amar. “Lord Amar.”

“My lady.” The pale man—he couldn’t have been any more than a year or two my senior, surely younger than Costas—slid his hand beneath Ghilene’s, bringing it to his lips. I watched the two of them, suddenly struck by an odd resemblance one would never notice at first glance. Like Ghilene, Jaasir had a diamond-shaped face, with strong cheekbones and a high forehead. Perhaps they were cousins of some kind? Tiercel had told me that those born into the Ten Houses only married within their own caste.

“And who is your handmaiden, Lady Ghilene?” asked Costas, turning to me with his private smile playing on his well-formed lips. Again, he left me breathless.

“This is Lili,” she said. “She’s new, so she hasn’t yet learned not to stare at her betters.”

Costas cut short the bow he had been giving me and offered Ghilene his arm. “Let’s break our fast together. I have arranged food in my private chambers. Do come.”

Ghilene beamed as she and the prince headed back towards the Palace, leaving Jaasir Amar and me on the pitch.

Jaasir paid no attention to me as he stared after Ghilene and Costas with a look of utter loathing. “Fucking Amatos,” he hissed as he strode off in their wake.

I followed to chaperone to Ghilene. Tiercel had trained me well, and he had not minced words about the importance of keeping an eye on the girl. “She’s headstrong,” he had said. “She could get into all kinds of mischief if given a chance. Keep an eye on her for me, won’t you, Lili? She worries me. She is too much her mother’s daughter.”

Costas’s chambers overlooked the sparring pitch from the Palace’s third floor. He had a large hanging garden full of exotic potted plants. I longed to look at them more closely, but instead I hovered in the doorway, hesitant to enter but unwilling to leave Ghilene alone with the two men.

“Sit, sit.” Costas noticed me in the doorway and gestured towards his table. “Come in, Miss Lili.”

After serving Ghilene, I nibbled at a slice of fruit and surveyed Costas’s table with its perfectly white spread, the gold-edged porcelain dishes, the easy food so distanced from its source. So unlike Gante.
No wonder they think us barbarians.

I had not been following the conversation.

“Lucky, ha!” Costas snorted. “My parents wished to have it all settled before we even had begun. My father thinks it’s better that way, given the catastrophe of his own Brokering, but he promised that he would uphold the traditions and support my choice. That’s something, I guess.”

Ghilene shifted in her seat, frowning. “What happened at your father’s Brokering?”

Costas’s laughter contained no humor. “Don’t you know? It happened over twenty years ago, but I thought it must still be common gossip. Someone put a love hex on him. Caused all sorts of drama and embarrassment.”

As though to change the subject, he turned to me. I flushed beneath the searing attention of his gaze. “Lili, those things you’re wearing.” Costas pointed at my neck. I scrambled to cover my necklaces, too late. “They’re beautiful, so exotic. I’d love to purchase something like them for my mother. Especially the red one. What is that, a ruby? It’s huge.”

“I—I—” My gaze flashed from Costas to Ghilene and back again. She scowled but gave me no guidance. “I—I made them,” I lied desperately.

“With your own hands? Why, what a talent you have. You should remain here in Galantia after the Brokering with a skill like that! Come, what do you say? Wouldn’t you prefer running your own shop in the High City to service?”

I opened my mouth and closed it again, unable to think of anything to say that wouldn’t either expose my status as a slave, which was apparently not generally known, or my origins. “No,” I ventured.

Ghilene showed no inclination to rescue me from the awkward moment. Her cheeks flamed, but the snapping sparkle in her eyes conveyed anger rather than embarrassment.

Jaasir Amar had not spoken at all. He pushed his food about his plate sullenly, occasionally throwing a glower in Costas’s direction.

Costas rescued the stalled conversation by turning to his friend. “So, what do you think, Jaasir? Will you find a suitable bride from the pickings of the Ten Houses? Have anyone in mind?”

“Costas, you know I don’t.” Jaasir threw his cutlery down on the table and gave up the pretense of eating.

Costas leaned back in his chair, bringing the two front legs off the floor like a boy half his age. When he slammed the chair back down, I jumped in my seat, still upset from Costas’s blistering attention.

Costas’s gaze flashed at my flinch, but he spoke to Ghilene. “What about you, Ghilene? Any young men in your sights?”

Her answer surprised me. “I’d only wish to marry if I found the
right
husband. Otherwise I’d rather attend the Conservatoire.”

Costas raised his eyebrows. “You wish to be a magitrix, cousin? Have you been tested by the Conservatoire analyst? Do you have the talent?”

“My mother won’t permit me to be tested.

“Interesting,” Costas mused, tipping back his chair again. “And your father? Who
is
your father, again?”

Jaasir Amar choked on a laugh. Ghilene’s face went from blushing excitement to white horror in the space of a breath. She froze even as Jaasir attempted—half-heartedly, anyone could see—to repress his laughter.

“Lady Entila isn’t married,” mused Jaasir with a nasty glint in his eyes. “She never has been.”

“I don’t know,” Ghilene said woodenly, eyes trained on her plate, knuckles whitening around her servlet. “I don’t know who my father is.”

Silence stretched across the table. I had always heard that the southerners put great store in their relationships of blood, but I had not believed the rumors. As a Gantean, blood relationships meant nothing to me, and I struggled to grasp the depth of Ghilene’s obvious shame.

I opened my mouth to ask why such a thing mattered. Even if it displayed my ignorance, perhaps it would ease Ghilene’s embarrassment.

But Costas cleared his throat and said, “Well, you’re here in Galantia, Ghilene. The Conservatoire is an easy walk away. I can pull strings for you to be tested for magic even if you don’t know your pedigree. What your mother doesn’t know won’t hurt her.” He laughed. I could not tell if he had spoken to ease Ghilene’s distress or to further wound her.

Costas Galatien was a difficult man to read.

G
hilene slumped
in the vanity chair in front of the looking glass in her room. Thankfully, her upset over breakfast had turned her mind from my necklaces. She studied her reflection somberly. I had not yet begun the braid style I had promised her for the party this evening—Ghilene had quickly learned of my talent for knots and braids and put my hands to good use with her hairstyles.

She sighed. “I hate that Jaasir Amar. He enjoyed my humiliation! And I hate that Costas knows I’m a bastard.” She flung an arm across the vanity table, knocking over all the bottles of scents and lotions I had arranged so carefully when removing them from her traveling cases.

I crouched to collect the vials from the floor. “Is it really such a bad thing, not knowing who your father is? No one knows their blood father on Gante.”

Ghilene’s expression flattened as she clutched the edge of the vanity. “I’m not a savage!” She leapt from the chair and flung a vial of rose attar onto the floor. It smashed, and the scent of rose filled the air. “I’m not a filthy barbarian!” I flinched, as Ghilene went on, “Just because Mother won’t tell me, it doesn’t mean my father isn’t of good blood! She only won’t tell me because she doesn’t want me to be able to enroll at the Conservatoire, which tells me he must have a magical bloodline, so he must be of some consequence—”

I refrained from telling her what I had seen that night with Tiercel. “I only meant—”

“It doesn’t matter.” She pulled herself together, taking her seat in that dainty way she had, flicking her skirts to the side to avoid creasing them. “It doesn’t matter. With Costas, I mean. He can give his sigil to whomever he wants, and the sigil is binding. Bastards have been married by Galatiens before. There’s precedent. Lili, my hair! What are you waiting for? I don’t want to arrive too late to the party.”

I
smoothed
the dark blue silk of my dress flat, arranging the narrow skirt so it lay close against my legs. My reflection stared back from the looking glass; my eyes, fringed with black lashes, took up too much of my face. Murlian used to admire their dark blue color, but I suspected her of flattery. Ganteans did not have blue eyes, and I’d never gotten used to the oddity of them.

I could see the results of Tiercel’s efforts in the looking glass; no one would guess me Gantean. “As cooked as a girl can get,” I muttered at myself in the glass. “Sayantaq fool.”

Yet the Palace, the High City, the Galatien family—their beauty shocked me breathless. I couldn’t help myself from leaning towards it like a moth lured by a glittering warm light.

Ghilene had already gone down to the party with her mother and brother, directing me to follow after I tidied her room—left a disaster after her dressing. She had tried on every gown she had brought before settling on the first one.

Sayantaq as my feelings might be, I wanted to go to the Brokering party. I wanted to see it, to watch the dances Tiercel had taught me, to taste more of the flavorful foods, to stare at the costumes and finery and gold.

I turned from the guest room and hurried down the broad stairs, my blood humming with excitement.

A
crowd milled
in the ballroom. Ladies wore rich, vibrant colors and jeweled bodices; men favored tight-tailored suits in black or blue or green. Daring gowns represented the fashion; my new attire that I had thought so extravagant back in Queenstown appeared plain by comparison. I did not mind the plainness, as I meant to keep quietly to the sidelines. Ghilene had advised me to avoid “hovering” near her, though no lady would attend a ball without a personal servant to fetch and carry for her.

I skirted the edge of the room, passing Culan Entila, who stood with a girl in a peach gown with a metalwork belt done in gold leaves. We all approached a table laden with tiny cakes stacked on tiers of plates. Culan offered the girl one of his jewelry trinkets—a sign that he wanted to court her, if I recalled what Tiercel had told me about the Brokering. I covered a smile with my hand. The southerners struck me as quite bizarre in their mating practices. All this glitter and shine just to decide who should mate with whom. The Gantean way of the Elders assigning mates seemed much simpler.

I found a quiet seat tucked against the wall from which to absorb the lavish scenery. The walls had been draped in long curtains of gold and grey fabric, and every available surface supported vases filled with large yellow flowers. Glass spheres dangled in the air, lit by magelight that cast a warm glow into the room.

I spotted Costas Galatien. He wore all white, and he still gleamed as if he had been dusted with gold powder. He searched the room, scanning the perimeter, until his gaze landed on Ghilene, who had joined her brother by the food. Costas straightened the lapels of his coat and headed towards the Entilans.

He bowed and spoke to Culan before offering Ghilene his arm. I quelled a momentary stab of envy and chose to view the situation pragmatically: Costas’s attention would put Ghilene in a pleasant mood, saving me distress.

Only Ghilene and Costas danced when the music began. They moved through the star-figure Tiercel had shown me, backs and arms stiff in the preferred posture. Only after the second piece of music began did others join in the dance. Costas had switched partners and now held Stesichore, the elder Ricknagel sister with heavy gold hair who had been so unimpressed with Entila.

By the third number, nearly everyone danced, even the older people. I surveyed the ballroom and found one forlorn creature sitting alone at a table in the shadows. The red birthmark that marred her right cheek likely had something to do with her lack of partner. I remembered how the Entilan siblings had mocked her behind her back:
Splotch-Face
, they’d called Sterling Ricknagel. The poor girl looked as though people had been saying such names to her face. Misery furrowed her forehead. Sterling's companion, the one who cut such a striking figure with her hair wrapped in a cowl, strode to Sterling’s empty table with the a young man in tow. The tall handmaiden held the boy’s arm in a grip that brooked no argument, and she delivered the boy to Sterling like an animal for sacrifice.

Sterling shook her head, pale blue eyes wide. The companion gestured towards the dancers. Sterling rose awkwardly and allowed her new partner to guide her to the floor. A flicker of triumph flashed across the tall companion’s face. I smiled, understanding her pride in her success. I didn’t even like Ghilene, but as her handmaiden, I took an interest in her happiness. Clearly Sterling Ricknagel’s handmaiden felt the same way.

“Are you Ghilene Entila’s girl?” someone asked from behind me.

I turned, surprised to find a tall, fair young man in livery, bowing.

“Yes?”

“I have a message for you,” the servant said. Instead of looking at me, his gaze darted over my shoulder and around the room, as if scanning for eavesdroppers or gossipers looking our way. A flower emblem with many slender petals, embroidered in gold, sparkled on the left shoulder of his grey coat. The Galatien sigil.

“Yes?” I repeated.

The servant angled his head to the side, inviting me into a shadowed nook that hid between the wall and a drape. I ducked into the strip of darkness with him, but he did not linger, only pressing a small paper square into my hand and nodding as he moved back towards the center of the festivities.

I peered at the card he’d left in my hand, an envelope of cream-colored paper with a gilded edge. Stepping towards the nearest magelight orb to get enough light for reading, I broke the seal—white wax with gold flakes, pressed with the same flower sigil of House Galatien.

CG?
I stared at the note, written in a spikey, upright hand without an error on the page. Costas Galatien—who else could it be? But what could he possibly wish to speak of? And what did he mean, the usual method? How did a Lethemian send a clandestine sign to a fellow guest at a party? I shoved the card back into the envelope and tucked them down the front of my dress along with the charms I still wore on my leather twine. I searched through the ballroom to find Costas Galatien. He stood in a group of men and women, one hand resting on Stesichore Ricknagel’s arm in a proprietary way.

What did he want?
My natural curiosity wanted to know so badly I would agreed to his plan in a heartbeat, had I only known how to signal my intent.

I found Ghilene beside a sidebar laden with glasses of sparkling wine; she had not one but two flutes, one clutched in each hand. Tiercel had warned me that Lady Entila permitted Ghilene too many freedoms, including drink. She raised one of the flutes and drained it before setting it back on the table.

“There you are, Lili. I thought you’d been blessedly struck down by a headache and decided not to come.”

With a welcome like this, I hardly wanted to ask her my question, but Ghilene represented my only option. I inched closer to the table, careful to avoid touching Ghilene’s skirts.

“If someone wanted to send a message, secretly, at a party like this, how would it be done?” I brazened, though I half-expected Ghilene to dismiss me just for asking.

Ghilene’s eyes narrowed as she set down another emptied flute. “What kind of message?”

“I—I don’t know. It’s nothing. I overheard a conversation, that’s all.”

Ghilene gripped my arm. “A conversation? What about?”

I had rarely attempted to lie—deceit ran counter to my Gantean sensibilities—but the words came naturally, perhaps because they held a slice of truth. “I heard Stesichore Ricknagel talking about sending a secret message to Costas Galatien, but I did not understand how she meant to do it.”

Ghilene’s brows pulled together into one dark slash. “Stesichore Ricknagel! A secret message to Costas Galatien? Do you mean—why, do you mean by women’s knife? But it’s only the first night! Surely he hasn’t given her a
knife
yet? No it must be her own.” Ghilene stalked at surprising speed away from the table.

“What’s a women’s knife?” I asked, trailing in the wake of her swishing lavender skirts.

Ghilene faced me, reaching up her lace-edged sleeve. “This.” She pulled out a thin metal blade the length of her hand that looked rather like the tool Tiercel had used to open his letters.

“How is it used to send messages?”

“Oh, it’s easy. Once you have the attention of the one with whom you wish to communicate, you simply slide it into your hand and make certain gestures, depending on what you wish to convey.”

“Like what?” I pressed. “How would you say ‘yes,’ for instance?”

“Why? Did you see Stesichore signaling with her knife already?” Ghilene’s voice rose.

I shook my head. “No, I only wished to understand how the signaling is done. In case I see it in the future.”

“The idea is to do it so delicately no one sees.” Ghilene lifted her right hand. “But look. If I slide it like so, into the palm of my hand, and then turn it outwards, once, with my fingers pointed down, that means
yes
. If I do a flash with my fingers pointed directly at my body, that means
no
. What did you see her do?”

“She didn’t do anything. I only heard her speaking. I don’t even know if it had anything to do with a knife.” But I gathered Costas expected me to have such a blade, and apparently he thought I had the knowledge to speak to him with it.
Why?
“Where do you get such a blade?” I wondered.

“Oh, they are always gifts.” Ghilene flicked her hand, and the little dagger disappeared up her sleeve. “A girl receives them from her brother, or if she has one, her lover or husband. Culan gave me mine when I came of age.”

I frowned. I had no knife to signal Costas my intention. “I see.”

“Where did he go; did you see?” Ghilene asked, scanning the ballroom. “I hope he hasn’t run off with Stesichore.”

The weighty awareness of Costas Galatien had not left me since I first laid eyes upon him. When he stood anywhere near, my internal senses knew his exact location as though a string connected us. I pointed to where he stood beside the musician’s area speaking to the conductor.

Ghilene hurried towards Costas, intent on attracting his notice before the next dancing set began.

I turned back to the tables, searching for the meats and cheeses. None of the serving knives were exactly like the woman’s knife Ghilene had displayed, but I found a small silver utensil amongst the soft cheeses that would serve. I slipped the little thing up my sleeve, practicing the move that Ghilene had shown me until I had it smooth. Then I went in search of a suitable position where Costas Galatien could see me as he danced with Ghilene. The perfect time to signal would be when they danced with Ghilene’s back towards me, as Costas would face me square on and surely not miss the gesture. I stood directly across the dancing floor from the musician’s area and checked both shoulders, just to make certain no one observed me.

Costas turned; I caught his eye. I dropped my gaze to my hands and hurriedly slid the knife into my right palm, flashing it in the signal for “yes.”

Costas gave the slightest inclination of his head, though to anyone observing, it would have only appeared he shifted his focus to Ghilene’s bright face.

T
wo more hours passed
, and my eyelids grew heavy. Ghilene and her brother were involved in some sort of game played with a deck of cards and several rocks spread out over the table. When the activity finished, Ghilene glided over to me, her face a curious blend of interest and dismay.

I lifted my head and attempted to clear it. “Are you ready to retire?” I asked.

“What do you suppose it means: you will achieve the true desire of your heart but not the acknowledged one?”

I followed Ghilene towards the ballroom door. “What?”

“The true but not the acknowledged one.” Ghilene gestured for me to gather her cape and headpiece from the coatroom.

We turned to make our way back to the eastern wing.

“That’s what the taroc reader told me,” she added several moments later.

I had been distracted, wondering how to separate myself from Ghilene so that I could be led to whatever secret meeting place Costas Galatien planned.

“I suppose it’s all nonsense, isn’t it? The Vhimsantese invented taroc, and they don’t have any magic. It’s just a game,” Ghilene went on.

“I don’t know taroc.”

“Of course you don’t.” Ghilene sighed. “Oh, damn. I left the nosegay that Adrastos Galatien gave me in the ballroom. So cute—he gave nosegays to all the ladies tonight as his token, even though he’s too young to make an offer. Go and get it for me, Lili. It’s got a yellow chrysanthemum in its center. ”

I hurried back towards the ballroom, relieved to have a proper excuse to separate from Ghilene. Perhaps whatever Costas Galatien wanted wouldn’t take too long, and she’d never have the opportunity to scold me.

Before I reached the ballroom doors, the man who had delivered Costas’s clandestine note fell into step beside me, taking my arm and guiding me straight past the grand room. We headed due west, in the direction of Costas Galatien’s rooms where I had breakfasted with Ghilene the day before.

“This way,” the servant directed. We passed Costas’s rooms and continued towards the end of the hall, where an almost rustic-looking wood door filled the entire abutting wall.

Costas’s servant indicated the door.

“I—I am to enter?” I clarified.

He nodded.

I had to use both hands to turn the large handle, leaning my full weight into the thick door to push it inwards.

My breath caught as I stepped into the room beyond the door. I had never seen anything like it; even the ritual chamber that surrounded the Hinge in Gante could not compare, for though that cavern had colored crystals for walls as well, no light penetrated it, so the colors could not been seen so easily. Here, the opal walls rose around me, sparkling with internal light as well as from magelight sconces that hung from a web-like lattice overhead, suspended on thin strings of the same glassy substance that formed the bridge into the High City. The entire blue crystal room—garden?—glowed.

I paused a few steps into the magical place, staring up at the lattice in utter amazement.

“Quite an accomplishment of magical architecture, Jiri’s Web,” a voice said from my right.

“W—what?”

Costas Galatien emerged from a triangle of shadows between two dwarfed trees that grew in blue ceramic pots.

He pointed overhead. “Jiri’s Web. Made by the mage Jiri Saberian over two hundred years ago. We have him to thank for the advances in magical architecture that allowed the Galantia Bridge to be built, not to mention the invention of the Lethemian court dances.”

I blinked. Costas Galatien, up close, robbed me of words and breath. The garden’s opalescent light enhanced whatever he had done to his skin to make it shimmer, and he looked even more like a cast statue.