Sasharia En Garde (36 page)

There was more obvious digging for compliments, which
Canardan, bestirring himself at last, gave with grace, evoking that head-shattering
laugh. And then—none too soon—they all parted, to the sound of hammering and
muffled swearing from below as servants muscled garlands out to decorate the
walkways leading to the grand chambers.

Canardan put a hand out to keep Jehan from leaving. When
they were alone, he said, “She’s never spoken so much about the girl in all the
days she’s been here.”

“Is she always like that?” Jehan asked, too tired to think.

“No.” Canardan rubbed his jaw. “But I think, I think she was
flirting with you.”

Jehan stared, appalled. “That was flirting?”

“What else could it have been? You’re young, almost as
handsome as I am, and who knows what sort of customs they get up to in that
other world?” Canardan took in his son’s honest disgust and amazement. “The
important thing is, she hasn’t said as much in all the weeks she’s been here. I
want you to take her out for a ride. Let her flirt as much as she likes. Get
more out of her, especially about Math.”

Jehan forced himself to bring up the subject of Sasha,
dangerous as it was. Much as he hated himself for his astounding failure in
every particular of their relationship—except for one incredible kiss. Maybe
that had been a mistake as well, but one he’d never regret . . .
 
Focus,
idiot.
“Do you really want me to marry someone called Clumsy Kickpail?” And
then he had it, Atanial’s reasons for the lies. “She sounds terrible. We should
be glad she’s gone.”

But Canardan just grinned. “What could be better? The worse
this girl is, the more popular you become. She can always sustain an accident
when convenient. From the sound of it, no one would even mind. Better and
better.”

Jehan sustained a heady, almost dizzy sensation, his
emotions veering between revulsion and laughter at how wrong that vivid word
picture was of Sasha. How to let Atanial know her ruse was not working? He
couldn’t. He hated the pretense, the lying, but as he crossed to his rooms, the
soft summer air bringing the sounds of workers singing tunelessly a ballad from
Sartor, he knew he would lie—cheat—steal, if he had to, if it meant he could
protect Sasha from discovery by Randart. Even though she didn’t want to be
protected.

He also would lie—cheat—steal in order to protect the
kingdom.

It needed protecting badly.

Once he reached his room, he dismissed everyone but
gangling, tuft-haired Kazdi, his cadet runner. It took only an exchange of
looks and Kazdi prowled around watching for spies, especially Chas.

Jehan shut himself in the bath chamber and pulled out his
magic-transfer case, which he had not been able to check for days.

Several tiny folded pieces of paper awaited him. The first,
from Elkin, his mage-student friend doing his journeywork as a mage-scribe at
the academy.

In ancient Sartoran, he’d written:
Damedran put in for changes. Dannath rescinded them. Tension between
masters and seniors.

There was one from Robin, leading the fleet.

The
Skate
is leading the Aloca fleet after us. We
think they’re going to try a pincer. We’ll hang them up around the islands.

One from Aslo, the ally he’d planted in Randart’s fleet
carrying the invasion weapons, now the liaison with Tharlif, the tough old
woman who’d been privateering for most of her life. One of Zathdar’s staunchest
allies.
Our contact agrees, purpose of
shipment is to stockpile weapons. Much speculative war talk.

So far, as expected.

The last one, the smallest, he unfolded, his heart
hammering.

There were no words, only a tiny drawing of an owl in
flight.

He smiled for the first time in days, left the bath for his
waiting bed, and was soon deep in long-postponed sleep.

The weather did not relent.

In the gardens the blossoms drooped, looking papery and
withered, the edges of leaves yellowed, and a silted pall of dust shimmered in
the air above the roads. But the night of the masquerade, a couple thousand
candles softened the dust and dryness of the city with a forgiving, golden
shimmer. Lights were everywhere, candles in cut-glass holders, their flames
glittering in infinite reflection against paired mirrors down hallways.
Outside, candles glowed in lamps of colored glass that were hung in trees and
set along stone walls.

The king watched his guests arrive from his private balcony
overlooking the broad entryway to the grand chambers. His son was with him,
observing the press of open, light carriages rolling up to release
fantastically groomed and glittering guests. Atanial listened through the open
doors of her room to the echoes of musicians tuning instruments, servants
calling last-minute orders, and bustling about on last errands.

All three knew the setting was right. Why shouldn’t it be,
after uncounted hands had labored all week to get it that way? All three of
them reflected (Canardan briefly, Jehan brooding, Atanial with resignation) how
the decorations, the clothes, the starry night with its colored lights, hid the
parching drought—as the prospect of a party hid the tensions between people.

The king had to wait until everyone was there, for his
appearance signaled the beginning, and afterward arrivals were officially late.
Being late to a party given by a king would get you talked about, and not in a
good way, for months afterward.

So Canardan stood out on the balcony, which was at least
somewhat cooler than indoors. He wished he’d not chosen a heavy robe, splendid
as it had looked in the heralds’ drawings. Yet his costume was a message, a
subtle reminder of his own heritage, for he was going as Matthias Lirendi, the
last and most famous (some said infamous) emperor of Colend. Who was a Merindar
ancestor. Of course he was an ancestor of most of the royal houses in the
eastern part of the continent, but that also underscored Canardan’s royal
antecedents.

Jehan had chosen the guise of an old Sartoran poet-prince,
known for his complete disregard for the invisible boundaries of politics as
well as for his visionary works of art. The long paneled robe worn over loose
trousers was cool and easy to move in; the colors, sky blue and black,
complemented his white hair.

He knew the costume would annoy his father, good as it
looked. But its purpose was to deflect interest in him as a political figure.
Though in truth, he thought sourly as he reluctantly started downstairs, every
single thing he did or said had political repercussions.

The costume and his rank would at least hold importunate
guests to discussing any subject he chose, and he chose to stick with poetry.

As his shoes whispered over the marble steps, he considered
Atanial. The question was, what would he say to her?

He thought back over their ride earlier that day. They had
talked little, both agreeing that the heat was too breathless. In reality,
Jehan’s planned words had zapped away when he discovered that Chas was to
accompany them, ostensibly to see to their needs.

The few words they’d exchanged had been masterpieces of
dullness, punctuated by Atanial’s horrible giggle. As Atanial commented with
excruciating detail on everything she saw, right to the types of grass growing
on the roadside, Jehan enjoyed the jaw-locked tedium in Chas’s face.

Obedient to his father’s wishes, he’d asked about Sasharia, to
be regaled with giggle-punctuated stories not really about Sasha at all, but
about Atanial. She’d described little anecdotes even more pointless and tedious
than her chatter about grass, often correcting herself several times in the
maddening way of the crashing bore. “Was it five? No, no, I state it wrong, it
was four. No, it was five, for I remember the moon that night, and I was
wearing my new gown . . . four . . . my
friend—you should meet her some day—anyway she said, ‘Four more times,’ I
remember it like it was yesterday. Or was it five after all?”

Jehan had kept Chas in view just so he could count the man’s
attempts to swallow yawns. Jehan was now convinced Atanial’s chatter was a
performance, and it was brilliant.

More to the point, he saw that Atanial was willing to lie
about Sasha when alone with the king and himself, but in front of other ears,
she never quite brought herself to say anything at all. And so, mindful of Chas
behind him, he’d contributed his mite by boring on until his throat was parched
about styles of Sartoran versus Colendi art.

They’d all been glad when that ride ended.

Snapped back to the present by the sweet, brassy peal of the
King’s Fanfare, Jehan took his place in the grand ballroom. Around him hissed
the breathing of far too many people shifting and rustling as they tried not to
sweat into their good clothes.

The promenade introductory music prompted the company to
assemble, and because this was a masquerade where the customary order of rank
was somewhat relaxed, those more bold, more confident or more desperate, all
tried to get to the front without unseemly haste.

Atanial, at the king’s side, observed the prince’s
distracted blue gaze as he fell in behind. She raised her hand to meet
Canardan’s palm at shoulder height, distracted momentarily by the fall of the
splendid sleeves of his robe, blue and gold, embroidered with highly stylized,
gracefully attenuated lilies.

He did the king thing well, she thought with private humor.
He looked good from his fineweave boots to the waving auburn hair brushed back
nobly from his brow—not a hint of balding, either. The angle of his chin, his
slight smile convinced her he knew it. He was
preening
. That sense of mocking laughter nearly escaped, and she
turned it into a smile.

As for arrogance, she knew she looked good all in midnight
blue velvet, edged with crimson, and the high medieval headdress like nothing
in the room, her mask being (for she knew she was the center of attention, and
she’d play along) the sheerest of veils.

It was enough to hide her inch-long grayish silver roots.
She remembered that people did color their hair on this world, but it was done
by magic, not chemicals. She did not want to risk inviting any of Canardan’s
mages to perform magic over her. Who knew what kind of spell they might slip in
besides the hair color?

Therefore the veil. Even if she was the only one amused,
going as Maleficent from Disney’s
Sleeping
Beauty
definitely gave her secret enjoyment.

The promenade began with a flourish of brassy horns and a clash
of cymbals, all the guests pacing in time, chins high, backs straight, toes
pointed.

“You look lovely, Atanial.” Canardan smiled. “Is that a
guise from your world or ours?”

“Oh, mine,” she said cheerily, noting the
your world or ours
. “Maleficent is a very,
very wicked woman.”

“Ah, and by that you are suggesting?”

“Nothing. Do you think me wicked? You know better than that,
Canardan. I like her style.”

“I sometimes wonder if I know you at all, Sun. But a wicked
queen who reigns in a ballroom, it’s a fine touch. Danger with dance, without
destruction. Would that the world were conducted the same.” He smiled, saluting
her hand with grace.

And—they were quite aware—every pair of eyes in the ballroom
took in that hand kiss.

Snap. The trap she’d helped him to build closed round her,
just as she became aware of it.
I ought
to have been Clarabelle the stupid cow.
She realized at last what a
masquerade
meant
. She was on display,
everyone knew who she was, but the very fact that this was a masquerade meant
she could not actually speak to anyone about anything real.

She was stuck in a Disney guise, but this was no Disney
film, with a handy fairy godmother or blue angel standing by to waft the
hapless heroine to a happy ending.

Furious with him, with herself, she stared straight ahead
and worked on her breathing, as Canardan looked round to the formed circle of
his guests. He caught at least four meaningful glances, people who were going
to single him out for A Little Talk.

He faced forward, setting a slower pace. When you’re a king
you can slow up an entire circle of people and no one will make a peep. The gap
between them and the last couple widened. Speaking low so that Jehan and the
duchess behind them could not hear—not that they were listening, for he could
hear the duchess talking about her daughter’s stunning talent in the arts—he
said, “I take it you feel more comfortable among those of rank than you once
did?”

“Oh, I got over the rank thing really fast in the old days,”
she responded with forced cheer. “As Math often said, princes have to put on
their pants one leg at a time, same as do poets. Or poulterers.”

“I remember you brought that up during one of our first
conversations. Such sayings sound earnest and egalitarian, but are they really
believed? There is a such thing as protesting too much.”

“Then I’ll drop the sayings. I see your aristocrats as human
beings raised to certain customs, ways of speaking and thinking, that become
habit. It’s partly training that sets anyone apart from anyone else. And
training means you’re taught to do something, whether it’s making lace or
running a kingdom, but whether or not you do it well is up to the individual,”
she said.

Before Canardan could answer, the musicians shifted up half
a key, and he realized they’d been patiently playing the same phrase far too
many times. He was not being a good host. He lengthened his step, Atanial
matched his pace, and they obligingly closed the distance with the rest of the
circle.

Atanial turned gracefully to the right as the king turned to
his left, and her palm met the prince’s. They completed their half turn and
began pacing in the opposite direction.