Chapter Nineteen Hark, What Lady Through Yonder Window

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Hark, What Lady Through Yonder Window

The lord approached Lia on the balcony while Marius fetched lemonade. By the time Marius returned, the drunk youth was dragging Lia into the shadows.

An instant, crowded with incidents, followed. One glass and one man went over the side of the balcony.

"I never saw a man half killed with a glass of lemonade before," the lady remarked.

Marius bowed as he handed Lia the remaining glass, and retreated so even his shadow didn't touch her. "I should have realized my brutality would shock and frighten you. I apologize."

"I was not afraid." Lia's smile chased away every shadow. "I was grateful."

Time of Iron , ANONYMOUS

O n public occasions Emer carried a drawstring bag full of Rahela's cosmetics at her wrist, often hunting through the contents to find rosewater, angelica root rouge, or marjoram lip stain. Tonight, Emer scrabbled through a bag of emotions, trying to find the right one.

In the country estate where they grew up, everyone murmured Rahela was a gaudy red flower, blossoming early and sure to wither soon, and Lia was a pearl. In the sleepy Shroud valleys whispers rose like wheat. Emer always found the whispers puzzling. Why was it sad for flowers to wither, but wicked for women? The whispers contained no answers. The whispers drove Rahela to drag Lia down, despite the fact Lia was only a child. Lia's lessons stopped. Lia was put in drab clothes, hardly better dressed than a servant. It made no difference.

The whispers continued, though Rahela was hardly more than a child herself. Rahela's was a debauched beauty, degrading to possess and almost degrading to admire. Gentlemen of taste appreciated more refined beauties. Rahela was cheap.

As it emerged, Rahela was very expensive. Only the king could afford her. When they came to the capital and the king went wild for Rahela, the way people spoke about her changed. Suddenly she was the subject of songs and poetry, a siren and a scandal, the Beauty Dipped In Blood, the legendary woman of snow and flame. Her beauty was peerless, poisonous and paralysing, something no man could resist. Even though Rahela didn't actually look any different.

Years passed, Lia arrived from the countryside, and suddenly the story changed back. The men who blamed Rahela for being irresistible were now contemptuous, and that was Rahela's fault too.

The flower was withered. The pearl was shining.

Lia was the fairest. Everybody thought so.

Emer did, too. She strictly avoided Lia when they were children. Now Lia was at court she hardly dared look at her, in case Rahela saw the betrayal in Emer's mind. Until Rahela asked Emer to go to Lia, and make friends.

In the end, Lord Marius Valerius, the Last Hope, was no different from the others. Public opinion said the man was as cold as the beautiful statues he resembled, and even belowstairs gossip couldn't verify any scandalous rumours.

Many of the staff made attempts to catch Lord Marius's eye. Emer had watched with her own eyes a competition for the most provocative method of picking up an artfully dropped feather duster. When the ladies failed to attract attention, several footmen and under-butlers tried displaying their strong arms and height to clean the chandeliers.

Once the Golden Cobra breezed in and tried to tell him. "Marius, there are five people dusting in here."

"Libraries need a lot of dusting," the Last Hope returned sternly. "Because of all the books."

The Cobra laughed and chose a book from the shelves for Lord Marius before departing. Lord Marius turned his serious attention to the book, and didn't look up again.

Lord Marius never noticed anyone. Until Lia.

That was Lady Lia. She was like light or air. Even if you barred the door and shut the windows, she could slip through.

Emer's head was still spinning with dizzy horror at her own lady's latest madcap trick, when she saw Lia trembling like a lone candle flame in the centre of the gossip storm that was the ballroom. Lord Marius swept in, took her in his arms in front of everybody, and saved her. Lia's face went radiant with gratitude.

When Rahela had sent Emer on her mission of deception, Lia was transferred to the lady-in-waiting tower but she didn't have the stipend or official status. She wasn't granted a maid or a bodyguard, so Emer had no place allocated belowstairs. Lia and she shared the bed, pulling the white sheets over their heads to whisper secrets.

Watching Lia and Marius, Emer couldn't forget those nights.

"One day each of us must marry." Lia's whisper, low as the burning candle in their window. Filtered through the thin sheet, the candlelight turned her lashes gauzy gold. "What will having a husband be like?"

Years ago all the country girls made fanciful coloured sketches of the three famous shining knights. Laughing Lord Lucius, the sunshine of the court. The young prince. And the unconquerable Lord Marius.

Perhaps Lia would be the one to conquer him. They moved across the ballroom floor and through the balcony doors into the romantic moonlight. Emer watched gleaming glass doors close behind the perfect pair.

Then Lord Marius emerged from the balcony alone, wearing a look that made his cold face seem stone twice over. People pulled back from the icy blaze of him as he cut a direct line through the crowd to where the Cobra had been an instant before.

They were discovered. They were doomed.

Lia was deserted. Emer could see the pale flutter of her dress beyond the glass, and guess at the calculations she was making. If Lia came inside, she would be alone and embarrassed again, with her admirer fled. If she stayed out there, she was prey.

There was no time to make the choice. Emer wasn't the only one who noticed Lia alone. A foppish young courtier, swaying from drink already, made for the balcony.

A lady must always be desired, but never possessed. There was nobody to protect her. Servants were forbidden to go out on the balcony, and no lord would be stopped by a maid.

Unless that maid had a weapon. Emer recalled the confidence and power she'd felt wielding a blade in the Court of Air and Grace. Then she shook off the wild fancy. She was not Key.

There was only one possible source of help. Rahela was pretending acceptance of her stepsister, to inflame the king with jealousy. It was an ingenious scheme, sure to fail.

Ultimately Octavian would always choose Lia. Anybody would.

But Emer could use Rahela's pretence to help Lia now. Emer moved discreetly across the edges of the ballroom, head bowed, the perfect maid. The old Rahela was always uneasily aware people thought she had more in her bodice than her brain. The new Rahela was sitting among the members of the literary salon, conversing with Lady Zenobia Marcianus, the most intelligent and well-connected woman in court. Even more shocking, Lord Fabianus Nemeth was addressing the foreign princess.

"Please forgive my impertinence."

"I can't, until I know how impertinent you intend to be," said Princess Vasilisa.

"—you're so clever! Would you be offended if I suggested a casual mode of dress might truly become you? If you wore your hair down and considered warm tones—"

Under cover of Fabianus's fatuous voice, nobody heard the sound of silk ripping and a series of cascading clicks. Rubies tumbled one by one onto the marble floor like expensive game pieces.

"Oh no, my lady," Emer said flatly. "You tore your dress."

Rahela's eyebrows, arched like swallow's wings, took flight. The silk was still clenched in Emer's fist. "That does appear to have happened!" She added in a hiss, "I can't afford to lose any of my dress. There isn't that much of it!"

Emer produced needle and thread from her apron. She busied herself repairing the gown she'd ripped apart, and muttered to Rahela out of the corner of her mouth.

"Lady Lia's on the balcony alone. There are noblemen on the prowl."

Rahela flapped her hand. "Don't even worry about it."

Emer's heart plummeted like an anchor off the jaunty sailboat of Rahela's indifference. She should have known Rahela would rejoice at Lia's downfall.

Rahela leaned forward. "Seriously, it's no big deal. The Last Hope will toss that fool right off the balcony. It'll be a bonding experience for them. Trust me, babe, I'm a holy prophet."

She used idiom similar to the Cobra these days. Emer supposed this was meant to seduce the Cobra to her side. Rahela's lady mother always said one must feign sharing men's interests, sharing their very thoughts. She said men wanted women to be nothing but mirrors with breasts.

Emer's needle stabbed through silk hard. "You might want to check with the gods again, my lady. Lord Marius recently exited the ballroom in hot pursuit of the Cobra."

Rahela jumped as if pinched. "He did what!"

An interval passed in which Rahela clutched at the ruby pins in her hair and took deep breaths, obviously running through the Cobra's new odds of success in her mind. Of course, she was only concerned about her plot. Emer snapped thread as if she were snapping a neck, and Rahela blinked into her accusing eyes.

"Right, damsel in distress. I feel that's an issue for a hero? I think it's hero o'clock. King Octavian should step up and save her. Don't hate the player, hate the endgame."

She gazed around in search of the king.

Lady Zenobia's lip curled. "His Majesty is in the Room of Revel and Retreat. As usual."

Rahela and Emer exchanged a frantic glance. As one, they twisted around and peered through the shimmering glass doors. Lia had her face turned up to the moonlight. She couldn't see the man's shadow falling across her slight, pale back.

"Is my mother right?" Rahela murmured. "Are men useless? They don't take out the trash, they don't rescue the damsels. The only thing a villainess should do at a party is make catty remarks and spill red wine on the heroine's dress! I never get a moment's peace to make catty remarks."

Emer was baffled by her ranting. Rahela's lady mother had many uses for men. They could be seduced for state secrets, married for money and estates, and poisoned to relieve one's feelings.

Rahela bolted from her seat and strode determinedly towards the balcony. She no longer walked as if unaccustomed to long skirts, but she still moved differently than before. She moved as if she expected people to get out of her way.

Far more discreetly, Emer rose, curtsied to Lady Zenobia and drifted to the gallery where Key stood discussing knife tricks with the foreign woman bodyguard. Ziyi of the icelands had clearly been expecting flirtation, but Key seemed more interested in her knives than her charms.

Emer and Key had struck their own bargain after the Court of Air and Grace, when Emer realised he might be useful to her. They were useful to each other now. Key might believe they were friends. Emer knew they were only allies.

Ziyi grinned at her. "Ah, the maid with the blade."

Emer offered a cautious smile, edged closer to Key and murmured, "Lady Rahela—"

"Is on the balcony, tending to her idiot sister," Key murmured back. "You don't need to tell me where she is. I always know where she is."

Emer wanted to say if he thought Lady Lia was an idiot, he didn't know much, but kept her silence. She'd betrayed Lia too often already.

Ziyi raised an eyebrow. "Is that where your interest lies?"

"Don't be absurd," Emer snapped. "I beg your pardon. I realize you're new to our kingdom. Perhaps you don't know that if a lady's name is mentioned in association with a servant's, it would be ruin. Lady Rahela would never dream of even touching a guard's hand."

Key's glance was so sharp it stung. "That's right," he said slowly. "Lady Rahela would never touch me."

He was different, these days. Emer had caught him sleeping like a guard dog outside their lady's chamber. The staff belowstairs had been menaced into providing constant hot water and snacks. When Emer asked how he could sleep on the stone floor, Key replied he slept as well there as anywhere. He added, sounding inappropriately amused, that he had nightmares of blood and lives cut short.

He was a nightmare.

It was Key's whim at present to be a faithful servant. Emer didn't know if she could trust that fancy to endure. She didn't know what would prove more dangerous: if it didn't last, or if it did.

A nearby guard saw where they were staring and chuckled. "Maybe the Harlot is on the balcony for a dalliance."

Key's neck twisted like a serpent. "Keep your tongue behind your teeth. Or lose both."

Threat radiated from Key like the waves of heat from a fire. The guard and Ziyi fell silent. Having ended all conversation, Key focused, intent on the night beyond the silvered glass.

"You can't possibly see anything," Ziyi said, puzzled.

Emer put a restraining hand on the rough leather cords tying Key's vambraces in place. No matter what trouble nobles got into, they were safer than servants. A servant could be sent to the Room of Dread and Anticipation for any transgression. He must not venture onto the balcony.

Even though both Emer and Key could see one thing clearly.

Something had gone terribly wrong out there.