Page 3 of The Ragpicker King
Not ambitious.It was what everyone thought of Antonetta; only Kel knew they were all of them wrong. He remembered her telling him that she wanted control of the silk Charter, and at another time she had told him that her mother did not think it acceptable for an unmarried woman to control a Charter. If she and Gremont married, though, each of them would hold their Charter individually until it became time to will the Charters to a new generation. That she was willing to marry a lout like Gremont in order to control the most valuable Charter in Castellane spoke quite a bit to her ambition.
“Then again,” Conor added, and the tip of his sword came up under Kel’s to lightly scratch his shoulder; Kel went still to acknowledge the scoring of a point. “I think often of what old Gremont said before he died. No one is really to be trusted.”
Kel almost closed his eyes as he remembered the old man’s words. He had been there when Gremont passed away, the only one at his side as he went through the gray door, and Gremont had not even known him. Had thought he was Conor.
Place your trust in no one,he’d said.Not mother, not Counselor, not friend. Trust no one on the Hill. Trust only your own eyes and ears, or else the Gray Serpent will come for you, too.
The words were meant for Conor. It was advice Kel had passed on, in the terrible days after the slaughter, when Conor did not sleep but only paced the floor in their apartments. When Kel had told him of Gremont’s speech, a ghost of a smile had passed over Conor’s face.
“Good enough advice,” he’d said, “but I have already learned it. I place my trust in no one—save you, but then, you are my eyes and ears, are you not? Not my Counselor, or my friend, or even my brother. You are more like myself. And I will need you even more now. Not just to protect me, but also to look and to listen. To tell me what you see and hear.”
And Kel had said nothing. He could not tell Conor he was lying to him, too—even if it was for his own good. Not then. Not now, either. He kept his silence and his counsel, telling himself that it was all for Conor’s own good. That Conor would know the truth someday and forgive him for the betrayal.
“Oh, it’s so good you’re here,” said Antonetta Alleyne, struggling to sit up against the massive pile of cushions that dominated her gilt-carved bed. “Did anyone but Magali see you come in?”
Lin Caster shook her head. She’d had a brief battle with Magali, the parlormaid, at the front door; Magali had been determined to relieve Lin of her coat and medical satchel, and Lin had refused to part with either. A silent struggle had ensued under the watchful eyes of what seemed to Lin at least two dozen portraits of past Alleynes.
Lin had never gotten used to the Alleyne house’s interior. It was not grand and empty, the way House Roverge had once been, but rather stuffed full ofthings:landscape paintings, massive silver epergnes overflowing with silk flowers, gilt clocks, and marble bustsof poets and playwrights past. Every bit of furniture that could have been gilded had been, and if it had not been gilded, it had been capped with white lace like a virgin bride.
The maid finally gave up her siege of Lin’s belongings and led her up a gilded staircase to a long hall carpeted in knotted silk. As Lin ascended the stairs, she passed a dozen silver-framed mirrors that gave her back her reflection: her red hair coiled close to her head in braids, her simple dress of Ashkar gray, the worn leather satchel in her hands. She was certainly the plainest and most unadorned thing in the house.
She could not help but recall the first time Antonetta had summoned her. She had been surprised to receive the request, given the Alleyne family’s exalted status, but Antonetta had been firm: She wished for weekly visits from Lin—absolute discretion required—and the visitsmustbe at a specific hour and day. She had not said why, but in talking to Kel at the Black Mansion, Lin had come to understand it was the time of Lady Alleyne’s weekly card game with the ladies of the Hill, which meant Antonetta’s mother would most likely not be at home.
Lin had liked Antonetta Alleyne when she’d first met her—not surprising, since Antonetta had snuck her into the Palace under the watchful eye of the Castelguards—and had only come to like her more during their weekly meetings.
Antonetta was kind, if a little scattered. She seemed to Lin a rabbit among the jackals of the Hill. She actually required very little in the way of medical care. Usually they would spend a few hours together chatting and drinking one of Lin’s medicinal teas. In Lin’s opinion, Antonetta was paying for the company, not for the services of a physician.
She found Antonetta half lost among a massive influx of fabrics: Silks and satins in a rainbow of colors hung from dressing-rails and even the curtain rods at the windows. Every surface was piled with papers: menus, invitations, lists of items still needed. Antonetta herself was propped against a mound of silk pillows that formed a sortof barrier between her and the head of her bed, which had been carved into a pretty but uncomfortable-looking gilded rose.
If anything, Antonetta’s room was less extreme in its decoration than the rest of the house. The walls were painted pale pink, like the inside of a seashell; silk flowers still cascaded from vases, and scroll-armed sofas were upholstered with fabric depicting pastoral scenes of shepherdesses and farmhouses. Still, there werefewersilk flowers, and no marble busts whatsoever.
Antonetta dismissed the maid with a brief, “Leave us, Magali,” and gestured for Lin to lock the door behind her before approaching the bed. Antonetta’s hair, down, was a riot of golden curls nearly the same color as the silk bedclothes. She wore a pale-blue dressing-gown with lace at the sleeves and a woebegone expression. “Have you anything for a headache brought on by the stress of planning for an engagement party you wish was not happening?” she inquired.
Lin sat down on the bed by Antonetta’s feet and began rummaging through her satchel for an extraction of willowbark. She could not help but smile at the title of a leather-bound book that lay open on the covers nearby:The Cold Heart of the Lonely King.
“Is it still next week?” Lin said sympathetically. “It does seem like it’s coming up awfully fast. And he hasn’t even reached Castellane yet, has he?”
“His ship docks in five days,” Antonetta said without enthusiasm. She looked hopefully at Lin. “Perhaps I could develop a mysterious illness, something that would prevent me from having to see him? At least for a month or two.”
Lin handed the small sachet of willowbark tincture to Antonetta. “It would only be putting things off,” she said. “I wish...” She left the rest of the sentence unfinished. She already knew that the man Antonetta was engaged to marry, Artal Gremont, not only was much older than her but had an unsavory reputation as well. Kel had hinted at doings so unpleasant that Gremont’s family had beenforced to send him away to foreign shores—and given the sort of misbehavior the nobility of Castellane got away with regularly, they must have been wretched doings indeed.
Lin worried, too, at how resigned Antonetta seemed about the whole situation. It was something her mother had arranged; Antonetta had had no say in it, and there was, she insisted, nothing she could do to change her mother’s mind. Lin knew all Antonetta had wanted was to remain single and hold the silk Charter herself, as her mother did. But Liorada Alleyne, it seemed, did not trust her daughter: She had told Antonetta that unless she agreed to marry and carry on the Alleyne bloodline, she would leave the Charter, and all the power that came with it, to a distant cousin, cutting her own daughter out completely. Now Antonetta’s hope seemed pinned on the possibility that Gremont was as unenthused about the marriage as she was and would leave her mostly alone, allowing her to lead the life of a wealthy lady of the Hill without too much interference.
“I hope he either already has a mistress or takes one soon,” Antonetta said now. “If he was very attached to her, he might hardly bother me at all.” She looked at Lin. “Do you think it’s possible?”
“Unfortunately, how to convince one’s husband to take a lover is outside my experience,” Lin said with a wry smile. “Take that and put it under your tongue.”
“Youaredemanding,” Antonetta said. “At least after I’m married, I’ll still be able to see you. I can’t imagine what kind of man wouldn’t let his wife visit a physician.”
“I suppose the kind who might be planning to hurt her himself,” Lin said carefully. She had treated many such women, who insisted their injuries came from their own clumsiness, though they were well aware Lin knew better.
Antonetta snorted. “Gremont wouldn’t lay a finger on me if he wanted to stay in Castellane,” she said. “Assaulting a noblewoman is punishable by exile—even if the attacker is her husband.”
If only the ordinary women of Castellane had such protection, Lin mused, but she pushed down the thought. Better that some women were protected than that none were.
Hoping to change the subject, Lin pointed at the book lying open on the bed. “Is that any good?” she said. “It sounds like a Story-Spinner’s tale.”
“It’s about Prince Conor,” Antonetta said with a sideways smile. “Most of the Story-Spinners’ tales are, you know.”
