Page 31 of The Ragpicker King
I will not let one single patient die to please you,she thought.No matter what it costs me.
The Exilarch only narrowed his eyes, as if he guessed what she was thinking. Without another word, he turned his back on her. From the dais above, the Maharam gestured at Lin; she was dismissed. It was over.
As she left the Shulamat, she paused at the top of the steps to catch her breath. Had she been holding it? She wasn’t sure; her head was pounding. All she could think was that she must do as much for Mariam as she could before her first test took place. Afterward, it seemed clear, it would be too late.
“I shall drink myself into a stupor tonight, I think,” Montfaucon announced.
Kel looked over at him without much interest. He was crammed into one of the smaller Palace carriages with Conor, Falconet, Montfaucon, and Ciprian Cabrol, on their way to House Alleyne to celebrate Antonetta’s engagement. Not that Kel saw much to celebrate.
“So, an ordinary night for you, then,” said Falconet dryly. He was dressed in his best, as they all were. In Falconet’s case this meant an ivory silk shirt with slashed sleeves showing ice-blue velvet beneath, and gloves with a frill of ivory lace at the wrists. Montfaucon wore poison yellow, and Cabrol his usual linen.
“I mourn my great love, Raimon,” said Montfaucon portentously. “Had I known when I saw him at the Caravel it would be the last time—”
“You would not have encouraged him to publicly fight a man dressed as a bear?” said Ciprian.
Conor stretched and yawned. “Ciprian, let him be. Montfaucon, you fall in love every two weeks.”
This was true. Kel strongly suspected that Montfaucon was not so much mourning the death of Raimon as he was trying to milk every drop of drama there was to be had out of the situation. Murder was exciting even to the jaded denizens of the Hill. According to Montfaucon, the Vigilants had been investigating Raimon’s death, largely under the assumption that he had been killed by an old enemy from his Arena days.
As much as he doubted Montfaucon’s sincerity, Kel still couldn’t look at him when he talked about Raimon. As Montfaucon launched into an explanation of why Raimon was different from any other lover he’d had, Kel glanced over at Conor, who was slumped in the corner of the carriage. He wore a cloak of black swan feathers tipped in gold. Rings flashed on his fingers; his crown was a thin gold circlet from which a pendant diamond glittered against his forehead. There were shadows around his eyes: kohl or exhaustion, Kel couldn’t tell.
“I’m too sensitive,” Montfaucon said. “That’s the problem. I feel the pain of others deeply. I worry about our dear Antonetta, being forced to marry Artal Gremont.”
“You don’t think exile might have improved him?” Kel said. He doubted it himself but wondered if Montfaucon knew anything he didn’t.
“Not from what I’ve heard,” Montfaucon said grimly.
Before Kel could ask exactly what he’d heard, Falconet, turning to Conor with his usual flashing smile, said, “It’s your fault, you know.”
Conor raised his black eyebrows. Kel said, “How’s that?”
Falconet smiled. “If our Prince had not made it clear that he would never consider giving Lady Alleyne what she wanted and marrying Antonetta, perhaps she would not have chosen this particular alliance for her daughter.”
Conor looked at him coolly. “I have chosen instead to make an alliance that will benefit our nation, not Lady Alleyne.”
“Lady Alleyne will find some way to turn it to her benefit in theend, I’m sure,” said Cabrol. “She strikes me as a very practical woman.”
“Practical is one word for it,” said Montfaucon. “She’s the sort who’s happy to smile and stab you in the back at the same time. Ice in her veins.”
“A good quality,” said Cabrol, “for the head of a Charter Family. Is her daughter like her?”
“No,” Kel said flatly. “She isn’t.”
They all looked at him—even Conor. Luckily, Kel was saved having to explain what he meant by their arrival at the Alleyne manor.
A double line of servants bearing torches in gold holders flanked the walkway that led to the front door. Inside, they were guided into the Alleynes’ ballroom, which had been elaborately decorated with yet more gold—dangling chandeliers, immense vases holding sprays of silk flowers, stacks of plates and goblets shimmering with rims of diamonds. A stage at one end of the room was half hidden by billowing ivory silk curtains embroidered with designs of coffee and tea leaves.The union of silk and tea Charters. Charming.
Beside it, a statue of Turan, God of love, bore a tray holding glasses of green wine from Hanse. For a moment, the loud room full of chattering nobility seemed to fall away from Kel; he forgot the reason he was here, remembering only a scene from memory, many years ago. Antonetta’s debut ball, the first time he had seen her as her mother and the Hill wished her to be: icy with diamonds at her ears, glittering in gold and silk. A hard smile like a knife’s edge. Beside the statue of Turan, she had looked at him with lifeless eyes and said,I know my mother spoke to you. She was right. We are not of the same class. It is one thing to play in the dirt as children, but we are too old to close our eyes to reality.
“There he is,” Conor said, at Kel’s shoulder. Feathers from his cloak rose up around his face like wisps of black smoke. “Artal Gremont. Just as I recall him.” He narrowed his eyes. “Slightly repellent.”
“Only slightly?” said Falconet, in a tone of somber amusement.
Kel followed their eyes and saw Lady Alleyne by a banquet table laden with pastries, wearing a dress that itself looked like a confection: cream lace and silk, tightly corseted, her hair swept high and dressed with garnets. She was laughing with a man Kel recognized immediately, though he had not seen Artal Gremont in many years.
He had been a burly young man and was still big, with shoulders like planks of wood and a thick neck. His clothes had a faintly military flair, though Kel was sure he had never been near a battle, with gold braid and a stiff upright collar whose tips prodded his jowls. The years that separated him from the young man he’d been when he left Castellane made him resemble a portrait whose paint had smeared, blurring its clarity.
Cabrol said nothing; he had never known Gremont, and was gazing around the room, clearly bored. Montfaucon, too, had his eyes elsewhere. “Sancia Vasey looks particularly delightful tonight,” he said.
