Oracle: The House War: Book Six (5 page)

“I cannot materially change either Finch or Teller ATerafin. They do not have the time or the resources necessary to learn what I might once have taught.”

“Does anyone?”

Haval did not reply. Sadly, Hannerle did not fail to notice.

7th of Morel, 428 A.A.
Terafin Manse, Averalaan Aramarelas

Jester was fifteen minutes late. He spent those fifteen traversing the public galleries with a very junior servant who was new to the Household Staff. Servants were hired for temporary duties; it happened frequently. But they were not given a place on the Household Staff without earning it.

Janni was new to the Staff, but not the manse; she was certainly new to the subtle changes in uniform. Her parents were inordinately proud of her new job, and she was therefore aware that she had much more to lose. Jester, like Carver, was fond of almost every element of the Household Staff. The exceptions, of course, were to be found in the senior echelons, and in the Master of the Household Staff herself.

Jester navigated the world by finding the humor in any situation.

The Master of the Household Staff starched her face, as far as Jester was concerned. She did not in any obvious way respond to Jester’s presence; nor would she. He was nominally adviser to a member of the House Council, after all. But she had ways of making the rest of the servants suffer.

The servants themselves were willing to grouse about the Master of the Household Staff, but they did so reluctantly—and not on short acquaintance. If they despised the woman—Jester did—they also held her in a fascinated awe that approached reverence. Jester couldn’t understand why; he found ample fodder for comic relief in her parched, pinched voice, but little else.

“I don’t know if you’ll be assigned to the West Wing or not,” he told Janni. “But I have hopes.”

Her smile was genuine and entirely inappropriate, which is probably why Jester liked it so much.

“I, on the other hand, have an appointment which I was told I couldn’t afford to miss.”

Her dark eyes rounded. “Are you late?”

He smiled. “I’m always late. If I were on time, any number of older patricians would die of shock, and I don’t want
that
on my head.”

Janni tilted her head to the side. In her strong, soft voice she said, “I’m not sure I believe that.”

 • • • 

Jester passed between the two House Guards stationed outside the double doors of the West Wing. They were new additions, and he didn’t care for them, but Teller—or Torvan, more likely—insisted on their presence. They weren’t Chosen. It had been decided—and by whom, Jester wanted to know—that the reassignment of Chosen only a week after Jay’s departure would send the wrong signals.

Jester was not fond of the House Guard. They were the House equivalent of the magisterial guards, and looked every inch of it. He understood, thanks to Arann’s careful and oft-repeated explanations, that guards—any guards—did their job best by being intimidating; the whole point of their presence was to discourage illegal or inappropriate behavior.

All of the den’s earliest run-ins with the magisterians had involved the thin line of the law: they took what they could, when things were desperate. But never when they weren’t. He grimaced as the doors closed at his back. Ellerson failed to emerge from the servants’ room.

Ellerson, starched and consistently
proper
, had never been Jester’s favorite person. Ironic, then, that his absence could create this hollow, silent space that implied loss. But it was a loss he could face. Carver’s absence was in all ways harder. It brought back sharp, hard shadows: it was an echo of the end of their life in the twenty-fifth holding. Lefty, Fisher, and Lander lost; Duster dead on the day the rest of the den had made their narrow escape.

Duster dead because if she weren’t, none of them would have made it out.

He couldn’t remember Lefty’s face. He couldn’t remember Lander’s or Fisher’s, either. But Duster? She never left him. Every time he looked at Finch, he could see the echo of Duster’s face. He’d never talked to Duster much. She was always on edge; a joke could make her laugh one day, and the next, be cause for drawn dagger and spitting, furious threat.

He understood the fury. He understood the pain.

He understood how hard it had been for Duster to make the choice she’d made on the night a fat, self-indulgent patrician had come under her knife: kill cleanly, or walk away from the den.

Jester would have been fine with the messy, lingering death. No one had asked him. Duster had asked Lander—only Lander. But Lander had been the most obviously broken by their shared experiences. In his pain, she saw a reflection of the pain she herself would never acknowledge. In Jester, she saw nothing.

Jester saw nothing himself. Nothing except the family that had been so haphazardly built. It was an awkward, angry family, prone to theft when all other avenues of extending its sputtering existence had vanished—but it was his. He was part of it. Part of it, and separate from it, as well.

He was like Duster; he didn’t acknowledge pain. Unlike Duster, he didn’t acknowledge anger. Neither made any difference.

Jay was gone. This time—this time she’d had the time to say good-bye. This time, she’d taken Angel with her. Angel with his broken spire, his hair flat against the curve of a skull they’d almost never seen. He looked like a stranger. He talked like Angel. Having him here wouldn’t do any good; he’d climbed walls when Jay’d been in the South.

That left Finch and Teller, the two quietest members of the den. Teller had a sense of humor. He liked cats. He hated confrontation, but he’d learned how to diffuse the worst of it. Barston, his starched taskmaster of a secretary had seen to that, over the years. Jester knew that Teller was new to his role, and the role itself was as secure as Jay was. Jay, who wasn’t here. He still didn’t worry about Teller.

He worried about Finch.

He worried about Finch because he knew Finch intended to take the House in everything but name. She intended to launch herself into the game patricians played—using many of the same tools: the Merchant Authority, the external contacts she’d built there over the years, her position as House Council member—even if it was junior.

No one, after the events of The Terafin’s funeral, could take the House from Jay. Not that they hadn’t tried, in one way or another, but Jay was just damn hard to kill.

None of the rest of them were. None of the rest of them had
ever
been hard to kill. They’d arrived at House Terafin in Jay’s wake, and in that wake, they’d been installed in the West Wing. Because of Jay. Because of her vision.

They were still standing in her wake, in most ways, but they’d bled into the House as well: Arann as Chosen, Finch as merchant, Teller as right-kin. Carver was their unofficial ear behind walls. Daine was their Alowan, and if he had far more edges than Alowan had, he was also sixty years younger. Angel was her liege.

And Jester?

He was Jester, same as before—in better clothing. He talked to the servants in Carver’s absence because someone had to, especially now. He knew how to be practically invisible in a crowd—and he did it by demanding attention, rather than hiding from it. But the attention he demanded was jovial, friendly, and entirely noncommittal; no one felt threatened by it.

He opened the doors to the great room and entered.

 • • • 

Haval was standing by the fireplace, his hands behind his back, his clothing unusually austere. He wore no apron. Only when Jester closed the doors in his wake did the clothier turn.

“You asked to speak with me,” Jester said, entering the room.

“Demonstrably.”

Jester sauntered over to the cabinet. “Are you drinking?”

“It depends.”

“On?”

“The drink and the length of the interview. My wife is not particularly pleased with me today, and this is not the only appointment to mar my day’s productivity.”

“Teller told you I’m seconded as adjutant to Finch on the Council?”

“He did, indeed, make that clear. He feels that your clothing is not appropriate for the position.”

Jester shrugged. He lifted a bottle of fortified wine from the cabinet, considering it for a long moment. “If I were there for anyone but Finch, I’d refuse to change.”

“Yes. I believe he is also aware of that.”

“And you?”

“I am aware that clothing does not make the man. Do you have any particular preferences, or will you trust my sensibilities?” Jester retrieved two glasses. He set them down, poured, and lifted them. He had none of the fluid elegance—or the starch—of the Household Staff, and accepted the lack; he sauntered over to where Haval stood, observing him.

“If it’s good enough for Finch, it’s good enough for me. I don’t care for fussy skirts, though.”

“No. I don’t believe they would suit. There are certain shades of color it would be best to avoid, as well; most of the blues the House requires will work with your hair.”

“You don’t appear to be carrying a measure.”

“No.”

“You know my measurements.”

“Yes. The knowledge is inexact; it is based in its entirety on observation.”

“And you had me summoned because you wanted exact?”

“No. I wish you to answer a few questions before we proceed to the measurements—or, more precisely, the fittings.”

Jester shrugged. Questions didn’t bother him, no matter how pointed. They were just words. He could slide out from under them by answering. His answers, however, weren’t generally heavy with meaning. “Fire away.”

“What, exactly, do you do here?”

“I see you’re starting with the easy questions first.” Jester smiled. It was bright and lazy. “As little as I can get away with.”

Haval didn’t smile. He didn’t blink. His expression was smooth as stone, and it gave just as much away. “How little is that?”

“These days? Finch expects me to deliver three messages—in person—this afternoon. Without giving offense to their recipients.”

“I believe you have it in you to manage that.”

Jester handed Haval a glass; the older man accepted it without comment. “In at least one case, yes.” He walked to the largest couch in the room and sank into its center as if his spine were melting.

“It has come to my attention that you’ve been spending some time in the garden, with the groundskeeper.”

Jester drank. “And?”

“While I laud your ability to play host to a new employee, you’ve been spending time with Birgide Viranyi.”

“I happen to enjoy her company.”

“You are aware of who she is?”

“One of the most famous botanists in the Empire. The Master Gardener has been at great pains to threaten me personally in the hopes of keeping my behavior on the up and up.”

“I imagine he has. Have you found her company instructive?”

“I still have dirt under my fingernails, if that helps.”

“Let me ask you the question again. What occupies your time in the Terafin manse?”

Jester drank, regarding Haval as if seeing him for the first time. Smiling, he said, “You’re not going to let this go, are you?” Without waiting for a reply, he sipped his wine. Jester’s lazy smile bounced off Haval’s face.

“Birgide?”

“She’s
Astari
,” Jester replied. Haval did not appear to be surprised by the accusation. He barely appeared to hear it. “For reasons I trust I don’t have to explain, I don’t trust the
Astari
. If the Kings aren’t here, they shouldn’t be either.”

“You have not asked her about her botany?”

“I’ve asked her questions she couldn’t answer without some research,” Jester replied. “Not many, though. Whatever she does for the
Astari
, the botany’s real.”

“You feel you are now enough of an expert to make that judgment.”

“After weeks in Birgide’s company? Damn right.”

Haval’s lips twitched. “It was not one of my more stellar inquiries. What do you think her role in the
Astari
is?”

Jester hated, on point of principle, discussion. This, on the other hand, could barely be considered that—it was an interrogation. He could just get up and leave, but he was curious. Curiosity was not one of Jester’s obvious, public failings. It was, however, a weakness. He generally satisfied curiosity by observation. Observing Haval, on the other hand, was like watching rock grow.

Teller had made clear that he considered this appointment significant, and had all but begged Jester not to screw it up. What Jester wanted to know at the moment was why. He therefore chose to answer Haval’s questions. He knew it was a bad habit to develop. “Poisons.”

“Very good. Does she keep them here?”

“I doubt it.” He didn’t. “She’s been studying the big trees in the back. She tried to take a couple of silver leaves, and the branches moved. They don’t apparently like to be studied.”

“Interesting. The other trees?”

“Same effect. She’s made no attempt to touch the burning tree.”

“No. She is not a fool.”

“Do you know her?”

“I know of her. My role as clothier to the powerful and well-placed does not often put me in the path of a botanist, however well-regarded.” Haval lifted his glass to his lips. “Do you understand what is about to occur in this House?”

Jester nodded. “Is that why you’re here?”

“It is.”

“And the clothing?”

“A lesser part of my responsibilities. It is not, however, optional. You will attend Finch in the Council hall, and you will do so in a fashion that does not embarrass her.”

“I
highly
doubt that.”

Haval’s lips twitched again, and this time, he surrendered a smile. “Very well. You will embarrass her in ways that do not reflect poorly on
me
. You have managed to answer very few of my questions. Even Finch is more forthcoming.”

“If you want a weaker link, try Teller.”

“Indeed. How much training have you had with weapons?”

Jester rose and headed back to the cabinet. “About as much as the average orphan from the twenty-fifth holding.”

“Truly?”

“No.” He poured. Back toward the clothier, he continued. “I know Jay trusts you,” he said. “I’ve never understood why.”