A Magic of Dawn

Rochelle Botelli

The days were spent cleaning, because the ash that caused such beautiful sunsets also dusted everything in Brezno Palais. Rance ci’Lawli drove his staff relentlessly to keep surfaces clean. From rumors that Rochelle heard, Brezno’s experience was insignificant. Here, the ashfall was a fine coating like a week’s worth of dust on the furniture. But she heard whispers that people coming from the west talked of drifts as thick as a winter’s snowfall, so heavy that roofs collapsed and animals choked to death. She didn’t know how many of the rumors were simply exaggerated tales meant to entertain and how much truth they contained, but it was apparent that something catastrophic had happened in the far west of the Holdings. “Mt. Karnmor has awakened again after centuries of sleep,” was the most persistent rumor. “Thousands have died there.” Here, the person speaking would most often shake his head. “They should have known better than to build the city on the slopes of a volcano. It was a disaster waiting to happen…”

So she cleaned, and she made certain that the drapes remained closed over the windows when they were open. And she waited. She waited because the ashfall disrupted the routines of the palais; they disturbed the patterns that ci’Lawli made through his day and until they settled again, she could not safely kill the man and fulfill her contract. She found she didn’t care; she toyed, in fact, with the thought of handing Josef cu’Kella’s money back to him-the solas were hidden in her tiny sleeping room here.

“The White Stone can’t fail a contract, and can’t refuse a contract,” her matarh had said, in one of her lucid moments when the voices didn’t torment her. “If the people feel the White Stone works for one cause or another, then the Stone isn’t a ghost to be feared, but just another garda in the uniform of the rulers. The people love and fear the Stone because she strikes anywhere, anytime. We are Death, coming for someone without remorse and without thought.”

“Why doesn’t Matarh like you?”

Rochelle was cleaning Elissa’s bedroom, wiping down the girl’s furniture with a damp cloth. She stopped, straightening and glancing at the child, who was sitting on her bed playing with a doll. Rochelle had noticed that the girl was snared in that awkward space between childhood and adolescence, when she was as likely to want to do “adult” things as to play with the toys that had once fascinated. The doll-which showed by the wear on its cloth arms and legs and porcelain face that it had long been a favorite-was now mostly abandoned except in moments like this.

“What do you mean, Vajica?” Rochelle asked Elissa, genuinely puzzled. Hirzgin Brie had never seemed to show any dislike for Rochelle-in fact, after their talk the other day, she had even begun to think that the Hirzgin might like her more than she did many of the dozens of servants who were in her presence each day. “She doesn’t think I do my work well?”

Elissa shook her head vigorously, the doll’s limb swaying with the effort. “It’s not that,” she answered. “I heard her tell Vatarh that she didn’t like the way he acted around you. He said he didn’t know what she was talking about. ‘You know what happened before,’ is all Matarh told him, and Vatarh just grunted. He told Matarh that she worries too much, and walked away, but Matarh still had on her mad face, like she did with Maria and Greta. Are you going away like them?”

“Maria and Greta?”

A nod, as energetic as the head shake. “They were servants that Rance hired, like you. Greta was here when I was nine and Maria last year. They were nice, and Vatarh liked them but Matarh didn’t.”

Rochelle found her hands trembling suddenly. She remembered the conversation with her vatarh the other day, the way he’d touched her face, the words he’d said, the interest he’d taken in her. You fool.. . It might have been her matarh’s voice whispering in her head. You stupid girl… “Oh,” she said, the exclamation flat and dead. It seemed to lay on the carpet between them, like a bird with its neck broken.

She’d been with men before. She’d been in love, been in lust, had twice now felt a man’s weight on and inside her. She’d heard the glittering, bejeweled lies that they would say to convince her to share her bed, and had experienced the emptiness afterward when she realized how vacant and false those words had been. She had learned to hear the lies and to ignore them, and how to turn them aside so that they seemed a harmless flirtation-unless she wanted more.

She’d learned to expect the emptiness that followed the temporary moments of closeness and passion, and to accept it.

You fool… She should have realized… She’d heard the words Jan had spoken, but she hadn’t thought of him that way, hadn’t seen him as one of them, the ones who wanted the warm, hidden treasures under her tashta. She knew now why it had been so easy for Rance to place her on the private family staff. She recalled the Hirzgin’s conversation, and she understood.

She also heard Jan’s words again in her memory, and they were changed and altered. Those words were gilded lead. They were empty boxes. They were blank parchment.

He was no better than some man looking for a night’s anonymous companionship in a tavern.

Fool… No wonder the Hirzgin had warned her.

“I should have been Hirzgin,” her matarh had raged when Jan had married Brie. Rochelle had been younger than Elissa then, but she still remembered the rage and madness that consumed Matarh at the news. “He loved me, not her! She’s just some piece of ca’-and-cu’ trash, another title to add to his list. He loved me…”

Rochelle wondered how much longer she could even stay here. “I’m not Maria or Greta,” she told Elissa. “Elissa. That was my name, the name he knew me by. He named his daughter for me…” “I would never do anything to hurt your matarh. I hope she knows that.”

“I’ll tell Matarh,” Elissa said, hugging the doll. She seemed to realize what she was doing and released the doll, letting it fall carelessly onto her lap.

“Tell her what?” Another voice interrupted them, the sound startling Rochelle. She hadn’t heard Jan enter the room. That was troubling all on its own; how many times had her matarh cautioned her that the White Stone must always be alert, no matter what the situation. Yet Rochelle had been so lost in her own thoughts that she hadn’t heard Jan enter, though now she recalled having heard the shuffle of his footsteps on the carpeting.

“That she should keep Rhianna,” Elissa said. “I like her.”

“I do, too,” Jan said. His gaze was on her, and Rochelle forced herself to smile, as he undoubtedly expected. “Elissa, I think your matarh wanted to see you.” He kissed the top of her head, but his gaze was still fixed on Rochelle. “But I’ll tell you what, darling, let’s not say anything about Rhianna to her just yet. Go on, now.” He tousled Elissa’s hair, and she jumped down from the bed, the doll falling to the floor. Elissa left it there. She padded away without a word.

Rochelle put the cloth into the bucket. She wiped her hands on the apron of her servant’s uniform and picked up the bucket. “You’re leaving, too?” Jan said.

She curtsied, keeping her gaze on the floor. “I’m finished here, Hirzg,” she said, “and I have other rooms that need attention.”

“Ah.” He paused and she waited, thinking he was going to say more. He stood there and she could feel him staring at her. She started to move toward the servants’ door and the rear stairs. “You really do remind me of, well, someone I knew once. Someone who meant a great deal to me. It’s very strange.”

That stopped her, despite her trepidation. “It should have been me

…” “May I ask who she was, Hirzg?” Rochelle found herself saying, despite herself. She glanced at him once, saw his eyes, and dropped her gaze slightly.

He gave a one-shouldered, casual shrug. “I’m not really certain who she was, honestly. At best, she was a beautiful pretender who loved me, but became caught in the web of her lies; at worst…” He stopped again, giving the shrug once more. “At worst, she was an assassin.”

By Cenzi, he knows! The thought yanked her head up to him once more, her eyes wide. He seemed to mistake her response for fear. He smiled as if in apology. “If she was that,” he said, “then I became Hirzg because of her. Maybe that’s what she intended all along.”

Rochelle nodded. Jan took a step in her direction and she retreated the same distance. He stopped. “You remind me so much of her, even the way you move. Maybe I should be afraid of you-are you an assassin, Rhianna?” He chuckled at his own jest. “Rhianna, you shouldn’t be afraid of me. I think we-”

“Jan?” They both heard the call from the adjoining room-Brie’s voice. The door to Elissa’s bedroom started to open. “A fast-rider has come from Nessantico with some urgent news…”

Jan’s head had turned at the sound of his name, and Rochelle took the moment. She grabbed the bucket and fled for the servants’ door. She closed the door, cutting off Brie’s voice.

She was trembling as she hurried down the stairs.