Soul of the Fire

Chapter 20

“Well, isn’t that something,” Teresa whispered.

Dalton followed her gaze to see Claudine Winthrop haltingly work her way among the roomful of milling people. She was wearing a dress he had seen before when he worked in the city, an older dress of modest design. It was not the dress she had worn earlier in the evening. He suspected that beneath the mask of rosy powder, her face was ashen. Mistrust would now color her vision.

People from the city of Fairfield, their eyes filled with wonder, gazed at their surroundings, trying to drink it all in so they might tell their friends every detail of their grand evening at the Minister of Culture’s estate. It was a high honor to be invited to the estate, and they wished to overlook no detail. Details were important when vaunting one’s self.

Patches of intricate marquetry flooring showed between each of the richly colored rare carpets placed at even intervals the length of the room. There was no missing the luxuriously thick feel underfoot. Dalton guessed that thousands of yards of the finest material had to have gone into the draperies swagged before the file of tall windows on each side of the room, all constructed with complex ornamental tracery to hold colored glass. Here and there a woman would, between thumb and finger, test the cloth’s high-count weave. The edges of the azure and golden-wheat-colored fabric were embellished with multicolored tassels as big as his fist. Men marveled at the fluted stone columns rising to hold the massive, cut-stone corbel along the length of the side walls at the base of the gathering hall’s barrel ceiling. A panoply of curved mahogany frames and panels, looking like the ends of elaborately cut voussoirs, overspread the arched barrel ceiling.

Dalton lifted his pewter cup to his lips and took a sip of the finest Nareef Valley wine as he watched. At night, with all the candles and lamps lit, the place had a glow about it. It had taken discipline, when he first arrived, not to gape as did these people come out from the city.

He watched Claudine Winthrop move among the well-dressed guests, clasping a hand here, touching an elbow there, greeting people, smiling woodenly, answering questions with words Dalton couldn’t hear. As distressed as he knew she had to be, she had the resourcefulness to conduct herself with propriety. The wife of a wealthy businessman who had been elected burgess by merchants and grain dealers to represent them, she was not an unimportant member of the household in her own right. When at first people saw that her husband was old enough to be her grandfather, they usually expected she was no more than his entertainment; they were wrong.

Her husband, Edwin Winthrop, had started out as a farmer, raising sorgo—sweet sorghum grown widely in southern Anderith. Every penny he earned through the sale of the sorghum molasses he pressed was spent frugally and wisely. He went without, putting in abeyance everything from proper shelter and clothes, to the simple comforts of life, to a wife and family.

What money he saved eventually purchased livestock he foraged on sorghum left from pressing his molasses. Sale of fattened livestock bought more feeder stock, and equipment for stills so he could produce rum himself, rather than sell his molasses to distilleries. Profits from the rum he distilled from his molasses earned him enough to rent more farmland and purchase cattle, equipment and buildings for producing more rum, and eventually warehouses and wagons for transporting the goods he produced. Rum distilled by the Winthrop farms was sold from Kenwold to Nicobarese, from just down the road in Fairfield all the way to Aydindril. By doing everything himself—or, more accurately, having his own hired workers do everything—from growing sorgo to pressing it to distilling it to delivering the rum, to raising, cattle on the fodder of his leftover stocks of pressed sorghum to slaughtering the cattle and delivering the carcasses to butchers, Edwin Winthrop kept his costs low and made for himself a fortune.

Edwin Winthrop was a frugal man, honest, and well liked. Only after he was successful had he taken a wife. Claudine, the well-educated daughter of a grain dealer, had been in her mid-teens when she wed Edwin, well over a decade before.

Talented at overseeing her husband’s accounts and records, Claudine watched every penny as carefully as would her husband. She was his valuable right hand—much as Dalton served the Minister. With her help, his personal empire had doubled. Even in marriage, Edwin had chosen carefully and wisely. A man who never seemed to seek personal pleasure perhaps had at last allowed himself this much; Claudine was as attractive as she was diligent.

After Edwin’s fellow merchants had elected him burgess, Claudine became useful to him in legal matters, helping, behind the scenes, to write the trade laws he proposed. Dalton suspected she had a great deal to do with proposing them to her husband in the first place. When he was not available, Claudine discreetly argued those proposed laws on his behalf. No one in the household thought of her as “entertainment.”

Except, perhaps, Bertrand Chanboor. But then, he viewed all women in that light. The attractive ones, anyway.

Dalton had in the past seen Claudine blushing, batting her eyelashes, and flashing Bertrand Chanboor her shy smile.

The Minister believed demure women coquettish. Perhaps she innocently flirted with an important man, or perhaps she had wanted attention her husband couldn’t provide; she hadn’t, after all, any children. Perhaps she had cunningly thought to gain some favor from the Minister, and afterward discovered it wasn’t to be forthcoming.

Claudine Winthrop was nobody’s fool; she was intelligent and resourceful. How it had started—Dalton was not sure, Bertrand Chanboor denied touching her as he denied everything out of hand—had become irrelevant. With her seeking secret meetings with Director Linscott, matters had moved past polite negotiation of favors. Brute force was the only safe way to control her now.

Dalton gestured with his cup of wine toward Claudine. “Looks like you were wrong, Tess. Not everyone is going along with the fashion of wearing suggestive dresses. Or maybe Claudine is modest.”

“No, it must be something else.” Teresa looked truly puzzled. “Sweetheart, I don’t think she was wearing that dress earlier. But why would she now be wearing something different? And an old dress it is.”

Dalton shrugged. “Let’s go find out, shall we? You do the asking. I don’t think it would be right coming from me.”

Teresa looked askance at him. She knew him well enough to know by his subtle reply that a scheme was afoot. She also knew enough to take his lead and play the part he had just assigned her. She smiled and hooked a hand over his offered arm. Claudine was not the only intelligent and resourceful woman in the household.

Claudine flinched when Teresa touched the back of her shoulder. She twitched a smile as she glanced up briefly.

“Good evening, Teresa.” She dropped a half-curtsy to Dalton. “Mr. Campbell.”

Teresa, concern creasing her brow, leaned toward the woman. “Claudine, what’s wrong? You don’t look well. And your dress, why, I don’t recall you coming in wearing this.”

Claudine pulled at a lock of hair over her ear. “I’m fine. I . . . was just nervous about all the guests. Sometimes crowds get my stomach worked up. I went for a walk to get some air. In the dark, I guess I put my foot in a hole, or something. I fell.”

“Dear spirits. Would you like to sit?” Dalton asked as he took the woman’s elbow, as if to hold her up. “Here, let me help you to a chair.”

She dug in her heels. “No. I’m fine. But thank you. I soiled my dress, and had to go change, that’s all. That’s why it’s not the same one. But I’m fine.”

She glanced at his sword as he pulled back. He had seen her looking at a lot of swords since she returned to the gathering hall.

“You look as if something is—”

“No,” she insisted. “I hit my head, that’s why I look so shaken. I’m fine. Really. It simply shook my confidence.”

“I understand,” Dalton said sympathetically. “Things like that make one realize how short life can be. Make you realize how”—he snapped his fingers—“you could go at any time.”

Her lip trembled. She had to swallow before she could speak. “Yes. I see what you mean. But I feel much better, now. My balance is back.”

“Is it now? I’m not so sure.”

Teresa pushed at him. “Dalton, can’t you see the poor woman is shaken?” She gave him another push. “Go on and talk your business while I see to poor Claudine.”

Dalton bowed and moved off to allow Teresa some privacy to find out what she would. He was pleased with the two Haken boys. It looked as if they had put the fear of the Keeper into her. By the unsteady way she walked, they had obviously delivered the message in the way he had wanted it delivered. Violence always helped people understand instructions.

He was gratified to know he had judged Fitch correctly. The way the boy stared at Dalton’s sword, he knew. Claudine’s eyes reflected fear when she looked at his sword; Fitch’s eyes held lust. The boy had ambition. Morley was useful, too, but mostly as muscle. His head, too, was not much more than muscle. Fitch understood instructions better and, as eager as he was, would be of more use. At that age they had no clue how much they didn’t know.

Dalton shook hands with a man who rushed up to pay him a compliment about his new position. He presented a civil face, but didn’t remember the man’s name, or really hear the effusive praise; Dalton’s attention was elsewhere.

Director Linscott was just finishing speaking with a stocky man about taxes on the wheat stored in the man’s warehouses. No trifling matter, considering the vast stores of grain Anderith held. Dalton politely, distantly, extracted himself from the nameless man and sidled closer to Linscott.

When the Director turned, Dalton smiled warmly at him and clasped his hand before he had a chance to withdraw it. He had a powerful grip. His hands still bore the calluses of his life’s work.

“I am so glad you could make it to the feast, Director Linscott. I pray you are enjoying the evening, so far. We yet have much the Minister would like to discuss.”

Director Linscott, a tall wiry fellow with a sun-rumpled face invariably looking as if he were plagued by an everlasting toothache, didn’t return the smile. The four oldest Directors were guild masters. One was from the important clothmaking guild, one from the associated papermaking guild, another a master armorer, and Linscott. Linscott was a master mason. Most of the remaining Directors were respected moneylenders or merchants, along with a solicitor and several barristers.

Director Linscott’s surcoat was an outdated cut, but finely kept nonetheless, and the warm brown went well with the man’s thin gray hair. His sword, too, was old, but the leather scabbard’s exquisite brassware at the throat and tip was in gleaming condition. The silver emblem—the mason’s dividers—stood out in bright silhouette against the dark leather. The sword’s blade, undoubtedly, would be just as well maintained as everything else about the man.

Linscott didn’t deliberately try to intimidate people, it just seemed to come naturally to him, the way a surly disposition came naturally to a mother brown bear with cubs. Linscott considered the Anderith people, those working fields, or hauling nets, or at employment in a trade through a guildhall, his cubs.

“Yes,” Linscott said, “I hear rumors the Minister has grand plans. I hear he has thoughts of disregarding the strong advice of the Mother Confessor, and breaking with the Midlands.”

Dalton spread his hands. “I’m sure I don’t speak out of turn when I tell you from my knowledge of the situation that Minister Chanboor intends to seek the best terms for our people. Nothing more, nothing less.

“You, for instance. What if we were to surrender to the new Lord Rahl and join the D’Haran Empire? This Lord Rahl has decreed all lands must surrender their sovereignty—unlike our alliance with the Midlands. That would mean, I suppose, he would no longer have need for Directors of Cultural Amity.”

Linscott’s tanned face turned ruddy with heat. “This isn’t about me, Campbell. It’s about the freedom of the people of the Midlands. About their future. About not being swallowed up and having our land brutalized by a rampaging Imperial Order army bent on the conquest of the Midlands.

“The Anderith ambassador has relayed Lord Rahl’s word that while all lands must surrender to him and be brought under one rule and one command, each land will be allowed to retain its culture, so long as we do not break laws common to all. He has promised that if we accept his entreaty while the invitation is still open to all, we will be party to creating those common laws. The Mother Confessor has put her word to his.”

Dalton respectfully bowed his head to the man. “You misunderstand Minister Chanboor’s position, I’m afraid. He will propose to the Sovereign we go with the Mother Confessor’s advice, if he sincerely believes it to be in the best interest of our people. Our very culture is at stake, after all. He has no wish to choose sides prematurely. The Imperial Order may offer our best prospects for peace. The Minister wants only peace.”

The Director’s dark scowl seemed to chill the air. “Slaves have peace.”

Dalton affected an innocent, helpless look. “I am no match for your quick wit, Director.”

“You seem ready to sell your own culture, Campbell, for the empty promises of an invading horde obsessed with conquest. Ask yourself, why else have they come, uninvited? How can you so smoothly proclaim you are considering thrusting a knife into the heart of the Midlands? What kind of man are you, Campbell, after all they have done for us, to turn your back on the advice and urging of our Mother Confessor?”

“Director, I think you—”

Linscott shook his fist. “Our ancestors who fought so futilely against the Haken horde no doubt shiver in their eternal rest to hear you so smoothly consider bargaining away their sacrifice and our heritage.”

Dalton paused, letting Linscott hear his own words fill the silence and echo between the two of them. It was for this harvest Dalton had sowed his seeds of words.

“I know you are sincere, Director, in your fierce love of our people, and in your unflinching desire to protect them. I am sorry you find my wish for the same insincere.” Dalton bowed politely. “I pray you enjoy the rest of the evening.”

To graciously accept such an insult was the pinnacle of courtesy. But more than that, it revealed the one who would inflict such wounds as beneath the ancient ideals of Ander honor.

Only Hakens were said to be so cruelly demeaning to Anders.

With the utmost respect for the one who had insulted him, Dalton turned away as if he had been asked to leave, as if he had been driven off. As if he had been humiliated by a Haken overlord.

The Director called his name. Dalton paused and looked back over a shoulder.

Director Linscott screwed up his mouth, as if loosening it to test rarely used courtesy. “You know, Dalton, I remember you when you were with the magistrate in Fairfield. I always believed you were a moral man. I don’t now believe differently.”

Dalton cautiously turned around, presenting himself, as if he were prepared to accept another insult should the man wish to deliver one.

“Thank you, Director Linscott. Coming from a man as respected as you, that is quite gratifying.”

Linscott gestured in a casual manner, as if still brushing at cobwebs in dark corners in his search for polite words. “So, I’m at a loss to understand how a moral man could allow his wife to parade around showing off her teats like that.”

Dalton smiled; the tone, if not the words themselves, had been conciliatory. Casually, as he stepped closer, he caught a full cup of wine from a passing tray and offered it to the Director. Linscott took the cup with a nod.

Dalton dropped his official tone and spoke as if he had been boyhood chums with the man. “Actually, I couldn’t agree more. In fact, my wife and I had an argument about it before we came down tonight. She insisted the dress was the fashion. I put my foot down, as the man of the marriage, and unconditionally forbade her from wearing the dress.”

“Then why is she wearing it?”

Dalton sighed wearily. “Because I don’t cheat on her.”

Linscott cocked his head. “While I am glad to hear you don’t ascribe to the seeming new moral attitudes where indulgences are concerned, what has that to do with the price of wheat in Kelton?”

Dalton took a sip of his wine. Linscott followed his lead.

“Well, since I don’t cheat on her, I’d have no play in bed if I won every argument.”

For the first time, the Director’s face took on a small smile. “I see what you mean.”

“The younger women around here dress in an appalling fashion. I was shocked when I came here to work. My wife is younger, though, and wishes to fit in with them, to have friends. She fears being shunned by the other women of the household.

“I have spoken with the Minister about it, and he agrees the women should not flaunt themselves in such a manner, but our culture grants to women prerogative over their own dress. The Minister and I believe that, together, we might think of a way to influence fashion to the better.”

Linscott nodded approvingly. “Well, I’ve a wife, too, and I don’t cheat, either. I am glad to hear you are one of the few today who adheres to the old ideals that an oath is sacred, and commitment to your mate is sacrosanct. Good man.”

Anderith culture revolved a great deal around honor and word given in solemn oath—about holding to your pledge. But Anderith was changing. It was a matter of great concern to many that moral bounds had, over the last few decades, fallen to scorn by many. Debauchery was not only accepted, but expected, among the fashionable elite.

Dalton glanced over at Teresa, back at the Director, and to Teresa again. He held out a hand.

“Director, could I introduce you to my lovely wife? Please? I would consider it a personal favor if you lent your considerable influence to the issue of decency. You are a greatly respected man, and could speak with moral authority I could never begin to command. She thinks I speak only as a jealous husband.”

Linscott considered only briefly. “I would, if it would please you.”

Teresa was encouraging Claudine to drink some wine and was offering comforting words as Dalton shepherded the Director up beside the two women.

“Teresa, Claudine, may I introduce Director Linscott.”

Teresa smiled into his eyes as he lightly kissed her hand. Claudine stared at the floor as the procedure was repeated on her hand. She looked as if she wanted nothing more than to either jump into the man’s arms for protection or run away as fast as she could. Dalton’s reassuring hand on her shoulder prevented either.

“Teresa, darling, the Director and I were just discussing the issue of the women’s dresses and fashion versus decorum.”

Teresa canted a shoulder toward the Director, as if taking him into her confidence. “My husband is so stuffy about what I wear. And what do you think, Director Linscott? Do you approve of my dress?” Teresa beamed proudly. “Do you like it?”

Linscott glanced down from Teresa’s eyes only briefly. “Quite lovely, my dear. Quite lovely.”

“You see, Dalton? I told you. My dress is much more conservative than the others. I’m delighted one so widely respected as yourself approves, Director Linscott.”

While Teresa turned to a passing cupbearer for a refill, Dalton gave Linscott a why-didn’t-you-help-me? look. Linscott shrugged and bent to Dalton’s ear.

“Your wife is a lovely, endearing woman,” he whispered. “I couldn’t very well humiliate and disappoint her.”

Dalton made a show of sighing. “My problem, exactly.” Linscott straightened, smiling all the way. “Director,” Dalton said, more seriously, “Claudine, here, had a terrible accident earlier. While taking a walk outside she caught her foot and took a nasty tumble.”

“Dear spirits.” Linscott took up her hand. “Are you badly hurt, my dear?”

“It was nothing,” Claudine mumbled.

“I’ve known Edwin a good many years. I’m sure your husband would be understanding if I helped you to your rooms. Here, take my arm, and I will see you safely to your bed.”

As he took a sip, Dalton watched over the top of his cup. Her eyes swept the room. Those eyes held a world of longing to accept his offer. She might be safe if she did. He was a powerful man, and would have her under his wing. This test would tell Dalton what he needed to know. It wasn’t really a huge risk to play out such an experiment. People did disappear, after all, without ever being found. Still, there were risks in it. He waited for Claudine to tell him which way it would go. At last, she did.

“Thank you for your concern, Director Linscott, but I’m fine. I have so looked forward to the feast, and seeing the guests come to the estate. I would forever regret missing it, and seeing our Minister of Culture speak.”

Linscott took a sip of wine. “You and Edwin have labored vigorously on new laws since he was elected burgess. You have worked with the Minister. What think you of the man?” He gestured with his cup for emphasis. “Your honest opinion, now.”

Claudine took a gulp of wine. She had to catch her breath. She stared at nothing as she spoke.

“Minister Chanboor is a man of honor. His policies have been good for Anderith. He has been respectful of the laws Edwin has proposed.” She took another gulp of wine. “We are fortunate to have Bertrand Chanboor as the Minister of Culture. I have a hard time imagining another man who could do everything he does.”

Linscott lifted an eyebrow. “Quite a ringing endorsement, from a woman of your renown. We all know that you, Claudine, are as important to those laws as Edwin.”

“You are too kind,” she mumbled, staring into her cup. “I am just the wife of an important man. I would be little missed and quickly forgotten were I to have broken my neck out there tonight. Edwin will be honored long and well.”

Linscott puzzled at the top of her head.

“Claudine thinks far too little of herself,” Dalton said. He caught sight of the seneschal, impeccably dressed in a long-tailed red coat crossed with a sash of many colors, opening the double doors. Beyond the doors, the lavers, with rose petals floating in them, awaited the guests.

Dalton turned to the Director. “I suppose you know who will be the guest of honor tonight?”

Linscott frowned. “Guest of honor?”

“A representative from the Imperial Order. A highranking man by the name of Stein. Come to tell us Emperor Jagang’s words.” Dalton took another sip. “The Sovereign has come, too, to hear those words.”

Linscott sighed with the weight of this news. Now the man knew why he had been summoned, along with the other Directors, to what they had thought was no more than an ordinary feast at the estate. The Sovereign, for his own safety, rarely announced his appearances in advance. He had arrived with his own special guards and a large contingent of servants.

Teresa’s face glowed as she smiled up at Dalton, eager for the evening’s events. Claudine stared at the floor.

“Ladies and gentleman,” the seneschal announced, “if it would please you, dinner is served.”