The Widow's House

Clara

Clara sat perfectly still by the fire, her shoulders aching with the tension of fear held rigidly in check. On the divan, her son and daughter took a mild kind of pleasure in stripping her already fragile sense of safety to its bones.

“I had fish for dinner last night,” Elisia said.

The winter months had been kind to her. The cheeks that had lost the plumpness of youth were at least not gaunt, and there was a rosiness to her cheeks that spoke of something more than rouge.

“No,” Vicarian said. “You didn’t.”

Elisia snorted and raised her hands in an amused despair. “So what did I have, then? If your goddess sees my mind so well, tell me that.”

“That’s not how it works,” he said, scooping another small pickle from the tray between them and popping it into his mouth. Chewing it didn’t keep him from speaking. “I can’t see your mind. All she can tell me is whether what you’ve said is truth or a lie.”

Clara lifted her pipe to her lips, sucking in the smoke. Her mind raced, cataloging all that she could remember saying since Vicarian had come back from his initiation. She had known from his voice that the rites had taken her from him. Understanding now the depths and implications of that transformation felt like waking of a morning to find a viper under her pillow. What had she said, and when had Vicarian known she was not speaking truth? Had some petty act of deceit exposed her plots? Had her long court life protected her by making deflection and careful wording as natural to her as breath? She honestly didn’t know, and her only evidence was that she hadn’t yet been hauled before Geder’s secret tribunal…

Her heart went cold. The secret tribunal, where the high priest was always in attendance. Geder would know every lie spoken. And this had been going on since… since his return from the Keshet at least. Her knees trembled and her stomach clenched until the bite of sweetbread she’d eaten when first she’d taken her place by the fire seemed as indigestible as a stone.

“Well that hardly seems useful to me,” Elisia said. “What’s the good of knowing that someone’s lying if you can’t find out what the truth is? Do you remember that cunning man we saw at court who could tell your future? Now that was something useful.”

“That was a cheap fraud, sister,” Vicarian said. “He had Sorran Shoat feeding him information in code all the way through the evening.”

“I don’t believe that,” Elisia said. And then, “Was she really?”

“What about you, Mother?” Vicarian said. “Care to try?”

“Absolutely not,” Clara said.

“Why not?” Vicarian smiled, but he also seemed a bit hurt. As if he were a boy who had brought some vile insect to his nurse only to be told he had to put it out and wash his hands. Despite herself, Clara felt a tug of guilt, and then more deeply of sorrow. She could still recall quite clearly what it had been like to have the newborn Vicarian placed upon her breast. It wasn’t much harder to conjure who he had been as a boy, sneaking out with Barriath to ride their father’s horses and play with his hunting dogs. He’d been such a beautiful, joyful child. To see him eaten by monstrosity was more than she should have to bear. “Because,” she said gently, “I was raised to believe stealing secrets was rude, dear. And so were you.”

The thing that had been her son laughed with his warm laugh, and clapped his palms together as he had. But any hope she’d kept that he might return to her was doubly gone now. If her crimes were exposed to him, he would not shield her. He couldn’t have, even if he’d wanted to. The cruelty was monstrous.

The afternoon was a little farewell party for Lord Skestinin in whose house Clara was now permanent guest. Elisia had come now that Jorey was Lord Marshal and having once been a Kalliam weighed not so heavily upon her. Lord and Lady Skestinin’s daughter—and since the marriage to Jorey, Clara’s too for that—sat across the room from the three of them, her hand on the swell of her belly. Outside, a spring storm had come in from the north and was dropping tiny chips of ice from a low, grey sky. Sabiha shifted her hand and smiled. The babe was kicking, then.

“Is that all your new goddess can do?” Elisia asked.

“It’s one of the best tricks,” Vicarian said. “But it’s not the only one.”

“Because everyone says that Geder Palliako can speak to the dead. I’ve heard that he consults with King Simeon every night. They’ve been seen at the royal crypt, ever since the Timzinae tried to kill Geder.”

It was your father who tried to kill Geder, Clara thought but did not say, and I wish he’d managed.

“Well, that isn’t something I can do, but there may be more secrets than I’ve been brought into.”

“Priests and their secrets,” Elisia said, rolling her eyes.

Everyone and their secrets, Clara thought, and God help us all.

A servant boy announced the meal was served. Clara left her little clay pipe to burn out the remnant still in its bowl and allowed Vicarian to help her to her feet. Her flesh did not crawl when it touched his. He seemed no different than he had been before his induction into the mysteries of the spider goddess. And still she could not afford to pretend that was true.

Jorey and Lord Skestenin were already at table, Lady Skestinin at her husband’s side. A warm beef soup was already being served, the steam from it rich as smoke and good, the cunning men all said, for a woman bearing a child. Sabiha eased herself into the chair beside Jorey, though strictly speaking etiquette should have placed her by her mother rather than her husband. No one commented on the lapse, Clara least of all.

The talk was light and empty. Lady Skestinin was staying in Camnipol for the season to be with Sabiha when the baby came. Once the meal was done, Lord Skestinin would begin the long carriage ride to Nus and the fleet, and from there halfway around the world to Birancour. Jorey and Vicarian would begin their journey to the south in the morning, the Lord Marshal at last taking the field after his consultations with the Lord Regent. They made the usual jokes about not getting lost on the way, and Clara laughed with them politely, the chaos of her mind hidden behind years of form and etiquette. She had to tell Vincen. As soon as she could, she had to find him and warn him to say nothing. Not even to lie. And how many, many lies had she embraced in these past months? Half of her life was fabrications. Her mind spun like a child’s top as she tried in vain to recall everything she’d said and whom she had said it before.

“Clara? Are you well?” Lady Skestinin said, and Clara became aware it wasn’t the first time her name had been spoken.

“I’m sorry,” Clara said, and then very nearly, I was just thinking about what the storm might do to the garden. It was the kind of simple, social lie one told all the time. She flailed for a moment. “I was just thinking… about the war.”

And then, damn them, damn them, tears came to her eyes. She recognized that she was on the edge of panic, but was unable to draw herself back from it. She looked down at the soup. I have not been discovered, she said to herself. If they knew, I would not be here. Even if they only knew of Vincen, I wouldn’t be welcome at the table. My secrets are my own. The room was silent. Sabiha leaned forward and took her hand, and when Clara looked up, there were tears in several eyes besides her own. Lady Skestinin, Sabiha, even Jorey’s.

“We will end in victory,” Vicarian said. He meant it as reassurance. It was a threat, and for a moment, she could not help but believe him.

“I’m just frightened, dear,” Clara said.

The thing that had been her son smiled at her, misunderstanding. It was good enough.

Once the meal was ended, Lord Skestenin said his farewells to Clara and her sons, then took a private moment with Sabiha and Lady Skestinin. Clara would dearly have loved to know what he said to them when he believed no one else could hear. This new plan to blockade Birancour couldn’t have pleased him, but precisely how displeased he was would be of interest. That she was curious was the best indication that her shock was beginning to fade. It was afternoon now. As much as she wished to find Vincen, going to him now would be a danger in itself, so instead she took to her withdrawing room and sat at her writing desk, pen in hand, uncertain what if anything she should do. The storm was thicker outside. The bits of falling ice were turning to hail, the rattle of ice bending and breaking the new grass and bruising the buds of the flowers.

She had promised herself that she would not use anything she learned from her sons in the covert reports she wrote to Paerin Clark of the Medean bank. If the missives were intercepted, there could be nothing to lead back to Jorey, and so many of the things she was now positioned to discover were known only to a few. And yet because these things were little known, they were the most important to pass along.

Perhaps it was time to stop her campaign. They knew the dangers that Geder posed. They had acted against him already. And she herself had taken Ternigan from the board and sown distrust in the ranks with the unfortunate effect of putting Jorey in harm’s way. My dear friend, I fear the time has come for our correspondence to end, she could say. There was no one to insist that she continue. And now that she felt the danger so close at her side…

But there was an attack coming, and she knew it was coming to Birancour. The priests of the spider goddess could smell out deceit, and she could warn them of that. Perhaps no one else could. But at what cost? And if some detail that she put to paper was something that only Jorey could tell, how would she live with herself, knowing that she had engineered his death?

She had her nib above the inkwell, trapped by indecision, when a soft tap came at the door. Fear set her heart racing, but there was no call. She hadn’t written a stroke. She put the pen away and shifted to the divan near the window as the tapping came again.

“Hello?” she said. “Is anyone there?”

The door swung open and Jorey stepped in.

“I’m not interrupting, am I?” he asked.

“Never, dear. I was just looking at the back gardens. I’m afraid they won’t escape ruin at this rate.”

“What will?” he said, and it sounded only half a jest. He came to stand by her and put his hand on her shoulder. She touched his fingers with her own. For a moment, they stared together at the grey and the white and the damage that it wrought.

“It’s a shame Lord Skestinin couldn’t wait for better weather.”

“It is. And I hope it’s cleared by tomorrow, or Vicarian and I may freeze before we reach my command.”

“I’m sure that won’t happen, dear. The freezing, I mean. I can’t speak to the weather. I’ve never been good about that sort of thing.”

Jorey sighed, and for a moment she thought he might not speak at all. “I don’t want you to be afraid, Mother. I’ll see this through.”

“And had it occurred to you that might be what I was afraid of?” she asked tartly, and immediately wished she could take the words back.

Jorey sank to the divan at her side. The hail tapped angrily against the glass. “After Vanai, Father told me about his own experiences in the field. About war and what it was. What it is.”

“And did that help you?”

Jorey’s jaw went tight. It was answer enough. In truth, she’d been cruel to ask.

“War is an evil thing that we have to do,” he said. “It is what duty and honor demand. And it’s terrible.”

“And do you believe him?”

“Duty and honor are making demands of me,” Jorey said, chuckling despite the grimness all about them, “and it’s terrible, so I’d have to say I do.”

“Your father was always a man of honor. What precisely that meant was sometimes surprising, but he did not waver.”

“I can’t either.”

“Do you… Do you want to win?”

“I want the war ended,” Jorey said, “and I’m not permitted to surrender, so winning’s the only path I’ve got. And I want you and Sabiha safe. And Vicarian. Everyone, really.”

“You’re Lord Marshal of Antea in the teeth of a war that’s already spilled over three nations. It seems odd employment for someone seeking safety for everyone.”

“That’s why I didn’t ask for the position,” he said. “I will make this all work if I can, though. I have to try.”

Clara felt sorrow in her breast like a rising flood. But also pride. “We all have to, dear. In our own ways.”

“I won’t be here when my child’s born,” Jorey said. “Lady Skestinin and Sabiha… They don’t have the warmest relationship. Ever since her scandal.”

The scandal had happened before Jorey and Sabiha had met and fallen in love. It was now a boy old enough to be learning his letters, and being raised by a kind family in the lower quarters of Camnipol, and Sabiha loved the child. Little wonder that the girl and her mother would carry each other’s scars over it.

“I understand,” Clara said.

“Thank you, Mother.”

Clara rose to her feet and put her arms around her youngest boy. Little Jorey who’d wept after his first hunt, but not where Dawson could see him. Who had come back from the burning of Vanai with ghosts behind his eyes. He would lead an army for a man he feared in a war he hated because it was the right thing to do. Dawson would have been proud of him too, though for very different reasons.

“I will do what I can,” she whispered.

“So will I.”

When he left, she took up her pen again, and began her letter.

Pregnancy sat well on Sabiha Kalliam and sorrow poorly. Between the two, they complicated her. Clara found her in the nursery with three of the house servants—two Firstblood women and a Dartinae man—holding curtains to the high windows. In the grey light of the storm, Clara saw little to distinguish the different cloths. Sabiha leaned against the great carved-oak crib where before many more weeks had passed, the child would sleep and mewl and puke and coo and generally twist every heart in reach and exhaust every body in earshot. Clara found herself looking forward to it.

“Clara,” Sabiha said. “Have you come to dither about window dressings? Because that’s how I’m spending the day.”

“It’s an honorable pursuit. Painful but necessary. I’ve come to make sure you were well and see whether you needed anything from me in particular.”

“So Jorey sent you.”

“You didn’t expect him to do anything else, did you? The poor thing’s riding off to the service of his nation and leaving the one person he actually cares for behind. Well, two. One and a fraction.”

“Two and a fraction. He loves his mother as well. Did he warn you about mine?”

“Your mother? Yes, he did.”

Sabiha chuckled. “We nipped at each other once when she was tired and I was hungry. It was nothing.”

Clara didn’t believe that for a moment, but it was a lie she could respect. It occurred to her that Vicarian could have removed all doubt, and the thought left her feeling colder. The servants stood still, waiting for their betters to finish their conversation, as was their place. Sabiha turned to them. “Take them all down. Yes, that one too. All of them. The light’s too dim in this weather. I’ll look again tomorrow when the weather’s passed.”

The servants nodded, thanked her, and vanished with grace and speed. They gave no sign that they were being dismissed, and everyone present knew that they were. Good help was precious. Clara hoped Sabiha was aware of the fact. When they were alone, Sabiha lowered herself to the nursing chair with a grunt.

Sabiha pulled a face, and then laughed. “The truth is, he outpaced me,” she said. “I was going to come to you tonight and ask how we could conspire to care for him while he’s away.”

“Is he not well, then?” Clara asked, half certain she knew the answer.

“He doesn’t sleep,” Sabiha said. “And when he does, it isn’t restful. Honestly, he’s gone away some nights for fear of keeping me up. I’ve found him curled on a divan in the dressing room in the morning.”

“Is it the war,” Clara said, “or is there something more?”

“He won’t say,” Sabiha said, “but it’s Geder. He hates Palliako, only he won’t permit himself to feel it, so it’s become this terrible sort of loyalty.”

“Geder’s been very kind to us, in his fashion. It isn’t every man who would put a traitor’s son in command of the army.”

“I suppose not.” Sabiha sighed. A vicious gust pressed at the windows and the smell of the weather seeped in around them like a perfume. “I’m afraid that even when the war ends, the man that comes back may not have much in common with the one that’s leaving. Do you know what I mean?”

“I do,” Clara said.

“Does it frighten you too?”

“It does. But not so much as the thought that the war might not end. Not ever. We may be chasing conspiracies and shadows for the rest of my life and yours. And his,” she added, gesturing toward her belly.

“Hers.”

Clara looked up into Sabiha’s smile.

“The cunning man says to expect a daughter,” the girl said. “Jorey won’t mind, do you think?”

“He will be delighted. He’s always been quite fond of girls.”

“I wish I could go with him,” Sabiha said. “Or if not that, I wish that you could.”

“One does not take one’s pregnant wife and aged mother on campaign,” Clara said. “I think it would be seen as unmasculine.”

“If you really want to take care of me, find a way to take care of him. There must be one.”

“I wish there were. At the moment, I’m not certain what that would mean,” Clara said, but a thought had begun to take form at the back of her mind. Camnipol was thick with the priests and the loose ends of her plots. It was not safe to stay. And with Sabiha asking her to look after Jorey, perhaps—perhaps—there was something that could be done.