“Yes, Derie,” he said.
“You’ve got a lot to learn,” she said. “Go with Charles. He’ll show you where you sleep.”
He hesitated, looked at his mother, because it hadn’t occurred to him that he would be leaving her. Suddenly, swiftly, Derie kicked hard at his leg. He yelped and jumped out of the way. Behind her he saw Charles—he of the bruised face—wince, unsurprised but not unsympathetic.
“Don’t ever make me ask you anything twice,” she said.
“Yes, Derie,” he said, and ran.
Part I
Chapter One
Judah didn’t like the Wilmerian guildsman.
She, better than anybody, knew that it wasn’t a person’s fault what they looked like, so she wasn’t bothered by the sweat that coated his bald head and dripped from his nose in the hot, crowded hall. His rough-spun robes smelled like a freshly dug grave but she could overlook that, too. Guildsmen lived by strange rules. Maybe the Wilmerian Guild had prohibitions against bathing, even before state dinners; their guildhall and gas mines were in the high plains to the north, and for all Judah knew, water was scarce there.
The Wilmerians had made clayware, long before mining gas, and the guildsman had introduced himself as Single-Handled Ewer. He turned his sweating nose up at the dazzling array of food on the table, the cheeses and roasts and candied fruits and Judah’s favorite sticky spiced duck; he produced a crumbly gray-brown shard of what appeared to be clay from the depths of the grave-dirt robe, put it between his teeth and actually began to nibble; and even all of this, Judah could overlook. Although he made it hard, the way he closed his eyes in apparent ecstasy and, too loud, proclaimed that the Wilmerians would not touch any food of the world until they had ingested their sacred portion of earth. Most people had reasons for what they did, even if those reasons were bizarre. And Judah herself had been thought bizarre often enough to judge strangeness gently, too.
But once the guildsman had downed a few glasses of wine—nothing in his guild vows about that, apparently—he’d started to stare at her hair, and that, Judah couldn’t forgive. In this land of monotonous corn silk, the dark, almost-purple mass always drew stares, but Judah didn’t have to put up with it from somebody with clay in his teeth.
Do I have something in my hair? she’d asked coolly, and he’d said, I apologize. It’s just so...odd.
The courtier sitting on her other side wasn’t much more appealing. Like all courtiers, he was greased and polished, his hair heavy with pomade and kohl thick around his eyes. At least the Wilmerian mostly kept his smell to himself; the courtier’s perfume made her eyes water. The best she could say for him was that he didn’t seem to be overindulging in the drops that were the courtiers’ drug of choice these days; it amused her to watch the ornate jeweled vials pass from hand to hand with what she assumed was supposed to be subtlety, but she was less amused by the prospect of having one of the blurry-eyed droppers sitting right next to her.
For weeks, the Wilmerians had been crawling over the newest part of the House like cassocked beetles, installing the gas lamps. By the lavender light of the new sconces, the guildsmen and courtiers assembled in the hall appeared faintly cadaverous. In the front of the hall, on the dais, where Gavin looked bored and Theron looked scared and only Elly was able to fake the proper level of interest, the Guildmaster was talking. “Such a privilege it has been,” he said, with enthusiasm as genuine as Elly’s interest, “to visit the very heart of the Highfall, the hidden treasure that is the great House of Lord Elban. We are honored to add our tiny light to its legendary brilliance.”
Speaking of brilliance, the diamonds in the courtier’s ears were too large. She wondered if wearing diamonds that ostentatious meant the courtier could actually afford them, or if he just wanted the other courtiers to think he could.
“It is with humility that we work with the things of the earth, and with humility that we offer our small wares to those who will use them to bring light to the still-dark corners of our world.” The Guildmaster, short, square and robustly corpulent despite the Wilmerians’ ostensible asceticism, beamed at Gavin’s father. “And who fits that description better than Lord Elban?”
Cheers and applause rose at this, as they were supposed to. The great Lord Elban, in his gilded chair at the center of the dais, merely nodded. He was tall and lean, with white hair that flowed down over his shoulders and skin that wasn’t much darker. Even his blue eyes were so pale as to be nearly white. He wore nothing but black, which heightened the effect. Those he skirmished with on the southern border called him the Wraith Lord. Judah couldn’t remember where she’d heard that. It didn’t seem like the sort of thing she was supposed to know. On balance, she would rather be down here on the floor, squeezed in between the courtier and the guildsman, than up on the dais, anywhere near him. He made her think of a bird rather than a wraith: something cruel that waited. Like a carrion crow. Maybe the effect was different when he was charging toward you on a warhorse.
The Guildmaster’s speech went on and on. He must not have been paid for the lamps yet. Judah’s dress fit her badly. As always, it was one of Elly’s, made over. She was hot and uncomfortable, and she wanted to leave. She’d been late getting dressed and there hadn’t been time to braid back her hair and the Wilmerian wasn’t the only one staring at it. At her.
“I don’t know why the Seneschal is making me go,” she’d complained to Gavin the night before. “Nobody cares if I’m there. Nobody will even talk to me. I’m just Judah, the witchbred foundling.”
She didn’t exactly mean it as a negative. She was mostly amused by the way the staff wouldn’t quite look at her and the courtiers couldn’t quite look away. Still, Gavin had scowled. “Tell me who calls you witchbred. I’ll have them executed.”
“Kill the whole House, then,” she’d said, “and most of the courtiers.”
“Could you do that?” Theron had asked, curiously.
Gavin ignored his brother. “You’re no foundling. You’re my foster sister. And the courtiers had better get used to seeing you, because someday, when I’m Lord of the City, I’m going to make you—I don’t know, Lead Chancellor in Charge of Keeping Me Sane, or something.”
“I thought that was the Lady of the City’s job,” she’d said, and Elly, playing solitaire by the window, said, “Leave me out of this.”
It wasn’t Gavin’s fault that she was eating in such odious company. The Seneschal, dressed in his usual gray, stood behind Elban, but she could still feel his eye on her. Anything inappropriate that she did would earn her a lecture, and twenty-two years of the Seneschal’s lectures had bored her into a reluctant obedience, or at least a moment’s consideration as to whether her intended bad behavior was worth the tedium of another one. Escaping this room was certainly worth it. She intended to do so at the first possible opportunity.