The heads of family and Guilders who comprised Silasta’s ruling Council milled about in small groups, servants weaving expertly between them. We passed the Theater-Guilder, Varina, conversing with a servant carrying cups of cloudy kori, and identified the thin, sunken-eyed Talafan nobleman, a gleaming pale ghost in a bright silk jacket as he stood listening to the musician with Credola Nara and Credo Javesto. At the other side of the room, Etan and Chancellor Caslav spoke with a few other Councilors by the food table.
The Chancellor caught sight of us and beckoned, lips tight. He and Tain could have been brothers, sharing the same slight build, broad nose, and dark curls worn long enough to mask what Tain called “the family ears.” The tattoos circling Caslav’s bare arms were a more elaborate version of Tain’s, signifying his role as Chancellor. He was a handsome man, but unlike his nephew’s his face was solemn and humorless. Beside him, Etan faded into the background: a plain, bearded man in his fifties, shorter and stockier, with gentle eyes. I’d heard him called meek. I knew better.
Tain breezed up to Caslav, ignoring his uncle’s frown, and gave the older man a warm squeeze of the shoulders. “Glad to see you. I’m starving. Are those fish cakes?”
“You are three days early,” Caslav said, and I could have sworn the temperature dropped. “And am I to understand that you have returned without your retinue? I received a rather distraught bird from your cousins.”
“Well, it’s a very long journey, Tashi, so I imagine the poor thing got tired.” Failing to generate an answering smile, Tain switched to his most sincere manner. “I’m sorry, Uncle. They were a little over-zealous and I saw a way to come home a fraction early without the fuss. But at least it’s given me a chance to help greet our guest. I learned a little Talafan in Telasa. Shall I go and introduce myself?”
I shuffled back to stand beside Etan as they continued their conversation.
“Jovan,” Etan said, raising a brow.
“Tashi,” I replied with a shrug. A corner of my uncle’s mouth twitched.
In front of us, a big man in an ill-fitting paluma who had been waiting for food also stepped politely backward, trying not to intrude on the conversation between the Chancellor and his nephew. So out of context was his presence here that it took me a moment to recognize Marco, the head of training at the Warrior Guild. He’d taught me in compulsory classes years ago, and had been tutoring Tain for his recent sessions. He was not on the Council, but he must have been assigned temporary Warrior-Guilder status while Aven took the army south. Like a great tree stuffed into an ornamental pot, the soldier stood out in the refined company, his balding head well above the rest, muscular chest and shoulders straining the normally loose paluma. The garb constricted his movements as he tried awkwardly to accept from an unsympathetic servant a bowl for soup with one hand and a flat circle of bread with the other.
“Guilder Marco!”
Credo Bradomir—second only to the Chancellor’s family in honor and wealth—swept past in a cloud of fragrant oil and folds of white silk to accost Marco before he could be served any soup. “My dear man, my dear Guilder.” Bradomir snatched the soup bowl and held it between manicured fingernails as though Marco might have infected it. “Doubtless there are no such niceties in the army, but here there is a certain standard of behavior. The Chancellor is always offered the first serving at a gathering.”
Bradomir replaced the bowl with a chink of expensive ceramics. Marco wiped his forehead and took another step back, head down and eyes searching for an exit. I gave him a shrug in solidarity. I had little in common with Marco or his ilk; though they provided a necessary service to the city and the country more broadly, their skills and values were at odds with the rest of peaceful, cultured Silastian society. On the other hand, Bradomir was indisputably a sanctimonious ass.
“I’m sorry, Credo Bradomir,” Marco said, his voice an uncultured rumble, faintly accented despite his many decades in the city. He extended an uncertain hand, offering his bread to Bradomir as well.
At that, Tain stepped between the two men. “Don’t be ridiculous,” the Heir said. “Please keep your bread, Warrior-Guilder.” He raked Bradomir with a contemptuous glance and nodded to the sweating servant, who served two bowls of the bright soup. Tain made a show of handing one back to his uncle and smiled apologetically at Marco. “There, no harm done.”
Marco moved away, clumsy and silent as he pushed his way to the back of the group. Bradomir’s heavy-lashed gaze lingered on the back of Tain’s head as he allowed himself to be served. I stepped closer to Etan and we took our turn next. “Anything I should be worried about?” he murmured.
I shook my head. “You?” We were close to, but turned at an angle from, the Chancellor, who was now engaged in a discussion with the Stone-Guilder about road paving materials in the lower city.
“No. Well. Later.” Etan set down his bowl of soup next to the Chancellor’s to adjust the cording on his paluma, then, moments later, seemingly picked it up again. The switch of the bowls was so subtle, so effortless, it was all I could do to keep my eyes averted. Hard as I trained, I couldn’t imagine matching his skill as a proofer.
I wanted to ask him about Kalina, and Mother’s invitation, but a screech from the other side of the room interrupted my thought.
“What now?” Credo Lazar pushed through to the source of the disturbance: a servant dancing about on the spot, engaged in some kind of weird spasm with her arms slapping her own back. When her strange hopping spun her about to face us a few more people let out shrieks. A creature clung to her hair, gray and about the size of her head, and nimble enough to avoid her panicked slaps. As several other servants moved in to help her, the animal sprang from her hair onto one of the painted hanging silks dangling nearby and scrambled up it as effortlessly as a large spider.
“Not the silks!” Lazar moaned. “Get it down! Someone get it down!”
“What in all the hells is that thing?” Tain’s voice was a blend of horror and fascination as the animal sprang like a tiny acrobat between the fluttering silk panels. “Is it flying?”
It was, almost; with each leap of the lengths between panels a concertina of dark skin stretched out like wings between the creature’s front and rear legs then folded back to nothing as it landed. We were treated to an excellent view of gleaming black underwing as it flung itself from the silks onto a nearby cushioned stool.
“A gift for the Chancellor from our most generous guest, Lord Ectar,” Etan said, and added in an undertone, “It’s called a ‘leksot,’ I believe. It’s some kind of Talafan pet. It wasn’t received quite as well as Lord Ectar might have hoped; one of the servants fainted when he took it out, and another was convinced it was some kind of bad spirit given form. Oh, and it drooled on Credo Lazar.”
Herded by our anxious host, three servants closed in to capture the animal, while the Talafan nobleman Lord Ectar protested from the side. “It is just playful,” he was saying. “It does not hurt anyone. Please, allow me, allow me.…” Beside him, a servant moaned and mumbled as her gnarled arthritic fingers caressed the earther pendant she wore. Through it all, the leksot bounced on the cushion on light paws, tail coiled in a spring, like an athlete about to begin a race. It cocked its squashed head and regarded us speculatively.