“Perhaps our new Warrior-Guilder could dispose of it for us.” Bradomir’s sly tone raised a few titters in response.
One of the servants, prodded by Lazar, sprang forward to grab at the leksot, but it was far too swift, flattening itself to duck under grasping hands and scrambling up through the sea of legs, right into our group. Amidst shouts and a sudden crush of fleeing bodies, and the rising volume of the earther servant’s prayers, the creature emerged suddenly on my uncle’s bare legs. It scaled him as easily as the silks, faster than he could snatch at it, then leaped from Etan’s shoulder to the Chancellor’s. The flurry and panic intensified as the leksot hitched itself to the back of his paluma and let out a guttural grunt. The absurdity of the city’s wealthiest and most powerful men and women all attempting to rid the Honored Chancellor of the animal plaguing him while also being too afraid to touch it themselves might have been funny in other circumstances.
Lord Ectar himself extracted the creature in the end. The Talafan stammered apologies as he pushed through the crowd and scooped the leksot from the Chancellor’s clothing. “Forgive me, Honored Chancellor,” he said. “I do not know what happened. The cages should have been locked.” He looked about helplessly and then, perhaps remembering that his own servants had been forced to wait outside, carried the leksot himself back to the gilded cage from which it had escaped.
Once clear, Lazar’s army of servants swooped in to fuss over the Chancellor and brush hairs from his paluma while the sweating host himself panted behind them like an overfilled sponge. Honor was as important a currency in Silasta as wealth, and embarrassing the Chancellor would cost Lazar deeply in Council politics. Credo Bradomir and the Theater-Guilder, Credola Varina, made a grand show of dusting themselves off, and Credola Nara took great delight in pointing out the damage the creature had caused to Lazar’s hanging silks with its claws and drool. Marco, free from Bradomir’s scrutiny and unfazed by the commotion, had taken the opportunity to tuck into his soup and bread at last.
The cause of all the excitement, the leksot, shrunk to docility now that its adventure had ended, grunting happily and nestling up against the Talafan’s arm as he put it back in the cage. “It is just excited,” he tried to explain, to nobody in particular. “They like play. They are the most beloved pet in the Emperor’s court.”
Tain elbowed me, deadpan. “Think it’ll catch on here?”
I did my best not to laugh.
The family ears apparently conferred additional functionality, because Chancellor Caslav’s gaze snapped over to his nephew. His tone was unamused as he said, “Credo Jovan, I wonder, would you be so good as to take my fine gift to the Manor? I think perhaps we’ve had sufficient excitement for one gathering, and you did mention you were heading back that way shortly.” Over his shoulder, Tain made a pained expression.
“Certainly, Honored Chancellor.”
“The glass garden will do.”
I inclined my head. A job for a servant, perhaps, but given the reaction most of Lazar’s were having to the animal it probably wasn’t wise to leave it to one of them. I masked a shudder. The thing might have been harmless, but it was messy and smelly, and my skin itched just looking at it.
Etan patted my shoulder. “I’ll see you at home later.”
Across the room, Tain gave me a mournful wave as I struggled out the door with the unwieldy cage.
* * *
At home, I washed my stinking, fur-sprinkled paluma and scrubbed myself clean in the bath. My back ached. I’d left the leksot leaping around the glass-walled garden in the Manor to wreak its mischief, and sent a silent apology to the gardeners there.
I’d finally settled down to a pot of tea and a book when Etan came home. The wooden beads hanging from my doorway clicked as he entered; I glanced up and my chest compressed as I took in my uncle’s swollen lips, shiny skin, and puffy eyes.
“Time to go, Jovan,” he said.
I sprang to my feet.
Etan shuffled gracelessly into the kitchen and pressed the underside of the stone bench, activating the mechanism that moved a section of cupboard and revealed our hidden proofing room. My heart rate increased as we packed a satchel full of antidotes: charcoal, sea snake scale powder, atrapis, panshar balls from the digestive tracts of wild lutra. “How long since you noticed?”
“I came straight here from the wharfs,” Etan said. I marked how many bottles and jars he took, and the lack of precision made me anxious. “Less than an hour. Dizziness first, then swelling, then perspiration. No stomach pains or nausea, but pressure in my chest.”
My throat dried. “The Chancellor?”
“At the Manor.”
“Sit down,” I told him, and took over packing the satchel, my stomach knotting. There had been other attempts to dose the Chancellor with various substances over the years, but never had I seen my uncle this way.
“Have you eaten since lunch?”
“No.”
“You proofed everything at Lazar’s?”
He might have been feeling ill but it hadn’t dampened his spirits entirely; the look he fired at me stung.
“Sorry, Tashi. I just know these functions are difficult.” Etan himself prepared the majority of the Chancellor’s food, or else proofed it long in advance. But functions like today’s were the bane of our profession: shared food, someone else’s kitchens, staff we didn’t know, and the scrutiny of canny eyes under which we must secretly test. Visibly proofing would expose open distrust and weakness—much like bringing one’s own servants to another’s home, or being surrounded by openly armed guards—something custom and honor dictated that the Chancellor must never do. Etan had to proof everything on the spot, before the Chancellor, without being noticed.
Etan tilted his head in acknowledgment. “I got into Lazar’s kitchens this morning and tested everything they’d prepared. I noticed nothing, and there were no masking flavors.” Food with a naturally bitter, sour, or acidic taste, or food so heavily spiced as to hide subtler flavors, would never be passed on to the Chancellor unless it had been proofed well in advance. “I don’t know much about Lord Ectar the Talafan, so I took no chances.” We knew of only two toxins that were effectively undetectable in food, even to a trained proofer; petra venom and a complicated compound known as Esto’s revenge. If Etan had consumed either of those, he’d be dead already.
I waited while he purged his stomach contents into a basin, and gave him two of the most generalized antidotes—charcoal and a panshar ball—after he had cleaned himself. “Without any stomach pain, the only thing that matches your symptoms is maidenbane, but obviously you’d have tasted that,” I said. That plant was so bitter even an untrained person would detect something amiss. “It might be an illness?”
Etan shrugged. He suddenly seemed so diminished. Older. Frailer. “I hope so.”
We hailed a litter but asked the men to move slowly. Up here, between the Credol residences, the streets were the original unpaved pathways, with no heavy wagon traffic to drive ruts into the packed surface. It made the journey smoother, but still fear and concern dogged me as we traveled in silence. The white azikta stone walls of the buildings around us glowed warmly in the afternoon light as we made our way up the heavy gradient pathway to the sprawling Chancellor’s Manor.