Court of Fives

Page 31

The name, which consists of a person’s lineage and the reputation that person builds through deeds and speech.
The heart, which is the seat of wisdom, the flesh in which we live. The heart binds the five souls into one.
When Bettany sleeps, her shadow walks elsewhere, and I think it is her shadow that crawls with the anger that makes her lash out. In our shadows sleep our passions and our crookedness and our sly wit and our determination to survive and to eat and to live. I wonder what I look like to the others when I sleep. Where does my shadow wander? Does it ever run the Fives, and win?
A scrape alerts me. I roll over to see Father standing in the door, studying us. The gray light paints his face with a silver sheen, as if it is his shadow that has crept to the door to stare at us, leaving his body behind. He wears his soldier’s sandals and a loose linen shroud that drapes from his broad shoulders to his knees, leaving his powerful calves bare. For a moment I wonder if it really is his shadow and not him at all. For a moment I see a stranger who has invaded our house and does not like what he has found within.
What does he see when he looks at us?
At length he vanishes.
Instinct stirs in my bones. Something bad is about to happen.
I rise and creep after him.
13
He has paused in the garden to stand in front of the altar with his head bowed. Movement just out of my sight catches my attention, and I freeze behind a pillar.
Polodos steps into the garden from the reception room.
“He is here, my lord,” he says.
Nothing lies in the altar bowl except crumbs of bread pecked apart by birds during the night. A brightly plumaged bird called a dawn-throat sings its spilling melody, one long fall of plangent notes.
“Forgive me for what I am about to do,” Father says to the gods. “It is better this way.”
There is a trap here. I taste it in Father’s bitter tone; I see it in the way he clenches his left hand; I smell a sweet aroma like temptation.
When he leaves the garden, I sneak after him through the empty reception room and to the door of his study. Father stands with his back to the door in the posture of a soldier awaiting sanction from a superior. Lord Gargaron stands at Father’s desk as if he were head of the household. He wears spotless court clothes, a linen vest over a wrapped ankle-length skirt whose pleats are as sharp as knives. He is looking through Father’s correspondence, examining the pages and then setting them aside.
“You have a superb record, Captain Esladas. Your victory at Maldine is being compared to the triumph our forces had at Marsh Shore in Oyia ten years ago when they defeated and killed King Elkorios of Saro-Urok. Your quick thinking at Maldine’s harbor salvaged five of Princess Berenise’s ships that would otherwise have fallen into enemy hands along with a number of Efean merchant vessels that were carrying valuable cargo. The princess knows your name, Captain. All of Garon Palace knows your name.”
“My lord,” says Father in a wooden tone.
“Your exploits have been spoken into the ear of King Kliatemnos himself. Queen Serenissima has also heard your name mentioned in her royal salon. Their brother Prince Nikonos has been heard to speak of your distinguished service in the army. This is a high honor for a man who began life in the hill town of Heyeng in the remote province of Everlasting Janon. A sixth son so superfluous he could not even expect to inherit a share of his father’s humble bakery.”
“My lord,” says Father.
Lord Gargaron looks up, straight at me. He blinks but in no other way betrays my presence. Father cannot see me because I am behind him. Gargaron smiles just a little, like he takes pleasure in the fact that I have to stand here and listen.
He sits in Father’s chair and turns over another page. “Your finances are in arrears, Captain. Yet you are no spendthrift. It looks as if you have gone into debt because of Ottonor’s demands on your purse. Not that I wish to speak ill of the dead, but the man was a fool, a weakling, a wastrel, and a bad manager besides, which in my opinion is the worst of it. A man of your capabilities should have years ago been given a larger command, not stuck in the desert. You should have been sent to the Eastern Reach where the real war is going on.”
“Lord Ottonor’s purview was along the Reed Shore and in the northern desert, my lord. That is why I served there.”
“Yes, but he is dead now, and his son and heirs are sunk in such a ditch of debt that I daresay as soon as the lord is entombed the family will be packing up to rusticate in the country for a generation. They cannot possibly afford to maintain a suitable household in the city, nor will the king and queen allow them to retain a presence at court. The royal family can forgive any transgression except financial stupidity and of course blasphemy against the gods. Yet when Ottonor’s household breaks up, what is to become of a competent military man like you, Captain?”