Seterre ate another orange slice. “I wouldn’t turn to Alys for guidance, if I were you,” she said. “She can be—untruthful—at times. She might give you misinformation.”
“Deliberately?”
“I hate to say it, but, yes, deliberately. She thinks it is amusing to see other people stumble or even humiliate themselves.” Seterre shrugged delicately. “I can’t imagine why. Perhaps she thinks it makes her appear more clever or elegant by contrast.”
“I suppose.”
“And Elidon—well. She would not misdirect you on purpose, but at times she is not—that is—she is so much older than the rest of us. She is out of step. She does not realize how things have changed.”
This was particularly amusing coming from Seterre, who was probably only ten years younger than the first wife. “Yes, I can see how that might have happened,” Zoe said.
“And Romelle—so adorable!—but so childlike, as you may have noticed. We all love her very much but she is not the steadiest of creatures. She is still finding her way.”
“And yet, she’s torz. I would think she would be very levelheaded.”
“Exactly! That’s what you would think! But she can be as flighty as an elay girl and as unpredictable as a coru woman. Not,” she added hastily, “that I would say a word against anyone of water and blood.”
Zoe grinned. “It is hardly an insult to call coru women unpredictable. It is part of their charm.”
“I am relieved to hear you say so! At any rate, I just wanted to let you know that I will be glad to help you if you need assistance, and I would never lead you astray.”
“Thank you,” Zoe said. “That is good to know.”
They talked another twenty minutes on topics just as laced with hazards; Zoe was getting a headache from trying to be so careful. She was relieved when a bustle at the door drew their attention that way and Josetta stepped into the room.
“Hello, love,” Seterre greeted her, with what seemed like the first genuine emotion she had shown all afternoon. Josetta gave her mother a quick kiss and Zoe a quick bow. “You remember Zoe Lalindar, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Why don’t you sit with us for a few moments?” Seterre said. Then adding to Zoe, “You don’t mind, do you?”
“Of course not. I was hoping to get a chance to spend more time with the princesses.”
Josetta perched on one of the empty chairs. To Zoe’s eyes, she still looked strained and anxious; this might be a girl who was always a little tense, no matter what the company. Zoe wasn’t particularly skilled at putting other people at ease, but it seemed cruel, in this case, to not even try.
“Did you just come from lessons?” she asked with a smile.
Josetta nodded tightly. “Math and languages.”
“You’re learning a foreign language?” Zoe exclaimed. “Oh, I envy you! Which one?”
Josetta seemed to relax ever so slightly. “Soechin, which is what they speak in Soeche-Tas,” she said. “It’s very hard.”
Zoe remembered that the king had once investigated the notion of marrying a girl from Soeche-Tas; it would be useful if someone in the household could communicate with her. But she knew better than to bring up the idea of a fifth wife. “That’s brilliant,” she said. “Isn’t that a nation where your father wants to do more trade? You could become his minister of commerce and negotiate all the contracts. I’d think that would make you very important.”
Josetta relaxed even more as a slight smile came to her face. A lock of her ashy hair had come loose from its precise styling, and she pushed it absently behind her ear. “That would be fun,” she said.
“So, say something to me in Soechin,” Zoe invited.
Josetta responded with a string of sounds and syllables that were impossible to decode. “I said that it was five in the afternoon on a sunny day,” she translated. “I’ve spent a lot of time learning how to say things like numbers and days, and I know all the words for weather! So I hope it’s raining or foggy or windy if I ever get a chance to talk to the Soeche-Tas viceroy.”
“Wasn’t he here not too long ago?” Zoe asked.
Seterre nodded. “Yes. There was a parade and all sorts of festivities. The food was so good while he was visiting that we wanted him to stay for a quintile!”
“My father says he might be back in Quinnelay,” Josetta said. “So I’m hoping to be able to talk to him.”
“I’m sure he’ll appreciate that,” Zoe said. “I’ll look forward to the food and the excitement.”
Seterre had another chocolate drop. “Oh, there will be more excitement much sooner than that,” she said. “I’m sure you’ve heard about the regatta on changeday. It’s all anyone can talk about.”
“Oh yes! I believe the subject comes up five or six hundred times a day. Will you be a contestant?”
“Yes,” mother and daughter answered simultaneously.
“Will you crew a boat together?” Zoe asked.
Seterre waved a hand. “No, there’s one race for adults and one for children between the ages of ten and seventeen,” she said. “I suppose there are usually about a dozen challengers in the youth race. Corene has one boat, Josetta another, and a few of the boys and girls from the Five Families.”
“All by yourself in a boat on the Marisi River in midwinter?” Zoe said to Josetta. She couldn’t quite keep her disapproval out of her voice. “That might be a little dangerous.”
Josetta seemed pleased rather than offended that someone would bother to worry about her. “No, I have a crew. Corene and I each do—professional sailors who do all the rowing.”
“Do you plan to compete?” Seterre asked. “It always seems a little unfair when a Lalindar is on the water, but now and then someone who is not coru does win.”
“I don’t plan to run my own boat, but I have been offered a place in a few others,” Zoe said. “At the moment, I’m leaning toward watching the regatta from a safe, warm place onshore. But of course I’ll attend. It sounds most delightful.”
“I can’t wait,” Josetta said.
A few more exchanges and then a chiming bell announced the hour. Annova had discovered that afternoon visits like this were supposed to last precisely one hour, though the guest was expected to manufacture a reason for leaving. “Oh, I hope you’ll excuse me—I need to send a note to my aunt before dinnertime,” Zoe said, coming to her feet. “I enjoyed this chance to talk.”
“I am certain we will become close friends,” Seterre said. Not close enough to touch hands at the farewell, but that was fine with Zoe. She bowed and exited, extraordinarily relieved to be out of the room.
Similar invitations were extended in the next few days, and she knew she had to accept them all. She was certain the wives were comparing notes about her, discussing what she wore, what she ate, what she brought as an offering. It was exhausting to care about such myriad, petty details, so she didn’t. She let Annova choose her clothing and her hostess gifts and tried to navigate through the charged conversations with as few mistakes as possible.
Alys had a roomful of young women in her suite when Zoe arrived. Their conversation was sharp and pointed, full of sneering remarks about absent friends and falsely sweet compliments to each other.
“But, Gildis! You haven’t told us your news!” Alys said as they all munched on glazed and sugared fruit.
Gildis, a full-figured blond girl who looked all elay, instantly showed a wary expression. “My news?” she repeated.
Alys patted her own flat stomach. “When is the baby to be born?”
Gildis’s pale face was instantly red with mortification. “I—no, I’m not—there is no baby—”
“Oh, my apologies!” Alys said with exaggerated remorse, while the other women pretended to try to hide their amusement. “How could I have been so gauche? Here, try one of these choco—or, well—would you like more water?”
A few moments later, Gildis left in tears, which even Zoe knew was a strategic defeat. “Sill
y thing,” Alys said fondly once she was gone. “Who cares if she’s fat? I’m sure that’s not the reason her husband has lost interest in her.”
Zoe deliberately took two more candies and ate them with great relish, smirking at Alys, daring her to make some comment. But Alys merely smiled at her and turned her attention to someone else. It was a decided relief when the hour was over.
During Zoe’s obligatory visit to Romelle’s room, the queen chased after Natalie the entire hour, carrying on such a distracted and disjointed discussion that it hardly taxed Zoe’s conversational abilities at all. They had only one exchange of any interest, when Romelle said, in a scandalized voice, “Did you hear that Gildis Fairley has prevailed on her husband to take her back to the family’s country estates?”
“I don’t know who they are,” Zoe replied. “Oh, wait—I think I met Gildis the other day in Alys’s rooms.”
“Very likely. Alys hates her.”
“Why?”
“Who knows why Alys hates anybody? I always thought Gildis was a very likable girl, though her husband is so stern and surly. Natalie, put that down! Put it down now! There was some thought she would marry Wald Dochenza two or three years ago, and I hear that the two of them have been seen together whenever he’s in the city. Perhaps she’s been wishing she had married him instead. I would be, even though Wald is so peculiar.”
“Why is she going home?”
“She said it was because her mother was sick, but everyone knows it’s because Alys made fun of her in front of all their friends. Natalie! Don’t eat that!”
“That’s the morning I met her.”
“You only saw it happen once, but I’ve seen Alys mock her a dozen times. I suppose Gildis couldn’t stand it anymore.”
“Doesn’t anyone ever put Alys in her place? Say something mean right back to her?”
Romelle looked shocked. “She’s a queen,” she said. “No one can insult royalty.”
Zoe didn’t speak the thought in her head. I think I could.
When she was invited to Elidon’s rooms, Zoe found Mirti Serlast there before her—a surprise, but not precisely an unwelcome one. She hadn’t spent enough time with Mirti to form a clear opinion of Darien’s aunt, other than to note that the older woman had strong opinions, an outspoken style, and a no-nonsense manner.
“I thought the two of you might enjoy a chance to get to know each other in a somewhat more intimate venue,” Elidon said. Her private rooms were filled with sunlight and gauzy curtains and streamers hanging from the ceiling that swayed with the gentle currents of the air. Birds twittered and chirped in a large cage made of slim, bent wood. All the birds were yellow or white, elay colors, and most of them were tiny.
“Exactly so,” Mirti said, touching her fingers very briefly to Zoe’s. It was enough; Zoe could read in her blood the same chemicals, the same coded patterns, that she could identify in Darien’s. She looked a little like Darien, too, with the familiar narrow face and smoky eyes, though her hair was longer, grayer, and more unruly. Her skin showed every one of her years, Zoe thought, and she obviously didn’t have the patience to put much effort into beautifying her appearance. This is who I am, stark and unyielding, she might have been saying. Love me or hate me, I will not change for you. It was an attitude that inclined Zoe to like her.
“I appreciate the invitation,” Zoe said.
They sat at a small table covered with a lacy cloth and fragile china painted with butterflies and songbirds. Although the frilly setting didn’t suit Mirti at all, she looked comfortable as she leaned back in her chair and crossed her ankles before her. “So I assume all the other wives have been having you over, filling your head with nonsense,” she said.
“Telling you who to trust and who to avoid and offering to be your best friend,” Elidon added. She poured fruited water into tall glasses and handed them around the table.
Zoe didn’t plan to get tripped up by honesty any more than by intrigue. She was not about to assume she was safe just because these women were refreshingly plainspoken. “Indeed, I have had a chance to spend time with each of them,” Zoe said. “Each visit enjoyable in its own way.”
Mirti grunted. Elidon merely smiled. “It can be tricky for an outsider to understand all the undercurrents at the palace,” Elidon said. “But from what I’ve observed so far, you’ve managed the task gracefully enough.”
Zoe sipped at the water, identifying hints of citrus and something a little sweeter. “I wouldn’t have been an outsider if my father had not lost the king’s trust,” she said in a mild voice.
Mirti flung her head back; Elidon’s eyes narrowed. But Zoe had put no accusation in her voice, so neither could take offense. She went on, still in that light voice, “Or if things had been different between my father and my grandmother. But if I’ve learned anything, it’s that there’s no changing the past, only embracing the future. There is only going forward.”
“A coru attitude, that’s for certain,” Elidon said, smiling again.
“Well, it is good to have the Lalindar prime back in the city,” Mirti said. “I can already feel the balance righting.”
“All this rain,” Elidon said. “It’s been wonderful.”
Mirti waved a hand. “Yes, that’s been welcome, but more than that. There’s a sense that things are falling in place. Lining up as they should. That’s a feeling that’s been missing ever since Christara died.”
Elidon nibbled at a piece of fruit completely lost in a heavy coating of chocolate. “And yet not entirely in balance yet,” she said, “while the Ardelays are still in exile.”
Though she was able to keep her face absolutely guileless, Zoe felt her body string with tension. This conversation, she sensed, was the reason she had been invited here today. “Exile?” she repeated. “I thought my uncle and some of my cousins still lived in the city.”
“They are here, but they are out of favor,” Mirti said bluntly. “They need someone to bring them back into fashion.”
“Have you tried one of these? They’re marvelous,” Elidon said, offering a plate of the candy-coated fruit to each of her guests.
Mirti helped herself to two sizable pieces. “I bought some down at the Plaza the other day,” she said. “Never tasted anything so good.”
Zoe kept her hands in her lap. “Am I to understand,” she said slowly, “that it is up to me to restore the Ardelays to their place?”
Elidon made an equivocal motion with her hands. “It is not something you could do all on your own,” she said. “But you could start the process. You could invite your uncle and his sons to your rooms for a meal. Everyone would see that they were welcome at the palace again.”
“Welcomed by the Lalindars,” Mirti emphasized. “Since Christara was the one who ostracized them, Christara’s heir is the one who should make reparation.”
“The one who should show them affection,” Elidon added.
“I scarcely know them,” Zoe said. “I haven’t seen any of my father’s relatives for ten years.”
“Immaterial,” Mirti said.
“You may not be aware of how closely everyone is watching you,” Elidon said. “What you do will be imitated.”
“Unless what I do is disastrous,” Zoe said flatly.
Mirti actually grinned. “We’re not setting a trap for you,” she said cheerfully, “though I don’t blame you for wondering. We are giving you very good advice. It is time the rift with the Ardelays was mended, and you can do much to mend it.” She slipped one of the chocolate fruits in her mouth, and then spoke around it. “Unless you can’t stand your uncle and his sons, that is. They’re talkers and charmers, like all sweela men, and I know a few people who can’t abide them. But I rather like the lot of them.”
Elidon gave her a quick smile. “But then, your taste in people is notoriously unreliable.”
Mirti snorted again. “Bad, you mean. Not so. I have plenty of upstanding citizens among my ranks of friends.”
Elidon laughed s
oftly. Zoe had the sense they were sharing a private joke, perhaps an intimate one, certainly one she would not be allowed to share. “I will get in touch with my uncle, then,” she said.
Elidon nodded, satisfied. “Good.” She touched her fingers briefly to the back of Zoe’s wrist, a mark of high approval. “You learn quickly, I think. And I like that you are so agreeable and accommodating.”
But Mirti was appraising her with those disconcertingly direct gray eyes. “I don’t think so,” said the Serlast prime. “Or, at least, only when it suits her.”
Zoe smiled and ducked her head in an approximation of a bow. “How could it not suit me to be agreeable to the first wife?”
Now Mirti was laughing out loud. “Exactly so.”
Elidon passed another tray of treats, flat, crunchy breads sprinkled with colorful salts. “Try these,” she said. “You’ll love them.”
NINETEEN
Early the following morning, Zoe met Darien Serlast in the kierten of the palace, which was bustling with activity even at that hour. She had sent Calvin to him with an urgent message the instant she returned from Elidon’s suite, and this was the meeting place he suggested. Almost immediately, they slipped outside to stroll along one edge of the river, so placid here it masqueraded as a lake. The weather was so cold that a rime of ice had formed all along the shallow shore, but there was enough of a current to keep most of the water fluid. Zoe had wrapped herself in her heaviest overrobe and pulled on a delicate pair of painted leather gloves. She was chilly, but the brisk air was refreshing, and she found it deeply soothing to be this close to flowing water. If Darien minded the temperature, he didn’t mention it.
“I wasn’t sure of the best way to get in touch with you,” she said. “Should I have written a note? Stopped you in the hallway?”
“Sending Calvin was the best choice,” he said. “And it’s always preferable to send a verbal message. Put nothing in writing. You never know how words might be misinterpreted.”
She sighed. “Just living here makes me tired.”
He laughed. “No, no, it should invigorate you with its constant challenges.”