Page 104 of Stardust Child

“From Khartamu? I had it at a banquet, quite the perfect finish for the evening,” Sousten agreed. “Earl Yvenot’s wife discovered it. She always was such a skilled hostess, I never missed one of her events.”

“Why do you say she was skilled?” Duchess Andelin asked, with a guileless flick of golden eyes that prompted Sousten to expound at length about the qualities of a truly exquisite banquet.

“If you would like, my lady, we could begin planning your debut together,” Mionet suggested when the time was right, and the duchess agreed so readily it felt almosttooeasy.

“What was your debut like?” Duchess Andelin asked, with that same innocent interest, and soon Mionet found herself struggling to remember details she hadn’t thought of in years, everything from how the musicians had been selected for her presentation ball to what color the tea roses had been.

“Oh, no, most noble houses have their own dancing master,” Sousten said, in answer to another question, and Mionet found herselfeying the duchess and wondering how they had gotten on this subject. “The dances change every season, you know. But once you have mastered the basics, it’s only the matter of learning a different combination.”

“Did you learn them after you went to Segoile?” Duchess Andelin asked. Sousten was the son of a wealthy merchant and had been educated accordingly, though his rise to fame had been on his own merit.

“No, indeed. I began learning when I was eight,” he said jovially. “Dancing is one of the high arts of the Empire, I should be ashamed to step onto the floor otherwise.”

“Do you enjoy dancing, my lady?” Mionet asked, angling her head toward Duchess Andelin. Somehow it felt as if she were circling in the vicinity of…something.

“I do,” the duchess replied, her lashes veiling her eyes. “But I haven’t gotten to very often. Did you begin early as well?”

There was nothing suspicious about this reply. Like most things the duchess said, it was polite, noncommittal, and deflective, shifting the attention of the conversation away from herself. But alerted by keen, predatory social instincts, Mionet was watching as something flashed through the duchess’s doll face, so quick she would have missed it if she blinked. Something worse than sadness. Something that was not longing for her absent husband. It was an emotion that Lady Mionet Verr knew so well, she recognized it in a single glance.

Despair.

Like a bloodhound, Mionet scented a trail.

* * *

The knock on his door came as Justenin was sitting down to his luncheon.

“My lady,” he said when he opened it to find the duchess standing there, with Leonin and Davi standing at a discreet distance.

“I hope I’m not bothering you,” she said apologetically. “I came for that book you mentioned? About hallow knights?”

The matter of hallows had been much on her mind since Brother Oleare had arrived, and she and Justenin had discussed the oath several times already, analyzing the words for all possible shades of meaning. Or rather,hehad analyzed it, and she had listened, with the abstracted little frown that meant she had not contemplated it sufficiently to voice an opinion.

“Certainly,” he said, and left his door open as he went to fetch the book from the shelves that covered the entire rear wall of his cottage. Justenin was a meticulous man by nature, and he had made Remin a promise, so even as he carefully located the half-dozen relevant passages, he studied her, identifying the fault lines of weakness and frailty with the force of long habit.

There were many. Youth, naïveté, and timidity were the most obvious, but Mionet was not the only one that suspected there were darker secrets behind those guileless eyes. It was tempting to poke at her and see what might come shambling out of the corners. But the purity of her intellect restrained him. He had never met anyone whose mind was so uncolored by the world; a child prisoner who knew nothing beyond the walls of the place she had grown up, and a young woman almost entirely lacking in preconception. He did not want to interfere with that unless he had no choice.

Though if the shadows under her eyes got any darker, he was going to have to interfere just a little.

“—and this one,” he said, finding the last relevant passage. “You should note the variations in the wording of the oath as well. Some of it is regional, some of it is simple evolution of the language, but it seems to me that much of the oath of a hallow is what the two parties make of it.”

“Thank you,” she said, marking the places with her fingers. Bidding him farewell, she returned to her not-yet-hallowed guardsmen and left Justenin to get back to his own work.

It was his habit to address his correspondence over luncheon, and Justenin took his seat at a small table under the window, slipping on the pair of spectacles he wore when he was reading. He was young to need such things, but his eyes had never been the same after the hungry winter in Iverlach. And somehow, that felt right. At thirty-one, he felt he had already lived two lives, and had many yet to go.

That was the work before him now, the machine he had begun building long before Sir Darrigault of Ghis ever went to the capital. A construct of people and information, built by humble people with very great grievances, and Justenin had been laying its foundations for long, patient years. He had Remin’s blessing for this work, but though theDuke of Andelin would be its greatest beneficiary, he had no notion how deep a game his spymaster was playing.

One day, the Duke of Andelin would be the wealthiest and most powerful man in the Empire. And with his rise would come a vengeance so lasting and terrible, it would crack the Empire in two.

And then, perhaps, Justenin would have peace.

Quietly, his quill moved over the page, writing instructions in careful code. He had no one in position to act—yet—and there was little action to be taken, all those miles away in Segoile. But the time to build so terrible a machine was not the moment that it was needed. The Emperor was not content to leave his enemies alone, building their strength on the edge of his Empire. And so Justenin would labor against him, using every lever at his command.

Beginning with the scholars.

He had settled them comfortably in one of the new townhouses by the market, with the single precious copy of Duchess Andelin’s treatise and a quantity of ink and paper that made Edemir grumble. The scholars had made profligate use of both when Justenin arrived shortly after sunset to escort them to the wall.

“The palisade tonight, I hope?” Master Forgess said pointedly, buckling a heavy toolbelt around his ample middle.

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