“What?”

“That is what we always called such animals growing up. Not pets but familiars. They are so much more than mere pets.” And as if to demonstrate the truth of this, the ermine looked up from its own pool of sick and stared right at Tzoja. She could almost have sworn it was amused.

She got up, her legs shaky. The bitch Khimabu had been toying with her all along—she must have seen everything. What a fool, what a failure I must appear to this beautiful, heartless creature, Tzoja thought—a cheap, shabby copy that some craftsman had thrown aside half-finished. “Please forgive me, Lady Khimabu. Your hospitality has been most kind, your conversation most enlightening.”

“But you are not unwell, are you? How sad!” She made the spread-hands sign of sorrowful condolence, exaggerated to make clear its insincerity, Tzoja felt sure. “We were just beginning to talk!”

“I do apologize. I think I need to lie down.”

“But of course. We will continue this at supper tomorrow night, then, if you are well enough. Now that my husband is absent, this is my chance to get to know you properly. I would not let anything interfere with that.”

Once she had backed out of the dining salon, Tzoja hurried back across the great house to her own chamber on shaking legs, her heart booming in her chest so that it seemed everyone behind the closed doors of the silent hall must hear it.

She will kill me. But she’ll play with me first, because she enjoys it. Tzoja could barely breathe as she fumbled with the latch of her door. I cannot stay here, but there is nowhere safe for me in this haunted country, or any way to leave it.

She closed the door behind her, locked it with latch and bolt, then forced herself to vomit the few scraps she’d eaten into her chamber pot before tumbling onto her bed, breathless with despair.

35 The Man with the Odd Smile

“Hurry up, child! The Duchess is waiting for you!” Even though Duke Saluceris was not present, his ancient valet Oren still considered himself chief among the servants of the Domos Bendriyan, the family palace built by the first Benidrivis some two hundred years earlier. Jesa sometimes thought stiff old Oren might actually have been there since the first stones were laid. He certainly acted like it.

“Her Lady said to clean and swaddle the baby, Master Oren,” she said, trying to keep the irritation from her voice but not succeeding. “And that is what I am doing.” She would not have dared speak back to a superior servant in her first years with the Duchess, but Jesa knew her place now, and also knew that it would take a fairly serious breach of courtesy for Duchess Canthia to turn against her.

“Her Ladyship, you swamp brat, not ‘Her Lady’. How can a servant in a great house not be able to speak correctly?”

“It is not even your tongue,” Jesa replied, somewhat daringly. “It is old King John’s tongue, and you do not speak it so goodly, either.” She was not satisfied with the swaddling, so she unwrapped little Serasina and began again. “And I am here for caring for the baby, not for making your ears happy.”

Oren shook his head. “This,” he said grimly. “This is just what I have said—even servants these days are insolent.”

“Not insolent,” Jesa said. “Just busy. Much busy.” Ah, if Oren only understood the Wrannaman tongue, how she would put him in his place! The language of her birth had many, many ways for a woman to correct a man who had set himself too highly.

After a moment’s consideration, she decided a translation might still carry the meaning: “Now, if you have nothing to do but hang from a branch, you might as well go back to your nest and make spit bubbles.” It didn’t quite carry the same weight as the original, which likened an unwanted commentator to one of the ghants, horrid, murderous creatures that infested the back ways of the marshy Wran, but conveyed her general meaning.

“Disrespectful beast,” said Oren. “Talk sense.” But he seemed to lose interest in scolding her further and wandered off, presumably to bark at the grooms or the coachman about something.

Jesa finished little Serasina’s swaddling, testing it with her finger to make sure the blanket was not wrapped either too loosely or too tightly. The baby made a pop-eyed face and let out a minuscule belch. Jesa laughed and picked her up, then carried her as carefully out to the stairs and down to the front doors as if she were her own baby.

The coach, a great rectangular chamber on wheels, was waiting for them on the cobbled forecourt. Jesa made a curtsy, then handed little Serasina up to her mother before climbing the steps.

“Will she be warm enough?” the duchess asked, frowning in concern.

If anyone found Nabban chilly, it was Jesa, child of the humid swamps, but the day was lovely, a near-perfect Avril morning with only a small hint of a breeze and the morning fog long since scoured from the hills on which the Domos Benidriyan perched. “It is a good day, Your Grace. I believe she is warm enough.”

“Are you sure? Oh, I worry so. Just sennight last I heard a terrible story of fever in Purta Falessis.”

“She is very strong, your little one. Look, see her look around! She is not cold and sick. She likes the air!”

“I hope so.” The duchess squeezed her daughter tightly for a moment, then handed her back to Jesa. “But you are right—it’s a lovely day to be out.” She knocked on the carriage roof. As the driver snapped the reins and the team of horses began to pull, Canthia nodded and smiled at the servants lined up to see them off, more than two dozen of the household staff all together, maids and grooms and valets.

As the carriage rolled across the grounds and through the palace gates, all the hills of Nabban were laid out before them. The Domos Benidriyan stood above the vineyards and other palaces of one of the great hills, the Antigine, and had a fine view of the other two tallest crests, the Redenturine, home of the Sancellan Aedonitis, the heart of Mother Church, and the steep Mahistrevine that rose above the harbor with the ducal palace at its peak, like a figurehead on the bow of a ship.

Because of her humble beginnings in the Wran, Jesa had never got used to the idea of riding in the ducal carriage—there were only four or five such carriages in all Nabban (one belonged to the Lector himself!) and fewer than a dozen in all the known world, her mistress had once told her. It was also a painful ride. Even on smooth dirt the carriage jounced, and on cobblestones, at speed, she felt like she was sitting on a branch in a high wind, struggling to hold on while it whipped up and down. But just now the driver was in no hurry and the horses were all pulling strongly and evenly. Little Serasina had been fed by the wet nurse before being changed, and had already dropped into the sleep of innocence.

As they made their way down the steeply winding road, people came out to look and sometimes to wave or cheer, and the duchess looked out on her subjects with a fixed smile. As some children leaped up and down, shouting in excitement, Canthia smiled more broadly and waved back, but except for that brief moment, the duchess seemed almost sad.

“Is everything right, Your Grace?”

The duchess nodded. “All is well, Jesa. I just cannot help worrying about my husband. He should have come here to the hill with Serasina and me, but I could not convince him. He works so hard! I fear he will make himself ill.”