Darkburn Book 3: The Gates of Kelvha by Tayin Machrie - HTML preview

Chapter 18

They had only been in the Music Hall for a quarter-hour, and already Maeneb was wondering how long she would be obliged to stay.

There was a little music going on, at the back, a low thrumming of lutines and a faint squawk of flutes: not quite loud enough to be enjoyed, but just loud enough to be annoying. The female Riders were not here primarily for the music. They were here to be presented to the ladies of the castle. To make friends with them. To chatter and admire and laugh and… urgh. Maeneb had already had enough of it.

The admiration was the only part that she could do, and she felt that she was getting even that wrong. When Lady Meya had presented her to the line of ladies – the supposed informality hiding a rigid hierarchy of Arch-ladies, elder ladies, lesser ladies, and so on down the pile – Maeneb had felt her face stiffening as she attempted to compose some sort of suitable compliment to each.

And she had seen their faces stiffening in return as they looked her up and down, not quite unobtrusively enough. When she caught the tenor of their thoughts she could fill in the words with ease. Pretty enough woman. Should be married, at her age. But odder even than the average Rider of the Vonn. Strange way of talking. Awkward manners. Dreadful clothes. Next, please.

So after all these painful introductions she stood aside and pretended to study the rich hangings that were draped on every wall, high above the chattering heads: huge, dense embroideries of ladies riding demurely side-saddle, or sewing in a clipped knot-garden, or dancing in a field of orange flowers, more inaudible musicians round them, unlikely birds and rabbits looking on. Such silly things. Yet years of work in each of them. So many ruined eyes.

The Kelvhan ladies in the Music Hall were, for the most part, just as heavily embroidered as the walls; although Lady Meya’s rich brown dress was unadorned, and a few young ones, like the Lady Janeya, wore looser, flowing silks. Still exquisite, though. By contrast, most of the Riders’ clothes were shabby and unbecoming – or so at least the Kelvhan ladies thought. You did not even need to be a mind-reader to know that. The Lady Shildha, Tiburé’s hostess, resplendent in red silk, had actually mouthed Dear me.

It was the sight of women wearing breeches that dismayed them more than anything. Only a dozen of the twenty or so female Riders present wore dresses. Maeneb had no idea where they had got them from – she had seen the prices in the markets – unless they had been borrowed from Alburé or Tiburé. Nobody had offered her a dress. Delgeb strode around in a long green gown that gave her the appearance of a muscular tree. Shebel looked quite fetching in a russet skirt. Naileb was in pink. Maeneb hated pink.

She looked around for Durba, her companion in awkwardness. Durba had not made any more attempts lately to get close to her – either physically or emotionally – which was a relief. She must have realised Maeneb wanted no such approaches, whether made in friendship or something more.

Admittedly Durba would have difficulty making any such proposals at the moment, being voiceless. Maeneb saw her waiting in the presentation line, looking comfortable enough in breeches; and her thoughts were surprisingly comfortable too, even though she had stammered helplessly through her first introduction with an Arch-lady before resorted to nodding and smiling.

Alburé was still subdued – that undercurrent of sadness ever-present in her thoughts – but, being familiar with Kelvhan high society, was none the less at ease. So was Delgeb, more surprisingly; she seemed as much in her element in this long over-decorated hall as she would be galloping around in pursuit of stonemen. Perhaps both occasions were, to her, just different types of battlefield.

Of course the Kelvhan ladies were all perfectly graceful and composed... Except that dreadfully thin one standing a few yards away – Sina, was it? She looked as nervous as a starving deer, and emanated panic. Maeneb felt a certain sympathy; but not enough to make her go up to the girl and start to talk. In any case, just then Durba walked over to Sina and gave her a nod and a friendly smile. Stars knew what that conversation would be like. A communion of stammers.

Maeneb knew she was expected to talk to people: that was the whole point of being here. She just didn’t know how to do it. Amongst the Riders she could say what she needed to – small talk was not required. Making polite conversation in this vast group of supercilious strangers was totally beyond her. The sheer number of so many people was oppressive and the necessity of seeming at her ease with them was doubly so. But she couldn’t study the wall hangings all evening.

In desperation, she walked down the hall towards the musicians. A group of oldish men, they bent diligently over their instruments and did not look up. The only other males in the room stood ranged in a line against the wall behind the players, a wooden regiment of footmen with their hands behind their backs, all staring straight ahead.

She wandered towards Yaret who was listening to the music and talking to a young Kelvhan lady. That was Janeya, looking beautiful in yellow silk; she was the one Huldarion ought to have chosen, according to some. Although according to Sashel he ought to have chosen the Princess Idria. The Princess was not here but was supposed to make some brief appearance later on.

Maeneb went up to Yaret and Janeya. She knew she had to make the effort to speak, to look as if she was not a total outcast. But it was difficult. Her tongue seemed over-thick in her mouth.

“It is very interesting music,” she said into a gap, although it wasn’t. Maeneb had once been told she had a lovely singing voice. But what was the use of that? She disliked the sound of her own singing; and most music was tedious to her, or incomprehensible.

“It is certainly interesting to hear the lutines played in concert,” said Yaret in her careful Kelvhan. She was trying to dampen down her rustic accent but without complete success. “I have recently acquired a lutine, but it has no strings. And when I shall have bought some, I will probably string it wrong for Kelvhan ears. You use a different tuning here to back at home.” Maeneb wondered how she could speak so readily of home, as if it had not been burnt to the ground. “Do you play, Lady Janeya?”

“A little. You?”

“No,” said Maeneb.

“I love the lutine, but I play it badly,” said Janeya with rueful good-humour, “don’t I, Proli?”

The foremost lutenist – presumably Proli – glanced up at her with a half-smile.

“Not so bad, my lady,” he said. “You need to practise more regular, that’s all.”

“Ah,” said Janeya. “That’s the problem. If only I could be as faithful to the lutine as I can to my other loves.”

Yaret looked at her enquiringly. “What other interests do you enjoy?”

“I enjoy riding,” said Janeya, “in the right place and with the right company, but both can be hard to come by here. You have your own horses?”

“Yes,” said Maeneb.

“I have two,” said Yaret. “I have the loan of a very fine high-bred Vonnish horse called Poda, all proud arched neck and stamping feet, but my own horse is an intrepid, untidy little mare with no high breeding whatsoever.” Maeneb was envious of her fluency; not in the Kelvhan language – which was not as good as Maeneb’s own, for Yaret still struggled with the tenses – but in finding things to say that did not sound ridiculous.

“I like the sound of that little horse of yours. High breeding is over-rated,” said Janeya. “Is that not so, Proli?”

“That’s not for me to judge, my lady,” said Proli, keeping his gaze down this time.

“And it is an over-easy judgement for you to make, my Lady Janeya,” said someone else behind them. It was the Lady Meya, smiling, but also with a firm edge to her voice. “Breeding matters, whether we wish it to or not. I do not think that you would care to find yourself standing amongst the servants instead of merely talking to them.”

“But servants may be very fine people, with noble hearts,” said Janeya, glancing across the musicians’ heads to the immobile row of footman. “May they not?”

“Indeed. However, the servants’ hearts are none of our concern, and they would not thank us for our interference. Come, let us leave these fine and noble-hearted men and allow them to attend to their music.”

Meya’s tone was light, yet Maeneb detected in her mind a certain fear. What could she be afraid of? Perhaps simply of over-stepping some unseen line of etiquette. Meya was doubtless being judged here by all those superior Arch-ladies, just as the Riders were with their mannish clothes and confident informality. In fact, as soon as she thought about it, Maeneb could detect the faint steam of the elder Ladies’ disapproval.

A little apart from the others, the lone figure of Gaelera – Nerogun’s daughter – was as immobile and expressionless as the footmen. No emotion from Gaelera was detectable. She is the only other silent woman here, thought Maeneb: but she’s allowed to be. No-one would dare complain about not being spoken to by her.

As the group of women walked away from the musicians, Yaret asked,

“My Lady Meya, are any of your companions here skilled in the arts of medicine?”

Meya looked thoughtful. “I can hardly say so. We have doctors in the city, of course, if you require attention. Forgive me, but I noticed that you limp a little. Is your leg troubling you?”

“From time to time. But a doctor is not what I am thinking of,” said Yaret. “Although some salve or ointment might be helpful. So I am wondering about a herb-mistress.”

“We have in the castle a herb-master. But if you prefer to consult a woman, he has an assistant. She is not present here, of course, but she is very able in her knowledge of remedies. I can certainly arrange for you to see her, if you wish.”

“I shall be very grateful,” Yaret said.

“The Lord Huldarion,” said Meya cautiously. “He would surely have a herb-master amongst the Riders, would he not? His scars must cause him some discomfort.”

“I don’t know,” said Yaret. “If he feels pain I have never seen it.”

“He does feel it,” said Maeneb, glad to have some knowledge to offer. “But in general he refuses the use of drugs such as ethlon in case they dull his mind.” She thought Huldarion would not mind her saying this to his future wife. It was hardly secret.

Meya smiled faintly. “His mind is very sharp, I think.”

“Very,” Maeneb said. “A very active mind, behind the scars.”

“Yet you would not guess it, to look at his face.”

“That is deliberate,” said Maeneb, and she would have happily expounded on Huldarion’s layers and depths of feeling – she knew their shape and colour, after all, if not their actual contents – had Yaret not interrupted her to say,

“The Riders have a herb-mistress. That’s her, over there – Shebel. If she too might meet your medicine-woman, she also is, I mean she will also be gratified to add to her own store of knowledge.” Yaret beckoned to Shebel to join them and then began a conversation about herb-gardens as if it was the easiest thing in the world. How did she do it?

Maeneb knew nothing about herb-gardens. The rare chance to talk with confidence, about her own area of knowledge, had passed by. Soon Shebel was arranging a meeting with the castle’s herb-mistress: Maeneb felt conspicuously superfluous.

Rather than stand silent, she withdrew from the group. Tiburé was standing with the elder Arch-Ladies: as they glanced across at her, again she felt that cloud of disapproval. Her few remarks to Meya had been something, but not enough. She was failing in her task here.

She looked around for Durba, as a companion in muteness; but Durba sat on a couch next to the thin girl, Sina, gesticulating and mouthing in silent conversation. Sina looked interested rather than appalled at the burden of understanding that the gestures laid upon her. The panic that Maeneb had sensed in her earlier had gone. But Maeneb did not feel able to push in on the pair with her own forced speeches.

Another quarter-hour, thought Maeneb, and then surely I can go. Again, in desperation, she turned to examine the hangings on the wall. She counted threads and stitches.

“You like those, I think.”

She spun round. It was the Lady Gaelera who had approached and spoken. It seemed to Maeneb that all the other ladies had moved away a little, as if by accident. Gaelera stood composedly beside her, hands clasped in front of her stomach yet not touching it. Her stiff immaculate dress was so intricately embroidered that she could have stepped in front of the hangings and disappeared into their curlicues.

“The wall-hangings? They are very striking,” Maeneb answered.

“In what way?” Was Gaelera smiling? Impossible to tell. Maeneb was not good at reading faces. But Gaelera’s mind was no easier to read: it was a blank, bricked wall.

Maeneb was used to putting up her own mental defences – to allow for sleep, for instance, when the minds around her were too loud and busy – but she had never encountered anybody else who thought it necessary. Or even possible. Even Leor did not bother to shield himself from her. She looked at the face above the heavy cloth and wondered that human flesh could be so lacking in apparent life.

Gaelera was still waiting for an answer, like one accustomed to being obeyed.

“The amount of work that has gone into them,” said Maeneb, “must be excessive. I mean extreme. I mean–”

“You mean that you admire the effort rather than the skill,” Gaelera said.

The polite answer would be that Maeneb admired both. And then she should curtsey and back away from this woman. Both her rank as Nerogun’s daughter and her unreadability meant Gaelera was dangerous. Anything untoward that Maeneb said would surely be reported straight to Nerogun.

But Maeneb found lying difficult and was not sure how other people managed it. So she said, “I am sure the skill is great. But it is the effort that astounds me.”

“I embroidered this dress I wear,” said Gaelera, still expressionless. “Some years ago, when I was young.” She made a motion with her hands as if to smooth down her skirts, without actually touching them.

Maeneb looked at the dress and found nothing to say. The pattern confused the eye. It was a maelstrom of twining detail, extraordinary but not beautiful. It was hard to express what the design was meant to depict: were those vines? Shells? Serpents?

But she had to reply.

“I see,” was all that she could manage. “Do you sew a lot?”

“It is embroidery, not sewing. Maids do sewing.”

“I beg your pardon. My Kelvhan…”

“I embroider every day within my chamber in the south wing.”

Maeneb was silent. The deliberation with which Gaelera spoke implied that she was stitching something now: some net, perhaps, made not of thread but of her words.

“Do you wish to know what I embroider?” said Gaelera.

“If you wish to tell me.”

“I embroider my life.”

The two of them stared at each other. Maeneb was faintly disgusted. What was she supposed to do with that sentence? I embroider my life. The theatricality of it.

But it occurred to her that Gaelera was not a theatrical person. She was rather, like Maeneb, a person who did not express herself with ease. And if she was telling Maeneb something then Maeneb ought to listen.

“I do not understand. A life is a difficult thing to embroider,” she said.

“I do not find it so.”

“Then you are fortunate.”

“In some ways,” said Gaelera, “yes.”

“Do you allow strangers to look on your embroidery?”

For answer the other woman smoothed out her dress again, still without touching it.

“I mean your embroidered life,” Maeneb added.

“No. Not yet. It is not yet complete. I might permit you to see a part of it.”

Was that an invitation? “I would be honoured.”

“You would,” Gaelera said. “You may visit me in the south wing if you wish.”

Maeneb bowed. When she straightened up, she found that Gaelera had already turned her back and was gliding away.

What had she just agreed to – if anything? Well, at least she had made conversation with a lady, and an important one at that. She’d done her duty, so perhaps now she could leave. When she walked over to Lady Meya, Yaret was already offering her own excuses, which made it simpler.

“I’m afraid I have a very early start tomorrow,” Yaret said.

“And I too,” Maeneb put in gratefully.

“Ah,” said Meya, “perhaps you ride out with the scouts tomorrow morning? I know something of the sort had been arranged.”

“Oh no,” said Maeneb. “Huldarion sent out scouts a week ago. They should report back soon.”

“It has been a delightful evening. I thank you,” Yaret said, and bowed. Then she smiled at Janeya and exchanged a word or two of farewell with her. It seemed they had somehow already become friends. How was that possible in the space of an hour?

“I thank you too,” said Maeneb. She bowed to Meya – who was frowning slightly, but too bad, there were only the two of them leaving so early – and then since there was nobody for her to exchange a friendly word with, she made for the door.

Of course all the Arch-ladies watched her leave with that faint continuing steam of disapproval. Maeneb didn’t care. She’d done enough socialising. Gaelera watched her too, and when she passed, Gaelera raised her right hand a few inches in salute.

So Maeneb made the same brief gesture back. As the footmen opened the huge, carved, double doors for her, she felt a burst of some emotion vibrate across the room.

It came not from Gaelera but from the Arch-ladies and the elder and the lesser ladies; and this time it was not a haze of disapproval. Rather, it was a rush of deep surprise – almost of deep shock.