Fire in the Blood, page 28
Farideh kept her eyes locked on a gap in the screen, while the maid quickly stripped her out of the gown that Nell had gone to such pains to get her into, and pulled on a set of similar leathers, with reinforced bracers and a high metal-plated gorget.
“Varauna will try to upset you,” Raedra warned, in a soft voice. “She’s terrible when she wants to be, but when it counts, she’s good to have on one’s side. Florelle will act as though she is exactly as snobby as Varauna, but she’ll be the first to try and befriend you, guaranteed. Maranth will act like a guard dog—but if Varauna gets too rough, he’ll be the one to pull her off. Pay none of them any mind.”
That was easy enough for Raedra to say. As Raedra and Maranth took up their foils, Farideh called up the soul sight, only to be interrupted by Varauna.
“Oh, I did love your dress,” Varauna said. “It was my absolute favorite fashion last summer.”
“Thank you,” Farideh said, realizing a half second after she’d started speaking that it wasn’t a compliment. Beside her, Florelle tittered, and Farideh felt herself blush. Her temper swelled—and behind it the powers of Asmodeus woke. No, she thought. Don’t give in. “Perhaps you can give me the name of a good dressmaker while I’m here.”
“I have a private seamstress,” Varauna said, as though Farideh were simple.
“She does a very good job,” Farideh said.
Varauna looked past Farideh at Florelle, looking appalled. “It’s like Sulue all over again.”
“Is it?” Florelle asked. “Or is she clever enough to know how to get to you?”
“Don’t be a twit, Florelle.”
Farideh took the moment to consider Maranth, retreating from Raedra’s attack. The lights of his soul left a sort of trail as he darted forward and back, streaks of olive green and gold and blue. The smattering of shadowy parts, though, made no pattern, and held none of the depth and emptiness that the missing noblewoman’s had.
He’s afraid of being stifled, Farideh thought without meaning to. He’s afraid of being made into … an uncle? A grandfather? There was only a sense of the stern, unforgiving man who loomed over Maranth’s life—
“Asmura!” Varauna snapped. Farideh startled, realized that Varauna had meant her.
“Sorry,” Farideh said. She nodded at the fencers. “They’re very good.”
Varauna shot Florelle another look. “We were asking if you’re enjoying the city,” she said enunciating carefully.
“It’s hard to enjoy in all this rain,” Farideh said. She watched the Purple Dragons beyond Raedra and Maranth—it was easy to study them without looking as if she were prying. Neither showed the marks of Shar.
“What did you do for fun in Athkatla?” Florelle asked.
Farideh hesitated. What did nobles do for fun? “Riding,” she said. “Hunting. Some … swordwork—”
“Oh ye gods,” Varauna said. “Our mothers aren’t here—what do you do that’s interesting?”
I turn into a burning angel, Farideh thought, and let a devil kiss me. I stare down the Chosen of Shar and challenge undead arcanists to mortal combat.
“Do you play cards?” Florelle asked. “That’s what we’re doing tomorrow.”
Farideh smiled hesitantly. “I … haven’t had anyone to play cards with in a while, but I can learn. I have a little Wroth deck for playing patience games with.”
Varauna’s eyes went wide as gold pieces. “Wroth?”
“Where did you learn Wroth?” Florelle said.
“A friend from Waterdeep,” Farideh said. “They’re nothing, really.”
“Did you bring them?” Varauna asked, in hushed tones.
“No,” Farideh said. “I didn’t think—”
“But you brought them to Suzail,” Varauna said. “You have to bring them next time. We’ll play cards, too, in case anyone comes in. And you can tell our fortunes.”
Raedra lunged forward, planting the tip of her sword on Maranth’s padded vest. “Ha! And that makes five.”
Maranth smirked at her. “Bring your long sword next time.” Raedra chuckled. She crossed to the table, taking the cup the maid held out for her. “Thank you. Are you enjoying yourself, Asmura?”
“Very well,” Farideh said, trying not to look as tense as she felt, “Your Highness.”
“Did you know she reads Wroth cards?” Varauna demanded.
“I don’t—”
“I see you’ve found the way to Varauna’s good graces,” Maranth said. “Tell her how glowing her future will be and you’ll have a fast friend for at least a tenday.” He turned a hollow smile on Farideh. “Maybe you could ask them about your cousin and what he’s up to.”
Farideh glanced at Raedra, but the princess was suddenly very interested in the bottom of her cup.
“What do you think of dear Aubrin, Asmura?” Maranth asked.
“I haven’t seen him in some time. He was a boy when I last knew him.”
“But what do you think about him?”
“I think …” Farideh shook her head. “He has many good qualities—he cares very deeply about his family, his friends. He’s braver than he believes himself to be, and he’s … a good person to have on your side.” She fixed Maranth with a hard stare. “But he’s also not the boy I knew. So I can’t say how much my opinion counts for.”
“Would you let your sister marry him?” Raedra suddenly asked. Her face held no hint of the answer she wanted. “You’re more distant cousins than he and I are. Would you marry him?”
“I don’t let people marry each other, Your Highness,” Farideh said, wishing she had a tail to lash. Her stomach twisted. “If they loved each other, then it wouldn’t be my business. I want my sister to be happy, and she deserves that. But I wouldn’t marry him, no.”
“Why not?” Maranth demanded.
“Because he’s not my type,” Farideh said sharply.
“Neither are you his,” Varauna said dryly. Maranth glowered at her.
“Florelle?” Raedra said. “Come on.” The willowy lady took her position, sword drawn and soul sparking. Farideh leaned forward, intent on studying Florelle.
“Have you met her?” Maranth asked, in a low voice. “Aubrin’s mistress?”
“I haven’t,” Farideh said, feeling her pulse in her throat. “He’d left before I arrived. I hear she went with him.”
Maranth shook his head. “I cannot believe Aubrin would do anything so vulgar. An errand for the Crown—everyone knows that’s what it is—and he brings his monster-doxy along?”
Farideh felt her cheeks growing hot, the powers of Asmodeus churning up toward her heart. She kept her eyes on Raedra, on Florelle. The noblewoman shimmered with curling lights of pinks and violets and bile-yellow. No light-swallowing shadows. Raedra lunged forward and managed to hit Florelle twice, one above the hip, once mid-belly.
“I’ve seen her,” Varauna said.
“Liar,” Maranth retorted.
“I did.” She leaned in toward Farideh, dropping her voice. “I was coming home—very late—about a month ago. Don’t ask what I was doing—”
“Who,” her brother corrected.
“Shut up, Lord Tightbreeches,” Varauna snapped. “Just because you can’t even get a fellow into bed when your hand’s down their purse …”
Farideh kept watching Florelle. She wants status, Farideh thought—and this time she clung to the knowledge instead of fighting away from it. Anything to not hear Varauna.
She wants to be someone, she thought. She wants to have security and power. Dominion over something. She would fall so quickly, if one were just careful to offer—
“Anyway,” Varauna went on. “Who comes down the Promenade but Lord Aubrin Crownsilver, a-horseback?”
“Could have been anyone in a cloak,” Maranth pointed out.
“Anyone who rides with a knight of Torm and a dragonborn by his side? It was definitely him. And who’s riding behind but a tiefling. It must have been her.”
“Five!” Florelle cried, throwing up her blade. “Honestly, Raedra, I don’t know why you bother with us.” She came over to the table. “Your turn, Varauna.”
“A moment!” Varauna said. “I’m telling Asmura something.” She gave Farideh a sharp smile and whispered, “Such an ugly thing. She surely has a spell on him or something.”
“Who?” Raedra asked, coming to stand near them.
For a moment, the nobles were quiet.
“Varauna thinks she saw Aubrin’s mistress,” Maranth said after a moment.
“Ah,” Raedra said.
“Very ugly,” Varauna said again.
Farideh felt her cheeks burn, and wanted more than anything for Varauna to be bruised and hollowed by Shar’s blessings—but only normal shadows dappled her.
“Well, she’s a tiefling,” Florelle said. “I doubt you’d have many fellows to hurry secretly home from if you had horns and a tail. Those teeth.”
“Beyond that,” Varauna said. “She’s taller than him, by almost a head. And such a beak of a nose—”
“Enough!” Farideh snapped. Every eye was suddenly pinned to her, but she didn’t care. “Does it matter?” she demanded. “What do you gain by pretending how she looks is a point to be won? Monstrous or beautiful, she’s still there. It’s not as if being a tiefling is something she’s done to you.”
No one spoke for a tense awful second, and Farideh was ready—so ready—for whatever comment or jab or insult they might throw at her. She wanted a fight, wanted an argument. But Raedra was the one who spoke.
“She’s there,” Raedra said, all coolness. “And that is the problem.”
“What do they do in Athkatla?” Maranth drawled. “Take bugbears to their beds? It must be extraordinary for you to think it’s no matter that a lord of the blood has a tiefling lover.”
“Do you have one of your own?” Florelle asked, attempting Maranth’s drawl. “Is that what it’s about?”
“Do you?” Varauna asked, a little too much interest in her voice.
“No,” Farideh said. “I don’t have a lover.” She kept staring at Raedra, furious that she had brought her into the middle of this, furious that there was no escape except with the princess’s leave. Furious that Raedra just stood there and let her friends insult Havi—and insult Farideh too, even if they didn’t mean it. If she cared so deeply what happened to her guests—
“Wait,” Varauna said. “You don’t have a tiefling lover, or you don’t have any lovers?”
“I don’t have a lover,” Farideh snapped.
“Because you left them in Athkatla?”
“Because I don’t have a lover—why?”
“Never?” Varauna all but squawked. “How is that possible?” Maranth swatted at her, and she smacked his hand back. “Even Sulue knew how to ride a man, for heaven’s sake. Don’t pretend this is normal.”
Farideh flushed. “The opportunity hasn’t presented itself. Exactly.”
“There’s a point where it’s not the opportunities’ faults,” Varauna said, “but your fault for not seizing them. And what have they done to you but shipped you to Suzail when there’s a veritable drought of fellows on.” She clucked her tongue. “That’s just tragic.”
“If nothing else,” Maranth said, “there is a surplus in the city of tieflings who’ll take coin. Sounds like your type after all.”
“Asmura,” Raedra said. “Come on.” She gestured to the floor with her rapier.
“I don’t use a rapier, Your Highness,” Farideh said. And I don’t spar with people I want to hit, she thought. Raedra narrowed her eyes.
“There is an array of weapons available to us,” she said crisply. “What do you use?”
“Short sword,” Farideh said. “But I wouldn’t wish Your Highness—”
But already the war wizard was bringing forward a pair of blunted short swords. Farideh took it, her pulse speeding. “Do you use the short sword?”
“My brother was trained to it, as it happens,” Raedra said. “So I learned, to help him practice.” She swung the sword, testing the weight. “It’s not my favorite weapon, but I can handle it.”
Which was when Farideh realized Raedra might be just as angry with her as she was with Raedra.
“What are the rules?” Farideh asked.
“The sword touches you from the forearm up, it counts as a point,” Raedra said. “Five points to finish. You strike the head or neck, you forfeit.” She held the blade up in a ready posture. “You let me win, I will never forget it.”
Never in her life had Farideh been so glad she’d been practicing with her sword. Raedra might have favored a rapier, but she was nearly as quick with the short sword, and it took all of Farideh’s focus to stay ahead of the blade. The first two touches came quickly, Raedra’s expression grim and fierce. Farideh leaped back, out of reach.
“I am not interested in being humiliated,” Raedra panted. “I am not acquiescing. I am not telling my friends not to defend me—”
“Who was defending you?” Farideh said, keeping her voice too low for the others to hear. “They were mocking her, there’s a difference.”
“Not such a difference.” Raedra sprang forward and nearly caught Farideh’s arm.
“What do you think this is,” Farideh demanded, “a game she’s playing with you? Do you think you win something if you remind yourself of all you have that she and I don’t?” She lunged, and Raedra caught the sword on her own, shoving Farideh back. “Do you think you matter even a moment to how she feels about him? Because let me tell you, you don’t.”
Raedra shot forward again, striking Farideh across the shoulder, but leaving her guard open. Farideh jabbed her with the practice sword—a strike that might well have pierced her belly had the blade not been blunt and the armor so thick. Raedra cried out, and Farideh swung the sword down on her upper arm, before skipping out of reach.
“I don’t think she or you understand what’s at stake here,” Raedra said. “You think this is a little romance, a story where something that passes for ‘true love’ wins all, but we’re not talking about star-crossed lovers, we’re talking about kingdoms and families and politics. We’re talking about a story where the kingdom falls into chaos because the hidden prince runs off with his half-breed mistress.” She reached with the blade, scoring a hit on Farideh’s elbow.
Farideh lunged forward, smacking the blade into Raedra’s ribs. “Don’t call her that!”
“What should I call her?” Raedra whispered, taking the sword in both hands. “Ugly devil-child? I hear she’s pretty stupid as well.”
The powers of Asmodeus surged at that—no, no, no, Farideh thought, and shoved them down. “Then what shall we call your brother?” she said, savagely. “I’m sure they have names for him too. Do you stand there and smile while they call him odd and addled and neutered? Or are you the one who says it loudest?”
Raedra’s last remnants of restraint seemed to snap, her lovely features contorted around a screech. She leaped at Farideh, leaving a split second where her guard was wide as she pulled the weapon back for a strike hard enough to bruise. No time to retreat, Farideh threw herself against the princess, shoulder first. Raedra kept her feet though, and wrapped an arm around Farideh’s neck.
“Take it back!” she snarled.
“You first!” Farideh twisted and slammed her fist—and the sword in it—into Raeda’s jaw.
The Purple Dragons were close around them before Farideh realized what she’d done. One grabbed hold of her by one arm, yanking her from Raedra’s reach. Raedra touched her bleeding lip.
“I’m sorry,” Farideh said, as the war wizard rushed forward. She looked from one guard to the other, picturing dungeons, unwelcome spells, gleaming swords. The powers of the pact crawled up her spine. “Oh dear gods, I’m sorry—it was an accident.” She dropped the sword and reached to help, but one of the guards blocked her. Raedra didn’t stop them.
“You forfeit,” she panted. She pressed on her lip and winced. The war wizard grabbed her face and Raedra swatted her away. “It’s a fat lip, Pelia, not an assassination attempt.”
Still, not even Raedra could stop the war wizard from applying a quick healing spell. The princess held still for it, eyeing Farideh, who didn’t dare move.
“You make a compelling argument,” Raedra said finally. She crossed over to the table, where the three nobles were staring at her and Farideh.
“Are you all right?” Maranth demanded.
“Fine,” Raedra said, calmly, taking up her cup. “Asmura still needs to learn the rules better.”
The Purple Dragons returned to their stations, still eyeing Farideh. The war wizard didn’t move. She knows, Farideh thought. She knows and you’re about to be in the dungeon and who is going to come for you? Who will speak for you? She imagined Lorcan trying to charm a pack of war wizards, and her stomach twisted. She’d lost her head for a moment, in the worst possible way, and there was no chance that this wouldn’t rain down on everyone—
Raedra drained her cup. “I think I’ve had enough fencing for the day,” she announced. “I’m going to retire.” She pursed her mouth, as if testing the healing. “Asmura will you walk with me? I feel we have more to discuss.” The nobles all kissed her cheeks and said their farewells, not a one knowing how to leave things with Asmura.
Raedra smiled, but it never reached her eyes, and as they left the ballroom, she made no pretense that they were friends. Farideh followed through the constant, winding corridors, trailed by the guards and the war wizard. They were not returning to the room with the painting of the princesses.
But at least, Farideh thought as they climbed a second staircase, they were not heading down in the direction of the dungeons.
Finally, Raedra turned down a long, wide hallway, hung with paintings and tapestries—enough nearly to cover every inch of the walls. A hundred eyes seemed to look down on Farideh. Battles raged, dragons died, martyrs fell to fierce blades. The whole history of Cormyr played out in gilded frames and faded yarns, washed in the gray light of a dozen windows that interrupted the art.
“No one will think you are a noblewoman if you gape like that,” Raedra said. “They’re only paintings.” She gestured at the guards and the war wizard to stay where they stood.
