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‘Ala.’ She pointed to another die, angled diagonally toward the face with irrajesh. ‘Even if we risk she doom the world instead.’
Leesha tried to digest the words, but they were too much. She put them aside. ‘What will your people do, if they learn the child is without gender?’
Amanvah bent closer, studying not just the large symbols at the centre of the dice but dozens of smaller ones around the edges, as well. ‘The news will tear them apart. It is too dangerous to announce the child’s fate now, but without it, many will take this as a sign of Everam’s displeasure with the Hollow Tribe.’
‘Giving them excuse to break the peace Ahmann and I forged,’ Leesha said.
‘The few who still need excuse, after the son of Jeph cast the Deliverer from a cliff.’ Amanvah bent to look closer at the dice.
‘See here,’ she noted, pointing to a symbol facing into the cluster. ‘Ting.’ Female. She slid her finger along the edge of the die, continuing to show how the line intersected irrajesh. ‘There is less convergence if you announce the child as female.’
The child was bathed and changed by the time Leesha and Amanvah finished. Elona dozed in a chair with the sleeping baby in her arms. Wonda stood protectively over her, while Darsy paced the room nervously. Tarisa had stripped the bloodied bed and put down fresh linens, now busying herself readying a bath.
‘She,’ Leesha said loudly, stepping beyond the wards of silence.
Darsy stopped in her tracks. Elona started awake. ‘Ay, whazzat?’
Leesha squinted into her warded spectacles, searching the auras of the women as they gathered before her. ‘So far as anyone outside this room is concerned, I just gave birth to a healthy baby girl.’
‘Ay, mistress,’ Wonda said. ‘But said yurself, babe needs guards day an’ night. Sooner or later, one’ll catch an eyeful while we change the nappy.’ Her aura coloured with worry. ‘Speakin’ of which …’
Leesha laughed. ‘By order of the countess, you’re relieved of nappy duties, Wonda Cutter. Your talents would be wasted wiping bottoms.’
Wonda blew out a breath. ‘Thank the Creator.’
‘I will personally read the aura of every member of the house staff and guard with access to my daughter.’ Leesha looked at Tarisa. ‘Any who cannot be trusted will need to find employment elsewhere.’
Her maid’s aura flashed with fear, and Leesha sighed. She had known this was coming, but it made things no easier.
‘We’ll tell Vika and Jizell as well,’ Leesha said. ‘We’ll all need to watch as she develops in case her condition causes unforeseen health problems.’
‘Course,’ Darsy agreed.
‘You tell Jizell, you’re tellin’ Mum,’ Wonda warned. Jizell was Royal Gatherer to Duke Pether now, reporting directly to Duchess Araine.
Leesha met Tarisa’s eyes. ‘I expect she’ll find out, regardless. Better it come from me.’
‘That go for her, too?’ Darsy jerked a finger at Amanvah.
‘It does.’ Amanvah’s aura stayed cool and even. It was a fair question. ‘I will not lie or withhold information from my mother, but our interests align. The Damajah will have a vested concern for the safety of the child, and will be essential in keeping my brother from trying to claim or kill her.’
Elona opened her mouth, but Leesha cut off the debate. ‘I trust her.’ She looked back at Amanvah. ‘Will you and Sikvah stay here with us?’
Amanvah shook her head. ‘Thank you, mistress, but enough rooms have been finished in my honoured husband’s manse for us to move in. After so long in captivity, I wish to be under my own roof, with my own people …’
‘Of course.’ Leesha put a hand on Amanvah’s belly. Shocked, the woman fell silent. ‘But please understand that we are your people now, too. Thrice bound by blood.’
‘Thrice bound,’ Amanvah agreed, putting her own hand over Leesha’s in an act so intimate it would have been unthinkable just a few months ago. It was strange, how sharing pain could sometimes do what good times could not.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Darsy asked when Amanvah left the room.
‘It means Amanvah and Sikvah are carrying Rojer’s children,’ Leesha said. ‘Anyone doesn’t hop when one of them wants something had better have a good corespawned reason.’
Darsy’s eyebrows shot up into her hair, but she nodded. ‘Ay, mistress.’
‘Now if everyone will excuse me,’ Leesha said, ‘I’d like to put my daughter in her crib and have that bath.’
Darsy and Wonda made for the door, but Elona lingered, her aura showing her unwillingness to let go of the baby.
‘Night, Mother,’ Leesha said, ‘you’ve imprinted more on that child in an hour than you did in my entire life.’
‘This one ent got your mouth, yet.’ Elona looked down at the sleeping baby. ‘Lucky little bastard. Could’ve run this town, I’d been born with a pecker.’
‘You’d have made a wonderful man,’ Leesha agreed.
‘Not a man,’ Elona said. ‘Never wanted that. Just wanted a pecker, too. Steave made me a wooden one, once. Polished it to a shine and said it was to do when there was no wood at home.’
‘Creator,’ Leesha said, but Elona ignored her.
‘Meant it for me, but it was your father that liked when I …’
‘Corespawn it, Mother!’ Leesha snapped. ‘You’re doing this on purpose.’
Elona cackled. ‘Course I am, girl. Keeping the stick from your arse requires constant maintenance.’
Leesha put her face in her hand.
Elona finally relented and handed Leesha the child. ‘I’m just sayin’, Paper women are fierce even without peckers.’
Leesha smiled at that. ‘Honest word.’
‘What are you going to call her?’ Elona asked.
‘Olive,’ Leesha said.
‘Always wondered why that was a girl’s name,’ Elona said. ‘Olives got stones.’
3 (#ulink_2cecbe73-21df-5766-836e-3ccf6ef2bb4e)
Countess Paper (#ulink_2cecbe73-21df-5766-836e-3ccf6ef2bb4e)
334 AR
Tarisa was waiting when Leesha finally managed to pull her gaze away from Olive, fast asleep in her crib. The older woman’s aura still looked like a rabbit backed into a corner, but she did not show it. ‘My lady must be exhausted. Come sit and I’ll brush out your hair.’
Leesha reached up, realizing her hair was still pinned from her homecoming, half the pins loose or missing. She wore only a sweaty and bloodstained shift with a silk dressing gown pulled over it. Dried tears crusted her cheeks. ‘I must look a horror.’
‘Anything but.’ Tarisa led her to the bedroom vanity, unpinning and brushing Leesha’s hair. It was a ritual they had performed so many times, it gave Leesha a pang of nostalgia. These were Thamos’ chambers, his servants, his keep. She had meant to share it all with him, a storybook tale, but her prince’s part in the story was ended.
Everywhere, there were signs of him, active pieces of a life cut short in its prime. Hunting trophies and spears adorned the walls, along with ostentatious portraits of the royal family. Three suits of lacquered armour on stands like silent sentries around the room.
Leesha dropped her eyes to the floor, but her nose betrayed her, catching the scented oils the count had used, fragrances that triggered thoughts of love, lust, and loss.
Tarisa caught the move. ‘Arther wanted to sweep it all away so you wouldn’t have to look at it. Spare you the pain.’
Leesha’s throat was tight. ‘I’m glad he didn’t.’
Tarisa nodded. ‘Told him I’d have his seedpods if he moved a single chair.’ Leesha closed her eyes. There were few pleasures in life as soothing as Tarisa brushing her hair. Suddenly she remembered how tired she was. Amanvah’s healing magic had given her a burst of strength, but that had faded, and magic was no true replacement for sleep.
But there were matters to settle first.
Leesha cracked an eye, watching Tarisa’s aura. ‘How long have you been a spy for the Duchess Mother?’
‘Longer than you’ve been alive, my lady.’ Tarisa’s aura spiked, but her voice was calm. Soothing. ‘Though I never thought of it as spying. Thamos was still in swaddling when I was brought in to nurse him. It was my duty to report on him to his mother. Her Grace loved the boy, but she had a duchy to run, and her husband was seldom about. Every night as the young prince slept, I filled her in on his day’s activities.’
‘Even when the boy became a man grown?’ Leesha asked.
Tarisa snorted. ‘Especially then. You’ll see as Olive grows, my lady. A mother never truly lets go.’
‘What sorts of things did you tell her?’ Leesha asked.
Tarisa shrugged. ‘His love life, mostly. Her Grace despaired of ever settling the prince down, and wanted an account of every skirt to catch his eye.’ Tarisa met Leesha’s eyes. ‘But there was only one woman who ever held Thamos’ attention.’
‘And she had a shady past,’ Leesha guessed. ‘Childhood scandal, and talk of bedding the demon of the desert …’
Tarisa dropped her eyes again, never slowing the steady, soothing stroke of her brush. ‘Folk talk, my lady. In the Corelings’ Graveyard and the Holy House pews. In the Cutter ranks and, Creator knows, the servants’ quarters. Many spoke of how you and the Painted Man looked at each other, and how you went to Krasia to court Ahmann Jardir. None could prove they’d taken you to bed, but folk don’t need proof to whisper.’
‘They never have,’ Leesha said.
‘Didn’t tell Her Grace anything she wasn’t hearing from others,’ Tarisa said. ‘But I told her not to believe a word of it. You and His Highness were hardly discreet. When your laces began to strain, I assumed the child was the prince’s. We all did. The servants all loved you. I wrote my suspicions to Her Grace with joy, and waited on my toes for you to tell His Highness.’
‘But then we broke,’ Leesha said, ‘and you realized your love for me was misplaced.’
Tarisa shook her head. ‘How could we stop, when our lord did not?’
‘Thamos cast me out,’ Leesha said.
‘Ay,’ Tarisa agreed. ‘And haunted these halls like a ghost, spending hours staring at his portrait of you.’
A lump formed in Leesha’s throat, and she tried unsuccessfully to choke it down.
‘Some may be holding out hope you’ll announce Thamos has an heir tomorrow,’ Tarisa said, ‘dreaming there might still be a piece of the prince to love and cherish in this house. But none of them will turn from you when they meet Olive.’
‘I wish I could believe that,’ Leesha said.
‘I never knew my own son,’ Tarisa said. ‘I was kitchen maid to a minor lord and lady, and when she failed to give him children, they paid me to lie with him and give up the child.’
‘Tarisa!’ Leesha was horrified.
‘I was treated fairly,’ Tarisa said. ‘Given money and reference to take a commission from the Duchess Mum, wet-nursing and helping rear young Prince Thamos. He was like the son I never knew.’
She reached out, laying a gentle hand on Leesha’s belly. ‘We don’t get to say which children the Creator gives us. There’s love enough in this house for any child of yours, my lady.’
Leesha laid a hand over hers. ‘Enough with my lady. Call me mistress, please.’
‘Ay, mistress.’ Tarisa gave the hand a squeeze and got to her feet. ‘Water ought to be hot by now. I’ll go see about that bath.’
She left, and Leesha allowed herself to raise her eyes once more, taking in the reminders of her lost love.
And she wept.
Leesha kept the curtains pulled through the day, staring at Olive with her warded spectacles, glorying in the strength and purity of the child’s aura. Olive ate hungrily and slept little, staring up at Leesha with her bright blue eyes. The magic in her shone with an emotion beyond love, beyond adoration. Something more primal and pure.
There was a knock at the door, startling Leesha from the trance of it. Wonda went over to answer it, and there was muffled conversation. The door clicked as Wonda closed and locked it again, then came back to the sleeping chamber.
‘Arther’s waitin’ outside,’ Wonda said. ‘Been tellin’ him yur busy, but he keeps coming back. Wants to talk to ya somethin’ fierce.’
Leesha pushed herself upright. ‘Very well. He’s seen me in dressing gowns before. Tarisa? Please take Olive into the nursery while we talk.’
Olive clutched Leesha’s finger painfully in her little fist as Tarisa pulled her away. Her aura made Leesha’s heart ache.
Lord Arther stopped a respectful distance from the bed and bowed. ‘I apologize for the intrusion, Countess Paper.’
‘It’s all right, Arther,’ Leesha said. ‘I trust you would not have done so if it wasn’t important.’
‘Indeed,’ Arther said. ‘Congratulations on the birth of your daughter. I understand this was … earlier than expected. I trust all are in good health?’
‘Thank you, we are,’ Leesha said, ‘though I expect Wonda has already told you as much.’
‘She has, of course,’ Arther agreed. ‘I came with another rather urgent matter.’
‘And that is?’ Leesha asked.
Arther drew himself up straight. He wasn’t a tall man, but he made up for it in posture. ‘With respect, Countess, if my command of the house staff has been relieved and I am dismissed, I do not think it too much to ask that I be informed directly.’
Leesha blinked. ‘Has someone informed you indirectly?’
‘Lady Paper,’ Arther said.
‘Lady … Night, my mother?’ Leesha asked.
Arther bowed again. ‘Lady Paper moved into the keep a week ago, when news of your new title reached the Hollow. She has been … difficult to please.’
‘You don’t know the half of it,’ Leesha said.
‘It is her right, of course,’ Arther said. ‘Without word from you, she and your father are the ranking members of your household. I assumed you had sent them to ready the keep.’
Leesha shook her head. ‘It meant only the keep has richer furnishing than my father’s house.’
