Part 19 (1/2)

The flicker of a frown at this familiar use of the prince's name was almost lost in the curiously pained expression the Gra.s.shopper woman a.s.sumed. 'You understand nothing,' she said grimly. 'You have no means of protecting yourself from them at all.'

Tynisa felt a sudden surge of anger, almost as if it had sprung from elsewhere, and within a moment her sword point was hovering close to Lisan Dea's breast. 'I have no difficulty in protecting myself,' she snapped.

But the seneschal simply looked back at her, without fear or even alarm. 'Why did you come here at all?'

'Because of Salma.' The answer came unwillingly. And then, because that would make no sense to the woman, 'I mean Salme Dien. I was his . . . his friend.' Abruptly she felt ridiculous, and slid her sword back in its scabbard, now ashamed at being goaded so effortlessly. I have never been so shorn of grace before. She found her killing instinct could not stand against the utter indifference of the Gra.s.shopper.

'I remember Dien,' Lisan remarked, and a fond look transformed her face briefly, before it reverted to her professional blandness. 'But you should know that he has not dwelt in these halls for many years, not a trace of him.' And, with that cryptic observation, she walked on hurriedly, forcing Tynisa to follow her or become lost amidst the stones of Leose.

In the end, the room she was shown into was not so very poorly appointed, but was clearly not intended for a guest of honour either. It had bare stone walls draped with faded tapestries, and a single narrow window looking out over the gorge. They brought her gowns, then: objects of silk and layers, s.h.i.+mmering with colour. She found she could not wear them: they pinched in the wrong places, she could not walk properly without treading on the hems. Tynisa was used to Collegium robes, which were shorter and heavier, or else the breeches and arming jacket in which she had spent so long travelling. At the last she found a servant and prevailed upon her to fetch something more practical: a pale half-cloak over a long tunic of grey and gold that reached to her knees, with a belt that went three times round her waist.

The Lowlanders were never great arbiters of fas.h.i.+on, she knew, and Collegium's usual style was muted, borrowing any flair it possessed from seasons-old and mostly misunderstood Spider custom. The Beetle-kinden amongst whom she had grown up were a solid, pragmatic people to whom elegance did not come easily. Tall and slender and fair, she had walked amongst them wherever she wished, dressed how she wished, secure in the knowledge that they would deny her nothing. The other races that she had walked among were hardly different: blinkered Wasps, the rustic simplicity of the Mantis-kinden, the downtrodden grime of the Empire's slave races. She had never been obliged to try before. Certainly she had never strained to meet the standards of others.

Standing there in her borrowed garments, in this unfamiliar castle, she felt her self-confidence tarnis.h.i.+ng by the moment. She did not know what to do, nor how to act, and a lifetime in Collegium had not prepared her for the web of intricate etiquette that bound these people together. Abruptly her simple room seemed close and crowded, and she heard Achaeos's spiteful reminder: And you cannot even fly, which all these people take for granted. The Beetles have ruined you for polite company. Tynisa shook her head, determined now to prove him wrong.

A dance, Alain had said. Well, it had indeed been a while since she had last trod a measure, but she knew that game. She knew the Beetle-kinden dances, which involved a great deal of romping back and forth in lines, changing places, turning round and, in the case of older, fatter or drunker dancers, falling over. She had skipped her way through enough of those, and even been admired for it. Then, again, there were the Spider dances, where the musicians set the measure and the dancers paired off and let their inspiration guide them, making grace and elegance their only standards. She felt she was ready for these Commonwealers.

The feast was disappointing. There were long, low tables seating a clear grading of guests, and she was placed at the end furthest from all the important people, meaning Alain and his mother and the more favoured of their n.o.ble invitees. She sensed Lisan Dea's hostile influence, but there was little she could do about it. Aside from herself, this gathering plainly represented Dragonfly aristocracy, resplendent in a rainbow of silks, cloth of gold, silvered leather and enamelled chitin. There was very little conversation between them, and none at all directed at Tynisa. If this gathering was to celebrate Alain's victories, n.o.body said anything about them, and his mother made no speeches. It was as though everyone had been thoroughly briefed beforehand, with only Tynisa left out. She ate in silence, finding the food too sharply and unexpectedly flavoured, and the portions small.

Then the gathering all adjourned into a further room, a circular s.p.a.ce with a vastly high ceiling painted in patterns of blue and white and gold, where a little troupe of Gra.s.shopper-kinden stood ready with instruments: long-necked lutes and rebecs and deep-throated drums. The guests spread out along the room's periphery, where Tynisa noticed several of them pairing off for the first dance. Her eyes sought out Alain, but he had already been secured by a coolly elegant Dragonfly lady, the two of them slotting together without preamble, as though the partnering had been arranged beforehand. Tynisa turned away, but there was someone unexpectedly at her elbow. For a moment she found her hand twitching for the sword she had left in her room, but it was a young man who had been seated near her at the table.

'Lady Lowlander, would you honour me with your hand for this dance?' he enquired.

She had no idea who he was, but his familiarity suggested that they had already been introduced. In truth, she had not paid her neighbours much attention during the meal. Seeing him standing so solemnly before her, she began to feel curiously off-balance.

'Of course,' she said nonetheless, because she could not back down now. Even then the drummer was moving his fingers over taut hide, producing a patter of fluid sounds like no drum Tynisa had heard before. Dancers were moving into place as if drawn by some magical resonance, each to a precise spot.

'We shall join the lower tier, of course,' her partner told her bafflingly, and then abandoned her to take his position across the room. In the end, she only knew where to go when two concentric circles had formed, with a single glaring gap in the outermost.

Faster than she was expecting, the music struck as soon as she had found her feet there, and she tried to move with it, but in a moment she realized that a Commonweal dance was something far removed from her experience of either Spider-kinden or Lowlanders. The inner circle of dancers had taken to the air immediately, converging in the chamber's centre and circling one another, whilst the outer ring began following some complex pattern of its own that seemed to have no relations.h.i.+p to that of their fellow dancers aloft. Small groups of them would come together, turn about one another with solemn grace, now facing in, now out, and then their smaller circle would scatter in a single instant, each leaping to another point either on foot or by wing. It should have produced a chaos of tripping and collisions, but Tynisa realized very swiftly that each and every one of the partic.i.p.ants knew their moves as if they had been rehea.r.s.ed in them. This was no Beetle b.u.mble with some half-drunk dance-master calling out the moves, nor a Spider-kinden improvisation where individual inspiration was all. These n.o.blemen and women had been schooled in some intricate dancing art, move by move and step by step, so that they worked together to an invisible pattern that she had no access to.

Tynisa soon backed out hurriedly, because the alternative was to get in someone's way, and already she had hopelessly lost the rhythm of the music. Across the room she saw the young man who partnered her also retiring, his face kept carefully neutral.

She was embarra.s.sed. It was a new feeling for her: she had discovered something that she could not do. Worse, Alain would have noticed her fail at it. Even though the dance went on, she felt all eyes on her. Achaeos's mocking laughter sounded in her head and she knew that Salma's imaginary smile was merely polite now. She had failed his people, and he had witnessed it, for all he was a year buried in the earth.

Those angry thoughts kept her busy until the dance reached its preordained conclusion, and Tynisa hoped naively that they might pa.s.s on to some other entertainment. Instead, she saw a swapping of partners, hands changing hands, and a new pattern being laid out in feet and bodies, whilst the musicians conferred briefly. No signal had been given, but as soon as the drummer started tapping away, everyone there immediately recognized the measure and was ready for it, leaving Tynisa again clinging at the sidelines, frustrated and surplus to requirements.

This time, Alain was partnering another young n.o.blewoman, an iridescent creature who reminded Tynisa far too much of the b.u.t.terfly-kinden that Salme Dien had fallen for. Grimly she watched the two of them pirouette and soar together, each beat of the music grating on her nerves, until she felt that she would have to quit the gathering, or else do something she might regret.

Instead, some stubborn part of her had rooted her feet to the floor, even as her temper wound tighter and tighter. The next dance proved even more intricate, dancers skipping from the floor all the way to the arched ceiling and back, hovering and darting and circling like so many mayflies. And, all the while, Tynisa just stared and stared.

She recalled now Lisan Dea's curious reaction to her, the pity the seneschal seemed to show, even that question about how Tynisa would defend herself. Well, now she knew what the woman had meant. She, who had found her own way amongst so many different kinden and cultures, had now encountered heights that she could not ascend to. Whatever her gifts, or her Art, or her training, she was still a low-born Lowlander. In contrast, these people were aristocracy, and their world was different to hers.

An older world, a wiser world, Achaeos whispered in her ear, but you were so bound up with your Beetle learning that you abandoned your own heritage, and what are you now? Apt? Inapt? You have lost them both. He was a presence at her elbow, and she dared not look round to banish him in case she found him stubborn, standing there with that bloodstain spreading across his body and his hand held out to partner her. She felt herself begin to shake ever so slightly. Every eye seemed to slide off her, with contempt or pity or simple embarra.s.sment in each look cast her way. She was scanning the host for Salme Alain, desperate to catch his eye. Just the once, she caught sight of his face amidst the crowds, and read only amus.e.m.e.nt there. At her? Who could know, but it cut her anyway.

She realized that she had stayed too long, and a waxing tide of bitter anger at being so excluded, beyond any ability of hers to remedy, was soon going to overtake her. The dancers had come back down to earth, moving out to the edges of the room, and she found herself stepping forward towards the centre, as if she ment to challenge them all, forcing them to face her on her own terms. Her sword had been left back in her room, but she felt its familiar contours against her fingers, only a shadow away from being in her grip.

She looked up to see a white-haired Mantis-kinden in a pale grey arming jacket stepping forward to meet her, and something in her said, yes, at the perfection of it. What better for her now than to fight and die against one of her own?

But Isendter, the White Hand, merely called out to the musicians. 'Play a martiette.' After a moment's startled conference, the drummer began a new beat, stronger and more rhythmic than before, still slow but with the promise of growing pace within it.

Isendter now stood before her, one hand out as though he held a sword, and she matched his posture, dropping into her fighting stance and waiting for his move. She could almost feel their blades crossing no, she could feel it, steel sc.r.a.ping against steel even though there was nothing between them but air.

The drum spoke louder, a single beat, and Isendter began to move. Instantly she had matched him, giving ground as he sought her, keeping perfect distance. The pace was increasing and, just as she was about to step away, dismissing it all as a nonsense, he moved again. Her feet mirrored his, their hands almost touching, and the dance began. For a long time there was no sound in that great hall but the rattle and tap of the ever-speeding drum, as Tynisa and Isendter fought.

At first she just reacted to him, sliding left as he slid right, retreating and retreating to his lead, but soon she was throwing in moves of her own, lunges and advances, feints and darts, which he echoed perfectly with his ever-moving feet. She forgot all about the others. She forgot Alain. Even the music departed her conscious mind, speaking directly to her body, so that all that mattered was the grave old Mantis before her. She never noticed how the rhythm of their dance was led by the drum, each louder beat signalling a strike. She never witnessed how the expressions of disdain on the faces of the Dragonfly-kinden became watchful, and then wide-eyed, as she and Isendter spun and pa.s.sed and came together again in the perfect collaboration of duellists.

She could have told, two minutes in, all there was to know about Isendter's martial history, just as he had laid her own similarly bare. She could sense which of his knees was slightly tender with age, where the past scars were that tugged at the fluidity of his movements all those mementos of his long career. They knew each other like lovers, during the moves of that dance, and she realized that he was better than she was, made slower by years but made wiser by experience. And the fight and the dance were running to an inevitable conclusion, and . . .

The drum had stopped, and she tried to identify that final sound, that pulled her out of her trance. A familiar sound and a comforting one.

Steel on steel.

Her rapier was in her hand, as rea.s.suring and impossible as dreams. Its blade crossed the metal claw jutting from the gauntlet that Isendter had not been wearing before, nor could have found the time to buckle on.

The dance was over, the room was silent, and the old Mantis nodded just once but with a Weaponsmaster's approval. Somewhere in the room she felt her father was watching her, adding his own satisfaction to Isendter's curt approbation.

Then the applause came, not the rowdy cheering of a Collegium theatre crowd, but a pattering of fingers on palms as the n.o.bility of Elas Mar Province allowed her into their world.

She looked across the room to meet Alain's eyes squarely, and he was smiling.

Twenty-Two.

There was to be a grand hunt to celebrate the approach of spring, she discovered the next morning. The stags would soon be locking antlers in the woods, and apparently and there was no better time to match one's strength with them.

n.o.body had specifically stated that she, Tynisa, would be accompanying the hunt, but after her performance the previous night, n.o.body forbade it either. She had often fought for her life, even been a prisoner of the Empire, and yet there at least she had understood the rules of the game. This bewildering society of the Dragonfly n.o.bles was beyond her, until the Mantis-kinden had found a door into it and had shown her the way.

And Alain had smiled at her.

The thought had been growing in her that redemption came in many colours. She had failed to save Salma, and in losing him she had lost her rightful place in the world.

He was mine, she thought bitter daggers at the b.u.t.terfly woman who had stolen his affections.

She had lost Salma, yes, but here was his very image. If she won him, against his mother's apparent scorn, his steward's sneers and the airy sophistication of his peers . . . if she won him then surely it would be as though she had found her place in the world again? Surely that victory would go some way to repairing the damage she had done, to balance the scales?

She was just aware enough to know that she was clutching at straws, and that if she stood back and looked at her position she would find it untenable. That way, though, led to a greater madness, because then she would have to face up to the guilt that, day and night, prowled around the outworks of her mind, looking for a way in. If she unlocked that door, then the ghosts fabricated by her mind would have her for good. Go forward, though, and look neither left nor right, and she could leave them behind for just a little while. Forward because ahead of her was Salme Alain.

As soon as she understood that there would be hunting, Tynisa had found drab garments of hard-wearing cloth: Mantis-kinden fabric that was more robust than the Dragonfly clothing she had seen here. She took a cloak too, green-grey and mottled, to help her stalk the prey, whatever it was. In truth she had never gone hunting beasts before, but she had heard Tisamon describe it, and observed Mantis hunters in the Felyal, east of Collegium, so she reckoned she knew how it was done.

The Dragonfly-kinden clearly had their own ideas about the art of hunting, however. The party that set off from Leose numbered perhaps a dozen riders, with twice as many servants, and none of them seemed to care if their quarry spotted them coming from miles away. The mounted n.o.bles were all clad in bright silks: reds and blues and greens that s.h.i.+mmered like metal in the morning sun. They carried lances and most had a quiver of arrows and a shortbow holstered at their saddle. They were mostly of an age with Alain and herself, only two being older, and Alain's mother, the matriarch of the Salmae, was not present.

The hunting grounds were some days west of Leose, beyond Lowre Cean's compound. Tynisa had antic.i.p.ated being able to ride alongside Alain, to talk to him and let him see more of her than the fragmentary glimpses that were all he had seen till now. What she had not taken into account was her horsemans.h.i.+p, a skill that the Lowlanders had precious little use for. The Commonwealer n.o.bles all rode elegantly, as natural in the saddle as in the air, and whilst Tynisa could outdistance the ma.s.s of walking servants, the n.o.bles themselves were lost to her as soon as the party set out. They rode ahead, frequently out of sight entirely, and she could not catch them up. When she could see them, they were engaging in mock manoeuvres and cavalry actions that she could not have joined in with. Alain was always at the centre of these, constantly in demand. a.s.sisted by a small number of servants who had mounts of their own, the entourage of n.o.bles even made their own camp, ahead on the trail, leaving Tynisa and the other menials far behind.

As they pa.s.sed close to Lowre Cean's compound, and neared the hunting grounds themselves, she caught up. The pause had been occasioned by a pair of new riders joining the party, and she was surprised to see the prince himself and his young messenger, with no retainers of their own at all. The old man nodded gravely to her, as though they were the only two sane people in the whole ridiculous expedition.

They rode north and west for a few hours, following the contours of the land towards the dark line of a forest. The ground here was still patchy with snow, and the sky above slate-grey with clouds. Tynisa found herself s.h.i.+vering, because even the middle of a Collegium winter was considerably warmer than this, but none of her companions seemed to feel the cold, so she put the best face on it that she could.