CHAPTER ELEVEN
S he rode back to the hall in a standing cart, Bartholomew driving. In one hand, she clutched the response. Underneath and over her heart, she kept the hand he had pressed fondly and contended with her emotions. On her own part, she understood her femininity should be affected by such a man, so thoroughly out of her reach. Yet for him, she could not understand. She was comely but not fair. She was a courier, not a courtesan. Nothing she had said to him was clever or knowledgeable.
Her heart wanted the only explanation for his tenderness to be Aldney. There was nothing else to recommend her to him. It must be that he saw her brother’s face in the shadow of her countenance.
You saw him last. You laid him in his grave. You were close enough to see his features played out imperfectly in another face. And now you protect me as he no longer can.
When the cart slowed, she jumped off and ran inside the hall. The two red-winged black birds had been caged, guarded by both Aldo and Augustine. When Petra came into their sight, both men practically dove towards her.
Aldo reached for the birds while Augustine snatched the message from her. It was tied around one bird’s midsection, running the length of the back. Special twine kept a sturdy knot but could be pecked apart by the other bird if its companion fell ill or injured. They had been trained to fly together. If one failed, the other knew to take the message and be well rewarded with sweet seeds and dried grasshoppers.
“Good work, Petra,” Augustine said.
“It did not seem like the news was good.”
“Likely not. But nothing of our emperor’s decision to make Lady Theophania his empress is our concern.”
“But the ramifications...”
“Are for more capable hands than ours to handle. We will continue to deliver messages.”
She watched Aldo set the birds free. They were a blur of black, flickering in red, as they disappeared above the safety of the city walls. What was at risk was far from them in the Black Mountains. Unless the pass was breached...
Then what?
Then the captains and men of Shivalry brandished their weapons in a true show of Vale’s capabilities. In her mind’s eye, she saw Rand with his hair blowing in the wind and his eyes heating the steel of his blade to burning. All those that stood behind him were safe.
But she should not imagine such things. She told Augustine she would busy herself. However, a broom had not been between her hands for more than thirty minutes before she heard her name called.
Petra was handed a scroll addressed to Lady Melisende. Apparently, this was the seventh time delivery had been attempted. She had commanded no one disturb her.
“Maybe you can get to her,” Ki sneered, bitter from his failed effort. “You seem to be good at getting your way, just like your brother.”
“And you seem to be good at resenting other’s successes. Keep words of my brother out of your mouth. He did no wrong.”
She did not give him time to respond and spun on her heel.
***
T UCKING HER HANDS IN the deep folds of the robe, she made her way to the Mansion of Delicate Petals. From what other couriers had said, and the gossip circulating on the main road like sand poured through a jar of pebbles, Lady Melisende was not the only one stricken by Cyprian’s decision. In Lady Bisgu’s private quarters, the fair young woman had wept for a full day and night, taking no consolation. Lady Claennis took it as a challenge and had knelt in the main receiving room of the emperor’s palace for twelve straight hours. Lady Ethelfelde had become mysteriously ill and bedridden.
Meanwhile, Lady Theophania, her normally fair features patinaed in a pale shellac, did her duties by visiting the Mother-of-State and all homes of the councilmen. Yet her normal quick and quiet wit had doubled over into mumble-mouthed silence. Sunniva had been slighted greatly and Lady Theophania understood the crucible she had become.
No one was safe in the Cloistered City. Not servants from their masters, not the peerage from the crown.
Aldney, did you discover this and feel defeated? Is that how you fell from grace because nothing mattered if there was no hope for order?
At the mansion gate, Petra was not stopped. The guard saw her approach and cleared the way. She knew which of the diverging paths to take and tried not to seem distracted by all the noise coming from the interior mansions. Wailing. Yelling. A silence so thick it was suffocating. There was frantic footfall, sounds of dishes clattering and broken. A storm had ripped up the petals.
With Lady Melisende’s residence in sight, Petra was rushed by handmaids.
“She won’t look at you!”
“She’ll beat me if another courier enters!”
“Enter at your own risk. She is feral.”
“She is not fit to be seen!”
Inside the mansion, her rampage had touched all rooms. Beautiful fabrics shredded. Clothes strewn. Décor demolished. Vaguely, Petra wished she had asked the others for their approach in the moment so she could do nothing the same. No doubt, there had been pleading. Likely flattery. Perhaps logic. Fury, however, is unpredictable.
She had fancied Aldney. She was the one he refused to serve. Because of moods like this?
At the threshold of her room, Petra filled her lungs and blew out a measured exhalation; from over the shoulder of the servant in front of her, she saw a stricken figure on the floor. Disheveled hair. Smeared makeup. Her feet were without shoes and sticking out from under a green gown that had been torn, hanging off her shoulders. On the opposite wall, she stared at something unseen.
Before the servant spoke, Petra put her hand on the woman’s shoulder and shook her head, motioning her to retreat. She knew what none of the others had tried because it was not theirs to attempt.
“My lady!” She rushed in and slid onto her knees. “It would pain him to see you like this!”
For a moment, the madame did not move. Petra froze with supplicating hands and a cowering posture. Then, as if rousing from a stupor, she seemed to become aware of Petra and tipped her head, eyes wide and glazed over.
“What?” she asked, making the lone word more than one syllable.
She was not stable. Her eyes did not appear to see. How easily this could go wrong. A woman unhinged about her present forced to recall a disappointment of the past?
I might be a fool.
Petra cleared her throat and reached for the hem of Lady Melisende’s gown, making sure only the tips of her fingers touched it.
“My fair lady,” she began, “you cannot weep so! It would hurt him to see you thus!”
“Who?”
“My brother! May his soul rest for eternity. I am Petra Ondise. Aldney Ondise’s sister.”
Forgive me. You turned her away and now I use your name to achieve an end. But you did the things you must. So do I.
Melisende blinked several times, fragmented memories flashing across her fair features like shards of light. Long, painted nails reached for Petra’s fingers. Pushing the letter forward, she scooted back from the distraught female.
“He could not bear to see you so, my lady. He knew your nobility.”
She grappled with the scroll. “So, he was flesh and blood, was he? Your brother was a dazzling man. I thought he might be a divinity, come to earth to torture me.”
“He never meant you pain, my lady.”
“But he did not let me care for him. I would have given him more than he could ever have asked for.”
“Out of your goodness.”
She sighed. “Yes. And if Cyprian had chosen me, my heart would have remained true to him. He would have been in my bed every night I was not required by Cyprian.”
“You are a noble woman.”
“Did he speak of me?”
“My brother shared much of his life in his letters to me.”
“I never meant harm to come to him.”
A coldness steeped in Petra’s stomach. “Of course, my lady.”
“Shivalry captains think they are so faultless.”
The cold burrowed into her bones and she gritted her teeth against chattering. Melisende shook her head at memories Petra could not see and unfolded the scroll, distracted as intended.
Shivalry captains think they are so faultless? Now I will be the one to lose sleep and color the rims of my eyes red.
A captain had been involved. More than burying. Was her brother buried out of guilt? Had this captain killed him, too? For what? Over what? Lady Melisende? Captains were sworn to celibacy. They were sworn to nobility. Because it was against conduct and unseemly for a lady-in-waiting to desire a eunuch, the eunuch was removed? That was not a decision for Shivalry! They were to protect the emperor and Vale. Their concerns were not for things of the flesh.
Like a vision injected into her brain, she saw Rand’s proud features become a nightmare. The burning of his dark eyes turned to blood and seeped forth over his face, down his beastly chest, where it stained his hands. The long sword at his side killed because it was commanded to as its wielder was trained and manipulated to uphold righteousness. Even if righteousness trampled the innocent.
With one hand, Melisende held the message while the other traced down her chest, around her breasts, past her naval to her most intimate area where it stayed, massaging.
“Even men desired him,” she mumbled, the glazed look melting from her eyes while heat touched her cheeks.
Sour bile rose under Petra’s tongue. Further back she scooted and rose to her feet.
“It is as you say, my lady.”
“Indeed.” She moved aside her gown and placed her hand directly over her vagina. “Do not wait for my reply.” Her voice thickened. “I shall send it later.”
Petra could not turn and run. She could not spew the salty fluids flooding her mouth. She must maintain the dignity of the uniform, bow, and walk away while a woman pleasured herself to the memory of her dead brother.
***
I N THE HALL’S LAVATORY , she relieved her nausea, though vapors of excrement and urine extended her dry retches. It was still her shift; she should not have staggered to the dormitory. Nonetheless, she crumpled down onto her narrow mattress, her body bedraggled and uneasy. It felt like all she could do was stare at the ceiling while visions of her brother passed before her.
At once, he was vaporous and alive. Blood that had been spilt. Flesh that had been desired. And because she could not leave the dead buried, she had defiled him. His visions did not look at her, did not lift skeletal fingers in accusation. She would have preferred it if he called to her in ire from the grave. After all, she took what had been finished and painful for him and brought it back to life. He should accuse her of having no regard for the dignity of the dead.
Yet she could not want things for him? She could not want things for herself?
When his letters stopped, she and her mother were beside themselves. Many were the nights in that limbo of time she heard her mother weep without ceasing. By dawn, dark shadows weighed down those beloved eyes. Then, when news came, her mother sat at Petra’s bedside and wrung her hands. Chores around the house slowed to a stop. Her own grief sat on her chest like a boulder, but Petra could not let them waste away. She took on all the duties of the house and the farm.
So, there was no peace for her? Now that Aldney lay safe under the ground, she could not find closure? She refused to believe he’d refuse her that.
At the same time, she had abused his generosity and used his name, intentionally misdirecting, to get what she needed. All to deliver a damned letter.
Her own guilt was not punishment enough, though. Insatiable paranoia rose within her like a weed, curling its dark tendrils around her bones. Had depravity disguised itself as dignity? The depraved were bold about their choices, righteous even. A thin line separated them from those who withheld themselves.
Had Rand murdered him?
Her scalp itched like a disease. She shoved her hands under her legs to keep from scratching all the hair off her head. It felt like a spider wove a web around her. If she walked forward, the gossamer threads would slice her skin.
Her hurt heart wanted to find solace in the kindness of Rand. It was lovely to stand behind another stronger and bigger than her when she had been strong for so long.
Yet monsters loom large, too.
I will know. When he gets back, I will find out. I’ll scream at him until he silences me. I will slam my head against the walls of his mansion until I am senseless, or he admits the truth. Come back, Captain Tsenturian. You seek to protect the city so you can hide your own actions? Justice still walks on my behalf and will raise me high enough to look you in the eye.
“Ondise!” A voice from the letter room bellowed. “A letter has come for the fourth captain of Shivalry. Hurry!”