The Core

‘Of course not,’ Leesha said.

‘No point laying blame when you’ve a fever to fight, Bruna used to say,’ Darsy said. ‘Everyone’s got perfect vision—’

‘—when they’re looking back,’ Leesha finished.

‘I read the same books you did,’ Darsy went on. ‘There’s notes on how to treat this.’

‘Treat it, how?’ Elona asked. ‘Some herb is going to close its slit or make its pecker dry up and fall off?’

‘Course not.’ Darsy shrugged as she stared at the child. ‘We just … pick one. A girl that handsome could easily pass for a boy.’

‘And a boy that pretty could pass for a girl,’ Elona countered. ‘That don’t treat anything.’

‘Ay,’ Darsy nodded to the operating table where Amanvah still worked, ‘but that combined with a few snips and stitches …’

‘Wonda,’ Leesha said.

‘Ay, mistress?’ Wonda said.

‘If anyone other than me ever tries to perform surgery on this child, you are to shoot them,’ Leesha said.

Wonda crossed her arms. ‘Ay, mistress.’

Darsy held up her hands. ‘I only …!’

Leesha whisked her fingers. ‘I know you mean no harm, Darsy, but that practice was barbaric. We will not be pursuing surgical options any further unless the child’s health is in danger. Am I clear?’

‘Ay, mistress,’ Darsy said. ‘But folk are going to ask if it’s a boy or girl. What do we tell them?’

Leesha looked to Elona. ‘Don’t look at me,’ her mother said. ‘I know better than any that we don’t get a say in these things. Creator wills as the Creator will.’

‘Well said, wife of Erny,’ Amanvah said. She had come last from the operating table, hands still red with birthing blood. She raised them to Leesha. ‘Now is the time, mistress. There is no casting stronger than the moment of birth.’

Leesha considered. Letting Amanvah cast her alagai hora in the mixed blood and fluid of the birth would open her vision to the futures of Leesha and the child both. Even if she was fully forthcoming – something dama’ting were not known for – there would be too much for her to convey in words. She would always have secrets, secrets that Leesha might desperately need.

But Amanvah’s concern for the child, her half sibling, was written in gold through her aura. She was desperate to throw for the child’s protection.

‘There are conditions,’ Leesha said. ‘And they are not negotiable.’

Amanvah bowed. ‘Anything.’

Leesha raised an eyebrow. ‘You will speak your prayers in Thesan.’

‘Of course,’ Amanvah said.

‘You will share everything you see with me, and me alone,’ Leesha went on.

‘Ay, I want to see!’ Elona said, but Leesha kept her eyes on Amanvah.

‘Yes, mistress,’ Amanvah said.

‘Forever,’ Leesha said. ‘If I have a question twenty years from now about what you saw, you will reply fully and without hesitation.’

‘I swear it by Everam,’ Amanvah said.

‘You will leave the dice in place until we can make a copy of the throw for me to keep.’

Amanvah paused at this. No outsider was allowed to study the dama’ting alagai hora, lest they attempt to carve their own. Inevera would have Amanvah’s head if she acquiesced to this request.

But after a moment, the priestess nodded. ‘I have dice of clay we can cement in place.’

‘And you will teach me to read them,’ Leesha said.

The room fell silent. Even the other women, unschooled in Krasian custom, could sense the audacity of the request.

Amanvah’s eyes narrowed. ‘Yes.’

‘What did you see, when you cast the bones for the child in Angiers?’ Leesha asked.

‘The first thing my mother ever taught me to look for,’ Amanvah said.

Leesha set warded klats around the antique royal heirloom that had been used as an operating table. The wards activated, barring sound from both directions as she and Amanvah bent over the operating table, studying the glowing dice.

Amanvah pointed one of her long, painted nails at a prominent symbol. ‘Ka.’ The Krasian word for ‘one’ or ‘first.’

She pointed to another. ‘Dama.’ Priest.

A third. ‘Sharum.’ Warrior.

‘First … priest … warrior …’ Leesha blinked as her breath caught. ‘Shar’Dama Ka?’

Amanvah nodded.

‘Dama means “priest”,’ Leesha said. ‘Does that mean the child is male?’

Amanvah shook her head. ‘Not necessarily. “First Warrior Cleric” is a better translation. The words are neutral, that they might call either gender in Hannu Pash.’

‘So my child is the Deliverer?’ Leesha asked incredulously.

‘It isn’t that simple,’ Amanvah said. ‘You must understand this, mistress. The dice tell us our potentials, but most are never reached.’ She pointed to another symbol. ‘Irrajesh.’

‘Death,’ Leesha said.

Amanvah nodded. ‘See how the tip of the die points northeast. An early death is the most common of the child’s futures.’

Leesha’s jaw tightened. ‘Not if I have a say in it.’

‘Or I,’ Amanvah agreed. ‘By Everam and my hope of Heaven. There could be no greater crime in all Ala than to harm one who might save us all.

‘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

Countess Paper

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.’

‘It is not for me to say,’ Arther said. ‘But this afternoon, after announcing your daughter’s birth, she told me my services were no longer required, and that house staff would be reporting to her directly.’

Leesha groaned. ‘I am going to strangle that woman.’ She looked at Arther. ‘Be assured the Core will freeze before I give my mother dominion over my household. I will make it clear to her before the end of the day.’

‘That is a relief,’ Arther said. ‘But with the dismissal of Gamon and Hayes, I cannot help but wonder if I am next in any event. Do you wish my resignation?’

Leesha considered the man. ‘Is it your wish to remain in my employ, with Thamos dead?’

‘It is, my lady,’ Arther said.

‘Why?’ Leesha asked bluntly. ‘You’ve never approved of my policies, particularly entitlements for refugees.’

Indignation shocked through the man’s aura, but Arther only raised an eyebrow. ‘My approval is irrelevant, my lady. It was my responsibility to keep the prince’s accounts balanced and see his funds spent wisely. I questioned every spending policy proposed by the council because I would have been remiss in my duties not to. Nevertheless, when His Highness made a decision, it was carried out diligently and without delay. You may have every confidence that I will do the same for you, if you will have me.’

There was no lie in his aura, but her question remained unanswered. ‘Why?’ Leesha asked again. ‘I expected you would volunteer your resignation soon after my arrival and return to your family holdings in Angiers.’

An image flashed across Arther’s aura. It was distorted, but Leesha could make out a once great Angierian townhouse, fallen into disrepair. It linked to Arther with shame, and with fierce pride.

‘My family’s holdings were mortgaged to buy my commission in the Wooden Soldiers,’ Arther said. ‘That and a bit of luck saw me squire for young Prince Thamos. My life was his. Gamon is no different.’

Another image. Thamos, Arther, and Gamon, inseparable as brothers.

‘But now the prince is gone.’ Arther gave no outward sign of the pain tearing across his aura. ‘As is the Angiers we left. Euchor’s Mountain Spears occupy the city now, with their flamework weapons. The Wooden Soldiers will soon be relegated to policing the boardwalk, breaking up domestic disturbances and illegal Jongleur shows. There is no longer anything for us there, even if we wished to return.’

Leesha had not considered that. ‘Where would you go, if I asked you to resign?’

‘I remain quartermaster for the Hollow’s Wooden Soldiers, unless you relieve me of that as well,’ Arther said. ‘I would return to the barracks while I sought employment among the barons. Baron Cutter, perhaps.’

‘I am still not certain of your loyalties, Arther. I fear I must be quite blunt,’ she tapped her spectacles, ‘and see the answers in your aura.’

Arther looked at her a long moment, eyes flicking to the lamps and curtained windows, and then to her warded spectacles. His aura was active, but it was too complex for Leesha to read, as if he was still sorting his own feelings about this invasion of privacy.

At last he sniffed, pulling himself up straight. ‘You are forgiven, my lady, for any blunt questions you put to me. As it was my due diligence to question your policies, it is yours to question my loyalty before taking me into your service.’

‘Thank—’ Leesha began.

‘But,’ Arther cut in with a raised hand. ‘If we are to work in good faith, you must agree that you will never again subject me to this …’ he waved a hand at Leesha’s spectacles, ‘… undue scrutiny without just cause and evidence.’

Leesha shook her head. ‘If you feel I have invaded your privacy I apologize, but my spectacles are a part of me now. I won’t take them off every time you enter the room. There are going to be changes in the Hollow, Arther. If anyone in my employ is uncomfortable about ward magic, I will of course provide excellent references and generous severance.’

‘Very well, my lady. I shall inform the staff. As for myself, if you have additional questions regarding my integrity, pray ask and let us have it done.’ Arther’s aura roiled with growing indignation. He considered himself above reproach and was offended by her mistrust.