Lavinet's Story - The Culture of the Earth

 “Are you going to marry Pendric?” Lavinet’s youngest sister Estora asked that morning at breakfast. “Everyone’s saying so, and I say he seems awfully interested in you—”

She was cut off by an unladylike slap of a silk fan against her wrist; this was delivered by Lavinet’s other sister, Camilla, who gave an angry toss of her honey-blond curls and hissed: “Our dearest sister is not going to marry anybody, least of all Pendric D’yer!” She cast a hasty glance at their father, who was busy reading his newspaper at the head of the table. “It’s not even the best alliance we could make. If anyone, it ought to be you marrying Pendric.”

Estora, who was sixteen already and who took after her mother’s more docile nature, exclaimed with uncharacteristic passion: “He’s like an older brother to me! If I have to marry him, I’ll burn down Father’s gazebo, too!”

Lavinet, who had been opening her mouth to scold the two younger ones for fighting at the table, let loose a sudden sharp and incredulous laugh. “Estora! You certainly will not.”

Her sister scowled prettily. “Don’t you play the hypocrite, Lavi,” she said. “Everyone knows by now that’s all you have to do to get out of an unwanted proposal.” 

Then they all looked at their father, who was still mercifully engrossed in his paper and hadn’t noticed the conversation at all.

The meal went on with Estora and Camilla continuing to bicker and Lavinet smiling to herself as she sipped her milk-and-honeyed royal tea. Servants bustled around them, replacing their silverware between dishes, setting down fragrant trays of buttery scones with little pots of clotted cream, and portioning out a delicate truffled egg dish whipped to cloud-like perfection. Notably, the flower arrangement they had placed on the table this morning was composed of red cosmos, signifying order and harmony. They had not put any roses in the Naveen residence since around this time last year, when Lavinet’s father had attempted to betroth her to the lordling of Coutre, a grand province to the south. Lavinet, who found the Coutre scion loathsome, had burned down her own famous rose garden in a fit of pique, declaring to her father: “I am not a flower to be grown, pruned, and plucked for the first man who wants to decorate his mansion with me!”

Her father had relented after that, cancelling the engagement and citing his younger daughters’ need of Lavinet after the early death of their mother, his second wife. Now, though, it seemed talk of ending her singlehood was rearing its head once again, this time brought about by the sudden reappearance of Pendric D’yer, heir to the nearby Aster fiefdom and Lavinet’s childhood friend…

“Have you heard any of this ridiculous talk of me marrying Pendric?” she demanded after her meal, sweeping into her suite of rooms without announcing her presence. 

Clara, her lady-in-waiting, was not perturbed by her sudden appearance, or by her abrupt opening volley to the conversation: she was another close childhood friend of Lavinet’s and quite used to it by now. “Of course I have,” she intoned, without looking up from the embroidery in her lap. “He returns after years of studying trade in the Sesz Isles, and the first person he asked after is you? That sort of thing is sure to stir up some gossip.” 

Lavinet flung herself down into the chair beside Clara, looking down at her perfect, tiny stitches, the little pink petals she was embroidering with such delicacy. “Oh—those birds are simply darling: you must hang that up when you’re done, C.” Then she shook herself a little and said: “Wasn’t it you who fancied Pendric when we were children? And if I remember correctly, I’d say he fancied you back.”

Even this failed to disturb Clara, who replied, ever-calm: “That was when we were very young; we’d barely left the nursery, then. Some letters came for you while you were at breakfast, by the way.”

“Oh!” Lavinet rose and moved to the little round table in her parlor, where letters and invitations were usually placed by palace servants; she retrieved two cream-colored envelopes and a small, midnight-blue velvet box she hadn’t noticed on her way in. 

The first letter was from Connley, the Naveen estate’s chief executor, who was in charge of looking after Lockwood’s finances and daily affairs while the family was wintering here at the ducal palace in Sacor and attending the Winter Court. His letter was a rather dry report of merchant doings, taxations, and other details that Lavinet would have to keep track of when she took over her father’s position as head of the fiefdom; an identical copy would have been sent to her father. 

The second letter was a rather silly love poem from a bard who’d been infatuated with her when he’d passed through Lockwood last spring; this Lavinet tossed aside in favor of the small blue box. Inside it was a nest of pure white silk, and atop the silk was a beautiful silver ring, inlaid and set with pale amethysts—her favorite stone.

Clara looked up at Lavinet’s soft exclamation; her eyes widened upon seeing the ring. “That,” she said slowly, “is not from a mere bard.”

“No,” Lavinet agreed, carefully removing the ring and sliding it onto her fingers; it fit upon the longest one. “Nor Pendric—if it was from him, it would have come with a note.”

“Another secret admirer, then?” Clara set aside her stitching and gestured Lavinet forward to examine the ring. “It didn’t come with any other letters. Would an admirer send something like this without declaring their intentions?”

“I’d say the ring alone declares their intentions enough,” Lavinet said, holding her hand up to the light. She wondered who would spring such a lavish gift on her, and so anonymously; it wasn’t the usual way of courtiers, who always had to take credit for their deeds—and sometimes that of others, too. She had to admit it was a good strategy, as far as romantic overtures went: it intrigued her. Frustratingly, though, she knew the palace servants who’d delivered the ring would be of no help; they were trained very well in the art of silent couriering and the politics of the court, and could never be bribed to disclose who had sent something if the sender wished to remain a secret. “What should I do with it?”

“Well,” Clara said, tilting her head. She stopped suddenly when Lavinet’s maid brought in a pot of khav, filling the room with an aromatic warmth, and only continued when the woman had left: “You can put it away, which of course will end the question. Or you can wear it in public, to signify your approval, and see if anyone claims it or gives a reaction upon seeing it on your finger.”

Lavinet chose to do the latter, of course, for she had never been one to let things die quietly in the dark. She put on a dark mauve dress to better show off the ring and went for a walk in the balmy palace gardens with Clara. It was still morning, before the noon bell, and so the appropriate hour to do such a thing: to walk in the gardens in the afternoon implied laziness, as if one had just risen for the day, and to do so at night invited scandal beyond mention. 

The two of them made quite the sight as they strolled arm-in-arm along the pebbled garden paths lined with flowering hedges and complex horticultural sculptures. Lavinet was tall and almost imposing in stature, dressed in rich fineries with a cascade of bright autumn-colored hair falling nearly to her waist in luxurious waves; her wine-colored eyes were lined with kohl and her lips were painted an attractive but demure pale pink. In comparison, Clara was dressed a little more soberly: she was small and petite, with her brown hair put up in a simpler bun and covered by a sweetly-laced bonnet. Although the two were the same in age, Clara always looked more mature by choice; she was Lavinet’s lady-in-waiting, a lesser noble meant to attend upon the greater, and it would be the height of arrogance to attract attention away from her friend and mistress. Lavinet hated this line of thinking, but no amount of arguing over the years had ever changed Clara’s mind about it.

All of the young nobles seemed to be out in the gardens this day, talking, laughing, watching the swans and painted fish in the ponds and enjoying the fine weather after weeks of spring showers. As planned, it wasn’t long before Lavinet and Clara ran into friends of theirs: Saverin, the heir of the Torsari fiefdom, and his cousin—Pendric.

“Oh, hello,” Pendric said, just a little breathlessly as the four of them exchanged the requisite bows and curtsies. The two men were dressed in informal tunics; they had just come from fencing in the palace courtyard, Lavinet surmised with some envy. “This is ill timing! We just finished with some swordplay in the courtyard, Lavi; I’ve heard much talk about your skills with a rapier, and I consider it a travesty that I haven’t witnessed them myself.” 

“Those skills are thanks to you, Pendric,” Lavinet returned, though she and Clara both knew this wasn’t very true. “It was because of you and Saverin playing so much at it as children—and forbidding myself and Clara from taking part—that I became so fixated on it. I practice here and there out of pure spite.”

“She demurs,” Saverin drawled, his eyes glinting mischievously from beneath hooded eyelids. “Back in Lockwood, she rises every morning at dawn to fence with members of her guard, who have been trained not to fear injuring her. I dare say she’d shred you to pieces, cousin.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Pendric said, grinning. “Will you do me the honor of dueling me sometime, Lavi?”

Lavinet kept the polite smile on her face. What he was proposing was bold, forward—noblewomen generally did not meet noblemen alone, which was what his invitation was implying, and certainly not under such circumstances. But she could forgive him some breaches in etiquette; he had, after all, spent the last ten years in the southern islands and had likely forgotten most of his court training. 

What had Pendric so eager to spend time with her, anyway? Marriage rumors aside, they had only ever been friendly with each other; like Estora, she thought of him as fondly as a brother, or perhaps a close cousin. Had his feelings somehow changed in the time since he’d been away? She could not recall ever sending him any letters…

And was he the one who had sent her the ring? He had not glanced at her hand once since they’d entered the conversation; neither, for that matter, had Saverin. 

“You must forgive me, dear Pendric,” Lavinet said easily, shaking her head with a laugh. “Here at the Winter Court, I’m as idle as a slug; I fear rousing myself at dawn would prove next to impossible.” 

“A ride, then,” Pendric put forward, as if expecting her to say this. “Much has been said in praise of your riding, as well.”

“Of your everything,” a new voice spoke with cool amusement from behind them, and they turned to see Lady Tendal of Dunlath leading a small party of ladies and gentlemen down the garden path toward them. Lavinet felt Clara stiffen, ever so slightly, beside her: Tendal was her distant cousin, though the Dunlath heir was so much higher in status and noble rank that she liked to pretend the two weren’t related. In private, Lavinet and Clara called her the Thorn of the Winter Court; she was famed for her beauty, ambition, and ruthlessness.

Tendal also wore her hair down in a dark fall of glossy curls, braided through with tiny white gems. “Good day, Lady Naveen,” she said, fanning herself slowly. It seemed to Lavinet that she always carried a fan, even to informal gatherings that didn’t warrant it. She did not look at or address her cousin. “Is there any end to your accomplishments, I wonder? A few days ago the air rang with acclaim for your grace at the Duke’s spring ball. Shall you lead the way on horseback and fencing as well?” And she curtsied, a formal reverence, her fan coming up to shield half her face in a gesture that indicated modesty deferring to brilliance.

Lavinet felt her shoulders tightening, for this was a subtle and sarcastic insult; that particular fan gesture was used for philosophers in debate, or for artists praising one another—and she knew someone like Tendal of Dunlath did not consider wielding a blade to be an art. But outwardly she did not react; in fact, her smile only grew, and she returned the exact same bow. “I’m quite sure I don’t lead the court in anything but respect for my peers, Your Grace,” she answered sweetly. 

That should have been the end of the conversation, but Tendal could not seem to let the subject go. “No indeed?” she asked, tilting her head with her blue eyes innocently wide. “Why, then, have I heard no end to the stories about the Lady of Steel from Lockwood, who duels her own men with the fury of a hardened soldier and sets gardens aflame with her—courage?”

Insults upon insults! Before Lavinet could speak, Clara interjected quickly: “That rumor is unfounded; a careless gardener left a lantern to be knocked over near the roses. You know this, cousin.”

“Indeed, so I’ve heard. Cousin.” Now Tendal’s fan gestured elegantly in a questioning slant, held at a plangent angle. It was so quick that even Lavinet, versed as she was in fan language, couldn’t catch the meaning of it, and the other ladies in the group were silent. “Regardless, the lady Naveen’s accomplishments never cease to amaze—for where on Earth did she procure such a miraculous ring?”

That drew everyone’s attention to the ring, and though many of them cooed and inquired eagerly over the sender, just as Lavinet had wanted, she couldn’t help but feel jangled and uneasy suddenly. Tendal’s cool eyes looked on as the courtiers crowded close, and Lavinet’s thoughts whirred as she tried to suss out the other woman’s intentions—all while pretending not to notice her. Why would Tendal boost Lavinet’s social standing so readily by drawing attention to the ring herself? And where was her sudden hostility—so subtle that most other courtiers would miss it—coming from? Aside from their shared connections to Clara, she and the Dunlath heir had never had much occasion to interact.

Then she caught where Tendal’s eyes were really resting—on Pendric—and she made the connection in an instant. Ah, she thought. She’s in love with him—or at least is after his hand. Pendric’s return had created quite a stir in the Winter Court; his family’s fortunes had increased immensely due to some fortuitous dealings in the south, which in turn had earned the Autarch’s favor—so though Pendric was technically not of much higher noble standing than Clara, his current social and political influence made him a very attractive bachelor. And if there really were rumors flying around about his and Lavinet’s impending engagement, it stood to reason that Tendal was not looking upon her very kindly.

But I’m not in love with him, Lavinet thought to herself. Pendric was tall and good-looking enough, with a charming curl of dark brown hair and a winning smile—but her feelings for him were familial, merely comfortable. She did not feel the spark of wild attraction she wanted—no, needed—in a husband.

It’s all those romance novels gone to your head, Camilla sometimes said. They’ve put all these silly fancies in your mind, so now you won’t accept any man and go chasing after dreams.

Not a dream, Lavinet rebutted to herself. They were part of the most powerful and wealthy group of people in the known world. What good was all that status and influence if it could not be exercised in the pursuit of things like love? Why bother being a noble—or considering nobility a desirable thing—if it meant being trapped in gilded cages, helpless positions and forced marriages? If she had no say in the matter, she’d be better off as a farmer’s daughter—wouldn’t she?

And besides, she suspected that Pendric did not love her, either. That was clear enough in his polite indifference to her ring; instead, he stood there making conversation with Clara, not even glancing at her hand once. No, there was some other reason why he kept asking to spend time with her alone. 

“When did you receive it?” another noblewoman, Mera of Theron, asked her. 

“This morning,” Lavinet answered with an appropriately-secret smile. 

“Was it that foreign ambassador who took such a fancy to you?” 

“I have no idea,” Lavinet said airily, though she did not remember such an ambassador. “It came without a note, or any sign of who it might have come from.”

Mera sighed. “A secret romance!” she exclaimed dreamily. “How terribly traditional!”

“We must get to the bottom of this,” Tendal announced, directing everyone’s attention back to her. “It may take hours, going through the ranks of Lady Naveen’s numerous swains”—another insult, Lavinet thought—“and it won’t do to stand around in the sun while we do it. Will you promise me a little of your time, Lady, perhaps at my residence next evening?” She flicked her fan at Pendric and Saverin. “You have the evening free?”

They both bowed. “It would be my delight,” Pendric answered readily enough, but Saverin, who hated Tendal as well as dinner parties, drawled so much that he almost slurred: “Regrettably, other obligations have a previous claim on me.”

Tendal drew a short curtsy. “I will invite a few more of your many friends, Lady Naveen. Do not distress me with a refusal.”

There was no artful way of getting out of that. “It would be the highest honor,” Lavinet answered, batting her lashes, and for a moment the two of them stood there, smiling at each other like two cats grinning over a kill. If Lavinet had had her rapier, she would have entered the guard position: the one that marked the beginning of every bout.

The duel was on.

#

Lavinet’s father made his departure that evening, taking Estora and Camilla back to Lockwood with him; only scions and heirs to noble families stayed the duration of the season at the holding court. The Naveen residence felt empty as always without them, and in the press of the chilly silence, Lavinet and Clara stayed up late into the night discussing strategies on how to deal with Tendal and whatever she was scheming.

“Obviously she views you as a threat,” Clara said. “You’ve been the talk of the season; I’m sure she’s sick to death of hearing about you. Now Pendric returns, eligible and appealing and very much within her grasp—and his eyes seem to be on you. She wishes to eliminate you, perhaps humiliate you enough for you to cut your season short and return to Lockwood early.”

The best thing about having a lady-in-waiting was that she was a noble, too, and just as well-versed in court mannerisms, etiquette, and protocols. The two of them were sitting at Lavinet’s windowsill, watching the dark blanket of the night sky lighten to blue as they sipped on hot chocolate. “I daresay if the positions were switched, I would be doing the same,” Lavinet said with a shake of her head. “Still, it seems quite a lot of work for Pendric, of all people. Did she interact with him much when you were children?”

Clara shook her head. “Not at all. As he was deemed just as lowly as me, we were often shunned together, and she turned her sights to higher prizes.” She hesitated, then added: “And Pendric is kind to everybody, so she might have mistaken his courtesy as interest, and now views the two of you as in conflict.”

Lavinet smiled to herself. “Do you think they would make a good match?”

She enjoyed the wrinkled distaste that crossed Clara’s face before it was quickly smoothed away behind her courtier’s mask. “As well-matched as a viper and a hare,” she answered—then she covered her mouth with her hand as Lavinet laughed. 

“C, that might be the most unkind thing I’ve ever heard you say!” 

Clara looked waspish. “Sometimes the truth is unkind,” she replied.

Lavinet had trouble falling asleep that night—or morning. There was a tight, thrumming feeling in her chest, as if something was about to happen; she had that feeling sometimes when she felt the atmosphere change, the build in pressure that preluded a storm. Sometimes these machinations at court were so thrilling she could barely think of anything else; all her thoughts were occupied by her next move, her next reaction, the thousands of plans she would need to employ should some social maneuver happen. This was how nobles garnered their power at court, feinting and riposting with each other, cutting one another down and sowing seeds and loyalties and contingencies and secrets and threats to cultivate later. By the time they came of age and into their positions as leaders and governors, the garden of the court would be determined by their actions as youths: whoever was flourishing and whoever was weeded out by then was decided here and now. 

At other times it all felt so insignificant, so petty, that there were moments where she wanted to tear at her hair and scream. As much as she enjoyed the politicking—even, yes, the scheming—there was a greater awareness that what happened here shouldn’t matter very much at all. Who cared if some wife of a merchant-lord got drunk at a banquet, or if a young suzerain wore the wrong kind of sash to a dance? There were times when she longed to do more, to do better in the world, to enact some great change that actually helped people, like the children she’d seen walking barefoot on the road to Sacor… She wanted her legacy, the biographies written about her, to be about more than her fashion sense and the grandness of her soirees. 

But where she could start, or how, she simply didn’t know. 

And besides, she thought, if she strayed too far from the herd now, and made a show of trying to champion some abstract cause or throwing her money at charity… her father might decide she had too much free time and try to marry her off, after all.

Morning broke on news that Lavinet had not been expecting: the messengers brought her an invitation to Tendal’s dinner party, but none was offered to Clara. 

“That witch,” Lavinet raged over her morning tea. “I won’t go—she said she would invite my friends! Who would she invite, if not you?”

“You must go,” Clara said, her eyes wide. “It would be a terrible insult not to—and I have no interest in attending a party of Tendal’s, anyway. My only concern is for you; but at least Pendric will be there to watch out for you.” 

Clara spoke of Pendric in very high terms for not having seen him in ten years, Lavinet thought then, but she was too angry with Tendal at the moment to comment on it. “I’ll go, then,” she groused mutinously. “But I hope I track in mud, and all over her priceless Luxuen rugs.”

“Lavinet!”

That evening, Clara dressed her carefully in one of her finest gowns, a resplendent lavender affair that hugged Lavinet’s form in a very flattering way. It was one of her favorite dresses, and it boosted her confidence as she gazed into the mirror while Clara deftly braided violet ribbons into her hair. Knowing one looks one’s best is enormously bracing, she thought—but of course, they were careful not to make her look too eye-catching, so no one could fault her for trying to draw attention away from her hostess. It felt a little like being kitted out in a suit of armor before a battle—and, ridiculously, Lavinet really felt that she was heading into enemy territory, a place where she knew her opponent was lying in wait for an ambush. Tendal was up to something, and she had not yet found out what; and yet she must meet her on the battlefield anyway. There was that same steely feeling of going to war. 

She wore her ring, too, both because it matched and because it felt like a good luck charm: the same way a soldier carried a lover’s token into battle.

Although the Dunlath residence lay on the same palace grounds as her own, Lavinet took a carriage over, for the rain had started up again and, for all her jokes, she would rather die than track mud into the party. As soon as she arrived at the entrance of Tendal’s salon, she was greeted not by Tendal—who was occupied by a group of visiting nobles from the West—but by Pendric, who caught her elbow and drew her aside to a quieter corner. A strange and haunting kind of music drifted from the other corner, where a quartet of foreign-looking players performed and cavorted as they played their instruments. Their voices sounded oddly discordant for such an intimate party. 

“Where’s Clara?” Pendric asked, looking around with a frown.

Lavinet gently tugged her elbow out of his hand, casting her eyes surreptitiously around the room. Although externally no one seemed to notice them, being seen conversing in private together was only going to fuel the rumor mill. “She wasn’t invited,” she replied in an undertone. 

Pendric, realizing the significance of this, grimaced. “I suppose it’s just as well,” he began. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you alone.”

Lavinet frowned. “Is this really the place to do it?” I’m in the middle of the lioness’s den.

“I don’t know if I’ll get another chance,” he answered, leaning forward to whisper. 

“Another chance to do what?” Rather fed up with his cryptic behavior, Lavinet added austerely: “Really, Pendric, all this cloak-and-dagger business is getting absurd. What has been going on? Was it you who sent the ring, after all?”

A look of confusion crossed his face. “No,” he answered, with the ease of someone being honest with her. “I’m sorry, Lavi, but it wasn’t me.” Then he shook his head. “No, I’ve been meaning to ask for your permission—well, it’s something private—and I didn’t think it well to ask in front of anyone else, including Clara—” He faltered under her glare; he was babbling on like a schoolboy. 

“Permission for what?” she demanded.

“Letters,” Pendric blurted. “We’ve been writing back and forth since I left, and—”

Suddenly the music from the corner hit a high and strident note, and instantaneously, Lavinet’s palm itched; and before she was quite aware of it, her hand had flashed up and she had slapped Pendric full-force across the face.

The sound of the slap was so loud in the sudden cessation of conversation in the room that it was almost funny, certainly absurd. Partygoers stared openly, and so did Pendric: he gaped at her, stunned and speechless. Lavinet, mortified, began to say, “I’m sorry—I don’t know why I—”

But then heat flashed in her hand again, and her fist curled uncontrollably as if she’d entered rigor mortis; and she found herself lunging at Pendric to punch him in the stomach.

Pendric, to his credit, dodged capably, and for a few moments the two of them were locked in a strange and cartoonish dance while Lavinet was drawn forward by a force she couldn’t resist and Pendric hopped back and forth, effectively running away from her. They knocked into a servant carrying a tray of egg tarts, which went flying; the silver platter crashed against the floor like a cymbal, and all around there were exclamations of alarm and surprise.

Suddenly Tendal was there, interposing herself: she grabbed Lavinet’s wrist and said in an imperious way: “Lady Naveen, I insist you stop!”

All at once, all the strange heat leaked out of Lavinet’s hand, and her arm went limp and slack. She stared, with a kind of horrified roar of noise rushing in her head, at the chaos she’d wreaked in just a manner of moments. There was food splattered all over—yes, the priceless rugs—and even on some bystanders’ shoes; and there was a dark, reddening handprint on Pendric’s face. Tendal was saying something about her habits, something about her penchant for fencing leading to fisticuffs, barbaric behavior—but Lavinet wasn’t fully listening. What had come over her just now? Why on Earth had she lost control of her own limbs? 

“Please, it was nothing,” Pendric was saying over Tendal. “Lady Naveen was simply reenacting a story she’d witnessed; it was my fault, for I allowed things to get out of hand…”

Hand, Lavinet thought—and her gaze flew to her own hand, still being held arrested in the air by Tendal’s grip. Something on her limp fingers sparkled a little in the light: the amethyst ring!

All at once she tore the ring off her finger and flung it to the ground, so viciously that it bounced in the air like a coin and rolled out of sight. There were more exclamations, but Lavinet ignored them as she jerked her hand out of Tendal’s grasp. The other woman clearly had not been expecting this, and watched her with a tight-lipped, startled gaze. Lavinet’s thoughts flew together, then apart again, then together once more to present a picture she barely understood but trusted was right. She locked eyes with Tendal, who went pale at her knowing look—and, sensing the shift in power, Lavinet seized control. Clearing her throat, she turned to address the crowd.

“I’m sorry,” she said, allowing her voice to tremble a little. “That ring—I believe it’s cursed. Could someone please find it and destroy it?”

Gasps and frightened looks, now: someone in the crowd said, “Did you say cursed?”

“I—I think so.” Lavinet seized the opportunity to paint a picture of her innocent joy upon receiving the ring from a mysterious admirer, how she had worn it ever since and how it had seized control of her hand just now. And it was true, at least mostly; she did suspect the ring was ensorcelled. And it was not unheard of that a Diminished Mage might target one of the nobility. 

She only left out who she thought the ring had come from.

“The Mage could still be on the grounds,” she said, endeavoring to look frightened, vulnerable, worried. “If the ring was meant to give them control over me, they might be nearby. We’ll need to call the Inquisitors and ask them to search the premises. And I’ll need to undergo tests—procedures—” 

That she was volunteering herself for such a thing could only make her look selfless, she thought. Concerned only with the greater good. She turned to Pendric and said, “I’m so sorry, Lord D’yer—I have no idea why they would want me to harm you—” 

His eyes were wide. “Do you think it was an assassination attempt?” he asked. “Thank the One-God you had the foresight to take that thing off before it could force you to do harm!” 

She couldn’t discern if he actually believed her or if he was merely going along with it for his own reasons.

Someone else had retrieved the ring and was holding it with their kerchief as if it were diseased. “If we give this to the Inquisitors, they could trace it back to its source,” the man said, holding the thing up to the light with distaste. Now it looked evil, a sinister dark circle against the firelight. “If the Mage in question is nearby, they’ll be able to capture them.”

Murmurs of agreement, and concerned and sympathetic looks to Lavinet, the tragic heroine and helpless tool of some wicked Mages—though it appeared she’d also saved the day with her quick thinking. Pitting a sweet noblewoman against Diminished villains, Lavinet thought with some chagrin, was always an easy way to garner sympathy. 

Tendal had gone quite pale-lipped, her fists bunching in her skirts. She said airlessly, “We must end the party, then, and return to our homes.”

Oh, no, you don’t, Lavinet thought savagely, rounding on her. “On the contrary, Lady: don’t you think it would be safer if we all stayed together and gave our witness accounts to the Inquisitors?”

More nods of agreement and approval. Tendal’s nostrils pinched in an unflattering way, and she said stiffly, “I find myself quite distressed that you’ve brought such a cursed object into my home, Lady, and your assault of Lord D’yer does not help matters. I must insist you leave.”

That was her own death blow, for the looks people shot her then ranged from incredulous to suspicious; she had thoroughly painted Lavinet as the wronged victim here, now cast out into the cold… and Tendal had become the villain of the highest order, triumphantly casting accusations at her when Lavinet had actually been under the thrall of some curse that she’d never asked for. 

“Will you make sure that ring gets into the right hands?” she asked Pendric, turning away with the dignity of a martyred saint. 

“I’ll go with you,” he said, glancing sidelong at Tendal. “Lord Ulric may handle the matter.”

The last thing Lavinet saw of that party was Tendal’s contorted look of rage… and fear. It was a look she’d seen in someone else before, the first time she’d dueled an opponent in earnest and drew blood with the point of her blade. She’d wondered, even back then, exactly how easy it was to kill somebody. 

#

Lavinet made sure that the rumor got out—first through the servants, who would report to their masters, who would report to each other—that the Inquisitors had given her a clean bill of health and confirmed her suspicions: that the ring had been enchanted to make her slap Pendric. Why such a thing would be made and sent to her, it was hard for them to say, but she heard that they would spend the next sennight scouring the palace grounds and interrogating servants.

“It was designed to humiliate you, of course,” Clara said the next morning. “Tendal knew you would wear it, knew that you would attend her party, and knew that she could use it to both create a scandal in front of everyone as well as ruin your chances with Pendric.” She shook her head. “I’m sure she never expected you to put the pieces together so quickly, or to tell everyone that it was a spell. Most opponents wouldn’t have realized it, or had the courage to turn the story in their favor… They would have been so mortified and confused that they would have just gone along with whatever she said and looked foolish.” She smiled ruefully. “She made the deadly mistake of underestimating you. You always have been very quick on your feet.”

“It’s the dueling,” Lavinet quipped absently. Then she shook her head. “To go as far as hiring a Mage, though… If she were discovered, humiliation would be the least of her worries; she could have her head chopped off.” She paused, thinking on it. “I’m sure that band of strange musicians she hired has mysteriously vacated the palace, as well.” 

“Dunlath has dealings with Karzai,” Clara offered then. “I’m sure she would have encountered an unscrupulous magic-user or two in her studies of the family’s trade, and gotten used to using them in such a way that it would be hard to discover. I’m just thankful she didn’t use those connections to greater misdeeds.” She absently ran a brush through the ends of Lavinet’s hair. “Now all that’s left is to decide her fate.”

Lavinet fell silent at that. It was true: as the wronged party in the exchange, she was ultimately the decider of what would happen to Tendal of Dunlath. Already the gossip had come to her that nearly everyone at the party had pledged partisanship to Lavinet, taking her side; it seemed Tendal was already unpopular, flaunting her power and status in such a way that others longed to see her robbed of it… and this had simply provided everyone the excuse they’d been wanting to shun her. All Lavinet had to do was give her the cut, pretend not to see her in public, and suddenly Tendal would be retiring back to Dunlath claiming some unknown ailment…

“Do you think she really did it for Pendric?” Lavinet asked then. “If she had, she must love him, don’t you think?”

“I don’t think it was that,” Clara said, with admirable steadiness. “I really think she must have been mad with envy over you, all this past year. Your defiance of your father last spring has made you a figure to admire in court; add to that your—eccentricities—and it’s all become quite fashionable to talk about you. I’ve even heard some of the young ladies are taking up fencing. She could only listen to all that and bear it in silence—or imitate you along with the rest, which would kill her—or find some way to end it. You are a trendsetter this season, and she hated that.”

I am Lavinet, not someone trying to set trends, she thought, but she would have been lying if she’d said the thought didn’t give her some gratification. Was it really true that her influence had spread enough that other nobles were copying her? She couldn’t help the little smile that tugged at the corners of her mouth. How far could that influence get her?

Then she caught Clara’s eyes in the mirror, and thought again about how all the status in the world could not get her a fiancé that she cared for, and she said softly, “Do you love him, C?”

Clara’s burgundy-colored gaze flew up; she looked very much like a startled bird, frozen behind Lavinet mid-brush stroke.

After a long moment, she said, her tone unreadable: “…What did he tell you?”

Lavinet shook her head. “Not much. Something about exchanging letters—I pieced the rest of it together myself. He’s been wanting to talk to me alone about you. Hasn’t he?” When Clara didn’t answer, she turned and took the hairbrush out of her hand. “Why didn’t you tell me you were writing letters to Pendric all this time?”

“I don’t know,” Clara said, a little helplessly. “I didn’t intend to hide it from you. It just felt—special, something just between us, not meant to be shared. I swear, I did not conceal it from you with any intention other than that it made me feel happy to have it just to myself.”

She looked unhappy, rather than like a girl in love. Lavinet said, casting her eyes away: “You hid it well.” She felt a little bitter, a little hurt that her closest friend in the world had not seen it fit to tell her about something this important—and for so long—but she knew she could not hold it against her. She continued, more gently: “He feels the same way about you. I suppose he wanted to get me alone to ask for your hand?”

A lady-in-waiting could not be married without the permission of her mistress. Clara closed her eyes and said, “He already asked, some time ago. When he was in the isles. I told him no.”

Lavinet’s heart gave a little jolt in her chest. “Why?” she cried, shocked.

Now Clara looked positively miserable. “I do not want to leave you,” she whispered. “I don’t want to be released from your service.”

Lavinet sat there, thunderstruck, long after Clara had put away the brush and silently exited the room. She felt as if all the air had been punched out of her, as if she’d been struck by a fist; she felt both confused and enormously guilty. 

Of course, some part of her thought. Of course her rose-burning stunt had finally caught up to her. 

Ladies-in-waiting could not be married before their mistresses were. It was part of an old, old law, from back before the time of the Castigation: it meant Clara could not marry Pendric, even if she wanted to, unless Lavinet married first… which she had made clear would never happen unless it was on her own unlikely terms. Or Clara could marry him if she was no longer Lavinet’s lady-in-waiting and was free to do what she wanted, unbound by her service. 

But Clara didn’t want that. And Lavinet didn’t want it, either.

I’m selfish, she realized then. And blind. How could she never have guessed that Clara was in love, or that she was going through this kind of turmoil? How many years had passed, with Clara writing letters to Pendric, smiling in a lovesick way over them in the privacy of her rooms, skipping merrily away when a new one arrived? How many times had Lavinet wept to her about her heartaches or her frustrations, her disastrous courtships, and had never thought to ask—or see—that Clara was in love with someone herself?

It had never occurred to her, Lavinet thought with some dismay. She’d thought that everyone was like her, that if Clara felt a certain way, she would make it known without needing to be asked. No, it was more than that. On some level, it had never occurred to Lavinet that her somber, mature friend could even fall in love. 

It must have been so obvious! she scolded herself, feeling a flare of impatience and anger. All those times Pendric had approached them, inciting the rumors and murmurs that predicted a looming engagement; but his eyes must have been on Clara all along, and vice-versa, and Lavinet hadn’t noticed the signs even though they were glaring right at her! She’d been too self-centered to think it had to do with somebody other than her; and she’d taken Clara for granted. Her and Pendric, both. 

Another part of her twisted away in dislike, even resentment. She already had enough pressures on her to marry, as soon as possible: she did not need the happiness of two dear friends to add to that!

Abruptly, she stood and hastily threw on her dressing clothes. She hated to sit still and alone with her thoughts for long, especially when they were bleak; she needed action, something to occupy herself with before she wilted under the weight of her emotions. 

Before she knew it, she had crossed the palace grounds—mud and all—and was standing once more at the threshold of Tendal’s residence. A maid answered the door, and her eyes widened slightly at the sight of Lavinet standing there in her dirty shoes and parasol.

“My ladyship?” the maid said, her voice now blank as she held the door close, as if to guard against Lavinet’s entry; Lavinet suspected she might have turned her away if Tendal had not appeared in the background.

“Who is it, Kestral?” Her voice was nearly unrecognizable, absent the sophisticated courtly drawl and sharp with repressed emotion. 

In silence the maid opened the door wider, and Tendal saw her, and her blue eyes turned cold and angry; there were dark marks under them, as if she hadn’t slept the entire night. She curtsied, the gesture dripping with irony: it was the bow of a lesser to a sovereign. “Lady Naveen,” she said, so softly it was as if she hadn’t spoken at all.

Lavinet drew her head high. “May I have a moment of your time?”

She gestured, her fan snapping open to signify welcome, and within moments they were sitting in a salon—a different one than had housed the party the night before. Well, Lavinet was sitting; Tendal moved to stand behind a high-backed upholstered chair, resting her gloved hands on it in a picture of perfect control. She stared at Lavinet with her cold eyes, and as the silence grew protracted, Lavinet realized she would not be the first to speak.

“Is it safe to talk here?” she asked, folding her hands in her lap. “Will we be overheard?” By servants or otherwise?

Tendal arched a brow before shaking her head in a slow, sarcastic way. Lavinet sniffed. If she was lying, it would be she who suffered the consequences, not Lavinet. 

“Why did you send me the ring?” she asked then, her voice perfectly steady and businesslike. “I’m no rival of yours.”

Tendal made a sharp gesture of negation; a diamond ring glinted on her ring finger like a spilled teardrop. Lavinet realized suddenly that she was dressed in a very rich and gorgeous teal gown, the color of the season, which made her wonder who else Tendal had been expecting to visit her today. 

“It’s true,” she continued calmly, looking around at the finishings of the room; stupidly she did wish that Tendal would have the courtesy to serve tea, though the chances of it being poisoned were probably high. “Though I suspect this went beyond Pendric, as it would have required planning from before he arrived back at court. And yet I have never threatened Dunlath or any of its doings.”

Tendal snorted. “Please,” she said. “You make it no secret your ambitions to reach the Sun Court, to gambol in the arena of our highest lawmakers: I have no doubt you aim to have the ear of the Autarch herself. Is this goal not to increase the Naveen holdings?”

Lavinet blinked. “Not exactly,” she began carefully. “Of course, I love my family and wish to see it prosper; but I feel it has quite enough as it stands. My ambitions regarding the Sun Court have little to do with my house’s riches and more to do with my own… personal desire for power.”

Tendal laughed sharply. “I think you are being a trifle disingenuous,” she said. “This bucolic play at honesty is undoubtedly charming to others, but not to me.”

Lavinet tried not to huff in exasperation and instead spread her fan in the sign of honesty and supplication. “It’s true,” she repeated. “You’ve heard of my… dissatisfaction with my—our—lot in life. Our directive to marry whoever it is our fathers or betters think best. To produce children to further the bloodline—forget that our minds and wits are more valuable than our wombs.” She was aware of how scandalous this talk was—she had not even breathed a word of it to anyone but Clara—but Tendal was hardly in a position to use it against her. And it seemed, reluctantly, the Dunlath heir was listening. “If I desire to accrue personal power, it is so that I may have control over my own destiny—and, yes, some power to impact the world around me, to do as I see fit and perhaps use my influence for good. But this ambition does not threaten Dunlath, or any other fiefdoms; I do not wish to expand my own empire across the Continent… only to help shape the one that already exists.” 

There was a long moment of silence, and Tendal’s lips thinned until they were just a pressed line. She said tightly: “I could…almost…believe you, had I not heard your name dinned in my ear for the last year and more. The remarkable stand you took against your father and your engagement to Coutre. Your skills and gallantry in learning practices many thought women could not succeed in: swordsmanship, riding. Your intervention in trade negotiations between your cousin’s family and the Desalles, where you so handily swept up all involved into your new financial proposal and prevented your cousin from having to be married off to Baron Desalle. You aim to change the very foundation of how the court operates. There are some who think you a revolutionary.”

Lavinet had to laugh at that, which she saw at once was a mistake. She could see how these things had been spun so that she seemed like a folk hero, some champion of what-have-you; but the truth of the matter was, all of things Tendal had listed was a product of her own headstrong ways—she merely liked to prove people wrong when they told her she couldn’t do something, and not for any greater reason than that—and her pride, or for any number of selfish and petty reasons. She’d stepped into the Desalle negotiations because her cousin had begged her to find a way to keep her from getting married to an eighty-year-old man; Lavinet had not considered the consequences of anything beyond that. She was fair enough at fencing and racing, but only because it satisfied her to see the look of surprise on people’s faces when she beat them. It was no different than how she’d looked at sparring with Tendal in a social setting, before any of this had happened. She merely liked to win. 

“I do not have very many noble causes,” she said, “or if I do, they are only vague and half-formed. Regardless, I say again that you and I have no reason to have enmity between us; and if you do as I say, we can forget any of this business ever happened.”

Tendal straightened, then, and her eyes lit up triumphantly. “Now we come to the cut,” she said. “What is it that you want of me?”

“Leave Pendric be,” Lavinet said. “And no, not because I want him for myself—I swear on my mother’s grave that I will never marry him. But he doesn’t love you; or me, for that matter. Whoever he chooses as his wife, I want you to swear to leave them in peace, or to protect them in your own way, if you can, from the barbs and arrows of court gossip.”

Tendal regarded her for a long moment, eyes narrowed; Lavinet knew she was assessing the deal from all angles. “And in return?” she asked carefully. 

“In return,” Lavinet said, “we shall go for a walk together, this morning, in the gardens, as if we are very good friends and the events of last night were a joke of the past. That will fend the rumormongers off, and soon the incident will be forgotten if we act pleasant and warm to each other, the memory replaced by whatever fresh scandal takes place tomorrow, or the day after that. I will go to the Inquisitors and tell them the ring came from outside of the palace, after all, and I shall never breathe a word of what I know about it to another living soul. And afterwards we can go back to the way things were—but without any hatred between us.”

Tendal stared at her. “There must be something more,” she said.

“There is none,” Lavinet returned. “You may take my terms or leave them.”

After a very long silence, Tendal finally loosed a shaky breath. “Very well,” she answered stiffly. That was all she said; and so they went. 

It was not a very comfortable walk. Though they walked arm-in-arm, Tendal barely said five words to her, and it was obvious the shock on people’s faces as they came down the garden paths—before their expressions were hidden behind the polite courtier’s mask. It might have been funny had Lavinet been on the outside, looking in; but instead it gave her the unsettling feeling that, no matter how entertaining certain stories could be, at the bottom of them all was someone getting hurt. Sometimes very badly.

When they were done with their walk, Lavinet slipped out of Tendal’s arm, nodded to her, and began to walk away. Tendal half put out a hand and said, “Have you heard the story of Lady Berendal and her lady attendant Beryl?” 

“Yes,” Lavinet said. “They were as close as sisters.”

“Beryl was Berendal’s lady-in-waiting,” Tendal said. “And remained so all her life. She was also betrothed to her beloved for fifteen years before Berendal married. I’m told it was a very happy engagement; and when Berendal finally wedded, Beryl married her betrothed the day after. While uncommon, it was not something that was frowned upon.” She looked at Lavinet. “It is something to consider.”

So she had sussed out Lavinet’s intentions regarding Clara, after all. Lavinet curtsied. “I didn’t know that. Thank you.” 

Tendal curtsied back. Again it was the deep one, the bow of a petitioner to her sovereign, but this time it was low and protracted and somehow wordlessly sincere.