Beneath the Veil Read online

  Food was the last thing on my mind, but while Aeris the lover could have argued, Aeris the student merely replied, "Yes, my lord."

  Lir dressed in movements swift and powerful. His face had gone dark, his eyes far away, his mouth a grim line I knew would grant me no kisses this day. I stopped my hand from brushing back the hair from his forehead, but I did ask him to sit.

  "Let me braid it for you."

  He tilted his head. "You don't have to be my fetchencarry."

  "I know that."

  Lir sat while I combed and braided his hair, then secured it at the nape of his neck. There would be no stray strands to block his vision during the fight. I smoothed my hands over it one last time, then stepped back. Would that my own would be so easily restrained, I thought, but uselessly. I'd have to take my chances with the rawhide ties.

  We found the others dressed and ready, as we were, and we moved out. Most of that day remains a blur in my memory as we moved in discreet formations toward the White Palace. The day that had begun cool became warm and sunny, atypically hot. I remember sweating beneath the kedalya as I stood motionless in the entry hall, waiting to be summoned to do a task. I wondered how follies stood the summer heat, and I blinked sweat from my eyes and called on the Art to keep myself from swaying with nerves and heat.

  Lir was one of the few men who had not spent the night in the hidden bathhouse, so he'd donned a kedalya, hunched his form and made his way there to help the others make their way through the secret passages. I tried not to think about him. It was difficult.

  At last, after a day of being told to run hither and yon, carrying heavy trays of food and drink to the ballroom, scrubbing floors, doing whatever tasks had been demanded of me by Rosten's staff, it was time for the coronation. Rosten had planned it to begin just after the first star twinkled in the dusky sky, and when the call came "follies to the kitchens!" my head snapped up and my exhaustion vanished.

  Everything seemed twice as bright and clear. Every sound twice as loud. I made sure my steps remained smooth and gliding, and above all, silent, though I longed to run and jump toward my goal. I followed the other follies into the kitchen, where we were handed more trays of food to circulate among the guests. I took one, heavy with grapes and other fruit from Daelyn's green houses, and I went into the ballroom.

  I'd never had the chance to attend a formal party here, but had no time to gape at the decorations or architecture. I kept my head low and my tray raised. I mingled among men who plucked food from my tray without acknowledging my existence, and my mouth stretched in a wide, humorless grin every time one of them did.

  We moved like ghosts among Rosten's guests, all of us women at first, though here and there I thought I spotted a folly too tall and broad to be female. Still, it was as we had assumed. Beneath the veil, we all looked much the same. The party grew, with lords and merchants, the heads of all the councils, even some estate owners I could recognize by their country clothes and talk of fields and beasts.

  Rosten's two closest companions, Adamantane and Simelbon, ate and drank and laughed boisterously at the table set up for them close to the dais. Rosten himself mingled in the crowd, shaking hands, clapping shoulders, accepting toasts. He had indeed taken pains to dress himself for the occasion, not in his customary black, but in rich crimson and violet. A King's colors.

  "Hey, you, folly!" He meant me. I glided over to offer the tray of grapes. My fingers clutched the ornate silver edges until my palms ached. I didn't want him to see me trembling.

  Rosten grabbed and began to eat a handful of the fruit. I made the mistake of looking up as I backed away, and his eyes caught mine. His mouth thinned and curved into a frown. I looked away as fast as I could, but it was too late.

  He caught at my sleeve. "Wait a minute, you bold bitch. What do you think you're doing, looking at me? Looking for a beating?"

  I bent my head and shook it, not daring to say anything. He tugged me closer and, before Kedalya, I swear it, he sniffed me. Sniffed, as though he were a dog and I a bone.

  "Let the folly go," said Rosten's companion mildly. "This is your party, my lord. Enjoy it."

  Rosten let me go abruptly and gave the other lord a smile. "You're so right. Why should I allow one small, insignificant thing spoil my success?"

  The other lord took Rosten by the elbow and began to lead him away. He glanced over his shoulder even as he spoke, and gave me a brief grin. A chill ran down my spine. He knew what I was. He was one of us.

  The thought comforted me, that we had so infiltrated Rosten's domain even the guests at his own party were going to betray him. I set off again on my rounds of the room, my back already aching from the heavy tray.

  I couldn't understand the gestures and hints the other follies left me, but I had to believe all was well. My eyes scanned the crowd, but aside from that one young lord, I didn't see anyone I recognized. Even to my eyes, all the follies looked the same.

  At last, the hour arrived. Rosten mounted the dais. He nodded at the loincloth-clad Priest of Sinder, then sat in the throne and looked out into the crowd. Daelyn's ballroom could hold three hundred guests without crowding, and I'd venture there were that and half that more crowded onto the marble floor.

  The murmuring in the room rose as Rosten grinned and nodded. Not all of it was congratulatory. I saw many shadowed expressions and many shaking heads. I stepped toward the platform, my hand at my side. Ready.

  Rosten raised his hands to quiet the crowd, and it fell silent. "My good lords," he began, than fell silent himself, his eyes bulging and staring toward the back of the room.

  Everyone turned to follow his gaze. A figure stood in the grand double doorways at the back of the ballroom.The murmuring grew louder. Shocked. I stole a glance at Rosten's face, which had gone first red, then slowly paler.

  The figure wore white from head to toe. The fabric was sewn from squares of fine linen, silk and satin, edged with lace and spangled with glittering jewels. It was an elegant, luxurious garment, more stunning than anything else in the room, including Rosten's own outfit. It was also a kedalya.

  The veiled form moved forward, a parody of a folly, with the same gliding movements. The crowd parted to let the figure pass, and the muttering grew louder. I heard cries of "ghost" and "spirit."

  The figure mounted the dais and stood close enough to Rosten to touch him. I waited for the Book Monster to move, to strike out at the apparition, but he seemed paralyzed. Slowly, slowly, the figure reached up and unclasped the row of pearl buttons at the neck of the kedalya, loosed the fine fabric hood, and pulled it off.

  "Hello, Rosten," Daelyn said, as insouciant as ever. "I do believe you're sitting in my chair."

  Rosten made to get up, but before he was halfway out of his seat, quick as lightning, something flashed into Daelyn's hand. The blade pressed to Rosten's throat. His guards sprang forward but fell back at Daelyn's warning shout.

  "I fear you've overstepped yourself," said Daelyn, her voice loud in the still-silent ballroom. "But now I've come to take back what you stole from me."

  I've said before that in battle there is no time for thought, that the mind works independently of the body. What I know to be true is that time seemed to slow while my mind kept detailed account of every action and decision I made. As the Art filled me and I pulled off my kedalya in one smooth motion, I found my blade and raised it.

  All around the ballroom, I could see my comrades doing the same. As though a mighty wind had come and ripped us free of our veils, we exposed ourselves to Rosten's guests. There were screams, some from us and many from those we faced, weapons in hand.

  The men who cowered before me, or who did not raise a hand, I spared. I am somewhat ashamed to admit to the zeal and swiftness I used on any who took out their own blades. I was not alone in this. The room was filled with women who had lived their lives subject to the whims and furies of the men of their house, and now they rose up almost as one entity.

  War is not a woman's game, but t