“Smoke? I don’t think so. If you’re having trouble with your eyesight again, Credola, there’s a very fine spectacle shop not far from your house. I’d be well pleased to escort you.”
I stifled a yawn as they continued, once again the Families dominating the conversation while the Guilders held back. Even the two Guilders who were also Credolen—Varina and Pedrag—had earned their positions on merit, and had less to gain from the scramble for position and influence than the Families, whose relative honor and status might shift depending on their relationship with the new Chancellor.
The new Chancellor. The reality of it pressed like an expanding stone in my chest.
As though connecting to my thought, the meeting below drew to its most important conclusion. His handsome face grave, Credo Bradomir sat up straighter. “Honored colleagues, there is of course one more matter to address today. Tradition dictates that we formalize our new Chancellor before we farewell our former.” His voice dropped, becoming gentler, solicitous. “But this has been a terrible shock to us. The Honored Heir has not had sufficient time to prepare for his ascension. I, for one, would be happy to support a longer transition period, if this Honored Council is so generous.” He smiled at Tain, a benevolent elder offering a gift.
“Of course,” Varina jumped in immediately. “It’s only sensible.”
“Yes, yes, a fair point,” Javesto agreed.
“Indeed, indeed,” said Pedrag.
Nara hesitated a moment, her skeletal face twitching as she attempted warmth. “That sounds reasonable to me.”
The stone in my chest pressed harder. A tiny hint of weakness and they were circling. Tain wore the same wide-eyed expression as last time they’d talked over him; Jov looked doubly tense as his eyes flicked around at all the Councilors, but he stayed silent. Had he forgotten he was no longer an observer, but a voice in the Council on his own?
The lowborn Guilders mostly sat in cynical silence—a delay in formally elevating Tain to Chancellor didn’t affect them one way or the other, but they weren’t oblivious to the opportunities it afforded the Credol Families. Marco, though, cleared his throat, looking uncomfortable. “Forgive me, honorable Councilors. Perhaps I do not understand this issue. Was the Heir not presented by the Chancellor and endorsed by the Council years ago? Unless there is to be a new vote, what gain is there in waiting?”
Uncomfortable silence fell. Bradomir continued to stroke his moustache, but a vein in his neck pulsed as he stared at the Warrior-Guilder. Jovan, on the other hand, gave Marco a look that suggested he’d rather like to hug him.
“Of course nobody is suggesting a vote,” said Credo Lazar, whose presence I’d almost forgotten due to his uncharacteristic reticence. “Honored Heir, I stand ready to advise and guide you as you lead us into your most honorable reign.”
Once a few Councilors had echoed the sentiment, they all followed in turn, falling over themselves to offer support; if they couldn’t supplant Tain, they’d seek to make him reliant on them instead. But I didn’t miss the cold calculation in Bradomir’s eyes, or the naked resentment in Nara’s, as they watched their new leader. It was stuffy up in my perch, and far too hot. I shivered all the same.
* * *
The day passed in a kind of busy tedium. Jovan and I both avoided our empty, quiet apartments, where the absence of Etan was most apparent. I crafted a message for Mother and our steward, our third cousin Alozia, in the buzzing anonymity of the Administrative Guildhall, wondering as I did how they would react to the news. Mother and Etan had had such a complicated relationship, brittle from the strain of their mirrored resentments, yet deeply moored in shared respect and history. The extended family, too, would feel the strain not only of the loss of their ceremonial head, but the knowledge that one of the younger generation would need to come to the city to be Jov’s apprentice. Everyone had assumed I would provide him with an heir in time, but no one had expected him to need one so soon.
Just what I needed; another reminder of my limitations. Unconsciously, my hands pressed against my abdomen. I could find a willing partner in the curtain rooms of the bathhouses as easily as anyone, but Thendra had warned me that pregnancy would be dangerous and likely unsuccessful. Perhaps it was for the best that one of our cousins’ children move to our apartments and take my child’s role.
I finished the letter and left it with the assigned messengers. Our family would never make it back for the funeral—it’d be over before they even got the message, probably—but they’d have time to prepare for Jovan and me to return home with Etan’s body, at least.
And, it transpired, part of the reason Tain had insisted on pressing ahead with the funeral was to avoid families returning in time. “He didn’t want to have to deal with his mother,” Jov told me when we met later. “He wasn’t sure which would be worse—her turning up or her staying behind.”
“I’m sure she would have wanted to see Tain,” I said. “And wouldn’t his brothers and sisters have come, too?”
He shrugged. “She made her decision a long time ago. Coming back now, it’d bring the whole thing up again.”
I’d only been ten or so, but it was impossible to forget the intensity of the scandal when Credola Casimira, Tain’s mother and the Chancellor’s only sister, had left Caslav and her eldest son to abscond with a romantic partner, a man of another family. The dishonor to Caslav, and the stain she had left on the remainder of her children by raising them outside the reputation, safety, and security of their own family unit, echoed through society even now. Still, I knew enough about foreign societies and their different conceptions of family to understand Casimira, at least a bit.
“She was in love,” I couldn’t resist pointing out. “Can’t people forgive her for that?”
My brother looked genuinely baffled. “What’s romantic love got to do with family? Casimira abandoned her family and honor, and she cost Tain his siblings. No one would accept them here, when they’ve been raised without a Tashi and without honor.”
“Shh,” I quieted him, as Tain appeared from within the passing crowd.
He had covered his tattoos and was unaccompanied by servants. Not wanting to draw attention, we kept to the busiest streets, sharing the bread Jovan had brought from our own kitchens. Thendra had promised a report by this afternoon, and I doubted any of us would be able to think of much else until we heard what she’d learned from her examination. Our nondescript clothing and hidden family markings seemed to work, because on Red Fern Avenue even Marco walked past, in conversation with two Order Guards, without noticing us. We were almost at the hospital when Jovan touched Tain’s shoulder and gestured behind us with a quick tilt of his head. “Someone recognized you.”
A man I did not know, middle-aged, not distinctive in any way, stood out from the crowd down the street only because of the directed intensity of his gaze. He moved toward us, lifting a hand in a kind of low wave, as if he meant to cry out for our attention.
“The petitioners are starting already,” Tain sighed. “I had to dodge a whole crowd of them getting out of the Manor. He’s going to have to wait, like everyone else. Come on, before I get stuck.”
“Honored Heir!” Instead, the voice came from the other direction, and we spun to see Thendra, her tired face wearing a worried frown. “I would have brought you the report.” She ushered us into the hospital and into a private side room. At her instruction we wiped a waxy substance under our noses. My palms felt hot and sticky and my breath tight in my chest.