Power & Majesty Read online

  ‘This stitching is very fine,’ said Delphine, fingering a soft noxgown. ‘Did you knit the lace yourself?’

  ‘Never again,’ said Velody. ‘Work like that would turn me blind in a year.’

  ‘Lacemakers make great sacrifices for their craft,’ Delphine agreed with a wicked smile.

  Velody relaxed a little at this evidence that her ladyship had a sense of humour. ‘The ribbons on that festival gown are marvellous,’ she said.

  Delphine shrugged. ‘Ribbons are easy.’

  Velody was dreadful at the finework required for ribbons, but did not say so. ‘I’ve heard that Mistress Sincy the ribboner is looking for apprentices this year,’ she said, then bit her lip. ‘I didn’t mean—’

  ‘Well, yes,’ said Delphine. ‘Ribboning is hardly the most prestigious profession, is it? But I suppose it’s better to be a first-class ribboner than a second-class anything.’ She eyed Velody. ‘You never said what kind of apprenticeship you were hoping for.’

  Velody opened her mouth to say something like ‘Anything with a needle, really,’ which was half-true. But why should she cower at the feet of this demoiselle just because she had pretty hair and spoke like a lady? ‘Dressmaking,’ she said. ‘I want to be a dressmaker.’

  Delphine gave her an amused look. ‘Luckily for you, I thrive on competition.’

  Rhian returned some time later sporting a scarlet band on her wrist. ‘I’m to report to the Apprentice House tomorrow morning,’ she told Velody with glee. ‘My new mistress seems nice enough—though she has a mouth on her. I hope she’s not the type to reach for the birch rods the first time you drop a plate.’

  ‘If she is, you’re doomed,’ said her brother. He came forward to shake Velody’s hand. ‘I’m Cyniver.’

  ‘Nice to meet you,’ said Velody. He seemed nice enough, and her palm was warm where he had touched it. ‘Not too bored?’

  ‘Not now I’ve got our Rhian off my hands,’ said Cyniver. ‘I can visit the librarion in peace tomorrow, before I return home.’

  ‘You and your books,’ Rhian scoffed. ‘Velody, can we fetch you some lunch? You must be starved by now.’

  ‘Anything, please,’ said Velody, not trusting her aunt to remember her.

  Rhian hesitated, then glanced over at Delphine. ‘Shall I fetch you something while I’m at it?’

  Velody waited for Delphine to say something cutting, but the other demoiselle surprised her. ‘That would be kind,’ she said.

  After bringing pasties and cider to the others, Rhian insisted on dragging Cyniver the entire breadth of the Forum to look at all the stalls. Velody didn’t mind. All the apprentices would be living in the Apprentice House by the river for the next seven years, so, assuming she got a position, she would have time enough to get to know her new friend.

  There were plenty of seamstresses and needleworkers among the crowd during the afternoon, and Velody was delighted to receive three tokens. Delphine got four—one of them from the famed Mistress Sincy the ribboner.

  ‘Keep me in mind if nothing more prestigious comes your way,’ the dame said as Delphine hesitated over the indigo token.

  The Forum took on something of a festival atmosphere as the afternoon lengthened, with more of the crowd there for sightseeing than official business. Velody sat with the remains of her pasty in her lap and her cider hidden beneath the trestle, watching the world go by.

  She almost bit the neck off her bottle when she saw a tall young man with red-gold hair stroll through the Forum. He had one arm thrown carelessly around the shoulders of a muscular dark-haired youth, and he held hands with a demoiselle about Velody’s age whose face was painted—as Aunt Agnet would say—like a trollop. The three of them wore bright, dandy clothes like musette costumes. It was the redhead who had caught Velody’s eye though. He was strangely familiar.

  How can that be? she chided herself. You’ve never been to this city before yesterday. You have met no one except the demmes and their chaperones.

  So why did this pretty young man make her head hurt and her chest ache, as if he reminded her of some colossal embarrassment?

  The redhead leaned down and kissed his painted demme—messily, with lips and tongue and teeth. Before Velody could even blush at the impropriety of it—kissing in the streets!—he turned his head and bestowed a similar kiss upon his male friend.

  As the three of them passed Velody’s little stall, the redhead winked saucily at her and she quite forgot how to breathe. She looked over at Delphine to see the other demoiselle fanning herself with a handful of ribbons.

  ‘Things are quite different in the big city,’ said Velody.

  ‘You’re telling me,’ said Delphine, pretending to swoon. ‘I plan to enjoy every minute that I get here.’ She sat up straight all of a sudden. ‘There! In the mauve shawl. That’s Madame Mauris!’

  ‘How can you tell?’ Velody asked.

  ‘I sent Letty to her boutique this morning, of course,’ Delphine said, referring to her maid. ‘She reported back with a very detailed description. There can’t be two noses like that. Hush! She’s coming this way!’

  Velody leaned back on her stool in something like shock. Madame Mauris had examined the work of every young seamstress and needleworker at the fair, and her bronze token had very purposely been placed on Velody’s table.

  Once Velody recovered herself, she tore her eyes away from Madame Mauris’s departing back to look apologetically at Delphine. She was not there.

  When Delphine returned from the registration table with the indigo band of Mistress Sincy the ribboner around her wrist, Velody congratulated her. From that day forward, Delphine pretended that she had intended to take the ribboning apprenticeship all along, and neither Velody nor Rhian ever challenged her on it.

  That was what friends did.

  3

  Garnet

  So what do you want to know? We have all the time in the world. Ask your questions. I imagine everything you’ve heard about me is bad.

  Ashiol? Why am I not surprised? Of course your first question is about him. My friend. We were like brothers, you know. Long before we came to the Creature Court. Long before we fought the sky, side by side.

  When his mother and stepfather sent Ashiol to the city, to play dutiful grandson and almost-heir to the old Duc, he begged them to let me join him. I was nothing to them, the son of two servants, with no purpose but to replace my father when he grew too infirm to tend the grounds of the estate.

  I talk like a gentleman, don’t I? You wouldn’t be the first to be fooled about what I am.

  They let me leave home, to walk a pace or two behind Ashiol, to pick up his clothes when he flung them on the floor, to (let me state this clearly) ensure he got into no trouble in the big city.

  Are you laughing at that part? I can wait until you are finished.

  It didn’t matter what role I was supposed to play in the Duc’s Palazzo. Ash and I found another world that wanted us. A secret war, being fought above the city in the nox sky. The Creature Court did not care whether we had been born on linen sheets or the kitchen table.

  We were young, we were powerful, and we were equals.

  I ran mad with it. For the first time in my life, I was somebody. Animor flowed hot in my veins. When the sky lit up with burning death, I was there to fight it back, to save the city, nox after nox. I took to drinking the fear away, and when the drink wasn’t enough, I turned to potions and powders. The Creature Court was all about decadence, and I embraced that. Every time I fell down, Ashiol was there to catch me.

  One kiss changed it all. The little brown mouse looked meek and young, but her animor was sweet. With that inside me, mingling with my own, I didn’t need anyone’s help. I didn’t need my high-and-mighty beloved Ashiol picking me up out of the gutter, time and time again.

  I was stronger than him. Better. He didn’t realise at first, but when he did…how could he not hate me for it?

  We were Tasha’s cubs, within the Creature Court.
Five of us: Ashiol, me, Lysandor, Livilla, the boy. An unbreakable family. Tasha taught each of us the prime survival traits: selfishness, decadence, viciousness. We loved each other, but she made us hate too. Everything was a competition. When Ashiol was her darling, I was wounded. When she kissed Livilla, the rest of us felt the lack of that kiss on our own mouths.

  Tasha taught us ambition. As a woman, she could never aspire to being a King, but she breathed power. She wanted to rule the Court through us. Once we were Lords, she expected we would let her keep pulling our tails. The hideous thing was, she was probably right. We adored her so very much.

  It’s for the best that I killed her.

  When she fell, the animor rocked through me, transforming me. I glowed from within. It tasted better than that kiss I stole from the little brown mouse—how could it not? I quenched her, drinking deep from the power she had wielded during her lifetime. I was not the only one. But I was the closest, and the best.

  ‘What have you done?’ Livilla screamed, when the others discovered us.

  The boy stayed quiet, staring, like he always did then.

  ‘What do you think?’ Lysandor said in disgust, looking at our fallen Lord’s body. ‘He has done exactly as Tasha taught us all. Lived her lessons fully.’

  I only had eyes for Ashiol. Part of me so desperately wanted him to be proud of me. The other part…I let my face settle into a satisfied smirk. ‘I win.’

  ‘Congratulations,’ he said, dark eyes sweeping over her once, and then locking on mine. ‘Lord.’

  Our true glory came after Tasha was gone. Ashiol became a Lord in his own right, and Lysandor not long after. We were friends, companions, brothers, everything. We fought the sky, defended the city, laughed, loved, danced, killed, frigged. We were untouchable.

  When I was twenty-one, I quenched a fallen warrior in battle and my animor burst into new shapes, new powers. I became a King.

  I had thought Ortheus—our Power and Majesty—would resent me, but he rather took me under his wing. Taught me what I needed to know. Our Court was to be rich in Kings, as it happened. Ashiol and Lysandor were raised up less than a year after I. The sky had no chance against us.

  Then…ah, Ortheus fell. It happens even to the greatest of us. Suddenly we had a Court in turmoil—three young, healthy Kings to choose from. Who would rule? Who would take care of us all?

  I was the most powerful. They knew that. The most ruthless too. I proved that again and again. I won.

  It should have made them love me more.

  There had always been a coward’s streak in Lysandor. He left the city soon after my rule began, declaring that he could not bear seeing what I had turned into, the lengths I was willing to go to in order to be Power and Majesty. A coward and a traitor, Lysandor. Waste of flesh.

  Ashiol stayed. I saw the look in his eyes—that same look Lysandor had given me from time to time—but he stayed true. He stayed for me, as I always knew he would. My right hand. Most trusted, most beloved.

  4

  Chief Day of Sacrifice, Ludi Sacris; four days before the Ides of Felicitas

  Seven years ago, when Velody first came to Aufleur to become an apprentice, she had thought she would never get used to the place. Now she was twenty-one and this city was home. Aufleur was so much larger than Tierce, and grander. For every festival she thought she knew, there were dozens of extra traditions to learn. The month of Felicitas, for instance, in the middle of summer, had fifteen days entirely devoted to sacred games. Fifteen days! It seemed as though the city should screech to a halt with such frivolity, and yet everyone around her took it for granted.

  It was a steaming hot morning when Velody climbed the Avleurine hill to the Temple of the Market Saints with her two friends, all of them wearing their apprentice collars.

  ‘Spare a cake for a poor penitent, demoiselles?’ begged a shabby man beside the path.

  Delphine cradled her basket protectively. ‘Are you mad? I sold my body for these.’

  Velody and Rhian laughed.

  ‘Really sold your body?’ asked Rhian.

  ‘I had to kiss Saul the baker’s assistant,’ said Delphine with a shudder. ‘I’m traumatised by the entire matter, and every day in the future when someone says “Oh, Delphine can get the honey cakes,” I will remind you of my pain.’

  ‘Believe me,’ said Velody. ‘Everyone from the Verticordia to the Aurian Gate knows of your pain.’

  ‘Are you implying that I complain a lot?’ asked Delphine. She shoved the basket at Rhian. ‘This is too heavy. You carry it.’

  It had taken time for the three of them to become real friends. Delphine did not stop being a snooty cow overnight—if anything, she was unspeakably worse for the first few months in the Apprentice House, cutting down every friendly overture with an acidic remark.

  Then the machine had arrived. All the demmes had gaped as it was delivered—a wrought-iron beauty with treadle and table, needles so sharp they hurt your heart. It was Delphine’s fifteenth birthday present from her parents.

  She stared at it, stricken. Later, Velody found her kicking the thing, and they had to call in Rhian to make a cold poultice for her foot.

  ‘They don’t understand,’ Delphine muttered. ‘I can’t use it. Mistress Sincy makes sacred ribbons—for garlands and other state festivals. They have to be stitched by hand, that’s what she’s teaching me. It’s what I want her to teach me. I’m not wasting seven years just to run up hair ornaments for the factory girls.’

  ‘It’s a beautiful machine though,’ Velody said enviously.

  ‘You have it,’ said Delphine in one of a long line of impulsive gestures.

  ‘I couldn’t,’ said Velody, shocked at the thought. ‘It’s so valuable.’

  ‘What do I care about that? You must take it. I’ll only lose my temper and set fire to it, you know I will.’

  Rhian spoke up, ‘You can’t burn metal.’

  ‘I can find a way,’ Delphine said grandly, and then the three of them had laughed.

  It all seemed so long ago.

  The Temple of the Market Saints was crowded. Every citizen sacrificed to their saint of choice on this day, but with the biggest market week of the year so close, every merchant and craftsman in the city was doing his or her duty by the Market Saints. It was nearly noon by the time Velody, Delphine and Rhian squeezed their way into a nook near one of the temple fires. Delphine shared out the honey cakes with due reverence, taking the best ones for herself.

  Velody wrapped her cakes in a hemmed square of linen she had dyed a rich green. ‘Take this offering with my grateful thanks for the year past and ahead,’ she said to the saints. ‘Be kind to me, if it please you, and guide Madame Mauris’s hand to release me from my apprenticeship with full honours.’

  Rhian put out three stems of bright carmentines and stacked her cakes beside them. ‘Keep my family well and safe back home, and may the year ahead be bright and fortunate,’ she said, bowing her head as she spoke.

  Delphine placed her cakes on the stone shelf and laid a violet silk ribbon atop them. ‘I don’t want to go home to Tierce when my apprenticeship is up,’ she said firmly. ‘I don’t want to marry the fat old man my father has lined up for me, I don’t want to leave my friends, and I don’t want to spend the rest of my life sitting idle in a drawing room. I expect you to fix it for me.’ She gave the offerings a sharp push and they burned with a hiss.

  Velody was quite proud of herself for not laughing. ‘We should be getting back to the Apprentice House,’ she said instead.

  ‘Well,’ said Rhian as the three of them emerged into the hot summer sunshine, ‘while Delphine was selling her body for honey cakes, I fetched our post from the Noces Gate—letters from Tierce.’ She delved into her satchel. ‘One from your family, Velody. And one for you from my brother,’ she added, wrinkling her nose.

  ‘Another letter from Cyniver,’ Delphine crowed, snatching it from Rhian. ‘I quite thought he’d forgotten about you this week. Of course,
it must take him at least a week to produce the letter, what with the three rough drafts, and then the careful calligraphy, and the blotting, and the corrections, and the precise folding of the paper—’

  Velody grabbed her letter and tucked it away to read later. ‘Trust me,’ she said. ‘There’s something to be said for a man who knows how to do a job thoroughly.’

  ‘Have mercy on a sister’s ears!’ wailed Rhian. ‘Honestly, why you had to take up with him!’

  ‘She’d already smooched every redhead in this city,’ said Delphine. ‘Obviously she had to write home for reinforcements.’

  Velody elbowed her and Delphine shrieked. ‘Leave off, will you! I’m delicate. Anything for me?’

  ‘Three,’ said Rhian, handing them over.

  Delphine stared at the seal of the first letter. ‘Father.’

  Velody pulled her off the path to sit on the grass. ‘You told your family about our plans?’ she asked.

  ‘To work the markets until we’ve saved enough for our own premises?’ Delphine looked hollow. ‘Oh, yes.’

  Rhian reached over. ‘Shall I read it for you?’

  ‘No! There’s no point. It will say exactly the same as the others.’ Delphine tore the envelope open and scanned the words on the thick, expensive paper. ‘Well then,’ she said and scrunched the letter in one hand.

  ‘Are you disowned?’ Velody couldn’t help asking.

  ‘Not yet. He’s giving me one last chance to change my mind. If I come home by the Ides, without completing my apprenticeship, all will be forgiven.’

  Rhian rested her chin on Delphine’s shoulder. ‘And if not?’

  ‘He’s writing to Mistress Sincy to withdraw his financial support.’

  ‘That’s not a problem,’ said Velody, doing the sums in her head. ‘We’ve less than a month to go. Rhian and I have enough savings to cover your board until then.’