Sword Catcher (Sword Catcher, #1)

Kel only stared coldly. “I would prefer to keep them.”

Even after the tailors left, hurrying to make the last alterations to the clothes before evening came, there was no chance to speak to Conor alone. Kel took himself to the tepidarium while Conor was attacked on all sides: his hair trimmed, his eyes smudged with kohl (which would please Lilibet), his jewelry and coronet chosen, and a series of small stars painted in silver along his cheekbones. Kel was relieved to escape all that; Conor had a reputation to keep up, but no one much minded what Kel Anjuman looked like as long as he was respectably attired and clean.

By the time the tailors returned with the final iterations of their clothes, Domna Talyn, the Palace Mistress of Etiquette, was there, reminding them both of key phrases in Malgasi they would need to know that night—how to greet the Ambassador, how to send regards to Queen Iren Belmany, how to inquire after the well-being of Princess Elsabet. “I learned a phrase from a Malgasi gentleman the other night,” Conor said, adjusting his glittering crown among the dark waves of his hair. “Keli polla, b?rzul.”

Domna Talyn gasped. “That is obscene, Monseigneur.”

“But it does show a command of the language, I think,” said Conor, looking innocent. “Don’t you?”

At this point, Kel gave up. He was not going to have an opportunity to speak to Conor on serious matters tonight, and Conor was not in a serious mood regardless. He would wait until tomorrow and try to pry the truth out of Conor then (without giving away his own knowledge) and in the meantime, consider tonight a dead loss.

He did not regret that decision now. Despite Lilibet’s graciousness, her committed decorating, and the efforts of Dom Valon’s kitchen in pleasing the palates of the visitors, tension hung like a cloud in the Gallery, and seemed only to be rising. It was no time to be pondering matters of Beck and debts and the Ragpicker King; Kel’s attention was needed in the moment.

The dinner had begun well enough. Lilibet had outdone herself with the decorations, draping the room in the Malgasi colors, and Ambassador Sarany had been delighted. (It helped that all evidence of Conor’s indoor archery game had been cleared away; even the rents in the tapestries had been mended with impressive speed.)

The high table had been brought down from the dais that was its usual home and placed in the center of the room. Sheer curtains of mulberry silk drifted against the walls, softening the look of the stone. Every shade of the Malgasi color was represented somewhere, from the chairs upholstered in crushed burgundy velvet to the porcelain plates decorated with fat plums. Lilac jade vases over-flowed with heliotrope and lavender, and the wine-colored glass goblets had been provided to Lilibet directly by House Sardou, sourced from their warehouses along the Key. Around the handles of the knives and forks, serpents made of amethyst curled, their diamond eyes glittering.

Their seats around the table had been carefully assigned as well. Kel was beside Sena Anessa, who seemed more amused by the decorations than offended that Sarthe’s presence had been ignored. Conor sat across from Ambassador Sarany, near the head of the table, where a chair had been left empty for King Markus.

Along the wall behind the King’s chair were ranged several members of the Arrow Squadron—including, to Kel’s surprise, Legate Jolivet, who usually chose to remain where the King was, but had placed himself here tonight, where he could stare at the Malgasi Ambassador with a stony expression.

Things had begun to go sour when Lilibet explained that King Markus was too deep in his studies to attend. “Some new star system,” Lilibet had offered airily, the emeralds at her throat catching the light when she moved. “A matter of great import for scholars, of course, though perhaps less for those of us who must live on the earth.”

Sarany had looked furious. Kel understood now why Conor had said he found her terrifying. She was tall and very thin, perhaps forty years old, with a narrow, predatory face. Her dark hair was pulled back tightly, held in place with a dozen glittering pins. Her eyes were deep black, almost cavernous in her bone-white face. Yet despite her extreme spareness, her stare was hungry, as if she wished to devour the world. “Surely you are joking.”

The Queen only raised a plucked, arched eyebrow. Conor tapped his fingers idly on the arm of his chair, and Kel realized how long it had been since he had seen anyone respond to the King’s absence from official events with surprise. Everyone knew that this was how the ruler of Castellane was; one simply accepted it.

“What about Matyas Fausten?” said Sarany. She had only the faintest accent. An accomplished diplomat was likely to speak nine or ten languages fluently. Conor had managed eight, Kel seven. “Will he be here?”

“The little astronomer?” Lilibet seemed puzzled.

“He is Malgasi. I knew him as a tutor at the Court in Favár,” said Sarany. “I would like to see him again.”

“We could certainly arrange that,” said Lilibet, recovering her equilibrium quickly. “I know he was an instructor at your great university . . .”

“The Jagellon,” said Conor, and smiled without any emotion at Sarany.

She looked back at him with her hungry eyes. “In Malgasi, learning is treasured,” she said. “Free education is provided to our citizens at the Jagellon. Among our royal line we number many polymaths. You will find Princess Elsabet a fine match for your own quick mind.”

It was a peculiar thing to say. Peculiar enough that Kel wondered if she had misspoke in uttering the world match; usually diplomats were far more subtle than that in angling for a political marriage. Elsabet Belmany had been included in Mayesh’s list of potential royal alliances, but still, it was strange for the Ambassador to broach the topic with such . . . careless conviction.

Sarany continued to enumerate the Malgasi Princess’s many fine qualities to a puzzled-looking Conor: She could hunt, ride, paint, and sing; she knew eleven languages, and had traveled all over Dannemore, and didn’t Conor think travel was the best broadener of minds? Meanwhile, Sena Anessa had opened a conversation with Kel about horses, and whether it was really true that the finest came from Valderan, or were the horses of Marakand rated too low?