Shenia gives her a respectful bow and hurries out with a single backward glance at the blushing Talon.
“I will turn my back,” says Meno? to Talon. “I apologize for any discomfort you have felt. It was not my intention to embarrass you but it is the only way I could have a private word. If you don’t mind.”
I start to rise but Meno? shakes her head and I finally understand.
They want a private word with me.
Talon climbs out of the water, the wet towel clinging to her body. I nod at her, and to my surprise, she meets my gaze and nods back at me as to a fellow adversary, then goes out.
Lady Adia looks around for a place to sit but the only benches in the soaking chamber are the ones in the pool itself.
“I can bring you a stool from the bathing chamber, my lady,” I say.
“Do not bestir yourself. Are you pregnant with his child?”
I must stare like a simpleton because after a long pause she speaks more slowly and with hand gestures, as if she thinks I am deficient.
“Are. You. Pregnant. With his child?”
“Dearest Mother, you just heard her speak Saroese so you must know she understands you.”
“No, my lady. I’m not pregnant.”
To my absolute shock, she pats my hand with a weary smile. “I’m so glad. That way we won’t have to kill the baby.”
“Uh.” I struggle to find an answer but all that comes out are choked fragments.
“He chose you for himself, you know. Princess Berenise and Lord Gargaron brought in attendants and concubines and all manner of attractive young women, and young men too, but it was just that he didn’t want people choosing for him. He didn’t trust them.”
“You can scarcely blame him for that!”
“Indeed I never did. I admired him for it.”
Since this is the oddest conversation I have ever had, and in circumstances that quite defy belief, I keep speaking. “Are you glad he is king, my lady?”
“My dear child, I have learned to live one day at a time. Any day my son is still alive is a day I am glad.”
“May I ask you another question, my lady?”
She squints in a way that makes me think her actually nearsighted, a troubling difficulty to have in a world where people you can’t trust may get close enough to knife you before you realize who they really are. “Of course.”
“Dearest Mother, you don’t have to answer.”
“Let her ask, Meno?.”
“Why doesn’t Princess Talessa talk? She can’t have been condemned to an ill-wisher’s fate because her husband, Prince Nikonos, is still alive.”
“It is easy enough to explain,” Meno? jumps in. “The priests did indeed take me to the ill-wishers’ temple after Prince Stratios’s death.”
“Because you had no child by him. But if you did kill him, why would they not take you to the Temple of Justice rather than to the ill-wishers’ temple?”
“I made sure they couldn’t prove I did it. At the ill-wishers’ temple I was able to substitute another woman in my place by changing clothes with her. The priests do not know the difference, nor do they care. Women’s tongues all look the same to them.”
“You let Talon’s tongue be cut out to save your own?”
“She begged me to take her from the palace and away from Nikonos—he is an abusive beast just like Stratios—and offered her tongue in place of mine as an inducement. We have hidden her at Garon Stable ever since.”
“That’s a good story, since she cannot speak to confirm or deny it.”
“I believe it to be true,” murmurs Lady Adia.
Of course you would, I think, but I’m too prudent to say so aloud.
“It’s played perfectly into the brilliant plan Grandmother and I devised,” Meno? goes on. “Once Nikonos is dead, Kalliarkos will marry Talessa. Then the East Saroese will feel honor-bound to ally with us and the West Saroese against Saro-Urok.”
“Which is why you wanted the West Saroese to see her, but without a formal announcement, so no commitment is made, in case your plans change,” I say. “But doesn’t Kalliarkos also have a claim to the throne of Saro-Urok through Lady Adia?”
Meno?’s prim smile is all the answer I need but she goes on anyway. “With these new alliances, we can easily defeat the current king of Saro-Urok and place Kalliarkos on that throne. Then I can rule Efea without his sanctimonious interference.”
“That is indeed a comprehensive strategy,” I say. I’m suddenly so nauseated that I clutch my stomach.
“You care for him, don’t you?” Kal’s mother says with more kindness than I expect. “I can see the news upsets you. Don’t you understand, my dear child? You would not last one week as the king’s mistress. In truth, I am surprised you are still alive.”
The chamber seems to heave and sway around me, an attack of dizziness. Of grief. Of savage jealousy. Leaving Kal because we disagree about the path our lives must take is a choice I can deal with. But to think of Talon and him… She is beautiful as only Patron women can be, and also really good at the Fives, a true adversary in the way he respects most, the only reason he fell in love with me.…
I cannot endure it.
“Why are you still alive?” Meno? asks sharply.
“Because my father is smart enough to watch over me,” I snap. How badly I want to yell in her face that my father went to see my mother because he still loves her. But if Meno? cares for him, she may protect him, and she won’t if she knows the truth.
“Esladas is too much the strategist to allow anything to happen to you,” she muses in a tone whose ardor I can’t like. Her gaze grows puzzled. “But then why are you here?”
“Because I challenged Lord Gargaron and beat him.”
“Ah. There are many things Uncle Gar can ignore, but not that.”
“I am sorry for you,” says Lady Adia as if she means it.
I grab for this tiny piece of rope. “Will you help me and my sister and her husband escape, for the sake of the love your son has shown me?”
“No. I will not interfere with Lord Gargaron’s plans.”
“Is that why you let them throw your son into this ugly game when you know he doesn’t want to play it? Because you fear Gargaron?”
She shakes her head pityingly. “You don’t fear him enough.”
“Come, Mama,” Meno? says. “There’s no point in wasting your wise advice on her. She’s too mulish to listen.”
They walk to the door.
In desperate haste I rise, water dripping off me. “Will you tell my father where I am? Will you tell Kal what’s become of me?”
Holding aside the curtain, Meno? looks back a final time. “I owe you one kindness for saving my life. So no, I’m not going to tell them. It’s better for you that they not know.”
17