13

He has paused in the garden to stand in front of the altar with his head bowed. Movement just out of my sight catches my attention, and I freeze behind a pillar.

Polodos steps into the garden from the reception room.

“He is here, my lord,” he says.

Nothing lies in the altar bowl except crumbs of bread pecked apart by birds during the night. A brightly plumaged bird called a dawn-throat sings its spilling melody, one long fall of plangent notes.

“Forgive me for what I am about to do,” Father says to the gods. “It is better this way.”

There is a trap here. I taste it in Father’s bitter tone; I see it in the way he clenches his left hand; I smell a sweet aroma like temptation.

When he leaves the garden, I sneak after him through the empty reception room and to the door of his study. Father stands with his back to the door in the posture of a soldier awaiting sanction from a superior. Lord Gargaron stands at Father’s desk as if he were head of the household. He wears spotless court clothes, a linen vest over a wrapped ankle-length skirt whose pleats are as sharp as knives. He is looking through Father’s correspondence, examining the pages and then setting them aside.

“You have a superb record, Captain Esladas. Your victory at Maldine is being compared to the triumph our forces had at Marsh Shore in Oyia ten years ago when they defeated and killed King Elkorios of Saro-Urok. Your quick thinking at Maldine’s harbor salvaged five of Princess Berenise’s ships that would otherwise have fallen into enemy hands along with a number of Efean merchant vessels that were carrying valuable cargo. The princess knows your name, Captain. All of Garon Palace knows your name.”

“My lord,” says Father in a wooden tone.

“Your exploits have been spoken into the ear of King Kliatemnos himself. Queen Serenissima has also heard your name mentioned in her royal salon. Their brother Prince Nikonos has been heard to speak of your distinguished service in the army. This is a high honor for a man who began life in the hill town of Heyeng in the remote province of Everlasting Janon. A sixth son so superfluous he could not even expect to inherit a share of his father’s humble bakery.”

“My lord,” says Father.

Lord Gargaron looks up, straight at me. He blinks but in no other way betrays my presence. Father cannot see me because I am behind him. Gargaron smiles just a little, like he takes pleasure in the fact that I have to stand here and listen.

He sits in Father’s chair and turns over another page. “Your finances are in arrears, Captain. Yet you are no spendthrift. It looks as if you have gone into debt because of Ottonor’s demands on your purse. Not that I wish to speak ill of the dead, but the man was a fool, a weakling, a wastrel, and a bad manager besides, which in my opinion is the worst of it. A man of your capabilities should have years ago been given a larger command, not stuck in the desert. You should have been sent to the Eastern Reach where the real war is going on.”

“Lord Ottonor’s purview was along the Reed Shore and in the northern desert, my lord. That is why I served there.”

“Yes, but he is dead now, and his son and heirs are sunk in such a ditch of debt that I daresay as soon as the lord is entombed the family will be packing up to rusticate in the country for a generation. They cannot possibly afford to maintain a suitable household in the city, nor will the king and queen allow them to retain a presence at court. The royal family can forgive any transgression except financial stupidity and of course blasphemy against the gods. Yet when Ottonor’s household breaks up, what is to become of a competent military man like you, Captain?”

Father does not reply. From the way Lord Gargaron smooths a hand over the last dispatch on the desk, rather in the way I imagine a man strokes a reluctant lover’s skin, I realize that Father has not been invited to speak. He is obliged to listen, just as I am.

“It is a great expense to elevate a man of ordinary birth from a captain’s rank to that of general.”

Father sucks in a breath as hard as if he has been punched in the gut. Impulsively I take a step forward with the ridiculous thought that I can somehow protect him from the very reward he must have dreamed of achieving all his life.

Lord Gargaron’s gaze flashes up. The look he gives me stops me like a door slammed in my face.

“First, your financial affairs must be disentangled from those of Ottonor’s heirs before the creditors descend. This must be accomplished at the same time your household scrupulously observes all the proper mourning rituals so your low birth is never a reason for suspicion.”

He has arranged the papers into three stacks. One is the household financial records. One he has already pushed aside as of no interest to him. He keeps a hand open and flat atop the third stack. From this distance I cannot read the words but by the shape of them I can guess it is the careful record Father keeps of his day-to-day service, everything he has seen and done while at war.

“Second, a general must have a proper wife. Not this infamous concubine. She is tempting in the way Efean women can be. How much more so she must have been twenty years ago, fresh and ripe and young. But you are no longer a young man. A young man’s toys and pets must be put aside if a man has ambition. Do you have ambition, Captain?”

“To put aside my… my…” Father will not insult her by calling her his concubine, and he cannot call her his wife. “She is a woman, not a pet or a toy.”

The thin smile I so dislike creeps onto Gargaron’s thin lips. I want to scrub its foul kiss off my skin.

“Good Goat, man! How you struggle! Let me be plain. I can offer you a generalship in the Eastern Reach if you agree to marry my niece and enter my sponsorship with no encumbrances.”

“Your niece?” Father sounds dumbstruck.

I am sure I have misheard. But Lord Gargaron goes on quite matter-of-factly.

“She is a lovely girl, unusually intelligent and showing an astute grasp of financial matters, like her grandmother.”

“I beg your pardon, my lord, but I must ask why a highborn woman with royal lineage would be willing to marry a man like myself?”

“Ah.” Lord Gargaron pushes the third stack of paper out of the way and pulls to him a bright blue butterfly mask. It is the only ornament Father keeps in his study, set on his desk to remind him of my mother. He didn’t burn it, even though he was supposed to. “My niece was married two years ago. There was an unpleasant parting of the ways and some unkindly gossip within the court. Not to put too fine a point on it, Captain, but among the matchmakers of the court she is now tainted goods. No lord will marry her, and as you know by law only a married woman can conduct business. By this means I crush two birds with one stone. She will gain the legal standing she needs to continue in the family business, and you will gain the respectability and connection you need to make your way as a general.”

“To gain this exceptional reward I must put aside the woman I have lived with for the last twenty years. What if she gives birth to a boy?”

“What if she does? Such a boy cannot legally inherit from you regardless. You can sire another son but this is the only chance you will ever receive to burnish your fame and reputation by being henceforth known and obeyed as General Esladas.”

I wait for Father to shout Lord Gargaron down, to proclaim his undying loyalty to Mother and his daughters. I wait for him to claim us as the only legacy he cares about.

Father says nothing.

Gargaron is the one who speaks. “There would be one other stipulation. I want your daughter.”

Father cracks. He takes an aggressive step forward, then stops himself. “How can I expect to maintain an honorable standing at court if it becomes commonly known that one of my daughters is being used as another man’s concubine? You cannot demand this of my honor.”

“Concubine? Ah, you mean the pretty one. She is an attractive morsel, to be sure. But I mean the one who runs the Fives.”

The simple words choke me.

Did Kalliarkos confess the whole after telling me he would keep my secret?

But it is too late now to hide the truth I have kept from Father for so long.

Unaccountably, Father laughs. “None of my daughters runs the Fives, my lord. A man of my rank and position could never permit that.”

Gargaron lifts an eyebrow. I think he is going to laugh out loud. Instead he turns the butterfly mask in his hands and raises it so he looks out at my father through slits cut for prettier eyes than his. “You have not permitted your daughter to run the Fives?”

“Of course not! Why would you even insult me with such an accusation?”

Gargaron lowers the mask. His gaze flickers to mark me as he covers his mouth with a hand as he smiles. What sort of awful man would enjoy my consternation and my father’s ignorance?

“I fear I must then accuse you of a graver misapprehension, Captain Esladas. You seem not to know what is going on in your household at all. I would hate to think the entire scheming cabal of females has been concealing the truth from you all this time. For it is sure that one of your daughters has been running the Fives. But perhaps you would like to ask her yourself.”