Arts of Dark and Light: Book 01 - A Throne of Bones (73 page)

SEVERA

Severa had spent three anxious weeks waiting for the seamstress that the Moon Sisters, as she had privately come to think of the followers of Saint Malachus, promised to send her. As it happened, all her worries had been in vain, as the woman who showed up at the manor, Quinta Jul, not only won her mother’s affection with effortless ease from the moment of her arrival but even earned a favorable word from her father after patching his favorite tunic with such skill that it didn’t even look as if he’d torn it. She was a short, plump woman with a ready smile and a grandmotherly demeanor. Within a week, it was as if she’d been there for years.

Indeed, the only real problem appeared to be that the Sister had very little time in which to instruct Severa in anything, much less the secrets of the Goddess. With the Invernalia fast approaching, the newest member of the household was immediately drafted into service preparing the ornate outfits that the members of the family would be wearing.

Which was a pity, as far as Severa was concerned, because she was alarmingly behind schedule on her own dress. She had chosen an asymmetrical design with a high collar that would cover her throat entirely—only because her mother had rejected as being too common the low-cut one that would’ve shown off her cleavage. Now she regretted her short-sighted reaction, but it was too late to go begging for the material to make a new dress with only a week before the festival.

While the gown itself was mostly done, there was still an amount of tedious embroidery that was necessary, and the silver thread she had foolishly chosen for it was heavy and awkward. While the thread looked spectacular on the deep shade of blue, its thickness made the working difficult, and she found it all too easy to set the dress aside once her fingers started to cramp and leave it for the rest of the day.

“That dress really isn’t going to suit you, my lady Severa,” Quinta Jul said as she cast a skeptical eye on the disorder of Severa’s room. She was a small, round woman about her mother’s age with grey-streaked hair, bronze skin that was deeply lined and tanned by the sun, and dark, piercing eyes that one would have expected to see on a senator or bird of prey, not an elderly freewoman. “The blue goes nicely with the silver, I’ll give you that much, but it doesn’t suit your skin.”

“It doesn’t?” Severa was horrified. Why hadn’t her mother said anything to her? Then she remembered the bright orange gown her mother had worn for the spring festival two years ago and was reluctantly forced to conclude that she had better look elsewhere for a sartorial guiding light if she wasn’t going to make a fool of herself. “But what am I going to do? I barely hoped to finish this in time! What have you been doing for the last two weeks anyhow? Aren’t you supposed to be teaching me?”

She was mortified to realize that she had tears in her eyes, but thankfully, her new lady didn’t laugh at her or even smile. She simply smiled and ran her fingers through Severa’s long curls. “Such lovely thick hair you have, my dear. Ah, I remember when mine was like that. Where did it go? You have the raw material to be beautiful, my lady, but even the finest gold ore requires an amount of work before it is worthy to be called jewelry or adorn a woman’s throat.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Always first things first, Lady Severa. Remember that. If I had spent my first few weeks in this house attending your needs, then I should always fear for my place here. But since I have been careful to first attend the lord and lady of the house and to win them over by anticipating their wishes, I need fear nothing. And moreover, I have learned a great deal more than I would have if I spent my days in your company, for which you shall soon be very grateful.”

Severa caught her breath. What now? Her father hadn’t mentioned the Cursius incident since the day before they’d returned to Amorr. Had he learned some dreadful new revelation to displease him? Or, since Quinta Jul didn’t appear to be concerned about her ill-colored dress, was it possible that he would deny her the Invernalia? Father was capable of it, she knew, for he had once forbidden her brother Aulan to attend the festival when he had spoken back to him.

“You look pale, Lady Severa. Are you sure you are well?” Quinta Jul reached out and touched her forehead.

“He’s not going to deny me the festival, is he? Is that why you don’t care about helping me finish my dress that will look so terrible on me even if we do?”

The older woman laughed. It was a dry, throaty sound.

“Don’t be a goose, my lady. No, your father has no intention of denying you the festival. In fact, I suspect your attendance will be demanded of you.”

“Really?” Severa thought quickly, then gasped. “Has he decided upon my husband?”

Quinta Jul nodded. “That is the rumor among the household staff. And that is why I saw no reason to concern myself with your blue dress, since I had cause to suspect that you would not be wearing it at the festival.”

“So you just left me to work on it without you anyhow?” Her indignation faded in the face of Quinta Jul’s skeptical stare, a raised eyebrow her only response. “Very well, you knew I wasn’t working on it either. But you haven’t told me who it is! Oh, please tell me it’s not some old plebian merchant with a purse as fat as his belly!”

“Lady Severa, you know perfectly well that your father is not going to bestow you upon anyone of insufficient rank. I don’t know which of your suitors he has settled upon, but I am given to undertand there appear to be three leading contenders, one from House Andronicus, one from House Valerius, and one from House Crescentius.”

“What?” Severa shook her head. “Did you say House Valerius? You must mean House Volsius. Father would never marry me to a Valerian!”

Quinta Jul shrugged. “I surely couldn’t say, my lady. I can only say that is what I heard. But my lady, if you are indeed to be betrothed, then we must begin discussing your betrothal dress for the Invernalia.”

“There isn’t going to be any betrothal if Father is talking to the Valerians! I can’t believe it. I won’t!” Severa turned to flee the room at once.

“My lady, where are you going, my lady?” she heard Quinta Jul call to her back.

“Where do you think!” she shouted back as she stomped down the stairs in search of a parent who could explain to her what was happening.

She found her mother in the kitchen, giving instructions to the cooks for the evening’s dinner.

“I do think the Volsian sauce would better compliment the fish, don’t you? And besides, I imagine it will be taken as a compliment of sorts to young Numerius Volsus, who, if I understand my lord’s intentions correctly, will have House support for the quastorship this season.” Her mother shot her a quizzical look. “Oh, Severa, whatever is the matter now?

She was overweight and half a head shorter than Severa, but her hair was still thick and mostly black, and her wits had not been dulled by more than thirty years of overseeing the household of the most powerful man in Amorr.

“Mother, do tell me that Father isn’t throwing me to the damned Valerian dogs this festival.”

“Language, Severa. Society may forgive the occasional youthful indiscretion, but it will never accept a young woman—I will not say lady—who swears like a camp follower. And precisely whom do you think you are to object to any husband from a House Martial, when not six months ago you were willing enough to plight your troth to a slave from the fighting stables?”

Her mother’s voice was conversational, but her words cut Severa as if they were iron-forged. She actually felt as if she had been physically struck. She would have preferred to have been physically struck.

“You knew about that?”

Her mother sniffed and gestured around the kitchen. The senior cook, a freeman, and the three kitchen slaves were all studiously pretending not to be hearing anything, but Severa had no doubts that they would be reciting the whole conversation, word for word, for the entire household by nightfall.

“Yes, I knew about it, Severa! I daresay the entire household knew about it. Do you honestly think a mother doesn’t notice when her hot-blooded daughter is mooning after some hopelessly impossible young man? I was the one who told your father that you were up to something, but I never imagined you would sink so low. A gladiator, Severa, really? A gladiator? You might not have the sense that God gave a goose, but I would have thought you would have at least been a little more original.”

“There’s a first time for everything, Mother.”

“You should have been married two years ago. Two years ago, I told your father he should marry you off to the first noble he found the least bit useful to him. Look at you! You’re made for love, for marriage, for breeding and babies! I told him again last year, and then after your little escapade, I told him to do it now or lock you in a nunnery. The problem is he’s too soft-hearted. He can’t bear to see that his little girl has grown up—or believe that she’s panting after unsuitable young men.”

“Too soft-hearted? Father?” Severa was having trouble getting her mind around the concept.

“Yes, your father is much too soft-hearted where you are concerned. All five of you. Children are blind where their parents are concerned. The rest of Amorr looks at him and sees the head of a House Martial and the princeps senatus, so they are wise enough to fear his wrath and power. But because he’s always been too easy on you, you see only a doting father. He spoiled you terribly. You, your sister, and all your brothers. And now, you and Regulus are forcing him to see that it was a mistake.”

“I see that your heart, at least, is hard where we are concerned.”

“Don’t affect martyrdom, Severa, it doesn’t suit you in the slightest. You know perfectly well that I love you from the very bottom of my heart. But your father’s indulgence has not served you well, and at long last, he finally admits it. So he is going to betroth you this winter and you are going to make an excellent marriage that will be the talk of all Amorr. If you’re lucky, you may even find yourself married to a man possessed with sufficient spine to make a proper wife of you, though the Immaculate knows that will take some doing.”

Severa fought off the urge to pout. She was confident any such behavior would fail to impress her mother, especially when she was in the middle of such an uncharacteristic rampage. “And to whom might this excellent marriage be, Mother?”

Her mother waved her hand. “Go ask your father. He’s in the garden. I don’t believe he has made his mind up yet. And remember that the Valerians are only one of several possibilities, so you needn’t work yourself up to a tantrum over it yet. Now go. Your father is entertaining tonight, and if I don’t whip this kitchen into shape now, I have no doubt there will be some nicely striped backs around here on the morrow.”

“Very well.” Severa sniffed and walked out of the kitchen with whatever shards of dignity she could manage, ignoring the glares of the gathered kitchen staff. They looked as if they blamed her for her mother’s sharp tongue, which was unfair since they were the ones who had put Mother in a mood. Mother was usually sweet and sympathetic, but it seemed the need to oversee the kitchen today had obviously put her in a poisonous mood.

She caught herself stomping through the hall that led to the rear door, and she took a deep breath, forcing herself to calm down. If she wanted to convince Father not to marry her to a Valerian, she knew that anger wasn’t going to get her anywhere.

The door opened out onto a tiled platform overlooking the walled garden that brought a little of the tranquility of the Samnian countryside to Amorr. There were armed guards standing on either side of it. They both glanced over as she walked through the door, but, seeing that it was only her, immediately lost interest. Or, in the case of the older one standing on the right, pretended to lose interest. She could see him eyeing her body out of the corner of his eye. She smiled at him and laughed to herself as he glanced away and straightened his back uncomfortably.

Her father, Patronus, was standing toward the rear of the garden in front of his favorite lemon tree with his hands crossed behind his back. Severa never quite understood why it was his favorite, as he never ate lemons and seldom touched the sweet drink her mother made from their juice. But whenever he was in a contemplative mood, she could find him here. In the spring and summer, the lemons gave the arboreal garden its only color. It was more of a forest glade planted in the heart of the city than a garden with proper flowers. She wondered what he was thinking about, knowing that it almost surely had nothing to do with her prospective marriage.

Suddenly, she felt a burst of great affection for him, followed almost immediately by a moment of sadness. If she was to marry in the spring, this would be the last winter she would call the Severan domus her home.

She walked up behind him and put her arms around him, pressing her cheek against his protruding shoulderblades as she embraced him. He felt thinner than she remembered.

“I don’t want to get married. I want to stay here forever with you and Mother and Severina.”

He turned, put his arms around her, and pressed her face to his chest. “Oh, my little one, my beautiful, perfect girl. If it were only possible, I would ask God for nothing else.”

“Mother says you are too soft with me. But I wanted to tell you I will marry anyone you choose for me. I trust you.”

He held her out and pretended to inspect her face. “What has brought about this sweet compliance? I had thought your new servant would instruct you in embroidery and other wifely skills, not philosophy.”

She smiled. Her new approach was working. “I don’t understand one thing, however. I’ve heard the servants talking. You can’t seriously be thinking of giving me to House Valerius. Have I been so much trouble that you would punish me by turning me over to our enemies?”

“Severa!” he remonstrated. “The Valerians are not our enemies. Tell me, what is the difference between a dog and a scorpion?”

“Two legs?” As she intended, the answer made her father laugh. He shook his head.

“The difference is that a dog, no matter how inimical its nature, can be trained to love, or at least to obey. All it requires is time and the patience of its master. A scorpion, on the other hand, will sting even him who treats it with the utmost respect and affection. That is its nature, and its nature cannot be altered. That is the difference between a rival and an enemy.”