Daughters of Ruin (24 page)

“Fair enough,
boy
servant,” said Rhea (smug and disgusting), “I suppose you're excused. We'll finish your chores.”

“Very kind of you, my queen,” said Endrit, bowing.

“Don't call me that.”

(A long pause, while he shifted a large hay bale and cut the ties with a knife.)

“You okay?” he asked (real quiet (Suki had to lean out a little)) as if anyone would be okay in this situation (hiding out in a hovel after a vicious attack (and waking up with a gash in your shoulder)).

“Yeah,” said Rhea (acting strong (but obviously also acting vulnerable (so that he would stay interested))). “Just don't call me that.”

“What happened? A few days ago you were telling me the opposite.”

Rhea smirked (and did that thing that makes people irresistible (looking up suddenly, as if through the veil of their own eyelashes (any courtesan from Walltown knew the trick (so obvious it was practically begging)))). And he fell for it! (Or if he didn't, he at least played along (smiled, squatted down beside her, and put his hand under her chin to lift it).)

She looked away. “Yes, I suppose.” (Smile, smile, flutter, flutter.) “I just, I dunno.
You
don't have to call me that.”

Suki wished she could call out Rhea's clumsy manipulations. She seduced like a mole rat scrubbing at an anthill.

“All right, then. I'll call you Captain Rheanon, the foolkiller.” (Historic Meridan hero.)

“No! Not that either.”

“Okay, okay. You're not very much alike anyway,” said Endrit, sweeping the last of the moldy hay off the edge of the loft. They gathered the sifted bundles (Suki dove back down the ladder and hid behind a row of barrels).

“Rhys used to call me that,” she said as they descended the ladder and carried the bundles to the horse stalls. A couple bent-backed mares slouched in the stables (the kind that Suki once saw when she was five and visiting the royal stable yard of Tasan (the horrible stupor in their aged eyes had made her weep for two days (but that was before she'd lost Tola (when pain had been so new)))).

“I'm sorry,” said Endrit. (He spread some hay down on the stall floor. Rhea took the brush and dragged it across the horse with a limp wrist.)

“He would have made a great king,” said Rhea.

Suki would have said, “Was he a maniac like his father?” but Endrit said, “I heard he was a good soldier.”

“Not good enough,” said Rhea, laughing, then wincing at her own carelessness. She was full tilt into her sob story now (and she had his attention).

“He was my father's obsession after I was born and he was widowed. Everything rested on Rhys, all of my father's ambitions. It wasn't as if he didn't love me. It wasn't that way. I was just so young—five years old when Rhys was twenty. Rhys doted on me like a pet. I bounced on his knee. I loved him with all my heart. Everyone did. He would say, ‘Rheanon,' and I would shout, ‘foolkiller!' and poke him in the chest like I had slain a fool. He would laugh, and I realize now the entire court must have been watching. He was all I ever noticed.”

Rhea paused (to wipe her eye secretly (but not so secretly that Endrit wouldn't see it)).

“When the Fins murdered the king and queen, all the house was astir—mourning, of course—but my father's banner lords all agreed on the course of action. We would crush the Fins, Rhys would marry Emilia Sesquitaine, connecting the eastern- and westernmost houses of Meridan. They would rule, and all would be well again.”

Suki scoffed to herself at the simplicity of it (that wasn't how it had gone).

“Well,” said Rhea, “Corent failed to uphold the alliance and refused to enter battle. Tasan jumped on the opportunity to grab land in the Corentine foothills. And suddenly war was everywhere. Emilia Sesquitaine was a frail thing and died of glassers' lung. Rhys led the dragoons for two years, always as the future king. He wouldn't allow his men to pillage. Even in the Tasanese campaigns, the villages were spared. And suddenly, he was winning hearts in all the midland countryside. People started to wonder if he would marry Tola and unify both Meridan and Tasan—half of Pelgard.”

Suki almost lunged from behind the barrels (to slap the name of her sister off of Rhea's lips). Rhea didn't have to finish the rest of the story (Endrit knew what happened. (Rhys took an arrow to the hand (tipped with chipatri mold (which spread rot through his whole body for five days and dried out his heart)) then Declan went mad, and pushed the dragoons deep into Tasan (then he caught Tola and killed Dato when he tried to rescue her, and then killed Tola too (Suki knew this was true (against every law of gods and honor and men, he'd slayed a royal prisoner (slaughtered the Tasanese army the next day at Crimson Fog (and took the daughters of the three kingdoms back to Meridan to “protect the peace” (hostages)))))))).

“By the time my father negotiated the Treaty of Sister Queens and created the Protectorate, Rhys was some months' dead. Father was a different person by then—closed, cold, rotted out—but nonetheless king of all Meridan. It wasn't as if he loved me less. It was simply that he, too, died in a way. I can't blame him, but there I was, his new heir. All that work that had made Rhys was undone in me. I suppose he was just tired.”

Endrit had his back to Suki, but it was obvious that he was concerned (he'd finished spreading the hay and now stood beside Rhea with a hand on her shoulder (which she must have relished)).

“You can't blame him,” said Rhea (when obviously, yes, you could blame a cruel, despotic man for having no love left for his daughter (who had become no more than a lapdog begging for his approval)).

Endrit took the brush out of Rhea's hand and turned her to face him. He looked in her eyes (which were wet (but prettily so)), she turned her face so her cheek would rest in his hand for a moment, and then he kissed her temple.

Suki made a silent cheer (if they had been lovers, he would never be so chaste (they must have only slept together as cousins do, for warmth or comfort) or she might have snuck to him at night and failed her seduction). But Suki's triumph was short. Rhea lifted her chin and rose onto the tips of her toes and kissed him (a long, urgent kiss (with her body pressing into his (her hands on his neck (his on her hips)) lasting forever (for the span of three full breaths (rise and fall (chest to chest), rise and fall (joined together), rise and fall (and twice as many heartbeats))))) until Suki turned and ran from the barn (stumbling) (blinded) weeping (unprettily so) back toward the farmhouse.

When they walked back up to the house (and saw the garden destroyed) (and saw Suki awake (and dressed) and eating the last of a rind of cheese from the pantry), Rhea and Endrit acted like
she
(Suki) was the one hiding things and not them.

“You're awake!” said Rhea (no opinion one way or the other).

“Mmm-hmm,” said Suki.

“What happened to the fence?” said Endrit.

“I dunno,” said Suki (shrug (who cares)). “A deer in heat maybe.”

Endrit laughed at the idea of a deer razing a garden. Rhea made an incredulous look with her eyebrows. “Well, anyway, it's good you're up,” said Rhea. She approached and hugged Suki around the shoulders. Rhea didn't touch Suki's wound, but Suki winced anyway (just so she could pull away). “Ow!”

“Sorry!”

“Be careful.”

“Sorry, sorry. Does it hurt bad?”

(Yes, but not at the moment.) “Of course it hurts,” said Suki. “How long have I been asleep?”

“Two days,” said Rhea. “We gave you paste of the poppy.”

(To get her out of the way, thought Suki, so they could tumble in bed together.) Suki tried not to stare at Endrit too much. She couldn't even look at Rhea (too disgusted). For the next few moments they loitered around one another in an awkward conglomerate, with Suki sitting on the porch, Endrit pushing the fence back up (tying up the broken slats), and Rhea standing around (uselessly).

Rhea fished for more information (“Can you rotate the shoulder?” “Would you like more poppy?”).

Suki ate the cheese without offering any and refused to give her the satisfaction (or advantage) of knowing her weaknesses (“Rotates fine.” “I've slept enough, you?”).

Rhea acted like a babe in the woods, (“How did I sleep? Fine, I suppose. Been worried a lot.”).

(Worried she'd scare the horses, perhaps. Suki didn't respond, so Rhea pushed further, (“We still haven't heard from Cadis or Iren.”))

Cadis had told Suki during the melee at the ball that she was going to Findain. Iren was probably with her, since the fastest route home was a ship up the River Oxos, inland until the Corentine port city of Takht-e-Malin. (And because they were friends and looked out for each other (unlike Suki (who had no one)).)

Suki had no desire to share the information with Rhea.

(“You've been busy.”)

Rhea started to get annoyed, or at least, finally revealed it. (“What does that mean?”)

It meant she was too busy diving at Endrit the moment she had him alone and hadn't even the decency to go ask a highwayman if perhaps all of Meridan had burned down.

“Do you have any idea what has been going on?” said Rhea.

“Don't be daft,” said Suki. Obviously, she had been unconscious. And what had happened was that Suki had missed her chance to escape and go back to Tasan (to be empress (if she managed the long journey back home and (if they even recognized her after all these years when they had sent no one, not her siblings, not any letters, nothing to give Meridan the satisfaction of knowing it held a princess of the empire as prisoner (or maybe because they'd just given her up for dead and made little Kasem heir-apparent (maybe she was homeless))))).

Suki didn't say any of that (Rhea would have relished it). She struck a courtly pose of impatience.

“The Meridan dragoons either revolted in favor of some other house, or sided with the Findish rebels. They attacked us. We barely escaped. Marta has been arrested, for what, we have no idea. Cadis and Iren could be captured as well, for all we know. My father could be dead.”

“Then what are you doing here?”

“Taking care of you!” said Rhea. The exchange had suddenly turned (Rhea was so good at doing that (twisting everything)) and Suki was made to look childish in front of Endrit.

“Will you talk to her?” said Rhea to Endrit (as if they were the parents of a petulant toddler).

Endrit gave up on the dangling pieces of the fence and wiped his hands on the back of his pants. He looked up at Suki without acknowledging Rhea's condescension. “We were thinking of going to Walltown for some news, and some fresher cheese.”

He smiled. He was so much better than her.

She would challenge Kasem if she had to (and demand her throne (and demand to marry Endrit)).

“What do you say, Princess? If you say it's a good idea, we go right away.”

It was obviously a good idea. Suki stood up so she towered over Rhea at the foot of the porch and said, “Cadis told me she's going to Findain. But we still need news and dinner, so we should go.”

Rhea rolled her eyes (probably unable to accept the fact that Endrit wanted Suki's advice (and that Suki was queenly and decisive (instead of anxious and wormy) and would have never holed up in a house for two days wondering what to do (and even if she had managed to wrap her legs around Endrit, it hardly mattered (she was just another low-hung peach (like the Cheapside maids) which she would expect Endrit to sample and discard)))). Just as any queen would want the best of everything, the most learned magisters, the loveliest troubadours, Suki also wanted the most experienced concubine.

Suki hadn't walked on a dirt road in her entire life. She had ridden, of course (on Helio) and driven (been driven) in a carriage, but never walked along the center (between the two ditches made by the wagon wheels) where the nettles grew (and the horse patties lay).

She preferred to walk in the rut of a wagon wheel, where at least she could avoid being next to Rhea.