House of Sand and Secrets (Books of Oreyn #2)(21)
STUDIES IN OIL AND INK
A new art exhibition has been announced in the late Courant. The black-and-white flash on the Amusements page does the pictures little justice. The headline calls the work that of a savage and naturally, I am intrigued.
I try to ignore the little article on the opposite page about the body they pulled from the Casabi. Another nameless bat. It chills me to read the words, knowing Jannik wants me do nothing. I force myself to pay attention to the vicious review instead. It has a certain incensed bluster that means it can only have been written by some House toady who feels his heroes have been mocked. The artist’s name is Iynast. Just that. I have no idea if it’s his true name, or the surname of some long-forgotten minor House.
Jannik has left for the offices already. Despite Carien’s promise – or threat – I have yet to try to secure a commitment of any kind from House Eline, or be invited to meet with her husband. Jannik’s unwillingness for me to pursue the matter of the body – now bodies - stops me from extending my own small invitation. Just when I think I am finally ready to go ahead and do it anyway, I find another reason not to: I need to employ a better chef, I need to have the house redecorated, the timing isn’t quite right.
It’s not just Jannik’s fear that makes me cling to all these excuses. Carien fascinates me. I want to see more of her, to feel that strange thrill that comes from watching the way she walks, her coiled intensity, the flash of wildness in her amber eyes. But she is dangerous to me and mine, and I’m not quite ready to have a Reader invade my home.
How much of my past would she be able to winkle out of me, just by being in my rooms? Would she pull all the secrets out of my coiled heart and lay them like little twisted miscarriages on a platter before me?
My brother’s death was no unlucky accident and only two people alive know the circumstances. Dash, who was the only other one who knew what happened, is buried now. I don’t even know where. I think Jannik may, but even I am not so heartless as to ask. Owen himself is interred in the family mausoleum, next to my father. From my mother’s last letter it may not be long before Owen’s sickly daughter is placed there too. The disappointment in that letter announcing Allegria’s birth was palpable. With Owen dead, there is no male heir to my House. There is only me. The heiress presumptive. How that must gall my brother’s shade.
But Jannik has my name and were I to have a son … .
I laugh at my own idiocy. I am no flower, pollinated by the wind.
Come, Felicita, let us turn our attention to more practical things. Whether or not House Eline have anything to do with the dead vampires, it will not matter if I conduct business with them. Surely we are not pretending friendship if I invite Carien and her husband to my house, so that we can talk of the price of silks and scriv? Even so, I’m loath to allow Carien time to uncover all my secrets. I would have to be careful, perhaps take something to dull my emotions.
Riona comes into the room and begins to clear away the lunch dishes. She hesitates by me, fiddling with the cutlery, straightening things that do not need straightening.
I catch the troubled look that flutters across her face, the quick furrow before it is gone from her brow. “Is it your brother?”
She shakes her head. “No, my lady.” But she continues to stand, her fingers dancing nervously along the edge of a spoon handle.
I sigh. “What then?”
“I don’t mean to be forward,” she says. “But you don’t look well. Is there something I can bring you?”
“I’m tired,” I tell her, not certain how or what to explain. This thing with the Houses and the vampires is no concern of hers. What would she say if I were to explain? Perhaps she could be sympathetic, but how can I expect that from someone who looks at my troubles and compares them to her own, and can see only a vast gulf? I have money and privilege, what does it matter if others have more than me? I look away from her. We are not friends, and perhaps there is no way we ever can be. My time in Whelk Street taught me that much. Dash and his little gang never truly accepted me. He made me feel like I was a part of their group the better to use me, and the others knew it.
He was one person. I can’t spend my life trapped in ever-diminishing circles, repeating the same tired paths because I once made a bad decision. A child does that, refusing to grow and learn from their mistakes, and I am so certain these days that I have left my childishness behind. I suppose then this is the proof that I haven’t.
“Wait.” I reach one hand forward to touch her sleeve, to tell Riona all my fears, and hope that somehow this outpouring will fill the empty space between us.
Before I reach her, the pealing bells of the Seven Widows slam and clang through the air, always so unexpectedly deafening, and whatever I had planned to say is rolled flat under their noise. I look down at the paper, at the review. I drop my hand.
“Riona,” I say when the last chimes have faded. “It’s nothing. I just need a little fresh air. Have the grooms ready the chaise.” I will not sit in this house and rot, waiting for MallenIve to accept me. The heat is bearable; the winds are blowing the stench of funeral pyres out into the desert. There is an exhibition I would go see.
*
Iynast’s work is not on display at the MallenIve Gallery, but instead at a small house called the Sunstone. It’s far from grand. Low-Lammers are milling through the rooms, pointing and laughing at the paintings. They have a slapdash feel to them – broad brush strokes, bold black lines and vibrating colours. The themes are low-brow – serving Hobs doing dishes, or working in fields; studies of friends and acquaintances. No wonder the artistic elite of MallenIve loathe them. In our world only we are important, and our visages must be painted with restraint and lies.