not for Gabriel’s bitter silence, he would have been relegated to Rymark’s faction by the other contenders; because of it, he had been allowed to rule as regent. His silence, however, included no open disavowal of the forgery.
Blood mattered. Even in a House where its members were required to take an oath that severed those ties completely, it mattered. If she had been Gabriel and Carver had been Rymark—if Carver had been in a position to produce such a document and make such a claim—it would have counted among the worst days of her life. She could not, even in the silence of thought, be certain what she would say or do, but she was certain that she would hold denial in abeyance until she had the time to grab him by the collar, drag him off into a corner, and demand an explanation. She would owe him that much.
What was difficult for Jewel was Rymark himself. If Rymark had been like Marrick—or the dead Alea—Gabriel’s reaction would at least make sense. Rymark wasn’t. He had always been arrogant; he had never stooped to kindness where malice—or veiled threat—would do in its stead. Magic, for Rymark, was a tool, just as assassins were tools. He lived part-time in the manse; all of the House Council had rooms there, and the rooms were grand ones. But the Master of the Household Staff was very particular about the cleaning and care of those rooms. Only specific servants were allowed to tend them, and the schedule of their working hours was strictly enforced and inflexible.
Rumor had it that he was not particularly careful about the servants, ATerafin or no. Especially not the women. Jewel had had some experience with Rymark’s certainty of his own irresistibility; she believed those rumors were true. They came, indirectly, from Carver. Rymark had an imperfect history within the Order of Knowledge; he wore their symbol and gained prestige through it, but Sigurne did not trust him. He clearly had funding—but attempting to trace that funding to its source had proved, to date, fruitless. Finch could find nothing in the records at the Merchant Authority; Angel’s friend could find no records of manifests or cargo that could be linked with Rymark’s external supporters. He owned some land and some leaseholds, but in and of themselves they were not enough to justify a bid for the House, unless that bid was accepted quickly.
There was no reason—at all—to give Rymark ATerafin the benefit of the doubt. But Gabriel, by his silence, had done exactly that. Someone like Carver had done nothing but good. No, that was an exaggeration, but Carver was part of her den. Rymark, she would never have taken.
You took Duster.
She stared out the window.
7th of Fabril, 428 A.A. The Common, Averalaan
Jewel was forced to disembark long before her carriage reached the platforms upon which chairs had been placed. Wagons lined the road, and they could not easily be moved to grant passage to carriages; only the Kings were given any exemption—an exemption they did not choose to enforce. What the Kings, and therefore the Queens and the Princes, endured, every member of the patriciate was expected to endure. Even the Exalted. Bards, however, roved the streets that led to the center of the Common, lutes in arms; even when they couldn’t be clearly seen, they could be heard, their voices full and sweet.
In her youth, when the bard-born walked the Common during Festival or the Kings’ Crown, the sound of those raised voices were a source of unalloyed joy. This was in part because her Oma rarely had a sour word for bards; she didn’t like their lutes, lutes being Northern, but she allowed herself to be captivated by their voices.
Oma. What would you think of me, now? The old woman, teeth yellowed by pipe smoke, lips creased in perpetual frown, had never cared for the patriciate, but she’d held them in no more contempt than she did two of the bakers and one of the cloth sellers. She didn’t trust them. She considered The Ten to be marginally less trustworthy—not because of their power, because power at least was predictable, but because they weren’t family. Blood mattered, to her Oma. The Ten eschewed the only bonds for which her Oma would have been willing to die. Or kill.
Her granddaughter, her only surviving grandchild, had claimed the rule of House Terafin. Now, flanked by Night and Snow, Angel and Celleriant, led by Chosen, she walked easily through streets