Jim Butcher - Cursors's Fury

Isana had to leave the amphitheater. When Lady Aquitaine rose and began to thank and dismiss the gathering, Isana slipped off the stage and out a side exit of the sunken bowl of the amphitheater. The dizzying pressure of the crowd’s emotions waned as she walked away from the theater. She paused beside a small public garden, trees and flowers centered around an elegant fountain of black marble. The spring sun was hot, but the mist rising from the fountain, together with the trees’ shade, kept the whole of the little garden cool and comfortable. She sat down on a carved-stone bench and pressed her fingertips against her temples for a moment, forcing herself to relax and slow her breathing.

“I know just how you feel,” said a rather dry, feminine voice from nearby. Isana looked up to see a tall, willowy woman with rich red hair and a deep green gown seated upon the bench beside hers. “It’s Parmos,” the woman continued. “He’s not happy until the audience is a few seconds short of becoming a riot. And I don’t like his speechmaking voice. It’s too syrupy.”

Isana smiled and inclined her head. “High Lady Placida. Good afternoon.”

“Steadholder,” Lady Placida, said with exaggerated formality. “An’ it please thee, I would fane speak with thee a while. “

Isana blinked at her. “Your Grace?”

She held up a hand. “I’m teasing, Steadholder. This certainly is anything but a formal setting. How would it suit you if I called you Isana and you called me Aria?”

“I’d like that.”

Lady Placida nodded sharply. “Good. Many Citizens assign far too much importance to the privileges of rank without placing complementary weight upon their duties. I’m glad to see that you aren’t one of them, Isana.”

Uncertain of how to respond politely, Isana nodded.

“It grieved me to hear about the attack upon you at Sir Nedus’s manor on the night we met.”

Isana felt a twinge of pain, low on her abdomen, near her hip. The arrow wound had healed cleanly, but there was a very faint scar, hardly more than a discoloration upon her skin. “Nedus was a good man. And Serai was more of a friend than I had at first believed.” She shook her head. “I wish things had happened differently.”

Lady Placida smiled, though there was sadness at the edges of it. “That’s the way of things. It’s easy to see what choices one should have made after it is too late to go back. I shall miss Serai. We were not close, but I respected her. And I enjoyed her talent for puncturing pompous windbags.”

Isana smiled. “Yes. I wish I had known her longer.”

Silence fell for a moment before Lady Placida said, “I met your nephew, back during that Wintersend excitement.”

“Did you?” Isana asked.

“Yes. A most promising youth, I thought.”

Isana lifted an eyebrow and studied Lady Placida for a moment, and asked, cautiously, “Why would you say that?”

Lady Placida spread her hand in a languid, seed-scattering gesture. “He impressed me with his intelligence. Cleverness. Determination. He is a most well spoken young man. I share a similar respect for several of the young people who are his friends. You can tell a great deal about a person by looking at the people who share his life.”

Isana did not miss the implication of Lady Placida’s statement, and she nodded in thanks of the compliment. “Tavi’s always been very bright,” Isana said, smiling despite herself. “Too much so for his own good, I think. He’s never let anything hold him back.”

“His… condition,” Lady Placida said with deliberately delicate phrasing. “I have never heard of anything quite like it.”

“It’s always been a mystery,” Isana agreed.

“Then I assume his situation has not changed?”

Isana shook her head. “Though goodness knows, there are plenty of people with many crafting skills who never do anything constructive with them.”

“Very true,” Lady Placida agreed. “Will you be in Ceres for long?”

Isana shook her head. “A few more days at most. I’ve been away from my steadholt too long as it is.”

Lady Placida nodded. “I’ll have a mountain of work waiting for me as well. And I miss my lord husband.” She shook her head and smiled. “Which is somewhat girlish and silly of me. But there it is.”

“Not silly,” Isana said. “There’s nothing wrong with missing loved ones. I hadn’t seen my brother in nearly a year. It was nice to visit him here.”

Lady Placida smiled. “That must have been a relief from what Invidia has you doing.”

Isana felt her back stiffen a little. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

Lady Placida gave her an arch look. “Isana, please. It’s clear she’s managed to attach some strings, and equally clear that you don’t care for the situation.”

Strictly speaking, Isana should have denied it. Part of her agreement with Lady Aquitaine had been to support her publicly. But this was hardly a public forum, was it? So instead, she remained silent.

Lady Placida smiled and nodded. “Isana, I know how difficult this kind of situation can be. Should you need to talk to anyone about it, or if it progresses to something you are not willing to tolerate, I would like to offer you my support. I don’t know the particulars, so I cannot know how I might be of help to you-but if nothing else, I could at least listen to what you chose to share and offer advice.”

Isana nodded, and said, carefully, “That’s… very kind.”

“Or a most manipulative way to suborn information from you, hm?”

Isana blinked, then felt herself smile a little. “Well. Not to put too fine a point on it, but, yes.”

“I sometimes grow bored with tactful evasions,” Lady Placida explained.

Isana nodded, then said, “Assuming that you are sincere: Why would you offer such help to me?”

Lady Placida tilted her head to one side and blinked. Then she took Isana’s hand, met her eyes, and spoke. “Because you may need it, Isana. Because you seem to me to be a decent person in unenviable circumstances. Because I can judge from the child you raised that you are a person worthy of my respect.” She shrugged a shoulder. “Not terribly aloof and aristocratic of me, I know, but there. The truth.”

Isana watched Lady Placida steadily and in growing surprise. Through the touch of her hand, Isana could sense the clear, chiming tone of absolute truth in her voice. Lady Placida met her eyes and nodded before withdrawing her hand.

“I… Thank you,” Isana said. “Thank you, Aria.”

“Sometimes, just knowing that the help is there, if you need it, is help enough in itself,” she murmured. Then Aria closed her eyes, inclined her head in a little bow, and departed the little garden, gliding away into the streets of Ceres.

Isana sat for a moment more, enjoying the murmur of the fountain, the cool shadows beneath the trees. She had grown weary of fulfilling her obligations to Lady Aquitaine over the past three years. There had been many distasteful things about it, but the most distressing facet of the matter was the helplessness of it. There were few people in all Alera as powerful and influential as Lady Aquitaine.

The First Lord, of course, would never be a source of support or comfort. His actions had made that quite clear. Other than Gaius, there were fewer than a score of people whose power approached that of the Aquitaines, many of them already allies. There was no more than a handful of folk who had both the power and the inclination to defy Aquitaine Invidia.

The High Lady Placidus was one of them.

Aria’s presence, and her offer, had provided a sense of comfort and confidence that felt like a cold drink in the middle of a hot, endless day. Isana felt surprised at her reaction. Aria had done nothing more than speak idle words during a casual meeting, and nothing about them would bind her to them. Yet Isana had felt the truth in the woman’s voice and manner. She sensed Aria’s genuine compassion and respect.