Serpent and the Throne (Fedosian Wars #1)

14. The House of Silver

fourteen

The House of Silver

Countess Katya, the widow who owed Aleksei a favor, was nice and patient. She’d been wearing a red riding hood costume when Aleksei dropped Sofia at her mansion, and there was a man dressed as a wolf with her. The countess was older, and by the vambraces and such left folded on her dining room table, her company was a sentinel.

They politely waited for Lev to come pick her up, but it was clear the countess couldn’t get rid of her fast enough.

Her brother stumbled in through the door drunk and said, “Sorry, Soful, completely forgot about you.”

That was good for a change, and Sofia and Lev took Papa’s coach home.

The Illeivich girls had a modiste over, trying to sell them a dress some courtier had made then didn’t pick up or didn’t pay for, Papa was in the apothecary room, grinding herbs in a stone mortar, and Sofia went peacefully to her bedroom which she shared with Lev. Her brother passed out on the spare bed, fully clothed and snoring.

Sofia changed as quickly as she could into her nightgown. Aleksei had mended her dress, and it wasn’t bad, but she still worried the stitching might give away.

She was brushing her teeth at the washing table when a servant entered to tell her the count sent for her. Her spirit slumped, but she had to oblige.

The guest room the count was staying in was rather nice with ivory walls and pearly armoire. The bed was oak, simple and sturdy, and the count gestured at it when Sofia entered.

“Sit, Sofia.” He was behind a writing desk, dipping a quill into an inkwell and scribbling away at something.

She went and sat on the corner of the bed, her knees together, and her hands on her lap.

She waited for a while before saying, “I’m rather tired, Gavril Illeivich.”

“I didn’t ask you.”

Then she waited some more. The household grew quiet, the servants turning in for the night as well. Sofia sighed. Tomorrow was Day Solis and church started at the crack of dawn.

On the countess’s lawn, before Aleksei escorted her in, he’d pinned her against a cotton tree and kissed her. ‘I have to see you tomorrow, please say yes.’

‘I have to be at church.’

‘All day?’

‘Where will you be?’ she’d asked, giving in.

‘Wherever you are.’

The count had said something, and now he was looking at her, waiting. She looked down and fixed the skirt of her white nightgown.

“I heard Countess Katya is an inappropriate woman who keeps the company of younger men,” he said, enunciating every word. “Is it true?” It was the question he’d asked and was repeating it for her benefit. This happened quite often even when Sofia wasn’t thinking about Aleksei, and she’d grown used to the annoyance in his voice when she lost herself in reverie and missed something he’d said.

“Not that I’ve seen,” Sofia said.

“I’m not pleased you spent the night at her house. Please pick your company better for it affects my name.”

“Yes, Gavril Illeivich.”

“Very well, then.” He set the writing quill down and got up from behind the desk. “We’re leaving in two days. My business here has successfully concluded. You’re not to leave my company again till then. Are we clear?” He came over, grabbed her throat, and shook her. “Are we clear?”

Her face burned. She hated him. “Yes, Gavril Illeivich.”

“Good.” He walked around the bed and pinched the candle. “Lie down, Sofia.”

“I have a headache.” She got up without waiting for his reply and dashed for the door. He grabbed her hair from behind, and she screamed, “Lev!”

He let go.

She ran out the door. Lev was passed out and didn’t hear her, but what did the count know? Upset about leaving in two days when she should have had nine more, she returned to her bedroom and cried. That didn’t wake her brother either.

She didn’t want to leave. She shook her head by the washing table, cleaning her face and crying at once. But what did she expect? Surely, she didn’t believe she would have a lasting relationship with a sentinel? She wasn’t that foolish, was she?

The archmage would be holding the sermon this Day Solis, and the streets were so crowded the Guard caravan had to take an alternate route to The Church of All Saints.

Once they started riding through corpses hanging from poles, naked, presumably because their last attires had been looted, and live people rotting away in cages, one woman holding an infant who’d turned blue, Lev grimaced and reached over Sofia to close the shutters.

“What did they do?” Sofia whispered.

“Crime.” Lev burped and his breath smelled of wine.

“Isn’t the cup tomorrow?” Sofia asked. They were the only two in the cabin. Papa hadn’t wanted to go, Sofia hadn’t either, but he had the luxury of refusing. “Should you be drinking this much? Isn’t it dangerous?”

“I won’t drink today. I’m just hung over.” He gagged. Then banged on the roof. “Drive easy!”

“Just trying to get out of the execution row, my lord!” came the driver’s voice.

The stench was horrid, and Sofia covered her mouth and nose with her scarf. Then they got held up by a mob lynching a woman, who knew what for. They should have left early but it took the Illeivich girls forever and a day to get ready, and now the count’s carriage was separated from them anyway.

Looking at the gold rooftops of the church through the cabin shutters were as close as they got to attending service. The archmage had been passing out silver, apparently, and the streets were bogged down with beggars. The driver whipping them did nothing.

Sofia had watched her father burn as the crowd cheered on, so her sympathy for the masses who entertained themselves with executions was close to nothing, but she couldn’t help noticing how many poor there were. Should they band together, they’d be larger than the imperial army. And she’d thought herself unfortunate, so there was shame to be had there.

A question posed itself when she saw a young woman sitting on a wooden fence, her attire wretched, but she smiled when a young man no better off brought her a piece of bread: could she live like them if she was happy? Or could she be happy if she lived like them?

Called the Silver Palace, the Chartorisky estate was immense. A fountain the size of a pond sat in front of it, water spewing from gold statues, and it thundered like a waterfall. The trees they’d planted along the garden, an exotic sort Sofia had to assume, were as tall as any castle walls and wore their summer cloaks already when the rest of Fedosia was only just greening.

Granite steps led up to the palace, and a woman dressed in white played the grand harp in the foyer. Lev had been invited to an afternoon tea by Zoya, and the count had tagged on and brought his daughters along, which meant Sofia had to come. Lord Chartorisky had a son, Daniil, Zoya’s brother who wasn’t betrothed yet, and Gavril Illeivich thought to introduce his daughters to him—she knew how he thought.

The Chartorisky were known as the House of Silver because they controlled the queen’s treasury. Their alchemy made stunning jewelry pieces too intricate for human hands, and they also dipped their magic in the beautification of courtiers—thinner noses, wider eyes, larger breasts, fewer wrinkles, more hair, they could sew people like dolls, a concept the church wasn’t too keen on. Playing with flesh was always flying too close to necromancy, with false wings in the case of the Chartorisky as theirs was a house of glorified artisans. Their silver mines, not their alchemy, were the source of their power.

The Chartorisky crest was blue and silver, and the palace was dressed in it. Sofia spent the afternoon idling under the painting of saints as Lord Chartorisky shared his hunting stories with Gavril Illeivich, the Illeivich girls shadowed Zoya and the friends she had over for tea, while Lev fenced in the garden with Daniil Chartorisky, Erik Vietinghoff, Bogdan Menshikov, Vasily Apraksin, Semyon Skuratov—Sofia had been introduced, and they were all sons of Boyar Duma who were all racing tomorrow.

Then, as the day slipped to evening, she sat on the steps, watching the fountain while the girls had cake in the garden. Their sun parasol swayed and their tablecloths flapped in the sudden gust passing through the trees and redirecting the spray of the fountain for a breath.

The boys were there as well, showing off their racehorses to the ladies. Lev pranced around on Rhytsar, the three-time champion and a beautiful white mount with a fabulous mane. Sofia had tried joining the cake table, but the women kept asking her why she didn’t have children at her ‘mature’ age, and if she worried the count might divorce her, so on the steps she’d been sitting, when she saw Aleksei ride in on a splendid chestnut steed.

Off duty, he wore elegant riding attire and a brown cloak with red lining. Sofia rose, it’d been a natural thing to do, but realizing where she was, she looked over her shoulder to see if the count was there. He had been on the terrace earlier but was not now. Holding up the skirt of her long church dress, gold and white as were the Guard colors, Sofia carefully descended the stone steps, not wanting to trip on her hem and tumble in front of everyone.

The boys greeted Aleksei, and by how they swarmed his horse, Sofia wondered if that was Snowstorm—but the steed didn’t have a spot of white on him. The captain of the sentinels being a boy as well, his attention was on Rhytsar but when he saw Sofia, he smiled with his scarlet eyes.

They were some ways from the fountain and though the hiss of the water was still audible, it was soft. The spray of it cooled the air, though, and as Sofia approached Aleksei, Lev was asking, “Care to fence, Aleksei?”

“For points? No,” was his answer. Erik asked him something, and he turned to answer, careful not to keep his eyes on Sofia for too long.

“Afraid I’ll best you?” Lev asked, twirling his saber.

“You probably will.” Aleksei didn’t care.

Zoya had run off somewhere, but the other girls came over to be a nuisance. “You’re the queen’s nephew?” Ania Illeivich asked.

“I’m Aleksei,” he said.

“I’ve seen you at Raven,” Ania said.

“Good, you have eyes.” He was terrible at feigning what he didn’t have, which was an interest in the Illeivich girls.

“Don’t worry, he’s like that with everyone,” one of the girls comforted Ania when she got visibly flustered.

“What are you doing here anyway?” Lev asked Aleksei.

“My sister invited Aleksei. It’s Chartorisky Estate, not your uncle’s church, Lev,” Daniil answered him.

“How’s the prince?” someone asked. “We haven’t seen him in years.”

Sofia hadn’t gotten a word in and had been standing there like a goose amongst swans when Zoya came trotting on a black horse. It was large, but other than that, it looked like any other horse Sofia had seen, but it must not be because she saw Aleksei’s reaction to it.

“Charger!” He went to Zoya. “Oh, you’ve grown so big.” He held out his hand and let the horse sniff him while Zoya sat atop it, smug. “Where did you get him? He was sold to a baron in Elfur,” Aleksei said.

“Back from the baron in Elfur. Daniil is friends with Prince Arne,” Zoya said, dismounting. “Here.” She handed the reins to Aleksei. “He’s a Fedosian warhorse, I’ve been told. He belongs at home. I got him for you, Aleksei. Do you like it?”

He did, Sofia saw it. He’d forgotten she was there at all. It was like Lev when he was five and discovered the existence of miniature ponies. Never in her life had Sofia felt so poor before. She didn’t have the coppers to rub together to get a donkey for Aleksei, never mind a warhorse from a baron in Elfur, and that was the answer to her question, wasn’t it? She was already poor, and unlike the girl sitting on a fence, she didn’t even have the freedom to smile at someone she adored as the count came out and wanted to go home.

She hadn’t even said hello to Aleksei when the count placed his gloved hand on the small of her back and guided her away from the children of Boyar Duma . Aleksei had mounted Charger as Sofia looked back. He was speaking to Zoya, the girl laughing freely. Sofia couldn’t hear them because the fountain had grown loud, the water spraying between them and her. Then Aleksei held out his hand to Zoya. The girl took it, and he pulled her up onto his horse.

The boys had moved on to something else as Lev stood there, watching Zoya ride off with Aleksei. He tossed up his saber and caught it. Sofia thought he might have been upset, but saw him laughing as he turned to someone. She couldn’t see who it was because of the fountain, but her brother made a vulgar gesture of having male privates in his mouth, not upset at all.

“Come on.” The count pulled Sofia. “It will serve you well to learn to be socially graceful. Lord Chartorisky noticed you’re a peculiar woman, sitting alone all day. Why can’t you smile once in a while?”

“I’m unhappy,” she muttered.

“What does that have to do with anything?” he asked.

They’d reached the carriageway, and the driver opened the door for them.