House War - The Hidden City Part 78

Rath had never doubted it.

Chapter Twenty-Four.

IF DUSTER HAD ever considered herself an accomplished liar, Haval's lessons wore away her sense of confidence. Jewel could see it clearly in their long, slow walks through the Winter streets. Even Duster's anger, ever ready, had dimmed beneath the weight of her weariness. She was like and unlike Jewel; Jewel wondered, as they walked in silence toward home, what Duster would have been like had she had an Oma, and a home, where warmth was not simply a matter of wood and the clothing one could steal.

Or an uncle she had been forced to kill.

She was even too tired to continue her constant sniping at Lefty, and a strange peace descended upon the crowded rooms in which the den huddled. Jewel wished she could be home more often to see it or enjoy it.

But when she was home-as she was now-she was absorbed with the duties she had undertaken: she taught them how to read. The writing was hard. From Lefty, she expected no less, and was surprised at how he struggled to master what should have come easily to anyone else; of her students, only Finch and Teller worked as hard.

No, if temper frayed in the den, it was Jewel's. She snapped at Carver and Jester when their attention wandered. She cursed liberally at the absence of anything she wanted-water, wood, even the food that was her responsibility.

And in the end, on the way to Haval's house, it was Duster who dared to bring it up. She said, "You've been a real b.i.t.c.h the last couple of days, you know that?"

Jewel stopped in the street and stared at Duster as if she'd lost her mind. "I've been a real b.i.t.c.h?"

"That's what I said."

"You've been sulking in the corner and doing almost nothing, and I've been a b.i.t.c.h?"

"Pretty much. If you slap me again, I'll break your arm."

But Jewel hadn't even begun to raise her hand. She glared at Duster, and Duster shrugged. "No one else will say it," she told Jewel. "But it needs saying. Everyone else is worried about you," she added. "Me, I just wonder what in the h.e.l.ls your problem is."

They had stopped walking, and Jewel, realizing how highly Haval prized his punctuality, began to stride down the streets, leaving heavy prints in snow that only barely paused its fall.

But Duster hadn't finished. "You've got everything," she said coldly. "Rath adores you, even if you're too dense to take advantage of it. The others do anything-or would do anything-you asked them. You've got a place, you've got food, you can afford to buy clothing that fits all of us. You've never had to do anything you hated in your life, just to get by. You've got anything any of us could ever want. So what is your problem?"

Jewel had no answer. She was busy seething. But Duster's barbed words found their mark. And the words she offered next put Jewel off her stride enough that they were to be late to meet Haval. She said, "If it's the killing, I don't want your d.a.m.n help."

Jewel swiveled, snow dusting her feet. Her hands were bunched in fists.

"Without my help," she said, the words almost a hiss as they escaped a clenched jaw, "there's no killing. Isn't this what you wanted?"

Duster shrugged. "Maybe," she said at last, and looked away. "Maybe this is what I wanted. But not like this. Look, I don't think I've ever liked you; you've always been too good for me. But this . . ." she shrugged. It was a common gesture. "I don't like it." She said the words as if they were strange, and given how much she disdained, this was a surprise. "The others-I thought they were weak and stupid. And some of them are, and I don't give a s.h.i.+t what you think.

"But not all of them. And they don't need you to be me." Her laugh was bitter, but restrained. "No one needs me to be me," she added. "Except me. But they all need you to be you."

"And that's your business now?"

"You made it mine," Duster told her. "I didn't ask for it, and I don't even want it. But no one else will tell you what you need to hear." She laughed again, and again, the laughter was familiar in its bitterness. "You said you needed me," she told Jewel, the words both a taunt and an accusation. "I didn't know you'd be right."

Jewel wanted to hit her.

But the desire escaped, and the anger went with it, slowly draining into the winter streets, the cold of the air, the d.a.m.nable snow of this horrible season. She tried to see herself as the others might see her, or even as Duster obviously did, and the glimpse the effort gave her was more than she wanted.

"It's not enough that I have to do this," she said, her bitterness an echo of Duster's. "I have to be cheerful too."

"Or not. You're not exactly cheerful, normally." Duster shrugged. "I'm not having fun either," she said. "This servant s.h.i.+t-it's hard."

"If we don't do it-"

"I know. The old guy may be a smug b.a.s.t.a.r.d, but he's not stupid." She hesitated, and then added, "He thinks if I screw up, you'll die. We both will."

"You're not afraid of death," Jewel said, trying to keep the edge from her voice. Trying to think of Duster as someone who could care enough about anyone else to say something like this.

Duster shrugged. "Not afraid," she said, evasively. "But not exactly rus.h.i.+ng toward it with open arms." She paused. "He doesn't like me."

"Haval?"

"Yeah. Haval. Rath doesn't either."

And you care? But the words would have been said to wound, and Jewel bit them back with effort.

"They think this is my fault."

"It's not your fault." The edge slid back in, and Jewel didn't bother to struggle with it. She caught Duster's arm. Duster stared at her hand.

"No one tells me what to do," Jewel added, removing her hand. "Not you, not them."

"If it weren't for me, you wouldn't even try."

"Maybe not. Does it matter? If it weren't for you-"

"Finch would be dead. I've heard it before."

"Still true. It's my decision."

"And you'll live with it. Yeah, heard that too. But you-"

Jewel lifted a hand. "I'll try harder," she said, meaning it. Angry, but meaning it. "To keep it to myself. But nothing that happened there was your fault. And nothing that happens now is your fault either."

"Unless I screw up."

Jewel nodded.

"And we're late."

She cringed.

Haval was, indeed, annoyed when they arrived; he kept them waiting by the door for twenty minutes while he puttered about his counter, absorbed in either his work or his annoyance.

Aware that they'd earned it, Jewel was content-barely-to stand and be ignored. To breathe warmer air, in a quiet place. The fact that an angry man sat at its center wasn't much of a concern. She'd grown used to his type of anger.

Eventually, however, satisfied with their apparent compliance, Haval rose, his pale brow a gathered line across a sour face. "If you ladies are ready?"

They nodded, and Duster did not even look sullen.

"Then today we will learn about fear."

"I think we understand fear," Jewel told him.

"Good. I note, however, that Duster has not chosen to speak."

And didn't.

He moved around the counter, calling his wife to take his place. She came, looking slightly harried, and also slightly disgusted; he really wasn't the neatest of craftsmen. "We will be in the back for the afternoon," Haval told her, "if an emergency arises, you may interrupt us."

"Fear," he said quietly, "is something we all face. We face it in different ways. Sometimes we deny its existence. Sometimes we thrive on it. In either case, the fear itself isn't necessarily the defining factor." He paused. "Understand that men like Waverly live on the fear of others; it keeps their own at bay. Understand as well that he is never without fear. Men with much to lose will never be without it."

"And you?"

"Fear is a constant companion," he replied, his expression so serene it was hard to believe the words. "Believe that no life is lived without fear. When you are too tangled up in your own, and especially when you are young-" he allowed them to express their quiet outrage at being called "young" in that particular tone that implied ignorant, "-it is easy to believe that no one who does not obviously show fear feels any."

"And what are you afraid of?" Duster asked, and not perhaps in the servile tone of voice she had been practicing so d.a.m.n hard.

"Funny you should ask that today," Haval replied. "Today I am afraid that I will fail you both. That anything I can teach you will be superficial at best; that you will learn to behave in the appropriate ways only in my presence, and that it is my presence alone that anchors your efforts."

Duster glared at him.

Almost wearily, he added, "You will be able to perform here, where in the end it doesn't count."

Jewel nodded. "It's easier here," she told him quietly. "For me." She glanced at Duster; Duster was silent. In all, better than she usually hoped for. "I can watch your face. I can hear your tone of voice. I know when I'm doing something right, and when I'm doing something wrong." She paused. "But I think I'll have that anywhere else as well."

"Do you?"

She nodded. "Other people will react. Not the way you do, not exactly-but they'll be expecting something of me, and if I do the wrong thing, I think I'll be able to tell. And fix it."

"Most of your life will be made of a series of perceived crises," he told her, after a pause in which Duster poured tea. "If you are lucky, they will seldom be so intense, and the outcome so uncertain. Do you understand that you could die?"

Jewel started to answer, and stopped. Because until he had said the bald words, she hadn't. The nebulous fear of discovery had been enough to drive her; the fear that discovery would end in death? It hadn't really occurred to her. And now that it had, it wouldn't leave her. She knew it was possible.

"I have endeavored not to speak openly of it," he continued, when she did not. "Because the nature of fear for some is paralyzing; because fear might make you clumsy and incapable, rather than more honed, and more wary.

"But I have spent the better part of a full week in your company, both of you, and I am better able to understand your fears and how they motivate you. You, Jewel Markess, I understand well. Your fear surprises me; it is seldom found in those in your circ.u.mstances. And Duster's fear, as well, is uncommon because her life has been lived at the extreme edges of our society, for better or worse.

"In most your age, the fear of not being liked, the fear of disapproval, is enough motivation; it encourages people to wear outlandish styles and behave in even more outlandish ways; it causes them to group in packs, there to peck out a social order. This is not what drives you, either of you."

Jewel was quiet, waiting for Haval to finish his thought; his thoughts were often long and meandering.

"It does not, however, matter. People will a.s.sume your fear-when exposed-means what they expect it to mean. But it is in the exposure, in the use of the fear, rather than the fear itself, that you will find some protection. And today, we will begin to teach you how to show that, how to let it seep through the cracks of your facade as naturally as if it were breath." He turned and lifted his cup, and Duster was there by his side in an instant, filling it, her face a study in complacent neutrality.

"What does a servant fear?" he asked her, when she had set the hot tea aside, and was in no danger of spilling any of it in his lap.

Duster shrugged. "Don't know."

"Then think."

Of the words he often used, these were perhaps Duster's least favorite. She wasn't stupid, but Haval's manner of speech made her feel as if she were, and it also made her angry. He could see this clearly, and added, "We will discuss the nature of anger at a later date. At the moment, it is fear that you must understand. Think of it as a language, Duster, and one that you must master if you are to survive."

"I'm not afraid of death," she said coldly.

"No. But it is not of your fear that I speak. You are a servant; that is your role and your sole function. Your daily wages are earned by cleaning up after others, and by serving them when service is required. What, in that role, do you fear?"

She closed her eyes. Her lashes, dark and long, changed the look of her pale face. "I don't want to lose my job?" she asked at last.

"Very good. Most don't. You are more aware than Jewel that some people have power. You are now required to serve a man of power. How is that fear expressed?"

Duster swallowed. "I don't know."

"No. You don't. It is why you are here. But time is not our friend in this place. Try again."

"If he's powerful, he's more important. If he's more important, any mistake I make can mean-"

"Yes. Instant dismissal. Possibly public, if your employer wishes to mollify an angry lord. You yourself do not fear this; it has never been your desire to serve. What you do fear-the loss of opportunity, the possibility of discovery-must express itself only in a way that a negligent man of power might interpret as fear of his rank, of the differences between his rank and yours.

"Men of station generally do not notice servants. There is a risk that Lord Waverly may, in fact, notice you, and not for the reason of servitude. How will you handle this?"

"By ignoring it," Duster replied, with some effort.

"Yes. By ignoring it. But if Lord Waverly senses the fear, it would be better; he will-as I said-make his own translation. He expects to be feared; he expects to be waited on. He expects that the people who wait on him understand that their very livelihood is dependent upon his goodwill. If you are afraid for any reason in his presence-any reason, Duster, do you understand?-you must work to channel it, to express it in ways that will be expected, and can therefore be overlooked."

"Jewel," he added, "your fear is a different fear. It is upon you that Lord Waverly will-should this foolish and ill-advised plan be set in action-focus the brunt of his attention. What, then, will you fear?"

Jewel swallowed. But she did not answer immediately. She thought about it. "I'm the daughter of a merchant?" she asked at last, although she knew the answer by heart.

"Yes. A younger daughter, and not terribly lovely, but neither are you repulsive. You have been raised in a somewhat sheltered environment, but your mother has recently pa.s.sed on, and your father is in a position to benefit from Waverly's merchant interests, if Waverly is well-disposed toward him."

Jewel nodded. Thinking not of herself, but of Finch. Of being sold by family, for that meanest and most necessary of things: money.

"Again, it is in Waverly's nature to a.s.sume that all men seek advantage and position. If they seek it from him, and they are servile, they are almost servants. There is safety in that, for such a man. He does not seek a circle of friends; at best, he surrounds himself with like-minded rivals. An ambitious man of low birth will not be a surprise to Lord Waverly. But there are many ambitious men, and many of low birth, who would not seek to obliquely offer their daughter as the price of entry into his circle.

"What is offered, cannot of course be legally offered. Therefore, it will not be discussed openly. Ever. Waverly is aware of this, and aware of the risk involved in taking what is offered. He will a.s.sess you, when you meet, but he will feel relatively safe in the certain knowledge that he has the advantage of your father's ambition.