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reflected his hesitancy to hurt her, because she loved him, she opened herself
to the pain that talking about her father s death always brought.  Papa was
poisoned about six months before the explosion. It was a beautiful summer day,
and we decided to take carriages out into the country for a picnic. Keifer
decided, and they were already learning it was easier to give in than to fight
with him. Easier. Deadlier.  Papa was barely thirty-five at the time. The five
youngest were learning to walk, and he was so happy. Later than night, when
Mother Elder came to him for services, he was vomiting, dizzy, and weak.
Within minutes, he collapsed into a coma and died. They say he died of arsenic
poisoning but we don t know what the poison had been in.
 I m sorry, Jerin whispered, hugging her, wrapping her in his warm comfort.
She held him, finding peace within his arms.  At the time, we were so bitter
about his death that we never thought how lucky we were that he was the only
one killed. The explosion at the theater taught us to count the small
blessings.
They stood for a while, hugged close. Finally, she resolutely set him aside.
He had to know how to keep himself safe. She showed him how the dressing room
doors bolted. The locks were simple bolts, but disguised within elaborate
woodcarvings to hide the function of the room.
 Keep the doorways clear of clothing or chairs. She recalled the instructions
her sister had given her six years ago when she was judged old enough to know
the family secrets.  You might want to keep the smaller bedroom s door bolted
at all times. This is the bolt-hole s door here, behind this wood paneling, so
you want to keep this clear too. She showed him the catch hidden in the
carved trim, and had him trigger it himself.
The door creaked open; the chamber beyond was musty from disuse.  The dressing
room doors give you time to get here and shut this door after you. There s a
lamp here with a box of matches. She grimaced as the cobwebs on the lamp
clung to her hand when she set the glass chimney aside.  Don t waste time
lighting them until you ve got the door barred solid. There s a light well
here, so during the day you ll see even with the door closed and locked.
He nodded, so solemn. Locks of hair were escaping his braid, spilling onto his
face, and he brushed them back absently. Distracted by him, she dropped the
matchbox after lighting the lamp.
 Oops! She bent down, lantern in hand, to scan the floor for the box. It sat
on a pile of burned discards. She frowned at the blackened matchsticks, picked
up the matchbox, and glanced into it. Five lone matches rattled about the box,
while their spent sisters lay on the floor, covered with dust. The lamp, she
noticed now, was almost empty too, the chimney black with soot, the wick badly
trimmed.
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She, Halley, and Odelia had been shown the bolt-hole shortly before her
father s death. Eldest made them spend the day taking care of the secret
route a rite of passage, Eldest called it. Together, they secretly cleared the
outside door, swept the floor clean, counted the crowns in the emergency
purse, and replaced the unused matches and lamp with new. Trini would have
been the next to do maintenance on the passage, but by the time she turned
sixteen. Keifer was dead.
There had been no attacks on the palace. No attempted kidnappings. The lamp
should be clean and full.
The matches unused.
Keifer had used the bolt-hole.
Cursing, barely aware of Jerin now, she hurried down the secret passageway. A
straight shot back, down a tight flight of stairs, and through a series of
sharp turns, she hit the end.
The door was bolted, but dropping down with the lamp, she could read old
evidence of a betrayal that went beyond words. Tracked in from a muddy garden,
dusted now with six years of disuse, footprints of various sizes led in toward
the sanctity of the husband quarters.
 Oh. Gods, how could he have done this? she moaned, sick, sick. She fumbled
with the door, stumbled out. and threw up in the sweet, sharp profusion of
roses. Jerin followed her out, held her head as she was sick.
 What is it? What s wrong?
 Keifer! Gods damn the crib bait slut! He was bringing women into our
husbands quarters! Oh, gods, night after night, he turned us out, refusing us
sexual services while he was whoring himself with someone else.
 Who?
 I don t know. She thought of all the spent match-sticks, far outnumbering
the number normally found in a box of that size.  Perhaps half the guard by
the count I can figure.
He nodded, then glanced about the garden.  We should go in, before we give
away the door.
The door is given away
, she almost snapped, but swallowed it. He was right. She followed him back
inside and bolted the exit carefully shut. Jerin was silent the whole trip
back. It wasn t until they were in the dressing room that she realized he was
holding something back from her.
 What is it?
He refused to look at her.  Ren, you were with Keifer, weren t you?
 Yes. She was puzzled.
 Odelia too?
 Yes.
He whispered so softly, she almost didn t hear him.  Ren, you two should be
checked, before the marriage, so if Keifer passed if Keifer had who knows if
his lovers were clean? We should be sure.
For the youn-gest s sake, for Lylia s sake, we should be sure.
 Ren! What s wrong? Queen Mother Elder asked as Ren stumbled into her room
and collapsed into the chair before the fire.
 Keifer betrayed us. Ren gazed numbly at the fire. Had Keifer died instantly
in the explosion, or had he been pinned and burned alive?  When he was
refusing Eldest and others services, he was servicing strangers he brought in
through the bolt-hole. Jerin Jerin thinks it would be wise if Odelia and I
were checked, since we can t be sure we re clean.
 Oh, dear gods in the heavens, Mother Elder whispered.
 Halley will have to be checked, if we ever run her to earth. And Trini sweet
Mothers he could have infected her too. She pressed a trembling hand to her
eyes as she realized the true depth of the danger.
 I don t know about these diseases. Mother, how intimate you need to be to
pass them. I might have already infected Jerin. There was no joining, but
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otherwise, we were extremely intimate.
Ren stared numbly at the fire, trying not to think of all the horrible
ramifications. Keifer had died six years ago. Surely, if they were infected,
at least one of them would have fallen sick by now.
Gods, she hoped Keifer hadn t been killed immediately by the explosion. She
hoped he burned slowly.
The doctor was a thin, old woman, part of a family that had treated Ren
through sore throats and broken arms. She examined Ren with dry, cold,
dispassionate fingers, then asked a myriad of questions, reminding Ren often
to think carefully and to hold nothing back. With a growing sense of relief,
Ren could truthfully say that she never had a sore on her vagina or rectum.
She had never lost patches of hair. Her eyebrows had never thinned. She never
had rashes on her body, and especially not on the bottoms of her feet or the
palms of her hands.
 You know if you re lying, you ll give any child you conceive this awful
disease while it s still in the womb. It will be born dead, or so damaged
you ll wish it had been.
 No. I m not lying. It would be stupid to lie, Ren said.
 Yes. but it never seems to stop people from doing it, the doctor said.  It
would be helpful to have
Princess Halley here as well, but so far, I see no sign of disease. Recently,
they ve developed a test. A
device has been invented that allows one to see things so small they re
invisible. We actually have small organisms living in our blood.
 I know. I ve worked with a microscope.
 Oh. Well, they couldn t see syphilis for a while.
Turns out it s white. On a normal slide, you can t see it. Recently, they [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]