* * *
The door had been left ajar and the boy had followed the dog into the room, surprising Emral Lanear where she sat behind veils of smoke, the huge filigreed bowl of the water-pipe on the table at her side, heavy and gravid with its sly promise. Lids low, playing the mouthpiece across her lips, she observed her unexpected guests.
The dog collected a small pillow that had slipped down from a divan. With the pillow clamped possessively in its mouth, the animal spun round, dropping down and holding its head close to the polished floor, its eyes bright and fixed on the boy.
He edged forward.
Claws clattering, the dog bolted, dodging first to one side and then to the other, deftly evading the boy’s reach, and then the animal was past, out through the door with its prize.
Hissing in frustration, the boy tensed as if to set off in pursuit, but after a moment his shoulders dropped, and he straightened.
‘The dog chooses the game,’ Lanear said.
The boy glanced over, and then shrugged. ‘I like playing, too. Only he’s so fast.’
‘You are the hostage Orfantal.’
‘I know I’m supposed to be with a tutor. But Cedorpul decided he won’t teach me any more.’
‘Oh? Why is that? Were you unmindful? Rude?’
Orfantal nodded. ‘He was showing me a conj … conjuration. Magic, I mean.’
‘I know the word, yes,’ said Lanear, gesturing with the mouthpiece. ‘Do continue.’
‘It was making sounds. I didn’t like them. So I dispelled it – the conjuration.’
‘You dispelled it?’
‘It wasn’t hard.’
Lanear drew on the mouthpiece, briefly wondering when she had grown so careless with propriety. But the sharpness blossoming in her lungs swept away the moment’s disquiet. ‘Do you rival his power, then?’
‘Oh no. He’s not very good.’
She laughed out a cloud of smoke. ‘Oh, dear. Careful, Orfantal. Cedorpul is a certain kind of man one finds on occasion. Round of form, soft to the eye, with a childish modesty still held on to, until the gift of his youth assumes the pose of affectation, sufficient to irritate his more mature fellows, even as it seduces weak-minded women. That said, such a man has the capacity for venality and spite.’
‘I shouldn’t make him angry at me?’
‘Yes, as I said. Not wise.’
Orfantal approached, settling down rather close to her knees on a padded footstool she had moved aside earlier in order to give room to her folded legs. The boy’s eyes were dark, liquid, and perhaps not as innocent as they should have been. ‘Are you a priestess?’
‘I am the High Priestess, Orfantal. Emral Lanear.’
‘Do you have any children?’
‘From my womb? No. But of the realm? Perhaps it could be said, all of the Tiste Andii.’
‘Why is it that no one gets to know their mothers?’
‘What do you mean?’
>
His gaze slipped away. ‘This is a nice room. The smoke smells like incense. It shows me the currents.’
‘What currents? Ah, the draughts—’