The Skull Throne
Page 123

“Can you read?” Leesha asked. “Write?”
Rosal nodded. “Yes, mistress. In Krasian, Ruskan, and Albeen.”
“And Thesan, naturally,” Jessa said. “Rosal is quite the reader.”
“Poems?” Gared asked, the dread in his voice creeping into his aura.
Rosal squeezed her nose as if the notion stank. “War stories.”
“Military history,” Jessa corrected.
“If one wishes to be dull about it,” Rosal agreed. Her eyes never left the mistresses’, but her aura showed her attention was focused solely on impressing Gared. Every word, every pose, was for his benefit. It would have troubled Leesha, but so far as she could tell, the young woman gave honest word.
“Have you had training in mathematics?” Leesha asked.
“Yes, mistress,” Rosal said. “Arithmetic, algebra, and calculus. We have classes in bookkeeping and inventory, as well.”
“Herb lore?” Leesha asked.
“I can brew the seven cures from memory,” Rosal said. “For fertility, grind three …” Leesha waved her into silence, but not before her words had the intended effect on Gared’s aura.
“With books I can prepare others,” Rosal said. “We all study apothecary, in case men overindulge in powders or spirits while here.”
“Ay, but can she sing?” Rojer laughed, but all the warmth left Amanvah’s aura as she glared at him.
“Sorry,” Rojer said. Lower, he added, “Just trying to lighten the mood.”
The girl shook her head. “I have never sung well enough for Mistress Jessa, but I can play the harp and the organ.”
“What’s an organ?” Gared asked.
Rosal looked at him and winked. “I can show you mine, if—”
“That’s enough of that!” Jizell barked. “Off with you girl, before I fetch a stick!”
Leesha blinked. How many time had she heard Bruna bark those words? It was like hearing her mentor’s voice once more.
But as Jessa watched the girl go, there was no anger in her aura. She was proud of the girl’s performance. It was likely no accident that Jax sent Rosal and not some other girl up with the tea.
Gared’s eyes followed Rosal, and as she passed through the curtain she gave a tiny wave that sent a shiver through his aura.
Leesha turned back to Jessa, taking her skirt in hand and dipping a curtsy. “Apologies, mistress. I was unkind.”
“Accepted,” Jessa said at once. “Now, mistress, would you like to discuss the real reason you’re here?”
Mistress Jessa’s office was richly appointed with thick carpet and heavy goldwood furniture. There were hundreds of books on her shelves—rare volumes, many of which Leesha had never seen. She had to resist the urge to begin paging through them.
“You may borrow any one,” Jessa said, “so long as you return it in person before asking for another.”
Leesha looked at her in surprise, and Jessa smiled. “We started ill, but I want very much for us to be friends, Leesha. Bruna never taught a fool, and Araine thinks the world of you. I’ve never claimed I could read a person better than those two.”
She smiled. “And any woman that could hold Thamos’ attention for more than a night has got to be special.”
Leesha had been about to smile in turn, but the words chilled her. Jessa was elegant and beautiful, and the mistress of the royal brothel. Had she slept with Thamos? Had any of the girls downstairs? Night, he might have had them all.
Jessa set out a cup and saucer, filling them from a silver tea service that was worth a fortune in metal-poor Angiers.
“The royal brothers visit often,” Jessa noted. “Rhinebeck and Mickael—even Shepherd Pether has never hesitated to doff his robes here. You’d never know that some of my girls were boys.” Leesha took the cup, willing her hand not to shake.
“But Thamos …” Jessa went on. “Thamos came only once, and never again since. That one always preferred to hunt on his own.”
“And what does that make me?” Leesha asked. “Prey?”
“In love, both partners can be prey,” Jessa said. “That’s what makes it so delicious.”
“Did you try to steal the recipe for liquid demonfire from Bruna?” Leesha asked.
If Jessa was surprised at her bluntness, there was no sign of it on her aura.
“Ay, I did,” Jessa said. “The woman was almost ninety, and after the prince was born, she spoke only of returning to the Hollow. I knew I would never see her again, and feared the secret would die with her.”
“Bruna never spoke of you,” Leesha said. “Not once, in all my years with her.”
Jessa gave a pained smile. “Ay. None could hold a grudge like Hag Bruna. But I loved her, for my part, and regret we parted ill. When she died, was it … quick?”
Leesha stared into her cup. “I wasn’t there. It was a flux that took her. Vika begged her not to go among the sick, told her that she was too weak …”
“But nothing could keep Bruna from her children when they were in need,” Jessa said.
“Ay,” Leesha agreed.
“Tried once or twice over the years to patch things up with Jizell,” Jessa said. “Not as often as I should have, but I was proud, and there was only silence in reply.”
“Jizell can be stubborn as Bruna,” Leesha said.
“And her apprentice?” Jessa asked.
“I have greater concerns than a failed theft, thirty-five years ago,” Leesha said. “There need be no ill between us.”
“Liquid demonfire isn’t even the great power it once was,” Jessa said. “This desert whore magic makes demonfire seem like flamesticks, I’m told.”
“Hora magic,” Leesha corrected.
Jessa laughed. “That makes more sense! Though whore magic can change the course of duchies, as well.”
Leesha resisted the urge to stroke her belly, though Jessa no doubt knew her condition. “Indeed.”
“To business, then?” Jessa asked.
Leesha nodded. “What is your assessment of Rhinebeck’s condition?”
“He’s seedless,” Jessa said bluntly. “I’ve been saying it for twenty years, but Araine won’t hear it. She’s desperate for a cure that doesn’t exist.”
“What is your evidence for diagnosis?” Leesha asked.
“Apart from six wives over twenty years, none of them so much as stuttering her flow?” Jessa asked. “Not to mention my girls. Whatever the sand witch might say, I don’t give pomm tea to Rhinebeck’s favorites. Araine would have her son divorced and remarried in an instant if she thought it would secure his line. More than one graduated and proved so fertile her belly swelled just from sitting in a man’s lap and tickling his chin.”
It was nothing Leesha did not already know. “Is that all?”
“Of course not,” Jessa said. She produced a leather-bound ledger, handing it to Leesha, who immediately opened it and began paging through. The book listed all the tests Jessa had run, the herbs and cures she’d tried and the results, all inscribed with a neat hand using the meticulous methodology Bruna had taught.