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The kahya at the door to his chambers opened it, and Kadou hurled himself through. Dinner had been laid out—he ignored all the food and seized on the carafe of wine, pouring far too much of it into the glass. He could feel Evemer’s cold gaze boring into the back of his head as he drank deep. It was a white, as sweet and fresh as snowmelt and honey. “Send for more of this,” he said, refilling his glass and pouring that down his gullet too. He heard Evemer open the door again, speak quietly to the other kahya.
He forced himself to slow down when pouring the third glass emptied the carafe. He sat heavily at the table and surveyed the food. The wine had hit his stomach with a rush of warmth, and he was acutely aware that he had not eaten all day. It would help his nerves if he could manage a few bites, but . . . No. No, he couldn’t do it. The idea of having to spend energy on chewing was unaccountably upsetting and pushed him right to the edge of tears.
What was wrong with him? Why was he like this? Why did he let his own mind terrorize him so?
Evemer was moving around the room, lighting lamps and tidying the arrangement of the cushions and furniture. Kadou wondered wildly if he meant it as a code of some sort, an unspoken criticism of Kadou himself.
He couldn’t stand it. He couldn’t endure this, no one could possibly endure this.
“My armsman,” he choked out.
“Armsman Tadek Hasira,” Evemer began, prompt and serene, “is quartered in cadet dormitory seven—”
“Send for him. Now, please. There’s a letter on my desk.” He waved his hand toward his bedroom door. Did he dare to order them to hurry? Did he dare to flex his power needlessly like that? Well, who could it possibly harm that he hadn’t harmed already? He had already ruined everything that could be ruined. “Have the messenger run,” he said, gripping the edge of the table. “Tell them to have Tadek run too.” Best to find out whether Tadek was angry sooner rather than later. Best to throw himself at it and get it over with, so he would know whether or not he should completely surrender to despair.
“Highness,” said Evemer tonelessly, and went to Kadou’s room to fetch the letter.
Kadou lost himself for a moment, staring unfocused across the room. He felt unmoored, but only a little, just enough that it was a welcome relief from the screeching of his own mind. The Vintish ambassador had brought a troupe of musicians from his home-land several years ago—one of them had a violin, a funny stringed instrument played with a bow. It had been rather like an oddly shaped kemençe, but in tone it had been more similar to the yowling of a cat, and it had set Kadou’s teeth on edge. It had hardly been music at all, but that’s what Kadou’s brain sounded like in moments like these.
When he came out of the moment with a sharp jolt, Evemer was moving around the room again and the second carafe of wine had appeared on the table. How deep had he been drifting that he hadn’t noticed a cadet enter to deliver it? Had Evemer already sent off the letter? He must have, or he wouldn’t have returned to his previous task.
He was touching nearly everything in the room, it seemed like. Nothing satisfied him as it was. It all had to be aligned with military precision to everything else, all crisp right angles and symmetry.
Kadou sloshed some of the new carafe of wine into his glass and thence into his mouth, and promptly choked, the acridness of the dry wine turning bitter on his tongue against the remaining sweetness of the white. Evemer glanced over at him sharply. “It’s nothing,” he said, coughing.
“Highness,” Evemer said, and returned to his tasks.
Amazing vocabulary on that man. He had such a way of using a single word for so many different meanings. That one, Kadou supposed, meantYou’re a lush and an embarrassment; please stop.
He was, though. He was a foolish, stupid thing.
He peered down into the glass—it was a black wine, heavy and thick, more suitable for the evening. He would have preferred a red, if he’d been given the choice, something faintly floral that wouldn’t clash so wretchedly against the white.
He gulped the rest of his glass down, grimacing, and pushed aside the carafe. He ought to eat. He hadn’t eaten all day. He ought to.
Evemer was fussing with the alignment of the cushions on one of the divans, and it was going to make Kadou cry. He forced himself to watch—could Zeliha have known how incisive a punishment this would be? How deep it would cut to have someone like Evemer looming behind him at every step, judging his every word and gesture, exerting his will on Kadou’s environment to demonstrate how overwhelmingly insufficient he was in a thousand tiny ways?
How could anyone have thought that Kadou was competent enough to repair his relationship with his niece’s body-father? Or oversee the investigation at the guild?
So Kadou kept watching, dully letting it all wash over him while the wine settled in his stomach and then crept into his blood, until everything was wonderfully soft and even the embarrassment and humiliations he was hoarding like a magpie’s pile of baubles were blunted into irrelevance.
There was, at length, a tap on the door. Kadou’s heart lurched in his chest and he got halfway to his feet—but Evemer swung the door open first and let Tadek in.
Kadou froze.
He’d never seen Tadek wearing anything but the deep, rich cobalt of the core-guard’s uniform. He’d been stripped of that honor with all the rest, of course. To replace it, they’d given him the uniform of a cadet, trousers and an ill-fitting knee-length kaftan of the palest blue, two shades off white.
That particular shade came from a dye made of dogwood bark and hyacinths—cheap materials, in comparison with those used for the fringe-guard and core-guard’s uniforms. There were nearly three times as many cadets as the two upper levels combined. As a person rose through the ranks, they were given uniforms made of more precious materials—finer cloth and buttons, better tailoring, more vibrant dyes . . . An outward expression of the increasing value in which House Mahisti held them, the investment of time and training and education.
Someone had looked Tadek in the eye and told him that he wasn’t valuable anymore. They’d taken his beautiful cobalt uniform which had been made just for him, and they’d put him back in this.
Kadou swallowed a lump of anger. Tadek was his armsman, wasn’t he? He was of Kadou’s household now, and Kadou could see him dressed in whatever colors he wished. He could put Tadek back in—well, not actual kahya blues, not unless he wanted to step on the toes of the entire garrison, but . . . Something else. Something that wouldn’t be such a public humiliation ascadet whites.
“Hello,” Kadou said.
“Highness,” Tadek murmured in reply. He wasn’t meeting Kadou’s eyes, but he had his chin tipped up in that way he had, as if he weren’t going to let anyone see that he was shamed.
Kadou sat back down, swallowed another lump of complicated emotion. He was too drunk for this. “Come in, please.”
