webcrawl/APGTE/Book-6/md/Ch-086.md

Disjunction
===========





> *“Hate, earnest hate, requires understanding of yourself and your enemy. Anyone can despise a scarecrow of their own making, but to truly loathe another you must first recognize in them some part of yourself that you deeply detest.”*
> 
> – Extract from ‘The Covenant of Iron’, a philosophical text by Dread Empress Foul II


People were already calling it the Peace of Salia.


The capital letter rolled off the tongue, as if the Gods themselves had designated this particular to be more momentous than old ones. Now the Principate’s capital was celebrating that peace with great enthusiasm, for a city that’d been aflame not a month ago. The streets had been adorned with flowers and streaming banners, tables brought out from houses and taverns and shops as the people gathered under torchlight. Simple but plentiful foodstuffs – paid for by the First Prince, under her title of Princess of Salia – had been freely distributed, and everywhere cellars doors were cracked open and a few choice bottles produced. It was as if the capital had turned into a massive summer fair.


The Peace had been a balm for the Principate’s soul, one direly needed for these days Procer was feeling rather more fragile than it was used to. For the greatest empire on the surface of Calernia, that was a shock difficult to swallow. Unlike her own people, it had been centuries since the Procerans had been made to look the possibility of annihilation in the eye – save for the Lycaonese, of course, though that people had never hid their disgust for the behaviour of their southern kin. For now the fear had made honest folk of these princes and princesses, but the heiress knew better than to expect that would last. The fear would fade with time, and when it did the scheming would begin again.


When it did she would be ready. Part of that, unfortunately, meant doing violence against her own patience.


Vivienne would have preferred taking to the streets with the commons, but as the heiress-designate to the throne of Callow her absence at the ball would have been very much noticed. Catherine’s clever, bloody gift from the Princes’ Graveyard carried few privileges that Vivienne Dartwick had not already possessed, and brought with it many, many duties. In a twisted way, it was why Vivienne considered it a gift at all: her queen, her friend, only ever thrust such heavy burdens onto those she trusted. The warmth of that trust still lingered and made the evening slightly more tolerable than it would otherwise had been.


Still, even so spending a few hours surrounded by drunk Blood and the cream of Proceran nobility wasn’t exactly Vivienne’s idea of a pleasant evening. Cordelia Hasenbach could throw a party, mind you. The food and décor made up for the chore to some extent, since if she was to dirty her hands smiling at fools at least it would be in beautiful surroundings. *Le Palais Joyeux*, this place was called, which if she remembered her Chantant well meant ‘the Joyous Palace’. Unlike most kinds of Proceran ostentation, which the baron’s daughter in her could not help but find garish and vulgar, she could not help but find this particular indulgence striking.


Save for the great marble pavilion at the heart of the palace, the grounds were entirely a great open-air garden. Terraces and gazebos provided islets of food and drink, but the talking and even the dancing was done on the grassy green. Topiaries and sculpted flower beds – prizing pale and purple blooms above all – sprawled out in loose rings emanating from the great pavilion, occasionally revealing bronze statues whose rust has been artfully and carefully managed. Lanterns hung from great ropes above, cast warm light, and enchanted motes of light drifted across the night like little stars. It was quite the enchanting sight, and for all their many flaws the western nobles had come out just as beautifully adorned.


Fortunes had been spent on brocade doublets for the men, as they were the current fashion in Salia, while the women favoured instead layered dresses with split skirts and long stockings. Powders and cosmetics were used to accentuate beauty, for few here were ugly. Visibly so, at least, for though Procerans nobility publicly held distaste for mages it was quite eager to use their sorceries on matters like appearance in private. Still, for all their splendour the Procerans were not the centre of attraction: it had been a very long time since either Blood or Callowan highborn had visited Salia, and so both were treated as something between prey and honoured guests.


“- it was added at the order of First Princess Armande Rohanon, in truth, who it is said was very fond of *le Palais Joyeux*,” Simon de Gorgeault finished.


Armande Rohanon, Vivienne dimly remembered, had been the last ruler of Procer before the one whose death had begun what the westerners called the Great War. The last of the three from the House of Rohanon to have claimed the high throne in row, explaining the line’s sharp descent in fortunes since – since the death of the last Merovins, the princes of Procer had not been inclined to allow another house among them to rise too high again. Vivienne’s eyes moved away from the statue she’d inquired about, a piece allegedly meant to represent Clothor Merovins but carved in a style so severe it was nearly Callowan. It was why she’d asked about it in the first place.


“I have never known a man to have even half as many statues as the Principate’s founder,” Vivienne dryly noted. “They would make a forest of their own, put together.”


“Procer is the youngest of the great realms in some ways,” the lay brother smiled. “Even the Dominion can claim descent from the Eighteen Cities, after all, while no single predecessor state ever occupied more than third of our lands. Our shorter history has accrued much gilding to offset that… insecurity.”


He really was good, Vivienne thought. Simon de Gorgeault, whose company she much preferred to younger men incapable of understanding she had no interest in a flirtation, was at first glance at an attractive older man with a pleasant speaking voice and interesting conversation. He was also one of the three highest-ranking spymasters in Procer, though his Holy Society was more diplomatic in nature than its rival Silver Letters and Circle of Thorns. He’d also emerged from the botched attempt to removed Cordelia Hasenbach from the throne as a very influential man high in the First Prince’s trust, on account of the red-handed loyalty he’d displayed to her during those mad hours.


He was charming enough it was easy to forget he was here to take her measure and report every word and nuance to Cordelia Hasenbach.


“Not a word I would have associated with your people until tonight,” Vivienne mildly replied, “but I thank you for the insight.”


The silver-haired man looked faintly amused.


“You don’t trust us at all, do you Lady Dartwick?” Simon de Gorgeault asked.


Vivienne smiled pleasantly, knowing it would not reach her eyes. *I trust your rapacious pack of fellows not a whit, spymaster,* she thought. *I haven’t forgotten that even begging was not enough to stay your hand, when you thought you were winning*. There was a greater war than any mortal squabble waiting up north, but she would not let that delude her as to the nature of the empire she was clasping hands with. Its only saving grace, as far as she was concerned, was that it was not as prone to doomsday horrors as the one laying to the east of Callow.


“Trust is much like this grand garden, Brother Simon,” she calmly replied. “Years in the making, even when carefully tended to.”


It was a diplomat’s answer, but then they were both diplomats of some stripe. The man excused himself with a bow, sensing the conversation was at an end, and Vivienne took to the garden paths again. Catherine was easy enough to find, considering there was never anything less than a crowd around her. Her victories on the field followed by a sudden turn allying with Procer would have made her fascinating to this lot even if she’d not been wildly charismatic – and, in small doses anyway, that she was ‘Damned’ only leant a scandalous appeal to her company. With a bottle of wine in her and Hakram at her side, though, Cat would be able to handle it.


The wave of laughter that passed through the assembled crowd of Proceran hanger-ons and Blood in her pavilion suggested that the Queen of Callow might have dusted off a story perhaps best left buried, but then that wouldn’t be the first time. And Vivienne was inclined to bet that it’d been a calculated move if she had.


Catherine Foundling had been eerily prescient since joining the fray in Iserre, and measured in a way she’d not been before. The Everdark had changed her, and perhaps everyone else who’d gone down there with here. Indrani’s changes were perhaps more subtle in nature, but nothing to be sneered at either. Vivienne had once doubted anything of what lay between her and Masego would be voiced before the Last Dusk, but even if she’d not been the mistress of the Jacks she would have noticed the changes slowly taking place there. Though Vivienne was not certain Zeze had it in him to offer what Indrani wanted of him, she wished them well in the attempt.


It seemed to make them both happy, which settled the matter as far as she was concerned.


Vivienne knew her station had obligations, and that it was important to forge ties now so that she might have existing relations with the princes to the west of Callow in years to come, but at the moment she’d had as much of this as she could stomach. She’d been a thief long before she’d been the Thief, so it wasn’t too difficult to slip into an elegant hedge maze and shake off her few ‘pursuers’ – nobles a little too eager to speak with her, or a little too drunk to realized she was not interested in flirting with bloody Procerans. The maze wasn’t too difficult to figure out, as though the walls were tall there were towers and bridges to orient herself with. Twice Vivienne kept to the shadows as she passed couples a lot more interested in each other than their surroundings, which gave a good hint as to what all these alcoves maze might actually be meant for.


She’d skimmed the edge of the labyrinth while allowing herself time to breathe, so eventually Vivienne was forced to admit that duty beckoned once more. There was only so long she could allow herself to disappear for. From what she recalled glimpsing from one of the higher tiers of the garden, one of the several way outs of the maze should be not too far ahead. When grassy grounds gave way to small tiles – checkered black and white, an unusually simple pattern by Proceran standards – she knew she was on the right track, as the tiles were surrounding a small fountain of silver and marble. Vivienne’s steps stuttered, however, when she saw who was waiting by the edge of the fountain.


The shade sat by the water, trailing gloved fingers against the surface as she sat artfully arranged on the chequered stone. The long wrap dress she wore was more Praesi than her usual fare – the vivid patterns of red, yellow and blue drew the eye to the slim waist and the red sash below it, tumbling down into a large patterned red skirt. Matching elbow-length gloves and veil coming down an elaborately tied head wrap finished the ensemble. Akua Sahelian was an eastern dream, tucked away in a hidden corner of a western court. Vivienne felt her fingers twitch, wishing for a knife.


“They’ll really let *anybody* in, these days,” Vivienne drawled.


The shade turned eerie golden eyes to her – a shade unnatural, that no mortal should have – and offered a charming smile under the gauzy veil.


“Lady Dartwick,” Akua pleasantly said.  “What a fortunate happenstance.”


“It’s neither,” she replied. “What do you want, Sahelian?”


“Why, can I not simply seek the simple pleasure of conversation with a peer?” the shade asked.


“I’ve yet to see another snake in the garden,” Vivienne coldly replied, “but should that change, I’ll be sure to send it your way.”


And yet she did not move to leave. Not because she enjoyed insulting the other woman, although she did, but because she very much doubted that Sahelian’s presence here was without purpose. Vivienne would not take off before having first learned it – or, should the opportunity appear, frustrate it instead.


“I thought we might reach an accord,” Akua Sahelian lightly said. “If not for each other’s sake, then for what it might cost others for us to remain at odds.”


Vivienne laughed. It was sharp and immediate, withholding no barbed bite in its utter scorn.


“It’s a clumsy game you’re playing,” she replied. “You’ll not muzzle me through Catherine, Sahelian. If my gaze burns when she enjoys you, it is because she knows it *should*.”


Not that the dark-skinned shade could understand that. It wasn’t the Wasteland way for the empress to suffer judgement from one she ruled, and Akua Sahelian remained the Wasteland’s creature beyond even the calls of flesh and blood. Vivienne watched the golden eyes, saw how the skin tightened around them as the – heiress, the diabolist, the – shade mastered her irritation. As always, the thief itched to peel back that control layer by layer until irk turned to anger and the garter snake at last revealed its viper’s fangs. The shade smiled, fingers coming down across her long veil and unmaking it in wisps wherever they touched.


The bare face left behind was lovely, but it was a poisonous sort of loveliness. Not the kind that Vivienne would ever find herself envying in another woman.


“I’ve always wondered at the hate you keep for me, Vivienne Dartwick,” Akua mused. “You claim it a matter of principle, earned by my folly, but I know what personal tastes like.”


The smiled broadened almost mockingly.


“And this, my dear lady, positively *reeks* of the intimate,” the golden-eyed shade said, her voice smooth as silk.


“That so,” Vivienne said, unimpressed. “Well spotted. Putting that expensive noble upbringing to good use, you are.”


“Your compliments mean the world to me,” Akua assured her, tone without the faintest trace of irony. “After all we’ve had such entertaining talks, you and I.”


What was it she was after? Going round and round in meaningless spars would accomplish nothing but wasting the time of the both of them. The dark-haired heiress saw no need to step lightly, though, which simplified things.


“What do you want, Sahelian?” Vivienne repeated. “And try a drop of honesty, this time – I know it doesn’t come naturally, but you ought to be able to fake it convincingly by now.”


“I have always been honest with my desires, if not how I intend to seize them,” the shade easily replied. “Is it so unbelievable I would seek at least a truce between us, even if peace is beyond our reach?”


Vivienne’s eyes narrowed. True, she figured, or close enough.


“A truce,” the dark-haired Callowan slowly said.


“I understand that there is bad blood between us,” Akua calmly said. “I would have it set aside, at least for the time being. And so I wondered how I might make redress, but found answers eluded me. Who then to ask but the woman herself?”


She shrugged, languid, and for a heartbeat Vivienne grasped why Catherine’s eyes so often strayed in that one’s direction. She was utterly disinterested in the fairer sex, herself, but even so the fluidity of the movement had caught her eye. There was more to seduction than sex or showing skin.


“You remind me of a girl I used to know in Southpool,” Vivienne smiled. “She, too, somehow came under the impression that when she threw coin at trouble she’d cause it made up for the act.”


“I offered no such thing,” the shade said, tone grown sharper.


Offended that Wasteland pride, had she? She’d get over it. Or not. Hardly her problem either way.


“A bribe’s a bribe,” Vivienne flatly dismissed. “You want to know what it’ll cost you to buy civility between us, let’s not pretend this is anything more.”


“Ah,” Akua hummed, voice melodious, “but let me ask you this – if it *had* been, would you have cared?”


“No,” Vivienne replied, bluntly and immediately.


That took the other woman aback, though she hid it well.


“There’s nothing you can do to dig your way back to daylight after the Folly, as far as I’m concerned,” the heiress to Callow said.


Elegantly, the shade rose to her feet. She took a step to the side, light, and Vivienne matched her the other way.


“There must be some bare measure of courtesy offered and received,” Akua said. “Else all we do is darken our standing in our queen’s eyes.”


Vivienne smiled, a cold slice of pale teeth bared.


“I used to be afraid that you’d edge me out of the Woe,” she idly said, watching the other woman’s attention sharpen. “That you’d slither your way into their affections and then steal my place among them.”


“No longer?” Akua asked, just as idly.


“It was weakness,” Vivienne said. “I didn’t trust myself, didn’t trust them. I should have known better.”


It’d taken Hakram carving through his own hand to yank her out of the downwards spiral, but he had. And now she was no longer afraid of shadows she’d painted in the corners with her own hands.


“Heartwarming,” Akua said. “Perhaps you might, then, from the depths of-“


“You haven’t slept with her,” Vivienne suddenly said. “You wouldn’t be…”


*This afraid*, she didn’t say, *this insecure, if you’d shared a bed.* The shade leaned forward, eyes mocking. But the mockery was brittle, the heiress decided.


“Would you have been jealous, if I had?” Akua asked, tone suggestive. “It must have been flattering, all those lingering looks. Even if you weren’t interested. And it must have stung when they ceased.”


She could have lied, or refused to answer, but why bother? The truth would not hurt her, not here. There was nothing about that relationship she was ashamed of, and she felt more certain of it than she ever had before. Catherine had entrusted her with *Callow*. Merciful Gods, what could any words or doubts possibly mean in the face of that?


“I missed it, at first,” Vivienne shrugged. “But even when I still did, never as much as I enjoyed our relationship being simplified.”


Catherine had never made advances and Vivienne never refused them, but the attraction had not been hidden either. It’d been a relief when it had faded as she’d figured it would, freeing her from being unable to return the feelings of someone she cared deeply for in other ways. It’d never been love, anyhow, just a passing torch. And while it had never been unpleasant, or made her feel pressed, she was glad the complication was gone.


“You want it to be a loss, something you took,” Vivienne continued. “But there was nothing there to lose. We are not in *competition*, Akua Sahelian.”


“You asked an oath for the end of my existence,” the shade replied. “We very much are, though you might prefer to pretend otherwise: you never were much good with a knife in hand, were you? That sort of work was always best left to others.”


A comment that would have drawn blood, a year ago. No longer.


“What I had to say on the matter of your fate, I have said,” Vivienne said. “It’s out of my hands, now, and entirely in hers.”


She was surprised to found she meant it. She’d spent most her life trying to take from Praesi to make for what they took, trying to get even with hard words and grasping hands. But she’d left that life behind, she really had. Her Name would not have left her otherwise. Tormenting Akua Sahelian, taking vengeance on her, wouldn’t make her home better. And she was, in that moment, glad that the long price there was not hers to take. Because it would be a burden, a vengeance of that magnitude. A crushing gone.


“You’re not my rival, Akua,” Vivienne said. “You’re not even my enemy, not really. You’re just someone else’s charge, until you get what’s coming to you.”


She almost laughed, feeling oddly uplifted by it all. It was matched only by the fury she saw on the face of the woman she’d dismissed. *And it’s working*, she thought, watching those troubled golden eyes. *Whatever it is Catherine’s doing to you. Else you would not have come here tonight, unsure why you did. She’s turned you all upside down. And that might have given you a hold on her, because this is a two-way street, but if the emotions are genuine she’ll always win. Because she can kill her own heart, if she needs to, and you don’t even know what yours is.*


“And once again, your pretty pale fingers stay clean,” Akua Sahelian said, eyes hard. “What a comfort it must be, to have always had others to bleed and be bled for you.”


“You’re going to cost her things she loves,” Vivienne quietly replied, ignoring the slight. “Respect she took years to earn, trust she’s still not entirely sure she deserves. You’ll cost her Callow, too, in some ways. She’ll stand by you anyways.”


*“Why?”* the dark-skinned woman asked.


It was, Vivienne thought, the rawest she’d ever seen Akua Sahelian. The eagerness, the desperation, the dread: they’d all had a piece of that one word, like hounds gnawing at the same bone.


“I don’t know,” Vivienne softly laughed. “It is not my price to exact, however long the taking. And why would I tell you, Doom of Liesse, even if I knew?”


The shade’s smiled turned rueful, her face mastered once more. The mask had returned and it still fit, however cracked it might have gotten.


“I could have every Choir and every Fairfax from Eleonor to Robert singing of my redemption before you,” Akua said, “and you would still not care a whit, would you? You do not believe the scales can move.”


“It’s not something you can learn, Sahelian,” Vivienne said. “It’s not a trick or a spell, to become more than the sum of what they made you. You’re trying to stay the same and be loved, hoping charms and favours will get you there, but that’s not how this works.”


She shrugged.


“You have to genuinely want it,” Vivienne said. “To do good, even if it does nothing for you. And for all your brilliance and your poisonous cleverness, Akua, at the end of the day I just don’t believe you have it in you.”


“You know precious little of me, Vivienne Dartwick,” the golden-eyed woman replied.


Her face had gone blank, like a mask of clay.


“Prove me wrong, then,” Vivienne smiled.


And she had, at last, what she came for. So Vivienne left, whistling a jaunty tune, and returned to the evening awaiting her. Behind her reigned only silence, though an even more careful ear would have heard a fait sound. A step.


Like the first step going up a hill.