Shadows of the Scriptures

NINE: Trucebreaker

Queen Sterya Khad of Tilva Sanghon was a good liar, especially when it came to lying to herself.

All her life, she kept telling herself that her grandfather was the best guardian anyone could ask for. He was authoritative and he was protective of her and he had gotten her the groom a lady can only wish for: the King, Ruler of the Tethered Five, himself. But he never sang her to bed. He got for her tutors in etiquette, but never gave her a chance to clinch her own lessons. He got for her the most subservient of servants, but never sat her down and explored where her passions lay. She could only guess he had hoped they would wilt with the onslaught of adulthood.

Aleth Sanghon might have enslaved death, but he could not enslave his granddaughter.

Presently, Sterya held the strad-cards in front of her face such that their synumbers were hidden from the ladies. Selicia had her upper lip curled, Beigall had hers bit. On the sofa, Saphira's expression was inscrutable.

"That's a lovely chemise you've got there, your Majesty," Beigall said as she plucked two cards from the exclusion pile.

"Thank you," said Sterya politely, having hardly heard what the compliment was. "I'll take the dice now."

Selicia with astonishment woven into the lines of her face passed the level, rectangular splat to Sterya. The Queen breathed deeply, flattening it between her two palms.

"Sure about this?" chided Saphira Orlocke.

Sterya skimmed one hand over the other and the dice rolled onto the wooden board.

"It says . . . five," the trucebreaker, in this case an old woman with a gold monocle, read carefully. "Five?"

"Five," Sterya falsely confirmed.

"Anyone wants to call charade?" offered the trucebreaker. A dubious squeak escaped Highlady Beigall Arvala's throat but she spoke not. They had swallowed the bluff like sugared curd.

"Where do the scores stand?" asked Selicia.

"Her Majesty is at seven and six, Highlady Saphira at seven and four."

"How many times have I told you," said Saphira, "you should call me Siph?"

"Pardon, my Lady," said the trucebreaker, studying the scorechart. "And . . . my Ladies Selicia and Beigall stand tied at six and two."

There was a grimace from both. Sterya raked aside her sheet of auburn hair to check her cards and the synumbers on them for the tenth time. She was one lie away from another victory, her third in a row. She was a good player - gods, she was the kind of player who betted onion and won castles.

"You can quit, you know," Sterya said out loud. "Spare yourself the humiliation."

"Penva is simply an excuse," said Saphira, resting a hand on her belly. "What better person for my unborn son to spend time with than his queen? What better way for him to learn strategy, dignity and adages?"

"How can you know it is a boy?"

"How could I not? He's in my womb."

"Don't you feel," said Sterya, "he might be embarrassed that his mother keeps losing?"

"He has to learn losing is a part of life sometime." Saphira shrugged. "Early lessons stick."

"You had best let him also a taste of victory, or he shall get too used to defeat to digest anything else."

Saphira looked thoughtful. "Perhaps we should consider playing a different game another morn then."

Selicia yawned, then blushed. She was not good at these kind of conversations, or conversations of any kind for that matter, but in the few maes that Sterya had known her, she had not failed in seeming the kosher decent woman. Certainly she was much more decent than Beigall Arvala, who Sterya was certain only joined their sessions of play in hopes that there might be some intimate political information she could garner. So far, Beigall could reap none that Sterya had harvested.