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Women, even high-born ladies like Lasaraleen Tarkheena, were not often assigned to the Diplomatic Corps. The work done by the Diplomatic Corps, even those members connected to a certain other agency answerable to the crown, was considered unfitting for a woman. It would offer insult to the magnates of barbarian lands to send a woman to treat with them, to speak the wishes of the Tisroc to them, to be a fixture at their courts in any capacity other than that of an emissary’s wife. Barbarians they might have been, but the Tisroc was a gracious man, was he not? He would not offer them insult without due cause, not offer them insult so soon as to completely poison the waters against diplomacy (Diplomacy of any kind. There were so many kinds.).
Though the idea of having her options for work so limited chafed, Lasaraleen accepted at the outset that the chances of her being assigned to the Diplomatic Corps for an assignment were slim. Her superiors had offered praise in one hand and apologies in the other. She was a natural hostess and she had a gift for making people think she was less than what she was, for making them reveal more to her than they intended, for whatever could she do with that information? It was a useful skill for an emissary to have, no matter what their purpose for residing in a foreign court might be. Even if their purpose was ultimately beneficial to the barbarian lord, it was useful.
And yet, it was foolish to give offense over something so basic. The great empire was wise enough not to give insult unnecessarily to allies and trading partners, no matter how inferior they might be. So Lasaraleen was left with only limited opportunities to carry out assignments related to the Diplomatic Corps. Work within the limitations, she had never needed to be told—she had had that lesson chiseled into her bones from earliest childhood, a Tarkheena’s armor, best fashioned so that no one looking at it could tell it was armor at all.
It was a very good thing, Lasaraleen thought, that ‘limited opportunities’ did not equate to ‘no opportunities whatsoever.’
She would have liked it best, of course, if her first assignment with the Diplomatic Corps had seen her travel to Anvard. Slim was the chance that Lasaraleen would ever see Aravis again, unless she traveled to see her friend (A little… unconventional, to be sure, but certainly not the sort of things people were saying about her at court; Lasaraleen liked to think she would have seen evidence of it if such evidence existed). Aravis’s name was mud in the royal court, and unless she was fortunate enough to outlive their illustrious prince, it was unlikely she would be welcomed back any time soon. Really, some of the things the rumor mill spat out, Lasaraleen wouldn’t have used even as a cover for entering someone’s home.
Lasaraleen Tarkheena was not in Anvard, however. Lasaraleen Tarkheena’s duties as emissary and intelligence-gatherer had instead seen her traveling to Cair Paravel. It was only appropriate, you see, that a lady be sent to the Narnian court this time, for the barbarian kings were away, leaving Queen Susan and Queen Lucy presiding.
…There were times when Lasaraleen was thankful that she took her orders from the Minister of Intelligence, and that the crown could not interfere with the terms of the agents’ assignments without passing a rigorous set of criteria. This was one of them. She had stipulated as one of the terms of her recruitment that she never be put in charge of an assassination. The blood was appalling, of course, but the idea of killing someone was just… It didn’t bear thinking about. She was glad that she had stipulated at the beginning that she never be sent to kill, because Lasaraleen was quite certain that if a certain someone had had his way, this would have been an assassination, anyways.
And really, an assassination would completely spoil a fact-finding mission, don’t you agree?
The sweet-sharp smell of lavender danced circles around Lasaraleen’s head as she made the typical rounds of courtiers and officials and diplomats at the Narnian court. Contrary to popular opinion (it had certainly come as a relief to her), the northern barbarians were not completely unwashed. Lasaraleen was not certain they bothered as often as they really ought to, but they had the decency to recognize that it was rude to make other people smell their sweat all day. Certainly, it would have been better if they didn’t all wear lavender, and didn’t all wear so much of it, but it was certainly preferable to having her nose filled with the base odor of sweat and… other things.
Perhaps I could introduce one of the ladies of the court to some of my perfumes, start a new trend, Lasaraleen mused. Lady Gwenyth, perhaps—it would take the least amount of time to persuade her that I was not trying to poison her.
There was to be dancing tonight—one more thing about this court that Lasaraleen still had a hard time understanding; it was clear the Narnian royal treasury could suffer the wages or purchase of a few dancing girls, so why make the courtiers dance? Even the rulers of this kingdom danced, though not always. Tonight in particular, Queen Lucy sat still upon the dais, one leg crossed over the other, her chin propped on her first and her elbow propped on the arm of her throne, a look of interminable boredom if Lasaraleen had ever seen one. (Queen Lucy and Aravis would have made a good pair, Lasaraleen thought with a pang.) Lasaraleen would not be participating in the dancing, of course—she tried to avoid degrading herself in the course of her work as much as possible—but that did not mean she couldn’t make some progress before the dancing began.
Let us go and make connections.
Lasaraleen eyed the Galman minister of finance as she began mingling in earnest. It was unfortunate that she must needs make herself a fixture at court here before approaching him, but the people this far north were terribly superstitious and the things they believed of Calormene ladies… It rankled, but Lasaraleen was not a child to respond to every attempt to stick pins with a snarl. Once she had established herself as the gregarious, ever-so-slightly vapid, and absolutely harmless Calormene ambassador to the Narnian court, she would have more opportunities.
You know, for all that Lasaraleen longed for the superior comforts of home (it would have been a poorly-bred Tarkheena who didn’t), the Narnian court wasn’t as bad as it could have been. There were very few of the demons the humans accepted as Talking Animals and fauns and such, and those who were part of the royal court were mercifully uninterested in getting to know the Calormene ambassador. The fashions for men were unflattering, and the fashions for the ladies at once frowsy (those skirts were very thick, weren’t they?) and just a little shocking (Lasaraleen found herself the only women with the decency to cover her head—what would her mother think of her tendency to keep her veil very loose and her hair free-flowing beneath it in the face of all these bare heads?)
The jewelry was… Well, it was a pity that none of the Narnian goldsmiths or silversmiths seemed to have an eye for delicacy in their designs, but the blocky shapes of the jewelry took on a certain rustic appeal after a while. So too did the Narnian preference for bright, gay colors in their wardrobes and their tapestries both. If you weren’t going to be genteel, you could at least be lively. And she was certainly homesick for her favorite foods, but at least the trip had afforded her the opportunity to try new ones. (She would definitely have to see about introducing a Calormene chef to the Narnian royal kitchens, though, if only because the only spices the Narnians ever seemed to use were black pepper and salt. Everyone would benefit from that, not just her.)
It would be easier to ingratiate myself if I had more in common with them, Lasaraleen thought, a touch gloomily. Lady Nerys swept by her, a swish of heavy yellow velvet skirts patterned with vines and sleeves so tight that it was a wonder the lady could even move her arms, let alone as animatedly as she was doing right now. I hope they aren’t make Aravis wear that sort of gown over in Anvard—she’d likely regard it more as a mobile cage.
“Ambassador?”
A long, pale hand lit on Lasaraleen’s shoulder, a smooth, honeyed voice sounding close to her ear. She knew the voice and she recognized the ring (heavy silver band with glinting emerald vines) on the hand—turning to see the lady the voice and the hand belonged to was little more than a formality. Still, Lasaraleen was bred well, so when someone behind clearly addressed her, of course she turned round.
Lasaraleen sketched a fluid bow to Queen Susan, wondering as she did so what the Narnian queen thought of the difference between a Calormene bow and a Narnian curtsey. She already knew what many of the other members of the court, including Queen Lucy, thought of it. But Queen Susan was like a still pool on a moonless, windless night. Nothing ruffled her unless she thought it best to be ruffled, and she revealed nothing unless she saw fit to reveal it.
“Forgive me, your Highness.” Lasaraleen’s lips curved in a smile slightly wider than the one she habitually wore. “I did not hear your approach.”
Queen Susan held up an easy hand of pardon, her gray eyes (the eyes of winter, for all that she and her siblings claimed to be the kings and queens of reborn summer) glimmering with good humor. “I suspect you’d need the hearing of a bat to hear my approach in such a commotion.” Queen Susan’s eyes went past her momentarily. “Do you dance, ambassador? I have never seen you on the floor.”
“No, your Highness. In Calormen, the nobility does not dance. Dancing girls are employed for that purpose.”
Lasaraleen had seen her there in Tashbaan, sitting far down the row between a king and a prince, her form half-lost in a haze of sweet smoke while the dancers’ feet beat an arrhythmic tattoo on the polished stone floor and the air shimmered with sweat and undulating diaphanous silk. Had the smoke blasted it from Queen Susan’s memory, or did she merely wish it to become a thing of smoke and fancy? All memories of her time in Tashbaan must be tainted by what had precipitated her flight from the city (Her stomach panged, much to Lasaraleen’s surprise). Better not to bring it up, if she wanted to stay in the rulers’ good graces.
The pale hand of the queen went to smooth the slightly wrinkled hem of her (like her sister’s, much wider than what seemed to be the court fashion) sleeve. “A pity. You can learn so much from dancing, if only have the right partner. I hope you at least derive enjoyment from watching the revelry.”
“Indeed, your Highness, I do.” The throng of dancers always moved dizzyingly fast, so that Lasaraleen couldn’t pick out a face that wasn’t a blur cast in a frenzied rictus. She never had figured out where the pipe music they all danced to was coming from, though she would admit to becoming so mesmerized with the swirl of color that she hadn’t tried too hard to find it.
Queen Susan’s smile (a polite, habitual thing Lasaraleen recognized as distant kin to her own) widened slightly, revealing a thin, glistening strip of teeth. “Good. I imagine you hate to find yourself at loose ends, Ambassador, without even something to observe; I am much the same.”
A soft, tinkling laugh trilled from Lasaraleen’s mouth; the noise was quickly lost in the screams of laughter that bolted up to the vaulted ceiling. “Well, your Highness, if the sights before you are interesting enough, it would be unjust to speak of them as a last resort for diversion.”
Her first few days here, after making the necessary introductions (it would never do not to make herself known, after all), had just been spent in quiet observation of the court. It was as good a time as any to get the measure of the playing field; Lasaraleen might not have the opportunity later, after all. There were a few who seemed just a touch, shall we say, concussed, by her later gregariousness, but the first days of mostly-silence could easily be explained as shyness. It was a pity the scope of her assignment was so narrow, and the boundaries so well-defined. The thing she had heard in those first few days, well… For all that Cair Paravel was the provincial capital of a barbarian kingdom, the half-buried, half-veiled scandals simmering below the polite surface of the court were more than a match for the courts and secluded chambers of Tashbaan. Oh, if Lasaraleen had the freedom to let some of her women colleagues loose in this place…
Her mind sailed (and there was a curious word to use, for she’d hated every moment she spent on the open sea traveling here) a little further back, to Tashbaan itself, that jewel among cities. She imagined sitting in her shaded, fountained garden, eating rose sharbat and smiling lazily as she looked out on well-kept flowerbeds, carefully-manicured bushes and lawns, bubbling fountains whose stone glittered like ice in the noonday sun. She imagined opening the latticed shutters of her balcony and looking out over the city, staring out in unceasing wonder at the beating heart of the Calormene Empire. How any could tire of the sight, Lasaraleen would never understand.
…Actually, there was something new about her daydream, the one of being home. Many times since she had boarded that ship had Lasaraleen’s mind slipped into reveries of being home in Tashbaan (dearer to her than the house where she was born, with timid mother and controlling father), but before now, she had always been either alone, or if she had company in her daydreams, it was Aravis. Not the real Aravis, Lasaraleen allowed; the Aravis of her daydreams was entirely too content with sedentary life and sitting still for hours to look out at a city. An Aravis who was more what Tashbaan said a Tarkheena of good breeding should be, and if the daydreams were never quite satisfying, it was because Lasaraleen could taste the falseness in them, like someone using pistachio flour in a recipe that called for almond.
(Lasaraleen had entertained other daydreams, where they rode together in the forests of Calavar and Tashbaan was but a distant dream, but after the first time she was always careful to discard them before they could sink hooks and wires into her flesh. They would never have this again, and it just… It wasn’t her. Lasaraleen could pretend, but pretending only carried her so far. It wasn’t her.)
The most curious thing was that when her mind sailed back to Tashbaan just now, she had imagined Queen Susan herself sitting on the cushioned divan on her balcony with her. For all that she had been a visitor in Tashbaan, it was an incongruous image. Queens did not do something so simple as sit on a divan for hours at a time staring out on a city. The wives of the Tisroc did not expose themselves to the sight of common people at all, and a queen who was also a ruler likely had far too many cares to idle away her afternoons. Beyond that, it was hardly as though she could have explained it away as imagining Queen Susan as something other than a queen, as a lady who could claim that sort of leisure time. In looks she was very much one of the northern barbarians, as tall as a man (taller than Lasaraleen, in fact, which was saying something), and the only thing remotely Calormene (or at least the parts of Calormen that Lasaraleen knew) about her appearance was her long, glossy black hair.
Queen Susan sitting on Lasaraleen’s balcony with her was as fantastical an image as Lasaraleen would have thought Talking Animals and fauns and centaurs (or, at least, the demons who claimed to be them) just a short time ago. And just as it was fantastical, it was indelible, etched onto the foundations of her mind. The queen’s smooth, velvety voice could make even the most miserably hot summer afternoon bearable; surely her touch would remain cool even as the heat soared and shimmered and scorched the stones outside. They could just…
Lasaraleen blinked. It was an odd image. Not unpleasant.
If Queen Susan noticed anything strange about the paths her mind had run to, she gave no sign of it. Still waters, and no breeze to ruffle them. “I am glad you feel that way, Ambassador; I find that many visitors to court grow quickly overwhelmed.” Her smiled turned just a touch rueful, like a flower with the edges of her petals turning brown. “Narnia’s court seems at times to be a little too much for outsiders.”
Perhaps Queen Susan had had years enough of personal experience to claim such, but Lasaraleen wasn’t certain how she could make such claims with such stone-solid certainty of a court less than twenty years old. Her doubt scratched at an old itch, though, inflaming her curiosity again. Lasaraleen momentarily considered keeping her silence, but keeping silent had never been something she was especially good at. Besides, for all that the terms of her assignment were very clear, she didn’t think the ministry would have minded so much if she was able to obtain the answer to an old riddle.
“Your Highness…” It was presumption, Lasaraleen knew, to lay her hand on Queen Susan’s forearm, but she hoped it would be taken in good spirits. The satin of the queen’s gown was as water under her hand, slick and slippery. Given that the queen did not glare at her and shrug her hand away, she went on, “If I may, there has been something I have never quite understood. The Diplomatic Corps possessed only the most limited information on this matter, and were able to tell me very little during my briefing.”
Queen Susan huffed a soft laugh, the hoarse sound reaching Lasaraleen’s ears only because the queen tilted her head close to Lasaraleen’s. “Well, Ambassador, if there is anything I can do to alleviate your ignorance…”
Let us proceed, then. “Before you and your fellow rulers took custody of this kingdom, Narnia was ruled for a hundred years by a sorceress of terrible power. All the world knows this. Queen Jadis barred the borders of Narnia, especially to any human, male or female, old or young. All the world knows this, and thus I know it at as well. When you cast her down, the borders were opened again.” Lasaraleen paused, pursing her lips. However much work Queen Susan put into being as difficult to ruffle as possible, it would still do better to put the next part as delicately as she could. “When you and your brothers and sister came to Narnia, you were the only humans within its borders, were you not?”
The queen nodded, a shadow passing over her face. “We were. The only living, anyways. There had been others who thought to come to Narnia to claim a crown, but all that was left of them…” She shut her eyes, the shadow carving lines into her smooth forehead, but when she opened them again, it was as if they had never been. “I imagine those would-be kings and queens regretted their folly, ere the end.”
Lasaraleen flinched in spite of herself—bringing up bad memories was not likely to be helpful to her in her own quest for information. “I can only imagine what it was like to discover them,” she murmured, looking away. “Forgive me; I didn’t mean to cast a shadow over the evening.”
A soft laugh was the queen’s reply. “Fear not. There is no shadow in the court of Cair Paravel that light cannot dispel. I believe you still have a question for me?”
Either, Lasaraleen thought, Queen Susan had not been paying as close attention to the scandals of the court as she thought, or it took more than what Lasaraleen had been hearing to constitute a shadow in the Narnian queen’s mind. Ah, well; if it meant that she had given no real offense, Lasaraleen didn’t suppose she could complain. “My question is this, your Highness. If you and your siblings were the only humans in Narnia when you took custody of the kingdom, then where—“ Lasaraleen swept her hand around her, motioning at the court who were eating, drinking, talking, laughing, and slowly but surely beginning to join the dance “—did all of your courtiers arrive from?”
For some reason, this provoked another laugh. Queen Susan tossed her head and laughed, torchlight and dying sunlight catching on the coronet she wore. This queen had at least five crowns that Lasaraleen had been able to identify, all in gold. This one was fashioned into the shapes of swimming fish, stacked in twos, with pearl eyes that glistened wetly. Lasaraleen felt as though those pearl eyes were looking at her as much as the queen, but there was no fear to accompany that feeling. “A small few of them are transplants from King Lune’s court in Anvard—enterprising knights, second sons who would never have inherited anything had they stayed in Archenland; you know the type.”
She didn’t elaborate any further, instead fixing her eyes upon the center of the floor, where dancers were beginning to cluster. Lasaraleen watched the dancers for a few moments, just to be polite, musing as she did so that for all that the Narnian dances were very fast and bordering on discordant, she’d never seen any of the dancers collide with each other. Not once, not even when they were all so drunk that Lasaraleen could smell the sweet wine on their breath from several feet away.
“You could be one of those,” Queen Susan said suddenly.
Lasaraleen started. “Beg pardon?”
Gray eyes swept over Lasaraleen before Queen Susan replied, “You could be one of those. An enterprising knight, or someone cast in the same mould, at least. The court is always growing, and whatever your skills, likely you would find a place that would fit for you.”
“Oh, I have no desire to renounce my home. I’ve not found myself in circumstances so dire as all that,” but a thrill of excitement ran up Lasaraleen’s spine, all the same. She was hardly immune to praise. “But, your Highness, if only a few of your court came from Archenland, where did the rest come from?”
Lasaraleen did not think she would have thought upon it any longer had she only received an answer. Even if that answer had been vague and tatty, she would not have thought upon it again, for she would likely have supplied her own explanation—of course Queen Susan did not wish to admit that her court was packed full of grasping second sons and ladies who would have been naught but poor relations in their own lands, or of course Queen Susan did not wish to admit that the origins of many of her kingdom’s new nobles was rather less than noble. Lasaraleen was not so indiscreet that she would have pressed.
But Queen Susan did not answer. She smiled at Lasaraleen as though they were the only two people in all the world who knew a certain secret. That Lasaraleen was supposed to be in on the secret made her feel better, though she would confess to having no idea what the secret was.
Somewhere far away, someone began to play a pipe. Its low, hollow tones rumbled so deep and so loud that it reverberated in Lasaraleen’s tones. It wasn’t unpleasant—it was never unpleasant—but it made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end, tonight as it did every other night she had ever heard it.
Queen Susan perked up at the sound of it and strode forward a few steps, the satin of her gown rippling and shimmering like the ocean on a cloudless afternoon. The pearls in her diadem flashed. Then, she paused, and turned back to smile widely at Lasaraleen, her white teeth gleaming and her hand outstretched. Behind her, the throng grew wider and wider, swirls of vibrant color blurring together until Lasaraleen could not tell where one ended and the other began. The shrills of laughter that echoed far and away sounded less and less like sounds humans made with each passing second. Lavender, sweet-sharp, pierced the air and made her head just swim.
“If you wish for answers, stay, and keep asking questions,” the queen told her, eyes shining. “Eventually, I am sure you’ll ask the right question. Now, do you dance, Ambassador? It is a wonderful place to start.”
Lasaraleen matched Queen Susan’s smile. It would have been horribly improper at home, but she thought suddenly that it would not hurt her dignity to learn to dance.