have you not? It’s an excellent cause.”
“He won’t fail.”
“Yes. Yes, well, we all hope for that.”
The words filled Adelaide with unexpected rage. I was at that address too! she wanted to shout. You weren’t all so complacent then.
“Perhaps you should take the west more seriously,” she said.
“I doubt anyone takes the west more seriously than the people in this room,” said Feodor. “After all, we all witnessed the scenes at the execution.”
Viviana, perhaps anticipating a showdown between father and daughter, clinked a spoon vigorously against her crystal glass.
“Goodness, aren’t we all bored of talking shop? I thought you ladies and gentlemen had enough of this political claptrap in the Chambers!”
Laughter and a few claps echoed her regaling, and Feodor’s brow relaxed as the servers stepped forward to clear away. He needs her, Adelaide thought. He needs my mother back on form and she appears to have gained it. Viviana was talking now to the Minister for Finance-a big coup at a dinner party-motioning to a server to refill their glasses, nodding with intense interest whilst half an eye skimmed the rest of the table.
The mourning period is done, she thought. Was that what she had come to find out?
Feodor stood, raising a glass of rich, golden weqa.
“Ladies and gentlemen, before we enjoy our next course, a few words, if I may. Tonight is a special night for myself and Viviana. We are delighted to have our daughter Adelaide back with us.” Viviana inclined her head, the picture of modest support. Feodor’s eyes rested upon Adelaide. She could read the duality, even if the rest of them could not: tension in the jaw, tolerance masking reprimand. Now mention Axel, she pleaded silently. Say just one thing.
“I had long hoped to lure her into the mysteries of politics and cannot overstate my joy that someone else has achieved this seemingly impossible conversion. Of course-” Feodor’s gaze roamed the room, a wink of humour now present. “I had hoped we would have similar objectives. We teach our children the art of independent thought and what does it beget us?” Laughter from the guests. Adelaide’s hands clenched under the table. “What can I say. We must give them their heads. Ladies and gentlemen, esteemed colleagues-a toast. To those that follow, and the great City that we bequeath them. May they too guard Osiris with a watchful eye and a strong heart.”
“To those that follow,” the table echoed.
“And to those who cannot,” murmured a voice. It came from Hildur Pek, whose eyes, no doubt in memory of her own loss, were wet. Hildur’s words accomplished what Feodor’s had not. Adelaide’s vision was no longer clear. As the servers re-entered the banquet hall, she stood up, muttered an excuse to the Councillor of Estates, and left the room.
Behind the closed door the noise of the diners faded. She held her wrist against her eyes and blinked quickly, catching the moisture before it could smudge her make-up. Closing her eyes, she drew long breaths.
“Are you alright?”
It was Tyr. She averted her face. She could not look at him.
“You shouldn’t be here.”
“Feodor sent me.”
“That’s ironic.” Not quite as ironic as Feodor’s speech, embracing one delinquent child as he erased another. In sudden anger she said, “How can you stand it?”
He cupped her face, turned it gently towards him. “I have to work, Adie. I’m not like you. I don’t come from a great family.”
“You’re part of one now. One way or another. Aren’t you glad?”
“In some ways,” he said soberly.
She knew she should draw away but found herself pushing into his hand. When she spoke her lips moved against his palm.
“Cover for me? Ten minutes and I’ll be gone.”
“Is that wise? Your being here tonight is an olive branch to Feodor. It will be worse than reversed if you leave now.” His grey eyes were concerned.
“Tyr,” she pleaded.
“Alright,” he said softly.
She kissed his palm and felt him tense. They stood there in the empty lamplit hallway, equally aware of the currents conflicting one another. Their situation was what it was; she had never thought of it as unjust, because she could not imagine permanence with anyone, not even with Tyr. The heat of her own breath came back to her lips, trapped by his palm. Why was tonight different? She felt close to giving up. She was ready to ask. Let me come over later, let me stay. I don’t care if they find out.
Tyr dropped his hand.
“Better go,” he said.
The words she might have said edged away. She took off her shoes and ran. She did not look back. Vikram had fastened the shoes earlier, when her hands were shaking. He had sat her on the bed and said give in a voice that brooked no argument. Watching his hands do up the buckles, one part of her mind had warned that this was not part of the bargain; it was not sex and it was not information. It was something else.
She ran to the end of the hallway. Heaved the doors open. The floor was slippery in her stockings. She passed the drapes, the alcoves, the Alaskan paintings. Old friends, old enemies. Here was a favourite hiding place, there a tunnel exit where the twins had been caught, Adelaide’s sandal sticking out under the curtain. Goran found them. He always did. He grabbed her foot and hauled her shrieking into the corridor whilst Axel hung onto her arms, Adelaide screaming, Axel yelling, no, don’t, don’t hurt her!
Goran would be loitering nearby. She picked up speed down the galleries. She couldn’t let him catch her. An archway neared on her right. A silk curtain sighed in its frame. Flouting all reason, her feet slowed. Behind that curtain was a passage to the twins’ old bedrooms. The twins thought they had discovered all the secrets of the Domain, but what if they hadn’t? What if the family had Axel right here, under her nose? What if he was straitjacketed, sedated, unable to call out?
Close to the ground, the silk wavered. Adelaide’s heart beat faster. The swelling folds gave way to the triangular head of a large orange cat. Its nose wrinkled as it sniffed the air. She sighed.
“Oh, you.”
Out of habit, she scooped the animal up, hugging it awkwardly with one arm, her shoes gripped in the other hand. The cat was warm and heavy; it had grown fat. The feel of its soft fur alleviated her panic. Now she felt silly to have been running, silly for her ideas. What could the family do to her, anyway? She wasn’t mad.
They reached the second floor unscathed. There was a strip of light under the door of her grandfather’s study. Quietly, Adelaide turned the handle. Leonid was in his favourite armchair. He wore a tartan dressing gown over his flannel trousers and his bare feet were propped up on a stool. A book lay open on his lap. His spectacles had slipped down the bridge of his nose.
She lowered the cat to the floor and gave it an encouraging nudge. It stalked inside. She pulled the door gently back. Soon, someone would come to look for her. Goran was patrolling. She could not stay.
“Who is it?”
She paused, the door ajar. “Feodor said you weren’t well.”
Her grandfather’s eyelids lifted. “Adie?” A smile pulled his lips back from his teeth. “My back’s been playing up a little, that’s all. I have some injections for when it gets difficult.”
“You mean morphine,” she said accusingly. His face had lost weight; the papery skin stretched taut over the egg of his head. “It must be bad.”
“I don’t need them often.” He patted the arm of the chair. “Why don’t you come and sit a minute.”
She curled her fingers around the door frame, reluctant to enter when she had been about to make her escape. Then she came in, shutting the door behind her. The room had not altered. It still smelt of tobacco and pine cones; it was still crowded with blueprints and piano scores.
Adelaide glanced to the piano in the corner, which her grandfather had played often when she was a child and less often as she grew older and his hands grew arthritic. The cat had slumped upon the stool. Its stomach began to rise and fall in contented waves of purrs.
