She had always known that Mirami killed people. She had not known Mirami was going to kill Falyrion. She would have warned him if she had known, but she hadn’t known. Mirami had poisoned him. She poisoned people all the time. People who were in her way. People who offended her. She had many different poisons. The Old Dark Man had taught her about them when she was young. She knew poisons that couldn’t be detected, poisons that had no smell, poisons that would lie inside one for days before acting, poisons that would simply stop the heart and others that would weaken people and take whole seasons to kill them. And when they died, Mirami was never there, never anywhere around.
Mirami had poisoned Alicia’s father, and when Alicia learned of it she had shut herself in her room for days, raging, weeping. At last she had calmed herself by remembering the Old Dark Man’s words about balancing the accounts. She stopped grieving for her father where anyone could see her. She was mute. She listened politely when Mirami told her what the family business was. Mirami said she had killed Falyrion because she and Alicia and Hulix were destined to take all the lands of Norland that didn’t belong to the king and give them to the new king, who would be Mirami’s son and a new brother for Alicia! To do that, however, Mirami had first to marry the current king and bear him an heir. And, to do that, she had to be a widow.
But they would then be the mother and sister of the king of Ghastain! Mirami said it as though she were giving Alicia a present.
Alicia had listened to all this, not only to the words but to the voice, the tone. Her father’s death was in the words. Her own death was implicit in the tone. Raging at Mirami might well have meant her own death; Alicia did not want to die, so she did what the Old Dark Man had told her to do—nothing. She had been unresponsive, which Mirami had not understood at all.
“Aren’t you excited at the idea of ruling a great country?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You don’t show it.”
“I think maybe it’s better if I don’t. Show it, I mean. You don’t want people to know about your plans, do you? So I shouldn’t look . . . excited, should I?”
Mirami had given her a long, thoughtful look. “No, Alicia. You’re quite right.”
Mirami had been giving her long, thoughtful looks ever since, but Alicia had managed to stay out of real trouble by staying as far from her mother as she could. She and her mother had gone to Ghastain as soon as Hulix became Duke of Kamfels. It wasn’t hard to stay away from Mirami in Ghastain. Mirami spent most of her time at court, where she would be seen by the king. The king liked to have something going on all the time, festivals, and parades, and dramas, and tableaux. The king liked to get dressed up; Mirami liked to get dressed up; being dressed up meant endless hours with wigmakers, dressmakers, jewelers, and shoemakers, looking in mirrors. They both liked to look at themselves in mirrors, and they found endless fascination in trying things on, so it was easy for Alicia to be otherwise occupied. After her mother married the king, it was even easier. Alicia had her own quarters, her own maids. And then Rancitor was born, and as soon as he was weaned from his wet nurse, Alicia decided she would be his friend. The Old Dark Man had told her that friendship was even better than love as a way to use someone, so she made a friend of Rancitor, and he loved her, more and more the older he got, especially when she started teaching him some of the more pleasurable things the Old Dark Man had taught her. Rancitor did not mention these things to others, because it was a secret. And when he was six (without telling Mirami, because it was a secret) he asked the king to give Alicia the title to Altamont.
Even after she was Duchess of Altamont, Rancitor expected her to stay in Ghastain, and since Alicia’s own plans depended on Rancitor, she spent a lot of time at court. She didn’t like him at all, really. He was rather like Hulix, though more like Mirami. He liked her, however, and he liked the man-woman games she taught him to play. And now, of course, he was old enough to play them with others, for which she was thankful. The things she had taught him to enjoy gave her no pleasure. It was of no matter. The games had bought her Altamont. The games would buy her other things. Meantime, Rancitor’s quarters were probably the safest place she could be in Ghastain. The servants brought his food there and she shared it with him, only pretending to eat or drink when at table with others. If she bought something herself, in the market, then she could eat it. She wore gloves most of the time, because some poisons entered through the skin. She sneaked into the servant’s bathhouse at night, never bathing
