'Will there be anything else, My Lady?'
Ariane's lips pursed, and then she smiled. It closed her more swollen eye, but she did not wince. 'The Commodore is dead,' she answered. 'Stop polishing the old bastard's picture and hang up the crepe.'
Rien tried to look only at the princess's hands, at the pale celadon flush coloring her skin. Had she consumed the old Commodore's blood already? Were his memories prickling through hers, influencing whatever it was that she saw through those modified eyes? Rien knew the House of Rule did not see or think as the Mean did. Their sight, their brains, their hearing was as altered as their blood.
Before she turned away, Rien cleared her throat.
'Yes?' the princess said.
'I'm ... Lady, it is I who is caring for the prisoner.'
Silence. Rien sneaked a look through her lashes, but Lady Ariane gave her no help, only waiting impatiently with one hand on the hilt of her unblade.
Rien took a breath and tried again. 'Lady, she knew my name.'
'And what is your name, girl?'
'Rien.'
Rien thought the princess tilted her head, as if surprised. And then her smile broadened, the swelling around her eye already diminishing as the bruise faded across her cheek. 'Fear not, Rien. I'll eat her in the morning. And then after that, she can't very well bother you again.'
3 the mute resurrected
Before anyone came down to the dungeon again, a shadow panel had passed between the world and the suns, and Rule chilled in the twilight between days. For Perceval, unclothed and wounded and as necessarily slender as all her winged kind, the cold was a hardship. She could not even cloak herself in the warmth of her wings, nor curl her knees into her chest and trap some ghost of heat.
She had spent her attention earlier on memorizing each detail of her dungeon cell, figuring the steps to the top of the tower by counting Rien's footsteps when she came and went. Even here in the darkness, Perceval could conjure the image and space into her mind. It was a spatial gift that accompanied her wings, but which had not left her with them.
So she stood, shoulders hunched and head bowed, shivering with everything in her, teeth clenched so they would not clatter. She heard the footsteps descend, and tried to lift her chin, but the locked muscles in her neck would not allow it.
This could be the Commodore coming for her, or Ariane again. Ariane, who had met Perceval as an equal on the field of combat, and then when Perceval surrendered, struck her wings away. Ariane was without honor, without mercy.
Perceval tried to believe that she would ever have the opportunity to teach her, at least, humility.
She sagged against her chains and tried not to cringe.
But the visitor was the girl Rien, with bandages—and food and drink that Perceval was not at first strong enough to take. The girl—a girl or a young woman; Perceval knew not how they figured such things in Rule— first touched on the lights, and then bathed Perceval's shoulders with warm water and stinging soap, and tched over the cracking, futile scabs. 'I thought you healed these,' she said.
'What's the use?' Perceval asked, surprised how a few short hours in chains had wearied her spirit. 'Your Commodore's only going to consume me. And soon; he can't keep me chained like this forever.'
Rien giggled, wringing out her rag. 'There is no Commodore,' she said, and hiccuped. The hiccup was the clue Perceval needed: Rien's laughter was not nervous, but repressed hysteria.
'But I saw him when I was brought in.'
The soft cloth scrubbed at the tender edges of Perceval's wounds. And Perceval dropped her head down and tried to stretch out her neck, tried to soak up the warmth of that water and stop shivering for a little, until it would start to dry on her skin and more chill follow.
'He's dead,' Rien said, in a tone that indicated she understood she'd already said too much. She dropped her rag into the bucket with a plop. Then Perceval felt warm towels drying her back, warm hands measuring tape and gauze.
Perceval breathed deep to steady her hearts, racing in sudden terror in her deep, broad chest. If Alasdair was dead, it was because Ariane had killed him. And if Ariane had killed the Commodore, there was no chance at all that Perceval would ever go free again.
'Don't bother,' Perceval said, flinching away from the bandaging.
But Rien ignored her protest, or such protest as she could manage, and continued salving, measuring, taping. There was something possessive in the touch, and Perceval thought she understood it, and Rien's awkward kindness, too.
Perceval sighed. 'How long before she comes for me, then?'
'She said in the morning.'
Against the protest of her aching neck, Perceval arched back and glanced at the high window. More torment than darkness, that she could see her life slipping away like the ticking of a clock. The edge of the shadow panel was a limned knife-line, the sky behind still black, but alleviated.
Rien patted her on the back below the bandages, and came around to face her again. Using her numb and burning arms for leverage, Perceval forced herself to stand tall. 'But you waste food on me anyway? And air and bandages and water?'
'Air is cheap,' Rien said, incredible arrogance for a i serving-girl, a sentiment to make an Engineer sign herself and shudder. 'And sometimes the Lady doesn't get around to things as soon as she means to.'
Meaning she might not get around to destroying Perceval in a timely fashion.
'Can you lengthen my chains?' Perceval asked, when Rien had at least given her the soup and was cleaning the chamber while it worked its restorative magic. 'So I may sit upon the floor, or else lie down?'
If Ariane truly was so distracted—and she might be, if she was attempting to wrest control of her father's government—Perceval might linger here in chains, in growing pain, for days upon days, while Rien stolidly washed her filth from the floor and down the gutters with a steam hose. There would be no interrogation; no point, if Ariane meant only to consume her, with due ceremony.
Perceval almost wished it over with.
'I will ask,' Rien said. At least the room was warm now, and moist from the cleaning. Rien draped a blanket over Perceval's shoulders, tucked it around her, and clipped it across her chest. It was soft and white. It would show the blood.
There was bread and oil in addition to the soup, and soy cheese. Rien broke it all carefully into bite-size pieces and fed it to Perceval, and Perceval ate like a tame bird from Rien's fingertips. If she was to die, then let her die in whatever comfort she might take.
