The Winds of Khalakovo - Bradley P. Beaulieu [80]
Atiana set down her cards, allowing Mileva to capture the blind. “Show some respect.” She squeezed Ivan’s wrist tenderly. “He has lost much this week.”
“Ivan knows how much respect I have for him and his family. It was a warning for you, sister.” Mileva finished selecting her final hand and they began playing, the sisters moving quickly, practically without thought, Ivan choosing his cards carefully, often looking to Mileva for approval as if she could somehow see his cards before he played them.
“And why would I need a warning, Leva?”
“Because,” Ishkyna answered forher, “it’s clear to everyone you’re chafing at the bit to gallop for Khalakovo when you should be headed home.”
Atiana slapped her highest trump onto the table and swept in the trick. “I had a notion that this was my home now.”
Mileva took the next. “The longer we stay, sister, the likelier it will be that your wedding bed will forever stay cold.”
Atiana wanted to scoff, but there was a ring of truth to those words. She had thought the matter would be settled within a day, but then came rumor that the Khalakovos had found a Landless qiram and were questioning him deep beneath the palotza. They neither confirmed nor denied the rumor, but Leonid had men asking about Volgorod for news, and they said that some of the Landless had come to the palotza, treating with Iaros to have their kinsman back.
“Perhaps if you spoke with young Khalakovo, away from prying ears.”
Atiana did not look at Ivan. She knew that this was as much for his ears as it was for hers. “And just how would I do that?” she asked, providing the requisite nibble on the bait.
Mileva shrugged. “There are hidden hallways in Radiskoye, are there not, as there are in Galostina? I would even wager that Zvayodensk has a tunnel or two hidden away from curious eyes.”
Ivan blushed again, playing a pitiful, off-suited card.
“Perhaps,” Ishkyna said, playing a high trump, “but who will be left to tread them?”
As Mileva played her final card, winning the trick and the hand, Ivan’s face changed. Instead of a deep red, his face went white. After staring at the table for a time, meeting no one’s eyes, he stood, bowed, and without a single word strode away.
“Really, Shkyna,” Atiana said. “The boy has just lost a dozen in his family, and dozens more countrymen.”
“And we lost two cousins and a ship only a month ago. That is life among the islands. The sooner Ivan learns that, the better off he’ll be.”
Atiana raked in the cards and tumbled them into the deck, unable to deny the truth in her sister’s words. When she was young she had been heartbroken at the frequent deaths in the family, but she had soon learned to put such things in perspective. She realized, too, that Ishkyna had played Ivan well. He was angry now, and would probably tell others what the sisters had brewing. It would no doubt come back to Father, and then he would expect that she would have already gone to question Nikandr.
But she didn’t care if she was being manipulated by her sisters or if her father would have expectations. She wanted to see Nikandr. So late that night she demanded a simple dress of one of their servants. She donned it and left her bedroom to the sounds of whispering from her sisters. She held a small, unlit lamp in one hand even though there were whale oil lamps set on ornate marble tables along the hallway. The passageway to her left led to Radiskoye proper—the most obvious way to reach Nikandr, and also the most watched. She turned instead to her right and padded down the hall until she reached another, smaller hallway where Father and the other dukes were housed. She came to a small linen closet and opened it. After stepping inside, she felt among the shelves of sheets and pillow cases for the catch Mileva had assured her was there. She found it at the back of the bottommost shelf. It clicked and the entire rear of the closet