The Mask of Mirrors by M. Carrick; (lightest ebook reader txt) 📗

from the doorway. Colbrin must have run to warn her. “I imagine she’s kept very busy outfitting you.”

An enormous hound with shaggy, brindled fur padded at her side as she glided to join them. Ren did her best to hold still. The only dogs she’d encountered before had been vicious strays, or attack dogs trained by some of the knots. The Vigil kept a pack for tearing apart rioters; Ren had been lucky enough to avoid those, but the stories were enough to send her pulse leaping double time.

Was Donaia looking for exactly that reaction? Renata forced herself to hold out one hand, palm up, as though her thin gloves were any sort of protection. “What a handsome…”

“Alwyddian wolfhound,” Donaia said. She sounded surly, as if she’d been hoping for Renata to flinch. “He’s called Lex Talionis.”

At Giuna’s laugh, the dog left off sniffing Renata’s hand and looked up at her with liquid black eyes. His tail whapped Donaia’s thigh hard enough to leave bruises. “That might be his name,” Giuna said, “but I doubt he knows it. We call him Meatball. That was Leato’s doing.”

“Giuna, dear, have you offered our guest something to drink?”

“No, Mother.” Creeping to the sideboard, Giuna hesitated over the offerings until Renata nodded toward the coffee. Foul it might be, but she didn’t want to risk having too much wine.

“My apologies for not being ready to greet you, Alta Renata.” The reprimand in Donaia’s voice was less obvious than Colbrin’s, but unmistakable all the same.

Any faint hope that Donaia’s feelings toward her had mellowed drowned on the spot. But Ren had always loved a challenge. “The fault is entirely mine, Era Traementis. I was so worried I would insult you by arriving late, I quite overshot.”

There were a variety of ways to ingratiate oneself, beyond being friendly to a person’s pet. If she could have afforded it, Renata might have tried to buy the same sage-and-wisteria perfume Donaia wore—but other things cost no money at all. She subtly mirrored Donaia’s movements and posture as they all sat, leaning forward when the other woman did, straightening her gloves a moment after Donaia touched her own. Overdoing that risked the other person noticing and reading it as mockery, but small amounts of imitation would build a buried sense of rapport, whether Donaia wanted it to or not.

For a brief time she thought it was working, the conversation easing past stilted commentary on the weather. But as the topic drifted toward Letilia, Renata realized her hostess’s seemingly casual chatter was nothing of the sort. “Whatever else she was,” Donaia said, “your mother certainly was a beauty. Did she ever tell you about the time she lost her purse and had a dozen smitten altans and altas diving into the Becchia Canal to retrieve it?”

Renata wondered how long it had taken her to consider the possibility that her unwelcome visitor might not even be Letilia’s daughter.

Fortunately, Donaia had chosen one of Letilia’s favorite anecdotes—one she still told more than twenty years later. “I thought it was her fan. Which always seemed absurd to me, because of course the fan was ruined by the time it came out; at least with a purse, the contents might survive.” Renata leaned in closer, as if sharing something not for Giuna’s ears, even though the girl could hear her perfectly. “But then, I doubt the fan was the point. The way Mother tells the story, she was testing to see who was truly dedicated to winning her favor… and Ghiscolo Acrenix had his reward that night.”

This was a fencing match, every bit as much as the duel between Mezzan Indestor and the Rook. If it went on long enough, Donaia would ask something Renata didn’t know; that detail was a riposte, obscure enough to put a halt to the prying before it went too far.

The measuring look in Donaia’s eyes said she’d come close to striking her target, but not quite. Renata had hoped to save the card up her sleeve for a later date, after Era Traementis had warmed to her… but she’d brought it just in case.

“Speaking of things that were lost,” she said.

Reaching into her purse, she brought out a gold ring set with a baroque river pearl and laid it on the table between them. “Mother never gave me much of her jewelry, but I always loved this one, and pestered her until she let me have it,” she said quietly. “The style is Nadežran, isn’t it? Mother never used the word ‘stole’; by her lights, she was only taking her due when she left. But I suspect that ring never belonged to her, and therefore it doesn’t belong to me, either. I’d like to return it.”

How many times had she picked someone’s pocket only so she could return what they had “dropped” and thereby ingratiate herself with the mark? The catch in Donaia’s breath and sheen in her eyes said Renata had played her card even better than she knew. Her hand trembled as she picked up the ring.

“This…” Only rapid blinking kept the tears at bay. Donaia swallowed and tried again. “This was my mother’s. She gave it to me when Gianco and I…”

The dog had been sprawled quietly by Donaia’s chair, but lifted his head at the waver in her voice. His bushy brows rose, a questioning whine at the back of his throat as he glanced between his mistress and the thing that made her sad.

Scratching his head in reassurance, Donaia curled her hand around the ring and tucked it under her surcoat apron. With a will even Renata had to admire, she reined herself in. “Thank you, Renata. I’m truly grateful to you for returning this.”

Not “Alta Renata,” but simply her name. Ren’s surge of victory was tempered by an unexpected pang. She’d assumed the ring was simply a distinctive piece of jewelry. If someone gave me back something of Mama’s…

She crushed that thought before it could get any further. All her mother’s things