by Ellyn, Court
The squire blinked, looked at the steam rising from the mug. “Sure.” He rushed back to the sideboard, dug out the ice bucket and started chipping ice.
Rhian chuckled. “Sure I’ve become the kind of customer I despised at the inn.”
I assume they were armed, Thorn said.
Rhian slouched in the chair. To the teeth. Worse, in front of all those murky lifelights was a bright one.
Elari?
Aye. I thought they meant to cross the river, you know, after her. But they stayed on the south bank, skirted the town and followed the Highway. They headed south toward Bramoran. I wanted to follow ‘em, see where they turned aside, but …
No, you were right not to go alone. And you have my thanks for troubling yourself with Carah. You probably saved her life, though she’ll never admit it.
Eejit! I never shoulda wasted time arguing with her. That nagging mouth of hers. Complete distraction. Shoulda thrown her over my saddle and whipped her back to the fortress.
Thorn chuckled.
Glad you’re amused. Those naenion could report Carah’s presence to whoever’s stealing us, surround us with watchers until they catch her alone again. You know it’s a possibility.
Of course, I know. But the rogue dardrion know Ilswythe is my home and that I have an avedra for a niece. Saffron herself told me she’s seen naenion lurking about these hills many a time. But they’ve never crept within striking distance. Why not? Why would the rogue dardrion not send their minions after me and my family first and foremost? Besides you, I’m the only trained avedra this side of the Drakhans. That ought to be plenty of incentive.
Or maybe it scares the shit out of them, and that’s why they haven’t touched you or her.
Thorn shrugged, at a loss.
Are you talking about the green men?
Thorn and Rhian turned to stare at Jaedren. He stood near the arm of Rhian’s chair, the cold mug half raised, his eyes squinting hard in concentration.
The older avedrin broke into laughter. Well done, Rhian said, taking the mug. Thorn reached out and ruffled the boy’s hair.
I have a headache. Jaedren pressed knuckles into his temples.
Of course, you do, Thorn said. Like bees stinging the inside of your skull, I bet. The pain will lessen with practice. The more you use the skill, the less effort it will take. Thorn laid a hand to the boy’s shoulder and leant close. But listen to me, son. This skill is to be used only among us. We do not drop in on anyone’s thoughts without their leave. This skill is too easily abused, you understand?
Jaedren nodded.
Thorn released him and sank back into the chair, locked his fingers over his belly. And it’s not often wise to seek the inmost thoughts and secrets of men. That is a dark and frightening place to go.
I understand, sir.
Thorn smiled dolefully. Not yet, young man. But you will, I’m afraid.
What about the eyes? When do I learn to use them?
Don’t rush yourself. Your brain might explode from overwork.
Jaedren’s mouth opened in horror.
No, no, not really. Thorn bit the grin off his face. Go get some rest. You’ve earned it.
~~~~
When Jaedren wasn’t present to serve at supper, Carah asked why. Her uncle explained the squire’s success as though it were nothing more exciting than a weather report. Carah hung her head and pushed away her plate, but otherwise surprised everyone at the table with her restraint. “I don’t have to lose my temper, you know,” she told them, drawing herself up. “Besides, I’ll learn it. In time.”
Across the table, adoration had sneaked back into Thorn’s smile.
His affection should have been enough to comfort her, but she couldn’t stand it. Bettered by a nine-year-old. As soon as the family got up from the table, Carah excused herself and hurried to the squire’s quarters.
Jaedren sat against his headboard, playing with a small turtle he’d captured along the riverbank. It crawled laboriously from one hand to the other. A box of silverthorn stood open on the bedside table, next to a cup of hot water. He had turned the lamp down low, as if the light hurt his eyes.
Carah cleared her throat, and the squire glanced up from his turtle. The sudden movement made him wince.
“Head still hurting?” Carah asked, sympathy shallow.
“It comes and goes. Did you need something, m’ lady?”
“Just some answers. Don’t get up.”
He frowned, suspicious about her motives, and gestured her to a chair piled with his livery. He took better care of his foster lord’s clothes than his own, it seemed. Maybe he was lax because of the headache.
Carah picked up the small cerulean surcoat with the black falcon embroidered on it and folded it neatly. “I wanted to congratulate you, actually. Uncle Thorn says you did well today.”
Jaedren ducked his eyes demurely.
“How did you do it?”
“Oh, it’s easy!” In an instant, his meekness boiled up into the offhanded arrogance of a child who has outshined his elders. “But it’s strange, too. You have to not think about it, but one part of you has to be concentrating really hard. It’s a di … dichotomy. That’s what Thorn called it.”
If Carah could make sense of that nonsense, she’d consider herself a bloody genius. She sank onto the chair, feeling less hopeful than ever.
“You can’t imagine how fast the brain works,” Jaedren rambled on. “Almost too fast to catch everything you hear. Sometimes I hear the thought real low, then hear it a second time really loud, like an echo, only backward. Maybe the first time the thought is just forming and ordering itself, and the second time it’s meant to be heard. And by the time you hear one thought, another is coming up underneath it.” He glanced down at the turtle pinched between his fingers. Its stubby, wrinkled legs swam to find purchase. “Turtles aren’t like that. Turtles think real slow. Slower than they walk. And one thought at a time.”
Carah held out her palm. Jaedren handed her the turtle, and she studied the bulbous eyes. “So what’s this little man thinking right now, Master Avedra?”
Jaedren shrugged. “He’s hungry. He’s always hungry. Turtles are kinda boring to talk to.”
Her fragile good humor slipped a notch. She was ready to head off to a bath where she could mope in solitude. “I’ll have to take your word for it. But tomorrow’s my day. I’m sure to get it then.”
Carah didn’t get it, not the next day or the next. Shafts of sunlight shined through the stained glass of the skylight and swept long probing fingers from one side of the library to the other, and all the while interminable silence screamed in Carah’s ears. Thorn scratched out short lines of foreign words on parchment while Jaedren looked on. The boy pressed at a headache. While Carah watched the Elaran lesson or pretended to care about the book opened up in front of her, she tried to make sense of Jaedren’s advice about “not thinking about it while concentrating really hard.” Her head throbbed she tried so hard. To no avail.
During lunch break, Carah could tell the two of them were talking about something. Something intense and highly interesting. All she could do was grit her teeth and listen to herself swallowing her food.
Jaedren flung down his spoon, sucked down a gulp of air, and cried, “There they are! I see them! Two of them, a yellow one and a blue one. It’s Aster! I see her and I’m not asleep.” He looked at Thorn for approval, then at Carah, and exclaimed, “Everybody’s glowing!”
Carah groaned and buried her face in her hands.
~~~~
17
The Assembly was one month away and supplies rolled in. Kelyn stood in the drizzle supervising the unloading of the wagons, while Madam Yris peered into each barrel and ticked items off her list. Though Kelyn’s people provided most of the food and extra staff, the finer things had to be sent for. Crates of Doreli wine arrived from the ports at Brimlad. Fruit came all the way from southern Mahkah, a land of endless summer. Fish and porpoise and oysters were deliver
ed on ice from Westport; those weren’t scheduled to arrive until the day or two before the Assembly convened, but sometimes they came too late. “Have the bedclothes gotten here yet?” The royal family slept on new silk sheets every year; those had yet to arrive from Vonmora.
“There’s plenty of time, m’ lord,” Yris said.
“Where’s my daughter?” Kelyn shot a nasty glare up at the keep’s windows. “She should be down here observing all this.” His own father hadn’t wanted his rowdy boys anywhere near the preparations. How Lord Keth had hated hosting the Assembly and all the trouble that went with it. All Kelyn had to do was show up, look dashing, and refrain from pursuing the cadre of handmaids. It wasn’t until after the war ended that he had the opportunity to host the Assembly himself and appreciate the reason for Father’s ill temper.
A voice hailed him from the gatehouse. Another wagon rolled into the courtyard. Eliad himself held the traces and raised a hand to wave. Two other wagons followed him in, stuffed with forlorn-looking sheep.
“You’re a delivery man now?” Kelyn asked peering into the back of Eliad’s wagon. Cured elk meat wrapped in wax paper filled half a dozen crates. Three times the size of the contribution Eliad owed his liege lord, and all because of the Assembly.
He leapt down from the wagon. “Ach, there are times when it’s a grave mistake having two women in the house. A man must flee.”
“You have my full sympathy,” Kelyn said.
“How can you possibly understand? You have only one wife and she’s gone half the year.”
Kelyn replied with raised eyebrows. “I will pray to the Mother-Father that one day your house is full of daughters.” Even as he directed the drivers to take the sheep to the paddocks, Carah emerged from the keep, puffed up and gritting her teeth like a prize fighter.
She found Kelyn among the wagons and workmen and marched straight toward him. “How in all hells did you grow up with him without killing him?”
Kelyn laughed and wrapped an arm around her. “You make my heart soar.”
That placated her anger somewhat.
“Did he kick you out again?”
She sighed. “No. I held my temper, but just barely. He had mercy and dismissed me for the afternoon. Put me to work, Da. Something I can do, or I shall despair.”
Kelyn turned his head to hide his grin. “Go help Yris. Gently.”
She huffed past Eliad, casting him a scathing sideward glare. Kelyn leaned close to him and whispered, “There’s no escaping them.”
By the time they set the day’s deliveries in order, dusk had fallen and they were chilled to the bone. “How tedious, Da,” Carah complained, climbing the steps to join him and Eliad. The endless drizzle curled her hair into ringlets about her face. Her teeth chattered.
Kelyn wrapped his cloak about her shoulders. “Expect it until the Assembly’s over, grit your teeth, and get on with it.”
“I think I’d rather sit in a library listening to nothing.”
“Hnh, so would I.”
They started for the great bronze doors where hot food and hot baths awaited, but Captain Maegeth called from the top of the wall, “A courier, m’ lord.”
The wardens had already secured the gate for the night. They didn’t look happy about opening it up again. The courier’s lathered racer trotted into the courtyard. A crown hovered over the head of the spread-winged falcon on his livery.
“From Bramoran,” Kelyn said and descended the steps.
The courier dismounted, snapped a bowed, and extended a letter sealed with the royal stamp. “My Lord Ilswythe. Is Her Grace in residence?”
“She is.”
The courier dug another letter from his satchel, handed it off to Kelyn, then glimpsed Eliad on the steps. “And Lord Drenéleth. This saves me a ride east. I’ll be on to Thyrvael, then.”
“Rest here, take a fresh horse in the morning,” Kelyn offered.
The courier bowed his thanks and led his racer off to the stables.
“What is it, Da?” Carah eyed the seal with childlike giddiness.
Eliad glowered at his own letter as he might at a poacher’s trap found on his lands.
“I know,” Kelyn muttered, suspicious himself. The paper was made of silk, his name written in silver ink. No expense spared. “Maybe he’s announcing a wedding. Come, let’s open them inside. We’ll have a drink first.”
They found Thorn in the gentlemen’s parlor swirling a glass of brandy.
“Isn’t brandy for after dinner?” Kelyn groused.
“You had a good day, I take it.” Carah was right; Thorn was infuriating.
A footman arrived to take their wet woolen cloaks. Kelyn told him, “If Her Grace isn’t occupied, inform her she has a letter. From the king.”
“Ah,” said Thorn. “That’s the reason for the long faces. Most would be elated to receive a second glance from a king, much less a letter.”
“Just pour us a couple of drinks, will you?”
Thorn complied without argument.
“One for me, too, please,” Carah requested. “My father forgets I’m not five anymore.”
Two peas in a pod, were uncle and niece. Sick of the snide remarks, Kelyn turned to Eliad, “Maybe we should wait until after dinner. I fear the contents will ruin my appetite.”
“Waiting and wondering will ruin mine.”
Rhoslyn drifted in, a fragrant cloud of sparkling pink silk. She was already dressed for supper. “A letter from sweet cousin Valryk, for me?”
“One for all of us,” Kelyn said, handing hers over.
“Aw, I feel left out,” Thorn said.
“That’s it, I’m not waiting.” Eliad broke the glob of blue wax. So did Rhoslyn.
Kelyn couldn’t bring himself to do it yet. “Will Rhian join us for supper?”
Thorn shrugged. “He and Jaedren are playing sentry on the north wall, now that Jaedren can see with Veil Sight.”
Eliad hissed a curse, slapped his letter across his thigh. Rhoslyn’s face was ice. She glanced at Kelyn. Damn, he knew it. What did Valryk change this time? He broke his seal and read:
To our illustrious cousin, Lord Ilswythe, greetings.
It is our pleasure to inform you that this year’s Assembly will take place within the new King’s Hall at Bramoran Royal. You are expected…
“That son of a bitch!” Kelyn roared. “I knew he’d do something like this. We have hosted the Assembly since recorded memory. Why change it now?”
“Dearest,” Rhoslyn said, “it is possible that Valryk is only trying to be pragmatic.”
“Pragmatic? If he was being pragmatic, he would have informed me of his decision—to my face, no less—months ago. Before I spent my money and troubled my people and half a continent’s worth of suppliers to deliver shit I don’t need. All of it wasted! And for what? To save that boy a day’s ride north?”
The duchess turned aside in a supremely snobbish way that stated she would endure being shouted at by a fool merely because he was a fool whose shouting would soon prove unjustified.
Kelyn snarled at her and flung the letter at his brother. “Read that and tell me I’m not to feel slighted by my dead friend’s son.”
Thorn huffed, having no desire to be swept up in this battle, but holding the letter at arm’s length did as he was told. Kelyn paced, calculating the loss to his treasury. “What the hell are we supposed to do with new silk sheets with Valryk’s initial on them?”
Rhoslyn cleared her throat. “Well, I can think of something.”
“Ach! Mum!” Carah whirled away to face the hearth and warm her hands, unable to look at any of them.
That drew a bitter laugh from Kelyn. “And get fat on the extra food in the larder, I suppose? Valryk will need to feed us all. Maybe I should send it south and bill him.”
Their attempts at humor were lost on Thorn. His face was grave as he looked up from the letter. “Did you read the rest?”
“My unjustified anger prevented me,” he replied, castin
g a glare at Rhoslyn.
“The kings are coming,” Eliad said, awed by what he read. “The other ones. All of ‘em.”
Kelyn snatched back his letter.
“This isn’t merely an Assembly,” Thorn added. “It’s a royal convention.”
“There, you see?” Rhoslyn said. “It’s a one-time event, dearest. Valryk intends to nurture better relations with his neighbors, and you should commend him for it. I’m sure next year everything will be back to normal, and your house will be overrun with moody, demanding, maneuvering highborns.”
Kelyn read aloud: “ ‘As Their Majesties are expected to arrive with sizeable suites and because accommodations and livery will be limited, Lord Ilswythe is permitted to bring only himself and one squire. He is also required to bring his heir. The Lady Carah is permitted one handmaid.’ Required. Permitted. Hnh.” The commands were tactlessly stated.
At mention of her name, Carah hurried close and peered at the silver writing.
“At least it will last only three days instead of five,” Thorn pointed out.
“No dancing?” Rhoslyn asked, though the melodramatic hand to her chest told Kelyn she wasn’t exactly disappointed.
Carah, however, was horrified. “He can’t cut the dancing!”
“Along with the races and tournaments, I’d imagine,” Kelyn said.
“Not one for entertainment, your Valryk?” Thorn put a brandy glass in his brother’s hand. Kelyn had no idea when he’d set it down.
“He’s as dry and humorless as a dog’s chew bone.”
“Well, I’m not going,” Eliad said, dropping into the hearthside armchair. On the chessboard nearby, the pieces remained as he and Kelyn had left them on his last visit. He bent over the board and moved a knight.
“You are required to be there,” Kelyn snapped. “There are some things you cannot flout, king’s decrees among them. If you don’t go, Valryk will wonder why. I doubt he’ll be as merciful or compassionate as your father was.”