by Sharon Shinn
“Katlin Dormer and Edwin Seiles. Do you know them?”
“Yes, but only slightly.”
“Well, you bought them a clock as a wedding gift. One of them should send you a thank-you note eventually.”
Erin dissolved with merriment, and Kirra’s father and sister were both smiling. But Kirra noticed that a few of the people listening were not amused in the slightest. A mystic, taking whatever shape she pleases, imitating honest men and women and—who knows?—maybe disgracing them with her hoydenish behavior. Not everyone would find such tricks acceptable—not even in service to the king.
But no one said anything to her face, that night or in the hectic days that followed. Casserah and Jannis were deep in preparations for a huge banquet that would be held in two weeks, to which close to a hundred people had been invited. It was at this event that Malcolm planned to make the announcement that Casserah was his heir, and Kirra could hardly say she was looking forward to it. But she did what she could to help with preparations, docilely allowed Jannis and her seamstress to fit her for a ballgown in the color and style they chose, and even submitted to having her long hair trimmed and tamed a few days before the big event.
But she didn’t enjoy any of it.
She also missed Donnal, who had disappeared the day they arrived. He was off visiting his own family, she knew—poor farmers whose close association with House Danalustrous had netted them some monetary advantages and outright ownership of their small plot of land. His father had been gone a long time, but his mother, uncle, brothers, and various other family members were always thrilled to see him on his infrequent visits home, and demanded to hear all the details of his most recent adventures. He would grow restless even sooner than she would, Kirra knew, but while he was gone, she missed his quiet, undemanding presence and the warmth of his body beside her at night.
But he would be back soon. He always returned to her.
After she had been home about a week, her father sought her out, a letter in his hand and a sour expression on his face. “If you’ve nothing better to do, you might ride down to see your aunt and uncle in the next few days,” he said.
She had been letting Jannis’s dresser work on her fingernails, absolutely disgraceful after six months of neglect, but she had been happy enough to forgo that occupation and talk with her father. “Certainly I will, but I thought they were coming to the banquet?”
Malcolm waved the letter. “Apparently not. Berric has injured himself in some riding accident and cannot leave the house, and, of course, Beatrice won’t go anywhere without him.”
Kirra grinned. “She probably didn’t want to come anyway. She hates big social gatherings. I’ll bet she’s relieved.”
“No doubt she slipped a burr under the horse’s saddle to cause Berric to be thrown,” Malcolm agreed. “Nonetheless, they seem grieved at the thought of missing a chance to see you, and I’m sure they would welcome a visit.”
“I am equally grieved at the thought of tearing myself away from manicures and hair stylings, even for a day, but I believe I can make the sacrifice,” Kirra said. “Should we write to tell them I’m coming?”
“I’ll send a note. You are very kind.”
She laughed. “I like them. You don’t.”
Malcolm spread his hands. “There are so many people I don’t like.”
“I’ll leave in the morning.”
And she did, accompanied by two of her father’s house guards, though she protested she could care for herself well enough. Malcolm didn’t bother to argue with her, so she sighed and accepted the escort. She thought the men had been assigned to her more to give her consequence than to protect her, but she couldn’t be sure.
Berric and Beatrice lived close enough to Danan Hall that the trip could be made in one rather long day. Their holdings were small but pretty, consisting of a two-story stone house set on smartly tilled farmland. When she was younger, and just beginning to exhibit signs of the restlessness that would haunt her for the rest of her life, Kirra had spent many of her summers here. There was much more freedom at her uncle’s house, more to explore, fewer rules.
And Berric and Beatrice loved her, though they had never quite forgiven Malcolm. It was their sister he had taken as his second bride, relocating her from their modest property to Danan Hall and then losing her altogether. Beatrice claimed that Bayla would have been content to roam Danalustrous her whole life, periodically returning to the home she shared with her brother and sister, but that Malcolm showed her a different world. Ships from foreign countries, caravans of trading goods from other regions of Gillengaria. She hadn’t realized how big the world was outside of Danalustrous borders, and she had wanted to see it all.
As far as Kirra knew, Bayla had never come back. Malcolm had had her declared dead three years after Kirra was born, two years after Bayla had disappeared. Kirra had always figured that was a convenient fiction on his part, freeing him to marry Jannis. She had not felt much grief for the mother she could not remember at all—but she had, as she’d grown older, felt a certain sympathy. She knew what it was like to be unable to sit still, to find the calm serenity of Danalustrous closing in on her like an iron-bound cell. She was certain Bayla would have discovered the rest of the world on her own one day, even if Malcolm Danalustrous had never come calling.
Beatrice was waiting for her at the door when she and her guard rode up, and Kirra tumbled from her horse to fling herself into her aunt’s arms. Beatrice was short and plump, with hair as gold and curly as Kirra’s, though not nearly as long. She had very comforting hugs.
“Look at you! What a fine lady you are!” Beatrice said, stepping back to admire Kirra’s clothes and coiffure. “I hope we didn’t steal you away from anything too important, but you’re home so rarely and I didn’t want to miss you completely.”
“Oh, I was so glad when your message came!” Kirra exclaimed. “All that sitting around being—serramarra-y. It’s about to drive me to lunacy. I can’t imagine how Casserah can stand it.”
Beatrice put a hand on Kirra’s arm and drew her inside. The front hall, like the whole house, had been designed with pleasing proportions and would have been very lovely if it hadn’t been overflowing with shelves and statuary and knick-knacks. Beatrice loved things, from books to chairs to vases, and the whole house was crowded with examples of her profligate taste.
“And how is Casserah? And your father and the marlady?”
Neither Beatrice nor Berric ever referred to Jannis by name. She was always “the marlady” to them, a constant reminder that she had stolen Bayla’s title. “Everyone is well. They’re planning Casserah’s birthday dinner, you know. It’s a shame you can’t come.”
“Yes, isn’t it?” Beatrice said in a dry voice.
Kirra laughed. “So is Berric really injured? Or did you just find you couldn’t face a party at Danan Hall?”
“Injured, indeed, and quite petulant about it, too,” Beatrice answered. “But here, talk to him yourself! We’ve waited dinner for you. It’ll just be the three of us, so we can talk all night.”
“That’s just the way I like it,” Kirra said, and followed her aunt into the small family dining room.
Berric was already sitting at the head of the table, one foot extended before him and propped on an overstuffed stool. Like Beatrice, he was stout and fair, though his hair was mostly missing and hadn’t been curly when he had it. He was shifting uncomfortably in his chair, and his face looked red and displeased, as if he’d just been shouting at someone as a palliative to his own wretchedness.
But his expression cleared instantly when his niece walked in the room. “Kirra! I thought I heard voices in the hall. We weren’t sure if you would make it tonight or tomorrow, but we were hoping. Come give me a kiss—it’s too much trouble for me to stand up.”
She crossed to his side and bent to kiss him on the cheek. His skin was hot, a little damp, and she pulled back to put a hand across his forehead. “Do you have a fever? How bad is the pain, really?�
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“Bad enough,” he admitted. “I don’t know if I’ve caught an infection, but I feel like red and silver hell. Beatrice has been feeding me some vile herbal drink, but it hasn’t helped much.”
Kirra pulled up a chair to sit beside him. “Is it just your leg? Or does your hip hurt, too? Where’s the break? And how did this happen?”
Berric sighed. “I was riding back from Storian. I’d been gone almost two weeks, didn’t have a single day of trouble! I must have ridden two hundred miles without so much as a thrown shoe. Then three days ago, as I’m coming up the lane to my very own house, the horse shies and I fall off. Caught my foot in the stirrup, twisted my leg—heard it snap before I felt it. Beatrice and the groom set it for me, and between them they’ve seen every injury a man might get from a horse, but I’m wondering if I might need to call a physician in.”
“I think I might be able to help you,” Kirra said, and hitched her chair over so her knees almost touched Berric’s outstretched leg. “Hold still.”
She was gazing down at the leg but she didn’t miss the quick, significant glance that passed between brother and sister. Bayla had been a shiftling, but she had not had the power of healing. No one could figure out where that talent had come from, what quirk in the bloodline had given Kirra two magical abilities, when most mystics could only claim one.
“Let me know if I hurt you,” she murmured and laid her hand gently over the bandage visible under Berric’s trousers. He winced but didn’t cry out, and she spread her fingers as wide as they would go. She could feel the layered textures beneath her hand—the silk and cotton of the clothing, the skin and hair that defined the flesh, the liquid of the blood, the porous marble of the bone. Blood and bone were bunched up in a painful lump, veins in knots, bone in a ragged break. Kirra smoothed her hand over the cotton of the outer layer, sent her energy sinking down to the interior levels. She stroked her hand again over the misaligned edges, then tightened her fingers for a moment along the top of Berric’s leg. She heard him take a deep breath, but he didn’t say anything. The palm of her hand felt strange, as if it danced with tiny pinpricks. The sensation continued clear up to her elbow before it dissipated.
“Does that feel any better?” she asked.
Berric let his breath out in an explosive sigh. “Yes! Pale Lady’s silver tears, I knew you were a healer, but—I’ve never witnessed anything like that. The pain is all gone! My leg feels almost normal!”
“What a gift,” Beatrice said. She had stood tense and silent this whole time and only now began to stir uncertainly through the room.
“The leg’s still healing, though,” Kirra warned. “It will be a while before you can really expect to be at full strength, so don’t push yourself. Walk with a cane for a while—and don’t go horseback riding any time soon. And certainly don’t go jaunting off to balls and banquets and other taxing affairs,” she added with a smile.
“Are you sure? I shouldn’t go riding up to Danan Hall to attend your sister’s dinner?”
“Quite sure,” she said, pushing away from him and coming to her feet. “But I do believe you’ll be feeling quite restored in no time.”
“Let’s have wine with dinner,” Beatrice said, disappearing through a connecting door toward the kitchen. “I feel like a little celebration.”
The meal was convivial, though it would have been even without the wine, Kirra thought. Beatrice had no use for pretension and could be quite sharp-tongued when she relayed gossip about the lesser gentry of Danalustrous, and Kirra found herself laughing helplessly more than once at her sarcastic comments. Berric, now out of pain, was mellow and urbane, though quick with his own less-than-flattering remarks about the lords he had recently visited in Storian.
“The man’s hardly smart enough to remember his own name, let alone run a household, but he thinks he should have Rafe Storian’s title and property,” Berric said. “People talk about the decline of the marlords! They should talk about the utter madness in the Thirteenth House.”
Kirra toyed with her wineglass a moment. “Yes. I have heard some—interesting—tales lately about the ambition of the lesser lords,” she said. “I found them hard to credit, but then I have never been ambitious. At least not for wealth and property.”
Berric made a sound that sounded like “faugh” and waved an impatient hand. “The lesser lords don’t understand how good their lives are,” he said. “What could be better than the way Beatrice and I live? We have a beautiful house. We have a prosperous property. We have social standing—good friends—a charming niece. Life is good. Life is easy—and I’ll wager the life of a marlord, though glamorous and coveted, is not an easy one. The lesser lords don’t know what they’re jealous of.”
“But there is jealousy?” Kirra pressed. “There is discontent? Is there—Uncle, do you hear tales of the gentry planning to rise up against the king?”
Berric looked at her very soberly. Beatrice, sitting across the table from them, was openmouthed with surprise. “Tales. Yes,” said Berric. “Of how Martin Helven is weak and should be brought down, how Els Nocklyn is sick and his daughter not ready to run the House when he dies. And who better to take over such rich properties than the loyal vassals who know and love the land so well? They grumble that they don’t have enough, but none of them sees that if they were ever to don the title of marlord, all of their friends would turn against them, wanting what they had now. They talk revolution, but will they act? I don’t know. I don’t believe they have the organization to act in concert.”
“But they talk about it. That is bad enough,” Kirra said.
Berric shrugged. “Will they rise up to depose Baryn? I doubt it. But from what I hear, the marlords are poised to do just that. Is this a time of crisis in the realm? Why, yes, I think so. Gisseltess appears to be amassing an army. So does Rappengrass. So does Danalustrous, if it comes to that. Where are all the Houses drawing their funds to support their legions of soldiers? From the lesser lords, of course. They are taxing their vassals and conscripting the workmen to toil in their armies. You can see why the lower gentry might be saying, ‘If I must finance this war, I want some recompense in return. I do not want to beggar myself for the honor of my marlord, or even my king.’”
Kirra took a deep breath. “There is so much unrest,” she said. “Everywhere. I don’t know that Baryn can look in all directions at once to see the potential dangers facing him.”
“No, and what if he dies?” Berric agreed. “For that’s what everyone’s afraid of, you know. That little princess can’t hold off an army if the marlords choose to raise one. No, and neither can that man, that regent Baryn’s picked out. What’s his name? The Merrenstow fellow.”
“Romar Brendyn.”
Berric nodded. “That’s it. I don’t see him uniting the marlords to any cause, even if it is in protection of the throne. The whole realm is uneasy, Kirra, as you say.”
“Then what’s to come next?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Pale Lady alone can guess.”
Beatrice stood up. “Dessert’s to come next,” she said in a firm voice. “And you can stop all this frightening talk. I don’t like to hear it. I can’t think anything will happen—not to Baryn, not to the princess. Let’s just have some pie now and think about happier things.”
“Yes, you can tell us what you’ve been doing lately that’s kept you from Danalustrous so long,” Berric said as his sister left the room. “Just back from Tilt now, aren’t you?”
Kirra widened her eyes. “How did you hear that story? My own father didn’t know it.”
He grinned. “I didn’t hear all of it. Just that you were wandering through northern parts at a time when no one was expecting you.”
“Was that news all over Storian while you were there?”
He shook his head. “One of Gregory Tilton’s vassals was present, and he drew me aside to ask why you’d been in Tilt. Apparently someone had been surprised to see you there, doing something you weren
’t expected to do. And he wondered what your interest there had been. I told him I’d ask—but that I guessed you wouldn’t tell me.”
She laughed at that. “No, I don’t think I’m supposed to repeat the story. But I’m impressed that you know enough to ask!”
Beatrice reappeared, bearing a large fruit pie and smiling broadly. She would not want to hear any speculation about dangerous activities Kirra had engaged in. Berric said, “We’ll talk about this later. Bea, it looks like you’ve outdone yourself.”
Over dessert, Kirra related some of the more humorous tales of her recent travels, the ones she could repeat, which left out most of her trip last winter with Senneth and the others. Instead, she described bits and pieces of other events, the wedding in Forten City, a dinner in Ghosenhall, an evening she had spent in Kianlever.
“Oh, you’ll appreciate this story, Uncle! There was a little girl in Kianlever—had broken her leg and both her arms falling down a stairwell. She said her brother pushed her, and I wouldn’t have been surprised—he was a nasty little boy. Anyway, I was there two days after she fell and I put all the bones back together. I felt very good about it, too. I’ve never been as good at injuries as I am at sickness.”