by Sharon Shinn
She grinned, but almost instantly her amusement faded. His route would take him back to the spot she had just left, where Justin almost certainly would still be standing. Would Daken see Justin?
Would he guess why Justin was out late at night in a place where he was forbidden to wander?
Would he tell anyone what he saw?
CHAPTER 26
KIRRA appeared delighted to see Senneth and her escort, which included Tayse, Cammon, Will, and five Brassenthwaite guards Kiernan had insisted they bring. “Welcome to Danan Hall!” she exclaimed, hugging the mystics, and even Tayse, who did not usually come in for careless embraces. “Oh, and you must be Will! You look so much like your sister.”
Senneth laughed. “Since Nate has just spent the past five days telling me I look like a veritable vagabond, I’m not sure that’s a compliment.”
“Nonsense. You’re very attractive,” Kirra said. She was still holding Will’s hand and smiling up at him, flirting or merely overflowing with genuine warmth, it was hard to tell. “And so is your brother.”
“You, of course, are beautiful, but you must know that,” Will replied.
Kirra’s smile grew wider. “Well, I do know that. People tell me all the time.”
“She’s a shiftling,” Senneth reminded him. “She can make herself look as beautiful as she wants. In actuality, you know, she’s probably hideous.”
“No, that’s really what she looks like,” Cammon said.
“Cammon can’t be blinded by magic, so he sees me as I truly am,” Kirra said soulfully to Will. She still had his hand in hers.
“But Cammon doesn’t know what you look like to the rest of us,” Tayse said. “I like this idea. That you’re quite plain without the aid of magic.”
Kirra laughed. “Help! How can I prove myself?”
Cammon pointed at a set of portraits hanging in the parlor where the steward had ushered them upon their arrival. One was of Kirra, all gold and smiling; one of Casserah, dark and serene. “Is that what you see?” he asked. They all examined the image and assented. The painter had done a good job of catching not only the shape of her face, but the mischief of her expression. “That’s how she looks to me, too.”
Kirra dropped her hold on Will to throw her hands in the air. “I am vindicated! But what a sad way for Will Brassenthwaite to make my acquaintance. To have me accused of lying and subterfuge before he’s known me five minutes!”
“Better now than learn the truth later,” Tayse said darkly.
Senneth and Kirra laughed. Will looked like he wanted to but wasn’t sure it would be polite.
“So how was your trip?” Kirra asked. “Oh, everyone sit down! I’ve sent Menten for refreshments. I’m sure you’re all hungry.”
All of them but Tayse disposed themselves in the plush chairs arranged in the center of the room. “I’d like to look around the Hall, if you don’t mind,” the Rider said. “Where’s Donnal? He can be my guide.”
Kirra gazed up at him, not deceived. “You will not offend my father if you sit on his furniture,” she said. “Really. He’s not like Kiernan. He doesn’t put much store by class distinctions. Donnal sits on his chairs all the time.”
Tayse smiled. “You can have this conversation without me. I’m curious to see the stables and grounds.”
Senneth gave Tayse a private smile. He met her eyes, amusement in his own, but he kept his face grave. “Tayse is still working on being comfortable among the aristocracy,” Senneth said.
“He’ll have to learn, won’t he?” Cammon said. “If he’s going to marry Senneth?”
“What?” Kirra exclaimed, clapping her hands together. “Tell me, tell me!”
“Asked my brother for her hand in marriage,” Will said, still clearly relishing the memory of that night. “At the dinner table with the whole family sitting there. I thought I was a brave man, but it wasn’t something I’d have dared.”
“And? What did Kiernan say? What did Nate say? That would have been more interesting, I’d wager.”
“I see you have some acquaintance with my brothers,” Will said, grinning now. “In fact, Nate thought the whole thing scandalous, but Kiernan gave Tayse his blessing.” He turned his smile on Senneth. “Of course, none of us asked Senneth what answer she gave Tayse, but we all suppose it was favorable.”
“So you’re to be married! Oh, I hope you do it with great pomp—from Brassen Court—no, from Ghosenhall! And invite all the marlords and marladies. I will be your attendant, since I can’t imagine any other serramarra would be so debauched as to stand up for you.”
“Thank you, I have not yet gotten to the stage of planning my wedding,” Senneth said. “I rather think it will be a private ceremony.”
Kirra was instantly serious. “But you wouldn’t get married without me there, would you? Oh, promise me, Sen. Tayse—I know I’m very annoying, but promise you won’t elope without letting me come along.”
He smiled down at her. Senneth thought he might be just a little embarrassed behind his usual stoic demeanor— embarrassed, but pleased. Certainly Kirra was one of the few nobles who would genuinely wish them well. “We did not come to Danalustrous to talk about my wedding,” was all he said. “I’m going to find Donnal. Cammon? Would you like to come with me?”
Which was Cammon’s first cue that he was not, perhaps, entirely welcome at this conference. Senneth hid a smile as the younger man showed surprise, then comprehension, and jumped to his feet. “Yes, let’s find Donnal,” he said. “When should—will we be back for dinner?”
“No,” Tayse said, but Kirra spoke over him.
“Yes, of course you will. It will just be family at the table tonight,” she said. “And my father will want to get to know both of you.” She flicked Cammon a smile. “I have told him a great deal about you, so he will probably try to figure out if you really have the kind of power I’ve described. Don’t be surprised if he starts testing you some way. I couldn’t even guess how.”
Cammon laughed, pleased at the thought. “That sounds like fun,” he said. “Then we’ll see you later.”
They left as Menten, the butler, was entering with a tray of refreshments. He was still arranging them on the table when the door opened again and Malcolm Danalustrous strode in.
“Senneth,” he said, coming straight toward her. “Carlo told me you had arrived. It is good to see you again.”
She came to her feet and let him take both of her hands in his, then stand there studying her a moment. She watched him in return, noting that the black hair was streaking with gray, but the blue eyes were as bright as ever, the firmly modeled face completely unsoftened by time. She had spent a good five years wishing Malcolm, with all his faults, had been her father. He was a strong-willed, outspoken, unpredictable but totally humane man who cared about very little except Danalustrous and the people who came under its protection. His daughters. His vassals. The few people, like Senneth, to whom he had offered complete sanctuary. He had not disowned his daughter when she had proved to be rife with magic. No, he had brought in tutors for her—he had honed her skills—he had forced the other marlords to accept her. If Danalustrous was going to produce magic, then Danalustrous would nurture magic as well.
“You look good,” he said at last. “Serving the king agrees with you.”
“Falling in love with a King’s Rider agrees with her more,” Kirra said.
Malcolm dropped Senneth’s hands and smiled. “Well, we could hardly expect Senneth to do anything the conventional way.” Will had come to his feet and now the two men shook hands. “I’m Malcolm Danalustrous. Welcome to my House.”
“Thank you for inviting me. Danan Hall is as beautiful as people say.”
“Father, I’ve invited Tayse and Cammon to eat with us,” Kirra said. “You know, the Rider and the mystic? Should I go warn Jannis?” Jannis was Casserah’s mother, Malcolm’s third wife.
“I think she will hardly be surprised to learn you want your friends at the dinner table,”
Malcolm said. “But by all means, you and Senneth may leave. Will and I have matters to discuss that we can cover more profitably without you.”
Kirra looked indignant, but Senneth laughed. “I’m not so sure I should leave my baby brother alone with you, Malcolm,” she said. “You can be very fierce.”
“Nonsense. If he can endure Kiernan, he can endure me.”
Nonetheless, Senneth glanced at Will to make sure he felt up to a conversation alone with Malcolm, whose intransigence was legendary. But Will had settled back in his chair and showed a countenance that was relaxed and smiling. “I think I can hold my own,” he said.
“No one holds their own with my father, but good luck trying,” Kirra replied. She jumped up and grabbed Senneth’s arm, towing her toward the door. “We’ve got plenty to talk about that we don’t want you to overhear, either. We’ll see everybody again at dinner.”
In a few minutes, the two women were ensconced in Kirra’s room, sprawled across the massive bed. Senneth was tired from the trip, but not excessively so. It felt good to lie back on the plump mattress and stare up at the flowered bed curtains, be enveloped in the subtle but unmistakable richness of Danan Hall.
“So—tell me,” Kirra demanded, practically bouncing where she sat. She was still more or less upright, leaning against the pillows. It was Senneth who lay lazily on her back, running her hands over the thick fabric of the bedspread. “Tayse proposed to you in front of the whole family? Were you shocked? Or did you know he was going to do it?”
“Shocked,” Senneth admitted. “And—amazed. And— overwhelmed with love for him. That required more bravery than holding a knife to Halchon Gisseltess’s throat.”
“But was probably more pleasurable in the long run,” Kirra said. Senneth choked with laughter and turned on her side to face Kirra.
“He did seem to enjoy the rewards,” she said demurely.
“Have you told Justin yet?”
“We came straight here from Brassenthwaite. After stopping in Neft to—” Senneth sat up. “Oh, you don’t know this! This is almost better than Tayse proposing to me at Brassen Court.”
“Nothing could be,” Kirra said positively.
“But listen! Tayse and Cammon and I were leaving Coravann, when suddenly Cammon says, ‘Justin needs us.’ He doesn’t say why, of course, so we change direction and hurry to Neft and we find that Justin—Justin—has become the protector of Sabina Gisseltess, who’s run away from her husband.”
“No!”
“Yes! So we take her with us and at first I think we’ll go to Ghosenhall, but then I think maybe she’ll be safer in Brassenthwaite. And the whole trip—which is very fast, let me tell you, because Tayse can certainly keep a party moving when he has to—the whole time, Sabina keeps talking about my brother Nate. How considerate he is, what a friend he used to be to her. So I start wondering. Was there something between them, fifteen or twenty years ago? And when we arrive in Brassenthwaite, Nate practically knocks me down in his haste to find Sabina once I tell him she’s arrived in our train.” She gave Kirra a wide-eyed stare. “And fairly soon it’s clear they were in love with each other until she was forced to marry Halchon. And they still seem disposed to care about each other. I was never so astonished in my life. I mean, Nate. Who could have expected that?”
“Well, she’s a pathetic little thing, but that might be just the kind of person Nate needs, because he could hardly stand up to a forceful woman,” Kirra said callously. “Should we now work especially hard to make sure Halchon dies in the war?”
“If there is a war,” Senneth said automatically.
Kirra stretched. “I think Tayse would be happy to kill him even off the battlefield, if he gets the opportunity,” she said.
“Yes, but one of the drawbacks of being civilized is realizing that you can’t murder people just because you don’t like them,” Senneth said.
Kirra grinned at her. “What makes you think Tayse is civilized?”
“Or you. Or Justin. Or Cammon, when it comes to that,” Senneth said ruefully.
Kirra bounced again. “Justin! That reminds me! If you saw him, did he talk about that convent girl? Senneth, I think he was ready to fall in love with her. And, you know, Justin has never had much time for women. Is he still seeing her? What’s happening?”
Senneth instantly felt troubled. Kirra, always sensitive to mood, fell quiet and watched her. “I think Justin has gone out of his way to find the person most likely to break his heart,” she said with a sigh.
Kirra surprised her by laughing. “That’s what he said would happen.”
“What do you mean?”
“Last summer. He said that all of us—the six of us— seemed prone to picking the most disastrous people to fall in love with. And you could hardly get more disastrous than a King’s Rider and a Daughter of the Pale Mother.”
“Who’s from the Lirrens,” Senneth added quietly.
“Who’s—no! Does he know that? Does this mean—wait— that her family will require a duel to the death before he’s allowed to be with her?”
Senneth nodded. “That’s Lirren tradition.”
“But, Sen! That can’t happen! You know as well as I do that no one can defeat Justin except Tayse and some of the other Riders. I mean, he’ll win this fight, but he—he—that’s terrible! He’d have to kill her brother or somebody!”
Senneth nodded. “I’m hoping there’s a way to avert that. But at the moment—as far as I know—he still isn’t aware of who she is.”
“Then how do you know?”
“He described her. I recognized Lirren signs.” She shrugged. “Tayse is angry with me, but I figured it was up to her to decide when to be honest with Justin. Maybe that was a bad decision, I don’t know.”
“Maybe you should go back to Neft and tell him now.”
“Maybe. Ghosenhall first, though, to tell Baryn about Sabina. And about our visit to Coravann, about which he still does not have my report. I sent a messenger from Brassen Court but I only sketched in the details. Some of this news is best given in person.”
Kirra was still thinking about Justin. “He told me a little about the convent girl—not much,” she said. “I think he was surprised to find himself confiding in me, but he was desperate to talk to somebody and no one else was around.”
Senneth smiled but let it pass. Kirra and Justin were determined to believe they despised each other, or pretend they believed it. Kirra went on, “And I had the impression she was—small. Sweet. Maybe a little clingy.”
“Very feminine,” Senneth agreed. “The Lirren women usually are.”
“But who’d have thought Justin would fall in love with a girl like that?” Kirra demanded. “I mean, look at you and me. We can defend ourselves against all comers. Look at the women among the Riders. Rough and tumble, as quick to grab a blade or knock you in the head as Justin is himself. I always thought those were the kinds of women he admired. I always thought that would be the kind of girl he’d like.”
Senneth nodded. “And if you’d asked him, that’s probably what he would have said, too. But I don’t think so. Justin’s never had much softness in his life. He’s never had something precious and helpless that he felt he had to protect. No one’s ever needed Justin. And I think maybe this girl does. And I think that that would be irresistible to him—a gentle girl who relies on his strength, but who can tame him with her sweetness. I mean, can’t you just picture it? Justin standing watch over someone like that? He’d be so ferocious it would break your heart.”