The woman stared in hostile silence at Faris. Behind Jane and Tyrian and Reed, a servant appeared at the open door. Faris’s companions gave way as he entered the room behind a heavily laden tea cart.
“Excellent.” Faris eyed the carpet. “Now all I need is a bootjack. Will you bring me one?”
The servant was gone before the woman released the bell rope and spoke. Her color was still high but her voice was calm. “You might have given us some notice that you were coming home.”
“Why, when Brinker sent for me?” Faris asked. “Where did this carpet come from?”
Her gray eyes were icy. “It’s mine. Why?”
“I just wondered. It’s beautiful.”
Faris and Agnes regarded each other warily. Brinker Nallaneen joined them as they were choosing their next questions. He was slim and dark, with a neatly pointed black beard, and wore English tweeds. With his hair windblown and his cheeks rosy from the cold, he did not seem much older than Faris. “I scarcely believed my ears when they told me.” His voice was smooth and very deep, as though it belonged to a much larger man. “Welcome home, Faris.”
Faris turned to face him and realized with delight that she was now two inches taller than he. “Hello, Uncle. The tea is getting cold.”
Brinker took no notice of her impertinence. He greeted her and introduced his wife with great cordiality. Faris used the bootjack and introduced her companions with equal lack of finesse.
Brinker made Jane welcome and said to Reed, “Many thanks for your patience with these reunions. If you will attend me in the Russian room, I will join you in a moment to settle your account.” To Tyrian, he said, “Has there been some misunderstanding? I sent a letter of credit to your address at Greenlaw.” His dark gaze flickered, as if taking in Tyrian’s appearance for the first time, and his brows rose. “Why are you here?”
Faris looked hard at her uncle, then glanced at Tyrian, who was even more impassive than usual. The journey on horseback had been hard on Tyrian’s somber clothes. He had circles under his eyes and a good start on a beard. His hat had long since gone and his fair hair was uncombed. “I am now in the service of the duchess herself,” he explained. “I had already resigned my duty on your behalf when I agreed to serve as escort to her grace. I don’t consider myself of any further concern to you, my lord.” He hesitated, then added, “I was never really needed in Greenlaw, anyway. Her grace is very capable.”
After a pause which made it amply clear that he still did not understand what Tyrian was doing there, and that it had never occurred to him that Faris was capable of anything at all, Brinker tilted his head a little and said, blankly, “Yes, of course.” He studied Tyrian a moment longer, then turned back to Faris. “You will want your old room, I imagine. We could put Jane in the Chinese room, if you like.” He smiled at Jane. “You would be just down the hall from Faris. There is a very pleasing prospect from the windows there. Shall I have your luggage sent up?”
Jane gave him a brilliant smile in return. “Not just yet, I think. Perhaps in a few days.”
While Brinker and Agnes blinked at Jane, Faris drew an armchair closer to the fire and settled into it. “The tea really is getting cold. Will you pour out for us, Aunt? Tyrian, if you and Reed will be so good as to join us, we can be quite informal. As for rooms, I will have Queen Matilda’s. When we are finished here, please arrange it.” She stretched her stockinged feet toward the fire and added, “My uncle Brinker is right about the view but you should be warned, Jane. That room could more accurately be called the Chinese red room.”
“Oh, dear.” Jane accepted the cup of tea Agnes offered her. “Is it anywhere near Queen Matilda’s room?”
Agnes served all four companions with rigid courtesy. Brinker nodded approvingly at her. She stared back, eyes wide with sheer unblinking irritation.
“No, not really.” Faris ate a macaroon and stared dreamily into the fire. Some of the silence of the woods was still with her. It made it easy to ignore the other people in the room, their words, their looks, the palpable undercurrent all around her. Instead she concentrated on the room itself, which gave Faris a sense of tranquil welcome as comforting as the warmth of the fire or the flavor of her tea.
“Queen Matilda’s room,” Brinker told Jane, after a long, faintly bewildered look at Faris, “is in the keep. It has neither heating nor plumbing. It is not at all suitable.” Puzzled, he turned back to Faris. “I should think you would prefer your old room.”
Faris studied the carpet absently. From her chair the pattern seemed less like a trellis and more like a forest of foliage. “My old room,” she replied, looking up at her uncle, “is occupied.” At Brinker’s blank expression she added, “by your daughter.”
“We weren’t suggesting you return to the nursery.” Agnes refilled Jane’s tea cup. “Though it might be a very good idea at that,” she added softly, as if to herself.
“By no means,” Brinker said. “I was referring to the rose room.”
“I will have Queen Matilda’s room.” Faris selected another macaroon. “Or, if they are available, I will have my mother’s rooms.”
“I’m sorry, those rooms are occupied,” said Brinker. “I wish you would consider other people for once. You have a whim to sleep in Queen Matilda’s room, very well. Yet think of the work that means for the servants.”
“Who has my mother’s rooms?”
“We do, of course,” Agnes replied crisply. Her air of irritation became unmistakable. “Are you going to eat all the macaroons?”
“Probably. If I do, let me just remind you that they are my macaroons,” Faris said, far more gently than she had intended. Certainly there was some calming influence on her today. Between the comforts of the tea cart and the solid luxury of the library, she felt positively mellow.
Agnes put the teapot down. “Did you learn to behave this way at Greenlaw?”
“Yes.” Faris glanced apologetically at Jane. “Once I might have behaved badly in this situation. I might have reminded everyone of everything that is mine.” Faris knew perfectly well that she was behaving badly, but she also knew she was enjoying herself far too much to stop. The novelty of being in the same room with Brinker without losing her temper was exhilarating.
“Not yet,” said Agnes. “It is not yours yet.”
“If it is not mine, it is not yours either.”
“Except for the carpet,” murmured Jane into her teacup.
“In a few months it will be yours,” Brinker told Faris. “I hope you will find that I have been a wise steward.”
“Oh, Uncle, I hope so, too. I hope so, too.”
When Agnes had taken Jane off to show her where to wash her face and comb her hair, and when Tyrian had taken Reed off to see about preparing Queen Matilda’s room for human habitation, and when the ravaged tea cart had been removed, Faris turned to Brinker. “And now perhaps we should discuss why you sent for me.”
Brinker rose and began to pace, hands clasped behind his back. “Belatedly, it occurs to me that in summoning you, you might claim I have prevented you from completing your last term at school. I trust you won’t try to persuade yourself that I commanded you to interrupt your education.”
“Me, leave Greenlaw for a little thing like an urgent summons home? Don’t be silly.”
Brinker stopped pacing and studied her with disfavor. “I wonder now how wise I was to send for you. I have evolved a plan which may quite possibly win our independence from Aravill once and for all. Now that you are here, however, and I see how little effect your schooling has had upon your demeanor, I doubt that you are the proper person to employ. I may have summoned you in vain.”
“I suspected as much.” Faris smiled grimly. “You had a plan. It simply didn’t encompass my return.”
Brinker gave her another long, faintly bewildered look. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Of course you don’t.” Faris drew the revolver from her belt and inspected it fondly. “Have you ever considered more direct methods
? I have.” Brinker started to speak but she held up her free hand to stop him. “No, no. Don’t bother to say it again. You don’t know what I mean.” Very carefully she leveled the revolver at him. “I was taught never to point a gun unless I intend to use it.”
“Is this what you learned at Greenlaw? I am surprised at you,” Brinker said crossly.
Faris regarded him with something so close to affection that she was shocked at herself. “I hoped you would be. Now, let’s try it again. Why have you sent for me? If you don’t tell me this time, I’ll be forced to jump to conclusions.”
“I dislike your tone. Still, you have had a long journey and I suppose allowances must be made. Travel often makes me peevish, too. Very well. To put it bluntly, relations between Galazon and Aravill have changed since my marriage.”
Faris grinned. Before she could speak, Brinker added, “I think you should refrain from making any of the doubtless vulgar remarks that have just occurred to you.”
Faris stopped grinning.
“Relations have improved so much that Aravis has consented to receive a diplomatic mission from Galazon.”
Faris stared.
Brinker looked extremely pleased. “Precisely. A country doesn’t receive an ambassador from one of its own provinces. The bare existence of such an embassy would be tacit admission that Galazon is a sovereign nation.” He paused. Faris was still staring at him. He took advantage of her silence to add primly, “I thought you were the obvious candidate for the post. It is plain that I was mistaken.”
Faris frowned. “If Galazon is a sovereign nation, I’m its sovereign. Why would I be the obvious candidate?”
“Who else should I send? Some farmer? You have the training.” Brinker caught himself. “That is, you should have the training. If you don’t, simply say so. You certainly don’t seem to have benefited much from your time at school, riding in dressed like a brigand and waving a pistol to get your way.”
“Why don’t you go?”
Her question surprised him into smiling. “Would you trust me enough to send me?”
Faris smiled back. “Of course not.”
“Just as I thought. Now, will you put that thing away? It’s making me extremely nervous.”
“I doubt that. Anyway, it’s supposed to make you nervous. If I were to visit Aravis, and if I managed to pass myself off as the ambassador from Galazon, what then?”
Brinker lifted his hands. “Who can say? I must leave some of this to your wit and discretion. A treaty? A trade agreement? Subsidies, perhaps?”
“Delicious thoughts, one and all.” Eyes narrowed thoughtfully, Faris regarded Brinker in silence for a moment. “What is the money for?”
Brinker looked baffled. “Money?”
“The tax money.” Faris brandished her revolver very carefully. “Tell me about the tax increase.”
“Don’t be absurd. I think I’ve been very tolerant of your flights of fancy. Now I begin to find this rather wearisome.” Brinker turned toward the door. “You obviously need to rest and recover from the hardships of your journey. We’ll discuss this again more sensibly when you’ve had time to think the situation over.”
“Tell me.”
Brinker paused with his hand on the knob. “You don’t seriously expect me to believe you will fire at me, do you?” He wore his bemused look.
Faris rose, revolver steady. “I do, in fact.”
“Indoors?” Brinker looked disapproving. “Things have certainly changed a great deal since I was sent away to school. Well, if you’re going to shoot your own uncle in your own library, perhaps you’d better get on with it.”
Faris leveled her weapon at the spot between the toe of her uncle’s left boot and the edge of the carpet. It was at least as wide as a playing card.
“Perhaps your mother is to blame for insisting you be sent to an educational institution in France. Vienna was always good enough for the rest of us.”
Faris squeezed the trigger. The shot reverberated in the closed room. Brinker neither moved nor spoke as he regarded the scar of white wood gouged in the floor before him. The smell of cordite filled the room. Faris aimed at the doorknob. “Now,” she said, perhaps too loudly, but her ears were ringing and she couldn’t be sure, “I suggest you take your hand off that knob before I fire again. Or simply tell me now, why do you need money?”
Before Brinker answered, the knob turned and Tyrian came through the door, pistol first. Reed was behind him, Jane hard on their heels. At the expression on Faris’s face, all three halted abruptly.
The door had knocked Brinker back as far as the center of the carpet but he had not lost his balance. He turned to face Faris as the newcomers stared at them both. “If you’re quite finished, I have some business to see to before it’s time to change for dinner. You do change for dinner in France, don’t you?” His low opinion of Faris’s costume was evident as Brinker walked past her companions and out the door.
Faris put the safety on and slid the pistol back into her sash, then turned to Jane. “I apologize for that. I miscalculated.”
“I sure you had your reasons.”
“In fact, I did.” Faris regarded her companions gravely. “Brinker says he called me home because he wishes me to go to Aravill on Galazon’s behalf. ‘Relations have improved so much that Aravis has consented to receive a diplomatic mission from Galazon.’ I quote.”
“How interesting,” said Jane, “and how convenient.”
Reed was perplexed. “Is that why you wanted to shoot him?”
“I wanted more information. I didn’t get it.” Faris shook her head. “I can’t believe that’s all Brinker has in mind. I’ll have to try him again after dinner.” She glanced down at herself. “Any chance of a quick scrub and brush in Queen Matilda’s room before then?”
“Your room is not yet ready,” Tyrian said. “I think it would be wise for you to stay here until it is.”
“Gavren’s had them light a fire and the flue must be clear because it’s drawing all right,” said Reed. “There’s a chest there now, and a couple of chairs on the way. He’s got a few of his boys moving a bed up the stair in pieces. It’s like watching ants at a picnic.”
Jane looked at the bullet hole in the floor. “Go ginger them up a little. Faris can show me over the house until the room is ready, but don’t let them take all night about it.”
Reed departed. When Faris and Jane left the library, Tyrian accompanied them. Faris didn’t ask why. She knew he would stay with her until she reached her defensible bedroom. Efficient and unobtrusive, he considered it his duty to guard her, even in her own house.
Faris made a vague gesture that took in the ranked golden frames. “Picture gallery. Ancestors. Very dull.” She walked toward the stairs. “I’ll introduce you some other time.”
“Goodness,” said Jane. “What eyes. Who is that?”
“Oh, that’s many-times-great-Uncle Ludovic. He was all right. His two-handed sword is downstairs in the great hall armory. See the hilt over his shoulder in the portrait? Blade and all, the sword had to have been at least his height. His armor used to be here, too. They must have moved it.”
“Did he live very long? He’s got that duelist’s look about the chin.”
“Died in bed at an advanced age. They say he killed a hundred men before he turned thirty, so perhaps you’re right about the jaw. He was a soldier, though, and most of his victims were, too.”
“Not in the same army, I hope.”
“Luckily not. He was flourishing back when the kingdom of Lidia had its last gasp. The old king died, there was a feeble attempt to put a Haydocker on the throne, which failed, mercifully, and Lidia split apart into the four duchies: Galazon, Aravill, Haydock, and Cenedwine. Ludovic ended up running Galazon. That settled him down nicely.”
As they walked along the gallery, Jane examined the portraits. She did not ask for any further identifications. She merely eyed the paintings closely and remarked from time to time, “There’s your uncle�
�s beard. There’s his nose. There’s his beard again.” Faris nodded abstractedly but did not speak until they reached a small canvas at the foot of the staircase, an oil painting of a severely dressed woman with wide brown eyes and a formidable chin. “That’s my mother.”
Jane regarded the painting in silence for several moments, then turned to Faris. “So that’s why your uncle wears a beard. He didn’t get the chin.”
Faris led the way up the stone stair. “You’ve seen your bedroom? Right, I’ll take you the other direction. This is called the Florentine room, for the spinach-colored carpet, I’ve always suspected.”
The tour lasted until Reed found them at the door of the great hall armory. “Queen Matilda’s room awaits you,” he told Faris. “Gavren couldn’t decide on a straw mattress or a featherbed, so he gave you both. I’m supposed to find a pea to tuck under it, to finish up the job.”
“Too kind of you,” said Jane, “but we’re almost finished here. I’ve been hearing about Lidia, Cenedwine, all these places I can’t find in my Baedeker—you have no notion how confused I am. Faris tells me there’s a map painted on the west wall of the armory. I have to see it, or I’ll never get it all straight in my head.”
“Simple,” said Reed, as he held the door for them. “Lidia looked like a hand pulling a cork out of a bottle. Aravill’s the bottom of the bottle, Cenedwine’s the neck, Haydock’s the hand, and Galazon’s the cork.”
“That’s absurd,” said Faris.
“Not if Italy looks like a boot, it’s not,” said Reed. He led them past the cataloguer, whose troops had dwindled to one housemaid with a feather duster, to the map frescoed on the plaster wall. “There. What did I tell you?”
At the far end of the hall, Brinker entered. “If you are quite finished amusing your friends,” he called, “we would like to know what time you wish dinner to be served.”
Faris turned back from the map. “What time would it be served if I hadn’t been summoned home from Greenlaw?” she countered. It was, strictly speaking, Agnes’s responsibility to determine such things, as it had certainly been before Faris’s return. Yet if Agnes chose this method to register her indignation, Faris was glad to oblige. She could make sure the household staff was treated as they used to be treated in her mother’s time. Who knew what Agnes considered proper?
A College of Magics Page 20