And, of course, all three projects were for Avellana—mostly ideas for her suite here in his tower.
He spent nearly an hour on the tube chimes, hanging them in the proper order he wished. Knowing the winds that flowed around his castle well, he set the size of the disk so they would sound as often as she preferred. He knew her tastes well, too.
All too soon he had to dress for dinner.
• • •
Vinni, dear,” said G’Aunt Bifrona at the dinner table, and a frisson of warning slithered down his spine.
Now she wanted something else from him and brought it up so those of the Family at dinner would know and pester him about it. Her smile showed her opening volley, and he gritted his teeth for missing the signs of upcoming battle. Biding her damn time.
“We’re worried for you,” Bifrona stated, unconsciously echoing what the Hazels had said to Avellana.
That was Family for you. Always worried. And who was we? A different we than those he’d spoken with that afternoon, whom he’d thought he’d had in line?
He lowered his lashes to scan the people—mostly women—at his table, made notes of those who appeared uncomfortable. So Bifrona had known how to catch him off guard and when to bring up whatever other matter concerned her. But he knew his Family equally well and could see whom she’d already convinced of her plan. Three-quarters of the table.
The head chef, a massive man, actually came out into the dining room and placed a large platter of cheeses and fruit on the table. He paused beside Bifrona and set a large hand on her shoulder in support, glowered at Vinni, then without another word marched back into the kitchen. Vinni drank some wine, then set the crystal glass deliberately on the linen tablecloth. As he glanced down at his nearly bare plate, he understood that he should have known this wouldn’t be a standard dinner; he’d savored all his favorite foods, and the springreen wine appeared only on special occasions.
Family. Always meddling.
His stomach had always been touchy, so he murmured a couplet under his breath to settle it. Then he met Bifrona’s gaze with a bland smile. “I’m sorry you and others are worried on my behalf. What bothers you that we did not discuss this afternoon?” He sent a glance around the table, chided softly, “I would have thought you would have brought up such a matter when we talked earlier?”
She gave a tiny cough. “It is not only my concern.”
Vinni shrugged, waved his hand for her to continue, irritating her enough that a line formed between her brows.
Then he picked up the wineglass to use as a prop, focusing his gaze on that and concentrating more on the familial link between himself and others rather than being distracted by any expressions. He sensed that some relatives not at the table knew of Bifrona’s plans, such as several of the guards.
No one had bothered to warn him, and that caused an inner ripple of wariness. He needed allies in the Family, particularly now.
“We believe that you should consult with GreatLord Saille T’Willow, the matchmaker, to confirm your, ah, longtime feeling that GreatMistrys Avellana Hazel is truly your HeartMate after all.”
The words blindsided him. He flinched as anger jolted through him. He could feel his eyes changing as the words triggered a prophetic vision. Looking down the table, he saw ripples of colorful auras outlining his relatives. Many shrank back in their chairs as if trying to hide. For most of them he saw symbols instead of faces. Cuz Nava would be taking that job at the excavation site of the starship Lugh’s Spear. Several others showed marks of marriage or HeartBonding. He’d been wrong earlier, half and half split between “his” camp and Bifrona’s. He smiled.
People gasped.
Blinking, he looked at Bifrona, flinched again when he saw a silver wheel—the Wheel of Stars, that place where a soul went after death. This time he narrowed his eyes to focus on how strong a probability this was, if he had any chance of diverting death. Ninety percent that she would perish before the end of the year. Nothing he could do to save her without commandeering massive resources of the Family. He sent a telepathic command to the Residence. Schedule an appointment with a FirstLevel Healer for Bifrona as soon as possible.
Yes, T’Vine, the Residence responded.
“Muin Vine, how dare you practice your Flair at this table with your relatives,” Bifrona snapped.
He grabbed the wine and gulped it down. He’d promised them all as a boy that he’d do his best to block any prophetic vision for a Family member. He’d let this foretelling just roll over him. Granted, stopping an impromptu revelation cost him. From the strength of this one, if he’d choked it off, he’d have blacked out.
Eighty percent of the time, he could control his Flair, and always during a paid session in his specially designed office.
He breathed deeply and held up a hand to one of the relatives who liked serving dinner—a cuz who enjoyed eating first in the less stuffy environment of the kitchen—and the woman filled his glass to nearly the rim. Waves of surprise and sympathy for him emanated from her.
After another sip, Vinni forced his Flair-vision away and answered more gently than he might have. He loved his Family, and Bifrona, and would cherish her while he could.
“My deepest apologies that I could not control my Flair.” He inclined his head toward her. “Your surprising words triggered my psi power before I could stop it.” He paused, made sure he met no one’s eyes. He thought of what else came through on the fringes of his Flair. Someone had used Bifrona for his or her purposes? A secondary scheme to remove Avellana from the Family? Or had the First Quarter Twinmoons Ritual plot been a distraction?
Lady and Lord knew he and Avellana had concentrated on that today.
“I agree to see Saille T’Willow,” he said into the throbbing silence. “I will be glad to make an appointment so he can evaluate my relationship with Avellana. As you may or may not know, I saw him today, as an Oracle for his daughter’s First Passage.” He paused. “It would have been better had you previously told me of this matter.” Again he reached for the wine and smiled when his fingers showed no trembling. “In fact, I’d like to schedule several consultations with members of this Family and Saille T’Willow.” He met another cuz’s gaze. “Lacinia, you’re seriously interested in one of the Clovers, yes? We’ll set up a meeting with your gallant and you and T’Willow.”
“Oh, yes, Vinni!” Lacinia gushed. Her wavering allegiance shifted firmly to him.
He raised his voice so it would echo throughout the huge castle and courtyards and gardens his ancestors had built. “Anyone else who wants a session with Saille T’Willow, please let Bifrona know.” He tilted his head at her, keeping his expression mild. “Have you already made an appointment for me?”
She flushed red, nodded.
“And have you discussed this with the Hazels?”
Her lips thinned before she answered stiffly, “Yes, with GreatLady D’Hazel herself.”
“Odd that she didn’t mention that to me when I saw her earlier. And I’m sure she has said nothing to Avellana, either.” He stared at Bifrona until she dropped her gaze. “All right.” His glance skimmed the twelve people at the table; many of this particular group believed as Bifrona did—but that didn’t include the one who’d put her up to this. “I will speak to Avellana to ensure she’ll accept the consultation.” He’d tell her it would be quick and easy and, most of all, interesting. Like him, she enjoyed Saille as a friend. Vinni twitched his lips up in an unamused smile at Bifrona. “Avellana doesn’t care for people making decisions for her. I trust you and D’Hazel examined Avellana’s schedule and placed the appointment in an acceptable time slot?”
“Yes, of course,” Bifrona said. She lied.
Breaking with tradition to let the lady of the household end dinner, Vinni stood and caught up his glass. No reason not to remind them all that he held the title and the most Flair in the Family. “I’ll co
ntact Saille for the details, why don’t I?” Also good to remind everyone that Saille T’Willow had signed an alliance with Vinni, and Vinni only, no generational alliance.
“Good evening, my Family.” Vinni bowed to them all, left the room, and immediately teleported to his suite.
“Residence?”
“I am here, T’Vine,” replied a cheerful female voice patterned on a long-ago ancestress. “A FirstLevel Healer will examine Bifrona tomorrow during her midmorning break.”
All right, so he’d just done the same to his G’Aunt as she had to him. Good enough. “My calendar sphere did not inform me of an upcoming consultation with Saille T’Willow regarding my HeartMate, Avellana Hazel.”
“No, T’Vine, that appointment was just confirmed this morning.”
“From now on I want all pending appointments made by anyone else in the Family and including me to be immediately forwarded to me, as I believed was standard procedure.”
“Ah,” the Residence replied. “GreatMistrys Bifrona changed the reporting process two eightdays ago.”
“That is not acceptable. My schedule, especially concerning my business appointments, must be strictly under my control and only under my control. We charge a great deal for my time and my Flair, and I continually deal with extremely nervous clients. I must know my calendar exactly so I can prepare for each event.”
“I hear you, T’Vine. It will be done.”
“Thank you, Residence.” He walked from his sitting room to his bedroom. “Clothes off and to cleanser,” he ordered. By the time he reached the huge generational bed, he was naked. He plucked his favorite robe from a clothes stand and donned it, flopped down on the bed with his perscry in his hand. Flora hopped from her blanket at the foot of the bed onto his chest.
Greetyou, FamMan.
He answered aloud, “Greetyou, Flora.”
I love you, FamMan.
“I love you, too, Flora.”
Always.
“Yes, always.” He stroked her ears with one hand, soothing for both of them, and contemplated his perscry. He felt a need not only to speak to Avellana but to reveal even more of himself.
He’d been careful with her at the Hazels’, had temporarily forgotten that she’d said she wanted to learn him better. “No watching your words with me all the time. No hiding things from me.” He could at least give this a shot.
Thirteen
Staring at the underside of the cream-colored canopy embroidered with a mandala supposed to rest his mind and Flair, he reviewed his HeartMate’s schedule. Avellana should be “reposing and digesting” dinner now, probably sitting in the herb garden behind D’Hazel Residence.
“Scry Avellana.” He flicked the glass perscry pebble with his thumb.
Her face formed in a life-sized holographic image projected from the personal scry marble, looking down at him. And he got a quick kick in his heart, as usual.
“I am here, Muin.”
“Greetyou, Avellana.”
“Greetyou.” She paused. “What is wrong?”
“I was ambushed at dinner.”
Her eyes widened. “By your Family?”
“That’s right.”
“Again?”
“Yes.”
“That is not good, Muin.” Her lips pursed and she gave him a straight look. “I should have returned sooner so they would know me better and we would not be having these problems.”
“They would always have caused us problems.”
“Is that also why you sent me away?” Her eyes narrowed. “You needed to concentrate on your career and have an easier time with your Family?”
He ran his fingers through his hair. “I don’t know, Avellana, and I’m weary of discussing that.”
“But we do have an issue with the Vines.”
“Yes.”
“I accept that. Now what?”
“They want us to meet with Saille T’Willow.”
Her forehead crinkled. “Why?”
“To make sure we’re still HeartMates,” he said bluntly, and heard his own voice get rougher and deeper with annoyance that he’d thought he’d gotten over.
“We have always been HeartMates. All of our lives. This does not make sense.” They stared at each other. “You think those of your Family who oppose our marriage instigated this,” she finally said.
“Yes, I do. And, in fact, they have made the appointment for us. I don’t know when it is.”
“You are angry.”
“Yes.”
Her chin jutted. “I do not like this, either.”
“They told me that they’d placed it on your schedule.”
She hissed, then ordered, “Calendar sphere!” at the same time he called up his own holographic silver ball.
“Show me the appointment with Saille T’Willow.” Again they spoke in unison.
Avellana’s sphere projected the written date and time; Vinni’s showed the rectangle of the day and the blocked time.
She gasped. “It is a two-septhour consultation on Mor morning, the first day of the week! When everyone is at their first meetings, and our standard weekly special time together with no one else around! How dare they!”
Vinni chuckled, and her blazing gaze fixed on him.
“I’m thinking that Saille knows that and finessed the consultation for that time.”
Her scowl turned to a considering frown. “You do?”
“Yes.”
“It says my mother will accompany me. No. Calendar sphere, remove D’Hazel from the meeting with GreatLord Saille T’Willow, confirm with T’Willow and GreatLord Muin T’Vine, and forward my refusal to D’Hazel’s calendar sphere.”
Avellana’s sphere blinked.
“Confirmed that D’Hazel will not attend,” said Vinni. He smiled at his HeartMate. “Your mother will be unhappy.”
“It is our life and our love.”
“Yes.”
She grumbled under her breath.
“What?” asked Vinni.
“It will cost a lot of gilt. And your time and Saille’s time and my time will be wasted.”
“No,” he said softly. “Not wasted. We’ll see how HeartMate consulting works. That will be good to know in the future.”
“You think so?”
“Yes.” He smiled sharply. “As for the gilt payment—Residence, take the payment for Saille T’Willow’s consultation out of the general Household fund.”
Avellana stilled. “That is the account your G’Aunt Bifrona handles. Such a disbursement will deplete the fund.”
“She will have to watch her budget closely for the next month. Something she has not had to do for years.”
“Bifrona has been courteous to me.”
“She’s a courteous woman. She’s also the person who requested we be Lord and Lady at the Holly First Quarter Twinmoons Ritual the night after next and requested that we see Saille T’Willow professionally. Let her understand that there will be consequences of her decisions to meddle in our affairs.”
“Are they her decisions?” Avellana asked softly.
He smiled approvingly at his love. “I think she is being prodded by someone else—or maneuvered, something I wouldn’t have expected of a lady of her experience, so perhaps she has a blind spot with regard to one of my relatives. Or perhaps she hasn’t realized how she is being used. Making the cost of her decisions or this blind spot very evident may have her rethinking her position in the Family, and doubting whoever might be dropping poisonous ideas in her ear.”
Avellana nodded. “A very good strategy, Muin.”
“Thank you.” He paused.
Her calendar sphere pinged back into existence, and a soft female voice he’d never heard said, Time to practice your craft.
Pure joy shone on Avellana’s face, and she stood and
brushed off her tunic.
“Avellana?”
“I am spending the night in the Hazel HouseHeart! Alone! And doing a mural there for my Family!”
“Wonderful,” he said, but the vague notion that he’d be able to invade her dreams and make telepathic love with her faded. “You deserve this time with D’Hazel HouseHeart.”
She nodded. “Yes, I do. And everyone in the Family has contributed a piece of art to the HouseHeart except me.” She twirled. “Now that will change. I have thought a great deal about this piece.” Her smile turned sly and she dipped her head. She wouldn’t reveal Family secrets, even to him. “Good night, Muin.”
It wouldn’t be as good a night as he’d hoped. “Good night, beloved.”
Her face softened further, her eyes showing tenderness and yearning. Then she ended the call.
Vinni said aloud, “Residence, have three guards, including the Chief, meet me in the sparring salon in the guard tower.” That way others could watch his form—and he’d had the best fighter training gilt could buy and could usually take down ninety percent of his own force.
• • •
After changing into his sparring robe and trous, Vinni teleported to the wide square chamber that took up a whole floor of the guards’ tower in the third gatehouse to the castle.
He noted that all but those on duty lounged around the room on the rolled-up mats against the stone walls. Frowning, he realized that his guards had slipped again into a gender ratio of seventy percent male, thirty percent female. He preferred a more balanced force.
At least one of the females wore the blackberry leaves of a Lieutenancy, one step down from the Chief. She stood intimately close to Vinni’s old tutor, Arcto, and they flirted.
The Chief of Vine Guards, Duon, a big man and relative newcomer to the Family, shambled up to Vinni. He came from a cadet branch of the Vines who’d moved south to Gael City, the last of that line. His features seemed doughy, and he had a skewed nose, but appearances were deceiving. Vinni knew him to be a clever and rough fighter.
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