Reader and Raelynx (Twelve Houses)

by Sharon Shinn

  Cammon gave her a slight bow and exited the room. He was aware of Valri watching him—no doubt wondering why, two hours after promising to guard Amalie with his life, he was deserting his post. Feeling like a fool, he lurked in the hallway for a few moments, still concentrating his attention on the diners in the other room, just in case someone decided to reveal a violent intention. No one did. After the requisite time had passed, Cammon arranged his face into a grave expression, reentered, and headed straight to Amalie.

  “Milo told me to check with him every morning, and that’s what I’ve done,” Cammon whispered without preamble. He was feeling a certain righteous indignation, and he didn’t care if she realized it. “I thought you didn’t want to see me. I can’t just come barging into your study anytime I feel like it. You wouldn’t want that, even if I am your friend.”

  “Tomorrow morning, then,” she said, not looking at him. “I will make sure Milo realizes that’s my command.”

  “It’s not my fault,” he added, even though he realized she had just dismissed him. “I didn’t abandon you.”

  “I didn’t say you had,” she hissed. “Lady Belinda, what did you say? I’m sorry, I couldn’t hear you.”

  That dismissal he could hardly overlook, so he offered another stiff bow and returned to his station against the wall. He couldn’t tell if he was more angry at being berated or elated at being missed, but he was beginning to think this particular situation was almost unbearably funny. In fact, it was all he could do to keep from bursting into laughter right there in the middle of the dinner, and he thanked the various mysterious gods for choosing to keep Senneth away from tonight’s meal.

  But soon enough he became aware of Valri watching him again, her expression unreadable. To Cammon it seemed she was turning a new idea over in her mind and finding it so momentous that she hardly knew whether to be pleased or horrified. What that idea might be he absolutely could not guess.

  CHAPTER

  6

  IN the morning, Milo brought an entire new wardrobe for Cammon, cut and stitched to fit him, and the news that the princess had need of him.

  “She is in the rose study,” the steward said. “Do not stray far from the palace today, for you will be wanted in the afternoon, too. A noble suitor will be making his bow to Amalie, and your presence is required.”

  Practically a whole day with Amalie. Cammon was so pleased that he managed not to be rude to Milo. He dressed with a little additional care in one of the new uniforms and was forced to admit that quality tailoring might make even him look natty. Certainly the black uniform, with its discreet gold braid and small gold buttons, fitted him perfectly, with no tendency to bunch or bag. It was possible the crisp white shirt would stay tucked in for an entire day. He might actually look presentable for more than fifteen minutes—certainly long enough to stride through the corridors and arrive at Amalie’s study.

  She and Valri were seated in the deep chairs set before the window, sipping from teacups. A third chair was pulled up beside theirs; a third cup sat on a table next to the queen. Cammon entered, bowed, and hesitated, but Amalie waved him over.

  “Come, sit down! Your feet must be tired after standing for hours watching over our dinners every night.”

  He grinned and took a chair, trying to sit straight enough to keep the new jacket from wrinkling. “I don’t mind. The hard part is watching everyone else eat. It’s not so bad when I remember to have my dinner beforehand, but I’m still starving by the end of the night. So then I eat dinner again, and pretty soon I’ll probably grow quite fat.”

  “Sooner if you drink this stuff,” Valri said, pouring dark liquid into the remaining cup and handing it over. It smelled sweet and steamy and wonderful.

  “What is that?”

  “Hot chocolate. Imported from Arberharst.” Valri sipped from her own cup. “It must be what the gods get drunk on.”

  Cammon had to agree, it was the most delicious thing he’d ever tasted. But. “Different gods in Arberharst,” he said. “No one ever mentioned the Pale Mother or the Bright Mother or the Dark Watcher while I was there. They worship a redheaded warrior god, and he’s very violent.”

  “Did I know you lived in Arberharst?” Amalie asked, holding the cup of hot chocolate suspended before her mouth. The liquid was just a shade or two darker than her eyes. “When were you there?”

  “Oh, we lived there for a few years when I was pretty young. Then we moved to Sovenfeld, and back to Arberharst a year or so before I ended up in Gillengaria.”

  Amalie glanced at Valri, and they both smiled. “Usually you’re much more forthcoming than that,” the princess said. “Ask you a question, and you’ll answer it for ten minutes.”

  He grinned. “Senneth reminds me from time to time that I talk too much. And I don’t know that the story of my life is very interesting.”

  “I’m sure you’re wrong there,” Valri said. “It seems as if it’s been very adventurous.”

  “I wouldn’t really call Arberharst an adventure.”

  “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” Amalie said.

  “I don’t mind. Stop me if you get bored.” So he launched into some of the tales about Arberharst and Sovenfeld that, in the past year, he had found entertained almost anybody—Senneth’s brother Kiernan, the Riders, Jerril. He and his parents had been on the move for most of his life, never spending more than a month in any one place, so he had seen plenty of foreign sites—Sovenfeld’s muddy villages and sophisticated cities, Arberharst’s bright red fields of honey spice.

  “It truly does sound fascinating,” Amalie said at last. “What took your parents to Arberharst?”

  He smiled. “Some kind of business deal. My father was always looking for the next scheme, the next opportunity. He was always going to make a fortune. It never happened.”

  “Did he want you to go into business with him?”

  “My father—” He hesitated. How much to say? “My father wasn’t all that interested in me. I don’t think he was that interested in my mother, either. I think he would have left her behind except that she was determined to stay with him and bring me along. Maybe it was because she thought he should take care of us, and she wanted to force him to be responsible for the people he’d accumulated—or maybe she just loved him and wanted to be with him. I was never sure.”

  There was a shadow across Amalie’s eyes. “Was your mother interested in you?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “Well, most of her energy went into trying to hold together a household, trying to feed us on what little money came in, and trying to keep track of my father. I was on my own a lot.”

  “In strange countries, with no friends and no family, moving every week or two,” Valri observed. “You must have been very solitary.”

  “Oh, I got by. I made friends. There was always an innkeeper’s wife who was kind to me, or a blacksmith who hired me to run errands, or a boy my age who would help me get into trouble.”

  “So where are they now?” Amalie said. “Your parents?”

  “My father died in Arberharst, my mother on the journey back.”

  He said it casually, but he saw Amalie flinch, and even Valri’s cold face looked sympathetic. “So, then you were completely alone in the world,” the princess said.

  “Well,” he answered, “they hadn’t been much company to begin with.”

  He said it to make them smile, but neither of them did. “So, here you were, an orphan, sailing back to Gillengaria all by yourself,” Amalie said. “How dreadful.”

  “A nineteen-year-old orphan,” he corrected. “Not so young and helpless as all that.”

  “Did you look for your family once you arrived? Aunts and uncles?”

  He shook his head. “I’m pretty sure my father’s family cast him off. My mother’s parents died when I was small, and she didn’t have any brothers or sisters. There must be aunts or cousins somewhere, but I’ve never sought them out.”

  “I’m fin
ding this to be one of the most depressing stories I’ve heard in quite some time,” Valri remarked.

  An excellent opening for a change of subject. “Do you have a big family, then?” he asked the queen. “Are you close to them?”

  “Yes to both questions, though I have not been to see them in a few years,” Valri answered. “But they are most protective of me. One of the reasons I wanted to leave—to try what my life would be like without their close attention.”

  “Wait—I want to finish with Cammon’s story before we get to yours,” Amalie said.

  Valri looked amused. “Well, that’s enough of my story for now, anyway.”

  “And enough of mine, don’t you think?” Cammon asked.

  “No,” the princess answered. “So what happened when you arrived in Gillengaria? What did you do?”

  He gazed at her for a moment, debating how much of the truth to tell. It had been horrible, really, the worst six weeks of his life. He had wondered how he would stand it—had seen no way out.

  And then Senneth came along…

  He had hesitated too long. “Tell me,” she commanded. “All of it. I am your princess, and you must do as I say.”

  He gave a tiny shrug. “I didn’t have the money to pay for the rest of the trip. My mother had apparently struck a deal with the ship captain—she worked in the galley as part of the price of our passage. So now that coin was gone. When we arrived at Dormas port, the captain had me indentured to a tavernkeeper there. I wasn’t clear on the terms. I don’t know how long I was supposed to work off my debt. The tavernkeeper didn’t care much for mystics and something made him think that’s what I was. I’d never heard the word before—I didn’t know what it meant. But he put a metal shackle around my throat and set it with a moonstone as big as my thumb. It pretty much made me useless to do anything except stumble around the kitchen helping the cooks and shuffle around the tavern serving customers.”

  He put a hand to the base of his throat, where he still bore a faint scar. Moonstones were deadly poison to mystics; Senneth was the only mystic Cammon knew who could bear their contact. The Daughters of the Pale Mother wore the gems as a way to mark their dedication to the goddess—and a way to expose mystics by watching who shied away from the jewel’s fiery touch.

  “The moonstone burned my skin,” he said. “I didn’t know why. It made it hard for me to think, and I didn’t understand that, either. But I started having strange visions—strange thoughts—from outside myself. I don’t know how to explain. I was able to sense the moods of the people around me. It was so disorienting. But useful! I could tell when Kardon—the tavernmaster—was furious enough to want to beat me, so I would hide until his rage died down. I think once or twice he would have killed me with his bare hands, and magic was the only thing that saved my life.”

  Now Amalie looked absolutely horrified, and Valri looked both angry and sad. “The crimes that have been committed against mystics by ignorant and stupid people,” the queen spit out. “Someday there will be a reckoning for all that.”

  Amalie seemed to swallow with some difficulty. “So, what happened? How did you get free?”

  He smiled, because he still liked this part of the story. It almost made it worth enduring all the wretchedness that had come before. “Senneth, of course. Actually, Senneth and Tayse and Kirra and Justin. And Donnal, but he was outside the tavern with the horses. They were passing through on their way somewhere else and Senneth realized I was a mystic. So, she rescued me and brought me with her and—and that’s how I’ve ended up in Ghosenhall today.”

  “Oh, no, I want more details of the rescue!” Amalie exclaimed, finally able to smile again. “I knew that you had met them somewhere on the road, but I didn’t realize it had been such a dramatic encounter.”

  So he told the tale, which made Amalie offer up a small cheer, and then obligingly recounted a few of their adventures on the road. These were much happier stories, although there had been some desperate moments last fall when Justin was falling in love with Ellynor.

  “I know Justin, of course, but who’s Ellynor?” Amalie asked.

  “She was a novice at the Lumanen Convent. He met her when he was spying on Coralinda Gisseltess.”

  “She’s a Daughter of the Pale Mother?” Amalie demanded. “And a Rider fell in love with her? Oh, that sounds very risky! Is he sure she can be trusted?”

  “It’s even more complicated than that,” Cammon said. “She was sent to the convent by her family—she didn’t join because she had any particular devotion to the Pale Mother. In fact, Ellynor worships the Dark Watcher. So it became very dangerous for her when—”

  But that had caught Valri’s attention. “She worships the Dark Watcher? Is she from the Lirrens? That’s their goddess there.”

  Cammon nodded vigorously. “And she’s a mystic! So, here she is, surrounded by the fanatical Daughters, slowly realizing that she has magic in her blood and that if Coralinda finds out, she’ll be put to death. And then she’s got Justin showing up at the convent every other day, because he’s in love with her and he’s too stubborn to be turned away—she had a very tricky time of it.”

  “If she’s a Lirren girl, she’ll never be allowed to marry a Rider,” Valri remarked. “Outsiders are murdered before they’re allowed to make off with Lirren women.”

  “Yes, but she has married him. They’re on their way back from the Lirrens now,” Cammon said. “Ellynor became—became—she declared herself something special. Bahta-lo, that’s it. That means she’s free of the interference of her family. Apparently Lirren women can only become completely independent if they take this sort of vow, but if they do, they can run their own lives. I didn’t really understand it, to tell you the truth,” he ended up.

  “That’s quite an incredible tale,” Valri said, and it was hard to tell if she was serious or if she was mocking him. But something about the story had struck an emotional chord in her, for her green eyes were bright with interest. “And you say the Rider and his Lirren bride are on their way back to Ghosenhall even now?”

  “Yes. I think they’ll be here in a few days.”

  “Let us know when they’ve safely returned,” Valri said. “I would like to meet the bahta-lo who has eluded Coralinda Gisseltess and tamed a Rider.”

  Amalie sighed theatrically. “Yes, I’m very interested in love stories these days, since I’m supposed to be making a match of my own. Mine won’t be nearly so romantic, though.”

  “You might fall in love with your husband,” Valri said. “Just because you choose him primarily for rank and politics doesn’t mean you can’t choose him for character and looks as well.”

  “Milo says one of them will be arriving this afternoon,” Cammon said.

  Amalie nodded. “Delt Helven. You’re supposed to listen in to our conversation.”

  Cammon glanced around the room. “In here? Where shall I stand?”

  Valri was shaking her head. “No. There is a more formal receiving room on the first floor where Amalie will entertain her suitors. This room is too comfortable. We don’t want them to be at ease just at first.”

  Amalie giggled and Cammon grinned. “I can’t imagine that any of my suitors will be at ease ever,” the princess said. “How intimidating! To come to the palace to seek your bride! And I’m sure their fathers and mothers have been lecturing them for days on how to behave, and how important it is that they impress me, and how prestigious it will be for their House if one of their heirs one day becomes king.”

  “I hope they are also explaining to their sons that if they marry you, they may well be gambling their lives,” Valri said in a dry voice. “For if Halchon Gisseltess has his way, you will never sit on the throne, and neither will any man you take as your husband.”

  That seemed a harsh thing to say, Cammon thought, but Amalie was nodding wisely. “And even if their parents haven’t made it clear, you can be sure I will before wedding vows are ever spoken,” she said. “They may find they are not willi
ng to risk so much for the chance to wear a crown.”

  Just then the sunlight strengthened through the window, turning Amalie’s red-blond hair to gold. The effect was so dazzling that it didn’t even occur to Cammon to say the words aloud. Maybe not, but they might be willing to risk everything for the chance to marry you.

  IT turned out the royal receiving room was not just formal and uncomfortable. It was set up specifically to allow a courting couple the appearance of privacy without leaving them alone for a second. The central portion of the room consisted of a half dozen stiff-backed and heavily upholstered green chairs surrounded by thick-legged tables in some dark, forbidding wood. The walls were covered with decorative paper in a distinctive green-and-gold pattern—but the walls were fake, barely more than reinforced parchment. Behind them, around three sides of the room, ran a narrow corridor just wide enough to accommodate the body of a man. Here the various spies and guardians of the household would be set up to audit any visitor’s conversation.

  Cammon, Valri, Wen, and Tayse were all in place a good half hour before Amalie’s suitor came calling. Tayse, of course, had prowled through every corner of the main room, checking for potential danger, before concealing himself behind the false wall. They had debated where each of them could best be deployed, and they had ultimately decided that Valri and one Rider would stand together on one side, Cammon and the second Rider on the other.

  Cammon and Tayse were leaning against the true wall, waiting, when Cammon sensed Milo leading a procession up the hallway. He straightened and jerked his head, and Tayse came smoothly to an upright position. Cammon didn’t even have to look to know Tayse’s hand would be on his sword hilt. If it was humanly possible to protect Amalie from physical danger, Tayse would be the one to keep her safe.

  The door opened and five people entered. Cammon closed his eyes and envisioned the scene on the other side of the barrier. Milo led the way, Amalie and the young lord followed, servants came behind them bearing trays of refreshments. No one seemed bent on malice. From the young Helven lord, Cammon picked up only nervousness and hope. There were the sounds of chairs being moved, trays being laid on tables, drinks being poured.