•
There were four of them in the Sea Eagle parlor, taking afternoon tea: Korik Li and Cadie ais Ariom called Reed, Jagg, and Ghologhosh.
"We're going to live in Hrothvek," Kory said. "Reed's dowry is the old part of the ais Ariom business—but we won't be part of Dyelam's company."
Reed said, "We like Hrothvek. It's quieter than Liavek, but near enough that we can visit when we want."
Ghosh thought but did not say that it was very generous of the Regent to let Dyelam's children visit him in his house on the Levar's Way, since Dyelam's house would certainly be a kind of prison for the rest of his life. Dyelam would not suffer a hundred thousandth of enough, but he would suffer. And his heirs were good. Ghosh was satisfied.
Kory said, "We've got a big house...there's plenty of room for you. For both of you."
"I thank you, no," Jagg said. "I like your country, but it is not home to me. Any place was home when the master was alive...but now no place, 'til I find it again."
Reed said, "And you, Ghosh?"
"I'm going to help Jagg find his place," she said. "He's going to help me find a new name, too."
"Harmony?" Kory said.
"No, not Harmony," Ghosh said, gently because Kory didn't know any better. But he was learning. They all were. "Don't try to find my new name." More firmly: "I mean that. Don't try to find me."
Ghosh waved to Zal najhi Zal. "Innkeeper, I believe you said the inn had procured some Worrynot tea. Would you bring it, please?"
As Jagg filled the cups, Reed said, "I wondered about Worrynot tea. Ciellon was always talking about it, and calling it a Hrothvekan joke. So I asked someone at the End of Wine party, and she explained it."
"And?" Ghosh said.
"The way she told it—well." Reed imitated a matron giving out the story over teacakes. "The leaf, you know, the child-preventer, it's usually chewed, but one can make a tea of it, if one knows how. And mothers, you see, in the older parts of Hrothvek, their children would be going out, and no use to say 'Be careful,' because at that certain age one's quite deaf to such words, of course. But Mother could say, 'A cup of tea with me, before you go,' and that they'd hear, and that they'd do. You see, my dear?" Reed chuckled. "And I did. Worrynot tea is a care you don't know you're taking—a favor you do someone else that's really a favor to yourself."
"And," Ghosh said quietly, "the last cup of childhood, the first cup of responsibility." She reached over to the teacups; Jagg had filled five. Ghosh took one and poured it in the earth-pot the followers of Herself used for libations. "For Ciellon." She raised another cup. They all did. "For all of us."
"For all of us."
They drank.
"Gods, it's bitter," Kory said.
"The Well-Made Plan" by Emma Bull
THE YEAR WAS waning graciously, as years will in Liavek. Out of a jewel-box of seasons, late autumn brought a rich cascade of topaz mornings, carnelian afternoons, and opulent sapphire-blue evenings. On just such an evening early in the month of Fog, Lir Matean Koseth ola Presec, Margrave of Trieth, was strolling south on Park Boulevard, bound for the Tiger's Eye.
He was full of contrary, contradictory urges, and they fascinated him. His pace, for example: He had no appointments and the twilight was pleasant, almost narcotic. Yet he had to shorten his step constantly, or he would have been striding down the wide street, his embroidered black coat swirling around him in a self-made breeze.
The whitewashed walls of the Tiger's Eye were aglow with the last reflected light of the sky, its two front windows and open door golden with lamplight. The sight conjured its own set of contrary impulses, and these, too, he examined. Here was his destination, and it called to him as his own townhouse never did. Yet he also wanted to turn and saunter away, to come back tomorrow, perhaps. Now, why? Simple contrariness, perhaps, the desire to prove his independence to himself. But if that was all, why was there a school of darting minnows in his stomach?
At the door, he smelled a rich waft of jasmine, and envisioned suddenly what he might find inside—the shop's proprietor, back from her long buying trip, unpacking perfumed oils and incense and stacking them neatly on shelves. Her hair would still be bound in a scarf to keep the road dust out of it, but a strand would have escaped into her eyes, and she would brush it aside with the back of her wrist....
Koseth stepped into the doorway and saw, with a wave of irritation, nothing of the kind. Thyan, the shop assistant, was scooping dried jasmine from a jar into a cone of paper. There was none of the commotion and clutter that attended a return from a buying trip, and, most telling, no proprietor.
"She's not back yet?" he asked, to be sure.
Thyan frowned judiciously at the level of jasmine in the cone, producing two neat creases in the brown-black skin between her brows. "Hullo, Your Grace. You mean Snake?"
"Yes, I mean Snake."
"Not yet, but I expect her back any day."
"You've said that since last Rainday." Then it was his turn to frown. "She's not overdue, is she?"
Thyan looked at him oddly and twisted the paper cone closed. "No. She's doing a route through the Waste, and there's a lot that can come up."
He knew that, of course. He had spent years in the desert that lay between Liavek and Tichen, before his title came to him and he had to return home and tend it. What he felt, he decided, was restlessness brought on by the season's change, the loose-ended feeling of being between the End of Wine and Festival Week.
"Hullo!" called a large, rough-edged male voice from the back of the shop. The back door boomed, the cotton hanging on the back wall swept aside, and Silvertop, the young wizard who tutored Thyan, poked his head in. Silvertop seemed never to have grown into his voice; he was small and slender, white-skinned and pale-haired, with narrow shoulders and features as delicate as a court lady's. But his voice, at least, was a magician's.
"Most people use the front door," Thyan scolded at him, but she smiled, too, and dropped her gaze to the countertop. Her hands fluttered suddenly like dark birds, at odds with her usual neat movements. Koseth was amused. Surely he'd never seen Thyan shy with anyone else?
Koseth could tell nothing from Silvertop's behavior, but then, he never could. Away from his magics, Silvertop never seemed to know where to put his hands and feet. Now he shrugged and said, "I was coming from Cat Street, so the alley was closer. Your neighbors are having lamb for dinner. "
"Well, I'm having sausages, so if you want to eat here, get that wistful note out of your voice," Thyan replied.
"Oh, good. I let the stove go out again at my place."
Thyan rolled her eyes, and Koseth coughed to hide his smile. It was no use to suggest Silvertop get someone in to keep house for him—he would complain that strangers got in the way of his work. And—Snake had told Koseth the story—the cookshop a few doors down from Silvertop's lodgings refused to deliver his meals anymore. Thyan, as Silvertop's emissary, had explained that the elephants had only been an illusion, and a mistake at that, a spell that Silvertop had forgotten to undo that had been brought to life when the door was opened, and the hall light met the light from the window. But the cookshop would not deliver.
And when, Koseth wondered with a start, did I grow so close to these people?
Until he'd coughed, Silvertop hadn't seemed to notice him, or at least, hadn't noticed that he was Koseth. Now he turned his pale gray gaze up and said, "Glad you're here."
Koseth raised his eyebrows. "That is, I was going to come to see you tomorrow. About...about clothes."
"Clothes." Koseth had never seen the least sign that Silvertop thought about clothing, beyond recognizing that he should wear some.
"Yes. I wanted to ask you, um, where you get yours made."
Koseth opened his mouth to ask Silvertop what in the name of luck he was playing at. Then he remembered Thyan's sudden shyness and stopped. Romance had a way of changing one's habits, and it wasn't impossible that Silvertop should want to impress Thyan with his elegance. And Silve
rtop was regarding him with such a curious mixture of intensity and dread.
"A lot of places, actually," Koseth said at last. "But not many that are...moderately priced."
"What about Bright Needle?" Thyan spoke up. "And they're not far from you, on Street of the Dreamers."
Silvertop shot her a quick, blind look, as if he'd forgotten she was there. "Maybe," he said, turning back to Koseth, "if I could...describe the coat to them. Do you mind if I, well, study it?"
Koseth blinked. No, this was all too odd to be put down to young love. Silvertop was up to something. But whatever it was, Thyan was clearly not in on it. Better, perhaps, to pry it all out of Silvertop out of her hearing. He nodded, and Silvertop stepped around Koseth to stand behind him.
"You've got something in your hair," Silvertop said. "Hold still."
Koseth felt something stir the hair at the base of his skull; then Silvertop came around his other side and handed him an olive leaf. Koseth raised an eyebrow. The young magician's eyes met his, but not comfortably.
"I'll see you tomorrow," Silvertop told Thyan, heading for the door.
"But you just—I mean, dinner!" Thyan wailed.
Koseth, too, made for the door. But once in the street, Silvertop had begun to run, and Koseth didn't care for the idea of chasing him like a City Guard after a thief. He turned back into the Tiger's Eye. "If he does come back tomorrow," Koseth said sternly, "tell your young man that I'd like to speak with him."
"My young man?" squeaked Thyan. She cleared her throat. "He's no young man of mine. I mean, not if that's what you mean. He's a bubblehead. And I wouldn't have him if he was interested. So, there," She turned, abruptly, to fuss with the contents of a shelf.
He smiled. "There's an Old S'Rian proverb: A long 'no' is the surest 'yes.'"
She shot him her fiercest scowl.
"All right, I'll go," he laughed, and raised his hands as if to ward her off. "If Snake comes back, tell her I was here."
He strode out and back up Park Boulevard, humming softly. The stars were out, thick as frost on a mountain meadow, and the wind was fresh. He paused just inside the Levar's Park to listen to two women playing cittern and wooden whistle, and to leave them a few coins. The path along Lake Levar was empty and silent, and for a moment he felt a wary itch between his shoulder blades. He ambled around a blind corner, faded quickly back into an oleander hedge, and waited. But he heard no footfalls, and saw no shadows moving but those of the leaves that tossed gently on the sea wind.
He shook his head and smiled at himself. He'd spent too many years as the Desert Rat, it seemed, to settle easily into the peaceful life of the Margrave of Trieth. He walked the rest of the way to his townhouse, just off Gold Street on the Boulevard of Summers Past. His butler opened the door before he reached it, his coppery face pleated with a hundred wrinkles by his smile.
"Welcome home, Your Grace," he said, and pressed his palm to his forehead. "There is a gentleman to see you." It was late, but not unconscionably late, for company. "Has he been waiting long?"
"No, Your Grace, only a few minutes. I made him comfortable in your study."
"Thank you, Maseka. Will you bring us tea there, please? The Crown of Suns blend?"
"Certainly, Your Grace." Maseka touched his brow again and left him, crossing the courtyard to the kitchen archway with a stately tread.
Koseth shook his head and smiled. There's more gracious nobility bred into Maseka's big toe than into all of my scruffy self, he thought. The leathery leaves of the sweetbay rustled over his head, an appreciative audience. The night sky was blue-black, and the three sides of the house and the front street wall made it a square-cut dark jewel splashed with stars. Scruffy or not, he smiled up at the sweetbay, I wouldn't change places with anyone in the world tonight.
The study was on the ground floor of the left-hand arm of the house, with windows on the street and the courtyard. The latticed inner shutters had been closed over all of them for the evening, and the room was rich with the light and smell of the lamps burning scented oil.
The man who rose and bowed deeply to him was in his early twenties, his bearded face very dark. He wore a long cinnamon-colored robe, drawn up and tucked under his sash on one side for easier walking. Beneath that were full black trousers, tied at the ankles on the outside of his soft, low-heeled boots.
Koseth returned the bow. "You bring grace to my home," he said in the shared language of the watering places in the Waste. "I am the Margrave of Trieth. How may I serve you?"
The young man gave a little shake of his head; then he crossed the floor quickly, took Koseth's hands, bent, and pressed his forehead to them. He looked up, smiling. "Great Lord," he said, "you already have."
Koseth laughed and slid back into Liavekan. "Unless you're not what you look, there are no great lords in this room." The young man looked startled. "Sit, and tell me your name." Koseth dropped into an ebony chair, and the young man sat carefully on its mate.
"My name is Hama, Great L—I am sorry, Your Grace, is it?" Koseth nodded. "And I think you will always be a great lord to the clans of the northern Waste."
Koseth studied his visitor's face more closely. Yes, his features showed the mixture of clan and Tichenese blood that was sometimes found on the northern edge of the Great Waste. But shared blood was no symbol of peace there. Tichen claimed much of the Waste for its empire, and it was the northern clans that most often brought the opposing viewpoint to the provincial governors, usually with fire and steel.
Hama looked down at his twined fingers, then turned his solemn stare on Koseth. "I was fifteen when you led the Casoe and Longfinger clans against the garrison at Well of White Flowers."
It was a pretty name when translated, as Hama had, into Liavekan. Koseth had once thought it pretty in Tichenese, too. "I don't know what seven years of songs have done to the truth," Koseth sighed, rubbing the space between his eyebrows. "But that was not a night of heroism and honor."
Hama looked startled again, before his face closed up completely. "My father died that night."
"I'm sorry for that. He had a lot of company. The garrison commander treated the clans like a horse he meant to ride to death. Once the cIansfolk were inside the fortifications..." Koseth found his eyes drawn by the flames in the grate. "They had too many scores to settle," he finished softly.
There was a gentle knock at the study door, which made Hama jump.
"My butler," Koseth said, "with tea."
Maseka brought the tray in and set it on a little round table between them. The pot and handleless cups were the pale azure-green of a summer morning's sky. When Maseka had gone, Koseth poured for his guest.
Hama accepted the cup and sipped hesitantly. "Whatever may be the truth of that night, I and mine have owed you a debt since then. I came here only to tell you that I will pay it back."
"A long way to come to pay a debt."
"The turning of luck has only now brought me to Liavek. Could I have come sooner, be sure I would have."
Koseth smiled, "You owe me no debt. Or if you do, pay it by getting rich and helping your people."
"Perhaps," he said, almost to himself. He set down his cup and rose gracefully. "It is late. I am trying your hospitality sorely."
Koseth shook his head, stood, and bowed. "Come again as your heart bids or luck wills it," he said in the trade language of the Waste.
The young man bowed and left.
Koseth sat for what seemed a long time, staring into the fire, before Maseka knocked and came into the room again. "Olduv has your dinner ready, Your Grace."
"Thank you, Maseka." Yes, easier to be the Margrave of Trieth. No one would have waited dinner for the Desert Rat. "I'll eat in here."
"Very good."
"Oh, and I won't be going out again tonight. Tell the staff to take the evening off."
Maseka beamed and touched his butler's rod to his forehead. "Thank you, Your Grace. I shall."
•
Koseth woke the next mornin
g to wholesale discomfort and the conviction that he didn't know where he was. For a moment he wondered if he'd fallen asleep on the low couch in his study.
Then he realized he could see the ceiling above him, and knew he was nowhere in his townhouse. Olduv would have taken his own life before he let a cobweb reach such a size. And Koseth was sure that no one in his household would keep a rather plucked-looking stuffed peacock hanging upside down from a crossbeam.
He felt—not weak, precisely, but fragile. He reached to rub his eyes and stopped, horrified, when his hand came into view.
It was the wrong color.
He sat up, and a wave of dizziness made his vision fold in the middle like a sheet of paper. He clutched the edge of the—probably—cot he lay on, waited for the vertigo to pass, and dismissed explanations as quickly as he thought of them. Drugs, illness, madness—none of them could explain the sight of his hand made small and slender and pale as milk. Pale as...
He looked down at himself, stretched out on a cot, covered with a worn wool coverlet. He pulled that back. The body that reason said was connected to his head was also small, slender, and pale, with a surprising quantity of white-gold hair on the torso and legs. He took very little comfort from knowing that he was still male. In fact, it only fed a growing suspicion.
This time he sat up slowly and swung his feet onto the floor. With each minute that passed, he was less wobbly and ill. But his body felt like a bad fit; every motion reminded him of it.
The room before him also fed his suspicion. It was in the most complete disarray Koseth had ever seen, and he had seen a caravan encampment after a bandits' raid. Much of the mess seemed to be paper—bound books, scrolls, single sheets—piled on the long work table in the middle of the room, and on chairs, the floor, and any relatively flat surface. There were dirty dishes; old clothes; two shiribi puzzles, both dismantled; a pectoral of beaten copper and coral; an assortment of glass bottles with various colors of murky liquid in them; and other things that made Koseth want to rub his eyes. None of the other things, inconveniently enough, was a mirror. But he saw what looked like a polished tin tray on the seat of a chair. He stood up slowly and made for that.
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