Fires of the Desert (Children of the Desert Book 4)

by Leona Wisoker

  Deiq, walking steadily beside the horse’s head, said nothing at all.

  Going home, this time, did not involve a barrage of hostility from Alyea’s mother. Nor did it mean, as it turned out, a Scratha-empty household. Servants came out promptly, bowing, to lead the horse away. The courtyard was well-swept, the planters trimmed and tidied. Fresh torches, hooded against the possibility of rain, stood ready for night use; in another handful of hours, they would be set blazing.

  The front doors, the formal set, opened while Alyea’s foot was still on the first step; light spilled from inside, along with the scent of lemons and rosemary. Alyea’s eyes blurred: her mother wasn’t standing there, but a stranger, a tall, well-rounded woman with light brown hair and a ready smile.

  “Lord Peysimun,” the stranger said. “Welcome home. I’m Rill, your new head housekeeper; subject to your approval, of course.” She didn’t seem concerned over potential rejection. “Lord Stass,” she added with a deferential nod to Deiq. He made an odd choking noise, more than likely laughter, and her mild face creased in dismay. “Did I use the wrong title? I’m so sorry. What ought I to call you?”

  Deiq tilted a deliberate, questioning glance at Alyea, leaving it to her. She bit the inside of her cheek and said, steadily, “Do you know, Rill, I’m not at all sure on that one at the moment. Let’s discuss it later, if you don’t mind.”

  “Chicken,” Deiq murmured, too softly to carry beyond her ears. She clucked just as quietly and received a low chuckle in response.

  Rill’s expression returned to serene courtesy. “Of course, Lord Peysimun. If you’ll follow me? Your rooms have been readied, and dinner is almost on.” As they advanced up the stairs, her gaze flickered to Deiq again, a visible doubt entering her expression.

  Alyea pursed her lips against a grin and said, blandly, “Lead on, s’a. Our thanks.”

  That small hint was enough to clear the anxiety from the housekeeper’s face. She nodded and turned away without further question or comment.

  Alyea followed her through the oddly unfamiliar halls of the mansion, looking around with recurring surprise. Entirely new furniture and decorations met her eye; vases filled with fresh herb cuttings and colorful pots with live plants predominated, and the overall colors seemed to incline towards silvery and blue tones.

  “Gods,” she muttered, astonished. Looking down, she found closely woven mats of some sort of reed underfoot, rather than the thick, ornate carpets her mother favored.

  “Someone’s done a good job repairing this place,” Deiq said at her back.

  “Must have been Eredion. I turned Peysimun over to his hand while I was out of town. Gods, he’s done a job, all right—”

  “You gave your family lands over to Eredion?” Deiq said, incredulous, then hooted with laughter. “Gods, do you have any idea—No. Obviously not.”

  She stopped walking and turned to face him, scowling. “What’s wrong with that? He was the most logical choice.”

  “He’s Sessin,” Deiq said, still grinning broadly. “You gave Sessin Family control of your lands, through Eredion. He could have taken everything you own, declared you yourself to be bound to Sessin Family, and put you out on the streets, if you rejected that, landless and without a brass bit to your name. All perfectly legal, under any law you like. And I’ll guarantee you’re lucky there wasn’t enough time for word of it to reach the Lord of Sessin Family, because he would have ordered just that to happen. Eredion’s too damn nice for his own good. Lord Sessin will skin him alive for missing this opportunity.”

  Alyea stood still, horror draining all the blood to her feet. “He wouldn’t,” she said faintly. “And Lord Scratha—didn’t he cede his lands to the king?”

  “No. He’s too nice, which is good for you and damn bad for him. I’ll have to have a word with him, once you’re settled back in. And the situation with Scratha was different; that was a northern king, not another desert Family. Nobody would have tolerated Oruen making that sort of grab for power, and Scratha knew it; that’s the only reason none of his advisors or Hidden brought him the idea of annexing Scratha Family. It would have put a war in motion. I told you: Scratha’s a lunatic.”

  “No, it took my mother to bring Oruen that idea,” Alyea muttered.

  He caught her arm and turned her around, gently. The housekeeper waited a stone’s throw further along the hallway, expression suspiciously blank.

  “Never mind all that right now. Let’s go see what they’ve done with—” He winced, his gaze skittering away from her own, and didn’t finish the sentence.

  “My rooms,” she said under her breath, and shut her eyes. His hand tightened on her arm, then dropped away as she started forward again. “Have they found my mother yet?” she asked at more normal volume as she neared the housekeeper.

  “Lord Eredion asked that I send you to him for that question,” Rill said. “I believe there was a small difficulty while you were gone.”

  Alyea’s heart dropped to her stomach. “Is she—dead?”

  “I do not believe so,” Rill said. Her tone was a warning: Alyea bit her tongue and shut up.

  They turned into a passageway. Repainted in a pleasant off-white, refurnished, with masses of plants everywhere and a startling amount of sunlight coming in from overhead, it looked like an entirely different corridor than the one Deiq had so comprehensively wrecked. Alyea glanced up to find new ceiling-tubes shunting light from above, and shook her head in wonder.

  “All this in a matter of three days,” she murmured. “Incredible.”

  “Expensive,” Deiq said dryly at her shoulder. “Start figuring the cost before the bill comes due. You’re in debt to Sessin, like it or not, and while Eredion might not pull that string, someone else along the way will.”

  She didn’t say anything; Rill was pushing the door to a suite open. Not her rooms. The passageway had looked strange because it was a different passageway entirely; apparently she was more disoriented by the weight of recent changes than she’d been allowing herself to realize.

  It took everything she had to advance into what had been her mother’s rooms.

  Lady Peysimun won’t be coming home again, apparently. At least not as Lady Peysimun.

  Alyea put questions aside and beckoned Deiq forward to stand beside her.

  “I’ll send a servant when dinner’s ready,” Rill murmured as she withdrew.

  Thin blue curtains, streaked with silver thread, draped over silver tie-backs shaped like vining roses. A thin layer of white linen screened the open windows against the possibility of rain but allowed light and air to breeze through the room. Underfoot were more tightly-woven reed mats; here again, plants in colorful ceramic planters lined the walls and hung from the ceiling. A long, broad couch nestled among the leafy abundance. Two thick blankets, one grey, one a rich deep blue, lay neatly folded, one over each arm of the couch.

  A series of staggered shelves beside the couch, easily reachable, held every one of her wooden carvings, including the wren.

  Alyea put a hand to her mouth, her eyes flooding with tears at what that said about the entire situation. Deiq’s hands closed over her shoulders from behind a moment later.

  “You couldn’t keep your rooms at the palace forever,” he said into her ear.

  She just shook her head, unable to speak against the lump in her throat. He stood still, letting her recover from the shock. At last she said, thickly, “I know. I know. I just—I thought I’d be the one to—I didn’t expect this.”

  “Eredion’s too damn nice,” Deiq said, and sighed. “And so am I.”

  “What should you be doing?” she said before thought stopped her.

  His hands went rigid, fingers digging into her shoulders hard. A moment later he jerked his grip free and said, “Don’t ask that. Go—wash up. I’ll be back later.”

  “What—” She turned to a view of his back as he yanked the door open. “Damnit, Deiq!”

  The door slammed shut behind him.

 
; She let out a frustrated sigh through her nose, and spoke with bleak sarcasm to the empty room: “Welcome home.”

  Chapter Fifty-three

  As the door of his suite shut and locked behind him, Eredion caught himself just before letting out his usual sigh of relief. After a moment of feeling oddly strained and self-conscious, he gave in and sighed anyway, then felt considerably better; which made him grin like a moon-struck idiot for a moment.

  He stood still, listening. In the bedroom, Wian rolled over, her breath hitching a little. So she was awake, and waiting for him to come in. He shut his eyes, thinking of the remaining jug of liquor hidden away in the sideboard, then shook his head. That wasn’t the answer this time.

  Moving through the dark with practiced accuracy, he went into the bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed. A long moment of silence passed; then Wian murmured, “My lord?”

  “Wian,” he said. “Do we need to talk?”

  Another long silence. Her hand found his back, pressed flat against it for a moment, and withdrew. “You’re tired,” she said. “I can wait for morning.”

  He hesitated, deeply tempted, then shook his head again. “No,” he said. “I’ve had worse discussions on less sleep. Go ahead.”

  She sat up and scooted to lean back against the headboard, drawing her knees up; all sounds he knew the meaning of without having to see the motions.

  “I’m not angry,” she said. “I understand...what you did. I’m not happy over it. It was humiliating, and—well. When I calmed down, I started thinking: this is going to happen again, with southern nobles coming into town now. And some of them...probably won’t be shocked or bothered at what they see. You won’t be able to stop them all from...from witching me. They’ll do it just to score points against you. Am I right?”

  “Yes.” No point at all in lying or shading the answer to that question. Wian did, when pressed to it, display a sharp understanding of politics.

  Her voice gathered some heat. “I don’t want to go through that again. I won’t. I’m not a whore, as you keep telling me, and I’m not a slave. I shouldn’t have to stand there for a stranger like that, or be a—a treat, a toy to hand around and use for status games. Not any longer. And—I know, I know you don’t care about my feelings. I’m not asking for—for a promise, or an apology.” The last words faded away to nearly inaudible.

  He’d had no intention of providing either. That thought reminded him of Fimre’s request, though, so he said, “Lord Fimre sends his apology over the matter. If that helps.”

  “A little,” she said. “It’s nice of him to say that.” She paused for a while. Eredion let the silence hang, waiting it out. “My lord....”

  He felt his stomach tighten at the change in her voice. Here it comes, he thought.

  “You don’t love me, do you?”

  “I never promised you that,” he said, exasperated. “Wian, you’ve been with me less than a month!”

  “I know. I didn’t mean it that way. I don’t expect you to, and I won’t lie and say I love you, either. But I want to hear you say it. Please. I need to know for sure.”

  Eredion opened his mouth to say You don’t already know?; then stopped, thinking it over. At last, he sighed. “No,” he said. “Wian, I like having you around. I don’t love you.”

  “Thank you,” she said in a remarkably steady voice. “I didn’t think you would. But you’ve been kind. I haven’t been treated so well in a very long time. I’m grateful.” She paused again, then went on. “Sometimes it’s tempting to see a kindness as something more. So I just needed to be completely sure.”

  Eredion didn’t say anything. There seemed nothing worth answering with.

  “You don’t trust me, and I’ve done nothing to earn that from you,” she said. “I’ve never been so honest with anyone for so long, but you still expect me to lie and steal. And—yes. I lied about the cleaning. Not about the letters. I don’t know who took them. I wasn’t here.”

  Eredion bit the inside of his cheek and waited.

  “I’ve been going to the kitchens,” she said. “To learn. The head baker says I have a good hand with the pastries, and the head cook says I have a good sense for spicing. And being a cook or a baker is an honorable trade for a woman. I can earn my own way. I like the work. I was hoping to surprise you, sometime, with a dinner I’d made myself.” She cleared her throat. “There’s not much point in that, though, is there?”

  “Wian—”

  “No,” she said. “I know where I stand now. I’m not angry. You’re kind; it’s nothing more than that, and more than I deserve from you to begin with, I suppose. But you’ll never see past what I was, or trust me to change. I’m surprised you haven’t already ordered something slipped in my meals to end the pregnancy. Once I told you Kippin was probably the father, I knew you’d think of it, at least.”

  Eredion winced, glad his back was to her and the room dark.

  “I don’t know if I’ll keep it,” she went on, voice steady. “But that’s my decision, not yours. I’d appreciate that much trust in me, at least, that I won’t use a child for political gain.”

  Eredion squeezed his eyes shut and tried to think of what to say to that. Before he could come up with anything, Wian rolled over and slid to her feet.

  “I wanted to talk in the morning, to make this part easier, but it’s as well done in the dark, isn’t it?” she said. “Most of what I have, you’ve given me, so I won’t take anything of yours with me. Only the coin for my work and the items I’ve bought with that fair pay.”

  “Wian.” He couldn’t help thinking how Fimre had so easily moved her into total compliance. “It’s not safe. Don’t. We don’t know where Kippin is yet.”

  “I’m not afraid of Kippin,” she said. He heard the faint sounds of her getting dressed; probably that same peasant dress she’d worn before. He’d left it draped across a chair near her side of the bed before leaving with Fimre. “He’ll find me, or he won’t, and in any case the only thing he can do now is to kill me and my child. I’m not afraid of dying, and I won’t go back to that life.”

  She moved to the small chest of drawers he’d set aside for her use and began going through the contents, apparently able to sort out what she wanted by touch alone.

  “Where are you going?” And how much of what you’re telling me is the truth, even now? He grimaced, realizing that he’d just proven her point; he never would actually trust her twice in one day. Then again, he rarely trusted anyone to tell the truth twice in a row.

  “The palace head cook,” she said. A drawer closed. “She doesn’t know me except as a nobleman’s housekeeping servant. She’ll give me a bed with the rest of the kitchen staff while I learn, and she doesn’t allow her workers to be hassled even by spoiled noblemen. It’s enough.”

  “And what reason will you give for leaving the service of that nobleman?” he asked, dryly.

  Paranoid, maybe, but he couldn’t help thinking of all the ways she could spin the story round, once she was no longer keeping him company, to make his life thoroughly unpleasant while improving her own.

  “I already told her that you were very kind, but that I don’t want to be a servant for the rest of my life. I want something I can do for myself, and perhaps one day open up an inn or a bakery of my own.” Another drawer closed, gently. “Do you think that’s a foolish idea?”

  “No,” he said. “I don’t.” I think you’re a damn fool for trying it, he wanted to say. Like Tanavin, she was walking the road of being ordinary, ignoring the reality that once one stepped into even the fringes of politics, getting out wasn’t at all simple. No way to stop her from learning her own lessons, though. Assuming she was telling the truth throughout.

  I ought to be able to tell, just from her voice. But she knows how to lie, and in the dark...I should have waited for morning, or at least lit a candle and faced her. Too late now.

  “Thank you.” She moved around the side of the bed to the doorway of the bedroom.

&n
bsp; “Wian,” he said, unable to resist one last peace offering. “When you’re ready to open that bakery—or if you have trouble along the way—come talk to me. I’ll do what I can.”

  A long silence. Then, very softly: “Thank you, my lord.”

  A few moments later, the outer door of the suite clicked shut behind her.

  Eredion let out a long breath and bent to tug off his boots.

  The following morning dawned chill and drizzly. Eredion, having walked through a Bright Bay hurricane more than once, thought little of it. Fimre’s reaction was less accepting.

  “You walked here through that?” the young Sessin lord demanded.

  Eredion shrugged and gently deflected a servant trying to take his rain cloak. “It’s more fog than rain right now,” he said. “I see no reason to bother with a carriage. Of course, if you feel the need....” He busied himself with folding his cloak over one arm as he spoke.

  Fimre’s lip curled. “Subtle, Eredion,” he said. “No. I think I’ll stay indoors today and amuse myself with more pleasant pursuits, in front of a goodly fire.”

  “You’ll want that wood supply come true winter,” Eredion commented. “This is just the rainy season, and wood isn’t cheap along this area; the closest source is well east of the Forest Road.”

  “There’s a massive forest just to the north!”

  Eredion put a hand out to deter the servant trying to tug the rain-cloak from his grip. “That’s enough,” he told her. “I don’t need your service, thank you. Nobody harvests from the Hackerwood, Fimre. It’s not safe.”

  “I wasn’t told anything about that,” Fimre said, then glanced around as though realizing they were still in the main entry hall. “Let’s go sit in front of that wasteful fire. You can tell me all about the local superstitions and customs; and if the weather brightens at all, we’ll go out walking then.”

  “Fair enough,” Eredion agreed, privately reflecting that although superstition wasn’t the right word to use at all, it was only to be expected. While northerners saw anyone from below the Horn as barbarians, southerners saw anyone north of the Horn as superstitious, credulous fools.