He stiffened, turning so fast his arm smacked her hand away. “No.” And though they’d blown out the candle, the moonlight in the windows was strong enough to show her shock at his reaction, his flat voice.
He stilled, reining himself hard. “Why would you—” All desire vanished, his mounting irritation flaring to anger as a new idea occurred to him. “You’ve been yapping about me with Lineas?” Because she was the only person in life he permitted to see his back.
Ranet said softly, “I only asked her what you like.”
“You can ask me that,” he snapped, then reined himself again, thinking fast.
Ranet and he were new together. She was younger. She was only doing what he’d done when he first went to Nand at the Shield. Of course she’d ask Lineas. Who, in all the years Connar had known her—even when she’d been Bunny’s freckled shadow—had never been a blabbermouth. But when asked, she always took the other’s view, even when it was annoying, like she’d done with those Bar Regren prisoners, though they’d half killed her first.
Ranet sat, breath held, during the protracted silence until he said in a milder voice, “What I like is quiet. I’m a bad sleeper.”
Ranet’s ardency hadn’t abated a whit. She traced slow fingers from the hard edge of his collarbones over the sparse, soft hairs on his breastbone, ran her thumb appreciatively over the ridges of his abdominal muscles, then down to his hip as she said, “You can have, and be, whatever you want in my room.”
That, he liked to hear.
In a flash the heat was back.
After an interval thoroughly satisfying for both, he crossed over to his room to sleep.
The next night, after another frustrating day of stupid conversations and clumsy insinuations about whom to promote and what to do against Elsarion—the Nob—even the Idegans, which he’d thought a dead subject, again he went to Lineas’s room, to find it empty. And Ranet waiting on his return.
It had to be a conspiracy made among the women. It was just like Lineas to do such a thing. Maybe Ma had even said something to her about those damned grandchildren.
The third night, he sent Fish to find Lineas as soon as the watch bell rang.
Fish was back after a protracted wait to say, “I never saw her. Vanadei didn’t know where she was, but one of the students said she’d seen Lineas up on the third floor.”
Where Connar had never been. Until now, he hadn’t given the place a second thought. He was going to send Fish, but suspected he’d be intercepted at the top of the stairs, where he’d heard all his life a runner was always on duty. He loathed the inevitable yammer that would cause.
Ranet tapped on his door, attractive, willing, but, “I know you much prefer silence. That’s all right with me....” And she went on talking about how she wasn’t going to talk if he was happier that way, which irritated him the more because it wasn’t quiet. He was still obliged to find the right thing to say, or behave like a horse-apple to the person he was now married to, who would be living across from him for the rest of their lives.
On the last day of the year, Connar evaded the jarls as much as he could, while hunting through the castle to find Lineas. The only glimpse he got was when she was surrounded by other royal runners lined up in the hall outside the banquet room.
Frustrated and irritated, he joined his family, aware of watching eyes.
The banquet seemed to drag on forever, until at last the family walked back together, Arrow tipsy and drumming with one hand against his leg as he swayed down the hall.
Ranet paced beside Connar—and followed him to his room. He’d drunk too much, to kill time, and she was there, and willing....
But, as always, when the heat was gone, there was the old restlessness, the crowded sense of someone else in his bed he had to listen to, and keep his back away from to avoid questions or comments he didn’t want to hear. He gritted his teeth, waiting until she dropped at last into sleep, then rose, dressed, and ran down to the garrison, where there were always night guards to scrap with.
Ranet woke abruptly at the single bell clang an hour before the dawn watch change. In the dim, wintry light she saw from the shapes and shadows of the tumbled bedding that she was alone in Connar’s bed. Why was an empty bed in his room so much more awkward than her own? She lit a candle, rose, and threw her robe over herself before slipping out and across the hall to her suite.
Never again, she vowed as she crouched down on the hearth. She hugged her knees tightly against herself, staring into the flames sheeting upward from the firestick. Everyone said Connar was as volatile as fire. He’d never been volatile with her—distant, when she first came, and polite since their marriage. These past few days he still hadn’t said much, but he’d proved to be skilled in bed, everything she could wish. Except for staying to cuddle.
He was more difficult to get to know than any of the other lovers she’d had, whom she’d regarded as practice.
Well, another day, another try.
New Year’s Firstday dawned blue and dim with impending snow. She got up to get ready for Convocation.
At the same time, across the hall, Connar returned from the baths to his room to get ready. He braced for more conversation, but to his relief he found his suite empty other than Fish laying out his House tunic. He met Ranet outside their respective suites. She smiled. He smiled, and they walked down to the throne room with the rest of the royal family, all dressed resplendently in their blue and gold.
Ranet didn’t speak, but took his hand in hers, hoping to convey that she understood what he needed, and that it was all right with her.
He clasped her warm fingers dutifully, suppressing a sigh of impatience. He didn’t like holding hands with anyone—he preferred his hands free. But Ma had said many times that a marriage worked with give and take, and he’d come out much better than some. It could easily have been that Yvanavayir wretch—might have been if Da hadn’t made friends with the Senelaec jarl.
Connar reminded himself that he wasn’t about to be attacked. He wasn’t even armed; a runner had the swords for the sword dance stashed in the throne room. Ranet was beautiful, she was enthusiastic in bed, liked being on top, and enjoyed any other position he suggested, which kept her eyes and fingers away from his back. If she wanted to hold hands, he could hold hands.
From the rear of the vast chamber, Lineas saw him holding hands with Ranet, and relief sighed through her, almost assuaging the gut-churn of guilt for her cowardice in avoiding her room and hiding in Quill’s.
Danet, from closer by, hid a smile as the princesses joined her to the left of the throne. Everything was good, she thought gratefully. If you could ignore the border troubles, but at least there was peace right here in the royal city.
And so, Arrow sat on the throne with his sons beside him. As he began his Convocation state-of-the-kingdom speech, Lineas watched the three ghosts drifting in through the far wall.
A step at her side. She started, then looked up at Fish, who muttered softly, “Are you still seeing it?”
“It?” she whispered back, though afraid she knew what he meant.
Sure enough: “The ghost. The one you called Evred.”
“Why?” she asked, as she did not want to admit the truth, but could not bring herself to lie.
“Because it’s not Evred,” he said, with a grim look. “It’s Lanrid Olavayir. Who died in the Andahi Pass the summer before the Night of Four Kings.”
Arrow had two items on his agenda, the first of which was Connar’s promotion. The jarls looked at that tall, splendid young man, and even the most jaded among them (such as the Jarl of Gannan) were impressed. They’d all heard about his prowess.
Arrow raised his voice. “From now, Connar-Laef is Commander of the King’s Army, second only to me.”
He laid his sword in Connar’s outstretched hands.
Connar flashed a smile, looking and sounding splendid as he swore to protect and defend the kingdom. He laid the sword at Arrow’s feet, then took a stan
ce at Arrow’s side in shield arm position as Arrow promised the jarls that Connar would pursue Elsarion’s army until they were defeated, which raised a shout of approval.
As soon as that died away, Arrow got to what interested them most, beside who would command the army: who was to replace the exiled Jarl of Yvanavayir, whose territory was one of the largest in the kingdom?
“I’ve placed interim commanders in Tlen, Halivayir, and what used to be Yvanavayir,” Arrow said. “Backed by our best border scouts. For now these jarlates are all crown-protected, but I promise by next Convocation you’ll be welcoming new jarls among you,” Arrow said, and then, to forestall questions and demands, he signaled the drummers.
Connar picked up the sword before the throne, then he and Noddy moved out to perform the sword dance, Connar at the forward point of the diamond as new commander, Noddy behind him, Tanrid Olavayir to one side, and Jarid Noth at the other. Drums thundered from the gallery as the four danced—Noddy every bit as enthusiastic as Connar, so much so that when he swung his sword with those powerful shoulders, the blade cracked against the steel wielded by the others, sending up blue-gold sparks.
The jarls roared their approval, then Arrow got up and moved out—as usual, keeping it short. He hated being in that freezing room.
They paraded across to the great hall, where the Firstday banquet was being readied. Most of the jarls found a way to talk to Connar, once again asking for details of his battles, then bringing forth all their advice all over again.
Connar endured it with teeth-gritted determination, but as soon as the meal was done and the spiced wine and bristic began circulating, along with the jarls and their captains, Connar slipped away.
Once the serving line had brought in the covered dishes, Lineas withdrew with the rest of the royal runners not on duty. They trooped happily up to the roost, where Mnar Milnari had their own Firstday banquet awaiting them in the warm library, before a three-stick fire. Voices clamored as hot, pungent spiced wine passed from hand to hand, Lineas relieved that at least up here, she had, so far, never seen a single ghost.
Lineas held her cup in her fingers, breathing in the heady scent as she listened to the hum of voices. To avoid thinking about that Lanrid Olavayir ghost, she was trying to determine what note it was that laughter added to such different voices when the tenor abruptly changed, first to question, then to silence as people turned toward the door.
Connar stood there. Shock chilled her nerves. He seemed to loom over them in his splendid blue House tunic with the great eagle in gold spread across his chest.
Mnar said, “May I remind you that this area is protected by royal decree, Connar-Laef?”
Connar was aware that he’d drunk too much at dinner, but right now he was too irritated to care. “I’m here to talk to someone. I’ll be gone as soon as I do.”
Mnar was furious that Connar had shoved his way in too fast for the celebrating runners to institute their much-drilled safety protocol, though it was clear he was here for a person, not for a purpose. She kept her lips clipped; better to let the gunvaer handle her sons. She flicked her eyes toward the door, and the entire party filed out and into the workroom two doors down, old Ivandred thoughtfully picking up the jug of spiced wine on the way, leaving Connar standing there facing Lineas, whose feet had rooted themselves to the floor.
Connar glanced back, saw the hall empty, and looked in at Lineas’s pale face, her freckles standing out around her enormous eyes, the cup gripped in her thin fingers. She stood there, a slight, freckled and thoroughly unprepossessing figure, but his chest ached as he said, “Did my mother tell you to stay away from me?”
Lineas struggled against the impulse to justify her hiding, and spoke the truth: “Ranet wants to be with you.”
No, it was a truth. Not the whole truth, and he knew it as much as she did. She could see it in the way his eyes narrowed.
He said, “You know that wasn’t a ring match.”
She made a convulsive movement to sign I know, but forgot the wine cup, and wine slopped down her front.
“Then what?” he persisted.
She set the cup carefully on the edge of a table, where it promptly crashed to the floor as she mopped uselessly at her robe with her sleeve. It looked in the firelight like blood.
“I’m with someone else. “ She looked up unhappily, sensing that she was making a mess of what everyone else around her seemed to manage amicably.
But then none of them had had this conversation with Connar.
“Fine.” He turned up his palm. “So is the rest of the world.” He looked around, remembering the courtyard in Ku Halir the night of the fire. “If it’s Quill, he isn’t even here. He’s been gone for weeks—might be gone a year. Or more.”
I write him every night. The words almost came out. She looked at Connar in horror, her mind blanking. She sucked in a breath, emotions spiraling, intensified by that sickening sense that she was not normal after all, that she was the same failure she’d been as a twelve-year old mage student unable to perform the most basic magic. Her eyes burned as she groped mentally for the right words. But there didn’t seem to be any right words.
Connar studied her miserable face, bewildered by the sudden change in her, by how painful it felt. He knew he wasn’t in love—whatever that meant. Those ballads that mooed on intolerably made it clear what “in love” was; she was not central to his existence, nor would he sacrifice himself for her smile, or any of the rest of that midden. Nor did he expect the same from her. It’s just that she had always been there when....
His thoughts shied from that path in the same heartbeat that she tried again. “Connar, you have everything you want, now. You also got a beautiful wife who is kind and good and adores you. You don’t need me.”
Need. That was the word he hated.
A spurt of anger replaced the ache. “Need?” he repeated contemptuously, all the more because he’d thought it himself. But they could not possibly mean the same thing. Could they?
He eyed her, the person he’d let get closest to him. “So all these years, you saw me as an object of pity?”
“No!”
But he didn’t stay to listen to whatever assuaging words she’d spin out. The truth was plain. For whatever reason she wanted to justify, she’d bunked him out, and meanwhile he was standing in a doorway with every damn one of the royal runners no doubt listening avidly from down the hall.
Three steps and he reached the stairs, and disappeared down them. Lineas listened to the rap of his heels diminish to silence, then drew a sobbing breath. She couldn’t bear to face the others.
She fled to Quill’s room.
The royal castle woke up the next day to a world of white—and the news that the new Commander of the King’s Army had departed at dawn, to return to his command; at breakfast Danet and Noren asked Ranet if he’d said anything.
“Only that he needed to get back to Halivayir,” she said. There was no hiding her disappointment, but she knew he’d be back.
Up in Quill’s room, after a restless night of sleep, Lineas climbed out of bed and crouched on the cold floor, her toes curled. Shivering, she took out her notecase and a tiny scrap of paper and wrote:
Connar and I parted. It was horrible.
And sent it to Quill before she could change her mind.
TWENTY-TWO
Arrow should have known that his speech and his sons doing the sword dance was not going to stop the jarls from pestering him for private conversations, during which they hinted with all the delicacy of a lance charge that they had trusty and wonderful candidates in third sons, nephews, cousins, and cousins’ boys, all loyal, talented and true, who’d be perfect for Yvanavayir, that oldest and most prestigious of the jarlates missing a jarl.
Arrow hadn’t told any of them that, before the trial, while he waited for his runner to return with Manther Yvanavayir’s answer, Noddy had suggested his favorite, Cabbage Gannan, in case Manther refused—which Arrow and Noddy had both
expected would happen. Arrow was not about to reject Noddy’s first appointment, and he was certainly impressed by Cabbage Gannan’s spectacular performance in the field...but he also loathed the Jarl of Gannan, and his eldest son even more. Of course they would meddle if the second son was suddenly promoted to a jarlate superior to his father’s.
This appointment is only for a year, mind, the king had said to Cabbage, before sending him off. Then you’ll be replaced by someone who won’t be riding with my son. You’ll be back here picking the lancers before we send them for their two years of seasoning. Ride out, the king had added. Best to get up there before winter sets in hard. Of course we don’t expect to see you, Holdan, or Fath at Convocation, being interim appointments.
Cabbage had finished scouting this year’s lancers then departed immediately, without telling anyone his real reason for reaching Gannan fast: to get there, and away, ahead of possible rumors. He knew very well what would happen once his elder brother Blue heard about the appointment. Blue would get the worst of their Stalgrid cousins to scrag Cabbage to remind him of his place, since Blue couldn’t beat him bloody anymore. And their da would shrug it off, saying Gannans had to be tough to get ahead.
Ride fast he did, until he reached the small, square, cheerless castle he’d grown up in. Old habits made him enter quietly, his orders to Kendred, his first runner, having been issued before they even spotted the walls. A question to the tight-lipped stable chief elicited the welcome information that Maddar Sindan-An, Cabbage’s bride, was out in the paddock.
He made his way there. The women were surprised at his sudden appearance, his mother with that quick, worried frown he’d grown up seeing. Any change made her tense, because it might ignite his father’s temper. “I’m home only to get Maddar,” Cabbage said. “Not even a home leave. We have to ride out at once.”
A turn of the hand and Ma went back to watching the yearlings, Lnand Sindan—Blue’s wife of two years—sending a sympathetic glance after Maddar. The only one who grinned was short, curvy, irrepressible Snow.
Time of Daughters II Page 33
