It took Mykella only a few moments to add the ledgers to those in the Finance storeroom, and she was about to leave and lock the chamber when she realized that she sensed something. She whirled toward the door to the corridor, but no one had entered, and she heard nothing except the sound of her own breathing. Her eyes traversed the rows of simple wooden shelves that held the older ledgers, covered in a fine layer of dust. The shelves had been built against the stone walls, and there was nowhere to hide.
She frowned. It felt as though someone had been in the chamber, but how could she sense that? She looked at the ledgers to the left of those she had added. The dust was gone from one of the ledgers— and she realized that one volume was missing. Since the black leather binding and spine did not reveal the contents, she had to look through three others before she determined that the missing volume held, not surprisingly, the details of barge tariffs from five years previously.
A chill ran down her spine. She shook her head, then stepped back and left the chamber, locking it behind her. She crossed the corridor and walked back toward the Table chamber, where she entered cautiously, although she felt that no one was around. The chamber was empty, and the Table looked the same— dull dark stone with a mirrored surface, but she could sense more easily the purplish glow. This time, though, the purple felt almost unclean. She could also sense, somewhere beneath and below that purple, a far stronger and deeper shade, what she could only have called a blackish green.
Were the two linked? How? She tried to see or sense more, but could discern only the two separate shades— one superficial and linked to the Table and the other deeper and somehow beneath it, trailing off into the earth.
She finally stepped up to the Table and slipped a sheet of paper out from her tunic, concentrating on the first name on her list— Seltyr and High Factor Almardyn. All that the Table showed were swirling mists. The same thing happened when she tried Barsytan, only a High Factor, and then Burclytt. Had she just imagined that she had been able to see people in its mirrored surface? She concentrated on Rachylana.
The mists barely appeared and swirled before revealing Rachylana. She sat on a stone bench in the solarium on the upper southeastern corner of the palace. Beside her, with his arm around her, was Berenyt–Joramyl's only surviving offspring— for now, at least.
Mykella shook her head. Cousin or not, Berenyt would flirt with anyone, even the Lord-Protector's daughter. After what Mykella had discovered, she had to question whether Berenyt's flirtation with Rachylana was merely his nature . . . or part of something else. Yet Rachylana knew nothing about finances and cared about the workings of the Lord-Protector's government even less.
After a moment, Mykella let the image lapse. She tried the name of another factor, but the Table only showed the mists. She glanced down the list until she found a name she recognized–that of Hasenyt. This time, Table displayed an image of the sharp-featured and graying factor standing at the barge docks just north of the grand piers. Hasenyt gestured to a man in a dark gray vest— a bargemaster, from his garb.
In the end, the Table proved useless for what Mykella had in mind because it would only show what people were doing at the moment when she was looking, and it would only display images of those whom she knew. In addition, except for a handful of the oldest cities on Corus, the Table would not show her anyplace that she had not visited.
That meant she would have to find a way to visit the factors on her list, and that required help. She hated to ask anyone for assistance, but there was no other way, not in Tempre, where a woman, especially a Lord-Protector's daughter, never appeared in public unescorted.
IV
That night, Mykella lay in her bed, looking up at the unadorned ceiling, thinking. What was the darkness below and beneath the purple glow of the Table? Why hadn't she seen it earlier? Why did the purple feel almost unclean and repulsive?
Question after question swirled through her mind. Was Joramyl the one diverting tariff golds? If so, why? Just to line his pockets and pay for his extravagances? Or was he plotting more? And if he were not the one, who could it be?
It would be so much easier if she had the powers that Kiedryn had claimed for Mykel the Great— even being able to move around unseen would be helpful.
From her bed, she absently scanned the wall shelf to the right of her small dressing table, taking in the carved onyx box that had been her mother's and the pair of silver candlesticks, the base of each a miniature replica of eternal greenstone towers that flanked the grand piers. At that moment, she realized that the room was pitch-dark, with the window hangings closed and not a single lamp lit, yet she could discern the shape of every object in her chambers.
Another facet of her talents? Or had she always been able to do that?
That had to be something awakened by the soarer's touch. But why her? She had no real power in Lanachrona. She didn't even have any real influence over her father or her brother.
She shook her head, then smiled wryly in the darkness. Too bad the palace corridors weren't kept that dark.
V
Mykella was up early on Sexdi and one of the first in the family at breakfast. She had to force herself to wait to ask what she wanted to know until her father was well settled and taking a second mug of spiced tea.
"What was Lord Joramyl like when you were growing up, Father?" Mykella asked, taking a sip of the plain strong tea she preferred to the cider most women drank or the spiced tea her father liked. "He seems so proud and distant now." Arrogant, self-serving, and aloof were what she really thought, but saying so would only have angered her father.
"He's always been proud, but he was always kind to Mother and Lalyna. He'd bring them both special gifts from all the places he served in the Southern Guard. Your aunt's favorites were the perfumes he brought back from Southgate when he was your grandfather's envoy there. She even took the empty bottles when she left for Soupat." He shook his head. "I knew she'd have trouble with the heat there, but Father insisted on it."
"Did you play games together?" Mykella pursued.
Feranyt shook his head. "Joramyl was never one for games. Except for leschec. He got to be so good at it that he beat old Arms-Commander Paetryl. We didn't play it together. He was too serious about it for me."
Mykella could sense that even thinking about Joramyl and leschec bothered her father. "Did you spar with weapons?"
"Father forbid it after I broke Joramyl's wrist. I was better, but Joramyl wouldn't ever quit."
The more her father said, the more concerned Mykella became. It wasn't that his words revealed that much new, but what she had discovered about the missing tariff golds gave a new meaning to her father's childhood memories. "Do you think that he feels he'd be a better Lord-Protector than you?"
"Mykella! How could you ask that?" murmured Rachylana, leaning close to her sister.
"Father?" Mykella kept her voice soft, curious, hard as it was for her.
"I'm sure he does." Feranyt laughed. "Each of us thinks we can do a better job than anyone else, but things turn out the way they do, and usually for good reason."
Mykella couldn't believe what she sensed from her father–a total lack of concern and a dismissal of Joramyl's ambitions.
"Joramyl's passion for detail serves us well, dear, as does yours. I'd like to think that my devotion to doing what is right should be the prime goal of a Lord-Protector. If one does what is right, then one doesn't have to worry about plots and schemes nearly so much." Feranyt smiled broadly. "Besides, you can't please everyone. Joramyl only thinks you can, that ruling is like finance and numbers, that there is but one correct way to approach it. If he were ever Lord-Protector, he'd quickly discover that's not the way it is."
"If anything happened . . . do you think he'd be a good Lord-Protector? As good as you are?" Mykella pressed.
"Probably not, but he'd be far better than anyone else in Tempre, except for Jeraxylt, of course." Feranyt inclined his head toward his son. "But enough of such morbid
speculations." He rose. "I need to get ready for a meeting with an envoy from the Iron Valleys. Their council is worried about Reillie incursions from Northian lands."
"What does that have to do with us?" asked Jeraxylt.
"I'm certain I'll find out," replied the Lord-Protector. "They are claiming that the Reillies have been armed with weapons having a Borlan arms mark."
"We sell to whoever pays," Jeraxylt said. "Are they going to demand that we stop selling goods because they can't defend their own borders?"
"I doubt that they will express matters . . . quite so directly, Jeraxylt. Nor should you, outside of the family quarters." Feranyt smiled, then turned and left the breakfast room.
Rachylana quickly followed, as did Jeraxylt.
Salyna looked to Mykella. "You know Rachylana will tell Berenyt everything you said this morning?"
"I hope she has better sense than that." Despite what she said, Mykella knew that Salyna was right. She rose and offered her youngest sister a smile. "What are you doing today?"
"Watching Chatelaine Auralya supervise the kitchens. I'm learning from her. It's more interesting than adding up numbers in ledgers. For me, that is. I don't have your talents."
"We all have different talents," replied Mykella. What else could she say?
"You ride well," Salyna pointed out.
"So do you, better than I."
"I'm not bad with a blade, Jeraxylt says." There was a shyness and diffidence in Salyna's words, but pride beneath them.
"You've been using a sabre?"
"A blunted one," Salyna admitted. "It's fun. I can see why Jeraxylt likes the Guard."
Mykella couldn't imagine sparring with blades as being fun, but she just smiled as she slipped out of the breakfast room. After leaving Salyna, Mykella walked slowly toward the Finance chambers.
Kiedryn was already at work, and Mykella settled herself at her own table, where she began to check the individual current account ledgers. There were no new entries of tariff collections from the bargemasters or the other rivermen. She didn't expect any, since all the accounts were current, and the next collections were not due until after the turn of spring. So she turned her attention to the Southern Guard ledgers.
The accounts there showed a surplus. Mykella frowned. The Guard had not used what had been set aside. In fact, the expenditures were almost one part in ten lower than at the same time in the previous year, and that was with less than half of winter left to run.
At that moment, she heard a hearty voice in the corridor outside the Finance chambers— Berenyt's booming bass.
"Just heading in to see my sire— if he's there. If not, I'll harass old Kiedryn." Berenyt was two years older than Mykella, despite the fact that his father Joramyl was younger than his brother the Lord-Protector. Berenyt had taken a commission as a captain in the Southern Guard and ended up in command of First Company, one of the two charged with guarding the palace and the Lord-Protector.
Mykella couldn't make out to whom Berenyt was speaking, but she could sense that the other was male, and vaguely amused. She was not. After what she'd seen in the Table and what she'd discovered, she didn't want to see him anytime soon, much less talk to him.
"Is Father in?"
"No, ser," replied Kiedryn. "I haven't seen him yet this morning."
Mykella could easily sense what the chief clerk had not said–I've never seen him this early. She tried to visualize herself with the shelves of ledgers between her and Kiedryn . . . and Berenyt.
Berenyt turned in her direction, frowning, and blinking. "Oh . . . there you are, Mykella. For a moment . . ." He shook his head. "You haven't seen Father this morning?"
"We seldom see him in the morning," Mykella replied. "I've always assumed that he had other duties."
"He does indeed."
Behind the words Mykella detected a sense of more than she could possibly understand, mixed with condescension and amusement. She managed a simpering smile, although she felt like gagging, and replied, "He offers much to Lanachrona."
"As does your Father." Berenyt's words were polite enough and sounded warm enough, but the feeling behind them was cool. He turned from Mykella back to Kiedryn. "I'll find him somewhere, but if I don't, please tell him I was here."
"Yes, ser."
Mykella merely nodded, if courteously.
After Berenyt had left, she just sat at her table, not really looking at the ledger before her. For just a moment when he had first looked in her direction, she thought, Berenyt had not really seen her. Had that been her doing? Or his abstraction and interest in other matters? How could she tell?
She really wanted to work more with the Table, but she dared not go down too often because, sooner or later, the guards would reveal how often she was going there, and either Jeraxylt or her father would discover her destination. That would lead to even more questions, and those were questions she dared not answer truthfully–and she detested lying, even though she knew that sometimes it was unavoidable, especially for a woman in Tempre.
The soarer's words kept coming back to her, although she had not seen or sensed the winged Ancient except the one time. Was using the Table her talent? Just to be able to see what was happening elsewhere? And what about her growing ability to sense what others were feeling? Or the sharper sight in the darkness?
VI
That evening after dinner, Mykella sat in the family parlor, a history of Lanachrona in her lap. She'd read some of the parts about Mykel, but there was nothing there about how he had accomplished anything— except a paragraph dismissing the legend that he had been a Dagger of the Ancients. Mykel suspected that dismissal was proof that he had been, but what a Dagger of the Ancients might have been she had no idea. Kiedryn's explanation had conveyed nothing, and her own brief searches of the archives had revealed nothing she did not already know.
Rachylana had not joined them after dinner. She had eaten little at table, claiming she had not felt well. Mykella had sensed the truth of her words and the physical discomfort behind them. Jeraxylt and her father rarely joined them in the evenings, not with their other evening interests. So the youngest and eldest daughters had the parlor to themselves.
Mykella stared at the darkness beyond the window, a darkness broken only by the scattered lights of Tempre, those that could be seen from the second level of the palace and beyond the gardens that surrounded it on all sides— except the hillside to the northeast beyond the walled rear courtyard. She knew that unseen danger surrounded them all, especially her father and brother, not only from the warning of the Ancient, but from what she had begun to sense.
After each of the times she had visited the Table, Mykella felt that she had gained something in what she could feel or sense. Yet . . . how could merely sensing or feeling more than others could save her land? She thought about Berenyt's momentary reaction once more, then glanced to the green velvet settee closest to the fire in the hearth, where Salyna was sitting, working on a needlepoint crest. Finally, she spoke. "Salyna . . . I need your help."
"I'd be happy to, but . . ." Her younger sister's forehead wrinkled up into a puzzled expression. " . . . how could I help you?"
"I just want you to look out the window for a little while, and then look back at me. Take your time looking out the window."
"Look out the window and back at you?"
"Please . . . just do it."
"I can do that." Salyna's words continued to express puzzlement, but she turned and stared out the window.
Mykella concentrated on trying to create an image of the armchair in which she sat— vacant without her in it, the lace doily just slightly disarrayed . . .
"Don't do that!" Salyna's words were low, but intense.
"What did I do?" asked Mykella, releasing the image of the empty chair.
"It . . . it was awful. You weren't there. I knew you had to be . . . but you weren't. What did you do?"
Mykella wished she hadn't tried the shield. "I hid. I did it to see if I could mov
e so quietly that you couldn't see me. What else could I have done?" She could sense Salyna's confusion, as well as her sister's feeling that Mykella couldn't have gone anywhere else.
For a long time, Salyna looked at Mykella without speaking. Finally, she asked, "What's happened to you?"
"Nothing," Mykella replied.
"Don't tell me that. You haven't been the same for the last week. You look at Jeraxylt —when he's not looking— as if he were roasting baby hares alive. You've asked Father more questions this week than in the last year. Now you're practicing hiding, and hiding from me."
Jim Baen's Universe-Vol 2 Num 2 Page 15
