“The tester is busy with a child,” Lori said, noting a handsome boy of striking coloring, hair so pale it looked white, and gray eyes.
“Come on.” He smiled. “My treat.”
“Everything has been your treat.”
“Because I like treating you.”
As they drew near, the boy put a red egglike stone into a box and studied Lori with a cool gaze.
Her smile faltered.
Then he nodded to her. “Greetyou.”
She recognized the accent as Noble, though he dressed like middle class—and realized then that her own accent might have given her status away, though her clothes had usually contradicted that. A noblewoman down on her luck? A servant of an estate, like she’d told the girl the night before? But tension ran along Lori’s shoulders.
“Greetyou,” she replied to the youngster.
“Well done, Marin,” said the tester, and she became aware that he was a big man with swarthy skin, looked quite tough, and moved a lot like Draeg.
“You’re finished here, Marin?” asked a man in a rough voice behind Lori, causing her to jump. She stepped aside but met the gray eyes of a man who was surely related to the boy.
“Yes, Papa,” said the boy.
“You have a fine son with strong Flair,” said the tester in a smooth patter, holding his hand out for his fee.
With a crack of laughter lightening his expression, the boy’s father paid.
At that moment a huge and scruffy black-and-white cat leapt from a stool, sauntered toward Lori, and stropped her legs, purring loudly and rustily.
Another laugh and a shake of his head and the man nodded to Lori and Draeg, then walked away with the child.
“Can I help you?” the tester said.
“Sure.” Draeg nearly pushed her into the wooden chair with green sun-faded cushions. Faster than she could dust the cat hair off the seat, for certain. The cat leapt up on her lap and kneaded, and Lori winced. Baccat would scent the other cat on her and not like that at all.
“Here, try this one first.” The big man caught her hand and put a warm clear stone in her palm, then curved her fingers over it.
Lori frowned. His touch had felt odd.
The cat revved his purr.
“Just concentrate on your Flair,” the man said genially. “See if you can light the stone.”
“All right.” She sent a pulse of Flair to it and exclaimed when the stone shattered into fragments in her hand. Then she blushed as she opened her fingers. “I’m so sorry. I’ll pay for it—”
The man choked, then summoned a smile. “It was flawed. Just put the fragments on the counter. One moment, please.” He pushed aside the small box of egg-shaped stones and disappeared behind a curtain along the back of the booth.
Lori dropped the broken stone on the counter and dusted her hands. Returning a minute later, the tester carried a box a meter and a half square. Lori’s mouth fell open.
“Does it look like we have the time and gilt for that to determine the type of her Flair?” Draeg demanded. “There is much more I want to show her after I leave you.” He stared at the man from under lowered brows, then grabbed the smaller box. “Here, try these.”
Since Baccat had assured her that her primary Flair of personal armor was a new and unique skill, Lori was sure this was a futile exercise. But she ran her hands over the stones, grimacing at the odd feelings: a hint of fur, a tiny shock, a touch of slime. No stone glowed.
“I’m hungry,” Draeg said. “Let’s get a snack.” He placed a few coins on the counter and dragged her off, leaving the man scowling and the cat grinning.
They ate some meat pastries that Lori thought she could make tastier, then walked around the square, looking. She noticed a more than normal count of cats.
When they were done, Draeg cleansed her hands and led her to a wide street.
“One more thing.” Though he swung their interlinked hands, his expression turned more than serious, hard with a touch of grim.
“Yes?” Lori asked.
He inhaled a deep breath, and a tingle at the nape of her neck warned Lori that she wouldn’t like what came next.
“I want you to look at the FirstFamily Council room.”
“No.”
He turned to her and took both her hands. “You should know what you’re giving up, abandoning.”
Since she couldn’t gesture, she jerked her shoulders. “It means nothing to me.” She smiled but thought it looked bitter because it tasted that way. “My place as D’Yew, my status here as a FirstFamily GrandLady and in Noble society has not been made available to me by my Family.” She paused. “And I don’t know how long it would take for them to allow that.” Her lips turned from smile to curl. “I don’t need this. I have what I need, and I’ll make the rest.”
“For me, Lori,” Draeg insisted quietly. “Look at your traditional seat, your Family ancestral place in the GuildHall for me.”
She choked off anger. But she wasn’t ready to teleport home—to the boathouse or the estate gate. She wanted to be with Draeg, and he’d made clear his price.
Through gritted teeth, she said, “Very well.”
And the next instant, they’d landed on a thick teleportation pad in a large marble corridor.
* * *
This is the new GuildHall, or rather the newly extended GuildHall. The All Council and NobleCouncil rooms are newer and bigger. The FirstFamilies Council chamber only has—relatively—new furnishings.” He coughed. “From thirteen years ago.”
“Since the last time my mother and my MotherSire attended.”
“That’s right. Your Family has been waiting for you to reach your maturity.”
She snorted, shook her head. “Draeg, you know better than that. They don’t want me to be D’Yew until they believe I am firmly under their thumbs and will do what they and the Residence want me to.” That would not happen. With every step she disliked this little side trip more. She should trace her escape route.
Since she’d become lovers with Draeg, time had slipped away in wonderful moments. And though they’d occasionally talked since he’d discovered she’d planned to leave, they hadn’t made plans. Or altered the plans she’d made.
They hadn’t spoken again about whether he’d come with her. She continued to hope and despair. After all, he loved the animals as she did, and when they settled in they could consider a partnership. Surely that would be fine with him. He wouldn’t want to be a stableman on another Noble estate, would he?
And though she’d sensed the spark of ambition in him, most of the land that could be claimed in Celta demanded hard work; her Valerian estate was established.
Her palm within his began to sweat.
“The FirstFamilies did send a few inquiries to your Family requesting a regent be appointed for you,” Draeg said.
She looked at him sharply. “How do you know?”
He looked down at her. “I’m sure that would be standard protocol.”
She just stared at him.
“At least, it sounds reasonable, doesn’t it?” he asked.
Most of the things he’d said to her sounded reasonable. But the ambience of this place worked on her, and doubts seeped in.
They walked down large, empty corridors, though they passed one or two “Clerk” doors that showed light spells behind the frosted glass. On the whole, the architecture and setup felt odd to her . . . felt antique, as if it had been brought to and imposed on Celta by the Earthan colonists themselves.
Draeg stopped at a door made of a striped combination of woods. She realized with a shock that they were all the trees of the Ogham alphabet, the trees that the FirstFamilies had taken for their names. With hesitant, trembling fingers she touched the reddish golden wood of the Yew.
Yews had been prized for bows, strong and flexible weapons. She didn’t know if she matched the wood.
Her lover stood patiently as she stroked the door . . . surely she felt a tingle, a sense that she connected wit
h this piece of wood; an ancestor of hers had blessed the tree and requested a long, thick branch, harvested it, crafted this piece with Flair.
When she let her hand stray to the left, tiny shocks zipped over her fingertips. Sighing, she set her hand on the door latch and pressed down. As she walked forward, light-spells glowed on, illuminating the chamber.
She saw a large room, and everything about it was exquisite. The marble floor had a pattern incised in it, set with gold lines and colorful mosaic tiles.
“You belong there.” Draeg gestured to the end of the room where a dais stood and upon it, fifty chairs behind a massive wood table, again made of twenty-five sections of wood. Lavish thronelike chairs in different-colored velvet and various carved and polished woods stood for the FirstFamily Lady or Lord and their spouse.
Fifth from the end closest to her were the Yew seats. The sides of the chairs showed tight Yew leaves, spiraling up to the carving atop the back, a wheel, Arianrhod’s wheel. One of the seats angled out as if inviting her to sit.
“D’Yew, look at your chair; go up there and see how you feel,” Draeg enthused.
She thought she’d be dwarfed in it. “No,” she said.
“Yes,” Draeg insisted. He took her hand and led her to the deeply carpeted steps of the dais, drew her up with him, though her steps lagged. He walked with her along the thrones that were even bigger than they appeared from below.
He pulled the chair out easily, a strong man. Surely physical or Flaired strength might always be needed to use these chairs, to prove you were the equal of everyone else in this long line. She didn’t like the implications of that.
Just glancing down at the floor where she’d been, along all the chairs, most of them obviously used while the two belonging to the Yews seemed pristine, made her feel like a great weight had thunked onto her shoulders. Her stomach tightened with the thought of the great decisions this group made. Life-and-death decisions.
Decisions she’d not been trained to make, decisions she had no experience to understand. She was woefully lacking.
The atmosphere inside the room seemed to throb heavily, and the hair on the nape of her neck rose. Her stare fixed on the corner of the room, where a tall wooden screen stood, slightly out of place. Great Flair congregated there. Other people? FirstFamilies’ Nobles? Why would they watch silently?
She didn’t know, and no threat came from the corner, so she looked at Draeg again. One muscular hand stroked the table in front of the Yew chairs—also cleaner and completely unmarred, unlike the rest of the table that had nicks and smears of writestick ink.
“This is yours. You could be here,” he said.
Thirty-five
Everything twisted inside her as she stared at him, swept the chamber with her gaze, felt the massed Flair, the pulsing lifeforce of three people behind the screen.
She’d had her eighteenth birthday last year; she should be D’Yew in truth, the head of a Noble household, a FirstFamily GrandLady in fact instead of holding the empty title.
Baccat’s words from so long ago, the morning after she’d met Draeg, echoed in her mind. The other FirstFamilies are curious people and no Yews have been in their society for a long, long time. They do not know what is happening on this estate.
Terrible understanding thundered in her ears with her blood, struck like lightning to her heart. The FirstFamilies had sent in a spy. Draeg.
Baccat knew. Perhaps he’d been trying to warn her, but he’d kept Draeg’s secret. That hurt, too.
Nothing was true about Draeg. He’d persuaded her to stay, just by being himself, by having sex with her.
He’d lied and lied and lied.
She could see the way he liked this table, those Yew chairs, recalled how he looked over the Yew estate. How he continued to press her to fight for the property. Which she didn’t want. Did he ever really believe her? That she’d be happy with a small estate and the love of animals?
He was the only lover she’d known. She’d even thought she might love him, and he returned that love. How terribly foolish she’d been. So naive and easy to fool. Such a simpleton.
Tears stung her eyes, and a rush of rage surged through her.
“This, this is why you want me. Not for me. Not because of who I am.” She pressed a hand on her heart, saw the guilt shroud his face as he swung toward her. He reached out a hand and she stumbled a couple of steps back. “You want me because of the title I have, what I am.”
Back and back and back away, hop down the dais steps, and see him prowl forward with a guard’s grace. He was some Noble’s guard, not a stableman.
She flung her arms wide, heard her tone shrill and didn’t care. “You want this. You want the Yew estate. I just want to go away, and you want me to stay and want what I have.”
His face hardened. “The title and the estate and the Residence and everything else is yours. You’ve tended it since your First Passage. You deserve it and I want you to fight for it!”
Without volition her head shook, no and no and no. She went chill and cold, and inside all the warmth of her crackled into ice. Words tumbled from her mouth in a long stream she couldn’t stem. “You never wanted me, just me, Lori Valerian. You wanted, want, FirstFamily GrandLady Loridana Itha Valerian Yew. You want my estate. You’re just like everyone else in my life, wanting something from me. The Residence and my Family want my energy and Flair. They want me to conform to what they think I should be. Like you want me to conform to what you think I should be right here in this council room. Become what you think I should be. Do what you think I should do.”
Her chest pumped with ragged breaths and she fisted her fingers. “But I will not do that. Conform to what they want or what you want. You know what I want? I want my small Valerian estate. Where no one has any expectations of me. Where, for the first time in my life, I decide what I want.”
“You have responsibilities here,” he said, his voice too calm for her.
“I am responsible. I am responsible for myself, and I am responsible for six stridebeasts and two horses. And you know what they want from me? They want food and shelter and love.
“I never want to see you again. So consider yourself fired. Don’t return to Yew Estate until I’m gone—then you, and they, and the house itself can descend to the Cave of the Dark Goddess for all I care!”
Before she could teleport, he grabbed both her hands again, and she couldn’t take him into the Residence, wouldn’t take him with her at all. “Wait. Please. Listen to me.”
“Let me go.”
His mouth hardened and his eyes blazed. His fingers squeezed hers.
If he didn’t loose her, it would be unforgivable.
He dropped her hands.
She took a shaky breath, and more understanding filtered through her mind. He knew this room, was comfortable in it. A whisper forced itself from her, putting her comprehension into words. “Who are you, Draeg?” She wet her lips. “Not Hedgenettle. What is your surname?”
“Betony.”
She tilted her head at the shade of reluctance in that one word. “Betony?” she laced it with scorn.
“It’s true. Betony . . .” He paused. “Betony-Blackthorn.”
“Son of a FirstFamily GrandLord.” Her gaze went to the thrones, five Families earlier than hers. Blackthorn, gold cushions, a gate carved into the top of the chair, signifying the opening to the Cave of the Dark Goddess.
“Adopted son.” His voice sounded tinny against her ears.
“Adopted son to Straif T’Blackthorn.”
“That’s right.”
His solid muscularity drew her stare once more. “You’re not a Noble guard. You’re a Noble fighter, like every FirstFamily Lord and Lady.” She paused. “Except me.” Her anger had dimmed under the sheer haze of unreality. She needed to find it again, needed to feel herself again before she returned home. So let him talk. That should erode this fog enveloping her in this strange, antique place. “And you think I should stay and fight. Why?”
Lori looked strange, pale and with widely dilated pupils. Her voice sounded thin, but she listened. Maybe he could convince her.
“Stay because of your loyalty to your Family.” He winced as soon as the words were out of his mouth, hurried on. “I mean, not your immediate Family, the others who work the estate.”
She blinked, then answered heavily after several seconds. “You think that me, fighting with my immediate Family, with the Residence, with Cuspid and the twins and Folia—and believe me, the fight would get nasty and I probably wouldn’t win—wouldn’t disrupt the rest of the Family?”
He jutted his chin. He wanted her to stay here in Druida with him. He waved toward the council table. “You could file a formal complaint against your immediate Family with the FirstFamilies Council.”
“And the Residence? Oh, yes, that would please the whole rest of my Family, too, to bring in outsiders to deal with internal matters.” Her eyes fired and she actually poked him in the chest. “Tell me, GrandSir Draeg Betony-Blackthorn”—she made the words a rhythmic pattern, nearly a taunt—“can you promise my Family will be better off than they are if I stay and fight the Residence—which isn’t as easy as you think it is, since the house can drop a chandelier on me at any time, gas me—”
“That’s not right or legal!”
“We’re not talking about right or legal! We are talking about practicalities.” She sucked in a breath. He shouldn’t have noticed her breasts under her tunic, but he did.
“You can stay with me, with my Family at T’Blackthorn Residence,” he snapped.
“Can you promise my Family would be better off if I stayed and started an internal war? And think of how you would feel with an internal war in your Family?”
That concept was a blow, all right. Draeg would defend Straif Blackthorn, the current GrandLord in power, to the death. He’d sworn to do so.
Lori simmered in front of him, awaiting an answer, and he could only reply honestly. “No, I can’t promise that.”
“Can you, GrandSir Draeg Betony-Blackthorn, promise me that if I went to the FirstFamilies Council, I, and my Family, wouldn’t become an issue of contention in the Council itself? That the Council wouldn’t use me to inflict penalties on my Family? That they wouldn’t use me?” she spat out.
Heart Legacy Page 30
