“And Shoran!” Reese called.
“Too late,” Irine said, amused.
“He heard me.” Reese headed out, squinting up: most of the clouds had cleared, at least, and the sky was now a shocking powder blue, clear and light. The world looked a lot less raw with the sun out.
Reese had never had the money for a Pad for the Earthrise, so she hadn’t considered any of the logistical issues surrounding them. When the Queen had offered her one for Rose Point, she’d said ‘yes’ and figured since it was portable she could just move it wherever it needed to be used. That plan had lasted all of half an hour. Her guard, consisting of a handful of Liolesa’s Swords on detached duty, plus Bryer and Sascha and, of course, Hirianthial, had been adamant that the Pad not deliver people directly into the middle of thoroughfares, particularly indoors. Beronaeth had wanted the thing installed outside the castle gates so that visitors had to pass through a checkpoint there before advancing inside; she’d put her foot down on that one. Who would service the thing and make sure no one ran off with it if it was outside the castle? But while Pads could be locked down so that they could accept requests from specific originating Pads, there was no guarantee that, for instance, the Ontine Pad couldn’t be commandeered by some assassin who somehow got through palace security.
So rather than putting the Pad in the great hall, which was the room people had to use to get anywhere else in the castle, her team had decided that the Pad belonged in the courtyard. And not just inside the courtyard, but at the farthest end of it from the keep. Since she wasn’t willing to put it outside the gates, it would be installed just inside them, so that her over-paranoid security could shoot any assassins full of arrows before they got to the doors.
To be honest, as embarrassing as it was to imagine asking Liolesa to brave the exposed elements to get to her doorstep, Reese couldn’t help remembering that Surela had managed a coup from inside Ontine. She was willing to deal with a little mortification to make sure no one tried to put another dozen holes in Hirianthial’s back.
The dogs, then, came from Ontine over the Pad, having taken the shuttle from the Tams’ courier to the palace. Reese stopped in front of the steps leading up to the great hall’s doors to wait through their long walk to the keep, where she was flanked by Irine, and then Shoran and Talthien.
“How many of these did you buy again?” Irine whispered.
“Adopt,” Reese said. “I adopted them. And two. A female and a male.”
“Right,” Irine said, and Reese didn’t blame her for her uncertainty, because they were being advanced upon by seven people. There really were only two dogs, but seven people? And very stern people too: the Hinichi were a handsome race but they tended toward gravity. After years of dealing primarily with the twins, not even Hirianthial’s reserve prepared her for the formality of the delegation approaching her. She suddenly wished she’d changed into a fancy dress. Or at least a newer vest.
The deputation stopped a few paces away and the wolfine standing between the two dogs said, “Theresa Eddings?”
“That’s me,” she said, nervous. She stepped forward and offered her hand palm up. “Welcome to Rose Point, aletsen.”
“Thank you,” he said, covering it with his own, larger one. “I’m Benneit Drummondly. We spoke about your adopting Graeme and Moire?”
Before Reese could say anything, Talthien breathed, “Oh, what beautiful names!”
The Hinichi glanced at him, and to save everyone mortification Reese pretended as if the Eldritch hadn’t spoken out of turn. “This is the Seal Servant Talthien, who has been charged with the comfort and welfare of your kin.”
“Oh?”
Talthien straightened further—if that was possible given the ramrod perfection of Eldritch posture—and said, “It is the traditional duty of my family.” And, staring at the dogs with unabashed longing. “And I want to.”
Reese was looking at the Hinichi, not Talthien, so she caught the faint softening in his eyes. She didn’t think the youth could have hit the core Hinichi values any better if he’d tried: duty, family, kids. More kindly, Benneit said, “Then perhaps you would like to meet them. Come.” As Talthien started forward, he added, “These are not ordinary animals, Seal Servant Talthien. Don’t let their four feet and mute throats fool you. They are as smart as you or me.”
Talthien went to one knee in front of the animals, and Reese didn’t blame him for holding his breath. They were magnificent: enormous creatures that shared their lupine faces with their keepers, and if their eyes were doglike rather than humanoid, the intelligence in them was still unmistakable. One of them was an amber-eyed ivory with dorsal fur the yellow of buttercups, and this dog seemed to scintillate in the early winter sunlight; the other was much larger, gray with an elegant black mask, back, and tail, and warm brown eyes. Benneit stepped forth to introduce them formally to Talthien, but the gray dog made his own choice. He paced to the Eldritch and pressed his nose against the pale neck with a huff that blew the short hair back from Talthien’s jaw.
For a breathless moment, neither moved: the boy on one knee, the dog leaning into him. Then the tail wagged, a hard, fierce twitch.
The noise Talthien made… such elation, to be so strangled. He buried his face in the dog’s ruff, white fingers lost in dark fur. And then he raised stunned eyes and said, “Graeme says they’ve been waiting for someone like me all their lives.”
The Hinichi froze in place. Behind him, one of the others said something sharply in their tongue—Reese hadn’t even realized the Hinichi had a language of their own—and he responded in kind before saying in Universal, “He spoke to you?”
“Of course!” Irine said, ears trembling with excitement. “He’s a touch-telepath, right? Like all the Eldritch?”
The ivory dog, meanwhile, had joined her mate in Talthien’s arms, and the three were lost to the world as far as they were concerned. Reese glanced at Benneit and offered, ruefully, “At least they like each other?”
The Hinichi had the look of someone who’d been doused with a bucket of ice water. Reese sympathized; the Eldritch made her feel that way all the time. “This is… this is not a ramification I had considered when you made your offer, alet.”
“I… hope that doesn’t mean you’re thinking of retracting it?” Reese asked, careful. The thought of separating Talthien from his newest friends....
“No! No! You don’t understand. It’s always been one of our regrets that the Guardkin can’t talk. We didn’t want to breed the intelligence out of them, but we didn’t want to change them either, to be more like the Pelted. Not without their permission, and we never felt we had it. That’s… you understand, that brings up debate among us, about playing God, about consent, about the rights of those divinely endowed by their Creator with the ability to perceive Him.” He glanced at her. “You might not understand, not being Pelted….”
“Not totally, no,” Reese said. “And I won’t pretend that I do. Is it a bad thing then that Talthien can hear them?”
“The opposite,” Benneit said. “It seems the perfect solution, in fact, to a problem we never knew how to solve.” He smiled crookedly. “How would you feel about becoming the host to a breeding hub, alet?”
“Of dogs? Why not? I’m already doing horses.” Reese grinned at him. “Why don’t we go inside and talk over some hot chocolate.”
“As long you also have something stronger,” the woman who’d spoken to Benneit earlier said. “Because I’m afraid I might need it.”
“Spiked hot chocolate is the best hot chocolate,” Irine said. “Let’s go inside where it’s warm.”
What followed was one of the stranger meetings Reese had ever had. It began with her and Irine and the Hinichi, grew to include Kis’eh’t and Felith, and then the dogs themselves wanted to listen, which inevitably involved Talthien and Shoran. It was a wonder anything got decided, and yet a great many things did. By the end of the talk, the Guardkin had a place to sleep and preliminary duties, Talthie
n and Shoran had their schedules and care arranged, and the Hinichi had asked for and been granted permission to remain for a few days until they could receive a response to their query, because “now that we know, it’s likely other Guardkin may want to emigrate.”
Felith led the Hinichi to their guest rooms while Reese sent word to Ontine that the delegation wouldn’t be back immediately, along with a separate note to Hirianthial about all the craziness that had been going on, and also that she really wanted to see him for New Year’s for Kiss Number Forty. Or Thirty-Nine. Did he remember the count?
She smiled writing that part, knowing that he’d laugh while reading it.
Talthien and the dogs had managed to fall asleep in front of her fireplace despite the commotion—or perhaps in response to it, now that it had abated. The quiet hum and crackle of the fire was enough to lull anyone now that all the talking was over. Reese paused in her work to glance over the top of her data tablet at them: so unexpected to see an Eldritch sprawled, though of course they did it elegantly. Talthien had one arm over Graeme’s dark back, and his white hair spilled over the dog’s ruff in shocking contrast. Moire was bracing him on the other side, resting her muzzle on his thigh. She opened one golden eye to peer sleepily at Reese, then closed it again.
Returning from their separate errands, Felith and Irine stopped at the threshold of her study.
“They’re dead to the world,” Reese said, keeping her voice low. “Or at least, they have been for an hour now. Too much excitement, I’m guessing.”
“It’s almost dinner,” Felith said. “We came to fetch you.”
“I’ll be down in a minute. Just finishing one more note here. The Hinichi all tucked into their new rooms?”
“They were,” Felith said. “Now they are downstairs awaiting the call to eat and talking with the Tam-illee.”
“It’s a big party down there,” Irine added with perked ears.
“That’ll be fun.” Reese set her data tablet down and folded her hands on it. “So... Felith... the senior seal servant was here with the senior manse servant’s gifts. Should I be offended by that? Is there some re-gifting protocol I don’t know about?”
Felith cringed. “So that rumor was truth.”
“It was, yes. You didn’t talk with her?”
“No, milady. And she should have sought me if she had been interested in the role bequeathed to her with her bloodlines.” Felith’s mouth firmed. “The gifts given by the lady on Lady’s Day are supposed to be shared among her people, but yours were very specific. I do not know why she might have taken them, but it seems a discourtesy to me.”
“Like her not talking to you?” Irine guessed.
Reese shook her head. “It’s all right. Maybe she’s not ready.”
“But I don’t understand it,” Felith said. “The senior seal servant… we are about to host the largest social occasion of the year! Perhaps of the century! How often does the Queen’s cousin marry, after all? And Lord Hirianthial, at that… no one expected him to ever re-marry. Begging your pardon, milady—”
The comment did sting, not because she hated to think of Hirianthial’s first wife, but because it hurt to think of him grieving, and hearing about Laiselin inevitably made her imagine his reaction to her loss. Irine saved her from responding by charging into the breach. “You’re saying that someone like that shouldn’t want to miss the chance to be involved with a party that size? Because of how important everyone is. But does everyone know Hirianthial? This place is nowhere near the court, and even farther from Jisiensire than it is from Ontine. It’s not like there’s been much communication here since Rose Point was abandoned, either, so how would they have heard of him? Right?”
If Eldritch could ever be said to stare at someone agape, Felith was doing so now. “Lord Hirianthial is the Queen’s blood cousin.” When Irine’s expression didn’t change, Felith said, slowly, “The Queen has set aside her heir and has not yet chosen another suitable adult to replace her. Until she does so, he is the heir to the throne.”
Irine frowned. Thoughtfully. As if she didn’t find the thought that Reese was engaged to a man who could end up king alarming. Reese wished for her lack of concern. The tigraine said, “I didn’t think men could rule here.”
“Ordinarily not,” Felith said. “And the likelihood of the Queen dying before choosing a new heir is remote, of course. But in the event of that tragedy, the crown would certainly fall to Lord Hirianthial, either directly or in trust for his daughter.”
“That would be Reese’s daughter,” Irine said. “Just to clarify.”
Felith glanced at Reese almost apologetically. “Correct.”
Reese covered her eyes.
“So you see,” Felith finished, “this is not a wedding a woman dedicated to social events should miss.”
Studying Reese sympathetically, Irine said, “I’m betting he didn’t tell you any of this.”
Reese parted her fingers just enough to look through them at Felith. “No one said anything about the heir having been set aside yet. I thought she was going to stay the heir until the Queen replaced her.”
“Alas, such a plan would not work,” Felith said, lacing her fingers in front of her. “You forget, Lady. I have seen Lady Bethsaida. What she is now could not serve.”
Irine’s ears sagged and Reese winced. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…”
“You didn’t,” Felith said. More briskly, she continued, “All the same, milady… the sooner the Queen sees to the royal—imperial now, I suppose!—succession, the better for us all. You particularly, as I know Lord Hirianthial has no such ambitions.”
“No, he doesn’t,” Reese said. “That part I do know.”
“So that just leaves us with the mystery of why Talthien’s mother doesn’t want to run the whole affair,” Irine said, puzzled. “You’d think this would be an impossible temptation. The wedding of the generation!”
“But to a human, and attended mostly by foreigners,” Reese murmured. She sighed. “We need to give her time. And speaking of which, I want to finish this note so I can go to dinner.”
“So many dogs,” Irine said, amused. “Between the Tam-illee and the Hinichi, it’s going to be a swarm of big ears and short tails. We need to invite some catfolk.”
“Luckily, Araelis’s friends will be here in time for the wedding,” Reese said, and waved them out before Irine could dish out the inevitable saucy reply. The last thing she needed was to get trapped in more banter—she was almost ready to go downstairs and be a good hostess. She had just picked up her stylus when Talthien said, low, “My mother means well, Mistress.”
Reese set the stylus back down again.
He flushed. “I apologize. I was listening.”
“And heard most of it, I guess.” Reese sighed. “I’m the one who’s sorry, Talthien. I didn’t mean to talk about your family around you that way.”
Petting Graeme’s fur with an air of palpable self-consciousness, the youth said, “I heard nothing a lady should be ashamed of having said. It is your duty to understand your servants’ problems.”
Which was no doubt why he’d brought Shoran’s joints to her attention. It was as obvious an opening as any she’d heard from an Eldritch; Talthien was too young, maybe, to have graduated to the subtlety—or nebulosity—of his elders. “Do you know why your mother brought the heaters instead of the senior manse servant?”
Again, that blush, incongruously like rouge against salt-white skin. “She thinks if someone is to have any interaction with the castle, Mistress, it should be her.”
Sensing the unfinished statement, Reese prompted, “Because?”
“Because she thinks the others are too eager to throw in with you.” He lifted his chin. “I heard her fighting with Sela about it.”
Reese nodded slowly. “So she wants to be the buffer between them and me. So that they don’t get too attached.”
“Yes.” He looked down at the fur under his hand. Hesitantly, he said, “Have
you ever wanted a thing, Mistress, and then received it but not the way you wanted it? And then you couldn’t figure out how to be glad, or how to accept it anyway?”
“And your mother has wanted to be the seal servant to an Eldritch noblewoman all her life, but now that she has her chance it’s with a woman who’s not an Eldritch, not a noblewoman by her standards, and going to die in a hundred years?”
He winced, and Graeme lifted his head, rotating his ears.
“It’s all right,” Reese said, more quietly. “I understand what she’s going through. I’ve gotten a lot of things in my life that I wasn’t sure whether to be thankful for either. And this is important, Talthien: I’m not upset at your mother for not rushing in with open arms.”
“You’re not now,” he said. “I don’t know how you’ll feel when I tell her I’m not leaving the castle anymore and she becomes wroth.”
Reese grinned. “Well. Kids do move out eventually.”
“Eldritch children don’t,” he muttered. And got a tongue-swipe over his jaw that made him yelp. He pushed at Graeme’s head and said, indignant, “I am not being sulky.”
Behind Talthien’s back, Moire raised the furred ridges over her eyes: they had little comma-shaped marks over them, white on the golden fur, and it made the motion more obvious. If the dog could have rolled her eyes, she probably would have.
The laugh she smothered—Reese probably deserved a medal for it. “You’re fine, Talthien. You’ve got a lot of work ahead of you and I know you’ll do it well. Particularly since you’ve got good help—that’s you two, Graeme, Moire, in case you’re wondering. And we’ll get started on that work now by going down to eat.”
“I get to eat dinner here?” Talthien said, excited. “But… with you? I thought the servants ate apart?”
“Maybe one day they will, if we have so many they need to work in shifts,” Reese said. “But for now, we’re all eating at the same table. And you might as well get Shoran too. If we’re doing to do culture shock, we might as well do it right.”
A Rose Point Holiday Page 15
