Several moments after the two had left, Chalmyr opened the door slightly. “Lady?”
“You can come in.”
Chalmyr only eased the door open a trace wider. “I thought you would like to know that Forester Loryalt is somewhere east of Krost in the Vyanhills. His chief assistant, Cerlyk, doesn’t expect him back for at least another four tendays.”
“I’d like to have Cerlyk tell me about how things are going in the Forestry Ministry … the first glass of the afternoon tomorrow, before I meet with Envoy Malaryk. If that will be a problem, let me know.”
“It shouldn’t be, but I will, Lady.” There was a pause. “Steward Elwayt is arranging for the pyre for this evening.”
“Thank you … I do appreciate it.”
Mykella walked back to the window and looked out. The day was still gray, and that, unfortunately, matched all too well how matters had gone.
4
After mulling over her meeting with Porofyr, Mykella occupied herself with studying the account ledgers and plodding through what appeared to be a manual on the law and structure of government, as well as refreshing her geography of Lanachrona and spending more than a glass with Salyna, going over the details of running a palace. Late on that Septi afternoon, Maeltor and two Southern Guards accompanied her down to the main level of the palace to the chambers occupied by the Ministry of Rivers and Highways.
Mykella was most careful in going through Porofyr’s study. She found nothing out of the ordinary, not that she had expected to do so; but she did find a missive from a Seltyr Amaryk, suggesting that since Tempre was the principal beneficiary of trade on that route, Lanachrona should cut back brush along the ancient eternastone highway from Tempre to Zalt where it passed through the southern Coast Range. She tucked it inside her nightsilk tunic before instructing the clerks to send Porofyr’s personal effects to him. Was that Amaryk a descendant of the one with whom Mykel had had such difficulties? Does it matter now?
After that, with some trepidation, she headed back to the upper level of the palace to see if Auralya and Salyna had completed moving her things and furnishings into the bedchamber that her father had occupied.
Salyna met her, as if she had been waiting. “I wondered where you were.”
“Seeing if Seltyr Porofyr had left anything I should know. He resigned this morning. He said he couldn’t serve me in the way I wished. What he really meant was that he’d almost rather die than serve a woman.”
“He won’t be the only one,” predicted Salyna.
“I know, but Gharyk will stay, and I can probably handle the Finance Ministry for a while. I don’t know about Loryalt.” She shook her head. “Did you move out all of Father’s personal things?”
“Most of them were already gone.”
“Where are they?”
“Joramyl had them packed up and put in one of the storerooms. I took a quick look. I don’t think anything’s missing—except for the Lord-Protector’s ring.”
“Areyst gave that to me yesterday. You were there…”
Salyna flushed. “Oh … I was. I was … I thought … I don’t know what I thought. You were so calm, both of you. I just thought it was a personal ring of Father’s that Joramyl had taken. He was petty that way.”
Even Salyna had seen it. Why didn’t Father? Mykella wondered if she’d ever know the answer to that question.
“Just like you asked,” Salyna went on, “I had them move Father’s bed to your old room and your things to the apartment bedchamber. I did leave some bookcases. You had so many books stacked in the corner.”
“The bookcases are fine.” Mykella turned toward the rooms that would be hers.
There were actually two doors into the apartments, the main one leading into a hallway off which were the study on the right and the bedchamber on the left. In turn, both the private sitting room and the bath chamber were entered from the bedchamber. The second entrance to the main corridor was from the sitting room directly, but that door had almost always been bolted from inside. The arrangement of rooms was something Mykella would never have praised, but clearly a later adaptation to whatever the building had been before it became the palace.
Salyna opened the door to the hallway inside the private apartments. Mykella followed, her eyes roving over the paneled walls, bare except for the two tapestries that had always hung there and that depicted an idealized version of the private gardens, one in spring and one in the deep of winter.
Mykella sniffed. What was she smelling?
“I had everything scrubbed, and all the woodwork cleaned with lemon oil,” Salyna said, before stepping into the study. “I left the desk and bookcase, but took out the stuffed red deer heads and brought in another nice armchair. It was Mother’s favorite. You always liked it.”
“Oh…” exclaimed Mykella involuntarily as she saw the pair of portraits hung on the wall above the modest writing desk. On the right was a formal portrait of her father, a copy of the one that hung in the gallery of Lord-Protectors on the main floor, and on the left was a portrait of her mother that had vanished years before.
“I hoped you’d like having the portraits here.”
“I do. I wondered what Father had done with the one of Mother.”
“He sealed all of her things up in a lower storeroom. I hope you don’t mind that I brought some of them back.”
“Oh … no.” Mykella smiled, then turned toward the bedchamber.
Her old bed stood there, as did the area carpet from her room, and her other furnishings. In addition to her own armoire, there was a second near-identical one. Mykella turned to Salyna. “Mother’s?”
Salyna shook her head. “Aunt Lalyna’s. It was down in the storeroom, and when I saw it matched yours…” She smiled. “I think they were the set that Grandpapa and Grandmother used. You’ll need more than one, now that you’re Lady-Protector.”
Mykella had to admit her sister was doubtless right.
From the bedchamber, she glanced into the sitting room, noting that the hearth had been cleaned and a fire laid but not put to flame despite the late-afternoon chill, and a blue and cream lambswool blanket had been folded over the back of the settee, as it once had been when she and Salyna had been children. She almost shook her head. The last time she’d been in the sitting room had been with her father after Jeraxylt’s murder. She swallowed and looked at Salyna. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”
“Wyandra helped me move your garments. I tried to put your things back the way you had them. You’ll have to rearrange them, I’m sure.”
Mykella stepped forward and hugged Salyna. “I can’t tell you…”
For several moments, they hung on to each other. Then Mykella stepped back and blotted her eyes.
“Dinner should almost be ready,” Salyna said
“What is it?” asked Mykella.
“Fowl. I told Auralya to fix the normal things, except that you’d never want river trout again.” Salyna laughed. “Was that wrong?”
“No. I could barely choke down a mouthful of it.”
“Neither could I.”
Before long, the three sisters sat at the long cherry table in the family dining room. Mykella had decided against sitting at the end where her father had always seated himself but took the place she had always had since their mother’s death years before.
She half-filled her goblet from the carafe, letting her Talent range over the white wine, but detected no trace of poison. She passed the wine to Rachylana. Her sister took the crystal carafe without a word.
Muergya hurried in with two domestic fowl, each sliced into halves, browned, and still steaming, accompanied by cheese-laced potatoes and apricot-walnut beans. To Mykella’s surprise, the beans were actually warm and the potatoes hot.
“Muergya,” she offered, after a mouthful. “You have my thanks, and please convey them to the cooks as well.”
The serving girl inclined her head—surprised, but pleased—and retreated to the serving pantry.
/> The three young women ate in silence for a time. Mykella hadn’t realized how hungry she had been, but then, she hadn’t eaten since breakfast.
“I met with the assistant to the envoy from Deforya this morning,” she finally said.
“What did he say?” asked Salyna.
“He wanted to know whether the envoy should return to Dereka and whether either of my sisters might be … available to be matched.”
“To whom will you match me?” Rachylana’s tone was quiet, but Mykella sensed the defiance behind it.
“I told him that anyone who wished a match with my sisters would have to meet them, and me, first. Then, you may choose whomever you and I can agree upon.”
“No one will come to Lanachrona.”
“They will.” One way or another. I just hope it’s the way I want it to be. “The majer did not seem terribly put off by those conditions. Envoy Malaryk has requested a meeting as well, and I’ll see him tomorrow afternoon.”
“He’ll likely walk out on you.” Rachylana’s words were tart.
“He may not be happy,” countered Salyna, “but he won’t dare to walk out on you.”
“I heard that you had that captain march Seltyr Porofyr from your study all the way out of the palace,” said Rachylana.
“He tendered his resignation, and I accepted it. As I told him, he is as welcome in the palace as any other Seltyr who may have business here.”
“None of them will…”
Between all the meetings of the day … and Rachylana’s attitude and remarks throughout dinner, Mykella was more than willing to retreat to the private apartments. Yet once she closed the corridor door behind her and walked through the darkness that was no longer the barrier to movement it once had been, she was anything but ready to sleep.
She stood beside the writing desk in the private study, and questions tumbled through her mind. What had she missed? What had she already done wrong? Was she right to trust Areyst? Or were her doubts unreasonable, fueled by her reaction to her father’s excessively trusting nature? How could she ever make Rachylana understand, and what was she going to do with her? What sort of public appearances should she be making? With whom should she be meeting? Exactly how should she deal with the Seltyrs of Tempre, who still held many of the same attitudes about women as did their peers in Southgate?
Some of those questions … some … she might be able to address by using the Table.
Thankfully, she no longer had to travel the corridors of the palace to reach the Table, not if she intended to go there alone. She walked over to the study window and pressed her hand against the stone next to the casement, reaching with her thoughts, her Talent, toward the greenish blackness beneath the palace. For a moment, she could not quite connect with the green before it extended upward and enshrouded her. Surrounded by the green that almost no one else saw, she willed herself into the stone and downward through it toward the Table and into the stillness of the Table chamber.
Almost by reflex, she let her eyes and senses traverse the Table for any sign of an Ifrit’s presence; but there was none, save the lingering hint of purpled pinkness, and she stepped over to the Table and looked down into its mirrored surface. She concentrated on Areyst, worrying about what she might see, since her first uses of the Table had shown her brother and Berenyt in rather personal and compromising positions with various young ladies. The mists appeared, swirled briefly, and showed a silver-tinged and slightly faint image of Areyst sitting at a writing desk in a small stone-walled study that looked similar to the one where Mykella had confronted Commander Demyl. A single wall lamp cast light across the map spread before Areyst.
A goblet of wine stood at the edge of the desk, and the commander took a sip, then set the goblet down and picked up a pair of calipers, measuring a distance on the map, before writing on the paper to the side of the map. Another measurement followed, and another.
After seeing the concentration in Areyst’s face, Mykella let the image fade. Whom else should she survey? Rachylana?
Her red-haired sister sat in an armchair in her chamber, an embroidery hoop in her hands, her cheeks wet. Mykella swallowed, then let that image fade.
Porofyr?
The Seltyr sat at a long oval table with three other Seltyrs, from their garb. Porofyr was talking intently, although his gestures were tight and controlled. Mykella recognized none of the three, and that was good because those at the table did not include Khanasyl, the First Seltyr of Tempre, nor Lhanyr, the Chief High Factor. Even so, it was clear that the four were not happy, and Mykella had few doubts that she was at least in part the cause of that unhappiness.
Maxymt?
All the Table revealed was that the former chief clerk was in a way station on one of the eternastone highways, his face shadowed as he stood back from a common cook-fire.
Treghyt?
The healer was eating at a rough trestle table in what looked to be a small cot that could have been anywhere at all.
Cheleyza?
Her aunt was still seated in a barge that appeared to be moving through rain and rough water. Mykella couldn’t help but hope that Cheleyza was miserable indeed, even as she wondered just how much her aunt had had to do with Joramyl’s efforts to become Lord-Protector.
She straightened and let the images in the Table lapse.
How long would she have to follow them? Until you can do something about them … or know that they can no longer harm you or Lanachrona.
At the moment, none of the those fleeing her were likely more than a day away on a fast mount, and she could travel far faster than that by using the Table … or, rather, the greenish darkness beneath the Tables. She’d already explored the other Tables she’d been able to sense, and all of them, except the one in Dereka, had turned out to be dead ends of one sort or another. But she’d traveled immense distances in a very short time, and she had been able to follow the blackish green lines where they lay beneath Tempre. Could she travel along them farther? How much farther? Far enough to be of use to her as Lady-Protector?
How would she know unless she tried?
She repressed a shiver, recalling how constricted and cold she had felt the first time she had dropped into the dark depths. Then she moistened her lips and let herself merge with the green and black and slide into the gray foundation walls and northward, trying to gauge her depth belowground—by a vague feeling, because she could not see, only sense.
The greenish-black lines or pathways seemed to branch … one heading westward, toward the Great Piers and the river. Recalling how the water weakened her Talent, she followed the branch eastward, which seemed to track roughly the Preserve. That made her more comfortable, despite the chill that crept into her body and bones, because she’d been able to sense the greenish-blackness on her more recent rides through the Preserve, a protected expanse of woods that bordered the banks of the Vedra and stretched a good twenty vingts northeast from the palace.
She was only guessing, but she thought she sensed the riverside hills that marked the northeastern end of the Preserve, and she willed herself upward, trying to sense her way to the clearing on the northernmost hill, from where she could see the river. As soon as she emerged from the ground, she raised her Talent shields. She’d learned the hard way that she couldn’t travel the darkness holding shields, or use shields and a concealment screen, but she didn’t want to stand unprotected in the darkness—even if the Preserve was supposed to be restricted to her use and that of those she permitted there.
She turned to the north, then glanced overhead. Asterta was a full but small green disc not quite at its zenith, while Selena, the larger and golden white moon, had just risen above the trees to the east. To the north, as she had hoped, was the silvered expanse of the River Vedra. I can travel the darkness farther than just Tempre. I can.
Her smile faded as, to her right, she heard a rustling, then sensed two figures walking along the riding path leading to the clearing. Both carried bows slung over their sho
ulders.
Poachers. Who else would be out there in the darkness?
“What are you doing here?” she asked, turning to face them and drawing strength from the green beneath the ground and letting it carry her voice.
Both men stiffened but kept moving toward her.
“Be meaning no one no harm,” offered the smaller man, whose scraggly beard dangled above a ragged tunic, damp in places, doubtless from brushing against wet vegetation.
The taller man—a giant more than half a yard taller than Mykella—stepped forward. “Might be asking you that as well, little woman.” He stopped a yard from her, peering at her. “Pretty little thing you are.”
“You don’t belong here,” repeated Mykella, strengthening her shields. She hadn’t brought weapons, and she really had no way to stop the men short of killing them. “Poaching in the Preserve is forbidden.” Even as she spoke, she realized the naïveté of her words.
“Now … now … the Lord-Protector, he wouldn’t be bothering himself over a red deer or so. Even if he did, he wouldn’t be missing a deer or two, now and again.” The poacher’s huge hands reached to grasp her by the shoulders, tightening around the shields she held close to her—and still lifting her … but only for a moment before her shielded figure slipped from his grip.
Off-balance, she staggered, then stumbled backwards and landed on her buttocks and lower back, still within her shields. She immediately scrambled to her feet. Both angry and embarrassed, she strengthened her ties to the greenness deep beneath the ground and focused light around her, enough so that she could see the startled expression on the face of the bigger man and even on the smaller black-bearded poacher as well.
“You don’t belong here,” she said coldly. “If you don’t turn and leave, you will never leave. Not alive.” With that, she drew on the greenness slightly more so that her entire body rose from the ground, and her eyes were level with those of the poacher. “The Preserve belongs to the Lady-Protector … and the Ancients.”
Lady-Protector Page 5
