Troubled Waters

by Sharon Shinn

  The redhead grimaced. “I am studying mathematics again, because I cannot do my sums.”

  “It’s important to know mathematics,” Elidon said.

  “I don’t know why,” the girl burst out. “My advisors will always tell me how much money I have and where I’ve spent it and why I don’t have any left till changeday.”

  Seterre tittered again, though she pretended to try to muffle the sound. Zoe guessed the daughter resembled her mother in one other important attribute—an inability to curtail her spending.

  Elidon maintained her serious expression. “Ah, but what if your advisors are untrustworthy? What if they are stealing from you? You will only know that if you are able to read their accounts.”

  “If they are stealing from me, I will have them ruined,” the girl said with zest. “All their property seized and turned over to me.”

  “That is a strategy that might work very well for a princess or a queen, but what if you are not sitting on the throne? What if you marry an ordinary man? You might not have the power to order people stripped of their assets. Indeed, you will have to pay much more attention to your own.”

  It was clear the little girl couldn’t comprehend the idea that she might at some point be living in straitened circumstances. She frowned. Across the table from Zoe, Alys scowled as well.

  “Really, Elidon, it is not as if you must prepare her for a life of penury,” Alys said. “Even if she is not chosen as Vernon’s heir, she will hardly be living on some windswept prairie, counting quint-coppers after a meager harvest.”

  “It is the wise woman who fortifies herself against an unexpected reversal of fortune,” Elidon replied.

  Everyone at the table looked at Zoe. Who said, serenely enough, “Indeed, I think it is a very good idea for any woman to know mathematics. And assorted other skills.”

  The redhead bounced in place. “Are you the missing Lalindar prime?”

  Zoe wasn’t sure if she was supposed to speak to a princess before being officially introduced, but Elidon quickly remedied that. “Corene, this is Zoe Lalindar, who has come to visit with us for a while.”

  “You don’t look anything like I expected,” Corene replied.

  “Do I look like someone who can add and subtract?” Zoe asked. Everyone laughed softly at that, except Corene, who scowled again.

  “No. I mean—I thought you would be—well, you don’t look anything like Keeli.”

  “That’s true. I favor my father—although even he was dark for an Ardelay.”

  “Ardelay,” the little girl said. “But none of them—” She closed her mouth and glanced quickly at her mother.

  “They’re not often seen here at the palace,” Elidon supplied smoothly. She gestured at the blond girl. “Josetta, Zoe Lalindar.”

  Josetta bowed very properly, as Corene had not. “I welcome you to our house.”

  “I hope you don’t find me disappointing,” Zoe said.

  “I did not form any expectations about you at all,” the girl replied carefully.

  Well, she’s having a difficult and stressful life, Zoe thought. Trying very hard not to make mistakes. Aloud she said, “I have found that is the wisest way to meet any new person—or situation.”

  Elidon now indicated Romelle, still mincing around the room, singing quietly to her daughter. “And behind you is Princess Natalie—well-behaved, I assure you, only because she has just woken up. As a general rule, she is quite interested in making her needs and her opinions known.”

  “I don’t believe I’ve ever known a child who could throw a tantrum that lasted quite so long,” Seterre said.

  “She is a handful,” Romelle said, looking a little guilt-stricken. “But when she’s happy—oh, she’s just delightful.”

  Elidon must have made some kind of signal that released the other two princesses from waiting on her, for Josetta instantly went to stand by her mother, while Corene drifted toward Zoe. She moved in an indirect, catlike fashion, as if she were really interested in something that was on the wall behind Zoe, but pretty soon she was standing just behind the stranger. Zoe looked over her shoulder to meet the girl’s eyes.

  “What are your blessings?” Corene asked immediately. “Do you keep them on you?”

  Zoe turned halfway around in her chair and extended her arm with its silver bracelet. “Beauty, love, and power,” she said. “What about yours?”

  Corene held out her hands, fingers spread, so Zoe could inspect her three rings. One was copper, one was silver, one was gold. Each was a wide, plain band in which a single blessing glyph had been carved to show the skin beneath. “Imagination, intelligence, courage,” she recited.

  Two sweela, one hunti. No reason to ask this question, since it was so obvious, but Zoe said, “And are you sweela, like your mother? Or hunti like the king?”

  Everyone at the table answered at once. “Sweela.”

  Corene laughed. “But I try to remember that I have a hunti blessing, too, and that I must cultivate the strengths of wood as well as fire.”

  “Balance is everything,” Darien said.

  Zoe glanced at Josetta, standing stiffly behind her mother. “And you?” she asked. “What are your blessings?”

  Josetta relaxed a little. Zoe thought she might have been afraid she would be overlooked—as perhaps she often was when the lively Corene was in the room. “Beauty, grace, and joy,” she said.

  “All elay traits!” Zoe responded. “But your mother is hunti, is she not?”

  Seterre nodded. “Yes, but my mother was all elay, and Josetta is the same. More practical than most elay women, I am glad to say, but still with that sort of ethereal spirit.”

  “I, of course, am pleased to have a child of air and spirit in my house,” Elidon said.

  “And I’m not sure yet what Natalie will choose to be,” Romelle said. “For I am torz, and the king is hunti, but her blessings are hope, surprise, and clarity. She could draw from any tradition.”

  “Maybe that’s why she’s always having a fit,” Corene said. “She doesn’t know who she’s supposed to be.”

  Zoe heard Romelle’s little tsk of irritation. “She isn’t always having a fit.”

  “And it is good for a baby to have so many ways to grow,” Elidon said in a gently reproving voice. “To choose for herself who she will be.”

  As if she could tell everyone in the room was discussing her, and she didn’t like it, Natalie’s sullen face reddened and she began to wail. Her small fists beat at Romelle’s shoulders, and she choked out a few syllables that might have been mama or mine. Romelle bounced the girl in her arms and tried to quiet her, but Natalie’s sobs just increased in volume.

  “I told you she cries all the time,” Corene said with satisfaction.

  “I think she’s hungry,” Romelle said. “Let me take her into the other room—”

  Elidon made a gesture, and two of the servants reentered. So quietly did they move that Zoe hadn’t noticed them leaving in the first place. “It is time for all three of the princesses to be gone,” the first wife said.

  “Not yet!” Corene exclaimed, but Josetta looked slightly relieved. She was already bowing and turning to join the maid while Corene was still protesting. “I thought we would stay until dinner, talking to Zoe Lalindar—”

  “I don’t know why you thought that,” Elidon said calmly.

  Darien was also standing up. “Don’t worry, my princess, you won’t miss anything,” he said, turning a warm smile on her. “It is time for Zoe to leave as well. She has an appointment with the king this afternoon, and we do not want her to be too overwhelmed by all your attention.”

  Josetta had already disappeared, and the second servant still waited at the door, but Corene hadn’t yet left Zoe’s side. “Will you be back tomorrow? Will you be back every day?”

  Zoe was trying to hide her immense relief at the news that she was about to quit the room, so she rose slowly from her chair, as if reluctant to go. “I don’t know what my sche
dule holds,” she told Corene. “But I am sure I will see you often.” She reached the door and bowed at the group. “Thank you for your warm welcome. I look forward to getting to know all of you better.”

  SEVENTEEN

  Zoe and Darien Serlast kept complete silence as they stepped out of the room, down the halls, and back to the kierten at the base of the multicolored steps. There he stopped and turned to face her.

  “And you still see me as the villain,” he said, as if resuming a conversation that had been interrupted by only a pause.

  She smiled faintly. “Because I talked of dispossessing your family?”

  “My father had nothing to do with Navarr’s fall from grace. In fact, as I told you, my father fought hard to have Navarr reinstated.”

  “So you say. Yet Serlasts profited from his exile.”

  “Christara Lalindar was the one who spoke most strongly against your father.”

  She nodded. “That’s who my father always blamed. And my aunt Sarone told me some of the reasons my grandmother hated my father. But I can’t help thinking there is more to the story than a private feud between my relatives and a public disagreement about political treaties.”

  Darien’s face instantly took on that alert and watchful expression that Zoe had decided meant he didn’t want her to ask the next likely question. She did it anyway. “But you know, don’t you?” she said slowly. “You know the real reason my father was banished?”

  He was silent a long time, studying her with narrowed gray eyes. She merely stood there, showing no impatience, willing to wait until night fell or the river dried up or the world itself ended. “Essentially,” he said at last.

  “Will you tell me?”

  He shook his head. “Not unless there turns out to be some reason it is important that you know.”

  “I want to know. That’s important enough.”

  He shook his head again. “No, it isn’t. Not for this.”

  “You promised you wouldn’t lie to me.”

  “I’m hardly lying when I say I cannot tell you what you ask.”

  “Then you can’t be surprised that I continue to think of you as a villain.”

  Now he smiled. “I do not think any of us has foresight enough to guess what kind of turmoil you are going to bring,” he said.

  She showed him an inquiring face. “I don’t know what you mean. I have done nothing.”

  He gestured toward the room they’d just left. “Any audience with the king’s wives is a grueling experience, for they can be jealous and spiteful and sometimes cruel. Even Elidon, who is not by nature unkind. Yet you handled yourself with poise, you did not allow yourself to be intimidated, and you displayed your strengths. I think if they try too hard to provoke you, you will grow tired of behaving with that assumed tranquility. You will be like a squall upon the waters, and none of us will be able to guess how much chaos you might churn up.”

  “Darien Serlast,” she said in a mocking voice, “what a romantic turn of mind you have.”

  “I would be interested to hear your opinions of the king’s wives.”

  Zoe answered readily. “Seterre is a schemer, but a cautious one—she would take petty measures to make someone else unhappy, all the while pretending to be her best friend. Romelle is still young enough, and likable enough, to believe the world likes her back. When she is hurt or disillusioned—as she inevitably will be—she will either become depressed and withdrawn or bitter and loud, though I don’t see her as dangerous. Alys is ambitious and determined—and smart enough to figure out how to get what she wants, no matter what it costs. Elidon—” Zoe shrugged. “Trying hard to be graceful, not always succeeding. She could destroy Alys if she wanted—and she’ll do it, if she ever needs to.”

  He was laughing softly. “All this from an hour in their company! I’m impressed.”

  “I am coru,” she said. “You think that means I am as willful as water, but it also means I am bound by blood. Since I have taken my place as Christara’s heir, I have gained some insights into the human heart.”

  “And the princesses? What did you think of them?”

  “Josetta is unhappy and Corene is unbridled,” Zoe said promptly. “And Natalie probably really is a spoiled brat.”

  He was frowning. “Why do you think Josetta is unhappy?”

  She gave him a scornful look. “Why would you think so? You yourself called a visit to the wives’ wing grueling. She must live there, and she seems ill-equipped for the life. I imagine she is not particularly good at defending herself.”

  “Her mother is perfectly capable of fighting for her daughter.”

  Zoe shrugged. “I doubt her mother is always nearby when the battle is joined.”

  He was still frowning. “Still. If she cannot protect herself when she must, that is a serious flaw. If Vernon were to name her his heir—if she were to become queen—she would need to be fierce on her own behalf. She would need to be strong enough to fight.”

  “Would she?” Zoe said, her voice very dry. “Doesn’t the king surround himself with people who protect him? Help him make decisions? Smooth his way?”

  Darien’s face was instantly alert again. “He has advisors, certainly, who provide valuable counsel.”

  “The king cannot even choose what buckle to wear on his boots unless one of those advisors is by his side. I find myself wondering what other decisions he relies on other people to make.”

  It was comical to watch his face, to see him reconstructing a visit to a cobbler’s shop—two full quintiles ago!—remembering how the king dithered over the purchase and how Darien had helped choose the leather, the color, the decorations. Then his expression became rueful.

  “I had forgotten all about that day,” he said. “I chose that shop to patronize because I knew you were working there.”

  “And here I thought I had been so lucky to be working in the back room when you arrived. I didn’t realize you already knew I was there. But I found it very interesting to watch you oversee the king’s purchase.”

  “I don’t know what you think you learned, but—”

  “What I learned,” she interrupted, “is that you have a great deal of power in the royal household. What I learned is that the king doesn’t even make very small decisions without your approval. What I guess is that the king’s wives are consumed with trying to influence his choice of heir. They know that he listens to you, and that is why they fawn over you and flirt with you and show off their daughters for your approval. But they know better than to rely on one man and one potential avenue to the throne. Favorites come and go, after all—look at my father, once so dear to the king—they know the same fate might befall you as well. So they scheme and whisper and make alliances and vie for position. If one strategy fails, they are prepared to try another. And another, until the heir is chosen and the king is dead and a new monarch sits upon the throne.”

  She came a step closer to him, suffused with a fury she had not realized she had been holding back. “What I don’t know is what you expect of me. Why do you want me in the palace? You say you never expected me to marry the king, but clearly you were eager to introduce me into this volatile company.”

  “I told you,” he said stiffly. “Your father wanted you returned to Chialto and the king wanted balance in the palace. The Lalindar prime should be on excellent terms with royalty. My motives are no more sinister than those.”

  She shrugged. “You see? You’re lying again. And that is why I continue to see you as a villain.”

  “Is that what I have earned myself by fetching you to the city?” he said, speaking with a little heat himself. “A woman who has set herself against me and my family? Is it now your goal to bring down the Serlasts?”

  “Not at all,” she said. “I would like to see you confounded, perhaps—not even discredited, not exiled, as my father was—just stripped for a moment of your arrogance and certainty and steel. You believe I will sweep a storm through these palace walls, but it will be a small on
e, I think. Only enough to knock you off your feet.”

  “I am hunti,” he shot back. “Not easily overcome or thrown off course.”

  She gave him a savage smile. “I didn’t say I expected it to be easy.”

  He was silent a long moment, watching her. When he spoke, his voice was calm. She didn’t think he discounted anything she had said; he had simply braced himself to meet the chaos, whenever it might come. “When I traveled from Chialto to find you, I journeyed through a land parched with two years of drought,” he said. “Yet when I made it to your village, the wells were full, the crops were watered, and there was no sign of privation. It was raining when I arrived, and rain followed us all the way home. For the next two quintiles, the city saw more rain than it had seen for three years. The river swelled back to its normal size, and farmers from the outlying territories reported that their springs and aquifers were once again flowing freely. The drought that had seared the kingdom for two years had ended. Because you ended it.”

  “I—”

  He spoke over her. “Oh, you didn’t do it on purpose. You didn’t even know there was a drought—water followed you like a puppy follows a friendly master, and you never knew a day of thirst or worry. But I knew you were in the city and I knew you were in your grandmother’s house, because of the way the rain and river responded. And now that you, too, have seen how water obeys when you call it, I think you will not be able to resist the temptation to speak its name. And you are surprised that I think you belong in the king’s palace? Where else should such a woman reside? It seems like a very bad idea for anyone who cares about the kingdom to lose track of you.”

  She tilted her chin up; she was irritated again. “I am no danger to anyone.”

  “You have already threatened me,” he pointed out.

  “You deserved it.”

  “And who else, eventually, will deserve it—at least in your opinion? Will Seterre make you angry? Will Corene? It is very difficult to refrain from using power once it comes into your hands. And you, Zoe Ardelay Lalindar, wear the symbol for power dangling from your wrist. I cannot think it is the sort of blessing you will cast off without exploring it to the fullest.”