by Jenna Rhodes
Alone seemed best, and she had little fear of walking Calcort, knowing that she could best any ordinary attacker. The unpredictability of her movement meant that the Kobrir would not be likely to be stalking her either, although the evenings would be deadly for her, until his target and intent could be revealed. All the attendees would be mingling and politicking; it would take no Kobrir genius to know when and where to strike at night. It might not be her this time. What would be the fortune in that? She drifted along the city lanes, with only a vague idea of where she wished to go in her thoughts. She expected little in the way of success today at all.
A small child of the streets angled toward her, countenance screwed in a bashful expression, one grubby hand out begging for crown bits while the other frisked her for valuables, till she swung about and caught the thief in the ankle with the pointed toe of her boot. The child’s face screwed up further as if to burst into a loud wail, and she said quietly, softly, “Don’t. I know what game it is you play.”
The child hobbled off with a contained sniffle, and she watched it disappear into the thin morning crowd. She could not even tell if it was boy or girl. It would tell its compatriots of its findings and warn them about her. She’d have to be more wary. Lariel shouldn’t have let anyone get so close.
Calcort showed its layers of civilization as she walked. She could see the core of the inner city, a primitive fortress by her standards, though it must have been substantial in its time, for it still stood despite the centuries although its walls and arches were greatly diminished. Beyond that, she could see where the people of Kerith had built up, influenced by both the Raymy and the Vaelinars, and then the vast, outer rings of Calcort which showed the Vaelinar apprenticeship and tutelage.
She walked the old quarter, where Vaelinar manors had ruled the hills for a very long time, until Calcort itself had become unfashionable, and the Vaelinars drifted away in search of more interesting places. The soft chiming of ankle bells reached her, a music among the growing din of street hawkers, and she followed the sounds.
“How does the stitching look?”
Nutmeg wrinkled her brow as she looked over. “Grace, no one does a stitch like you do. So tiny and precise. It’s fine. It’s more than fine, it’s incredible.”
“It’s good enough that I can stop and take a break, then?”
Her sister good-naturedly swung her foot to poke her. “Why do you even ask? Besides, you’re done, aren’t you?”
“I am. I’ll put it on the form to hang the wrinkles out a bit.” Grace stood, shaking out the afternoon gown gently and then pulling it over the dummy form. She stepped back to inspect her work.
“I don’t see how anyone could not be happy with that.” Nutmeg smiled at the dress.
Rivergrace shrugged one shoulder. “I think it depends on the woman, don’t you? She didn’t seem at all excited about all the affairs. It seemed a chore.” She dipped the form in Nutmeg’s direction, drawling in a flat, unhappy tone, “Good afternoon, milord-stuffed-in-the-shirt. I look quite well today, but I’m really very, very bored.”
Nutmeg jumped up and made a gentleman’s bow. She growled back, “I hardly blame you. All this nonsense, m’lady-pain-in-the-neck. You look beautiful in spite of yourself, however.”
“Don’t, I though? This is a divine little dress made by the most quaint of shops in the northeast quarter. A trifle, really.” Rivergrace twitched the sleeve and sniffed. “I did the shop a favor by bringing my trade there.”
“One does what one can for the common folk. I myself dropped a half a silver crown bit in a beggar’s tray just this morning. I thought the gesture might help this suffocating headache, but there you are.” Nutmeg made a grimace.
“I pity you, sir. No doubt you spent all day waiting for the Warrior Queen to appear? That seems headache enough!”
“Quite, quite. I wasn’t born to keep waiting—”
“Dear me,” said a third, soft and gentle voice from the corner. “Do I really keep people waiting all that long?” The woman stepped forward, dropping her hood from her head, her cloak pooling about her shoulders, its hem swirling upon the floor, her gold-and-silver-flashed hair tumbling free as she did, a gleam in her cobalt eyes.
Rivergrace dropped the mannequin with a squeak, and she and Nutmeg bumped heads bending to pick it up before the newly crafted dress it bore could be damaged.
Nutmeg dropped to one knee as Grace righted the dummy, patting the dress back into conformation and settling it firmly, as her sister muttered to the floor. “Warrior Queen Lariel, I beg your pardon. We meant nothing!”
“Of course you didn’t!” Queen Lariel smiled, her eyes lighting with warmth and a tiny crinkle at the corners. The blues came out, highlighted by silvery splinters looking like sunlight on bottomless waters, and Rivergrace stared, entranced. The Warrior Queen dropped her voice into a conspiratorial whisper. “They are boring, all of them, very. It’s why I don’t come very often in the summers.”
Nutmeg rose, her hand to her mouth, speechless. Rivergrace cleared her throat. “May we help you in any way, Queen Lariel?”
“Lily sent me back here to be measured. It seems I need a gown or two. I hate the thought. It’s hot, and even the rain, when it comes, will be hot.” The Vaelinar beauty gave a sigh.
She paused, her voice lingering on the air, and she stepped forward, hand outstretched to a bolt of fabric in the corner, its slipcover knocked askew by the falling dummy. “How beautiful.”
She pointed at one of Lily’s creations, blue with silvery stars, a gossamer cloth almost too delicate to be thought wearable, and as Rivergrace looked at it, she knew it was perfect. Nutmeg breathed an oooh at the same time. She dashed forward to pull the bolt out for inspection, and began to hold the fabric up to Queen Lariel, words tumbling out like the Silverwing river at floodtide. “M’lady, I have this design if you’ll notice. It will drape like this and then the overskirt goes this way, nearly nothing, forgive me, but your figure is perfect for it, and it will flow but without all the layers the other shops are sewing this year, no heavy petticoats, you see, and—”
“Take a breath, Meg,” Rivergrace cautioned. Her sister plowed to a halt, cheeks bright red.
Lariel stood holding an end of the yardage up to her waist where Nutmeg had placed it and grabbed her hand to keep it there, her expression slightly bemused but still open and warm. “I see.”
Nutmeg stepped back. “Do you?”
“I do. Have you a pattern for that, or is it all in your head?”
“I’ve been working on one.”
Lariel leaned forward slightly. “Might you wait on it? I’d like, for once, not to look like all the other ladies.”
Nutmeg’s mouth hung slightly open.
“An exclusive,” Rivergrace said. “Naturally.”
“Oh! Oh, yes.” Nutmeg closed her mouth firmly. She reached for a brand-new measuring string as Rivergrace took the bolt back to carefully wind the fabric away. She marked it as having been sold as she did, turning back to find Nutmeg measuring the Warrior Queen in a flurry of motion, up and down the small ladder she used, all her uncertainty gone as she talked to herself and knotted the string in its proper proportions. Lily entered the workroom just as Nutmeg finished up.
“Your Highness, forgive me.”
“No matter, Mistress. Your daughters have taken excellent care of me.” Lariel smiled as she settled onto a chair, her gaze passing over Rivergrace for a slight moment as she did. “I hope you have the time to meet my needs.”
“So do I, Your Highness, so do I.”
With understanding smiles, the queen and the seamstress drew close to each other and sketched out wardrobe needs for the summer season, most of the gowns with the understanding the design and fabric would be exclusive until Lariel had appeared at the fetes, and Nutmeg and Grace hung on every word as they talked.
Lariel finished her business and returned to the streets, the sun at its apex, the streets baking with heat. Street urchins swarmed about her an
d swung away, shrieking at each other to leave her alone, scampering off as if she’d earned a reputation for flaying children alive. Her victim of the morning had evidently retold the tale of the encounter a number of times, Lariel’s brutality growing with each retelling.
A voice at her elbow murmured, “Harsh.”
She would not let herself be startled. Instead, she murmured to the tall figure at her flank and slightly behind her, “I expected someone shorter.”
“She feared to send anyone else after you. All the urchins are in dire terror. When I found out the quarry she’d gone after, I knew it had to be you. Even among the Vaelinars, you’re exceptional. You scared the snot out of her.”
“You are an enigma, Daravan. Protecting street gangs now?”
“Only the tiny ones.” He chuckled.
“This feels inherently wrong, you protecting the little one and me battering her.”
“Don’t let it worry you, Lariel. She would gladly have taken your purse and your jewels if she thought she could have. I merely kept her from being beaten when she came back without money to pay for a bed for the night.”
She could not suppress a shudder. “How do we let our young live like that?”
“They are not our young, m’lady. This is not our world.”
“I was born here. It’s all the world I have.”
He grew silent as he kept pace with her, and she realized she could not hear his steps slightly behind her, nor his breathing, but only his words when he spoke. If she looked, would she even see this ghost of a man?
He spoke again, saying, “Consider this. She works for her living, as we all must. After this morning, I believe she has decided on a different vocation.”
She let out a breathy sigh, and he chuckled again. “Now then. Knowing that the Kobrir is here, what are you doing strolling about?”
“Shopping. Jeredon tells me I need a new gown, and that I need to talk to you.”
“My taste in fashion leaves much to be desired. Anything you wore would be poetry upon a woman.”
It seemed this day would be one of continual astonishment. She found herself smiling in spite of worry. “I have word for you, and my brother-counselor feels you might have word for me.”
He took her elbow, his hand both large and strong upon her. “May I suggest a cold drink in a small place, then?” as he steered her off the lane.
The small inn he took her to was not a tavern, in actuality, but a trading goods store, where the manager kept a small bistro for his more wealthy clients, a nook of a room curtained away from his business. Daravan palmed him a gold crown and waved him off after he brought a pitcher of chilled juice and clean goblets, and then Daravan seated Lariel and served her, a wry smile on his face.
“The Conference starts this afternoon?”
“Petitioning does. Everyone likely to be here is.”
He nodded. She put back her shroud and sipped the juice cautiously, unfamiliar with the opaque, faintly green and slightly pulpy drink, and liking its taste. He watched her from the depths of his hooded cloak, his face unreadable, a veiling of his own.
“Bistane met with me this morning, a forewarning. He will ask cessation of the Accords. He thinks it will come to a successful vote before we adjourn.” She watched him over the rim of her goblet.
“In such haste?”
“Yes.”
He reached for his own goblet, pouring a small amount into it and drinking it slowly before responding, “What did he ask for in return?”
“Nothing, yet.”
“You think you cannot muster enough opposition?”
Lariel felt her mouth work, without words, her thoughts in conflict. Finally, she merely shook her head in answer.
“It’s not like you to go down in defeat.”
“Sometimes it’s inevitable, don’t you think?”
“Sometimes.” He put his hood back. Even for a Vaelinar, his features had been sharply chiseled, fine-boned, yet there was nothing feminine about the high cheekbones and prominent brow and straight nose. His gray eyes held many silvers, from light ash to dark charcoal, and his hair looked as if it might be liquid silver. It was said of Daravan that he was one of the first of the Lost, the Suldarran, although she had never had confirmation of that, and if he had been, he must have been awfully young at the time. Yet, if he were, looking at him was a reminder of what they had all looked like once, before Kerith had put its own stamp upon them, thinning out their bloodlines, molding them to fit their new world. “I sense you save yourself for other battles.”
“Perhaps.”
He nodded sharply, returning his cup to the table with a definitive click. “It might be best to let the Accords go, Lariel. The Bolgers are re-forming old war clans. We know the raids have stepped up, but those have been the initiative of a few old bandits. What we face now, however, will not be. They’ve already met one battle and gone down, so they will be scattered for a season or two before they get their spines back.”
“Who did they attack?”
“I’m told it was Quendius.”
“You’ve been listening to tales.”
His hand shot across the table and pinned her wrist. “Do you think I would bring idle gossip to you, of all people? The Kobrir worked for me, getting this information. I do not treat with them lightly, nor should you with me.” He did not raise his voice, but his jaw clenched and his fingers closed like a vise about her. She wasn’t the sort of queen whom it was death to touch, although she meted out her own punishment to the unwise, but she did not move now, except to contain the thrill of pain that ran through her arm. “Listen or regret it.”
“I’m listening.” That Daravan used the Kobrir chilled her more than almost anything he’d said, and she set her teeth to concentrate.
“Quendius is harder to pin down than the wind, but you must find a way to deal with him.”
“Gilgarran . . .”
“Gilgarran died trying to infiltrate the weaponsmith. Don’t make the same mistake twice. And know this as well.” Daravan stood. “The war you face is on three fronts.”
“Three?” The Raymy she had never ceased to fear, and now he told her of civil war coming to her throne. What third front must she battle?
“The Gods themselves will bend low enough to join.”
All warmth left her limbs. She shivered. He stood and shrugged back into his cloak and hood. He dropped a notepaper upon the table, having plucked it from her purse without her knowing, her bill from the dress shop.
“I recommend this seamstress.”
In a swirl of shadow like smoke and little more, Daravan left her sitting. The paper fluttered with his disappearance.
Chapter Forty-Two
LONG AFTER SHE’D LEFT, a faint aroma lingered on the air in the shop, a fragrance which Rivergrace could not identify except that it was slightly sweet yet dry, slightly exotic, and very airy, and distinctive of the Warrior Queen. She wrapped up the measuring string, with all the knots in it specially tied to designate what was being measured, her fingers tracing Nutmeg’s work. Meg had flitted about Queen Lariel like a moth around a candle flame, not caring if her wings caught on fire, herself a spark of brightness as she worked. Grace smiled as she put away the carefully tagged string in a drawer on the long worktable. The joy of the work had swept Meg away. She wondered what it must be like to be caught up in a tide like that.
Even more, as she looked toward one of the mirrors in the room before draping it, she wondered how anyone could ever think she had more than a drop of elven blood in her. There were her eyes, distinctively Vaelinarran, and the curving tip of her ears, and that was all. Yes, she stood taller, but not as tall even as a Galdarkan, and she was slender, but many Kernans and Galdarkans had her willowy build. No, she was nothing like Queen Lariel whose presence was both fierce and commanding, and incredibly gentle. No one could ever mistake a movement of hers for the controlled grace and strength of the Warrior Queen. The realization filled her with sadness and a l
ittle relief. Relief, because the worry her family had had about bringing her to Calcort seemed unnecessary. She did not stand out, no, she blended in with the others of muddied blood, insignificant, with only her scars to set her apart. She was, after all had been said and done, no one remarkable.
Uneasily, she looked at her face one last time as she pulled the draping cover into place. A broken shard of herself stared back, without a shred of comfort in its eyes. It did not reveal who or what she might have been or might become.
Noisy chatter in the other rooms brought her out of her thoughts, as customers came in for final fittings and purchases, and new fittings, and Lily’s shop flooded with warmth.
Sevryn kept his fingers wrapped about a slender cup of watered-down juice that he barely sipped as he circulated about the Petitioners’ lobby. He’d not been in the lobby long, having spent most of the morning and early afternoon among the Vaelinars, and now he moved among those milling about, hoping to catch an ear or two themselves before the session opened. He’d almost gotten used to the agony of wearing clothes, the mere brush of fabric sending fiery jolts through his senses, although there were times when he thought the kedant would drive him insane. Tressandre had not yet made her appearance at the Conference, and he did not relish not knowing when she would.
Lariel had placed her hand on his arm when he’d presented himself before attending. “I won’t act against Tressandre, but there are concessions I can offer in exchange for the information she promised you. Shall I do that?”
He had placed his hand over hers and squeezed in thanks, answering, “My mother abandoned me to search for him. If she found him, he didn’t bring her back to get me. I asked myself, what kind of man is that, who would walk away from his family, and who would keep them from being reunited? No one I would want to know. On this, there is nothing you need do. I am content.”
Now he strode through those of Kerith with open faces, rather than veiled by careful design or fashion, and he searched those expressions he could easily read. He saw the powerful and the power hungry, the observers and the gossipers, the idle and the hardworking. He saw no one from the streets as he’d known them, nor did he expect to, for although this was one of the days when the general population was welcomed to mingle with the Vaelinars, guttersnipes had not been invited. He saw Bregan Oxfort, leaning casually on a cane he really didn’t need, talking with an attractive young woman, although his eyes roamed the crowd as well. She did not seem to notice as she leaned close to him, chest heaving indiscreetly, that his eyes were seldom upon her. It piqued Sevryn’s attention. For whom did Oxfort search? Or was he merely assessing the lobbyists, as was a trader’s wont?
