Vinni sneered. “It’s the first thing the WhitePoplars have done for old Downwind. Twenty-four years after the needful cleanup.”
Avellana, called her mother, D’Hazel, telepathically. Say good night to Vinni and come to bed.
“Their Residence, their rules,” Avellana said. She turned toward him but pulled her fingers from his, then placed her hands on his shoulders and gazed up at him.
Right then his stomach clenched. He wouldn’t get any loving from her tonight.
She wet her lips and he hardened to semi-erectness. “Muin”—and now her voice had gone husky—“I am weary of coming together in dreams or hurried snatched time away from our Families. The next time we lie together, I want it to be in person, and I want to HeartBond.”
His whole body flashed with fiery passion, love turned to violent need. His lips felt thick. “Before our wedding ritual.”
“Yes. I do not wish to wait any longer. So you think on this matter. Decide whether this is what you wish, too.”
After a brush of her lips against his, she vanished.
Thirty-five
He dreamed. Not of his fears or the future, but of the past.
The great hall of D’Vine Residence coalesced around him. Tall white fluted marble pillars, pale-green marble paneled walls.
Him standing on an emerald-green dais in front of a huge ancestral chair that he knew he’d be engulfed by and look stupid sitting in, and he had a six-year-old boy’s dignity.
He wore a scratchy ritual robe and trous of blackberry-leaf green heavily embroidered with gold. A FirstFamily’s GreatLord robe in the latest fashion.
Before him stood his Family, the Vines, ready to come to him and pledge him their faithfulness in their Vow of Honor Loyalty Oaths.
He felt too young. And pale. His mind swimming in visions, his spirit nearly drowning in the grief of his Family because old D’Vine had died. Worse, she’d passed on shockingly, murdered.
Before him, the members of the Family queued and offered their hands and he had touched them and gotten wisps of more personal visions as they recited the oath.
He’d backed up, bracing his backside against the thick chair cushion and parroted the ritual vows, but each time he felt as if a little hook had been set in him. Attached to each and every individual Vine.
Beside him and farther back, next to the sides of the deep chair, stood tall, tall guards, including the old Chief of Guards. Three men and two women, and Bifrona, the housekeeper.
When the ceremony wound down, he recalled movement on his left and right as they came around to say their vows. They looked into his eyes, and with each final Vine, the power within him from the Family multiplied. His young shoulders shifted under the new burden of responsibility as the Head of the Household. Grief laced their voices, washing to him from them . . .
His alarm pinged insistently, dragging him groggily from sleep and the dream.
The Residence said, “You are scheduled to take early breakfast with the Family this morning.”
Vinni gasped a breath, struggled to order his thoughts, then sat up and rubbed his face. “How’s Bifrona?” he asked, though if she’d died in the night, he’d have been informed and the Family and Residence would have gone into mourning.
“She lives.” A floorboard creaked. “I have seen people stricken with syrthio before, and though no one asked me, I anticipate that she will survive to the end of the week.”
“Longer than the Healer said,” Vinni commented.
“Yes. This is her home, where she is honored and loved. She will linger, not wanting to pass on to her next life that might be less comfortable.”
“Oh.”
“I have calculated the amount of time it will take you to review the additional guard reports you requested and believe that will be a septhour and a half, which should leave you enough travel time for you and Avellana to reach the meeting place for her appointment with Tosa WhitePoplar.”
Vinni grunted, rubbed his face again. The dregs of his dream lodged in the back of his mind and haunted him that he’d missed a clue.
A breeze whisked around his suite and flapped the half-drawn shades in the sitting room beyond, causing Flora to mumble in her housefluff bed. “You should prepare yourself for reactions from the Family with regard to your scheduling a new Loyalty Oath ceremony, including a full Family circle ritual and septhours of linked meditation. Both are included as part of a FirstLevel.”
“Thank you for the reminder,” Vinni stated politely as he left the bed and strode into the waterfall room for a shower. Instead of raising his voice, he spoke to his home telepathically. Avellana and I have two options: remove any disloyal Vines or leave.
The waterfall thinned, sputtered, then resumed. I do not want that.
None of us do. I want to lead the Vines, keep our Family strong. With a last rub of soap and a rinse, he left the enclosure. You can tell the others that they should be careful about crossing me. I am not open to discussion about this. It IS an ultimatum.
You usually . . . negotiate, T’Vine Residence pointed out.
Not anymore. He dressed in his most expensive tunic and trous, cuffs of both showing his rank, along with some Family jewelry, also reserved for the GreatLord or Lady—one chain and amulet made in the first decade of colonization. Along with the chain and medallion he’d commissioned for himself, for his stint as leader of the Family.
He didn’t bother to don a casual, generous mask as he so often did.
Let his Family see who he was, at the skin and bone, feel his resolution. Not much masking of his emotions along the Family bonds, either.
He walked into the large breakfast hall that held those who preferred starting an early day, nodded to everyone, but didn’t greet them by name—except the one who pulled out his chair with military precision and stood next to him, ready to serve. Who radiated staunch support.
That did have Vinni’s lips easing from a hard line.
The head chef, large and radiating anger, slammed through the door from the kitchen with a raised spatula and marched to the table. “I served this breakfast especially to speak to you, Vinni. I won’t accept—” He cut himself off as he met Vinni’s gaze.
“Stay or go.” Vinni swept a gaze around the table; he wasn’t quite sure of his feelings when some huddled in their chairs instead of meeting his eyes, but he rather liked it. Power.
Maybe liked it too much. Too bad, if this show of power would protect Avellana . . .
He glanced up at the chef. “If you wish to go, I will have a staffer pack your personal belongings and a guard escort you out.” He felt his eyes cool to blue-gray. “You’ve been a good worker. I’ll give you a reference.”
The man’s mouth opened and closed, then he backed away, pushing the swinging door open with his wide, padded butt.
Someone from the kitchen called, “He didn’t make your favorite foods this morning, and his palate isn’t as good as a cook’s should be.”
Vinni stood, “Who says this? I do not want anonymous complaints.”
The chef sidled into the kitchen, and a thinner, younger man, pale enough that freckles showed against his bloodless face, slid into the room. He looked around at the quiet table of diners, then straightened skinny shoulders as he raised his gaze to Vinni’s. “Ulmi Vine, my Lord.”
Vinni considered the man. “What do you believe to be your best meal, as a cook?”
A red flush washed over his face. “Tea, m’Lord. Formal tea.”
Someone suppressed a giggle.
Ulmi slumped an instant, then stood straight again. “Little sandwiches. Desserts of small cakes and candy.”
“I don’t believe we serve an afternoon tea.”
“Not a formal one, not often.” Ulmi cleared his throat.
“We probably will when I am wed.” Vinni took his seat again and pla
ced his softleaf on his lap. “If you wish to leave this kitchen at this time for a different one in the Family, let the current housekeeper know.”
“Yes, my lord.” He bowed, began to edge back.
“I expect scrambled clucker eggs with pale, spiced cheese and porcine strips,” Vinni said. “Shortly.”
So . . . he hadn’t been all the tough GreatLord. He wasn’t a T’Ash or T’Holly or even young Draeg T’Yew. But as he skimmed the expressions of the uncomfortable people around the table, he felt he’d made his point.
His ultimatum stood.
• • •
After breakfast, and running late, Vinni returned to his private office in his suite where papyrus reports lay stacked—the guards’ schedule and duty list of the last month provided by Duon, and the much thicker sheaf of papyrus from T’Vine Residence. That one showed the whereabouts of every guard as sensed by the House.
Vinni began at the beginning, the morning of the dawn ferry from Mona Island to Druida City that Avellana should have taken, compared the timelines, marked down those not in the Residence, and went on to the next dawn encounter—and those guards who’d been solidly here at the castle.
The Residence had noted brief comings and goings as guards teleported around the castle, in a detailed minute-by-minute time frame.
The morning of the dawn attack at Multiplicity, some guards had gone out to a weekly breakfast at a favored restaurant in Druida City. The Residence, of course, could not tell whether they’d slipped away from that venue to attack Avellana.
His list of suspects grew longer and his jaw hurt from clenching his teeth.
He decided to concentrate on the evening he and Avellana went to the Thermarum Baths. The villain must have had a significant amount of time, perhaps a whole four-septhour shift, to arrange that, even if previously planned. After all, Vinni usually visited the baths after a bout at The Green Man Fencing and Fighting Salon.
His eyes felt raw and gritty, his teeth hurt, and his head pounded when he stopped, went back a few lines, and found the discrepancy.
Duon had the man listed as on duty. T’Vine Residence showed him gone, and when Vinni asked the Residence who had stood guard at the front gatehouse, he got a second name, not the guard Duon showed.
Carefully Vinni rose, his pulse throbbing with his headache.
“Residence, where are our two suspects?”
“One is patrolling the south wall; the other left with one of our Healers to AllClass HealingHall. He remained there, not feeling well. Our Healer has returned.”
“Hmm. Please contact AllClass HealingHall and request they keep him on the premises.”
“Yes, T’Vine.”
“I would prefer to surprise our people with this evidence, perhaps get confessions. Can you stop the other from teleporting?”
“At your command I can drop the stone floor under him several centimeters, distracting him. At the same time, I can call guards to secure them.”
“The floor drop sounds fine. I’m not sure if his friends will secure him. Best to go through Duon and proper channels on this. The guards are his responsibility. We’ll see if he has any additional information that will prove us wrong.”
The Residence creaked a sniff.
Vinni made copies of the relevant information of both conflicting reports, sucked down some pain relief, informed Duon that he needed to see him in the Chief Guard’s office now, and teleported to the main guard tower.
And faced an irate Chief hulking tall behind his desk, with his own jaw muscles bunched.
“Good morning, Chief.”
Stormy grayish eyes flickered with emotion, then the man went even more still. “With regard to that new Loyalty Oath ceremony, are you asking for my resignation?”
Vinni suppressed a flinch as he stepped off the small teleportation pad in the corner. “Absolutely not. I am not here for that.” He blinked, thinking of the objections he’d received on his in-house scry last night . . . which had diminished to none this morning. Duon had sent no message at all with regard to a new first-level Loyalty Ritual.
But as Vinni strode to the man’s desk, he stared at the papyrus sheets in Vinni’s hands and focused on the one he’d written.
“You are here about my guards, thinking one of them betrayed you,” Duon growled. “You continue to doubt my judgment.”
“As I must admit my judgment is poor, too. I’m sorry.” Coolly, Vinni added, “Are you so insulted by my appearance here to speak to you about the guards that you wish to leave this job and the Family?”
“No.” The Chief sank heavily into the old chair behind his equally old desk, his hands loosely on the desktop, but not lacing his fingers. Vinni figured the man could spring up and over that desk . . . or ’port in front of it to him . . . in a split second.
Taking one of the chairs before Duon’s desk, Vinni laid the two sheets on the clean and polished surface. “We have a discrepancy.” He tapped the minute-by-minute report. “An inconsistency between your duty roster and who T’Vine Residence confirms took the evening shift at the first gatehouse on the seventh of Holly. The night someone attacked Avellana at the Thermarum Baths.”
A low rumble still coming from him, Duon stared at the schedules, Vinni’s notes, the names. Through their bond, Vinni sensed when irritation transmuted into distress.
“Residence, project audio,” Duon snapped.
“Yes, Chief of Guards,” the House responded smoothly.
“Plicat, to me!” Duon roared. “Fera, take over Plicat’s duty transnow.”
“Yes, Chief.” Fera’s voice echoed tinnily through the room.
A long minute passed, two. “Plicat!” Duon demanded.
“Coming,” came the resentful word. No one showed up on the teleportation pad, though Vinni knew Plicat had enough power to ’port, particularly if any strong emotion like fear spurred him. Another minute passed before they heard scuffed steps along the hall and the door opened.
The guard, slightly flabby around his middle, looking softer than other top guards, stepped into the room. He holstered his blazer and gave a slightly sloppy salute, ignoring Vinni.
Duon stood, growling. “Salute the GreatLord!”
Squashing a sneer, the man angled to where Vinni sat—and he sprawled out his legs—and gave him an even worse salute.
“Riiight,” Duon said. He tapped his duty schedule with a thick forefinger. “Explain to me why you took the first gatehouse shift on the seventh of Holly.”
A shrug. “A friend asked me to switch with him.”
“Uh-huh,” Duon said. “Yet, pursuant to my rules, you did not report this to me, either orally or by written note.”
Another shrug.
“You know,” Vinni replied, “I wouldn’t have known what I did on the seventh of Holly unless reminded.” As it was, every day of the last couple of weeks with Avellana was etched on his memory.
He did note that Duon seemed dubious. Maybe good guards kept track of days, but he wouldn’t call Plicat a good guard.
Slowly Vinni stood. He had height on the man, if not bulk, was in better shape. “Did you betray me?” he asked softly. “Did you know that Avellana would be attacked?”
Now a real sneer. “So concerned with your fragile lady. Put her aside, T’Vine, she won’t last to be a good GreatLady.”
Fury muzzed Vinni’s mind, but he snapped out an order. “Did you betray me, Plicat?”
“No! I did a favor for a friend!” He marched three steps to Vinni, grabbed his hand, sent sizzling contempt along with truthful memory in vivid color. For an instant, Vinni fell, enmeshed, into the seething resentment, the basis of Plicat’s character. A wavery vision began to form . . . too many futures to be very solid . . . Then the bond jerked away.
“That is enough. You are dismissed for duties for an eightday!” Duon thundered. He sto
od beside them, obviously just separated them.
Vinni drew in a breath. “Be glad Duon saved you from my prophecy.”
Plicat’s face contorted. “I don’ give a fliggerin’ fligger for you, or your presentments, or your weak lady, or this Family! I ’specially won’t give you any fliggerin’ new Loyalty Oath!”
The Chief of Guards loomed over Plicat. “Your wishes, GreatLord T’Vine?”
Duon’s violence at the discourtesy surprised Vinni. He reacted instinctively, inclining his head in a nod, raising his hand. “I will strike you from the Family rolls. Go in peace with the Lady and Lord.”
“Don’ you mean some sort of ‘May your journey be blessed’ like that cross-folk religion woman of yours uses?”
All right. Another deep breath. “Obviously you think I am a weak FirstFamily GreatLord.”
“Oh, yeah.”
“But I have an extreme amount of power to ruin you and your life.” Vinni shrugged. “Go in peace with the Lady and Lord; may your journey be blessed. You are now no longer of the Vine Family.” He ruthlessly cut the bonds, severing Plicat from him, Duon, friends he had in the Family, and everyone else. Felt the echoing emptiness that now filled Plicat, watched the man gasp, double over, and fall to his knees.
Duon and Vinni stared at the sweating guy for a moment, then with a brisk gesture of Duon’s hand, the Vine guard tunic fell away from Plicat and the trous green leg stripe disappeared as the whole material turned an ugly brown. “You’re dismissed. Residence, pay out Plicat’s final salary as of this minute. Make sure the bank knows he’s no longer associated with the Family, and his account should not have any group advantages.”
“Done,” the Residence said.
After another couple of minutes, the now-sweat-smelly Plicat rose. His eyes held a glassy wildness.
“A Vine Family guard is on her way to escort you out,” Duon said. “Plicat No-Family-Name.” The Chief of Guards returned to behind his desk, but since Vinni continued to stand, he didn’t sit. “And I’m asking T’Vine not to give you a reference. I’ll do it, and it’s going to be mediocre.”
Heart Sight Page 35
