Reader and Raelynx (Twelve Houses)

by Sharon Shinn

  “Not very princely,” Valri said in a severe voice.

  “He’s only seventeen or eighteen, I believe,” Senneth said.

  Valri gestured. “Cammon’s only twenty, isn’t he, and he’s far more responsible than Ryne! Or so it appears.”

  “Well, then, let us look at our other options,” Senneth said.

  Cammon couldn’t help himself; he rolled his eyes. He had heard Senneth and Kirra keep up such talk for hours, discussing bloodlines and alliances with an obsessive interest. Amalie caught his expression and grinned.

  “It’s very boring, isn’t it?” she said, leaning over to whisper in his ear. The others could still hear her, of course, and Valri flicked her a look of some annoyance, but the older women continued their discussion anyway. “This very topic forms the chief subject of conversation whenever I’m in the room, and I can’t bear it.”

  “I would think it would interest you, if only a little,” he replied. “After all, they’re talking of the man you’re going to marry. I’d be interested if people were trying to figure out who should be my wife.”

  Amalie glanced at Valri, glanced at Senneth, and stood up, pulling Cammon to his feet. “Let’s go talk of something else,” she said.

  Valri briefly broke off her sentence. “Don’t leave the room,” she said.

  “We won’t. Over here, Cammon, let me show you some of my treasures.”

  They crossed the room to where a tall, cream-colored bookshelf held an array of boxes and bowls. Amalie pulled a box from a middle shelf. It was made of some dark and highly polished wood, and it opened when a hidden door slid out. Inside was a collection of smooth stones in a variety of muted colors, mostly blues and greens.

  “Marlady Ariane Rappengrass sent these to me—aren’t they pretty?” Amalie said. “Sea glass. I was admiring a few stones that she had had made into jewelry, and she said she would send me some. I don’t think they’re very expensive, and that’s one reason I like them so much. Ariane wasn’t trying to impress me, she was just trying to please me. She was just being kind.”

  “I met her last year,” he said. “I liked her.”

  Amalie picked up a handful of the stones and let them trickle between her fingers, back into the box. “Many people find her terrifying. But I like her, too.” She scooped up another handful of stones and let them slowly fall. “She has a son that some people would like me to marry.”

  “Darryn Rappengrass.” The handsome young marlord had crossed Cammon’s path several times when he was in company with Kirra and Senneth. Kirra was particularly fond of him. “He seems like a nice enough man, I suppose.”

  Amalie dropped the last of the sea glass through her fingers, pushed the lid shut, and replaced the box on the shelf. “This little statue, it’s from Mayva Nocklyn,” Amalie said, pointing to a moping child carved in white stone. “I don’t like it much, but Milo told me it was by a famous sculptor and very expensive. If Mayva comes to visit, I’ll make sure to have it on display.”

  He couldn’t tell if she wanted to change the subject or if she didn’t know how to talk about it. “It must seem very strange,” Cammon said. “To have other people making every important decision in your life. Telling you what man to marry. How to behave. What to do. All the time.”

  She met his gaze. Her eyes were velvety brown, thoughtful and guileless. He wished again that he could read what went on behind them.

  “They might be making plans, but that doesn’t mean I will agree to them,” she said. As always, her voice was quite soft, her words almost idle. There was no threat in them, no iron. Yet for the first time, Cammon had a flash of intuition about this girl. She could be as stubborn and unyielding as stone; she could be equally hard to wear away. “I will meet whomever they wish me to meet. I will be gracious to everyone. But if they ask me to marry someone I do not wish to marry, I will simply say no. And that means if Senneth asks me, or Valri, or my father. I will not do it.”

  He felt a sudden keen admiration for this young woman who was both so important and so vulnerable. “They seem to think that both you and the realm are in danger if you do not have the right husband by your side.”

  She smiled. “But I have many people I trust all around me. My uncle. The Riders. Senneth and Kirra. You, for as long as you are willing to serve. I do not feel particularly afraid.”

  He wished he knew how to copy a courtier’s bow. Tayse and Justin could both give stiff little bends from the waist that looked like respect, but Cammon wanted to offer something with a bit more flourish. “Majesty, I am yours to command for as long as you need my service.”

  She had turned back to the shelves and was poking around for other treasures, pushing aside vases and bowls as if seeking something hidden behind them. “And yet, you have not been to see me since we returned from Rappengrass so many months ago,” she said. “We had been such good friends, as we traveled. I was disappointed when you disappeared so completely.”

  He was silent a moment, taken wholly by surprise. “I didn’t know—it seemed—you’re the princess,” he said, floundering badly. “And Senneth told me—she said I couldn’t make too much of friendships struck on the road. It wasn’t my place to come seek you out.”

  She turned to look at him, her expression a little severe. “It was my place to send for you, you mean?”

  “I didn’t say that,” he answered swiftly. “I didn’t want—I’m not very good at realizing where I do and don’t belong. People are always telling me that. I have a hard time keeping straight who is so important that I shouldn’t speak in front of him, and who is just a regular fellow. But even I know that a princess is not just an ordinary girl.”

  She shrugged and turned her attention back to the shelves, pulling things out, looking at them, and putting them back. “I don’t know what ordinary girls are like,” she said. “I don’t think I’ve ever known one. Last year—at the balls—that was really the only time I got to know people my own age.”

  “The queen isn’t much older than you are,” Cammon said, wondering what information he might glean in response to this observation. “And you seem to spend a great deal of time with her.”

  Her face was in profile to him, but he could see Amalie’s slight smile. “Nothing very girlish about Valri,” she said. “I love her dearly, but she is hardly lighthearted.”

  “She seems to feel that it’s important to stick close to you.”

  “She does,” Amalie said, pulling down a book, studying the cover, and replacing it. “It is.”

  “Why?” he asked bluntly.

  She turned to face him again, smiling, but the smile was a mask. “So many reasons,” she said. “So have we settled that?”

  “Settled what?”

  “We are friends now? You will come to see me, and you will not wait for an invitation, and you will not give me any of these excuses about not knowing how to behave around royalty?”

  He felt bewildered but exhilarated, and it was rare that Cammon was bewildered by anyone. “You might find that I am around too much—that I don’t know when I’m supposed to go away,” he replied. “You might find that I don’t know when to stop talking or when you need to be left alone.”

  “I don’t mind telling you to be quiet or go away.”

  He grinned. “That doesn’t sound very friendly.”

  She laughed. “I will try not to be too rude, then,” she said. “At least at first. If you will promise not to stay away.”

  “I can’t stay away, or haven’t they told you?” he said. “Senneth wants me to sit in on all your wooing. So I can tell who’s sincerely full of admiration for you and who has smuggled a knife in and wants to slit your throat.”

  Her eyes widened and she clapped her hands to her mouth as if to push back a laugh. “No, really? I imagine that will make it even easier to get to know all the serramar who come calling. You on one side of me, Valri on the other.”

  He was grinning again. “Why not have Tayse and Justin in the room while yo
u’re at it? The whole entourage.”

  She dropped her hands but she was still laughing. “Well, I suppose any man who’s willing to run that gauntlet will at least have proved he has courage. That would be something in his favor, at any rate. So are you planning to come here every day, or just on the days I’m expecting to be courted?”

  “Senneth thinks I should live at the palace, at least for a while,” he said. “After what happened today—on top of what happened two weeks ago—she thought both you and your father might be safer if I was on the premises.” He thought that sounded boastful and added quickly, “Because sometimes I can sense things. Bad things. I can tell when people have violence in their hearts.”

  All the laughter had left her face. “What happened two weeks ago?” she asked.

  By the Bright Mother’s burning eye. “Something I wasn’t supposed to mention, evidently,” he said.

  “Tell me,” she said.

  She was the princess; she could command him. Besides, Cammon had never seen the value of withholding information. “A man had come to Ghosenhall and was planning to kill your father,” he said. “He’d stolen the clothes and the papers of a merchant from Arberharst who had been granted an audience with the king. I could—I could feel his thoughts and his plans—I don’t know how to explain. So I alerted Tayse and Senneth, and we stopped him.”

  “What happened to him?”

  Cammon grimaced. “I don’t know. The Riders took him for questioning. I don’t know what else they’ve learned from him.”

  Her face was thoughtful. “And they don’t ask you to sit in when they—question—someone? I would think you would be particularly useful in situations like that.”

  He looked away. “No. When there’s too much pain or fear, that’s all I can feel. I can’t block it out. I can’t hear underlying truths.”

  She was silent a moment. Then, “That’s good to know. I would hate to think of you being called in to assist a torturer.”

  He glanced back at her. “I think maybe it’s a weakness on my part. Why should I care if someone who’s cruel or villainous experiences a little pain in turn? But, really, I can’t stand it.”

  “I don’t think it’s a weakness at all,” she said. “I think it’s a strength. But then, my own strengths are peculiar.”

  That certainly invited the next obvious question—What do you consider your strengths?—but he didn’t get a chance to ask. “Amalie, come listen to this,” Valri called, and Senneth waved them over. They joined the other women, and talk about bloodlines and marriages recommenced, and Cammon was once again very bored.

  Or would have been, if he hadn’t spent the entire time reviewing his conversation with the princess. Who wanted him to be her friend. And who considered herself peculiar. And whom he would have the honor of defending by magic at least for the foreseeable future.

  Life looked to be very interesting for the next few weeks.

  IN fact, life was fairly dull for the next few days, but that was mostly because Amalie was nowhere in it.

  Milo, now, Milo had quickly become a fixture of Cammon’s existence. The steward, no doubt alerted by Senneth, came to Cammon’s room that first evening and assessed the clothing that Jerril had boxed up and sent over.

  “No,” he said, and pointed, and a team of footmen carried off every last stitch. They did leave behind one pair of boots, but even those did not impress Milo. “You may wear those, but not inside the palace,” he said. A tailor had accompanied the steward, and he now took comprehensive measurements of Cammon’s body, swore that he could produce a new wardrobe in two days, and hurried off.

  “What will I wear tomorrow, then?” Cammon said.

  “I am having the laundresses wash and iron some uniforms that belonged to men who served here previously,” Milo said majestically. “They will be brought to you. I believe I have gauged your size with at least as much accuracy as you have managed to do when you commissioned your own clothing in the past.”

  Cammon couldn’t help but laugh at that. He could tell Milo was genuinely scandalized, and over clothes! Something that didn’t even matter! “Mostly I just put on whatever happens to be around,” he said.

  “Yes,” Milo said, “so I surmised.”

  It became clear that Milo also planned to control Cammon’s access to Amalie. “Every morning you will present yourself to me—suitably attired—and I will inform you if the princess will have need of you that day, and when,” said Milo. “If she does not, you may consider yourself free until the early afternoon, then check with me again, in case plans have changed. The king would like you to be in attendance at all dinners that feature any guests, which means all dinners for at least the next two weeks. You may eat with the footmen in the kitchen before meals. Someone will bring you bathing water every morning. Make sure you use it. Someone will bring wood for your fire, but you will be expected to make it yourself.”

  And so on. Cammon felt himself quickly growing out of charity with Milo, though he knew Kirra and Senneth both were fond of the royal steward. Then again, the steward had probably never treated them like servants. Well, anybody who treated Kirra or Senneth like a servant would very quickly be sorry.

  The thought made Cammon grin and instantly restored his usual good humor.

  Amalie—or, at least, Milo—had no need of Cammon the morning following his first night in the palace, so he headed down to the section of the palace grounds where the Riders lived and worked out. Despite the frigid temperature, a dozen Riders were in the training yard, practicing swordplay and other skills. Wen was engaged in a furious battle with Tayse’s father, Tir, a dark, burly man still impressively strong although he was nearly as old as the king. Wen had youth and energy in her favor, but Tir was wily. Even without staying to watch the outcome of the match, Cammon knew who would win. There were only a handful of Riders good enough to defeat Tir, and Wen wasn’t one of them.

  “Hey, you want to come hack at me next?” she called out as Cammon slipped between the rails of the fence surrounding the training yard. “I’ll be in ribbons by then, so you ought to find it easy to bring me down.”

  He grinned. He wasn’t much of a fighter—excellent defense, because he had no trouble guessing where his opponent planned to land the next blow, but almost no offensive skills. He had never actually defeated Wen—but then, she had never actually defeated him, either.

  “Too cold,” he called back. “I’m looking for Senneth.”

  “In the cottage.”

  He nodded. “I know.”

  In fact, both Senneth and Tayse were at home, though it was still odd to think of them sharing a house just like any ordinary couple. Most Riders lived in the barracks. The few who chose to marry—and were able to stay married—took up residence in one of the small cottages that fanned out behind the large communal building. Not until Senneth and Tayse had eloped last fall was Tayse willing to set up a household with Senneth. He had preferred her to keep a bedroom at the palace, in luxurious quarters more suitable for a serramarra. But married couples lived together; even Tayse, with his strict notions of class boundaries, recognized that fact. And so they had moved into the cottage, and Senneth had made a few stabs at decorating it, but she wasn’t exactly the most domesticated creature in Gillengaria. Kirra had not been able to stand it. The last time she was here, she had spent a small fortune with Ghosenhall merchants, buying curtains and rugs and sets of china, and so the small house actually had a rather homey feel.

  Cammon wasn’t sure Senneth or Tayse had ever cooked in the kitchen, however. They took their meals in the barracks when they both were present, and Tayse ate with the other Riders when Senneth was needed at the palace.

  Tayse greeted him at the door. “I was just going out to practice,” said the big man. “You want to come along? I’ll give you a workout.”

  “Too cold,” Cammon repeated.

  Senneth joined them. “I could ring the whole yard with flame,” she offered. “Make it nice and comforta
ble.”

  Tayse shook his head. “Riders need to know how to fight in all kinds of weather,” he said. “Don’t want to make them soft.”

  “I can’t think a few degrees of extra warmth will turn any of that lot soft,” she observed.

  Tayse was still waiting, eyebrows lifted. Are you sure you won’t join me? You can never work too hard or be too good. Tayse was not the sort of man who believed in taking advantage of a quiet moment to let his bones go completely idle. A quiet moment was when you cleaned your sword or practiced a new way of throwing your knife. Cammon said, “Maybe later.”

  Tayse nodded and ducked out the door. Whoever had designed these cottages had not allowed for a Rider as big as Tayse. Then he ducked back in. “Any news of Justin?” he asked.

  Cammon nodded vigorously. “They’re on the move. Heading home.”

  That pleased Tayse so much he came all the way back inside. “Where are they, can you tell? How soon will they be back?”

  Cammon scrunched up his face and concentrated. He wasn’t good with actual physical locations, just general directions. He had the advantage of knowing where Justin had started out, though, and that made it a little easier. “They’re traveling pretty fast and going—north, I think. But they’re still in the Lirrens. He still feels sort of fuzzy to me. I’ll have a much better idea once they cross the mountains.”

  Tayse glanced at Senneth, a faint smile on his face. “We should find a way to welcome them home.”

  She laughed. “What, you missed having the Riders throw you a charivari on your own wedding night?”

  “Charivari?” Cammon repeated. “What’s that?”

  Tayse’s smile deepened. “When Riders marry. It is traditional to celebrate the event—”

  “Since it is so rare,” Senneth interjected.

  “With a party that sometimes becomes quite boisterous and continues through the night.”

  “A drunken rout is what it is, and I don’t think Ellynor would enjoy it,” Senneth said. “Though I do think it would be nice to plan some kind of celebration for the day they arrive. If Cammon could tell us when that is going to be.”