Tab demonstrated three attacks and defenses, set the boys to practice, and joined Tinne to watch. “I'm grateful for that Vinni T'Vine,” Tab said. “We'll have more FirstFamily younguns in this class tomorra.”
“You think so?”
“I know this business, boy. The scandal coulda gone either way for us. Wildly popular or deadly empty. Figured most of our regulars who are serious about fightin' would stay. We
are
the best. An' those who treat this as a social club and fitness center, 'bout half of them woulda stayed, half found another place. But with this class”âhe made a sweeping gestureâ“we should do all right.
You
and the place should do all right. We'll still lose people, but if this bunch sticks, the Green Knight should be good for another century. These kids and their children. All a man can ask, to see his business continue.” The Clover battling Laev Hawthorn jumped him, yelling all the time. “These Clovers.” Tab shook his head. “Time to teach the duello to the middle class.” He went to the pair, walking with a renewed spring in his step.
Tinne smiled. Tab and the older generations might think the Clovers Commoners, but Tinne was willing to bet that by the end of that century Tab spoke of the Clovers would have a title. Not just a “GraceLord or GraceLady,” either. They'd move up the ranks to “GrandLord or GrandLady.”
Cratag Maytree crossed to him, gave a little bow. “You and your G'Uncle do good work. Wish I had this training when I was young, but we don't run to such places on the Southern Continent.” He glanced around.
With Cratag's and Tab's words on his mind, Tinne saw his inheritance with new eyes. Hard wooden floors with the occasional scar gleaming under miniature suns that washed the place in full spectrum light. The walls, also wood, of a lighter honey color. Weapons hung on one wall. Mats of deep green. The salon had a certain elegance, appeared as if it had been around for several centuries and would remain for more to come.
Cratag said, “It's good for Laev to know fighting. Think if his FatherSire had a better idea a few years ago, there wouldn't've been a feud.”
“Hmm,” Tinne said. The Hollys and the Hawthorns had been feuding since the current GreatLords were young.
Clearing his throat, Cratag said, “I address the salon.”
“I am here,” an older, raspier Holly voice, Tab's G'Uncle.
“A transfer of funds from T'Hawthorn to the Green Knight Fencing and Fighting Salon for the education of HawthornHeir for the next year is approved.”
“Done,” the salon said.
Another little bow from Cratag. “This is a good place. I have no doubt that Laev will continue, but he'll be an adult soon and should be allowed to make his own choices. I'll leave him in your competent hands.”
“Merry meet,” Tinne said. The formal words seemed suitable.
Cratag appeared a little surprised, “And merry part.”
“And merry meet again.”
Nodding, Cratag left the salon, moving with a fighter's grace that Tinne recognized. He hadn't said anything about patronizing the Green Knight himself. Too bad.
The salon said, “T'Willow scries.”
Tinne caught Tab's gaze, and his G'Uncle jerked his head for Tinne to answer. In the office, Tinne touched the rim of the large green enameled bowl. “Here.”
Saille T'Willow smiled at him, three dimensional from the water droplets hanging over the bowl. “Greetyou. I'm sorry if I am interrupting your beginners' class.”
Tinne was reminded that here was another man who was an ally with him and who would be sending his future children to the Green Knight. Tab was right. The place would survive. “Greetyou.”
The GreatLord flushed. “It occurred to me when I saw the schedule that I have very little training in fencing and fighting. A GreatLord should not be delinquent in that.”
Not when the most common way of settling differences was duels. “No,” Tinne said.
“But I don't want to take a beginners' class. I'd like to arrange personal instruction from you, please.”
“My G'Uncle Tabâ”
“Would wipe the floor with me.” A flashing smile. “He looks as hard as stone and intimidates me.”
“Very well, let's schedule three times a week, two septhours. Twice for fencing and blazer work, one for fighting.”
Saille grimaced. “All right.” He was looking at his own calendarsphere, spinning silver near him. “MidAfternoonBell acceptable? Say on the days of Mor, Midweek, and Koad? I'm finished with my own work by then.”
Tinne scanned his calendarsphere. “Fine, we'll use a private salon here.”
Another brilliant smile from Saille. “My thanks, though I don't think I have any enemies except T'Yew.”
The name jolted through Tinne, scattering his thoughts. He must have paled, because Saille said thoughtfully, “I shouldn't reveal my enemies, should I? But you're my ally, so you have a right to know. And I don't see T'Yew challenging me anyway. He wouldn't hire an assassin, he's too proud. He'd try to hurt me in other ways, manipulative bastard.”
“We'll keep an eye out.” Tinne kept his voice steady, but his skin had chilled.
“Couldn't hurt to know what I'm doing with a sword,” Saille said.
“No.” Tinne made a show of glancing at the door to the main salon.
“I'll let you get back to your class.”
“Thank you.” Though the day Tab Holly couldn't handle six rowdy boys would not come soon.
Tinne stared at the gently whirling water in the scrybowl, and instead of a bright office, saw a dark winter's garden. Saille T'Willow was enemies with T'Yew.
It was something they had in common.
Â
Â
Lahsin walked confidently up to the conservatory door and put her
hand on the latch. She couldn't see much of the inside because the glass was tinted. She didn't know whether the plants had died away or grown into a non-fruit-producing tangle. Whatever had occurred, it was the best place for her to grow food throughout the winter, should she decide to stay that long.
She glanced at the glassed hallway between the conservatory and the main house. She would be entering a Residence. She set her shoulders. In the last confrontation with a Residence, she had wonâthrough sheer underestimation on T'Yew Residence's part and with a wild upsurge of Flairâbut she had escaped.
Staying and living in an angry Residence would be harder. Probably impossible. Good thing she had the clocktower stillroom for shelter.
For an instant she thought of making vegetable beds in the clocktower building but dismissed it. The storage room was the dog's, she might need the stillroom itself with the distilling equipment, and the drying room simply didn't have enough light. She'd spend septhours building plant beds that might not be deep enough.
So she kept her hand on the latch and quieted her mind to
feel
the spellshields of the place. She hadn't studied the protective spells in the walls of the estate yet, only knew they were unusual.
Here the glass was warm from the sun. A once proud place. A conservatory that had been well tended, welcomed people, held blooms and winter fruits and herbs from Earth itself. She caught the echoes of laughing people as they socialized during a party, doors wide open to the beauty of the gardens, sparkling and glowing light spells in different colors adding a festive air.
She breathed in deeply, whispered a little spell, and her Flair followed on the breath. The latch tongue depressed easily and silently and she was in.
The conservatory was warm enough to keep most of the standard native Celtan and the hardier Earthan-Celtan hybrids alive, but the more exotic plants had died. No heady steam or rich scents of tropical flowersâany flowersâgreeted her. But those plants that had survived had grown abundantly, though she was disappointed that none bore fruit. Still, she was sure she could reclaim a bed or two and have vegetables ripening within days. Gardening was her creative Flair.
She closed the door behind her. Hands on her hips, she stood and turned, definitely time to trim hereârip out the weeds growing in a couple of the raised beds and snip off thrusting branches of shrubs and tendrils of vines. And prune the nut-bearing trees.
Around her she saw a forest of edibles, she only had to bring it back into fruition. Relief had her eyes stinging. She sniffed and rummaged for a tattered softleaf she'd put in her serviceable trous pocket. Living here all winter, until spring touched the land and she could go north, was possible. Luck had been on her side.
With that thought, she blew her nose and caught sight of a rough stone plinthâa solid symbol representing the stonemarker of fate itselfâa garden accent.
For a moment she just stood and appreciated the place. She'd worked hard in the Burdocks' sunroom, making it a gem. None of the Yews nor T'Yew Residence would let her use her Flair in the GrandLord's conservatory. She'd had to sneak into an abandoned garden in order to cultivate a plot of her own. She'd only slightly regretted leaving that. Like the rest of the estate, it had not welcomed her, bloomed for her. But here! Her Flair was rising within her, becoming stronger.
Second Passage was to determine what her Flair was, and Third would be when her Flair would be completely free. Her fingertips tingled, and Lahsin thought that her gardening Flair would be confirmed. As for her main Flaired gift, judging from her experiences with T'Yew Residence and here, she was sure that her Flair would be craftingâor disarmingâspellshields. It was a good Flair, and she was growing confident that she would be able to support herself and contribute to society with such Flair. Ifâno,
when
, she was free of the Yews.
Scanning the conservatory and knowing that she needed to get vegetables and salad greens in first, she picked out a couple of beds, went over and checked the soil, finding it rich, perfect. In one of the corners closest to the house was a stand and shelves for tools that looked well used but still good.
She stood still and absorbed the vibrations of the place. Then, for the first time in years, she performed a tiny ritual, speaking to the earth and the four directions and elements to ask blessings for her gardening work, requesting that the plants understand her needs and what she would be doing.
Straightening her spine and setting her shoulders, she got to work. After a few moments, she felt the air change and thought she could sense a rustling around her. The Residence had become aware of her.
She wouldn't speak first.
An oppression came, the odor of rotting vegetation. She breathed through her mouth. The smell hadn't been that strong a few minutes before, not even when she'd opened the door, though she had no doubt there was decaying plant life around her.
Snip. Snip. Snip. She continued her work, though her back tightened. Tension increased.
“Who are you, little girl?” the Residence said.
“Don't call me that!”
The words ripped from her, the fury at all the denigrating remarks everyone had made while she was at T'Yew's. The slights her own parents and younger brother had made more and more often when they'd seen her. And that was rare.
A glass tinkling sound caught her attention. She stared down, appalled, as the small pruners in her hand rattled against the outside wall. Not only her hand shook. Her whole body trembled with fury.
It ate her inside. She hadn't known she could be this angry, and that frightened her. Hadn't she heard somewhere that strong negative emotions were bad during Passage? The low tones of a discussion between Taxa and T'Yew refreshed her memory.
“The girl doesn't care for you, Father,” A smirk from Taxa.
T'Yew shrugs. “No matter.”
Taxa's little plucked and pointed brows rise. “We don't want harm to come to her during Passage.”
T'Yew's mouth curves in a cruel smile Lahsin dreads. “I'll take care of that.”
Lahsin shivers. She's looking through the crack in the door from T'Yew's bedroom to his sitting room. He'll drug her again.
Sharp words from Taxa, including
drugs.
Lahsin catches the last of it. “
â
more she's drugged the less her Flair can rise, and isn't this whole matter about using her Flair?”
Lahsin scuttles to the bathroom to be sick. Taxa knows, they all know, that T'Yew also wants a son.
Lahsin staggered a couple of steps to a workbench and dropped down. Her pruners fell from limp fingers. She'd never go back. She'd die before she went back. No. She'd
fight
and die before she ever returned to the Yews.
But meanwhile the weight of her Second Passage lurked in the back of her mind, sent initial sparks of warning through her blood.
She was running from the Yews and the Burdocks and everyone outside now, but would eventually have to face them.
Her other battle, Second Passage, was here inside her, would take place in this garden, Lady and Lord willing. She'd have to survive that, too.
A voice like a cranky grandfather boomed. “What, you rustle around in my places like a mouse and don't think I will notice?”
Lahsin flinched. She sat up straight. “I thought FirstGrove was for the desperate. I'm here. It's winter. So you should be able to put those pieces together.” She leaned down and picked up the pruners. “I'm a good gardener. It's my creative Flair. I can take care of this place and FirstGrove outside.”
A grumble. The Residence was audibly talking to her. Did that mean it had little power? Or that they weren't linked enough that they could communicate mentally? Or what?