Knowing she owed them honesty, Ash
asked herself if that was true. "I think you're right. I've no real
reason to stay in Montmoth, now Genevieve's dead. I've often
thought about going to – going back to Khantar. Once this mess is
tidied up, I'll be the one disappearing south."
Chapter Seventeen
The new quarters were more than
generous: seven rooms to spread Thornaster's possessions among. The
Visel quickly pointed out that Ash had more than tripled the amount
of space she had to keep clean.
"If you think I'm cleaning all these,
you're..." Ash stopped, and then sat down on the trunk she'd just
finished packing. "I expect, so long as you leave occasionally, I
can arrange for you to never be sure whether it's me cleaning them
or not."
That eased the frown he'd been wearing
all afternoon, and he laughed. "You undo me, stripling," he said.
"I'm already too inclined to levity to withstand you."
"Who told you you were too inclined to
levity?" she asked, catching a note of quotation.
"Oh, any of a thousand people,"
Thornaster said, flicking his hand to indicate an invisible horde.
"My father for one. My sister, when she's annoyed with me. My
brother, who has always been more serious than I. My mother tells
me it's my best quality and indulges my whims. Much of the
Landsmeet – Aremal's that is. I've been restraining myself here, so
only Arun and Hawk have of late."
"Which one are you always writing to?"
Ash asked, thinking of the amount of time Thornaster spent at his
desk, covering thick paper in minute script.
"My sister. My mother also, and various
friends and other relations occasionally, but my sister and I have
always been close."
"What's her name?"
"Aria. You will like her, I think. She
has a soft spot for levity."
"You miss her," Ash observed, deciding
to let Thornaster's assumption that she would one day be meeting
his sister pass without comment. She was beginning to see that she
would have to disappear one afternoon when he wasn't looking, to
counter his persistent belief that she was a seruilis for real.
"Yes. Very much." His eyes went
distant, then focused back on Ash. "You may have the rest of the
day free, stripling. Tomorrow I think I shall see about beginning
your lessons in swordplay."
"Do you think I can learn, then?" she
asked, wondering if she wanted to bother, since she'd never have
the time to learn properly.
"I don't know yet. We'll find out
tomorrow."
Ash bowed with a fanciful flourish and
wandered off to the room that was now hers. She had an actual
four-poster bed, which she hadn't had since she'd become Ash
Lenthard. Not to mention a desk, bookshelves and a divan. Four
chests, which completely overwhelmed her clothing. And there was
plenty of floor space left spare, covered with heavy, soft matting.
She wondered what hand the Seneschal had had in room allocation
this time.
Deciding to get some business done, Ash
picked up her book of tales, and then wandered through the palace
until she reached the Rhoi's quarters, where she stopped and
regarded the two Guardsmen outside the door with grave
interest.
"I'm supposed to give this to the
Veirhoi."
There was the briefest hesitation, but,
as she had suspected, the clothing marking her as Thornaster's
seruilis had transformed into a powerful pass. She wondered how
long and how much she could trade on that notoriety. The two men
opened the door and directed a wide-eyed page to lead her to the
Veirhoi's room.
In a drowsy-warm room, propped on a
huge number of pillows, the Veirhoi looked weary, listening to a
plump man lecturing him. Whatever conversation they were holding
broke off mid-word as Ash entered, and the man harrumphed.
"I will return when you are less
troubled, Ser Veirhoi," he said, and brushed past Ash out of the
room. Ash closed the door behind him and turned to consider the
blond boy, who seemed caught between relief and apprehension.
"Lenthard." The Veirhoi's quiet voice
was a study of mixed emotions. "A book?"
"An excuse." Ash walked to his bedside,
sparing a glance around the over-heated room. She dropped the book
of tales by his right hand. "It's rather old and very precious to
me, so be careful with it. If you're feeling enthusiastic, it's a
great way to start learning Khanteck. Give it back when you've read
it."
While he examined the book, Ash crossed
to the windows and pulled curtains and then shutters open. "How you
can sit closed in here on a day like this I don't know."
"Master Tsimon says the cool air is bad
for my lungs."
"So it may be. But this isn't cool
right now, is it? Just remember to get someone to shut them when
the sun falls." Ash considered the exceptionally good view, then
knelt on the low sill and leaned out to check the distance to the
nearest windows. "It's not as if you have a cold anyway,
Heran."
Sitting on the sill, she looked back at
the Veirhoi. His eyes
were
almost violet – very blue, at
least.
"You're supposed to address me as 'Ser
Veirhoi'," he said finally, watching for her reaction.
"Of course, Ser Veirhoi," Ash said,
immediately. She smiled faintly and stood up. "I hope you have a
speedy recovery, Ser Veirhoi. I'd better be getting back now."
Ash headed for the door and had it
halfway open when he said "Lenthard!" Pure exasperation.
She looked back at him, still holding
on to the door.
"You saved my life. Risked your own.
Why?"
"Would you rather I'd let you fall?"
she asked, still holding on to the door.
"Of course not!" He sighed. "Come back
here, will you?"
Obediently she closed the door and went
to stand by the bed. "Yes, Ser Veirhoi?" she asked, the picture of
willing servitude.
"Oh, sit down and call me Heran," the
Veirhoi said, crossly. "And stop making a game of this. Why can't
you be serious?"
"I guess I'm just a little too inclined
to levity," she said wryly, sitting down on a chair by the bed. "I
can think of worse faults to have."
"It's not very helpful," Heran groused.
"I've got to think of a way to thank you for saving my life. It's
an important matter. Having you going all blankly uncomprehending
and saying things to provoke me isn't helping."
"You don't have to thank me," she said.
"You didn't ask me to do it. And your brother already rewarded
me."
"Oh, yes, access to the Rhoi's Library.
Arun would probably have given you a Decselry if you'd asked for
it!"
"I doubt it. Not only aren't there any
up for grabs, but I'd make a particularly awful Luinsel. Just think
of me in the Council of Luinsels – everyone trying to figure out
how to get rid of me, and refusing to talk to me."
"We..." The Veirhoi shook his head,
grimacing. "Point taken. We haven't been treating you too kindly.
But that makes the way you risked your life for me all the more
incomprehensible."
"I can think of a half-dozen motives
for saving your life. After all, I've won the gratitude of a Rhoi
and a Veirhoi, haven't I? It's too awkward for you to ignore me any
more. Even Thornaster's decided to reward me, though if I'd known I
was going to let myself in for swordcraft lessons I might have
hesitated longer."
"Is that why you did it then?" The
Veirhoi was staring at her. "People don't usually outright admit to
cultivating me."
Ash shrugged. "Well, to be boringly
honest, I didn't really consider the advantages at the time. I do a
lot of climbing and I saw a way to get to you, so that's what I
did. There's no point letting the Veirhoi fall off the cliff while
you're working out what you'll get out of it."
"You're saying that jumping over a
ravine is a minor thing to you?"
"The branch worried me. But I've hit
worse situations, roof running. I did have a life before Thornaster
dumped me into the Mern, you know."
"Roof running? You're a burglar? That's
why 'Ash Cat'?"
"No! Though I'll keep the suggestion in
mind. I simply meant running around on roofs. Great fun."
"It is?" The youth's expression was
dubious.
"Yep. There are a few parts of the city
where you can spend most of your time off the ground. Especially in
the Shambles, where the buildings lean together over the streets
and you can pole straight across."
"And this is fun?"
"Definitely."
"I don't think I'd enjoy it. Luin's
Heart, I don't think I'll even be able to stand by my own window
any more."
She shook her head. "That's the wrong
attitude altogether. If you tell yourself you won't be able to cope
with heights any more, you will have a problem."
"Lenthard, you are such a..."
"...know-it-all? Yes, I guess I
am."
"Chatterbox," the Veirhoi finished.
"It's a complete contrast to the way you've been behaving, sitting
quietly in corners. You talk more than Frog does."
Ash grinned. "Sometimes. I have
talkative periods and then I go quiet. It depends on whether people
ask me questions I feel like offering opinions on. And I love
telling people what to do."
Heran looked down, and then back at
her. "I don't know what I would have done if I'd woken up on that
ledge alone."
"Fallen off, I expect," she said,
cheerfully.
"Maybe. It didn't even occur to me to
wonder what you were doing down there, at the beginning. I was too
busy trying to deal with being down there at all. Someone's trying
to kill me."
"I know."
"Arun says there's a high probability
that it was one of the seruilisi. That Marriston or Lirindar or
Vendarri or Frog or Gibrace or even Lauren had the best chance of
shooting Per." He shook his head, violet eyes wide and distressed.
"I told him it couldn't have been Lauren, that there was no way he
could have gotten behind me. And that none of the seruilisi had any
reason
to hurt me. Why would they?"
"Why would anyone want to kill
you?"
"Because I'm Arun's brother. Because
I'm a Nemator." A fisted hand thumped once on the coverlet of the
bed. "That's always the reason for anything that happens in my
life! I can't do this or that or the other because I'm a Nemator. I
must always conduct myself in a certain way because I'm a Nemator.
People like or hate me not for who I am, but because of who
fathered me. Girls chase me because I'm the Veirhoi. Someone is
trying to kill me because of my parentage, not for any insult I've
offered them. If I'm going to be murdered, I'd at least like to
deserve it!"
"You're wrong about one thing," Ash
said, watching this minor tantrum unconcernedly. "Girls don't chase
you just because you're the Veirhoi. They chase you because you're
an extremely pretty Veirhoi. If you weren't the Veirhoi, women
would still toss themselves at you because you've plenty of
looks."
Heran dismissed his features with a
brusque gesture. "That just makes it worse – two reasons that have
nothing to do with who I am at all."
"So you wouldn't romance a girl you
liked if you knew that the only reason she was doing so was your
face and fortune?"
"No! Yes. I don't know." The Veirhoi
sighed. "Why am I talking about this with you?"
"Who knows? There's no point you
looking to me for sympathy over being born with position and good
looks. You could try Carlyon, but he's so proper that the
conversation would be horribly one-sided."
The Veirhoi smile faded.
"Are you going to get upset every time
I mention Lauren Carlyon?"
Shifting fretfully, the Veirhoi winced,
then took a cautious breath and met her eyes: "Why did you act like
that?"
He put enough emphasis on the question
to make clear he wouldn't accept a glib answer. Lauren Carlyon
mattered to him. Ash considered her answer equally carefully.
"I saw Eward Carlyon the day before he
died," she said slowly. "He was especially notorious in the months
before his death because he treated the world like a joke he'd
orchestrated. Like he could do anything. He was riding a monster of
a horse, a vicious-tempered creature which was nipping at other
mounts it passed."
She had been trying out her brand-new
boyish disguise, and the Black Carlyon had been like a bogeyman,
inescapable in his determination to find her.
"There was a boy, eighteen or so. He
was a natural, and most ways deaf. He didn't get out the way of the
horse, which nipped him, and he swung at it instinctively, didn't
even connect. And Eward Carlyon laid his face open with his riding
crop. He did it with such open enjoyment that the entire market
just stopped and stared at him. Stared and didn't dare do a single
thing. Not because he was Luinsel – though his position protected
him from too many consequences in life – but because he was
waiting, hoping for it. By that stage he must have known his
damnation was a certainty, and yet he took such delight in himself.
It was a...disgusting display."
"What did you do?" Heran asked in a
small voice.
"Nothing," Ash replied, closing her
eyes and remembering the way her hand had closed around the hilt of
her knife.
She opened her eyes to find Heran
staring at her worriedly, so she smiled lop-sidedly. "What could I
do? Kill him and be jailed for it? No. The Black Carlyon sat there,
enjoying our fear and our hatred until we all looked away and then
he enjoyed our cowardice as well. Then he left, the personification
of everything that is hateful."
And Genevieve had gone out that night,
even though no one had called for her. In the morning, Ash had
heard that Eward Carlyon had died, cause unknown.
"I had nightmares for months about
that. About the price others might pay for my own inaction. About
whether I was running away, or being sensible, or a true coward.
I'm someone who – I'm forever getting involved, trying to fix
things. I have to make myself
not
step in at times, when it
isn't my business. But the Black Carlyon – in truth, there were
things I could have done. Spooked his horse, for a start. But I was
just plain scared of him.