Lily smoothed a wing of hair back from her face, catching it up in the knot at the nape of her neck from which it had escaped. “To me, you look quite handsome.”
He tugged at the Town Guard’s tabard. “It doesn’t make me look short?”
“You are short.”
He scowled at Rivergrace. “Not by my family!”
“No, but in a place like Calcort.” She spread her hands without further words.
“Can’t argue with the truth.” He turned to his mother and tugged the tabard one last time before casting a look at Lily. “Do you mind?”
“It seems terribly sudden. They snatched you up like prime steak on a table in a room full of starvin’ people,” Nutmeg said.
“There’s need and opportunity. It was handed to me, and I was told I couldn’t wait long if I wanted it, so I took them almost as fast as they took me. Da told me t’ trust my instincts.”
Nutmeg tossed her head.
Hosmer made a stubborn noise, adding, “Still, it’s what I want to do.”
“Then go and do it,” his mother responded. “We’ve strong backs and many hands still here at home. You’ve already proven yourself, but I think it’s something that runs in you, or it doesn’t. You can’t make a tashya horse out of a mountain pony like Bumblebee, but neither can you make a mountain pony want to race like the wind. It’s either in the blood or it’s not.”
He clasped Lily’s hands. “I hope Da thinks the same.”
“We’re two different people, my lad, but we’re of the same mind on many, many things. That’s how we fell in love and stayed that way. You should be remembering that as you grow older.” With a faint smile, she tilted her head back to kiss him on the forehead. Hosmer was, indeed, the tallest of any Farbranch yet born. “When do you report?”
“In the morn. I won’t be wearing my fine clothes then, of course. It’s training for me, and I hear they’re tough on the new lads.” He grinned then. “Wait till I show them what a Farbranch can do!”
“Wait, indeed!” Lily stepped back, beaming.
He cocked an eyebrow at Nutmeg. “I don’t think I’ll be hearin’ any complaining if I bring home a handsome friend or two for dinner now and then, will I? Since Vevner and Curly didn’t seem to catch your eye.”
Nutmeg scurried off, but not before her rosy cheeks went apple red as she ducked her head. Rivergrace stayed a moment longer to watch the man she’d grown up with as her brother, and he took his tabard off to hand it to her fold as she did.
“You’re thinking, Grace.”
“I know. It seems like yesterday you were taller and faster than me.”
“I’m still faster.” He winked. If he did not get the laugh he wanted, he did get a bright smile. He reached out and gave her a tight hug. “It’s all right,” he said to her, his voice muffled by her shoulder and hair. “I’ve recovered and the past is awful to remember, but this is still something I’ve always wanted to do. Da is the protector in this family, I’ve got to go out and find my own to protect.”
“Is that what it is? It’s not the need for blood?”
“I saw plenty of blood spilled on Beacon Hill. No, that’s not what it is. It’s because I don’t care to see any more, ever, particularly from those I love.” He let her go with a light shake. “A’right?”
“All right, then.” She folded his tabard over and left him alone with Lily while she went to put it in his bureau.
She gazed at her son fondly. “Well said.”
“Meant every word of it.”
“I’ll say no more then, except good luck. I already know you’ll do us proud. I’ll leave lunch fixin’s for you in the pantry, I may already be gone by the time you’re up.”
“And I’m up at dawn!” he said mockingly. “Mom, you work too hard.”
“It’s the party season. When that’s come and gone, hopefully I’ll have paid all the debts and put aside a sum for the slow months.”
“Da will have the brewery righted in another month, I think.”
“He works harder than I do.”
“Then I know where I get it from.” He bent over to lace his boots before heading back to the cider press.
“Tolby was never one to quit, even if he knew he should.” Lily folded her hands in her lap as she sat, her brow creased a touch as she remembered. “If he had been, he would never have won me. I had another courter or two, but he came along and would not give up.”
“Do you think you’ll ever go home?”
“Maybe. I know your da wasn’t ready to give up there, but we hadn’t much choice, had we? As for here . . .” Her hands rubbed each other lightly, soothingly. “I used to think this was where I’d want to be, but I think now that I’d rather plant a sapling and see it grow into a wondrous, blossoming tree than deal with a vain young lady wanting to be pretty for a dance. One lasts for a lifetime and gives throughout. The other seems to be interested only in taking.” She gathered herself then, and stood. “I’ve work to do, and so have you, before the night is dark enough for sleep. Off with you!”
Grace paused in the doorway, knowing she’d heard words between her mother and brother she perhaps hadn’t been meant to have heard. Hard work had caused the joy to fade from Lily’s eyes as she laid out patterns and cut cleverly against the fabric, coaxing garments out of plain cloth, but her time for weaving her own materials had to be shunted aside. And that was one thing Rivergrace remembered keenly about her growing up . . . Lily in the candlelit corner, her loom and spindle moving like a finely tuned instrument in her mother’s hands, the fabric flowing forth like a river of many hues and textures. Lily had wished for a shop and gotten it, and seemed to have found out that her wish and its fulfillment hadn’t been quite the same.
She wouldn’t ask to go home, but sometimes the River Silverwing cut its way through heart as it would carve through soft dirt banks in spring meltdown. She missed it keenly, in all its facets.
Nutmeg touched her, and she jumped.
“Come on,” her sister urged. “We can get a few more candlemarks’ work in tonight, while it’s a little cooler.”
“All right. Let me get my veils.” Grace went to their room and pulled down the prettiest set Nutmeg had designed, stars and moons spinning across its blue gauze in silvery-gold tones. She placed them over her head and face carefully, hands patting them into place, thinking that never had she thought she would have to be concealed so that she could walk city streets. Yet even the Vaelinars looked through her as if she did not exist. How could she be so much of one, and yet nothing of it in the eyes of others?
She joined Nutmeg, her thoughts in silent knots. It mattered little that Hosmer’s threat of bringing fellow recruits to dinner now and then set off a litany from Nutmeg of qualities that would and would not interest her in a lad. She didn’t seem to notice that Grace answered rarely, if at all.
Adeena had the door flung open, and the shop lights sparkled against a cloud-dulled evening. Nutmeg bustled in, but Rivergrace paused on the threshold. She turned her head, listening. A booted step sounded behind her, yet when she turned, she could not see anyone there.
“Derro?” she called softly.
No answer from the street or the nearby alleyway. Had she even heard anything over the murmur of her own thoughts?
“How many more days of Petitions?”
“Are we guessing or do we want an authority?”
Lariel lifted her head from a pillow and glared at her brother across the room.
“An authority,” he ventured. “Well, I overheard Bistane telling Tranta three more. And Bistel has taken leave, putting the representation in Bistane’s hands.”
“The coward.” Lariel groaned, dropping her head back down, pulling the pillow from under it and placing it over her face.
“Oh, faint of heart one!”
“It’s not my heart, but my ass and my head. Both hurt exceedingly from sitting and listening to the arguing.”
“Which is why you rarely attend these Conferences, but your presence is needed. Most of these Petitions came in only because you’re here, and your attention is needed for them to pass or be tabled.”
From under the pillow, a muffled protest. “They can pass laws without me.”
“Not many.”
“Allow me a little more self-pity, if you please.” Lariel reached up and hugged her pillow closer about her head.
Jeredon sat back. He considered the nearby bookshelf which held his fletching and carving supplies. He could finish an old project or start a new one, he supposed, until Sevryn returned. Or he could sit and doze until his sister threw her cushion at him for snoring.
A soft knock interrupted all possibilities. Tiiva did not wait for an answer but looked in, saying, “Pardon, Highnesses. Azel d’Stanthe appears to be neither losing nor gaining ground.”
“Which is a victory in itself,” Jeredon replied. The pillow-crowned queen did not stir.
Tiiva closed the door gently but firmly behind her. “Also, I have obtained some word from the trading guilds. I think,” she added tentatively, “there is a rather large grain of salt to be taken with this. Messenger birds carried in news. Abayan Diort has forced an alliance with the city of Inthera.”
“Forced? Word has it he was born there.”
“They hold no allegiance to him,” Lariel muttered, her voice barely audible.
“I think the guild is painting the news in their favor, in fact, inviting a certain panic, to make markets spike, unless I miss my guess.”
“How so?” Jeredon watched Tiiva, immaculately coiffed and dressed, her gown falling in fold after fold of the richest material, yet never hiding her lithe figure or attributes. He’d often speculated that it would take the entire guild of traders to keep her clothed.
“Tales are being told that Diort brought down a flood on them, cracking the valley dam wide open, and forcing them to their knees. From the storm that just swept through here, and others customarily in the summer, I think it’s more likely that Inthera drowned on its own and caved to his repeated requests for alliance to receive aid. We’ve all seen high summer flooding before as storms sail in from the south. Dams have given way before and no doubt shall again.”
“Discount all of the news but the alliance then.”
“It seems prudent to do so. Such manipulations are far below us.” Tiiva curtsied, deeply, toward the couch and reclining Lariel before waving farewell at Jeredon.
He had his head turned to the door, watching the last of her curvaceous figure retreat when the cushion was flung at him, catching him soundly across his ear.
“Damn Oxfort. We passed that petition of his, and now the guild is driving up prices in a panic, while their toll fees are dropping.”
“Such is business.” He fired the pillow back at her, catching her squarely in the jaw. “At least you can rest easy tonight knowing that Azel seems somewhat anchored.”
“I’d feel more at ease if I knew what he wanted to tell me that he felt he could not pass to Sevryn first.”
“Something so Vaelinar he felt it best not to discuss openly.”
“Don’t be an idiot, Jeredon. I know that. It was also something he did not wish to send by any messenger, as we keepers often do.” She sat up with a sigh. “I’m turning in. Go find yourself a bed.”
And she threw the pillow back at him in a helpful way.
He called after her, “Hopefully, I will find a bed with more curves and less lumps!”
His answer came in the form of a snort from the other room.
She waited until quite sure he’d either gone or fallen asleep, before donning a rain cape and vaulting over the balcony railing to drop down lightly into the street. Rainfall began again, in tiny, misting drops this time, without the fullness or the heat of the day’s storm. With only a slight hesitation, she moved in under the cover of the balcony and waited.
“M’lady. It seems you knew I’d be watching out here.” The deep male voice sounded faintly aggrieved.
“Daravan, you are everywhere. I knew if I went walking anywhere in Calcort tonight, I’d be bound to trip over you sooner or later.”
“That you should wander at all is an ill omen. Don’t think that Kobrir’s job is done, with Azel dying.”
“I would never be that hopeful.”
“What news, then?”
She fell in with him as they moved through the night, Daravan weaving an unseen path for them. She immediately thought of him as a Dark Ferryman in his own element of nightfall. “Azel abides. Neither better nor worse, which is on its own a triumph.” She skipped a small puddle, and his arm shot out to grab her around the waist and pull her to him. Her breath left her a moment as she looked up and could see only his eyes briefly, before he turned away and put her back down on her feet.
“Pardon, m’lady.”
“No pardon needed for trying to help me, but I do pardon you for thinking me clumsy.”
He chuckled at that. “No other news?”
“Only what you’ve probably heard on the street, some outlandish trader guild stories about Diort conquering Inthera. I’ve no doubt he’s brought Inthera in, but doubt he single-handledly flooded them to do so.”
“Wild tales flood like Petitioners’ wine this time of year.
That Inthera has fallen to Abayan’s . . . charms . . . seems likely, however.”
“I agree. I will have to put eyes in that direction although it seems the ild Fallyn have already been looking eastward.”
“The ild Fallyn look everywhere, including under their own beds. But do they see?”
She did not answer immediately. He took her by the hand, his own larger and more calloused than hers; though hers handled weapons as capably as his, she felt herself thinking of her father’s hands, guiding her, a very long time ago. His touch stirred her and she pulled her cape’s hood up to shadow her face as the mist increased to a drizzle. A man did not often possess enough strength to impress her, and not all of Daravan’s lay in his body. An enigma among all the Vaelinars, she knew as little of him as any of them did.
“Azel told Sevryn he wanted to build new libraries, across the continent, and throw them open to any who wished. Our lives would be bared.”