The Makers of Light (22 page)

"Are you cold?" It was hard to keep his voice normal.

"Why are you asking?" She raised herself on an elbow, watching him, seemingly unaware of how that position stressed the contours of her body. An inexperienced-looking—unwitting perhaps—torturer.

He narrowed his eyes at her. "Let us say that it is because of almost losing you to coldness yesterday, then not finding you in your suite where for some reason you decided to lock yourself last night, and finally finding you here, quite undressed and presently trembling."

He stood, opening the bottommost left drawer of the big dresser jerkily, thrusting the blanket he had grabbed into her lap. "You could take care of a whole House and a Ber's wounded wild animal yesterday, why can't you take care of
yourself?
"

She looked at him, gripping something, a glass of water that had been at the table beside her, and for a moment he thought she might throw it at him. For a moment, he wished that she would, that she might anger him enough for him to grab her and have his way with her.

She did not throw the glass at all, only kept it in her hand, watching it, her face stiller and her eyes shinier than before. Well, wonderful. He had managed to not lose his temper with so many clueless fools these days—he had kept it with the Ber book—but he kept losing it with her.

"I am sorry, Linde. I shouldn't have said that."

"If this is what you think, maybe you should have."

She said it calmly; there was no irony in her words. For a moment Rianor was confused as to what to reply to her, and such a thing happened very rarely to him. He did not usually care too much of how he talked to other people or what they thought of him. Those who mattered should not care about how exactly he talked to them, and the others did not matter so why bother? One or two of the women he had dealt with had complained of this "
High Lord's arrogance,
" but those were hypocrites, for they seemed to like it. Not so with her.

"All right, my lady, what do you mean? I already apologized to you. If you expect me to do or say something else specific now, say so. I might even do it."

"What do you think that I meant?" She was silent for some time, then gave him a slight smile. "I think this was enough of an apology. But I meant what I said, my lord. Whatever you think of me, I would rather know it, so, yes, you should say things the way they are."

Was this what she truly wanted? He could give some of it to her. "I think that I am glad to be talking to you and not, like last night, to Desmond. He says you should never speak your mind. And," he sighed. "He is right, considering the world we live in."

She had closed her eyes, but her eyelids flickered when he took her hands in his again, before he wrapped the blanket around her shoulders.

"So, Rianor, is he speaking his mind when he says that one should never speak one's mind, then? If he is, he is contradicting his point. If he is not, on the other hand, what he is saying is useless."

"Assuming that he cannot say something useful while he lies. Anyway, I do not think Desmond would lie to me, so in this case you and I are having an interesting conversation, but it is not of practical value."

They
were
having an interesting conversation. At some point, they had stopped glaring at each other and had started talking of their interests again—although the image of her in certain positions in the chair still interfered with the rest of his thoughts.

He chased the images away, even though it took no less focus than was needed for managing the Aetarx, or for the Ber book. He should not be thinking of how much he wanted her physically. He wanted her more than that—he cared more than that—so he should indeed be thinking of how many of those same interests that they shared he could allow her to continue.

How much was safe.

"I have been going through old fairytales," Linden said. "And thinking about Audric's cryptic message from the Inner Sanctum documents yet again. Did you know that in many of the oldest fairytales, the ones that you don't find in just any bookstore or library, the characters can learn to travel to the world of
Bessove?
However, once they are there, they forget their old lives. What happened yesterday, and what happened in the bathroom that morning after I was in the Inner Sanctum—I think what the fairytales say is true. I think Audric knew it, too, and this is what he has been telling in this message. First, that this world exists, and then—"

"Stop it."

She looked at him, startled.

"I won't risk you any more, Linde. I am serious. Stop reading these things. And don't even think of
testing
how true something you think someone said in some old document is. As if it matters, anyway! Audric knew there was another world—so what? We know it, too, without Audric's help.
We
know how to build mechanisms, while Ber Magic is failing all around, but still we would dig into a Ber book like hungry puppies. And for what? To learn that forbidden books and half-mad messages can tell us
nothing new!
"

"You won't risk me? What if
I
would risk myself!" She wrapped her arms around her knees, staring at him, the blanket presently hiding her figure. "Choice and free will, remember? A woman still needs them, Rianor, even if she lov—" She gripped the edge of the blanket tightly. "I am not one of your mechanisms! I don't even know what you want from me any more!"

No, she was not a mechanism, although the thought was acute in Rianor's mind that life would be much simpler if she were.

"Rianor, it seems I should be looking forward to discussing mechanisms at the Science Guild meeting," she murmured. "Right now
you
would not discuss even mechanisms with me, would you?"

"Discuss mechanisms with the Science Guild? Discuss whatever is the present fad, rather. Nowadays a popular occupation for our overly esteemed peers is the Stratagem game, and most are not even good players—"

A knock on the library door cut his words short. Who would come here so early in the morning, damn it? Usually no one came at all.

"Linde? Are you in the library?" Jenelly's voice, just before Jenelly herself wandered inside. "Clare told me you were here. Oh, good morning, Rianor. I am sorry for interrupting. Linde, will you come to our suite after you are done here? Please leave at least half an hour for me. I told Mira to bring both my new dress and yours to me so that I can help you with it, remember? Clare and Felice are already waiting with Lettie, eager to dress you very, very well for your first day in society. You will forgive me, Rianor? For taking Linde away?"

"No."

Jenelly looked startled, and Rianor brought more control to his voice for the next words, even though what he really wanted was to grab the woman and throw her out of the room. "Go, get dressed, both of you. Jenne, make her put on a coat as well. She is cold."

Linden

Morning 30 of the First Quarter, Year of the Master 706

The snow had stopped falling and was partly melted where the horses and carriages had made tracks in the road. There were many tracks, made by too many wheels. Their own carriage moved slowly, other carriages crawling both before it and behind. Too many carriages were packed together on a road that was wide but seemed presently small, the snow spattering between the wheels and horses' hooves gray and dirty.

There were lanterns hanging high on thick poles alongside the narrow sidewalks—lanterns that actually worked, their light casting yellow gleams over the gray morning. The morning had been white in Qynnsent, a blanket of white snow spread over the roofs, trees, and garden. Here, the whiteness was shrunken, chased away, and even the Sun barely peeked from behind buildings that were crammed too close together and too tall, as if even the Sun knew that this was not its place.

It was not Linden's place. The Fireheart—she had heard so many rumors about it while she still lived in middle-class Mierber. There had been so much yearning amongst her classmates about the fashion stores that could each occupy a ten-story building and whose goods none of them could afford, the personal carriages, the never-extinguished lanterns, the colors, the music, the balls, the glamor of rich women and men. Linden had sometimes yearned for it, too; had yearned for the unknown and unreachable. But now it was gray, and she did not understand Jenne's shining eyes, which drank up the sight beyond the carriage's window. Linden resisted a sigh, running her hand along her forehead.

"Are you nervous?" Rianor, finally looking at her, those words the first he had said to her since leaving the House. She looked at him, too, not responding immediately. He looked different, in a way. He usually had presence that made others defer to him and to anything he had to say, but now it was even stronger. It was if he had put a second skin on himself upon entering this place, and she did not know if he was even aware of it.

"Do not be nervous, my lady." There was something in his voice. It even made Inni snap her gaze away from her embroidery.

"I am not nervous. It is just ... crowded."

"You are from Mierber, right?" Inni, her head inclined at her. "I would have thought you were from some rustic place like Balkaene, Linde, if I did not know that it was not true. Isn't it, like you said,
crowded
where you used to live, too?"

Such a speech from quiet Inni. She and Linden had not exchanged a single word since the night of the fire outage. A speech full of gratefulness, no doubt.

"It is crowded there." Linden had nothing else to say. It
had been
crowded. But it had been a middle-class neighborhood; it was supposed to be crowded. In such a neighborhood there was no space for all the people, so they lived lumped together in apartment buildings. At such a place, you must draw the curtains at night not only because of Ber propaganda. If you did not do it, those living at the other side of the street could see right into your bedroom.

It was not supposed to be so crowded, muddy and blackened, so imprisoning here, in this place devoted to them who stood at the top of the world. Linden looked at her high-heeled, elegant, flimsy shoes. How was she supposed to walk with these on sidewalks where the semi-melted snow splattered from the streets was lumped in piles and froze again, hard and dirty? How was she supposed to cross these streets?

There were moments when the carriages, packed so tightly together that there was no space for a person to pass between them, crawled so slow that it seemed that, somehow, crawling in a long line had become the sole purpose of life; that they would never arrive but it did not matter, for there was no place to go. Then, at other moments, speed picked up until motion seemed to become a war, each carriage fighting for its tiny strip of road, the air smelling of horse sweat and ringing with the sound of hooves beating and the screech of wheels.

But Linden was not supposed to walk or cross the streets. She was supposed to ignore the worry settling in her chest, and to smile and nod to the driver when their own carriage finally stopped before some tower made of shiny glass and metal. Even though the path was cleaned before the carriage door, and the building was at most a few steps away, servants scurried to spread a carpet for them to walk on.

Rianor helped her down the carriage steps, almost carried her in fact, and he did the same for Inni and Jenne. Desmond got down by himself, even though he was still limping slightly. At least Desmond and Rianor had comfortable boots. The men seemed to have it easier in this prison. So did the guards—men and women both—three of whom had come with them, one having ridden in the carriage and two out with the driver.

And a prison was what it was. A beautiful prison, perhaps, for it was quiet once they were inside, and the light of the large, sparkling-clean chandeliers was bright. Linden tried to look behind them, to see where they connected to the walls, but they were arranged in such a manner that she could not, and it seemed that someone had put special effort into this. It was as if those walking in this hall should forget that firepipes criss-crossed the walls; at least, people should not make the connection between pipes and chandeliers.

The paintings, too, were bright on the walls, the colors blending to form flowers and parks and elegant buildings, and beautiful people whose faces showed they had not a single care in the world. "
This is how you, too, should be,
" the paintings seemed to tell her. She should not bother to think that if the pipes failed in this windowless hall, darkness would engulf it fully; that those chandeliers would hang limp and useless, nothing but obstacles to bump into for those who tried to scrabble a way out to the Fireheart and its madness of carriages, weakened and abused snow, and impassable grayness.

If the fire failed here, they were trapped.

"Welcome, my ladies, my lords." A man, smoothly combed, dressed in a neatly pressed suit—dressed like a lord himself, but no one would confuse him for one, for his demeanor was too much that of a servant. He bowed before the Qynnsent party. "We have balcony suites today for our esteemed guests. Would you prefer yours on the first floor, or the fourth?"

"First," Rianor said before she could open her mouth to say the same. "Two overlooking Temple Square, two overlooking the street. Three of our servants are with us now, and seven more are coming in a carriage after us, but do not bother to prepare rooms in the servants' wing; they will use the small servant rooms attached to the suites themselves."

Good, he was thinking what she was thinking, then. Even though the first floor was situated relatively high compared to first floors in commoners' Mierber, it was still low enough for them to climb out if worse came to worst. Having their balconies face both the street and the square would give them more possible escape routes, too, and gathering all Qynnsent people—five nobles, five servants, and five guards—close together at night was the right thing to do, for it made watching out for everyone's safety easier.