The Makers of Light (26 page)

Despite the limping, she stepped, almost inadvertently, towards the direction of the temple. It ... called to her. Something in the air around it, something in the spikes on both the gate and the roof, something in the stone seemed to want her to go—and she was not even sure if it wanted only her or everyone, all those gray-black shadows that criss-crossed Temple Square.

She blinked as Rianor gripped her hand harder, and the shadows turned to people with coats and bright umbrellas again.

"I am not taking you there again any time soon, my lady."

For once she did not argue with him that he did not have the right to say where she should or should not go.

The feeling of something else watching them came back now, despite the somewhat appeasing quality of the snow. Perhaps the looming presence of the two temples had brought it back. It seemed to have a little of the temples' presence itself, but it was different. Then it became weaker, and she could almost not feel it—and when she did feel it, she could not feel details, only the general sensation of something watching them.

They walked on, Rianor's hand rigid in hers, his other hand lingering around his belt, while the guards' hands rested openly on their sword hilts. Were there any Militia officers around? They would have crossbows—weapons that were more powerful that knives and swords and that no one but Militia could possess. Not even nobles. But then, if there was fighting, whose side would the Militia take?

The building Linden and Rianor entered was smaller, made of red bricks, unassuming amongst the giants of glass and metal whose large bodies blocked the Sun and clouds beside it.

"This is where the Science and Art Guilds have their meetings." Rianor had noticed her look. "Some say that these two guilds gather in the Fireheart only because many nobles participate in them, but since they are after all Guilds—meaning that not only nobles participate in them—they get a building with a lower status. Others think that those in the Guilds chose the building because of their own eccentricity."

"So what is wrong with the building? Why does it have a lower status?"

He smiled at her, almost teasingly. "Why do you think something would be wrong with the building, Linde? Haven't you noticed things are mostly wrong with people?"

She laughed, almost forgetting that she had been angry with him earlier, and he laughed, too, both of them relaxing a little. Perhaps it was because of the building itself. They were in a small hall that, despite its size, was not suffocating, the paintings on the wall did not feature oversmiling, mindless people, and the windows were large enough that the light would have been enough to not need candles if the sky had been cloudless. A door was open at the end of the hall towards what looked like a room full of books.

"A new bookstore, it seems. I haven't seen it before. We may go in after the gathering if you wish."

"I will be glad." The overpraised Fireheart shopping had failed to attract her—but it would be different if it were shopping for books. Actually, she wanted to go to the bookstore right now; it seemed so inviting, volumes packed tightly on a shelf that she could see even from the hall.

She did not actually want to go to the gathering. The nervousness she had felt regarding meeting other nobles, which had been displaced by anger and resentment when meeting Marguerite, was now starting to come back. Marguerite might be a High Lady and yet she was just a man-cajoling schemer—while these people here would know Science. Amongst them, Linden's knowledge would not make her special. And she had been a commoner before and did not even wear a fancy dress ... She squeezed Rianor's hand again and then hated herself for her weakness.

He squeezed back, but he did not look at her; he seemed focused on something else, but when she followed his gaze she saw nothing.

"What—" She halted as a door opened and she heard music and voices from the other end of the hall.

"Nothing," he said, but it was not so, and she hoped that he was only lying to her because they were not alone.

* * *

There was a ceremony for introducing the new apprentices, full of long words and long, curious looks. The moment Rianor's turn had come and he had presented Linden, he waved Dora closer to her and left the hall, Lazar at his heels. The ceremony was not even over yet.

At first, this was not too abnormal, for many people left the hall a few minutes later, after the ceremony was over, to go either to the men's or the women's chambers. But fifteen minutes after that most of those had come back, and Rianor had not.

There were fewer people near Linden now, most taking their plates and moving towards the Stratagem tables, and she suddenly felt like she had felt many years ago, in first grade, when the other children had put their chairs together and pretended they were all riding an omnibus, with one of the more burly and noisy boys driving it. Then, like now, she had remained in her own chair, at the same time wanting to join them and knowing that she would not fit in.

These people, just like those children back then, were all alike in some way that Linden did not share—and she had the lingering thought that it was all subtler than the grouping provided by labels such as "
noble,
" "
Scientist,
""
schoolchild,
" or "
commoner.
" She had been all of those. And yet she had been neither. She did not feel like any of them.

She resisted looking at the time-showing wristwatch on her right hand. A little earlier, years of habit dying hard, she had raised her left hand and sought it there, earning a narrow-eyed look from one of the women in the hall. A commoner. One of the new apprentices, not all of whom had been fortunate enough to get a lord or a lady as a master. Two of them were female and both were groomed extravagantly and expensively, which made some sense for the banker's daughter, but not for the one who had looked at Linden, whose face seemed to wear a perpetual "
ladylike
" disdain. She was not rich. She must be thinking that Linden was purposely raising her left hand to show the world the other wristwatch—the one that marked her as a lady of Qynnsent.

Well, what did Linden care? She would seem funny to them for looking at any of her watches so often, anyway; funny because she could not exist a few minutes without Rianor. But why was he taking so long? She was starting to worry about him, and suddenly her heart seemed to overturn in her chest when she saw Lazar coming back alone—and then she noticed that Lazar looked embarrassed rather than alarmed.

"M'lady." He lowered his eyes to the ground when she looked askance at him, his feet shuffling uneasily. A few meters away a lord and a lady previously in a conversation became quiet, probably interested in a bit of Qynnsent gossip. Linden abandoned her chair at last, waving both Lazar and Dora to follow her to the side of the hall to relative privacy.

"The lord said to stay with you, m'lady. He'll come back soon." Lazar's big, honest face reddened, his eyes still fixed on the ground. Linden put her hand on his elbow, encouragingly. "What else did the lord say?"

"Nothing, m'lady." He did not meet her eyes.

"Lazar, are you lying to me?"

He met her eyes now, perhaps for the first time since she had known him. A gentle giant, usually quiet in her presence, and extremely reliable on the night of the fire outage, he now looked hurt and indignant at the same time. "No, m'lady! Never! I never lie to the lord, and I'd never lie to you!"

Linden took a deep breath. "Lazar, where is Rianor?" She tried to keep her voice kind, and she mostly succeeded, but the soft, unquestionable command in it was not lost even to her.

"He ... He went to a ladies' retiring room, m'lady." Lazar shuffled his feet. "One of them private ones. But he'll come back, m'lady, he'll come back soon ..." He quieted, not knowing what more to say, and at the first moment Linden felt more sorry for the poor man than for herself.

"I am sure he will." Her voice was low and icy—at least she liked to think of it in this way, to compare it to the state of water when coldness gripped the world and the wind's stinging fingers lashed at all things living. She did not like to think of it as a low, thin, mousy voice—the voice of a creature too small and plain and hurting.

"You did well." She patted Lazar's elbow again and gave Dora a bright smile. "I am glad to have both of you here. Shall we join the game?"

Of course, the two guards would not; they would wait for her where all other guards did, at a respectful distance. Only Science Guild members would play this game, a Stratagem game with a Science twist, as well as any guests they had brought today. No guards or servants, even though some of them might know some Science or be good players. Had those from the Guild ever thought about that? Linden doubted it. The game tables formed a circle, and in the case of a circle there were always those inside and those out.

She might have stayed out, herself, but even there some kind of group had been formed. Guards did watch their lords and ladies alertly, but they talked to other guards and servants as well. Bits of news, House gossip, and personal drama flew back and forth, in the quiet manner of support people who did not wish to disturb their superiors, but still had lives of their own. She had no place amongst these lives.

Linden walked slowly inside the circle, alone, her shoulders straight, her head raised. This was the place to be if she wanted to establish herself, and she had to establish herself now, when she felt as if a rug had been swept from under her feet. Rugs were treacherous. They let you forget how to walk—or they never let you learn.

If he was going to dally with some Marguerite-like whore in a "
private ladies' room
"—that was what these rooms were for at such gatherings; she might be a new lady but she was not ignorant—if that was what he would do instead of being here with her, she was not going to stay aside like a little girl who knew no Science at all, like a High Lord's spurned pet, like a clueless former commoner. She was going to play the wretched game inside the wretched clique. And win.

But it was easier said than done. The others had obviously been playing for several gatherings now, and the game had advanced too much for her to start with a new table. The Qynnsent table, which Rianor had neglected, was presently her only choice. His game city was almost hopeless. So was the one her neglecting lord had shown her to be lord Kevin's, and lord Kevin was not even here. Anyway, even if he were, she had never met him, and she did not feel like joining to play with Rianor's former Science master just now.

The situation seemed hopeless. Linden bit her lip, staring at the board.

"Lady Linden?"

Three women had approached her table. So people were starting to pay attention to her now, maybe because she had walked into the circle. Perhaps they knew that she was waiting for her master no more. The speaker, a tall, chestnut-haired lady in her thirties, was even smiling warmly at her. Dierdre of Maeron. She had not been smiling on the picture in the
Science Guild Records
book that Linden had read; she had looked sharp and determined. Inadvertently, Linden thought of Clare's story, of what House Maeron together with House Kadisha had done to Clare's homeland. None of the Houses had ever taken the blame—but then, winners in wars never did, and losers did not have a choice of what they would or would not take.

Wars were supposed to be long gone. But this game, even the gathering itself, was in its own way a war, and a person being sharp and determined, even intelligent, did not mean the person was
nice
—even though this particular lady did not look bad. But then, Rianor had not looked like a woman-crazed male, either.

Or, had he not?

"Pleased to meet you, lady Dierdre. Lady Miriam, Miss Jade." Miriam was of Kadisha. What a pair.

"Your city seems a bit troubled, my lady." Jade, the non-rich exquisite commoner, had infused the honorific with the same level of respect and warm feeling Linden had once used when calling the man at the firewell "
lord Ber.
" Linden suppressed a shudder. Yes, war.
I would have envied you, too, if it were you who had become the lady. But perhaps I would not have tried to kill you with a look. I would have thought twice about this décolletage, too
.

"Rianor has neglected the city badly." Linden's voice was light and friendly. "Well, it is just a game. I can play and see if I can hold it until he comes back."
Pretend. Pretend you do not care.
In some ways nobles were truly not different from high school students, and anyone who had been to high school knew that if you did not care, you might be labeled weird or popular, could be either banished or respected—but if you did care, you were susceptible and weak.

"Oh, do not worry if you make mistakes, lady Linden. The High Lord of Qynnsent will certainly take care of everything when he comes."

But you may want to wait for him, before you exercise your sultry look, lady Miriam. It may wear off if you waste it on me.
She truly had not known that Rianor possessed a flock of eye-fluttering, swooning females. But it made sense. He was handsome and a High Lord. Wretch them. Wretch
her
for not thinking of it.

"Thank you, lady Miriam." Linden said. "I know my lord would certainly take care. But I will make sure there are no mistakes. He is busy enough with me, as it is." Right, stress "
lord
" because of Jade, and "
busy with me
" because of Miriam. She could bite, too. Of course, Miriam would now say something in the spirit of why Rianor was not here with her. At least, Marguerite would have said that; Miriam did not seem as smart, but looks could deceive ...

"Lady Linden." Dierdre intervened before the other two could say or do anything. "I am sure your master would not hold it against you if you did not defend the Qynnsent city for this Stratagem round. We, the Women in Science have our own table, not bound to a particular House. Would you like to join?"