“He was right to choose you,” Kirra said. “In fact, he had no choice.”
“No,” Casserah said.
And that was all they said on the topic. Then, or ever.
Kirra drew Casserah over to the bed and they sat together under the flowered canopy, as they had so many times in the past twenty years. “So tell me,” Kirra said, “everything that has been happening with you.”
CHAPTER
8
K
IRRA was in Danalustrous for three weeks and was wishing she was gone within two. She couldn’t help it; she could not find the calm within herself to sit quiet in any one place very long.
Not that her time in Danalustrous was quiet. Far from it.
Her very first night back she had to participate in a formal dinner with perhaps a dozen guests attending, so she had to dress like a serramarra and play the grand lady. Easy enough to do; it was how she’d been trained, after all. Her stepmother, Jannis, made sure to praise her lavishly once the meal was over.
“No one would know how much you hate such affairs,” was Jannis’s comment as the guests slipped into an informal parlor to play cards and conduct more relaxed conversations. “You carry it off so beautifully. I think I even saw you flirting with Simon Grelback, and he’s really quite an unpleasant human being.”
Kirra laughed. She had always liked Jannis, a tall, lean, dark-haired woman who was unfailingly practical and almost never caught by surprise. “Whatever grace I own I can thank you for,” she said. “Though I
don’t
thank you for seating me by Simon.”
In the parlor, she made her way around the room, talking with totally feigned gaiety to all of the guests. She made a special point of singling out Erin Sohta, a shallow, sharp-eyed woman who owned a great deal of property and considered herself to have a special relationship with the House Danalustrous.
“Oh, Erin, I don’t know if you’ll think I’m wonderful or terrible once I tell you a little story about a recent escapade of mine,” Kirra said, putting a hand to her cheek with mock concern. “But I think it’s best you hear the story from me. So promise you’ll take it in good part.”
“Why, Kirra, you make me nervous. But surely nothing you did could ever be so bad,” Erin said, glancing around the room to make sure everyone noted that serra Kirra had special news for her alone. Indeed, quite a number of people were listening, including Malcolm and Casserah.
Kirra took a deep breath. “Well, I
hope
you’ll be flattered,” she said. “I was in Forten City some months back—gathering information for the king, you know.” That would impress Erin; that would impress everyone, except her father and sister. “I needed to join a group of nobles who were celebrating a wedding, because I wanted to eavesdrop on certain conversations. I couldn’t go as myself, but I wanted to go as someone both respectable and welcome—”
“And you disguised yourself as me!” Erin guessed, looking quite delighted. “Oh, Kirra, what fun!”
“Actually, it was fun,” Kirra said, allowing a look of mischief to cross her face. “I flirted with all the most handsome men—I’ll be surprised if you haven’t heard from Emory Clay-ton by now—and I danced the whole night through. Everyone told me how much they enjoyed my company. I would think you’d be quite popular in Forten City if you ever went back.”
“And whose wedding did I attend? Can you tell me that?”
“Katlin Dormer and Edwin Seiles. Do you know them?”
“Yes, but only slightly.”
“Well, you bought them a clock as a wedding gift. One of them should send you a thank-you note eventually.”
Erin dissolved with merriment, and Kirra’s father and sister were both smiling. But Kirra noticed that a few of the people listening were not amused in the slightest.
A mystic, taking whatever shape she pleases, imitating honest men and women and—who knows?—maybe disgracing them with her hoydenish behavior.
Not everyone would find such tricks acceptable—not even in service to the king.
But no one said anything to her face, that night or in the hectic days that followed. Casserah and Jannis were deep in preparations for a huge banquet that would be held in two weeks, to which close to a hundred people had been invited. It was at this event that Malcolm planned to make the announcement that Casserah was his heir, and Kirra could hardly say she was looking forward to it. But she did what she could to help with preparations, docilely allowed Jannis and her seamstress to fit her for a ballgown in the color and style they chose, and even submitted to having her long hair trimmed and tamed a few days before the big event.
But she didn’t enjoy any of it.
She also missed Donnal, who had disappeared the day they arrived. He was off visiting his own family, she knew—poor farmers whose close association with House Danalustrous had netted them some monetary advantages and outright ownership of their small plot of land. His father had been gone a long time, but his mother, uncle, brothers, and various other family members were always thrilled to see him on his infrequent visits home, and demanded to hear all the details of his most recent adventures. He would grow restless even sooner than she would, Kirra knew, but while he was gone, she missed his quiet, undemanding presence and the warmth of his body beside her at night.
But he would be back soon. He always returned to her.
After she had been home about a week, her father sought her out, a letter in his hand and a sour expression on his face. “If you’ve nothing better to do, you might ride down to see your aunt and uncle in the next few days,” he said.
She had been letting Jannis’s dresser work on her fingernails, absolutely disgraceful after six months of neglect, but she had been happy enough to forgo that occupation and talk with her father. “Certainly I will, but I thought they were coming to the banquet?”
Malcolm waved the letter. “Apparently not. Berric has injured himself in some riding accident and cannot leave the house, and, of course, Beatrice won’t go anywhere without him.”
Kirra grinned. “She probably didn’t want to come anyway. She hates big social gatherings. I’ll bet she’s relieved.”
“No doubt she slipped a burr under the horse’s saddle to cause Berric to be thrown,” Malcolm agreed. “Nonetheless, they seem grieved at the thought of missing a chance to see you, and I’m sure they would welcome a visit.”
“I am equally grieved at the thought of tearing myself away from manicures and hair stylings, even for a day, but I believe I can make the sacrifice,” Kirra said. “Should we write to tell them I’m coming?”
“I’ll send a note. You are very kind.”
She laughed. “I like them. You don’t.”
Malcolm spread his hands. “There are so many people I don’t like.”
“I’ll leave in the morning.”
And she did, accompanied by two of her father’s house guards, though she protested she could care for herself well enough. Malcolm didn’t bother to argue with her, so she sighed and accepted the escort. She thought the men had been assigned to her more to give her consequence than to protect her, but she couldn’t be sure.
Berric and Beatrice lived close enough to Danan Hall that the trip could be made in one rather long day. Their holdings were small but pretty, consisting of a two-story stone house set on smartly tilled farmland. When she was younger, and just beginning to exhibit signs of the restlessness that would haunt her for the rest of her life, Kirra had spent many of her summers here. There was much more freedom at her uncle’s house, more to explore, fewer rules.
And Berric and Beatrice loved her, though they had never quite forgiven Malcolm. It was their sister he had taken as his second bride, relocating her from their modest property to Danan Hall and then losing her altogether. Beatrice claimed that Bayla would have been content to roam Danalustrous her whole life, periodically returning to the home she shared with her brother and sister, but that Malcolm showed her a different world. Ships from foreign countries, caravans of trading goods from other regions of Gillengaria. She hadn’t realized how big the world was outside of Danalustrous borders, and she had wanted to see it all.
As far as Kirra knew, Bayla had never come back. Malcolm had had her declared dead three years after Kirra was born, two years after Bayla had disappeared. Kirra had always figured that was a convenient fiction on his part, freeing him to marry Jannis. She had not felt much grief for the mother she could not remember at all—but she had, as she’d grown older, felt a certain sympathy. She knew what it was like to be unable to sit still, to find the calm serenity of Danalustrous closing in on her like an iron-bound cell. She was certain Bayla would have discovered the rest of the world on her own one day, even if Malcolm Danalustrous had never come calling.
Beatrice was waiting for her at the door when she and her guard rode up, and Kirra tumbled from her horse to fling herself into her aunt’s arms. Beatrice was short and plump, with hair as gold and curly as Kirra’s, though not nearly as long. She had very comforting hugs.
“Look at you! What a fine lady you are!” Beatrice said, stepping back to admire Kirra’s clothes and coiffure. “I hope we didn’t steal you away from anything too important, but you’re home so rarely and I didn’t want to miss you completely.”
“Oh, I was so
glad
when your message came!” Kirra exclaimed. “All that sitting around being—serramarra-y. It’s about to drive me to lunacy. I can’t imagine how Casserah can stand it.”
Beatrice put a hand on Kirra’s arm and drew her inside. The front hall, like the whole house, had been designed with pleasing proportions and would have been very lovely if it hadn’t been overflowing with shelves and statuary and knick-knacks. Beatrice loved
things
, from books to chairs to vases, and the whole house was crowded with examples of her profligate taste.
“And how is Casserah? And your father and the marlady?”
Neither Beatrice nor Berric ever referred to Jannis by name. She was always “the marlady” to them, a constant reminder that she had stolen Bayla’s title. “Everyone is well. They’re planning Casserah’s birthday dinner, you know. It’s a shame you can’t come.”
“Yes, isn’t it?” Beatrice said in a dry voice.
Kirra laughed. “So is Berric
really
injured? Or did you just find you couldn’t face a party at Danan Hall?”
“Injured, indeed, and quite petulant about it, too,” Beatrice answered. “But here, talk to him yourself! We’ve waited dinner for you. It’ll just be the three of us, so we can talk all night.”
“That’s just the way I like it,” Kirra said, and followed her aunt into the small family dining room.
Berric was already sitting at the head of the table, one foot extended before him and propped on an overstuffed stool. Like Beatrice, he was stout and fair, though his hair was mostly missing and hadn’t been curly when he had it. He was shifting uncomfortably in his chair, and his face looked red and displeased, as if he’d just been shouting at someone as a palliative to his own wretchedness.
But his expression cleared instantly when his niece walked in the room. “Kirra! I thought I heard voices in the hall. We weren’t sure if you would make it tonight or tomorrow, but we were hoping. Come give me a kiss—it’s too much trouble for me to stand up.”
She crossed to his side and bent to kiss him on the cheek. His skin was hot, a little damp, and she pulled back to put a hand across his forehead. “Do you have a fever? How bad is the pain, really?”
“Bad enough,” he admitted. “I don’t know if I’ve caught an infection, but I feel like red and silver hell. Beatrice has been feeding me some vile herbal drink, but it hasn’t helped much.”
Kirra pulled up a chair to sit beside him. “Is it just your leg? Or does your hip hurt, too? Where’s the break? And how did this happen?”
Berric sighed. “I was riding back from Storian. I’d been gone almost two weeks, didn’t have a single day of trouble! I must have ridden two hundred miles without so much as a thrown shoe. Then three days ago, as I’m coming up the lane to my
very own house
, the horse shies and I fall off. Caught my foot in the stirrup, twisted my leg—
heard
it snap before I felt it. Beatrice and the groom set it for me, and between them they’ve seen every injury a man might get from a horse, but I’m wondering if I might need to call a physician in.”