Competitions (34 page)

The rest of the meal passed in relative silence, and once it was over Vallant Ro was the first to leave, with Jovvi right behind him. Ro had seemed to be struggling with some sort of strong emotion while Tamrissa told them about the way she’d been attacked, but the man hadn’t said anything to her afterward. It was possible his struggle had had nothing to do with Tamrissa, but that was something Rion had no time to worry about. If he were going to ask Tamrissa’s help with his own problem, it had to be now.

“I wonder, dear lady, if you have recovered sufficiently to share a brief nightcap with me in the library,” he said when it seemed that Tamrissa was ready to take her own leave. “I have something I’d like to discuss with you, and you as well, Coll, if you’re willing.”

Rion didn’t know precisely why he’d included Coll in the invitation, but it might have had something to do with how miserable and alone the man looked. Coll had helped him on more than one occasion, so now it wasn’t possible to exclude the man while asking for Tamrissa’s help.

“Well, all right, but just for a short while,” Tamrissa agreed after a moment, looking really weary. “I needed to get this food into me, but I need more sleep just as much.”

“Well,
I
don’t have anything better to do with my time,” Coll said with a shrug as he threw his napkin aside and rose. “No offense, Mardimil, I’m just in a terrible mood. What I should have said was, if we’re not here for each other, who can we expect to be here for us?”

“No offense taken, Coll,” Rion said as he rose as well, actually meaning the words. “And we
do
have to be here for each other, so becoming insulted over nothing would be stupid. Here, dear lady, take my arm.”

Tamrissa had gotten to her feet before he reached her, and the girl looked more distracted than unsteady. She did, however, take the offer of his arm, and they made a small, slow procession to the library. Once there he tried to seat her, but she shook her head with a small smile.

“Thank you, Rion, but I need to stand up for a while,” she said, patting his arm before releasing it. “Now, what sort of problem do you have that I might be able to help with?”

“By tomorrow night I expect to have gold,” Rion stated, seeing that Coll paid attention as well. “With that in mind I intend to meet—someone, but my mother is having me followed. Do you have any idea how I can avoid those followers without letting them know I’ve done it?”

“Well, we
should
be able to figure out
something
,” Tamrissa replied, suddenly more caught up. Coll stood with raised brows, but didn’t seem ready to comment. “The best idea would be to have them think they
are
following you, while it’s really someone else in your place. That way they won’t go searching, and won’t be on the alert the next time you want to do the same.”

“The suggestion is excellent,” Rion said with his own brows high. “What I can’t seem to picture, however, is how I might accomplish it. It’s a virtual certainty that Mother’s people have at least one house servant in their employ, which means I’m under almost constant observation.”

“Yes, you probably are, so we’ll have to take you
out
of the house,” Tamrissa returned, her mind clearly in the midst of deep calculation. “There’s a lovely dining parlor not far from here, one I went to a few times before I married. If we decide to visit it tomorrow night, your shadows will certainly follow.”

“And I’m to slip away from there?” Rion asked, feeling confused. “Leaving you completely unescorted and departing on foot? Unless I’m mistaken, even if I were willing to do that it would never work. As soon as I disappeared they would begin to search for me.”

“Of course they would, so you won’t disappear,” Tamrissa countered with a glorious smile. “You and I will leave the house together in plain view—a short while after Lorand leaves by himself. Lorand will go to the dining parlor, arrange for the rental of a horse from the nearby stables, and then he’ll wait in the entryway of the dining parlor, which happens to be fashionably dim. When we walk in he’ll take your place, and you’ll slip out the back while the watchers have their attention on
him
. If he’s willing to do it, that is.”

Both of them turned to look at Coll then, Rion ready to plead with the man. But Coll’s face wore a look of surprised anticipation, and then he grinned.

“It sounds like fun,” he said, and the words actually rang true. “My friends and I occasionally did this sort of thing when we were too young for our parents to be willing to let us come and go as we pleased. You and I are approximately the same size, Mardimil, and even our hair color is close enough to pass at a distance. If we wear the same clothes the way we’re doing now, it should work like a charm.”

“And you really don’t mind?” Rion asked, looking from one to the other of them. “I’ve never had
anyone
willing to do things for me without being paid, and certainly nothing like this. How can I ever thank you?”

“Some day
we’ll
need a favor, and you’re the first one we’ll ask,” Coll assured him with a much more gentle smile. “Isn’t that right, Tamrissa?”

“Certainly,” Tamrissa agreed, but her impish grin reminded Rion that she’d already gotten a favor from him. “Besides, I needed something like this to take my mind off my own troubles, and somehow I think Lorand feels the same. By asking us to help, you’re doing
us
the favor.”

When Coll nodded his agreement, Rion would have enjoyed finding the words to express how he felt. An experience like this was priceless, but also seemed beyond verbalizing. So he took Tamrissa’s hand and kissed it instead, then exchanged a handshake with Coll before turning and hurrying out of the room. Rion hadn’t cried in quite a long time, but certainly felt like doing so now.

But when he reached his bedchamber, he found himself ready to laugh instead. Tomorrow night he would see Naran again, and not for a moment or two and not as a beggar with hat in hand. It would be wonderful, marvelous, and now he didn’t know if he’d be able to stand the wait…

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Jovvi stared at Tamma for a while once the coach began to move the next morning, trying to decide whether or not to say anything to the girl. Her own problem wasn’t quite as pressing as it had felt last night, when she’d gone directly to her bedchamber after dinner to avoid needing to speak to Lorand. But Lorand hadn’t
tried
to speak to her, either last night at dinner or this morning at breakfast. He still looked at her in the same way when he thought she wasn’t likely to notice, but he hadn’t tried again to get her to change her mind.

Which was both a good thing and a bad one. Jovvi sighed as she silently admitted that she didn’t really want to lose Lorand, but the uncertainty surrounding him was impossible for her inner self to overlook. She both wanted him and didn’t want him, but at least
he
wasn’t adding to the turmoil she suffered with. That made it only a little easier to bear, but Jovvi was prepared to be grateful for small favors.

“Is everything all right?” Tamma said suddenly, startling Jovvi. “I don’t mean to pry, but that sigh sounded like one of mine.”

“Actually, I was going to ask
you
the same question,” Jovvi replied, finding something of a smile. “I can tell that you’re disturbed again, but it’s not the same disturbance you felt yesterday.”

“I’ll say it isn’t,” Tamma agreed glumly, then she looked up at Jovvi with her head to one side. “I seem to have changed my mind about Dom Ro again, and it occurred to me that there may be something seriously wrong with me. All this, ‘yes I want him, no I don’t want him’ back and forth can’t possibly be normal, but wouldn’t you tell me if I were seriously ill?”

“Yes, I would, and no, you’re not,” Jovvi said with a laugh she couldn’t possibly have held back. “Women may not have a
lot
of rights in this world, but changing our minds does happen to be one of them. And in your situation, vacillating back and forth couldn’t be more normal. But does this mean you’ve now decided you want Vallant?”

“Yesterday morning, after the testing, I decided I did,” she agreed, back to being glum. “It was probably a residual of all that power affecting me, but I made up my mind to at least try. That’s why I asked to speak to him last night after dinner, but now it looks like
he’s
changed
his
mind.”

“Infringing unfairly on one of
our
prerogatives,” Jovvi sympathized, feeling Tamma’s disappointment very clearly. “So what have you decided to do now? Forget about him after all?”

“I should, but I can’t seem to force myself to be that rational,” Tamma complained, most of her disturbance now aimed at herself. “I mean, how am
I
supposed to change a man’s mind once he’s made it up? I wouldn’t know where to begin, but something won’t let me drop the whole thing. He was so cold when he refused even to talk to me, but somehow I could feel pain behind the coldness.”

“And you aren’t capable of ignoring someone in pain,” Jovvi said gently, nodding her understanding. “I won’t try to tell you what to do, but I have a suggestion you might consider: think about this whole thing before you decide on a course of action. If you’re interested in nothing but easing a man in pain, getting him to change his mind again would be wrong. You have to be just as interested in a relationship as he is, otherwise you’ll simply end up hurting him more.”

“That sounds like the best idea I’ve heard in quite a while,” Tamma said ruefully. “That means I’m going to take your advice, so that takes care of
my
disturbance. Now what about yours?”

“Oh, mostly it’s the same old thing,” Jovvi forced herself to say, feeling the way her mind instantly closed in on itself. “I
have
walked away from Lorand, but I can’t stop thinking or worrying about him. Take this morning, for instance. I’m almost certain that we’ll be facing no more than an attempted measurement of our strength, but what if that guess is wrong? What will happen if Lorand finds it necessary to really stretch his ability—and can’t? Even if that doesn’t happen today, it could happen tomorrow, and I can’t bear to picture it.”

“So
don’t
picture it,” Tamma responded, sounding as if Jovvi had missed the most obvious solution to her problem. “If there’s nothing you can do to change something, what good does worrying about it do? Either you have to
find
a way to change the thing, the way I did with my parents, or you have to simply give up and accept whatever comes. I never thought I’d be saying this to
you
, Jovvi, but which route would you
rather
take?”

Tamma’s tone had been more diffident and apologetic than the words suggested, which helped to keep Jovvi’s indignation from being overwhelming. That was the sort of thing
she
was used to saying to Tamma, not something she needed to be told herself. Of course those were the two best options, but—

“But what could I possibly do to change things?” she complained aloud, feeling as though she and Tamma had switched places. “If it was easy—or even often possible—to help someone get around the fear of burnout, people would be doing it all the time. Holding his hand during testing wouldn’t work even if I were able to do it, so what else is there?”

“I have no idea,” Tamma answered with a small shrug, looking and sounding sympathetic. “If it were my problem I’d be frantic, so feel free to be the same.”

“But being frantic doesn’t solve anything, and I seem to be out of the habit,” Jovvi said with another sigh, fighting an urge toward depression. “I guess I’ll have to take my own advice and think about this, but in the meanwhile I owe you congratulations. You’ve grown to the point of discovering that other people’s problems are usually easier to solve than your own.”

“And you do have to understand their problem before you can do anything about it,” Tamma commented, now looking thoughtful. “That’s a good point to keep in mind, and definitely something else to think about. But for right now I did want to ask You agree with Rion, then, about what this first competition will be? Just an opportunity to measure exactly how strong each of us is?”

“It seems to be the most logical guess,” Jovvi agreed, tacitly joining Tamma in putting aside their personal problems. “I was specifically told that I would not be competing against anyone directly, only against their efforts. And they obviously want us trying our best, otherwise they would hardly be dangling that carrot.”

“The invitation to the reception,” Tamma said with a nod of understanding. “I wasn’t joking about how excited the idea of it made me feel, but that was last night. This morning I’m afraid I’ll do something horrible to embarrass myself if I go, so maybe I’d be best off staying home.”

“You could always come down with some ‘female problem,’” Jovvi pointed out with something of a smile. “That’s another of our rights, but it doesn’t say whether or not you’ve decided to try winning the competition. Personally, I’d like the option of whether or not to go to be mine.”

“Yes, so would I,” Tamma replied, instantly brightening. “And that ‘female trouble’ thing is another good idea. So it looks like I
will
be trying to win the competition, but not by too much of a lead. It won’t be easy to manage to
just
win, and I suppose that’s why I was thinking about not even trying. I was really tired yesterday and not at all interested in making the effort, and something of that carried over to this morning. But now I feel back to my usual self, so I’ll see what I can do.”

“I suspect that deliberately holding back will be harder for
me
to hide,” Jovvi said, having already thought about it. “With Spirit magic, you have access to a good deal of information about the people around you. If someone is frightened, or uninterested—or holding back—you can usually tell, so I’m going to have to project false emotions as well as gauge my response. I don’t expect it to be much fun, but there’s no doubt about its being necessary.”

“I wonder if they’ll have someone there at
my
competition who can tell things like that,” Tamma said, now sounding worried. “I wouldn’t put it past them, and I don’t know if I can fool someone like that.”