Competitions (48 page)

So he did the only practical thing: he put the small first box into his cloak, and then his hands were free for the large one. His plan had been a clever one, but I’d almost ruined it by volunteering to take the small box before I realized he
wanted
to put it in his cloak. The people watching him would see only the one big box that he would give to Lorand. The second, smaller box would then be able to go with him.

We left the shop with the woman’s warm invitation to come back ringing in our ears, and once outside I drew my cloak a bit more tightly around me. The evening was beginning to be chilly, and the short walk to the dining parlor made me eager for its warmth. We walked inside calmly and easily, closed the door behind us—and then all three of us went into a frenzy of activity. I held the big box while Lorand and Rion quickly exchanged cloaks in the dim entranceway, Rion took the gift for his lady and put it in his new cloak, and Lorand told Rion where the stables was and what arrangements he’d made. It couldn’t have taken more than a minute, and then Rion was heading for the back door while Lorand relieved me of the box.

“And that should do it,” Lorand said with a smile once Rion was gone. “Now all I have to do is remember to keep my back turned, and everything should be fine.”

“I hope so for Rion’s sake,” I said with a headshake. “He really deserves to be rid of his mother’s manipulations, and maybe this will be the start of it. And now you and I can get something to eat.”

“About time, too,” Lorand agreed, gesturing me ahead of him out of the dimness and toward the host’s station. “I got here earlier than I expected to, and immediately began to get hungry.”

Since the aroma of marvelous food permeated the air like teasing perfume, I could understand that perfectly. The host greeted us and quickly led us to a table, and we lost no time in ordering. Once the servant had brought us tea and small meat and cheese pastries to hold us until the food came, Lorand leaned back in his chair to study me.

“I wonder if you would mind helping me think about something I don’t understand,” he said, his fingers toying with one of the pastries that he hadn’t yet tasted. “It isn’t all
that
important, so if you aren’t in the mood…”

“Just remember what I said last time about wanting to give advice,” I returned when his words simply trailed off. “If you ever hear me say I’m not in the mood, you’ll know there’s something seriously wrong with me. Now, what is it you don’t understand?”

“It’s … the way I felt today, after the competition,” he said with a vague gesture, obviously groping for the right words. “I think you know how I’ve
been
feeling, which is … worried about the amount of power I’ve needed to use. When I got to the competitions building this morning, I was incredibly relieved that I wasn’t going to have to push myself to win.”

I nodded encouragement and agreement, glad that the pleasant background music covered most of Lorand’s soft words. We were now discussing some things that others shouldn’t know about.

“Well, while I was actually performing during the competition, I remember wishing the exercise could have been harder,” he continued, now looking deeply disturbed. “Afterward I felt dissatisfied over having had to lose, and not in the least relieved. Now I’m afraid there’s something wrong with me, and I don’t know what to do about it. Whatever the condition is, it’s dangerous.”

“Because part of you is no longer worried about being burned out,” I said with another nod, finding it surprisingly easy to see the point. “You’ve lived with the fear for so long, that you feel naked and vulnerable without it. I felt the same way at first about obeying my father. I’d done it for so long that stopping in order to save my sanity and life still felt wrong.”

“But that’s hardly the same thing,” he protested, his soft brown eyes troubled. “Breaking the habit of obedience did save you, but breaking the habit of intelligent caution does the exact opposite.”

“Now I think you’re getting to the heart of the matter,” I said with a faint smile. “You said ‘intelligent caution,’ but is that what it really is? We’re all now in a position where we have to be as strong as possible, or we could end up losing our lives in any number of different ways—most of which we don’t even know about. Can something which interferes with that demanding a survival need be called intelligent caution?”

He couldn’t seem to find the words to answer, and again I found it easy to understand why. Pulling myself out of the deadly habit of blind obedience had been unbelievably hard, and I still hadn’t accomplished it all the way.

“Our … situation is forcing you to rethink the beliefs of a lifetime,” I continued gently, drawing his gaze again. “Without your crippling fear you’re obviously a natural competitor, and now your true nature is trying to force its way through the bindings you’ve kept on it. It knows you need it in order to survive, so for the first time it’s fighting the unnatural restrictions you’ve imposed. In my opinion there’s nothing wrong with you, only something starting to be right.”

“Even if ignoring the warning could get me killed?” he asked, still looking horribly uncertain. “Or, as it happens, worse than killed?”

“There are a lot of things worse than getting killed, but having your mind wiped out isn’t one of them,” I told him bluntly, forcing away thoughts of what waited to take
me
. “As long as you have no idea about what’s going on around you, you might as well be comfortably dead. And if you think being dead isn’t comfortable compared to … being appropriated and used like a slave, for instance, I have even more news for you. It is.”

“You’re probably right, but I’m going to have to think about this,” he said after a moment with a sigh. “Maybe if I can keep just a little of the fear, I won’t do anything
too
stupid… Thanks, Tamrissa, for listening to my problems again. You really are a good friend.”

“My pleasure,” I said with a smile that didn’t last very long. Both Lorand and Rion were good friends I really valued, but when my thoughts took off in a direction of their own, it wasn’t either of them I thought about. Another man always seemed to be there, a man I hadn’t had much luck in getting along with. It was a stupid waste of time, especially now when he wasn’t even speaking to me any longer, but—

But I still couldn’t wait to get home and go to my apartment. This was week’s end night, the night I’d promised him, and maybe … just maybe … please…!

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

Rion slipped out of the back of the dining parlor, excitement beginning to rise in him really strongly. Now he was actually on his way to see Naran, something he hadn’t fully believed he’d manage. He was so used to being thwarted at every turn rather than being helped…

A quick glance around showed no one in sight, so Rion moved through the deepening darkness toward the stables where Coll had rented a horse for him. Traveling on horseback would be faster and easier than using a carriage, even though he would probably need a bath house after the trip. He hadn’t been allowed to ride more often than was fashionable, but he’d been on horseback often enough to know that much.

The horse was saddled and waiting for him, and when the stableman said something about Rion’s “brother,” Rion knew approximately what Coll had told the man. It was fortunate that they two looked so much alike; a number of problems had been circumvented because of it.

Carriage coach traffic was light at that time of the evening, so Rion made good time finding his way to Naran’s new place of residence. The street was an upper middle class neighborhood, meaning it was fairly wide but not comfortably so, and the houses had very little in the way of grounds around them. The houses themselves were also small, and the largest of them couldn’t have contained more than four or five bedchambers. Rion had never visited a neighborhood like this, but for Naran he was willing to dare anything.

A large stable seemed to serve a good portion of the area, and that was where Rion left his horse. He felt tempted to ask directions to the house he sought, but instead took Naran’s gift from his saddlebags, where he’d cushioned it with his cloak, donned the cloak, then left without asking. No one could have followed him, but discretion was the much wiser course.

Coll’s dark brown cloak let Rion move invisibly through the darkness, and it wasn’t long before he found the proper house. Feeling extremely proud of himself, Rion began to head for the front door—before he remembered that the fewer people who saw him, the better. Decorative lanterns lit the front of the house, and anyone walking up to the door would be visible to anyone who happened to be looking out of any of the neighboring houses.

So Rion took a lesson from Naran, and went looking for the servants’ entrance. He looked all the way around to the back of the house, in fact, but the thing must have been on the other side of the house. All Rion found was a back door, dimly lit by a very small lamp, so he tried knocking there instead.

A very long moment passed, and then Rion heard someone unlocking the door. Thinking it would be a servant, he began to put together a semi-coherent explanation of what he was doing there. The door opened and he parted his lips, but all explanations became suddenly unnecessary. It was Naran herself who stood there, dressed in a high-necked and long sleeved gown of gold velvet, and her beautiful face lit up when she saw him.

“My lord, you came after all!” she exclaimed softly as she stepped back to allow him entrance. “I prayed that you would, and now I’ve been answered.”

“Nothing short of death could have kept me away,” he told her quite sincerely as he moved inside and closed the door behind himself. “I’ve thought of little else but this moment since you came to the residence, and now we’ve finally reached it.”

“Yes,” she breathed, moving into his arms, and then their lips were finally touching. Rion kissed her with all the growing hunger of his heart, and she seemed to respond in the same manner. They joined in a serious attempt to devour one another, and after a long, satisfying time she reluctantly eased back.

“What a terrible hostess I am,” she murmured, touching her lips to his again very briefly. “Keeping you standing here in the hall with your cloak on, when dinner is all ready to be eaten. Are you hungry?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact I am,” Rion replied with a bemused smile. He’d intended to take Naran to the best dining parlor in the neighborhood, but if she preferred to stay in he was not about to argue. “For the most part I’m hungry for you,” he continued, “but also in that other, trivial way.”

“Trivial,” she repeated with that lovely tinkling laugh, and then she took his hand. “Well, let’s see to the trivial first, and then we’ll have as long as we like for the more important. You sit here, and I’ll take your cloak.”

“Aren’t there any servants to see to that?” he asked, first removing the box from his cloak. She’d led him to what seemed to be a sitting room at the front of the house, only a ridiculously short distance from the back. “I brought you something, and I’d rather watch you open it than see you fuss with my cloak.”

“I have only one servant, and she goes home at night,” Naran said, her tone telling him that there was nothing unusual in what was, to him, such an odd practice. “And seeing to your cloak will only take a moment. There’s a coatrack here in the side hall… There, it’s all done. Now may I see what you brought?”

Her request was polite and attentive, but Rion had the definite feeling that polite thanks was all she expected to feel. For some reason Naran seemed uninterested in what he’d brought, and Rion felt a moment of uncertainty. Would such paltry things as the glass figures tell her he had no real interest in her? Having no experience with things of this sort, he’d chosen the two figures which were most often purchased. Should he have bought her a full set instead, or perhaps one of the brooches?

“What I brought,” Rion echoed her last words, looking down at the cheap paper box. It should have been silver or gold instead, and the figures the same… “What I brought will probably bore you, so let’s forget about it, shall we? Next time I promise to bring something that will truly take your breath away. Now—”

“Oh, please, my lord, please let me see it,” she interrupted, her expression having suddenly changed. “There’s something about it… Please say you don’t mind my opening it.”

The earnest openness in her expression touched Rion, and before he knew what he was about he’d handed the box to her. He was convinced now that he’d made a grave error, and he watched with dread as she opened the box and began to remove the cotton wool it was filled with. She would be expecting gold and jewels, and all he’d brought was—

“Oh, my lord!” she said with a gasp, staring down into the box before reaching into it. “And there’s something else beneath the glorious cat—Oh! How exquisitely lovely! I’ve never seen anything lovelier than these two—Oh, my lord, can you ever forgive me?”

“Forgive you?” Rion echoed for the second time, staring disbelievingly at her radiant face. “Whatever would I need to forgive you for?”

“Why, for believing even for a moment that someone as wonderful as you would bring an ordinary gift, like jewelry,” she said with a laugh, carefully cradling the glass figures against herself. “You spent thought on me rather than gold, and I’ll treasure these beautiful things forever. How can I possibly thank you?”

“You already have,” he assured her, knowing his smile must look exceedingly strange. Spending thought rather than gold… When she and Tamrissa met, they would most likely become friends instantly. “Do you really like them? I must confess that I had help in picking them out.”

“Listening to good advice is the mark of a great man,” she said with a smile, and then she rose from the chair in which she had been sitting. “And no, I don’t like them, I love them. I’ll be back in just a moment.”

With that she walked carefully out of the room, and when she returned in the specified moment, she no longer had the figures.

“I wanted to put them somewhere safe,” she explained, then held out her hand. “Come, you’ve waited long enough for your dinner.”