Court Duel (9 page)

As for the wager, I decided to forget about what had
obviously been some kind of aristocratic joke.

SEVEN

SO ONCE AGAIN ON AN EARLY SPRING DAY, I WAS ensconced in a
coach rolling down the middle of the Street of the Sun. Again
people lined the street, but this time they waved and cheered.
And as before, outriders joined us, but this time they wore our
colors as well as the Renselaeuses'.

This had all been arranged beforehand, I found out through
Nimiar. People expected power to be expressed through visible
symbols, such as columns of armed outriders, and fancy
carriages drawn by three matched pairs of fast horses, and so
forth. Apparently Shevraeth loathed traveling about with such
huge entourages—at least as much as Galdran used to love
traveling with them—so he arranged for the trappings to
be assumed at the last moment.

All this she told me as we rattled along the last distance
through Remalna-city toward the golden-roofed palace called
Athanarel.

When we reached the great gates, there were people hanging
off them. I turned to look, and a small girl yelled, "Astiar!"
as she flung a posy of crimson rosebuds and golden daisies
through the open window of our carriage.

"They didn't shout last time," I said, burying my face in
the posy. "Just stared."

"Last time?" Nee asked.

"When I had the supreme felicity of being introduced to
Galdran by the esteemed Marquis," I said, striving for a light
tone. "You don't remember?"

"Oh. I remember." Nimiar frowned, looking outside. "Though I
was not there. I did not have duty that day. For which I was
grateful."

"Duty?"

She gave me a pained smile. "Standing all afternoon in full
Court dress was a pleasure for very few. It was a duty, and one
strictly observed not out of loyalty or love but out of fear,
for most of us."

"You were hostage to your families," I said.

"Essentially," she said, still looking out the window. Her
profile was troubled.

"The Renselaeuses are keeping the Marquise of Merindar as a
hostage, aren't they?"

Nee looked a little perplexed. "I'm certain she sees it in
that light," she said quietly, and then she indicated the
cheering people outside the coach. "You spoke of two kinds of
crowds, the happy ones such as these, and the silent ones that
you saw last year. Yet there is a third kind of crowd, the
angry ones that are ready to fall on persons they hate and rend
them if only someone brave enough—or foolhardy
enough—steps forward to lead. I suspect that the Marquise
of Merindar was kept here in part for her own protection from
just that kind of crowd."

"Would she make a good queen?"

Nee bit her lip. "I don't know," she said. "I don't trust my
ability to assess anyone that way. But I can tell you this:
There were times she frightened me more than Galdran did, for
his cruelties came out of rage, but hers came out of cold
deliberation."

"Cold deliberation," I repeated, thinking of the
letter—and of the way Shevraeth had let me know he knew
about it. "So far, she and Shevraeth seem two buds on the same
branch."

Nee said nothing. The atmosphere had changed, but before I
could figure out how, and what it meant, we rolled to a stop
before a fine marble terrace.

The carriage doors opened, and I looked out at servants in
those fabulous liveries—still the crowned sun of Remalna,
but now the green was deeper, and the brown had lightened back
to gold.

I disembarked, gazing around. The terrace was part of a
building, but in the other directions all I saw was greenery.
"We're in a forest, or a garden. Where are the other
buildings?"

She smiled again. "You can't see them from here. It's an
artful design. Though the Family houses and the lesser
guesthouses don't have quite this much privacy."

I looked up at the palace. Its walls were a warm peachy gold
stone, with fine carving along the roof and beside each of its
ranks of windows. Adjacent, glimpsed through budding trees, was
another wing.

"That is the Royal Residence Wing." She pointed. "We're in
the primary Guest Wing. On the other side of us, also adjacent,
is the State Wing."

I whistled. "Do we have to eat in some vast cavern of a
chamber with a lot of ambassadors and the like?"

"There are several dining rooms of varying size and
formality, but I've been told we won't be using any of them
except occasionally."

We were treading up the broad, shallow steps toward another
pair of carved double doors. Someone opened them, and we passed
through into a spacious entryway with a fabulous mosiac on the
floor: a night sky with all the planets and stars, but with the
sun at the center. Light shafted down from stained-glass
windows above, overlaying the mosaic with glowing color. It was
odd but interesting, and the golds and blues were
beautiful.

Downstairs were the more public rooms; we were taken up a
flight of beautifully tiled stairs to a long hall of suites.
The servants had come up by some more direct way, for they were
there before us, busily making the beautifully appointed rooms
into a semblance of home.

I glanced around the rooms allotted to me. There was a
little parlor, a bedroom, and a dressing room with a narrow,
tiled stairway that led to the baths, below the first level. A
cunningly hidden, even more narrow stairway led up to where the
servants were housed. All three windows overlooked a stream-fed
pool surrounded by trees. The rooms were done in soft greens;
the tables were antique wood of a beautiful golden shade, the
cushions and curtains and hangings all pale blue satin stitched
with tiny green ivy and white blossoms.

I wandered through to Nee's suite, which was next to mine.
Her rooms were done in quiet shades of rose, and they
overlooked a flower garden.

She had been talking to her maids; when she was done and
they had withdrawn, she sighed and sat down in a chair.

"What now?" I said.

She opened her hands. "What indeed? Protocol provides no
answers. Instead it becomes a ticklish question itself, because
there is no sovereign. Under Galdran, the days were strictly
divided: Gold, we spent with family; green, we spent at Court;
blue was for social affairs—but he even made clear who
was to give them, and who was to go."

"Aren't the Prince and Princess setting some kind of
schedule?"

"Apparently State work gets done mostly during gold, and
twice a week or so they hold court for petitioners at the
customary green-time, and all who wish to attend can. But it's
not required. The rest of us... do what we will." She lifted
her hands. "I expect we'll receive an invitation for dinner
from their Highnesses, at second-blue, which will serve as an
informal welcome."

I took a deep breath. "All right. Until then we're free?
Let's walk around," I said. "I'm not tired or hungry, but I
still feel stiff from—from sitting inside that coach for
so long." I did not want to refer to my ride or the postponed
wager.

If she noticed my hesitation and quick recovery, she gave no
sign. She glanced out at the fair sky and nodded. "A good
idea."

So we changed into afternoon dresses and walking hats and
gloves, and went out. I told Mora that I'd like to have tea
when we returned, thinking about how strange it was to be
sending orders to a kitchen I'd probably never see. Before this
past winter, the kitchen at home in Tlanth had been the center
of my life.

Now I was buffered by Mora, and she by runners whose sole
purpose seemed to be to wait about, in little anterooms at
either end of the wing, to answer the summonses of our own
personal servants, to fetch and carry. As Nee and I walked down
the broad terrace steps onto a brick path, I reflected that
anyone who really wanted to know what was going on at the
palace would do better to question the runners than the
aristocrats. Except, would they talk to me?

The day was fine, the cool air pleasant with scents of new
blooms growing in the extensive gardens. We saw other people
walking about, mostly in twos and threes. It was a great chance
to practice my etiquette: nods for those unknown, and varying
depths of curtsys for those Nee knew—the depth decided by
rank and by the degree of acquaintance. Clues to status were in
the way she spoke, and the order in which she presented me to
people, or them to me if my rank was the higher. It was
interesting to see people behave exactly the way she had told
me they would—though I realized that, as yet, I couldn't
read the tricks of gesture or smile, or the minute adjustments
of posture that were additional messages.

For now, everyone seemed pleasant, and I even detected frank
curiosity in the smiling faces, which braced me up: It seemed
that they were not all accomplished dissemblers.

This was a good discovery to make just before the last
encounter.

We strolled over a little footbridge that spanned a stream,
then followed the path around a moonflower bed into a clearing
beside a tree-sheltered pool.

The tableau we came upon was like a very fine picture. A
beautiful lady sat on a bench, her blue skirts artfully spread
at her feet, and ribbons and gems in her curling black hair.
Watched by three young lords, she was feeding bits of something
to the fish in the shallow pool. I gained only hazy impressions
of two of the men— one red-haired, one fair—because
my eyes were drawn immediately to the tallest, a man of
powerful build, long waving dark hair, and a rakish smile.
Dressed in deep blue with crimson and gold embroidery, he
leaned negligently against the bench. The lady looked up at him
with a toss of her head and smiled.

I heard a slight intake of breath from Nee, but when I
looked over at her, I saw only the polite smile of her Court
mask.

At first the people did not see us—or didn't notice
us, I think would be a better way of saying it. For the lady
had glanced up and then away, just as she dipped her hand into
the beribboned little basket on her lap and, with a quick twist
of her wrist, flung a piece of bread out over the light-dappled
water of the pool. With a musical
plash,
a golden fish
leaped into the air and snapped at the bread, diving neatly
back into the water.

"Two to me," the lady cried with a gentle laugh, raising her
eyes to the tall man, who smiled down at her, one hand
gesturing palm up.

We were close enough now that I could see the lady's eyes,
which were the same pure blue of her gown. Just then the tall
man glanced over at us, and he straightened up, his dark eyes
enigmatic, though he still smiled. He did not turn away, but
waited for us to approach.

The lady looked up again, and I think I saw a faint
impatience narrow those beautiful eyes; but then she gave us a
breathtaking smile as she rose to her feet and laid aside her
basket.

"Nimiar? Welcome back, dear cousin," she said in a melodious
voice.

"We are returned indeed, Tamara," Nee said. "Your grace, may
I present to you Lady Meliara Astiar?" And to me, "The Duke of
Savona."

The dark eyes were direct, and interested, and very much
amused. The famous Duke responded to my curtsy with an
elaborate bow, then he took my hand and kissed it. I scarcely
heard the names of the other people; I was too busy trying not
to stare at Savona or blush at his lingering kiss.

"My dear Countess," Lady Tamara exclaimed. "Why were we not
told we would have the felicity of meeting you?"

I didn't know how to answer that, so I just shook my
head.

"Though, in truth, perhaps it is better this way," Lady
Tamara went on. "I should have been afraid to meet so
formidable a personage. You must realize we have been hearing a
great deal about your valiant efforts against our former
king."

"Well," I said, "if the stories were complimentary, they
weren't true."

The fellows laughed. Lady Tamara's smile did not change at
all. "Surely you are overly modest, dear Countess."

Savona propped an elegantly booted foot on an edge of the
bench and leaned an arm across his knee as he smiled at me.
"What is your version of the story, Lady Meliara?"

Instinct made me wary; there were undercurrents here that
needed thinking out. "If I start on that we'll be here all
night, and I don't want to miss my dinner," I said, striving
for a light tone. Again the lords all laughed.

Nee slid her hand in my arm. "Shall we continue on to find
your brother?" she addressed me. "He is probably looking for
us."

"Let's," I said.

They bowed, Lady Tamara the deepest of all, and she said, "I
trust you'll tell us all about it someday, dear Countess."

We bowed and started to move on. One fellow, a young
red-haired lord, seemed inclined to follow; but Lady Tamara
placed her fingertips on his arm and said, "Now, do not desert
me, Geral! Not until I have a chance to win back my
losses..."

Nee and I walked on in silence for a time, then she said in
a guarded voice, "What think you of my cousin?"

"So that is the famous Lady Tamara Chamadis! Well, she
really is as pretty as I'd heard," I said. "But... I don't
know. Somehow she embodies everything I'd thought a courtier
would be."

"Fair enough." Nee nodded. "Then I guess it's safe for me to
say—at risk of appearing a detestable gossip—watch
out."

I touched the top of my hand where I could still feel the
Duke of Savona's kiss. "All right. But I don't understand
why."

"She is ambitious," Nee said slowly. "Even when we were
young she never had the time for any of lower status. I believe
that if Galdran Merindar had shown any interest in sharing his
power, she would have married him."

"She wants to rule the kingdom?" I asked, glancing behind
us. The secluded little pool was bounded by trees and hidden
from view.