Firewalk (14 page)

“Exactly so,” Ynea said eagerly, a slight sparkle lighting her eyes. “It’s like having a secret treasure, knowing what nobody else knows. Why, your husband, Randon, rides out to hunt over and past these plants and never sees them. Terralt tramples them under his boot soles and never knows it. The assistant cooks gather a few, never knowing how many others they pass by.”

Kayli was glad to see the excitement in Ynea’s eyes. She remembered her own pride when Vayavara had nodded approvingly as Kayli had laid out each blade of grass, describing the shape of the seeds, the length of the leaves, the thick or narrow ribs. What warmth had grown in Kayli’s heart when Vayavara had given her a small smile, saying, “When High Priestess Brisi set me the same task, I found only thirty-four kinds.”

“I would be greatly honored if you would allow me to study your books,” Kayli said, closing the volume. Ynea had taken enough pride in her work to have some leatherworker make an ornately tooled cover. “All I knew of Agrond was that it was a land of rain, mud, and lush crops, like a fabled paradise. But these books make it real, your words and pictures. I would very much like to share your secret, if you would permit it.”

“I would like that,” Ynea said shyly. “Very much. And perhaps you would tell me about the plants that grow in Bregond. I’d be interested in knowing how they differ from ours.”

“You would be wiser to ask Endra that,” Kayli said, laughing. “She knows most of the medicinal plants and herbs, while all I could tell you are the plants to avoid and the forage every child learns—plus, of course, forty-one varieties of plains grass. And I have no skill at all in drawing.” Kayli thought for a moment, then smiled. “But Devra does.”

“Devra?” Ynea prompted.

“One of my maids.” Kayli patted the book. “Do you know, if you have an interest in Bregondish plants, and I wished to instruct you, what would be more natural than that I should bring Devra, who can draw, to assist me, and also Endra, who knows so many more herbs man I do? And how natural, too, that she might bring with her herbs she has brought from Bregond, to show you the leaves and roots and blossoms? And if your husband should ask how we occupied our time, you could show him the pages of the new volume you have begun on the plant life of Bregond.”

Ynea understood then, and she chuckled.

“Terralt said you were cleverer than he expected,” she said. “In a way that pleases him, and troubles him, too.”

“Pleases and troubles him?” Kayli asked slowly.

“You’re the sort of woman he would have wished for his wife,” Ynea said plainly, not meeting Kayli’s eyes. “He admires the quickness of your wit and speech, your—strength.” She folded her thin, pale hands over her swollen belly. “What I know from my studies, from my books, is useless to him. I heard one of the guards tell another how you stood with Randon in the council chamber. I could never have done such a thing, stood up in front of the ministers and found the right words to say. I’m weak in many ways, and I think Terralt despises that weakness.”

A pang of sympathy pierced Kayli’s heart, and she laid her own scarred brown hand over Ynea’s slender white ones. Kayli had trained for years to maintain her composure, and still in the short time she’d known Terralt, he had managed to irritate and disturb her. How much more he must have intimidated gently reared Ynea! Briefly Kayli wondered how Ynea might have blossomed had she wed a gentle, understanding man like Randon.

“You belittle yourself too much,” Kayli chided. “You have taught yourself lessons that came hard to me, patience and the ability to see all around you what—”

The door opened, interrupting her. Terralt entered, a wary expression on his face.

“Good afternoon,” he said, bowing briefly to Kayli. “Randon said you might come to see Ynea this afternoon. It was kind of you to trouble yourself. As she’s usually too weak to leave her room, her days are rather dull.”

“It was no trouble,” Kayli said, stifling an impatient frown at Terralt’s failure to greet his own wife and his way of speaking as if Ynea were not present. “It was kind of Ynea to receive me. I was glad to learn we share so many interests.” She turned to Ynea. “Which volumes are concerned with the flowers that bloom now? I would borrow those, if I may.”

“The one you hold, and the two on top of the stack,” Ynea said a little timidly, glancing at Terralt as if for permission. “And I do thank you for your companionship, Lady Kayli.”

“It was my pleasure,” Kayli said firmly, squeezing Ynea’s hand. “I will come again soon, and we can begin discussing the plants of Bregond.”

“Oh, by the Bright Ones, not more plants,” Terralt groaned. “Isn’t fourteen books of leaves and roots enough?”

“Do you object, Terralt?” Kayli said, confronting Terralt squarely. “I would think that you would welcome any diversion I could bring your wife.”

“Oh, do as you please,” Terralt said irritably. “As long as I don’t have to listen to it.”

Kayli sighed with exaggerated disappointment.

“Then however it must gall us, we will forgo the pleasure of your presence,” she said. “But somehow we will bear the lack of your amiable conversation and doubtless extensive knowledge of Bregondish flora.”

Terralt broke into a grin.

“My lady, I fear I’ve had all too close an acquaintance with the greenery of Bregond,” he said, “as my tattered trousers will testify. But I’ll gladly leave you women to your bushes and weeds, and I’d do so now except that Stevann wants to call upon Ynea for her daily pokings and potions—much good they’ve done, as you can see. And as Randon was groaning for his supper, doubtless he’d appreciate the return of his bride.”

Well, as much as she liked Ynea’s company, Kayli had no desire to sup with Terralt. She quickly took leave of Ynea and hurried back to her rooms to stack the books on the table. She had thought that surely Randon had already gone down to supper, but he was there waiting for her, and his smile when he saw her (although it may have only been eagerness for his supper, as Terralt had said) brought an answering warmth to her heart.

“There you are!” he said. “Crept away on me again. Visiting Ynea, were you?”

“Of course,” Kayli said, surprised. Hadn’t Randon himself suggested it?

“How is she?” he asked after a moment’s hesitation. “At our wedding it seemed as if she was doing poorly.”

“I am no healer, nor midwife,” Kayli said slowly. “But I have seen no healthy woman, even advanced in pregnancy, so pale or weak. Stevann was coming to her even as I left, but I must see that Endra has the chance to examine her.” She shook her head. “Terralt said you were wanting your supper.”

“I am, and so should you be, after your busy day.” Randon grinned. He took the books from Kayli and laid them down on a table. “Ynea’s books of plants. She must have liked you very much to lend them to you.” He took her hand and led her to the door. “You know, if it would help, I could keep Terralt busy in the study from time to time. There are always plenty of tasks for him, work important enough that his pride wouldn’t let him refuse. Poor Ynea would be all the better for your friendship, however little Terralt might like it.”

Kayli so enjoyed her supper in Randon’s jovial company that she felt a little guilty—Ynea was sweet and kind, but her very delicacy and weakness made Kayli uncomfortable. Even her sister Laalen, sickly by Bregondish standards, was no invalid. Kayli did not know how to behave with such a languid, frail person; why, she had spent so little time in court in the last few years that she could hardly manage polite conversation, and that was one of the thirty-nine arts that all marriageable Bregondish ladies of noble birth were expected to master.

Randon, however, was another matter. He may have preferred hunting and riding to scholarship, but apparently he’d enjoyed court enough to excel in polite chatter; he could seemingly talk forever, effortlessly slipping to another subject whenever her interest began to wane, entertaining her so skillfully that only occasionally did she even realize that he rarely said anything of consequence.

At first Kayli had wondered at his courtly manner when Terralt had said that Randon was unpopular among the nobility. As Randon spoke of his friends at court, however, she realized that most of them had come from the guild houses and craft halls of Agrond rather than from the gently born noble families. She had heard of Agrond’s intricate and rather confusing guild system—the Bregondish structure of guilds was far less formalized—but it seemed to her that the guilds had great political influence in Agrond. She wondered whether Randon had considered the possible leverage of his guild alliances.

Kayli knew, too, the supreme importance of Agrond’s agricultural industry. She’d heard stories of what a fertile land Agrond was, the soil rich with water, green things springing up from every inch of earth, but she had never actually understood how the cultivation of plants could be the very life-blood of a whole country. Of course it would have to be so; Agrond’s population was so great, the whole country would have to be covered with herds to feed so many, and its lush greenery would quickly be grazed down to the bare earth. The sheer importance of agriculture in Agrond explained to Kayli, too, how Lord Kereg had come to act as the spokesman for the ministers despite his short tenure among them. That boded ill for Randon, if Lord Kereg favored Terralt.

Kayli suddenly realized that Randon had stopped talking and was gazing at her somewhat ruefully.

“I’ve done it again, haven’t I?” he said with a sigh. “I’m sorry. I just don’t know what to say to you, the way you sit there so quietly, gazing at me as if you were drinking my words like wine. Then I realize I’m gibbering like a mist-witted beggar.”

“I beg your pardon,” Kayli said quickly. “Often I feel that I know nothing of the matters of which you speak. It seems easier to let you talk and learn from what you say than to speak when I have nothing to contribute to the conversation but my ignorance. I hope I have not offended you.”

Randon sighed, and Kayli felt that she had somehow disappointed him by her answer.

“Not at all,” he said with a smile. “Have a little more of the soup. Oh, and we’ll have to cancel our ride tomorrow. We’re in audience in the morning.”

“Audience?” A sensation very like panic made Kayli’s stomach flop over. “You—we—are in audience, although we are not confirmed as High Lord and Lady?”

Randon gave her a rueful grin.

“Agrond trudges on, whether we’re confirmed or not,” he said. “My father is dead. That leaves you and me to sit in audience—or Terralt.”

“Has Terralt been sitting in audience since your father died?” Kayli asked, appalled. How presumptuous could Terralt be? And how could the ministers, however much they favored Terralt, have permitted it?

“No.” Randon shook his head. “The most pressing matters have been heard by the ministers, but most business has been postponed. There’s quite a backlog waiting to be heard, and Lord Kereg quite properly reminded me of my duty—
our
duty—as presumptive rulers.”

“Are you certain you wish me to sit beside you in these audiences?” Kayli asked. By the same logic by which Randon would not take her into town, it might be an embarrassment for her to appear publicly in audience. A sudden unexpected empathy for his difficult position forced her to give him a polite escape. “My ignorance of Agrondish law and custom would make any opinion of mine questionable at best”

Randon raised one eyebrow.

“Then it’s also a fresh viewpoint, something I might find very useful indeed. Besides, I haven’t done this any more often than you have. Do you think I want to go out there and face those people alone?”

He grinned and raised his goblet.

“Besides, it’ll let some of the people have their first good look at their new High Lady.”

Startled, Kayli glanced at him, wondering if he had somehow read her thoughts. His eyes were sparkling at her as if they shared a joke, and she thought wryly that perhaps they did.

Still her stomach fluttered and she had lost all appetite for her food. Her wedding had been such a hasty thing, she’d had little enough time to brood, and what time she’d had, she had worried selfishly about her marriage and her husband, not about her duties as High Lady of a country with which she was completely unfamiliar. She had rarely observed her mother and father in audience, and even then she had paid more attention to the cases and the decisions her parents had rendered than she had to the
process
by which the High Lord and Lady of Bregond had made those decisions. How, she wondered dismally, had her mother and father come up with so much wisdom?

“Do you worry,” she said softly, “about what sort of High Lord you will make?”

Randon chuckled.

“Only about ten times an hour, day and night,” he said. “I can’t even remember the last time I saw Father in audience. I always thought that tiresome stuff was something I’d rather leave to Father and Terralt. Then suddenly that tiresome stuff is
my
responsibility, and it’s frightening. Terralt’s right—I’m like a new rider who stupidly thinks he can hop onto the fieriest horse in the stables and ride it without taking a fall. Only if I can’t ride this particular horse, I won’t be the only one taking a fall; I might take my whole country with me.”

Kayli reached over to clasp his hand.

“Then we must hope that two can hold on more tightly than one,” she said with a calmness which surprised her. “I wonder why, if Terralt takes the welfare of Agrond so seriously, he, too, does not feel such fear.”

Randon raised an eyebrow as if the thought was new to him.

“While Father was alive he was really only Father’s assistant, however much he could act like the High Lord himself,” he said at last. “Terralt’s never actually sat in the seat when his decisions were entirely his own, so he’s never felt that weight. It only hit me sooner, I suspect, because my life changed so drastically, while Terralt’s gone on just as he always has. I suppose he thinks it would be no different if he was High Lord in truth.”

Later in their quarters, lying comfortably in her husband’s arms, Kayli remembered the rather wistful tone in which he had answered her question. Did Randon envy Terralt his self-assurance, even if it arose from ignorance?