Zandru's Forge (25 page)

“Varzil!” Carolin called.

Varzil cut like a dark arrow through the glittering throng. As soon as Dyannis saw him, she broke off dancing and gave him an enthusiastic greeting. With an abrupt, jerky movement, he put her off. Carolin couldn’t hear the words above the music, but he caught Varzil’s stony expression and the sudden reddening of the girl’s cheeks.

“I will dance with whomever I please!” Dyannis cried. “And you have no right—”

“We didn’t mean—” Eduin began, raising his hands.

“Here now,” Carolin said, using his best
cortes
voice. “What’s this all about?”

“Nothing worth the breath to tell it,” Dyannis snapped. With a toss of her curls, she slipped her hand through Eduin’s bent arm. “Please be so kind as to escort me back to the other ladies. I am too fatigued to continue.”

With that, she pulled Eduin away. Varzil made as if to follow them, but Carolin restrained him with a touch.

“What’s the matter?”

“What’s the matter!” Varzil repeated scornfully. “My sister—he’s dancing with my
sister!”

“Eduin? And why shouldn’t he?” Carolin said. “She’s right, you know. Even here in a lowland court, it’s perfectly acceptable for a close friend of her brother to ask her to dance, even if it were not Midwinter. It’s no less proper for Eduin than for me, and I did just that while you were convalescing, rather than leave her sitting all forlorn when any blind fool could see how much she wanted to dance. Will you scold me, too? She’s having a wonderful time, and so is Eduin. Out here in public, what is the harm in that? Or do you trust her so little that you must guard her honor every waking moment?”

Retreating from the dance floor, Varzil shook his head. “I don‘t—it wouldn’t make sense to you.”

“Are you talking about that old feud between you?” Carolin demanded, following him. “Just because he behaved badly when you first came to Arilinn? He’s told me a dozen times how much he regrets it, how he’s been trying to make up for it ever since. I thought it beyond you to carry on a grudge, Varzil, or to make your sister miserable on Midwinter Festival night.”

Varzil turned away, pushing on until he passed the group of older lords and bachelors standing around the perimeter of the room. Here, in the shadowed corners and arched doorways, he halted. His shoulders rose and fell with each heaving breath. Carolin followed at a distance, watching. After a long moment, he went up and laid one hand gently on Varzil’s shoulder.

He’s been ill, far away from his home. Eventually he and Eduin will put the past to rest, but I can’t force it under these
conditions.

“I’m sorry,” Carolin said. “I came near to provoking an argument between us, and I don’t want that. Let’s enjoy the holiday in good fellowship.”

A shiver ran through Varzil’s thin frame. “You’re right, as usual. Two days ago, we talked of men finding peaceful ways of settling their quarrels, and here I am, ready to punch Eduin in the nose.” He forced a laugh. “I should know better than to try to resolve differences on the dance floor.”

“Well, if you must,” Carolin said in a lighter tone, “you could challenge him in the sword dance. You know, who can jump farther or kick higher or whirl around more times without falling over.”

“In my state, he’d win the first round, even if he were lame and blind. No, I’d best let the matter rest.” Despite his words, Varzil looked pensive, his face closed.

Carolin, fearing Varzil might withdraw from the festivities entirely, suggested again they invite Maura and Jandria to dance with them on the next set. To his surprise, Varzil agreed.

The dances had been getting progressively more spirited and less orderly, with plenty of opportunities for the couples to make eye contact or even steal a kiss. By chance, however, the next one was decorous enough to win the approval of the strictest chaperone. Maura tripped through the figures at Carolin’s side. Jandria was in an unusually talkative mood. By the time the musicians played the chords which signaled the final courtesies, even Varzil was smiling.

Carolin escorted Maura back to her seat and lingered there for an extra moment. She glanced back to the dance area where Varzil and Jandria still stood in animated conversation.

“Varzil’s looking better,” Maura said. “For a moment, when he first came down, I wondered ... Is there some unresolved argument between him and Dyannis? She is what the Venza folk call strong-headed, and I would assume he is the same, from what you have told me of how he got into Arilinn. That doesn’t always make for family harmony.”

So Maura, too, had sensed the discord across the room. Carolin smiled, thinking there was little privacy to be gained by lowered voices around telepaths. He said, “I think it more a matter of Varzil discovering that his baby sister is a woman grown and capable of pleasing herself.”

“To be sure!” Maura said with spirit. “I would expect nothing less, for she has the talent and the ambition to do well in a Tower, instead of sitting home mending socks and making babies.” She tilted her head, eyeing Varzil and Jandria. “They’re rather a good pair, don’t you think? Varzil doesn’t know what to make of her, and Jandria has even less patience with receiving instruction from a boy her own age than does Dyannis.”

“Shall I rescue him, then?”

“Oh, no!” Maura’s eyes twinkled. “I think it’s good for both of them. Especially on Midwinter Night!”

When the dance came to an end, Varzil bowed again to Jandria. He could see in her eyes that she would have kept him for another round or three, for although she enjoyed dancing, she did not care much for the usual flirtations. He had no interest in her beyond the mutual enjoyment of stepping to music.

The dance and the brief, light conversation which followed it had given him time to cool down, to decide what to do about Dyannis. Carolin was right, of course. She had committed no social trespass in accepting Eduin’s invitation to dance. But she did not need to look at Eduin in that frankly adoring manner. She was too young, too impressionable for such a grand court. She ought to have stayed at Hali for the holidays, or at the very least had her brother present as chaperone and guide.

Carolin’s question niggled at the edges of his mind—
Or do you trust her so little that you must guard her honor every waking moment?

Why did she have to pick Eduin, of all people?

Well, he would put a stop to it. A word or two, and she would come to her senses. In a few days, she would be returning to Hali and her training. Meanwhile, if she wanted to dance, then he himself would dance with her.

He found her sitting beside Maura Elhalyn. As he approached, she lifted her eyes to his. Her thoughts brushed against his, still largely untrained, but sweet and clear.

She was so pleased with herself and her newly-developing abilities, he didn’t have the heart to point out the rudeness of speaking mind to mind in a company of nontelepaths. He smiled and held out his hand, palm up, for hers. She looked a bit surprised when he formally requested the next dance.

Unlike the last dance, sedate enough to carry on a conversation, this one was full of jig steps and complicated turns with the comer couple. Varzil tripped over his own feet.

Dyannis giggled at him. “Are you sure you’re up for this?”

“I rather think I’m not,” he admitted. “But I do want a word with you.”

She slipped her hand through the crook of his elbow, comfortable and sure of herself, and led the way off the dance floor. The willful hoyden he had known as a child had given way to a charming young woman. When they were well clear of the other dancers, she released him and looked directly in his eyes in a manner he found disconcerting. If he were not her brother, such boldness would surely have been a cause for scandal.

“Well?” she said, one eyebrow lifting in merriment. “Why are you looking so glum?”

“I must speak with you—about dancing with Eduin.”

“You apologize for not being here earlier to partner me? Good! I accept. Is that all?”

“No, that is not all!” He wanted to shake her. “I still don’t want you dancing with him. It’s not a matter of being proper—as Carolin so rightly pointed out, there is no objection there. But I would rather you not form any kind of—” he searched for the word, “—
attachment
to Eduin. Not that such would last more than another tenday, wth you returning to Hali and he to Arilinn. But it would not be ... appropriate.”

“And why not?” Colorless brows drew together like pale storm clouds. “Is he not a fully qualified
laranzu
of Arilinn, as worthy of a woman’s good opinion as you? Is there some defect of character which you have detected that his Keeper has not? Tell me exactly why it is Eduin you object to, and not Carolin or Orain or even that lecher Rakhal?” Her eyes narrowed. “It’s that he is not of sufficiently noble birth, isn’t it? You should be ashamed, Varzil, to judge a
laranzu
by his family and not his character and ability!”

Varzil held up his hands at the barrage of her words. “I make no such judgment, sister! Nor have I ever questioned Eduin’s talent. I have worked with him in the circle enough to know his skill. His Gift is not an issue here. He is, after all, not offering to marry you, only to dance with you.”

“Exactly.”

“And I would rather you not. As your brother and closest male relative, I order you—”

“Order
me? I cannot believe what I am hearing! You would presume—I am not your horse or your dog or even your wife! If you have some reasonable concern, I will give it due consideration, but I do not consider your—your groundless, unfounded—irrational—tumip-brained
whims
to be sufficient reason for anything!”

Dyannis broke off, chest heaving, face and neck flushed with emotion. With a toss of her head and jangling of the tiny white bells in her hair, she shoved him away. Without another word, she pushed her way through the knot of nobles, oblivious to their astonished expressions.

Eduin watched in amazement as Dyannis stalked from the dance floor. Her brother, who ought to have escorted her back to the chairs where the ladies sat, stood as if she’d knifed him. He looked as if he would topple over any moment now.

Eduin felt an unexpected surge of empathy for Varzil. Even if he had not been lightly in rapport with Dyannis from their dances together, he would have sensed her fury. The room quivered with it. It was a wonder that every person on the floor who possessed the merest hint of
laran
did not react.

Someone will have to teach her better telepathic control—
he caught the edge of Maura’s thought as she hurried after Dyannis. With a pang, he wished he could go with her.

He’d never met anyone like Dyannis. It wasn’t just her forthright manner. When he’d first come to Arilinn, he’d thought the women there embarrassingly bold. Whether they had come to a Tower for a season or the rest of their lives, they quickly adopted its unspoken rules of behavior. They took lovers as they pleased, but however much pleasure a lover might be, when the sun set and the circles gathered, work was work. They were comrades who held each other’s minds—and lives—in their hands.

Dyannis, though she had joined the Tower at Hali, was something else entirely. Behind the sparkle in her gray eyes shone the clearest, purest light he’d ever seen. From that first evening’s dance, when he had taken her into his arms, he had felt himself falling into that pellucid radiance. He had felt himself seen, truly and without flinching, right down to the darkest recesses of his secrets, seen and accepted with a simplicity that shook him to his roots.

Eduin’s first impulse was to rush after her, to gather her to him, to shield her from whatever had distressed her. He knew this was impossible. His actions would only make matters worse. Besides, Maura, as another woman and her fellow
leronis
at Hali, was far more suitable to sort things out with her.