A Flame in Hali (45 page)

“Oh, yes! The minstrels sing of it!”

Dyannis reflected that ballad and reality were often not at all the same. “So you are to arrange my hair? Can you make any order from this?”

Rella placed Dyannis on a stool in the middle of the room, remarking that she needed a proper dressing table, and began combing her hair with such a deft, light strokes that Dyannis scarcely felt a tug. She plaited the hair and coiled it low on the neck, then added a coronet of braided ribbons and tiny silver bells.

“There now, you are as beautiful as Queen Maura!” Rella exclaimed, standing back to admire her handiwork.

“Oh, hardly that.” Dyannis studied herself in the mirror. The scratched reflection seemed younger and more innocent. She had worn bells in her hair like this on that fateful Midwinter Festival Ball, when she had first met Eduin.

“Don’t you like it?” Rella asked. “Perhaps a different color ribbon—”

“Leave it.” Dyannis made a dismissive gesture, which seemed to only increase Rella’s agitation.

“I am to dress you as well, and I have brought rouge and powder.”

Sighing, Dyannis allowed Rella to help her into the green gown. She had chosen the style because there were no laces or buttons up the back that required another pair of hands, but she would not have the girl return to her mistress with her tasks undone. She drew the line at painting her face.

“I am as the gods made me,” she told the maid, “and if that does not please my brother’s wife, she must take her complaints to them.”

Harald beamed when he saw Dyannis. He wore his own finery, including the heavy silver chain that had been old
Dom
Felix’s prized possession. His children, two boys and a girl, came out to greet Dyannis.

The oldest boy would reach puberty soon, and Dyannis sensed the stirrings of his
laran.
She must speak to Harald about the proper precautions, should the boy be prone to threshold sickness. Nausea and disorientation, sometimes with irritability and visual disturbances, could lead, if untreated, to life-threatening convulsions. Before she was born, her own older brother and sister, twins, had died during the psychic upheavals of adolescence. She had heard the story a hundred times, mostly as a warning when she had been naughty. Varzil, who had more
laran
than the entire family put together, had passed so smoothly through his own youth that for a time, their father had difficulty believing in the strength of his talent.

Either the family dined far more elegantly than Dyannis remembered from her childhood, or else the cook had outdone herself in preparing a feast on such short notice. There was so much meat, and Harald pressed her so earnestly to take more, that she ate far more than she normally would. Hali’s cook tended to be sparing with meat. Some
leronyn
refused to eat any animal flesh whatsoever, and others restricted themselves to fish, claiming that meat dampened their powers. Dyannis had never noticed any difference.

Not that I will have any need of
laran
out here,
Dyannis thought as she accepted a third helping of beef swimming in its own rich juices.

“So you have at last grown weary of life in the Tower?” Harald said. “I never expected you to endure this long, for you were ever a lively, strong-willed lass. To think of you, cloistered away like some
cristoforo
monk! But they did not send you packing, in the end.” His voice held a hint of a question.

“No, coming home was my own choice. No matter what you have heard, we are hardly
cloistered,
” Dyannis replied, thinking of the freedom with which the Tower women took lovers, earned their own money, and made decisions about their lives, things that would have been scandalous anywhere else. “Ever since my first day as a novice at Hali, I have loved the work.”

“Even being under the command of your Keeper?” Harald raised one eyebrow in disbelief.

“Yes,” she replied, smiling. “Even that. If you had known Dougal or Raimon, you would not need to ask. Oh, I complained as much as any novice, but in the end, I gladly accepted the discipline, just as you submitted yourself to Father when he taught you to use a sword.” She paused, choosing her next words with care. “Even the most rewarding work becomes a burden when mind and spirit are stretched too far. After Isoldir, I needed a rest.”

Dyannis went on to briefly relate the events at Cedestri, for her family had heard little of it.

“I simply cannot not believe it, that you traveled through such dangerous country, and in the middle of a war!” Rohanne exclaimed. “What was Varzil thinking, to bring you into such peril? Were you not terrified?”

Dyannis found herself smiling gently. “Sister-in-law, I was too
busy
to be frightened. We reached Cedestri Tower right after the fire-bombing, and there were many wounded to attend to. After the worst of them were mending, Varzil and I, along with those
leronyn
who could still work, set about repairing the relay screens and rebuilding the walls with our
laran
. Otherwise, it might have taken a generation or more.”

Rohanne’s brows drew together. “It is not seemly to send gently-born women into such situations. It is the natural instinct of men to protect them instead of attending to their own duties.”

“I am no hothouse flower, but a trained
leronis,
” Dyannis replied patiently. “I assure you, I worked as hard as any of the men.”

“All that is behind you now,” Rohanne said. “We are glad to have you here amongst us, where you are safe.”

“I am happy to hear that you have so far been spared the horrors of warfare,” Dyannis said. “May it be ever so. If Carolin and Varzil succeed in persuading others to forswear their most terrible
laran
weapons, your children may indeed see a new and glorious era of peace.”

“What do you know of such things?” Harald meant the question as rhetorical, and looked startled when Dyannis answered him seriously.

“Hali Tower now abides by the Compact, and has pledged to make no
laran
weapons and take no part in any fight,” she said. “But during the reign of Rakhal the Usurper, my fellow
leronyn
took to the battlefield. I helped to make
clingfire,
and was lucky enough to come through that ordeal unscarred.”

Dyannis shuddered, for she had once had to cut away the burning flesh of a Hali worker when one of the glass vessels shattered during the distillation of the caustic stuff. She thought, too, of the devastation she had seen at Cedestri, the charred, blood-stained bodies, of the frenzied mob at the lake, of Rorie with an arrow in his chest . . .

No, she would not speak of these memories.

Rohanne had been staring at her, open-mouthed and, for once, speechless. Harald glanced at his wife, his concern for her clear in the set of his jaw, the furrow between his brows. “Women should not have to think of such things as
laran
weapons.”

“
No one
should!” Seeing his sharp look, Dyannis wished she had held her tongue. He was her host as well as her eldest brother, and it was ungracious of her to provoke him with talk of politics. More gently, she added, “If it be the will of the gods, we will see that dream become reality. Surely that is something all people of good will desire.”

Visibly relieved, he raised his goblet and called for another round of wine. “Let us drink to that day.”

O
n her journey from Hali, Dyannis had become accustomed to rising early. Despite the heavy dinner and wine of the night before, she came downstairs as the household servants began their day’s work. She found breakfast laid out. The dishes of boiled eggs, sausages, and freshly-baked bread were still warm.

She helped herself to spiced apples, a slice of fragrant bread, and a smear of soft cheese. Just as she sat down at the table, one of the maids, a fresh-faced girl she didn’t recognize, trotted in with a pitcher of
jaco.

“Is my brother about?”

The girl dropped a curtsy. “Yes,
damisela
. He’s already left with the men and won’t be back till dinner.”

“Yes, of course.” There was no point asking what he’d be doing, for the maid’s tone made it clear this was “men’s work,” and of no proper concern to ladies.

“And Lady Rohanne?”

“She takes her breakfast upstairs.” The girl dimpled with a trace of mischief. “Much later.”

“Oh, I see.” Such languor was fashionable among ladies at Carolin’s court. Dyannis wondered if Rohanne expected her to do the same. She left the fruit, smeared the cheese on the bread, and went out to the yard.

The stables were empty except for a sedate white mare, probably Rohanne’s mount. In the corral, a few rough-coated horses, working stock, watched Dyannis with curious eyes. She thought of taking a hawk from the mews, but there was no need for extra meat, and like all the empathic Ridenow, she disliked killing things, even small birds, without good cause.

Having no other demands upon her time, Dyannis went in search of her niece and nephews. The two younger ones were occupied in the nursery, but she found Lerrys, the older boy, in one of her own favorite childhood haunts, the loft above the tack room. The familiar smell of oiled leather, hay, and horses brought a smile to her lips.

“May I join you?” she called, one foot on the ladder.

“You want to come up
here?
” His voice cracked a little.

Dyannis laughed and climbed up. Except for the makeshift table, the place looked exactly as it had when she used to hide here so many years ago. She picked up a wooden horse and examined its belly. The paint had been worn away, leaving the pale-gold wood, but she found her initials where she had scratched them with a knife stolen from the kitchen.

“What do you call him?” she asked, setting the horse back beside the other wooden animals, deer and
chervines,
two other horses that had obviously been repainted, and a Dry Towns
oudrakhi
with only three legs.

“Pacer.”

“Oh?” Dyannis settled herself on one of the tattered pillows, tucking her skirts under her. That had been Varzil’s name when the toy had first been made for him. They’d almost come to blows when she tried to rename it “Sunshine.” She wondered if the boy might have picked up some psychic residue from the horse. Varzil had powerful
laran
even as a child, enough to leave an invisible trace for anyone sensitive enough to read it.

Lerrys looked away, flushing.

“It’s as good a name as any,” she said carelessly. “Come, tell me what the others are doing. You’ve arranged them in such an interesting way. It looks as if they are speaking to one another.”

In response, he began stuffing the toys into a canvas sack. The last one, the
oudrakhi,
he held for a moment, as if weighing it. His eyes flickered to her, then he shoved it in with the others.

“I used to play with those very same animals when I was a girl, did you know?” She underscored the overture with a gentle psychic nudge.

He shrugged. “I guessed they belonged to somebody, my father or Uncle Varzil.”

“Oh, yes, he had them before me, but everything he had, I wanted, do you see? So even before he left for Arilinn, I’d sneak up here and play with them.”

“My sister is like that, too,” Lerrys said, brightening. “She’d be up here right now, except Mother wants her to act like a little lady.”

Dyannis made a face. “Poor thing, do you suppose she’s inflicting embroidery practice on her? I hated needlework, always have. Sticking little pointy things where they don’t belong, ugh! I’d much rather be up here or on a horse. Do you ever go out to those caves beyond the sheep pastures?”

“Where Uncle Varzil rescued Father?” The boy’s eyes widened. “Father would
kill
me if I went out there!”

“Let me tell you,
my
father wasn’t too happy about it, either.”
But I went, anyway.

“You
did?
”

She nodded, suppressing a surge of excitement. He’d heard her unspoken thought and responded, in an unguarded moment. “Lerrys, may I touch you?”

He looked puzzled, but held out a grubby hand for her. She took it between her own, a perfect contact, and reached out with her
laran . . .

When Dyannis closed her eyes, the pattern of nodes and channels of the boy’s energetic body glowed like a constellation of brightly-colored spheres joined by white-gold cords. She searched further, looking for congestion, the shift toward reds and muddy browns, disruption of flow. Yes, down along the pathways leading to the lower body, she spied the warning signs. As she watched, the colors darkened, pulsing.

The boy’s hand trembled between her own. As she released him, he blushed again. She caught a surge of embarrassment, of sexual awareness. Here he was, alone with his young and pretty aunt,
holding hands.

“Lerrys, how old are you?”

“Fourteen.”

“Hmmm.” She would have guessed twelve from his size, but Varzil, too, had always been slender. “I can’t keep track of who was born when.”

“It’s all right.”

“Are you ever sick to your stomach for no good reason? Or out of sorts, quick of temper? Or do your eyes play tricks on you?”

“What do you think I am, crazy?” He drew back, and she knew from the vehemence of his denial how deeply troubled he had been by these symptoms.

She shook her head. “I am a
leronis,
trained at Hali. I do not ask these questions lightly, or as an insult.” How much did the boy know? Did he realize the risk? “Do you have a starstone? Might I see it?”

If Lerrys kept it at the bottom of a chest of toys, or some other separate location, then his
laran
might be as yet unawakened. He fumbled at his waist, beneath his shirt, where he wore a strip of cloth folded to make a sash. He drew out a small bluish crystal and held it up. The interior was as yet dim, untouched by inner fire.