A Posse of Princesses (17 page)

With relief she saw Taniva just sitting down
in the far corner, and went to join her. Taniva gave her a
preoccupied little smile, but said nothing. That was all right with
Rhis.

Taniva’s back was to the wall. Rhis vaguely
remembered someone or other saying that that always betrayed the
person with military training. They never sat with their backs to a
room—they had to see everything. Well, Rhis was just as glad she
had no military training. She wanted her back to the room. She
didn’t want to see anyone.

But she couldn’t keep from noticing how
Taniva’s narrowed gaze searched the room continuously. There was a
grim set to her jaw, as if she were brooding over something. But
Rhis didn’t ask, and Taniva did not offer any talk.

By the time they had finished, Rhis became
aware that she’d heard no more thunder.

The violent part of the storm was over. The
light had changed to a kind of silvery gray, and the rain was now a
steady, gentle mist.

Taniva murmured, “I think I check something.
I am suspecting something bad, like rock on edge of cliff.”

Without waiting for an answer, she got up and
left.

Rhis followed more slowly, without looking to
either side.

Almost immediately she found Glaen before
her. “Rhis. May I talk to you?”

Rhis stared at the tight strain across his
forehead under the drifting hair, the shadows of tension around his
mouth. All the humor that characterized him was gone from his
face.

She opened her hands, not sure what to say.
Glaen took that as an invitation, and motioned for her to follow.
They walked up a staircase she’d never explored before, and he
ducked his head into a room, looked both ways, pulled back and
beckoned. “Empty.”

Rhis followed him into a little parlor,
pleasingly furnished with an embroidered couch and two tables, with
potted ferns set before the window.

“Part of being a worthless flirt,” Glaen said
as Rhis sat down on the couch, “is always knowing where there are
little rooms where one can be alone.” He leaned against one of the
tables, arms crossed, his fingers tapping against his arms.

“You want to talk to me about flirting?” Rhis
asked, confused.

“No. I know about flirting. I want to talk
about Shera.” And as Rhis made a gesture, he added, quickly.
“Nothing that is confidential. Perhaps I ought to say that I wish
to ask your advice.”

The soft gray light coming in behind Glaen
made him into a silhouette. Rhis shifted sideways so she could
better see his face.

“I’ve done something really stupid,” he went
on. “Really stupid, and I don’t know how to get out of it.” He
looked out the window, then back at Rhis. “You might as well know
the worst. I called her a heartless flirt.”

Rhis sat up as if someone had poked her,
instantly annoyed. “Shera?”

“I know. I know.” He clawed both hands
through his hair, his fingers tense. “It wasn’t Shera—she wasn’t
flirting, she was just having fun. It was I who was flirting. I’ve
been flirting with every girl I’ve ever seen, ever since I
discovered how much fun it was. In fact you might say I flirted not
just with girls, but with everything.” He cast a look back at Rhis.
“Including work. Last year on my twentieth birthday my parents gave
me my last warning, which I ignored like the previous ones, and on
New Year’s Day I discovered that they meant what they said, and
they made my sister their heir. She’s barely fifteen—six years
younger! But she already knew three times what I did about the
barony.”

Rhis did not know what to say, so she said
nothing.

“Don’t worry about hurting my feelings. You
can’t say—or think—anything worse than I thought myself. It was
salutary, and so I threw myself into learning shipbuilding, which
had been meant for my sister, or my younger brother. And I have
been. I like it. My sister never did. That’s not the problem.
Here’s the problem. No one believes I’m serious.
I
didn’t
believe I was serious until this year, and it takes a lot longer to
convince others when you’ve been a fool for years. Meanwhile along
comes this party. I am invited here, and my parents send me, saying
at least I can meet my peers while I’m wasting time. My sister—the
new heir—is too young, and anyway she hasn’t time to waste. No one
knows I’m not the heir, by the bye.” His wry tone, usually so full
of humor, hinted at unhealed hurt. “I come, thinking I’ll play
hard. A lot of these fellows—Laernad, Dris, Breggo, Tam—came to
play hard, because they work hard at home. Some of the others are
here to play because they’re going to spend their lives playing,
and they either have the wealth to do it, or will marry it.
Everyone thinks I’m one of the latter. Shera probably does, too,
because anyone from the south will have told her that I am
worthless, don’t mean anything I say—” He waved a hand in a
circle.

Rhis said tentatively, “But Shera didn’t come
looking for a husband. She came to have fun.”

Glaen turned around. “Right. I know all about
Rastian. She never hid anything from me. And right from the start
it
was
just fun. She’s so quick with a joke, so much fun in
a mock verbal battle. It was I who found ways to get her alone for
more banter, more laughter, nothing serious, not until the other
night when I saw her bantering with Lios, and I called her a flirt,
and worse, tried to kiss her.”

“Uh oh,” Rhis said. “It made her mad?”

“Worse. It hit us both like that storm this
morning.” He clapped his hands. “Dazzle! I know better than to
think dazzle is eternal, because it usually isn’t, but dazzle on
top of laughter, and companionship, and—” He sighed. “Well, after
that, she
did
get mad. And flung that Rastian in my teeth.
And I called her a heartless flirt and stomped off.”

“Oh.” Rhis now understood the crying.

“And this morning I tried to talk to
her—explain—apologize—and she wasn’t having any. Flung that
‘heartless flirt’ lightning-bolt right back at me, and added, it
takes one to know one. So she dusted off, and here I am. What do I
do now?” He turned away, a quick movement, and faced the
window.

“I don’t know,” Rhis said. “Let me think. Is
that all right? I have even less experience than—well, anyone
here.”

Glaen sighed. His thin fingers trembled as he
wiped aside his eternally drifting hair. “I guess it’s foolish to
imagine you’d set all to rights with a few suggestions, like you
did the other day, when Iardith almost hammered Carithe’s and
Shera’s play. At least you aren’t telling me I’m worse than
mud-slime.”

“Nobody is mud-slime. Unless they want to
be,” Rhis said, getting up. “And I don’t believe you want to be. I
never thought it before, and I don’t now.” She sensed he might be
regretting what he’d said, and she didn’t want him feeling any
worse than he obviously did already. “Let me think. And if you want
to talk again, well, I’m here.”

“Thanks,” he said, his back still turned.

Rhis let herself out of the room, and started
down the hall. But when she reached the turning, just ahead walked
a familiar figure—a male of medium height, long brown hair neatly
tied back. A familiar figure dressed in the plain clothes of a
scribe.

Bang! Her heart thumped hard. Glad of her
soft slippers and the deep carpet, she experienced a sudden,
intense urge to be outside, to see how the garden had fared,
whirled around and sped downstairs.

Who cared about getting wet? No one in
Nym—not if they ever wished to go outside at all, she thought, as
she slipped out one of the arched access ways, and hastened along
the flagged path toward the garden.

Why didn’t she want to face Dandiar? Too many
thoughts all yammering for her attention.
Shera—Glaen—Lios—Iardith—Yuzhyu—even Taniva, and her odd attitude
at breakfast.

Dandiar. Why did it upset her so, to find him
kissing Yuzhyu’s cheek? Whether that ‘brother and sister’ talk was
true or not, Rhis could understand why Yuzhyu had come to see her
about it—she didn’t want gossip. The thought that Dandiar was
prowling this empty hall, maybe looking for her in order to get
reassurance about Rhis not blabbing it around, made her tense with
disgust. No, more than disgust, with anger.

Why? She blinked rain from her eyelashes,
rambling faster down the pathway as her thoughts galloped along.
Dandiar. How much fun he was! And interesting. She liked him better
than anyone else. Oh, he wasn’t handsome like Lios or that grim,
tough Jarvas, or powerful and wealthy, like half-a-dozen others
easily named, but he was so very much . . .
himself
. She’d
never met anyone like him. She’d felt, without even knowing it,
that she could talk to him forever, that she would search every
corner of her mind for something interesting to say, just to see
that sudden smile with the shadowy quirk at the corners of his
mouth, and the way his eyebrows rose in a sort of rueful humor,
like a silent sharing of a private joke, just between the two of
them. She liked the way he’d looked so appreciatively at her the
night of the masquerade, admiration making his gaze linger. Nobody
else’s admiration made her feel outlined in light.

For a moment she imagined bringing him home
to Nym, to meet her mother and father. Her mother, who was not the
least interested in rank, would like him at once. Silly! The kiss
with Yuzhyu presented itself insistently to her inner eye, and the
fact that if it wasn’t serious, then it had to be flirting. Had he
been flirting with Rhis as well?

Was I flirting, and I didn’t even know
it?
But it wasn’t at all like the flirting she saw around her,
the fans, the sidled looks, the compliments and giggles and going
off to be alone. Of course, flirting could take a lot of
forms—she’d just learned that with Glaen. Even mock insult fights
could be flirting.

A quick step interrupted her thoughts. She
looked up, her mind going absolutely blank when she discovered she
was face to face with Dandiar himself.

“I saw you from the window,” he said,
pointing back over his shoulder.

Rain made him blink, and he wiped a lock of
hair from his brow. Had he been running?

He smiled that funny smile she’d seen so many
times, and couldn’t quite interpret. He was so expressive, and yet
she couldn’t always tell what he was thinking. “Are you part
water-bird?” he asked. “Half the times I’ve seen you have been out
here in the rain.”

“I like gardens,” she said, the words random.
“We don’t have any in Nym. Not like this.”

His smile disappeared, and that searching
gaze replaced it. “Look,” he said. “What you saw at the lake. It’s
not what you think. I don’t know what’s right, or if I ought to
tell you—”

“You don’t owe me anything,” Rhis said,
feeling that sick anger again. “I won’t blab to anyone. Never
intended to. And I hate being asked not to,” she couldn’t help
adding, though she felt hot and scratchy all over.

His cheeks reddened, but he’d gone pale
around the mouth. “That’s not it at all. Well, it is, but I never
thought you’d say anything. I couldn’t believe you’d want to hurt
poor Yuzhyu, who’s so blasted lonely here. It was a mistake for me
to bring her, I know it now,” he went on quickly, his words no
longer carefully considered, but tumbling out, almost too quick to
comprehend. “Some have a talent for picking up languages, others
don’t. I do, and I thought she would as well—”

Rhis waved her hands. “Wait. Wait.
You
brought her? I don’t understand.”

Dandiar grimaced, and looked down at his
feet. Then up, straight into her eyes. “That’s what I’m trying so
badly to tell you. Yuzhyu is my cousin.”

Her body had turned to snow, but she ignored
that, struggling grimly to understand. “You mean she’s not a
princess after all?”

“Oh, she’s the heir to Ndai, all right.”

“All right, let me get this straight. She’s
your cousin. And a princess.”

“Yes.”

“And you brought her here, so . . . you
wanted her to meet Lios?”

“No.”

“No? Then why—”

Dandiar looked up at the clouds tumbling
across the sky. “This is harder than I expected it would be. I—I
thought it would be fun. I certainly liked being a scribe—”

“Wait. Wait.” Rhis pressed her fingers
against her head. “I wish this day hadn’t started so awry. You are
cousins with Yuzhyu.”

“Yes.”

“And you brought her here.”

“Yes.”

“But not to meet Lios. But it’s fun to be
a—you mean, you’re not a scribe?”

“No.”

“Then—who are you?”

Dandiar said gently, “Can’t you guess?”

“How should I—” Rhis began, but then the
puzzle pieces began falling into place. Princess as a cousin—not a
scribe—

He was watching very closely indeed, for he
said, “Go on.” As if she’d spoken.

But she only looked up, unable to hide the
sick feeling that replaced the confusion. “No.”

“Yes,” he said, and let out his breath in a
short huff. “Here’s the truth. I’m Lios. Lios Menelaes Dandiar
Arvanosas if you want the whole name, as set out in treaty before I
was even born.”

“Impossible.”

But as she said it, her mind raced from
memory to memory, beginning with that kiss. A kiss on the cheek,
with the clasping of hands, a gesture that really was
like a
brosser
—or a cousin—like a member of a family, and not like a
lover. Sidal had kissed Rhis just that way, the night before Rhis
departed on her journey. Her mother had held her hands.

Back, back. The facility with languages—and
the fact that Lios (the false Lios) hadn’t spoken with Yuzhyu in
her home language, when supposedly he knew so many. Dandiar’s
graceful bow, so practiced, with just that hint of humor; his
callused hands, his trained eye in all the things you expected of a
prince. Dandiar’s freedom of movement, how he knew everyone, how
much he knew of songs and history and books, like those many tomes
being translated in the library that
the prince had already read
in their many languages
—