A Posse of Princesses (18 page)

Dandiar the Poet-King.
The joke—

Rhis looked up.

“Go on,” he said, again as if she had
spoken.

“The joke.” She wasn’t solving a puzzle.
There was no puzzle. There was only a masquerade, a false face, put
on to fool his unsuspecting guests. A joke. Not on his name, but on
his rank, so in essence, the joke was really on everyone who didn’t
know.

Her memory had now winged back to her first
morning, and Lios—the pretend Lios—standing at the rail,
laughing.

Laughing at the blindsided guests. Laughing
at her, perhaps? For staring at the false Lios with lovestruck
longing?

Rain streamed down both their faces now,
unheeded. She dashed the water from her stinging eyes as she
exclaimed, “Why?”

“I had to know what was real—” he
started.

“How? When
you
weren’t real? You were
lying
.”

“I never lied. I just didn’t tell all the
truth—”

“Yes, you did,” she declared, her chin
trembling, her knees going watery. “When you said you were ‘just a
scribe.’ As for the rest of what you said, maybe not the individual
words, but in intent.”

Dandiar looked down, his mouth pressed in a
thin white line. “I did work as a scribe before I was officially
made the heir, though it’s true I was also a prince, and I knew
that my work as scribe was part of my training.”

Rhis went on, her voice trembling, “It was a
lie in intent. Because it was real enough for all of us. But that
is of no importance, of course. I remember very well how you and
your false Lios—what is he, anyway?”

“Andos. Sword master’s son.”

“I don’t care,” she cried, though she knew it
was unfair. But growing anger dismissed any such quibble.
She
was unfair? She hadn’t even begun enumerating just how
many unfairnesses had been perpetrated from the moment she’d
arrived. “I. Don’t. Care,” she repeated, fighting to control her
voice, which squeaked and shook. “I remember you two standing at
the rail my very first day, how you were laughing away. Laughing
over those who pursued Andos the sword master’s son, thinking him
Lios the prince, and gloat over their futile efforts? Did you
bother finding out why they did it, or was the joke much too funny
for that?”

Lios Arvanosas, new Crown Prince of Vesarja,
looked down at the rain dappling his open palms. “At first. But
only partly—”

“You’re so very clever, aren’t you?” Rhis
swept on, now furious. Her entire body trembled. “Running
everything just like a play, and we’re all the puppets. So you can
pick and choose? What were your standards for picking a good queen?
Beauty? Brains?” Her voice caught on a sob, and she gulped angrily,
fighting for control. “
Truth
?”

Lios Menelaes Dandiar Arvanosas no longer
spoke, just stood there, his mouth pressed in that thin line, his
eyes wide and steady, his face blanched of color despite the
streaming rain.

“Then you only had to snap your fingers, and
what, tell whoever you finally picked that you were just fooling,
but she won the prize? And she’d, what, be
grateful
that she
won the prize?” Another sob of rage, and grief, whooped from deep
inside Rhis’s chest. “Well, I don’t think it’s clever. I think it’s
horrible, and disgusting, and mean, and the worst kind of lying,
and I hate you, I hate you all, and I—I—I’m going
home
.”

It took all her effort to get the last two
words out, but she managed, then she whirled around and fled,
crying hard now, hot tears mixing with the cool rain, almost
blinding her. She stumbled once or twice, and blundered into a rose
trellis, but she no longer cared about hands, or gown, or mud. She
wanted only to get away, to be alone.

But she was not going to get her chance.

She had just reached the covered path leading
to the west terrace when she almost ran into a little group.

“There you are, Rhis!”

Rhis stopped short, smoothing her hands over
her face.

Carithe laughed. “You really do like being
outside, don’t you? We came to find out when we ought to begin
practice with the play. Shera said you were the one to ask, so—”
She shrugged, looking up at the two young men on either side.
“We’re asking.”

Rhis opened her mouth to snarl,
Ask
Lios
, but she stopped. With Carithe and the fellows was Terash,
the shy islander, and a couple others that Rhis recognized having
been once part of the crowd around Iardith and Lios.

Should she tell them? How would they feel?
Humiliated, of course—as much as she felt. No, she was going to
keep that secret, not for
his
sake, but for theirs.

If he wanted to tell anyone, he could do that
on his own.

“How about later?” Rhis said. “I—I have kind
of a headache.”

“Well, of course, running about in that
rain,” Carithe exclaimed. “Go, order a hot posset, and rest! We can
always begin later. Truth is, I think everyone is still tired, or
something, because they’re all out of sorts.”

“Yes,” Rhis agreed with false cordiality.
“Indeed.”

She felt the puzzled looks that followed her,
but she would not turn around, or explain. She slipped inside, and
almost fell into Vors’s arms.

“There you are, Rhis,” he said. “I’ve been
hoping to get a chance to speak with you alone. Do you know you are
the only person who is never alone here? I—”

“I want to be alone now,” she said.

Vors’s jaw dropped.

“Oh, it’s not because of you.” She gave a
shuddery sigh. “Not at all. I—I got myself into trouble, and
I—”

“Who?” Vors looked affronted, and clapped his
hand to his side—though he wasn’t wearing any sword. He looked a
little silly for just a moment, then scowled and said in a deep
voice, “Just point the villain out. I’ll thrash him until he begs
pardon. Or would you like me to challenge the rotter to a
duel—”

Rhis snorted a laugh, surprised she
could
laugh. But it was an unsteady laugh, and tears were
not far behind it.

“No. No. Nothing like that. Never mind, Vors.
Anyway, it would never work, us courting,” she babbled.

“Is there someone else?” he asked, his anger
fading into a kind of wooden expression.

“Yes. Someone else.” She thought about—no!
“Someone—someone at home,” she added in a sharp voice—as if he had
questioned her, which he hadn’t. But she realized that she was
beginning to lie, just like That Rotten . . . “Look, Vors, I really
must get out of this wet gown.”

Vors bowed. “May I still count myself your
friend?”

“I’d be honored,” she said, but she knew as
soon as she said it that they weren’t going to be friends. Never
had been. With a friend she would never use that formal tone—but it
was the least she could say to salve whatever chagrin he might be
feeling.

He stepped aside, and she picked up her soggy
skirts and began to run.

She’d made it as far as the first stairway
when she nearly collided with another figure. This time is was
Glaen.

“Have you seen her?” he asked.

Rhis just shook her head.

Glaen rubbed his thin hands up his face and
through his wild, drifting hair, the tendons standing out.

She resisted the impulse to linger, to offer
comfort. What comfort could she really give? She sped on, pausing
at corners to peer round lest someone else be lying in wait.

When she reached her rooms, it was to find
Shera’s door open, and a chaos beyond. Rhis stopped in the doorway,
staring in amazement. Both Keris and Shera’s maid were busy
sorting, shaking out, and folding fabric, which lay everywhere.

In the middle of it Shera stood, her
beautiful ruddy ringlets messy, her face blotched, her eyes and
nose pink. She looked up.

“I’m leaving,” she said, her tone
half-defiant.

“I’ll go with you,” Rhis replied.

“I mean to home.”

“I’ll go, too. Well, to the border of Gensam,
anyway. Then I’ll go home to Nym.”

Shera stared. “What? You don’t want to stay?”
Her brows lowered. “Why are you all sopping wet? Rhis, has Glaen
gotten you into his toils as well?”

“No. Of course not. Nobody has got me into
any toils that I didn’t walk into. I just want to go home.”

Keris smiled at the other maid. Those smiles
were calm, and adult, and Rhis knew that once they were away from
their princesses, they would be talking.

That was a disagreeable thought, wondering
just how many people, unseen as well as seen, were talking all
through the palace. What kinds of stories were circulating.

Rhis felt dizzy as her perspective altered.
In truth, she’d forgotten about the servants, who saw most
everything, and heard more. How many of them knew about Lios and
Dandiar? All those scribes had known, she realized. And that
morning he’d been not talking, but issuing orders—

Forget
him.

None of it would matter as soon as she and
Shera had gotten through the palace gates and were rolling eastward
toward home.

Rhis backed away and wandered into her room.
‘Her’ room. Hah. She went to the window and looked up at the birds
in their nest. They belonged here more than she did, and probably
no one but she knew that they were there.

Rhis heard a step behind her. “Something
happened, didn’t it?”

Rhis turned away from the window as Shera
shut the door between their rooms.

Shera’s eyes looked greenish in contrast to
their pink lids. Her round button mouth puckered. “Have I been
selfish as well as a heartless flirt? What has hurt you? Or should
I say ‘who?’”

“You are not a heartless flirt,” Rhis
declared, sidestepping the latter questions.

Shera sank down onto a footstool. “I am a
heartless flirt. Worse. I’m fickle, and untrustworthy, and
s-s-silly.” She gulped.

“Uh oh,” Rhis breathed.

Shera said, “Rastian is at home, trusting me.
I know he is. I promised—so easily—I’d come here to have fun, and
meet people, and be diplomatic, because you never know who you’re
going to end up on the other side of the treaty table from. I’ve
seen that plenty of times, and I haven’t even been at Court long.
And then, and then, well—” She waved her hands in the air.

“It’s Glaen, isn’t it?” Rhis asked gently.
“You don’t have to answer.”

“Oh, it’ll be all over soon anyway.
Everything always is, around here. And when I think how much I
enjoyed hearing the latest gossip! Well, I guess it’s my turn to
provide the entertainment over chocolate and cakes. Yes, I somehow
managed to fall in love, or in something, over that selfish,
worthless, smart-mouth of a Glaen, and all in a very few days, when
I’ve known Rastian all my life, and half of that time we’ve always
known we would marry each other.”

“You mean, arranged?”

Shera shook her head, and a long curl drooped
over her eyebrow. She flung it back. “My father insisted that
there’d be no arranged marriage for me, since I was not the heir,
and my Mama agreed to it. So I was always able to pick for
myself—though of late I’ve begun to realize that their worries
about me were because my brother is probably never going to marry,
and so the next heir will have to come from me. But I’ve liked
Rastian all my life. He was the first boy I ever noticed, the
first—the only—one I’ve ever kissed, and everyone likes our twoing,
his family and mine.” She covered her face with her hands.

“Well, we’re going home, Shera. No harm
done,” Rhis murmured.

Shera flung her hands down. “Then you don’t
know
. You couldn’t, or you wouldn’t
say
that. I can’t
just go back and
no harm done
. How can I face Rastian when I
keep thinking about Glaen?
Surely
it’s not just attraction,
because I’ve been around much more attractive fellows, and while I
know what it feels like, I never ever wanted to kiss them. And
now—” She looked miserable. “How can I go home and try to kiss
Rastian, and all the while I’ll be thinking of that worthless
Glaen?” She got to her feet and whirled around. “But I
have
to go home. Maybe I’ll invent a crime, and get them to lock me in a
tower somewhere. Or I’ll ask Papa if I can go to his summer house
on the mountain, and live there as a hermit, and grow roses.”

Rhis remembered her mother’s words:
Flirt
all you like, but know you cannot marry until you are at least
twenty. That might be a comfort
. For the very first time, Rhis
allowed the possibility that those words might have some truth to
them. Poor Shera!

A knock on the door caused the girls to go
still.

Another knock. Louder, more insistent.

Rhis trod to the door, and called, “Who is
it?”

“It is I, Taniva,” came the strong accent of
the Princess of High Plains.

Rhis pulled the door open, and Taniva strode
in, her layered skirts swinging. Rhis was slightly distracted by
the dashing outfit the Plains princess wore; high riding boots with
wool tops and a fringe dangling down, the gold-edged layers of
skirt, black, red, black, tight vest, and green silk blouse with
long, dashing sleeves. Her hair had been braided and looped up;
Rhis recognized the outfit as one she’d seen when Taniva was riding
in the horse race.

Taniva ignored Shera, and turned to face
Rhis, hands on her hips. She opened her mouth, then her striking
black brows quirked in a comical frown. “You are wet. This has a
reason?”

“Nothing that matters now. Is something
wrong?”

“Yes,” Taniva said. “I had suspicion
yesterday. I challenge Jarvas, but he evades me. I watch this
morning. They do not appear, do not appear, and so I am going about
to check. Not loud. I go to stables, pretend to wish to look at his
horses. They are both missing.”

Shera looked from one to the other. “Who? Who
is missing?”

Taniva paid her no attention.