A Posse of Princesses (31 page)

“Breggo?” Rhis repeated, trying to imagine
him comforting Shera.

“He’s very, very sensitive,” Shera protested,
her cheeks glowing. “Did you ever notice how long his eyelashes
are?”

Rhis gazed at her, instantly suspicious. “So
. . . Glaen was angry at Rastian, or at you?”

“Well, at us both,” Shera said, sitting up
and fussing with her hair ribbon as she gazed out the window at the
lifting rain. “Afterward. After dinner, I mean. It was nice out
last night, before this horrid storm moved in. And Breggo was
sitting with me on a balcony. Oh, Rhis, you cannot conceive how
pretty this palace is. Eskanda is nothing to it. Little grottos and
balconies with views, and the most wonderful—well, anyway. I told
Breggo all about them both, and he was sympathetic. And so kind,
didn’t I mention that? Anyway, I told him I appreciated fellows who
have a sense of kindness, and—and so what if some of the things I
said were the same words I’d said to Glaen? They were nice words,
and
true
.”

“And what, Glaen heard you, right?”

“He came round looking for me. To apologize.
He
said
. He interrupted us, just like that. Made a sarcastic
comment about how I must use the same words on every fellow, and
he’d go apologize to Rastian, instead, who had his sympathy—”

“Uh oh.”

“It wouldn’t have worked anyway,” Shera said
miserably, plonking her elbows onto the bed and her chin into her
hands. “I mean, Glaen is like lightning, so quick and bright. But
being around him every day would be a little like having a
thunderstorm every day, don’t you think?”

Rhis considered nervy, quick-moving Glaen.
“Oh, yes,” she said. “But he’s so sensitive. I think he gets hurt
easily.”

Shera sat up, fingering one of the bows in
her ringlets. “So you’re feeling sorry for him?”

Rhis sighed with exasperation. “Shera!”

“Well, it sounded like—” Shera waved her
hands, then bounced up off the bed. “Anyway, I have to go home, and
Sidal told me last night that I am expressly forbidden to get
engaged to anyone before I leave. Isn’t that
nasty
? It’s
like
everyone
was spying on me.”

Rhis said, “It doesn’t sound like a very
pleasant night.”

“No, and it’ll be an even worse journey. I
just know my mother will be angry. When I said that she’d probably
lock me up until I was twenty-five, Rastian said,
Ha
ha
.”

“How mean!”

“At least your sister is fair with
her
nasty comments. She told him that if he could not behave
courteously he could be sent back by magic, and he could retire and
think about what an escort of honor means.” Shera wrenched at her
hair ribbon, then finally said, “You think I’m fickle. Just like
Rastian said. And Glaen.”

Rhis exclaimed, “I don’t think anything.
Except that I really hate magical things, and I never want to see
another diamond, singing or not.”

Shera looked contrite. “I’m sorry. I forgot
all about that. It’s just, you were gone for all the days we
traveled, and Glaen was so nice, and then Breggo, and then we met
slap up with Rastian—well, never mind all that. I do have to go
tonight, but you’ll write to me, won’t you?”

“Of course! Now we can write real letters to
one another,” Rhis said.

“Good,” Shera exclaimed. “Then you can let me
know what happens with Lios—”

The door opened, and Sidal rejoined them.
“Shera, they are waiting for you.”

“We can’t leave now, it’s raining.” Shera
pointed to the window—where, just then, a shaft of light reached
down between the clouds, lighting up a pretty carpet of different
shades of rose, outlined by green leaves. The figures looked like
dancing rabbits.

Shera put her hands on her hips. “Where is
rain when you want it?”

Rhis laughed as Shera flung her arms round
her, gave her a squeeze, then backed away tearily. Then, with a
sniff, Shera marched out.

Sidal waited until her rapid step had
diminished down the polished parquet floor outside, then studied
her sister. “Rhis, are you ready for your interviews?”

“I guess they’re ready for me,” Rhis said. “I
think I’d rather get it over than sit here worrying.”

Sidal smiled. “That’s my sister! Head into
the wind, that’s what Mama always told me. Eventually the storm has
to pass on by, but if you try to run, it follows you.”

Sidal led the way down a long hall with
windows all down one side. These windows overlooked a spectacular
garden cut into a sloping hill, with a complication of gnarled
flower-vined archways and little paths crossed by graduated
waterfalls. The paths led over tiny arched bridges, each decorated
with fine carvings.

Rhis found the sight so intriguing that the
journey seemed far shorter than it would have otherwise. At the end
of the hall, a waiting pair of footmen opened tall double doors.
Inside an enormous room, seated in tall-backed chairs upholstered
with midnight blue velvet, was a half-circle of robed figures who
had to be mages, probably from all the important countries around
Vesarja. Plus representatives from the world’s Magic Council.

This was no cozy room, it was a formal one,
for state purposes. Thoroughly intimidated, Rhis took in the high
walls with their long midnight blue curtains, now drawn to shut out
the beautiful garden. Above was a gently domed ceiling on which was
painted a scene of clouds and comets and flying horses. Glowglobes
gave the room light.

One of the mages stood up. Rhis recognized
the tall gray-haired woman from the border of Damatras. “I am
Taunsan, Royal Mage of Vesarja,” she said. She did not introduce
any of the others.

Sidal indicated a chair sitting all alone in
the middle of the marble floor. Rhis sat gingerly upon this as
Sidal moved to the extreme edge of the half-circle.

“Tell us,” Taunsan commanded, “exactly what
happened from the moment you first had access to magic, until our
arrival.”

Rhis turned to her sister for support,
received an encouraging smile, and began. At first she interrupted
herself, going back over the same words, stumbling, sometimes
struggling to express the weird, piercing note of the Singing Stone
when it tried to force her to its will. She finally came to an end
amid a morass of questions as she watched the silent, sober-faced
mages for hints of what they thought. But they neither spoke nor
moved, except for Taunsan, who said, “Thank you. We will
deliberate. Sidal, please conduct Princess Rhis to the next
room.”

Sidal led Rhis to another door, opposite from
the circle of mages. “I wish I could have prepared you but she
wanted it this way,” she whispered, opened the door to an even more
fantastic room than the one they’d just left, gave Rhis a pat, and
then shut the door soundlessly behind her.

The room was enormous, oval in shape. A
shallow curve of tall, arched windows overlooked the waterfalls.
The rest of the room was cut from silver-veined marble, with an
elaborate fountain carved of white marble into a complicated tumble
of winged shapes, like a flock of fantastical birds all caught in a
moment of time as they launched toward the sky. The water spouts
were cleverly hidden, so it seemed that the flow was a splash
kicked up by the departing birds.

On approaching this fountain with slow steps,
Rhis realized the fountain did not just fall into a pool, but ran
down a very shallow stream, where it passed under the windows and
joined into one of the ordered flows outside, leading to the
waterfalls.

“This is my summer interview chamber.” A
woman’s voice came from behind Rhis. “Enter, child.”

Rhis turned in a circle, still trying to take
in the stylized wings in the tapestry and chair backs, the ceiling
painted over with faint flying horses as if seen from below,
blending at the edges with the painted clouds. Covering a portion
of the inlaid wooden floor was a spectacular rug of midnight blue,
woven with a border of stylized flying herons—white, silver, pale
blue, gold.

A short, round woman rustled toward Rhis, her
step brisk. She wore a gown of heavy watered silk. But that was not
what captivated Rhis’s attention any more than the complicated
strands of pearls at her neck, or the diamond-and-pearl drops at
her ears.

What caught Rhis’s attention was that the
woman’s eyes were exactly like Dandiar’s.

Queen Briath smiled a little. “So I look like
my son, do I?”

Rhis tried to gather her wits, but even so
she couldn’t help noticing details and differences; the queen was
about the same age as Rhis’s mother. Her elaborately dressed hair
was very dark, with silver streaks at the temples. The queen did
not have a snub nose. Hers was pointed, as was her chin.

Rhis belatedly performed a proper court
curtsey, but the queen only made an impatient movement. “Come,
come, sit down. They tell me you are still recovering from this
magical mystery of theirs. I mislike the sound of it, truth to
tell. Though I trust Taunsan with my life. But some of those
others? Hah!”

Rhis followed the queen. Now that her back
was turned, Rhis realized how short she was—Rhis was the taller by
half a head. But one certainly didn’t notice that when facing
Briath of Vesarja.

“So. It seems I have you to thank that my
son’s disastrous plan was not such a disaster after all.”

Rhis’s face heated. “You mean his
masquerade?”

“I do not,” Queen Briath said. “I thought
that was quite clever, actually. I understand you were of the
opposite opinion.”

“Oh,” Rhis said witlessly. “Um.”

Queen Briath plumped down into one of the
fine silk-covered chairs that were placed at the four corners of
the heron carpet. She motioned Rhis to take the one opposite.
“There’s water, and a very good iced punch if you like that sort of
thing,” she said, indicating a low table of wood and etched glass
that had been placed next to Rhis’s chair. On this table sat a
golden tray filled with food and drink.

Rhis busied herself with a goblet of water as
the queen said, “You seem to be far more careful with your tongue
than your sister-by-marriage.” She chuckled, the pearls in her ears
dancing. “I’ll tell you this. If I could have tried such a
masquerade thirty years ago, I would have.”

Rhis looked up, startled.

“Think about it. You grow up the heir, and
even if you’re short and fat with a needle-nose—” The queen tapped
her own nose significantly, as her rings glittered and flashed.
“—all you hear is how lovely you are, and how smart, graceful,
clever, and ever so beautiful—whatever they think you want to
hear.”

Rhis said cautiously, “We don’t do that. In
Nym.”

“Aye. That’s because Nym is small enough to
avoid a court. All you have to face every day are your family, and
the people who work for you. I can’t get rid of my court: having
all my nobles here dancing attendance on me as I entertain them
keeps them busy enough not to be plotting, as some of them would be
if I left them alone on their estates to live like pocket kings and
queens. The half a year they aren’t here, they’re busy enough
tending to their lands so they’ll have enough money to spend next
season.” She grinned. “And I make certain court is expensive. For
one thing, you’d be surprised just how many artisans a palace like
this requires. That’s a lot of livelihoods.”

Queen Briath gave Rhis that sudden, ironic
smile, but with so much laughter in it that Rhis smiled back.

“Now. Back to me. When it was time to marry,
the princes came flocking. And there I was, thinking myself so
clever because I could speak three languages, I knew the rudiments
of magical theory, I could tell you the names, principle actions,
and dates of all the monarchs in each kingdom around us, to five
hundred years back. But did I know anything about young men?
Hah!”

Rhis set her goblet down, and clasped her
hands together.

“There are three of us who ended up married
to pretty faces. The Queen of Gensam is one, though at least her
consort is a poet, and has some brains, even if he’s useless for
matters of state. Iardith’s father married a pretty face without a
vestige of wit behind it. The greatest tragedy of the Queen of
Arpalon’s life was her realizing her teen-age daughter was prettier
than she was.”

Rhis’s mouth dropped open.

Queen Briath snapped her fan open, then shut,
and pointed it at Rhis. “And then there was me. The Prince of Ndai
was living a masquerade, only I thought it was real. My
sister-by-marriage, Yuzhyu’s mother, knew very well that her
younger brother was spoiled rotten because he was so boyish, so
charming, everyone always believed everything he said. Maybe he
would have been more honest, if not more bearable, had they given
him some kind of training, and seen to it he didn’t charm his
tutors into doing his work for him so he could run out and
play.”

Rhis gazed at the queen in surprise. This
conversation was nothing like any she’d ever had with an adult,
even her mother, who could be very matter-of-fact. But she’d never
gossiped. And here was this queen, gossiping about her own consort
as if it was everyday chat.

“But his entire life he had only two things
to do: throw orders around for his own entertainment, and spend
money. I thought I was so smart, waiting until my middle thirties
to marry. It just means you fall harder, if all you’ve experienced
is court flatterers. As soon as we were married—and I mean that
very day—he swept through this very palace, handing out orders like
he
was the king. Within a week, he managed to offend half of
my court. I had to send him home or I would have been at war with
every one of my neighbors.”

Rhis said, “I didn’t know any of that.”

The queen gave her a wry smile. “Of course
not. Who would tell you the unvarnished truth? Your own father was
older than all of us, and we never really knew him. Your mother is
a mage, and tight-lipped. Your friends all talk about each
other—just as my generation did. And Lios likes his father, even
knowing he’s a rotter. Anyway, so I had a son, and he looked, and
sounded, just like his father. I didn’t trust my feelings for him.
I didn’t trust
him!
So I sent him to his cousins, with
strict orders to put him to work.”