A Posse of Princesses (9 page)

Was he
jealous?
Rhis felt her insides
swoop. Imagine anyone being jealous over her! She mentally
considered her image in the mirror, and wondered how anyone could
find her so beautiful as to fall instantly in love from across a
room. But then she thought about some of the twoing couples
mentioned in Shera’s gossip. They seemed ordinary, much like she
was—so who could say what made people fall in love?

And anyway, wasn’t it supposed to be both
ways? She liked Vors, but she wasn’t in love with him. He didn’t
make her feel the least bit of invisible-boulders-on-the-head when
she looked at him, and she wasn’t longing for him to speak to her.
And though his compliments were very nice indeed, the real truth
was, somehow she didn’t find him very interesting beyond that. She
didn’t really
know
him.

She hoped that he wasn’t really in love with
her, that he was only flirting, because one thing she did know: she
was not going to feign an interest in any fellow just because he
showed an interest in her. Especially when all they talked about
were her interests, so he could compliment them, and then she had
to thank him, and then he’d brag a little about what he’d been
doing but then right away compliment her again, round and round.
Limp limp limp.

The music had begun, and her feet had carried
her into the dance. She remembered where she was, and she hoped she
hadn’t been rude. Breggan wasn’t even looking at her; his gaze was
somewhere over to the left, and when they’d finished a twirl, there
was Taniva.

She hid an urge to giggle, and kept her
attention on the music and her steps.

oOo

“Did I make a mistake in dancing with
Dandiar?” Rhis asked later, when the two girls were sitting in
their nightdresses on Rhis’s bed.

“What?” Shera asked, blinking.

“Dandiar. Scribe. Promenade. Vo—someone
hinted that, well, others disapproved.”

Shera shook her head. “Several of the scribes
have been dancing, riding, so forth. I’ve seen Dandiar dancing with
everyone—even Iardith.”

“Oh, well, that settles it!” Rhis lifted her
hands. “If
she
does it, then it must be the fashion!”

Shera laughed. “Only once, that I’ve seen,
and she looked mighty miffed. So I don’t think scribes have become
the fashion yet! Lios handed her off to him during the taltan, at
the partner exchange part, then went off to get something to
drink.”

Rhis cast a mock sigh. “Poor Iardith!”

Shera snickered, then hunched a little as
thunder crashed outside. The rain increased to a roar. “As for
dancing with the scribe, why not? The ones we see mixing about are
surely born into families of minor rank. Vors is very
rank-conscious.”

“Yes.” Rhis made a face.

“Does it bother you, my comment about Vors?”
Shera looked contrite.

“Well, no, it bothers me that I’ve been
guilty of the same snobbery.” And Rhis told Shera what had
happened.

Shera listened in silence, then shook her
head, her curls bouncing. “I think you are being too scrupulous, is
what I think. The fact is, you
are
a princess, and he
is
just a scribe. Rank is rank. People expect certain kinds
of behavior. Downright rudeness would be inappropriate—but there
are some who don’t even hold to that.”

“Like Iardith, making game of that princess
with the accent. I didn’t expect that from someone older. It seems
crueler, somehow.”

“Oh, yes,” Shera said, rolling her eyes.
“Didn’t I tell you that Iardith is mean? As for that princess, I
talked to her a little. Name is, um . . .” Shera pursed her lips.
“Yuzhoo. No, Yuzhyu. Yoozh-h-h . . . yuh! It’s hard to say it
right! No wonder she has trouble with our language! Anyway, Lios
introduced her to Carithe, and she wants to be in the play. I
didn’t know what to say! She seems very nice, but oh, she speaks
our language so badly! One can’t help but laugh at some of her
mistakes. I don’t know what I ought to do, because if we give her a
part, I can just see Iardith and Hanssa and their friends laughing
at us all. Ought I to tell her the play is full?”

Rhis thought about the princess’s merry face,
then shook her head. “Give her a small part. We can always coach
her to say her words perfectly. Memorizing is so much easier than
conversation.”

“Ah. True. And perhaps I can find a play that
has a foreign person in it . . .”

Shera went on, trying different ideas, but
Rhis didn’t listen. Her mind had gone right back to the previous
conversation. Shera hadn’t really sounded interested—she was
comfortable with her ideas about rank being rank.

Is it because my mother was not even
remotely wellborn?
Rhis thought. Sidal also treated people with
respect that had nothing to do with rank, and everything to do with
individual merit. Yes, that was her mother’s term.
Merit
.
You weren’t given merit along with a crown and velvet clothes, if
you were born a princess. You had to earn it, same way anybody else
did.

Rhis stared at the window, against which
runnels of rain streamed down, gold-lit from the lamps.

Shera had stopped talking—and she wasn’t even
humming. She was looking at Rhis with a puzzled, narrow-eyed
study.

Rhis tumbled into quick speech. “One thing
for certain. Dandiar is more fun to talk to than Vors, lord or
not.”

“Still thinking about that?” Shera gave Rhis
a funny sort of a half smile. “I’m hope you weren’t upset with my
comment about Vors,” she added.

Rhis gazed at her. “This is the second time
you’ve said that—or something like it. You know something.”

Shera shrugged. Too quickly.

“You are! You’re hinting about something!
Come out with it.”

“I’m not sure,” Shera said in a slow
voice—not one of conviction, but the sort of tone a person uses who
is determined to at least sound like she’s being fair. “It could be
he’s truly in love with you—and I wouldn’t be surprised, for any
fellow with taste—”

“Skip the flowery talk,” Rhis said.

“He’s been asking about Nym. I really noticed
it during the dance tonight. He was asking me if the royal family
really is as wealthy as rumor has it. More about the diamond mines.
Who owns them. If you have any other brothers and sisters. Things
like that. The other night he just asked about you—but tonight he
wanted to know all about what wealth you have.”

Rhis felt her insides swoop again, but this
time it was a nasty feeling, like slipping on a rock near the edge
of a cliff. “He thinks I’m rich,” she said. “That is, he knows I’m
rich. He wants a rich princess,” she added, her middle feeling the
chill of winter, “So
that’s
why all those compliments and
things. The—the flirting. Is that it, flirting is really just fake
compliments and smiles and, well, lies? Because he’s not interested
in me, but my inheritance.”

Shera looked hurt. “I’m sorry.”

Rhis hugged her arms tight against her. “It’s
much better to know.
Much
better. Though it still hurts.”
She drew in a breath, trying to steady her feelings. “Now. Tell me
more about the play.” And this time she made herself listen.

“Well, we haven’t decided yet. We’re all to
try to find one we like, and meet the day after the Masquerade to
pick among our favorites.”

Rhis was glad she knew where the library was.
“I know what I’ll look for,” she said. “Something romantic, not
tragical, and not a war-play, because I don’t know anything about
sword-fighting.”

“That’s what all the boys will be seeking
out,” Shera predicted. “We need to find one that has good parts for
girls.” Thunder crashed again, and she ducked her head as the
windows rattled. “I’m going to bed and bury myself under the
covers,” she announced. “I hate thunder!” On those words, she
flitted out the door to her own room.

Rhis lay awake for a while longer, thinking.
She rather liked thunder. It reminded her of the sudden storms at
home.

Besides, thunder suited her mood. So Vors had
been flirting for a purpose that had nothing to do with her,
despite all those compliments.

I would be in love with Lios even if he
wasn’t a prince
, she thought firmly. She imagined his tall,
handsome form in—well, a scribe’s clothes, and he looked just as
tall and handsome.

So there.

She flung herself over, pulled the pillow
round her head, and tried to go to sleep.

oOo

The next morning she was late to breakfast
because her maid needed to fit her masquerade gown to her. Rhis was
delighted to discover that she was going as Eranda Sky-Born, a
fabled princess from another world who had come, as a formidable
mage, to right any wrongs she saw.

Rhis didn’t believe that Eranda—if she were
even real—had been tall and skinny with plain brown locks, but she
was more than happy with her gown, which was made of floating
drapes with tiny beads winking here and there among the folds. It
was a very old-fashioned style, and Rhis liked herself in it.

After the fitting, she skipped down to
breakfast, sitting with Carithe, Shera, Glaen, Breggo, and a
growing group of friends, everyone talking at once.

Lios appeared at the door. Rhis happened to
look up, and when she saw him glance their way, she flushed.

Silk rustled and Iardith walked by, her
expensive scent drifting on the air. The red-haired Hanssa minced
beside her, gemmed gown whispering.

With supreme confidence the two walked up to
Lios, slid their arms expertly through his, and led him firmly to
their own exclusive table—a small one, deliberately chosen to keep
down the number who could sit there.

Then Iardith stopped short.

Shera stopped talking, and watched in the
same direction Rhis watched.

At the exclusive table, two of the empty
seats had been taken by Dandiar and one of the newest arrivals, a
shy girl named Thirash, from one of the islands.

Iardith stepped away from Lios, whom Hanssa
walked with to the waterfall.

Dandiar was talking to Thirash, wiggling his
finger like sword fighting.

“That’s my seat,” Iardith said, clear enough
to be heard by the watchers.

Dandiar and Thirash glanced up, clearly
startled. “I—I did not know—it was empty—” Thirash said.

“It’s my place,” Iardith repeated.

“That’s all right. We’ll move.” Dandiar
picked up his plate.

Flushing, Thirash picked up hers, and they
shifted to a table on the other side of the waterfall. Hanssa
brought Lios smoothly back to Iardith, who had slid her arm through
Jarvas’s. The four sat down.

“Oom! It is the herded,” came a high voice
just behind Rhis. “Herded? Grouped? Om! Too much pipples.”

Rhis turned her head, to find Yuzhyu standing
nearby, holding her plate. The princess’s brows wrinkled in
perplexity as she looked at Lios’s table—now full. Two or three
people passed her by, but no one spoke.

Lios’s head was turned away—Iardith was
talking to him—so he didn’t see his cousin.

Rhis said, “Would you like to sit here?” She
scooted her chair closer to Shera’s, to make space. “We can bring
another chair.”

The princess blinked at Rhis, who felt that
anxious gaze searching her face, and then Yuzhyu gave a small,
rather tentative smile.

“You speak to I, mmm?”

Rhis spotted an empty seat at the next table,
and pulled it over. Yuzhyu sat down with quaint dignity, and broke
her biscuit.

Rhis cadged her mind for a suitable topic.
“Isn’t your land full of mountains, too?”

Yuzhyu looked up quickly, her lips
moving.

“Mountains?” Rhis repeated, shaping her hands
into a peak.

“We have mountains, too,” Shera said,
speaking a little louder than usual.

The expressive blond brows cleared over those
round blue eyes. “Ah! Yiss! Um, we do, yiss. You too? I yam
Yuzhyu.”

“Rhis.” Rhis touched her bodice. “Nym, where
I live, is nothing but mountains.” She made herself slow her speech
just slightly, and was rewarded by close attention, and almost
immediate comprehension. “If we had a flat place, we would probably
build sideways.” Again, she mimed a building going to the side.

Yuzhyu repeated “Sideways—” She looked at her
hands, and then her face crinkled in mirth. Her laugh reminded Rhis
of a lark.

“Yiss! Us too. Windows, um, om, up!” Yuzhyu
gestured toward the sky, still chuckling. “Door, down!”

Rhis laughed with her. Shera turned back to
Carithe, who wanted to talk about the play, leaving Rhis with the
princess from Ndai.

For the remainder of her breakfast they
struggled through a conversation about mountains, and riding. Rhis
wished Taniva was there to talk about riding, for she knew so
little she was afraid she was boring, and in truth, it was
difficult to make conversation, though obviously Yuzhyu was trying
her very best. Then, some of the princess’s word choices were so
funny that Rhis worked hard not to laugh, but she was quaking
inwardly with suppressed giggles when at last Yuzhyu finished,
stood up, and said, “I fine me tutor. Practice ze talk!” She
touched her lips. Then a funny little nod, and a friendly look.
“Zank you, Reez.”

She walked away, casting one troubled glance
toward Lios and Iardith’s table. The black-haired princess leaned
with her chin on her fingers, a delicate pose, completely
monopolizing the prince’s attention.

Rhis sighed. She decided to find the library,
which turned out to be a vast room lined all the way around with
books. Shelves and shelves of books, the top row reaching just
above her head. At the far end of the room, scribes were busy at
work, just as she’d been told. She tiptoed along the wall, scanning
the gold-etched titles on the bindings of the books. Some of them
were histories; quite a number of the older ones referred to people
and places of which she’d never heard.