Dark Moon Defender (Twelve Houses) (20 page)

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Authors: Sharon Shinn

BOOK: Dark Moon Defender (Twelve Houses)
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Tayse’s mother lived in a modest but well-kept house shoulder to shoulder with almost identical buildings, distinguished mostly by a riotous garden now filled with fading flowers. She was waiting for them at the door, as Senneth imagined she had been waiting since dawn. Nothing made her happier than Tayse’s appearance on her walk.
 
 
“Come in! Come in! Oh, it’s such a beautiful day. Don’t you hate to think it’ll get cold so soon?” she greeted them, throwing her arms around her son. He towered over her and he returned the hug carefully. She was small-boned and short, rather plump now, but Senneth guessed she had been a tiny wisp of a thing when Tir first caught sight of her forty-some years ago. She was still attractive in a very ordinary way, with hair of an indeterminate shade of light brown, and eyes as dark as Tayse’s.
 
 
“Hello, Carryl,” Senneth said when the woman reluctantly let go of her son and turned to her other visitor. She was taken in a rather less enthusiastic embrace, but Carryl smiled at her, too. “Have you been well?”
 
 
“Little aches. I have a cough in the morning. But otherwise I’m very healthy! Come in, sit down. I made a pie, will you eat something?”
 
 
“I love your pie,” Senneth said.
 
 
“We can’t stay very long,” Tayse said, and Senneth wanted to kick him. Carryl’s face fell immediately.
 
 
“Long enough for
pie
, certainly,” Senneth said, and Carryl brightened again. “We have about an hour, I think.”
 
 
“Oh, good. Then I’ll make some tea as well.”
 
 
She left them in the parlor and bustled off to the kitchen, casting one hopeful glance at Tayse over her shoulder. “Go help her with the tea,” Senneth hissed.
 
 
He looked surprised. “Surely she doesn’t need my help.”
 
 
“It’s your company she wants, not your assistance. You. Five minutes alone with
you
. Go talk to her.”
 
 
He shrugged and obeyed. Senneth took a seat on one of the overstuffed chairs, leaned her head against the back, and sighed. She was hardly qualified to tutor anyone else in family relations, she thought. Her own parents were dead, bitterly hated by her for years before they went to their graves; she had only the most tenuous relationship with her brothers now. But it was so obvious that Carryl wanted nothing so much as a strong bond with her son, equally obvious that nothing in her life, in her personality, could claim his attention for long. He tried to be kind to her, because Tayse was never deliberately cruel, but nothing about her softness or her longing made an impression on him. He was so completely his father’s child.
 
 
Tir must have loved her once,
Senneth thought.
He married her. He had several children with her. Did he just grow tired of her? Did the novelty wear off, did the affection grow inconvenient?
Tayse had told her that Carryl was the one who moved out of the shared cottage by the barracks, taking her daughters with her, but Senneth was entirely certain that Carryl was the one whose heart was broken. She had fallen in love with this handsome, powerful, dangerous man—she thought she had domesticated him, she thought he would lay that glittering sword at her feet—but she was the one who had been made over. She was the one who had given up all her illusions.
 
 
“You won’t change him,” Carryl had said to Senneth the first time they met. Tayse had left the room with one of his sisters to go inspect some improvement in the back garden. Her voice had not been hostile, but a little wistful. “He’s too much like his father. He will only love you for so long.”
 
 
“I don’t want to change him,” Senneth had replied softly. Which was both the truth and a lie. He had already changed for her. She wanted him to stay exactly the way he was now; she certainly did not want him to change back. “And I will take his love for however long he wants to give it.”
 
 
“Don’t make him your whole world,” Carryl had said, leaning forward and almost whispering in her intensity.
 
 
Too late,
Senneth had wanted to say. But she had only smiled and changed the subject.
 
 
Every time she returned to this small, somewhat sad house, the same conversation replayed through her head, the same questions demanded to be answered.
Will he only love me for a short time and then grow weary? Will I one day be like Carryl, lonely and grieving, missing one man for the rest of my life? For, once having loved Tayse, I will never be able to love anyone else. My heart has been reshaped to the size of his, and no amount of tugging and stomping will ever force it back to the size it was.
 
 
A small clatter in the hall and then Carryl and Tayse returned, she carrying a tray of desserts and he with the platter of tea things in his hands. Carryl was glowing; that rare few minutes of privacy with her son had been the best gift Senneth could ever have given her. Tayse carefully set the platter down on a fussy ornate table by his mother and then took a seat across from Senneth.
 
 
“You pour out the cups, Senneth, while I cut the pie,” Carryl said. “I like lots of sugar in mine.”
 
 
Senneth poured Tayse’s first, though he didn’t care much for tea and looked ridiculous with the fragile porcelain in his big hands. But he took it from her with a smile and watched her as she prepared another cup for his mother. It didn’t really matter if Senneth was serving tea or practicing her swordplay or lashing out with her hands to conjure up fire, Tayse was always watching her, interested in seeing what she would do next. Since the day she had met him, he had studied her with an unvaried fascination. She paused a moment to return his smile.
 
 
I think you will love me till I die,
she thought.
And even if you don’t, that’s exactly how long I will love you.
 
 
 
 
IT was a relief to escape the small house, though the price was a promise to return in a couple of weeks.
 
 
“Unless we’re gone from Ghosenhall, which I have a feelingwe might be,” Senneth said, pausing at the front door to hug Carryl good-bye. “I think the king might be about to send me out on a mission somewhere, and you know I like to bring Tayse with me for protection.”
 
 
A compliment to her son always set Carryl to beaming. “Yes—you’ll be safe no matter where you go, if Tayse is with you.”
 
 
“That’s what I think, too.”
 
 
“Well, if you leave, let me know you’re going, and try to come visit as soon as you get back.”
 
 
“We will,” Tayse said, giving his mother a farewell kiss. “Take care.”
 
 
And they were free.
 
 
A quick walk back to the palace, and Senneth invited Tayse to accompany her to her meeting with the king. “He knows if he wants me to go anywhere, you’ll be with me, so you may as well come listen now,” she said. He grinned, nodded, and followed her through the gilded corridors.
 
 
The king was seated in his study, a small, cluttered room of tall windows, blue furnishings, and piles of maps and papers. Baryn himself was a lanky man, with the good-natured smile and unkempt white hair of a lunatic inventor. His brown eyes peered out through smudged spectacles on a world he seemed to find perpetually entertaining. He appeared to be perusing a complex letter when Senneth and Tayse entered, and without even looking up, he motioned them to two seats across from his desk.
 
 
“Yes, yes, in a minute—I just wanted to read this again— exactly.” He dropped the paper and gave them a bright smile. “How is my favorite mystic? I cannot call Tayse my favorite Rider, you know, because that would cause jealousy among my loyal guard and no end of conflict and recriminations.”
 
 
Senneth grinned. “Well, if Kirra were to hear you call me your favorite mystic, I think there would be just as much rage and envy.”
 
 
He waved a thin hand. “Oh, I whisper to her that
she
is my favorite, but that I am forced to placate you so you don’t burn down my palace.”
 
 
“Such a wise king,” she said. “So adept at keeping his subjects happy.”
 
 
“And I am about to make you happier,” he said. “You’re a most restless woman, and yet you’ve patiently stayed here in Ghosenhall for how many weeks, not complaining about boredom! I appreciate your restraint.”
 
 
“You want me to go on a mission for you.”
 
 
“To Coravann Keep, if you would be so kind.”
 
 
She nodded. “Surely. What’s the news from marlord Heffel? Is he recovered?” There had been a convocation of marlords at Ghosenhall just a week ago, but Heffel had not been among those present, prevented from traveling because of a lung infection.
 
 
Baryn picked up the paper again. “He says he is improving every day, but that’s not the most interesting part of this letter. He writes that some of his wife’s relatives have come to visit for a few weeks. His wife’s relatives, in case you didn’t know—”
 
 
“Are from the Lirrens,” Senneth supplied. “I did know. Some of them were visiting last summer when we passed through.”
 
 
“Apparently there is an endless stream of them, crossing the mountains and trading their goods. One group comes and leaves, then another. I don’t understand how
any
woman could have had so much family.”
 
 
Senneth was laughing. “They’re not all related by blood, I’m sure. There’s a close-knit clan network, and any of the Lahja alliance—I think it’s the Lahja who claim Heffel as kin— would consider themselves to be part of the same family.”
 
 
Baryn put up a hand. “Please. I cannot keep all the feuds and families straight when it comes to the Lirrenfolk. But I thought you might find it interesting to talk to some of these fellows.”
 
 
Senneth leaned back in her chair. “What would I be talking to them about?”
 
 
Baryn made a delicate motion with his head. “War may be coming. We might need allies. The people of the Lirrens don’t have many ties with the people of Gillengaria, but I have met some of their young men, and they are certainly a contentious breed. Perhaps a few of them would be interested in throwing their lot in with our armies. At any rate, I would rather secure them for
our
troops then let them be wooed away by Halchon Gisseltess for
his
.”
 
 
“They might fight for us,” Senneth said. “I’ve considered it before. But you might not raise more than a few hundred men from their ranks.”
 
 
“Better a few hundred with us than a few hundred against us,” Tayse commented.
 
 
“And they are skilled fighters,” Baryn added. “Worth recruiting.”
 
 
Senneth arched her eyebrows. “And when have you been privileged to watch Lirren men showing off their battle skills?”
 
 
“Pella and I traveled across the Lireth Mountains about a year before she died,” Baryn said. He always spoke the name of his first queen very calmly, but Senneth sometimes wondered what it cost him. By all accounts, he had loved her a great deal. “We found the people fierce but polite. Pella was completely captivated and she made several close friends there.”
 
 
Senneth tilted her head. Pella’s death had come quite suddenly; few people had known the queen was even sick. But perhaps Baryn and Pella had known. Perhaps they had crossed the mountains looking for a cure. Among the Lirren women were healers so gifted they could save almost any life, no matter how far gone. Had Baryn known that? Had the queen?
 
 
“I’m glad they treated you well,” she said. “They don’t always take kindly to strangers. Even strangers who call themselves king.”
 
 
Baryn was smiling. “But I’m a most gracious king,” he pointed out. “In any case, perhaps you could persuade them that I’m worth fighting for. Play on whatever sympathies you think they have, and recruit some of those ferocious men for my armies.”
 
 
Senneth nodded slowly. “All right. I don’t know what success I’ll have, but I’m happy to meet with Heffel’s in-laws and mention the idea.”

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