Mearsies Heili Bounces Back (23 page)

“I hope you find that as soothing as I do,” Pralineh said
with a quick, anxious look. “Oh dear, I feel so awful. I wish—here. I ordered
some soup for you. It ought to help, at least a little.”

She indicated a mug on a tray at the bedside.

I sat up. “I’m being a fobo and no mistake,” I muttered,
picking up the soup. There was no use in wallowing about in woe—it wouldn’t get
me anywhere, made me feel nasty, and probably made everyone laugh.

The soup smelled delicious: some kind of tomato with cheese
and bits of rice and egg in it. I drank it all down.

Pralineh sat back. “Is that better?” Her eyes were
light-colored, same as her father’s, wide-set, slanted down slightly at the
edges. Her brows straight.

“Lots,” I lied.

Pralineh smiled with relief. “I hope—I hope we can begin
again. You are my guest. Raneseh would like me to find things you would enjoy
doing. So you won’t—” She hesitated.

I sighed. “I got homesick. And I do have to get home. I
won’t fake anything about that. But, well, at the right time.”
Like after I
plan
.

Pralineh looked more hopeful. Obviously nothing in her
quiet, orderly life had prepared her for so weird a visitor. She wanted
everyone to be happy, life to be orderly. “At the right time,” she repeated
gratefully. “Yes. Until then, I will try as I can to be your friend.”

“And I’ll try to be yours,” I said, feeling bad about
upsetting this kind-hearted girl.

A quick double-knock at the door.

“Enter,” Pralineh said.

A woman came in: tall, dark-haired, dressed in light green.

“Maraneh?” Pralineh asked.

“Holder Khavnan invites the visitor to wait on him,” she
said.

In other words, send the rotten kid in to get yelled at
,
I thought, making a face as Pralineh thanked the maid, who took away the
dishes. I jumped up.

“Do you not need more rest?” Pralineh asked.

I flashed a rueful grin. “Not really. Despite my fat-wit
tantrums, I’ve been lots worse off. I’ll trot along and get it over
with—wouldn’t do for the prisoner to keep the jailor waiting.”

“Oh, please don’t,” Pralineh began, pressing her hands
together.

I frowned. “But I am. I’m a prisoner. I have to get home,
and help Clair. Kwenz doesn’t mean us any good, I wish I could get you to see
that. Oh, never mind,” I added at her obvious distress. Nice as she was, this
girl was clearly not the adventurer type.

Pralineh made a helpless gesture. “If you and Raneseh can
find a way to understand one another—”

“You mean
I
have to understand
him
? Or just
obey him?” I retorted.

“Oh dear. You do have a temper, do you not?” Pralineh made a
little grimace of her own.

“I do not! Ooops. Ahem! Well. I’d better get cracking, and
get it over with. Heh heh.”

I left in haste, feeling that sickening sense that I’d blown
it back there. And I’d meant to be good!

Argh! I bustled faster as if to get away from the mess I’d
made of that conversation, feet slap-slapping on the cool stone floor, and
looked around. I wondered if they laid down rugs in the halls during winter. Or
for that matter, what kind of spells they used to keep heat in with all those
glass window-doors.

I found my way back to Raneseh’s study, where I found him
and that tall Rel clod busy over what I recognized as account ledgers. I’d see
those when Clair met with Guild people.

As soon as I entered, Raneseh put a ledger down, Rel dropped
a pen into the inkwell, and faded back behind Raneseh’s chair, his dark,
deep-set eyes utterly unreadable.

I crossed my arms.

Raneseh said, as if I weren’t ready for war, “Are you feeling
better today?”

Like that stupid run in the morning hadn’t happened.

The Rel idiot just stood there like a tree stump.

“Yup,” I said, struggling valiantly for neutrality, at
least.

“You seem to like my garden. That pleases me,” Raneseh said.
“Most think it an oddity.”

I only heard the words ‘that pleases me’ and my shoulders
hunched tighter up under my ears. Adults and their arrogance! Especially adults
who intend to control you for your own good!

Raneseh eyed my scowl and tried again. “Pralineh informed me
you would like to visit what we call the wilderness, which is a plot of fallow
land lying to the north. Rel goes there often as a retreat, and has offered to
take you along if you like.”

Rel’s face had all the expression of a stone carving, and my
scowl deepened: I wondered (and would have been quite right) if he’d been asked
to ‘offer.’ Not that I was grateful.

But I visibly made an effort to sit up and speak neutrally. “I
would, I would.”

“Rel will arrange it, then.”

I made one faint try. “I don’t want to take anyone away from
their job. You can just point me in the right direction.”

Raneseh appeared to misunderstand my intent. “There is no
duty involved. Rel is my ward. He aids me in my own tasks, or not, as he
wishes. His time is his own.”

Rel did not speak, or move. I glanced suspiciously at both,
sensing a shift in the atmosphere, but I completely misunderstood its
direction, assuming a jab aimed at me, when the conflict—if conflict there was,
more of a question of obligation—lay between the two.

I said sulkily, “Then I want to go. Once you’ve tasted
freedom, anything else is sour.”

As a hint it was about as subtle (and effective) as a cudgel
against stone; Raneseh repressed a sigh. “I hope we can send a pleasant report
to the Wise One.”

As a delicate hint about expectation of behavior, it was
about as successful as my cudgel.

I jumped to my feet. “Oh, I’m sure he’s too busy turning our
people into zombies, or worse. And I have to get back—” I clamped my jaw shut,
struggled hard, then said, with a ferocious glower, “Oh, until I can do that,
I’ll behave. You bet.”

Raneseh sat back. “Thank you. If you wish to leave the
house, then, Rel will accompany you.”

I shifted my glare to Rel, making it plain that I understood
that the Rules of War had been established.

Raneseh chuckled, and when I turned my nuclear-powered scowl
on him, he exclaimed, “It will be an extraordinary fellow who takes you to wife
one day.”

My jaw-dropped horror brought the first hint of expression I
had ever seen in Rel: his jaw tightened, his eyes narrowed. He was trying not
to laugh!

He was trying not to
laugh
. At
me!

Raneseh regarded me with the same bewilderment I saw in his
daughter.

I wrestled inwardly. This, after all, was why I’d had the
anti-aging spell. When Raneseh regarded me in mild question, I finally said
with a (failed) attempt at neutrality, “The idea of mush—er, marriage, makes me
want to run for the barf pail!”

And that pretty much brought the interview to a close, the
boy and man obviously wondering what a barf pail was.

I worked hard to behave like a good little kiddie.

After supper, which I again shared with Pralineh, I kept the
latter company while she sewed. Impressed by her nimble fingers making a
beautiful satin stitch without ever putting the needle wrong, I listened to her
chatter about the different types of decorative stitches.

I knew how to mend my own clothes—and would do it if a hole
annoyed me enough—but that was about the extent of it. I no longer railed
loudly against what I’d been taught as a child was “girls’ work” but I still
tended to scorn anyone who chose house-holding in preference to adventure.

However, I labored mightily not to let a hint of that
attitude show as Pralineh talked about some of the local girls, and who was
good enough to commence tapestries—including one girl who apparently had
designed one so good that she’d won a Guild prize.

But then she said, “Here I am talking on and on about people
you have yet to meet. I am afraid I’ve been tedious, and you have been so
forbearing. You are my guest, so you should be the one to speak. What talents
do your own friends share?”

I bit my lips, sustaining another of those terrible waves of
homesickness. Where were the girls now?

I would not worry. Not, not, not. “Well, Sherry is a great
cook. Seshe, now, she knows this kind of sewing. We think she may have been—” I
frowned, about to say
been born a toff
, but that seemed disloyal, even
so far away. And so I amended it to: “—may have had training like yours. Before
she came, and joined the gang. And, um, Diana is good at forest work. And
Faline is good at—ah—making everyone laugh.” I was not about to betray Faline’s
secret ability. Or Dhana’s real origin. “And Dhana is a dancer. I know, anybody
can dance. But I’ve never seen anyone as good as she is. And Irene, well, she’s
good at acting. And Gwen can copy voices.”

Pralineh smiled. “So you live together without a parent? Or
guardian?”

“Yes. Clair found us. Invited us into the gang. We don’t
have any grownups wreck—boss—ah, in charge. I mean, there are grownups around.
Janil is the Steward at the White Palace. She used to be Clair’s governess,
sorta. Then there’s Ka Nos, the regional governor of Seram Aru, who helps Clair
with magic. He’s old, but really smart, and he never tells Clair what to do. So
she asks his advice on government junk. And magic stuff. But that’s it.”

“How many of you are there?”

“Nine altogether. Ten, if you count in Clair’s cousin, who
visits sometimes.”

“Then you are all good company, yes? But you, what talent
have you?”

I suspected it was just a polite question, but I was being
polite back, so I said, “Well, I sing.”

Pralineh’s eyes widened. “Oh! I do so love music! But though
I tried most earnestly to learn singing, and to play, I have no ability at all.
Would you sing to me, or do I ask too much?”

I felt kind of stupid, and said cautiously, “Um, most people
don’t want to listen to our kind o’ songs. I, ahem! Make a lot of them up. I
mean, I make up new words. To pretty melodies. Because I don’t always remember
the real words. Though I’ve learned a lot of Mearsiean songs.”

Pralineh summoned her maid with the tiny crystal bell on the
side table. “My mother, Perleh, played and sang,” she said. “Do you need
accompaniment?”

“Your mother?” I asked, and then, hastily, “I don’t know how
to play, but an instrument would be good, just to get the right note.”

“Yes. She died in a racing accident when I was small. I do
not remember her well, except that she always looked so pretty. She went often
to house parties. Her things came to me, among them a lute.” And when the maid
appeared, she sent her for Perleh’s lute.

Seshe had taught me to pick out chords on stringed instruments.
I regarded the lute with misgivings, scolding myself mentally for not
practicing, but I was able to tune it, at least. Handling this instrument with
its gold inlay brought Seshe to mind, which made me more homesick. And so my
first song was colored by my emotions as I sang a minor key ballad about a
haunted ship.

Pralineh presently put down her sewing. Everybody tells me
my voice is clear and pure, a note-true soprano without any of the colorations
or stylistic tricks of trained singers. Clair once said it’s so clear and so
pure and so true it’s like the music version of a waterfall, or a golden day in
spring. I’ve always loved that compliment. But fancy singing? That I can’t do,
so there are plenty who don’t think my voice is anything much.

When the song was over, Pralineh drew in a breath and
exclaimed, “You sing well! Perhaps not with the training of some, but I like
songs without a lot of the Colendi lark flourishes now so popular.”

“I don’t have
any
training,” I said. “Except the
girls being plenty loud with the eeeews! If I flub a note. But that song makes
me sad. How about a funny one? See, I take songs I remember, and change a
little, and put in villains’ names for the funny parts. Like this one about
Fobo meeting a very old goat, and a spoiled banana-cherry-sour cream pie.”

“Fobo?” she repeated.

“One of those grownups I mentioned who thought she could
take the kingdom away from Clair. Not to be a good ruler, just to have more
people bowing to her. And have more money to spend on her horrible dresses and
her nasty son, Prince Jonnicake. Her name is Glotulae—”

“That’s a pretty name,” she said.

“Yep, Dhana says so too. Says it sounds like a brook. So we
never use it, because she’s too mean to have a pretty name. Anyway, she’s now
back in Elchnudaeb. Anyway we call her Fobo.” I trilled the name in the fake
tremolo that Fobo uses as part of her ‘courtly manner.’ “Want to hear it?”

Pralineh assented. I watched her carefully while I sang, and
though my voice trembled with suppressed laughter, it was clear that Pralineh
was listening to the melody, but ridiculousness seemed to pass her by. How
could anyone possibly not crack up when the goat kicked backward, launching the
rotten pie straight into Fobo’s phizz just as she was bellowing conflicting
orders to execute everyone in sight and to bow, and oh, first bring her mirror?

Maybe you just have to know Fobo
, I thought as I
finished, and Pralineh thanked me politely, but with none of the enthusiasm
she’d expressed for the haunted ship ballad.

So I gave up on our joke songs. “Name some of the songs you
have here? Let’s see if we have ’em in our country.”

We traded titles back and forth. Not surprisingly, some of
the older ballads were known both in old and new Mearsiean kingdoms; when I
named a favorite of Puddlenose’s, about a man who’d traveled the world in
search of his name, and never found it but changed everyone he met, Pralineh
exclaimed, “That is Rel’s favorite!”

I clapped my teeth shut. Rel, huh! He was now The Enemy,
because Raneseh had set him to spy on me and prevent my escape. I had no
intention of liking, pleasing, or heeding him—except if it would aid me to
escape.