The Lord-Protector's Daughter (2 page)

Novdi afternoon found Mykella more
than slightly restless. Her brother and father had gone hunting in the Lord-Protector's Preserve—the hilly woods that extended a good five vingts to the northeast of the palace, a stretch between where the river turned back to the east and the eternastone highway that stretched eastward as straight as a crossbow quarrel for hundreds of vingts until it finally climbed and split the Upper Spine Mountains before descending and reaching Dereka, the capital and home of the Landarch of Deforya—whose sons had been mentioned more than once as possible matches for Mykella and her sisters.

Mykella did not even have the distraction of studying the account ledgers. While she had keys to most of the doors in the palace, since as the eldest daughter of a widowed Lord-Protector she functioned as consort at times, she was so closely watched that everyone always knew where she was. At the moment, she scarcely wanted everyone to know of her suspicions, and going into the Finance study on an end-day would certainly cause tongues to wag.

In the end, by early afternoon, she left the family parlor, although it was officially a sitting room, and started down the main staircase—not that there was any real option, except for the tiny circular service staircases in the four corners of the palace. She had not taken three steps past the pair of guards stationed at the top of the steps when Rachylana appeared, hurrying past the two to join Mykella.

“Where are you going?” asked Rachylana.

“Out to the gardens,” Mykella replied.

“Don't you think it will be too cold?”

“There's no wind, and I'm tired of reading.” She paused. “Where's Salyna?”

“She said she was going to spend time with Chatelaine Auralya,” Rachylana replied. “She says she wants to learn more about how to supervise the kitchens.”

Mykella had her doubts about the depth of Salyna's interest, but didn't feel like saying so. While Salyna might be the youngest of the Lord-Protector's children and the youngest daughter, despite her beauty, Salyna was more interested in hunting and arms than in kitchens.

“Would you mind if I joined you?” Rachylana asked, keeping pace, as Mykella hurried down the steps.

“Not at all.” Her sister's company would be welcome. At least, Mykella hoped so. Once they were on the main level of the palace, mostly comprising studies where various functionaries conducted the business of government during the week, Mykella turned to her right and followed the corridor west, and then north, to the northwest door, the one that led out to the private walled gardens off the northwest corner of the palace, far more secluded than the public gardens to the south of the palace. Besides, they didn't need escorts for their own gardens.

Mykella opened the door, nodding to the guard stationed there, and stepped out and down the short set of stone stairs to the stone walkway. She preferred this section of the gardens the farthest from the palace, where the outer walls had been sculpted to resemble a section of an ancient wall—or perhaps the builders had actually taken stones from such a wall and mortared them in place. The path leading there wound through boxwood hedges that had shed their leaves weeks earlier, but the remaining branches and twigs were still thick enough to block her vision of what lay on the other side of the hedges, which were just over two yards in height.

With the walls to block any breeze and afternoon sunlight seeping through the hazy silver sky, Mykella was comfortable, even without a jacket. But then, she should have been, wearing as she was black nightsilk trousers and tunic over the full-shouldered black nightsilk camisole and the matching underdrawers, with polished black boots. Her father insisted on those undergarments whenever they were to leave the palace, and it was simpler to wear them all the time. It seemed almost a pity that few ever saw them, and most of those who did would not have recognized them for what they were, since they cost more than a season's earnings for a crafter. Soft and smooth as they were to the touch, they could stop any blade or even a bullet, although a bullet impact would leave a widely bruised area of flesh beneath, not that many could afford hand-tooled rifles.

More than a few had tried and failed to learn the herders' secrets, and now few tried, especially since the Iron Valleys were so cold and forbidding and their militia-men were vicious fighters. What was the point of fighting and losing golds and men when the only thing of value was nightsilk that was cheaper to buy than to fight battles over?

Mykella glanced up into the silvery green winter sky where, a third of the way to the west from the zenith, she could see Selena, the larger moon. Although Selena was full, the light that shone so pearly white in the night sky was more like an off-white beige in the day. The green-tinged Asterta hung just above the west wall of the garden, almost lost in the white glare of the afternoon winter sun.

“Do you think that an envoy from Southgate is coming?” Rachylana asked, as if to break the silence.

“When Salyna asked him, Father didn't say anything about the envoy from Southgate,” Mykella replied carefully. “He just said that he hadn't seen anyone from the south in more than a season and that their Seltyrs visit ours occasionally for reasons of trade.”

“That doesn't mean that he won't be seeing one,” Rachylana pointed out.

“Even if one is coming, it might be about trade or borders.”

“More tiresome talks about the land east of Zalt? I hope not. The land's worthless, Jeraxylt says.”

Mykella doubted that any land was totally worthless. While the hills and low rolling plains of the southwest might not be all that fertile, they would provide a buffer in case the Seltyrs of Southgate, supported by the Seltyrs of the Isle of Dramur, decided to expand their foothold on Corus. Situated as it was in the midlands of Corus, Lanachrona was surrounded by other lands on all sides, and linked to them by the great indestructible highways of the past. While key passes on the highways could be fortified and blocked, that was practicable only in the east where the rugged heights and cliffs of the Upper and Lower Spine Mountains provided some geographic protection, and to a lesser degree along the River Vedra in the north. But the Coast Range to the west was so gentle that anyone could march an army through it and around any fortifications along the highways.

Southgate was the greater challenge, although the Prince of Midcoast had finally unified the scattered kingdoms of the middle coast some fifteen years ago. The Prince of Northcoast was no real threat, not with the raids the Northcoast towns suffered from the Squawts and Reillies, and the herders of the Iron Valleys just wanted to be left alone.

“Mykella?”

“What?”

“You've got that look again.”

“What look?” Mykella asked innocently.

“The one you get when you're listening to Father and you don't agree with what he's saying and you don't really want to disagree.”

“You haven't said anything I disagree with,” Mykella said.

“Then why did you have that look?”

“I was thinking.” Mykella took the left branch of the hedge maze path.

“About what?”

“About us. About Lanachrona. About how all Corus is split up and someone is always fighting.”

“Oh,” replied Rachylana, almost dismissively, “you're always thinking about that. You'd think that you were going to be Lord-Protector of Lanachrona instead of Jeraxylt. You'd be better to consider how you'll deal with whatever match Father can make for you—and how not to get rejected.”

When Rachylana talked that way, Mykella almost wished she were a son, rather than a daughter. But she was what she was, and wishing wouldn't change anything. Instead, she kept walking until she reached the northwest corner—and the ancient wall.

“It's colder out here,” Rachylana said as she came to a stop in the open quarter circle around the wall.

The two of them stood slightly to the right of the small fountain, still flowing, as it did through most of the winter, except on the coldest of days, when it grew into an icy cone that concealed the statue of the fantastic creature—said to be a sandox—from the top of which issued the water.

A greenish haze caught Mykella's eye, and she glanced toward the corner where the two sections of the ancient walls met. There, hovering in midair, was the figure of a winged woman, no larger than a small girl, but seemingly full-figured behind the gauzy green haze that concealed the precise details of her apparently nude body. For a moment, Mykella just gaped. Could the woman be a soarer?

“Look! Over in the corner,” she finally said.

Rachylana turned, then frowned. “What? I don't see anything.”

Mykella kept looking at the winged figure and the faint greenish haze that surrounded her. How could she direct Rachylana to the soarer? “There…to the right of the horse with the broken tail.”

“Is that what you want me to see? That tail's been broken off since before we were born. All that green moss around it shows how long ago that happened.”

As Mykella watched, the soarer dimmed, then drifted into the stone…and vanished, as if she had never been there at all.

“Mykella?” A tone of exasperation colored Rachylana's single word.

“There was a…bright green bird there,” Mykella said, after a long pause. “I've never seen one like it.”

“Likely story. You're seeing things. Keep it up, and you'll be as bad as Paertaxyl.”

“Who?”

“He's the guard who kept claiming he saw a purple glow in the lower chambers. No one else saw anything. Berenyt said that they finally had to send him to duty down in Soupat, fighting the nomad raiders.”

“Berenyt would know.” Mykella tried to keep the sarcasm out of her voice.

“He knows more than you think….”

As Rachylana began to explain just what their cousin did know and how he knew it, Mykella donned a pleasant smile and prepared to listen, even as she kept wondering about the winged woman in the green haze. Had she been an Ancient? How could she have been? None had been seen in hundreds of years. Most people just thought they were a myth from the days before the Great Cataclysm.

But…Mykella had seen her.

Why had she been in the garden? And why hadn't Rachylana seen her? Or had Mykella just imagined seeing the soarer?

The moaning of the wind
on Londi morning woke Mykella, but she remained in her bed under the blue and cream comforter, thinking about the strange dream that she'd had. She had been walking down a stone-walled corridor through a purple haze that burned, and then a green haze that cooled, while words pounded at her from an upright stone larger than a man and swathed in purple. Yet she could not understand the words, for all that she felt she should have.

All too soon, Uleana rapped gently on the door, and Mykella slipped to her feet and made her way to the window. As she pulled back the hangings and stood there looking out on the grayness before sunrise, her bare feet chilled by the cold stone, she noted the frost on the ancient glass.

Rachylana was definitely wrong, Mykella decided once again as she looked out the window and realized, not for the first time, that the lower sill came almost to the bottom of her ribcage. While she was not the tallest of women, unlike her statuesque sisters, she was certainly far from the smallest.

After a moment, she pulled on a robe and slipped out of her chamber and across to the bathing chamber she had to share with her sisters. Neither was there, and she washed quickly before returning to her own room and dressing in her usual working attire—black tunic and trousers, with black boots. Then she made her way to the breakfast room of the family quarters, entering through the service pantry.

Her father was already seated at the head of the table. “Good morning, Mykella.” Feranyt's smile was warm, as it always was. His black hair had only a few traces of gray in it, mainly at his temples, and his clean-shaven face held few lines, except those radiating from the corners of his deep green eyes.

“Good morning, Father.” Mykella took her seat, to his right, the spot that had once been her mother's.

As soon as she sat, Akilsa—one of the serving girls—filled Mykella's mug with tea, hot but not steaming. If Mykella had been earlier, it might have been steaming. Tea cooled so quickly within the stone walls of the palace.

To Feranyt's right sat Jeraxylt. He nodded across the table at his older sister. He was already wearing his dark blue uniform—that of a Southern Guards officer. Rachylana sat beside Jeraxylt, while, as the youngest, Salyna was already seated to Mykella's right. Even at breakfast, the green-eyed and blond Salyna looked striking, although she was wearing a worn and scuffed leather vest that was more suitable to an apprentice guard than a Lord-Protector's daughter.

Mykella took two slices of ham and two pieces of egg toast, then poured berry syrup over both, but only a little because the syrup was cold, and would cool the toast even more. Salyna took three slices of ham and three of the egg toast, and poured far more syrup over her breakfast.

Mykella glanced across at Rachylana's plate, with but a single slice of ham and what remained of a single piece of egg toast—without syrup.

“Father…some of the Seltyrs' daughters have said that…” ventured Rachylana.

“Not that matching and marriage talk again,” groaned Feranyt. He shook his head. “No…there is no envoy coming from Southgate.” He grinned at Rachylana. “Do you want me to send for one? To tell them that I have a daughter I want to get off my hands? One that so cannot stand to be around me that she will take any match?”

“Father…” protested the redhead.

“Or should I send a messenger to Dereka?”

Rachylana winced. “Dereka's cold, and the air's thin.”

“That's what they say,” Jeraxylt added blandly. “They claim it was once a city of the Ancients, too. If there ever were any Ancients.”

“There were soarers once. There were,” insisted Salyna.

“Thousands and thousands of years ago.” Jeraxylt's words were dismissive. “No one has seen one since.”

Mykella sipped her tea, not willing to admit she'd seen one on Novdi. Or had she just imagined she'd seen one?

“That's not quite true,” Feranyt said. “There are a number of witnessed accounts of a soarer appearing to Mykel the Great, far too many for that appearance to be disregarded.”

“That was hundreds of years ago, sir.”

“But not thousands,” Salyna said smugly.

“Enough,” said Feranyt firmly, but cheerfully. “Nothing out of the ordinary is happening. You shouldn't want anything out of the ordinary to happen. When such things occur, they're seldom good. Now…enjoy your breakfast before it gets cold.”

“Colder,” murmured Salyna under her breath.

Mykella managed not to grin.

“Salyna,” said Feranyt sternly. “All too many in Tempre would prefer your breakfast to what they have. And there's not a Reillie or a Squawt that wouldn't trade their poor food for yours. Be grateful.”

“Yes, Father.”

Feranyt turned to his redheaded middle daughter. “You aren't eating much, Rachylana. A shrewt couldn't live on what you consume.”

“If I ate what Salyna does, Father, there wouldn't be enough golds in the storerooms to buy me a match.”

“You could eat a bit more.”

“Yes, Father.” With a wince, Rachylana eased the smallest slice of ham off the serving platter.

Mykella knew it would remain on her sister's plate, uneaten, after their father left to go to his formal study to receive the morning reports.

Once Feranyt had finished his breakfast and left the table, Mykella rose and hurried back to the bathing chamber to wash her hands before making her way to the Finance chambers on the east end of the palace—still on the upper level, if on the opposite end from the Lord-Protector's personal apartments.

Kiedryn—the chief clerk—was already at his table-desk in the outer chamber, and the door to the smaller study that belonged to Joramyl, as Finance Minister, was closed, not that Mykella expected her uncle to appear anytime soon, especially on a Londi morning.

Mykella settled into her place at the smaller writing table, where Kiedryn had placed the master ledger. As she opened it, she heard a cough, and she looked up. “Yes?”

“It's updated through the Octdi before last, Mistress Mykella. All of the fall entries have been made.” The white-haired clerk smiled at her.

“Thank you.”

Now all she had to do was check to see how the tariff collections matched those of the previous seasons…and, if need be, those of previous years. That was in addition to checking outlays. She had the feeling that the problem was not in the ledgers, but she needed to start there, because both her father and Joramyl believed that ledgers that balanced were accurate ledgers.