Competitions (52 page)

“Well, it so happens I’m glad you’ve had a taste of that particular wine,” Delin said, looking at him with the sort of approval Homin had never seen before. “You seemed to be the only one of us who didn’t fully appreciate what our aim was, but now it’s clear that you do. Our success will mean that you never have to go back to someone else’s house, Homin. What you find around you will be yours, and you’ll have guaranteed your independence for the rest of your life.”

“How odd, Delin,” Homin commented in surprise. “You’re absolutely right, and I
didn’t
realize that. Or wasn’t able to appreciate it, just as you said. Now that I can, you can be certain of my full support and maximum effort.”

“I’m delighted to hear that, old fellow,” Delin said with a smile, then turned to see who was arriving now. It turned out to be Bron, who strode into the sitting room with a scowl on his face.

“My driver almost couldn’t find this place,” he announced as he headed for the tea service. “It’s more than a little out of the way, and it’s smaller than I expected. Do they seriously intend for us to live in each other’s laps?”

“Homin and I were just discussing the fact that one must sometimes put up with minor annoyances for the good of more important aims,” Delin told him smoothly with a wink behind Bron’s back for Homin. “We’ll need you to stress that point with the others, Bron, as they’re certain to require your guidance. Not all of us understand these things as clearly as you do.”

“That, old man, is why I’m leader of this group,” Bron replied comfortably, turning with teacup in hand and scowl nearly gone. “And of course I’ll explain the matter to the others, so you needn’t worry. How soon will that new Advisory agent be here?”

“In about an hour,” Delin replied, just as though he knew exactly what Bron meant. “Giving us time to get all settled in, I imagine.”

“What’s this about a new Advisory agent?” Homin asked, looking back and forth between the two larger men. “Has Lord Rigos been replaced? I never thought we’d see the day we were rid of him.”

“Homin, where have you been?” Bron asked with that superior sort of amusement Homin detested. “Surely someone has told you that Rigos was arrested for—Good grief.”

“Yes, discussing the matter with Homin could be somewhat difficult,” Delin said when Bron stopped short in unexplained embarrassment. “What our leader began to say was that Rigos has been arrested for the murder of your stepmother. No one from the investigators or guard came by to tell you?”

“Possibly they sent word to Father,” Homin suggested, his brows still high with shock. “
Rigos
killed Elfini? I knew there was bad blood between them, but I never would have expected
him
to What reason did he give for doing it?”

“So far he hasn’t even admitted to the crime,” Delin said, speaking to Bron as well. “His father learned of his arrest almost immediately, and has actually been working to get Rigos freed. All he’s accomplished so far is to keep them from questioning our beloved former overseer, and rumor has it that that’s about to come to an end. The Advisors want someone punished for that terrible crime, to be certain that no one loses himself to such an extent again.”

“For once I agree with them,” Bron said, sounding as though he meant it. “If we don’t press our right to be untouchable in all ways, we could lose the right. A crime like this has to be severely punished, or one of
us
could conceivably be next.”

Delin nodded sober agreement, but Homin simply drank his tea. He’d begun to feel extremely grateful to whomever had removed Elfini from his life, and it was odd to think of Rigos as the one. Was it now necessary to forgive the man for the way he’d treated them? Homin decided to try, but wasn’t sure he would succeed.

The three of them sat down to drink their tea, and Homin was forced to admit that the chairs and couches were more comfortable than the ones in his father’s sitting room. The house itself wasn’t particularly new, but it had obviously been repaired and refurbished with fairly decent items and touches. The smell of fresh whitewash was enough to give one a headache, but that was better than the smell of rot and decay.

Delin and Bron continued to chat about Rigos for a time, and Homin had the impression that they knew something they weren’t mentioning. After a while the sound of a new arrival came, followed closely by a second arrival. Neither of the newcomers appeared immediately, which presumably meant they’d gone to their apartments first. Another short while passed, and then Selendi and Kambil walked into the room together.

“That’s one way to avoid being last,” Delin commented with a grin. “Arrive at the same time someone else does, and then neither of you is last.”

“I would never think to burden a lady in such a way,” Kambil said solemnly, obviously teasing. “The onus of being last will rest squarely on
my
shoulders, to spare Selendi the ignominy of it all.”

“Not to mention the fact that he
was
last,” Selendi put in dryly as she walked to the tea service, apparently not amused. “But as far as being first to leave goes, that will definitely be me. Expecting us to live in this squalor is completely unreasonable.”

“Not when you consider what we’re here for,” Bron disagreed, just as though he hadn’t said almost the same thing when
he’d
arrived. “It will only be for a short time, and then we’ll be able to move to
much
larger quarters.”

They all chuckled at that, realizing that Bron referred to the Five’s palace. There were six wings on the palace, and only one of them was used for public functions of all sorts. Each of the others belonged to a different member of the Five, and he or she had the final word there. It was said that even the Advisors couldn’t interfere with that prerogative, which sounded to Homin like absolute utopia.

“If living in a box drives me crazy, how far do you expect the rest of you to get?” Selendi asked, turning with her tea to inspect each of them. “The four of you need me, and you’d better not forget that.”

“The truth is that we all need each other,” Delin put in smoothly before Bron could lose his temper and snap at the silly girl. “Individually we’re just a group of unimportant people, but together we’re a force to be reckoned with. So which would
you
rather be, Selendi? Unimportant or a major force?”

The answer to that was too obvious to put into words, and Selendi didn’t even try. Instead she sipped at her tea in a way that said she didn’t care to discuss the matter any longer, and Delin acceded to her unvoiced wishes with a smile.

“So, Kambil, tell us if you’ve had any luck,” he went on smoothly to another subject. “No one seemed to know who would be put in charge of us in Rigos’s place when
I
asked, so I’ve been hoping that your contacts are better informed.”

“I found out that the decision wasn’t made until the last moment,” Kambil said, coming over to sit down with the cup he’d filled. “Apparently there were people lined up from wall to wall who had been waiting for a chance like this, and they all descended on the authority together. They finally settled on the son of a man who was owed the largest favor, someone by the name of Hiblit Rahms. I think I’ve heard the name, but I can’t quite put a face to it.”

“I can, so take my word for the fact that you’re lucky you can’t,” Homin said while everyone else frowned in thought or simply shook their head. “I was forced to attend social functions with Hiblit when we were both boys because his father and mine were working closely together at the time. The best thing I can say about him is that he made
me
look as handsome and charming as Delin, which should tell you something. I haven’t seen him in years so there’s a good chance he’s changed, but whether for the better or the worse I don’t dare try to guess.”

“Now I can’t wait to meet him,” Delin said with raised brows, a curious amusement flickering in his eyes. “If he’s really worse than you, Homin, we should have it made.”

“Homin isn’t as bad as I used to think,” Selendi shocked everyone by saying, her gaze resting directly on an even more shocked Homin. “He seems like someone else now, even though I can’t pinpoint what’s different about him. I’ll have to study the matter.”

And with that she came to sit next to Homin on the couch he’d chosen, surprising him even further. He’d never expected Selendi to do anything but laugh at him, and he suddenly discovered that he was beginning to be aroused. Quite a lot of his thinking had changed in the past few days, each morning bringing new things for him to discover about the world, but this was far and away the best. He’d never even had the nerve to
pay
for a woman, but maybe now…

“I know we’re supposed to be close to one another, but this is ridiculous,” Bron stated, staring darkly at Selendi. “Don’t you think you’ll be entertained well enough by the rest of us,
Lady
Selendi? Adding a probable virgin is almost an insult.”

“He’s jealous, so just ignore him,” Selendi said comfortably to a Homin who was staring at Bron with burning hatred. “I happen to find the idea of a man who’s never known another woman extremely exciting, so I hope he’s right about that part at least. We’ll have to talk about it later.”

Homin looked back at Selendi to see the flames of need in her lovely eyes, and he shivered with excitement. He’d
never
had a woman look at him like that before, and suddenly he couldn’t wait for the meeting to be over.

“Bron, Selendi is simply doing her part to prepare us for Blending,” Delin said, his voice its usual smoothness. “The closer we are to one another the better a Blending we’ll be, and as our leader I’m sure you know that. We depend on you to help us see things properly, and we could use some of that help now.”

“Yes, well, sometimes it’s hard to be a leader,” Bron grumbled, then he took a deep breath and began to drone on in a repetition of what Delin had just told him. The fool sounded as though he thought no one else had heard Delin, and Homin suddenly realized that that wasn’t the first time it had happened. In fact it happened
all
the time, only Bron never noticed. Delin used calling Bron their leader as a tool to lead the fool around by his nose, and Bron didn’t know it! Homin found that very funny, but it wasn’t the time to mention it. Maybe once Selendi stopped looking at him like that…

“Aha, I think I hear the arrival of a carriage,” Kambil said as he rose. “Since this sitting room is at the front of the house, I’ll just take a peek out the window.”

He walked over to one of the windows and glanced out, then immediately hurried back to his chair with a nod. That meant Hiblit had indeed arrived, and in a moment they’d see how he’d turned out. It was possible to hear a servant open the front door without the least need for straining, and then two sets of footsteps approached the sitting room.

“Lord Hiblit Rahms,” the servant announced, then stepped aside to let the visitor enter. The man who appeared looked very much like the boy Homin had known, but he was no longer so fat that he made Homin look thin. He was of average size in both height and weight, but his face was almost gaunt. His clothes were obviously expensive, but he wore them as though they were filled with pins. Pins that stuck him at every step, Homin thought with a chill as Hiblit approached them. And there was something about the look in his very light eyes…

“Lord Hiblit, welcome to our group,” Delin said as he stood, charm pouring out like a falls. “We have only tea here, but I’ll be pleased to send for anything else you might want.”

“I’m not permitted to eat anywhere but at home,” the man replied in a very soft voice without looking at Delin. “Please sit down, sir, and we’ll soon be finished here.”

Delin exchanged glances with everyone as he resumed his seat, most especially looking toward Homin. In turn Homin raised his brows and shook his head once, hopefully telling Delin that he had no idea what was wrong with Hiblit. It was obvious that something
was
wrong, but exactly what, Homin couldn’t imagine.

“As I’m sure you already know, I’ve been given the task of taking over for Lord Rigos,” Hiblit said once he stood in their midst, looking directly at none of them. “At the moment I have little to do but remind you about the reception at the palace tonight, where you’ll have the chance to engage the lowborn challengers in conversation. They haven’t yet been officially informed that they’ll be put into Blendings, but you may assume that they’re nevertheless aware of it. Use the time to find out as much as you can about them.”

Hiblit paused then, as though to allow an opportunity for questions, but instead Homin and the others exchanged glances again. The man’s voice had been very soft but also uneven, as though he were being forced to recite a prepared speech. Even Bron looked disturbed, and Delin had lost all trace of his charm.

“When you look in the wardrobes of your assigned apartments, you’ll find your costumes for tonight,” Hiblit continued when no questions were forthcoming. “There are matching masks, of course, since the reception is also a masked ball. The colors of your costumes are gold and orange, and the challenging Blending you’ll face first will be dressed in silver and orange. Silver for the lowborn, gold for the high. You’ll be given additional details about the challengers in orange once you’ve met and spoken to them, but not many.”

“Why were we moved to this residence today rather than at the beginning of the next new week?” Homin asked when Hiblit paused again. He would hardly mind being answered, but that wasn’t why he’d put the question. He wanted to see if there would be any recognition on Hiblit’s part, especially since the man presumably knew Homin was there.

“The decision to move you over today came from my superiors without a supporting reason,” Hiblit recited, still staring at the wall somewhere. “Two coaches will be sent to take you to the palace, and I’ve been asked to remind you that being fashionably late is unacceptable tonight. I’ll be there as well, so if any questions occur to you later, you may ask them when we meet at the ball. Until later, then.”

With that he headed for the door, his entire attitude showing that he didn’t expect to be stopped. He was perfectly correct, of course, since everyone seemed as taken aback as Homin felt. They all sat in silence until the sound of a departing carriage came, and only then did it seem possible to breathe freely again.