Cordimancy (5 page)

“I was a little child, and I didn’t even know who Gorumim was at the time, but I still remember how my skin started to crawl when I saw his face.”

Toril’s eyes narrowed.

“I can’t explain it. I just get feelings about people sometimes, Toril, and they are true. Yesterday when we rode into Noemi I saw a man in the market and knew that he beat his children. I just knew it. A few moments later I saw him cuff a little urchin girl. I was sick about it the rest of the day.”

Toril started to speak, but Malena placed her fingers on his lips.

“I’m telling you this because I have a feeling about Gorumim. He is dangerous. And I want you to be careful when you go to this council that he’s convened.”

“Well, I’m no fan of the raja’s favorite general either,” Toril said. “But I’m not going to let him push us around.”

Malena shook her head. “The man who beat his children was bad, Toril, but Gorumim is evil. I have never been more certain about anyone. I had nightmares for weeks after I saw him.”

“He’s well liked in the Guard. Seems to negotiate with the osipi better than any man in the realm. Men say he’s smart and devoted to the raja, and his immunity to bribes is a legend. He works himself at least as hard as his men. I might not like his opinions, but he seems straightforward enough.”

“He’s dark inside.”

Toril looked at her oddly. “So what do you want me to do? I have to go.”

“Just avoid antagonizing him,” Malena pleaded. “Tell him what he wants to hear, if you can.”

“Unless he has compelling evidence, I won’t believe the osipi are a real threat. I’m not going to war on his say-so.”

“No,” Malena agreed. “I’m glad I married someone who doesn’t want blood on his hands. But I suggest that you be slow to speak your mind. It may do some good.”

“I’ll make him mad just by showing up. He’s expecting my father.” Toril hefted the saddle and slung it over the horse with a grunt. He began cinching.

“I don’t want to begin my married life with another nightmare about Gorumim,” Malena said. “Promise me you’ll be careful, so I have something good to dream about. And hurry back. I have something to give you.”

Would he understand what it meant to her? Would he remember?

Toril turned then, and Malena realized he was going to kiss her.

She closed her eyes, her heart racing.

Slowly, his eyelashes brushed her cheek—a traditional gesture of respect and tenderness. She heard him exhale, felt the warmth of his breath on her chin and neck. Then he pressed his lips to hers. The clumsiness was endearing, and made her own efforts to reciprocate seem less graceless. When she pulled away to catch her breath he was grinning.

“Count on me,” he said. “I’m highly motivated.”

Malena
hesitated, uncertain which door to try.

Part of her was amused by the awkwardness of the situation. She knew Toril’s quarters were along this hallway adjoining the solar, but she wasn’t sure where. In fact, she didn’t even know if his living area—hers, now, as well—consisted of lavish apartments, a cozy bachelor’s den, or an austere cubicle. Her new father-in-law, though courteous, had not thought to arrange a tour of the home. Neither had Toril, who by now was on horseback at the outskirts of the town.

Part of her was annoyed—at Toril, who should have anticipated this predicament; at herself, for not thinking of it before he rode off. Maybe if she’d been more accommodating when he asked for a private conversation, they wouldn’t have met in the stables.

She couldn’t very well walk back to the feast, alone, and ask for guidance. Earlier, she’d ignored the surprised glances of servants near the stable; now, she and her husband had both been retired for an hour, as far as the household knew. Toril’s errand seemed to be a secret she shouldn’t explain, and a bride wandering solo on her wedding night, asking for help finding her own bedroom, would provide no end of fodder for those inclined to gossip.

She squared her shoulders. This was her home. If exploring was in order, she could open any door she liked. If Hasha and Toril had forgotten the niceties of hosting since the loss of the clan mother, then it was time another woman gentled the household.

As Malena turned to the nearest doorway, she heard a rustle from the shadows farther down the hall. A small girl emerged, pushed a door shut with a click, and then stepped into the glow of one of the lamps. She froze when she realized she was not alone.

The girl wore a wrinkled apron over an almond-colored kirtle. Strands of her dark hair, which had been bound with a kerchief, straggled across one eyebrow. A smudge of flour on one cheek suggested that she had recently been in the kitchen. She regarded Malena with wide, coal-black eyes full of apprehension.

The eyes were familiar; Malena had seen them on the urchin being cuffed by a man in the streets the day before. This was the same girl.

She smiled and bent to speak.

“I’m Malena,” she said. “Sorry if I startled you.”

The girl gave a half nod.

“Do you work here?” Malena asked, surprise in her voice. The girl seemed much too young to be employed or apprenticed. She looked to be perhaps seven or eight years old. Beneath the hem of her kirtle, ankles and bare feet were evident. The broken nails on her toes seemed out of harmony with the apron and kerchief, which were clean and bright.

The girl puffed out her chest and nodded vigorously. “Yes, ma’am. Semya ur-Hasha himself hired me.”

Why would Toril be hiring kitchen staff? Why hire someone so young? And what assignment would take her up here, late at night?

“I’m Kinora,” the girl volunteered. “And you’re the new semanya.”

“That’s right,” Malena acknowledged. She held out her palm in the traditional greeting gesture, and waited until a small hand met her own.

“Well, Kinora, maybe you could help me,” Malena continued. “You see, Semya ur-Hasha got called away on an errand, and he didn’t tell me where his room is. I don’t know quite where I’m supposed to sleep tonight. Isn’t that silly?”

A smile skittered across Kinora’s face. She turned on her heel and pointed to the door she’d just closed.

“In there.”

Malena raised her eyebrows.

“Where you just came from?”

Kinora nodded. “He sent me up to light the lamps for you. He said you shouldn’t have to sit in the dark.”

“He sent you just now?” Malena asked, puzzled. She’d watched him ride away...

The apprehension returned to Kinora’s face. Her eyes dropped. “He asked me to do it a while ago, but I was checking some bread in the oven, and I forgot until just now. I was hoping he wouldn’t find out.”

Malena felt her lips curve. “That’s fine, Kinora. You have perfect timing. Maybe you could show me the room.” She slipped off her sandals—now that she was entering actual living quarters, good manners required this—and held out her hand.

Kinora hesitated. “I’m supposed to go back to the kitchen.”

“That’s okay,” Malena said. “If I ask for your help, I can’t imagine you’d get in trouble.”

Kinora cocked her eyes sideways in a comical gesture of calculation, then nodded decisively. Malena’s smile widened.

The chambers behind Toril’s door turned out to be roomy and clean, with furnishings more plain than those in the guest area where she’d stayed the night before. Her mother, ever a proponent of as much luxury as she could afford, would have been scandalized that the wealth her daughter had just married was nowhere in evidence—but Malena found the simplicity encouraging. Her husband was practical, it seemed—neither a spendthrift, nor a miser. The space felt... solid, balanced.

“Should I open the shutters?” asked Kinora, gesturing to a window that overlooked the central courtyard.

Malena shook her head. “No, I don’t need to have everyone at the feast peeking in. But could you help unweave the ribbons and flowers in my hair? I could reach, but extra hands would help.”

Kinora’s face glowed with pleasure.

Malena pulled a chair away from the desk along the wall, and sat while little fingers worked.

“You seem very young,” she said. Her eyes ran over a sextant that served as a paperweight for a stack of letters and parchment. She shifted a large geode to study the maps spread across the desk.

“But I’m a good worker,” said Kinora.

“I’m sure you are. How did Semya hire you?”

“My voice,” Kinora answered shyly. “I was singing in the market, and he said he followed the sound until he found me.”

“What were you doing in the market?”

“My stepfather sells cloth and dyes there, and he had me watch his goods while he went to the tavern, sometimes.”

“You stayed in the market all by yourself?” asked Malena. This girl was much too young for such duty, but Malena tried to keep the disapproval out of her voice.

Kinora nodded seriously.

“Every day?”

Kinora nodded again. “An old man and his wife in the next stall helped me. I was supposed to run and fetch my tat if a customer wanted to bargain, while they kept an eye on the stuff. But sometimes I didn’t run fast enough, and the customer would wander off. Then Tat got mad.”

Malena felt a pang of sadness, but also some hope. Apparently her husband noticed cuffed urchins, too—and he tried to help. Maybe she would have other chances to bolster this lonely child.

Ribbons slid out of her hair.

Malena scanned the array of books on Toril’s shelves. She saw poetry—much of it familiar—as well as some history, geography, and geometry. Some titles were in foreign languages. She could read them all, more or less, although she’d convinced her tutor to gloss over that skill in reports to her parents...

She supposed her own trove of books would join these; she’d brought a trunk filled with them. Would her husband be surprised by that? Cheerful? Or would he react like Father, threatened if a woman showed any intelligence or initiative?

Malena had seen two words, clear as could be, written in the rocks on her naming day. One cluster said
labor
. It chafed at her, even after all these years, that the Five would suggest drudgery—not accomplishment, not craft, but the glyph for plain old backbreaking work—as a true expression of her identity. The other cluster,
heart
, was equally frustrating. After wading deep and wrestling, they had sent her back to shore with no magic to show for it—made her a common heart like everybody else, and arranged some rocks to make sure she got the point. “You’re a heart, Malena. Don’t pretend better.”

Even when she combined the words, it felt like a prediction of misery, not joy.

Those weren’t words for an independent thinker of thoughts, creator of beauty, chaser of dreams… She had swept the rocks away, and stayed behind the curtain until she found rocks she liked better. She had vowed to the goddess of spring, and art, and poetry.

Why was her husband the one with the talent?

Would Toril be willing to sail beside her to Tarkanal to hear the Great Choir? Would he ride across the mountains with her to Lumira, so she could study the glazed sculpture that folk said would make you weep? She had heard of a texturing technique that was only taught by ceramics masters there… Would he listen to her own ode to Jurivna, and whisper it back in her ear on some spring morning? Or would he dismiss such things as girlish nonsense?

Would he like her antechild?

Malena realized she’d neglected the conversation, and returned to the topic at hand with an embarrassed sniff. Kinora’s tat had punished her for mismanaging a stall in the market. “You say he’s your stepfather?”

“My real tat was killed by a sloth bear when I was a baby.”

“What about the rest of your family?”

“I have a stepbrother, Elesel. He’s mean. He’s thirteen, and apprenticed to the cobbler, so I don’t see him very much. And then my younger brother, Maco. Mother died when he was born. That’s why I had to go to the market; Tat needed the help, but Maco is only four.”

Malena grimaced. Such a hard beginning to a life...

“Was your tat nice some of the time?” Malena asked, images from the scene she’d glimpsed the day before fresh in her mind’s eye.

Kinora shrugged. “Not really. Cook says he has a rough hand. I stayed out of his way as much as I could.”

The girl’s tone was so matter-of-fact that Malena turned her gaze from the tripod-mounted telescope that she’d noticed near the window, and swiveled in her seat to check Kinora’s expression. She was blinking and would not meet Malena’s eyes.

“If your tat needed you in the market, how did he feel about you coming to work here instead?”

“Now he’s happy, but at first he said no. He was yelling at me when Semya ur-Hasha came to the cart. Semya asked about indigo prices. That got Tat’s attention even through the wine. They bargained for a while. Then Semya said he’d heard me singing, and he asked if Tat charged his customers extra for the music. Tat got a funny look on his face. Semya said the head cook had been making sour pies lately, and a turtle dove might convince her to sweeten them up. Tat said I couldn’t come because he needed the help, and Semya said to use my wages to hire someone.”