Fortune and Fate (Twelve Houses) (18 page)

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Authors: Sharon Shinn

BOOK: Fortune and Fate (Twelve Houses)
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IN THE MORNING, WEN WROTE A NOTE TO ORSON AT THE
northern freighting office. She thought he would be intrigued by the offer, but that didn’t mean he would take the job. If she had read him correctly, he’d had no love for Rayson Fortunalt and might not be able to stomach the marlord’s daughter. But she thought he would be a formidable asset to the House guard.
 
 
By day’s end, she’d hired ten more recruits, all men, and told another ten to come back the next morning for her final decision. She was a little surprised to find Ginny in the barracks, moving through the wide area that constituted the kitchen and dining room together.
 
 
“Have you been assigned the miserable job of being our cook?” Wen asked her with a grin.
 
 
Ginny looked half pleased and half annoyed. “The head cook and I had words a few times this past week, so she thought I might do better where I didn’t have to mind my tongue,” she said. “But I think I’ll like cooking for the guard. You probably don’t complain much.”
 
 
“And we’ll eat whatever you put in front of us,” Eggles said.
 
 
“Smells good, anyway,” Wen said, settling into a seat beside him. “How does the cook like your little brother, then?”
 
 
Ginny rolled her eyes. “Are you joking? Bryce knows how to make everybody love him. She’s already giving him special treats and telling him not to work so hard.”
 
 
Eggles eyed Wen and rubbed his shoulder as if it pained him. “Now that’s a trick I’d like to learn,” he said, which made everyone at the table laugh. Wen had driven them hard this day, and Eggles and Moss had had the task of making the newest recruits fight fiercely for the honor of being included.
 
 
“Things are only going to get harder,” she promised him. “Once we’re up to full strength we’ll really start working out. Better rest now while I’m being so easy on you.”
 
 
After the meal, she stepped out of the barracks to join Lord Jasper for their nightly conversation. Before heading up to the house, though, she took one quick turn around the compound, making the complete circuit around the inside of the hedge. It was something she had learned from Tayse, who walked the palace grounds at Ghosenhall once every night—sometimes more, if he was restless. Often she had wondered how such a big man managed to get by on so little sleep.
 
 
Well, ordinary rules rarely applied to Tayse.
 
 
But she would not be thinking about Tayse, about Justin, about any of them. She gave her head a hard shake and pushed through the house to seek out Lord Jasper.
 
 
He wasn’t in his study, but one of the servants showed her to the library, which was on the first floor toward the rear of the house. As she stepped in, she glanced around with interest at the ceiling-high bookcases that lined every wall, and with curiosity at piles of additional volumes stacked in rather disorderly fashion on the floor. She didn’t care about books, of course; she was checking for places people could hide if they’d stolen into the house. She supposed someone could crouch behind one of the pieces of furniture—a grouping of chairs before the fireplace, an arrangement of chairs and an ottoman across the room—but it was easy to see through their spindly legs and realize no one was crouching in their shadows. Someone could lurk behind the long curtains of the two tall windows, but Wen gave them a hard look and didn’t think that was the case tonight.
 
 
Jasper Paladar sat in one of the chairs before the fireplace, watching her. “Do you always do that?” he asked softly. “Inspect every room when you first walk in—as if memorizing its contents?”
 
 
She shrugged. “Doesn’t everyone look around when they come into a new place?”
 
 
“I’m sure they do, but I don’t imagine they bring such intensity all the time.”
 
 
Other people might end up dead for lack of attention, but not Wen. She changed the subject. “You have a lot of books here.”
 
 
His expression showed distaste. “The ones on the shelves aren’t mine.”
 
 
She pointed to the ones on the floor. “Does that mean these belong to you?”
 
 
He nodded. “Some I brought with me, some I’ve ordered since I’ve been here.”
 
 
She glanced around again. “It wouldn’t seem like you’d need to bring
more
books here.”
 
 
His voice was severe. “Most of the ones that belong in this library are valueless, acquired just for show. Neither Rayson Fortunalt nor his father was much of a scholar. Most of these volumes could be burned in the grate, and I wouldn’t care. And I’ve always considered it a sin to burn a book.”
 
 
She couldn’t help herself. “Guess I shouldn’t tell you about the time I was traveling with a patrol and we used the pages of a book for kindling.”
 
 
A pained look crossed his face and then he laughed. “I hope you read it first.”
 
 
“Mmmm, don’t remember that I did.”
 
 
“
Can
you read?”
 
 
“Of course I can!”
 
 
“You just choose not to. You just choose not to read for pleasure,” he expanded.
 
 
“Well, it wasn’t much of a pleasure in the schoolroom,” she said.
 
 
All this time she had been standing near the door, not sure how long the conference would last. Now he motioned her closer and waved her to a seat across from him. Between their chairs was a small table holding an elaborately carved box. The warmth of the fire felt good after the long day outside in wet spring weather.
 
 
“You never even read Mohre’s
Theories of Warfare
or Nocklyn’s
Twelve Battles
? Yes, Roth Nocklyn, the ancestor of the current marlady by more generations than I can count.”
 
 
“No,” she said.
 
 
He settled back in his chair and steepled his hands together. “You’d like them,” he said. “Full of fighting.”
 
 
“They sound dull,” she said. “I bet they make fighting seem boring.”
 
 
“You could be right. But there are all sorts of adventure books, about young men slipping off from their fathers’ farms to go seek their fortunes. Didn’t you ever read any of those?”
 
 
“No,” she said. “But they sound a little better than that theory book.”
 
 
“I’ll send away for one for you,” he promised.
 
 
“And then you expect me to
read
it? I don’t think that’s in my contract.” She was laughing, but also mostly serious.
 
 
His hands now palm-to-palm, he tapped his index fingers against his chin. “So every thought you have, every idea that’s formed you, has come from actual experience?” he said, as if he couldn’t believe it. “How can that be possible?”
 
 
She was bewildered. “You mean you’ve gotten some of your ideas from
books
? Ideas that have made you think or behave a certain way?”
 
 
“I am the man I am today because of Stolker’s
Meditations
,” he replied so solemnly she thought he had to be joking. “Although tempered, finally, in my thirties, by Hamton’s
Notes from a Country Estate.
But if you sat down and read those collected volumes I think you’d find a tolerably accurate transcription of my soul.”
 
 
She just stared at him and made no attempt to answer.
 
 
His mouth quirked up in a little smile. “So. No need to be afraid of being rude. I am not, I assure you, the only man in Gillengaria who has such a love for the printed page, but you’re right to think that I’m a little more obsessive than most. Hardly anyone reads as much as I do—though hardly anyone
I
know reads as little as you.”
 
 
“Well, I can hold a sword and you can’t,” was all she could think to say, and that made him burst out laughing.
 
 
“Indeed, we all bring to the world our unique skills, and it would be a dull place indeed if all those skills were identical,” he said. “But I do respect your talents, Willa.”
 
 
“Oh, and of course I respect yours! Your—ability to read.”
 
 
He was still amused. “I am also a writer of some repute,” he said. “I have produced two biographies and an analysis of the failure of the overseas shipping contracts during the reign of King Tamor.”
 
 
Once again she didn’t even try to come up with a reply.
 
 
“Don’t be nervous,” he added. “I would never consider making it a part of your job description to read any of those works.”
 
 
“Good to know,” she said. “Or you may as well fire me now.”
 
 
“But in case you were ever wondering how I spent my time before I became Karryn’s guardian, well, that is how.”
 
 
She had, in fact, been just a little curious about that—about him. And since he had opened the door to questions, she said, “Where did you live, before you came here?”
 
 
“I have a property down on the southwestern edge of Fortunalt—quite small, by the standards of Fortune, but I’m fond of it.” His voice hardened a little. “Of course, it was overrun a great deal by the Arberharst soldiers Rayson imported to fight his war, and it will take some work to restore it. But I imagine it will one day be the gracious and serene place it used to be.”
 
 
“Did you leave behind a family to come take care of Karryn?” A polite way of asking,
Where’s your wife?
Jasper Paladar was a handsome man, and some Thirteenth House lady would have snatched him up ages ago.
 
 
“I only have one daughter, and she’s married and living in Rappengrass,” he replied. “My wife died five years ago.”
 
 
“Oh, I’m very sorry.”
 
 
“Yes, so am I. She was quite charming—brilliant and eccentric, but warmhearted. You would have liked her. She didn’t have much patience for sitting still, but she couldn’t hold a sword, either.”
 
 
Wen flashed him a smile for that. “Did she read your books?”
 
 
“Read them? She helped me research them. In my opening notes on the financial book I explained that it would have been impossible to write it without her help.”
 
 
Jasper Paladar was describing a world Wen could scarcely comprehend and certainly couldn’t imagine herself comfortable in. Wouldn’t want to get comfortable in. “And your daughter?” she asked gamely. “Does she write? Or at least read?”
 
 
He nodded. “Both. And she teaches literature at a small private academy not far from Rappen Manor.” He sighed. “I miss her. Perhaps I’ll invite her to come to Forten City for a visit. I would travel to her but I don’t like to leave Karryn—and small towns in Rappengrass don’t excite Karryn too much.”
 
 
Wen grinned. “Who knows? Maybe Karryn would like it. If you decide to go, let me know, and I’ll put together an escort for all of you.”
 
 
“And have you made more progress today toward filling the ranks of the guards?”
 
 
For several minutes they discussed her new hires and what Wen expected to happen in the next few days. He listened closely, and to her surprise remembered all the names she’d mentioned to him so far. Still, the report didn’t take long, and she was waiting to be dismissed when he surprised her yet again.
 
 
“Do you play cruxanno?” he asked.
 
 
Which was when she recognized the carved box sitting on the table between them. “Not very well,” she said.
 
 
He looked disappointed. “I was sure it was something you’d excel at! I thought all soldiers played strategy games as they passed the time in the barracks.”
 
 

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