Reader and Raelynx (12 page)

“I
love
being in Senneth’s entourage!” she exclaimed, for of course it was Senneth’s magic that had warmed the air around them. “I’m like a cat that always wants to sprawl in the sun. I’m not happy in the cold.”

Ellynor laughed softly. “I thought maybe we were just sheltered from the wind, and I was grateful. I didn’t realize.”

“Best winters of my life were the ones Senneth lived with us,” Jerril said, smiling in his dreamy way at the memory. “Never had to chop a cord of wood, and the house was warm no matter what the temperature was outside.”

Senneth had dropped to the ground and used her own cloak to make a cushion against the stone wall. “I’m just here as a spectator,” she said with a grin. “I may as well pay for my entertainment somehow.”

“Well, let’s get started,” Jerril said, nodding his bald head. “Who is participating today?”

Donnal, who had padded to the garden in the guise of a black hound, wagged his tail and offered a short bark. “Donnal. Ellynor. Me,” Cammon said. “Kirra?”

She shook her head and settled on the ground next to Senneth, her back to the wall. “Maybe later. First I want to watch.”

“We should have brought snacks,” Senneth said. “It’s like watching a troupe of actors.”

“Even more fun, I hope,” Kirra said.

Jerril didn’t even throw them a look of annoyance, as Cammon did. “Ellynor, forgive me, I don’t yet know what you’re capable of,” the older mystic said. “Why don’t you go out the gate, wait a few minutes, and then enter at your leisure—circle the garden once—and see how quickly we’re able to spot your presence?”

Ellynor was trying not to smile. “All right.”

“Oh, I was wrong,” Kirra said. “That doesn’t sound fun at all.”

Ellynor disappeared through the gate, though she left it standing wide behind her. “We shouldn’t watch her entry point,” Jerril said. “After all, if she were to come upon us unawares on the street, we would have no idea which direction she would be approaching from.”

Cammon obligingly turned his back to the gate but said, “I have a feeling it won’t matter.” Donnal, who had also faced the other direction, thumped his tail against the ground.

“Should we try to distract them, you think?” Kirra asked. “Tell jokes, sing bawdy songs?”

“I don’t know any bawdy songs,” Senneth said.

“Oh, I know plenty.” Kirra lifted her voice and proceeded to offer what sounded like a sailor’s ditty.
“I knew five girls in Fortunalt / Lived by the sea and loved the salt. / One had bosoms flat and thin / Throw her in the water, she couldn’t swim—”

“Why are they always about women, these bawdy songs?” Senneth asked. “Why aren’t there awful little melodies about men?”

“Wait. Give me a minute,” Kirra said.
“I knew five men from Forten City / Three were dumb and one was pretty. / One said, ‘Girl, won’t you give me a lick? / I’ve sprinkled saltwater on—’”

Senneth slapped her hand over Kirra’s mouth. “Just when I think it’s safe to introduce you to my friends—”

Jerril, of course, was not offended. “She’s a serramarra?” he asked. When Cammon nodded, he added, “She doesn’t exhibit the behavior I would expect from the aristocracy.”

“Kirra never really does what anybody expects,” Cammon replied.

“She has a lot of power, though,” Jerril said. “I can sense it. Full of a wild magic.”

“‘Wild’ about covers it,” Cammon agreed.

“But I’m having a hard time getting any sense of Ellynor,” Jerril added.

“You can when she’s in a room with Justin,” Cammon said with a grin. “But when Justin’s not around—” He shook his head. “She might as well not exist. I can’t feel her at all.”

“No,” Jerril said. “I can’t even tell if she’s entered the garden yet. I feel certain she has, and yet I cannot pick up any telltale traces of her.”

Cammon nudged Donnal with his foot. “Can you scent her?” he asked. Donnal lifted his black nose and sniffed the air, then quirked his ears back. Nothing. “Maybe she’s still outside the gate. Maybe she just walked away.”

And then it was as if there was a rent in the air—as if the sky itself blinked—and Ellynor was standing right before them. Jerril was so surprised he took a step backward. Donnal yelped and scrambled to his feet, then frisked around her knees, snuffling at her skirt.

“Now that
was
entertaining,” Kirra called out.

Cammon was smiling and shaking his head. “How do you
do
that? I’m looking for you, and I can’t tell you’re there.”

She was smiling, pleased with herself. She bent down to stroke Donnal’s head. “I used to be able to conceal myself only at night. But now I’ve found that the magic works in daylight, too.” She shrugged. “I don’t know why.”

Cammon glanced at Jerril. “And I have no idea how to countermand her magic,” he said. “How can we even practice?”

Jerril looked intrigued. “This will take some experimentation,” he said. “Ellynor, will you indulge us? Can you assume your cloaks as we’re standing here watching you?”

She tilted her head to one side. Her long dark hair was braided and wrapped around her head, but here and there Cammon could see the blonder markings of her clan pattern dyed into the black. She looked very neat and compact and serious. “I think so.”

“Cammon, focus on her,” Jerril directed. “Ellynor—disappear.”

Before their very eyes, Ellynor seemed to drop into a well of shadows, which smoothed away and left only ordinary sunlight behind.

“
I
want to do that,” Senneth exclaimed. “Next time I’m invited to dinner at the king’s table.”

Cammon was staring at the place where she’d been but was completely unable to tell if she was still there. Donnal, however, had grown alert. His pointed nose swung in a slow circle as if he tracked a particularly tasty piece of game.

“Donnal, can you find her?” Jerril asked in a quiet voice. “Show us.”

Donnal bounded forward and made a low leap, and suddenly he and Ellynor were tussling on the ground. Ellynor was laughing as she tried to dodge his tongue. “That’s not fair! I can’t outrun him.” She pushed Donnal aside and rose gracefully to her feet. “I thought the dog might be more difficult to trick than the mystic.”

“But we want Donnal to be able to pick you out even when he doesn’t know where you are,” Jerril said.

“I can’t pick her out even when I do,” Cammon said gloomily.

“Concentrate on the spaces around her,” Jerril suggested. “When she takes a step, she disturbs the shrubs, the vines—the birds, the squirrels. See if you can sense the disruption she causes in the world, if you can’t sense her.”

Cammon widened his eyes. “That’s awfully subtle.”

Jerril smiled. “It’s a delicate magic.”

They spent the next two hours hunting for Ellynor. Donnal experienced significantly more success than Cammon did, and even he could only find her three times out of seven. Jerril had Ellynor increase her magic by stages, gradually becoming less and less perceptible to the others, and that was a fascinating exercise. Like lifting weights that were successively heavier, Cammon thought. The last round had been possible, so surely the next one should be as well—but there was a point at which he could discern her, and a point at which he could not, and not all his straining changed that.

All of them were exhausted by the end of two hours of effort. Well, not Senneth and Kirra—they had stayed comfortable and lazy against the wall, calling out derision or encouragement as the mood took them.

Jerril finally said, “I think we’ve had enough for the day. I’ll come back tomorrow and the day after that, and we’ll work on this some more.”

“I want to try one more thing,” Cammon said, and he pulled Ellynor over to whisper in her ear. Three minutes later, the Lirren girl had crept invisibly over to the wall and dumped a canteen of water on the other two women.

Kirra shrieked and melted into lioness shape, leaping straight through the dead shrubbery for Cammon. He ran, of course, but she caught him in three steps, and they tumbled on the ground together until she stilled him completely by standing with her great golden paws heavy on his chest. She stared down at him with liquid blue eyes—Kirra’s eyes even in the cat’s shape, or maybe it was just that Cammon still saw her as Kirra—and yowled in triumph.

“Bite him!” Senneth was shouting. “Have him for dinner!” But, instead, Kirra just dropped her head and ran her rough tongue across his face, practically lifting off his skin. Then she jumped down and loped to Donnal’s side.

Jerril helped Cammon up. “She
is
impressive,” he said. “One hears stories about Kirra Danalustrous, but to see her up close like that—well.”

Cammon brushed off his clothes and grinned. “No one quite like her.”

Jerril’s eyes wandered thoughtfully over the whole group: Senneth still lounging on the ground, Ellynor now corporeal and kneeling beside her, Kirra and Donnal chasing each other across the width of the garden and back. “It’s quite a group of friends you’ve gathered,” the older man said. “With an astonishing array of powers.”

“Senneth gathered us,” Cammon said. “And Justin and Tayse.”

“Yes,” Jerril said, “Senneth was always good at knowing what was valuable. She just didn’t used to be so good at keeping the things and people that mattered to her. I am glad to see that she has learned to hold on.”

Cammon laughed. “Or maybe we’re the ones who’ve learned to hold on to her.”

Jerril smiled. “The result is excellent, either way.”

E
LLYNOR
had been at the palace for just over a week before she had an audience with the king. Justin told Cammon that Baryn always made a point of introducing himself to the Riders’ brides because, as he said, “If these women are competing with me for my Riders’ attention, I should at least know what they look like.”

Justin escorted Ellynor to a semiformal room, all dark blue and bright gilt. Cammon followed, curious to see how the meeting would go. The king waited in a high-backed chair only a little less imposing than his throne, and Valri and Amalie sat on either side of him. Baryn and Amalie wore welcoming smiles, but Valri looked brooding and just a little on edge.

Justin shepherded Ellynor to the king’s chair and offered a Rider’s deep bow, right fist to left shoulder, and pulled Ellynor down in a curtsey beside him. Ellynor looked particularly pretty this day, Cammon thought, for she was wearing a midnight-blue dress that matched her eyes and her face was flushed with color. Her black hair was unbound and flowed down her back so that everyone could see those stylized clan markings dyed into it. Coming to a halt behind Ellynor, Cammon studied the pattern, which looked a bit like a flower, a bird, and a scythe, repeated in rows down the whole river of her hair.

“Liege, may I present to you Ellynor Alowa, of the Domen
sebahta
and the Lahja
sebahta-ris
, and lately made my wife,” Justin said, rising. Cammon had heard Justin rehearse this about a hundred times last night, and he didn’t mispronounce a single syllable now. “I hope you will welcome her to Ghosenhall.”

“And so I do,” Baryn said, holding out his hands. Ellynor stepped forward and laid her hands in his, and he kissed them before releasing her. “How is it that you found a way to tame my most ferocious Rider, Ellynor Alowa? I didn’t think Justin would ever be won over.”

Ellynor blushed and glanced at Justin. “He’s won
me
over, sire.”

“Ah, well, there is no resisting Justin,” Baryn said with a smile. “If he set his heart on you, you would have no choice in the matter.” Justin laughed aloud and Ellynor blushed even more deeply. His smile broadening, Baryn made a graceful gesture at Amalie. “Let me also introduce you to my daughter, Amalie, who is just as pleased to meet you as I am.”

Ellynor made another curtsey, but Amalie drew her forward and kissed her on the cheek. “I think you’re brave to marry a Rider,” the princess said. “They’re very fierce.”

“Justin isn’t always fierce,” Ellynor replied, and then she blushed again.

Baryn was trying not to laugh. “And let me present Valri, my wife and my queen.”

Ellynor’s curtsey to Valri was a little more shallow and she did not drop her eyes as she had when she met the other two. Valri’s own eyes coolly assessed this new arrival. It struck Cammon now—as it should have struck him before, except he always wasted so little attention on people’s outward appearances—that there was a definite similarity between the two women. Not so much their coloring, though they both had black hair, but their essences. They were both watchful and still, secretive and serene. They both looked as if they had been blessed, or burdened, with complex knowledge that was difficult to handle but too sacred to share.

They knew each other. Despite being unable to read either one of them, Cammon could tell that as soon as their eyes met. He picked up a sense of disquiet from Justin, though the Rider kept his face completely impassive. So Justin, too, realized that these women were not strangers to each other. Ellynor had perhaps confided in him something of Valri’s history. Which Cammon would dearly love to know—he had no information beyond the fact that Valri was Lirren and
bahta-lo
.

“Ellynor. It is good to see you again,” Valri said calmly.

“Yes, and very good to see you, too,” Ellynor replied. “You have traveled far from home, but you seem to have prospered.”

“Though I miss that home, and all my kin,” Valri said. “You shall have to spend an hour with me someday and tell me tales of the land across the mountains.”

“So is the secret to be revealed, then?” Baryn asked his queen in a gentle voice. “No more pretense? I know how much you have missed your family and your friends, and to have another Lirren girl nearby—well. I would imagine you would greatly enjoy a chance to make her your friend.”

Valri gazed over at him with her bright green eyes. The rest of them stayed absolutely motionless, too surprised to speak. “It is up to you,” she said quietly. “Whatever you think is best.”

“We have so little reason to continue any fiction about what your background might be,” Baryn said. “It seems we will have enemies no matter how carefully you are presented. So let us tell the world you are Lirren-born, and let us see what they make of that.”

The permission did not seem to make Valri relax any, Cammon thought. “They will find a way to use the information against you,” she said.

“They’ll call her a mystic, too,” Cammon said, entering the conversation between royals without permission. Justin gave him a minatory look, but Baryn did not seem offended.

Nor did Valri. “They say it already,” the queen replied.

“People in Gillengaria don’t understand the Lirrenfolk or their powers,” Ellynor said. “If some of us have magic, it is not a kind of magic they can grasp. They might call you a mystic but unless you are commanding fire or changing shapes, they will have no idea what exactly you can do. And that may keep you safe.”

“That is very good reasoning,” Baryn said in an approving voice. “Justin, I like this girl already. Plus, of course, I have to commend your good taste in choosing someone from the Lirrens.”

Justin gave the king another deep bow, his right fist pressed to his opposite shoulder. “Sire, I loved her before I knew her heritage.”

Some of the habitual darkness left Valri’s face as she smiled at the newlywed couple. “So tell us the story of your wooing,” she said. “And the happy ending! Such a rare thing for a Lirren girl who looks to take a groom from across the Lireth Mountains.”

This was a signal to bring in more chairs and call for refreshments, and soon Justin and Ellynor were vying with each other to repeat the details of their romance. Amalie loved the tale, Cammon could tell, though she was horrified by Justin’s very near brush with death. Cammon was more interested in the account of their trip across the mountains for Justin to meet Ellynor’s family—particularly her quarrelsome brothers.

Justin was laughing. “Luckily, I had healed up well enough by then, because a couple of times a day someone was challenging me to a duel, or a footrace, or a wrestling match. Ellynor had told me I had to beat everyone at every contest—”

“I didn’t say you had to win
every
time.”

“So I did, but, let me tell you, I’ve had workouts with other Riders that weren’t as punishing over the course of a week.”

Valri, who had seemed to thoroughly enjoy the tale so far, now grew suddenly tense again, or so it seemed to Cammon. “And your family?” she asked Ellynor in a tight voice. “They are all well?”

Cammon noticed that Ellynor met her eyes straightly, seeming to acknowledge some unspoken question. “All of them—my brothers, my cousins, my parents—all the ones you know, all of them healthy and unchanged.”

Valri took a quick breath and then folded her lips together as if to keep from speaking. Cammon saw Justin’s eyes narrow and thought,
He knows something
. Baryn and Amalie did not seem to notice. The king said, “So you arrived a week or so ago, I believe. Did the Riders welcome you and treat you kindly?”

Justin laughed at that. “Most kindly,” he said with a grin. “Quite a welcome.”

Baryn smiled. “I suspect a story there,” he said.

“None worth telling,” Justin replied, still grinning.

The king asked Ellynor, “And what do you make of Ghosenhall?”

“I haven’t seen much of the city yet, but I think it’s beautiful.”

There was a knock on the door and Milo entered, bowed, and gave the king a significant glance. Baryn nodded and rose to his feet. “I have another appointment and I must go. Ellynor, my dear, I am so glad you have joined our family. Justin, of course you realize that officially I am devastated that you have chosen to take a wife, but in private may I say you seem to have made a magnificent choice. Stop by and see Milo before you leave. He will have something to give you—a small gift from me to start you in your wedded life.” He kissed Amalie on top of her head, Valri on the cheek. “My dears. I will see you later.” And he left the room behind Milo.

Justin was instantly on his feet. “And I must get back to the training yard. I’m still recovering some of the skills I lost on the road. Ellynor—”

“Perhaps she will stay and visit with me awhile,” Valri said.

“Gladly.”

Even Amalie could tell that the two countrywomen wanted to speak in private. “Cammon,” said the princess, “I have something to show you in my study. Why don’t you come with me for a moment?”

He did.

And so, for the first time since he had known Amalie, Cammon was alone with the princess.

“W
HAT’S
in your study?” Cammon asked as they stepped into the room.

“My cloak,” Amalie said. “It’s cold out and I want to take a walk.”

“Without Valri? She won’t like that.”

Amalie gave him a look that was pure mischief. One of the rare occasions when she looked as young as she really was.

“She will be too delighted to talk to Ellynor to even notice that I’m not in the room. By the time she remembers, I’ll be back here, sitting demurely before the fire and confessing to a day of boredom.”

Cammon was hardly one to urge anyone to more proper behavior. “Well, let me grab my own coat and we can sneak out the kitchen.”

“Meet me back here as quickly as you can.”

He did, and found Amalie transformed. She had covered her bright hair with a dull woolen scarf, and her cloak was so plain it could have been borrowed from a maid who possessed neither money nor fashion sense. She had also donned what looked like a pair of her father’s spectacles, but she allowed them to perch on the end of her nose so she could peer over the tops of the lenses.

“What do you think?” she asked. “A good disguise?”

He felt his first twinge of unease. “Are you planning to go onto the streets of Ghosenhall? Because I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”

“I wish I could! But, no, I’ll stay safe within the palace walls. I just want to—walk around the grounds a bit without anyone knowing who I am.”

“Then let’s go.”

It was relatively easy for Cammon to get them out of the building unseen. He didn’t have Ellynor’s trick of concealment, of course, but he had no trouble sensing when the rooms and hallways ahead of them were clear of people and safe to traverse. More than once he had to whisk them into an unoccupied room to avoid a contingent of servants, and on these occasions he and Amalie plastered themselves against the wall and tried to keep from laughing.

Finally they had ducked through a side door to avoid all the cooks in the kitchen and found themselves outside in the cold afternoon sun. “Where to?” Cammon asked.

“The training yard,” she answered without hesitation. “I want to watch the Riders working out.”

She wasn’t the only one. A dozen or so spectators gathered around the fence rails surrounding the yard, watching in fascination as the Riders practiced their swings and blows. The rest of them looked like tourists in the royal city for a special visit—wealthy merchants and their well-dressed wives, their envious sons, their teenage daughters who sighed and giggled over the Riders’ splendid physiques. None of them paid any attention to Amalie.

She climbed up the bottom rung of the fence and hung over the top, absorbed in the mock combat. “Tell me who is who,” she commanded, so Cammon stepped up beside her and gave a running commentary.

“That’s Tir, the oldest of the Riders. Tayse’s father. See how he wields the sword? He’s not as powerful as he used to be, but he’s tricky. Almost no one can beat him. Over there is Wen. She’s small and she’s not as strong as some of the men, but she’s fast. And she can outshoot any of them with a bow. She’s fighting with Justin, so she’s going to go down in about a minute.”

“Does Justin always win?”

“Just about.”

“Who’s the best? Of all the Riders?”

“Tayse,” he answered without hesitation.

“And nobody can beat him?”

“Oh, sure. Now and then someone brings him down—usually Tir or Coeval, and sometimes Justin. But not very often. And never twice in a row.”

For a moment she stood in silence, watching over the rims of her spectacles. “I’m supposed to know them all,” she said. “My father does. He knows their names and their stories and whether they’re married and whether they’ve been injured and—and—what they’re like. Who they are. I only know a few of them, especially those who were with us last summer—Tayse and Justin and Coeval and Hammond. And Senneth.”

“Well,” Cammon said, “Senneth isn’t exactly a Rider.”

Amalie pointed to where Senneth was trading blows with Hammond. “She’s training with them.”

“I’ve trained with the Riders, too, and that doesn’t make me one of them.”

She gave him a quick appraising glance out of those lively brown eyes. “Are you any good?”

He laughed. “Not really. But Tayse says I’m getting better.”

She returned her attention to the field. “I should get to know them all.”

“I’m sure they’d welcome that. I’ll ask Tayse to arrange it.”

She nodded and then lapsed into silence again. Cammon could feel her intense interest in the activities on the field. Her mind swooped with the swing of a sword blade, dove to the wrestlers in the mud, lifted with the arrows being shot at targets on the other edge of the yard. She was pleased and excited and absorbed and impressed; she saw the activity before her as a combination of poetry and practicality. She missed neither the sheer beauty of the physical motion nor the deadly necessity behind the exercise.