The Lord-Protector's Daughter (11 page)

“You are kind, but the Great Villa in Harmony was far less elegant than this. It was somewhat larger, but drafty, especially in winter.” Cheleyza smiled. “In that, it was similar to the Lord-Protector's Palace. I doubt it was built to house a ruler.”

“What do you think it was built for?” Mykella asked.

“I have no idea, but so many of the rooms are exactly the same size—or they were before the walls were altered. You can see where those changes were made by the difference in the stones.”

Mykella waited.

“I would judge that many were studies, like Joramyl's Finance study. Perhaps the Alectors put many minions in the building doing things we can only guess about.”

“There are still so many things we don't know,” Mykella replied. “Is it that way in Harmony?”

Cheleyza laughed. “Mykella, dear, Tempre is so much more civilized than the Northcoast.” She paused. “If those there, or in Midcoast, only knew, they would march their armies eastward to try to take what we have here. We will need a strong Lord-Protector for years to come.”

“And a strong Southern Guard,” suggested Mykella. “With leaders like Berenyt.”

“Yes,” agreed Cheleyza. “He is quite determined, and he is rather a dear.”

“Dear” was definitely not a term that Mykella would have applied to Berenyt, but she could sense that Cheleyza regarded Berenyt almost with amusement, but a cool and detached amusement that chilled Mykella.

“You must stay and at least have some midmorning refreshments. I do insist,” said Cheleyza, with a smile.

“I'd be delighted.” Mykella offered her own smile in return.

It was likely to be a very long morning.

Mykella finally returned to the
palace and her small table in the Finance study shortly after midday.

As she seated herself before the master ledger that Kiedryn had placed there and opened it to the most recent entries, the white-haired clerk looked up from his longer table, stacked with five different account ledgers. “Good afternoon, Mistress Mykella.”

“Good afternoon, Kiedryn.” She smiled crookedly. “I had some…obligations.” How else could she explain where she had been without getting into messy details? But then, she was probably the only one in the family who even felt a need to explain much of anything.

“For the Lord-Protector and his family, there are always those.” The chief clerk nodded.

“Some of them seem so useless. I'd rather be here.”

Kiedryn offered a smile. “Here you can only determine what has been done and what in the way of golds remains to do what else must be done.”

Mykella's laugh was rueful. “That's a very polite way of saying that keeping track of golds may give me some understanding, but that mere accounting changes nothing.”

“People decide how golds are spent, people like your father and your uncle.”

Certainly not mere daughters like Mykella and her sisters. While Mykella thought that, there was little point in saying so. “I can hope that studying the ledgers will teach me something about how to spend wisely and how to avoid foolish spending.”

“The ledgers can teach more than that, if you look closely, Mistress,” replied Kiedryn. “That is, if you understand who controls which ledger.”

There was a click as the door to the outer corridor began to open. The clerk turned his eyes back to the ledger before him.

The outer door swung wide, thumping into the stone wall. Joramyl stepped into the chamber. He immediately addressed Kiedryn. “Did you make the transfer from the general tariff account to the Southern Guard procurement account?” His voice was deep and commanding, his pale green eyes hard under the bushy blond and silver eyebrows.

“Yes, sir. I took care of that yesterday.”

Joramyl nodded and stepped past the senior clerk. He opened the door to his inner study and entered it without so much as looking at his niece.

Mykella looked down at the entries and the figures entered in the black iron-gall ink. Exactly what was Kiedryn suggesting? Joramyl was the Finance Minister, but he didn't actually control spending.

She turned her thoughts to what her uncle had said. Why was Joramyl transferring golds to the Southern Guards? The Guards actually were carrying a considerable surplus over the previous years, and it was near the end of the year, and there were more than enough golds to cover the likely outlays.

She went to the shelves, took out the ledger that held the record of Guard expenditures over the past two years, and carried it to her table. She opened it and began to check the entries. Almost a glass later, she closed it. There were no regular entries in the last week of the previous year that suggested a periodic significant expense. Was someone planning another large purchase of riding gear from Berjor? But why, when the number of Southern Guards was down from the level in previous years?

As she puzzled, Berenyt pushed his way through the door, nodded brusquely to Kiedryn, then, almost as an afterthought stopped, turned, and smiled at Mykella. She could sense the falsity.

“You're far too pretty to spend your time poring over account ledgers, Mykella.” His wide smile accented his slightly-too-big white teeth.

“It makes me feel useful, and I'd like to think that it helps Father,” she replied.

“You'd help him more with a match that would bring him allies and trade,” suggested Berenyt winningly.

Much as she bristled inside, she matched his smile with one she hoped was more genuine-looking, even if it happened to be just as false. “Others have to make matches for daughters. Until they do, I can be helpful here.”

“So you can. So you can.” After flashing another smile, he turned and opened the door into his father's study.

While Berenyt was talking to his sire, Mykella replaced the Southern Guard ledger, then reseated herself at her table. “Are there many large expenses that come due near the end of the year, Kiedryn?”

The chief clerk tilted his head. “Not that many, Mistress Mykella. At other times, there are. There are always larger outlays for bridge and pier repairs in the spring, and the Southern Guards usually acquire mounts in summer…”

Mykella listened carefully, but Kiedryn's recitation of various expenditures only suggested that large expenditures near the turn of winter were not a common occurrence. She supposed she'd have to wait and see what the Guards ended up buying that required so many additional golds.

After his brief talk with his father, Berenyt hurried out, bestowing a quick smile on Mykella, an expression that faded even before he was past her. Before long, Joramyl also left, not really looking at either Kiedryn or Mykella.

For the rest of the afternoon, Mykella just reviewed the new entries, if at times pausing to try to think about why the Southern Guards might need more golds. Even though she couldn't find an answer that satisfied her, she was certain about one thing. It wasn't a good idea for either her or Kiedryn to ask Joramyl about the transfer.

Neither Feranyt nor Jeraxylt were at dinner on Duadi evening, and, of course, neither was Eranya. Even before the serving girls had brought the bread pudding that was often dessert when the men were not present, since both despised it, Rachylana had excused herself, leaving Salyna and Mykella.

“How was your day?” Mykella asked Salyna.

“I could only practice against the more junior guards, and they're really not good enough.”

“With the saber, you mean?”

“With anything.” Salyna snorted. “I practice left-handed against them, and they hardly notice.”

“They're afraid they'll hurt you.”

“They don't try that hard against each other, either. The real guards are the ones garrisoned in Indyor or in the border forts on the high roads. The companies guarding Tempre and the palace are mostly for show.”

“We don't have any real Southern Guards here?”

“Oh…there are some. They rotate a few through Tempre to give them a rest or easier duty, and they rotate some out of Tempre to give them experience. That's if they show some true ability.”

“Who told you that?”

“Most of the guards, in one way or another.” Salyna looked at Mykella. “How did your meeting with Cheleyza go?”

“I told her I appreciated her kind gesture with the dress. She accepted my explanation and insisted I stay for midmorning refreshments. She knows I refused the dress because I didn't want to look like a sack of flour, and I know that was her intent, and we were both very polite.”

“She's a scheming bitch.” Salyna's voice was as casual as if she had said that it was dark outside.

“She also said that Berenyt was a dear.”

“If I were Berenyt, I'd worry.”

“I'm not about to worry over him. Rachylana can do that.”

“She's so infatuated with him that she can't think to worry,” replied Salyna.

“She'd best learn.”

“Mykella…she is our sister.”

Mykella sighed. “He can't marry her, not under normal conditions. Even if he could, he wouldn't.”

“He might. I think he does care for her—as much as he can care for anyone.”

“There's not much we can do. She won't listen.” Mykella paused. “You're right. I'll try to be gentler. It's hard, though.”

“You need to be matched to a ruler, Mykella. You're meant to do things.”

Mykella smiled and shook her head. “That won't happen, either. Never in a thousand generations.”

“Never say ‘Never.'” Salyna took the last bite of her bread pudding and eased the dish away.

Mykella looked down at her empty bowl. She didn't even remember eating it.

Salyna rose, as did Mykella, but Mykella did not wait all that long after she returned to her chamber before she created her sight-shield and slipped out of the family quarters and down the main staircase, and then the smaller one to the lower level. She managed to be quiet enough that the sentries at the top and bottom of the main staircase heard nothing, nor did the guard near the door to the lower staircase.

The Table looked and felt the same—dark to her eyes and faintly glowing purple to her senses. The light-torches cast the same weary amber glow across the chamber, and she wondered, not for the first time, for how many generations they had continued to shine.

She stepped up to the Table, knowing she had to learn more. She just had to.

Then she looked down at the mirrorlike surface, concentrating on Joramyl, his blond hair and green eyes, and the coldness within him. The swirling mists appeared, then cleared to reveal Joramyl—seen from behind—embracing Cheleyza. Both were naked, but the one thing that transfixed Mykella was the lambent hardness of her aunt's gray eyes. Mykella pushed away the image, then concentrated on finding Berenyt through the Table.

Not surprisingly, the mists cleared to reveal her cousin and Rachylana seated side by side on a long settee in the sitting room adjoining the Lord-Protector's official study. They were not talking, unless it was lip-to-lip, but at least they were both fully clothed.

Mykella took a deep breath and released the image, letting the Table's surface return to its mirror finish. Now what?

She looked at the Table again, then forced herself to climb up onto it. She stood there for a time, then began to cast forth her thoughts toward the greenish-blackness beneath the purple. This time she dropped through the Table and into the darkness and chill beneath far more quickly. In the blackish green distance she could sense more clearly what seemed to be points of light. One was the black point she had “visited” before, but she had no idea how black could also be a point of light—except it was. There was also an amber point and one of sullen red that did not seem too distant.

As the chill began to seep through her nightsilk jacket, she focused on the sullen point of red. For a time nothing occurred. Then, slowly, the sullen red point grew larger, before rushing toward her with a wave of purpled miasma.

Chill and the purple shattered around her and vanished, replaced by far warmer air and a dry mustiness. The chamber was dark, and as she tried to turn, her head bumped into something with enough force that she staggered and her eyes watered. As she turned, carefully, she could see nothing, but she could sense the chamber around her, what of it that remained intact. Two stone supports crossed above the Table, the lower of which had banged her head when she had tried to straighten up. Sand and dust filled much of the space around the Table, and the door lintels had collapsed into each other, blocking access to the still-solid door behind them. Some sort of chest had been crushed into a flat and splintered mass by another massive stone pillar that rose through the mass of stones seemingly held in place by the two columns that intersected above the Table.

Mykella could tell that there was no escape from the chamber, but she couldn't help wondering what had brought down the building above with such force. Did Tempre hold the only Table chamber that was not damaged or otherwise inaccessible?

As she moved her feet, dust sifted upward, and she sneezed. Her head struck the stone pillar, if not so hard as the first time. There was no question. Once more, she needed to return to Tempre.

She concentrated on dropping into the greenish black darkness. Even as she did, her nose continued to itch, an itch frozen by the chill of the darkness. As the blueness that seemed to be associated with the Tempre Table (at least from a distance) rushed toward her, she began to feel another kind of chill, one purplish and almost slimy.

The Ifrit was searching for her!

Once she was standing on the Tempre Table, she jumped off, her boots hitting hard on the stone floor, then glanced back at the Table. Purplish mists began to rise from the mirrored surface. It had to be the Ifrit. Did she want to deal with him?

Not when she was as tired and as fretful as she found herself.

She hurried out the door, quickly closing it behind her. She hurried toward the staircase up to the main level, almost running down the long corridor, trying to ignore the voice inside her that kept telling her that she would have to face the Ifrit sooner or later.

Later…when she was rested and knew more. Later.