The Vildecaz Talents: The complete set of Vildecaz Stories including Nimuar's Loss, The Deceptive Oracle and Agnith's Promise (30 page)

“But I can scramble about in the underbrush and do it no real harm,” said Ninianee as she began to pull off the offending garment.

“Not that a Duzeon should be out in the underbrush,” said Giuynee, making no excuse for her disapproval.

“It would be unwise to wear fine garments on such errands – you will grant me that, will you not?”

“Certainly, if I were irresponsible enough to need to be out in the underbrush,” agreed Giuynee as if she considered this response reasonable.

Ninianee knew it was pointless to argue with her, so ignored the challenge in the maid’s remarks. “For now, I want a bath and a change of clothes – my bronze gaunel of Adamine-velvet, I think, and a guin of Fahnine-silk. They’re in the armoire in my bed-chamber.”

“That is fairly grand,” Giuynee observed, “that ensemble.”

“With that Pareo-person here, I think I should be a bit grander than usual, don’t you? He’s so far above himself, the rest of us are hard-put to keep up with him.” She tossed her dolaj onto the upholstered bench in front of the fireplace and then bent to pull off her boot, tossing it aside before removing the other. As she straightened up, she untied the waist-band of her brikes, and lowered them, exposing her skin-clothes. Her zenft hung open, a small smirch of blood at the top of one sleeve a reminder of the joalliberry-bush. “I won’t bother with breakfast. If you’ll tell Major Mindicaz for me, please?”

“Are you feeling quite well, Duzeon?” There was an edge to her tone that suggested that Ninianee was hiding something from her serving-woman.

“I’m tired. I . . . didn’t sleep well, which is why I rose early.”

“Very early, since your bed hasn’t been slept in.”

Ninianee muttered “Zlatz,” and did her best to make light of the gaffe. These were the kinds of details that Erianthee usually managed for her, and it galled her to realize she had made such a clumsy error. “No. I was restless, and tried to sleep on my hammock-chair, to try to calm my mind. I do that sometimes, you know. The rocking composes me, or it does most of the time. But last night, not even that worked.”

“So you got up and went out, rather than conjure sleep,” said Giuynee.

“Conjured sleep is like conjured food – pleasant enough, but lacking substance,” said Nininaee. “Walking is more restorative.”

“And, by the look of you, had a little trouble on your rambles.”

“Something of the sort,” said Ninianee, looking for her larnija. “If you would arrange for the bath?”

“Hot water, of course? Here, or in the bath-house?”

“Hot water, here, I think. There’s a tub in my sister’s quarters. She won’t mind if I use it.”

“I’ll order the footmen to bring it,” said Giuynee.

“Why bother?” Ninianee asked as she brought all her concentration to bear on this mundane problem. “That makes too much of a simple matter. I’ll go along to Erianthee’s quarters and the tub can be filled there without having to move anything, either tub or kettles. The water in the stove-cistern in the kitchen should be hot by now, and the pipes are in good order. I need only activate the spell to raise water to the spigot-fountain in Erianthee’s quarters and the tub will be full, and no one disaccommodated by my bath.” She looked at the sea-green Fahnine-silk rourua Giuynee held out to her. “What’s that for?”

“It is more appropriate that you have a proper robe on if you insist on going about the halls,” said Giuynee.

“What a stickler you are,” said Ninianee even as she took the robe from Giuynee.

“One of us must observe propriety; you can’t go gadding through the Castle clad only in your skin-clothes. You aren’t eight any more, you’re twenty-three – not that you should have done it when you were eight, either,” said Giuynee, undaunted.

“No doubt you’re right,” said Ninianee, determined not to argue. She pulled open the rourua and slid into its deep folds and capacious sleeves.

Giuynee accepted this capitulation with a gratified nod. “While you bathe I will set out your gaunel and guin, as you requested. Is there anything else you would like to wear?”

“My coronet and bracelet, and perhaps a pair of rings. I leave it to you to choose which ones.” She held up one bare foot. “Are these all right, or do you require I wear slippers?”

“Not if you would prefer not,” said Giuynee, magnanimous now that she had made her point.

“Thank you,” said Ninianee with a wicked smile as she hurried out of the small antechamber, bound for Erianthee’s quarters on the east side of the Castle. It took her very little time to reach the door to Erianthee’s suite of rooms, where she found one of the Day Guards standing on duty. For the first time Ninianee was glad of the rourua, and wished she had donned slippers.

“Duzeon,” said the Guard, making a deep respect.

“If you will permit me to pass?” Ninianee asked, tying to make light of the peculiarity of their meeting.

“Of course, Duzeon,” said the Guard, and stepped aside.

Ninianee admitted herself to Erianthee’s quarters and made for the solarium where Erianthee kept her bath-tub. The room was flooded with sunlight, but there was still a hint of autumn chill in the air, enough to make the prospect of hot water doubly welcome. Ninianee went to the arched water-pipe, swung it around so that it was directly over the ornate tub, and recited the spell to raise water. The pipes moaned, gurgled, then gushed steaming water from the huge cistern in the kitchen, three floors below. The tub filled rapidly, the sides bowing out to accommodate more water. When the full-line was reached, Ninianee shifted the pipe back to its closed position and spoke the spell to return water to its own level. Ninianee tested the water with her foot and found it at the upper range of the heat she could enjoy. Letting the luxurious rourua slide from her shoulders, she removed her skin-clothes and tossed them aside before she got slowly into the steaming bath.

On the small table next to the bathtub was a vial of thesavee-oil. Ninianee unstoppered it and poured a little of the pale-purple, aromatic oil into the water, letting the fragrance enfold her as she lay back in the hot water, feeling her hair fan out around her, and her aching muscles begin to relax. The tub adjusted to her presence, supporting her so that she could keep her head enough above water to breathe safely, but deep enough to cover almost all of the rest of her body. The water was warm and would remain warm for most of the day so long as she was in the tub. She reminded herself that, tempting as it was, she mustn’t fall asleep here, and, almost at the same instant, she drifted away into dreamless slumber.

She wakened some time later, when the water had just begun to cool and the sun had risen to mid-morning height of the autumn sky. Disoriented and chilled, she looked about, then recalled where she was, and then, understood what must have happened. Shocked at her lapse, she clambered out of the tub, reaching for the rourua while she castigated herself for neglecting to bring a drying sheet, for falling asleep, for neglecting her morning duties. How could she have let herself fall asleep? There was so much to do. As if to make up for these failings, she scurried from Erianthee’s quarters only to find a different Guard at the door, one who seemed surprised to discover that Duzeon Ninianee had been inside.

“Has anyone asked for me?” she asked as he respected her.

“No, Duzeon, not of me, not in the last hour.” He held his pike a bit straighter. “I don’t think anyone knows you were here.”

“Possibly not,” she agreed, fully aware that Giuynee did. She lowered her head as if in thought. “I have left the water in the tub. Will you ask Skoniz to attend to it? He knows what to do.”

“I mustn’t leave my post,” said the Guard, seemingly embarrassed by this admission. “If I can wait until the end of my watch, then I will find him and inform him of your orders.”

“That will do, I suppose. If I find Skoniz, I’ll send him up myself.” She offered the Guard a kind of salute, then hurried away to her own quarters, knocking on the door to alert Giuynee that she had returned.

“You had best come in and dress,” Giuynee said as she opened the door. “I have put Pareo off until the main meal, which Ver Mindicaz has scheduled for mid-afternoon. He didn’t like it, but he’s in no position to push.”

“Officious creature,” said Ninianee as she finished drying off before taking the clean skin-clothes Giuynee proffered and donning them. “Thank you for delaying our conversation. I think he intends to wear me down so he can get into my father’s private rooms.”

“You haven’t the right to do that, do you? – admit him to those rooms?” Giuynee’s curiosity was more to keep Ninianee talking than from any real concern.

“I don’t think so, and I’d rather err on the side of caution, particularly for someone like Pareo. If my father were dead and we knew it as a fact, then I could grant or refuse him access anywhere in the Castle, but with him missing, I cannot exceed my limits as a Duzeon. I will have to continue to refuse Pareo admission, I fear.” She had pulled on her silken leggings, secured them with thigh-bands and now took the guin, working it over her unruly cloud of damp, russet hair, smoothing it down her front. “I’ll need some help with the gaunel,” she said to Giuynee.

“All right.” She prepared to lift the elaborate garment.

“Are you sorry you didn’t go with my sister?” The question was muffled as Nininaee strove to get into the gaunel.

“I went last year, and that was enough of Court life for me.”

Ninianee laughed as her head popped out of the neckline of the gaunel. “Too formal? Too elaborate?”

“Too boring,” said Giuynee. “All the servants think so.”

“Boring?” That possibility had never occurred to her.

“Yes, boring. You spend hours in the servants’ wing of Tiumboj Castle, waiting for something to do. So everyone gossips and there’s petty bickering. And rivalries? The smallest change in position can cause animosity that lasts for years. I kept to myself and attended to Duzeon Erianthee’s clothes, just to avoid being caught up in the servants’ factions. If you think courtiers are underhanded and treacherous, they have nothing on their servants, I promise you.” Giuynee folded her arms. “But I can only sew so many seams and press so many garments before I wish to be spirited away by a Bindomaj and left on a mountain-peak – for variety. So I will remain in Vildecaz where most of us get along and duplicity is rare rather than expected.” The half-human, half-bat Bindomajes were said to like to kidnap Vildecazin women, although such abductions were more fable than fact.

“I can understand that,” said Ninianee as she tried to tame the profuse corkscrews of her hair. “Do something with this, will you?”

“Of course,” said Giuynee, picking up a comb and brush, a look of determination on her face, and purpose in her every move.

“Nothing too elaborate,” Ninianee warned.

“Certainly not. It would not be appropriate,” said Giuynee as she set to work. “Not with such hair as yours.”

* * *

By morning the worst of the storm had blown out, and only scudding swaths of clouds hinted at more to come. The ground was soggy underfoot and three tree-branches had been wind-flung across the clearing as if discarded by an impulsive child. On the hitching-line, the horses and mules moved restively, not trusting the nose-bags they were offered in lieu of flakes of sweet hay. The air was chilly, and smelled of autumn mustiness and mushrooms.

On the other side of the meadow, the hastily-erected tents of Hajmindor Elet’s company thrummed like the sails on ships as the wind buffeted them. A few of the Elet’s escort were up and tending to their horses, but most were still asleep, recovering from the demands of the previous day. Elet himself was among those still within his tent, but his scout, Joaican Temej, was pottering about the two wagons Elet’s company had with them, his expression disgruntled.

“Is anything wrong?” Kloveon called out as he watched Temej struggle with the chest of cooking supplies.

Temej looked up from his task and nearly dropped the chest. “Bontaj,” he muttered, then raised his voice to answer, offering a hint of a respect to Erianthee, and then to Kloveon. “All’s well. I should have done this earlier, but with the company so tired and the day so wet . . . “

”Truly,” said Kloveon.

“At least our tents are boiled Haverartbow wool, strong and warm. They’re heavy, of course, and hard to fold up, but they keep the weather out. We stayed dry once we got inside them.” He started to heft the chest again, looking annoyed when Kloveon and Erianthee did not depart.

“That is something to be glad of,” said Kloveon, very nearly smiling in the hope to establish rapport with Temej.

“I see your company has broken their fast already,” Temej went on, as if slighted that Erianthee’s escort had not waited for Elet’s company to rise.

“On a damp morning, they need to be warm, and we, unlike you, had a day to rest, so today we are restored. Your company has a greater need of rest this morning than we do,” Erianthee said, and added, “I wouldn’t be surprised if there is pillow-bread enough to share, and honied cheese.”

Temej took a deep breath and tried to focus his attention on the pots and utensils in the chest. “I’ll mention it.”

“Thank you,” Erianthee gave a warning look to Kloveon, and tugged him back toward the red pavilion, which, in spite of protective spells, looked a bit bedraggled in the blustery morning. “It might be best to accommodate them – I and my servants will have to travel a long way with them.”