Part 20 (1/2)

”Grandmother?” she called out.

”Bedroom!” her grandmother's voice came back, much too strong and abrupt for anyone thinking about dying.

Phryne walked down the hallway and past several rooms to the very back of the house and the chamber in which her grandmother slept. She remembered everything about the house, even though she had not visited for so long, the details familiar enough that she might have left only a day or so earlier. Ancient tapestries and paintings hung from the walls, much of it her grandmother's work. Furniture gleamed with fresh polish, and colorful throws were draped over chair backs and arms. Crystal glittered from a cabinet here; china plates and saucers with intricate patterns rested upright in small grooves notched in the shelves of a hutch there.

A cat wandered by. Crazy Orange, her grandmother called it, a tiger with white feet and a white blaze on its forehead. It never looked at her, on its way to finding better things to do, Phryne supposed.

She found her grandmother propped up in bed, dressed in her good clothes, hands folded neatly in her lap. Her gray hair was pinned up, the wrinkles in her skin powdered over, and her lips painted. She looked younger than her years. Except for lacking a smile, she would have been almost pretty.

”You look very nice, girl,” she declared. ”I think the colors suit you. Sit over there.” She motioned to a chair next to the bed.

Phryne sat. ”Are you well, Grandmother?”

”As opposed to what? I am ninety-five years old, well into middle age and looking at the downside of my life. But yes. I am well enough. And you? How are you? Other than lacking a certain respect for your elderly grandmother, a failing that apparently requires no visible remorse for your failure to visit me, how are you?”

Phryne flushed. ”I deserve that. I apologize. I should have come before, but I always seem to become distracted when thinking to do so. It is not an attractive habit.”

”No, it certainly isn't. But then you make up for it in other ways, so why don't we let all that go. The past is the past, over and done with. Most of it, anyway. How is your father?”

”Well.” She hesitated. ”He is preoccupied at present with matters of court.”

Mistral Belloruus laughed. ”Is that how you would put it? 'Preoccupied with matters of court'? You need to work on your language skills, Phryne. Your father is facing the most dangerous moment of the past five hundred years. The valley's protective walls have collapsed, the pa.s.ses are open, monsters of a sort we haven't seen since we came here have appeared from the outside world, and a Troll army threatens. I should hope he is-if nothing better-preoccupied!”

Phryne stared. ”How do you know all this? It hasn't been told to anyone. Not even the Elven Hunters who travel north to Aphalion Pa.s.s to build the barricades know as much. Only Father and the High Council know. How is it that you've found out?”

Her grandmother smiled and shook her head in what Phryne took to be an expression of disbelief. ”You know so little about me, girl. After all these years, still so little. I have eyes and ears everywhere; that's how I know. An old woman doesn't learn much without them. Mine are among the sharpest and most dependable. Remember that when you think of misbehaving again. Some tea, perhaps, before we speak further? Farsimmon! Bring tea, if you please. Even if you don't please, bring it anyway.”

Nothing more was said until the old man from the front porch appeared bearing a silver tray with tea service. Solemnly, he poured cups for each of them, bowed to each, and departed.

”A sweet man,” Mistral offered when he was out of hearing. ”Enamored of me from the moment he laid eyes on me. He never got over the fact that I chose another over him. But now here he is, all these years later.”

Phryne took the flowers from the basket she had carried in and handed them to her grandmother, who beamed with obvious pleasure as she cradled them in her arms. Beautiful, she p.r.o.nounced them. Phryne found a vase, helped her grandmother arrange the flowers, added water from a pitcher, and set the vase on a bedside table.

She reseated herself. ”You should be sitting outside, Grandmother. The air is warm and sweet. It's a nice day to be in the sun.”

”I imagine it is. But it's better that we keep this conversation to ourselves.” The old woman set down her teacup and looked at Phryne. ”I mentioned your misbehavior a moment ago, and you didn't blink an eye. Did you hear me?”

Phryne nodded. ”I heard.”

”You set out with the Orullian brothers and two outlanders from a village south of Aphalion Pa.s.s, ostensibly on a tracking exercise, but actually to discover if what you had been told by Sider Ament about the collapse of the protective wall was true. While there, you encouraged your companions to leave the protection of the pa.s.s to go out into the world beyond, then encouraged the boy and the girl who were guests to investigate a campsite, which in turn got them captured by Lizards. Excuse me, Trolls-not Lizards. You got the boy back-or rather, he got himself back-but the girl is still a prisoner. That is why your father is barely speaking to you and you are confined to the city. Does that sum things up?”

Phryne started to offer an explanation, but thought better of it and simply nodded.

Her grandmother shook her head and folded her hands in her lap. ”I expect better things of you than this, Phryne. Using your status as an Elven Princess, your father's only child, to gain traction over others, especially guests, is unacceptable. Yours must always be the voice of reason and propriety, not the voice of impetuous and foolish impulse. You are a girl becoming a woman, but you are not there yet. You will get there more quickly and smoothly if you question your choices before acting on them.”

”Grandmother ...”

”Please don't try to contradict me or offer excuses. That would make me very sad. You've made a mistake; learn from it. Your father needs you to do that. He relies on you to be his daughter, not some wild child. Your mother would have taught you better and done so earlier, but we've lost her. You may have noticed that I have taken it upon myself to fill her considerable shoes. Your father does much less than he needs to when it comes to your upbringing. He does little enough about many things, as it happens. So I am telling you now. Pay attention to yourself. It is important. These are dangerous times, and they may well become much more dangerous before things settle down again. You must act accordingly.”

Phryne took a deep breath, fighting down her embarra.s.sment and irritation at being lectured. ”I understand, Grandmother.”

”What you mostly understand is how angry you feel when I talk to you like this. But there is no one else who will do so, and I think that someone must.” A tight smile flitted across her thin lips. ”Enough of this. Let's leave things where they lie for now. Tell me about your work with the healers. Was this your father's idea?”

Phryne nodded. ”He says I must work there until he decides he is through being angry with me. I think maybe he put me there so that Isoeld can keep an eye on me. She seems uneasy enough about my being there.”

”You don't like her much, do you?”

”Not much.” Phryne hesitated. ”But maybe I'm not being fair. She spoke to me the other day-confronted me, is more like it. She said I was being unfair and should think better of her. She said all the rumors were lies and she loves my father.” She shook her head doubtfully. ”I think maybe I am being unfair.”

”Do you?” her grandmother asked, c.o.c.king an eyebrow. ”Poor little Isoeld, the dutiful wife and caregiver, so misunderstood, so slandered. I never liked that woman, and I never will. Would you like to know why, Phryne? You won't like what I have to tell you, but at least you will know the truth of things.”

”I don't already know the truth?”

”Not enough of it. I've waited too long as it is to speak to you of this, but I kept thinking you would come to see me on your own. Besides, it didn't matter, so long as you were unaffected. I think that might be about to change. So I called you here to set you straight. Doing so may point out, as well, why you need to be more steady in your behavior.”

Phryne nodded. ”All right. Tell me, then.”

Her grandmother took a moment to measure her, looking for something that would reveal her. Not finding it, she shrugged and said, ”You should trust your instincts more and your heart less. You might want to think better of your father's new wife, but you would be making a mistake by doing so. She is everything the rumors suggest and worse. She has taken the first minister as a lover, and there were others before him. She connives against and manipulates your father, and she has done so from the moment she met him and saw that he was smitten with her. She might be a simple baker's daughter from a tiny village, but her ambitions are in no way limited by the circ.u.mstances of her birth.”

Phryne exhaled sharply, shocked and appalled, but also oddly satisfied to discover that she had been right all along. All those pretty words and protestations of innocence-nothing but lies. ”But how do you know this, Grandmother?”

”My spies tell me. Old people can go anywhere and be barely noticed. It is both a curse and an advantage. The gentlemen who wait upon me have given me an all-too-thorough report of your stepmother's activities. They are many and various and most do nothing to honor her marriage vows or support your father. You mentioned that she seemed uncomfortable in your presence at work? That has nothing to do with spying on you for your father. It has everything to do with the inconvenience you cause her. By being so near and so attentive, you prevent her from slipping away to her secret meetings with Teonette. You hinder her efforts to be with him, girl. The sooner you are gone back to your old life, forgiven by your father, the sooner she can resume her cheating. Won't you both be happy then!”

Phryne felt her face darken. ”If this is true ...”

She trailed off as her grandmother raised one aged hand. ”When you leave, drop by the first minister's chambers on some pretext or other. See what happens.”

”Because I am gone to visit you, she goes to visit him?”

”Just do as I say. Reach your own conclusions afterward.” She lowered her hand and closed her eyes. ”I have to rest now. So you can do what I suggest without further delay. But listen. We are not finished, Phryne. There is something more. Something rather important. I will need to see you again. Can you come back for another visit? Without telling anyone, even your father. I wouldn't tell him about your visit today, either. If you were thinking of doing so, which I expect you were. What you choose to say to your stepmother is your own choice. But leave your father out of it.”

Phryne stood up, walked over to her grandmother, bent down and kissed one cool cheek. ”I should have come sooner. I am sorry about that. I didn't like hearing all the things you told me, but I guess I needed to. I promise to think about everything you said. I do.”

Mistral Belloruus took Phryne's hands in her own. ”You are your mother's daughter and my granddaughter, and you are everything we could have asked for. Maturity will come. Wisdom will be gained. You are a special child, and I love you.”

When Phryne pa.s.sed back through the doorway leading out of the cottage and went down the porch steps, she kept her head lowered so that the old man sitting in the chair, rocking slowly, would not see her tears.

PHRYNE WASTED NO TIME after leaving her grandmother, making her way back through the woods and along the paths and roadways toward the Council hall and the chambers of the ministers. She could not stop thinking about what her grandmother had told her of Isoeld. All the anger and disdain she had felt earlier for her stepmother, all that she had thought she might be able to let go of, surfaced anew, white-hot and razor-sharp. She had not wanted to believe any of the rumors; she had wanted to dismiss them as lies. When Isoeld had confronted her, she had felt shame and embarra.s.sment at her suspicious behavior. She had wanted to be wrong.

Now what she wanted was something else entirely.

She detoured to the healing center long enough to confirm what she already suspected was true. Isoeld was not there. She had gone home early, fatigued and not feeling well. She worked so hard and cared so much for the sick and injured, the healer to whom Phryne spoke said in quiet praise. It was just too much for her. You can tell she is fragile.

Phryne kept her thoughts to herself and her mouth shut.

She entered the Council chambers and made her way down the hall past closed doorways to the offices of the first minister. When she arrived, she found those doors closed as well, but she put her ear to the door, listened to the silence, and then knocked anyway. Nothing. She waited a moment and knocked again, louder and more insistent. Again, nothing. She stood there, undecided for a few minutes longer, and then turned away. She felt an odd mix of disappointment and relief. Maybe her grandmother was wrong after all.