Part 13 (1/2)

Ber ... n.o.ble peers ... active ... generous ... production ... income ... sustainment ... order ... Mierenthia. Desmond had somehow arranged his speech around these words, so that if the speech had been a fence, these words would have been the poles, the rest giving the impression of being no more than unimportant filling. Or perhaps Rianor perceived it like this because of the d.a.m.n, thought-scattering headache. He had to make a conscious effort to retain clarity of thought ...

But then, how many of these people ever had clarity of thought? Desmond used this. Desmond knew how people thought, and dealing with people was his pride and pa.s.sion. He would know how exactly to twist words and concepts to say something while in the minds of his less smart adversaries a concept formed of something else. As for the manipulators on the other side, who were perhaps not susceptible to this, for they used it themselves, he could still give them a message and enjoy sparring with them.

”I thank you, too, First Counselor of Qynnsent.” the Ber woman replied. ”We appreciate your contributions.”

They understood each other very well. ”Mierenthia and you Bers depend on Houses' money and production,” Desmond had told her, ”and our House is an important one for that.” ”Sustainment and order” might have referred to this and the Houses' Aetarx as well, although Desmond would never mention the Aetarx in public. ”It is you who rule, but you also depend on us n.o.bles,” Desmond had said, making sure that their fellow n.o.bles, mindless or not, understood and remembered this. He had, of course, also stressed how generous House Qynnsent itself was, or, more accurately, reminded all of Qynnsent's influence, and that a disturbance in Qynnsent would also mean a disturbance in a part of Balkaene, and thus in Mierenthia's food production.

Mathilda, Qynnsent's Lady-in-residence in Balkaene, former First Counselor, and Desmond's mother, had in the past tried to teach Rianor the specific nuances of this ”understanding” that a lord should exercise in dealing with Bers and fellow n.o.bles. Later, Desmond had tried to teach him himself. Rianor had not learned, not because he could not but because he did not want to. All these hinted, unsaid, and intentionally misinterpreted wordsa”all these liesa”were redundant. People should either express themselves clearly, or not talk at all; should either think for themselves, or let someone else do the thinking and obey him. You should not have to twist your mind and chew your thoughts so that you could spit them maimed enough for others to swallow them.

Science, on the other hand, was clean. The most complex mechanism could be split into less complex parts, at least in theory if not in practice, and you could learn the rules of how those worked together because there were clean rules. You could sometimes use these rules to make something useful.

Mechanisms were usefula”but people were not useful at all. Rianor s.h.i.+fted his eyes away from Desmond and the Ber woman, and suddenly saw a mirror image of his contempt on another face. It was the face of a girl, a young woman. It wore large, dark eyes, a fine nose and a slightly open, delicately curved mouth. It also wore the black hood of a Ber.

She slid the hood down her hair just as she met his eyes, ignoring the whisper of the red-robed Ber man beside her. It was wavy hair, brown but for the reddish tint that spread through it when she tossed it, catching the square's artificial light. Then she was not looking at Rianor any more, but he had the feeling that it was not because she did not dare withstand his gaze.

Then he knew who she was, and so did Donald of Waltraud. The oaf stumbled out from somewhere amidst the crowd, red-faced, and cried out, ”Merley!”

In a moment, the crowd forgot all about Rianor and Qynnsent. Donald of Waltraud was crying, tears running silently down his suddenly not-so-stupid-looking face, and High Lord Emery of Waltraud had appeared on the edge of the crowd, standing silently in half-shadow, a muscle trembling on his cheek. He did not seem to notice that his wife had fainted. Everybody else was silent, as if they all had taken a collective breath and time had stopped before they could exhale again.

The Ber girl stood still, the Ber man's hand on her elbow. Then she snapped her elbow free and rushed towards Donald. Half of the lanterns flickered, before the red-robed man raised a hand. Then, for a moment, all lanterns flared and the square was almost too bright to bear. People blinked and scowled and their eyes watered, the world too blurred for them to see a miniature flying blade.

Perhaps because of his increased sensitivity to thrown blades and to Bers tonight, Rianor saw it. It came from the group of yellow-robed Bers behind the red-robed man, and it pierced the girl's back before she could reach her brother. She did not fall, but stumbled, the wildness in her eyes suddenly extinguished into a bland, unfocused expression.

”Blessed be, lord Donald of Waltraud,” she uttered a standard, unemotional Ber acknowledgement of a n.o.ble, and Rianor felt almost sorry for the b.a.s.t.a.r.d, as she turned her back to him and slowly walked away.

Then the red-robed Ber woman was talking again, and more Bers had inserted themselves amidst the crowd, urging all to the Temple and supposed warmth and light.

She halted talking for a second when she met Rianor's gaze. Suddenly, Rianor realized that she, too, was tired. She bore herself like a woman of iron still, but a deep wrinkle cut her forehead and shadows framed her eyes. She narrowed these eyes as he made a step towards her, and almost backed away from him. It almost did not show, but she was not comfortable with Rianor at all, even though he had let her and Desmond's little theater go on and not said a word.

”We shall see each other again, my lady,” he said softly, almost a promise.

She raised a hand, as if to bless or dismiss him ... and they both watched the pretty fire ball in the hand fade away. She spread her fingers, as if it had been intentional, and perhaps no one else noticed, but Rianor was certain that he saw a flash of fear on her face.

”Yes, High Lord, I believe we shall,” she whispered. ”Blessed be,” she added as an afterthought before she turned her back to him and walked regally away.

Was he the sole reason for her fear, or was it mostly because of the scene with the Waltrauds? He would definitely find out and use the knowledge. And d.a.m.n the Waltrauds. Until now, the situation of a n.o.ble turned Ber seemed to have happened only in semi-legends. And now a Waltraud, just in time for a day of conflicts with both Waltrauds and Bers. He had to summon a Qynnsent Council as soon as tomorrow.

Rianor nodded to Desmond, then reached out to support his First Counselor, who had paled and wavered when trying to walk on his left leg. Rianor's own ribs hurt. Then, amidst the commotion, someone suddenly supported him. ”M'lord.” Parr the stable boy was smiling at him, a cloaked, hooded figure that moments ago had been just a spot in the crowd. Now that Rianor had time to notice such things, he remembered that figure. It was Parr who had given him the dagger earlier, not Desmond.

”Beauty and Star are fine, m'lord, friends are guarding 'em. All them other horses, too. Two b.l.o.o.d.y thugs tried to steal Nelliea”that's another horsea”but we beat them, m'lord. We heard shouting from here, too, so I came to see what was happeninga”to see if you were all right, m'lord.” He looked at Rianor admiringly. ”I saw how you jumped people through the window, m'lord. You're good.”

A minute later, the boy had sped to get the horses, and Rianor and Desmond were walking to the street to wait for the carriage. Desmond was limping and was staring somewhere in the night.

”Tell me, Rianor, do you see a tendency in yourself to aggravate the people who matter, and somehow earn the love of some who may not matter at all?”

Rianor was too tired to endure and decipher Desmond's hints, and he did not want a life discussion with him, of all people.

”I cannot answer you before we have aligned each other's criteria for mattering,” he replied with a tone that meant any further attempts for conversation was at the attempter's own risk.

And perhaps, after all, no people matter whatsoever.

He exiled the thought to the small corner of his mind where he kept the old Mentor from yesterday. Still, it kept poking at the corner's wall all the time while he drove the carriage to Qynnsent (Parr did not yet have the right to drive so far, and did not know the way) through a deceptively quiet Mierber.

He did not want that thought. It was just an angry reaction to the events of the day, wasn't it? But it stayed there even as he tried to calm himself by thinking about Science, and eerily, there was a connection in that.

He had started doing Science in order to learn about life. What if peoplea”the human speciesa”were not the right way to approach life?

Chapter 7: Inner Sanctum.

Linden

Night 78 of the Fourth Quarter, Year of the Master 705 The torrent had turned into a drizzle while Linden and Master Keitaro were talking. Now, even the drizzle was no more, and the only raindrops were those that the wind shed from the creaking branches. Back in her suite, Linden peeled the nightdress and socks from her skin and wrapped herself into a robe. The sky was clear now. Both moons were peeking through the open windows, their bright light paling that of the sleep candles and drawing twisted shapes on the floor.

Linden paced, ignoring the moonlight shapes, her feet instead tracing the silver-threaded patterns weaved into the carpet itself. She halted when she realized what she was doing, suddenly uneasy even with interweaving cloth threads. She had not danced in the garden, after all. Old Master Keitaro had said that his dancing was the beginning and middle of a path, but it seemed a path ruled by storms and feet that moved unbidden. If Linden walked or danced, she would walk or dance where she chose.

The old man had simply smiled at her when she told him.

She trod her own path from the suite's bedroom to the living room now, every step purposeful and focused. The carpet was simply dark-green there, with no patterns. Perhaps even the curtains hid no mori.

Wretch it, why could she not just sleep? Morning would come, sooner or later, and would take the moonlight and shadows away. Nights were treacherous, everyone knew, and darkness was not for wanderers. Fire was weaker at night, Mentors said. Even though street lights and sleep candles protected the quintessences of the sleeping from the Lost Ones lurking without, their light was too weak for the comfort of the wakeful.

Linden would have ignored the Mentors' words, a few days ago. Now she was not so sure. She jumped as a draft from the bedroom windows slammed the door behind her shut. Then, staring at the Qynnsent banner above the opposite door, she jumped againa”and againa”until she was certain that her eyes were not deceiving her. Then, she learned to see the same without jumping, by squinting each eye inwards towards the other one until she almost saw double.

The Qynnsent banner in her suite was, like those in the corridor outside, an oval piece of tapestry, perhaps half a meter tall and a meter wide. The color of the background was silver, which was one of Qynnsent's colors. The other Qynnsent color, dark green, was represented in the crowns of the two stalwart trees, oaks perhaps, that leaned somewhat towards each other. The left branches of the right tree joined with the right branches of the left one, forming a spot of uninterrupted green color big enough to fit a silver embroidered ”Qynnsent.” Then, beneath the branches and the name of the House, between the tree trunks, there was a leaping dog.

It was that dog that looked strange. The tree trunks were brown and, like the tree-crowns and the House name, conspicuous over their respective backgrounds. The dog, however, was dark gray and white, the colors too faint and indistinguishable over the Qynnsent silver. It was as if the dog were leaping through water or mist--as if the dog were not fully here.

And if she squinted her eyes, it was not even a dog any more. Its muzzle was longer and its body smoother. Gone was the dog's s.h.a.ggy fur and even, almost, the dog's legs and tail. She could not see the front legs at all, and the rear ones and the tail seemed to extend back like human legs squeezed tightly together everywhere but at the feeta”which were spread widely apart. She had never seen such an animal, even in pictures, and yet somehow her aberrant mind knew that it must be true, that somewhere it existed.

Linden sighed, but this time it was a sigh of relief. Morning was still a long time away, but this unknown creaturea”this mysterya”could help her. Only now did she realize how poor and empty the vast, luxurious suite equipped with so many items of comfort, had indeed been to her. She was alone in it, with no books or tools. She had been lonely and frightened, with nothing to occupy her mind but its own thoughts. Now, at least, she had something to do.

Linden took her quill and an empty notebook from the shelf of notebooks that Nan had said were now hers. Her coat was soaked, and she could not roam Qynnsent in just a robe, so she put on the dress that Nan had earlier brought to her. It was a silk dress in the Qynnsent colors. It was soft and flowing, and it caressed her body like no clothes had done before. Absentmindedly, Linden admired it, and absentmindedly she ate a slice of bread to appease her growling stomach, but her mind was already somewhere else.

Banners and animals. Linden was used to reading or sketching by the light of just a sleep candle in her old home, so she had no problem doing the same by the light of the many sleep candles in her new one. She sketched the unfamiliar animal as exactly as she could, then inserted the notebook under her arm and stood up. By morning, she should have learned if any of the banners in the corridors changed like hers, and if they did, what their animals were.

Linden

Night 78 of the Fourth Quarter, Year of the Master 705 An hour later, Linden knew that some banners were like hers, while in others the dog stayed the same no matter how she looked at it. She drew a map of their locations as she walked, never wandering aimlessly, never stopping to linger, her mind focused on the task at hand. It felt good to be herself again, and not someone who would dash and dance on an impulse only.

Even the night seemed less threatening now. She had sketched both the dog and the strange animal several times, each time copying a different banner. Both animals remained consistent throughout banners. She was in the eastern part of the House now, and high, too, having climbed stairs several times. There were more changeling banners here than closer to her suite.