Tyron made an effort to keep his hands from ripping out his hair. “Maybe he wants a crown and Teressa.”
Garian’s brow furrowed, as if he was working his way through all the arguments Tyron had stayed up far too late wrestling with. “So . . . if he does want to marry her. And she wants to marry him. Then . . . should we be trying to stop them?”
“Yes,” Tyron said. “He’s courting her, but he doesn’t give a fig for the rest of us. And that includes the kingdom. I don’t think she sees that, because for her, caring for the kingdom is such an important thing . . . I think she assumes he cares, under all that sarcasm.”
Garian’s frown tightened his face, making him look a lot like his sour mother for a moment. But he did not scoff, or dismiss Tyron’s words. “In a way that’s a whole lot worse.”
“Yes,” Tyron agreed. “Teressa has been his champion all along while everyone stands against him. She might even see him as some kind of hero, because she’s always stood up for those she sees as powerless.”
Garian rolled his eyes. “Great. Just great. Meanwhile my mother is at the palace right now, helpfully making everything worse.”
o0o
“I must Speak, Teressa,” the Duchess said.
Teressa could hear that capital letter, and braced for yet another attack.
“No one else dares to. You’ve grown so very like your father, and we all knew that once he made up his mind, you might as well talk to the wall. He wouldn’t hear you any more than the marble carvings could.”
Teressa bit her lower lip firmly, and gazed out over the garden from the terrace where she usually had her breakfast. With its view of the hills and the distant Rhis Garden, the terrace was one of her favorite places in the entire palace. It was so peaceful, especially with the rain dashing down while she sat under the guest suite balcony.
That peace was gone now.
“Teressa.” Aunt Carlas’s voice sharpened. “It was also your father’s habit to sit in silence and not even answer a person with a single courteous word. One accepted that in a king of his prestige, but at your age, it is quite unbecoming.”
“My father always told me to stay true to my heart,” Teressa said, and when her aunt’s thin cheeks reddened in anger blotches, she added, “He always looked for the best in people. He would have understood Hawk Rhiscarlan’s coming here as an act of good will, in spite of everyone’s all-too-evident dislike.”
Aunt Carlas rose, her fingers pleating folds in her skirt. “Well. I can see that you have made up your mind, even if people with far more experience might see things differently. Just remember what I said. And remember those who are really loyal to you will be here even if—if there are consequences to unfortunate choices.” Aunt Carlas’s voice trembled at the end.
She stalked away before Teressa could frame a response. As the door onto the breakfast room shut with a decisive snick, Teressa turned her gaze to the garden. Despite the beauty of rain falling on grateful blossoms no peace lay there.
Teressa knew where the real conflict lay: in her own heart. She hated remembering that long, horrible evening, watching Hawk flirt with little Robin, and then with her friends. By the end of the evening they were all coming to ask him to dance. Even if it was only out of curiosity, or daring.
Teressa had danced with every single fellow at the ball, even the old, married ones. She’d laughed and flirted and pretended to be having a good time, but she suspected she’d fooled no one.
Oh Wren, how I wish you were here. I can’t talk to anybody else. You would at least listen. But you’re gone, and it was I who chased you off. Teressa’s eyelids burned with threatening tears as she wondered where in the world Wren was now, what she was doing—and if she ever thought of home.
“Problem?”
Hawk stood within arm’s length. Loud and commanding his step might be on the ball room floor, but he could move quietly when it suited him.
She wiped her eyes, saying hastily, “I’ve been yawning so much my eyes water. I was bored to death last night, and I’m tired now.”
“You were not bored.” He dropped carelessly into the other chair without any invitation. “You were angry. With me.”
She sat up straight. “Yes I was. And I will continue to be until you do Tyron the courtesy of using his name.”
He sat back, his black brows raised, then put up his hand in a duelist’s salute.
“I don’t know why you are so nasty about him. He never was to you during the war, and of all people, he could have been forgiven for being so.”
To her surprise, it was Hawk’s turn to look out over the garden. “Let us say . . . out of all the helpful defenders against my wicked self with whom you are surrounded, he is the one with the most influence.”
“Next to Halfrid, he has the well-being of the kingdom most to heart.”
Hawk made no response to that. He jerked his chin at the garden, where Aunt Carlas had just stalked out to address the head gardener, umbrella in hand. Her sharp voice rose, but the hiss of rain blurred her words.
Hawk said, “I saw her marching to the attack earlier, or I would have joined you before. The irony of her being the one with your best interests to heart has to make you laugh.”
“I only wish she made me laugh,” Teressa said. “Why do you say that about irony?”
Hawk looked surprised. “Don’t tell me they have managed to hide all the good parts of your family history?”
Teressa shrugged. “What good bits? Except for my father’s adventures, there weren’t any that I ever knew of.”
Hawk gave a snort of amusement. “So you really don’t know why your father ran off rescuing fair ladies, staying away for a couple of years when he should have been here learning to point his toes and bow during the brannel?”
“I know that he talked your cousin Idres Rhiscarlan out of staying with Andreus of Senna Lirwan.” Teressa shrugged. “That seems to have been fairly important.”
Hawk grinned. “So it never occurred to you to ask why he was there in the first place? No, he was always the perfect prince, I’m sure, and your mother the perfect princess.” Teressa started to rise, and he waved a hand in half-apology. “Never mind, I’ll take that back, if you like. As to his motivation, Idres herself told me.” Hawk chuckled. “He ran off to get away from Carlas, who everyone expected him to marry.”
“What?” Teressa exclaimed, and stared down at her aunt, who gestured imperiously toward the Queen’s Rose garden while rain fell around her and the gardener. “Aunt Carlas?”
“Went after him like a runaway team of horses, Idres said. And she was rich enough to get everyone pressuring him to take her. So he ran off to Siradayel. Too bad he met your mother first, or Idres might have caught him after all, and your hair would be as black as mine.”
Hawk laughed again, and Teressa also laughed, enjoying the mental image of herself with black hair, with Idres’s features, so like Hawks.
He rose. “Are we at peace, then, you and I?” He laid his hand over his heart. “From now on, your Tyron will be referred to with princely courtesy.”
Teressa pretended she did not hear his mockery, and agreed with what she hoped was a stately nod. At least she’d gained her point.
He walked away. She was relieved, but was she happy? No. It was triumph, not happiness that she felt.
Why not? He’d come as close to an apology as he probably ever had. But happiness meant she was in charity with everybody. And she wanted to be in charity with everybody, even her aunt. How could she be, when she jolted between her own and Hawk’s views?
Hawk thought Aunt Carlas’s crush on Teressa’s father was funny. Teressa gazed down into the garden, as Aunt Carlas continued scolding the gardener. Father never laughed at her. He didn’t like her, but he respected her for whatever good points she had.
Teressa had never forgotten her private talk with her father when she was just a girl. He’d addressed her like a grownup. She often thought about that talk, and each time s
he did, she discovered new meanings in the well-remembered words.
Like how he not only saw everyone’s good and bad points, but he saw them as . . . as . . . people. With their own wishes, goals. And feelings.
Teressa gazed at her aunt, who was pointing at the rose beds and talking on, as the gardener stood dripping in the rain. Teressa didn’t see a silly old woman with a supercilious nose and a sharp voice. She saw a young woman not unlike Cousin Mirlee, aware she wasn’t beautiful, aware of her squawky voice, aware that she hadn’t many talents, but who’d had an ardent heart to give. A heart her first choice had not wanted.
There was nothing funny about that.
Twelve
The first day Wren and her companions spent in the captain’s gig, far from the sight of their former ship, Thad kept wondering aloud where they were and trying to figure ways to determine their location that would be faster than watching the path of the sun. Nothing else worked.
When the sun reached its zenith, having provided a path giving them their general bearings, he said, “So now we know that way is north, that south, and there’s the west. Here’s what I think. We need to run south in order to reach Okidai Island. That’s our best chance of avoiding trouble. They have a government and laws there.”
Lambin paused in tuning his tiranthe. “But aren’t there a lot of little islands around it?”
“Pirate islands, Dad said.” Patka looked worried. “Maybe we’re small enough to get by them without being seen.”
Lambin said, “Good thing about a small gig is, even if pirates do see us, why would they bother? We’ve got nothing they’d want.”
Wren peered back along their small wake. So far, no sign of the Sandskeet. “Where was the captain intending to go, anyone know?”
Danal said, “I overheard the captain one day when I was on the mainsail yard. She was at the binnacle, talking to the first mate about cutting west to avoid the pirates, so she could off-load her special cargo in Purba.”
Thad looked around uneasily, as if the restless sea hid something important. “Dad told me Purba has some harbors where they don’t ask many questions. Special cargo. Must have been the silk, then.”
Danal shrugged. “That’s what I thought, but she muttered something about ‘If they miss the rendezvous.’”
Everyone exchanged puzzled looks.
“That’s all?” Lambin asked as he carefully wrapped his instrument and stowed it in his knapsack.
“All I heard.”
Thad squinted skyward, then sighed. “Must have been the silk. What else would there be?”
Lambin held out a hand, palm up. “Do you think those pirates might have been the rendezvous? That might explain why she let them get that close, instead of running, like usual.”
“And they cheated.” Patka thumped her fists on her hips. “Being pirates, of course they’d cheat! Decided to take the whole ship, and not just the cargo. Who’s to stop ‘em?”
“Special cargo,” Danal muttered, frowning at the ocean.
“Which may or may not be the silk,” Thad finished. “So we’re right back to where we were. One thing I do know. That captain wouldn’t like Okidai. Too law-abiding. Here’s another thing, and it’s for you, Wren. Okidai is the gateway to the west for most people wanting to find their way to the Summer Islands.”
“That’s right,” Danal exclaimed, and Lambin gave the tiranthe a triumphant strum.
Patka said, “I vote south, though I’m a little worried about our food lasting, if it’s a real long way.”
Everyone turned to Wren. “If the Sandskeet is going west, then let’s go south, even if it’s a little longer, and there are other islands in the way. Like you say, the pirates will probably ignore us if they even see us,” Wren said.
“That’s settled, then. We’ll divide into watches.” Thad held up his fingers, and bent one down. “With an extra for overlap. Night watch can sleep now.”
Thad had brought a third sail, which they did not need so far. Lambin and Danal rigged it into a kind of tent so that the crew at liberty could sleep out of the sun and wind, though it didn’t do much to keep out the rain, they discovered during their first squall.
On their second night Wren quietly put spells on it, making it water-resistant. If the others had suspicions about why they stayed dry during bad weather, at least no one complained.
o0o
And so, for two weeks they sailed south. By mutual agreement they’d appointed Thad captain. He was restless about watching sea and sky, and trimming the sails.
Once Thad pointed out a pair of birds drifting high overhead from time to time. “That’s a good sign,” he said.
Means land is within flying distance. Birds don’t nest on water. So I don’t think we’re being carried out to sea on the current.”
Wren was the only one who felt uneasy at the sight of those birds, but she knew it was just memory of Lirwani spy birds during the war that caused her to feel she was being watched. These had to be just birds—who would be crazy enough to send spy birds over the sea? So they wheeled round and round overhead. Birds did that sort of thing, probably looking for fish.
At least she and her companions would not starve. If the gig ended up sailing far out to sea and they ran out of food, she would risk a multiple transfer. But she did not mention magic after Patka said, in a half-joking, half-goading voice on the first day, “So, can you magic us up a nice hot meal?”
“From where?” Wren asked. “I have to see the food, I have to bind it into a transfer boundary, and then transfer it. I don’t see any hot meals. I wish I did!”
They laughed—Patka included—but the subject of magic dropped.
Their watches went from noon to midnight, so no one had to be up all night long. The day watch, the easiest, was in charge of food.
At first the two girls had the midnight to noon watch, and Danal and Lambin the noon to midnight, leaving Thad awake all day. Wren hid regret. She liked Patka, and their conversations were fun, but Wren couldn’t practice magic, at least until Patka’s attitude changed. If it did.
Those first two or three days, the girls talked about everything but magic. On the third day, things changed. There was nothing to look at but sky and sea and the occasional birds overhead, yet Patka stayed silent a long time, her fingers playing with the multi-colored fringe of her kerchief. When she did talk, she’d ask Wren abrupt questions. Nosy questions, never outright about magic, but skirting the subject: Where were you born? Who raised you? Why did you object to honest livings?
It was that last question that caused the longest silence, after Wren said, “I never objected to any honest living. I chose the honest living I like best.”
The sky gradually covered that third day with the cotton-batting clouds that meant not just a small squall, but a real summer storm. No birds in sight any more. The storm hit just as the sun set. They took down their big sail, leaving the small one tightly reefed, with enough sail for them to run before the wind.
And a fierce wind it was, forcing all five to stay up most of the night, two at the tiller and three tending the juddering sail. They scudded up frighteningly huge waves and down again, waves so large the wind actually died in the troughs between, the sail falling dangerously slack. Then up again, where the wind would catch, almost jolting the sail from the bolt holes.
They fought against that storm until the eastern sky began to lighten. When at last the punishing winds died to a brisk breeze, all five fell asleep, Thad lying half across the tiller.
When they woke, Patka made up a hasty meal. While they ate, Thad said, “I think we should split the watches again. Wren and Patka, you’re good sailors but you are both so small I think it’s better if we have one tall and one small person on each watch, especially if we come into more bad weather. So, Patka, why don’t you stay with Lambin and me. Wren, you and Danal take the next watch.”
Wren agreed, without pointing out that Danal wasn’t much taller than she was, whereas lanky, red
-haired Lambin was as tall as Thad.
Wren had her suspicions about the real reason behind the change. The way Danal kept watching her with this peculiar expression—kind of confused and hungry at the same time—reminded her of what she must have looked like a long time ago, when she first met Tyron. Surely his big brother had noticed.
Sure enough, not long into their first watch Danal began with, “Can I ask just one question about magic?” After that, another. And when Wren answered without getting mad, or saying “That’s secret!” the flood came.
“How does a spell work? How do you know it’s working? How d’you learn magic? If you make a mistake, d’you turn into a rock? If you sneeze on your brother accident-on-purpose, will he vanish?”
Finally Wren said, “Danal. You want me to teach you, right?”
He nodded so violently he nearly fell overboard. Then he sent a guilty look at the little tent, where Patka lay asleep inside.
Wren sighed. “Listen. A couple of things first.”
Danal’s brow puckered. “I’m listening.”
“One, I will only go over the beginning Basics. And that means you won’t be learning any spell like turning this boat into a horse, so don’t get grand ideas. Magic’s first lessons are a lot like learning to read, where you have to drill the letters and sounds before you can put them together into words, and then at last into sentences.”
Danal chewed his lip as he thought that over, then he said, “All right.”
“Next, well, I’m still learning. I’m just a journeymage, and to be honest, I don’t know how good I am. Back at the magic school, I thought I was so ready, but, well, during that attack, I learned a few hard truths about myself.”
Danal smiled. “You mean the chickens weren’t on purpose?”
“The chickens,” Wren said, “were a mistake. I made plenty. You only saw that one.”
Danal said, “If that’s all you’re worried about, I don’t care. Learnin’ something is better’n than learnin’ nothing. And I liked learning to read!”