I nodded. "But tomorrow, I choose the games."
Chapter 10
I was soon spending most of every day with the Lady D'Sanya. We rode. We walked. We picnicked in the hills. We ran races and told silly secrets. One magical afternoon we explored one of the caves that riddled the mountains of Grithna, D'Sanya casting a light so that we could follow the path to a milky-white underground lake. A forest of stalactites and stalagmites surrounded the lake, the shapes more fantastic than any sculptor could invent.
Some days we stayed at the hospice in D'Sanya's house or in the library or in the garden, looking at books or playing draughts. We tried playing sonquey, a game of strategy played with tiles and silver bars, but D'Sanya found it boring when I would not use enchantment to manipulate the tiles. She said that playing sonquey without the added dimension of sorcery made her feel like a child allowed to use building blocks only in the horizontal plane, forbidden to stack them one upon the other.
On none of these outings did we ever return to the horrors of our past. The secrets we exchanged were innocent and childish. She adored flavored ices and had stolen them from the kitchens before her father's royal feasts so there were never enough for the guests. I abhorred eating green things and had hidden them in my pockets for the washing women to find. She got abominably seasick. I had never kissed a girl. We both preferred being outdoors—riding or walking, running, or just sitting—to any other activity.
My father smiled as I dashed in to greet him and deliver the latest packet of letters Paulo had brought from Avonar and then dashed out again before ever sitting down. He insisted that he did not feel neglected, but rather was pleased that I pursued my investigation with such vigor. Of course, I had not forgotten our purpose. We were close to an answer. I already knew more of D'Sanya than I knew of anyone save Paulo.
Paulo worried more. He accused me of infatuation, warning that my distraction would reap trouble. I told him he was just jealous because his own infatuation was going nowhere, but I did heed his warning and worked harder to keep my head. That very day D'Sanya asserted that my mysterious friend who could read horses' thoughts didn't really exist and begged again to meet him. Though tempted to agree—wanting to please her, wanting to make things honest between us—I saw how blatantly stupid was that idea. I told her he was busy, taking care of my father's business in Avonar. Not a lie. Not really.
I never allowed D'Sanya to see the scars on my hands. Most of the time I wore gloves, claiming that a childhood illness had left my hands persistently cold. She teased that it was just another aspect of my shyness. I did not argue with her, just kept my palms out of sight when gloves would not do. If she saw my scars, then, like Sefaro's daughter, she would know I had been one of the Lords. Every day it seemed more important that she never find out. Whether she loathed the Lords or served them, I would lose something I had never thought to find.
D'Sanya teased me about Sefaro's daughter, as well, saying she must be smitten with me the way she followed me around. Had I perhaps rebuffed the young lady's attentions? Professing ignorance, I changed the subject quickly.
One evening as I was hurrying to meet D'Sanya, I discovered I'd forgotten my cloak and reversed course abruptly to return to my father's apartments. I slammed right into Sefaro's daughter, grazing her shoulder against a brick wall and stepping on her foot. I started to make a comment about us needing to mark our current positions on a map, but checked my tongue when I met her gaze. Of course, she wasn't going to appreciate levity. "Sorry," I said.
"What meaning can sorry have coming from you?" Along one fine cheekbone a ragged scar shone white against her angry flush.
I crowded along the hedge as I passed so as not to touch her again.
She lurked in the shrubbery, in the cloisters, in corners and shadows, her constant presence ensuring I didn't forget the past in the pleasures of the present. Though I tried to dismiss her, I never made the nighttime journey from the hospice to Gaelie without keeping a close watch for mountains ready to fall on my head.
D'Sanya and I spent one long, rainy afternoon in the library reading a book of Dar'Nethi legends. At sunset, Na'Cyd summoned us to dinner. Afterward, D'Sanya wished to take up the story again, so I returned to the library to fetch the book. Sefaro's daughter was leafing through the pages. Seeing me, she threw it on a table as if it had scorched her fingers. "How dare you read of Vasrin and beautiful things!" she said, her cheeks a fiery scarlet. "What are you playing at?"
As usual, I had no answer.
"Before we set out for Tymnath, I have a riddle for you, my play friend." D'Sanya dragged me up from the grass beneath an ash tree where I'd lain waiting for the past hour listening to locusts buzzing in the grass, unable to concentrate on my book for my impatience to be with her. A delicate strand of sapphires set in silver dangled from her wrist, the color matching the flowing tunic she wore atop her leather riding skirt. "Forgive my dawdling, but one of my gardeners—my stone gardener—was showing Na'Cyd and me the work he's just completed. Now I want to share it with you."
"Stone gardener? That sounds like a riddle itself."
"You'll see." Waving to the ever-present onsiliar, who stood watching us from the gate, D'Sanya led me across her lawn, up the wide steps, and into her house.
"Does Na'Cyd ever do anything but watch us?" I had found the consiliar's gray eyes fixed on me four times that morning: as I arrived at the hospice, as I left my father's apartments, as I met D'Sanya in her garden, and now again, when he ought to be off about hospice business. "I'm beginning to see him lurking in my sleep."
"Pay him no mind. I believe the man considers himself my substitute father, ready to protect me from mysterious handsome fellows who constantly distract me from my work."
Beyond the sunny sitting room where we talked and played children's games lay an enclosed garden, lush and green. It included three apple trees, a small lawn, a gravel walk lined with beds of flowers, but its heart was a magical fountain where spraying water sculpted the misty shape of three swans taking flight from the pool. On my every other visit to this garden, the solid gate in the stone wall on its far side had been closed and locked. D'Sanya had told me it was a part of the house construction that remained unfinished. But on this morning the gate stood open, and the Lady motioned me to walk through, into a small courtyard. I gaped in amazement.
Before us lay almost the exact replica of the green garden behind us, but in this courtyard, every flower and tree and blade of grass was gray stone, its surface as smooth and luminous as pearls. Even the magical swans had been duplicated in stone, their rising wings as light as if filled with air.
"I've never seen stonework so delicate, so exact," I said. I ran my fingers over the rose petals. Each flower was slightly different, just as true flowers grew, and the artist had captured the fine veins in the leaves, the motley blights and blemishes of real flowers, even a rose beetle here and there. The thorns seemed real, as well, sharp enough to prick my finger when I touched them.
"You didn't guess, then!" She stood behind me, her delight warming me more than the hot sun on my back. "But then perhaps you've never seen shellstone."