“A warning about not repeating the mistakes of my past,” Lorn answers.
“Were they really mistakes?”
“In father’s eyes, I suspect.”
“There was more, but I won’t press.”
“Thank you.” Lorn slides into the armless chair at the corner of the table desk that could have been a match to the one in his quarters. “How are matters with you?”
“For a healer without a consort … as can be expected.” Jerial shrugs. “I’m good enough, and I can always be counted upon to be there. For that, all I receive is enormous condescension, but the pressure to be consorted isn’t as bad.” She displays a crooked smile. “I’m older now than most of the junior adepts who need consorts, and those who are left don’t wish a sharp-tongued healer.”
“Especially one with brothers such as yours?” Lorn’s tone is idle.
“Vernt is most accepted.”
“I would have thought so.”
“And a lancer who fights the barbarians is respected.”
“In short, I’m expected to die young and respectably, and Vernt will carry on.” Lorn’s tone is totally without bitterness, as though he states a fact so obvious that there is not a doubt of its veracity.
“No. You are expected to act heroically and effectively.” The eyebrows arch a second time. “Isn’t that what lancer captains do?”
“I’m only half what’s expected, then.” Lorn shrugs. “I’m not terribly heroic.”
“I imagine you are very effective.”
“The majer said something along those lines,” Lorn admits.
“Good.” Jerial pauses. “I presume you will offer some observations on the barbarians and the Grass Hills at dinner.”
“Yes. And how the lancers serve Cyador and the Magi’i.”
“That cream might be too heavy.”
Lorn keeps the smile from his lips, but not his eyes, though he could have done that as well.
Jerial laughs softly. “I forget how well you deliver the outrageous.”
“It’s not outrageous. The Mirror Lancers and the firelances provided by the Magi’i are all that keep the barbarians of the north from turning Cyador into a wasteland.” Looking perfectly earnest, Lorn squares his shoulders.
“Well … Vernt might believe you. If you began with the firelances.”
Lorn’s eyes catch Jerial’s.
“He wants to be like Father, Lorn.” Her healer’s voice carries a trace of sadness. “He does not know Father.”
“I’ll be very careful … and very cheerful.”
“That would be best. Mother is still most observant.”
Lorn nods. “What about Myryan?”
“She is handling Ciesrt as well as possible. Your words to father gave her some more time.”
“You’re afraid it wasn’t enough?” Lorn studies Jerial without seeming to do so, almost leaning back in the armless chair.
“She doesn’t talk to me. Not really.”
“I’ll see her tomorrow,” he promises.
“That would be good. Mother insisted, quietly, that you not face Ciesrt as soon as you arrived.”
“She is not happy with the consorting.”
“Neither she nor father saw any other choices. Myryan could not follow my path.” Jerial’s smile is tight.
“I feared that.”
“You did what you could.”
“I need some time to unpack.” Lorn stands and stretches. “And to wash up before dinner. It was a long ride from Syadtar.”
“And think?”
“That, too.” He turns toward the door.
“Lorn?”
“Yes.”
“When you need them … there are blues for a senior enumerator in your wardrobe, under the winter waterproof. I thought your friend needed, shall we say, advancement.”
“Thank you.” Lorn nods to Jerial, then steps out into the open corridor, walking slowly back to a chamber that is his, and is not.
There he opens the first green bag and begins to place his uniforms in the wardrobe, alongside the enumerator blues. A faint smile curls his lips.
After the clothes are unpacked, and he has slipped the silver volume into hiding with the smallclothes, he takes out the Brystan sabre he has carried across Cyador, resharpened and worked into shape, sensing the faint order-death sense of the worked and polished iron beneath the scabbard. He has taken one liberty with the blade, a significant one, for now the tip of the blade is edged on both sides, if only for a span on the heavy-backed side. His senses tell him that much of a true point will not weaken it, and for what he has in mind, he may need to thrust with it.
He can hold the iron without burning his hands, but there is no reason to, not when Vernt or his father might sense it. He smiles. He is, after all, entitled to a souvenir of his efforts against the barbarians, although he has kept its presence hidden from all the lancers at Isahl, and will from his family. Even should his father scree the iron, Kien’elth will say nothing directly.
Once he has folded the green bags and put them in the back of the wardrobe, he pulls off his boots, and then the uniform he has worn for too many days. There is a robe on one of the wardrobe pegs, which he slips on, before heading out the door toward the bathing chamber.
Once he is washed thoroughly and shaved, he returns to his room and lies across the bed. What can he do about Myryan … and Ryalth?
He does not ponder either long, for sleep claims him.
A gentle rapping on the door frame brings him awake, and he bolts upright.
“Dinner is almost ready,” Jerial says from the other side of the closed oak door. “I thought you’d like to know.”
Lorn has to clear his throat before he can reply. “Thank you. I dozed off.”
“I thought you might.”
There is silence, and Lorn can sense that she has slipped away to let him ready himself.
After hurriedly dressing, Lorn leaves his chambers and walks down the steps to the smaller, and warmer, inner dining area on the second level, his boots silent on the marble of the steps.
Even so, one of the servants nods to him as he nears. He does not recognize the brunette with the round face and the braided brown hair. “I’m sorry. I’m Lorn. I don’t believe we’ve met.”
“Sylirya, ser. I came here a season after you left.” Sylirya keeps her eyes properly downcast.
“How have you found it?”
“Your family is most kind, ser. A better home I could not have found.” She moistens her lips. “I must help cook, ser ….”
Lorn smiles cheerfully. “Do what you must.”
He waits until she turns, then waits again as he hears his father’s heavy steps on the stairs.
The magus whose hair has turned from shimmering silver to a flatter white over almost four years nods to his son. “You’re still the first to the table.” He looks around, then at Lorn. “Is Jerial here? You were talking to someone.”
“The new servant-Sylirya.”
“She’s scarcely new, Lorn. It’s been nearly three years for her, and for Kysia, and more than a year for Quyal-she’s the new cook.”
“What happened to Elthya?”
“Her mother fell ill, and when she went back to her town-I’ve forgotten the name-a widower she’d known when they were children asked her to be his consort.” Kienspread his hands. “So we had to get a new cook. Quyal’s as good as Elthya, but her cooking’s different, more … western, I’d say. More spice.”
The two men walk through the foyer and along the corridor to the dining area, where they stand by the door, waiting for the others.
“Too spicy?” asks Lorn.
“I did ask for a little less seasoning,” his father admits.
They turn as Jerial approaches.
“Lorn was here, first, I’d wager,” Jerial observes.
“Before me,” their father confirms.
“Vernt should be here before long,” Jerial says. “I heard him come in, but he’ll wait for mother.”
As she speaks, Lorn hears steps, and Vernt and his mother appear. Like his father, Vernt wears the white shimmercloth of an adept of the Magi’i, but without the lightning emblem. He has also added a short-trimmed beard, sandy-colored like his hair.