Lorn touches her arm. “You can only do what you can do.”
“Sometimes…that’s not enough.”
Lorn is the one to allow himself to sigh. “I know.”
Ryalth gestures to the short, muscular, gray-eyed woman who remains in the archway. “And you remember Kysia?”
Lorn laughs as he recalls the servant whom Ryalth had paid surreptitiously to help his family and report to her. “I’m glad to meet you closely, and face-to-face.”
“And I you, ser.” A mischievous smile appears. “You are difficult to avoid.”
“You won’t have to, not anymore.”
Kysia bows, the smile still on her face.
“He hasn’t seen the house.”
The gray-eyed young woman bows and slips back through the archway.
Still wrestling with a squirming Kerial, Ryalth turns to Lorn. “We have much to talk about. But let me show you the house, first.” A smile dances across her lips as she moves toward the right archway from the foyer.
“You didn’t have to tell Ayleha you owed me everything. You don’t.”
“But I do.” Her thin eyebrows lift. “You deceived me, dear lancer. I thought there were but a few hundred golds in that chest you gave me, oh so long ago. There were also rubies and emeralds and close to another thousand golds beneath the lining.” She laughs. “So I deceived you, and used them.” She draws Lorn from the central foyer through the wide arch into the front sitting room. “A small portion of our ill-gotten gains.”
The sitting room contains the bordered carpet that depicts the trading ship that had sunk with Ryalth’s parents aboard so many years before, and the settee from her earlier quarters, and a great deal more, including a tall and polished golden-oak bookcase and a matching sideboard set under one of the wide windows.
From the sitting room, Ryalth leads Lorn into a dining room with a table that will seat almost a score easily.
“For when we invite your family,” she explains.
“Will Ciesrt even come?” asks Lorn.
“Now that you are working for the Majer-Commander, I imagine he will be most ready to sup with us,” Ryalth says dryly. “If only to see what he can discover.”
“Wahh!” interjects Kerial.
“Hush, sweetheart, we’ll be just a bit, but your father hasn’t even seen the house yet.”
Kerial sniffs, loudly.
The kitchen, where both Kysia and Ayleha are laboring, chopping onions and other vegetables, is as large as the entire quarters Ryalth had occupied on the east side of Cyad.
With Kerial squirming more and more, Ryalth hurries up the center stairs and toward the heavy oak door in the middle of the south side of the house. The master chamber-with a small balcony beyond-stretches a good thirty cubits along the middle of the front of the house, and is almost fifteen cubits deep.
Lorn looks at the ornate, triple-width bed. “I’ve seen this so many times in the glass. I’m glad I’m here to see it in person.”
“So am I.”
“Wahh!” adds Kerial.
“He’s hungry…and…”
“That’s all right. I’ve been traveling for days. I can clean up while you feed him.”
“By then, dinner for us will be ready, and, after that,” Ryalth says, “Kerial is usually tired enough to sleep.”
“When did you get that?” Lorn asks, inclining his head toward the little bed.
“About three eightdays ago. I hoped you would be coming home.”
Lorn bends toward her, dodging Kerial’s flailing arm, and brushes her cheek with his lips. “I’m very glad.”
“You get cleaned up, and I’ll get your very insistent son fed.” Ryalth smiles again. “The armoire on the left is yours. It’s empty.”
Lorn returns the smile and sets his bags beside the armoire.
LXXXVI
“Whaaa…”
Kerial’s protest is the first sound Lorn hears, as the barest tinge of gray seeps through the shutters. The tired sub-majer winces, then suppresses a sigh as Ryalth slips from the large bed to the smaller one.
“There, there…Mother’s right here.” She lifts the reddish-haired boy and cradles him in her arms, then one-handedly readjusts the pillows on her bed before slipping back beside Lorn, and easing Kerial’s hungry mouth to her breast.
For a time, Lorn just watches his consort and their son.
“You’re quiet,” Ryalth says.
“It’s strange, almost amazing, to be here,” he admits. “And to think that we have a child.”
“You were amazing last night.” Ryalth shifts her weight slightly to brush a strand of short red hair off her forehead.
Kerial sucks loudly.
Lorn flushes. “I missed you.”
“I’ve missed you.” She smiles. “Couldn’t you tell?”
Lorn finds himself flushing more.
“I like it when you do that.”
“What? Turn red?” he asks wryly.
“You’re always so composed when anyone sees you,” she points out. “Someone who doesn’t know you would think you feel nothing. I even wondered at first. It made more sense once I began to understand the Magi’i.”
“That nothing is hidden, you mean?”
Ryalth sits up and lifts Kerial to her shoulder, patting him on the back gently. She is rewarded with a small burp, and she eases him down and lets him nurse from the other breast. “It’s more subtle than that,” she muses. “Watching people through a glass and using your senses to listen when no one thinks you can-I’ve seen you do that-doing that takes time and effort. No one can watch anyone all the time. So you never know what someone knows, only that they could know.”
“I can sense when someone uses a glass,” Lorn points out. “So can you.”
“Sometimes, but mostly when it’s you. It’s hard, otherwise.”
“Unless it’s a strong magus,” Lorn suggests, then adds, “There must be some Magi’i in your background.”
Ryalth offers a gentle laugh. “I’ve wondered that, lately, and if that’s where the book came from. But there’s no way to find out now.”
“I suppose not. But Father would be very happy to know it…and pleased.”
“I have funny feelings about that. I don’t feel like a magus or a healer.”
“You weren’t trained that way…but you’re certainly as perceptive as my sisters, and you can sense things. That’s one reason why you’re a good trader.”
“I don’t know.” Ryalth shakes her head. “The whole bit about the chaos-glasses-you told me that most Magi’i can’t feel anyone using a glass. That’s why they have to act as though everything they do could be watched or heard. It’s still hard to deal with. You were that way to begin with. Your brother still is.”
“I suppose that’s why manners and customs are important.” Lorn frowns. “Everyone expects them, and their sameness makes meeting and greeting someone safer.”
“That’s the impression, but I can tell when they’re genuine and when they are just a formality. Most people can.”
“You’re saying that the more adept of the Magi’i can use that to their advantage?”
“Don’t you?”
Lorn laughs. “You know me too well.”
“You’d better keep using it, now that you’re back in Cyad.”
“You’re right. I’m still worried.”
“Why?” Ryalth’s blue eyes are warm as they study him.
“The Majer-Commander has something in mind for me, and the Captain-Commander isn’t exactly that fond of me.”
“Neither is Bluyet Clan,” Ryalth says dryly. “You’re lucky that Vyanat’mer is the Merchanter Advisor to the Emperor. The Hyshrah Clan have never been fond of those of Bluyet. And Denys-he’s Bluoyal’s successor-was close to Bluoyal.”
“What’s Vyanat’mer like?”
“He seems very direct. He speaks but the truth, and his words are blunt.” Ryalth shakes her head. “Behind the bluntness and the use of truth, there is great subtlety. Like Bluoyal, and like Tasjan, he believes that the days of the Mirror Lancers, and especially of the Magi’i, are passing.”