Kiri was so deep in thought as she shampooed away that she was startled and jerked a hank of hair badly when a shrill voice exploded behind her in the doorway. She turned, her ears filled with Accacia’s scolding and with the irritating voice of her cousin’s friend Roderica, daughter of the present master of horse. Two maids followed Roderica in, bearing curling irons to heat at Accacia’s hearth. The two friends liked to have their hair done together so they could gossip in private. Roderica had no maid of her own and used Accacia’s freely. The thin, angular girl shrieked and giggled as they discussed the visiting prince.
“Oh, he’s beautiful, Accacia! And young—far too young for you, of course. More nearly my age, I would think.” Roderica suffered from jealousy of Accacia, for all that they were friends. And no wonder. Accacia, with her long auburn hair and thick lashes framing golden brown eyes was, if nothing else, certainly the most beautiful girl in the palace. She would marry Prince Abisha at year’s end in a ceremony that threatened to overshadow even the terrible wars.
“And the horses . . .” Roderica was saying. “Oh, they are lovely horses, but the king haggled over the price—two hundred pieces of gold for each one. I’ve near heard of such a price. . . .” So Roderica had been listening, too. Roderica might be silly and loud sometimes, but Kiri knew there was another side to her, a puzzling one. She could never tell what Roderica’s mood would be and wondered if sometimes she used the drug cadacus, meant for the queen. Roderica spent much of her time with the sick queen and was the crippled woman’s only friend. She had been her handmaid since she was a small child and was the only person the queen would now tolerate. Kiri thought Roderica eavesdropped in order to supply the bored queen with palace gossip. Maybe she brought her news of Accacia, too, and whether she still had relations with the king.
“Why would such a handsome prince travel alone?”
Accacia asked. “Why does he not have attendants, some pretty traveling companions? And why did he travel all this way, past dozens of other kingdoms, to sell his horses?” She sighed. “What a terribly dull journey, all that water to cross.”
“He came up the Channel of Barter on a lumber barge out of north Thedria,” Roderica said. “He came this far, I heard him say, because . . . Oh, I heard them clearly, they were taking tea in the hall and—”
“And you listened from the pantry,” Accacia said, smiling.
“Yes,” Roderica said without shame. “He came this far because, he said, he thought the king would give his horses the best care.”
Accacia laughed. “No one would travel all that way for such a stupid reason.”
“But they are very special horses,” Roderica said with her typical superiority about horses, because her father was the king’s master of horse—though Roderica herself looked like a broken stick on horseback.
“Humph,” said Accacia. “They can’t be that special. He was fussing around the stable yard at all hours last night, coddling those horses.”
“You watched him?”
“I . . . was late coming in.” Accacia could see the stable yard clearly from her windows. “He was at it again this morning. Trying to make it look as if those horses are the most valuable things in Tirror—just to keep the price up, of course.”
Kiri held her tongue with effort. Accacia cared nothing for horses, except if they were flashy and could show her off to advantage. Kiri thought Accacia would find a way sooner or later to ride one of Prince Tebmund’s mounts. As for Accacia’s opinion of Prince Tebmund himself, she was no great judge of character.
Still, there was something about Prince Tebmund, strange and so unsettling that Kiri couldn’t decide what she thought.
She knew she was naturally suspicious. Hadn’t she grown up spying, purposely suspicious of everyone? Now, when she caught herself siding with Prince Tebmund despite her disapproval of him, that frightened her. It was not comfortable to feel so confused about someone, not comfortable to feel he should be a friend, or as if they had something in common. It was not safe for the cause she served.
Kiri left Accacia’s apartments deep in thought, hardly hearing her cousin’s final scolding. She went directly to the training field beyond the stables. Keeping to the shadows of the almond grove, she watched the first demonstration of the four Thedrian horses.
She was not allowed in the stables, though she went there anyway. Roderica’s father didn’t like her critical looks, for they recalled too plainly that Colewolf had had training skills when he was horsemaster that Riconder could never match. She watched Prince Tebmund demonstrate the larger of the two white mares, then one of the stallions. She watched Sardira’s sergeants botch the signals and flail as the horses spun and reared. Too soon Prince Tebmund called a halt—too soon for Kiri, for she was having a fine time. But not soon enough for the red-faced sergeants, nor, Kiri expected, soon enough for the horses, for they seemed well out of sorts with the clumsy riders. She stood in the almond grove for some time after the horses were returned to the stable and the soldiers had gone. Then she slipped away, to her palace duties.
*
The smell of boiled suppers was rising from the city. Kiri went by back ways to the scullery, where she helped with the vegetables for a while and picked up several interesting tidbits of gossip. She put together a nice meal for Gram and slipped out to tend to the old lady. It was not until the cover of night fell that she left Gram again to take news of Prince Tebmund and his horses where it could reach the few resistance leaders scattered across the city, and then Papa. Papa had worked with the resistance on Dacia for a while, before he went by barge across the sea to Cayub and Edosta to spy there and recruit rebel troops. Kiri guessed the dark had no idea how much a man could do even after his voice was destroyed. Papa would be very interested in Prince Tebmund and his fine war-horses. The rebels should have those horses, not the dark un-men.
Gram had asked a good many questions about the horses, her thin, angled face caught in eager lines and her blue eyes alight with interest. Kiri knew it was hard getting old, having to depend on someone else for exciting new experiences. Gram would rather have seen it all for herself.
Kiri made her way down the twisting lanes, with the stars gleaming in icy brilliance overhead. The cobbles were still warm under her feet, but the wind in from the sea was chill. Voices from the cottages drifted out, some raised in anger. Deeper into the center of the city crude music had begun. She could hear the clink of glasses and smell the sour scent of mithnon as she passed. Here she went quickly, keeping to shadow, her hand on the knife at her thigh. It would be worse later, toward midnight, when gangs began to roam the streets.