"Improbable. Reckon I have a better chance of finding Lyneth alive."
"Father has always thought we will find solutions in the histories he so loves to read."
A servant entered with a tray of drinks and sweet cakes; they paused the conversation until he had left. Nealrith poured a glass of lime juice for each of them. The servant had supplied a grass straw; everyone knew Iani found drinking a messy business without one.
Iani took the proffered drink, but his mind appeared to be elsewhere. "Granthon is dying…" His voice trailed away as if he'd started to think of something else.
"Yes. So?" Nealrith prompted.
"She was so beautiful, Lyneth. She had this way of ducking her head and then looking up at you from under her lashes-"
"I remember."
"Once we had quite a few young rainlords who were probably going to be stormlords when they were older, Nealrith."
Something inside Nealrith lurched in terror. Why was everyone harping back to what had happened in the past? "Don't tell me you, too, think they might have been murdered?"
"I don't know, really. But there was a time when I was confident that there would be a line of succession after Granthon." He sipped his drink and looked out of the open shutters. "My Lyneth responded well to her training, you know. And that's not just the hopes of a besotted father. She was a true stormlord." He put his glass down. "Do-do you remember how lovely and sweet she was, Nealrith?"
"I remember."
"She would be nearly twenty-one now, if she was alive." He looked back at Nealrith. "But she's not. I know that, even though her body was never found. Whatever got the others got her, too. Too many deaths, my friend. Far too many. And now there's only two rainlords under thirty. Your daughter and Merqual Feldspar's Ryka." His gaze held Nealrith's intently. "You have a beautiful daughter. I would be careful of her if I were you. Very careful."
Nealrith stilled. Iani couldn't be threatening her, could he? No. Not Iani. Never Iani. It was a warning, not a threat. The idea of anything happening to Senya chilled him beyond thought, became a darkness that loomed out of nowhere and swallowed him whole. He struggled free of the panic, seeking calm.
"I am careful," he said at last. How to care for her when I won't even be here? A lot could happen in a year. "You will come on this… quest?" he asked.
"Of course. I am the Cloudmaster's to command, as are we all. Perhaps he is even right." He did not sound as if he shared the belief. "Anyway, I can look for Lyneth at the same time, can't I?"
Nealrith suppressed another sigh. "Yes, of course."
I know what that darkness is, he thought. The future. It's our future. Our vision is obscured because we can't see solutions to present problems. All we do is clutch at dim possibilities. And that could doom us.
Oh, Watergiver forgive me, what if Taquar and Kaneth are right? Nealrith ran a finger down the line on the map. "About these eastern washes," he said to Kaneth, "we won't get to the last of them until a full year hence."
"I'll organise for supplies to be there for you on time," Kaneth said. "Water included, but-"
He didn't finish what he was going to say. Ethelva entered and waved aside their greetings, saying, "Granthon wishes to see you both. Now."
The two men exchanged glances and headed for the door. When the lady Ethelva used that sort of tone, it was best to obey first and ask questions later.
"I bet he found out I made a mess of my marriage proposal," Kaneth said, swallowing a sigh.
"Don't tell me Beryll turned you down?" Nealrith asked in surprise.
"Beryll?" He blinked. "You can't think I was wanting to marry Beryll Feldspar, surely? She's not a rainlord! Besides, she's barely seventeen, if that."
"You don't mean you proposed to Ryka Feldspar?"
Kaneth glowered defensively. "What's the matter with that?"
"Well, um, nothing. In fact, if that's what you did, it's the wisest move you've made involving a marriageable female since you were twelve. But Beryll's the empty-headed, pretty one."
"Thanks. Nice to know you have such faith in my judgement. But the point is academic at best; Ryka turned me down. In fact, she as good as told me that I have done a superb job of earning her absolute contempt."
"Oh." Nealrith digested that, bemused. "I thought you were friends."
"So did I. I was wrong. Her esteem for me is somewhere around the level of what she would give to a sand-tick on a pede's arse."
When they entered Granthon's room, it was to find the Cloudmaster lying on his divan. Although his cheeks and eyes were sunken, his expression was alert. And annoyed. To Nealrith's surprise, Kaneth was right; Granthon had choice words to direct at the rainlord and they all concerned his ineptitude at proposing to Ryka.
Even more surprising, Kaneth offered no excuses, and when he was dismissed he was uncharacteristically subdued.
"You were hard on him," Nealrith remarked as he closed the door after Kaneth's departure.
"No more than he deserved."
"I doubt he intended to be turned down or tried to make sure he was."
"He must have trampled on the woman's feelings. Ryka is not a fool, and I thought I had impressed upon her that she has a duty to marry properly."
"You spoke to her about this?" Sands, he thought, even after all these years, Father still surprises me. I never thought he would intervene in such personal matters.
"Not lately, no. But years ago I made it quite clear to her that her duty lay with a rainlord. Or I thought I had." He fixed a sharp gaze on his son. "I expect you to see that the match goes ahead. And soon."
"Me? How do you expect me to do that?"
"I will order both of them to go with you on this Gibber expedition."
Nealrith stared at his father in disbelief. "Are you serious?"
"I want you to have plenty of rainlords with you. You may have need of them."
Granthon reiterated, at length, just how careful he wanted them to be if they found any potential rainlords or stormlords, while Nealrith groaned inwardly. He had thought the trip to the Gibber Quarter already offered every unpleasantness possible, but he began to wonder if he'd been overly optimistic. Now that the journey included persuading a woman known for her plain-spoken stubbornness to marry a man she apparently despised as husband material-with some justification, given Kaneth's history-it was shaping up to be even more of a nightmare.
"I'll do my best," he said when his father's rambling finally came to a halt. He had a horrible idea he might lose a friend on this trip. He just wasn't sure which one: Kaneth Carnelian or Ryka Feldspar.
CHAPTER NINE
Scarpen Quarter Scarcleft City Level 32 and Level 10 The snuggery courtyard, normally a place of still and quiet in the heat of the late afternoon, was filled with the sound of outraged voices. Terelle, who had been snatching a few moments' sleep while she was supposedly folding linen in the upstairs storeroom, jerked into wakefulness. She hurriedly smoothed out the imprint of her head from the top of the pile of clean bedding and looked out the door.
"What's going on?" she asked.
The mistress of the chambers, waking from a doze at her post at the head of the stairs, shook her head. "I don't know. Go and find out and come back and tell me."
Terelle gladly left her task half done and ran downstairs. Out in the courtyard five or six handmaidens were gathered around Madam Opal, Garri the steward and Linsia the warden mistress. Everyone was talking at once. Just as Terelle stepped out of the house, Madam Opal raised her voice above the din and snapped, "Quiet! All of you! I have never heard such a caterwaul. Warden Linsia, tell me-quietly and calmly if you can-just what happened."
The girls all knew it did not pay to upset Madam Opal, and the silence was instant. Linsia, a plump middle-aged woman with a lizard-like stare, said primly, "I was taking these girls to the baths, madam. But when we got there, it was shut. There was a crowd in the street, so I asked someone what time it was going to open again. He said it wasn't going to reopen. Not today, not ever. That the reeve had closed it down."