Matthiel said. “Actually, my lord, Dama Tenning came on personal recommendation from Dama Blair.”
“Young Lynsey? Well, we won’t find the source of the leak there. A most close-mouthed child. Still, I will ask her if she mentioned it.” Lord Fennington held out his hands to Rian and gripped hers warmly. “I hate, I simply hate the thought that my commission brought this upon your family, but I’d be a fool to ignore the possibility. If there is anything you need, please, please do not hesitate to tell me.”
He wasn’t telling her the whole truth, but there was no outright lie behind the gust of sincerity that washed over her. Rian thought rapidly, balancing her decision to pretend there had been no direct investigation with a need for further details, then said:
“Did you say someone tried to buy the fulgite back?”
NINETEEN
The fencing school recommended by Lynsey Blair proved to be a nest of United Albion sympathisers. This did not surprise Rian in the least, and she danced around their avid interest in dragons while learning all she could about their former Alban instructor.
This was little enough. Lynsey was twenty-two, and had been born in Craigneith. She had taken a first in mathematics from Argynion, but had followed her interest into practical combat, and made it a career. Her family had suffered a slide in fortune, thanks to some complication of an entailed property, but were otherwise unremarkable.
Since casual gossip did not produce any revelations, Rian abandoned this particular rabbit to concentrate on lessons. Her instructor, Dem Tilit—a short, scarred man originally from Wabanaki—outlined the stages of her training, then taught her how to grip a wooden practice sword, and began on foot placement and movement.
“Do not concern yourself too much with the weapon, just yet,” he said, as she attempted to keep her knees slightly bent and her feet facing in different directions. “Until this is second nature to you, your drill will be entirely stance and movement. No, keep your back straight. And forward. Retreat. Yes. Practice that for the next week, at least an hour each day.”
With thigh muscles screaming after even a short lesson, Rian did not regard this command with any enthusiasm, but thanked her teacher and took her time in the changing room, thinking over protective clothing and practice rooms. The school would rent her equipment, such as the wooden practice weapon she was taking home today, but obtaining her own would be necessary. Strange not to have to budget for the cost, let alone the time involved.
“Arianne!”
“Lyle.” Rian thought he looked particularly well that evening, dressed more casually than usual, but very handsome. “Come to watch me sweat?”
“Should I admit to it?” he asked. “My excuse is making good on my invitation to dinner. I know the area thanks to Lynsey, and there’s an excellent place down the street that’s used to the students and their weapons.”
“That sounds ideal,” Rian said, hefting her cloth-wrapped stick-with-a-hilt, and followed him down the stairs from the fencing studio. “You seem to be spending more time in Prytennia than Alba at the moment.”
“Or my mornings in one and evenings in the other,” he agreed. “Alba initially escaped most of the scouring, but as it’s grown worse, Prince Gustav’s become less inclined to leave Prytennia to solve this herself. Not least because if he should happen to ride in heroically and fix things, there’s every chance the vote to extend the Protectorate will pass. I am, incidentally, under orders to cultivate you. I expect you understand why.”
“Shattered dragon, etcetera etcetera,” Rian said. “I am very bored with being asked.”
“Playing witness to that foreseeing won me no end of approval, however. It was very obliging timing.” He led her to an unprepossessing door that opened on to a gust of spicy scents, and a busy interior, worn but clean.
“Do you find all the conflicting loyalties difficult to manage?” Rian asked, as she glanced over the menu tacked by the door. “Alba first, and Gustav second, and with a sister who is a Unionist? Doesn’t that make the prince suspicious?”
“Gustav trusts me to be Alban,” Lyle said, with a satiric tilt to his brows. “He has other aides for matters where it’s necessary to be Swedish. Lynsey…well, Gustav admires Lynsey very much and she wisely avoids him. Probably the best thing about her deciding to work for Folly is it’ll keep her safely out of Gustav’s path.”
Rian considered this while Lyle ordered and then led them to a table. Gustav would make a political marriage eventually, and—from what she’d seen of the man—probably keep several mistresses. She doubted Lynsey had the temperament for that: both the Swedish Empire and Alba allowed women to own property and seek careers and education, but they had the same confusing divide between ‘proper’ and ‘improper’ women that Rian had struggled to adjust to when she’d first started travelling. It was little wonder so many of the United Albion League happened to be female—particularly since Alba’s inheritance laws favoured sons over daughters.
“And where do you stand on union?” she asked.
“My ideal would be for one of Alba’s own gods to Answer,” he said. “But I’m resigned to it not happening. We barely know their names, after so many centuries of the Duodecim, the Cour d’Lune, the Aesir and the Green Aesir. There is so little of the true Alba remaining: our days are Swedish, our months Roman and our years Egyptian.”
“So are Prytennia’s,” Rian pointed out.
“But you at least have Sulis. For all the gods whose conquerors have trampled Alba’s fields, not one could establish territorial allegiance. We thought it a triumph once, proof that we had our own Otherworld, that there was a place where Albans truly belonged. Now all I want is certainty.”
“And you think Sweden will bring that?”
“They managed it with Greenland, and Highfall. It’s one of the biggest advantages of the Protectorates—the Swedes are able to systematically bring about territorial allegiance with the Aesir through the simple choice of the people, and so I’m willing to encourage Alba to make that choice. Anything to end this eternal disadvantage to Alban souls, this uphill struggle to gain an Otherworld, or face unlife. To which point, I’m happy enough for a united Albion if you—or anyone—should happen to find the Dragon of the North, since Sulis and Arawn’s territory is tied together. But enough of the Union—I’m sure you’ve had your fill of the subject. What did you think of Folly’s collection of follies?”
“I liked it. But I’m afraid the children have ruled Tangleways out on account of animals and exercise. It’s such an unusual array of classes—I would never have thought of teaching animal care in an academically-focused school.”
Lyle laughed. “Folly met some precocious brat who didn’t know where milk came from. That’s what started him off on the whole thing. It’s unfortunate: his heart’s in the right place, and he’s found some excellent teachers, but it’s looking like the whole thing will flop badly.”
“And then Lynsey will be back in Gustav’s path?”
“Well, she’ll be disappointed.” His face grew solemn. “And is already dismayed, having learned who it is your family have recently lost. She looked up to Eiliff Tenning, and feels responsible for suggesting her for Folly’s commission.”
“How did Lynsey know Eiliff?” Rian asked, pleased not to have had to raise the subject herself.
“Through the Mini-T Scholars program—which actively recruits at Alban universities, and causes no end of tension in doing so. Fortunately Folly knows Lynsey well enough to be certain she hasn’t gone around babbling about his secret projects to all and sundry.”