After a while she opened her eyes and began annoying herself with the newssheet again, carefully reading all of a long playbill for something called "The Black Queen". How a bunch of players could hope to Reveal All about the Return of Queen Solace Kendall didn’t know, and wondered if there was any way she could sneak off to see them try.
"There you are, Your Grace," said the plump dressmaker, clambering to her feet with just enough effort to show that scuffling about on her knees had been an especial favour. "I will make the adjustments to the other dresses, and have them to you soonest. Are you certain in regards to the decoration of the Court Gown?"
Kendall knew Rennyn’s main interest in the gown she was going to wear to be made Duchess was that it wasn’t heavy. Green and white for the Surclere colours and no and no and no again to all the other things the dressmakers said formal Court dresses had to have. While they were occupied, Kendall spotted a long jacket which she guessed was meant to be hers, and swapped it for her coat, checking that it would fasten up the front with the black wood oblongs that passed through little loops. Very spick, fitting exactly over the new trousers and crisp shirt that were already on the list of all the things Kendall planned to pay Rennyn for after she started earning.
Before the dressmakers could do more than notice, Kendall had it unfastened and off, and then made herself scarce until the pair staggered out under their load of pricey cloth. She had no wish to have them tut over her again with all their comments about how adorable she’d look in a dress and what a shame it was she didn’t grow her hair long. They could take their dainty and shove it up their petite.
Rennyn had made almost as many faces as Kendall while the dressmakers had been saying that, trying not to laugh. But right now she was expressionless, sitting staring out the window, one of her hands closed on the skirt of her new dress, creasing it. Kendall wondered if she could be nervous about her audience with the Queen, or just fretting because Captain Faille wasn’t with her.
"Are you going to be able to go to this meeting?"
"Sitting down and drinking tea? I think I can manage that."
Kendall’s shrug was an unspoken "don’t say I didn’t warn you", but she bent to help Rennyn with her shoes anyway. Rennyn’s broken ribs hadn’t healed properly, and she still had problems with bending and twisting. And laughing and sneezing and coughing and a surprising number of things. At least when she stood up she was steadier on her feet. No swaying as she turned, smoothing the line of her skirt.
"Tell me when you get done preening," Kendall said. "I’m sure Queen Astranelle won’t mind the wait."
"You’re planning on coming along?"
"There’s a pair of guards hanging about to march you up there, but I’ll go as far as the Old Palace with you." Been ordered to, more like. Whenever Captain Faille couldn’t sit around watching Rennyn, he made everyone take turns following her about. Not that Kendall wouldn’t have thought of it anyway. Rennyn would hate fainting somewhere on the way to see the Queen, and not having anyone she knew around.
"Is Seb still at the library?" Rennyn asked, making a snail’s business of the stairs down to the main hall of the Sentene barracks.
"Be there all year," Kendall replied shortly. She had no interest in the spellbooks Rennyn was gifting to the Houses of Magic, and no patience for the endless fuss over the mouldy old things. Except for a couple, Rennyn had said there wasn’t much in them which hadn’t already been done by someone else, and done better. It was stupid for everyone in the Houses to get so excited just because Rennyn’s family had had the only copies.
As they crossed the main hall, she searched again for some sign of life in the barracks. "Where is everyone? Sukata said she had to go to a big meeting."
"It wasn’t a Sentene meeting," Rennyn replied, but then closed her mouth tight as they met up with the two black and gold-clad guards come to escort her to the Queen.
A Kellian meeting then. Kendall closed her own mouth as well, and kept it that way. She could guess well enough why the Kellian were meeting. People were really and truly afraid of them right now, and not just because the Black Queen had been able to control them so totally. They were a lot stronger and faster than normal people, and the pointy fingernails were harder to overlook now that a few people in Court had seen how easily they could be used to cut through flesh. The newssheets and people in the Council had turned into braying asses about the risk the Kellian posed, and totally ignored the fact that the people they wanted to get rid of were busy saving their lives. It was because they were strong and fast that they were so good at hunting down the monsters out of the Hells—the place the mages called the Eferum. And they hadn’t done anything wrong by choice, had been totally under the control of the Black Queen, hadn’t even hurt anyone except Rennyn. But it was as if this was the first time the majority of Tyrland had really noticed the Kellian, even though they’d been around working as Sentene for ages. So there was all this talk about whether the Kellian counted as real people when the first ones had been things called golems, made by the Black Queen. Whether they could be trusted. Whether they should be killed.
Whether Rennyn owned them.
None of the Kellian had been happy to learn descendants of the Black Queen existed, and though they put a good face on it, they still hadn’t recovered from discovering that Rennyn had inherited an ability to command them. Most of them avoided coming near her.
Sukata, who had more to do with Rennyn because she was a rare Kellian mage, said they hated what she represented about themselves. And Sukata wouldn’t even talk about what it had been like to be taken over by the Black Queen, but she’d had nightmares most every night she and Kendall had shared a room at Rennyn’s old house, and the memory surely made Rennyn’s lesser control harder to bear.
No-one had told Kendall it was a secret Kellian meeting. Probably Sukata wasn’t allowed to. Obviously they were going to talk over the choices they had when their ungrateful country wanted them gone, and no doubt what to do about Rennyn and Sebastian and the Claires' evil uncle as well. Kendall was nobody who would get invited to that kind of thing, or told what was decided.
Frowning, Kendall checked Rennyn’s colour. She was walking slower, and it would probably be best if she sat down and rested somewhere before going on. Villemar Palace wasn’t a single building, but a mismatched clunch of them sitting on top of the central hill of Asentyr, with a big wall all around. The part called the Houses of Magic wasn’t that far from the Old Palace, where the royal family lived, but Rennyn was useless at any kind of distance. Kendall had known ancient grandmothers who had more stamina.
Since they were running a little late, Kendall bet Rennyn didn’t want to stop like any sensible person would, so she caught at the woman’s hand and arranged it on her shoulder. The way the thin fingers tightened told Kendall just how well Rennyn was managing, but she’d stick to it anyway. After being so powerful she could pretty much do whatever she liked, Rennyn was just too stubborn to accept being so weak she couldn’t get from one building to the next without help.
Kendall had only been intending to go as far as the entrance, but kept on until Rennyn was safely stowed in a flower-striped chair in a flower-striped room looking dubiously at the delicate flowery cups neatly laid out for tea. Kendall knew her teacher would be thinking of all the problems she’d had dropping things. Not often recently, but her hands still shook when she tired. Fortunately there was no sign of the Queen.