“The meal is nearly done, you say?” I commented instead, trying to sound as though that was all we’d been talking about. “Then clearly is it time I dressed. It would hardly do to miss so important a meal.”
He chuckled as he took his arms away, obviously giving me permission to get on with it, but I didn’t even realize he hadn’t left the room until I was all done and turned to find him still there. To say I was distracted was an understatement, but it didn’t seem to matter; Hestin was just as distracted, and I had to speak to him before he knew I was ready.
The quiet and distraction of my own room wasn’t equalled in the rest of the house, something I was able to feel long before we reached the kitchen area. That’s not to say the big house was noisy, because it wasn’t. But it was filled with people moving briskly back and forth, getting their jobs done with efficiency and enthusiasm, their minds bulging with held-down excitement and anticipation and eagerness and every blend of holiday-morning feeling there was. Every one of them was loyal to Leelan and her group, something Relgon and Deegor had worked hard to be sure of despite Farian’s attempts to slip spies into the household, and every one of them had waited a long time for that day. I’d intended using that morning to give my mind a chance to spread out, but by the time we reached the kitchen and entered it, I was already curtained.
“I give you greeting for the new day, Terril,” Leelan said as she looked up from checking the contents of a pot hung over the fire, her pretty face flushed from the heat and glowing from another source entirely. “Were you able to rest?”
“With Hestin’s aid, I was indeed,” I said, stepping back to avoid two of the servants heading out of the room with trays. “I trust your own rest was adequate?”
“Completely adequate,” she said with a laugh, abandoning the pot to a hovering woman servant who had been waiting impatiently for her to get out from under foot. “The aid I had was not from Hestin, however, and for that reason was likely even more adequate.”
“Such talk is immodest and unbecoming to a woman, Leelan,” Hestin said with mock disapproval, his arms in their gray robe-sleeves folded across his chest. “Also am I near to taking guest-insult.”
“I offer my most sincere apologies, Hestin,” she said with a laugh, coming forward to put a hand on his folded arms. “On so glorious a day as this, I would give insult to none save Farian. The meal is done, and will shortly be served. Come and join me, both of you.”
We followed Leelan to the room with the windows and the fireplace, chose places on the carpet fur, then let ourselves be served. People began arriving just about then, joining us for the meal and bringing word of the fighters or arrangements each was responsible for. There was a lot of talk mixed in with the eating, but Hestin was right there making sure it went the other way around for both Leelan and myself. The others were free to starve if they liked, but Leelan and I weren’t going to be allowed to do it with them.
By the time everyone but Relgon had left again, it was clear everything was ready. I hadn’t thought it would be possible to raise a large enough number of fighters in less than a day, but Leelan and her co-conspirators had been organizing for longer than that. On the theory that their chance would come suddenly when it came, they had prepared in advance and had just waited, ready to set everything in motion on little more than a moment’s notice. If besieging the palace had been necessary it would have taken more time for details, but our plan saw to that problem.
After breakfast it was time to get me disguised. Although I didn’t know it at first, this was the part of the preparations that had taken the most effort. Hours had been spent making a wig for me of long blonde hair, and my own hair had to be spread out on top of my head before the wig could be put on. On Central, hair tinting had always been more popular than wigs and, on Rimilia, they were never used at all; with none of us having any expertise in the matter, getting the thing on and straight was a pre-battle battle. If a stray corner of my own hair wasn’t showing, then the blonde locks looked crooked and somehow more glued on than grown. Leelan, Relgon, and I fought with the stupid thing until we were sweating and cursing, almost ready to say to hell with it, and then Leelan’s chief house servant noticed what we were doing. The woman was a lot like Gilor, the chief housekeeper in Tammad’s house, the sort of person who can be calm and efficient even in the middle of an earthquake. She joined us without waiting to be invited, tugged a little here and pushed there, then added the leather headband that Leelan and quite a few other women of Vediaster wore. I felt as though I were wearing a tied-down hood, but the mirror Leelan had produced for the occasion showed someone other than the dark-haired, useless rella wenda the palace guards would be on the lookout for. The thought came to me that the women of Tammad’s city wore headbands for a reason other than decoration, but that was a thought I didn’t have the timer the nerve-for. Until Tammad was free it would have to wait its turn for priority.
The last part of my disguise was a swordbelt complete with weapon, fitting around my hips over the cloth breeches as though I had never gone unarmed a day in my life. It’s an odd feeling wearing a weapon for the first time, and I could finally understand why it’s been said that there are no dangerous weapons, only dangerous people. I could also understand why boys were made to cut themselves if they were found with their swords in their hands without having a valid reason for it. I stood looking out of one of the windows without seeing anything, my fingers to the worn leather of the swordbelt, my mind so eager to draw the sword from its scabbard that it was almost at compulsion level. I knew I couldn’t use a sword, knew I didn’t even have the ability to hold it properly, but having been given it made the thing mine, and somehow along with the weapon had come the conviction that if I had to use it I’d be able to. The idea wasn’t just stupid it was downright irrational, but I couldn’t seem to get rid of it. I stood staring sightlessly out of a window, and my mind and fingers itched to play warrior.
“Terril, I would not have known you,” Dallan’s voice came from my left, making me start guiltily. “You seem quite the w’wenda now, and that despite your green eyes. As well armed as you appear to be, I must be sure not to give you insult.”
He chuckled indulgently at his little joke, having quite a good time teasing me, in reality finding nothing threatening at all in me or the weapon I was wearing. It really was irrational to let his amusement get to me, but sometimes irrationality can be even more inescapable than depression.
“Should you hold to that, I shall regret not having donned a sword before this,” I said, deliberately resting my left palm on a leather-bound metal hilt. “Was there some matter you wished to discuss with me?”
“Indeed,” he said with a nod, grinning down at me as he otherwise ignored my first comment. “As it will soon be time to depart for the palace, I would have you know how I mean to see matters attended to. As your safety is my responsibility, you shall remain beside me no matter what occurs, or behind me should it come to sword strokes. Under no circumstances are you to take yourself off elsewhere and alone, and you will obey whatever instructions are given you quickly and without discussion. Have I made myself clear?”
“Oh, extremely clear, my Chamd,” I answered soberly, letting him see nothing of the flaring outrage ravening in my mind. “This undertaking has become yours, then, no matter that you will likely not even be allowed through a gate onto the grounds, not to speak of into the palace itself.”