Intrigues (17 page)

“No, she’s right,” Rilna Zokill said in a loud voice as Henris and a number of others began to babble out their protests, turning to look at the crowd. “Would we have had the nerve to talk to a noble Blending the way we’ve been talking to
them
? I think we all know the answer to that, and the reason we’ve imposed on them so freely is that we all know them to be decent people. Instead of destroying us or taking us over as they could so easily have done, they argued with us. Now they’re tired of arguing, so we’re about to lose the best thing that’s happened to this empire in more than a hundred years. I was a fool to go along with the rest of you, but I won’t be a fool any longer.”

With that she turned away from the crowd, glanced at the six of us, then very deliberately performed a deep and more than respectful curtsey.

“Excellences, on behalf of the people I represent, I humbly ask you to stay and be our leaders,” she said, her head down and her body still in the curtsey. “I apologize sincerely for the foolishness I’ve shown, and I promise not to ever do the same again.”

Many of the men in the crowd – and the sprinkling of women – looked shocked at that, but a moment later there were people pushing forward to add their own bows and curtsies. It took a short while, but with a handful of exceptions everyone in the crowd did the same. Even Relton Henris finally added a grudging bow, and no one said a word about there being terms and conditions. The handful of exceptions stalked off without looking back, and Jovvi stepped closer to me with a smile.

“Some of them aren’t happy about the decision, but they’re all in agreement,” she murmured as she patted my arm. “We now have a
position
rather than a job, and it’s all thanks to you. I think we can go back to our wings now.”

“After I tell them one more thing,” I murmured back, then raised my voice. “All right, we’ll stay, but on one condition. You have to arrange for our immediate Seating as a sixfold Blending, but you can let people know that the Seating is only temporary. A year from now we’ll be holding the challenges again, which ought to give everyone who’s interested the chance to join a Blending and get in some practice. The winners of the challenges will be Seated on a permanent basis, but for five years instead of twenty-five. There will also be other changes, but we’ll tell you about them some other time.”

A few of the people who had straightened looked like they wanted to argue or ask questions, but for the most part they were too surprised over what they’d already heard. Aside from muttering to some of the people around him, Relton Henris actually kept his mouth closed, and the only one who looked completely delighted was Lavrit Mohr.

“Thank you, Excellences,” he said with his own bow and a wide smile. “Everything you do strengthens my belief that you are indeed the Chosen Blending. Before long, everyone will share in that truth.”

“I’d rather share some details about what that army comin’ from the east is doin’,” Vallant put in dryly. “If we’ll be goin’ after them, we need to know as much as your people can tell us.”

“I’ll put a report together as quickly as possible, Excellence,” Mohr agreed, giving Vallant a bow of his own. “I’ll try to have it done by some time this afternoon.”

“When you come back, tell the guards to interrupt us even if we’re in the middle of something,” Lorand instructed Mohr, the first words he’d spoken in quite some time. “We’ll tell them the same, so there won’t be a delay in your reaching us.”

“As you say, Excellence,” Mohr agreed, also bowing to Lorand before he turned and hurried away. All that bowing was faintly annoying, but it had finally come through to me that if you didn’t insist on being shown
some
deference, people tended to think they could walk all over you. That made the bowing necessary, but we’d have to see if there was something we could do to limit the practice.

“Since we’re staying, we now have the time to go over all those transcripts and records I found in my wing,” Lorand said to the rest of us, strong relief in his dark and pretty eyes. “Unless someone has something to do that’s more important?”

“Now that our visitors are leavin’, we ought to
take
the time,” Vallant said after glancing at the slowly retreating backs of the people who had so recently made up the crowd. Most of them were talking or arguing softly with the people around them, but they
were
going. “Since we’ll be leavin’ soon, there’s no knowin’ when we’ll have another chance.”

Leaving to face that army from the east, he meant. We all knew we ought to have very little trouble stopping that army, but as we turned to follow Lorand back to his wing I wondered how much difference there would be between “ought to” and what we did have.

Chapter 10

Lorand watched as the others, one by one, finished reading the transcripts he’d found. Under other circumstances he would probably have been wondering how his Blendingmates were taking what they’d read, but this time their expressions were eloquent.

“Those people were really horrible,” Tamrissa said as she turned over the final page of the transcript she’d been reading, her pretty face troubled. “But I think I can almost understand how that Earth magic user felt about his parents, and that bothers me.”

“Don’t let it disturb you
too
badly,” Jovvi told her at once, full understanding in her beautiful eyes. “That man was so badly twisted by what he’d gone through that he couldn’t really act as a fully responsible human being. You may get pleasure out of thwarting your parents’ plans, but that’s not the same as what
he
did.”

“And you
are
a fully responsible human being, otherwise the rest of us would know it,” Naran pointed out in a gentle way. “Do I have to remind
you
how much Blending does to really let you get to know your Blendingmates?”

Tamrissa shook her head with a weak smile as she leaned into the comforting arm Vallant had put around her. Their Fire magic user was as strong as possible in her talent, but Lorand knew that she was far from also being what most people considered tough.

“Their Spirit magic user also seemed odd in some way,” Rion put in, obviously trying to change the subject. “At first he struck me as being the only rational one in the group, but he did have that habit of talking to himself out loud when he was alone.”

“I noticed that as well, and I have a theory,” Jovvi said with a sigh, shifting in the chair she’d taken. “He used his grandmother’s help in putting the three members of his Blending under control, but I think that
he
was under control as well. When his grandmother died the control began to unravel, making him unstable and unsure of what was happening. I have a feeling he wasn’t talking to himself, Rion. I think he was reporting to his grandmother.”

“What bothers
me
most about all this is a feelin’ I’ve gotten,” Vallant said as he shook his head. “Jovvi, am I wrong to believe that most if not all of those people would have been more like what’s considered normal if they hadn’t gone through all those horrors while growin’ up?”

“There’s no way to tell for certain, but I tend to have the same belief,” Jovvi said, confirming Lorand’s own feelings in the matter. “That’s why I’m more anxious than ever to find a way to protect all children, especially those of our closest followers. A lot of our people will end up being wealthy, and the offspring of the wealthy tend to go to extremes to avoid the boredom of a life without struggle.”

“And extremes too often include hurting even more children,” Rion said with a nod as he rose to go to the tea service. “I still haven’t thought of anything myself, but I refuse to believe that the effort is hopeless.”

Lorand found the fact that no one answered or commented aloud depressing, since he hadn’t thought of any answers either. They’d all returned to the sitting room in his wing after having lunch in his dining room, the same sitting room they’d been in all morning as well. His own teacup didn’t need refilling, but he decided to follow Rion’s example in another way.

“I’ve been reading one of the journals I found,” Lorand said into the silence, attempting his own change of subject. “The man lived about a hundred and fifty years ago, and his bitterest complaint was that his Blending didn’t get to practice enough together. He was sure their entity couldn’t do half of what was possible a hundred years earlier, but the Blending’s ‘advisors’ constantly told them not to Blend unless it was absolutely necessary. The advisors claimed that their Blending made people uneasy, and doing something like that wasn’t wise.”

“Right, and we know who they were makin’ most uneasy,” Vallant commented dryly. “Those noble advisors couldn’t have all the control they wanted if the Seated Five Blended, so they spent a lot of time discouragin’ the practice. That’s a point everyone in this job ought to know about.”

“For now
we’re
the ones who need to know about it, and we do,” Tamrissa told him with a smile. “So far we haven’t done too badly keeping ourselves from being limited, but we can’t let people make us think we’re being unreasonable. We have to – “

A knock on the study door interrupted Tamrissa’s words. When Lorand called out permission to enter, they all saw a guardsman behind the servant who opened the door.

“Your pardon, Excellences, but the man Lavrit Mohr has arrived,” the guardsman reported without stepping into the room. “Will you see him now, or do you prefer that he wait?”

“No, we’ll see him now,” Lorand told the guardsman, the others suddenly as attentive as he, himself, felt. “We’ve been waiting for his report.”

The guardsman nodded and turned to his right to gesture, and Lavrit Mohr hurried to the doorway. He stopped to bow as usual before he walked in, but the door wasn’t closed immediately behind him. A higher-ranking guardsman suddenly appeared behind the servant, and when Vallant saw the man he got up and went to speak to him.

“Why don’t you help yourself to a cup of tea, Dom Mohr,” Lorand invited while Vallant listened to what the new guardsman had to say. “We should be able to take your report in a minute or two.”

Mohr smiled his thanks while adding another bow, his glance going to Vallant and the murmured conversation before he turned to the tea service. It would be foolish to have Mohr begin his report before Vallant could hear it as well, and even beyond that Lorand was curious about what Vallant was being told. By the time Mohr had his tea and had been convinced that sitting down wasn’t a breach of some higher law, Vallant ended his conversation and came to rejoin them while the servant closed the door.

“That was somethin’ you all need to hear,” Vallant said as he reclaimed his place beside Tamrissa. “The guard captain tells me that two women were caught tryin’ to add themselves to the servin’ staff, and they made a real fuss before they were arrested and taken away. A little while later one of the servant supervisors saw a man he didn’t recognize, and it turned out that none of the other supervisors knew him either. The man was quiet and a hard worker, and under normal circumstances would never have been noticed.”

“So the women expected to be caught, and they made a fuss to cover the arrival of the man,” Jovvi said with an understanding nod. “What did the guard do with them?”

“They were turned over to civil authorities to be questioned about what they were doin’ here, just as we ordered,” Vallant answered. “The judges will question them under puredan, and if they know anythin’ about where Ayl and his followers are, they’ll find out.”

“It’s unlikely any of them knows a thing, otherwise they wouldn’t have been sent,” Tamrissa put in with clear annoyance. “I just hope the judges don’t find out it’s some group other than Ayl’s.”

“Bite your tongue,” Lorand told Tamrissa firmly as the others looked startled. “We have enough to occupy us without needing another organized force determined to get rid of us. Vallant, was the servant supervisor who spotted the man rewarded the way he or she was supposed to be?”

“The supervisor was given the five silver coins as soon as the man was arrested,” Vallant answered with a chuckle. “The captain told me the servants didn’t really believe they would get anythin’ beyond a pat on the head if that, and seein’ all that silver almost made them fall over in shock. Now everybody is lookin’ at everybody else, and the next time someone tries sneakin’ in they’ll probably be caught as soon as they show their face. But I apologize for makin’ Dom Mohr wait to give his report. We’re all eager to hear what you have to say, Dom Mohr, so please go ahead.”

“Thank you, Excellence, but I didn’t really mind waiting,” Mohr answered quietly, disturbance clear in his eyes. “Considering who those people probably were, I feel more guilty than put-upon. And if you haven’t yet been told, your people found almost a dozen supporters of Ayl still pretending to be loyal supporters of the Guild. They were also handed over to the authorities, but so far their questioners haven’t gotten anything beyond a few locations where messages were meant to be left.”

“If our people used their heads and are watchin’ those locations, we may end up learnin’ a lot more,” Vallant told the man with clear sympathy. “But right now I’d like to know what you found out about that army.”

“My people have reported that it’s approximately ten days’ march from Gan Garee,” Mohr replied with a sigh of dismissal for the previous subject. “There are four officers and a large number of … prods, I believe they’re called, and the fighting force itself numbers over four hundred.”

“That could well be two armies combined into one,” Lorand said with brows raised in surprise at the large number of captives. “But I think I read in one of the transcripts that they were ordered to the west to stop the invading Astindans. Why are they now on their way here instead?”

“With nobles in charge of them, I’m not surprised that they’re coming here instead,” Rion put in with a look of disdain on his face. “Those nobles will have property in Gan Garee that they’ll want to protect, and they’re not likely to be very practiced at obeying orders. Their own wishes and desires will always come first, even if that’s the worst thing they could do.”