Intrigues (6 page)

“So we’ll also be responsible for keeping the damage to a minimum,” Wilant Gorl said with a sigh and a nod. “It looks like interviewing servants really will be the easiest job any of us faces. But what’s this about the possibility that you won’t be Seated? If anyone thinks there’s a stronger Blending around than yours, they can take
our
word that there isn’t.”

“Strength won’t be the problem,” Vallant said after exchanging glances with Rion and Lorand again. “Okay, it’s time we told all of you somethin’ you don’t know about us. We’ll be announcin’ it tomorrow night to everyone, but you have the right to hear it first.”

“What Vallant means is that we won’t be a Seated Five,” Rion took up the explanation with something of a smile. “You all know my lady Naran, but what you don’t know is that she isn’t simply my lady. She’s become part of our Blending, a full part.”

“You’ve doubled up on one of the aspects?” Wilant Gorl asked with an incredulity echoed by everyone else. “How did you do that, and which aspect is it?”

“No, we haven’t doubled up,” Rion answered with a small cough. “The truth of the matter is there’s an aspect no one has been aware of until now, and it’s one that the rest of you can also add to your Blendings. Naran has what we call Sight magic, the ability to see a short way into the future.”

This time Lorand noticed that the stunned silence did contain what looked like shock. It would have been nice to have Jovvi’s help to soothe everyone down, but in her absence words would have to do.

“The people with Sight magic kept their existence a secret because the first Fivefold Blending tried to enslave them,” Lorand supplied, speaking gently and calmly. “They’ve told us they
know
we won’t do the same, so they’re finally coming out into public view. None of you has met the members of Naran’s link groups, but you might want to take the time to do just that.”

When Lorand gestured to the people sitting at the back of the room, there was a small hesitation before everyone else turned around to look. Their mild distress and confusion was met with friendly and merry smiles and waves from the people in Naran’s link groups, which went quite a long way to calming people down.

“That’s right, they’re not three-headed monsters,” Rion said with a touch of amusement. “They’re just as human as the rest of us, and most of them are as willing to join a Blending as Naran was. Is there anyone here who wants nothing to do with them?”

“You’ve got to be joking,” Wilant Gorl responded with a snort after exchanging soft words with the members of his Blending. “This is the most exciting thing we’ve heard since we learned to Blend. Is the meeting over? We’ve got some introducing of ourselves to do.”

“In a little while,” Vallant answered with a laugh, obviously as relieved as Rion looked and Lorand felt. Most of the others had laughed aloud and agreed with Wilant, which made Lorand grateful to be among such open-minded people. If that had been Widdertown folk…

“I don’t want anyone forgettin’ about those jobs we need to have done,” Vallant continued as he looked around at enthusiastic and impatient faces. “There will be more people with Sight magic at the party tomorrow night, so don’t feel discouraged if you don’t meet someone here who will fit into your Blendin’. And I’d like you all to consider movin’ into the palace, at least for a while. We still have plenty of room, and it will save you the trouble of trekkin’ on over here from wherever you’re stayin’. But that means we’ll need even more additions to the staff, so Wilant, don’t get so involved in lookin’ among Naran’s link groups that you forget about lookin’ for more staff.”

“We’ll get on that second thing,” Wilant answered with a laugh, and then the meeting broke up with everyone standing and starting to crowd around those with Sight magic. Vallant watched them for a moment, and then turned back to Rion and Lorand with a shake of his head.

“I have more items on that list I made, but we might as well save them for another time,” Vallant said with a sigh. “I was hopin’ they’d take the news well, but didn’t realize they’d take it
so
well that they’d stop listenin’.”

“It’s just as well,” Rion told Vallant with a chuckle. “We’ll have to bring our ladies up to date on what was discussed, and this way we’ll have less to report on.”

“I think we’d better add one more item to the report anyway,” Lorand said just as Vallant was about to agree with Rion. “I’ve found something in my wing that we all need to know about: There are journals written by members of Blendings from quite some time in the past. I haven’t had the chance to really read any of the journals, but I believe there are things discussed about Blendings that we might not yet know about.”

“Now,
that’s
a find,” Vallant said after sounding a low whistle of surprise. “Are they journals done by Earth magic members?”

“Not entirely,” Lorand said with a smile. “That means we all might want to institute a search in our libraries for similar volumes – as soon as we get more servants. If you’d all like to join me in my wing for dinner tonight, I’ll be able to tell you if I’ve found anything in the journals I already have.”

“We’ll certainly be there,” Rion answered, with Vallant nodding his agreement. “Speaking for myself, I’ll enjoy my meal a good deal more if I know in advance that it’s safe to eat. I drank the tea Naran and I sent for, but not without a certain amount of trepidation. If Naran hadn’t assured me the tea was safe, I might have decided to do without it. I can’t remember ever being this suspicious, even with that woman who pretended to be my mother encouraging my distrust.”

“Paranoia is easy to understand in
this
place,” Lorand assured a clearly worried Rion. “With the previous Five having been poisoned and the same thing almost done to
us
, it’s a wonder we can even trust
ourselves
. But don’t worry, we’ll arrange things to keep us safe until the trouble all dies down.”

“I hope so,” Rion said, putting his hand to Lorand’s arm in thanks for the reassurance. “I’d almost rather be back on the road and on my way to a confrontation with enemies.”

Lorand joined Vallant in assuring Rion they felt almost the same way, and then they left the meeting room to those who were meeting people in a different way. Lorand’s last thought as he walked out of the room was that he wasn’t sure Rion hadn’t had the right idea. Meeting an attack openly was a lot easier than worrying about who would next be trying to poison them or sneak up behind them with a knife…

Chapter 4

“Why are you still fussin’ around?” Vallant asked me from where he lay completely relaxed on my bed. “I haven’t seen you this nervous since we first met.”

“I’m not nervous, exactly, just a bit harried,” I explained, trying to give the conversation my attention. “My late husband always handled the details of any party he gave, and I was just another decoration added in. Now I have hundreds of people due in just a little while, and I’m not completely sure I’ve covered everything. What if I’ve overlooked something really important?”

“Then either the servants will take care of providin’ it, or we’ll do without it,” Vallant answered with a smile as he sat up. “No one is goin’ to make you leave the Blendin’ if all the forks aren’t properly lined up on the buffet table, so worryin’ is a waste of time. I expected you to relax when you found out we’ll have enough servants to do the servin’.”

“That
was
good news,” I agreed with a sigh, putting aside the list I studied to give Vallant something of a smile. “Wilant Gorl and his people have done a really great job in such a short time, going through and clearing that many applicants. Were they as careful as they were supposed to be?”

“They knew they had to be, so they got one of the other Blendin’s to help,” Vallant answered as he left the bed and walked over to my chair to bend and kiss my cheek. “They went through hundreds of the people who turned up when they found out we were hirin’, and eliminated the bad apples right from the start. They also found another of those renegade Guild people, and sent her to Jovvi for questionin’. Jovvi was feelin’ like her old self this mornin’ after all the sleepin’ she did, but the woman she questioned didn’t know where Ayl was.”

“I would have been surprised if she did know,” I said as I took Vallant’s hand. “Holdis Ayl didn’t strike me as a stupid man, and only a fool would send someone into our clutches when they knew where he was hiding. But he also should have known that the woman would be caught, so I wonder why he sent her.”

“Either he was testin’ the waters to see if we were too full of ourselves to take even basic precautions, or he’s usin’ her as a diversion.” Vallant grimaced as he pulled over another chair to sit in, making no effort to release my hand. “I have no idea what he would want us diverted
from
, so I hope he’s only testin’ our precautions.”

“But we can’t count on it,” I said with a weary nod. “We’ll have to be really alert tonight, but at least his people can’t come at us with unexpectedly strong talent. They have to use non-magical means, which all of us should be able to counter… Vallant, if we hired all that many people as servants, how are we going to pay them?
We
don’t have vast fortunes of our own to call on until we find the funds meant to support this part of the government.”

“Actually, we have all the funds we need,” Vallant answered with real amusement, his free hand stroking my hair. “We set some of Ristor Ardanis’s people on all the bankers, and it isn’t possible to lie about whose gold is where when you’re dealin’ with Sight magic. We already have more than one vast fortune at our disposal, and there’s more to come.”

“Oh, yes, I’d forgotten we did that even before we left that house we took over,” I said, finding it impossible not to yawn. “A lot of that gold will go toward paying for the shipments of food and other necessities the Guild people have arranged for, but there ought to be enough left over to pay for help around
this
place.”

“Yes, so it really is time for you to stop worryin’,” Vallant said, this time using his free arm to pull me a bit closer. “And we still have a couple of hours before the party is due to start, so why don’t we take some time for ourselves before I show you where the bathin’ room is in this wing of yours.”

“Bathing room?” I echoed, stopping short as I was about to kiss him. “We don’t have to go outside to use a bath house because there’s a bathing room right in this wing? Why didn’t you tell me that sooner?”

“Because I didn’t want to lose your attention to my greatest rival,” Vallant grumbled, looking really annoyed with himself. “If I didn’t have such a big mouth, I wouldn’t be sittin’ here with two or three feet in it… Okay, let’s go show you that bathin’ room. Maybe you’ll have some time for me afterwards.”

He got to his feet and pulled me up with him by the hand he still held, but I couldn’t let it go at that. He’d been wonderfully patient the last two days while I gave all my attention to the party, and I wanted him to know how much I appreciated that.

“I don’t see why we can’t exchange some time
during
my bath,” I murmured, leaning up to brush his lips with mine. “You haven’t suddenly become too good to share some bath water, have you?”

“I’ve always managed to force myself into sharin’ a bath with you, so I guess I can do it again,” he murmured back with a smile. “I hope you appreciate it when I make a sacrifice like this.”

“Oh, absolutely,” I assured him solemnly, ignoring the way his hand stroked down my back to pat my bottom. “And because you hate it so much, I’ll bathe as fast as I possibly can. So which way is the water?”

“Come on and I’ll show you,” he said with a sigh, taking my hand again to lead off. I had the feeling he’d been hoping to divert me for a short time, and share my bath only afterward. Lovemaking was more comfortable in a bed than in a bathhouse, but I felt confident that we’d somehow manage to enjoy the time.

“Did you use your talent to locate the water, or were you given that map you wanted?” I asked as we walked along. “And have you heard whether Lorand discovered anything we need to know in those journals he found?”

“I did get the map, and all these wings are laid out in the same way,” Vallant replied. “That makes findin’ things easier, and I set a scribe to copyin’ the map so we’d all have our own copies. Lorand hasn’t mentioned findin’ anythin’ of importance in the journals yet, but he made a different discovery in the same room: a large stack of scribes’ reports on the doin’s of the previous Five.”

“Does that mean someone had a sense of history?” I asked, glancing up at him with curiosity. “If so, the reports must be filled with comments about how great and clever those five people were.”

“No, actually Lorand said the reports looked like verbatim reports of various meetin’s and discussions,” Vallant responded, his own expression filled with mild curiosity. “He hasn’t gone through all of it yet, but he also located a stack of reports that had been very well hidden. If Lorand hadn’t noticed the presence of paper where no paper should have been, he said, those hidden reports would probably never have been found.”

“Maybe we can give him a hand with reading all that tomorrow,” I suggested, prodded by an odd and unexpected need. “I’d like to know more about those people who were here before us, and then maybe we’ll understand why they did what they did.”

“They did what they did because they wanted the power,” Vallant answered with a shrug of dismissal. “The one I faced at the end, the Spirit magic user, didn’t make a whole lot of noise, but he struck me as someone who was obsessed with the need to be in control. I’ve noticed over the years that those who need that badly to be in control usually suffered when others had the control.”

“That’s a point of view I can appreciate on a personal level,” I said, making a face. “Whenever someone else was in control of my life, I ended up with pain. But if your theory is right, then
I
should want to run everything in sight and I don’t. All I want is to be left alone by those who think they have a right to run my life.”