Troubled Waters (27 page)

“It is,” Zoe said, adding innocently, “That is still how I think of it, too, as Christara’s house. I keep forgetting that now it is actually mine.”

By the way Alys’s head snapped back, Zoe knew that her own barb had hit home. Any property these women might have owned had been forfeit to the crown upon their marriages. It was a subtle way to remind them all that Zoe herself—naïve as she might still be, outcast that she so recently had been—was not without certain power of her own. She saw Darien’s faint smile, and in it she read approval.

It was possible she might quickly learn this game after all.

“Now that you are back in the city,” Elidon said, “will you reclaim your other properties? I believe your grandmother owned at least one house in the fashionable district.”

“No, my aunt Sarone inherited that one from Christara, and she seems happily ensconced there,” Zoe said. “I might look around for something else to buy.” She toyed with the stem of her water glass and watched Darien from under lowered eyelids. “Or I might petition the king to return to me the property that used to belong to my father.”

Which Darien himself had told her was now occupied by Serlasts. He narrowed his eyes but showed no other reaction. Seterre was the first one to make the connection, and her face showed surprise and then a flash of indignation. Seterre was
hunti
, Zoe knew, but she couldn’t remember if she was Serlast, too. “That property has been in other hands for ten years,” Seterre said. “It seems cruel to take it away now.”

“That’s not a very good argument,” Zoe said. “It belonged to Ardelays for seventy-five years.”

Alys put it together next and looked maliciously pleased. “Isn’t it—why, Darien, isn’t it
your
family that lives in Navarr’s old house?”

He nodded. “They like it very much,” he said.

“I’m sure they do,” Zoe said. “Of course, as Seterre says, it’s been ten years since I was inside, but it was a lovely place when I lived there.”

“I can’t believe the king would dispossess any of Darien’s family,” Seterre said.

“I liked your original thought,” Elidon said. “Perhaps you can buy a new place.”

“And perhaps I just will not spend much time in Chialto,” Zoe said. “I am already missing my grandmother’s house.”

“Oh, you can’t go back so soon!” Romelle exclaimed. “We’ve hardly gotten to know you! How can we make you stay? What kinds of things do you enjoy doing?”

“I am easily entertained,” Zoe said.

“We might find her a husband,” Alys said. “
That
would be entertaining.”

Since I am not to marry
your
husband,
Zoe couldn’t help thinking. She didn’t dare look at Darien Serlast with the thought so clear in her head. “I rather think my life would be much simpler without one,” she said.

The wives laughed. “Life is always simpler without a husband,” Elidon said. “But there are some privileges—some status—a husband can bring that you might find welcome.”

“I am just getting used to the status I have acquired on my own,” Zoe said. “It seems grand enough already.”

“What do you think, Darien?” Alys asked. “You know Zoe better than we do. What kind of man would appeal to her?”

For a moment, their eyes locked across the table. “I might have spent a little more time with her than you have,” he corrected Alys, “but I am far from certain that I know Zoe Lalindar. I doubt I would presume to advise her on affairs of the heart.”

“Darien can’t even be troubled to find his
own
wife!” Romelle exclaimed. “I can’t picture him matchmaking for other people.”

Alys stroked Darien’s arm with the same air of ownership she had showed earlier. “Darien is too busy for love,” she said. “But someday he will wake up and find himself an old man—lonely, childless, and exhausted, having given himself wholly over to service to the crown. I think that will be a sad day.”

He didn’t look at Alys. Zoe couldn’t tell how he felt about the queen’s hand still resting on his arm. “I suppose I might have some regrets,” he said. “But that day seems very far off.”

“Indeed, we are all quite young and healthy now!” Seterre said. “Well—most of us. I mean—” She tittered unconvincingly; everyone avoided looking at Elidon. “
None
of us should be too worried about how we will feel during the dreary future. We have too many years ahead of us.”

“Years spent enjoying each other’s company,” Elidon said icily. “Something to look forward to indeed.”

Zoe didn’t even try to fill the small silence that followed that exchange, but fortunately a distraction arrived in the form of a servant. “Would your majesties wish the princesses to be brought in now?” she asked. She spoke as if to the whole table, but it was clear she was asking Elidon.

The first wife nodded. “Indeed, this would be an excellent time.”

Moments later a small parade of women entered the room from a side door—three servants, two young girls, and a child carried in the arms of one of the maids. Romelle cooed and jumped up to take her daughter from the maid, and then she began making sweet nonsense sounds into the little girl’s ear. The princess looked to be about four quintiles old, beautiful and bad-tempered. Her dark eyes looked balefully at the room and she sucked her fingers with an air of dissatisfaction.

The other two girls went straight to Elidon’s side and bowed. Elidon sat back in her chair and inspected them, motioning for them to turn around so she could judge them from the back as well. The oldest girl looked very like Seterre—thin, tall for her age, blue-eyed, with ashy blond hair in a long braid down her back—though she was not as pretty as her mother. Her face was also a little more set, a little more tense, as if she were continually braced for something bad to happen. The younger girl had Alys’s red hair and smug manner, but her eyes were a woodland brown, huge and gorgeous. When the two princesses had turned to face Elidon again, the redhead kept cutting her eyes toward Zoe. The blonde kept her gaze on the queen.

“What did you learn in your classes today?” Elidon asked.

The blonde answered first. “I am still studying the history of Welce and the nations to the north, and the treaties that we signed after the War of Water.”

The redhead grimaced. “I am studying mathematics
again
, because I cannot do my sums.”

“It’s important to know mathematics,” Elidon said.

“I don’t know why,” the girl burst out. “My advisors will always tell me how much money I have and where I’ve spent it and why I don’t have any left till changeday.”

Seterre tittered again, though she pretended to try to muffle the sound. Zoe guessed the daughter resembled her mother in one other important attribute—an inability to curtail her spending.

Elidon maintained her serious expression. “Ah, but what if your advisors are untrustworthy? What if they are
stealing
from you? You will only know that if you are able to read their accounts.”

“If they are stealing from me, I will have them ruined,” the girl said with zest. “All their property seized and turned over to
me
.”

“That is a strategy that might work very well for a princess or a queen, but what if you are not sitting on the throne? What if you marry an ordinary man? You might not have the power to order people stripped of their assets. Indeed, you will have to pay much more attention to your own.”

It was clear the little girl couldn’t comprehend the idea that she might at some point be living in straitened circumstances. She frowned. Across the table from Zoe, Alys scowled as well.

“Really, Elidon, it is not as if you must prepare her for a life of penury,” Alys said. “Even if she is not chosen as Vernon’s heir, she will hardly be living on some windswept prairie, counting quint-coppers after a meager harvest.”

“It is the wise woman who fortifies herself against an unexpected reversal of fortune,” Elidon replied.

Everyone at the table looked at Zoe. Who said, serenely enough, “Indeed, I think it is a very good idea for
any
woman to know mathematics. And assorted other skills.”

The redhead bounced in place. “Are you the missing Lalindar prime?”

Zoe wasn’t sure if she was supposed to speak to a princess before being officially introduced, but Elidon quickly remedied that. “Corene, this is Zoe Lalindar, who has come to visit with us for a while.”

“You don’t look
anything
like I expected,” Corene replied.

“Do I look like someone who can add and subtract?” Zoe asked. Everyone laughed softly at that, except Corene, who scowled again.

“
No.
I mean—I thought you would be—well, you don’t look anything like Keeli.”

“That’s true. I favor my father—although even he was dark for an Ardelay.”

“Ardelay,”
the little girl said. “But none of them—” She closed her mouth and glanced quickly at her mother.

“They’re not often seen here at the palace,” Elidon supplied smoothly. She gestured at the blond girl. “Josetta, Zoe Lalindar.”

Josetta bowed very properly, as Corene had not. “I welcome you to our house.”

“I hope
you
don’t find me disappointing,” Zoe said.

“I did not form any expectations about you at all,” the girl replied carefully.

Well,
she’s
having a difficult and stressful life,
Zoe thought.
Trying very hard not to make mistakes.
Aloud she said, “I have found that is the wisest way to meet any new person—or situation.”

Elidon now indicated Romelle, still mincing around the room, singing quietly to her daughter. “And behind you is Princess Natalie—well-behaved, I assure you, only because she has just woken up. As a general rule, she is
quite
interested in making her needs and her opinions known.”

“I don’t believe I’ve ever known a child who could throw a tantrum that lasted quite so long,” Seterre said.

“She
is
a handful,” Romelle said, looking a little guilt-stricken. “But when she’s happy—oh, she’s just delightful.”

Elidon must have made some kind of signal that released the other two princesses from waiting on her, for Josetta instantly went to stand by her mother, while Corene drifted toward Zoe. She moved in an indirect, catlike fashion, as if she were really interested in something that was on the wall behind Zoe, but pretty soon she was standing just behind the stranger. Zoe looked over her shoulder to meet the girl’s eyes.

“What are your blessings?” Corene asked immediately. “Do you keep them on you?”

Zoe turned halfway around in her chair and extended her arm with its silver bracelet. “Beauty, love, and power,” she said. “What about yours?”

Corene held out her hands, fingers spread, so Zoe could inspect her three rings. One was copper, one was silver, one was gold. Each was a wide, plain band in which a single blessing glyph had been carved to show the skin beneath. “Imagination, intelligence, courage,” she recited.

Two
sweela
, one
hunti
. No reason to ask this question, since it was so obvious, but Zoe said, “And are you
sweela
, like your mother? Or
hunti
like the king?”

Everyone at the table answered at once.
“Sweela.”

Corene laughed. “But I try to remember that I have a
hunti
blessing, too, and that I must cultivate the strengths of wood as well as fire.”

“Balance is everything,” Darien said.

Zoe glanced at Josetta, standing stiffly behind her mother. “And you?” she asked. “What are your blessings?”

Josetta relaxed a little. Zoe thought she might have been afraid she would be overlooked—as perhaps she often was when the lively Corene was in the room. “Beauty, grace, and joy,” she said.

“All
elay
traits!” Zoe responded. “But your mother is
hunti
, is she not?”

Seterre nodded. “Yes, but my mother was all
elay
, and Josetta is the same. More
practical
than most
elay
women, I am glad to say, but still with that sort of ethereal spirit.”

“I, of course, am pleased to have a child of air and spirit in my house,” Elidon said.

“And I’m not sure yet what Natalie will choose to be,” Romelle said. “For I am
torz
, and the king is
hunti
, but her blessings are hope, surprise, and clarity. She could draw from any tradition.”

“Maybe that’s why she’s always having a fit,” Corene said. “She doesn’t know who she’s supposed to be.”

Zoe heard Romelle’s little
tsk
of irritation. “She isn’t
always
having a fit.”

“And it is good for a baby to have so many ways to grow,” Elidon said in a gently reproving voice. “To choose for herself who she will be.”

As if she could tell everyone in the room was discussing her, and she didn’t like it, Natalie’s sullen face reddened and she began to wail. Her small fists beat at Romelle’s shoulders, and she choked out a few syllables that might have been
mama
or
mine
. Romelle bounced the girl in her arms and tried to quiet her, but Natalie’s sobs just increased in volume.

“I
told
you she cries all the time,” Corene said with satisfaction.

“I think she’s hungry,” Romelle said. “Let me take her into the other room—”

Elidon made a gesture, and two of the servants reentered. So quietly did they move that Zoe hadn’t noticed them leaving in the first place. “It is time for all three of the princesses to be gone,” the first wife said.

“Not yet!” Corene exclaimed, but Josetta looked slightly relieved. She was already bowing and turning to join the maid while Corene was still protesting. “I thought we would stay until dinner, talking to Zoe Lalindar—”

“I don’t know why you thought that,” Elidon said calmly.

Darien was also standing up. “Don’t worry, my princess, you won’t miss anything,” he said, turning a warm smile on her. “It is time for Zoe to leave as well. She has an appointment with the king this afternoon, and we do not want her to be too overwhelmed by all your attention.”