Seasons, page 3
Several rounds later, Geren was declared the victor for the evening, and Jo left the group in search of her parents. When she didn’t find them in any of the decorated rooms thronged with guests, she returned to the entry hall, wondering if there had been some latecomers to draw them away from the gathering. That chamber, too, was empty, but she stood for a moment in one of the corners, enjoying the silence. Even the conviviality of her friends was wearing on her, and she closed her eyes, breathing in the pine scent from a nearby tree, which her mother had ordered cut and brought in from their farm estate just the day before.
“She’s a fool, and she’ll be shown up for it, right enough.” The harsh tone startled her, and she instinctively shifted deeper into the corner behind the tree, tucking her skirt around her and turning her face to the wall, peeking sidelong to the entrance behind her. Two men had entered and stood inside the doorway, just past where they could be easily seen from the Great Hall. They kept their voices low, but she’d always had keen hearing.
“I don’t want her hurt.” This was a younger voice, one that seemed vaguely familiar to her. A subtle whine inflected the words.
“No, nothing permanent, but her father’ll be looking on your suit with favor afterward.” There was a slight accent in the deeper voice, but it was neither the throatiness of Karse, nor the lilt of the Tayledras. Hardornen, perhaps?
“What must I do?”
“I’ll tell you at the Delamers’ party. By then I’ll have the arrangements made for the Court feast.”
The two figures separated, the larger, presumably the older speaker, disappearing out the front door while the slighter man returned to the party.
Jo stood in the entry hall for a few minutes, calming her racing mind. She thanked the gods she had insisted on wearing her dark green gown rather than the silvery one her mother had preferred. Silver was too close to Trainee Grays for her taste anyway, but it would have stood out sorely from behind even this thickly needled tree.
The two men had to have been talking about Lady Millia—her father’s determination that she have a wealthy and powerful husband was well known. And no one as young as the whiny man had sounded would have the influence to satisfy Lord Delv, even if he had wealth. But what were they plotting? Not an abduction, nor rape, unless that wouldn’t qualify as “permanent damage” in the older man’s mind. Scandal of some sort was the only thing that made sense.
Her mind was still spiraling over these thoughts when she decided it was safe enough to return to find her parents, that the younger man had disappeared among the guests and wouldn’t notice her emergence from the hall where he had just been. Lord and Lady Delamer were hosting their party in a sevennight, and the Royal Feast, the highlight of Midwinter Holiday, was another sevennight after that. Less than a fortnight, then, to figure out what was going on and what to do about it. Lady Millia might be a silly young woman, but she didn’t deserve to have her prospects constrained by a false scandal.
I can’t go to the Guard, not with so little as I know, just a fragment of an overheard conversation. Who would believe me? She glimpsed her mother surveying the guests from the other side of the room, a delicate frown barely hinted at in the crease of her brow, and hurried over, her stomach sinking.
“I am sorry I was delayed, Mother,” she murmured. “I became overheated in the library and needed to step out for some air.” It was mostly true, and her mother nodded shortly.
“Your father is waiting for us outside the dining hall,” Lady Evie said, her voice clipped with impatience, and she turned and led the way through the crowd.
Fortunately, Jo was seated between Tyria’s parents at dinner, and the two of them kept up a brisk enough conversation that she had only to offer an occasional comment or question and could keep mulling over the overheard exchange. By the time dinner had ended, she had come up with a plan.
She wouldn’t tell her friends, at least not yet. Kosti had never been able to keep secrets or dissemble. Even Tyria, who was almost a Herald and as such honor-bound to protect the innocent, would want to get others involved, or go to the Guard, and Jo was back up against the barrier of how little information she really had. No, first she would go to all the Midwinter parties she’d been invited to, including the Delamers’, to listen for that voice and try to at least figure out who the younger man was. If she was lucky, she’d find out who the older man was, or what they had planned for the Delamer’s party.
Then . . . well, she’d figure the rest out then.
* * *
• • •
The day of the Delamers’ Midwinter party dawned cloudy and cold, gray clouds threatening all morning until at last, in the midafternoon, the first flakes began to drift to earth. Jo watched them through her bedroom window, her breath fogging the glass as she leaned forward so her eyes could follow one particularly fat snowflake all the way down to the courtyard below, where it soon melted on the paving stones. The mild early days of winter meant that the ground had not yet frozen through, but all the old gran’thers tucked in the warmest corners claimed their bones were saying the cold was coming and that the Terilee River would be frozen soon.
Jo sighed, idly drawing a pattern in the fog her breath created on the glass. Never had the chaotic round of Midwinter parties seemed so exhausting. In years past, she might have skipped a few of them, or only been part of the main throng for a brief time before escaping to a quiet corner with Tyria and the rest. This year, she had attended every single one she’d been invited to and had quietly inserted herself into Lady Millia’s set of friends. The Amberdale name was powerful enough that Lady Millia welcomed her company—indeed, if her older brother hadn’t been married last year, Jo suspected he would have been a prime target for Lord Delv’s ambitions. Jo’s own friends were a bit puzzled by her absence from their group, but her frequent visits to the Hereval estate passed without much comment.
One good thing had come from being so involved in the social whirl, though. She was certain that the younger man who wanted to force Lady Millia’s hand was Rix Ultare, another younger son like Kosti. Rix, too, hovered around the edges of Millia’s circle and was alternately flirted with and ignored, like all the other young men. Only Jo, because she was looking for it, saw the quick flash of anger in his eyes whenever Millia turned away from him. He kept the petulant whining tone from his voice when he spoke, but Jo was positive it was the same one she had heard in her parents’ entrance hall.
And Jo had managed to intercept a gift with a message that had been left for Millia during morning visits, tucked in the corner of her favorite windowsill in the Herevals’ smaller sitting room. It was a clever carved cat figurine, with a note that read “With fondest Midwinter thoughts from your admirer, your precious pet.” She had retied the note around the figure and placed it back in the corner just before Millia had entered the sitting room. Jo had noted how Millia’s eyes went straight to that windowsill, how they had brightened a little and a light flush touched her cheeks, but she did not move directly to retrieve it. It had been much later that she had gone to the window as though to look out, placing her hands on the sill and subtly pocketing the figurine.
So, Jo thought, retracing the swirls of her finger on the glass, the plan must be to woo her into indiscretion by luring her with gifts and notes from a secret admirer. I wonder what other nonsense they have written to her, that she responded with a blush. Tonight, she would be at the Delamers’ mansion early, so she might see all of Lady Millia’s encounters, as well as watch for Rix and his unknown coconspirator. Not for the first time, she wished she dared take Tyria into her confidence, but even that wouldn’t have helped her tonight, for Tyria had not been invited. No, she would have to do it herself, to learn what she could.
* * *
• • •
“I hadn’t heard anything from you. I wondered if you’d given up.” It was Rix’s voice, with that whine that made the hair on the back of Jo’s neck stand up. How does he manage to keep that tone out of his voice around everyone else?
“You’re almost as much a fool as she is. But she’s ready to fall for the bait. I’ve been sending her presents the last sevennight and more, and she’s been blushing mightily over them. She even managed a return message.”
Jo filed that bit of information away—it meant Rough Voice must have been watching Millia as closely as she. Or had suborned one of the servants to do so. And that Millia had been an active participant in the written exchange—although she was certain the younger girl didn’t know the identity of her supposed admirer.
Jo shifted slightly, leaning toward the hall mirror and patting at her hair, twisting the dark curls into different places and fiddling with her garnet-tipped hairpins, looking for all the world like a flighty featherhead herself, oblivious to anything except her own appearance. But the movement had changed the area of the room reflected in the glass, and now she could see Rix—and the other man.
She was hard-pressed to keep from staring. She had expected to see someone in unremarkable formal garb, but the man with Rix was positively flamboyant, clad in swirls of color lavished with embroidery in an unfamiliar style. She didn’t recognize him, but his dark coloring, unusual clothing and accent all suggested he was a foreigner. Perhaps one of the late Consort’s countrymen? There were some who had stayed in Valdemar rather than return to Rethwellan after the Prince’s accident. The two were keeping their voices low, but the gentle curve of the ceiling carried the words just enough that she could make them out.
“I’ve a plan to deliver the last note to her at the Court feast by a page, who will guide her to me in a private chamber, then tell you where to go. After a suitable interval, you will become concerned, seek out her father, and come find us. I’ll make sure what you discover will leave her father desperate to unload her onto anyone willing to take her.”
“Perfect. My debtors are beginning to be importunate, and this will answer nicely.” The smug satisfaction in Rix’s voice made Jo’s stomach roil with anger, and she forced herself to keep her attention on her reflection in the mirror and maintain her pretense of vanity as the two separated, the stranger again departing and Rix passing behind her to rejoin the party.
Jo’s hand nearly shook with fury. This was more than just a passing scandal of sweet-sounding lies and silly notes. What Rough Voice seemed to be suggesting was, in her opinion, permanent damage, and she couldn’t believe that Rix was so blinded by his own straits that he would casually agree to be part of it.
In the wine-red folds of her skirts, Jo’s fingers clenched into a determined fist. Somehow, Lady Millia must be protected.
* * *
• • •
Early in the morning after the Delamers’ party, Jo did what she had always done when she was uncertain of how to act: she went to the Companions. Although classes at the Collegium were ended for the Midwinter Holiday, and most of the students gone to stay with family and friends to celebrate, plenty of Heralds remained in residence, and students could still come and go as they wished. As she paced along the freshly snow-dusted path to Companion’s Field, she recalled the first time she had come here years ago, a ten-year-old girl in Blues, and the sidelong glances the Companions had given her.
“As if I’d try to force myself on one of you,” she remembered saying to them. “Even if Mummy and Daddy don’t realize it, I know I’m not going to be a Herald.”
After that, the Companions had relaxed and approached her, and she would often come to Companion’s Field to talk out her thoughts with them. Those wise blue eyes with their silent, comforting presence helped her to think, to filter out the unnecessary worries and focus on the important things.
Even now, as she neared the fence, a white shape drifted out of the snowy trees and trotted along the rails to meet her. She leaned against the fence and scratched under the unpartnered mare’s mane, then spilled out the whole story, of Lady Millia and Rix and how the stranger whose identity she still didn’t know was going to pretend that he was having an affair with Lady Millia, and probably rape her, so that she could be forced to marry Rix. “And I don’t know where to go or who would believe me,” she finally finished, and looked up to find that another Companion had joined the first, watching her intently.
“Kantor?” she gaped, incredulous. There was only one Companion who had the build of a warhorse rather than their usual lean, elegant lines. “You think scandal among the middling nobility is important enough to concern Weaponsmaster Alberich?” Kantor tossed his head in an imperious “yes,” and Jo turned to face the Collegium, only to see a solid figure in gray leathers moving down the path toward her.
“If the Palace it involves, concern the Heralds it must. Kantor your story has told me,” the Weaponsmaster said when he neared her. “Little though you may think it, significant it is, what these men might plot.” His piercing eyes softened into a slight smile. “So a plot of our own to answer we will have. But in cold we need not stand. Come.” He turned without waiting for a reply, and Jo, stunned, followed him in silence back to the salle.
* * *
• • •
By the time Jo and Weaponsmaster Alberich had entered his chambers adjoining the training salle, another person was there waiting for them, mugs of hot tea on the low table in front of her.
“Lady Pennory?” Jo schooled her face into a less undignified expression. A few years younger than Lady Evie, Lady Theara Pennory was a powerful and popular fixture of the Court and a frequent guest at the Amberdale mansion. What could she possibly have to do with the Weaponsmaster?
Fortunately, Lady Theara was blinking at Jo with a very similar befuddlement. “Jhosan?”
“Please, call me Jo,” she said without thinking, the reply a reflex from years of polite correction.
Lady Theara looked up at Herald Alberich. “Herald-Chronicler Myste said that you needed me for a delicate project. Does Jo . . . ?” She let her words trail off and eyed the Weaponsmaster expectantly.
“Overheard something, Lady Jo has, and the advice of the Companions sought.”
“And the Companions very sensibly turned to you.”
“And I to you in turn,” he finished. “So, Lady Jo, relate all to Lady Theara.”
Jo repeated everything that she had told the Companions, from the first overheard words at her parents’ party, to the friendship she developed with Lady Millia, to the note with the cat figurine, and then to the conversation at the Delamers’. In Lady Pennory’s tightening lips and narrowing eyes she read an anger on Millia’s behalf that matched her own. When all was said, she leaned back in her chair, clutching her cooling mug of tea, reassured that they at least believed her and certain that Millia would now be safe.
“I think I have a guess of the identity of the other plotter, although I have no idea of how he came in contact with Rix Ultare, or what he plans to get out of this,” Lady Theara said, slowly, and the Weaponsmaster nodded.
“Fit it does, with what we already know of him. But act we cannot.”
“Exactly. He falls under protection, and we have no irrefutable proof.”
“But you have to help Millia!” Jo burst out. She still wasn’t sure how or why Lady Pennory was involved, but it certainly sounded as though they knew who Rough Voice was but were going to let him alone to do what he would.
The Weaponsmaster and Lady Theara exchanged a look, and the Weaponsmaster nodded, lifting his palm toward Lady Theara in a gesture of encouragement. She turned toward Jo.
“Jo, your family has a long history with the Heralds, so you know better than most what role the Heralds play in Valdemar.” Jo nodded. “But there are places the Heralds cannot and should not go.”
Jo blinked, considered, then nodded again. “Of course, the Crown must have . . . other means of acquiring information.” But what did all this have to do with Millia?
“Exactly so. Weaponsmaster Alberich coordinates many of those . . . means. As do I.” At this, Jo simply stared at the older woman, who smiled. “I have trained a handful of young women who move freely about the Court to be eyes and ears where others cannot be.” She eyed the stunned Jo appraisingly. “Since you are already a friend to Lady Millia, I think it would be helpful if you were to aid us in protecting her, rather than introducing another young lady into the situation. I promise you that it should not require too much of you.”
“Well, I can’t leave Millia to face this on her own, can I? If I know something that can help, I have to.”
“Spoken like an Amberdale,” Lady Theara replied with a smile. “I’m surprised you didn’t talk to Tyria, though.”
Jo hunched one shoulder into a shrug. “Until last night, I didn’t really know anything, just guessed. And I didn’t want to involve Tyria, or Kosti, or any of the rest of them, with guesses. And once I knew, well, I didn’t have a chance to see her, so I came to the Companions instead.” At that, she looked over at the Weaponsmaster, who had been silent.
