* * *
Dinner was a bad dream.
The food was plain as always, and there was no wine, but for once that didn’t matter to Zelen. He didn’t taste a thing, though he ate as heartily as he could make himself.
Father sat at the head of the table, a gaunter, taller version of Gedomir except for his eyes, which were very pale blue, a color he’d only passed on to Alize. He spoke very little, but Zelen knew that he heard all that the others said and was noting it down for future use. Mother, at the other end, was his dark counterpart, shadow to his ice, and she did speak.
“Zelen, what have you been doing with yourself?”
“Oh, this and that,” he said, weighing his options. Mentioning the festivities in town would have gotten him a rebuke for frivolity when the Rognozis hadn’t been dead a week. “Keeping fairly busy with the clinic, you know.”
“Charitable,” she said, and the approval still pleased him. “I hope they have a proper sense of gratitude for what you do. Alize, how are the harvests this year? More rice than last?”
So it went on, a tutor’s quiz about their own lives, with sparse smiles as the reward. Zelen and his siblings didn’t talk to one another at the table; they ate and waited for questions until the meal was finally over.
“I will retire now,” his father finally said. “Zelen, on your return to the city tomorrow, ensure that all is ready for our visit. It will be a painful enough occasion without chaos.”
“Yes, Father.”
He’d be going back the next day, then. That was just as well—it meant less time in which to give himself away, not to mention less time he had to spend in the house itself. Zelen would have liked to have been asked, but had long since given up expecting it.
After another interminable hour in the parlor, while Alize played well but somberly on the harp, bedtime arrived, and Zelen went thankfully to that as well.
He didn’t sleep, of course.
He did take his boots off. That would help. Then he lay on his bed for an hour, alternately reading a scandalous novel and wondering what Branwyn was doing in his house, until he was fairly certain that the rest of the household had sought their own beds.
Sneaking had served him well as a youth. Through learning to move quietly and blend decently with the darkness, he’d often been able to get food after hours and books he wasn’t supposed to read, not to mention pursuing a liaison or two with local girls when he’d gotten a bit older. He hadn’t thought to use the skill as a grown man, but it came back fairly quickly. He reached the scullery without waking the half-grown boys sleeping on the hearth.
A spare broom handle served his purpose admirably. The weight was very different from that of Yathana, of course, but Zelen doubted that any of his family was going to try to wield the thing. He held it close to his chest as he crept back into the hallway. The crash as one end knocked into a pitcher, or he tripped over a table leg, echoed endlessly in his mind but never actually came.
The library door sounded like an avalanche when he closed it. Zelen froze shortly beyond, listened for footsteps, and for a moment couldn’t make himself believe he heard none, or shake himself into action when he was sure. The enormity of what he was going to do, of what it all meant, descended on him. He was only glad that dinner had been hours in the past.
His feet felt too large as he headed toward the bookshelf. His hands were blocky, clumsy as they’d never been when healing, but he withdrew Yathana without breaking anything and quickly substituted the broom handle, wrapped in one of the old cloaks that had still been in his wardrobe. It looked enough like the sword’s wrappings to fool a casual glance. A more-than-casual one… He hoped to be well away before that happened.
Back, said the sword in his mind.Good.
If that’s the word for it, Zelen thought in return, and left the library.
The servants’ staircase was unlit, and without any carpet to soften the wood, the stairs were inclined to creak. Zelen descended one careful, measured step at a time, in dark silence bound by narrow walls. When he heard voices near the first-floor landing, he nearly jumped.
“…contained…Hanyi,” Gedomir was saying. Dim light came through the wall from where he spoke, so Zelen sidled carefully closer, making sure that Yathana didn’t bump into any of the surrounding wood, and peered through the minute crack. The view was too restricted for him to be certain, but from the direction, he thought Gedomir was on the first floor in the east wing. Voices did carry; that went with the drafts, particularly in the servants’ quarters.
“She knows what she’s about,” Mother replied calmly.
“But refreshing the wards is going to take another expedition.”
“And? There’s no shortage of supply.”
“It’ll draw attention.” Gedomir sighed. “Damn Sentinels, and damn Zelen. If he’d done his task competently—”
Zelen’s immediate wince, ridiculous given what he knew about Gedomir but as inevitable as his next breath, turned into startled paralysis at the sound of a hard slap.
“Watch how you speak of family.” Mother pronounced every letter in every word, and all of them were ice-edged. Behind the wall, Zelen blinked, and his grip on the sword tightened. He hadn’t anticipated hearing any of them take his part. Then Mother continued. “Furthermore, this is the second time you’ve forgotten your brother’s place in our plans. I might begin to believe it willful.”
“I assure you, Mother, I know his role.”
“Do you? Perhaps we were insufficiently clear in your youth. The youngest is a necessary distraction. In case you don’t comprehend both words, ‘distraction’ means he’s ill-suited to be your spy, and ‘necessary’ means he’s not collateral damage when you want somebody dead. We’d have to call up your tiresome cousin to fill his place, for one thing, since Hanyi’s far past being able to take on the role. There’s no end to the disruption that would cause. Particularly now.”
