Without asking her permission to do so.
She frowned, then shrugged. After all, he was a demon; she could not expect him to act like one of her own subjects. He often forgot or ignored the rules of protocol, and he was useful enough that she permitted him to do so. He was an unnatural creature; it was not reasonable to expect him to act naturally. And she had no further use for him today, at any rate. He had been extremely tedious, and if he was not in the mood to amuse her, she would rather that he stayed away altogether until she called him.
She signaled for the next petitioner, and put all thought of Ware out of her mind.
Lycia left the house early, before Xylina awakened from her drugged slumber. Despite the drugs, Xylina's sleep had not been restful; she had endured horrible nightmares all night long, struggling up out of one only to descend into another. Several times she had awakened in a cold sweat, with her heart pounding, and her mind paralyzed with reasonless fear.
She did not remember what her dreams had been, except for one. Only the last one remained with her, and that only because she fought off sleep after she awakened from it, lying in her bed and trying to clear the fog of fear from her mind. She had shivered as she lay there, staring up at the pale blue ceiling, telling herself that it had simply been a dream and nothing more.
Yet it had felt all too real at the time-so real, she had awakened shivering with bone-deep chill, and was a little surprised not to find herself be slimed with mire.
The dream had been a hideously simple one. She had found herself in a dark, cold swamp, in sticky mud and murky water that came up to her hips. She had been completely nude in the dream, and her conjuring ability had somehow deserted her. She could not even call up a simple length of cloth to wrap herself in. The sky had been overcast, and tall, dank weeds blocked out the view on all sides of her. She had no idea where she was; no idea how she had gotten there. And she was totally alone.
Then she had heard something-several somethings-howling in the distance, a hideous baying sound that had never come from the throats of dogs. And in the dream, she had known they were on her trail, that they would devour her if they caught her.
She had tried to run, but the mud and the cold water slowed her down, keeping her progress to a bare crawl. She fell, time and time again, once going completely under the water as she fell into what seemed to be a bottomless hole, and was barely able to flounder into shallower water. Sedges cut her, and thorns scratched her. Beneath the water, rocks cut her feet until they bled. There were huge snakes under the surface of the water, which rubbed up against her legs just often enough to let her know that they were there. Horror deepened within her soul, and a terrible fear. The fear increased every time she heard the howling. Her limbs ached with cold and strain, and her long golden hair was matted with mud.
She could not even tell if she was going somewhere or traveling in circles, for everything looked the same. And yet she had to try to escape; fear drove her ever onward. The howling had grown closer with every moment, and the mud grew deeper, stickier, harder to move through. She knew that when the howling things found her, it would be over-
Then just as the howls came from just beyond the screening reeds behind her, and she had been certain the horrible creatures that made them would break through at any moment, she woke up.
When she finally rid her mind of the last clinging tendrils of the nightmare, she arose. Lycia's manservant, attentive as always, had been waiting for some sounds of life from the bed-chamber; the moment he heard them, he was at her side, to ask what she wished. She licked dry lips and rubbed her cold arms. It seemed as if the cold of her dream-swamp had followed her right into the waking world.
"A hot bath, and clean clothing," she said absently. "And something to eat, please, while I am soaking. Is Lycia still here?"
She wanted to ask the older woman if her dream meant anything, or if it was simply a night-fear, a manifestation of her daytime troubles. The older Mazonite had a wealth of wisdom that Xylina instinctively trusted.
But Lycia had already gone out for the morning, the manservant said regretfully. "But she will return by noon," he added with eager helpfulness.
He led her to the bath and left her there to soak away the last of the cold that the nightmare had left in her mind. But when he returned with her breakfast, it was with a puzzled look on his face.
"Mistress Xylina, there is a manservant here to see you, sent from Lady Hypolyta Dianthre," he said. "This is not a lady of my mistress's acquaintance; indeed, I have never heard of her before."
"Neither have I," Xylina replied, after a moment to plumb the old memories of her mother’s acquaintances, to see if this lady was among them. "Do you-"
She was about to ask him if he thought she should talk to this slave, but then she remembered that this man was not Faro. He would not feel free to advise her.
"Never mind," she told him. "I shall see this man in a moment."
She would have asked him if he knew what the slave's errand was, but if he had known, he surely would have told her. And she did not particularly want him to ask. If it was more bad news, she would rather Lycia's manservant was not privy to it just yet. He already knew more about her private affairs than she liked. Not that she didn't trust him-she had no reason to mistrust him, after all. But it was a truism that slaves gossiped, and what he knew, the marketplace would probably know before long.
There was no point in spreading the tale of her misfortunes any further than it had to go.
So she devoured the hot egg pastry that Lycia's manservant had brought her, drank down the watered wine in a single gulp, and arose dripping from the water while it still steamed. She dressed herself quickly, in the garments he had brought her: breeches and a tunic that were clearly Lycia's, since they were far too large for her and had to be belted in before they looked like anything other than sacks. She had put her long hair up in a knot for the bath; now, perversely, she let it down again, so that it fell in ripples to her waist. The manservant looked on, clearly not approving of such unseemly haste, then took himself off to inform the waiting slave that Xylina would see him.
She made her way to Lycia's reception chamber, half expecting it to be some other message from the tax collectors, and she was rather surprised to see that the slave waiting for her was not dressed in government livery.
She took a seat on a padded bench, wishing that Faro was able to take his usual place beside her. The slave remained standing, as was proper, and waited until she nodded tensely at him, granting him permission to speak.
"I am sent from Lady Hypolyta," he said, without preamble. His voice was very low, and musical. "She is not a personal acquaintance of the mistress of this house, nor of yours, nor of your mother Elibet-but she did see your performance at your woman-trials in the arena, and she wishes me to express her admiration, and the fact that she was greatly impressed by your courage and your resourcefulness."
Is that all? Xylina restrained her impatience, and nodded to the slave, indicating that she had heard and understood him, and that he was to go on. He was a most unusual looking man: very slim, and very graceful, with long dark hair that shone like black silk, and hung to below his shoulder-blades, and very curious, dark eyes. At least, she assumed they were dark, as she could see very little of them. He kept his eyes cast down as he spoke to her and she could only infer their color. But despite the fact that he kept his eyes lowered, he carried himself with a kind of unconscious pride, much like Faro. He was incredibly well-spoken, actually, and despite her current throng of worries, she found herself envying the woman who owned him. She must take great pleasure in him.