“Of course, Highness.”
Aunt Kade beamed with evident relief and turned to Mistress Meolorne to ask her opinions on seamstresses.
Inos looked longingly at the young folk beyond the tables. They were chattering and laughing, Rap telling a story, Lin topping it. What use was it to be a princess if you could not do as you pleased? Why did she have to be trapped up here with all these stuffy old folks? Quietly she eased her chair back.
Aunt Kade’s head flicked round. “Inos?”
“I thought I might—”
“Let her,” the king said softly. He did not say “It is the last time,” but she thought that he was thinking it.
Gratefully Inos rose, smiled a politeness around the guests, and muttered something inaudible. Then she hurried across the so-empty center of the hall to the group on the floor. The young ones saw her coming and started to open a path for her, and they cleared an opening all the way to Lin and Rap. Rap shoved at a couple of dogs, and Lin heaved himself aside one-armed. Now why did they all assume she would want to sit just there?.
But she did.
As she settled down, he turned to look at her and his big gray eyes grew even bigger at the sight of the pearls.
They smiled doubtfully at each other.
“How was the man-at-armsing?” she whispered. .
He grinned sheepishly. “Boring!”
She smiled. Good! In that case… “I’m sorry I was nasty to you, Rap.”
He turned a little pink, looked down at his knees, and said, “Then we can still be fiends?”
They sniggered in unison.
She put her hand on the floor, next to his.
His hand slipped over hers.
No one would notice.
He had big, strong hands, warm and calloused. Man’s hands.
Yes, he was taller. It had not been the boots, and his worn old doublet was tight across the shoulders. A friendly smell of horses always hung around Rap.
Running about with stableboys, her father had said…
“Rap, I’m going away!”
She had not meant to mention that problem. He looked at her with surprise all over his plain pudding face, though it was a lot less pudding than it used to be.
“South,” she said quickly. “To Kinvale. To learn how to be a lady. With Aunt Kade. On the next ship.”
Inos bit her lip and stared at the distant high table. The hall had gone rather misty.
His hand tightened on hers. “How long?”
“A year.” Inos took a deep breath and made a big effort to be regal. “You see, the duke is a sort of relative—Duke Angilki of Kinvale. Aunt Kade was married to his uncle. And my great-grandfather’s sister was his… Oh, I forget. Inisso had three sons. One became king here after him, one went south and became duke of Kinvale, and one went to Nordland. Kalkor, the thane of Gark, is descended from him. But it’s much more complicated…”
She stopped, because Rap would not be interested, and it was not very nice to talk of all those ancestors when he did not have any. Well; none that he knew of, she decided. He must have had just as many as she had, only not of noble blood. Her father said that the branches of her family tree were all knotted. There were not many noble families in the north country, so they tended to intermarry every few generations, as soon as it was decent.
Inisso had had three sons. Apparently that was important.
“When you are queen of Krasnegar, then I shall be your sergeant-at-arms,” Rap said.
Oh, Rap!
“I would rather have you as master-of-horse, I think.”
“Sergeant-at-arms!” he insisted.
“Master-of-horse!”
Pause. “Both!” they said together, and laughed together.
Apparently Jalon was not going to start singing again just yet.
For a few minutes nothing more was said, and Inos realized she was sitting smiling like a dummy at Rap, and he was smiling just as stupidly back at her. Why should she be smiling at a time like this?
Go away? To-horrible Kinvale? What good was it to be a princess if you had to do things like that? And creepy old Sagorn had hinted that she might start a war if she ever fell in love with a man…
“I saw a God today.”
She had not meant to mention that, either. In fact she had promised her father that she would not.
But Rap’s solemn gray eyes were waiting for her to explain. So she did. And she told him about Doctor Sagorn and the silk and everything that had happened. She was not sure why she did, but she felt better afterward. After all, Rap could be trusted not to blabber to others, and no one was more levelheaded than Rap.
He listened carefully and then ignored the God. “Who’s this Doctor Sagorn? Is he up there?”
“No,” she said. “He was tired by his journey. Not a party man.”
“Are you sure he isn’t a sorcerer?” He was being very serious.
“Oh, of course!” she said. The idea seemed so idiotic now—she had been a fool. “He’s an old friend of my father’s.”
“Who has not seen him in many years?”
“Yes, but…” she said. This was not like Rap at all! “And even the God had said…” No, They had not said; it had been Mother Unonini who had said that Sagorn was not a sorcerer. She fell silent, worried by the look on Rap’s face.
“Tell me again what he looks like.”
“Tall, gray-haired. Big hooked nose. Deep clefts down here. Rather pale face. I expect he doesn’t go out much.”
“What’s wrong, Rap?” Lin had appeared to be toying with the cast on his arm, but he had been listening nevertheless. Lin was purebred imp—short and dark and notably nosy. He had grown, also, Inos noted; but his voice was still treble. A late developer.
Rap was scowling. “Nobody like that came in today.”
Inos’s heart jumped a beat and then carried on as if nothing had happened.
“Don’t be silly!” she said. “You must have missed him. You couldn’t possibly have seen every single person who came through the gates.”
Rap said nothing, just scowled at the floor.
“Tell her, Rap!” Lin said.
“Tell me what, Rap?”
Rap stayed silent.
Lin said hotly, “Thosolin was a pig to him, Inos. He put him on guard and made him stand there all day in the sun. In armor! Didn’t even let him go for a pee. No lunch. He does that with beginners. Testing, he calls it, but he just likes to see them faint from too much standing.”
She squeezed Rap’s hand fiercely. “Is that true?”
He nodded. “But I didn’t faint.” He turned and looked hard at her. “And your Doctor Sagorn didn’t come in the gate.”
“Rap!” Inos squealed. That was absurd! “I expect he walked in beside a wagon. I went out that way.”
“I saw you,” Rap said, without smiling. “You walked right by me. But no wagons came in today.”
“He was following me up the hill, he said. And it wasn’t very long after that that I heard him talking to Father—less than an hour.”
“He did not come in the gate,” Rap said.
His big jaw looked as stubborn as the rock of Krasnegar itself.
TWO
Southward dreams
Youth departs
1