The social dilemma was solved in a few minutes when Bosha returned with spare cups hooked on the fingers of one hand and a larger pot in the other. Three cups, not two, Pen noted as they were dealt out. The plates and basket proved to contain new-baked rolls, slices of soft white cheese, boiled eggs, olives, and fresh grapes, in sufficient abundance to share around without constraint. Also some of those ghastly dried fish blocks, which Pen avoided and everyone else seemed to think were food. Practical munching replaced conversation for a little.
Bosha rose immediately at a firm rap on the chamber door, seeming unsurprised, though Tanar jerked around in alarm. He opened the door only wide enough to admit the visitor, favoring her with that hand-over-the-heart bow—Pen could not decide if the gesture was ironic or sincere—and closed it with a click in her wake. Nikys and Tanar stood up respectfully, and Pen copied them.
Lady Xarre, without doubt. Tanar, Nikys had told Pen, was the child of the lady’s later age much as Adelis had been for Lady Florina. It had been a second marriage for both her and Lord Xarre, who had died when Tanar was four or five. Something of a love match, Nikys had implied. No mention of non-surviving older siblings.
Pen’s first impression of elderly was not quite correct, he judged. Lady Xarre was a finely dressed, slightly built older woman, to be sure, her graying hair wound up in jewel-pinned braids. The carved wooden cane upon which she leaned was not an affectation, but a needed prop, for Bosha took her other arm and supported her to his chair with no demur on her part.
Des’s quick glance by Sight reported, Very bad hip joints. Back when he was training and practicing in Martensbridge, Pen had enjoyed some luck persuading such deteriorations to rebuild themselves from within by repeated small applications of uphill magic over weeks or months. Which wasn’t time he was going to have, here, so there was no point thinking about it, right? He arranged his lips into a wary smile as she settled herself and looked up at him, and across at Nikys who, following Tanar, had sat again.
“My lady,” murmured Bosha. “Madame Khatai you know; may I present to you Master Penric, her courier.”
“Lady Xarre,” Pen managed.
“Master Penric.” At Lady Xarre’s wave Pen, too, ducked a bow and reseated himself.
Bosha poured tea for his senior mistress and took a pose leaning against the wall with his arms folded. Pen had seen servants who could fade into the furniture doing that; Bosha really wasn’t one of them.
“Surakos told me we had unexpected visitors,” Lady Xarre began mildly.
Nikys lifted her chin. “Uninvited, I am afraid. You have my apologies, but under the circumstances I cannot offer regrets.”
“Not entirely uninvited. It appears.” She cast a pointed glance at Tanar, who squirmed, thus answering the question of whether that note to Nikys had been authorized by Lady Xarre or not. “But not unwelcome, I promise you.” Hard to tell how sincere that was. “Given the circumstances. But we are truly in want of first-hand news of the events in Patos, and after.” No mistaking the sincerity of that. “You know court rumors. What are not lies outright are invariably so muddled as to be almost worse.”
Nikys nodded. She took a deep breath, and launched into a clipped description of the disaster in Patos starting from Adelis’s arrest through to his return to Nikys’s house, blinded and scalded. She left out the screaming and begging-for-death parts. Pen thought Lady Xarre and Bosha could fill in the lacunae.
“And where do you come into this tale, Master Penric?” Lady Xarre inquired of him.
Nikys bit her lip, caught between her promises to Pen and her unwillingness to lie to her hostess. Pen took up the banner: “Madame Khatai hired me on as a sort of male attendant to her injured brother. I was able to assist her in the sickroom, and later, when General Arisaydia’s sight came back, on their flight to Orbas.” Which wasn’t even untrue.
“That must have been a difficult journey,” said Lady Xarre.
“Yes,” said Nikys. Pen was a little disappointed that she did not add, We wouldn’t have made it without Penric, but he had after all asked her not to draw undue attention to him. No one to blame but himself.
Lady Xarre accepted this uninviting monosyllable with a purse of her lips, and did not press for details. She turned to Pen instead. “So much for Orbas. But why were you willing to come here to Thasalon, Master Penric?”
Pen thought over the impossible chaos his life had become ever since he’d first set foot in Cedonia, and decided to try a shorter truth. “I’m courting Madame Khatai.”
Pen wished Nikys looked half so delighted with this statement as Tanar did. Lady Xarre smiled dryly. Pen couldn’t tell if Bosha’s expression was a smirk or just his lip scar.
“Have you known each other long, then?” asked Lady Xarre.
Nikys answered, “No. We just met in Patos.”
Her voice still as pleasantly level, Lady Xarre said, “Do you trust him?”
Nikys’s eyes squeezed closed, opened. “With my life, yes,” she said, with gratifying firmness. “With my future… I’m still thinking.”
Lady Xarre chuckled. “Wise girl.” She drained her cup—Bosha bent to refill it—and leaned back in her chair. “I confess,” she said, “I, too, would be happy to see Madame Gardiki safe with her son and daughter in Orbas. Could she somehow be magically transported there.”
Pen flinched. Nikys coughed, and drank tea.
“Surakos reports you seemed a trifle unclear about the intervening steps.”
Pen suspected Surakos had been a lot more blunt than that. “We actually hope to borrow his knowledge, as neither Madame Khatai nor I have even been to Limnos, and he has. Everything has to start with understanding both the physical layout and the human defenses. The Order’s house cannot be as impenetrable as a prison or a fortress, if it hosts visitors and pilgrims. Not to mention the need for transporting food and supplies in and out for its inhabitants—how many?”
Lady Xarre waved at Bosha, who dutifully replied, “About three hundred Temple-sworn divines, acolytes, and dedicats, and perhaps an equal number of lay dedicats in service to them. All women, within the precincts. The complex of buildings sits on a notable promontory. Beyond the single drawbridge there is a rambling villa for male dedicats of the goddess, and guards. No men ever set foot past the bridge.”
That was more populated than Pen had been picturing. “Do men ever try? People being what they are. In disguise, perhaps.”
Bosha really smirked, this time. “People being what they are, the Order has a cadre of sacred dogs that roam the entry courtyard, trained to sniff out males. All bitches.”
In both senses, Pen gathered. “That actually works?”
“Extremely well, I’m told.”
Tanar looked up. “Do you confuse them, Sura dear?”
“I admit, I once made some amusing experiments borrowing your perfume, but in any case I am known, there.”
“Did the perfume work?” Pen asked, intent.
“I couldn’t really tell.” Rose-colored eyes glanced from under lowered lids. “I suspect it would not work for you.”
But I have other ways of controlling dogs. “Do you know, or have you a guess, where and how Madame Gardiki may be kept within the walls?”
Bosha shrugged. “She may have the freedom of the precincts, and mix with the residents. Some long-term lady prisoners have in the past, if they were judged docile enough. More likely, being new and untried, she would be kept in a locked chamber. Possibly on the side overlooking the sea. The Order is mainly guarded by its, ah, geology. And the water, wind, and currents. The island is only five miles long.”