Idrene examined Pen’s medical case with interest. “This seems well thought-out. I can believe he really is a physician.”
“In all but final oath. And you’re snooping, Mother.”
“Of course.” She held up Pen’s braids, which she’d unearthed in the depths, contemplating them with less irony than Bosha had. “And really a Temple sorcerer. Not hedge. Hedge would be too risky. Temple is probably all right. So, you say you’re courting?”
“He says he’s courting me. I didn’t say I was courting him.” She removed the braids from her mother’s grip and restored them to their place.
“I thought you wanted to remarry. That was why Adelis invited you to Patos, wasn’t it? To meet eligible men? Or at least that’s the tale you both told me.”
“Yes, but all the men he introduced to me were army officers. I wasn’t going to travel down that road again.”
“Did you tell Adelis that?”
“Not… exactly. I didn’t want to dishearten him. He was trying to help.”
“And also, you won a trip to Patos,” said Idrene, amused. She plunked down on the edge of the bed, patting the place beside her by way of invitation.
Ruefully, Nikys shrugged and sat. “I wasn’t going to say that.”
“True, though?”
“Yes,” Nikys admitted. “Although after Adelis was blinded, I had quite different reasons to be grateful I was there.”
“Yes…” said Idrene, her humor melting into pensiveness. “Hideous as it all was, I’m glad you were at his side. I think things would have gone much worse for him without you. Well, your Penric certainly has nothing of the camp about him. So has he actually asked you to wed him?”
“Yes.”
“And you didn’t agree to it? Why? Has he some hidden defect of character?”
“Not… not hidden. Just complicated. He’s only loaned to the duke of Adria, but he is truly subordinate to the archdivine. He either has to go to a great deal of trouble to renegotiate his Temple oaths, or I would have to follow him to Adria. I don’t want to go to Adria, for all he claims he’d teach me their tongue.”
“Oh. Yes. Of course he’d have to speak Adriac. But it’s not his native place, you say?”
“No, he’s from the cantons, some obscure mountain town. But he trained in the Weald. He speaks Wealdean, Adriac, Cedonian, Darthacan, Ibran, Roknari, and I’m not sure what all else by now. He’s a notable scholar.”
Idrene took this in, thoughtfully. “It’s true I had my fill of being dragged from pillar to post after my father, and later yours. As a home, the army has its drawbacks. And I should not like to shift myself to Orbas only for you to run off to live in Adria.”
“Penric wants me to live in the air, like a bird, for all I can tell from what he’s offered.”
“Bachelor habits of mind, I daresay. Well, then, your solution is easy. Insist he stay in Orbas for you, and give you a house as a bride-gift. If he won’t or can’t, then bid him a fond goodbye.”
“Mother! I’m not selling myself to the man!”
Her mother’s voice went a touch drier. “But you shouldn’t be selling yourself short, either. And if you don’t like that bargain, perhaps it’s not such a sticking-point after all, hm?”
“Mm.” This was already shaping up to be one of those conversations with Idrene. Nikys was almost sorry she’d started it. Or not. Considering how close they’d come to never having such a chance again.
Idrene lowered her voice. “But you should know, Florina’s jewelry is in a box walled under the plaster on the west side of her old writing cabinet. Because everyone knows to dig up the root cellar for such things. We’d always meant for you to have it for a second dowry, when you remarried. If ever you can return there before I do, find it and take it. Married or not!”
“Yes, Mother,” said Nikys, thrown aback. Florma had owned some extraordinary pieces, she recalled, some of it preserved from her own noble dowry, some gifts from her husband as he rose in rank and wealth. At the least reckoning, there might be the value of a modest house out of them, with something left over.
“So there’s another resource for you. Not any more chancy than marrying some chancy man. If I were you, I’d send your sorcerer to fetch it for you. Like a hero in a tale given a task to win his princess.”
“He’s not my—and I wouldn’t want him to risk his life on a third trip to Cedonia!” She glared indignantly, which only made her mother smile.
“So, no Adria, but we have established Learned Penric is more valuable to you than jewels. Or a house. That’s a start. What else?”
Nikys sighed, unwillingly driven to recite her next verse. “I wouldn’t just be marrying him. I’d be marrying Desdemona. She’s going to be inside his head always. Closer than a wife, more intimate than anything I can imagine.”
Idrene shrugged. “Any number of women have to learn how to share their husbands with another. I grant most of them are not chaos demons. Sometimes it works very well, sometimes it works very badly, mostly it falls somewhere between. My experience, happily, was on the better end.”
“How did you decide, when you went with Father?”
“Several long, frank talks, to start.”
“And he persuaded you?”
“Oh, five gods forfend, I didn’t talk with the general! What a pointless waste of breath that would have been. I talked with Florina.” Idrene waved a hand. “It helped that Florina was the shrewd and experienced woman she was.” She eyed Nikys. “So… you seem to think this demon is a person, or persons. A woman. Can she talk, then?”
“Yes, we’ve talked before this. But she has to use Penric’s mouth to do so. With his permission. So it’s not as if I could speak with her privately. He’s always with her, and she’s always with him. She’d be there with us in bed, too, I might point out.”
“Oh, hm, yes. That does become very personal, doesn’t it?” Idrene did not expand on this, to Nikys’s relief. Though she added cheerily, “On the positive side, she could never give birth to heirs rival to your own children.”
Nikys set her teeth.
Yet the notion did plant itself in Nikys’s mind. If her dilemma was with the demon, perhaps it was with the demon she should be talking? It would, necessarily, be a council of three. Or fourteen.
But not impossible. And she’d seen Penric demolish impossibilities before.
I’ve spoken with a goddess. A demon cannot be more daunting.
It was the strangest thought she’d had in a week of strangeness. Like a seed putting out slow shoots, down into the earth and up to the sky. She left it in the tender darkness for now.
“So, no Adria, better than jewels, you’d have to sleep with a chaos demon. Although I must say, it sounds as if you’ve rubbed along with her fairly well so far. And she did heal Adelis.” This news, apparently, had gone a long way toward reconciling Idrene to Penric’s uncanny aspects.
“She and Pen together. They seem to work as a yoked pair on that sort of thing.”
“An astonishing one, if so. Anything else?”
Nikys looked away. This far into her heart’s fears, she might as well unburden herself of the whole basket. “You know Kymis and I were never able to get a child. I keep wondering if that was my fault. …I could be condemning Pen to childlessness.”
The puff through Idrene’s nose held a sad familiarity. “I imagine Florma could have given you the best counsel on that. It’s no small worry, I know. But it seems to me you have its solution already. As a physician, couldn’t your Penric determine the true cause? The Temple rations out its mage-physicians like water in the desert, but you hold this one in your hand.”