She watched them ride off the ferry and vanish into the predawn gloom, moving toward the leftward of the two mountains, the one called Patja Mount.
Well. Good luck to him.
She shivered and started to turn from the window. Something flickered. On the wall near the mill.
She pushed the window open farther and leaned out. Someone was running along the wall. Fair hair and skirts.
The way it moved, young. Accustomed to that Talent of hers by now, content to view it as the equivalent of her ear for music, she read the figure, nodded.
Kulyari. Up to something.
She could smell it-spite, triumph, and a furiously busy mind.
What is it? What could she do, that little rat?
Kulyari flitted along the wall like someone set her tail on fire.
Corning inside fast as she can scoot. How? Somewhere on the ground floor, no other way in. All right, let’s get down there and see what we see.
She kicked her slippers off, threw the robe around her shoulders, and went running out.
Kizra leaned over the gallery rail, peering down at the Great Hall. Shadows and emptiness. No movement. Nothing. She read the runner again.
The garden, that was it, Kulyari was coming down into the Family Garden. She stopped, then she was moving again. She stopped again, stayed still. Doing something. Very busy. Sense of vindictive satisfaction. She was talking to someone. Talking? Who?
Using her reach as a dowsing rod, Kizra ran down the stairs and through the smudgy darkness, until she was touching the south wall of the Great Hall. One hand on the wall, her bare feet silent on the elaborate parquet, she ghosted along, getting closer and closer to the girl-until she was standing outside a massive door.
She leaned against the door and tried to hear what Kulyari was saying. The wood was too thick. She chewed at her lip, nodded, eased the latch up, and opened the door a crack. She saw a bluish-white light flickering, a ghost light hardly brighter than the shadows.
Com. Must be battery powered. I didn’t think… Don’t be stupider than you have to, Kiz, this far out, of course they had to have a com.
“… before dawn, I told you, less than thirty minutes ago.” Kulyari stopped talking, listened to a muted mutter. Kizra thought it was a man’s voice, but she couldn’t be sure, and she hadn’t a clue what the words were.
“No. No one saw me. They’re all asleep.”
Mutter mutter.
“Two of them. On the Blacks, with a pack mule.” Mutter mutter.
“P’murr.”
Mutter mutter.
“Northeast. Toward Patja Mount.”
Kizra didn’t have to hear any more. Aghilo, she thought. And right now.
Kizra tapped at Aghilo’s door, tapped again, swore under her breath. Come on, woman. Come on!
Aghilo opened the door. “Chapa! What are you doing down here? And dressed like that?”
“Let me in,” Kizra whispered. “She’s coming up the stairs, I can hear her feet.”
“Who?”
“Kulyari.”
“All right.” Aghilo stepped back so Kizra could come in. “What are you talking about?”
Kizra stood by the door listening. “On second thought, you’d better go see that it’s her out there. I’ve a feeling my word isn’t worth much when it comes to the Irrkuyon.”
Aghilo pressed her mouth shut. She nodded. “True. Wait here. Leave the door open if you wish.” She snatched up a robe, flung it around her shoulders, and went out.
5
“Visiting a lover?” Aghilo’s voice was peppered with scorn. “Shameless one, out of your bedroom this late.”
“Get lost, old woman. Keep your mouth shut or I’ll have you whipped for impertinence. And don’t think I can’t do it.” Kulyari laughed. “I don’t have to explain anything to Garaddy’s bastard.” She swept off, laughing again.
Aghilo came back. She pulled the door shut, sighed. “You have your witness.”
“She’s putting it on. Under that arrogance, she’s scared.”
“Oh, really. What IS this about?”
“I woke up a little while ago, nightmare I think, but I don’t remember. Anyway, I was looking out the window and saw Arring Pirs crossing on the ferry. Someone else was watching; once Pirs and P’murr were across, she took off. It was Kulyari. She came down in the Family Garden and got into a room there, I don’t know what the room was, but there’s a com in it. I cracked the door and heard her talking to someone on the com. She was telling him, I think it was a man, about Pirs, where he looked to be going, who was with him, you know, everything he didn’t want to get out.”
“Ah.” Aghilo stripped the tie off her long plait, began pulling the strands apart.
“Is there any way we can make her tell who it was she was talking to?”
Aghilo moved to her dressing table, began brushing her hair, her strokes full of nervous energy. “No,” she said. “The only one who could touch her is Pirs.”
“Matja Allina?”
“No. No. You don’t understand the way things are here. She dropped the brush and twisted her long hair into a knot atop her head, began shoving in hairpins, each darting movement of her hand emphasizing a phrase of what she was saying. “She’s the heir’s daughter. Utilas. He sent her here for fostering-once he saw what Pirs and Allina were making of this place. For fostering and to make trouble. Get rid of Mina. Be there to marry Pirs.”
“He’s her uncle, almost like seducing her father. I…”
“No, I told you, you don’t understand.” Aghilo slapped in the last pin, got to her feet. “It’s done here often enough. Usually the second wife, if the first dies or has to be put aside.” She took off her robe, threw it on the bed, moved about, collecting underclothing, a skirt and shirt, talking as she moved. “The Families don’t want conflicting alliances and it conserves the wealth. She’s here to marry him if she can manage it. Viper. Him or his successor if she gets him killed.”
“Since her father’s the heir…”
Aghilo pulled a folding screen out from the wall, went behind it and began dressing. “No. He’s got enough on his hands with the old property. It’ll be Mingas or Rintirry gets this if Pirs is killed.”
“The baby doesn’t count?”
“Who’s to speak for him? Matja Allina? Don’t be silly. If Pirs is killed, the baby’s nothing. Boy babies die so easily on this world.” She came from behind the screen looking quietly neat and lowered herself to a stool at the foot of the bed. “Go get dressed, chapa. You shouldn’t be down here like that.” She thrust her feet into her sandals, bent, and began working on the buckles. “Meet me. Ten minutes. You hear?” She gave a soft little grunt as she switched feet. “When I tell you to speak, you say just what you told me. And nothing,” she looked up, “nothing about what’s to do. The Matja will say. She knows the situation. Don’t even hint what you’re thinking. You don’t understand. She has enough trouble without having to deal with you. Go on. Get.”
Matja Allina was tired and red-eyed. She sat in the only armchair in her bedroom, wrapped in a fleecy white robe with a blue-green silk lining. Tinoopa knelt at her feet, massaging them with a scented cream, working the toes, the muscles of her calves, humming a placid soothing three-note tune. The smell of the cream was strong in the room, a sweetness with an acrid underbite.
“After Aghilo challenged her,” Kizra finished, “Kulyari went sweeping off in a snit.”
“So,” the Matja said. “Our precautions were useless. Hmm. Aghilo, I saw Wuraj in the infirmary yesterday, didn’t I?”
“Yes. He’d tangled with a young l’borrgha and had claw-marks here and there. Bone-deep some of them. Otherwise he wouldn’t have bothered to come in.”
Matja Allina closed her eyes, rubbed at the vertical lines between her brows. “He didn’t look bad…”
“Well, he should probably rest at least a week.”
“Bring him to me. If he can’t go, he’ll know who’s best to send.