Might be, could be, would be—so much of a prince’s life was based on conjecture and speculation. No wonder Pol accused him of not acting.
“However,” Rohan finished, “I won’t have Miyon at Stronghold. Invite him to Tiglath. And keep a sharp eye on him. Riyan can go with you and act as Sunrunner to keep us apprised of what’s going on.” Riyan also knew what the brothers looked like. Rohan would speak to him about his suspicions, but not to Tallain. The young lord would have enough to do without seeking spies as well.
Tallain nodded slowly, his eyes lighting. “Perhaps I can fool him into thinking we can make a private deal, and learn what’s behind all this sweet friendship. I don’t believe any more than you do that all he wants is an agreement prior to the Rialla. But I hadn’t thought before of sounding him out in private at Tiglath.” Turning to Pol, he added, “I was your father’s squire for eight years, like Tilal and Walvis before me. And not one of us has ever been about to outthink him!”
“Neither have I,” Pol grumbled, shooting a teasing glance at his father. “He does it just to annoy us, you know.”
“I always suspected as much.”
Rohan sipped his wine and looked innocent, unwilling to show that Tallain’s interpretation was one he had not hit upon. From his aunt Andrade he had picked up the trick of taking credit for more cleverness than he possessed. And very useful it could be, too.
“Go away now, children,” he said, waving them from the room. “All this thinking has worn a hole in my brain. I’m growing old, and the younger generation exhausts me.”
Snorting, Pol got to his feet and accompanied Tallain to the door. “Mother said something about coming down this evening to dine with you. Shall I tell her you’re too feeble to do her justice?”
“If you did,” Rohan said serenely, “she wouldn’t believe you.”
13
Tiglath: 20 Spring
It had happened as Tobin had said it would; for the first time in a hundred years, the Desert bloomed.
Rain, soaking into the parched land all winter, had washed away the work of countless storms that constantly resculpted the dunes and piled layers of sand atop the seeds and spores that had lain dormant since the last floods. Deposited there long ago by winds and dragons and migrating birds, the sleeping life swelled with water, quivered in the sun’s warmth as the sand sluiced away. More recent arrivals washed down gulleys and were caught by rocks or in little pools. These muddy cauldrons were the first to bloom.
Scrub that flowered seasonally with miniscule dry blossoms burst into luxuriance. Cacti and succulents drank in water, put forth new growth and wildly beautiful flowers. The Desert that in living memory had never worn any colors but gold and brown and sun-bleached white slowly bedecked itself in a motley of blues and reds and oranges on a background of startling green.
And it spread, gradually and then with increasing speed, up from the canyons and ravines across the dunes: veils of dusky, hesitant green that thickened into blankets of flowers. All across the Long Sand incredible color unfurled, rippling over the curves and hollows like a velvet quilt across a sleeping body, moving gently with every breath.
Always before, any flowers that appeared in the Desert withered within a few days. But roots and stalks had stored up the glut of water, and the colors not only lived, they increased with new blossoms. Scents sweet and spicy and pungent and heady obliterated the dry, thin smell of wasteland air. And with these came other movement, tiny winged creatures attracted by the fragrance of flowers. Insects by the millions came to the feast, some wearing as many colors as the flowers. Their humming underscored the usual silence, slowly overtaking it—until the birds came. And then there was not only color and scent and sound in the Desert, but music.
Sionell of Tiglath, absently working a lapful of flowers into a chain, saw her present companion as very like this brilliant spring: beautiful to begin with, but wearing unfamiliar finery. She wondered which would be the first to cast it off—the Desert, or Meiglan.
Occasionally she suspected that the girl was thinking the same thing.
Her history was simple enough. Born at Gracing Manor to the first of Miyon’s several mistresses, she had spent the first fifteen winters of her life despised by the mother who had counted on a son. Miyon had ignored them both. At Lady Adilia’s death two years ago, Meiglan had been brought to Castle Pine, given a personal servant, pretty clothes, and a strict education according to Miyon’s idea of the perfect prince’s daughter.
“Not a happy schooling, either, from what I was able to learn from her servant,” Rialt had told Sionell. “Whatever she does, and however hard she tries, Miyon finds fault.”
As if everyone at Tiglath hadn’t guessed that by now. Yet Meiglan was part of her father’s entourage on this little visit to Tiglath. Miyon no longer ignored her—but why exactly he had decided to bring her with him gnawed at Sionell’s curiosity.
Meiglan was a succession of contradictions. At nearly eighteen, her face was still as sweetly wistful as a little girl’s, but her body’s perfect curves were those of a woman grown. She was a blonde, with delicate white skin and masses of pale hair that floated down her back like a golden cloud, but her eyes were the deep brown of fallen leaves. In that dark gaze was a watchfulness that combined an adult’s shrewd calculation of the moods and whims of others—and a child’s wariness of their power to hurt her.
She sat near Sionell now on a grassy knoll that last spring had been a sand dune, frail hands also weaving chains from the flowers brought by Maarken’s five-year-old twins. The children raced about, Rohannon a little awkward on long legs he couldn’t quite get securely under him, plucking up blossoms to dump in the ladies’ laps. Sionell had suggested the outing to get Meiglan out of her room for a morning—the girl had hidden there all day, every day, for the six she had been at Tiglath, emerging only at dinner. And small wonder. Miyon no longer ignored her, but his attention was no blessing.
Sionell gave a sudden start as Chayla rained an armful of pollen-heavy goldbeard all over her. She grabbed for the child, tickling until they were breathless and had rolled halfway down the hill. When she climbed back up, retrieving scattered flowers along the way, she caught Meiglan looking at her with an expression bordering on tears.
Poor little one, Sionell thought. Her throat ached with pity for this child, growing up alone with a mother who loathed her and now trapped at Castle Pine with a father whose contempt was expressed in mocking endearments—“precious jewel,” “sweetest treasure,” “perfect golden rose.” If he had brought Meiglan with him simply to infuriate his hostess, he had accomplished his aim.
But there must be something else, Sionell fretted. The girl wasn’t stupid—there was intelligence enough behind her cowed silences. Perhaps she had some part to play in the negotiations that was so obscure only Rohan’s devious mind would discern it.
Miyon, however, seemed intent on creating the impression that his daughter was a moron. Only last evening he had commented, “Her mother didn’t have the wit to come in out of a sandstorm—but Meiglan doesn’t have a wit in her head.” Then, smiling a smile that made Sionell want to slap him, he added, “But a beautiful woman doesn’t need a brain, does she, my precious flower?”
Meiglan wasn’t stupid. And no one could be as innocent as she appeared to be. She must know many useful things about her father and his court. With a mental shrug, Sionell decided that at least she could draw her out about Miyon’s other bastards, rumored to number at least three. So, gathering the blossoms Chayla had scattered, she started chatting about her own extended kin-network. Though she was related by blood to none but her parents and brother, the position of squire to the High Prince held by her father and later her husband included them and her in the vast tangle of highborns that embraced six princedoms. She spoke casually of Kostas’ young son Daniv and Tilal’s boy Rihani, both of whom would be ruling princes one day; Alasen’s little Dannar with his head of flaming red hair, and Volog’s grandson Saumer, Named for his old enemy of Isel. It was utterly lost on Meiglan that all the offspring mentioned were boys. She merely nodded and looked impressed, and volunteered nothing about any siblings she might or might not have who could one day inherit Cunaxa. Sionell couldn’t decide if this was due to cunning, orders from Miyon to keep silent, or simple shyness. Perhaps, she thought, a combination of all three.