She asked Fulkari about it. Fulkari replied that men often changed their way of speaking to a woman once they decided that she had become more available than she had been before.
“But I’m not available!” she said, indignant. “Not to him, anyway.”
“Even so. Your whole manner’s different, now. He may be picking that up.”
Keltryn didn’t much like the idea that all the men of the Castle might be able to figure out at a glance that she was sleeping with somebody. She was still too new to the world of mature men and women to feel entirely at home in it; she wanted to clutch her affair with Dinitak close to herself, sharing the knowledge of her transition into adulthood with no one except, perhaps, her sister. The idea that Audhari, or just about anyone else, could look at her and know right away that she had been Doing It with someone, and therefore she might somehow be interested in doing it with him as well, was offensive and disturbing to her.
Possibly, Keltryn thought, she was misunderstanding things. She hoped that she was. The last thing she wanted, now, was for her kind, earnest friend Audhari to begin making romantic overtures to her.
At a suggestion from her serving-maid, though, she went down one Starday into the lower reaches of the Castle, the market area, and bought from a purveyor of wizard-goods a tiny amulet of fine knitted wire known as a focalo, that had the property of warding off the unwanted attentions of men. She pinned it to the collar of her fencing jacket the next time she met with Audhari.
He noticed it at once, and laughed. “What’s that thing for, Keltryn?”
She flushed a flaming scarlet. “It’s just something I’ve started wearing, that’s all.”
“Has somebody been bothering you? That’s why girls usually wear focalos, isn’t it? To send a keep-away message.”
“Well—”
“Come on. It can’t be me you’re worried about, Keltryn!”
“As a matter of fact,” she said, feeling unutterably embarrassed now, but realizing that she had no choice but to tell him, “I’ve been starting to think that things have been getting a little peculiar between us lately. Or so it seems to me. Your telling me that I walk in a sexier way now, and things like that. Maybe I’m completely wrong, but—oh, Audhari, I don’t know what I’m trying to say—”
He was more amused than annoyed. “I don’t think I do either, actually. But one thing I’m sure of: you don’t need that focalo around me. I could tell right from the start that you weren’t interested in me.”
“As a friend, I am. And as a fencing partner.”
“Yes. But not anything beyond that. That was very easy to tell.—Anyway, you’ve got a lover now, don’t you? So why would you want to get involved with me?”
“You can tell that too?”
“It’s written all over your face, Keltryn. A ten-year-old could see it. Well, good for you, is what I say! He’s a very lucky fellow, whoever he is.” Audhari slipped his fencing mask into place. “But we really ought to get down to work now, I think. On your guard, Keltryn! One! Two! Three!”
Dekkeret said, “I don’t mean to intrude on your personal life, Dinitak. But Fulkari tells me that you’ve been seeing a great deal of her sister in recent weeks.”
“This is true. Keltryn and I have been spending a great deal of time together lately. A very great deal of time.”
“She’s a lovely girl, Keltryn is.”
“Yes. Yes. I confess that I find her extremely fascinating.”
They were dining together at Dekkeret’s invitation, just the two of them, in the Coronal’s private chambers. Dekkeret’s steward had laid a magnificent meal before them, bowls of spiced fish, and the sweet pastel-hued fungi of Kajith Kabulon, and roast leg of bilantoon cooked in thokka-berries from far-off Narabal, accompanied by a rich, earthy wine of the Sandaraina region. Dekkeret ate robustly; Dinitak, restless and edgy, scarcely seemed hungry at all. He did little more than pick at his food and did not taste his wine at all.
Dekkeret studied him closely. From time to time over the years, he knew, Dinitak had struck up some casual relationship with this woman or that one, but they had never come to anything. He had the feeling that Dinitak did not want them to, that he was a man who had little need of ongoing feminine companionship. But from what Fulkari had told him, something quite different appeared to be going on now.
“As a matter of fact,” said Dinitak, “I expect to be seeing her this very evening, after I leave you. So if you have business to discuss with me, Dekkeret—”
“I do. But I promise not to keep you here very late. I wouldn’t want business matters to get in the way of true love.”
“Such sarcasm isn’t worthy of you, my lord.”
“Was I being sarcastic? I thought I was speaking the simple truth. But let’s get on to our business, at any rate. Which involves Keltryn, in fact.”
Dinitak responded with a puzzled frown. “It does? In what way?”
Dekkeret said, “The plan now, as I understand it, is for us to depart for the western provinces on Threeday next. Since we’ll be away for a few months or even more, maybe a good deal more, what I asked you here tonight to discuss was whether you’d like to invite Keltryn to accompany us on the trip.”
Dinitak looked astounded. He rose halfway out of his seat and his face turned a blazing crimson beneath his dark Suvraelinu tan. “I can’t do that, Dekkeret!”
“I don’t think I understand you. What do you mean, you can’t?”
“I mean it’s completely out of the question. The idea’s outrageous!”
“Outrageous?” Dekkeret repeated, narrowing his eyes to a mystified squint. After more than twenty years of their friendship, he still was unable to tell when he was likely to strike some odd vein of moral fastidiousness in Dinitak. “Why is that? What am I failing to see here? According to Fulkari, you and Keltryn are absolutely mesmerized by each other. But when I offer you a way of avoiding a long and undoubtedly painful separation from her, you flare up at me as though I’ve suggested something hideously obscene.”
Dinitak seemed to grow calmer, but he was still visibly upset. “Consider what you’re saying, Dekkeret. How can I possibly bring Keltryn along with me on this trip? It would say to everyone that I look upon her as nothing more than a concubine.”
Dekkeret had never seen him as obtuse as this. He wanted to reach across the table and shake him. “As a companion, Dinitak. Not a concubine. I’m going to be bringing Fulkari with me, you know. Do you think I regard her as a concubine too?”
“Everyone understands that you will marry Fulkari after the mourning period for Teotas is over. For all intents and purposes she is already your consort. But Keltryn and I—nothing is established between us. I’m twice her age, Dekkeret. I’m not even sure that it’s proper for us to have been doing what we’re doing now. There’s no way I could countenance taking an extended trip across the continent in the company of a young single girl.”
Dekkeret shook his head. “You astound me, Dinitak.”
“Do I? Well, then, I astound you. So be it. She can’t come with us. I won’t allow it.”
This was not in any way what Dekkeret had expected. Indeed at the outset of the meal he had been wondering whether Dinitak, in some hesitant, awkward way, would eventually bring the conversation around to a request for permission to have Keltryn join them on the journey. Having her come with them made perfectly good sense to him. The girl was very young, yes, but by all accounts she was levelheaded beyond her years and growing up fast. Besides, she and Fulkari were not only sisters but the closest of friends, and it would be useful to have Keltryn keeping Fulkari company while he and Dinitak were occupied in the real tasks of the mission. And one would assume that Dinitak would relish the prospect of having her close at hand while they traveled. But he could not have been more wrong about that.