The ladies had all been briefly presented to her, but only two names had registered. Laesha was the very young, brown-eyed lady-in-waiting who seemed to have been assigned to her. She was quiet, which was a blessing. The other was the Lady Rheva, a striking, dark-haired woman who clearly enjoyed a higher status than the others, and to whom Jennifer had taken an effortless dislike.
Nor was this in any degree lessened when it became clear, because Rheva made it clear, that she’d spent the night before with Kevin. It was evidently a triumph in a continuing game of one-upmanship, and Rheva was exploiting it for all it was worth. It was aggravating in the extreme, and Jennifer, abandoned, was in no mood to be aggravated.
So when another of the women gave a sulky toss of her hair and inquired whether Jennifer had any idea why Paul Schafer had been so indifferent to her—“Does he, perhaps, prefer to spend his nights with boys?” she asked, with a barb of malice—Jennifer’s brief laugh was entirely humorless.
“There are more obvious possibilities, I should think,” she replied, aware that she was making an enemy. “Paul is somewhat discriminating, that’s all.”
There was a brief silence. Someone tittered. Then:
“Are you suggesting, by any chance, that Kevin is not?” It was Rheva, and her voice had gone very soft.
Jennifer could handle this. What she could not handle was having it continue. She rose abruptly from the window seat and, looking down on the other woman, smiled.
“No,” she said, judiciously. “Knowing Kevin, I wouldn’t say that at all. The trick, though, is to get him twice.” And she moved past them all and out the door.
Walking swiftly down the corridor, she made a very firm mental note to inform Kevin Laine that if he took a certain court lady to bed once more, she would never speak to him again as long as she lived.
At the doorway to her room, she heard her name being called. Her long skirt trailing the stone floor, Laesha came hurrying up. Jennifer eyed her inimically, but the other woman was laughing breathlessly.
“Oh, my,” she gasped, laying a hand on Jennifer’s arm, “that was wonderful! The cats in that room are spitting with anger! Rheva hasn’t been handled like that for years.”
Jennifer shook her head ruefully. “I don’t imagine they’ll be very friendly the rest of the time I’m here.”
“They wouldn’t have been anyway. You are much too beautiful. On top of your being new, it’s guaranteed to make them hate you for existing. And when Diarmuid put out word yesterday that you were reserved for him, they—”
“He what?” Jennifer exploded.
Laesha eyed her carefully. “Well, he is the Prince, and so—”
“I don’t care who he is! I have no intention of letting him touch me. Who do they think we are?”
Laesha’s expression had altered a little. “You mean that?” she asked hesitantly. “You don’t want him?”
“Not at all,” said Jennifer. “Should I?”
“I do,” said Laesha simply, and flushed to the roots of her brown hair.
There was an awkward silence. Speaking carefully, Jennifer broke it. “I am only here two weeks,” she said. “I will not take him from you or anyone else. I need a friend right now, more than anything else.”
Laesha’s eyes were wide. She took a short breath.
“Why do you think I followed you?”
This time they shared the smile.
“Tell me,” Jennifer asked after a moment. “Is there any reason we have to stay in here? I haven’t been outside at all. Can we see the town?”
“Of course,” said Laesha. “Of course we can. We haven’t been at war for years.”
Despite the heat, it was better outside the palace. Dressed in an outfit much like Laesha’s, Jennifer realized that no one knew she was a stranger. Feeling freed by that, she found herself strolling at ease beside her new friend. After a short while, though, she became aware that a man was following them through the dusty, twisting streets of the town. Laesha noticed it, too.
“He’s one of Diarmuid’s,” she whispered.
Which was a nuisance, but before he had left in the morning, Kevin had told her about the dead svart alfar in the garden, and Jennifer had decided that for once she wasn’t about to object to having someone watch over her. Her father, she thought wryly, would find it amusing.
The two women walked along a street where blacksmith’s iron rang upon anvils. Overhead, balconies of second-floor houses leaned out over the narrow roadway, blocking the sunlight at intervals. Turning left at a crossing of lanes, Laesha led her past an open area where the noise and the smell of food announced a market. Slowing to look, Jennifer saw that even in a time of festival there didn’t seem to be much produce on display. Following her glance, Laesha shook her head slightly and continued up a narrow alleyway, pausing at length outside a shop door through which could be seen bales and bolts of cloth. Laesha, it seemed, wanted a new pair of gloves.
While her friend went inside, Jennifer moved on a few steps, drawn by the sound of children’s laughter. Reaching the end of the cobbled lane, she saw that it ran into a wide square with a grassy area, more brown than green, in the center. And upon the grass, fifteen or twenty children were playing some sort of counting game. Smiling faintly, Jennifer stopped to watch.
The children were gathered in a loose circle about the slim figure of a girl. Most of them were laughing, but the girl in the center was not. She gestured suddenly, and a boy came forward from the ring with a strip of cloth and, with a gravity that matched her own, began to bind it over her eyes. That done, he rejoined the ring. At his nod the children linked hands and began to revolve, in a silence eerie after the laughter, around the motionless figure blindfolded in the center. They moved gravely and with dignity. A few other people had stopped to watch.
Then, without warning, the blindfolded girl raised an arm and pointed it towards the moving ring. Her high clear voice rang out over the green:
When the wandering fire
Strikes the heart of stone
Will you follow?
And on the last word the circling stopped.
The girl’s finger was leveled directly at a stocky boy, who, without any hesitation, released the hands on either side of him and walked into the ring. The circle closed itself and began moving again, still in silence.
“I never tire of watching this,” a cool voice said from just behind Jennifer.
She turned quickly. To confront a pair of icy green eyes and the long red hair of the High Priestess, Jaelle. Behind the Priestess she could see a group of her grey-clad attendants, and out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Diarmuid’s man edging nervously closer to them.
Jennifer nodded a greeting, then turned back to watch the children. Jaelle stepped forward to stand beside her, her white robe brushing the cobblestones of the street.
“The ta’kiena is as old as any ritual we have,” she murmured in Jennifer’s ear. “Look at the people watching.”
And indeed, although the faces of the children seemed almost unnaturally serene, the adults who had gathered at the edge of the square or in shop archways wore expressions of wonder and apprehension. And there were more people gathering. Again the girl in the ring raised her arm.
When the wandering fire
Strikes the heart of stone
Will you follow?
Will you leave your home?
And again the circling stopped on the last word. This time the extended finger pointed to another of the boys, older and lankier than the first. With only a brief, almost ironic pause, he, too, released the hands he was holding and walked forward to stand by the other chosen one. A murmur rose from the watchers, but the children, seemingly oblivious, were circling again.