Roshone fell still, skewer held limply in his hand, brilliant green eyes narrowed, lips pursed tight. In the dark, those eyes almost seemed to glow. Kal had to stop himself from cringing under the weight of that disapproving gaze. There was an air of command about lighteyes like Roshone.
He’s not a real lighteyes! He’s a reject. I’ll see real ones eventually. Men of honor.
Lirin held the gaze evenly. “Every month we resist is a blow to your authority. You can’t have me arrested, since I would win an inquest. You’ve tried to turn the other people against me, but they know – deep down – that they need me.”
Roshone leaned forward. “I do not like your little town.”
Lirin frowned at the odd response.
“I do not like being treated like an exile,” Roshone continued. “I do not like living so far from anything – everything – important. And most of all, I do not like darkeyes who think themselves above their stations.”
“I have trouble feeling sympathy for you.”
Roshone sneered. He looked down at his meal, as if it had lost any flavor. “Very well. Let us make an… accommodation. I will take nine-tenths of the spheres. You can have the rest.”
Kal stood up indignantly. “My father will never–”
“Kal,” Lirin cut in. “I can speak for myself.”
“Surely you won’t make a deal, though.”
Lirin didn’t reply immediately. Finally, he said, “Go to the kitchens, Kal. Ask them if they have some food more to your tastes.”
“Father, no–”
“Go, son.” Lirin’s voice was firm.
Was it true? After all of this, would his father simply capitulate? Kal felt his face grow red, and he fled the dining room. He knew the way to the kitchens. During his childhood, he’d often dined there with Laral.
He left not because he was told to, but because he didn’t want his father or Roshone to see his emotions: chagrin at having stood to denounce Roshone when his father planned to make a deal, humiliation that his father would consider a deal, frustration at being banished. Kal was mortified to find himself crying. He passed a couple of Roshone’s house soldiers standing at the doorway, lit only by a very low-trimmed oil lamp on the wall. Their rough features were highlighted in amber hues.
Kal hastened past them, turning a corner before pausing beside a plant stand, struggling with his emotions. The stand displayed an indoor vinebud, one bred to remain open; a few conelike flowers climbed up from its vestigial shell. The lamp on the wall above it burned with a tiny, strangled light. These were the back rooms of the mansion, near the servant quarters, and spheres were not used for light here.
Kal leaned back, breathing in and out. He felt like one of the ten fools – specifically Cabine, who acted like a child though he was adult. But what was he to think of Lirin’s actions?
He wiped his eyes, then pushed his way through the swinging doors into the kitchens. Roshone still employed Wistiow’s chef. Barm was a tall, slender man with dark hair that he wore braided. He walked down the line of his kitchen counter, giving instructions to his various subchefs as a couple of parshmen walked in and out through the mansion’s back doors, carrying in crates of food. Barm carried a long metal spoon, which banged on a pot or pan hanging from the ceiling each time he gave an order.
He barely spared Kal a brown-eyed glance, then told one of his servants to go fetch some flatbread and fruited tallew rice. A child’s meal. Kal felt even more embarrassed that Barm had known instantly why he had been sent to the kitchens.
Kal walked to the dining nook to wait for the food. It was a whitewashed alcove with a slate-topped table. He sat down, elbows on the stone, head on his hands.
Why did it make him so angry to think that his father might bargain away most of the spheres in exchange for safety? True, if that happened, there wouldn’t be enough to send Kal to Kharbranth. But he’d already decided to become a soldier. So it didn’t matter. Did it?
I am going to join the army, Kal thought. I’ll run away, I’ll…
Suddenly, that dream – that plan – seemed incredibly childish. It belonged to a boy who ought to eat fruited meals and deserved to be sent away when the men talked of important topics. For the first time, the thought of not training with the surgeons filled him with regret.
The door into the kitchens banged open. Roshone’s son, Rillir, sauntered in, chatting with the person behind him. “… don’t know why Father insists on keeping everything so dreary around here all the time. Oil lamps in the hallways? Could he be any more provincial? It would do him some real good if I could get him out on a hunt or two. We might as well get some use out of being in this remote place.”
Rillir noticed Kal sitting there, but passed over him as one might register the presence of a stool or a shelf for wine: noting it, but otherwise ignoring it.
Kal’s own eyes were on the person who followed Rillir. Laral. Wistiow’s daughter.
So much had changed. It had been so long, and seeing her brought up old emotions. Shame, excitement. Did she know that his parents had been hoping to marry him to her? Merely seeing her again almost flustered him completely. But no. His father could look Roshone in the eyes. He could do the same with her.
Kal stood up and nodded to her. She glanced at him, and blushed faintly, walking in with an old nurse in tow – a chaperone.
What had happened to the Laral he’d known, the girl with the loose yellow and black hair who liked climbing on rocks and running through fields? Now she was wrapped up in sleek yellow silk, a stylish lighteyed woman’s dress, her neatly coiffed hair dyed black to hide the blond. Her left hand was hidden modestly in her sleeve. Laral looked like a lighteyes.
Wistiow’s wealth – what was left of it – had gone to her. And when Roshone had been given authority over Hearthstone and granted the mansion and surrounding lands, Highprince Sadeas had given Laral a dowry in compensation.
“You,” Rillir said, nodding to Kal and speaking in a smooth, city accent. “Be a good lad and fetch us some supper. We’ll take it here in the nook.”
“I’m not a kitchen servant.”
“So?”
Kal flushed.
“If you’re expecting some kind of tip or reward for just fetching me a meal…”
“I’m not – I mean–” Kal looked to Laral. “Tell him, Laral.”
She looked away. “Well, go on, boy,” she said. “Do as you’re told. We’re hungry.”
Kal gaped at her, then felt his face redden even more. “I’m… I’m not going to fetch you anything!” he managed to say. “I wouldn’t do it no matter how many spheres you offer me. I’m not an errand boy, I’m a surgeon.”
“Oh, you’re that one’s son.”
“I am,” Kal said, surprised at how proudly he felt those words. “I’m not going to be bullied by you, Rillir Roshone. Just like my father isn’t bullied by yours.”
Except, they are making a deal right now…
“Father didn’t mention how amusing you were,” Rillir said, leaning back against the wall. He seemed a decade older than Kal, not a mere two years. “So you find it shameful to fetch a man his meal? Being a surgeon makes you that much better than the kitchen staff?”
“Well, no. It’s just not my Calling.”
“Then what is your Calling?”
“Making sick people well.”
“And if I don’t eat, won’t I be sick? So couldn’t you call it your duty to see me fed?”
Kal frowned. “It’s… well, it’s not the same thing at all.”
“I see it as being very similar.”
“Look, why don’t you just go get yourself some food?”
“It’s not my Calling.”
“Then what is your Calling?” Kal returned, throwing the man’s own words back at him.