Without need for conscious thought, she hastily reined Dawnwind back and to the right, putting Janny’s brown mare between her and him. “I amnot your betrothed, Nasin,” she snapped, seething at having to say that aloud for everyone to hear. “I ammarried, you old fool! Wait!” she added, flinging up a hand.
The imperative word and the gesture were for her armsmen, who had laid hands on sword hilts and were glaring at Nasin. Some thirty or forty men wearing House Caeren’s Sword and Star were following the man, and they would not hesitate to cut down any?one they thought was threatening their High Seat. Some already had blades half-drawn. They would not harm her, of course. Nasin would have them hanged to a man if she was even bruised. Light, she did not know whether to laugh or cry over that.
“Are you still afraid of that young oaf Jarid?” Nasin demanded, angling his mount to follow her. “He has no right to keep bother?ing you. The better man won, and he should acknowledge it. I’ll challenge him!” One hand, plainly bony even in its tight red glove, fumbled at a sword he probably had not drawn in twenty years. “I will cut him down like a dog for frightening you!”
Elenia moved Dawnwind deftly, so they described a circle around Janny, who murmured apologies to Nasin and pretended to take her mare out of his way while getting in it. Mentally, Elenia added a little embroidery to the dresses she would buy. Addlepated as he was, Nasin could go in a blink from honeyed words of courtly love to groping at her as if she were the lowest sort of tavern maid. That, she could not endure, not again, certainly not in public. Cir?cling, she forced a worried smile onto her face, though in truth, the smile took more effort than the worry. If this old fool forced Jarid to kill him, it would ruin everything! “You know I could not abide to have men fight over me, Nasin.” Her voice was breathy and anxtious, but she did not try to control it. Breathy and anxious suited well enough. “How could I love a man with blood on his hands?”
The ridiculous man frowned down that long nose till she began to wonder whether she had gone too far. He was mad as a spring hare, but not in everything. Not always. “I had not realized you were so . . . sensitive,” he said finally. Without stopping his effort to ride around Janny. His decrepit face brightened. “But I should have known. I will remember, from now on. Jarid may live. So long as he doesn’t pester you.” Abruptly, he seemed to notice Janny for the first time, and with an irritated grimace, he raised his hand high, balling it into a fist. The plump woman visibly steeled her?self for the blow without moving aside, and Elenia gritted her teeth. Silk embroidery. Definitely unsuitable for a maid, but Janny had earned it.
“Lord Nasin, I have been looking for youeverywhere” a woman’s simpering voice cried, and the circling stopped.
Elenia exhaled in relief as Arymilla rode up in the twilight with her entourage, and had to stifle a surge of fury at feeling relief. In over-elaborately embroidered green silk, with lace under her chin and at her wrists, Arymilla was plump verging on stout, with a vacuous smile and brown eyes that were always wide with affected interest even when there was nothing to be interested in. Lacking the brains to tell the difference, she possessed just enough cunning to know there were things that should interest her, and she did not want anyone to think she had missed them. The only real concern she had was her own comfort and the income to ensure it, and the only reason she wanted the throne was that the royal coffers could provide greater comfort than the revenues of any High Seat. Her entourage was larger than Nasin’s, though only half were armsmen wearing the Four Moons of her House. For the most part, hangers-on and sycophants made up the rest, lesser lords and ladies of minor Houses and others willing to lick Arymilla’s wrist for a place near power. She did love people to fawn over her. Naean was there, too, on the edge of the group with her armsmen and maid, apparently cool-eyed and in control of herself once more. But keeping well away from Jaq Lounalt, a lean man with one of those farcical Taraboner veils covering his huge mus?taches and a conical cap pushing the hood of his cloak to a ridiculous height. The fellow smiled too much, as well. He hardly looked a man who could reduce someone to begging with just a few cords.
“Arymilla,” Nasin said in a confused tone, then frowned at his fist as if surprised to find it raised. Lowering his hand to the pom?mel of his saddle, he beamed a smile at the silly woman. “Arymilla, my dear,” he said warmly. Not with the sort of warmth he often directed at Elenia. Somehow, it seemed, he had become at least half-convinced that Arymilla was his daughter, and his favorite at that. Once, Elenia had heard him reminiscing at length with the woman about her “mother,” his last wife, dead nearly thirty years now. Arymilla managed to hold her end of the conversation, too, though she had never met Miedelle Caeren as far as Elenia knew.
Still, despite all his fatherly smiles for Arymilla, his eyes sought through the shadowed crowd on horseback behind her, and his face relaxed when he found Sylvase, his granddaughter and heir, a sturdy, placid young woman who met his gaze, unsmiling, then pulled her dark, fur-lined cowl well forward. She never smiled or frowned or showed any emotion at all that Elenia had ever detected, just kept an unvarying cowlike expression. Plainly, she had a cow’s wits, too. Arymilla kept Sylvase closer than she did Elenia or Naean, and so long as she did, there was no chance that Nasin would be forced to retire from his honors. He was mad, assuredly, but sly. “I hope you’re taking good care of my little Syl?vase, Arymilla,” he murmured. “There are fortune hunters every?where, and I want the darling girl kept safe.”
“Of course, I am,” Arymilla replied, brushing her overfed mare past Elenia without so much as a glance. Her tone was honey-sweet, and sickeningly doting. “You know I’ll keep her as safe as I keep myself.” Smiling that empty-headed smile, she set about straightening Nasin’s cloak on his shoulders and smoothing it with the air of someone settling a shawl on a beloved invalid. “It’s much too cold out for you. I know what you need. A warm tent and some hot spiced wine. I’ll be happy to have my maid prepare it for you. Arlene, accompany Lord Nasin to his tent and fix him some good spiced wine.”
A slim woman in her entourage gave a violent twitch, then rode forward slowly, pushing back the hood of her plain blue cloak to reveal a pretty face and a tremulous smile. Suddenly all lickspittles and toad-eaters were adjusting their cloaks against the wind or snugging their gloves, looking anywhere except at Arymilla’s maid. Especially the women. One of them could have been chosen as easily, and they knew it. Oddly, Sylvase did not look away. It was impossible to see her face in the shadows of her hood, but the opening turned to follow the slender woman.
Nasin’s grin showed his teeth, making him look even more like a goat than usual. “Yes. Yes, mulled wine would be good. Arlene, is it? Come, Arlene, there’s a good girl. Not too chill, are you?” The girl squeaked as he swept a corner of his cloak around her shoulders and gathered her so close she was leaning out of her sad?dle. “You’ll be warm in my tent, I promise.” Without so much as a glance back, he rode off at a walk, chortling and whispering at the young woman under his arm. His armsmen followed with the creak of leather and the slow, wet clop of hooves in the muck. One of them laughed, as if another had said something funny.
Elenia shook her head in disgust. Pushing a pretty woman in front of Nasin to distract him was one thing - she did not even have to be that pretty; any woman the old fool could corner was in danger - but using your own maid was revolting. Not as revolting as Nasin himself, though. “You promised to keep him away from me, Arymilla,” she said in a low, tight voice. That lecherous old crackbrain might have forgotten her existence for the moment, but he would remember the next time he saw her. “You promised to keep him occupied.”
Arymilla’s face grew sullen, and she petulantly tugged her rid?ing gloves tighter. She had not gotten what she wanted. That was a great sin, to her. “If you want to be safe from admirers, you ought to stay close to me instead of wandering about loose. Can I help it if you attract men? And I did rescue you. I haven’t heard any thanks for that.”
Elenia’s jaw clenched so hard that it began to ache. Pretending that she supported this woman of her own choice was enough to make her want to bite something. Her choices had been made clear enough; write to Jarid or endure an extended honeymoon with her “betrothed.” Light, she might have taken the choice if not for the certainty that Nasin would lock her up in some out-of-the-way manor and, after she had put up with his pawing, eventually forget she was there. And leave her there. Arymilla insisted on the pre?tense, though. She insisted on a great many things, some of them utterly insufferable. Yet they had to be suffered. For the time being. Perhaps, once matters were set straight, Master Lounalt could offer his attentions to Arymilla for a few days.
From somewhere she summoned an apologetic smile, and made herself bend her neck as if she were one of the boot-licking leeches who were watching her avidly. After all, ifshe crawled for Arymilla, it only proved they were right to. The feel of their eyes on her made her want to bathe. Doing this in front of Naean made her want to shriek. “I offer you all the gratitude that’s in me, Arymilla.” Well, that was no lie. All the gratitude that was in her came about equal to a desire to strangle the other woman. Very slowly. She had to inhale deeply before she could get the next part out, though. “You must forgive me for being slow, please.” Avery bitter word. “Nasin made me quite distraught. You know how Jarid would react if he learned of Nasin’s behavior.” Her own voice took on a honed edge at that last, but the fool w
