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Authors: Sharon Shinn

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BOOK: Fortune and Fate (Twelve Houses)

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During this speech, he had come rather more leisurely to his feet. “Please don’t go,” he said, as she turned for the door. “I’m willing to take in your charges on one condition.”

She’d taken two strides toward the exit, and she wanted to keep going. But even more she wanted to find a secure place for Bryce and Ginny. So she halted and swung around to face him, making no effort to hide her scowl. “What condition?”

“You come to work at Fortune as well.”

Her expression darkened. “I told you I don’t need a job.”

“Maybe not, but obviously I have a job that needs you,” he said. “My guard is a shambles and I fired the captain as soon as I brought Karryn back. I’ve been making inquiries into bringing more soldiers into the House, but I haven’t a clue how to choose them or train them. You’re right—Karryn’s in as much danger today as she was two weeks ago, and
I
clearly don’t know how to protect her. You do. Take the post, hire who you like, make the House safe. I’ll take in your orphans. I think it’s a good deal.”

Her mind was in such a whirl she was almost trembling. She hadn’t stayed in one place more than a few weeks since she’d left Ghosenhall, and the very thought filled her with both longing and dread. Even if she accepted his offer, would she be able to honor it? Would her restlessness drive her out into the night before she’d fulfilled her contract?

“How long?” she asked stiffly.

“How long would it take to get my House guard in shape?”

“Six months at least.”

“Then will you stay a year?”

“No!” The word jerked out of her.

He tilted his head again. “How long would you stay?”

She took a shallow breath. Her chest hurt too badly to allow a deep one. She could not possibly put herself in a position where people were counting on her to keep them alive. “I’m not—It’s best not to rely on me,” she said, almost panting the words.

He had to see her agitation, but he seemed intrigued, not alarmed. “And would your young reader agree with that assessment?” he asked. “Or would he urge me to hire you at any price?”

She glared at him and did not answer.

At that moment, there was a quiet knock on the door and a servant entered bearing a tray. “Ah. Our refreshments. Thank you very much,” Jasper Paladar said.

The interruption left her confused, with emotions still at a high pitch, but some of her panic lessened as the servant arranged the tray and Jasper Paladar motioned her back to her seat. Once the footman exited, Wen perched back on the edge of her chair.

“You don’t know me,” she began.

“I don’t,” he said, handing her a fragile plate filled with a large slice of buttery cake. The dainty china looked perfectly reasonable in his elegant long-fingered hands, and perfectly ridiculous in her hardened stubby ones. “But I, too, am trying to match a skill with a need. You did not go to all the trouble of saving Karryn just to see her endangered again. I do not know how to protect her. You do. You are obviously uncomfortable at the thought of committing yourself to any long-term enterprise, and clearly not about to tell me why. So I ask again, how long would you stay? Take a bite and think about it.”

Not sure she’d be able to choke down a mouthful, she obeyed. Oh, now, that
was
a most excellent taste—rich and sweet, flavored with some spice that didn’t seem to have made its way to Ghosenhall. She had a second bite. “I don’t want to make a promise I can’t keep,” she said at last.

He seemed unconcerned. “I’m sure you wouldn’t. How long? Three months?”

“No.”

“One month?”

“Maybe,” she said reluctantly.

He considered her. “Would you agree to a month and then, at the end of that time, consider extending your contract? If the work was not done? Would that make you feel less like you were choking, to leave the terms so open-ended?”

How could he know what it felt like? She would have stared openmouthed, except she was chewing another forkful of cake. “I don’t know,” she said at last.

“But the month you will agree to?”

It was a long time before she answered. “The month I will agree to.” She gave him a sharp look. “But you have to keep Bryce and Ginny even after I go.”

He was smiling broadly. “Of course. They are only hostages to your acceptance, not your continued employment.” He laid aside his plate and held out his hand. “Welcome to Fortune.”

Chapter 7

SENNETH DIDN’T BOTHER KNOCKING ON THE DOOR OF
Cammon’s study before she strolled into the room. He had requested her attendance, and of course he knew she was on the way—he knew the exact location of his closest friends at every moment of the day, so it was impossible to come upon him by surprise. That had led some of them to rather uncivil behavior, she feared. She and Kirra, at least, would just walk in on him without ceremony, and Justin would storm into the room as if planning to throw Cammon out the window. Donnal would enter silently, sometimes shaped as the smallest of insects, and wait for Cammon to address him first. Of all of them, in fact, only Tayse showed Cammon any deference, knocking on doors and waiting to be acknowledged. But a lifetime of serving royalty had made it impossible for Tayse to be rude to anyone near the throne.

Cammon had his back to her when she entered, and he was staring out the floor-to-ceiling window that was one of the many charms of this small study. It had been Baryn’s favorite room, when he was alive, and its rich colors and plush decor still reflected the old king’s taste. Amalie had been too comfortable in her own pink-and-gilt study to relocate once she inherited the crown, so Cammon had taken this room as his own. Not that you could find him there very often. He was a wanderer, just as likely to be on the streets of Ghosenhall or down at the training yard watching the Riders work out as he was to be inside the walls of the palace itself.

“You wanted to see me, liege?” Senneth asked, trying to make her voice obsequious.

The question made him turn around, a scowl on his face. “Don’t call me that.”

She was wearing trousers, of course, so she couldn’t manufacture a curtsey, but she gave him a very deep bow, just to annoy him. “But you’re my king.”

“I am not! I’m the royal consort.”

She stayed in a subservient posture. “The common people all call you King Cammon. It’s very mellifluous.”

“Well, the marlords and the serlords have too much respect for titles to do anything so foolish. I
order
you to stop calling me that.”

At that she couldn’t restrain her laughter anymore, and she straightened up and lounged against the door. “You’re quick enough to claim the privileges of royalty when you want something! You
order
me!”

He gave her his familiar boyish grin. Two years of being royal consort to Queen Amalie had changed Cammon in indefinable ways, but unless he worked very, very hard at it, he still looked like a vagabond two days off a tramp ship in some backwater harbor town. Unless his valet had styled it just ten minutes previously, his nondescript brown hair still made a rather shaggy halo around his head, and his clothes tended to magically wrinkle within an hour of being donned. His eyes had an old and hard-won wisdom to them—but they always had, Senneth reflected. Cammon had probably been born knowing things none of the rest of them would ever learn.

“Yes, I order you to treat me casually. Now sit down and tell me anything interesting that’s happened.”

She draped herself across one of the chairs set against the wall and he collapsed in another one nearby. “You
know
everything interesting that’s happened,” she said. “You know it before I do. There’s no point in having a conversation with you.”

He gave her a reproving look. “I know what’s happening with all of
you
,” he said. “But I can’t keep track of
everybody
.”

“Well, let’s see. I heard from my brother Kiernan, and all’s well in Brassenthwaite. My brother Will wrote from Danalustrous—I assume you know he and Casserah are expecting a baby?”

He nodded. “Kirra told me. Well—” He shrugged and then he laughed.

“Well, Kirra was excited to learn she’d be an aunt, and you could feel that even though she’s two hundred miles away, and so you knew it,” Senneth filled in. “See? I don’t have to tell you anything.”

He tried to assume an inquiring look. “Are the Riders back? Kelti and the others?”

“You know they are! You met with them yesterday!”

“Amalie met with them. I didn’t see them. What was their news?”

Senneth eyed him, leaned back in her chair, and didn’t answer.

He failed to keep a smile from his face. “All right, I wanted to talk to you because of the information the Riders brought back from the southern Houses.”

She sat up a little straighter. “At last. My king is honest with me.”

“I’m
not
the king!”

She waved a hand, grinning. “You’re too easy. What about their report intrigued you?”

“Did you talk to them?”

“Tayse did. He said they reported all was mostly well from Gisseltess to Fortunalt, except that there still seemed to be a high number of outlaws. Travelers complain that it’s not safe to journey in small parties on minor roads. His guess was that a lot of these bandits are soldiers from the war who’ve fallen on hard times.”

“That was Amalie’s opinion, too.”

She tilted her head to one side. “And so? What? You want to expand the amnesty programs?”

Cammon frowned and tapped his fingers against his thigh. “I wonder if there’s more to it than that,” he said. “More reasons for unrest in the southern Houses.”

Now he really had her attention. “You think there’s instability? Like there was two years ago? Mutiny?”

His face creased; he appeared to be having trouble articulating vague impressions. “I’m not sure. I don’t have a sense that anyone is plotting against the throne, but—I keep thinking it would be worthwhile to make a visit. Get a closer look.”

“I thought that’s what you just sent the Riders to do.”

“I wouldn’t want to just send Riders this time.”

BOOK: Fortune and Fate (Twelve Houses)

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