The Keeper of the Mist (15 page)

“Get out!” snapped Mem, snatching at Linnet's arm and shaking her. “How dare you offend the Lady with your brazen conduct, girl?” Domeric put his massive arm in between them and shoved Mem back, and the woman turned on him, sharp and venomous as a snake. “And you, with your—your
ways
! You should be
ashamed
!”

“Enough,” said the Timekeeper, in his flat, dry tone, and the woman's voice cut off abruptly. She blinked at him, her mouth opening and closing. Then she stopped, drawing herself up, plainly wanting to snap at him, too, but not quite daring.

Keri looked at Tassel. Her friend had a hand over her mouth, but Keri suspected she was repressing hilarity rather than shock.

Finding her own voice at last, Keri turned back to Mem and Linnet and Domeric. She said firmly, “You're dismissed, Mem. You may take your things and your quarter's pay and go wherever you like, but you are no longer welcome in this House.”

Mem gaped at her. “Ridiculous! You can't do that. It isn't right. I've been head of staff for the House for twenty-two years! Besides, there are proper ways to do things!”

Domeric had flushed again, but now he laughed, which in his heavy voice came out almost like a growl. “Oh, the
proper
ways to do things! Does that include offending me as well as Linnet?”

And Cort said testily, “Of course the Lady can assign staff as she likes, but if we can get back to things that matter?”

Keri gave them both a look to indicate she didn't need help. She said to Mem, who was still sputtering with furious protests, “Just what did you know about my father interfering with the border, trading grain and gems with Tor Carron and Eschalion?” Then she nodded grimly at the older woman's sudden silence. Domeric, she was glad to observe, was staring at her openmouthed; she could see
he
hadn't known.

She said to Mem, “I thought so. And you think I'd let you stay in this House? I'm going to dismiss Tamman, too. Anyone would be better. Anyone
will
be better, as long as they didn't go along with that!” She looked at Linnet. “Who can keep things running smoothly in the meantime?”

Linnet stared back at her, eyes wide with surprise. But she said after a moment, “I don't…I'm not…Well, Lady, Nevia can certainly set the staff schedules and so forth. I mean, everyone knows what to do, really. Although—” She hesitated, glancing at Tassel. “I think it's your Bookkeeper who actually assigns household staff, Lady.”

“I do?” Tassel said. She looked around, as though she half expected to turn and pick up a list of names that hadn't been there a moment before. She gave Keri a baffled little shrug. “I can do that, I guess. I do know most of the staff, at least to speak to.”

“Good,” said Keri. “Then you can sort it out when you—when you get a moment.” She supposed she would have to hope that her friend would actually know enough about everyone who worked in the House to pick the right kind of people and make sure the household wouldn't fall apart. Well, she was still learning how to be a proper Lady, and Tassel was still learning how to be a proper Bookkeeper, and Cort a proper Doorkeeper. She supposed a new head of staff and a new castellan would fit right in. They would all just figure it out together.

“But—” Mem sputtered. “But—”

“Good riddance,” said Cort, making a dismissive gesture as though to add,
Can we move on to important things now?

“But—” said Mem again.

“I should exile you right out of Nimmira!” Keri shouted at her, suddenly toweringly furious. “You
knew
what my father was doing and you
let him get away with it
! How
dare
you stand there and tell me
I'm
not proper? How
dare
you?”

Linnet stepped back, close to Domeric, when Keri started shouting, her eyes going wide with astonishment and alarm. Domeric had closed his mouth and now looked positively thunderous, but neither he nor Linnet said a word.

“I'd leave Glassforge, if I were you,” Cort said to Mem, not nearly as impressed. He had seen Keri lose her temper before, when they had all been children.

And Tassel added, her tone pointedly kind, “I believe Woodridge is pleasant in the spring. No one would know you there.”

Mem stared from Cort to Tassel, as though this brutally reasonable advice made the fact of her dismissal seem real. She looked now like a different woman: no longer stiff and forbidding and authoritative, but suddenly old. She said bitterly, “
Brann
should have been Lord after his father. That's how it should have been. Everything would have been perfectly proper, if the succession had gone as it should—”

“Go
away,
Mem!” ordered Keri. “Domeric, stop hovering over Linnet, go find Tamman, and tell him he must see me at once. Go on!” she said impatiently when her brother hesitated.

“Yes, Lady,” Linnet answered for Domeric, in a firm tone. She caught Keri's brother by the hand and towed him out of the room, herding Mem, still inarticulately protesting, in front of her. Domeric cast one unsettled look back over his shoulder, but Linnet did not.

“Well done!” said Tassel. “After that, how hard can Osman the Younger be?”

Keri looked at her.

“What? Don't you agree? It's a relief to have that sour Mem gone anyway, isn't it? Would you like to practice your girlish charm? I'll be Osman Tor the Younger.” Tassel sank into a nearby chair, propped her elbow on the table, straightened her shoulders, tipped her chin down, lifted a hand to twiddle with an imaginary garnet cabochon earring, and leered at Keri in a surprisingly good imitation of the most annoying sort of young man. “Well, Lady, I didn't have the slightest idea that all that grain my people have been buying was part of a completely immoral smuggling operation, but if you would like to sell your Nimmira to Tor Carron, I am surely interested in buying! Come, lay all your troubles on my broad, masculine shoulders and I will buy you a pretty dress.”

Possibly because it was so silly after all the sudden revelations and confrontations, Keri found herself unable to suppress a completely undignified and inappropriate giggle. She put a hand over her mouth and rolled her eyes. The Timekeeper looked faintly nonplussed. Cort threw up his hands in disgust, snapped, “I'm going to check the border down where that wagon trail is—what's left of the border,” and strode out.

“Whatever Lord Osman knows or doesn't know, that's probably exactly what he'll say,” Keri told Tassel. “Or as near as makes no difference. I need to—well, I need to find out what he
does
know.”

“Yes,” Tassel said earnestly. “And promise him the sky and the stars, only, you know—”

“I know. Without making any actual promises.” Keri picked up one of the coppery ribbons that was meant for her hair later. She ran it through her fingers: fine and delicate and, when she tried to break it, unexpectedly tough. She was still angry. The stubborn ribbon wasn't helping. Tassel's nonsense was, but not enough.

The Timekeeper's silent, judgmental presence was making her self-conscious and nervous. Plus, every time she thought of what he'd done, what he'd told her and refused to tell her, she grew angrier.

“I need to think,” she said out loud, because that sounded better than
I need to calm down.
“I'm going to go find the kitchen. There must be one in this House somewhere.” She knew where it was, of course, the moment she thought about it: down and around to the north. She pretended she didn't know, saying again, even more firmly, “I'm going to find the kitchen, and I'm going to make a cake, and I don't want to hear any comments from
anyone.
”

And she turned on her heel and walked out, ignoring Tassel, who didn't look at all surprised, and the Timekeeper, who looked faintly startled and even more faintly relieved. No doubt it
was
a relief to him, to have gotten everything out in the open at last, now that it was too late for Keri to refuse the succession. How nice for him. In the next room, Keri stalked right past Linnet, who straightened up from neatening something or other and took a small step toward her, but then, catching a glimpse of Keri's expression, changed her mind and didn't follow after all.

“A cake,” she said out loud. “With a
pound
of butter and a
dozen
eggs and the
very best
flour.” She wouldn't think even once about the cost of the flour, and she would beat the butter and eggs to pale froth
herself
without letting the proper cook even
near
the bowl, and no one would dare say a
single word
because she was the Lady of Nimmira and she could make a cake if she wanted.

Keri did not actually dislike Osman Tor the Younger, she decided. It was strange to realize this. She thought she should hate him. He was dangerous. Tor Carron could swallow Nimmira in a single mouthful and hardly notice. Lord Osman would make that happen if he could: that was why he was here. But even though she knew all that perfectly well, she couldn't help liking him.

He rose to his feet and bowed when Keri came into the small, pretty dining chamber, the garnet cabochon swinging below his ear on its fine silver chain and intelligent curiosity glinting in his black eyes. He said, “Lady, you do me much honor,” with a formal little inclination of his head. His voice was pleasant—a smooth, light tenor—and he looked at Keri with an expression that managed somehow to be simultaneously predatory and charming. He seemed a lot more like one of Nimmira's narrow-faced tawny foxes than the bear that was the symbol of his people.

Keri wished she could blush and look shy. She suspected she mostly seemed just awkward and uneasy. But she offered the foreigner her hand and made herself smile. “I hope you do not think me too forward, Lord Osman, in suggesting this supper.”

“No, indeed,” murmured Lord Osman. “We shall be far more comfortable without the Wyvern, I am sure, as your people and mine must always be more comfortable when the Wyvern is far away.”

The look in his eyes was uncomfortably shrewd. Keri cleared her throat. “I have been so interested in making your acquaintance. I believe you did business for years with my father, to the gain of both our countries. Or perhaps that was your father?” She hesitated and then added, “I am afraid I am very ignorant, but as you will have gathered, no one expected the succession to come to me.”

“You are all that is gracious,” Lord Osman assured her. If he took this last comment as an offer to lay all of her worries on his broad, masculine shoulders, he was too polite to let this show in his voice or manner.

Keri smiled again and sat down. The back of the chair was carved into a filigree of grape leaves and seemed so delicate she was afraid it might break if she leaned against it. She sat upright and nodded permission for Lord Osman to resume his seat.

He said, “Your father did business with me, in fact, as these years my own father seldom stirs from his high castle in Tor Rampion, but entrusts all such ventures to me. However, I am sorry to say that I was never privileged to make Lord Dorric's acquaintance.”

“We have long been wary of our neighbors,” agreed Keri. “But I think the trade my father initiated between Tor Carron and Nimmira has shown that we may be friends.” She was not sure this sounded sincere, but Lord Osman smiled.

“Indeed. Indeed, it does. I was most fascinated to hear that your land had made itself visible at last. I confess I have been exceedingly curious. Intermittently so, to be sure. One cannot quite seem to hold the existence of your Nimmira in the mind once one has traveled even a short distance from the border. How intriguing a phenomenon! One wonders how your own people managed to travel so easily back and forth through the boundary. Or one supposes they did so without difficulty. A charm, perhaps? Some small magic of finding one's way?” He cocked an interested eyebrow at Keri.

Keri smiled, hoping she looked mysterious instead of baffled. She made a mental note to ask Cort and the Timekeeper just how her father's people
had
managed to get back and forth.

“A fascinating and useful magic, the mist that guards Nimmira's privacy,” said Lord Osman, apparently giving up on getting an easy answer to his curiosity and deciding to be more direct. “Mastering that kind of magic would certainly greatly benefit Tor Carron, if it could be utilized on a larger scale.”

“Oh!” said Keri. She had not expected him to admit his interest quite so openly.

He said gravely, “Of course the trade in grain and peaches and so on is very well, but Tor Carron would highly value any magic of illusion and misdirection and confusion we might learn. We have one or two protections against Aranaon Mirtaelior's sorcery, and of course Eschalion has now and again blunted its aggression on the mountains of our border. But the Wyvern King never gives way. He will not cease his efforts until all the land between the frozen seas of the north and the burning deserts of the south belong solely to him.”

Keri nodded. “Yes, of course, but I'm afraid I don't know precisely how our magic works. We…we belong to our magic, here in Nimmira, and not the other way around. We aren't sorcerers.”

“A matter for learned men, of course, not simple soldiers such as myself,” Lord Osman said smoothly. “Perhaps it is not possible for us to learn the use of such magic. But when the mist cleared, Lady, I knew I must at least try to ask.”

He leaned forward a little on that last, then blinked and sat back again, looking faintly embarrassed, as though he had said more than he intended. Lord Osman cared too much to entirely hide his feelings. That was when Keri decided she liked him. He cared for his land and his people, cared enough that the instant he had realized the boundary mist had faded, he had crossed the border himself with only a handful of men, though he had never met Lord Dorric and did not know anything of Nimmira except it had good orchards and powerful magic. It had not occurred to her until that moment that Lord Osman had been brave to venture across the boundary.

She wondered if he had yet realized that Nimmira did not possess any soldiers at all.

She wondered what he would think or say or do once he realized that.

Lowering her eyes modestly, she said softly, “Future events are hidden in time, but I will confess that Tor Carron seems a more natural ally for Nimmira than Eschalion.”

There, and she hoped that sounded like sympathy and possibly an offer.

There was a soft clap at the door, and girls began to bring in dishes: early peas and tiny onions cooked in cream, little carrots glazed with sugar, dandelion greens tossed with vinegar and crisp bacon, soft bread with butter and honey, sorrel soup, chicken in pastry, lamb. There was wine, too: a light, crisp straw-colored wine that Keri had never tasted before, good wines being too extravagant for her mother and then even further out of reach after her mother's death.

Keri had been in the kitchens during much of the meal preparation, but the sheer extravagance still took her by surprise. She pretended she was used to such abundance. Lord Osman did not seem surprised. He was the next thing to a prince, of course, and he'd grown up knowing he was important; no doubt he was accustomed to elaborate meals.

Even he looked twice at the cake when the girls carried it in, though. Despite everything, Keri was immoderately pleased about that. She hadn't quite used a whole dozen eggs, but it was still a beautiful cake: five layers fragrant with butter and toasted ground almonds, with apricot cream between the layers and a delicate lacework of caramelized sugar decorating the top.

“Lovely!” Lord Osman told her. “My compliments to your pastry chef.”

Keri blushed. “I'm sure you have wonderful pastries in Tor Carron. Tell me more about your home. Is it true your father lives in a castle built into a mountain?”

“Well, just the two or three lowest levels are actually within the mountain, and you understand, the castle was only built like that because there was so little level ground on which to build….”

It was actually fascinating. Keri asked questions and listened to Lord Osman's descriptions and tried to imagine a huge stone castle carved into the stark mountains.

“I'm told there are a hundred rooms, or perhaps two hundred,” Lord Osman said, smiling. “My nurse used to frighten me with tales of forgotten dungeons in the dark beneath the mountain, where all the walls were made of crystal and iron and where you'd find the bones of little boys who explored a bit too far and lost their way. One can see the point of such stories, of course.”

“Of course,” agreed Keri. “So you never explored?”

“I made very sure I never got lost. And of course I made sure to carry supplies. Such as this lovely cake. May I cut you another slice? No? Perhaps you will not mind if I reveal my gluttonous nature? I am surprised that your climate allows you to grow almonds. Only in the far south is Tor Carron warm enough for such delicacies.”

Keri found herself blushing and didn't know whether it was at the compliment to her cake or to her country. “In some years, the harvest is small,” she admitted. “But, yes, almonds and apricots and peaches do well here in the lowlands.”

“Your land is so…generous. It seems made for orchards. For summer and the scent of peaches. Here, one can't quite imagine secret dungeons or lightless caverns of crystal and iron.”

“We do have mountains. The town of Woodridge lies in the hills, and Ironforge in the mountains near…our other border.”

“But I think your country's inherent nature is much gentler than mine.”

“Yes,” admitted Keri. She knew the mountains around Woodridge were not bare stone. They were forested. Pine and birch and maple and, lower down, beech and oak. And below the forest were pasturelands where cattle grazed. When she closed her eyes, she almost thought she could smell the pine needles and the damp loam and the sunlight on the standing hay.

She opened her eyes again. “Yes,” she repeated. “Tor Carron sounds very different.”

“Very different, and yet surely we are natural allies in the face of the Wyvern.” Lord Osman turned to her with a gallant little bow and went on smoothly, “Lady Kerianna, as you say, your land has long protected itself against the Wyvern through sorcery—a remarkable magic of secrecy that persuades all those outside your land to look past your beautiful country. I have ventured to hope such magic might encompass other lands—might even spread to encompass the whole of Tor Carron, so that the Wyvern's eye looks past our mountains and perceives only the distant sea. It would have to be a great magic, I know.”

This was all so flowery and elaborate. “Yes?” Keri said warily. She didn't dare explain about Lupe Ailenn and Summer Timonan and how the border of Nimmira had first been drawn in blood as well as magic. The moment Lord Osman heard that story, he would know exactly how impossible it would be to try to protect the much larger Tor Carron that way.

“Of course, I am aware such magic must be difficult and perhaps dangerous,” Lord Osman said, possibly reading something of this in Keri's face, despite her attempts to look graciously interested rather than nervous. He went on, “Yet, if we could establish a clear alliance between our two peoples, your Nimmira might benefit as well.” He paused, took a breath, turned to meet Keri's eyes, and went on in his most formal tone, “For example, Lady Kerianna, if you and I were to be handfasted, no one could doubt your commitment to our alliance. Not even my father. It's true he might not precisely expect any such, ah, happy but abrupt event. But I am quite certain he could be brought to understand the advantages—”

Keri held up her hands in protest. “This is very sudden,” she said weakly. Osman Tor the Younger seemed to think this was
his
plan; he'd taken it right out of Keri's hands and moved two steps ahead when she'd just meant to take half a step, and everything was happening much too fast. She didn't know what to do. Though the part about looking young and vulnerable, that part was undoubtedly working beautifully. She wasn't so sure now that had been a good idea at all.

Lord Osman reached across the table to capture one of her hands in both of his. His hands were strong and warm, and though Keri couldn't quite keep from flinching, she couldn't actually jerk away without embarrassing them both. She sat still in her chair, unable to move. Lord Osman's garnet cabochon earring swaying below his ear like the pendulum of a clock, ticking its way into the future. It caught Keri's attention. She found herself watching its gentle motion.

Lord Osman said in a swift, urgent tone, “You and I are natural allies, Lady Kerianna. There is no chance of peaceful relations between your people and Eschalion; never think it! The Wyvern King has not sent his sorcerer to Nimmira to admire it and go away again! Eroniel Kaskarian has come as the eyes of his king, and he will go back to Aranaon Mirtaelior and tell him yours is a graceful, pretty land, a land well worth the small trouble required to conquer it, and then no matter how swiftly you raise up your boundary magic, the Wyvern King will make certain he does not forget again! You must ally your land with Tor Carron, and there is no better proof of your intention—or ours, of course—than a handfasting agreement. You must see that. Tell me you see that.”