She looked at him and her own mouth twitched at the corners. It was like Tor to answer her as if she were a real part of the court, even a member of the official deliberations, instead of an interruption and a disturbance. Tor might even have let her go with them; he wasn’t old enough yet to care so much for his people’s good opinion as Arlbeth did; and furthermore, Tor was stubborn. But it was not Tor’s decision. She turned back to her father.
“When you go—may I come with you?” Her voice was little more than a squeak, and she wished she were near a wall or a door she could lean on, instead of in the great empty middle of the dining-hall, with her knees trying to fold up under her like an hour-old foal’s.
The silence went suddenly tight, and the men she faced went rigid: or Arlbeth did, and those behind him, for she kept her face resolutely away from Tor. She thought that she could not bear it if her one loyal friend forsook her too; and she had never tried to discover the extent of Tor’s stubbornness. Then the silence was broken by Perlith’s high-pitched laughter.
“Well, and what did you expect from letting her go as she would these last years? It’s all very well to have her occupied and out from underfoot, but you should have thought the price you paid to be rid of her might prove a little high. What did you expect when our honored first sola gives her lessons in swordplay and she tears around on that three-legged horse like a peasant boy from the Hills, with never a gainsay but a scold from that old shrew that serves as her maid? Might you not have thought of the reckoning to come? She needed slaps, not encouragement, years ago—she needs a few slaps now, I think. Perhaps it is not too late.”
“Enough.” Tor’s voice, a growl.
Her legs were trembling now so badly that she had to move her feet, shuffle in her place, to keep the joints locked to hold her up. She felt the blood mounting to her face at Perlith’s words, but she would not let him drive her away without an answer. “Father?”
“Father,” mimicked Perlith. “It’s true a king’s daughter might be of some use in facing what the North has sent us; a king’s daughter who had true royal blood in her veins ....”
Arlbeth, in a very unkinglike manner, reached out and grabbed Tor before anyone found out what the first sola’s sudden move in Perlith’s direction might result in. “Perlith, you betray the honor of the second sola’s place in speaking thus.”
Tor said in a strangled voice, “He will apologize, or I’ll give him a lesson in swordplay he will not like at all.”
“Tor, don’t be a—” she began, outraged, but the king’s voice cut across hers. “Perlith, there is justice in the first sola’s demand.”
There was a long pause while she hated everyone impartially: Tor for behaving like a farmer’s son whose pet chicken has just been insulted; her father, for being so immovably kingly; and Perlith for being Perlith. This was even worse than she had anticipated; at this point she would be grateful just for escape, but it was too late.
Perlith said at last, “I apologize, Aerin-sol. For speaking the truth,” he added venomously, and turned on his heel and strode across the hall. At the doorway he paused and turned to shout back at them: “Go slay a dragon, lady! Lady Aerin, Dragon-Killer!”
The silence resettled itself about them, and she could no longer even raise her eyes to her father’s face.
“Aerin—” Arlbeth began.
The gentleness of his voice told her all she needed to know, and she turned away and walked toward the other end of the hall, opposite the door which Perlith had taken. She was conscious of the length of the way she had to take because Perlith had taken the shorter way, and she hated him all the more for it; she was conscious of all the eyes on her, and conscious of the fact that her legs still trembled, and that the line she walked was not a straight one. Her father did not call her back. Neither did Tor. As she reached the doorway at last, Perlith’s words still rang in her ears: “A king’s daughter who had true royal blood in her veins ... Lady Aerin, Dragon-Killer.” It was as though his words were hunting dogs who tracked her and nipped at her heels.
Chapter 2
HER HEAD ACHED. The scene was still so vividly before her that the door of her bedroom was half open before she heard it. She spun round, but it was only Teka, bearing a tray; Teka glanced once at her scowling face and averted her eyes. She was probably first chosen for my maid for her skill at averting her eyes, Aerin thought sourly; but then she noticed the tray, and the smell of the steam that rose from it, and the worried mark between Teka’s eyebrows. Her own face softened.
“You can’t not eat,” Teka said.
“I hadn’t thought about it,” Aerin replied, realizing this was true.
“You shouldn’t sulk,” Teka then said, “and forget about eating.” She looked sharply at her young charge, and the worried mark deepened.
“Sulking,” said Aerin stiffly.
Teka sighed. “Hiding. Brooding. Whatever you like. It’s not good for you.”
“Or for you,” Aerin suggested.
A smile touched the corners of the worry. “Or for me.”
“I will try to sulk less if you will try to worry less.”
Teka set the tray down on a table and began lifting napkins off of plates. “Talat missed you today.”
“He told you so, of course.” Teka’s fear of anything larger than the smallest pony, and therefore the fact that she gave a very wide berth to the stables and pastures beyond them, was well known to Aerin. “I’ll go down after dark.” She turned back to the window. There were more comings and goings across the stretch of courtyard that her bedroom overlooked; she saw more messengers, and two men racing by on foot in the uniform of the king’s army, with the red divisional slash on their left forearms which meant they were members of the supply corps. Equipping the king’s company for its march west was proceeding at a pace presently headlong and increasing toward panicky. Under normal circumstances Aerin saw no one from her bedroom window but the occasional idling courtier.
Something on the tray rattled abruptly, and there was a sigh. “Aerin—”
“Whatever you’re going to say I’ve thought of already,” Aerin said without turning around.
Silence. Aerin finally looked round at Teka, standing with head and shoulders bowed, staring at the tray. The plates were heavy earthenware, handsome and elegant, but easily replaced if Aerin managed to break one, as she often did; and she had not the small Gift to mend them. She stared at the plates. Tor had mended her breakages when she was a baby, but she was too proud to ask now she was far past the age when she should have been able to fit the bits together, glower at them with the curious royal Gifted look, and have them grow whole again. It did not now help her peace of mind or her temper either that she had been an unusually large and awkward child who seemed able to break things simply by being in the same room with them; as if fate, having denied her something that should have been her birthright, wanted her never to forget it. Aerin was not a particularly clumsy young woman, but she was by now so convinced of her lack of coordination that she still broke things occasionally out of sheer dread.