he didn’t have a great deal of experience with young women. Come to that, he didn’t have a great deal of experience with women in general.
:And whatever suitors are hauled in will probably be stone-deaf and ninety at worst,: Kantor sighed. :Poor Selenay! It will be a shabby lot of dancing partners she’ll be getting.:
Another aspect that hadn’t occurred to him. With things so subdued at Midwinter, she hadn’t seemed to want any dancing. The Selenay he remembered had loved dancing. Well, maybe he could do something about that.
:I think at an occasion like an Ice Festival, she ought to dance every other dance with a Herald, don’t you?: he asked Kantor. :In fact, isn’t there some sort of mandate about that, somewhere? So that no highborn can claim two dances with her in an evening?:
:If there is, Myste can find it,: Kantor replied, with a chuckle. :And if there isn’t—:
:Myste can still find it,: he replied, thinking with real pleasure of how Myste and Selenay together had foiled the entire Council plan to get her safely betrothed to someone of their choice. It had been a thing of beauty, according to Myste. He was just glad that he had kept himself out of it, so that when he’d been asked, he’d been able to truthfully disclaim any knowledge of it all.
Not that he’d wanted to be anywhere near the room at the time the entire thing unfolded. Whenever certain members of the Council were thwarted, they always looked at the Karsite as the source of their troubles. Funny. They suspected his hand behind even this without his being anywhere near the Council Chamber that day; they’d entirely overlooked Myste. :I’m not entirely certain about all those cross- cousin links Myste was finding. Surely the highborn of Valdemar aren’t that closely inbred.:
:Chosen! You don’t think Herald Myste would concoct information, do you?: Kantor asked, pretending to be aghast at the thought.
:You’re forgetting she was a clerk before she was a Herald,: he replied. :They spend a quarter of their lives writing things down, a quarter finding what other people have written down, a quarter in hiding what was written down, and a quarter in making sure if it should have been written down and wasn’t, it is now.:
Kantor had no real reply for that, but Alberich didn’t really expect one. And no, in the case of something important, he really did not think that Myste would stoop to forgery. But in the case of something like this, where nothing was hanging on a little judicious creativity but Selenay’s all-too-rare pleasure, Myste could and would unbend her rigid ethics in order to ensure that the “tradition” existed, even if it hadn’t been a tradition until a few moments ago when he’d thought of it.
Apparently Kantor agreed. :Consider it a tradition that’s been in place for centuries. You know, Myste is very good at aging documents.:
Well, she had to be; she had to know how to forge them in order to detect forgeries. And it wasn’t as if she’d be doing anything really unethical, like forging the Great Royal Seal. She could just insert it in a list of protocol from the last Ice Festival, hand it to the Seneschal as the guide to how he should conduct the feast at the end, and no one would be the wiser. And Selenay would get dancing partners that she could relax with. In fact, he’d handpick them. Or rather, he’d hand-pick them after consulting with someone who knew which Heralds were adequate dancers.
Which reminded him of something else.
:Don’t the wretches generally sneak off to some private, Heralds-only party as soon as they can when there is an enormous fete like this one?: he demanded, recalling that they had done just such a thing at Selenay’s Coronation.
:Um—: Kantor began, with overtones of guilt.
:Well, not this time, and that is an order, and have Talamir enforce it,: he said firmly. :Not until Selenay is ready to leave. By Vkandis’ Crown, if she doesn’t get to enjoy most of this affair, it’ll be no fault of mine, and it won’t be for lack of good company, friends among the rest, as well as dancing partners!:
:Yes, sir!: Kantor replied, for once, with no hint of mockery or irony whatsoever in his mind-voice.
Hmph. He settled into his book with a feeling of satisfaction, as Kantor and the other Companions—and whatever Heralds would be involved in the plot—coordinated themselves. Myste, Talamir, the Seneschal’s Herald, presumably. Those here at the Collegium who were young enough to make decent conversation with her, good dancers, or both—
—and he wouldn’t have to worry about a Herald as a risk to her safety either. Not that it was likely that anyone would try anything in so great a throng, but—
Grand, something else to worry about.
