With only the slightest frown, Seliora opened the envelope, breaking the seal, and extracting the heavy card.
“We’re invited as guests of the High Councilor? That’s only three weeks away! I don’t have anything to wear…”
I managed not to choke openly. My darling wife had a dozen outfits that would out-dazzle any that I’d seen at previous balls.
“Why this year?” asked Seliora. “
“Master Dichartyn handed me the invitation when I met with him to-night, and I asked him the same thing. He only said that both High Councilor Suyrien and he wanted us both there. Even when I pressed him, he wouldn’t say.”
“So now I’m supposed to help the Collegium?” Her words were tart.
“You have all along,” I pointed out.
“Do you think he wanted us to have the Ball invitation on the same day as Iryela’s invitation…or at least no later than that? But how would he know? Oh…he got the invitation from Suyrien, and the Councilor must have known what his sons were doing.”
“He doesn’t do much without a purpose. It could be that he didn’t want to give it to us tomorrow at his house.”
“You don’t really think that, do you?”
“No,” I admitted.
“Mother will be pleased. Especially if I don’t tell her it’s to help the Collegium.”
“I suspect your grandmother will be even more so. She won’t say anything, though.”
“No…she won’t.”
A small bell chimed, Klysia’s way of reminding us that dinner was ready, and I’d still have to talk to Seliora about what had upset her…after Diestrya was in bed.
5
It wasn’t until more than two glasses later, after dinner and getting Diestrya to bed, before Seliora and I sat down in the family parlor, in front of the old iron stove with ornate castings, whose heat was slowly fading, if still radiating warmth into the room. We hadn’t lit any lamps, but we could still see each other by the light oozing from the mica lenses at the top of the stove.
“What were you so upset about when you left your family’s place this afternoon?” I asked.
“Odelia.”
“You two usually get along.” In fact, I’d never heard of a time when they didn’t. They’d been as close as sisters the whole time I’d known Seliora.
“It’s about Haerasyn.”
“Kolasyn’s younger brother, the problem one? What’s he done now?”
“He’s an elver. Not too serious, but…Odelia heard about some of the elveweed being poisoned. She wanted to know why you couldn’t stop the smuggling and the smoking. I told her that you were fortunate to be able to find out about it, and that she or Kolasyn should tell Haerasyn.”
“And?”
“She said that Haerasyn didn’t listen to his brother or to his brother’s family, especially not to Pharsis tied up with imagers.”
“That’s Haerasyn’s problem, not Odelia’s or Kolasyn’s.”
“Haerasyn’s never been…very practical.”
I wondered if that was because everyone had sheltered him, because he could be so charming, the way my own brother had been.
“Haerasyn can be very sweet, like Kolasyn. Odelia likes Haerasyn, and so does Kolasyn. They’re worried, and they can’t do anything. They think you can.” Seliora squeezed my hand, but her eyes were sad.
“So I’m supposed to halt a trade no one has ever been able to stop because suddenly her husband’s brother might lose his life because he’s addicted to elveweed…and it’s your fault if I don’t?”
“That’s about it. She didn’t say it. Not that way. She said that it was interesting what you could and couldn’t do.”
“Oh…I can survive bullets and explosions, even if they break my ribs and nearly kill me, and I’ve worked with three taudischefs for over six years so that I finally know a few things before they get worse, but I’m supposed to stop a trade in a weed that people have been smoking for hundreds of years all by myself…when they’re the ones choosing to smoke it?”
“I agree with you, dearest,” Seliora said gently, “but…”
“Odelia doesn’t feel that way, and she’s your cousin, and she’s looking at you as if it’s all your fault because your husband won’t do something to save poor addicted Haerasyn. No wonder you were upset.” I paused. “What does your mother think?”
“She agrees. You know how practical she is. She just tells me to ignore Odelia about the whole thing, but Odelia kept bringing it up yesterday and today, every chance she got.”
“Have they found out anything about the fresher elveweed?”
“No. That will take a few days.” Seliora yawned. “You’re thinking that someone is sending some of the poisoned weed just to the dealers supplying Third District?”
“I couldn’t say. It’s too fresh to have come from Caenen or Otelyrn, and I don’t see how anyone could grow enough under glass or in the Sud Swamp to supply much of Solidar.”
“But why would anyone poison just some of the weed? No one important smokes it, and no one with any factoring or holder connections makes golds from it.”
“Not that we know.”
“Do you really think…?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know enough. It might not mean anything at all, but I’d still like to find out.”
“What about the Ferrans?”
“They’ll attack, sooner or later. They think that the Jariolans are weak and corrupt.”
“Are they?” Seliora yawned again.
“They’re corrupt. That doesn’t mean they’re weak.” I took her hands and stood. “You’ve had a long day, and you’re about to fall asleep.”
“I know…but I like the quiet times, talking to you. We don’t have that many of them these days.”
That was all too true, between my schedule and Diestrya.
Even so, we climbed the stairs hand-in-hand, and then got ready for bed. Once we were in Seliora’s bed, holding each other-and more-helped alleviate my feeling that the relative stability and comfort we’d enjoyed for the past few years was about to vanish…and not because of anything that either of us had done.
In the end, of course, we kissed and parted, and I returned to my small sleeping room and cold sheets… with the hope that my sleep would be pleasant, or at least dreamless.
6
Fog had settled around Imagisle, and I was walking southward through the dank and thick gray mist from the house toward the quadrangle to meet with Maitre Poincaryt and Master Dichartyn. I could barely see a yard or two in front of me, and I didn’t know what they wanted.
Somewhere overhead in the distance, thunder rumbled, then died away.
Ahead, I saw a figure in a cloak. The cloak could have been either dark gray or black, but whoever stood there on the stone walkway did not move as I neared.
