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had little etiquette. Her face was as expressive as her
voice, and she obviously said what she thought.
    Rhis tried to think of another subject,
something to make the girl smile again, but Taniva turned her head,
a quick, wary movement; a moment later Rhis registered the approach
of footsteps. Taniva’s face cleared, and she even smiled again, a
slashing, flashing smile that made her look very handsome to Rhis’s
eyes. “Ah! It is the little scribe, who knows my land so well.”
    Rhis whirled around, delighted to see
Dandiar, one of whose brows arched just slightly at the word
‘little.’ Taniva and he were the same height, but it was obvious
the princess was used to very tall men.
    “I came to tell you that everyone is moving
to the dining room.” The scribe pointed with his chin over his
shoulder.
    Taniva hesitated, her dark gaze going from
Rhis to the door, and Rhis waved. “Come sit with us. Well, with me.
Usually I sit with Shera, my cousin. She likes music, as I do.”
    “Gensam.” Taniva gave an abrupt nod. “More
mountains. You ride in your mountains? No pony-games, no?”
    Dandiar said, “Nym has no highlands. It’s all
either up or down. Gems, that they’ve got. And some infamous old
mines, sites of some agreeably bloody wars, if you like that kind
of thing.”
    Taniva grinned fiercely.
    Rhis realized that the scribe and the moody
princess had established a good understanding, and she spoke on
impulse. “Have you duties to attend to?”
    Dandiar’s face was suddenly blank, his voice
very polite. “You are inviting me to go find some?”
    Rhis felt her neck go hot. “No! Opposite! I
was hoping, well, that you might want to sit with us. You know all
about our kingdoms, and you talk so easily with—uh, others—” She
realized she was rambling awfully, and thought with an inward wince
of Elda’s disapproval at her utter lack of grace and poise. Now not
just her face burned, but her ears and neck. Ugh!
    But Dandiar’s quick smile, his swift gesture
toward the door, somehow made it all right. He obviously
understood, and Rhis thought gratefully that she knew the reason
why the handsome Prince Lios had made him his personal scribe.
    The three followed the crowd into the dining
room as outside rain drummed hard against the windows. They sat on
the periphery of the crowd, near the windows, to which Taniva’s
gaze more than once strayed. But once Shera and another girl, whom
she introduced as Carithe, had joined them, the talk got more
lively as they described parties in the past that the weather had
made into total disasters.
    Everyone had something to contribute, even
Taniva, who uttered her short, breathy chuckle as she talked about
a horse race once that ended up with everyone mired in the mud.
Dandiar described a learning picnic organized by the royal tutor
for the prince, his cousins, and some visiting boys that ended up
with them chasing all their wind-whipped papers all the way across
a garden into the king’s prize prickly shrubs. The resulting howls
could be heard in the Royal Chambers, where a visiting ambassador
thought he was hearing the torture of prisoners, and almost caused
an international incident.
    Taniva snickered. “But then, these princes.
They did not chase. You scribes did the work. And the
yellings.”
    Dandiar lifted his hands. “What can I say?
The princes did get plenty of laughs out of it. So we earned our
pay that day. We were useful and entertaining.”
    Intermittently during the talk and laughter
Rhis was aware of some exchanged looks between Carithe and Shera,
their eyes crinkling, their mouths striving for somberness. It
seemed the two girls had some secret together.
    Halvic appeared, friendly as always, with two
or three other guests in tow—all new arrivals. When Rhis saw shy
smiles and averted eyes, and remembered how she’d felt on her
arrival—and at the end of the race that morning—she did her best to
welcome the newcomers, and learn their names.
    As the