Read Online Arrows of the Sun by Judith Tarr - Free Book Online Page B

held fast. This was danger. Not for herself, she never feared
that, but for Estarion.
    She looked harmless enough, an old wanderer woman taking the
emperor’s charity. He was free with it, as Vanyi well knew. A priestess on
Journey had come once to his city, with nothing to distinguish her from any of
a hundred like her, except a gift of magery, and that was hardly uncommon in
that city of mages and priests. But he had seen her, and he had singled her
out. He had chosen her for his beloved.
    No threat of that here. This woman was long past any such
thing. And if she was not, she would not want a youth as callow as Estarion.
    The glint of her eye belied that. But she could not know
what Vanyi was thinking. There was no power in her. Vanyi had a gift for such
things. She knew.
    o0o
    “Who is that woman? Where did you find her?”
    Estarion was easy to entrap. Vanyi simply followed him into
his tent when that interminable feast was over, evicted his squire with a
well-placed glare, and set herself to do the squire’s duties.
    Estarion made no effort to resist her, but neither did he
answer her. He said, “I hope my mother doesn’t take it into her head to try the
same thing. Seeing Lord Peridan settled for the night won’t keep her occupied
long.”
    Vanyi shook his hair out of its plait and reached for the
comb. He sighed under her hands. “So,” she said, “before her majesty comes to
take her own piece of your hide: Who is that woman?”
    “A wanderer,” he said. “She tells stories. She caught the
fish I fed to his lordship. She says she was in Suvilien before she came down
to the river and found me.”
    “His lordship didn’t act as if he’d seen her before.”
    “His lordship doesn’t see anything beyond his next meal. How
did such a glutton ever get hold of a castle as vital as Suvilien?”
    “Most likely he inherited it. Why not ask Iburan? He’ll know.
And he’ll be here on your mother’s heels, you can be sure of it.”
    “Not if I can help it.” He turned on the stool and clasped
his arms about her. “Will you help me?”
    She studied him. The new beard aged him, made him seem more
a man, but from so close she could see the shape of the face beneath it, and
that was still in great part a boy’s.
    “You trust too easily,” she said. “What if the woman is an
assassin? Remember the Exile who nearly destroyed the Sunborn in the womb, and
came back when he was grown and tried to cast him down.”
    “There’s no darkness in Sidani,” said Estarion. “Maybe she
is a little mad. Maybe more than a little. But she means me no harm.”
    Vanyi’s arms locked about him, startling him into rigidity.
“How do you know? How can you be certain? She’s not what she seems, I know it.
I feel it in my bones.”
    He eased slowly, though a remnant of tension lingered in the
angle of his shoulders, the straightness of his back. “Maybe she isn’t. She was
a lord’s bastard, I think. She has the air. What of it? She’s neither mage nor
sorceress. She interests me. I’d like to hear more of her stories.”
    “Child,” said Vanyi tenderly. “Infant. Beloved idiot.” His
mouth tempted hers. She set a kiss in the corner of it. But she would not let
him escape so easily. “I don’t like her. Or,” she said, “no. Not dislike,
exactly. I don’t think you were wise to bring her here.”
    “Maybe I wasn’t,” he said. “But when I did it, I felt that
I’d done rightly—wise or unwise or whatever else it might have been. She won’t
hurt me. While I live, she’ll never touch you but by your leave.”
    “She’s no danger to me at all,” Vanyi said. “That I’m sure
of. Thank you, sweet child, for not suggesting that I’m jealous.”
    His eyes were wide with honest surprise. “Should you be?”
    “She’s beautiful in her way. And, as you say, interesting.”
    “She’s old .”
    He sounded all of ten years old himself. He was not too
badly offended when she laughed, although he said,