“Good day to you, Master Kondoral,” she said, stopping.
He peered down at her for a moment, clutching the rail. “And to you, Highness.” He sounded surprised, as if he had expected someone much younger.
“Do you know a minstrel called Jalon?” Inos was still bothered by her inability to recall that polite young man. Minstrels came but rarely to remote Krasnegar.
“Jalon?” Kondoral frowned and pulled his lip. “Why, yes, my lady! A very fine troubadour.” The old man beamed. “Is he come here again?”
“He is,” she said crossly. “I don’t remember him,”
“Oh, no, you wouldn’t.” The old man shook his head. “Dear me, no. It has been many years! But that is good news. We shall hear some fine singing from Master Jalon if his voice has not lost its thrill. I remember how he brought tears to all our eyes when he sang `The Maiden and the Dragon’—”
“He doesn’t look very old,” she said quickly. “Not much older than me.” Well, not very much.
Kondoral shook his head again, looking doubtful. “I can recall hearing tell of him when I was young myself, my lady. This must be a son, then, or grandson? “
“Perhaps!” she said, and dodged quickly by, before he could start reminiscing.
Several staircases later she reached her summer chamber, at the top of one of the shorter spires. She had taken it over the previous year and loved it, although it was much too cold to use in winter. It was circular and bright, with walls so low so that the high conical ceiling swooped almost to the floor. There were four pointed dormer windows and from here she could look down on all of Krasnegar. She laid her precious packet of silk on the bed and started pulling off her riding clothes and dropping them on the rug.
To the north lay the Winter Ocean, sparkling blue now and smiling under the caress of summer. The swell broke lazily over the reefs, showing hardly any white at all, and seabirds swooped. To the west stood the castle’s towers and yards, roofs and terraces, a thicket of black masonry. Southward she could see the town, falling away steeply to the harbor. Beyond that lay the beach and then the hills, rounded and grassy. Those hills were certainly part of her father’s demesne. He also claimed the moors that lay beyond the horizon, although she had seen those only rarely, when she had gone hunting with her parents.
Stripped to her linen, Inos grabbed up the silk and attempted to drape it over herself as Mistress Meolorne had done for her. She did not succeed very well, but the effect was still spectacular. Never had she seen such a fabric. She had not known that threads could be so fine, so soft, so cunningly woven; nor that it was possible to make such pictures with a loom. Gold and green and bronze—the colors shone even brighter in her room than they had in the dingy little store.
And there was so much of it! She tried arranging a train and almost fell over, making the golden dragons writhe. Originally it must have come from distant Guwush, on the shores of the Spring Sea, Meolorne had said—a great rarity in these parts. She had bought it many years ago from a jotunn sailor, who had probably looted it in a trifling act of piracy. Or perhaps it had come over the great trade routes and been pillaged from some unfortunate city. But it was old and very splendid and obviously destined to display the royal beauty of the Princess Inosolan of Krasnegar. Three and a half imperials!
Inos sighed to the mirror. Her father must be made to understand. Suicide was the only possible alternative.
But why had she promised that the money would be sent that very day? She should have left herself more time for strategy. Yet a gown fashioned from this glory would be worn only on special occasions, so it would last for years. She had stopped growing taller, so she would not grow out of it. She still had to grow more in other directions—she certainly hoped she had more to grow in other directions—but that could be handled with a little discreet padding that could be removed when it was no longer required. She wondered how much padding Aunt Kade would allow.
Well, there was nothing to be gained by standing in front of the mirror. She must talk to her father. She began to fold the silk again, while pondering what to wear for the interview. Probably her dowdy brown worsted, too small now and patched. That would do very well.
3
It took Inos some time to locate her father, but she was eventually informed that he was in the royal bedchamber, which was astonishing news at that time of day. It also meant more stairs, but anywhere meant more stairs in Krasnegar.
The royal chamber was located at the top of the great tower, known as Inisso’s Tower, and she wound her way up the spiral stairs that ran within the walls. There were far too many levels—throne room, presence chamber, robing room, antechamber . . . Pausing to catch her breath in the withdrawing room, Inos wondered, and not for the first time, why in the names of all the Gods her father did not move his quarters to somewhere more convenient.
The withdrawing room was her favorite, though. When Aunt Kade had returned from Kinvale two years ago, she had brought a whole roomful of furniture—not the heavy, antique, stuffing-falling-out furniture that cluttered most of the palace, but supremely elegant gilt and rosewood, with incredibly slender legs, with roses and butterflies embroidered on the cushions, and the woodwork all glossy. There was no room more gracious in all of Krasnegar. Even the rugs were works of art. While Inos would never be so disloyal to her mother’s memory as to admit the fact, she loved the withdrawing room as Aunt Kade had remade it.
Sufficiently recovered to move, she crossed the withdrawing room, went up more stairs, across what they now called the dressing room, but which had been her bedroom until quite recently, and finally—more slowly than when she had started—up the final stair to her father’s door.
It was ajar, so she walked in.
With very mixed feelings, she glanced over the clumsy, massive furnishings. She came here rarely now, and for the first time she saw how shabby they all were, the trappings of an aging widower who clung to old familiar things without regard to their state of wear. The crimsons had faded, the golds tarnished, colors and fabrics become dull and sad. The drapes were shabby, the rugs a disgrace. Her mother’s portrait still hung over the fireplace, but it was blurred by smoke stain.
Many, many icy mornings Inos had cuddled into that great bed between her parents, under the heaped furs of winter, and yet those memories were overlain now by a last transparent image of her mother, burning away in fever when the great sickness had come on the first ship of spring and stalked all that terrible summer through the town.
Never mind that . . .
No one was there!
Furiously she pouted, glaring around as if the furniture itself were at fault. The drapes on the four-poster were pulled back, so her father was not in bed, and she could not imagine him going to bed in the middle of the day anyway. She eyed the wardrobe, but the chances that King Holindarn of Krasnegar would hide inside a wardrobe did not seem worth crossing a room to investigate. The windows were deeply recessed, but on those, also, the drapes were open. There was nowhere . . .
Uneasily Inos turned to retrace her steps and then hesitated. A vagueness niggled at the back of her mind. She took another quick glance around, shrugged, and moved toward the stair again . . . And stopped again. Her scalp prickled. There was something wrong, and she could not place it.
Well! Setting her teeth firmly, she faced the room. Forcing oddly reluctant feet to move, she began to walk very slowly all around the chamber, looking suspiciously at everything, in everything, and even under everything. This was her father’s bedroom and she was a princess and there could not possibly be anything dangerous to explain this curious apprehension she—The high dresser at the far side had been pulled forward, away from the wall.
No, that could not be important . . .
WHY?
Why had the dresser been moved? And why had she not noticed it at once? With goose bumps crawling over her arms, she forced herself to peer around behind this errant dresser. The door there was ajar. The shivery feeling vanished, leaving a sense of disapproval. Why had Inos never known that there was a door there? She glanced up at the horizontal beams and the planked ceiling. In all the other towers, the top room had a pointed roof, as her own chamber did. So there was another room above this one! She had never realized.