Her face cleared. “Oh yes, grea—ah, Triumvir. I’m good at numbers. My mother saw to that instruction, so that I could keep an eye out on the slaves who kept the books when I had my own house.”
Mention of the mother, whose decapitated head had “adorned” Demansk’s quarterdeck not so very long ago, caused him to wince a bit. But the girl’s face didn’t seem to echo any of that. For all that Demansk could tell, the murder of her mother—following within a day of the death of her father—didn’t seem to have affected her much at all.
For a moment, he was alarmed. If the girl was that indifferent to human sentiments . . .
Thicelt, as so often before, read his thoughts. “You don’t understand the reality of a royal hareem, Triumvir. Explain it to him, Jirri.”
The girl was confused. “Explain what? Uh, great lord—ah—”
Thicelt grinned. ” ‘Governor’ will do fine.” He hooked a thumb at Demansk. “What I meant was, explain to him why you don’t seem very upset at the death of your parents. Or your brothers.”
Jirri almost goggled at Demansk. “I hardly knew my father, Triumvir. And my mother’s not dead. She—oh. You thought she was Queen Yora. No, she was one of the King’s concubines.” After a moment’s hesitation: “To be honest, I was glad they killed Yora. I hated her, and she frightened me. I’m sure—well, almost—that she was planning to have me murdered. Her son, Prince Frand, was starting to sniff around me—even though he was my half brother—and she didn’t like it.”
Demansk rubbed his face. He’d heard tales from Helga, about the sometimes savage intrigue within hareems. And the hareem Helga had been held captive in was that of an old, tired chieftain. The hareem of a relatively young and dynamic ruler like Casull would, likely enough, resemble a nest of serpents.
“As for my brothers and half brothers,” Jirri was continuing, “I either didn’t know them or, the ones I did, didn’t like them much. Especially Frand. I like my sisters Harra and Tlal a lot—Yuni and Fayr not so much, they’re half sisters anyway—but they’re all still alive too.” There was a little lift in her voice, speaking that last. It seemed as if Princess Jirri had come to the conclusion that her conqueror was not a monster, after all, and so her mother and sisters could expect to stay alive.
Then, her tone grew slightly sullen. “But I don’t know why they had to kill Rafta. She was a sweet-tempered thing, even if she couldn’t really talk.”
Demansk waved his hand. “Never mind, Jirri. I’m satisfied. And now—” He walked over to a nearby table, picked up a stylus and a blank codex, and plopped it on the table in front of her.
“What the Governor and I will now be doing, among other things, is what is called ‘logistics.’ A lot of that is just recording numbers—which you’re going to do for us. In the Confederacy, it’s called being a ‘secretary.’ It’s quite a prestigious position, by the way, at least if you’re doing it for someone important.”
Jirri stared down at the stylus and codex, then looked up at Demansk. Her eyes seemed as wide as saucers.
“You want me to do something?” She was almost gaping. Then, a smile came to her face. And, for the first time since he’d lain eyes on her, Princess Jirri looked like what she really was—a fifteen-year-old girl.
“Oh! That sounds like fun.”
* * *
Hours later, Jirri’s eyes were starting to droop. She was clearly struggling to remain awake. Suddenly, it dawned on Demansk that the girl couldn’t have gotten any sleep at all the night before.
A bit guiltily, he put a gentle hand on her shoulder. “That’s enough, girl. Go to sleep. You’ll have to share the bed with me tonight, I’m afraid. But I’ll have something made up for tomorrow. I won’t wake you, though, I don’t think.”
Jirri covered her mouth, yawned, and then coughed a little laugh behind her hand. “Don’t think so. Everyone always teased me about how heavy a sleeper I am. But my mother says that’s because I have a clear conscience.”