18

Quietly, I slipped outside. I didn’t dare to get rid of my magic in the morning, when the Ruler and her many magicians might be watching, so I decided to do it while they were all asleep.

I slipped out of the back door, through the kitchen, instead of the front door, which could sometimes squeak. I felt proud of myself for being so stealthy.

As I snuck through the darkness, I was surprised to hear Mother and Father’s low voices drifting from under the tree where we kept the latrine.

“. . . why do you really think she’s here?” Mother’s voice said. “She says it’s just for Yaika, but surely our daughter’s not that enthralling.”

I froze, afraid to make a muscle. A breath of wind whispered past me, catching in my torron nightgown’s thin hem.

“It’s not like we have anything to hide,” Father said. “I can’t think why else she could be here. Unless . . .”

My heart hammered. Unless . . .

“You think there might be a crime in the area?” Mother asked. “Something we don’t know about?”

I swallowed. My throat felt dry.

“It’s possible,” Father said. “But I don’t see why she would investigate it herself, much less bring her husband with her.”

“And also three heirs,” Mother pointed out.

“Not just three heirs,” Father’s voice said, slightly muffled as the breeze blew straight in my ears. I snuck closer, wanting to her the rest. I carefully stepped around the thick, exposed roots as I neared the trees around the latrine. As I got closer, Father’s voice became clearer again. “. . . to bring her first heir. Did you notice that? Her husband and her first heir. What in the world would possess her to take both of them anywhere outside of Central together? What could possibly be that important?”

“Maybe they’re having a family outing,” Mother said. “Maybe it’s an excuse to spend time together.”

“Oh, please,” Father snorted. “The Ruler only has one birth child, and that one’s younger than Yaika. All the rest of her heirs are adopted, and a few of them are actually older than her. The relationship between the Ruler and her heirs is probably no different from the one I had with Edarn and Sally.”

I shivered, rubbing my arms against the cold wind. Father’s parents’ landowners had adopted him as their heir when he was fifteen. They’d taught him how to become a landowner, he’d taken over their duties that they were getting too old to perform, and they’d chosen someone else to be their next heir after he got engaged. Most landowners did that after their children were all grown and married.

My foot cracked on a twig, and I froze.

“Who’s there?” Mother’s voice shot through the darkness.

“Sorry! Sorry!” I cried, running forward. I brushed tree branches out of my face and ducked under another one to emerge where my parents were. “It’s just me. I was just, uh, heading out to use the latrine.”

“Raneh,” Mother said, folding her arms. “Were you eavesdropping?”

“Uh . . .” I said. “Yes. A little bit. Sorry.”

“Well, you might as well join in the conversation,” Father said, straightening his sleeve. “Do you have any ideas why the Ruler might be here?”

I straightened my spine and my shoulders, feeling important. I loved it when Mother and Father treated me like an adult. “I’m sure she’s here for the same reason she said she was,” I said. “To evaluate us. I have no clue what for, though. As for the rest, maybe her husband or her first heir have family in this area, and they’re planning to drop by after they’re finished?”

Mother and Father exchanged doubtful looks.

“I’m fairly certain the Ruler’s husband grew up in Central,” Mother said. “I don’t know about her first heir, though. It’s possible.”

“Well, I don’t think she’s here for any sort of crime,” I pursued. “If she were, she wouldn’t look so relaxed. I mean, she’s poking her nose into everything like it’s entertaining, not like she’s suspicious of anything.”

My parents both relaxed slightly.

“Good point,” Mother said.

“Besides,” Father said, “it’s not like we’d have anything to worry about if she were.”

Right. My toes clenched inside my slippers. Nothing to worry about, indeed.

“Who were those other heirs she brought with her, anyway?” Mother asked. “The fifty-ninth? The forty-seventh?”

Father’s brow furrowed. “The twenty-ninth and thirty-first, I believe.”

“No, I’m sure they were both after thirty-second,” I said. Heir rankings were incredibly hard to memorize because the words were all five syllables long and followed no discernible pattern. But once, to show off, I’d memorized all the heir rankings up to thirty-second because that word, ranehshikara, started with my name. I’d since forgotten the order they came in, because almost nobody had heirs past fifth or sixth, but I knew I hadn’t ever memorized either of the two the Ruler had said.

“I’ll have to ask Father,” Father said. “That man loves everything to do with numbers. I’m sure he’ll remember.”

“What are we going to do about Yaika’s party tomorrow?” I broke in. “Are we really going to have it in the house, like Yaika was planning?”

Father winced. “I wonder if Lala has enough magic to make the interior big enough for everyone who’s bound to show up. I’d be very much surprised if nearly all the vassals within walking distance don’t invite themselves.”

Mother nodded. “They’ll all want to catch a glimpse of the Ruler. It’s only natural.”

“Can’t we just tell them only landowners are invited?” I asked hopefully.

“What good would that do?” Father asked. “It’s not a private party. Vassals can come to landowner events if they want to; they just usually don’t.”

“It would be very rude to turn people away,” Mother said. “Coming-out parties are traditionally open attendance. And rudeness . . . well, you know vassals can ding status every bit as much as landowners can.”

I flinched, thinking about the possibility of crowds of angry vassals taking all our status away.

“Honestly, I’m not too worried about the house,” Father said. “If it’s too crowded, that will just encourage guests to leave early, which would be fine with me. My main worry is the fact that there are bound to be more vassals than landowners, and I’m not at all sure all of them will know how to behave properly.”

“Then somebody should explain the rules of propriety before they’re allowed in,” I said. “Jontan’s family, maybe?”

“Eliss is too timid, Jontan is too dull, Elay is too quiet, and Fontan is too wishy-washy,” Father said. “No.”

“Your mother,” Mother said, turning to Father. “There’s no one who can shame a miscreant into behaving like she can. It would help that she’s a vassal herself.”

Father nodded thoughtfully. “But then who’d be cooking all day?”

“Nobody,” Mother said flatly. “We’ll go with jam, slices of bread, and sweetsticks. Yaika can complain all she wants about it later, but we really can’t afford to provide fancy refreshments with the entire neighborhood descending on us.”

I hid a snort of laughter at the thought of Yaika’s indignation.

“Do we have time to make that many tartberry preserves?” Father asked doubtfully. “We’re not going to waste all our tonna berries on random, unappreciative strangers, I hope.”

No tonna berry preserves for the whole cold season . . . ugh. I shuddered at the thought. Tonna berries were an early crop, so we’d already harvested most of what we’d get for the year. By harvest season, the tonna bushes would have already started going into hibernation. “I agree with Father on that,” I said fervently. “I volunteer to harvest tartberries all morning.”

Mother started laughing. “We can’t very well not have any tonna berries, given that’s what we’re known for,” she said. “But I’ll see to it that not too many of those go out. And if they do, I’ll inform Yaika that she will be growing tonna berries in her garden next year. That should keep her from trying to ‘accidentally’ improve the refreshments.”

I grinned gleefully.

“It’s just too bad the Ruler won’t let us use her magicians to prepare for the party,” Father muttered, tugging a crease out of his shirt.

“Wait, what?” I asked. I’d just sort of assumed they’d be helping. I mean, that was what magicians were for. “Why won’t she?”

Father made a face. “Because their magic is hers, and it has to be kept in reserve in case she needs to return to Central immediately. Apparently.”

Oh, I thought. Well, I guess that makes sense . . .

“I suspect it’s more than that,” Mother said. “She probably isn’t unaware of the danger of having left Central with both her husband and her first heir. The magicians might also be guards in case of danger. Not that she’d admit that.”

I stared at Mother, startled. I would never have thought of that.

“Or healers,” Father said thoughtfully, rubbing his chin, which had a slight hint of tomorrow morning’s stubble. “In case of disease, or even minor things like food poisoning. I see your point.”

“But nobody would go against the Ruler,” I protested. “What purpose would guards serve?”

Mother chuckled.

“I’m glad you feel that way,” Father said, smiling wryly.

“You mean some people would?” I gaped, appalled. Who in their right mind would beg for a death sentence that way?

“Revenge for a family member who had been executed for criminal activity,” Father said. “Resentment over something the law forbids. Wanting attention. Just plain insanity. There could be lots of reasons for an isolated criminal to do mischief.”

I shivered, rubbing my arms under my thin torron nightgown. Now I felt unsafe.

“Don’t worry,” Mother said. “It seems very unlikely. Especially since we don’t know of anyone who’s been executed for a crime in the whole time we’ve lived here.”

We don’t know all the vassals, I thought. And if I were a landowner, I wouldn’t go around telling anybody that one of my vassals had forced a woman, or a murder had occurred, or one of my mathematicians had defrauded people. It would be unpleasant and embarrassing to deal with. So how would we know if somebody had been sentenced to death in this neighborhood while we lived here?

So what if there was some vengeful stranger who was planning to show up at the party? What if we’d all be in danger? What if they were lurking in the shadows right now? I gulped, inching closer to my parents. Outside in the darkness no longer seemed like a good time for privacy at all.

“Would you still like to use the latrine?” Mother asked, moving away from the door to the makeshift building that was moved whenever we dug a new hole. Apparently she had misinterpreted my moving closer. “We can leave you to it.”

“N-no!” I lied. “I don’t need anything right now. I’m fine. Let’s go inside together.”

I can get rid of my magic tomorrow morning, I thought, whipping my head around to look at every shadow as we walked to the kitchen door. When it’s not so scary and there’s sunlight.

Of course, in the morning, there were people everywhere, including in my garden.

“What are our vassals doing in my garden?” I cried, running inside. The door slammed into the wall behind me, and I didn’t even try to close it. I nearly ran straight into Lala, who was carrying a tray of fresh fruit back to her room. She glared at me.

“They’re cutting inna blossoms,” Mother announced, sweeping over from the sitting room. It had, I noticed, already been stripped of furniture, and it looked like she had been removing the wall hangings. “You’re the only one that grows them. Next up will be your adlies.”

“But — but —” I stammered. “But it’s my garden!”

“We’re all contributing something,” Mother said. “Your father and I have bared gardens of everything decorative. Don’t worry, I told them not to touch your filias.”

I scowled. Like that was my primary worry.

“Too bad Hurik hasn’t taken the oath of status yet, eh?” Grandmother said, wandering from the kitchen with a ladle in hand. She held her other hand underneath it to catch dripping. “If he’d had his coming-out party, he’d probably be growing flowers to ask girls to social events already.”

“Those would have gone over better than the insects he used to try to give girls he liked,” Mother said, pulling out the pins from another wall-hanging.

Grandmother chuckled. She held out the ladle to me. “Well, Raneh? Would you taste this and tell me what you think?”

“I . . . uh . . .” I really needed to get rid of my magic, but there was no way I’d find enough privacy outside for that right now. “Okay,” I said slowly.

I followed her back to the kitchen, where she rustled through a drawer to find a fresh wood spoon, and scraped sauce off the ladle carefully. Then she held it out to me. “What do you think? Too sweet?”

I took the spoon and licked it, distracted. Then sourness stabbed my tongue. “Blech!” I cried, flinging the spoon onto a stack of dishes on the corner of one counter. “What are you making?”

“Tartberry fillings for the pastries,” Grandmother said. “I don’t think they were ripe enough, though.”

“Sourrrrrr . . .” I said, shuddering.

“And I told you not to make pastries,” Mother said from the kitchen doorway, hands on her hips. “We have way too little time before this party begins. Just make preserves and jam and be done with it.”

“Do you think I’m going to let my granddaughter’s coming-out party be poorly refreshed?” Grandmother asked indignantly. “You prepare your way, I’ll prepare mine.”

“We’ll need you to explain propriety to the vassals that come!”

Grandmother sniffed. “And I can do that in between making new batches of these.”

“Just offer them some of that tartberry filling,” I said. “It’ll frighten them away.”

Grandmother gave me an amused look and reached for one of the large glass jars on the counter near her. She twisted the lid off and poured the entire contents of its sticky goo into the gigantic pot over the fireplace. The liquid bubbled blubs of yellow-orange mush the color of not-quite-ripe-enough tartberries. She used a large wooden paddle to stir it.

“There will be enough sweetsap left to last us through cold season, won’t there?” I asked, eyeing the jars. “That isn’t all we have left, is it?”

“We didn’t sell all of our surplus last year,” Grandmother said. “We have plenty more in the root cellars, don’t worry.”

“Raneh,” Mother said. “What can you do to make yourself useful?”

Uh oh. Mother had that glint in her eye. If I didn’t come up with something, she would volunteer me for a duty that no one else wanted to do.

“Uh . . .” I glanced through the kitchen door. The downstairs couldn’t be decorated until Lala had enlarged it for the party, and there were already people cutting flowers in my garden. The tartberries had already been gathered, too. “I could take breakfast to the Ruler?” I said hopefully.

“Hmm . . .” Mother said, her eyes narrowing. “Yes, I suppose that would be a good idea. She’ll probably be waking up soon.”

“Here,” Grandmother said, gesturing with her free hand at the counter on my opposite side. “Fresh fruit. The vassals who picked the tartberries for me this morning also plucked some other early fruit they found on the way. You can prepare a platter from these.”

My mouth watered as I rummaged through the basket, plucking out a dark purple, warty avrom, and . . . ooh! Fresh limbas! I loved those, with their crisp, smooth flavor and the delicate pink skins that were slightly sweet. They were impossible to store because their texture went all grainy when dried, and they lost most of their flavor when you cooked them. So we really only had those during harvest season. I grabbed several and rubbed a speck of dirt off one with the hem of my skirt. I hadn’t had breakfast yet.

“Save the best fruits for the Ruler,” Grandmother said with her back turned, as if she could see me. “Feed yourself after you come down again.”

Drat. I replaced the limbas reluctantly.

“Yaika!” Mother called up the stairs. “Time to get up! Somebody needs to dig the new latrines for all our guests that will be arriving!”

Wow, I thought, scrubbing an orange fuzzfruit in a bowl of water and then slicing carefully to remove the insect-pocked spots. Narrow escape.

“You might want to prepare some for the heirs, too,” Grandmother said, glancing over her shoulder to see me arranging fuzzfruit slices with a perfectly-shaped avrom and a small handful of unshelled greennuts. “At least bring up two platefuls, since her husband will want some, too.”

“Right,” I said, reaching up into the cupboard for another small platter. The Ruler’s husband. My heart lurched to think about it. For some reason, he intimidated me even more than the Ruler. Perhaps it was because he had yet to say a word or show any emotions, and I had no clue what would please him or displease him. Last night, the most reaction he had shown to anything was to pass over one of Grandmother’s proffered dinner dishes with a sniff of distaste. I was terrified of offending him. He had almost as much influence as the Ruler, and he seemed far more difficult to please.

“Why do I have to dig the latrines?” Yaika wailed, storming down the stairs. She was wearing one of her dyeing shifts, an old dress that was covered in patches and mismatched splotches. The stockings she wore had several runs, and her hair tumbled behind her in an unbrushed mess. Apparently she’d forgotten to pull it up again, even though she should have started after her oath ceremony. “It’s my coming-out party!”

“And if you’d given us more warning, perhaps we would have had time to dig them before this morning,” Mother said unsympathetically, stomping down the stairs after her.

Well, that’ll wake the Ruler, I thought, scooping up the two plates I had made. I hoped the Ruler liked squishfruits, and I hoped the Ruler’s husband didn’t hate them.

Yaika stormed through the kitchen, flung open the door, and slammed it on her way outside. She didn’t even look at Grandmother or me. I thought about the Ruler waking up to hear the argument on the stairs and bit back a laugh at the thought of her looking out the window of Mother and Father’s bedroom to see Yaika outside digging latrines.

Carefully, I backed my way out of the kitchen doorway as Mother walked in. She glanced at the plates. “Not quite enough selection,” she said. “Here. Add these.” She reached into the basket and pulled out two altons and all four of the limbas.

Nooooooooo! I thought silently.

She plopped them on the plates without asking me, then headed out the kitchen door after Yaika. Outside, I heard my sister complaining loudly that our vassals ought to do the unpleasant work. Mother’s retort was muffled, but sounded sarcastic.

Grandmother glanced over her shoulder, and I gave her a woebegone look.

“There will be more later,” she said. “Do as your mother says.”

Miserably, I trudged up the stairs. Maybe the Ruler would hate limbas fruit, and I could still get away with eating them.

The Ruler and her husband had taken possession of my parents’ bedroom last night, leaving my parents to sleep on the floor of Grandfather and Grandmother’s room. It was galling that the Ruler and her husband had just assumed the biggest room in the house was theirs. But what could you do? We certainly couldn’t deny it to them.

At least we’d had three spare bedrooms, or I shuddered to think what would have happened. Probably I’d have ended up sleeping on the floor of Yaika’s room. As it was, we’d spent hours moving spare furniture out of them, including broken tables and chairs and two baby cribs. Hurik would be less than pleased when he discovered we had loaded all of those into his bedroom.

The heirs hadn’t been particularly thankful, either. Caes had bobbed his head, Jinny had gone into her room without a word, and Alyss had complained about hers being disused and dusty. I was not looking forward to seeing them again this morning.

Gingerly, I pushed open the door to my parents’ bedroom. “Ruler?” I asked tentatively, poking my head in through the doorway. “Are you awake?”

The Ruler stirred. She sat up in one movement, waves of wormthread cascading down her arms and sliding down next to her husband. She had, of course, provided her own bedsheets.

“Good morning,” the Ruler said. “Are you Yaika’s sister?”

You could try remembering my name, I thought. “Yes, Ruler,” I said. “I’m Raneh. I brought breakfast.”

“How thoughtful,” the Ruler said, smiling.

I hurried over to where she sat on my father’s side of the bed, holding out the two plates. The Ruler reached for the one in my right hand, set it down on my father’s bedside table, and plucked a limbas fruit off the top. I watched disconsolately as she bit into it.

“Leave the other plate by Lancen’s side of the bed,” the Ruler ordered, nodding in the direction of her sleeping husband. “He never wakes up while people are watching.”

Odd, I thought.

I tiptoed over to the other side and deposited the plate on Mother’s bedside table. Then, in a fit of klutziness, I stumbled and smacked my elbow against the wall.

“Yeouch!” I shouted, grabbing my elbow. “Ow ow ow ow . . .”

Oops. I came to myself, realizing where I was. I gulped, spinning around to see how mad the Ruler had gotten. But she didn’t look upset. She looked amused. She was snapping greennuts out of their shells, popping them in her mouth as if I were some kind of entertainment.

Then I glanced down at the Ruler’s husband. He hadn’t stirred. Not at all. I could tell because there still wasn’t a single crease in the sheet over top of him.

Wait a minute. Not a single crease? Not one? After he’d supposedly been sleeping right there all night?

He’s feigning sleep! my mind exploded. He woke up early just to make himself look perfect by the time anyone else came in here! Just how vain is he?!

“Thank you, Raneh,” the Ruler said, giving me a smirk that said she knew exactly what I was thinking. “I’m sure my heirs would appreciate breakfast, as well.”

“Uh . . . yes. Right. Of course.” I stumbled backwards and fumbled behind me to find the latch of the door.

Out in the hallway, I leaned against the wall and breathed a sigh of relief. I’d survived an encounter with the Ruler. I would be fine. I could last a whole week.

Then my fingers tingled, reminding me that I still had magic I hadn’t managed to get rid of.

Assuming I can ever manage to get to my groverweed, I thought tensely.