The Will of the Empress - By Tamora Pierce Page 0,79

drily. "Somehow that doesn't seem like an improvement."

Sandry shook her head — Ambros has been listening to my brother and sisters too much! she thought, half-amused — and dismounted from her mare. One of her guards also dismounted and took her mount's reins. Once that was taken care of, Sandry looked at a small boy. He was doing his best to bow, though the result seemed shaky. "How do you do?" she greeted him. "Are you the Speaker for this village?" The Namornese called the chiefs of their villages Speakers.

The boy sneaked a grin at her, then shook his head. A little girl standing behind him said, "You aren't stuck-up. They said you would be."

"Maghen!" cried her mother. She swept the little girl behind her and curtsied low. The curls that escaped her headcloth trembled. "Clehame, forgive her, she's always speaking her mind, even when it will earn her a spanking. . . ." She gave an extra tug to the child's arm.

Sandry lifted the mother up. "I'm glad there's someone who will speak to me directly, Ravvi," she replied softly. "Maghen? Is that you back there, or some very wiggly skirts?"

The girl poked her head out from behind her mother. "It's me," she said frankly.

"Do I seem stuck-up to you?" Sandry wanted to know. "Ravvi, please, I'm not offended. Let her come say hello."

"She has a way with people," Sandry heard Ambros murmur to Tris. "I wish I did."

"You show them you care about them by looking after their welfare," she heard Tris reply. "Do you believe her when she says put whatever funds you need into help for your tenants? Because she means it. She won't ask you later what you've done with her emeralds. When she gives her word, you may trust it."

Whenever she makes me truly cross, I have to remember she says things like this, thought Sandry as she acknowledged Maghen's curtsy. I still wish she hadn't closed herself off from me, but I'm so glad she came!

* * *

Chapter Ten

The village Speaker soon arrived, trailing a few bewildered goats. Tris stepped back, out of the way of the dance of manners required when Namornese commoners met the noble whose lands they worked. Once the greetings were done, Sandry asked to see the homes and wells damaged by floods in earlier years. Tris watched it all with Chime on her shoulder, her book safely tucked in a saddlebag. Since the dragon was clear unless she'd fed recently, most of the villagers couldn't see her until they were close to Tris. One bold girl reached out to touch the small creature, and only looked around when Chime began to purr. When her eyes met Tris's, the girl jerked her hand away with a gasp of alarm.

Tris made herself smile in what she hoped was a friendly way. Looking at the trembling smile on the girl's lips, she told herself, I think it worked.

After that first experiment with the village girl, she got to keep on performing her social smile. The children — those who didn't have to return immediately to work at the tasks of daily living — came to meet Chime. While she held the dragon so her new admirers could touch her more easily, Tris shifted until her nose was pointed into the rainy day breeze.

Someone upwind is making soap, she thought as she sorted through scents. And that's butter in the churn. Oh! Household privies and animal manure, she thought grimly. Really, these people should learn to clean up more if they don't want their water going bad. I'd better let Sandry know they need to collect their manure, before it starts leaking into their well water.

She smiled happily. There's wet spring earth. I love the smell of wet dirt. And here's the river under all of it.

She frowned. The river was young and ferocious, clawing at the banks. Tris didn't know a great deal about bridges, but she did understand rivers. Left to its own devices, this one was probably digging the banks away from the piers that supported the bridge.

Handing Chime over to the girl who'd touched her first, Tris left their tour and ambled over to the steep banks near the bridge. Closing her eyes, she let her power spill down the earthen sides. They were awkwardly held in place with a patchwork of boulders, bricks, smaller stones, and even planks of wood. She felt the swirling and thrusting river as it tugged the man-made walls, trying to pry them