“You’ve not been gone from Goddess Keep for that many years. She must have been in training before you left. Think, damn you! Tell me her name!”
Unbidden, there came to mind the image of a red-haired girl, one of the scores of girls at Goddess Keep and beneath the notice of an arrogant young Sunrunner like himself. Yet he remembered her. “Sioned,” he whispered.
“Sioned,” Roelstra repeated. “A faradhi named Sioned. . . . If I can detach her from Andrade—”
“The Lady is here?” Crigo gasped.
“That doesn’t concern you.” The High Prince approached and glanced down into the half-empty pitcher. “Drink up, Crigo,” he said with a cold smile. “After all this time, you need it.”
The Sunrunner obeyed as Roelstra strode from the tent. Andrade was here. Terror griped him, suddenly and paradoxically replaced by joy. He could ruin the High Prince by revealing that the faradhi she had thought dead these many years was still alive. The power of it made him laugh softly and he clutched the knowledge to him like a long-sought lover. But in the next instant he trembled, empty once again of all but the drug. Roelstra would never have brought him here if he feared betrayal. Crigo had no power at all over anyone, much less the High Prince. The game, as always, belonged only to Roelstra.
Tobin kissed her husband good morning to such effect that he tried to pull her back down into their bed with him. When she resisted, laughing, Chay opened his eyes, then opened them wider. She was fully dressed, her hair in a cool twist atop her head, and at her belt was a fat leather purse. Chay groaned.
“Oh, Goddess! You’re off to make me a pauper again!”
“And I’ll have a splendid time doing it, too,” she teased. “Come on, move your lazy bones. It’s well past sunup. And you know that anything I spend at the Fair, you’ll only win back when you and Akkal come in first at the races.”
“You spend so much to give me an incentive to win,” he glowered.
“How well you know me! Anyway, it’s not all ours. Mother sent some for me to spend on Rohan, and he gave me quite a bit—to spend as I like, or so he said, but what he really meant is that I’m to buy things for Sioned.”
“She’s going with you?”
“Of course.” Tobin kissed him again. “It seems I’m getting predictable. You’re going to get bored with me.”
She threw his clothes at him on her way out of the tent. Outside in the warm sunlight, she stretched widely, sneezed away the tickle of unaccustomed scents, and walked over to the Sunrunners’ tent where Sioned and Camigwen were waiting for her. With them was a young faradhi introduced as Meath.
“If it pleases your highness, I’ll escort you today,” he said giving her a bow as elegant as her husband’s.
“That’s very kind of you,” Tobin replied sweetly. “You can carry the packages.”
Meath sighed. “That’s exactly what Cami has in mind, your grace.”
“I’d like it very much if you’d all call me by my name, and forget this nonsense of titles,” Tobin said as they started off.
“Thank you,” Camigwen said shyly. “I’m Cami to my friends, and if Sioned doesn’t promise to buy something pretty for herself, I’ll tell you what her nickname was as a child!”
“You wouldn’t!” Sioned protested, her eyes dancing. “Besides, remember all the things I know about you! And stop worrying, Cami—I’m going to spend every copper I have. I’ve never been to a Rialla Fair. Will it have everything we’re told it will, y—Tobin?” she corrected herself with a smile.
“And more,” Tobin promised. They joined the line of people waiting to cross the bridge over to the fairground. Just upriver at the dock, the High Prince’s barge bobbed gently on the water, violet sails wrapped tight around the masts. Tobin averted her eyes, determined that political thoughts would not spoil this, the first day of the Rialla. “If you would, please keep an eye out for things my sons would like. We have a thriving trade through Radzyn port, but I want to find something special for them today.”
Meath was all for shouldering a path through the crowd to the front of the line, but Tobin explained that today everyone was of a rank with everyone else to prevent wasting time over silly questions of honor and prestige. Enough of that sort of thing went