It quickly became clear that a fondness for wine was not the young man’s only vice. He was reckless, too, and absolutely impossible to restrain. During the nautical expedition, when they were an appreciable distance from land, he stripped off his jacket, kicked off his shoes, and dove straight into the ocean from the stern of the ship. All the girls who had been clustered around him shrieked with alarm, and Coren came running over, pale with horror.
Wen and Orson had crowded against the railing, trying to figure out how to effect a rescue. Wen didn’t swim, so she wasn’t about to jump in, but surely there was a rope they could throw him? It was a long, tense moment before Ryne’s sleek head surfaced, and when it did, his face was alive with laughter.
“Sweet gods, but it’s cold in the water!” he called. “Anyone want to join me?”
Coren was leaning over the rail. “Ryne! Are you mad? You’ll freeze to death or drown!”
Coravann was landlocked, Wen knew, but somewhere the serramar had learned to swim, for she could see his arms and legs moving effortlessly under the water. “It certainly is colder than I thought! How do I get back aboard?”
At that very moment, some of Coren’s sailors arrived and secured a rope ladder to the railing, tossing the other end to Ryne. He swam over and climbed up without any apparent difficulty, then shook himself like a dog once he was safely on deck. The girls squealed and jumped back.
“You’d better go below and warm up,” Coren said frostily. “There’s a fire in the galley. I don’t know that I have a change of clothes for you, though.”
“I’m fine,” Ryne said, though Wen thought he looked pale and chilled.
It was Karryn, of all people, who stepped forward. “Coren’s right,” she said in a severe voice. She took hold of his wet sleeve and tugged him toward the stairs. “If you stand about in wet clothes for the next hour, you’ll contract a lung ailment or something. Let’s at least find you a blanket.”
“You sound like my sister, always fussing,” he said, amused, but he allowed her to lead him away.
Two days later, he almost came to grief on horseback. Karryn wasn’t present at this event, however, so Wen wasn’t, either; they only heard about it secondhand. Apparently Ryne had challenged Edwin’s brother to a race through the crowded streets of Forten City, and he had run afoul of a small wagon being driven by an old man. Ryne’s horse had sustained a nasty gash on one leg and the wagon had been overturned.
“But Ryne pulled out his wallet right there, and paid the old man at least twice what the wagon was worth, so there was no harm done,” Lindy told Karryn while Wen was close enough to hear.
“What about his horse?” Karryn asked.
Lindy, who had seemed to think the rest of the story quite funny, grew serious at that. “I don’t know. He let me take it home to our head groom, but Tom doesn’t know if the horse will make it through. It would be awful if it had to be destroyed! Just because Ryne was having a little fun!”
“Yes,” Karryn said, her face downcast, “that would be dreadful.”
Wen herself didn’t have any direct contact with the wild serramar until about ten days after the Coverroe ball. He had dropped by Fortune around the noon hour and been invited to stay for the meal. Wen didn’t stand outside the dining hall and eavesdrop, but she followed her own rule and roamed the house as long as he was inside it.
On her second pass through the kitchens, she found Bryce there, sampling one of the little cakes the cook had made for dessert. Wen was seized with inspiration.
“Put that down and come with me for a few minutes,” she ordered. Instead, he crammed the last of it in his mouth and followed her down the hall, licking his fingers.
When they were outside the dining room, Wen pointed at Ryne Coravann. “What can you tell me about the serramar?” she asked. “Good man, bad man, crazy, kind, dangerous?”
Obligingly, Bryce peered into the room and studied Ryne’s handsome face for a few minutes. Wen was disappointed when he shook his head. “I can’t read him,” he said. “It’s like his mind has shadows over it.”
“Shadows?” she said sharply. “As if he’s plotting something dark and secret?”
“No—more like—he’s behind a curtain. It’s very strange. I’ve never met someone who could just hide inside his own head like that. I can’t tell anything.”
Then Wen remembered. Ryne Coravann was half-Lirren, and even Cammon was unable to pierce the veils Lirrenfolk could draw around themselves. Cammon had never been able to read Amalie’s stepmother, Valri, or Justin’s Lirren wife. . . .
Just the person she wanted to be thinking of right now. Wen’s mouth made a bitter twist, but she kept her voice gentle as she said, “Thanks anyway for trying. Now go back and get another one of those cakes.”
Grinning, Bryce departed. Wen stepped back from the doorway so she could no longer see into the dining room, but she lingered in the hallway. From the tone of conversation inside, she guessed the meal was almost over and the guests would start to disperse soon. She wanted to keep track of the unreadable Ryne Coravann once he left the table.
But he was not among the people who filed into the hallway a few minutes later—and neither was Karryn. It only took Wen a second to realize they must have slipped out by the servants’ entrance. Through the kitchens, out the door that led to the vegetable gardens, and from there, to any part of the grounds. Obviously they were trying to escape Wen’s scrutiny. Would they attempt to sneak out the front entrance? Surely not—Karryn was aware that there was always a guard posted at the gate. Wen knew there was no second exit, because she had walked every inch of the fence herself, but there were portions of the hedge that were a little more bare than others. A man might push his way through if he didn’t mind ripping his clothes up—he might then shimmy up the wrought iron reinforcing pole and heave himself over—
Wen spat a single nasty word and sped toward the front door, out into the warm spring air, and around the eastern edge of the house. She knew exactly where they were going, and she didn’t have to move with stealth, trying to elude a patrol, so she actually made it to the break in the hedge just as Ryne Coravann was attempting to wriggle through.
Karryn saw her arrive and jumped back a pace at the fury in Wen’s eyes. She uttered a little squeak, but that was all the warning Ryne got before Wen grabbed his wrist and yanked him free of the shrubbery.
“Ow!” he exclaimed, for she didn’t mind if she hurt him a little, and then, “Ow! Ow!” as the sharp thorns of the hedge gouged his arms and face. He jerked free and put a hand up to his bleeding cheek, staring at her with more curiosity than anger. “Who are you?”
“It’s Willa,” Karryn said nervously. “She’s the captain of the guard.”
“Well, why does she think—” he started, but that was all the farther he got. Wen shoved him, hard, in the middle of the chest, so he landed heavily against the shrubbery and got a few more scratches on his back through his light shirt. “Hey,” he said, and started forward, his hands balled into fists, and then she pushed him with such force that he tumbled to the ground.
“The serramarra,” Wen said, carefully choosing to use Karryn’s title, “is not to leave the grounds without at least two guards beside her at all times. I suspect you know that, or you wouldn’t have tried to sneak off in this stupid and irresponsible fashion.”
He shrugged but made no move to stand, still rubbing his cheek and eyeing her warily. “We thought it would be fun to see if we could outwit the guard.”
“You thought it would be fun,” Wen said in a dangerous voice. “The serramarra knows better. But she wanted to please you, so she agreed to try. That makes you a bully as well as an irresponsible boy.”
Now he was starting to get angry. “It was just a little lark. A game. We were going to come right back in through the front gate.”
By the way Karryn looked swiftly over at him, Wen suspected that had not been the original plan. “Were you? Or were you going to take her down to a
tavern on one of the dockside streets? Introduce her to a few colorful sailors and buy her some rotgut wine? Give her an adventure right here in her own city?”
He shrugged again. “It would have been fun. Karryn never has any fun.”
“The serramarra was kidnapped two months ago,” Wen said. “That wasn’t much fun for her.”
Now he scrambled to his feet, staring over at Karryn. “I didn’t know that! What happened?”
“Willa,” Karryn whined. She hated anyone to talk about that misadventure.
“She was taken against her will by a young man of respectable family who had designs on her virtue,” Wen said coldly. “You can see why I don’t consider it much of a lark when a serramar wants to spirit her away for an afternoon’s entertainment.”
“Well, I’m sorry, but I didn’t know,” he said sullenly.
“Even if you didn’t know, you should have respected the wishes of her family—and of the serramarra herself,” Wen said. “She must have told you she was not allowed to leave without an escort. It was cruel and stupid and selfish of you to try to make her break her own rules, even if you didn’t think you were putting her in danger.”
Clearly he was not used to being reprimanded, certainly not by anyone so far below his own rank. His handsome face darkened. “How dare you talk to me that way, you—” he began, his hand going to the slim dagger at his waist.
Wen had him backed up against the fence so fast, her forearm against his throat and her other hand buried in his stomach, that he was almost more surprised than in pain, though he was quickly finding it hard to breathe. She was five inches shorter than he was so she had to stare up into his contorted face. “You cannot possibly hurt me,” she snarled, at the edge of her temper. “And you cannot possibly sneak Karryn out of here without me finding you, and stopping you, and making you sorry you tried. And if you ever, ever do anything to hurt Karryn, I will find you, and I will kill you—serramar or no.”
He was goggling, and his hands had come up to claw at her arm, so she released him. He sagged against the hedge, coughing and clutching at his throat. She spun on her heel, prepared to stalk off without another word, but Karryn caught at her arm. “Willa—”
Wen rounded on her. “I thought you had more sense! You know the lengths we have gone to in order to keep you safe! You know the guards are not stationed here merely to give you consequence. They are here to protect your life with their own. And then for you to throw away all that effort on a whim—”
“I’m sorry,” Karryn said, wringing her hands. She looked to be on the verge of tears. “But it seemed so harmless—just to go away with Ryne—”
“He is not the last handsome scoundrel who will try to make you compromise your principles,” Wen said, giving Ryne a hard look. He seemed mostly recovered; his breathing was even again, at any rate, but he was staring at her with close, confused attention. “The gods alone know what some of the other attractive rogues might ask you to do! Will you go along with all of them because you want them to like you? That’s the surest way to ruin there is.”
“No, I won’t, it was just—I’m sorry! Don’t be angry with me!”
“I am angry,” Wen said. “Too angry to talk about this any longer.” She cast one last glance back at Ryne, who seemed to have completely regained his insouciance. He even grinned, which incensed her. “I’m going to tell the guards at the front gate to come back here and make sure the two of you don’t slip out after all.”
Karryn blanched, but Ryne laughed. She didn’t stay to hear what he said to Karryn or what Karryn replied. She caught the attention of the passing patrol and sent Eggles to guard the hedge until Ryne was gone from the grounds. She thought Karryn was properly chastised, but the serramar did not look to be easily cowed. She wouldn’t put it past him to try to escape undetected, just to prove he could.
Furious as she was, she couldn’t quite blame Karryn. It was that last light laugh that did it. If she’d been younger and stupider herself, Wen would have found Ryne Coravann equally irresistible. She had always fallen for the reckless boys, the ones full of careless deviltry. Justin, for instance. If he’d been born into the Twelfth House, all his considerable energy given no productive outlet, wouldn’t he have turned idleness into chaos, just to churn up some excitement?
If this Ryne Coravann had had to fight his way into respectability, as Justin had, would he have turned into one of the most skilled and passionate of the Queen’s Riders?
Impossible to know, of course. And it scarcely mattered who Ryne Coravann was or what he might become. All that mattered was that he not be allowed to put Karryn in danger. Wen was fairly certain she had managed to achieve that for the day at least.
JASPER found the whole Coravann Affair, as he called it, rather amusing. “You assaulted a serramar of the realm,” he said, as they sat in the library that evening trading their stories of the day. “By my count, you’ve also engaged in battle with a devvaser, and knocked a serlord to the floor. What’s next, a marlord? The queen? Have you no respect for rank or class?”
“Not when there’s danger to the person I’m paid to protect.”
Jasper leaned back in his chair. “You didn’t seriously think Ryne Coravann posed a threat to Karryn, did you?”
“Did I think he was going to spirit her through the streets of Forten City, throw her aboard a rented ship, and carry her off? No. But I wouldn’t have put it past him to take her down to the docks and get her drunk on bad wine. That would be bad enough, but if anyone truly wanted to do her harm, that would be the part of the city where she would be most at risk.”
He sighed. “Well, you’re right, of course. All in all, I am not sorry you were so harsh with the young serramar. It does no harm for others to realize how valuable we consider Karryn—and I think it is good for Karryn to realize it as well.”
Wen made a face. “She’s probably angry with me. I think I embarrassed her in front of a man she would like to impress.”
He laughed softly. “In fact, I think Karryn is more worried that you are angry with her. She may not show it on a daily basis, or indeed, ever,” he added, “but she greatly looks up to you and wants to please you.”
That would make for a nice change, Wen thought, but didn’t say so aloud. “Then she needs to try a little harder,” was what she actually replied.
“I’m sure she will. Meanwhile, what do we do about Ryne Coravann? Forbid him access to the House? That seems pointless, since she will no doubt run into him at every social event from now until the end of the month.”
“I don’t think we can do anything about him at all,” Wen said. “I would think we should focus on Karryn instead. Make her understand why slipping away with Ryne would be so disastrous.”
“I think she has learned that lesson,” he said.
Wen replied, “I thought she had learned it before.”
“And there is to be another challenge to your guards and their defensive abilities,” he said. “For Serephette has decided she must entertain next week. Partially in Ryne Coravann’s honor, of course, but partially because Fortune has been something of a mausoleum these past few years, and it really is time it was opened up to company again. Do you think you can bear it? More truly, I suppose, the question is: Do you feel you can protect Karryn if we invite a fifty or a hundred guests to the House?”
Wen nodded. “It’s unrealistic to expect Karryn to spend her whole life secluded, or restricted to a few locations that I consider safe,” she said. “We can guard her when you entertain—but we might be a little more obtrusive than she likes. By that I mean, some of us will actually be in the dining hall if you have a meal, and in the ballroom if you have a dance.”
“I believe we are planning both a dinner and a dance,” he said. “It will be an abysmal amount of work and trouble, but Karryn is very excited, and even Serephette appears to be intrigued. So little engages her attention, you know, that I am happy to see her getting caught up in the notion of entertaining.” r />
Wen considered how to frame her next questions. “What was she like, before she married Rayson Fortunalt?” she asked finally. “And why did she marry him?”