Lady Reanna watched with interest as Moira na Fer-son took
her chain-mail shirt, pooled it like glittery liquid on the
bed, and slipped it into a grey velvet bag lined with
chamois. It was an exquisitely made shirt; the links were
tiny, and immensely strong; Moira only wished it was as
featherlight as it looked.
"Your father doesn't know what he's getting back," Reanna
observed, cupping her round chin with one deceptively soft
hand, and flicking aside a golden curl with the other.
"My father didn't know what he sent away," Moira countered,
just as her heavy, coiled braid came loose and dropped down
her back for the third time. With a sigh, she repositioned
it again, picked up the silver bodkin that had dropped to
the floor, and skewered it in place. "He looked at me and
saw a cipher, a nonentity. He saw what I hoped he would see,
because I wanted him to send me far, far away from that
wretched place. Maybe I have my mother's moon-magic, maybe
I'm just good at playacting. He saw a little bit of
uninteresting girl-flesh, not worth keeping, and by getting
rid of it he did what I wanted." Candle- and firelight
glinted on the fine embroidered trim of an indigo-colored
gown, and gleamed on the steel of the bodice knife she
slipped into the sheath that the embroidery concealed.
"But to send you here!" Reanna shook her head. "What was he
thinking?"
"Exactly nothing, I expect." Moira hid her leather gauntlets
inside a linen chemise, and inserted a pair of stiletto
blades inside the stays of a corset. "I'm sure he fully
expected to have a half-dozen male heirs by now, and wanted
only to find somewhere to be rid of me at worst, and to
polish me up into a marriage token at best. He looked about
for someone to foist me off on—which would have to be some
relation of my mother's, since he's not on speaking terms
with most of his House—and picked the one most
likely to turn me into something he could use for an
alliance. You have to admit, the Countess has a reputation
for taking troublesome young hoydens and turning out lovely
women." The ironic smile with which she delivered those last
words was not lost on her best friend. Reanna choked, and
her pink cheeks turned pinker.
"Lovely women who use bodkins to put up their hair!" she
exclaimed. "Lovely women who—"
"Peace," Moira cautioned. "Perhaps the moon-magic had a hand
in that, too. If it did, well, all to the good." An entire
matched set of ornate silver bodkins joined the gauntlets in
the pack, bundled with comb, brush, and hand mirror. "There
can be only one reason why Father wants me home now. He
plans to wed me to some handpicked suitor. Perhaps it's for
an alliance, perhaps it's to someone he is grooming as his
successor. In either case, though he knows it not, he is
going to find himself thwarted. I intend to marry no one not
of my own choosing."
Reanna rested her chin on her hands and looked up at Moira
with deceptively limpid blue eyes. "I don't know how you'll
manage that. You'll be one young woman in a keep full of
your father's men."
"And the law in Highclere says that no woman can be wed
against her will. Not even the heir to a sea-keep. And the
keep will be mine, whether he likes it or not, for I am the
only child." Moira rolled wool stockings into balls and
stuffed them in odd places in the pack. She was going to
miss this cozy room. The sea-keep was not noted for comfort.
"I will admit, I do not know, yet, what I will do when he
proposes such a match. But the Countess has not taught me in
vain. I will think of something."
"And it will be something clever," Reanna murmured. "And you
will make your father think it was all his idea."
Moira tossed her head like a restive horse. "Of course!" she
replied. "Am I not one of her Grey Ladies?"
Moira's midnight-black braid came down again, and she coiled
it up automatically, casting a look at herself in the mirror
as she did so. As she was now— without the arts of paint and
brush she had learned from Countess Vrenable—no man would
look twice at her. This was a good thing, for a beauty had a
hard time making herself plain and unnoticed, but one who
possessed a certain cast of pale features that might
be called "plain" had the potential to be either
ignored or to make herself by art into a beauty. Strange
that she and Reanna should have become such fast friends
from the very moment she had entered the gates of Viridian
Manor. She, so dark and pale, and Reanna, so golden and
rosy—yet beneath the surface, they were very much two of a
kind. Both had been sent here by parents who had no use for
them; daughters who must be dowered were a liability, but
girls schooled by Countess Vrenable had a certain cachet as
brides, and often the King could be coaxed into providing an
addition to an otherwise meager dower. Especially when the
King himself was using the bride as the bond of an alliance,
which had also been known to happen to girls schooled by the
Countess. Both Moira and Reanna were the same age, and when
it came to their interests and skills, unlikely as it might
seem, they were a perfectly matched set.
And both had, two years ago, been taken into the especial
schooling that made them something more than the Countess's
fosterlings. Both had been invited to become Grey Ladies.
It sometimes occurred to Moira that the difference between
girls fostered with Countess Vrenable and those fostered
elsewhere, was that the other girls went through their lives
assuming that no matter what happened, no matter what
terrible thing befell them, there would be a rescue and a
rescuer. The Grey Ladies knew very well that if there was a
rescue to be had, they would be doing the rescuing themselves.
There was a great deal to be said for not relying on anyone
but yourself.
"You're not a Grey Lady yet," Reanna reminded her, from her
perch on the bolster of the bed. "That's for the Countess to
decide."
A polite cough beside them made them both turn toward the
door. "In fact, my dear, the Countess is about to make that
decision right now."
No one took Countess Vrenable, first cousin to the King, for
granted. And it was not only because of her nearness in
blood to the throne. She was not tall, yet she gave the
impression of being stately; she was no beauty, yet she
caused the eyes of men to turn away from those who were
"mere" beauties. It was said that there was no skill she had
not mastered. She danced with elegance, conversed with wit,
sang, played, embroidered—had all of the accomplishments any
well-born woman could need. And several more, besides. Her
hair was pure white, yet her finely chiseled face was
ageless. Some said her hair had been white for the past
thirty years, that it had turned white the day her husband,
the Count, died in her arms.
"You are a little young to be one of my Ladies, child," the
Countess said, in a tone that suggested otherwise. "However,
this move on your father's part holds… potential."
The older woman turned with a practiced grace that Moira
envied, and began pacing back and forth in the confined
space of the small room she shared with Reanna. "I should
tell you a key fact, my dear. I created the Grey Ladies
after my dear husband died, because it was lack of
information that caused his death."
She paused in her pacing to look at both girls. Reanna
blinked, looking puzzled, but too polite to say anything.
The Countess smiled. "Yes, my children, to most, he died
because he threw himself between an assassin and the King.
But the King and I realized even as he was dying that the
moment of his death began long before the knife struck him.
We know that if we had had the proper information, the
assassin would never have gotten that far. Assassins, feuds,
even wars—all can be averted with the right information at
the right time." She passed a hand along a fold of her sable
gown. "My cousin has kept peace within our borders and
without because he values cunning over force. But it is a
never-ending struggle, and in that struggle, information is
the most powerful weapon he has."
As Reanna's mouth formed a silent O, the Countess turned to
Moira. "Here is the dilemma I face. There is information
that I need to know in, and about, the Sea-Keep of Highclere
and its lord. But conflicting loyalties—"
Moira raised an eyebrow. "My lady, I have not seen my father
for more than a handful of days in all my life. I know well
that although my mother loved him, he wedded her only to
have her dower, and it was her desperate attempt to give him
the male heir he craved that killed her. He cast me off like
an outworn glove, and now he calls me back when he at last
has need of me. I have had more loving kindness from you in
a single day than I have had from him in all my life. If he
works against the King, it is my duty to thwart him." She
met the Countess's intensely blue eyes with her own pale
grey ones. "There are no conflicting loyalties, my lady. I
owe my birth to him— but to you, I owe all that I am now."
What she did not, and would not say, was a memory held tight
within her, of the night her mother had died, trying to give
birth to the male child her father had so desperately
wanted. How her mother lay dying and calling out for him,
while he had eyes only for the son born dead. How he had
mourned that half-formed infant the full seven days and had
it buried with great ceremony, while his wife went
unattended to her grave but for Moira and a single
maidservant. She had never forgiven him for that, and never
would.
The Countess held herself very still, and her eyes grew dark
with sadness. "My dear child, I understand you. And I am
sorry for it."
Reanna sighed. "Not all of us are blessed with loving
parents, my lady," she said.
The Countess's lips thinned. "If you had loving
parents, child, I would be the last person to remove you
from their care," she replied briskly, and Moira suddenly
understood why she felt she had joined some sort of
sisterhood when she came to foster under the Countess's
care. None of them had been considered anything other than
burdens at worst, and tokens of negotiation at best, by
their parents.
Which makes us apt to trust the first hand that offers
kindness instead of a blow, she thought. Which was, of
course, a thought born of the Countess's own training. The
Countess taught them all to look for weaknesses and
strengths, and to never accept anything at its face
value, even the girls who were not recruited into the ranks
of the Grey Ladies.
But then her mind added, And it is a very good thing for
all of us that milady is truly kind, and truly cares.
Because she had no doubt of that. The Countess cared
deeply about her fosterlings, whether they were Grey Ladies
or not.
But it did make her wonder what someone with less scruples
could accomplish with the same material to work on.
"Would that I had a year further training of you, Moira,"
the Countess said, frowning just a little. "I am loath to
throw you into what may be a lion's den with less than a
full quiver of arrows."
"I am thrown there anyway," Moira replied logically. "My
father will have, me home, and you cannot
withhold me. I would as soon be of some use." And then
something occurred to her, which made the corners of her
mouth turn up. "But I shall want my reward, my lady."
"Oh, so?" The Countess did not take affront at this. One
fine eyebrow rose; that was all.
"Should I find my father in treason, his estates are
confiscated to the Crown, are they not?" she asked. "Well
then, as we both know, your word is as good as the King's.
So should information I lay be the cause of such a finding,
I wish your hand and seal upon it that the Sea-Keep of
Highclere, my mother's dower, remains with me."
Slowly, the Countess smiled; it was, Moira thought, a smile
that some men might have killed for, because it was a smile
full of warmth and approval. "I have taught you well," she
said at last. "Better than I had thought. Well enough, my
hand and seal on it, and if you can think thus straightly, I
believe you may serve your King." And she took pen and
parchment from the desk and wrote it out. "And you,
Reanna—you may hold this in surety for your friend," she
continued, handing the parchment to Reanna, who waved it in
the air to dry. "I think it best that you, Moira, not be
found with any such thing on your person."
Moira and Reanna both nodded. Moira, because she knew that
no one would be able to part Reanna from the paper if Reanna
didn't wish to give it up. Reanna—well, perhaps because
Reanna knew that the Countess would never attempt to take it
from her.
"All right, child," the Countess said then. "I am going to
steal you away from your packing long enough to try and cram
a year's worth of teaching into an afternoon."
In the end, the Countess took more than an afternoon, and
even then, Moira felt as if her head had been packed too
full for her to really think about what she had learned.
The escort that her father had sent had been forced to cool
its collective heels until the Countess saw fit to deliver
Moira into their hands. There was not a great deal they
could do about that; the Countess Vrenable outranked the
mere Lord of Highclere Sea-Keep. The Countess was not
completely without a heart; she did see that they were
properly fed and housed. But she wanted it made exquisitely
clear that affairs would proceed at her pace and
convenience, not those of some upstart from the costal
provinces.