Free A Posse of Princesses by Sherwood Smith

mastering what the tutors came
to teach.”
    “Perhaps,” she said, “if I’d been the heir, I
might have been more diligent about current politics, trade laws,
and treaties. My little niece is so serious in her studies, but
from babyhood she’s heard that she will one day be queen.”
    “Heirs do grow up hearing about their
responsibilities,” Dandiar acknowledged. Another quick look, one of
mild question.
    “My sister-by-marriage seldom corrects her
daughter,” Rhis said, thinking back further. “Doesn’t have to,
because she’s so very perfect. But once she did, saying that
Shera’s lightest statement might affect lives unseen.”
    “You didn’t think you might need the same
knowledge in the future?” Dandiar asked.
    Rhis thought back about all those reminders
of her duty in making a good marriage. “I guess I never thought at
all, past what I would have liked to happen,” she admitted.
    Dandiar grinned. “Who our age ever does,
unless forced to?” He added, “How old are you, anyway?”
    “Sixteen,” she admitted. She was tempted for
a moment to claim an older age, but resisted.
    “Just what I guessed,” he said.
    “And you?” she asked, relieved that she’d
stayed with the truth.
    “Twenty.” He grinned.
    Rhis grinned back, a little surprised. She
suspected that she and Shera were among the youngest guests—and
that that didn’t add to their veneer of sophistication. Couldn’t be
helped.
    With an inward sigh she dismissed the
thought. She swept her skirts away from his feet as she twirled
under his arm, and then stepped across to wait for his bow.
    Dandiar was quite good at dancing. She was
about to compliment him, when she remembered what she’d said
earlier about his poise, and his response, which had not been
pleased, it had been polite.
    She realized suddenly, and uncomfortably,
that she never would have said such a thing to, well, Prince Lios,
for example. Had she been guilty of condescension? Yes. She would
never compliment another princess on her training. Eugh! Worse than Elda! Even worse than Iardith’s deliberate snubs
because it had been unthinking.
    The dance ended, and Dandiar bowed. She
curtseyed. He gave her his quick smile before moving off, his gaze
going this way and that. Checking the room, seeing that all went
smoothly for his master, she knew. He obviously felt no animosity
toward her—probably didn’t even remember what they’d talked about
two breaths after the conversation, for she, too, was part of his
duties.
    Rhis watched him go, her thoughts impossibly
tangled.
     

CHAPTER SIX
     
    “Carithe has the most wonderful idea,” Shera
said, laughing behind her fan. “We’re going to get up a play!”
    “A play?”
    “She found out that the players who were
supposed to come have been delayed by this awful rain, and so we’re
going to do one ourselves, and surprise the others.
    “When?”
    “Oh, not until after the masquerade. No one
can talk about anything else. After that they’ll be bored, and
looking for the next thing, and we’ll be it. Anyway, you know more
about plays than anyone, and so you could help us pick the best.
Will you join us?”
    “Of course,” Rhis said. “Though I’ve read all
the plays Sidal has brought back from her travels, that doesn’t
mean I’d be a good performer.”
    “You at least have a pretty singing
voice.”
    “Yours is better,” Rhis said.
    Shera shrugged. “I’m not all that good, I
just seem to keep harmony. As for the rest of us, I don’t know how
good any of us will be, but one thing for certain, it ought to be
quite fun, if we choose the right play. Vors said he’d join in if
you would, and we’ve got several others.”
    Vors himself appeared a moment later, just
ahead of Halvic, and the girls moved out onto the floor for the
next dance.
    The waltos—the new dance from foreign
lands—swiftly became Rhis’s favorite, and apparently many others
felt the same. Couples circled round and round the