Free Michelle West - The Sun Sword 03 - The Shining Court by The Shining Court Page B

going to ask me what I'm doing in your wagon?"
    Margret rolled her eyes. "If you want to tell me, I'll find out."
    Elena made a playful face and swatted her cousin just that little bit shy of too hard. "Nicu," she said dramatically. "I'm avoiding him."
    "You're too hard on him, 'Lena."
    "Don't get motherly; it doesn't suit you. Besides, he's hardly a boy. He's past twenty this year."
    "You were hard on him when he'd no underarm hair to speak of."
    Elena shrugged. "Well," she said. As if that explained anything. Sauntering over to the window—for it was as fine a wagon as that—she pulled the drapes shut, plunging them into what passed for darkness here, at sun's height. When she turned, the playfulness had left her face entirely; she was all shadow, thin and straight as the blade Margret carried beneath her shirt.
    "Tell me," Margret said, folding her legs as she unconsciously took shelter on the flat of the bench beneath which so many of her mother's heirlooms lay locked.
    "You're not going to like it."
    Elena never prefaced a report with those words unless they were an understatement.
    " 'Lena."
    "Festival of the Moon this year."
    "That's what we're here for."
    "There are changes."
    "What changes?"
    "First: All merchants must register with the correct official in the Tor Leonne proper."
    Margret was quiet for a long moment. "Merchants?"
    "
All
merchants."
    "Unusual."
    "Worse."
    " 'Lena." Warning in those two syllables.
    "Some of the merchants have been detained after making their reports. Their caravans have been either searched or seized—or both."
    "Fair enough. We're carrying nothing contraband; we've picked up no runaway serafs, and obviously we're not going to this year." She shrugged; politics and expedience had always denied safety to one or two of the merchant clansmen. Not often during the Lady's Festival, though.
    "You would think that would guarantee our safety, wouldn't you?"
    Elena Tamaraan was the cousin to whom Margret was closest, but on days like this, the urge to throttle her was so strong it was profound.
    "Elena," she said, and her cousin smiled. Even in the darkest of times, actually forcing Margret to acknowledge all three syllables of her name was considered a small triumph. It was a joke they shared.
    When Margret was predisposed to have a sense of humor.
    "There have been three caravans taken so far."
    "Three?"
    "Yes. More significant: They are
all
Voyani."
    "Any Arkosans?"
    "No. Two Havallan caravans. One Lyserran."
    "Matriarchs present?"
    Elena was silent for a long, long time. At last she turned to face the curtains that hid them from the light of day. Her voice was so quiet, Margret could hardly hear it. But she already knew the answer, even though the question itself had been perfunctory.
    "Yes."
    "At the Festival of the
Moon
?" Margret drove herself up from her seat with the force of her full weight against the ground; she lunged around the darkened caravan like an injured beast. That was her way; it had been her mother's way before her. "They wouldn't dare!"
    "Do you want the rest?"
    "No, of course I don't want the rest!"
    "It's Yollanna."
    Silence. The beast was stilled. "Tell them," Margret said at last. "Find Adam—he's at the Eastern Fount of Contemplation; tell Nicu."
    Elena frowned sourly. "I
was
trying to avoid him, Margret. That part wasn't a lie."
    "I don't give a damn, 'Lena. This isn't the time for it. Tell them."
    "I'm not sure they'll let us pull the caravan back."
    "We're going to try."
    * * *
    Although the Serra Diora was under the guard of walls and silence and near-isolation, she was still considered a part of the harem of a now-powerful man; she was no seraf, to be forced to tend to her own needs or the needs of others. Minutes might pass before she was allowed company; if her father's mood was darker, hours.
    But serafs were never deemed company; they came and they went, delivering water, fans, food, changing pillows and sheets, sweeping floors that were already spotless