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TWO
    "Swing me on your arm again, Chalcus!" Merota demanded. "I want to go all the way over this time!"
    Ilna didn't let her face react. In the sailor's presence the girl was sometimes either younger than her nine years or very much more mature.
    "And so we shall," said Chalcus, glancing up at the square funnel that slanted rainwater from the roof into the pool here in the center of the entrance hall. "In the garden, though, for you're growing to such a fine woman that I fear your heels would smudge the ceiling."
    He gestured the women ahead of him and out the south doorway, adding a little bow to Ilna. "And then," he continued in the same cheerful lilt, "you'll go back to your room and the lessons I've no doubt your tutors have set you. Mistress Ilna and I will speak alone after that."
    They stepped past the loom, covered for the moment. In Chalcus' company, Ilna took in the colors and sounds of the brick-walled court, the richness that she generally ignored because it had nothing to do with her work.
    Five generations in the past, Duke Valgard of Ornifal ruled the neighboring islands outright and claimed with as much justice as any other could to be King of the Isles. Valles was the kingdom's greatest metropolis then, while the palace compound housed thousands and was a city in its own right.
    Those times were over, but workmen were restoring the buildings and grounds at the same rapid tempo as Garric rebuilt the government itself. The bungalow Ilna shared with Cashel and now Merota was meant for a senior gardener. It was a detached structure rather than part of a barracks housing the families of twenty clerks or servants, but it was neither spacious nor expensively decorated.
    Ilna had chosen the residence herself, mostly for the garden courtyard that gave her good light on clear days. Even that was a needless luxury: she could weave in the dark with perfect assurance. The chamberlain—he'd been replaced since then—had tried to insist that someone of Lady Ilna's stature must have more luxurious accommodations.
    Ilna's expression at the memory could have cut glass. There were many things that Ilna os-Kenset felt she must do, but none of those duties were imposed by others.
    Chalcus extended his left arm, bare except for its scars. He wore as usual only a single short-sleeved tunic. Because he was in money, the present garment was of linen dyed with first-pressing indigo. The hem and sleeves were embroidered in gold thread, and the sash was of fine black silk.
    He wore it with a swagger; but then, Chalcus did everything with a swagger.
    Merota gripped the sailor's thick wrist and the forearm. She jumped and Chalcus added a little toss, giving the girl the boost she needed to go over, shrilling delight as her tunics flapped like flags in a storm.
    "Why do you always swing her with your left arm, Master Chalcus?" Ilna asked suddenly. He'd said he was here to have a private interview with her. One result of the discussion could be that they'd never see each other again.
    "Swing me again, Chalcus!" Merota said.
    Chalcus hugged the child to his left side, but it was Ilna he faced with a broad grin. "Indeed, what would happen if some ill-wisher sprang from the lemon balm there—"
    He nodded to the bed of herbs with tiny white flowers. None of the stems were as tall as Ilna's knee.
    "—and my swordarm was all tangled with a lovely woman, eh?"
    Chalcus wasn't wearing a sword, and the short curved dagger thrust through his sash was no bigger than the knife every man in a rural village carried for routine tasks. The steel of the blade, however, was as incomparably better than that of knives forged by travelling blacksmiths as Chalcus himself was superior to the common run of sailors.
    "Then you'd kill him with your left hand!" Merota said, giggling.
    Chalcus looked down at her. "Aye, perhaps I would at that, child," he said. "Now leave us, if you will."
    Instead of arguing as Ilna had half expected the girl would do—expected