Maggie Furey - Aurian

Long after Zanna had wept herself out, she lay awake in the darkness, dreading the future. She knew that Sara would never rest now, until her troublesome stepdaughter was out of the way for good. Vannor s daughter was a practical girl, and she faced facts squarely. Marriage was the obvious solution to Sara’s problems, and Zanna felt a chill go through her. Oh Gods, she thought. She’ll dress me up like a stupid doll, make Vannor give me an enormous dowry, and hand me over to the first witless, overbred merchant’s son who wants the money! The thought filled her with such panic that she wanted to run—but where could she run to? Suddenly, for no apparent reason, the face of her father’s mysterious visitor came into her mind: his shaggy dark hair falling across those dark gray eyes, which crinkled at the corners when he smiled . . .

The door of her room opened quietly, and Zanna started, blushing as though her thoughts must be transparent. To her surprise, her visitor was Dulsina. “Shhh,” the housekeeper whispered. “Light the candle and get dressed—you’re going away for a while.”

“What?” Zanna froze. Horror congealed like a choking lump in her throat. “Dad?” She could hardly form the whispered words. “Is he sending me away?”

“No, you goose—as if he ever would! Listen, Zanna. Your stepmother is as furious as a wasp in a bottle tonight. Now that you’ve made trouble between her and Vannor, she’ll—”

“I know what she plans to do,” Zanna said wretchedly, “and it’s worse than you could possibly imagine. She wants to marry me off, Dulsina!”

“I heard,” Dulsina said grimly. “It’s a housekeeper’s privilege to eavesdrop! Not that Vannor is such a heartless dolt as to force you to wed against your wilt . j. But you know how desperate he is for his daughters to make a good match. There would be pressure on you to consent. Anyway, you’re young yet to be thinking of husbands, no matter what the custom is among these witless merchants! I thought to send you to my sister Remana until the fuss dies down. Antor can go, too— doing without the pair of you for a while might bring that old fool Vannor to his senses!”

Zanna wondered if she was dreaming. Though it might be wise to get away until Sara had calmed down, it was not like levelheaded Dulsina to come up with such a wild idea. And never before had she heard the housekeeper criticize her father. In a daze, she dressed herself warmly and began to pack some clothes under Dulsina’^direction, while the housekeeper explained: “You’ve a good head on your shoulders, Zanna—I know you can be trusted with the secret. My sister Remana is— was, I should say—wed to Leynard, leader of the Nightrun-ners.”

Zanna gaped at her, a nightgown, half folded, forgotten in her hands. The Nightrunners? The elusive smugglers who traded with the prohibited Southern Kingdoms for silks, gems, and spices and had driven generations of Garrison Commanders to despair? Prim Dulsina had a sister wed to a smuggler?

“You may as well know,” Dulsina was saying. “Your dad made his fortune through trading in partnership with the Nightrunners. His visitor tonight is my nephew Yanis—he became leader last year when Leynard was lost at sea. When he goes back, he’ll be taking you with him.” She paused, her eyes twinkling. “Mark you, he’s afraid of Vannor, so the less he knows of the truth, the better. I’ll give you a note for my sister —Remana will take care of you.”

“But what about Dad?” Zanna protested. “He’ll be so angry. And what if Sara arranges a husband for me in any case? Anyway, if I know Dad, he’ll come and fetch me straight back again. Besides, I’ll miss him so! How can I leave him—and at Solstice, too?”

“Child, you worry too much!” Dulsina hugged her. “Vannor won’t blame you—it’s me he’ll be angry with. And Sara will be much too busy to make mischief.” She grinned. “With you away, Vannor will see who was really running the household— and I won’t be taking up where you left off! Let Sara occupy herself with all those tiresome details that you and I have been taking off her shoulders. If she wants to play the great lady, it’s time she learned that there is far more to it than sitting around counting her jewels!”

“But what if Dad comes after me?” Zanna persisted.

“Impossible!” Dulsina said briskly. “The smugglers’ hide-out is a deadly secret—so much so that Leynard wouldn’t even tell his partner. Vannor won’t know where you are, and I won’t tell him—not unless there is a real emergency. Just trust me, my dear, and all will be well.”

Zanna hesitated. Then she thought of what her future would be like, married to a dull merchant’s son who did not love her. She had no illusions about her looks—she was short and sturdy, like her father, with a plain, no-nonsense face: A far cry from the willowy, delicate creatures that the well-heeled merchant classes liked to decorate their opulent homes. She was clever and quick-minded, and it was her greatest frustration that her dad would never let her work with him in trade. “Whoever heard of a lady merchant?” he would chide her gently. “Why, it’s just not done!”

There are lady Magefolk, though, Zanna thought resentfully—and lady warriors. Why not a lady merchant, I’d like to know? Inevitably, her mind went back to that afternoon, and her meeting with Aurian and Maya. Well, you wanted to be like them, she told herself—maybe this is your chance. Lifting her chin, she turned to Dulsina. “You’re right,” she said. “I’m ready to go!”

Yanis left the mansion in a hurry, by the back door, his ears still ringing from Vannor’s epithets. Dear Gods, but when his father’s old partner flew into a rage, it was enough to scare the wits out of a man! “It wasn’t my fault,” he muttered helplessly. After the unpleasant evening he had just spent with Vannor, the excuse was starting to sound rather thin, even to himself.

“Where am I going wrong?” he sighed as he made his way back to the river, slinking through the merchant’s terraced garden with his sea boots crunching softly on the snowy ground. It had all seemed simple when he had accompanied his father to the South. Leynard had taught him^how to find his way to the remote, secluded bay that was the clandestine rendezvous with the Southerners. Yanis knew the series of lamp-flashes that were the secret signal to grant him safe passage in Southern waters. Unfortunately, the one vital piece of information that his father had not passed on, was how not to get swindled by those slimy Southern bast—

“Hist! Yanis!”

The smuggler whirled abruptly, his hand on his sword. He was astonished to see his aunt Dulsina beckoning to him from the bushes at the bottom of the garden, near the small, ornate boathouse where Vannor kept his pleasure craft. In the dim snowlight, it looked as though she were carrying a large bundle, so thickly swathed in shawls that it looked almost circular.

Grabbing his arm with her free hand, she pulled him into the shelter of the shrubbery.

“Listen,” she told him without preamble. “Vannor wants you to take his children to stay with Remana for a while.”

Yanis blinked. “He does? He never mentioned it. And why are you all hiding in the bushes, Aunt Dulsina?”

Dulsina sighed. “Because you shouldn’t be here, remember? Vannor thought that if you left the house with the youngsters, it would attract too much attention, so I brought them down here to meet you. Off you go now—take good care of the children, and remember to give my love to your mother. And Yanis—be careful. Don’t get caught!”

Before Yanis could say a word, she had dumped Vannor’s son into his unready arms and bustled away, with a quick parting hug for the cloaked and muffled figure that must be the merchant’s daughter. Yanis, speechless, thrust his squirming burden at the girl, and bent to pull on the rope that tethered his small boat beneath the concealing sweep of willows at the water’s edge. Somehow, he managed to get them, with their several bundles, off the frost-slick jetty and into the little craft. The girl was sniffling into a lacy slip of a handkerchief, and the smuggler’s heart sank,