Late the next morning, Sabrina stood in the Reception Room and officially gave Ambassador Olviron and his new attaché their orders. Just a few minutes earlier, she had formally released Haaron and Éllina from their former duties; now she bade them a formal, official good-bye, not knowing whether to be grateful the schedule didn't permit a more personal one.
Ambassador Olviron looked more resigned than anything; he hadn't objected to Haaron, but Sabrina could tell he thought he was being handed a favorite to baby-sit. Lady Imari had made no objections, nor had Rassir or Minister Leyahrt, once Sabrina pointed out Haaron's unique qualifications. She wondered if any of them realized that this was the last thing either she or Haaron wanted to do. She would feel bereft when Haaron and Éllina were gone. Somehow it was like losing another piece of Scotty. And she knew the couple were concerned about her. Éllina had protested at the accelerated departure; she had wanted to find someone to fill her place before she went. Haaron had hastily convened the Citizens Council and accepted Joara Narendra's offer to take over liaison duties, so at least Sabrina didn't have to worry about that. And Rayland assured her that everything possible was being done to find and retrieve Scotty.
But it was hard to go back to the round of meetings and paperwork (even if it was paperless). Still, she must try; things had to keep going. She tried to ignore the increased security around Palace Royal and the tension among the military personnel, but it only added to her own conviction that Homeworld would use Scotty's plea for her removal as an excuse to assassinate her. Well, at least she had Haaron in place now. He would fight for the peace initiative whatever happened.
Therenden and Selémahs both made time to visit her that evening, both guessing she would be missing her friends and brother; Rayland spent an hour with her after dinner, both of them trying to avoid mentioning Scotty. Somehow it only made her feel worse.
"I am so very sorry, my daughter," he said as he left.
She shook her head. "In the end, he was still my responsibility, you know," she replied.
"No," Rayland said. "This was my fault. I only hope I can make amends."
When he was gone, she tried to focus on an agricultural analysis of the desert principality of Zarn, but the list of repairs to the irrigation system was too daunting for someone already dispirited. She looked up eagerly as Justek came in. "Sorry to disturb you, my lady," he said, "but I wondered if you were receiving anyone tonight."
"I suppose," she sighed. "I'm not doing much good here. Who is it?"
"Citizen Nikolar says he has a personal petition he would like to present. He is waiting, but I told him he would probably have to make an appointment."
"No, I'll see him," Sabrina replied.
Justek left, and a few moments later Tassan entered. He glanced around her study as he bowed, his gaze resting for a moment on the portrait of King Baldaran.
"I hope you approve," Sabrina said, glancing up at it. It hung on the wall to her right, in a position where she could comfortably glance at it, and was not usually the first thing people noticed in the room.
"I expected you to hang it over your seat," he replied.
"Making a political statement? But I told you I wanted it for its own sake, not for politics," she said.
"I suppose I thought you might combine the two," he shrugged. "You had convinced me of your artistic sense; I would have had no objection if secondary considerations had influenced its position in the room."
"Well, I would have," Sabrina told him flatly. "My secretary says you have a petition, Citizen?"
"Yes, my lady," he replied, returning to formality. "I have heard of your wondrous rosebushes. They are said to be gloriously colored and delicately constructed. I wondered if I might see them, and perhaps paint them—when you are not enjoying them, of course. I would be happy to make a gift of one of the paintings to you if I am allowed to proceed."
"You do beautiful landscapes," Sabrina said, remembering. "Yes, of course you may paint them, if you like. You already have security clearance for the palace in general, as a member of the Citizens Council, but I had better see about clearing you for my conservatory. I'll have someone look into it."
"Thank you, my lady," he said, bowing.
He turned to go, and Sabrina looked down at her desk, fighting off despair at the pile of work awaiting her. She felt a pang of loneliness, made worse because she was surrounded by people almost constantly.
"Wait," she called after him.
"Yes, my lady?" he asked, turning in the doorway to look at her curiously.
"I...Why don't we go see them now? If you have some time, that is," she added quickly, all too aware that her slightest whimsical comment could easily be taken as a direct order by the literal Praxatillians.
His lips tugged in a half-suppressed grin that seemed more a response to her thoughts than to her words. It made her feel less lonely. "I can think of nothing I would rather do just now," he said. "But you...I did not mean to take up your time."
She shrugged, spreading her hands over her abandoned work. "I'm not accomplishing much tonight, I'm afraid. A little walk would do me good."
"Then I am entirely at your disposal, my lady," he said.
Sabrina walked over to him and leaned into the hallway. "Darice!"
"Yes, my lady?" the bodyguard said, appearing promptly nearby.
"We're going up to the conservatory."
"Yes, my lady," Darice said, her expression neutral. She lifted her comlink and spoke quietly into it, the usual swift exchange with Defense Control that formed the background of all Sabrina's movements.
Sabrina nodded to Tassan, and they proceeded to the main door of her apartments, Darice trailing discreetly behind them. Sabrina exchanged nods of greeting with the two guards at her doorway, still unable to adopt the royal custom of seeing guards and servants as part of the furniture.
As they walked down one long, semi-dark hallway after another, Sabrina searched for a way to break the silence, after it belatedly occurred to her that it was her place to do so. "Tell me, have you found anything to paint since you came here?"
"A few things. Some rather picturesque ruins. There is not much else on Dansestari that is accessible to common citizens."
"So you turned to my roses in desperation," she guessed.
"I suppose," he grinned, "the proper form would have been to solicit the honor of painting you, and then to have suggested the roses as a less lofty goal. But I do not think you care much for flattery, and as I am not held to be a flattering portraitist, I did not wish to give a false impression."
"I don't want to be painted while I'm Regent," Sabrina said. "I look horrible in these purple mourning shades."
"Ah, but you lead Praxatillus. You could easily end the mourning period early, with a pretty little speech about the need to move forward, not look back."
The edge in his tone made her retort, "No, I could not. It would be profoundly disrespectful, not only to a man who was very kind to me, but to his daughter, whom I serve. And I am not in the habit of making pretty little speeches!"
"You have a reputation for eloquence," Tassan told her.
"Do I?" Sabrina said, surprised. "I feel tongue-tied most of the time."
"What an expression," he chuckled. They were silent for a while, and then he said, "Actually, with proper lighting, a skilled painter could overcome some of the...challenges...the mourning colors pose to your complexion."
His honest assessment both irritated and pleased her. "If I had the time, maybe I'd make you prove that."
"I never refuse an artistic challenge," he replied.
After another small silence, Sabrina said, "Actually, I don't mind the mourning, at least not the symbolism of it. When my parents died, we moved to a new place where people didn't really know us. They didn't know what had happened or understand why I would get depressed sometimes. I often wished we had some way of showing them, of letting them know we were grieving, instead of having to pretend things were normal, or having to explain it. Most of the time I couldn't bear to talk about it, so people just thought I was naturally morose."
"It must have been difficult."
"It was. I don't think I could have got through it without Scotty." She bit her lip, hard, as a sudden rush of despair hit her.
Tassan looked at her and hesitated before saying, "It would be presumptuous of me to offer you comfort, or claim to understand. But I do offer you my sympathy, worthless as it is."
"Thank you," she managed to say after a while. She took a deep breath and pulled herself together. "But I don't lack for sympathy. If you want to cheer me up, do a beautiful painting of my roses that I can look at when they're not in bloom. Ah, here we are."
They had reached the vast, grand apartments traditionally belonging to the Guardian, last used by Mara's grandmother Lilonwy over 150 years ago. The conservatory was the uppermost room; they made their way to the small but ornate winding staircase at one end of a room that had once been a sitting room, though its furnishings had long since been put to use elsewhere. Sabrina had always thought of the apartments as pretty, but tonight she wondered if they might be haunted. She wasn't sure of the exact circumstances of Lilonwy's death, but she gathered that it had occurred in the beginning of the Xoentrol War. Shariara had not had much time as Guardian before she was crippled.
Sabrina went up the staircase first, followed by Tassan, while Darice conferred with Control on her comlink. The glass-roofed conservatory was bright with the moonlight, diffused slightly by the force shield over the palace, but there were no lights on. Sabrina blinked, pausing a moment for her eyes to adjust, breathing the slightly musty smell of the ancient rooms mingled with the sweet, fresh scent of roses. She heard Tassan's foot rest on the step below hers and felt the rail move a bit as he laid his hand on it; she became aware that she was holding him up, and took another step, bringing the floor level with her waist, looking up into the night sky.
She heard a small rustle to one side. Some primitive part of her brain reacted to a movement that she sensed rather than saw, but before she could do more than shift her weight to step back down, strong, gloved hands grabbed her shoulders, pulling her up, and something cold and sharp pressed against her throat. Her foot caught on the last step and she tried to drag herself back and away, wondering why she didn't scream; her body seemed to have gone limp, no longer obeying her commands.
Behind her, she heard Tassan say something, then shout in alarm; Darice was yelling something in Praxatillian, which Sabrina could no longer make sense of. A gentle fog enclosed her, detaching her from what was going on. She felt oddly, dangerously calm.
There was a furious shout and a sudden jarring, and Sabrina found herself knocked free. She staggered and collapsed, landing on her back staring at the star-filled sky. Which one is Earth's sun? she wondered, trying to pick it out. Then she remembered, in a burst of clarity, that it wasn't visible from here. She could hear Khediva's voice saying so, as if from a long way away. Scotty had asked her, back on their first voyage to Praxatillus.
Scotty! They had taken him, stolen him and turned him somehow against her. A fierce anger seized her, and she managed to turn her head to see two shadowy figures wrestling with someone else, a man with burnished blond hair. Tassan, she remembered. Darice was yelling something again, standing nearby with her gun pointed at the struggle.
Sabrina flexed her fingers; the feeling was coming back to her as she got angrier. When the fight collided with a yellow rosebush, toppling it and spilling soil all over the floor, her anger exploded. She moved an arm, trying to remember where she had left things in the room. Her fingers found the pruning shears she had dropped last night.
Tassan gave another shout, cut off as one of his opponents knocked the breath out of him; Darice fired at the attacker as he bent over the Praxatillian. The other shadowy figure lunged to one side, bringing him almost within reach of Sabrina. Darice started to turn, but Sabrina caught the flash of moonlight on metal and knew she would be too late. A comment Scotty had once made about the calculus of baseball crossed her mind, idly; she wondered what the equation of the assassin's strike would look like. It all seemed to be in slow-motion, like the warm-up exercises Haaron had taught them. Sabrina's arm came up in a parrying movement, a slow, graceful arc; she saw the moonlight glint off the shears and couldn't remember picking them up.
The assassin hesitated as he saw metal in her hand. The half-second pause was enough for Darice to shoot him, but he was already continuing his strike at Sabrina. She saw the weapon, a slender tube that made her think of medical supplies rather than guns, come down at her. She thought his choice of angle was clumsy and was pleased that she knew how to block the blow, but she was distressed to find she was still holding the shears. She could feel the stickiness of his blood as it sprayed onto her face.
Things seemed to speed up again. Darice was shouting at someone else who had come into the room; they replied in Praxatillian. Sabrina thought she made out the word for "regent," but nothing else made sense. Then Darice knelt beside her, taking her shoulders and saying something earnestly. Tassan's face joined her, battered and alarmed; he laid a hand on Sabrina's cheek and said something in a calm, soothing voice. She thought he asked her if she understood him, and she tried in vain to shake her head.
Tassan said something to Darice, who agreed, motioning to someone else in the room, out of Sabrina's range of vision. Her adrenaline rush spent, she felt the fog creeping over her again, clouding her sight. As she fell into darkness, she was dimly pleased she could at last understand Tassan as he said, "Sabrina. Sabrina!"