Limits by Larry Niven (tohfa e dulha read online TXT) 📗

“You should make up a better one. Want some help?” Karskon shook his head, smiling despite himself. “Where are you from?”

“Inland. It’s been years since I tasted fresh fish. You were right, it’s wonderful.” He paused, but the silence forced him to continue. “I’m half Torovan, half Minterl. Duke Chamil of Konth made me his librarian, and I teach his legitimate children. Lady Durily descends from the old Minterl nobility. She’s one of Duchess Chamil’s ladies-in-waiting. That’s how we met.”

“I never understood shoreside politics,” Merle said. “There was a war, wasn’t there, long ago?”

Karskon answered for fear that Durily would. “Torov invaded after the quake. It was an obvious power vacuum. The tales tell that the Torovan armies never got this far south. What was left of the dukes surrendered first. You’ll find a good many of the old Minterls hereabouts. The Torovans have to go in packs when they come here.”

Merle was looking disgusted. “Whales don’t play at war.”

“It’s not a game,” Karskon said.

Rordray added, “Or at least the stakes are too high for ordinary people.”

There was murky darkness, black with a hint of green. Blocky shapes. Motion flicked past, drifted back more slowly. Too dark to see, but Karskon sensed something looking back at him. A fish? A ghost?

Karskon opened his good eye.

Durily was at the window, looking out to sea. Leftward, waves washed the spike of island that had been Crown Hill. “There was grass almost to the top,” Durily said, “but the peak was always a bare knob. We picnicked there once, the whole family—”

“What else do you remember? Anything we can use?”

“Two flights of Stairs,” Durily said. “You’ve seen the one that winds up the outside of the tower, like a snake. Snake-headed, it used to be, but the quake must have knocked off the head.”

“Animated?”

“No, just a big carving…um…it could have been animated once. The magic was going out of everything. The merpeople were all gone; the mainlanders were trying to learn to catch their own fish, and we had trouble getting food. Nihilil was thinking of moving the whole court to Beesh. Am I rambling too much, darling?”

“No telling what we can use. Keep it up.”

“The inside stairs lead down from the kitchen, through the laundry room on this floor, and through Thone’s room on the lower floor.”

“Thone.” Karskon’s hand strayed to his belt buckle, which was silver, and massive; which was in fact the hilt of a concealed dagger. “He’s not as big as Rordray, but I’d hate to have him angry with me. They’re all too big. We’d best not be caught…unless we, or you, can find a legitimate reason for being in Thone’s room?”

Durily scowled. “He’s just not interested. He sees me, he knows I’m a woman, but he doesn’t seem to care…or else he’s very stupid about suggestions. That’s possible.”

“If he’s part of a were-lion family—”

“He wouldn’t mate with human beings?” Durily laughed, and it sounded like silver coins falling. No, he thought, she wouldn’t have had trouble seducing a young man…or anything male. I gave her no trouble. Even now, knowing the truth…

“Our host isn’t a were-lion,” she said. “Lions eat red meat. We’ve brought red meat to his table, but he was eating fish. Lions don’t lust for a varied diet, and they aren’t particular about what they eat. Our host has exquisite taste. If I’d known how fine a cook he is, I’d have come for that alone.”

“He shows some other signs. The whole family’s big, but he’s a lot bigger. Why does he shave his face and clip his hair short? Is it to hide a mane?”

“Does it matter if they’re lions? We don’t want to be caught,” Durily said. “Any one of them is big enough to be a threat. Stop fondling that canape sticker, dear. This trip we use stealth and magic.”

Oddly reluctant, Karskon said, “Speaking of magic…?”

“Yes. It’s time.”

“You’re quite right. They’re hiding something,” Rordray said absently. He was carving the meat from a quarter of ox and cutting it into chunks, briskly, apparently risking his fingers at every stroke. “What of it? Don’t we all have something to hide? They are my guests. They appreciate my food.”

“Well,” said his wife, “don’t we all have something worth gossipping about? And for a honeymooning couple—”

At which point Estrayle burst into a peal of laughter.

Arilta asked, “Now what brought that on?” But Estrayle only shook her head and bent over the pale yellow roots she was cutting. Arilta turned back to her husband. “They don’t seem loving enough, somehow. And she so beautiful, too.”

“It makes a pattern,” Rordray said. “The woman is beautiful, as you noticed. She is the Duchess’s lady-in-waiting. The man serves the Duke. Could Lady Durily be the Duke’s mistress? Might the Duke have married her to one of his men? It would provide for her if she’s pregnant. It might keep the Duchess happy. It happens.”

Arilta said, “Ah.” She began dumping double handfuls of meat into a pot. Estrayle added the chopped root.

“On the other hand,” Rordray said, “she is of the old Minterl aristocracy. Karskon may be too, half anyway. Perhaps they’re not welcome near Beesh because of some failed plot. The people around here are of the old Minterl blood. They’d protect them, if it came to that.”

“Well,” his wife said with some irritation, “which is it?”

Rordray teased her with a third choice. “They spend money freely. Where does it come from? They could be involved in a theft we will presently hear about.”

Estrayle looked up from cutting onions, tears dripping past a mischievous smile. “Listen for word of a large cat’s-eye emerald.”

“Estrayle, you will explain that!” said her mother.

Estrayle hesitated; but her father’s hands had stopped moving, and he was looking up. “It was after supper,” she said. “I was turning down the beds. Karskon found me. We talked a bit, and then he, well, made advances. Poor little man, he weighs less than I do. I slapped him hard enough to