The Bitterbynde Trilogy (38 page)

“The Ineffable One is always very busy,” she stated, sidling away. “You understand, you will have to wait until he can spare time for you. People are always clamoring to see him. Mind you, behave yourself now. People who are lucky enough to see him ought to be nice and polite.”

Imrhien sat, nicely and politely, on the chair, and time labored on. Eventually the door opened and another maidservant beckoned her to enter.

The charming man's dim workrooms were as unlike Ethlinn's as night from day. Copper tubes, retorts, and round-bellied crystal containers loomed out of purple shadows, filled with colored liquids, some steaming. Little red-eyed fires glowed in braziers. A myriad of jars in neat rows held preserved eyeballs, tiny birds' hearts, embryos, and the internal organs of a multitude of species. A cluster of fox skulls hung from a hook over a dish of livid crystals. The complete skeleton of a horse stood in a corner, fastened together by brass rivets. Cases of polished wood with velvet linings lay open to display scalpels, lancets, needles. A row of bleeding-bowls stood on a shelf alongside a thaumatrope and a cautery, a variety of apothecary jars, glazed gallipots inscribed with runic labels, and large, spherical vessels footed with taps.

Some walls were mirrored, others were hung with tapestries depicting magical symbols, runes, stars, and moons. On a massive oaken desk a huge tome lay open. Across the pages slumped an intricately embroidered silk bookmark terminating in gilt tassels. Shelves embraced more dark, leather-bound volumes, books in cases of fretted and pierced silver so intricately wrought that they looked like fine point lace, and parchment scrolls tied with purple ribbon. A display case imprisoned stuffed lizards and snakes, which looked out through jeweled eyes.

The effect was of some ominous cave filled with dead or inanimate things that somehow retained a counterfeit life, so that they harbored a mechanical ability to rend, tear, slice, burn, and puncture.

A stone slab table, long and narrow, stood in the center of this grand chamber. It was raised some four feet off the floor. A spill of something caustic had pitted one of its edges. Beside it on a bench, a neat arrangement of honed instruments, knives and needles, gleamed softly in the diffuse twilight. And the smell … The odor of incense, masking the whiff of bad meat.

A third attendant told the new client to remove her outer garments and don a gray linen robe.

“The Ineffable One will appear soon,” she said. Judging by her extravagant black-and-white livery, she was more exalted than the first and second. “He is a very busy man. You are fortunate he has been able to find time for you.”

Imrhien nodded. If by now she did not understand how fortunate she was, she must be stupid. She was about to turn and flee when another door opened and the wizard entered, flicking crumbs from his lips.

If the abode of Korguth the Jackal was impressive, the wizard himself was more so—a tall, deep-chested man, not far past his thirtieth year, well-favored. Alternating bands of black and silver striped the long, thick hair falling to his shoulders. So white were his magnificent robes that they seemed to be made of light, and he imbued with that light like a being from another, higher realm. When his eyes lit on the deformed face he showed no surprise but began speaking in a voice like a honey-cake stuffed with raisins and figs, reassuring in its mellifluous richness.

“Paradox ivy poisoning will not cause difficulty. I have had many successes with it. All you must do is mind what I tell you. Cooperate, and there shall be results. You will be as you were before the poisoning—an ordinary, somewhat plain face, I fear. I can tell from the rustic and somewhat coarse bone structure.”

His eyes flickered past his client to the mirror. It was then that she realized that he had not flinched when he'd first set eyes on her because he had not
seen
her. Absorbed in himself, he perceived only a symbol, a source of income and lauder.

Yet she had almost been charmed.

The arrogant windbag sees only himself, and the adoration of these gullible sycophants
, she thought.
But I cannot let that matter to me. He can give me what I want, and I must endure
.

“Above all, you will not complain or make screams and moans. Do you understand?”

He winced slightly, as though the very thought of such uncouthness pained his ears.

She nodded.

Then there was a drink, cold and blue like death, killing rational thought with a hard tide of paralysis. Paralysis, yet only partial numbness. They laid her on the cold stone slab, in her gray robe, and then it began: the pain, the blades, the hot needles, the searing acids of the pastes, turning each nerve to a severe metal filament that conducted along its path a charge of agony most exquisite.

It went on and on. Imrhien would have cried out, many times, if she had possessed a voice. Agony sang with a piercing, high voice of its own: a paean to pain. The whole length of her body quivered, arching in torment. Through a miasma of fire, the rich voice said smoothly, “It is necessary for it to become worse before it can get better.” But it just worsened, until a time when there had been no suffering was unimaginable and all there had ever been were needles and burning. Just before the blackness came, the voice said, far off, “Tell the red uncle to come back tomorrow.”

There was blood on the pillow, fresh blood and black ichor, but it was difficult to see. Her face was an inferno. With numbed fingers, the patient reached up to touch it, meeting only bandages. Somewhere, a fig-cake said contemptuously:

“It is your own fault. I'll warrant you cried out in the night, after the procedure was completed. I had expected better return of you. Now the treatment will not be effective.”

Later she was lifted and carried along. A bellowing burst through numb silence, like a red blister rupturing.

“
What have ye done to her
?”

Uproar exploded all around, after which there came enclosure within a carriage. Hoofbeats dropped like long lines of clay cups, and the swaying of the upholstery sent scarlet veins of lightning through a thickness that choked.

When the cool, green relief washed over her and put out the fire, she lay and soaked in it until it turned to tears.

“'Tis your eyes,” said the voice of Muirne. “Mother says your sight be in danger. We must keep your face covered for seven days. I will be bathing the skin and changing the dressings twice daily. You be scarred now beyond repair. Why did ye go to this wizard? My uncle rages like a wounded bull. He went back to the wizard's palace and demanded to see him, but the sentries would not let him in. He has threatened to ruin the mage's reputation and to kill him.” Angrily she added, “They have told my uncle that if he says a word against this charlatan, he and his kindred will be hunted down!” She paused. “This man is powerful. I guess that even if we should keep silent, he means to revenge himself on us for this threat and to prevent us from ever speaking out against him. I think he means us ill. I have observed strangers watching this house. You have brought trouble on us.”

What she says is true
, thought Imrhien, lying desolate in her cage of darkness.
It is true, and I must leave this house as soon as possible lest I bring further harm. I have been a fool. In seeking public acceptance, I have lost many things far more precious
.

At night, Muirne's weight pushed down the other side of the bed as she slid in with barely a rustle and never a word. In the dark hours Imrhien would lie awake, listening to the slight scuffling sounds of the domestic bruney busy at its surreptitious housework below-stairs. By day the sparrow sometimes cheeped and scuttered, pecking the crumbs Muirne left for it on the washstand, and there were the sounds of comings and goings in the room below, and voices floated up the stairs—often the voices of unfamiliar folk who were gone in the evenings. Then the family would converse.

Liam's voice: “Aye, Mother, I ken that Eochaid would be the best lad for the job, but he cannot come with us. His father lies ill, and he must stay to keep his stepmother and young brothers. But I tell ye, the lads we have chosen be strong and skilled enough to provide defense in time of need. Uncle, Mother says she feels we are going into deadly peril with this treasure-seeking, and although she trusts the Sulibhain brothers, she mislikes the three east-side lads we be taking along.”

“Hush, boyo, not so loud when ye talk of treasure. And ye should not be so freely a-spending of it in the city as ye are, gifting to your friends, buying drinks for all and sundry—the wrong folk might be getting the idea that ye have stumbled upon a good thing. I like the look of those riversiders right enough, but I trust your mother's judgment. Let us choose three others.”

“But—there be no others. I mean, if we do not take those three, there will be trouble.”

“Why would there be trouble?”

“Well, ye see, they be right fond of hunting, and I promised them good pay. I had to promise that, else they would not even have considered coming here to meet ye and Mother. They be stalwart, and good fighters. I thought they would be just right—I could find no fault with them.”

“I can find fault to begin with—that they threaten trouble if they do not get what they want!”

“We have no choice now, Uncle.”

“
Obban tesh!
Of course we have a choice! We tell them the departure has been delayed, then we leave earlier than planned, and in secret, taking only the three worthy Sulibhains. Danger there might be, but those Sulibhains be renowned for their prowess, and they b'ain't no milksops.”

“Aye, but what will the eastsiders do when they learn we have given them the slip?”

“Ach, a crew of patches like those can do naught. They'd have trouble enough just pulling on their breeches. Still, I b'ain't leaving here until those wrappings come off
her
face for good and I see if she be all right.”

When the bandages came off for the last time, the patient's sight was intact, if blurred. The puffy flesh of her face was too sore to touch. She avoided reflective surfaces. Ethlinn, bathing the wounds with a herbal wash, advised that the skin must be left open to the air, to dry out.

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Dully, Imrhien nodded.

All travel preparations were complete. It had been arranged that Imrhien, in her own coach-and-four with a driver, a personal maid, and two footmen—all of whom were to start no sooner than at the beginning of the journey—was to join with a road-caravan that was at that time forming up to drive west along the Caermelor Road. Serrure's Caravan promised to be an extensive column; as well as the usual small merchants who cooperated with each other in such journeys for the sake of the protection afforded by numbers, its ranks were being swelled by farmhands, apprentices, and town gallants who were fired up to join the Royal Legions or the Dainnan. For the armies of Eldaraigne were now mobilizing, in the face of the slowly growing threat from Namarre, and they were making preparations for battle. Playing soldiers was all the rage now in Gilvaris Tarv, and in the town squares youths practiced their fighting skills on one another, to the entertainment of the onlookers. “For D'Armancourt!” was the cry, and, “For Eldaraigne!”

Storms of both kinds hammered on the anvil of the city's roofs from time to time; these phenomena, combined with thrilling tidings of forces gathering in the northeast and the restlessness of the inhabitants, forged a sense of change in the air, as though a signpost had been passed that could not be revisited.

Diarmid blew in breathless, one dark glittering shang morning, to announce that he was wasting no more time—he was also going to accompany Serrure's Caravan on its journey westward.

“I shall hire on as a guard—an outrider. I have learned all that I can, here. If I do not go now, all the best places will be taken.”

Sianadh clapped a hand on the shoulder of his tall nephew. “'Tis good news, Diarmid my young cockerel. By good fortune, Imrhien is to travel with Serrure's Caravan, too—ye can keep her company and watch over her.”

Diarmid stiffened almost imperceptibly.

“With all my heart I wish to do so,” he said. “But meaning no disrespect to the lady, I shall be riding as a paid guard and thus shall not be able to leave my duties.”

“Ah, codswallop,” Sianadh snorted. He was interrupted by Muirne, who had come running in when she heard the news.

“Oh, take me with ye, Diarmid! The Royal Company of Archers would have need of a good markswoman, would they not?”

Her brother shook his cinnamon head. “I'll not take my young sister into battle. Besides, Mother needs you here.”

“‘I, said the sparrow, with my bow and arrow,”' sang Sianadh. “And a
doch
good shot ye be, too, Birdie—ye won that gold brooch off me with your marksmanship, not that I wasn't going to give it to ye anyway—but a little lass like ye in the King's army—it just wouldna be right!”

“That is not fair!” chided his niece. “I would do better at court than those farm churls from hereabouts who are going to the Royal City. Why, they would not even know how to behave at the dinner table. I have heard about all the manners of gentlefolk. I know.”

“Eating be eating, b'ain't it, Birdie?”

“Nay, Uncle Bear. In Caermelor, at the Royal Court, they be so—oh, so much more advanced than anywhere else. 'Tis not done to wipe your fingers on your hair or the tablecloth, or belch, or speak with your mouth full of food, or scratch, or pick your teeth at table. Ye have to use little forks to pick up the food. Ye be not allowed to pour wine for your betters or for yourself, but to wait for them to deign to pour it for ye, if they be feeling generous. And the carving of the meats must be done a certain way, and as for the toasts—it would take ye a whole day just to learn the complications.”