The Magic Council (The Herezoth Trilogy) (48 page)

“Watch your step,” the judge warned Vane.
“You could have grabbed weaponry from Oakdowns, if you say you went there
first.”

“To find August! I went there to find
August. Had I taken the time to grab weapons, she would have been dead before I
got to her. I’m telling you, it was magic or nothing. On most occasions I
prefer not to cast spells, but I’m not about to let someone murder my wife
because I need to make some political statement about sorcery. There’s a point
where those considerations disappear, and I’d place it at the point of a dagger
against my pregnant wife’s abdomen.”

August was proud of Vane’s spunk, and
glad to see him defend himself with so much fervor, demonstrating not just
energy (thanks to that spell) but heart he had not shown since the attack. All
the same, she felt relieved that Amison’s sisters sat behind her and well to
the left, barring them from her vision.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Return to Podrar

Amazingly, the
Podrar Bugle
printed no opinion articles the day after Vane came to
court. The editors let Ingleton and his duchess, and especially the king, speak
for themselves through their testimony. While it seemed incredible to think
Carson Amison had sliced out a rebel sorcerer’s tongue, and the timing of the record
books’ discovery was suspicious (or providential, as the king had noted on the
stand Bendelof Esper would have viewed it), the truth of the situation seemed
plain. Amison’s own servant had mentioned his throwing “Cat got your tongue?”
back at August, and the expert witness who verified the books’ authorship was a
neutral party, an employee at the university and library. People who originally
had taken Vane’s guilt for granted began to ask themselves: could Ingleton be
innocent after all? He used magic on a semi-regular basis, everyone knew that,
but for transportation. Even for someone of Zalski’s blood, transporting was a
far cry from slicing open a man’s chest with premeditation. And there was still
the question of how stupid Ingleton was, if he had committed murder, to do so
openly and with magic when he magically could have covered everything up.

The crowds thinned out considerably at
Oakdowns, and their violence ceased. The judge sentenced Rich Goodly to hang
for conspiracy in the attempted murder of August Heathdon and the murder of
Bendelof Esper; Goodly did so in the jail two days following the trial.

The evening of the execution found August
with Vane in Zacry’s office, where they had been sleeping because what used to
be Vane’s room was now Viola’s. The desk had been pushed against the wall to
clear space for a mattress, and the two had just closed their eyes when Vane
opened his again.

“August?” She turned to him with a
wondering stare. “If we can go back to Oakdowns at some point, would you want
to? We could buy a house here, couldn’t we?”

“We’d have to sell Ursa’s to free up the
money.” She sat up, and Vane, who had recovered considerable strength in the
last day or two, followed suit. “Is that what you want to do? Move to
Traigland?”

“I don’t, not really. But that doesn’t
mean it wouldn’t be wise.”

“When have we ever done the sensible
thing?”

“Amison could have killed you, August. He
would have, gladly, and there’ll be others. You read Goodly’s testimony. All
Herezoth heard him talk about sorcerer scum, and the fewer the better, and….
Goodly’s not the only one who thinks that way. And it’s not only us now,
there’s the baby coming. If someone hurts that child and we could have
prevented it just by living elsewhere, I’ll never forgive myself.”

“Val, I figured out what I want to do
with the mansion.”

“With Ursa’s? What’s that?” he asked,
confused by the change of subject.

“I’ve been thinking, ever since you told
me what the council was discussing before you ran off, since you mentioned a
school where magicked and non-magicked children could live and study together.
No existing school would take that project on. It’s too much work, too
controversial, and the funding the council has, it’s not enough to build a new
school and pay teachers and everything else. You could use the mansion, though.
We could easily fix it up to be suitable for a boarding school.”

“August….” Vane put a hand on her
shoulder. “August, that mansion would be perfect.”

“We’d have to sell the mansion to move
here. Val, the council could go on without you, and we could learn to be happy
in Traigland, I think, especially in Traigland City. But, well, we couldn’t
keep helping the people in Ingleton like we have been. We’d have to give that
up. Visiting Ursa, that’s out too, and Rexson and Gracia, we couldn’t see them.
If we abandon the kingdom, we can’t randomly drop by the Palace of all places.
That’s absurd. It would only cause Rexson trouble. And we couldn’t turn the
mansion into a school, because we’d need the money from it to establish
ourselves.” She paused, and Vane said nothing in the few seconds she fell
quiet. He was too busy pondering the implications of that
learn to be happy
.

“Why do you want to leave Herezoth?” she
asked. “Is it the thought of facing all those nobles again? Greller and Thad
and Amison’s family?”

“I couldn’t care less what they think,”
he said. “Thad’s better than most, but even he wouldn’t stand up for me after I
married you. And Thad’s father, he saw right through Amison. He’d never think I
arranged the man’s murder. I don’t fear the Duke of Podrar.”

“So what is it?” she asked. “Why do you
want to stay in Traigland?”

“I don’t want
to stay here. My pride balks at the very thought. But if it’s that
or lose you to some maniac, that or have someone harm our child….”

“Name one thing Traigland has to offer us
that Herezoth can’t: other than Zacry and Kora, because that doesn’t count.
Rexson’s in Podrar and it’s a case of either-or. Name a single way we can help
people here above and beyond what we can do in Ingleton, and I just might tell
you we should relocate. One thing.”

“I can’t,” he admitted.

“We’d be wasting our lives here. Val,
listen to me, Bennie didn’t die so that we could run scared. And Laskenay, if
she’d thought fleeing justifiable she would have brought you here herself. She
knew her place was between Herezoth and her brother, and you know yours is in
Podrar on that council. Beyond that, you will not deprive her grandchild of the
land she died for, not as long as I’m the tot’s mother.”

“The child won’t have long to love
Herezoth if someone slaughters him.”

“I know Traigland’s safer, I do. And I
know you’re only thinking of me and the baby and our well-being.” She grabbed
his hand and said, “You have to understand, what happened was a once in a
lifetime tragedy. No one else came close to being the kind of threat Amison
proved, and somehow, people see you were innocent in his death. Allow three
weeks, maybe a month for some other story to grab the public eye, and we’ll
be able to go back. Oakdowns is secure.
If those spells you have protecting it held during that onslaught, nothing will
bring them down. We got married to face what challenges might come head-on,
together, and that’s what we’ll keep doing, because Amison didn’t change us. We
can’t let him change who we are. Oakdowns will be safe again, and I, I swear to
you the next time you tell me not to leave, I’ll listen. I’ll listen…. Oh God,
Bendelof!”

August started to sob, and muffled her
wracking breaths against Vane’s chest. He could only hold her. “You’re not
responsible,” he said. “You’re not. She would never in a million years blame
you. Neither would Gratton.”

“I know,” she choked. “I know. Please,
say we’re going back. Please tell me….”

“We’ll go back,” he said. “The Giver help
us, we’ll go back.”

“Thank you,” she whispered. “Val, thank
you.”

* * *

The next week, Vane was walking longer
distances without the aid of magic, or even a guiding arm. Teena went to Kora’s
as Ilana’s guest, and Vane proposed lodging at an inn for the rest of his and
August’s stay in Traigland. Joslyn would hear nothing of it.

“It’s like old times again, having you
around, and August is no trouble at all. In fact, she’s a wondrous help with
Foden. She hasn’t been around children quite that young, and it’s good
preparation.”

As summer had arrived, Zacry was not
teaching, so he and Vane spent a good bit of time in his office discussing the
Magic Council and August’s suggestion to convert Ursa’s mansion to a school.

“It’ll need protection,” said Zacry, when
Vane first proposed the idea.

“And we can protect it the same way as
Oakdowns, can’t we?”

“It’ll need a sorcery instructor,” Zac
continued. “If any students are sorcerers, they’ll need training in basic
spells, in health and healing. Ethics lessons too. I’d volunteer to do it, but
there’s Dorane.”

Vane told him, “If no one else comes
forward, I’ll take the post.”

“And you have time for that?”

“Frankly, no. Not with Ingleton and the
Palace and the council and…. I also just killed a man with magic, which makes
me far from the optimal candidate. But it wouldn’t be for a year, probably two
or three, if we’re realistic.”

In the weeks that followed, as the crowds
disappeared slowly but surely around Oakdowns, Vane and Zacry put together a
proposal for the council’s next session, one Vane could present as his own
work. August collaborated, describing the mansion’s layout and helping the men
develop a floor plan for the school. Together they determined which rooms would
be used for what, keeping structural changes to a minimum. Kansten interrupted
them almost every other day, to rummage through Vane’s old books; she always
exchanged one she had finished for one the duke recommended.

The proposal was set by the end of July,
which was lucky, because Johann Clee had consulted the king concerning
Ingleton: whether the duke would return to Podrar from wherever he had gone;
whether he himself as council secretary should wait to call a session, or
should go on without the sorcerer. The king suggested Johann wait until August,
and the first week of that month, with no strangers outside the grounds to
bother them, Vane and his wife returned quietly to Oakdowns. Teena returned to
her home in Yangerton, safe in the knowledge that the public could not connect
her with the Duke of Ingleton.

Their second evening back, the duke and
duchess arranged to see Rexson and Gracia in the Palace library. While Vane
pulled the king aside to discuss his return to court, August sat with the
queen. At four months August’s pregnancy was beginning to show, and Gracia had
not trusted herself to offer congratulations, indeed to speak at all, when the
duchess walked in. Eyes bright with tears, the queen had taken her in a
protective embrace for a good thirty seconds, a maternal hold that reminded
August quite wonderfully of her grandmother’s hugs when she was a girl and skinned
her knee. Now, after pleasantries and after Vane had asked about
Gratton—he was staying at an inn in Crescenton, an inn whose keeper was
under strict orders from Hayden not to let him drink, though Gratton had not
once asked for alcohol—the queen found her voice. She told August, “I’ve
spoken with Amison’s sisters, and they’d like to meet you.”

“The Giver’s bugle, what for?”

August had never passed word with a
noble, barring Carson Amison. She had never thought of her Val as a nobleman
and never would, while Hayden Grissner struck her as about as noble as she
deemed herself.

“They’d like to apologize, dear. Express
their sympathies.”

“No,” said August. “No, I don’t want…. I
don’t have a thing to say to them.”

“There’s no one to make you speak the
slightest word.” Gracia took August’s hand. “Though before you decide to have
nothing to do with them, you might ask yourself how you would have felt had Rexson
and I shunned you after your sister wronged us.”

“I can’t see them, Gracia. I know it’s
wrong of me, but I can’t. I know they hadn’t the slightest part in what he did,
but they were in the courtroom, and I knew immediately who they had to be. I
could hardly look at them. The resemblance!”

Gracia embraced her again, as a mother
would, and a tear of hot guilt slid down August’s cheek. The queen said, “Put
yourself first, yourself and that child, you understand? If you cannot bear to
see them then you cannot bear it, and that’s that.”

“Val and I should have told you I was….”
And August’s voice broke. She had not been able to say
pregnant
since Amison’s reaction to the word. “We should have told
you about the baby.”

“You and the little angel are all right,
and Vane’s recovered. That’s the important thing.”

Gracia was too polite to ask why they had
left Traigland’s security, why they would ever return to this place and
especially with a child on the way, but August noted a mild accusation in her
tone and tried to justify herself:

“We had to come back. We left so much unfinished.”

“You don’t have to explain yourself to
me. But August, tell me you both took a moment to consider staying where no one
could touch you, more time than you took to consider marriage.”

“We most certainly did. Your Highness, we
realize the days are gone when we could afford to somehow throw caution to the
wind.”

“You knew that much before the attack, my
dear, and you did nothing imprudent. The attack still came. That’s what worries
me.”

“Zacry could have brought us home before
now, but we waited until Val had the strength to transport, just in case he’ll
have to transport us away again. And Val’s putting more protections around the
manor,” August assured the queen. “He’s getting up before dawn to take care of
that, and to vanish all the things people hurled across the fence: burned
cloths and spent torches, rocks everywhere, buckets of manure.” Her face turned
red. “He doesn’t want anyone touching the smallest scrap, said things could be
poisoned or carrying disease. He’s right, of course. He’ll just have to vanish
it.