A disharmonious clamor of bells from city, palace, and temple announced both the fourth hour of the afternoon watch and Cecile de Blasencourt’s journey feast. Saints and daemons, I’d used the entire afternoon. Dante’s books would have to be returned to the library later.
As I returned Cecile’s history book to the drawer, I fingered Lianelle’s magical trinkets. The fortress wall of my convictions sagged. If her powder left me unseeable, then what of these other things? True magic. Gautieri magic, right out of these history texts. I doubted the pendants would have meaning without a sister to share them, but the ring . . . She’d said the falcon’s head ring could warn me of poison. Why hadn’t I been wearing it the previous day?
Something had changed. The conspirators had wanted Lianelle’s book—which they’d gotten. They also wanted these things she had made, but they’d never shown any interest in me. Now someone was trying to kill me. Perhaps I was getting close to the truth.
The fire smoldered in my gut. “Show me your worst,” I snapped. “I am Michel de Vernase’s daughter, and you’ll not take me down so easily.”
I slipped the gold circle onto my finger, locked the hidden drawer, and set out for Cecile de Blasencourt’s journey feast. Everyone would be there.
CHAPTER 17
19 OCET, LATE AFTERNOON
T
he Minor Hall of Castelle Escalon housed a glittering assemblage. At least forty long guest tables had been ranked across the hall and laid with fine linens and painted porcelain. The raised head table sat crosswise to the others in front of a newly completed mural that depicted
The Creation of All That Walks
in vivid colors and astonishingly lifelike detail.
Every lady and gentleman of the court seemed to be present at the journey feast—we maids of honor sprinkled amid the others like sugared plums on a cake. Tucked away in the corner behind the high table stood Duplais, his hands at his back, primly overseeing guests and servants alike. Chevalier Ilario, pensive in froths of black lace and taffeta, topped by a gray-plumed hat, sat at Queen Eugenie’s left hand. On her right Mage Dante slouched in his chair. Bored and disdainful, his gaze roved the crowded tables below the dais. When one person shuddered and turned away, his shadowed attention moved on to the next.
A permanent position as the object of Mage Dante’s scrutiny seemed more attractive than my own seating arrangement. My assigned dinner companion had inflamed my complexion to a heat that could roast the duck on my plate.
“The lady says ye ride astride like a man. Is’t true? As skill it’s fine, for Gurmedd paths are too steep for dainty saddling. And truth, the considering of a right lady spreading her legs rousts my rod. But then, I’ve a wonder about yer maidswatch.” The Honorable Derwin de Scero, Barone Gurmeddion, wiped his mouth on his grease-spotted sleeve and lubricated his most astonishingly vulgar conversation with yet another mug of ale. “Bad enough to take on traitor’s spawn, but I’ll have no bride broke without I do it myself.”
“I am a skilled rider,” I mumbled, solely because failure to respond would cause him to repeat his vile speculations louder. The scandalized ladies and gentlemen seated across the table and to either side of Derwin had already averted their faces and retreated as far as the close seating permitted, but they would not ignore such ripe fodder for a long winter’s gossip.
Only the barone’s avowal that he relished women who battled his will, “begging to be tamed” had quashed my fervent desire to smash a plate into his ugly face. Instead I had restrained my temper, spoken as little as possible, and distracted myself by searching the faces for Queen Eugenie’s late-night liaison. Such a strikingly confident man would stand out even in such a crowd, especially if he made a habit of out-of-fashion apparel. No luck at finding him. No luck at persuading Derwin to shift his attentions elsewhere.
“Ye must speak up when addressing a lord, girl,” declaimed Derwin. “Women are best silent—and I teach ’em that right off—but when I ask, I expect a firm and truthful answer. No squirreling. No dainty-mouthing. Whispering bespeaks liars and sneaks. Won’t have it in my house.”
Lady Antonia had snagged me as I hurried into the hall. Called me
caeri
and dithered over “this new and exciting prospect” like a child unwrapping a birthday gift, then whisked me off and introduced me to the most singularly unattractive man I had ever met. Leathery brown skin appeared to have shrunk to fit his hard, bony frame. Sparse gray-brown hair bristled on his knobby skull and jutting chin. His expensive camlet was splattered with remnants of a month’s meals, and the reek of sour flesh near had me gagging as he circled me, appraising as if I were a horse for hire.
“I’ve not bedded a blood-kin woman before. Don’t you imagine to use your witching on me, though. There’s iron enough in Gurmedd’s crags; magic don’t work there. But please me with your
female
tricks”—his tongue darted out from wide-stretched lips—“and I’ll treat ye fair.”
Antonia had lavished the lord—a very minor lord—with flattery, insisting that his warriors’ unmatched prowess, his staunch alliance with the king, and his determined stewardship of the most remote mountain passes between Sabria and Norgand kept our northern borders impregnable.
The Honorable Derwin could be a duc or King Philippe’s sworn brother for all I cared. This particular alliance would
not
happen. I’d use Lianelle’s potion and walk to Syanar first.
Derwin raised a grease-slicked hand. “Here, boy,” he shouted to a passing servitor. “More of that meat, and plenty of skin with it.”
The musicians in an upper gallery began a new tune—a somber, driving pulse of tambours overlaid by shawm and pipes, sinuous melodies in the mode of ancient Sabria. A troupe of veiled dancers whirled and leapt down the wide aisles between the guest tables, the bells and links about wrists and ankles chinking in rhythm.
The barone shifted his chair around to get a better view, dripping fat on his soiled garments while chewing the slab of duck breast impaled on his knife. He paused from time to time to lean toward the nearest gentleman and blurt lewd comments on the female dancers’ physical attributes and their movements or positions.
The Temple taught that only family or dedicated mystics could, by their deeds of honor and righteous living, speed a soul’s journey through the trials of Ixtador Beyond the Veil. But most people of my acquaintance presumed the Pantokrator would not discount the offerings of close friends and liege lords in the weighing of a soul’s worthiness for Heaven. Queen Eugenie seemed to share that view. She had hired the city’s finest players and musicians to send Lady Cecile off on her Veil journey with dignity. Even assuming the Pantokrator cared at all for humankind, I doubted Derwin’s presence accorded the dead ducessa much benefit.
With the barone’s attention diverted, I sought to clear my own thoughts of their murderous bent and focus my meditations on Cecile’s welfare. I trained my eyes on my hands, folded in my lap. The falcon’s head on Lianelle’s ring stared back at me with its silver eye.
The exercise merely roused the inner voices I’d fought so hard to mute since slipping the gold circle on my finger. They forever lurked in the nooks and niches of my mind, waiting to be heard . . . as they had since childhood. Since I discovered that being around cities and crowds caused hissing and buzzing in my ears. The thought mystified and terrified me. Proximity to my sister’s magic seemed to swell them to a volume and intensity that threatened sanity. All my determination could quiet the din only to this muffled rumble. I would yield five years of my life to go back to Montclaire and the quiet countryside.
There you are.
I glanced up at Derwin’s back as he strained to see the performers, and then at my equally absorbed neighbors, before grasping the source of the quiet words. Inside me. The clarity of his voice left the others but a murmur.
I’ve no wish to terrorize you. I glimpse you now and then, but I’ve stayed back to give you time.
Glimpse?
All gooseflesh, I peered around the hall, examining every man within line of sight without moving my head.
Not with eyes. Don’t you understand? We could be ten kilometres apart or a thousand. I glimpse you in the mindstorm . . . in the aether, where the unseen energies of life are expended. I
hear
you despite the damnable noise, though what we do is no more connected to ears than these words I send you are connected to a tongue. It’s easiest to find you when strong emotion carries you into the aether, as on that first night. But with this gift you can open yourself to the storm at quieter times. Any time. Your voice is so clear, so distinct, I could pick it out were a whirlwind battering bricks round my head.
His presence surged, as if he felt the need to expend his thoughts before I dismissed him again. The feasting company receded to a blur.
If you’d rather I not intrude, I’ll honor your wish. But I’ve grasped this is new to you, and I’d like to reassure you. Selfishly, because it is so . . . fine
. . .
to hear another, to know I’m not the only one . . .
Rushing now, like a stream broken loose of its channel. Because I did not stop him. Because I’d no desire to be trapped again in the vile present with Derwin of Gurmeddion. This voice reflected so much the barone was not.
You needn’t fear it exposes you in any way. The very nature of the gift protects you . . . protects us both. I can only know what you reveal in words or by the tenor in which you speak them. Clearly you are a woman of strong passions who has experienced some upheaval of late—maybe only the unveiling of this gift. Yet were I standing at your side, I could not recognize you. I cannot know your face. I cannot know the place where you stand . . . or sit . . . or sleep. Try it. Tell me where I am just now. You cannot. I doubt you’d believe it anyway. Think of all you’ve divined of my history . . . my circumstances . . .
Which was nothing, of course. He was a man, not a child. He seemed thoughtful and well-spoken. Educated, his vocabulary and articulate grammar attested. Alone. Longing laced his every word. I told myself to be rational. He could be skilled at masking.
It’s only natural you’re skeptical. But there is no lying in the aether.
Withholding
, yes, but untruth galls the inner ear. Let me demonstrate. I’ll tell you three things, and you must judge their truth. I live in Merona. Jolly pipe music will always lift my spirits. I spent one year of my life without speaking.
Two statements flowed past me, clean and sure. One scraped my spirit, discordant, like a vielle played with a stick instead of a bow. Closing my eyes, I shaped words in that private darkness behind my eyelids:
You detest jolly pipe music
. Then I nudged them into the chaos.
Pleasure . . . relief. . . a deep and resonant joy swept through me like a spring zephyr . . . feelings not my own, yet vigorous enough to crease my cheeks with a smile.
Exactly so
, he said
. Now you. Come, test me.
Silk embroidery is my favorite pastime. I have delivered a foal with my own hands. I was born in a tent.
The game came easy, so like those played at Montclaire. And I was well practiced at masking any feeling that might register in face or voice. Perhaps the skill might hold me impassive for this odd communication, as well.
So you are a woman of strong passions, born in a tent, who has helped a horse give birth and dislikes . . . detests? . . . embroidery. To despise mindless triviality makes perfect sense, but that you feel so strongly about the horse intrigues me. The birthing in a tent even more. Somehow I don’t imagine you a shepherdess. Those who labor in the rough world are rarely the gentle spirits noble ladies imagine—yet you
could
be. Such gifts flourish most often in those close to the natural world. Perhaps you are a warrior woman riding across the steppes of Syanar. I cannot say how far this bond might stretch. Almost all I know of it has come from study—a mention here, a whisper there, a great deal of listening and experimenting.
I did not respond to this probing. Caution had not completely deserted me. But now I had engaged him, I desperately wanted to know more. That first time, I’d heard my father, too.
And so I ventured a step.
You say only we two can do this, but I hear many, some very clearly.
Yes, the mindstorm. You hear the strong emotions of thousands. I do, as well. And yes, sometimes they are shaped in words—spoken or unspoken—and sometimes in feeling only. But none is directed at us. They just exist. The aether is the medium of souls. The mindstorm itself fluctuates like the weather—sometimes violent, sometimes serene, surging, fading. We cannot control who we hear any more than we can control the clouds and rain.
But if I picked out one voice from all these thousands, someone sorrowing or in pain, I could speak to him like this. . . .
Alas, no. We witness. We speak. But unless the other shares the gift, we cannot be heard. That’s why it’s named a curse.
Not even someone familiar . . . family . . . friends?
The negative response came before he spoke it.
Only the gift makes it possible to hear the voices of the mindstorm. Familiarity . . . acquaintance . . . plays no part. Nor have I discovered anything to suggest the gift runs in families, as magical talent does.