Living With Ghosts Part 38

It did not hurt. She had learned long ago to control her body, so that she felt pain only when it suited her. She watched as the blood dripped into the bowl, long slow drops. After ten, she turned the palm up and stanched it with a cloth. From a compartment within the desk drawer, she drew out a number of small vials, and an eyedropper. She added drops from several to the bowl, careful of the proportions. With the knife tip, she stirred the liquid. It began to take on an oily iridescence. Its mingled odors rose and entwined with the scent of her candles.

She turned back to the item she had removed from the wallet. A long tress of human hair, dark auburn and slightly waved. From it, she drew two strands with the tweezers and placed them on the silk, beside the bowl. The rest, she replaced in the wallet.

She took up one hair, whispered a few words. Old Tarnaroqui, old Lunedithin, mixed into near incomprehensibility; each reinforcing the other by expansion from blindness. She let the strand fall into the bowl and breathed on it.

The candles flickered. She could hear wind gusting in the garden, considering its way about tree limbs, teasing the catch on her shutters. A clock ticked in the room next door. In the hall, someone laughed. Quenfrida waited, spine straight, eyes wide to the dawn. She was no longer breathing.

A faint shimmer began on the surface of the bowl: she felt the answering inner stir of her sympathetic blood. A ghosting, a shadowing, a miasma rising from the mingled liquids, less substantial than smoke. The light around her brightened, white and cold blue. The thread of near-mist held its own colors and they were dark and warm.

A small frown creased the skin between her brows. Within her, discomfort flickered into life, a dis-ease, a reluctance . . . She unwound the cloth from her hand and held the small wound over the flame of the blue candle. Its smoke turned acrid; her palm stung remotely. She held it unmoving for ten heartbeats. Then she withdrew it and thrust it into the misty column rising from the bowl.

The tendons jerked back. Her fingers clawed. Her wrist shook. Her even white teeth bit into her underlip, drawing blood. The taste startled her: she had not felt the pain. Something had changed . . . Last night, someone out there had tried a working, and she would have the details. Something had happened. Something had changed, and the taste upon it had spoken to her of Gracielis.

He had not the right . . . She had cautioned him and compelled him and forced him ever to her will. Even his last insubordination, with the lieutenant's ghost, should have served only to bind him closer to her, trapped in the web of fear which she had created for him.

He should be of no account.

And yet . . . A whisper of jasmine; a coolness aspected in stone . . . The steam rising from the bowl seared her, clogging her veins, and she gasped. She could feel him, out there, somewhere in the city, sleeping. The familiar touch of him, silken, uncertain, edged now with some other, sharper thing. His blood bright, clean within him. A sense from him of-almost-contentment. And a touch which was neither her own nor yet the water-thunder of the river. He had drawn himself into that; she could feel it. But there was something more . . . The weight of water falling and the texture of stone and a sound. A regular and solid sound, like wings beating . . .

Quenfrida's eyes narrowed. That aura she had touched before. Not here in Merafi, but years before in Lunedith. It had laid deep, there, mingled into the things that lay tangled and quiescent under the old stones of the north. She had realized even then the power inherent in those forces and worked with the young Kenan to unlock them, culminating in the blood spilled unwillingly alongside the great waterfall; Allandurin blood, and Orcandrin . . . But not only those two. It was in the nature of ambushes that many were hurt. The half-blood renegade Iareth Yscoithi. A handful of clansmen from disparate clans. And another, whose touch even then had made her wary.

Urien Armenwy. Full blood, throwback, shapeshifter, and manipulator of forces no less old than those over which Quenfrida sought dominion. His blood had mingled with the waters, with Valdarrien's and Kenan's, in the midst of that careful initiatory awakening.

His touch lay now on Gracielis, who should belong to herself and no other. Urien must, therefore, be somewhere in Merafi. And Gracielis . . . Quenfrida closed her eyes and made one last attempt to read him, to discover just what he had tried to do last night.

She was windborne, domained in air. She could breathe herself inside of him, and fill him wholly. She was undaria and dominatrix and mistress of his physical dreams. He had no strength with which he might withstand her. She smiled to herself and reached out to him. Gracielis arin-shae Quenfrida.

He was mantled in stone. He was still, he was closed: she could find no way by which she might enter and walk through him.

It should be easy. He should have no defenses. Gracielis-acolyte, possession, of Quenfrida.

Her eyes snapped open, and she stared into the bowl. He had stepped away from her and done what he had once feared to do. Without her presence, without her permission, he had essayed and overcome the seventh test.

He was no longer of no account. Alone in her room, Quenfrida shook her head and began, very softly, to laugh.

There was a room with painted panels and a green-hung bed. Two large long windows overlooked a garden. Overstuffed chairs, a chest, a commode, a heavy armoire. Several silk rugs on the polished wooden floor. In the hearth a small fire burned. Beside it, on the chest top, stood a stoneware jug and ewer filled with fresh warm water. Even the towels looked new. Beside them lay a folded pile of clothing.

Joyain swayed and admitted to himself that he had no idea where he was. His head ached. His mouth tasted foul. Black spots danced before his eyes. His balance was giving him problems. He felt feverish. Washing and dressing in small stages, he listened to the tides of heat which ran through him, and struggled for control. He remembered an inn and too much ale. The backs of his hands were bruised and grazed. The clothes laid out for him were not his own. He'd been looking for someone, something to do with the warnings he'd received. Looking for someone who could help . . . He wasn't sure. Memory, uncoiling backward, presented him with the image of mutilated Leladrien. His stomach lurched. Luckily for his unknown host's rugs, it seemed to be empty.

There was a mirror on top of a dresser, near a window. A quick glance in it a.s.sured him that he looked as bad as he felt. He used one of the brushes provided to put his hair in order and decided that he could not, under any circ.u.mstances, face trying to shave. He would have to do.

He was lost and he was abominably late. Always a.s.suming that a warrant wasn't out for him, after yesterday. He straightened, cursed his light-headedness, and let himself out of the room.

A long corridor, lit at both ends by large windows and with a wide stair halfway along it. He could hear distant footsteps; then a door opened and he caught a s.n.a.t.c.h of voices. Downstairs then. He could make it. He'd had worse hangovers. He arrived at the head of the stairs by dint of pausing frequently and leaning on walls. He was breathless, perspiring. His eyes kept blurring. He gulped and set a foot on the first step.

His surroundings swayed. He made a frantic grab for the banister and clung to it. After five more steps he had to sit down and try to recover his breath. Sweat slicked his palms. His head pounded.

A door opened in the hall below. Joyain gained a blurred impression of a figure in dark red. Then a female voice exclaimed, "Oh!"

Footsteps, light on the stairs. A tentative hand on his shoulder. "Monsieur?"

He looked up. He struggled to rise, said, "Forgive me, mademoiselle."

She helped him. She was tiny, standing barely to his shoulder. She said, "You're ill, monsieur."

"No, I . . ." He was uneasily aware of a rising wave of nausea. He stopped and swallowed.

She said, "You should be in bed. Come; I'll help you." She was expensively dressed. It couldn't possibly be her place to look after him.

Joyain said, "No, please . . ." and gasped as dizziness swept him. He heard her call names, then a pair of strong male arms were supporting him. He made no protest as he was more or less carried back to his room and lifted onto the bed. The pillows were blessedly cool. Careful hands removed his boots and undid his ca.s.sock. He lay still, eyes closed. After a while, the dizziness subsided.

He opened his eyes. The young woman sat next to the bed. She said, "How are you?"

"I'm not sure." Joyain licked dry lips. "Where am I?"

"In my family's townhouse, in the hill quarter." The aristocrats' quarter. He couldn't recall how he might have come to be here. He said, "You're kind."

"My friend and I found you last night. You couldn't tell us your name, so I brought you here to recover."

"Jean," Joyain said. Then, "No, I mean Joyain. Lieutenant Joyain Lievrier."

"I'm Mimi. Miraude d'Iscoigne l'Aborderie."

The sister-in-law of the queen's First Councillor. The famous widow, Lelien had called her. He was in the house of Yvelliane d'Illandre. He said, "I must go . . . my duty . . ." She frowned, and he tried to sit up and explain.

That proved disastrous. He retched uncontrollably, humiliatingly, and painfully. He felt rather like crying. Miraude said, "River bless." And then, "You need a doctor."

He needed to tell her that he should go home. He had duties. He had to find Gracielis de Varnaq and shake out of him what the Tarnaroqui had done to Merafi. But his body was recalcitrant and all he managed to say was, weakly, "But . . ."

Her hands were cool and gentle. She stroked his damp hair back from his brow and said, "Let me worry. Do you have a family I should send for?"

Only Amalie. And he had warned her to leave. This kindly Miraude should leave too, for her own safety. He had not the time for illness, he had to get help, he had to act . . . He said, "No," and then, "Iareth . . ."

Iareth, who spied on her own leader, and who was together with him witness to the dangers in Merafi. Iareth would help him. Miraude said, "Iareth Yscoithi? You mentioned her name last night." He didn't remember that. "Are you related to her?"

"No." Joyain was finding it hard to think coherently. He said, "A friend."

Miraude had been frowning. At that, her face cleared. "Do you want her? I can send a message. Although . . ." and her brows drew together, "she might not want to come here . . . Well, I can find out."

He said, "Please." And then, "Sorry-so much trouble." "No." Miraude smiled at him. "You're my guest until you're well again. I'll have the doctor see you, and I'll send for Iareth."

She was so kind. He succeeded in raising a hand to her, although it shook. He said, "Thank you."

"You're very welcome." She patted his hand. Her fingers were cold. She said, "Now, lie still, and I'll sort it out." She rose. "Don't worry. Sleep, if you can. I'll have my maid come and sit with you in case you need anything." She hesitated. "Sleep," she repeated.

Joyain closed his eyes.

Tafarin Morwenedd was talking to someone in the yard, under Kenan's window. His voice disturbed Kenan's concentration, as he tried to force sense from the cards patterned before him. He had cut short the life of his rival; he had twice paid the blood-price necessary for undarios power. He should be able to bend it to his will utterly . . . He stared down at the spread and saw nothing. Painted pictures.

It should be easy. An exercise, a task within the ability of any acolyte. It was Tafarin's fault, distracting him. Kenan pa.s.sed a hand over the cards, disarraying them. New conjunctions formed, silently. Ill.u.s.trated eyes met. Kenan muttered an imprecation and rose.

He would deal with Tafarin. And then . . . Then, he would see.

He went downstairs and out through the hall. Tafarin stood in the gateway, talking to someone in the street. Kenan could not see who. A guardsman or a street vendor, no doubt. Tafarin had no sense of what was right. No sense of the dignity due to a prince. Merafi had taught Kenan that much, at least. He paused at the foot of the outside steps and called, crossly, "Tafarin kai-reth !"

Tafarin looked round, waved, and went back to his conversation. He held something in his left hand; a piece of paper . . . Kenan glared at his back, then stalked across the yard. "Tafarin kai-reth, you have disturbed me."

Tafarin turned. "My regrets, Kenan kai-reth." He did not sound especially sincere: having made his apology, he again looked away.

It was not to be borne. Kenan drew in a breath and turned to Tafarin's companion, intending to dismiss him. Young, dressed simply, hair drawn off a narrow face in a Lunedithin-style braid . . . It took Kenan several shameful moments to recognize who it was. No paint. No silken artifice. But the devastating eyes were the same and there was a perfume on the air, speaking the syllables of a name. Gracielis de Varnaq looked back at him and bowed, too shallowly for courtesy. He said softly, "Good day, monseigneur."

Kenan gave Gracielis a curt nod, and said nothing. He shivered, a little, and realized that it was cold. That it was not raining, although the ground was damp.

Tafarin said, "Go in, Kenan kai-reth. There is no need for you to freeze out here."

"But I know Monsieur de Varnaq." Kenan said. "We met at the palace." Tafarin looked politely blank. "Perhaps he would care to break his fast with us?"

Gracielis looked at Kenan's hands. Then he said, "I thank you, but no. I have errands to run."

"For your mistress?" Kenan asked, nastily.

Gracielis smiled. Gently, he said, "Better, I think, for mine than for yours." He turned to Tafarin. "Good day to you, and my thanks."

"You are most welcome. I will inform Iareth kai-reth." Tafarin smiled in turn, and Gracielis bowed to him. Then he walked away down the street.

He looked perfectly healthy. Better, indeed, than he had when Kenan had met him at the palace. And there was something else, something Kenan could not quite identify, some quality . . .

He had been cheated in the creation of his bindings. He had handed power to sly Quenfrida, and still achieved only gleanings for himself. Kenan glared at Tafarin and said, "You will have no further dealings with that individual. I expressly forbid it."

Oh, do you...But Tafarin did not say that, for all that it was written over him. He said, quietly, "Good morning, Kenan kai-reth," and began to walk away.

Kenan's grandsire, Prince Keris, was too tolerant. It was the influence of foreigners and of the meddler Urien Armenwy. The Armenwy was too deep in the prince's counsel. When Kenan became prince, that would change . . . His grandsire and Urien had saddled him with companions of their choice. Insubordinate Tafarin Morwenedd, too long Urien's deputy. Cold Iareth Yscoithi, twice a traitor to her own kind, by virtue of her half-breed blood and her ill-fated liaison with Valdarrien of the Far Blays.

Valdarrien's Allandurin blood had been shed on Kenan's behalf, to buy his power. He would no longer brook these checks, these spies. He caught up with Tafarin and said, "What did he want?"

"Gracielis?" Tafarin said. Kenan nodded, holding grimly to his patience. "I know not. He brought a letter for Iareth."

Iareth Yscoithi should not be receiving letters from inhabitants of Merafi . . . Kenan swallowed and said, "Where is she?"

"I do not know. She went out."

Nor should she leave without first informing Kenan. He held out his hand and said, "Give it to me." Tafarin was silent, studying him. "I will ensure she receives it."

"It's private," Tafarin said, mildly.

"So she has taken another of these out-clan Merafiens to her bed?" Again, no answer. "That does not accord well with our laws, Tafarin kai-reth. Give that letter to me."

"I think not, Kenan kai-reth."

"I remind you, then, of clan ranking. I am Orcandrin-born. When my grandsire dies, I will be the Orcandros, ruler not only of my clan, but of our land in its entirety, by the old right of the otter-clan. You are Morweneddin. The fox does not run ahead of the otter. By blood- and birthright, I command you, Tafarin Morwenedd. Do my bidding."

Quenfrida had taught him something of the craft of commanding. Kenan let her dictums settle on him, speaking slowly, calmly; holding his gaze mild and level. Tafarin shuffled and tried to look away. Kenan put out a hand, and looked expectant. There was a pause, then Tafarin put the letter into it.

It was a small triumph. Tafarin was his elder and no respecter of customs which happened not to suit him. An unsuitable person to co-lead the royal kai-rethin guard. Kenan would change that when he was prince. He smiled now and said gently, "Thank you, Tafarin kai-reth."

Six hundred years of hot clan-blood looked back at him out of Tafarin's eyes. Tafarin snapped, "You are not welcome," and turned to go. Kenan went right on smiling.

He opened the letter in the privacy of his suite. Two lines, no more. No address. But it was sufficient. Iareth Yscoithi of Alfial would learn better than to go behind his back. Iareth Yscoithi of Alfial would discover what it meant to cross him.

The handwriting was that of Urien Armenwy. He was here, in Merafi, in defiance of Kenan. It could only be Iareth who had summoned him. It was only the generosity of Kenan's grandsire which had conferred on Iareth the rank and privilege of kai-reth. Her b.a.s.t.a.r.d breeding should have withheld it from her, out-clan, elor-reth.

There were rules, and rules. One set for the clan-bred, the kai-rethin. Another, wholly separate, for the b.a.s.t.a.r.d elor-rethin.

And Iareth elor-reth, called Iareth Yscoithi of Alfial, was about to discover the depths of the difference.

A few streets away, Iareth Yscoithi had other things on her mind than what Kenan might think of her. She had been at her morning sword practice when a liveried footman arrived and handed her a letter. She had excused herself to her sparring partner, then opened it, frowning. The writing was unknown to her. The seal was not. The Far Blays.

It was a short note, to the point and frostily polite. Lieutenant Joyain Lievrier had been taken ill. He was under the protection of the d'Illandre family. He had asked for Iareth; the writer would be obliged if she would visit, although equally the writer would understand any reluctance she might feel to enter that house. It was signed "Miraude d'Iscoigne l'Aborderie."

Valdarrien's wife. Valdarrien's widow, whom he once had offered to put aside for Iareth's sake. But Iareth had refused him and returned to her kin, leaving him in turn to this Miraude. And Valdarrien had died.

Iareth had come back to Merafi, but she had had no intention of returning to Valdarrien's home. Not even Urien might compel her so far. But this . . . She could not imagine how Joyain might have come to be under Miraude's protection, but it was there in black and white. Ill, and asking for her . . . She had heard the rumors of sickness in the city, seen the fires. With Joyain, she had fought in the mist. She had not missed the joy that Kenan found in Merafi's misfortunes. She owed Joyain this much at least.

She did not want to enter that house. It was her duty, nevertheless, to do so. Having once decided, she permitted herself no hesitation. It lay within easy walking distance of the emba.s.sy and it took a matter of minutes to reach it. She knocked upon its door and stated her name and purpose to the footman. He was strange to her. He ushered her in, took her cloak, and showed her into a room she remembered, to wait for Miraude.

A morning room, neat and bright, facing the garden. She had sat here with Valdarrien. She put the memory from her and sat with her back to the view. When the door opened, she neither started nor rose. It was Miraude who looked nervous, here on her own ground. She did not sit and she said, "You're Iareth Yscoithi. Thank you for coming."

"I understand that Lieutenant Lievrier has asked for me."

"Yes." Miraude began to play with one of her ribbons. "He's ill . . . It's good of you to come, after . . ."

Iareth said, "A house is only stone. I have no reason to fear it."

"No, I suppose not." Miraude sat. "But I thought you mightn't want to come. Because of Valdin." Her voice stumbled on the last word and she looked down.

"I came for Lieutenant Lievrier."

"I saw you the other evening. At the palace." Miraude said. "I wanted to talk to you then, but I couldn't." Her fingers pleated her gown. "Valdin missed you terribly, you know."

It sounded like a reproach. Probably it was a reproach. Miraude had no reason to love her. Iareth said, "That is regrettable." It was her business, how she felt about Valdarrien's death and why she had left him.

Miraude said, "You seem to be rather good at it. Being on the minds of men in pain."

"My connection with Lieutenant Lievrier is purely professional," Iareth said. And then, a little more kindly, "It is good of you to take him in."

"I could hardly leave someone lying in the road." Miraude rose. "Do you want to see him now?"

"Certainly." Iareth also rose.