The Magicians And Mrs. Quent Part 14

For a time she did not know what to say. Even if she wished for some confirmation from Mr. Bennick, she dared not mention Mr. Rafferdy's name. So she labored vigorously at the puzzle. At last, perceiving his dark eyes still on her, she looked up and said, "You seem learned in ancient lore, Mr. Bennick. May I ask you a question?"

His only answer was a nod.

Now that she had his attention her question seemed outlandish, but there was nothing to do but speak it. "Tell me, sir, do you know of any legends or myths that speak about twelve wanderers coming together in one place?"

"You say twelve wanderers, Miss Lockwell?"

"Yes, that's correct."

"Then I cannot help you. I know of no myths of ancient Tharos or the northern counties that speak of such an event. However, twelve is a number of significance in the study of magick. There are, for instance, twelve houses of the moon, each with its own occult properties, and the number twelve comes into play in many spells and enchantments. May I inquire as to the reason for your question?"

Ivy shrank under the force of his dark stare. "It's nothing," she murmured. "Only something I read and did not understand, that's all. Please don't think of it further." She bent back over her work.

They had made good progress on the puzzle. More of the trees were complete now, their branches drooping over the top of the wall, while leaves scudded before the clouds. A pair of travelers had appeared beside the wall. The gentleman gazed out of the picture, as if looking back the way they had come, but the lady's head was tilted up toward the trees.

Ivy supposed the particular stand of forest depicted in the painting was the Evengrove. While there were few patches of Wyrdwood left in the heartlands of Altania-and those that remained were small, whittled down by ax and plow over the centuries-the Evengrove was a notable exception. Not thirty miles from Invarel, a great tract of primeval forest was preserved behind high stone walls first erected by the Tharosian emperor Madiger and later improved during the reigns of numerous kings.

Folk seldom ventured into the Evengrove, for no roads had ever been hewn into the preserve. However, travelers made a common practice of walking along Madiger's Wall, and it was a popular subject for artists. Ivy set another piece in the puzzle.

"Oh, well done!" Mrs. Baydon exclaimed, clapping her hands. "I have looked at that piece a dozen times and couldn't see where it fit. What a clever thing you are, Miss Lockwell!"

Ivy merely bowed her head. The room had suddenly become too warm. She longed for a breath of wind, like that which the travelers in the painting must have felt.

"Do set down your news for a moment, Mr. Baydon. Tell us, what do you think of our work?"

He peered over the edge of his broadsheet, revealing a face not unhandsome but cast in frown. "I think it's perfectly ghastly, what with those h.o.a.ry old trees. And those two people look like they've just come from a funeral. You'd find more jolly-looking folk in a workhouse."

Ivy tilted her head, studying the picture. "I don't think it's ghastly at all. The wood is sad, perhaps, and very old. But it's appealing in its way. It makes me think of..."

"Of what does it make you think?" Mr. Bennick said.

Ivy's cheeks glowed from the attention, but she sat up straight in her chair and spoke in a clear voice. "I don't know exactly. It makes me think of something ancient, I suppose. Ancient and strange and forgotten. Like a story no one tells anymore, or a song whose tune no one quite remembers. I've always wanted to see the Evengrove, only I never have, and here it's so close to the city." She touched the picture.

"But that's a marvelous idea!" Mrs. Baydon said. "After this night it is to be another long lumenal. What a fine traveling party we would make if we can convince Mr. Rafferdy to come! What do you say, Mr. Baydon? I'm sure we can use Lord Baydon's four-in-hand. We'll stay at an inn-there must be one near Madiger's Wall, what with all the travelers-and have them pack a dinner for us to take when we venture out to the Evengrove."

"A patch of old Wyrdwood is not a place for picnics," Sir Earnsley said.

"I couldn't disagree more. Surely it's a beautiful place."

"Beautiful, you call it?" The old baronet shook his head. "Perilous, I say. Full of whispers and shadows. Where I come from, a man gives a stand of Wyrdwood a wide berth when he's out walking. There's a reason walls were built around them."

"Well, of course there's a reason," Mr. Baydon said, setting down his copy of The Comet. "The walls were meant to preserve a few groves of Altania's aboriginal wood from any sort of modern progress. Though I can't see the bother. What good is a shabby bit of forest anyway? Those old trees are always losing their leaves-not like the fine New Trees we have here in the city, which have the good sense to hold on to their greenery all year round. Still, I am sure it's harmless enough."

"Harmless!" Sir Earnsley let out a snort. "You would not say that if you had lived your life in the country."

"Indeed, if I had lived my life in the country, I am sure I would be as bound to superst.i.tion and codswallop as any Outlander."

"But you must know of the Risings, Mr. Baydon. Have you not read the accounts in the histories?"

"The histories? I'm afraid the Lex Altania is no more historically accurate than a book of nursery stories. Such works might still be studied in country schools, Sir Earnsley, but here in the city we prefer to get our knowledge from more reliable sources." Mr. Baydon tapped a finger against his issue of The Comet.

The men continued their argument, but the voices faded to a drone in Ivy's ears, like the noises of cicadas on the endless afternoon of a greatday. She stared at the puzzle on the table, and again she noticed the way the dark clouds above the trees were tinged with crimson. Maybe some in this city still believed the histories, after all. Maybe the red light was not the light of sunrise or sunset, but rather the glow of fire.

Mr. Baydon had likened the Lex Altania to a book of nursery stories, and it was true her father had read to her from it when she was a child. Written over twelve hundred years ago by an obscure Tharosian captain, the Lex told the history of the earliest days of Altania. Modern scholars considered the accounts in the book to be fanciful and largely invented. Yet Ivy remembered how Mr. Lockwell had always handled the book reverently each time he took it from the shelf to read to her.

All good tales bear a truth, he had told her once when she asked if the stories in the book had really happened. Though sometimes you have to look beyond the surface to see it.

He had never read the parts of the Lex Altania about the Risings to her, but she had studied all three volumes from cover to cover in the years since. She had to concede, the idea that patches of primeval forest had ever risen up and lashed out against mankind was fantastic.

Yet she felt her father was right, that there was a truth behind the story of the Risings. The deep forests that covered the island had been mysterious and full of peril to the men who first landed their ships on these sh.o.r.es, and they had struggled to subdue it with ax and fire. Was it really so strange for them to believe the forest had fought back?

Ivy set another piece in the puzzle, then let out a gasp. In the picture, the trees swayed back and forth as if under the force of a wind. However, the clouds remained motionless in the painted sky. A chill pa.s.sed through Ivy, but her skin was afire. The trees bent and stretched toward the two travelers. The black lines of branches reached out...

"Tell us, Miss Lockwell," Mr. Baydon said, "what do you think of those ridiculous old histories Sir Earnsley is so fond of?"

It was only with the greatest force that she pulled her gaze away from the puzzle. Spheres of light glowed at the tips of all the candles in the room, expanding and shrinking in time to the beating of her heart.

"I think..." she said.

"Yes, Miss Lockwell?" Mr. Bennick said, his dark gaze on her.

She lifted a hand to her brow. "The lights," she said. "They're too bright."

The room spun around her. All was a flurry of dazzling sparks. She heard the sc.r.a.ping of chairs, expressions of shock, and one deep voice that cut through the others.

"Fetch a doctor at once, Mr. Baydon. Miss Lockwell is not well."

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

E LDYN LIMPED THROUGH the Lowgate just as a greasy sunrise, rank from the exhalations of all the tanneries in Waterside, slicked the surface of the Anbyrn.

The umbral had been swift, no more than five hours from dusk to dawn, but by all rights he should have been back from his night's work in Hayrick Cross an hour ago. However, a mile south of the village he had spied a band of four of the king's redcrests riding along the road, and he had been forced to dive into a hedgerow to keep from being seen. The moon was bright that night, and even his trick with the shadows could not have preserved him from their notice.

After that, fearing other soldiers would be on the road, he had made his way south by muddy back lanes and bridle paths. More than once he had gotten lost when some track dead-ended, and upon jumping a stile to go overland across a field he was spied by the farmer, who fired his musket and loosed his dogs. The gun was easily dodged, but not so the hounds. One of them got a chunk of Elydn's boot, and a piece of his leg with it, before he scrambled up a wall and lost them that way.

As he entered the Golden Loom, he kept up his guard against an encounter with Miss Walpert, which he feared nearly as much as a run-in with soldiers. Despite his rebuff of her proposal a half month back, she had not lost any interest in him. Not that he should complain, for her father had lately reduced his rent, and Eldyn knew it was due to her goodly words about him. He ought to be thankful. He was thankful. All the same, he had no wish to come upon her-especially now.

Fortunately, the inn was quiet, and he was able to slip upstairs unseen. That was well, as he was certain he looked a sore sight, with the nettles in his coat and the blood on his leg. It would not do to have anyone ask questions or to wonder where he was at night, in case the king's men (or, worse yet, one of the Black Dog's own agents) ever came to the inn looking for news of suspicious doings.

And if they did, all you would have to do is point them to Westen, Eldyn told himself as he filled a basin and poured water over the back of his neck. However, that was an absurd idea. Who would the magistrate believe when they went before the court? Westen struck a fine figure in his rich clothes, gold as the day. Then there was Eldyn, longhaired, ragged, and far too thin-a pale night thing.

Sashie had not risen, or at least she had not yet emerged from her room. As far as she knew, he had been out at tavern all night with Rafferdy. In truth he had not seen Rafferdy since the full moon, not since they quarreled about his intentions toward Miss Lockwell. Since then, none of Rafferdy's usual notes had arrived at the inn. Not that Eldyn's night work left him time for hanging about taverns.

Yet he missed his friend. Eldyn would have liked to talk to him, to hear his laughter and his prattle about clothes and parties and dice. Only what could Eldyn himself say in return? How he was carrying messages that surely were intended for spies and traitors? He took off the yeoman's garb he had donned for the night's mischief and stuffed it in a bag. He made what bath he could with the basin of yesterday's water, then donned his second best shirt and his best breeches.

As for his boots, they were done for; the one was torn, and the other half gone above the ankle. He took a knife and cut off the tops, making them into something like the moccasins the aboriginals of the New Lands wore. He had no choice but to get fitted for a new pair of boots that day. Luckily, the men who gave him the messages to carry usually gave him a little money as well, slapping him on the back and calling him brother as they pressed the coins into his hand. Eldyn felt no fraternal kinship for these men. Their faces were rough, their eyes sly and full of murder. But he would nod and pocket the coins just the same.

As a result, he had enough funds to keep him and his sister at the inn for the present. He had hoped to use what remained of the money from his mother's jewels to buy a coat, but boots it would be instead. He carefully brushed his old coat one more time and set it over a chair, then laid down on the bench to try to doze for a little while.

He was awakened by the sound of the door to Sashie's chamber opening. She would come out of her room and sit with him these days and would even accompany him to the public room for meals. Her manner was civil, and she would answer any question he asked-though coolly, and she would volunteer no conversation on her own. She had made no attempt to approach Westen or in any way to break the command Eldyn had given her forbidding that relationship. Yet it was equally clear that she had not forgiven him.

"Good morning, dearest," he said, sitting up on the bench as she exited her little chamber. He rubbed his neck; the bench was bare wood with only a blanket thrown over it.

"Good morning, brother," she said, without a glance his way.

She wore her plainest dress and no ribbons in her hair, but her sadness made her look fragile and so all the more lovely, like a porcelain treasure from a Murghese palace. A fierce desire to do right by her came over him. He would give her all she deserved, all their father had promised and never given her, and then she would know that he loved her, that he wanted only the best for her. Despite his weariness, he stood.

"What would you like to do today?" he asked merrily. "Come, we can do anything you wish." He suggested several things that he thought might lift her spirits: a walk through a garden, or a boat ride on the river, or even a visit to the countryside. He had some coin; he could afford it. And such an expense would be worth the cost if it brought a little color to her cheeks and a smile to her lips.

Only she could not be compelled to leave their chambers, let alone the inn or the city. "I will stay here today," she said. "If I sit by the window, I can just see the little pear tree in the courtyard. A lark comes there sometimes, and if I open the window I can hear its song. It's the prettiest thing. Nothing could give me more joy than to hear it."

With that she sat by the window and gazed through the gla.s.s. His sister made no complaint about her situation, but as usual when he tried to engage her in conversation she responded with few words. If the lark came, he did not see it, and he heard no birdsong save for the inane cooing of the pigeons.

At last he could bear the confines of the room no longer. He had intended to stay with her all the day-a middle lumenal-so that she would not be alone so much, but the walls pressed closer with every hour, and each clatter of hooves he heard through the window belonged, in his imagination, to an agent of the Black Dog, come to question folk at the inn about traitors to the Crown.

"Perhaps you can be content here, but I must go out!" he cried at last, leaping up from the bench.

She said nothing, and only looked at him with languid eyes.

"I will be at Mrs. Haddon's," he said. "Tell Mr. Walpert if you need me for anything. He can send a boy to fetch me. I will bring you something sweet to eat when I return."

She had already turned her gaze back out the window. Eldyn donned his coat, took his hat, and shut the door quietly behind him.

I T HAD BEEN some time since he had been to Mrs. Haddon's coffeehouse, and her business had not suffered in the interim. The place was, if anything, more crowded than ever.

"Yes, things are always mad after such a short night," Mrs. Haddon said when he commented on her business. "A brief umbral leaves little time for mischief, let alone sleep, and what can't be got in bed must be got in a cup instead if one is to stay awake through the day." She gave his cheek a quick pinch, then hurried off.

Eldyn gaped after her. What did she mean by those words? A brief umbral leaves little time for mischief... Did Mrs. Haddon know something of what he had been doing at night? Only that was mad. She was the proprietor of a coffeehouse. What did she know of spies and rebels?

Perhaps more than he thought. He surveyed the room and saw plenty of young men reading The Fox and The Swift Arrow. In this place, criticism of the king and the magnates was consumed as eagerly as the contents of the cups Mrs. Haddon brought, and it similarly fueled the spirits of those who partook of it. He wondered if it was wise for him to be here. However, even as he considered this he saw Orris Jaimsley waving at him. His old cla.s.smates from St. Berndyn's College sat around their usual table. He went over to them.

They clapped Eldyn on the back as he sat down, got him a hot cup, and pa.s.sed him a flask under the table. "By G.o.d, we've missed you, Garritt," Jaimsley said. "I haven't heard one bit of sense since you were last here. You're the only serious and sober one among us."

"I warrant I'm as liable as any of you to lose my sobriety," he said with a grin, and tipped the flask over his cup. They laughed, and Eldyn laughed with them, glad for the coffee, glad for the whiskey, glad for the company of familiar friends. It had been too long since he had done this.

He pa.s.sed the flask back and asked how they had been faring at tavern without him. Jaimsley treated him to a long description of Talinger's spectacular successes with the ladies, and of Warrett's equally spectacular failures, and his own amus.e.m.e.nt over it all. Then Eldyn asked how their studies for the term were progressing.

"But haven't you heard, Garritt?" Curren Talinger said. "No one's been to cla.s.ses in a quarter month. Well, no one save those mealy-mouthed prigs at Gauldren's College. Precious little pets they are-they do anything the deans tell them to do. But not the rest of us. We came to university to learn how to think, not to think what they tell us to."

Eldyn stared. "You mean you're not attending lectures by choice?"

"No one is," Dalby Warrett replied. The laconic young man was unusually animated, and his color high. "Well, except at Gauldren's, as Jaimsley mentioned, and some of the men at Bishop's and Highhall. But the rest of us walked out, and we're not going back or paying our tuition. Not until they let Baddingdon go free."

Eldyn listened as they spoke of the events that had transpired at the university over the last half month. It seemed that Professor Baddingdon, a popular lecturer in rhetoric, had become increasingly critical of the king. The dean of his college had cautioned him to cease such talk, but Baddingdon, a Torlander, had a reputation for being as quarrelsome as he was clever. In response to the warning, he delivered a lecture in which he likened the king to a sparrow charged with guarding a field rich with grain, while the members of a.s.sembly were cast as crows, pecking at the corn. And he said what Altania needed was a hawk with keen eyes and strong talons, one that would fly across the sea and send the crows scattering. Of course, it was plain to all that he spoke of the Usurper Huntley Morden, the hawk being the symbol of that house, and the verdant field was Altania itself.

"He said that during his lecture?" Eldyn said, astonished that a man of learning could be such a fool.

Jaimsley nodded. "I suppose so many fawning freshmen have regarded him in awe for so long that he thought he was above any reproach. But no one is above their notice. They must have gotten wind of what he was intending to speak about, because they didn't even wait for him to finish his lecture but rather took him right there and then, in front of his students. He was put in chains and led out like a common criminal."

"By agents of Lord Valhaine?"

"Not just any agents. Everyone said it was the White Lady herself who took him. She had been in the back of the hall with a hood pulled up, and as soon as he uttered the words about the hawk she put back her hood and stepped forward, and that was that. Baddingdon was done for. He started to rail against the king, but one look from her and his tongue froze in his mouth, and no one lifted a finger to help him."

Talinger made a warding sign. "It's said no one can bear her gaze, not even the king's Black Dog, and it's him that she serves."

"Well, I should not have given way so easily had I been there," Warrett proclaimed, making a fist and striking the table. "I wouldn't have let anyone treat old Baddingdon like that."

"You would have p.i.s.sed your pants when she glanced your way, is what you mean," Jaimsley said, and though Warrett gave him a hot look, he did not argue the point.

"There's been talk, you know," Talinger said then. The Torlander spoke in a low voice, so that the others had to lean in close to hear him.

"Talk of what?" Jaimsley said, a frown on his homely face.

"Surely you have heard it, Jaimsley. Some of the men-no, I would say a great many of them-say we should go fetch him from Barrowgate."

Eldyn nearly laughed, but it was out of horror, not humor. "You cannot be serious, Talinger. You cannot!"

"Why can't I? There's more than a thousand of us, even if you leave off them prigs from Gauldren's and Bishop's and Highhall. It's wrong that they've thrown him in the pits with murderers and wh.o.r.es. Baddingdon is old. He'll not last long in that prison. What should stop us from marching on Barrowgate, breaking down the gates, and setting him free?"

Because they'll cut you down, Eldyn wanted to say.

Only, Warrett spoke first. A hungry look had come over his face, erasing what had been soft and vaguely handsome and replacing it with a hard mask. "Now you're talking sense, Talinger. Nothing can stop us. Not if we all stand together."

Eldyn's stomach had gone sour, and Jaimsley was shaking his head.

"Why do you look at us like that, Jaimsley?" Talinger said, his accent reverting to a rolling Westland growl. "Aren't you always telling us that it's the people who should rule?"

"Yes, and I still believe it. But talking of rebellion is one thing. Doing it...Well, that's another matter altogether."

"Aye, it is at that," Talinger said. "You like to talk of it, but you're afraid to do anything about it. But not me. I'm not like you, Jaimsley. I'm not afraid."

"Aren't you? Tell me, which one of you at this table has ever so much as broken one of those rules in a voice above a whisper?" He nodded toward the Rules of Citizenship posted on the wall nearby. Their sheepish expressions answered his question. "And you speak of making rebellion."

Eldyn started to let out a breath, thinking they were going to let the subject drop. But then Talinger leaped to his feet, his chair falling back with a clatter that suspended conversation in the shop.

"I'll show you what I think of those rules," he said. He did not rush or go furtively. Rather, with deliberate motions, he walked to the wall, pulled down the Rules of Citizenship, and tore the paper they were printed on into halves, quarters, eighths. He let the pieces fall to the floor. "That's what I think of someone else telling me what to do," Talinger said in a loud voice. "I don't care if it's pale ladies or black curs or kings giving the order. An unjust law is no law at all."

All was silence. No one made a move. Talk of disobedience to the Crown was one thing, but action-everyone had seen what action got you when one of the king's men or an agent of the Gray Conclave was about. Eyes glanced back and forth. All waited for someone to stand up, point a finger, and call for soldiers to carry the young Torlander to Barrowgate.

Instead, after a terrible moment, it was Mrs. Haddon who bustled toward him, huffing, her frizzy wig aflutter. "Well, well, a fine joke that was, young Mr. Talinger. A fine joke indeed. You know you could have simply told me that printing of the rules was out of date. You needn't have made such a silly little play of it. Here-this is the new one delivered just yesterday. I meant to put it up, but I quite forgot. Though I'm sure they won't throw a daft old woman in prison for being absentminded. I would hardly remember my own name these days if you boys weren't always calling it out to me: a cup, Mrs. Haddon, bring another cup!"

She unrolled a sheaf of paper and stuck it on the nail on the wall, then took Talinger's elbow and led him back to the table. Gradually, the sound of talk filled the coffeehouse again, though lower than before.