Part 5 (1/2)
”No, Grandmother.” Foxfire s.h.i.+vered at the thought, but kept her voice even, as she had been trained to do.
”And it isn't pain that we need, in any case.” Red Silk pa.s.sed one wrinkled white hand across the face of the mirror, releasing the elements of the gla.s.s and the silver from the domination of her mind. Ruby rings half hid old scars on her fingers. ”It's fear. We'll look again in an hour and see if the pain lingers any longer in the wall or the gate than it did in the other pens where we've tried it. What sigils went into the makeup of that spell, child?”
Foxfire turned back to the little scribe desk in the corner of the chamber and the box where she kept the note tablets about her grandmother's experiments in using magic to master the teyn. Like most women of the deep-desert tribes, Red Silk had never learned to write, not even in the simple alphabet of city women called Scribble, much less the thousands of glyphs that made up High Script. The morning's heat was growing strong. Even in this tiled pavilion in the gardens of her father's summer villa of Golden Sky, the sun's implacable wrath made itself felt. Foxfire guessed the open pens she'd been looking at all morning in the mirror would be insufferable even for teyn before long.
”d.a.m.n that brat Soral Brul for an inattentive lout,” her grandmother went on. ”I know there are sigils he never bothered to learn while he was with the Sun Mages.” She named the young former novice, hired a few months ago by Mohrvine and currently occupying-under discreet guard-a comfortable chamber in a secluded corner of the lakeside palace. ”Has that girl Shaldis mentioned others that we don't know about? I know she keeps her mouth shut, but she's got access to the Citadel library-”
The old woman broke off and sat up sharply, as if she'd heard a sound, then leaned to her mirror again. ”Your father,” she said, brus.h.i.+ng its surface with the backs of her jeweled fingers. Foxfire glimpsed in it a cloud of dust along the road to the Yellow City, the flat roofs and crenellated walls rising in the distance. ”And in a hurry at that. Something's happened. Stay where you are, girl,” she added as Foxfire made an impulsive move toward the door. ”Riding that way, he'll come to us before he even knocks the dust off his boots. A man thinks more of a woman-or of another man, for that matter-who doesn't run to meet him at the gate like a love-struck schoolgirl; the s.l.u.ts at that precious Blossom House they trained you in must surely have taught you that.”
Foxfire whispered, ”Yes, Grandmother.”
The cold turquoise eyes held her, as if runes of power were written in the pupils' tiny pleatings of blue and emerald, so that she could not look away. ”But they didn't teach you why you must make others value you,” said Red Silk softly. ”They didn't teach what happens to women in this world who are not valued. Only life teaches that.”
Foxfire thought of her friend Opal, whose delicate beauty had been horribly marred by an accidental fire in the Blossom House. The sixth daughter of a poor laborer in the city, she would have been sold for what she'd bring, to grind wheat or haul water, once she was no longer lovely. In a toneless voice Foxfire said, ”Yes, Grandmother.” And then, a thought coming to her, ”Can you look into the Yellow City and see if there's signs of trouble there? Papa will value us still more, if we can say, 'Ah, yes, the riots . . .' or whatever the trouble is.”
A slow grin widened Red Silk's withered lips. ”You're learning, girl.” She leaned back to the mirror.
To use the mirror took concentration, and when Foxfire felt the strange little stab of sensation in her right elbow that told her someone had crossed the Sigil of Ward at the gate of the tiled pavilion's courtyard, Red Silk did not look up. Foxfire didn't know whether her grandmother was aware of the ward sign's activation or not. Since the mirror had shown Lord Mohrvine's cavalcade still some distance from Golden Sky-just pa.s.sing the villa's date palmeries on the road to the Yellow City-Foxfire guessed this intruder was Opal, with the coffee she had sent for. Mindful of her grandmother's instruction she reclined a little on the divan and turned her face toward the door with an att.i.tude of hauteur, just in case it wasn't.
But it was Opal, and as soon as the maidservant came into sight in the open doorway Foxfire scrambled to her feet and went to help her with the coffee tray. ”Don't!” Opal turned her shoulder to prevent Foxfire from taking the heavy cloisonne vessels from her hands. Her velvety brown eyes danced in the ghastly landscape of scars. ”Your grandmother says I'm to serve you whether you want me to or not.”
”Yes, but we're not serving me, we're serving Grandmother.”
Opal set the tray with its tall-spouted pot on the low table; Foxfire held the small clean cup in both hands, kneeling, while Opal poured the smoking coal-black brew. Then both carried the cup, with its tiny attendant tray of sugar lumps, cinnamon sticks, and rose water, to the dressing table where Red Silk sat before her mirror, a withered, white-haired, brown-skinned woman in silk striped green and gold.
Red Silk did not turn her head. Over her shoulder, Foxfire could see, by concentrating, what her grandmother saw: the Golden Court, the great semipublic outer court of the House of the Marvelous Tower. In the heat of the summer forenoon it was usually somnolent, even the vendors of oranges and tea retreating into the shade of the colonnades that ringed it. Now it more resembled the markets of the Circus District, men crowding around the porter's lodge at the gate or into the surrounding workshops of the royal weavers or goldsmiths, gesturing in frenzied dumb show, demanding . . . what? Two of the palace guards emerged from the porter's lodge and were swarmed, like drops of honey dripped into an anthill.
”And we can't get a closer look into the palace itself, curse it,” Red Silk muttered. Opal shot Foxfire a glance of worried inquiry-she herself was unable to see a thing but the reflections of the two women's faces in the gla.s.s, young and old. Within the mirror Foxfire saw the scene change to the Square of Ean, the still-larger open s.p.a.ce between the palace and the city's greatest temple, and the activity was much the same: men running, catching one another, wild with excitement.
No bloodshed. No soldiers. No smoke.
The ward sign jabbed at her elbow again, and this time Red Silk turned from her mirror, straightened her narrow shoulders, and gestured to Foxfire to seat herself on the divan. Without being told, Opal returned to the coffee, poured out another cup for Foxfire, and handed it to her, kneeling, with the respect that less than a year ago would only have been accorded a man. Her beauty may have been destroyed, but the short, curvaceous girl still retained the gracious manners and perfect skills of the most carefully trained Blossom Lady.
Opal was still kneeling when the crunch of boots on the gravel courtyard path announced Mohrvine's approach; and the next second his graceful form blotted the doorway. She sank at once into the deepest of salaams.
”You shouldn't race your horses in heat like this,” Red Silk greeted him calmly, and sipped her coffee. ”It isn't as if the city's under attack.”
Mohrvine did an infinitesimal double take on the threshold, instantly concealed. Six months ago he had learned that both his mother and his daughter held the power of magic in their hands; he was not quite used to it yet. Foxfire rose and performed a very appropriate salaam called Lilies in the Rain-suitable for a daughter to execute for a n.o.ble father-with a languor that would have done her preceptors proud.
”Fetch my papa coffee, would you, darling?” she requested of Opal as she sank back onto the divan. ”Would you care for pastries, Papa? The moonjellies are particularly delicious today.”
”My heart splits open with joy at that news.” Mohrvine unslung the silk-fine white wool cloak from his shoulders, hung it on a carved peg beside the door. ”Don't trouble yourself with it, child,” he added, when Opal would have collected it as she departed with the coffee tray. Then he glanced back at his mother and his daughter, raised one sardonic black brow. ”You know, then?”
”That skinny little witch of the king's keeps the palace itself under a cloak of shadow.” Red Silk folded her hands. ”But I know it would take more than moonjellies to bring you back here at full gallop. What has our nephew done?”
”It's not what he's done.” Mohrvine settled himself on the divan next to Foxfire, facing his mother on her cus.h.i.+on of silk. ”It's what he'll be required to do at the dark of the moon. That imbecile Akarian's called for a jubilee.”
It was, Foxfire observed, her grandmother's turn to be taken aback. The turquoise eyes widened in shock, then narrowed again as the implications sank in. ”And Oryn didn't have his head struck off on the spot? That's enough to make me wonder if the man's Greatsword's son or a by-blow.”
Amused, Mohrvine shook his head. ”Believe me, madam, I've checked. Repeatedly. And he doubtless would have had my head struck off, had I suggested such a thing. But that old fool was perfectly sincere-he always is-and everyone in the council could tell it. Word of it was being shouted in the Golden Court before Oryn could get his breath. The High Priest of Ean was sending formal notice to the Keepers of the Sealed Temples as I was riding out of the city. At the dark of the moon, Oryn will face the ordeals of consecration once again.”
”Without old Hathmar's magic to pull him through.” Red Silk's long, skinny fingers traced the gold rim of her cup. Her pale gaze fixed upon s.p.a.ce, as if some invisible mirror hung in the air before her, showing her what no others could see.
Foxfire tried to recall what she'd heard of the ordeals that kings had to pa.s.s through upon taking the throne. One of the six Sealed Temples stood near the House of Six Willows in the Flowermarket District, where she'd been trained in all the arts of pleasing men. She'd pa.s.sed by it any number of times as she ran errands for the ladies whose exquisite entertainments-and other activities-had largely supported the house. Once she'd asked Gecko, the house's old factotum, what that low and windowless black stone fane was, and why no wors.h.i.+pers were ever seen pa.s.sing through its bronze doors. What G.o.d was revered there?
It is the house of s.h.i.+bathnes the Serpent King, Gecko had replied, and had pulled her dark veils more closely around her face. With the other hand she'd drawn Foxfire to the far side of the small and rather shabby square.
Foxfire had never heard the name before, which surprised her. In the Blossom House, and in her father's house before that, she'd heard tales of the dozens of minor deities, village spirits, and nomad divinities wors.h.i.+ped in addition to the great G.o.ds like Ean and Oan Echis and Darutha.
He is one of the old G.o.ds who watches over the king, Gecko had said, and would say no more. Foxfire had later traced its low black wall behind the district's taverns and eating houses and had been surprised at the size of the place, but she'd only twice seen a single priest, coming and going from there to the market with food. No one, as far as Foxfire had ever heard, wors.h.i.+ped the Veiled G.o.ds. No cult attached to them, no temples to them existed outside the city. Opal, whose family was from old peasant stock, said simply, My granny told me never to speak their names, and Gecko had changed the subject and pretended ignorance when Foxfire'd asked.
Now Red Silk said, ”Some of the ordeals are easily fixed-at least your father didn't seem to lose much sleep over them.” She shrugged. As a nomad, she'd never performed more than lip service to the G.o.ds of farmers. ”Nor did your brother, when it was his turn to go through that little comedy. And believe me, a comedy is all it is, to convince the people that Ean and his holy sons have taken the trouble to personally approve one man over another to tell them all what to do. As if they were not all men alike.”
”It may be a comedy to you, Mother,” replied Mohrvine grimly, ”but to those of us who're going to have to go through it, the jest loses a little of its savor. I don't believe any more than you do that BoSaa of the Cows and Rohar of the Flowers and all the rest of that gaggle, whose priests have convinced the general populace to give them food and lodging gratis, will step down to shoo the crocodiles away from me when I go wading in the lagoon in the Temple of the Twins. All I'm saying is that somebody had better.”
They expect King Oryn to fail, Foxfire thought, not even shocked at her father's sacrilege-which she'd always sensed, though this was the first he'd spoken it outright before her. And they expect his brother, Barun, to take the tests, and to fail them, too.
They expect them both to die.
Grief twisted at her, for she was fond of her cousin the king. Her father was always telling her of the man's foolishness, credulity, and willingness to put the whole realm to unnecessary labor over a situation that was at best temporary, but she liked that tall fat gentle man with the beautiful voice. She knew, too, that Summerchild loved him above her life. Anger tinged her grief, the same anger she'd felt at the tormented teyn, that her father seemed to have already disregarded Oryn's death.
And flooding in after the anger, cold panic, as logic opened the next door, and the next in her mind.
”I know of no spells that will control either crocodiles or serpents,” Red Silk said, and tasted her coffee. She made a face, and set the cup aside. ”That imbecile Soral Brul has given me half a dozen to try, and all I've gotten out of it is half a dozen dead teyn. The ones to counteract poisons generally are no better, those that I've tried.”
”Then I suggest, Mother, and you, Daughter”-Mohrvine pressed his palms together, his voice steady as his eyes moved from Red Silk's impa.s.sive face to Foxfire's frightened one-”that you arrive at some, and soon. Because if Oryn dies, and Barun, I'm going to need those spells very badly.”
TEN.
I have to go.” Shaldis closed her hand around the white scrying crystal, looked up into her father's worried face.
The worry changed to alarm. ”But you can't!” Something told her that his concern was less his father's actual danger than his own fear of what the old man would say-no matter what he'd screamed at her in his study-about Shaldis's walking out of the house with the puzzle unsolved.
Or maybe both. Shaldis had long ago given up trying to sort out what were genuine emotions in this household and what were simply the smoke and mirrors of denial, resentment, and fear.
”I'll be back,” she promised. ”He is my grandfather.”
And that, too, she thought dourly, was a lie masquerading behind truth.
That frightful old beast downstairs was her grandfather, the patriarch of her family, and Shaldis was aware, within herself, of the unthinking reflex: you never abandoned your family. You never said no to them, never cast them off.
But she was aware, too, that her motive in returning to them wasn't that simple.