by Melanie Rawn
I am—or was—First Sword of the Mage Guardians, not a theme idea for a dinner dump!
I bet your son is part-owner, she teased. A tribute to you, dear. Now hush up so I can pay attention to the conversation.
As it happened, the Griddle was yet another Ostin venture, the shared inspiration of Lady Lilen and her new husband. Telo explained the circumstances after ordering their meal.
“They really will end up owning most of Lenfell, especially now that Lilen has the canniest of minds to bounce ideas off.” He chuckled. “Who’d suspect that a fusty old Scholar like Kanto Solingirt would have a knack for business? Anyway, this used to be an Assembly residence. It came up for sale last autumn when the Council got rid of a lot of property—”
“We didn’t make as much as we hoped on any of it either,” Sarra put in. “A lot of people practically stole some of the best houses and farms on Lenfell.”
“But the Treasury won’t have to pay for upkeep anymore,” Col reminded her. “That’s a few million saved right there. And it warms my soul to know that several thousand flunkies won’t be living like Grand Duchesses off the rest of us from now on.”
Cailet pretended horror. “You mean they’ll have to get honest work and pay for their own food and lodging? Collan, you’re heartless.”
“And you adore me that way,” he responded, grinning. “And I adore Lady Lilen. This whole venture was designed to annoy First Daughter, wasn’t it?”
Not to mention me. And here all these years I thought Lilen had at least a few tender feelings for me—
If she knew you were still rattling around inside my skull, I shudder to think of the scold I’d have to listen to! I’ll bet she has plenty to say to you, even now.
Telomir was laughing. “Geria’s fit to be tied. One of the Agrenir nieces officially owns it, but it can be traced, rather tortuously, back to the Ostin Web.”
Lusira sipped wine and looked amused. “Lady Lilen is still cautious about revealing all her holdings?”
“Lady Lilen is perhaps the most cautious woman in the world.”
Not to mention the most annoying. I wish Kanto joy of her.
As the various courses began to arrive, Cailet relaxed in the presence of friends—and the absence of Ryka Court. Only twice did the conversation grow awkward, and Cailet herself was responsible both times.
They were between courses when a group of Importances entered the restaurant. Recognizing so many famous faces from woodcuts in the broadsheets, they came over at once. After introductions were performed—the Mayor of Domburron, two local Justices, and their husbands—and fulsome greetings given, Cailet assumed that would be that. But the Mayor was a Dombur Blood, and because of the “shocking recent events” shared by her relative, she felt entitled to discuss Sarra’s loss. The others had the sensitivity to be embarrassed, which deterred Vellerin Dombur not one whit. Collan, thank all the Saints, had five minutes ago descended to the cellar with Elomar, Rillan, and the wine steward to view the vintages.
“Such a tragedy, Lady Sarra, so disheartening—but you’re young and strong, I’m sure you’ll have a dozen children.” Her sapphire-blue eyes radiated sympathy. “Still, nothing can replace a First Daughter.”
Tarise turned so stiff with outrage that she visibly trembled. Lusira’s hands clenched around the tablecloth, endangering dishes and crystal as the material bunched and stretched. Telomir looked ready to shove his fist down the Mayor’s skinny throat if that was what it took to shut her up. Cailet was simply stunned that anyone could be so tactless. Sarra sent them all a brief, silencing glance, and said quietly, “Thank you for your concern.”
“We’re all concerned for you, my dear—your presence on the Council is a breath of fresh air. My cousin Irien often writes to me, and he says that very thing, a breath of fresh air. I hope you’re recovering quickly and that you’re not too terribly devastated.”
Their young waiter was practically weeping with mortification. He tried and tried to catch Mayor Dombur’s eye, but could not. Not yet experienced enough at his craft to have learned the art of graceful extraction from an awkwardness, good manners prohibited him from being direct. Cailet, already furious for Sarra’s sake, began to be terrified that Collan would return in the middle of some further relentless rudeness. He’d take the woman apart piece by piece and put her together again inside out. A satisfying exercise, certainly, but scarcely politic.
So, with the privileges of Mage Captal, Cailet interrupted the next intrusive commiseration with, “We mustn’t keep you from your dinner. The food is wonderful—Lady Lilen Ostin’s own favorite recipes, I’m told.”
It was not a happy choice of subject. Vellerin Dombur’s narrow shoulders stiffened. “Lilen Ostin is responsible for this establishment?” She glanced around, extravagantly arched brows hiking up another inch on her forehead, nearly to the brim of her plumed velvet hat. “No wonder it’s so common. Good evening, Captal, Lady Sarra.”
The Justices attempted apologetic smiles before scurrying off with the Mayor—out of the restaurant, rather than to a table for dinner.
“Wonderful,” Cailet muttered. “I’ve done it again.”
Telo poured himself a glass of wine and gulped a good half of it before saying, “Lilen outbid the Domburs for some Council property near the Kenrokeshir border.”
Shaking her head, she replied, “No, it’s not the land, Telo—or at least not completely. I clean forgot about the Feud.”
“The what?” Sarra asked.
Telo was nodding. “That’s right. Her aunt, Lilen’s uncle, no dower. No children either.”
“How’d they manage that?” Tarise asked, distracted from fury by the ever-fascinating permutations of Ostin Web.
Telomir grinned. “Amazing, isn’t it? A childless Ostin!”
“No, not that! The part about no dowry.”
“She was a First Daughter, wanted to be an Advocate, live her own life, all that sort of thing. The Domburs had other plans for her. She worked her way through school because the family wouldn’t pay for it and then set up practice in Renig—”
“Combel,” Cailet corrected.
“Combel,” Telomir acknowledged. “Anyway, she met a handsome young Ostin, they fell in love, and she refused his share of the Dower Fund—which for any Ostin male is fairly substantial. Said she could provide for him and their children without stealing from his family. When her family took the Ostins to court for nonpayment of dower, she defended the suit—successfully, I might add.”
“And besides all that,” Cailet added, “before she died two years ago she gave Alin Ostin all the right papers for unchallenged passage through both Domburr Castle and Domburron.”
“Ladders,” Sarra said succinctly.
Cailet lifted her wineglass to her sister. “Exactly. The upshot of the whole Feud is that no Dombur has willingly spoken to an Ostin in sixty years.”
“Let alone spoken well of one,” Telo finished.
Sarra gave a shrug. “Whatever the reason, you got rid of her, and that’s all I care about. There must be more pleasant things to discuss. Somebody think of something quick, I see a certain redheaded Minstrel with a vicious temper coming back from the wine cellar.”
Tarise took up the conversational gauntlet. “I meant to compliment you earlier, Domni Telomir, on how very dashing you look in that cloak.”
He preened the lavish folds of velvet draped over the back of his chair—so dark a purple it was almost black. “Like it?” he asked complacently. “I almost hate for spring to come, when it’ll be too warm to wear it.”
“Never pass up a really well-cut cloak,” Collan said, resuming his seat beside Sarra. “Women love ’em.”
“Another woman is all you lack,” Lusira teased.
“Didn’t say I wanted one. I just like it when they regret that Sarra snagged and bagged me first.”
Rillan Veliaz choked slightly on his w
ine. Even after nearly a year’s association with Collan he was sometimes shocked when Sarra didn’t even bat an eyelash at the freedom of his manners. Cailet sent Tarise’s husband a wry smile.
Telomir, grinning his appreciation, asked Sarra, “He’s always like this, I take it?”
She gave a shrug. “Only in front of people he wants to impress. Otherwise he’s as meek as a lamb. Am I right, dearest?” she cooed.
“You’re always right, O Font of Wisdom,” he answered in the same tone.
“That’s a new one,” Lusira remarked, and glanced at Elomar. “Husband, make a note.”
“That’s cheating,” Collan reproved. “Think up your own.”
Sarra gave a long sigh. “Refresh my memory. Why, exactly, did I marry you?”
He turned wide, shocked blue eyes on her. “You really want me to say? Right here in public?”
The arrival of the main course spared her the necessity of a reply. Wrapping herself in sublime silence, she applied herself to roast lamb with minted applesauce and fried strips of spiced potato.
The food was well worth attending to. Cailet happily plied fork and knife as the conversation danced merrily around her. Telomir, who had attended Lady Lilen’s recent wedding to Kanto Solingirt, gave them a full description of the outdoor ceremony and its accompanying feast for six hundred, revealing his personal suspicions that Lilen had decided to marry again only because she needed a million new things for the rebuilding of Ostinhold, and wedding presents were the easiest and cheapest way to get them.
Cailet glanced up from her decimated plate. “Speaking of which, I should bring a gift of some kind. What does a Captal usually give a Mage when he gets married?”
“You’re going to Ostinhold?” Lusira asked. “I thought you’d spend some time at Roseguard with the rest of us.”
Sarra’s whole expression changed, brows knotting over black eyes and lips thinning dangerously. Cailet wanted to draw back as her sister pounced. “The Wraithenbeasts. Cailet, have you lost your mind?”
Thus an innocent question about what to give the newlyweds became Cailet’s second mistake of the evening. Someday, she told herself, she’d learn that Sarra’s instincts were as inevitable—and as perilous—as an angry Warrior Mage’s Battle Globe. “Sarra,” she began.
Collan interrupted her blundering attempt at an explanation. “Have you ever even been near the Wraithenwood, Cai? Ever listened to the wind blow through the Dead White Forest like a million trapped Wraiths screaming for freedom?”
“I have,” Rillan said suddenly, and Tarise regarded her husband with surprise. “A long time ago. I was up north of Longriding buying a stud for the Roseguard stables. A few ranch hands and I went sightseeing—young studs ourselves, tough and fearless—until we heard that wind. Fifty miles away, still the howling was as loud as if we stood in the middle of the Forest. All I knew was I had to get out of there. I rode that poor horse near to foundering.”
Tarise’s eyes were wide. “You never said anything—”
“It’s not something I enjoy remembering. Even the water feels dead there. You put your hand into it, and—” He shrugged. “It’s not just cold. There’s no life to it. No fish, no insects, no moss on the rocks, no smell of the snow it melted from. . . .”
“I’ll be going with her,” Telo said.
Col ignored him. “You’re not setting foot near that place, Cai. Rillan’s got the right of it—and he was fifty miles away from the worst.”
For a wonder, Gorsha was silent inside Cailet’s head; so were Alin and Tamos Wolvar. But Lusath Adennos—or the portion of her mind she labeled as such; he wasn’t the sheer Presence that Gorsha was—spoke with diffident concern. I was never there, but I heard of it from a dozen or more who went to take a look for themselves—my dear, I comprehend your need to help, but I think this exceedingly foolhardy of you.
Cailet politely acknowledged the warning and said aloud, “I know more about the place and the Wraithenbeasts than any of you—even you, Col.” It was true, in a way. Lingering somewhere in her acquired memories was enough information about the Dead White Forest to choke a Scholar. The same was true of Mage Globes, Ladders, swordskill, Wraiths generally and the Wraithenwood specifically, and a host of other topics. She was a walking library. But there were also odd gaps, silences, omissions, hazy rifts of ignorance. Her own fault; had she not attempted to steal an unborn child’s magic, she would have been a true Captal.
But, as Sarra had reminded her, she was the only Captal they had.
“Bequest or no Bequest—” Col began.
“She must go.”
This from Elomar; volumes in three words. Cailet didn’t know whether to be grateful for his support or annoyed at what amounted to a decree.
Though Collan liked and respected the Healer, his answer was strained with the effort not to snarl. “You probably have some perfectly logical Mage Guardian reason, but that doesn’t change that fact that it’s dangerous up there even for somebody like me. For a Mageborn—”
“She must go,” Elomar repeated.
“Absolutely not.”
As the men argued over what she would or wouldn’t do, she began to wonder when they’d remember that she was sitting at the same table. She also wondered why she seemed destined to be surrounded by men who thought they knew what she knew better than she did. Saints, she lived with four of them inside her skull—she didn’t need more of them nattering away right in front of her face. And whatever happened to manners, anyway, and decent deference, and respectful submission?
“I’ll be going with her,” Telomir repeated testily.
“You’re a Prentice Mage,” Col retorted.
“Who’s been Working magic longer than you’ve been alive and knows more spells than you do songs.”
A scowl angrily conceded the point, but Collan wasn’t through yet. “You don’t know what it’s like up there. I do.”
“Fine,” Telo said pleasantly. “Come with us.” Fully expecting, of course, that Sarra would either forbid it or that Collan himself would decline, wishing to be with Sarra while she recovered her full strength.
Telo didn’t understand the ins and outs of their marriage any more than Rillan did. Col didn’t even glance at Sarra; Sarra said nothing to her husband.
“Fine,” Collan replied, deliberately using Telomir’s word and tone of voice. “I’ll be there.”
Telo looked so stunned it was almost funny. Cailet was forced to admire how quickly he rallied, and the accuracy of his next arrow. “You have Sarra to consider.”
“Oh, shut up, the pair of you!” Tarise snapped. “Collan Rosvenir, I never heard anything so silly. Go to The Waste, when you’ve got a whole city full of responsibilities waiting for you at Roseguard? And that’s not even considering the duty you owe Sarra!”
“He knows his duties to me very well, thank you,” Sarra felt constrained to respond in her husband’s defense.
But Tarise was on a tear, and not listening. “And as for you, Telomir Renne—why should rural gossip make you chase off into the back of the beyond—”
“It’s not gossip.”
“But what could you possibly do against Wraithenbeasts?”
“He can’t,” Cailet said. By their startled expressions, they had forgotten she was present. Making a mental note to work on creating a more definite impression—a Captal ought not be overlooked, after all—she gave them all a deliberately sunny smile and finished, “But I can.”
“You won’t get the chance,” Col said through his teeth. “You’re not going. With us or without us, you are not going.”
Elomar opened his mouth, presumably to reiterate his simple statement for a third time—which would start everything all over again. Lusira shot him a quelling look and said firmly, “Discuss it later. This is supposed to be a celebration, not a debate.”
“Thank you,” Sarra said. “We are now going to chan
ge the subject. Any suggestions?”
Only the determination of all parties—and liberal application of vintage wines—gradually converted the evening back to a pleasant one. But when they’d returned to Ryka Court by carriage and Ladder and carriage again, Sarra took Cailet aside in the hall outside her quarters.
“You don’t understand,” she murmured. “I’ve lost so many people I loved—Agatine, Orlin, Elom, Alin and Val, Taig, so many others—I couldn’t control the risks they took.”
Cailet, repressing annoyance that Sarra thought she could control her, said reasonably, “But I have to do this. You know I do—just as I had to do something about Anniyas’s Wards.”
“That’s just it! I practically forced you to investigate—I could have stopped it, but I let you take the risk. I lost my First Daughter because of it. I could have lost you, too. If I let you do this—” Her voice thickened with tears. “If anything happened to you—”
To the Mage Captal, you mean, Cailet thought, ashamed but flunking it anyway.
“You’re the only sister I have,” Sarra whispered.
“Oh, Sasha—” She regretted the rare endearment the instant she spoke it; its very infrequency made it all the more powerful. Sarra trembled, her breath catching on a sob. “Listen to me, my dearest,” Cailet said, suddenly feeling that she was the elder sister and Sarra the younger. “I learned from what happened with those Wards. I learned not to be so arrogant. Not to think I know everything. I’ll be careful. But I have to look into this—because if Glenin’s found a way to summon the Wraithenbeasts, then you were right about what the Malerrisi want. She can ask what she likes of the Council in exchange for the freedom to come out of their castle and defeat the Wraithenbeasts—and then do exactly as they please.”
Not that she believed this. It was too soon. Glenin would wait until her son was old enough for a prominent role that would set him up as the next First Lord—not just of the Malerrisi but of all Lenfell. She knew it with instincts as strong and sure as Sarra’s—which she earnestly hoped were clouded by emotion, or she’d realize Cailet wasn’t telling the whole truth.