by Melanie Rawn
Collan remembered the incident; Lady Lilen only discovered her only surviving son’s destination when, eight weeks later, he sent her a playbill with his name listed as second assistant stage manager for a new production of Regallata. In the years since, he’d married Felera Irresh (a leading soprano), risen to Director, and staged Falundir’s Ruins of Ambrai to worldwide acclaim. So much for Lilen’s plan to make her youngest son manager of the Ostin Web. “Not that I wouldn’t have let him do whatever he pleased,” she’d written to Sarra, “and he knows it, but I suspect he didn’t want a lifetime of the inevitable arguments with Geria. Who is, of course, livid. A brother in the theater is almost as bad as two brothers in the Rising.”
The Maurgens, uncle and nephew, were still glowering at each other. Col swung open the door of Wytte’s, saying, “Come on, you can drown each other in the pool.”
The young man on duty at the front desk directed them to sign the guest ledger and pointed to the changing room. As they were undressing, a brace of bower lads came in after their daily workout. At the sight of them, Biron and Aidan blushed all the way to their belts.
Collan sighed at this evidence of a provincial upbringing, but had to admit that if one hadn’t spent much time around such youths, one could easily be intimidated. The pair were stark naked, without even the codpocket most men wore during a swim or workout, and built like sculptor’s models. The blond one had skin like polished gold; the dark one seemed carved of walnut. Col guessed their ages to be about twenty-two. Their brief, dismissive glances indicated that Biron, thirty-six, was an old man—and forty-four-year-old Collan was positively decrepit. Aidan, however, received a glance of pure venom.
Guiding his guests from the changing room, Collan said, “They’re paid to look that good. And they have to work at it, too. Not like us—we’re just naturally gorgeous.”
Aidan was looking thoughtful. “I’ve never seen any close-to. Do all girls hire one?”
Col smothered a grin, recalling another bower where Sarra had attempted to hire him. “Not all. Some mothers don’t think much of that particular rite of feminine passage, and I know for a fact that Geria Ostin had to buy her own.”
Biron snorted. “I hope he held out for a small fortune—it’d take that, to spend a night with her.”
“Pinchpiece that she is, she probably hired somebody off the street,” Aidan said.
Grinning, Collan opened the door to the pool enclosure, then froze as he realized that one day Sarra would have to make a decision about Taigan’s education in such matters. His little girl, his bright golden darling, with some primped and pampered and polished bower lad? Over his dead body—
“I’m surprised,” Biron was saying, “that they let such men in here.”
Provincial was one thing; prejudiced was another. “Why?” Col asked. “Their bowers pay their way in.”
“But they’re—”
“Whores?” he interrupted smoothly.
“I didn’t mean it like that.” After a moment Biron smiled ruefully. “I guess if anybody needs an escape from women, it’s bower lads.”
“Never more truly told. Well, there’s your water. Dive in.”
They needed no further urging. Col shook his head. Enough clean water to swim in seemed to be the culmination of every Waster’s wildest fantasies—he could swear Cailet had chosen the site for Mage Hall only because the property had its own little lake to splash around in. Otherwise the acreage in Tillinshir was a total loss as far as he could tell, which was why she’d gotten it so cheap. Ten miles from the nearest town—if the fifty-six houses at Heathering could be so termed. Spring consisted of high winds and flooding; summer gave new and graphic meaning to the weeks of Drygrass and Wildfire; autumn could only be described as scorching; and winter’s only advantage was that even at that latitude there wasn’t much snow. He’d never yet met a Waster who could even hear the word “snow” without a horrified flinch. And Collan knew why; unless you went out bundled to the eyes in six layers of clothing (especially socks), the acid in all that pretty white stuff corroded your skin until it scarred. He remembered snow from Scraller’s Fief, and didn’t blame any Waster for her dread of it.
Now that he compared Mage Hall to The Waste, he decided Cailet had chosen well. There were some good trees around the property—redwoods and incense cedars up the mountainsides, oaks in the valley, willows around the lake and creeks. Trees and water: either could excite rapture in a Waster, but both together were ecstasy.
Aidan called out an invitation to join them in the pool. Col replied that he intended to be lazy, and ambled over to a row of padded lounge chairs by the corner soak pool. Choosing a spot directly under a skylight, he asked the attendant for a stack of the latest broadsheets. He never used the pool except for cooling off, and had never even set foot in the workout room. Other men came here to preserve or reclaim their figures, but not Collan Rosvenir.
The broadsheets were the usual collection of current events, features, and gossip. After a mere five minutes, he despaired of finding something even mildly interesting to read.
ASSEMBLY DEBATES NEW TAXES
So what else was new.
BARDS CAPTIVATE THOUSANDS
The All-Lenfell Bardic Games, underwritten by the Geillen Name and judged by Bard Falundir, will soon be underway at Wyte Lynn Castle. Preliminary competition attracted more than four hundred contestants, and ticket sales for the finals at the new Bleynbradden Theater have topped five thousand. Half the proceeds from the event will go to rebuilding Bard Hall in Ambrai.
Finally somebody was doing something about the shortfall in funds. Elin Alvassy did what she could, but her priority was making Ambrai a working and livable city again; she couldn’t be expected to finance the restacking of every stone and the renailing of every rafter.
ROKEMARSH FLOODS MAY BE Worst EVER
Experts surveying the Endless Mountains snow-pack fear that the annual flooding in the Rokemarsh Delta of the River Bluehair could be the worst in three Generations, threatening the region’s picturesque stilt-houses.
He recognized Sarra’s dainty, meddling little hand in this article, which went on to describe the disasters of flooding—not only to the people of Rokemarsh but to Lenfell’s supply of certain fish, spices, and other products. The “picturesque” wasn’t a bad touch, either—plenty of people holidayed in the Rokemarsh area, though why anyone would want to spend two weeks in a swamp was beyond his understanding. It had been his idea to use the broadsheets, of course: publicly link whatever project she favored for humane reasons to personal inconvenience for the general populace.
IS YOUR DAUGHTER MAGEBORN? TEN TELLTALE SIGNS
Ha! So Cailet had taken his advice, too. He’d told her years ago to use the broadsheets instead of racing all over the world. About time; she was wearing herself out trying to find new Mageborns and teach the ones already at Mage Hall.
St. Imili’s Chronicles
The Lenfell Weekly Record congratulates the following newlyweds. . . .
Nobody he knew had gotten married last week. Of course, most of the men he knew were either already married or too smart to become so. Not every man was lucky enough to husband a woman like Sarra.
Sunfall from the skylight was moving slowly down his chest and he was trying to work up the energy to shift position when two voices he didn’t know drifted toward him from the soak pool. Though the men spoke quietly, some quirk of tile and water and vaulted ceiling let him hear as clearly as if they shouted.
“. . . diamond earring she gave me last Birthingday? I wore it to bed. She damned near chipped a tooth—but it cured her of biting!”
“When you find a way to cure a woman of scratching like a silverback sharpening her claws, let me know.”
Collan repressed a self-pitying sigh. What he wouldn’t give to have Sarra here to sink her teeth into his shoulder and rake his back with her nails. . . . He tried to interest himself i
n a review of a new play at the Ryka Theater (Road companies soon to appear all over Lenfell!) but the nearby conversation caught his attention again.
“. . . at the Opera last week? She’s not much to look at above the neck, but—oh, to be a bar of soap in her bathtub!”
“Then you don’t know.”
“Know what?”
“Ellus isn’t here today, and it’s his regular afternoon.”
“So?”
“Bruises. And not the kind you get between the sheets. Oh, she never hits him where it shows—he teaches six days a week. But whenever he misses his day here, you can bet she’s been at him again.”
“Why doesn’t he do something? There are laws now.”
“What would—” The man broke off, and in a totally different voice said, “Yes, more drinks would be fine, Jaysom. Thanks. And a couple of fresh towels, please.”
Collan waited, grinding his teeth, for the conversation to continue.
“If she divorced him—and she would if he even whispered a complaint against her—he’d have nothing.”
“No dower?”
“His branch is out of the Web. Something about the grandmother marrying someone the First Daughter of the Name didn’t approve.”
“Great-grandmother. My great-aunt was the family’s Advocate in the case. The whole branch was cut off—all they have is some little break-back farm outside Pinderon, and everybody knows the Web never pays the promised dowry. Ellus was lucky to marry at all, even with his looks. Though I suppose looks are why she married him.”
“Only one brain in that marriage, and it’s not between her ears.”
“Well, if she divorces him, he could get work in any of the colleges. Our Alilia’s in his Bardic Tales class, and he’s got her reading and actually liking it.”
“No money in teaching. Besides, he worships the children. Losing them would kill him.”
“Have you talked to him about it?”
“The one time I said something, he told me he tripped down some stairs and it was his own fault. Now, the stairs were a lie, and he knew I knew it—but I really think he believes that when she knocks him around it is his fault.”
There was a brief silence before the other man said thoughtfully, “I may ask Deika to scratch me tonight, out of sheer gratitude.”
Drinks came, and talk turned to other gossip. Collan got up, adjusted the fit of his black silk codpocket, and dove into the pool for a few anger-quenching laps. He’d learned long ago to make cups of his hands to pull him more swiftly through the water, but he couldn’t seem to make his fingers unclench from tight fists. When he was finally tired enough, he boosted himself out of the water to find Biron and Aidan staring at him.
“If that’s what you call ‘lazy,’” the boy said, “I’d hate to see your definition of ‘energetic.’”
Col forced a grin, snagged a towel to dry off with, and made small talk as they went back to the changing room. But all the while he was considering the circumstances of a teacher named Ellus from a farm outside Pinderon who was regularly beaten by a woman who’d married him for his looks. There were laws, but if a man feared being divorced for even objecting to physical abuse, there evidently weren’t laws enough.
4
OVER the next four days, the deans of six different schools were startled and flattered that Lord Collan Rosvenir deigned to visit their establishments. “Very wise of you to plan the education of Lady Sarra’s children,” they all said. Collan smiled and nodded and pocketed their brochures. He asked a few general questions, then moved into discussion of their literature programs. As a famous Minstrel, his interest in the subject was perfectly understandable, and his questions were pertinent. Finally, at St. Jeyrom’s Academy, he got the right answer.
“Ellus Penteon directs our Literature Department, and I think you’ll find the curriculum an excellent one. I wish we had a dozen more teachers like him—he’s a young man with a fine future as a scholar.”
“Married?”
“Of course! We don’t hire unmarried men.” The dean so far forgot the Importance of her visitor that she allowed a look of outrage to cross her sour-apple face—an expression swiftly smoothed away when she recalled Who Collan Was. “Marriage is a necessity, especially when the man is as attractive Ellus Penteon. Our older girls are sometimes . . . impressionable. Not through any fault of his,” she hastened to add. “Ellus Penteon is a modest young man, quite oblivious to the effect he produces in some of our adolescent girls. And of course he’s devoted to Lady Mirya.” At Collan’s carefully blank look, she clarified. “He’s married to Lady Mirya Witte. She’s on our board of directors.”
“Witte? I thought they all lived in Pinderon.”
“Lady Mirya prefers the climate here in Roseguard.”
Her bland tone and lack of facial expression told Col that “climate” had nothing to do with the weather in Roseguard and everything to do with the atmosphere in Pinderon. It was a good bet that her mother had not been happy that she’d chosen a gorgeous but dowerless man as her husband. Maybe she took it out on him.
“May I arrange a meeting, Lord Collan? He can give you all the specifics of the literature program. His special expertise is the Bardic Canon.”
“Thanks, perhaps another time.” He gave her a mild version of his Too bad I’m married, beautiful, but maybe we can work around it smile. It still worked, more or less; she didn’t succumb to the usual blush, but she did reach up a hand to smooth her hair. “I’m just doing some preliminary research. Lady Sarra hasn’t yet decided which school to send the twins to next year. Thanks for your time.”
He stopped at a tavern for a cold one on his way home. Over his second tankard he tried to picture himself in Ellus Penteon’s place. A Minstrel was supposed to bring from his own heart the characters in the songs he sang—become the young man pining for his beloved, the old woman reminiscing about her riotous youth, the child discovering the wonder of the starry night sky, the pious votary or the innkeeper’s daughter or the dying soldier. But Collan’s failure as a Minstrel was his failure now. Carlon the Lutenist back at Scraller’s Fief had complained of it in lengthy exhortations to feel the songs; Falundir had been as adamant, though in silence. But Collan sang words, not feelings. Whatever emotion he stirred in his listeners was due to masterful lyrics and his own mastery of vocal inflection and fingering on the lute strings. The passion was in the words and music, not in him. He could fake it very nicely, using every Minstrel’s trick ever invented, but the truly discerning ear always knew it was indeed faked.
Except when he sang love songs while thinking of Sarra. Those he felt, even when the depth of his own emotion discomposed him; those were real to him, because Sarra was real.
Thus it was that he couldn’t even begin to identify with Ellus Penteon. He could understand how a dowerless young man could sell himself in marriage to a woman who desired him for his beauty. Happened all the time. Ellus Penteon had gained a home, children, work he evidently enjoyed, all the security that a man looked for in marriage.
But no man looked to be regularly battered by the woman he husbanded.
Sarra had once told him that while she was growing up, Agatine Slegin and Orlin Renne had helped her develop an intellectual understanding of social problems. But until she began to relate knowledge to experience, such problems had been mere abstracts, lacking human faces. Her outrage had been political, not personal. Ellus Penteon as yet lacked a face, so Collan couldn’t grasp why his anger was so personal. Masculine solidarity in the face of feminine domination wasn’t the answer. He’d never felt a twinge of it in his life. He couldn’t find anything in him that could comprehend why a man would stay in such a marriage.
Ah, but what would he put up with in order to stay with Taigan and Mikel?
There it was. Ellus was a father. That was the point of contact between him and Collan. Nothing else in their lives might match, but that singl
e similarity was a thing of such power that at last Collan understood.
And the idea of Sarra’s ever lifting a hand to him was suddenly so funny that he nearly choked on his beer. Well, he could afford to laugh. Ellus Penteon couldn’t.
Col finished his drink and started home. Having identified the parties involved, he had two choices. He could present the case to Sarra, who would see to it that the laws were changed—which he knew from experience would take half of forever.
Or he could do something now, himself, and wait for the laws to catch up.
No choice at all, truly told.
5
GLENIN smiled at the sight of her son playing with the dog: two strong, dark, gray-eyed young animals, growling as they rolled together on the carpet. It was play, and yet it was not. Each wanted mastery over the other. She knew which would win, and it had nothing to do with their relative sizes.
Silverclaw was three-quarters wolf. In a litter of seven, five turned out disappointing; they looked and behaved like Senison hounds, taking after their stupid, spotted sire. Silverclaw, like his brother Frenzy, was definitely a wolf. Like his mother. Glenin was not insensible to the comparisons.
Every child should have a pet, though this was not the whole purpose of the dog’s presence in her son’s life. Companionship was secondary to teaching him not to fear anything, not human or animal or magical.
“Come along, darling,” she said. “Leave him to his dinner. I have something to show you.”
The boy came willingly, holding her hand. Thirteen this coming autumn, he was taller than any other child his age—and most children a year or two older. He would have his grandfather’s height, she knew it, just as she was certain that when he reached manhood he would have Auvry Feiran’s powerful build. Power of another kind would come to him very soon now. The shocks given him while still in the womb, of Ladders and potent magic, had made him precocious, and she had taught him much during his childhood. But he was no longer a little boy, and his magic would fully flower within the year.