by Melanie Rawn
Somehow she found the door into the sitting room. Somehow she found the door into the hallway. She didn’t stop running—not even when a footman dropped a tray of glassware at the sight of her—until she was outside in the gardens, the now-unfamiliar gardens that held only one place of refuge.
She fell onto her knees in the little shrine of St. Imili and St. Miramili, the place where she had married Collan Rosvenir amid friends and family and flowers and joy. She huddled there shivering until dawn, cold sweat drenching her, terrified of the shadows that waited for her outside this small sanctum.
That afternoon she boarded a ship for Roseguard. For home. For Collan.
8
SEVERAL holidays in the Saintly Calendar had gradually been shifted from Heathering to Mage Hall over the years. The two patrons of Mage Guardians, Rilla and Miryenne, were celebrated each autumn as the Captal had originally intended. The week-long festival between Saints’ Days brought people from all the surrounding villages, who bedded down with relatives in Heathering or in empty classrooms at the Hall between desks and bookshelves. The Guide’s Market midweek attracted itinerant swappers from three Shirs, who stayed in their brightly painted wagons out by the walls. It was the last great gathering before the winter set in, and everyone made the most of it.
Somehow the Hall had also become the location for the feast of Lusine and Lusir at Shepherds Moon, the second week of the year. Nobody knew exactly why this was so, but nobody questioned it much—they had too good a time abandoning lessons and duties for an afternoon of games and singing and dancing centered around children—whose patrons the Twin Saints were. There were at any given time at least a dozen daughters and sons of Mage Guardians making life interesting at the Hall, but on the first day of Shepherds Moon the whole place became a riot.
A tradition had grown up—again, no one knew quite how—that on this day all the babies born in Heathering since last Shepherds Moon were presented to the Captal. Never mind if she’d seen them at festivals, or visited their mothers at their homes or farms; this was the great day their families commemorated in their annals, the day little Tamasine or Miri or Velen officially met the Mage Captal. On the holiday in 989, Taigan was privileged to see the Captal introduced to seven infants who (respectively) cooed, shrieked, giggled, slept through it, kicked her in the ribs, yawned in her face, and spit up on her immaculate black regimentals.
Just before this disaster—which made the Captal grin and the mother turn crimson with mortification—Aidan told Taigan that all these babies’ mothers had been among the first students in the school system established while Mage Hall was being built. “Almost as much of a shock to the Captal,” he said with a grin, “as seeing you and Mikel all grown up.”
From the perspective of her seventeen-and-a-half years, Taigan could only shrug. People grew up, got married, had babies; that was how life worked. Why should it be a shock?
Then again, the Captal was a woman about as far removed from the normal courses of life as if she lived at The Cloister. Maybe she didn’t even notice time’s passage until it was pointed out to her.
Taigan was like Sarra in that infants and toddlers bored her. Children were interesting only when they reached an age for semirational conversation—and in large numbers, as today, even a semblance of rationality was doubtful. She watched from a safe distance as balls were thrown at targets, eggs were carried in spoons, cut-out paper tails were pinned to drawings of sheep, and multi-layered mud pie masterpieces decorated with multicolored pebbles were solemnly judged by the Hall’s cook. It might not have been so bad if it had all occurred outdoors, but a sudden shower had chased everyone inside to the refectory around Tenth. Taigan, who had drawn mop duty this week, glumly surveyed the muddy wreck of the floor she’d have to help clean up.
She stayed long enough to witness her brother demonstrate a hitherto unsuspected fatherly streak by leading the older children in song. It was one Fa had often sung to them when they were little, about a kyyo who tricked a silverback cat into sharing her lair. Mikel used a light, breezy voice to portray the kyyo’s blandishments about two being warmer than one, and keeping out unwanted guests while the silverback was hunting, and helping her teach her cubs about life. Taigan grinned to herself as her brother signaled the children to growl the silverback’s reluctant agreement just before the first chorus. He kept on playing the lute, but suddenly paused in mid-verse to audition for the two cubs. Amid much giggling and an incredible amount of noise, he settled on a girl and a boy to play the parts, told them when to come in, and resumed the song. The cubs, alone with the kyyo while their mother hunted dinner and the kyyo prepared to make dinner out of them, yipped, yelped, and howled on cue as they made the kyyo’s life a misery with impossible questions, playful bites that took out chunks of his fur, and demands to be fed and cuddled and licked clean from nose to tailtip. Just as the silverback returned, the kyyo ran from the lair—and every child clustered around Mikel’s feet let out an ear-splitting howl.
A performance worthy of Fa at his best, Taigan thought proudly. But the subsequent uproar as everyone clamored for another song was absolutely the limit for Taigan. Dutifully applauding her twin’s success—and glad that all those sticky, muddy little hands weren’t touching the good lute he’d left at home in Roseguard—she sidled her way through the raucous crowd into the kitchen. She brewed a mug of spiced mint tea and took it out the back door of the refectory. Despite an increasing restlessness, she intended going up to her room to study—at Mage Hall, not all lessons were in magic, and she had a test on the Revised Statutes of Lenfell two days from now. It ought to have helped that her mother was responsible for much of the revising, but the table-talk of politics that her Roseguard friends so envied had always been more about personalities than law. The latter tended to bore her father.
She was passing the library on her way to the Prentices’ Quarters when she saw movement by lamplight through a window. Pausing, she recognized Jored Karellos’s dark head bent over a large sheet of paper, pen and ruler in hand. She was in the middle of a debate with herself about going in to talk to him now or returning to the kitchen for another mug when he glanced up, saw her, and smiled.
Taigan went in. “Escaping the mob?” she asked, while holding another interior debate about whether to sit beside him or opposite him at the table. He solved her dilemma by hooking a foot around the chair next to his and drawing it closer.
“I like children—but one or two at a time,” he said. “So many of them, and I’m scared I’ll step on one, or trip and fall on several, or—”
“—or go deaf with all the yelling,” she finished. “I know exactly what you mean.” She sipped tea and then offered it to him. “What’re you working on?”
“Thank you—smells wonderful.” He drank and politely handed the mug back. “It’s a map of Mage Hall and environs. There isn’t one, you know—just architectural drawings. Because nothing was built at the same time, there’s no one comprehensive plan all on one page.”
“For art class?” One of the Mages had earned a Firrense Institute Certificate, and when he wasn’t teaching geography he taught drawing.
“No, just for the archives. I like to draw things, find out how they fit together—though one of my foster mothers used to say I liked even more taking things apart!”
“Machinery and such?”
“Sometimes.” Jored leaned back in his chair and smiled. “I’ll admit I was a bit destructive on occasion. But I mostly put things back together again afterward.”
Taigan examined the drawing more carefully, liking the neat labeling, the precision of line. “These are the floor plans—are you going to do it in elevation as well?”
“Maybe. Now that you’re here, can you check the Prentices’ rooms for me? I think the women’s side is a mirror of the men’s, but I’ve never been there to find out for sure.”
“Jored!” she laughed. “You’ve drawn every building here
and haven’t learned yet that nothing, absolutely nothing, about this place is symmetrical?”
He chuckled low in his throat. “Point taken. But at least it’s not all as ugly as that wall!” He paused, eyeing her sidelong through heavy lashes. “I don’t suppose you noticed my subtle way of saying that I’ve never accepted any invitations to that side of the building.”
Taigan knew flirting when she saw and heard it. Males had been flirting with her since her cradle days, to hear Fa tell it. But the usual flippant replies all felt strange in her mouth—because this wasn’t just flirting. She gave him one of her standard not-quite-encouraging replies, amusing and kind but designed to put a bold (if polite) man in his place. He grinned his appreciation, and they went to work.
Correcting the map took some time. Only when she sipped tea and found it stone cold did she realize how late it was. Mage Hall was silent now, the distant singing and laughter from the refectory long faded. She glanced to the windows, trying to judge the hour, and started at the image of herself and Jored and the lamp reflected in dark glass. The pair of them looked almost like Mother and Fa, up until all hours working on plans for the Minstrelsy or the Council or improvements to Roseguard.
Suddenly her restlessness had a source: she was homesick. All the children reminded her of her own childhood, when on holidays she and Mikel hosted riotous parties. The song he’d sung tonight as an adult had been one of their favorites when they were little. And now the reflection in the window had recalled her parents to mind, their work together, their partnership that was almost that of equals. It was what she wanted for herself—a thing rare in her parents’ youth, but through their example becoming more and more the model for a marriage. She smiled a little to herself as she thought of her father’s annoyance that he was no longer the only such husband on Lenfell, no more the only man who had his status and responsibilities and worth openly acknowledged by the woman who’d married him. Still, it ought to make him happy that he wasn’t alone anymore; Fa always was one for setting a new fashion. . . .
“I’m no artist,” Jored said, “but my trees and shrubs aren’t that funny-looking, are they?”
Taigan became abruptly aware that she was chuckling. “No, it’s not that at all. I was thinking of something else entirely.”
He gave a quiet sigh. “Late at night, all alone with a beautiful girl, and she’s thinking of something else. Hopeless.”
“I like you better when you’re not trying to flirt with me,” she heard herself say.
He lowered his shining gaze to the drawing spread out before them. “I wasn’t sure you liked me at all,” he murmured. “But it’s what a man does, isn’t it? To get a woman’s attention? Flirting, I mean.”
“Some men. It’s amusing, I suppose.” She shrugged. “And it can be fun in the right setting. But I’d rather talk honestly, with a man whose opinions interest me.”
He said nothing. She regarded him by lamplight, noting the incongruous gold highlights in hair she’d thought to be pure black—and startled by the sudden straight look she received from gray eyes she’d never noticed had tiny flecks of moss-green in them.
He drew a short breath between his lips, as if he’d seen something new about her, too. Still he was silent, and as the moment lengthened she told herself in despair that flirting was much easier than waiting through this unbearable, interminable, excitable quiet.
Then he smiled ruefully. “Would you scold me again if I tell you that right now, in spite of what you said about my opinions being interesting, I can’t think of a single thing to say?”
Taigan was glad of the chance to laugh. “Something will occur to you eventually. Come on, it’s late and I’ve got early clean-up duty tomorrow.” Rising, she stretched deliberately in a way she’d seen her mother use on her father—not that the shapeless tan winter woolens Prentices wore had any of the fluid elegance of her mother’s silk clothes. “Let me know if you need any more help with the map.”
“I will. Thank you, Taigan.”
She was still a little homesick as she scrunched into her blankets that night, but it was longing not only for the home she had known but the home she would one day make. With Jored, perhaps; perhaps with another man; but one day, when Roseguard was hers. . . . She reminded herself drowsily to have Mikel come and sing to her children often . . . a girl and a boy, she decided . . . her First Daughter would look like Mother, black-eyed and blonde . . . and her son would have Fa’s coppery hair and beautiful gray eyes with hints of moss-green. . . .
9
IT was a long hike around the forest that huddled beside the river. Cailet had told Josselin to take the lead through the grasslands and up the slope of the hills, since he’d been through this before and knew the location Cailet wanted. She had asked Josselin along for the purpose of honing his skills—and on a kind of personal dare to herself. Is he—? Isn’t he—? Until Josselin had faced her in the compass octagon, and his magical signature was fully known to her, he would remain a mystery.
And he’d been avoiding that test for a long time now.
For having spent only a year at Mage Hall, Josselin was remarkably advanced in his education. Lirenza Gorrst, the Archivist, gave him excellent marks at Scholarly pursuits, especially Mage Globes. Granon Bekke, Master of Captal’s Warders, reported him a confident swordsman. Elomar said he wasn’t half bad at basic medicine, which for Elomar was a high compliment. Josselin was adept at any number of spells, some of them quite complex.
She half-despised herself for her misgivings. But the lives of every Mage Guardian and Prentice depended on this risky little game she was playing. Is he—? Isn’t he—?
And the same applied to Jored. He wasn’t as precocious as Josselin in his work, and almost every lesson came hard to him. But there was something about him, too. . . .
Jored was also with them this morning. Following Josselin in single file through the bright autumn morning were Mikel and Taigan, eager for a new skill and to prove themselves worth Cailet’s trouble after last week’s transgression. Behind Taigan came Jored, silently ignoring the glances Taigan tried not to direct back over her shoulder at him. An interesting development there, Cailet told herself; happily, one’s first infatuation usually played itself out with only temporary heartache. She’d seen it happen dozens of times here. But if Jored was Glenin’s son—
No, she wouldn’t concern herself with that today. This was one of her favorite lessons to teach young Prentices, one she always took upon herself, and she intended to enjoy it without shadows.
The last member of the group was Dessa Garvedian—First Daughter and only child of Lusira and Elomar. She was eighteen this year, as darkly beautiful as her mother, with her father’s gift for medicine and few words. Following a fashion that had become popular after the Rising, her first name had been taken not from a Saint but from a Family in her ancestry. Lusira, as it happened, was the daughter of Falun Garvedian and Gorynel Dese.
For Lusira, hiding her father’s identity had no longer been necessary after 969. Habit had made her continue it until her daughter was born the next year. When Cailet had heard the baby’s name and the reason for it, her jaw simply dropped. She heard Gorsha’s laughter in her head and demanded to know why he’d kept this from her.
Forgive me, dearest, but it was none of your business.
None of my—! Geridon’s Balls, this makes Lusira part of my Family too, you know! First Telo, your son with Jeymian Renne, and now Lusira! Does Telo know he has a half sister?
Of course he does.
Nice of you. Just how many other offspring of yours are wandering around Lenfell?
That, too, is none of your business.
Dessa had her grandfather’s dark skin and startlingly green eyes. When she and Josselin were in a room together, all hearts and every conversation came to a stuttering stop. Come to think of it, Cailet told herself whimsically as the group hiked up into the hills, the company th
is morning was visually daunting. Dessa and Josselin won the honors, but Jored wasn’t exactly ugly and Mikel was ever his handsome father’s son. Taigan gave Dessa real competition—she was the best of both her parents, a green-eyed and much improved version of Cailet herself. Which nobody ever saw; that Ward had not been unWorked.
On the twins’ arrival, Cailet had done some earnest thinking about the Wards around her own chambers. Sarra’s blithe entrance into any room Cailet bespelled for privacy told her that her powerful family could stroll right through whatever she created. This was not a good idea with the twins around. So she’d had Granon Bekke re-Work the protections around her rooms. She could get past them, and so could the Mage who had constructed them, but the trick had been to allow Aidan and Marra through to attend her when she wished it. Eventually they’d figured it out. But she told no one the real reason for the alteration, saying only that she had decided her Master of Warders ought to be the one to Ward her.
She should have done it last year, when Josselin and then Jored arrived. But she hadn’t—because if one of them had tried to enter her chambers and succeeded, she would have known him for blood kin. Neither had ever tried. She wasn’t sure if she was glad or sorry for it.
The hell of it was that she liked both of them. They were quiet around her—all the Prentices and a goodly number of the Mages were—but in the classes she taught they were diligent students, pleasant in their manners, thoughtfully spoken when she called on them. Neither was wildly popular, but each had friends. They fit seamlessly into life at Mage Hall. Cailet’s suspicion would have shocked the entire community, had they known. They didn’t know. No one did, except Gorsha.
He had always dominated the Presences in her mind. He lived within her more surely than the others ever had. They offered their learning and their wisdom when she needed it—though by now she had absorbed most of it into the regions of her mind that were truly her own. Perhaps Alin had been right after all when he’d told her she was the one who’d convinced the children to leave Toman—though she had no conscious memory of anything said to persuade them.