by Melanie Rawn
“Lucky the knives and forks aren’t green, too, or we’d be groping all over the tables to find them,” commented Telomir Renne as he escorted Sarra in Collan’s absence. “And pity anyone wearing that color tonight—they’ll vanish, too.”
“It’s like being inside a bottle of parsley sauce,” she replied. “Where are we sitting? And please tell me it’s near a door. Stene Dombur is supposed to inflict us with a recital tonight, and I’m hoping to slip out before he finishes dessert.”
“We’ll have to settle for sleeping with our eyes open,” Telo replied with sympathy. “We’re directly opposite the Domburs.”
The scattering of round tables usually used for banquets had been replaced by a gigantic horseshoe arrangement of rectangular tables, with the diners seated all along the outside so everybody could see everybody else. The center—an area thirty feet wide—was left free for the servants to deliver and collect dishes, for the entertainment (musicians, singers, and one very bad poet), and for displaying the trophies of the hunt.
Sarra arranged her gown to prevent wrinkling the bronze silk, and sat in the place Telomir indicated. She wished Collan’s taste in this particular instance had not run to a high-buttoned collar; it was bound to grow stiflingly hot in the Malachite Hall over the next few hours. But she had to admit the dress was magnificent. Sleeveless and cut in at the shoulders, its collar fanned out two inches to frame her jawline. Tarise had done her hair up off her neck, secured with black onyx hairpins that matched the buttons down the front and simple earrings.
Vellerin Dombur was, predictably, wearing white. Mile upon mile of white. She looked like a walking, talking Winter Wraith such as children built of snow. Would that she’d melt away and take trouble with her, as, according to folklore, Winter Wraiths were supposed to do.
Vellerin’s husband, along with most other men with any claim to fashion, had adopted Collan’s innovation in longvests with frantic haste; the results ranged from the attractively tailored to the too-tight-for-movement to sleeves so loose they dragged in the soup. Sarra was reminded of the inane style favored by Garon Anniyas twenty years ago: long ribbons sewn to his shirtsleeves, supposedly emphasizing grace of gesture but instead tangling in everything from doorknobs to his own rings.
And why would she think of him now? Perhaps because the woman whose husband he had been entered the room, pausing as if to find a friend’s face or her assigned seat but really to let all admire her. Glenin did not wear white, though she probably wanted to. It was the Malerrisi color. The colors she did wear stiffened Sarra’s spine: Ambrai’s black and turquoise.
The diners were seated. The first course was brought out. Conversation began—naturally, a rehash of yesterday’s hunt. A lone flutist played delicate airs from a corner. Sarra dipped her spoon into the soup, rearranging vegetables by color, pushing them around in little flotillas until they sank.
On her left, Telomir tucked in to the meal. On her right, Taigan and Mikel evidenced as little appetite as Sarra. The twins were barely on speaking terms, and their mother knew why, and as much as she wanted to tell them either to stop this nonsense or have it out in a shouting match, she did not. There was a constriction in her throat and a trembling unease in her chest that made it impossible to speak.
She knew that whatever Glenin had planned, it would come tonight. Sarra’s forces had been divided. She was not at her full strength. Collan was off Saints knew where doing Saints knew what for the Minstrelsy; Cailet was still recovering from poison. Sarra was on her own. And Glenin knew it.
Soup was removed, and replaced by tidbits of fruit and cheese with toasted slices of bread. “Eat something,” Telo whispered. She tried. She really did. But she couldn’t.
The flute gave way to a mandolin. It had been an instrument much favored by Lady Allynis, and the songs now being played were Ambraian folk tunes. Sarra began humming one melody under her breath while the musician’s quick fingers picked it out on quivering strings. It had been her grandmother’s favorite. Sarra recalled well the first time Col played it for her. No voice gave the lyrics tonight, but she could hear her husband as clearly as if he sat beside her. Just thinking of him gave her ease.
Wear me not as a ring on your finger—
Your hand needs no adorn.
Wear me not as a circle of jewels at your throat—
To jewels and wealth you were born.
Wear me not as a song on your lips by night—
For such are forgot by morn.
“You know that one, Mother?” Taigan asked.
“From a long time ago. It’s not much performed anymore.” In her childhood, they’d played it whenever Grandmother made a formal appearance. The musicians of the Octagon Court had made it into an anthem of proud dedication to Ambrai itself, but the single mandolin rendered it as Collan always had: intimate, infinitely sweet, a song from a man to a woman.
No, not as a ring on your finger—
Removed for washing, and lost.
No, not as a circle of jewels at your throat—
So others may see the cost.
No, not as a song on your lips by night—
To still with the dawn’s cold frost.
“Where’d Glenin Feiran go?” Taigan asked. “I don’t see her.”
“She won’t be gone long,” Mikel predicted. He shared Sarra’s intimations, then. Interesting.
“You know everything, don’t you?” Taigan snapped.
“Stop it,” Sarra commanded. “I won’t have it. Not here. In private if you must, but not at a state banquet.”
Her sharp tone had the intended effect. She sipped from her wineglass, eyes fixed on the centerpiece of humble woodland flowers, trying to calm the quiver that had begun again in her breast. The crystal Globe beneath her bodice was warm still, but she knew it would turn to a lump of ice before the evening was over.
Wear me instead as a woolen cloak,
To keep you warm and dry.
Wear me instead as a Saint-forged sword,
And keep me always by.
Wear me instead as this vow on your heart:
“Yours until I die.”
That had been Grandmother Allynis’s promise to Ambrai. She’d tried so hard, done so much—and ultimately been defeated. It had been years before Sarra understood that. She’d been only a child—innocently, ignorantly happy, leading a charmed life of wealth and love and indulgence until those last few weeks, when not even a child could fail to discern her elders’ tension. Sarra felt as lost and alone now as she had then. She reached for the memory of Collan’s deep voice singing this same song and could not grasp it.
Why did it have to be that way? Why did Ambrai have to die? Why did I have to grow up so far from home? Why did Cailet have to grow up a nobody? Why was so much stolen from us? Collan—I need you, Minstrel mine. I have Collan, and Cailet has no one—
Third course: delicacies made from livers and tongues of the thirty deer killed yesterday. But not the one Granon Isidir had felled with eight arrows shot impossibly fast. He had ordered the stag left in the forest with horns intact. Sarra admired him for it; not many would forgo so splendid a trophy.
All at once Vellerin Dombur got to her feet. She was no more the smiling, affable guest. Her expression was serious and in her piercing sapphire eyes was the avidity of a bird of prey among the flaunting, fluttering denizens of Ryka Court.
“My friends,” she said, having caught everyone’s attention, “I regret to disturb this delightful occasion with news that has shocked me profoundly.”
Her cousin and ally, Councillor Senasta Dombur, sat forward from her place at the head table, necklace of diamonds and sapphires dangling in her plate. “What news is this, Lady?”
“My staff has been conducting careful research into a matter which has been troubling me for some time. I have only now been informed that my suspicions were correct.” Sh
e gestured heavily to a young man effacing himself nearby. Sarra hadn’t seen him come in—but she did see Glenin return, slide back into her seat five chairs down from Vellerin Dombur, and stare resolutely at her plate.
She knows what’s coming. She planned what’s coming. Collan, I need you!
Vasha Maklyn held up a hand for silence. “Please tell us the source of this trouble.”
“I must preface it. Please be patient, and you’ll soon understand.”
“You have our attention,” Senasta assured her.
“A lifetime ago, the Mage Guardians were a powerful force on Lenfell. They performed a vast number of services for our world, and were honored for their generosity with their magic. There was only one stricture upon them in this dedication: they must never hold political office.
“Now, why was this so? Ostensibly because it had been dictated at the time of their founding, long before The Waste War. But, truly told, it was because everyone knew magic’s power, and everyone feared that in high office—or indeed in any office—magic would be used to further the aims of the Mage Guardians.
“The events of 950 to 951 were predicated on a struggle between First Councillor Avira Anniyas and Lady Allynis Ambrai over just this issue. Allied with Lady Allynis was the Mage Captal, Leninor Garvedian. The details of the conflict have become muddied in the years since by the tragedies it brought about. But the basics were these: Anniyas wanted a specific person to become Chancellor of Ambrai. This person was Mageborn, trained in his craft by Mage Guardians—including the most renowned of First Swords, Gorynel Desse, who was his friend—but he never advanced beyond the rank of Prentice Mage. We will leave aside the question of ‘why’ for a moment. This Prentice Mage was husband to Lady Allynis’s First Daughter, Maichen, and father of two lovely little girls. He was respected and celebrated in Ambrai, and possessed everything a man could possibly hope for. But he wanted more. He wanted power. And the way he saw to get it was to become Chancellor of Ambrai.
“This, as a Mageborn, he was forbidden. But Anniyas wanted it, and he wanted it, and thus there came a series of moves that led to the deaths of Lady Allynis and her family, thousands upon thousands of citizens of Ambrai, Captal Garvedian, Mages too numerous to count, and the destruction of the Mage Academy, the Healers Ward, Bard Hall, and most of that beautiful city. But long before these catastrophes, Maichen Ambrai and her younger daughter fled to a location that is to this day unknown.”
“Great,” Mikel muttered. “A history lesson and a mystery story. Just the thing for the digestion.”
“Shh,” Taigan hissed.
Sarra, frozen in her green-velvet chair, heard the tautness in her son’s voice, and knew that he was fighting instincts that told him to run—just as hers were doing. Taigan wasn’t yet aware of what was really going on. But she would be, very soon.
“Eighteen years passed. Auvry Feiran, the man whose ambition to become Chancellor of Ambrai caused all this, became Anniyas’s most feared minion. He all but obliterated the city that had once honored him, and became known as the Butcher of Ambrai. He all but obliterated the Mage Guardians—the fellowship of Mageborns to which he could never fully belong, for he was only a Prentice. He all but obliterated the Malerrisi in their Seinshir Castle—or seemed to. For the reason he was never more than a Prentice was the same reason Anniyas favored him, and the reason Malerris Castle had to seem destroyed. Auvry Feiran was one of them. He always had been. And so was Anniyas.”
Absolute, breathless silence.
Vellerin looked mildly disappointed for an instant, then resumed with fresh vigor. “Now, little of this will be news to you—except that Auvry Feiran was from the very beginning a Malerrisi. He did not dare become a full Mage Guardian, for in the process of the Ritual of the Lists a Captal comes to know the deepest heart of the candidate. There is no deception, no Warding, no spell that can hide what someone truly is.”
Sarra remembered Ollia Bekke standing in the compass octagon. No one knew of the Ritual but Mages. Or Prentices preparing for it. Like Jored and Josselin.
Or Prentices who refused it. Like Josselin.
“Should any more proof be needed of Auvry Feiran’s true magical allegiance, I offer the sight of his daughter, who took his Name in preference to the one her Blooded mother gave her, and even now sits at the pinnacle of Malerrisi power as Warden of the Loom.” She flung a hand in Glenin’s direction. Glenin sat with shining blonde head bowed. “Yet there was another daughter, born in 946. Her name, all but forgotten now, was Sarra. It’s a common name, honoring the Virgin Saint who is mistress of flowers and jewels and patron of young girls, usually given to one born in St. Sirrala’s own week of First Flowers.”
The sapphire gaze swept around the horseshoe of tables, coming to rest directly opposite her own place. “Lady,” she asked silkily, “when is your Birthingday?”
Sarra felt Taigan and Mikel react, but could do nothing, say nothing. She sat like a stone carving, white to the lips, her eyes fixed on Vellerin Dombur as she spun the fatal truths like a shroud. The Wards are gone. Whatever Gorynel Desse did, it’s gone now. Everyone will know. Glenin has known for years. She told Vellerin Dombur. And the Wards are gone.
Sarra, born on the third day of First Flowers, knew she ought to speak. Deny, refute, scorn, reject. Speak. But she couldn’t. She only wished she’d been struck deaf and blind as well as turned to frozen stone.
It occurred to her that she had become the Winter Wraith now. She was snow to her marrow. Frost covered her skin, encasing the stone in ice. Everything she had been, everything she was, everything that was truth and half-truth and lie and Warded for her lifelong safety would soon melt away.
Vellerin Dombur shrugged. “Very well. We will leave that for the moment and consider other circumstances. We all know the tale of how Lady Sarra Liwellan—” Was there the slightest emphasis on the Blood Name? “—and Collan Rosvenir escaped from Renig across The Waste to an unknown location, where they spent several days in hiding—until Auvry Feiran found them. He took Collan Rosvenir away with him—but not Lady Sarra. Why?”
He didn’t know I was there. I stood in the upstairs shadows like the coward I was, the coward my silence confirms I still am, while Collan went with him to be tortured by Anniyas and Vassa Doriaz and Glenin—
“Lady,” said Vellerin Dombur, “who was your father?”
Collan! I need you! She felt Taigan’s muscles tense, preparing to rise, her young body quivering with fury and insult. Mikel shifted, too, ready to stand beside his sister. Sarra moved at last, her frozen bones cracking through the ice, and clasped her First Daughter’s slender wrist in her fingers.
“This is ludicrous!” roared Granon Isidir. “I don’t wonder Lady Sarra refuses even to acknowledge such ridiculous questions!”
Dear Granon. A good name, that, for good men: Elin’s beloved husband, Cailet’s devoted Warder, Sarra’s own loyal colleague. What a pity that faith was about to be betrayed.
“Can she acknowledge such questions and remain among us?” countered Vellerin. “I would hear an answer to them, Lady Sarra, and so would the rest of this eminent gathering.”
“No need,” Glenin said in an emotion-strained voice. “I can spare her the strain of speaking.” Not rising from her seat, she looked at Sarra across thirty empty feet of space—thirty-eight empty years of time—her face pale and solemn. “Her father was also my father. Auvry Feiran.”
Extraordinary, Sarra drought, oddly detached, feeling almost nothing. How can so many people stay so completely quiet? If an eyelash fell right now, we’d all hear the echo.
“Lady Sarra Liwellan is, truly told, my sister—Sarra Ambrai.”
“Mother,” Taigan said in a strangled whisper, “say something!”
She tore her gaze from Glenin’s gleaming, laughing eyes and looked at her children. Her proud, brilliant, beautiful Mageborns. Grandchildren of Auvry Feiran.
Daughter and
son of Collan Rosvenir.
“You hear no denial,” said Vellerin Dombur. “It is the truth!”
“Yes,” Glenin said. “But there is more.”
And news to her ally, Sarra saw that at once.
Glenin rose slowly to her feet, tall and stately in her black-and-turquoise gown. Her fair hair was upswept, giving her additional inches she didn’t need, held at the crown by a comb of onyxes and turquoises cut as octagons. She suddenly dominated the gathering in a way different from Vellerin Dombur’s sheer force of ambition. Glenin had sheer physical presence, like Lady Allynis had had, a magnetism that had less to do with beauty than the ingrained belief that she was a person worth looking at, listening to—and heeding without question. Sarra had not inherited it; she used her will and her words. Cailet’s bearing was of yet another kind—as instinctive as Glenin’s, as resolute as Sarra’s, subtler than either, it was based not on personality but instead on the magic at her command and the position she had been given.
It occurred to Sarra then that the three of them, the three Ambrai sisters, had never been in the same room at the same time. Twenty years ago, Sarra faced Glenin alone in Renig, the night Mai Alvassy died; Cailet confronted her at the Octagon Court, the night Anniyas and Auvry Feiran died. Glenin was not present for Vellerin Dombur’s speech to the Council and Assembly, only the reception afterward—which Sarra had not attended. Sarra had not ridden out yesterday with the hunt. And tonight Cailet was in a windowless, Warded room, sleeping off the effects of killing poison and healing potions.
Never together, not once. Sarra wondered if, had they ever inhabited the same room at the same time, everyone would have seen years ago what Glenin chose to reveal now.
“I am, as Lady Vellerin has said and all here have always known, the First Daughter of Maichen Ambrai and her husband Auvry Feiran. I am also the First Lady of Malerris, and have been since the death of Avira Anniyas. These twenty years I have tried to untangle the Malerrisi from her dominance and tyranny. I believe I have succeeded. But the taint attached to my name precludes my leading the Malerrisi back into the world. You do not trust me, and I understand this completely. You have every right not to trust a daughter of Auvry Feiran.”