by Melanie Rawn
Well, Sarra knew how to make choices, too.
Her mind leaped with its accustomed suppleness, and before she was consciously aware of it she was tearing pink roses from her hair with one hand. The other ripped her shawl. She knelt to roll in the rich loam, staining the brocade of her dress. She almost threw the coronet away, then realized that her story would be seen for the lie it was if it was found here in the bushes. She closed a palm around the flowers, crushing them to get at the thorns. The sting prompted quite satisfactory tears. She left shelter, heading for the terrace steps in a ragged run, trailing little pink rosebuds behind her.
“Sarra!”
Lady Lilen was astonished into lack of caution. Sarra stopped in mid-step, turned to the little group by the orange trees, and said in a perfectly tremulous voice, “Lady—Lady Lilen? Forgive me, I’m not fit for company right now—” She turned so light spilling from the mansion glinted on her tears.
“My dear child!” Lilen rushed to her. The Justices followed, waving their escort to stay back. Sarra felt a warm arm encircle her shoulders and hid her face in a silk-covered bosom. She recognized the fragrance of lemon-grass perfume, which scent had always brought one of those odd glimmerings that so frustrated her through the years.
Damn Gorynel Desse.
“Oh, look at your lovely gown! What happened, child?”
“Domni Taig,” she burbled, keeping her face lowered. “I couldn’t believe any man would—but it happened so fast—”
Lady Lilen gasped. “Taig did this?”
“Oh, no. Not him! And the Minstrel, the tall one, who doesn’t wear a coif—he was—”
“The Minstrel, you say?” This from Justice Rengirt, in tones so dark and dire that Sarra was certain she practiced them in private. Turning to Ballardis, she continued, “What did I tell you, Tamasa, the man is lost to all decency! It doesn’t surprise me that someone so immodest as to abandon the coif and sing such songs is responsible for this outrage!”
Horrified, Sarra realized they had used their imaginations and the “evidence” of her dishevelment to come to exactly the wrong conclusion.
“Where have they gone?” Ballardis put in. “Do you know, my dear?”
“Nothing happened,” she said frantically, knowing it was too late.
“Don’t you worry,” soothed Rengirt. “Agatine Slegin’s fosterling, aren’t you? Well, we’ll catch this Minstrel and lock him up good and tight, where he can never hurt you again.”
“Which way did Taig go?” Lady Lilen said, and Sarra’s ears, tuned for other meanings, heard the urgency.
“Toward the sea wall, I think. Oh please, Lady Lilen, take me away! Don’t let anyone see me!”
“There now, child, calm yourself. I’m sure the kind Justices will excuse us. Come along, my dear.”
A swift climb up the back stairs gained them the privacy of Sarra’s room. She drew away from the supporting arms and locked the door herself. Lilen stood silently by, speculation wild in her eyes.
“I remember you,” was all Sarra said.
Lilen embraced her. After a moment, voice thick with emotion, she said, “Oh Sarra, little Sarra! You’re the image of your dear mother—much more so than Cailet. Did you see her? Oh, you must have. That child! Whatever happens, she’s always in the thick of it.”
“I got that impression,” Sarra replied dryly. “Taig treats her as an officer of the Rising. The Minstrel, I take it, is not.”
Lilen’s mouth twitched in a smile. “If he continues on his present course, he will be—like it or not. Tell me what happened.”
Sarra did. “I made a mess of it, though,” she finished. “I didn’t mean for them to think the Minstrel had assaulted me.”
“I don’t think it’s too serious. If they do find him, you can correct their mistake. With luck, they won’t be found at all.”
“Pinderon proper is the other direction from the sea wall. How serious is the part about the song?”
“Well, it’s not yet illegal to sing a song or visit a tavern. The Justices don’t have any real evidence—but they don’t need much, these days. Pity we can’t warn the boys that they’re supposed to be chasing down a vile and infamous seducer.” She chuckled.
Sarra smiled a little. “It’ll only matter if the Guard catches them, and Taig’s smart enough to take whatever cues he hears.”
“He does show signs of intelligence every so often,” Lilen replied. “With luck, as you say, things will fall together. If not—we’ve done what we can.”
The Minstrel dealt with, Sarra asked, “Tell me about Cailet. Please, Lady Lilen. There’s so much I want to know about her.”
Lilen sat on the bed and patted the coverlet. Sarra perched beside her. “She’s lived with us nearly thirteen years now on the same footing as you live with the Slegins. And now here you are, all grown up. So beautifully, too!” She smiled, and Sarra was transported back to evenings at Ostinhold, when Lady Lilen’s smile warmed all who sat at her table.
“Tell me about her—and Miram and Tevis and Lenna—” She pushed tumbled hair from her eyes. “I didn’t recognize Taig at first, I didn’t remember him. But Cailet—she has our eyes, mine and Mother’s. I saw her, and I remembered everything.” She caught at Lilen’s hand, hard. “What did Gorynel Desse do to me? Why did he make me forget?”
“It was for your own safety—and ours. Saints, it’s difficult to explain. You would have met Cai eventually, or perhaps Gorsha would have helped you remember. But of course that impossible child had to force events by stowing away!” She laughed, rueful and exasperated and loving. “No, she can’t bear to be left out of things, our Cailet.”
“I thought I’d only lost those weeks at Ostinhold—but what I’ve really lost is thirteen years.”
Lilen hugged her once more, and began. First Daughter Geria had taken a husband. Margit, next eldest after Taig, had died two years ago in an accident that had been no accident. Her death prompted Taig’s entry into the Rising.
“She’d been studying with a Guardian in Renig—on the sly, of course—”
“Margit was Mageborn?”
“My only Mageborn daughter,” Lilen murmured. “One day her horse came back without her. The stableboy told Taig the saddle blanket burned his fingers. He went to wash his hands, and when he returned the blanket was gone. Gorsha thinks it was a slow-acting spell set into the wool. The horse bore no signs, but. . . .” She stared down at her hands. “They found her body three days later.”
“Oh, Saints . . . I’m so sorry.”
Lilen went on to speak of the other children. Lenna and Tevis were at St. Deiket’s Academy in Combel; Miram, Alin, Terrill, and Lindren were still at Ostinhold. “And that’s the list of them. Now tell me about yourself, Sarra.”
She hitched a shoulder. “Nothing to tell. I go to school at Roseguard, I travel with Agatine and Orlin, I learn what I can where and when I can.”
“How have you fared, with magic in you and no one to teach you its uses?”
“I don’t seem to have much,” she replied, uncomfortable with the subject. “Nothing to compare to my father—and Glenin. Is Cailet—?”
“Oh, yes. And strong, too, according to Gorsha. We won’t know exactly until after her first Wise Blood. But she’s been more than a handful this past year. Restless, discontented, not knowing why. She’s wild to go with Taig every time he sets out on one of his little journeys.”
“She—” Sarra broke off as someone pounded on her door. “Yes? Come in!” She huddled close to Lilen, ready to resume her portrayal of outraged Blooded Lady.
Tarise entered, breathless as usual. She ignored Sarra completely. “Lady, your son and the Minstrel are safely away, but the Guard is everywhere. Taig needs help getting the Minstrel out of Pinderon.”
Sarra’s jaw descended nearly to her lap.
“Typical,” Lilen remarked, in the same tone she’d used to descr
ibe her son to the Justices; evidently her maternal exasperation was genuine. “Taig finds trouble as easily as a bee finds a summer garden, and invariably gets stuck in the thorns. Is there a way of returning a message to him?”
“Something simple and nonspecific,” Tarise replied. “The boy we use doesn’t attract much notice, but if caught he’d babble everything in his head. Which isn’t much, but—”
“Let’s not put him in danger. Well! I’ll just have to fix the problem without warning Taig—who at least knows a signal when it bites him. Very well. Thank you.” Rising, she looked down at Sarra and smiled. “Don’t look so astonished, my dear. Did you think Gorsha would allow you to go unprotected? I hope we’ll talk tomorrow. If not, then certainly one day soon.” With a nod for Tarise, she left the bedchamber.
Sarra had taken about as many shocks as she could endure in one night without wanting to take it out on somebody. She glared at Tarise and burst out, “You never told me!”
“Well, of course not,” she agreed. “Put yourself in my place.”
“That’s exactly where I ought to be—working for the Rising!”
With infuriating calm, Tarise replied, “As Lady Lilen said, one day soon.”
“So you’re my ‘protection,’ are you?” Sarra flung her bedraggled rose coronet to the floor. “The most unlikely rebel I ever saw!”
“Do you think only Mage Guardians have something to lose?” Tarise picked up the flowers and tore them to bits, speaking with a passion that surprised Sarra into silence. “If the Malerrisi have their way, everyone will be labeled like hothouse plants—rooted in place, pruned to specifications, torn up and thrown away if a single leaf doesn’t conform!”
Sarra blinked at the vehemence. “But you could’ve told me—”
Tarise threw the roses into the bowl of potpourri on the dressing table. “Now that you’ve found out, I’ll explain a few things. I know exactly four other agents of the Rising. Don’t ask their names, I won’t tell you. They in turn know four people each. We’re organized as the Mages used to be when they traveled: Healer, Warrior, and Guardian. The terms are convenient but not really applicable, except for the Warriors. They really do have to do some fighting now and again. Healers—well, I guess in a way that’s what they do with their political or financial influence. They smooth out suspicion, get people out of trouble, and so on. Guardians are mainly couriers.”
A very simple jump this time. “You join Agatine in all her journeys, so you must be a Guardian. And because Agatine is wealthy and wealth is power, she’s the Healer. But who’s your Warrior? Not Orlin, surely.”
“Please, Sarra. Don’t ask. By the way, you’re wrong about Agatine.”
“But she is involved. Oh, don’t bother to confirm or deny. I won’t ask any more awkward questions. Just show me how you’re organized.”
Tarise hesitated, then sighed and scooped a handful of flowers from the potpourri bowl. She knelt on the carpet. Sarra joined her, forgetting her grudge in excitement at finally learning something real about the Rising.
Tarise picked out three different colors of flowers—white, pink, and red—and arranged them in a square.
“The connections go across and down, like this.”
white—pink—red
/ / /
pink—red—white
/ / /
red—white—pink
Sarra studied the arrangement. “But one person can be betrayed by four others—or betray four others herself. So in losing any one element, you potentially lose over half the square.”
“Better that than all nine.”
“You also cripple all the other units.”
“Can you see a better way to do it? That’s not an idle question—I know how your mind works.”
“Do you?” Sarra studied the roses. “Where are the connections to other squares?”
“Along the corners, to form cubes.”
“Thereby increasing the number of names those corners know.” There had to be a better way—and Sarra was going to devise it. “It all depends on whether betrayal or communication is your biggest worry. What I want to know is how I can fit in.”
“You?” Tarise laughed. “What else could you be but a Warrior?”
5
Sarra thought about that after Tarise left. A Warrior? She could probably learn swordskill without lopping off a finger or two, but she had no desire to gallop around looking for—or avoiding—a fight. Neither did she see herself as a Guard, running other people’s errands (though gathering information had become a specialty). She was too young for political influence. As for the power that money gave—
By Maidil the Betrayer’s Mask—what about Ambrai? With Allynis and Maichen dead, and Glenin now a Feiran, Sarra was First Daughter. In fact, if not in practice, she was Lady of Ambrai.
She couldn’t use it. Not the power of her real name and identity. But she could use Ambrai. Single most potent symbol of the ever-growing dangers of Anniyas’ rule, remembered as a center of learning and culture—remembered, too, as the home of the Mage Guardians.
Sarra was Ambraian, and Mageborn. And this told her what her role must be.
If she had to tell lies about who she was, she might as well make them useful lies.
I’m the orphaned daughter of Mages killed at Ambrai. The Lists were burned with everything else, so there’s no record of their names—yes, that will do nicely. Of everyone at the Academy, I alone was taken to safety. That makes me the perfect symbol of all that was lost.
All she need do was use it—and live up to it.
Further, if Sarra stood for the past, then Glenin, newly married to Anniyas’ son, embodied a possible future. Ah, yes—a very neat little pattern. Because there were three Mageborn sisters of Ambrai. Lady Lilen had said that Cailet’s magic was strong. She was the other future.
Three living symbols. Which was, perhaps, what Gorynel Desse had planned all along.
Well, for her own part, she would give him his symbol, but for her own reasons. She would be the reminder of what Lenfell had been—like a statue in a shrine, robed and jeweled to be admired on feast day—but she was damned if she’d be that alone.
Five parts organization, five parts politics, three parts imagination—and one very large part personal ambition. She got out of bed, lit a lamp, and took out pen and paper. In the next hour she used her imagination to draw up a political organization that, not incidentally, defined her own ambition.
6
Sarra slept late, not waking until after Eighth—nearly noon. Strange, she told herself as she washed, usually Tarise comes in at Sixth with my tea. . . . Still, considering the events and revelations of the previous night, perhaps not so strange.
She dressed in riding clothes, aware that Lady Velira and Mirya the Mare would want her in attendance for the inevitable discussion, dissection, and discerning commentary that followed any grand occasion. Sarra had better things to do. Making quick work of herself from braids to boots, she went downstairs.
Clean-up was well advanced. Chairs were stacked, paper streamers and candle nubs gone. In the entry hall, Sarra wove a path through boxes used to store reusable decorations, barrels filled with trash, and buckets sprouting mop handles like shorn bouquets. Consultation with several servants finally yielded Lady Lilen’s whereabouts, and Sarra descended the steps to the garden.
Beyond the rose-trellised portico, a dozen slaves were raking the gravel—churned last night by hooves and carriage wheels—into perfect interlocking chevrons. It was the whim of the Witte Blood to style everything from the decorations on their cornices to the layout of their gardens with the family chevron sigil. Sarra skirted the edge of the drive, winning sour glances from rake-wielders and gardeners alike as she crunched one boot into the gravel and the other into the border of flowers. Neatly managing to offend everyone, she told herself wryly, while doing no real damage at all. I must w
ork on that.
The day was bright, warm, fragrant with roses. That last was a surprise. Sarra had expected that the previous evening’s decorations and coronets would strip the bushes of all but their leaves. She glimpsed Lilen’s graying head beyond a four-foot wall of bright orange blooms and started toward her. Surely if she was so casually strolling the gardens, Taig was safely out of trouble. That fool of a Minstrel, too.
But she wasn’t quite fast enough. Her foster-father’s deeply resonant voice called out behind her.
“Here you are! I thought you’d sleep all day.” Orlin Renne took Sarra’s arm, steering her firmly down a walk leading away from Lilen. “Taking the long way around to the stables? I feel in just the right mood for a ride, myself. Out to the beach, perhaps.”
Away from Lilen, now away from town. Conspiracy. “Pinderon has some cute little shops,” she replied sweetly. “I thought I’d see what’s in them.”
“‘Cute’? This from the girl who flees in horror when Aggie even mentions the word ‘shopping’?”
Sarra muttered, “I thought Tarise was the one who keeps an eye on me.”
“Both eyes,” he agreed, not even breaking stride. “You, daughter of my heart if not my loins, are like a cat who’s sure there’s a perfectly fascinating mousehole just around the next corner. And this afternoon my sole aim in life is to keep those pretty paws of yours out of mischief.”
Making a face at him: “Mrroww!”
Orlin laughed and loosened the ties of his coif. “Come on, let’s get some horses. I’ll even take you into town.”
“We both know I can lose you anytime I feel like it,” she challenged. “I’ve been doing it since I was seven years old.”
“So you have,” he answered pleasantly.
“Why don’t you spare me the trouble and yourself the embarrassment?”
“Because you haven’t the vaguest idea of what you think I’m fool enough to let you get into.”