The Ruins of Ambrai

by Melanie Rawn

  Val had carefully observed Court fashions for three days before deciding that Sarra must flout every current trend. No expanses of skin; she must be covered from chin to wrists to ankles. No embroidery or decoration; no jewels; no separate laced bodice or slashed overskirt or ribbon-festooned flounces gathered up to show filmy lace-trimmed petticoats beneath.

  “Give ’em only what you want ’em to see,” he’d said when she modeled the gown for him two days ago. “In this case, the Liwellan and Slegin colors in harmony, all that hair, and your face. You’re on display. You, not your clothes. Don’t distract them with jewels or needlework or some complicated cut to the gown—or by exposing your charming bosom. Give them something to look at, and then when they’ve finished looking, they’ll listen.”

  Sarra thought the gown’s severity made her look a hundred years old. Its plainness made her feel a frump next to the elaborately gowned Court ladies. But she had to admit it had done exactly what Val had said it would. She’d seen and sensed people looking, noticing what they were supposed to notice—and then begin to listen.

  But it was still going to take her half an hour to get out of the damned thing.

  “So,” Telomir said, “how went your little exercise in thievery?”

  “Perfect,” Alin replied. “Everyone who couldn’t fit into the Great Chamber was at the reception after, so Ryka Court was about as deserted as it can get.”

  “I don’t think anybody visits the Library much anyhow,” Val added. “It’s not as if most of the people around here can read.”

  “What a shocking thing to say about the flower of Lenfell’s society!” Telo chuckled.

  “Present company excepted, of course,” said Alin.

  “Don’t state the obvious.” Val lazed across a chair, long legs dangling over its arm. “Elomar’s cuddling the memory Globe he made for Kanto Solingirt like a newborn First Daughter at her mother’s breast. Speaking of First Daughters, Sarra, what about Glenin Feiran?”

  “She and her father were at the reception. It was all very polite and no trouble at all. But Anniyas said a few things you may want to keep in mind.” She told them about the “song” and its implications.

  Val was unimpressed. “Those are just the Names everybody knows to be connected to the Rising.”

  Alin reacted differently; his brother was the “oak” Anniyas had warned against. “She was that open about it? I don’t like the sound of that, Sarra.”

  “Not open, exactly, but I knew what she meant, and she knew I knew it. I wouldn’t worry. Soon we’ll all of us be safe in Sheve.”

  Valirion turned to their host. “Which reminds me. You ought to come with us. Things are going to get uncomfortable around here, and I’d rather you left now, with us, than have to come back for you later. You can say that your brother wants to confer with you in person—”

  “Oh, and wouldn’t Anniyas just love that?” Telo interrupted. “She’s none too certain of me as it is. If I tried to leave—”

  “What do you mean, ‘tried’?” Sarra demanded, sitting up straight. “You’re a Minister of Lenfell. You can go where you like.”

  “Yes—and with minions of the Council tagging right along behind me. I assume you don’t require Anniyas’s friends poking around this ship you’re supposedly going to be on all the way back to Roseguard?”

  “That,” Alin murmured, “can be easily taken care of.”

  Telo gave Alin an odd look. Sarra hid a smile. Slight-shouldered, soft-spoken, innocent-looking Alin, with his little-boy shock of pale hair and his big blue eyes, seemed incapable of doing violence to a fly.

  “Be that as it may,” Telo finally said, “I’m still useful here. I’ll join you in Sheve if life in Ryka Court gets too . . . uncomfortable.”

  He changed the subject to discussion of Court personalities. Dinner arrived. Sarra did the honors of the evening candle. It was barely Fourteenth when Telomir shooed the three young people off to get some sleep before their early start the next morning.

  Val and Alin were next door to Sarra. She tapped on the connecting door and when Alin appeared she asked a single question.

  “Who was Telo’s father?”

  He blinked. “You don’t know?”

  “If I did, would I ask?”

  “Sarra, if he hasn’t told you. . . .”

  “He hasn’t. But you will.” She scowled up at him. “Alin. Now.”

  “Well . . . but you didn’t hear it from me.”

  “I didn’t hear it at all. Who was he?”

  “Gorynel Desse.” The corners of his mouth quivered in a little smile. “Good night, Sarra,” he said, and shut the door.

  8

  They were ready to go at Fifth of a cold gray morning that threatened rain before midday. There was a small leave-taking ceremony in the Cobbleyard, an enclosed circle near the stables that served as a reception area for Ministers. Sarra’s admirers and the Council members who had voted for her—and several who had not—sent servants or slaves with the traditional saddle-charms. These were tiny bouquets, tied with ribbons in the colors of the well-wisher’s Name, that symbolized wishes for a safe journey.

  Telomir identified them for her. All she knew—or cared to know—about Lenfell’s flora was how to tot up the bushel yield at harvest.

  “The usual,” Telo said as they were tied on her saddle. “Marigolds for sadness-at-parting, rosemary for remembrance, fresh geranium leaves for protection, and so forth. Ah, now here’s an interesting suggestion.”

  Some well-wishers had added a few herbal and floral hints, indicating that they actually knew the language of flowers rather than simply followed custom without understanding the meaning. Several bouquets from those who professed themselves heart-stricken featured blue violets for lover’s faithfulness. One included chervil for sincerity and a tiny hazel switch for reconciliation. Another featured a dried ear of corn, symbolizing riches. None, she was relieved to learn, contained any herbs or flowers associated with marriage. All the saddle-charms included rue; the odor was said to be a Wraith Ward.

  After Sarra conveyed her thanks to the gifter’s representative, Alin and Val tied each nosegay to the back of her saddle. By the time the last had been placed the poor mare was bedecked like a Saint’s shrine on festival day and positively dripping ribbons. Sarra hoped the silks were colorfast; it looked like rain before noon, and her pale Tillinshir gray would be a horse of many another color.

  At last they were ready to mount and be off. Telomir would accompany them to the first inn, then return tomorrow to his duties. With all the servants and slaves gone, the quiet grated on Sarra’s nerves—especially after weeks of the Court’s constant noise. Aside from two grooms, it was just the five of them in the Cobbleyard now: Sarra, Telo, Alin, Val, and Elomar Adennos—disguised as he had been since Portside with a cousin’s Saint-name and humble secretary’s identity, which rendered him nearly invisible.

  “Oh, you’re still here!” a sweet voice called from the main porch. “I was afraid I’d be too late!”

  Contrary to all custom that dictated saddle-charms never be given by any hand but a servant’s or slave’s, Glenin Feiran trod lightly down the steps. She held a tiny bouquet in one hand and a small black velvet pouch in the other.

  “My Lady!” Sarra exclaimed. “Surely you should be abed still—”

  “I’m feeling just fine this morning. It’s kind of you to worry about me.” Glenin presented the flowers: delicate blue rosemary blossoms and nothing else. “I’m sorry it’s so monotonous,” she said with a smile. “You’ve smitten every man at Court and they stripped the greenhouse bare!”

  “These are lovely,” Sarra responded. “Thank you.”

  “I have something else for you as well.” The drawstrings were undone, and into Sarra’s open palm spilled a glass globe. Inside, swirled about with bright blue crystal chips in clear water, was suspended an exquisite little gold hawk
with yellow topaz eyes. In the silver talons was a wreath of gold roses.

  “The First Councillor’s gift, actually,” Glenin said. “But I insisted that I be the one to give it to you.”

  The Liwellan Hawk, the Slegin Rose Crown. Anniyas had known several weeks ago how the vote would be cast; this globe was not the work of a day.

  Unwanted and unbidden, a corner of her mind was illuminated by a memory: her own fourth Birthingday, the last she had celebrated in Ambrai, and the new doll clothes Glenin had sewn with her own awkward seven-year-old hands.

  “I—I don’t know what to say,” Sarra admitted honestly. “It’s beautiful. I’ll treasure it. Thank you, and please thank the First Councillor for me.”

  “I shall, my dear.”

  Alin came forward to take the last charm and tie it to Sarra’s saddle. Two curious things happened then. Glenin’s eyes narrowed as she stared hard at Alin. Her lips parted and she gasped an almost inaudible breath. And Alin, perhaps due to the intensity of her regard, tripped on a cobblestone and bumped Sarra. The glass globe slipped from her fingers and smashed on the stones.

  Paralyzed, instincts screaming, Sarra saw the golden hawk lose its grip on the roses and fly into a rain puddle. Alin backed away, babbling apologies like a terrified child. Telo picked up the hawk; Val knelt to gather glass shards.

  “What rotten luck!” said Telo. “Slippery cobbles—”

  “Cobbles, hell! He’s clumsy!” said Val. “Begging your pardon, Ladies.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Sarra, nearly mindless with shock—surely unwarranted by something so unimportant. “I’m so sorry.”

  If Glenin was angry, she gave no sign. “What a shame! But don’t bother yourself, Lady Sarra. I’ll have the hawk and wreath repaired, and send a replacement to you at Roseguard.”

  Val gave the shards to a groom for disposal. Alin hid behind one of the horses. Glenin pocketed the hawk and wreath.

  Five minutes or five hours later, Sarra would never be able to tell, they rode out of the Cobbleyard. Ten miles out of Ryka proper, on the cold gray road to the northern port, Sarra could at last breathe freely again. But when she glanced around, the first person she saw was Alin. Her whole body spasmed in a flinch she could barely control.

  Magic. Fighting to get out—Alin’s right, it can hurt—

  He kneed his horse closer to hers. “What is it?”

  “She—she recognized you.” To her shame, she heard her voice tremble.

  “That’s impossible.” Blue eyes darkened beneath frowning brows. “How could she? She’s never seen me before. And even if she knows what Taig looks like, I don’t resemble him at all.”

  “She recognized you,” Sarra repeated. “I saw it in her face. I—felt it.”

  He said nothing for a few moments. Then: “I trust your gut-jumping, Sarra, but this time I think you must be wrong. Though I wasn’t,” he added grimly. “I broke that glass globe on purpose.”

  Once more unable to speak, she shook her head helplessly.

  “Inside it was a Mage Globe. I felt that, stunted as my magic is.”

  So he had shattered it—at Saints knew what risk as the magic was released. Neither he nor Elomar, Mageborns both, had touched it. Val had taken care of the shards; Telomir, the hawk and wreath. Sarra tried to recall if she’d felt anything. No; she’d been too stunned—because of the freed magic.

  “She would’ve used it to watch us,” Alin added.

  So that was why she’d felt the hawk’s yellow eyes staring at her—just the same feeling she’d had at Malerris Castle.

  9

  The flagship of the Slegin fleet was the fastest vessel Lady Agatine owned. While Sarra was at Ryka Court, Captain Nalle had taken the Rose Crown back to Havenport with cargo from Ryka Portside, loaded a holdful of odds and ends and a few paying passengers, and sailed up to Ryka Northport to await Sarra. The new cargo of cloth, wine, and foodstuffs was bound for Renig. There the ship would offload, take on timber from the forests below Maidil’s Mirror and a herd of galazhi for an experimental project in Cantrashir (fronted by Gorrsts, funded by Ostins), and make for Roseguard. No matter what its other purposes, no voyage of the Rose Crown ever failed to turn a profit.

  After boarding—without subterfuge this time—Sarra’s reunion with Kanto Solingirt consisted of a nod and a smile. He vanished out of the rain and into his cabin with Elomar Adennos, and the pair went unseen for days as they planned the Scholar’s forgeries.

  Mage Captal Lusath Adennos had left Ryka Court a week earlier, his requests for more money and better quarters denied. He’d stayed with an elderly aunt at Northport, waiting for the Rose Crown. Now he, too, kept to his cabin—Agatine’s own—crushed by the Council’s rejection. He might have perked up had he known Sarra’s true mission. But for the first time in their history, the Mage Guardians had kept the Captal in total ignorance.

  The rainy deck held only one fascination: the retreating view of Ryka. Val and Alin went below at once to their shared cabin. Sarra had private quarters as well—although two of her were in it.

  Mai Alvassy wasn’t quite Sarra’s double. Her hair was only a few inches longer than the chin-length Ambraian style Sarra had long ago abandoned; impersonation required her to pile it atop her head and add false braids. Mai was two inches taller than Sarra, her eyes were dark blue, and her complexion had a dusty-rose cast—legacy of her grandmother, dark-skinned Gorynna Desse. Her voice was a little higher, her face a little thinner. But observed separately, they were enough alike to make the trick possible.

  They took turns appearing on deck for short strolls, huddled and hooded in Sarra’s blue wool cloak. Although all on board were with the Rising, it was safer to keep most of them as ignorant as the Captal. Agata Nalle joined the pair each night for dinner; Val played servant by waking them each morning for breakfast. He kept pretending not to know which was which—absurd, with their different hair and skin tones, but it made for a laughing start to the day.

  Except for these visits, they had only each other for company. Having no idea who Sarra really was, Mai had no idea why the resemblance was so marked. She was, in fact, rather shy at first. But Sarra was grateful for Mai’s presence, even when she was silent. Considering the implications of the Mage Globe, left to herself Sarra would have gone mad. She and Mai were the same age—Sarra was nine weeks the elder—born in the same city of mothers who were first cousins, and until the age of five, their lives had been nearly identical. Since Ambrai, the divergence had been total except for one thing: fierce opposition to Anniyas and the Lords of Malerris that had led them to the Rising.

  Neither Tama Alvassy nor her husband Gerrin Desse had survived Ambrai. Shortly after Gorynel Desse took Maichen and Sarra to safety in The Waste, Mai, her sister Elin, and her brother Pier sailed in secret for the Alvassy villa in Bleynbradden. This seaside retreat had been the dowry of their grandfather, Piergan Rille—whose family had agreed to provide Cailet’s Name.

  Then in the middle of the night that Mai later knew was the same on which Ambrai burned, a beautiful woman had come and bundled her and her siblings into a carriage along with their grandparents. The children slept, and when they woke again they were heading for the small estate brought into the family by Enis Dombur. A Ladder had taken them from Bleynbradden to Domburron, but Mai had no memory of the location.

  “I remember the Mage, though,” she confided to Sarra one evening. “Elseveth Garvedian. She was even more beautiful than Lusira, if you can believe it. She left us at Domburron. I never saw her again.”

  “Lusira’s mother?” Sarra guessed.

  “No, but all Lusira will say is she was a cousin of some sort.” Mai shrugged her left shoulder—a gesture Sarra was trying to acquire, just as she was teaching Mai her own habit of clenching her nails into her palms. They had decided to exchange idiosyncrasies just in case. “We weren’t supposed to ask, anyhow. My grandparents told us never to talk abou
t anything we remembered from before. Especially after we lost Uncle Toliner to the Lords of Malerris.”

  “Jeymian Renne’s husband, Orlin’s father,” Sarra said.

  “Agatine’s sons are my cousins.” She smiled shyly. “That kind of makes us cousins, too.”

  Glad to acknowledge kinship—though Mai didn’t know it was fact, not courtesy—Sarra smiled back. “We look enough alike to call ourselves sisters!”

  Mai nodded, shining hair moving like liquid silk by lamplight. Cailet’s hair would move that way, Sarra thought, aching suddenly for long nights of sharing secrets with her real sister. Someone who looked like her, thought like her, believed what she believed, as Mai did—and Glenin did not.

  In Domburronshir, Mai’s life had been as narrow and ordinary as Cailet’s must be in The Waste. Elinar Alvassy and Piergan Rille raised their three grandchildren on the little Dombur farm that had been her father’s dowry. They didn’t exactly vanish, but they were far from Ryka Court and as long as no crimes could be proved against them, they were largely ignored.

  “Anniyas planned for the Ambrais, the Mages, and anyone connected to them to die ‘by mistake’ that night,” Mai said. “We’re lucky to have escaped.”

  So was I, Sarra told herself, realizing it full-force for the first time. Looking at Mai, listening to her tale, Sarra understood at last what would have happened had she and Maichen been caught.

  Another abstract idea now wore a human face: a face nearly her own. Mother and I would’ve died, Cailet never been born. Father would’ve—no, Anniyas, damn it! He loved us, he could never have ordered us killed—

  How much worse if he’d killed all the others . . . and spared Mother and me.

  There wasn’t much more to Mai’s story. The three children had grown up with their Name, if not their fortune. It was just Mai and her grandfather Piergan in the echoing old farmhouse now. Elinar had died in 966. Elin, twenty years old and a talented Mageborn, had been spirited away by Gorynel Desse when she turned fourteen. Mai hadn’t seen her since and didn’t even know where she was. Pier, just seventeen and also Mageborn, was with the Rising somewhere in Cantrashir.