The Rising Scythe

by S G Dunster

  These people are special, she thought idly, trying, still, not to dwell on the problem of Guzal. What could she do?

  “How so?” Guzal asked her.

  Thessaly looked at her, startled. “What?”

  “You said these people are special,” Guzal replied, brows arching. “How so?”

  Thessaly shook her head. She hadn’t realized she’d spoken aloud. “I’m not sure. But there’s something. Those boys who came from the tin mines. Those people on the island. There’s something common to them all, and I think it’s . . . .” She shook her head again.

  “You mean, magicks?” Guzal asked, lowering her voice, giving a quick glance upward as another of the boys passed them by carrying bowls of water for washing fingers.

  After the meal finished, they went to dress. Guzal insisted they each wear one of their finer gowns to Dunne’s Tor for the afternoon’s lessons. Thessaly did not object, though she hated to be squeezed into a flat bodice and buttoned for what seemed hours.

  Guzal was perhaps smart, though. Thessaly had felt more self-conscious in the minutes spent at Lady DuCarne’s solar than she’d felt in any court. The nasty looks from the Dudleys, the pointed words, had seared a little. And though Thessaly knew it shouldn’t matter, it would make her glad to see some look of jealousy on their faces when they saw how truly well-fitted out she and Rosalie were.

  War paint, Thessaly thought idly, sucking in her stomach, as Guzal laced. She still didn’t need to; her corsets hung off her. It was sheer habit at this point.

  Guzal brushed through Thessaly’s mane until it shone like dark cherries and braided it with a wine-colored ribbon. She added a few jeweled pins—clusters of freshwater pearls. Thessaly’s gown was of the same color and lined with oyster-colored silk and cream-colored ermine. She knew she looked fine. Rosalie, in a silk gown the color of the sky with slashed sleeves that showed the primrose pink of her under-dress, looked too sweet to be real.

  They rode up to the mansion sitting stiff and straight. Thessaly’s stomach twisted a little as they approached the gatehouse. Would she approach Lady DuCarne? Thessaly wanted so badly, to have someone to guide her. Lady DuCarne seemed the best choice, and she was already teaching Thessaly arts of another kind, so was it an illogical leap that she may be able to teach Thessaly other arts she practiced?

  Dare Thessaly broach the subject?

  Wytchery was not a practice that many entertained as acceptable. Her own family was a glaring exception. The courts of Sforza had made room for Umbra because of what she brought to them, and Margarida lived like a sprite in a cliff, away from any court.

  They’d already as much as acknowledged each other, Thessaly argued to herself. Lady Ducarne knew Thessaly had magicks in her, and that Thessaly had noticed hers.

  Or was she imagining and building that moment up in her own mind as well? Was she letting her own wishes carry her away?

  Thessaly would ask.

  At the soonest discrete opportunity, she would just ask, directly, without prevaricating. And if the Lady had no idea what Thessaly spoke of, or reacted with anger, well, that would be that. It wasn’t as if Thessaly would be in a much worse position.

  Jivette and Hele stared as Thessaly, Rosalie, and Guzal entered, just for a moment, then turned their eyes down toward the embroidered cloths they were working. Rosalie seemed a little disappointed. Thessaly couldn’t tell her that she felt clean, green envy emanating from both of them, pungent as sage for a moment.

  “This is Guzal,” Thessaly said flatly.

  Hele’s eyes flicked upward over Guzal’s slim figure, and she made no comment, but muttered something to Jivette, whose lips curled at the corner.

  Thessaly took a deep breath, and let it out carefully, slowly, counting the seconds. Her tethers were coming loose. She stood, watching Lady DuCarne, who had a quill and a board with paper resting on her large belly. She wore apricot-colored satin, and it set off her dark-brown curls and dark eyes well. “Come and write some letters,” she said, gesturing to Rosalie.

  Rosalie groaned quietly, and Beatrice, sitting in a chair by the window, glanced up from her letter, amusement narrowing her fine, almond-shaped eyes.

  “It is an art you’ve got to improve,” Lady DuCarne chided gently. She patted the place next to her on the couch. “Sit with me. I shall look over your letters as you make them.”

  “I do not have a good hand.” Rosalie’s tone was a little petulant. Thessaly saw the Dudleys exchange a smirk.

  “We shall work to improve that, then.”

  Rosalie obediently sat by her, and Guzal sat on Thessaly’s other side. She did bring a stare from Hele—curious, astonished, perhaps a little angry. She opened her mouth as if to speak, but Jivette reached over and grasped her wrist tight enough to make white marks there. Hele shut her mouth and bent again over her needlework.

  Thessaly eyed Lady DuCarne again. She closed her eyes for a moment, feeling the tendrils of magicks escaping from the binds on her cores, which were, in fact, falling loose.

  She formed her mouth around the curse that would bind them tight again. As she did, Lady DuCarne looked across the room, meeting her eyes with a burning, knowing sort of glance.

  Thessaly faltered. For some reason, in that moment, she was . . .

  What. Frightened? No.

  Never frightened.

  There was no creature that could hurt her. Not if she didn’t want them to.

  She reminded herself of this a few times, though, as she settled into place on the chair and took a deep breath or two to slow her heart, her breathing.

  Lady Ducarne’s movements were graceful, careful, and her voice, kind and soothing. Sweet.

  Thessaly had to have imagined the look.

  Even as she told herself that, she knew she hadn’t. But perhaps it wasn’t about her magicks? Perhaps Lady DuCarne disapproved of something she’d done. Sitting next to Beatrice? Not addressing her properly?

  She tugged at a coil that fell across her forehead, having escaped the gold lace net Rosalie had styled her hair with that morning. She took up a paper, a board, and a quill and settled into the chair next to Beatrice, on the other side of the window. She started a letter to her father, making sure to include the news for Cerdic in the first line. At first she couldn’t focus. A constant, pricking awareness of Lady DuCarne, even as she was absorbed in correcting Rosalie’s ill-formed letters, kept her from thinking of what to write. Finally, she fell into it, and described the town, the abbey, the classes. She went on a great deal about that. Then she added that Lady DuCarne was a great artist at the harp, and details about Beatrice so that her father would be satisfied she was giving both courses equal attention.

  Duke DuCarne joined them. He spied Guzal and gestured to her. She stood and left the room. What was this? Thessaly’s heart seemed to be beating in her head. Guzal was to be DuCarne’s as well, then? Had her father arranged this?

  The afternoon heat was oppressive in the small, window-ensconced room. DuCarne re-entered the room with Guzal. She was docile, quiet as she took her place next to Thessaly.

  Thessaly gave her a questioning glance, and Guzal shook her head slightly and brought a wooden hoop with a cloth stretched over it. “Stitches,” she said crisply to Thessaly, and made a tight, even line of red. “Now you.”

  Thessaly complied, pinching her lips tight together under Guzal’s quelling glare.

  DuCarne settled onto a low couch by the window. He was red, sweating. “It’s very warm in here,” he said to Lady DuCarne. “Do you ladies fancy a walk around the grounds? A ride is not possible, sadly. I don’t want my Lady jouncing around in her condition.”

  “Yet perhaps it would bring on a more desirable one,” Lady DuCarne replied dryly. “Aye, I could do with some fresh air.”

  The girls all rose, setting aside their writings, and followed the DuCarnes out onto the grounds. The breeze cooled Thessaly immediately, and she leaned into it, breathing deeply. It smelled of the sea. The water lapping up
against the DuCarne’s garden glowed the color of Rosalie’s dress.

  She was very pretty, the wind whipping up the tail of her long, golden braid, stirring roses in her cheeks. DuCarne took her on his other elbow and peppered her with good-humored questions about her life before coming to the abbey, about her father. Her artless answers amused him greatly. At one point, he threw his head back and laughed when she told him she preferred ale over wine, as it was what she was raised on.

  “No mother’s milk?” he asked, when he’d gotten control back. “Just fine stout? Lady DuCarne and I’ll have to take that into consideration, seeing the result. Don’t you think, my dear?”

  The Lady gave him a little smile. Rosalie colored and smiled as well.

  DuCarne has his moments, Thessaly thought to herself, rough brute or not. Her opinion may or may not have been furthered by the looks on Hele and Jivette’s faces as they walked to the rear of the party, quite forgotten.

  Beatrice joined Thessaly when they reached the marshy, grass-filled little bay that ran to the base of the DuCarne’s hill.

  “I do love it here,” she said, “in this little place by the water. So quiet. So much peace.” She sighed. “Do you think this world will right itself soon?”

  “What do you mean?” Thessaly asked.

  Beatrice smiled at her and gave a most-unladylike shrug. “Just going on aloud. Oh, I hoped you’d read for me today.”

  It took Thessaly a moment to understand what she was talking about. She didn’t mean English or Latin. She meant a reading of magicks, as they’d discussed the day before. “I did not bring my cards. Beg pardon, Beatrice. I forgot.”

  “I shall come to the abbey with you tonight then,” Beatrice declared. “I can stay the night and come back with you in the morning.”

  Thessaly frowned. “We take lessons at the abbey in the morning. We won’t come back until after dinner. Are you certain you’d be . . ." she glanced back at the DuCarnes.

  Beatrice flipped her veil over her shoulder. “I believe I may venture wherever I like. What do you learn during your lessons at the abbey, then? I assume there’s no ribbon embroidery, or deportment. Priests spend a great deal of time copying dusty old tomes, don’t they?”

  “Unladylike things,” Thessaly replied. “Maths. Right now we’re discussing Plato.”

  Beatrice’s face brightened, sharpened. “I should like that,” she declared. “I shall come.”

  Thessaly shook her head and laughed, glancing again at the DuCarnes. “Are you certain?“

  “I may go where I like,” Beatrice pronounced, “and so may you. So may we all.”

  “Indeed,” Thessaly said, shrugging and giving her a smile.

  They walked at the back of the party when it turned again toward the mansion, laughing and chatting. At the back of Thessaly’s mind beat the idea of asking Lady DuCarne about magicks. Would she?

  She must. Where else had she to turn? Certainly not the sisters at the abbey. And what could Lady DuCarne do to her, should her suspicions prove wildly wrong?

  “The Duke said he’d bring a dozen comely young lads to the castle for me to choose from,” Rosalie said, running back to Thessaly and Beatrice as the Duke and Lady went inside. Thessaly bit her lip as frustration welled up inside. There went that opportunity.

  Perhaps she could sit close to the lady in the morning room. Or at dinner. Ladies often talked quietly about the things that did not concern men. It would not seem strange for her to talk quietly to her, would it?

  “Do you think he was funning, or serious?”

  It took a moment for Thessaly to understand Rosalie’s question. “Funning,” Thessaly and Beatrice both said in the same moment, then chuckled.

  Rosalie pouted, and Beatrice slipped a hand through Thessaly’s. Her grasp was strong and cool. It calmed Thessaly’s feelings a little.

  Soon after, it was time to leave. Beatrice made a third in their carriage. “Where is Guzal?” Thessaly asked Lady DuCarne as they left.

  The Lady gave Thessaly an enigmatic look. “Her services are required here at the mansion tonight. I shall send her back to you tomorrow.”

  Thessaly opened her mouth, then shut it. She glanced at Rosalie.

  The girl didn’t seem worried at all. Not even puzzled.

  “Did my father make arrangements?” Thessaly asked bluntly.

  Lady DuCarne’s eyes held Thessaly’s. She did not say a word, but instead, nodded at the sky. “It shall be a waxing moon tonight.” She gave Thessaly a little smile and turned back to the stack of papers she was inking in a graceful, curling hand.

  A waxing moon. Umbra had taught Thessaly that concoctions were more powerful brewed as the moon swelled. Is that what Lady DuCarne was referring to? Or was she simply observing the weather and skies, as polite people did? Did the moon have something to do with Guzal? Something about strange rhythms, bodily cycles? The needs of her husband?

  Questions spread through Thessaly’s mind like choking vines. Thessaly opened her mouth, then shut it as she felt the prick of Jivette and Hele’s attention on the both of them.

  “Aye, and it’ll be a cloudless night,” Jivette answered. “Good for a night hunt. Is the Duke going out for venison?”

  “Likely he’d find mostly sheep,” Hele replied, “in these woods.”

  Jivette tittered, and the moment had passed.

  Thessaly felt heavy, frustrated, like to burst, as she climbed into the carriage. Why was she so angry over Guzal? And why was she surprised? Her father had always treated her as goods to trade. He had paid a kingly price in spices for her when he brought the girl into their household, and he expected a return on his investments. He knew how to spread his assets around.

  Thessaly clutched her fists and shut her eyes tight for a moment as they moved down the road. She was feeling disappointed, that was all. She’d hoped that, in the abbey, Guzal would be spared that aspect of her servitude.

  Why was it making her so angry, though? Guzal did not live in misery. She did not complain. She was cheerful, gentle, and obedient. Thessaly was imagining too much of her own feeling into Guzal’s heart.

  Likely, Thessaly told herself, this place will hold some better comforts for Guzal. She is living in a house full of priests. The fact she has a visit up to the Tor now and then . . . it’s an improvement, isn’t it? Over being called to serve almost daily, on a ship full of courtly, handsome, but deprived men?

  Even as she convinced herself, the tightness in her chest did not ease, and her heart ached strangely, like a sour tooth. Sore at the socket, bringing with it a bite of worry and even, Thessaly knew, a heaviness of guilt.

  Guzal was used.

  Guzal should be free.

  A strand of silver burned bright, searing hot inside her as it unraveled from her fetters and streamed through to her fingertips. Under her hand, the plush cushion she sat against grew too hot.

  “Vinculum,” she hissed at herself, startling Rosalie. “Sorry” she murmured, pulling her hand up to her chest, feeling the burn against her skin. She held it there on purpose until she hissed. The welt on her skin was her deserved punishment.

  Chapter 12

  I

  t wasn’t quite time for supper when they came to the abbey, so Beatrice and Rosalie went to the small bedroom.

  After Beatrice had a look around, exclaiming over the great golden falcon and then running a reverent hand over the soft cottons and downy pillows, they all lay on their stomachs on the bed as Thessaly dealt Beatrice’s cards. She pulled a strand of bound magicks carefully loose as she dealt them, letting it warm her fingertips. Her fingers felt strong, sure, guided as she laid out the cards in neat rows, not hesitating.

  It felt good, the certainty. The power. It was more than she’d ever felt before choosing, and more control than she’d had since. Exultation rose up inside her as she finished.

  “A conflict, and envy,” Thessaly said. “That precedes you, and ahead is . . . ” She felt Beatrice tense. “Love,” she sai
d, eyeing the lovers’ card. “And also . . . a trip, which will bring you closer to the thing you truly want. Which is love.”

  “Love,” Beatrice spit the word out. “Love. It is what most girls want to hear. Not me.” She gave Thessaly a gleaming sort of look. “Are you certain you’re a true wytch? Not, perhaps, trying to play a joke? I’ll like you well, wytch or no, Thessaly of Ainestille.”

  Thessaly eyed her, frowning. She knew it was a true reading. She felt it, deep in her marrow. “Forbidden,” she added, glancing down again. “The love. It’s not conventional . . . or it’s something like that.”

  Their eyes met. Beatrice’s look went from a slight jeer, to a sort of puzzlement, and then to astonishment. “You really believe in this reading,” she said.

  “It’s a true one.”

  “Thessaly’s a wytch,” Rosalie pronounced.

  Suddenly, it all made sense to Thessaly—Beatrice’s ready acceptance of her skills, her declaration of wytchery.

  She didn’t believe in it.

  “Beatrice,” she said quietly. “I can tell you of your past, too. A dark woman, a man of noble stock.”

  “I told you that about myself,” Beatrice replied, smiling.

  Thessaly breathed out in a gust.

  She did not want to lose what she’d thought she had—acceptance—in Beatrice. She would prove it to her, then.

  She turned over another card, this time reaching through it with a slim silver strand of magicks. As she did, an image bloomed in Thessaly’s mind—a small, graceful child, brown as loam. It was powerful, clear as if she were right in front of her.

  She held the hand of a man with rows of braids along his scalp. His skin was nearly as brown as hers. “Your father,” Thessaly murmured. “He is not full-blood Spanish. He is a moor.” She opened her eyes again, and met Beatrice’s, which were now wide and startled. “But he must be of noble birth indeed. He wore a cloth-of-gold coat.”