Lady of Magick

by Sylvia Izzo Hunter

  Mór halted abruptly, dropped Sophie’s arm, and turned to face her. “You are my friend,” she said, “and I hoped to spare you distress. And . . .” She glanced aside, as though she could not quite meet Sophie’s eyes. “I thought we had been a more hospitable people.”

  “Mór—”

  A passing trio of men regarded them curiously.

  “Come,” said Mór, low and urgent. She caught Sophie’s hand and set off again, walking now with what seemed a deliberate lack of haste.

  * * *

  They reached the little house in Quarry Close with no further incident, and—despite Sophie’s best efforts—no further conversation. Sophie was fitting her door-key into the lock when the door was wrenched violently inward.

  “Sophie!” Gray exclaimed. He caught her outstretched hand, key-ring and all, and pulled her across the threshold and into his arms. His big hands patted at her back, her arms, her shoulders, as though expecting to find some sort of injury.

  Behind her, there was a delicate little cough, and Sophie’s face heated with embarrassment as she recalled Mór’s presence. What must she be thinking of such an unseemly display? And, really, it was too ridiculous: What did Gray imagine to have happened to her?

  She extricated herself with some difficulty and looked up at her husband, keeping her hands on her hips so as not to shake him. At once however she forgot her annoyance; a livid bruise was rising on Gray’s cheek, his face was pale, his eyes a little wild, and there was mud streaked along his trouser-leg and on the sleeve of his coat. “Gray, what on earth—”

  He ran a hand through his hair, which was already in more than usual disarray. “There is some sort of riot in Teviot Square,” he said. “Rory and I ran straight into it and were nearly trampled. We have only just arrived, and when I found you were not here—”

  “I was at the Library,” Sophie said, nonplussed; it was not like Gray to panic. “I sent a message by one of your students—the Erse boy with the stammer, you know—” She silently apologised to the student in question, whose name she knew perfectly well.

  “Eoghan Ó Tuathail,” Gray said. He sighed. “I shall find it pinned to the door of my study tomorrow morning, I expect; I have not seen him since yesterday afternoon.”

  Uneven footsteps approached from the kitchen. Sophie peered around Gray’s shoulder and gasped. Rory MacCrimmon had halted in the doorway, leaning one shoulder against the jamb; his coat-sleeve was torn, his boots and trousers caked in mud, his lower lip split and swollen, and with one hand he held a folded linen towel against his left eye.

  Before Sophie could even summon the wit to ask what had befallen him—or to demand why he and Gray had not, apparently, defended themselves—Mór was rushing past her, exclaiming in Gaelic so rapid and furious that Sophie could catch only one word in three, and propelling Rory back into the kitchen. Sophie and Gray exchanged bemused glances and followed. As they went, Gray curled one arm about Sophie’s shoulders and drew her close against his side.

  Mór had pushed Rory into a wheelback chair and was leaning down to examine his face, long fingers prodding tenderly at the darkening skin around his eye. She was still berating him, but slowly enough now that Sophie could easily follow her tirade.

  “Brawling in the streets, Rory! What can you possibly have been thinking? How do you expect to explain yourself to Catriona? You—”

  “We were not brawling,” Rory said. The words were blurred by his swollen lip. “We were only trying to cross Teviot Square.”

  “It was my fault entirely,” said Gray. Mór straightened, turned, and frowned at him. “As you said yourself when we first met,” he elaborated, with a sheepish and almost apprehensive glance aside at Sophie, “I am English. Too English, apparently, to escape notice in a crowd.”

  Sophie gently detached herself from Gray and set about making a pot of tea. Donella MacHutcheon had left the kettle filled, as was her habit, and Sophie poked up the kitchen fire, hung the kettle on its hook, measured tea leaves into the pot, set out cups and saucers. The domestic routine had grown familiar over the years of her new life as a student, and she slipped gratefully into it, soothed by the sense that she was accomplishing something useful with her own hands, and listened to the others’ conversation with only half an ear.

  Gray and Rory, it transpired, had learnt more from their sojourn amidst the disgruntled crowd than Mór had done—or, at any rate, were more inclined to discuss what they had discovered: There were gatherings elsewhere in the city, as well as in Teviot Square, and some said even in Glaschu; the priests of the Cailleach were rumoured to believe that their mistress opposed any marriage alliance outside the clans; and the offence which had so exercised the people of Din Edin was not only the choice of a foreign prince over the heads of dozens of eligible Alban chieftains’ sons, but the notion that the marriage would give the British king undue influence in the affairs of Alba. Mór and Rory debated at some length whether this idea had any merit, but reached no firm conclusion.

  * * *

  “What do you know of these Princes, Marshall?” Rory inquired. He sipped his tea gingerly, wincing at the pressure of the teacup’s rim against his split lip.

  “Edward is betrothed to a Normande,” Gray said evenly, “the daughter of the Comte d’Evreux, I believe. Either Roland or Henry, I suppose, must be the prince in question. Roland is the elder, and second in line to the throne at present; but of course that is expected to change once Prince Edward marries. He does seem much the likeliest, as Prince Henry is only twelve.”

  “This Roland must also be very young, then?” said Mór.

  “Quite young, yes,” said Gray.

  “Prince Roland is accounted an excellent horseman,” Sophie offered, and, rather less truthfully, “I do not know anything to his detriment.”

  “I hope he is reasonably sensible,” said Mór, with an odd sort of smirk; “Lucia MacNeill will have no patience with him else.”

  Sophie, to Gray’s surprise, gave a little half laugh. “That is certainly true,” she said.

  “I do not know her well,” Rory said, “but Adalbert de la Haye is her tutor, and Cormac MacWattie before him, and both think very highly of her as a scholar.”

  Gray was not at all certain that this boded well for the success of a marriage between Lucia MacNeill and his brother-in-law Roland, who—though undoubtedly clever—was one of the least scholarly young men Gray had ever met.

  “I was very much astonished,” said Sophie, in a reminiscing tone, “when I discovered that I had been arguing about light-spells with the heiress of Alba.”

  Mór and Rory looked at one another, and then at Sophie, with identical expressions of bafflement. “Why?” said Mór.

  “Well—because—because she—”

  “In Britain,” Gray put in, when Sophie’s attempt at explanation sputtered to a halt, “it is usual for the royal children to be educated privately—even those not expected to inherit the throne.”

  Though it had not always been so; the Princess Edith Augusta—Sophie’s namesake and co-Regent, with her elder sister, the Princess Julia, for the young King Edward the Sixth during his minority—had famously studied at Lady Morgan College in Oxford, very shortly before its doors were permanently closed.

  Rory looked politely astonished.

  Mór was less polite. “I understand that your king cannot choose his heirs, as our rulers do,” she said, “and so perhaps thinks it less important to see how his children conduct themselves in the world before making his choice; but such isolation seems to me very foolish.”

  “Mór,” said Rory, in gentle reproach.

  “I think Mór is perfectly right,” Sophie declared. “And if Lucia MacNeill is indeed to marry Prince Roland, perhaps her example will encourage him to further his studies here at the University, after they are wed! I expect—”

  She stopped abruptly and, making som
e excuse about the tea things, rose from her seat beside Mór and fled past Gray into the kitchen.

  Rory looked anxiously after her. “Is Sophie quite well?” he asked. “Mór, are you quite sure she was not hurt in the crowd, or . . . or frightened?”

  “You may be sure that Sophie went nowhere near the crowd,” said Mór, low and rather grimly, “and I do not think she was nearly as much frightened as she ought to be.”

  “What do you mean by that?” Gray kept his tone neutral with some effort. Sophie, it was plain, had nearly said something revealing just now, and had taken herself away to fret over it in privacy; had she also, at some earlier point in this unnerving day, been too frank with Mór? Were they, in fact, about to be discovered?

  For the first time since their arrival in Din Edin, the prospect filled him with trepidation rather than relief.

  Mór gave him a long, speculative look. “Do you tell me, Gray Marshall,” she said at last, “that you can look at yourself at this moment, and ask me what I mean?”

  Ah. I see. Ruefully, Gray touched the bruise on his cheek. “Sophie is not so conspicuous as I am,” he said, by way of explanation. “And I am sure she believed no harm would come to her whilst she was in your company, Mór MacRury.”

  “And yet,” said Mór, with a little quirk of her lips, “it is you who might easily have flown from the danger.”

  “I have never known Gray to fly from danger.” Sophie’s voice, behind him, was calm and even, but beneath there lurked a hint of steel. “Literally or otherwise. I should scarcely expect him to begin by abandoning a friend to the mercies of a mob.”

  Gray turned to look up at her, standing in the doorway with a plate of Donella MacHutcheon’s butter shortbreads in her hands and the glint of challenge in her eyes.

  “And Sophie has always thought better of me than I deserve,” he said lightly, hoping that neither of their guests would think to inquire whence came this knowledge of his response to danger. “But if you have determined that I deserve a second helping of Donella MacHutcheon’s shortbread, cariad, I shall certainly not dispute your judgement.”

  To his great relief, Sophie took the hint and managed a moderately convincing grin.

  * * *

  “I ought to have told them,” said Sophie, flinging herself full-length upon the sofa. “I wish I had done; it is only a matter of time, and I had rather they heard the truth from me.”

  Mór and Rory had gone away at last. She had been eager for them to go, and expected to feel their absence as a relief; but in fact, she now began to feel that she had wasted an ideal opportunity for confession and explanation, and rather wished that she might call them back.

  Gray emerged from the kitchen, whither he had vanished with the tea-tray, and said, “Until today, I should have agreed with you entirely.”

  Sophie raised her head, the better to stare at him in bafflement.

  “Our friends will forgive us this small deception,” he said, crossing the room to sit on the sofa, “and I should have said that we need not care for the opinions of anybody else, but given what we have seen today—”

  “What would you have me do, then?” cried Sophie, exasperated. And then, a further thought occurring, she exclaimed, “Oh, gods and priestesses! Lucia MacNeill!”

  Gray’s lips twisted. “She may not be best pleased with you,” he said, “if the rumour be true.”

  * * *

  Two days later, the afternoon’s post brought—in the form of letters for Sophie from her father and Joanna, and one for Gray from Jenny—the rather startling intelligence that the rumour was indeed perfectly true.

  Her father’s letter was again very formal—more King to Princess than father to daughter—and very brief, almost identical to that which had announced Ned’s betrothal to the Lady Delphine:

  His Majesty, Henry, twelfth of the name, King of Britain, &c., is pleased to announce that a betrothal has been contracted between His Royal Highness, Roland Edric Augustus, Duke of York, and Lucia MacNeill, daughter of Donald MacNeill and heiress to the chieftain’s seat of Alba, for the furthering of peaceable trade and alliance between our two Kingdoms, to the benefit of both.

  This, however, unlike the other, closed with the stern instruction to say nothing of the matter until a public announcement should be made.

  Joanna’s was much longer and more voluble, and was filled both with apologies for her earlier silence on the subject and with anxious speculations as to Roland’s state of mind. It was also, Sophie felt, oddly filled with Gwendolen Pryce—though perhaps no more so than had been usual of late.

  I am truly sorry to have kept you in the dark all this while, Sophie, the letter concluded, but I am sure you understand that having given my word to Lord Kergabet, to say nothing of this matter to anyone whatsoever, I could not make exceptions even for you. I did come very near to breaking my promise on the day when you and Gray departed for Din Edin. I trust that my warning will prove unnecessary, but, however, I could not be easy about your going, had I not given it.

  “I am very curious to know,” said Gray, looking up from Jenny’s letter, “how Roland is taking this news, and to what sort of histrionics he may be subjecting your father.”

  Sophie chuckled wanly. “Indeed,” she said, “if my father and Sieur Germain surprised him with it, I should imagine that he is not over pleased. And he cannot have known of it, I think—or not for long—for he has said nothing to me in any of his letters. Certainly he did not mention it, when last we met in London; and this matter must have been in train even before that.”

  “Brothers do not always tell their sisters everything, you know,” said Gray. He reached towards her; his left hand smoothed comfortingly up and down her spine.

  “I do not doubt it,” said Sophie. “But Roland has made a special project of befriending his unexpected sister, and often tells me things that really he ought not. I do hope . . . I hope he is not truly distressed.”

  Gray did not ask, as many might have done, why she should suppose that Roland might be distressed by the prospect of marrying a clever and very handsome young woman who stood to inherit a kingdom.

  “I am sure,” he said, “that your father will not hold Roland to any arrangement which causes him genuine distress.” He hesitated, then went on: “Have you . . . have you any particular reason to suspect . . .”

  “He is . . . he has a preference for some other woman,” Sophie admitted, reluctantly. “I have not the least idea who she is, but from the hints in his letters I believe his regard is not reciprocated.”

  The warm hand on her back faltered momentarily, then resumed its steady rhythm.

  “I do not much like this manner of arranging things,” Sophie sighed, “but Roland is old enough and certainly impertinent enough to make his position clear, if he should object to marrying Lucia MacNeill; and if the news of the match is made public at home, and is shortly to be announced here also, it would appear that he has not done so. Only . . . I hope they may find some way to be happy together.”

  Gray, wisely, attempted no reply.

  Sophie turned over the last page of Joanna’s letter, which had formed the envelope, and found on the bottom third of it a postscript, hastily scrawled, which she had not remarked before:

  P.S. I have opened this up again, Sophie, to give you a piece of news that will please you: H.M. is sending a great convoy of waggons loaded with grain and salted meat and such to Alba—for the storehouses, you know—as part of the bride-gift, and they are on their way already! J.

  “Oh!” she exclaimed. “Gray, listen—”

  * * *

  The betrothal was formally announced in Din Edin in the middle of January, and was received with heated discussions in drawing-rooms and public-houses—opinions seemingly divided between approbation and disapproval—as well as further public demonstrations both for and (in the great majority) against. To So
phie’s astonishment and dismay, the news of the bride-gifts described in Joanna’s letter, far from changing the minds of the doubters, seemed to fan the flames of their objections; the charge that Donald MacNeill had sold his daughter—or even Alba itself—in return for the right to glean from the fields of Britain, stooping like a beggar for the leavings of her harvest, seemed to be on the tip of every tongue, to shout from the pages of every broadsheet.

  Sophie began to wonder that Donald MacNeill and his daughter should not be having serious second thoughts.

  For Gray and herself, the month that followed was a constant trial. Formerly more or less unremarkable members of the University community, of no especial interest once their novelty had worn off, both of them—in common with every other British subject presently resident in Din Edin—had abruptly become notorious.

  Reflecting on what her own feelings must have been had she found herself in Lucia MacNeill’s position, Sophie had taken the earliest opportunity of approaching her future sister-in-law with felicitations and a request to speak with her in private.

  “Of course,” said Lucia MacNeill, graciously enough, though evidently puzzled.

  There being no other immediate demands upon her time, she led the way to her own carrel in the Library and borrowed a second chair in which she invited Sophie to sit.

  “If you will permit,” said Sophie, still on her feet, “I should like to set a ward.”

  Lucia MacNeill did not trouble to hide her astonishment. “Certainly,” she said, “if you think it needful.”

  She watched Sophie’s spellcasting with a shrewd interest, which Sophie found rather unnerving.

  “I have a confession to make to you,” said Sophie at last, sinking into the proffered chair.

  “To me?” Lucia MacNeill said, frowning. Does she suspect? Surely she must suspect.

  “To you,” said Sophie. She had thought carefully about what to say but found the words skittering away from her, and instead stammered, “As . . . as my brother’s betrothed.”