The Shape-Changer's Wife

by Sharon Shinn

“I am not like other women,” she said sharply. “I do not like the things they like or feel the things they feel. And it is better so. I do not want to be like them. I do not want to turn into one of them.”

  Aubrey stared at her. He was incapable of replying. She gazed back at him and he was shocked at the primitive fury in her eyes. He did not know what he had said to elicit such a bitter response; he could not guess what things must have happened to her to make her say such a thing. He wanted to apologize, but he didn’t know what to say. He lifted both his hands in a speechless gesture of remorse, then turned and left her alone in the room.

  Five

  THREE DAYS LATER, they left for Faren Rochester’s home. They were on the road two days and had trouble nearly every mile of the way.

  The problem revolved primarily around the horses. Glyrenden chose to ride, as he usually did, but Aubrey and Lilith followed behind in a hired coach. Aubrey could ride, though not well, since his income had rarely been large enough to allow him the luxury of owning and maintaining a horse; and Lilith could not ride at all. So they sat in the coach, along with their bundles and baggage, and watched the countryside slowly unfold.

  Glyrenden’s mount was a big, muscular stallion, black and nervous, with a volatile combination of power, speed and temper. Whenever there was a strange noise, a fallen branch, an eruption of quail from cover or the sound of an oncoming rider, the stallion reared back in alarm, striking at the air with his ironshod hooves. Glyrenden’s merciless hand would bring him down again, and the black would invariably plunge forward, racing ahead as if to outrun some unimaginable equine horror. The stallion’s distress was duly communicated to the coach horses, who would strain against their harness and grow entangled or unmanageable. They changed teams three times on the road during the first day of their journey, and each set of hired animals reacted with the same panic and unease when Glyrenden and his wild beast galloped past.

  “I can’t believe this,” Aubrey murmured the third or fourth time they were forced to come to a halt because the horses fouled their lines. “Why does he keep the brute? That horse will kill him if he’s not careful.”

  “Animals don’t care for Glyrenden,” Lilith replied. “This horse isn’t as bad as some others.”

  Aubrey glanced over at her, but she was looking out the window and did not meet his eyes. They were passing through the westernmost edges of the forest near the wizard’s home, and there was nothing to see but the endless line of interchangeable trees. Aubrey thought she was still angry at him for something he had said, or not said, or failed to understand when they examined the gowns of Glyrenden’s choosing; but he could not very well ask her what. And yet she seemed relaxed, her palms open on her lap and her head resting against the scuffed upholstery of the seat. He turned his head to watch the identical view out his own window, and slowly the miles passed.

  At nightfall, they stopped at a small inn. Glyrenden virtually had to wrestle his big black to a standstill in the courtyard, while three ostlers stood in a tense circle, ready to leap forward and help. The instant the sorcerer was out of the saddle, the horse calmed; one of the young stableboys led it away with no trouble whatsoever.

  The hired coachman was less sanguine. He had barely thrown his reins to a groom when he jumped from the box and strode over to confront the wizard. “That’ll be as far as I go on this road with you, sirrah,” he cried. He was small and feisty, a workingman proud of his skills and his self-reliance. “Never seen such a man for rousting up the cattle! One look at you and they all turn white-eye edgy! That’s it, no further. You’ll have to find another gig to take you on tomorrow.”

  Glyrenden’s face grew cold. “I paid you in advance for two days’ travel there and two days back,” he said icily. “You will take us where I say.”

  The coachman spit expressively. “That for your money,” he said. “You couldn’t give me enough gold to ride alongside you another day.”

  “And yet I think I could,” Glyrenden murmured, the tenor of his voice changing. He stared unwinkingly at the hired man, who glared back in defiance. Eyes fixed on the coachman, the wizard seemed to settle, to gather darkness around him; his black eyes were drained of all light and his pale face lost its faint color. The driver shifted on his feet but refused to look away. Glyrenden held the gaze another minute, another. The driver did not move again. Aubrey and Lilith sat wordlessly in the coach.

  “Another twenty crowns should keep you happy, don’t you think?” Glyrenden said at last, in a pleasant conversational voice. “Ten now, ten when we complete our journey.”

  “Twenty crowns,” the man repeated, his own voice oddly flat. “Should keep me happy.”

  “Very good,” Glyrenden said, and handed over a roll of gold coins. “We’ll expect you to be ready for us in the morning. Quite early.”

  “I’ll be ready in the morning,” was the dutiful reply. “Early.”

  Glyrenden nodded and strolled over to open the carriage door. “My dear,” he said, helping Lilith alight. “Let us break our journey here for the night. Ah, Aubrey. And how have you enjoyed the trip so far?”

  “As well as might be expected,” Aubrey said, answering in some confusion. He had turned to watch the coachman scuffle off in an obvious daze. “Sir, what did you—that man, he changed his mind so suddenly—”

  Glyrenden laughed lightly and pulled Lilith’s valise from the roof of the coach. “Just my persuasive powers,” he said. “Nothing to worry about. You must be hungry. Let’s go inside and eat.”

  AUBREY SLEPT DEEPLY that night, waking bewildered to the unfamiliar sunshine. He could scarcely remember the last time this had awakened him, although surely there had been plenty of sunlit days since he had begun sleeping at Glyrenden’s dark and silent fortress. He hurriedly washed and dressed, not wanting to be left behind by an impatient master.

  The journey resumed, and passed, much as it had the day before. By nightfall, Aubrey was heartily sick of the interminable forested highway, the ceaseless rocking of the coach, and the stern unapproachability of his companion. The few times he tried to make conversation with her, Lilith was monosyllabic or, at times, silent. Aubrey eventually gave up.

  Then they turned from the highway to a country road, and from that to a private drive, and Aubrey forgot Lilith for a moment. The palatial Rochester estate was visible from half a mile away, and it was magnificent.

  The main body of the house was four stories high, built of a cool gray marble that, under the moonlight, appeared to be burnished smooth. Turrets rose from the four compass points of the roof; flags flew from each small tower, whipping briskly in the breeze. Every window facing the drive was ablaze with candlelight; the massive front doors, thrown open to admit new arrivals, spilled yellow lamplight twenty yards down the manicured lawn. Even from this distance, a faint hum of music and laughter drifted out; shadows and colors threw patterns against the sheer curtains in almost every room. The harvest holiday celebrations, it would appear, were already under way.

  “Light, music and gaiety,” Aubrey said, forgetting that Lilith was not speaking to him. “Don’t they lift your heart?”

  She actually looked over at him, although her face was hard to see in the dark. “You are glad to be here,” she said.

  “I am,” he admitted. “I’ve always been a sociable man. I forget how much I’ve missed the companionship of others.”

  “You have been with us too long,” she said. “We are not much company.”

  “That’s not what I meant,” he said swiftly.

  “Nonetheless, it is true. Perhaps it is time you left us.”

  “No,” he said, without pausing to think about it. “I couldn’t leave yet.”

  “You still have so much to learn about Glyrenden?”

  “From Glyrenden,” he corrected.

  “Nothing worth learning,” she said.

  “You know nothing about it,” he retorted, smiling a little.

  “More than you think,” she said.
<
br />   “I am not ready to leave yet,” he said again.

  She gestured at the Rochester mansion, so close now they could not see the turrets or the upper stories from the coach. “Even when you see a place like this and you remember?”

  “Remember what?”

  “What other people are like. People who are not—strange, like we are. Ordinary men and women.”

  He had never heard her talk this way. Until the day they had quarreled over her new gowns, he had not thought she realized how different she was from other women. “You speak as if you want me to leave,” he said.

  “It might be better if you did,” she said.

  “Better?” he echoed. He was by now totally bewildered, and any minute the coach would come to a halt and Glyrenden would open their door. “You mean, better for you? For Glyrenden?”

  “For you,” she said. “For Glyrenden, it makes no difference.”

  “And for you?” he asked, greatly daring, because he heard the driver call out a soft “Whoa!” to the horses. “Does it matter to you if I stay or go?”

  She watched him for what seemed a long time; he could just make out her face in the glow of the torches being carried from the house. “Why should it matter?” she asked at last.

  He was conscious of a sharp stab of disappointment; he thought he made a sound of protest, but it was merely the whine of the unoiled door being wrenched back by Glyrenden’s eager hands. “My love! We have arrived! No, forget your things, one of these pretty boys will carry in your bags and parcels. We are just in time for dinner, the man tells me, so come quickly! Out you go!”

  Her husband had taken both her wrists in his hands, and Aubrey could see that, in his excitement, Glyrenden had unconsciously gripped her much too tightly. She still had not turned her eyes from Aubrey; she did not seem to be aware that someone else was speaking to her, or even touching her.

  “But it does,” she said, and allowed Glyrenden to pull her from the coach.

  MUCH OF THAT first evening passed for Aubrey in a blur. They were, in fact, in time for dinner, but barely. Everyone else was seated and through the first two courses when the three of them took their chairs at the far end of one table. While he ate, Aubrey stared avidly around. Between the opulence of the room, the magnificence of the guests, the richness of the food, and the lushness of the music sidling in from a curtained alcove, there was so much to see and hear and taste that he had trouble sorting out details. So he ate and watched, and hoped no one looked at him and thought he behaved like an idiot.

  After the meal, the whole crowd of close to a hundred people adjourned to a huge room set up with velvet-covered benches. Here the orchestra that had serenaded them during dinner—or another ensemble brought in especially for this event—played lyrically beautiful music for the next two hours. Aubrey sat back on his seat cushion and listened, entranced. Cyril had taught him some appreciation of the more civilized arts, taking Aubrey to professional concerts whenever the chance arose, so he knew enough about music to judge whether it was played well or poorly. This music was played with all the elemental elation he imagined would be attendant on the birth of a saint, and it enthralled him.

  Not until the players took a brief rest did Aubrey remember that he was acquainted with anyone else in the audience, and he turned to look for his companions. Glyrenden was standing in the back of the room, deep in conversation with several serious-looking gentlemen, but Lilith was sitting right beside him.

  “You liked that immensely,” she said.

  He smiled at her somewhat vaguely. “It’s that obvious?”

  “Yes.”

  “Didn’t you?” he asked impulsively, then wished he hadn’t. Lilith never expressed enthusiasm for anything, and he did not want her cool dispassion to destroy the lingering memory of the concert.

  But she surprised him. “It was beautiful,” she said. “It’s odd, but music is something I’ve always enjoyed.”

  “Why would that be odd?” he asked, foolishly relieved.

  She seemed to consider. “Because I have had no training in it,” she said at last.

  “Oh, neither have I. But that doesn’t mean we can’t have an appreciation for it. What do you think of when you hear music like that?”

  She considered again. “That music?” she said slowly. “While they played, I saw images in my mind. I saw a careless summer river, white with moonlight, racing through a birch grove and splashing against its banks. I saw the river grow still, and widen to a lake, silver and silent, and in the lake I saw the reflections of every fruit tree ever planted in the kingdom. The trees were heavy with apples and pears and pomegranates, and their leaves were fat and green, but the hour was midnight and none of their colors could be seen. So they made silver shapes against the black sky and black shapes against the silver lake, and when their images shook in the water, you could not tell if the lake rippled or the trees rustled in the wind.”

  Aubrey felt like one of those trees for a moment; he shivered, and did not know what moved him. “You’re a poet,” he said.

  She gave him her brief smile. “I liked the music,” she said.

  Before Aubrey could speak again, Glyrenden was upon them. Even in this setting, there was a brilliance to him, an intensity that made it hard to look away from him to other, lesser men. His waxy cheeks were faintly flushed; his eyes were as bright as a fanatic’s.

  “My love, there are people here I would like you to meet,” he said. “Our host, for one. Somehow we slipped into the house this evening without greeting him. Aubrey, you too. You must meet Faren Rochester and his friends.”

  Glyrenden led them to a group of five men standing in the back of the hall. The wizard, his wife and apprentice were all dressed in their traveling clothes, a fact which became more apparent to Aubrey the closer they drew to their host, for Faren Rochester and his friends wore so much lace and velvet, they would have been at home in the king’s court.

  “Lord Rochester,” Glyrenden said, bowing to a tall, solidly built man of middle years. “Let me introduce you to my wife, Lilith. And my apprentice, Aubrey. We are all honored to be your guests.”

  Faren Rochester took Lilith’s hand and made a shallow bow. His hair was fire-red and his eyes were a metallic blue. He looked to Aubrey like so much ice and calculation thinly covered with a veil of flesh. “Madam,” he said. He dropped her hand and turned to give Aubrey the briefest nod. “Sir.”

  “And Lord Stephanis, Lord Maloran, Sir Calcebray,” Glyrenden continued, indicating three of the remaining men. Each of them repeated Lord Rochester’s performance, and, to Aubrey, looked much like him.

  “Lilith, my dear,” Glyrenden said, “this is Sirrit. A sorcerer. He serves Lord Rochester.”

  The fifth man was decidedly different. Unlike Rochester and the other lords, who were dressed in stiff, well-cut velvets, he was attired in a flowing black robe heavily embroidered with silver. He wore three silver rings on one hand, a silver and onyx ring on the other, and a bracelet of gold around one wrist. His hair was white, threaded still with a hint or two of black, and combed severely back from his high forehead; it fell to his shoulders in soft tangles. He was a good twenty or thirty years older than Faren Rochester, and every bit as intelligent, and Aubrey knew two things before the introduction was made. This was Faren Rochester’s house magician, and Glyrenden did not like him.

  If the tone of his voice had not been an insult, the wording certainly was. Rochester’s cold blue eyes gleamed, as he waited to see how Sirrit would respond to the slight.

  The older wizard merely smiled faintly and offered his palm to Lilith. “Here’s my hand, if you aren’t offended to take it,” he said, and Rochester laughed aloud.

  “The magicians joust,” he said ironically. “I must have been mad to bring more than one under my roof.”

  “What does a man need with multiple mages?” Glyrenden asked sweetly.

  Rochester shrugged. “Why does a sorcerer need multiple masters?” he responded. “Yo
u serve my cousin the king, and you would tend to my wants, too.”

  Glyrenden’s smile widened. “I have power and more to satisfy your needs and the king’s needs and the needs of many other men,” he said.

  “And yet, I have always been loath to share my treasures with many other men,” Rochester said.

  “Myself as well,” Glyrenden answered. “Lilith, my dear, you have not shaken good Sirrit’s hand.”

  Indeed, whether by accident or design, Lilith had positioned herself as far from the sorcerer as the small circle of men would permit and turned her body so that she was sideways to him. Now, as Glyrenden nudged her forward, Sirrit smilingly extended his hand again. Slowly, as if reluctantly, Lilith laid her palm against his.

  Aubrey had not stopped staring at Sirrit since he heard the name (it was a name Cyril had spoken often, with some reverence), and so he was watching the wizard when Lilith touched him. An indescribable expression crossed that lined face and was banished; for a moment, the man’s hand crushed the woman’s thin one in a far from social grip. And then Sirrit released her and Lilith stepped back, and suddenly everyone was talking about politics.

  But Aubrey noticed two more things: Lilith could not bring herself to look at Sirrit, and Sirrit could not force himself to look away from her. And this was so strange that it did not occur to Aubrey for two more days that, in that strange interlude, Glyrenden had neglected to introduce him individually to the old wizard; although perhaps it had not been entirely by accident.

  Six

  THE NEXT MORNING, Aubrey joined enthusiastically into the entertainment planned for the day. For the men, this meant a hunt through the fragrant green countryside; for the women, it meant a walking tour through the estate’s extensive gardens. The day was fine, Aubrey’s borrowed horse was patient, and the hunting was good, though Aubrey declined to take part in the actual kill. Nonetheless, he enjoyed himself. He found himself in the company of half a dozen young men who were nearly his age, and they conversed amusingly and accepted him without a second thought. As he had told Lilith, he was a sociable man, and he had missed such pleasantries in the last couple of months.