The Midnight Queen

by Sylvia Izzo Hunter

  Just now, in the wayhouse courtyard, she was explaining their circumstances to a stout, red-faced Breton innkeeper.

  “Two rooms,” she said in English, rather more loudly than necessary. “Two, do you understand? Deux chambres.”

  The innkeeper replied in Brezhoneg—Breton—and at some length.

  “Two rooms.” Mrs. Wallis held up two fingers, and raised her voice still more. “A large one—une grande, et une petite. One for him”—she gestured at Gray—“and one pour nous trois. Oui?”

  A small crowd had gathered to watch the fun, and a chuckle rippled through it as the innkeeper repeated his Brezhoneg inventory of the available guest-rooms and their tariffs.

  “Vous n’avez aucun français?” Mrs. Wallis broke in, with a gesture of despair so convincing that even Gray half sympathised with her invented difficulties.

  Feeling in the pocket of his coat for the purse she had given him, he stepped forward and laid an authoritative hand on her arm. “Please, Aunt Ida,” he said. On cue, Mrs. Wallis ceased gesticulating and, with a nicely judged show of exasperation, turned her back on the business to take Gray’s place with Sophie, Joanna, and the horses.

  As expected, a lack of bluster and the appearance of a coin or two were of considerable benefit in concluding the negotiations for a large room for the three ladies and a smaller one for Gray, as well as baths and a hot dinner for all of them, and feed and shelter for their mounts. A hostler was summoned to take the horses to the stables; the innkeeper took charge of the travellers’ saddle-bags, and his wife, attracted by the commotion, appeared behind him, white-capped and plump, to cluck sympathetically over the white-faced Sophie and hurry them all upstairs to their rooms.

  Within, the wayhouse gave Gray a pleasant sense of concealment. Its corridors and staircases were dimly lit by candles in sconces along the walls, sometimes perilously near the blackened cross-beams that threatened his head as he trailed the others past the public rooms and up the stairs. From a few doorways faces turned in their direction as they passed, but none seemed to evince more than the usual interest in the arrival of a party of strangers.

  Gray’s room, though so tiny that it might once have been a clothes cupboard, was well supplied with the matériel for shaving, and he set about this task as soon as he had removed his coat and boots. He expected to be facing the curious stares of the inn’s other guests over dinner, and felt he would carry it off better if he looked less like a travelling mendicant. Before he had finished, however, he was interrupted by a timid knock at the door; on opening it he found Joanna—Harriet, he reminded himself sternly—standing on the threshold, wearing a clean gown and an anxious look.

  “Aunt Ida has put Elinor to bed,” she said loudly. “Elinor is a great deal too ill to be moved, she says. She asks me to say that—”

  “Come in out of the corridor, Harriet.” Gray took hold of Joanna’s arm and tugged her into the room, closing the door behind her.

  “What do you mean, ill?” he demanded in a low voice.

  Joanna folded her arms. “We are travelling incognito, you know,” she said. “She is not ill, exactly. Not fevered, or spotted, or coughing. But she has gone to sleep again, straight to sleep with all of her clothes on. And”—this in unbelieving tones—“she said she did not want a bath, or even any dinner.”

  Gray frowned as he again set razor to cheek, trying to recall everything he had ever learnt about magick shock. Again he was brought up short by the recognition that Sophie’s was a more powerful talent than he had ever encountered before—and drained almost completely in one mad, abandoned burst of rage. He could only guess at the effects of such an accident.

  “What was it M—Aunt Ida wished you to tell me?” he asked Joanna, who was watching him with narrowed eyes.

  “That one of us ought to sit with Elinor, while the others go down to dinner,” she said. And, lowering her voice, “She has not exactly said so, but I think she would prefer you to stay, as you are quite the most conspicuous.”

  Gray was immediately struck by the impropriety of this suggestion. Yet just as they had agreed to keep their use of magick to the barest minimum, it was in other respects the most prudent course. He was certainly the most recognisable of the party; the country might be full of young girls travelling with respectable matrons, but few of them would be accompanied by an unusually tall young man whose clothes did not quite fit him. Then, too, this was just the sort of office that an affectionate elder brother might well perform for his sister, and thus perhaps would serve to reinforce their disguise.

  He ran a hand through his hair, undoing at a stroke all his careful work in front of the glass.

  “I shall ask them to send up something to eat, of course,” said Joanna, as though mere hunger had made him hesitate.

  “Mind you don’t ask in Brezhoneg,” he admonished her in a low voice; despite everything, she grinned.

  There was a sound from the corridor. “I shall tell Aunt Ida to expect you at once, then, Ned,” Joanna said, in a prim voice quite unlike her own.

  “I thank you, Harriet,” said Gray.

  * * *

  Sophie slept unquietly. At times she cried out some half-intelligible protest; at others, sobbed or moaned as though in pain. Try as he might, Gray could not wake her from her nightmares. If this was indeed only magick shock, it was the worst he had ever seen. He was again reminded of his sister’s frightening illness and delirium, and more than one prayer for Sophie’s safety escaped his lips while he watched by her bedside, smoothing the damp hair from her forehead or—when the noise from the public rooms below was such as he thought must prevent anyone’s hearing—singing to her the half-remembered lullabies of his childhood.

  Perhaps half an hour after Joanna and Mrs. Wallis had gone down to their dinner, a knock on the door heralded the arrival of one of the innkeeper’s daughters, a dark-eyed, sweet-faced girl of fourteen or fifteen, bearing an enormous wooden tray on which reposed a covered dish of bouillabaisse, bowls and spoons, glasses, a decanter of wine, and several warm loaves. The aroma of the stew made Gray’s mouth water but seemed to have no effect on Sophie.

  The girl cast a frightened eye at her as she set down the tray. “Does she need a ’ealer, m’sieu’?” she asked timidly.

  Gray smiled at her. “I thank you,” he said, “but my aunt is a healer herself. What my sister most needs is rest and good food, and both seem in excellent supply here.”

  She curtseyed, dark curls bobbing with the motion of her head, and left them alone again.

  Another quarter-hour, and Sophie abruptly sat bolt upright, her eyes flying open in a face white as the linen bedclothes. One hand reached towards Gray; he took it in both of his, and her fingers clutched his so tightly that he bit his lip to stifle a yelp.

  “Gray, what is happening?” Sophie whispered. “I have had such ghastly dreams, worse even than . . . Is this how it feels to have magick? Can I not—give it back, or—”

  Gray smiled grimly. “Remember we may have listeners,” he said, leaning closer. “You must be Elinor, and I am Ned. What you feel now will pass,” he continued, a little more loudly. “It is only the aftereffect of yesterday’s . . . accident. The nightmares are not a usual symptom, but I think . . .” He lowered his voice again and said, “You have so much magick, you see, and you must have used nearly all of it. You must never do so again,” he added severely. “You might have died.”

  Sophie’s eyes grew wider still.

  “Do you remember what you told me about your mother? What your father claims may not be the truth, but it has happened, more often than you may think.” Gray paused, considering. “I’ve no great expertise in treating magick shock, you understand, but ordinarily, with rest and good food, the effects vanish within a day or so—less, in general. You recovered so quickly, at first, that I thought all would be well . . . but your nose bled, which I cannot explain, and then
you have had almost no rest . . .”

  “Gr—Ned,” Sophie began, her expression conveying how absurd the name felt on her lips, “is this what happened to you, that day, when we were singing?”

  Having tried to forget that experience, Gray was reluctant to bring it up again.

  “I am not altogether certain,” he said at last. “There are definite parallels. But it cannot have been any ordinary sort of magick shock, of course.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I had not used any magick,” he said patiently. He was still holding Sophie’s hand; he made to let it go, but she prevented him by laying her other hand over his.

  “I have one theory,” he admitted.

  Sophie looked up at him expectantly. To his relief, the colour was again creeping back to her face, and she looked less haunted than before, as though this odd conversation cheered her.

  “I shall tell you while you eat,” he said pointedly, freeing his hands; he fetched his dinner tray from the top of the wardrobe and handed her one of the small loaves. Obediently she broke a piece off one end and put it into her mouth.

  “It has to do with the interdiction,” Gray began, still keeping his voice low. “You know that an ambient spell, poorly cast, can have unintended effects—its effects may even be reversed, or reflected, in certain circumstances. The Codex of Aled ap Bedwyr gives the example of a flawed warding-spell that trapped the caster of it in his workroom until he died of hunger.”

  Sophie gasped.

  She has not read that one, then, Gray thought with grim amusement. “When I tried to ward my own bedroom—after Kerandraon—the result was very much the same,” he said. “It is possible that on the occasion you mention, you worked the magick, while I felt the effects.”

  “But—” Sophie looked horrified. “What magick? I did not—I could not—I don’t understand . . .”

  Gray shook his head. “There was magick in that room,” he said. “I felt it—it called me there. Have you never thought that the Professor might have a reason for forbidding you to sing?”

  The look of horror deepened. Sophie opened her mouth, but whatever she had intended to say was banished by a knock at the door.

  * * *

  The same young girl had come to retrieve the emptied dishes; Gray thanked her politely and promised to leave the tray outside when they had finished. The discussion interrupted by her arrival had started an idea in his mind. While Sophie sat up in bed, applying herself to the bouillabaisse, he left her long enough to venture down the corridor to his own room, whence he returned bearing a small stack of codices.

  Sophie looked up at the sound of the door closing. Seeing Gray and his armful of books, she laughed aloud—a small, incredulous, choking sound. “You have not brought all your books?” she demanded in a whisper.

  Gray shrugged, a little affronted. “I am a scholar, after all,” he said. “I should not feel properly equipped without a few useful works of reference. Had you rather I left them for the edification of your father?”

  “I—no, of course not.” Looking chastened, she took up her spoon again.

  Gray resumed his seat, absently picked up a piece of bread, and opened the topmost codex.

  “What is it you are looking for?” said Sophie, when she had finished the soup. “Might I be of help?”

  It had grown darker, and the candles Mrs. Wallis had lit guttered irritably in the breeze that crept between the shutters. Gray called enough light to read by, sending the small, cheerful orb gently upwards to float above both their heads, then blew the candles out.

  Sophie was momentarily distracted. “You promised to teach me how to do that,” she reminded him.

  “Tomorrow,” said Gray, without raising his head. “Or perhaps the day after. Not now, when you are half dead with magick shock.”

  “Then let me help you with . . . whatever it is you are doing.”

  “As you like.” Still mentally parsing the florid Latin of Gaius Aegidius, he handed her the next volume in the stack. “You gave me an idea just now; I am looking for references to magia musicæ.” Then he helped himself to another piece of bread and returned to his search.

  At first he heard Sophie turning pages; soon, however, even this small noise ceased. “Have you found something?” he asked eagerly, looking up.

  But she had not. “What language is this?” she said, holding out the codex. “It is nothing like Latin; a little like Brezhoneg, but . . .”

  Gray took it from her and shook his head. “That is the Lesser Mabinogion,” he explained. “The language is Old Cymric, more or less. There are a great many archaisms, naturally . . .”

  He hunted through the codices and found a small, rather battered one also written in Latin, with marginalia in English. “This one will be easier going,” he said, handing it to Sophie.

  She took it, but instead of opening it continued to stare at him. “Are all the men at your college like you?” she inquired.

  Gray chuckled. “Not at all,” he said. “Some are admirably earnest scholars, and some of us are utter reprobates always a hair’s breadth from being sent down. Why do you ask?”

  “I only wondered,” said Sophie, looking thoughtful, “whether I should like it there.”

  * * *

  When Mrs. Wallis and Joanna returned, they had made little headway in their researches; Gray had found one glancing reference, and Sophie another, but both, said Gray, too vague to be useful. The singer may work various magicks, even as the Sirens of Homer, read one marginal gloss in Sophie’s text, which, she reflected, was of as much use as the statement she had once read in an antique scroll of her father’s, that Magick is the gods’ gift to mankind, and their curse. True enough—but what good did it do to say so?

  “You will never guess what we heard at table,” Joanna said, almost before the door had closed behind her.

  “Wait.” Closing his eyes, Gray murmured a long Latin phrase that Sophie vaguely recognised as a warding-spell. A brief, warm whisper seemed to pass over and through her, and the bridge of her nose itched fiercely. “There,” Gray said. He seemed pleased with himself. “I quite understand, Mrs. Wallis, that we agreed to use as little magick as possible, but we do need a few moments’ open conversation.”

  “You look much better, Sophie,” Joanna said. She perched at the foot of the bed.

  “I feel better,” Sophie admitted. “But I am rather afraid to sleep again. Gray believes that I am still suffering from magick shock, and ought to be quite well again in another day, but if I am to have such nightmares . . .”

  “You hadn’t any nightmares on the journey,” said her sister. Mrs. Wallis frowned, speculative; Sophie flushed at the memory of waking with her ear against Gray’s heart. It was true enough that she had slept more soundly perched on his saddle-bow than in the inn’s warm, soft bed.

  “Never mind that,” she scolded, hoping to direct attention elsewhere. “Tell us your news.”

  Joanna’s round face grew positively gleeful. “It seems,” she said, “that a certain local gentleman has lost his housekeeper, and two daughters, and a particularly wayward student.”

  “So the news has travelled as quickly as we have,” said Gray. “That bodes ill.”

  “Not at all.” Mrs. Wallis spoke for the first time. “The elder daughter, you see, has run off with the student to be married, and the housekeeper has taken the younger, who appears to have been in their confidence, to seek them and bring them back. She does not yet know where they were bound, but the younger sister did let slip a hint that they might be gone southward, to the Temple of Sirona in Kemper, or even as far as Karnak—”

  “What in Hades are you playing at?” Gray’s voice was tight with fury. “Her reputation will be in shreds before another day has passed—and her sisters’ as well. Have you not thought what such a tale will mean for—”

  “Stop
it, Gray,” Sophie said, laying a hand on his arm. What he said of Amelia and Joanna was perfectly true, but had not his sisters married very well indeed, despite his own misconduct?

  “The same would have been said had I left no evidence,” Mrs. Wallis was saying now. “As it is, we may hope that when we are sought, it will be too late, and in the wrong direction entirely.”

  “But,” said Joanna, suddenly frowning, “where, exactly, are we going?”

  It was high time, Sophie decided, to stop playing at Mrs. Wallis’s game of mysteries. “We are going to England,” she said, “to stop Father and his friends from committing a murder.”

  * * *

  Joanna’s stunned disbelief, when Sophie and Gray had finished explaining themselves, was something to behold. “Father, plotting to kill the Master of his College?” she exclaimed. “With that horrid Lord Carteret? What can it be to him? And that is why you wanted to run away?”

  Gray and Sophie nodded solemnly.

  Joanna looked outraged. Had she, despite everything, believed herself to be merely abetting an elopement?

  Ignoring her expostulating sister, Sophie levelled a cool stare at Mrs. Wallis. “Nothing surprises you, it seems,” she said. “Now, why should that be?”

  “I did raise you and your sisters, Miss Sophia,” Mrs. Wallis replied mildly. “I am no longer so easily astonished as I once was.”

  Sophie folded her arms and looked down her nose, Amelia-like. “That will not do, I’m afraid,” she said. “Surely you cannot expect it. How is it you seem to know everything before it happens? Are you a foreteller, as well as a healer? Have you put listening-spells on Gray’s gardening-tools, or—”

  Gray put a hand on Sophie’s shoulder. Her mouth snapped shut, but she continued to glare; from the foot of the bed, Joanna was glaring too.

  “It is my duty to know these things, Sophia,” said Mrs. Wallis. “I am your guardian; your mother left you to my care, and, whatever you may believe, no charge could be of greater weight to me, or of more value.”