“Do not suppose that you will be free to amuse yourself through the winter,” he warned, “reading what you wish—whether these volumes that I have chosen for you, or any others from my library. Your work is what it was on your first day under my roof. You will order the books in the library, from first volume to last. This task you will do each morning, from sunrise until Myra calls you to the midday meal. Then you will do any chore that woman sets for you, be it scrubbing the floors or eviscerating a hen. In whatever time is left to you, you may read, whether these”—Verek touched the two volumes on the table—“or any books you find in my library.
“What say you?” he demanded. “Do you find my terms reasonable, or do you think me a ‘fiend’ for requiring you to earn your keep in this household?”
Carin flushed at this reminder that he had overheard what she’d said. She cleared her throat, and managed to speak without betraying herself. “That’s fair enough, sir.”
She paused, then added, “Thank you for the books.”
Verek made no reply, but neither did he turn to leave. His eyes on her now were glittering fires in the night.
What more did he expect her to say? Carin couldn’t think of anything very sensible, but any blather was better than one of his savage silences.
“Sir,” she offered, “I don’t want to be late to work tomorrow, but I might oversleep because of this.” She pointed to the much diminished lump over her ear. “I had a hard time waking up today. To be sure I rise early in the morning, I should go now and ask Myra to call me.”
If Verek heard the intended note of dismissal in Carin’s phrasing—“go now”—he didn’t show it. Wordlessly he picked up the lamp and strode to face her at the window.
Carin recoiled from him, feeling the glass at her back like a sheet of ice against her shirt. The cold crawled up her spine. Her huge supper of half an hour ago lay in her stomach like a lumpfish swallowed whole. To avoid the warlock’s eyes, Carin focused her gaze over his left shoulder. As she stared into the comforting glow of the open bathing-room door, she thought only of holding down her dinner.
Verek shifted the lamp from his right hand to his left and raised the light to Carin’s face. Blinded, she could see nothing of his next movements, and started violently when his fingers touched her chin.
“Turn the bruise to the light,” he ordered, pressing against her jaw.
Carin squeezed her eyes shut and submitted to his examination, though her every fiber screamed a protest. When his fingers moved from her chin to touch her hair and lift it aside, she couldn’t help flinching away from him, her breath a piercing whistle through clenched teeth.
“The bruise remains tender, so it would seem,” Verek muttered, evidently misreading her horror of him for physical pain. “There’s some purpling yet, and slight swelling.” He stepped back a pace and lowered the lamp. “This would now be healed, had the poultice been left in place as I ordered. Who removed the dressing? Myra? Or yourself?”
“I did,” Carin whispered, her head still twisted away from him, her eyes closed. “I wanted to wash the stain off my face.”
“Hmm. If you had permitted the ocher to mar your beauty for a few hours longer, the bruise would now be gone, and the lump with it.
“No matter.” Verek turned on his heel and walked to the door, to replace the lamp on the table. Not looking back, he spoke over his shoulder. “A day’s time will remove the last traces of your injury. Therefore, you may spend tomorrow in bed, or with your books, or as you please. But at first light the morning after, be at your task in the library—or answer to me.”
Then he was gone, the bedroom door closing solidly behind him.
Carin unlocked her knees. She slumped to the floor, where she had no company for a time except the hammering of her heart and the rush of short, quick breaths.
When her pulse and her breathing began to slow, lucid thought returned, and with it the realization that her feet felt like two chunks of cold meat. Her fingers were icicles, and she was trembling in the cold that seeped through the window above her.
She scrambled up, crossed the bedroom, and stepped from its wooden floor onto the stone foundation of the bathing room. The gleaming rock was warm under her bare feet. Carin stood thawing, glad for the warmth and the light but unable to quiet a faint uneasiness about their source.
Did the fires of Nature warm the stone? Did this rock shine with captured sunbeams?
Or did magic give this room an unnatural warmth and light? Was this an ensorcelled place, full of spells that writhed along the walls—spells she couldn’t see?
Carin flattened both hands against one wall, seeking the tingling sensation she’d felt on the hillside below the dolphin-scarred tree, then experienced again at the edge of Verek’s woodland when he’d nearly broken her arms. Her fingers found only warm stone. She pressed her forehead against the rock. But she could perceive nothing like the forces that trilled along her skin whenever she neared the invisible barrier. If spells like those in the borderland did dance in this room, they kept themselves hidden.
When the chill had left her, Carin returned to the bedroom to retrieve the puzzle-book and the lamp that Verek had brought. She pulled the coverlet and all the pillows from her bed. These she piled on the floor of the bathing room between the washstand and the hot-spring pool. Thus cushioned, awash in lamplight and the glow from the walls, she settled with the book and began to read:
Through the Looking-Glass
And What Alice Found There
By
Lewis Carroll
Rapidly Carin reread the poem that prefaced the book, two verses of which she had read aloud to Verek on the day he first showed her the volume. Turning to chapter one, she was lost in the story before she reached the end of the first page. The warlock did not invade her thoughts again for many hours.
* * *
The bathing room’s narrow doorway framed the sunlight that streamed into the bedroom beyond. To judge by the light, the time was late morning. At Carin’s hand the puzzle-book lay open to chapter seven: “The Lion and the Unicorn.”
Yawning, she picked herself up off the floor to stretch a stiff neck and a sore back. On the stone at her feet, the lamp was out—it had flickered itself empty of oil while she slept.
With the cold lamp and the puzzle-book in hand, Carin crossed the bedroom to replace both where Verek had left them last night, by the door. Heading back for her bath, she stopped and stared—
Draped on the bed was a fine woolen kirtle in a dark, rich shade of red. To one side lay the linen shift Myra had given her on her first morning under Verek’s roof. On the other side were blue wool stockings of a length to reach above the knee, with leather garters to hold them up. The clothes were a gentlewoman’s finery, not servant’s garb.
As Carin stepped close to finger the soft wool, she saw that the tray that had held last night’s supper was gone from the dressing table. In its place, a mug now waited. Propped against the mug was a small slip of paper folded in two.
She half sat on the stool and unfolded the slip. The writing, in blue ink in an elegant hand, read: “C— Drink the liquid. Leave the dregs. —V.” The four capital letters were large and flowing, gracefully tendriled and dotted like grape-laden vines.
A small thrill shot through Carin. The writing, though it came from a hand capable of evil, was beautiful.
And it was meant for her—the first penning ever addressed to her. No one in the wheelwright’s household had ever commanded her in writing. Only the daughter had known she could read.
Carin took the artfully decorated note to slip inside the puzzle-book. Back at the mirrored table, she examined her recent injuries. The bruise above her ear was barely visible—discernible only because she knew where to look. The swelling was gone, leaving behind only a slight tenderness.
She held the mug under her nose. The aroma confirmed her suspicion: it was the same potion Myra had administered after Carin smacked her head on the cellar flo
or. The mug held a mixture prepared by a sorcerer.
Did she dare drink it? The potion had healed her—no arguing with that. But what else might it do?
Or did she dare to not drink it? If the damage to her head went deeper than Carin could see, she might do herself harm by refusing the warlock’s medicines.
In any case, Verek’s message hadn’t left the choice to her. It did not read: “If the bruise is black and the lump large, drink this elixir.” The note ordered: “Drink.”
So she did—quickly, tasting the medicine as little as possible. Its flavor was as she remembered: less pleasant than its aroma.
Then, vowing not to sleep in her clothes anymore until she’d scrubbed out the sour stains, Carin stripped and went for her bath. This time she washed her hair too, since the bruise over her ear wasn’t too sore to prevent it.
Dressed in shift, stockings, and rich red kirtle, she picked up the empty mug and headed downstairs. In the antechamber she paused, listening for Verek’s voice. He might be in the house for his midday meal—reason enough to retreat and seek the kitchen later.
Hearing nothing of him, however, Carin slipped along the passageway to the kitchen. She found Myra at the fire, stirring a sauce. A clean platter, knife, and spoon waited at Verek’s place at the table—signs that he was expected.
Carin couldn’t retreat. The housekeeper had already bustled over to admire her new clothes and the rapid improvement in her health.
“Oh my, aren’t you a picture! What a change there’s been in you, child. Yesterday you were weak as a kitten. Now here you stand, straight and strong, the color in your cheeks and no lump to be seen. Didn’t I say the master’s medicines would put you right? He’ll be pleased to see you up and about.
“And don’t you look the fine one in your new clothes? I stitched up the kirtle while you slept. The color’s fit for a queen, dearie, and suits you just as well.”
Carin seized her chance when the housekeeper paused to breathe. She thanked Myra for the clothes and made to withdraw.
But the housekeeper seemed determined to prevent her. Myra took her hand and drew her along.
“Oh my, ’tis my fondest wish come true, to have a young person in the house again. And such a bright youngling, who can make sense of the master’s books. What a fine thing it is to fill your head with learning. Why, child, the things you’ll know after a season in the master’s library … it quite turns my head to think on it …
“Come to the fire with me,” Myra insisted, tugging her along, “and tell me of the books you’ve read.”
But Carin got no chance to name a single volume. The woman did not pause again but chattered endlessly, touching on ten different topics when she’d run through her first.
Carin filled the time by helping with the apple dumplings Myra had been making. She was pressing a generous chunk of fruit into the last of the pastry dough when the door to the courtyard opened behind her. She whirled at the sound, and thoroughly squashed the dumpling in her fingers.
Verek stepped into the kitchen. “Myra, is—”
He hesitated as his gaze found Carin, then finished: “—the meal on the table?”
“It lacks only the doing of it, my lord,” the housekeeper replied merrily. “Come, sir, and sit yourself down. There’s lamb with sauce, and greens in vinegar. And for a sweet: a hot apple crusted from the hands of my fair helper. Long it’s been since I’ve had such pleasant female company in this kitchen.”
The sight of the warlock in daylight affected Carin almost as strongly as seeing him like a demon at her door last night. A sheen of sweat formed on her forehead.
I’ve been standing at the fire too long—that’s all, she told herself sternly. But her legs refused to carry her away from the flames, for that would mean coming a step nearer the warlock. Her body rigid, as firmly in place as an iron pot-hanger, Carin found herself unable to move as the sweat trickled down.
Verek removed his black coat to reveal a blue vest over a white shirt that was open at the throat. This was the first time she’d seen him wear anything but black. As he laid his coat on the bench nearest him, he looked across the table at Carin and gave her a slight nod.
“You are well?” He spoke sharply, turning the question into a challenge.
“I am.”
Carin’s bit-off words hung in the air, sounding angry. Thinking it might be prudent to temper them, she added, “Thank you for the medicine.”
“You drank the potion?”
“Yes.”
“All of it?”
By way of answer Carin reached for her empty mug, on the chopping block where she’d left it, and tilted it to show that nothing remained but unpalatable dregs.
“Good,” Verek snapped. “Though you are enough of an infant to fear a dark cellar, you aren’t so childish as to hold your nose and refuse the draft that the physician orders for you. Not every remedy is as sweet as glenondew.”
Myra saved Carin the necessity of replying. She set a platter of broiled lamb on the table. Then she took Carin’s hands and pulled her away from the heat of the fire. With her apron, she wiped at the sticky remains of dumpling that oozed between Carin’s fingers.
“Oh my, ’tis truth, good master,” the housekeeper burbled. “A draught of hyweldda can gall the patient’s tongue. But our girl drank the potion down, even to the second dose which you bade me leave with your message while the child slept, curled up with her book. Two of a kind you are, my master—you and this bright young thing. Reading till all hours, awake in the night with your noses in books when you ought to be seeking your beds.
“And haven’t your medicines worked their good with speed to spin one’s head? The lass is quite herself today. She’ll have us in an uproar the first chance she gets. It might be wise, my lord, to lock up the horses and bar the gates: mischief is abroad again.”
Verek took his place at the table, poured himself a mug of ale, and—to Carin’s intense relief—changed the subject.
“Late in the season though it is, Cian Ronnat’s bay mare has a fine new foal,” he told the housekeeper. “A colt. He’ll be wanting a handsome sum for it, if it lives to see the spring.”
“Well now, sir, if anyone can nurse a late-born colt through a hard winter, ’tis Cian Ronnat,” Myra said as she served her master from a bowl of greens. “He’s the finest horseman in these parts, excepting only yourself, my lord.”
The housekeeper motioned for Carin to join Verek at the table. “Sit down, dearie. ’Tis time to eat. I’ll watch that the sweets don’t burn on the fire.”
Woodenly, her every movement awkward, Carin took the seat across from Verek. Myra handed her a platter piled as high as his and poured her ale, then bustled to the hearth to turn the dumplings. The scene reached Carin as if she had no part in it. The warlock and his housekeeper might have been players on a stage while she sat in the back of the audience, barely hearing them speak their lines.
“Nay, Myra,” Verek was saying. “You’ve not seen Lanse ride of late or you’d know he is Ronnat’s match. The horse hasn’t been foaled which that youth cannot gentle with a touch. He himself, I sometimes think, is more horse than human, so clearly does he know their minds.”
The warlock looked up from his meal then, and laid his glittering stare on Carin.
In the midst of bringing a bite of lamb to her mouth, her hand froze. Hairs rose along her arms. No longer did she watch the scene, safely detached from it. Verek’s attention had swung back to her.
“Lanse tells me the mare Emrys is troubled. She eats but little and mopes in her stall, her spirits as droopy as her head. He thinks she pines for you. Go visit her this afternoon and restore her good heart before her melancholy spreads and dispirits every horse in the stable.”
Carin swallowed dryly. “I’ll be glad to,” she said in a voice that was gratifyingly firm. “It will please me to see Emrys.”
“It will please me to see you keep to the grounds within the walls,” Verek almost snarled,
pointing at her with the hunk of bread he held. “Do you mark me well? You are not to stray from the garden paths. Attempt to venture into the woods beyond and you’ll find the gates tight shut, well barred and locked. I don’t propose to ride again through a cold night to slay beasts that would make dogs’ meat of you.”
Carin lowered her stalled morsel of lamb and tried to look guileless. “You won’t need to. I … I made a mistake before. I won’t do it again.”
“No more mistakes? Hunh!” the warlock scoffed. “Aim lower. From what I have seen, such an ambitious goal is beyond you.”
Turning back to his meal, he muttered something else, a low-voiced aside heard only by his housekeeper. Myra chuckled, glanced over at Carin, then refilled her master’s cup.
Carin narrowed her eyes at the two of them but couldn’t think what to say.
Presently, Myra loosed a cheerful cloudburst of words, filling the noontime with patter about the health and doings of local farmers and village folk. Her conversation was like rain on the roof—soothing in its monotony. Verek interjected few comments, as if unwilling to make the effort to be heard above the torrent.
Carin ate quickly. Finishing first, she wedged a way into Myra’s chatter. “If I may be excused, I’ll go see the mare now.”
Verek nodded and reached for the apple crusteds. Carin was off her bench and at the door before Myra could serve him the sweets, but she halted her flight at the housekeeper’s warning:
“Mind now, dearie, that you don’t spoil your new clothes. Menfolk will muck about in the stables wearing their best, but a gentlewoman ought not drag her skirts through the mews.
“Why,” Myra continued, “that puts me in mind of Mydrismas Eve—how many winters ago was it, my lord? It stormed for a fortnight and the mud was up to the saddle-girths. A body couldn’t stir forth without—”
But only Verek heard the rest of it. Carin swerved from the door and fled down the passageway, then up to her bedroom. She changed the woolens for her still-unwashed shirt and leggings, and put her boots on. Then she was down the stairs, through the kitchen, and out the door while Verek still sat at the table. Rapid strides took her across the yard. Not until she ducked into the stable’s shadowy interior did she slow to catch her breath.
WATERSPELL Book 1: The Warlock Page 12