“Well,” she said. “This is — unexpected. I hope it doesn’t hurt too much.”
Bella grimaced, which, of course, made her face hurt. “Oh, it does. But not as much as being bitten on the foot.”
Elena gave an unladylike snort. “Well. On the one hand, you were not nearly in as much danger as Eric would have liked you to think,” the Godmother said, cautiously. “Even if the poachers took you for a young man, you were extremely well dressed, and they probably thought you were a noble at the least and Sebastian at the best. One doesn’t kill a rich prize like that. In either case, they were not going to spoil what would have been a very lucrative kidnapping by slitting your throat.”
Bella was taken a little aback. “Oh…” she said, feeling deflated, and now, guilty. Because if she had not been in danger of her life, then those two men had been killed over nothing —
“Eric, however, was completely expendable, and they’d have gutted him without a moment of hesitation, then sent his body back on his horse as a token that they were in earnest,” the Godmother continued, as calmly as if she was discussing whether fish or soup would be a better first course at dinner. “So I must say, you did well in keeping your wits about you.” She leaned over and said something to someone who was out of sight of the mirror. “As soon as my assistant returns with it, I’ll push a pot of one of my salves through the mirror to your side. By tomorrow you won’t have so much as a pink mark.”
“You’ll — what? Push something through the mirror? You can do that?” Bella tried not to gape with surprise.
“And travel through mirrors, as well, yes, when I need to.” The Godmother made a dismissive motion. “Godmothers can. That’s another subject. You can see magic?”
Of course. Granny must have told her. Granny probably had one of these mirrors, too. It was no wonder the green-faced thing answered instead of Elena; the Godmother would likely spend every waking moment talking to mirrors if she didn’t have someone to act as a secretary for her. Bella nodded. “It looks like…like glowing dust motes. Or maybe like streams of smoke in bright sunlight, because there are streams and trickles and threads of it.” She groped after words to describe what she could see, but Elena just nodded.
“Well, this is an unexpected development, I must say,” the Godmother told her with a sigh. “Not entirely unwelcome but…it does complicate things. The Granny of your woods and I had thought you were going to be a very late bloomer and come into your power with your gray hair, but it seems your story just took a different turn.”
“You expected this?” She felt her mouth falling open, and snapped it shut.
“Of course. Magic generally runs in families. Your mother had a touch and she would have been a witch. Sebastian’s mother had it — that’s why you feel so at home in her stillroom. His father did, too, but the old fool kept trying to repress it. That’s why Sebastian is as good as he is — he got a double dose.” She looked a little annoyed for a moment, and tapped one finger on the table in front of her. “Well, there is no help for it. I am going to have to tell you about The Tradition.”
“The tradition of what?” Bella asked, when the Godmother didn’t continue.
“Not the tradition of — not that kind of tradition. The Tradition. The force that makes puppets out of us all.” The Godmother smiled grimly. “Or it tries, at least.”
And so, as Bella sat there, feeling more and more stunned by the moment, Godmother Elena explained that everything she had thought she had known about how the world wagged was wrong.
As Elena related, calmly and clearly, that she and everyone else in the Five Hundred Kingdoms was being manipulated by a force that had will, but no intelligence, Bella could not believe that the Godmother could relate all this so calmly. This Tradition — it was a horror — a mindless pressure on every living thing to fulfill particular roles. Roles that were dictated…
“…by stories?” she repeated, feeling a mix of shock, outrage, disbelief and a growing anger.
Elena nodded, her own expression one of acute sympathy. “It’s hideous,” she agreed. “Completely unfair. Just because people start telling each other tales over a fire, why should that mean that ten years later, some poor lad or wench finds him or herself playing that tale out again? But that is exactly what happens — ”
“But what happens if the people aren’t what the story says? For instance, what if a stepmother is kind — or at least, not unkind? Does she get forced into being a viper?” Bella wanted to know. Because if that was true…it would explain quite a bit about Genevieve…
“Or for instance, what if the poor abused stepdaughter lives in a Kingdom with no free prince?” Elena countered. And then she proceeded to tell Bella exactly what happened to a girl in that position. “…and so basically, with all that Traditional power building around her, trying to force her into a Path, it either has to get drained off harmlessly so she can live a normal life, or something drastic will happen to her and it generally isn’t pleasant. More often than I care to think about, that ‘something drastic’ comes in the form of an evil magician. And at that point the best she can hope for is to be kidnapped and locked up to serve as a sort of — well — magical well-spring. But we’re getting off the subject, and I will be happy to go on about this in detail later. The point here is this. Keeping these nasty things from happening, and arranging matters so that people can go back to having ordinary lives, is what Godmothers do.”
“Oh.” Bella thought about this for a long time. Elena waited patiently.
“You wouldn’t be telling me this now unless you saw a potential for a bad outcome. Well…what story am I being forced into?” she wanted to know, after a very long moment while she sorted through the hundreds of questions she wanted to ask. “No, wait. Let me guess. The Monster in the Labyrinth?”
“No, although that is a good guess. Sebastian would be both the magician that created the maze, and the Monster. But no…we think, and by ‘we’ I mean a number of Godmothers and I, that you are being forced into one you might never have heard of. It’s a tale of a nobleman transformed into a hideous beast until a girl agrees to marry him of her own free will. Very popular in some Kingdoms.”
Bella snorted. “I very much doubt that you haven’t already tried having a young woman agree to marry Sebastian. You may be many things, Godmother Elena, but stupid is not one of them.”
“Thank you for the vote of confidence,” Elena replied, dryly.
“You’re welcome,” Bella said, just as dryly.
Elena scowled at her. “You want to watch that sense of humor, young woman, or you might find yourself apprenticed to a Godmother. Yes, of course, that was one of the first things we tried. So whatever it was that turned him into a werewolf, it was not The Tradition. The Tradition might be making use of him to put you through hoops and over hurdles, but does not seem to have a lot of interest in Sebastian.”
“Isn’t that comforting,” Bella replied sourly.
Elena’s scowl deepened. “It should be. There is no place in the Maid-and-Monster story for the Maid to turn into the Monster herself. None.”
“Oh — ” Bella replied, then “Oh!” as the import of what the Godmother had just told her struck her.
“Exactly. The Tradition will turn itself inside out to keep you from changing. Even if Sebastian had been infected by the common sort of werewolf, you are not in danger of being infected in turn.”
The news struck her like a blow, but one that brought joy instead of pain.
“In fact, I am going to advise that they not even bother to lock you up tonight, or at least, not in one of the cells.” Elena frowned. “I would rather you weren’t anywhere near him, in fact. I am very much afraid that if they do lock you up near him… Sebastian will be goaded into more activity than usual. You may not be in any danger of turning into a monster, but you are in danger of being eaten — or at least, having your throat ripped out.”
“Oh…” Bella gulped. “Is that the story about how th
e werewolf always kills the ones — ”
“Sebastian knows that one, too, which is why I am sure he is trying very hard not to like you too much.” Elena sighed. “Where are you in that mausoleum they call a Manor?”
“I’m down at the end of a murder-corridor with two other suites, both empty,” she told the Godmother.
“Pick up the mirror and take it out the door, and point it where I ask you to, would you?” Bella realized at once that the Godmother wanted to look for something, and obeyed without question.
To both their satisfaction, Elena located the trigger for lowering and raising a very stout grate of iron bars at the end of the corridor. “Drop that before moonrise tonight,” the Godmother ordered. “Just in case. I doubt he’ll get free, but there’s no harm in making sure you have an extra defense besides the door in place. Back to your room now. I have the salve, and there are a few other things I want to caution you about.”
Watching the Godmother push the jar of ointment through the mirror wasn’t as unnerving as Bella had thought it would be. She wondered if a similar sort of magic connected the boxes that sent her letters to her father and his to her.
“Tell Sebastian that you know about The Tradition now, and that I told you. He knows, of course. Most magicians who are allies of Godmothers do.”
“So Granny — ” she began, then blinked. “Wait. You mean I’m your ally?”
“Very much so.” The Godmother nodded. “Your value to me just rose by quite a bit. Now, just because you know about The Tradition, that doesn’t mean you’re immune from it. Far from it. You may not have the sort of power coming to bear on you that — oh, say, a seventh son or a Princess does, but now that you’ve gotten tangled up with Sebastian, you’ve definitely gotten its attention. The fact that you can see magic and you are coming into your power decades early tells me that. The one good thing about this situation is that there are so many different Paths this could take. The Tradition is probably very confused right now. So, I want you to be extremely careful and use these new abilities of yours, and practice the seeing of magic as much as you can. I suspect you’ll be able to feel a buildup of Traditional pressure, or see the magic, when you’re in a situation that’s going to give it a Path to put you on. And if — more likely when — that happens, before you do anything, remember to think — try to remember if what is happening to you at that moment, or what could happen to you if you do something, resembles a story. And then, if it does, remember just how that story ended. Then decide if that’s the way you want things to turn out — because they probably will.”
Bella rubbed her temple. “This is not at all comforting.”
“Would you rather I hadn’t told you?” the Godmother demanded.
Bella shook her head.
“I thought not. All right, use that ointment, go tell Sebastian about our discussion, tell your servants you are taking supper in your room and lock that miniature portcullis down before sunset turns to dusk.” The Godmother nodded. “And tell your servants that the Godmother says you needn’t be locked up with him. The best thing you can do right now is keep The Tradition as confused as possible.”
Not at all comforting, Godmother, Bella thought, as the image faded out. Not at all comforting.
It had been an interesting lesson, the more so as Sebastian — with visible relief — had been able to relate much of what he had been teaching her to how the magic was used to steer matters with, or around, The Tradition. She realized as she listened to him, how this subject — The Tradition — had been what her father used to call “the dead cat in the parlor” — something that you knew was there, something you were going to have to make all manner of devices to avoid, but something of which you dared not speak.
Now they could speak of it, and if they couldn’t exactly dispose of said dead cat, they could at least deal with it more efficiently.
She wished desperately, as he kindly but firmly sent her back to her rooms, that this had not been a full-moon night. She wanted to keep the conversation going. She had at least three dozen questions, observations, things she just wanted to say before she forgot any of them, and there was no time before sunset…
She explained what the Godmother wanted her to do and offered to do without Sapphire’s help so that the Elemental Spirit would not be locked in with her — spirit or no, she had noticed that the servants couldn’t pass through closed doors, nor walls, and once that grate came down, there would be no going in or out until she raised it again. But Sapphire wrote a very firm “No” on her slate, and Bella lowered the grate as soon as one of the others came with her supper tray.
And there was no doubt when the moon rose, because once again the halls echoed with the distant howls that sounded uncannily as if Sebastian was also sobbing as he howled.
14
THE THREE DAYS THAT SEBASTIAN SPENT IN SECLUSION were not going to be as quiet as she would have expected. Since she had comported herself to Eric’s satisfaction, he had ordered her servants to find all of Sebastian’s outgrown clothing and deliver it to her. This she discovered when she woke after a not-very-restful night of listening to Sebastian howl, to find Sapphire putting it in her closet with the air of someone who would really rather have been doing anything else. And that the clothing itself was offensive to her sensibilities. How Sapphire managed to convey this, although she herself was invisible, was really remarkable. The clothing rose slowly in the air, dangling by the smallest possible pinch of fabric. It was then wafted hastily to the closet, and tucked up as far into the back as possible.
All except for one outfit of gray wool and moleskin, which was laid out for her to put on. Sapphire touched as little of it as possible. It made Bella want to giggle.
When she came down to breakfast, Sebastian was not there — which she had expected — but Eric was — which she had not.
“Huh. Whatever you put on your face, I’d like to get some,” he said, regarding her thoughtfully. “The marks are barely pink. You look knackered, though.”
“Sebastian spent the night singing,” she said dryly.
Eric chuckled. “He’s been known to do that, which is why I live in the gatehouse,” the Gamekeeper said, a little heartlessly. “Well, you’d better stay awake for a few hours, because I’m teaching you how to actually use that crossbow. And a knife. Not that you did badly, grabbing the arrow, but if you’re going to come out to help me, I want you better trained, because clearly my reputation isn’t enough to keep the riffraff out of the forest. I’ll drop some hints in the city that I’m training an assistant — we won’t need to worry about you being seen. I can promise you, there are plenty of eyes out there. If they think there are two of us patrolling, they won’t be as bold as they’ve been.”
Bella was so astonished by this that she didn’t even object to his high-handed assumption that she wanted to go riding out with him.
Not that she didn’t…
After all, there was only so much potion-making that she could do, at least until the new supplies that the Godmother had promised her arrived, and only so much dancing without feeling guilty she was pulling the servants away from their duties.
She ate her breakfast as quickly as he ate his. And she noted the faint approval in his expression when she pushed away from the table at the same time as he did.
Like anything else, using the crossbow properly was a matter of practice, and a great deal of it, it seemed. Even at short range she was woeful with it. But at least, over time, she did get better. When Eric finally called a halt — “For now,” he said — she was finally hitting the target most of the time, as opposed to bouncing the arrow off the ground, sending it over the target or whizzing by to either side.
Her efforts with the knife were a bit more successful, perhaps because in the wake of being a victim of an attack herself, she was not particularly eager to be a target again. And if she went at this with more enthusiasm and energy than skill, well, that was only to be expected. He taught her how to hold the knife
so as to prevent it from being turned back on her, how to get at it when her arms were pinned, when to slash and when to stab. He promised to set up a dummy for her to practice on. “I am not teaching you how to throw a knife,” he said, “so don’t ask. There is no point in it. Learning to throw knives properly can take a lifetime — and all you would ever accomplish, except for the odd, lucky hit, would be to give your attacker another weapon by throwing it at him.”
Nor was Eric done with her for the day. After dinner, he took her back outside and put her on one of the horses. The real horses, and not her mule.
“You’re going to learn to ride a proper horse,” he told her. “Properly astride. When you come out with me, I want you to be able to keep up.”
She nodded, remembering how her shorter mule had struggled to keep pace with his longer-limbed horse. She waited, bundled up in that warm coat, hat and gloves, while he went into the stable. He must have told the Spirit Elementals which horses to get ready, for they were out in a very short length of time.
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