by Barbara Howe
A nasty knot formed in the pit of my stomach. How many secrets were there in Frankland?
René, in a very small voice, said, “We’re not much good as warlocks if somebody can pull the wool over our eyes. Is there something we can do?”
Jean stared into the distance for a long moment before answering. “Your bond with Lucinda is a good start. Reading this will help.” A book appeared in his hand, and he held it out to René. I read the title—Engines of Lies: Conspiracy Magic.
René asked, “Are there other secrets we should know about?”
Jean’s eyebrows arched. “Would you trust any response I gave to your question?”
Hey, big sister, he’s not going to answer, is he?
I didn’t look at René. He did answer. There are. And he’s not going to tell us about them.
Jean kept up his correspondence with the Frost Maiden throughout our travels. Without the hazards of face-to-face exchanges, the tone of the letters gradually warmed. He began looking forward to them, and I understood why; she and Jean discussed jurisprudence and thaumaturgy with a confidence and economy of expression no one else in our party, and few we met, could match. Each letter gave me fresh prickles of unease, and I abandoned my attempts to break the habit of calling her the Frost Maiden.
We encountered other powerful witches on our travels; many watched Jean with avid eyes and would have challenged my place at his side if they dared. He never gave me cause to doubt his commitment to his marriage vows, but he could not deny the attention was gratifying. I watched and wondered. After living alone for so long, did he feel hemmed in by marriage and family? I didn’t ask. Despite my curiosity and Jean’s insistence on warlocks facing facts, I had begun to learn not to ask questions I didn’t want to hear the answer to.
Our staff wondered at times why I didn’t exhibit homesickness with an infant in tow, but I was eager to see Cathay and Nippon, and news of growing unrest in Frankland did not inspire nostalgic yearnings to return. Beorn’s letters grew darker in tone, and in private messages reiterated his goal: two years. Each letter was a new blow; the two years were almost over, and it hadn’t been long enough. With more servants than I had ever imagined needing, I didn’t have to spend time in the nursery, but rocking a colicky baby for hours soothed him and me.
The growing unease spurred me to renew my study of lock theory, and with the Orient’s best theoreticians a short jump away, experiments and ideas flowed freely. René, always my willing victim, was most pleased with the yells and screams greeting his appearance after I made his head vanish. Jean vetoed René’s pleas that I do it again, and I concurred. The blood pulsing in his neck’s exposed arteries made my skin crawl.
With new insights, I cracked the puzzle of locks drawing on power from more than one person—my monograph on the subject should stand as the definitive work for centuries. I devised a lock Jean and René cast together, and even I, knowing the spell, could not unlock or break it. Either of them could relock the Water Office if I did not survive the unlocking.
How reassuring.
Without consulting Jean, René and I began on our own to work on locks against magic-backed lies.
I could not put a lock, any lock, on Jean. I hadn’t dared try while he was the Fire Warlock, but afterwards, even with his cheerful concurrence, I could not do it. I would start on the spell, and his torch would burn through the words and overpower my candle flame. I didn’t mind; the proof his defences were still strong was a comfort.
Jean noticed long before I did that neither the Frost Maiden’s nor the Fire Warlock’s letters gave more than the most superficial descriptions of events in Frankland. He began to worry, and then fret. When we left Agra in the spring, to that city’s relief, and arrived in Cathay, he said, “After this we must turn towards home.”
“But I want to see Nippon. Please?”
He studied me with a slight frown, but didn’t respond. Events in Frankland took the decision out of our hands. News of disastrous revolts against two dukes reached us in Cathay. Hard on its heels came pleas from the Fire Warlock and the Frost Maiden for us to return to Frankland as soon as possible.
I would have lain awake half the night, crying, if Jean hadn’t ordered me to sleep. I finally had to admit what he had known for months. I was homesick. And I was terrified of going home.
Homecoming
The messages summoning us home arrived on the thirtieth of June. We left the next morning. Most luggage we left behind, to be shipped home, but we still had a pile of bags and boxes. Our hosts watched with amazement as we linked hands and, with no apparent effort, Jean called up the fire to take eleven adults, a baby, and our baggage halfway around the world.
We didn’t cover the whole distance in one jump, of course. That would have burnt out even him. We jumped nine times, with pauses between to let him cool off. Even so, it was an epic feat, and he was exhausted when we reached Frankland.
René lent a hand, but I was too wrapped up in dealing with a fussy baby, and in my own private terrors, to be of any help. Edward reacted to his mother’s mood and cried harder as we got closer to home. The louder he cried, the closer I came to chucking him in a river to shut him up.
Our departure from Cathay was smooth and orderly; our arrival in Blazes was anything but. We landed in the town square in a drenching rainstorm—something guaranteed to make any Fire Guild member bad-tempered. Townsfolk poured into the square to welcome the returning wanderers. They tried to help by carrying our baggage in out of the rain, and mostly got in our way. Bags and boxes were shuffled around and misplaced, toes stepped on, and tempers lost.
Beorn had deeded to us his family seat overlooking the square—the last of his line, he had no use for it anymore. By the time our belongings were in our new house, our staff had disappeared, running off with or being dragged away by their own families and friends. The soaked bags we had carried home from Cathay were scattered willy-nilly on top of the crates of books we had shipped home from every city we visited. The pile took up most of the floor space in the kitchen, and looked as welcoming as Beorn’s pet lion.
René dried the dripping bags, then curled up on the couch in the drawing room and snored. I paced up and down with the squalling baby, and barked my shin on a crate. I kicked it, earning a sore toe to go with the sore shin. I had to close my eyes and count to ten to stop myself from setting the box on fire.
Jean lay on his back on the settle. He was the only returning traveller who hadn’t gotten soaked. The rain had sizzled off him like water droplets skating across a hot skillet. I glared at him.
A message arrived, saying the Fire Warlock needed to see us, now.
I said, “The frostbitten bastard can drown himself, and he’s welcome to take the damned nursemaid with him.”
Jean’s eyebrows shot upward. “Is that so? Stop beating around the bush, my dear. Tell me how you really feel.”
My cheeks burned. “Sorry.” Neither the Fire Warlock nor the nursemaid deserved my anger any more than the box of books did, but I was ready to flame the next person or thing crossing my path.
Jean eased off the settle and relieved me of the howling infant. “You need food, rest, and Mrs Cole. Neither of us will get the rest we need, but we can arrange for the other two. Come, my dear.”
Mrs Cole met us in the Fortress kitchen, and took Edward off our hands as if he were a cherub instead of a red-faced demon. “Of course I want to take him. I’ll pretend he’s my grandson, and when you’re done here, I’ll give him back to you and I’ll take a nap.”
“A nap,” I said. “What a lovely idea.”
She leaned closer and whispered, “If they talk for too long, lean back on the sofa pillows and close your eyes. They won’t notice.”
I started down the corridor. Jean called me back. “Sit down.” He handed me a bowl of chicken soup. “Eat. I intend to. Mrs Cole’s cooking will do won
ders for you.”
I had not eaten in hours, but my stomach was too tied up in knots to welcome food. I hadn’t forced down more than three spoonfuls when Edward gave a tremendous belch and stopped crying.
Mrs Cole said, “There you go, you little darling.”
I stared down at my soup, blinking back tears. That was all that had been wrong? I was a better wizard than I was a mother.
Beorn walked out of the fireplace and greeted us with bone-cracking hugs and thumps on the back. Naturally, he looked no older than I remembered, but tired, dispirited, and relieved to see us. I sipped my soup while he talked.
He said, “I’d like to hear about your trip, but not now. We have problems that can’t wait. I let Lorraine know you were home. She’ll meet us at the head of the stairs in a few minutes.”
One of Jean’s eyebrows arched. “The head of the stairs, you say.”
“We cut a tunnel from the Crystal Palace to the Fortress.”
Both of Jean’s eyebrows soared. My head pounded. My choice of people to see on our arrival did not include the Frost Maiden.
“We’ve had to work together a lot lately,” Beorn said. “She’s still a pain in the arse, but she’s gotten past slandering us every other sentence. We can get things done. If we didn’t, we’d be in worse shape, what with the logjam in the Fire Guild Council. Flint’s been fighting me every step of the way on using lower-ranking guild members to help keep the peace. He won’t let me use them if I won’t use him, and if I send him to stop a riot, I might as well burn the whole city down.
“Sven’s a big help, but Sunbeam’s backing Flint out of habit, and a mistaken belief that if a warlock jumps into the middle of a riot in a blast of flame he could cow everybody into cooling off and going home, and Frankland would be as peaceful as it ever was. As if it had been.”
Jean said, “He has spent his life preparing to fight the Empire, and has never noticed unrest simmering under his nose.”
“Yeah,” Beorn said. “He means well, but he doesn’t have a clue how to handle a civil war.”
I dropped my spoon. Jean’s eyebrows drew together in a frown. “Civil war? Frankland cannot have reached such a state so fast.”
Beorn said, “I said the country would fall apart on my watch, and I was right, dammit. It’s happening now.”
We stared at him.
Both men said, “She’s here,” and rose from the table.
The soup smelled delicious. I left it behind with a sigh.
The Frost Maiden said, “Some day I would love to hear about your travels, but I cannot spare the time today.”
Thank God for that. Her blue silk clashed with the red leather upholstery in the Fire Warlock’s study and set my teeth on edge. I closed my eyes and pictured her in the library. She looked outlandish there, too.
She went on, “You two look as if you would rather sleep than talk, so I trust you will forgive me for diving on in.
“The situation here has deteriorated far more quickly than I anticipated, and the bad news is an avalanche still gathering momentum. Madam Locksmith, Arturos told me you have been working at channelling the lightning as quickly as you are able, based on premonitions both you and he have had about the urgency.”
“Two years. That’s what I’ve been telling her,” he said.
I said, “And I’ve been telling you that wasn’t possible.”
“How long do you need?” the Frost Maiden said. “I regret asking this of you, but we—the four Officeholders, even Enchanter Paul—are agreed we must fix the Office of the Northern Waters as soon as humanly possible. The witches and wizards involved in rebuilding can be ready on a month’s notice, perhaps two. How soon can you be ready to unlock it?”
A month? I stared at her with my mouth open. I clutched Jean’s hand and looked at him for help. The colour had drained from his face.
He said, “Before we left we agreed we must fix the Water Office, but did not consider it so urgent. What has changed?”
The Frost Maiden started to reply but Beorn interrupted. “Better let me answer that.” He took his time, combing his fingers through his beard. “It looks like the spark that set off the wildfire was Lucinda releasing that stinker of a lock on the Water Office.”
I flinched as if he had struck me. If the Frost Maiden had said that, I would have flamed her. Jean, his face grim, gripped my hand so hard it felt as if the bones were grinding together. I cried out and he eased off. “I beg your pardon, my love.”
Beorn said, “We aren’t blaming you, Lucinda.”
The Frost Maiden said, “Indeed not. At the time, we were all agreed it was for the best. I still believe so, but it has had consequences no one foresaw.”
I couldn’t manage a coherent two-word sentence. Jean asked the question. “What consequences?”
“With that lock’s release,” she said, “the Office became stronger. Not as strong as the Fire Office, but on a par with the Earth Office.”
“Shouldn’t that have helped?” I croaked.
She shook her head. “No. Most of my efforts, and my predecessor’s efforts for half the Office’s existence, have gone into restraining the Office’s broken pursuit of justice. Now, even with the Water Guild Council’s full support, I cannot hold it back.”
Jean breathed, “Oh, dear God.”
“Quite so,” she said. “You understand.”
“I don’t,” I said. “Explain it to me.”
“You are too young to have seen the gradual changes in the severity of the penalties handed out. The Water Office is not as rigid as the Fire Office. The Water Guild members in the Great Coven understood that times change, and built in corrective measures, but those measures do not work as intended. Penalties the Water Guild hands out depend on the judgements handed down in earlier, similar cases. The precedences are a stream carving a channel deeper and wider, and once flowing in one direction we can no more redirect them than a mundane can redirect the course of a mighty river. The Water Office itself recognises its penalties have crossed the boundaries of common sense, but in trying to correct them, it makes them more severe.”
Beorn said, “The Green Duke got a lot stricter about poachers. He’s green in more ways than one, only been duke a couple of years, and didn’t like his dad letting people get away with poaching rabbits and other small game, as long they left the deer alone. So he hauled a poacher off to the Water Guild to make an example of him, instead of dealing with the man himself. The Water Office froze the poacher’s left hand off.”
“A harsh judgement,” Jean said, “but one it has applied in such cases for centuries.”
“Right,” Beorn said, “but it didn’t stop other people from poaching. I wasn’t surprised it didn’t—the poor in that duchy poach to feed starving children, not for the fun of it. So, he hauled another poacher off to the Water Guild. All his neighbours thought well of this poor grunt, and as far as we could tell he’d been law-abiding up till then, but the duke had forced him and several other tenant farmers out so he could expand his hunting park.”
I winced. “Ouch.”
“He should never have been brought to your notice,” Jean said. “A sensible duke would not have beggared a respectable tenant.”
“A sensible duke,” the Frost Maiden said, “would have accepted some blame when his gamekeepers caught the man poaching, and given him a helping hand out of the public’s eye. A sensible duke would not have crippled a healthy and willing worker. But the Green Duke is not sensible, and the Water Office had to deal with the poacher. In its wisdom it attempted to show mercy.” She turned away and stared out the window.
After a slight pause, Beorn coughed. “You know, Lorraine, used to be everything you said sounded sarcastic. Now I can’t tell.”
“I did not intend that as sarcasm. The Water Office did attempt to show mercy, but this is the area of most acute bre
akage. The Office recognised the standard penalty was overly severe, and it substituted a different penalty, but the new penalty was more severe, not less so.”
After another pause, I asked, “So, what did it do?”
Beorn said, “It took off his hand and a foot.”
The silence went on a lot longer this time. At length, Jean said, “And that triggered the uprising.”
“Yup,” Beorn said. “The common folk were already fed up with their ass of an overlord, and that was the last straw. They rioted. Fields, farms, and warehouses went up in smoke, and now there are a lot more unhappy, hungry people—and poachers—than there had been.”
“And the next poacher brought to the Water Guild,” the Frost Maiden said, “will suffer an even more drastic punishment, as the Office tries and fails to correct its past mistakes. This is but one example. There have been and will be others. The sluice gates have opened, and the streams of misery are becoming great torrents. The people are crying out for justice, and mercy. We must do something soon to rechannel those torrents, or dam them.”
Beorn said, “The nobles are making things worse because they’re scared. They’ve heard rumours from the guilds that we want to rebuild the Offices, and they know it isn’t to help them. They have the upper hand now, and they’re using the protections of the Offices to flush out troublemakers. They’ve set a backfire, and it’s gotten out of control.”
“Yes,” she said, “They want to stamp out all dissent and unrest before the tide turns, and they are not hesitating to be quite brutal about it.”
He said, “Starving homeless are drifting from town to town, and with the tenants gone, crops will rot in the fields. We’re looking at a long hungry winter ahead. We’d already realised we were facing disaster, and I was going to send you a message asking you to come home, when we had back-to-back riots. Rumours are spreading across the country like wildfire. If nobles panic and start hauling people right and left off to the Water Guild, well…”