A Blackbird In Silver (Book 1)

by Freda Warrington

  Her pleasant expression did not change. ‘My lady has given me instructions that you may go anywhere you wish in Her house and city. She requests also that you join Her for dinner when you feel well enough.’

  ‘You don’t know where my companions are?’

  ‘These are my lady’s instructions, sir,’ Gulla responded, a slight lift to her voice implying surprise that he assumed she knew anything other than what the Lady Arlenmia told her. ‘I will call you for dinner.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Estarinel sighed, giving up. The maid nodded and left. He had noticed the familiar reverence for the word ‘She’ – although not the usual bitterness – in her speech.

  He felt a growing sense of insecurity. The hideous stories he had heard and the woman he had met did not tally. Yet he remembered Skord’s words, ‘She was kind to me.’ The thought of Skord made him shudder. What had happened at the end of the hypnotism – why could he not remember?

  Grimly, he realised that anything could have happened in the last few days. Perhaps Medrian and Ashurek were dead. Certainly, if they were not here, he stood little chance of finding them.

  He decided that his only course was to be exceedingly careful with Arlenmia, to give away as little as possible while trying to discover who or what she really was. Friendly innocence was a good beginning; and a perfectly natural one, as it was his character anyway.

  It was a daunting thought to realise that Arlenmia was now his only hope of continuing the Quest.

  Chapter Ten. The Glass City

  Her house formed a square about the courtyard, with a tall, round tower at each corner. Estarinel sat at the edge of the pond and scanned the gold metallic building closely. There was no sign of activity; only the gentle music of the fountain disturbed the silence. He felt too weak to walk far, and soon returned to his room in one of the towers, gained by a twisting staircase. There he lay down on the bed, wondering what had become of their horses. His sword and shield had gone too; no doubt the nemen had taken them. But he had also lost the lodestone from Hrannekh Ol, and he could not see how the nemen could have known what it was, or been interested in it.

  He fell into a heavy, comfortable sleep without realising. When he eventually awoke, the long red rays of the setting sun were piercing the windows. A moment later Gulla entered, the same innocuous smile on her face.

  ‘My Lady asks if you are well enough to join Her for dinner in half an hour’s time, sir.’ Estarinel assented, desperately curious to meet the Lady Arlenmia again. The maid added that a nurse would be sent to him to attend to his wounds.

  The nurse, an old, harsh-faced, unspeaking woman, rebandaged the weal on his back, applied herbal creams to his many other cuts and bruises, and left. Yet more clothes had been brought for him: blue breeches and a tunic made from fine linen and embroidered with strange designs in dark blue; a silvery loose-sleeved shirt.

  He changed, and the maid came to take him down to another part of the house, by way of many staircases and tapestry-lined corridors. He was shown into a long, large hall with the light of many candles dancing in pools of golden light on the walls. The walls were hung with mirrors and tapestries. Animal-skin rugs, striped with black, purple, and lilac, carpeted the marble floor. A long mirror-topped table occupied the hall’s centre, lined with high-backed, ornate chairs.

  On one of these sat the Lady Arlenmia, statuesque and beautiful in an elaborate dress of deep-green silk, with sleeves that fell in long folds from her marble shoulders. Even in the dim, gold-touched atmosphere of the hall, her exquisite and un-human colouring looked cold.

  Seeing Estarinel, she smiled and rose to greet him, a slender hand outstretched. He took it and bowed courteously.

  ‘Do sit down,’ she said in her clear, low voice. She sat at the head of the table, Estarinel at her right hand. ‘Now,’ she went on, ‘I am so pleased that you feel well enough to join me. With a few days’ rest, you will soon be fit again.’ Her large, liquid blue-green eyes regarded him intently. He felt colour rise in his face. ‘I want you to feel at ease in my home, as if it were your own. I have an extensive library, art galleries and music rooms which you may visit whenever you wish.’

  ‘All of these are within this building?’ he asked. She nodded. ‘What of the other buildings in the city? Are they all unoccupied?’

  ‘Yes.’ She laughed quietly. ‘I and my servants have the whole city to ourselves. You may walk about wherever you will, as soon as you feel strong enough. It is a wondrous place, and walking is the surest way to regain your health.’

  Did this mean that he was not a prisoner? He longed to ask how long she had lived in the city, why she was here, who she was… but the discovery of such information would have to be a subtle and guarded process. He asked a neutral question about the library.

  ‘Yes, it is my own collection – as are the paintings, the musical instruments, and everything else in this house. I love things of beauty!’ She continued, talking of art and books with an affection that obviously went deeper than the pleasure of acquisition. He let her lead the conversation, trying to judge which subjects he might approach and which he might not. It was hard to tell. She was so warm and open towards him it seemed he could talk to her about anything.

  The pleasant-natured Gulla and another servant, a dark-haired, unsmiling youth, waited at table. The dinner was good: small rainbow-scaled fish with artichokes; new-baked bread, butter and cheese; fresh fruit and a dry, pale yellow wine. Arlenmia herself seemed to eat very little.

  ‘I have had your personal belongings sent to your room. There was a sword, a little white stone, a shield, and a knife. Your cloak is intact, but I’m afraid the rest of your clothes were too badly torn to be saved.’ She toyed with her crystal wine goblet.

  ‘Thank you very much, my lady. It’s very kind of you to have taken such care of me.’

  ‘It is nothing. I am pleased to have you as my guest. Tell me, how did you come to be the nemen’s prisoner?’

  ‘They were – we came upon them north of Beldaega-Hal. There was a battle. Er – I was knocked out. There were a lot of confusing impressions but I really don’t remember anything until I found myself crawling down the street.’

  He was trying to be evasive without actually lying. He was afraid she was going to ask him questions – perhaps only friendly ones – and he dared reveal almost nothing.

  ‘You say there were two others with you? Estarinel, they may have been killed, you realise. I shall try to find them for you. I can send servants out to the nemen; they fear me–’ she smiled a little sadly – ‘and will do my bidding. Who were your companions?'

  ‘There was a young woman, dark-haired, and another – a warrior.’

  She looked thoughtful. ‘Wherever you were journeying, this is an unfortunate delay for you. If I gave you a horse and weapons, would you continue on your own – if your companions weren’t found?’

  ‘Yes, I would, my lady.’

  ‘I thought so.’ She laughed softly. ‘Is this journey very important to you?’

  ‘Yes.’ He pretended to be absorbed in his goblet of pale wine. ‘This is a wonderful meal.’

  ‘Ah, changing the subject! I’m so sorry – if you don’t wish to speak of your journey, I won’t pry. I only mean to help you.’

  He half-smiled. ‘Please don't think me rude. But I’d rather say nothing than lie, my lady.’

  ‘I understand.’ She went on sipping her glass of wine. She gazed across to a large glass globe with a map of the world engraved on it, an exquisitely-made object. The pupils of her beautiful deep-lidded eyes dilated widely.

  When they had finished the meal, she said to him, ‘Come and sit with me by the fire.’ She led him to a fireplace, set into one long wall. Two gold chairs with tapestry seats stood there, one on either side of the hearth. The fire flickered with gold, blue and green flames yet no heat emanated from it.

  ‘It is too hot for a real fire at present, but I like the glow that a fire gives – don’t you?’ She stoo
ped gracefully and passed a hand through the flames. She laughed. ‘See! It’s an illusion. The flames are cold. More wine?’

  Estarinel accepted. He felt relaxed and at ease; perhaps it was the wine’s influence, but inwardly this made him more consciously careful not even to hint at their Quest.

  ‘Tell me about your life in Forluin. They say it is such a quiet, pretty place.’

  ‘Yes – yes, it was – is,’ he stammered, thrown by her question.

  ‘Forluin, Maerna, Ohn; lands of the ten thousand years’ peace, they are called. Nothing blights their sweet fields, and the Blue Plane is only a whisper away, so they say.’

  ‘Do they?’ Estarinel was shocked at this turn in the conversation. He stared broodingly into the fire. Arlenmia leaned back in her chair, a touch of languor in the movement; a languor not caused by the wine, for she had hardly drunk a whole glassful.

  ‘Estarinel,’ she began softly, ‘I heard there was an attack on Forluin some months ago. A flying worm came from the north, did it not?’

  ‘Yes,’ he replied miserably, both relieved and amazed that she knew.

  ‘Did it take any of your loved ones?’

  ‘Yes, many friends, and left people sick and starving.’

  ‘Might the Worm have come again since you left?’

  ‘It might have done. Or once might have been enough. I have no news of Forluin.’ The old horror and misery reawoke in him.

  ‘Oh, it is sad that it had to be that way, but Forluin is so isolated,’ she murmured.

  ‘What do you mean?’ he asked, staring at her and trying desperately to retain a facade of innocuous politeness.

  ‘I mean,’ she said gently, her eyes shining so brightly that they might have been full of tears, ‘that I am sorry about what happened in your country, sorry that it is so far away from the help that Tearn, for example, might have given.’

  ‘No one could have helped,’ he whispered, believing in her sympathy but wishing she would change the subject.

  There was a long silence and he stared at the fire from which no warmth came. Then she said, ‘If you wish… there is a way you can see what is happening in Forluin.’

  He looked up with a start. ‘How?’

  ‘I can show you. If you will be patient for a few days, until you are stronger.’

  ‘How can you do this?’

  Her beautiful but unnaturally dilated pupils glistened and a slight flush, the colour of jade, came to her cheeks. ‘A gift was given me; to look into reflections and see the truth therein. For mirrors can reflect only the truth; how can they lie when there is no guile within them? Thus, the gift – to turn the mirror’s reflection to the knowledge of one’s own desiring, to see truths past and future, to see into men’s minds, to summon and to dismiss. If something is real, the looking glass potentially holds the image, but it is within oneself that the power lies to draw forth the image, to project it and to manipulate it.’ She stared intensely at him, eyes shining and lips curved with some suppressed joy.

  ‘Is that how you knew what had happened in my country?’ he asked nervously.

  ‘Partly. Oh, but don’t look at me like that! Estarinel, I am no witch, and my only wish is to help you.’ She spoke with such ardent sincerity that it was almost impossible to doubt her. Still smiling at him, she turned the conversation to a more innocuous theme with slippery ease. Unsettled and puzzling over her words, he was untalkative at first. But gradually he relaxed again, and the part of him that regarded Arlenmia with a detached and suspicious eye began to blur, becoming susceptible to her charms.

  Later, he lay in bed staring at the canopy and wondering about her. Delightful she was; intelligent and beautiful and kind. But he had discovered nothing definite about her, only vague impressions. She knew more of the geography of the world than he, but had spoken of it like an interested visitor from another earth. And he had the idea that she drew her vitality from strange sources, and that she was motivated by a deep-rooted love of something unknown.

  Yes, that was it; whoever she was, it was not hatred or vengeance that inspired her, but love. There was a double full moon that night and their light shining on the mirror-topped table in a silver pool distracted him until he had to cover the table with a rug.

  #

  A glistening drop of blue fluid hung from the end of the needle, just before it entered Ashurek’s arm. He saw the glass phial empty and felt a coolness enter his vein, spreading through his body.

  Arlenmia drew the needle out, then leaned forward and cut the leather straps binding his wrists.

  ‘There,’ she said, ‘the drug will make you feel better.’

  Ashurek raised an eyebrow. ‘You mean, safe to be untied?’

  ‘I told you, the nemen tied you up, not I,’ she answered sweetly. ‘The drug is only to help you to recover from your ordeal, though it may make you feel somewhat – empty.’

  He looked up into her luminous turquoise eyes. ‘I detect a veiled threat.’

  ‘Your imagination, Prince Ashurek. Now, you are free to visit any part of my house and city as it pleases you, and to stay as my guest until you are fully recovered.’ He stood up from the bed, flexing his aching hands, and looked out of a window.

  ‘What of my companions, Estarinel and Medrian?’

  ‘Oh, they are here, as you must have guessed.’ She smiled coolly at him. ‘But existing each in a different reflection, as I will it; so you may search the city and look in every mirror, but you will never see them.’

  He turned back to her with narrowed, verdant eyes, but she returned the gaze unflinchingly. ‘Your Estarinel is lovely, a total innocent. He has disclosed not one word about you or your mission, thinking he is protecting you. He is a perfect subject for my design. However, I know that you will fight me, and Medrian too – and oh, I wish you would not! What I do is all to the good, in the end.’

  The extraordinary sincerity that came into her voice and face surprised Ashurek – but he could now feel her drug working. Whatever else it was meant to do, it was enhancing that awful sick emptiness that the Egg-Stone had left when he disposed of the thing. He felt he could claw his way from the window, swim oceans and burrow into mountains to recover it.

  She must know much about him, to be able to practise this subtle torture.

  Arlenmia touched his hand with her slender, cool fingers.

  ‘It was a happy day that brought you here, Ashurek.’ She made her way to the door. ‘I must summon Skord, and reward him.’

  ‘Have you not seen him since we arrived here?’ the Gorethrian asked, surprised.

  ‘No; why?’ She paused in the doorway.

  ‘I thought he would have come straight to you even before the nemen brought us here.’

  ‘No, he did not. I understand he went back to Beldaega-Hal. Ashurek, your words make me think there’s a reason I should know where he is.’

  ‘I am more than surprised that you don’t.’

  She smiled at his sardonic tone. ‘Unfortunately, I am not omniscient. However, there’s nothing I cannot see if I wish it. I’ll locate the boy immediately.’

  Grimacing, Ashurek wondered how the lad would fare when she discovered that his arrogance had led to him being captured and hypnotised; and that he had made several attempts – albeit half-hearted ones – to kill them.

  #

  Several days passed. Estarinel spent most of his time sleeping, walking and eating, concentrating, as Arlenmia had sensibly suggested, on regaining his strength. He also spent some time in her library, studying some ancient and fascinating books. He dined with her every evening, although otherwise he never saw her. In fact he never saw anyone apart from Gulla, who was ever helpful but uncommunicative. No door of the house was kept locked, but there was never a soul in any room. He found this aloneness in the weird city more eerie with each passing day, so that by the evening he was desperate for Arlenmia’s company.

  Twice he asked for news of his companions, but there was none. Other than this their conve
rsation was general and friendly, without touching on personal information on either side. It was frustrating that he still knew nothing about her, but while he was actually talking to her this did not seem to matter. Then he enjoyed her company and ceased to wonder whether she really was the evil tyrant of Belhadra.

  Sometimes he sensed that she was aware of talking a lot while saying nothing, and that she was desperate to tear aside the pretence and tell him something of great importance. At these times the animation of her eyes and voice in that languid, sculptural form made her the more beautiful. He felt she was waiting and waiting for the right moment to explain herself to him. Perhaps when the moment came he would be able to discover the truth about her at last.

  ‘Is there a boundary to this city?’ he asked on the fifth evening. ‘I seem to have walked miles, yet not reached the edge.’ He realised he was obliquely asking whether the city was impossible to escape, and from her look of amusement, she knew it.

  ‘You’ve probably been in circles,’ she smiled. ‘It’s easily done. Of course it has an edge. You are not a prisoner, you know! To prove it, I’ll have two horses readied in the morning and we’ll ride out to the countryside. I suppose you will want to be on your way in a few days,’ she added rather sadly, ‘but I hope you won’t leave me yet.’

  At this, questions began to plague him again. How could this exquisite and intelligent woman, who had shown him such kindness and understanding, be the same ‘goddess’ whom the Belhadrians loathed, feared and worshipped? There were three possible answers: that Arlenmia was not She; that her behaviour towards him was a deception; or that the Belhadrians themselves were wrong in blaming Her for their troubles.

  He stared down at his plate, wishing desperately that he could broach the subject without the risk of alienating her. Perhaps it was wisest to let the matter be and make an escape as soon as possible. Tomorrow she would show him the way out of the City.

  ‘Estarinel, you are poor company this evening,’ the Lady said. ‘Is something troubling you?’ The dim candlelight flickered in the viridian depths of her hair like sparks of sunlight on a woodland river. He made himself reply before doubt stopped him.