Prisoner of Haven

by Nancy Varian Berberick

  And Usha wouldn’t hear it or know if it meant trouble for Qui’thonas.

  Not this time. But there will be another night. More if I can manage them.

  Usha turned back to see Tamara standing by the open window and looking down to watch for her lover. In that moment, Usha felt sorry for her. Sir Radulf hadn’t cared whether she would make allowance or would not. The sound of his boot heels in the corridor had overridden whatever answer Tamara had started to make.

  In the light of candles and torches, the solar seemed cavernous, the ceiling lost in shadow, the walls suddenly distant, the flagstone floor wide. Usha thought Tamara looked very small by the window. She went and stood beside her when she heard the sound of horses. Tamara permitted it until the riders were out of sight, then she turned and walked away, putting distance between them.

  “Shall I call my father’s carriage for you, Mistress? No matter what they say, he’s often gone half the night when Radulf needs him.”

  And Usha thought: Radulf is it? Well, well.

  “If he’s not back soon, perhaps.”

  Surprise flickered in Tamara’s eyes. “Please yourself.” She crossed her arms, paced to the window, looked out into the empty dark, and came back again. After a moment, she huffed a sigh and said, “Well, what do you want to do? My father isn’t going to be back—”

  “For some time. Yes, you’ve said.” Usha made herself comfortable on one of the cushioned benches. She put a loose pillow behind her back, and smiled. “I think I’d like to sit here for a while.”

  Again, Tamara said, “Please yourself.” She didn’t leave, and she didn’t sit. She paced from the window to the table and stood there a moment. “I don’t suppose you want any wine?”

  Usha hid her smile. “Why, yes, I would. Thank you.”

  A moment, and she heard the sound of wine being poured. Another moment, and Tamara brought the cup to her. They sat for a little while, opposite each other, each on her own bench. Tamara twirled a lock of dark hair around a slim finger, looking at nothing. Too well bred to leave her father’s guest alone, she had to stay; and every other moment her eyes glanced to the hall as though she waited for rescue. And Usha wondered, Who would come to rescue her? Not her father who must wait on Sir Radulf’s pleasure, and not the knight himself.

  A kind of rescue, she supposed, would be Usha’s request that the carriage be summoned and this awkward interlude ended.

  Usha wasn’t about to grant it. Loren might well return soon. Until then, she would wait. Neither was she inclined to engage in small talk. She watched Tamara for a moment or two, thinking not about her but the shape of her face, the way her shoulders, while slim and feminine, reminded her of Loren’s. They had expressive shoulders, those two. Tamara’s were a stiff line of resistance. And mobile mouths. Tamara’s was just then returning to a sullen pout.

  “I’m told,” Usha said, “that you look much like your mother.”

  Startled, Tamara eyed her carefully. “I’m told so, too.”

  “She must have been lovely.”

  “So I hear. My father loved her very much.” She paused. “So I hear.”

  They sat that way, quiet while one watched and the other strived to present an appearance of supreme indifference. Usha thought it was becoming ridiculous. She would have the carriage called and leave. But she didn’t. Something about the way the girl looked around the empty room, just her in a pool of light, with darkness coming ever closer as the wicks burned…

  “I have a daughter,” Usha said, “a bit older than you.”

  “That is very nice,” Tamara said.

  “Her name is Linsha. She’s a Solamnic Knight.”

  Interest, then something much like fear, flared in Tamara’s eyes. “You shouldn’t say that here.”

  “In this nest of dark knights? Not ever. But in Solace I am happy to boast out loud about my daughter the knight.”

  “Where… ?” Tamara said. “Where is your daughter?”

  “I don’t know. It’s that way for knights—of any order. They are sworn to their causes and that leaves their families to do nothing but hope. I used to pray before the gods… left.”

  “Gods.” Tamara said the word as though it were from a foreign language. “I know nothing but tales of gods. I don’t know if they ever really existed.”

  Usha remained quiet for a moment, for she knew gods and she knew they existed. The beginning of the great strife among gods, the Chaos War, had flung her out of her island home. The Irda had died or vanished in the destruction, and the end of that war had flung Usha into Palin Majere’s arms. She knew gods.

  Candlelight flickered, yearning delicately after a passing breeze. The night had grown cooler, and the air smelled of the river. A servant, a woman with quick, careful eyes, came quietly into the solar.

  “Mistress Tamara, we’re wondering in the kitchen what’s to be done about supper?”

  Tamara looked at Usha.

  “I am quite ready for supper now,” Usha said. “I’d like to dine in the garden, though.”

  “Please yourself,” Tamara said, but this time with a small, tentative smile.

  “Thank you,” Usha said. “It would please me if you’d join me.”

  In the scented night, with candles on the stone table in the garden and fireflies winking among the birches, Usha dined with Loren Halgard’s daughter. They treated the meal as a picnic, had it bundled into baskets and set out on heavy pewter plates. The wine chilled in the stream that fed the pond down the hill. In this setting, the girl relaxed, and Usha found herself liking Tamara. A mother, she was touched by the motherless girl. An orphan child, she understood something of what Tamara’s life had been like.

  She had loved the Irda. They had treated her tenderly, and sometimes she still dreamed of them with an aching sense of homesickness. But in the end, the magical Irda were not her kin, not mother or father. She was a woman who’d grown up without a mother, yearning for something in heart, in soul, that could not be replaced. Tamara was that, a motherless child. It showed in her eyes, the haunted look sometimes poorly hidden.

  “You have the strangest eyes,” Tamara said, wary still of the growing ease between them. “Sometimes they’re blue and sometimes they’re green. I’d swear they’re golden now.”

  Usha smiled. “It would be hard to say if they favor my mother or my father.”

  “Because they never stay the same color?”

  Because I don’t know what my mother or father looked like.

  She smiled. “Exactly so.”

  Tamara leaned forward to say something then sat up suddenly, eyes wide and alarmed. Usha turned at the sound of a snapped twig behind her. A lean, dark figure stood outside the grove.

  “Show yourself,” Usha demanded.

  The knight did, stepping closer to the light of their candles. Tamara’s breath hissed in surprise.

  “Lady Mearah.”

  Lady Mearah, the fallen child of Palanthas, the executioner of Sir Radulf’s occupation. She’d forgone heavy armor, wearing only high hoots, riding leathers, and a dark tunic. Her hair, the color of the night, had been caught up in an intricate weaving of braids, like a crown upon her head. Lady Mearah bowed with grave courtesy, but when she looked up the sly smile on her lips belied gravity.

  “Forgive me, Mistress Usha. I’ve been sent.” She turned to Tamara. “By your father. He wants me to express his regret for having missed supper, and that he won’t be able to join you—” a sly smile tugged at her lips—“for the wine and cheese course. He hopes you will forgive him.”

  Tamara nodded.

  “And Mistress Usha,” her eyes gleamed fox-bright. “I’m sent to escort you home.”

  Indeed, Usha thought, but I think not. She smiled for courtesy and declined. “Loren’s carriage will take me. Thank you.”

  Lady Mearah picked up an apple from the table. She inspected it carefully then polished it on her sleeve, the motion calling attention to the insignia on the breast of the black sil
k tunic—a crimson sword. She took a bite.

  “No, you misunderstand. I am going to escort you home. There are no carriages on the streets tonight. No horses other than ours.”

  Tamara frowned. “My father—”

  “Is with Sir Radulf. I am here to escort Mistress Usha home. Good evening, Mistress Tamara.”

  Usha took the girl’s hand and found it cold.

  “Go inside,” Usha said, her voice low and confident. “I’ll be fine. Your father knows where I am.” She glanced at Lady Mearah who took another bite of the apple. “I’m sure everything is all right.”

  She’d been thinking of Tamara as a girl. All evening she’d been thinking of her as a child. Now Loren’s daughter stood straight, head high, the lady of her father’s house. “Mistress Usha, if you wish I will call Rowan.”

  To do what? Defend them against Sir Radulf’s executioner? It was a bold offer, Usha thought, and a dangerous one, for Lady Mearah did not laugh.

  “Go,” Usha said. “I’ll be fine.”

  “Pretty little thing,” the lady knight said, watching as Tamara walked up the hill to the house. “I’m sure she’s her father’s treasure.”

  “No doubt,” Usha agreed, “and from what I hear, the delight of your commander’s heart. Some might think that an enviable position to be in.”

  “You’d think so, wouldn’t you? ‘Her father’s treasure.’ A poet’s turn of phrase, yet true, isn’t it? She’s quite like a pearl—luminous, nearly breathing with light. Have you ever heard, Mistress Majere, that few men are more vulnerable than the man who possesses a pearl of great value?” Into Usha’s silence she said, “No? Hm, perhaps they don’t have that wisdom where you come from. Well, allow me to enlighten you. The man with a pearl of great value is a man who will do anything to keep it.” She tossed the half-eaten apple into the bushes. “Anything at all. That, I’m sure you’ll agree, makes him quite vulnerable. To thieves, to fire, to storm… to hard-hearted killers.”

  Usha said nothing for fear that she would make things worse. She followed the lady knight from the garden. Given the chance to ride pillion, Usha said she preferred not to. It seemed to matter nothing to Lady Mearah, who professed herself pleased for a chance to stretch her legs on such a pleasant night.

  The two women attempted no conversation as the knight led her horse through the silent streets of nighttime Haven. Usha was just as glad. Never abroad at night since the fall of the city, she was surprised by how truly quiet the streets were. Usha marked every knight set to watch at the crossways and was surprised to see that the mounted patrols were not all knights.

  Lady Mearah shrugged and broke the silence. “Some new idea of the commander’s. Damned if I know why, but he’s putting a few citizens on with the watch. They work for their city,” she said when she saw Usha’s surprise. “Enforcing the curfew and keeping their fellows out of trouble. It’s new. Something your friend Loren Halgard suggested as a way to keep the people involved.” Her smile was icily ironic. “Well, ‘involved in their own fate’ is how he put it. Sir Radulf thinks it’s working to keep things quiet. For now, anyway. Should make you feel good, eh?”

  Usha shuddered. Nothing about Haven at night made her feel good. All the life seemed to have dwindled away or fled to such places as the Goat where Sir Radulf allowed exceptions to his rule of curfew for the sake of being able to keep his finger on the pulse of the occupied city.

  At the door of the inn, Lady Mearah said, “You’re a married woman, Usha Majere, and your husband is a mage of some repute. Are you looking for a little companionship these days? A way to pass the time?”

  Stung, Usha replied, “What I do is my own business. I’m harming no one and breaking no law.”

  The knight laughed, a cold sound, like the voice of winter. “Or vow?”

  Mearah cared nothing about vows. Of that Usha was certain. Mearah wielded the word as though it were a thin, sharp knife, something to pick with, something to use for a probe. Usha didn’t flinch.

  “Or vow,” Usha said, “though it’s kind of you to be concerned.”

  The lady knight shrugged. “In truth, for the most of it, I don’t care. But it’s a tricky thing, making friendships in a captive city. You’ll want to be careful. If your friend falls, you might tumble with him. If you fall, so might he, and all that he treasures with him.”

  The knight bade Usha good evening, and Usha went inside.

  From the upper story, out her bedroom window, Usha saw Mearah watching the Ivy. It was a long while before she heard the knight leave, and a long while before she was able to sleep.

  14

  In a tone of amused patience, Loren said, “I’m still here, Usha.”

  Usha looked up from her easel, then returned to work on the canvas she was scraping free of the last coat of pa’ressa. When she was finished, it would have the texture of an eggshell and be about the same shade of white, ready for her paints. She worked to have something to do with her hands while she considered Loren’s request that she paint a portrait of his daughter.

  She’d heard nothing from him since the night he’d been called away from Steadfast by Sir Radulf. She’d wondered why but decided to let the matter be. She could see that Loren was attracted to her. That was enough, for she was not a foolish girl to fret after her first suitor—and he was no suitor.

  He’d surprised her this morning, a simple knock on the door of her studio, announcing him. He’d hoped she wouldn’t mind his intrusion, and she’d said, “I like visitors, most especially when I’m doing the very uninteresting work of priming canvas.”

  Usha scraped, and Loren left his post at the desk to open the window shutters wider. She liked the look of his strong, straight back as he leaned out one of the windows. He looked out at the river.

  “You miss it,” she said.

  “The ships and the sails filling with wind… oh, yes. I miss that. I shipped aboard my father’s vessels for years before his death. I imagined I’d captain one of those fine ships until I was old and gray.”

  “But that didn’t happen.”

  “No. What happened is that soon after my father died, I married, then Tamara was born…” He ran a hand up the side of his face and through his dark hair. “And then her mother died. I became landbound for Tamara’s sake. For my own, too, I suppose. Or I haven’t suffered, anyway. The business my father left me grew, and it needed me in the accounting house.”

  Loren turned from the window, and as Usha watched him lean against the desk she wondered how true it was that he didn’t suffer the loss of the sea. His eyes were always looking out over the city walls, looking for the river and the way to the wide ocean.

  “And so,” he said, as though picking up the thread of another conversation, “I’m still waiting.”

  “Yes, you are.”

  Usha had to admit that Loren had waited longer for a simple answer than she would have. But it wasn’t a simple answer, not really, and she still had none for him. She smiled behind the canvas. To his credit, Loren didn’t say that the matter wasn’t so serious as to deserve all this thought. By the look of him, he might be thinking so, but he didn’t say so.

  Once more, Usha looked around her studio at the two series of sketches tacked to the east and west walls. She calculated the time she would need to paint the portraits she’d contracted. One was of a young man, promised to his ailing grandfather. The other was of a woman whose children wanted her to portray their mother exactly as they knew her—a queen among women. Usha shook her head as she did every time she looked at that set of sketches. The subject was the most unqueenly of women. She’d promised to deliver the portraits within the month. It was a lot of work, but possible, and the fees were generous. One fee alone was enough to pay her and Dez’s expenses for the past month and the next.

  All that was true, but when she looked again at Loren, Usha realized that none of it had to do with her hesitation to give him an answer. She set down the scraping knife and came out from behind the ease
l.

  “Loren, when you saw the portrait of your nephews, you were afraid Lorelia or Havelock would be harmed by it, yet here you are wanting to commission a portrait of Tamara. Aren’t you afraid the portrait I paint might work in your daughter’s life in some magical way?”

  He pushed away from the desk and took her hand. Before she realized it, her fingers curled comfortably around his. “You asked me to trust that if you worked with a good will your magic would cause no harm.” He lifted her hand, the fingers speckled with flakes of pa’ressa. “I trust that this hand would never harm my child, mysterious Usha.”

  “Mysterious?” She shook her head, withdrawing her hand and paying no attention to the flutter of excitement his touch had caused. “That’s an odd naming.”

  “No, it isn’t. You are a mystery to me, Usha. I have known you for weeks, and I don’t really know anything about you.” He looked around her studio, at the easel, the buckets and pots for mixing paints, the baskets of brushes. He looked at the sketches, his eye lingering over the emerging details of a woman’s weathered, old face. “This is all I know about you. You are an artist of remarkable talent, and you live in Solace. For the rest, you might have drifted into Haven like a feather on the breeze.”

  There was so much more he shouldn’t know about her—not the least dangerous her connection to an underground organization that ferried refugees out of Haven. Uneasy, Usha turned back to her easel.

  “Who are you, Usha? Who are your people, your family?” He hesitated, but only for a moment. “Who are you to have magic when all of magic is fading from the world?”

  Usha paid close attention to her work now, a little thread of fear in her heart.

  His voice low, Loren said, “What of your husband, Usha Majere?”

  Usha’s blade rasped over the pa’ressa. It took an effort not to use too much pressure. Her voice flat, she scraped carefully and said, “I didn’t drift on the breeze, Loren. Dez and I came here on business for her father’s inn.”