by Fran Jacobs
"Yes," I agreed. It had been a hard blow. I still had the faint traces of the bump left on the side of my head even now. "But I think I saw the person and that was why I bumped into the door which knocked me out."
"You think?" He raised an eyebrow at me. "But you're not sure?" I hesitated. I was sure that I had seen the child, and I was fairly convinced that I had seen it before I had hit my head, but Kal had no reason to lie to me. I didn't know what to think anymore so I just shook my head. "Then perhaps it is as I said. Perhaps you only saw the person after you blacked out."
"Perhaps," I said doubtfully. "But what about all the other times when I claim something that isn't real that is real to me?"
"Overactive imagination," Sorron said simply. "You always had one, even as a child. Loved to tell stories, would listen to the bards with a look of rapture on your face and be totally unaware of anything that went on around you."
"But I would know if I was imagining it, Grandfather, if I was making something up."
"Candale, it doesn't have to be a story that you're concocting. It doesn't have to be a lie. Two people can see the same event in two completely different ways. In an argument, both people think that what they're saying is right, but they can't both be right. Everyone interprets everything in their own way. Even if the whole world sees the sky as blue and you see it as green, it doesn't mean that you're lying when you say that it's green, and it doesn't mean that you're wrong, because for you the sky is green. Do you understand?"
"Yes," I said slowly. "Yes. So I'm not mad?"
"No," he said. "Of course not. You just see things differently, Candale. I envy that about you sometimes. You see so much more in the world than I do."
"I do?"
"Yes." He smiled at me. "You do." He turned and looked away from me, studying the pictures I had drawn and displayed on my walls. "Do you still draw?"
"Sometimes. Not since I fell ill, though. I've been meaning to get back into it again. I thought I should catch up on my studies first."
"Very commendable." I watched as Sorron got to his feet and made his way over towards some of the pictures to look at them more closely. They were mostly simple things, a horse, some flowers, the countryside around Carnia Castle in the winter when it had been covered in snow, that sort of thing. Just anything that had interested me at the time. My favourite was a portrait of my sister and Kal, drawn about a year ago. It had been summer and we had all been playing in the river splashing each other. When we had gotten cold, we had climbed out to drink wine on the bank, enjoying the heat and the warm breeze. I had taken out some charcoal and some parchment, which I had always carried with me in those days, and had drawn my sister and Kal. That had been the first moment I had realised that they were in love with each other. I had teased them about it for the rest of the afternoon, much to Aylara's embarrassment. "You have talent," my grandfather said.
"Thank you." I knelt on the couch, peering over the back of it so I could see him properly. If he didn't want to talk to my back I doubted that he would want to talk to the top of my head over the back of the couch either.
"Sometimes I wish that you could be what you wanted, Candale. I think that it's a shame that your talent for art and storytelling will go to waste."
"It's a hard life to be a bard."
"It's a hard life to be a king, too." He turned around to look at me. "Do you ever draw your dreams?"
I hesitated before I answered, "Sometimes," I said. But they were private, not something I wanted anyone, even my grandfather, to know about. "Why?"
"Will you draw this person for me?" he asked. "The one that you believe you saw."
"I did see," I said. "And yes, all right, I will." I started to get to my feet to fetch myself a stick of charcoal, but my grandfather came toward me and caught my arm.
"You sit," he said. "I'll fetch you what you need."
"Oh," I said, feeling awkward as I hesitantly sat back down. "If you wish. It's on the shelf there." I pointed past him toward my set of six wooden shelves mounted against one wall. The shelves were a chaotic mess of figurines, feathers and rocks I had found that I liked the look of, books, charcoal sticks and pots of paint. There were even some of my childhood toys; a spinning top, a carved wooden horse and a little wooden knight, as well as a couple of puppets, tucked away. I didn't get rid of anything. Every item was something that mattered to me, held happy memories for me, but to someone else they might be a collection of miscellaneous rubbish, so I didn't like people looking too hard at them.
"I remember this," my grandfather said, picking up the small knight and his horse. "I remember nearly tripping over you many times as you insisted on playing with it underneath my throne."
"It was a cave," I told him. "And the knight went in there to fight a dragon."
"Oh." My grandfather laughed. "Indeed." He came back over to me and handed me the stick of charcoal. I took it and reached for a piece of parchment that Lykeia had brought to me with the books. He had meant for me to use the parchment for writing down notes, but I didn't think he would notice if I used one piece for another purpose. Sorron sat back down. He was clearly going to watch me do this and a part of me wondered why this was all so suddenly important to him. Another part of me didn't really care. I often drew my nightmares, it helped to get them out of my head if I put them down on paper, as though seeing them in the waking world took away any power that they might have over me. I was sure that it would work for this the same way.
I picked up a book to lean on, spread the white parchment across the top of it, and started to draw.
I wasn't sure how long I sat there for. I got caught up in it all fairly quickly. The scratch of the charcoal stick as it moved across the parchment, the way that I smudged the black soot across the page to create shadows and areas of lightness, and gradually a face took shape on the white piece of paper. It was like giving life to something. One moment there was nothing, just a blank piece of parchment and an image in my head. The next there was a face with dark black eyes staring up at me. My heart started pounding and I broke out in a cold sweat as I looked down at the face I had drawn. This was the little child I had seen in my room and, even though it was only a flat image on the white parchment, I was still afraid of it.
"There was blood under its fingernails," I whispered, handing the parchment over to my grandfather. "I-I could see it dripping down."
"Boy or girl?" my grandfather asked. He settled back in his chair with his legs crossed and the parchment balanced across his knee.
"I-I don't know," I said softly. "I think it's a girl, but I'm not sure. It terrified me."
"Yes," Sorron said. "I can see why it would. There is hopelessness in these eyes, Candale. It's dark and disturbed." He rolled up the piece of parchment. "I'm going to take it with me," he said. "If you don't mind."
I stared at him in surprise. "No," I lied. "I don't mind." I did. Of course I did. I didn't want him showing it to anyone else. It was our secret, or meant to be. Perhaps I should have made that clear before I even brought this up, that I wanted it to be a secret.
Sorron read my mind. "I won't tell anyone, Candale," he said. He got to his feet. "And I expect you not to do so either."
"But you said there was nothing in this, that I shouldn't worry about it. If ... if that's true, why do you want to keep it a secret?"
"Because it would only worry your parents, Candale, and after everything you've been through, and put them through, I think we should avoid that." He moved toward my door. "And there is nothing to worry about. You fainted and you saw something that wasn't there. I just don't think that your mother or sister will see it like that, do you?"
"No." They would worry. My mother always worried. And my sister would worry, and then she would tease me. I could do without either of that. "You're right."
"Yes," he said. "Of course I am. Why don't you go back to bed, Candale? You're looking tired."
"Yes," I said. "I am, I suppose." I got to my feet. "Thank you for co
ming to see me, Grandfather."
"Any time, Candale."
I watched him leave me, closing the door behind him firmly, and, when he was gone, I took myself back to bed.
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Chapter Four
SECRETS AND LIES
There was a taut atmosphere in the air of barely checked anger. My father and Mayrila sat at opposite ends of the room ignoring each other, their gazes directed towards me. My grandfather sat beside me and I knew that he was annoyed with their behaviour toward each other. They were acting like children and it was amusing to see my father and this woman behaving like that. A part of me wondered, again, why my father hated her so much, but I knew that no one would tell me. Although my grandfather might want to, he would choose not get involved in this. Sometimes they treated me like a child, yet they expected me to behave like an adult. It hardly seemed fair.
It was the first time I had seen Mayrila since she had healed me. She was dressed in black again and her long, dark hair was piled up high on her head. She wore faint traces of powder on her lips and eyes, but rather than bring colour to her face, it just seemed to highlight how pale she was. She made me feel nervous for reasons other than her stark, cold appearance. A witch, Gerian had called her. I wasn't sure if that was meant as a derogatory term, or simply because that was what she was. She obviously had magic of some sort, what she had done to me the night she had healed me had been more than mere medical science, but I was unable to recall exactly what had happened. I wished that it were otherwise. I was intrigued by magic and regretted that I had been unable to watch a real witch at work. The closest I had come had been the 'magic' displayed at balls and banquets, when magicians had performed for us. But my mother had claimed that it wasn't real, just slight of hand tricks. Real magic was something else, something deeper and more powerful. She said she had seen real magic when she'd been a child, and I had to admit I was jealous of her for that. Jealous of my father and grandfather, too, because they had been able to witness what had happened to me that night, whereas I could remember very little about what had saved my life.
I realised with a start that someone had asked me a question and they were looking at me, expectantly waiting for me to give them an answer. "Sorry," I said softly. "What did you say?"
"I just asked you how you were, Candale," Mayrila said.
The fact that she wasn't using my title unsettled me and it put me in my place almost instantly. I might be of royal birth, sitting here with my father and grandfather, a prince and a king, but to her I was just a patient whose life she had saved. For that, I owed her respect but she didn't owe me any.
"I'm fine," I replied. "Thank you."
"It was very close, do you know that? I nearly couldn't save you, so much damage had been to done to you."
"You said that I was poisoned," I said. Gerian shot me a hard glance. I pretended I hadn't seen it.
"I think that you were, yes," she said. "Your father doesn't agree with me, though."
I glanced at my father, expecting him to make some cutting remark, but he didn't. He just looked steadily past me, staring at a spot behind my head, but the tightness in his jaw line betrayed his annoyance. When it became clear that he wasn't going to give into temptation and voice his irritation, Mayrila smiled at me and held out her hand. "Come here," she said.
I glanced at my grandfather, who nodded his head sharply.
"I just want to have a look at you, Candale," Mayrila said. "See how well you're recovering and if there's any lasting damage."
"Oh." I got to my feet and walked toward her. She caught my hand in hers. Her skin burned against mine, and I swallowed nervously.
"Relax," she said.
"You're hot," I told her.
"Yes," she agreed. She stood up and I realised that was she was slightly taller than me, which surprised me as I was used to towering above all of the women, and most of the men, at Court, my father included. I stared up at her and she smiled at me, placing her hot, slender hands at my temples. The touch burned, like sharp, hot needles suddenly bearing into my skull. I muffled a cry of pain and surprise as I backed away from her.
"That hurt," I said childishly. "Does everything you do have to hurt?"
"Yes," my father said, from behind me.
I saw Mayrila glare at him before she turned back to look at me.
"It isn't done on purpose," she said. "Look into my eyes, Candale, and it won't hurt you."
I was doubtful about that and, to be honest, the last thing I wanted was to look up into her eyes. It was such an intimate thing to do, but I didn't see that I had that much choice. I stared up at her, meeting her violet gaze, and she put her hands back against my temples.
I felt the brief, sharp sensation of heat again, but this time I barely registered it. As I stared into Mayrila's eyes, everything seemed to fall away from me. Her eyes were all violet, even the pupil in the middle, and they seemed to grow into deep pits that drew me in. Soon there was nothing but those violet eyes and shadows that swelled and shifted around me. My stomach twisted as the world started to swing and the floor beneath me began to tilt. I tried to straighten out, to balance myself against it, but that seemed to make it worse, as everything began to dance, although nothing was moving at all.
And through it all, through all the moving, swirling blackness, I swear that I heard a voice singing to me.
"Five rings of silver,
Five rings of gold,
Five rings of stone,
For a secret to be told
Six rings of silver,
Six rings of gold,
The rings of stone have fallen
Ellenessia comes."
"Song makes no sense," I muttered. "It doesn't even rhyme properly."
"What song?" Mayrila asked me.
Strong arms encircled my shoulders as I swayed suddenly and Gerian was there helping me back to my seat. His blue eyes, when they met mine, were heavy with concern and suspicion. "What did you do?" he snapped at Mayrila.
"Nothing," she said. "But, if you're that concerned, shouldn't you have asked my intentions before I was allowed to lay my hands on your son?"
Gerian whirled around to face her, his back straight and shoulders squared, ready for a confrontation. "Of course I'm concerned," he barked at her. "This is my son here. My son! You told me that you had to examine him, you left me with no choice, but you assured me that what you had to do to him wouldn't hurt him. Yet he turned white as a sheet and almost fell over. Clearly you've lied! So I ask again, what did you do to my son?"
"I did not do anything to your son," Mayrila replied. "He's still weak. Perhaps the touch of my magic unsettled him."
"Perhaps," Gerian said slowly, in a tone of voice I knew to be wary of. "Or perhaps you're lying. We all know what you really think about Candale. You can't pretend that we don't. Tell me what you did to my son!"
"I don't know," I said softly. "What does she think of me?"
At the sound of my voice my father suddenly seemed to remember where he was and he quickly struggled to control himself and hide his anger as he turned to face my grandfather. "We should discuss this elsewhere," he said.
"I agree." Sorron rose to his feet. "Candale, you stay here. Someone will come by and keep you company later. Perhaps you would like the new bard to be sent to you to keep you entertained?"
"No." I stood up and met my grandfather's gaze. "If you're going to discuss me I think I should be there."
"No," Sorron said. "We're not going to discuss you. We're going to discuss what Mayrila did to you just now. You don't need to be present, Candale, and I would prefer it if you stayed here. We will see you later, of course. For supper, as you did say that you would try and make it down tonight."
That sounded more like an order that I attend, rather than a request. It didn't matter, I wasn't concerned with supper, I was concerned with what they were going to say about me behind my back. I glanced at Mayrila. Her lips were set in
a hard line as she looked back at me, but there was an odd look of satisfaction in her eyes. I wondered why. Then I looked back at my father and grandfather and opened my mouth to object.
My father cut in. "Sit down," he told me sternly.
"But-"
"Sit down now, while you still can."
I wasn't an idiot. I saw the threat in his eyes, so I did as told. "This isn't fair," I said, trying not to sound sulky. "You're going to talk about me. I'm not foolish enough that you can convince me otherwise, and I should be there. I think that I should know about what you're going to say about me."
"Why?" my father asked. He crossed his arms over his chest.
I stared at him. Why indeed? It was unfair of them to discuss me without my presence, but I knew enough of life to know that most things were unfair. The fact that I was curious was certainly not a good enough reason and would hold no sway over my father, let alone my grandfather, who spent so much of his time trying to educate me about the dangers of idle curiosity. No, I had no good reason why they should include me in their discussion. "Because I should be there," I said finally.
"That's not good enough, Candale," my father replied. "Come up with a better reason and I might consider letting you in on future conversations, perhaps even the ones that concern you."
I stared at him in dismay, not even sure how to begin to protest an argument to that and, while I was sitting there in stunned silence, they left the room, leaving me alone.
When I had been a child I had been curious about the conversations my father and grandfather had when they sent me from the room, so I had spied on them. It had never really been interesting to me, but the fact that I was listening in on conversations they hadn't wanted me to hear had kept me doing it, even if I couldn't understand half of what they had been saying. My mother had caught me at it one day and my father had thrashed me soundly and sent me to my room for a week, a long time to a child. But it had been the look in my grandfather's eyes, more than the thrashing and the lecture, that had stopped me from spying again. He had been so disappointed in me. I was his first grandchild, his favourite, I had always known that, and he had felt betrayed. I had never spied again on him, or my father, even when the opportunity had been there. And sometimes they had made it so easy for me.