A Ragged Magic

by Lindsey S. Johnson

  “You mean Baron Wolff. Ste— we were not close.” Connor’s right eyebrow raises. His hand is clenched tightly.

  “Well,” continues Juliana, “Rhiannon here can be your long-lost kin.”

  It is my turn to raise eyebrows.

  As she turns to me, Julianna pats my hands and smiles, trying to reassure. “This will be fine. Gantry thinks you’re dead, you know. He thinks you were burned with the pestilence victims, and he’ll never recognize you when I’m done with you. Not to worry, this will be fine.” She stands after squeezing my hands one last time and walks to Connor’s side.

  I can’t help but think of Gantry’s eyes blazing a livid amethyst as he chanted demon fire into my soul. I shiver, remembering screams, the inhalation of bael-fire, the burning. Gantry screamed I was useless. Useless for what? Burning? And if he uses demons in spells, does it matter if he believes me dead? Surely tainted as I am with demon breath and runes he will know me.

  Julianna shakes her head at Connor, frowning. He speaks too low for me to hear; I lose myself in worry.

  Gantry’s presence in the castle is a palpable weight in the air. I fancy I can hear his footsteps reverberate through the walls. Shrinking even smaller in my bedclothes, I try to forget his face, the face of death, Keenan crimson-faced and kicking in the town square. Demons swirl around him and the bodies of my parents, slack like dangling puppets.

  “Rhiannon!” Julianna calls my name again. I look quickly at her, the fear plain in my eyes. “I won’t let him harm you. Please believe me.”

  Tears gather in my eyes, but I nod at her command and try to muster enough courage to breathe.

  My life is this now. It could be worse. I could be given to demons.

  ～

  Julianna’s plan to hide me in plain sight takes over my every day. She asks me hundreds of questions as she grooms me for a handmaid and changes my appearance. Some changes have already been done for her: scars from torture and fever have left of me much less than I was.

  After an awkward girlhood of being short and sturdy, I shot up to rangy and too tall, but still sturdy. My red hair has always been my only distinguishing feature. Now I look at myself in a silver mirror almost too heavy for me to hold.

  Normally faint freckles jump out stark against my translucent skin. Dark hollows in my cheeks explain why Julianna brings me bread and thick goat’s milk on trays whenever she visits.

  My body feels distant; I don’t think of it as mine. I try not to see myself when I wash or change clothes. My fingers feel sharp ridges that aren’t scarring, but ribs and hipbones.

  I reach my hand up to my hair and pull a short curl slowly through my fingers. Another thick lock drops to join the others on the floor around me. Julianna lifts the scissors and surveys her work critically.

  “Did Gantry ever see you before you were caught?”

  I feel a little dizzy as the long strands drop. I always wanted short hair. Mother never allowed it.

  “No, Highness.” It seems silly to cry over hair, after everything else. I opt for tingling giddiness, instead.

  “Did you spend much time here at the castle? And stop moving.”

  The afternoon sun fires glints in another lock as it cascades down my shoulder. I hold the mirror steady, look past it.

  “No, Highness. I wasn’t involved in guild dealing. My father came here, but on his own, to meet with the duchess. Linnet wasn’t old enough. She hasn’t even had her coming-out ball yet,” I add, realizing it suddenly. That was to be next summer, after her fifteenth birthday. Her fourteenth was just a week ago. With all that’s happened, I forgot.

  Many things were to happen next year: Linnet’s coming-out ball, my marriage to Francis Danwright, and Keenan’s ordination were all planned. My life has been stalled, detoured, and all the careful preparations of my family were for nothing. I feel a guilty relief that at least I don’t have to explain things to Francis — he never cared to listen much to me. I doubt he feels other than revulsion for me now, in any case.

  Julianna steps back from clipping, her face thoughtful. “I haven’t come back to Haverston in several years; not since before I married Alexander. Usually Hugh comes to court for the season, but circumstances being what they are …” She draws a long strand out and snips carefully. “Well, Alexander is at the border of Fanthas, negotiating the peace treaty along with Cardinal Robere. And court has become rather tiresome without him.”

  I look up, and she straightens my head while she brushes my hair back from my face. “He hasn’t visited but once, and was home so briefly that we barely …” She trails off, teasing a few more curls out, to check their length.

  I See a charming smile, dark hair, a tallish man surrounded by laughing, smirking faces. The man pulls a woman into his arms, but it isn’t Julianna. And I See Julianna frowning at him from across a courtyard. He smiles at her, then down at the woman in his arms, bright and innocent. He doesn’t mean either smile.

  I shake out of the vision, blink at Julianna. I don’t think she’d want me to know that.

  Connor enters the tower room with a scowl on his face. He takes a small bag of bread from under his tunic, empties it on the plate on the table and drips honey on it from a small stoppered jar. He bows briefly to Julianna, and then steps back, frowning at me critically.

  “Let me look.” He walks around me, and I twist my head to keep him in sight. The sun glints off his velveteen doublet, black like his hair. The bronze cast to his skin and his high, sharp cheekbones make me wonder if his someone of his family were from Zohar, or even Indranah.

  “Look straight ahead,” he commands, and reaches to turn my face forward. His hands on my neck are warm and gentle, and I realize how cold I am without my hair. I shiver and he steps back.

  “It’s uneven.” He turns and grabs a piece of bread. “Eat something.” He drops it in my hand and strides to the narrow windows to look out.

  “Well, she was supposed to be in a fire. We can say it burned unevenly. I’ll have someone else cut it once she’s officially here,” Julianna says, miffed. “I don’t usually cut hair, you know. Perhaps you should do it.”

  Connor turns from the window quickly. “No, no, it’s fine. I am sorry, my lady. I had trouble getting the bread away from the kitchen. The servants wonder what you do up here, and I can’t always sneak food quickly.” His brows draw together as he looks at the culprit in my hand, and I bite my lips, look for a place to put it down.

  “You’ve told them I requested not to be disturbed?”

  He nods.

  “Make up something, Connor.” She shrugs. “And spread the rumor. I am meditating and praying for my husband to hurry home. It’s too cold for walks in the garden. I need quiet to study for a cure for the Wasting. People believe what they will, in any case. And I’m only here for a few hours a day. Surely you can come up with something that will satisfy them.”

  Connor shrugs uncomfortably. “There is a rumor that you and I are …” He turns away.

  I stare at my hand holding the bread, watching the honey drip slowly down the side of the thick bread, onto my thumb.

  “Are what?” Julianna laughs, her hands over her mouth. “A tryst, you and I? Oh, Connor, how could anyone believe that? How insane!”

  I bite my lips and steal a glance at him. Still looking out the window, his shoulders hunch.

  “It is a dangerous rumor, my lady. I think you shouldn’t come up here anymore. I’ll come on my own, and take care of Rhiannon.”

  “But Connor …”

  He turns, his jaw hard. “She is supposed to be my ward, yes? My cousin? I’ll teach her what she must know, your Highness. And in one week I shall present her to you as your new handmaid. In the meanwhile, you should be about your own business. Without me.”

  Julianna looks stricken. “But Connor, I need you. You’re my escort. Whom shall I take instead?”

  “One of the duchess’ handmaids, for a chaperone. There’ll be less gossip about them.” His voice firm, he
turns from her to me. “Eat that, you need your strength.”

  I lower my gaze to the bread, and the honey seeping down my hand.

  “One week isn’t enough time, Connor. She’s only just recovered. Her lungs still aren’t right, and —”

  “It will have to be enough. It’s been two months since my cousins perished in that fire, and I’d have found her a place by now. Any awkwardness or weakness can be blamed on the circumstances.”

  Julianna purses her lips, puts the scissors down on the chest and begins to pace.

  “I don’t want her here too soon. Gantry can’t be allowed to put it all together. And once Linnet arrives, people might recognize them.”

  Connor sighs. “Then perhaps we should abandon this plan, my lady,” he says gravely.

  “No,” she says. “I will think of something. We can change Linnet’s appearance, as well, and change their names. It’s been three weeks since the … hanging.”

  Connor glances at me, worry in his eyes. “No. Changing their names is too risky. They won’t remember them at a critical moment,” he says, his voice quiet but firm.

  Her pacing quickens. I grow dizzy just watching her, her pale gown swirling and sweeping clumps of fiery hair about. “Linnet is a common enough name. And she’ll only be here a short while, before we send both of them on to Corat. Marla’s own daughter is named Linnet.”

  “But Rhiannon is less common,” Connor insists. “Even if her hair is short —”

  “And brown. When I’m finished it will be short and brown. And we can shorten her name. In the Indrani language, the word for river is Rhia. I’ve heard the name at court.” She turns to me, her gaze locking on mine. “What do you think? Rhia Wolff fitzWellan. Will it do?”

  I raise the bread to my mouth, nibble the edge with the dripping honey. It doesn’t matter what I think. Her lambent gaze mesmerizes us both, and Connor and I acquiesce. Rhia Wolff fitzWellan shall present herself when the princess desires, to be the princess’ new handmaid. She shall be thin, pale, and ill. A bad bargain, indeed.

  ～

  Connor works to ready me for a handmaid. These lessons are so different from my former life. I was a daughter of the guilds, a bookworm, an awkward girl on the cusp of marriage. My mother despaired of my embroidery and told me to stop slouching all the time. Now I am to be a noble lady, ward to an Earl, handmaid to a princess. It’s quite a different path than the one I thought I’d tread.

  To be a guildwoman, to marry a man in the guilds, that was my future. Or I could have joined the kirche. Keenan begged me to do just that, but I didn’t want to.

  Now, now I understand what Keenan meant, when he said it would be safer if I joined the kirche. I wish I had believed him. But better a handmaid with a future than a witch with none. I walk around the tower room daily until my weak lungs and legs protest in shivers and shakes. I must be strong enough for this role.

  I know Connor fears I won’t be. His gaze stabs me with his worry as he drills me in the names and standing of the Wolff family.

  The Wolff family was smallish and backwoods. Baron and Baroness Wolff had a son and two daughters, all some years younger than I. But no one here knows that, and they were rather a country cousin to Connor’s family.

  He doesn’t speak of the rest of his family at all. He is an Earl; he is cousin somehow to the princess. He seems to think I should know of him, and I haven’t admitted I don’t recognize his name or title.

  He’s my only kin in Talaria, he tells me. I don’t know the name fitzWellan, and Dorward is far to the east — but if his family has other, more important titles I would merely have heard the most prominent. I know only the grim way he has of saying “family,” and that dark look in his eyes. I remind myself to investigate the fitzWellans later.

  My own family looks darkly at me from their graves. If indeed they have graves; Julianna has not said, and I’m afraid to ask. But I feel a ghost of Keenan’s mind in mine, or want to tell him something interesting that I’m learning, and sharp loneliness stabs me. The silent spot in my head aches; I reach for Keenan and sob in sudden bursts of grief that he isn’t there.

  Until I close my eyes. There he stares accusingly at me, with Mum and Da, and they all dangle and twitch as though they’re puppets dancing. Sometimes I don’t sleep.

  I cling to the thought that Linnet is safe. She’s supposed to come to Haverston soon, although I’m afraid it’s too dangerous. But there is hardly any staff at the duke’s country estates when he isn’t in residence, and he must bring her back here. I almost look forward to her coming, despite the danger of discovery: I miss her sunny smile.

  Chapter Five

  At last it’s the day Connor will present me to Julianna as his cousin. I lift my head from my blankets with effort. The night lasted an eternity, and my limbs lie heavy. Woozily I reach out for the water goblet on the table. Dawn haze shimmers about the tower room; I hear the gulls cry for their breakfast.

  Evil dreams and haunts fill my head from my restless sleep. When my eyes close, I see the ghouls again. They reach their hands for me and I flinch, shudder away.

  I reach out for Keenan’s mind, for comfort and reassurance, and again remember …

  Sagging back in the bed, I throw my arm over my eyes. I am too tired for today.

  Connor knocks on my door and enters without waiting, as usual.

  I wonder if he’s this rude to everyone, or just to me. I hear him set something on the table and feel a bundle land on my legs.

  “Hurry, I need to get you to the carriage before morning bells.”

  I lift my arm and look at him.

  His back to me, he pulls a black gown out of a long sack. The gown is wrinkled and some the worse for wear. A dark veil of mourning follows the gown, all tossed on the bed along with a threadbare cloak.

  He turns, gestures to the clothes. “Get into these, eat what you can, and hurry.” He strides out, the dim light making him a shadow among shadows. I hear the door close.

  My shoulders, cold from the brisk air, ache as I try to draw a full breath. Muscles stiff from poor sleep protest. I slowly lift the heavy covers and swing my legs over the side of the bed.

  More thick bread lies on the table, next to a ewer of goat’s milk just as thick. I pour myself a cup of it, although I have always hated milk. It clogs in my throat, frothy and slick, and I shove bread quickly down after it. Connor is right — I mustn’t appear too sickly. I can think of more agreeable ways of fattening me up, however.

  I dread getting dressed, dread the day ahead. First Connor will smuggle me out of the castle, so that I can enter through more normal channels. Then the charade begins, and my new life. I owe Julianna my life, and my sister’s as well. I sigh and put on the clothes Connor left.

  The black gown hangs loose through the bodice, the wool gaping a little where it should pull tight. Fortunately that adds some length to the otherwise too-short garment. But I suppose I cannot appear in borrowed servant’s clothes and Julianna’s fur slippers. Connor said he was ordering me a wardrobe, but he couldn’t get it into the castle in time. This must be what he could come up with for now.

  Fastening the veil takes more time than I thought — short hair makes the process more difficult. I worry the skirts will show the scars on my legs.

  Connor strides in again before I finish with the veil. “Good enough, don’t worry about that yet. Get into the chest.”

  I try not to shudder as I turn to look at the dark wooden chest. It sits innocuously empty in the corner. The linens that filled it lie on the floor beside it, folded neatly. I fear this next step more than meeting the duchess. I fear hiding in that small space, waiting for Connor.

  I try to stall. “Where are you taking me?” A question he has yet to answer.

  “Hurry, just get in. I don’t have time to explain,” he orders. I find that’s true of Connor in general.

  Pressing my lips together, I gather the skirts tightly in one hand and step into the chest cautiously. I wonde
r if Connor ever has any time, or if he finds it convenient to never explain.

  I wobble precariously and he catches my shoulder to steady me. I turn to look at him, his face no more than a few inches from mine. His eyes blink once, twice, and he looks down. He frowns in consternation.

  “You’ll have more clothes to choose from later today. I’ll bring you some shoes, as well,” he says as he helps me down into the chest. There’s just enough room for me if I scrunch small on my back with my knees sideways. A thin pad lines the bottom of the chest. Connor begins to cover me with the sack.

  “And stockings,” I add, stalling a little longer. I hold my hands close to my face, keeping the sack from smothering me.

  The lid hesitates in its descent. “And stockings,” I hear him sigh. The lid shuts and latches, and I hear straps fastening above me. The only light is through a crack in the seal near my head.

  I hold the sack off my face as best I can, keep my eyes on that small splinter of light. Forcing myself to breathe as evenly as I can, I fight off panic that boils through my blood. I am not trapped, this is not a trap, it is a hiding place, I must stay still, I must stay quiet …

  I feel the bumps of the uneven floor as Connor pulls the chest out of the tower room. “Don’t move, and don’t make any noise. I’ll let you out when it’s time.”

  I hold onto the rough whisper of his voice, put it between my mind and fear. My eyes lock on my sliver of light.

  Footsteps thump up the stairs, and the door to the tower room clicks shut suddenly behind me. Men’s voices murmur around me. Shadows pass over my light and I pray silently to Dorei and the Star Lord. Please don’t let them discover me.

  My small dark world jumps and tips as the chest lifts. Low grunts as they settle the chest, and I hear Connor direct them to his carriage. It is a long way down out of the castle. The chest thumps into the carriage, with a hiss from someone, and the carriage rocks as Connor climbs in and the door shuts behind him.

  I feel trembles starting in my legs, and I quietly count my breaths in and out, try not to shudder. My lips and mouth slowly parch.