Tarbaby Trouble [Mudflat 1]

by Phoebe Matthews

  "You could always hand him over to Ober's guards. If, of course, you don't ever want to see him again."

  Nance threw up her hands and made a gasping noise.

  I waited.

  Her beliefs weren't mine. She had to settle in her own mind how far out of bounds she was willing to go. There were purposes for which I would not use my knowledge of astrology, such as advising Kovat on slaughtering innocent people, or helping a couple of felon wannabes back home, so I knew how Nance felt. She had to make her own choice about the use of the temple.

  "We cannot use the high rituals of the sacred days,” she decided finally, “but we can wear the best robes and lengthen the chants."

  We arranged Tarvik in a comfortable position on the rugs, folding a sheepskin to pillow his head and covering him with another blanket, then left him.

  As Nance tore at my hair and hung robes about me that nearly equaled my own weight, my fear for Tarvik turned to envy. I'd trade places any time. He could chant, I could nap.

  By midday we both resembled altar decorations more than people. The robes Nance chose were so covered with jewels and gold threads, the cloth could barely be seen beneath the ornaments. They were so heavy, I feared I would stumble and end up sprawled on the altar. My hair was an itching nest of glitter.

  Nance had tied a band of silk over my bruised forehead, then arranged a chain to dangle a heavy gold ornament between my eyes. Occasionally, when I moved my head, it caught and reflected light and I found myself cross-eyed from watching it. Nance added paint on paint until my face in the mirror looked more like the picture above the altar than the Daughter herself could have done.

  Before entering the temple's main room, we had one last attempt at waking Tarvik. I patted his face and called his name softly and rubbed his hands. Nance would not bother to limit her effort.

  She emptied a flask of water by dashing it into his face.

  "Nance! Stop! That serves no purpose. Oh. Wait. Did his eyelids move?"

  "Tarvik, wake up, you useless lump,” she scolded, grabbing his shoulders and shaking him so hard that his head snapped back and forth.

  "Don't, you'll hurt him,” I said.

  "Tarvik, you must wake up,” she wailed. “Please, Tarvik, do hear me, wherever you are!"

  For a moment I thought I saw the muscles in his jaw tighten, but then his head drooped. I pried away Nance's clawing hands and lowered him back into the blankets.

  "No use doing any more,” I told her. “All you'll do is bruise him. His mind is going to stay asleep until the drug wears off and there is nothing more we can do. Come on, we must so impress these people they don't dare think of searching the temple beyond the altar room."

  Ober, Alakar, and a small following of servants and guards entered the temple at our choice of time and at our command. Score one for us.

  While I murmured memorized chants, my mind worried away at other ideas. If Ober feared the powers of the Daughter, she would never have plotted against Tarvik. Therefore, she must fear I had unknown powers. Perhaps she also feared Kovat would return suddenly. Because she knew he had stopped at the temple to speak to me, she must be frantic to learn his plans.

  On the chance that she suspected I possessed a magic greater than her own supply of trickery, I needed to do what I could to keep her believing this.

  My grandmother, may her soul rest in peace, knew odd bits of magic. Among other things, she could open her fist, turn it palm up, and she appeared to be holding a small ball of fire. Very impressive for about thirty seconds. She tried to teach the trick to me but I never mastered it so I don't think it was a magician's trick, I think it was real magic. Like so many of the residents of Mudflat, my grandmother had touches of real magic, the kind that's inherited, not learned. Unfortunately, I hadn't inherited that fire-in-hand bit. It would have impressed Ober, I bet.

  While I stood motionless and tried to look magical, whatever that looks like, Nance chanted endlessly, breaking into the ritual words with occasional reassurances.

  "The Daughter has removed from our beloved city the evil presence of the magician of Thunder as easily as she once removed from our beloved ruler the evil presence of fever,” she murmured.

  Alakar and Ober glanced at each other. Facing them, I could see their doubts.

  When Nance paused, Ober said, “And what, oh priest of the Daughter, has become of the ruler's son? Has the Daughter removed him also?"

  "Those whom the Daughter loves will remain ever in her protection,” Nance chanted, and it pleased me to hear her. I had suffered through enough of her lessons. This time it was Nance who had memorized what I told her to say.

  "Where is Tarvik?” Ober demanded.

  "As she moves the clouds and frees the sun, so has the Daughter moved the prince closer to herself so she may even now heal him of some evil spell visited upon him. As she saved his father, so does she now save the son. When he has absorbed the power of her healing, he will again be made visible to his devoted people. Now, let us together thank the Daughter for her ever watchful care of our beloved son of Kovat."

  When Nance said some evil had been directed at Tarvik, Ober did that paler shade of white thing. She must have figured that if we knew Tarvik had been poisoned, we might also know the poisoner. I kept my face blank.

  Nance began a chant that was going to last well past my ability to stand silently. Not bound to do so, I turned and circled the altar, swinging my arms and a lamp in empty gestures allowing me to move and stretch inside the weight of my robe. I hoped Ober, too, had passed a sleepless night and would soon decide to return to the comforts of her room.

  As I turned from the altar, I faced the archway entrance from the temple to Nance's rooms. The others stood with their backs to the opening, facing the altar. I bit my lip to hold back a cry of surprise.

  In the shadows, unnoticed by any of them, stood Tarvik. He stood with his feet apart, his hips forward and his shoulders back, in that slightly slouched stance I had seen when he faced an opponent on the day of the games, just before he drew his sword, lunged forward, and attacked. Lucky for somebody that his sword was back in his room, hanging on the wall. I would have raised a finger to my lips to warn him, but then I saw I didn't need to.

  His face was hard, his mouth tight with anger, his eyes narrowed. He aimed all his fury in his glare, staring through the temple gloom at the soft glow of red-gold hair that framed the pale face of Alakar.

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Chapter 15

  Ober's voice rose above Nance's chant. “Do you try to tell me the prince is now invisible? Do you mean you have not seen him and know nothing of where he may be?"

  "The Daughter of the Sun protects—” Nance began.

  "Stop! I do not care to hear that again. I have asked a direct question of you, Nance,” Ober cried.

  Gotta say, that brought out a dead silence.

  At the center of the room, directly beneath the hanging lamp, Nance stood with her arms outstretched, her hair and robes glittering in the flickering light of candle flames. Facing her were Ober, wrapped in fur, and Alakar, dressed in velvet, backed by a cluster of Ober's guards. Our own guards waited beyond the door in the courtyard, which was better all around. They would have fallen on their faces in terror to hear Ober shout at Kovat's priest in the presence of the altar.

  I was proud of Nance. She stood motionless and let the echoes of Ober's cry shock every listener.

  Although they did not belong to the temple of the Daughter, Ober's guards knew Erlan and his family, and therefore themselves, were under the rule of Kovat. They knew his faith. Ober might as well have shouted insults at Kovat himself.

  Softly Nance said, “Consort of the younger brother of mighty Kovat, do you question the knowledge I have been given by the Daughter of the Sun?"

  Ober hesitated. Tight lines pulled at her mouth and eyes. She said, “I do not question the wisdom of the Daughter. I question only of where the prince may be, driven as I am by my loyalty
to our ruler and his son. If I speak improperly in the temple, the Daughter must be begged to forgive me. My concern is for our dear Tarvik."

  Nance nodded but did not reply. I knew she was thinking through all the possible questions and answers we had discussed earlier. Apparently she couldn't remember anything that seemed to answer Ober's words, because she began another long chant from the rituals.

  I turned to look again for Tarvik.

  He was gone.

  Joining Nance in front of the altar, I helped her move and swing about the candles and added my voice to her chanting. Her hands trembled. If her voice faltered, I'd have to cover. How long could we continue like that?

  A fist, or perhaps the hilt of a sword, banged on the outer door. Ober and her party swung around to face the noise. The doors flew open, their weight tearing at the hinges, or so it sounded to me.

  In the center of the daylit opening stood Tarvik.

  I grabbed the candleholder from Nance before she dropped it. My voice hid her sudden silence.

  I cried out, “Your faithful servants thank you, kind Daughter, for the care and return of the son of Kovat."

  The effort was wasted. No one paid any attention to Nance or me, not even Tarvik. He walked swiftly into the temple. Behind him followed the temple guards. Beyond them, in the open gateway to the courtyard, I could see a growing crowd of Tarvik's castle guards led by Artur.

  Tarvik stopped in front of Ober and planted his feet in that solid stance.

  In a voice as low and quiet as death, he said, “You will leave my city and take all of your people with you, Ober. I shall allow you to pack what is needed for your journey homeward, but you must be gone by sunset."

  Ober rushed toward him with outstretched arms. The fury in his face stopped her.

  She stood in front of him, her hands raised, and attempted to smile. “We were to winter here until the return of my husband and your father!"

  Tarvik glared at her but said nothing.

  Ober continued, “What will our ruler think on his return if we leave without his permission?"

  His thoughts crossed his scowling face as he decided what to say. He spoke in that low flat tone that covered anger he could barely control.

  "Will you remain then and explain to Kovat that Alakar came to my room last night and mixed for me with her own hands a drink? Shall I keep for him the locket she wears so he may see within it the traces of the powder she added to my drink?"

  Ober reached out to him with both hands, as she smiled and tilted her head and gazed at him from the corners of her half-closed eyes.

  "It was no more than a love potion,” she told him, her voice all sugar. “Is it so wrong for my daughter to desire to win your love and wish to speed the plans for your marriage?"

  Tarvik said softly, “A strange love potion, Ober, that puts a man into a sleep from which he cannot wake. It was my fortune that my father warned me of you before he left, and my fortune that the Daughter of the Sun protected me."

  Her body went rigid.

  Alakar cried out, “Kovat warned you?"

  Ober glared at her daughter and Alakar covered her face with her hands as though she expected to be struck.

  Tarvik spun away from them both and hurried out of the temple. His guards remained at the gate.

  Ober's glare turned on Nance and me.

  Okay, so now she knew why Kovat had sought me out. All her suspicion, hatred and wish for revenge were there to see. And her fear. She did not know how we had managed to save Tarvik. Easy to see she was afraid to touch me, not knowing what magic I possessed. Even Nance couldn't come up with a chant to match the situation.

  We watched silently as Ober and her party left the temple.

  When they were gone, Nance whispered, “She was so angry she almost broke her own spell."

  Knowing Nance half-believed the lifedrainer tales, I said, “What a pity, I had hoped Ober would conjure up a hairy beast with leather wings."

  "Or turn into one,” Nance assured me. “Some say the sorcerers are the lifedrainers."

  The long night's vigil, to mention nothing of being manhandled by the deathwalker, plus hauling around Tarvik's dead weight, had done me in. I would be glad to see Ober, Alakar and their guards leave, but all I really wanted to do was shed my temple robes and decorations and collapse on my bed of sheepskins.

  In the late afternoon we watched through a crack in the outer gate as the procession wound slowly down the hill toward Erlan's lands. They followed the valley road until they rounded the hill's base and moved out of our sight. Ober and Alakar sat proudly on their horses, spines stiff, heads high. They wore heavy cloaks lined with fur and their woven scarves were wrapped around their heads and pulled forward to hide their faces. Their escort of guards walked in front and in back of them. At the rear, Ober's servants led several smaller horses loaded with bundles.

  "Hmm, I do regret that no request was sent to the temple to provide an escort. We would have been so thrilled to comply,” Nance said and giggled.

  "Weird. Nobody asked about the deathwalker. Maybe they think he stayed behind to spy."

  Nance and I ate our evening meal, and while she stirred up our fire in the courtyard I flipped open the lock on the gate. Then we settled down on a pile of sheepskins and leaned back against a stone bench, our bare feet outstretched to the flames. The smoke drifted in the chill air and blended with the late autumn smell of dry grass.

  We both knew we waited for Tarvik. He wouldn't stay put in the castle surrounded only by guards and slaves, not now. He wouldn't consider them suitable listeners and he'd want to know what had happened while he was out.

  When the guard at last knocked on the gate, Nance didn't waste breath asking who was there, but called out, “Enter, Tarvik."

  He closed the gate behind himself before joining us. He was wrapped in fur and wore heavy boots that looked like sheepskin with the skin side out, very warm. The boy's wardrobe never ceased to impress me. Gee, I hadn't even seen a closet in his room, so where did he keep the stuff? Maybe Artur did double duty as a butler and delivered his outfits from a walk-in closet down the hall. I wanted to ask him but maybe now wasn't the time.

  Sitting down on the ground near us, he stared into the flames.

  "It's no good acting cross,” Nance said. “I suppose you feel very important now that you have ordered Ober and Alakar out of your city, but you are not Kovat. Although your guards are undoubtedly amazed by you, Stargazer and I still think of you as a pampered, stupid boy and a dead weight to carry."

  Tarvik frowned, started to rise, then settled back down and drew his furs tighter around himself.

  "You must stop drinking anything anyone hands you,” Nance added. “And you must eat less. If you get any heavier, we cannot possibly save you next time."

  "Why did you save me this time?” he asked, still not looking at us.

  "As for that, I prefer you to rule the city than be ruled by Ober. How did you know about Alakar's locket?"

  Tarvik watched the fire to avoid meeting our stares. “Alakar came to my room and said she wished to speak alone with me. She has never done that before. I was surprised but I had no reason to refuse her."

  "No, no, that would be beyond rude,” Nance chided.

  "And why should I be rude to Alakar? She was courteous to me, which is more than I receive from you. And so she entered and we spoke."

  "Of what did you speak?"

  He glared at Nance. “That is not for your knowing. It was nothing, just, um, talk. She said she would prepare my evening drink. I was on the far side of the room beneath a lamp looking at a finger ring she had handed me. She said the ring was her gift to me. She said it had belonged to Erlan and asked if I knew what the markings on it meant. But I could not see the markings in the shadows and I looked up to tell her so.

  "That is when I saw her open her locket and shake powder into my cup."

  "You saw her add powder but you drank it?” I asked.

  "Some of th
e women, umm, I know they still believe in love potions. I thought she had got something like that. Those powders are harmless."

  "But why would you drink it at all, no matter what you thought it was? Tarvik, I warned you about Ober. Did you think I was joking?” I demanded.

  "This wasn't Ober, it was Alakar,” he mumbled. “A love potion could not hurt me. And Alakar was promised to me."

  Nance giggled and cried out, “Oh, I see! Do you not understand, Stargazer? Tarvik thought he would drink the harmless love potion and then throw himself at the beautiful Alakar and let the silly girl think it was her own potion that had roused his passion. She could only blame herself."

  I thought in another moment Tarvik might throw himself at Nance, with passion, all right, but not the kind she meant.

  To change subjects, I hoped, I said, “But where was your guard Artur?"

  "He has a family. I gave him the night free to visit them."

  "No fun being alone with Alakar if Artur is watching,” Nance teased.

  Tarvik growled at her and I said quickly, “When did you figure out Alakar had tricked you?"

  He glared at Nance, then turned to me and said, “I knew last night. Soon after I drank, the room grew larger, then smaller around me. I could see Alakar watching me. Inside I turned to nothing. My strength left me and I could not stand. I fell into a corner and even then she watched and did not reach out a hand to help me. When I woke in the temple I knew Alakar had drugged me and in some way you and Nance had saved me."

  As there were parts of the previous night I preferred not to explain, such as how I had spied on the women from the secret passageway where I was not supposed to be, and saw Ober mix the powders, I spoke quickly. If my words left him with the idea that my knowledge of Ober came from my magic star charts, that shouldn't backfire.

  "Ober's stars show evil, Tarvik, that's why I had to talk to the magician. He told me Ober knew how to mix poisons. Nance and I came to warn you, but we were too late. So we had to trade the magician his freedom for a potion to save you."

  In one circling of the sun, Tarvik had been poisoned by his promised love, woke in a forbidden chamber of the temple, cast out his uncle's family, and learned Nance and I had set free the captive magician. As I hoped, it was so much information he didn't go back to pick out the gaps in my explanation, didn't even ask how I learned about Ober's treachery or how Nance and I entered his room to find him. How we managed to carry him to the temple, or even how we managed to get the magician out of prison, all that stuff went unquestioned.