A Sorcerer’s Treason

by Sarah Zettel

  But what of this sorceress who was supposed to have borne him a child? There the ladies just shook their heads. No one knew much about her. Some said she had never set foot in Isavalta at all. Some said Medeoan in a fit of pique as a young woman had exiled Avanasy, and he found the sorceress beyond the world’s end and it was she who warned him that Hung-Tse intended to unleash the Phoenix onto Isavalta. Another said no, he had gone in search of her and seduced her into giving up the secret after he himself had learned of the Nine Elders’ plans.

  It was all written in the histories, they agreed. But not one of them had actually read any of those. A liberal arts education did not seem to be required for the work of being a lady-in-waiting.

  Then, an idea struck Bridget, and her chin rose. “Lady Gali,” she said. “Is there a library in this place?”

  “A library?” the lady repeated, as if she had never thought of such a word before.

  “A place with books, references, histories.” Especially histories. “You learned to read somewhere, I presume.”

  “There is indeed a library,” said Lady Richikha, stepping between Bridget and Lady Gali’s affronted frown. “But I was given to understand that my mistress was uninterested in books.”

  “Your mistress is completely illiterate in your language,” Bridget corrected her. “But you are not, and I would like to educate myself. Perhaps you would be so good as to show me the way to the library?”

  “But mistress,” fluttered round, brown Lady Iadviga, who all this time had been sitting as close to the firepit as she could get without falling in. “The lord sorcerer orders that you should rest — ”

  “And I am certain that a room as civilized as a library is well supplied with chairs where I may take my ease,” said Bridget in a tone to indicate she did not welcome contradiction. She picked up the shawl embroidered with stylized birds and stone towers that lay across the arm of the nearest chair. “Lady Richikha, shall we go?”

  Which left the girl in a rather unenviable position, Bridget had to admit, caught in between her orders, Lady Gali’s glower and Lady Iadviga’s nervous, pleading look. She drew herself up to make some answer, but before it came out, the door opened and the little girl dressed in a blue kaftan with gold sash who was stationed out there came in.

  Ignoring the variety of expressions around her, the child executed a graceful reverence, as the style of bowing around here seemed to be called, and said to Bridget, “If it pleases you, mistress, your dress is here for your approval.” She stood aside, waiting.

  Lady Iadviga let out an audible sigh of relief. Lady Gali just managed to look smug.

  “Our mistress will be most pleased to see her dress,” she said before Bridget could offer any contradiction.

  Bridget threw up her hands and for her trouble received a soft, sympathetic smile from Richikha. The winter solstice occurred in two days, marking an important holiday of some sort. At the height of the festivities, Bridget was to be officially presented to the court. One of Kalami’s messages had informed her that the dowager herself had given a dress that would be cut down and refashioned to Bridget’s measurements. So far, she had seen two women with measuring tapes, scissors and pinched looks, but not the actual costume they proposed to dress her in.

  Now, however, those two women walked into the room, carrying the dress between them, and Bridget froze where she stood.

  The dress had been hung on a wooden form, and its attendants placed it where the light from the firepit and the lamps would land on it to advantage. The underlayer was burgundy velvet. Over that had been laid a slashed skirt of silver tissue that glimmered in the shifting light. The bodice was also silver and burgundy with matching silk laces. Over it all hung an open coat of shimmering gold brocade embroidered with pearls.

  Bridget remembered to breathe.

  Two women, the seamstresses, stood on either side of the creation, eyeing her anxiously. Bridget stepped forward and touched one golden sleeve. She had never imagined that someone, dowager empress or no, would give such sumptuousness to her.

  “It’s magnificent.”

  At her words, the seamstresses also remembered to breathe.

  I am actually going to wear this? Bridget walked around the dress on its form, looking at the waves and swirls of freshwater pearls laid against the gold, all the way from the tips of its sleeves down to the long hem of its train. The idea alternately delighted and appalled her. How would she manage so much fabric? The thing must weigh ninety pounds.

  “Will my mistress be pleased to try it on?” asked the older seamstress, a woman as straight and thin as the golden pins that held her hair swept back from her long face.

  “Yes, yes.” Bridget stepped back to give them room to deal with the creation. The younger seamstress, a dark girl with a perpetually anxious look, scurried forward to begin working at the fastenings. Richikha moved forward to take the golden coat from her.

  Even as Bridget watched, bemused at the thought of how she might look in such clothing, a huge commotion cut through the room, a mix of human voices, hoofbeats and neighs from startled horses, and another sound Bridget could not identify.

  “What on earth?” Bridget ran to the balcony door. She flung the curtain aside, and despite the powerful blast of cold air that she let in, stepped out into the winter day.

  Below her, on the courtyard’s snow-sprinkled tiles, gathered a crowd of people, sleighs and horses. A great white swan circled the procession and dove, as if attacking the green canopy that had been erected on the stairs. Voices screamed, and someone shouted. Bridget shrank backward, wrapping her arms tightly around herself, as much to ward against the swan as against the cold. The swan rose into the air, trumpeting, which was the noise Bridget had not been able to identify, and dove again. Horses reared and scattered, despite the best efforts of their riders. A soldier in the blue coat and polished armor of the house guard raised his bow and nocked an arrow in its string. The swan swooped down and he loosed the arrow. It found its target, piercing feathers and flesh. The swan screamed and thudded down onto the courtyard tiles, blood streaming down its feathers and its wings spread wide.

  Bridget stared, pressing the back of her hand against her mouth, stunned by the spectacle she had just witnessed. The swan fluttered its wings, and in so doing she saw it blur. She saw the swan, but she also saw another form. A man lay there bloody on the tiles amid the crying and murmuring, and all the people shrinking away as if the bird might suddenly spring up again. In the next moment, Bridget realized she saw Sakra, his arms spread and his eyes confused, in the same place that she also saw the swan.

  The soldier who had shot the swan down walked up to it, reaching into a sheath on his belt and bringing out a gnarled club. He lifted it up, and Bridget knew he meant to smash the skull of the swan that was somehow also Sakra.

  “No!” she shouted, running to the balcony rail, before she could think about what she did.

  All the faces in the courtyard turned up to her, their voices suddenly silent. Hooves clopped on the tiles and a veiled figure in a forest green mantle emerged from under the canopy. She looked up at Bridget, and Bridget saw that it was Empress Ananda. The empress frowned, and Bridget, even from this distance, could feel her distrust and anger.

  What am I doing? thought Bridget, backing away from the rail and wrapping her frigid hands in the ends of her shawl. Does no one else see? But she was not even certain of what she truly saw.

  “What say you, mistress?” called the empress.

  Bridget licked her lips, shivering from the cold that sank through her skin. What was she to say? They would think she was insane. Or perhaps not, as they were all used to the idea of magic. But what would Kalami say when he found out she had saved the life of his enemy? Why should she want to save him? The man had kidnapped her, bespelled and terrified her.

  But that man knew Mother’s name, and Kalami had begun to lie to her.

  Bridget tightened her stomach. “That swan is your sorcerer, Sakra
,” she called down to Ananda. “I did not think you would want his head split open.”

  The empress’s frown deepened. “What do you tell me?”

  Bridget took a second deep breath of frigid air and spoke as clearly as she could. “That swan is in truth your sorcerer, Sakra. You are the great sorceress, can you not see?”

  Shocked whispers rippled through the winter air. Bridget wondered if they were because of the accusation she made, or merely because of the tone she used to address an empress.

  “Who are you?” Ananda demanded.

  Bridget drew herself up. “I am Bridget Lederle, and I am telling you, madame, your man is bleeding to death at your feet.”

  The empress said something that Bridget could not hear to one of her attendants. Then she minced through the snow in her delicate shoes and knelt beside the swan. Its struggles were quickly growing more feeble. The blood on its breast was no longer flowing bright, but instead was dark, a burgundy as deep as the color of Bridget’s grand dress. The empress pulled off her thick mittens and tossed them aside. She undid the sash from around her waist, and reknotted it, passing it around the swan’s neck and knotting it loosely yet again. Bridget saw the swan wave one wing weakly, and she saw the man, confused and pained, trying to reach for the empress.

  Empress Ananda got to her feet. “Bring this bird to my chambers. Carefully,” she ordered no one in particular. “And you, mistress,” she said to Bridget. “You come as well.” She strode swiftly out of Bridget’s field of view.

  Bridget sucked in a breath and returned indoors. The relative warmth flowed over her like a blessing.

  “It seems you had better show me the way to the empress’s room as opposed to the library,” she said to Richikha, who hovered at her elbow. Then she smiled sheepishly at the seamstresses. “We will do this another time.”

  The two women folded their hands across their breasts and bowed, but Bridget did not miss the stunned looks on their faces before they dropped their gaze.

  “Follow me, mistress,” Richikha was saying.

  Bridget did as she was told. Richikha led her down dim corridors with arched roofs and through muraled and tapestried chambers, their doorways framed by carnelian pillars. The floors were veneered with different colors of wood fitted into intricate patterns. Stairs, some broad and polished, some narrow and twisting, opened occasionally in the right-hand wall.

  Finally, Richikha rounded a corner and halted her before a pair of wooden doors in the left-hand wall. A soldier stood at one side and a little girl all dressed in white and green at the other.

  “Tell Her Majesty Imperial that Mistress Bridget Lederle waits upon her as she was so commanded,” said Richikha to the girl.

  The girl had the smug look of a child who knows she holds some sway over adults, but nonetheless, she swiftly opened the door and disappeared into the room beyond. Bridget waited, trying not to fidget. What was going to happen? And what was Kalami going to say when he found out? She had no reason to trust Sakra, but neither could she completely trust Kalami, and she could not just stand by and watch the man killed like … well, like an animal.

  The girl reappeared and reverenced. “Her Majesty Imperial bids you to her presence.” She held the door open. Richikha also stood aside, nodding gently to Bridget. Bridget swallowed, smoothed her skirt down and walked into the empress’s room.

  She recognized the chamber at once from the scene Kalami had shown her in Momma’s mirror. Now, however, the empress sat on a wooden chair beside the firepit. Two ladies stood behind her, their eyes looking daggers at Bridget. The swan, Sakra, his wings, his arms, folded carefully, lay on a pile of sheepskins on the other side of the fire. The arrow still protruded from his bloodstained torso. The man’s eyes, the bird’s eyes, lost and pleading, looked up at her as she stopped, uncertain how far it was polite to enter. She executed what she hoped was a reasonable imitation of the reverence, further hoping that it would be adequate for this occasion.

  “Mistress Bridget,” said the empress. “Tell us again what you see where all others see a swan?”

  Bridget assumed a modest pose, hands folded, eyes downturned. “I see the sorcerer Sakra.”

  “You are a sorceress then?”

  “I am told that I am.”

  “Did you lay this curse on my servant? And do not try to lie, for I will know.”

  Bridget bridled at the accusation and lifted her gaze. She saw then how the empress clutched the arms of her chair, and recognized the tension in her face. The young woman was not angry, she was terrified.

  Of what? Of Bridget? Or that her man might die? If it was that, why had she done nothing to save him? She was a sorceress of such power, surely she should be able do at least as much as Bridget, and stitch a wound closed.

  “I did nothing to your servant.”

  Empress Ananda raised her gloved hand and rubbed her fingertips together, as if she were feeling the texture of the air, or perhaps of Bridget’s words. But Bridget looked in her eyes, and saw no light there as she had seen when Kalami had worked his magic before her.

  No spell about her person, then, no magic inside her.

  Bridget sucked in her breath. The empress was a fraud. Sakra lay trapped and dying at her feet, and she could do nothing. She did not even know whether what she heard was the truth, or some further trap for herself.

  And I have been brought here by her enemy. She looked down at the swan, at Sakra. And I can’t do anything either.

  The empress lowered her hand. “Very well then. You may show to us your skill and loyalty, and free him from this seeming.”

  “Madame,” Bridget hesitated. “I do not know if I can. I am … not well schooled in these matters.”

  “I bid you try.”

  Bridget thought of the soldier outside the door, and all the others she had seen. Stories of people seized and imprisoned for displeasing kings and princes filled her mind. Surely Kalami would try to free her if any such thing happened, but he might not be able to. This was the empress before her.

  Bridget circled the firepit and knelt beside Sakra. Someone had tried to stanch the blood and wash off what had already flowed, but it still oozed deep and dark around the arrow. The feathers, the cloth of his shirt, were still stained. Bridget tilted her head this way and that, trying to get a better look at either the swan or the man. With her right eye, she realized, she saw the swan. It was her left alone that saw the man. Her heart began to flutter with nervousness. What was she to do?

  She lifted his arm to check his pulse, trying to ignore the disconcerting sensation of feathers under her hand. But, although she could see his fingers, she could feel nothing but the long feathers of a swan’s wing. She swallowed and pressed her fingers gently against his throat. Here she had better luck. Under the soft down, she felt a heartbeat. It was slow, weak and unsteady. The man was surely dying. His shirt was torn as well, shredded, in fact, and he winced as she moved his arm. It was maddening. She could see the reality of the man, but she could only touch the swan. How was she to do anything? She turned his arm, his wing, and leaned closer. A pattern of tooth marks marred his side. They were minor wounds compared with the arrow, and completely hidden by the swan’s feathers. But these at least her fingers could touch, and she could feel as well as see that they were swollen and obviously painful. Sakra was mouthing something to her, but all she could hear was the swan’s faint croakings.

  Voices sounded outside the door. Bridget’s head jerked up. Kalami burst into the room, the little door girl right behind him. He stared, at Bridget, at the empress, and at the swan who was Sakra.

  In a moment, he recollected himself and dropped to his knees. “Majesty Imperial, I beg your pardon. I — ”

  “You what?” inquired the empress with far too much sweetness in her voice. “You thought to bring a stranger of unknown powers to our court and secret her away? You thought perhaps to work some magic over my servant? I would be very interested to know how much of this spectacle is your do
ing.” She nodded toward Bridget. “Proceed.”

  Bridget looked beseechingly at Kalami, but he did not move. She turned her gaze again to the arm, the wing, she held, trying frantically to think, but what little she knew of matters sorcerous seemed pitifully useless to her now.

  Then, a trace of yellow against Sakra’s brown flesh and red wounds caught her eye. Bridget peered closer. Something was embedded in the bite marks. Automatically, she touched it. It moved against his flesh and the swan cried out. Both fingers and eyes told Bridget it was a sliver of something hard, sharp and smooth.

  A tooth? From whatever bit you?

  Deciding it could do no harm, and because she could do nothing else, Bridget grasped the enamel sliver in her fingertips and pulled it free.

  The swan arched its body, trumpeting in agony, but then the uncomprehending cry of a bird lengthened, deepened and changed until it became a man’s scream of pain. Bridget fell backward, catching herself on her hands. The swan was gone. In front of her lay Sakra, clear and unblemished, but with a wounded arm and an arrow in his side.

  “What means this?” demanded Kalami. “Her Grand Majesty forbid — ”

  “Yes, what means this?” The empress rose to her feet, looming over Kalami. “My servant has been attacked. He was cursed with a change that almost caused his death, at the hands of those sworn to protect me!” She drew herself up to her full height. “What means this in truth, my lord sorcerer?” She waved to one of the women. “Rouse the physics. My man needs attending.”

  The woman ran for the door. Bridget’s attention dropped back to Sakra. He grunted and tried to prop himself up onto one elbow. She laid her hands on his shoulders, pushing him back down onto the fleeces.

  “The …” he gasped. “What you took from me. Give me …”

  “Bridget, stand away,” said Kalami. “This is beyond what you know.”