A Sorcerer’s Treason

by Sarah Zettel

  “Bridget, do as Agnidh Sakra bids,” countered the empress. “Or do you say otherwise, Lord Sorcerer?”

  What she took from him? Bridget cast about in confusion. He could only mean the tooth. It lay on the stones glistening with his fresh blood. She picked it up and laid it in Sakra’s reaching hand. Kalami watched from where he knelt, his face both afraid and thunderous.

  “Your hand, and I’m sorry,” Sakra whispered.

  Bridget felt her brow furrow, but she laid her hand in his, and felt the tooth prick her palm. She tried to jerk away, but Sakra held her tight. Her blood flowed down and light filled his pain-dimmed eyes. Her skin prickled and she knew he worked some spell, some weaving with her very blood between them. He screamed again and his body stiffened, and in the next heartbeat unbearable pain lanced through the whole of her, searing spine, nerve, heart and mind, blinding her and robbing her of all breath.

  Then it was over. Bridget sprawled across the cold floor gasping for breath. From one eye, she saw Sakra sitting up. The arrow had vanished; so had all his wounds.

  Ananda was at his side in three strides, kneeling beside the sheepskins. “Sakra, are you well?”

  “Well enough,” he gasped, digging the heel of his hand into his side.

  “Kiriti, Behule, provision for Lord Sakra’s accommodation must be made.” As she stood, her voice strove to become steely, but Bridget still heard it quaver. So, evidently did Kalami, for his eyes widened. “I give you my thanks for your assistance, Mistress Bridget. We will speak in the future.”

  Recognizing the dismissal, Bridget managed to heave herself to her feet. The whole world spun as she did, and she stared at her bloodstained palm. The tooth was gone, and so was any mark it should have made. Despite that, she felt abominably thirsty and weak, as if a river of blood had been drained from her.

  She was grateful when Kalami slipped a hand under her elbow and supported her to the door, where Richikha waited to take her other elbow and help her to walk into the hallway.

  But next to come were all those hundreds of yards of rooms and corridors. Bridget swooned at the very thought of trying to walk them. Kalami and Richikha staggered trying to keep her upright.

  “I can’t make it back,” she panted.

  “Just a short way.” Kalami’s voice was tight. She could feel tension radiating off him like heat from a fire. So, she just nodded and decided she had no choice but to trust him that far.

  He must have given some order to Richikha, because the girl ran swiftly ahead, opening an unadorned door. The room beyond was swaddled in tapestries and carpets. Kalami laid Bridget on a divan heaped with embroidered pillows, and she blinked up at the gilded ceiling.

  “Fetch water, bread and wine.”

  The door opened and closed again as Richikha hurried away.

  “Bridget,” Kalami came to stand over her. “Can you speak?”

  “Yes.” Bridget was pleased to find her voice was steady, but she was not so foolish as to try to sit up.

  “Then you can tell me how you came to be in that room with Ananda and her dog.” His voice was tight with control but it was not enough to hold back the fury in his words.

  Bridget rubbed her forehead. “I saw the swan was Sakra and I — ”

  “Saw? In a vision?”

  “Yes, in a vision,” Bridget lied. She had to concentrate. She must regain her grasp of her spinning mind. If she could conceal from Kalami this new, strange way of seeing, she would have a means of gathering information with which he could not interfere. It might be able to tell her finally if it was only her overwrought imagination that made her distrust him.

  “And how did she call you in to help?”

  Bridget described the scene over the courtyard.

  “You spoke thus?” Kalami paced back and forth beside her divan. “Why? Why not let the soldier kill him? You know what he is!”

  Bridget rubbed her head again, trying to think. “I thought …” She waved her hand weakly. “The empress trusts me now. I thought that might be of use to you, and to the dowager.”

  That brought Kalami up short. “I must apologize, Bridget,” he said, much more gently. “That was indeed a worthy thought.”

  And thank Heaven it came to me, thought Bridget to the ceiling. Now seemed a good time to change the subject. “What … what did Sakra do to me?”

  Kalami took her bloodstained hand and turned it up, running his thumb across her unmarked palm. “You felt pain?”

  Bridget nodded. God grant I never feel such pain again.

  “Probably he borrowed some of your strength.” Kalami laid her palm back in her lap. “It is a thing sorcerers may do between each other, but not frequently, and not easily. He must have had some strong talisman secreted about himself to allow him to take advantage of you thus.”

  Such as that tooth? But Bridget said nothing.

  Richikha chose that moment to return bearing a silver tray with pitchers and goblets. Kalami mixed water with a deep red wine that reminded Bridget far too much of Sakra’s blood and handed it to her. She drank dutifully, although even watered down the stuff was strong enough to make her immediately giddy.

  “See that she finishes that,” said Kalami to Richikha. “And that she sleeps. You must regain all your strength, Bridget,” he added to her. “The coming days may be even more difficult than I expected.”

  Bridget took another sip of the heady wine, watching the satisfaction in Kalami’s eyes as she drank. I fear, sir, that you may be right.

  • • •

  When he left Bridget, Kalami stopped in his own apartments just long enough to throw an outer coat around his shoulders and pick up the bundle of his best shirt. From there, he descended the palace’s north stairs and emerged into the winter afternoon. Welcoming the cold that brought all his senses fully awake, he strode down the cleared path to the outbuildings where much of the work that kept the lives of the imperials and nobles simple went on. The weavers’ and tailors’ shed was close enough to the laundry and the dyers that the noise and stink of it seeped between the shutters and under the doors.

  Inside, the place was bright with the light from the tin lanterns and screened hearths. All the braziers were also carefully covered, as no open flame could be allowed near so much valuable cloth. Bolts of cloth waited in open chests or were laid out on long tables for cutting. The looms clattered and clacked along the far wall. Every man or woman who worked there had been interviewed carefully by himself to make sure none were touched by magic. It was the same with the tailors and seamstresses who worked around their wooden forms, piecing and stitching the cloth, finishing the tucks and ruffles, sewing the embroidery, mending the thousand tears, holes and nicks that the courtiers’ fine clothing suffered from.

  Heads lifted and eyes turned as he entered. Some began to reverence, but he waved at them to go about their business. They obeyed. As he was responsible for selection and oversight of those who worked the imperial cloth, this was not the first time he had come down to this place on his own and his presence would excite little comment. He had never been more grateful for that than now.

  His gaze swept the room until he found the one he sought, a nervous young girl stitching away at a length of silver tissue. Her hair was a black waterfall but pulled back too severely from her young face and pinned harshly in place with long, steel pins.

  “Good day, my little sister Ilmani,” he said to her in the language of their home.

  The girl’s head jerked up, more than startled, frightened. He smiled brightly down at her, but the fear did not leave her face.

  “Good day, my honored brother Kalami,” she answered in a whisper, her eyes darting left and right.

  “What is wrong, little sister?” He squatted down next to her stool. “You may speak with me. It is in fact required if I so ask.” He spoke lightly, to let her know he was jesting.

  “Yes, sir,” she nodded, bending low over her work. “But Tasa Mavrutka does not like me to speak the home tongue. S
he calls it ugly and uncivilized. She …” The girl clamped her mouth shut.

  Kalami felt his jaw harden. “Does she beat you?”

  The girl nodded, her own mouth pressed tightly closed.

  “We shall see how she likes the rod herself then….” Kalami moved to stand, but the girl caught his sleeve.

  “No, honored brother,” she pleaded. “It will only go worse for me. Even if she is dismissed. The others … I work hard, Tasa Mavrutka herself has taken me to ‘prentice. The other girls work in the dyeing sheds … I …”

  “Very well, very well.” He patted her hand to calm her and settled back at her side again. He understood what it was to work hard and rise above one’s birth. “It shall be as you wish.”

  “Thank you, honored brother,” she breathed, clearly much relieved. But her gaze flickered to the left. Kalami turned his head to see what she was looking at and saw Mistress Mavrutka frowning in their direction. He stood, making sure she saw him fully. The woman acknowledged his rank and right with a small reverence, and the rapid turning away of her attention.

  “Now then, little sister,” said Kalami, touching the girl’s shoulder so she looked up at him. “I have done you a favor, and I will ask one of you.”

  Her fingertips ran nervously over the seam she worked on so diligently. “If I can, honored brother.”

  Kalami smiled again. A child, really, with a child’s ambition. Her thoughts probably reached no higher than becoming mistress of this shed, and encompassed no more of their home than making sure there were an adequate number of chickens and cows in her family’s yard.

  “My best shirt,” he said, handing her the bundled-up garment. “I have torn the cuff, and can hardly appear tomorrow without it be mended.”

  “You shall most certainly have it, honored brother,” she told him as earnestly as if she were offering to guard the treasury. She reached for the shirt.

  “There is one other small thing,” he said as he pressed the garment into her hands. “When you unfold my shirt, you’ll find a bag of black cloth. What is inside needs to be stitched into the shift you are preparing for Mistress Bridget Lederle. Can you do that as well?”

  She smoothed the shirt out on her lap, mindful of the fine fabric, but bowed her head in guilty uncertainty.

  “Come now, little sister,” he said, coaxing her. “It truly is a small thing. A bit of protection I wish the lady to have. Times are difficult right now, and dangers are many, especially for a stranger here. It will not do much in itself, but it shall be joined by a pair of garters as soon as I can weave them. Those will seal the protection I would place on her.”

  She thought about that, stroking the fabric again. Kalami wondered if she dreamed of wearing such finery rather than just working on it for others. If she did well, perhaps he would send her a new shift of her own.

  “I will see to it, honored brother,” she agreed at last. “Surely, there can be no harm in such a thing.”

  “Surely.” Kalami patted her shoulder. “You have my thanks, little sister, and if all goes well, you shall have more than that.”

  With those words he left her, and began a leisurely tour of the shed, pausing here and there to talk to the others so that his time with her would not appear unusual. At last, he came to where Mistress Mavrutka stood beside a chest filled with glistening satins in all shades of blue.

  “What excellent work you do here, mistress.”

  Mistress Mavrutka gave him a smile a sharp as one of her own needles. “My thanks, Lord Sorcerer. I do my humble best.”

  “I see this.” Kalami folded his hands behind his back. “But perhaps you were not aware that the mistress of us all, Her Grand Majesty the dowager, did declare respect for all oblasts of the empire.”

  The smile bent into a thin frown. “I do not understand you, Lord Sorcerer.”

  “Then I will be plain.” He faced her fully. “If I find you have touched anyone again for speaking the language of their home, you will have cause to regret it.”

  “Ah.” Her blue eyes glittered. “Now I understand.”

  “No, I don’t believe you do.” Kalami stepped closer. “I am lord sorcerer, and my saying I will give you cause to regret what you do is not the same as such warnings from others. Now, perhaps you understand better?”

  His words and their implications sank into her, draining the color from her cheeks. “Yes, sir.”

  “Excellent.” His own smile was genial. “I should not wish to waste my time or skill on such trivialities. But I will. Remember you that.”

  He did not wait for her reverence, but walked straight out the door into the palace yard. The cold had deepened outside, and the clouds overhead hung low, sagging with the burden of snow they carried. The first few flakes drifted down, catching in his hair and tingling against his skin.

  A change in the weather. Kalami smiled to himself as he strode toward the palace, his boots crunching on the old, dried snow. How appropriate. The first of many changes we will see.

  • • •

  “We are given to understand your servant Sakra has returned to you,” said the dowager.

  As ever, the dowager decided to make criticizing Ananda a public affair. This time they faced each other in the council chamber. Eight of the Council of Lords sat arrayed in a semicircle, four of them on either side of Ananda’s own chair. Together, they made an arc facing the dais where the dowager sat with Bakhar, the keeper of the emperor’s god house, splendid in his own golden robes and carrying his ivory staff. The ninth chair, the lord sorcerer’s chair, stood empty. Kalami’s absence sent a stab of fear through Ananda that his presence never could.

  But even that was a small thing compared with the sight of Mikkel, dressed all in black velvet with gold trim, slumped in a chair at his mother’s side. Ananda had not had a glimpse of Mikkel in days. The dowager was keeping him under close watch while the nobles arrived to celebrate the holy day and renew their oaths of loyalty. With rebellion brewing, and she surely knew that there was rebellion brewing, Medeoan did not wish to have Mikkel too much seen. For some reason, it made the lords master nervous to see their anointed emperor so unmanned. But for this the dowager needed her son. She needed to remind Ananda, and the council lords, who controlled the succession of power in Isavalta.

  Ananda swallowed and tried to collect herself, but she could not shift her attention from Mikkel. As ever, his restless gaze roamed the hall, searching for something. His hands plucked the hems of his sleeves, as if trying to pull them apart.

  He wore his chain. Did he know that? Was he trying to free himself?

  “Well, Daughter Imperial?” The dowager’s voice cut across Ananda’s thoughts.

  Ananda managed to incline her head. “Sakra was enchanted and attacked. He came to me for succor.”

  Medeoan sat back, regarding Ananda through narrowed eyes. The bandages she had worn so lately had been removed from her hands, Ananda noticed. She cradled them gingerly in her lap, though, and Ananda wondered if they still pained her. “He defied my order of banishment.”

  For once, Ananda did not bow her head. “I ask you to forgive him, my Mother Imperial. At the time his wits were disordered by his enchantment.” She hoped the dowager heard the steel in her tone. “A condition we both, surely, understand.” She looked to Mikkel who shifted in his chair, his fingers as busy as his eyes. Let them all see what I mean, she thought, while at the same time she hoped Behule had picked them a speedy messenger to send to Spavatan, and one with a sturdy horse, or at the very least a thick pair of boots. There would be snow soon. Even she could feel it.

  “And you say you knew nothing of this supposed attack?” Ananda could not read the dowager’s face. There was too much going on behind the bland mask she wore, and she was too distant.

  Ananda opened her mouth to answer, but at that same moment, Mikkel stood. His gaze darted back and forth, freshly manic, but he started down the dais steps, his hand out, seeking something. Ananda’s throat seized shut.
/>   “My Son Imperial,” snapped the dowager. “Retain your seat.”

  But Mikkel stumbled down the last step of the dais. “Somewhere,” he said. “I hear you. I hear …”

  “Mikkel!” The dowager rose. The council lords all leapt to their feet in a comic spectacle of trying to be courtly and yet pretend not to see what was happening.

  Only Ananda remained frozen in her chair as Mikkel blundered forward.

  “Kostid, help your emperor to his seat.” The dowager looked as if she would order Ananda’s death at that moment if she dared. The council lords all stared at their boots.

  But Mikkel was in front of her before the servants could hurry to his sides, and for one heartbeat, his eyes stilled.

  “Find me,” he breathed. “Find me, Ana.”

  A hand touched Mikkel’s shoulder, and Ananda looked, startled to see Keeper Bakhar beside his emperor.

  “Here, Majesty Imperial,” he said, gently turning Mikkel around to face the servants. “Your wife will wait for you.”

  “Ana waits,” whispered Mikkel, and Ananda felt her heart break once more.

  Then Kostid and his fellows surrounded Mikkel. A silent scream tore through Ananda’s mind as they gently led him back to his mother’s side, pressing on his shoulders until he sat again. Keeper Bakhar gave her a glance that might have been sympathy, but Ananda saw him only peripherally. Mikkel’s eyes had taken up their random darting back and forth again, and his fingers plucked at the cloth. But this time, his servants, his guards, remained clustered around him. Ananda’s heart weaved back and forth between rage and wonder. Find me, Ana. He’d spoken her name. Ana waits. He’d known her. For a heartbeat, he had known her.

  But she could do nothing. She had to sit where she was, as polite, as formal as the council lords. More so, because she could not lose her dignity in front of them.

  The dowager sat again, her back and shoulders ramrod straight. The council lords also took their seats, looking for all the world like a pack of guilty children who wondered what punishment was coming next.

  “I put a question before you, Daughter Imperial,” said the dowager. Did her voice tremble just a little? Or was that merely a wish on Ananda’s part? “Did you know Sakra planned to defy the order of banishment?”