“And how long has that been?”
“Around twenty years, I should think,” he said brightly. “Oh, forgive me, I haven’t introduced myself. My name is Alabast Tern.” He held out a bony-knuckled hand. Ensconced in the surprisingly comfortable chair, I accepted it briefly.
“You may call me Meriel,” I said. It was the first time I had spoken my name aloud since I was married and it sounded a little strange, exposed to the open air. “But you must have seen Forsythian since you came? He can’t be dead.”
It was a singularly stupid thing to say, since at any time any one can be dead. Just because the sorcerer had not lived long enough to answer my request did not mean he had to be alive. To my relief, however, Alabast was nodding.
“Eventually, yes, I did,” he said. “In this very room, as it happens. I was reading a book of Galadean poetry aloud and stopped halfway through a rather fine ballad to tend the fire. When I returned for my book, he was there. He didn’t like the way I was reciting and insisted on doing the rest of the ballad himself.”
The man seemed inclined to wander from the point at hand. I tried to usher him back to the line of questioning I really wanted answered. “Where is he now?”
Alabast looked around vaguely, as though expecting to find the sorcerer folded up somewhere on a shelf. “I haven’t the faintest idea,” he said. “How long has it been, then? I’m afraid I lose track of time quite often. I’m sure he was here in the summer.”
“It’s summer now,” I said patiently. I was glad I had elected to sit. It felt as though I might be asking questions for some time. “Do you think Forsythian is here?”
“Oh, bound to be, bound to be,” Alabast assured me. He took up the little blue book he had been reading when I had interrupted him and thumbed through the gilt-edged pages for his place. “He never leaves the fortress, that I know of. He’ll turn up when he wants to talk to you.”
My right hand rested against the slight swelling of my stomach. I could feel the hollow inside my chest where fear should have been. “How long will that take?” I demanded. “I need to speak with him now.”
“I’m sorry,” Alabast said. He looked at me over the top of his book and smiled a little ruefully. “If he wants to see you, you will see him. If he doesn’t want to see you, you never will. You’re welcome to stay as long as you like, of course.”
∞¥∞Ω∞¥∞
I was there for the rest of the summer, and the autumn as well. It seemed Forsythian did not intend to see me, but I would not leave without seeing him. I had not come this far to go away again empty-handed.
Not all of the house was so dramatically unkempt as what I saw on that first day. As Alabast had said, there were other students here and there, if that they could be called, considering most had barely even seen the man they called master. I saw a young woman in jester’s cast-offs scratching obscure runes in chalk on a courtyard floor, a silent matron with iron grey hair sitting frozen in a garden of broken statues, a boy no older than thirteen or fourteen juggling apples among the chimney stacks of an unreachable rooftop. Alabast was generally squirreled away somewhere with a book, but after half a year in the sorcerer’s house I had seen nothing to indicate Forsythian himself even existed. He seemed more like a shared delusion than a real person.
And still I stayed. I had, in all truth, nowhere else left to go.
I ate in the kitchens, which I privately thought of as the dungeons, where there was never light but always something moderately edible, and slept in a room where there was a moth-eaten settee that did me well enough for a bed. The rest of each day I spent in a restless circuit of the house and its four enclosed courtyards in the increasingly remote hope that I might stumble upon Forsythian’s hiding place. Why he would endure this charade if he were here, I couldn’t imagine — if he could not or would not assist me, why not simply appear and send me on my way? It was his house, wasn’t it? But wizards of every sort are bizarre creatures, I knew that already, and the stories of Forsythian painted him as stranger than most.
The symptoms of pregnancy progressed at the usual rate. I swelled like a waxing moon to an utterly impractical shape. The baby kicked restlessly inside my body and I tried to imagine holding it, like I half-remembered my mother holding me, but I couldn’t. Imagination had never been my gift, least of all then.
I gave birth on the first day of winter, in a thankfully short labour, alone in my chamber. I could, I suppose, have called for help, but no one in this place could give me the help I really needed. Pain I could manage alone. I had endured worse for less reason.
The baby was a boy.
“Goodness,” Alabast exclaimed when he saw me with my son for the first time, several days later. He leaned over the infant in my arms, fluttering his hands nervously in what I assumed was a congratulatory gesture. “When did this one arrive? Is he yours?” A suddenly hunted look crossed his face. “He’s not Forsythian’s?”
“I shouldn’t think so,” I said coldly, “given that I have never met the man.”
Alabast petted the baby on the head like a puppy. “I see,” he said penitently. “I did hope he might be accommodating for you, but I suppose he might not have noticed you’re here. He does get distracted. You’ll simply have to be patient.”
“I don’t have twenty years to spare, Master Tern.”
“No, no, my dear, I only had to wait two. The rest were my own decision.”
I made a kind of nest in my room from ancient blankets, thoroughly washed, and a moth-eaten green velvet skirt I’d found in amongst the mountains of books. While my son slept there I would sit on my makeshift bed and watch him. My fears had been well founded. I had seen mothers with their children, seen the adoring light in their exhausted eyes — even the fortress’s cat, a stately white creature of indeterminate age, doted on her litters of kittens while they were small enough to need her. When I looked at my baby I felt nothing, nothing at all. I fed him and washed him out of duty. I knew I should care. I tried to will the love from my empty chest, but it would not come.
By the end of the first month of winter, I had come to the conclusion that I would never see the sorcerer. It was time to formulate a different solution. Leaving my son asleep in his nest of blankets, I went out into the nearest courtyard where a leafless apple tree was surrounded by a round wooden bench. Snow dusted my hair as I sat there, my cloak drawn close around my shoulders, my hands encased in soft grey gloves, the chill nevertheless sinking slowly through to my skin. I didn’t mind the winter weather. Nothing in the world could be colder than me.
I was a wealthy woman. I could give my son a comfortable life, a luxurious home and good education. By my standards, that was all anyone could ask, but I couldn’t give him love. Would that make the rest redundant? Would he be better off with some other woman who would treat him as a gift from the heavens, while all I could do was look at him nonplussed, unable to see the charm?
“Your baby is crying.”
The voice came from behind me and I turned automatically to respond. There was no one there. Neither was the voice familiar, although it was entirely possible that another ‘student’ had arrived at some point and vanished into the depths of the house without my meeting him. I stood, brushing snow from my wine-dark skirts and neatly knotted hair.
“No, it’s all right,” the voice said. “Alabast has gone to him.”
I twisted quickly back around. The words had seemed to come from directly behind me, at my shoulder almost, and still I could see no one. There was not enough snow on the ground to show footprints, but even so I was sure I would have heard something if someone had come so close.
“Who are you?” I said sharply. “Kindly show yourself.”
“I’m not known for my kindness,” said the voice. It was low-pitched and dry, with the trace of an unfamiliar accent. “Nor are you, I gather, your Majesty.”
My hands fisted in my skirts. “Show yourself.”
“No,” he said mildly. “You are very per
sistent, I will admit, but I don’t think I trust you. What is it you want from me? And don’t,” he added, “please don’t pretend you want nothing more than to see me. You can’t imagine how tired I am of people pretending they’ve come just to see if I exist. No one comes to my house without reason. Usually something mercenary. Bags of gold that never empty, swords that never rust, things of that like.”
“Forsythian,” I whispered.
He gave a humourless laugh. “Who were you expecting?”
I sank back onto the bench and fixed my eyes on a gargoyle overlooking the courtyard. If I had to talk, I would at least address myself to something I could see. It felt too ridiculous just staring blindly into space and hoping.
“I do want something from you,” I said. “I — years ago, I lost something very valuable. I need it back.”
“What might this thing be?” he asked disinterestedly. His voice sounded further away, as though he were already leaving.
I rested my cold-gloved fingers against my chest. “My heart,” I said simply.
There was a sigh. “To whom? If it’s unrequited love that ails you, queen, try smiling at him. With a face like yours it shouldn’t be difficult to win who you want.”
“You don’t understand,” I said. “I don’t love anyone. I have no heart.”
Cold fingers pulled my chin suddenly sideways. I had the disorienting experience of staring into eyes I couldn’t see. “What,” said Forsythian, very quietly, “did you do?”
“I loved what I couldn’t have,” I said. “You think I am beautiful, sorcerer? Well, my father did too. Of all his jewels and possessions, he was proudest of me. When I was grown, he had me betrothed to a king with whom he had long desired allegiance. I didn’t want to marry that man. Never mind why. Brides are good currency in this part of the world and the wedding was arranged regardless. What I wanted could never be mine. Knowing that, I resolved not to want anything. Don’t judge me, sorcerer. I am not the first to make such a choice.
“There was a wizard within a day’s ride of my father’s castle — a necromancer, the courtiers used to call him. I went to him for help. Even he balked at what I asked, but as you say, I am persistent. I wore him down with pleading and promises. He agreed eventually. He took my heart from my chest, my broken bloody heart. He locked it away in a box within a box and hid it for me where no one else would ever find it.
“I was married the next day. The king took me like the trophy I was. We were married for five years before he died.
“You think I killed him, don’t you? I didn’t. Murder is a crime of passion and I had no passion left without my heart. He knew I didn’t love him; he was afraid of me, I think. Most people are when they come to know me. His heart failed him in the end. Hearts do. It was only after he was gone I found that I was pregnant.”
The snow had stopped. It was colder than ever.
“I do not love my child,” I said, “and I should. I remember enough of who I used to be to know that. I need my heart back.”
“Then ask your wizard.”
“He died. People around me are prone to it.”
“So when you say you have lost your heart,” Forsythian said, “what you mean is … you can’t find it.”
“I never thought I would need it again.”
“You were wrong,” said the sorcerer.
“Can you find it?” I asked. “I can pay you. I have gold, jewels—”
“I don’t do things for gold,” Forsythian said, as though the very idea of it offended him. “I do them because they are interesting enough to make the doing worth my while.”
“Am I sufficiently interesting?”
He was silent for a long time. I had no way of knowing whether he was still there, but I remained, drawing on six months of patience. I had not waited so long to abandon my request now.
“You want to love your son,” he said at last. “What if you can’t?”
“With my heart—”
“Women with hearts that have never left their chests don’t always love what’s theirs. Perhaps you can’t care about him now, but neither will you grow angry with him, or resentful. Hearts are dangerous. You knew that. What might you do with yours?” Forsythian’s tone was cool, dispassionate. Heartless. “I could make you a new heart, I suppose. It is a thing I have done once before. But I can’t say what that heart might make you desire once it was pressed into your chest. It might worship your son. It might loathe him. Which risk would you choose?”
I had not anticipated a choice. “I don’t know.”
“Think on it,” he said, and I knew that he was gone. The courtyard felt suddenly empty, when before it had been occupied. I stood stiffly, my legs numb from the cold, and went inside to find my son dandled in Alabast’s arms, balanced on a pile of leather-bound tomes. The sorcerer’s student looked up at my face with a crooked smile.
“You’ve met him, then,” he guessed. “Could he tell you what you wanted?”
“No.” I sat in the chair beside them and held my frozen hands to the fire. “Or if he could, he wouldn’t.”
“Don’t fret,” Alabast said, petting my shoulder awkwardly. It was the first time he had tried to touch me and the gesture was in itself a surprise — people were wary of me as a rule, though they didn’t know why. “He knows you’re here. He might change his mind.”
“I think,” I said, so softly he did not hear me, “he wants me to change mine.”
∞¥∞Ω∞¥∞
It was Alabast who named my son.
Winter had unexpected effects — there were few fireplaces in the rambling fortress, so on cold nights everyone was likely to congregate where there was a good blaze. The night after my unsuccessful interview with the sorcerer, the motley assortment of his house guests assembled in the study Alabast had claimed as his own for an impromptu supper. The girl in jester’s clothing appeared first, her hair a riot of red streaked darker here and there where it had been dampened with snow. She introduced herself as Cianda and folded her long limbs on the hearth, toasting pieces of cheese impaled on a silver letter opener. I left to feed and change the baby, and when I returned the stony matron was in a shadowy corner near the fireplace. She was so difficult to see that she might have been there all along and I would not have known. The boy arrived last, lugging a wicker basket of stale bread, which the jester girl toasted over the fire with the cheese.
No one was inclined to be talkative, but the atmosphere was quite convivial all the same. The boy perched on a low bookcase, cracking walnuts; Alabast read aloud a little poetry from his book of the moment and Cianda came to play with the baby, leaning her elbows against the back of my chair to dangle a beaded charm just out of his reach.
“What’s his name?” she asked, without looking at me.
“I haven’t named him yet,” I said. It was an obvious thing to overlook, I suppose, but it hadn’t seemed obvious before that moment. It was strange enough to draw even Alabast’s attention from the spiky foreign script he had been reading.
“Are you waiting for a proper ceremony?” he enquired. “The bathing in wine and cedar water, the lighting of the nine candles? I didn’t think anyone did that these days.”
“I had not decided on a name.”
Alabast nodded approvingly. “Ah, it’s a serious business. I am a traditionalist, myself, I like the old names. What is your husband?”
“Dead,” I said briefly, before realising what he meant. “His name was Joram, but I don’t want my son named after him.”
“Sage is a nice name,” Cianda said, and flushed when I looked at her.
“Onyx,” said the walnut-cracking boy from his eyrie. “His eyes are so dark.”
“Calabry,” suggested Alabast. “Farrant, perhaps. Or Torren.”
“What does that mean?” I asked. “The last one.”
“It means ‘white bough’. No particular relevance there, I will admit.”
“I like it,” I said. “That is all the meaning it needs to hav
e.”
Cianda lifted the baby from my arms. Kneeling beside the fire, she laid him down on the warm hearthstones. She took a discarded walnut shell and laid it hollow side up on his forehead, like a small boat, into which she dropped a crumb of bread and a corner of yellowed paper. We watched her without speaking, sensing ritual even though we didn’t understand what it meant. Torren flailed irritably and Cianda took the walnut boat away, floating it in a shallow bowl of ink. Flames were reflected in the dark liquid, fleetingly bright. For a long moment Cianda kneeled, watching the reflections dance, then she sighed and rocked back on her heels.
“He’s too young,” she said, obscurely.
“A seer,” Alabast whispered to me. “She sees the future in reflections.”
This entire evening had felt dreamlike, unreal, with me playing along as a woman who celebrated her baby like she should. Watching Cianda, however, I was gripped with a sudden conviction. It was not alarm. I could not feel anything so strong. All I knew was that if I looked into that ink, I would see my reflection. My shadow over Torren’s boat.
∞¥∞Ω∞¥∞
“You decided, then.”
I had been looking for the sorcerer all day, prowling along galleries and stairways, always circling back to the courtyard where I had heard his voice in the hope he might once again be there. He was not. By evening I had given up and returned inside to the empty study, rocking the fretful baby mechanically while I stared into the embers. At the sound of Forsythian’s voice, I half turned before remembering it was no use and made myself look back at the fire.
“Yes,” I said.
“He’s quite pretty, your son.” Something soft brushed across my cheek and Torren suddenly stopped crying, staring wide-eyed into space. He snatched at something I couldn’t see and the sorcerer laughed softly. “I’d forgotten how peculiar babies are.”
“I want to love him,” I said quietly. “I try. And all I have is emptiness.”
One Small Step, an anthology of discoveries Page 23