Dias leapt on him, covering Mika’s mouth with a hand. Mika pulled Dias’s hand away and then it became a struggle as the two of them fought over where Dias’s hand would go.
It was infantile, yet it made me smile and exchange an amused glance with Taro as we avoided the thrashing limbs of my brothers.
“The dinner was for potential suppliers,” Mika gasped out.
“No!” Dias managed to sit on Mika’s chest but his attempts to cover Mika’s mouth were still thwarted by Mika’s hands. “Mother and Father were hosting a house party to attract new connections.”
“Shut up!”
“And one had a lovely young daughter.”
“How young?” I demanded.
Mika scowled at me. “Not that young. Don’t be disgusting.”
“Sorry. The wording threw me.”
“Anyway, when she and Dias met, it was lust at first sight. The introductions were barely finished before they disappeared. Mother was annoyed because she’d wanted Dias to observe the discussions, but no one could find him or the woman anywhere. Until supper, when after everyone had been seated we could hear these very odd noises from under the table cloth.”
If one could be said to tackle another person, while both were sitting, that was what Dias did to Mika. They rolled on the bed, and Taro grabbed everyone’s mugs and held them out of spilling range.
I pulled my leg up to my chest, wrapped an arm around it, rested my chin on my knee and watched my brothers act like fools. Taro was smirking. It was fun.
Mika was finally able to hold Dias down and finish the story, which, really, I could predict, but Mika was rather good with his words, after he got started and warmed up. I could even laugh at his description of Dias and his friend under the table, and how furious Mother had been at the shenanigans. Then Dias told a story of how Kaaren had disappeared for two weeks, our parents frantic until Kaaren came back with tales of her and eight others moving from house to house playing cards and smoking blue dust, unmoved by our parents’ worry and fury.
I told them of a time at the Shield Academy when I had gotten sick of the soup being served for the fourth day in a row and, in an attempt to make my own, had ruined a pot and made a mess it took hours to clean. Taro told us of the time he had fainted after channeling under the guidance of a teaching Pair. It was a story I hadn’t heard before, and I’d thought we had talked about everything during our long shifts at the Observation Post in High Scape.
I couldn’t say how long we sat on our bed, talking. And laughing. It certainly felt very late when Dias and Mika excused themselves.
Why couldn’t we have transferred to my family’s site? Seventh Year wasn’t Taro’s place of birth, so channeling would have been easy. There would be no power plays to watch. Taro wouldn’t have been torn about by his proximity to his mother. It would have all been so easy.
Maybe next time.
Chapter Ten
I was up before the sun again, having never slept solidly that night. I���d kept waking up to make sure I didn’t oversleep. I tore myself from the warm blankets on our bed and dressed quietly, tying my hair back from my face. I lit a lantern and made my way out of the silent, dark manor. I tripped three times by the time I reached Browne’s cottage.
I didn’t know if the meeting was going to be held at all, with people being injured the day before. As I knocked on Browne’s door, I thought that I might be rousing her from much needed sleep. She had probably been working hard dealing with the people hurt by the riders.
But the door opened immediately. “Shield Mallorough, fair morning.”
“Fair morning, Healer Browne.”
I was pulled into the cottage. “Have some tea,” she said.
Three lanterns were lit and the stove was heated. I could smell the tea as Browne poured, some kind of mint mixed with something sweet. I accepted a cup and sat at the table. “I wasn’t sure you would be up for this,” I commented.
“Why ever not?” Browne poured herself a cup of tea and joined me at the table.
“Yesterday was a very busy day for you.”
Browne took a sip of tea. “Everyone is settled with their families. Everyone will heal.”
“Your talent seems exceptional.” The tea was wonderful, lightly sweet.
“I had excellent teachers.”
“Really? In a place as remote as this?”
“It’s not remote,” she responded with surprise.
I was a Shield. I was supposed to be endowed with some measure of tact. “I’m sorry. It’s just so far away from everywhere I’ve ever been.”
She smirked. “And that makes it remote?”
All right, so I felt like an idiot.
“There have always been people passing through here. I mean, obviously most of the tenant families have been here for generations, but there have always been teachers, artists, tradespeople, all sorts moving in and out.”
Huh. That was surprising.
“I’ve always lived here, but there have been three other healers here in my lifetime. Very different in their approaches, their areas of skill. I learned a great deal from all of them.”
“Did one of them teach you about casting?”
“No.” She took another sip of tea. “I had a partner. We worked together, seeing to the needs of the people. She died six years ago of the sweating disease. There was nothing I could do for her. None of my skills as a healer were of any use. It was why I started exploring spells. The range for healing seemed greater.”
“How did you start, though? Did you find some books?”
“No. I was seeing to a patient with a bad fever. Rock vine sickness. And I was losing the battle. His father had a suggestion. A spell he’d tried before they brought me in. It hadn’t worked for him. He thought I should give it a try.”
“And it worked? Your first spell?”
“I’m very good,” she said without a trace of arrogance. “After that, I went looking for people and any other source of information. There’s a lot to be had, around here.”
“But it’s dangerous, people letting other people know of their interest in casting.”
“Not so much here. There has always been casting here, though for a long time the spells weren’t very strong. But yes, we do have to take care. We usually don’t approach anyone unless we’re fairly confident they’re trustworthy.”
Yet people were talking to me about it. What had I done to prove to them I was trustworthy?
There was a knock on the door. “Come,” Browne called. The door opened and two people entered, a young woman and a middle-aged man. They were both wearing odd, bright yellow robes. Browne and I rose to our feet. “Shield Mallorough, this is Whaler Spencer Yonhap and Fisher Penelope Tye. They’re going with us.” Browne withdrew into the other room and returned wearing her own yellow robe. We headed out.
It was still dark. So much earlier than I should be awake. And what about those casters taking a half-day’s ride? How were they handling it?
I couldn’t imagine how one rode a horse in the dark.
Someone came out of a cottage and trotted over to us. He was young, not yet twenty, I guessed, with the exaggerated slimness of youth and a messy mop of red hair. He was wearing a yellow robe, too. “Shield Mallorough, have you met Sewer Ivor Chan?”
“No, I don’t believe I have.”
“Actually, we have met,” said Chan, and that was embarrassing. I hated forgetting people. “We helped you arrange for clothing. We had difficulty with your Shield braid. We’d never had to weave those before.”
“My apologies.” I was apologizing for forgetting him, not for putting him to the trouble of weaving my Shield braid.
He understood that. “You haven’t been here long, and I imagine you’ve had to meet a lot of people.”
That was true. And it hadn’t helped that everyone had known who I was before we met, due to gossip.
“How is your father, Ivor?” Browne asked.
“The ointment
helps, Healer Browne, but it is still difficult for him to sew.”
“He shouldn’t be sewing. He should be leaving that to the younger members of the family and enjoying his freedom.”
“He gets angry whenever we suggest that. I think it makes him feel useless.”
Browne shook her head. “There’s nothing more I can do for him.”
“I understand. There’s nothing I can do for him, either. But he keeps asking.”
Could they afford not to have their father work? One thing I had noticed about the villagers, everyone from young children to the elderly had to work very hard. And every chore I’d witnessed had looked brutal. Bending the back without relent, or ripping up fingers. I couldn’t imagine doing such work.
I could sort of understand why regulars resented me. My life had to look so easy to them. They didn’t know we risked our lives every time we channeled, or, more likely, they simply couldn’t understand it at a real level.
Then again, there were others who risked their lives without enjoying the freedom members of the Triple S had. Soldiers, for one. Runners, too. They really had a reason to resent us.
We were heading away from the village, away from the area I usually visited. The sky was lightening a little. The morning felt fresh and vibrant.
“How long has this group been meeting?” I asked.
“Forever,” said Chan.
“Not quite,” said Browne. “But a few generations.”
“How many are in it?”
“Usually there are twenty.”
“Usually?”
“Three live in Kent. They have missed the last four meetings.”
Interesting. Had they been ordered not to come? “Have they told you why they no longer wish to attend? Is it a permanent breach?”
“There has been no word from them.”
We were walking by farmland. We were going to the residence of a tenant farmer, I supposed. For some reason, the idea of a farmer spell caster felt incongruous. Farming was all about hard work in the solid, heavy ground. Casting was about avoiding hard work. Air instead of soil. Words instead of implements of wood and iron. Though I supposed those that worked the hardest most deserved the ease of casting.
There was a group of people standing beside a farmhouse, most of them with lanterns. They were all wearing yellow robes, and they stood in a warped circle. No one was talking. The silence was creepy.
“You didn’t tell me to wear a robe,” I said to Browne. Not that I had such a garment. Not that I wanted to wear one, either. They were ugly.
My voice sounded very loud. I winced.
“You aren’t a member of the group,” Browne whispered. “Hurry. We’re late.”
There were no greetings exchanged. Once the others saw Browne, Tye, Yonhap and Chan, they straightened out the circle, setting their lanterns on the ground before them. They were, for the most part, evenly spaced. There were three spaces twice the size of the others, and I wondered if those were the places for the missing casters.
No one invited me to join the circle, so I stood to one side, feeling awkward.
They started humming, in harmony. It was a strong sound. I could practically feel it, and it hovered over the edge between attractive and disturbing. It wasn’t quite music, it was something more than noise. I didn’t know how, but it somehow felt welcoming. I almost wished I could participate.
They continued to hum as the sun crept up from the horizon. In my fancy, I imagined that the humming was calling the sun into place. My mind felt clouded and for just a moment, I believed that was what was actually happening.
I shook my head. Clearly I hadn’t had enough sleep.
When the sun was fully in the sky, the humming stopped, and my ears and mind felt empty for a moment or two. Everyone moved closer together and Browne gestured at me to stand beside her.
And what followed was a list of names for everyone in the circle, a rush of introductions I had little hope of remembering.
Everyone joined hands, except for me. Although I stood next to Browne, she and the person on my other side reached around me to join hands. I still stood outside the circle.
“By what is this woman called?” an older man who had been introduced as Farmer Trudeau Mitloehner demanded.
I looked at Browne with a frown. Surely she hadn’t brought me without asking the others first? Surely I wasn’t the only one who distrusted those who inflicted surprises on others.
“Shield Dunleavy Mallorough,” Browne answered a little loudly. “She is a caster seeking guidance and wisdom.”
Hm. I didn’t know about that. That was presumptuous of her. I was just interested in what they were doing. I really didn’t trust them to guide me. I’d gotten in trouble with that sort of thing before.
“What does she bring before us?”
“Intelligence, curiosity, and goodwill.”
“What will she take from us?”
“Knowledge.”
“What must we fear from her?”
“Nothing.”
“Shield Dunleavy Mallorough,” Mitloehner said to me. “What do you bring to us?”
Ah, damn it to hell, why hadn’t Browne warned me? “The desire to learn.”
“What will you take from us?”
“Wisdom.” I hoped. I was making this up as I went along.
“What have we to fear from you?”
“Nothing.”
“And what if we should do what you disapprove?”
“It is not my place to interfere.”
At that, the old man really stared at me. Really. It was hard not to look away, and I wondered what he saw, if he saw the rest of my incomplete answer, the fact that I would interfere if I thought they were doing something horrific. It didn’t matter whether it was any of my business or not. Sometimes people had to stand up for things.
But apparently he saw none of that in my face. Maybe I wasn’t a total loss as a Shield.
The man nodded. Everyone sat down, except for him, and I followed suit. The old man came to me and upended the contents of a pouch onto the grass in front of me. “Make a blade of grass into a rose,” he said.
“Excuse me?” I said.
“You heard me.”
“Why?”
“Because we ask it.”
I looked at Browne. She nodded.
A test, then. One I would fail. “I don’t know how to do that.”
Mitloehner frowned. “I thought you were instructing her,” he accused Browne.
“I never said that. She asks me questions from time to time, but she is largely self-taught.”
“Those left to learn in the dark tend to stumble away from essential ground, leaving it undiscovered.”
Well, that sounded pompous.
“I wouldn’t presume to instruct another,” said Browne.
“But you presume to bring this woman to join our circle.”
“I didn’t come here with the intention of joining anything,” I objected. “I have obligations.”
“So do we all,” said Mitloehner. “Nab has her patients. We all have families. We have shops or farms. You think these are not just as demanding?”
I didn’t know how to answer that. “I am not able to balance obligations as you are all able to do, apparently.” That was surely the safest answer.
“And you have no interest in trying?”
I didn’t know yet, so there was no point in talking about it. “I can’t create a rose from grass.” That, at least, was the truth.
What a worthless spell. Not that I had anything against worthless spells. The first spell I had successfully performed had had no value. It just seemed to me an odd choice for a test.
“Take a look at what we have. There are many spells possible from these supplies.”
I looked them over. I picked vislock powder, a dried hinen leaf, and a human tooth. I took up the mortar and pestle and ground the ingredients together. I poured the powder into my palm and knelt behind Browne, who either knew w
hat I was doing or trusted me a whole lot more than I deserved, as she didn’t turn around to face me. “Darken the eye, blanket the mind, let thoughts go to rest, and silence all voice. Wait for my call.” I blew the powder into the back of her head.
She slumped to the side and rolled onto her face, asleep. I shifted her so she wouldn’t be breathing in dirt.
“Can she be roused?” Mitloehner asked.
I shook Browne and her eyes immediately blinked open. She rubbed them and looked at me. “Excellent work, Shield Mallorough.”
“How do we know she didn’t pretend to fall asleep?” a young woman, Maid Faye Berlusconi, demanded.
Browne sat up. “What have I done to make you think I’m a liar?”
“That’s not what I meant,” the woman stammered.
“Well, that’s what you said.”
“Enough,” said Mitloehner. “Shield Mallorough, when did you start studying casting?”
“When I moved here.”
“What spell did you first successfully perform?”
“An illusion, changing the color of a blade of grass.”
“What is the most complicated spell you have ever performed?”
I didn’t know how to answer that. The most complicated spells I had performed had been while channeling or controlling the wind. Even those weren’t as complicated as other spells I’d found in various books, they just required a lot of focus. And I didn’t want to tell anyone that I was doing it.
So, another spell that was complicated. “I’ve been able to make things rise in the air.”
“Levitation,” the old man said. “That requires a great deal of concentration.” He pursed his lips. “When did you decide to become a Shield?”
How was that for a change of subject? “I didn’t decide. I was discovered to be a Shield when I was four and I was sent to the Shield Academy.”
“So you had no choice in the matter.”
“Correct.”
“Do you resent this?”
“No.” I never seriously thought about doing something different. I was grateful to be a Shield. I loved doing it. I couldn’t imagine being anything else.
“You must know a great many secrets. Because of your position as a Shield.”
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