“People aren’t as judgmental about magic in Traigland, but transporting every day would be pushing limits. I’d have to move. Uproot Joslyn and Viola, to a place none of us has any interest in being, and for what? For what?”
He made to punch the wall again, from his seat, but Vane grabbed his arm as he pulled it back. “You’ll regret that. Your hand’s black and blue as it is.”
Zacry shook Vane off. “I stopped Rexson beating this joker to death, and this is the thanks I get? Where does he get off…?”
“I don’t know,” said Vane. “I don’t. But you should go home, that I do know. Home to Joslyn, before things get even more out of hand. We’ll go back to Podrar to meet with Rexson, because he needs to know what’s going on, and then you should just go home. The king and I, and Gratton, we’ll handle things from here on out. The deal won’t be what we expected, but Rexson will accept it, and so will the Fist. Let’s get out of here, come on. This place makes my skin crawl.”
* * *
Zacry made it home after midnight. To his surprise, he found Joslyn pacing in front of the house as he came up the walk. For a moment he thought Viola must be having trouble sleeping, but he could hear no crying infant, and soon realized his wife held nothing in her arms. She stopped short when she recognized his step.
“You’re back. You’re home!”
She wrapped her arms around him, and he gave her a kiss, running his hand through her hair. His fingers were bruised from punching the wall, so it hurt like hell to press them against Joslyn’s head, but he ignored the pain. His hand might be battered, but his heart felt whole. He had his family, if nothing else. He asked his wife, “Why aren’t you in bed?”
“I couldn’t sleep. I needed air.”
“Joss, are you all right?”
He saw her smile by the moonlight. “I am now. I’ve never been better, I’d say. The children, they’re all asleep inside. Have been for hours.”
“Viola’s sleeping through the night?”
“She has the last two days.”
“Vane’s coming for Rexson’s kids tomorrow.”
Joslyn’s face fell. She grabbed her husband’s upper arm. “Why did you come now? Why didn’t you wait for a reasonable hour? Zacry, what’s gone wrong?”
He mentioned the deal with the Enchanted Fist. He spelled out Dorane’s conditions. When anger made his voice shake, his wife hushed him with a finger placed against his lips.
“We’ll get through this, Love. We’ll do what we have to do. We can ask your mother to watch Viola during the day if you can’t find work and I need to do more sewing.”
“I’ll find work of some kind in Traigland City, if nowhere else. We’ll manage just fine. It’s the principle of the thing. To think this jackass can demand….”
“That jackass will rot behind prison doors, and Love, you know we’ll get on. You just said so, so don’t let this eat at you. That’s petty, and you’ve never been petty. Zac, I can’t imagine how out of control of your own life you feel, with this man holding Kora’s welfare over your head. And your writings: you’re passionate about your research. I may be the only one who knows how much it means to you.”
“He robbed me of that, Joss. Robbed me blind.”
“He can’t steal what you’ve already written, and all you’ve published makes clear where you stand on issues of magic politics. You laid the groundwork to make a Magic Council a viable option for the king and kingdom, you did that. Dorane can’t take that from you, no matter how insane his jealousy, because that’s why he’s done this. It was in a jealous fit. Even I can see you’ve done more for the cause of sorcery from here than he ever did in Herezoth. As for staying in Traigland, I can only speak for myself on that. I’ve lived here all my life and, well, I’d say things have turned out all right so far.”
She smiled at him, out of genuine joy at his return, numbing the intensity of her dream to emigrate.
“Joss, you’ve wanted to see other places since the day I met you.”
“I still can,” she said. “And I will. Dorane stipulated you’re not to live in Herezoth. He said nothing of taking your family there for daytrips.”
“You’ve never brought that up before.”
“Before now I assumed we’d be living there one day. Your sister, I would have felt I was rubbing salt in her wounds to have you take me for a visit, but we can say we’re going to the capital here, or the coast, anywhere really. No one needs to know we went to Yangerton, or Podrar, or even Hogarane.”
“I wouldn’t recognize the place.”
“Then you can rediscover it. We’ll discover it together, and of course we’ll visit Vane from time to time. Don’t you feel you’ve destroyed my dreams, Love, because you haven’t destroyed a thing. I’ll see Herezoth.” Joslyn paused. “Our children will see Herezoth.”
“Children?” said Zacry. “Are you…?”
“I’ve been suspecting, so I saw a midwife the day the king’s letter came. I didn’t want to burden you before you left. You didn’t need distractions, but now that you’re home….”
“So you are…?”
She nodded, and Zacry’s green-gray eyes glowed with excitement. She had to stop talking because he kissed her; he kissed her and placed his dominant hand, the bruised one, on her abdomen. She laid hers on top, but he didn’t wince. He felt nothing but stunned gratitude that Joslyn had waited to tell him her news.
“These past days…. You must have been miserable.”
She did not deny the charge, but she assured him, “I’m fine now. You’re safe, that’s all that really matters. Where we live, how you make your living, that’s secondary, all secondary. You’re back home, those monsters are in jail where they belong, and we’re giving Viola a brother. I’ve had an inclination from the start this one’s a boy, even had a dream.”
“I’ll bet you’re right,” said Zacry. He smiled at her. “Well, that settles it. I’ll start looking for a teaching post tomorrow. There are one or two at the schoolhouse here in Triflag, and…. We’ll need a name, Joss. For the baby. It just occurred to me my sister stole our father’s name for her kid.”
Joslyn smirked. “Don’t you hold that against Walten. He’s an absolute dear. What about Foden, Zac, if it’s a boy like I expect? After Sedder Foden, if your sister doesn’t mind? You speak of him all the time.”
“Hero-worshipped him, I’d say.”
Sedder had been Kora’s closest childhood friend. He’d joined the Crimson League with her and died soon after. Joslyn said, “It would be a nice way to honor him. What do you think?”
“I think that’s a wonderful idea,” he told her. Tears glistened in her eyes.
“This is really happening? You’re back, to stay? You’re done with that mess in Herezoth, and we’re having a second child? I’m not dreaming this?”
“You’re not dreaming this.”
“And you, you won’t let Dorane gnaw at you? That’s what he wants, Love. That’s precisely what he’s aiming for. He wants to gnaw at you so constantly you’ll destroy yourself just to stop feeling it. I know you want to move back to your homeland, that you’d love to maintain your research. I know we both want those things, but we don’t need them, and we never will. Everything we need is right here, at this moment.”
Zacry rubbed her stomach and stole another kiss. “Dorane who?” he whispered in her ear.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
To Face the Future
Vane never made it to Traigland the next day. He spent from sunrise until well into the night alternately with the Fist and the monarchs. That Gracia wanted to have her say surprised the young sorcerer, but Rexson seemed to expect his wife’s ardor. Halfway through the afternoon, the queen demanded that Dorane receive no newspapers; that was a luxury beyond his station as a prisoner. Rexson, who had spoken with Zacry and understood the situation, revealed Dorane’s true conditions to keep his silence. Gracia forced him, in effect, to admit Kora’s role in the Fist’s apprehension.
Gracia’s face turned as white as her husband’s cotton shirt, and when Rexson told her, “She came on her own, without me asking,” a tint of gray came on. Gracia was silent after that, though her expression made clear she remained in favor of “squashing the vermin,” as she had earlier described. She only spoke when Vane left, to preempt more explanations and excuses from her husband.
“I don’t want to know what happened, or why. You clearly tried to hide from me she’d come. You lied to me, or spoke half-truths at best, and I have far too much to ready before audiences tomorrow. I have to guide preparations. I’ll fall to pieces if I’m near you now.
“We will manage, Rexson. I’ll have calmed when the children return, or I can feign calm if need be. I can lie as well as you, I imagine. Right now, I can’t be near you.”
By day’s end, a bargain with the Enchanted Fist had been settled and signed. Dorane would get his newspapers and remain in Yangerton, where his wife and son were. He would work long hours for thirty years on the prison’s construction and repair crew, maintaining the city’s major buildings. The resurgence of his pride and will astounded Vane as much as it sickened him, arising as it did from Zacry’s misery. The boy had to consider, “Maybe Gracia’s got it right after all,” and though he would never suggest or plan such an operation, if the queen were to go behind her husband’s back and organize Dorane’s death—by assassination squad, or poisoning, or a “fall” from a structure he was working on—Vane would not blame her in the slightest. He could even defend her in good conscience.
Arbora, to Vane’s relief, made no second attempt to advise him. She was purely interested in the council, and when she learned Rexson would convene its five members once a month—that he would announce the council’s formation by the upcoming March—she gladly agreed to work ten years in the shipyards north of Fontferry before she settled down to less strenuous labor in Podrar’s prison. She consented to tell the Enchanted Fist that their officers had been arrested for planning to incite them against the tax system, and especially for the death of Crale Bendit; supposedly, Crale had opposed their tax operation and had revealed the plot to the king. Crale would never have supported an illegal aim, Arbora knew, and had indeed been killed by Dorane, so she felt the cover story was as fair to everyone involved as could be expected. At least, it was not so unjust to her party that it was worth rejecting, not when going along with the tale meant she would finally obtain that council. In addition, the lies were credible. Arbora was known for lambasting how no part of the taxes she paid went to programs for the magic community.
Ursa was the easiest to deal with. Vane met with each captive individually, and to be alone made Ursa’s panic from the day before return with a vengeance. She agreed to go north to serve her sentence in Partsvale, working the first years (she talked Vane down from thirty to twenty) in the rock quarries there. Her fear of death almost made Vane pity her—almost. She clearly expected the guards to drag her to an alley and riddle her with arrows any night now, perhaps to rape her beforehand, and when she asked Vane as he turned to leave whether he knew August, whether he could convince her to visit—the implication being before the king had Ursa killed—Vane agreed he would transport August to the jail within the week, provided the girl was up for the trip. He doubted she would be. All Vane knew for sure was that he found himself incapable at that point in the day of heading to Triflag like he’d planned. His muscles and mind were aching from all the transporting from city to city, from the mental gymnastics of negotiation.
After settling a bargain with the criminals, Vane returned to the Palace to draw up documents for signing, then brought those back to Yangerton. The Fist’s officers made their respective deals official, though Vane wished he didn’t have to see the smirk on Dorane’s face when he put his signature to the paper that would, for all intents and purposes, exile Zacry from Herezoth and ensure his silence in the cultural debate on magic.
Just wait ‘til you’re on that construction crew. We’ll see if you’re smirking then.
Dorane was the last to add his signature, and he did so around midnight. Vane then transported back to the Palace grounds. He turned over the papers to Rexson and staggered to his room, where he fell asleep the moment his head hit the pillow. His anxieties about the future; his fervid and frustrated anger on Zacry’s behalf; the strange, airy feeling he got in the pit of his stomach whenever he thought of August: he forgot all that for eight glorious hours and simply slept.
* * *
The next morning, August woke in Vane’s room in Triflag with a now familiar dread of the coming day. The sun had hardly risen yet. Viola was fussing, so August went to help Joslyn calm her, forgetting that Zacry had been home for one full day already and that with his return, Melly had joined her brothers at his house. Everyone had gathered in the living room. Zacry held his daughter, while Joslyn swung Melly in her arms because she had begun to cry as well. The princes looked bleary-eyed.
“Could you start breakfast?” Joslyn asked August.
“I’ll get eggs from the hen house,” August offered. “And water.”
“We’ll help,” said Valkin, his glasses and hair both askew. Hune yawned but agreed, and so did Neslan, who by then had made a full recovery thanks to the Porteg family’s magic. Soon eggs were boiling and the boys were more in the way than they were helping as they kneaded dough with August for some bread no one had managed to bake the night before.
This should be my last morning here. Oh, I hope it is.... Zacry said Val should have come yesterday. I wonder what’s held him? I hope nothing’s happened to him! No. No, it can’t have. They’re all in prison: Dorane, the spy, Ursa too. How could they hurt Val from prison? I’m sure he’s fine, whether he comes today or not. Besides, it really doesn’t matter when I leave. It’s not as though I have anything to go back to.
After breakfast, Kora brought the Cason children to play. Kansten, Wilhem, and Walten kicked a ball around the yard with Rexson’s sons, according to the rules of some game they had made up earlier that week. Tressa and Laskenay played with dolls indoors under Joslyn’s supervision. The babies went down for a late morning nap, and even with Zacry gone into town for some purpose he did not specify, no one needed August to watch the children. As it was early yet to prepare lunch, she found herself facing her first block of free time since she had come to Traigland.
August shut herself in Vane’s room and grabbed a random book from his shelf: a history of Zalski’s rule, outlining in particular his changes to the tax code, the press, the justice system, and the infrastructure of the military. The writer noted discrepancies between explanations Zalski gave publicly and private documents found after his death. The topic was not one of great interest to August; what intrigue it held came from meeting the sorcerer’s nephew, and the royal family the man had deposed, and now the woman everyone said was responsible for Zalski’s downfall. She had never lived such a month as this one…. And the month was not yet finished.
She turned to the chapter on the justice system, both from a morbid curiosity and because her sister was in prison at that moment, though she tried not to think too much of Ursa. Curled up on the bed, she read for half an hour about executions for minor crimes, and she lost herself in the account of a man who was hanged for stealing meat from one of Podrar’s butchers. The case was well known as it constituted the first death sentence for food theft; the butcher himself had requested a lighter castigation.
It’s so strange to think I was alive when all this happened. I couldn’t have been older than Melly, though. I guess it’s just as well I don’t remember my first four years.
A knock on the door distracted her, and she got up to open to Joslyn or Kora asking for help in the kitchen.
“Val!” she cried. She gave him a friendly hug. “It’s good to see you. To see a familiar face, besides the boys. Are we going back later, then? Zacry said you caught them all, the spy too.”
Vane was confused, and his expression showed it. Should he me
ntion Ursa’s request? Should he wait? He decided to put that unpleasantness off.
“They’re all in custody, and we’re going to spare their lives.”
August gaped. “They don’t deserve that,” she said. “Ignoring the fact that we, we’re talking about my sister, they deserve to hang. I was sure the king….”
Vane remembered Hune’s horrified shrieks when he saw his brothers turned to statues. He thought of Zacry’s broken and bruised hand. “He’d like to hang them. And that is what they deserve. But the situation’s complicated, more than you know, and mercy can have a value all its own. That’s what I’m trying to tell myself, at least. If nothing else, it’s a way for Rexson to distinguish himself from Zalski.”
“I suppose it is.” August glanced at the open book lying on the bed. Vane guessed easily which one it was.
“I’ve read it cover to cover,” he said. “Only once. Once was enough. I figured I should know what exactly he did, what he stood for. I don’t intend to read it again, but I keep it on the shelf. I might need it as a reference later. I guess a part of me knew I’d end up at court, like my father, and well, people will ask questions.”
August said, “If I were you, I’d keep it not as a reminder of where you come from—because you don’t come from that, Val—I’d keep it to remind myself of his mistakes, his particular errors in judgment, to avoid the trap he fell into. It really is easy to understand why he thought the way he did, isn’t it? I mean, the grand picture of things he used to justify himself: the suppression of magic, the subtle and not-so-subtle persecution of the empowered….”
“It’s scarily easy to understand, August. Especially being a sorcerer.”
“So you’re claiming your title? You’ll be a duke?”
“I don’t have another choice.”
August felt as though someone had dropped a brick in her stomach; the sensation more surprised than pained her. What did it matter if Vane became the Duke of Ingleton? That had no effect on her life, on her future as blank and unforeseeable as an empty canvas to someone watching an artist smear a first blotch of paint….
The Magic Council (The Herezoth Trilogy) Page 28