“Pales? You went through hell all those years ago because of me, and now this.”
Bennie was still smiling. “Do you have any idea how lucky you two are to have the sibling you do? Neither of you did a blasted thing wrong, so stop beating yourselves up. Man alive, I’ve been jealous of you two for years!”
“Oh hush,” said Kora. She slung an arm around Bennie’s shoulder. “You know you’ve always been one of the family. If we’d known Zac’s magic was strong enough, we would have had him transporting you for visits all these years.”
“We kept in touch all the same,” said Bennie. She asked Zacry, “Had you really never gone back before the king wrote you?”
“I figured I could, but I never tried. Knew the transport wouldn’t be pleasant. The distance across that sea, it’s twice what you cover on the roads from the fishing villages all the way to Partsvale. When Rexson’s boys disappeared I had to give it a shot, and things worked out, though the spell took a lot out of me.”
“It takes a lot out of me as well,” Bennie admitted, “but it’s worth it. I’m glad we made this a regular thing. It’s been amazing to meet Parker and Joslyn, and those kids I’ve read so much about. I feel as though I’ve known them all their lives. And you two, I’d love you to give Gratton a second chance, to get to know him outside of all the tension of the rescue mission. He’s not crazy about magic, though. It makes him uneasy, and I don’t think he’d come, not meaning any insult to you two, or to Vane. I feel quite awful about it, and Kora, he really would like to meet you. He just, he hates transporting. It makes him feel sick.”
Kora said, “Don’t worry, Bennie, I won’t think any less of him. My father was the same way. He distrusted magic at its core, the very idea of it, and he was a good man.”
Zacry looked as though he would not say the same of Bennie’s husband as his father, but had the grace to keep his opinion to himself. Instead of commenting he asked, “Is Gratton working tonight? At the Palace?”
“He is,” said Bennie. “Why?”
“I need to see Rexson.”
“Rexson?” said Kora. “What for?”
That evening, as Rexson entered his antechamber to disrobe, he thought his heart might give out on him. A dark-haired youth materialized out of nowhere in front of his best armchair, as though the man had been waiting for him.
“Zacry! What…?”
“Gratton let me in. Bennie mentioned he had duty.” The sorcerer waved his hand, as though how he had snuck inside the Palace was a matter of small concern. “Rexson, we can’t let those newspapers connect Vane with the council. Not right away.”
“My preference would be not to,” the king agreed. “That just doesn’t seem possible.”
“We can dilute the references, if nothing else. Weaken the impact.”
“If you have an idea, I’m all ears.”
“No one knows where Vane’s spent the last few years, do they?”
“Of course not. Link a sorcerer to Traigland and it’s as good as a direct reference to your family, you know that.”
“Thank the Giver. Listen, this should be enough to take some heat off him when you give the first interviews about the council….”
Zacry made his case, and Rexson listened without interrupting him once. “That should be sufficient,” the king agreed, when the sorcerer had finished. “As long as Vane won’t be annoyed.”
“He’ll be livid we didn’t tell him beforehand. But if we do, he’ll try to put a stop to it, so keep this close-chested. Vane will get over himself soon enough.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Of Necklaces and Newspapers
Vane next had to suffer Amison three weeks after Kansten’s birthday, like he had told Zacry. The encounter proved less intense than the first and left Vane feeling more secure, if only temporarily, thanks to his knowledge of what lay ahead. He truly thought that without the council to cause further ruckus, his transition into court would have progressed smoothly from there on out.
A new diplomat from Traigland had arrived in Podrar, and Amison came to the capital to assist in the business that brought the man. Vane was unsure what that business was. The duke was young as well as a new presence, and knew next to nothing of foreign affairs, so he was glad to be omitted from the small number of nobles Rexson asked to assist him as to the political aspects of the visit. Amison was included because his family had always been stalwarts in the realm of international relations.
Vane attended a handful of social functions held in the diplomat’s honor, and it was at these his path crossed with Amison, who would greet Vane civilly and then pay him small mind. Only the crushing strength of Amison’s handshakes marked the odium he held for Ingleton. At dinners, Yangerton’s eyes did wander in Vane’s direction, and the youth was under no misconception that Amison asked questions of his peers about Ingleton’s comings and goings, awaiting the chance to create bad blood between Vane and Rexson or to soil Vane’s reputation with the commoners, preferably both. Vane, however, had taken the king’s advice and kept his life transparent, every aspect of it but August. He knew Amison would learn nothing dangerous, but still wished the man gone.
At one last welcome reception for the Traiglandian ambassador, while Vane listened to Carlina describe the wedding she and Thad would hold in five months’ time and thanked the Giver that August would never want a large wedding—while Vane half-prayed, in fact, that Bennie’s elopement might set August a precedent to imitate—Bennie herself was checking on a pot roast in the kitchen. The rest of the house was filled with boxes again, this time of Gratton’s things, but her kitchen was clear of clutter and the mess elsewhere did not bother her. The overflowing and half-spilled crates were proof she was not dreaming, evidence of a glorious beginning to what she judged was her real life, real living, finally arrived; a part of her wished they would never be unpacked.
Her roast was coming nicely. Clad in her apron, she was slicing carrots to throw in the pot with the meat and its broth when Gratton arrived home. He had been at the Palace all day, and threw what looked like a sealed letter on the wooden counter before he kissed her. Bendelof kept chopping.
“How was the shop today?” he asked.
“Busy. I was running around all morning between the storage room and the front…. What’s that?”
“A letter for you. From Rexson.”
That brought Bennie to lay down her knife. “From Rexson?”
“I told him about the elopement a few days ago.”
The sun was setting, but the single large window in the kitchen faced west, so Bennie had sufficient light. Curious, she unfolded the missive, which felt strangely heavy, and read:
Dear Bendelof:
Congratulations on your marriage, and best luck to you.
I realize certain circumstances have barred us from keeping as close contact as we would have liked. I always considered it an unspoken agreement that if you needed my help, you would have found a way to ask, in the same way I trusted that you understood I never sought you out because I knew you well enough to assume you would want nothing more than to leave all reminders of the past to the past—or at least, as many as possible, and the Palace more than others. I was livid when Hayden involved you in the fiasco of late, and I’m overjoyed to learn of the recompense you received therefrom.
I’ve enclosed a wedding gift, because elopers receive few, and you deserve at least this one. This necklace has been passed down from mother to daughter in my family—my mother’s family—for generations. You and I may have different blood, but from the day we met I considered you the little sister I always wished had been born to receive it. I salvaged one or two other heirlooms for Melinda that somehow escaped Zalski’s purge of the Palace, so don’t feel as though you rob my daughter of something that should be hers. You don’t, and it’s my wish that you have this.
“He signed it Lanokas,” she told Gratton, and removed the first sheet of the letter to find an empty one behind with the necklace fastened to
it. This was a thin gold chain with a single charm, a porcelain rose as red as Bennie’s hair and as small as the nail on her pinky. It was simple but elegant, and much to her taste. She undid the clasp, prepared at first to hang it about her own neck; she still wasn’t used to living with someone else. She held the charm out for Gratton to see.
“It was his mother’s,” she explained. “The old queen’s. I can’t believe….”
“It’s beautiful.”
“Would you mind?”
He kissed her neck as he fastened the clasp, then spun her around to see the finished product. She asked what he thought, and he said, “The apron really sets it off.” She had not, in fact, removed the apron she had first put on to handle her roast, and walloped him with a wooden spoon before she went back to chopping carrots.
“In all seriousness, it looks stunning on you. The king chose a nice piece. And does he love you, my God! It must have been a full quarter hour he spent threatening me on your behalf when I told him we eloped. Only calmed down when I told him eloping was your idea and I know just as well as he does you’re too good for me.”
“Did you tell him you’ve stopped drinking?”
“He swore up and down if I started up again and caused you grief, he would have me framed for some theft or other and lock me away ‘til there was nothing but a pile of bones in my cell. I told him not to worry, Hayden Grissner would have an arrow in my back long before he arranged a charade like that.”
Bennie groaned. “Did Hayden tell you something too?”
“He doesn’t need to. His looks are enough. The man killed Zalski’s general with a shot aimed through a shattered window.”
“That was Hayden’s cousin. Hayden slew one of the guards outside the building.”
“How’s that different? By the Giver’s flute, I remember exactly where I was when our lieutenant told us Alten Grombach had died.”
Bennie clicked her teeth in disapproval of the swear. “How did the army explain his death?”
“Heart attack, but only the newest recruits believed that. I thought Zalski poisoned him, but no, turns out it was little Hayden.”
Bennie laughed. “Little Hayden? You’re a whole three years older.” She stroked Gratton’s hair and kissed him. “He does lack your distinguished gray, though.”
“I don’t care about his hair. It’s his bow I’m worried about.”
“Don’t be. He’s got nothing against you, you know that. The king doesn’t either. The boys are just a bit…. They’re protective of me. We went through a lot together.” She smirked up at Gratton from her cutting board. “My silver fox isn’t scared of those mean old hounds, is he?”
“The king’s had me disconcerted since that little chat, actually. He was dead serious about my skeleton.”
“That was just him making sure you know he’s a brother to me. Gracious, Rexson trusts you enough to have you rescue his children. He’s far from your enemy.” She threw an unpeeled carrot at her husband, which he caught and tossed aside. “And even if he were, your reflexes are fine, see? You could take him. So grow a spine, soldier!”
Gratton grinned with false menace. “That’s quite enough lobbed produce for one day,” he said, and chased her into the living room, where she dodged boxes and swatted him with a chair cushion before she let him catch her.
“I’ve got dinner on the fire,” she protested.
“Let it burn,” he said, and made to kiss her before she smacked him again with the cushion. He knocked it to the floor. “I’m serious,” he said. “Let dinner burn.”
Gazing into his eyes, she decided she still would not let him kiss her. She kissed him instead. Forget the roast. That evening would bring them a child at the end of the year; she was sure it would.
* * *
The next two months were a blur for Vane. He was able to meet with August once or twice a week, sometimes three or four if he had an engagement at the Palace after which he could send his carriage off empty, head invisible to August’s quarters, and pass an hour there before the princess’s nurse made some excuse to exit the building through the servants’ door so that Vane could follow and transport back to Oakdowns. Vane tried not to assess the risks. He had no idea what he would do if someone discovered him sneaking around the Palace, and invisible at that, but his luck held for once. No one caught them.
August continued to live and work in the Palace, not because she needed employment—she didn’t, not after Ursa’s gift to her—but because she was horrified at the thought of returning to live in her sister’s mansion. She had nowhere else to go if she stopped caring for Melly, and just then was not the time to be looking for lodging elsewhere in Podrar, not with the million cares Vane was juggling.
Vane, August, and the royal family knew the first papers would print news of the Magic Council soon after the king invited their representatives to the Palace for a private interview on that account, though the Podrar Bugle would hold the story so that Yangerton and the capital could learn of it together. That was customary for non-urgent information. Rexson scheduled a meeting with reporters for March twelfth, and planned a dinner with his nobles, including Carson Amison, for the sixteenth, to address their concerns the day the story broke.
The morning the articles came out, Vane rose at four a.m. by his clock. He put on what he had chosen to wear that evening, intending to keep his best clothes on all day, and at half past five transported to the Crystal Palace. An hour later found him pacing the library there while the queen sat with a sleeping Melly in her lap and the king tapped his foot repeatedly. Valkin, Neslan, and Hune slept on the settee: a “camp out” their father had called it. Gratton was on duty in the courtyard, but Vane and August had asked Bennie to join them at the Palace, so she stood near the room’s spiral staircase. Her eyes, heavy with sleep, followed Vane’s agitated steps; one of her hands ran up and down the chain around her neck where her rose charm hung. Teena, who had fallen ill the previous day with a low-grade fever, aches, and chills, was resting in August’s rooms, where she had slept the night before because Vane refused to leave his aunt at Oakdowns on that of all days. August herself had gone to grab a copy of the Podrar Bugle from the servants’ quarters, and no one said much of anything while they awaited her return. As she slipped into the library, breathless, her cheeks red, Vane rushed to the chestnut double doors. Gracia laid her daughter aside.
“I didn’t read it yet,” August whispered. “I didn’t dare. Oh….”
Gracia, Bendelof, and the king joined the youths; Vane took the paper from August, and crowded around the library threshold, they read the first article all at once.
KING ANNOUNCES ADVISORY COUNCIL TO BE COMPOSED OF MAGICIANS. SEEKS APPLICANTS.
The king has announced to a select group of reporters his plans to institute a new council on magical affairs by the end of June. The council is to consist of five to seven members who will choose among themselves which of them is to serve as the council’s spokesman. Like all existing councils, this newest will have no powers beyond an advisory capacity.
The council’s membership remains largely to be determined, as the king is seeking applicants to fill at least four spots. What is sure to cause controversy is his decision to limit the applicant pool to magicians, whether with active or passive powers or full sorcery. The council, to convene monthly, will exist alongside other councils already formed, none of which has a magical focus or will take a secondary place to the newest advisory group.
The idea for the council of magicians was inspired in part by Zacry Porteg, whose essays explore why the magicked, as a community, lack the voice given to Herezoth’s guilds since the collapse of Zalski’s regime, soon to reach its fifteenth anniversary. It is for that milestone that the king has chosen this year to implement the council, saying the vast majority of magicians never supported the dictator and have lived as part-pariahs since his death. Those who did lend the sorcerer brutal support, he reminded, paid for those crimes long ago. In the words of the kin
g, “The time has come to integrate the magicked back into society. It is my hope that this council, working with various other councils formed by members of the nobility as well as workers’ guilds, will allow us all to heal what wounds still gape this long after the dictatorship.”
Porteg has agreed to stand as the first council member, despite the fact that Rexson Phinnean famously banished Porteg’s sister as a result of the sorcery she used to help him acquire the throne. The king refused to comment on the connection, though Zacry Porteg’s participation on the council will stoke persistent rumors that the king only exiled Kora Porteg for her security as he rebuilt the kingdom’s infrastructure. Common belief holds the two have remained on amiable, if not outstanding, terms. Porteg’s brother, who resides in Traigland but remains a citizen of Herezoth, will use magic to travel to Podrar for council business.
One other known sorcerer could potentially involve himself with the new Magic Council: Valkin Heathdon, Zalski’s nephew now of age, who only in January took up his place at court as Duke of Ingleton. When asked about Ingleton, the king specified that only the crown and the Duke of Podrar worked to organize the council, with some small input from Zacry Porteg. He claimed the project is now ongoing for a year, which means it began well before Ingleton’s appearance at court. The Duke of Podrar verified that account.
The king said of Ingleton, “Should he desire a seat on the new council, I would grant it. As no individual has ever served on multiple councils, Heathdon would forsake any participation on a council of nobility to serve on this one.”
The rest of the article gave data that held no interest for Vane just then: how applicants should arrange to visit the Palace between May 15 and 20, when the king would hold interviews; how a passive power would constitute candidacy, provided the power be attested by a demonstration. Vane rolled up the paper and threw it across the room, regardless of whether anyone else had finished reading. He demanded of Rexson—though quietly, so as not to wake the children—“When you did and Zacry arrange this?”
The Magic Council (The Herezoth Trilogy) Page 34