A Season of Spells (A Noctis Magicae Novel)

by Sylvia Izzo Hunter

  She stepped in front of Hughes to take Roland’s hand in hers; it was like touching a tree-branch covered in ice. “Your coat,” she said sharply to Edward. “At once.”

  He was peeling it off already, and as quickly helped her to drape it about Roland’s broader shoulders and tuck it round his frigid hands.

  “Now, let us go from here at once,” said Lucia, “if not sooner.”

  * * *

  Edward led them out of the maze, as he had led his search party into it, and Lucia was surprised to find that the journey took very little time.

  “I assure you, Lady Lucia,” said Prince Edward, a little stiffly, as they strode across the lawn towards the Palace, “that my guardsmen are all entirely discreet; you need not fear that any breath of impropriety will—”

  “What impropriety can you be talking of?” Lucia demanded, indignant. She did not care if the others heard her. “Your brother was suffering from magick shock, and as I had not the means at hand to provide any other curative, I did the only thing I could do, which was to keep him warm. I do not see what impropriety could possibly attach to any action of mine—or of Roland’s, either,” she added.

  “Nonetheless—”

  “Nonetheless, what?” Lucia’s patience, already worn thin by lack of food and by the evening’s events, was rapidly shredding. “If I did not know better, Edward Tudor, I should suspect you of believing that I ought to have let your brother freeze to death for the sake of your precious propriety.”

  To his credit, Edward looked honestly appalled at this suggestion. “Of course not,” he said, in quite a different tone. “No, never that.”

  “Well, then,” said Lucia. Relenting in the face of his evident dismay, she patted his arm in a sisterly manner and said kindly, “I should be quite as frantic and irrational as you were, if such a thing were to befall my small brother. Fortunately, however, Duncan is not so much given to outrageous escapades as I was at his age.”

  Edward looked at her sidewise, eyebrows raised.

  “Come now, brother dear,” said Lucia, attempting a rallying tone. “Did you imagine that my father chose me as his heir for my biddable temper and my lack of adventurous spirit?”

  Edward looked, in fact, as though he had never thought of asking such a question in the whole course of his life—and perhaps, thought Lucia, he never had.

  After all, poor Edward had been heir to his father’s kingdom from the moment of his birth, whether he liked it or not.

  * * *

  Whatever else it might be, King Henry’s palace was well supplied with talented healers and with very good cooks, both of them, it seemed, ready to hand at a moment’s notice. Almost before the rescue-party had reached the staircase that would take them up to Roland’s rooms, a plump little man in healer’s robes was trundling down to meet them, issuing orders to his apprentice for conveyance to the kitchens.

  Lucia answered the healer’s questions—his name, she contrived to learn, was Henri Vauquelin—as best she could as they all went up the stairs and along the corridors, and in this way crossed the threshold of Roland’s rooms with the rest.

  Whilst the healer and his apprentice were peeling Roland out of his damp clothing and tucking him up in bed, Lucia busied herself in the adjoining sitting-room, tidying into neat symmetrical stacks the books scattered on the table and plumping the cushions on the silk-upholstered settees and the one heavy, slightly battered armchair which, she judged, was Roland’s favourite seat. She would not be ruled by the threat of idle talk, but nor was she eager to court it by lurking in Roland’s bedroom whilst he was being undressed.

  When the apprentice healer emerged with an armful of discarded clothing, however, she straightened from her by now fruitlessly repetitive cushion-plumping and, with a nod to him, passed back through the doorway, equally without fanfare and without the slightest attempt at subterfuge.

  Look as though you believe in your right to be where you are, her father had once told her, and the great majority of persons will never think to question you.

  But Queen Edwina and Prince Edward, it seemed, did not live by this maxim, for the former looked outraged, while the latter came forward at once to intercept her.

  “You must be very tired,” he said—kindly, but firmly. “Let me ring for someone to escort you to your own rooms—”

  “I had much rather stay here,” said Lucia. “I should not be easy in my mind otherwise, not knowing how Roland does.”

  “Your devotion to Roland’s well-being does you credit, my dear,” said the Queen. “You must see, however, that it would be quite improper.”

  Lucia did not say, Roland and I were alone in the maze for hours; what can it matter now? She did not ask what acts of impropriety Edward or his mother imagined might take place between Roland and herself whilst he lay half-dead from magick shock; she did not say, If you truly believe me capable of taking advantage of a man in such a condition, I wonder that you should have allowed me within ten leagues of your blue-eyed boy.

  Instead, for Roland’s sake (for in truth she was growing very fond of him, if not in precisely the way he wished her to be) and for the sake of avoiding a diplomatic incident, she swallowed back all of these thoughts, produced an innocent and complaisant smile, and said, “I shall do very well here, I assure you. Surely there can be no impropriety in a young lady’s watching by her betrothed husband’s sick-bed, in full view of two healers and a pair of guardsmen?”

  “That is not the point,” said Edward—but almost absently, as he glanced aside at Henri Vauquelin, who presently was clasping Roland’s wrist and frowning.

  Whatever other faults she might find with Edward, Lucia did not doubt that he loved his brothers. He was, she judged, eager to conclude the present debate so that he might return to personally superintending his brother’s care.

  Surreptitiously, Lucia planted her feet, lest the aforesaid guardsmen be called upon to remove her bodily; they were larger and stronger than herself, but she should at least not do their work for them. All the same, she rather wondered at her own vehemence. Her growing fondness notwithstanding, until now it had never for a moment occurred to her to resist being parted from Roland—Am I a child, holding tight to my doll only because the nursery-maid threatens to take it away?

  “My dear Lucia,” Queen Edwina began, “I must insist—”

  “Lady Lucia,” said Henri Vauquelin, cutting across her with the calm self-confidence of a man whose calling places him, when he so chooses, above the whims of mere monarchs. “Prince Roland is asking for you.”

  “I beg you will excuse me, Your Majesty,” said Lucia. She did not wait to observe Queen Edwina’s reaction to this new development; whatever it might be, she should not let it dictate her conduct.

  Henri Vauquelin ushered Lucia back to Roland’s bedside, where his apprentice eagerly surrendered to her his seat on a hard chair, together with a jug of beef tea, a porcelain cup, and a spoon.

  “He must take some nourishment, ma’am,” said the healer, murmuring in Lucia’s ear. “It may be more welcome from your hand.”

  Lucia folded herself into the chair and accepted the jug and spoon almost absently, her attention all on Roland.

  Truly he looked shockingly ill, even for a man suffering from magick shock; with the alarming exception of some of Cormac MacAlpine’s victims—kidnapped, beaten, and held under interdiction—Lucia had rarely seen such ashen skin on a living person. The sight of him, waxen-faced amidst the white pillows and midnight-blue coverlet, wedged open a door in her mind which for the most part she succeeded in keeping locked up tight, and for a moment she was ten years old again, attending upon her mother’s deathbed, at once desperately sad and secretly, guiltily eager for some respite from the melancholic miasma which had enveloped the whole of Castle Hill for nearly a year, spurring her to escapades such as that illicit ascent of Arthur’s Seat only to escape it.<
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  But it was only a moment, for she had many years’ experience in setting her shoulder to that door and shutting away what lay behind it.

  “Roland,” she said, keeping her voice low and (with some effort) even. His wheat-gold lashes fluttered; she set down the jug on the floor by her feet, dropped the cup and spoon upon the coverlet, and bent towards Roland to take his hand in hers. His fingers felt chilly against her palm, but not so much like a row of icicles as previously. That is one good sign, at any rate.

  She squeezed his hand gently and repeated his name—once—twice—until his eyes fluttered open once more and, after an agonising moment of wandering, found her face.

  “Lucia,” he said, a croaking mutter somehow flavoured with deep relief—why? Where had he feared she might go?

  “Yes,” she said, smiling down at him—letting her own relief show plainly on her face. “Here I am. How do you, my dear?”

  “I . . .” Roland closed his eyes, wet his lips, opened his eyes again. “We were in the maze,” he said. “The . . . the trees were . . . singing?”

  Lucia swallowed her astonishment. “Were they indeed?” she said mildly. “You must tell me all about it at some other time, when you are better.”

  Roland frowned at this, as she had suspected he might. “Better, how? Were we set upon by . . . has the maze its own angry Minotaur, now?”

  “You are badly magick-shocked,” Lucia explained. With her free hand she smoothed the fall of fair hair back from his forehead. “We were foolish not to bring along a picnic supper, as it turns out, for I could do nothing for you until your brother came in search of us with a band of guardsmen.”

  Roland blinked up at her, his eyes wide and very blue in his too-pale face. “Lucia, I—”

  “You have yet had nothing to eat,” said Lucia, forestalling him. Freeing her hand, she bent to retrieve her jug and took up the abandoned cup. “I ought not to have kept you talking all this time, when you might have been eating.” She poured a little of the broth into the cup—not too much, lest Roland’s hands (or her own) tremble enough to spill it; he would, she was quite certain, resent the indignity of being fed with a spoon. “Will you drink a little of this beef tea, to begin with? Or, if there is something else you had rather, I am sure—”

  Wordlessly, Roland reached for the cup. Lucia handed off the jug to Henri Vauquelin, standing quietly at her elbow, and—for she was herself very hungry, and so tired that her limbs seemed cast in lead—did not try to intervene when his apprentice stepped forward at her other side to help Roland sit up and rearrange the pillows at his back.

  “What you did was very well done, Lady Lucia,” said Henri Vauquelin. His voice, she thought, was rather louder than necessary; to whom was he speaking, really? “Prince Roland was fortunate in his choice of companions.”

  “It was fortunate that the night was so mild,” Lucia replied, “and that Prince Edward came seeking us so soon.”

  No one had yet asked either of them, she observed with a strangely detached curiosity, what in the world Roland had been doing to bring this affliction on himself. That, I suppose, is a conversation for some less eventful hour.

  Henri Vauquelin bent closer and, under the pretext of taking Roland’s pulse, said quietly, “Your bride understates her value, Highness. You, I trust, will not be tempted to do the same.”

  Roland swallowed the remainder of his cupful of beef tea, and, resting the cup amongst the bedclothes by his hip, said solemnly, “You may be sure that I shall not, sir.”

  His voice still much resembled the creaking of a rusted gate-hinge; yet somehow the tone and the words had the character of a vow.

  There was a commotion from the direction of Roland’s sitting-room; Lucia looked up sharply, irrationally fearing that Queen Edwina might have sent for some even larger and more threatening guardsmen to take her away.

  But Roland’s mother and brother hovered in the doorway as before, and the only addition to their vigil was—

  “Father,” said Roland, in an odd tone compounded of astonishment and trepidation. His hand caught at Lucia’s fingers and held fast.

  Henry of Britain swept past his wife and eldest son and strode across the room to stand at the foot of Roland’s bed.

  Henri Vauquelin and his apprentice bowed respectfully; Lucia made to rise from her chair to do the same, but Roland tightened his grip on her hand, and she fell back into her seat with a small huff. “Your pardon, Your Majesty,” she said instead.

  He nodded at her, vaguely, and reached down to grip Roland’s right foot through the coverlet—an intimate and oddly endearing gesture, at which Lucia caught herself smiling fondly. Henry Tudor is not so very grand, after all, when his wee boy is ill in bed, she thought.

  His Majesty did not speak to Roland, however, but to the healer, in the clipped tones of a serjeant-major: “Tell me. Leave nothing out.”

  “Prince Roland is suffering from magick shock, Your Majesty,” said Henri Vauquelin, “compounded by a prolonged period of exposure, without food or drink, prior to his rescue. Thanks to the Lady Lucia’s quick thinking, however, the consequences are not so dire as they might have been, and His Royal Highness will live to fight another day.”

  The King now turned his full attention to Lucia, who was moved by the weight of his intent, measuring gaze to say, “I assure you, sir, that I did only what anyone would have.”

  “Nonetheless, Lucia MacNeill,” said King Henry, so nakedly sincere that his face was difficult to look at, “we are in your debt.”

  “I beg you will not think of it, Your Majesty,” said Lucia.

  * * *

  At Henri Vauquelin’s insistence, Lucia was included in the small conclave assembled in Roland’s sitting-room, whilst Queen Edwina took her place at his bedside. This seemed to Lucia not altogether as it should be; the Queen appeared well enough contented with her lot, however, and as Lucia had certainly no desire to be shut out of the discussion, she pressed Roland’s hand, bent quickly to drop a kiss on the top of his head, and followed Henri Vauquelin out of the room.

  The door having been shut behind them, the conference was brief and pointed: Roland was to keep his bed; to be fed on plain, nourishing foods; to be kept warm; to be prevented from any premature experiments in the use of magick, no matter how apparently benign.

  “And above all, in cases of this kind,” Henri Vauquelin concluded sternly, “it is vital that the patient not be upset, or subjected to the least nervous strain. Such as, for example”—and here his eyes settled pointedly on Prince Edward—“may result from disputes as to which members of the household are to be permitted to bear him company during his convalescence.”

  “As you say, sir,” said Edward, looking at his boots.

  “As Lady Lucia’s company appears to be of material benefit,” the healer continued, “she is to be given the freedom of his rooms until such time as he is fit to leave them, as well as whatever accommodation and assistance she may require. Do I make myself clear, Highness?”

  “Entirely clear, sir,” said Edward.

  “Very good,” said Henri Vauquelin. “Now, as to yourself, Lady Lucia: When had you last anything to eat?”

  Lucia blinked, considering this question. “I . . . I cannot now recall,” she admitted at last. “Certainly I made a very good breakfast—”

  “Something will be sent up for you from the kitchens,” said the King, before anyone else could say anything at all. “At once. Whatever you care to name.”

  “To be perfectly frank, sir,” said Lucia, “I should be heartily glad of bread-crusts and apple-cores at present, so they were plentiful and not actually mouldering. Whatever the kitchen may see fit to send up, I assure you, shall be eaten in its entirety and without complaint.”

  King Henry appeared to be considering this carefully.

  “In that case,” said Edward after a moment, with
a cautious glance at his father, “I shall order everything that Roland likes best to eat, in case something may tempt him also.”

  “An admirably parsimonious solution,” said Lucia. In truth it was an effort of will by now merely to stay on her feet. She turned to Henri Vauquelin. “May I return to Roland, now?” she asked. “If you have no further need of me at present?”

  “Certainly, certainly.” The healer ran a shrewd eye from Lucia’s toes to the top of her head and back. “In fact, I should advise you to go and sit down as soon as ever you may, my dear, before you fall down.”

  “I thank you, sir, very much,” said Lucia. She bowed to the King, and to Edward—no more than a brief inclining of her head, so real was the danger of losing her balance and sending them all sprawling to the floor—then turned away.

  As she approached the threshold she heard Henri Vauquelin say, in a low, considering tone, “That, sir, is a very competent young woman.”

  Brìghde’s tears! I should certainly hope so, said Donald MacNeill’s voice, indignant, in her mind’s ear. Lucia smiled to herself as she set her hand to the door-handle, and leant her shoulder harder against that other door from which, now more than ever, her memories of her mother’s last illness threatened to cast their poisoned caltrops under her feet.

  CHAPTER VIII

  In Which Lucia Faces the Consequences

  As Lucia had good cause to know, an ordinary case of magick shock, promptly and properly treated, need occasion no more serious alarm than an ordinary cold in the head. But a cold in the head can, in particular circumstances, hold the seeds of a more dangerous illness of the lungs; what worse consequences might follow from the exacerbation of magick shock by like circumstances, such as hours spent out of doors, lying on the ground, with no protection from the evening chill, from the river mist?

  It was not this question only, however, which disturbed Lucia’s sleep.

  Two hours since, her guard captain, Ceana MacGregor, had arrived at the door of Roland’s rooms, demanding entrance. Lucia had eaten (rather haphazardly) a little of nearly every dish sent up from the kitchens at Edward’s instructions; thus fortified, and with Henri Vauquelin’s support, she had faced down Queen Edwina’s attempt to insist upon her going away to sleep in her own rooms, and at last prevailed; and now, therefore, having left strict instructions with Ceana MacGregor and with Marcus Cattermole, the apprentice healer whose name she had at last succeeded in discovering, that she was to be told at once if Roland should wake and ask for her—no matter the hour or the circumstances—had allowed herself to be tucked up for the night, under several layers of blankets, upon the chaise longue in Roland’s vast dressing-room.