Above His Proper Station

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  “Horrible!” Lord Dorias exclaimed, clasping and unclasping his hands. “Horrible! How could you have been included on such a list?”

  Allutar managed a bitter laugh. “My dear Dorias, my name was first on the list! Have you paid no attention at all to the stories circulating here?”

  Lord Dorias drew himself up. “I do not listen to lies and slander, my lord.”

  “You should,” Allutar retorted. “Otherwise you will have no idea what others might believe, or what beliefs they might act upon.”

  “But how could they be a threat to you, my lord?” Lady Saria asked. “You’re a powerful sorcerer!”

  Lord Allutar grimaced. “Oh, at least half the alleged traitors on their list are sorcerers,” he said. “And in each case, when they read off a sorcerer’s name, they read his true name as well. That is a most disturbing experience, my lady, to hear your true name spoken; I hope you never share it. And after my true name was announced, someone—I cannot say who—worked a binding upon it. I cannot use any magic whatsoever, my dear; I have been bound by my true name not to.”

  “But … how did they know your true name?” Lady Saria asked.

  Allutar did not reply, but turned to Anrel.

  Anrel did not pretend ignorance or outrage. “The Committee for the Regulation of Sorcery,” he said. “They made an arrangement with the emperor, promising to pay his debts in exchange for one night’s access to the Great List. My dear cousin, I greatly fear they have your true name, as well. That was what brought me here.”

  “And it brought me to you as well, beloved,” Allutar said. “I came to warn you that as my betrothed you may be implicated, and therefore endangered.” He looked at Anrel again. “It would seem that we are on the same side in this, Master Murau—my name was the first to be read out, but yours, as I heard most distinctly while pulling the sword from its unfortunate former owner, was the second. Rather than appending a true name, as they did for sorcerers, they called you Anrel Murau, also known as Alvos, the orator of Naith.”

  “Then his story is all true?” Lord Dorias exclaimed.

  Lord Allutar looked at him. “I scarcely know what story Master Murau told you, but it was in all probability true, yes. I have never known him to tell a deliberate lie.”

  This compliment so startled Anrel that he did not speak for a moment; instead it was Lady Saria who said, “But what are we to do?”

  “I cannot say,” Lord Allutar said. “I expect to be apprehended fairly soon, and to either die fighting my would-be captors, or if I cannot manage that, to be executed by them. I sought to warn you so that you might have some time to flee, or go into hiding, before my pursuers find me.”

  “But you can hide, surely?” Lord Dorias said.

  Allutar glared at him—apparently the burgrave’s foolishness had finally worn down the landgrave’s reserves of politeness. “They have my true name, my lord,” he snapped. “They read it aloud before an audience of hundreds. They can find me whenever they please, or they can simply compel me to return and surrender myself.”

  “But they have our true names, as well!” Lady Saria wailed.

  “Are you certain of that, Master Murau?” Allutar asked, turning to Anrel. “I had not known how they obtained the names, nor how many they had.”

  “They have almost the entirety of the list of sorcerers now living,” Anrel said. “They may be missing some of the eldest, and I was able to alter their records of many of the youngest and a handful of others, but only a handful. Virtually every adult sorcerer or sorceress is on their list, and almost all the true names they have are accurate.”

  “Abominable!” Lord Dorias muttered, shaking his head. “Simply abominable!”

  “You need not fear their magic, Master Murau,” Allutar said to Anrel. “You failed the trials.”

  “I did,” Anrel agreed. “My true name is unrecorded, and I can go into hiding once again with some expectation of remaining undetected.”

  “But we’re going to Quand!” Perynis burst out. “You don’t need to hide!”

  Lord Allutar shook his head. “The city gates are sealed, and the river is heavily patrolled,” he said. “No one is going to Quand.”

  Anrel hesitated, but decided there was no reason to conceal the truth; for the moment he and Lord Allutar were allies, and the secret would certainly come out when Lord Blackfield arrived, if not sooner.

  “Some of us may indeed be going to Ondine,” Anrel said. “Your friend Lord Blackfield has been ordered to leave the city by sundown, and has been granted safe passage through the gate. Despite the obvious risk to himself he has volunteered to take a few of us with him, disguised as his servants.”

  The change in Lord Allutar’s expression was startling. Until Anrel spoke he had looked weary but proud, but when he heard of a possible escape, for the merest instant his face was alight with hope—and then he regained control of himself, and settled his face into a calm half smile. “A few of us, you say?”

  “Yes,” Anrel said.

  “There are eight of us in this room,” Lord Allutar said. “Can he manage as many as that?”

  “There are nine of us,” Anrel corrected him, pointing to Ollith. “And I doubt Lord Blackfield can fit so many. Certainly, so large a group would arouse suspicion.”

  Ollith cleared his throat.

  “Yes, Ollith?” Anrel asked.

  “There are two others on the household staff, sir.”

  “Only two?” Anrel asked, startled. In Alzur the burgrave had maintained a staff of six.

  “Our housekeeper and maid,” Lord Dorias said. “The others did not accompany us to Lume.”

  Something in his uncle’s voice told him that there was more to the story than that, and that the circumstances had not been to Lord Dorias’s liking. Perhaps there was some unhappy history that would explain why Ollith, a mere footman, appeared to be the head servant, and why Ziral, the family butler, was nowhere to be seen.

  But that was not immediately relevant. “Housekeeper and maid …” Anrel said, trying to recall exactly who that would be. Then he remembered.

  “My wife and daughter,” Ollith said, confirming Anrel’s memory.

  There could be no question of leaving them behind if Ollith came. “Eleven of us,” Anrel said. “Lord Blackfield cannot possibly accommodate so many.”

  “But why would he take these women?” Lady Saria asked. “And who is this man?”

  “I’m her husband,” Garras growled, pointing at Nivain. “They’re my daughters.”

  “He was my husband,” Nivain said.

  “But what do they have to do with Lord Blackfield?” Saria persisted.

  “They’re witches,” Anrel said. “A third sister was hanged in Beynos this past winter, at Lord Allutar’s order.”

  “Ah,” Allutar said, more to himself than anyone else. “All witches, then?”

  No one answered him. “Witchcraft is legal in Quand,” Perynis said. “Mother and I want to go.”

  “And I say you go nowhere without me,” Garras replied. He turned to Lord Dorias. “Tell them, my lord—a man is the master of his wife and children, is he not?”

  Before the startled Lord Dorias could respond, Nivain leapt to her feet and pointed angrily to the bruise on her face. “Is someone who does this truly a man at all? This person has taken all the money I have earned for the past twenty years while doing no work himself, has taken the money our children earned, and this is what he gives us in return!” Both her finger and her chin trembled. “When our Reva was hanged his first thought was not for her, not for a decent burial or prayers for her soul, but to demand that I give him her dowry! All he loves is money—he cares nothing for me nor for our children, save as a source of income, and I will have no more of it! Let him go to Quand if he will, for if he does, we will stay here and take our chances with the wardens.”

  Garras rose as well, fists clenched, but before he could speak he found the blade of Lord Allutar’s sword at his throat. The sorcer
er had moved so swiftly that no one else had time to react; they all sat or stood frozen as they were.

  “Master Lir,” the landgrave said without rising from his chair. “Your daughter tried to enchant me in Beynos.”

  Garras swallowed, staring down at the blade. His hands opened. “Yes, my lord.”

  “Was that your idea?”

  “No, my lord!” He drew his head back; the blade followed. “I swear it was not!”

  “Was it perhaps yours, mistress?” Allutar asked Nivain without taking his eyes from Garras.

  “No, my lord,” Nivain replied. “Reva accepted the commission against my wishes.”

  “And she paid the price for her folly.”

  No one replied to that; Anrel bit back a retort.

  “That bruise on your wife’s cheek,” Allutar demanded. “Is that your doing?”

  “I don’t—” Garras began.

  The sword twitched upward.

  “Yes, my lord,” Garras said miserably.

  “What she says about your daughter’s dowry—is that true?”

  “It … I …” His eyes widened, and his hands twitched. “I was drunk, my lord. Very drunk. I had tried to drown my grief over the loss of my child, and I was out of my senses with sorrow and wine.”

  “But you demanded the money.”

  Garras glanced at Anrel, and saw no sympathy there. “Yes, my lord,” he said.

  “Are you a witch?”

  “No, my lord!”

  “What is your occupation, then?”

  “I … I am a traveler, my lord.”

  “I have not heard that one can earn a living as a traveler.”

  Garras’s eyes darted toward Lord Dorias, but he did not dare turn his head. “I … I get by on whatever odd jobs I may find, my lord.”

  “You live on what your wife and daughters earn as witches, you mean.”

  Garras’s eyes moved from one face to another and found no sympathy anywhere. “Yes, my lord,” he confessed.

  “And you want them back not out of love, but because your funds have run out.”

  “Not only that, my lord! She is my wife, and I … I …”

  “You want a woman to share your bed.”

  “Of course, my lord! And I—” He stopped.

  The tip of the sword drew a drop of red from just below Garras’s chin, and contempt dripped from Lord Allutar’s words. “And even with a sword at your throat, you cannot bring yourself to say you love her.”

  “She’s my wife!”

  “She denies it.”

  “I bought her at auction!”

  “Have you a receipt?”

  Garras blinked in surprise. “A … a receipt, my lord?”

  “An indenture, perhaps? Some document that says she has been consigned to your ownership, and is no longer a free woman of the Empire?”

  “No, of course not, my lord! But she … I …”

  “I think, Master Lir, that you would be well advised to say your farewells and depart. I do not believe you are welcome here.”

  Garras stared down the blade at the landgrave. “But you—”

  Lord Allutar interrupted him. “My apologies, sir; you are quite right. I am a guest here, just as you are, and it is not my place to say. Lord Dorias, do you want this person in your home?”

  Lord Dorias blinked as if suddenly awakened. “No,” he said. “No, I do not.”

  “There you go, then, Master Lir.” Allutar snatched the sword away and settled back in his chair, retrieving the bloody cloth to once again clean the the tip of his blade but keeping his gaze fixed on Garras.

  Garras stared at Lord Allutar, then cast about the room for some sign of sympathy, but found none.

  “Good day, Master Lir,” Lord Dorias said. “Ollith will show you to the door.”

  Ollith took his cue. “This way, sir.”

  Garras glared at the others, clearly trying to compose a parting speech, but finally simply strode across the room. “You’ll regret this,” he said as he left.

  “I doubt that,” Lord Allutar said. “Ollith, be sure he has his stick—we wouldn’t want him to accuse us of theft.”

  When Garras and Ollith had left the room Anrel said to Allutar, “I suppose he’ll go straight to the wardens—but all the same, that was well done, my lord.”

  The landgrave looked at him, startled, then smiled. “Thank you, Master Murau. Coming from you, I take that as a great compliment.”

  Anrel nodded an acknowledgment.

  “As for the wardens, his threats aside, I wonder whether such a scoundrel dares to approach any sort of authority,” Allutar said. “And if he does, one might hope they would hesitate to believe such an individual. In any case, even should he go to them, with any luck at least some of us will be on our way to Quand before he can fetch them here.”

  “Let us hope so,” Anrel agreed as Lord Dorias muttered something.

  “With Master Lir removed, we are ten,” Lord Allutar said. “Still too many, I do not doubt. Who, then, is to accept Lord Blackfield’s kind offer of transportation to Quand?”

  “Nivain and Perynis Lir,” Anrel said. “If only to ensure that Garras Lir will not be able to trouble them further.”

  “Agreed,” Lord Allutar said. “Though I wonder that you do not include the other daughter.”

  Anrel glanced at Tazia. “She and I … have matters to discuss,” he said.

  “Ah. I will leave that between you, then. Let us consider the rest of us.”

  “I am not yet convinced any of us need go,” Lord Dorias said. “We are Walasians, and have no business in Quand. Oh, perhaps you, Allutar …”

  “My lord Uncle, you are not safe here!” Anrel insisted.

  “So you say, but I—” Lord Dorias abruptly stopped in midsentence, eyes going wide. His voice caught in his throat, and he leaned forward as if gagging.

  “Father? What is it? What’s wrong?” Lady Saria jumped from her chair and threw her arm around her father’s shoulders, trying to support him. Anrel, too, arose.

  “Someone … someone said my true name,” Dorias replied, his voice husky and weak.

  “Are you sure? How can—” Lady Saria began; then she jerked upright. “Oh!” she said.

  Lord Allutar’s smile twisted. “An alarming sensation, isn’t it? I think we may consider it settled, then, that you both are in danger.”

  “I feared as much,” Anrel said. “Are you … have you been ensorceled?”

  “I am bound, yes,” Dorias whispered. He looked up at Saria and Anrel with terror in his eyes. “Magic … magic is forbidden me. I am a sorcerer no more.”

  35

  In Which Help Arrives

  “My uncle must go,” Anrel said.

  “Of course,” Lord Allutar replied. “And Lady Saria.”

  “That’s four,” Tazia said. She had gotten to her feet, as well. “Lord Blackfield can take four?”

  “I think so,” Anrel said.

  At that moment Ollith reappeared in the doorway and saw his employer slumped in his chair, obviously stricken. “My lord?” he said.

  “I am no longer a sorcerer, Ollith,” Dorias said.

  Ollith looked puzzled and uncertain; he glanced around the room for guidance, but found none.

  “What of your uncle’s staff?” Tazia asked, gesturing toward Ollith.

  Anrel shook his head unhappily. “They are in no real danger here,” he said, “and the three of them would crowd the carriage.”

  “But their master is fleeing the country,” Tazia said. “What will they do if they stay?”

  “No one will hold them to account for their employer’s misdeeds,” Anrel said. “They can find another position.”

  “I don’t think many sorcerers will be hiring.”

  “I know,” Anrel said. “But what are we to do? They would make seven, and would fill the coach to overflowing. There would be no room for you.”

  “For us,” Tazia said. “I will not be parted from you again.”

>   Anrel looked at the footman. “Ollith,” he said, “do you want to go to Quand?”

  Ollith hesitated, and glanced at Lord Dorias. “I would prefer to remain in my present position, sir.”

  “You can’t,” Lord Dorias said, his voice hollow. “I am no longer a sorcerer. This is the end of the House of Adirane. I must flee the country, and I have no holdings in Quand, nor in the Cousins. I will be a pauper, a penniless refugee. I cannot pay your wages.”

  “In that case, my lord,” Ollith said, “I would prefer to remain in Walasia. I speak no Quandish.”

  “Lord Dorias,” Tazia said, “what will become of your property here?”

  “I don’t know,” Dorias answered, bewildered. “I have no idea.”

  “If he is captured and executed,” Anrel said, addressing the entire company, “then his lands and possessions will go toward paying the emperor’s debts. That was the bargain the Committee for the Regulation of Sorcery made.”

  “And if he is not captured?” Lord Allutar asked.

  Anrel shrugged. “They may be forfeit to the crown all the same; I don’t know.”

  “Lord Dorias,” Tazia said, “could you perhaps sign your property over to Master Tuir? As you say, you cannot take any of it to Quand with you.”

  “If you like,” Dorias said, sunk in despair. “It doesn’t matter. I am finished.”

  “Ollith,” Lady Saria said, “fetch my father’s writing desk, and ink, and paper.”

  Ollith blinked, and for an instant a smile flickered across his face. It vanished, and he bowed. “Yes, my lady,” he said. He turned on his heel and left the room.

  “A clever notion,” Lord Allutar remarked as he watched Ollith depart. “Let us hope the empire’s new overlords will honor this bequest.”