“He does have a few,” said Frankyr from the archway into the parlor.
Johlana favored her son with a knife-like look Beltur wouldn’t have wanted to receive.
“… and I’m certain they’re all accomplished and charming,” added Frankyr.
“A little more convincing tone would help, Frankyr,” said Halhana cheerfully. “Someday, you might have daughters. Perhaps I could persuade Mage Beltur to assist in that.”
“Children,” said Johlana firmly. “You’re not exactly showing your better sides to Beltur and Jessyla.”
“Frankyr and I never do,” replied Halhana in a warm bubbly tone.
“You keep this up, and this recently consorted pair may decide never to have children, and it will be all your fault,” declared Johlana in a tone of mock severity, looking at Frankyr as he started to speak and adding, “Not another word. Go bring in more coal for the oven.”
Frankyr grinned but immediately vanished from the archway.
“He’s impossible at times,” said Johlana. “It’s a good thing that he’s good-hearted.”
“I was going to wait for Uncle Jorhan, but I need to get back home. Also, I don’t want to keep Kaslaar outside in the cold any longer.”
“I’ll tell Jorhan you were here.”
“Thank you, Mother.” After an engaging smile, Halhana turned and left the parlor.
“She’s very pretty,” said Jessyla.
“More important, she’s caring,” replied Johlana. “I’ve known too many pretty women who cared for no one but themselves. You two settle yourselves. I’ll be back in just a moment.”
Neither Beltur nor Jessyla spoke for several moments. Finally, Jessyla said, “She takes after both of them.”
“More her mother, I think.”
“They’re both strong-willed.”
“Like another mother and daughter I know.”
“I should have known you’d say that.” Jessyla shook her head. “Speaking of Mother, I need to see Johlana about borrowing some stationery…”
Beltur smiled.
XXXVII
Dinner was pleasant, and Beltur particularly enjoyed the mutton burhka, spicy as it was, perhaps because the sauce added some taste to the sliced and boiled turnips that had accompanied the main dish. Neither Barrynt nor Jorhan had said anything about possibilities for a smithy, and Beltur didn’t press.
After dinner, in the family parlor, Beltur turned to Barrynt. “I was wondering. Jessyla would like to let her mother know that we’ve arrived here safely. I know you sent missives to Jorhan…”
Barrynt smiled. “You’d like to know if I could arrange for a letter to go to her mother?”
“If it’s possible.”
The merchant nodded. “At this time of year it might be an eightday or more before someone trustworthy is headed that way. The usual fee in winter is two silvers.”
“We can do that.”
“Then it’s settled. You don’t have to pay me until the letter’s sent.”
“I’ll have it for you in the next day,” said Jessyla.
“You may well be more prompt in the writing than in its departure,” Barrynt pointed out.
“That could be true,” agreed Jessyla, “but the sooner I have it to you, the better the chance it will be ready for whoever is traveling west.”
“Thank you,” added Beltur.
“My pleasure.”
For all of Barrynt’s cheerful agreement, before long both he and Johlana seemed to sink into a preoccupied state, and while Beltur sensed that and wondered about the cause, Jessyla was the one to speak first.
“Thank you again for a wonderful dinner. I hope you won’t mind if we excuse ourselves. Today was a very long day at the healing house.”
“Of course not, dear,” Johlana replied immediately. “We all have long days at times.”
“We’ll see you in the morning,” added Barrynt cheerfully.
“I likely won’t,” said Jorhan. “There’s not much point in me getting up when there’s no work to do. I’ll leave that to those who do.”
Beltur sensed a certain irritation behind the pleasant tone of the smith’s words.
Not until Beltur and Jessyla were back in their bedchamber, standing beside the padded bench, did either speak.
“Something’s going on between Jorhan and Barrynt and Johlana,” said Beltur. “Or all three of them are worried about the same thing.”
“I don’t think it’s that. Not with Jorhan’s last words.”
“He doesn’t like not being busy. He’s a smith, and he wants to keep doing it.” Beltur paused. “Do you think we’re overstaying our welcome?”
“We probably are,” admitted Jessyla, “but I don’t get the sense that we’re the problem.”
“Not yet, anyway. Halhana, perhaps?”
“Not Halhana … not exactly, but I think it has something to do with her.”
“I did notice one thing about her…”
“Oh?”
“You seemed at loss when she said you were beautiful.”
Jessyla flushed. “It wasn’t that. I didn’t think you saw.”
“I did. How could I not? But she’s right. You are beautiful.”
She turned to him. “It wasn’t her. It was you. I could feel you looking at me … and what you felt.” She put her arms around him and drew him to her for a long, lingering kiss, then slowly drew back, slightly. “I hoped … but somehow, standing next to someone that pretty, and feeling as though I was the only one you saw…”
Beltur swallowed. “How could I not? You are the only one.”
“Words are one thing. Your feelings are what count, and … your feelings were so strong I could sense them from across the room.”
As close together as they were, Beltur didn’t even have to try in sensing the truth and warmth—and love—that flowed from her.
“We belong together,” she added.
While he wanted to enfold her, to do far more, he also sensed that the moment was more about love than physical passion, as passionate as he felt. He kissed her far more gently than he would have liked. “We do.” After a moment, he asked, “How long have you felt that way?”
“I had the first hint when we came to Elparta. We were sitting in Athaal and Meldryn’s parlor, and you looked at me and said, ‘Congratulations.’ It meant a lot that your first words were about what I’d done. Well, almost your first words, but even your very first words were that you would have hurried if you’d known I was there.”
“I would have.”
“I know.”
“And then?”
“When you thanked me for what I’d said in Fenard, that I’d gotten you to thinking about order. It wasn’t just that. It was that Waensyn had been so awful, and you didn’t dwell on that. You asked me all about healing, and you understood.”
“I don’t know that I really understood, but I was trying to.”
“I knew that, too. That was even more important. You’re always trying to understand. You always want to know more and get better. I’ve always known that I never wanted to be with anyone who didn’t try or who … looked down on me. You never have.”
“How could I?”
“That’s another reason why I love you.”
Beltur wasn’t about to question that. “Are you tired?”
“Not yet.”
Beltur managed not to sigh or to look longingly in the direction of the bed.
Jessyla glanced toward the bed, and back to Beltur. “Not yet, dear man.”
Beltur hung on the word “yet.”
“You had mentioned something about teaching me magery,” Jessyla said. “We have a little time. It’s not that late.”
You did promise her that. Beltur unentangled himself from Jessyla.
“Please don’t pout. It doesn’t become you.”
“I’m not pouting.” Feeling frustrated, but not pouting.
“Good.” She leaned forward and kissed his cheek momentarily.
>
Beltur paused, trying to clear his thoughts and wondering exactly where he could start. “If I do something in shifting and moving chaos, you can sense what I’m doing, right?”
“That’s the problem. I can sense it, but I can’t do what I see that you’re doing.”
“Watch me with your senses.” Beltur eased a tiny bit of free order from the air around him and moved it toward Jessyla, letting it hang in front of her. “Did you sense that? Where’s the order?”
She raised a finger, the tip of her nail almost touching the order point. “There.”
“Now you try it.”
Beltur focused on Jessyla, but could sense no shifting or changing of the order flow around her.
“I can’t do it. I just can’t. Nothing’s changed.”
The discouragement and disappointment in her voice tore at Beltur. Abruptly, he straightened. “Let’s try something else.”
“I don’t see what. That won’t make any difference.”
“No … the same thing, but in a very different way.”
Her forehead knit in puzzlement.
“Hold my hands.”
“That’s not magery.”
“Just hold them.”
Gingerly, she did.
“No … like you really meant it. Just trust me.”
Her fingers tightened around his, possibly with a hint of desperation.
“Now … try to sense what I’m feeling, just what I’m feeling.” Beltur used his senses to grasp a tiny bit of free order and then to place it on Jessyla’s cheek.
“Oh … how…?”
“Keep holding my hands. This time, try to sense both what I’m feeling and what I’m doing…”
Beltur again grasped a tiny bit of free order and placed it beside the first on Jessyla’s cheek. “Did you sense both my feelings and my actions?”
“Yes…”
Beltur could sense the tentativeness of her reply. “We’ll try that again. Just concentrate on both my feelings and the movement of the order.” This time Beltur also focused on only those two things as well.
“Do that again,” murmured Jessyla. “There’s … something … I can almost…”
Beltur repeated the exercise, forcing his thoughts to focus on those two things, and only those two things.
“It’s like I can almost touch it, but not quite.”
“This time, you try to move the bit of order, and I’ll just give you the feelings.” Beltur concentrated on sensing what she was trying, and, as she tried to touch a bit of order, he nudged it toward what felt like her grasp … and the order kept moving, this time toward Beltur’s cheek.
“I did it!”
Jessyla’s words weren’t that loud, but to Beltur, the excitement behind them was overwhelming.
“Do it again.”
Beltur concentrated once more, still sensing a hint of a barrier, if less than the last time, and, again, he offered an even slighter nudge than before, but Jessyla’s grasp was firmer. “Much better. Do it again.”
The third time, he offered feelings, but no actual assistance. The fourth time, he offered neither, but she managed to move a small bit of order.
“Do it without holding my hands this time.”
Jessyla had to try twice before she managed to move the small bit of order.
“Now … we’re going to try something different.” He stood and walked to the side table that held a traveling candle. He used a touch of free chaos to light the candle. “I want you to put enough order around the flame to snuff it out. Right now, it might take several tries.”
In fact, Jessyla tried five times before she could snuff out the candle. “That was hard.”
“You keep trying, day after day, and it gets easier. Now … I want you to try something else. I’m going to create a small ball of free chaos, surrounded by order. I want you to move it to the candlewick and see if you can light the candle.”
The first time that Jessyla tried it nothing happened.
“Why didn’t it light?”
“You just let go of the chaos, and it spread in all directions. This time, just move the order on one side so that all the chaos flows over the candlewick.”
“How did you ever learn all this?” she asked.
“It took a long time. Almost too long. Now try it again.”
The second time, the tip of the wick showed a spark, but that faded immediately.
“Again.”
It took two more attempts before the candle caught, with just a tiny flame that slowly grew into a full one.
“How do you feel?” Beltur asked quietly.
“Excited … tired … How did you know that would work? Not the candle, but working with feelings.”
“I didn’t. I just knew that the way I learned and the way everyone else learned wasn’t working. Handling order and chaos isn’t just by thought. It takes physical strength and … a certain feel. You’re strong enough, and you can definitely sense where order and chaos are—and most people can’t. I just guessed that if I could get you to feel something, feel how I did it, that might open things enough for you so that you could begin to manipulate order and chaos.”
“It worked.” A broad smile crossed Jessyla’s face. “It really did.”
“I’m glad.” Especially since I’m not sure what else I could have done.
“I’m a little tired.” She looked toward the bed.
Beltur tried to take a long deep breath slowly.
“Not that tired, dear man.” She took his hands. “You know … what you were doing at first was very … sensual…”
“I could do that again…”
XXXVIII
On fourday and sixday, Beltur worked at the healing house, while Jessyla did on fiveday and sevenday. When Beltur wasn’t working at healing, he did his best to be helpful around Barrynt’s house, scraping frost and ice off the lane and the sidewalks, grooming all the horses, cleaning the entire stable, and whatever else seemed necessary. In turn, Jessyla helped Johlana.
After four more days of cold and clear weather, when Beltur left for the healing house on eightday morning, heavy clouds shrouded the mountains, and a fine snow fell across Axalt. He walked swiftly, if carefully, given that treacherous clear ice on the stone pavement was always possible, but still arrived before seventh glass, nodding to Elisa, the young girl studying to be a healer who ran errands and carried messages.
She offered a quick smile and hurried down the corridor.
Herrara greeted him as he walked into her study. “In the middle of the night, a house burned down. It was in the hills east of south town. It happens, now and again. Except this fire was deliberate. The girl said the house was in flames when she woke. Both her parents were lying on the floor. She got her two brothers out. A neighbor brought them here well before dawn this morning. The eldest boy died right after they arrived. The girl and the other boy have bruises, burns, and frostburn on their feet. They’re upstairs in the small room. I’d like you to check them and the dressings on their burns and their feet. Then let me know what you think.”
Beltur could sense that Herrara was uneasy about something, but there wasn’t any point in asking … not yet. “I’ll do that immediately.”
“If I’m not here, I’ll be in the incoming room.”
Beltur left the study and made his way to the staircase and up the steps, wondering how one child could have died when it sounded as though the other two weren’t that badly injured.
The two children were in the smallest chamber on the upper level. The girl sitting on the edge of the narrow bed radiated fear as Beltur stepped inside the door, leaving it open behind him. All types of chaos swirled around her, and that didn’t include wound chaos on her arms and feet, or the duller red chaos in too many places on her body. She looked to be eleven or twelve. The boy in the other bed stared at Beltur almost blankly.
“I’m Beltur. I’m both a healer and a black mage. That’s why I wear black instead of green.” He stopped well sho
rt of the girl. “I came to see how you two are doing.”
“Toscalt died, didn’t he? They took him away in the dark.”
“He did.”
“Pa beat him too bad.” The girl looked at Beltur defiantly.
“He beat you all. I can see that.” He did more than that to you. But Beltur wasn’t ready to go into that. “Could you tell me your name?”
“Chora.”
“And your brother’s name?”
“I call him Bhast. Pa said he didn’t deserve a name.”
“I need to look at your arms and feet. That’s to see if your dressings need to be changed.”
“You’ll hurt me, like the others.”
“I’ll try not to.”
“That’s what they said.”
Beltur studied her for a moment with his senses. Her right hand was heavily bandaged, most likely with a cool compress holding a poultice of brinn and calendula. While there were tiny flecks of wound chaos everywhere, there was no sign of a large concentration. The palm of her other hand was also bound, and there was a large compress covering most of her right forearm, but the burns didn’t appear that severe. Then he used his senses on her feet. There were definite chaotic signs of frostburn around her toes, but Beltur thought they would also heal, although they would bear watching. “Do your feet feel like they’re hot or burning a little?”
“Not anymore.”
Beltur turned his attention to her brother. He had slightly fewer bruises, and his burns were all comparatively light. His frostburn was about the same as his sister’s.
Beltur looked back to Chora. “Your brother was burned less than you were.”
She just looked at Beltur.
“Do you have any relatives? An aunt or an uncle?”
Chora shook her head.
He took another step toward her. “Hold out your left hand.”
Warily, she did so.
Beltur barely touched her fingertips with his, but drew a slight bit of free order from around him and let it flow into Chora, then withdrew his hand. “That might help a little.”
Her eyes brightened just a touch.
“Try to sleep or rest,” he said. “I’ll be back from time to time to check on you and Bhast.”
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