‘If it’s a heresy, then why are you interested in it?’ she asked.
Vale smiled as he met her inquiring gaze. ‘You know my talent is in reading and decoding language. I’ve read many books outside those in the temple and none of them have convinced me that Jarudha is not the true source of magic. There are a host of theories, and undoubtedly in the books I have yet to translate I will find hundreds more theories about magic. Theories disprove nothing. In fact, a multitude of theories is just greater testimony to the wondrous and infinite knowledge of Jarudha.’
‘Should I read this book?’ she asked.
‘Go ahead. Tell me what you find.’ Meg had grown used to the varied Shessian scripts and language discrepancies. Just as she had adapted quickly to the writing that Emma had shown her when she first started teaching Meg to read, the script in the new book only took several moments before the elongated writing made sense. ‘What does it say?’ Vale asked.
She concentrated, felt a tingle along her spine, and the unfamiliar words took focus. ‘He says, “The eternal search for the source of magical power has driven searchers to death or madness. Yet, despite all of the evidence in our world that magic is nothing more than an occasional aberration of talent in some individuals, there are those who—”’ She stopped at the pressure of Vale’s hand on her arm, and saw the Seer’s awe etched into his face. ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked.
He didn’t answer. Instead he pushed the book aside, and dragged another large tome across the table and flicked it open. ‘Read this.’
The margins of the vellum pages were beautifully illustrated in vibrant colours with fantastical creatures that seemed to be distorted images of cats and horses and birds. The writing was also like drawing fragments, beautifully crafted in shapes and swirls. The words, as in the first book, were strange at first, but their meaning eerily emerged. ‘“When the traveller first comes upon the shining jewel of Yul Ithyrandyr after days of travelling the harsh desert, he can be forgiven for believing that he is mistaking what he is truly seeing for a mirage. But when his mind settles from the heat and thirst, he will see why this place is called the city of light.”’
‘Jarudha be praised!’ Vale gasped. He pushed the book aside and opened a third. ‘And this?’
‘It’s like a song,’ she said.
‘It’s poetry,’ he told her. ‘Read this part.’
She concentrated. This writing was a strange collection of long sharp strokes and tiny circles.
‘“The passing of a man’s life
Is like a falling autumn leaf;
Quietly, softly,
One leaf among the many,
Anonymous in the act of falling,
As is a man anonymous in
The act of dying.”’
‘That’s a very sad thing to write,’ she said as she finished, but when she looked at Vale he was still staring as if he was witnessing an incomprehensible act. ‘What is wrong?’ she repeated.
His eyes dropped to the open poem and rose again to her face. ‘If I had not seen this for myself, and if I was told that this had happened, I would not believe it. You have done what is impossible.’
The old man’s bout of wonder and cryptic answers were frustrating her. ‘What did I do?’ she asked irritably.
‘You just read texts that I can’t translate,’ he replied slowly. He lifted the poetry book and held it before her. ‘This book’s language has eluded translation ever since it was brought to me fifteen years ago. It came on a shipload of treasures, along with the one you just read about the city of light, and I’ve been unable to decode them. Yet you read them as easily as though they were in our own tongue. Your Blessing makes mine feel like the clumsy fumbling of a small child.’ He put down the book and trotted into the rows of shelves. ‘Wait there,’ he called. He emerged, carrying a thick black book with inlaid gold designs. As he dropped it on the table, dust rose. ‘Can you read the title on this?’
She stared at it. ‘Lessons of the Fourth Ki,’ she read aloud. ‘What does “Ki” mean?’
‘I don’t know,’ he replied. ‘The book I’ve been translating, Destinies Determined, mentions Ki, and even the author’s name, A Ahmud Ki, obviously uses the word. This book I haven’t got to yet, but I’d hoped that by decoding the language in A Ahmud Ki’s text I’d be able to start on this one.’ He bowed his head slightly before Meg, an action that made her cautious. ‘I want you to read what you can in this book today. I’m going to attend to some neglected temple matters. Tomorrow we’ll continue our lessons and you can tell me what you’ve learned.’
Meg watched the Seer depart. His manner had dramatically changed in such a short time, and simply because she was able to read. She stared at the black book, trying to imagine being unable to read the title that now seemed so clear to her. She flipped the cover and read the first page. ‘“The learning of the Fourth Ki is reserved for women. In them resides the power to create and unmake. For men, the axe and the sword mould their world, but for women it is the heart and the mind, and the secret of the Ki is in both heart and mind combined. The lessons within this book are the secret business of women alone, and you, the reader, are now entrusted to maintain these secrets. This is the sworn oath of the High Council.”’ Beneath the script was a name—Lady Tarnyss.
She was so absorbed that she almost missed the knocking. She closed the book, collected Whisper who’d been nestled beside her on the couch, and crossed the chamber, her feet sensitive to the chill of the tiles. Pressed to the door, she asked, ‘Who is it?’
‘It’s me, Lady Amber,’ Smallone’s familiar voice announced. Meg opened the door. The blond pageboy stood between the tall black-armoured Elite Guards. ‘Her Majesty would like you to come to her chamber,’ Smallone informed her with a bow.
‘I’ll just grab a cloak,’ she replied, and she retreated to collect the green cloak that the Queen had sent. Warmer, Whisper curled in her arms, she followed Smallone through the Queen’s private meeting chamber to her bedroom door. He bowed as he indicated that she should enter.
Queen Sunset was sitting on her bed in a pale blue nightdress, with a red-haired girl kneeling behind her, brushing her hair. ‘Come here,’ she called, patting her bedcover. Meg crossed the room and sat on the bed. ‘Oh,’ Sunset complained, and she was staring at Whisper. The rat opened her eyes and looked back at the Queen.
‘I’ll put her on the floor,’ Meg offered. She lowered Whisper onto a thick woollen mat, where the rat immediately curled up again. Sunset was smiling, but the girl with the brush had stopped brushing and was staring.
‘This is Jewel,’ Sunset said. ‘You’ll see her around a lot. She joined my staff yesterday.’ She reached out and touched Meg’s rounded belly. ‘It gets bigger by the day. Are you excited?’
‘I don’t know,’ Meg replied.
‘It will be a boy,’ Sunset told her. ‘Have you had much sickness?’
‘None.’
‘Then you’ve been very lucky. I was ill every morning for several cycles in every pregnancy.’ She checked Meg’s head. ‘Your hair is growing back slowly. Even bald, you were beautiful.’ She caught Jewel’s wrist to stop the girl brushing and asked, ‘Do you think Jewel is pretty?’
‘Yes,’ Meg answered, embarrassed for the girl.
‘I got her for you,’ Sunset said. ‘She will serve you in any way you want her to serve.’
‘But I have Spring.’
‘Not any more. Spring is going to work elsewhere.’ She pulled Jewel around to face Meg. ‘She has red hair, too, but it’s darker than yours. Do you like it?’
Meg looked at the thin girl in the black shift whose dark red hair reached down almost to her hips. ‘It’s beautiful.’
‘She’s fourteen. Her father was trying to sell her as a prostitute on the King’s Way, but I had her bought instead, anonymously, so that her father wouldn’t know where she went. I hope you like her.’
‘I do,’ Meg said, caught Jewel’s gaze, and blushed. ‘Thank yo
u, Your Majesty.’
Sunset laughed and stroked Jewel’s hair, before she tugged at the girl’s shift, saying, ‘You haven’t finished my hair yet.’ Jewel slipped back into position behind the Queen. The Queen pulled aside her bedcover and beckoned to Meg. ‘Take off that cloak and climb in beside me. Jewel can brush your hair, too. And you can tell me what you’ve been learning from Vale. Has he been good to you?’
‘So?’ Vale asked, as soon as Meg entered the library, carrying the book she’d been asked to read, Whisper perched on her shoulder. ‘What have you learned?’
‘It’s the beginning of my seventeenth year today,’ Meg replied, smiling coquettishly.
‘Oh,’ the Seer murmured. ‘Seventeenth year? Well, you have cause to be happy.’ He glanced at the rat and shook his head. ‘I would have thought a lady of your age might have outgrown silly pets.’
Meg danced up to the table, a little clumsily with her seven-cycles-pregnant figure, and laughed as Whisper leapt down among the books. ‘Babies, rats and dancing aren’t a good combination,’ she observed.
Vale smiled politely. ‘You understand, after the baby is born, that your learning must continue? Uninterrupted?’
‘Of course,’ she answered. ‘Why would a baby interrupt my learning?’ She fixed the Seer with a sharp look, and smiled again. ‘I’m happy.’
‘I can see that,’ he replied. Deeming Whisper’s intentions among the books as harmless, he said, ‘Now tell me what you learned from the book.’
‘You can be so boring at times,’ she complained, but she sat at the table, rested her chin on her hands, and sighed. ‘It’s a very strange book. It’s like a collection of spell recipes, if there’s such a thing, specially written for women in an organisation they call the Targan Order. The woman who wrote it seemed to think that only women had the Blessing, but she just calls it magic. There’s no mention of Jarudha. They have spells for shape changing, making doors to other places that they call portals, and conjuring weather. It’s all pure fantasy, like the corniest ballads I’ve heard. It is weird.’
‘Spells. Magic,’ Vale mused. ‘But you think it’s a hoax?’
‘A what?’
‘You don’t believe it is really a book from which someone can learn how to cast spells?’
‘I thought someone had to have Jarudha’s Blessing first?’
‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘Jarudha’s Blessing seems necessary. That’s what we believe. But then my studies for years also suggest that magic is possible—with a Conduit.’
‘You mean my necklet?’ Her fingers brushed the fabric of her black tunic over the amber crystal.
‘Yes.’
She saw the growing intensity in the old man’s brown eyes. ‘You want me to try it, don’t you?’ she asked slowly.
Vale dropped his gaze and shuffled his feet nervously, a response that surprised her because, if anything, he had always maintained a calm demeanour. Now he looked decidedly distressed. ‘Yes,’ he said, as if he was carefully considering every word, ‘I would like you to try, Amber. But, whatever happens, you must not tell anyone what we do.’
‘Why not?’
His anxiety escalated, and he wrung his hands. ‘I’m asking you to commit a heresy. If you do this—and it works, it—it has grave implications for a great many—things.’ He caught his breath, but he still couldn’t look at her. ‘I can only ask you, and I shouldn’t. I am responsible for the temptation that I put before you. Please understand that. For that part I am responsible. But you must take responsibility for choosing whether or not to do this thing. Jarudha will know.’
‘“Choice is the most precious gift we are given—the gift that can condemn as it blesses.”’
Vale looked up as she recited scripture. ‘You understand,’ he said.
‘You believe that I can make one of these spells really happen?’ she asked, unable to mask her incredulity at the Seer’s changed manner or preposterous consideration.
‘I have learned, Amber, that in Jarudha’s creation there is more that we do not know than we do know.’
She laughed, not unkindly but with disbelief. ‘I accept that I’ve been able to cure the ill and injured because, well—because of my crystal. I think I can read these books because of it too. I don’t understand it as any more than Jarudha’s Blessing, even if I don’t know if I even believe in Jarudha. Maybe it is magic. No. I know that it must be magic. I can’t argue with that. But this?’ She tapped the book cover. ‘It’s—well, it’s not real. Someone’s written a clever book to make it seem like there’s really magic. It’s a trick.’ She saw Vale’s expression hadn’t altered. ‘Isn’t it?’
‘I pray that it’s a trick,’ he said. ‘If it is, then everything we have taken in faith is true in faith.’ He shook his head in his customary manner. ‘If it isn’t—’ He left his sentence unfinished. ‘I’d like you to try. Just one.’
Meg shrugged. ‘I’m happy to try. I don’t have anything to lose—except my dignity,’ she said, and grinned. ‘Which one?’
Vale opened the book. ‘I can’t read this, so you’ll have to choose.’
‘Some of them are very complex. I’ll pick something easy.’ She flicked through the pages, stopping to read excerpts quickly, until she announced, ‘This one.’
‘What is it?’
‘It’s called a Minor Mending Spell. Simple name. Simple instructions,’ she explained. ‘I need a broken object. Or something we can break. Something small. Like a mug.’
‘I’ll fetch one,’ Vale volunteered, and he headed for the library exit.
Meg sighed when he shut the door. This is madness, she thought. How have I ended up in a room full of books with an old man who thinks that magic is real? Magic is real, she told herself. You’re the one who can heal with a touch. She shook her head. I’m turning into Vale, she silently scolded herself. What if I really can do magic? Then what? You already can, she answered. You chose a mending spell because Emma’s already taught you the basics. And it was true. She had chosen a spell that she already had mastered before coming to Port of Joy. So she wanted to prove to Vale that magic was real. She just didn’t understand herself. What was so confusing about accepting reality? But magic isn’t real, a voice inside her argued again. Oh yes it is, she thought.
Vale re-entered with a crystal glass. ‘I borrowed it from the Queen’s kitchen,’ he said, as he put it on the table.
‘It needs to be broken,’ she told him, ‘but all the pieces still have to be here in one place.’
He laid the glass on its side in between two books, picked up another heavy book, and slammed it down on the glass, shattering the crystal. Whisper leapt off the table and scampered under a bookshelf. Raising the book, he asked, ‘Will that do?’
As she reread the instructions, Meg felt unexpected anticipation tingling through her skin. She moved the books aside and carefully scraped the tiny fragments together around the larger crystal shards, until she was cupping the shattered glass beneath her hands. She glanced over the instructions again, closed her eyes and concentrated on the glass re-forming. There was a hiatus. She felt a familiar surging tingle along her spine that swept into her hands and made them unusually warm. She imagined the crystal glass as it was before it had been shattered. Slowly, she opened her eyes. The wonder etched across Vale’s face confirmed for her, without looking down at the crystal vessel, that her world had irrevocably changed.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
She never imagined the pain would be so brutal. Squatting, her hands wrapped tightly around the birthing pillars, it felt as if someone was trying to split her open. Sweat soaked her forehead, her cheeks, her chest and back, and she panted for breath before the next surge of pain hit. If nothing else, she was going to research spells on pain prevention if she survived this ordeal. ‘You’re almost done,’ the midwife urged. ‘A little more and it’s over.’ The pain exploded through her groin as if her baby was tearing its way out. She gritted her teeth and bore down, but the pain overwhelm
ed her until she screamed. And the release came like a rush. ‘You’ve done it!’ the midwife cried. Meg’s legs wobbled. With a grunt, she collapsed and felt hands lay her back onto something soft. She heard the agonised squawk of a newborn and a bloodied, squirming lump was lowered onto her chest. ‘A boy, your ladyship! A healthy young man!’ the midwife chortled with delight. Meg wrapped a hand over the damp, warm infant and clasped her son against her breast.
Queen Sunset kissed Jewel as she entered before crossing to the bed where Meg was propped up, feeding her baby, tiny chubby pink fingers pressed against her breast. ‘A delicious sight indeed,’ Sunset remarked, as she sat on the bedside and stroked the baby’s tiny cheek. ‘What are you going to call him?’
‘I don’t know,’ Meg answered. ‘I’d thought of several names, but now I can’t decide.’
‘You’ll call him Jon.’
Meg looked up through tired eyes. ‘That was my father’s name.’
‘I know. That’s why you’ll call him Jon—to honour your father’s memory.’
Meg smiled weakly. She hadn’t considered Jon. One of her choices had been Treasure, but how could she explain to the Queen why she’d chosen to name her son after the Queen’s dead bastard son? ‘How do you know my father’s name?’
Sunset smiled. ‘I’m the Queen. I’m meant to know everything,’ she said haughtily, and laughed. ‘In fact, Follower is meant to know everything. Among his many responsibilities is overseeing the keeping of the Royal records. I asked him to find out the name of any soldiers who came from Summerbrook named Farmer. Your father’s name, obviously, was the only one recorded.’
‘Why did you do that?’ Meg asked, as she shifted her baby to her other breast.
‘I wanted to know everything about you,’ the Queen answered. Her smile vanished into a frown and a pout. ‘But I don’t.’
‘What do you mean?’
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