by Jean Gill
‘I don’t think I have the courage for this,’ Jannlou admitted and she glanced quickly at him. Was he a soul-reader too? So often, he seemed to know what she was thinking and yet he spoke as if they were his own thoughts.
‘Are you sorry you came?’ she asked, remembering the wonder of leaf-shadows, now that the danger had gone.
They had reached the edge of the trees, where the meadow was split by the stream, where they could walk side by side. He took her hand and she let him.
‘No,’ he said. If he stopped, pulled her to him, leaned towards her, she would kiss him.
Aftershock from the predators’ fight, she told herself, as he let go of her hand, moved away politely.
He indicated the water gate. ‘I’ll go in first.’ Then he smiled. ‘So you can get dressed with only the Forest watching.’
‘You did look!’ she accused him.
He just smiled but then the laughter left his eyes. ‘It’s too dangerous. You mustn’t come out here any more.’
Dangerous because of creatures with teeth and claws or dangerous because it was treason?
‘Thank you for not using magecraft against me, when we fought.’
‘I can’t–’ he began, then he shook his head, started again. ‘I don’t think it works in the Forest.’
Lie. Evasion.
‘Will you be my partner at the Courtship Dance?’ he asked.
Stones. Everybody knew that was the prelude to marriage. But she couldn’t afford to antagonise him, even if she wanted to say no. Which she probably didn’t. Courtship Dance. Which came after the Maturity Test. Drianne!
‘I haven’t promised anybody else,’ she answered, offhand. Not that she’d been asked! How Hannah and her friends would stare!
‘Then you can promise me.’ He smiled.
‘Yes,’ she agreed and rushed on before she could change her mind. ‘I mean yes, I can. Maybe yes, I do. That is – yes. My friend, the girl I rescued from–’ Not tactful, Mielitta! She corrected herself: ‘The girl who went into the stones and lost her voice. She’s going to be in the next Maturity Ceremony and I wanted to give her some words of advice. Is there any chance you can help me see her?’
If he wondered what advice she could give, when her own forging had obviously failed in such a spectacular way, Jannlou didn’t say so. ‘I’ll do my best,’ he said. ‘Till then, may the stones be with you. And we have to try to fit in. You know we do.’
‘Perfection guide our ways,’ she responded, the formula ashes on her tongue.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Perhaps she should have risked bringing Kermon. Mielitta studied Drianne’s face, tried to read her eyes and felt inadequate. She’d not thought further ahead than seeing her friend and now she was here, she didn’t know what to say. Especially as the other candidates for the Maturity Test were within earshot.
Jannlou had made good his half-promise and was hovering at a tactful distance but no doubt listening to every word she said. Mielitta had never been in the Candidates’ Quarters and she looked around, gathering her thoughts. She and Drianne were in comfortable chairs at a small table. The others were seated likewise in chatty groups or helping themselves to drinks or sustenance at the end of the room furthest from the door. Which was locked by wards on the outside.
Drianne sat with her hands folded in her lap, pale, eyes downcast. She seemed folded in on herself, already a different person from the girl who’d played in the archery yard. This was no playground. She seemed distant even from the girl bullied by Bastien. This Drianne was in a place beyond tears. Or – Mielitta had to consider the Hannah and Georgette possibility – Drianne was in the place she considered to be her best option.
‘I didn’t think it would be like this,’ Mielitta spoke the words aloud and found shadowed grey eyes raised to hers, questioning.
Maybe she would be able to communicate after all. If she started simply, she would find out. ‘I wasn’t part of a group,’ she explained. ‘Everything was different for me because I was a late starter. Like Mage Rinduran.’
There was no mistaking the way Drianne shrank in fear at the name.
Mielitta nodded to show she understood but kept her tone light. Just friends chatting, apart from the fact that one of them had been rendered mute. ‘And the Maturity Mage for my Ceremony was Mage Yacinthe. Things might be different now that Mage Bastien is in charge.’
The grey eyes turned pebble-hard with loathing and the clasped hands turned white, peeping out from the overlong sleeves of her even whiter candidate’s robe. If they had been alone, Mielitta thought Drianne might have spat. So, that answered the question of willingness.
‘I was nervous before the Test,’ Mielitta chattered on, ‘so I thought I could let you know not to worry, that everything will be all right.’
Drianne jerked forward, grabbed Mielitta’s hands, desperation in her eyes. One heavy sleeve fell back, revealed the word, ‘HELP!’ scratched on the pale skin and still oozing blood. The red was even more shocking in its colour-bleached context. A flick covered up the scratched skin and Drianne turned her gesture into a matey pat on Mielitta’s back.
Smiling for the watchers, frothy for the listeners, Mielitta babbled, ‘I’m so looking forward to watching you.’ I’ll be there, she told Drianne with all the force of her mind.
‘The time before the Test is always a bit tense!’ That’s when I’ll make my move. She watched Drianne to see if she’d been understood, hoped the slight nod and gleam of hope meant that she had.
She ploughed on, bubblier than fake mousse. ‘And I can’t wait for the Courtship Dance. Mage Jannlou has asked me to be his partner.’ Suck that up, she told the invisible observers.
Drianne clapped her hands with suitable pleasure but her eyes held a wary sadness, hard to interpret.
Mage Jannlou’s reaction was much easier to interpret. He glared at Mielitta and for a moment she felt ashamed of using their private relationship as a public smokescreen. The moment vanished. He had been listening. Good luck with reporting that conversation as treacherous. He could expose her any time he liked but he would have nothing on Drianne. However, it was safer to say no more.
‘May the stones be with you in your Perfect future,’ Mielitta told her friend as she stood up to leave.
Drianne placed her hand on her heart in dutiful response but it was unlikely that the love in her eyes was for Perfection or the stones.
Jannlou spoke the one-use password at the door and they left. Mielitta forced herself not to look back.
‘I thought you were going to give her helpful advice,’ her companion observed drily.
Mielitta shrugged. ‘I could see she didn’t need it. Just somebody saying it was fine, nothing to it. Girlish matters.’
‘Girlish matters.’ His look said he believed her about as much as the tiger believed a bear-hug was friendly.
‘Thanks, anyway. Appreciated.’ She turned her back on him, making it clear he was dismissed and it wasn’t until she was back in her chamber that she realised how unwomanly her behaviour had been. Of course Jannlou saw through her. When she was with him, she forgot to put on an act, or, worse still, she behaved as a queen bee. If only she could read his eyes as easily as she had Drianne’s.
Apart from her own invented coming of age, Mielitta had last seen a Maturity Ceremony when she was fourteen. No children were allowed to watch the Ceremony, in its enclosed courtyard, but Declan had been indulgent enough to let Mielitta sneak a view each year during her puberty.
She’d merge with the shadows in the back of the forge as the Maturity Mages led the procession of candidates through the forge and out the back door, followed by their adult family and supporters. Then Declan would watch proceedings through the spyhole and judge the moment that the new adults were due to emerge from the Barn. Was that why the Maturity Test was called forging? Because the procession went through the forge? Or was it just Declan who used the term because the smithy was his life and every human activity was like
a forge process to him?
Declan would wink at Mielitta then join the Ceremony as part of his mage’s duties. It would be Mielitta’s turn to peek through the spyhole in the forge back door as the Maturity Barn’s hidden exit was revealed and the new adults walked proudly out onto the greensward and were cheered by the crowds. In their women’s gowns and men’s leatherette jerkins they had seemed different people to the girls and boys Mielitta had known.
She’d been fourteen. This was the last cohort of her schoolfriends to mature and she hadn’t even watched the Ceremony to the end but had turned to work for comfort, hammering metal on the anvil with all her young strength. Declan hadn’t said a word but he’d understood. While he slipped out to perform his usual duties, she beat her frustration out on metal and stone. They made no comment on her ridiculous status.
Now, she wished she’d looked through the spyhole all the way through a ceremony, counted how many went in for a test and how many came out. She wracked her memory for details but they were fuzzy. Surprisingly fuzzy. She certainly couldn’t remember any of the cohort from her year in school going into the Barn and not coming out. Not when she was eleven and the first friends achieved maturity, nor any of the four years she watched after that. But why was it called a Test if everybody passed? It made no sense.
She flinched away from later memories of contact with those same friends, when she’d been ignored as she pasted herself to the wall to let them pass. She’d waited on them at table without seeing any sign of recognition and even the memory of such humiliation made her cheeks burn.
Now, she was a woman in a lavender gown, standing among the other adults, completely normal apart from the bees in her head. She’d made a ladylike Perfect greeting to Declan and Kermon, gaining a nod of approval from her foster father and a puzzled stare from his Apprentice. She could afford to play the lady because she’d been up early enough to reorganise a corner of the Ceremony Courtyard, where some barrels and trays were ready on a trestle table for the celebration drinks. Having been a servant was proving to be advantageous: Mielitta knew the best places to hide a bow and quiver.
Father, daughter and Apprentice watched the procession together and it had been her turn to be surprised. Ahead of the Maturity Mages Bastien and Yacinthe came Rinduran, in full ceremonial robes, sporting the gold braid of leadership. Mielitta steeled herself not to shrink back as every instinct screamed that his one eye was burning into her, seeking her out. Or worse still, that they were connected through the poison dart in his blind eye, that he didn’t need to see her to know where she was.
He doesn’t know it’s you, she told herself. But she shuddered at what he might do to her.
Why was he here anyway? Usually, the Ceremony was delegated completely to the Maturity Mages so it was a change in protocol for any other mage to be present. But that was a minor change compared with Rinduran’s new robes. The only mage Mielitta had ever seen wearing the gold of leadership was Magaram. Mage Puggy’s expression was grim but, instead of seeming to resent his father’s interference, Bastien positively glowed with triumph.
Mielitta had no time to consider the implications of the mages’ power games as she could see Drianne, trudging silently amongst the chatter of teenage candidates. She was more like a ghost from the walls than the earnest, stuttering girl she’d been before. The worst kind of maturity had already come upon her and what happened next could add to her suffering.
It was hard to hold back, say nothing, be as mute as Drianne. Mielitta bit her tongue and joined in the procession immediately after the last child in britches, so she could be at the front of the audience and work round to the trestle table, underneath which her weapons were hidden by a convenient tablecloth.
She wanted Drianne to know she was there but her friend’s thoughts seemed to be directed inwards as she stood, swaying, her slim neck barely supporting her head. Heavy-headed, like a wild poppy, or like a human under a spell. If only Mielitta could send her a message.
The procession had stopped in front of the Maturity Barn, was gathering around the mages and from the way he puffed himself out, Rinduran seemed about to make a speech. Drianne was still lost in some other, nightmarish world. It was hard to believe she was the same girl who’d stroked the scout bee and smiled. Mielitta remembered the smile and wondered. Among the bustle and many distractions, was it worth the risk?
She looked again at Drianne’s head bent in despair and she sought her bees.
One to fly and find Drianne. Settle on her hand just a few seconds and come straight home to me. She let them see her picture of the path and of Drianne but there was no need. They all knew her flower-friend and her special scent, from the past seeking.
Immediately, Mielitta felt a bee leave her, materialise and fly its looping path towards Drianne.
Hush, she told the scout and it stopped humming.
Luckily, all eyes were on the mage in his gold embroidery.
Rinduran began to speak. ‘Our children are our future. When we established the sovereignty of the Citadel, built the barriers that keep us safe, learned the lessons of the walls, we created a world to make our children’s future Perfect! And their children’s future! And their children’s children’s future!’
Everybody cheered, Mielitta the loudest, waving her embroidered scarf in the air along with the other hands and scarves. But she dropped hers on the ground, muttered, ‘Whoops, so clumsy.’ As she stooped to retrieve it, she scrabbled around to bring the bow and quiver within easy reach.
Another such feint later would allow her to nock an arrow, whirl round and shoot. She’d practised loosing three in quick succession often enough and she had the advantage of surprise. The obvious targets were the three mages but she had no idea what wards protected them. Maybe she would be better wounding members of the audience, a more predictable target. A third option was to shoot in the air and let the stones decide where the arrows fell. Her heart hurt at the thought. But she would not abandon Drianne.
What is your target, Mielitta?
The best she could hope for was that she’d cause chaos and could make an escape with Drianne through the forge back door and out the other side. Her father would not stand in her way. Then they’d go down the passageways to the water gate. But it was a long shot indeed
‘We have been too tolerant and our children are dying from allergy.’ Rinduran’s voice broke and Mielitta would have sworn he was sincere if she hadn’t heard his words in the library. Besides, his child was standing there, suitably serious in mien but with a smug twitch of his mean lips showing how much he was enjoying his father’s self-proclaimed importance.
Rinduran pointed at the candidates and repeated, ‘Our children are dying from allergy! Will we continue to tolerate the traitors in our midst, the breach of our defences against sickness and death?’ He paused dramatically but nobody was quite sure, it seemed, what the appropriate response should be. Clearly cheers wouldn’t do and a few calls of ‘No!’ petered out in uncertainty.
‘It has gone on too long and somebody has to take stronger action!’ continued Rinduran, throwing out his arms, whirling the new gold edge to his sleeves, leaving them in no doubt as to who that somebody should be. Mage Puggy’s face was a stormcloud; she opened her mouth to speak, then shut it again, frowning. Her face shifted in and out of its beautiful avatar appearance so that she wavered between her usual dumpy appearance and an Aphrodite, apparently struggling for stability, while Rinduran smiled.
Bzzz. Mielitta felt the soft vibration as her bee landed on Drianne’s clasped hand. She saw the girl jump a little but not enough for others to notice. Slowly and gently, Drianne freed her bee-less hand and, as in the Council Chamber, stroked the tiny black and yellow body.
The bee thrummed with pleasure, preened itself. Mielitta could feel the hum of approval from the whole colony at such respect and tenderness.
As Drianne continued to stroke the bee, she stood taller. Her head lifted, her body shifted from its drooping misery
to an archery stance, balanced and ready for whatever might come.
When Mielitta heard the voice in her head, she thought it must be her bees but the timbre was different, light, young, female and most definitely human.
It will be all right, the voice told Mielitta, light with something almost like laughter. I will be all right now, she clarified. Drianne raised her hand slowly to her mouth, let her lips touch the bee lightly in reverence, glanced towards Mielitta and nodded as she blew the bee lightly away, with a mind whisper. The walls speed you, little honey sister.
Drianne’s transformation went unnoticed by the audience as they stared at the more spectacular one that was taking place in front of them. Mage Puggy went many shades of crimson as she fought to speak and at the same time hang on to her lank hair, her boils, her dumpy figure and thick arms. One at a time, each unattractive feature was replaced. First, silken blonde hair stopped its blurry dance and flowed in golden light around a face that settled into arched eyebrows, wide cornflower-blue eyes, symmetry of cheekbones and full lips. When she grew taller, showed every curve and dip of her body under a robe that clung as if wet, the men in the audience swallowed hard.
Mage Puggy’s lips were full and sensuous but she could not speak. Mute as Drianne, she stood by Mage Rinduran. Lightning flashed in the sweetness of her blue eyes but hit nobody.
Mielitta received her bee safely back into her mind and watched Drianne resume her submissive pose as Mage Puggy was revealed as – or transformed into – a spellbinding beauty. Only she was no longer the one in control of the spells bringing that about.
‘This,’ declared Rinduran, ‘is one of the problems. Women mages. I am new to the Council.’
Yes, yes, a late starter, thought Mielitta.
‘So,’ continued Rinduran, ‘you can imagine my shock at seeing such a siren among the mages. How can we concentrate on our Perfect work with such temptation before us all the time? We can see Mage Puggy as she really is, as you see her before you now, without her trickery and misglamour. This is why we can no longer allow women mages in the Council, for their own sake and for that of the Citadel. If the Councillors had been able to concentrate on finding the traitor and protecting the Citadel, without such distractions, we would not be dealing with allergy.