The Women's War

by Jenna Glass

  Jinnell’s eyes lit up. “Then you’ll stay?”

  Alys shook her head. “I had to ask the king for permission, of course, and now that I’ve made the offer…”

  Jinnell’s shoulders drooped. “He won’t let you change your mind.”

  The king had insisted he would tell no one about his “command” until Alys had already left, on the off chance that she would think better of it. But Jinnell needn’t know that. “I was very persuasive, and he decided I should go by royal decree. But it is perhaps not a bad thing for me to visit the abigails’ Well anyway. There may be ways I can help that don’t require reversing my mother’s spell.”

  “Like what?”

  “Tynthanal tells me there is an abundance of rare feminine elements at this Well. Maybe there are elements there I can’t get here. Ones I can use to craft a spell to help Shelvon conceive despite my mother’s spell.”

  “And thereby take away a woman’s right to choose once more. The beauty of Grandmother’s spell is that no one can force a woman to be ‘willing.’ Not even the woman herself. If the whole thing can be undermined by another spell, then everything Grandmother did was for nothing.”

  Jinnell was far too perceptive. Alys forced herself to think a little harder before speaking again. “Then perhaps I can invent a spell that will allow Shelvon to fake a pregnancy. If she seems to be pregnant, then that would reassure everyone that she will bear an heir. We might well be able to contract you to another before the false pregnancy fails.”

  Jinnell’s face was the picture of skepticism, and Alys braced for yet another argument. But Jinnell was maturing at an almost dizzying speed and surprised her once more.

  “I’m not going to talk you out of it no matter what I say, am I?” she asked.

  Alys patted her daughter’s hand. “No. I have to do this.” No matter how unlikely it seemed that she could do anything to turn the tide—she was still a novice magic user at best, despite her natural aptitude—she had to at least try. To not try was to admit defeat, and that was something she refused to do.

  Jinnell glanced over at the trunks. “And you’re leaving tomorrow.”

  “This is not something that can wait.”

  “How long will you be gone?”

  Alys bit back her initial urge to tell a soothing lie. “I can’t say for sure. Probably at least a month, though if my efforts prove promising, it’s possible I’ll need to stay longer. You will run the household while I’m gone, but if you need anything, you can always go to your grandparents.” Sylnin’s parents might not be overly fond of Alys, but they adored their grandchildren, and Alys had seen no sign of that changing since the spell was cast.

  Jinnell nodded, though she was worrying at that lower lip again. “I guess it will be good practice for when I’m married.”

  “That’s a good way of looking at it. I’m also going to leave Falcor behind to watch over you and Corlin.” Jinnell opened her mouth to argue, but Alys cut her off. “I will still have three honor guardsmen with me. Just not Falcor. I could not trust the life and safety of my children to anyone else.”

  Falcor had not been happy with her decision, and had he chosen to press the issue, he would have won. He still answered to his commander, not to Alys. But in the end he had understood her need to feel her children were safe in her absence, and he trusted his men. No doubt the fact that she would be under her brother’s protection while she was at the Abbey had also factored into his decision.

  Alys rose from the settee and opened the drawer of a nearby side table, pulling out two silk-wrapped packages. “I have a couple of gifts for you before I go.”

  Usually, Jinnell’s face would light up like the sun at the prospect of receiving gifts, but she must have heard something ominous in her mother’s tone, for she looked almost frightened. Alys handed her the larger of the two packages, watching as Jinnell unfolded the silk to reveal its contents.

  “Stays?” Jinnell asked with a hint of distaste in her voice and a look on her face that said she suspected her mother had gone mad.

  Alys smiled. It was indeed an odd gift, and the stays looked perfectly ordinary with their covering of plain white linen. “Open your Mindseye and look at them.”

  Jinnell did as she was told, her eyes going filmy as she regarded the stays once more, turning them this way and that. Alys’s smile broadened as the frown on her daughter’s face grew deeper.

  “I don’t understand,” Jinnell said, closing her Mindseye.

  “I learned how my mother hid the spell on her magic book. I don’t have all the elements I need to re-create it fully, but I was able to adapt it. Someone who knows what they’re looking for and is a skilled magic user could see through the camouflage, but under ordinary circumstances, no one will know the stays hold a spell.” A necessary precaution, seeing as men frequently had to open their Mindseye to use minor everyday magics, and it wouldn’t do for them to see the spell Alys had built into those stays.

  “And what exactly is this spell hiding?”

  “Feed a mote of Rho into the boning, and the spell will make you immune to most magic for about ten minutes. You can add up to four more motes to make it last longer, but I haven’t been able to make it last for more than about an hour at a time no matter how much Rho I add.” Alys handed her the next package, which was tiny enough to fit in the palm of her hand. “Now open this one.”

  Jinnell unwrapped the package carefully and found at its center a delicate gold ring with a blood-red ruby cabochon surrounded by diamond chips. “It’s beautiful,” she breathed, testing the ring on several fingers before deciding it fit best on her index finger. She held her hand up in front of her, admiring the way the diamonds sparkled in the light, then flicked a glance toward Alys.

  “It’s not just a ring, is it?” she asked.

  “No. Once again I’ve hidden it, but I put my sleep spell into it. You can activate it by adding one mote of Rho. Be certain the spell in your stays is active if you ever need to use it, or the moment you put Rho into it, you will fall asleep where you stand.”

  Jinnell stopped admiring the beauty of the ring and lost a little color in her cheeks as she absorbed the implications of the spell. “So if I activate the ring, and I touch someone with it, they’ll immediately fall asleep?”

  “That’s right.”

  Alys returned to her seat on the sofa and took both her daughter’s hands in her own, looking into her eyes and willing her not to be afraid. “I’m sure you’ll never need it,” she said with as much conviction as she could muster. “It’s only for use in the direst emergencies. But it will make me feel better to know you have it. Just in case.”

  Jinnell swallowed hard. “Just in case…” she whispered.

  Neither one of them wanted to imagine any situation that would make it necessary for Jinnell to activate the ring’s spell.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Every time Chanlix stepped over the threshold into her home—a house, if a small one—she experienced a little surge of wonder. She had spent most of her life sharing small, barren rooms with her fellow abigails, and even for the short time she’d been abbess in Aalwell, her dwelling had been nothing more than a single utilitarian room. Now here she was in her exile, and she lived in a two-room house with a proper parlor. There was a comfortable sitting area by the front windows, and a small but functional “dining room” by the wood-burning stove, and her bedroom was large enough that she could easily have partitioned off a dressing room, had she had any need of such a thing. Many of her younger abigails had stopped wearing the red robes, and though Chanlix had scolded at first, she found she didn’t have it in her to insist. Just as she’d found she couldn’t bear to part with her own.

  Chanlix was stirring a pot of stew she had put together for the evening meal when there was a knock on her door. She had learned some basic cooking skills at the Abbey,
where there were no servants to take care of such things, but Mother Brynna had deemed her to have no aptitude for it and banished her from the kitchens. Here in Women’s Well, she had asked Maidel to give her some remedial lessons, and she was now able to feed herself. However, she was far from certain she was up to the task of feeding anyone else, so she opened her door with a flutter of anxiety in her belly. Perhaps it had been an act of extreme overconfidence to extend an invitation. Though in retrospect, Tynthanal had all but invited himself.

  The sight of him standing on her doorstep stole her voice. By day, he labored side by side with his men and the growing population of visiting laborers from the closest towns, and she found him quite lovely to look at with sweat-soaked, disheveled hair and dirty clothes. But tonight, he was wearing his dress uniform as if attending some formal function at the palace, and his hair was tied back at the nape of his neck in a tidy club. His face was clean shaven, and he smelled faintly of the spicy soap brought to their little town by a merchant who wished to set up a shop.

  Tynthanal grinned at her. “I don’t always look like a filthy barbarian,” he teased.

  She shook her head and tried to look stern, but she doubted she succeeded. Her cheeks warmed in a way that said she was blushing, and it wasn’t exactly because of embarrassment. “I didn’t realize this was a formal occasion,” she said, smoothing her robes, “or I would have worn my own dress uniform.” She stepped aside to let him in, hoping her little quip hadn’t come out sounding hostile. Of course she had no dress uniform, for abigails did not have “occasions” of any sort.

  “My apologies for my unintended rudeness,” he said, sounding not in the least apologetic. There was no question he had appreciated her admiring regard, as undignified as it might have been. “Perhaps next time, you might consider shedding the robes and wearing an actual dress. It seems to be a popular decision among the younger abigails.”

  “And not so popular among we older ones,” she retorted. “But you’re getting ahead of yourself assuming there will be a next time.”

  “Have I offended you so much already?” His eyes twinkled with good humor, and his smile was contagious, no matter how hard she tried to fight it.

  “You haven’t tasted my cooking yet,” she said with a rueful gesture at the pot on the stove. “I did mention I wasn’t very good at it.”

  “If you were as bad at it as you like to claim, I doubt you would enjoy it as much as you do. You are still the abbess, and I’ve no doubt your abigails would happily cook your meals—as it is their duty. And yet you usually do for yourself.”

  She sighed, for his argument had some merit. She couldn’t say she felt confident in her skills, but she did enjoy it. There was something that felt faintly decadent about making something meant entirely for her own consumption after years of making potions meant only for others.

  “Besides,” he continued, “you know full well I’m not here for the food.”

  She nodded briskly as she turned to the stove and pulled the pot off the heat. “Yes, we were going to discuss plans of building a town hall so that we might have an indoor gathering place.” At least that was the excuse he had conjured up for why they needed to spend this time together. She tensed as she laid out a couple of bowls for the stew, waiting to see if Tynthanal would press the issue. She kept thinking he would tire of flirting with her. The town was full of pretty young women, many of whom would be more than happy to climb into his bed. Why he would pursue her was a mystery, but there was no mistaking his intent. Perhaps he was chasing her because she so assiduously insisted on running away?

  But no. Tynthanal was not that kind of man—and that was the problem. He was the kind of man she could see herself losing her heart to. And despite his current disfavor, he was a king’s son—a man who could never be hers. For all her adult life, her heart had been divorced from her body as countless men bedded her for no purpose but their own physical gratification. And yet her instincts told her that if she gave Tynthanal her body, her heart would go with it and ultimately be crushed.

  Chanlix heard his quiet sigh of resignation and wondered if maybe she had finally managed to discourage him. She ladled stew into the bowls, giving the work more attention than it required as she attempted to hide her turmoil.

  It took an embarrassing effort of will to meet his eyes and smile at him as she served the stew, but she desperately wanted to ease the tension that had arisen between them. Possibly the strained smile wasn’t the best way to accomplish her goal, but Tynthanal came to her aid. He was much better at pretending to be at ease than she was.

  “I did want to discuss plans for a town hall,” he said, turning his attention to the stew so that she no longer had to squirm under his gaze. “But that will have to wait. I received a flier from Alysoon today. It seems she is on her way to Women’s Well, though her explanation of why lacked a bit of clarity. We’ll need to arrange lodging for her and her entourage, though it is thankfully small.”

  Chanlix’s stomach did a flip-flop, and she could barely swallow the mouthful of stew she had taken. As much as the town had grown, they were hardly equipped to play host to a noblewoman of any sort, much less the king’s daughter. What would the woman think of their town? Chanlix knew Tynthanal had been giving his sister much more truthful updates about their progress than he gave his own commander, but still…

  What would Lady Alysoon think if she knew her little brother was spending so much time in the company of an abbess? Even if Chanlix somehow managed to put some distance between the two of them while Alysoon visited, she was sure to hear talk, for Chanlix wasn’t the only person who’d recognized Tynthanal’s courtship for what it was.

  True, Alysoon had visited her mother in the Abbey and had treated the abigails with respect and kindness when she did. She was not the sort of woman to sneer at them or avoid them as if their disgrace were a contagious disease. But she could not possibly approve of her brother courting a whore. An old whore, at that.

  Tynthanal reached across the table and laid a hand on top of hers, the warm contact startling her because she had become so lost in her whirling thoughts. She should have gently pulled away, but she couldn’t bear to lose that touch, and her fingers curled around his as if they had a will of their own.

  “All will be well,” he said in a soothing croon. “Alys won’t make unreasonable demands, nor will she tell tales of all that we’ve accomplished here. I would trust her with my life, and you may, as well.” He squeezed her hand as if to emphasize his point.

  Chanlix nodded her agreement. But if her life had taught her anything, it was that trust was a luxury a woman—especially an abigail—could not afford. “What we have here is so fragile,” she whispered. “I wish we could just…seal the rest of the world out.” Which was a terribly selfish thing to say to a man who still had family living in Aaltah. Everyone Chanlix cared about was within the borders of their little community, but the same could not be said of many others.

  Tynthanal smiled at her, but there was a hint of sadness in that smile. “Let’s not let fear of the future spoil what we have now. We are comfortable and thriving in a place where we were meant to be miserable. That proves how unpredictable the future can be.”

  He was still holding her hand, his thumb stroking idly over her knuckles. She met his eyes and felt an unmistakable stirring of desire in her core. No matter how unsuitable she found herself as a companion for a king’s son, she feared that if he pressed the matter, she would not find the will to resist. She practically held her breath, her mouth going dry.

  Tynthanal sighed and released her hand, turning his attention back to his stew. “Forgive me,” he said. “I did not mean to make you uncomfortable.”

  Chanlix bit her tongue on the urge to correct him, to explain that her sudden stillness had nothing to do with discomfort. All it would take was a few well-chosen words, and she could have him in her bed this ve
ry night, she was sure of it.

  She wasn’t sure if it was cowardice or conscience that caused her to hold her tongue. But she did not correct his misinterpretation of her body language, instead steering their conversation into safer waters. And she spent that night alone in her bed, wishing for things an abigail had no business wishing for.

  * * *

  —

  A lone rider on the back of an unencumbered cheval could have made the journey from Aalwell to the new Abbey in about three days of hard travel. The wealthiest of Aaltah’s nobility, who could afford to put even their servants on chevals, could make it in about five if those chevals weren’t weighed down with a lot of baggage and heavy carriages. Because Alys didn’t own enough chevals for everyone to ride, she had to cut a few corners unless she wanted to spend two weeks on the road.

  It was highly irregular for servants and honor guardsmen to ride inside a noblewoman’s carriage, but she chose speed over protocol and bade Honor and one of her guardsmen to ride with her. That left two chevals to draw the carriage, two to carry the remaining honor guardsmen, and one to remain home with Jinnell and Corlin in case it was needed. She was sure the guardsmen were unhappy at being forced to ride chevals, but they could not have kept up with a cheval-drawn carriage on horseback.

  Although everyone—especially the honor guardsmen, who were used to traveling rough—packed as lightly as possible, the carriage was still heavy with the coachman and three passengers and the baggage, and that made it impossible for the chevals to gallop. They still managed a respectable canter, which they could keep up indefinitely.

  The journey stretched out over six days, with their party stopping at an inn each night. In Aalwell, Alys had been only dimly aware of the change in her image after her mother’s spell. She’d certainly noticed the sudden lack of social engagements, but the nobility were as a whole too polite—and too worried about offending the king—to be openly rude to her. Whoever had been leaving threats in the message box had stopped after being chased by one of Falcor’s men, and there had been little in the way of overt hostility since then.