Just like Bryan.
Merrigan sank down into the nearest chair, her heart thumping at an odd rhythm. She hadn't thought of Prince Bryan in years, and now twice in less than a week. She had been six when they first met, when he came to Avylyn with his father's delegation for the conference of allied kingdoms. He hadn't been old enough to go to the welcoming ball that first night any more than she had. Just like her, he had snuck out of bed and found a dark spot in the highest balcony looking down on the Great Hall to watch the festivities. They had spotted each other and crept through the darkness to meet halfway and sit. They had spent much of his visit exploring the palace, finding hiding places to listen to the conference, and exploring the countryside around Avylyn. She looked forward to him coming back with the delegation from Sylvanglade every year for the conference.
For a few years all had been fine between them, despite her mother dying and Nanny Starling being forced to leave. Nanny Tulip had been tactful, but she had made it clear that Prince Bryan was unacceptable as a future suitor, therefore he was not acceptable as a playmate. Despite her vow to never betray their friendship, Merrigan's attitude toward Bryan changed. She wasn't sure when it happened. Nanny Tulip was right, of course. Merrigan learned that Bryan's oldest brother had made an unwise marriage alliance. His promised bride was under a curse, made dangerous when her father tried to find a way to break it without following the proper order of things. Nanny Tulip was adamant that curses could not be rewritten or sidestepped. Those who tried to bend the rules or ignore them usually ended up even worse off than if the curse had been fulfilled. The bride's curse could damage Sylvanglade and extend to the royal family, and to the kingdoms of the brides of the royal brothers.
When Bryan stopped coming to Avylyn, Merrigan couldn't remember. That was all for the better, she supposed. As Leffisand told her, royalty did not have the luxury of marrying to suit themselves. They had kingdom concerns to answer to. Merrigan could not settle for anything less than a king, or a crown prince. Bryan, being the fifth-born son, simply didn't make the cut.
"Bryan," Merrigan whispered.
What was wrong with her? Why did she let thoughts of Bryan, no matter how much fun he had been, distract her from her entire purpose for being in this house?
"Bother," she said, a little louder, and went down on one knee to help her focus and listen to the voices below her feet.
The two conspirators talked about having dinner that evening. Then she heard the scraping of chair legs on the floor of the office. The dratted man was leaving.
"No more woolgathering," she scolded herself, and turned to stomp back to her chair to resume sewing.
Something caught her attention, from the corner of her eye. Merrigan looked and pressed her hand against her chest. Her heart thudded so fast and hard her breastbone felt bruised.
Every pile of torn pages had been neatly arranged and pinned. When and how had that happened? She was sure she was only halfway through the chore.
"Just proof that this peasant atmosphere is stultifying to my mind," she declared, keeping her voice low. "Spells of unconsciousness ... while continuing the work." A shudder worked through her. "Spells, indeed..."
How could she have been so oblivious?
"I won't be manipulated," she declared, bending down so her nose almost touched the closest pile of pinned pages. "I am here for a purpose, and you will not distract me. And you most certainly will not force me to spend any more time in this wretched, middle-class house than I absolutely have to."
She turned, stomped down the length of the table to her chair, and picked up the half-finished pair of trousers.
Wait. Hadn't she just cut out the pieces of the trousers this morning, right after breakfast? How could they be ready for the hems and reinforcing work? Merrigan shuddered as she looked down the length of the table and saw all ten shirts and five vests and three more pairs of trousers, all assembled and waiting to be fitted to Judge Brimble to make the necessary tucks and darts and hems. When had that happened?
"If there are any sprites or brownies hiding hereabouts," she said, pitching her voice to carry, yet stay soft enough that someone standing out in the hallway, on the other side of that closed door wouldn't hear her. "I think you should reveal yourselves now. It's very impolite. I am a queen, after all. Even if I don't look like it. You owe me the courtesy of introducing yourselves before you interfere with ..." She glanced at the clothes lying on the table and easily calculated all the hours of work that should still have been lying ahead of her. "Before you help me and save me a great deal of time and effort. It's disconcerting to have things changed and manipulated, that's all I'm saying." The pressure in her throat was almost frightening. Something wanted to force words out, and something else wanted to keep them back. "I do thank you," she said at last, her vocal cords feeling rather strained.
No, I thank you, a soft, somewhat buzzing voice said at the back of her mind. Fair's fair, don't you think? You're helping me, so it's only right that I help you.
"Who are you—where are you?" Her gaze went to the bundles of pages. Merrigan half-expected them to leap up into the air and assemble themselves into the book in another moment, with a gaudy display of magical sparkles and shimmers, for good measure.
That's right, Mi'Lady. I'm the book.
"Why haven't you spoken to me before this?"
Because you didn't give me permission. Or rather, you weren't ready to listen. Oh, and because I wasn't assembled enough to do more than listen. Quite frankly, until you took me out of that wretched enspelled cupboard and started sorting my pieces, I wasn't even able to listen.
"Enspelled?" Somehow, that was much easier to think about than the other implications swirling through her head. Merrigan wondered if she had read too many tales of magic as a child. Or maybe not enough. What, exactly, was she supposed to do?
A magic book.
She was talking to a magic book.
Something magical ... was helping her, even if it was with something so small and mundane as sewing.
The book had just acknowledged she had helped it. Did that mean it owed her something?
Enspelled, as in the glass kept almost everyone from seeing me there, and ensured that what little magic I had left in my binding couldn't reach out and catch anyone's attention. It was destiny, Mi'Lady. Maybe the many layers of spells wrapped around you guided you to find me. Is it impertinent of me to say how delighted I am to have someone as clever and determined and pretty as you rescuing me?
"I am most certainly not pretty. Just goes to show how all that ripping and water damage and mud staining your pages interferes with ..." She sighed. What was she doing, talking to a book? How could a book, even a magical book, see her? It didn't have eyes!
Of course you're pretty. You only have the illusion of old age and bad hair and a stooped back wrapped around you. The spells only change people's perceptions of you, and how you interact with the solid, real world. There's a very strong anti-looping spell on you, and a one-way spell, and an aversion spell, so people sort of bounce off you, until some serious changes occur in ... well, we'll deal with that later. Since I am magic, and under a few curses myself, I can see through all the shrouding and shielding and don't-notice-me spells disguising you. You're rather pretty. Or you could be. You need some work.
That assessment didn't bother Merrigan as much as it should have. Maybe because she felt so breathless at the news. She wasn't truly old, wrinkled, pale, stooped, thin, and shaky—she only seemed that way. Underneath everything, she was still herself.
"All right," she said, taking a few deep breaths that didn't dispel that knocked-breathless feeling. "So now you can talk to me. Now what do we do? What do I need to do so you can help me break all these spells you see on me?"
Sorry, Mi'Lady, that's the problem. I can't. No one can. You have to break them by abiding by the conditions woven into the spell. Someone very strong, very wise and experienced, wove that spell. I can't even unravel the one that
ensures no one but you can ever see the conditions written into the spell that dictate how it can be broken.
"Then what good are you?"
Silence.
Merrigan put down the trousers and waited, dread slowly growing on her. She hadn't just destroyed her first chance at fixing this utterly unfair, unjust, undeserved mess, had she?
"I'm—please see this through my—you've rather—this is all a shock. If I insulted you, I'm ... I'm sorry."
A rap on the door startled her so she leaped to her feet, dropping the trousers. Merrigan bent to retrieve them and jumped again when the door creaked open. She felt nearly sick with the fear that someone had been standing outside in the hallway all this time, listening.
Perhaps someone with a talent for throwing his voice, as the puppeteers had done during festivals and galas when she was a child? Pretending to be the book, talking to her. She had utterly made a fool out of herself just now, hadn't she?
Oh, please, book, please, be real!
"Luncheon, Mistress Mara," the seneschal said. His droopy, wrinkled, yet comfortingly dignified expression never wavered as he brought the tray to her end of the table and put it on the little side table. He didn't look at her as if he feared she was losing her mind, or worse, he didn't look nastily jubilant over the trick played on her.
"Thank you. It smells delicious. Please pass my compliments to Cook," she murmured.
The seneschal jerked, just slightly. His eyes widened, just as slightly. Then one corner of his mouth quirked up in what had to be an enormous smile for him, and he nodded to her.
Now see, that's growth. That's change. That just created the teeniest, tiniest crack in one part of one layer of the spell on you, the voice commented, as the library door thudded closed.
Chapter Five
"What was?" Merrigan reached for the teapot. She hoped it had been allowed to steep nice and long, because she needed something strong and bracing.
Thanking him, thanking the people who did something nice for you.
"That was just being polite," she muttered, and inhaled with delight as she smelled rich spices in the steam rising from the cup. How could Cook know she favored that particular blend of spices and black tea, with hints of jasmine?
Merrigan stopped with the cup nearly to her lips. How had he found the tea? It came from some far southern kingdom on this continent, ringed by high, snow-filled mountains. The short season when merchants could reach it made any exports highly prized within the continent, much less to Armorica. She only knew that because her father had had to sit her down and give her a lecture with a map of the world, to explain to her why her favorite tea was only available half the year. No matter how she scolded and stomped her feet, they couldn't get her any more if there wasn't any to be bought.
How often have you been polite lately, Mi'Lady?
She wrinkled up her nose at the pieces of the book, then took a long, slow, leisurely sip of the tea. A whimper of delight—and yes, gratitude—escaped her.
"This has been a most surprising and stressful and yet ... gratifying day," she murmured.
We're just getting started, Mi'Lady. Now, the sooner we get me thoroughly assembled, and you finish making those clothes and complete your quest, the sooner we can head out onto the road and find your cure.
"You will help me?" Merrigan moved to the book's end of the table, so she could speak softly. It wouldn't do to be caught talking to the book and end up in a healer's house for the gently insane. Not when hope had finally been awarded her. "Wait—what quest?"
You did a good thing, choosing to find some justice for the miller's son. His name is Corby, by the way.
"Not for him, exactly." She put down the cup, hating the momentary trembling in her hands. Merrigan bent down, resting her elbows on the table to get close to the piles of pages. "I know what it's like to be cheated, and that Fae was so judgmental." She sighed. "I knew I had to do something. It all just made me so angry. But how did you know?"
For someone as thickly woven with spells and orders and conditions, every choice you make, every reaction to directions or help offered, it's written into the spell. As easy to read as—the voice snorted—as a book. Now, what have you done toward helping Corby?
Merrigan told him, her hands automatically getting to work on the book again. He sighed with relief as she took the cover and spine out from the books holding them flat. Under his directions and with the help of magic she felt humming through the papers, she sewed the pages into packets and slipped them into their proper order and place in the binding, gluing everything together with an ease that was very clearly magical.
"Why couldn't you have fixed yourself before this?" she asked, more curious than grudging, as she rubbed her fingers together to peel off the glue sticking to them.
"Too wounded to have much magic left. The enspelled glass of the cupboard blocked me, and the glue pot was too far away." The book sighed, then a chuckle escaped it. "I'm audible again! Oh, what glory."
"I still can't tell—are you a boy or a girl?"
"Yes."
Merrigan opened her mouth to retort that it hadn't answered, then the humor struck her and she chuckled.
"The truth is, Mi'Lady, even being a magical book, I am limited. I need hands to carry me, and tell me about things beyond my ... well, as you remarked earlier, I don't have eyes or ears, but I am able to see and hear and smell for a limited distance. Sometimes it's better not to know all the fine details of the magic involved. As for being a boy or girl ... well, my previous master called me Bib. That sounds more like a boy's name than a girl's, if you feel more comfortable assigning one or the other to me."
"I'd much rather think of you as a 'he' than an 'it,' if that makes any sense," she admitted.
"And there's another fine crack in the spell. You're making incredible progress in creating your own freedom, Mi'Lady."
"When you said previous master ..." She hesitated to voice the nebulous idea churning up through her middle.
"You are the master of the book, now, after saving me from dreamless waiting, with just enough awareness that I could have screamed if I had the energy." Bib's voice thickened, so Merrigan had a good idea of just what he had suffered.
"How long were you ...?" She gestured at the corner shelves where his ravaged pieces had been tossed.
"No idea. I think I don't want to know, either. What are people saying about this place? As far as I can tell, only a small part of my old master's castle remains. Quite a few of the books who were my old friends are gone. The ones that have replaced them." He made a rude snorting noise that earned a grin from her. "Didactic, pedantic, self-righteous, and quite a few contradicting each other. The problem with books of the law is that if they aren't given regular fresh air and sunlight, they get ingrown, with an inflated sense of their importance. Especially when they're still clean and glossy years after being printed. The law was made to be a servant, not a ruler. Kings need to learn that lesson as well."
"You mean to tell me, all these books in here are somehow aware, even if they're not magic?" She tipped her head back and slowly turned, surveying the shelves reaching up to the ceiling, all filled with thick, unused books.
"All books have the potential for magic. It depends on how they're used, and the spirit of the people using them." Bib sighed. "Listen to me, nattering on and on. Priorities, Mi'Lady. First, we solve the problem of the people who cheated young Corby—and yes, the man downstairs a short time ago is the ringleader. Master Swickle. Judge Brimble is just a vainglorious and willing dupe in the plot. From what I overheard, they're now turning their sights on the baker, to take over his shop. Swickle's cousin wants to be a baker, but doesn't want to invest any money or even the time to learn how to bake. They've been working to undermine the baker's reputation. The cousin has a dozen relatives who will claim to be sick from eating the baker's bread. They'll even claim one of them died, poisoned. The baker will have to turn over his bakery to them to keep from going to prison. Th
ey won't strike until they figure out how to force the baker and his family to stay on and work for them."
"That's insidious!" Merrigan trembled, thinking of the delicious bread the baker had offered her, for free, when she stepped into his shop. He had given her fresh, not leftovers, as she knew most businesses did when it came to poor, penniless travelers looking for charity.
She thought of the rosy-cheeked baker's assistant, who had offered her cold milk without being asked or ordered. She thought of that sweet young boy working for a man who would lie and cheat to steal someone's livelihood. Such an idea made her furious.
"What should we do?"
"I'm still regaining my strength. While the glue is still wet, I don't dare try anything strenuous. Let me think on it." Bib's pages ruffled slightly, startling her. "Ah, that feels good. I haven't been able to stretch my limbs, so to speak, in a dragon's age. And dragons aren't all unfriendly, I might add. Quite a few can be very stout, loyal friends, with a wonderful wit. If we could befriend a dragon, Mi'Lady, I'm sure he or she could shred the spells binding you and set you free in no time."
"One thing at a time, Master Bib." Merrigan picked up her cup and walked back down to the sewing end of the table. Finishing this sewing job was necessary before she could leave this house and find someone such as a dragon to help her.
The trousers were finished and lying on the table next to the other pieces of clothing. The everyday clothes were finished and ready for fitting. Now she had to work on the fine new robes for Judge Brimble to wear to court—two robes for everyday wear, when he sat on the bench in Smilpotz, then a grander robe with thin silver braid on the sleeves and collar, for when he was called to special cases requiring a panel of judges in Carnpotz. These three robes would be in staid black. A fourth set of robes would be in deep, dark crimson, with black slashes on the sleeves and bracketing the collar, trimmed in crimson and gold braid, for the few times when Judge Brimble would attend the High Court.
The Kindness Curse Page 8