Caught in Crystal: A Lyra Novel (20 page)

Kayl scanned the room again. Finally, she located Glyndon. He was still hunched over the table in the shadows by the far wall, staring at a plate and mug in front of him. Kayl smiled in relief; she had been half-afraid that he had grown tired of waiting and had left in search of companionship.

Glyndon looked up at her as she sat down. He blinked, owllike; then suddenly he gave her a disconcertingly charming smile. “Did you know that it’s easier to be overlooked if you sit in the middle of the wall? People always check the corners when they’re looking for suspicious characters, but their eyes slide right by the middle of the wall.”

His speech was too precise, too careful. Kayl sighed in exasperation. “Glyndon, you’re drunk.”

“Not at all,” Glyndon replied. “You asked me to wait; I’ve waited.”

“And you just had a mug or two to pass the time.”

“Or two, or three,” Glyndon agreed. “I had to do something, you know.”

“Of course.” Kayl shook her head. “Are you sober enough to hold a sensible conversation?”

“Always. For you, I will be sober as the High Mage’s Chamberlain and sensible as the Keeper of the Keys to the Queen’s Treasury.”

“Glyndon!”

He gave an exaggerated sigh. “Oh, very well. But let me guess—you’re going back to those bigoted women in the gray and silver robes, and you’re wondering how to break it to me.

“No,” Kayl said quietly. “It’s nothing like that.”

Glyndon looked up, his face suddenly serious, searching her expression. “It’s not?” he said at last.

“I don’t know yet what I’m going to do about the Sisterhood,” Kayl said, holding his eyes with her own. “But when I do decide, I’ll tell you first; I promise. That’s not what I wanted to talk to you about.”

“Oh.” Glyndon looked pensively down at his mug. “Then I have used up a good deal of winter wine by mistake. Pity.” He raised his mug again.

Kayl caught at his arm. “Glyndon! You’re drunk enough already.”

“Enough for what?”

“Never mind. I think this had better wait until morning; you’re in no state to be discussing Kevran’s rod now.”

“Kevran.” Glyndon took a long drink from his mug. “Yes, it’s always been either Kevran or the Sisterhood, hasn’t it? One or the other. I could never…”

Kayl waited, but Glyndon did not finish the sentence. “I think you’d better come upstairs,” she said at last. “While you can still walk relatively straight.”

Glyndon muttered something and shoved himself to his feet. He swayed, then started around the end of the table. Kayl rose hastily; Glyndon’s coordination had obviously been far more affected by the drink than had his speech. She helped him across the room and up the stairs, holding the tiny oil lamp with one hand and Glyndon with the other.

At the door to his room, they stopped. Glyndon pushed it open, then turned unsteadily and looked at Kayl. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t realize.”

“How far off you were getting? Don’t start worrying about that now! Go on in and lie down before you fall down.”

“I—” Glyndon stared at her a moment, then sagged against the doorjamb. “Never mind. I’m not quite
that
drunk.” He lurched upright once more, gave Kayl a smile full of self-mockery, and went in.

Kayl stood and watched as the door closed behind him. Then she shook herself and, in a very disquieted frame of mind, crossed to the room she shared with Mark and Dara.

T
HE FOLLOWING MORNING KAYL
awoke well before the children, and discovered that, once she had dressed, she had nothing to occupy her time until they awoke. The only thing that came to mind was mending the holes Mark had managed to get in his robe, and she had no more thread to do that with. She’d used the last of it in Thurl Wood, two weeks before, and hadn’t gotten around to purchasing any more.

Perhaps she should simply buy him a new robe. Mark had grown on the trip from Copeham, and even with leggings below it his robe was beginning to look decidedly short. Kayl sighed. Having nothing to do made her feel cross; she was accustomed to being busy, usually with yet another task in mind to do as soon as she was finished with her present work.

That could be part of her problem, she thought, and grimaced. In Copeham, she had buried herself in the work of running the inn and raising the children, to avoid thinking. Corrana’s arrival had shaken her out of that rut, but she realized with chagrin that she had fallen into the same pattern again. The needs of the journey had replaced running the inn: finding food and water and firewood, choosing a place to camp, practicing her swordcraft, teaching Mark and Dara, deciding how far to travel next day and whether to spend some of their dwindling store of cash on an inn.

And she had allowed them to occupy her mind, seldom thinking of the decisions that lay ahead at the end of the journey. Now she was faced with those decisions, and she felt almost as unprepared for them as she had been in Copeham.

Kayl rose and walked softly to the window, careful not to wake Mark or Dara. The wooden shutter and the oiled cloth nailed over the opening kept direct winds more or less at bay, but it was still a cold and drafty place to stand. Kayl peered out the cracks around the edges of the window, trying unsuccessfully to see what sort of day it was outside. Finally she abandoned the attempt and returned to the slightly warmer area beside the door.

What
was
she going to do about the Sisterhood? Part of her wanted desperately to be one of them again, to have Dalessi’s warm and friendly wisdom to lean on, to know other women who understood what she meant because they shared the same background and beliefs. To have a family again. Another part of her whispered persuasively of the more tangible benefits the Sisterhood could offer: food, clothes, shelter, an education for her children, work that suited her.

Yet she knew it was not so simple. Even if she could forget everything that had happened in the aftermath of her long-ago trip to the Twisted Tower, there would be Sisters who could not. And Kayl had spent fifteen years outside the Sisterhood, eight of them married to a Varnan wizard; she no longer shared the background of most of the Sisterhood. Nor did she share all their beliefs.

As for her children, Kayl doubted that Mark would ever be happy in the Children’s Hall. Dara, on the other hand, would probably adjust fairly well. But Kayl knew from experience what such an upbringing meant. She did not want to become a stranger to her children, separated from them for six months or more every year when she traveled to other cities on the business of the Sisterhood. Nor did she want Dara pressured into joining the Sisterhood.

There was also the matter of the Sisterhood’s attitude toward Varnans. Kayl sighed again. If Corrana were typical, the Sisterhood had changed little in that regard, and all for the worse. There seemed to be other changes, too, changes Kayl did not yet completely understand. And there was the mission to the Twisted Tower, and Glyndon’s visions, and Kevran’s rod. Somehow they were tied together, and Kayl could make no firm decisions about any of them until she understood how and why.

Mark stirred restlessly and sat up. Kayl rose to begin getting her children ready for the new day. She hoped Glyndon would be down in the serving room by the time they arrived. She had a great deal to discuss with him.

Though Kayl and her family lingered over breakfast, Glyndon did not put in an appearance before they finished. He was presumably sleeping late; on reflection, Kayl found this quite reasonable. She was considering the advisability of going upstairs and awakening him, when she became aware of someone standing beside her.

Kayl looked up. A girl of about fifteen stood waiting patiently to be noticed. She was wrapped in a heavy wool cloak; the dark gray robe of a student at the Star Hall showed beneath it. She bobbed her head and said, “Sister Kayl Larrinar? Your Justice?”

“I’m Kayl Larrinar,” Kayl said, ignoring the startled looks Mark and Dara gave her. “But I’m no longer of the Sisterhood. Just call me Kayl.”

“I bear a message for you from the Star Hall,” the girl said, and drew a folded parchment from inside her robe.

Kayl took it, broke the seal, and read it. It was a politely neutral request that she come to the Star Hall as soon as she could; her children would be welcome as well. There was no signature, only the stylized figure of the eight-pointed star of the Sisterhood.

“How did the Sisters know to send you here to look for me?” Kayl asked the girl, frowning. “I didn’t tell them where I would be staying.”

“This is the third inn I’ve been to,” the girl said. “And I think they sent out other messengers besides me.”

“Thank you.” Kayl smiled slightly. The Sisters were more anxious to see her than the tone of the note implied, then. Kayl was tempted to refuse the summons, but she had no real reason to do so, and she was curious. She could wait a few more hours to talk to Glyndon.

“Uh, Mistress?” the girl said uncertainly. “Will there be any reply?”

“I’ll come,” Kayl said. “Mark, Dara, run up and get your cloaks. And bring mine down with you, please.”

While the children were gone, Kayl borrowed a charcoal stick from the innkeeper and wrote a brief note to Glyndon on the back of the one from the Sisterhood. She folded it with care and left it with the innkeeper. At least Glyndon would know where to find her if he needed to.

Mark came clattering down the stairs with Dara close behind. Kayl took her cloak from them and wrapped it around herself, then checked to make sure that both children were warmly wrapped as well. The messenger waited with growing impatience, then led the way.

The day was cold and gray. A low sheet of clouds hung in the sky, threatening more snow. Kayl’s breath rose in a white column of mist, only to be snatched away by a brief gust of wind.

“Ugh,” Mark said. “I hate winter.”

“You didn’t say that yesterday,” Dara pointed out.

“Yesterday it was sunny and everybody was out doing things.”

“It will be warmer by the time we’re on our way back,” Kayl said. “And if it’s nice enough, we’ll take the long way around and I’ll show you where the nobles live.”

“And the Queen’s Palace?” Mark said. “With the Shanhar guards, and the messengers waiting on horses all the time?”

Kayl laughed. “If the weather’s better.”

Mark gave an excited skipping bound and almost bumped into the messenger girl from behind. Kayl called him to order, and they walked a little way in silence.

“Mother,” Dara said softly as they rounded a corner, “why did that girl call you ‘Your Justice’?”

“Because that’s how warrior Sisters are addressed,” Kayl said. “Healers are ‘Your Mercy,’ sorceresses are ‘Your Prudence,’ and demon-friends are ‘Your Compassion.’”

“That’s weird,” Mark said.

“You never called Corrana any of those things,” Dara said.

“Corrana is an Elder Sister; they are all addressed as ‘Your Virtue,’ no matter what their specialty, just as Mothers are all addressed as ‘Your Wisdom’ and Elder Mothers as ‘Your Serenity.’”

“Like that woman we saw yesterday,” Dara said.

“That’s right,” Kayl said.

“Do we have to remember all that stuff?” Mark asked with trepidation.

“If we’re going to have much to do with the Sisterhood, you’ll have to learn,” Kayl told him. “You may as well start now.”

Mark groaned and gave Dara a disgusted look. “You had to ask, didn’t you?”

The remainder of the walk to the Star Hall was consumed by instructing Mark and Dara on the general points of etiquette among the Sisters of the Stars. Mark was determined to remember only the absolute minimum necessary to meet his mother’s standards of politeness, but Dara was fascinated by the elaborate shadings of address that were possible. Kayl had to caution her not to attempt to use them herself. It would be all too easy for Dara to accidentally offend someone.

When they reached the Star Hall the messenger left them in the outer courtyard. The wait was brief; Mark’s restless prowling had taken him less than halfway around the boundary of the courtyard when a brown-haired young woman with a scar across one cheek arrived. She took charge of Mark and Dara with brisk firmness, and directed Kayl to one of the inner waiting chambers.

“I would rather keep the children with me,” Kayl said. “And I’d like to know why I’ve been called here.”

“I believe it has something to do with checking some old records,” the woman said. “I don’t think these two would find it very interesting, do you?”

“Checking records?” Kayl asked. “Are you sure? The message sounded more urgent than that, and besides, I’m no scholar.”

“I’m sure it will all be explained to you. It’s the second door from the end, remember; make yourself comfortable while you wait.” The woman nodded a farewell at Kayl and guided the children out of the courtyard.

Kayl let them go, though she felt uneasy about the whole situation. She told herself not to be foolish; she was simply overreacting to this highhanded rearranging of her plans for the day. She would have a few things to say to Dalessi or Corrana or whoever had summoned her so peremptorily. Frowning, she went into the main building, through the atrium, and down the hall. She paused before the second door from the end, then entered without knocking.

The room was quite small; the two wooden chairs and brass brazier were almost the limit of the furnishings it could comfortably hold. A wide band of brown and cream tile circled the walls at shoulder height. On the opposite side of the room, a small woman in a light gray robe stood with her back to Kayl, staring out the window into the inner courtyard. Her dark hair was pulled back into a smooth, tight knob at the nape of her neck.

At the sound of the door closing, the woman turned. Her eyes widened and she took a step forward. “Kayl!”

“Barthelmy?” Kayl said incredulously.

“Who else?” Barthelmy hesitated a moment more, then ran across the room and threw her arms around Kayl. “Oh, Kayl, it’s so good to see you!”

Kayl returned the hug and felt a knot of tension dissolving in her mind. Tears stung her eyes. She released Barthelmy and stood looking down at her for a moment, then grinned.