Heroes at Odds (6 page)

“How long will they be staying?”

“A couple of weeks.”

“It’s always nice to have new faces. Traders, aren’t they?”

“Yes.”

“Are they looking for any connections here?”

“Not to my knowledge, but then I know almost nothing about such things.”

She pursed her lips before asking, “They’re your family, aren’t they?”

“Aye, but I’m a Shield. I have nothing to do with their enterprises.”

She appeared unimpressed. “Huh.”

Fiona cleared her throat. “How is everyone doing?” she asked. It sounded like a casual question. I didn’t think it was.

The miller shrugged. “Some grumbling, of course. Not like before those bastards tried to kill Healer Browne.”

The bastards were the Imperial Guards the Emperor had sent, allegedly looking for evidence of people pretending to cast spells. Healer Nab Browne did cast spells, but I didn’t think that had actually been observed by the Guards. The Guards had seen her healing people and had assumed the tools and ingredients she had used were quackery obscuring the attempts to cast spells. They hadn’t been able to tell the difference between the ingredients for casting, which they hadn’t discovered, and genuine medication, which they had.

They hadn’t been planning to kill the healer, just flog her, but the numbers of lashes would have been the end of her. It had been the limit for Fiona, and she’d ordered the Guards away in another example of defiance of the Emperor.

Before that had happened, there had been a lot of people upset about Taro giving away the title, and they had blamed Fiona for that. Her standing up to the Guards had apparently won her some admiration, at least of those who hadn’t later decided to leave.

“Anything I need to worry about?” Fiona asked.

The miller shrugged. “Don’t think so.”

“How about you? Is there something you’re concerned about?”

“Nothing worthy of my lady’s attention.”

That, I thought, was a cagey answer.

Apparently, Fiona thought so, too. “Are you sure?”

“Aye, my lady.”

Fiona tried a couple more times to get something out of the miller, but the woman refused to give even so much as a hint, and Fiona eventually had to give up.

We left shortly thereafter. We walked around the village, greeting those who were up and about. Fiona asked them all what was happening in their lives, if there was anything they thought she should know. Most of them claimed to have nothing to worry about.

The fog was burned off by the strengthening sun, and the air became noisier as we made our way back to the manor. The peace of the early morning had been shattered. Everyone was up and moving. The manor was bustling by the time we reached it.

Walking down the hall toward the dining room, we could hear masculine laughter ringing through the air. We entered the room just in time to hear my mother say, “And then he said, ‘Not without the duck!’”

An uproarious explosion of merriment ensued. Taro was slapping the table in applause. Tarce was bent over in his chair.

I’d never seen Tarce laugh before. He looked beautiful and free, the habitual sneer completely gone, his eyes shining. If he looked like that more often, he could probably entice anyone he wanted.

“You all seem in high spirits,” Fiona commented as she served herself from the side bar. I headed for the coffee.

“Why should we not?” said Mother. “It is a fine day in a comfortable house with good company and a tasty breakfast. All the ingredients for contentment.”

She seemed in far better spirits than she had been the day she’d arrived. A day to rest? Relief in having given me the bad news and therefore passing on the responsibility?

I hated that I resented my mother for being calm while I was a bundle of nerves. That wasn’t her fault. She probably assumed I was always as calm as a Shield was supposed to be, and therefore accepting the bad news with grace and equanimity.

“Lee, is that any way to dress when people will see you?” Mother complained.

I looked down at myself. I was wearing a beige shirt of rough cotton and dark brown linen trousers with my sturdiest boots. “It’s perfectly sensible wear for an extended walk over uneven terrain.”

“You’re not on uneven terrain now, are you?” Mother pointed out. “As Taro said, you have a duty to look your best when you’re to appear before other people.”

Everyone was staring down at their plates, everyone except Mika. He was watching me with curiosity.

I put some bread and cheese on a plate and brought that and my coffee to the table. “It is my custom to change after breakfast.” I sat down and began to eat.

It was unkind and, I thought, unlike her to behave this way in front of others.

“I can’t see how you ladies can be so hungry,” Taro commented, breaking the uncomfortable silence. “I know you stop at the miller’s and stuff yourself with freshly baked bread.”

“Early morning walks are excellent for increasing the appetite,” said Fiona.

“Surely it would be safer to do it later in the day,” said Mother. “When there are more people about.”

“I have never felt unsafe,” Fiona said, sipping at some mint tea. “And there is something special about that time of day, just before to just after sunrise. Quiet and new. I feel I can sense the power of the land, breathe it in, wear it on my skin.”

A year before, I would have dismissed Fiona’s words as nothing more than sentiment. A poetic way of describing her feelings. Soil didn’t have power. Titleholders didn’t have profound connections to the land. It was all just fancy and emotion.

I had learned a lot in the past year. I had learned that the casting of spells was real, not merely a means of conning people out of their money. I had had a spell cast on me. I had cast spells myself. I had seen a man suss out emotional vibrations from rooms with a bowl of water. Radia could feel when the wind was coming. Maybe there were other forms of power of which I hadn’t yet heard.

Was Fiona’s walking about the land at a specific time of day some kind of ritual, some kind of spell? Spells came in all sorts of forms, and not all of them required rhymes. But Fiona had said she couldn’t cast spells, that she had tried and failed.

Maybe I was looking for proof of casting where none existed. That was a drastic shift in attitude. I generally felt uneasy with such shifts. They could be kind of painful.

“What have you planned to do today?” Fiona asked my mother. “You’re welcome to my horses. I can have one of the servants show you the grounds.”

“That is most kind of you,” said my mother. “But we’d prefer to stay close to the manor for a few days.”

Were we going to tell them who was coming and why? That would be embarrassing and aggravating. Everyone would probably treat the whole thing as a form of entertainment. But I didn’t know how we could hide it. The fact that the Prides hadn’t sent me a letter suggested to me that they wanted to surprise me. They probably wanted me to be off balance. And they wanted me to feel pressured into fulfilling the contract. The best way to do that was to make it all very public.

“Are you all in good health?” Fiona asked.

“Certainly, but we haven’t seen Lee or Shintaro for a good long while, and we would like to catch up.”

I sort of thought we already had. That was what all the talking the day they’d arrived had been about, wasn’t it? Was there more terrible news waiting for me?

So, what would be worse than being told you’re expected to marry a stranger? Being told you were going to lose a limb? Being told you were expected to move to Seventh Year and actually work in the family business you knew nothing about? Being told you couldn’t be a Shield anymore?

And then my mood slid down into the black cavern below my feet. I didn’t want to be there. I didn’t want the food on my plate. I just wanted to go back to the suite and fume about it all in private. Though that wouldn’t do anyone any good.

I would feel better once the Prides got there. They would make their complaint, I would say no, and everyone could go home. I could then focus on things that actually mattered.

After breakfast, I went to the suite and no one followed me. My mood must have been clearly written on my face, which was something to be ashamed of, but I didn’t care. It was nice to be alone. Now, I just needed something to distract me. And I knew what could do that.

The overmantel of the fireplace in our bedchamber had a false front. Fiona had shown it to me. In that overmantel I had hidden books. Books of spells. Originally, those tools of casting had been concealed in the overmantel while the Imperial Guards had been searching for those very articles. But then, I started reading the books myself.

I had learned that I could perform spells. The law didn’t recognize the existence of spells. The law said spells were things people only pretended to cast, for the purpose of charlatanry. So pretending to cast spells was illegal while, in theory, actually performing spells was not.

Sometimes the law really didn’t make sense.

I was embarrassed by how fascinated I was with the whole subject. There was something about it that seemed lazy and childish to me, as it was a form of wish fulfillment in an attempt to avoid working for what one wanted. And yet, now that I knew spells worked, the nature of them entranced me. Why did words spoken in a spell have more power than when they were spoken in ordinary conversation? So many of the powders and liquids used in spells were nothing more than baking ingredients or healing elixirs. Why did they have power only when combined in a spell? Why could spells be successfully cast in some places but not in others? Why could some people cast spells while others couldn’t?

I could cast spells. Fiona said she couldn’t. I had no idea whether Taro could. To my knowledge, he hadn’t even tried. He didn’t really seem interested, which was unfathomable to me. The things that could be accomplished with spells were incredible. And I would wager he would be good at it. He was Shintaro Karish. He could do anything.

I pulled out a book. It had been written one hundred and thirty years before. I couldn’t understand the motive behind it being written, as, from what I understood, casting hadn’t really worked back then. According to what I had been told and what I had read, after the First Landed had come to our world with their machines, mechanical wonders that could fly and communicate and dig up soil, the magic inherent in the world had blinked out, and had started returning only a couple of generations ago. So why would anyone write a book about spells when no spells worked was beyond me.

But I was glad that the writer, a Lisbe Hut, had been motivated to do so, for her book was interesting. It was about taking shortcuts while casting spells, finding ways to decrease the number of tools and ingredients. Which was brilliant. The biggest liability with casting was all the paraphernalia it required. That was cumbersome, and I could easily imagine situations where a person would find herself without all the necessary tools. Or taking so long to perform the spells that the ability to do any good had passed before the spell was completed.

Not everyone could use the shortcuts, Hut warned. The principal purpose of spells, of assembling the ingredients and speaking the words, was to bring the mind into focus. Not everyone had the required mental discipline to skip the steps and bring the mind to a pinpoint of concentration.

I figured I had as good a chance as anyone. Being a Shield required a lot of discipline and focus. And despite some mishaps, I’d picked up casting pretty quickly.

Not quickly enough, though. Fiona’s husband, Dane, had been out whaling during dangerously strong winds. Knowing I had been experimenting with casting, Fiona had pleaded with me to calm the wind. I had tried to calm it and had been completely unsuccessful, resulting in the death of Dane and two other whalers. In time, I had been able to make the spell work, but too late to be any use to Fiona or Dane.

I regretted that intensely. I had liked Dane. He had been a friendly, uncomplicated man dedicated to the best interests of his wife and child. It wasn’t fair that he had died.

I never wanted to be caught so useless again. That meant reading, studying, practicing.

All right. Relax. Long breath in, long breath out, long breath in, long breath out. That was it. Let it all go. It would all be sorted.

After concentrating on nothing but my own breathing for a while, the whirling in my mind eased and I could think more clearly. I picked up the book again. I turned the page and found two versions of the same spell.

It was a levitation spell. That could be interesting. And useful. The list of components was rather lengthy considering what the spell was meant to accomplish, but that wasn’t unusual. Some casts meant to do little required a long list of ingredients and steps, while some meant to accomplish something significant were simple. Casting didn’t always make sense.

I pulled out all of my supplies and sat down on the floor. I always preferred to be on the floor when I cast. It made me feel more stable and connected to my environment.

Lemon juice to rub on the inside of the wrists, mint for under the tongue, resin powder to rub at my throat, red nut oil to be mixed with mustard seed and black pepper in which to dip each of my middle fingers. Once everything had been rubbed and mixed and dabbed as required, I looked at the candle I had laid on the floor. “Candle be air, rise beyond care, fly up above, as wings of a dove.” I clenched my hands on my knees to keep from moving them. Gestures mattered while casting. “Rise beyond care. Rise beyond care.” I felt a little pull in my mind and a jittery sensation in my stomach. That latter sensation meant casting was being done. I stared at the candle, telling it to rise.

The candle drifted up and hung in the air. Huh. Managed it first time. I let the candle drift down to the floor.