Magic's Promise (37 page)

Petar snorted, coughed, and turned over. There was silence for a moment, then he snorted again, and the snores did
not
resume.

:Take the chance to get to sleep while you can,:
Yfandes advised dryly.

But sleep refused to come.

Tonight had been particularly bad. Not only had Bel made another try, but Valdir had fended off the attentions of someone else as well.

Even if he
hadn't
taken Bel's glare as warning that she meant what she'd said about not taking up with her customers, he'd have avoided this one.
Shaych,
yes - but in a way that made Valdir's skin crawl as much as Bel did. The man hadn't been physically repulsive, but there was something twisted about him, something unhealthy. Like a fine velvet glove over a taloned hand. The man had looked at him with a hunger that made him shiver with reaction even now. He had reminded Vanyel - not Valdir - of the mage that had called himself
“
Krebain.
”

I
don't know what to think anymore. If I'm not shaych, then why can't I just do what Bel wants and get it over with? If I am, then why did that hunter revolt me?
He turned onto his side, curling into a ball against the cold, the ache of his empty stomach, the misery his own uncertainty was causing.

And today
-
gods. That sick little game I was playing on the serving girls. Leading them on -
knowing
I
was leading them right down a dead end. Yes, I got information - but I was actually
enjoying
deluding them, having a little power over them. Gods, that was sick. And I would have gone
right on
playing little sex-flirtation games if 'Fandes hadn 't threatened to kick me into next week. I'm turning into something I don't much like.

He curled up a little tighter.
I
don't even know my own feelings any more.

He tightened his lips in exasperation.
Look, Van, you’re supposed to have been trained in logic. So
why
don't you try putting things into some kind of category, you goose? Maybe you don't know what you feel, but you certainly know what you don't feel. You 've been agonizing over
that
enough lately! Then figure out what it is that everything you
don't
care for has in common.

: It's about time,:
came Yfandes' sardonic comment.

He was startled - and then angry. He very nearly made some kind of nasty retort back to her, but
she
was blocking, and he wasn't so angry that he'd try to breach her shields just to tell her off. For one thing, he wasn't sure he could - for another, the attempt
might
give him away to Vedric.

But he certainly wanted to...

The next several days were some of the worst Valdir had ever spent. He played his fingers to the bone every night until the last customer left. He dodged Bel, not always successfully, by day. He took her beatings with teeth-gritting meekness, avoided her increasingly heavy-handed attempts to trap him, and did his best to minimize the damage she inflicted. He was cold at night, and starved by day; Bel's idea of
“
meals
”
being scarcely enough to keep a mouse alive. And his own unhappy thoughts kept him awake more often than not.

He went back to the former maid Reta's tiny house faithfully every two days, only to be turned away with nothing.

Then, finally, after close to a fortnight - an endless series of attempts to see the old woman and being turned away from her door - Reta finally agreed to speak with him again.

“
I wasn't sure you'd be back.
”
Reta held the door open for him, and he slipped past her into the tiny, painfully neat sitting room. She closed the door carefully, and sat down on her settle beside the hearth. Valdir took the only other seat, a stool. The old woman regarded him thoughtfully while he curbed his impatience, and hoped that
this
time some more information would be forthcoming.

“
No, I wasn't certain you'd be back,
”
she repeated.

“
Why wouldn't I?
”
he asked, just as quietly, as he ignored the hollow feeling in his stomach. He'd been here long enough that the meager rations and short sleep were beginning to affect him, and while he'd recharged his mage - energies fully, his physical energies were becoming exhausted. He woke up five and six times a night, cramping with cold, and even with the supplementary food he was spending his pittance of earnings on, he was beginning to have spells of light-headedness. Most of his money was going to buy Yfandes grain, anyway. But Reta held the key, he was sure of it. If only he could persuade her to part with the information. Her - or whatever power had controlled her the first time he came to her door.

“
This isn't a tale of high adventure,
”
she pointed out dryly.
“
And it isn't a bedroom farce. It's not terribly interesting, it's not good song-fodder, and it's sad.
”

“
Sad?
”
He raised an eyebrow.
“
Why sad?
”

She examined the hands she held folded in her lap, as if they were of great interest.
“
That poor child Ylyna, she never really had a chance to grow up. Oh, she was grown in body, but -
They
kept her a child, a frightened child they could manipulate. I find that sad.
”

“
They
”
meaning the Mavelans.
“
Why didn't you say something?
”
he asked, trying to understand what could have led her to stand by and watch, and not act.

She shrugged.
“
Who would have listened? I was Her Highness' personal maid, as I was Deveran's mother's. Deveran would have thought me either besotted or bewitched. He wasn't known for thinking much of women in the first place.
”
She shook her head and stared at the ring on her finger. The peculiar, dull white stone seemed to brighten for a moment, and her voice and expression became abstracted, as it had the first time she'd spoken openly.

It's happening again!
Valdir held his breath, all his exhaustion, his personal concerns forgotten, hoping against hope...

“
No, Deveran had no faith in the good sense
or
the honesty of women. After all, his own mother had betrayed him by dying when he most needed her, or so his own father kept claiming. And Ylyna -
not a
virgin, possibly mad, and surely little better than a trollop - certainly didn't help matters.
”

Valdir could not stay silent; he protested such inexcusable, willful blindness.
“
But the way she treated Tashir -
”

“
Was likely the way
she'd
been treated.
”
The old woman shook her head again, continuing to stare at the stone of her ring.
“
When you reach my age, you have generally seen a great deal. Adults who have been beaten as children beat their own children. And - other things. I sometimes wonder if
that
isn't what Holy Lerence meant when he said 'the sins of the fathers shall be taken up by the sons.'
“
Her eyes grew even more thoughtful - or entranced. She didn't seem to be paying any attention to him.

There was something stirring here. Again he felt some Power moving under the powers he could detect easily.
Gods! I don't dare try to probe for it.
The frustration maddened him. He could
feel
it, something deep, and powerful, it vibrated so that he felt it rather than
“
detected
”
it; the way he could sometimes
“
feel
”
the vibrations of a note too low to actually hear.

But it was
stronger
this time, much stronger, and it seemed to be stirring to
his
good, for the old chambermaid was saying things she hadn't more than hinted at before.

“
What other things was she doing?
”
Valdir prompted in a whisper, hands clenched together so tightly they ached. This was it. This was what he was looking for. The secret no one knew. The key to it all.

She sounded as if she was talking to herself.
“
When Tashir grew older - and handsomer - she started looking at him differently. The gods know Deveran hadn't come to her bed for four years, and wouldn't allow any male servants near her, only women. She had never had
any
pleasure except in bed, I think. I wonder if that wasn't the only thing she thought she could do well.
”
The old woman was gazing deeply into her stone and not at all at him now, and her voice was very low, so that he had to strain to hear it. She shifted just a little, and he caught the sharp smell of lavender from the folds of her dress.
“
Tashir began looking more and more like his uncle, and he was
still
terrified of her. Of
her,
who never frightened anyone, and couldn't even command respect from her servants. It must have been too seductive to resist, that combination; fear, and the handsome young face and body. She set out to seduce her own son into her bed.
”

Valdir froze.
No
-
that's
-
my gods
-

She continued on, still speaking in that same, dreamy voice, as if she was speaking only to herself.
“
That frightened him even more, I think, once he realized what was going on. Poor child. I hardly believed it at first; I just thought the petting was getting a little - overwarm. She'd use any excuse to get her hands on him. Any excuse at all.
”

Valdir licked his dry lips, but couldn't make his voice work.

Reta sighed.
“
And Deveran either didn't know or didn't care; I tend to think the latter. He had what he wanted; three sons indisputably his, and likely to reach maturity. What happened to Tashir didn't matter. The
only
person who cared what was happening to him was the old armsmaster, the one Deveran had retired. Karis.
He
had taken to teaching the boy, when he saw no one else would. He protected him as much as he could. Which wasn't much, but it was something. He gave the boy a place to hide- and a person to look up to who was stable, sane, and fond of him.
”

“
A good man?
”

And possibly another way to get Tashir to open up
-

“
A very good man. A pity he was in the palace with the rest of them.
”

Valdir wanted to curse, and restrained himself only by a strong effort of will.

“
Finally it got to the point that Tashir
couldn't
keep her away - and that wizard-power of his intervened. He had a kind of fit; smashed half the bower before it was over. That was when Deveran decided.
”

“
Decided what?
”
Valdir asked.

At that moment, the power faded abruptly. One breath it was there. Then it was gone. Her eyes finally came back to their normal sharp focus.
“
What?
”
she asked him, looking up at him suddenly.

Gods - the spell's broken. Oh, Lady of Light, help me persuade her.
Would she finish the sentence? Could he convince her on his own?
“
You were going to tell me what Deveran had decided to do about Tashir,
”
he prompted.
“
That night.
”

“
Oh.
”
She shrugged, indifferently.
“
That. I thought everyone knew about that.
”

“I
don't,
”
he pointed out.
“
And nobody wants to talk about it, much.
”

“
It's simple enough. Since Vedric was making such a big to-do over the boy, Deveran decided to let
him
deal with the problem. Deveran was going to send the boy to his Mavelan relatives - permanently. That was what he told Ylyna after they cleared the boy and the mess out of her bower. That he intended to tell the boy at dinner.
”
She sighed.
“
And I can only assume, given that Tashir was even more frightened of that den of madmen than he was of his mother, that this was exactly what happened, and what brought - everything-down.
”

He hadn't realized how much time he'd spent in the little sitting room; when he took his leave of Reta, he was appalled.
One
candlemark to sundown.

Panic stole thought. He could only think of
one
thing.

Home.

He
had
to get home, before it was too late. He didn't
dare
try to Mindtouch Savil from here; that would be as stupid, with Vedric so near, as riding through the gates in full Whites on Yfandes.

He ran across town, dodging through foot and beast traffic, trying to reach the east gate before they closed it for the night. Once closed-he wouldn't get out until morning. He didn't
dare
cast any kind of spell to get him by, no more than he dared Mindtouch Savil. Vedric would detect spellcasting even faster than the use of a Mind-Gift. And every moment he stayed here was another moment the same disaster that wiped out Tashir's family could move to harm
his.