Mirror Sight (17 page)

M
irriam stormed into the stable, and Luke and his stable lads slunk into the shadows like chastened cats. She glowered at Karigan, who was in the center aisle of the stable currying Raven’s neck, but Mirriam directed her fury at the professor. “Professor Josston! You know better.”

“I—I do?” He stepped backward and fiddled with the brim of his hat, which he held in his hands.

“The stable is not a suitable place for a young lady.”

“Oh, well, I—”

“And Miss Goodgrave!”

Karigan paused her currying.

“Step away from the horse,” Mirriam commanded.

Karigan did no such thing, but thrust her veil out of her face to glare back at Mirriam. “Why? This is my new horse.”

Mirriam’s gaze flashed again to the professor, who took another step back. “New horse?”

“It’s . . . it’s true. We, uh, acquired him on our outing.”

Mirriam gazed hard in turn at Raven, who perked his ears at her.

“You bought the young lady an . . . an . . .
intact
stallion?”

The professor glanced at Raven’s nether regions as if to confirm Mirriam’s observation. “It does appear that way,” he replied.

“His name is Raven,” Karigan said.

“It’s unseemly. Thoroughly unseemly. Young lady, you come to the house this instant before you ruin that fine dress. Or your shoes. Mind the droppings.” Mirriam turned and marched from the stables, apparently expecting Karigan to obediently follow behind her.

“You’d best go, my dear,” the professor said anxiously. “Best not to incur Mirriam’s wrath, or she will not allow you out of her sight ever again.”

“Don’t worry, miss,” Luke said, coming out of hiding. “We’ll settle Raven in. I think he’ll let us handle him now.”

Karigan ran her hand down the stallion’s nose, and he nickered. “You behave. I’ll be back, no matter what Mirriam says.”

He bowed his head as if to acquiesce, and Karigan departed. Once out of the stable and in the sunlight, she gazed in guilt at the horse sweat, dirt, and hair soiling her fine gloves. The front of her dress had not fared much better. Mirriam was definitely going to be displeased.

When Karigan reached the house, Mirriam was that and more. She paced about Karigan’s room and snatched parts of the outing dress as they came off.

“What was the professor thinking?” she demanded. “A horse! A stallion, no less!”

“I will need clothes suitable for riding,” Karigan said quietly.

“
Riding?
Proper young ladies do not
ride.
They especially do not ride stallions. Proper young ladies are conveyed in a carriage with an appropriate chaperone in attendance.”

Karigan sighed. The professor had said as much. With Mirriam around, getting to spend time with Raven was going to be a more difficult challenge than she had anticipated.

“I know you are from the country where people are . . . different, so I don’t really blame you, Miss Goodgrave. But here where young ladies are under the scrutiny of fashionable society, it’s just not acceptable. It would cause a scandalous stir here in the city. I’m afraid your station is above the crassness of such things as riding.”

Above the
crassness?
Well then, Karigan would have to cause a stir, which was not a good plan if she didn’t wish to draw the notice of the imperial authorities. Such a strange world she’d stumbled into. She tried to imagine Mirriam’s reaction if the housekeeper could travel to the past, Karigan’s own time, with women on horseback and doing so many things that would not be considered ladylike in Mill City. Mirriam would be appalled, Karigan decided. Ironically, for all of her bluster, Mirriam was strong in nature the way she reigned over the household and commanded all who dwelled there, including the professor. She was the antithesis of the delicate, wilting flower the empire appeared to desire of its women. Karigan decided not to point it out and considered that perhaps the delicate, wilting flower thing did not apply to servants anyway.

Karigan wrapped herself in a puffy robe, and Mirriam propelled her down the corridor toward the bathing room.

“What could he have been thinking?” Mirriam muttered for the nth time.

Karigan made no attempt to answer but entered the bathing room, closed Mirriam on the other side of the door, and headed for the tub, eager to wash away the grime of the city that clung to her like a second skin. Just having been out in the open air had made it so, and if this was a good day, she was not anxious to find out what a bad day would be like.

As she soaked, her cast-bound wrist safely on the edge of the tub, she heard a flurry of movement in the hallway. A furious sounding Arhys proclaimed, “I want a horse, too! If she gets one, I get one, too!” This was followed by stomping and the slamming of a door, and an exasperated cry of, “Arhys!” that sounded like it came from Lorine. Karigan winced. She was sorry that by rescuing Raven she caused Arhys to become even more jealous and difficult, but better that than allowing the stallion to be given over to the knackers.

Afterward, attired in a “day dress” of creamy yellow, she joined the professor in the parlor for tea and the midday meal. The professor had changed as well, into less formal tweed and boots.

“I must check on the dig,” he explained, “and make sure the boys are not slacking off.”

“What are you digging up?” Karigan asked, looking over a cranberry-nut muffin before taking a bite.

“We’ve come upon the ruins of a modest house in the lower regions of the Old City. Nothing we haven’t seen before—shards of crockery, buttons, clay pipes, and the like. Gives us a good idea of how people lived.”

Karigan yearned to discuss what had become of her city, but though she sat with her back to the doorway she observed the professor’s eyes tracking the comings and goings of servants. They could not speak freely.

“Have you ever found remains? Human?” she asked.

“Not much were left behind, though a few of my colleagues have uncovered cemeteries. Unfortunately, the sites are usually quickly looted for burial goods. People back then placed valuables like amulets and coins and jewelry with the dead.”

Karigan nodded. She knew, for she was from
back then.
It was the custom to bury the dead with something to offer the gods for safe deliverance into the heavens. Even the poor usually managed a coin or two. The professor grimaced. He must have forgotten her origins and just realized what he’d said.

He cleared his throat. “After a while the graves weren’t looted solely for burial goods, but entire caskets with their remains inside started disappearing, and sometimes whole sarcophagi from wealthier sites.” He snorted. “I’d like to see how the Ghouls manage that. The best sarcophagi are made of stone! What a job it would be to remove one of those from the Old City.” Then he sighed. “But they’ve managed it somehow.

“Usually the remains have been sold to that despicable circus, or to the Preferred set for parties. Remove the shroud and see what’s inside.” He shook his head. “A shame we’ll never know what valuable pieces of the historical record have been lost as a result, not to mention the distasteful desecration of the dead.” He leaned forward over his tea and said in conspiratorial tones, “When I die, I aim to be cremated. No digging up my old bones!”

Karigan thought it a curious sentiment from an archeologist who reveled in finding clues to the past. Wouldn’t he rather be exhumed with all kinds of objects that would benefit future archeologists?

She didn’t have the opportunity to ask more because he then said in a very low voice, “Meet me in the library tonight once the household is abed.” He set his teacup aside and rose. Without another word to her, he strode from the parlor calling for Grott to bring him his hat and coat. “It is time I checked on those sluggard students of mine,” he declared.

Karigan contemplated her muffin once more. She had to admit the professor had a point about the desecration aspect of being buried as opposed to cremated. She had been, after all, revealed in a tomb before a large audience at the circus. Happily, she was alive when it occurred, but she would have hated for her own Earthly remains to have become part of some macabre entertainment to be stared at and giggled over. Violated.

Tombs, burials, and cremations aside, it was not going to be easy to remain patient until late night when she was to meet the professor in the library. He must be planning to take her to the old mill to answer her questions.

The afternoon did draw long for Karigan, forbidden as she was to go to the stables and visit Raven. That was something else she needed to address with the professor—how she was going to get to spend time with the stallion. So, she did as she was accustomed. She returned to her room where she worked with her bonewood, fully extended to staff length, to practice forms and keep herself limber. It was not so easy in her dress, but she considered it useful practice, too. Chances were, if she needed to fight with the staff in this world, she’d be in a dress, not her more practical Rider uniform.

Sometime later she spilled onto her bed puffing and sweating. Her left arm was getting a good amount of work, but when the cast came off her right wrist, it would be alarmingly weak. Well, she’d just have to work it till it was back to its old strength. That’s what Arms Master Drent would make her do.

Arms Master Drent. She was riddled with sudden pangs of homesickness.

Of all the people to miss.
She shook her head.

Yes, she actually missed Drent with his abrasive manner and the abuse he heaped on his trainees. She would welcome seeing even a glimpse of him in her shard of the looking mask.

Thinking of it, she sprang from the bed and retrieved it from its hiding place behind the headboard. Sitting once more on the bed, with pillows propped up behind her, she unwrapped the mirror fragment and gazed into it. When no visions immediately appeared, she flipped it over, but saw only her own reflection.

Maybe she just needed to be patient. It wasn’t like she didn’t have the time. She’d hours till supper. So she settled in, gazing at the mirror shard, occasionally turning it over to see if it made a difference which side she looked at. It did not. She yawned and nodded off, the piece of looking mask loosely cradled in her hand.

She dreamed of her friend Estral scribbling madly on a slate with a piece of chalk. Or was it a dream? She shook her muzzy head and the dream, or vision, or whatever it was, continued. In it, Estral held the slate up for someone—Alton?—to see. At first Karigan could not read the writing, as if it was formed in arcane symbols her dreaming eye forbade her to understand, but she concentrated, and the words blurred and came into focus:
Have they found my father yet?

After a pause, Estral lowered her slate to the table, gazing as if listening to a speaker Karigan could not see or hear. Then Estral wiped the slate clean with a rag and started writing madly again, worry creased across her forehead. When she raised the slate once more, Karigan had no trouble reading the words, and it was then she realized she was no longer dreaming and that the scene was playing out on the mirror shard.

Yes, he wanders,
Estral had written,
but he always returns to Selium in time for the spring convocation.
Estral seemed to listen to some response, then dropped the slate and turned away, placing her face in her hands. The scene vanished, leaving Karigan staring slack-jawed at her own reflection.

She shook herself to make sure she was awake. What was that scene about? Why was Estral writing on a slate to communicate? It couldn’t have been for Karigan’s benefit, because Estral seemed unaware of her looking in. Some singers went to great lengths to protect their voices, but Estral wasn’t like that. Perhaps she simply had a sore throat or laryngitis. And why did she seem to need her father, the Golden Guardian of Selium, so urgently? She had looked so worried. And she was right, he never missed the spring convocation when journeymen minstrels were raised to masters and awarded their gold knots.

Karigan was happy the looking mask shard had finally revealed one of her friends to her, but the scene had not been at all reassuring.