Soul of the Fire (40 page)

Fitch would fit right in with the rest of Dalton’s messengers. They were all men he had collected over the previous ten years, young men pulled from obscure places, otherwise doomed to a life of hard labor, degradation, few options, and little hope. They were the dirt under the heels of Anderith culture. Now, through the delivery of messages to criers, they helped shape and control Anderith culture.

The messengers did more than merely deliver messages; in some ways they were almost a private army, paid for by the public, and one of the means by which Dalton had risen to his present post. All his messengers were unshakably loyal to no one but Dalton. Most would willingly go to their death if he requested it. There had been occasions when he had.

Dalton smiled as his thoughts wandered to more pleasant things—wandered to Teresa. She was floating on air from having been introduced to the Sovereign. When they had returned to their apartments after the feast and retired to bed, as she had promised, she had soundly rewarded him with just how good she could be. And Teresa could be extraordinarily good.

She had been so inspired by the experience of meeting the Sovereign that she was spending the morning in prayer. He doubted she could have been more moved had she met the Creator Himself. Dalton was pleased that he could provide Teresa such an exalting experience.

At least she had not fainted, as had several women and one man when they were presented to the Sovereign. Were it not a common occurrence, it would have been embarrassing for those people. As it was, everyone understood and readily accepted their reaction. In some ways, it was a mark of distinction, a talisman of faith, proving one’s devotion to the Creator. No one considered it anything but sincere faith laid bare.

Dalton, however, recognized the Sovereign as the man he was, a man in a high office, but a man nonetheless. For some people, though, he transcended such worldly notions. When Bertrand Chanboor, a man already widely respected and admired as the most outstanding Minister of Culture ever to serve, became Sovereign, he, too, would become the object of mindless adoration.

Dalton suspected, though, that a great many of the swooning women would be endeavoring to fall under him, rather than faint before him. To many, it would be a religious experience beyond the mere coupling with a man of power such as the Minister of Culture. Even husbands would be ennobled by their wives’ holy acceptance into such congress with the Sovereign.

When he heard a knock at the door, Dalton looked up and began to say “Enter,” but the woman was already barging in. It was Franca Gowenlock.

Dalton rose. “Ah, Franca, how good to see you. Did you enjoy the feast?”

For some reason, the woman had a dark look. Added to her dark eyes and hair, and the general aspect which made her seem as if she were somehow always standing in a shadow even when she wasn’t, that made the look very dark indeed. The air always seemed still and cool whenever Franca was about.

She snatched the top rail of a chair on her way past, dragging it along to his desk. She set the chair before the desk, plopped herself down in front of him, and folded her arms. Somewhat taken aback, Dalton sank back into his chair.

Fine lines splayed out from her squinted eyes. “I don’t like that one from the Order. Stein. I don’t like him one bit.”

Dalton relaxed back into his chair. Franca wore her black, nearly shoulder length hair loose, yet it swept back somewhat from her face, as if it had been frozen stiff by an icy wind. A bit of gray streaked her temples, but, rather than adding years to her looks, it added only to her serious mien.

Her simple sienna dress buttoned to her neck. A little higher up, a band of black velvet hugged her throat. It was usually black velvet, but not always. Whatever it was made from, it was always at least two fingers wide.

Because she always wore a throat band, Dalton wondered all the more why, and what, if anything, might be under it. Franca being Franca, he never asked.

He had known Franca Gowenlock for nearly fifteen years, and had employed her talents for well over half that time. He had sometimes mused to himself that she must have once been beheaded and sewn her own head back on.

“
I’m sorry, Franca. Did he do something to you? Insult you? He didn’t lay a hand to you, did he? I will have him dealt with, if that’s the case—you have my word.”

Franca knew his word to her was beyond reproach. She twined her long graceful fingers together in her lap. “He had enough women willing and eager; he didn’t need me for that.”

Dalton, truly at a loss, but cautious nonetheless, spread his hands. “Then what is it?”

Franca put her forearms on the desk and tipped her head in. She lowered her voice.

“
He did something with my gift. He scrambled it all up, or something.”

Dalton blinked, true concern roiling through him. “You mean you think the man has some kind of magical power? That he cast a spell, or something?”

“
I don’t know,” Franca growled, “but he did something.”

“
How do you know?”

“
I tried to listen to conversations at the feast, just like I always do. I tell you, Dalton, I wouldn’t know I had the gift if I didn’t know I did. Nothing. I got nothing from no one. Not a thing.”

Dalton’s frown now mimicked hers. “You mean that your gift didn’t help you overhear anything?”

“
Don’t you hear anything? Isn’t that what I just said?”

Dalton drummed his fingers on the table. He turned and peered out the window. He got up and lifted the sash, letting in the warm breeze. He motioned to Franca, and she came around the desk.

Dalton pointed to two men engaged in conversation under a tree across the lawn. “Down there, those two. Tell me what they’re saying.”

Franca put her hands on the sill and leaned out a little, staring at the two men. The sun on her face showed how time truly was beginning to wrinkle, stretch, and sag what he had always thought was one of the most beautiful, if not the strangest, women he had ever known. Even so, despite the advance of time, her beauty was still haunting.

Dalton watched the men’s hands move, gesturing as they spoke, but he could hear none of their words. With her gift, she should be able to easily hear them.

Franca’s face went blank. She stood so still she looked like one of the wax figures from the traveling exhibition that came through Fairfield twice a year. Dalton couldn’t even tell if the woman was breathing.

She finally pulled an annoyed breath. “Can’t hear a word. They’re too far away to see their lips, so I can’t get any help by that, but still, I don’t hear a thing, and I should.”

Dalton looked down, close to the building, three stories below. “What about those two.”

Franca leaned out for a look. Dalton could almost hear them himself; a chuckle rose up, and an exclamation, but no more. Franca again went still.

This time, the breath she pulled bordered on rage. “Nothing, and I can almost hear them without the gift.”

Dalton closed the window. The anger went out of her face in a rush, and he saw something he had never before seen from her: fear.

“
Dalton, you have to get rid of that man. He must be a wizard, or something. He’s got me all tied up in knots.”

“
How do you know it’s him?”

She blinked twice at the question. “Well … what else could it be? He claims to be able to eliminate magic. He’s only been here a few days, and I’ve only had this problem a few days.”

“
Have you had trouble with other things? Other aspects of your gift?”

She turned away, wringing her hands. “A few days ago I made up a little spell for a woman who came to me, a little spell so she would have her moon flow back, and not be pregnant. This morning she returned and said it didn’t work.”

“
Well, it must be a complex kind of conjuring. There must be a lot involved. I expect such things don’t always work.”

She shook her head. “It always worked before.”

“
Perhaps you’re ill. Have you felt different of late?”

“
I feel exactly the same. I feel like my power is as strong as ever. It should be, but it’s not. Other charms have failed, too—I’d not let this go without testing it, thorough like.”

Troubled, Dalton leaned closer. “Franca, I don’t know a lot about it, but maybe some if it is just confidence in yourself. Maybe you just have to believe you can do it for it to work again.”

She glared back over her shoulder. “Where’d you ever get such a daft notion about the gift?”

“
I don’t know.” Dalton shrugged. “I admit I don’t know a great deal about magic, but I really don’t believe Stein has the gift—or any magic about him. He’s just not the sort.

“
Besides, he’s not even here today. He couldn’t be interrupting your ability hearing those people down there; he went out to tour the countryside. He’s been gone for hours.”

She slowly rounded on him, looking fearsome and at the same time frightened. Such opposing aspects at the same time gave him gooseflesh.

“
Then I fear,” she whispered, “that I’ve simply lost my power. I’m helpless.”

“
Franca, I’m sure—”

She licked her lips. “You have Serin Rajak locked away in chains, don’t you? I’d not like to think him or his lunatic followers …”

“
I told you before, we have him in chains. I’m not even sure he’s still alive. After all this time, I doubt it, but either way there is no need to worry about Serin Rajak.”

Staring off, she nodded.

He touched her arm. “Franca, I’m certain your power will return. Try not to be overly concerned.”

Tears welled in her eyes. “Dalton, I’m terrified.”

Cautiously, he took the weeping woman in his consoling arms. She was, after all, besides being a dangerous gifted woman, a friend.

The words from the song at the feast came to mind.

Came the thieves of the charm and spell.

Roberta lifted her chin high in the air, stretching her neck, to guardedly peer off past the brink of the cliff not far away and look out over the fertile fields of her beloved Nareef Valley far below. Freshly plowed fields were a deep rich brown among breathtakingly bright green carpets of new crops and the darker verdant pastures where livestock, looking like tiny slow ants, cropped at tender new grass. The Dammar River meandered through it all, sparkling in the early-morning sunshine, escorted along its route by a gathering of dark green trees, as if they’d come to watch the river’s showy parade.

Whenever she went up in the woods near Nesting Cliff, she had herself a look from afar, just to see the pretty valley below. After allowing herself that brief look, she always lowered her eyes to the shaded forest floor at her feet, the leaf litter, and mossy stretches among dappled sunlight, where the ground was firm and comforting.

Roberta shifted the sack slung over her shoulder, and moved on. As she maneuvered through the clear patches among the huckleberry and hawthorn, stepped on stones set like islands among dark crevices and holes, and ducked under low pine boughs and alder limbs, she flipped aside with her walking stick a fern here or a low spreading balsam branch there, looking, always looking, as she moved along.

She spied a vase-shaped yellow cap and stooped for a look. Chanterelle, she was pleased to see, and not the poisonous jack-o’-lantern. Most folk favored the smooth yellow chanterelle mushroom for its nutlike flavor. She hooked the stem with a finger and plucked it up. Before sticking the prize in her sack, she ran her thumb over the featherlike gills just for the pleasure of the soft feel.

The mountain she searched for her mushrooms was only a small mountain, compared to the others jutting up all around, and but for Nesting Cliff, reassuringly round, with trails, a few made by man but most made by animal, crisscrossing the gentle wooded slopes. It was the kind of woods her aging muscles and increasingly aching bones favored.

It was said a person could see the ocean far off to the south from many of the taller mountains. She’d often heard it to be an inspiring sight. Many people went up there once every year or two just to view the splendor of the Creator by what He’d wrought.

Some of those trails took a person along the scruffy edges of cliffs and scree and such. Some folk even tended herds of goats up on those steep and rocky slopes. But for a journey when she was a small child, when her pa, rest his soul, took them off to Fairfield, for what she could no longer remember, she had never even been up there. Roberta was content to remain near the alluvial land. Unlike a lot of other folk, Roberta never climbed the higher mountains; she was afraid of high places.