Soul of the Fire (60 page)

The breeze abruptly felt cooler. It ran a shiver up his spine.

He almost leaped out of his boots when a hand settled on his shoulder. He spun and saw it was an older Ander woman. Her swept-back, nearly shoulder-length hair told him she was someone important. Streaks of gray at the temples told him she was old; there wasn’t enough light to see exactly how wrinkled she was, but he could still tell she was.

Fitch bowed to the Ander woman. He feared she might want to take up where Beata had left off, and take him to task for something or other.

“
Is she someone you care about?” the woman asked.

Fitch was taken off guard by the curious question. “I don’t know,” he stammered.

“
She was pretty rough with you.”

“
I deserved it, ma’am.”

“
Why is that?”

Fitch shrugged. “I don’t know.”

He couldn’t figure out what the woman wanted. It gave him gooseflesh the way her dark eyes studied him, like she was picking out a chicken for dinner.

She wore a simple dress that in the dim light looked like it might be a dark brown. It buttoned to her neck, unlike the more revealing fashion most Ander women wore. Her dress didn’t mark her as a noble woman, but that long hair said she was someone important.

She seemed somehow different from other Ander women. There was one thing about her that Fitch did think odd: she wore a wide black band tight around her throat, up close at the top of her neck.

“
Sometimes girls say mean things when they’re afraid to admit they like a boy, fearing he won’t like her.”

“
And sometimes they say mean things because they intend them.”

“
True enough.” She smiled. “Does she live at the estate, or here in Fairfield?”

“
Here in Fairfield. She works for Inger the butcher.”

She seemed to think that was a little bit funny. “Perhaps she is used to more meat on the bones. Maybe when you get a little older and fill yourself in more she will find you more appealing.”

Fitch stuffed his hands back in his pockets. “Maybe.”

He didn’t believe it. Besides, he didn’t figure he would ever fill in, as she put it. He figured he was old enough that he was about how he would be.

She went back to studying his face for a time.

“
Do you want her to like you?” she asked at last.

Fitch cleared his throat. “Well, sometimes, I guess. At least, I’d like her not to hate me.”

The woman had one of those smiles like she was well pleased with something, but he doubted he’d ever understand it.

“
It could be arranged.”

“
Ma’am?”

“
If you like her, and would like her to like you, it could be arranged.”

Fitch blinked in astonishment. “How?”

“
A little something slipped into what she drinks, or eats.”

Understanding came over him all at once. This was a woman of magic. At last he understood why she seemed so strange. He’d heard people with magic were strange.

“
You mean you could make something up? Some spell or something?”

Her smile grew. “Or something.”

“
I just started working for Master Campbell. I’m sorry, ma’am, but I couldn’t afford it.”

“
Ah, I see.” Her smile shrank back down. “And if you could afford it?”

Before he could answer, she squinted up at the sky in thought. “Or perhaps it could be ready later on, when you get paid.” Her voice turned to little more than a whisper, like she was talking to herself. “Might give me time to see if I couldn’t figure out the problem and get it to work again.”

She looked him in the eye. “How about it?”

Fitch swallowed. He surely didn’t want to offend an Ander woman, and one with the gift, besides. He hesitated.

“
Well, ma’am, the truth is, if a girl’s ever going to like me, I’d just as soon she liked me because she liked me—no offense, ma’am. It’s kind of you to offer. But I don’t think I’d like it if a girl only liked me because of a spell of magic. I think that wouldn’t make me feel very good about it, like only magic could make a girl like me.”

The woman laughed as she patted his back. It was a soft, lilting laugh of pleasure, not a laugh like she was laughing at him. Fitch didn’t think he’d ever heard an Ander who was talking to him laugh in quite that way.

“
Good for you.” She gestured her emphasis with a finger. “I had a wizard tell me as much once, a very long time ago.”

“
A wizard! That must have been frightening. To meet a wizard, I mean.”

She shrugged. “Not really. He was a nice man. I was a very little girl at the time. I was born gifted, you see. He told me to always remember that magic was no substitute for people truly caring about you for who you were yourself.”

“
I never knew there were wizards around.”

“
Not here,” she said. She flicked a hand out into the night. “Back in Aydindril.”

His ears perked up. “Aydindril? To the northeast?”

“
My, but aren’t you a bright one. Yes. To the northeast. At the Wizard’s Keep.” She held out a hand. “I’m Franca. And you?”

Fitch took her hand and held it lightly as he dipped to a knee in a deep bow. “I’m Fitch, ma’am.”

“
Franca.”

“
Ma’am?”

“
Franca. That’s my name. I told you my name, Fitch, so you could call me by my name.”

“
Sorry, ma’am—I mean Franca.”

She let out her little laugh again. “Well, Fitch, it was nice to meet you. I must be headed back to the estate. I suppose you will be off to get drunk. That seems to be what boys your age like to do.”

Fitch had to admit the idea of getting drunk sounded very good to him. The possibility of hearing about the Wizard’s Keep sounded intriguing, though.

“
I think I’d best be getting back to the estate myself. If you wouldn’t mind having a Haken walk with you, I’d be well pleased to go along. Franca,” he added in afterthought.

She studied his face again in that way that made him fidget.

“
I’m gifted, Fitch. That means I’m different than most people, and so most all people, Ander and Haken both, think of me the way most Ander people think of you because you’re Haken.”

“
They do? But you’re Ander.”

“
Being Ander is not enough to overcome the stigma of having magic. I know what it feels like to have people dislike you without them knowing anything about you.

“
I’d be well pleased to have you walk along with me, Fitch.”

Fitch smiled, partly in the shock of realizing he was having a conversation with an Ander woman, a real conversation, and partly in shock that Anders would dislike her—another Ander—because she had magic.

“
But don’t they respect you because you have magic?”

“
They fear me. Fear can be good, and bad. Good, because then even though people don’t like you, they at least treat you well. Bad, because people often try to strike out at what they fear.”

“
I never looked at it that way before.”

He thought about how good it had made him feel when Claudine Winthrop called him “sir.” She only did because she was afraid, he knew, but it still made him feel good. He didn’t understand the other part of what Franca said, though.

“
You’re very wise. Does magic do that? Make a person wise?”

She let out the breathy laugh again, as if she found him as amusing as a fish with legs.

“
If it did, then they would call it the Wise Man’s Keep, instead of the Wizard’s Keep. Some people would be wiser, perhaps, had they not been born with the buttress of magic.”

He’d never met anyone who’d been to Aydindril, much less the Wizard’s Keep. He could hardly believe a person with magic would talk to him. To an extent, he was worried because he didn’t know anything about magic and he figured that if she got angry she might do him harm.

He thought her fascinating, though, even if she was old.

They started out down the road toward the estate in silence. Sometimes silence made him nervous. He wondered if she could tell what he thought with her magic.

Fitch looked over at her. She didn’t look like she was paying any attention to his thoughts. He pointed at her throat.

“
Mind if I ask what sort of thing that is, Franca? That band you wear at your throat? I’ve never seen anyone wear anything like it before. Is it something to do with magic?”

She laughed aloud. “Do you know, Fitch, that you are the first person in a great many years to ask me about this? Even if it is because you don’t know enough to fear asking a sorceress such a personal question.”

“
Sorry, Franca. I didn’t mean to say nothing offensive.”

He began to worry he had stupidly said something to make her angry. He surely didn’t want an Ander woman, and one with magic besides, angry with him. She was silent for a time as they walked on down the road. Fitch stuck his sweating hands back in his pockets.

At last she spoke again. “It isn’t that, Fitch. Offensive, I mean. It just brings up bad memories.”

“
I’m sorry, Franca. I shouldn’t have said it. Sometimes I say stupid things. I’m sorry.”

He was wishing he had gone to get drunk, instead.

After a few more strides, she stopped and turned to him. “No, Fitch, it wasn’t stupid. Here.”

She hooked the throat band and pulled it down for him to see. Even though it was dark, there was a moon and he could see a thick lumpy line, all white and waxy-looking, ringing her neck. It looked to him to be a nasty scar.

“
Some people tried to kill me, once. Because I have magic.” Moonlight glistened in her moist eyes. “Serin Rajak and his followers.”

Fitch never heard the name. “Followers?”

She pulled the throat band back up. “Serin Rajak hates magic. He has followers who think the same as he. They get people all worked up against those with magic. Gets them in a state of wild hate and blood lust.

“
There’s nothing uglier than a mob of men when they have it in their heads to hurt someone. What one alone wouldn’t have the nerve to do, together they can easily decide is right and then accomplish. A mob takes on a mind of its own—a life of its own. Just like a pack of dogs chasing down some lone animal.

“
Rajak caught me and put a rope around my neck. They tied my hands behind my back. They found a tree, threw the other end of the rope over a limb, and hoisted me up by that rope around my neck.”

Fitch was horrified. “Dear spirits—that must have hurt something awful.”

She didn’t seem to hear him as she stared off.

“
They were stacking kindling under me. Going to have a big fire. Before they could get the fire lit, I managed to get away.”

Fitch’s fingers went to his throat, rubbing his neck as he tried to imagine hanging on a rope around his neck.

“
That man—Serin Rajak. Is he a Haken?”

She shook her head as they started out again. “You don’t have to be Haken to be bad, Fitch.”

They walked in silence for a time. Fitch got the feeling she was off somewhere in her memories of hanging by a rope around her throat. He wondered why she didn’t choke to death. Maybe the rope wasn’t tight, he decided—tied with a knot so it would hold its loop. He wondered how she got away. He knew, though, that he’d asked enough about it, and dared ask no more.

He listened to the stone chips crunching under their boots. He stole careful glances, now and again. She no longer looked happy, like she had at first. He wished he’d kept his question to himself.

Finally, he thought maybe he’d ask her about something that had made her smile before. Besides, it was why he had really wanted to walk along with her in the first place.

“
Franca, what was the Wizard’s Keep like?”

He was right; she did smile. “Huge. You can’t even imagine it, and I couldn’t tell you how big it is. It stands up on a mountain overlooking Aydindril, beyond a stone bridge crossing a chasm thousands of feet deep. Part of the Keep is cut from the mountain itself. There are notched walls rising up like cliffs. Broad ramparts, wider than this road, go to various structures. Towers rise up above the Keep, here and there. It was magnificent.”

“
Did you ever see a Seeker of Truth? Did you ever see the Sword of Truth, when you was there?”

She frowned over at him. “You know, as a matter of fact, I did. My mother was a sorceress. She went to Aydindril to see the First Wizard about something—what, I’ve no idea. We went across one of those ramparts to the First Wizard’s enclave in the Keep. He has a separate place where he had wonders of every sort. I remember that bright and shiny sword.”

She seemed well pleased with telling him about it, so he asked, “What was it like? The First Wizard’s enclave? And the Sword of Truth?”

“
Well, let me see… .” She put a finger to her chin to think a moment before she began her story.