The Making of a Mage King: White Star (31 page)

Sean stopped butting heads with his blockhead-of-a-horse when they were both drenched in sweat. He hobbled the beast by his tent then turned to see what was for lunch, only to discover that it was long over. Still, leftovers were filling.

Mattie nudged Lyra toward him with a whisper, as Sean flopped down in an accommodating camp chair.

The girl bobbed a dainty curtsy, spreading her blue skirts gracefully; she looked much prettier dressed in skirts than she did in the plain gray shift she had worn before. It was obvious that something was bothering her. Before, she had always been bold, looking him directly in the eyes and speaking her mind openly, but now, she looked upset and hung her head. “My lord,” she started, then shifted her feet and clutched at her skirts. “My lord,” she tried again then sniffed; only then did Sean notice that she had been crying.

He looked up at Mattie, who was watching with sympathy. He sat forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “What is it Lyra?” he asked, as he peered into her face. “Why are you crying?”

“Oh, it’s so stupid,” she said, tears flowing now despite her struggle to control them. Then she blurted it out all in a rush. “Can I have my magic back? I could help Miss Mattie or stand in for her when she has to be away. I could…”

“Lyra, all you had to do was ask,” said Sean, speaking gently. He broke his shield from around her and the white cloud of her magic glowed cleanly again. “You don’t need to sell me on it.” She stopped and sniffed again. Her eyes were red. “Tell me what happened.” He glanced up at Mattie again, looking for some sign as to how far he should push this.

Lyra’s eyes threatened to overflow again and her mouth worked in an effort to keep her chin from trembling. “It’s so stupid,” she repeated, then plunged ahead. “One of those big horses went all wild and Seth got kicked. He said he was okay, but…”

Sean glanced at Mattie again and she gave him an imperceptible nod. “You used to heal birds and cats if you found them hurt, didn’t you?” asked Sean. He leaned back in the chair again. “I’ve beat myself against that horse for hours and I ache all over. Why don’t you make sure I didn’t hurt myself?”

Lyra nearly squeaked with fear. She would have backed away and perhaps even run, but Mattie had moved to stand directly behind her. So bolstered, Lyra reached forward. She had never done such a thing before, but Sean took her hand.

The magic did things for both of them. Sean could tell that Lyra’s personal magic was much stronger than Mattie’s would ever be, but she was inexperienced and timid this first time. Regardless, she washed his aches away wherever she found them, leaving him relaxed and mellow.

Lyra however, got a firsthand picture of all the injuries Sean had ever taken that were more than a scratch. The magnitude frightened her and when she withdrew, her hands were shaking.

“Nice touch,” said Sean, feeling nearly drunk he was so mellow. Then he waved Laon over to them. “I want you to do the same thing for him.”

Both Laon and Lyra were confused by the request, but she did it just the same. Laon was left groping for another camp chair and Lyra was crying again.

“Now you know what I am fighting to undo,” said Sean gently. “Those men will be the first to put themselves in harm’s way, and if you’re going to help Mattie, you may need to tend them. I didn’t want you to be surprised then when it might make a critical difference.”

Blinking back more tears, Lyra drew herself up, then she bobbed another curtsy. “Thank you, my lord,” she said, then backed up directly into Mattie’s arms.

Mattie guided her back to the fire where she pushed her into yet another chair and pressed a cup of tea into her hands, then she returned to Sean with a tray of cold meats and flatbread.

“Teach her everything you can, Mattie. She may need it,” said Sean.

Shortly before supper, Sean retrieved Ferris. The man was positively ecstatic to be away from the palace and ‘all his pregnant women’. Almost the first thing out of his mouth was, “If you have to get a bunch of women pregnant, never put them in the same house. Man never built a place big enough for such a thing.”

Sean suspected that most of the discomfort was in Ferris’s mind, because, by all accounts, Ferris’s accounts, the women seemed to be getting along well enough. Sean suspected that a good deal of
that
was because he wasn’t around to be getting jealous over.

Shortly before supper, Sean sent for Charles. “How would you like to be my messenger?”

“Messenger?”

“Go to the palace and tell Lady Lorraine we will make a formal appearance tomorrow before noon.”

“On my way, sir.”

“And Charles, you can stay there and wait for us, but I don’t think you should go into the city. I don’t think the local guild will give you another chance to escape.”
I wonder what kind of little secrets he’ll stumble upon at the palace.

Sean spent the rest of the evening finishing his armor. He had to recreate much of the padding, then renew the enameling; it was delicate and time-consuming work. When he was finished, he gave Larry a padded glove and had him hit him as hard as he could in some of the more damaged areas just to see if the temper had remained intact despite his manipulations. He found out that blows to his back still hurt, so he thickened the padding there, but the temper seemed to hold.

I’m probably going to need a wheelchair by the time I’m eighty
. Then he had to smile; it was nice to know that he planned to still be around when he was eighty years old. Shifting his shoulders, he made a few other minor adjustments to the fit, then went to work on his new horse for the last few hours until full dark.

Having had very little but ill-treatment at the hands of man, the beast didn’t like to be touched. Sean intended to keep the horse close by him at all times and dependant on him for food and water, but for now, if he was going to ride into the city tomorrow, the beast really needed a bath. Sean shed his armor and wrestled the creature a few yards downriver from camp.

With a stiff brush and a bar of brown soap, Sean scrubbed the creature to within an inch of his life, then he kept scrubbing…then combing…then brushing, because apparently he was liking this despite himself. As he scrubbed, the horse stopped trying to bite at him, lowered his head and relaxed his wary posture. From time to time, he shook himself, splay-legged, from head to foot, causing soapy water to spray everywhere. Sean would just douse him with more water and start scrubbing again. Eventually, the soap started to raise a proper lather and the horse was moaning with pleasure.

After dousing the horse with plenty of water and brushing the last of the soap away, Sean conjured a scraper and scraped him as dry as possible, noticing in the process that the horse had put on some weight after a week of proper graze. He led him back to his tent, where he proceeded to brush him dry after fitting him with a nosebag with a full measure of corn, laced with molasses as a reward for being a good boy about the bath. He hoped that some wall had been broken down. He’d give the horse a bath every day if he had to, to achieve that.

With the horse standing quietly, the brushing revealed that, though he had gained weight, he still had some health issues. His hair, what there was of it yet, was still rough and dull, and his mane and tail hair broke away too easily, but being cleaner helped him look better.
Now I have to think of a name for him. ‘Bubbles’ just won’t do.

The next morning, Sean wanted to put on a good show, but he didn’t want to overwhelm the city, so he left half his troops behind with orders to have the camp ready to move at a moment’s notice. He figured that Lady Lorraine would keep him for the rest of the day, but just in case, if he made it back to camp in time they would move, the slow way, if not today, then at first light in the morning. Regardless, he didn’t want to spend half a day breaking camp.

After leaving Cordan in command at the camp, he left Jenny there too; a woman had no place in a military display, he entered the city at the head of his knights. He wanted to show off his strength. He strongly suspected that if any district really wanted to cross him, he would be hard-pressed to hold his own without using a lot of magic to destroy the enemy lines. He knew from experience that he was not the only commander to use magic, and it would be foolish to think that he was so powerful that he couldn’t be taken by surprise.

Those thoughts made him thankful for the small stone disk Laon’s sister had given him. He touched his armor above where it rested,
very
thankful that it hadn’t been broken during the altercation with his uncle. Shoving aside the thought of sharp shards of stone inside his chest, he looked at the people around him.

Like most other gatherings, these people glittered merrily and he was pleased as well as wary to see some of the stronger among the gate guard.

Waiting for them inside the city gates were Leto, Sarré, Guire, and Louis, the four of them no longer looking like farmers now that they were washed, trimmed, and dressed fine. As Guire fell in beside them on Sean’s left, Sean said to him, “I’m glad to see you haven’t found your way back into the dungeons. You look well.”

“The lady keeps a close leash on me,” said Guire, with a rueful shake of his head. “It’s the drink, you know. She watches me close and my wife keeps me busy.” He grinned, and Sean saw spots of color on his scrubbed cheeks.

“And another Lorraine will be born next summer,” suggested Sean, smiling back. Guire only shrugged, but his smile didn’t fade. Sean turned to the last living Lorraine son in the family, now riding on his right. “You look well too, Leto. How are you doing?”

“I’m doing as well as can be expected. Nightmares at night is all. I still have mornings when I wake up and I don’t know where I am. Walking those halls again feels odd when I never expected to, ever again. I’ll get used to it, though. Mother is keeping me pretty busy, too.”

Sean remembered that Leto had been joined by the Dance, and his somber tone spoke of pain he could understand, if only a little. “How are you doing…otherwise?” with a gentle finger of magic, he gently pushed at that tender spot he himself knew so well.

Leto looked at him with surprised, and suddenly red eyes. “I…want to die,” he whispered, and looked away quickly, struggling to maintain his control in front of all the people lining the streets, waving them past with cheers and white scarves in their hands.

Inside the palace compound, Lady Lorraine swept them all into the big house. There was warm wash water at the door to freshen themselves with. Sean thought it was a little much, but he did it anyway, and the rest of his men followed suit.

The sun was shining, but the air was still chilled, so there were cloaks to take; a servant took what they resigned and set such things as helmets and gauntlets on a shelf, and hung their cloaks on hooks. No one offered to give up their swords and no one asked for them; if the king wanted to go armed, no one was going to argue.

Inside the main hall, they discovered musicians in every corner, dancers and jugglers mingling among the people, and food weighing down every table.

Lady Lorraine met them dressed in fine, black silk encrusted with diamonds and sequins. She glittered with every move, looking like she just stepped in out of the rain. With a low sweeping curtsey, she said, “My lord, welcome, welcome, come in and enjoy.” She wrapped her arm in his and led him into the vast room.

She led him around the room, introducing him to the many guests she had invited. In between introductions, she carried on a constant chatter about her successful entry into the city and about how her people had ransacked the palace to pull out its previous occupants. Through it all, Sean watched as her son, Leto, did his best to find a corner where he could be left relatively alone. He stood stone-faced and glowering, though he was amiable enough to anyone brave enough to approach him.

The evening was well along before Sean could extricate himself enough to find a moment alone. “Dad, can you hear me?”

“Sure, Seanad, you sound troubled.”

“The Dance, what happens after it’s broken?”

“What?”
asked Elias, appalled.
“What’s happened?”

“Don’t worry, just tell me. What can be done when one of the pair dies? What can be done for the other?”

“Oh, that’s a hard one,”
said Elias.
“It isn’t common that one outlives the other, not for long anyway. I suppose the best thing to preserve the survivor would be to have another joining, but I don’t think that would be very easy. It would take an exceptional person to be willing to take on…”

“There are enough people here. I should be able to find someone who would be willing.”

“What are you up to?”

“Just helping a friend, Dad. Thanks.”

“Choose carefully, Son, the Dance can be…brutal sometimes.”

“I’ll be careful, Dad. Thanks again.” He headed into the crowd again, and avoiding Lady Lorraine, who looked like she would very much like to have him on her arm again, he wove his way through the people, smiling and nodding as he went, until he located Leto’s new hiding place. “Leto, your mother introduced me to way too many people, and I’m sure they were all the right ones. How about you introduce me to those she missed?” He did his best to sound like he would not take no for an answer without making it sound like a command; there are some advantages to being the recognized king.