The keep of fire, p.12
The Keep of Fire, page 12
Lirith clapped both hands to her mouth, and even Aryn—who laughed so seldom these days—smiled at Garf’s words. However, Durge looked even less amused than usual. Grace knew she needed to say something. As far as she could tell, the primary duty of a noble mistress was damage control.
“I do thank you for your confidence, Sir Garfethel,” she said. “But Sir Durge is right, of course. It was wrong of me to ride so far ahead.”
“Although I would have liked to see the dancing brigands,” Lirith said.
Grace glanced at her. Sometimes it was hard to diagnose whether Lirith was being earnest or making a jest. Maybe for her there was little difference between the two.
Lirith had arrived at Calavere not long after Queen Ivalaine’s departure. This had been in late Durdath, and even though the world was still frozen, the various rulers who had journeyed to Calavere for the Council of Kings, and who had stayed on when it was renamed the Council of War, were returning to their own Dominions. Ivalaine was the last of the rulers to go, and Grace and Aryn ventured to the lower bailey, bundled in their fur-lined capes, to say good-bye.
The queen sat upon her white horse, as regal as the day Grace had first seen her riding up to the gates of Calavere—a day that seemed so long ago now. They bid farewell to the queen’s advisor Tressa first, and the plump, red-haired witch climbed from her horse to encompass each of them in a motherly hug. Grace felt tears welling up, but they froze solid when she turned to speak to the queen. After all that had happened, she still did not know Ivalaine. The queen was as cool as the stars and every bit as impossible to reach.
“We will keep studying, Your Majesty,” Aryn had said.
Ivalaine’s ice-colored eyes had shone. “Yes, sisters,” she said. “You will.”
A week later, on the first day of Erenndath, Lirith rode up to the castle gates, accompanied by a pair of Tolorian knights. She asked to speak to Lady Grace and Lady Aryn even before begging King Boreas for hospitality.
“Greetings, sisters,” Lirith had said to them in the castle’s entry hall. “Queen Ivalaine bade me to make haste here from Ar-tolor. I have come to see to your studies.”
Grace had thought the witch’s words would fill her with dread. So far King Boreas had not discovered what she and Aryn were doing; so far they had not done permanent harm to themselves with what they had learned. So far. Instead, at Lirith’s words, a flood of relief had washed through her.
You want to learn more, don’t you, Grace? No matter how dangerous it is, no matter how inevitable it gets that Boreas will find out what you’re doing and have your head lopped off. You’ll do anything to feel more, won’t you?
But she had not needed to answer the question then, and she did not now.
Garf guided his charger to the crest of the knoll. He shaded his eyes and gazed out over the undulating landscape.
“What is it you search for, Sir Garfethel?” Durge asked. “The campfire smoke of cutthroats? Signs of wild boar? Bogs where our horses might founder?”
“A place to have dinner,” the young knight said.
Grace smiled. Garf’s concerns were always a bit more practical than Durge’s.
They all sat straight on their horses and scanned the distance, looking for a dell or hollow that would offer protection from the wind and water for the horses.
Aryn gasped.
Grace turned toward the baroness, to ask her if she had caught sight of a good stopping place, but Aryn was not looking at the green-gold hills. She was looking at Grace.
“What is it? Grace said, startled.
“The land,” Aryn murmured. “It’s the same color as your eyes, Grace.”
Lirith nodded. “So it is.”
Grace opened her mouth, but she didn’t know what to say.
Garf laughed. “Why, if her eyes are the same color as the land, then she must be the queen of this fair place.” He bowed in his saddle. “All hail the Queen of Summer!”
It was a poor jest. Grace shook her head and started to protest. However, her words faltered as a second sun appeared in the sky. It streaked above them, casting impossible shadows in all directions. The five jerked their heads up in time to see the white-hot bolt vanish into the north.
Durge was the first of them to find his tongue. “A firedrake.”
Only as the knight spoke did Grace realize what it was she had witnessed. A shooting star. Except she hadn’t known it was possible to see a meteor in broad daylight.
“I’ve never seen a firedrake so bright,” Aryn said.
Lirith still cast her face to the sky. “It was beautiful.”
“Let it be our good omen, then,” Garf said with a grin. “We will certainly find a good spot for a picnic.”
Durge gave the young knight a solemn look. “If you wish, Sir Garfethel.”
For the first time in many months, Grace shivered. But that was foolish. “Let’s go,” she said. “I may not be a queen, but I am hungry.”
Together they rode down the slope and cantered deeper into summer.
19.
Not surprisingly, it was Garf who found the perfect place to rest and eat.
The other four brought their horses to a halt beside the young knight’s charger at the base of a hill so perfectly conical in shape that Grace doubted it was natural. There were many such mounds and tors scattering the verdant fields of Calavan, raised by the barbarians who had dwelled in these lands before the Dominions were founded, before the emperors of Tarras had come to plant their golden banners here. Or perhaps the hills had been made by some nameless people long before that—the same people who had raised the circle of standing stones that stood north of the castle.
Grace surveyed the spot Garf had picked for them. The ground sloped gently to a brook, its banks shaded by willow and green rushes. The chaotic song of water chimed on the air, and Grace swallowed, suddenly thirsty. For all she knew the water in the brook would be muddy and brackish, but it sounded cool.
Grace waited for Durge to dismount and assist her. It wasn’t that she felt it was his duty to serve her; it was just that getting off a horse while wearing a gown without falling face first into the turf was a trick she hadn’t consistently mastered. All in all, she would have preferred a pair of Lycra biking tights with ample rear padding, but one had to make do with what one had, and she was a good rider, even before she had had much practice.
Too bad you can’t control people as well as you do horses, Grace.
She winced at the thought. But the voice in her head was hollow now, the words bitter but empty. Grace still had difficulty interacting with people—whole, conscious people. She knew she always would. But she had learned that she didn’t have to be perfect to have friends. When others cared about you, they seemed to develop an amazing ability to accept all of your flaws wholesale. You could break a body into each of its components: organs, fluids, bones. But in the end, Grace was beginning to think, people were a package deal.
Grace swung one leg over the saddle, trying to keep it from getting tangled in yards of violet linen, and let Durge catch her in hard, powerful arms and ease her to the ground. She smiled her thanks at him. Kyrene had been right about one thing: Men did have their uses.
Her smile faded as she thought of Kyrene. Sometimes, when she turned a corner in the castle, Grace still expected to come upon a green-eyed lady clad in a revealing gown, a sly smile on her coral lips. However, if the past was a shadow, its touch was fleeting, like a cloud over the sun soon gone.
Durge moved to help Lirith dismount, and Grace glanced back at Aryn. Garf was helping her off of her horse—a white mare—and if the young knight’s hand lingered a moment more than was strictly necessary around Aryn’s slender waist, the baroness seemed not to notice. He stepped away and bowed, but she had already turned her back to him.
“Well done, Sir Garfethel,” Lirith said, turning around and spreading her arms, as if she were drinking the warmth and life of the dell.
And perhaps she is at that.
Grace gazed at the Tolorian witch, and Lirith smiled back. What the smile meant was a mystery, but it wasn’t coy, not like Kyrene’s expressions had been. Instead it was secret and inviting.
Lirith started toward the banks of the brook, as lithe as a deer even in her russet riding gown, and the two knights followed, carrying a pair of saddlebags between them.
Grace hung back, letting them get ahead, but Aryn stayed with her, as if she knew Grace wanted to talk.
“Can we trust her?” Aryn asked before Grace could.
“I don’t know, Aryn. Can we trust any of the Witches?” It wasn’t the first time they had discussed this topic. “Sometimes I’m not sure we can even trust ourselves.”
“I can trust myself,” Aryn said.
Grace stopped short to stare at her friend. The words had been quiet and hard. She searched Aryn’s face, looking for pride or anger or sorrow—anything, any emotion that might give her a clue as to how to respond. But as usual the baroness’s lovely face was pale and impassive.
“She flaunts her secrets,” Aryn went on. The baroness hugged her left arm around the bodice of her gown. The right arm—slender and withered—was hidden as always beneath a fold of cloth. “Lirith, I mean. Sometimes I think she likes baffling us. Those smiles of hers—she must do it on purpose.”
Grace thought for a moment. “No, I don’t think so. Lirith isn’t like Kyrene was. She has secrets, yes, and they’re locked away. But I think it’s up to us to find the key. I think that’s what she’s trying to tell us.”
“Maybe,” Aryn said, but her smooth forehead creased in a frown.
Grace studied her friend, but whatever was wrong was beyond her ability to diagnose. Something had happened to Aryn, something amid all the dark and remarkable events of last Midwinter’s Eve, but what it was Grace didn’t know, and the baroness had never spoken of it in the months since.
But then, mysteries were not Lirith’s sole purview. We all have our secrets, don’t we, Grace?
She sighed and began walking again, with Aryn following alongside her.
Despite Lirith’s enigmas, their lessons with her had progressed well—if slowly. To their surprise and delight, Lirith had not begun with such mundane tasks as weaving or gathering herbs as Ivalaine had done. Instead, the day after she arrived at the castle, their first lesson had been to spin a web along the Weirding. Grace had reveled in the experience, listening to the smoky chant of Lirith’s voice, imagining the silver-green threads of the Weirding running through her fingers like the threads of the loom as she spun them into a shimmering gauze of power. Then Lirith laughed, and it all had fallen apart. Grace had blinked and opened her eyes to see Aryn looking as stunned as she must have.
The next day they attempted the same exercise. And the next day, and the next, until it was no longer a joy to touch the Weirding, but rather an act of drudgery she could barely force herself to attempt. Grace would work for hours spinning a web—eyes clamped shut, jaw clenched, head throbbing—then Lirith would merely tap her shoulder and the strands of magic would unravel, slipping through her clutching fingers.
“Try again,” Lirith would say, and the exercise would begin anew.
As tedious as the lessons were, neither Grace nor Aryn was ever late for one. Sometimes Grace wondered if King Boreas already knew what they were doing. The pretenses for Lirith’s visit had been weak at best. She had delivered a spoken message from the queen and had asked Boreas if she might stay on in Calavere to visit with a cousin. Boreas had granted her request. However, just who this cousin was, and why Lirith was never seen in his company, were questions that had yet to be answered.
And there was something more, something else about Lirith’s arrival at the castle that had always bothered Grace these last months. Then, in a flash as bright and unexpected as the firedrake, she had it.
She gripped Aryn’s arm.
“What is it, Grace?”
“Remember how Lirith arrived at Calavere just a week after Ivalaine left?”
The baroness looked puzzled. “It’s only a week’s journey to Ar-tolor.”
“Yes. And that means Lirith would have had to set out from Ar-tolor at the exact same time Ivalaine left Calavere.”
Aryn lifted her left hand in protest. “That doesn’t make sense. Lirith said she had spoken to Ivalaine, and that the queen bade her to come here.”
Grace met Aryn’s gaze. “Exactly.”
Aryn’s blue eyes went wide. Yes, she understood.
“It’s like us, Grace,” the young woman murmured. “Like the way we spoke on … like the way we spoke that time.”
Grace nodded. Except neither she nor Aryn had been able to speak to the other across the Weirding since Midwinter’s Eve. At best each had heard only the barest whisper, and even that might have been imagination. Somehow the urgency of that moment had granted them a power that now eluded them. And they had not mentioned it to Lirith for fear, like so many things, it was something they were forbidden to try on their own.
“Come on,” Grace said. “I think that’s one mystery answered at least.”
And a new one opened. Was this something Lirith would ever teach them? But there was only one way to learn. They started toward the brook, following the others.
20.
The afternoon was wearing on toward nightfall. Even in summer, days could not last forever. The five of them would have to ride back to the castle soon. The guards would be watching for them—waiting to shut the gates against the dark.
The guards could wait a while longer.
Grace let her eyelids droop. She sat on a blanket, drowsing in the late-day warmth as she listened to the drone of insects. The air was like gold wine: She drank it in, tasting cool water and sun-warmed grass, then breathed out in a soft exhalation. She wasn’t certain what it was, but there was something about this moment—a peace, perhaps, or a power—that made her want to live it just a little longer.
“Night approaches, my lady,” a rumbling voice said beside her. “I imagine predators will be roaming the land soon—those that prowl on four feet and two.”
Grace did not open her eyes. “Hush, Durge.”
There was a low grunt, but no other reply.
She remained still, listening and feeling. However, both moment and magic were gone. The sun dipped behind a line of trees, and the air cooled from gold to green-gray as the insects ceased their toneless song. Grace sighed and looked up. Durge was on his feet, scanning the distance with deep-set brown eyes.
“Any sign of them?” she asked.
“No,” the knight said. “I fear they might have fallen into a—”
A hole? A gorge? An improbable though convenient pit of poisonous adders? Grace didn’t get to find out what it was Durge feared, because at that moment three figures appeared atop a low ridge some distance away. One of the figures—the broadest but not the tallest, which meant it was Garf—waved to them. So the day really was over then. A feeling of sadness filled Grace, so sudden and strange that she almost gasped. But that was silly; Durge was good enough at finding things to worry about without her helping him. She gained her feet as the others started down the ridge.
As the trio approached, Grace saw that the basket slung over Garf’s shoulder was filled with bunches of green and purple. So Lirith was right. The shepherd’s knot was beginning to bloom after all. That boded well for their simples. Garf grinned and hefted the basket high, showing off. She laughed and waved. Behind her, Durge muttered something she did not quite catch.
She turned to regard the dark-haired knight. It had been interesting to see how Durge’s reactions to her studies differed from Garf’s. While the steadfast Embarran would never have questioned her—or Aryn or Lirith, for that matter—it was clear from his manner that he did not entirely understand or care for what Grace was doing with her spare time. When it came time for her lessons with Lirith, he usually made himself scarce. Were most men uncomfortable with the idea of witches?
But Durge’s response isn’t the same as Boreas’s, is it, Grace? You’ve seen how the king acts at the mere mention of the word witch. He just about needs a full rabies series.
Grace knew Boreas’s reaction was more instinctual than angry. As far as she could tell, the relationship between the Witches and the Cult of Vathris was much like that between cats and dogs, only not so cordial. However, Durge did not follow the mysteries of the warrior cult—or those of any cult. His mind was given more to logic than religion, occupied by his late-night studies of chemicals and compounds. Grace imagined he simply thought the Witches silly, their craft a matter of love potions and empty rhymes, not a true science.
Of course, Grace was a scientist herself, but she doubted Durge understood that. On this world medicine was women’s work, itself at best a half step from the workings of hags and witches.
Then there was Garf. The young knight seemed to regard Grace and Aryn’s studies with an amused curiosity. As it pleases my lady, Garf was fond of saying when she made a request, be it large or small. Grace supposed if she told Garf they needed a basket of a given herb in order to fly around the castle’s towers, he would grin and ask how much. And if the three of them really took off into the sky, he would no doubt clap his hands and laugh at the sight. Garf seemed to take it for granted that Grace could work magic. Would she ever feel the same way?
She hoped not.
“He is a fine man,” Durge said.
Grace glanced at the knight, but he did not meet her gaze.
“I have heard that Boreas is to choose a husband for Lady Aryn this autumn,” Durge went on, his voice gruff. “I hope it will be a man such as Sir Garfethel.”
So Grace was not the only one who had noticed. The others were close now, picking their way across the stones of the brook, although Grace could not yet hear their voices. Even now, while he remained a polite distance from both Lirith and Aryn, Garf’s body was turned just slightly in Aryn’s direction, his head bowed toward hers. A beatific smile hovered on his lips, and his eyes shone.
