Banner of the Damned (91 page)

Someone had been hired from one of the pleasure houses to attend to our nails and to provide muscle relief when we needed. She was older, calm, efficient, but did not have Anhar’s touch.

Days passed with the entire castle busy getting ready for the arrival of the jarls and their parties for New Year’s Week. I continued my work, but my thoughts strayed eastward to Anhar and Birdy there in Alarcansa, and then southward to Darchelde.

From my limited experience with the dyr, I knew that some minds and memories were more accessible than others. Ivandred had been the most difficult, Lasva the easiest, probably because I knew her well and because we were both female and close in age.

I kept imagining the possibilities. Think of the understanding one could get, seeing famous moments from inside the participants! But how many of them had been warded against dyr magic? I was going to ask. I had to know, had to see more. Had to learn, I kept telling myself. The Herskalt wanted me to gain knowledge. Ah-ye, this was better than sifting through old and dusty records.

On the last day of the year, I took a walk around the city walls as I performed the spells I’d been working on. A year before, that much magic would have tired me to dizziness, but exhilaration kept me strong as I felt the old mess of wards disintegrate and reform in a structure as strong as the golden stone that formed the walls.

When I returned to the royal castle just before sunset, I heard the rare sound of many female voices emanating from the queen’s outer chambers. Lasva had asked me to listen, for she relied on my perceptions of New Year’s Week. “When I am in the midst of the jarlans,” she said, “and all eyes are on me, I am so busy thinking about what I must say next, and
how I must curtail my habitual gestures, my walk, so as to lessen the mannerisms of the peacock. I certainly don’t see what they are doing when they think my gaze is elsewhere.”

The air beyond the door did not carry the astringent aroma of crisp white wine, offered in Colend when New Year’s Week begins. Here in Marloven Hesea it was the heady scent of the last of the festival barley-wine. It is these little sensory starts and jolts that keep a place from ever becoming home.

I shut my eyes and listened to the voices, so different on the surface from a court gathering in Colend. But there was a similarity after all, I thought. Though Colend’s courtiers speak so softly in the trained cadences that rise and fall so smoothly, there still was that sense of self-awareness, and I heard it here, too: the sound of people pretending to civility, rather than the ease of relaxation or friendliness.

I told Lasva, who nodded in corroboration. “They still see a peacock.”

The Great Hall was quiet as the Jarl of Totha—the others called him Bluejay—came forward to make his vows. I watched from above as he spoke in a wooden voice. He was a lanky, loose-limbed fellow, too well trained to shamble, but he reminded me a little of King Jurac of Chwahirsland, who had moved as if he never became accustomed to the length of his own limbs.

When Bluejay finished, Ivandred stepped forward and said his vows in the same voice he used for everyone. Not a word more or a word less. No mention at all of those Totha attackers, dead somewhere around the border, but every single person in that Hall had to be thinking about them. There was too much tension for it to be a secret.

The surprising thing was the number of looks furtively cast my way. Irritated and unsettled, I reminded myself of what Anhar had said: the looks were not aimed at me but at “the mage,” who might be able to smite them with a whispered spell.

Smiting was what Marlovens thought about when they considered power.

The unwanted notice caused me to employ all my old skills at staying on the periphery.

There is only one other thing to report from that week.

The Jarlan of Totha was exactly my age. She was even small with a round face. But where I am spare, with thin hair of dull brown, she was as
curvy as Nifta, with a great quantity of curly blond hair pulled back into looped braids behind a face that was the true heart shape so prized in Colend.

But she was not at all like a courtier. Her behavior all week was stiff and silent, her hands hidden in the sleeves of her robe, which was the dark forest green and silver of Totha.

Following supper on the Fourthday eve after the jarls and jarlans presented their requests for judgment, Lasva whispered to me in passing, “She asked to speak to me alone. Will you listen beyond the door?”

I felt like a spy, standing beside the door to Lasva’s bedchamber, which smelled of the dried rose hips, starliss, and verbena that she had transferred from Colend. Lasva’s tone was soothing as she offered her guest the best cushion, some freshly steeped Sartoran leaf, a cream cake.

The jarlan refused them all in a tight voice. Lasva said invitingly, “What is happening in Totha, Gdan? Please tell me. I promise you, I want peace. I would do anything I can to bring it about. Are there people trying to stir up trouble in your land? Do you need help?”

“Yes… No. That is, there are those who want… sovereignty. The way Olavair now has. And some want things to stay as they have been. Then there are those who want life to go back to the way it was in the old days. Except you really cannot go back, can you? No one in Totha speaks the old Iascan. We are Marlovens in all the important ways. We celebrate Rest Day like Marlovens.” Gdan-Jarlan’s voice lowered to a whisper. “But there is so much talk of war in the north. Everyone knows it is going to happen. And we also know that when the king calls the levy, it is our people who will be forced to go north to fight. No one wants to go north to fight Yvanavar or Olavair. We have enough problems of our own in the south, and many are afraid that if the king is dealing with the northerners, he will never get to us in time.”

“Have you and Bluejay spoken with Ivandred about this? Surely you trust him. I know that the most important thing in his life is this kingdom and keeping it safe.”

“There are different kinds of safe,” Gdan began, almost too low to hear. Then came the swish of fabric and a quick step. “I am afraid I have said too much. Thank you for… being kind, Lasva-Gunvaer.”

Lasva joined me. “She sounded sincere, did she not? I don’t need you to corroborate that she doesn’t trust me. It’s not that she thinks that I am a liar so much as she thinks the peacock can wave her pretty tail and strut all around this castle, but she cannot fly with the Marloven eagle.”

I

Lasva grasped his hand. He bent to kiss her fingers, then straightened up. It was all quick, with the unconsciousness of habit, as they turned their attention downward. I glanced at the two attractive profiles, wondering what was going on inside each silent head. Oh, to have a dyr of my own!

The impulse to see, to
know
, had been growing stronger by the day, becoming a hunger. When the last jarl was gone, Ivandred took Lasva off somewhere, and so I wandered back toward my tower. I was too restless to resume my work, so I turned my steps to the queen’s chambers, to which I always had entrance. Except for the guards, no one was about. The runners had been permitted liberty days in relay. Pelis was busy putting the finishing stitches on the tapestry. Nifta had been sent somewhere on a trade mission. Marnda and Kendred were either asleep or outside.

I looked around, then transferred myself to Darchelde. The Herskalt
appeared moments later. Was there a faint scent of wood smoke? It was gone too soon for me to be sure. I took my chair, saying, “I suppose that kings and others in power are protected against the dyr magic, but I cannot stop thinking about it. There are so many possibilities to find out the truth of important events.”

The Herskalt said, “Very true. However, there is much to be learned from ordinary people. Discovering hidden motivations and reasoning will enable you to make more acute evaluations in your own life. As you gain magical knowledge, you are going to be called upon to make judgments that will affect many lives.”

“So what do you suggest?”

“Begin to study people familiar to you.”

“Not my parents,” I said quickly, but what I was really thinking was,
Not Birdy
.

He said, “People with whom you have some connection, but minimal emotional involvement.” He opened his hand, and there was the dyr. “I anticipated your question, and did some exploration of my own. I believe that this will be a very good place to begin, on what appeared to be a peaceful day’s picnic, not long ago.”

He whispered the words, and guided me into a vision of a warm day. Colend sometimes had such bursts of very late summer warmth, weeks after harvest. A group of people sat upon a silk quilt that covered a mossy bank. Behind them a few white-barked birch trees retained enough bright orange leaves to catch the low, slanting light of impending winter.

My heart yearned at the layered silk robes the two women wore, one in shades of soft blue, embroidered with long-tailed parrots and orchid blossoms in silver and peach, the other in shades of lemon and straw, embroidered with pale green cattails and butterflies. The man wore summer blue edged with amber. His embroidery was thistles in a geometric pattern. His head was bent as he played with a little boy of two or three. His short, curly dark hair hid his face. Was that jawline familiar? I wondered as he plucked up dandelions and blew on them, sending tufts into the air that the child tried to catch in his grasping fingers.

The man laughed and looked up. Yes. I knew that face. He was the Duke of Alarcansa. I shifted my gaze to the two women, and recognized the seated one in blue with the perfect profile and elaborately dressed golden hair. She was known as “the duchess” at seventeen: Carola Definian, now a real duchess. The one in yellow was tall and thin. Tatia.
Her ruddy hair was also dressed elaborately, though with knots of ribbon as embellishment, instead of gems.

We’d looked through the eyes of a servant, who was waved off by an impatient gesture from Tatia.

Then the vision smeared, causing my insides to lurch, and now I looked down at the top of the duchess’s head. Beyond her the man and boy played, the colors distorted in a way difficult to describe, until the first thoughts whispered into my head: anger. We looked through Tatia’s eyes.

Go on, one slide of those slippers on a rock, brat
, she thought. But no, the Hummer would catch him, then Carola and the Hummer would fuss sickeningly over the brat, Vasande, as if he
had
fallen and cracked his stupid skull.

Memory flashes. Pain nearly slew me as jolting, rage-burning images provided context: distracting a nursemaid by sending her for something to drink, then luring the small boy to play near one of the indoor pools. The toddler laughed… climbed up… fell in… Tatia scurried away, her laughter screaming through my skull; then she looked back, and the rage surged through me as scalding as vomit when she saw the baby swimming to the side. How angry Tatia was that the Hummer (for such was her name for Kaidas) had taught “the little maggot” to swim!

I nearly withdrew, but the Herskalt kept the vision steady as again the memory provided a horrifying image, this time high on a wall, but again the frustrated rage when Carola appeared and intervened, dismissing the two maidservants and the footman whom Tatia had carefully distracted. Carola’s anger doused Tatia’s, causing fear which was scarcely less terrible to endure than the rage, scolding as Tatia herself was sent on degrading errands until the servants could be replaced.

She
was the heir.
She
should rule Alarcansa, not this disgusting worm of a brat. Why should Carola birth an heir thirty years before anyone of her age thought of such things?

I could not bear this woman’s thoughts another heartbeat. I tried to end the vision, but it smeared… and I found myself caught in a wash of sensory impressions that cleared away, establishing a caressing perspective on the child and man.

“It is a refreshment to the spirit to see them together like that, is it not?” Carola asked her cousin, richly enjoying the way that Tatia snorted like a lapdog in frustration. “Would it not be charming for him to have a sister or brother to romp with? Perhaps several of them.”

Carola laughed to herself at the forced pleasantry with which Tatia replied. She entertained herself with imagining another child. A beautiful daughter, who would enter court exquisitely trained. Carola toyed with the notion of her daughter courting the Royal Princess, who was almost certainly going to look like a toad in silk.

I would be ruling court now if I had had the wit to court that fool Lasva
, she thought. If only she’d had the long vision to see it at seventeen. Lasva’s self-centered acceptance of everyone’s admiration, her sentimental assurance that everyone loved her… it would have been easy to swallow disgust and flatter her. But that was the past. She had longer vision now, which could benefit a daughter.