Dark Moon Defender (Twelve Houses) (23 page)

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Authors: Sharon Shinn

BOOK: Dark Moon Defender (Twelve Houses)
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“As soon as you gather your things,” the Lestra said.
 
 
Shavell turned to Ellynor, her pinched face even tighter with warning. “You will not speak with the guards who accompany you, except as required by courtesy or your own direct needs,” she said. “You will remain inside the Gisseltess house at all times. You will consider Jenetta Gisseltess to stand in my stead, and obey her, and give her respect. You will serve the Silver Lady with all honor, so that every report we hear of you will be full of praise.”
 
 
“How long do you think I will need to stay there?”
 
 
“A week, perhaps,” the Lestra replied.
 
 
“I am happy to go,” Ellynor repeated.
 
 
“Good. Then pack your bags and meet Shavell at the front door as quickly as you can. Carry the light of the Pale Mother with you so that she shines on the ill, the infirm, and the sick at heart. Go gently with the goddess.”
 
 
 
 
AS it turned out, serra Paulina was not much interested in singing the Silver Lady’s praises or having a convent novice say prayers with her while she lay, shivering and suffering, on her sickbed.
 
 
“You can pray all you like, but do it when I can’t hear you,” the old lady said five minutes after Jenetta had left Ellynor in her mother’s bedroom. It was early dark, since Ellynor’s small party had arrived in Neft just as the sun was going down, and Jenetta had wasted no time delivering Ellynor to her mother. Ellynor had set her travel bags down in the corner of the room, made a little curtsey when Jenetta departed, then lit a single candle to set in the room’s wide window. This would signal the Pale Mother that a soul of piety resided within.
 
 
Then she had turned to the bed where the old woman sat, one leg curled beneath her, the other one stretched out, wrapped to immobility between a pair of splints. “If you give me your hands, I will pray with you,” Ellynor had said in a quiet voice.
 
 
Serra Paulina had made her extraordinary reply. Now Ellynor sat down in her chair and tried to think what she should say next.
 
 
The old woman snorted. She looked much better than she had the last time Ellynor had seen her. She was still thin and pale, with high cheekbones so sharp they looked ready to cut through the skin, but her eyes were clear and remarkably blue. And her mouth was twisted in a grimace of disdain, not pain. “I know, I told my daughter to fetch you so you could weep and moan over me, call down moonlight or whatever it is Coralinda claims she can do, but I just said all that so they’d make you come. Never cared much for that Silver Woman, Silver Lady, whatever they call her. Never thought too much of Coralinda, if it comes to that. Arrogant and dangerous, and more ambitious than anyone realizes. Don’t understand why no one can see that.”
 
 
Ellynor just stared at the old lady, too astonished to speak.
 
 
Serra Paulina made another sound that could have been a cough or maybe a chuckle. “Guess you’re not used to hearing anyone say such things about your precious Lestra, are you? Strange little deal she’s got set up there—all these people bowing and scraping to her, everyone calling her by some fancy name. It’s like she’s her own little queen on her own little throne, and she’s got everyone there believing it! Well, what happens when a queen realizes she’s not the only royalty in the country, hey? When the king tries to shut her down? Baryn’s a damn fool. He never should have let Coralinda run on like this for so long. He’ll be sorry when she starts her own revolution.”
 
 
Baryn. That was the king’s name, Ellynor thought. This mad old woman was saying the king should fear that the Lestra would start some kind of uprising.
 
 
It was something Ellynor could instantly believe.
 
 
But. “The Lestra cares only to celebrate the goddess,” Ellynor said in a soft voice, dropping her eyes, keeping her face demure. “She sent me here at your request. If you did not want my prayers—”
 
 
“You’re the one who made me well,” the old woman interrupted, and Ellynor’s eyes flew to her face. “I was so sick I was going to die. No one would say it, but I knew. And then you were here—you and that other girl—and I got well. You’re the one who saved me. I could feel the power in you that second night, just when you walked in the room.”
 
 
Ellynor felt a little shaky. This was treacherous ground. Heretic this old woman might be, but her daughter wasn’t, and Ellynor was here on convent business. “I have only the power that the Great Mother chooses to lend me,” she said, still softly, the words deliberately ambiguous.
 
 
The serramarra snorted again. “Call it a gift from the Pale Mother if you like, but you’re a skilled healer, girl. And I’ve got a damn lot of pain in my leg, and I don’t like it. I want to be well. I want to be up and able to walk out of this room. And I don’t want to
hurt.
I’m tired of hurting. You have no idea how long it’s been since I’ve been free of pain.”
 
 
Ellynor’s sympathy was quickly roused at the slight break in the old woman’s voice, and she studied her patient for a moment. Paulina was watching her, the blue eyes intense, the thin mouth drawn tight. Ellynor thought that, for all her scornful words, the old woman actually was a little afraid—that Ellynor did not possess the power she thought, or would not use it.
 
 
“It would seem very odd,” she said carefully, “for your leg to be healed overnight. For you to get up tomorrow morning, whole. Your daughter and your physician—everyone—would think it was strange. And troubling.”
 
 
Paulina sat back against the headboard, still regarding Ellynor. Her eyes were even brighter. “If you healed me,” she said, “I’d stay in bed another two weeks. I’d pretend to be in pain. I would. I would make sure you’d been gone for days before I started to remark how much better my leg was.”
 
 
“People still might wonder.”
 
 
An unholy smile came to the old lady’s lips. “I’ll credit the doctor. He’s fool enough to believe he can work miracles! Think of the patients who’ll be begging him to come to
their
bedsides then.”
 
 
“Think of the people who might call him a mystic,” Ellynor said bluntly.
 
 
That made the old lady pause. Some of the excitement left her face. “That’s a word that’ll get you stoned to death in Neft,” she admitted. Her bright gaze fixed itself on Ellynor’s face. “Is that what you are? A mystic?”
 
 
Ellynor shook her head, genuinely surprised. “Oh, no. I don’t know anything about magic. I don’t have any power of my own. It’s just that the Great Mother chooses, now and then, to pour her strength through my body so I can help the sick and wounded.”
 
 
“The Silver Lady is not much of one for healing, not that I ever heard,” scoffed the serramarra.
 
 
“I call on the Black Mother,” Ellynor said in a low voice. “She’s the one who watches over the Lirrenfolk.”
 
 
Now Paulina looked deeply interested. “You’re a Lirren girl, are you? What brought you across the Lireth Mountains—and to Lumanen Convent, of all places?”
 
 
Ellynor smiled. “Oh, I had many reasons. And I am happy to be at the convent. I admire the Lestra greatly and I am learning to love the Silver Lady, though she is so different from the goddess I know.”
 
 
“She’s elegant and spiteful, if she’s anything like the woman who worships her,” Paulina said dryly. “But we won’t quarrel about Coralinda! Indeed, I should be thanking her right now, for agreeing to send you to me. That is—you have not said—if you are willing . . .”
 
 
Ellynor smiled and hitched her chair closer. “Indeed, if you will promise some discretion, I am willing,” she said. “Let me get close enough to lay my hands on your leg. I will ask the Great Mother to mend you in the shortest possible time.”
 
 
 
 
A COUPLE of hours later, back in the bedroom she had shared with Astira, Ellynor found herself unable to sleep. She had placed her hot hands on Paulina’s legs and felt the bones and tissues reknit beneath her fingers. She had secured the old woman’s promise to sleep now and to lie abed a good while longer, and she was pretty sure Paulina would keep the promise because she did not want to jeopardize Ellynor. But it was still a risky move, summoning the Black Mother in a household such as this, when someone else was awake and watching.
 
 
Ellynor could not be sorry, but she could not be entirely easy, either.
 
 
Unable to sleep, she knelt on the floor before the window and gazed past her candle at the limitless night sky. The waxing moon was remote and a little offended; she seemed to turn her glowing face deliberately away from the supplicant at the window. But the Black Mother was expansive and comforting, spreading her hands over the sleeping city, the slumbering land, holding everyone close and safe. She approved of Ellynor’s actions. She had answered at the very first call.
 
 
Ellynor crossed her arms on the windowsill and rested her chin on her wrists, watching the scene below. Like Paulina’s, this bedroom overlooked the front of the house, the sweep of lawn, the wrought-iron gate, the street beyond. It was late— past midnight, she guessed—and almost no one was abroad. Ellynor could see moths congregating near the glass, anxious to get to the candle. Occasional shapes made distinctive patterns against the sky—spiky bats, feathered owls. Something crept across the lawn below, some small nocturnal creature looking for scraps or vermin. A shadow moved slowly up the hill, big enough to be a man on foot. Someone coming home late from an evening of pleasure, she thought with some envy. A man who had toasted his friends at the tavern or lain with his sweetheart in secret inside her father’s house.
 
 
He slowed as he crested the hill, came to a stop as he turned to appraise the Gisseltess house. He wrapped his hands around two of the wrought-iron bars and stood there a long moment, gazing up at the windows.
 
 
It was Justin.
 
 
CHAPTER 11
 
 
NOT even pausing to ask herself what Justin might be doing at the Gisseltess mansion at this hour of the night, Ellynor gave a little squeal and pushed open the window. She waved both her arms, still clad in her white novice robes, hoping to catch his attention, since she didn’t dare raise her voice to call him. For a moment, he didn’t see her—she could tell the exact instant that he did. His head jerked up and his smile swept across his face, utterly transforming it. He waved back.
 
 
For a moment, they grinned at each other like fools across the whole distance of the lawn, Ellynor and this young stablehand about whom she knew nothing at all. Then he stepped back and made a motion with his hand, first pointing at the house, then sweeping his arm down toward the street.
Can you come outside?
he seemed to be asking.
Can you join me here?
 
 
Of course she shouldn’t. For so many reasons she could hardly list them all if she took the rest of the night to try. Of course she wanted to. She leaned farther out, held up a single finger.
One minute.
Then she ducked back into the room, pulling her shoes off, checking to make sure her hair was tied back.
 
 
There was no question that she could move through the sleeping house in complete silence. The children of the Black Mother were utterly at ease in the dark, skilled at stealth, adept at crossing unfriendly territory without drawing attention. Torrin was proud of his ability to turn almost invisible, a talent he used when hunting game or engaging in feuds with hostile
sebahta.
He had taught Ellynor to glide soundlessly through any terrain, wrapped in the Dark Watcher’s cloak.
 
 
She negotiated the stairs without a sound, tiptoed past the single footman dozing in the hall, let herself out of the door without any noise at all. Then she flew across the yard and slipped out the front gate, laughing. She was so delighted at this unexpected rendezvous that she wanted to throw her arms around Justin’s neck for the sheer joy of it.
 
 
She didn’t, but she did allow him to take her hands in a warm clasp as he peered down at her. It was unlikely he could see in the dark as well as she could, but he had sharp eyes even so, for she could see the changing expression on his face as he looked her over and assessed her mood and well-being. He was probably used to night maneuvers himself, she thought. He was not someone who was afraid of events that unfolded in the dark.

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