Delusion (28 page)

But the folk tune, sung with such sweet rue, dragged the river of his memories and hauled up such corpses of regret that he had to flee. Still, the haunting music followed him, Ruby’s voice, and somehow Phil’s, too.

Although love’s folly is sure but a fancy,
Still it should prove more sweet than your scorn.

Rudyard had been right—he hated himself now. Playing traitor to the college—and being traitor to Phil. And yet he had to keep up the act, pretend the passion, until he could discover exactly how the Dresdeners planned to bring down the college.

With every breath, he doubted it was worth it.

With every sigh, he told himself it had to be.

Fleeing one sound of sorrow, he heard another and followed it to the hopper hut nearest his own. There it was again, a little breathless sob, and then a man laughing.

He pulled the door open so forcefully, one of the rusting hinges tore, leaving it hanging drunkenly. Inside, in the baleful glow of a kerosene lantern, he saw a flaxen-haired young woman, buxom and soft, with a simple face and oddly dull eyes, stretched limp and indifferent on the ground. Standing over her, his breeches loosened, was the giant Journeyman Bergen.

“What are you doing?” Arden asked, feeling fury rise, welcoming it because at least it eradicated the pain for a time.

Bergen gave a great guffaw. “You of all people should know,” he said, beerily convivial. Then he saw Arden’s hard face. “Just enjoying myself, master,” he said more stiffly. “You know,
droit de cuissage,
as the Fräulein says.” His hand still at his belt, he looked defiantly at the smaller man.

“And is the girl willing?” Arden asked through clenched teeth.

Bergen shrugged. “She is now.”

Clearly the girl—a local milkmaid, common and pretty as a sparrow—had been fuddled and was in no position to have an opinion of her own.

Arden pushed his way past Bergen and hauled the girl to her feet.

“Leave her be!” Bergen shouted, not quite daring to lay hands on his master—or the man the Fräulein had chosen—but grabbing the milkmaid roughly. “She’s a commoner. It’s my right to do whatever I like with her.”

“Not while I live,” Arden said, remembering poor Ruby, so fuddled and swayed by his magical persuasion that she—the girl who’d laughed at his love—killed herself rather than live without him. Never again. No, not even for the sake of the college.

“You have your own woman,” Bergen said petulantly. “When we’ve taken over England, every commoner will be our slave. Why can’t I have my fun, too?”

To think of Phil too often was, Arden knew, a very dangerous thing; and yet he could not help but see her determined, set face, the beads of sweat dripping down her chest, the incongruous way that lovely body could throw itself like a demented dervish into a punch, as he recalled her training and prepared to beat Bergen to death with his bare hands.

A biting animal perfume filled the air, soft and sharp all at once, like a white ermine with even whiter teeth. Fingers traced the taut sinews of his neck, and a voice, huskily accented, purred, “Yes, my love, why can’t he have his fun, too?”

He turned to behold the most glorious creature created by nature, a marvel of curve and line, of the firm and the yielding, and color, oh, even in the dismal kerosene glow, she blazed, white and gold, crimson nails and coral lips, eyes the blue of Alpine gentians, and around her throat, her wrists, her tapering fingers, and in the sunshine glory of her piled hair, cosmically whirling opals.

Arden had to fight back his physical revulsion at the sight of her. He smiled, silky charm.
How much easier the false emotions are than the true,
he thought. With Phil, the more he felt, the less he knew how to show.

“Fräulein Hildemar, I cannot help but believe that continence is better than defiling oneself with a commoner. Look at her, stupid and vacant. One might as well fornicate with mud.”

He gave the girl a gentle shove out the door and unfuddled her as she left. She gave one bewildered look over her shoulder and ran for the safety of her friends.

The Fräulein radiated approval. “How well you put it, Arden. Still, boys will be boys, isn’t that so, Bergen?” She blessed him with a look that said,
But for a turn of fate, I’d be yours tonight,
and he renewed his vow to serve her, however she desired...But he was beginning to hate the influential young master who had so quickly won the thrilling Fräulein’s affections.

She gave Bergen a smart little tap on the cheek, playfully admonishing. “Only wait, dear one, and you will have a bevy of magician ladies in a frenzy to meet a fascinating, powerful fellow such as yourself.” She made a little moue. “What a shame only the Kommandant and I are able to make the journey! Once we figure out how to bring all our little group to England, oh, how jolly it will be! Soon enough you will have loyal helpmeets, and darling magician babies to pass your knowledge on to. And then”—she gave a dismissive wave of her hand—“you may have as many commoner concubines as you like. We ladies never mind that. Only, do us the honor of picking pretty ones at least, not rough peasants like that creature. Come. I long to be alone with you.” She said these last words to Arden, but she looked at Bergen as she took the master by the arm. Bergen’s eyes followed her like a starving cur.

Phil, approaching the house from the wrong side, heard none of that and arrived in time only to see the milkmaid being herded out. Phil waited, pressed to the shadows, certain with unerring female instinct that Arden was about.

Then he emerged from the hut, and she almost called out to him. Before she did more than draw breath, she saw the dazzling blonde with him, and shrank back again. Together the couple walked to Arden’s hut next door.

At the fireside, the singer took up a new lament.

Oh I loved a lad, and I loved him so well
That I hated all others of him that spoke ill.
And now he’s rewarded me well for my love...
He’s gone to be wed to another.

Phil wanted to wail, she wanted to run, but she forced herself into stealth and crept to Arden’s window. It was shut against the cold and sooted over with a greasy haze, but she pressed her eye to a clean spot and made herself watch Arden take the woman in his arms, cauterized her wounded heart with the sight of his lips on her throat. She watched until she killed her love, until it dropped like a coursed hart, exhausted, for the hounds to tear apart.

Now it is truly over,
she thought,
and I never have to think about him again. Who is she? I’ve never seen her before... no, stop that. It is no concern of yours. Focus on the other magicians. Never think of Arden again.

But Fee was right, and Phil couldn’t think herself out of love, any more than she could think herself into it. Love does not succumb to logic. It simply
is,
or it is not.

Oh God,
Phil thought with a low helpless groan as Arden tumbled the golden goddess on the bed.
How I wish love was not, but it
is!

The harvest was in. Phil expected the magicians to be summoned home to the college, but when she went to Stour for the first time in three weeks, she found it still hardly more than a heap of rubble. Slightly neater rubble, to be sure—the stones had been piled according to purpose and proportions—but very little had been done beyond reinforcing the supports of those parts of the manor left intact after the bombing.

“Another month at least,” Rudyard told Phil.

Not that she minded, because it furthered her interests, but she was puzzled. “Even with all of you working, you haven’t gotten farther than this?”

Rudyard spread his arms over the schematics and blueprints that littered his desk. “It isn’t like in the old tales—would that I could snap my fingers and have a castle! It’s still work, girl. Planning and design and work. I can make alabaster grow from thin air, but if I stack it wrong, it will still fall on our heads. It would take a team of architects and stonemasons three years to build Stour anew. Don’t grumble if I have it done in months.”

He gave Arden a different story. “I’ll delay as long as I can. There have been no more incursions into Stour. She’s focusing on the magicians who are outside. Easier targets, I’m sure. That leaves me free to plan what must come next.”

“Which is?”

“None of your concern, for the nonce. You just keep the rebels identified and away from Stour. Are you certain you have all the troublemakers isolated in the huts?”

“I think so, but she doesn’t confide everything in me.”

“But you know a dozen of her collaborators. You know she has not yet learned how to get all of her Dresden compatriots to England.”

“Yes. There’s so little Essence there, they have to gather it, bit by bit. Here, though—I can’t believe how powerful she is. We should dispatch her while she’s here, before the others manage to cross over.”

“No, this threat has hung like a sword above our heads long enough. There can be no half measures. Discover what they’re planning, so we can be ready to end them, forever.”

“Perhaps they won’t ever find a way here.”
And if not, if there’s nothing more to worry about, I may finally break free of the demonic Hildemar—and strangle her with my own hands.

“They will find a way, eventually, and perhaps...it may be necessary for you to help them with their portal, to push this affair to a crisis.”

“What?” Was he mad?

Rudyard rubbed his deeply lined brow. “If they are all here, we can drain them all and have done with it. But nothing is known yet. Speak no more of it.”

Arden, having received his dismissal, left, to unwillingly conspire, to plot false treachery, and to caress the lovely monster who believed she had ensnared him.

When he was gone, Rudyard returned to staring at his blueprints, wondering if he could look as if he were making progress, and thus avoid suspicion, yet still delay the rebuilding. He shivered, a deep rheumatic ache settling into his spine. He’d have to ask Mrs. Tingle to ease him when next they met. The leader of the women was so adept at healing. He shifted uncomfortably and hoped he could endure the two days until he saw her again.

And so the hundred magicians continued to live in the hopper huts, cold and cramped and (except perhaps for the dozen or so traitors) in a state of perpetual bliss. Like children on holiday, they reveled in their freedom. Though they faithfully adhered to that daily ritual of drawing up the Essence and spreading it through the world, they began to find joy in using their magic for its own sake. They became playful and made bouquets for their sweethearts and bowers in the snow.

More intently every day, they followed the commoners’ wartime travails. They heard with dismay that Hungary and Romania had joined the Axis, and they whooped with pride when Greece made a brilliant incursion into Italy’s territory in Albania.

At every turn, the magicians of Phil’s muster looked for ways to fight for their new friends, and always Arden, their hero, their leader, shot them down. We have our own war to fight, he reminded them. Yes, they argued, but what are we doing about that? There’s nothing to be done, he assured them. It seems the Dresdeners have given up. Then why not fight for the rest of England? they demanded. Because we must be ready to protect the college, first, foremost, and only. The Essence is all. And though they grumbled, they obeyed, while another group of men, to whom Arden was also a hero, laughed at the rest behind their backs and waited for the day when they would assume their place as masters of the world.

Phil retreated, from the magicians and from the Home Guard. She’d done all she could do, and she couldn’t bear the thought of seeing Arden again.

“Get out of bed,” Fee urged, but Phil only grumbled and pulled the blankets back over her head, staying cocooned until Fee left for her daily trek to the post office.

When Fee was gone, Phil would crawl out of bed and drag herself about the farm, listlessly milking with stiff, chafed hands, mucking the pens, stopping up rat holes, and chopping wood, anything to keep mindlessly busy until she could legitimately get back into bed again. She thanked goodness for the early nights and did her best to be asleep before Fee, scribbling another letter by candlelight, came to bed. So far, she’d accomplished the impossible—she hadn’t told her sister what happened. Bad enough that the image of Arden and that spectacularly beautiful fairy-tale creature seemed to be burned into her eyelids, renewing the vision whenever she so much as blinked. To speak of that moment would kill her, she was sure of that.

Relentlessly, she forced herself to enumerate his faults. Ruthlessly, she dissected his face to prove to herself that it was, after all, only another face.

And fighting those things, like a hopelessly outclassed bantamweight who simply won’t stay down for the count, was the memory of his fingers on her lips, the wondering way in which he said, “I didn’t think it would be possible.” And that promise—
tomorrow.
That word stayed nestled in her heart, refusing to believe that tomorrow had come and gone.
Don’t worry,
her foolish heart tried to tell her.
There will be another one.

She went to Stour a time or two to visit Stan, creeping about the place like a thief until she’d ascertained that Arden was still with the others in the hopper huts.

Her only other distraction was the magic show she and Fee had promised for the village Christmas fete. After quite a bit of prodding, Phil finally threw herself into rehearsal. It was more hard work, after all, and that’s just what she needed.

They did, as she’d predicted, requisition most of Bittersweet’s mirrors, and Joey rigged up a smoke machine, more malodorous than their dry ice contraption back at the Hall of Delusion, but just as effective. Phil got yards of thick rope from an ox driver, oiled her handcuffs, and convinced the constable to donate the straitjacket that had been hanging for years, unused, under a sign stating “
IN CASE OF MADMAN
.”