Quatrain (41 page)

“We would require nothing of you,” Betony said firmly. “You would not even need to join us at the breakfast table if you did not want to.”

“Just come with me to bargain with the Lirrenfolk,” Albert said. “You may ignore the rest of us the whole time you’re there, and no one will complain.”

“Well, I hope you won’t ignore
me
completely,” Degarde said with a warm smile. “I should like to see you now and then while you are at Albert’s.”

Is he flirting with me?
Senneth thought a split second before the room was rent by the sound of crashing metal and a child’s woeful howl. Betony muffled a shriek and Julia jumped up to race across the room. Halie had knocked over a small decorative suit of armor and now stood before the scattered visors and breastplates, sobbing with pitiful abandon. It was clear even before Julia scooped her up that the little girl had suffered nothing worse than shock—which had afflicted the rest of them as well, in varying degrees.

“I think my heart almost jumped out of my chest,” Betony said, while Evelyn hurried to Julia to assure the apologetic mother that no harm was done, the suit of armor was more a nuisance than a treasure, and wouldn’t Julia and Halie like to come sit down again? The final course was about to be served, and everyone would surely enjoy the fruit cobbler.

Senneth was hopeful that the noisy interruption would have made everyone forget the last few minutes of conversation, but that turned out not to be the case. “So! Senneth! Would you be willing to travel back with us and help me negotiate with the Lirrenfolk?” Albert asked.

“How soon are you expecting to meet with them again?” she said, praying that the lead time would be so long that no one could reasonably expect her to linger.

“Next week!” Albert said cheerfully. “In fact, I told Evelyn we could only stay here two nights because I didn’t want to miss my next appointment.”

“I think you have no choice,” Degarde said. “You
must
come.”

The servants entered the room bearing platters of food as the others reseated themselves around the table. Halie squirmed out of her mother’s arms the instant Julia took her chair. Senneth was not surprised to see the child duck under the table again.

“I think you should go,” Evelyn said.

“I consider it settled, in fact,” Albert said.

She could only yield. “Then I will come just long enough to meet your Lirren friends,” Senneth said. “I hope I will be able to do you some good.”

Betony was tasting the cobbler. “Mmm, Evelyn, this is delicious! How did you get fruit at this time of year?”

Senneth missed the answer because something clutched at her leg through the thin fabric of her skirt. She pushed her chair back and found Halie clinging to her knee.

“Up,” the girl said, releasing her grip and holding her arms out. This seemed like the invitation to go to Albert’s—impossible to refuse—so Senneth swung the little girl onto her lap, where she balanced precariously.

“Oh—I’m sorry—you can give her back to me,” Julia said, half rising from her chair.

“No, I don’t mind,” Senneth said. Which was only half a lie. The little girl watched her with huge, intent blue eyes and put out a tiny hand to explore Senneth’s face. A sticky pat on Senneth’s cheek, on her nose, a finger perilously close to gouging out Senneth’s eye. Then Halie laid her small palm flat against Senneth’s forehead and made a clucking noise.

“Feeber?” she asked.

“What?” Senneth responded.

Julia groaned. “She’s asking if you have a fever. I put my hand on her forehead whenever I think she’s sick.”

“Feeber?” Halie repeated. “Hot?”

Senneth flicked a quick look at Evelyn and glanced away. Senneth’s skin was invariably warm to the touch, a consequence of the banked fire always slumbering in her veins. Halie was not so far off. “No fever,” Senneth said firmly. “I’m quite healthy.”

Julia had gotten to her feet and circled the table to pluck Halie from Senneth’s lap. “I keep thinking she’ll fall asleep,” the young widow said. “Usually by this time of day she’s ready for a nap.” She set Halie on her feet and said, “Your doll is in the basket in the corner. Why don’t you play with her while we finish our meal?”

Halie obediently trundled off, and for a moment they all had leisure to eat and appreciate their cobbler. Talk turned to news about friends and nobles unknown to Senneth, so she was able to drop out of the conversation until Degarde addressed her.

“I hope you will come visit Julia and me while you’re staying with Albert,” he said.

“Your sister lives with you?”

“Yes—for now, at any rate. Her husband died suddenly a year ago, and Halie, as you can see, is quite a handful. So I moved them into my house, which has been good for both of them, but I think Julia is trying to find a reason to move on.” He smiled. “She keeps urging me to look around for a wife, which leads me to think she is looking for a husband. Or else she plans to seize on that excuse if I ever do marry. ‘Oh, see, your wife wants me out of the house!’ And she’ll be gone.”

Senneth laughed. “Well, then, you must oblige her!”

He sipped his water. “Prospects have been thin in my neighborhood. Perhaps I need to travel to Kianlever Court and look around.”

“Or even Ghosenhall,” Senneth said. “Many noble ladies visit the royal city.”

He gestured at his clothes with both hands. “I am not so fine a man myself that I require a truly noble wife. Just someone who interests me and has the skills and intelligence to act as a reasonable partner.”

Senneth hadn’t given much thought to a love match herself, but that description struck her as drearily devoid of passion. It had been clear to her for a long time that she would never marry, but if she
had
been looking for a husband, she would have had wholly different requirements. She would want someone who filled her mind, who shaped her days, someone whose mere presence brought her to life, whose absence felt like death.

She hardly expected to stumble across such a man in her aimless wanderings.

“I would think such a woman would be possible to find,” she replied, “
somewhere
among the Twelve Houses.”

“So, tell me,” he said, “which of the Houses do you call home?”

“Oh, I travel so much that I really have no allegiance to one region,” she replied.

He cocked his head to one side, trying to dig beneath the answer. “And no allegiance to the family where you were born, I take it.”

She was
not
going to talk about this. “Correct.”

He took the rebuff. “Then I hope you have managed to replace parents and siblings with a multitude of friends.”

“Indeed, my friends represent quite an astonishing variety! From noblewomen to blacksmiths to Lirren clansmen. I am quite rich in my acquaintances.”

“Then I think—” he began.

His words were lost in a sudden hysterical shrieking. Senneth’s instant reaction was to leap up and gaze around wildly. She saw all the other guests on their feet and screaming. Evelyn, pointing and fainting. Julia, racing across the room.

Halie, contorted before the fire, her dress blazing around her tiny body, her arms waving in the air, her face a howling mask of terror and pain.

Senneth didn’t even think. She flung her hands out and felt the power snap from her body in a great, dark, rolling wave.

Every fire went out. The grate was cold. The candles steamed with smoke. Halie was stunned to silence, her dress falling in charred ribbons from her small frame, her arms still outstretched. Across the width of the room, Senneth could not judge if the girl’s skin had been burned, though her face looked untouched.

Julia reached the child a second later, falling to the floor beside her, sobbing and pulling at the incinerated dress. Degarde was moments behind her, followed by Betony and Albert. Evelyn was at the door, issuing orders to the servants.
“Bring us water and salve and dressings!”

Senneth stood at the table and let her arms fall, feeling the inevitable wash of adrenaline flare up and down her veins, awaiting the next call to action. Halie had started crying again, but it was the hiccupping, nervous kind of weeping that indicated distress rather than pain. Senneth was pretty sure she had doused the flames before they had done any real damage.
But Bright Mother burn me,
she thought savagely.
That child is going to kill herself before she’s three years old.

Senneth estimated she had five minutes before the other guests started asking her questions. She remained standing before the table, waiting.

In fact, Degarde broke away only a moment later and crossed the room to Senneth’s side. “She is unhurt,” he said, his voice threaded with both amazement and relief. “It seems the clothing caught fire but the flames did not have time to reach her skin.”

“I didn’t even see her approach the fire,” Senneth said.

“No. She’s very quick. You would not believe the kinds of accidents that occur around her. Well, you have seen two of them today.”

“No wonder Julia wanted her brother’s assistance to raise the child.”

Degarde was watching Senneth very closely. She was a tall woman, but he could look her straight in the eye, and his expression was intent. “You put that fire out,” he said. “From across the room. You controlled it.”

Senneth would have thought everyone else was still focused on Halie—certainly Julia was—but Betony and Albert and Evelyn caught Degarde’s words. Evelyn laid her hand on Albert’s arm and pulled him back toward the table.

“What’s that? What’s he saying?” Albert demanded. The little girl’s near disaster had shaken him considerably. His jovial aspect had completely given way to a set look of solemnity.

Degarde gestured toward the fireplace. “Senneth. She waved her hands and the flames went out.
All
the flames in the room. Possibly in the entire house.”

“Just this room,” Senneth said coolly. She could hear, as if they were melodies being played in different keys, the fires in the kitchen grate and the downstairs parlor and the upstairs bedroom snapping and spitting. She could feel their gradations of heat brush along her skin as if they were breezes wafting in from a long and windy desert. “I can control exactly what my power touches.”

“Your power,” Albert repeated stupidly. He still had not comprehended what had happened.

Degarde had. “You’re a mystic,” he said, his voice flat and accusatory.

Senneth nodded. “I am.”

Albert actually stepped back at that. “A mystic? A—but that is—you can practice magic? You can cast spells?”

“I can call fire,” Senneth said. “And I can put it out. That is all my power encompasses.”

That was a lie, actually. A mastery of fire was her ultimate accomplishment, but Senneth had a little skill at some of the other magical talents as well. She could alter her appearance slightly, like a shape-shifter; her hands possessed an ability to heal, if the wound or illness was obvious and simple. It didn’t seem necessary to mention these details.

Albert swung his big head to look at Evelyn. “You introduced us to a mystic?” he asked.

Evelyn put her hands on her hips. “Senneth is my kinswoman, and a kinder, braver, more generous person you are unlikely to find!” she said fiercely. “Yes, she’s a mystic, but she has been persecuted for no reason! She has just saved that girl’s life! If you are so shallow and narrow-minded that you cannot tolerate another human being just because she is different from you, just because you don’t understand her, even when she has never done you any harm, and indeed she has done you great good, then—then—”

It was clear that in the heat of her defense, Evelyn had lost the thread of her argument. Senneth patted Evelyn’s shoulder. “Peace,” she said. “I am not hurt or offended. Do not lose your friendships over me. I’ll leave the house. I’m happy to go.”

“You will
not
go!” Evelyn said. “
They
will go if they cannot accept you!”

“It is just that no mystic has ever come my way before,” Albert said awkwardly. “Everyone says such dreadful things about them—but you are far from dreadful—that is—”

“I have been taught to despise them,” Degarde said quietly. “And yet, you are as far from despicable as it is possible to be.”

Senneth almost laughed. “Well. I suppose that is a compliment. But I do not want to make you uncomfortable. We can all part now, quite civilly. I will ask no more of you than that you not be so quick to judge the next mystic you meet.”

She wanted to step away from the table, out of the room, out of the tense situation, but Degarde deliberately put a hand on her shoulder. “Stay,” he said. “You have not given us an opportunity to recover from our shock. You have not given us a chance to express our gratitude. A mystic has saved my niece’s life. Therefore, I must feel admiration for all mystics.”

Betony and Julia were now crossing the room, Julia holding a sniffling Halie in her arms. The little girl was wrapped in a soft white blanket, since her ruined clothes had been stripped away, but Senneth didn’t see any gauze dressings peeking out. Had she truly caught the fire before it had time to scar the child’s delicate flesh? That fact alone would sweeten any bitterness this encounter would bring.