The Bronze Mage (10 page)

"You have to help me! Melanie is lost underground."

"Your sister is fine," he said. "How was your homecoming?"

Shaking her head, Tabitha insisted, "You need to get her out. It's too small for a person. I don't even know how she got in there."

"It's a dream, Tabitha. Tell me..."

But the shock of recognizing it was a dream woke her. She looked around her room. Melanie was asleep in her own bed. The sky was beginning to grow light outside the window. She rose and forgot the dream.

Tabitha made a public appearance at court that morning. The next day she walked with a pair of guards through the market, so people could see she was sane and unharmed. That first weekend she attended a ball which was hastily thrown together by the family of Melanie's closest friend to celebrate her safe return. Hoping to quell fears and rumors, she and her family shared the basics of her story freely on all of these occasions. They left out the existence of the necklace and the letter.

After each appearance, the story was shared even more freely, and embellished generously, by the listeners.

Without consulting Tabitha, her father disposed of James's presents. The necklace was placed in the royal treasury. The horse, whose name she had shortened to King,
 
was given to her brother. The black and silver tack was put in storage. She found it curious that her father did not blatantly reject the gifts. Tabitha was even allowed to keep the new riding outfit, though she couldn't imagine wearing it. Its description had become well-known, since the guards hadn't been forbidden from describing it or the horse she'd ridden. Wearing it again would simply incite gossip.
 

To be accurate, wearing the dress would incite
more
gossip. Despite all of her family's efforts to make the truth available, rumors abounded. The fact that the rumors contained strands of reality lent them credence. Too many people who'd encountered James during his attempted take-over reinterpreted the facts of Tabitha's encounter with him in light of his past character and exploits. The general consensus seemed to be that James would reclaim Tabitha-- and somehow use her to claim her father's throne.

Mage Crandall had a similar theory. He was still stoutly convinced James meant to marry Tabitha, though he could never come up with a reasonable motivation for this. His belief was based on the value of the necklace. Tabitha was unsure. She never did hear from her father what was contained in the letter James had sent with her. She thought that very unfair, since it almost certainly involved her. But whatever it had said, whatever her father's reaction, King Rhys kept it to himself.

James himself had little to say on the subject. Not that she saw him in person, just in her dreams. She had nightmares every night. Sometimes she was lost in the enchanted forest. Or trapped alone back in the cabin. Or buried under the collapsed earth of the tunnel she'd been digging to escape. Wherever she was, she was always alone at the beginning of the dream. Sometimes she'd wake herself, breathless and terrified. Sometimes James would incongruously wander into the dream and just start talking to her as if nothing was going on. His voice always jolted her out of the dream before he'd finished a sentence. She'd wake confused, but not afraid.

Tabitha didn't have much time to spend worrying about rumors herself. Not after her first week back at home. Never one to beat a dead horse, once her father determined her appearances in public were doing little to allay the fears of his people, he stopped bringing her out. Instead, Tabitha spent hours each day in Mage Crandall's workshop. He was commissioned by her father to "remove every trace of that mage from my daughter." Though the king hadn't actually used the word "mage" in that sentence. His ire toward James seemed to be increasing as time passed. Or maybe his stoic facade was beginning to crumble.

Melanie was was the only one apparently pleased by the spell. After she was given permission to assist Mage Crandall, she bubbled with excitement. That night she confided to Tabitha that this was her first taste of "real" magic. Not some classroom exercise, but a true challenge from a real opponent. The chance to put her training into practice-- finally. She was certain she (with Mage Crandall's help) would have it off Tabitha before she returned to school. What stories she could tell!

Tabitha failed to share her sister's enthusiasm. Even the childhood curiosity she'd felt about the court mage's workshop vanished as she first entered it. The implements and ingredients were less fascinating once you realized you were essentially one of the jarred specimens. At first, she was nervous. Then there was the boredom of sitting around having strange words chanted at her. Later the words were accompanied by pungent incenses that gave her headaches or made her dizzy. This was succeeded by bitter teas and nauseating potions. She spent her days restless and uncomfortable. Her nights were much the same.

Although she still had nightmares every night, now they were mostly about the experiments. Oddly, James still occasionally wandered into them. He seemed less incongruous now, almost as worried as she was by the context of her nightmares. Since he fit better into the dream, his voice didn't wake her as quickly.

"What is going on, Tabitha?" he asked one time, when he found her in a dream where she'd been transformed into a mouse, hiding from her sister and Mage Crandall.

"Shhhh! They'll hear you!" Evidently she could still speak like a human in the dream. "They want to skin me and see if that will turn me back human. It's the mouse pelt that transformed me, you know."

"Are they experimenting on you?" He seemed angry. "Does your father know? What are they really doing, Tabitha?"

But when she tried to answer, she realized it was a dream and woke up. And so it went. Sometimes she woke as soon as she saw him now, since his presence confirmed she was dreaming.

After several weeks of upset stomachs, headaches, and being told to "
please
sit still", Tabitha voiced her newly formed opinion that since the spell didn't do anything, they should just leave it alone.
 

Mage Crandall dissented. He believed that anything Mage James wanted on Tabitha was something they definitely needed to remove. Her father adamantly agreed. Yet despite Mage Carandall's and Melanie's continuing efforts, James's mysterious spell not only remained on Tabitha, but was growing stronger. Melanie said it was like watching a creeper vine encircle a tree. The image was not a pleasant one.
 

Though not without protest, Tabitha cooperated with all of their experiments until Mage Crandall brought out a silver knife. Since nothing else seemed to be working, he proposed trying some of the less-officially-sanctioned magics that would require the use of Tabitha's blood. She bolted from the tower to her father's office and raised such a fuss that the king finally agreed to terminate the experiments.

Having admitted temporary defeat, the two mages sequestered themselves in the library, looking for references to similar spells. As long as they didn't find something soon, Tabitha could relax. Melanie would be leaving for school in Westphal shortly and Mage Crandall was already getting more frequently interrupted by his regular duties, whatever those were. Tabitha hoped they were complicated and time-consuming.

THIRTEEN

Repercussions

Tabitha was ready for life to get back to normal. Although she couldn't honestly say she was looking forward to resuming her studies, she felt the familiar schedule would not be unwelcome. It did seem ironic to her that the same event that had finally piqued her interest in Xentian history and politics would end her instruction in those subjects, since she was no longer to be sent there as an ambassador. As Tabitha had suspected, her parents were now planning to assign her to Westphal. Tabitha had every ambition of proving herself just as mediocre a student for her Westphalian instructor as she had for her Xentian one.

There were only two things Tabitha was truly anxious to restart. Before her abduction, she used to train with the arms master daily and ride her mare as often as she could steal away from her tutors. Since she couldn't devote as much time to the training as the guards were required to, she had twice demoted herself to a younger group. In this way, she'd acquired a camaraderie with most of them, since she'd either trained with or received training from nearly every guard at some point or other. Her father and the arms master didn't mind, as long as no friendships extended past the practice yard.

The first day she was free, Tabitha bounded down the stairs and out the door. She ran around to the guards' training yard and found the arms master running drills with some of the older trainees.

"Master Humphrey! I'm ready to train!" she shouted as she hopped the fence surrounding the practice yard. Usually at this point he would wave her into a place in the formation or to the back of the line. Instead he motioned for his assistant to take over the drill. He walked over to Tabitha looking worried.

"Your highness, I thought when you hadn't come before that it was understood?"

"I couldn't come before. Mage Crandall had me stuck in his workshop for weeks! I know I'm out of practice, but this was the earliest I could get here. I promise I won't slow you down."

"Princess Tabitha, that's not the problem. I'm sorry. Things are different. We can't have you training with the guards. There'll be talk."

"Why should there be talk? I've been training with you since I was ten years old."

"But you're not ten now, highness. You're a young lady. And excuse me for saying it, but your recent misfortune has caused a lot of jawing. We can't have people thinking you see the guards as equals. You spend too much time alone with 'em. Can't have the boys thinking you're one of 'em anymore either."

Tabitha felt as if he'd punched her in the stomach. She turned, climbed back over the fence, and walked away, not breathing for as long as she could. The first suck of air broke into a sob, but by then she thought she was far enough that no one could hear it.

 
She circled to the south side of the castle, to her private garden. She walked up to the empty base where James had stood glaring down at her for years. If a statue of him had remained, she would've kicked it. His selfish decision had profited him but cost her. But the base was empty.

She sat on the base and tried to imagine what her life would be like once she became an ambassador. That horror she couldn't pin on James. It was more than a random hope of her parents that if no one in Valstadt wanted her, maybe someone somewhere else would. Also, if she wasn't going to marry, she would need an occupation. Her parents had given up on her awfully quickly. Then again, Melanie had had admirers queuing up since she'd turned twelve and she wouldn't be truly eligible until she finished magic school in three years. Tabitha's uncertain future had been hanging over her head without her even realizing it. She decided it was time to start looking for a more suitable career.

Beginning that day, Tabitha set herself to find something she could do well around the castle. Basically, she kept busy and hoped a revelation would come to her. Whenever she finished with her studies, she searched the castle for someone she might assist. Very quickly she learned to avoid the housekeeper, who wouldn't let her help with "menial tasks unbefitting a princess" and kept assigning her embroidery. Tabitha hated needlework with a passion. Likewise, Cook wouldn't let her anywhere near the kitchen, which she deemed "Too messy for your highness" but sent Tabitha to the seneschal to help manage accounts. The bookkeeping kept putting her to sleep.

As the days wore on, she found herself shadowing her father's field marshal more consistently. To Tabitha's relief, he grew to appreciate his unofficial apprentice, even calling her from her schooling occasionally if he had need of her. Tabitha found she had a head for the "housekeeping" side of running a military: payroll, duty rosters, training schedules, supplies. These numbers didn't put her to sleep, because they were more than just numbers to her.

At night she was physically tired enough to fall asleep quickly. And the nightmares were becoming more rare. Mostly, she didn't remember her dreams at all. When she did, it was just scenes. Sometimes she saw James, but he never spoke unless it was a nightmare. His voice still woke her, but his silence made her sad.

###

The fall equinox passed. Melanie left for school. James was now established as Court Mage of Xentia. Correspondence had flown back and forth between King Fenril and King Rhys for a while, both before and after James's appointment to the post. Rumors of hostility between the kingdoms had spread like wildfire. Listening to her father, Tabitha herself wondered if the alliance would fail. But James had judged correctly that it would all come to nothing. The alliance was important to the survival of both kingdoms. The nation-gobbling empires that stretched north of Xentia and south of Valstadt were like parents forcing children to get along. Neither of the two smaller kingdoms wanted to face them alone. So James got his appointment and King Rhys officially endorsed the decision as "in the best interest of both countries."

Much to Tabitha's irritation, the fading of the war rumors seemed to increase the speculation about her relationship with Xentia's new court mage. People seemed to think political expedience wasn't reason enough for her father to overlook his transgression. There needed to be a more personal spin. Now, instead of him using Tabitha to gain Valstadt's throne, the more romantic souls believed the polished rogue had fallen for the gauche princess, and that he had finally provided her father with proof of his sincerity. The "proof" varied according to the teller. Cynics speculated that maybe she hadn't been kidnapped at all, just seduced and abandoned like so many others. They believed her father had been more angry at her return than her "abduction," but that King Fenril, or James himself, had paid a hefty fine for the mage's insult to the princess, and now everyone was fine, except of course the heart-broken and dishonored princess. Unfortunately, when it came to Mage James, Valstadt had a lot more cynics than romantics.