The Universal Mirror (10 page)

He was easy enough to find, after a moment’s glance. His shock of dark auburn hair stood out, flocked as it was by a crowd of young women, the tinkling of their laughter drifting across the floor. Quent said something, obviously meant to tease, and Asahel watched silently as the women around him tittered again. One leaned against his arm, staring up at him with fluttering pale eyes; her lips blushed with her smile.

His friend appeared not to notice. While his face was grinning, his eyes remained distant and Asahel took another drink as he looked for the reason why. Catharine.

That was who he headed for when he saw her. She stood apart, always, at any gathering- not because of her beauty but for the opposite. She had been marked by the Plagues. The hint of the years of pestilence could be seen throughout the room, with women artistically draping scarves and veils to hide the scars and weals that the sickness had left on those who suffered it young. Catharine did none of that, however- her deformities were left for the world to see, angry red blots against her pale skin, brown hair pulled defiantly back to display them. She was watching Quentin, drowned as he was in the sea of the young, her own young face still. Asahel could not read what she was thinking, though he suspected that he could imagine it.

Taking a deep breath, he began to walk towards where she stood, her feet motionless despite the gentle rhythm of fife and drum.

The observers at the sides of the room paused and he thought that he could hear a collective hush of surprise as he walked to her. Asahel stumbled into a slight bow, halted by her words.

“Stand up.” Catharine murmured. “They’re staring, as it is. Didn’t anyone ever teach you manners?”

He could feel his ears begin to redden as he pulled himself upright. Her mouth was pulled into a quirked smile. The expression looked wrong on her face- as if she didn’t quite know how to do it.

“I-”

“No need.” She broke the sentence with a wave, her eyes sparkling at him despite their darkness. “I think that I know who you are. My husband went to university with you- didn’t he?” Her voice was low enough for only him to hear as she leaned forward, a strand of brown hair falling from the tight knot pinned to her head. He wondered if Quentin was watching the both of them- they had never been formally introduced and so for her to know of him must mean that he had spoken of Asahel to her privately.

“He did.” Asahel said cautiously. “But we’ve never been introduced.”

“No,” she agreed sagely. “I don’t like introductions. Particularly not to Quentin’s crowd.” Her smile turned as both their heads craned to see the courtiers ringed in a circle near Quentin. The redhead had fallen silent but another man had taken his place, telling some sort of story that had blushes on every cheek but Quentin’s. Asahel suspected his friend wasn’t listening. He noticed that he was pointedly staring into a space separated from the two of them.

“I’m not part of them.”

“I noticed.” the woman said. It was obviously a reference to his clothing, fine but not expensively cut, or to the way that he held himself, slouching under her gaze. Her eyes grew kinder as she added, “I’m not either.” But her fingers betrayed her, moving with a grace that Asahel had seen only among that group as they fluttered before him, taking his hand, the pale of an unblemished wrist slipping loose from under gossamer fabric. He took it, as he had seen others do, lips pressing against it without hesitation before he released her. Her eyes appeared surprised at his willingness to touch her and he noticed that her hand hovered for a moment longer in the air than it needed to.

“Asahel Soames,” he said quietly.

“Catharine Gredara.” She tossed her hair back, the light catching a jagged scar near her eye. “But you already knew. This small talk- we’re going in circles. I think we’d better dance if you’ve something to tell me. Talking too much will have this lot thinking any manner of things.”

Stammering, Asahel said, “Do you like dancing? Quentin said you can’t stand it.”

“Quentin’s never asked.” Her hand fell against his as she began to move him to the ballroom floor. He could feel the stiffness in her skin, however. Whatever she said, it felt a lie as their palms met, a shiver in her own. They made an awkward pair as they began to move into the circle and he was thankful that this dance, at least, was slow. “I don’t think that you came to speak with me for no reason.”

“No, you’d be right.” He agreed. His foot took a step forward- she, he noticed, took two steps back. “I need to speak to Quent.”

“Then speak to him.”

Asahel’s eyes fixed upon her. He noticed that she was staring at the floor as she said it. All that was visible was the rich knot of brown hair, glistening in the soft lights of the floor, glinting red and golden in its shade. Candlelight was kind to her, making her hazy, the red pocks of her skin pinking in the soft light. Staring at the curve of her neck, he noticed that her heart was beating quickly, a blue vein throbbing against the skin.

“I can’t. You know that.”

“They’d eat you alive?” Catharine laughed harshly, still not looking up at him. “Oh, I know that. But I’m not his handmaid, to be carrying messages for whatever purpose the two of you may have dreamed up.”

“You’re his wife,” Asahel murmured.

“And his property?” Her tart tongue replied. “No, I’d say it’s more the opposite, perhaps. My father bought him- everyone knows that.”

His mouth dropped open, surprised that she would say a thing like that. As the music lifted, he spun her with the pattern of the dance, his hands firm on her back. He was facing Quentin now and he could see the other man’s face staring at his wife with a look that spoke of something precious lost.

“Don’t look shocked that I’ve caught you out.” He felt her hands grip his hard for a moment until he was forced to look at the woman, her eyes flashing. “What is it about then? Some shipment of spices or some investment that he’s absolutely got to fund? You wouldn’t be the first ‘friend’ of his to try and profit from his good fortune.”

“I just want to talk to him.”

“About what?”

Asahel stilled. The sudden halt sent them both jerking slightly to the side and she gasped slightly as he wrenched her hand. The other dancers moved around them smoothly as she stared up at him, pulling her wrist away and rubbing it where he had gripped too hard. Quentin began to move from the far wall and he saw that he only had a moment before his friend reached the both of them.

She saw it too and whispered, her voice sharp, “About what?”

“I can’t tell you,” he said. “Not now. But it’s important- tell Quentin we have to talk.” And he realized how ridiculous that was as the other man reached the place where they were standing, his eyes glittering green like a snake about to strike.

“Catharine.” Quentin’s voice said, with a pinched air clearly meant for Asahel himself. The pair of them had agreed at the beginning of their studies never to speak in public. “Is this man bothering you?”

This man. He stepped back, his hands releasing hers as she looked into his eyes.

“No.” She didn’t look away from Asahel as she said it, her head giving one quick nod even as her eyes told him to walk. Quentin’s hand reached for hers after Asahel had released it and he noticed that she slipped her fingers back to fingering the folds of her dress so that he couldn’t take it. He saw Quent’s lip suck in, then pause as he began to walk with his wife away from the ballroom floor.

“Could I ask you for a dance then?” He heard his friend say as the couple began to blend into the crowd.

“No,” and her voice cut sharply through the longing cry of the violins. “I don’t dance.”

Bells were ringing in the distance, the clanging breaking the occasional cry of the fishwives as they shouted to one another on the docks. A large fish went flying through the air as Quentin passed a booth, stopping to gawk at the silvery scales that shone in the light above him and the stout woman who caught it, hugging it tightly to her chest as it wriggled downwards. Coppers rained in the air over his head as she tossed them to the vendor, then went scuttling down the cobblestones, her body almost rolling in its uneven gait.

“Fish?” A man jumped in front of him, waving a piece of a fin. “Fish for the gentleman?”

“No, thank you,” Quentin managed, his face struggling not to break into laughter. “Against my religion.” It appeared to confuse the man and he pushed past, his grin surfacing as he hurried down the narrow alley towards the docks. He wondered to himself if there ever had been a religion to forbid such a thing and decided that probably there hadn’t.

There was something within him that always sang out as he stepped on the narrow boards that comprised the docks owned by the Soames family. The boards themselves were old, patched in places and near to rotting in others, but he could sense care in those that had been repaired. It could have been the magic in them, given that Asahel himself could often be seen on bended knee, pounding nail after nail into the wood, but Quentin liked to think of it as something more. An affinity with the island itself, perhaps. His feet skipped across the boards, pausing as they saw Asahel.

Catharine had told him little of what his friend had discussed with her, giving him no more than the fact that Asahel had asked to speak with him. He wondered at the fact that the other man hadn’t come to him directly, promise or not.

Asahel read that uncertainty in his eyes. His mouth stuttered out a “Hello” as he drove a last nail into a protruding board, then picked up the hammer and clumsily rose to his feet.

“Fixing things?” Quentin asked. He shifted slightly, eyeing the shorter man. His fingers reached up to his head, nervously smoothing his hair down.

“Yes.” He looked down at the dock, smile fading as he amended, “Sort of.”

“Are all of your- boats- out?” He didn’t know the words for any of what Asahel did. The merchant trade to him was as foreign as another country would have been. Prior to their friendship, Quentin had never stopped to consider whether or not people were involved in bringing things like silk and cinnamon to Cercia. It had been as if those things simply appeared- after all, they had always been there.

“Ships,” Asahel’s smile turned genuine. “And yes, yes, they are.” He laughed shyly. “You’ll never stop calling them boats, will you?”

“No, probably not.” Quent agreed, nodding as he walked towards Asahel. The pair of them began walking towards the end of the dock, the long breadth of it stretching out far into the coastal waters. It churned beneath their feet, a dark blue gone to black in places, splashing up against the pilings with a rhythm they could have counted to, if they chose. Their feet kept time to the beat, walking as they did with no words exchanged between the two of them. It was one of the things that Quentin valued most about Asahel- the comfortable silences.

As they reached the dock, Asahel broke it, saying, “Have you ever been on a boat? Ship, I mean?” He settled himself on the boards, legs swinging against the piling as he sat, the waves below not high enough to touch.

“No.” Quentin said. “My parents felt that there was no point to showing me the things I couldn’t have.”

“Couldn’t- oh.” Those who used magic became tied to Cercia forever, will and strength destroyed with any attempt to leave the island. Asahel had not been destined for the university.  Instead, his mother had chosen him for the sea. There had never been a magician among the Soames family, his talent an aberration.

“Have you?” Quentin realized that, for all the time spent together in the colleges, there was little that he actually knew about Asahel. He had simply never asked. His friend nodded simply but with longing as he turned to the waters, dark eyes drinking it in. A gull called above them and he leaned back, watching the birds swoop over the horizon, gray wings striking at the clouds. His eyes closed as he laid back on the wood, kicking his legs up on the air and relishing the feeling of the sunlight on his stomach, warm and soothing.

He could hear the sound of paper unfolding near him but Asahel remained quiet. Quentin kept his eyes closed, listening to the waves and the sound of his own breathing until he felt something flutter against his chest. Hand reaching down, he blinked to see what Asahel had dropped on his shirt.

“I think you ought to read it,” was all Asahel said as he stood up, then walked away, leaning against the wooden railing and staring back at the shore.

Quentin’s fingers suddenly started to sweat as he peeled back the folds, the crisp parchment sticking to his skin. The ink was in a hand he didn’t recognize, the words equally strange as he stared down at them. He had to read it twice before he understood, his mouth moving silently as he said it to himself.

“Someone saw us?” He said, disbelieving. Quentin looked up at Asahel but the other man wasn’t looking back. “But how?”

“Does it matter how?” The man’s lower lip was reddened, chapped with slight marks from his teeth. “Look at who it’s addressed to.”

He turned it over. Asahel Soames.

“You. So? What do you mean by that?”

“I mean-” Asahel’s breath caught, then released. He spoke slowly, as if he was talking to a child. “I mean that you’ve not gotten one of these, have you?”

“No,” Quentin said, then added quickly, “Not that Catharine’s said.”