When he reached their meeting place by the old stone bridge beyond the outskirts of the city, Sara was waiting for him, her small body lithe and slender in a thin summer dress and her long golden hair unbound like a blaze of sunbeams. Anvar ran toward her, his heart pounding, but the expression on her face stopped him dead.
“What’s wrong, love?” Anvar put his arms around her, trying to stifle his hurt at the stiffening of her body and the way her eyes avoided his.
“I’m pregnant. I’m pregnant, Anvar!”
“But that’s wonderful!” Her words had shocked him, true, but nevertheless, Anvar felt a fierce, overriding surge of pride. Sara turned on him, her eyes wild.
“Wonderful?” she cried. “What’s wonderful about it, you idiot? What will Father say? This is all your fault!” Tears poured down her cheeks. “What am I going to do?” she wailed.
Anvar led her down the grassy bank to the riverside and sat her down gently, putting an arm around her. “Don’t worry, Sara,” he said. “I’ll ta^k to your father. It’ll be all right, I promise. Oh, there’ll be shouting from our families, and a few things said about being more careful, and what will people say, but it’ll blow over. They know how things stand between us, and they’ve always approved. We’ll just have to bring our plans forward, that’s all.”
“But I didn’t want to get married yet!” cried Sara. “I’d hoped that ... I mean I—I haven’t lived\”
Her words cut him to the quick. Anvar stared at her, suddenly feeling icy cold. “But I thought you wanted to marry me,” he said. He took a deep breath. “Sara, have you changed your mind?” He saw the quick flare of panic in her eyes.
“No!” she said hastily. “No—look Anvar, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. I’m just upset, that’s all. And frightened.” She stared up at him with huge violet eyes. “Anvar, please. I—I need you.”
Sara’s lovemaking that night had a frenzied, almost desperate quality. Again and again she wanted him, as though to blot out her worries with the physical act. Anvar had no objections. He thought he understood, and besides, the fact that the one he loved was now bearing his child made her doubly precious to him.
Anvar awoke late next morning, cold and stiff and damp from the dew, and in the harsh light of day, he began to worry after all, about what their families would say. “Look,” he said to Sara, “why don’t you come with me now and we’ll talk to my mother. She’s the best person to break the news to.”
Sara bit her lip. “Do I have to? Can’t you tell her, Anvar?” she whined.
“No.” Anvar took her firmly by the hand. “We’ll have to face this sooner or later. Come on—I’m late already, and Mother will have to open up on her own. She never could manage to light that blasted oven.” He set off quickly along the path, with Sara trailing reluctantly behind him.
When they arrived at the Arcade, a crowd of impatient customers had gathered outside the shop, and Anvar and Sara had to shoulder their way through. As they entered, Anvar saw Ria kneeling amid a haphazard pile of kindling and tinder, struggling, as usual, to light the oven.
What happened next would be etched on Anvar’s memory forever, returning over and over to haunt his worst nightmares.
As they entered, he saw his mother take the oil lamp from the shelf and pour its contents over the logs. “No!” he screamed, but it was too late. Ria struck a spark and the oven exploded in a sheet of flame, trapping her behind a wall of fire with her hair and clothes alight.
To the end of his days, Anvar had no idea how it happened. Afterward, all he could remember was shouting “STOP!” in a superhuman voice. A huge surge of force came out of nowhere, flattening him against the wall—and the flames went out. Immediately. Totally. Anvar crumpled to the floor, weak and dizzy. He tore his eyes from the blackened, smoking thing that was his mother to see Sara staring at him, her eyes filled with horror, her mouth open in a soundless scream.
Someone fetched the baker. Anvar vaguely remembered his father’s hands around his throat, and Tori’s voice screaming. “You did this! You killed her!”
Still in shock and sick with guilt, Anvar made no move to defend himself. It took four men to drag the baker off him. Even when Tori was calmer, and had heard exactly what had happened, he eyed his son with cold hatred. People in the Arcade rallied round. Someone offered to take the weeping Sara back to her family, and the cheesemaker from the next stall took Anvar and his father home. Ria’s body followed, wrapped in blankets, on another cart. A kindly neighbor put Anvar to bed, and gave him a draught to make him sleep.
Anvar was awakened by voices. “I’ve housed your bastard long enough,” Tori was saying, his voice thick with venom. “It was my one chance to get a woman like Ria to accept me. She’d never say who the father was—I thought it must be some merchant who was too grand to marry her after her family lost their money. But after the way Anvar put that fire out—and a dozen witnesses will back my word—it’s clear that his father was one of your people, Sir.”
“Indeed?” The other voice was gruff and harsh. “This is a grave accusation, baker. You know that matings between Mortal and Magefolk are not acceptable to either community.”
“I know, Sir. But I think that was why Ria was abandoned when she became pregnant. And what Anvar did today proves it—so with all due tesgect, he’s your responsibility now. I don’t care what you do with him, just so long as you get him out of here. I never want to set eyes on him again!”
There was a long pause, then the other spoke again. “Very well—on condition that you deny the whole story. If there was a lapse by one of the Magefolk, I don’t want it to become common gossip. Will you sign an indenture bonding him to my service for the rest of his life?”
“I’ll sign anything, if it’ll get rid of him.”
“Then I’ll take him with me now.” A rough hand shook Anvar’s shoulder, and he found himself staring up into the craggy, eagle face of the Archmage himself! “Get up, boy,” he snapped. “Come with me!”
“Get a move on, fool!” In a temper, Miathan jerked the rope that bound the wrists of his new bondservant and kicked his horse forward, increasing the pace. The young man fell with a wailing cry, skinning hands and knees already scraped raw from previous falls during his stumbling journey through the city streets. The Archmage had ridden on for several yards before he realized that this time, the boy had failed to get up, and was being dragged behind like a sack of bones.
Miathan reined in with a curse. It only needed one interfering guard to come along—and he’d be the center of far more attention than he wished. .He dismounted, thanking providence that the hour was late, and most folk were off the streets. Anvar lay in the gutter—where he belonged, the Archmage thought spitefully—sobbing quietly. “Get up, you!” Miathan unleashed his rage with a vicious kick, but his victim simply whimpered, and lay there unmoving. “Oh Gods—this is all I need!” Miathan muttered savagely. With angry, magically impelled strength, he lifted Anvar and threw him roughly across his saddle. He tried not to look at the boy’s face, with its resemblance to Ria. She’s dead now, he reminded himself. Dead at last.
As he led the horse down the steeply sloping lane toward the bridge, Miathan found himself wondering how she had managed to hide herself and her son for all these years. Had she <...> he never have allowed her to bear this halfblood <...> been, to allow himself to be allured by a Mortal in the first place!
It was part of Miathan’s Magefolk arrogance that he had nothing but contempt for the Mortals with whom he shared his world and his city, thinking of them as little more than animals. It was particularly unfortunate for Anvar that his discovery had come at this time, when the Archmage was still smarting from Aurian’s defection, and her unfortunate, unanticipated friendship with the despised and lowly race. Because he was anxious to retain her respect and goodwill, in order to foster his future plans for her, he had been forced into the invidious and humiliating position of making concessions to Forral and Vannor that he would never otherwise have countermanded.