After that, the conversation veers toward the weather, the river, and how well the family gardens and fields seem to be doing. There are no sweets following the main course. Sweets and desserts are reserved for special occasions … or for formal dinners with outsiders.
The first to leave the dining terrace after dinner are Emerya, Amaira, and Ryalah. Ryalah will be put to bed by her mother, not her nurse, because Emerya has refused to turn her daughter over to a nurse except during the day when she is at the Hall of Healing. That has been true from the time of Amaira’s birth … another family matter that is never discussed. Lerial still recalls the tongue-lashing his mother delivered when he’d insisted on asking why a second time … and the fact that she’d said that if it ever came up again, his father would handle the matter.
At age eight, Lerial hadn’t been willing to risk that. He still isn’t. He just listens.
“… bows like the Rational Archers used…”
“… ironmages … even with cupridium … can’t get the flexibility…”
“Local yew works better…”
“We’re losing too much of what we had, ser,” insists Lephi.
“Your grandmother,” interjects Xeranya quietly, “said that trying to reclaim too much at once was foolish.”
“… still seems wrong…”
After a time, Lerial looks to his sire.
“You want to leave, Lerial?”
“Yes, ser.”
“Where are you going?” asks Kiedron. “Sneaking off somewhere?”
“No, ser. Aunt Emerya said it was time to see if I could learn anything about wound healing … after a fight, I mean.”
“Well … pay attention. That can’t hurt. She’s a good healer.”
“Who needs to be a healer?” asks Lephi. “If you’re good enough, you don’t need healing.”
“Your men might,” replies Xeranya. “I’ve healed more of your father’s Lancers than I can recall.” Her voice is pleasant and even.
Lephi stiffens at the look she bestows on him and immediately responds. “I can see that. Some of them aren’t as good as Father.”
And neither are you. But Lerial does not speak those words. Instead, he leaves the dining terrace and makes his way toward the west end of the south corridor on the second level, one of the warmer quarters in the palace, not particularly comfortable in summer. The corridor guard nods politely as Lerial passes and walks to the last doorway on the left. He raps firmly, then eases the door ajar. “Aunt Emerya? I’m here.”
“Just take a seat somewhere. I’m still putting Amaira to bed. I’ll be there in a moment.”
“Please don’t hurry for me.” Lerial steps into the chamber that serves as sitting room and study for his aunt and closes the door behind himself.
“I won’t.”
Lerial can hear the hint of a smile in her voice, even from the adjoining sleeping chamber she shares, by choice and not necessity, with her daughter. He takes the straight chair by the window looking out to the south. The inner shutters, closed during the day to keep out the heat that will get worse as spring turns to summer, are open, although with the evening breeze coming out of the north, the sitting room is still uncomfortably warm. To the south are the palace grounds, mostly gardens in tended raised beds with oranges, lemons, limes, and figs. There are no pearapples, for most of Hamor is too hot, except in the far south, in places like Sastok and Plyath, or so he has heard. Pearapples do not travel well, and he has only heard his father, mother, and aunt occasionally lament their absence. Beyond the walls that enclose the gardens and protect the family, not that they need much of that now, are the dwellings and shops that stretch to the south. To the east, of course, and down a gradual slope, is the river. Farther to the west are hills, and the springs that feed the aqueduct that serves the palace. Lerial continues to gaze out the window as he hears his aunt singing.
“There was a pretty little city on a sea of blue,
and a pretty little girl who looked a lot like you,
and the girl and her mother loved the green and white
that flooded from the great grand Palace of Light
when the sun had set and she saw the night
and the stars of glory shined out so bright…”
Hearing the song, Lerial couldn’t help but think of Amaira. She is eight. She has dark brown curly hair and brown eyes, unlike anyone else in the family. She laughs a lot, also unlike most of the Magi’i and their children. She and Ryalah play together, almost as if they were sisters, rather than cousins. Lerial can’t help but like Amaira, but no one has ever talked about her father … or who he might have been.
His aunt had never consorted. That he knows. He also knows that she has never been particularly interested in any of the younger Magi’i. Of course, no one pressed her, not when there are so few men among those her age because most of them had died when the Accursed Forest had destroyed the cities of Cyador … and Lerial’s grandsire and most of the chaos-wielding Magi’i and all but the two companies of Mirror Lancers that his grandmother had used to take the Kerial and transport the survivors to Hamor … and Cigoerne.
As he half listens and waits, Lerial cannot help but wonder how his grandmere had managed it. The older he got, the more improbable it seemed. Yet it had happened. At the silence from the bedchamber and the sound of the door closing, Lerial stands and turns.
“Are you ready?” asks Emerya.
“I am.” He almost says, “ser,” but refrains because his aunt doesn’t like that form of respect applied to women, even though Grandmother Mairena had insisted on it for herself. But then, there are few women, except healers, in positions of authority in Cigoerne, and none, so far as Lerial knows, in Afrit.
“By the way,” asks his aunt, “do you recall from where the name Cigoerne comes?”
“An ancient bird from the Rational Stars,” he replies, “like the one on the old, old box that you have.”
“That box came from the worlds of the Rational Stars. Your grandmother Mairena said that such boxes were often given to healers, much in the way that healers were given the gold and malachite bracelets in Cyador. But there’s an irony in that.” Emerya smiles ruefully. “Do you know what it is?”
Lerial frowns. He’s never heard about this.
“What skill must good healers have?”
“Control of order.”
“What are the colors of order and chaos?”
“Chaos is white, usually mixed with red or orange.”
“Gold, not orange.”
“Order is black.” For a moment, Lerial pauses, then says, involuntarily, “Oh … but if they were given white…”
“Exactly.” Emerya shrugs. “But then, all the old books, the ones lost in Cyad, said that the way everything worked was somehow different in the worlds of the Rational Stars.”
“How could that be? How could things be different?”
“They can be. Even here, things are often different from what people say or think. Healing is sometimes like that.”
“Is that why it will help me in sparring against Lephi?”
“In time, Lerial. In time. What you need to learn will take time and effort, and you will have to practice what I show you, but only around me or when you are alone. Later, you’ll be able to show your mother, but not now.”
“What about Father?”
Emerya shakes her head. “Kiedron is like many of the Magi’i. He can sense and use chaos, but he is blind to order. Order-blindness is not infrequent among the Magi’i, but the great Emperors of the past, such as Alyiakal and Lorn, could sense and use both.”
“Not Kerial?”
“We don’t know about him. There were no records about him, either of his appearance or his magely talents … or if he had any.” At Lerial’s disbelieving look, she adds, “Either he destroyed such records or his nephew did. He had no children, remember?”
Lerial recalls that … but only after her reminder.