"No. Never. What is it?"
She dragged me back to my feet and through an open doorway into a long, low-roofed building—a garden workshop. On one side were pots and shovels, barrows, barrels of dirt, and wooden tables on which sat trays of seedlings ready to be set out in the rich black soil of the valley. But one long table was topped with a slab of gray stone, and on it lay a variety of plants and flowers, feathers and twigs, each one partially encased in thin layers of pale gray.
"Do you understand now? Though I knew of it from childhood, I'd never seen shellstone for myself until we found a deposit in Grithna Vale. If you lay an object— anything, a natural object or a model that you've made from wood or clay or steel—on the slab and don't move it, the stone will grow around it, preserving the exact shape. Even as the stone grows thicker, the details are all retained. A fresh and lovely rose will look fresh and lovely forever."
I started to ask if she didn't miss the smell or the color, but I didn't want to spoil her pleasure. The sculptures were indeed marvelous. A natural material of this world—that explained why I'd felt no prickling or coolness to indicate enchantment.
"The gardener, who is truly a Stone Shaper, takes the individual pieces—the flowers, the stems, the trellises, the insects or other creatures—along with sculpted pieces of his own invention, and he arranges and links them together to accomplish his vision."
Once I had expressed sufficient admiration for her "gardener's" talents, we rode out for Tymnath, a sizable town with a bustling market three leagues south of Gaelic Over the past weeks we had made frequent visits to Tymnath market. With the same amusement, wonder, and delight as the children who ran barefoot through the lanes, we had picked up and put down everything we found there: jewelry and fabrics, cooking pots and music boxes, games, artworks, and magical devices of infinite variety. I had never imagined such magical things existed, invented just to entertain or amuse. We had eaten every kind of foodstuff that was offered: little pastries filled with bitter fruit, sugared leaves, savory skewered bits of meat, shellfish in butter so spicy D'Sanya turned red and drank three cups of saffria before dissolving in laughter, and wine so potent I had to sit in the middle of the lane for a quarter of an hour before I could walk straight again.
On this day several artisans had set up a display of painted silks, some already sewn into scarves and gowns, some raw lengths hung from frames taller than my head. The designs and rich dyes confused the eye, forming colors I could not name and shapes that were not imprinted on the fabric itself, but only on my mind.
As we turned to go, I glimpsed Sefaro's daughter leaning against the side of a sausage-seller's cart, watching us. Did the woman truly travel so far just to spy on us?
I took D'Sanya's arm and led her away from the central market. A woman strolling toward us with a child at each hand stopped suddenly, staring at D'Sanya, her jaw falling open.
"Ah, not yet," D'Sanya murmured. "If we could have just a little while longer to ourselves . . ."
"The Lady!" whispered the woman, trying to be polite without taking her eyes from D'Sanya's face. Bowing awkwardly and raising her hands, she elbowed her children, a pale boy and a girl wearing a pink ribbon in her hair. "Your hands, J'Kor, Ma'Denne. It's the enchanted princess." The gaping children raised their palms and bobbed their heads.
D'Sanya nodded quickly and hurried onward, propelling me through the crowded lanes of the market, turning her face toward my shoulder so people could not see her straight on.
Someone always recognized D'Sanya on our outings. Word would spread through the market-goers, and before very long a crowd would gather around her, people begging for help, for healing, for blessings, for relief from their fears. Some people only wanted to touch her, or to have her say their names, thinking some wonder would come of it. She gave everything she could, always apologizing to me with a glance before delving into their problems: listening, healing, touching, comforting.
I had worried at first that someone would be curious about me, start to ask questions I couldn't answer, and uncover my false identity. But I soon learned that no one ever looked at me if D'Sanya was nearby. When she tired, she would glance at me over their heads, and while she told her petitioners where to apply for more help or when she might return, I would stretch out my arms and make a way for her to retreat through the press.
We hurried into the quieter streets of houses and shops before the word could spread too far. "Perhaps we should just go," I said, slowing her pace. "We could ride back through Caernaille. Stop at the ponds and watch the blue herons." For some reason this day had felt sour from its beginning; I couldn't bear the thought of the reverent, babbling crowd or all the Dar'Nethi magic that would grate on my spirit like sand in my boot.
She smiled up at me and squeezed my arm. "I've never known anyone so shy as you. Behind your gentlemanlike manner you've the reflexes of a cat, the strength of a bear, and the eye of a seer. I've a guess that not ten men in all of Gondai could best you in a test of mundane combat, or even if they brought their own sorcery to bear for that matter. So it cannot be lack of confidence or fear for our safety that frets you so. Your voice neither stammers nor grates. You are ravishingly handsome and so graceful in posture it cannot be uncertainty as to your welcome . . ."
"Lady, you flatter me too much."
She spun around to face me, taking my hands and walking backward down the lane, evidently trusting me to keep her from falling into potholes or tripping over gutters and lampposts. ". . . and certainly no dullness of intellect keeps you back. Your mind is as keen and bright as an enchanted blade, and new learning brings your face to life. I've learned that when you squint in just a certain way, your mind is racing, questioning and formulating answers, all inside yourself. Yet once we're outside the hospice grounds, you never speak a word to anyone but me. I'll wager a year's breakfasts that you would never come to even so tame a place as Tymnath market if I didn't force you."
"Most likely not."
"Well," she said, taking my arm and squeezing it to her side, walking frontward again, "for today I will indulge your fancy, but in the future we shall work on your social skills. You must learn to enjoy yourself in all ways!"
We strolled through the lanes that skirted the marketplace, poking into a luthier's shop to watch the master steam and shape and join the thin slices of wood that would form the shell of a new instrument. We found a jeweler's cart, and I bought D'Sanya a jade comb she admired—a gift she allowed only because it was unlike anything she already owned. She adored jewelry, never leaving her door without three or four rings on each hand, bracelets on her wrist or arms or ankles, and something dangling from her neck. The pieces were most often pure goldwork or silver, sometimes set with gemstones, though never garish or overdone. But she wouldn't allow me to buy her more, saying she had enough.
When we came to the hostler's yard at the edge of the town to reclaim our horses, we found a furor. Twenty people or more were clustered around a small party of horsemen. From the center of the crowd came thuds, grunts, and shouts. A horse squealed and reared. Curses and epithets flew through the air, along with rumbling blasts of enchantment that unsettled my stomach.
"P'Tor, fetch the Winder!" a man shouted. A youth in bright red and green burst out of the shifting crowd and streaked past us toward the center of town, his long braid flying.
A man screamed in pain as a sharp crack split the air above the fight, a streak of darkness that might have been the absolute reversal of lightning. Many in the group drew back. And then came a low, soul-grating hiss that chilled the day, shadowing the sun as surely as a rising storm cloud.