“Yes,” Iridal murmured. Drawing Bane close, she kissed him on the forehead.
“Yes ... a family. Like I’ve always dreamed. Maybe there is a chance. Maybe I can’t save him, but his own child. Surely he could not betray such innocent love and trust. This hand”—she kissed the child’s fingers, bathing them with tears—“this hand might lead him away from the dark path he walks.” Bane didn’t understand. All paths were one to him, neither dark nor light, all leading straight to the same goal—people doing what he wanted them to do.
“You’ll talk to father,” he said, squirming out of her grasp, feeling that, after all, kissing and hugging might get to be a nuisance.
“Yes, I’ll talk to him tomorrow.”
“Thank you, mama.” Bane yawned.
“You should be sleeping,” Iridal said, rising. “Good night, my son.” She gently drew the blanket up snug around him and, leaning down, kissed his cheek. “Good night.”
The magical radiance began to fade from her face. She raised her hands and closed her eyes, concentrating, and disappeared from his room. Bane grinned into the darkness. He had no idea what kind of influence his mother might be able to exert; he could only judge by Queen Anne, who had generally been able to get what she wanted from Stephen.
But if this didn’t work, there was always the other plan. In order to make that plan work, he would have to give away for free something he guessed was of inestimable value. He would be circumspect, of course, but his father was smart. Sinistrad might guess and rob him of it. Still, spend nothing, gain nothing.
Likely, he wouldn’t have to give it up. Not yet. He wouldn’t be sent away. Mama would see to that.
Gleefully Bane kicked off the smothering covers.
52
The following morning, Iridal entered her husband’s study. She found her son there with Sinistrad, the two of them seated at her husband’s writing desk, poring over drawings made by Bane. The dog, lying at her son’s feet, lifted its head when it saw her, its tail thumping the floor. Iridal paused a moment in the doorway. All her fantasies had come true. Loving father, adoring son; Sinistrad patiently devoting his time to Bane, studying whatever the boy had done with an assumed gravity that was quite endearing. In that instant, seeing the skullcapped head bent so near the fair-haired one, hearing the murmur of the voices—one young and one old—caught up in the excitement of what she could only think was some childish project of her son’s, Iridal forgave Sinistrad everything. Her years of terror and suffering she would gladly erase, banish from her memory, if only he would grant her this.
Stepping forward almost shyly—it had been many years since she had set foot in her husband’s sanctum—Iridal tried to speak but couldn’t find her voice. The choked sound caught the attention of both son and father, however. One looked up at her with a radiant, charming smile. The other appeared annoyed.
“Well, wife, what do you want?”
Iridal’s fantasies wavered, their bright mist shredded by the chill voice and the icy gaze of the lashless eyes.
“Good morning, mama,” said Bane. “Would you like to see my drawings? I made them myself.”
“If I am not disturbing—” She looked hesitantly at Sinistrad.
“Come in, then,” he said ungraciously.
“Why, Bane, these are marvelous.” Iridal lifted a few pages and turned them to the light of the sun.
“I used my magic. Like father taught me. I thought of what I wanted to draw, and my hands took over and did it. I learn magic very quickly,” said the boy, gazing up at his mother with wide-eyed charm. “You and father could teach me in your spare time. I wouldn’t be any trouble.”
Sinistrad sat back in his chair, the robes of heavy watered silk rustling dryly, like bat wings. His lips creased in a chill smile that blew the tattered remnants of Iridal’s fancies from the skies. She would have fled to her chambers had not Bane been watching her hopefully, silently pleading with her to continue. The dog laid its head back down between its paws, its eyes moving alertly to whoever spoke.
“What . . . are these drawings?” She faltered. “The great machine?”
“Yes. Look, this is the part they call the wombay. Papa says that means ‘womb’ and it’s where the Kicksey-Winsey was born. And this part activates the great force that will pull all of the isles—”
“That will do, Bane,” interrupted Sinistrad. “We mustn’t keep your mother from the entertaining of our . . . guests.” He lingered over the word. The look he gave her made her skin flush crimson and scattered her thoughts in confusion.
“I assume you came here for some purpose, wife. Or perhaps it was just to make certain that my time was occupied so that you and the dark and handsome assassin—”
“How dare . . . ? What? What did you say?”
Iridal’s hands began to shake. Hurriedly she laid the pages of drawings she’d been holding back on the desk.
“Didn’t you know, my dear? One of your guests is a professional knife-man. Hugh the Hand is what he calls himself—a Hand stained in blood, if you will forgive my small jest. Your gallant champion was hired to murder a child.” Sinistrad ruffled Bane’s hair. “But for me, wife, your boy would never have come home to you. I thwarted Hugh’s design—”
“I don’t believe you! It’s not possible!”
“I know it’s shocking for you, my dear, to discover that we have a house guest who might murder us all in our beds. But I have taken every precaution. He did me a favor by drinking himself into a blind stupor last night. It was quite simple to transfer his wine-soaked body to a place of safekeeping. My son tells me that there is a price on the man’s head, as well as that of the boy’s treacherous servant. The amount will be just enough to finance my project in the Low Realm. And now, my dear, what was it you wanted?”
“Don’t take my son from me!” Iridal gasped for breath, feeling as if cold water had been dashed over her. “Do whatever you want. I will not stop you. Just leave me my son!”
“Only the other morning, you disclaimed him. Now you say you want him.” Sinistrad shrugged. “Really, madam, I can’t subject the boy to your idle whims that change daily. He must return to the Mid Realm and take up his duties. And now I think you had better go. So nice that we could have this little chat, wife. We must do it more often.”
“I do think, mama, that you might have talked this over with me first,” interjected Bane. “I want to go back! I’m certain father knows what’s best for me.”
“I’m certain he does,” said Iridal.
Turning, she walked with quiet dignity out of the study and managed to make it down the chill, shadowy hallway before she wept for her lost child.
“As for you, Bane,” said Sinistrad, returning each of the drawings Iridal had disturbed to its proper place, “never try that with me again. This time I punished your mother, who should have known better. Next time, it will be you.”
Bane accepted the rebuke in silence. It was refreshing to play the game with an opponent as skilled as himself for a change. He began to deal out the next hand, moving swiftly so that his father would not notice the cards were coming from the bottom of a prearranged deck.
“Father,” said Bane, “I have a question about magic.”
“Yes?” Now that discipline had been restored, Sinistrad was pleased at the boy’s interest.
“One day I saw Trian drawing something on a sheet of paper. It was a letter of the alphabet, but yet it wasn’t. When I asked him, he crumpled it up and looked embarrassed and threw it away. He said it was magic and I mustn’t bother him about it.”
Sinistrad turned his attention from the drawing he was perusing to his son. Bane returned the sharp-eyed, curious gaze with the ingenuous expression the child knew so well how to assume. The dog sat up and shoved his nose in the child’s hand, wanting to be petted.