“Isn’t that the cleverest thing!” she exclaimed as they all gathered to watch the water swirl away down the drain.
Cymeus, a tall, bearded bear of a man, blushed like a girl, and said gruffly, “Just something I picked up in our travels, is all.”
“You’re too modest as always, my friend,” Vornus said with a chuckle. “He’s a wizard, even without magic, this one is.”
Arkoniel was careful in revealing his own magic, for it was irrevocably mingled with Lhel’s. Spells he’d come to take for granted would have revealed his secret teacher. Yet it was she, rather than Arkoniel, who insisted on secrecy.
“How would you explain my presence here, eh?” she asked as he lay with her one winter night.
“I don’t know. Couldn’t we just say that you came down from the hills and settled here?”
She stroked his cheek fondly. “You’ve been with me so long, you’ve forgotten the ways of your own people. And speaking of your people, have you taken the pretty little bird caller to your bed?”
“Once,” he admitted, guessing she already knew.
“Only once? And what did you learn?”
“The reason for the vow wizards take.” Lhel might not be beautiful, or young, but her power had drawn him as nothing else did, both to her hearth and her bed. Joining with her was like being filled with lightning. With Ethni, he was dark inside. His power flowed away into her but there was no return except a little affection. The physical spasm was nothing, compared to the joining of power. He’d tried to hide his feelings, but Ethni had sensed it and not come to his bed again.
“Your Lightbearer sets you a narrow path,” Lhel said when he tried to explain.
“Is it different with your people? You can bear children, even with your magic.”
“Our people are very different. You’ve forgotten, knowing me as you have. I’ll be no better than a necromancer in the eyes of your new friends. That haughty young fire thrower would burn me to a cinder as soon as look at me.”
“He’d have to go through me first,” Arkoniel assured her, but he knew she was right. “It won’t always be so,” he promised. “Because of you, Skala will have her queen again.”
Lhel gazed up into the shadows above them. “Yes, it will be soon. It’s time I kept my promise.”
“What promise?” he asked.
“I must show you how to separate Tobin from Brother.”
Arkoniel sat up. He’d waited years for this. “Is it difficult? Will it take long to learn?”
Lhel leaned over and whispered in his ear.
Arkoniel stared at her. “That’s it? That’s all? But—why all the mystery? You could have told us that years ago and spared yourself this exile!”
“It is not only for that that the Mother bade me stay. The unbinding may be simple, but who would have woven the new binding when it was needed? And perhaps you’d still have your entire finger, for not creating the magic you have. The Mother foresaw and I have been where I must be.”
“Forgive me. I spoke without thinking.”
“As for the simplicity of the unbinding, all the more reason to keep it secret. Would you trust that unhappy child with such knowledge?”
“No.”
“And do not be deceived,” she said, settling down in the blankets. “The deed may be simple, but the doing of it will take all the courage she possesses.”
Lhel’s words haunted Arkoniel, but there were other concerns closer to home.
“Only the other day the butcher’s boy remarked on how much more meat I’m ordering,” Cook warned one night as they sat down to a noisy supper in the hall. “And with the snow so deep in the meadow, we’ll soon have to buy fodder for the horses. I don’t think your mistress foresaw that; it’s only going to get worse if more arrive. And that’s not even thinking of spies, if there are any.”
Arkoniel sighed. “What can we do?”
“Good thing for you I was a soldier before I was a cook,” she replied, shaking her head. “First off, we have to stop buying so much in Alestun. The men can hunt, but that won’t do for vegetables. I didn’t have enough of a garden this year, so we’ll have to go farther afield. Two Crow Ford is only a day’s journey by wagon, and none of us are known there. Send a couple of the men this time, posing as traders or traveling merchants, and different ones the next. Tobin’s grandfather used that strategy one winter when we had to go into winter camp near Plenimar.”
“There’s the difference between wizards and soldiers. I’d never think of such things. Consider yourself our quartermaster.” As she turned to go back to the kitchen, a thought struck him and he laid a hand on her chapped red forearm. “All these years I’ve known you, but never asked your true name.”
She laughed. “You mean to tell me you don’t know what every tradesman in Alestun knows?” She raised an eyebrow at him, but she was smiling. “It’s Catilan. I was Sergeant Cat in my day, of the Queen’s Archers. I’m a bit past it for swordplay, but I can still pull a bow. I keep in practice when I can find the time.”
“How did you ever end up a cook?” he asked without thinking.
She snorted. “How d’you suppose?”
38
Aliya’s miscarriage delayed the royal progress for nearly a month and it was whispered around the Palatine that some of the king’s advisors wanted Korin to put her aside; the details of the miscarriage could not be entirely suppressed. But a divorce would have brought far too much attention to the reasons and, moreover, Korin did seem genuinely to love her, though Tobin and the other Companions could not fathom why, as marriage had not tempered her manner toward them.
“Guess she must be sweeter in private,” Ki groused, after she’d slighted him in the hall one day.
“It would be worth her while to be, given what she has to lose,” Nikides agreed. “And she’s smart enough to know it. Look how she’s got the king doting on her. She knows who cuts the loaf.”
Erius had grown immensely fond of her and had visited her daily with gifts during the weeks of her seclusion.
She recovered quickly under her mother’s care and that of half the drysians of the grove. By the time she was well enough to sail the sorrow had passed and people were speaking hopefully behind their hands of the good effect fresh sea air might have on a young bride.
After cooling their heels for so long, Tobin and the others greeted the departure announcement with jubilation. Bored beyond measure with city life, the prospect of a voyage, even in the dead of winter, was a welcome escape.
Tobin had reasons of his own to look forward to it. A week before they were to leave, Iya made another of her unexpected visits.
“This is a rare opportunity for you,” she told him as they sat alone in his mother’s house. “Never forget that you are meant to rule this land. Learn as much about it as you can. See with the eyes your teacher Raven has given you.”
“Because I’ll have to protect Skala from Plenimar?” said Tobin.
“No, because you may have to win it from your uncle or cousin.”
“A war, you mean? But I thought the Lightbearer would—I don’t know—”
“Smooth your way?” Iya gave him a grim smile. “In my experience, the gods create opportunities; it’s left to us to grasp them. Nothing is assured.”