I sat on the hearth stool, trying to comprehend what it was I had witnessed. Nothing was as it had been. The world had changed as surely and irrevocably as if I had been struck deaf or blind, or had been roused from deafness to hearing or blindness to sight. But, just as Tennice had said, I knew this man. “Martin, I think there are some inaccuracies in the lessons I’ve been taught. I certainly hope someone has plans to set me straight.”
CHAPTER 6
Interregnum
The night of Karon’s revelation was a night of intoxication. We were four initiates caught up in the heady exhilaration of mystery and conspiracy. As our questions flew about the library like autumn leaves in a whirlwind, Karon pleaded that we had no time to waste. “I must go. Give me an hour. Then go to a sheriff, tell him my name, and report what you’ve seen. I’ll not have you compromised for me. Every moment you delay increases your danger.”
Julia was weeping, trying to thank Karon for saving Martin’s life, and asking what refreshment might relieve the toll his night’s work had so clearly taken on him. Tanager swore to slit the throat of any man who said that what we had seen was anything but holy, and began reviewing the events aloud as if we had not witnessed them for ourselves. “Stars of night, man, you’ve got to tell us how you do it,” he said.
“You can’t just leave it.” Even Tennice pushed his brother aside and said he’d appreciate knowing one thing: Could Karon just tell him whether it was one of the Twins, or the First God Arot himself, or some unknown god who guided his hand in such works, or was it, instead, some factor of the blood?
I was so filled with wonder, I could not decide what to ask first, so I just kept mumbling that no one in that room could ever be so cowardly as to betray him to the law. He could never have heard me above the clamor. We might have continued all night in such fashion, but Karon looked more distressed by the moment and cast a pleading glance at Martin, even as he tried to disentangle himself from our exuberant circle.
“Silence, all of you!” Martin bellowed. “Karon, step into the garden for a moment—no farther, mind you! We must give these nattering fools a chance to think.”
Only when an exasperated Karon had retreated through the garden doors did Martin turn to us. “Sit down and listen, friends. This is perhaps the most dangerous night of your young lives, and I’ll not have you go forward without stopping for one moment to give it some serious consideration.”
Once we had obediently sat ourselves on the overstuffed couches, sobered by his serious tone, he went on. “This is the law of Leire—and Tennice can correct me if I miss a word or two. To harbor a sorcerer, to knowingly speak with a sorcerer or listen willingly to one word from his mouth is punishable by death—not the unspeakable death Karon will suffer if news of this night’s deed escapes this room, but death, nonetheless. To my everlasting shame, my weak and selfish impulse has put him and you in this danger. He has risked the stake, the burning of his living flesh… and every conceivable torment that could make even such horror as that a welcome gift… to save my pitiful life. Yet I know him well, and the last thing he would wish is to buy his safety with ours. Every moment that we delay in turning him over condemns us alongside him. You must think soberly of your lives and your futures. If you do not accuse him as he insists, then every breath you take from this night forward will have a binder on it, every word you speak will be restricted, every truth to which you swear will be tainted by the shadow of a lie, a secret, a withholding. No soul beyond this room can ever hear this tale, be it husband, wife, child, or lover. Never. Ever. Or we are all forfeit. Now, hold your peace until I give you leave. Think carefully.”
We obeyed his command in seeming. But one glance at each well-known face told the answer. No one of us would ever preserve his own life by setting the hounds on Karon. When Martin released us from our silence, we told him exactly that. Yet even as we released our pent-up indignation—that Martin might, in the remotest chance, believe one of us could be such a craven coward—my cousin confronted each of us individually, asking if we would swear to keep Karon’s secret, be damned whatever came. Each one agreed. He came to me last.
“And you, my dear cousin. Never would I knowingly have faced you with this circumstance. To require you to carry such a burden into a marriage…”
“There is no burden here, Martin,” I said. “Every time I’m at Windham my world grows larger. Who better to understand truth than one who might be queen?”
There. I’d said it. The fact that could not be lost in the excitement of the night.
Martin smiled at me fondly. But behind the lines that five and forty years of good humor had written on his kind face was pain and worldly wisdom that I could recognize, though not yet understand. “If I’d only kept that thought in my head a few hours ago, perhaps I could have spared Karon and all of you the consequences of my unforgivable cowardice. Go fetch him, and we’ll let him tell you more of truth.” Tennice and Julia poured brandy, while I hurried toward the garden door.
I found Karon stretched out on his back in the grass, his arms behind his head, gazing upon the stars that were scattered like diamond dust on the black velvet sky. Not wishing to startle him, I approached quietly, and so I glimpsed the expression on his face before he was aware of me. Not fear. Not anxiety. Only yearning—the same hunger I glimpsed when he walked with me in the garden or at the times when he stepped back from our laughter in Martin’s drawing room and embraced our company with his eyes. In seeing him devouring the glory of that night, and in thinking of all I knew of him and all I had witnessed, both the essential question and its answer sprang up wholly formed in my head. I believed I might already understand what he would tell us.
I cleared my throat and sat down on the grass, wrapping my arms about my knees and waiting a moment to see if he would look around. He kept his eyes on the sky, but he blinked and shifted his arms protectively across his chest, so I knew he was aware of me. “You’re replenishing yourself,” I said, venturing my theory. “Replacing what you spent on Martin.”
“Yes.”
“That’s what it’s all about. What you are all about. Beauty, joy, friendship… these things you are able to cache within yourself… and then spend.”
“Life. All of it. Pain and sorrow are wonders, also. But, of course, beauty is easier.” He rolled to his side and propped his head on his hand, smiling as one will do to soften a hard truth.
“And the spending… is sorcery.”
“Exactly so.”
“I want to know. About you. About all of it. Why have we been so deceived?”
That sorcery equated with evil was a fundamental construct of the universe, a fact as sure as that time moved forward and not back. No history or science was required to prove it any more than history was required to say the earth was solid beneath our feet or the ocean fluid. Not only our priests condemned sorcery, naming it as one of the abominations of the earth that Arot had tamed in the Beginnings, but our kings and wise men, our mothers and grandmothers, men of science and warriors, believers and unbelievers agreed that it was a perversion of nature. Now, in one short hour everything had changed, and the gap in my knowledge of the world was so vast, so stark, I believed my head must cave in. This man and the healing I had seen him work were as far from evil as anything I had ever known.
Karon sat up and, after one quick glance at me, dropped his eyes and began picking at the grass. “I wanted to tell you—and the others—but because of how things were with you… your future… it made no sense. And then today, I should have sent you all away, but I didn’t even think of it. After so many years, not to think of it… Maybe it was because I wanted you to understand.” He shook his head wonderingly and expelled a quick breath. “I always thought it would be so hard to explain, but I should have known you would put the pieces together. Even Martin took a while to understand the connection you’ve just seen.”