"I'm going to go after a crustade for dessert," she announced, knowing that she already had one secreted in her scrying chamber. She took her shawl and a copper half-bit from the pouch hanging by the door. "I'll be right back."
She was silhouetted in the sunset, then gone. The afterimage lingered in Walegrin's mind. Sunset. Sixthday. There wasn't a warm baker's oven in the Bazaar, nor anywhere else in Sanctuary. It took two days to braise a joint large enough to satisfy the men at her table. She never relied on last-minute inspirations or improvisations ...
Walegrin followed her out the door and around to the back where the ropes across her scrying chamber dangled.
"Tell me what you See."
He took her completely by surprise. The cards flew from her hands. They scattered across the room, onto the floor, and into the powders she used for her essences, but three fell neatly on the table where she did her work.
Illyra blushed; she began to dissemble. Walegrin's features composed themselves into his interrogator's face and she abandoned the effort before a half-dozen words were out of her mouth.
"I was curious," she admitted.
"I'm curious myself. What did you See?"
"I told you what I Saw. You were surrounded by spider silk. It shimmered with all the colors of the rainbow-"
"What did it mean, Lyra? What did it mean?"
The seeress looked away and caught sight of the cards on the table. The amashkiki, the spirits of the cards, supported her. Eagerly she adjusted their alignment. "Here ... The Lady of the Forest. The Lady of the Stones. Between them, the Fifth-"
"Ly-ra ... Do it right."
"No, no, this is right."
"It was an accident."
Illyra hunched her shoulders and thrust her jaw at her brother. "I do not have accidents," she hissed.
Momentarily chastened, Walegrin allowed her to continue with her explanation.
"I See good fortune, easily come by."
"Where? Where do you see that?" He prodded the cards. One Lady sat at a stone-weighted loom, the other was a spirit with cobweb wings, and the Fifth of Air was a scattering of petals floating away from a bouquet. "All I see is something trapped between two women!"
"What do you need me for if you know everything? Go ahead, you tell me what they mean,"
"Women surrounding me. Women weaving a web around me ... a trap. I don't see any 'good fortune* in that."
Illyra squinted. The tip of her tongue poked through her pursed lips. "I suppose ..." she agreed slowly. "I could See that. There is a woman in your life right now, and she is weaving something." She tapped her fingernail on the petals of the Fifth of Air. "But this is not an ill aspect." In her mind Illyra reached for another card; she Saw, and began to giggle.
"What? What's so bloody funny? Dammit, Illyra, this is my life you're laughing at, isn't it? You don't do this with your other querents, do you?"
Illyra shook her head and gradually regained her composure. He was right, of course. A S'danzo girl learned early not to laugh at her querents, regardless of their questions or her visions. Giggling ruined the mystery, and it was bad for business. She swallowed her laughter. "If you were one of my querents I would tell you that you must accommodate." She paused and swallowed again. "Yes, accommodate your good fortune."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
The seeress lifted the edge of her shawl to cover the lower part of her face. "If a querent asked that, I would say: It will be made clear in time. Accommodate your fate, and you will find good fortune."
"And the women. What of the gods-be-damned women?"
"Woman. There is only one woman, Walegrin, I'm sure of that. I don't know about the woman. She is not here. These are not her cards. I cannot say if she will have good fortune or not."
The visionary spell was broken.The giddiness drained from Illyra's body- She sighed and began to collect her cards. Walegrin could feel the lightning charge dissipate.
"Accommodate," he repeated. "That word is supposed to have some especially profound meaning for me. You're telling me not to fight what happens, aren't you? Don't do anything at all. Don't get involved, don't care, don't worry. What happens, happens-"
Illyra stood up. "I didn't say that. I said accommodate your fate ... learn to live with it."
"Same difference."
She gathered the last of the cards. The Seeing had become part of memory where it lost most of its power. Nothing was guaranteed; memory could change over time. "Same difference," she agreed. "Will you stay for the crustade?" She lifted the bowl from the high shelf where she had kept it safe from inquiring eyes and fingers.
Like most superstitious people, Walegrin lived in a world where the supernatural tended to confirm, rather than challenge, his prejudices. He was willing to reach an accommodation with his fate, if accommodation meant that Theudebourga, her problems and her silk, could be exiled from his mind without shame or guilt.
The crustade was calling to him. "I'll stay," he said, taking the heavy bowl. "Wouldn't want to see it go to waste."
The heavens had clouded over by the time Walegrin hauled himself back to the officer's quarters inside the palace. A light rain began to fallIts gentle rhythm on the shutters, not to mention the aftereffects of a huge meal, sent the commander into a dreamless sleep. Godsfearing folk rose early on Seventhday; everyone else slept as late as possible. Walegrin's recent promotion entitled him to lie in bed until sunset if he so desired. He was not pleased when someone came pounding on his door well before midday.
Stark naked and surly, Walegrin cracked the door and braced it against his leg. "This had better be important," he snarled.
The recruit trembled. He restarted his story twice before mustering enough wit to explain that everyone who'd eaten dinner at the garrison mess was huddled up at the latrines. The duty officer couldn't take two steps without retching and there were only a handful of men who could climb (he ladder to the watchtower.
"Shit."
"Yes, sir," the recruit agreed.
Walegrin let the door go. When he'd lived in a barracks with nothing but a chest to hold his worldly goods, he'd always known where everything was. Now that he had a square room to call his own, chaos reigned among his possessions. He found his breeches and shirt on the floor where he'd left them, but the sandals ... Walegrin owned four of the ventilated boots, any two of which would make a satisfactory pair. One was usually visible, while the rest hid in the darkest corners where the commander suspected they consumed his wrist guards, which, at any rate, had disappeared completely. The Enlibar sword, at least, was where it belonged.
"Let's go," Walegrin said when he'd gotten the door latched behind him.
Physicians and mages were summoned to the privies where they decided that the epidemic had just about run its course. The afflicted were unimpressed, but Walegrin could see that most of them, while they'd be useless for a day or so, were already recovering. Only two men needed sickbeds, and one of them had been sick for a week.
The cook was dragged from the kitchens. He insisted the flux couldn't be his fault; the meat was rotten before he cooked it.
"Why did you cook it, if you knew it was rotten?"
The cook said it wasn't his job to question the meat the stewards provided. He was a cook. He insisted he'd done his job welclass="underline" after all, the men hadn't complained while they were eating.
Walegrin had him flogged and tied to a post by the stables where the recovering men could offer sympathy, suggestions, and the occasional clot of horse manure.
The cook had a point; he didn't purchase the meat. Walegrin spent the rest of the afternoon looking for the guilty steward. Shunted from corridor to corridor on a stream of insincere apologies, the garrison commander was unable to wring a confession from any of the palace flunkies.