"Strangely," Matteo said honestly. "I have yet to find a way to truly serve the queen."
"Hmm." Tzigone took this in. "Well, what can you do?"
This drew his attention back to her. "Excuse me?"
"What kinds of services are you trained for? Besides battle, of course. I've seen what you can do with a blade."
"Many things-history, battle strategy, etiquette, protocol, languages, customs, heraldry. It is difficult to give counsel without knowledge of such things. We must also study magic and learn its strengths and weaknesses."
She nodded, her eyes huge and bright. "How do you remember half of that? This is no idle question. I really want to know."
"I can see that," he murmured, puzzled by her intensity. "The memory is both a talent and a skill. Some have more capacity than others, just as some men are born with better singing voices than others. But there are ways to develop the memory. From a very early age, jordaini work to build a palace of the mind, one room at a time, with corridors between them. It is all very deliberate and meticulous. Each fact and idea is affixed to a particular place." He tapped his forehead and closed his eyes. "I can almost literally envision the pathways I must take to get to a needed room."
"What's in the root cellars?" she demanded. "And how about the dungeons?"
His eyes popped open. "Excuse me?"
"How far back can you go?"
He considered this. "I have some memories that go back to the age of two or so. There are also a few earlier memories, mere impressions-vague and warm but unformed by words." He paused and met her incredulous stare. "It is often so with the jordaini. My friend Andris claimed he could remember things that he must have heard while in his mother's womb, but perhaps he was jesting."
"Show me how," she demanded.
Matteo tossed her a towel. "Meet me in the sitting room and we will do what we can."
She padded in a few moments later, clad in green leggings and tunic and looking rather fetchingly like a dew-soaked dryad.
"Tell me," she said, and plunked down cross-legged on the floor.
Matteo instructed her to close her eyes and bring to mind the earliest memory she could grasp. "Tell me what it is."
"Sprite," she said in a soft and faintly childlike voice. "That's what I called him. It was also what he was-a sprite. I suppose he had another name, but I don't remember hearing it."
"You were how old at the time?" She shrugged. "Five, maybe six. But before Sprite, there's nothing."
"That's not so unusual. Many people retain few memories from their early years. Is it so important?"
"Yes."
She spoke the word with such finality and depth of emotion that Matteo didn't think to question her. "Then we will try another way. Envision in your mind-literally in your mind, in the physical paths that your thoughts take-where this memory of Sprite resides. Can you picture it?"
Her brow furrowed, but after a moment she nodded. "I think so."
"Move deeper and slightly to the left," he instructed softly.
She envisioned sliding back into her mind. For a moment there was nothing but blackness, and then she caught a glimmer of silver and felt a rhythmic, reassuring touch. "Someone is brushing my hair," she murmured. "My mother?"
"Stay where you are. Quiet your mind and imagine that you have just entered a dark room and are waiting for your eyes to adjust."
Tzigone nodded and sat still for a moment, her face a mask of concentration. Finally she shook her head. "Nothing," she said sadly.
"We will try again later," Matteo said, placing a consoling hand on her shoulder. "The memory is a palace constructed with patience. It cannot be built quickly, nor quickly explored."
"Not later," Tzigone said grimly. "Now." She closed her eyes and fiercely banished thought. When her mind was finally calm and still, she found the place where memories of Sprite dwelled, and then she slid farther down the dark pathways.
The gentle rhythm of the hairbrush pulled her back into the memory. But for some reason, the motion was not soothing. Tzigone felt her mother's tension as surely as if it were her own.
Her mother! Tzigone sank deeper still into memory, desperate for a glimpse of her mother's face or the sound of her voice. She saw herself as she might have then-the bare brown legs with their brave collection of childhood scrapes and bruises, the tiny hands clenched in her lap, the glossy brown hair that spilled over her shoulders.
"There, now. All finished," the woman said with forced gaiety. "With your hair so smooth and shiny, you look too fine for sleep. What if we run across the rooftops until we find a tavern still open? We could have cakes and sugared wine, and if there is a bard in the house, I will sing. And, yes, I will summon a fierce creature for you. A behir, a dragon-anything you like."
Even as a child, Tzigone hadn't been fooled by the brittle gaiety of her mother's tones. Quickly she bent down to tighten the laces on her soft leather shoes.
"I'm ready," she announced.
Her mother eased open a shutter and lifted her onto the ledge beyond. The child leaned her small body against the wall and began to edge around the building, as confident and surefooted as a lemur.
Something on the ground caught her eye, drawing it to a disturbance several streets to the east. A tendril of magic, so powerful that her eyes perceived it as a glowing green light, twisted through the streets below. Like a jungle vine it grew, sending off seeking tendrils, moving purposefully toward whatever sun drew it.
Quicker than thought it came, and then it hesitated at the door to their inn as if it were momentarily confused by this barrier, or perhaps by another barrier that Tzigone could not see. Then the door exploded inward-silently, but with a force that stole her breath and nearly dragged her from the ledge.
Her mother was suddenly beside her, gripping her hand painfully. "This way," she urged, no longer making any attempt to hide her fear.
They scuttled sideways on the ledge like fleeing crabs, moving toward one of the elaborate drainpipes that decorated the corners of every building, providing beauty and status in addition to carrying away the heavy summer rains. This one was fashioned to resemble a pair of entwined snakes. It was easy to climb, and in moments the girl's small fingers grasped the leering stone mouth of one of the snake-headed gargoyles that capped the pipes.
Her mother placed a shoulder under the child's small rump and heaved. Tzigone lurched up, hit the roof, and rolled once. In a heartbeat, she was on her feet and racing for the roof's southern edge.
Tzigone remembered their games and the glowing threads that wove maps of the city against the night sky. For the first time, she understood their practical side. Her mother always pointed out the surrounding buildings and byways, and together they improvised a «what-if» game of pursuit and capture, one that was often whimsical and sometimes hilarious, but always, always in deadly earnest.
It felt strange to be a child again. The roof felt endless as Tzigone ran across on her short, thin legs. She reached the edge without slowing and launched herself into the night. The fall was brief, the landing hard. She rolled across the hard surface of the tiled roof of a bathhouse. Her leg
burned from a brush with a jagged bit of tile. She touched it, and her hand came away wet.
"Run," her mother whispered as she dragged her to her feet. "Stop for nothing. Nothing!"
She made herself forget the pain as she and her mother raced across the bathhouse roof. Together they scrambled down the far side of the building, hands fisted in fragrant bunches of the night-blooming flowers that climbed the wall. The crushed flowers gave off a strong scent and a swirl of golden pollen. Musky sweetness surrounded them like an oppressive cloud. Never before had a fragrance seemed sinister, but to the terrified child, it seemed that the flowers were in league with her pursuers. They taunted her with their vines, so like the dangerous, seeking magic, and tried to trick her into revealing herself. Tzigone cursed them silently and struggled mightily not to sneeze.