A Young Man Without Magic (27 page)

Somehow, Anrel did not think these stories were going to fade in a few days and permit him to return to Alzur. Barring a miracle, his old life
was
gone. He needed to build a new one.

In truth, that prospect was not wholly unpleasant. The idea of making a new life as a witch had a certain appeal, especially if it was to be a life shared with Tazia.

Still, he was not ready to entirely abandon the past, so he listened to the stories about Alvos with an ear to finding some way to redeem himself and return to the Adirane estate. He noticed that his real name was never mentioned, though it must surely be known to many people; none of the stories gave any hint that Lord Neriam had come to any harm that might have caused him to forget Anrel's name. That gave him a faint but persistent flicker of hope, even while he told himself it was meaningless.

He was not the only one listening to the rumors and legends, of course. The several members of the Lir family were not stupid, and recognized the similarity of these stories to Anrel's account of his own reason for fleeing. At first nothing was said, but one night, some time after Anrel had joined the company, as the six of them sat gathered around a campfire after eating their evening meal, Garras straightened up, looked at Anrel, and said, “You're Alvos, aren't you?”

Anrel considered for a moment before answering. A flat denial would not be believed, but how he presented the truth might be important.

“I gave that name when I spoke in Aulix Square,” he said. “The stories
seem to have become greatly exaggerated, however—I barely recognize myself in some of the accounts we've heard of late.”

“They call you a hero,” Garras said.

“I was a fool,” Anrel said. “I suspect the categories overlap considerably.”

“Half the delegates to the Grand Council were chosen with your speech in mind.”

“In Aulix, perhaps, but there are fifteen other provinces. It won't matter.”

Garras studied him thoughtfully in the firelight. Uncomfortable under his scrutiny, Anrel looked around at the women.

Nivain's eyes were downcast; Reva was watching her father warily. Perynis was looking back and forth from Anrel to Garras, as if unsure she understood what was being said.

And Tazia's gaze was fixed adoringly on Anrel—not the shy half-smile she had given him so often on the road, but a wide-eyed adulation that made him nervous. He turned quickly away from her radiant face. He did not want to see such worship; he was sure it was based on the absurd stories she had heard about the legendary Alvos, rather than anything the flesh and blood Anrel had done.

“I would guess, Master Murau, that you were right in saying your uncle could not have saved you,” Garras said. “When we first met that seemed unlikely, that a burgrave could not intervene on his nephew's behalf, but now? Now I am surprised you escaped at all.”

Anrel felt himself flush, though he hoped it would not be visible in the red glow of the flames.

And that was that; the subject was not discussed openly again, though after that the women all made a point of telling Anrel whatever bits of political news they happened to hear, about elections and candidates' preparations and various speeches. Anrel tried unsuccessfully to convince them that he did not particularly care about politics, but he was not surprised by his failure; after all, how could the great Alvos not want to hear every detail of the gathering of the Grand Council?

He tried to distract them by talking about other matters—witchcraft, sorcery, and their own lives, for the most part.

By this time he had learned the basics of witchcraft; the four women had taken turns teaching him what they knew. He was not particularly surprised to learn that most of the witchcraft these people sold was really the same thing as the sorcery the nobles of the empire employed. Love spells were emotional bindings, nothing more, and the potions sometimes dispensed to enhance them were merely herbal brews that made the subject more receptive to the binding. They would have worked just as well for any other compulsion as they did for provoking lust or devotion.

Healing was the same healing that sorcerers did—bindings to repair torn flesh, wards to drive off poisons and evil influences, and perhaps a little infusion of earthly energy to help the body recover its strength. This was at least as likely to be used on livestock as on the villagers themselves.

Witches were consulted to locate new wells or latrines, and that was done by sensing the flow of energy beneath the soil, just as a sorcerer would have done, had any sorcerer ever troubled himself with so mundane a task.

And prognostication, which the witches and peasants usually called fortune-telling, was almost completely fraudulent. These witches could no more see the future than could anyone else. They could, however, use their magic to make their customers more suggestible, and to read subtle clues that would guide them in telling their customers what they wanted to hear. A few vaguely worded predictions, some clever guessing, and the eager buyers would believe that the witches had read the contents of their hearts, had seen their pasts, and could foretell their futures.

That was perhaps the biggest surprise—that so much of witchcraft was made up of lies and deception. Sorcery certainly had its failings, most particularly in the sort of black sorcery that Lord Blackfield and the others of the Lantern Society campaigned against, but it was still more honest than witchcraft. The witches took credit for anything that could possibly be attributed to magic; common coincidences were claimed as subtle spells, good luck was the result of a witch's blessing, and misfortune was a sign that someone had been cursed—though of course, never by the witch pointing out the supposed curse.

“For a small fee, I could try to remove the curse,” the witch would say, “but of course, I can't offer any guarantees—the witch who laid this curse upon you may have powers greater than my own.”

There was never any curse. In fact, Reva admitted that none of them even knew whether curses were actually possible.

“I would think that certain bindings could reasonably be considered curses,” Anrel told her. “But I have no idea how one would cast them.”

Reva shrugged. “Who would want to?”

Anrel had no answer for that.

The journey was slow, but Anrel stayed with the witches. He could, at any of several stops along the way, have simply paid the fare and caught a coach to Lume, but he did not do so; he knew from the stories about Alvos that he could not yet hope to return to Alzur, and Lume was not intended as his final destination, so there was no hurry about reaching the capital. He was learning witchcraft, keeping track of the wild stories about his alter ego, and enjoying the company of his fellow travelers. A coach might take him to Lume in a matter of three or four days, but it would not bring him any understanding of how to use his magical abilities, and he thought it very unlikely that he would find himself with any companions more pleasant than Tazia and her sisters.

As well as his education in witchcraft and politics, Anrel learned a great deal about the Lirs themselves.

Nivain, the mother of the family, eventually admitted that when she had spoken of her “late father,” she had probably lied. She did not know whether her father was alive or dead, nor exactly who he had been. Her mother had been a shop keep er's daughter who accepted the advances of a handsome young man who had claimed to be a sorcerer—Lord Perlitoun, he had called himself, according to Nivain's mother, but no one in the family knew whether that was really his name, where he was from, or where he had gone. He had appeared in her town, stayed for a season or so, and then departed, never to be seen again. Two and a half seasons later, Nivain had been born.

Her talent for magic had manifested fairly early, lending support to her father's claims of nobility, but her mother had done everything possible to keep that talent a secret.

“She was afraid that if I let anyone know about it, they would take me away from her,” Nivain explained. “She thought my father might come back and claim me if I was acknowledged to be a sorceress. She didn't want that—I was all she had. She wasn't so foolish as to think that he might marry her, after so long, nor even foolish enough to
want
him to marry her. He had deserted her, and that had been enough to end her infatuation with him; she said he was a selfish, empty-headed fop, and she would not marry until she could do better for herself.” Nivain sighed. “She never did—at least, she had not married when last we spoke.”

Nivain herself, on the other hand, had married Garras when she was sixteen. He had been a big, strong, handsome, well-spoken man, and she had been eager to get away from her mother's rather overwhelming attentions. That he had no trade, and no sorcerer had leased him land to farm, had not troubled her, as she had been sure that in time the Mother and Father would provide him with something suitable. That he was short-tempered and given to boastful exaggeration she had not noticed until after they were wed. She had kept her magic hidden from him for almost a year, but at last the secret had slipped out.

She had thought he would be furious with her for withholding this information, that he would either forbid her to use it or want her to face the sorcery trials, but he had surprised her; it was his suggestion to take up witchcraft and travel. Ever since, they had wandered back and forth across the empire, from Kerdery to Tralmei and Hallin to Pirienna, selling her services.

“For twenty-four years now, my home has been a wagon,” she said. She gestured at the vehicle Lolo pulled. “This one is our third.”

Reva had been born in their first wagon some twenty-three years ago, making her a year or so older than Anrel himself, and very nearly Valin's age. Like her mother she had shown magical ability at an early age, and the question of whether or not she should face the trials had arisen. Garras had finally settled the matter—the risk was too great. If Reva were to become a sorceress, it was all too likely that she would attract official attention to the rest of her family that would eventually put Nivain's neck in a noose.

The others had followed the same path. Tazia turned nineteen just three days after Anrel first met her, and Perynis would turn seventeen eight days after the solstice, but neither had ever considered the trials.

Reva took little interest in talking to Anrel, either on the road or when they had stopped for the night; she was more concerned with her own plans. She was saving up money and intended to strike out on her own, and anything that did not bring her closer to that goal did not command her attention.

Tazia, on the other hand, sought Anrel out at every opportunity, even before he admitted to being Alvos. She seemed fascinated by every mention of his past life; oddly, at least from Anrel's point of view, she seemed to find the details of his life in Alzur, living in his uncle's house, more intriguing than his adventures as a student in Lume. A simple description of leaving boots by the door for the servants to tend held greater appeal for her than the tale of how he had caught a drunken friend diving off one of the watchmen's arches not a hundred feet from the emperor's palace.

She was reluctant to say anything about herself, though Anrel coaxed her to do so.

Perynis fell between these two extremes; she would chatter cheerfully with Anrel about whatever came into her head, whether that meant telling a story about helping Nivain deliver a baby, or pondering what the squirrels by the road might say if they could speak, or questioning Anrel about the construction of the boat he had stolen from the boat house on the Raish and abandoned in the woods on the Galdin. Anrel thought, though, that she might have been equally happy speaking to one of her sisters, or even to old Lolo.

Reva was tall and stately, with straight dark hair to her waist, though she usually kept it tied back in a thick braid; her face was strong and elegant, with dark eyes and prominent cheekbones. Perynis was second in height, matching her mother, and despite her youth she was the most buxom of the lot, her curling hair tumbling over lush and generous curves. Tazia was shorter and plainer, but Anrel found her charming all the same—her constant attentiveness was a part of that, of course, but he also admired the smile that seemed to make her whole face glow, and
the soft laugh that so often accompanied that smile. Her hair was as dark as Reva's, but almost as curly as Perynis's locks.

Anrel also noticed that Tazia alone of the three daughters took after her mother in one regard—Tazia and Nivain were by far the gentler and more considerate healers of the four, and seemed as concerned with making sure their patients were calm and comfortable as with the actual magic. Reva could not be bothered with such niceties, and for that reason was generally given other work; she reportedly excelled at love spells and other coercion, and was always responsible for setting wards when the family retired for the night, to warn them of any intruders. Perynis seemed concerned with her patients, but had, as yet, no knack for comforting or reassuring them.

All three daughters were definitely practicing witches, though—which meant, Anrel knew, that all three might well find themselves on a gallows someday, alongside the mother who had taught them their trade. That prospect did not please him at all, especially when he considered that he might well be up there with them.

Four witches in a single family also meant that finding work for all of them in a small village was not likely; this was a large part of why Reva intended to leave. As it was, the younger girls sometimes found themselves reduced to healing torn ears on injured house cats, or setting wards merely to protect woolens from moths.

This meant that Anrel's payments into the family coffers, which amounted in all to eleven guilders, were very welcome. It also meant that the family got very tired of rabbit stew, though once winter closed in and rabbits could no longer be readily snared they would undoubtedly look back on those thin and tiresome stews fondly. Food was not plentiful; the harvest had been poor for the sixth year running, so prices were high, and villagers less generous in paying the witches than they had been in good times. A good deal of grumbling was directed at the nobility for allowing this state of affairs to continue—surely there was
something
their sorcery could do! The protests by some sorcerers that they were trying their best with fertility spells were dismissed as self-serving exaggeration or outright lies. There was also much discussion
of what would be the most efficacious way to phrase the prayers to the Father, the Mother, and all the ancestral spirits at the solstice rites.