A Young Man Without Magic (37 page)

Perhaps if he had spoken sooner, before she had agreed to cast the love spell, he might have been able to persuade her, but now it was too late. He simply couldn't see any way to convince her to abandon the job she had accepted.

He felt he had failed her by allowing the situation to reach this state, and that being the case, he could not refuse to do whatever he could to help her survive. “I'll want your help disguising myself for the reception,” he said. “My hair hasn't been cut since I fled Naith, and surely we can do something with that.”

“Agreed,” she replied.

Anrel knew he was making a mistake, and that Reva was probably making an even worse one, but she was so determined that he saw no alternative. He tried to make the best of it.

“Even if you can't cast a proper glamour, could you perhaps change my skin color, or reshape my features a little?” he asked.

“I can try. I might not be able to change it back.”

“I'll live with it.

“One more thing,” he said.

“What?” Reva asked warily.

“When this is over, you'll help me talk to your father. About Tazia.”

“Oh.” She relaxed slightly. “Oh, yes. Of course.” She smiled. “I'm happy for you two, you know. I hope it will work out.”

“Thank you,” Anrel said. “I hope so, too.”

When the two of them returned to the dining hall they found Garras asleep in the corner, his head flung back against the wall. He was snoring softly.

The other Lir women, though, were still gathered around a table. Anrel and Reva joined them, and found themselves facing three questioning faces.

“Well?” Perynis demanded.

“We saw Mistress li-Dargalleis leave,” Tazia said. “She seemed nervous.” Her own expression was hopeful as she looked at Anrel.

“She has to sell her jewelry,” Reva said. “We agreed on sixty guilders.”

Tazia's head snapped around to look at her sister, then swung back to Anrel. “She agreed? Even though he's betrothed?”

“She knew about the betrothal,” Anrel said. “She will be satisfied to be the landgrave's mistress, rather than his wife.”

“I think she
prefers
to be his mistress,” Reva said.

“Then why did she agree to a higher price?” Nivain asked.

“I said there might be a binding between Allutar and Saria,” Reva explained. “That it was more dangerous than I had realized.”

“It
is
too dangerous!” Tazia said. “How could you agree?”

“
Sixty guilders
, Tazia. Sixty guilders, and a good reputation here in Beynos.”

“How could you
let
her agree?” Tazia demanded, turning to Anrel once more.

“How could I stop her? She's a free woman, or so I assume.”

“Of course she is, but . . .” Tazia frowned.

“Anrel has agreed to accompany me to Lord Allutar's reception, to aid me should anything go wrong,” Reva said. “And he did
try
to sway me.” She threw him a glance. “I don't think he entirely understood what a witch's life is like—neither the risks we take nor how much sixty guilders will mean to us.”

Anrel bowed in acknowledgment. “But I fear, mistress, that
you
may not understand how very dangerous Lord Allutar is. I have seen him kill a man in cold blood, and I do not think he would scruple to hang a witch.”

“Nor would any landgrave,” Reva retorted. “And I will have you there to protect me.”

“But—doesn't Lord Allutar know Anrel?” Perynis asked.

“He does,” Anrel admitted. “I will be attending as one Dyssan Lir, Reva's brother, and it is my hope that you might all assist in disguising me, so that Master Lir will not be recognized as either the fugitive Murau or the notorious Alvos.”

“Disguise how?” Nivain asked.

Anrel glanced at Reva. “I thought perhaps a spell to change my features, or my skin—a glamour, if any of you know how.”

The four witches looked at one another, then all leaned forward across the table, shutting Anrel out, as they began discussing the possibilities.

None of them knew how to cast a proper glamour; the three daughters all looked expectantly at their mother, but she shook her head. “No,” Nivain said. “I tried it once. It's beyond me.”

“Then we might lengthen his nose,” Perynis suggested.

“I was thinking about his ears,” Reva replied.

In the end they decided not to alter Anrel's features—for one thing, Tazia vigorously objected to the idea. “I like his face the way it is,” she insisted.

While Anrel was flattered by that, he found Nivain's argument for avoiding any magical changes much more convincing. She was unsure how stable any such magic would be, in particular in a house as heavily warded as Lord Allutar's surely was, and if the spell were disrupted the result would almost certainly draw more attention than Anrel's own face.

“I'll just stay out of sight as much as I can,” he agreed.

Later, after supper, when Tazia was able to get Anrel alone in a quiet passageway, she tried to convince him not to go at all. “Lord Allutar knows you!” she said. “Even if he doesn't particularly want you dead, do you think he'll just let you go if he sees you there in his own house?”

“I don't intend to let him see me,” Anrel said. “I'll stay in the shadows, in the corners. If I see anyone looking at me, I'll slip away.”

“If you
can
,” Tazia retorted.

“Yes, if I can.”

“It's dangerous!”

“Of course it is, but I told Reva I would go.”

Tazia frowned. She did not bother to argue further, but she did say emphatically, “I don't like it.”

“Neither do I,” Anrel said. “But if there's a chance I might save your sister by being there, then I must be there.”

“Why should
you
go, and not my mother? She's a much better witch, and Lord Allutar doesn't know her!”

Anrel smiled. “I asked Reva the same thing, and I respect her answer.”

Tazia stared at him for a moment, then said, “But you aren't going to tell me what she said.”

“No, I am not.”

“Anrel, this is madness. You're risking your life.”

“I am, yes. I'm risking it in hopes of preserving your sister's life.”

Tazia's eyes were suddenly wet. “I don't want to lose
both
of you!”

“And I don't want to lose
you
,” Anrel said gently. “If I let Reva go to her death without at least
trying
to help her, I wouldn't be worthy of you—and you would know it, in your heart. You wouldn't want me if I did that.”

Tazia hesitated. “I think you overestimate me,” she said.

“I know I do not,” Anrel said. “If I will not face danger for those I love, then what is my love worth? How can I call it love at all? Would you have a man who knows nothing of love?”

“But you don't love Reva!” Tazia protested.

“No,” Anrel agreed, “but I love
you,
and you love her.”

At that Tazia broke down in tears, and Anrel took her in his arms, offering reassurances that needed no words.

Anrel spent much of the following day in the room above the stable, preparing his attire. He needed to dress in a way that he would not be obviously out of place at a landgrave's reception, but that would allow him to at least partially conceal his identity. Fortunately the weather was still cold, so at least at first he could wrap a scarf around the lower half of his face and pull a hat down on his forehead without attracting suspicion. If he stayed near the door, that might be enough.

He brushed out his brown velvet coat, and with Tazia's assistance made some alterations—it seemed unlikely that anyone would recognize it after so long, in any case, and he had been wearing it openly, but there was no point in taking any unnecessary risk. New trim on the lapels and white lace at the collar transformed it sufficiently to satisfy him. His hidden money remained in the lining; if Tazia had noticed the extra weight she did not mention it.

Anrel's hat had been utterly nondescript to begin with, and had become rather more battered since his speech in Naith, so that it was even less noticeable. It only needed a little cleaning.

His beard, which he had customarily kept trimmed evenly, he carefully reshaped to a point below his chin. He decided he rather liked the effect, and might want to keep it permanently.

He had thought that would probably be sufficient disguise, but shortly after lunch Tazia dragged him aside and proceeded to bleach his hair and beard—not with magic, but with some foul-smelling liquid she had spent much of the morning in obtaining. When she was done he looked in a glass, and marveled at the result—the blond hair and pointed beard made him look somehow foreign, more like a Quandishman or a Cousiner than a Walasian. He hardly recognized himself.

He could certainly
smell
himself, though; he needed to wash thoroughly several times to remove the stink of the bleach. That was what he was doing, using water heated on the little stove, when Dorrin Kabrig knocked on the open door of the room over the stable and told Reva she had a visitor waiting downstairs.

“Mistress li-Dargalleis?” she asked.

Master Kabrig nodded.

“I will come at once.”

Anrel started to say something, but Reva was out the door before he could offer to accompany her. He shrugged, and went back to his washing.

Anrel therefore did not see Mimmin li-Dargalleis deliver the promised payment, but he saw the smile on Reva's face when she returned to the room clutching a little leather purse. “Fifty guilders!” she said.

“I thought you had agreed on sixty,” Anrel said, as he poured yet another dipper of lukewarm water on his head.

“I'll have the rest when the spell is cast,” Reva said.

“You hope,” Garras said.

Tazia snorted, and passed Anrel another bucket of water.

When his hair was finally done, the smell dissipated, and his altered clothing in place, Anrel thought his appearance was sufficiently altered to minimize the risk of recognition. Now he needed only wait until the appointed hour.

Lord Allutar's town house was impressive—smaller than his estate in Alzur, but newer and more luxuriously appointed, with high white ceilings and gleaming brass chandeliers.

The house stood at the top of Bridge Street Hill, where Bridge Street ended in a cobblestone plaza. Reva and Anrel had walked up through town, but when they arrived the street was crowded with carriages, and they had to wind their way through a maze of horses and coach wheels to reach the grand curving stair that led up to the entryway. They joined the flow of guests up that stair, across a brick terrace, and in through the town house door.

Anrel noticed that most of the other guests seemed to be better dressed than he and Reva were; many wore the stark black and white modern fashions that had just been coming into style when Anrel completed his education and departed the capital. Even those in more traditional and colorful garb seemed to be adorned with far more velvet and fur than Anrel would have expected in a town like Beynos.

His own coat was velvet, of course, with lace at the collar and cuffs, but showed visible wear despite his best efforts, and his black hat was a simple, practical affair that bore little resemblance to some of the fanciful headgear he saw on the other guests.

Reva's cloak was heavy black wool but very plain, and the dark blue dress beneath was trimmed with silk, rather than being entirely
composed of that fabric. Her sisters had gone to some lengths to arrange her hair elegantly, and she wore an absurd little feathered concoction as a hat, but compared to most of the women she appeared somewhat shabby.

When at last they reached the grand front door Anrel was displeased to feel the odd, skin-tugging sensation of passing strong wards as he stepped across the threshold—but really, he could hardly expect that a sorcerer's home would
not
be warded in such troubled times. At least the wards did not seem to have reacted to his own presence; he had no idea just what they were designed to detect or prevent, but whatever it was, his presence did not seem to be included.

Once inside they found themselves in an anteroom where guests were doffing their outer garments and either making their way through the left-hand door into the salon or waiting at the much larger right-hand door to be announced before entering the ballroom. The discarded coats were being stowed in a cloakroom by the entrance; Anrel was slightly startled to see that it was staffed by a homunculus, rather than a human being, and not the same homunculus he had seen in Lord Allutar's hall back in Alzur. Anrel had not known the landgrave had made more than one.

Perhaps he hadn't; perhaps his grandfather had made this one, and Allutar had inherited it with the house. In any case, the homunculus stood silently by the entrance, calmly accepting and stowing whatever outerwear guests might give it.

It made no attempt to take coats or hats from those who did not offer them, and it did not make any comments or suggestions. In fact, it was utterly silent, and Anrel suspected it had no voice. Sorcerers often did not bother to give their animate creations unnecessary features; most were hairless and sexless. Certainly this one, while it was dressed in a man's jacket, showed no trace of hair or beard and appeared quite epicene.

Homunculi did not have free will, of course; they would only do as they were told, and this cloakroom attendant had obviously not been ordered to make any demands. The automaton was perfectly willing to let Anrel keep his hat and scarf. At least that much of Anrel's planning
had worked out—he was able to keep his features largely hidden. A human servant might have been more insistent upon helping.