Labyrinth Gate (21 page)

“Do you know what day this is?” he asked. When she shook her head, he answered himself. “The Feast of Somorhas.”

“Oh yes.” Chryse smiled. “Speaking of food. The wedding feast. I remember the card.” She glanced out at the church, but the door was shut and the lane empty. A thin, dark-featured girl clothed in a shapeless dress carried two dead, plucked chickens from the inn-yard to the back door of the kitchens.

“I wasn’t thinking of food,” said Julian. The tone of his voice caused her to look up at him. He reached out with one hand and, fingers soft on her cheek, he bent to kiss her, a brief touch on her lips. He had a certain, becoming light in his eyes and, looking at her, wore the barest of smiles.

“Oh,” said Chryse. She felt heat rise in her cheeks.

“Somorhas is, as you may not know,” he said in a caressing voice, “the ancient goddess of love.”

“Oh.” Chryse felt entirely, utterly, unable to move. She knew she was blushing.

“You must know,” continued Julian, smooth and perfectly sincere, “how much I admire you.”

She made a noise somewhere between
er
and
ah,
and that seemed to satisfy him.

“And I have long suspected that you are not devoid of a certain—all—admiration for me.” His fingers remained on her cheek, warm.

Since she could not deny it, especially now, faced with what was undeniably an attractive face and person, so very close, she said nothing.

“And of course,” he went on, “it has long been the custom for those of our class to find our love outside of our amicable but, alas, arranged marriages. I would be vastly honored, Chryse, should you care to make me that object.”

It was too much—she could no longer meet his eyes. But as she looked away her gaze caught her reflection in the mirror, and she gasped and raised a hand to cover her face. “Oh, Julian!” she wailed. “My nose is all red. Oh, I
hate
it when I blush.”

There was a pause. After a moment he lowered his hand and took a step away from her.

Immediately she grasped his sleeve and, looking back at him, sighed. “What a terrible thing for me to say. I’m very flattered.”

Surprisingly, he chuckled. “And you are about to say, flattered, but not interested. Perhaps I was mistaken—”

“But I do—ah—admire you, Julian. You must believe me. Only—” She suppressed a smile. “Well, I don’t know quite how to put this. Sanjay and I didn’t marry by arrangement or for convenience. We married for love.”

There was a second pause. This time Chryse broke it with a laugh. “Oh dear. I’m afraid I’ve shocked you.”

Julian’s eyes had gone quite wide, giving him that appealing look that small children have. “How very—” He coughed discreetly behind his hand, controlling himself. “How very reckless of you,” he managed.

She laughed. “I daresay it was,” she replied, releasing his sleeve. “I didn’t know it was so very unheard of. This isn’t to say that under other circumstances—” She shrugged. He smiled. “But there it is.”

“You are most gracious, Madame.” With a flourish of a bow, he took her hand and kissed it. “I am defeated, but not utterly cast down.” He straightened, releasing her hand. “Who knows when circumstances may change.”

“Who indeed,” said Chryse, turning now as the door opened behind them and Charity appeared in the doorway, looking somewhat lost. “Charity, are you all right?”

Julian moved to stand by the window, back to them, as Chryse walked across the parlor to the door.

“I was looking for Maretha,” said Charity.

“You seem a little pale,” said Chryse. “I believe she’s up in your uncle’s room, copying out some notes of his on that old map.”

“Old map?”

“The one the vicar here unearthed from some old chest.”

“Oh.” Charity considered. “That’s why they both—” She broke off. “We must be very close now,” she said instead. “Less than a week, Thomas—Mr. Southern says. And that only because there are no roads to speak of up there.” She shuddered. “Do you suppose the old stories are true?”

“I don’t know,” said Chryse.

Charity looked past her to Julian. “I’d better go find Maretha,” she murmured, and left.

“There.” Chryse turned to Julian. “A pity she isn’t married.”

“Why is that?”

“I would have thought she’d make a fine mistress. She’s quite beautiful.”

“Ah, Chryse.” Julian approached her and took her hand. “Beauty by itself is no qualification in a woman. I have only to remember my wife.”

“Your—I didn’t know you were married.”

“To quite the most insipid creature you can imagine. We were both much too young. It was arranged by our parents.”

“What happened to her?” she asked.

“Died in childbed within the year.”

“And the child?” she asked softly.

“And the child,” he echoed. “Don’t be sorry for me, Chryse. It was a long time ago, and I never loved her.”

“I’m still sorry,” she said. “For the child’s sake, at least. And yours, whether you want it or not.”

He released her hand, a smile on his face that was both gentle and perhaps self-mocking. “I seem doomed,” he said softly, “to have only friendship from the women I love best.”

“Why, Julian—” she began, a sudden light of speculation in her eye, but something in his expression made her leave the rest of the thought unspoken. “I think it must be time for supper,” she finished. “Shall we go find the others?”

“Julian was right,” said Chryse to her husband.

“About what?” He turned in the saddle to look at her. They rode up a narrow track, beaten down more by the passage of the wagons of their party rather than by any of the folk who lived near this area. Behind them lumbered the remainder of their wagons and the mass of trudging laborers.

“About hunger being a greater spur than fear. Something like that.” She glanced back at the hundred or so workers plodding along in the wake of the supply wagons—about half of them had come the long road from Heffield under Thomas Southern’s keen eye. The earl’s fine carriages had been left some three days previous, when roads had disintegrated to little more than parallel ruts in hard ground, in the care of a provincial gentleman too frightened to refuse their keep. “I’m amazed the ones from Heffield stayed so long.”

“How were they to get home?” Sanjay asked.

“Well, that’s true,” she conceded, “since their pay is contingent on work. But I’m more amazed that any of the local folk hired on. More than one of the innkeepers told me scraps of story that would stop braver folk than I from coming up here. Ghosts in the night. Unseasonable storms that swept strange spells in their wake. Girls lost and crying for their lovers who were never seen again. And of course,” she grinned, her blonde hair bright and loose in the sun, “bloody sacrifice.”

Sanjay smiled, watching his wife. These lands were moors, mostly, but here trees had begun to appear, growing in clumps like seeds of a forest that could not quite come together. Though it was spring, it was still a little cool, and though the sun shone bright and steady above, there was a chill to the air that seemed to him unnatural. “That’s all?” he asked.

“Of the stories? No. But the ones that intrigue me most are the briefest ones—of what lies beyond the labyrinth gate—a haunted forest and wild magic, whatever that is. And
them,
of course. That’s mostly what they’re called, the people who live past the gate and the great lakes that separate the two lands. Them. Not human, they say.”

“Chryse, my love, how can you sound so skeptical after everything we’ve seen?”

She grinned again. “I’m not skeptical. But it’s such a fine spring day that I find it impossible to be apprehensive. And after seeing that site yesterday—it was plainly the remains of some placid old castle with not a bit of haunting in it.”

“That was only the first of the proposed sights—based on the professor’s research and the old map we obtained, and the suggestions of the guide.”

“Will we reach the second site—”

“Today? I think so. This will be the site the guide reckons as the old city. He says it’s the place known for generations as the Labyrinth Gate itself, because of the way it lies between two of the long rift lakes. It’s the only bridge to the northern lands in these parts.”

“What do you think?”

“I think,” he said, “that I’ll have to see it first.” He turned further in his saddle to examine the ragged collection of laborers walking doggedly alongside the wagons. Thomas Southern, at their fore, was engaged in a heated discussion with one of the locals, hired at the last village. “But I’m rather surprised at Julian, for having such insight into a condition so very far from his own.”

“Oh, Julian is full of surprises.” Chryse laughed suddenly.

“What is that supposed to mean?” Sanjay eyed her with the suspicion brought about by long intimacy.

“Well.” Now she hesitated. “I’ve been trying to decide how to tell you—it’s no great thing, really—but I would hate to see you—oh, this is ridiculous.” She grimaced.

Sanjay laughed. “Next thing, you’re going to tell me that he propositioned you.”

“Sanjay.”

His expression changed. There was a brief silence, shot through with the sound of horses and the creak of wagons and the singing of the workers, a rousing tune about sowing the fields and planting a tree. Then they both began to laugh.

“Well,” she said finally. “I was quite tempted, I must say.”

“Then let’s hope he left the offer open,” he replied. “When you get tired of me, you can divorce me and marry him.”

“But he doesn’t want to
marry
me. That’s not how it’s done here.”

“All right. Then if he can come up with a substantial sum perhaps I’ll allow him to bribe me to remain wed to you, in name only, of course, while he—”

“I see.” Chryse considered this with mock seriousness. “That is a possibility. How much would you accept?”

“There would be one stipulation,” he added.

“Which is?”

He grinned. “You’d have to cheat on him.”

She laughed and leaned across to kiss him. “What would I do without you?” she asked as she settled back firmly into her saddle.

But the comment brought an unwontedly solemn look to his face. “I’m glad we’re here together, Chryse,” he replied with great seriousness. “Adventures are all very well, but without a companion to share them with—” He shrugged.

“Sanjay, if I hadn’t been with you, I would have been terrified the moment I set foot in this place, and every moment since.”

His lips quirked up into a little smile. “So would I,” he said softly. “But don’t tell anyone else.”

Chryse laughed. “I hope,” she added slowly after an interval of silence, “that this won’t affect what you think of Julian. I wondered if I should tell you that he propositioned me.”

“My sweet buttercup.” He smiled. “How can I dislike a man who has the same good taste I do?”

“How you flatter me. But not often enough.”

“I wouldn’t want you to become vain,” he retorted.

“Yes,” she agreed. “I’m in terrible danger of that. Now look there—” She lifted her chin in the direction of the wagons in front of them. “Here comes young Master Lucias. He looks in a bit of a rush. Lord, Sanjay, how could I become vain with a face like that hovering about?” She waved one hand. “Lucias!”

The youth reined his horse over to walk beside them. He had taken to riding one of the most spirited animals when it was found that no one besides the earl and Kate could handle it. That he had a long acquaintance with horses was apparent by his seat; he rode with an ease and mastery that was surprising for a person of his age.

“Madame. Monsieur.” He nodded at them in turn, but his eyes, as he looked at them, bore a troubled expression.

“Is something wrong, Lucias?” asked Sanjay. He frowned, examining the boy with a perplexed expression.

“No,” said Lucias quickly. His hair shone like gilding in the noonday sun. “It’s just that I keep thinking you and Madame look familiar somehow.”

“You still don’t remember anything?” Chryse asked gently. “Except the factory?”

“No, Madame.”

“Not even why you were being held there? Locked away like that?”

He shook his head. His face, even in distress, had an unearthly quality about it, as though he had been touched by some divine hand to bear the blessing of heaven to the mortal world below. “But it wasn’t for what the other children were locked there for, I know that.”

“And that’s all.” Chryse shook her head in turn.

“You know horses,” said Sanjay. “That in itself is some kind of clue, however small.”

“Oh yes.” Lucias nodded enthusiastically. “I love horses. I know that I knew them before—but in a different way than—” He broke off. His complexion paled, and he abruptly reined his horse back and away. “I must go speak to—begging your—” He cantered off, down the line of wagons.

Chryse and Sanjay had barely time to exchange a glance before a second horseman pulled up beside them.

“Madame. Monsieur.” The earl’s tone held the same slight chill as the air of these highlands. His glance strayed past them towards the retreating figure of Lucias. “Interesting lad,” he murmured. His cool gaze came to rest on Sanjay. “Wouldn’t you agree?”

“He has a certain—” Sanjay paused, “—a certain cast to him.”

“I thought you might see it, too,” said the earl smoothly. “A generous touch of magic, wouldn’t you say? Some spell imposed by another.”

“I can’t see so much as that. I haven’t your skills.”

“No,” agreed the earl, without a trace of self pride. “But I haven’t your sight. Tell me, do you recognize it at all?”

“Recognize it? The magic? No. I didn’t know it could be recognized.”

The earl cast him a strange glance. “Any mage leaves a trace of his self in his castings, but the more adept a mage, the more difficult it is to read.”

“As each deck of Gates is individual,” said Chryse.

His eyes slid to scrutinize her, an unreadable expression on his impossibly controlled face. “Indeed,” he said. “Although the cards are only needed by those who manipulate the lower levels of power.”

Chryse thought abruptly of Madame Sosostris and, as if the idea had leapt to her from Sanjay’s mind, she turned to look at her husband. In his eyes and expression she saw immediately that he was thinking the same thing as she was.