The Fire Mages (34 page)

“So that was why he was so keen to get me to sign a new drusse contract. He wanted it approved this summer. But – I still don’t see why you have to protect the baby from Drei. She’s his own child.”

“Or maybe not.”

“In law, she is. We’ve been through this before. We’ve done nothing wrong, and legally he’s her father, so what can he do? He can’t refuse to accept her.”

“No, but—” He stopped, sighing, and ran a hand over his chin. “You’re so logical, Kyra, but most people aren’t rational about things like this. If he even suspects she’s not his—” A heavy sigh. “I don’t know what he might do, and that’s the truth. I don’t trust him. I don’t want to give him the slightest reason to be suspicious. That’s why I’m keeping away from you. If he knows I’ve been in your bed, he might remember that we spent a lot of time together before you were pregnant. Lakkan – well, that doesn’t matter, because you’ve only just met him, but I daren’t touch you.”

“How would he know? He’s not here, is he?”

“His spy is, though. Morthan watches everything you do. He’s not taken much notice of me, because I spit abuse at you more often than not, and I try not to attract his attention. Remember, if ever Drei asks me directly, I won’t be able to lie to him.”

“I see.” And I did, at last. But for all the swirling mass of formless fears Cal had stirred up in me, I was more content than I’d been in a long time. Cal didn’t hate me after all. Maybe, in the future, it would be safe for us to be lovers again. A little bubble of happiness rose inside me.

I was puzzled about one thing, though. “You don’t really think he would hurt her, do you? Treat her badly? A baby? Drei’s a bit strange, and his ambitions carry him away sometimes, but he’s not a bad person.”

“Hmm. Not sure about that. I’ll tell you the full extent of it, as I know it, and then you can judge. Just before we left Kingswell, there was a big trial amongst the border guards.”

“Oh, I remember. The High Commander, wasn’t it, and some of his senior advisors? A big scandal. I wasn’t allowed to go.”

“That’s right. The charges were – very sordid, so the Drashon asked Drei to attend rather than you, to determine whether the people accused were lying. I only saw the first trial, the High Commander himself. He denied all the charges against him, and Drei said that he lied, so he was convicted and executed.”

“So?”

“It was
Drei
who lied. I saw the blue flare. He had that man killed, and now Drei is about to be appointed High Commander himself.”

I couldn’t believe it. Surely it was impossible? Drei, the slightly awkward man who’d been so terrified of sex, cold bloodedly having someone killed. “You didn’t say anything?”

“I didn’t know at the time that the poor man would be executed. How could I? Besides, no one knew I had the power to see the blue flares the way you and Drei can, and I didn’t know what might happen if anyone found out. I think it’s even more important now to keep that secret. It gives us a weapon against Drei. Lakkan might be useful that way, too, if we can keep his abilities quiet. Drei knows about your power, and – actually, I think he arranged for this little jaunt of ours to get you out of the way, while the rest of the trials were going on.”

It was too much to take in, and it made no sense. My head was spinning. “Why under the moon would he do all this? Why would he want to be High Commander?”

“That’s the real question, isn’t it? But I think we have to assume that he has some plan in mind, and he’s not going to let anything stand in his way. Or anyone. Within a moon or two, he will be one of the most powerful people in the land, with all the border guards at his disposal. But the higher he rises, the further there is for him to fall. He’s been very clever, and he’s learned to control himself and his gifts brilliantly, but underneath the smooth exterior he’s still the rather unstable young man he always was. He wants to be respected and feared, and the worst thing you can do to him is make him look foolish. If he thinks that you’ve foisted a child on him by another man, he’ll want revenge on you and me and the baby, and the Moon Gods alone knows how that would end. Do you understand, Kyra? He’s a very dangerous man.”

Cal and I talked long into the night. It was a lot to take in all at once, but I didn’t doubt him for a single heartbeat. I knew he wasn’t lying to me, for there wasn’t a hint of a blue flare. Even so, I didn’t know what to make of it. I knew nothing of the machinations of court, such things had never interested me, but I guessed I was going to have to learn quickly.

From then onwards, although Cal was still obnoxious to me in public, when we were closeted together in the carriage he was much more open, and we planned what we would do at Kingswell.

I was confused about Cal. I’d decided long ago that I wasn’t in love with him, and that he wasn’t really in love with me either. Yet I’d missed him unbearably when he vanished in the city, and I’d been surprisingly upset by his offhand attitude towards me. It was such a relief to find that it was all an act, a public display to convince people we’d not been sleeping together. I was much happier knowing that.

I had rather an awkward conversation with Lakkan.

“I taking your luggage up to your room, Lady?” he said, with a broad grin, as we arrived at the next night’s inn.

“I – um, don’t think that’s such a good idea.” I couldn’t stop myself blushing.

“I offending you, somehow?” His voice was soft. “I being too presumptuous? You being a great lady, I being only a guard?”

“I think I was the presumptuous one, Lakkan. And I’m not a great lady, I’m just a village girl. But...” I looked about, but everyone else was busy unloading the boxes and giving orders to the servants and stable workers. I lowered my voice, anyway. “It’ll be better if I keep my distance, and not bring attention to you. Then you can move about freely at Kingswell, and you’ll be able to hear things, see things...”

“Ah, a spy!” His eyes gleamed with excitement. “Excellent! But you be teaching me more things? Magic things? I wanting to learn all about it.”

“Yes, I’m sure—” I was distracted just then by two men who’d just ridden in a cloud of dust into the inn yard, and were dismounting at the far side. “I recognise those two. That black horse is quite distinctive. Didn’t we see them at the last inn we stopped at?”

He studied them through his lashes. “I think you being right. I suppose they going to Kingswell too.”

~~~~~

We found Kingswell in a fever of anticipation for the Bai-Drashonor’s wedding. The streets were thronged with stalls selling ribbons to wave, flags hung from every building and half the population had clearly decided to drink the health of the happy pair repeatedly. Our carriage could barely squeeze through the raucous crowds. The rest of the party went to the mages’ house, but I returned to the apartment I’d shared with Drei, still mine until the official end of my contract.

The place felt huge and empty and impersonal. There was nothing of me there, and nothing of Drei either. I didn’t recognise any of the servants, or the guards outside the doors. I’d never made particular friends of any of them, but I hadn’t asked for them to be replaced, either, and I knew enough to realise that it wasn’t usual for them to leave like that. Once assigned, they stayed for years, sometimes for life.

“What happened to Gracia and Lukan?” I asked one of them.

She looked down at her feet. “I believe the Gracious Lord requested they be sent elsewhere.”

I hadn’t expected to see Drei, with the wedding imminent, but he bounded in not an hour later, beaming at me, and planting a wet kiss on each cheek.

“Kyra! You’re just in time for the big event! You’re looking very well. And how is she?”

“She? Oh, the baby! She’s coming along nicely.” I rested a hand on my stomach, now grown quite large.

He laid his hand over mine, his face all affection. “My first child. I’m pleased you’re taking such good care of her.”

It was hard to reconcile this man, so pleasingly excited about his baby, with the one in Cal’s tale, who’d had a man executed in cold blood. And why? That was the chilling part. What possible reason could he have for wanting the High Commander of the border guards dead? Even if he wanted to be High Commander himself, there was still the same question – why?

“How is Marshalia doing?”

“Very well. Although I think she’s bigger than you already. Some women just run to fat, don’t they? Hers is a boy.”

I don’t know what impulse drove me then. “I suppose you’ll have your wife pregnant in no time, too. Then you won’t need all your drusse-born children.”

His face twisted fiercely, and he grabbed my wrist so painfully hard I gasped. “You forget who you’re talking to,” he hissed. “I was a disregarded drusse-born child myself, remember? I will
never
neglect any of my children the way I was neglected.”

A frisson of fear passed through me. What would he do to a child who wasn’t his?

~~~~~

The wedding of a Drashon’s heir was a five sun celebration, involving a tedious number of formal occasions, balls, feasts and processions. As the drusse of the new husband, I and my swelling belly were paraded at a number of these events alongside the other drusse, who was indeed quite large, although it looked to me as much like padding as baby. I wasn’t about to get competitive over it, though, and for all Drei’s words, I knew perfectly well that Yannassia’s children would eclipse my daughter.

On a couple of occasions when I wasn’t required to play the dutiful drusse, I was allowed to wear my robes and take my place with the other mages, always at the end of the line next to Cal. Both of us now wore the deep navy blue of Kingswell mages, his trimmed with the gold of a thought mage, mine edged with red. I never saw Drei in his robes, but then he was always the centre of attention, mingling with the Drashon and his family.

There were several processions through the streets, to distribute coin or little gifts to the poor, or for the wedding principals to honour various important dignitaries by paying formal visits, and fortunately I wasn’t required for those. The most important procession was on the third sun of the celebration, when the wedding itself took place in the Drashon’s greatest hall in the Keep. After the ceremony, everyone was squeezed into one of scores of decorated carriages for a stately drive through the better districts of the city where crowds lined the streets. Strict protocol was essential, so Drei and Yannassia were in the third carriage, behind the Drashon leading the procession, and the Drashonor behind. Drei’s drusse were important enough to share with him and his new wife. I imagine the idea was to give the citizenry a chance to see how jealous the drusse were, but in my case there wasn’t much to see.

Drei put an original twist on the outing, though. When the cavalcade reached the large square looking up to the Shining Wall, instead of turning back to the Keep he diverted our carriage right up to the wall itself, where it stopped. He then leapt out and put his hand over the mark on the wall. The door shushed open, and everyone gasped to see inside – the massive ceremonial arch, and visible through it, the wide main street lined with imposing buildings, with the vast dome of the library at the far end. Drei strode through the door, and with a wave to Yannassia turned off to the right and out of sight. Guards were stationed along the wall to keep the crowds at bay and ensure no one tried to enter the Imperial City. After a while, the door closed again, raising another gasp. Once closed, it blended so seamlessly into the wall that it was invisible.

Yannassia had clearly been fore-warned of what would happen, for she sat calmly waiting. The crowd murmured anxiously, and poor Marshalia was wide-eyed and trembling with shock. Drei hadn’t thought to tell her about it.

At last the door shushed open again, and Drei emerged to huge cheers from the crowd. In his hand he carried a single golden rose, which he presented with a bow to his wife, who blushed and smiled at him. It was a brilliantly contrived moment. The Kingswell ladies sighed over it afterwards as a magnificently romantic gesture, but to me it was a demonstration of his power. He was almost the only person alive who could have done such a thing. Almost but not quite.

Cal’s power could be hidden from Drei, but Lakkan’s couldn’t, and we decided to grasp the nettle sooner rather than later. A few suns after the wedding, there was a regular court assembly, the first since the wedding, and so the first time Drei had been permitted to sit with Yannassia beside the Drashon. Marshalia sat just behind them, trying not to gloat at her elevated status. I could have joined her, but Drei didn’t insist, so I was able to skulk in a corner, as I preferred. The Drashonor sat on his father’s other side. His wife was too pregnant to attend, so he had two of his drusse with him, and his oldest child, a girl of fourteen or so. Behind them a semi-circle of servants, law scribes and hangers-on, ready to leap forward if required.

One of the hangers-on was someone I’d never expected or wished to see again – Drei’s mother. She had stayed on at Kingswell since my trial, for some reason. When she wasn’t smugly paying homage to her son she tended to drift around the room like a butterfly, pausing briefly at this group or that before moving on, and, although I tried very hard to avoid her, inevitably we bumped into each other. She nodded slightly in my direction, with a vaguely puzzled air as though I were someone she recalled meeting but couldn’t quite place, and then floated off, trailing lackeys. It astonished me that she could be so complacent about Drei’s powers after soundly abusing me as a witch and much else. I despised her thoroughly.

I stayed with Cal and a couple of other mages, with Lakkan as our mage guard. He looked rather good in his uniform, which was the usual armoured leather affair, with a tabard styled like a miniature robe on top, in Kingswell’s deep blue.

We arrived late, and Drei was with the Drashon at the other end of the room, but almost as soon as we walked in his head lifted and he saw us. He recognised me, turned away and then his eyes swivelled back to us. I could see his intent look even from that distance as he saw Lakkan’s aura. Then he said something to Yannassia and made his way steadily across the room towards us.

“Kyra.” He sketched a tiny bow. “Lords.” A slighter more expansive bow to the other mages. “Kyra, a word, if you please.”

He drew me to one side, and almost before we were out of hearing range, he hissed in my ear, “Who is he?”

I didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “His name is Lakkan. He’s from Wissonlent, but I spotted him at that training place on the river.”

“And you brought him here. Clever girl. Does he know what he is?”

“Yes, but we’ve not told the mages about him. He’s not keen to be marked.”

“Good. Very good. I suppose you’ll take him to the pillar in the city?”

“Probably. Eventually.” I hadn’t resolved in my own mind quite how to deal with that, given the inevitable after effects of renewal. It was quite an awkward situation.

“Quite right, there’s no rush. Give him time to adapt, I think.”

“Do you want to meet him?”

“Not yet. I’ll arrange something soon.”

He disappeared into the throng, but when I turned back to the mages, Lakkan whispered in my ear, “That being a bad man.”

“What? Drei?”

“Him you talking to just now. He being a bad man.”

“What makes you say that?”

He frowned, then shrugged. “Not sure. Just – there being something not right about him.”

I didn’t know what to make of that.

It was a strange morning, for I had another odd exchange at that assembly. The baby was kicking, so I was lost in my own thoughts and not paying much attention when a woman addressed me. I had the idea that perhaps she had tried once or twice before. She had that fixed smile on her face, as if she knew she had to be polite but underneath was getting cross.

“You are Lady Mage Kyra?”

“I am, but if you want to arrange a healing...”

“It is nothing like that. I wonder if I might have a word? If you would be so good?” We moved into a small empty alcove and sat down. Behind her, Cal took up position where he wouldn’t overhear secrets but I could summon him if necessary. “I have been told that you have the facility to determine with great accuracy if a person tells lies. Is that so, or have I been misinformed?”

“That is so.”

“Very well. You do not know me, and my name would mean nothing to you,” she began, “so let me get straight to the point. My husband was recently put on trial for various crimes, which he had not committed. Indeed, it was impossible for him to have done so. He was not noble, but he held a position of honour, so the Drashon himself heard the case. There was evidence presented but it was flimsy, and my husband denied it all. However, the Drashon’s mage – one mage only – determined that he was lying. As a result, my husband was convicted, and was subsequently executed. That mage is now the Dush-Bai-Drashonor, and I have been told that he has the same facility as you for detecting lies. My question, Lady, is this: is this true? Or is it possible for him to make a mistake? For I swear to you that my husband was innocent.”

It wasn’t a question I wanted to answer, not in the slightest. I knew as well as she did that her husband the High Commander was innocent, that Drei had lied about him, but I couldn’t possibly say that. I thought quickly.

“It’s very difficult to make a mistake,” I said reluctantly.

“But not impossible?” she said eagerly.