The Midnight Queen (5 page)

He reached the entrance well behind the others and lingered there, listening to their footsteps and letting his eyes adjust to the relative darkness within, striped slantwise by the bars of sunlight admitted by the seaward-facing colonnade. It was here that he began to hear the voices.

What first came to his ears as a single blurred muttering soon resolved into several distinct voices—one deep, slow, and resonant; another higher, a sad repeated keening; others that ranged the octaves between, rising, cresting, and falling like the waves of the sea. And, indeed, what he heard might have been merely the crash of surf against the cliffs below, magnified through the temple, whose seaward wall was open to the elements. But Gray, who had lived near the sea for much of his life, was not long in recognising these voices as something other—something
more
.

The old magicks are strong here . . .

Stepping cautiously forward into the temple proper, he at once beheld the great altar to Neptune but found it deserted. Farther in, and at length he discovered Sophie, Gwenaëlle, and Morvan, kneeling to present their offerings at a smaller, humbler shrine set into the left-hand wall. Gray tried to recall what he had read about Breton gods and goddesses of the sea, but by now the voices were so loud, so urgent, that he had little attention to spare. He could hear just well enough to be sure that some of them spoke or sang words—but not words he understood, though he could hear their kinship to the local language and to the Kernowek and Cymric he had heard spoken all his life. He shut his eyes and concentrated intently, bending both mind and magick to the task of understanding
just one word, just one, just one . . .

But just as he felt he was about to catch hold of something, Joanna screamed.

*   *   *

A priest and two acolytes came running as Joanna's single shriek, abruptly stifled, echoed around the great stone hall, confounding Gray's efforts to locate its source. The flowers fell unheeded, scattering across the stones, as he looked about, frantic, for some sign of her. Finding none with his unaided eyes, he drew on his talent to seek her, never stopping to think that the magick might not answer his call.

The words of the finding, as familiar as his own name, flew out in all directions and sank into the stones, setting the very air humming with his magick. He recalled them, focusing all his being on the mental image of Joanna's round, defiant face, and the magick pointed the way for him, just as it always had. He followed its urging at a run, his long legs covering the length of the temple in a few strides—only barely registering Sophie, Morvan, and Gwenaëlle following in his wake, or the priest shouting at them to come away.

Joanna teetered at the seaward edge of the temple floor, one foot suspended over empty air where there had so lately been solid stone, her body pressed back against one of the supporting columns. Her face was ashen, her lips pressed together in a vain effort to quell the chattering of her teeth. Gray gestured to Morvan, who braced him firmly as he leant out towards her, caught her arm, and slid his own about her waist to pull her back.

When Joanna had collapsed, mute and shivering, into Sophie's arms at the foot of the altar to Neptune, Gray and the priest returned to the scene of the near-catastrophe and lay prone to examine the place where a segment of the ancient, weathered stone had given way.

The priest was not much older than Gray, and his face nearly as white as Joanna's. “I cannot understand it,” he said, over and over.

And, indeed, it did seem inconceivable that this structure, which had stood here—so the Professor said—for some fifteen centuries, should so suddenly crumble under the weight of a thirteen-year-old girl.

Gray muttered brief prayers to Neptune, Dahut, and anyone else who might be listening, lest the incident represent some manifestation of divine displeasure.

This ought not to have happened, surely.

It was not until their much-subdued party had nearly reached Callender Hall that he remembered what else ought not to have happened as it had. If Gray could not set wards, could not shift, could only just call light enough to see by . . . then how had he so effortlessly produced that powerful finding-spell?

*   *   *

Amelia blanched at their tale, her blue eyes round, and rang for shawls and hot toddies. The Professor, who had looked aghast at their bedraggled return, grew increasingly dour.

“Mr. Marshall has exposed you both to unconscionable dangers,” he declared. “You may be sure he shall not be permitted to do so again.”

“But, Father!” Joanna exclaimed. “Did you not hear me? It was Mr. Marshall who found me and came to my rescue!”

“From a predicament, Joanna, in which he himself had placed you.”

“But—”

The door of the sitting-room opened to admit Mrs. Wallis, bearing a tray of steaming cups, and Katell with an armful of winter shawls. Sophie accepted a cup of hot toddy, grateful both for its warmth and for Mrs. Wallis's timely interruption. The Professor was quite capable of confining them both to the house for the remainder of the summer, simply to punish Joanna's insolence; to be forced to circumvent such a restriction, as she knew from past experience, would be tedious in the extreme.

“Sophia!”

“Sir?”

The Professor regarded her with narrowed eyes. “Have you anything to add to your sister's tale?”

Sophie considered pretending that she had had Gray under her eyes all the time and could swear to his innocence. But the Professor would question Morvan and Gwenaëlle, and though either would lie without hesitation to protect her or Joanna, she could not trust that they would do the same for Gray. She could point out again that Joanna had ventured so near the colonnade only to look at the memorial stone, which yesterday the Professor had told Gray was so much worth examining—

Sophie shut her lips tight on that disquieting thought. Surely she was imagining things—and the Professor would not thank her for making such a suggestion.

“Nothing, sir,” she said instead. “I can attest that Joanna's rescue was just as she tells it, but no more.”

The moment the Professor looked away, she cast a pleading glance at Mrs. Wallis.

“Professor, sir,” said the latter. “'Ad not Miss Sophia and Miss Joanna best be put to bed? They 'ave 'ad a dreadful fright and are not themselves.”

“Indeed, Papa,” said Amelia, “I think Mrs. Wallis is quite right.”

The Professor's gaze swept over them again, suspicious, but he allowed Mrs. Wallis to bundle them off upstairs.

Joanna was put firmly to bed, over vigorous protests, and left to her own devices. Mrs. Wallis lingered with Sophie, however, tidying needlessly and asking unaccountable questions.

“I was very frightened indeed,” said Sophie, in answer to one such, “and Joanna I am sure was quite terrified. But we are perfectly recovered now, Mrs. Wallis, I promise you.”

“Yes, dearie, I see you are; and you are quite sure there was nothing—this Mr. Marshall 'as not been making a nuisance of 'imself . . . ?”

Sophie could not at once make sense of this remark; when at length she divined its meaning, she half wondered whether Mrs. Wallis had not been sampling the Professor's brandy to steady her nerves. Had it been anyone else, she might have said so, but Mrs. Wallis had known her and her sisters from the cradle and had looked after them since their mother's sudden death—if she was occasionally a trifle zealous in guarding them from harm, it was hardly to be wondered at.

“I have not the least complaint to make of Mr. Marshall,” she said firmly. “I believe I am quite safe from unwanted advances on his part.” A less happy thought occurred to her, and she caught Mrs. Wallis's sleeve. “I hope you will not put any such idea into the Professor's head?”

“I should think not, Miss Sophia!”

She stayed a few moments more, pottering about Sophie's bedroom and humming quietly to herself; Sophie began to feel terribly sleepy, and only just glimpsed the silent closing of the door before sliding headlong into oblivion.

In Which Sophie Shows Talents of a Nonmagickal Sort

If Joanna's near-accident
at Kerandraon was indeed a sign of divine displeasure, Gray saw no further evidence of it. Nor, fortunately, did the Professor again call him to account for endangering Joanna's and Sophie's lives, as he had on that first afternoon, but Gray's comings and goings grew more circumscribed and more closely watched, and Sophie more cautious in her excursions into the garden.

The success of his finding-spell in the temple had given Gray hope that his magick might be soon restored. Throughout his many experiments in the ensuing weeks, however, it remained at such a low ebb as to prevent his warding his bedroom against listening-spells—or transforming so much as a fingertip into a feather.

One blazing August morning, having gained the farthest reaches of the garden before recognising the absence of his now-familiar sunhat, Gray returned to the house to look for it, irritated and already sweating in the heat. Upon his return, he cursed under his breath; the hat was not in its place on the hatstand. Where in Hades had he left the thing?

With an exasperated sigh, he ducked through the doorway and started towards the back staircase, whereby he could reach his bedroom without risk of encountering the Professor or Miss Callender. Halfway to the first floor he paused, listening; somewhere in the house, someone was singing.

The voice was at once familiar and strange, and Gray instantly recognised the song:

Ae fond kiss, and then we sever!

Ae fareweel, and then forever!

He shivered. He and his sisters had often played that music and sung those words, before their mother—who disdained the Border Country dialect of her childhood home, and who did not wish to encourage romantic notions in her daughters—declared it unsuitable for their tender years. Though Cecelia, a cynic even in childhood, considered its sentiments amusingly histrionic, Gray and Jenny had always found it affecting and had been genuinely grieved when it was forbidden them.

Deep in heart-wrung tears I'll pledge thee,

Warring sighs and groans I'll wage thee . . .

Now, listening, Gray could no more have stopped climbing than if strong chains had been dragging him forward. As though bespelled, and dismayed at his inability to resist, he ascended the staircase and softly trod the passage on the first floor, through the baize door and out towards the drawing-rooms. The music came from the smaller of these, which Gray had not previously had occasion to enter.

He entered it now, and—hairs rising like an angry cat's—halted on the threshold in amazement.

The singer, of course, was Sophie. This was not amazing; Joanna he knew to be quite tone-deaf, and Miss Callender—no, the notion was absurd. Although the voice did sound
remarkably
like Jenny's, he knew that Sophie it must be. But that Sophie could look like this . . .

Her hair was dark and shining, her cheeks glowed pink; she wore, he thought, the same blue gown as at breakfast, but there the resemblance ceased. Hearing Gray, she looked up at him but went on singing; her dark eyes sparkled so that he could not restrain a grin. How could he have thought her dull and listless at table that very morning? She was radiant now, joyful—beautiful, in fact. It was difficult to know how the same person could present such a different appearance, unless by some magickal transformation.

Her song ended, Sophie rested her hands lightly on the keyboard and smiled up at him.

“I thought myself alone in the house,” she said. “Amelia has gone visiting in the carriage and taken Joanna with her, and the Professor is out walking. This is not the sort of music they would approve of, you see.”

She paused.

“They do not much like me to sing,” she said.

Which explained, presumably, why he had never heard her do so before.

“I have not heard that song in—in years,” said Gray. He became vaguely aware that he was staring, and with an effort he turned his gaze to the window. “It is not one my mother approves of, either.”

“So you know it? How wonderful!” Sophie clapped her hands like a delighted child. “Will you sing it with me, then?”

In the warm room Gray shivered. “I—I only came in to look for my—my hat—”

“Please, Gray.” Her tone was quite serious now. “I shall not keep you long from your work. Just once.”

There is nothing I should like more,
thought Gray—
only I fear the consequences.

“I should be honoured,” he said at last.

Sophie smiled.

*   *   *

Singing with Sophie, Gray discovered, was very different from singing with Jenny or Cecelia.

To begin with, she was a better musician than either; hearing her play the pretty, capricious music that pleased her father and Amelia, Gray had often pondered how many thousands of hours she must have spent in practising, to attain such consummate skill as made even the most difficult piece sound natural and unstudied. Though they had never before sung together, she followed his lead perfectly and without apparent effort; a glance from her told him to carry the melody, and her clear soprano wove bewitchingly about it, her fingers never stumbling in the rippling accompaniment.

There was something else, too—some indefinable sense that, despite all Sophie's protests, this room had magick in it.

Had we never lov'd sae kindly,

Had we never lov'd sae blindly,

Never met—or never parted . . .

In the middle of the second verse, Gray's knees went weak and he clutched at the lid of the pianoforte to stop himself from falling. Sophie's voice faltered, and the instrument fell silent.

“Gray?” she said softly. “Gray, are you not well?”

Gray's vision blurred, and the room began to turn about him. Gentle hands caught his elbows; an arm round his waist supported him to a sofa, where he sat, head in hands, trying to regain his equilibrium. He was vaguely aware of someone kneeling at his feet.

“Out,” he managed to say. He felt trapped, stifled; blinking desperately in an attempt to clear his vision, he was assailed by a sense of despair, of cold black dread, and he staggered to his feet, frantic for air. “Out—I must get out—please, outside—”

There was a flurry of movement and the sound of window-sashes flung open. Gray felt a breeze, smelled a hint of trees and sun, and lurched towards the source of these salvifics. Hands on the windowsill, head and shoulders as far out into the air as he could manage, he drew deep, ragged breaths. Slowly the panic receded.

“Gray,” Sophie whispered, behind him. “Gray, come back to me.”

He turned to look down at her. Her face was pale, her eyes large, and—no, it must be his own bleary eyes that made the rest of her look pale as well. “I felt—” he began. Remembering what he had felt, he began to shiver.

“You are ill,” said Sophie. The gently scolding tone he knew was creeping back into her voice. “Going out without a hat again, as though you knew no better. Very likely you are sunstruck. You ought to be abed. Can you walk, or . . .”

“Certainly I can walk,” Gray said, rather crossly, though in fact he was far from certain.

As Sophie slipped an arm about his waist to support him, he considered protesting that he was not ill, had in fact been feeling very fit until a few moments ago. In the end, he said nothing: Something undoubtedly was the matter with him now.

But it had, he was equally certain, nothing to do with being out in the sun.

*   *   *

Mrs. Wallis brought him a tray at noon: tea, toasted bread, and strong beef broth, an invalid's meal. Gray glowered at it.

“I am not ill, Mrs. Wallis,” he said.

“Miss Sophia tells me you 'ad a touch of the sun this morning,” Mrs. Wallis replied calmly. Gray knew Sophie well enough by now to suspect that she had not put the matter so politely.

“It was not the sun; it was—”

It had felt, in fact, rather like magick shock—the dragging, hollowed-out aftermath of too much magick used too quickly—though magick shock had never so terrified him. But
could
one be magick-shocked who had used no magick?

Sophie.
The thought assailed him as he drifted into sleep, full of toasted bread and beef broth.
I used none—but I am sure that Sophie did.

*   *   *

At dinner that evening, Gray—feeling much more himself after sleeping nearly all day—watched Sophie as steadily as he dared. Once or twice he caught her eye and chanced a smile. But his vigilance was of no use; the eager, vivid Sophie of the morning was gone, replaced again by a shadow of herself who seemed bent on escaping notice.

It
is
magick,
Gray thought;
magick this morning, and magick now. There can be no other explanation. Sophie's own magick, whatever her father may believe. But what manner of magick is this?

He had an unwelcome sense that someone was waiting for him to speak.

Professor Callender said, in the tone of one ill-pleased to be repeating himself, “We shall soon be welcoming another guest, Mr. Marshall—rather a distinguished one, I am happy to say. I am sure we shall all enjoy his company; do you not agree?”

Had the Professor ever in his life asked a question that really
was
a question? “Yes, sir,” said Gray. “Of course, sir.”

*   *   *

Gray stood in the centre of his bedroom late that evening, in the light of a single candle on the desk, and prepared to speak a warding-spell.

This has gone on long enough,
he admonished himself.
The magick was there at Kerandraon; it is there still, if only you will have faith in it. Magick cannot simply disappear.

He drew a deep breath, set his shoulders, and straightened his back. Closing his eyes, he reached down into the core of his magick, the words of the warding ready on his lips.

At the first syllable, his stomach began to churn. Swallowing hard, he went on; the Latin words that ought to have slipped fluidly out into the air had to be forced out, painfully, through his clenched teeth.

His vision blurred. Before he had finished even half the spell, he collapsed.

When he woke—disoriented, with queasy stomach and pounding head—his first thought was that, somehow, he had returned to Merlin while he slept, to begin his waking nightmare all over. Soon enough he recognised his surroundings, but his relief was short-lived, for with it came the remembrance of what he had tried, and failed, to do.

Was it possible that his magick
had
simply vanished? That his violent encounter with the wards on the Professor's Oxford rooms, in bringing on the worst case of magick shock he had hitherto suffered, had also done him some more permanent damage?

One need not—as the Professor himself gave daily proof—possess any extraordinary practical talent in order to master the most arcane minutiae of magickal theory; indeed, the Professor was not alone among the Senior Fellows in disdaining what he termed “vulgar and unnecessary display.” Even limited, as he now appeared to be, to the smallest of magicks—calling light and fire, summoning small objects from close at hand—Gray might yet have spent many happy years as a Fellow of Merlin, teaching magickal theory to eager young men.

And what choice had he, with no abode but his College rooms and no income but his College scholarship?

But never again to fly! To pass another year, or more, under the Professor's stultifying tutelage, deprived of that escape! And even this prospect, he suspected, was unduly optimistic; he had only the Professor's word (and not so much his word as an oblique threat to the contrary) that his name would be cleared in return for his compliance.

On the other hand . . .

On the other hand were the comforts of home and family, the more appealing for being so long denied him. Perhaps even now, if he gave in—if he begged forgiveness and submitted himself to his father's wishes—he would once again be welcomed there.

Tomorrow I shall tell the Professor that I intend giving up my Mastery and taking up the commission my father wishes to purchase for me,
he decided.
And then perhaps he will let me go home.

So saying, he betook himself to bed, only to be denied for many hours the relief of sleep.