The Thinking Woman's Guide to Real Magic (33 page)

Aruendiel, though, had evidently had enough of Nora's rescue. He changed the subject, remarking that he expected to make fewer journeys to the Faitoren borderlands from now on, since he had finally persuaded Luklren to retain a magician of his own. Had Lady Pusieuv seen Luklren at court? She had not, but she had seen his cousin Lord Oslewen, who had just married the second daughter of Baron Marn.

They moved into a discussion of recent dynastic alliances in the kingdom, including the pedigrees of each party—Aruendiel seemed to have known most of their immediate ancestors going back two or three generations—and then moved inevitably into politics. Lady Pusieuv had a range of sharp observations to make on the players at the Semrian court; Nora had no way of judging how accurate her analysis might be, but it sounded trenchant enough, and Aruendiel seemed to be listening carefully.

The interest he showed was surprising, Nora thought. She would have bet money that this sort of talk would have bored him senseless, and from time to time, as Lady Pusieuv held forth, she thought she saw a shade of weariness in his eyes. But when he responded to his niece, he spoke with a practiced, easy courtesy, a smooth attentiveness, which was far removed from his usual manner. For the first time, Nora thought, she could credit the stories about the women that he had seduced long ago.

Or perhaps, as a landholder and peer of the realm, even as a magician who played some role in the affairs of government from time to time, he was more concerned with the political landscape in the kingdom than she had imagined.

Nora, unfortunately, did not share the same interest. She was thinking longingly of her bed upstairs, and wondering whether her candle stub was long enough to let her read for a few minutes about Devris and Udesdiel before going to sleep, when a sudden change in Aruendiel's tone caught her attention.

“No,” he said, shaking his head, “it is out of the question.”

“But poor old Lord Tirigan died without near heirs; now it could go to some distant cousin who's half Orvetian and doesn't have nearly as good a claim as you do. Really, it's a scandal to let a rich estate like that, in the heart of the kingdom, fall into the hands of foreigners.”

“I have no claim at all,” he said coldly.

“That's not true, Uncle. You've always had a good claim, and to be frank, I think it's mad not to assert it, especially now. Unfaithfulness cancels all dower rights, you know. Lusul should be yours.”

“The estate passed to my wife's cousin, her nearest legitimate relation, as was just.”

“Well, he's dead now. And the rumor in Semr is that the Pirekennys will raise a claim, too. I saw the grandson at court.”

“That is no concern of mine.”

“Well, I think it's very shocking. The nerve of those people! They should be ashamed.” Aruendiel was silent, so she went on. “I apologize for bringing up this old unpleasantness, but—well, think of the good of the family, Uncle. We still have four girls to marry off. It would be such a blessing to be able to offer them with part of the Lusul patrimony in their dowry.”

“Surely the Forel is enough to provide for your family?”

“It's no Lusul!” she said vehemently. “For your own sake, too, Uncle, please consider it. It's a shame that you have to live here, in this poor little castle, in this miserable northland, when you could be so much more comfortable.” Her glance moved across the table and fell upon Nora. “I'm sure that Nora would prefer living in a modern palace, on a great estate like Lusul. Wouldn't you, Nora?”

Nora was taken aback, and now a little regretful about the impression that she had fostered about her relationship with Aruendiel. “I'm actually not very particular,” she said awkwardly.

“My dear Pusieuv, we have spent enough time on this subject. There is nothing more to discuss. Would you care for more wine?” Aruendiel reached for the wine bottle and discovered that it was empty. He rose from his chair. “Excuse me, ladies, I will bring out a new bottle.”

“Would you like me to get it?” Nora asked, but he waved away her offer and limped toward the kitchen.

“Uncle is stubborn,” said Lady Pusieuv into the silence that fell after the kitchen door swung shut.

“I've noticed,” Nora said.

Another pause. Lady Pusieuv took a last bite of pie and chewed it delicately. “You know, my dear,” she went on, “I think it falls upon me to remind you of something. My uncle is known as Lord Aruendiel. No matter what you call him in private, it is very important that, at least in company, you refer to him by that title. Or as his lordship. It is the proper address for one of his station.”

“He has never asked me to refer to him that way,” Nora said. “And certainly he does not hesitate to correct me or anyone else, when he believes it necessary.”

“My uncle tolerates—to some degree encourages—many lapses of decorum. He would be pleased, though, if you were to stop addressing him in such a familiar manner. It would show that you know your place.”

“My place!” Nora looked incredulously at Lady Pusieuv. The other woman seemed to be completely serious.

“Yes, your place. You are not of the same rank, you know, so you must see that it is quite impossible for you to address him as an equal.”

For a moment, Nora was speechless, or rather the only words that would fluently express her feelings were English words. She made a random gesture of frustration, and the ring on her finger flashed in the candlelight. It gave her an idea.

“Of course Aruendiel's not my equal,” Nora said, with stony hauteur. “I prefer more informality myself—it's how we do things where I come from—but it's quite true that he and I don't occupy the same rank. As you know, I am separated from my husband,” she went on, “but until my domestic situation is sorted out, I am still married to a Faitoren prince, and therefore, I hold the rank of princess.

“By rights Aruendiel—and everyone else of a lower rank—should address me as ‘Your Royal Highness,' but I do not insist upon it. Like him, I can tolerate some lapses of decorum.”

Lady Pusieuv pursed her thin lips and appeared thoughtful.

“More wine, my dear niece?”

Aruendiel had appeared with the bottle in his hand. He filled her goblet without waiting for her reply. “And would you like some?” he said to Nora. He spoke to her with a degree more politeness than he normally did, and there was a curl of amusement at the corner of his mouth. She noted that he had refrained from addressing her by either name or title.

“Yes, please,” she said.

The wine was surprisingly good. There was little in the castle wine cellar except for a scattering of very old, vinegary bottles and a barrel of raw red wine, like liquid sandpaper, that Mrs. Toristel had bought from a trader in Barsy last year and still hoped would age into something drinkable. Nora wondered whether Aruendiel had resorted to mellowing the red with a quick spell. He seemed not to be drinking any more wine. Lady Pusieuv, though, enjoyed it. After finishing a goblet, she had a second piece of the pie.

She seemed to have decided on a more conciliatory tack toward Nora. “So you simply invented this dish? And it turned out as well as this?” Lady Pusieuv shook her head as if in disbelief. “I do enjoy fussing in the kitchen, when I have a chance—my mother insisted all we girls learn to cook—but I would be terrified to try something really new, unless my cook was standing right there to help me.”

“Well, I had a basic recipe in mind, and the ingredients—the honey, the walnuts,” Nora said. “I knew what they could do, how they could fit together. That's what good cooking is.”

“Not only cooking,” Aruendiel said suddenly. His eyes caught hers, pale as smoke. “It is always essential to know one's ingredients, how they fit together.”

What was he getting at? Nora felt a prickle of anticipation. “I suppose so,” she said slowly. “For making something. Or remaking something—something that was broken.”

He gave her a brief smile, unusually cordial. “It starts with a certain basic understanding of the materials. A kind of sympathy.”

“Did you see the wonderful marquetry work that is all the rage in Semr just now?” Lady Pusieuv asked. “Like a painting, but all made of different-colored pieces of wood fitting together. The cabinetmaker must know all the various sorts of wood, and how their colors change as they age, and how to carve them just so. It is truly an art. I've ordered a table with a double portrait of myself and Negio, in profile.”

“It sounds most impressive,” Aruendiel said.

T
he sky was gray, stuffed as full of snow as a quilt is of down, but not a single flake had fallen. Nor would any fall for some time to come. Aruendiel had no intention of allowing his niece's departure to be delayed.

He rode alongside the coach as far as the Barsy road, to see Pusieuv safely on her way. Privately, he wagered with himself that she would bring up Lusul one more time. With a touch of sardonic enjoyment, he found himself proven right as they approached the turnoff for Barsy. “Uncle,” she said, leaning out the carriage window, “have you come to your senses yet, about making your claim for Lusul? There is no one with a better right to it.”

“No, my dear,” he said, speaking as lightly as he could, “I wish to have nothing to do with the place again.” Pusieuv looked baleful for an instant, but then she smiled and began to talk enthusiastically about the avenue of oaks that her husband had been planting at Forel in her absence, how she was looking forward to seeing it when she returned home.

That was one of the things that Aruendiel appreciated about his grand-niece, how quickly she could recover from a setback with grace and apparent good humor, when she chose to. It was not something that he had ever developed a knack for. Nor had his sister, come to think of it—Pusieuv must have gotten it from some other branch of the family.

Long ago he had given up looking for any trace of his sister in Pusieuv's face. The eyes, perhaps, and a tendency to plumpness in middle age. But then many people in Pelagnia—the Uland, for that matter—had brown eyes. He did not like to think about how many generations lay between his sister and her descendant. It was commendable of Pusieuv to keep up the connection. Sometimes tiresome, when she made unexpected visits like this one, but commendable. He had enjoyed having a woman around the castle for a few days, and he was even more pleased that she was leaving.

At the Barsy road, she gave him her hand to kiss. “Well, Uncle, I'll see you at the assembly next year in Semr. Unless—if we happen to marry off one of the girls before then, you'll come to the wedding feast, of course?”

The “of course” was a nice touch. Aruendiel had not attended the wedding feasts of the three children who were already married. “I will send my blessing,” he said.

Aruendiel occupied himself on the ride home thinking about various spells to keep unwanted visitors away. With natural magic, you could easily lay spells that would instantly neutralize anyone who came to attack or enchant you. It was more difficult to design a spell that made more subtle distinctions—that would repel a charming, well-intentioned, but officious grand-niece, for instance. Micher Samle had been interested in that sort of magical problem, getting spells to think for themselves, grant wishes, and so forth—was probably still working on it, wherever he was. In the girl Nora's world, presumably.

Thinking of Nora, Aruendiel scowled. Mrs. Toristel had complained to him twice already about Nora's efforts to mend the bowl. Reluctantly, Aruendiel had to agree: It was a waste of the girl's time. She might have some sort of receptivity to magic—the incident with the lion in Semr, for instance—but that was hardly enough to make smashed crockery new again. He regretted having given her the task. Why had he bothered? Across the table the other night, he'd recognized something familiar in her tired, angry face. She was exiled, dispossessed, and weary of it. The girl was inquisitive, she had a good brain—intriguing if she could be taught to do something with it—but now she would only be more sullen after failing with the bowl.

He let the snow begin falling as he neared the castle. Pusieuv must be well past Barsy by now. Fine powder sifted down, dappling the ground with uneven patches of white. The first snow of winter, but the earth was still warm enough to keep it from sticking. That would change soon enough.

Back at the castle, he was heading to the tower to look up an old spell for confusing unwelcome visitors—it steered them away from your dwelling, unless they turned and walked in the opposite direction—when Mrs. Toristel accosted him in the great hall. His attention was needed for the estate accounts.

“Can this not wait until later, Mrs. Toristel?”

“That's what you said last week, sir. And tribute is due at the end of the month.”

Aruendiel groaned and settled himself at the table. Mrs. Toristel began to recite the tally of the year's harvest and what it had brought at market.

“. . . Six dozen
wiar
of wheat, two beetles three beads the
wiar
—”

“That's all that we got for wheat this year?”

“The harvest was a good one. Prices were low.”

He shook his head. “I can never understand why an excellent harvest should leave me poorer than ever. Next year, though, I will turn the villagers into grasshoppers and I will personally curse with rust every wheat field within three days' ride, and perhaps I will get a better price for my wheat.”

Mrs. Toristel cleared her throat. “Also, the river was low, so that knocked ten beads off the price. Extra transport costs.”

“Why didn't you let me know? I would have filled the river to the top of its banks.”

“You were in Semr at the time, sir.”

Aruendiel swore briefly under his breath. “An expensive journey that turned out to be. And I bought horses there, too—how much did Toristel get for them?”

“He sold the gray but not the bay. It brought”—she thought a moment—“a dozen and three beetles.”

“I paid almost twice that in Semr,” he said gloomily. “Why didn't he sell the bay?”

“He thought you might want an extra mount. For Nora. If she was to travel again.”

“What? The horse deserves better on its back, someone who can actually ride. Tell Toristel to sell it at the next horse fair.”

Mrs. Toristel coughed and looked past Aruendiel's head. He chose to ignore the signal. If Mistress Nora was in earshot, she had already heard his views on her riding. After a pause, the housekeeper began again: “Six dozen
wiar
of wheat, two beetles three beads the
wiar
, one dozen dozen six beetles in all. Three dozen
wiar
of rye . . .”

When she came to the end, the earnings from the harvest totaled two dozen dozen seven beetles and two dozen four beads. Aruendiel drummed his fingers on the table and tried to work out whether it would be enough to pay the king's tribute and cover the household expenses until next spring's shearing. He still had some cash from the work done for the merchant last summer. Thinking it over, Aruendiel decided that they would make it into the next year, but it would be close. He exhaled loudly. “Thank you, Mrs. Toristel.”

“You're welcome, sir. Would you like to go over the internal stores, as well?”

“Later, please. I have had enough ill news for one day.”

She nodded and went into the kitchen. As Aruendiel rose, he turned to find himself face-to-face with Nora.

“Good afternoon,” he said, making a step to brush past her.

“Good afternoon,” she said, moving with him. “You know, I didn't want to correct Mrs. Toristel, but I think she might have made a small mistake when she was adding up those numbers. It's actually two dozen dozen six beetles and eleven beads.”

“How would you know?”

“I couldn't help listening, and I added the numbers up in my head. I believe I've gotten the hang of your number system.” The girl looked ridiculously pleased with herself.

“I believe I asked you, once before, to allow me to conduct my own financial affairs.”

“That's true. I apologize,” she said. She did not look sorry. She was still smiling. “There's just one other thing—” she went on, pulling out a dark object that had been hidden in the folds of her skirt. “I wanted to show you this.”

“Ah.” He took the bowl from her and ran his fingers over the glazed surface, smooth, annealed. “It is the same bowl, the one that was broken?”

“Yes.”

“You mended it yourself?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“I don't know, precisely.”

Aruendiel raised an eyebrow.

“This morning I was shuffling the broken pieces around and they all came together. It happened in a second.”

Aruendiel turned the bowl over in his hands, considering. A fine accomplishment for a beginner. But what did it signify? The result was too random, more likely the product of lucky inspiration than intelligent technique. She did not understand yet what she had done.

He hurled the dish against the floor.

“No!” Nora cried, throwing out her arm, too late. She knelt and fingered the broken pieces, then looked up at him. “Why on earth did you do that?”

“You fixed it once. Do so again, and this time have the wit to tell me exactly how.”

She said something in her own language, but he had no trouble understanding her.

“Bring it to me when you are finished,” he directed. “I will be in the tower for the rest of the day.”

•   •   •

I should have known he would do that, Nora told herself as she put the shards of the dish into her apron. It's just the sort of thing he would do—and oh, merry hell, how on earth did I do it before? They don't want to fit together at all now, do they? It was so simple this morning, it was like magic. Well, it was magic, she thought with a small flare of pride.

It had something to do with what Aruendiel had said the other night about sympathy, understanding the materials. That was a big hint; she had been mulling over his words ever since, as she played with the fragments of the bowl, wondering how to develop sympathy with a clay pot. Evidently she had succeeded. But how? She tried to recall exactly what she had been thinking just before the bowl sprang back to life, as it were, under her fingers.

Mrs. Toristel came into the great hall and reminded her that the chamber that Lady Pusieuv had occupied needed tidying.

If the magician had truly expected that she would return with the mended bowl that afternoon, he was mistaken. It was not until the evening of the second day, as she sat up in bed, playing with the pieces of pottery, her hands half-remembering the shape and heft of the old, unbroken dish, that she felt the fragments somehow organize themselves, take hold of one another, and choose to be a bowl again.

Nora exclaimed aloud. Only connect. She laughed.

She looked out the window of her room, up at the tower, where a light still burned, then shook her head. She knew what his response would be. She looked at the bowl for a few minutes, admiring its completeness, the way the candlelight melted and swam in the glossy, unmarred glaze. She got out of bed, took the bowl over to the hearth, and gave it a good, swift blow with the poker.

•   •   •

Aruendiel was eating breakfast in the great hall when Nora put the bowl on the table, next to his mug of ale. There were dark smudges under her eyes and mad wisps of hair escaping from her braid, but her mouth was set in a calm, decisive curve.

“Here it is,” she said.

Aruendiel looked up from his oatmeal. “Yes?” he said, sounding bored. He hardly glanced at the bowl she had deposited. “Is that all you have to say for yourself?”

Nora was still not sure how to explain what she had done. “I know how to mend it now.” That was not quite right. “The bowl can mend itself.” Still not right. “The fragments remember the shape of the bowl. I touched them, and they knew me, and I asked them to remember, to reconfigure, and they were willing. That's all. They were waiting, and I asked, and they were willing.”

Aruendiel watched her closely with his wintry eyes. Then he raised his eyebrows and took a swallow of ale. “I see,” he said, but his voice was no longer bored. It held a rumble of what might have been approval.

He reached for the mended bowl, but Nora was too quick. She snatched it away and smashed it against the floor. The pieces had hardly stopped shivering on the flagstones before she was on her knees, gathering them, fitting them back together. She clambered to her feet and put the bowl on the table again, whole and entire.

A smile flickered at the corner of Aruendiel's mouth. He spooned up the last mouthful of oatmeal in his own bowl, one of the red-and-white set from Barsy, and then handed the dish to Nora. Hesitating for only a second, she broke it against the flagstones.

At first she thought she was not going to be able to mend this one. It felt utterly different, the fragments alien to her touch. For a few long minutes she scrabbled helplessly with the myriad pieces. Then suddenly it was all right, they were at ease with her, she had only to drop a mild hint, and the red-and-white bowl had reconstituted itself in her grasp. She handed it back to Aruendiel and then pointed to his mug.

“May I?” she asked.

He lifted the mug and poured the ale inside carefully into the air. The liquid hung above the table in an amber bubble, foaming slightly, as Nora smashed the mug and put it back together again. Aruendiel let the ale drain into it again, then took a thoughtful sip.

“What else?” Nora said, smiling, challenge in her voice. “I'll break all the dishes in the kitchen and then mend them, if you want.”

“No,” Aruendiel said, “it would upset Mrs. Toristel, and I myself have heard enough crockery shatter for one morning. So, Mistress Nora, you wanted to know what magic is. And now you have done some yourself. Are you satisfied, now?”

“No,” she said, without hesitation.

“Good,” he said. “Come to my study this afternoon. I have another task for you.”

There seemed to be a hundred interminable chores that day, from cleaning the kitchen to sweeping the great hall to polishing the pots and pans to helping Mrs. Toristel sort the laundry to turning the ripening wheels of cheese in the buttery. The light was fading outside when Nora finally stepped through the wall and went up the winding stairs in the tower.