The Wizard of London (42 page)

Which
merely spoke for his blindness, not her ability to control herself.

She
paced the confines of the small parlor toward the back of the manor overlooking
the gardens that she tended to use as her own. The babies were all soothed, the
storm had passed, and David’s physical presence had been removed.

Mentally
and emotionally, however…

The
anger roiled inside her like those storm clouds had. She thought she had
forgiven him. Clearly, she had not.

In
fact, she wanted him to be hurt as much as he had hurt her.

This
was also not good for a Warrior of the Light, whose will could become action if
she was not careful. And then she would be subject to threefold retribution.
How had he done this to her?

It
was unfair and grossly unjust. Here she was, struggling to make a decent life
for herself and those in her charge—unable to bear children of her own,
which was a terrible and deep hurt she had revealed to no one, not even
Frederick—trying with all her soul to protect and serve as she was
supposed to do with the scantiest of resources—

And
there he was, arrogant, cold, making demands of her. Offering no apologies for
what he had done to her. Treating her like a menial, like a toy he could break,
wait for his servants to repair, and pick up to play with again. Clearly coming
here expecting that if, once the “goods” had been examined and he
still wanted them, they would be free for his taking. Oh, she had not missed
the allusion to his powerful friends, had not missed the impeccably-tailored
and clearly expensive riding clothes, the aura of power, the arrogance of
wealth that assumes that if it wants a thing, it shall have that thing. And he
knew that she knew all about the estate, the money, and the title.

She
had been glad—glad!—to hear of his discomfiting encounter with
Robin Goodfellow! Time and more than time for him to realize that his wants
were not the center of the universe, and that he was not the most powerful
creature in it! She was glad it was Robin that had done it, too, spirit of
mischief that he was. David had never been comfortable with teasing, nor with
being made fun of, and Robin surely had taken the starch out of him.

Time
for him to get a dose of what others felt like when he casually leaned his
power, of rank, of money, of magic, on them to force them to his will. No one
had ever rejected him, or made him feel inferior. It was a lesson it would do
him good to learn.

And
still, here in the place where she was a guest, he had done his best to make it
clear to her how very much less a person she was than he—

She
wanted, at that moment, to be able to actually call lightning out of the sky to
strike him. Not lethally, but—

“Mem’sab?”

The
small voice at the door to the parlor made her pause in her pacing. She turned.

It
was little Sarah, looking up at her with a worried expression, bird on her
shoulder. She wondered if Sarah had sensed her inner turmoil. If so, she owed
it to the child to calm herself.

“Sarah,”
she said, with false calm. “If this is something trivial, I am rather
preoccupied and I would hope we can deal with whatever it is
later—”

Sarah
looked up at her solemnly, her expression as sober as a judge.

“Mem’sab—that
man that was here?” Sarah paused, and Isabelle waited for the child to
tell her that he shouldn’t come around here again. It was what she was
expecting, when Sarah continued, “We need to help him.”

Help
him—help
him?
After endangering these children
?
After
ignoring the corruption in his own circle
?
After coming here to lord
it over me—to offer me crumbs from his table in exchange for the grace of
his temporary attention
—

She
allowed none of this to show, and kept her psychical walls up to keep from
disturbing the little girl more than she already was. “Sarah, dear, I am
afraid that in this case, you really know nothing of the situation,” she
said carefully. She reminded herself that she was not angry at this child, she
was angry, rightfully, at David. She should not unload her anger at David onto
Sarah, who had done nothing to deserve it.

Two
sets of eyes, the round yellow ones of the bird, and the round brown ones of
the child, looked up at her solemnly.

“He
is unhappy,” Sarah said simply. “And you are unhappy, too.
You’re angry and upset and so is he. And you’re so unhappy you feel
dangerous. It’s the kind of unhappiness that makes bad things
happen.”

Isabelle
had been about to send the child off to play, when something about that last
sentence chilled her anger and made her blood run cold. The words felt like a
prediction. This was not good…

“Sarah,”
she said instead. “Please, come sit with me.”

She
turned and took a seat on a spindly-legged divan and patted the hard seat
beside her. Sarah did not hesitate a moment to carefully climb up next to her.

“Now,”
Isabelle said, “would you tell me what you mean by that?”

Sarah
regarded her gravely, and Isabelle felt another emotion, but this time the
opposite of the chilling effect of the child’s words. Little Sarah had a
wise old soul in her; Isabelle had learned to recognize such people in India.
Normally, such old souls were content to enjoy their childhoods and not
“wake up” until they reached a stage where it was appropriate for
them to be active again. Nan, too, had an old soul, but it was clearly the soul
of a warrior, not a wise man.

Sarah,
however, had a spirit within her that was quite remarkable. It peeked out
through those eyes every now and again, leaving whoever it regarded usually
feeling warm and protected. And that wise old soul wanted to help Isabelle.

With
a sigh, she knew she was going to have to set her anger to one side. Sarah
nodded a little as Isabelle settled her hands in the correct position in her
lap, and went into a light meditative trance. She visualized her anger as a
fire raging out of control, and slowly confined it to its proper place on the
hearth again, because even negative emotions like anger had positive uses. It
wasn’t easy, but she’d had good teachers in such discipline.

You
must recognize that these things are within you and learn to use them
,
said the voice in her memory.
Otherwise they will use you
.

Yes,
teacher
, she said to the memory, and the fires crept back to their place.

She
opened her eyes and looked down at Sarah, who was patiently waiting, and looked
ready to wait forever.

“He’s
very unhappy,” Sarah repeated. “I think he must have made some bad
mistakes a long time ago. He thought he was being clever, but he was choosing a
bad path. Now he’s all twisted up and—cold. And that’s bad,
too. It’s going to make trouble if he keeps on as he is.”

Bad
mistakes
… The words took her aback for a moment. In the long view,
which she was, for the moment, forcing herself to take, how important was a
failed romance? It only really mattered to her, didn’t it? How could
David rejecting her possibly lead to something Sarah would call a “bad
mistake”?

“He
does have a great deal of influence,” she said, thinking aloud.
“What do you mean by saying he is cold?”

I
know what I mean, but what is Sarah seeing
?

“He
doesn’t feel anything anymore,” Sarah said, her little face taking
on an expression of deep sadness. “Or what he does feel he steps on right
away. He thinks this is being clever, but it’s like bricking up your
windows so nobody can see inside your house. Then you can’t see outside
or
inside yourself; you’re all alone in the dark, and you just kind of
wither. And when people don’t feel anything anymore, they can do bad
things without really thinking about it because it doesn’t matter to
them.”

Isabelle
felt shocked.
Out of the mouths of babes
! But then, Sarah was no
ordinary child, “That’s quite true,” she acknowledged.
“But if he doesn’t feel anything anymore, just what exactly can you
and I do? It would seem that he is so far down his chosen path that our
influence is negligible. He is not inclined to listen to me, and he definitely
will not listen to you.”

Sarah
frowned. “Well,” she replied. “I don’t know for certain
if he really
doesn’t
feel anything for true, or if it’s
only that he tries not to feel anything. But I think something bad is going to
happen to him if we can’t wake him up again. And when that something bad
happens to him, he’ll do a lot of bad around other people.”

Then
the child shook her head. “It’s all hard to explain, and it’s
not like I know something is going to happen, it’s just that I feel it
is. I don’t have a picture or anything in my head, and Grey just feels
the same.”

Too
young to see the future, because she is too young to cope with needing to see
it, and too young to cope with knowing what is to come
. It would have been
very useful if she and Nan had been in their late teens and fully into whatever
powers and abilities they were going to get.

Well,
perhaps Sarah could evoke more if Isabelle gave her more information.

Isabelle
sighed. “He came here to tell me that he had encountered Robin. He wanted
some information; I suspect he was not aware of Robin’s true nature and
thought that he could simply coerce or confine Robin if—”

“If
he thought Robin was in the way,” Sarah finished, with a decided nod.
“Like Nan and me were in the way the other day when he came riding a
horse through the hedge, and almost ran us down.”

Isabelle
felt another surge of anger, but this one was clean, simple anger at the
careless man who would pay no attention to where he was going—not that
she thought the children had been in any danger from David. First of all, few
horses that were not actually vicious or panicked were likely to trample people.
Horses hated soft things underfoot, and given the choice, would shy rather than
run something down.

Nevertheless—it
was careless, it was heedless, and it was certainly an example of the sort of
arrogance that was making her so angry with him.

He
certainly had not come to anyone here at Highleigh to report the incident,
which was the least he should have done. Any responsible adult would have done
so. A truly responsible adult would have made certain the girls were well, then
brought them to the manor himself.

No,
she was vexed, very vexed with him. That was twice he had endangered the lives
of two little girls with no demonstration that he considered them to be as
important as a pair of stray kittens.

“Obviously,
since you are not sporting hoofprints, he didn’t harm you,” she
said with calm she did not feel. “I trust he apologized.”

That
would have been the least that any decent man would have done.

“No.
He shouted at us for being there, and Nan shouted back at him and he got angry.
Nan said she thought he had no right being there, which got him more angry. So
he just rode around the meadow, then went back.” Sarah shook her head.
“And that’s why Nan’s angry with him,” she added.
“He didn’t treat us very well, but I know why. He was in the wrong,
but he feels like he
has
to be right all the time. The more wrong he
is, the more he acts badly in order to prove that he is right. So since he
feels that way, he can hurt people quite easily.” She looked thoughtful a
moment. “I suppose,” she said, in tones that suggested she was
trying to find David’s point of view, “if we had been crying and
acting scared or hurt, he would have acted differently. But since Nan was being
rude, he must have supposed that we were all right and he was free to be angry
with us.”

Isabelle
clenched her jaw, then forced it to relax. And she thought about what her
friend Bea had said about this circle of Elemental Mages David was putting
together, and how he had political ambitions. And then her blood ran cold.

The
one thing that had kept the practitioners of the arcane from meddling as much
as they could if they chose, was that they had kept themselves out of
“secular” life, so to speak. There was little or no interference on
their part with the lives of those who were not so gifted, except, perhaps, the
occasional rescue.

And
thus far, there had been no one who was really willing to take that step into
the lives of those who were not Elemental Mages. There was an unspoken accord
between the Mages and the Gifted and Talented that they would not interfere
with one another either.

But
combine a powerful Elemental Master, the circle he had founded, political
ambitions, and the absolute certainty in that Master’s mind that he was
right and what he wanted was what was best for all—

Add
to that the unwillingness on the part of that Master to admit he could ever be
wrong
—

It
would start small, of course. Such things always began small. First political
contacts, and then, to a chosen man or two in very high places, the proof that
magic existed and it could be used to produce real effects. Pointing out that
using magic for the good of the Empire was the only patriotic way to proceed.

Then
it would begin, with the Elemental Mages cautiously being given political and
governmental positions and power. Perhaps there would be a special Ministry in
charge of the Arcane. And at first, its work would be entirely benign. Renegade
Magicians would be tracked down, rounded up, and possibly laws put through so
that they could be made accountable for what they did. And in David’s
circle there would be a sort of policing force ready-made. They would all have
official government sanction, and a certain amount of power. Power could be
very addictive.

But
then—how long would it be before all Magicians were asked to register
with this Ministry? How long until any Magician that had elected not to
register was deemed a “renegade” and registration was no longer
voluntary? How long before it wasn’t just Magicians, but all the Gifted
and Talented as well?