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Arkoniel tried to smile. ‘Yes, your highness, he’s – he’s perfect.’ He touched her brow gently, clouding her mind and sending her once more into a deep sleep. ‘Forgive me.’
He reached for the little body, then froze in fear.
The dead child’s eyes were open. Blue as a kitten’s one moment, the irises went black as Arkoniel watched and fixed accusingly on him. An unnatural chill radiated from the little body, slowly spreading to envelop the wizard.
This was the cost of that first breath. The spirit of the murdered child had been drawn into its body just long enough to take hold and become a ghost, or worse.
‘By the Four, what’s happening?’ Rhius rasped, leaning over him.
‘There’s nothing to fear,’ Arkoniel said quickly, though in truth this tiny unnatural creature struck fear to the core of his heart.
Nari knelt beside him and whispered, ‘The witch said to take it away quickly. She said you must put it in the ground under a large tree. There’s great chestnut in the rear courtyard by the summer kitchen. The roots will hold the demon down. Hurry! The longer it stays here, the stronger it will grow!’
It took every bit of courage Arkoniel possessed to touch the dead child. Taking it from Ariani’s arms, he covered its face with a corner of the wrappings and hurried out. Nari was right; the waves of icy coldness pouring from the lifeless body grew stronger by the moment. It made his joints ache as he bore it downstairs and out through the back passage of the house.
The moon watched like an accusing eye as Arkoniel placed his cursed burden at the foot of the chestnut tree and mouthed, forgive me once more. But he expected no forgiveness for this night’s work and wept as he wove his spell. His tears fell on the little bundle as he bent to watch it sink down into the earth’s cold embrace between the gnarled roots.
The faint wail of an infant came to him on the cold night air and he shuddered, not knowing if it came from the living child or the dead one.
CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_78aed6fd-db95-50c5-aa06-4416da8b3d5b)
For all their power, these Orëska wizards are very stupid. And arrogant, Lhel thought as Iya urged her down a back stair and away from the cursed house.
The witch spat thrice to the left, hoping to cut the bad luck that had bound them together all these weeks. A real storm crow, this wizard. Why hadn’t she seen it sooner?
Lhel had scarely had time to finish the last stitch on the living child before the elder wizard was urging her away. ‘I’m not finished! The spirit –’
‘The King is downstairs!’ Iya hissed, as if this should mean something to her. ‘If he finds you here, we’ll all be spirits. I will force you if I must.’
What choice did she have? So Lhel had followed the wizard away, thinking, Be it on your head, then.
But the further they got from that house, the more it weighed on her heart. To treat the dead so brutally was a dangerous affront to the Mother, and to Lhel’s craft. This wizard woman had no honour, to abandon a child’s spirit like that. Arkoniel might have been made to listen, but Lhel had long since realized that he had no voice in the matter. Their god had spoken to Iya and Iya would listen to no other.
Lhel spat again, just for good measure.
Lhel had dreamed the coming of the two wizards for a full month before they’d appeared in her village: a man boy and a woman who carried a strange burden in a bag. Every divination she’d done as she awaited their arrival indicated that it was the Mother’s will. Lhel must give them whatever aid they asked. When Iya and Arkoniel did finally arrive, they claimed that a vision from their own moon god had brought them to her. Lhel had taken this as an auspicious sign.
Still, she had been surprised at the nature of their request. Orëska must be a pale, milk-fed sort of magic indeed, for two people possessed of such powerful souls not have the craft to make a simple skin binding. Had she understood then the true depth of their ignorance, she might have tried to share more of her knowledge with them before the time came to use it.
But she hadn’t understood until it was too late, until the moment her hand had faltered, letting the boy child draw his first breath. Iya would not wait for the necessary cleansing sacrifice. There was no time for anything but to complete the binding and flee, leaving the angry new spirit lost and alone.
Lhel balked again as the city gate came into sight ahead of them. ‘You cannot leave such a spirit earthbound!’ she said again, struggling to free her wrist from Iya’s grasp. ‘It grows to a demon before you know it, and then what will you do, you who couldn’t bind it in the first place?’
‘I will deal with it.’
‘You are a fool.’
The taller woman turned, bringing their faces close together. ‘I am saving your life, woman, and that of the child and her family! If the King’s wizard caught so much as a whiff of you we’d all be executed, starting with that baby. She’s all that matters now, not you or me or anyone else in this whole wretched land. It’s the will of Illior.’
Once again, Lhel felt the massive power coursing through the wizard. Different Iya might be and possessed of unfamiliar magic, but there was no question that she was god-touched, and more than a match for Lhel. So she’d let herself be led away, leaving the child and its skin-bound twin behind in the stinking city. She hoped Arkoniel had found a strong tree to hold the spirit down.
They bought horses and travelled together for two days. Lhel said little, but prayed silently to the Mother for guidance. When they reached the edge of the highlands, she allowed Iya to give her into the care of a band of caravaneers heading west into the mountains. As they parted, Iya had even tried to make peace with her.
‘You did well, my friend,’ she said, her hazel eyes sad as she took Lhel’s hands. ‘Stay safe in your mountains and all will be well. We must never meet again.’
Lhel chose to ignore the thinly veiled threat. Fishing in a pouch at her belt, she drew out a little silver amulet made in the shape of a full moon flanked on either side by slender crescents. ‘For when the child takes woman form again.’
Iya held it on her palm. ‘The Shield of the Mother.’
‘Keep it hidden. It’s only for women. As a boy, she must wear this.’ She gave Iya a short hazel twig capped on both ends with burnished copper bands.
Iya shook her head. ‘It’s too dangerous. I’m not the only wizard to have studied your ways.’
‘Then you keep them for her!’ Lhel urged. ‘This child will need much magic to survive.’
Iya closed her hand around the amulets, wood and silver together. ‘I will, I promise you. Farewell.’
Lhel stayed with the caravan for three days, and each day the black, cold weight of the dead child’s spirit lay heavier on her heart. Each night its cry grew louder in her dreams. She prayed to the shining Mother to show her why she had sent her here to create such a thing and what she must do to make the world right again.
The Mother answered, and on the third night Lhel danced the dreamsleep dance for her guides, seducing away just enough of their thoughts to remove any memory of her and the supplies she took with her.
Guided by a waning white sliver of moon, she threw her travelling sack over her horse’s neck and turned back for the stinking city.
CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_24f13b3d-56ef-5cf7-a156-2b8020b2ffec)
In the uneasy days following the birth, only Nari and the Duke attended Ariani. Rhius sent word to Tharin, sending the captain on to the estate at Cirna to keep him away a while longer.
A silence fell over the household; black banners flew on the roof peaks, proclaiming mourning for the supposed stillbirth. On the household altar, Rhius set a fresh basin of water and burned the herbs sacred to Astellus, who smoothed the water road to birth and death and protected new mothers from childbed fever.
Sitting at Ariani’s bedside each day, however, Nari knew it was not birthing fever that ailed the woman, but a deep sickness of heart. Nari was old enough to remember Queen Agnalain’s last days and prayed that her daughter was not afflicted with the same curse of madness.
Day after day, night after night, Ariani tossed against her pillows, waking to cry out, ‘The child, Nari! Don’t you hear him? He’s so cold.’
‘The child is well, your highness,’ Nari told her each time. ‘See, Tobin is in the cradle here beside you. Look how plump he is.’
But Ariani would not look at the living child. ‘No, I hear him,’ she would insist, staring around wildly. ‘Why have you shut him outside? Fetch him in at once!’
‘There’s no child outside, your highness. You were only dreaming again.’
Nari spoke the truth, for she’d heard nothing, but some of the other servants claimed to have heard an infant’s cry in the darkness outside. Soon a rumour spread through the house that the second child had been stillborn with its eyes open; everyone knew that demons came into the world through such births. Several serving maids had been sent to Atyion already with orders to keep their gossip to themselves. Only Nari and Mynir knew the truth behind the second child’s death.
Loyalty to the Duke guaranteed Mynir’s silence. Nari owed allegiance to Iya. The wizard had been a benefactress to her family for three generations and there were times during those first few chaotic days when only that bond kept the nurse from running back to her own village. Iya had said nothing of demons when Nari agreed to serve.
In the end, however, she stayed for the child’s sake. Her milk flowed freely as soon as she put the dark-haired little mite to her breast and with it all the tenderness she’d thought she’d lost when her husband and son had died. Maker knew neither the Princess nor her husband had any to spare for the poor child.
They must all call Tobin ‘he’ and ‘him’ now. And thanks to the outlandish magic the witch had worked with her knives and needles, Tobin was to all appearances a fine healthy boy child. He slept well, nursed vigorously, and seemed happy with whatever attention was paid him, which was little enough by his own folk.
‘They’ll come ’round, little pet my love,’ Nari would croon to him as he dozed contentedly in her arms. ‘How could they not and you so sweet?’
As Tobin thrived, however, his mother sank ever faster into a darkness of spirit. The bout of fever passed but Ariani kept to her bed. She still would not touch her living child, and she would not even look at her husband, or her brother either, when he came to call.
Duke Rhius was near despair. He sat with her for hours, enduring her silence, and brought in the most skilled drysians from the temple of Dalna. The healers found no illness of the body to cure.
On the twelfth day after the birth, however, the Princess began to show signs of rallying. That afternoon, Nari found her curled in an armchair next to the fire, sewing a doll. The floor around her was littered with scraps of muslin, clumps of stuffing wool, snippets of embroidery silks and thread.
The new doll was finished by nightfall – a boy with no mouth. Another just like it followed the next day, and another. She did not bother to dress the things, but cast each aside as soon as the last stitch was tied off and immediately began on another. By week’s end half a dozen of the things were lined up on the mantelpiece.
‘They’re very pretty, my love, but why not finish the faces?’ Duke Rhius asked, sitting faithfully by her bedside each night.
‘So they won’t cry,’ Ariani hissed, needle flying as she stitched an arm to a wool-packed body. ‘The crying is sending me mad!’
Nari looked away so as not to embarrass the Duke by seeing his tears. It was the first time since the birth that Ariani had spoken to him.
This seemed to encourage the Duke. He sent for Captain Tharin that very night and began to talk of the child’s presentation feast.
Ariani told no one of the dreams that plagued her. Who could she tell? Her own trusted nurse, Lachi, had been sent away weeks ago, replaced by this stranger who would not leave her side. Nari was some relation of Iya’s, Rhius had told her, and that only made Ariani hate her all the more. Her husband, the wizards, this woman – they’d all betrayed her. When she thought of that terrible night, all she remembered was a circle of faces looking down on her without pity. She despised them.
Exhaustion and grief had weighed down on her like a stack of wool quilts at first, and her mind had drifted in a grey fog. Daylight and darkness seemed to play sport with her; she never knew what to expect when she opened her eyes, or whether she dreamed or woke.
At first she thought that the horrid midwife Iya had brought had returned. But soon she realized it must be a dream or waking vision that brought the dark little woman to her bedside each night. She always appeared surrounded by a circle of shifting light, mouthing silent words at Ariani and gesturing with stained fingers for her to eat and drink. It went on for days, this silent pantomime, until Ariani grew used to her. At last she began to make out something of what the woman whispered and the words pulled fire and ice through her veins.
It was then that Ariani began to sew again, and forced herself to eat the bread and thin soups Nari brought to her. The task the witch had set for her would take strength.
The child’s presentation took place a fortnight after the birth. Ariani refused to come downstairs and Nari thought this just as well. The Princess’ strength was returning, but she was still too strange for company. She would not dress and seldom spoke. Her shining black hair was dull and tangled for want of care and her blue eyes stared strangely, as if she was seeing something the rest could not. She slept, she ate, and she sewed doll after mouthless doll. Duke Rhius saw to it that word of a difficult lying-in was spread around the Palatine, as well as rumours of his wife’s deep and continuing grief over the loss of the dead girl child.
Her absence did not mar the celebration too badly. All the principal nobles of Ero crowded into the great hall that night until the whole room seemed to shimmer with jewels and silks under the flickering lamps. Standing with the servants by the wine table, Nari saw some whispering behind their hands and overheard a few speaking of Agnalain’s madness, wondering how the daughter could have gone the way of the mother so quickly and with no warning at all.
It was unseasonably warm that night, and the soft patter of autumn rain swept in through the open windows. The men of the Duke’s personal guard stood at attention flanking the stairs, resplendent in new green and blue. Sir Tharin stood to the left of the stairs in his fine tunic and jewels, looking as pleased as if the child were his own. Nari had taken to the lanky, fair-haired man the day she met him, and liked him all the better for the way his face lit up the first time he saw Tobin in his father’s arms.
The King stood in the place of honour at the right of the staircase, holding his one remaining child on one broad shoulder. Prince Korin was a bright, plump child of three, with his father’s dark curls and bright brown eyes. He bounced excitedly, craning his neck for a look at his new cousin as Rhius appeared at the top of the stairs. The Duke was resplendent in his embroidered robe and circlet. Tobin’s dark head was just visible above the edge of his silken wrappings.
‘Greetings and welcome, my King and my friends!’ Duke Rhius called out. Descending to where the King stood, he went down on one knee and held the child up. ‘My king, I present to you my son and heir, Prince Tobin Erius Akandor.’
Setting Korin down beside him, Erius took Tobin in his arms and showed him to the priests and assembled nobles. ‘Your son and heir is acknowledged before Ero, my brother. May his name be spoken with honour among the Royal Kin of Skala.’
And that was that, though the speechifying and drinking of toasts would go on half the night. Nari shifted restlessly. It was past time to feed the child and her breasts ached. She smiled as she heard a familiar hiccuping whimper. Once Tobin started squalling for his supper they’d soon let him go, and she could retreat to her quiet chamber at the top of the house.
Just then one of the serving maids let out a startled squeak and pointed to the wine table. ‘By the Four, it just toppled over!’
The silver mazer for Rhius’s toast lay on its side, its contents splashed across the dark polished wood beside the honey cake.
‘I was looking right at it,’ the maid went on, voice beginning to rise dangerously. ‘Not a soul was near it!’
‘I can see that!’ Nari whispered, silencing her with a pinch and a glare. Whisking off her apron, she blotted up the spilled wine. It stained the linen red as blood.
Mynir snatched the cloth away and balled it tightly under his arm, hiding the stain. ‘By the Light, don’t let any of the others see!’ he whispered. ‘That was a white wine!’
Looking down at her hands, Nari saw that they were stained red, too, where the wine had wet them, though the droplets still clinging inside the rim of the cup were a pale golden colour.
There was just time to send the trembling girl away to fetch a fresh mazer before the nobles came to make their toasts. Tobin was growing restless and fussy. Nari held him while the Duke raised the cup and sprinkled a few drops of wine over the child, then a few more over the honey cake in the traditional offering to the Four. ‘To Sakor, to make my child a great and just warrior with fire in his heart. To Illior, for wisdom and true dreaming. To Dalna, for many children and long life. To Astellus, for safe journeys and a swift death.’
Nari exchanged a quick look of relief with the steward as the droplets sank away, leaving the cake’s sticky surface unstained.
As soon as the brief ceremony was finished Nari carried Tobin upstairs. The babe knew her and squirmed and grunted, nuzzling at her bodice.
‘You’re a pet, you are,’ Nari murmured absently, still shaken by what she’d witnessed. She thought of the spell sticks Iya had left with her, wondering if she should use one to summon the wizard back. But Iya had been very clear; she was only to use those in the direst circumstances. Nari sighed and hugged Tobin closer, wondering where such portents would lead.
Passing Ariani’s door in the upper corridor, Nari caught sight of a small patch of red on the wall, just above the rushes that covered the floor. She bent for a closer look, then pressed a hand over her mouth.
It was the bloody print of an infant’s hand, splayed like a starfish. The blood was still bright and wet.
‘Maker keep us, it’s in the house!’
Cheers and applause burst out below. She could hear the King proclaiming a blessing for Tobin’s health. With trembling fingers, Nari wiped at the mark with the edge of her skirt until the handprint smeared to a pinkish smudge. Nari pushed the rushes up to cover it, then slipped into Ariani’s chamber, fearful of what she might find.
The Princess sat by the fire, sewing away as madly as ever. For the first time since the birth, she had changed her nightdress for a loose gown and put on her rings again. The hem was damp and streaked with mud. Ariani’s hair hung in damp strands around her face. The window was shut tight as always, but Nari could smell the night air on her, and the hint of something else besides. Nari wrinkled her nose, trying to place the raw, unpleasant odour.
‘You’ve been outside, your highness?’
Ariani smiled down at her needlework. ‘Just for a bit, Nurse. Aren’t you pleased?’
‘Yes, my lady, but you should have waited and I’d have gone with you. You’re not strong enough to be out on your own. What would the Duke say?’
Ariani sewed on, still smiling over her work.
‘Did you see anything … unusual out there, your highness?’ Nari hazarded at last.
Ariani pulled a tuft of wool from a bag beside her and tucked it into the muslin arm she’d sewn. ‘Nothing at all. Off with you now, and fetch me something to eat. I’m famished!’
Nari mistrusted this sudden brightness. As she left, she could hear Ariani humming softly to herself, and recognized the tune as a lullaby.
She was halfway to the kitchens when she placed the smell at last and let out a snort of relief. Tomorrow she must tell the servants to bring in one of the hounds to root out the dead mouse spoiling somewhere along the upper corridor.
CHAPTER FIVE (#ulink_b24570ff-adcd-5a27-a9a6-6883b3b9358c)
Arkoniel left Ero not knowing when he would see Ariani or her child again. He met up with Iya at an inn in Sylara and together they set off to begin the next long stage of their mission.
Despite Arkoniel’s strong misgivings, Iya decided that it would be safest for everyone if they kept their distance from the child. When Arkoniel told her of his strange conversation with Niryn, it only strengthened her resolve. Nari and the Duke could send word to them by sending messages to several inns that Iya frequented in her travels. For emergencies, she’d left Nari with a few small tokens; painted rods that released a simple seeking spell when broken. No matter how far away Iya might be, she would feel the magic and return as quickly as she could.
‘But what if we’re too far away to reach them in time?’ Arkoniel fretted, unhappy with the situation. ‘And how can we leave them like that? It all went wrong in the end, Iya. You didn’t see the demon in the dead child’s eyes. What if the tree can’t hold it down?’
But she remained adamant. ‘They are safest with us away.’
And so they began their long wandering quest, seeking out anyone who had a spark of magic in them, sounding out loyalties, listening to fears, and – with a select few – cautiously sharing a glimpse of Iya’s vision: a new confederation of Orëska wizards. She was patient, and careful in her choices, winnowing out the mad and the greedy and those too loyal to the King. Even with those she deemed trustworthy she did not reveal her true purpose, but left them a small token – a pebble picked up on the road – and the promise that she would call on them again.
Over the next few years Niryn’s words would come back to haunt them, for it seemed that they were not the only ones spreading the idea of unity. They learned from others they met on the road that the King’s wizard was gathering a following of his own at court. Arkoniel wondered what answer these wizards had given to Niryn’s oblique question, and what their dreams had been.
The drought that had heralded Tobin’s birth broke, only to be followed by another the following summer. The further south they went, the more often they heard stories of empty granaries and sickly livestock. Disease walked the land in hunger’s wake, striking down the weak like a wolf culling a flock. The worst was a fever brought in by traders. The first sign was bloody sweat, often followed by black swellings in the armpits and groin. Few who showed both symptoms survived. The Red and Black Death, as it came to be called, struck whole villages overnight, leaving too few living to bury the dead.
