FROM THE STABLEYARD OF Caradore, Varencienne and Pharinet went directly to Pharinet’s chambers. Here, Pharinet produced a bottle of wine and two goblets. ?Won?t Everna want us to go to dinner?? Varencienne said. The atmosphere between them was like a taut thread. “We can eat later,” Pharinet said, pouring out the wine. She handed Varencienne a goblet. “I have come to the conclusion that it doesn’t matter if you know the truth.” “How magnanimous of you. I am more than ready to hear it.” Pharinet nodded and sat down in an armchair opposite Varencienne. She sat like a man, knees apart, her arms resting on her open thighs, between which she held her goblet. She turned the cup in her hands, the only evidence of nervousness. “I will tell you first how I hated and loved Ellony in equal measure. It made her death all the harder.” Varencienne leaned away from Pharinet, her goblet held high to her chest. “Why did you hate her? She was your best friend, wasn’t she?” Pharinet took a long gulp of wine, then reached to refill her goblet. “Can’t you guess? I thought you had.” Varencienne shrugged. “Tell me.” Pharinet sighed. It took some moments for the words to come. “Val and I were lovers once.” She took another generous mouthful of wine. Varencienne could not help but be sympathetic to Pharinet’s discomfort. “Oh, that. Yes, I did have an inkling that was the case. So, you were jealous when Valraven married Ellony?” Pharinet nodded, smiling bitterly. “Yes. Isn’t that foul?” Varencienne pulled a wry face. “You couldn’t help your feelings. But what about Khaster? You married him at the same time, didn’t you?” “I went along with arrangements. It was expected of me, as it was expected of Val to marry Ellony. We all grew up together.” Varencienne hesitated for a moment. “I saw a portrait of Khaster today in the gallery at Norgance. He was a very attractive man, or did the portrait flatter him?” Pharinet laughed sadly. “No, it is a fair likeness. Khaster was a beautiful person. He deserved more than me.” “It just seems very sad to me that you couldn’t be with the man you loved.” “He was my brother!” Pharinet shook her head. “I suppose incestuous relationships are commonplace to you.” Varencienne shrugged. “In Magrast, the only objection to these relationships between siblings is dynastic. Such unions rarely produce healthy young, but in our country marriage is rarely about love. My knowledge of life beyond the palace is limited, because I led such a sheltered existence, but I do know that fidelity is rarely expected.? “Things are different here, Ren. And opinions. I am not proud of the things I did because of the feelings I had for Val. I had to watch him marry my best friend, and it killed any love I had for her. I myself married a man who was both good and handsome, but whom I did not love. Khaster always knew that. The whole affair was tragic and it upsets me to remember those times. But perhaps the main reason I have not confided in you about them is because your brother, Bayard, was present at the end. He instigated it.” Varencienne blinked in surprise. “Bayard? How?” Pharinet leaned over to replenish Varencienne’s goblet. “I will tell you now, tell you everything. Isn’t that what you want? But don’t interrupt me with questions. Just allow me to get the story out.” Pharinet conjured perfectly the world in which she grew up, and to Varencienne it seemed like an idyll. Pharinet, her brother and their friends had been so free. Varencienne could almost smell the herby, salty air and see the children of Caradore and Norgance playing on the wind-scoured moors and in cave-studded coves. Her skin prickled as Pharinet related the story of the night of her initiation with Ellony. She could also see the similarities with her own nocturnal experience on the shore. But Pharinet’s narrative really came alive when she spoke about Valraven. Her love for him filled her words and shone from her eyes. When she related how they’d eventually confessed their feelings for one another, it seemed like the ultimate romance. By this time, Varencienne too could not help but perceive Ellony as rather an impediment. It was easy to share Pharinet’s conflicting feelings about her childhood friend. Pharinet stood up. “I’ve yet to tell you the worst,” she said. “I need more wine for that.” She went to a cabinet and took out another bottle, which she uncorked. Varencienne sat with her legs curled beneath her. She had drunk two large goblets of wine herself, and now felt slightly light-headed. “Does Niska’s aunt, Dimara, know about all this?” she asked. “I’ve noticed she’s cool with you, and I picked up hostility from her today.” Pharinet expelled a derisive snort. “Dimara has pretensions. She is the Merante, the high priestess of the Sisterhood and believes everyone else?s business is her own.? “She’s the one who didn’t want me to join the Sisterhood, isn’t she?” “Among others.” Pharinet poured more wine into Varencienne’s proffered goblet. “She has made assumptions about me, and probably several good guesses. I don’t care. She can think what she likes.” Pharinet settled back into her chair. “Now I’ll tell you about Bayard. You might not like it.” Varencienne pursed her lips but made no comment. She did not want to hear Pharinet talk about Bayard in the same tone she’d used to speak of Ellony, but if she wanted the story, she’d have to hold her tongue. Pharinet leaned back in her seat. “I’m not the only one to conduct a clandestine affair with Valraven. Bayard did too.” This remark had the intended effect. Varencienne reared upright in her chair. “That’s impossible. You haven’t heard the way Bay speaks of Valraven. He despises him.” Pharinet shrugged, raising a languid hand. “The affair did not last, and what you have heard is no doubt the poison that lingers in a broken heart.” She appeared quite drunk now. “How did you know about this?” “Khaster told me, and Bayard confirmed it. Later, I saw evidence with my own eyes.” “Very well. Tell me, then.” Varencienne listened with rising unease and disbelief. Could Pharinet be exaggerating or fabricating her story? It was impossible to believe Bayard, whom she loved, could have been this dark influence over the Palindrakes. Pharinet spoke bitterly, yet honestly. She seemed to have forgotten to whom she was speaking, for her relation of the sexual encounter she’d had with Bayard in the garden was uncomfortably explicit. Her words were like black fists flying into Varencienne’s face and beyond that into her mind, her soul. She wanted to silence Pharinet or walk away, but was equally gripped and intrigued by what she was hearing. She could see her brother on the beach, his hands upon Pharinet’s shoulders. She could hear his voice. Oh Bay, she thought. How could you not have warned me? You must have known I’d hear of this, and from a stranger’s lips. Had he lain awake fearing this moment, knowing it would surely come? Pharinet had intimated he was adept at magic. Would part of him now sense that she knew? Pharinet finished her tale by describing what happened on the beach on the day when Ellony ran into the sea. “And after that?” Varencienne asked. “Is that when you all fell out?” “A falling out? Did I mention that?” Pharinet laughed. “You are no longer friends with Bayard, that’s clear.” “He left,” Pharinet said. “He just walked from the beach and rode home to Magrast, to leave us with the disorder he’d left behind.” She grimaced. “Now can you understand why I said your family knows more about the dragons than we do? Even your mother. She wants Bayard to be emperor one day, and I believe she’d do anything to accomplish her aim.” She drained her goblet, picked up the bottle, found it empty and threw it on the floor. “Now, my throat is dry and sore. It’s like old tears.” Varencienne felt as if she were in shock. “These are not the people I know,” she said, slowly shaking her head. She pressed the heel of one hand against the bridge of her nose. “It doesn’t make sense to me.” Pharinet yawned. “You don’t know them as well as you think you do. You were kept in ignorance. But now you know.” “My mother should have spoken of this to me. Some of it, at least. Surely she must have known I would become part of this story the moment I set foot in Caradore?” “You are clearly just a pawn to them. You must see that. You’ve never been close to your mother.” “No, but Bayard …” Varencienne shook her head. “I feel he’s betrayed me.” She looked up at Pharinet. “Do you think he still has an interest in Caradore?” Pharinet stared at her, although her eyes appeared to be slightly unfocussed. “Who knows? He and Val are no longer close. Val blames him f
or what happened to Ellony and Thomist.” Varencienne frowned. Some instinct inside her advised there was rather more to their estrangement than that. But what? The person Pharinet described was not the brother Varencienne knew. He had never seemed cold or cruel to her, but noble and sensitive. Perhaps her mother had sent him to Caradore, forced him to do what he had. Varencienne had to concede she knew little of Tatrini. “I wonder now whether my mother designed for me to come here,” she said. “But if she wanted to use me, why not speak of it, give me instructions? She can’t be confident enough to leave things to chance. Or …” Varencienne could not suppress an inner shudder, ?is she influencing events even now by other means?? “I don’t know what goes on in your mother’s mind,” Pharinet said, “but I suspect that after Bayard tried unsuccessfully to meld the power of fire with water, she lost interest. Valraven is perhaps too damaged for her purposes.” “Pharinet, what is the future? What do you hope to achieve with all this dragon worship?” “It is not about worship, Ren, but about power. We wait, and keep the old traditions alive, in the hope that, one day, their power will once again be ours. After what happened to you on the beach that night, when you saw a dragon rise, I believe that if anyone has the power to awaken Foy and her daughters, it’s you. You are far stronger than Ellony was.” Varencienne smiled grimly. “And I have an ally in you, which she did not. How convenient for you that I do not love my husband.” Pharinet did not flinch. “It’s not the same now. I still love Val, but we are no longer close in that respect. He has no one. He is so alone. What power came through that terrible day affected him badly. I believe he turned to fire, immersed himself in it, but only through war and conquest. He has no spiritual side. He’s buried it deep inside himself.” “I find it hard to believe that Valraven and Bayard were lovers,” Varencienne said. “Bayard warned me about your brother before I came here, Pharry. He seemed to dislike him.” “Perhaps he does. Now. After what happened here, Valraven isolated himself from Bayard, from everyone. He doesn’t know the truth of what he is, and he has a smattering of fire-drake lore. He should learn more, but he won’t. Part of our curse is that should he attempt to commune with the sea dragons once more, Caradore will burn. Like in your vision. Valraven has not been told this, but perhaps he senses it.” Varencienne paused, then said carefully, “I don’t think you can get him back, Pharry.” She sighed. “I know I can’t, but perhaps he can return to Caradore, the son of his father, the man he was. That’s all I want now.” Varencienne knew that was not the whole truth.
7
WOMAN OF THE LAND
THAT NIGHT, ALONE IN her bedroom, Varencienne could not help but think of the story Pharinet had told her. There seemed to be echoes of Ellony’s agonized cries lingering in the drapery around the bed. If she concentrated hard enough, Varencienne was sure she would see a sad, pale wraith drifting across the floor, wringing its hands, eyes black and wild. Varencienne sat on top of the bed, clasping her knees. What she’d learned had not changed her feelings for Valraven. The man Pharinet knew could not exist in Varencienne’s mind. He was what he was and she felt nothing could alter that now. But the information she’d heard about her mother and brother certainly had changed her feelings. She felt bewildered and betrayed, yet madly curious. The empress of Pharinet’s tale was perhaps the kind of mother Varencienne would have liked to have had all along: a priestess, a sorceress, with a forgotten book of secret knowledge. Her own fantasies could not have provided a more perfect history. Yet this Tatrini lived only in Pharinet’s words. Varencienne would need proof for herself. In the morning, she wrote to Bayard, and in covert terms intimated what she had learned. Help me to understand this, she asked him. Tell me what you can. The post-rider came that day and the letter went into his bag, to be carried through the mountains and across the plains of Magravandias, until it reached wherever her brother was stationed. She tried to imagine him reading it, how he would react. The man Pharinet had met was not the person Varencienne knew. It was the same as for Valraven. How many personalities resided in a single body? Was it possible all aspects of a person could be real? In the afternoon, Varencienne walked upon the beach. The sky was purple with storms, yet the air was hot. A dark pall hung over the sullen ocean. In this place, Ellony had vanished into the waves. Bayard had stood here, his hands upon Pharinet’s shoulders, Valraven a smoldering presence behind them. They had been younger then, but not that much younger. Six years ago. In Caradore, that seemed like a lifetime. Varencienne decided that the dragons and their magical religion were only a backdrop to what had occurred, not the focus. In comparison with the real and tragic human events that had taken place, ostensibly in the dragons’ name, Varencienne found her belief in them faltering. The dragons were magic, but human suffering was not. Was it possible that everyone involved had deluded themselves, and the only power humming in the air had been that of human feeling? Perhaps it was the same even now. Varencienne stared out over the slowly-heaving waves. “Foy, if you’re down there, sleeping, your dreams are nightmares,” she murmured. “And they have touched us with pain. I hope your sleep is restless.”
BAYARD DID NOT RESPOND to his sister’s letter immediately, but this was only what Varencienne expected. It could take months for mail to reach him. As autumn drew its gaudy banner across the land, the Sisterhood celebrated another festival, which Varencienne, of course, could not attend. Niska told her all about it afterwards. They had begun to spend more time together, and Varencienne rode over to Norgance regularly, often staying overnight. Sometimes, Pharinet would come with her. Niska was not averse to conducting small rituals with Pharinet and Varencienne, which often took place at the Ronduel. They did not attempt communion with the dragons, but the land itself. In that place, they thought about the changing cycles of life, its inexorable surge through time. Once, Niska said that she thought Ellony was sometimes with them in their rites. Varencienne shuddered at the thought and hoped not. She could only picture Ellony as a vengeful, bitter spirit. Perhaps her own imagination conjured strong feelings of anger hanging around the bride?s chambers. Smoke wisps still hurried past the edge of her vision, as if driven by an unfelt wind. Caradore was not at rest. Ghosts walked there, unseen: the shade of a younger, innocent Valraven, Ellony, Thomist, Pharinet?s parents, and even Khaster, although he had not lived there. His shade would be beautiful, sensitive and mournful. Varencienne found herself thinking about Khaster a lot. Every time she visited Norgance, she went to stand before his portrait. She wished she had been given to such a man. How ironic life was. Valraven was due home on leave for the winter festival, and during the days before his arrival Varencienne became filled with a compulsion to visit the Chair once more. For some reason, she could not communicate this desire to either Pharinet or Niska. It was a personal feeling, which she must obey in secret. So one morning, an hour before dawn, she rode out alone without telling anyone in Caradore, and took a different route to the moors above Norgance, to avoid the Leckerys and their staff. This was also quicker than riding to Norgance first. Varencienne and Niska had visited the Chair on several more occasions since the first time, but although Varencienne sometimes picked up evanescent feelings and impressions, she’d yet to experience a repeat of that initial clear imagery. She arrived at the Mage’s Pike an hour after dawn. An autumn mist covered the land, making goblin giants of the trees. The air was hushed and still, as if the fog were an enchantment beneath whose spell the whole world slept. The jangling of the horse’s bit seemed too loud; it might awake some elemental creature from its slumber. By the time Varencienne hooked her mount’s reins over a tree branch and began to climb the pike, her spine was crawling with presentiment. From the platform, she looked down upon a world of cloud. Occasionally, a crow might rattle from the treetops and scrawl an arc across the shifting blanket, but otherwise Caradore lay still, although the air seemed to vibrate with an unheard song. Mist settled on Varencienne’s cloak like beads of polished quartz. Her hair was lank around her face, her breath steaming. Leaves fell from the
trees and landed silently on the path along the Pike below her. She had walked a carpet of wet gold to reach this place. If she was truly the sea wife, then her predecessors throughout the generations must have come to this place, seeking knowledge. She felt strongly that she belonged there, which warred with the nagging inner suspicion that she was an interloper. She did not love the Dragon Heir. Occasionally, she?d wished him dead. She wasn?t sure in her heart what she really wanted, or why she was there. The path to the Chair was slick, but Varencienne’s feet were sure upon it. She felt no danger. Moisture dripped from the shrubs about the stone seat itself, sliding from the wads of tight red berries and glossy leaves that enclosed it. The air smelled sickly sweet with an undertone of loam. Varencienne had been aware of the fermenting season all the way to the Pike, but at the Chair itself this fecundity seemed to spill over with especial plump ripeness. She settled herself upon the cold wet stone, which was covered in leaves. Presently, the dampness seeped through her clothes to her thighs and buttocks. Her toes and fingers felt stiff and chilled, yet the rest of her body was strangely warm. She gripped the arms of the Chair and closed her eyes, willing visions to come. But she could not shift her awareness from the smells around her. They filled her head, distracting her concentration. Her own desire for answers seemed puny in comparison with the immense surge of life around her, its fruiting, its continuation. Colors boiled behind her eyes: crimson and gold and copper. A quiet inner voice whispered, here is the message itself. Varencienne went utterly still. She opened her eyes. The world hadn’t changed at all. Within her, a fruit had dropped from the tree of knowledge and broken open. Its seeds had spilled into her mind and were sinking down. It would take time for them to grow, to blossom, but for a single conviction, which was already in bloom. She felt Valraven was damaged beyond repair. Perhaps it was not his task to reclaim his heritage, but despite this a possibility existed for the Palindrakes to begin anew. It would mean she must go against all that she had previously felt. She would have to put aside her own preferences for the greater good, and in doing so would transcend her own being. In this way, she would never fear she was an interloper again. She must conceive with her husband a child. The idea was so simple and so perfect, Varencienne was awed by it. If she should have a son, she would ensure he matured free of the demons that had plagued his father. She would not surrender him to the empire. She would use whatever influence she possessed with her family in Magravandias to protect him. Something had changed Valraven from the boy Pharinet had grown up with to the passionless warrior he was now. Varencienne had yet to discover the full story, but she had no doubt that one day she?d be successful in this task. Then she would have armor and weapons with which to defend her son. Varencienne stood up abruptly. The land was showing her the answer, presenting its fruits to her in silent appeal. She could not ignore the message.