Silence?
Slowly, increasingly, she felt that whiny hum again, and she gasped and pulled away. “Magic,” she whispered. “We’d better get away. It feels nasty.”
Llhei winced as well, and whirled back from the wall. “Something happened in there—” she began.
A loud smashing sound made them both jump. It sounded like doors crashing open.
“Stay.” Llhei’s voice was a command.
She bustled out into the royal hallway.
Kitty remained where she was, chewing the inside of her lip. She counted to ten. She counted to twenty.
She gave up, and ran back into the servant’s hall, down the long dim-lit corridor, and out into the servants’ wing, which looked out on the garrison court.
She saw movement outside the window, and paused.
The storm had stopped. Not a flake of snow in the air.
And floundering in the drifts as they lined up in neat rows, were all the Marlovens.
She stood there for a long time, afraid it was some kind of a trick, until they had all ridden or marched out.
Then she turned around, to find Llhei standing behind her.
“They’re gone,” Llhei said, and put her apron over her head, and wept.
THREE
At first no one believed it.
Nelyas and a couple of the others ventured cautiously through the castle, finding the rooms empty. The beautiful carved doors to the morning room were smashed, which caused cries of outrage—where Tdanerend’s guards had broken in to arrest Senrid.
Both rival kings had vanished. No one knew who had given the order for the warriors to withdraw, but withdraw they did, as fast as they could, and what’s more they had left the barracks wing reasonably clean—horse droppings all wanded underground, the barracks empty and swept, the only evidence of their stay a badly frayed rope here, a broken blackweave harness there, and a lingering aroma of wet wool and horse.
All Nelyas and the explorers found in Tdanerend’s former quarters were the old Tlennen-Hess golden dinnerware (the warriors had brought their own) on a gold tray, a half-eaten meal still on the plates, and a fine woolen cloak, which Nelyas’s cousin threw into the fire. The left-over food was burned and the dishes taken three times through the cleaning frame, an old ritual that persisted everywhere despite magicians trying to tell people that the second and third tries only spent the magic a bit more without doing any good. But three cleansings, one for physical, one for mental, and one for spiritual banishment of an enemy’s touch made people feel that an item was truly clean.
Meanwhile Lisaeth had departed at once to toil her way through the mighty snowdrifts to Crestel, in order to apprise Leander.
By nightfall the castle was bustling again, people cleaning to remove any traces of the invaders, and cooking, and eating, and talking.
Leander walked through his castle, expecting anything but that emptiness.
He’ll be back, he kept thinking. It’s not over. This is just a respite.
He retreated up to his magic library, intending on getting started right away on more border wards. The room was largely untouched. Tdanerend had apparently disdained his small collection of white magic books—either that or he’d tried a small spell and was caught asleep, and when he was woken he did not know enough magic to break Leander’s ward.
First, though, Leander had to activate the road-clearing spells for which he had so painstakingly laid down the basic magic, during early spring. For three weeks he’d traveled around, partly to get to know people, but mostly to set the spells against the next winter—spells his father had sought for a number of years, and had promised his people. It was one of the sad ironies of his life that he obtained the spells from far north right before he was killed by his own wife.
Leander picked up the book in which he’d carefully written out the activation spells, and moved to the window that overlooked a curve of the town road. Each road was named. He performed the castle-road spell first, then looked out. A sudden straight line of snow dashed into the air, sparkling in the sunlight—and there was the road, with snow mounded high on both sides.
He laughed in delight. What would it feel like, to be toiling on the road when the spell activated? A sudden white whirlwind all around one, and the unsteady sensation of magic… and suddenly a clean road?
Spell, recover, spell, recover. Down the list he ran, triumph infusing him with energy. After the days of defeat, of humiliation and helplessness, it felt good to accomplish this one thing.
The only roads he did not clear were those leading down from the mountains, whereon the Marlovens were probably marching westward toward home. He did not want them discovering neatly cleared roads and regarding them as an invitation to return.
When that was done, he was startled to see that the day was already gone, and he had mentally mapped out much more to do. So he clapped on the lights, shut and locked his doors so no one would disturb him for anything but emergencies, and settled down with his books.
Until late he worked, the five days of rest having done much to restore him. As he’d recovered physically, a different kind of fever had seized him, a fever of anxiousness, making him desperate to invent a way to protect his kingdom if he could.
Once, when he looked up, thinking about food, he remembered a summer campfire at the old hideout. His words to Senrid came back, an ironic echo. Or maybe what I don’t need is the foolishness of adulthood. Had he really been that complacent?
Except was adulthood any guarantee of wisdom? Tdanerend, and Mara Jinea—and his father’s foolish attraction for that evil woman’s pretty face—were proof that it wasn’t.
Back to work.
Of course he fell asleep over his books, just like the good old days.
In fact, it was almost a relief to wake up with the familiar stiff neck, dry mouth, and creased cheek. Maybe that meant life would return to normal, that the horrors with Tdanerend would diminish into a very bad memory—
He glanced at the window, which was day bright. He’d heard noise outside: horsehooves.
Fear drove him to the window, but when he looked out, instead of the expected formation of black-and-tan Marlovens, he saw Alaxandar at the head of half-a-dozen riders, and he remembered Alaxandar’s vow to ride a perimeter check round the city as soon as the roads were cleared, and to venture farther at dawn.
They were returning so early? Something was wrong.
He ran to his rooms for a quick trip through the cleaning frame so he wouldn’t have to bother changing his clothes, and leaped down the stairs, ducking through the door in time to meet a snowball on the ear.
“Huh?”
“Whose joke is that?” Kitty screamed. She swept up snow and flung it in the other direction. “Argh!”
Leander blinked away the snow that had dashed across his vision to see Kitty standing before Alaxandar’s horse, her face mottled scarlet with fury.
“Thought it might be,” Alaxandar said, making a sign to Arel.
What Leander had taken to be a saddle-bag across the horse’s withers was, in fact, a person. As he registered this Arel grasped the scruff of its neck and slung it away from his horse.
Leander stared down in mind-flown surprise as Senrid Montredaun-An landed flat on his back in the deep snow, arms out, hands empty and loose. He was completely unconscious.
Kitty stamped around in a circle. “Why? That rotten rotten rotten Tdanerend—and him too!” She pointed down at Senrid.
“Where’d he come from?” Leander asked Alaxandar. “I thought he was dead!”
“Found him holed up in a burned-out barn to the west. Saw the princess’s lion and a couple of the other felines running across a field, kept looking back at us. We followed, discovered prints leading to the barn, and there he was.”
Leander turned to Kitty, questions chasing through his mind again, caroming off possible answers. “He’s alive, then. And you knew it. Didn’t you?”
Kitty waved at Senrid. “Ask hi
m!” she yelled, then she whirled around and flounced back inside.
Leander sighed, looking down at the friend-turned-enemy. For a brief moment the sight of that pale face lying in the snow was overlaid with the memory of the same face staring down at him through the clear water of Sindan’s river. Only this time Leander held the decision of life or death, and Senna wasn’t even aware.
Of course there was no choice. He waved a hand toward the inside, and Arel and his riding companion picked up the limp figure, one at each end.
“Where?” Arel asked, pausing to look back. His hands were under Senrid’s armpits; Leander looked at Senrid’s limp body, his pale face lifeless of any of the determination or wit that so characterized him, and turned away. Arel added, “And should we post a guard?”
Leander hesitated. Was Senrid his prisoner? What had he done to deserve it—and could Leander even keep him, if he wanted to get free? The answers there, at least, were clear: no, and no. “Don’t bother,” Leander said tiredly. “He has magic. More than I do. Just put him in a guest room. If he wants to leave, I can’t stop him.”
Kitty hovered in the hallway until Arel and the other trod past with their burden, then she pounded down the hall to the kitchen, which was blessedly warm and smelled like cinnamon.
“Llhei!” she called, and when everyone looked up, she beckoned fiercely.
Llhei smiled. “What is it, child?”
Kitty waited until Llhei had reached the doorway, and drew her out. “Senrid,” she whispered. “They found him in the snow. They’re taking him upstairs right now. Leander—he’s mad at me, he gave me this look—”
“Go have a berry-bun, they’re fresh,” Llhei said. “I’ll see to the boy. And Leander.”
Kitty waited only until Llhei was down the hall, then she slunk after. She had to know what happened—what was said. That horrid promise—just when she’d thought herself finally safe!
Llhei chose the servants’ way upstairs, which was shorter. It was also impossible to sneak there, Kitty had discovered. You saw everyone coming and going, as there was no furniture to hide behind.
So she ran to the grand stairway and skidded round the landing, racing upward. When she reached her own hall, Llhei disappeared inside the room Senrid had had before. Arel and his riding partner strode away down the hall in the other direction.
As soon as the clatter of their riding boots had diminished down the stairwell Kitty tiptoed up and pressed her ear to the door.
She heard a warkl wark! sound, kind of like a dog, and then a moan and a jumble of words.
Then Llhei’s voice, “Yes, I know, I’m taking terrible liberties, but you simply can’t sleep with wet clothing on, not to mention knives. We don’t have enough bedding to risk your ruining this fine set of sheets with bloodstains.”
Another jumble of words.
Llhei laughed. “No, but you’ve no authority here and cannot order me around, and you are in my charge. I already have charge of two children not the least related to me, so what is a temporary third? Now stop babbling and sleep. I hate the thought of how happy your wicked uncle would be if you conveniently died.”
Kitty heard Llhei coming toward the door, and fled to hide in her room.
She’d get at Senrid later, and make him take back that promise, Or Else.
Leander was in his magic room when Llhei came through his study door with a tray.
“If you don’t eat, you will end up like your guest,” she said, setting the tray down on the table.
Leander gazed in bemusement at the tray, which was loaded with enough food for five or six people. All his favorite things, he noticed. The smells woke his insides up.
“I thank you, but if I don’t work, we’ll all end up like him. If not worse. I don’t know when his uncle is coming back.”
“If I can understand young Senrid’s ravings aright, the Regent won’t be, at least not yet. He’ll have to settle things at home first.”
“What happened? Why is Senrid here?”
“He appeared that one day, before the storm hit us—”
“That storm was magic,” Leander cut in, frowning-”Black magic driven. It’s going to pull more storms this way. We’re in for a bad winter.” He blinked. “I’m sorry I interrupted. Too many things in my mind at once, all of them equally important.”
Llhei nodded, comfortable and imperturbable as ever. Leander had been grateful for her presence ever since he first met her.
“He was arguing with the Regent. He was sick then, but he told me he wanted only to get his uncle on home ground. He said he had no interest in us here.”
“And you believed him?” Leander winced. “I believed him once too, and found out he’s very good at lying—saying what you expect to hear.”
“He did nothing untoward,” Llhei said. “And Nelyas later overheard some of the guards gossiping about how angry the Regent was that he’d shown up. So perhaps that much, at least, is true, that Senrid is less interested in fighting us than with his uncle. You probably ought to interview him when he’s rested a bit.”
Leander sighed. “I don’t really want to see him. What would be the use? You can’t believe anything he says.”
“He’s raving right now. You won’t get any sense out of him at all, lies or truth, not until the fever breaks.”
Leander remembered their early talks, how much fun it had been to find someone else who liked history, who could think as fast as he could. Probably faster; Senrid had been outthinking Leander the whole time.
Regret was Leander’s foremost emotion, not hatred or disgust. Those would come only if Senrid returned at the head of an army.
He looked up at Llhei, who was waiting, watching him with her usual mild expression. “Let me know if he asks to see me, okay?” he asked. “I really need to work on mastering these wards. If Tdanerend comes back, I intend to see that he won’t easily use his black magic here again, if I possibly can. Since there’s nothing we can do about that army.”
Llhei nodded. “Yes, and in my turn, I admonish you not to let that food sit there like decorations. Eat.”
“I promise.”
She left, and Leander dutifully picked up a honey-and-nut loaded oatcake, munching it as he turned back to his book.
While Senrid faded from his mind as old magic once engrossed his thoughts, Kitty hovered outside the doorway.
As soon as Leander’s door was closed, she whispered “What did he say? What did you tell him?”
Llhei laughed. “That Senrid is sick, and that Leander ought to eat. What am I not to tell him? Why are you so fretful Kitty?”
Kitty scowled. “That Senrid—it’s all his fault.”
“What is his fault?”
“Oh, some stupid mess he caused. And I’ll get blamed for it. You’ll see.” And, as they reached the door to Senrid’s room, “Can I go in there yet?”
“Wait here, and let me check.”
When she emerged, she shook her head. “He’s asleep.”
Kitty groaned. “He would be. He did it on purpose.”
And she stalked back to her room.
For another day and a half she endured the long wait. No one talked to her, for the servants were all busy setting the castle to rights again, and Leander lived in his study. He never came out for meals.
Once she tiptoed in, but the first thing he said was, “How’s Senrid?”
“A bad fever, Llhei says. She won’t let me go in there—” She realized that Leander was not the one she ought to be complaining to, and stopped, and sighed.
“Is there anything you want to tell me?” he asked then.
He wasn’t mad, but those green eyes were uncomfortably direct. She might moan about how he never really saw or heard her any more, but he sure was paying all his attention to her right now.
She remembered the mysterious disappearance of her blindness—and all those other spells. She remembered her promise to Leander about never messing with his magic books. Promises were important to Lea
nder, so she’d tried to make them important to her too.
But now he looked at her as if, well, she’d lied.
And she hadn’t! It was all Senrid’s fault!
She groaned. “I want him out of here,” she declared.
“Me too,” Leander said, and turned back to his books.
Kitty didn’t stop him.
A day and a half later, she was lurking in the hallway after Llhei’s morning visit to the guest room, when Llhei came out, her eyes pitying, her mouth quirked in a strange little smile. “His sufferings have ended,” she said.
FOUR
“You mean the fever’s finally broken?” Kitty asked.
“And none too soon,” Llhei said. “Now, do not fret him back into one. I managed to get this broth down his throat, and though he’s got his wits back, his mood is a match for yours. I’d consider a wait if there’s something you need his cooperation with.”
Kitty sucked in her breath. “What do you mean?”
Llhei shrugged. “What do you mean?”
Kitty frowned. Llhei was getting awfully regal for a servant. But Kitty knew if she said something about that, Llhei would shrug, and smile, so she stalked past and into Senrid’s room.
He was propped up on pillows, wearing a shirt of Leander’s that was much too large for him. His eyes looked watery and his nose dull red. A besorcelled handkerchief was clutched in one hand, with which he kept wiping his nose.
“You look terrible.” Kitty chortled in triumph. “Do you feel terrible? I hope so, because you deserve it!”
Senrid gave a brief, wheezy laugh. “I was counting the moments. Until you’d be by. To say something. Bright and cheery.”
“When are you going to let me off that ridiculous promise?”
“Never. What would be the use. Of making it. In the first place?”
Talking, even that much, was an effort.
Kitty glared. “Leander has been asking about that magic. He thinks I did it.”
“So?”
“I promised not to! And he—he looks at me. I can’t stand it!”