Ellynor just stared at the old lady, too astonished to speak.
Serra Paulina made another sound that could have been a cough or maybe a chuckle. “Guess you’re not used to hearing anyone say such things about your precious Lestra, are you? Strange little deal she’s got set up there—all these people bowing and scraping to her, everyone calling her by some fancy name. It’s like she’s her own little queen on her own little throne, and she’s got everyone there believing it! Well, what happens when a queen realizes she’s not the only royalty in the country, hey? When the king tries to shut her down? Baryn’s a damn fool. He never should have let Coralinda run on like this for so long. He’ll be sorry when she starts her own revolution.”
Baryn. That was the king’s name, Ellynor thought. This mad old woman was saying the king should fear that the Lestra would start some kind of uprising.
It was something Ellynor could instantly believe.
But. “The Lestra cares only to celebrate the goddess,” Ellynor said in a soft voice, dropping her eyes, keeping her face demure. “She sent me here at your request. If you did not want my prayers—”
“You’re the one who made me well,” the old woman interrupted, and Ellynor’s eyes flew to her face. “I was so sick I was going to die. No one would say it, but I knew. And then you were here—you and that other girl—and I got well. You’re the one who saved me. I could feel the power in you that second night, just when you walked in the room.”
Ellynor felt a little shaky. This was treacherous ground. Heretic this old woman might be, but her daughter wasn’t, and Ellynor was here on convent business. “I have only the power that the Great Mother chooses to lend me,” she said, still softly, the words deliberately ambiguous.
The serramarra snorted again. “Call it a gift from the Pale Mother if you like, but you’re a skilled healer, girl. And I’ve got a damn lot of pain in my leg, and I don’t like it. I want to be well. I want to be up and able to walk out of this room. And I don’t want to hurt. I’m tired of hurting. You have no idea how long it’s been since I’ve been free of pain.”
Ellynor’s sympathy was quickly roused at the slight break in the old woman’s voice, and she studied her patient for a moment. Paulina was watching her, the blue eyes intense, the thin mouth drawn tight. Ellynor thought that, for all her scornful words, the old woman actually was a little afraid—that Ellynor did not possess the power she thought, or would not use it.
“It would seem very odd,” she said carefully, “for your leg to be healed overnight. For you to get up tomorrow morning, whole. Your daughter and your physician—everyone—would think it was strange. And troubling.”
Paulina sat back against the headboard, still regarding Ellynor. Her eyes were even brighter. “If you healed me,” she said, “I’d stay in bed another two weeks. I’d pretend to be in pain. I would. I would make sure you’d been gone for days before I started to remark how much better my leg was.”
“People still might wonder.”
An unholy smile came to the old lady’s lips. “I’ll credit the doctor. He’s fool enough to believe he can work miracles! Think of the patients who’ll be begging him to come to their bedsides then.”
“Think of the people who might call him a mystic,” Ellynor said bluntly.
That made the old lady pause. Some of the excitement left her face. “That’s a word that’ll get you stoned to death in Neft,” she admitted. Her bright gaze fixed itself on Ellynor’s face. “Is that what you are? A mystic?”
Ellynor shook her head, genuinely surprised. “Oh, no. I don’t know anything about magic. I don’t have any power of my own. It’s just that the Great Mother chooses, now and then, to pour her strength through my body so I can help the sick and wounded.”
“The Silver Lady is not much of one for healing, not that I ever heard,” scoffed the serramarra.
“I call on the Black Mother,” Ellynor said in a low voice. “She’s the one who watches over the Lirrenfolk.”
Now Paulina looked deeply interested. “You’re a Lirren girl, are you? What brought you across the Lireth Mountains—and to Lumanen Convent, of all places?”
Ellynor smiled. “Oh, I had many reasons. And I am happy to be at the convent. I admire the Lestra greatly and I am learning to love the Silver Lady, though she is so different from the goddess I know.”
“She’s elegant and spiteful, if she’s anything like the woman who worships her,” Paulina said dryly. “But we won’t quarrel about Coralinda! Indeed, I should be thanking her right now, for agreeing to send you to me. That is—you have not said—if you are willing . . .”
Ellynor smiled and hitched her chair closer. “Indeed, if you will promise some discretion, I am willing,” she said. “Let me get close enough to lay my hands on your leg. I will ask the Great Mother to mend you in the shortest possible time.”
A COUPLE of hours later, back in the bedroom she had shared with Astira, Ellynor found herself unable to sleep. She had placed her hot hands on Paulina’s legs and felt the bones and tissues reknit beneath her fingers. She had secured the old woman’s promise to sleep now and to lie abed a good while longer, and she was pretty sure Paulina would keep the promise because she did not want to jeopardize Ellynor. But it was still a risky move, summoning the Black Mother in a household such as this, when someone else was awake and watching.
Ellynor could not be sorry, but she could not be entirely easy, either.
Unable to sleep, she knelt on the floor before the window and gazed past her candle at the limitless night sky. The waxing moon was remote and a little offended; she seemed to turn her glowing face deliberately away from the supplicant at the window. But the Black Mother was expansive and comforting, spreading her hands over the sleeping city, the slumbering land, holding everyone close and safe. She approved of Ellynor’s actions. She had answered at the very first call.
Ellynor crossed her arms on the windowsill and rested her chin on her wrists, watching the scene below. Like Paulina’s, this bedroom overlooked the front of the house, the sweep of lawn, the wrought-iron gate, the street beyond. It was late— past midnight, she guessed—and almost no one was abroad. Ellynor could see moths congregating near the glass, anxious to get to the candle. Occasional shapes made distinctive patterns against the sky—spiky bats, feathered owls. Something crept across the lawn below, some small nocturnal creature looking for scraps or vermin. A shadow moved slowly up the hill, big enough to be a man on foot. Someone coming home late from an evening of pleasure, she thought with some envy. A man who had toasted his friends at the tavern or lain with his sweetheart in secret inside her father’s house.
He slowed as he crested the hill, came to a stop as he turned to appraise the Gisseltess house. He wrapped his hands around two of the wrought-iron bars and stood there a long moment, gazing up at the windows.
It was Justin.
CHAPTER 11
NOT even pausing to ask herself what Justin might be doing at the Gisseltess mansion at this hour of the night, Ellynor gave a little squeal and pushed open the window. She waved both her arms, still clad in her white novice robes, hoping to catch his attention, since she didn’t dare raise her voice to call him. For a moment, he didn’t see her—she could tell the exact instant that he did. His head jerked up and his smile swept across his face, utterly transforming it. He waved back.
For a moment, they grinned at each other like fools across the whole distance of the lawn, Ellynor and this young stablehand about whom she knew nothing at all. Then he stepped back and made a motion with his hand, first pointing at the house, then sweeping his arm down toward the street. Can you come outside? he seemed to be asking. Can you join me here?
Of course she shouldn’t. For so many reasons she could hardly list them all if she took the rest of the night to try. Of course she wanted to. She leaned farther out, held up a single finger. One minute. Then she ducked back into the room, pulling her shoes off, checking to make sure her hair was tied back.
br /> There was no question that she could move through the sleeping house in complete silence. The children of the Black Mother were utterly at ease in the dark, skilled at stealth, adept at crossing unfriendly territory without drawing attention. Torrin was proud of his ability to turn almost invisible, a talent he used when hunting game or engaging in feuds with hostile sebahta. He had taught Ellynor to glide soundlessly through any terrain, wrapped in the Dark Watcher’s cloak.
She negotiated the stairs without a sound, tiptoed past the single footman dozing in the hall, let herself out of the door without any noise at all. Then she flew across the yard and slipped out the front gate, laughing. She was so delighted at this unexpected rendezvous that she wanted to throw her arms around Justin’s neck for the sheer joy of it.
She didn’t, but she did allow him to take her hands in a warm clasp as he peered down at her. It was unlikely he could see in the dark as well as she could, but he had sharp eyes even so, for she could see the changing expression on his face as he looked her over and assessed her mood and well-being. He was probably used to night maneuvers himself, she thought. He was not someone who was afraid of events that unfolded in the dark.
“What are you doing here?” he asked in a low voice.
She gave a light laugh. She felt ridiculously happy. “The old woman I met last time I was here? She hurt herself and asked for me to come nurse her. I just arrived tonight. This morning when I woke up I had no idea where I would be by moonrise! But what are you doing here?”
He grinned. “Looking for you, of course. Thinking how much I enjoyed meeting you, and wishing you would come back, and wondering if I’d ever run into you again.” He shook his head. “I never expected to see you at the window.”
“Have you walked by every night since I’ve been gone?”
He looked a little self-conscious. “Not every night. Every day, though, probably, at one time or another.”
“The rest of your life must be very dull,” she said.
He gave a rather hollow laugh; the expression on his face made her think he was reviewing some recent incident that had been anything but boring. But before he could comment on that, she shifted position as she pulled away from him, and he glanced down at her feet.
“Where are your shoes?” he exclaimed, still keeping his voice quiet. “You shouldn’t be walking out here barefoot! In the dirt—and the horse droppings—and the cold.”
She laughed. “This isn’t cold. What kind of pathetic winters are you used to wherever you come from?”
He grinned, but still looked concerned. “Ghosenhall, and it gets plenty cold there,” he said. “But you can’t stand here barefoot. Let’s—here—let’s sit down and you can wrap your feet up.”
Wrap them in what? she wondered, but that was quickly solved. He drew her to the side of the road, where a strip of grass looked inviting even in the dark, and they dropped down and made themselves comfortable. Then he stripped off his overshirt and proceeded to bundle it around her feet.
Laughing, she tried to pull away—“Justin! Don’t put your clothes on my dirty toes!”—but he dragged her knees across his lap and held them there with one hand, his other hand around her ankles. The set of his face was intractable. She was both touched and a little annoyed.
“You remind me of my brothers so much,” she informed him.
“I don’t think your brothers would allow you to wander around barefoot in the cold at night.”
“Well, there you’re wrong! Who do you think taught me to do it?” He just looked at her, and that made her laugh again. She put her arms behind her to brace herself. It actually felt rather nice to have his hands touching her—impersonally enough, through the layer of clothing, but warm for all that. It was a novel sensation to be fussed over by a man and not resent it highly. Rather, to find it flattering. “My brothers are night hunters,” she informed him. “They can move through the dark as easily as most people can move through the light. We used to play games when we were children—hiding from each other, or sneaking past a pretend campsite. When the whole family was together—dozens of children, all about the same age—we would stage these very complex feuds where we would have to attack each other under cover of night. No one ever caught Torrin. And I think Hayden only was taken captive two or three times. I wasn’t as good as they were, but I can make my way through the dark. And to sneak out of a house at night,” she summed up, “you have to take off your shoes.”
“You must be really close to your brothers.”
“To my cousins, too. To all of them. The way I grew up, nothing was more important than family. If someone needed something from you—an aunt’s second husband’s son by a former marriage—you gave it to him. You never turned your back on a family member. Which meant no one ever turned his back on you. If I needed something, even now, I would just have to raise my hand—” She lifted one arm, held it before her a moment, then put it behind her again to take her weight. “And brothers and cousins and uncles would be at my door.”
“Sounds wonderful.”
“Wonderful and oppressive,” she agreed. “Sometimes you don’t always want quite that much attention.”
“Really? I like the idea of raising a hand and having a whole contingent of brothers at my back.”
She studied his face in the dark. He had strong features, quick to show a smile or a sneer, but otherwise fairly watchful. Not giving much away. Not instinctively formed for trust. “And you’ve never had that?” she asked softly.
He considered. “I have that now. In a manner of speaking. I have friends who would come if I called—no matter why I called them or where I was. People who would not abandon me. I miss them.”
Her voice was so soft it was scarcely louder than a breath. “Did someone abandon you, Justin? Did your family?”
He looked at her, maybe trying to read her face the way she had read his. She wondered how much he would tell her, this man who clearly was not made for sharing secrets. “I never really had a family,” he said.
“Three sisters. You told me.”
A quick smile, instantly gone. “So you remember that.”
“Well, of course I do.”
“They weren’t around very long.”
She sat up, drawing her feet back toward her body so she could sit cross-legged beside him. As she made no move to uncover her feet, Justin allowed her to pull away. “What happened to them? What happened to you?”
He spoke with absolutely no inflection in his voice. “My mother was a whore in Ghosenhall. Four children by four nameless fathers. I was the youngest, and all my sisters were gone by the time my mother died. I was ten.” He shrugged. “A long time ago, it seems.”
Ellynor felt like she had been dropped in fire. Her skin was melting; her heart was ablaze. Her eyes had been scalded—no, that came from the sudden tears. “Justin. How did—but that is—you are—”
“Not a pretty tale,” he said, and his voice was gentle. “I don’t tell it to get your sympathy. Just so you know how different my own life has been.”
“But then—what happened to you? How did you—how did you survive?”
“Oh, for a while I lived on the street.” Another swift smile, this one a little devilish. “Where I learned some of my skill at fighting. I bet I could show your brothers a trick or two I learned during those days. Then I had some luck—met some people who took me in and trained me in a profession. Now I’m a soldier, and a good one. I don’t have family, but I have friends—friends who won’t fail me.”
“Friends you miss. You already said that,” Ellynor replied. “So why are you here, now, and not with them? They didn’t turn against you, did they?”
He hesitated for a long time, and she knew he was trying to decide how to answer her question without lying. She was intrigued both by the thought that he felt he had to lie, and the realization that he wanted to give her the truth. “They didn’t turn against me,” he said at last. “They know I’m here. They’ll come for me in
a while.”