That was an errand only Jaelle could do, and it was best left to her. Camilla went off to the kitchen, and when Jaelle had dressed and gone, Magda persuaded Cholayna to get back into her sleeping bag and rest.
Camilla came back with a steaming kettle and half a dozen little packets of herbs stowed about her person.
“They told us that breakfast would be coming along in a few minutes,” she said, “and I smelled a nutcake baking. One of them told me that they had baked one for our Guild-sisters when they lodged here.” She poured boiling water over the herbs.
“This is blackroot; it is a stimulant to the heart and will also make red blood; it will help you acclimate to the mountains,” she said, kneeling beside Cholayna. “Drink it now and rest. Perhaps by tomorrow your body will be accustomed to the heights here and you can go on with us.”
Cholayna drank the bitter tea without protest, only wrinkling up her nose a little at the taste. She asked weakly, “And if I do not?”
“Then we will wait until you are able to travel,” Magda said promptly. The excuse that one of their companions was too ill to travel would at least ward off any insistence by Aquilara or any of her cohorts that they should immediately follow the sorceress.
Any further discussion was cut short by the arrival of their breakfast, on several trays which took two girls to carry. Magda tipped the women generously, and sat down to the array of hot fresh bread, scones and nutcakes, plenty of butter, honey and apple nut conserves, boiled eggs and fragrant mushroom sausages. Vanessa and Camilla ate heartily; but Cholayna was too queasy to eat anything. Magda persuaded her to swallow a little bread and honey with her tea, but it was no use coaxing Cholayna to eat the unfamiliar food; she probably could not keep it down anyhow.
Jaelle did not return. No doubt she had decided to breakfast with the apprentices in the stable, to try to find out what they knew. The women who cleared away the breakfast trays were soon succeeded by women bringing back their clean laundry. Camilla went away with them, invited to visit the glove-maker’s shops. Magda settled down to mend socks; she liked sewing no better than ever, but she liked wearing socks with holes in them, especially in this climate, even less. Vanessa followed suit, and the women sat quietly mending their clothes.
Cholayna, propped up on her pillows, was writing in her little book. The fire crackled cheerfully on the hearth; the women had brought what looked like an endless supply of firewood. It was peaceful in the room; Magda felt that her nightmares had been no more than that.
But Cholayna’s heavy coughing broke the peace of the room. What would Jaelle find out? What would happen if Aquilara summoned them before Cholayna was able to travel? She made some more of the special tea for Cholayna and urged her to drink as much as she could.
“Cholayna, if you are not better in a day or two, it may mean that you are one of the people who simply cannot acclimate properly to the mountains. Now that we know where Lexie and Rafaella are, would you trust me to go on in your place, and let Vanessa take you back to Thendara? You would not have to cross the passes, except Scaravel; you could go by the Great North Road, which is well-marked and well-traveled all the way. I do not want your illness on my conscience—”
“There is no question of that, Magda. I chose to come, no one compelled me, and you are in no way responsible.”
“All the same,” Vanessa chimed in, “altitude sickness is serious. Tell me, have you any blurring of vision?”
“No, no, nothing of the sort,” Cholayna said impatiently. “I am tired and the food is not agreeing with me very well. A day’s rest will put me right.”
“I certainly hope so,” Magda said, “but if not, your only recourse is to go down to a lower level; you will not recover while you stay in Nevarsin. And beyond Nevarsin it is worse, much worse. Couldn’t you trust me to do what I can for Lexie?”
Cholayna reached out her hand and touched Magda’s. It was a gesture of real affection. “It is not a question of trust, Magda. How long have we known each other? But I trained Alexis, too. I cannot—no, I will not abandon her now. You of all people should understand that.” She smiled at Magda’s look of frustration.
“Let’s wait and see. Tomorrow I may be able to travel. I know that some people acclimate more slowly than others. I’m not as fast as Vanessa, that’s all.”
“But if you don’t? At least promise me that you’ll agree to go back then,” Vanessa said.
“If I do not, then we will decide that then. I make no promises, Vanessa. You are not yet my superior—”
“If I certify you unfit for duty—”
“Leave it, Vanessa,” Cholayna said gently. “None of us are here on the same terms as we were in the HQ. I take your advice as mountain expert and I will do whatever you say to try and make up for my slowness in acclimation. Even to drinking that nauseating old-wives remedy Camilla brought me.”
“It contains something analogous to—” Vanessa mentioned a Terran drug with which Magda was not familiar—“and they have been using it in these mountains for centuries for just such cases of altitude sickness. Don’t be narrow-minded.”
“It’s not narrow-minded to say I would prefer a couple of capsules of something familiar, rather than this horrid brew.” Nevertheless Cholayna swallowed the tea Vanessa handed her, grimacing. “I am doing my best. You were born in these mountains, Magda; and you, Vanessa, have been climbing since you were in your teens. Give me time.”
“You’re a stubborn old bitch,” Vanessa grumbled, and Cholayna smiled at her. She said, with equal affection, “And you are a disrespectful brat.”
The bells in the city rang in the distance. Cholayna had fallen into a light doze. Vanessa was restless.
“If only there were something I could do!”
“Camilla and Jaelle can do anything that can be done, better than we can, Vanessa. All we can do is wait, and take care of Cholayna.” This too was not easy for Magda. In her years as a field agent, she had grown accustomed to handling everything herself so that it would be done her way. The very act of submission, of sitting back and letting someone else do what needed to be done, was foreign to her nature.
It was high noon; Cholayna had wakened, and they had persuaded her to drink more of the blackthorn tea, when Jaelle came back, coming into the room and tossing her old jacket on the chair.
“I talked to the woman who mended Lexie’s saddle, and it seems that they left very suddenly—as she put it, at weird-o’-the-clock in the morning, when everyone was sleeping. She happened to be sitting up in the stables to doctor a sick pony. She said the monastery bells had just rung for the Night Office, which is just a few hours after midnight—my brother was educated in Nevarsin and he told me.”
“Was Aquilara with them?” Magda demanded.
“No one was with them, at least no one that Varvari saw,” Jaelle said, “they saddled and loaded their horses themselves. And she knew which route they were taking because she heard Rafi talking about the dangers from banshees in the pass.”
“Two possibilities, then,” said Vanessa. “One, Aquilara scared them away. Two, they arranged to meet her somewhere else. I’m sorry, Jaelle, I don’t see that this gets us much further on.”
“At least we know they left the city,” Jaelle pointed out. “We could hardly search Nevarsin from house to house. It may not be easy to look for them in the wilderness, but at least there are not so many people to get in the way of the search. And we know that they went northward over Nevarsin Pass, rather than turning southward again, or taking the road to the west, across the plateau of Leng. I have always heard that road was impassable and haunted by monsters next to whom banshees are household pets.”
“That sounds like the Darkovan equivalent of ‘here there be dragons, ’ ” murmured Cholayna.
“Nevarsin Pass, and banshees, are dragon enough for me,” said Jaelle, the pragmatic. “Sixteen thousand feet; higher than Ravensmark. The road’s probably somewhat better, but the question is, is this a bad year for ba
nshees? It depends on a fairly complicated ecological study, or so Kindra used to tell me; if there are enough ice-rabbits, the banshees are well fed above the timberline, and stay up there. If some lichen or other is in the wrong part of its life cycle, there is some kind of population crash among ice-rabbits, the she-rabbits are barren, and the banshees starve, so that they come down below the treeline and look for larger prey. And what I know about the life-cycle of the ice-rabbit could be painlessly carved on my thumbnail. So we’ll just have to take our chances.”
“We’re going to follow them over the Pass, then?” Cholayna asked.
“I am. I’m not so sure about we,” Jaelle said. “It’s a commitment for me. You don’t look fit enough to go to the monastery for Evening Prayer, let alone to sixteen thousand feet to fight off the banshee.”
“We had this all out while you were away,” Cholayna said. “It’s a commitment for me too, Jaelle. Rafaella was only following the lead Alexis gave her. Where you go, I go. That’s settled.”
Jaelle opened her mouth to protest, but something in the tone of Cholayna’s voice stopped her.
“All right. Get what rest you can, and try to eat a good dinner. We’ll be leaving early.”
* * *
CHAPTER TWENTY
« ^ »
The afternoon dragged slowly. Jaelle went off again to settle their account with Arlinda, and (she told Magda privately) to make the tips and way-gifts Rafaella had not made.
“I suspect she avoided the usual gifting because she felt that might tip off some spy here that she was leaving,” Jaelle said. “It’s fairly obvious, first, that Arlinda is petrified with fear of Acquilara, and second, that there must be spies, or members of Acquilara’s Lodge, or whatever they are, among the women who live here.”
“Then don’t you run the risk, when you’re making these gifts, that you’ll warn the very people Rafi was trying to avoid?”
“Can’t be helped,” Jaelle said. “Rafaella might need to come back here some day; or I might. I’ll tell them I’m making the gifts Rafaella would have made if she had had time and ready money. Maybe they’ll believe it; maybe they won’t. Have you a better idea?”
Magda didn’t. She repacked her personal pack with clean and mended clothing; Camilla went to the market, taking Vanessa with her, to purchase extra grain-porridge and dried fruit for Cholayna, since it seemed unlikely she would be able to eat much of the dried-meat bars which were the regular trail ration. She also bought a supply of the blackthorn tea which had done Cholayna so much good.
Jaelle also presented Arlinda with a full packload of the trade goods she had brought for Rafaella. “Rafi won’t need them past here; there’s nothing to trade and almost nobody to trade with,” she said, “though I kept a load of things we might use for gifts or bribes if there are any villages up here; sweets and candies, small tools, mirrors and the like. And the Guild-house needs to be on good terms with Arlinda’s establishment; it’s the only decent place for Renunciates to stay in Nevarsin.”
“I’m not so sure of that, if Arlinda’s being watched or dominated by Aquilara’s people,” said Camilla, packing the fresh supplies into a saddlebag. “We ought to trade off the horses here, and take only chervines into the high country. Horses don’t have the stamina.”
“Cholayna and Vanessa can’t ride chervines,” said Magda, “and I’m not sure I could. The mountain horses can go almost anywhere a chervine can go. I suspect if we reach any country too rough for a horse, it will be too rough for us.”
While they were loading the saddlebags, Camilla drew Magda aside for a moment and gave her a pair of embroidered gloves, made of the fine leather from the shops covered by Arlinda’s establishment. Ever since they had been lovers, Camilla had enjoyed surprising her with little gifts like this, and Magda’s eyes filled with tears.
“But these are expensive, Camilla, you shouldn’t—”
“I found a few mountain men in the taverns who liked to play at darts and would not believe any woman, even an emmasca who had been a mercenary soldier, could throw a knife as well as they could. And when their pride, and their love of gambling, had prompted one man to wager more than he could pay, I generously accepted these in settlement of the debt. I suppose he had bought them for his wife or his lady friend, but she will have to teach her man not to gamble on his masculine pride!” She chuckled, low in her throat. “They are foolish and frivolous for this mountain city—your hands would freeze in them—but you can wear them when we return to a gentler climate!”
And for a moment Magda felt cheered, aware of optimism again; they would return to the comparatively benign climate of Thendara. She had hardly realized till this moment how much her world had narrowed to ice, cold, frostbitten fingers, frozen boots. The thin, frivolous little beaded gloves reminded her of flowers, sunshine, a world where it was possible to dance in the streets till dawn in midsummer; not this austere monastic city where snow lay in the streets all year round.
She pressed Camilla’s hand, and Camilla put an arm around her waist. Jaelle looked up and saw them, and as the kitchen-women entered with the dinner they had ordered, Magda saw her frown slightly, as when she was planning some bit of mischief. Then she embraced Vanessa deliberately and leaned over to kiss her on the mouth. Vanessa looked startled, but Magda heard— though she was too far away to hear and knew she was reading the thought behind the whisper, “Play along, silly! Or do you think I am seriously trying to seduce you?”
Vanessa blinked in surprise, but did not protest; she put up her arms around Jaelle, who kissed her long and hard, then turned languidly to the women unloading trays and dishes.
“Don’t disturb us till the fifth hour after the monastery bells ring for Morning Prayer,” she said, and went on to describe an elaborate breakfast, and pay for it, adding a generous tip. When the women went away, full of promises about the expensive delicacies Jaelle had ordered, Vanessa pulled herself free of Jaelle, her face crimson.
“Have you gone mad? What will they be thinking?”
“Exactly what I want them to think,” Jaelle said, “that we will be long lying abed tomorrow, in various combinations. It will never occur to them to suspect that we are intending to leave the city before the bells ring for Night Office; they won’t know we are gone until they bring that fancy breakfast when the sun is high.”
“And if Aquilara’s spy is not among the kitchen workers but among the girls in the stable?” Vanessa asked.
“Then I will have embarrassed you for nothing,” Jaelle said. With a mischievous shrug, she pulled her close and kissed her again. “Did you really object as much as all that? I saw no sign of it.”
Vanessa only giggled. A few days ago, Magda thought, she would have been angry.
At least she no longer feels that we are a threat to her.
Another leisurely bath; then a plentiful dinner, served in their rooms, and they settled down to sleep as long as they could. But for Magda sleep was slow in coming, even though, with the room sealed against intrusion, she had no fear of nightmares. She was lying between Jaelle and Camilla; after the older woman slept, she tossed and turned and finally Jaelle whispered, “Can’t you sleep either? What’s the matter? It’s going to be a rough trip, but even Cholayna seems better; I think she can make it. You’re not still worrying about that old witch Aquilara, are you? I think we’ve shaken her off. I think Lexie and Rafaella managed to get free of her too.”
“I’m not so sure, Shaya. What bothers me is—who are they? What would they want with us, and why?”
“I thought you had a theory about that. That they probably wanted to keep us away from the real Sisterhood.”
“But again, why? What would they get out of it? Just for sheer love of mischief-making? I cannot believe that. It must take as much talent and energy to run whatever it is this Aquilara is doing as it takes us to gather and work with the Forbidden Tower.”
“So?” Jaelle asked. “Perhaps it is simply hatred and jealousy of the pow
ers of the Sisterhood; she does not seem to have very many powers herself, in spite of what she managed to do to Camilla.”
“But even if she hated the Sisterhood… no, Jaelle. We have a reason to exist, Jaelle. Damon, Callista, Andrew, Hilary, all of us—we’re working to bring the good of laran to people born outside the Towers, people who don’t wish to deny their gifts, but will not live in the Towers, cut off from the real world. We’re trying to bring laran into the world, prove that it’s not necessary to be born Comyn, or aristocrat, or even Darkovan, to have and to use these gifts. We have purpose in what we’re doing, but it’s hard work, sometimes even painful work, I can’t believe she’d go to that much trouble, just to impress us.”
“I don’t know what her motive could be, Magda. Does it matter? I want nothing to do with her, or with her powers, and I do know this much, that if you go on thinking of her you will pick her up telepathically, and all our precautions will be useless.”
Magda knew Jaelle was right, and she tried to compose herself to sleep as best she could. She thought of her faraway home, of putting her little girl to bed at Armida; Shaya in her nightgown, her soft dark curls tousled. She had not known she remembered so many of the Darkovan folk songs and hill ballads that it had been her mother’s lifework to collect, until she began singing them to Shaya as lullabies. Elizabeth Lorne, she knew, had loved her work, and had died thinking that her daughter Magdalen cared nothing for it, knew nothing of it. How pleased she would have been to hear me singing to Shaya those old ballads from the Hellers and the Kilghard Hills which she so loved. Some day when Shaya is grown, she shall see her grandmother’s collected songs and ballads—eight volumes of them, or something like that—in Records, and know a little about her work.