After a time, Eduin spoke to Lord Brynon. They must not overtax Sandoval’s strength. It would be advisable to schedule another treatment. Perhaps that afternoon? Was there a solarium or some other bright, cheerful room? Would Lady Mhari be available as companion and chaperone, since she knew the young damisela well?
Lord Brynon replied that was an excellent idea. One look at Mhari’s dreamy expression told Eduin that she would be a pliant and enthusiastic ally.
The solarium had once been Lady Aillard’s favorite room, facing south and east to receive the morning sun. The windows were thick and almost flawless, a marvel of glassmaker’s art, and set between ribs of fine-grained white stone carved with stylized flowers. The room had been little used in the last few years, so Eduin, acting in Saravio’s name, ordered new plants to be brought in to replace the yellowed, elderly specimens. Fresh cushions brought new life to chairs and divan.
The first time Romilla entered the rejuvenated chamber, she clapped her hands and exclaimed in surprise. Even Mhari colored and smiled.
Romilla still bore her cadaverous paleness, and the hollows around her eyes told of yet another night of tortured dreams. For the first time, Eduin wondered if Saravio’s song alone would be enough to lift her desolation. He dared not leave the outcome to chance. He must act, and pray that he would not be discovered. The soporific effect of Saravio’s singing would, he hoped, mask his own efforts.
Eduin placed the ladies to either side of Saravio, having arranged the seating so that Saravio occupied a position apart and slightly elevated above the others.
“Do not speak of Naotalba,” Eduin had cautioned Saravio. “They must first become attuned to her wisdom.”
Saravio had no difficulty with this logic. He took his place on the divan, apparently oblivious to the luxury around him. Eduin had placed a low bench on a front diagonal.
Eduin gestured to a servant to bring in the warmed wine and cakes. The cook had prepared both to his specifications. An herb with mildly soporific qualities had been added to the wine, its taste masked by the extra dose of honey.
“Ladies, we have a special delight for you today,” Eduin said, bowing low. “Sandoval the Blessed will sing for you. If you, damisela, will accompany him on the rryl?”
“With pleasure,” Romilla replied, ‘’although I do not play at all well.”
“Together, you will make beautiful music,” Eduin said.
Romilla accepted the instrument from Eduin and moved from her chair to the low stool. She plucked a few chords, her six fingers moving with some hesitation over the strings.
Saravio began singing the same lullaby he had used with the innkeeper’s dying daughter back in Thendara. After a few wrong notes, Romilla settled into the simple chord sequence.
Eduin let his eyes drift out of focus and softened his psychic shields. Saravio’s voice, weaving through the sweet notes of the lap harp, evoked a sense of deep relaxation. Though he knew it was risky in the presence of the leronis, Eduin opened his laran senses. He had an idea how he might lift Romilla’s depression, which involved imprinting her with the imagery that Saravio’s vision had once evoked in his own mind.
The colors of the room shifted subtly, as if a thick, warm mist settled there. The music lingered in the air, huge round gobbets of soporific sound. Eduin swayed with it. The faint, remembered thrill spread through his body. He felt the pressure of Saravio’s talent, manipulating, stimulating.
Eduin’s vision blurred. The diffuse golden light of the solarium turned gray and then silvery. Trees, slender and graceful, rose from the mist. In the distance, growing closer with each heartbeat, came the bell-clear voices. He drifted toward them. Figures moved within the mist, weaving among the trees, passing one another, joining hands . . .
He reached out to them, sensed their response, and at the same time reached out to Romilla’s mind. She was open, almost expectant, yet robed in shadow. Only her face shone, a pale mask. No wonder Saravio had mistaken her for Naotalba. She reached slender fingers toward Eduin, inviting him to join her in the growing darkness.
Come instead into the light, he urged.
He clasped her hand and drew her closer. The shadows fell away and she stood beside him. Around them stretched the forest, moon-touched and old beyond reckoning. The voices were nearer now, rising and falling, sweet and sad. Silvery hair glinted, tapering, six-fingered hands gestured in welcome. A fragrance rose from their bodies, of morning, of hope, of endless seasons beneath the stars . . .
He let the moment linger and then slowly dissolve.
In the real solarium, color had risen to the girl’s cheeks and throat. Her lips parted, breath deepening, head tilted back, and eyes half-closed.
Mhari leaned back in her chair, hands loose in her lap. Her gaze met Eduin’s. Her expression revealed only dreamy contentment. Behind her, the young court ladies of Romilla’s retinue swayed in time to the music.
Saravio finished the song and proceeded to another and then a third, all slow and rhythmic, melodies designed to calm a fretful babe. When he reached the end of the last one, no one stirred. By their slow, measured breathing, the women might have been asleep, or deep in trance. By the time they opened their eyes, one by one, Eduin’s head was clear.
Romilla got to her feet, stretched, and took a couple of dancelike steps. “I remember how much my mother loved this room. It’s so full of light! I feel so peaceful here, I—I could almost be happy. Sandoval, will you sing to me tomorrow?”
“Yes, indeed, damisela,” Eduin replied, “if that is your wish.”
“Come now, little love,” said Mhari, “it is time to rest.”
As Romilla and her ladies prepared to depart, Mhari drew Eduin aside.
“Your friend is very—” she paused momentarily, “—talented.”
Eduin kept his face impassive, the polite mask of a subordinate to a person of her modest rank.
“As are you,” she added.
“You are perceptive,” he responded. “Your own training does you credit.”
“Alas, I have not been able to accomplish what your—” again that faint hesitation, this time accompanied by a whisper-light contact of laran, “—brother has done so well.”
So Mhari had seen through their disguise, but had made no move to expose them. She had been waiting and watching to see how events unfolded.
“You have restored my young mistress to health, or will surely do so with time,” she went on. “Do not believe me envious or wishing you ill because of it. Believe instead there are those who do not share my joy at her recovery. Others who would rather keep her in darkness, than see another succeed.”
She lifted one eyebrow. Do you take my meaning?
“A warning?” he asked, keeping his tone light. The physician is a buffoon, not to be taken seriously.
Mhari’s smile faded. “I might have done as well for her, if I had been allowed to work without interference. I would not have your friend’s good beginning meet the same fate as my own efforts. Even a buffoon is capable of intrigue.”
Eduin bowed again, for the little procession had formed and Romilla had finished her leave-taking of Saravio. Mhari followed in her proper place without a backward glance.
Saravio and Eduin attended Romilla in the solarium every day. Each time, the girl’s vitality improved. She laughed and played her ryll with a new level of enthusiasm and obvious regular practice. She grew less thin and the bruised look around her eyes disappeared. Eduin knew without asking that she now slept soundly, dreaming only a young woman’s normal dreams.
Despite the shortening days and gray skies of oncoming winter, the entire castle seemed to come alive. The kitchen buzzed with stories of romances and the smells of festive meals. Servants sang as they went about their duties.
Lord Brynon showered Eduin and Saravio with favors. When he feasted with his court, they were often seated on his right side. He presented them with fine horses, fur-lined cloaks, and knives set with jeweled hilts. Eduin accep
ted these honors on Saravio’s behalf, repeating that seeing Lady Romilla restored to health was all the reward they craved.
“Your brother Sandoval has done far more,” Lord Brynon said. “He has given Kirella back her hope.”
As one tenday melted into the next, the weather turned chill with the first intimations of the turning of the seasons.
The cook, who supplied Eduin with the specialized food he and Saravio needed for intense laran work, also presented him with the latest rumors. By the pattern of migrating birds and the roughness of the dogs’ coats, it would be a long winter. The old smith, not Jake but his father, retired now these twenty years or more and took up bad in his joints, he said the roads would be closed within the month. Eduin replied that he was not going anywhere.
“Some years, they all gather at Valeron for Midwinter Festival, His Lordship and all the kin,” the cook said as she laid out a tray for Eduin to take with him. “And a grand time it is, to hear tell of it, with all the high Comyn lords. Happen you two would go along. Everyone’s talking of all the good your brother’s done for the young mistress.”
“They won’t go this year, I don’t imagine,” Eduin said absently.
Perhaps the weather would, as the cook had indicated, turn foul enough to prevent the journey. If not, they might risk it. This did not alarm Eduin as much as it might. With Romilla’s improvement, his confidence in his disguise increased.
“There now!” the cook said as she finished assembling the meal.
She’d saved the best of the sweet pastries and a small savory pie, meat laced with nuts and dried fruits, simmered in wine, then baked under a flaky crust, and had wrapped it, still warm, in a thick cloth. There was also a half-round of bread and a pot of clotted cream, along with the usual beaker of watered wine. It smelled wonderful. Eduin had not eaten so well since his days at Arilinn. His belt was beginning to grow snug. He thanked her with genuine warmth and picked up the tray.
While they were speaking, Dom Rodrigo entered the kitchen. He wore his usual formal robes, his mouth pulled down in an expression of perpetual disapproval.
When Rodrigo noticed him, Eduin rose and bowed slightly. Since he had not grown up in court, he lacked the precise nuances that would turn the salutation into an insult. Meticulous politeness was quite sufficient. Despite Saravio’s success with Romilla, suspicion and jealousy still existed.
Rodrigo inclined his head in return, the insolent acknowledgment of an inferior. Perhaps, Eduin thought, the man was so sure of his position that he was simply waiting for the usurpers to be found out and summarily expelled. If so, let him think that, let him dream of his own reinstatement.
The cook wiped her hands on her apron and asked what the good doctor would have. Eduin gathered from the slight rise in pitch of her voice that this visit was unusual.
Oh, he needed nothing for himself. He had come to inquire after some feverbane, which was required for a patient. There was, Eduin reflected, no shortage of rheumatics and colic in the world.
Dom Rodrigo bent over the bundle of dried herbs. He made his selection, wrapped it in a packet of oiled cloth, and took his leave.
The cook turned back to the hearth, where a pot hung from a hook over the banked embers. When she lifted the wooden lid, savory-smelling steam curled upward. The mingled aromas of meat, onions, and herbs evoked a sense of nostalgic comfort. Eduin paused with the tray still in his hands. A wave of something he could not name passed over his skin.
With a long-handled wooden spoon, the cook stirred the contents of the pot and, blowing across the surface, tasted it. She stood poised over the spoon, brow furrowed in concentration. Then she dipped it once more and offered it to Eduin.
He set down the tray and sipped the broth. It was rich and meaty, with a hint of sweetness from the browned onions. Yet the taste was subtly lacking.
“Needs rosmarin, don’t you think?” the cook asked, tilting her head to one side.
Eduin shrugged. He would have said salt, for that was the one cooking ingredient he could recognize. He had never prepared even the simplest dishes for himself, neither at any of the Towers he’d served at, nor in the slums of Thendara.
She bustled over to the open shelves where rows of stoppered pottery jars and glass vials stood in neat rows and selected one. Opening it, she peered in. Her nose wrinkled. “Ugh! Moths!”
She called out in the direction of the scullery, “Here, you! Liam!”
A half-grown boy appeared in the doorway, scrubbing brush in hand. His eyes grew round at the sight of Eduin.
“Ask Dom Rodrigo for the key to the still room and bring it back, quick as you can. He was here but a moment ago, so you can catch him on the stairs. Go on, now.”
The boy departed without a word. Eduin said thoughtfully, “How is it that the physician has a key to the still room and you do not?”
“Most of the time, it’s of little enough matter. I have my own supplies of whatever’s needful for cooking and simple remedies. Needlewort for burns, a sprig or two of feverfew, golden-eye for women’s troubles. Things we common folk can do for ourselves. Dom Rodrigo, he tends to the court. Mixes his own potions, all kinds of outlandish things. Powdered banshee beaks and elixir of dragonsblood, I’ll wager.” She laughed. “I don’t touch those things. I only take what I know, like the rosmarin.”
Two young girls, the strings of their aprons wound three times around their slender bodies, dragged in an enormous basket of sweet gourds and a smaller one of tiny green apples. The cook set them immediately to sorting and washing the baskets’ contents.
“Domna Mhari still has her key, I think,” the cook went on amiably as she picked over the apples. “Many an evening she’d be down there brewing up her own concoctions for when the young damisela was first took sick.”
“Yes? And when was that?”
“Oh, two or three years back, when my lady first grew out of being a little girl.”
Eduin remembered his own months of disorientation and nausea during adolescence. So Romilla, like so many others of her caste, had suffered threshold sickness. Perhaps her depression was a lingering effect, triggered by the intense hormonal and psychic upheaval. Mhari, as a trained leronis, would know how to distill kirian to ease the transition. The raw materials, dried kireseth blossoms, were psychoactive, and too dangerous to be handled by anyone untrained in the proper precautions. Locking the workroom made sense, and Eduin supposed it was also appropriate for a physician, who had his own preparations to make, to have a key.
Eduin frowned. Many things that could cure in one dosage could also kill. He wondered if Romilla’s illness could possibly have been made worse in that way, but he had never seen any sign of an external cause.
“Sweet thing she was then, I always said,” the cook chattered on. “It’s a pity things went so badly for her. But that has all changed now that your brother—Will you look at this!” She held up an apple, covered in black spots. “Ah well, no one has ever died from want of a second slice of apple tart, though there’s a few who’ll be wanting even the first before the spring comes again, I’ll wager.”
The scullery boy came back with the key. From his reddened cheeks and hanging head, Eduin guessed that the physician had not been gracious in lending it. The cook patted the boy’s shoulder, gave him an encouraging word, and bustled off to the still room.
Eduin carried the tray back to his chambers. Saravio was resting, just as he had left him. Saravio had the faintly absent expression that followed a long session. Eduin handed Saravio a plate of food and urged him to eat. Saravio picked at the pastry of the meat pie. Gaunt-ness still clung to him.
“You must replenish the energy you put out,” Eduin insisted. When Saravio still hesitated, he said in a firmer voice, “It is the will of Naotalba.”
He sensed rather than saw the shiver pass over Saravio’s thin shoulders. Then the other man bent to his meal with concentrated determination.
22
Within the space of a tenday,
winter clenched its fist around Kirella. Winds whipped across the open fields and tore the last few dry leaves from the hedgerows. Nighttime temperatures plummeted. Frozen rain fell like flights of arrows. The roads went from mud to ice. The little open market in the village lay deserted, although once or twice a farmer drove a cart to the castle to offer an extra barrel of apple cider or a slab of smoked meat in exchange for salt or metal needles, things he could not provide for himself. The shops and cottages seemed to shrink in upon themselves, hoarding the fruits of their harvest and waiting for the first deep snow. Suddenly, the winds fell away, leaving the air cold and still, expectant.
Romilla went out riding a few times with her father and returned rosy-cheeked and excited. Even when it was too cold to venture out, the solarium remained bright and warm. Half the castle ladies crowded in to hear their lady’s “special music.” More than once, Eduin overheard Romilla prattling about the possible journey to Valeron for Midwinter Festival, with all the delights of dancing and music, handsome young men and entertainments.
During this brief respite in the weather, a messenger arrived from Valeron. Within hours, the entire castle learned of his coming. Eduin, as usual, got a few additional details from the cook. She’d had it from the stableman who’d taken care of the horse that the beast had been pushed hard, nothing more.
Valeron. Eduin turned the name over in his mind. He knew it was the principal seat of the Aillards and that, following family custom, it was ruled by a woman. The cook happily informed Eduin that the Lady was a force to be reckoned with, and her firstborn daughter, her heir, had inherited her temperament along with her rank. Lady Julianna Aillard ruled Valeron with an iron hand, enforced by her brother, Marzan, who was reputed to be a seasoned and ruthless general.