A gentle tap at the door interrupted this unpleasant thought.
“Court’s waiting for me,” she said. She thought, Hawk waits below. The thought was partly frightening—and a little thrilling. Like a challenge. A duel, but with wits instead of swords. “It’s time for the reception. Do you wish to attend?”
Tyron shook his head. “I really should be at the School. There might be a message from Master Halfrid. And as for Hawk, you already know what I think: I said it all last winter.”
Yes, he’d said pretty much what Wren had said, only more diplomatically.
Teressa stiffened her spine and led the way out. Tyron slipped down the servants’ stairs, leaving Teressa to walk alone down the broad sweep of the grand stairway leading to the biggest, most formal of the court reception chambers.
There, lit by the last golden slants of the fading sunlight, she found a diminished number of courtiers, as few nobles had arrived yet for the season. Curious eyes in polite faces gathered round the perimeter of the room, everybody in strict order of precedence, dressed in embroidered silks and rich velvets. All except Hawk, who stood out, tall and powerful, dressed entirely in black.
She walked down the carpet in the center of the room. Her court bowed and curtseyed. Hawk bowed as well, making a flourish with his right hand that just escaped being mocking.
The Herald struck his staff on the polished marble floor and announced, in slow, sonorous tones that the Duke of Rhiscarlan requested the honor to present himself to Queen Teressa of Meldrith, blah, blah, blah.
Teressa ignored from the force of habit all the titles and honorifics that trailed after, and instead wished she hadn’t chosen to make a grand gesture, in effect opening the court season with this reception. It would have been just as easy to have done the formal welcome in her private audience chamber, but she’d told herself that receiving a Rhiscarlan was a first, and it did honor to both families to make welcome him before court.
In other words, to make a grand gesture. And impress Hawk.
She should have known he wouldn’t be impressed, and as for grand gestures—
She forced herself to meet Hawk’s dark gaze, to surprise a narrow-eyed appraisal. Did she look as unhappy as she felt? She made a determined effort to smooth her face, and as the echoes of the Herald’s voice died away, she spoke the formal words of welcome, suitable for a visiting duke who had not sworn allegiance to either Meldrith or Senna Lirwan—who ruled his land as a king in all but name.
Hawk, at least, had good company manners when he chose to assume them. He bowed, this time with perfect correctness, and then stepped forward and took Teressa’s hand. And before she could respond, he kissed it.
“I thank your majesty for the welcome,” he said, pitching his voice loud enough to be heard. But his smile was oddly intimate as he added, “And I look forward to furthering our acquaintance.”
She disengaged her fingers lest he try to kiss them again. Her skin felt the imprint of that first kiss, and her face heated up.
He murmured, again in that soft voice, “Where’s your fierce defender? I don’t see her among your guests. But neither do I see your former hound—nor Master Halfrid. Do you not invite your mages?”
He dared to refer to that horrible time, when he’d forced Tyron into the form of a dog! Teressa’s cheeks burned, though she hated showing any reaction. “Tyron and Wren are always invited,” she uttered in so sharp an undertone her voice trembled. She drew in a breath and continued more evenly, “But Tyron is busy while Master Halfrid is away, and Wren is on the road to Hroth Harbor.”
Hawk’s brows rose. “Ah! I wish her good adventures—far from here. I have to confess I felt extreme trepidation at the prospect of treading your ballroom floor under her ferocious eye.”
“Tread without fear,” Teressa said rather tartly.
Hawk laughed. “So where is the formidable Master Halfrid?”
“Ask Tyron about magic business.” And before he could ask more questions, she lifted her voice. “I invite you all to a masquerade ball, to be held in the duke’s honor, four days hence.”
As whispers ran through the younger courtiers—for there had been no elaborate balls the year before—Hawk smiled down into her eyes. “A masquerade, eh?”
She immediately recalled a masquerade ball what seemed a thousand years ago, when he’d been plotting with her own relatives. Judging by that sardonic smile, he was remembering it as well.
“Shall I take that as a challenge?” he added. He had long dimples in his lean cheeks when he smiled that way. “What, dare I ask, ought I to mask myself as?”
“What else?” she retorted, lightly. Ever so lightly, and with the same smile: feint, disengage, lunge. “As a hound.”
Four
The sunset bells were just ringing when Wren transferred to Hroth Falls. The Destination tiles at her feet shimmered unpleasantly as she fought against the dizziness that transfers always caused.
She closed her eyes, breathed deeply—
And was startled by a sharp female voice, “Who are you?”
“Mistress Falin?” Wren opened her eyes, rubbing them even though she knew it wouldn’t clear the haze any faster. “Tyron sent me. I know I’m not dressed in my student tunic, but I can explain. My name is Wren.”
The room was unlit. Wren squinted at the mage but all she saw were shadows shifting in the face before her. She knuckled her eyes again, feeling a spark of alarm.
The alarm vanished when Mistress Falin spoke, this time in a cheerful, friendly voice.
“I am so sorry, hoo hoo! Tyron, woo hoo! Wren! From Cantirmoor Magic School, of course, hee hee! Well, I confess you startled me,” and again the mage giggled. “I don’t expect anyone this late, you see.”
Wren’s face burned. “Sunset bells haven’t rung in Cantirmoor yet,” she hastened to say. “We were in a hurry. Didn’t know it was so late—”
“Never mind, never mind, hee hee!” Mistress Falin giggled again. “Come inside, do. No mage tunic! Here’s a mystery! Tell me all the Magic School news, and the Cantirmoor news as well, hee hoo!”
Wren followed the mage into a room lit by glowglobes. “I don’t want to take up your time. I really only transferred here to save myself a lot of walking. I can set out on the road tonight. Weather seems to be fine, and I have plenty to eat.” She hefted her knapsack.
Mistress Falin was tall and thin in her scribe’s green gown, with wide-set eyes much the same color as Wren’s own, and a big grin. She tittered again, as though Wren had been joking, and clapped her hands. “Set out at night! Ha ha! Oh, how Halfrid would scorch my ears if I were to let you go out, and us expecting rain before morning!” Another titter, and Mistress Falin added, “For that matter, I’d scorch my own ears, were I to let so famous a student go without hearing your tales! Here. You just sit down, nice and snug in my reading chair, and I’ll whisk to the back and ask Cook to stretch supper for two.” On a gale of giggles Mistress Falin departed.
Wren sighed as the sound died away in the back of the house. She set her knapsack down and moved to the window. The little square panes opened onto the cobble-stoned street that she remembered from her very first adventure. How long ago that seemed!
Her gaze traveled over the ironwork banisters and the new sign depicting a book. Below that, beautifully lettered, Copyist—illuminations. Wren’s gaze traveled past the window boxes with their nodding blossoms, all red and orange and yellow, and up the street. Warm golden glows slanted down from windows as people lit lamps; softer bluish white glows revealed windows behind which glowglobes had been clapped on.
Wren leaned out and sniffed. Yes. The slow breeze, still warm, smelled of wet soil: rain was coming.
A sudden giggle behind Wren made her jump. “Supper on the way!”
Mistress Falin seated herself at a worktable across from Wren. Pots of ink in all colors stood neatly arranged, and scrolls of paper lay piled in a basket. Mistress Falin leaned her elbows on the desk and rubbed her h
ands as she tittered again. “What a treasure! I have heard so many tales of you!” And once more she laughed.
Wren looked at the window, and forced herself to smile. Mistress Falin was obviously trying her very hardest to be welcoming, but as she chattered on, asking questions about the war that Wren forced herself to answer, and tittering as though something was funny when nothing was, Wren’s head began to ache. She couldn’t help wishing she were on the road now, rain or no rain.
And so, after a restless, headachy night of bad sleep, she welcomed the faint blue light of dawn. Time to go.
Wren pulled on her favorite traveling outfit, which was a long light green tunic with a plain brown sash. It was comfortable, anonymous—any young prentice might wear such clothes in summer—and she liked the sash, which was extra wide, so she could tuck things into it.
She shoved her feet into her sandals, straightened out the little guest bed in the cozy alcove under the roof, and tiptoed noiselessly to the stairs.
Mistress Falin’s chamber door was still closed. Wren slipped down the narrow stairs and entered the parlor where they’d sat so long last night.
Wren knew it was rude to leave without thanks. If I hear that giggle once more I’ll jump out the window, she thought, and looked on the desk for a scrap of paper. It was odd that the mage had sat there with her ink and pens and paper all ready, but she hadn’t done one bit of actual work. Of course she might have thought it impolite to work while listening.
Shrugging, Wren found a little scrap of paper, blew the dust off, and dipped a pen in a waiting inkpot to write: Thank you for your hospitality, Mistress Falin. I did not want to waken you, but I must get an early start.
Wren signed it, slipped out the door, ran down the brick steps, and bustled down the street to the main road, now slowly until she was safely out of range of that giggle.
There she met a trade caravan just setting out. Wagon after wagon rolled by as she walked at the roadside to let the patient horses and oxen pass; at length someone called, “Ho, there, you in green! Prentice? Traveling? Want a ride?”
Two girls with bristly bright red braids drove a laden wagon drawn by a pair of sturdy oxen. Up behind in back sat an old woman.
One of the redheads spoke. “We could use someone to spell us driving. There being only three of us for two wagons,” and she indicated the wagon behind them, equally laden, with a tall, sturdy redheaded boy on the box.
This boy had darker red hair, worn in a neat ponytail. Wren thought of Connor, and felt that familiar, sharp inward pang. How she missed him!
“I think I can handle oxen. Unless they get too frisky,” she said, and the girls laughed, one scooting over to make space.
o0o
Three days later, just about the time that Hawk entered Teressa’s ballroom wearing a fabulously made, sinister black and silver mask of a wolf, Wren stepped down from the wagon.
“Have a good trip,” she called, waving as the caravan turned down southward into Fil Gaen.
“You too!” cried the girls together.
Wren stood at the sign post while the last of the caravan rolled by, dust rising from the wheels and blowing inland. The sign post had an arrow pointing down the road, next to the words Hroth Harbor.
Wren set out at a brisk pace, thinking back over the trip, which had been uneventful—even riding past the border of Hawk Rhiscarlan’s land.
She’d always intended to find someone to travel with past Rhiscarlan territory, but to her surprise the girls had said cheerfully, “No trouble any more. The Duke has riders out patrolling. They chase off anyone who even looks like a brigand.”
And their Granny, who spoke seldom, had cackled, then said, “Takes a brigand to know one.”
The girls and their brother had laughed as they set about making up their campsite on a hill, the rest of the caravan’s camps dotting the slope. “Brigand or no, this road has never been so safe as it is now,” the oldest girl had said.
Safe is good, Wren thought as she rounded the last fold in the hills above the harbor and looked down at the roofs crowded together in a jigsaw crescent just below her. Beyond them the wide bay was forested with hundreds of masts, some with sails hanging slack, drying in the fresh breeze and sunlight.
And beyond them, the sea! It stretched out to the edge of the world, gleaming and glittering, a deeper blue than the cloudless sky above.
Aromas of fried cheese-breads and pepper-braised meat drifted on lazy breezes as Wren walked faster. The buildings were very unlike those in Meldrith, or even those in Siradayel or Allat Los, the other kingdoms she’d seen so far. Here they were built close together, with sturdy fronts facing the steady cold winds from the sea. Most were weather-worn, though the signs swinging from iron posts that arched over the narrow street were gaudy with colors and images.
Brine and fish smells intensified as she followed a group of sailors down between taverns, from which came the sounds of brisk music and laughing voices.
She slipped into a narrow alley between two low buildings, and suddenly there she was, standing on a low bluff overlooking one end of the harbor. Great ocean-going trade ships rolled gently next to piers, sails furled, busy people going up and down ramps that rose and fell with the moving waters.
The many masts were clearer now—not just sticks but with caps and mastheads and rigging complicating them. Ships were anchored farther out in the waters; between them and the shore plied countless small boats, with oars rising and falling in practiced rhythm, a few with single triangular sails.
Wren set down her knapsack on a tuft of grass and sat beside it. She’d promised to scry Tyron as soon as she reached the harbor, and this seemed the best time, when she was alone.
So she dug out her scry stone, focused her inward eye, and—
Tiny pinpoints of light coalesced into Tyron’s face.
He grimaced. “The best scry stone in Cantirmoor and I still hate this,” he said. Wren knew he was talking out loud. He had a terrible time scrying, though he far surpassed her in most other forms of magic knowledge.
“Well, I’m keeping my promise.” She spoke aloud, too, making it easier for him to ‘hear’ at his end. “Hroth Harbor lies just below me. Easy trip. Though how could you think Mistress Falin funny looking? Or were you just being polite about that—”
Presence.
Wren snapped her focus away. Then she shut her eyes and gripped the stone. She’d detected someone listening. She did not know if the listener was an idle scryer, or someone had put a tracer-ward on her stone.
She pressed the stone against her leg, trying to recover that fleeting moment of awareness. A trace of intense focus, too quick to catch, but almost familiar—
“Exciting, isn’t it?”
Wren glanced up in surprise at an older woman who stood next to her, having come off the road just behind Wren. She spoke the language of Meldrith, but with an accent that Wren couldn’t place.
“It’s my first sight of the sea,” Wren said, sliding her scrying stone into her knapsack and standing up.
The woman smiled, her brown, weather-worn face seamed with laughter-lines. “Thinking of setting sail, or are you just here to see the sights?”
“Both!” Wren said.
The woman chuckled, a soft, pleasant sound. “Well, if you don’t have the money for a luxury berth, and I’m guessing you don’t—”
“Good guess,” Wren said, grinning down at her dusty green tunic and dirt-caked mocs.
“You’ll want to go to the Harbormaster and see who’s hiring extra hands.”
“Harbormaster?” Wren repeated. “So you don’t just go around to the ships?”
The woman’s smile deepened at the corners. “Good ones hire at the Harbormaster, all right and proper. I was about your age when I first signed on. A coast trawler it was, but it gave me a taste for the sea I’ve never lost. Have a fair voyage!” She hefted her knapsack over her shoulders and headed down toward the docks.
“You too! And than
ks for the advice,” Wren called.
As the woman disappeared around an outcropping of rock, Wren glanced up behind her, where she could hear the voices of someone new coming down the trail. This spot was not as private as she’d thought.
She picked up her knapsack. “Harbormaster,” She repeated under her breath, “Then somewhere to stay, and afterward I can always try Tyron again.”
Five
The Harbormaster’s building lay on the other side of the bay. It had a big wooden tower, topped by a long flagpole up and down which flags of various colors were run during the time it took Wren to finish walking down the main thoroughfare behind the docks, and then start again up winding, narrow streets. Those had to be signal flags.
The houses were old, built largely of the red-streaked stone that she’d seen so much of in the rocky mountains northward. The street was paved with dark flat stone, quite worn. Two carts could not have passed one another on most of those streets, but over the many years tradition seemed to have worked patterns of traffic, so some streets were for folk going this way, and some the other direction.
When the sun sank beyond the mountains, some shops closed, shutters pulled tight, the windows above lighting up with the golden glow of lanterns or the whitish-blue of glowglobes, for those who could afford them; other shops stayed open, lamps and glowglobes inside sending out a welcome radiance to make golden or silvery pools of light on the streets. Wren peered into tiny shops, glimpsing goods from all over the world: fabrics, foods, woods, metal implements, books.