“The children of cats can catch mice.”
Old Gandrin proverb
Lythande, mercenary magician and minstrel, dodged quickly out of the way of the rapidly-approaching, loudly-screaming man. The people in the village just outside of this forest had warned of bandits. They had not mentioned that the bandits were likely to be on fire. Fortunately it was springtime and it had just stopped raining a quarter-hour since, so he wasn’t setting the trees alight. Lythande quickly called up a water-spell, just in case, and held it ready.
The bandit’s screams turned quickly to choking sounds and then silence as he collapsed. Lythande turned to check that the corpse wasn’t starting a fire, but a roar from the direction he had come made it a very quick check. The magician turned to see what new menace was approaching. Judging from the crashing noises as it passed through the trees, it was big.
Lythande gripped the twin daggers hidden beneath the mage robe: the left-hand one for dealing with magical perils and the right-hand one for fighting non-magical attackers. Although the size of the thing which now burst into the clearing implied that it was magical, Lythande was taking no chances. As the giant cat rose over her, Lythande thrust both daggers through its ribcage. It popped like a soap bubble and disappeared.
“Ki-ki-kitty!” The figure that rushed into the clearing appeared to be a small child, a girl of perhaps eight or nine. Lythande, who had seen sea monsters in the form of beautiful maidens—not to mention a lady who not only changed her apparent age but also turned into a dragon—reserved judgment. When the girl threw a fireball, Lythande struck back with the already-formed water-spell.
The suddenly-soaked child sputtered with fury and lifted her left hand, which held a mage’s wand.
Not a small child, then. Lythande sheathed the daggers to have both hands free for what seemed to be shaping up to be a full-fledged magical duel—albeit one lacking both formal challenge and proper protocol.
“Hold!” A middle-aged woman halted, gasping and clutching a tree trunk for support, at the edge of the clearing behind the girl. Half-a-dozen balls of flame surrounded her, and one streaked forward toward Lythande. Lythande caught the salamander on an upraised hand, and looked at the woman.
“Eirthe, what in the name of all the gods...” A levin-bolt from the wand the child was holding knocked Lythande backwards. Feeling somewhat breathless, the magician watched the hovering salamander move to block the child.
Eirthe, who had either caught her breath or pulled more energy from somewhere, dove forward and hooked an elbow around the child’s neck in a very efficient choke-hold. The girl went down so fast that Lythande wasn’t sure whether she had time to hear Eirthe snarl, “I meant both of you, dammit!”
Lythande sat up, shaking off the effects of the levin-bolt. Fortunately there hadn’t been much power behind it, and Lythande had not been entirely unshielded when it hit. Being a minstrel as well as a musician, Lythande turned quickly to check on the condition of her lute, which had flown free when the bolt hit. Fortunately it was in a sturdy case and was less damaged than the mage. The salamander darted anxiously back and forth between the Lythande and Eirthe, who was now kneeling over the girl—or whatever the thing was.
“What is that?” Lythande asked.
“It’s a little girl, Lythande,” Eirthe replied. “Surely you have some familiarity with the species.” She did not add “you were one once.” Eirthe Candlemaker was one of the very few people who knew that Lythande was a woman and not the man she appeared to be, but she also knew that Lythande’s power—and her life—depended on keeping that fact a secret. Every Adept of the Blue Star had a secret which was the key to his powers, and if the secret became known, the powers would be lost and the magician could be killed with impunity. As long as the secret remained unknown, the Adept lived and did as he pleased until the time when he would be summoned to fight on the side of Law in the Last Battle between Law and Chaos. In the meantime, however...
“Lythande, could I hire you to help me?”
“Help you do what?”
“I’m not a great magician, and I don’t have enough power to deal with her. She has power and no idea how to use it. I want to take her to the college at Northwander so she can be trained.”
“So you want me to help you get her to Northwander without her killing somebody on the way?”
“Basically, yes. It would also be nice if she didn’t maim or injure anyone.”
“Very well,” Lythande agreed. Centuries of roaming while awaiting the Last Battle necessitated taking the odd job here and there. “I hope you don’t mind if I put a restraining spell on her before she wakes up.”
“Please do,” Eirthe said fervently.
The girl’s eyelids were already starting to flicker as Lythande stood over her and cast the spell. It wouldn’t prevent her from moving, but it would slow her down considerably, probably enough so that even Eirthe could handle her. For good measure, Lythande picked up the wand. She curled her nose in disgust at the phallic carvings and shape of the wand—why would a girl-child carry such a thing? Lythande opened her pack and removed a large square of silk to wrap the wand in; the silk would serve as an insulator and make it more difficult for the child to access the wand’s power, even if she were holding it. As she wrapped the wand and thrust it under the folds of the mage-robe, a memory teased at her brain. I have done this before; I have wrapped this wand in silk and carried it thus. When and where? And whose was the wand then?
The child sat up, slowly, looking dazed. “Ki-ki-kitty?” She looked around anxiously, and then her gaze fell on Lythande. “Eirthe,” she wailed, “the bad man ki-killed Ki-ki-kitty!”
“Lythande is not a bad man, Raella,” Eirthe said firmly. “He is going to help us get to Northwander.”
“I want Ki-ki-kitty!”
“Would that be the cat-form that attacked me?” Lythande inquired wryly.
Eirthe sighed. “Big enough to put its front paws on your head? The color of carven oak?”
“Sounds familiar.”
“How dead did you kill it?”
“Stabbed with both daggers. It popped like a soap bubble.”
“Oh dear,” Eirthe said. “Alnath, would you mind?”
The salamander, still hovering in the middle of the clearing, dropped to hover a hand-span above the ground, and the other salamanders hanging back at the edge of the clearing moved to join in the search. After a moment, they all clustered in one spot, then shot upwards as Eirthe reached into the low-growing plants and pulled out a small piece of oak crudely carved in the shape of a cat. It didn’t even fill her palm as she brought it to her face to examine it.
“The basic form is intact, Raella; your father can probably fix it.”
“He is not my father!”
“We are going back to the wagon now.” Eirthe tucked the carving into her belt pouch and hauled the child up with a firm grip on the back of her tunic.
Lythande fell in behind them as they left the clearing, accompanied by the salamanders.
~o0o~
Eirthe’s wagon wasn’t far. It was stopped next to a stream, where she had obviously begun to set up camp. The donkey had been unhitched and was eating the plants at the edge of the stream, there was a fire in the portable fire pit that Eirthe carried with her, and a pot of soup hung over it. And sitting on the bench that folded out of the wagon when it was set up as a display booth, was... well, the man was clearly dead, but he turned his head. As his eyes met Lythande’s, she remembered where she had seen that wretched wand before.
“Rastafyre the Incomparable.” Also known as Rastafyre the Incompetent. The last time I saw this wand was when he hired me to return it to him after it was stolen from him.
“Health and prosperity to you, O Lythande,” the corpse replied carefully.
Eirthe dropped the carving into his lap. “Can you fix this, please?” she asked.
Rastafyre ran a pallid hand over the wood. “I need my wand,” he said. “Have you seen it?” He looked around vaguely.
Lythande pulled the wand out of the mage-robe and handed it to him, being careful to keep her hand on the silk and not touch either him or the wand itself.
Rastafyre took it without comment and waved it over the cat, muttering something under his breath. After several minutes of obvious effort he looked up and extended it to Raella. “Here you are, child.”
Raella grabbed it out of his hand, clutched it to her chest, and rapidly retreated several steps.
“What do you say?” Eirthe prompted her.
“Thank you.” It was a sulky mumble, but at least the words were correct.
“Would you please stir the soup so that it doesn’t scorch?” Eirthe asked her.
“Wait,” Rastafyre said suddenly. “Co-come here, child.” Raella moved to stand before him, eyeing him warily.
“Lythande,” Rastafyre said urgently. “You were right.”
“About what?” Lythande asked.
“Other men’s wives.” Rastafyre held out the wand to Lythande. She reached for it with the silk, but Rastafyre dipped it so that it touched the back of her hand. It stuck there. “I gi-give you my wand, Lythande, and my magic, and,” he took Raella’s hand and placed it on the wand between himself and Lythande, “my daughter. May you be a better father to her than I was.” His eyes closed and his body dropped to the ground, every remnant of life gone from it.
“He is not my father!” Raella said angrily. “He killed my father!”
“Stir the soup, please,” Eirthe reminded her. “We’ll be back soon, and the salamanders will watch over you.”
She pulled a length of canvas out of the wagon, and wrapped Rastafyre’s body in it. Lythande helped her secure the wrappings, and then lifted the body into her arms while Eirthe took two shovels from the wagon. Lythande waited until they were out of Raella’s sight before shifting the body to hang over her shoulder for easier carrying. They moved far enough away from the stream so that they could bury the body without its contaminating the water.
“Would you care to tell me what’s going on here?” Lythande asked. “Obviously your job offer was missing a few details.”
“After supper,” Eirthe sighed. “I’ll give her a sleeping potion—she’s had too many shocks to cope with in the last couple of days—and we can talk then.”
Lythande nodded, and they finished burying Rastafyre’s body in silence. Eirthe said a short prayer for the repose of his soul as they filled the grave. Lythande really couldn’t think of anything to say that seemed appropriate.
~o0o~
The soup was a bit on the salty side; Lythande suspected a few extra tears had gone into the flavoring, but it was good to be able to eat without having to worry about another of her troublesome vows. In addition to keeping her sex a secret, she was also forbidden to eat or drink in the sight of any man. But Rastafyre was dead and buried, his child was a girl, and the salamanders were patrolling the surrounding area to make certain no bandits remained in this part of the forest.
Raella ate her soup, drank the herb tea Eirthe gave her, and went to bed in the wagon, sinking so deeply into sleep that Lythande suspected she would have slept even without the potion.
“All right, now,” she said to Eirthe. “Let’s have the whole story. Am I correct in thinking that Rastafyre was her natural father and that her mother is another man’s wife?”
“That’s the start of it,” Eirthe said. “Rastafyre wanders—wandered through this area every three years or so, while I come here twice a year to sell candles. This year I met up with the Lord of Sathorn on the road as I came in. He was returning from a trip to court a day sooner than he was expected, and we passed a charcoal burner’s hut, which should have been empty this time of year. There was smoke coming from the chimney, so the lord and his men went to check it out. Unfortunately, he had taken Raella to court with him, so she saw the whole mess.”
“Rastafyre and his wife?”
“Yes, and with the number of men with him, he couldn’t ignore the situation. His wife seemed to think he’d forgive her anything, but he said that he’d forgiven her when Raella was born and she had obviously failed to amend her behavior.” Eirthe sighed. “He ran her through with his sword. It was quick, and I don’t think he realized that Raella was right behind him. She screamed, he was distracted, and Rastafyre managed to knife him in the ribs. He returned the favor before he died, but Rastafyre had some sort spell set up. The men went to get carts for the bodies while I tried to get Raella calmed down, and while they were gone Rastafyre got up and—I think it must have been a geas—the next thing I knew I was traveling away with an animated corpse and a hysterical child with out-of-control magic. She’d met Rastafyre a few times—he gave her Ki-ki-kitty when she was two—but she had no idea that he was her father, or that the Lord of Sathorn wasn’t. Apparently she adored him, and seeing him kill her mother and then be killed, followed by being forced to travel with his murderer...”
“Latent magic awakened by severe trauma.”
“Now you know why I need you. And why she needs both of us.”
“And a safe haven and a lot of training,” Lythande added. “She’ll get it.”
“Did he put a geas on you as well?” Eirthe asked. “At the end?”
“More than a geas, I suspect,” Lythande admitted. “Probably a full binding. And unbinding spells are not my specialty.”
“Raella really needs you, binding or no.”
“True enough. And I need sleep. Can you take the first watch?”
“The salamanders will wake us if need be,” Eirthe yawned. “They haven’t been carrying bodies and digging graves. And tomorrow’s likely to bring still more problems.”
They bedded down in the wagon, with Eirthe sharing one bunk with Raella while Lythande took the other one.
~o0o~
As her eyes opened the next morning Lythande realized what the next problem was. And even if she hadn’t, Raella’s first words would have been a clue. “I want to go home!” She rolled out of bed and eyed the adults defiantly.
“Of course,” Lythande said promptly. “We’ll take you home. How far is it?”
Eirthe sat up and stared at both of them as if she thought them deranged. “Half-a-day’s travel, but we can’t take her home! We have to take her to Northwander for training!”
Lythande frowned at her. “Is the geas that Rastafyre put on you still in effect?”
“What’s a geas?” Raella asked.
“It’s a spell that makes a person do something she doesn’t want to do—like kidnapping you.”
Eirthe looked at her in horror and sagged back against the wall, closing her eyes. Obviously this view of her actions had not occurred to her.
Raella looked at her curiously. “Didn’t you mean to kidnap me?”
Eirthe shook her head. “I don’t even remember much of anything from the time Rastafyre got up off the floor until we met Lythande yesterday.”
Raella frowned. “I don’t remember much either. Everything’s all mixed up in my head.”
“We’ll stick to the simple version, then,” Lythande said. “There was a fight, your parents were killed, and Rastafyre was mortally wounded. Before he died he put a spell on you and Eirthe and made her take him and you away in her wagon. He died of the wound your father gave him late yesterday, we buried his body, and now that you and Eirthe are free of his spell, we’re taking you home. What family do you have left?”
“My brother and sister,” Raella said.
“Is your brother of age?”
“He’s twenty-two and Suella is nineteen. I guess he’s my guardian now—if he still wants me.” Raella’s voice trailed off uncertainly.
Eirthe got up and hugged the child. “None of what happened is your fault.”
Lythande nodded confirmation. “And in the unlikely event that your family doesn’t want you, I’ll take care of you.”
Raella eyed her suspiciously. “Did he put a spell on you, too?”
Lythande shrugged. “He might have, at the end. Sometimes you don’t notice a spell on you until it makes you do something you wouldn’t normally do. I am sworn to uphold Law, and I protect the innocent, so I don’t need a spell to make me do that.” She decided a few words on Eirthe’s behalf would be a good idea. “And Eirthe, of her own free will, would protect you from enemies and make sure you got the best magical training she could get you, so Rastafyre didn’t have to work hard to get her to start to Northwander with you—all he had to do was get her to believe that you were in danger where you were.”
“Did you believe that?” Raella looked up at Eirthe.
Eirthe nodded. “You actually are in danger; an untrained magician is a danger to herself and everyone around her. That’s why I went to study at Northwander. I don’t have nearly as much magic as you do, but I have enough that I almost got someone I cared about killed.”
Raella looked wide-eyed at her. “You did?”
Lythande chuckled suddenly, remembering an incident in which she had come unpleasantly close to being sacrificed to a volcano—not that it had been amusing at the time. “She certainly did.”
“Am I evil, the way he was?”
“No,” Lythande said positively. “You are not evil.”
“But you are rather grubby,” Eirthe said calmly. “Let’s go down to the stream and get cleaned up, and then we can take you home.”
~o0o~
Once they got out of the forest and back onto the main road they soon met up with a party of Lord Sathorn’s vassals, coming to attend his funeral and swear fealty to his son, so they entered the castle courtyard as part of a large party. Eirthe went off to park the wagon in its usual place, while Lythande took Raella by the hand and headed for the main hall. They had barely crossed the threshold when a beautiful dark-haired girl in a black velvet gown ran the length of the hall and grabbed Raella into a hug tight enough to make the child gasp for breath.
“You’re safe,” she sobbed. “We were so afraid when the men found you missing!” Raella started to cry as well.
Lythande pulled two handkerchiefs from under her robe and handed them to the girls. “Lady Suella,” she said with a bow, “I am sorry for your loss.”
Suella looked up uncertainly. “Thank you,” she cast around for a polite form of address to one to whom she had not been formally introduced, then spotted the lute case hanging from Lythande’s shoulder, “Lord Minstrel.”
“He’s not a minstrel; he’s a magician,” Raella said. “Like—is it true that Rastafyre was my father?” The last came out as a wail and several nearby heads turned in their direction.
“Let’s continue this discussion in the solar,” Suella said hastily, dragging Raella towards the stairs. Lythande followed.
“I was a minstrel before I was a magician,” she said, making calm conversation for the sake of their audience. “Now I am both. I am called Lythande.”
“I am honored to make your acquaintance,” Suella said politely. “How did you meet my sister?”
Lythande’s reply was cut off by their arrival in the solar and Suella’s sending the maids off in search of water for a bath and clean clothing for Raella. Moments later the three of them were alone in the room, but the pounding of boots on the stairs heralded another arrival. There was barely a token tap on the door before a young man, tall, blond, and also garbed in black velvet, burst into the room. He knelt and grabbed Raella into a hug, and she promptly started sobbing again.
He glared up at Lythande. “What did you do to my sister?”
“I brought her home to you,” Lythande said calmly.
“And he rescued me from the evil magician!” Raella added.
“Rastafyre?” Lord Sathorn asked.
“Theo?” Raella said. “He said he was my father? And Mother and Father—” her voice broke and she started crying again.
Lythande, figuring that tears would damage her clothing less than the formal velvet the other two wore, picked up Raella and let her sob into the shoulder of the mage robe.
Theo looked at Suella, who squared her shoulders. “Mother was buried quietly yesterday,” she said. “There will be gossip about her, of course, but there always was. Father was our father by choice; only Theo is his natural child. My natural father was a traveling musician.”
Raella raised tear-filled eyes and looked suspiciously at Lythande’s face. Suella managed a shaky laugh. “No. If Lythande had been my father, mother would have named me Lyella. I don’t believe I ever met my father; Mother told me that I got my musical talent from him, but that’s all I know.”
“You didn’t get it from Father,” Theo said. “He couldn’t carry a tune if you gave him a bucket to put it in, and I’m no better.”
“Father knew that Suella and I weren’t really his daughters?” Raella asked uncertainly.
“We are really his daughters,” Suella said firmly. “We’re not his get, but we are his daughters and he loved us.”
“Why did he kill Mother?”
Theo frowned. “Are you sure?”
Raella nodded, chewing on her bottom lip. “He said he forgave her when I was born, but she hadn’t mended her behavior—and he stabbed her with his sword. Then Rastafyre stabbed him, and he stabbed Rastafyre, and—” she laid her head on Lythande’s shoulder and sobbed. Lythande ran a hand over the child’s hair and added a whisper of a calming spell.
“I think it may have been because his men were there to see,” Theo said.
“And because she was still dallying with Rastafyre so many years after the first time,” Suella added. “A casual affair, even if it produces a daughter, is one thing, but a relationship that goes on for years makes it appear that she loved him more than she did Father—though I don’t see how she could have been such a fool!”
“She may not have been,” Lythande said. “I encountered Rastafyre before, many years ago, and he seemed to consider,” she paused to find the most delicate possible way of saying this, “satisfying his desires for other men’s wives to be a legitimate use of his magic.”
Suella glared. “I trust you don’t agree with that.”
“Not at all,” Lythande said. “Love is worthless unless it is freely given, and no one should be deprived of their rightful choices by magic.”
“He made Eirthe kidnap me, too,” Raella added.
“Eirthe Candlemaker?” Suella and Theo both stared at her incredulously, and Theo added, “That must have been quite a spell; she’s one of the most honorable people I know.”
“At the time,” Lythande pointed out, “Eirthe was holding a hysterical child who had just seen her parents murdered—and Eirthe had seen the same thing. She was distracted, her concentration was on caring for Raella, and Rastafyre simply built on that, convincing her to take Raella to the magical college at Northwander for training.”
“Magical training?” Theo asked. “Does Raella have magic?”
“She used to,” Suella said. “She used to move the candle flames around in the nursery until the maids slapped it out of her.”
“That’s not a long-term solution,” Lythande said. “In the first half-hour of our acquaintance yesterday, she attacked me with a magical beast, threw a fire-ball at me, and hit me with a levin-bolt from Rastafyre’s wand. Any control she had over her magic is gone now; she needs training.”
“She’s not doing magic now,” Theo pointed out.
“I put a restraining spell on her right after the levin-bolt,” Lythande said, “but that’s a temporary solution. I promised Eirthe I’d escort them to Northwander; Eirthe’s magic isn’t strong enough to handle Raella.”
“So why are you here, instead of on the road north?” Theo asked.
Lythande raised her brows. “I said I’d escort them to Northwander; I didn’t say I’d do it with a child screaming to go home, while her kin—quite justly—pursued us for kidnapping. I’m also not minded to deliver her as a student to the college at Northwander with only the clothes she stands in after weeks on the road.”
Suella nodded. “The men brought her baggage home. We can pack what she’ll need for school.”
Theo turned to Suella in astonishment. “Are you daft? We are not sending our little sister away! Her place is here, with us!”
“But she needs training...” Suella started to protest.
“She can go away to school when she’s older. If we send her away now,” Theo pointed out, “especially in front of all Father’s—my—vassals, nobody will ever believe that we accept her as family. The gossip will be horrific. And I have problems enough already. The news from court isn’t good—it seems I’ll be calling our men up for the king’s service within the year—and our people don’t know and trust me the way they did Father.”
“And Mother’s continued affair with Rastafyre makes Father appear weak.” Suella grimaced. “If you think the gossip among the men is bad, you should hear the women!”
“The women don’t have to follow me into battle.”
“Their husbands do,” Suella pointed out, “and their fathers and their brothers.”
“Do they listen to their women?” Theo asked.
Suella rolled her eyes. “You’re listening to me right now.”
Theo pinched the bridge of his nose as if his head ached. Lythande had no doubt that it did. He turned to look at his little sister. “Raella, do you understand what’s happening here?”
Raella shook her head, looking unhappy.
Theo tried again. “Do you want to go to school at Northwander?”
Another headshake.
“Then you will have to be a good girl and not use magic. Can you do that?”
Raella nodded.
“Very well. Go with Suella and get cleaned up. You’ll sit with us at dinner today and at the funeral tomorrow, and we won’t say anything more about Rastafyre.”
The girls left the room, and Lythande looked at Theo. “While I sympathize with your political problems and your desire to avoid scandal, this is not a solution. Raella may think she can control her magic, but I assure you that she can’t.”
“How long will your restraining spell hold?”
“Probably through dinner, but definitely not through the night.”
“Can you—I don’t know—renew it? Without anyone’s noticing?”
“After a fashion, I can. The problem is that it’s a simple spell, and she’s both strong and very upset. The spell will become less and less effective, even if I keep recasting it—and I suspect she’ll figure out how to nullify it entirely within a week.”
“I thought you said she needed training—how can she nullify a spell if she doesn’t know how to cast one?”
“The point of training is to give her control, not power. She already has power, and magic isn’t just chanting spells and making gestures. Power can be raised by any strong emotion. She doesn’t need to understand the spell; all she needs is to be unhappy enough to lash out at the world around her or anyone standing in front of her.” Lythande meet Lord Theo’s eyes squarely. “In her current state, she is capable of killing—probably not deliberately, but the corpse would be no less dead for that.”
Theo sighed. “Can you at least keep her under control for a few days? I really cannot send her away immediately.”
Lythande bowed. “I shall do my best. I think it will be better, however, if your guests think me merely a minstrel.”
Theo shook his head in bewilderment, a perfect portrait of a man who has sustained too many shocks in too short a period of time. “Whatever you wish.”
~o0o~
Lythande sat unobtrusively in a corner near the hearth during dinner and played calm, soothing music on her lute. The night before a funeral was no time for dance music, and under the circumstances most of her vocal repertoire would not do at all. She put a subtle spell in the music, just enough to keep quarrels from starting and to make everyone seek their beds at an early hour.
As soon as the trestles were laid away from the great hall and the pallets laid down for sleeping, Lythande left Raella in Suella’s care. While they went to sleep in the solar, Lythande went to Eirthe’s wagon.
~o0o~
“Here,” Eirthe shoved a bowl of stew into Lythande’s hands as she tied the wagon’s shutters firmly into place. “You must be starved after all those hours in the hall.”
“You’re a good friend, Eirthe,” Lythande remarked, sitting on the bunk she had slept on the previous night and spooning in the stew. “And you even kept it warm, bless you.”
“Not hard to do when you’ve got a handful of salamanders around,” Eirthe pointed out.
“Speaking of salamanders, can you set a few of them to watch Raella tonight? I can hardly stay in the bower with her.”
“Already done.” Eirthe and Lythande had worked together before. “One’s in the flame on the night candle and a couple are in the fire in the solar. Alnath will let me know if anything happens.”
“Something probably will,” Lythande said resignedly. “I warned Lord Sathorn that the restraining spell probably wouldn’t last much past tonight—if that long, but he’s afraid to let his vassals see him send her away.”
“With luck,” Eirthe said hopefully, “he’ll be much more reasonable about it as soon as they’ve cleared his gates.” She grinned wickedly. “Don’t stifle the poor child too much.”
Lythande handed back the empty stew bowl and raised an eyebrow. “Did you think I was planning to?”
Eirthe refilled the bowl and passed it back. “Eat some more and then get some sleep. You’re going to need it.”
~o0o~
Lythande slept, but not well. She strongly suspected that nobody in the neighborhood was sleeping well that night. The wind whirled around the walls, making a sound somewhere between whistling and shrieking, apparently searching for a way in. Even inside Eirthe’s snug little wagon, Lythande would not have been surprised to see spectral fingers with long claws digging their way inside, and she suspected that for the ladies sleeping in the tower the noise was even more unnerving. And then the rain started.
By the time she and Eirthe got up the next morning, reheated and ate the remaining stew, and prepared to go to the great hall, the rain wasn’t just falling, but whipping in every direction, carried by the winds. Lythande tucked both Eirthe and the lute under her mage robe for the dash to the hall.
Suella met them inside, with Raella tucked protectively at her side. “Can you do anything about this weather?” she whispered. In spite of the black velvet and a large black shawl tucked over both of them, she was shivering, and Raella looked stiff and frozen.
“It’s really something, isn’t it?” Eirthe agreed. “Do we have to go outside for the funeral?”
“No, thank all the gods,” Suella replied. “The chapel’s attached to the main tower, and the crypt is under it.”
Lythande sketched a bow to the ladies which put her face close enough to Raella’s to whisper. “How are you feeling this morning?”
“I had nightmares,” the child whispered back, “and I don’t like having all these people here. They keep staring at me.”
“As long as it stays stormy like this, they’re stuck here,” Lythande pointed out quietly. “But if the weather clears and the roads are dry enough, they could start leaving late today or early tomorrow—as soon as the funeral and the oath-taking are over.”
Raella blinked at her. “Oh.”
Lythande said nothing more as they moved to join the ladies around one of the fireplaces, though she did expend just a bit of power to make sure that the fires burned cleanly, undisturbed by the turbulent winds.
~o0o~
The funeral was somber and dignified, and the priest took as his theme for the homily the brevity and uncertainty of life, rather than referring to any particulars of the life or death of the deceased, which Lythande considered a wise choice under the circumstances. Raella clung to her sister throughout the service and the interment, but never made a sound, although tears dripped down her face. But Suella was also crying silently, so it would be hard to fault the child for that.
When they returned to the hall after the service, Lythande noticed that the howling winds had stopped. Eirthe, who had also noticed, communed briefly with Alnath and then remarked softly, “The rain’s changed to light drizzle, falling straight down. What did you do?”
“About the weather?” Lythande murmured softly. “I pointed out to Raella that as long as the storm continues all the people she complained were staring at her are stuck here.”
Eirthe quickly turned her chuckle into a cough. “Better than having to fix the weather yourself, fighting her all the way.”
“I certainly thought so,” Lythande agreed blandly, as they took places at the side of the hall where they would be out of the way but still be able to see and hear.
The ceremony began with the reading of the late Lord Sathorn’s will by the priest.
“To Theo, firstborn son of my body—”
“—born exactly nine months after the wedding night, and at least she was a virgin before that,” one of the servants near Lythande muttered.
“... I leave my entire estate, with the following exceptions...” the priest continued to read. The list that followed included bequests to various servants and household officials, along with respectable dowries for “my daughters Suella and Raella, provided that their marriages be in accordance with his prior approval.” Theo was also named guardian of both girls. If one didn’t know differently, Lythande reflected, there was nothing in the will to suggest that Lord Sathorn had any doubt of the girls paternity. Well, apparently he didn’t have any doubt. He simply chose not to hold it against them.
There was some quiet muttering about the size of the girls’ dowries when the reading ended. “Good thing he put in the part about Theo’s having to approve their marriages beforehand,” Eirthe said. “Cuts down on the temptation to kidnap and marry by force.”
“He seems to have been a remarkable man,” Lythande remarked. “I’m sorry I never got to meet him.”
“You’ve met Theo,” Eirthe pointed out. “They’re a lot alike.”
The priest then formally presented Theo to the assembly and asked if anyone challenged his right to inherit. After a few seconds of dead silence—apparently nobody doubted his paternity—Theo sat in a chair on the dais to receive the oaths. As he sat down, the sun suddenly shone through one of the small windows high on the wall behind his right shoulder, making a golden halo of his blond hair.
Each vassal came forward in turn to kneel before him, place their palms between his, repeat the oath of fealty and receive Theo’s oath of protection and justice in return. Suella and Raella stood quietly behind and to the left of their brother and looked solemn. Lythande thought it well-nigh miraculous that Raella didn’t fidget during the long ceremony.
She has strength, and she has enough control of her body to get through this ceremony at her age—she’s probably going to be quite a good mage when she’s trained.
Finally it was over, and people cleared the hall long enough for the tables to be set up for the funeral feast. During this interlude, quite a few people made their way outside and returned to comment on the wondrous improvement in the weather. Even in the corner where she was quietly playing her lute, Lythande overheard several people making plans to leave as soon as the feast was over.
~o0o~
After the feast, while Theo and Suella bade farewell to the departing guests, Lythande and Eirthe took Raella for a walk in the kitchen garden.
“That was a very nice touch with the sunbeam during the oath-taking,” Eirthe remarked. “Did you do that on purpose, Raella?”
The girl looked startled, then frowned. “No,” she said slowly, “I don’t think so. I was wishing it would be sunny so that the roads would dry and they’d all go away... and I was thinking that Theo’s really a terrific brother... and it just happened.”
“Well, it looked good, whether you did it on purpose or not,” Eirthe said consolingly.
“Could you have done it on purpose?” Raella asked her.
“Certainly,” Eirthe said. “It’s not terribly difficult.” She grinned at Lythande. “Stand over against that wall and put your hood down, would you, Lythande?”
Lythande placed herself as directed and watched calmly as Eirthe made a swooping motion, as if gathering a handful of sunlight, and tossed it at her head. She could feel the glow of the halo Eirthe had cast around her head as a pleasant warmth against the skin of her cheeks and scalp.
Unfortunately Raella tried to copy Eirthe, and Lythande barely had time to get her shields in place before the fireball hit. She dodged quickly away from the wall and pinned Raella’s arms at her sides.
“I’m sorry,” Raella said quickly. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“You didn’t hurt me,” Lythande said dryly, “but you didn’t do the wall any good, and you really frightened Eirthe.” She frowned at her friend. “Eirthe, breathe—preferably before you pass out!”
Eirthe, still staring in horror at the charred spot on the wall where Lythande’s head had been, sat down rather quickly on one of the low stone walls that separated the herb beds from the path.
“However,” Lythande continued, looking Raella straight in the eyes, “if you had done what you just did to anyone here but me—to Eirthe, or to Theo or Suella—that person would be either dead, or horribly burned and scarred for the rest of his or her life.”
“But Eirthe has magic!” Raella protested.
“I’m not as strong as Lythande,” Eirthe said shakily, “or as fast, and my shields aren’t nearly as good. I’d have been badly burned at the very least.”
“And Theo and Suella don’t have magic at all,” Raella said, her lip beginning to quiver. “I could kill somebody by mistake, the way Eirthe almost did, couldn’t I?” She started to cry. “I don’t want anybody else to die!”
“Of course you don’t.” Eirthe’s color was coming back and her voice had stopped shaking. “That’s what the college in Northwander is for. They can teach you not to hurt anyone by mistake. That’s why I went there.”
“Did you go there, too?” Raella asked Lythande.
Lythande shook her head. “I’m a lot older than I look, child. I learned magic in a faraway land before the school at Northwander was built. But I think it would be a very good place for you to go.” Raella didn’t reply, but she was obviously giving the matter serious thought.
“Right now, with your permission,” or without it, if necessary, “I’m going to put a spell on you that will stop you from doing magic for a day or two.”
Raella looked down at the grip Lythande still maintained on her arms and nodded. “Please,” she said. “I don’t want to hurt anybody.”
Lythande released her and Raella stood absolutely motionless until the spell was finished. Then she looked at them. “Will you please tell my brother he has to send me to that school?”
Lythande said, “You’re going to have to tell him that you want to go. The last time he asked you, you said you didn’t.”
Raella nodded. “All right. I’ll tell him. But will you help me explain why it’s important?”
“Of course we will,” Eirthe said, standing up and moving to put and arm around Raella’s shoulders. “But let’s wait until tomorrow after the guests leave, all right?”
“All right,” Raella said.
~o0o~
In the end it was two more days before the last of the vassals left and they could talk to Theo. Lythande sat in the solar with Eirthe, Raella, Theo, and Suella and explained, again, why it was important that Raella be properly trained immediately. Raella poured out a semi-coherent account of how she didn’t want to kill anyone—the way she almost had in the garden the other day, and Eirthe gave a much more coherent account of what had happened.
“I wondered where those burn marks on the wall came from,” Suella said. “Theo, if you have any doubts that they’re right about Raella, go and look! A couple of the stones even melted together.”
“She has enough power to melt stones?” Theo asked incredulously.
“I didn’t mean to,” Raella said timidly.
“Lots of power, very little control,” Lythande said. “She did hit the area she was aiming at—my head!”
“And that would have killed anybody but a really powerful wizard,” Raella said quickly, stumbling over the words. “So I want to go to that school where they won’t let me hurt anyone and can teach me how to control my magic.” She looked anxiously at Theo. “I know I said when I came home that I didn’t want to go, but I was wrong.” She gulped. “I need to go, before I hurt you or Suella or anyone else.”
Theo looked gravely at her. “Are you absolutely sure?”
Raella nodded. So did Eirthe and Lythande.
Theo frowned. “I don’t want to send you away, little sister, but if it’s that important, you can go.” He turned to Lythande. “What about school fees?”
“The school would teach her for nothing if they had to; an untrained mage is too dangerous to everyone. But I intend to give Rastafyre’s wand to the school to be studied; they’ll train her in exchange for that. He gave it to me as he died, and I can think of no better use for it.” Except as kindling, and that’s too dangerous.
Theo sighed. “Very well. I consent to your taking her to Northwander for training, but I want her to come home for any school holidays and after her training is done.”
“Home?” Raella lifted her head and looked at him through her tears.
“Home,” Theo repeated firmly. “This is your home and you are my sister. Nothing changes that.”
Raella hugged him tightly around the waist. “Thank you, Theo? Can I travel with Eirthe? Can she help me pack?”
“We’ll both help you pack,” Suella said, taking Raella’s hand. Eirthe followed them towards the next room.
Just as they reached the door, however, Suella turned her head back. “Lord Lythande?” she asked. “I’ll be playing my lute after dinner today. Could I persuade you to join me?”
Lythande bowed. “I would be honored, Lady Suella.”
As she accompanied Lord Theo down the stairs to the hall, Lythande asked, “How good a musician is she?” I wouldn’t want to outshine her too much.
“She’s very good,” Theo said. “It appears that both my sisters prove the old saying: ‘The children of cats can catch mice.’”