Читать книгу Mage Heart - Jane Routley - Страница 4

I poured the water into the bowl and cast a spell of seeing on its surface. The water went black. Sparkling, multicolored dots of light began to appear in it. This is not always the result when you cast a spell of seeing. The spell shows all magical activity in a particular area, so that sometimes it can be quite empty. When centered on a big city like Gallia, however, where people buy all kinds of spells for all kinds of reasons, the view is more crowded than the most brilliant part of the heavens. With the help of a pack of Prophecy Cards, I began to search the bowl carefully for signs of a magical threat to Kitten Avignon. It is standard practice to do this daily when using a protection spell, so I was doing it, even though I was convinced that it was a waste of time. Michael had always had contempt for useless people, and it rankled me that I was wasting my power soothing this woman merely because she was immoral enough to share the Duke's bed, and he was fool enough to listen to her because of it. But before I had got very far with the search, there was a knock at the door. To my astonishment it was Garthan Redon.

Garthan was one of those students every school seems to have-one of the leaders of the college, smart, charming, and good-looking. The Redons were rumored to be close to the Ducal family. Whether they were or not, Garthan had success written all over him in big, strong, clean letters. What on earth was he doing visiting me?

"My mother sent me a honey cake," he said. "Thought you might like some."

"Oh," I said. "Um ... Thank you." I'd never even spoken to him before. Somehow it was hard to imagine such a hero having a mother, especially one who sent him honey cake. I realized that I was standing there staring at him.

"Please come in," I said, hoping I wasn't committing some serious breach of propriety. "Would you like some tea? Please sit down."

I pulled some books off one of the chairs and tossed them on my bed. He looked around the room and caught sight of the Bowl of Seeing in the corner.

"Hmm. What are you looking at?" he said, peering into it. He fingered the Cards of Prophecy lying beside it. Cards of Prophecy are used to help determine the identities of particular points of light in the bowl.

"Oh. Nothing in particular," I said as calmly as I could. I ran my hand quickly over the surface of the bowl to clear it. He probably couldn't have seen anything anyway, but it was better to be safe than sorry.

"Are you doing a protection spell?"

"Oh, no! No! Of course not. I just like to watch what's going on sometimes. You know. The magic and countermagic. Jasmine tea?"

"Fine," he said. He stretched out in the chair and began to ask questions about my studies and how I liked Gallia. I fussed around finding clean beakers and boiling water on my little oil stove. It was pleasant to have a visitor, although I would have preferred someone less daunting than Garthan.

The time I'd been protecting Kitten Avignon had been more than usually difficult. Oh, the spell was easy enough. Protection is one of the first spells a young mage learns. Any mage can do it, and, being a defensive spell, as long as it is regularly maintained even weak mages can hold it against quite strong opponents. The problem was that it was one of those tasks, so common in magic, which require a constant low level of attention without being interesting enough to absorb you. There was no way, for instance, I could continue with my hazia dreams. Of course, I had already sworn off, and, logically, I knew it was a good thing that the temptation was closed to me. I'd have been a fool to continue after my last experience.

But though I had used enough magic when casting the spell to be emotionally affected by it, maintaining it was such a low-level task that the coldness of magic did not operate and I was once again prey to boredom and self-pity. I tried to stave off the boredom by going on with Michael's work on stones and by doing the mathematical problems that Master John had kindly offered to set me. Naturally I failed.

Garthan gave me a slice of honey cake and accepted a beaker of tea in return. "So," he said. "Rumor has it that you've had an audience with the Duke."

I almost choked on my honey cake.

"How ... ? Who told you?"

"So you did then?"

I was trapped now. I'd as good as said yes. What a fool. The Duke had said it was a secret. Tell them you are doing healing he'd said. But Garthan was a mage. He was never going to accept a story like that.

"Yes," I admitted.

"By the Seven! That's not a thing to keep to yourself. What was it like?"

"Good. Yes. Good."

"Good?" echoed Garthan a little derisively. "Tell me about it. How is Duke Leon these days? Who else was there? Did you get to see Kitten Avignon?"

Oh Angel! How much did he know? How much did everyone know?

I tried not to panic.

"Yes," I said carefully, staring into my tea. "She was there."

"Tanza. I've seen her riding in the city. She's the most beautiful woman I've ever seen. None of the ladies at court will speak to her, but everyone copies her dresses. Did you get to meet her? They say she can charm the birds off the trees."

"No," I said, risking a lie which was almost a truth. "The Duke didn't introduce us."

"Well lucky you anyway. Where did you go? Were you in the Peacock Room or the Throne Room?"

He plied me with questions which I did my best to answer as noncommittally as possible. I got no pleasure out of the conversation. All the time I was wondering what I would say when he asked me why I had gone there.

But Garthan was subtler than that.

"Did you see Lady Jassie there?" he asked.

I stared at him in surprise. Lady Jacinta Ren-Sahr was the Duke's six-year-old daughter, the oldest of his three illegitimate children.

"No. Why ... ?"

"Oh! Just thought you might have. Some of the chaps have been saying that the Duke's hired you to protect her."

I laughed with relief.

"Oh no. Heavens! No! Nothing like that. He just wanted to talk to me about my foster father, Michael of Moria."

"Perhaps there's someone else he wants protected. I couldn't help noticing the Bow 1 of Seeing ..."

Relief had given me confidence. He was on the wrong track. I was safe.

"Well, he didn't mention it if he did. No, I think he wants to extend Michael's pension to me. After all, I haven't got many other prospects, have I?"

I was pleased with this explanation. The remark about my prospects had the ring of irrefutable fact. I had believed it myself till a few weeks ago, and I could see from Garthan's uneasy face that he did, too.

He stayed a little longer, trying to prod me into making a confession about Lady Jassie, but my heart was lightened by my escape and I held firm to my explanation with little trouble. He left disappointed. I closed the door behind him with a sigh of relief. If this was what socializing with the other students was going to be like, it would be better for my peace of mind to keep well away from them.

I could understand why Garthan had thought of Lady Jassie. If one were to hire a woman mage at all, it might well be as guardian-mage to a six-year-old girl. But the usual male mage would do just as well and provoke much less of an outcry. I'd wondered several times in this light why the Duke had hired me to protect his beloved mistress.

My position in the world of magery was a very peculiar one. There were rumored to be powerful female mages in the faraway West, but in Gallia and the familiar countries of the Peninsula, women did not study advanced magic as I had done. Healing was women's magic. There was a powerful belief that women were not intelligent enough to grasp advanced magics and that even if they were, they were not reliable enough to use the magic of power responsibly. They were, after all, ruled by the illogical promptings of the womb.

My foster father, Michael, had adopted and educated me with the specific intention of exploring this belief.

The earliest memory I have of him (almost the earliest memory I have at all) concerns a colored ball. It was one of those little balls made out of strips of colored felt, in this case red, blue, and white, and stuffed with clean rags. I think I remember my mother sitting by the kitchen fire one winter evening sewing it up, but it most definitely belonged to the innkeeper's daughter, Sonia.

I discovered to my delight that I could make that ball dance above my head, out of the reach of even the bigger children, simply by willing it so. I was four at the time. I must have made it float more than once, for I seem to have many memories of rushing up and down the dim wooden balconies of the inn, surrounded by a pack of screaming, laughing children, all leaping and trying to bat at the ball above my head.

But I remember clearly one time when I came around a corner and rushed past a tall, grey man who was leaning on the balcony rail. As we passed, he reached out and plucked the ball out of the air. It lay lifeless in his hand as he asked in the sudden silence,

"Who did this?" The man's face was huge as he bent toward us and it had that forbidding look on it that often came before punishment. Most of my companions fled, but Sonia stayed beside me, wide-eyed and clutching her little brother by the hand. I realize now that he must have cast a spell on them. His eyes were very compelling; although they did not hold my gaze the way they held Sonia's and Mouse's. My resistance to Michael's spell must have been one of the many tests I passed that day. He would have taken it as a measure of my innate power.

I didn't run away, my usual and wise response when a stranger at the inn tried to handle me. I was too fascinated. Suddenly I could hear his voice speaking to me in my head and, to my fear and delight, could answer in the same way. I can't remember what he asked me, but while he questioned me, he took my face between his hands and, though I flinched and wriggled, looked deep into my eyes, tilting my face to and fro and up and down.

The examination was cut short when Old Hallie the innkeeper came hurrying up the stairs. I remember the man turning as if in slow motion and as he spoke with the innkeeper, the innkeeper's anxious expression changed to one of awe.

Later I belonged to Michael. He had persuaded my mother with a sum of money to let him take me away to be educated near Mangalore. Sometimes I used to wonder how my mother could have done it, could have sold me to a stranger. Michael told me by way of explanation that my mother, who was only a serving woman at the inn, had more children than she knew what to do with. He implied that one child more or less meant nothing to her. I suppose one could not expect a woman who had been so imprudent in the getting of her children to be any more careful in their disposal. I remember very little about her myself and would be hard put ever to find that inn again. My life before leaving it is like some well remembered dream. Reality started with Michael.

Sometimes when I had failed in some way and he was very angry with me, he would tell me that it had been a great waste of good money. I think he regretted it more often than he said. He had chosen me to be his foster daughter because he wanted to explore the theory that women were capable of advanced magery. That was why he had been so taken with me that day at the inn. It took exceptional natural ability to be able to levitate a ball without the aid of spells.

He wrote his doctoral thesis on my education. He pointed out in this thesis that natural ability was not everything. From the very beginning he suspected that I would have problems in temperament that would always flaw my magic. He found me flighty, unwilling to concentrate, slapdash, frivolous; he saw an irresponsibility in me that had been there at the start and that he feared I would never be able to change. The thesis remained inconclusive on that point. He pointed out that all girls could not be judged by the study of one example. I don't remember if he ever told this to anyone, but I think he feared privately that I might just be the child of my husbandless mother with her large brood of children.

For twelve years of my life, I lived as his daughter in a small village outside Mangalore, the capital of the Duchy and later the Archbishopric of Moria. For ten hours a day, seven days a week, I studied all the magic he could teach me. Mages from all over the Peninsula, and sometimes even farther, visited us to put me through my paces. If I failed to measure up, Michael would drill me even harder. I suppose I was a sort of dancing bear. Certainly like a dancing bear, I had no real function in the scheme of things.

Then when I was sixteen that life ended. When I was sixteen, the new Morian Church of the Burning Light took over the throne in the Revolution of Souls. The Burning Light intended to bring forward the Day of Melding by creating the City of Tanza on earth. A series of bishops rose to and fell from the throne as the country went through paroxysms of purging. All morally dubious persons were persecuted. Whores were whipped through the streets and driven from the towns. Other criminals were executed or maimed.

Outrageously, mages were treated no better. "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live," intoned the Burning Light priests. Within two years there were no healers or non-clerical mages left in Moria. Many of Michael's friends had been chained in witch manacles and burned at the stake before he decided to leave the country.

Michael believed that the Church wanted a monopoly on magical power and could not suffer a group of freethinkers like mages to exercise it outside their control. He blamed Smazor's Run as well. Smazor's freedom had, after all, been the result of a mistake by mages, and the bitter resentment many Morians still felt over this mistake found its voice in the Church's current outlawing of all nonclerical magic and the subsequent persecution of its practitioners.

But Michael also said, "It's been so long since those fools have seen a necromancer that they've come to believe that they can do without mages."

So Michael and I fled Moria. We traveled on foot for over a month and came by a roundabout route to the neighboring state of Gallia, a rich and powerful country whose dynamic young ruler, Duke Leon Sahr, was known to be a friend of mages. Michael was by now a famous educator, so it was easy for him to join the Gallian College of Magic, the Alma Mater of magery on the Peninsula. He settled easily into college life. I did not.

There were other women in the college it is true, the wives and daughters of the few staff who had families and the cleaners and serving women. There was even a college of healers affiliated with it, who used the college's classrooms. The wives and daughters of the staff should have been the natural companions to the foster daughter of one of the masters. But like most normal women, they were interested in children or cookery or sewing; they knew no Aramayan or Ancient Soprian and cared nothing for magic. Being with them made me feel odd-skinny and clumsy. My wispy hair was always coming out from under my cap, and I was small-breasted, built more like a boy than a girl. I was stupid at all the things that mattered to them. I did my best to avoid them. And as for the healers ... Michael told me never to trust healers. "They're hard women," he said. "Arrogant and competitive, jealous of a mage's power."

I was the only woman anywhere studying advanced magic, and all my years of special teaching from Michael put me far ahead of most of the other students. When I was almost seventeen, I sat my final exams three years early and passed ahead of students even ten years my senior. Michael was both gratified and worried. He would not let my results be publicly displayed. As he explained to me, it was not wise for a woman to humiliate the male students by outstripping them too obviously. It would only anger them and lead to trouble. There was no need to be too proud of my results. They were merely the result of all those years of special teaching. I wasn't troubled by this. These were the kinds of considerations that had always concerned Michael. For myself was bored by the classes and happy when Michael decided that I should return to private study and to helping him with research. Life continued in Gallia in much the same way as it had in Mangalore. If I was restless, it was no more than I had ever been.

Until suddenly Michael had a heart attack and within two days was dead.

I was in limbo. The college staff, most of them old men like the Dean, were supportive, but embarrassed by the weeping of a young girl. They quickly left me to my own devices. I was completely at a loss. For almost thirteen years Michael had filled my days with lessons and research. I did not know what my own devices were.

I was very lonely. I did not have the knack of making friends. I'd never really talked to anyone except Michael. I was not good at trusting people, being suspicious of their motives in the case of young men and uncomfortable in the company of women.

Night after night I would sit in the dingy college dining room at the high table, for I sat with the staff and their families, watching the students at the tables laughing and playfully cuffing one another and feeling conspicuously alone. I was always on the outside, and no matter how much I told myself it didn't matter, I couldn't stop myself from wanting to be part of things.

These were the feelings that the hazia had blotted out, and they had returned even more strongly now that I had stopped taking it. I had been convinced that once I had employment things would be better. Of course they were not. I was back to lying on my bed and thinking maudlin thoughts.

I wished so much that Micheal were still alive so that I might have a chance to make up for all the mistakes that had so angered him in the past. I remembered his being particularly disappointed over my clumsy rendering of a spell only a few days before he died. I could imagine what he would make of my present sordid employment.

Other times, I found myself shaking with anger because he, who could never be pleased, had finally abandoned me as he had so often threatened. Then I would remember his many kindnesses to his disappointing daughter and how sometimes he had been pleased even though it was not his nature to show it. Then I would feel deeply guilty for being angry.

Now I was quite alone in the world and I was going to be incapable of finding a place in it. Nobody knew or cared if I lived or died. Like someone fascinated with a needle, who cannot resist touching it to feel its point, I could not stop picking over memories that hurt me.

After almost a month of this, there came a diversion. One afternoon as I was crossing the courtyard with Master John, a carriage came sweeping through the gates. It was a beautiful equipage of gleaming, dark wood sprung high across thin wheels, drawn by a pair of high-stepping white horses with pink roses plaited into their manes. Where most carriages had coats of arms, this had a twining rose carved and painted on the door. The blinds were pulled down, making the occupant invisible, but Master John acted as if it were the chariot of Smazor himself. He rushed forward, flapping his hands as if he were driving birds off a field.

One of the two tall footmen who had been clinging to the back of the carriage, descended and stalked decorously toward him. Master John grabbed his arm and tried to hustle him back toward the carriage, but he might as well have tried to hustle a stone or a tree. The footman merely stood there speaking to him with delicate politeness, impervious of the way Master John was pulling his arm across his body and almost spinning him round. I kept walking toward them. I was going in that direction anyway. Master John called over his shoulder,

"Dion! Stay where you are."

At the sound of my name the footman turned, skillfully shrugged Master John off and bowed toward me.

"Mademoiselle Dion," he said, "Madame Avignon seeks an audience with you." The sound of her name sent a horrified thrill down my spine.

"Stay where you are, Dion," repeated Master John.

He said something to the footman and went determinedly toward the carriage. The footman, his face still showing nothing, turned and stalked unhurriedly along behind him. Master John was also stalking, but his was a stiff outraged stalk, a slamming of feet against the unfortunate ground. Suddenly he stopped short and looked up at the windows of the college. They were crowded with the faces and arms of the young second and third year boys who were shouting and waving at the carriage.

"Stop that," he shouted. "Go back to your work this instant."

His voice, magically enhanced, filled the courtyard in a deep distorted yowl. He must have sent a charge of magic along the window frames then because the tardy boys yelped. The windows quickly became faceless.

Another footman held open the carriage door.

Master John stood for some time, having a formal, but heated conversation with the shadowy form of a woman in the dim interior.

Finally the footman closed the carriage door and the high-stepping horses drew it slowly out through the gateway.

"That was Madame Avignon," said Master John, pronouncing the Madame with sarcastic emphasis. "She wishes to have speech with you. I told her you did not wish this, but she insisted. That Woman implied that she'd go to the Duke if I didn't cooperate."

"But she has gone now."

"No," he said leading me into the college hall. "She is merely waiting down the street. I asked her to at least show some care for the reputation of an innocent, young girl, and she saw my point. I fear we cannot stop people from knowing that she has a connection with this college, but we can at least prevent too many people from seeing you have contact with each other. We shall go out the front door to avoid being too obvious."

The carriage was waiting for us around corner of the street. Master John gripped my arm.

"Dion," he said, "you must do your best to be diplomatic. You must not offend this woman. Humor her, but be firm with her. Don't agree to do anything. Never forget that no matter how charming she may be, The Avignon is a courtesan and without morals. She will try to manipulate you. Don't put yourself in her power no matter what. Now go and take care."

He pushed me toward the carriage. One of the footmen let down the step and opened the door.

I approached the carriage as one approaches a lion-mostly with fear but with excitement and curiosity as well.

I expected its interior to smell of something dirty, like stale sweat, but in fact it was filled with the most delicious perfume. Sweet without being cloying, sharp without being bitter. It was warm, too, after the brisk spring wind that had been blowing down the street.

Madame Avignon sat in the farthest corner of the carriage, but the huge, green silk skirts of her gown seemed to fill it. She looked almost as if she were a goddess emerging out of the sea, for the top half of the gown hugged her body like a second skin. I was relieved to see that today it went all the way up to her neck, though the effect of this clinging bodice was not much more modest than the last.

She smiled warmly and motioned one elegant gloved hand. "Please. Sit down. May I offer you refreshment? Sherry? Sparkling wine? Or lemonade perhaps?"

I thought it advisable to decline.

With a sudden movement, she leaned forward and banged the top of her parasol against the roof of the carriage. I felt a momentary panic as it lurched off. Where was she taking me? I reminded myself that I was a mage, and nobody could harm me unless I allowed them to, and felt calmer. The blinds were still drawn most of the way down, I supposed to protect my reputation. It was a pity really. I'd never ridden in a carriage before.

Madame Avignon took off her gloves and smoothed them between her small white hands. I had expected her face to be a heavy mask of cosmetics, like the faces of the prostitutes in the town, but in the dimness of the carriage, it was hard to tell if the flush across her cheekbones was real or applied. Really she was quite lovely, with her soft, shining hair swept up beneath a huge graceful hat covered in feathers, and just the right amount of lace at her slender neck and the wrists of her long fine hands.

She sat draped across the seat opposite, regarding me from under her eyelashes. The attitude was languid, but her movements were quick and forceful, and whenever she lifted her heavy lashes (false?) her eyes were lively and sparkling.

"I hope I have not taken you away from your studies" she said. Even her voice was charming, with its warm tones and slight foreign accent.

"No."

"Indeed I am sorry to have waylaid you like this. I have been trying for some time to speak to you privately, but there seems to be some resistance among your colleagues to my doing so. So! Here I am!"

Her words startled me. I knew nothing of any attempts to contact me.

"I came because you know nothing of the man from whom you are protecting me. This could be dangerous. I felt that we must speak of these things."

I nodded, carefully noncommittal. Was this the beginnings of a manipulation?

She lifted her eyes and looked hard at my face. Though I could detect no sign of magery in her, there was something in her look, so bare and serious, that seemed to read me, everything about me. Despite my best intentions, I dropped my eyes and blushed. I felt suddenly dishonest.

"You have looked in the Bowl of Seeing."

"Yes." I was surprised she should know about it.

"I have had other people look also," she said. "I know you can see nothing there. That is one reason why I asked to see you. I feared you must underestimate your opponent, who is a very clever and dangerous man. His name is Norval. He is a necromancer. An Aramayan."

I gaped at her.

A necromancer and an Aramayan! Death magic, and from one of the great old empires of the West. I was excited. Then I became doubtful. What she was saying was ludicrous. Surely mages and necromancers had better things to do than persecute courtesans. Master John had had no doubts about that. Here was a woman who was overreacting, overdramatizing in the way one might expect from her kind. I tried to answer as politely as I could under the circumstances.

"Please don't be anxious. I do have the situation under control. I foresee no difficulties."

"No," she said ruefully. "I don't suppose you would. We both know how powerful you are. I'm sure you would have no difficulty in a battle of magic with Norval. And I'm sure the Duke and I can rely on you to do your duty, however much you underestimate your opponent."

She began to pull her little lemon gloves back onto her hands. Sharply.

I bristled at her remark. Was the woman threatening me? Yet she had paid me a compliment. I began to have some inkling of what Master John had meant by manipulation. The extent of it, the huge vistas that opened up, frightened me.

I took my courage in both hands. "I do assure you that I have the situation under control."

She put her hand over her eyes for a moment and her figure, which a moment ago had been upright, drooped. She sighed. I almost felt sorry for her. Till I realized that this must just be a play for sympathy. But she surprised me.

"I realize that people here cannot believe a mage would bother himself with a whore. Mages here are so ... separate from ordinary humans ... I think they forget sometimes how much people ... can hate each other. Aramayan mages are not so separated from everyday life. And Norval was once my lover. It makes a difference, you know."

I was shocked, but tried not to show it. God and angels! Things were beginning to look very sordid indeed. I wanted to tell Madame Avignon that I had no wish to be involved in her private life. I said nothing. For a few moments the tension in the carriage was unbearable.

"Mademoiselle Dion, I have no doubts in you as a mage. It is Norval I fear. He is cunning. He will have realized by now that I have magical protection. Have you considered the physical danger to which you might be exposed? Have you considered that Norval might launch some kind of conventional attack on you? That is the way he works. Have you taken steps to make yourself safe in that sense?"

Dignity, Dion. Dignity. I was beginning to get hardened to her. I pretended I was Master John. "Madame, I live in a college of mages. We take steps to protect ourselves from intruders."

"Magical intruders, yes. But what about more conventional assailants?"

"We have wardings against those with evil intentions. Anyway, how should anyone know to attack me? The Duke himself said that nothing is known of our association."

"I fear that is not the case. Very little is secret at the court. My informants tell me that our association is already known in certain circles."

She frightened me there. Who knew? Or was this just another part of the whole fantasy. I was unsure what to do. I wished Master John was dealing with her. "Agree to nothing, Dion," said his voice in my head.

"Mademoiselle Dion, any good assassin knows methods for disguising his intentions. It might interest you to know that the captain of my bodyguard has twice entered the college, even to your own door. No one challenged him; no one stopped him. This is why I have come to see you today. If he can do it, so can an assassin."

I could not help feeling frightened and a little outraged. What a liberty the woman had taken!

"If anything happens to you, the way would be immediately open for an attack on me. I have many enemies in this city. It's not inconceivable that one of them may be in contact with Norval and will send an assassin against you."

Now I was sure she was overdramatizing.

"I am a mage, Madame Avignon. No ordinary assassin can harm me."

"You are not invincible, Mademoiselle. A good assassin knows how to get round a mage. Have you never heard of witch manacles?"

She couldn't have guessed how much that question would distress me. I knew too much witch manacles. They're the only way to disable a mage. An iron neck manacle breaks our circle of power and renders us helpless. Once I saw witch finders in Moria come to take the village healer away. How could I forget that cold iron manacle? I had felt the evil of it even from where I had been hiding. The healer's drained old face was white above it.

Once, too, Michael and I had hidden among the chimneys of Mangalore from a huge angry crowd, unable to escape without using magic, yet not daring to use magic because we could feel the questing minds of the witch finders reaching out for us. We hid there while they burned other mages in the square below, mages chained helpless to the stake with witch manacles. It was almost as if my nostrils could still smell the bitter scent of singeing hair and the sweet smell of burning flesh. It had smelled like nothing so much as roasting meat. As we lay there forced to listen, the soft old faces of the mages Michael had known came like possibilities into my mind, and I wondered which ones ... The awful screams ... I wanted to kill her for that remembrance.

"I have heard enough," I snapped. "If you would kindly take me home now."

"Mademoiselle?" She stared at me.

"I do not wish to discuss this foolishness anymore," I snapped. I jumped up and staggered against the movement of the carriage.

Her face was stricken. "Mademoiselle Dion, please."

"Please take me home." I said through clenched teeth.

"Of course. But please sit down."

She banged the roof of the carriage with her parasol. Silence.

"Mademoiselle, I did not mean to upset you. Please accept my apologies."

I was silent, too angry to accept anything.

"Mademoiselle, I merely wished to make a point," she said suddenly, beseechingly. "You would be much safer if you let me offer you protection."

"What do you mean?" I snapped.

"If you were living in my house, you would be safe from attack. The house is well guarded, and my bodyguards would watch over you as well as me."

She was trying to get control over me just as Master John had said! And then? What other favors might she feel free to ask?

"That could never happen," I said with what I thought seemed admirable restraint. "What about my reputation? What you are suggesting is ridiculous."

"Mademoiselle Dion, please," she cried. Her look was beseeching, and for an awful moment I thought she was going to throw herself down on her knees.

"I understand perfectly. I do not believe it would be ... right for me to stay in your house. A mage must remain a free agent."

Her face hardened.

"You must believe as you see fit," she said coldly (with enviable dignity). "I am thinking of my own safety and, therefore, of yours. I can tell you for certain that you are in danger. I offer you the services of my captain to guard you in the college. He is well versed in the ways of assassins and will be at your command. I beg of you to take my offer."

The carriage stopped. We were back where we had started. "Thank you, Madame," I snapped. "But I can look after myself perfectly well. Good day."

I did not look at her again.

Master John asked me what had transpired, and I told him about Madame Avignon's fears. He took them no more seriously than I had. "I was afraid of something like this from the start. I just hope it goes no further." I told him I had been polite, but firm in my rejection of her offer.

"Yes!" he said. "You have done well."

I couldn't help feeling a little uneasy about how I had dealt with the situation. The woman had seemed terribly afraid. It would have been kinder to have soothed her fears more. In other moments I knew that I had done the right thing. My pity for her was obviously a sign that she had manipulated my feelings. Whores made their own beds. It was their own fault if they had to lie on them. I would have liked to have been able to talk about her with someone. Anyone. She didn't seem like a bad woman. She didn't seem dirty. Mind you, I knew evil was not always ugly. But up close she had seemed so ... normal.

I just wished there was someone who was able to explain things to me. Like how she could do what she did for money and why.

But though I had a bad conscience about her, it didn't once occur to me to take her seriously.

I dreamed of witch manacles. I have always been a nervous sleeper, inclined to wake up rigid with terror in the middle of the night. Does studying magic make this worse, I wonder. You certainly learn that there are terrible things in the universe to be afraid of, things more terrible than other human beings. The fact that a mage is unlikely to come into contact with these evil powers unless he goes looking for trouble is small comfort in the dark. When, as a child, I cried out in the night, frightened by some strange noise or unrecognizable shape in my room, Michael would try to calm my fears by taking me through the spells for dealing with supernatural attack.

"I, too, am sometimes nervous in the dark," he would explain, patiently at first, but with increasing irritation as time went on, "but I reason with my fears and thus defeat them. You must learn to conquer this irrational fear."

Then he would go away, taking the light with him, leaving me alone in the dark again. His pearls of wisdom gave off insufficient illumination to comfort me, but fearing his irritation, I ceased to call out to him.

Instead, whenever I was afraid, I taught myself to cast a brilliant light into the room. It is a habit I have never grown out of. Eventually it became so automatic, I could do it even before I was properly awake. Once or twice at inns on the road to Gallia I had seriously embarrassed myself, and Michael, by lighting up a room full of sleepers before I realized what I was doing.

So now, when in my dream, the huge cast-iron manacle seemed to snarl like a mastiff and reach out hungrily at me, I started awake in a cold sweat with a terrible burning feeling at my throat, blasted a light into the room, and sat up.

And knocked the arm of the man in black, who had been bending over me in the darkness. I screamed. He dropped his thin, spiked club, but his other hand thrust a huge, open witch manacle at me. My skin burned with the fear of that dreadful thing. With all my being I wanted it away from me. He put his hand over my mouth as he tried to force the manacle through the crackling air. I clawed at him, and magical energy surged through me. Manacle and assailant hurtled across the room and smacked hard against the stone wall opposite. The man collapsed limply on the floor.

The door flew open. Another man rushed in with a drawn sword. I stood up on the bed. Tried to scream for help. My voice came out feebly. The man at the door looked at me and the bundle by the wall. Then he darted away. Someone began yelling.

After years and seconds, the room filled with people. They all seemed to be looking at me. Eyes and upturned faces. Maya made me sit on the edge of the bed with my head between my legs and wrapped a blanket around me. I could not stop shivering. She led me away through a crowd of staring faces, a babble of voices. She gave me hot, sweet tea and put me in a strange, cold bed which I could not make comfortable.

Although Maya spent the night sitting beside me, and though I could see for myself the guard outside the window and the shadow of the one outside the door, I did not sleep again until it became light.

"You are quite safe," she said. But I could not believe her.

Even when dawn came and I slept, I dreamed endlessly of cold iron and the crack of the body as it hit the wall. I awoke properly midmorning, feeling sore and dry and stretched to the limit. Maya was still sitting beside me.

"How are you feeling?" she asked kindly. Embarrassed and uncomfortable was how I was feeling.

"All right," I said, and then, with a prickling horror, "Oh no! The ritual."

I leaped out of bed.

"Hush," soothed Maya. "Someone else is taking care of your work. If you are rested, the Dean is asking for you."

"Then I will go to him," I said. "I can't rest any longer."

I'd never much liked Maya before. I'd thought her pushy and abrupt, but I was grateful to her that morning. She helped me dress, an intimacy I could not like, but afterward she rubbed soothing oil into my neck and temples. Then she gently brushed and plaited my hair.

"You have a visitor," she said. "I want you to look nice for her."

I was so touched by this my eyes filled with tears, and I submitted without a word. I rarely paid much attention to my appearance, and it was the first time I could ever remember having my hair brushed.

An atmosphere of deep dismay filled the Dean's office. The Dean and Master John looked ravaged. But the first person I noticed was a woman sitting with a straight back amidst a swirl of silk skirt. I could not see her head for the enormous befeathered hat she wore, but I recognized the cloud of delicious perfume that filled the room. Madame Avignon's hand rested emphatically on a gold-topped cane. It was hard to connect her appearance with what I knew her to be. She looked nothing short of regal. It occurred to me to wonder what the Dean felt about having a courtesan within the sober precincts of the college.

After the greetings there was silence in the room. I sat uncomfortably on my chair, staring at my hands, knowing myself to be the center of attention. Suddenly the Dean and Master John both spoke at once. They stopped; each motioned the other to go on, and then the Dean spoke.

"We have been discussing what happened last night. It is shocking to think that your life is not safe even here, and it is obvious to me and Master John, indeed all the staff, that steps must be taken to prevent a repetition of this dreadful incident."

I nodded.

"Madame Avignon here has reiterated her claim that you are not safe in the college, and that you would be best to reside with her where she says she can have you guarded properly. Indeed, while we cannot approve of her methods, were it not for her forethought in placing one of her own guards in the college, who knows what might have happened."

"Not at all!" said a voice from the corner of the room. A short, stocky man dressed in black stood there, his feet apart, hands behind his back. I was startled that I had not noticed him. Later, when I got to know Captain Simonetti better, I realized that it was usual not to notice him in a room.

"Give credit where credit's due," he went on. "I did nothing. By the time I got there she had already disposed of the bugger. Very nicely, too."

"Captain Simonetti is the man who raised the alarm last night," said the Dean.

A terrible fear had gripped me.

"Where is the man who attacked me?" I asked.

The two mages cast down their eyes. Captain Simonetti looked surprised. "Why dead, of course," he said. "Didn't I just tell you so?"

I had killed a man. I was a killer. And I felt nothing much. Nothing at all, except shame at my numbness.

The Dean cleared his throat.

"Captain Simonetti has been explaining to us the enormous difficulty of making the college safe, Dion. There is even a chance that your very presence here would put the other students in danger. This," he said, looking apologetically at Master John, "is what weighs heaviest with me. The man who attacked you was a Soprian assassin. The people who hired him are obviously prepared to go to great lengths."

I still felt numb. Soprian assassins were famed for their skill and deadliness. And price. They were creatures of legend, not reality.

"I was dreaming about the witch manacle when I woke," I said. "I was frightened ... The rest just followed. I didn't mean ..."

The Dean looked sympathetically at me. "My dear, I do believe that you might be safer living in Madame Avignon's house."

I nodded. At that moment Madame Avignon, with her big gold cane and her queenly bearing, seemed to offer the only safety. I was filled with a desire to get away from the college, from the scene of last night's terror.

Master John did not agree.

"Enough of this!" he shouted, banging his fist on the table. "You're allowing yourselves to be manipulated by fear. It would not be impossible to guard the child here. Surely that is better than ..." "Master John," said Madame Avignon, "it would be far simpler for her to live in my house, which is already well guarded by Captain Simonetti and my other bodyguards."

"Dion can defend herself. She has already shown that."

"Of course she can. But she is not a soldier. She is not used to being constantly vigilant. And how can you place her in a position where she might have to kill and kill again? Isn't killing against all the precepts of magery?"

I felt almost grateful to her. It was as if she read my mind. I knew I could never feel safe in my room, or even in this college, again.

"You think of Dion as nothing more than a mage. You forget she is an innocent young girl. How can we expose her to the lifestyle of a, a ..."

The Dean placed a warning hand on his arm.

"... woman like yourself?" he ended lamely.

"Whore is what you no doubt meant to say," said Kitten silkily. "Let us leave this uplifting discussion of my past for a moment and consider the present. As the Duke's mistress, I can assure you, my activities must always be above reproach. I live quietly with a woman companion. I can promise you that Mademoiselle Dion would witness nothing in my house that she would not see here. But it is Mademoiselle Dion's decision to make. As you say, she is an innocent young girl. You seem to want to make her into an assassin. Perhaps we should ask her what she wants to do."

She turned to me. "Mademoiselle, which do you prefer? Master John's plan or mine?"

All I wanted now was escape. "Your plan, Madame," I said. I expected her to look triumphant. She merely looked enormously relieved.

"Dion!" cried Master John. "How can you? My lord, you cannot allow this."

"Master John," said Madame Avignon, "you are making a complicated matter out of something very simple. All I wish to do is survive. And to do that I must make sure that Mademoiselle Dion survives." She stood up and pulled on her gloves. "Good day, gentlemen. I will send a carriage for Mademoiselle Dion this evening."

"Very good," said the Dean. He stayed Master John's with his hand.

She swept out, followed by Captain Simonetti.

The Dean sat down and mopped his face.

"My lord ..."

"Hush, John. Dion, go and pack. And take one of the guards with you."

Later, as I watched the passing houses from the window of Madame Avignon's carriage, I felt a terrible fear. Had I indeed ruined my reputation and my life? Despite what Madame Avignon had said, I felt sure I would have to be constantly vigilant to prevent myself from being drawn into distasteful situations.

Master John had been angry and disappointed at me. Only the Dean came down to the college steps to say good-bye to me. It was all I could do as the carriage pulled up not to cling to him and beg him to let me stay. I had never before been away from the college on my own. But his firm assumption that I was going was more persuasive than words.

"Dion," he said, "I feel that you are doing the best thing for us all. Try to remember ... Many things are forgiven one whom a ruler favors. If you can keep the Duke's patronage, you will have no need to worry about your future."

He helped me firmly into the carriage. I felt cast adrift. He must be glad to be rid of such a misfit, such a nuisance.

Yet just before the carriage drew away he stuck his head in the window.

"I promised Michael I would protect you from ... moral corruption. If you have any of that kind of difficulty, send me a message, and I will bring you back to the college."

I was comforted. My resolve firmed. It was time I grew up and went out on my own. I would learn to deal with and transcend my environment. Only the terrible knowledge that I had killed someone haunted me. Even after knowing this for a whole day, I still felt nothing more than a vague dismay. I wondered if there was something wrong with me. But I knew I did not ever want to have to hear that sickening crack of bones again.