by Melanie Rawn
“Twice twenty-two is forty-four. Six times fifteen is ninety, half of that being forty-five. Simple enough.”
“Forty-four Ladder pairs,” Sarra agreed. “With one pair lost.”
“‘The broken circle.’ And the line—ah, here. ‘The last is due/The new-struck coin of Captal’s woe.’ Payment is implied.”
“For what? Magic itself?” she asked, thinking of the first four lines.
“The Waste War.” He rocked back on his heels, nodding to himself. “The Lords of Malerris would be ‘the timeless foe.’ A question, Domna. Is this circle lost because it’s broken, or broken because it’s lost?”
She felt her brows arch. “I see what you mean. Which leads into who broke it or lost it, and why.”
“And if it can be mended—or should.” With a polite nod, Adennos returned to his place near the altar steps.
Sarra covered a short stack of books with her bunched cloak hood and snuggled in for another nap. If Alin could match nightmare images with the children’s rhyme, he’d be off to find the Lost Ladders unless someone tied him down. She’d have to warn Val, and issue another stern prohibition of her own.
That was what a leader did, wasn’t it? Look out for the lives and safety of those she led? That, and use them as their talents indicated. Use them, the way she’d used Alin to rescue those books, until he was nearly used up.
Orlin had said that Taig Ostin would burn himself to ashes. Well, she’d take him in hand, too, once she got hold of him within the family business of the Rising. Soon enough now; by the new year. She fell asleep thinking of Cailet, vowing to permit no one, not even Gorynel Desse, to use her.
14
The night of the Winter Solstice, longest of the year, they cleaned out the rest of the rare book vault in Ambrai. His work done, Alin collapsed the whole of the next day, and therefore missed a lively discussion of how to get the volumes to Roseguard.
Kanto Solingirt wanted to box them as cargo on another vessel with himself as escort. There was always a ship or two doing the Havenport-Roseguard run.
“I’ll buy other books to layer on top,” he said, “to fool the inspectors. That way we can be honest about the contents. Always assuming the Council’s functionaries can read,” he ended with a disdainful sniff.
Val shook his head. “We won’t have to disguise them at all if we make them part of Sarra’s luggage. She has Shir privilege, no inspections allowed.”
The Scholar Mage looked mulish. “Admit, boy, that I only slow you down.”
“You won’t be using any more Ladders,” Val countered. “You’re staying on Lady Agatine’s ship with Imi and the Healers.”
“What does it matter which ship I’m on?”
Obviously, Solingirt trusted no one else with the precious books. Sarra could have ended discussion with an order, but she decided to let the men wrangle things out for her—unless they went totally off the trail in the usual maddening masculine way and needed a woman’s guidance.
“Kanto,” said Advar Senison, “with only book boxes for luggage, you’d be suspect. An itinerant Healer, on the other hand, travels light and could very well be overseeing the shipment of medical supplies.”
Hearing this, Sarra knew she’d heard her solution. Senison would go in his itinerant Healer pose, with Imilial for protection. Not to mention companionship, she thought with an inward grin as Imi suggested straight-faced that they would attract less notice as a married couple.
The day after Solstice they left St. Ilsevet’s. Imi and Advar went to the Havenport house belonging to the votary’s daughter and her husband; Sarra recommended innocently that they ought to practice their parts by sharing a bedroom. When the rain finally let up on the sixth day of Midwinter Moon, a wagon took boxes to books and then the boxed books to a ship that embarked on the seventh for Bleynbradden, Pinderon, and Roseguard.
Meantime Sarra, Alin, Val, Kanto Solingirt, and Elomar Adennos crowded into the votary’s own tidy little half-timbered home, which—not surprisingly—reeked of fish. The house stood creekside a mile below St. Ilsevet’s on the hill, five miles from town. They would stay three days before boarding ship for Ryka—another period of total inactivity Sarra did not relish.
Healer and Scholar, on the other hand, spent the days in perfect contentment. Elomar sat hour after hour tying feathers to hooks, making lures for the votary to sell at the shrine and whistling under his breath all the while. Kanto Solingirt found in the votary someone his own age who remembered what he remembered, and the two old men entertained each other with long bouts of tale-telling. When the votary went to tend the shrine, the Scholar studied volumes he’d withheld from the boxes going to Roseguard.
Valirion was busy, too. The first day he slogged into Havenport to make certain arrangements. The second day he went duck-hunting—a soggy endeavor that netted him exactly one scrawny bird. The third day he climbed up into the attic to patch the votary’s leaky roof. Sarra envied him the physical activity.
Deprived of another woman to talk to—for, like most votaries at shrines all over Lenfell, this one was a widower—Sarra applied herself to the Ladder Song. On blank pages torn from a broadsheet collection she and Alin wrote down every verse either could remember, glossed in a generous margin by variations.
“How many verses?” Val asked, serving himself with the last of the duck stew for lunch.
“Twenty-seven Ladders in twenty-four verses,” Alin answered, unperturbed when his cousin groaned. “We can identify sixteen pairs.”
“Or a little over a third of the total that other song says exist.” Sarra rubbed the small of her back; the wooden chair was the wrong height for hunching over the bed where their books were spread out. The alternative was to share the small, rickety table with Elomar and his hooks and feathers.
“Existed,” Alin amended. “Some were lost with Ambrai, remember. Ladders would be where someone needs them—Mages, Lords of Malerris, and Ryka Court for the convenience of the government.”
Sarra nodded. “I think your three hubs theory makes good sense.”
“As for the others—there has to be one from Domburron to Domburr Castle, to account for Anniyas’s winning a battle against the Grand Duke and killing that Mage in the same day.”
“So that’s how she did it!” Sarra exclaimed. “I should’ve realized. The history books sort of slide around it, implying she set the order of battle and then rode like hell.”
“Who took her through?” Val asked.
“Didn’t you know?” Alin looked genuinely amazed. “It was Auvry Feiran.”
Sarra felt her jaw drop and heavily picked it up again. “But he couldn’t—I mean, he was barely thirty, and still a Mage Guardian—”
“I heard it from Gorynel Desse himself.” Alin scratched his head with one hand—they were all in need of hot baths—and poured himself a mug of lukewarm tea with the other. “Feiran did it on his order. Gorsha was First Sword, remember. Discipline was his responsibility. Warrior Mage Lirsa Bekke was working for the Grand Duke, and—Sarra, what’s wrong?”
“N-nothing. It’s just—I didn’t know the association between Feiran and Anniyas went back so far.” She was babbling, and couldn’t stop herself. “He didn’t—I mean, I heard they didn’t even meet until after Maichen Ambrai married him and Glenin was born, and that was years later.”
“The length and strength of their teamwork is something to consider,” Valirion muttered.
What she considered was screaming: Damn it, how much hasn’t anyone told me! Then another thought landed on her like a lion on a limping fawn: she’d been traveling by Ladder for weeks, and it only now occurred to her that so could Glenin and Auvry Feiran.
They might be at Ryka Court after all.
How much did she resemble her mother? Lady Lilen had said there was a look of Maichen about Sarra. Would her father and sister see it, too?
She turned to Val. “You said I’d be hard to d
isguise as a boy. How would you disguise me as a girl?”
“Huh?”
“No, that won’t work,” she fretted, rising to pace. “Garon has seen me. He’d notice.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Only this,” said Elomar Adennos from across the room. “She is recognizable as someone she is not.”
And that, Sarra thought, was as neat a way of putting it as ever could be.
“Don’t concern yourself, Domna” he went on, not looking up from winding string around a feathered hook. “They won’t see what you fear they might. You would never be risked in such a fashion, because of who you are.”
“Who is she?” demanded Val.
“Who isn’t she?” corrected Alin.
The Healer Mage raised his left hand, palm out, index and middle fingers upright and together, the other two fingers curled inward over the thumb. Sarra had never seen that gesture except in drawings in old books. But she knew what it meant: Mage-Right. The topic being discussed was to be discussed no more, except among Mages.
And that ended it as far as Alin was concerned. Val opened his mouth to ask again; Alin silenced him with a single look.
Just before dawn of the next day, as they were readying to leave for Havenport proper, Sarra took advantage of a moment alone with Elomar.
“What did you mean by invoking Mage-Right?” she asked quietly.
“Only that Wards have been set.” He finished arranging the feathered hooks in a segmented box, and closed the lid. “Trust in them to conceal who you are.”
“And who do you think I am?”
He gave her a slow, whimsical smile. “Lady,” he murmured, “yours was the first birthing I ever attended as a Healer Mage.”
After a moment she managed, “How could you possibly remember one newborn?”
The smile grew wider, like dawn sunlight expanding on the horizon. “Because you were the loveliest, or cried the loudest? No, though you were a pretty child, with good lungs put to immediate use.”
“Then how—?”
“I will answer with a warning. Of the formal gowns you wear at Ryka Court, let none go lower than—forgive me—here.” And he tapped a fingertip lightly on her shirt between her breasts.
Dumbstruck, she watched him leave the cottage.
He had seen her stark naked in the stream—and seen the small, round, rose-colored birthmark. Her father had once told her that St. Sirrala had kissed her there to start her heartbeat.
Her father, whom she might see again at Ryka Court.
15
It rained again late that afternoon, a fat and lazy rain that fell until past midnight. By early morning Sarra was on board ship, and needed no excuse of seasickness to keep to her cabin. Ladder Lag had been replaced by a miserable head cold.
Although the ship from Roseguard was late—arriving not in the evening but before dawn the next day—the exchange was made with a smoothness that made Alin gnash his teeth with suspicions. At first light, two sailors rowed a skiff ashore, dropped off five passengers (wine merchants ignorant of how convenient they were), and waited at the jetty while “Domna Liwellan” stretched unsteady legs. Few people were about in the predawn gloom, yawning as they extinguished streetlamps, swept shop steps, or trod the last hour of the Watch.
The therapy for seasickness worked so well that “Sarra” felt able to have some breakfast. She entered a tavern the moment its doors opened for business. But after a single sip of mulled wine she clapped a hand to her mouth and raced for the toilet stall at the back of the inn. When she returned a few minutes later, the kindly innkeeper assisted her faltering steps to the skiff.
The sailors began rowing back to the ship minutes later. If the little craft rode lower in the water and the oars were stiffer than the weight of two men and a young woman could account for, there was nobody around to notice.
“Too easy,” Alin kept muttering, and Val kept elbowing him under the stifling tarp that concealed the two of them and the two Mages. Already soaked from the rain, crouching in four inches of water meant little added discomfort beyond the cramped position—and the sea-and-sheep stink of the tarp.
They boarded on the far side of the ship, invisible from Havenport. It was difficult getting up the rope ladder, but they managed in good order. Sarra had no idea how the Mages, Alin, and Val would be explained to any curious crew—the swelling of her nasal passages made it torture to think about anything—but she trusted to Captain Nalle’s discretion and imagination.
Agata Nalle, born a slave in Cantrashir, had been purchased and freed at the age of eighteen by Orlin Renne. The girl had gladly discarded her slave name and taken a form of Agatine’s in gratitude. Tarise’s family, the Fourth-Tier Nalles, had given her a home, a trade, and a Name. This last was in defiance of the Census Ministry, which still listed her as an unTiered former slave. Now thirty-one, Agata had been captain of the Slegin flagship, Rose Crown, for three years. She was as frequent a guest at her benefactors’ table as sailings permitted; Sarra knew and liked her very well.
That evening Agata Nalle joined Sarra in her cabin for dinner—a habit established during the voyage from Roseguard with Sarra’s double, when she came bearing potions to cure seasickness. This night she arrived with a gift from Elomar, a concoction supposed to make Sarra feel better. Though her fever was down, her head still felt stuffed and her nose dripped like a leaky faucet.
“Who was my double?” Sarra asked when she’d downed the foul-smelling brew.
“Mai Alvassy. Daughter of Domni Renne’s cousin Tama. She’s your age, blonde, small—there’s even a good resemblance in feature. Blue eyes, though.”
“I only got a glimpse of her in the tavern.” Sarra paused to blow her nose. Similarities between herself and Mai Alvassy didn’t surprise her in the least: their mothers were first cousins. Let’s see . . . Tama married Gerrin Desse, son of Gorynel’s sister and Grandmother Allynis’ brother Telo. Tama’s mother was Orlin’s father’s sister—and their cousin was Gerrin’s grandfather—sweet Saints, no wonder the patron of genealogists is Tamas the Mapmaker!
“We traded cloaks so fast I barely saw the color of her hair, let alone her face,” Sarra went on. “And then she disappeared. Do you know where?”
“Yes, but I can’t tell you.” Agata smiled. “Sorry.”
“That’s all right. I’m getting used to it. Can you at least tell me where she usually lives?”
“Domburronshir.”
Of course—Enis Dombur was Tama’s grandfather. His dower would’ve gone to her mother, and now to Mai. If I recall correctly, it’s isolated out in the Endless Mountains. Might make a good base for the Rising. . . .
“Sarra dear, will you please stop thinking so loud?”
She blinked and then grinned. “You can’t possibly hear the wheels spinning, they’re wrapped in wool! Aga, my head is about to explode!”
“Have some more tea.” She poured from a small pot into Sarra’s cup. “Brewed just for you by that long, thin Waster who calls himself a Healer Mage.” Agata’s wide, sea-weathered face crinkled with laughter. “I don’t know what Luse Garvedian sees in him. I like my men with something more on their shoulders besides a shirt.”
“You and Tarise!” Sarra laughed, not adding that she was beginning to know just what Lusira saw in him.
“I thought we’d have two more guests,” Captain Nalle went on, slicing cornbread. “But Val Maurgen says they took ship with a load of books.”
Sarra explained. “It was incredible—all of it untouched and forgotten.”
“I’m not surprised. What Mage would betray her Tradition by opening the lock for Anniyas?”
“Hmm. I hadn’t thought of that.” There was an appalling number of things she hadn’t thought about. “Well, the books will be safe, anyway, and in Mage hands. Alin says the Captal came on board quite openly when you docked.”
“Hard to
hide him, silly to try. Officially, he’s off to Ryka to beg better quarters. He whines rather eloquently, truly told.”
“As bad as all that?” Sarra breathed tangy steam. “I didn’t see him, you hustled me in here so fast. What’s he like?”
“As for shoulders, his are stooped—from more than Scholarly pursuits. The weight of being Captal . . . eh, he doesn’t carry it well. I met him last time Lady Agatine was in Havenport. He doesn’t improve on closer acquaintance.”
Sarra listened, and learned. Though the Rising seemed comprised largely of Sarra’s own kin, she had yet to discover its intricacies of personality and purpose. And this she must do in order to be an effective leader.
She’d spent the first twenty-two years of her life asking plain questions when she wanted to know something. Youth, and the innocence assumed to accompany it (plus a pair of very wide eyes), had worked well so far. But now she was a woman grown, and headed for Ryka Court, and it was time for subtlety. For saying what she meant without actually saying it; for telling the truth without telling all of it. (“My only Mageborn daughter,” said Lady Lilen’s voice in her mind.) She had more secrets than her own to keep now.
Because Agata Nalle was an old friend, Sarra could use the direct method a little while longer. She forgot about her cold—or perhaps Elomar’s potions were working—as she queried the captain on a hundred different matters and at least that many personal relationships.
By the time they reached Ryka Portside, Sarra felt reasonably confident. She had Elo’s assurance that she would not be known for anyone other than Sarra Liwellan; she had her speech to the Council prepared and rehearsed; she had solved at least a bit of the Ladder riddle; she had shaken off the worst of her cold. Most of all, there was work to be done, real work for the Rising at last.
She went out on deck that evening and finally met the fidgety, ineffectual Captal. He treated her to a ten-minute recital of his woes: poverty, distrust of Mageborns, the pitiable facilities in Shellinkroth. Though Sarra agreed with everything he said, she agreed with Agata Nalle, too: he did whine very well.
