A Flame in Hali

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

  At last, Dyannis escaped into her old room. It seemed to have shrunk in size since she was a child, for only a few strides took her from one corner to the other. White-flowered ivy had grown up around the window, filtering the light. She sat on the bed and patted the old quilt. The patches had been worn to flannel softness.

  Once I could not wait to get away from this place and go to Hali, and then I could not wait to leave there and return home. Now . . . now she was sure of nothing, except that she no longer belonged in either place.

  Sighing, she curled on her side. The bed creaked softly under her weight. Someone had folded a sachet of dried blossoms under the pillow. The scent stirred memories of a tall woman with long blonde hair, strong arms, and soft breasts, of being rocked gently, of the uncomplicated comfort of this very same bed. Something deep within her loosened. Sighing, she closed her eyes. All she needed was a little rest . . .

  Dyannis startled awake to the sound of commotion below. Only a dim light came through the ivied window and the wisp of breeze had turned cold. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes.

  I must be careful of this place or I will start reacting like the girl I was. Given the slightest encouragement, Rohanne would fuss over her like a mother barnfowl over her wayward chick.

  Someone had entered the room while she slept. Her baggage had been unpacked, her gowns laid neatly in the chest. Arrayed on the table, her hairbrushes sat in a neat row beside the small carved box that contained her hair clasps and a few pieces of jewelry. A basin, ewer of water, towel, and a small cake of soap had also been laid out.

  She straightened her rumpled riding skirt, smoothed her hair, checked the result in the tiny, badly scratched mirror on the table, and went downstairs.

  Harald had always been an active man, and the years had solidified him. The golden beard was now silvered bronze, the waist thickened but not slack, the skin of his face weathered. He shouted out commands and questions in a voice more suited to the open fields than the confines of a great house.

  They had never been playfellows, for he was the oldest of five siblings, and she the youngest. He was already a stripling youth when she was born, and she could not remember a time when he had been anything but her overbearing older brother. It had been a long time since any man besides her Keeper had the right to command her.

  “You are most welcome home, breda,” he said with genuine pleasure. “It has been too long since we last saw you.”

  “I thank you for your hospitality,” she replied. “I am truly sorry that my duties have prevented an earlier visit.”

  “Yes, but now we are together again as one family,” he said. “We will feast tonight in honor of your return. Rohanne!”

  The lady had already glided silently to his side. “What is it, my husband?”

  “Does my sister have everything she needs?”

  “I am quite comfortably settled into my old room,” Dyannis answered for herself.

  “That will not do—a child’s chamber for a grown lady. We must find something more suitable for her. And what about—” Harald gestured with his hands, “—gowns and all the things a woman needs.”

  Dyannis broke out laughing, quickly smothered at Rohanne’s shocked expression. “I am sorry if my traveling attire offends you, brother. At the Tower, we pay little attention to such things when we are working. As for my room, I would be offended if it were not my old familiar quarters. If I wanted a suite of fine chambers and servants everywhere, I would have gone to Thendara and visited Carolin!”

  Harald huffed and said that was all very well, but as Comynara and Ridenow, she deserved the best.

  My poor brother, he does not know what to make of me!

  Dyannis slipped her arm through her sister-in-law’s. “Then I must look especially elegant tonight, or my brother will think we are all savages at Hali. Will you help me to choose a gown for dinner?”

  Rohanne looked doubtful, but came along. She regained her composure as Dyannis brought out the single good gown she had brought, simply cut in exquisitely soft gray-green wool. The neckline was perhaps a little low for country manners; she had worn it, crossed by a tartan in the Ridenow colors of gold and green, to informal affairs at Carolin’s court. Rohanne made cooing sounds over the workmanship, the fineness of the weaving, the elegant geometric embroidery along the sleeves, the drape of the skirts.

  “I will send my own maid to arrange your hair,” Rohanne told Dyannis, brushing back a stray tendril from her forehead. “And do not say you can do it on your own, for I cannot believe that even sorcery can manage these curls. You have pretty hair, though it is hardly at its best after such a long journey. Once we have settled you with a maid of your own, she will put it to rights.”

  “I am not accustomed to needing help with either my clothing or my hair.” Dyannis did not want to offend Rohanne, just when the emotional atmosphere between them was softening. If she had a maidservant hovering about, she might never know a moment’s peace.

  Rohanne gave her a look. “Now that you are here, you must take your rightful place as a Ridenow Comynara, even as Harald said. I suppose it may be difficult to adjust to the responsibilities as well as the privileges, as you leave behind your life in the Tower.”

  “I—I am not sure we understand one another,” Dyannis said. Rohanne had a manner of speaking that, for all its superficial politeness, she found intrusive to the point of rudeness. “You speak as if I am to remain here permanently.”

  Rohanne arched her perfectly groomed eyebrows. “That is not for me to decide. You had best speak to Dom Harald of such matters, as he is the head of the family.”

  Dyannis frowned. If she did not know her own intentions, how could she talk to her brother? How could she begin to explain all the things she had experienced, from the day she first took her place in a working circle, to the dragon she had summoned at Hali Lake, to the rebuilding of Cedestri Tower? The surge of laran power, the bliss of submerging her consciousness in a circle, the shock of a dying mind in hers? How could anyone outside a Tower truly understand her dilemma?

  As for Harald, he might have only minimal laran and no formal training, but surely he would respect whatever decision she came to. He had seen for himself what laran could accomplish when Varzil had done the impossible, negotiating psychically with the catmen who held Harald captive.

  I will tell him when the time comes, Dyannis decided. Meanwhile, it was best not to say anything further.

  Shortly thereafter, Rohanne excused herself. Dyannis set about washing her face and hands. The soap was as fine as any she had ever seen, and left a faint clean scent on her skin. She wished she could so easily wash away her own indecision. The truth, she grudgingly admitted to herself, was that she had no idea how long she intended to remain. She had fled Hali, giving no thought to anything beyond her own desperate guilt. Was Sweetwater a haven or an exile? Only time would reveal the answer.

  She sat on the edge of the bed and freed her hair from the simple wooden clasp. Beginning at the ends, she attacked the tangles that had so offended Rohanne. This was the one part of traveling she did not enjoy. By the time camp was ready or dinner at the inn finished, the last thing she wanted was to spend an hour wrestling with her curls. She winced as the tines of the comb caught on a particularly tight knot.

  A quick, light knock sounded on the door. At her invitation, a woman about her own age, wearing a neat apron and cap over a gray dress, entered. She set down her covered basket just inside the door and curtsied.

  “Rella!” Dyannis exclaimed. “I had no idea Rohanne meant you!”

  “It’s been that long, Domna Dyannis,” Rella said, beaming. “I didn’t think you’d remember me after so long, and you off to such fine places as Hali and Thendara.” Her eyes shone and Dyannis caught her eager curiosity.

  “Hali is indeed fine, but I’ve seen little of Thendara, beyond the few times Carolin invited us to his court. Mostly, I work hard, and almost entirely at night. Matrix work may sound glamorous,
but much of it is tedious.”

  Except, she reflected, when people are rushing at you with axes and arrows, bent on killing you. Or you find yourself in the middle of a burning Tower.

  “You have met King Carolin! Is he handsome?”

  “Yes, very, but I do not know him well. He and Varzil—you remember my brother?—became close friends when they were at Arilinn together. Surely you have heard how they rebuilt Neskaya Tower, where Varzil is now Keeper?”

  “Oh, yes! The minstrels sing of it!”

  Dyannis reflected that ballad and reality were often not at all the same. “So you are to arrange my hair? Can you make any order from this?”

  Rella placed Dyannis on a stool in the middle of the room, remarking that she needed a proper dressing table, and began combing her hair with such a deft, light strokes that Dyannis scarcely felt a tug. She plaited the hair and coiled it low on the neck, then added a coronet of braided ribbons and tiny silver bells.

  “There now, you are as beautiful as Queen Maura!” Rella exclaimed, standing back to admire her handiwork.

  “Oh, hardly that.” Dyannis studied herself in the mirror. The scratched reflection seemed younger and more innocent. She had worn bells in her hair like this on that fateful Midwinter Festival Ball, when she had first met Eduin.

  “Don’t you like it?” Rella asked. “Perhaps a different color ribbon—”

  “Leave it.” Dyannis made a dismissive gesture, which seemed to only increase Rella’s agitation.

  “I am to dress you as well, and I have brought rouge and powder.”

  Sighing, Dyannis allowed Rella to help her into the green gown. She had chosen the style because there were no laces or buttons up the back that required another pair of hands, but she would not have the girl return to her mistress with her tasks undone. She drew the line at painting her face.

  “I am as the gods made me,” she told the maid, “and if that does not please my brother’s wife, she must take her complaints to them.”

  Harald beamed when he saw Dyannis. He wore his own finery, including the heavy silver chain that had been old Dom Felix’s prized possession. His children, two boys and a girl, came out to greet Dyannis.

  The oldest boy would reach puberty soon, and Dyannis sensed the stirrings of his laran. She must speak to Harald about the proper precautions, should the boy be prone to threshold sickness. Nausea and disorientation, sometimes with irritability and visual disturbances, could lead, if untreated, to life-threatening convulsions. Before she was born, her own older brother and sister, twins, had died during the psychic upheavals of adolescence. She had heard the story a hundred times, mostly as a warning when she had been naughty. Varzil, who had more laran than the entire family put together, had passed so smoothly through his own youth that for a time, their father had difficulty believing in the strength of his talent.

  Either the family dined far more elegantly than Dyannis remembered from her childhood, or else the cook had outdone herself in preparing a feast on such short notice. There was so much meat, and Harald pressed her so earnestly to take more, that she ate far more than she normally would. Hali’s cook tended to be sparing with meat. Some leronyn refused to eat any animal flesh whatsoever, and others restricted themselves to fish, claiming that meat dampened their powers. Dyannis had never noticed any difference.

  Not that I will have any need of laran out here, Dyannis thought as she accepted a third helping of beef swimming in its own rich juices.

  “So you have at last grown weary of life in the Tower?” Harald said. “I never expected you to endure this long, for you were ever a lively, strong-willed lass. To think of you, cloistered away like some cristoforo monk! But they did not send you packing, in the end.” His voice held a hint of a question.

  “No, coming home was my own choice. No matter what you have heard, we are hardly cloistered,” Dyannis replied, thinking of the freedom with which the Tower women took lovers, earned their own money, and made decisions about their lives, things that would have been scandalous anywhere else. “Ever since my first day as a novice at Hali, I have loved the work.”

  “Even being under the command of your Keeper?” Harald raised one eyebrow in disbelief.

  “Yes,” she replied, smiling. “Even that. If you had known Dougal or Raimon, you would not need to ask. Oh, I complained as much as any novice, but in the end, I gladly accepted the discipline, just as you submitted yourself to Father when he taught you to use a sword.” She paused, choosing her next words with care. “Even the most rewarding work becomes a burden when mind and spirit are stretched too far. After Isoldir, I needed a rest.”

  Dyannis went on to briefly relate the events at Cedestri, for her family had heard little of it.

  “I simply cannot not believe it, that you traveled through such dangerous country, and in the middle of a war!” Rohanne exclaimed. “What was Varzil thinking, to bring you into such peril? Were you not terrified?”

  Dyannis found herself smiling gently. “Sister-in-law, I was too busy to be frightened. We reached Cedestri Tower right after the fire-bombing, and there were many wounded to attend to. After the worst of them were mending, Varzil and I, along with those leronyn who could still work, set about repairing the relay screens and rebuilding the walls with our laran. Otherwise, it might have taken a generation or more.”

  Rohanne’s brows drew together. “It is not seemly to send gently-born women into such situations. It is the natural instinct of men to protect them instead of attending to their own duties.”

  “I am no hothouse flower, but a trained leronis,” Dyannis replied patiently. “I assure you, I worked as hard as any of the men.”

  “All that is behind you now,” Rohanne said. “We are glad to have you here amongst us, where you are safe.”

  “I am happy to hear that you have so far been spared the horrors of warfare,” Dyannis said. “May it be ever so. If Carolin and Varzil succeed in persuading others to forswear their most terrible laran weapons, your children may indeed see a new and glorious era of peace.”

  “What do you know of such things?” Harald meant the question as rhetorical, and looked startled when Dyannis answered him seriously.

  “Hali Tower now abides by the Compact, and has pledged to make no laran weapons and take no part in any fight,” she said. “But during the reign of Rakhal the Usurper, my fellow leronyn took to the battlefield. I helped to make clingfire, and was lucky enough to come through that ordeal unscarred.”

  Dyannis shuddered, for she had once had to cut away the burning flesh of a Hali worker when one of the glass vessels shattered during the distillation of the caustic stuff. She thought, too, of the devastation she had seen at Cedestri, the charred, blood-stained bodies, of the frenzied mob at the lake, of Rorie with an arrow in his chest . . .

  No, she would not speak of these memories.

  Rohanne had been staring at her, open-mouthed and, for once, speechless. Harald glanced at his wife, his concern for her clear in the set of his jaw, the furrow between his brows. “Women should not have to think of such things as laran weapons.”

  “No one should!” Seeing his sharp look, Dyannis wished she had held her tongue. He was her host as well as her eldest brother, and it was ungracious of her to provoke him with talk of politics. More gently, she added, “If it be the will of the gods, we will see that dream become reality. Surely that is something all people of good will desire.”

  Visibly relieved, he raised his goblet and called for another round of wine. “Let us drink to that day.”

  28

  On her journey from Hali, Dyannis had become accustomed to rising early. Despite the heavy dinner and wine of the night before, she came downstairs as the household servants began their day’s work. She found breakfast laid out. The dishes of boiled eggs, sausages, and freshly-baked bread were still warm.

  She helped herself to spiced apples, a slice of fragrant bread, and a smear of soft cheese. Just as she sat down at the table, one of the ma
ids, a fresh-faced girl she didn’t recognize, trotted in with a pitcher of jaco.

  “Is my brother about?”

  The girl dropped a curtsy. “Yes, damisela. He’s already left with the men and won’t be back till dinner.”

  “Yes, of course.” There was no point asking what he’d be doing, for the maid’s tone made it clear this was “men’s work,” and of no proper concern to ladies.

  “And Lady Rohanne?”

  “She takes her breakfast upstairs.” The girl dimpled with a trace of mischief. “Much later.”

  “Oh, I see.” Such languor was fashionable among ladies at Carolin’s court. Dyannis wondered if Rohanne expected her to do the same. She left the fruit, smeared the cheese on the bread, and went out to the yard.

  The stables were empty except for a sedate white mare, probably Rohanne’s mount. In the corral, a few rough-coated horses, working stock, watched Dyannis with curious eyes. She thought of taking a hawk from the mews, but there was no need for extra meat, and like all the empathic Ridenow, she disliked killing things, even small birds, without good cause.

  Having no other demands upon her time, Dyannis went in search of her niece and nephews. The two younger ones were occupied in the nursery, but she found Lerrys, the older boy, in one of her own favorite childhood haunts, the loft above the tack room. The familiar smell of oiled leather, hay, and horses brought a smile to her lips.

  “May I join you?” she called, one foot on the ladder.

  “You want to come up here? ” His voice cracked a little.

  Dyannis laughed and climbed up. Except for the makeshift table, the place looked exactly as it had when she used to hide here so many years ago. She picked up a wooden horse and examined its belly. The paint had been worn away, leaving the pale-gold wood, but she found her initials where she had scratched them with a knife stolen from the kitchen.

  “What do you call him?” she asked, setting the horse back beside the other wooden animals, deer and chervines, two other horses that had obviously been repainted, and a Dry Towns oudrakhi with only three legs.