Icestorm

by Theresa Dahlheim

  Tabitha hesitated. “I know.” This was exactly what had been worrying her, that they would all expect her to do things she could not do yet. “Lord Natayl says it is very tricky.” He had actually said that there was no trick to it, which made no sense. “He says I need to master other skills.” That part, at least, was true.

  “I see.” Beatris frowned. “Did you tell him how important it is?”

  “Of course I did. But he does not teach me anything he does not think I am ready to learn.”

  “I still don’t understand why the duke can’t just free Lady Marjorie,” Isabelle said. She seemed to know all about what had happened.

  “His Grace believes Lady Marjorie is guilty,” Beatris told her. “If Lady Tabitha can use her magic to make certain that Lady Marjorie is telling the truth, he will gladly set her free.”

  “But that’s just a formality,” Isabelle said. “Of course Lady Tabitha will say she’s innocent.” She turned to look at Tabitha. “Right? She’s your foster sister.”

  Tabitha returned Isabelle’s gaze coolly. “I will not lie to my father.” Ever again. “Would you lie to yours?”

  Isabelle hesitated. For some reason she looked at Pamela, who bit her lip and nodded, and then at Beatris, who said solemnly, “Tell her.”

  “Tell me what?”

  Isabelle met her eyes squarely. “I’m a bastard, my lady,” she said simply.

  Tabitha caught her breath, genuinely shocked. Why had no one told her this? She looked accusingly at Beatris and Pamela, but they were both still looking at Isabelle, their faces full of sympathy and encouragement.

  “You were probably told that my mother married a bard,” Isabelle said, “and that her father didn’t approve.”

  That was exactly what Nan had told Tabitha. It must have shown on her face, because Isabelle nodded. “My father visited sometimes when I was little. Then my grandfather died, and his brother never let my father visit again. So, I don’t know if I would lie to my father, because I wouldn’t recognize him if I saw him.” She glanced down to her fidgeting hands.

  Beatris started to say something, but then shut her mouth and just looked at Tabitha pleadingly. Pamela reached out to lay her hand on Isabelle’s arm. Tabitha stood there struggling with the idea that her own cousin was baseborn, and she could find no words at all.

  “Does it matter to you, my lady?” Isabelle asked, quite bravely. “If it does, then you don’t need to tell anyone we’re cousins. I can be just another maga at the Academy.”

  “It does not matter, Tabitha, does it?” Pamela asked, still holding Isabelle’s arm as if she was her foster sister. “It’s not her fault.”

  “They made her a servant,” Beatris added. “And her mother, your aunt, was treated no better.”

  Isabelle took a short, sharp breath, looking down at her hands again. “The men in my family disapprove of ‘whores and their whelps’,” she said, her bravery becoming boldness. “When I started doing magic, it got better in some ways. They stopped beating me. But in other ways it got worse.” She paused, then looked up to meet Tabitha’s eyes again. “If you don’t want me, my lady, I won’t tell anyone. But I want to go to the Academy. I don’t want to go back.”

  Pamela shook her head in alarm. “No, she would never send you back. Please, Tabitha, she can live with you, can’t she? It will be just like having one of us with you, like you wanted.”

  No, it will not. But she needed someone. Lise was going back to Betaul, and Tabitha did not want to live under Natayl’s roof without any allies at all.

  That decided her. “You are magi and my cousin,” she said finally. “Since you will be my companion, you ought to call me Tabitha.”

  All the girls visibly relaxed. Isabelle’s hands released each other, and she inclined her head in the magi way. “Thank you, my lady. Tabitha.”

  Pamela thanked her as well, and Beatris too. Tabitha nodded graciously and changed the subject. “You will be glad to know that Natayl’s clerks will no longer be opening your letters to me. Just be absolutely sure to send them with the formal pouch from Betaul, and they will come directly to me without being touched.”

  They talked about simple things like that for a while as the sailors ferried the trunks from the ships to the wagons. Then Tabitha’s father talked to the ships’ captains, and once the magi guardsmen had mounted their horses and the servants had joined the trunks in the wagons, all was ready. While the rest of her family all squeezed into the large carriage she had brought from the manor house, Tabitha led her father to the two-seat carriage that she had hired.

  It was stuffy in the small, closed box, but not unbearable. Tabitha’s father let out a long breath as he settled in the seat across from her and the driver closed the door. Sunlight filtered through the unshaded window and gleamed in his silver-gold hair. “Well,” he pronounced as they started to move. “Here we are.”

  “Yes,” she smiled.

  “How are you?”

  “Just fine, Father.”

  “No, truly.” His grey eyes regarded her as solemnly as ever, but his stern edge was gone. “Your letters are mostly cheerful, but I believe there is quite a bit you don’t say.”

  Tabitha dropped her gaze into her lap. He knew her too well.

  “How does he treat you?”

  She forced herself to smile, to make it a joke. “Like a dog treats a tree.” At the look on his face, she hurried to add, “But he treats everyone that way. He is an angry old man without any patience or kindness left.”

  Her father shook his head. “That is no excuse.”

  “There is nothing I can do.”

  “Not about him, no. But you are strong. You will take his place when the time comes, with or without his help.”

  He had never called her strong before. She struggled to answer, and finally said, “I will not fail you, Father.”

  A rare smile flashed across his weather-lined face and was gone. He looked at the carriage ceiling and gestured, indicating the driver, and Tabitha waved dismissively. The driver was not a magus, and the harbor and streets were too noisy for him to overhear them in any normal way. Still, her father lowered his voice as he said, “Have you heard anything from the shovel-men? They said they would contact you, but you have not mentioned them in your letters.”

  Tabitha shook her head. “No, but so many people write to me. The city has a post service that anyone can use, and all the sorcerers get hundreds of letters, even though there’s a stamping fee. Lord Natayl’s clerks read everything addressed to him or me. They are supposed to give me the important ones.”

  “I ask because there was another purge this summer. The king’s spies found a group of them who were starting to reorganize.”

  “As long as they stay away from Betaul,” Tabitha declared, “I don’t care if I ever hear from them again.”

  Her father did not answer for a moment. “I need to know,” he said finally. “They think I promised them something, but I don’t know what that is. They have not contacted me, and now you say that you don’t know if they have contacted you?”

  Immediately contrite, Tabitha bowed her head. “Forgive me, Father. You are right. I will tell the clerks to give me anything addressed to me, whether it looks important or not.”

  “Thank you,” he said gravely. “They are moving further west, so you can understand my concern.”

  “I understand, Father.” She did have something to tell him about the shovel-men. “I know that they are here, so I expect that they will try to contact me.”

  “Here on Maze Island?”

  “Yes. The Archpriest has posted denunciations on chapels all over the city, warning people about them, saying that they might try to cause trouble for faithful L’Abbanists.”

  Her father raised his eyebrows. “Interesting. He would not have done that without direction from all four Hierarchs. Are they here, by any chance?”

  “The Hierarchs? Ours is not, at least.”

  After another pause, he said,
“Those Telgard heretics, the ‘ringless ones’. Do you know if any of them are here?”

  She frowned. “I have never heard of them.”

  “What about rogue magi? Does the Circle expect any of those gangs to make themselves heard?”

  “Lord Natayl has not told me so.”

  “Do they worry you?”

  She shrugged. “I am not sure what they could actually do to me.” She did not add that the other sorcerers worried her much more.

  Her father frowned at her. “Your magi guardsmen warned us that keeping the peace might be difficult during this festival. I was hoping that you knew a little more about it.”

  I don’t know what I am not told! “I will see what I can learn, Father.” Her friends may have heard rumors. They really ought to tell her what they heard without her having to ask.

  “Please do,” he said, still frowning. “Historically, the presentation of a new Circle is dangerous. There has been an assassination at every one.”

  “I believe that is stretching the truth, Father.”

  He looked at her with that frown for a moment longer, but then his face relaxed and his tone lightened. “I must ask you. Was I right about magi?”

  She lifted her eyebrow curiously. “In what way?”

  “Are they all loyal to Lord Natayl?”

  “Everyone here is,” she said, rolling her eyes, “but that’s to be expected.”

  “Everyone? Are there any loyal to you?”

  “There will be. I am making friends among the Academy students.”

  “Good.” He crossed his arms over his chest, sitting back more comfortably. “I ask because I have been rethinking my stance on magi messengers. However, I would only want magi in Betaul that you trust.”

  This was very good to hear. Tabitha would master telepathy someday, because she had to, and when she did, having a maga in Betaul to relay news would be much faster than any packet ship. “It might be some months yet,” she said, “but I am certain I will be able to send someone suitable.”

  “Good.”

  A comfortable silence followed, which Tabitha did not want to break, but this was something else that she had to do. She did not know how often they would have the opportunity for private conversation, so she needed to give her father the charm before they reached the townhouse. “I have a gift for you,” she said, and pulled the small woolen pouch from the pocket of her cloak and extended it to him.

  He took it curiously, but then his expression changed and he shifted a little. “Is this …”

  “Yes.”

  “Ah.” Her father did not reach or peer into the pouch, but he looked at it as he hefted it carefully in his hand.

  Getting the charm had been something of a problem. Men’s charms were hawked by magi merchants all over the city, of course, but she had wanted one made from thaumat’argent, not gold or silver or copper, and of course thaumat’argent charms were the most expensive. She did not have access to any actual money, because if she wanted a new dress or just a sweet roll, she told the merchant to send the bill to the Hall, and Natayl’s clerks handled it. But that would not work for this, and neither would asking any of her new friends for help. She had finally disguised herself in a dowdy outfit and bargained for the charm in trade for a gold and amber necklace, one of the dozens of congratulatory gifts she had received over the summer from Thendalia’s nobility. Nan certainly would not have approved of her using a gift in such a way, but she had not had many options.

  “It’s a new casting,” she told him. “Metal casting, that is. I mean, for this charm, the thaumat’argent was newly reforged, and then the spell was cast on it. It’s better than a charm that has had spells cast on it over and over again.”

  “I see.” He hesitated, then said, “I have tried one of these before.”

  This was so awkward. “Charms from Maze Island are better.”

  “Yes, that makes sense.”

  “There is a paper inside with directions.” The charm had made her skin itch when she had held it, but that was nothing compared to how uncomfortable she felt talking about it. “Also, to help, you should eat one raw egg and one raw oyster each day.”

  “I understand.”

  “Does Bertram … know?” She assumed her father’s valet knew all his secrets, but it would be his job to get the eggs and the oysters, so she had to be sure.

  “Yes.”

  “All right.” It was done. Tabitha turned her head to make a show of looking out the window. “We are almost there,” she announced, even though they had barely left the harbor behind. She could see the other carriage following them as they turned a corner. “The townhouse is not especially large, but it has every luxury. I am sure that you, and everyone in our family, will be very comfortable.”

  The climb to the Hippodrome’s middle tier was somewhat steeper than Tabitha had thought, and Count Sebastene was puffing as he and Beatris reached the top of the stairs. An awning had already been set over two rows of seats in the nearly-empty stadium, and the servants were already setting out chilled wine and fruit as Count Sebastene sat gratefully down. Beatris gave him an odd look, and it took Tabitha a moment to realize that she was worried about him. She cared about him. It struck Tabitha as strange that any girl, even one as plain as Beatris, could look at this hairless, portly creature and feel anything more than sisterly tolerance. She thought about Alain, and about Nicolas, and she idly wondered if she would ever again meet a man as handsome as they had been.

  In the first few days that her family had been here, Tabitha had taken them to see the Hall, the flags, the basilica, the orchards, the museums, the theaters, the observatory, the Academy buildings, the Colosseum, and many other famous places. Touring the Avenue of Obelisks amazed everyone even more than she expected, since all the obelisks in Thendalia had been destroyed centuries before. It amused her to see their amazement at all the magic, small and large, that made life on Maze Island so wondrous, from the spinning fans to the continuous clocks to the icehouses. She had once thought that nothing could surprise her father, but the look on his face when he had seen the Porcelain Tower had been priceless.

  They had not done any more sightseeing over the past few days, though, because the city was now crowded enough to be dangerous for ordinary people. Men’s tempers boiled over into violence when traffic through the streets slowed to a shuffle. The thieving could barely be contained, let alone stopped, even though Sorcerer Pascin had recruited dozens of additional guardsmen to the city watch. No fewer than three inns had collapsed because their proprietors had allowed too many people to sleep on the roofs. The hundreds of tents outside the city looked like an invading army, and Tabitha was sure that Sorcerer Lasfe and Sorceress Serafina deeply regretted allowing the temporary encampment. The noise was the worst part, though, reaching even the townhouse’s normally sedate street, interrupting everyone’s sleep.

  Today, though, she had led her family across the city to the Hippodrome with only one somewhat serious incident. Their Betaul and magi guardsmen had driven off two gangs of heretics, Adelard and Telgard, shouting at each other in front of a cloister gate. They had all fled, and the timid pack of priests at the gate had been grateful for the intervention, but Tabitha had fleetingly wished that the guardsmen could have captured one or two of the ruffians so that her father could question them. But her father had only shrugged. None of the heretics had been Thendals, and they probably could not have given him the answers he wanted.

  Which means it’s still up to me.

  Tabitha put it out of her mind as she took a glass of iced tea from Lise. Right now, right here, it was extremely pleasant to be very nearly alone in this enormous space, with the empty stone tiers gleaming almost white under the bright sun. They were here for the rehearsal of Tabitha’s presentation, which, with the presentations of all the other sorcerers, would be the final act and crowning jewel of the upcoming festival week. Tabitha was not certain when Natayl intended to start the rehearsal, or how long it would
take, so she was going to make sure she had something to eat and drink before the summons came.

  As she sat down next to Pamela, her friend turned to her and said, “Am I really your ward?”

  “My ward?”

  “Isabelle says I am, here, since I am not of age yet.”

  Isabelle, sitting on Pamela’s other side, gave Tabitha a formal magi nod. She, Pamela, and Beatris now had flowing linen dresses that Mistress Agnes had made for them in the style that Tabitha wore, and Isabelle seemed the most comfortable in them. “That’s what I heard,” she said. “All children in the city are considered wards of the Circle.”

  “Yes, that’s true.” Tabitha had not really realized that Pamela was included in that category, but she was underage.

  Beatris leaned forward from the row above them. She wore a light scarf over her dress to cover her collarbone, but she had taken very quickly to the closed-toe Maze Island sandals. “What’s the reasoning for it, exactly?”

  Tabitha had asked the same thing of her magi friends. “The Circle feels a very serious responsibility toward children. If all the children are their wards, then they can do what is best for them, no matter what the parents say. If a child’s parents are unfit, the sorcerers will take the child from them.”

  Now Count Sebastene, sitting beside Beatris, also leaned forward. The iced tea and light meal seemed to have restored him. “Is that why we have seen so few children? Most cities are teeming with them, but not here.”

  “Yes,” Tabitha nodded. “Most parents don’t want to raise their children here, knowing that the Circle is watching over them.”

  “Then you must have many people coming here as adults, to keep the population constant.”

  “Yes,” Tabitha nodded again, although she had never thought about that before.

  “Do people abandon children here?” Isabelle asked. “Since they know they’ll be cared for?”

  “Some do,” Tabitha said regretfully. “Sorcerer Pascin has a method of keeping an eye on the children who visit, to make sure that they leave when their parents or guardians do, but yes, some are left behind.”