Icestorm

by Theresa Dahlheim

  “Sorcerer Pascin is keeping an eye on me?” Pamela asked, wrinkling her nose at the thought. Then she frowned outright as she looked past Tabitha’s shoulder. “Look, the Pravelles are here.”

  Tabitha turned to see servants wearing Pravelle red hurrying into the empty section of seats across the aisle from them, carrying poles and bundles of cloth. As they began to construct an awning, King Motthias emerged onto the lower concourse with his guardsmen.

  She should have known that Natayl would invite the king to watch the Thendal rehearsal. But did they have to sit right here, when the entire Hippodrome was available? She had had to endure the king’s company on two occasions already, and during both, he had completely ignored her obvious dislike and had continued to pretend to be awed by her presence. Natayl, on the other hand, had kept shooting telepathic rebukes at her every time she was not “gracious” enough to the king and all his cousins. When she had tried to refuse to sing for the company at the formal supper at the manor house, the old man’s sudden rage had been like a rockslide through her head.

  At least she did not have to sing during this rehearsal. She was not supposed to do anything except, in Natayl’s words, “look pretty”. But she still wished the king would not be watching.

  She also did not want him to find any reason to come over here. She set down her iced tea and looked at Isabelle. “We should go down to the tunnel now.” They both put on their hats against the sun’s glare as they left the shade of the awning, and Tabitha led Isabelle down a stone staircase that was not being climbed by the Pravelles. Tabitha was not going to be forced into talking to any of them today.

  As they descended from the middle concourse to the lower, the pale gold sands of the Hippodrome gleamed and shimmered in the sun to their left, while on their right the black mouth of the tunnel yawed wide. At the lower concourse, in the section just beside to the tunnel, two magi girls in pale linen dresses were sitting in the front row. Tabitha frowned. Had they been there when she had arrived? This rehearsal was not open to just anyone who wanted to watch, not even magi, and these girls were not even Thendals. She put on a smile and prepared to tell them that they had to leave, but then she realized that the smaller of the two girls was the Khenroxan sorceress, Koren fa Lairconaig.

  Tabitha had spoken to Koren before. By now she had spoken to all the sorcerers, young and old, and had very mixed opinions of them. Ferogin was obnoxious, and she gave him only the barest pleasantries during official events. For obvious reasons, she tried not to speak any more than necessary to Graegor, which was not very difficult, since he was too polite to interrupt anyone else talking to her. She did her very best to avoid Borjhul altogether. But she had tried to have real conversations with both Ilene and Koren, since they were women, and, to her lasting envy, also apprenticed to women.

  The conversations had been more difficult than she had anticipated, though. Unlike Tabitha, they had apparently not worked hard enough to master fluency in Mazespaak. Added to that, their accents, though very different, were both so heavy that their words were distorted almost beyond understanding. Ilene, at least, seemed to want to try to talk to Tabitha, and her enthusiastic chatter reminded Tabitha of Pamela. But Koren spoke so seldom that Tabitha had decided that she must have very little to say. She certainly looked and acted like a servant’s child, in that she was small, plain, and dull.

  As Tabitha and Isabelle approached, Koren and the magi girl stood to greet them, and the Khenroxan sorceress’s smile was obviously forced. When she said, “Good afternoon, my lady,” her words were slow, and her lilting accent nearly overwhelmed them.

  “Good afternoon, my lady,” Tabitha said in her turn, inclining her head, though she still felt it to be an inadequate gesture of respect for another sorceress. She introduced Isabelle, and Koren introduced the maga behind her as Rose. Tabitha had seen Rose at the Hall before, and she thought she might be a student at the Academy. “Such a lovely day,” she continued the pleasantries, blinking as she glanced up at the blue sky.

  “Yes,” Koren agreed. She was not wearing a hat, even though her skin was fish-white and Tabitha knew from experience that sorceresses could be sunburned. “Not hot like yesterday.”

  Yesterday had not been hot. But then, Tabitha had heard that Koren had grown up on a remote island at the edge of the ice sheets. “Not as hot,” she conceded.

  “Your rehearsal is soon?” Koren asked.

  “Yes. Is your rehearsal this afternoon as well?”

  “This morning,” Koren said. She seemed about to add something else, but then she looked back at Rose.

  Rose inclined her head to Tabitha again. “We stayed to watch the Telgard rehearsal just after ours, my lady. They were practicing the acrobatics.”

  Tabitha nodded, wondering why Rose was speaking for Koren. “I wish we could have seen it,” Tabitha said politely. “Unfortunately, we arrived after they were already finished.”

  “Lord Graegor was riding a new horse,” Rose said, in a way of making conversation.

  Tabitha did not care, but she asked, “Was he taking part in the acrobatics?”

  Rose nodded. “He made some breathtaking leaps.”

  Tabitha arched her eyebrow, about to ask if Rose was more impressed with the horse or the sorcerer, but then she saw Koren nodding in agreement. She wore a thoughtful expression that Tabitha did not like. “I wish we could have seen it,” Tabitha repeated. “Forgive us, but we must join the others in the tunnel. Lord Natayl will be here soon.”

  After all the proper courtesies, Isabelle followed Tabitha to the short staircase leading down to the sands near the tunnel. “Were they talking about Lord Graegor?” Isabelle asked.

  So she had recognized his name. “The Telgard sorcerer, yes. The Telgards just finished their rehearsal.”

  “Have you met him?”

  “Of course.” Tabitha’s tone was casually dismissive. Isabelle sounded rather too interested in this topic.

  “What’s he like?”

  “We have never really spoken.” He is just there, in my head, all the time.

  “Is he handsome?”

  “No, but Telgards simply are not as handsome as Thendals.”

  “You don’t think so?” Isabelle now sounded as if she had just been given some sort of permission. Tabitha grit her teeth. What did she care if Isabelle was interested in him?

  The entrance to the tunnel was enormous, its mouth at least twenty paces across, and it was lit only by the sunlight coming in. It was so dim that Tabitha could not immediately find her Academy friends among the three dozen magi women. Some of them were gathered near a large pen, and when Tabitha peered closer, she could see it was filled with white swans. More of the women milled among a herd of saddled mules and their grooms. Then Clementa waved her arm, and Tabitha saw her and Attarine standing near the tunnel’s far wall, away from all the animals. Tabitha held her breath against the smell as she and Isabelle made their way there.

  Although there had been several rehearsals over the past few weeks, this was the first that Tabitha had been required to attend. She did not know what would happen, since Natayl had been characteristically unhelpful when she had asked, but she did know that mules, horses, swans, and mammoths were all involved. She also knew that only the highest-ranking noble magi women healers in Thendalia had been invited to participate. Velinda was not among them, as she was not a healer and was only the niece of a baron. Clementa was only the granddaughter of a baron, but she was a healer and was also the top Thendal maga student at the Academy. She and the top Thendal magus, a bookish boy who had only met Tabitha’s eyes for the briefest moment when they had been introduced, had won the honor of being included. It was an honor that Tabitha had invented, and fortunately Natayl had not argued.

  Attarine was definitely included since she was a Jasinthe, one of nine magi who had suspended both their feud with Natayl and their suspicion of foreigners to come to Maze Island in honor of Tabitha. Tabitha had met Attarine’s female relatives at
a ladies’ party last night on one of the riverboats, where they had all shamelessly fawned over her as if she was a Jasinthe sorceress. It was a dramatic change from the queen’s behavior in Tiaulon, and Tabitha would have enjoyed it more if the Jasinthe women had not constantly tried to separate her from Beatris, Pamela, and especially Isabelle.

  She knew they were testing the strength of her old loyalties, but she was already feeling stretched in different directions. The other Academy girls felt possessive of Tabitha as their sorceress, while Beatris and Pamela were her foster sisters, and Isabelle had the strongest claim to her as true blood kin. Last night’s party had demonstrated that even though everyone was willing to be polite, even kind, to one another for Tabitha’s sake, they did not easily mix. It did not matter so much for Beatris and Pamela, but Isabelle would be staying here. After watching her talk with some of them, particularly Attarine, Tabitha was not sure what her Academy friends thought of Isabelle. She was still not sure what she thought of her long-lost cousin.

  Magi men with tall spears were moving past them toward the stadium floor, and Tabitha was greeting Clementa and Attarine, when Natayl’s voice suddenly scratched across her mind. “Where are you?”

  She focused carefully to answer him in precise words. “In the tunnel.”

  “Good. The boy is bringing your horse.”

  Boy? Horse? “My lord, are you here?”

  “In the viewing box, waiting for the festival committee to return.”

  Of course he would not be in the tunnel with all the lesser folk. He must have arrived with the king and his toadies. “I brought Isabelle.” Brash or not, Isabelle was her cousin and deserved to participate. Tabitha hoped Natayl would not argue.

  “Is she a healer?”

  “Yes.” She had made sure of that. But it suddenly occurred to her that she had not yet told Natayl that Isabelle would be staying on Maze Island after the rest of her family departed.

  Maybe she would just not tell him and see if he even noticed. He had rarely paid any attention to Lise at all except to tell her to go back upstairs.

  “Fine,” he sent. “She can replace one of the others. Is your horse there yet?” He sensed her confusion, and his mind-voice grew irritated. “Look around. There should be a boy leading a chestnut horse toward you.”

  Tabitha quickly spotted the young blonde groom in grey livery and the tall horse with him. The boy spotted her at the same time and hurried his step, one hand holding the bridle and the other holding the reins. “My lady,” he said with a bow when he reached them, and Tabitha took a step back from the big animal.

  She did not like horses. She never had, not even before she had fallen from one as a child. They were much bigger and much smellier than dogs, and they were always shuffling their feet and shaking their heads. “I want to ride in a carriage,” she sent to Natayl.

  Somehow Natayl gave a mental impression of rolling his eyes. “No.”

  She had recently seen a very small but elegant carriage that had no top and took only one horse to pull. But as she started to focus the words to send them, Natayl interrupted. “Stop. No arguing. You will ride the horse.”

  “My lord, I don’t know how to ride.”

  “Then learn fast, you useless girl, or I’ll put you on the mammoth instead.” His presence left her mind.

  “My lady?” the young groom asked worriedly. “Is this not the right horse?”

  Tabitha looked at Clementa and Attarine, icy prickles stinging the back of her neck. “He wants me to ride.”

  Attarine glanced at the groom in confusion, but Clementa said, “Lord Natayl?”

  “Yes. I—” She stopped, distracted by Isabelle, who had joined the groom at the horse’s head and was patting its long nose. “Isabelle? Can you talk to it?” When Isabelle frowned at her, she repeated the question in Thendalian. “Can you talk to the horse?”

  “Talk?”

  “You told me that you helped your stablemaster with sick horses.”

  “I … it isn’t ‘talking’. I can soothe them. Sometimes if they’re hurting, I can tell where.”

  “You need to keep the horse calm and teach me how to ride.”

  Isabelle cocked her head, and her nose cast a long shadow in the dim light. “I’m sorry, my lady. Tabitha. But I never got to learn to ride.”

  She sounded like she had wanted to. “Why not?”

  Isabelle looked at her strangely, and then said, “It’s not a privilege of bastards.”

  Tabitha hated it when her cousin called herself that. She looked at Attarine, but Attarine was staring at Isabelle in shock, so she looked at Clementa. “Can you do it?”

  Clementa remained unruffled. “I don’t have the gift of animal sympathy, but I have ridden before. I am sure you just need to remember how. Has it been a long time?”

  “No, I never learned.”

  “Never?”

  Did she have to say it over and over? “Never.”

  Now Clementa winced a little. “I … all right. It’s easier to ride astride. Do you think … no. I suppose not.” She looked at the groom and spoke in Mazespaak. “I will help the Lady Sorceress. You make sure the horse stays still.”

  The boy nodded, ducking his head to avoid Tabitha’s gaze. He kept stroking the horse’s nose, and Isabelle resumed patting the horse as well.

  “All right,” Clementa said again, this time in a take-charge tone. “We need a mounting block. Tabitha, give me your hand. Forgive me, but this will not be easy.”

  She was right. After a long, frustrating, and undignified series of mishaps, Tabitha finally got herself positioned properly with Clementa’s and Attarine’s help. But she did not feel secure at all. She had never sat in a chair like this, let alone on something so big and twitchy. Her skirt draped modestly over her legs, but it still felt unladylike to be squeezing her knees on either side of the split pommel on the sidesaddle. Every time the horse shuffled its feet, she was certain she would fall. When the groom passed the reins over the horse’s head and handed them to her, she held them limply and looked down at Clementa. “All I am supposed to do is walk, is that right?”

  “Yes,” Clementa said firmly. “A slow walk out to the middle of the floor. When your part is done, another slow walk over to the viewing box. Just four cues—walk, halt, left, and right.” She smiled encouragingly. “You can do this.”

  “I know I can. I don’t want to.”

  “My lady, you’re making him nervous,” the groom said anxiously.

  “He is making me nervous!” Tabitha snapped. Suddenly she smelled manure, fresh and wet, and she covered her nose with her hand.

  “My lady, will Lord Natayl allow me to lead you instead?” the groom suggested, taking the bridle again. “I will gladly do it. My lady would not need to do anything.”

  Of course Natayl would not allow it. He wanted to make everything as difficult as possible for her. “Isabelle?”

  “Yes?”

  “Can you—” She stopped, and started again in Thendalian. “Can you control it at all? At least tell it when to start and stop and turn?”

  Isabelle gave her a look that was half confusion and half insolence. “But I told you—”

  “I don’t have time to learn secret horse commands. If I am not to look ridiculous out there, you will need to control the horse for me. I am sure magi riders do it all the time.”

  “Even if they do, I never have.”

  Stop arguing with me! “If you can’t do it, maybe another maga can. Maga Desimall is an animal healer, I believe?”

  Maga Desimall, a Jasinthe maga whom Tabitha had met at the ladies’ party, was indeed an animal healer. But she was not very helpful. “I am sorry, Lady Sorceress,” the plump, motherly woman said briskly. “Mental commands with animals are tricky because animals don’t speak as we do. They don’t think as we do. They do much better with clear commands that they can hear, see, or feel.”

  Then why can I make dogs stop barking? “Can I speak to it aloud, then?” She
did not know why the thought of kicking the horse in the ribs or yanking on the bridle was so distasteful to her. “Will it understand?”

  “If you speak the words to which it has been trained, my lady, yes indeed.”

  “Good.” She hated being up here. She looked at the groom. “Tell me what to say.”

  She found out that she did not just need to know the words for walk, halt, left, and right. She needed to know exactly how to speak them. Everyone gave her different advice about how to say the words, and how to keep her balance, and how to hold the reins, and it did not help. Attarine was anxious and kept clasping her hands together at her chin, clearly worried for Tabitha, while the groom bit his lip as he watched her ride, clearly just as worried for the horse. Neither Isabelle nor Clementa seemed worried at all, but Clementa’s tranquility was studied, while Isabelle’s seemed careless. The other magi women remained near the mules and the swans and did Tabitha the courtesy of not staring at her. But it was still humiliating.

  Tabitha found herself growing angry at her father for not insisting that she learn to ride years ago. As soon as she realized where her thoughts had gone, she focused instead on Natayl, because he was the only reason she had to ride now.

  But she did it. When she had managed to turn the horse in a smooth circle for the third or fourth time, Isabelle spoke up. “You can do it.” She said it as if she expected Tabitha to contradict her.

  “Do forgive me for taking up so much time,” Tabitha begged Isabelle sarcastically.

  Clementa was smiling. “All right. I will tell them that you are ready.”

  Tabitha told the horse to stop, and it did, and the young groom hurried to it and stroked its nose and gave it something to eat. Isabelle joined him in fussing over the animal until Tabitha, very politely, asked if there was anything for her to eat or drink. She was sure that the water Isabelle brought her in a tin cup had come from the mules’ trough, but she was too nervous about slipping off the saddle to complain.