Icestorm

by Theresa Dahlheim

  She wondered what Ferogin thought of all this. Comments he had made in the labyrinth suggested that he had little regard for priests and even less for nobles. She could not imagine that he had any more use for heretics, but as far as she knew, he and Pascin were doing nothing about them. The shovel-men had actually taken over several regions in Adelard, even with Adelard’s king and Theocracy ruthlessly trying to suppress them. Tabitha had no idea how, or even if, Ferogin’s family had been affected by all the fighting.

  “Tell me again,” she finally sent, “what happened with your family.” She knew that Clementa’s grandparents, whose only wealth was their baronial lands in the Avir Marches, had been forced to leave when followers of the shovel-men had burned their harvest.

  “The heretics set fires in the fields,” Clementa sent, without much emotion. “My father and uncle sent the rest of the household away before anyone got hurt. They made sure the buildings were not burned down, but they did not have enough men with them to save the crop or catch any of the shovel-men.” She paused, in the way that experienced telepaths did when organizing what they wanted to say. “My father told me that he and my uncle did try to talk to them once, over a year ago. It was when they were mostly preaching instead of vandalizing. I’m sure you know that it all started with one man, an Adelard priest. Wendlin. The men my father and uncle talked to said that they had been Wendlin’s followers for years. My father said that my uncle kept trying to get them to say exactly what it was they wanted, but they would never say anything useful. ‘Give up your riches and follow Wendlin,’ they said, but follow him where? To do what? ‘Reform the Theocracy,’ but into what? They don’t like the Theocracy and they don’t like the nobility, but my father said that they had no ideas about how they would run things.”

  “I heard that they want a … ‘republic’.” She used the Aedseli word for the Aedseli concept.

  “Yes, I heard that too, but what they are doing is closer to anarchy. My father thinks they have split into factions, and each wants something different.”

  That was alarming. The heretics’ letters lying on the table in front of her both mentioned “leaders”. What if these “leaders” did not include Elder Wendlin himself, since he was said to have never left his home in eastern Adelard? Without him, what if these other leaders could not control all the factions? Keeping only some of them out of Betaul was not enough.

  Her own father might know more than Clementa’s father. She would re-read his letters. In fact, she would have Clementa read and memorize them. She remembered one of them from last month saying that there were shovel-men preaching less than sixty miles from the Betaul Marches, the furthest west they had ever managed to get.

  Except for the western continent itself. Graegor had said that the shovel-men’s preaching was actually tolerated in some regions of Telgardia. What if they gained more followers? Would Betaul eventually be threatened from both sides, east and west, land and sea? Why was Graegor so worried about the ringless ones when his own people were actually encouraging the shovel-men?

  Clementa gently pushed the heretics’ two letters back toward Tabitha and picked up her quill. Tabitha read each one again, and again, while Clementa continued her work in listing the contents of the Jasinde pouch.

  The heretics wanted to meet with her. Her father wanted her to meet with them.

  It was just a meeting. Since leaving Betaul last year, she had met formally with hundreds of people in Tiaulon and here on Maze Island. She had paid polite attention while lords and ladies, priests and merchants, servants and performers had presented their points of view. So many people sought her approval. It did no harm to listen to them.

  She did not need to agree to anything. It did no harm to listen. If these “leaders” were more reasonable than their followers, and if they answered her questions, it might do a world of good to listen to them.

  She read the letters again. Both were extremely polite and made no demands. The shovel-men respected her. They were probably afraid of her. They probably thought she could help them get whatever it was that they wanted, but they did not assume that she would help them.

  It did no harm to listen.

  Her father was counting on her.

  “I think,” she sent, “that I should answer their messages.”

  Clementa glanced up briefly between names on her list and nodded. Tabitha let her finish her inventory of the pouch, and then she held out the heretics’ two letters. “Please keep these for me.”

  Clementa gave her a formal nod to acknowledge the responsibility, took the letters, and retrieved her satchel from under the table to put them inside. “They will be safe.”

  “Thank you.” Now there was no chance at all that Natayl would find them.

  As the two of them gathered up the Jasinde letters to put back into the pouch, Clementa asked, “The letter mentioned the new ‘limitations’ here. Do you think they’re more worried about the sponsor requirement, or that there is no more leeway for exile?”

  “Probably both.” The specific reason did not seem important to Tabitha. A lot of people did not like the new rules, but instead of blaming the rogue magi as they should, they were childishly blaming the Circle. A month ago, in an act of petty protest, someone had deliberately broken the supporting beam for the eclipsing engine that Sorcerer Pascin was building. Tabitha had no sympathy for anyone who would rather commit vandalism than obey slightly stricter laws.

  “I was just thinking that if we knew which ‘limitation’ their leaders most want to avoid, we could make more educated guesses about the shovel-men who are here already.”

  “So you think they are still here?” Several had been imprisoned with other troublemakers during the Equinox celebrations, and still more had been uncovered during the lockdown after Solstice. And the Archpriest had made certain that they had all been guilty of crimes severe enough to warrant exile.

  “Undoubtedly,” Clementa sent. “The letter stated that there is someone here who can deliver a message to them.”

  Embarrassed that she had missed that, Tabitha sent, “That ‘someone’ might just be the messenger service, though.” She did not think so, though.

  Clementa paused. “Yes, it could be a servant or child, told to watch for the shovel and report it to the messenger service. The service could be holding letters that they only send when this ‘someone’ sees the shovel.”

  This was getting complicated. “Yes.”

  “So that might be a dead end. We should look at the other end of the connection too. The heretics want you to go to the outer islands to meet with them. That means they must have a hideout somewhere in the archipelago.”

  Tabitha nodded. “Somewhere” likely meant to the north, toward Thendalia. “I visited several of those islands on my voyage here. But I only saw farms and villages, and everyone seemed to know one another. A stranger would be noticed.” Certainly a heretic would.

  “Yes, but those were likely to be the Circle’s holdings. Did you visit any islands held by Thendal families?”

  “Natayl was in charge, no matter where we went. Everyone kept giving him reports. So we probably only visited Circle fiefs.”

  “Some of the elite houses do have offshore plantations. If you can learn where the shovel-men want to meet, that will tell you who in Tiaulon might be in contact with them.”

  Tabitha really did not like the idea of meeting in the heretics’ territory. It felt like walking into their equivalent of a fox-den, and she had learned that lesson. But Clementa continued, “However, I think you should make them come to you, since they are the supplicants. You should ask them to suggest a place, but then reject it and propose somewhere else.”

  “Where?”

  Clementa smiled. “When exactly is your friend Pamela’s wedding?”

  “The fourth Godsday in Ebrul.” Tabitha wondered what that had to do with this, but then she suddenly understood. Since Pamela so badly wanted Marjorie to attend, Daniel had agreed to have the wedding in
Cuan Searla. “I should meet the heretics in the Searla Isles?”

  “Placing it within a trip you have already planned will disguise it.”

  Clementa was right. Natayl had already given his grudging permission for Tabitha to go to the wedding. “Yes. That is an excellent idea.” She smiled. “Will you come with me?”

  “To Cuan Searla?”

  “Yes. Isabelle is already coming, but I want you to come too.”

  “If you wish it, then of course I will.” A wonderful thing about Clementa was that she never argued. “Will you speak to the headmistress about my absence, to maintain my enrollment?”

  “Of course.” This was perfect. She would have a suitable attendant in Isabelle and a suitable advisor in Clementa to make the best impression at the meeting. “I will propose to the heretics that we meet at the end of Ebrul, and I will ask them to suggest a place in the outer islands. But while I wait for their answer, I will write my father and ask him where in the Searla Isles we should go.”

  “That sounds like a good plan.”

  Tabitha hesitated. “Do you think that in my message I should ask them what they think my father promised them? Or should that wait for the actual meeting?”

  “If you word it very carefully, I think you can ask. They may not answer the question, but the more information you can worm out of them ahead of time, the better.”

  “I will need your help with the wording, then.”

  “Of course I will lend all the help I can.”

  Something else occurred to Tabitha. “I think my father will want to attend the meeting with us.” Her tone asked for Clementa’s opinion of that.

  “It could make things more difficult,” Clementa hedged. “You said you are not representing the Jasinthe regency. I think you should at least pretend that you are not representing the Betauls, either. Only yourself, as the sorceress.”

  “But if I ask them about my father’s promises, then I can’t really pretend to not be serving his interests.”

  “You can, if he is not there.”

  It would not be easy to convince her father of this. “I do want him to know everything about the meeting, though.”

  “Yes, of course. We will need his wisdom, both before and after.”

  Tabitha nodded. It was a relief that she could, at long last, tell her father that she was in contact with the shovel-men.

  That relief, though, was still colored by anxiety about the other request he had made of her, the more important one. The charm she had given him at the Equinox had not worked, and she did not know what to do.

  Could Tabitha confide in Clementa? She was a healer. She might know something about it.

  No. It was one thing for someone to guess at her father’s condition, as Lady Josselin had. It was another thing entirely for someone to know. Her father had told her, but that did not give her permission to tell anyone else.

  She needed to focus on the heretics right now. “Which chapel is the one where we need to leave the toy shovel?”

  “Saint Bellamie. It’s near the Avenue of Obelisks.”

  “I’ll send Isabelle there later today.”

  “I could do it,” Clementa offered.

  “No, let Isabelle take care of it.” A toy shovel did not cost much, but Clementa should not pay for it herself. Isabelle knew where the servants stashed money for small household expenses. She knew many useful things like that.

  And something about Isabelle had changed that night that Natayl had driven Tabitha to the floor with that terrible pain magic. Before, her cousin had always seemed a little wary, a little defensive, a little insolent, even after she had given Tabitha her pledge. That night, after witnessing Natayl’s brutality with unconcealed horror, Isabelle had helped Tabitha upstairs and tended to her as gently as old Nan ever had. She had never told anyone else what had happened. Moreover, she had started telling Tabitha things that she observed about the magi in the household, from a former servant’s perspective, and when the Thendal girls met at the Hall once a week for study sessions, Isabelle silently passed on gossip and information so that Tabitha could give the impression of knowing such things before being told. Isabelle did not display Velinda’s level of eagerness to please, or Attarine’s shy awe, and she could not piece together solutions to problems as well as Clementa. But Tabitha had come to trust her cousin almost completely.

  “Will you talk to her about the heretics’ letter?” Clementa asked.

  “Yes, and everything we just decided about meeting them.”

  “All right.” Clementa gathered up her quill and her lists. “I will return the pouches to Magus Lobunat.”

  Tabitha nodded. “And then we will go to the library.” That was where Natayl thought she was right now.

  She stopped.

  What was she doing?

  A prickling chill down her spine made her shudder. What was she doing? A sorceress should never be involved in a scheme like this. Natayl would be so angry with her if he knew.

  Clementa stood up, but then looked down at Tabitha with a frown of concern. “What is it? Are you all right?”

  “Yes,” Tabitha told her firmly. “I am perfectly fine.”

  Tabitha took her place on the opposite side of the worktable from Natayl, and he ignored her. He was leaning far back in his chair, peering into a book he held angled toward the room’s single hanging lamp. The hammered copper surface between them was half-covered by more books, all of them open, most of them old and worn.

  She had noticed before that the marble-topped desk in Natayl’s study at the manor house was usually hidden under maps and diagrams, and that the big oak table in his office at the Hall was always loaded with ledgers and letters. She idly tried to remember what had been stacked on the desk in his study in the king’s palace, because it could not have been empty. He always spread out his work.

  As Nan and Mistress Evonne had taught her, Tabitha kept her own work very tidy and put it away each day. Books and manuscripts assigned by her tutors went onto a shelf until she was finished reading them. Pointless projects Natayl gave her at the Hall went into a drawer until he asked for them. Personal letters went into a chest in her chambers until it was time to cull them. She kept her private research notes in a handbook that never left her little satchel. As for the really important papers, Clementa was holding those, and Tabitha had not asked where.

  Hoping for a glimpse outside, she glanced toward the room’s single window, but it was shuttered. With the spring Equinox less than two weeks away, though, it was still light outside, and faint sunshine peeked through the cracks. It was so typical of Natayl to shun the natural light and use a lamp instead. Maybe he thought people could not see his age spots and deep wrinkles as clearly that way.

  You are my death.

  He acted as if he had never struck her with that terrible pain, that he had never said those horrible words. But she would never forget.

  Over and over, she shifted her weight from her heels to her toes, slowly enough so that her skirt did not move. Her father had frequently made her wait after summoning her, but he had also always given her a place to sit. Natayl never did. But at long last, he leaned forward and put his book on the tabletop, still open, and his hawkish eyes flicked up to her. His gravelly voice said, “Tell me what you learned today.”

  Tabitha had her answer ready, and she began with reasonable confidence. “Magus Uchsin set me the task of casting a ward on a threshold.”

  “A lintel,” Natayl corrected her.

  She had already opened her mouth to continue, and found she could not. Lintel?

  “Wards should be cast on lintels, not thresholds,” Natayl said, leaning back in his chair again and drumming his fingers against its wide arm. “Stop gaping like an idiot.”

  Tabitha shut her mouth. A hot itch spread from the back of her neck and into her cheeks.

  “I’ll have a word with Magus Uchsin,” Natayl noted grimly. “Continue.”

  Slowly recovering her poise, Tabitha st
arted again. “I cast a ward on a doorway. It was to keep track of when it was disturbed.”

  “When it was disturbed? Would it tell me the day and time of each disturbance?”

  It was exhausting to be criticized for every single detail. “No, it—it would just know, I would know when I came back to it, if it had been disturbed. So I would know if someone had gone into the room.”

  “And did it?”

  “Yes.” She had been proud of it at the time, but not anymore. “It worked. Magus Uchsin said he could sense that Joune had passed through it several times.”

  “Did the ward specifically tell him that it was Joune, or only that someone passed through?”

  Tabitha tried not to clench her jaw. “I told him it was Joune. He only knew it was someone.”

  “Someone magi. You should next test it with someone who has no magic. The residue will be different.”

  She could only nod helplessly. How could she test the ward on someone with no magic when all the servants were magi?

  Natayl tapped his fingertips against the arm of the chair again. “Was this the only thing you worked on today?”

  “Yes,” she said defensively. Despite what Natayl was implying, wards were not easy. Magus Uchsin had said that many magi never mastered them.

  “What about a marked ward?”

  She had never heard of that. “I …”

  “Never mind. I’ll definitely have a word with Magus Uchsin.”

  There was nothing she could say to that. Magus Uchsin probably deserved whatever Natayl was going to say to him, and even if he did not, there was nothing Tabitha could do about it.