As the words addressed to Janataea penetrated her panic, Rossemikka’s guardian ceased her useless flailing against the barrier. Her eyes narrowed malevolently, but she said nothing.
“You are accused of the crime of witchcraft. We have witnessed evidence of your attempts to manipulate my betrothed.” Darville lifted his voice so that all could hear while he kept a proprietary arm around Mikka’s waist. “How do you plead against this accusation?”
Silence. Janataea returned his unblinking stare.
“Can’t you offer any defense, Mistress Janataea?” KevinRosse tried to intervene on her behalf.
Silence. The accused stood rigid and controlled behind magic walls.
“By our laws, you will be treated with witchbane until a formal trial can be summoned,” Darville pronounced. He turned his back on the woman. He had more important things to arrange tonight.
“Nooooo!” Janataea wailed. “You can’t poison me without trial. I’ll die if you force witchbane on me.”
These stupid mundanes don’t know that my rival has already found and used an antidote. I’ll have it from him within minutes of their puny little dosage. Then they will know the full wrath of the coven.
Chapter 25
Jaylor pushed aside his lingering fatigue with a moderate replenishing spell, his fourth in as many hours. He couldn’t keep this up for much longer. But he was needed in more than one place tonight. As husband, magician, teacher, adviser, and friend.
Very soon he must check on Baamin and Yaakke in another suite in the master’s wing. Two hours ago the old magician had been weak, but stable. The heart attack that felled him was so massive it should have killed the old magician. Miraculously, he still breathed. A grief-stricken Yaakke refused to leave his side.
Good. Jaylor didn’t need to worry about the boy’s unpredictable activities if he were loose and roaming the palace and University tonight.
News of Jaylor’s designation as Baamin’s heir to both University and Commune had spread throughout the capital already. So far, Jaylor had kept the courtiers, servants, and sycophants at bay.
Darville needed Jaylor to stand at his side for the wedding ceremony within the hour. Pride and joy filled Jaylor at the prospect of seeing his friend married to a woman he loved as deeply as Jaylor loved Brevelan.
He took a moment to focus his priorities on the tiny scrap of humanity Erda had just placed into his arms. So small, so very small. Barely the length of his forearm. His heart ran the full spectrum of emotions.
Jaylor desperately wanted to love the tiny, tiny baby. But jealousy kept surfacing.
Was this truly his son?
Bathed and bundled into a warm blanket, the baby was quiet for the first time since his untimely entry into the world, almost an hour ago. By all accounts he shouldn’t be able to live after a mere seven moons of pregnancy. But Erda had proclaimed his son to be whole and healthy, just small and in need of extra care to bring him up to size.
His son. By law, at least, this unbelievably small person was his. But by blood?
Jaylor’s younger sisters were blonde. So this baby could have inherited the common bloodline for that hair color. But his eyes!
The baby blinked and stared up at him with unfocused curiosity. At the moment, his eyes were the fuzzy blue so common to newborns, giving few hints as to their eventual color. In a few weeks they would begin to turn. Would they be deep-bay blue like Brevelan’s, or dark reddish-brown like Jaylor’s? Or possibly the smooth golden-brown of Prince Darville?
Jaylor blinked back a curious probe, not quite daring to search the baby for signs of magic, or for knowledge of his birthright.
“I think we need to find a name for our son,” Brevelan whispered wearily. The furrows in her brow were pinched white with strain. Yet her eyes glowed with overwhelming love and accomplishment. She was tucked into the massive bed in their suite, so small and pale as to be barely visible beneath the mound of covers.
“What do you suggest?” Jaylor hedged. By tradition a first son should be named for his paternal grandfather, or at least a favored paternal uncle. But who was this child’s grandsire?
“The magic is strong in him,” Erda pronounced from the shadowy corners of the room. “Unusual for magic to be strong, in one so young. He deserves an unusual name, a name of power.”
“For a child to inherit magic like this, it must come to him from both parents,” Brevelan reassured Jaylor.
He wasn’t overly comforted. Darville’s family was notoriously mundane. But there must be some potential for magic linked to their metaphysical bond with the dragon nimbus. Through Krej, Brevelan carried more magic than most master magicians.
The baby didn’t need Jaylor’s magic to add to his inheritance.
“Comes from his Mama throwing magic, willy-nilly. The child awakened early. Developed early. Needed to be born early.” Erda shuffled over to stand beside Jaylor. One gnarled finger reached down to touch the baby on the forehead just above the bridge of his petit nose. “Curious is he. Needed to see what the magic was and who threw it. Wants to be a part of it even now.”
The baby opened his tiny mouth and let out a pitiful wail. Jaylor jerked in surprise. “What did I do to frighten him? Am I holding him wrong?”
“Never, love.” Brevelan chuckled as she reached thin arms for her child. “He’s hungry. He needs to eat often, just like another magician I know.” She winked at Jaylor.
As Jaylor released the infant to Brevelan, a trace of the baby’s scent and weight lingered in the warmth on his arms. He knew a sudden emptiness. “Why don’t we ask him what his name is?” he offered.
Both Brevelan and Erda looked a little startled at that.
“Well, why not? You ask animals what they wish to be called, all the time. Why not grant the same privilege to your son. Surely he’s more intelligent than a rabbit or a greenbird?”
“Yes, why not,” Brevelan mused, as she settled the infant to her breast. Her eyes lost focus a moment. “I can’t penetrate beyond the need for food. I’m too tired. You ask him, Jaylor.”
Jaylor wasn’t sure if she really needed him to do the asking, or if it was just her way of strengthening his bond to the child, who might or might not be his.
With a deep breath, Jaylor marshaled his strength and dove headlong into the mind of the suckling child. He felt the warmth of a mothering body, the satisfaction of filling a tummy. A glow of comfort and protection surrounded him.
When he had absorbed the surface emotions, Jaylor allowed his inner eye to take over. Images assaulted him, devoid of color, but clearly defined. The clearing dominated them all. The clearing with Brevelan’s distinctive protection enclosing the whole.
“Glendon.” Jaylor removed himself from the engulfing imagery. “The fortress in the glen.” Where he was conceived. Where he would be raised.
“Put me down, Jaylor. I can walk,” Brevelan protested halfheartedly. She enjoyed being cradled against her husband’s chest as he carried her and Glendon down the long corridor to the Audience Chamber.
“No, you can’t walk. You shouldn’t be coming to this wedding at all,” he growled.
Brevelan snuggled her cheek next to her husband’s. “But I must be present. I cared for Darville and Mica for many moons without knowing who or what they really were. I need to see for myself that they belong together.”
“Always the mother.” Jaylor rubbed his face across the top of her head until he could kiss her hair. The movement shifted the careful illusion he had woven around his borrowed robes. The real fabric of Baamin’s court regalia barely reached his knees. The illusion draped grandly to the floor. Magician blue robe over a rich tunic and fine cambric shirt, trimmed with delicate lace at wrist and throat. Only the Senior Magician could afford these clothes. Too bad they didn’t fit the new Senior Magician.
Brevelan’s heart swelled with love and happiness.
Moments later she was settled into a chair in the corner of the grand Audience Chamber. Most of the
gathering crowd ignored her. She felt their uncertainty and understood they chose to overlook her presence, rather than commit a political breach of etiquette.
Brevelan chuckled deep within herself. In ignoring her, they were also ignoring the quiet glow of magic Jaylor wove around her and the baby. The mass of emotions emitted by this crowd would have sent her into empathic shock, otherwise. She really was too tired to be here.
She focused on Jaylor at the center of the knot of magicians. Even through her protection, she felt the concern radiating from the members of the Commune. Not all of those emotions were aimed at Baamin’s serious heart condition. Many of the magicians were very wary of Jaylor, himself.
He was too young, too untried to be named Baamin’s heir. This one-time inept might be their superior in a matter of hours.
Then, too, there was Jaylor’s connection to Lord Krej. Concern colored the auras of some, that Jaylor would be a pawn in the hands of his father-in-law. Righteous glee tainted others. If they had to obey Krej, the natural order should be that Jaylor would, too.
Brevelan darted a look toward her father. He maintained a circle of courtiers around him, including his legitimate son-in-law and designated heir, Marnak the Younger. Lady Rhodia, Krej’s scowling little wife, stood in a corner, barely suppressing a yawn. Her only companion, her oldest daughter, Rejiia.
Brevelan’s half-sister had inherited her mother’s cloud of dark hair and deep-set eyes that she artificially enhanced with kohl. There the resemblance to her plain mother ended. Instead of the sallow complexion and thin—or was it grim—mouth, her lips were lush and painted a deep red. Rose-red against a white background of flawless skin. Rejiia was a beauty. She could have won the hand of any man in the kingdom, even without her title and huge marriage portion.
But Lady Rejiia had one unforgivable flaw. She was as tall and big-boned as her father in a culture that thought women should be dainty and birdlike. Though only fourteen summers, she stood head and shoulders above her mother. She towered over her husband’s slender figure. No wonder that slight young man chose not to stand beside her. Rejiia looked as if she could break Marnak’s neck if he looked at her cross-eyed. No love spoke from either’s eyes when they happened to glance toward each other.
Rumor suggested that Lady Rejiia trained with her father’s guards rather than playing with delicate needlework in her mother’s solar. Palace gossips tittered about Marnak’s reluctance to bed his fierce bride.
An especially tall and thin magician leaned closer to Jaylor, speaking angry words. Jaylor glared back at the man, riveting him with his eyes. His concentration must have wavered, for the blue cloak with gold stars on the collar shimmered and shortened to his knees.
Brevelan suppressed another giggle as her husband’s almost-clean country trews and boots showed beneath the actual length of the garment. Fortunately, Old Baamin had been very stout for his height and the borrowed cloak fit Jaylor’s broad shoulders adequately. A brief thought sent an image of Jaylor’s appearance to him. He colored and the robe appeared to lengthen again.
Just in time. Darville entered the room from the covered doorway behind the throne. His court finery gleamed in the candlelight with jewels and gold embroidery on tunic and trews. A short cape of gold velvet hung from one shoulder, highlighting the amber stone in the hilt of his ceremonial sword.
Brevelan caught her breath. As emotionally close as she was to this man, she had never seen him dressed for court, never acknowledged the power that emanated from him. Long of leg and straight of back, the prince sized up the room with warrior keenness. Wary. Poised to pounce into action. The aura of a wolf lay comfortably on his shoulders. No wonder the Council kept him on a short leash. They feared his power more than any residue of magic that might cling to him.
A dozen aides and nobles rushed to surround him. The prince’s eyes were restlessly scanning the room. His gaze lingered on Brevelan. Casually, he pushed aside the clinging courtiers and paced to her side. His soft, indoor boots made no more sound on the thick carpet than furred paws would on a woodland trail.
He knelt in front of her chair and delicately lifted the protective blanket from baby Glendon’s face.
“He’s beautiful, Brevelan,” Darville whispered. Then he scanned her face with care. “Are you well enough to be here?”
“Of course. I couldn’t miss your wedding.” She reached to ruffle his hair behind his ears, as she would have when he was her wolf familiar. At the last second she hesitated and withdrew her hand. This was not the time or place to remind anyone of their past together.
“I hear whispers that his eyes are golden, that he is my son.”
Worry creased his brow, even as pride radiated from his straight back and firm shoulders.
Brevelan almost didn’t hear the words. But she felt his thoughts and their intensity. Thankfully, Darville could not read auras, hers or Glendon’s.
“Glendon belongs to himself.” She cloaked her thoughts from his penetrating gaze.
He darted a puzzled look and a frown at her.
A rustle at the back of the room drew everyone’s attention. Darville rose with a gasp of awe as he greeted his bride.
Princess Rossemikka surveyed the room in all her majestic glory. Her long, multicolored hair was drawn into a braided coronet atop her head, emphasizing her long neck and graceful shoulders, as well as the extremely deep plunge of her bodice.
True to the custom of her people, the edges of her scarlet gown just barely covered her nipples and swelling breasts, then separated to a vee pointing almost to her navel. A thin lace of silver thread bound the gown together. Brevelan wasn’t sure how the girl could keep the dress up, let alone float toward Darville’s outstretched hand without tripping.
Silver embroidery on the red silk picked out images of plants and creatures from the high desert plateau in a wide band around the hem. A kahmsin eagle, the fierce hunter and protector of its young was symbolic of the warriors bred there and exported to fight the wars of the world. The barbed tumbler that never set down roots, but thrived on the arid volcanic soil, so like the nomadic herders of Rossemeyer. Swirls of thread represented the ever-present wind. And other images Brevelan couldn’t recognize.
Draped over the whole, crown to toe, as a token of modesty to both cultures, was a veil of spun silver.
The couple stared at each other for long moments as the gathering waited in silence. Silence that stretched, grew impatient, and gave way to soft rustlings, throat clearings, and whispered comments. And still Darville stared at his princess. Love pulsed from them in ever widening circles, isolating them. They were two, soon to be one. No one else needed to exist.
Brevelan ducked her head to the sleeping baby in her arms. A tear dropped to the blanket covering his head.
Chapter 26
I laugh. I laugh at these stupid mundanes. They know nothing of the drugs they push at me. I can smell the antidote, even before Krej slips it to me.
So easy a remedy. Why did Maman wait until someone within the coven needed an antidote before giving us the recipe? A little of the blessed Tambootie. A lot of eel oil. Some garlic and common kitchen herbs. All bound together with black sand from the volcanoes of Hanassa. Our intense magic has penetrated even to the harsh soils of our land.
A look of fear, a scream of pain as they strip me and rub the witchbane into my skin, and they believe I am cured of magic. They could have put the drug into plain water or wine and poured it down my throat to make it work faster, less painfully.
But no, they had to take their pleasure in torturing me, titillating their perverse senses by pushing their noxious and useless compound into every pore and orifice on my voluptuous body.
I will endure the pain and Krej’s laughter. I will endure because I will triumph over their petty punishment. They cannot know that the energy of the pain they inflict will feed my power. They have forgotten that witches of old used the pain and death of slaves as a source of magic.
They will lear
n what real torture is, before this night is through. My coven is with me. We will have our vengeance. Darville will never have the chance to father the child that will unite the kingdoms. Another will have that privilege. And then I shall kill them all. The pain they suffer before I allow them the release of death will endure through the ages, feeding yet more magic for generations to come.
The mundanes and traditionalists withdraw. They believe me powerless. Even the magic barrier is taken from this prison cell.
Fifteen minutes of loud weeping to lull their senses. They still hear the weeping. They still see my naked, shivering body within the prison cell.
I laugh. I laugh as I walk past their dicing guards. From behind, I smite the idiots with a lightning bolt. In the interest of time, I allow them to die quickly, without pain.
Rossemikka will be under my control again before dawn. And just to show them how weak they truly are, I shall have the babe as well. Magic is strong in him. He will bolster the coven as soon as he comes of age. He already recognizes me. He won’t even miss his mother.
Jaylor opened one eye and peered at the door through his crusted eyelids. The raucous knocking that had awakened him sounded again. And again.
Behind the closed door to the bedroom, a baby cried hungrily.
“My lord?” a strange voice pleaded for entry.
“Lord? Since when am I a lord?” Jaylor muttered and rolled over. He pulled the pillow over his head, trying to block out the sounds that assaulted his too short sleep. He nearly fell off the cot he had set in front of the hearth. Brevelan had been sound asleep long before his duties were finished last night and he hadn’t wanted to disturb her or the baby.
From the sounds coming from the bedroom, his wife and son hadn’t slept any more than he had. The blasted brat had cried for nourishment most of the night. So what difference did it make where Jaylor parked his body after Darville’s wedding?
The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume I: Volume I Page 56
