The Locksmith

by Howe, Barbara;

He shook his head. “Rumours about the Chessmaster’s prediction will reach us any day now, and with the townsfolk in the Fortress you will be in danger even here. There are fools among them who will think they could protect me by eliminating you. You will be safer there.”

  My eyes stung. “I can’t leave. My year of service isn’t up yet.”

  “My dear, I have sent people all over Frankland, and even out of it, during their terms of service. The pertinent requirement is serving the Office, not where you serve it. Further, the full condition is one year, or putting one’s life at risk in its service. Given that, you are free to go and do as you like.”

  “I would like to stay here.”

  He sighed. “I cannot order you to go to the Warren, but I do ask that you consider it. You are much too valuable; I do not want you to be at risk. I am suggesting this only because it is in your best interests.”

  “That’s a, a—” I choked on the word ‘lie’. What he said was true, but wasn’t the whole truth. Every time he saw me, I would remind him of his own serious lapse in judgement and near-fatal loss of self-control. He didn’t want to admit that. He was lying as much to himself as he was to me.

  “I’m too much of a distraction, aren’t I?”

  He nodded without meeting my eyes.

  I sagged, and whispered, “Yes, sir, I’ll think about it.”

  I lay awake that night until nearly dawn. His suggestion that I leave the Fortress seared my soul as his touch had seared my skin, and I berated myself for prolonging my self-delusion. The Chessmaster had predicted I would claim a place in the Warlock’s lustful heart. What does a century alone do to a man? He had given me ample proof of his desires, but was it love? Cold reason said, no, he would have reacted as he did to any non-repulsive woman who could hold the shield spell against lava.

  I didn’t know if he loved me. All I was sure of was that I loved him.

  It didn’t matter. I would be in danger when the rumour spread, and life here was already horrid. I had a duty to help him in any way I could, and my presence was a burden. I should do as he asked, and leave.

  Ask him if he loves you, my heart said. He can’t lie to you, or if he does, you’ll know.

  Fool, my head argued. Don’t ask a question if you’re not sure you want to hear the answer.

  When I walked into the dining room for a late supper a few days later, the people there, mostly townsfolk, stopped chattering and turned as one to glare at me. I grabbed a plate of food and fled, my cheeks burning and my heart hammering.

  Mrs Cole came to my room a little later, with red eyes and blotchy cheeks. Mrs Cole, crying?

  She twisted her apron in her hands. “Honey, there’s some nasty gossip going around. I’ve been saying I don’t believe a word of it, but I thought you’d better know what they’re saying.”

  I sat down at my desk, playing with my pen. “Are they saying I’m an enemy spy sent to seduce the Fire Warlock and steal his secrets?”

  There was a brief silence. “You’re not surprised.”

  “He warned me this was coming.” I looked up to see her staring at me. “He showed me an enemy agent spinning that story several months ago.” I dipped the pen in the inkwell and doodled with my head down. “The original prediction didn’t say anything about destroying the Office, but it did say I would be the Warlock’s downfall. Neither of us have figured out how.”

  “Oh, honey.” The silence was longer this time. “He told me what happened.”

  “He what?”

  “That was after I told him what you had said about taking responsibility. He said that was generous of you, but it wasn’t just your fault. He said I’m going to have to take orders from Arturos soon, and he couldn’t let me think it was his fault either.

  “Now honey, you know I like you. I don’t want you to get the wrong idea. I’d rather have you helping me in the kitchen than any of the helpers I’ve got now, but maybe you’d be better off if you went away for a while, either back to your village, or to stay with the Earth Mother.”

  I threw down the pen, and spattered ink all over the desk. “Did he tell you to say that?”

  “No, of course not. I was just trying to help. Why?”

  Tears splashed beside the drops of ink. “He said I should go away, too.”

  She came over to the desk and hugged me. “Well, it does sound like a good idea.”

  The walk to breakfast was an ordeal. Groups of people in the corridors stopped talking and moved aside as if I were a leper. Mrs McNamara and Mrs Cole were shouting when I walked into the kitchen. Mrs Cole attempted a cheerful, “Good morning, honey—” but Mrs McNamara overrode her with, “Go get your breakfast down in the barracks with the guards, where you belong, you brazen minx. We don’t need your kind around here.” She stopped cold as the kitchen door opened and the Warlock walked in.

  “Ah, good morning, Lucinda, I was hoping to catch you here. Come and sit with me, please.”

  Turning to Mrs McNamara, he said blandly, “I am afraid I interrupted you, Helen. What were you saying?”

  She had the grace to turn beet-red. “Nothing. I mean, nothing worth repeating, Your Wisdom.”

  He smiled, but his voice brooked no argument. “You will then assure me it will not be.”

  She took a step backwards. “Yes, sir.”

  “Good. It is reassuring to know that the kitchen is full of friendly chit-chat.”

  Still smiling, he held the door for me. I stalked into the dining room with my head held high. The hostile glances from other diners were more furtive with him beside me. When we were seated at the table amid friendly faces—Master Thomas and several of the more sensible scholars—he said, “I did not have anything I needed to talk to you about, certainly not in as public a forum as this, but I suspected Helen’s tongue would do nothing for your digestion.”

  “No, sir. Thank you, sir.”

  Even so, my stomach was in knots. She had no right to talk to me, a warlock, like that. But none of them knew what I was, and I couldn’t expect the Warlock to rescue me from the other nasty confrontations that would come. When he got up to leave, I stopped him. “I’ve been thinking about your suggestion. I still don’t like it, but I’ll do it.”

  The sadness in his face tore at my heart. He nodded, and turned away. “Thank you, my dear.”

  I packed through a haze of tears. Once I left the Fortress, it was unlikely I would ever see Jean Rehsavvy again. I would not cry when I said goodbye. I could, I would, behave like a warlock. I could be in control long enough for that.

  I took the two histories off the shelf and thumbed through them. He had written the text, but a printer and bookbinder had made the copies in my hands. I had nothing that his hands had touched. I put the books in my bag, and walked through the tunnel to the practice room. From there I turned around and went back to wash my face. I couldn’t hide my red eyes, but I had my pride, and I would pretend I had not been crying.

  He met me at the door of his study, and I walked on in, reluctant to turn towards that tunnel, closed now for security during the siege.

  He said, “I will open the tunnel to the Warren long enough for you to pass through, but once out of the Fortress you cannot come back in until the siege is over, except through the postern gate. Mother Celeste is expecting you, and I trust you will be safe there.

  “You need not worry about there being a place for you in the Fire Guild when the war is over. Most of the guild members respect Arturos more than they do either Flint or Sunbeam, and the Office will not allow one warlock to block another qualified warlock from having a voice in the Council. If it did, I would have thrown Flint off the Council twenty years ago. If he tries to push you around be polite but obstinate, and let the Warlock and the Office protect you. Flint will come out the loser in any such contest.”

  “Yes, sir. Thank you.” I walked across the study,
drawn by the slim volume bound in dark blue leather lying face down on his desk. I did not need to see the title—I had held this same book, or its sibling from the same printing, a few days earlier.

  I reached for it, but it flew off the desk and sailed into his hands. “Forgive me,” he said. “It was thoughtless of me to leave such a painful reminder lying about.”

  I struggled to speak around the constriction in my throat. “You were reading it, too?”

  “I know it by heart, and, until recently, had not touched my copy for many years.” He turned it over in his hands and opened it. Handwritten annotations filled the margins—his own copy, then, not the one from the library. “It seems strange to me that I should reread it, but I have done so several times in the past few months.”

  “When? After I released my lock?”

  A smile flickered across his sombre face. “No, my dear, earlier, after learning you read Gibson’s History.”

  I turned my back to him and walked away, the back of my hand pressed against my mouth. Drown the man, he would not make me cry. I had the answer I wanted. Why did it hurt so much? When I regained control of my voice, I said, “I want something of yours, to remember you by.”

  “What would you have? I possess little, other than my personal library. There is nothing I own that I would not give you.”

  I turned back to him and pointed to the book in his hands. “I want that.”

  His gaze flicked from me to the book, and back. “Lucinda, my dear, you continue to astound me. Take it, and welcome.”

  He held out the copy of Terésa. I took it from him and put it in my bag. He picked up the bag, gesturing for me to precede him out the door, and seemed at a loss as I stared at him without moving.

  My careful control over my voice vanished, and I winced as it quavered. “Aren’t you going to offer me your arm?”

  He dropped the bag and walked towards the fireplace with his back to me, as I had walked away from him earlier. His voice, when he spoke, was thick. “I expected you to recoil from my touch.”

  I couldn’t answer for the lump in my throat. I was not afraid of anything short of another passionate kiss, and even that had been as much joy as torture.

  In a few minutes, he came back, and I clasped with both hands the arm he offered. We paced towards the tunnel without speaking or looking at each other. Once there, he held out his hand and I put mine in it. He held it for several seconds with his eyes closed, then raised it, and brushed it with his lips.

  I swallowed hard. “Jean,” I whispered.

  He looked up. Tears in his eyes made my own vision blur. I brushed away a disobedient droplet that slid down my cheek.

  “Jean, I wish…”

  The world stood still, waiting.

  Going to Earth

  Oh, dear God, what could I wish for, that would make any difference?

  Jean shook his head. “No, my dear. No more ill-considered, dangerous wishes. You wished that I might have what I wanted, and it was almost your own undoing.”

  I bowed my head. “Yes, sir.”

  The feeling of something waiting passed with a great trembling sigh. I had missed my chance. What chance?

  He didn’t seem to have noticed. “You have made my last year worth living. Remember that, for my sake.”

  He released my hand and turned away to cast the spell opening the tunnel. Without looking at me again he said, “Farewell, my love.”

  I slung my bag over my shoulder and took two steps towards the tunnel.

  Coward.

  I turned back, grabbed his shoulders, and kissed him full on the lips. He had little time to react—drawing back in shock and flinging out his arms to avoid touching me—before I broke it off. I whirled and ran through the tunnel, clinging to my last shred of self-control, and the memory of the emotions—astonishment, delight, yearning—that had flashed across his face.

  Sunlight blinded me. I couldn’t have seen Mother Celeste even if I hadn’t been bawling.

  She guided me through the maze of the Warren with an arm around my shoulders, tsking. “It’s not healthy to be shut up underground like moles, not seeing the sun for months at a time. You’d be depressed even without any of your other troubles. The first thing you need, I think, is a good meal and a glass of wine. Let’s see what we can do for you.”

  We encountered other people here and there in the corridors. After the jostling crowds and hot tempers in the Fortress, the calm dignity on display soothed my frayed nerves. We reached the amber chamber, where a girl about my own age joined us.

  Mother Celeste introduced her, “Lucinda, this is Hazel, the finest healer in the new crop coming along. She’ll be looking after you while you’re here.”

  I wiped away tears long enough to get a good look at the other girl. She was a little over medium height, with an oval face and freckles, and looked pleased but not surprised by the Earth Mother’s compliment. Someone who knew her own worth. We would get along fine.

  Mother Celeste conjured up food; a meal that reminded me of fare my own mother had prepared to comfort injured spirits and bandaged knees. Onion soup with a crust of cheese. Hot buttered toast and eggs, perfectly cooked, with the yolk still runny. Strawberries and blueberries in whipped cream. Berries in winter? Why not? There was earth magic to spare here. I made a pig of myself.

  The food and the wine worked their magic on me, and soon stemmed the flood of tears. The Earth Mother talked to Hazel while I ate. “She should be out in the sunshine, but we needed to come here where we won’t be overheard.” Her voice changed, sounding as stern as Jean sometimes did. “You are bound by your oath as a member of the Earth Guild not to divulge to anyone else what I will tell you in this room.”

  I looked up, startled. Hazel stared at her wide-eyed, but nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

  Mother Celeste, in her usual warm voice, said, “Sorry about that, dear, but I had to say it. I know you don’t give away secrets, or I wouldn’t have picked you in the first place.” She gave the girl a summary description of my talents and what I had been going through. Hazel’s eyes, already wide, nearly bulged out of her head when Mother Celeste related my near-fatal encounter with the passionate Warlock. She ended with a brisk, “Now show her around, and help her get settled in. Lucinda, I know you’re a good cook. Would you help in the kitchen?”

  They didn’t need my help in the kitchen. I was certain of that within minutes as I watched the efficient team of witches going about their daily business. But I understood and appreciated what the Earth Mother was trying to do—give me someone to pour out my heart to, and keep me busy so I wouldn’t have time to brood—and the cooks made room for me without any fuss, as if they saw my heartache and pitied me.

  Every time I saw Mother Celeste, I asked for news from the Fortress. After the sixth time in two days, she threw up her hands in exasperation. “Go away and stop bothering me. I’ll come and find you if anything changes, and if you ask me again, I’ll send you to your room without supper.”

  I followed Hazel, working outdoors when the weather permitted, helping prepare the gardens for the spring plantings. On rainy days, we worked with several other young earth witches, assembling healers’ potions and elixirs. I was curious about earth magic and they were happy to talk, so we got along well. My eyebrows grew back in, and my colour began to return. Hazel taught me how to use magic to make my hair grow faster.

  “An inch at a time,” she said. “Don’t overdo it, or you’ll make yourself sick.”

  After a week, it brushed my collar. I abandoned the scarf, and marvelled at the lightness and freedom the short hair gave me.

  I would have been happy in the Warren if I had not been worried sick. Also, the question nagged at me: what opportunity had I missed when I left the Fortress? Had I forgotten something? I searched the Warren’s library for books on the Fire Guild, but they didn’t
have the one—Gibson’s History—I most wanted. I skimmed other histories, but none jogged my memory. Not even my dreams offered hints.

  I peeked around the corner, watching Hazel make her serene way down the corridor. When she was halfway, I scooted along, passing her. I reached the next intersection, and peered around. No danger in sight.

  Hazel said, “I don’t understand why you’re so nervous. Even if she wanted to be offensive, which I doubt, she’s more likely to snub you than make a scene.”

  “You didn’t see how she acted when I met her.”

  “I’m not saying I don’t believe you, but it seems out of character. I’ve talked to Sorceress Lorraine, and thought she had excellent manners. She’s not what I would pick for a bosom buddy, but I understand why Mother Celeste likes her.”

  I dashed to the end of the next corridor and peeked around the corner. I had asked Mother Celeste, “Why can’t the Fire Warlock and the Frost Maiden get along?”

  She had shrugged. “I’ve wondered that myself for years. It seems to have been that way for the entire life of the Offices. It’s quite a shame. I consider them both good friends. They are both lovely people to deal with, as long as they aren’t in the same room together.”

  When Hazel caught up, I said, “What’s she doing in the Warren?”

  “She comes here often. The two guilds share some responsibilities, and it’s easier on us if she comes here—the Crystal Palace is too cold for our comfort.”

  “Yes, I can see that, but spending the night?”

  “Not unusual. I think she likes a change of pace once in a while.”

  “Fine. I hope she sleeps well tonight. I won’t.”

  We reached the sanctuary of the library, and Hazel disappeared into the botany section. I went to the history stacks, and stood with my hands on the shelves, waiting for the quiet oasis to work its magic on me.

  The chill gave way to burning in my chest and face, and I tightened my grip on the shelves. Mother Celeste had confirmed the rumour that the Frost Maiden and Jean had once been lovers, and I wanted to flame that water sorceress as much as Jenny McNamara had wanted to flame me.