The Element of Fire

by Martha Wells

  Dr. Surete had been Court Sorcerer then, and he had immediately sensed the cause of the disturbance. It was Kade.

  Galen Dubell, who had been at court working with Surete, admitted that for most of the past two years he had been secretly teaching Kade the rudiments of sorcery. This in itself was not much of a crime. But Kade was the illegitimate daughter of the king. She was older than Roland and courtlaw gave her a claim on the throne. She was also half fay, and elements at court and in the Ministry had been advising Ravenna that Kade was dangerous almost since the girl's birth. The next day Ravenna had banished Dubell to Lodun and sent Kade out of the city to the Monelite Convent, perhaps knowing she would not long remain there. Many had wondered at the time why Ravenna had shown the daughter of her husband's mistress that much mercy, when no one in Ile-Rien except the disgraced Galen Dubell would have objected to Kade's execution. But they knew that Ravenna did everything for her own reasons, and asking for an explanation when none was offered was useless.

  In the solar, Ravenna had unintentionally said "my children" and Thomas didn't think she was including the two stillborn girls buried in the High Cathedral's crypt. Ravenna had wanted Kade to be the canny beautiful daughter she had never had, and in some ways she still wanted that. But that was exactly what that brave, daft, strange-eyed sorceress would never be.

  There was a clatter as Martin appeared on the landing above and called, "Captain?"

  "What is it?" Martin had been sent with the other Queen's guards to see that the palace was secure after the Arlequin's disturbance. Thomas suspected the expression of relief on the young man's face indicated that he was about to pass a thorny problem on to someone else.

  "Trouble, Sir," Martin said as Thomas reached him. The young guard led the way off the landing to a short pillared hall. "We just found him. It's Dr. Braun."

  On one side of the hall an oaken door stood open. Thomas followed Martin into a small room furnished as a salon which had been used as a waiting room for foreign ambassadors when the Old Hall had been an audience chamber.

  Braun lay crumpled on an eastern carpet whose rich color was distorted by his blood. He lay as if he had been sitting on the stool at the high writing desk when he had slumped to the side and fallen to the floor.

  Two more Queen's guards waited there, Castero and Baserat. Both were looking at the corpse as if trying to decide what to do with it. Thomas went past them and knelt beside the body. The carpet was soaked with blood and squished unpleasantly underfoot. Carefully he lifted the young sorcerer's head and saw that his throat had been cut. The edges of the wound were straight, not ragged. It had been done smoothly, with a very sharp knife. The body was cold and beginning to stiffen. "Who found him?" he asked.

  "I did," Martin said. "We came past this room earlier on the first quick search and missed him. You can't see the body from the door since the secretaire is in the way. When we were working our way back just now doing it thoroughly I walked all the way in and saw him."

  "He's cold, so he must have been here before that, Sir," Baserat added.

  "Yes, and he must have been killed here," Thomas agreed. The carpet was evidence enough of that. Braun had been leaving from the gallery, going back to the King's Bastion, and must have stepped into the little room to speak to someone. Someone who had come up behind him at some point during the course of the conversation and skillfully slit his throat.

  "What is this?"

  Thomas looked up to see High Minister Aviler standing in the doorway, watching them suspiciously. It wasn't surprising that the High Minister's audience with Ravenna had been a short one; in her current mood it would have been succinct, to say the least. Thomas answered, "At first glance it appears to be a dead man."

  "I realize that." Aviler stepped into the room, his long state robes brushing the floor, keeping a wary eye on the other guards. As he well might, Thomas thought, if this were really the murder in progress the man obviously half hoped it was. Martin and the others, who were probably still uncertain whether they had neglected their duty and didn't appreciate Aviler's presence as a witness to it, were no doubt helping this impression by their obvious attitudes of belligerence and guilt.

  The High Minister came to the edge of the blood-soaked carpet and stopped, frowning, as it became apparent the death was some hours old. "Braun," he said in surprise, recognizing the young sorcerer. "Who did it?"

  "That's a good question." Why? is another good question, Thomas thought, though he could guess at least part of the answer. Poor bastard. He said it wasn't important...

  Chapter Six

  THE AIR SMELLED like rain. Kade sat on the ledge of the fourth story of the North Bastion, leaning on a stone porpoise and watching the sky. The clouds were gray and heavy, though sunlight broke through in occasional patches. Across the maze of paved courts and formal gardens below were the high walls and steeply pitched roof of the Gallery Wing, more modern and airy in its design than the blocky bastion at her back. It was a cool day, and a damp breeze tore at her hair.

  She could feel the wards. They stretched from the bottom of the outer walls to a point high above the palace, forming an invisible, constantly shifting dome. Years ago Galen Dubell had shown her how to use gascoign powder made from hart's horn and crab's eyes to see the corona of light that marked their presence, and to use ash or flakes of charcoal to track their movements. Bad weather tended to push them closer to the earth; perhaps that was why they seemed to be intruding into her thoughts today.

  The frid must have slipped in through one of the naturally occurring gaps between the individual wards. If it had blundered directly into one, the harmless powerless creature would have been eaten in an instant. If the motion of the wards was slowing, then the frid--and the golem for that matter--might simply have been lucky enough to slip through. The new sorcerer Braun might have been as incompetent at tending the wards since Dr. Surete's death as he had been at defending himself from whoever killed him. Galen Dubell had only been back a day: not much time to make up lost ground with as complex an etheric structure as the wards.

  However it had gotten in, Kade was fairly sure the golem had been sent for her. She had enemies enough among the courts of Fayre, without even considering those among the mortal sorcerers. There were many fay who wanted Moire's strongholds, especially Knockma, and Kade was determined not to give them up.

  Someone moving through the garden below reminded her that she was being followed, but the passerby did not glance up. Kade had dodged the men who were watching her, though they probably knew she was somewhere in this bastion. It didn't matter; all she needed was a few moments' privacy.

  Seeing Roland and Ravenna again had stirred a whole nest of unpleasant memories. He stood there and said I cursed the name of our father, as if nothing had ever happened. As if I hadn't held him while he prayed to the Church's God for our father to die, she thought. Roland was only two years younger than she; he couldn't fail to remember.

  Fulstan had always been a frightening presence in their lives, but during Ravenna's long absences from court in the last years of the Bisran War, he had been at his worst. Kade's memories of those times were particularly vivid. The day Fulstan had beaten to death one of Roland's servants, a boy no older than the ten-year-old Prince. Gods, how can Roland forget that. Those little bones breaking... In sheer terror Roland had sent away his other young servants, and even his pages, sons of high nobility meant to grow up with him and become his companions and advisors. Fulstan had permitted this, because it had left Roland alone.

  Except for me, Kade thought. Looking back, she could see that they should have spoken to someone, that Roland could have sent a letter to Ravenna... As the daughter of the king's supernatural and despised leman, Kade had had fewer options, but neither she nor Roland had been able to believe that a world existed where help was available.

  Landlaw expected even a sovereign to be responsible for his behavior, even if courtlaw did not, but Fulstan had been careful. He had made the Cis
ternans his personal guard instead of the Albon Order, thereby ridding himself of the interfering presence of an Albon Preceptor. He had never done anything to Roland that would leave an outward sign. He had surrounded himself with sycophants and cronies, and he had been a terror to the palace women.

  For a long time he had been wary of Kade, perhaps half hoping, half fearing that her mother Moire would return to claim her. He had treated his daughter with contempt, reviled her, held her up to the court as an object of ridicule, but he had never touched her. Until that day of her fifteenth summer, when he had pinned her in a corner of her room and told her that as she grew older her looks were almost passable...

  The next day had been Midsummer Eve and the Saints' Day episode in the cathedral. She had been banished to the convent, and six months later Fulstan was dead.

  Kade cursed softly to herself, coming back out of the past to the cloudy day and the breeze lifting her hair. It's no good to think about it; it's over. If Roland hates you for leaving him, that's his decision. You were a prisoner escaping a cell, and you took the first chance you had. At least that was what Galen Dubell had told her, two years ago at Lodun.

  From the open window a few paces along the ledge to her left came the sound of a door squeaking open, then a moment later the muted thump of something heavy being shifted. That's Galen, Kade thought, easing herself up the wall to stand on the ledge. The servants never moved anything.

  She stepped around the elaborately figured window casement and onto the wooden sill. Galen Dubell was in a corner of his room, piling stacks of books atop a stout wooden chest. He finished and straightened his back with a sigh, turned, and saw her. "Kade."

  His expression was disturbingly neutral. She wondered at his lack of reaction. Even though she had never fallen off anything high enough to hurt herself, he hated to see her walk on ledges. She said, "I wrote and told you that I was coming back. Didn't you get the letter?"

  "No, I never received it," he said slowly. "I would have tried to dissuade you."

  "You told me I should face my anger and that would help me get rid of it. I take it this wasn't exactly what you meant." Kade spoke with a sinking heart. And she had thought her decision to return to the palace to confront her past was sensible and wise.

  "Perhaps I didn't know what I meant." He almost smiled. "Perhaps I've become too used to dealing with old men who would rather talk than act. But if this is the way you must do it, then I wish you luck."

  "But you don't want me to involve you," she said, and thought, How calmly that came out. The wooden window frame was rough against her hand and she realized she was gripping it very tightly.

  He held her gaze gravely. "That might be for the best."

  It was not what she had wanted to hear. She had wanted him to look exasperated and say, That wasn't what I meant at all, you little fool; now stop feeling sorry for yourself and come down out of that window.

  "Something is going to happen here, Kade," he was saying. "I don't know what it is yet, but I have to be free to deal with it."

  And not be banished again because of me. She said, "I know. It's someone called Grandier."

  He frowned. "What do you know about him?"

  "He tried to kill you." Kade shrugged.

  "He failed."

  She shook her head, trying to put the anger away. "The lesser fay won't even speak his name. They're more afraid of him than they are of me. The ones from the higher courts say they've never heard of him, but it's pretense. They wouldn't tell me the truth anyway."

  "He's in the city, perhaps closer than anyone realizes. Dr. Braun was killed last night. I'm certain Grandier had something to do with it, and that means he must have someone inside the wall already." Galen let out his breath, his face weary. "I could use your help, but I dare not take it. Do you understand?"

  "Yes, well, I suppose I do." She managed not to say it with too poor grace.

  He watched her carefully. "And you must give me your word that you won't harm anyone here, no matter what provocation."

  Kade couldn't look at him anymore. Her voice was more bitter than she intended. "You know I can't promise that." She slipped out of the window and began to make her way down the ledge to an unused balcony. Behind her, he called with a trace of his old exasperation, "Be careful, damn it."

  The guards spotted her again when she had reached the ground floor and was coming out of the entrance into the Rose Court. Kade picked up her skirt and bolted down one of the stone-paved paths between the rosebushes. As she reached the wall of the court, she heard heavy bodies crashing into the thorny and not-so-delicate hedges. The wall was rough and pitted and she scaled it easily.

  Reaching the top, she crouched amid the tangled vines and took a quick glance around. As she had seen from above, the area between the bastion and the high walls of the Gallery Wing was a honeycomb of intersecting gardens and courts, some old and familiar and others that were recent additions. She ran lightly along the wall, jumped to a narrower intersecting wall, and ran along its length. She heard a yelp and a crash as the vines on the first wall gave way on someone. As she spun around to look, her lace underskirt caught on a lionhead spout on the wall's rain gutter, throwing her off balance and forcing her to jump down.

  She landed heavily in a pile of raked leaves. She was in a long and irregularly shaped garden, with a clipped lawn and overflowing flower borders, most of it rambling out of sight behind the wall and sheltering hedges.

  Kade got to her feet and strolled toward the mossy fountain just around the curve of the wall, prepared to be mildly amused when they caught up with her.

  In the fountain, water spouted from pitchers in the hands of stone nymphs. Kade wriggled her toes in the cool grass. The garden widened out from this point on, becoming larger and more grand than she had first supposed. In the wide area of lawn were yew bushes shaped into a scaled-down battlement with towers half-circling a large round mosaic of a massive sundial. Distracted, it was moments before her eyes focused on the man and the woman seated on a bench beneath a honeysuckle arbor only a few yards from her; the play of the fountain had covered their voices. It was Queen Falaise and Denzil.

  Falaise saw Kade at almost the same moment. She stood, jerking her hand free of Denzil's grasp, and hurried toward her. Kade, who was more used to catching people unawares than being caught, stood there and stared.

  The Queen stopped a few feet from her, said uncertainly, "My lady Katherine...ah, Kade?" She wore a dress of rose and pearl and was clutching a small book in a white-knuckled grasp. like most aristocratic women would have been, she was out of breath from the exertion of walking quickly across the garden. Falaise hadn't been crying, but there was something stricken in her blue eyes that amounted to the same thing.

  Kade felt herself looking stupid. She said, "Yes?" hoping to provoke an explanation.

  A little desperately, Falaise said, "We had an appointment."

  Kade realized that the Queen was not seeing her as a sorceress or as her husband's mad sister, but only as another woman. "An appointment," she repeated helpfully, nodding.

  Denzil reached them and caught Falaise's arm again. The Queen flinched and dropped her book, which barely missed the fountain. Kade stooped immediately to rescue it from the damp ground.

  Denzil said, "Another appointment, my lady?" His smile was confident and amused. A brief glow of sunlight breaking through the cloudy sky touched his blond hair, the powder blue of has doublet, the gems ornamenting his sword. He and Falaise made a beautiful couple.

  Falaise hesitated. "Yes, I..."

  "I was late," Kade said, brushing dirt off the little book's sheepskin binding.

  "Yes, she was," Falaise agreed instantly. She stepped away from Denzil, the movement stiff and awkward.

  He chuckled and bowed slightly to make the point that he was allowing her to escape. "Then I'll leave you to your appointment."

  His arrogance was too obvious for Kade to leave well enough alone. "Do that," she said.
r />   Amused and ironic, he met her eyes and bowed. "My lady."

  They watched him cross the garden toward the gate behind the hedges. Kade didn't know Denzil very well. He had been presented to court shortly before she had left. He had attached himself to Roland shortly thereafter.

  There was nothing she hated more than people who didn't take her seriously.

  Falaise sat down on the edge of the fountain, heedless of what the moss would do to her silk damask skirts.

  This near to the Queen, Kade was suddenly conscious that the climb on the bastion's ledge and her fall into the leaves hadn't done her dress any good. But her grubbiness was bound to aggravate Ravenna, and she resolved to let her clothing degenerate as far as modesty allowed. "Where are your guards?" she asked Falaise.

  Falaise shook her head slightly. "This is my private garden. When I give audiences here they wait beside the gate. I bribed my ladies to go down to the grotto."

  "Why didn't you call them back?"

  "That wouldn't do any good." Her face was bleak,

  Falaise had the calm of someone who has been miserable for a long time and expects to go on being miserable. Kade

  Shifted uneasily. "It's difficult for someone to make advances when there are a lot of men standing around looking at him as if they want to kill him. They're Queen's guards; even Roland can't order them away when they're protecting you."

  Falaise looked away wearily, the wind playing with her curls and ribbons. "It isn't that sort of advances."

  "It doesn't matter what sort of advances. It always worked for Ravenna's ladies when..." When my father... "when they needed it," she finished, but Falaise didn't notice the lapse.