A Blight of Mages

by Karen Miller

  “A figure of speech,” he said, his lips stiff, his throat tight. “My choice is made.”

  Sighing, his father slumped. “Very well, then. You may go,” he said, with a petulant shrug of one shoulder. “Frolic and fill your belly, leaving me to the tender mercies of your bound miscreant. But tell Rumm she’s not to set foot anywhere I can see her. And not just while you’re away, mind. For as long as she’s here. You wanted her, Morgan, you can keep her busy. I don’t want Rumm bothered. He’s to look after me.”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  “Though how you can stomach the wench,” his father muttered, “I’ll never know.”

  Morgan felt his skin crawl with apprehension. If his father knew how his blood burned to hold despised, bound Barl Lindin close to his heart again, feel her hair beneath his cheek again, breathe in her sweet scent as though it were the life-sustaining air, fury would kill him stone dead where he sat.

  So he can never know. And no matter what my heart desires, I can never have her.

  It seemed Barl was right. There was no justice in the world.

  “Morgan?” His father thumped the arm of his chair. “You’ve got a look on your face that would curdle milk.”

  “Hunger,” he said, forcing a smile. “I must snatch my breakfast from the kitchen before I depart.”

  “Where are you going now?”

  Surely he was imagining things. His father sounded frightened. “Not far, my lord…” he said, gentling his voice. “I have a matter to resolve with Sallis Arkley, that I’d like to see put to bed before I attend the Garrick gathering.”

  More gnarled than ever, his father’s fingers plucked at the blanket covering him, and his gaze, suddenly skittish, darted around the sun-soaked parlour. Rumm had not yet come upstairs to shave him. The bright light glinted on meagre stubble gone tiredly grey.

  “I need you here in case you’re wanted.”

  “And I will be here, once I’ve spoken with Lord Arkley.”

  “For an afternoon, you’ll be here,” his father grumbled. “And then you’re leaving me to the silence of servants.”

  “Not for two more days, my lord,” he said, pricked with guilt. It was unnerving to hear his father so childishly querulous. Should he mention after all that Maris had also invited Lord Danfey to her house party? Perhaps. But even were his father able to make the journey…

  I do not want him there. Bad enough I must sell myself, no better than a Trindeki courtesan. I cannot bear to do it where he is watching.

  “Go and eat,” said his father. “You looked peaked. Would you have me worrying over your health now?”

  Taking up the breakfast tray, Morgan left his father to doze over a favourite book and made his way downstairs. On the second floor landing he glanced through the window and stopped, surprised, to see Barl traipsing toward the poultry coop with an empty pail in her hand. Her halting walk spoke with harsh eloquence of a body still haunted by pain.

  For too long he watched her, his father’s breakfast tray heavy in his grasp. And watching, found himself hoping that she’d sense his regard and turn. He wanted to see her eyes again. He wanted to feast his gaze on her face. She was a miracle of magic. Though she was bound, he could feel her power in his blood… and the empty place beneath his tunic, where for so many years a locket had warmed his cold skin, yearned and burned for her touch.

  She didn’t feel him, watching her. Instead she let the poultry coop swallow her, and he continued down the stairs.

  “My lord, she insisted,” said Rumm, after listening to a trenchant upbraiding. “And, if you’ll permit me to speak bluntly, I see no good coming from cosseting the girl. She is disruptive enough without we give the other servants reason to resent her.”

  Morgan shoved the cluttered tray at him. “You presume to instruct me?”

  “No, sir,” said Rumm, very clipped. “I merely seek to maintain this mansion’s orderly atmosphere. Ructions will serve only to distress his lordship.”

  And above all else, his lordship must not be distressed.

  As if I need a servant to remind me of that.

  “I have business in Elvado, Rumm,” he said, equally clipped. “I’ll not be absent much above an hour. I trust I can leave you in charge here for such a small space of time?”

  Rumm’s lips tightened. “Yes, sir. Of course.”

  After changing into a tunic of indigo silk, subtly shot with bronze thread, Morgan incanted himself into the city’s eastern quarter. Sallis Arkley was a man of luxurious habit. Every morning, almost without fail, his desiccated lordship indulged himself in the bone-warming heat of a private hot room, part of an exclusive establishment that kept all but the most prestigiously ranked mages at bay.

  “Councillor Danfey,” the establishment’s gatekeeper murmured. “Welcome. Your robe… your towels… would you care for refreshment?”

  He took what was proffered. “Water.”

  A wax-sealed bottle joined robe and towels. “And should you require anything else,” the gatekeeper said, gravely deferential, “you have but to ask.”

  He was interested only if Sallis Arkley were here yet, but had no intention of alerting the man to his business. Instead he withdrew to the inner chambers and took possession of a cubicle, where he stripped himself of his finery and shrugged into the robe. Then he made his way to the communal hot room where Sallis Arkley so enjoyed holding court.

  It was empty of all but billows of steam. He was early.

  Prepared to wait as long as he had to, unwilling to offer for Parnel Garrick’s daughter until this last matter was settled, he loosened his robe, eased himself onto a bench and breathed deep of the heated, damp air. Sweat sprang through his skin within heartbeats. Eyes closed, head resting against the comfortably padded wall, he let the morning’s tension seep from his pores.

  If only it were as easy to sweat out Barl Lindin.

  The merest thought of the girl made his pulse race and his muscles contract. Not even the aromatic steam, rich with the healing properties of potent Ranoushi mineral rock, could ease him. Nothing could ease him.

  Nothing save Barl Lindin vanishing from my life. But in binding her I have bound myself, too. It seems I am caught in a snare of my own making.

  And ensnared, he could see no means of escape.

  An eddy in the room’s clouding vapours as the sealed door opened. Sallis Arkley strode in, trailing four acolyte mages eager to be of use, so that in turn they might boast of it and advance their own causes. Sallis knew that, of course. Which meant either he sought to feed his avaricious appetite for flattery… or he was using them, as they thought they used him.

  Most likely it’s both. Sallis is devious. Only a fool forgets that.

  The steam billowed again, and Sallis saw him. Only someone who’d sat through a succession of Council meetings with him would see how his confident stride lost its rhythm, just for a moment.

  “Danfey.” Because others were watching, Sallis offered a genial smile. At no time could the Council of Mages give a public impression of disharmony. “It is not usual to see you here.”

  Morgan offered his own insincere smile. “That’s true, my lord. But you have a glow of health about you that prompts me to follow your excellent example.”

  Eyes glinting, Sallis turned to his companions. “You would be serving me, my friends, did you retreat a short while to the smaller hot room. As it happens, this chance encounter is most timely. The councillor and I have a privy matter to discuss.”

  The acolytes, years younger than Arkley, all of them ranked but not dangerously high, nearly fell over each other to prove their affability. As the door banged shut behind them, Sallis quashed his smile.

  “I am not impressed, Morgan.”

  And here was another clownish tightrope to walk. Too deferential and Sallis would immediately disbelieve him. Not deferential enough and the man would cut his own throat before granting a hint of consideration.

  “My lord, it is unfortunate that I could n
ot find another way to gain your ear,” Morgan said, remaining seated, but lacing his voice with all due deference. “I’ll shortly be absent from Elvado and—”

  “The Garrick house party,” Sallis grunted. Without embarrassment he shucked his robe to reveal a decrepit, wrinkled nakedness, and took a seat on the bench opposite. “Which means you’ll be absent another Council meeting.”

  A lifetime of circumspection allowed him to mask the surge of anger. And when will you learn to keep your mouth shut about my doings, Venette? “Regrettably, my lord. Yes. But I understand there is nothing of urgency planned for discussion. Should that change, of course I will attend.”

  Closing his eyes, Sallis made a show of wafting the billows of pungent steam closer for his inhaling. Even old, even naked and sweating, he posed a threat. The power that slept in him gave off as much heat as the room’s heated mineral bricks.

  “You know it was a mistake, Morgan, to take that unranked mage into your protection.”

  “Not protection. Custody,” he replied, and used his towel to blot stinking sweat from his brow. “Nor do I hold it a mistake. But we can agree to disagree on that.”

  “Can we?” Sallis’s eyelids rose, slowly. “Morgan Danfey, you’re a presumptuous man.”

  And you are a man who’d best serve Dorana by dying.

  “Forgive me,” he murmured. “No presumption was intended.”

  With a snap of fingers stripped bare of their customary rings, Sallis caused more water to spill over the steam room’s hot mineral bricks. Clouds of heated, healing water swirled between them.

  “An unranked mage who knows her place,” he said, when the hissing had died down, “has a place and a purpose.”

  “By which you mean that Barl Lindin has neither?”

  Fat drops of sweat rolled indolent down Sallis Arkley’s predatory face. “By which I mean you play a dangerous game. No ranked mage with any pretension to wisdom sports outside the confines of his purview. To do so is to court certain disaster.”

  Anger surged again. “Lord Arkley, I think you are too subtle for me. If you would proffer advice, I beg you, proffer it plainly.”

  “Barl Lindin is a menace.” Another smile, this time anything but genial. “To herself, to Dorana, and to any mage lending her sympathy. I thought you had a greater care for your position. You do know there is precedent for a mage to be dismissed from the Council?”

  Morgan let a hint of his own displeasure show. “My lord, you’d need cause. And since you have none, I see no point to your point. Nor did I disturb you here in order to—”

  “Since you have disturbed me, Morgan, I reserve the right to speak as I choose,” said Sallis, his voice cutting. “And I choose to warn you, not for your sake but for the Council’s and the welfare of Dorana. Surrender custody of Barl Lindin, hand her to a judiciary—to be chosen by Brice, I think—and wash your hands of this matter before they are soiled beyond hope.”

  His temper, always tightly leashed in the presence of this man, strained—strained—and snapped. He stood, heedless of his gaping robe.

  “My lord, it seems to me the presumption here is yours. My conduct is not for your perusal or comment. My conduct in all matters is above reproach. Would that I could claim the same of you.”

  Sallis bared his teeth. “Whelp. Don’t think to cross me. I’ll slice your career to ribbons raising less sweat than this hot room. Or did you think your elevation to the Council contained no element of probation within it?”

  “You are keen to remind me, yet again, that the mantle of councillor comes with no sinecure!” he retorted. “Why has it not occurred to you that not even a lord is immune from scrutiny?”

  “You threaten me?” Sallis laughed. “Don’t think to see me quake with terror, Morgan. You’re no more threatening than a moth.”

  He stepped closer. “Threats are for men who have no arrows in their quiver. But I am well armed. You deny my pending incants for no better reason than spite. And if I make a formal complaint, Lord Varen will have to act on it or be held derelict in his duty. That means a formal investigation, and no mage of your affluence and reach can hope to claim his hands are entirely unstained. And if you think Brice Varen will bruise himself for your sake, you are a sadly deluded man… my lord.”

  Sallis glared at him, silenced.

  “As I’m sure you already know,” he said softly, “I attend the Garrick house party to make a change in my status. Should your pettiness damage me in that pursuit, I will have satisfaction. And when I am finished, I won’t be the mage who’s dismissed from the Council. So my advice to you, Lord Arkley, is this: approve my pending incants, or it will be your career shredded. Not mine.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  The mansion felt empty with Morgan Danfey away.

  Which was ridiculous, what with Rumm and the other servants underfoot, and his lordship penned on the third floor, reclusive but nonetheless vitally present. Nevertheless… it was true.

  Rubbing beeswax into the second floor staircase banister, her fingers slick with it, her skin scented like a honeycomb, Barl bit her lip. How was she supposed to wheedle the councillor into unbinding her for good if he wasn’t on the estate?

  And I can wheedle him, I know it. All I need is more time.

  But time might well be running out. Because if servant gossip was to be believed, he’d travelled into the countryside to arrange his handfasting with someone called Maris Garrick. Which wouldn’t suit her at all. She’d have no hope of wheedling him if he brought a wife back to the estate.

  Of course, the servants could be wrong. Servants frequently are.

  For example, if the councillor’s affections were caught by this Maris Garrick, his pulse wouldn’t race for Barl Lindin, would it? And she wasn’t wrong about that. She knew the effect she often had on men. Barton Haye had been smitten. So had half a dozen other young bucks she’d known in this village, and that one. She wasn’t imagining things. Morgan Danfey was not indifferent.

  And neither are you indifferent to him.

  Shocked, she fumbled her beeswax-soaked polishing rag. Where had that thought come from? It was nonsense. Nonsense. Morgan Danfey was a councillor, her captor, her prison guard. The enemy.

  And even if he weren’t, he’s courting this Maris Garrick and ogling me. What a fine, upstanding example of honour that is.

  The man was despicable. So what if he was handsome? What did it matter that when he held her, she felt safe? That was an illusion. She wasn’t safe. She never would be, so long as she was bound. Besides… he was ranked and she wasn’t. There might not be a written law against a ranked mage marrying beneath him, but in Dorana unwritten laws carried the same weight. Sometimes it seemed they carried even more.

  And if I’m clever, I can make sure that for once injustice helps me instead of hurts me. If I’m clever I’ll make him feel so guilty for wanting me that he’ll do anything to make the discomfort stop.

  Anything like unbind her, or better yet, persuade the Council that she was so repentant it was now safe to send her back to Batava.

  Of course, using Morgan Danfey’s interest in her against him wasn’t precisely honourable. But she couldn’t afford to worry about that. She was terrified of dreaming again, of waking the binding fire that slept too lightly beneath her skin. Especially now, with the councillor so far away he’d not be able to rescue her a second time.

  One day I’ll see that incant, and all punishing incants like it, declared anathema. Not even the Council of Mages should have so much power.

  With the banisters shining brightly enough to satisfy even fastidious Master Rumm, she trudged to the third floor. There she listened for Lord Danfey stirring behind his closed apartment doors. Not a whisper. She hadn’t seen him since the day she’d arrived. Rumm tended to his every need and whim. It was a wonder the master servant wasn’t worn to skin and bone with all his running up and down stairs.

  Sighing, she started polishing the next stretch of banister. Strictly speaki
ng it was the housemaid’s task, only Dilys’s mother had taken poorly and Rumm had given the girl leave to go home, because now there was Barl Lindin to take her menial place. But she’d lay a wager that if Remmie were to get sick she’d never even hear of it, let alone be permitted to see him.

  She felt her breath catch, imagining. And then it caught again, from temper.

  See what they’ve done, Remmie? Turned me into a poor, spineless creature leaping at shadows. When they bound my magic, they bound my courage with it. Did they mean to? I think they must have. They know exactly what they’ve done.

  The pain of that was like a whip’s lash, curling round her ribs. She tried to smother her fears with harder polishing, but all that did was remind her of how very far she’d fallen.

  Sweeping. Waxing. Dusting nooks and crannies. Washing windows. Wringing out sopping wet clothes and sheets and table linens in the laundry, then lumbering them outside to dry. And of course the poultry coop, which she also had to mind. Rumm was determined to keep her running as hard as he did, from the moment she opened her eyes in the morning until she fell face-first onto her thin, lumpy pillow late at night.

  “Idle hands make for mischief,” he’d told her, severe. “And you, Mage Lindin, are in trouble enough.”

  He really was the most disagreeable man.

  From artisan mage to housemaid. If Ibbitha could see me now…

  Still, no matter how much she resented all this tedious servant work, she couldn’t help admiring the banister’s beeswaxed lustre. The elegant staircase, built of rare anfra, from Vharne, had been crafted by a mage of real talent. Of particular delight, each landing’s newel post was mageworked into a cunningly lifelike beast. Her fingers caressed the antlers on the third floor’s magnificent stag.

  Curse it.

  Just when she thought she could endure the misery of her binding, the terrible incompleteness that made her a stranger in her own skin crashed over her yet again. Closing her eyes, she rested her forehead on her outstretched arm.