Yes, but —
And that isn't enough for you? the voice continued, as her throat thickened and her eyes stung, and the moon blurred a little from unshed tears of loneliness. Oh, well, aren't we a selfish little bitch! We want it all, do we? And just what have we done to earn it, hmm?
Nothing, but —
Exactly right. Not even to earn as much as we've gotten! The inner voice was not going to go away. And it wasn't going to be less truthful, either. Think about the Rosalindas, before you start feeling too sorry for yourself. Think about the other ugly turns The Tradition can take. Then think about how lucky you are that Madame Bella came along, and stop being like the spoiled child who cries herself to sleep because she can't have the moon.
Now the voice went quiet, and left her alone. She swallowed down the lump in her throat; she wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. That inner voice was right. She knew it was right. And just because she thought she was a little lonely, that didn't stop if from being right.
She needed to take herself in hand, and count her blessings. And she would. She would.
Tomorrow....
But tonight — tonight she would think about how much she wished it was her that was in a true lover's arms, and weep for the moon.
Just a little....
Chapter 9
By the time the winter snows were calf-deep on the ground, the time that Elena spent as an Apprentice was no longer so much a matter of lessons as it was of practice. Elena knew the theory, virtually everything that Madame Bella could teach; she was not comfortable in it yet, but she knew what to do. And now, unless it so happened that she would ever find herself required for some Great Work, she was as strong in magic as she would ever be. She still had the majority of her own power, and the power she had gotten from Rosalie — twice now, because things were not getting better, they were getting worse. The Tradition definitely wanted Rosalie, or her child or both. And it was not giving up.
So Madame Bella began taking her out to actually do the Godmothering herself, while Madame supervised; most of it was minor, such as taking the power from Rosalie; once she played "the old woman at the crossroads," giving the correct directions to the one young man who was polite to her, and sending the other four who were not down a long wilderness road that would leave them in the middle of nowhere. Another time, she made a point of getting a particular pot of flowers into the hands of a young woman, and once she ensured that a handsome kitten was adopted by a mill-owner with three sons. She knew what both of those were about, of course, but it would be years before either story came to fruition. What was more, neither the Black Magician nor the Ogre would be remotely aware of what was coming before it was too late. They were too busy fending off knights at the moment to even think about what a Godmother might be preparing for them.
And last of all, Madame taught her Magical Combat.
With the assistance of the Fair Folk, Elena learned all of the ways that duels could take place between Magicians — whether it was the Duel Direct where one threw powerful magical attacks at the foe, the Transformation Duel where each magician kept changing his form until one or the other was able to devour or otherwise incapacitate the opposition, or the Duel by Avatar where each magician transformed into a magical monster and physical and magical combat took place between them. And she got as much practice in dueling as was possible under the circumstances, which was not a great deal; dueling took such huge stores of energy that no one really practiced it. Instead, they did what she did; they studied the great combats of the past, and the Fair Folk were the past masters at summoning such things into blazing life.
"I have never actually gotten into combat myself," Madame told her warningly. "Quite frankly, I leave that sort of thing to Sorcerers — it's what they're supposed to do. Just remember, if you are ever in a position where combat can't be avoided, call for help. The best thing you can do is stay out of the way; if you can't, never forget that evil will cheat."
The rest of it was fairly innocuous; selling potions at a market stall, giving advice, sending one young lady on an errand that would intersect her course with a particular shepherd boy who was eminently well-suited to her. Godmothering was as much about small things as large, and about the lives of ordinary people as well as those that The Tradition was trying to steer. And sometimes The Tradition could be as implacable a foe as any twenty powerful Magicians.
"Take you, for instance," said Bella one day. "Suppose, just suppose, mind, you happened to encounter a Prince outside of your role. Because you were supposed to marry a Prince, you would be attracted to him, and if he happened to kiss you, you would feel the urge to melt into his arms and you might very well fall in love with him. But," she added darkly, "you are a Godmother, not a deserving orphan anymore. You are outside of your role, where he is concerned, and The Tradition could very likely try to put him into another role altogether. The Rake, for instance, the Cad, the Seducer, who will have his way with you, steal your heart, and abandon you. Do you recall my discussion of just how I selected Arachnia's young man? That is why I was so exceedingly careful. If I had not been, he could easily have fallen into one of those roles and made things worse, in the end."
Elena felt very uneasy. "And — what if that happened?" she asked.
Bella shrugged. "It is a bitter thing to have your heart broken. That is how Godmothers themselves sometimes go to the bad. Just remember, dear, that if you decide to step out of your role, you had better do it in such a way that you thoroughly break with The Tradition, not just try to get around it."
She didn't need to be reminded of that, for The Tradition was in ponderous motion within a few miles of the cottage.
The situation with Rosalie was clearly not going to improve.
Despite all of Madame's attempts to prevent it, the young wife when less than a month from confinement was so overcome by a craving for fresh rampion that she could stomach little else, she sent word to Madame immediately. There was little doubt in either Bella or Elena's minds that if she did not get the vegetable soon, she would sicken and perhaps die.
Snow lay a foot thick in every garden. Only magic could produce fresh rampion at this point, and Rosalie knew it. Fortunately, she was stubborn as well as intelligent, and determined that as she had escaped the fate that The Tradition had set for her, so would her child. So she hid her craving from her husband until she could convey her plight to Madame Bella.
Madame called Elena into her study, after hours closeted with Randolf.
"Rosalie must have rampion. Randolf has found an Evil Sorceress sniffing around the village. We have little time." She looked searchingly at Elena. "I know what I would do, but what would you do in this situation?"
"First — The Tradition is going to force a magician into that village to grow the rampion to be stolen," she said, slowly. "Is there any reason why that magician cannot be me?"
There was only one possible house in the village that would suit; only one had a great stone wall all the way around it. The Tradition would demand that Rosalie's husband climb a wall or pass some other barrier to steal the rampion.
The fact that it was already occupied was a detail that needed to be taken care of. The Dark One could use trickery, or might simply dispose of the woman and take her place; not being bound by laws or decency made things a bit easier for their kind. It was a trifle more difficult for the Godmother and her Apprentice.
However, a Godmother has many resources at her disposal. Elena never learned what it was that Madame promised to the widow in order to get her to agree to vacate for a month or two, but it was evidently enough to have her packed and gone on the instant. It was only an hour or two after Madame paid the woman a visit, that Elena could move into that isolated, walled house at the end of the village, a house shrouded by tall cypress and pine, usually occupied only by the widow and her two servants. Madame whisked the widow off quietly, in a closed carriage; no one in the village would ever even guess that she had gone. Elena took her p
lace, in disguise, as soon as the carriage was out of sight.
The disguise was made easier by Elena adopting the widow's mourning; to most folk, all black dresses look alike, and the widow held herself so aloof from the rest of the village that so long as her face looked right, it was doubtful that anyone would note a difference in height or weight.
The house was terribly silent compared to Madame Bella's. Elena hadn't really noticed it before, but there was always the sound of someone moving about the place; one of the House-Elves at some task or other, Madame bustling about the place, or even Randolf singing to himself in Madame's parlor, or speaking with her about something. The two servants here, however, had very little to do, and had been trained to do it all silently. The house was mostly cold; the only fires were in the kitchen and in the widow's bedroom. The contrast with Madame's cheerful home could not have been more dramatic.
And when Elena went up to the widow's room, she got a bit of another shock; she saw a stranger in the mirror, an older woman, statuesque, aloof, and nothing like her.
Madame had arranged this part. It was an illusion, but a very, very good one. Elena reached for the mirror, and the stranger reached back.
Feeling a little shaken by the encounter, Elena went straight to bed. But she slept lightly, and not well. Unless she was watching the house all the time — not likely — the Sorceress would not know that a substitution had been made. Shortly she would make her first attempts to take the widow's place herself. During the night, in fact, Elena woke up twice, hearing something sniffing about under the windows, and trying the doors.
She woke the third time as something rattled at a window. It could have been the wind, which had picked up, but she remained wide-eyed and awake until dawn.
As soon as there was light, she went ahead and got up to dress. No sooner had she finished, but there was a knock at the door.
One of the two servants answered it, and summoned Elena in her guise as the mistress of the house.
She had half expected the Evil Sorceress to appear herself, but instead it was a supercilious-looking manservant. He gazed at her down his long nose; she was wearing the guise of that wealthy widow, perfectly ordinary in every way, and he evidently didn't recognize her for what she was. He wore a livery so rich with gold braid that if one actually had to buy it, the clothing would probably fetch twice as much as the gown that Elena was wearing.
So, the Sorceress was taking the indirect option. That was interesting. It suggested that she might not be the sort to resort to outright murder. Or at least, not yet.
"My mistress wishes to purchase this house," he began.
"It's not for sale," she said, rudely, and slammed the door in his face. It was not in her best interest to give him — or rather, his mistress — a good look at her. A magician's disguise is seldom proof against the probing of another magician; at the least, the other would be able to tell that there was a disguise in place, if not the true identity beneath it.
The knocking began again; she ignored it and directed her servants to do the same, and eventually, from an upper window, saw him trudge away.
The Sorceress was clever, more so than the usual, because the next person she sent was the village constable. A spell on him that Elena could read from her window like one of her favorite books meant to make him think that Elena was to be evicted.
She opened her door to him, and before he got more than the word "You — " out, she struck him with the counterspell. She stood there in the doorway, while he stood stupidly in the snow, trying to remember why he had come there in the first place.
"Well, Constable?" she asked. "Have you come about that prowler the neighbors have been talking about?"
"Ah — " He actually shook himself, then brightened. "Ah, yes, mum. The prowler! Your neighbors said there was something or someone around their walls last night, and it fair gave them a turn. Did you have any sight of him yourself?"
"Not a bit of it," she lied, because of course, there had been a prowler around her walls, but if it had been another servant of the Evil One, her protections had probably kept it off. But the neighbors had evidently seen it as well, and been frightened out of their wits.
That was a stroke of luck, though it wasn't anything that she needed to count on. There was always someone in every village who saw prowlers at night, every night, and would berate the constable about them in the morning. "I have stout walls and good locks, and if there was a prowler and not something out of the bottom of a bottle, he'd know better than to try my door."
"Right enough, mum," the constable said agreeably, and turned to go about his business. As he left her gate, she saw that he was going to talk to the neighbors. Another stroke of luck; the Sorceress would not be able to get at him until he was alone again, and that might not happen for the rest of the day.
Three times was the usual number for frontal assaults, and sure enough, just after sundown, the Evil Sorceress arrived herself.
She came in full array, parading down the road from the forest in a black carriage drawn by black horses with fiery eyes; "horses" that Elena sensed were not horses at all. Where she walked up the path to the front door, the snow melted. When she struck the door with her fist, it sounded like the pounding at the gates of a tomb. It even shook Elena, and she was ready for it; she had the feeling that the neighbors were all hiding under their beds, shivering.
But now that the moment was at hand, somehow she didn't feel quite so frightened anymore.
In fact, the imperious pounding on the door just woke Elena's native stubbornness, and her anger, too, along with the weapon that Bella had given her. She gathered her courage, made sure she had the weapon in her hand, went to the front door, and flung it open.
The Sorceress's hand was raised for a second volley of knocks. Caught by surprise, Elena did not give her a chance to recover. She jabbed the needle-sharp spindle of a spinning wheel right into the upraised hand.
There was a flash of light and the smell of lightning.
The Spell of Sleep hit the Sorceress like the fist of doom, and she crumpled. It was a good spell; solid and well-turned. It should be; it had been diverted from being used on yet another Princess several years ago. Taking down one Evil Sorceress with the spell crafted by another had a certain satisfying irony about it. And anyway, Madame liked to conserve effort whenever possible. The magic had been expended for this weapon of the enemy; it only made sense to make use of it if they could.
This spell had been meant to hold a Princess for a hundred years. It would only hold an Evil Sorceress for about a month, but that was all that Elena needed.
Now, at last, Robin appeared, from where he had been waiting in the cypresses in case Elena's attack failed. He helped her drag the unconscious Sorceress into the house. Together they installed her in a spare room, arranging her on the bed — then Elena sealed the room with triple bindings to make sure the woman stayed there.
As she closed the door, she felt, and saw, the weight of magic around the house shift, and took a deep and steadying breath. The Sorceress was now in the house. The real owner was gone, and someone in her image was now mistress of the place. The first part of the tale was complete.
Elena looked out at the walled garden at the back of the building, and was not at all surprised to see the snow melting away from the raised vegetable beds, as if it was springtime, even though it lacked but three days to Christmas. That was The Tradition at work; if the Sorceress herself was not capable of enchanting the garden so that the fateful rampion could grow, The Tradition would take care of that little detail for her.
In a way, the sight was more terrifying than the Sorceress and her dreadful horses at the door. Here The Tradition revealed the power that it could exert in the Five Hundred Kingdoms; here was magic moving and working without any human medium at all. At that moment, Elena felt The Tradition looming over her like a giant wave about to crash down on her, like a silent avalanche about to overwhelm her.
Unless she could
direct it. She could not control it, but if she was careful, perhaps she could make it work for her.
Elena went to bed, and in the morning, when she checked the garden again, the little plants were already sprouting from beds in which the earth was warm to the touch. Her lips tightened with anger, but she took care not to show it. What she did do was to check again to see that the Sorceress was fast asleep.
By Christmas, the rampion was half grown. By New Year's it was full grown, lush, and luscious. And on New Year's Day, Rosalie's husband came over the wall in the early morning, to steal the verdantly green plants for his wife. The roots were at their most perfect, crisp and sweet, about the size of prize carrots, but with a white flesh. Peasant food, which made it all the more ironic, for this peasant food would nourish a peasant child who would, one day, marry a prince.
But only after royal blood had soaked the earth beneath her tower.
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