“Cassie will be my first dance,” Alec told her with a laugh. “After that I won’t have another chance to dance with her, so I hope you’ll give me the privilege and honor to fall under your spell of enchantment again.”
“So graciously put, my my,” Bethany said. “This is the second dance coming up. You and I are for the third dance, right?” and she gathered up her companion and walked away.
“Cassie, do you have any dances left?” a voice called, and Appel appeared, walking rapidly towards them.
“I’ll dance the next but one with you, if that’s alright Alec?” Cassie said, turning to look at her escort.
“Cassie, I have your promise for the next dance, and I hope for the last one too, but between those two you’ll have to figure out how many you want to have,” Alec told her, directing her into the room towards the tables and chairs.
“Appel, meet me after the next dance,” she told him, and he smiled brightly at her as they walked away from him.
Before they could make it to a table, the orchestra began to strike warning chords. “Are you ready, Cassie?” Alec asked, stopping in place. “Let’s go to the floor.”
A slow melody began, and Alec placed his arms around Cassie as they began the dance. He was no expert dancer, but had seen enough and done a little while with the carnival, and managed to lead Cassie around. “Let you partner lead you and tell them you are in your first dance and you expect they’ll go slowly,” he spoke to her, just before he stumbled in a back step.
Alec felt keenly aware of Cassie’s bare shoulders. “Oh Cassie, you are going to conquer so many hearts tonight,” he said softly to her. She looked up at him with shining eyes, but said nothing.
The couple moved around the room, commenting to each other on the decorations and the attire of others as they travelled in the flow of the other dancing couples, until the music finished and they walked back to the table Alec had seen. As soon as they sat, two young officers from the palace came and renewed their slight acquaintances with Alec, then asked for dances with Cassie, who promised them the dances after Appel. Who promptly appeared to claim his promised dance with the lovely young girl who had so recently been cast away in a fisherman‘s hut.
Alec excused himself and walked over to a table where he saw Nathaniel and Moriah sitting with other apprentices. “May Cassie and I change partners with you two for the sixth dance?” he asked as he walked up behind Moriah.
Nathaniel nodded, while Moriah turned. “Oh Alec, look at you.” she said. “We’d love to dance with you and Cassie.”
The musical prelude to the next dance began, and Alec saw Appel hovering next to Cassie already. He looked around, and saw Bethany watching him, so he walked in her direction.
“Now you’ve made me infamous,” Bethany said, as they began their dance. “People are already talking about the striking officer from Goldenfields, and now the girls will all want to know how I managed to snare a dance with the dashing one.”
Alec looked at her and smiled. “The boys won’t say anything of the like. They can’t even talk right now, you know. They all need to pull their tongues back into their mouths after they finish looking at you,” he told her, surprised at how easy it was for him to exchange extravagant stories with this vivacious girl, who seemed to inspire him even as he was losing his sense of outrage over the pranks he believed she had pulled on him.
She leaned up and kissed him lightly on the cheek. “You have managed to say such perfectly gallant things to me, but I don’t think your heart is the tiniest bit smitten with me,” she accused, with a pouting lower lip. “Not the way it should be. Why can’t you be like all the other boys?”
“Why mess up a good friendship with something like being smitten?” Alec asked.
“Alright,” she said. “At least pretend to be smitten so I can maintain my reputation. Won’t you give me one little kiss at least for the sake of appearances? The dance is ending already.”
Alec leaned into her and kissed her cheek as the last notes died away, then laughed with Bethany and left her to go find Cassie.
Before he could reach Cassie though, the officer who was expecting the next dance hovered over her and took her to a table.
Left without a partner, Alec retired from the dance floor as quickly as possible, and found himself on a side of the room with more people from the court, and fewer from the ingenairii’ community. Looking around he saw a face he recognized but couldn’t place, at the same time the older man looked at him too. Suddenly it struck Alec that it was Aerley, the court physician to the king, who he’d met once at the bedside of Natha’s daughter Annalea. Alec decided to go say hello to the doctor who he especially remembered because he’d taken Noranda to Oyster Bay from Goldenfields, as Alec had learned later.
“You are Master Aerley?” Alec asked as he walked over to the table full of dignified men and women sitting away from the dance floor.
“Yes, and your face is familiar, but I cannot place the name,” Aerley said, rising. “Please forgive me?”
“I’m Alec, and we met months ago in Goldenfields…” Alec began to explain.
“You healed Natha’s daughter of the impossible malady, by diagnosing what no one could have possibly figured out,” Aerley continued. “And so you’re not only a healer, but an officer in the Duke’s Guard as well, it appears. Allow me to introduce you,” Aerley said, and introduced Alec to two ministers of the king, Marble and Ventin, as well as a prominent banker at Pierpont’s, Oakley.
“How does it come that an officer of the Duke is here at this ball?” Ventin asked, as Alec realized that they did not know he was an ingenaire. “Not that we have any place to question,” Ventin continued, laughing. “A bunch of old men like us has no place being here at this young folks’ evening event either, except that we like to look at all the pretty girls and talk among ourselves.”
The fourth dance had ended, and the fifth was about to begin. Alec turned from the gentlemen to spot where Cassie was, and saw her being escorted by the other officer who had wheedled the dance from her earlier.
“Yes, they are quite pleasant to look at,” Marble said, misinterpreting Alec’s look at the dance floor. “If Aerley says you’re that good a healer, perhaps you should come take a look at his Highness sometime. What do you say to that Aerley?”
The court physician said without waiting, “I think this one is no quack. Heaven knows we could use another set of eyes looking at King Gildevny, last of the House of Tarnum. How long will you be in Oyster Bay?” Aerley asked him.
“Perhaps as long as a month,” Alec replied, not sure where this conversation was going to lead or what Ari would want him to do.
“Let’s get you in,” Marble said. “Where can Aerley reach you?”
The last strains of the fifth dance died away, and Alec rose to leave. “You can write to me here at Ingenairii’ Hill, care of Aristotle. He’ll schedule me to see his highness. Now please excuse me, I have a lady to dance with,” and with a smile he left the men behind.
Chapter 17 – The Apprentice’s Ball
Alec walked out onto the floor and found Cassie, who he politely but insistently disengaged from her last partner. “I told Moriah and Nathaniel we’d dance this dance with them, and then perhaps we can sit one out and let you rest,” he suggested.
“That would be lovely,” Cassie replied, as they walked towards the area where Nathaniel and Moriah were. Nathaniel saw them coming and stood up. “Cassie, you look wonderful,” he complimented her.
Again the orchestra sounded the warning for the next dance, as Moriah stood up.
Alec took Moriah by the hand and led her onto the floor. As the music began they fell into the pose of dancers. Alec could feel Moriah’s curly hair on his cheek, and smelled the slight hint of wine on her breath. “Do they dance this way where you come from?” he asked her.
“We have mostly folk dances, fast-moving dances where you may dance with many partners a little bit, but not with any one partn
er for long,” Moriah said. “Back home, a dance like this is for the lovers.”
They danced in silence for a long time, for more than half the tune after that exchange.
“What was that for?” Moriah asked him.
“What was what?” Alec asked her.
“That big sigh you just gave, like some calamity had befallen you,” she said, looking up with her green eyes at his face for the first time in the dance.
Alec hesitated, weighing the wisdom of honesty versus a polite nothing. “I was sighing over the loss of your friendship,” he finally said.
Moriah turned her head away. “Oh Alec, you haven’t lost my friendship. I admire you a great deal and like you. But Nathaniel and I need to spend time together so that we can have a healthy marriage someday. I’ve neglected him at times, but he’s a very good person who I can count on. We had grown apart with the arrival of all the hustle and bustle you’ve brought to our quiet lives in Rubicon’s home; he really admires you for all that you seem to do so effortlessly. I’ve been a little jealous of all the time he’s spent with you; that’s time he used to spend with me before you came into the house.
“I have avoided you, but not lost my respect for you. When you performed the miracle of healing Cassie, and used my power in the process, you made me feel so close to you! Maybe I was even frightened by how close I felt to you after that, when I could sense your soul.
“Right now, as Nathaniel and I stay together, I feel like we have to stay away from you or we’ll never get this relationship right. You are like a magnet that draws and attracts people and activity and power. We need to spend more time with each other, and less in the middle of the maelstrom that surrounds you,” she said as tears started to well in her eyes even while a pleading smile tried to remove any sting from her words.
Alec realized that the music had stopped and the floor was empty except for the two of them. He felt a tear run down his cheek too. With a flash of insight, he wondered if the enchantments that had befallen him since he entered the Cave of John Mark had come to include some mantle of likeability that let him make friends easily. Never before, during his time in the orphanage or in the carnival, had he been more than a shy and awkward boy, with few friends and no power to impress or charm.
Alec walked her off the floor and wiped her tears away. ‘Moriah, there’s nothing about you I don’t like. You’re a wonderful person, and so is Nathaniel, and I’m sorry I’ve brought disruption to your life here. I understand better now, and I hope you and Nathaniel find your happiness together soon,” knowing as he said it that there was nothing else he could say.
Cassie started to walk towards him, and he stopped as Moriah walked back to Nathaniel, the two girls passing one another on the way. Alec and Cassie wandered over to a table and sat down. Alec looked at the girl he was with, and no longer felt the enchantment of the dance after listening to Moriah‘s revelations. “Cassie, I’m going to leave Oyster Bay to return to Goldenfields in just a few weeks or less. I want you be happy when I leave,” he told her. “So think about what we can do to prepare you for running the medical shop and working with Hinges to keep the healer house going, and let me know what I can do to prepare things.”
Cassie looked at him. “Such a serious topic to bring up at a dance Alec,” she said. “Appel and those two officers, they were chatty, and lively and full of compliments and witty things that kept me laughing. Nathaniel didn’t say a word. And now you’re trying to take care of me like a good father.
“Thank you for looking out for me, but let’s have fun tonight, and think about serious things tomorrow. Oh! Look, here comes Rubicon for his dance. I’ll dance this one with him, and the last one with you, and that’s all my legs can take tonight,” she stood up as the limping ingenaire arrived to dance with her.
Alec sat alone at his table, watching the dancers on the floor gracefully eclipse each other as they transited the room. He waited for Rubicon to finish his dance with Cassie and bring her back. “We’ll do the next one and then leave,” Alec confirmed.
As the music played for the last time for them that night, Alec and Cassie started into the dance steps. “You’re a better dancer already!” Alec teased Cassie. “But I suppose you put in two dances for every one I did, so that’s not surprising.”
They were moving towards the door now in the pattern of the dance, and as the music died, Alec guided Cassie to the exit. They both turned and looked again at the dazzling scene of light and decoration and colorful people. “I’ll never forget this night,” Cassie said to Alec, putting her arm around him. “You’ve made it wonderful.”
They walked in silence through the night of a cloudless sky, and reached the healers’ house. Alec thought about the long walk yet to come up the hillside. “Cassie, why don’t we just sleep here tonight? We’ve got the beds, and then we can walk up the hill in the morning.”
“I think that’s a wonderful idea,” she agreed. Alec opened the door, and found a candle to light from the lantern turned low in the hall. They walked back to their adjoining rooms. “Alec, since Hinges is asleep, I’ll need your help. Please unbutton the back of my dress for me.”
After just a moment’s hesitation, Alec did as asked without comment, opening each button far down her back. Cassie waited a moment after the last button was undone, then took up the candle and walked to her door. “Good night, my captain,” she said over her shoulder and closed the door.
Alec, left without a candle, moved cautiously into his own room, and in the darkness undressed and laid his uniform out on the floor as best he could to avoid wrinkling it, then flopped into bed, and fell asleep. He was tormented all night long by Noranda, Inga, Moriah, Bethany and Cassie in dream after dream, but the next morning the only one he remembered was Bethany asking him to dance with her.
Chapter 18 – Opening the Healers House
Alec awoke the next morning, confused about where he was. He lay in bed with his eyes open, looking at the strange ceiling for several seconds before he remembered that he had spent his first night in the healers’ house. He hopped out of bed and threw on the clothes he had worn yesterday before the ball, then ran up the hill to the warriors compound and into Rubicon’s house for his training exercises. Alec waited for half an hour before Rubicon himself came out, still groggy.
“Blast it Alec, why are you here the morning after a big ball? Don’t you know we’re all supposed to indolently sleep in late on a morning like this? There’s nothing worse than glancing out the window and seeing a student waiting for you,” the stumpy ingenaire growled as he sat down.
“Did you enjoy yourself last night?” he asked Alec.
“It was the grandest event I have ever been to,” Alec said. “And giving Cassie a treat like that felt so satisfying, especially when I think that just a few weeks ago she was lying in a filthy pile of rags in a shack.”
“Bringing Cassie out like that gave quite a few men a treat, I’d say,” Rubicon replied. “And she did tell me herself she’d remember the night as the grandest thing in her life so far.
“Except for you taking care of her,” Rubicon added.
They began the lessons then, and worked until breakfast came, then worked together further after that. “I think you’re starting to make some progress Alec,” Rubicon said. “And don’t get discouraged, because you’re doing very well. I can sense the differences and the patterns you’re developing, and I think that you’ll find a point where everything comes together and you’ll make phenomenal progress after you’ve finished all this introductory training.”
Alec thanked him and left, going downstairs to pack up some of his belongings in a bag to take down to the healer house with him. When he returned to the house he found Hinges and Cassie talking about the ball the night before. Cassie was describing many of the gowns she saw to the housekeeper.
“I’m going to go to practice now,” Alec said.
“I thought Cassie said you had just been at practice,” Hinges spoke, look
ing from one to the other.
“That was ingenaire practice. Now I need to go to sword practice in the city. Do you need for me to pick anything up? I’ll be back after practice to finish packing at Rubicon’s house and bring things down here.”
“No, we’ll be going down to do some shopping soon,” Hinges replied.
Alec looked at Cassie and the housekeeper. “If you have some extra time, you should do some clothes shopping for Cassie, if she thinks she needs some more things to wear,” he suggested, realizing that the clothes she wore were the only ones he’d seen her wear except for her gown. He was rewarded with a grateful smile, and then was out the door.
At the armory he practiced right-handed in both matches, as he continued to try to train for better competence, and managed to lose neither match. After practice he sat and talked for several minutes with officers who wanted to talk about the ball last night, and usually ended up asking about Cassie.
Alec smiled at the change the girl had undergone so rapidly in her life. He stopped at a vintners shop and bought four good bottles of Goldenfields wine, two to have at the Healers House and two to give to Rubicon as a gift of thanks for his hospitality.
When he arrived at Healers House there was no one present, so Alec left the two bottles there and then with the other two in hand, went up the hill to deliver his gift to Rubicon and pack more of his belongings.
“Rubicon,” he said, as he found the man in his office for the first time, “I want to give these to you to say thank you for sharing your home with me and for training me and for taking care of me these many days. I’m going to pack up and will have most of my things out this afternoon, but I’ll keep coming back for training every morning.”
“Alec, I wish your training would never end, because I know you plan to leave us when it does,” Rubicon said with a sad smile. “You have made your stay here one of the most memorable times in my life, and I thank you for that. These are very nice, and I’ll be sure to put them to good use,” he said as he patted the bottles.
At the Seat of Power: Goldenfields and the Dominion Page 19
