Indignation rose above the tremor in her voice as she went on. ‘And now, after we’ve disrupted the entire household to try to provide a fitting banquet, when she was the one setting us all awry by arriving early, she says she’s too tired to join us!’
I used to admire her manoeuvrings, when they were to further Daish interests. It’s not so amusing to be on the receiving end of such manipulations.
‘So now she’s got you wound to such a pitch that you’ll be awake half the night fretting or fuming and she’ll have the advantage of you in the morning when it comes to negotiating your trades,’ Kheda pointed out. ‘Let’s not fall into that trap. Let’s just commiserate with her weariness and do all we can to make her comfortable. She’ll thank us profusely, at the same time letting slip some hint that we’re falling short of perfect hospitality—which, of course, she forgives, after all we’ve been through. Which we will, of course, ignore.’
‘And what if she sprearls tales of our inadequate welcome to the other domains?’ Itrac twisted one of the thick gold rings she wore on every finger.
Kheda paused for a moment’s thought. ‘I think you might share your concerns that she’s become sadly exacting in her old age. We’re sorry for her, seeing how her insecurity must be gnawing at her. As soon as Sirket marries, after all, she will lose all her status and need to find another home.’
He realised he was pacing back and forth across the room and stopped abruptly.
‘I don’t think anyone will believe that janne’s going senile,’ Itrac said, subdued. ‘She already knows we want to trade pearls for gems. I wasn’t intending to talk trade at all, not till tomorrow, but she kept coming in chatting about this and that. She was telling me what we needed and how she would help and if T hadn’t said no and told jevin to escort her back to her rooms, she’d have probably set sail tonight to put everything in hand as if I’d agreed to it all.’ She looked at Kheda, beseeching. ‘That must be why she’s feeling so insulted.’
‘That’s why she’s withdrawn, now she realises she’s underestimated you,’ Kheda convected. ‘I think you’ll find she’s more inclined to treat you as an equal tomon-ow. Anyway, it’s me who insulted her.’
‘How?’ Itrac asked, wide-eyed. ‘Firstly for her discourtesy in coming to my private apartments before we’d publicly received her.’ Kheda hesi—
tated. ‘And she thinks she can get all the pearls she wants from us because we’re so desperate to pay some barbarian for tales of how to kill the beast. I’ve put her right on that, never fear. Hold out for a fair trade and she’ll back down, trust me.’ He took one of Itrac’s gold-ringed hands and gave it an encouraging squeeze. ‘Because if she starts making trouble for us, we can start making trouble for her. Remember, she really doesn’t want anyone knowing just how poor the Daish pearl harvest has been, not officially.’
‘I don’t know how to say things like that, not without making an open threat.’ Itrac looked at him anxiously. ‘Olkai always used to deal with that kind of thing.’
‘Just do your best, Kheda encouraged. ‘It’s not as if there will be wives from other domains whispering behind their hands as they gauge your skills.’
‘I suppose not,’ Itrac allowed, with an inelegant grimace. ‘Jevin, leave us,’ she said abruptly. ‘Go and see if Dev needs any help.’
What do we do if the boy comes upon him working magic?
Kheda realised there was nothing he was going to be able to do about it. Itrac plainly had something pressing to say to him, holding tightly to his hand when he would have withdrawn it.
‘Janne seemed most concerned that I shouldn’t ask too much of myself as Chazen’s only wife.’ Itrac swallowed, looking down at her feet. ‘She was sure you’d have more sense than to look to father a child in such troubled times. She said everyone knew that I’d chosen Saril for love and that this marriage is only a safeguard for me. She said your taste had never really run to virgins, that you’d left Sain to come to you in her own time, since that was also purely a marriage of alliance. She said Olkai would have told me the same, if she’d lived.’
‘While she tried to persuade me that I should scorn you and allow one of my children by Daish to claim Chazen,’ Kheda inten-upted. ‘Janne’s very good at dripping honeyed poison into unwilling ears. I wonder she didn’t hint at some inadequacy in the marriage bed on my part, that you’d not be missing much.’
He realised Itrac was pulling away, rebuffed by his churlishness. He took both her hands in his and leaned forward to kiss her scented cheek ‘I told her to mind Daish business while we minded Chazen’s, the two of us, as we see fit, in our own time, without her interference or anyone else’s.’
Itrac turned her head to meet his kiss with her soft lips, her eyes closing on the diamond glint of a tear beneath her lashes. ‘I think I’m ready to be a proper wife to you, Kheda,’ she breathed. ‘And Janne can go ‘
A loud knock at the door startled the two of them apart. ‘My lord?’ It was Dev. ‘Your dinner’s ready, my lord.’ He bowed to Itrac. ‘My lady.’
‘I’ll be along in a moment.’ Itrac slipped away into her dressing room. ‘Don’t wait.’
Kheda looked at Dev, who was grinning broadly in the doorway. ‘What’s amusing you?’ he asked finally as they reached the corridor leading to his personal apartments.
‘Jevin tells me I’ll be sleeping out in the corridor tonight.’ The wizard smirked lasciviously at Kheda’s side.
‘Finally decided to exercise your rights there, have you?’
‘I haven’t decided.’ Kheda scowled. ‘Though it seems
Itrac has. I’m wondering how Janne will read it—’
‘What was Tasu saying about shark omens?’ Dev silenced him with a backhanded slap to the chest. ‘You should stop looking over your shoulder and up at the skies and all around the compass and just do what’s in front of you. Or who’s in front of you,’ he amended with a lewd chuckle. ‘You’ve every right to take Itrac in any way you want. You’ve had that right for half a year now and, Saedrin save us, your stones must ache like you’ve caught them in a vice. What more is there to think about? Itrac’s a choice piece. Or isn’t she quite what you fancy? So close your eyes and imagine she’s Risala.’ Kheda halted and shoved Dev hard against the wall, knotting a hand in his tunic. ‘Shut your foul, ignorant barbarian mouth—’
‘You could do with something to ease your tension, sure as curses,’ Dev continued, entirely at his ease. ‘And as it happens, I think this household and the whole domain would be usefully reassured to see their warlord throwing a rope to their lady at long last. Come to that, I think she might benefit from a little firm reassurance herself. She’ll certainly be fit for nothing in the morning if you turn her down tonight, now she’s got her nerve up. That bitch Janne will see it in an instant and take all the advantage she can, you know that.’
‘You know—’ Kheda broke off, unable to deny the unpalatable truths in Dev’s words.
‘I’m a faithful slave who is supposed to give you honest advice,’ the barbarian said viciously. ‘So listen when I give it. You’ve been saying how we need keep everything sailing along on a nice even keel till Risala and the Green Turtle get back, and that’s not going to be any time soon. This is no time for you to rock the boat. Now get your hands off me before I break your face,’ he concluded in an undertone. ‘My lord?’ Beyau appeared further up the corridor, his voice uncertain.
Kheda let go of Dev and stepped back. ‘We’re just coming.’
‘Our lord and lady only require their personal slaves.’ Dev looked past him to Beyau.
‘That’s right.’ Kheda forced a smile. ‘The rest of you can take some time for yourselves.’ He walked slowly back towards the open door where the tempting scents of a sumptuous dinner sought to draw him on.
So I’m cornered, with no option but enjoying an intimate dinner with every delicacy and beautiful, willing Itrac as the final dish. When I’d rather be sharing dried meats and stale water on some c
rowded trading beach with Risala, with no more than the chance of just talking with her.
So much for a warlord’s absolute power.
Chapter Thirteen
He had taken her out of herself with a rush of ecstasy that swept all her resistance away. She became “dimly aware that he had cast her off. No matter. She didn’t need him. She was free to revel in the delight suffusing her.
Now she was the rushing breeze, making cats’ paws on the surface of the sea, tugging at ruffles of foam until the waves did her bidding, rolling and breaking. Other breaths of wind hurried to join her game, following in her train, adding their meagre strength to her growing might. Now she was the sterner draught driving in off the ocean to scour the land, relentless as she brushed obstacles aside, commanding all lesser breezes. She ignored the weakling eddies of air seeking shelter in the lee of trees and hills, sweeping past to rise into the skies beyond, carried on an exultant surge of pleasure.
Here she was rarefied, dancing in the emptiness. The sky was her plaything, the clouds her delight. The highest wisps of vapour trailed behind her like wind-tossed hair. She drew them out into glittering threads, finer than the sheerest gossamer, and threw a milky veil over the distant sun. She was an artist, weaving beauty out of sheer inspiration. Which was entertaining in its way, but what was the point of possessing such power if she didn’t do more? What could she do with it? What couldn’t she do?
She drew the zephyrs to her, commanding them to suck the heat from the earth below, rising high on their appropriated might. Snaring the flurries, she drove them out over the water, wrapping them into squalls fat with captured moisture. Storm clouds filled the void, coalescing under the pressure of her ominous unseen presence. The water was too weak, falling as frantic rain in a vain attempt to escape the air’s crushing sense of purpose. She sent a gale to drive the downpour into the shore, cowing the submissive earth, lashing it with hail. Crackles of lightning illuminated the darkening clouds as the rising currents of air inexorably reclaimed the fallen rain at her command.
At a whim, she set the thunderclouds spinning. The storm swirled at her bidding, drawing gusts from further and further away into the frenzied dance. The rush of the winds, wheeling ever faster, was music to her ears. The power was dizzying, enthralling. She trembled with it, revelled in it, euphoric. Ripples of ecstasy shook her. She was air, pure and simple and omnipotent.
No, she wasn’t. She was Velindre. She was a mage of Hadrumal and if she couldn’t master herself better than this, she had no claim on the rank of Cloud Mistress. She fought her way free of the encircling clouds, seeking the centre of stillness, the better to regain some control over herself and the element and the seductive sensations that suffused her.
With that refuge gained and some fragile hold over her wizardly senses secured, Velindre considered the catastrophic storm. How to put a stop to this self-indulgence before it ran utterly beyond her control? The wheeling tempest loomed all around her, threatening to rush headlong into maddened violence. The clouds in the heights were spreading out to claim more and more of the sky. She concentrated on maintaining that hard-won calm, within and without, and finally saw what she must do.
Fire was caught up in the storm’s coils, capturing the sea spume and drawing the moisture high up into the skies where the wind flogged the white billows till they bled great gouts of rain. Fire was the element that set all others in motion, she remembered dimly. But fire could be snuffed. Velindre reached for the warmth drifting through the seas far below and drove it away. She seized a fugitive breeze and wove a carefully selective barrier between the ocean and the whirling storm clouds above. Rain fell, slipping gratefully through her spell to escape into the cooling deeps. Try as it might, the storm could draw up no moisture to replace the downpour. The clouds cooled, the rain lessened. Velindre tore a rent in the tempest’s formidable wall, sending the thunderclouds stumbling and falling away from one another. The deadly intent of the storm dissolved into confusion.
The magewoman opened her eyes. She was standing on the shores of Azazir’s lake, cold and wet in her sodden chemise and stockings. Mud oozed between her toes. Her tangled hair hung loose around her shoulders, wet and clinging. She blinked painful tears from her eyes as the sun rose over the rim of the barren valley with piercing brightness. Low beams struck pale gleams from the glistening rocks around her and tinged the ominous clouds still circling relentlessly above in a strange yellowish haze. ‘Hadrumal.’ Azazir’s contempt was chilling.
Velindre slipped and almost fell as she turned to see him beside her. She opened her mouth but she found she had half-forgotten how to speak.
‘You can’t rise above their small-mindedness any more than Otrick could.’ Azazir stood there, a man made out of elemental water that sparkled in the early sun, motes of green magelight rising and falling within him. ‘Arrogant, self-willed, all of you. Incapable of letting yourselves go. Incapable of finding your true potential.’
‘Self-control is not self-will,’ Velindre retorted with effort. ‘And losing one’s mind is hardly a route to wisdom.’
‘Self-control,’ sneered Azazir. ‘Self-doubt and denial.’
‘Self-restraint,’ spat Velindre, wiping sodden hair out of her eyes. ‘Something you’ve never bothered with. Not pausing to wonder if you should do something, just because you’ve established you could—you don’t call that arrogant?’
‘I serve a higher calling.’ Azazir’s unearthly eyes glowed green. ‘I serve my element. I will not be confined by Hadrumal’s petty rules and fears.’
‘I wish to master my element,’ Velindre retorted, ‘not to have it master me. Loss of myself is too high a price to pay for whatever power I might gain in following you. Where is the man you once were, Azazir?’
‘Gone where you haven’t the courage to follow, that much is plain.’ The translucent mage smiled with open derision. ‘Go back to Hadrumal and try to live with yourself, within those confines, now that you’ve tasted true freedom in your magic. Try to content yourself with your plodding progress, groping for knowledge in your fearful obscurity. Don’t tell me you haven’t learned more in these past days than you could in a lifetime on that rock!’ Laughing, he walked towards the water, growing paler and more transparent with every step.
‘Wait!’ Velindre found she was trembling and not merely from cold, fatigue and slowly building outrage at his assault on her. ‘What did you mean, “in these past days”? How long was I I. . .’ She struggled and gave up. There were no words to describe where she had journeyed.
‘Who knows?’ Azazir halted almost on the water’s edge. Ripples ran towards him, eager to narrow the gap. ‘Who cares? I abandoned almanacs and hourglasses along with all of Hadrumal’s other constraints.’
‘I said stop!’ Velindre raised a shaking hand and summoned a wall of air to block the mad wizard’s path. The questing lake waters flowed away on either side, baffled. ‘Yes, you’re right. I’ve learned a great deal Boni this experience.’ She stifled a shudder at the recollection of such insidious delight. But I haven’t learned what I came for. I came to ask you about dragons.’
Dragons?’ Azazir turned with a smile of delight that was the most terrifying thing Velindre had seen yet. ‘What business could a frigid inadequate like you have with dragons?’
Not so inadequate,’ Velindre retorted coldly. She looked up and wrenched the winds free from the strangling grip of Azazir’s ceaseless storm. With a battering blast of air, she drove the rain aside and seized the warmth of the sun riding high above. In an instant her clothes, such as they were, were dry, and she had driven the deathly chill from her bones.
Not so inadequate?’ echoed Azazir, mocking. He raised a hand and his magic crashed through the barrier she had erected between him and the lake, brutal as a breaker from a winter storm at sea. Her spell disintegrated under the assault. He looked up at the clouds and they swirled inwards, crushing the shaft of sunlight she had pulled down. ‘Want to try that again?’ He gr
inned at her, open challenge in his eerie eyes. Now that I’m ready for you?’
‘I came here to learn, not to fight.’ Velindre shook her head. ‘The lowest apprentices know better than that.’ She drew a breath to keep her voice calm. ‘You’re right,’ she repeated. ‘I’ve learned an astonishing amount. Or rather, I’ve seen that I can work instinctive magic with a power I’ve never known, if I allow myself. Instinct isn’t knowledge, though. If it was, every migrating bird is a secret sage.’
‘I see they still teach how to chop reason into shards of logic in Hadrumal.’ Azazir laughed, his mood as fickle as the glitter of sunlight on the lake. ‘Shards so fine that there’s nothing left. Knowledge is overrated, my girl.’
‘But you hold knowledge Hadrumal has lost,’ Velindre persisted, bolder now that she was dry and warm. Her golden hair obscured her face, coiling and frivolous in the teasing breeze. She brushed it back with irritation. ‘That’s what I’m seeking: the knowledge you shared with Otrick. What do you know about dragons?’
‘You’re persistent, I’ll give you that.’ Azazir turned his back on the uneven surface of the lake and the waters sank back to a glassy smoothness. ‘Or rather, I’d say Otrick gave you that. Among other things.’ His smile took on a lascivious curve that sat bizarrely on his liquid face.
‘Don’t think you’re in any condition to follow him there.’ Velindre was surprised into an incautious response. ‘And I’ve long since given up on lesser liaisons.’
‘My condition is whatever I choose it to be.’ Azazir walked away from the water and with every pace he took on a greater solidity. His skin turned a pearly white, pale as a fish’s belly, shining with a faint suggestion of scales. His hair and beard bristled, long and unkempt and washed to a colourlessness somewhere between grey and white. Only his eyes stayed the same, lit from within with that same green madness. ‘So you want to know about dragons, my cold and constrained lady mage? What do you already know?’
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