by Liam Carrack
I schooled my face to look as harmless, pathetic, and hungry as possible. My stomach added to the affect with a timely grumble. She took the book from my hand and held out… a silver Renddi! I couldn’t take that! I would surely be taken up for stealing if I tried to use that. It was less than I’d like, but more than I could take, dammit! So, I pressed it back in her hands with as much pleading in my eyes as I could. She looked bewildered but took it back and reached down into her purse once again. This time she produced a half handful of copper coins. These she poured into my hands and fled from me before I could hand anything back. She smiled over her shoulder, and uttered a blessing of Power. It was at that moment that I realized that the pile in my hands was more than it had originally looked. It was just enough money to get me where I thought I might be safe, and all in small coins. To have tricked me so either took spells I had not encountered before, or she had more Power than I could honestly lay hands to on so short a notice and with so little care or effort.
I was dumbfounded for a moment. I tried to follow her with my mind inside this compound only to be soundly rebuffed by its wards. Subtle and artfully crafted, but breachable if I had the right tools to hand… Why would I want to breach them? My head dropped to the babe. Here. Here was where he might be safe.
Llanalla
Year 482, Phase of the 2nd, The Pure and Decayed, 44th day
The Gellissarn Hall compound loomed ahead of me, and I slowed nearly to a halt. How had I made it all this way? I didn’t remember any of it save a brush on the shoulder back there on the street somewhere. This was not good. How could you be so careless girl. Wake up!
I nearly jumped out of my skin when I felt a soft tug on my sleeve. I whirled around to see who was there. You’ve been so wrapped up in yourself! Gods. At least I had remembered to cover my face before leaving the Guild Hall. Anything could have happened! A small, dirty woman huddled before me, and held out the treatise I had brought in case I had had to endure a long wait at the records offices. That brush in the street! I had been robbed! I began groping about myself for my purse and my various pins and jewels. No, everything was accounted for, save the book she held patiently before me. I was so embarrassed that I felt my face get hot.
She was the picture of pitiful honesty. She looked half starved about the face, and her hands were bony, but her middle was certainly thick, even if it was grumbling. I retrieved the text from those stick like, dirty fingers, and pulled a small silver coin from my purse. I felt ashamed that I didn’t have more pocket money to hand. The book was worth ever so much more than the tiny coin I held out to her, and I wished I could do more in thanks. She must have been trailing me for quite a ways, and she wasn’t looking too steady on her feet just at the moment.
Her eyes went wide, and I nearly smiled. Then she did the oddest thing. This tiny, dusky, misshapen Dynaly woman pushed the coin back into my hands with fear in her eyes. Surely that could not be too much a reward? Such a one as she could surely not afford to be so gracious? I looked back into the purse I carried and had a marvelous idea. I gathered every small copper coin I had before me, and whispered a few words of Power; a simple magic to let her see whatever she expected. I then lifted her hand with mine and poured the meager collection into it. As I walked through the gateway into the compound I called out a blessing to her, and those whose lives she cared for.
She stared back at me in awe. Then glanced down to the pile of coins in her hands bewildered as I continued on into Gellissarn Hall. I felt good. I felt really good for the first time in a long while. I had been preoccupied with what I should do with my life as I stalked the streets back from the Guild, but it had never occurred to me to consider charitable works. Was I not always hearing the Cleric’s words from Phirr and Phorodda that we must ever give back to others what we have been granted by the Gods? I was not a particularly religious person, but this idea struck such a chord in me that I felt I must sit down and think upon what form this charitable act should take. Perhaps Horice would have some thoughts on the subject. I had to confess the glowing to him at any rate.
I looked about the grounds of the Compound hoping no one had witnessed my faux pas in the streets and sighed at the beauty surrounding me. I loved my home. I knew that my family had other holdings in the various trade cities, and even a small hunting lodge in the country near the mountains, but this place was my favorite. The formal rose garden, the pond, and the pergola all held bittersweet memories of the people I had loved the most. Garvyn had taught me to swim in that pond. Mother had loved to indulge in needlework under the pergola when the weather was warm and the sun high. I had wiled away hours missing them all. They were gone now, and I would have no new memories of them, but I must move on. I wouldn’t leave here willingly, but I could certainly find ways to fulfill my destiny. I had put off my own life long enough.
I stood tracing the mosaic around the arched main doorway in the Hall still dreamily recalling these histories when Scinna caught sight of me. “Well, that was fast. I thought it would take you considerably more time since you scorned to use the jig Jesemn had so thoughtfully rigged for you.” She was obviously not impressed with my choice of transportation. “Well, at least you made it there and back unaccosted.” Little did she know that that was only through sheer luck. I made my mind up not to disabuse her of the notion.
“Everything went well I think. Except my run in with,” I almost said the Weasel, “Guild Head Jespyrn. He tried to corner me in his office, but …”
“If you didn’t want to see him, why did you go to his office you silly girl. The records office is nearly on the other side of the building.” Her unsympathetic tone was in perfect harmony with the disapproving look she was still giving me. It was a bit wearing, but then I was probably a little prickly after all that. I really shouldn’t be taking it out on her. It wasn’t her fault.
“Gemsman Gorsynn was at the entrance when I reached it, and he took it upon himself to walk me into the building. I was simply following his lead. And, while commiserating with him on his sons’ recent disappearances I wasn’t paying close attention to where he was leading me,” that aught to give her pause. She liked Gorsynn. I had found her softly crying at the news that his eldest had been lost at sea only a few months ago, and now another had gone missing.
“Oh. Well if you were being kind to Gemsman Gorsynn, then no one can fault you for that.” Scinna was more family then not. She was probably a cousin of some sort to me. She was a youngest daughter to Mother’s cousin, I think. She had been my nursemaid back in the days when we had more family than we knew what to do with, Not a wet nurse mind, she had never had any children of her own. Unfortunatly, because she had not had a large enough dowry to impress the right people, her father would not allow her to marry “below her station” she had been forced into the role of Housemistress here. I shouldn’t ever say it but am glad of it, I don’t know what I would have done without her, especially now. I think she had a long lingering crush on Gorsynn. Too bad it was his son and not his wife. What a terrible thought! I looked up and silently asked forgiveness for so mean-spirited a notion.
“Where is Horice, Scinna? In the library, or his work room in the basement?”
The crashing of broken glass and overturned furniture was all the answer I needed, and I bounded through the hallway and down some steps carelessly ripping loose both veil and hat. I swung open the door to his workroom in the basement to be confronted with a cloud of awful smelling fumes, a mess of broken beakers, crockery, and (as I had guessed), an overturned workbench. Horice was sitting on the floor in a most indecorous manner coughing and laughing at his folly.
“That will be the last of my beakers. Blast it all!”
“I think that was the problem, dear tutor.”
He looked up at me and smiled ruefully through a scorched beard and plump cheeks covered in soft laugh lines. I couldn’t bear to think of them as wrinkles as they lived on so jolly a face. I had had it explained to me once that one obtained w
rinkles by scowling too frequently, while smiles were rewarded with laugh lines. This had been followed by an admonishment to remember the difference between the two. It had actually been very good information. The differences between the two could be easily discerned if one looked, and dealings with people could be tailored to the apparent personality.
He levered himself up to a wobbling crouch and barked a need for help at the floor as I was weaving my way to his side. Scinna had followed me to the doorway, and was now loudly requesting the assistance of Dalla and Yesmena in picking up the mess. I led Horice up the stairs and down a hallway to the bathing rooms where I left him to soak out his aches..
I guess our idea session will have to wait. Horice wouldn’t be up to it after that fall, no matter how hard he was laughing afterward, and Scinna would be totally occupied with rectifying the shambles he’d left of the workroom. Instead of bemoaning the situation I slipped up to my room and changed, carefully avoiding all work in Horice’s disaster area. It was a good thing this happened only every few years or he would find himself scrubbing the floors and picking through the shards of glass. I wonder what he had been up to? The library would be all too obvious a place to find me, so I grabbed the treatise I had nearly lost in the city, and raced for the trees surrounding the pergola. I shimmied up the nearest one, and hid myself in its branches. These were by no means appropriate actions for a 28-year-old woman of the highest rank, but neither was scouring floors.
When the light began to fail I scrambled down to the ground, and stole back into the house, forgetting my earlier ideas about altruistic works. I ate supper in the kitchen with the staff. It was homey and comfortable. The ornate dining room a few steps down the hallway always felt stuffy and painful to use. Memories of all those formal mourning feasts colored anything happy I might once have experienced there. It was one of the few rooms in this house that I avoided regularly. I breakfasted in my rooms, ate luncheon in a workroom, the library, or outdoors, and ate dinners right here if I could help it. I could see in Scinna’s eyes that she wanted to have words with me on both my disappearance and the further need of a tutor for a woman in her late twenties. I was doing my best to avoid both subjects. Horice was staying, and no argument she could bring would change that. He and the people sitting around this table were the only family I had left, by my thinking, and I wasn’t going to let anything happen to any of them, if I could help it. I am keeping them all, and that is final.
I stayed and dried dishes with Yesmena. She was Cook’s niece, I think, and only a few years my senior. To call her the scullery maid made little of her position in the house. Yesmena and Dalla were the only young women I knew outside of a few distant relatives that I would be hard pressed to pick out of a crowd. Scinna was right about one thing. I was going to have to take on the responsibilities of the Head of a House if we were all going to live on as we now were. If only I could meet a few more eligible men. There was no one to tell me to marry within my class. If I met a man of the lower classes that I felt worthy, and might love, then that might be the saving of us all, but this damn mourning has kept that possibility from me. Would you ever be sure he didn’t just marry you for your prestigious name, your money, and Gellissarn? It’s not like you’re much to look at you string bean of a girl! At least as one of the Gifted I could do business with people outside my own family (and there was precious little of that left), and have standing in the Guild as an unmarried woman. Without that we all would have been doomed at Aunt Trefalla’s death. I probably wouldn’t have a choice in the matter of the Weasel. He wouldn’t be wooing me; he’d be blackmailing me, and with the livelihood of so many people at stake he’d probably win, too. What an uncomfortable thought.
I made my way up to bed soon after the dishes were put away. I closed the doors to my anteroom and I pulled the treatise out of a pocket to add it to a pile of books on my desk, when I remembered my run-in of earlier. Horice was surely abed by now and the brainstorming session would have to wait for tomorrow, as would my confession.
Glowing, glowing, hmmm. I don’t know that I have ever read much about a person glowing. What book would that be in? A little research before bed wouldn’t hurt. Perhaps it would be best if I knew what I had done before I went to Horice with crazy tales of glowing. I shall have to adjourn to the library before bed. I’m not really all that tired yet…
Llanalla
Year 482, Phase of the 2nd, The Pure and Decayed, 45th day
I heard something. I know I heard something out of the ordinary. Nothing alarming, just, something …
Well, whatever it was I can’t hear it now, but I am awake, so I might as well get my lazy body out of this bed. The sun is streaming in through the windows, so I have certainly slept long enough it seems. “What a beautiful day.”
I threw open the glass paned doors leading to the veranda that wrapped around my rooms and took in a deep breath of fresh… UHHGG! What was that smell? Like overripe fruit and rotten milk! I was looking out over the rail, and down on the grounds seeing nothing amiss when I heard that sound again. It was a strange gurgle, only this time it was followed by an unmistakable hiccup and giggle noise, both rolled together.
I whirled around looking for the culprit. I expected… I didn’t know what I expected, but I wasn’t prepared for what I did see. There at my feet was a basket. It was so close I should have tripped over it getting to the rail. The basket was an ordinary, if dirty, example of the sort one might use to carry fruit or bread loaves, but this held no culinary simple, but a baby. An infant wrapped in smudged, but serviceable cloth, though what it wore beneath that cloth was undoubtedly soiled. Before I could wonder what it was doing here, or where it had come from, I bent over to pick the child up. The moment I touched it I was filled with an overwhelming Knowing that this child was Gifted. This child wasn’t just Talented, but truly, and overwhelmingly, Gifted. How I would Know this was beyond me. I was a Doer not a Seer. Now my thoughts whirled to the Who and the Why, and the How.
This child was not Phiriaen. Phiriaen people had red or blond hair, and our skin was pale and freckled. This child had darker hair, though not a clear brown, it was paler than the hair of most Dynaly people. Its skin however, was that dusky hue of the Dynaly like it had seen the kiss of the sun. Its eyes, oh its eyes where the clearest green-blue I’d ever seen. Those eyes were NOT a Dynaly feature. They were the eyes of Power, and they were focused on me. I felt serene and happier than I have felt since I was a child, maybe happier than I have ever felt. I had cradled this tiny bundle of pure innocence and naïve bliss into my arms and was floating back into my bedchamber when Scinna bustled in picking up various things and babbling the usual lectures about being neater and taking better care of my things.
She stopped mid step and dropped everything in her hands. It was a good thing she had set the tray with my tea down out in the anteroom, or we would be cleaning up more broken crockery. I must have looked truly odd. I was dressed in my most extravagant nightclothes and carrying an unknown child, the silk and lace gown brushing the ground with the matching overrobe thrown about my shoulders all in a creamy blue. My brother had brought it back after his first campaign outside Dynal Enge. I only wore it when I truly missed him, or was seeking some guidance from his memory. After last night’s research had failed utterly I had needed comforting. Not one mention of a glowing person anywhere. Not even in the few children’s books I had looked in out of fancy.
But now, now the world was washed in rainbows and I felt utterly content. Even the smell of his dirty nappy wasn’t bothering me.
The infant had not yet made any but happy and contented noises. Somewhere in my brain I knew that this was not the normal way of babies, especially when they were wearing soiled diapers. I was blissful! I didn’t care a wit about what Scinna or anyone else thought.
Scinna began speaking again, but this time it wasn’t the same. It was louder and more shrill. “What is that?” She pointed a single finger toward the angel in my arms. “What i
s it and where did it come from?”
“It’s a baby …” The most wonderful baby …
“I can see that, but what is it doing here?” her voice rose in pitch and volume with every syllable. “It’s not like you went through the entire gestation period, and gave birth to a baby last night, only to have it grow a few months by this morning! Where did it come from girl!” she was shrill and grating. She was obviously frightened and upset, but it didn’t seem to disturb the child at all, or me really. It was like a bird tapping at the window when you’re still savouring the remnants of a really good dream. A little aggravating, but it doesn’t change the fact that you’re comfortable and content.
“Calm down Scinna. Its not mine …”
“I know it’s not YOURS Girl. I’ve never left your side in 27 years. Answer me. Where did you get the filthy little thing?”
This whole people-interrupting-me-every-time-I-speak thing was going to have to stop. How could she call this angelic baby filthy? It was soiled, yes, but not filthy. “Scinna, will you let me finish?” Some of that overriding calm was leaving me with the tediousness of this exchange. “I found it on the veranda. It was in a …”
“You FOUND it? You FOUND it? On the …”
That was it. My calm was shattered and now the child was beginning to whimper. “Will you CALM DOWN!” I was yelling at Scinna. I had never really yelled at her before and I think it broke her concentration. She just stood there for a moment. Good. Maybe I’ll get a word in now. “Yes, I found it. It was in a basket on the veranda. I don’t know how it got there, but that’s where it was and now it needs a bath and a new napkin to diaper it in. It would probably like to breakfast as well. It was happy until you got here and I will see it settled again, but that won’t happen with you screeching at me.” I turned and marched off toward my private bathing chamber and opened the valve to let in water from the heated cistern above my head. It was a luxurious copper affair. Why my father had indulged my mother so, and installed them in all the private bathing chambers of the house, and not just in the main baths, was beyond me, but I thanked him for it everyday of my life. Bathing had brought me to tears nearly everyday for a year after he had passed. I opened the sluice for some cool water from the same reservoir that fed the cistern for just a moment. As I was turning them both off and continuing to undress the baby, perched precariously on the washbasin stand next to the bathing tub, I noticed Scinna’s presence. I hadn’t realized, but she had quietly followed me in, and now stood at the door, mouth opening and closing without sound like one of the brightly colored fish in the pond outside. I looked down at my hands to make sure I wasn’t glowing again. This fish faced routine was becoming all too common and I didn’t know if I liked it. It was almost amusing, and yet exasperating. I wasn’t glowing, which made me almost disappointed for some reason, the baby gave a strangled squeak then and all my attention reverted back to him.
