by Liam Carrack
I had reclaimed much of my composure, but that pleasure which had flooded me outside was gone, and the baby was still whimpering. “Will you help me?” I hoped that had sounded as soft and inviting as it was meant. She scowled and she stalked out of the doorway clearly still upset. At least she wasn’t hampering me anymore, but I could see this was going to be a battle.
“You will have to remain in good spirits if we are going to change her mind about you.” I tweaked his little toe at this. He hiccup-giggled a response in a way that had me believing he understood the conversation and what was going on around him and would do his best, but as he is an infant I’m sure this was all in my head.
He was a cute little thing, if thin. As I extricated him from those mucky underthings I wondered when it had become “we”. I looked down into the guileless liquid blue eyes again, and it didn’t matter. I set about washing him in the shallow bath I had drawn. He splashed about, clearly enjoying this romp in clean water.
Gellisarn Hall Housemistress Scinna, Nyddon’s Daughter
I hope she’s awake. She’s been allowed to do as she pleases too long, though I must take part of the blame for that. Trefalla would have had her up at the start of business everyday going through the accounts long ago, but I always persuaded her that there would be time enough for that later. Why I thought Trefalla would live forever I don’t know, but there’s no use in blame now. What’s done is done.
Oh! That silly girl has gone and covered the table with books and workings again. Why she can’t learn to keep all this neat and tidy on the desk in her office, I will never understand. This was relatively clear yesterday afternoon when I came looking for her to help with that mess in Horice’s workroom. How does she manage to clutter something so quickly? It must be a particular talent of hers, even Garvyn was neater than she. I may keep house here, but I am not her nursemaid to go about picking things up after her. Set the tea down on the sideboard like you do everyday Scinna, and get on with getting the girl up. And her slippers are strewn about too. Will she never learn to care for her things?
“You really must learn to care for your things girl. I’m not your nursemaid.” I began as I pushed the door open with my hip, and sidled in to the room. I bent to pick up an errant blanket from off the bed. Ouch. You’re not as young as you once were you know. “I can not keep running around after you picking up your things for you. I’m not as young as I used to be and all this bending and …”
What was she holding? That was an infant. A dirty, smelly, vermin ridden, Dynaly baby. She was holding it like it was pure gold, and not just a load of offal. Where had she gotten it? How had it gotten into this room? I had dropped both slippers and blanket. “What is that?” I was pointing at the dirty little thing so there could be no confusion as to what I meant, and continued. “What is it and where did it come from?” I made a furtive glance around the room praying to Phirr himself that there wouldn’t be another of those street dwellers somewhere in the chamber. There isn’t, thank Phirr and Pherodda both. But, how could there be? There were Wards, wards around the Compound, more around the Hall, and still more around this room in particular. Garvyn had seen to it personally before he left that second time. Had he known he wouldn’t return?
She looked up at me again with this look, this look I couldn’t quite place, and said the most idiotic thing I’d ever heard her say. It was maddening. “It’s a baby.” That was it? Just “it’s a baby”? She was staring back down at it again. What was going on? She was standing there in that ornate silk nightgown and robe like those the whores imported from … DYNAL! Calm yourself, her brother had brought them back for her. They were not from some unknown lover.
“I can see that, but what is it doing here?” I was getting more agitated with her behavior by the moment. She was off in la-la land with her head in the clouds. I was losing my temper, and the fact that she was paying me no heed wasn’t helping. She was willful, but not this willful. “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?” At least I hoped I was right and she hadn’t somehow hidden both pregnancy and child from me. She certainly was acting like it was hers. That’s it! She is acting like a new mother. That look, I have seen in on countless new mothers’ faces right after the birth!
“Calm down Scinna. Its not mine …” Well, thank the gods for that!
“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?” At that she clutched the quiet thing to her bosom the tighter and I wondered that it wasn’t squalling like all those unwashed in the street. Why they continued to have more and more babies when they couldn’t feed the ones they already had was beyond my comprehension. Loose women, dirty loose women who didn’t give a fig. I hoped she wasn’t clutching a dead thing. Girl, you are really trying my patience.
“Scinna, will you let me finish?”
Oh, that was rich. She was just standing there, all calm, like this was some conversation about the weather or the price of grain in Salassari. Could she be any slower with her words! I was frantic. I would love to hear the end of one of these slow statements, if she’d ever get to one.
“I found it on the veranda. It was in a …” Good Gods, she was motioning to a stained basket on the veranda outside the glass doors. How… Who… What had happened to the wards?
“You FOUND it? You FOUND it? On the veranda…” That got her attention. At least she was out of that serene shell I’d been battering at.
“Will you CALM DOWN!” She was yelling at me!?! I could barely understand her next words through the shock I was in. She had found the now whimpering thing (at least it wasn’t dead) on the veranda. I had pieced that much together already. She didn’t know how it had gotten here. Well, that ruled out some unknown rendezvous, thank Pherodda. If only I could get my mind working again. I was in a fog! It wanted food, yes, well, don’t they all. You just can’t go feed them all! She was going to clean it. It could probably do with a good scrubbing, yes, but that a Gemswoman of the highest class would be scrubbing down a filthy squalling Dynaly brat was unacceptable.
I had started after her, but the fog enveloping my head had somehow become a resistance against my feet as well. I followed dumbly along in her wake. Get moving woman! I watched her run a bath, testing the water while undressing the urchin. Wouldn’t want to boil it I guess. I was just standing there, and my mouth wouldn’t work. I was furious. She finally looks up at me, all smiles again, and asks if I will help her. What? Help her do what? Take in a bawling Dynaly brat? Cook. Cook would know reason. Cook could talk sense to this, this twitter-brained, insane person kneeling on the tiled floor of an ornate and luxuriously appointed private bathing room just off her sleeping chamber in one of the richest homes in the realm, let alone the city, ready to bathe a homeless, bastard Dynaly child!
My legs were working again. Thank the Gods! Cook, I was going to tell Cook what was going on. Cook would be in the kitchen. There was food in the kitchen. A warm mash perhaps, and some milk. Where had we put up the bottles? That calf last year had needed the bottle when the poor cow had died in the birthing. Jesemn would know where …
The next thing I knew I was halfway up the stairs with a tray holding warm mashed peas, and a bottle filled with still warm goat’s milk. I was humming some contented song, but when I opened the door to Llanalla’s rooms, I stopped short. She had put a Compulsion on me! How dare she! That was immoral, not to mention illegal. How could she? Wait, how could she when she couldn’t. She was a Doer, not a Seer. Sure she could move objects around with her mind, change things a bit, and play a few mind confusion tricks with spells, but she can’t See, she can’t Send, and she can’t Compel. Horice was a seer, but he hadn’t even been in the room, and as far as I know he wasn’t even aware of the child. Besides, I can’t imagine he would do such a thing.
I’m sure I didn’t come up wit
h this idea on my own. So, who else had there been? THE CHILD. That filthy, ugly, BABY had somehow, without training, managed to get in here and mess with our minds. That’s why Llanalla wasn’t acting like herself. Help, I needed help. I had to get that demon child out of here NOW!
I ran in through the anteroom in the bedchamber and found Llanalla laughing and cooing at the baby while Horice squinted at an odd scrap of parchment he was holding over a candle flame.
Seer Horice cor Hladiriel
“Ahhg!” Growing old is no fun at all. My shoulder is tender where it hit the stool, my back is aching more than usual, my backside must be one big bruise, and that glass cut over my eye is throbbing like mad. Taking stock like this isn’t going to make you feel any better. Get up and get moving, otherwise you’re liable to rust up and never get going again. Come on. Up.
Well at least I’m on my feet. I’ll slick back my hair, and head on over for a light breakfast. Or, maybe a heavy one. I hadn’t touched that mush Dalla brought up to me last night. Sniffing it I realized that she had managed to spice it with a little cinnamon, and probably a little nutmeg as well. Sweet girl, always looking out for me. Remember to thank her.
Let’s see. What is going on in the house this morning? I closed my eyes with a routine I had perfected as an everyday exercise. Take a quick glance around the house, picking out each occupant and what they were doing, then a sweep of the wards to make sure everything was as it should be, and then evaluate who and what was to be avoided or confronted. It certainly made living with volatile personalities much easier. You always knew who to stay clear of. The wards check, however, was part of the job, not as stated by my employer, but one I had decided I would take up now that Mistress Trefalla wasn’t around to make sure that shyster at the Sage’s Guild was doing his job properly. Not that you can do anything about them if something is amiss. Well you can warn the lady of the house. I wonder if she is aware that she has another Gifted in her employ?
What was that? Llanalla and Scinna fighting? They haven’t fought since Llanalla was a child. How odd. Is that a discrepancy in their midst? I’m sure there is. This can’t be right. My Sight swung out to the wards. Dear Gods! It wasn’t a large puncture, and it was healing over even now… at least that meant there was no malice intended, but this was not good. This was not good at all.
The rest of my Search was forgotten along with my appetite. I was running down corridors and vaulting for the stairs before I had safely broken my Sight. It was a wonder I hadn’t run into any walls or tripped over furniture in my flight. No, you silly old goat, it’s a bigger wonder you’re moving at all after that explosion yesterday afternoon. I was going to pay for this movement later and I knew it, but while I had the momentum I was going to use it. Scinna blustered past me without even noticing I was there. I doubt she saw me even though I had to jump to get out of her head long flight down the stairs. SHE was in a snit!
I entered Llanalla’s anteroom and stared around. The Sight had told me that the argument had taken place in her bedroom, but a man did not simply charge into a maiden’s bedchamber without some notice even if he did think her in worrisome circumstances.
“Llanalla …” that was too quiet you fool. She’s probably fuming in there. She’ll never hear you.
“Horice?” Was that splashing I heard? Best to stay out here. I don’t think my heart could take seeing a nude woman after all these years, let alone the slim beauty I’d known since she was three. Dear me that was 25 years ago now. Just stay here and wait for her to emerge. That’s the best option.
“Yes, um. Are you all right? I thought I heard an argument.”
“You mean you Saw Scinna and I, and raced up here to calm me?” She sounded altogether too calm and cheerful for the storm I had just Seen downstairs. What was going on? “Well, come in here. You might was well see what all the fuss is about.” She walked into my line of vision looking decidedly damp, with blue-green silk sticking to the curves of her slender body, and water dripping from a few tendrils of wavy red hair. She was holding a small bundle, a vision of loveliness as always, so like her moth… er…
It was MOVING! That bundle was moving. The displacement I saw. Could it be an animal of sorts? I’d heard of animals that worked with the Gifted and were presumably Gifted in their own right, but how had one made its way here and why? It would have had to have come here purposefully to have breached the wards the way it had.
My mouth had fallen open without my consent, and Llanalla was looking back at me with a wide grin on her lips. “He won’t bite.” But, what was HE? She was rocking slightly back and forth as she made her way slowly toward me. I was rooted to the spot. I don’t think I could have moved if I tried. First some weird boost of agility and speed, and now I can’t move a muscle? Curiouser and curiouser. She turned slightly and angled the package she held so that I could clearly see the … BABY?
My mind was working frantically. No infant could have breached those wards, such working required knowledge no matter how much Power one held, so someone had to have placed this child where Llanalla could find it. What a child. This tiny fisted, happily gurgling infant Llanalla held wasn’t just Gifted, so plain a word could not describe the Power this little one held. This little baby was more powerful that I could ever hope to be, more powerful than most of those nosebleeds down at the Guild combined. This child was not ill, or dark, or blighted in any way. There was no glamorie to hide a twisted deamon thing beneath. So, Llanalla was not in danger, she was in love. One look at those eyes confirmed it. They had bonded, this tiny infant and his mistress, no different than mother to newborn. He was hers, and she his, and nothing was going to change it. I hope Scinna will be so easily convinced, but I doubt it.
She had kept talking, something about it being cute and happy and a wondering about something. “Yes, but where did you get it girl? It didn’t just float here. Or has he wings I cannot see beneath the towel you have wrapped him in?”
“No wings, but floating may be exactly how he did arrive here.” Her voice held no joke, but what a strange thing to say. She turned when she saw the incredulous look on my face and was motioning to what she must think evidence of this statement with her head. “Here, come see.”
I followed her into her bedroom as she proceeded out to the veranda and stood beside a small workbasket. “See.” See what? What did a stained workbasket sitting on her veranda have to do with the conversation to hand? “I found him out here in this,” she nudged the basket with her toe, “this morning. He was happily gurgling away, and I nearly tripped over him, and his dirty napkin. Well at least you’re all clean and happy again. No more nasty-old-Scinna screaming, and everything’s right-as-rain isn’t it?” The last was obviously directed at the infant, but my eyes were for something else entirely. There was a slip of parchment that the slight breeze was threatening to chase away, though trapped for the time being by the basket. I bent and retrieved it, and the basket, and brought them into the bedchamber closing the veranda doors with my foot as an afterthought. We don’t want that tiny little thing to catch his death, now do we? He’s got to be the single most Powerful human I’ve ever met and Llanalla was no slouch, but he… he is just unbelievable.
I turned then, and rounded on Llanalla, remembering something she had said that I had only half heard in my shock at finding her holding a child. “How do you know he’s Gifted?”
She looked up sharply with worry on her face. Did she think I would insist she toss him to the street as Scinna had undoubtedly done? “He IS gifted … isn’t he?” She had gone from sounding totally sure of herself to pleading with the infant, as if it could respond for itself.
“Yes. Yes, he is Gifted. Very Gifted actually. But, how did you know? It’s not like he can speak to tell you himself.” At this I looked down at the parchment in my hand. It was smudged with near illegible handwriting, though I could imagine it wasn’t easy to write with a tiny crumb of pilfered coal. How was I so sure it was stolen charcoal? That thought nearly
covered her next statement, but before the dumbfounded shock at those words set in I managed to snap my head up, only to stare at her as if she had grown a third arm. “You what?”
“I just Knew. I reached down to pick him up, and I Knew. I know that’s not possible, but the Knowledge was there.” She was obviously trying to convince me even though I needed no convincing; anyone else would have, but not me. The Sage’s Guild leaders may say that one was either Seer or Doer, but Llanalla had always impressed me with an uncanny ability to pick things up quickly. I had long believed that she had some sympathetic Seer ability. She was far too intuitive to not have some Talent as a Seer. She was just much stronger in her Doer gifts, of which I had not found a one she did not excel in. The child must have Sent, and with such Power behind it, she had received. But that was ridiculous Horice, an infant couldn’t Send, one had to be taught such things. No. No, that wasn’t true. That was Guild rhetoric. Garvyn had Sent once when he had fallen badly as a child. It hadn’t been a coherent message, but it had served as a distress call. And, let’s face it, plenty of the Guild-apprenticed Talented could do no more than that fully “trained”.
