by A. F. Dery
“I’m not a hermit,” he repeated slowly. He clasped his shaking hands behind his back, forcing them to stillness. “I am, or rather I used to be, a mage. Before I lost my eyesight, that is. I came here where I could work on my studies in solitude.” He was pleased at how steady his voice remained through the speech, how very natural and convincing it sounded to his own ears, and thus surely to hers. Best of all, every word was technically true.
“Oh,” she said faintly.
He waited for her to say something else, but the silence stretched on until even he was uncomfortable. “Oh?” he prompted.
“I…I don’t really know anything about mages, or magic for that matter. I should have guessed, I suppose, when you could make medicine but said you weren’t a healer.” He was startled by the tremors he heard in her voice.
“Surely you don’t think I’m going to hurt you now, just because I have magic?” he asked, with a nervous laugh.
“Magic is dangerous,” she said in the wooden manner of one reciting a creed.
“Only when it’s used by people who don’t know what they’re doing,” Hadrian scoffed. He wasn’t sure what he had expected, of course a girl from her background would likely not think much of any magic user. He should have thought of that, perhaps come up with some other veneer of truth to show her to avoid causing her this unnecessary alarm.
“And you know what you’re doing?” There was an unexpected edge to Grace’s voice now. She didn’t have to say anything else; even blind, he could plainly see where she was headed.
“My magic didn’t blind me. I was working with volatile substances, over a prolonged length of time. The vapors from them took my sight, there’s nothing magical about that,” Hadrian assured her. He had not planned on telling her even that much, but where was the harm? Once she was moving about the place, she was bound to come across something that would have implied as much. Now it was already explained.
“Are you certain about that? Perhaps you are mistaken. And if you had no magic, would you have even been working with these ‘volatile substances’ in the first place?” She sounded eminently reasonable, but there was a tension in her, he could sense it almost as keenly as he could hear it.
“Have you ever even met a mage before?” he asked abruptly. “Or seen magic of any kind?”
“I don’t need to know mages or see magic or even dabble in it myself to know it’s dangerous and bad things come to those who meddle with it,” Grace said. Her voice was flat and cool. “I’m grateful for your help, please don’t mistake me, and I still intend to help you in return if I can while I am here, but I am sorry for you. Not because you are blind, or because you live alone even though you’re not a hermit, but because you have this magic that brought those things on you.”
Hadrian was so astonished, he was speechless. He realized his mouth was hanging open and quickly snapped it shut. He had no idea what to even say to that. There was no possible way to accurately explain his present circumstances and defend magic everywhere without telling her what he absolutely could not tell her. Ever.
And swallowing this was pure bitterness. At one time he had loved magic, its study and practice, more than most anything else, and had thought it the only thing truly special about himself. Now, perhaps, he knew better than to exalt it so, but he still could not blame it for what it had not done. Magic was not an intelligent being with free will; its user was.
At last he said tightly, barely able to unclench his jaw to speak, “My magic had nothing to do with it…but I can tell there is no way of convincing you when your mind is clearly already made up, despite knowing absolutely nothing about the subject except some ignorant superstition.”
“I am ignorant, and it would be stupid to suggest otherwise to a man who is as learned as you must be,” Grace said coolly. “I don’t know much more than what is needful to run a house or tend a sheep or spin its wool. But I think the facts speak for themselves.”
He longed deeply in that moment to set her straight on these supposed “facts,” but instead he sighed. “We will need to agree to disagree. I see no point in arguing this further.”
Grace didn’t answer that or, to his hearing, even move. He sighed again and turned to go back to his chair, but just as he did, she said softly, “I don’t know why I’m even saying anything. There is no point in that either. I haven’t lived this long by having opinions. Maybe I shouldn’t be thinking of getting up yet, maybe I’m still sick.”
He turned back to her. “Having opinions isn’t an illness, Grace. And really, if you feel up to it, you can try…just go slowly. You’ve been in bed quite some time, you will have lost much of your strength.”
He stepped closer to the bed, not sure what he could really do at this point to assist her. If she started to fall, he could hardly see it. She would just be a dark moving blur in a sea of other dark blurs that could as easily be walking as falling, for all he knew. He heard her moving in the bed, heard the blankets shift, and thought he even heard her bare feet touch the floor, a trifle too heavily. He held out an arm uncertainly, just in case, and a moment later she stumbled into it. He grabbed for her, catching her around the waist (he hoped). She leaned heavily against his chest, panting.
“My legs don’t feel like they can hold me at all,” she said, sounding both worried and disappointed. “I knew I’d be weak, but…”
“Knowing and being are two different things entirely,” Hadrian said. Her hair tickled his chin, and he felt hot and cold all at once, unsure of what to do now. His heart was racing and the only feeling he could distinctly identify was panic. His own legs ached to run. Stay calm Hadrian, just get her back to the bed, he told himself sternly.
“But I don’t want to go back to the bed, surely I can at least make it to the chair,” Grace said hopefully from against his chest.
“Did I just…oh never mind,” Hadrian mumbled. Clearing his throat, he asked in a more normal tone, “How do you expect to get to the chair? Do you really want me to try to carry you? Because quite honestly, I don’t think you realize that me getting you up the stairway was the only miracle I will ever perform in my life, even if I’m not a hermit.”
She made a strange sound that could have been a muffled cough or a suppressed laugh. Or maybe she’d swallowed wrong. “I can get there, I can crawl if nothing else, right?”
Hadrian considered what the floor might look like with no small degree of doubt. He tried to plumb the depths of his memory for when he might have ever cleaned it in some fashion, even prior to the loss of his vision, but came up empty handed. “I question the wisdom of you spending too much time on this floor,” he said at last. “Perhaps you can just lean on me and let me know if one of us is about to walk into something.”
“Sounds good,” Grace agreed readily. She pulled away a little, swaying on her feet, and he managed to keep one arm around her, helping her stay upright. With considerable awkwardness they managed to lurch together to the vicinity of the chair. A moment later, from the sound of things, Grace simply fell into, or perhaps on top of, it.
“Ok,” she panted. “I’ll just…stay right here…until I die. If that’s all right with you.”
“You’re not allowed to die now, you’ve been far too much work,” Hadrian said ungraciously, rubbing his arm. She had clung to him for dear life on their way to the chair, apparently forgetting that she had fingernails. Or possibly talons, by the feel of them. His heart was still beating too fast; he wasn’t used to this kind of exertion, or to women. It was hard to say which had been most taxing for him, and he didn’t really want to think on either too much.
He sank down wearily on the floor in front of the chair.
“Oh, no, are you all right? I didn’t hurt you leaning on you like that, did I?” Grace fretted. He felt a touch on the side of his face and he flinched away from it, startled.
“No, no, I’m fine, just a little short of breath…you’re heavier than I expected, that’s all,” he said, trying his damnedest not
to sound as flustered as he suddenly felt. “You’re only a girl, after all.”
“I’m not sure what you mean by that,” Grace said. She sounded amused now. “I’m just shy of being a spinster, back in my village. Not that it matters.”
“That’s a rather unpleasant thing to call an unmarried woman,” Hadrian said diplomatically, trying to adjust his mental image of her to this new information. This transformed it into a blur with breasts, and he hastily banished the adaptation as being unproductive.
“It doesn’t matter,” Grace repeated. He heard her settling back into the chair and inwardly he sighed with relief. He felt foolish reacting so strangely to just casual interaction with her, even though he thought it entirely justified, given how long he’d been alone. She didn’t know how long it had been though, and there was no reason why she should know how utterly pathetic he was now.
“Don’t you want to marry? I thought most gir- women did,” he continued, seeking a personally safer topic of conversation.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said yet again. “Whether I do or don’t, my life won’t really change all that much. I might have to milk cows rather than tend sheep, and care for my own children instead of my younger sisters.”
“And what about companionship? Do young women no longer care about such things? I did not think I’d been away from the rest of humanity long enough to have missed its ending,” Hadrian said dryly. He felt a little uncomfortable even alluding to such things, but his curiosity won out.
“That’s…I’m not talking about that with you, that’s really…” she stammered off into nowhere. He was absurdly pleased by her embarrassment.
“It’s all right, I don’t expect you to tell me,” he said delicately. “I suppose I just make certain assumptions, that’s all.”
“You’re right, that’s all they are,” Grace answered a little tartly. “Assumptions. Not every girl or woman wants that life, but it’s either that or be looked down on as the one nobody wanted. It doesn’t matter to me because no one looks at me, let alone looks down on me, so what do I care?”
It was such an odd thing to say that it gave him pause. He had only meant to tease her a little- even then, he wasn’t really thinking too much about what he was doing- but he realized now that this was indeed a sensitive subject for her. She had seemed indifferent up until now, but there was heat in her voice when she spoke of not being looked at, that tension in her not unlike what he had sensed when they’d spoken of magic only a little while before.
“We all make assumptions about other people, such as those who use magic,” he pointed out none too subtly, “but for the sake of peace, I will try not to make mine so loudly.”
“This is your home, so certainly you can say whatever you like at whatever volume you wish,” Grace said, and she sounded remorseful, her voice suddenly somber. “I really am being terrible to you. I don’t know why. I’m really not like this normally.”
“Maybe you are and you just didn’t realize it until now,” he pointed out helpfully. If he irritated her enough, maybe she wouldn’t apologize. He could hope anyway.
But Grace was quiet. Finally she said, “That may be true. Maybe I am difficult, and I just was keeping the difficulty bottled up. It’s still not right to take it out on you. I’m-”
“Not really going to stay in that chair all night,” he interrupted as gently as he could. He was feeling more or less normal again, so he rose to his feet, tentatively extending an arm. “Let’s get you back in bed. You can have a rest and then we’ll try again.”
Grace groaned a little but a few moments later, he felt her grab his arm, and back to the bed she went.
Grace and Hadrian repeated the same procedure many times over the ensuing days before Grace could cross the room on her own. She was much quieter after their last conversation, feeling unhappy and confused over the turn it had taken. She had always thought she was fine with her life and the way it was turning out, that she was wholly resigned to the way things had to be, but she couldn’t fail to hear the dissatisfaction in her own voice when she’d spoken about it. She hoped Hadrian hadn’t noticed it, but thought somehow by the way he’d tried to be conciliatory that he had, and it embarrassed her, as if he had glimpsed her unclothed. She was afraid to even talk any more, unless it was strictly necessary, never knowing what might come out of her own mouth or how it might be taken. She never used to have this problem: she had rarely spoken, back in her village, and no one had really cared whether she did or didn’t. But suddenly, with this basically captive audience, she found herself sharing her thoughts, and not liking all of them. It made her uneasy.
It shouldn’t matter what this stranger thought of her; she would repay her debt to him in the time remaining before she could leave, and then she’d never see him again. She didn’t think he meant her any harm and he had certainly attempted none up until now. His opinions shouldn’t matter to her beyond that.
But they did. She didn’t like that she must seem like a bitter old maid to him. I’m not like that, she wanted to say. I’m fine with it, it really doesn’t matter to me.
Instead, she said nothing unless she had to. Hadrian didn’t appear to mind, continuing on as he always did, bringing her things and helping her move about the room at regular intervals to regain her strength. She was sleeping a lot less these days, and though her cough had returned when she had stopped taking the medicine, it was far more intermittent and she caught her breath again much more easily.
Barring running out of food and furniture, she should survive this experience. This knowledge bewildered her more than it relieved her.
Finally she felt well enough to leave the room, and she asked Hadrian to take her somewhere. The request appeared to surprise him.
“You can just go on your own if you want,” he said. “You don’t need to ask for my permission or wait for me to escort you. You’re actually quite a bit safer moving around than I am, since you can see the potential hazards and I can’t.”
Grace hesitated. “Is there anywhere I shouldn’t go? Some private room or something? I don’t want to intrude on your privacy needlessly.”
“Don’t dig through my personal things and we’ll have no trouble,” Hadrian said with a little half smile. “You’ll know what qualifies if you come across them. Just be careful. This room is in good repair compared to the rest of the tower, and the stairway is very steep. Take your time if you decide to go down.”
“Could I have something to bash things with? A pole, or a sharp stick? A big rock, maybe?” Grace asked, envisioning sheep-sized rats.
Hadrian frowned in her direction. “I’m not sure I should trust you with a big rock, I can be rather annoying. Who knows when that would come back to haunt me.”
She realized he was teasing her and actually smiled. “I promise not to hit you with my big rock. It’s meant for the rats and whatever else I might come across.”
“You know, you probably won’t need it. The wolf might follow you. He’s only come in here this whole time, where you are, except to leave the tower to hunt and do whatever it is wolves do outside. I even have to drag the carcasses of what he brings us to eat into the kitchen myself.”
Grace saw the wolf, who was stretched out by the fire, stand, obviously watching her. She swallowed.
“Do you think…I mean, I know he brought me here and all, and he could have bitten either of us in this time if he wanted, and he does bring food…”
“You’re still nervous because he’s a wolf who appears to be watching you day and night? Well, me too. But what can we do? If you think you can get him to leave…it’s probably not a good idea. He IS feeding us, though if you manage to bash enough rats…”
Grace rubbed her temples with her fingertips. She didn’t want to think about eating rats.
“I see what you’re saying. I’d just feel better if I knew for sure he belonged to someone, you know?”
Hadrian shrugged a little. “Seems like he belongs to you now, whatever th
e case was before.”
Grace eyed the wolf doubtfully. He continued to watch her silently. Finally she sighed and said, “Well, I’ll be wandering. If you need me for anything, yell. And if you hear me scream, well, ignore it. It’s probably a rat.” Or a whole pack of rats, or the wolf got hungry, she added silently.
“You’ll be fine,” Hadrian said soothingly. “Take the lantern though, you’ll probably need it.” She watched him sit in the chair by the window, by all appearances completely calm and unperturbed at the thought of her wandering around his home. Shaking her head, Grace took the lantern off the table and lit it before going to the door.
She decided at once that her first self-appointed task was to make it to the mysterious kitchen. She needed to see with her own eyes just how bad it was, and see if there was a way she could wash herself, the bedding she’d been using, her clothing (if she could find it; it only now occurred to her that she had not seen it in the room she’d been staying in), and then everything, everything everywhere, all the time. She needed bins for washing, and water ought not be an issue- there should be snow up to her eyeballs, if Hadrian was to be believed. Maybe somewhere there was soap, or at least the ingredients for it.
These happy ruminations kept her occupied and lent her courage as she stepped out of the room, into a hall that was indeed shaped like a ring as Hadrian had described, with a stairway descending straight down the middle. There were three other doors, all closed, at intervals along it. She closed the one behind her accordingly, as Hadrian always did, trying to keep the heat in. At once she noticed it was bitterly cold, and she rubbed at her arms. Her legs, of course, were bare, as were her feet, but there was no help for that now.
Rather than explore the other rooms, she focused on her goal and approached the stair. Before she had quite made it there, she heard insistent scratching at the door behind her. Oh right, the wolf. She went back and let the wolf out, then shut it again. He padded around her and sat next to the stairway, watching her expectantly.
