Magic by Daylight

by Cynthia Bailey Pratt

  There were gifts, as Matilda had said. Food and wine for the most part, with a few other things. One fool-soldier who came only to her shoulder gave her a cunningly braided thong for her hair while a cook gave her a wooden spoon covered with runes for improved sauces. These she accepted gratefully, while her mother, with surprising tact and gentleness, turned away the more inappropriate offerings.

  As they walked down one of a dozen twisting passageways, Matilda said, “Now we come to the guard room. Accept here whatever they offer. They are the backbone of my army; without them, we are all lost.” She turned to Miship and Condigne. “Stay without. I shall not be more than a few moments.”

  “Yes, my lady,” Miship said, nodding.

  “As you wish, my lady,” Condigne said with a sigh and a shake.

  Matilda paused before the doorway, breathing heavily. “Mother .. . ?”

  “This room is full of iron and steel, Clarice. I bear it because I must yet it is difficult. Follow me.”

  The guard room was full of human soldiers, all of whom leapt to their feet, chanting some slogan as Matilda entered. She was more than gracious here, taking some extra time to thank them for delivering her daughter to her.

  “Some of you have already heard the expressions of my heart. I am sure now that you see her dressed according to her station, you have a greater understanding of my concern.”

  Their cheers told her that they did. Clarice stood abashed, white Matilda applauded. An officer approached her, a bundle of black cloth in his hands. He bowed. “This belonged to the Rider of Vedresh. We are his heirs and wish it to be yours.”

  Abashed, Clarice said, “I’m sorry.. ..”

  “You have nothing to reproach yourself with,” the officer said. He appeared to be about thirty, with a prominent jaw and rather cold light blue eyes. His white-blonde hair was clipped close to his scalp. “The Rider knew the risks.”

  He shook out the cloak and draped it about her shoulders. Though made of wool, or something similar, it had no weight. The closure was a chain of metal links, each one in a stylized shape like an ear. “It serves to hide whatever sound you make as you pass by your enemies. They can still see you, but not if they do not know you are there.”

  Matilda said, “How kind! But I hope my daughter has no enemies here.”

  Clarice tried to thank the officer and men but they started cheering her so that her voice was drowned. Before the cheers died away, Matilda passed on, out of the room. Clarice followed her into a hall but before she could go on, she heard a whisper, “Hist, my lady!”

  “You want to speak to me?”

  By his clothes and broken nose, he was another mortal soldier. He looked past her and listened behind him. “My name is Kevin O’Hannon and I’m as loyal a fellow as you’ll find.”

  “I have no doubt of it,” she said, her heart heavy. He looked so ordinary that she could have seen him on any London street corner or danced with him at any Assembly. If only she had . . . “Pardon me, Mr. O’Hannon, but my mother is out of sight and I don’t know the fortress well enough... .”

  “I’m not bargaining for a better position, my lady. It’s that I’m a soldier and I have no stomach for torture.”

  “Torture?”

  “Aye. That werroeur what came in with you last night. Now it may be that a fine lady like you don’t care much what happens to a man once he’s outlived his

  usefulness, but it’s the sort of thing as leads to bad feelin’ among us who serve “

  “You’re mistaken; you are. I do care. Where is he?”

  “Held in the dungeon, ‘course. No food today, nor water neither and that’s the kind of treatment I mean. There’s got to be a reasonable adherence to the rules o' combat or what ill befalls one soldier might fall on us all if the position were to be reversed, if you catch my meanin’.”

  “I do, Mr. O’Hannon.”

  “Not that I think we’ll be undone, no. I’m loyal, I am. But if Forgall were to get wind of how the boy’s been treated, you see ...”

  “Will you show me where he is?”

  He deliberated. “It may not be wise, but I will for the sake of your sweet face, my lady. Not just at the moment, though. Your lady mother’s a good queen, but I’m not caring to catch the rough side of her tongue. Come back when you hear the doves fly past your window.”

  “There’s no window in my room... .”

  “Aren’t you the silly though! Ask your mother to make you one. She’ll do it quick enough to please you.”

  It was difficult to wait, knowing that Dominic was suffering from hunger and thirst. She’d already noticed, during her tour, that there was a fine grit or dust in the air that dried her mouth almost as soon as she’d stepped outside. She could only imagine that things were worse in a dungeon.

  Once again in her chamber, Matilda’s eyes lit up when Clarice expressed a wish for a window. She did not even have to state her carefully considered reasons for wanting one. “And a balcony!” Matilda said at once. “One just like mine.”

  After a brief consultation with herself, Matilda twiddled her fingers in the direction of the outer wall of Clarice’s room. Surprised that such magic required neither a spoken spell nor any fierce faces of summoning power, Clarice almost missed the fact that a window had appeared. Triple pointed arches complete with Gothic tracery graced the wall, the center arch larger than the other two and containing the French windows.

  “How lovely!” Clarice exclaimed quite naturally.

  “Do you really think so? I have improved a great deal since I came to Mag Mell but it takes more practice than I have time for at present.”

  “You conjure as though you were born here,” Clarice said. She could grant her mother that much praise.

  She left one panel open so she might hear the whisper of bird wings in the night. Afraid that this would not be enough to awaken her, Clarice decided not to go to sleep that night. If only O’Hannon had been more specific about the time! Clarice didn’t know if the “doves” flew at midnight or dawn. She had to be ready, though, the instant they flew past. Fortunately, her mother’s method for traveling between her chambers and the ground floor was swift and silent.

  Clarice’s only worry was that Matilda, deprived of her maternal perquisites for so long, might come into gaze on her sleeping daughter. Naturally, Matilda had not conjured a lock for this bedroom. Passing the time by considering and discarding one excuse for being absent after another made a very poor stimulant. Thinking of Dominic, however, worked quite well.

  She would not have thought that he could be defeated, yet if it meant his life had been spared, she could not grieve that he had been captured. She very much doubted that he’d see it that way. Smoothing her spotless linen nightgown over her hips, she wondered if she could convince him that life was sweet, then blushed for the wanton implication of her thoughts. She had liked the kiss he’d stolen and wished very much that he’d steal another one tonight. Then she caught sight of the pot of chocolate—kept magically warm—and the biscuits her mother had left in case Clarice grew peckish in the night and she sobered.

  “Hunger and thirst,” she whispered. “Oh, God, protect him until I can reach him!”

  Despite her anxiety and determination, Clarice had fallen fast asleep by the time the doves flew past her window. She was awakened by one that had landed on her new balcony and was tapping its beak insistently against a stained-glass panel. The instant Clarice put her feet on the floor, the bird flew away. Was the expression of hurt disdain on the dove’s face just her imagination?

  “I’m up ... I’m up...” she called after the departing dove. It had looked at her the way Pringle did when she lazed the day away in bed under the pretext of a cold in the head.

  Among all the apparel her mother had given her, there had been a quilted overdress and a pair of thick boots. Though the night was not cold, some need inside her demanded warm clothing. The magic hands were quick to guess her needs. A deep reticule served to carry the c
hocolate and the biscuits. At the last moment, she took the cloak of silence too.

  It was only after she reached the courtyard that she realized she had no notion of how to reach the guard room again. There’d been so many twisting corridors, so many flights of steps up and down, that her head had begun to go around long before the end of the tour.

  A whisper out of the night roused her from trying to remember. “Is it yourself, then?”

  “Mr. O’Hannon?”

  A lantern unsheathed itself, showing a thin line of golden light. “ ‘Tis corporal, if you don’t mind, my lady.”

  “Oh, excuse me, Corporal O’Hannon.”

  “This way, if you please. Clever of you to bring the Rider’s cloak. May prove useful, yet. Mind the cobbles. They’re a thought wet after the rain.”

  “What rain? I didn’t notice any.”

  “You wouldn’t a-way up there. But Queen Matilda’s quite right to make it rain down here every evening. The filth some of these lads throw down ‘ud make a dog sick, so it would. Mind your head here, my dearie ... pardon me. My lady.”

  They went down a long flight of stairs, transversed a corridor and then down another flight. Torches hung on the walls, making the air thick with smoke. As they went, Clarice asked, “Is it all right to talk?”

  “Oh, aye. But quietly.”

  “Why do you call my mother ‘Queen’?”

  “Isn’t she one, then?”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “Ah, me. Well, this is my way of thinkin’. If she’s not queen now, my callin’ her so is flattery. If she will be queen soon, my callin’ her so is but good practice.” He chuckled softly. A moment later, he held up his hand to stop her. “Hist, whist! In that dark corner and not a word now!”

  She heard the tramping of booted feet a few seconds later. Holding the dark hood of the cloak up to her face so that her pale skin would not be glimpsed, she saw a dozen soldiers tramp by the opening at the end of the corridor. Seeing their faces, she caught her breath.

  Underslung jaws with protruding tusks, spiky hair or fur that came halfway down their noses, and short fingers with long, yellow nails was all she had time to glimpse but it was quite enough. A sour smell, like vinegar mixed with spoiled lard, drifted down to her.

  Corporal O’Hannon leaned up against the lintel of the arched opening, apparently at ease, cutting his fingernails with a dagger. He raised a casual hand in greeting as the troop marched by. They did not challenge him.

  After they’d gone by, he came back to her. “Fiends,” he said, and spat. “I hate ‘em.”

  “I can’t believe my mother has welcomed such creatures into her army!”

  O’Hannon shrugged. ‘They’re good fighters, I don’t say they’re not. But they’ve no more sense of honor than does a fighting cock.” He went and peered both ways down the corridor. “Come on then,” he said.

  He led her down a last, shorter flight of steps and then stopped a few stairs from the bottom. “Listen, my lady. There’ll be a guard outside. I’ll keep him busy. You pull the hood up over your face and creep by quiet as a ghost. When you see your friend, make sure he doesn’t speak any louder than need be or his goose is cooked as well as me own.”

  “Won’t the ceil be locked?”

  “And with what, my lady? Iron bars? Iron locks? You forget where you are.”

  O’Hannon, it seemed, had brought his own refreshments to the dungeon. As she slipped past the guard, who had his back to her anyway, she saw the Irishman offer the man a drink. The guard seemed only too glad to accept. From the rear he seemed quite human, but his voice sounded subterranean.

  Clarice followed O’Hannon’s instructions, but neither of them reckoned on the stone hinges of the door. The moment she pulled on the handle, they screeched. The guard started to turn around, saying, “What noise was that?”

  Quick as thinking, O’Hannon said, “Sure, I heard it! It came from down the way there.” He pointed into an intersecting hall. “An escape, d’you think?”

  “I go to see. .. .”

  “An’ why not? With me here to keep watch over this ‘un. I’ll be glad to be doin’ that for you.”

  The guard shrugged. “Not my fault if one escapes. This be my post.”

  “ ‘At’s right, my boy. Have another bitty sip now. Good for what ails you.”

  As the guard raised the flask to his lips, O’Hannon made a fierce face at Clarice. This time before she essayed the door, she sprinkled some of the hot chocolate on the hinges and, to make doubly certain, she held her cloak up before the hinges. She plainly heard a protest from the grinding stone, but the guard heard nothing this time. The cloak had muffled it.

  Clarice slipped inside, leaving the door ajar and trusting to O’Hannon to keep the guard’s attention. He’d brought her this far despite his proclaimed loyalty to her mother; Clarice did not hope that he’d overlook her smuggling out a prisoner. That would have to wait.

  A torch burned with a flickering blue flame on the wall. It hardly deserved the name of light but it was better than nothing. The cell, cold stone on every side, smelled like the inside of a giant’s boot. It was silent. Clarice had pictured rats but heard none of their characteristic noises. At least Dominic had been spared that much.

  “Dominic?” she called softly, mindful of the guard just outside. “Dominic?”

  “Who’s there?” His voice was dry and hoarse. Clarice had not known how worried she’d been until she heard his voice. Tears filled her eyes.

  “It’s Clarice.”

  “Clarice? Where?”

  “Hush. Here by the door. I can’t see you. ...”

  Then he was there before her, the light casting blue shadows onto his face. He looked hollow of cheek and eye, like something dead yet walking. Clarice didn’t care. She held out her hands to him and, when he took them, moved close to him.

  “I thought you were dead,” she said.

  “I’m not certain that I am not. Why would your mother keep me alive?”

  “Kiss me, and tell me whether you live or not.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  She couldn’t even feel ashamed of her boldness. Not when he pulled her against him with such need, such longing. It was there in his hands, in the unsteady beating of his heart, in the sweet possession of his lips. He pressed his cheek against hers and said, “When I saw you fall, I thought you were dead.”

  “I thought you’d been killed. Mother wouldn’t answer any of my questions.”

  They kissed again, sweetly, too glad just to be near one another to attempt arousing their passions especially under these circumstance. Her heart too full to speak seriously, Clarice said lightly, “Aren’t you starving?”

  “In more ways than one, sweetheart.” Dominic chuckled. “I don’t suppose you brought anything to eat?”

  “That’s why I came. Just a moment.” She carried her bag over to a projection of stone glimpsed in the near-dark. The outside of the chocolate pot was sticky from drips and the sweet biscuits were somewhat crumbled. Dominic stared as though she’d laid out a feast.

  He drank from the spout and choked a little. “I thought it was water.. ..”

  “No. I didn’t think... I’m sorry. I should have brought water.”

  “Never mind. I daresay this will put more heart into me than water or wine. I was told once the warriors of the Incas used to drink it before battle.”

  He ate nearly every crumb and drained the pot dry. “That’s better. Now let’s go.”

  ‘‘Go?”

  “We’ll escape. There’s only one guard ...How did you get in here anyway?”

  She told him about O’Hannon. Dominic sounded puzzled. “Why would he help you come to me?”

  “He says he doesn’t approve of treating you this way because Forgall might act in kind to his prisoners.”

  “And you say he’s out there now, distracting the guard?”

  ‘That’s right.” She clutched his arm when he would have gone past he
r. His muscles bunched beneath her hand as though he’d rip out of her grasp. But he did not. “I don’t think he’ll help you escape.”

  “He won’t have the chance to deny me.”

  “Dominic, listen. I can’t go now. If you escape, you leave me behind.”

  “What?”

  “I can’t go now. There are things I must discover first.”

  “I know what it is,” he said. He took a deep breath. “I can smell strange perfumes on you and . ..” His hands slid over her arms but not in a caress. “New clothes? Are you so enamored of your mother’s gifts that you are blind to her real intentions?”

  Clarice squelched her hurt. “I hope you know me better than that. Like it or not, for better or for worse, she is my mother. I have to try to understand what she wants.”

  “Don’t you know yet? She wants you. She wants to keep you here forever. That’s what this is all about. She asked Forgall to make you a Fay, will you or nil you. He wouldn’t do it so she’s gone to war to force him.”

  Though Clarice wanted to tell him he was wrong, everything rose up in her to say that he was right. That was why her mother had been so evasive even while she spoke of their glorious future. What future could there be without her becoming an immortal like Matilda? “How could she have thought Forgall would do it?”

  “Forgall was besotted by her from the moment she interrupted their revels. He’d do anything for her, except bring you across against your will.”

  “I hadn’t realized that he felt like that about her.”

  “He probably doesn’t now. Once he’d realized what she was after, it must have killed his affection for her. I don’t think she cares for him at all. She only wants you by her side for always. But can you say that she truly loves you?”

  “She is my mother.”

  “But does she love you? The woman I love has a soul far more beautiful than her face. Did your mother ever love your indomitable spirit, your sweet heart, your humor? Was she ever eager for you to grow into your strengths? Or did she try always to keep you at her side, dependent and callow?”