Love meant sacrifice. Vane’s mother leaving her infant son with Teena for his safety when that baby was all she had, that was love; his father running through the Palace to warn his friends of danger when he might have saved himself heading for an exit, that was love. If Vane loved this girl, he’d more suitably have exiled himself from her presence than marry her when he had. Was he so puerile and impatient that he couldn’t wait a year? A mere year? By the Giver’s band of harps, he’d only met the girl seven or eight months before!
Not to mention the fact Vane had deserted his estate and his servants. No one occupied Oakdowns at present, but what if protesters had tried to torch the manor? Magical protections aside, what if they’d succeeded? The crowds remained where they’d been for two days now, tensely motionless. Suppose their restless energy had broken: every one of the men and women who worked for Vane would have lost a livelihood. He had a responsibility to those people, and he had shirked it as though it were nothing. Eight-year-old Hune cared better for his dogs. His dogs!
A duchy and a title meant responsibilities, responsibilities Vane had tossed aside as though he hadn’t a care beyond which destination to choose when he trekked halfway across the kingdom at his leisure. Just so Vane was aware, Carson Amison had barged into Rexson’s office that very morning, incensed about the council, convinced (and rightly) that it had already inconvenienced him and his affairs; the man understood that funding marked for the council’s use was the reason the king had refused to grant the full amount he’d requested in January for public works in Yangerton. As everyone assumed Ingleton was lodging in the Crystal Palace for a day or two until the situation outside Oakdowns improved, he demanded the king call Vane to join them. Rexson had refused, under pretense of demonstrating that Amison had no standing to demand a thing of the crown. The king stood firm in his insistence that the new council was his project alone and had already annoyed Ingleton more than was just. What Amison had to say concerning recent developments he could address to Rexson himself. What if Amison, instead of storming off to his own property, had grown suspicious and investigated around the Palace to find out where the hell Vane was? What if he’d discovered him gone?
At last Vane could take no more. “You know full well you’d never have summoned me to meet with Amison. You wouldn’t subject me to that, not in a million years. And how dare you accuse me of using August? How dare you! Do you know me at all? Rexson, I would die for that woman without a second thought. I’m sorry if that’s trite, but I can think of no plainer way to say it. I know love means sacrifice, and so does August, come to that. Look, we could have stayed away longer. We could have left no note and not come back at all. God knows we wanted to! We knew the sooner we returned, the more you and Gracia, and Zacry and Teena would appreciate it. I wouldn’t leave you in that bind or hurt my aunt that way. I wouldn’t walk away from the council after Zacry got involved for no other reason than for my benefit. See? Sacrifice!” Rexson’s expression grew a hair less severe, and Vane demanded, “Is that all? Or do you have something else to tell me?”
“I do, in fact,” said Rexson. He smiled, if tensely. “Congratulations. And many blessings on you both.” He embraced the boy as though Vane truly were one of his sons.
Vane asked, “How long will those protesters stay outside Oakdowns?”
“Until you give word about whether you’ll join the council, is my guess. They hope to sway your decision.”
“They’ll be there two months then. I’m not speaking a word about the council until my interview. I’m set on that.”
“Your servants?”
“Paid leaves of absence. What else could I do?”
“Well, you and your aunt are, in no uncertain terms, as welcome as you ever were to lodge here, though August will have to move to a guest room with you.”
Vane knew what Rexson was thinking. August’s current rooms were for the baby’s nurse, and if August were Ingleton’s wife….
“She won’t make a stir, Rexson. She won’t appear in any official capacity.”
“That’s a wise decision, but she’s nonetheless a duchess now. She cannot work for Gracia.”
“If the protesters keep calm, I’m thinking to return to Oakdowns tomorrow—just August, Teena, and me. I can transport the three of us home, and transport out again if it comes to that. I don’t want anyone having the impression I’ve run scared, and as for the people with the banners and the torches, they’ll just get frustrated if I deprive them much longer of the opportunity to address me face to face, so to speak. We don’t want them frustrated.”
“That’s a safe enough arrangement you’re proposing,” agreed Rexson. “You have Oakdowns well protected, and I agree, no one wants those protesters acting out of frustration from not being heard.”
“Being seen, rather. As long as I make clear I know they’re there, without offending them…. Opening some curtains that look out that way should be enough. I won’t have to physically confront the lousy….”
“Not the demonstrators,” remarked the king. “You will, however, speak with Ursa.”
Vane could have kicked himself. He had not once thought of August’s sister, had not realized that reporters would find her when they snooped into the life of Ingleton’s new duchess.
“I’ll take August tomorrow. Thank the Giver, it’s been three weeks since her last visit.”
Rexson informed him, “You will take your wife this evening.”
“Or we can go tonight,” said Vane. His elopement would send ambitious scribes directly to Ursa. Himself and August aside, the havoc that woman could wreak on Rexson’s life if she so chose, and on Kora’s….
“I forgot about her,” Vane said. “I wouldn’t have….”
“Just fix this,” Rexson ordered, and left the room.
Vane transported to the library, where August sat tugging at her hair. Before she could rise from her chair or say a word, Vane told her, “We’re going back to Partsvale. To your sister.”
August gasped. “Good Giver, my sister.”
“Tell me you two have been getting along.”
The girl’s face lit up with white-hot guilt. “I don’t know if I’d say that, but there’s no hostility, Val. There’s no reason she would…. You don’t think she’d have Kora killed?”
“She’ll have the opportunity. We need to speak with her before reporters do, and they won’t want to wait. I’d guess whoever gets her story is guaranteed a post for life with the Duke of Partsvale.”
“Right. Of course you’re right. We’ll go this instant. Val, how should we sign the register?”
August had always signed with her real name. Vane, who had never spoken with Ursa in Partsvale, had never needed to put his signature on any document at the prison.
“We’ll sign as ourselves. They’ll figure out who we are soon enough, and if we put down an alias, it’ll only raise suspicions.”
Five minutes later they walked into Partsvale’s prison, a two-storied building fronted with brown brick. Luckily for them, the warden on duty was a former member of Rexson’s guard, one the king had personally appointed to the post when he expressed a desire to move up north and work shorter hours because of his age. He was a lanky man by the name of Samson Denwood, with a noticeable bald spot and unreadable eyes. He had spoken with Vane during one of August’s past visits, and thus showed no surprise when the duke signed the log “Valkin Heathdon.” Despite the visit’s urgency, August smiled at her husband as she signed her married name for the first time. That did make Samson jolt, but he was professional enough to make no comment; he simply summoned one of the female guards as an escort for the duke and duchess, as protocol mandated, since they would be entering the female sector of the prison.
That guard led the newlyweds down a wide and well-lit corridor to one of the visiting rooms, furnished with two wooden benches. A second woman brought in Ursa, and when the prisoner was alone with her sister and brother-in-law, she slumped onto the bench opposite them. H
er once glorious red hair had been cropped per prison regulations. Her pale skin was wind-burnt and her muscles toned from her work in the rock quarries.
“What is this?” she demanded of August. “What’s he doin’ here, and why’d you come so late in the day?”
August usually visited in the morning. She couldn’t seem to find her voice, so she lifted her left hand and pointed to her ring. Ursa shook her head in disbelief.
“You did not. August Hincken, you did not…. Don’t you realize the king’s announcin’ the council this month?”
“He did yesterday,” said Vane.
“An’ when did you two marry?”
“Yesterday,” he told her.
“The Giver’s bloody flute,” said Ursa.
“Listen,” said Vane, “we married at the Shrine here. It’ll take ten days for news of the council to reach Partsvale, or for the marriage to reach Podrar. After that, they’ll start investigating. They’ll find out August has a sister, and they’ll find out where you are. The king had the sense to draft three sentencing contracts, one for each of you, so there’ll be nothing to connect to you to Dorane and Arbora, nothing to connect you to sorcery or the Fist unless you open your mouth.”
“You tellin’ me not to talk to the papers?”
“No, you’ll have to. They’ll just imagine you’ve something to hide if you don’t, and they’ll go digging, and who knows what they’ll discover. If you talk to one, just one, that should be enough to satisfy their bloodlust where I’m concerned. Just be discreet.
“I remember exactly what your sentence says: you’re here for inciting tax evasion, and for the murder of Crale Bendit. We can go from there and think of an explanation that doesn’t involve magic, one you can feed to reporters.”
Ursa began, “Well, Arbora told….”
“I know Arbora told the Fist some cover story about how the crown allots tax revenue. How no money goes to programs for the magicked. There’s no official record of that, so we can say something different, say anything we’d like. The Fist will assume you’re protecting the organization. Listen, Ursa, you can’t mention magic, and if you say a word about the king, or the kidnapping, or Kora Porteg, I swear I….”
“It’s no secret down in Carphead I had magic, you know.”
“That’s fine. That’s fine, because August doesn’t. As long as they don’t learn the Enchanted Fist exists, that you were politically active, that my sister-in-law—my wife’s sister, of all things—threatened the king’s sons in an attempt to blackmail….”
Ursa smirked. “You got relatives enough working against you already, is that it?”
August spoke for the first time. “Ursa Hincken….”
The prisoner retorted, “Don’t you dare act superior ‘round me, not this time. What is wrong with you? You marry him, of all people? Zalski’s nephew, the day the king makes his Magic Council public? You have a death wish or somethin’?”
August’s gaze turned cold. “There’d be far less controversy about the elopement if you and your cohorts hadn’t forced the king to found that council in the first place.”
Ursa retorted, “An’ you’d never have met the boy without me, would you?”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” said August.
“Of course you didn’t. You lost your everlovin’ mind, you did! By the Giver’s harp, woman, you deserve whatever hell breaks loose around you. An’ you told me I destroyed my life? Perhaps I did, August. Perhaps I did, kidnappin’ them boys, but just the same you brought this on yourself, an’ they’ll drag me in the middle of it, an’ that won’t make things no easier for me. Not one damn bit. You have any idea what kind o’ vultures these women are? What they’ll do when they figure out who my sister married? Damn the both o’ you! You ain’t got the brains to see maybe you should’ve waited some? It don’t take no genius to avoid a mistake like the one you made!”
August and Vane shared a guilty glance that said perhaps they had made a huge mistake indeed. The meeting was progressing far from well, and Ursa had not yet finished. “You,” she said to Vane, “you got some nerve waltzin’ in here, askin’ me to save your ass after trespassin’ in my home the way you did. A life sentence ain’t enough fo’ you. You gotta have me drag my own name in the mud. Well, I ain’t doin’ it. I got my pride, an’ I won’t have all the folks back where I lived knowin’ I’m in prison. That’s why I wanted to come here in the first place! But you, you don’t care nothin’ ‘bout that. All you care about is beddin’ my sister, an’ now hushin’ me up to protect your damn fool Portegs and coward of a king. You knew them all before the kidnappin,’ didn’t you? You care what happens to ‘em? Well, the Portegs took my magic, the magic that made my mansion. I agreed to my sentence, but I never said nothin’ ‘bout no reporters who’d come snoopin’ when you married my sister. If the papers are gonna be writin’ ‘bout me, they’re gonna get them a story all right, ‘cause I’m throwin’ in Kora and maybe the king to boot. Why shouldn’t I? It would take the attention off me.”
August wore a light shawl, and she tore it from her shoulders to throw it in Ursa’s face. “Can’t you ever think of someone but yourself, you miserable lout? Can’t you ever? The Giver help us all! I thought you’d changed some, but you’re still the same selfish, classless….”
“What did you call me?”
August had never stood up to her sister like she just had. She felt vindicated, empowered for the first time in her life, and was not about to back down. “A classless, abusive idiot, that’s what. What does Kora Porteg have to do with my elopement? Or the king, his children? Why would you make them suffer because I stood up to the throngs outside Oakdowns that are just as much bullies as you are?”
“Throngs? So they’re protestin’ your hubby, are they?”
The situation deteriorated even more when Samson burst into the room, Ursa’s guard at his back, causing the inmate to jump up and yell at the man, “You ain’t allowed here!”
“Forget that,” said the warden. “My superior stopped by and saw the log. He was sure there’s a story when he saw the duke’s name. I told him it’s none of our business if there is, but he went for a reporter.”
August stammered, “But why?”
The female guard scoffed. “Because he’s too much of a coward to confront you face to face by the exit.”
Samson explained, “He can’t come back here any more than I’m supposed to, but a reporter can. The printing press is housed next door, and there’s always some writer or other hanging around. You’ve got maybe five minutes.”
August clutched at Vane. “What do we do?” she asked. “What do we…?”
The guard told her, “You two can leave, but you might pass the reporter in the hall. We can put you in the empty room next door if you’d prefer. I’m sorry about this.”
“Ursa….” August pleaded. Vane was supporting half her weight because she could not.
The prisoner told the warden, “Send that reporter here.”
“Ursa, please….”
August could say no more before Vane shuffled her into the next room over. She grabbed her hair and whispered, “Should we go? Transport out?”
“I don’t think so,” said Vane, his voice equally quiet.
“She’ll speak about the king, about Kora. Good Giver, we just destroyed Rexson’s reign. If she mentions the kidnapping…. How can we stop her?”
“We can’t.”
“Should we go back in?” asked August. “She might keep quiet with you in the room.”
“The woman hates me. You heard her vitriol. I would only get her back up, and the reporter would demand to speak with her without me. I dealt with his type in January, and they’re relentless in their drive to make names for themselves. To grow their industry.”
“You have to go in. Refuse to leave them alone.”
“I would have to leave sometime. He’d come back tomorrow or two days from now, resentful of me and better prepared for the interview. It�
�s best to let them talk.”
“How is that best? She’ll destroy the king to spite us. She’ll tell the reporter we’re right here. Surely there’s something…. Oh, if you could make her keep her mouth shut! You can’t control what she says?”
“I can’t force her will, August. I could seal her mouth or something, but that would be obvious. At least we can…. I think I have a way we can listen in,” he said, and cast a spell he had memorized a year or two back but never had occasion to use. He murmured, “Oyescuch,” and Ursa’s steady, pacing gait filtered through to his ears and August’s, as clearly as if an open window sat in the wall four bricks thick that separated their respective rooms. Vane raised a finger to his lips to warn August not to make a sound. Noise should travel both ways thanks to the spell, and in the time they had taken to talk the crisis through, he had lost the chance to warn Ursa they were party to her interview. A creaking door and more footsteps announced the reporter’s arrival with a guide.
A brusque, deep voice demanded, “Where’s Ingleton gone?”
Ursa asked, “Who the hell are you?”
“Byron Gent. I write sometimes for the Partsvale Daily. Where’s Ingleton gone?”
“Yeah, it’s nice to meet you too.”
“I’m not playing games, Miss Hincken. Where is the duke?”
August, her eyes squeezed shut to brace herself, reached blindly for Vane’s hand and missed by a couple inches. Vane took hers as Ursa replied, “Let’s get somethin’ straight: that’s none o’ your concern. But he left a few minutes ago. You must have just missed crossing in the hall.”
“How in the world do you know the man?”
“He married my sister, yesterday. At the shrine, if that makes things easier to verify. They stopped by to tell me the news.”
So far, Ursa had revealed nothing this man Gent would not have discovered on his own, and within a day. No harm done. The next thing Vane and August heard was a ruffling sound. Was Gent flipping through papers he’d brought to take notes? Had he carried the prison log with him?
“August Heathdon, that’s your sister?” Must have been the log. “How old is she?”
The Magic Council (The Herezoth Trilogy) Page 37
