The Magic Council (The Herezoth Trilogy)

by Grefer, Victoria

  “Jorne would be grateful,” said August. “Val, that’s a lovely way to thank him for his loyalty to your parents.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Amison’s Intentions

  Before the prison guards brought Treel into the small, poorly lit visiting room where Vane waited, Vane found himself sweating in the summer heat. The prison was poorly ventilated, and the stone walls kept the humid air contained as securely as they did Podrar’s criminals. When Treel finally walked in, he looked more miserable than Vane had ever seen him.

  Never stout of body, Treel had lost more weight, so that he looked gaunt. His stringy dark hair needed a trim, and fell to block his eyes. His pointed nose looked red, as though he suffered a chronic cold. His skin had taken on a gray tinge from lack of sunlight, and his drab prison garments were soaked to a point that Vane’s nicer, if still informal garb promised to reach within ten minutes. Treel’s hands were bound in front of him, only for the visit, and he stared resolutely at Vane’s boots.

  As soon as the guards left the men alone, Treel lifted his head and demanded in a rough voice, “What do you want? Why in the Giver’s name have you dragged me...?”

  “I saw your uncle. Fairly recently.” At that, Treel took the room’s first chair. He stared with curiosity at the paper, quill, and inkwell Vane had set on the wooden table, and Vane sat too. “You asked me not to mention you, so I didn’t. Jorne brought you up, knowing I’d be familiar with the Palace where you worked. He mentioned some colleagues of his who work there now. They told him of your aspirations to become a jewel thief. He nearly shed tears in front of my wife and me, not only because you landed yourself in prison, but because he’s heard nothing from you on the topic. Jorne’s a decent man, Treel. You owe as much to him as I do to the king, and you’re not going to treat him this way. You’re going to dictate a letter to him right now. I’ll make sure he receives it.”

  Treel banged his tied fists on the table. “Who are you to tell me I must write him?”

  “Me? I’m a man who also owes Jorne a debt, for the faithful service he showed my father. For the aid he gave my mother when she had to flee her home. For saving one small piece of my parents’ lives together in a portrait he hid away so it could escape Zalski, even though his masters couldn’t. I owe him as surely as you do, and I plan to see he’s paid. Why wouldn’t you write him a letter, Treel? Are you ashamed? He already knows where you are. Afraid he’ll write you back? I promise, he won’t chastise you. He knows prison will do a fair job of that without his help. Why wouldn’t you want his letters to look forward to? Why wouldn’t you want to offer him some comfort at his age, to thank him for all he did for you? I’ve helped you as well, Treel. I’m under no obligation to give your sister money, but I’ve been doing that. The payment I demand is a letter to your uncle.”

  Treel’s gray face twitched. He spoke through gritted teeth, as though to form words was painful. “Grab your quill, then.”

  Vane did so. “If you can,” he suggested, “speak directly to Jorne. I swear not to interrupt you or to change a word you say. If you wish Jorne to know I put pen to paper, then tell him. If not, let it remain a mystery.”

  The letter turned out long. Treel admitted at the start that Ingleton had paid him a visit and convinced him he should write. He apologized for not writing sooner; he had wanted to spare Jorne the knowledge of what he’d done. He assured Jorne his crime was in no way the result of poor guidance in his youth. His uncle had striven to teach him the value of a clean conscience after a hard day’s work. Treel was grateful for that, and never once had felt inclined to blame anyone but himself for his poor decisions.

  Then Treel spoke of his days in the prison. He was learning to read, taking advantage of lessons offered by an old scribe who came once a week to teach anyone who expressed an interest. Treel passed long hours keeping the prison far cleaner than he’d ever seen the Palace, and enjoyed what time he was able to speak with other prisoners. The guards always kept a close eye on things, so conversations were safe and superficial, but Treel had met some people with fascinating stories.

  He ate well enough. The food could be warmer, with more flavor, but it was plentiful. Treel did miss the Palace kitchens, particularly in the mornings, because breakfast was a thick, tasteless gruel. Lunch and dinner varied each day: soup or stew with bread and cheese, or meat when a guard brought down a buck or boar in the woodlands. Sometimes there were greens, sometimes berries, or apples, or a generous slice of melon. Treel had requested to work in the kitchens for pay, and had every reason to suppose the application would be accepted.

  Treel reminisced about his childhood with Jorne, asking if the old man remembered this or that event. He mentioned in an offhand way that his uncle had been right; Jorne had always said Treel would regret befriending Dorane Polve, that good-for-nothing dreamer, and reflecting on his childhood, Treel wished he had spent more time with Lu, a huntsman’s daughter, instead. Treel ended by telling his uncle he hoped he’d write back.

  As the duke and the prisoner let the ink dry, Vane asked, “How are things really?”

  “What does it look like?” Treel spat. “I didn’t lie to the old man, Ingleton. I’ve never lied to him. But you can tell this life is taking its toll. Your king runs his prisons fair, but they’re still prisons.”

  “You would have had visits from me, if nothing else, if you hadn’t shown so plainly you disdained them.”

  “I’ve told you a million times, I don’t want your pity.”

  “I don’t pity you, Treel. I’d pity an innocent man in your situation.”

  That shut Treel’s mouth for a moment. He asked the duke, “You came here for Jorne, then? Entirely for Jorne?”

  “To get you to write that letter, yes.”

  Vane was glad to have met Jorne. To know Jorne’s opinions of the old duke’s style of leadership was an immense aid. With half a year gone, Vane still felt uncomfortable having servants wait on him; a part of Vane would have preferred to be the servant. That was no surprise, really, considering he’d grown up helping Teena run her inn, but master he was, and he had to grow into that role. Jorne’s assertions that the staff had esteemed the previous Duke of Ingleton gave Vane confidence. He had been unsure until then whether a servant, by nature, must resent those whose beck and call he had no choice but to attend.

  “I’m glad you came, if it was for the old man,” offered Treel. “I should have written him a long time ago.” He paused. “Jorne helped your mother escape from Zalski’s coup, did you say? He never told me that. Had lots of stories about the duke, mostly, so many he rarely recycled one, but his role in aiding your mother.... Guess he’s a bit of a hero, then.”

  Vane said, “I consider him that. He’s humble about it, too. Had no reason not to tell you once Rexson Phinnean was in power. He considers he was doing his duty, I suppose. Doesn’t judge that laudable.”

  Treel nodded thoughtfully. Then his countenance took on a sneer of self-loathing. “He did everything right by me. Everything, even though I ended up....”

  “He knows he raised you well. And it’ll mean a lot to him you acknowledged that. Thank you, Treel, for telling me about him. Where I could find him. My mother mentioned him not a few times in the journal she kept with the Crimson League.”

  Treel’s eyes widened. “So that’s what you panicked about when you found me rummaging through your things. That journal was your mother’s? Can’t be a relaxing read.”

  “Far from it. A fair portion of what she wrote’s about me. Those sections, there’s a lot of information I can’t help but feel she would want me to know. Things she would have told me herself, had she been able. The journal unnerves me, but I owe it to her to read it, to read it all.”

  As a general rule, Vane tried not to wonder what his life would have been had his mother survived that assault on the Crystal Palace. His childhood had not been what his parents envisioned, but it was a happy one. He spent his days chasing Teena’s chickens, fighting imagin
ary ogres with the local children, or helping pick apples and bundle hay. The inn was always warm, with a fire going when needed and the saliva-inducing scents of Teena’s stews wafting from the kitchen. As much as he wished his mother had lived to see her son grow—she deserved that much, after all she’d sacrificed for his sake—Vane could never bring himself to wish away those fond memories of the life he had known. That would have been a slight to his aunt, a woman who had taken him in at great danger to herself and with no assurance of recompense.

  “I never knew my parents either,” Treel noted.

  “You know what shocked me most when I found you out? You called Dorane family, said one doesn’t turn his back on that. That got me thinking about my mother: Zalski was her twin. Do you think she should have stood by him, offered her support because they shared blood? Would that have made her more respectable than fighting against him?”

  “Look, I know I was an idiot. I should have told someone what Dorane asked of me, instead of helping him. If I’m here, at least he’s off working to collapse in this heat down in Yangerton. Outside. With bricks and mortar. Ingleton, you’d better make sure he’s never in the same prison as me. Keep us apart, you got that? Given the chance I’d throttle the life out of him, and then they’d have to kill me for the murder. Not a good situation. Keep him away.”

  “He’s not leaving the prison where he’s kept, except for the work they make him do. I’ll make sure you’re not transferred there, Treel. By the way,” Vane added, “the king gets notice of Dorane’s visitors. He’s had none. His wife will have nothing to do with him. She sends him no packages of honeycakes, no letters. Won’t bring his son to see him. Nothing. He’s entirely on his own. It’s the same with Arbora Anders, the woman who ran that group he was so obsessed with. She’s working in a shipyard. None of her old followers have paid her a visit or written. They go on as a unit, but they want nothing to do with their foundress.”

  “Serves the two bloody right,” Treel muttered. “Dorane for sure. I never met that Arbora, don’t know the slightest thing about her.”

  “Count yourself lucky.” Vane remembered, just then, Arbora urging him not to join the Magic Council. He hoped word had reached her that he had. Surely Rexson kept her and Dorane informed of all progress toward the council’s founding?

  “Think Jorne’ll write me back?”

  “Of course. The thought that you hadn’t written him was enough to bring him to tears, I told you that. Was enough to bring me to visit you again. As long as he’s still breathing when that letter arrives, he’ll respond to it. And his health is good.”

  “Wish I could see him.”

  “I wish he could visit you,” Vane responded, and left things there. He was not about to offer to transport Jorne to Podrar, not after what had occurred the last time he broke his word to Rexson to be careful with his magic.

  Treel admitted, “It’s been nice to speak with someone who’s not a prisoner. Who has a life outside these walls to return to. The guards never discuss their real lives with us.”

  A life to return to. A life growing each day inside August.... Yes, Vane had an existence separate from the prison, all right. He just wished it weren’t so complicated.

  “Has your sister come yet?” Vane asked.

  Treel winced at the thought. “What a nightmare that would be! Look, it’s my duty to provide for her, even though she’s older. I’m grateful you helped me do that, ‘cause we all know I needed a hand. She’s not a bad woman, but to have Miss Nose in the Air judging me with every word....”

  “Should I return?” Vane asked.

  “Don’t trouble yourself. It’s not like you don’t have things to do. We’ve got no real connection besides Jorne. There are people here to read Jorne’s letters to me and help me write him others. Soon I won’t need them anyway.”

  Pride flashed in his expression as he spoke of becoming literate. Vane smiled. “You sure you don’t want visits?”

  “Not from you. Not pity visits, no.”

  Treel sounded determined, so Vane let the subject drop after telling him that if he changed his mind, or if something ever came up he wished to discuss with Vane, he could send a message to Oakdowns. Treel thanked him but seemed to think little of the offer.

  The ink on Jorne’s letter had dried by then, which Treel used as an excuse to send the duke away. Treel was an odd man, Vane thought as he walked through the dreary, stone-lined corridors: an odd mix of pride and self-hatred. Perhaps prison would give him time to find a balance between the two extremes that overtook him in waves. Would Treel ever send for him, he wondered? He knew the man would not. The wound to Treel’s pride in begging that companionship would be too great, or he’d deny himself visitors he felt he did not deserve.

  Vane had agreed not to visit. Perhaps he should ignore Treel’s wish and come anyway, for Treel’s own good, but he wouldn’t. He had done the right thing in forcing Treel to write that letter, but beyond that, Treel was on his own. Vane had too many other concerns to waste time helping a prisoner who claimed he wanted nothing to do with him. August and the baby. The Magic Council. August, and that baby....

  Treel entered Vane’s thoughts little more that day. What Vane did consider, when his mind wandered from debating what measures might be needed to protect his wife and child, was Treel’s description of life in prison. Men maintained their dignity in Rexson’s jails. They practiced their trades or earned money with hard labor.

  More astounding than Treel’s account of how he passed his days were the accounts Ursa gave her sister, and what lacked from them: no mention of debasement or abuse. In Vane’s visits with Ursa before sentence was signed, the dread of rape had hung so strongly about the woman her air was suffocating. Had her fears been realized, she would have turned to August. She knew how close August was to the king and queen, and even if Ursa suspected the royals wouldn’t lift a hand against the guilty party, she would want August to know what went on behind the walls of her beloved monarchs’ jails. But Ursa spoke nothing of that sort.

  Vane thought back to Podrar’s prison with its stone walls so clean they glistened, the rugs without a speck of dirt. Poor nutrition had not caused Treel’s weight loss. Perhaps guilt was to blame, for besides Treel, all the prisoners Vane had glimpsed looked well fed, and none was beaten. What must the contrast have been when his uncle held power? He saw Zalski’s prisoners with more black and blue to their skin than natural shading. He imagined someone in those correctable conditions subject also to the summer heat no one could control, sweating as Treel had, and for no greater crime than stealing food so not to starve. The thought made Vane want to reach for August’s pail.

  Better not to ponder life beneath Zalski’s rule. Better still to forget his blood relation to the man. Black spot on Vane’s heart be damned, Zacry had always been right. Zalski was no part of Vane’s life, and had no place in what Vane had set out to do with the Magic Council.

  * * *

  Mid-June brought with it a welcome and continued silence from Amison in all matters concerning the Duke of Ingleton, blooming iris in Oakdowns’s garden, cloud cover to lessen the previous week’s heat, and the first official meeting of the Magic Council. August, a week over the worst of her nausea, was surprised when she glanced out the bedroom window the morning of the council’s session to find no protesters. Vane was not.

  “Why come here?” he said. “Here there’s only me. At the Palace they can make a show for all of us.”

  “Be careful,” August told him.

  “I’m pulling the old carriage and transport trick again, I’ll be fine. I’m much more worried about Francie and her inactive magic.”

  “Gratton won’t let anything happen to her,” assured August.

  “He and his crew arrested two or three teenagers the other day trying to burn her aunt’s store, you know.”

  August grabbed Vane’s arm. “You never told me that! Neither did Bennie.”

  “I didn’t want to frighten you.”


  She asked, “Or make me jealous that you follow Francie’s life?”

  “Rexson mentioned the attempted arson, and without prompting. I haven’t asked about or seen Francie since we all met with the queen and Mason Greller.” He paused. “Would you feel more comfortable if you met her?”

  “I would not. That would just be cruel to the woman.” August paused, trying to find a way to explain herself. “I trust you, Val. You know I do, though I’ll admit I’m aware how easily you could come and go from here if you wanted.”

  “I’d never….”

  “I know that. And from what you’ve told me, Francie wouldn’t try to weasel her way between us, but that doesn’t mean she’s not head over heels for you, because you’re just so amazing it seems absurd she wouldn’t be. She applied for the council hoping you’d do the same, and as for me, well, I know just how lucky I am to have you. I don’t want to rub that in her face, unless she comes on to you. If she comes on to you, you invite her over for dinner, you understand?”

  “August, she wanted to retract her application.”

  “And you wouldn’t let her.”

  “For the same reason I thought you should visit your sister, nothing more than that. She needs this council to find peace. What she did to me and Teena has been eating at her for a decade…. You said you were all right with this.”

  August sighed, shutting her eyes to gather herself. “I did. And I am, I really am.”

  “There’ll be four other people with us, if that makes you feel better.” He kissed her on the forehead and asked, “What are your plans for the day?”