The Keeper of the Mist

by Rachel Neumeier

  The Timekeeper inclined his head. “Had Dorric’s sons discovered what he had done and was still doing, they would certainly have attempted to force the succession. But the succession could not take place until its proper time.”

  “The proper time!” exclaimed Keri. “The proper time would have been before my father had done all this in the first place.”

  The Timekeeper said nothing.

  Keri raked her fingers through her hair, trying to think. She could see that her brothers couldn’t have known. Tassel was right about that. She could just see Brann flinging the truth to the four corners of Nimmira. It might be unkind to suspect he would have enjoyed taking a self-righteous stance against their father, that he would have even enjoyed forcing their father to resign. Which, all right, the Timekeeper was correct, too: it was not as easy or as safe to force a Lord of Nimmira to resign his place as it might be for the lords of other lands. But she said, “It would have been better if they had found out. Everyone in all of Nimmira would have taken sides. But my father would have lost.”

  “Just so,” agreed the Timekeeper. “Thus, Lord Dorric kept the truth close. He must have deliberately acted to thin the boundary mist here near Glassforge, and perhaps elsewhere; he must have deliberately substituted some form of sorcery for the proper magic that should protect Nimmira. But I believe he thought the boundary would repair itself on his heir’s ascension. I would have thought so myself. It seems…otherwise.”

  Keri thought about this. “But, then, can’t we do whatever kind of sorcery he did, fix it that way, at least for now?”

  “Perhaps we might,” the Timekeeper said without expression, “if we numbered among our trusted allies a sorcerer. Alas, the only sorcerer currently available is…not a trusted ally.”

  “No,” agreed Keri. “No.” She couldn’t imagine taking this problem to Magister Eroniel. She wondered just how thin the mist had grown along the border with Eschalion. Thin enough that the Wyvern King had sent one of his people to find out what was on the other side, obviously, but…perhaps not so thin that Aranaon Mirtaelior himself actually knew about Nimmira yet. Perhaps not so thin that he had realized exactly what had lain hidden, or for how long.

  She wished she could ask Magister Eroniel, but she had no idea how to ask so subtly that he wouldn’t realize what she was asking. Perhaps Tassel could manage it. Or maybe even Brann. But she was sure no one would be able to find a subtle means of getting the sorcerer to reinforce Nimmira’s boundary mist. She said, thinking about that, “I wonder who did this sorcery for my father?”

  “Lucas’s mother?” said Tassel. “Though I don’t know whether this has been going on that long, and nobody ever said Eline was a sorceress.” She saw the others staring at her and said, “What? She was from Eschalion, you know. Everyone knows that.”

  “Well, but she was just a player, wasn’t she?” Keri asked.

  “So far as we know, she was a player,” snapped Cort, and glared at the Timekeeper. But the Timekeeper only opened a hand to show his lack of knowledge. Cort snorted, paced across the room, and came back. “But we can be sure the former Doorkeeper certainly knew about all this. We might get him to tell us who else was involved. Eventually. That son of a—”

  “Of course,” murmured the Timekeeper, interrupting what promised to turn into another and even more savage list of imprecations. “And Nynn, of course. The others—you will know some of the names, if you think. Eroth Duval, Tirres Corran—”

  “Gannon?” Cort demanded, rounding on the old man. “Was Gannon part of this?”

  Keri held her breath. She knew the two men the Timekeeper had named, or she knew of them. They owned the two largest farms near Glassforge. No wonder they had been part of a scheme to sell wheat outside Nimmira; they grew the wheat. And Cort’s brother owned the third-largest nearby farm. A farm convenient to that wagon trail, too. She stared at the Timekeeper, anxious for Cort’s sake.

  But the Timekeeper shook his head. “I think not. Your father, possibly. But Gannon—no. I think not.”

  “Well, that’s something, at least. Fine. Good. If nothing else, Gannon had the sense to stay out of this ill-conceived, avaricious, irresponsible—”

  “And who’d have thought we’d ever have cause to appreciate Gannon’s self-righteous snobbery?” interrupted Tassel, patting Cort on the arm. She was looking narrowly at the Timekeeper. “Osman Tor knew all about this, didn’t he? But he couldn’t actually find Nimmira even so?”

  The Timekeeper tilted his head. “But he did find us. Or very nearly. The misdirection and confusion of our border is a powerful magic. Or it was. Yet clearly he was prepared to cross the border the moment the boundary mist thinned. I believe it has weakened most severely near Glassforge, but I also believe Lord Osman’s attention must have been fixed on something close to the correct location even before the mist failed. Although the trade through the boundary has certainly compromised its magic, I strongly suspect Lord Osman may possess some small magic of his own, for otherwise I do not believe he would have found his way into Nimmira so quickly.”

  Keri thought this idea was actually somewhat reassuring. They could all hope that the boundary was indeed weakest here by Glassforge; maybe that meant its strength would linger for a while longer in the north, along their border with Eschalion. That would be very good.

  But the Timekeeper was going on, his dry voice quiet enough that she had to listen closely to hear him. “Yet whatever little magic the young Bear Lord may hold in his hand, I imagine he now believes that the success of the trade between Tor Carron and Nimmira has made the Lady so confident she feels little need to conceal her land, and has come to desire further trade and stronger ties between Tor Carron and Nimmira. That will be in his mind now. His attention will be bent toward coaxing us into confidence in his friendship, in the hope of gaining an understanding of our magic.”

  This made sense. Keri nodded. “And the Wyvern King? And this sorcerer of his, Magister Eroniel?”

  “One hesitates to speculate too broadly regarding the mind of the Wyvern King. But I do not believe that either Aranaon Mirtaelior or Eroniel Kaskarian will have realized that the quiet trade in garnets and opals and glassware was anyone’s secret scheme for personal gain. The trade was important for Lord Dorric and his…cronies. But I am certain it must have been a small trade for Eschalion. Nothing so important as to arouse suspicion. I suspect that even yet, the Wyvern King does not realize quite what has been hidden from his eye.”

  Keri nodded again, reassured that the Timekeeper agreed with her own hopes. She said quietly, “You knew all about what my father was doing, of course. You knew everything.”

  The Timekeeper met her eyes. “Eventually. Yes.”

  “And you didn’t tell us. You didn’t tell me.”

  “If I had explained, you might have refused the succession. Or later, you might have refused the ascension.”

  Keri stared at him. She had not even known it was possible to refuse either. In fact, she was almost sure she remembered the Timekeeper implying that refusal was impossible.

  “It has happened before in the long reaches of time,” he told her, in his dust-dry, ageless murmur. “Lord Dorric was not the first Lord to lead Nimmira in an unfortunate direction. Nimmira will have chosen the Lady it needs for this moment and this time. I feared to interfere with its choice. Or risk allowing you to decline the choice. That has also happened before. I feared such refusal might lead to worse than a corrupt and venal Lord.”

  Keri looked at Tassel, raising her eyebrows, and Tassel nodded agreement that they had to look up that particular history.

  “At the appropriate moment, I would have spoken,” added the Timekeeper. “If you and your Bookkeeper had not come upon the truth yourselves.”

  “The appropriate moment!” Cort said scornfully.

  But Keri touched his arm and shook her head. She understood, or thought she did. Though she also thought she should be very, very angry. Perhaps she would be, later. Sh
e said at last, “And do you know anything else that you’re waiting for the appropriate moment to mention?”

  The Timekeeper closed his eyes briefly. Then he opened them again and said calmly, “Lady, I hope I know nothing else that even begins to rival the truth you have already discovered.”

  “All right.” Keri wondered if she believed this. But she met his eyes as if she did and demanded, “What am I supposed to do to fix this, then? If I’m the appropriate Lady and this is my moment and my time, what am I supposed to do?”

  But the Timekeeper only opened one long, bony hand—it was empty, except perhaps for a fragment of insubstantial time—and answered, “Lady, that you must discover or decide. I do not know. I have never known.”

  Keri had been sure he would say something like that. She was, she thought, just about ready to get angry now.

  The door banged open at that moment, and Mem stalked in, dragging Linnet by one wrist. The girl’s eyes were narrowed with outrage, but she wasn’t trying to get free—maybe because it would have been undignified, but maybe because Domeric was right behind them, his deep voice raised in a rumbling protest that Keri could not at the moment, distracted as she was, decipher. She stared at all of them in bewilderment.

  “This little strumpet was kissing your brother!” declared Mem, drawing herself up, her eyes snapping with offended fury. “Right out in a public hallway, the shameless chit!” She pushed Linnet away, toward the back rooms where Keri’s personal staff lived and slept. “Gather your things, girl, and get out!”

  “Later!” said Cort. “We have important problems to sort out, and you barge in on us for such trivialities?”

  “Trivialities!”

  “What is this?” Keri said, a bit weakly, she thought. But Linnet straightened her shoulders, lifted her chin, and faced her without a word. Behind the girl, Domeric closed his mouth on whatever protest he had been trying to utter. He flushed, slowly and thoroughly. But then he stepped forward and rested his big hands on Linnet’s shoulders.

  Keri stared at the little tableau, taken utterly aback by this descent from her father’s shocking crimes into ordinary, everyday scandal. It seemed unreal. Or perhaps it was her father’s crimes that seemed unreal, and the contrast with ordinary life was simply too much to believe. She had not guessed, when Linnet said Domeric was good to his girls, that Linnet herself might be one of them. But she found she did not mind that a bit, if it meant Linnet had never been one of her father’s girls.

  “Get out!” snapped Mem, snatching at Linnet’s arm and shaking her. “How dare you offend the Lady with your brazen conduct, girl?” Domeric put his massive arm in between them and shoved Mem back, and the woman turned on him, sharp and venomous as a snake. “And you, with your—your ways! You should be ashamed!”

  “Enough,” said the Timekeeper, in his flat, dry tone, and the woman’s voice cut off abruptly. She blinked at him, her mouth opening and closing. Then she stopped, drawing herself up, plainly wanting to snap at him, too, but not quite daring.

  Keri looked at Tassel. Her friend had a hand over her mouth, but Keri suspected she was repressing hilarity rather than shock.

  Finding her own voice at last, Keri turned back to Mem and Linnet and Domeric. She said firmly, “You’re dismissed, Mem. You may take your things and your quarter’s pay and go wherever you like, but you are no longer welcome in this House.”

  Mem gaped at her. “Ridiculous! You can’t do that. It isn’t right. I’ve been head of staff for the House for twenty-two years! Besides, there are proper ways to do things!”

  Domeric had flushed again, but now he laughed, which in his heavy voice came out almost like a growl. “Oh, the proper ways to do things! Does that include offending me as well as Linnet?”

  And Cort said testily, “Of course the Lady can assign staff as she likes, but if we can get back to things that matter?”

  Keri gave them both a look to indicate she didn’t need help. She said to Mem, who was still sputtering with furious protests, “Just what did you know about my father interfering with the border, trading grain and gems with Tor Carron and Eschalion?” Then she nodded grimly at the older woman’s sudden silence. Domeric, she was glad to observe, was staring at her openmouthed; she could see he hadn’t known.

  She said to Mem, “I thought so. And you think I’d let you stay in this House? I’m going to dismiss Tamman, too. Anyone would be better. Anyone will be better, as long as they didn’t go along with that!” She looked at Linnet. “Who can keep things running smoothly in the meantime?”

  Linnet stared back at her, eyes wide with surprise. But she said after a moment, “I don’t…I’m not…Well, Lady, Nevia can certainly set the staff schedules and so forth. I mean, everyone knows what to do, really. Although—” She hesitated, glancing at Tassel. “I think it’s your Bookkeeper who actually assigns household staff, Lady.”

  “I do?” Tassel said. She looked around, as though she half expected to turn and pick up a list of names that hadn’t been there a moment before. She gave Keri a baffled little shrug. “I can do that, I guess. I do know most of the staff, at least to speak to.”

  “Good,” said Keri. “Then you can sort it out when you—when you get a moment.” She supposed she would have to hope that her friend would actually know enough about everyone who worked in the House to pick the right kind of people and make sure the household wouldn’t fall apart. Well, she was still learning how to be a proper Lady, and Tassel was still learning how to be a proper Bookkeeper, and Cort a proper Doorkeeper. She supposed a new head of staff and a new castellan would fit right in. They would all just figure it out together.

  “But—” Mem sputtered. “But—”

  “Good riddance,” said Cort, making a dismissive gesture as though to add, Can we move on to important things now?

  “But—” said Mem again.

  “I should exile you right out of Nimmira!” Keri shouted at her, suddenly toweringly furious. “You knew what my father was doing and you let him get away with it! How dare you stand there and tell me I’m not proper? How dare you?”

  Linnet stepped back, close to Domeric, when Keri started shouting, her eyes going wide with astonishment and alarm. Domeric had closed his mouth and now looked positively thunderous, but neither he nor Linnet said a word.

  “I’d leave Glassforge, if I were you,” Cort said to Mem, not nearly as impressed. He had seen Keri lose her temper before, when they had all been children.

  And Tassel added, her tone pointedly kind, “I believe Woodridge is pleasant in the spring. No one would know you there.”

  Mem stared from Cort to Tassel, as though this brutally reasonable advice made the fact of her dismissal seem real. She looked now like a different woman: no longer stiff and forbidding and authoritative, but suddenly old. She said bitterly, “Brann should have been Lord after his father. That’s how it should have been. Everything would have been perfectly proper, if the succession had gone as it should—”

  “Go away, Mem!” ordered Keri. “Domeric, stop hovering over Linnet, go find Tamman, and tell him he must see me at once. Go on!” she said impatiently when her brother hesitated.

  “Yes, Lady,” Linnet answered for Domeric, in a firm tone. She caught Keri’s brother by the hand and towed him out of the room, herding Mem, still inarticulately protesting, in front of her. Domeric cast one unsettled look back over his shoulder, but Linnet did not.

  “Well done!” said Tassel. “After that, how hard can Osman the Younger be?”

  Keri looked at her.

  “What? Don’t you agree? It’s a relief to have that sour Mem gone anyway, isn’t it? Would you like to practice your girlish charm? I’ll be Osman Tor the Younger.” Tassel sank into a nearby chair, propped her elbow on the table, straightened her shoulders, tipped her chin down, lifted a hand to twiddle with an imaginary garnet cabochon earring, and leered at Keri in a surprisingly good imitation of the most annoying sort of young man. “Well, Lady, I didn’t have the slightes
t idea that all that grain my people have been buying was part of a completely immoral smuggling operation, but if you would like to sell your Nimmira to Tor Carron, I am surely interested in buying! Come, lay all your troubles on my broad, masculine shoulders and I will buy you a pretty dress.”

  Possibly because it was so silly after all the sudden revelations and confrontations, Keri found herself unable to suppress a completely undignified and inappropriate giggle. She put a hand over her mouth and rolled her eyes. The Timekeeper looked faintly nonplussed. Cort threw up his hands in disgust, snapped, “I’m going to check the border down where that wagon trail is—what’s left of the border,” and strode out.

  “Whatever Lord Osman knows or doesn’t know, that’s probably exactly what he’ll say,” Keri told Tassel. “Or as near as makes no difference. I need to—well, I need to find out what he does know.”

  “Yes,” Tassel said earnestly. “And promise him the sky and the stars, only, you know—”

  “I know. Without making any actual promises.” Keri picked up one of the coppery ribbons that was meant for her hair later. She ran it through her fingers: fine and delicate and, when she tried to break it, unexpectedly tough. She was still angry. The stubborn ribbon wasn’t helping. Tassel’s nonsense was, but not enough.

  The Timekeeper’s silent, judgmental presence was making her self-conscious and nervous. Plus, every time she thought of what he’d done, what he’d told her and refused to tell her, she grew angrier.

  “I need to think,” she said out loud, because that sounded better than I need to calm down. “I’m going to go find the kitchen. There must be one in this House somewhere.” She knew where it was, of course, the moment she thought about it: down and around to the north. She pretended she didn’t know, saying again, even more firmly, “I’m going to find the kitchen, and I’m going to make a cake, and I don’t want to hear any comments from anyone.”