Fire of the Soul

by Speer, Flora

  “Who is this paragon?” Garit demanded. The haunting image of a woman on horseback rose in his memory. Again he experienced the feeling that he knew her. “What is her family background? If Aunt Adana sent her to you, she must be of noble birth.”

  “I am certain you will like her when you meet her.” Lady Elgida sounded as if she was issuing an order.

  Garit noted that she did not answer his questions about the companion and he took the evasion as an ill omen. He hadn’t actually seen much of the woman in the fields. Possibly, she was older than he’d thought. Years of courtly life had taught him how deceptive a soft voice and gentle manner could be. Now he imagined a middle-aged woman, discarded by her family, who had cleverly worked her way into her mistress’ affections. Living on a secluded estate as Lady Elgida did, she could not have many friends nearby and must be lonely. A tough-minded, managing woman might well take advantage of such a situation, thinking to provide herself with a permanent place. And, perhaps, with a sizable inheritance.

  Garit decided that he had arrived none too soon. In his childhood his grandmother had often told him that Saumar Manor was to be his after she was gone. Therefore, though he held a castle in southern Sapaudia that King Henryk had granted to him in reward for a secret mission he’d undertaken in the king’s behalf, he owed it to his aged grandmother and to himself to protect this smaller inheritance.

  Considering the unhappy turns his life had taken during the last few years he knew he needed a purpose, a reason to haul himself out of bed each morning. He’d make short work of this Calia woman. As soon as his current mission was completed, he’d take over running the estate himself and he’d correct any mistakes that Calia had made. Then he’d convince his grandmother to accept the competent steward whom he would choose to handle the affairs of Saumar whenever duty called him away – which wasn’t likely to happen very often. At that thought Garit heaved a sigh that sharpened his grandmother’s gaze.

  “By the dusty look of you, you’ll be wanting a bath and fresh clothing,” Lady Elgida said. “I’ll have a servant show you to a guest room. I suppose that dark brute hulking at the top of the solar stairs is your squire?”

  “Anders is both my squire and my friend,” Garit said very firmly.

  “A Kantian, is he?”

  “Yes, Grandmother.” Garit forbore to remind her that he was more than half Kantian, himself. Nor did he mention his squire’s exact origin.

  “I should have guessed by the thunderous expression he wears. Your Anders brings rain clouds with him.” Lady Elgida drew herself up to her most regal stance before issuing her inevitable advice. “Never trust a Kantian, my boy. They are all treacherous. Except your grandfather, of course. And your late father, though he was not the man my Belai was. No one could be. But Kantians in general are devious creatures.”

  “Anders has been a faithful companion through difficult times, and he is completely honest,” Garit told her. “I’ve known Sapaudian lords who were far more treacherous than he.”

  “Yes, I’ve heard the story. Your beloved Lady Chantal, abducted and killed by her own uncle because he coveted her lands. But Lord Walderon was a traitor to his king as well as a murderer, and he died a traitor’s death for his crimes.” Perhaps Lady Elgida took note of Garit’s suddenly stiff posture and closed expression, for she continued in a kinder tone.

  “You are always welcome at Saumar, my lad, and any companion of yours is welcome, too, even a Kantian. There’s plenty of room in the stable for your horses, and a place in my home for you and Anders and your men-at-arms for as long as you choose to stay. I’ll want to hear the latest news and gossip from King Henryk’s court, but that will keep until later. Now, run along and wash up. When you join me for the evening meal, Calia will be here.

  “Ah, Mairne, there you are.” Lady Elgida spoke to a young woman with unruly dark curls, who had just come up the steps from the hall and who bestowed an appraising look on Anders as she passed him. “Be good enough to escort my grandson to the best guest chamber. Garit, you have a choice of using the bath house or having a tub of hot water in your room. Mairne will order whichever you want.”

  “Her grandson? Here?” Calia repeated later, responding to Mairne’s excited news. “So that’s who he was.”

  “Who – you’ve met him?” Mairne whispered in surprise, though there was no one in the kitchen entryway to overhear her.

  “He stopped to ask directions.” Calia unclasped the cloak she’d worn while riding about the farmlands to oversee the last of the early planting, then handed the garment to the girl who had grown dear as a sister to her while they were at Talier Beguinage. “He wasn’t expected.” She bent to remove her muddy boots and change to clean wooden clogs before stepping into the kitchen.

  “He’s welcome all the same,” Mairne responded, folding the cloak over her arm. “He and his squire, who’s a handsome, strapping man if ever I’ve seen one, and some men-at-arms. From what I overheard of his conversation with Lady Elgida, I’m thinking Lord Garit plans to stay at Saumar, perhaps permanently.”

  “Oh, dear.” Calia clenched her hands tightly at her waist and stared around the kitchen while she tried to conquer the apprehension that was fast rising in her bosom. She knew Mairne was watching her, no doubt wondering at her reaction to the news. Mairne had no idea who her friend really was. Calia could only pray that Lord Garit didn’t know who she was, either. Ignorance on his part would give her a bit of time in which to make decisions, though she fully recognized how few choices she had.

  Calia always found paying strict attention to household duties a quieting exercise, so she took care to notice the cooking fire with the birds roasting on the spit, and the girl who was whipping an almond pudding into an airy froth, while an underservant cut a wheel of cheese into neat wedges. Those activities all offered evidence that Lady Elgida had commanded a more festive evening meal than the usual cold leftovers from midday.

  “Lady Elgida loves you,” Mairne said in a reassuring way. “And I do believe she likes me. She has a good heart and she understands the difficulties that women who are alone in the world must face. She’ll not allow either of us to be forced from our places here at Saumar by a mere man, if that’s what worries you.”

  “Of course, she won’t.” Calia did not believe her own words. She knew too well that a man’s wishes were always more important than a woman’s fate. The moment Lady Elgida’s grandson learned who Calia’s father had been, he’d demand that she be returned to Talier Beguinage, where Mother Mage Adana did not want her. Perhaps Mairne would desert her, too, once she knew the truth about Calia’s tainted heritage.

  She stared at the birds turning on the spit and reflected that she knew how they had felt in the instant when they were snared, just before the gamekeeper’s rough hands had wrung their necks. Like the birds, she was ensnared, not by fate, but by her own lies and omissions.

  Why, oh, why hadn’t she made good use of one of the many quiet evenings that she had shared with Lady Elgida, both of them in the solar with needlework or spinning, when she could easily have told her benefactor everything? Very likely, two years ago when she’d first come to Saumar, or even a month ago, Lady Elgida would have listened, asked a few questions, and understood. But now, with Garit a guest in his grandmother’s home, it was too late for a confession.

  Calia was a surprise to Garit. Despite that peculiar moment of recognition when he’d first seen her in the field, he was certain he’d never met her before. She looked to be in her mid-twenties, considerably younger than he expected. Nor was she the encroaching woman he’d imagined her to be. She was quiet, self-effacing and, as far as he could tell, she was well-mannered.

  She came into the hall where the evening meal was to be served, walking slowly with Lady Elgida’s hand resting on her arm and smiling at the old lady with what appeared to be genuine fondness. After observing her for a few moments Garit put her down as the youngest daughter of some impoverished lord with a large brood of
children, who had been sent to a beguinage because her brother, having inherited the family lands, couldn’t afford a dowry for the last of his siblings. It wasn’t an unlikely assumption; that sort of thing happened all the time.

  Calia certainly wasn’t beautiful enough to prompt a man to wed her without a dowry for her looks alone, or even to offer to make her his mistress. Garit saw at once that she wasn’t mistress material. Compact of figure, with a fall of straight, dark hair that was left uncovered and tied with a leather thong at the nape of her neck, and wearing a plain, dark grey woolen dress, she did not look to be at all sensual. Instead, she appeared capable. Her nose was a little too long and her cheekbones were too harshly chiseled for beauty. Her hands were a bit chapped and reddened, most likely from housecleaning or from her work out of doors. Yes, Garit decided, she was an ordinary, unassuming female, a creature of no particular physical interest.

  Except for her eyes. Thick black lashes framed twin pools of greenish-grey that held an odd hint of sorrow – and Garit thought he discerned fear in her gaze before she hurriedly lowered her lids. Now, what could she be afraid of, if she meant well toward his grandmother?

  Only then, upon looking closer, did he notice how her clear skin was flushed rose and gold, as if by maidenly embarrassment at his close regard. Faint lavender shadows showed on her lids. Her dark brows were delicate wings, not plucked into artificial curves like the eyebrows of court ladies.

  Realizing that he’d been wrong about her twice before she even spoke a word, Garit hastily revised his first and second opinions of her. Calia was not an ordinary woman, and not homely. He suspected her looks were the kind that would improve once he knew her better. Obviously, there was more to her than was suggested by her guise of humble spinster and noblewoman’s companion.

  “Calia,” he said, reaching out his hand as Lady Elgida made the formal introduction. “Or, should I say, Lady Calia?”

  “No, my lord.” She did not offer her hand in response to his gesture, but kept her fingers clasped tightly at her waist. Her remarkable eyes widened as she looked directly at him. Then she lowered her gaze again, this time to stare at a spot somewhere in the middle of his chest. Her voice was musical and precise, just as he remembered it from their brief meeting in the field, the voice of a well-brought-up lady, despite her next words. “I am not a lady. My parents were not wed.”

  “I beg your pardon,” Garit said. “The question was rude.”

  “Yes, it was, and you a diplomat, too,” Lady Elgida intervened. “I am surprised at you, my boy. Calia’s circumstances are ordinary enough. Men have a habit of tumbling any pretty woman they see, even a noble Sapaudian lady such as Calia’s mother. Both parents are dead now, and Calia was kindly raised by her older half-brother until family misfortune led him to send her to Talier Beguinage, where your Aunt Adana took notice of her.

  “And that, Garit my lad, is all you need to know of a remarkably dull subject, so I beg you will not plague the girl with any more intimate questions. Now sit, for heaven’s sake, and let us eat before I faint from starvation.”

  Garit obeyed, though all the senses he’d honed in his years as diplomatic emissary from the king of Kantia to the Sapaudian court were suddenly warning him that, while Lady Elgida surely had not lied to him, she most certainly had deliberately withheld important information about Calia.

  He thought that Calia, too, was hiding something. Her cheeks had turned scarlet at the description of her origins, and her mouth had trembled in an oddly beguiling way. He wished he could see those pink lips curve into a smile and watch as her eyes sparkled with humor.

  His curiosity thoroughly aroused by the contradictions and secrets he perceived and fully aware that people were not always what they appeared to be, Garit decided to learn everything he could on the subject of his grandmother’s companion. He had a few days of freedom before he must leave on the mission ordered by the Lord Mage Serlion. A few days ought to be enough time.

  Calia picked at her food, her stomach clenched into a knot so tight that it prevented her from swallowing. Any food she forced down would likely come right back up again as soon as Garit asked a few more questions and then began to express his horror and disgust of her.

  The man who would almost certainly turn her out of Saumar sat between her and his grandmother. Garit was tall, though not overwhelmingly so, and broad-shouldered, with sandy hair frosted by a touch of silver at his temples. She thought the silver was surprising, for she knew him to be just one and thirty years old. Lady Elgida had told her so, along with much else about her beloved grandson.

  Perhaps his unhappy past had aged him. The lines on his forehead and around his blue eyes would seem to indicate such was the case and his air of cautious self-containment added to the impression of a man who had seen and done much that he wished he could forget. Certainly, his current expression was downright grim. Overall, she found him a forbidding man.

  And yet, Calia knew from his grandmother that Garit as a boy had been quick to laughter, a child of warmth and joy. Calia thought it was a great pity what life did to men.

  And to women, too. She should have known the safe refuge she’d found with Lady Elgida wouldn’t last long. She was blessed to have spent two peaceful and useful years at Saumar. With Garit’s arrival those years had reached an end.

  She could not quite bring herself to curse her parents, though this evening was one of many occasions when she wished her father had never bedded her mother. Or, at least, had never acknowledged that the child Lady Casilde subsequently bore was his. Calia did not remember her mother at all, and her father had been but an occasional presence in her life. The only blood kin who would acknowledge her now was her half-brother, Mallory, but he was the same brother who had sent her to Talier Beguinage despite her protestations and her copious tears at the prospect. When she had seen Mallory’s stern face and the way he turned his back to her, she’d known that his ambition had flown off on a new course that did not include an illegitimate half-sister who possessed neither a dowry, nor important connections at any royal court.

  “Well, now,” Lady Elgida said to Garit before he’d had a chance to eat more than a bite of roasted game bird, “as I told you earlier today, you are welcome to stay at Saumar as long as you please, for the rest of your life if you like, though I think that’s not your wish. In return for my hospitality, I’ll have the latest news from you. I can guess part of it. After King Audemer died last winter, the new king of Kantia most likely decided he preferred to send his own emissary to the Sapaudian court, rather than use the man his older brother had appointed, and so he relieved you of your duties and sent another to Calean City in your place.”

  “Just so. I am now a man without an official position.” Garit’s mouth clamped shut as if he would hold back a torrent of words. He pushed his wooden trencher away, the action suggesting to Calia that he had no more appetite than she did.

  “But you must have visited Kantia recently, to pledge yourself to King Dyfrig,” Lady Elgida persisted.

  “I have not. I was last in Kantia two years ago. Shortly after my father died, I returned to Kinath Castle to settle his affairs,” Garit reminded her. “My stepmother made it plain that she was not happy to see me.”

  “Ah.” Lady Elgida nodded her understanding. “King Audemer was still alive then, so I suppose Fenella objected when he confirmed you as the new lord of Kinath? She wouldn’t be pleased at becoming a dowager, not at her age. I warned your father before he married Fenella that she was too young to make him a good wife, but I was here in Sapaudia and he was across the sea in Kantia, so it was easy for him to ignore my letter of advice. Lust does strange things to the brains of men,” she finished with a wry twist to her mouth.

  “In fact, I never was confirmed,” Garit said, not responding to the remarks about his father’s second marriage. “I spent a few days at Kinath before King Audemer called me to his court. Then, I had to rush off to Calean City almost immediately on the king’s u
rgent business, so the matter of Kinath was never resolved. And now my friend is dead and his brother, Dyfrig, is king. A new king, with new friends.”

  “I see.” Lady Elgida sounded as if she had just bitten into a very sour green apple. “I know there’s more. Say what you must, Garit. Whatever it is, I can bear it.”

  “The man who took my place as emissary from the king of Kantia to King Henryk carried a letter to me from Fenella,” Garit said. “She has remarried, to a close friend of King Dyfrig. Her husband has been appointed guardian of her sons and he is to hold Kinath Castle until young Belai comes of age. Belai is the new lord of Kinath.”

  “Now, that is a vile insult!” Lady Elgida’s hand slammed down on the table. “An insult to you after years of honest service to King Audemer, an insult to your late father, and to my dear late husband, too.”

  “So it is,” Garit said mildly. “But then, to answer your earlier question, I have not sworn fealty to King Dyfrig.”

  “Have you not?” Lady Elgida regarded him with raised eyebrows. “Will you fight to regain your heritage? Or will you move your heart southward as I did many years ago, and choose a warmer, less treacherous climate?”

  “Grandmother, I don’t want Kinath. The place holds too many unhappy memories for me: my mother’s painful and lingering death, my sister’s foolish marriage and my quarrel with Father over her marriage, and then Father’s remarriage to a woman I cannot like. I’m glad we made up our differences before Father died, but the truth is, since I first became a squire most of my life has been spent in Sapaudia. Frankly, I prefer Auremont, the castle I earned with my own wits and blood. All in all, I count Kantia as no great loss. You ought to agree with me on that.