A Season of Spells (A Noctis Magicae Novel)

by Sylvia Izzo Hunter

  He had been rummaging in an inner pocket of his coat, and now withdrew from it a folded paper. This he unfolded, and read through with an expression of chagrin growing upon his face. “No,” he said—to himself rather than to her, Lucia judged—and tucked it away again.

  Eventually he discovered a pen in one pocket and a silver coin in another, which he appeared to consider satisfactory. “But may I have the crow’s feather?” he said, and smiled at Lucia when she gave it to him.

  Roland knelt at the shrine of Apollo and Diana, and laid the silver coin upon the tiny altar before the twin figures of the gods. His prayer was silent, or at any rate was spoken too softly to be intelligible; Lucia was glad of it, though she could not entirely suppress a flicker of curiosity. At the end of it, however, he bowed to the altar and spoke aloud the same formula she had by now heard used more than once in more public forms of worship: “Do ut des.”

  I give, that you may give in return.

  The pen was offered to Minerva (“It was made from an owl’s feather,” Roland explained; “Sophie’s pens are all made so, and she brought some as a gift for Harry”), and the crow’s feather to Hegemone. Having finished this third offering, Roland rose to his feet and said, “Shall we rest here a little? These benches are more comfortable to sit on than they look, I promise you.”

  Lucia let him steer her towards the bench that separated Minerva’s shrine from that of Apollo and Diana, and perched on one end of it whilst Roland settled himself on the other, his knees angled towards her own. The bench was not a long one, and they were closer together than Lucia had been prepared for, though not perhaps so close as Roland had meant.

  “It is very beautiful,” she said. “Is it true, the tale of the old King’s mistress who heard the shades of dead men and women howling for vengeance, and had to be sent away?”

  Roland’s eyebrows shot up, and he let out a bark of incredulous laughter. “You must not believe every tale Joanna Callender tells you,” he said.

  “Is it not true, then?”

  “It is certainly true that she left court,” said Roland. “There are records of the King’s gifts of property and so on in the Archives, or so I am given to understand. And that Henry the Great had the fellow who designed the maze—he must have been an old man by then, if the walls were grown high enough to lose oneself in!—beheaded. Henry the Great was always beheading people, however,” he added, with a glinting smile which made him look, for just an instant, like a fair-haired, blue-eyed Sophie, though they resembled one another so little in any other respect. “It need not mean that any of the rest is true. I have certainly never seen or heard anything of the kind, nor has anyone else, that I know of.”

  Lucia hummed thoughtfully. As between Roland and Joanna, which was the more likely to have the true tale? Roland, who had lived all his life at court, had certainly the better opportunity to gather information; but he seemed to catch at facts and rumours haphazardly as they floated by him, whereas Joanna went after them like a hunting-dog on the scent.

  “It has occurred to me,” she said, “that perhaps it was the trees she heard, without knowing it.”

  Roland’s eyes widened. “Indeed,” he said. “I had not thought of that.”

  They sat in silence a long moment—a more comfortable silence than was usual between them, for which Lucia was briefly grateful; until it occurred to her that the rustling of leaves all about her had no breeze to go with it.

  “The trees,” she said, very softly. “The trees are speaking to us—to you, I mean. What do they say?”

  Roland, who had been looking about him (in search of a breeze to explain the noise?), turned to her wide-eyed. “I have not the least idea,” he said.

  Lucia considered, her eyes closed, her ears pricked to catch at the least possibility of meaning in the sounds about them.

  Put out your hand, she was about to say, when upon opening her eyes she saw that Roland had already thought it; on his feet again, he had stepped close to the nearest hedge-wall and was reaching in. Lucia, forgetting entirely her resolution to conduct herself in a manner becoming a lady of King Henry’s court, drew her knees up to her chest, braced her boot-heels on the edge of the bench, and, wrapping her arms about her shins, settled down with her chin upon one knee to observe him.

  * * *

  The moment dragged on, and the shadows lengthened; above the hedge-walls there appeared the upper edges of a flame-and-crimson sunset, and its alchymy turned Roland’s fair hair to burnished gold.

  Roland stood with both hands in the hedge, one foot braced behind him and his head tilted in rapt attention. He ought to have looked absurd in such an attitude; in fact, however (thought Lucia to herself), he might have been one of his kingdom’s several mischievous gods, caught in the act of emerging from the trees to tempt some unsuspecting mortal maiden.

  It was a disconcerting thought—but not, in the circumstances, unwelcome. She turned it over in her mind—tried to imagine kissing him, as she had kissed several of the cousins who had been her childhood playmates, and found the notion not altogether unappealing—but all too soon was brought up short by a vivid impression of Roland’s resemblance to her brother Duncan.

  At last—just as Lucia was growing truly anxious, and weighing the consequences of making some attempt to gain his attention—Roland let out a shuddering sigh, and pulled his hands out of the foliage to scrub them through his hair.

  Lucia scrambled to her feet as he turned away from the hedge, still gripping fistfuls of curls on either side of his head. He raised his head and found himself face-to-face with Lucia across the stone bench; though she had scarcely altered her position since first sitting down, he seemed genuinely astonished by her presence.

  He was swaying on his feet; alarmed, she darted forward and caught him by both elbows.

  “Sit down,” she said, keeping her tone level, “and tell me what you heard.”

  Roland resisted briefly, but his body, it seemed, conceded what his mind would not, and before long his knees folded him obediently into a seat on the bench.

  He turned his face to hers, and—an unprecedented intimacy—brought one hand up to cup her cheek. “Lucia,” he said, and smiled dreamily.

  Lucia blinked. Her cheek was warm where he had touched it; the same hand, his left, came down to rest over hers in her lap, and reflexively she turned her hand over to clasp his, palm to palm.

  “The trees,” she prompted again, to cover her confusion but also because she was desperately curious. “What did they say to you?”

  “I did not understand above half of it,” said Roland, still in that alarmingly dreamy tone. “But they are not so tame as you think.”

  His hand in Lucia’s trembled. It was all the warning she had before his eyes rolled up and he tumbled sidewise off the bench, dead to the world.

  * * *

  For the space of four heartbeats Lucia sat frozen in shock. But not for nothing had Ceana MacGregor trained her, and Donald MacNeill chosen her as his heir; by the time the fifth battered at her ribs and thudded in her ears, she was up and moving.

  “Magick shock,” she said aloud in Gaelic, as she knelt at Roland’s shoulder and felt for a pulse at his throat. Yes, there it was—quicker by half than it ought to be, as her own certainly was, but strong and steady. “You are badly magick-shocked, Roland, and what am I to do for you?” She gently straightened his limbs, turned him onto his left side so that he should not choke to death if he should happen to be sick, and, lacking anything that might serve as a pillow, settled his head in her lap.

  “We are at the centre of this maze, and I have got nothing to feed you or to warm you with, and how are we to get out again, with you in such a state? And what were you thinking, to be doing . . . whatever it is you have been doing?” Her left hand was in his hair, Lucia discovered; it was very soft. “Has no one taught you to know your limits? To say true, High
ness, I have met half-grown children with more sense. Though of course I have also met your sister Sophie, who, as you may know, thinks nothing of—”

  Roland stirred and muttered something unintelligible.

  “Roland,” said Lucia, more gently, carding her fingers through the tumbled curls, and craning her neck in an effort to see his face properly without jostling him; and, shifting into Latin, “Roland, can you hear me?”

  By way of reply, he groaned softly and curled forward a little, as though he were attempting to roll himself into a ball like a hedgehog but could not quite manage it.

  “Are you hurt anywhere?” Lucia inquired.

  Roland managed a sort of negatory hum.

  “Has anything of this kind ever happened to you before?”

  “Nnnn.” His shoulders shifted as he planted one hand flat on the creeping thyme and attempted to lever himself upright.

  “Lie down, if you please,” said Lucia with some asperity; and, in response to his inarticulate noise of protest, “I have been magick-shocked before, Roland, if you have not, and I had rather you did not fall over again before we have had time to determine what we ought to do.”

  He subsided at last, and rolled his head so as to peer up at her. His face was ashen, his eyes nearly all pupil. Had he struck his head in falling? He blinked slowly—attempting, Lucia supposed, to bring her into focus—and the shade of a smile passed across his face, sweet and sad.

  Lucia laid one hand along his cheek and was taken aback by the fierce tenderness that briefly swamped her thoughts when he turned minutely into her touch—just as Duncan had, as a motherless small boy, ten years and more ago, and yet . . . altogether not.

  “Is there some way of summoning help from here?” she said. “A signal of some kind, in case of emergencies?”

  “Mmm,” said Roland. His eyelids drooped, then rose again, revealing pupils still blown wide. “Signal, yes. Shan’t use it . . . I sh’d never live it down.”

  “Roland, we must have help of some sort to make our way out,” said Lucia, patiently. “You are in no condition to walk so far, and as we had not the foresight to bring a picnic supper into the maze with us, there is not much to be done for you until we are out, except rest; there is nothing to eat here, but thyme-leaves and chamomile flowers, neither of which is much to the purpose. And I am not of a size to carry you, even if I were quite sure of the way, which I regret to say that I am not.”

  Roland frowned. “But . . . marks,” he said. “On the trees, marks.”

  Would he remember, later, the things he had done and said in this misfortunate hour? Lucia rather hoped not, for the sake of his pride. She had never seen magick shock manifest in precisely this way—had she not known better, she might have supposed Roland deep in his cups—but then, it took some people oddly.

  “You marked the way, yes,” she agreed, “but the marks are not easily found, if one does not know where to look, and I do not know where to look so well as you do.”

  Roland was struggling to sit up again, and this time Lucia, conceding the battle in hopes of winning the day, helped him to do so. He leant heavily upon her supporting arms, and did not resist when she tightened them about his waist and shoulders.

  * * *

  They sat thus, Roland folded awkwardly into Lucia’s encircling arms, as the sun sank below the horizon and the stars began to prick the dark fabric of the sky.

  The principal means of treating a person suffering from magick shock was to keep him warm, feed him well—preferably on cold meat, hard cheese, and strong tea with plenty of milk and honey—and put him to bed to sleep off its effects. Lucia had, as she had told Roland, been the sufferer herself on more than one occasion, as she grew towards mastering her talent, and she did not for a moment believe that Roland had never before been affected likewise. More importantly, however, so often had she been called upon to cope with the consequences of someone else’s magickal miscalculations, that the necessary steps were by now a matter of instinct. To know—to feel—what was needed, and to be prevented by circumstance from providing it, made her twitch with frustration. No food was to be had; she dared not call fire, for nothing here could be spared to burn; and though the day had been so warm, night was coming on and a chill mist creeping in from off the river.

  Had she only had her mother’s knife with her, and a flame or some spirits with which to clean it, she might, in this extremity, have attempted the spell which, as a mage of Clan MacNeill, she had been taught on her sixteenth birthday—a sharing of magick through the sharing of blood; she had used this spell only twice in her life, but as it had ultimately saved not only several persons’ lives but also her father’s kingdom, she felt reasonably confident in its efficacy. But the knife, in its sheath embroidered with scarlet lions rampant, was tucked away safely in a locked dispatch-box in her bedroom, and thus was no good to anyone.

  After this, thought Lucia bitterly, I shall carry it with me everywhere, whatever Father may say about it.

  What she could provide (and it was little enough) was light, and the warmth of her own body in the gathering chill, and a firm encouragement to rest; and these she was engaged in supplying—her back pressed painfully against one end of the stone bench, both arms wound tight about Roland’s rib cage, and his head heavy on her shoulder—when a distinctly human set of noises caught her ear, and resolved themselves into footfalls, a haphazard rustling of leaves, and someone calling, “Prince Roland! Lady Lucia!”

  CHAPTER VII

  In Which the Crown Prince Effects a Rescue

  Roland reacted to the sounds of his rescuers only with a groan of weary irritation. Lucia, on the contrary, would have leapt to her feet with cries of joy, had she not been restrained by the limp weight of Roland’s body in her arms.

  Instead she laid her hands over his ears, drew in a deep breath, and bellowed, “Here! We are here, by the shrine of Hegemone.”

  The footfalls accelerated, and after a moment a small crowd of persons—nearly all of them Royal Guardsmen—tumbled out into the central clearing. At the head of the column was Prince Edward; pink-faced with exertion, he paused with hands on knees to catch his breath and look about him. Upon catching sight of Lucia and Roland, he straightened at once and said sharply, “What ails him? Is he hurt?”

  “He is magick-shocked,” said Lucia, “and I had nothing to feed him, else we should have been out of the maze again by now, I expect. I suppose you have not brought us anything to eat?”

  Edward had crossed the clearing now, and was crouched on his heels beside Lucia, peering into his brother’s tallow-pale face. “Magick-shocked?” he echoed, raising his eyes to Lucia’s. “How comes this?”

  “It is a long tale,” said Lucia, “and not a simple one, and I should be happy to tell it to you, Edward, at some other time; but at present—”

  “At present, we have more pressing concerns,” Edward agreed. He laid his palm against Roland’s forehead, then his cheek; lifted one eyelid, and frowned at whatever he saw beneath it. Then he was on his feet again, organising his small troop.

  The trees were rustling anew, more frantically than before, though there was still no breeze to speak of, but Edward seemed not to remark it.

  Lucia was grateful for his sensible, practical approach to the present predicament, however.

  “What is the hour?” she inquired. It was very nearly full night now, which at this time of the year made it late indeed; they must have been missed hours ago, surely, and what in the world had everyone supposed them to be doing all this while?

  “I have not the least idea,” said Edward, absently. He stretched out an expectant hand to one of the guardsmen. “Reynolds, your flask, if you please—no, not that one—the brandy.”

  Reynolds hesitated, frozen in the act of unshipping his cantine; Edward’s expression grew thunderous. “Mars and Mithras!” he hissed. “Now, man, at once, and a plague up
on your scruples.”

  Reynolds fished a smaller flask out of a pocket and presented it to Edward with a muttered My lord. To Lucia’s surprise, Edward turned at once to pass it into her hand.

  Lucia was not at all convinced of the wisdom of applying neat spirits to a case of magick shock, but Roland had now six strong men to help extricate him from the consequences of his folly, which must soon put him in the way of receiving proper care; meanwhile, a sip or two of brandy could not greatly harm him.

  It did not greatly help him, either, she judged, when she had trickled a little of the brandy between his lips; he sputtered a little, and opened his eyes only briefly before subsiding once more into near insensibility.

  “Before all else,” said Lucia, looking up at Edward, “we must get him indoors and well wrapped up. It is fortunate that the night is not colder, but—”

  “Hughes—Gagnon—with me,” said Edward, turning away.

  Lucia forbore to comment: Edward might be as rude as he liked to her, she decided, so long as he was helping her to help Roland.

  Hughes and Gagnon—who proved to be the two largest of the small troop of guardsmen—stepped smartly forward and made a carrying-chair of their clasped arms, into which Edward (disdaining the assistance which Lucia tried to offer him) lifted his brother. Roland’s head lolled against Gagnon’s broad shoulder; his eyes opened again and focused for a moment on Lucia’s magelight, floating now just above her head.

  “Fove quod est frigidum,” he said distinctly—warm what is chilled; it was a quotation from something she had heard before, and heard in an accent very like Roland’s, but she could not for the moment call the source to mind—then closed his eyes and slumped once more against Gagnon.

  “Yes, Roland,” said Lucia, noting with annoyance the hint of a catch in her voice. Well, Roland is not the only one who is feeling the chill. “We certainly shall.”