She had seldom felt so deeply tired, and ought by rights to be dead asleep. In fact, however, she had arrived at that in-between place where exhaustion dragged irresistibly at her eyelids whilst nervous tension kept her thoughts running in circles at breakneck speed. And the thought which most often, and most sharply, surfaced from the maelstrom was this: If I had not encouraged him, had not given him the notion of listening to the trees in the maze, then he should never have been in such danger.
When from time to time she achieved a fitful doze, such thoughts followed her into her dreams, so that she stood again with Roland in the centre of the maze, urging him on to new and deeper explorations of the magick of the place, overriding his caution, his doubts, his murmurs of protest—all of them entirely uncharacteristic of the real Roland, and thus, as some half-waking part of Lucia’s mind knew perfectly well, not Roland’s at all but her own—until the trees drew him in entire, and yew-bark began to grow over his terrified face.
It was rather a relief to her than otherwise, therefore, when in the dark before dawn Ceana padded into Roland’s dressing-room, laid a gentle hand upon her shoulder, and murmured in Gaelic, “Wake up now, and come with me.”
Lucia sat up, heavy-eyed and blinking, her heart hammering in her throat, and found she could summon no words in which to reply. Instead she wrapped herself in the dressing-gown which Ceana held out for her—Roland’s, perhaps, but certainly not Lucia’s own—and followed her out into Roland’s bedroom.
The room was full of light—candlelight, warm and flickering—and in the midst of it Roland was sitting up in bed, staring at something which only he could see, and muttering rapidly under his breath words which Lucia, from this distance, could not distinguish.
Marcus Cattermole, standing on the far side of the bed, caught Lucia’s eye and beckoned her nearer. She stepped forward, her hands clasping her elbows.
“Roland,” she said softly as she approached—once, then again. Did he wake or sleep? Impossible to say: His eyes were open, lips and tongue forming words of some sort; but, on the other hand, he seemed altogether oblivious to his surroundings—seemed not to see any of the several persons haunting his bedchamber, not to hear Lucia speaking his name . . .
She was near enough now to hear him speaking—muttering, rather—and the more she listened, the more she began to incline towards the view that he was dreaming: Though she did not speak such a number of languages as, for example, Sophie or her husband, Lucia was quite capable of recognising many tongues in which she could not express herself to much purpose—and this was none of those.
Or, rather, it was all of them, and more besides: odd unrelated words in more than half a dozen languages—Latin and Greek, English and Français, Brezhoneg and Gaelic and Cymric, and others Lucia could not be sure of—thrown together like crazy-paving and yielding no sense whatever. Was Roland attempting some sort of magickal working? It was a troubling thought, in the circumstances, yet it seemed to Lucia that a man who could not string together enough words in one language to form a sentence—coherent or otherwise—was apt to be equally incapable of the concentration necessary for magework.
What, perhaps more importantly, did Roland believe himself to be doing, at this moment?
“Roland,” said Lucia, more loudly.
When once more he failed to react in any way, she glanced at Marcus Cattermole, then drew a fortifying breath, let go of her own left elbow, and laid her right hand across Roland’s shoulder-blade.
At her touch, Roland came instantly full awake, turning on her and grasping her wrist with a speed and strength of which she should not, a moment ago, have believed him capable. His eyes, wide and wild in the candlelight, caught her gaze and held it.
She winced as the bones of her wrist ground together. Roland observed it—she saw his eyes widen further, his face go still—and his grip relaxed as quickly as it had closed a moment since.
“Lucia,” he said. He sounded as breathless as though he had been running. “Lucia, what do you here?”
Have we not had this conversation once already? Lucia marshalled her swirling thoughts and spoke as calmly as she was able: “You are suffering from magick shock,” she said, “and must stay abed for the present. Henri Vauquelin wishes me to bear you company whilst you are recovering, and your mama has kindly given me leave to stay.”
Roland’s face had gone wary. I have said the wrong thing once again, thought Lucia, but what?
“Monsieur Vauquelin wishes,” Roland repeated. He turned his head a little. Just enough.
Now, too late, Lucia saw her error very clearly. “I cannot speak for Henri Vauquelin, of course,” she said, and with her free hand reached for Roland’s; though his fingers did not return the pressure of her own, nor did he make any attempt to extricate them. “But if I may venture a guess, his advice was based on his observations of both your behaviour and of my own.”
Roland’s gaze swung slowly back to Lucia’s face, his brows furrowed in puzzlement. Again, with smaller words. And may what I am about to say never come to Queen Edwina’s ears. She bent nearer, lowered her voice, and said, “Henri Vauquelin gave orders that I should stay because you and I both wished it, but Edward and your mama thought it improper.”
What reaction she had expected to this revelation, Lucia could not have said precisely; in light of recent events, however, she had certainly not expected Roland’s wide, sunny smile—the smile of a child, or of a man who has drunk more than he ought—or that he should regard her with sweet trustful eyes and say, “I am glad of it.”
Keeping hold of Roland’s hand, Lucia settled herself gingerly upon the edge of the bed. “Will you lie down again now, and go back to sleep?” she suggested.
Roland looked away again, apparently to study the fall of the coverlet over his knees. “I had rather not,” he said, very low.
“Bad dreams?” said Lucia, in the same tone. When he did not reply, she added, “I should not wonder at it. Mine have been very bad indeed.”
“Is there any more of the gooseberry tart?” said Roland, too brightly. He turned his face so as to avoid meeting her eyes. “Or the duck? I am very hungry.”
This was so transparently an attempt to evade her question that Lucia rather wondered at Roland’s trying it on. Nonetheless, if he were offering to eat, she should not be the one to stand in his way.
“I shall go and see,” she said, therefore, and made to rise from her perch on the edge of the bed. But Roland’s grip on her hand tightened, vice-like, and raw panic flared in his eyes for just a moment before he pressed his lips together and reasserted his will over his feelings.
“Perhaps Marcus Cattermole may go instead,” said Lucia. She directed at that gentleman a hopeful smile and a small apologetic shrug of her shoulders.
“Of course,” he said, and went away to investigate the remaining contents of the covered trays on the sitting-room sideboard.
Snatching at this moment of almost-privacy, Lucia turned her attention back to Roland. He had loosened his grip on her, but without altogether letting go; his outward composure plainly concealed deep disquiet. This was Roland’s first serious encounter with magick shock, she reminded herself, and if he were feeling rather fragile, therefore, it was not to be wondered at. But why should his anxiety take this particular form?
“You are afraid of my abandoning you to your fate,” she said, leaning closer than Queen Edwina would at all condone. “Though what fate, I have no notion. You need not be, Roland, truly.”
Roland ducked his head. “Not . . . not of your going,” he said. “Not that.”
“What, then?” said Lucia, mystified. She waited a long moment for some reply—verbal or otherwise—and when none was forthcoming, at last said, “Roland, will you not tell me—”
Booted footsteps heralded the return of Marcus Cattermole, carrying a dinner-plate on an invalid’s tray. “I regret that
the gooseberry tart was all ate up, Your Highness,” he said, depositing the tray across Roland’s knees, “but there are some of these marchpane-cakes and nearly all the Cheshire cheese, and I have brought you the last of the scones and clotted cream and raspberries.”
“I thank you,” said Roland, reaching for the cheese with his free hand.
Over his bent head, Marcus Cattermole gave Lucia a look which clearly said, There is more to this matter than we yet comprehend, my lady, and you and I both know it. Then he withdrew himself to an armchair in the far corner of the room, took up a thick octavo codex which had been resting splayed open upon the arm, and settled down to read, as nonchalantly as though he had been in his own sitting-room.
Lucia cast him a grateful nod which, being bent over his book, he did not see, and resolved to thank him later for his discretion and tact—though she did not doubt that if he felt it needful, he should not hesitate to report all her doings and Roland’s to Henri Vauquelin. Then she settled herself more securely on the edge of Roland’s bed, at an angle convenient to the tea-tray, and with her free hand secured a scone.
“Roland,” she said, “may I have the use of my other hand? I should like some clotted cream and raspberries with this scone.”
Roland looked up at her, his face all open, guileless surprise. Lucia waggled her fingers as best she could; he looked down again, this time at their clasped hands, and said softly, “I—I am sorry—I did not mean—”
He opened his hand, and Lucia—moving slowly and carefully—retrieved hers, deposited her scone on the edge of the tray, and reached for the pot of clotted cream.
“There is something amiss,” she said, keeping her voice calm and even and her eyes on the movements of her hands: splitting the scone, spooning up the cream. “Something beyond mere magick shock, as though that were not enough to be going on with. I should not for the world attempt to force a confidence—and least of all from you—but . . . if you should feel yourself in want of a confidante, Roland, you need look no farther.”
She chanced a look up—briefly, under her lashes—and saw that Roland was chewing thoughtfully on a marchpane-cake, the other half of which he held poised before his lips. He caught her gaze, swallowed, and, lowering his hand, said, “You had bad dreams, you said. Tonight.”
Lucia nodded.
“You . . . you are not prone to them, in general?” said Roland diffidently. “Some people are, I know, though I am not.”
Your sister Sophie, for example, thought Lucia.
“In general, not at all,” she said, truthfully enough. “But my dreams were very bad tonight, when I contrived to sleep at all. Roland—”
“I hope you have not been too uncomfortable in the dressing-room,” said Roland, a little of his erstwhile solicitude creeping into his tone.
“Not at all,” said Lucia, rather less truthfully; then, pressing on, “I slept the better for knowing myself within call if you should wake.”
Better being a relative term: She had not slept so poorly in many years, but in her own rooms in the Queen’s wing of the Palace, she was quite certain, she could not have slept at all.
“I . . . I thank you,” said Roland. He sounded almost shy. “Was Mama very angry?”
“Your mama, and Edward too, must care for our reputations,” said Lucia, “as we neither of us take much notice of them ourselves. It is a trying duty, I have no doubt.”
Was that the shade of a smile curving his lips? Good.
But the smile, if such it was, was there and gone in a breath, and Roland was saying earnestly, “I wish you will not antagonise her, Lucia.”
“I have no wish to do so,” said Lucia. Despite herself, her tone was rather chilly. It was not that she begrudged her husband his mother’s affection—and the Queen had been very kind to her, Sophie notwithstanding, until their confrontation over Lucia’s right to watch at Roland’s bedside. Perhaps someday I may be equally defensive, though I hope I shall not have cause. “But—”
“No, no,” said Roland, gesturing with a half-eaten scone like a boy half his age. “That is not—no. I love my mother,” he said, ducking his head as though half regretting this admission, “you must never think otherwise, but . . . but I see how she treats Sophie, and . . . and I had rather that you and she were friends.”
Lucia nodded, mollified. “Her Majesty has made me very welcome,” she said.
For some time, unspeaking, they picked desultorily at the remnants of their impromptu picnic, the quiet punctuated at regular intervals by the shiff of turning pages from Marcus Cattermole’s corner—a salutary reminder that they were not, in fact, alone.
“Roland,” said Lucia at last, a little hesitant but also desperately curious. “Roland, what do you remember of last evening? Of the time we spent in the centre of the maze?”
Roland tilted his head thoughtfully, then straightened it again with a wince, rubbing at the side of his neck. “Almost nothing,” he said. “Though . . . more now than when first I woke and found myself here. But”—and here his brow furrowed and his voice took on an edge of frustration—“I cannot make sense of the things I remember.”
Marcus Cattermole coughed quietly; Roland turned briefly to look at him before continuing in a much lower tone: “I am not mad—am I?—to think that you told me to listen to the trees?”
“I did tell you so,” said Lucia, “and I rather wish that I had not, as events transpired. But it seemed to me that they wished very much to speak to you, and I thought such vehemence must have some reason behind it. Do you . . .” She hesitated. “Do you remember anything at all of what they told you?”
Roland screwed up his face in thought. After a moment he said, “When you say told . . .”
Lucia inclined her head expectantly; she had not the least idea what he might be about to say, which only made her the more impatient for him to say it. For some time, however, Roland toyed absently with the spoon from the clotted-cream pot, covertly watched the apparently oblivious Marcus Cattermole, tilted his head back to look at the ceiling, and in general did everything but answer her question.
At last, when she had nearly given up hope of obtaining any sort of reply, he looked her full in the face and said, “When the trees in Alba speak to you, as you have told me they do, how do they speak?”
Lucia looked back, nonplussed. “Speak is a metaphor,” she said. Brìghde’s tears! Is he so much discomfited because he expected words?
Roland’s expression—indeed, his whole bearing—slumped in what looked very like relief. “Thank all the gods!” he said, loudly enough that Marcus Cattermole glanced up from his book, though only for a moment; then, lowering his voice again and gripping Lucia’s hands, “I suspected myself of going mad.”
“I am no healer,” said Lucia, cautiously, “to judge mens sana, but you do not seem to me particularly inclined to madness.”
She was rewarded with a small, wry smile, and by Roland’s letting go her hands to help himself to the last marchpane-cake.
“My Latin is at fault, perhaps,” she continued, whilst he was still chewing. “I am fluent enough for most purposes, but this is a magick I learnt in Gaelic, and have never spoken of in any other tongue; perhaps I might—”
“Lucia,” said Roland, touching her hand once more—a gentle, almost hesitant touch, worlds away from his earlier frantic clutching. “Lucia, tapadh leat. Truly, if you had not been with me, had not been so quick-witted, I—”
His use of Gaelic to thank her made her smile, but that he should be thanking her at all—
“No,” she said. She was shaking her head, she found, without having intended it. “No, I cannot—Roland, had I not encouraged you, not”—she held up a hand to forestall the protests presaged by Roland’s gathering frown—“not pushed you to explore a magick with which you had no experience whatever, you should not have needed anyone’s quick wits.”
&n
bsp; “I am not a child,” said Roland. He folded his arms across the placket of his nightshirt and frowned more deeply, unfortunately reinforcing the very picture he was attempting to disclaim. “I am entirely capable of resisting the temptation to experiment, when I choose to do so. You are not to blame for my having chosen otherwise in this case.”
But I am older than you, and have been better taught, Lucia thought, and plainly I know many things which you do not. She had also had considerable training in diplomacy, however, and for this reason among others spoke none of these thoughts aloud.
“You are generous to say so,” she said instead.
Roland rolled his eyes, which—more even than the colour returning to his face, and the lively glint to his eyes—reassured her of his eventual recovery. “Shall we strike a bargain?” he said, smiling cheerfully enough, and offering her his right hand in the Alban manner. “If I undertake not to thank you for saving my life, will you undertake in return not to blame yourself for its having been necessary?”
Lucia could not help returning the smile. “Agreed,” she said, and clasped his hand. “But,” she added, when Roland had gone back to chasing an errant raspberry about the rim of his plate with the clotted-cream spoon, “you have not answered my question: What can you remember?”
He looked up sharply, spoon poised above the plate. “You were there,” he said, “and were not . . . incapacitated, as I was, by my stupidity.” His Royal Highness entirely now, he waved off her protest. “Your recollection of events I am sure must be perfectly clear. What use to you can my vague, confused impressions be?”
A Season of Spells (A Noctis Magicae Novel) Page 11
