The Stranger at the Wedding

by Barbara Hambly

  “I owe you two apologies, really,” Spenson said after a straitened silence, “and thanks. Because you were right. I was having—dreams...” He could barely get the word out, and his face had gone rufous again. “...about the Earthwygg girl.” His blue eyes met hers squarely, as if daring her to speak of the matter, and Kyra, who was about to observe that there was nothing to be embarrassed about except perhaps the implication that he might find Esmin Earthwygg attractive without the aid of magic, realized that he was highly embarrassed.

  So she said instead, and in a quieter voice than her usual half-ironic tone, “Well, considering the state of that family’s finances, it’s hardly surprising her mother would try something of the kind on you. She must have been spitting blood when the betrothal was announced.”

  Spenson looked startled. “I hardly know the girl!”

  “Good heavens, you don’t think that had anything to do with it, do you? You hardly know my sister.”

  He turned his attention back to his driving, and for some time he seemed to be intently studying the mare’s ears. His mouth settled into the hard line it sometimes had in Alix’s presence, and the color was long in fading from his cheeks.

  Kyra wondered how vivid the dreams had been.

  After a time he said, “I know the difference between a woman who’ll make a man a good wife and one who won’t.”

  Hearing the world of discomfit in his voice, she picked her words carefully. “Believe me, you’re no more to blame than if—than if someone had put a Get-Lost spell on your carriage and you’d been four hours late for dinner. Spells like that have absolutely nothing to do with their subject’s real desires.”

  “Have they not?” He looked back to her, interest driving the flush from his face. Then he chuckled ruefully. “Well, I suppose their strength lies in how thoroughly they make you think that is your real desire, at the time, at least. And being about to marry your sister...”

  Kyra regarded him for a moment, her brows tugging down over her tawny eyes. “That must have been quite appalling for you,” she said. For the first time she reflected that his irrational lust for Esmin Earthwygg had put him through some masculine version of Alix’s division of soul, complicated by his genuine dislike of the girl and his precise knowledge of how much of a legal tangle it would take to get out of the contracted match. No wonder he’d had precious little to say, hiding his doubts behind a countenance of weathered oak.

  “On the other hand,” she added judiciously, “that was no reason to shout at me for removing them.”

  One corner of his mouth turned down, and his blue eyes twinkled. “My girl, no man likes to be told that he’s been led around by his... er... nose.”

  “Well,” Kyra said, “if you say so.”

  He laughed at her doubtful tone and drew rein to let a cartful of fresh ivy and trailing chains of smilax turn into Upper Tollam Street ahead of them. As he followed the slowly jogging vehicle, Kyra realized that it must contain supplies for the new garlands all the servants would weave and hang tonight. Poor Father, she thought with regret. With smilax ten coppers the basket, and ivy three... Spenson’s hands on the reins were brown from the sun, heavy with muscle that made their skill all the more surprising. She realized, gazing absently at them, that she had momentarily forgotten her anxiety, and renewed awareness of the shortness of the time left rushed back on her.

  Casually, she inquired, “You say he’s run off other dog wizards from this neighborhood?”

  Spenson nodded. “According to Father. Three years ago there was a woman over on Lesser Queen Street; your father took against her as soon as he heard she was there. He and some of the other guildsmen warned her to find other quarters. And there was a man who worked out of the attic of the Feathered Snake. Quiet and inoffensive, but I heard it was your father who set the Witchfinders on him. So I’ll admit I was surprised when I saw you back in his house.”

  He was quiet for a time, and the wheels of the gig, crushing dropped ivy leaves on the gray paving stones, sent up frail traces of their sappy green smell to contend with the waft of the flowers in the cart ahead and the odors of wash water thrown in the gutters and horse piss from the cab stand on the corner of Upper Tollam Street.

  Then his glance returned to her again.

  “It doesn’t sound like a man angry because you wouldn’t turn dog wizard to help his business.”

  “Well, having quite spectacularly denounced one wizard and thrown another one out of his house, he could scarcely go about hiring a third or a fourth to make up the deficit, could he? I daresay it got to be a habit with him. Do you know what became of them? The woman from Queen Street, I mean, and the wizard who worked out of the Feathered Snake.”

  Spenson shook his head. “Why do you ask?”

  “I’d hate to think my decision seriously inconvenienced a couple of perfectly innocent bystanders, particularly if the Witchfinders really were called in.” Kyra spoke lightly, but she remembered Nandiharrow’s oddly shaped black gloves and what was—and wasn’t—inside them. Half the novices at the Citadel called him Nandiharrow the Nine Fingered as a matter of course, not remembering that up until eighteen months ago he’d gone by a different nickname.

  His smile was wry. “I don’t think your father feels any wizard is innocent.”

  “Well, he’s quite right, you know.” Kyra stepped down from the gig before the open gate of the kitchen yard, through which the flower cart was rumbling. “Will you come in and join us for breakfast, Master Spenson? My sister should be awake by this time.”

  Her mind was already racing ahead, probing at alleys, leads, inquiries, raging at the constant petty turmoil that kept her from systematically searching the house, but she knew also that she needed food. Besides, she thought, looking up at the man in the gig above her, she found Spenson surprisingly good company.

  The mention of Alix’s name made him glance away, and his easiness vanished like dew in the sun. “Another time, Miss Peldyrin,” he said with the old dinner-party stiffness. “I’m late to the countinghouse as it is. God knows, with all these delays, it’s all I can do to keep things together there. We’re trying to work in a new factor to send to the Sykerst fur traders, and the man’s turned out a fool. I only wanted to apologize for... for speaking on matters I should have known better than to bring up.” He raised his whipstock to touch the brim of his high-crowned hat and, with a flick of the reins, was gone across the square.

  Not an easy apology for a hot-tempered man, Kyra thought, standing for a time on the flagway, watching the broad, brown back disappearing between the shoulders of the buildings that guarded Upper Tollam Street. She remembered that the Spenson countinghouse was down on Salt Hill Lane, and Prandhauer Street was only a short way north of it. Baynorth Square lay nowhere between. He’d gone out of his way rather than let her walk.

  She made her way, swift and unnoticed, to her room and concealed Lily’s frock in the armoire, hoping Spenson hadn’t noticed what she’d been wearing under her cloak. Then she hooked herself into one of her own outlandish dresses, a brilliant yellow garment draped back over a skirt of white and yellow ribbonwork and strange old-fashioned hoops. Part of her teenage desire to revolutionize fashion—at least the fashions she wore—had involved efficiency and a desire to get into her clothes without the aid of servants, so in addition to suiting her jagged looks and strong coloring, most of the gowns she had designed for herself fastened up the front.

  She viewed herself critically in the mirror as she put up her hair, which was still damp at the ends, threading it with an old necklace of raw amber instead of the flowers dictated by current fashion. Even at the age of ten she had known she could never compete with the fashionable girls, the girls who studied each sleeve flounce and pleat worn by the leading Court beauties, who could tell by the cut of the stomacher or the number of its bows whether a gown was truly new or last season’s made over.

  Rather than lose to them in their game, she had made her own rules, and she won
dered for a moment, throwing a chain of turquoises over her head and surveying the colorful result, where that would have taken her had she not been what she was.

  With a shake of her head, she descended to the breakfast room, where her mother and Alix were finishing toast and cocoa.

  From the gallery she caught the whiff of it, and the sweetness of the chocolate made her stomach grip with the old craving for sugar. Her mother’s light babble drifted on the scented steam, but Alix, when Kyra entered the room, was silent, though putting up a good appearance of interest. Despite the careful application of rice powder and rouge, Kyra could see that her sister had been crying.

  “Kyra, darling!” Her mother half rose in a drift of patchouli. “We were just... That is, there’s a little problem—a question, really—that we need... Well...” She took a sip of her cocoa to buy herself time while Kyra reached over to the bellpull to summon Briory.

  “The fact is, darling, your father brought up the question of the wedding procession tomorrow morning. Now, under ordinary circumstances, of course you would have a place in Alix’s carriage...”

  “Under ordinary circumstances,” Kyra remarked, “yes. Briory, could you get me some of Joblin’s blintzes and jam? And coffee, please. Under ordinary circumstances, I’d be carrying a corner of Alix’s veil as matron of honor, assuming that anybody would have married me in the intervening years. Is there cocoa in that pot still?”

  “It’ll have skin on it like a lizard,” Alix warned.

  “At the moment I’d drink it if it was lizard skin. I take it,” she added, turning a limpid gaze upon her parent, “that circumstances have been rendered too extraordinary for me to be invited to go along?”

  “Oh, of course not, darling,” Binnie Peldyrin hastened to say, reaching over to lay a small, moist hand on her elder daughter’s bony wrist. Kyra had never liked her mother’s habit of fingering her daughters and husband and gently extracted her arm from the grip; Binnie noticed no more than she ever had, but her wide blue eyes blinked nervously. “The thing is, you see, since you’re not a member of Alix’s train at the church, you wouldn’t be riding in her carriage, and I’d already asked Lord and Lady Earthwygg—I mean, before you came back—to ride with your father and me in ours, and... well...”

  “Hmmn,” Kyra said. “And I don’t expect either Aunt Murdwym or Cousin Wyrdlees would want me in the carriage with them. Perhaps Father could rent me a closed sedan chair to follow immediately after.”

  “That was my idea,” Alix said, pushing a finger of toast around her plate and apparently thinking better of eating it. Briory appeared silently, bearing a plate of blintzes, which Kyra proceeded first to bury in blueberry preserves and then to demolish with starved speed.

  “Aye,” came her father’s voice from the doorway behind the butler’s stolid back. “And a banner to carry behind it saying ‘Here’s the other daughter’ perhaps?”

  “ ‘Here’s the witch,’ you mean, Father?” Kyra dropped three chunks of white sugar into her coffee cup and turned to regard him blandly. “You’re quite right. I’ll just walk, with the servants and clients, in the rear. Now, I wonder which of my dresses I should wear. This one is nice, but I’ve always been fond of the red silk.”

  Her father shuddered, perhaps at the sheer magnitude of the yellow dress, perhaps at the thought of how it would stand out in any crowd, let alone one composed of soberly dressed servants. “You’ll ride in a sedan chair and keep quiet about it,” he ordered. “Immediately after your Aunt Sethwit’s coach. And belike we’ll have the Witchfinders trailing along behind,” he added, his mouth setting grimly.

  “Well, I’m quite sure the Bishop won’t let them into the church without an invitation.” Kyra judiciously poured the remains of her cocoa into the coffee cup and stirred.

  “Pah!” her father said in disgust. “You can count yourself lucky you’ll not be left outside the door with them!”

  While he was speaking, Kyra could hear from downstairs the sounds of the door opening, of voices in the great hall, and so was not surprised when Briory reentered the room a few moments later to announce, “Lady Earthwygg and her daughter are in the drawing room, madame.”

  “Oh!” Binnie threw up her hands in exasperation. “That horrid woman! Yearning for a gossip, I suppose, or else going to complain about having to rebuy flowers for Esmin, as if the rest of us weren’t in the same situation, only a hundred times worse. And that reminds me, darling, I’ve sent next door for Heckson and Fairbody again to help with weaving the garlands, since they have to go up tonight. Oh, and I’ll have to tell Merrivale to arrange to have another sedan chair...” Fluttering details behind her like colored ribbons, she got to her feet and bustled past her husband and out onto the gallery. “Come along, Alix my dearest.”

  Alix had risen to her feet, and Kyra, looking up from a second blintz, saw the white look on her face as if she were about to visit a bonesetter. Her cosmetics stood out harshly against the pallor of exhaustion and stress, and she hesitated for a moment, tearing unconsciously at her cuticles and looking at Kyra as if she would speak.

  But their father stood in the doorway, waiting, and only after Alix departed did he, too, leave, following her along the gallery to the drawing room whence Lady Earthwygg’s deep, commanding tones could already be heard, complaining about the cost of irises in the market.

  Kyra sighed and leaned her forehead on her hands. She felt a little better for having eaten but knew that she had a full day’s work ahead of her tracing the two dog wizards whom her father had wronged. And the house, she thought with weary frustration, still to search.

  The wedding tomorrow...

  The terrace of the House of Roses came back to her, last summer’s heavy heat that made the Sykerst summers such a burden even without the mosquitoes that plagued the pond-riddled landscape. The smell of the roses had been sweet in the air, the slanting sunlight a nearly palpable golden haze. It had been close to eight at night—in the far north summer days were long. “I thought talismans of ill worked only if they were placed where the victim would come in contact with them daily,” Kyra had said, looking across the pitted oak worktable to where Nandiharrow the Nine Fingered had been patiently instructing one of the slower students—a hulking, kindly young man named Brunus—in the imbuing-spells that would charge powdered silver and bird bone to glow in the presence of certain types of magic.

  “These talismans I’ve taught you this week, yes,” the elderly mage had replied, turning on his perch on the terrace’s pink sandstone railing. “But like all magic, the magic of ill changes with the strength of its maker. For instance, even the simple eyes I’ve taught you to draw today—if you drew one in a house, it would be a matter of dropped stitches, losses at cards, the good china breaking, and a cat throwing up on your sister’s bed. If Zake drew the same sign...” He nodded toward Zake Brighthand, who was sitting cross-legged on the pavement in the midst of a chalked Circle of Protection, and the solemn, quiet boy raised his head from the sigil he was practicing, startled at the sound of his name.

  Nandiharrow smiled. “If Zake drew it, very likely the house would burn down.”

  “But can you, like, draw them heavy or light?” the boy asked in the slurry drawl of the Angelshand slums. “I mean, if I didn’t much care about hurtin’ the folks in the house, could I just make the cat throw up?”

  “Of course. And if you drew the signs in a house of strangers whom you were being paid to ill-wish, even with your greater strength, the signs would be weaker and cause less grief, than, for instance, if Cylin—” His gloved left hand gestured toward the solemn, nervous-looking young man at the far end of the table. “—were to draw those selfsame signs in the house of those who had wronged him, those who had hurt him, those whom he hated with all his soul.”

  The sunlight slipped over the black leather of the glove, making odd creases where two fingers had been sewn back to accommodate the twisted stumps within. Kyra felt a strange, sick catch in her stomach, hea
ring in the mild voice none of the hatred of which he spoke.

  “There are many ways of accomplishing this,” he went on, as if speaking of cures for conjunctivitis or alternative means of summoning birds. “One can use the blood of rabbits and chickens, or the moon’s dark, or the conjunctions of certain stars. Some wizards will conjure a ghost to be bound to the spell, to hold to it the cold power of death. And an eye marked with a sufficiency of hatred, a talisman wrought in pain and anger, can poison all the atmosphere of a house, even if it be hidden in the bottommost cellar. The tendrils of its power will reach out through the very fabric of the stones until they can kill those who never go into the portions of the house where the ill is situated... Which makes tracking them down an extremely lengthy and tedious process.”

  Was it that, Kyra wondered, which had communicated itself to her unconsciously in the paper of Alix’s letter? Had some talisman hidden deep within the house sent its poisoned aura forth so strongly that her fingers had picked it up from the very paper, like the lingering smell of musk, which only in sleep had her mind finally interpreted?

  An extremely lengthy and tedious process. It meant each wall of cellar and room would have to be gone over, every floor, every dish in the kitchen and shelf in the library, as she had already gone over Alix’s room and the old schoolroom where Tibbeth of Hale had taught her magic. It would take hours... And meanwhile the whole house was alive with servants weaving garlands in the drying room and making tarts in the kitchen, guests coming agog for gossip in the drawing rooms and musicians tumbling the maids in the attics, Merrivale counting plates for tomorrow’s wedding banquet, and the laundry maid ironing Alix’s chemises in preparation for the night.