Above His Proper Station

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  “I will be there, my lord.”

  “I certainly hope so.” With that he leaned back and tapped the roof of the carriage with his walking stick. Anrel heard Harban call to the horses, and the coach came to a stop.

  They had looped around, and were once again only a few yards from the burgrave of Naith’s town house. Anrel swung open the door of the coach and clambered out, then turned and watched as the carriage rolled away.

  When it reached the corner he turned, and hurried into the town house to retrieve his few belongings. There was no time to waste.

  31

  In Which Anrel Sends Tazia on an Errand

  Tazia and Perynis were not in their attic room; when they did not answer his knock Anrel threw himself against the door and burst it open. The cheap old lock provided little resistance.

  When a quick glance confirmed their absence Anrel closed the door again and hurried through the hallways and stairwells of the tenement in search of them. He was beginning to worry that they might be off on some errand that would keep them away for hours when he heard a woman’s laughter.

  He followed the sound, and found Tazia and Perynis kneeling in a corridor, rags in hand; they had obviously been scrubbing at the floor, which bore a large purple stain upon the gray planking and reeked of sour wine. Tazia had apparently been telling jokes, as Perynis was leaning against the wall, trying unsuccessfully to stop giggling. She happened to be facing Anrel, however, while Tazia was not, so it was Perynis who saw him first and exclaimed, “Master Murau!” That, at last, seemed to calm her laughter, and she sprang to her feet.

  Tazia’s head whirled, and she almost fell sideways; turning so swiftly while on one’s knees was awkward, to say the least. “Anrel!” she said.

  Anrel nodded. “I am delighted to see you both,” he said.

  “What brings you here, at this hour?” Tazia asked.

  “Urgent news,” he said. “And an opportunity.”

  Tazia tossed her rags into the bucket the pair had been using, then got to her feet. “What news?” she asked.

  Anrel had not taken the time to work out how to explain the situation, and he was unsure whether either woman paid any attention to politics. “The Grand Council,” he began, “or rather, the more extreme elements of the Grand Council—” He stopped, took a breath, and started over. “I have learned,” he said, “that some members of the Grand Council intend to close off the capital, seal the gates and guard the river, and then arrest everyone they consider responsible for the recent turmoil—everyone, on all sides.”

  Perynis looked blank; Tazia produced a puzzled frown.

  “That includes Lord Allutar,” Anrel explained. “He will finally be brought to justice for his crimes.”

  “Then that’s good news!” Perynis said, smiling.

  Tazia, however, had read Anrel’s expression. “Go on,” she said.

  “That also includes the infamous rabble-rouser Alvos,” Anrel said. “I am to be brought before a tribunal, questioned, and in all probability hanged.”

  “Oh,” Perynis said.

  “But you’re here, and still free,” Tazia said, her gaze fixed on his face.

  “There are those who would prefer me to escape,” he said. “I was given a warning. It is very likely, though, that there are watchmen or wardens looking for me even now.”

  “Will you be going into hiding, then?” Tazia asked. “Will we still be able to meet with you?”

  “That brings us to the opportunity,” Anrel replied. “My Quandish friend, Lord Blackfield, has been ordered to leave the city, but has been given until sundown to do so. He has offered to take me with him to Quand—I will ride in his coach and pretend to be one of his servants, and he will use his sorcery to make this ruse difficult to detect.”

  Tazia’s expression hardened. “Then have you come to say farewell?”

  Anrel’s heart seemed to stop at those words. “No, no, my dearest,” he said hastily. “You misunderstand me entirely. I have come to invite you to join me.”

  Tazia’s mouth opened, then closed.

  “Witchcraft is legal in Quand,” Anrel said. “You could live openly and honorably as an honest businesswoman—and if you will give your consent, beloved, as my wife. There is room in the coach for both of us.”

  “I don’t … I …”

  “Oh, you must go!” Perynis said, almost squeaking. She sprang to her feet and embraced her sister. “Go to Quand and marry Anrel!”

  “But I can’t … I … what about Mother?”

  “Oh, we’ll be fine,” Perynis said.

  “Perynis,” Anrel said, as Tazia continued to hesitate.

  “Yes?” Perynis said, startled.

  “There might be room for you and your mother, as well.”

  The younger woman’s eyes lit up. “Truly?” she said.

  “It’s Quand,” Tazia warned. “We would be foreigners. We don’t speak Quandish. We would know no one at all.”

  “You know me,” Anrel reminded her.

  “No one except Anrel and each other,” Tazia amended.

  “And who did you know in Lume when you arrived here?”

  “No one,” Tazia acknowledged. “But we spoke the language, and knew the customs. In Quand we will be strangers, outcasts.”

  “At first,” Anrel admitted.

  “I—” Tazia began, but Anrel held up a hand.

  “I am not going to require you to make your decision here and now,” he said. “Neither of you. There is more I must explain first.”

  “Go on,” Tazia said, as Perynis nodded.

  “There are two others I hope to save,” Anrel said. “My uncle, Lord Dorias, and my cousin, Lady Saria.”

  “Sorcerers?” Tazia asked.

  “Yes,” Anrel said. “They are sorcerers, and I believe they are in danger because they are sorcerers, and because they are associated with Lord Allutar. Indeed, Lady Saria is betrothed to Lord Allutar.”

  Anrel could hear Perynis suck in her breath at that. Tazia simply stared at him.

  “They are my family,” Anrel said. “My uncle took me in when my parents died, and Saria was almost a sister to me when we were children. I owe them whatever aid I can give them, no matter how much I detest my cousin’s fiancé and my uncle’s politics.”

  “Can your Quandish friend really save so many?” Perynis asked.

  “I don’t know,” Anrel said. “I don’t think he knows, either. The more people in the coach, the greater the chance the ruse will be penetrated and all of us captured. If you feel the risk excessive, and prefer to remain in Lume, I would certainly not think any the less of you—your names are not on the Grand Council’s lists. On the other hand, that may mean that even should our masquerade be detected, you might be permitted to go free.”

  The two sisters exchanged glances.

  “There’s more,” Anrel said.

  Both turned their attention back to him.

  “My uncle has disowned me,” Anrel said. “He has believed Lord Allutar’s version of events, rather than my own, and has taken positions even more extreme than Allutar’s own in faulting me for everything that has gone wrong for him in the past year. I cannot approach him to warn him, or to offer him safe passage in Lord Blackfield’s coach; he will not speak to me or allow me in his home.”

  “Then why do you mention him at all?” Tazia demanded.

  “Because I still owe it to him to try to warn him and save him,” Anrel said. “Therefore, Tazia, I ask you, will you please act as my emissary in this matter? Will you go to him, and tell him that the Committee for the Regulation of Sorcery has learned his true name, and is likely to arrest him for conspiring with Lord Allutar? Will you tell him that Lord Blackfield has offered him and his daughter passage out of the city, to Quand?”

  Tazia frowned. “You ask a great deal, Anrel,” she said.

  “I do,” Anrel said. “I know. And if you refuse, I will accept that without question, and it will not alter what I am about to promise y
ou.”

  “Promise me?”

  “I promise you, Tazia, that whatever you decide—to go to Quand, or to remain in Lume; to play the envoy for my uncle, or to leave him to his own devices—whatever you may choose, I will not leave you. Not again. When I left you in Beynos, thinking you must hate me for allowing Reva’s death—of all the mistakes I have made in my life, everything I have done wrong, everything I have failed to do, that is the one I regret most deeply, and the one I cannot bear to repeat. If you choose to go to Quand, I will go with you. If you choose to remain in Lume, I will remain in hiding in Lume. I have already said that I would gladly make you my wife in Quand; rest assured, I would gladly marry you no matter where we might be. Whatever you ask of me, I shall endeavor to deliver—though I pray to the Mother and the Father that you will never ask one thing of me, and that is not to see you further. I love you, Tazia, and would be with you always, if you will allow it.”

  “Oh,” Tazia said breathlessly.

  Anrel turned to her sister, who was staring at him, wide-eyed. “Perynis,” he said, “If you will allow it, I would like to accompany you to find your mother, so that we might offer her passage to Quand. If Tazia refuses to speak to my uncle then of course she must come with us, but I hope she will agree to present my message to Lord Dorias while we speak with Nivain.”

  Perynis nodded, still staring.

  “Lord Dorias and Lady Saria live at number two, Wizard’s Hill Court,” Anrel said. “Lord Blackfield’s carriage will be in Wizard’s Hill Court in about two and a half hours, and will depart thence directly for Quand, with whichever of us have chosen to go. Any who are not there when the carriage departs—well, there is no second chance; I cannot imagine that Lord Blackfield will ever return to Lume. I hope that you and I, Perynis, will bring your mother safe to that meeting, and that Tazia will coax my uncle and my cousin out of their house to Lord Blackfield’s coach.”

  “Oh,” Perynis said.

  “I will try, Anrel,” Tazia said. “I will be there, whether your uncle speaks to me or not.”

  “Then let us be about it!”

  They stopped at the sisters’ room to fetch those possessions they could not bear to leave, then departed the tenement, Tazia heading for Wizard’s Hill Court while Anrel and Perynis turned their steps toward the wine merchant’s home where Nivain lived and worked.

  They had scarcely gone a hundred paces when Perynis asked, “Who are they?” She pointed at a dozen figures who were moving purposefully down the avenue. Other people were hurrying out of their way.

  Anrel turned to look, then hastened his step. “Come on,” he said, taking Perynis’s arm and guiding her down a side street.

  He could not be absolutely certain, but he had a very good idea who those men were. One in the front of the group wore a black coat and hat, with a red badge visible on his chest; the others wore an assortment of attire, but each man—and they were all men—had a red band tied around his left arm between elbow and shoulder. Each of them also bore a weapon—mostly cudgels and clubs, but Anrel saw the glint of steel; at least one of them was carrying an unsheathed sword.

  The leader was almost certainly a warden, while the others were most likely deputies he had recruited, and Anrel guessed that they were on their way to arrest someone on the council’s list. He had no interest in providing them with a fresh target.

  The two of them had covered most of the distance to the wine merchant’s house when they rounded a corner and found themselves looking at another such group, but these men had obviously already found their prey. Four of them were half dragging, half carrying a man in a paisley velvet jacket. Their captive was moaning; one side of his head was smeared with blood, and the shoulder of his jacket was stained dark red as well.

  The warden walked at the front of the group, looking straight ahead, while the deputies who were not hauling the prisoner appeared grimly wary, their weapons still out and ready. Perhaps, Anrel thought, they expected someone to attempt a rescue.

  Under other circumstances he might have considered intervening himself, but not now, not when his name was already on the wardens’ list, not when Tazia would be expecting him in Wizard’s Hill Court, not when he had Perynis with him. Instead he once again pulled the girl aside, out of the warden’s path, and waited in the shadow of a balcony while the ferocious little company marched past.

  Anrel and Perynis were by no means the only people who stepped aside and watched the warden’s company go by; in fact, all normal activity on the street seemed suspended in a fifty-foot radius around the warden and his prisoner, and the ordinary men and women of Lume only resumed their own movements and conversation when the squad was well clear.

  Some did not resume normal activity at all, but instead hurried away, presumably to the safety of their own homes. No one seemed inclined to discuss what they had seen.

  That universal reaction of silent watchfulness meant that the deputies paid no particular attention to Anrel and Perynis, since they were doing nothing that stood out as in any way unusual. That allowed Anrel to safely stay close enough to catch a glimpse of the prisoner’s face. He could not identify the man exactly, but Anrel was reasonably sure he had seen him before—and that he was a sorcerer.

  If that was indeed the case, then the true names from the Great List had apparently worked. A dozen ordinary citizens armed with clubs could not have captured a sorcerer without some magical assistance.

  Anrel wondered what had become of Lord Allutar; had he been at the Baths that morning? Anrel had not seen him, but his own stay had been very brief indeed.

  “What’s going on?” Perynis asked, when the warden’s party was safely past. “Who are those men with the warden? Who was that they were carrying?”

  “I assume those were deputies,” Anrel said. “And that was one of the people the Grand Council has ordered arrested.”

  Her face went pale. “Oh,” she said. She glanced in the direction the deputies had gone. “Anrel?”

  “Yes?”

  “I definitely want to go to Quand.”

  “I understand.”

  A few minutes later the pair arrived at the rear entrance to the wine merchant’s house, where Perynis knocked loudly. She and Anrel stood on the rear stoop for a moment, waiting, and then the door swung open. Perynis turned to the opening, starting to say something.

  Then she froze.

  Anrel saw the man standing in the doorway, and recognized him instantly. He was thinner, his hair and beard longer and far more unkempt than when Anrel had last seen him, he stank of sour wine, and his clothes were much the worse for wear, but his identity was unmistakable.

  Garras Lir.

  “Father,” Perynis said faintly.

  32

  In Which Anrel Visits His Uncle

  “Daughter,” Garras said. “And Master Murau. I didn’t expect to see you here!”

  “Where’s Mother?” Perynis demanded.

  “Inside,” Garras said. “I haven’t touched her.”

  “We came to speak with her,” Anrel said. “If we might enter, please?”

  “What did you want with her?”

  “With all due respect, Master Lir, our business is with her, not with you.”

  “She is my wife,” Garras replied angrily. “Anything you might say to her is my business!”

  “Nonetheless, we are here to speak to her,” Anrel said. “Please step aside.”

  “Don’t you give me orders, you sorcerer’s bastard!” Garras snapped.

  “I am assured that my parents were married to each other,” Anrel answered calmly. “Can you say the same?”

  “Two sorcerers producing a commoner?” Garras sneered. “I know better than that—and I suspect your mother’s husband did, as well. That’s probably why he killed her.”

  Anrel dropped his pack to the ground and stepped forward, and without consciously planning it he felt magical power surge up into him from the earth beneath the stoop. He reached to grab Garras, but th
e other man stepped back into the house.

  He was not able to close the door, though, before Anrel thrust his foot inside.

  They froze like that for a moment, Anrel squeezed into the opening, trying to force the door open, while the larger, heavier Garras stood behind it, trying to push it closed. Their faces were scant inches apart, and they glared at each other; Anrel could smell alcohol on the other man’s breath. Magic tingled in Anrel’s gut and in his hands, but he did not know how to use it, what he might productively do with it.

  “You should have died in Beynos,” Garras growled.

  “You did your best to arrange it,” Anrel replied.

  “You raised our hopes, with that speech of yours, and then Reva died anyway.”

  “I did what I could,” Anrel said. “No one regrets more than I do that it wasn’t enough.”

  “It’s your fault my wife left me, with your lies and false hopes!”

  “I wish I could take credit for her decision, but she came to her senses without my help.” Anrel raised his hand, reaching for Garras’s face, thinking that perhaps he could stupefy Garras momentarily and push his way into the house.

  Garras saw the motion, and pulled his head back. “What are you …”

  He did not complete the question; instead there was a loud thump, and Garras crumpled backward, falling flat on his back on the mudroom floor. The door suddenly gave under the pressure of Anrel’s shoulder, and he had to step forward, over Garras’s outstretched legs, to keep from falling.

  He found himself staring directly at Nivain Lir, who stood in the mudroom clutching a cast-iron skillet. Her hair was unbound and in wild disarray; her left cheek was covered by a large fresh bruise just beginning to go purple. Her husband’s assurance that he hadn’t touched her appeared to have been a lie.

  “I don’t … he was …” she said.

  “Mistress Lir,” Anrel said. He glanced down at Garras, who was blinking at the ceiling; he was obviously still alive, and apparently conscious, though stunned. “I think it might be advisable to come with us.”