Summers at Castle Auburn

by Sharon Shinn

  I felt my throat close, my lungs contract in a kind of fear. None of this had ever occurred to me; I had never considered her anything but cared for and safe. “But surely Bryan has something to say about all this,” I said in a constricted voice. “Surely Bryan has always wanted to marry you—”

  “Has he?” she said. “Who knows what Bryan wants?”

  “And what do you want?” I asked desperately.

  “I want—” She stopped abruptly, and then she gave a sweet but brittle laugh. “I want to talk about something happier,” she said, almost gaily. “I want to talk about you and your visit here and how we have three long months together.”

  I was not yet ready to abandon the subject. “But if you did not marry Bryan—if you did not marry anyone—Jaxon would still provide for you,” I said. “There would be a place for you at Halsing Manor.”

  “Maybe,” she said. “I’ve never been sure.” She gave me a quick, direct look. “I have always envied you, you know, because you have another life to go to. But if I do not marry to please the regent and my uncle, I do not know what will become of me.”

  “You’ll come live with me,” I said instantly, “in the cottage. I’ll teach you all my spells, and you could be a witch as well.”

  She did smile at that. “I’d like that,” she said. “A country witch.”

  I leaned over, putting my hand upon her wrist. “Elisandra,” I said. “Do you want to marry Bryan?”

  But she had done with secrets. She smiled and jumped to her feet. “I forgot! Your present! Come see how lovely it is.”

  She would not say another word on the subject that would trouble me for the rest of my stay at the castle. Instead, she ran to the closet and pulled out a large bundle wrapped in the softest paper. When I folded back the tissue, I found yards and yards of crimson silk shot through with glittering strands of gold.

  “Isn’t this lovely?” Elisandra murmured, holding a fold to her face. My fingers were lost in it; it was like stroking moonlight. “I’m sure we have enough time before the ball to have it made into a gown. It will look perfect with your dark hair and eyes.”

  It would have looked perfect with her own. It was a sumptuous gift. We rolled the yards of material into one long shawl and I threw it over my shoulders to go prance before the mirror. “My, Lady Coriel, don’t you look superb,” Elisandra said, bowing low. “May I be so lucky as to have this first dance?”

  We joined hands and did the first few steps of a minuet. “Nobody ever calls me ‘lady,’” I said. “I’m not.”

  “It’s how Matthew has been referring to you in the past few months,” Elisandra said, dipping regally with the imagined music. “So the fashion has taken hold. My mother does not care for it, as you might guess, but the other day I heard her correct Angela for not calling you by the title, so she seems to have reconciled herself to your elevation.”

  “So Matthew wants to use me as a chip as well,” I mused.

  Elisandra dropped her hand, and the pretend music came to a sudden halt. “He always has,” she said. “It is the reason my mother has spent so much time with you. Matthew has required it of her. He intends to see you advantageously placed.”

  I shrugged. “I think,” I said grandly, “the regent might be disappointed.”

  Her laugh trilled out, so happy and so genuine that it made me smile as well. “I know,” she said. “And that is such a source of satisfaction to me.”

  I grinned back. “You are not as dutiful as you seem,” I said.

  Her face settled into its more composed expression. She gave me a searching look. “You are joking,” she said, “but that is really true.” Before I could pursue that avenue any further, she turned brisk and efficient. “Come, let us put this carefully away. In the morning, we will have you measured and the seamstresses can begin on your gown. Do you have a style in mind? Something not too prim, not with that color—”

  We sat side by side on her bed and looked through sketchbooks the castle tailors had put together, trying to decide on a fashion. We had not been doing this very long when I sensed a great weariness in Elisandra, a bone-deep exhaustion that made it hard for her even to hold the pattern cards in her hands.

  “You look tired,” I said. “I think it’s time I left so you could sleep.”

  She smiled sadly. “I am tired, but these days I do not sleep well,” she admitted. “Perhaps that is why I am so tired.”

  I jumped to my feet. “I’ll be right back,” I said, and ran from the room. I was back in a few minutes, my satchel in my hand. Elisandra had laid the sketchbooks aside, but otherwise had not moved from her place. I climbed up next to her again.

  “Are you having trouble falling asleep, or do you wake up in the middle of the night?” I asked in my best professional voice. “If you cannot sleep through the night, are you wakened by dreams or bodily pains? When you waken in the morning, do you feel sluggish and stupid, or is your mind clear and active?”

  She laughed at me, amused and a little impressed. “I cannot fall asleep, and I wake in the middle of the night and cannot sleep then, either,” she said. “I have no physical pains, and my mind is very clear.”

  I nodded. “Good. I will give you an herbal powder, and you will mix one half of a teaspoon in a glass of water every night before you go to bed. It will rock you gently to sleep and help keep you in that state the whole night long.”

  “I would be glad if that were so,” she said, “but I doubt it.”

  I was shaking out callywort into a shallow bowl she kept on her nightstand. “Try it and see,” I retorted.

  I could hear her lifting and shaking various vials from my satchel. “This looks interesting. And this one. Oh, and this is a pretty color of blue. What’s it for?”

  I turned to see what she was holding up to the candlelight. “That’s halen root,” I informed her. “It reduces pain. But you can only use a tiny amount of it, because too much will kill you.”

  She quickly replaced the vial in the bag, then continued to stare down at it dubiously. “Really? How much?”

  I replaced my other jars of herbs after stoppering them tightly. “There’s enough in this little jar to kill a dozen people,” I said. “But it has a somewhat salty taste, so you couldn’t really administer it in someone’s wine or water.”

  “I thought your grandmother didn’t teach you the blacker magics,” she said dryly.

  I grinned. “This isn’t magic, it’s herb lore. You can find halen root at any apothecary’s shop from here to Faelyn Market, though it will cost you something once you get out of Cotteswold. You have to be careful with it, and always have the antidote on hand.”

  “The antidote? What’s that?”

  I picked up another vial. “Ginyese,” I said. This powder was white and fine, so pale it was almost translucent. “Also to be found at any apothecary’s shop.”

  She took it from me and held it up to the light. In her hands, it seemed to have a backlit, milky glow. “And does it taste salty, too?”

  “No, no taste at all.”

  “And how much is necessary as an antidote?”

  “If you swallowed a teaspoon of halen root, you’d need only a few grains of ginyese,” I said. “Actually, ginyese is a wonderful antidote for most poisons, if you take it quickly enough after you’ve swallowed the toxin, because the body rejects it. So it rejects everything else in your system. Some people even use it for fevers, because they think it cleans the blood.”

  She laid the bottle back in my bag. “You do know the most interesting things,” she said. She picked up another jar, a small clay pot with flowers inscribed on the sides. “What’s in here?”

  “Love potion,” I said with a smile.

  She looked at me. “Not really.”

  I nodded. “Really. I was dispensing some the other night, in fact.”

  “You were dispensing—and to whom? Did it work?”

  Now I was grinning widely. “To a lovesick guardsman on duty at the castle gat
es. We fell into a conversation. I don’t know yet if it’s worked, but he seemed quite hopeful.”

  “And how much of this do you have to take to be successful? And is there an antidote?”

  I laughed. “And why would you want an antidote for love?”

  “If you changed your mind. If the man wasn’t quite who you thought he was.”

  “In that case, I think the antidote would be to avoid him.”

  She pulled the cork out and sniffed at the contents. “Too late!” she said. “He already loves you. This smells like nothing at all.”

  “That’s why it’s so easy to slip into someone’s food or drink. Why would you not want someone to love you? Assuming he was not a total boor.”

  She replaced the stopper and laid the jar back in its place. “Sometimes it’s simpler not to be loved,” she said. “What about this jar? Oh, now this has an awful smell. You can’t surprise anyone with this potion, I’ll wager.”

  One by one, she went through every bottle and vial in my collection. I showed her the mixtures and dosages that would cure a cough, encourage conception, and enhance the memory. I showed her the draughts that would reduce fever and calm despair. I could not tell if she was genuinely interested in the drugs, or interested in learning more about me by examining the things I already knew. When we had been through the whole satchel, I insisted that she change into her nightclothes and drink down the brew I had mixed for her. It was strange, this night, to be the sister who tucked the other into bed, kissed her on the forehead, and bade her to sleep. She smiled up at me after I had blown out every candle but the one I held in my hand.

  “I missed you, Corie,” she said. “I’m glad you’re here.”

  7

  A few weeks later, the castle slowly began to fill with guests. I was of two minds about the summer ball that promised to be the greatest social event I had ever attended. On the one hand, it was exhilarating to witness each new arrival, to whisper with Marian and Angela about which handsome young nobleman might dance with us at the ball, and to vocally disparage the charms of all the other young women. Each dinner was more lavish than the last, and there were constant entertainments planned for the afternoons and the evenings. On the other hand, such commotion definitely changed the easy rhythms of normal court life. I rarely got to see Elisandra alone, or Kent, or even Marian and Angela. Even late at night, the hallways were alive with constant chatter and activity; the castle never seemed to sleep. I felt both caught up in the excitement and displaced from my element. Like Elisandra, I was finding it hard to sleep.

  That may have been because I still had not given up my late-night rambles, though these days they did not last so long. I was finding it harder and harder to make the pilgrimage to the very top of the castle, to the room where the aliora lived. Each new highborn arrival brought a new aliora in his or her train, servant to that household; and each of those visiting aliora was housed in the attic with those of Castle Auburn. The addition of each new frail body to the score or so already on the premises had a strange, unsettling effect. There was an aura radiating from that open room—like a glow or a scent or a hum, though it was none of those things—a sense of power building or strength coalescing. It was as if the aliora drew courage from each other, reinforced each other, renewed each other. It made me afraid to stand there, absorbing that odd, bitter emanation; it made me hungry every night to feel that jolt of energy again.

  As a direct antidote to this fey sensation, every night I hurried downstairs to seek out the very human company of the guardsmen at the gate. I had become firm friends with Cloate, Shorro, Clem, and Estis; and I was closely following the progress of Cloate’s romance. It was proceeding somewhat slowly, to Shorro’s disgust, but the pace seemed to suit the more cautious Cloate.

  “She comes to the yard and watches his practices, four days out of five,” Shorro told me. “Some days she’ll stay and talk. Other days she hurries back to the kitchens as if afraid he’ll take her right there in the mud.”

  “Shorro!” Cloate exclaimed. “You’re speaking to a lady!”

  “Really? She comes to watch him? I’d like to see this girl. Maybe I’ll come out one afternoon and watch you.”

  Shorro swept me a bow. He’d been practicing. Estis had informed me that, with all the ladies’ maids pouring into the castle with the influx of visitors, Shorro was living in bliss. “Not getting two hours’ of sleep a night, but a happy boy,” was the way the other guard phrased it. Shorro had punched him in the arm, but I believed it was true. Shorro was a flirt.

  “We’d be happy to have you watch our poor efforts,” the short man said. “I would fight most fiercely for your favor.”

  “Shorro,” all three of the others reproved him simultaneously, but I giggled. I pulled off the trailing scarf I wore at my waist and twirled it through the air in his direction.

  “Fight, and make me proud,” I said. “I’ll be there tomorrow. One of you will have to point out your girl to me,” I said to Cloate.

  * * *

  THE NEXT DAY I showed up at the weapons yard, where I had spent very little time in the past weeks. I was surprised to see how many of the castle guardsmen were lined up in the yard, practicing their swings and battling against each other. Then I noticed that many of the watchers were the house guards of the visiting noblemen. Kritlin knew what he was doing. He was making a show of strength for the gentry.

  In addition to the other soldiers leaning against the fence and watching the maneuvers, there was the usual assortment of castle servants and nobles gathered on the sidelines. I was surprised to see my sister’s maid, Daria, standing near the fence, her gaze fixed intently upon the action on the field. I tried to guess which of the guardsmen she was following, but their helmets and practice vests made them hard to distinguish from each other. She was keenly interested in someone’s fate, that much was clear from the expression on her face.

  I spotted Shorro quickly enough, for he had tied my scarf high around his left arm, where anyone could see it. He was a deft swordsman, despite his lack of height, and he fought with a zest that made him both careless and hard to defeat. Today he was victorious in all three matches I observed before Kritlin called for a change of players.

  Shorro came immediately to my side once he left the field. “That’s her—the tall gangly one with the straight hair,” he said, nodding in the direction of a plain, severely dressed woman. “She looks dull, don’t she? But Cloate can’t get enough of her.”

  I thought she looked serious and watchful, the kind of woman who did not easily exchange her virtue for pleasure. But I had a higher opinion of Cloate’s fidelity than I did of Shorro’s, and I thought he might have picked wisely.

  “Are guardsmen allowed to marry?” I asked.

  Shorro reared back as if I’d tossed him an insult. “Marry! Why would they want to?”

  “I know you wouldn’t,” I said patiently. “But those that are interested. Are they allowed?”

  Shorro nodded. “Yes, even encouraged. Kritlin thinks marriage steadies a man.”

  “I like her,” I decided.

  Shorro rolled his eyes. “Since you know her so well.”

  I grinned. “And you can tell Cloate I said so.”

  He stayed beside me for the next few minutes, idly talking, but I did not listen closely to what he said. My eyes had wandered back to Daria, standing so still at the corner of the yard. Only now she was not alone. She was gazing earnestly up at the face of a tall, lanky, freckle-faced guardsman whom I had not had a chance to talk to since my return to Castle Auburn.

  “Well,” I said aloud. My voice sounded harsh and sour.

  Shorro stopped midsentence. “Well, what?”

  I shook my head. “Nothing. Go on.”

  He resumed his prattle; I continued watching. Roderick appeared to be listening to Daria far more than replying. He nodded a couple of times, and shook his head once, but for the most part, he seemed to have little to say. At one point, I saw Daria reach
her hand inside her bodice and pull out some small object—a note, I thought, folded as small as it would go. Roderick took it and slipped it inside his pocket without looking at it.

  Lucky for him Kent taught him to read, I thought, my internal voice sounding nasty even to me. I was surprised at the depth of my sudden animosity. What did I care how many servant girls Roderick dallied with? It was just that he had not seemed like the type. It was just that I had thought him better than Shorro, more serious even than Cloate. Even Kent had spoken highly of Roderick. It was just that he had seemed special to me.

  “Me again,” Shorro said suddenly, responding to a shrill whistle from the field. He slipped his helmet back on, but managed to wink at me through the visor. “Watch for me.”

  I stayed awhile longer, but some of the pleasure was gone for me. This time I watched Roderick’s lean, rangy body as he left the fence and headed back into the mock combat. He moved with a compact ease, disabled his opponents with economy, and was not struck down while I was there. When I glanced back to see how Daria was impressed with his ability, I found she had already left the scene.

  I ENCOUNTERED MY next somewhat tarnished idol the very next day. I had awoken quite late, since I had not returned to my rooms till nearly dawn, and I was strolling through the north gardens hoping to enjoy a few hours of sunlight. I didn’t pay much attention when I heard a chorus of male voices rising from a nearby path—riders often chose to cut through the gardens on their way back from the stables—but suddenly I was in the middle of a group of young noblemen, all dressed for riding and smelling faintly of horse. One of the men was Bryan.

  “Corie!” he exclaimed, bounding up to me and taking me in a fierce hug. I was both surprised and uncomfortable, for he held me much too tightly and no one behaved this way in the gardens—at any rate, not in the daylight and not with an audience. “Where have you been hiding yourself? I haven’t seen you for a week.”