That he was accompanied by an elderly djeli—what those of Celtic ancestry might call a bard—affirmed his identity. This intimidating personage could be none other than the feared and formidable mansa of Four Moons House, a man to whom princes gave way. When the budding fire went out as if sucked clean away, the potency of his cold magic was confirmed.
The mansa’s gaze swept the scene. He paused on Serena with a widening of eyes that then narrowed appreciatively, but politely looked away to continue his scrutiny of the hunters. By the way his gaze skimmed disinterestedly over the lad standing out in the grass Titus could tell the mansa was no diviner and had not identified the boy as the source of the bloom. This prize might be salvaged yet just by keeping his mouth shut and his demeanor cool.
“Mansa,” said the elder hunter, going down on one knee beside the dead fire.
“We are looking for a freshly bloomed cold mage. Have you any knowledge of it?”
The elder shook his head. “I am a hunter, mansa, and a farmer, and a council member of your village of Haranwy. Mage matters lie not within my purview.”
Meanwhile, the djeli had walked over to the animal hanging from the tree and was examining the creature with the greatest interest. Like mages and hunters, a djeli could see what was invisible to the eyes of those who had no direct access to nyama, but he was not a diviner and might overlook the boy.
“Who are these people?” the mansa asked the hunter, indicating Titus and Serena.
“Mansa, I am Titus Kanté, of Autumn House.”
“I don’t know the name. One of the lesser Houses, I assume.”
“We are among the least,” agreed Titus, not without a sardonic twist to his tone.
Serena’s lips quivered, and she offered Titus an appreciative side-eye and a tiny nod of support.
The mansa saw her do it, and he made a slight grunt like a repressed chuckle.
“Our estate lies near the city of Anvers,” Titus added with more tartness than he intended. Serena touched her elbow to his arm to remind him of her presence. “Ah! And this is my apprentice, Magister Serena.”
Mage House women did not bow to men—it was beneath their dignity—but she spoke in her warm voice. “Your Excellency, we are a small House with a proud lineage descended from the Empire of Mali, just like you.”
“A remarkable assertion,” said the mansa in the defensively amused tone middle-aged men often used when faced with a young woman who carried both beauty and intelligence with confidence. “But it is true that in some manner we mages are all cousins. To that end, I would invite you—” Now he was careful to address Titus. “—to join me for supper. We have a special meal in honor of Imbolc.”
Titus hesitated. He wanted the mansa to leave. Yet such an invitation from one of the most prestigious and powerful mage Houses in Europa was an opportunity that his own mansa of Autumn House would tell him to accept. He had to balance the chance to snap up the boy against the incredible favor being shown to him, a connection that might be nurtured in the future.
So far the day had remained clear and bright, with not too much wind, but now a breeze stirred and brought with it a swirl of snowflakes as clouds moved in. Or maybe the sudden rise of wind came from the mansa, for the most powerful cold mages could draw down cold fronts and even shift the air in the heavens to daunt those who thought to challenge them.
“As well, it is wiser to avoid travel on Imbolc, a day on which the weather is notoriously changeable,” the mansa added with a heavenward glance as a cloud skimmed over the sun. Titus could not help but wonder if the man was altering the weather to suit his own purposes. “With that in mind, I invite you to spend the night at Four Moons House, which lies nearby. It grows dark early. If you are lodging at the ferry crossing you may find it difficult to return there by nightfall. I must assume you find yourself here on the same errand I am on myself.”
“We stopped here to ask directions,” Titus said. “But if I may speak so boldly, Your Excellency, I admit I am surprised to see you, since you are no diviner.”
“Our diviner is traveling elsewhere. Even we who are not diviners felt that wash of magic. It is gone now.”
“A curious incident,” said the djeli, stepping back from the animal. “But it may be explained by this creature. Some villagers are known to retain the secrets of hunting in the spirit world on the cross quarter days when the veil between the worlds grows thin. It may be that some magic leaked out of the spirit world when they returned.”
“Could that be?” the mansa asked the elder hunter.
“The secret is not mine to share,” said the hunter in answer.
The mansa accepted this statement without argument. Mages held that certain aspects of magecraft were too dangerous and potent to be revealed to those who were not mages, so they could scarcely demand answers from hunters, who had their own private knowledge.
“Aunt Kankou will never forgive us if we don’t take the mansa up on this astounding invitation,” Serena whispered in Titus’s ear. “The boy will go home. Notice how neatly his village elder revealed the village’s name in our hearing. He intended that information for us. We can find the boy later.”
So it was that the mansa gave his horse into the care of his soldiers and graciously accompanied them in the carriage. He treated Leontia with careful respect, and for her part the usually easygoing woman was too daunted by his presence to speak a word.
But like all great princes, the mansa had an ease of manner that encouraged Titus to converse while never becoming too familiar. He asked about the history of Autumn House and how it was established in the city of Anvers. Titus gave rote answers, not wanting to reveal too much of the household’s dismaying situation. Truth to tell, he was also fretting over the village boy, his chance to snatch a victory out of the defeat he’d suffered in losing the twins. It was Serena who quietly held the day with a series of charming anecdotes dating from the time of her great grandparents.
“—and when my great grandmother challenged the prince’s bard to a duel of wits, it turned out his blade was not as sharp as his boasts implied. After that, the prince dismissed the bard and married my great grandmother, who as I have mentioned was by that time a widow and free to marry as she pleased. A number of her relatives left Five Mirrors House in Lutetia and joined her in Anvers. There they formed their own small but independent House.”
“Ah, so your people are descended from Five Mirrors House,” said the mansa.
“For some, that prestigious connection will be seen as Autumn House’s chief claim.”
“But not for you?” he asked with a bit too teasing a smile for Titus’s liking.
“A wise woman knows her own mind.”
“And a wise man listens,” the mansa replied.
Her gaze flashed to meet his, and for an instant Titus was sure it was the powerful mansa who blushed, not the calm young woman.
“I respect my great grandmother for choosing the more difficult path,” said Serena. “But tell me, Your Excellency, I was surprised to hear you refer to a single diviner. Has Four Moons House only the one?”
He shifted on the bench beside Titus as if the question made him uneasy, not that Titus could imagine anything making a man of his stature uneasy. But evidently Serena’s presence made the man loquacious. “It is an odd happenstance that Four Moons House has produced so few diviners in recent generations that my sister is the only one left to us. My aunt arranged my second marriage because the woman was a diviner, but alas she has left the mortal world.”
Titus murmured the proper sentiments and condolences.
After echoing them, Serena asked, “And your first wife? She is not a diviner?”
“No, she is a daughter of Two Shells House.”
“Oh!” said Serena, looking ingeniously impressed, and indeed to be allied with one of the two first mage Houses settled in Eu
ropa was impressive. “They are in Gadir.”
“Yes. She is not herself a mage but she is the daughter of mages. My grandmother of blessed memory arranged the matter when I was eighteen. At that time my great uncle was mansa, and it was by no means yet determined that I would become mansa after him.”
“The strength of a mage House rests on the heads of its elders and the legs of its children,” said Titus, because Serena was certainly speaking too much.
“That is true,” agreed the mansa without looking away from Serena. “Two Shells House certainly has produced potent cold mages in its time, but my grandmother arranged the match for the trade opportunities it provided us. In fact, my first wife is fruitfully engaged in commerce. She travels frequently and lives most of the year in Gadir among her own people.”
Serena glanced at Titus and blinked twice, as she had done before, a signal that meant “trust me.” More fool he was, to ever have trusted her. For her perfidious nature slithered into view at that very moment, as her beautiful lips parted to reveal the full foul deception of her nature.
“So, Your Excellency, your House’s lack of diviners explains why you did not notice the bloom among the hunters.”
Under any other circumstances the mansa’s startlement would have been amusing. He was not a man to be easily surprised or overset. “What bloom?”
“The youth standing out in the grass. A handsome boy. He held a grouse as if he’d been sent out there to clean it, but in truth he was staying as far away from the fire as possible.”
“But the fire was burning when we arrived,” objected the mansa.
Titus felt his mouth working soundlessly, and it took all his will to clamp down his lips over the curse he wanted to throw at her for betraying her own House in this unfathomable and unforgivable manner.
“As Magister Titus has so wisely taught me, the bloom of a new cold mage may surge and ebb over several days or weeks or even months when it first flowers,” she said with that same limpid gaze that apparently really did conceal a rotten heart. “But I will tell you this, Your Excellency. My divining tells me he will be a powerful cold mage, more powerful than any of us may even understand.”
“He’s a village boy,” the mansa scoffed. “His people live in clientage to my house. They are little better than slaves. People with such a low ancestry may learn to create cold fire to light rooms but they do not become potent cold mages.”
Even in the face of the mansa’s disbelief Serena did not change expression. “You will see that I am right.”
“Will I?” he said, and it was impossible not to hear the flirtatious tone animating the words.
Titus fumed, but he could say nothing, although he wanted to.
The wheels of the carriage hit gravel, and the mansa added, “We have reached Four Moons House. Please, be welcome.”
The mansa himself helped first Leontia and then Serena down the steps, his hand lingering too long on Serena’s gloved fingers. Another carriage sat by the portico steps, attended by constables wearing the oak sigil of Venta Erkunos. In the grand entryway two thin children sat huddled on a stone bench off to one side, waiting opposite the closed door of what was likely a formal audience hall; Titus heard voices from behind the door where people were having some sort of conference. Seeing Serena, the twins leaped up and rushed over to her as if she were their long-lost cousin.
“Magister Serena!”
She allowed them to hug her, for it was clear they were distraught.
“Who are these?” the mansa demanded, eyeing their rough clothing with distaste.
“They are two fine young cold mages, freshly bloomed, and unique in their ability to twine their magic together,” said Serena, giving each child a pat on the head.
“And how do they know you, Magister?” he asked her.
“With your permission, Your Excellency, I shall tell you the tale over supper.”
“I anticipate the story with the greatest delight,” said the mansa.
A stately woman descended to greet him, and Titus was disgusted to see that Serena quickly won over this dignified elder as well. Had the girl no shame at all as she charmed her way into their hospitality?
After they had washed up, he tried to pull her aside, but she merely said, in the most high-handed way possible, “Uncle, please trust me.”
“How can I trust you? You gave up the secret of the boy, our best hope! And for what?”
He broke off as the realization hit him.
“Foul, perfidious girl! Is this the wiles you spun before, when you angled for a match with Twelve Horns House? I will tell the mansa the truth of your disgraceful and shameless behavior when you were there! Then he won’t be taken in by your beautiful face. Bala and Anwell warned me.”
Her mouth trembled. “What is the truth, Magister? Do you know it?”
“Belenus Cissé told me everything.”
“Did he tell you that he drank too much and was often impotent? That he was so angry when my magic bloomed that he beat me until I miscarried?”
The statement took him aback. Yet the prospect of returning empty-handed to Autumn House prodded him into intemperate speech. “What did you do to deserve such discipline?”
“I did nothing except refuse to remain with a cruel husband. I knew people would talk, that they would criticize me, but no woman deserves such treatment. So I asked several of the most respectable women in Twelve Horns House to write letters on my behalf, in secret. Why do you think they did so? Because they knew what kind of man Belenus was. Their support and that of Aunt Kankou and the elder women of Autumn House is how I convinced our mansa to allow me to return. Tell our host whatever you wish, Magister. I am not ashamed, and I will not be shamed for leaving a man who abused me.”
Her fury was a blast of wind to which he had no answer.
She bristled at his silence, and added defensively, “Would you have acted thus to your wife?”
“Of course not! I am not—” He broke off. An unwanted memory of his son as a baby flashed into his mind: a darling infant, full of smiles for his doting father.
“You are not a selfish man with a brutal temper, as Belenus Cissé is.”
“How can you know that?” he retorted, swamped by an incredible surge of indignation at the entire appalling turn the exchange had taken.
“Because I knew your son. We were children together in the schoolroom.”
Her words stunned him more than any slap to the face. Of course she had known him. The many children of Autumn House grew up together in a life of shared community, one he’d often felt uncomfortable with, having grown up in more solitude.
“He was a considerate boy with a kind word for everyone. You can be sure we girls all knew it, and knew that such sweetness in a boy would have been mocked or even beaten out of such a child by a harsh sire who cared only about the appearance of strength and manly fortitude. He often said people thought you were standoffish but that it was only because you were reserved and a little shy. He called you the best of fathers.”
He blinked rapidly to try and halt an upwelling of tears. His limbs were frozen, and he could not speak to stop her as she went on with a relentless lack of pity.
“He was so protective of his little sisters. That is how he got sick, isn’t it? When they came down with the smallpox he climbed in through a window of the quarantine chamber to tend to them.”
“We tried to keep him out,” he whispered. “But the girls were so sick, and they would only settle when he was beside them. He was always strong and healthy, so in the end we let him stay because he was so patient with them. So good. And they recovered.”
Serena said nothing, just stood there with quiet calm.
At last he gasped out, “I should have forbidden it. I should have locked him up to keep him away from them.”
“Maybe he saved their li
ves,” said Serena. “How can you know, Magister? You chose the path of compassion for your children’s fear and pain.”
He could say nothing, think nothing, feel nothing.
She took his hands as a daughter might and looked into his eyes as no one had in such a long time. “It’s how I have known I can trust you. Please know, Magister, that you can trust me as well.”
Her sympathy overwhelmed him. It infuriated him that he had exposed himself to her so baldly, that she now held the deepest secrets of his grief as a hostage to her plans.
Yet it was the memory of his dead son that kept him silent throughout the supper, during which Serena regaled the table with a slyly entertaining and pleasingly self-deprecating story of how she had entirely mistaken the matter of the twins in Venta. Embroidered into her tale was also a cunning plea to treat the children well, to think of the circumstances in which the twins had grown and how they might miss their mother and worry about her.
“For children, like plants, grow best when they have both water and sunlight,” she finished with her usual poise.
Her earlier blast of anger had been swallowed up into the shield of her serenity. Her composure defeated him. It defeated the powerful mansa and his table of peers, who melted before her perfect manners and lovely smile. Worst of all, he suspected she was right about the youth they had stumbled across in the countryside, a lad who was even now being collected and brought to Four Moons House, as the mansa mentioned offhandedly during supper.
Another promising boy lost because he hadn’t acted when he should.
* * *
—
And thus they came home.
“I fear you are sickening, Titus,” said Kankou as their carriage rolled at last, some days later, into Anvers. “Are you sure you are feeling well? For you have not spoken ten words since your triumph at Four Moons House.”
“My triumph?” he muttered peevishly, and hated himself for sounding like Anwell and Bala.
“You can be sure I will tell my brother the whole.”
The Book of Magic Page 56
