Son of Avonar

CHAPTER 5

Evard. To consider how infatuated I had been with him still revolted me. Oh, he was handsome enough: tall, with shoulders as sturdy as a fortress tower, fair hair that drooped over one of his gray eyes as if in invitation to share a wicked jest, graceful hands that were always warm and never unsure. What Leiran girl of sixteen would not have been swept off her feet by such a dashing young duke, conqueror of an enemy’s city at twenty?

My brother Tomas was already a swordsman of wide reputation, and he had attracted Evard’s notice while serving in his regiment during the subjugation of Valleor. It was on the brilliant summer day of Evard’s triumphant return to Montevial, as I stood with my father on our town-house balcony watching the victorious legions ride by, that I first fell under Evard’s shadow. Life shifted when he looked at me. The first change in a year of changes…

Year 26 in the reign of King Gevron

“Look, Papa, there’s Tomas, at the front of the troop! Next to the dark-haired adjutant just behind Duke Evard. Doesn’t he look fine?”

My father squinted into the noonday, holding up one hand against the glare from the whitewashed houses and their new glass windows across the wide street. He rarely came out of his library anymore. He’d not been the same man since my mother had died of fever when I was nine. I hoped that seeing the proud legions, hearing the drums of their marching, and feeling the glory of Tomas so favored would inspire him to his horse and arms again. He was not too old to ride in service to Leire, not yet forty, and his forearms still bulged with muscle. But only my firm hold on his arm kept him from retreating into the dim room behind the balcony door. “Quite fine. Now let me loose, girl. Both flask and cup are empty.” Even at noonday, he reeked of his wine.

Still holding my father’s arm, I tossed the yellow and purple garlands the servants had brought from the market that morning. I came near letting loose a most unmaidenly yell at Tomas, afraid his manly bearing might prevent his looking up at us as the Third Legion of Leire rode through the cheering crowds of servants, boys, and shopkeepers, and the maidens of marriageable age being thrust into the warriors’ path. But just as the purple-robed priests carried the guide-staffs topped with the Swordsman’s rising sun and the Navigator’s crescent moon past the stoop before our own, Tomas leaned forward, laid his hand on his commander’s sleeve, and pointed up at our balcony.

Duke Evard tossed back his fair hair and fixed his attention on my face, and I felt my color rise as if I’d actually yelled out a soldier’s lewd blessing or dropped straw on Tomas’s head as I might have done in teasing one short year ago. I dropped my father’s arm and gripped the rail of the balcony. To my breathless astonishment, the duke pulled out of the ranks and waved his troops on forward while he positioned his mount just beneath me, stood on his saddle, and reached for our iron trellis that was thick with the dark green leaves and orange blossoms of trumpet vines. As agile as an Isker acrobat, Duke Evard shinnied up the trellis and over the rail until he stood on the balcony beside me. Bowing gallantly from the waist, he presented me with a bouquet of white lilies some admirer had thrust into his hands.

Cheeks burning, I accepted the flowers and was scarcely halfway through my curtsy when he scrambled over the rail again. To a laughing roar from the crowd and his troops, he leaped into the saddle and spurred his charger forward, retaking his position at the front. Neither he nor Tomas looked back.

Evard claimed he was my slave from that moment. It did not occur to me at the time that the daughter of the oldest house in the kingdom would make an excellent match for one with royal ambition. And neither Evard nor Tomas nor any Leiran ever mentioned that his bloody victory had exterminated the entire population of the lovely, refined Vallorean city he had conquered. Years went by before I learned that part of the story.

My father died when I was eighteen. His passing was a mercy in so many ways, both for him—a great man before his grieving decline—and for me. Though Papa was only forty-one, the tally of noble deeds we had the priests engrave upon his memorial stele in Annadis’s temple comforted us that the Holy Twins would not forget him or our family when telling stories of earthly heroes. And I could not be betrothed in the year of mourning.

During that year I learned a great deal about Evard. He spent much of his time with Tomas at Comigor Keep, our musty holding on the northern downs, sparring in the fencing yard and making himself at home in our grand old library, drinking my father’s brandy and talking of those who would stand between him and the throne when King Gevron died. I had listened to men’s politics since nursery days, more than ever since my mother’s death. And so there came a time when my curiosity prodded me to question Evard’s certainties.

Year 28 in the reign of King Gevron

“But Evard,” I said on one evening, “doesn’t the law say that when only nieces and nephews are left, it’s the children of the king’s eldest sibling that will inherit?”

“Don’t trouble yourself, my duchess,” he said. “When the time comes, there will be no one but me. I have information, you see. My aide Darzid—a truly valuable addition to my staff—has discovered that Vennick has troubles with his estates. I do believe the good earl has failed to pay his levies for ever so many years, and, in fact, evidence will come to light that he has unlawfully diverted the taxes of his vassals… to his own purposes.” He widened his eyes in shock, then he and Tomas burst into laughter that I didn’t quite understand. I didn’t quite approve of it, either.

“And my cousin Frederic. Have you heard the rumors? It’s being said he’s a bastard, that my Aunt Catherine was never legally married to Colburn. Why, the whole brood could be turned out onto the streets if a witness was ever to be found to the matter. Dear Aunt Catherine, who would ever have picked her for a common whore? I couldn’t bear to see her made to do public penance, though. The thought of her shaven head nauseates me!”

“You can’t be serious! Lady Catherine?” My mind stretched yet again into unfamiliar realms.

“And I don’t think Martin is a serious contender. He has very strange friends.”

Martin, Earl of Gault, was one of my favorite people in the world. He was about forty-five and, like all Leiran men, had been a soldier. He now held a powerful position at court. A distant cousin of my mother, he was a wise, cultured, and witty man. On my seventeenth birthday, Martin had issued me an invitation to join him and some guests for a few days at his estate, assuring my father that I would be properly chaperoned. He hosted these “salons” for three days in the first week of every month, inviting a variety of fascinating and unusual people, and providing his guests with charades and plays, jugglers and mimes, word games, puzzles, and lively debates about anything and everything. Martin thought no one too young to participate if the person could make good conversation, which he denned as anything beyond fashion, horses, and the war of the moment.

I had spent my childhood with horses and dogs, playing at war with Tomas, listening to my father and his friends talk of battles and conquest, politics and managing estates. I was sure that every intelligent person in Leire believed the same as they on every matter of importance. But every day spent in the stimulating company at Windham advanced my education a whole level. There I began to learn of history, art, philosophy, and music, to question the certainties of politics and piety, and to experience the pleasures of sharp wit and well-considered disagreement.

I thought Martin would make a marvelous king, but I never said so to Evard or Tomas or even to Darzid, Evard’s charming, cynical aide who began accompanying Evard to Comigor that summer and quickly became my favorite dinner companion. Tomas disdained Martin, saying that anyone who would dress himself up as a beggar for a Long Night entertainment had too little dignity to be a sovereign. When I told Martin of my brother’s comment, he said, “It does me good to dress as a beggar now and then. Gives me wondrous understanding of my tenants and my soldiers, having to do without boots in the cold.” Though he tossed it off lightly, I knew that he meant what he said.

It was at Windham, Martin’s sprawling country house, that I met Julia, countess of Helton, a brilliant and elegant young widow. Julia was the first woman I had ever known who could hold her own in serious conversation with men. From the first evening of our acquaintance, I wanted to be like her. Fortunately, Julia’s rank made her a chaperone of impeccable credentials, for my father—and later, my brother—would never have allowed me to continue in such liberal company without.

Julia and Martin were passionately in love. They could not marry because Julia’s dead husband’s powerful family refused their consent. Martin would have had her as his mistress in an instant, but as he was third in line to the throne, Julia would not permit him to compromise his reputation. Certain influential Leirans required behavior in their kings-to-be that they did not require in their kings, she told me. Though I never saw them so much as touch hands, their intimacy was such that on occasion I felt like a crass intruder just watching one offer the other a glass of wine.

Resident in Martin’s household were two brothers, Tennice and Tanager, second and third sons of a minor baron who had too little property to share among his children. Only military service or the priesthood were considered suitable occupations for landless noblemen. The baron, unwilling for his sons to reap the scorn reserved for men who would choose temple service over arms, had sent them to serve the earl. Martin had discovered in the two a depth of talent and loyalty that quickly raised them out of the ranks and into his inner circle.

Tennice was the elder, serious and scholarly, his thin face forever pushed into a book unless one made a chance remark about law or politics within his hearing. He had a remarkable memory, which had imprinted on it everything he had ever read. He was Martin’s chief counselor, and thus accompanied the earl on all his business.

On one occasion, after an intense, three-day discussion of matters of royal succession and the peerage, Tennice invited me, quite sincerely, to read law with him. Perhaps I could move in with Julia, whose estates bordered Martin’s? I was overwhelmed by the compliment, for it was unheard of for a woman to participate in such intellectual pursuits, and I was surely no scholar. Of course, I had to refuse. My father was newly buried, and Tomas would never permit me to leave home unmarried for such a purpose. But as soon as I returned to Comigor, I began to receive books on law and politics and philosophy, and copious notes in Tennice’s own handwriting. I studied them intensely, so I could discuss them on my next visit. I was determined to deserve his regard.

Tanager was Martin’s aide and bodyguard and the very opposite of his brother, muscular and rash, exaggerated in every way. No one would plunge into Martin’s enterprises with more enthusiasm. His broad shoulders would bear a donkey’s head for a Long Night farce or bloodstained armor in his lord’s service with equal willingness and enjoyment. Again and again he would lavish his heart and his attentions on a woman, only to plunge into deep depression when she discovered his lack of fortune and abandoned him. The others teased that he should wear his armor in Martin’s drawing rooms, as no one ever came out of the conversational battles more bloodied than Tanager.

By the autumn that I turned nineteen, I felt more at home at Windham than at Comigor…

Year 29 in the reign of King Gevron

I arrived in early evening, breathless with the chill wind of the open carriage. Julia met me with a kiss and swept me toward the fire, snatching off my cloak and tossing it to a manservant. “Dear Seri, I’m so glad you’re here. I’m in desperate need of an ally. Your cousin is being an ass again.” Martin and a portly noble of similar age were propounding their dismay over the recent visit by one Baroness Lavastre to the Council of Lords. The formidable woman had intruded on the Council’s deliberations, insisting that she be allowed to offer opinion on a property ruling being considered by the body, her husband being away at war and his man of business recently deceased. “It’s true the woman had an excellent grasp of tariffs and the subtleties of trading-company acquisitions,” said Martin, clasping his hands behind his back and shaking his head with such gravity, one might think the woman had suggested Leire surrender a city or two to a wild-haired Isker warlord. “I discussed the matter with her in this very room only last spring. But if we allowed her to speak to the Council, why then next month she would want to vote her husband’s shares!”

“And why should she not?” Julia riposted as we joined Tennice, Tanager, and several other younger men who had settled on the couches and chairs near the fire. “A good mind for business with a few fresh ideas could increase everyone’s profits.”

“Perhaps, if women were allowed to speak, some consideration might be given to the smaller shareholds whose masters are younger and thus all away at the war,” I added, not even pausing to give Martin his usual peck on the cheek before joining the fray. “As it is, only those too cowardly or too old to serve are voting. They’re running smaller trading companies into the ground…” It was an old argument, and Martin always started it up again whenever a fellow member of the Council of Lords showed up in his drawing room. Did he believe his own pronouncements? I was sure I had heard him argue exactly the opposite way on earlier occasions when Tennice had brought out the points of law that prohibited women’s voices being heard in the Council chambers.

We pursued the matter until supper was announced. Almost everyone in the fireside circle had seen his ideas upheld or trounced, and had been called variously a fossil, a libertine, or an anarchist fit only for the mad speakers’ corners near the Royal University in Valleor. Only one observer had stayed quiet throughout the discussion—a slender, dark-haired stranger, who stood leaning on the corner of the tall marble mantelpiece, arms folded across his chest. His blue eyes and high cheekbones gave him a slightly foreign look, though I could not guess his origins. He was clean-shaven, and conservatively dressed in a black doublet, high-collared white shirt, and slim black breeches, though in any Leiran house he would be inevitably conspicuous for the lack of a sword at his side. When the supper truce was called, and Martin bent over me for his greeting kiss, my cousin flicked his glance to the man. “Did I not tell you we had a lively forum here, my friend?”

The stranger looked from Martin to me, crinkling his eyebrows as if making a serious study. “Are all the women in Leire so opinionated, or is it only those with fire in their hair?” He spoke in a soft, melodious baritone. “I’ve lived among many strange cultures, and in few are women allowed a voice until they’re at least eighty. Now I think I understand why.” If his marvelous eyes had not sparkled with good humor, I might have been offended.

Martin almost choked on smothered laughter. “Lady Seriana Marguerite, duchess-daughter of Comigor, may I present my good friend Karon, a gentleman of Valleor. He is a traveling historian and archeologist on leave from the University, come to study the people of Leire and our peculiar customs. Karon, you must call her Seri or you’ll never have a chance to get in a word of your own…”

The gentleman bowed and took my hand, raising it to his forehead in the Vallorean way. I had never seen a man so graceful. He was of an age with Julia—late twenties— and I plagued him shamelessly with questions throughout that evening, even more forward than usual as his air of mystery intrigued me so. But he remained vague about his origins, saying only that he’d spent most of his life moving from one place to another after the death of his parents when he was very young. By the end of my three-day visit, I realized that I had done far more talking than he.

The ensuing months passed much too quickly. Once having met Karon, I never looked back to Evard. Karon’s intellect and interests were wide-ranging, embracing subjects far from his specialties. Martin had taught me how to argue, how to poke and prod my opponent with strange ideas and bits of information, twisting and turning words into knots and puzzles, until both of us came out panting with the mental exertion. The purpose of it was never the winning or the losing, but only the exhilaration of the contest. Karon was never averse to taking a position far from his own simply to further the enjoyment of the fray. He reveled in the game, while Evard was interested only in winners and losers.

My year of mourning was almost over, but I was not ready to give up the freedoms it had granted me. When the months had shrunk to days, I decided that I must speak to Tomas.

“The year is up next week,” I said one evening, as we sat alone in the Comigor dining room.

“So it is. Will Evard offer for you?” Tomas seemed more interested in the slice of roast pork he was carving to refill his plate.

“You know his mind better than I.”

“His mind is on the succession. Gevron grows more feeble each day.”

I pushed a compote of currants and blackberries within his reach, watching a drop of the deep purple sweetness soak into the white table linen. “What if Evard doesn’t win as he expects?”

“He’ll win.”

“But what if he doesn’t, and I’m betrothed to him?” My own meal sat untouched on my plate.

My question clearly set him thinking. Tomas would feel it disloyal to speculate on Evard’s failure—and Tomas was anything but disloyal—but a rich, virginal, and reasonably attractive young duchess was a considerable asset, not to be thrown away even for friendship and loyalty. I knew my worth.

“An interesting question.” He said nothing more about it that night or any other night following. But when the year was up, Evard did not offer. After some weeks, I broached the subject once again, but Tomas said only that Evard had agreed he had no time for betrothals or weddings or wives. Not until his position was secure.

That was enough for the moment. I lived for my days at Windham and harbored no illusions about my future. I was a key to Tomas’s fortune every bit as much as his strong sword arm. Many brothers would have forbidden the freedom I had, so I treasured my friendship with Karon and all Martin’s circle, and I acknowledged nothing beyond it.

Year 31 in the reign of King Gevron

King Gevron fooled everyone by lasting two more years. Though Evard chafed, he was not idle. As he had predicted, an astonished Earl of Vennick was found guilty of diverting tax revenues into his own pockets and retired to his country estate in disgrace. And a witness signed documents avowing that the priest of Jerrat who had presided at the wedding of Gevron’s sister Lady Catherine to Sir Charles Colburn was an impostor, unknown to any temple in Leire. Therefore Lady Catherine’s son Frederic, Duke of Warburton, was a bastard and had no claim to his uncle’s throne.

With no little unease, I watched Evard bind Tomas ever more closely to his fortunes. Evard told my brother that it was time he named his own military staff. As the lord of such a vast holding as Comigor, Tomas should replace the old Comigor captains who were beholden to our father with younger men who would be loyal to him alone. Evard even offered to loan him Captain Darzid.

To think of my father’s loyal commanders thus dismissed, seven fierce and honorable warriors who had dandled me on their knees when I was small, who had taught me to shoot a bow and still brought me exotic gifts from their travels, was insupportable. In the past year, as Tomas and Evard had become more engrossed in their intrigues, I had spent a great deal of time with Captain Darzid. I enjoyed his wit and found his ever-sarcastic observations of Leiran courtiers amusing. So, on the night before the change of command, I sought him out at his townhouse and explained my feelings.

He pressed wine into my hands and, once done with his delightful renderings of my brother’s shock and the scandalized court ladies’ gossip at my secret venture into a bachelor’s house, seemed sincerely interested in my pleas. “What would you have me do, my lady? I am ever at your command as you well know. But my refusing the post will not help the old curmudgeons. Nor should it. Duke Tomas is absolutely right; your own safety depends on his control of his troops.”

“You’re clever, Darzid. I know you care for no one but yourself”—we had discussed this many times—“but for this once, bend your wit to a kindness. I’ll think of something magnificent to reward you. I swear it.”

He promised to think about it, and indeed on the next day as the seven were forced to turn in their shields and strip the four guardian rings of Comigor from their surcoats, he presented each man with a fine new sword, a new warhorse, and a document vouching for his valor and loyalty, so that he could get a new position with another house.

When I thanked Darzid for extending himself so generously and on such short notice, he looked at me in an oddly calculating way that left me feeling uncomfortably exposed. “I would have as soon seen them hanged, lady. But the prospect of a reward from you… that intrigued me enough to spend a small fortune and a night’s work.”

Interregnum

By the time King Gevron gave in and joined his forefathers in the great tomb on Pythian Hill, Martin was first in line for the throne, and, after him, Evard. Tennice said it was only a matter of time until some accusation surfaced about Martin. Even after all I’d heard, I refused to believe that, either of Evard, who was almost certainly to be my husband, or of Tomas. But a few days before the Council of Lords was to announce the succession, the Council received a letter avowing that Martin, Earl of Gault, had sheltered a sorcerer. The letter named one Alfredo, a resident of Windham who had died the previous year.

I remembered Alfredo. The rumpled and absent-minded mathematician had once been Martin’s tutor. Martin had offered the old man a home at Windham when he lost his last position due to failing hearing and other circumstances of age. Alfredo often forgot where he was, frequently misplaced his handkerchiefs and his books, and seldom dined with the rest of the household, ashamed of his trembling hands that could not hold a knife. But, despite his declining faculties, he remained extraordinarily good at chess, and with intense and exuberant joy he pursued his sole remaining purpose in life, designing complex chess problems in hopes of stumping Martin. One could not imagine Alfredo feeding his dark powers on blood, murdering children to use for depraved rites, raising demons to drive men to madness, twisting the beauties of nature into grotesque parodies, or carrying out any other of the evil works popularly attributed to sorcerers. And how could anyone believe that Martin, so wise and perceptive, would give shelter to an abominable heretic? The whole thing was absurd, yet the accusation could not be ignored. The extermination laws would not permit it.

Sorcery was a vile and wicked practice, the last dregs of the chaotic evil from the Beginnings, before the First God Arot had defeated the beasts of earth and the monsters of the deep and given dominion over the world to his twin sons, Annadis and Jerrat. In the past few years, I had learned that a number of intelligent and otherwise honorable Leirans looked skeptically on our sacred stories and rituals. But to countenance sorcery was to invite horror and chaos back into the world, denying the gods themselves— the very gods who stood beside our king and his soldiers on every battlefield.

The announcement of the succession was postponed, and the Council of Lords convened to hear the arguments. The principal witness was a chambermaid who had been dismissed from Windham the previous year. She had been assigned to take care of Alfredo’s room, and a terrible burden it had been, she said. No one understood why the earl kept such a disgusting creature about. Alfredo was crude and had foul habits, just as she had always been taught about sorcerers. The old man marked papers with arcane symbols and patterns, and he cursed and murmured over them when she peeked through his door. He would always hide the papers from her and swear that she would never steal his secrets. He ate in his room, she said, not with proper company, and often she would spy him gnawing on meat that was just the size as would be a human baby. I had heard no more ridiculous accusations in my life. Knowing the old man and his preoccupations, every bit of these foolish accusations could be explained.

Despite the people’s horror of the practice, and the priests’ insistence that the merest taint of sorcery must be thoroughly investigated, Tennice was able to convince the Lords that there was no evidence to convict Martin of so much as discussing the dark arts, much less harboring one of the vile in his home. The Council ruled that Martin was not guilty of the accusations, but that since Alfredo himself could not be examined, it was impossible to determine whether the old man had truly been a sorcerer. That was enough. As long as any doubt remained, Martin would never be king. That was all Evard really wanted.

The afternoon of the verdict was dreary, the autumnal gloom deepened by a miserable downpour. Throughout the hearing, Tomas had sat beside me in the Council Hall, making sure I was seen nowhere near Martin or the others, but after the ruling he went off with Evard, abandoning me with servants to take me home. Instead, I traveled to Windham. Just the six of us were there: Martin, Karon, Julia, Tanager, Tennice, and me. We said we were going to celebrate, but the dinner was dismal. Martin left the dining room before the soup was taken away. The rest of us picked at the meal in silence. After an hour Tennice dismissed the servants, telling them to take the rest of the night as a holiday in honor of the earl’s vindication. The five of us retired to the library.

Only two lamps were lit against the gloom. The dark leather of the furnishings and deep, rich reds of the rugs suited our mood very well. “I never thought he cared so much,” I said to Julia, who sat staring at the closed door of Martin’s study, her eyes shining with unshed tears. “He always treated the throne as such a remote possibility, spoke of it so irreverently, that I thought—”

“It’s what he wanted people to think,” she said, “to discourage any interest in him. But he lived for it. It’s how he put up with all the foolishness and idiocy of court life. Frederic and Vennick had agreed to cede the throne to him if they were named. They’d won a clear majority on the Council to his support… until all of this stupidity. The whole world is askew, and he can see so clearly what needs to be done to set it right. It will drive him mad to be relegated to impotence once more, to see Evard in his place, destroying what remnants of civilization linger in Leire.”

While Martin remained closeted in his study and the others drank brandy and regaled each other with sporadic bursts of funereal humor, Karon asked if I would walk with him in the gardens. I was happy to get out. Sitting and thinking was the last thing I wanted at the moment.

We strolled down gravel paths that wound through manicured bowers of roses and lilacs and into wild gardens of foxtail and harebells and summerlace. Around every corner was a lovely surprise: a grassy grotto with a stone bench or perhaps a pool or fountain tucked amid the ferns and trees like the presents hidden about houses and gardens for children at the Feast of Vines in the spring.

The evening air smelled damp and earthy from the afternoon rain. After a while Karon lagged behind, and I glanced over my shoulder to see him standing in the middle of the path staring upward, watching the first star emerge from the deep blue of the clearing sky. He was forever dawdling when we walked out, stopping to examine the subtle shading of a primrose, or peer underneath a water lily to see the silver trout hiding there, or gaze for moments at a time at a raindrop poised at the edge of a leaf. I had never known anyone so entranced with nature, with people, with beauty—or so observant of them.

I had no heart for gardens or beauty. A message had arrived just before dinner. Tomas would be at Windham the next morning to escort me to the royal palace in Montevial. My time had run out. The knowledge that I might never return to Martin’s house except as Evard’s wife dissolved my resolution like frost in sunlight.

“You are extraordinarily quiet,” Karon said after a while. “Am I too distracted?”

“No. I wish I could do as you seem to do, take in all this to hazard against an uncertain future.”

“Ah.” We walked on.

The silence was too heavy. “Will you travel again soon?” I asked.

“Perhaps. I’ve stayed here much longer than I intended. I should go.”

“And where will you go? Whom will you study next?”

As always, his smile illuminated his face as if his inner being had taken fire. “I’ve heard of a land of flame-haired women—” He never finished the jest.

Tanager burst into the garden from the library doors. “Karon, Seri, come! It’s Martin. The blasted fool has tried to kill himself.”

We ran through the gardens, up the steps, and through the doors that led into Martin’s study. He was slumped in his chair by the fire, scarcely breathing, his lips a sickly blue, his eyes glazed, spittle stringing from the corner of his slack mouth. A glass of wine had fallen from his hand, and Julia knelt beside his chair, staring in horror at a silver vial in her hand. “Oh, my darling, you said this was only for the worst of times, and we weren’t there yet. Not yet. How could you?”

Karon took the vial. “What is it?”

“I don’t know the name,” said Julia, pressing one hand to her mouth and wrapping the other about her stomach. “Martin brought it from Valleor years ago. He said it was made by jonglers, a ‘diplomatic gift” he couldn’t refuse. They told him it was painless, and that it was always good to have a way out of the worst of times. He joked about it. Never, ever, did I think…“

Karon did not hesitate. “Tanager, bring me a knife. Sharp and clean. Just do it! Don’t ask questions.” He gave Tennice a plain white linen handkerchief. “Rip it into three strips and tie them together end to end. Tight.” Martin was limp as Karon lifted him to the floor; his eyes had rolled back in his head, and his tongue was swollen and discolored, threatening to choke off what little breath remained in him.

Hurriedly Karon removed his coat, loosened the left sleeve of his shirt at the wrist, and then knelt on the rug beside Martin. When Tanager returned, Karon took the knife, then glanced up at us hovering close about him. After an ever-so-slight nod of his head, he closed his eyes, opened his arms wide, and spoke with quiet intensity. “Life, hold! Stay your hand. Halt your foot ere it takes another step along the Way. Grace your son once more with your voice that whispers in the deeps, with your spirit that sings in the wind, with the fire that blazes in your gifts of joy and sorrow. Fill my soul with light, and let the darkness make no stand in this place.”

He gripped Martin’s hand and with a flash of the knife made a deep and bloody gash in Martin’s arm. Before any one of us could cry out or pull him away, he pushed up his left sleeve and did the same to himself. He had done it before. His arm was covered with scars. Hundreds of them.

“What in the name of all gods—?”

Karon ignored Tanager’s outburst, holding out the knotted handkerchief. “Bind us together. Hurry, if you love him.” His command was tight and hard. Cradling Martin’s head with his right hand to ease his choking, he positioned his wound over Martin’s and had Tanager tie their bleeding arms together as tightly as possible. Tanager’s hands were trembling. “Now, all of you stay back.” Eyes fixed on Martin’s face, Karon whispered, “J’den encour,” in a language I did not know.

I sank onto a stool by the fire, stunned and speechless. This must be another of Martin’s pageants. Surely in a moment he would pop up and say, “Good joke!” and Karon would show us how the knife was a trick and the blood was not real and nothing out of the ordinary was occurring here. But instead, Karon remained kneeling at Martin’s side, the two of them bound together in this strange brotherhood. Karon’s eyes were closed again, his head bowed, and for an hour he did not move. Nor did any of us, shocked and terrified as we were. I could feel a charge in the air like a veil of lightning, shimmering about us, ready to strike our hearts still at any moment.

The clocks in the Windham tower chimed a second hour. Just as I thought my chest must burst or my head split, Martin sighed and began to breathe easier, faint pink replacing the morbid blue of his lips. Karon was ashen, sweat pouring down his face. He swayed a bit, and Tanager moved to catch Martin before Karon could drop his head to the floor. But without moving or opening his eyes, Karon said hoarsely, “No! You must not. Only when I tell you.” Tanager paled and backed away, clasping his hands tight as if they’d been scorched.

Another quarter of an hour and Martin’s eyelids fluttered; his cheeks grew rosy.

“Cut the binding now.” Karon’s voice was no more than a whisper.

Gingerly, Tennice picked up the knife Karon had dropped and slit the strip of linen. Martin’s arm exhibited no drop of blood, no mark; on Karon’s arm was only a new pale scar among all the rest. Karon gently laid Martin on the rug and backed away, but remained on his knees, arms folded, shoulders hunched, looking pale and fragile, almost transparent. He did not raise his head.

Martin sat up slowly, rubbing his temples and blinking as he looked about the room. “What’s going on here? Why so solemn? Stars and planets, Karon, you look like death.”

Karon, eyes still averted, said softly, “I think there are those not far from here who’ll tell you that is exactly what I look like.”

Martin glanced from Karon to the rest of us, and only after an awkward moment did his puzzled gaze settle on the spilled glass of wine, the silver vial, and Karon grimly fastening his left sleeve as if he could hide what was there. “Oh, my friend, what have you done”—his voice was filled with shock and distress, but no surprise—“and what have I, in my unbounded self-pity, done to you?”

“If Evard is to be king, then he must have someone worthy to keep an eye on him, to be ready when his subjects take his full measure,”—Karon glanced at Martin, his smile as pale as the rest of him—“and we’d miss your entertainments so.”

“And did you tell these others what you were about?”

Karon laughed ruefully and blotted his neck with the remains of his handkerchief. “I thought it best to surprise them with it. More in keeping with the Windham tradition of puzzles and mysteries. I thought that if I were to reveal my little secret, I’d best get some good out of it and make sure you were here to defend me.” His color was returning.

“And what did you think we would do?” asked Julia, abruptly sitting herself on the carpet between the two men and grasping one hand from each, forcing Karon to look at her. “Such faith you have in your friends!”

Tennice stood behind Karon and laid a long, thin hand on his shoulder. “Have you listened to nothing we’ve said these past two years? We know what kind of man you are, and nothing you’ve revealed this night makes any change in it.” Then Tanager sagged onto the couch cushions, saying sorcery must not be all it was made out to be, as it looked more like work than the devilish fun he’d been led to believe.

I sat on the hearth stool, trying to comprehend what it was I had witnessed. Nothing was as it had been. The world had changed as surely and irrevocably as if I had been struck deaf or blind, or had been roused from deafness to hearing or blindness to sight. But, just as Tennice had said, I knew this man. “Martin, I think there are some inaccuracies in the lessons I’ve been taught. I certainly hope someone has plans to set me straight.”