Dangerous Waters (51 page)

Jilseth stirred the water with a thoughtful touch of mossy magic. She wasn’t convinced that Corrain would give up so easily, if he’d gone all the way to Solura in his search for magical aid. She would have liked to know if Planir agreed. She would trust the Archmage’s judgement over Galen’s from solstice to equinox and back again, but he had been locked in private conversation with Kalion, Rafrid and Flood Mistress Troanna since first light.

Meanwhile, he had sent her here to learn everything she could of Corrain’s plans. What might the volatile swordsman try next? Why would he head for Ensaimin? True, there were a great many wizards scattered among those independent fiefdoms and city-states. Lord Halferan had found one mage prepared to abandon his allegiance to the Archmage and Hadrumal. Had Corrain heard rumour of another such renegade? Would Lady Zurenne know?

‘Can you find Corrain?’

Jilseth was so taken aback that she stared at the noblewoman. It was as if her own thoughts had prompted the question.

‘Once you’ve found Starrid,’ Zurenne added quickly. ‘You must find him first and recover my daughters’ inheritance. You must force him to hand back Halferan’s coin, to the very last cut-piece.’ The noblewoman peered into the water-filled bowl although there was nothing to be seen.

‘Indeed.’ Jilseth wondered at such vehemence, at odds with that earlier delay.

Had Zurenne been truly in two minds about accepting wizardly help or had that merely been a ploy, to show Jilseth and, through her, Planir, who was truly mistress here?

Of course, Zurenne wasn’t Halferan’s mistress and they both knew it. Jilseth wondered where Lord Licanin was on the road journeying south from Ferl. He would be slowed by the entourage and baggage he had needed for the festival, to display his barony’s peace and prosperity to his fellow lords. But he would send swift riders on ahead, carrying his letters in all directions.

Jilseth had seen such a horseman arrive not half a chime before she’d been finally been summoned from the bench beside the gatehouse. She could see a substantial pile of letters on a side table here in Lady Zurenne’s sanctuary. It seemed several had been screwed up in a rage only to be salvaged from the log basket. The costly paper had resisted attempts to smooth out those creases.

‘When I have found Starrid for you, I expect you to tell me what’s going on here.’ Jilseth pointed at the heap of correspondence. ‘I want to know whatever you know of Corrain’s alliances with the other coastal baronies’ captains, of these attacks on the corsairs which their lords know nothing about.’

Zurenne shrugged. ‘What little I know.’

‘What of Corrain’s journey to Solura?’

The noblewoman looked Jilseth in the eye, unblinking. ‘I’ve no idea where he is or what he might be doing.’

Which was doubtless true, albeit very far from the whole truth. Jilseth would wager good coin on that.

She contemplated the water in the white basin and considered how she might shake the full story from Zurenne. Well, she could start with the gaudy magecraft that Planir had suggested, much as she disliked such theatrics, worthy of some apprentice too ill-disciplined or ineffectual to keep pace with more diligent pupils, turning instead to a life of playing the charlatan at the mainland’s festival fairs.

‘Shall I ring for a tisane tray?’ Zurenne suggested.

‘No, thank you.’ Jilseth was content to sit and wait and see if silence provoked Zurenne into saying something unintentionally revealing. The tactic worked for Planir often enough.

Not this time. Not before quick feet sounded on the stairs from the great hall. Raselle returned, pink-faced.

‘Forgive me, my lady.’ She bobbed a second nervous curtsey at Jilseth. ‘My lady wizard. Mistress Rauffe says that the men from the guard hall helped themselves to whatever Starrid left after they whipped him from the gate. When she cleared out the house, she slung the rest of his rubbish onto the midden beyond the walls.’

Zurenne turned back to Jilseth. ‘Can you still work the spell?’

She had paled. There was more at stake here than she was admitting, that made it all the more important that Jilseth’s spell didn’t fail. Swift success would definitely put Zurenne in Jilseth’s debt.

‘If there’s nothing of use where he lived, where did he work? Starrid must have kept your husband’s ledgers and managed his correspondence.’

‘Downstairs.’ Zurenne was on her feet. ‘In the muniment room.’

‘Lord Licanin has the keys.’ Raselle looked stricken.

‘Not all of them.’ Zurenne didn’t reach for the household keys hanging from her chain girdle. Instead she slid a hand through the seam of her skirts into a hidden pocket. ‘I’ll go. Stay here.’

Jilseth smiled at Raselle. The girl bobbed another uncertain curtsey and busied herself with lighting the oil lamp, though it was hardly needed. The long summer evening was far from dusky.

Nevertheless Raselle trimmed the wick, fetched the spark maker and pressed the handles together, once, twice, a third time. Jilseth found the sound of toothed steel rasping on flint so grating that she almost snapped her fingers to light the lamp with a fiery cantrip. Then Raselle caught a spark with the woven tow.

‘Where is my lady mother?’ Ilysh’s appearance in the doorway startled them both. They hadn’t heard a whisper of her soft slippers on the hallway’s polished floorboards.

When she’d finally been summoned, Jilseth had seen the girl at her lessons beside her sister at the long table on the great hall’s dais. Their older maidservant had seemed more interested in her knitting than in their copybooks.

Now she saw Ilysh’s gaze taking in the heap of letters, the bowl on the table and most particularly Jilseth’s own presence. There was something deep in the girl’s eyes. Defiance and some secret satisfaction, just like her mother.

Before Jilseth could think how she might tempt the girl into sharing confidences, they heard Zurenne returning. Ilysh vanished back down the hall. Jilseth heard a bedchamber door close a moment later.

Zurenne evidently suspected nothing as she returned to the withdrawing-room with assorted writing implements and accoutrements. She dumped them on the table, heedless of inky flakes soiling the embroidered linen.

Jilseth spoke before the maid could betray Ilysh’s appearance. ‘That pen-knife if you please.’

Zurenne picked up the hollow brass handle. ‘Should I fix one of the blades?’ Those would be stored within for shaping and trimming quills, to be poked through the screw cap and secured as it was tightened.

‘That won’t be necessary.’ Jilseth dropped it into the water and faint threads of ink dissolved in an emerald flash.

She let the magelight brighten until green radiance coloured the whole ceiling with an unearthly hue. Emerald reflections flickered in Zurenne’s eyes, though she maintained a fair pretence of composure. The maidservant was awestruck, her mouth slackly open.

Which would be more impressive? To draw out this display or to reveal Starrid in an instant? She could do either. Jilseth hid her own relief at finding the scoundrel so readily. That said, someone would need to identify the tavern where the villain was slumped over an outside table.

She passed a hand over the bowl, subduing the florid magelight. A vision floated on the water’s surface. ‘Do you know where this is?’

‘Raselle?’ Zurenne studied the scene within the bowl. ‘Do you know of a tavern called The Four Songs?’

The tavern’s painted sign depicted Trimon and Talagrin, Halcarion and Larasion. From the bulge in Talagrin’s breeches and the revealing gowns of the opulently-bosomed goddesses, the upper rooms offered more than a bed for the night.

They saw Starrid spring up from his bench to approach a passing man. The erstwhile steward stretched out a grimy palm only to cower away as the man warned him off with a thorn cudgel.

‘He’s begging.’ Zurenne’s voice tightened with desperation. ‘But if he hasn’t got the coin, he must know where it’s hidden. Raselle, fetch Captain Arigo. One of the troopers must know this place.’

Before the maid could obey, before Jilseth could tell them Planir would deliver Starrid bound and gagged, they heard a commotion in the courtyard below. Hooves stamped, harnesses rattled and voices shouted orders cutting across each other.

‘Lord Licanin.’ If Zurenne had been pale before, now she was ashen.

Ilysh reappeared in the doorway. ‘Mama?’ That single word held as much challenge as appeal. She saw the green radiance in the bowl of water and gasped. ‘Have you—?’

‘Go to your room,’ Zurenne snapped. ‘No. Fetch Neeny here.’

‘If you want me to help, you have to explain,’ Jilseth said swiftly. ‘What have you done?’

Zurenne shook her head, her eloquent expression warning Raselle to stand mute.

Exasperated, Jilseth stifled the scrying magic, reducing the magelight to a pinprick in the depths of the bowl.

Ilysh barely managed to return with her sister ahead of Lord Licanin and a handful of his servants. Esnina rushed to hide her face in her mother’s skirts. ‘Mama!’

‘Hush.’ Zurenne silenced the child’s sobs with a firm hand on her shoulder. ‘My Lord Licanin.’

‘Lady Zurenne.’ Licanin threw himself into a chair, the dust of the road coating his boots and cloak. ‘What has been going on here?’ he growled.

Zurenne’s eyes widened, all innocence. ‘My lord—’

‘Don’t waste my time.’ He stabbed a finger towards the side table. ‘You’ve had my letters. I want your answers, madam.’

Jilseth had thought he looked weary in Ferl. Now he looked exhausted. Lord or not, it had been an arduous journey for a man of his years.

‘On whose authority has Captain Corrain made alliances with Halferan’s neighbours? No, not alliances. Underhand pacts with their household troops without any lord’s seal of approval,’ the baron demanded with growing ire. ‘Where is he? They told me at the gatehouse that he hasn’t been here since the start of For-Summer!’

‘We do not answer to you.’

‘Lysha! Silence!’

Jilseth couldn’t decide which shocked the gathering more; Ilysh’s defiant words or seeing Zurenne so provoked that she actually raised a hand to her daughter. To no avail.

‘I don’t answer to you, mother,’ Ilysh boldly declared. ‘Only to my husband.’

‘What?’ Wrath propelled Licanin to his feet.

‘Lysha?’ Esnina looked up at her mother, no sign of tears on her red cheeks. As Zurenne stood obstinately silent, the little girl turned her head to gape at her sister. ‘Lysha has a husband?’

Defiant, Ilysh blushed scarlet. ‘Captain Corrain is now Lord of Halferan by right of marriage.’

‘Marriage?’ Licanin’s bellow was loud enough to silence the noise in the courtyard below the window.

‘We don’t need you telling us what to do,’ Ilysh shouted back. ‘We won’t need your coin once the lady wizard finds my father’s fortune!’

The baron ignored her, narrowing his eyes at Raselle. At his gesture, a Licanin swordsman seized her arm. ‘You, girl, what do you know?’

‘Leave her alone.’ Zurenne took a step forward, fending off Esnina’s clinging hands.

‘Well?’ At Licanin’s nod, the swordsman gave the maidservant a menacing shake.

‘My lady Ilysh is truly married.’ Raselle shot Zurenne a look of desperate appeal. ‘In the shrine. I saw it.’

Licanin crossed the room with swift strides. He caught Ilysh by the chin and stared at her intently. Everyone saw the girl trembling, tears welling in her eyes. The baron released her with more gentleness than Jilseth expected.

‘Wedded, I dare say, but not bedded.’ He shook his head, somewhat calmer. ‘You wouldn’t let it go so far, my lady, whatever that man might offer you. I take it she was his price? For a few sunken galleys and some dead corsairs? You sell your daughter and her birthright cheaply, and to such a man.’ His disgust was palpable.

‘At least he was my choice,’ Zurenne retorted. ‘Who would you have handed me to, and my daughters, for the sake of Licanin’s trade or to secure some favour among the parliament’s cliques? At least Corrain is defending Halferan. He undertook to catch and kill the raiders instead of abandoning the coast to them!’

‘I have abandoned nothing!’ Her attack rekindled Licanin’s anger. ‘I have a grant of guardianship sealed by the barons’ parliament. I will have this masquerade marriage set aside, and since this is how you safeguard your children, I’ll see you set aside as well. They’ll be raised in my own household—’

‘You can do nothing until Equinox.’ Zurenne defied him. ‘Even then, don’t wager that you’ll succeed. Ilysh was married with every rite and legality well before any grant of guardianship. My lady Jilseth, you’ll stand as my witness?’

As she held out a shaking hand, Lord Licanin rounded on Jilseth.

‘You were privy to this marriage?’ He was appalled. ‘We have Hadrumal to thank for this outrage?’

‘You do not,’ she snapped, ‘and I knew nothing of this till today.’

She wasn’t convinced this was all that Zurenne was hiding. The noblewoman hadn’t answered Licanin’s question about Corrain’s whereabouts.

‘Then why are you here, madam mage?’ Licanin gestured at the bowl on the table. ‘To work more sorcery for the Archmage’s ends?’

‘No.’ Jilseth dipped her hands in the water to wash them. Once she’d hidden the brass cylinder of the pen knife with an invisible touch of magic, she calmly rinsed her face. ‘As I’m sure they can tell you at the gatehouse, I’ve not long arrived myself.’ That was stretching the truth but patting her face dry with the towel hid her expression as well as muffling her words. ‘The summer’s heat on the road is punishing, isn’t it?’

She would keep Zurenne’s search for Starrid a secret, if only to drive the noblewoman deeper into her debt. But she could not let Lord Licanin’s accusation go unchallenged. Any suspicion that Hadrumal had some underhand part in this scandalous marriage would run from barony to barony across Caladhria as quick as a rat chased by a cat.

‘I can stand witness to today’s events,’ she said quickly as Licanin rounded on Zurenne, ‘as my lady of Halferan doubtless meant, since I have no ties or obligations to this barony or any other. So I suggest we test these claims of a marriage.’

Perhaps hearing what had gone on would give her some inkling to Zurenne’s motives. Before that, Jilseth urgently wanted some privacy, a candle stub and a spoon to bespeak Planir. To get those she must break the deadlock now paralysing the room.