Lessons in Etiquette (Schooled in Magic series) (47 page)

Emily swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood up, gratified to realize that she wasn’t shaky. Her hands didn’t
look
scarred, she decided, as she looked down at them, but there was a hint of a tremble as she held them in front of her face. She’d just have to hope and pray that she hadn’t caused herself any permanent damage. Professor Thande’s hand had been scarred so badly that Emily didn’t understand how he could still use it.

Magic has a price
, she thought, remembering one of her tutors saying that to her.
Sometimes the price is very high indeed. Even the necromancers pay a high price for their power. They lose their sanity
.

“Get me some proper clothes,” she ordered, as she started to pull off what remained of the garment she’d borrowed from Imaiqah. Between the fight and stains caused by various potions, it was no longer wearable. Emily promised herself that she could buy Imaiqah a new outfit as soon as the whole affair was over. “And then find me something to eat.”

Pat snorted. “Typical sorceress,” she said. “Barely recovered from a life-threatening accident and she’s already barking orders.”

Emily flushed, realizing just how much she sounded like the old Alassa.

“Don’t worry about it,” Pat added, with a nasty grin. She picked up a dark bundle and passed it to Emily. “I believe that you will be eating with the others tonight.”

Emily finished undressing and donned the new outfit. It was a black tunic, loose enough to hide the shape of her body and allow her to move properly, but not dramatic enough to call attention to her. Emily had picked up more than she wanted to know about courtly fashion, thanks to the princes, and knew that it was the type of outfit that would be worn by a very minor aristocrat. The soldiers should leave her alone as long as she didn’t do anything too suspicious. Once she’d finished dressing, she went through the pockets of her old outfit and recovered Alassa’s handkerchief. It was still stained with her friend’s blood.

An idea occurred to her and she carefully folded the handkerchief before putting it in her new pockets. Pat gave her an odd look, then beckoned for Emily to follow her out of the room and into a larger room. It was almost empty, apart from Imaiqah, her father and two younger councilors, both wearing their chains of office. Emily wondered briefly how they’d managed to escape the soldiers who’d attacked the inn. But if the soldiers had been mainly concerned with Alassa, they might have ignored everyone else.

Imaiqah welcomed Emily with a hug, her eyes showing her relief. Emily couldn’t help noticing that her friend was limping slightly, although her leg had definitely been healed. Healing spells didn’t always compensate for the shock caused by physical trauma, she knew, if only because it wasn’t very well understood by the healers. There wouldn’t be any physical cause for her pains, but they would torment Imaiqah for days before finally fading away.

“It’s good to see you,” Paren said. Imaiqah’s father looked deeply worried. “What are they going to do to the princess?”

Emily shook her head. “I have no idea,” she said, “but I don’t think it will be anything good.”

The thought made her scowl. No one in the room knew better than her how easy it was to turn someone into a puppet. Shadye might have taken advantage of Emily’s unique blood to control her, but Alassa had only a handful of blood relatives. The Royal Bloodline was supposed to provide some protection against mind control, yet…would it really stand up to a sorcerer who was quite prepared to do whatever it took to take control of the lawful heir to the throne?

Her scowl deepened as she remembered Zed’s reaction to her questions about the Royal Bloodline. What if the Court Wizard, the same person who had carefully crippled Alassa’s ability to learn magic, had been working on controlling the Royal Bloodline all along? If the duke had been manipulated by an outside force, would he have been
aware
of it? And, as Sergeant Miles had pointed out more than once, a truth spell wouldn’t work if the person lying didn’t
know
that he was lying. The Royal Bloodline couldn’t do any better. If the duke had been unaware that he’d been used as a puppet…

…But if so, why bother with the coup at all?

On the other hand, most powerful magicians hated the thought of anyone meddling in their field of interest. Zed might have been furious because Emily had dared to question his work and encourage King Randor to bring in outside experts, rather than because he was trying to hide something. And, of course, she’d implied that his work had been less than perfect…few magicians would take that lightly. It wouldn’t matter if she was right or wrong. He’d still be dreadfully upset at the mere suggestion.

Imaiqah’s father tapped the table, drawing her attention to the map he’d placed on it. “The problem is that we cannot storm the castle,” he said. “Do you have a spell powerful enough to break through their wards?”

“Probably not,” Emily admitted. She looked up at him, suddenly. “You’ve been planning…
something…
for a while, haven’t you?”

“Yes,” Paren admitted, finally. “If the king decided to crack down on us…”

He shook his head. “But we couldn’t storm the castle,” he added. “The best we could do is lay siege to it–and that would take weeks, at least, before they had to surrender. In the meantime, other garrisons could march towards Alexis and reclaim the city.”

Emily nodded. Unless they had a really powerful sorcerer on their side, the combination of the castle’s wards and stone walls would make it effectively impregnable. Castles had been taken by storm before, according to Sergeant Harkin, but the attackers
always
suffered disproportionate casualties. Indeed, he’d added rather snidely, the attacking force had often won the battle only to lose the war. They’d been broken in the hour of their triumph.

We’re going to have to invent gunpowder
, she thought. But the early experiments had not proven successful. Pulling the basic formula out of her mind had taken a handful of memory spells, but the alchemists had been unable to get it to work properly. That might have been caused by the strict secrecy–she’d warned them that the aristocrats would explode when they worked out what gunpowder could do–yet it hardly mattered. Right now, there would be no cannons or rifles to help them take down the castle.

“So…what do you have?” She asked. “And what do
they
have?”

“They’ve been running patrols through the inner city, as well as reinforcing the gatehouses,” Paren said. He tapped the map to illustrate his point. “We have a few thousand men with limited training, but some are trapped in the outer city. What do you want to do with them?”

Give the duke time to organise and he’ll win by default
, Emily thought.
We don’t have much time to deal with him before he makes his position impregnable.

“I’m going to sneak into the castle,” Emily said, finally. “I need you to weaken the defenders as much as possible.”

“I told you that we
cannot
storm the castle,” Paren said, sharply.

“I don’t want you to storm the castle,” Emily said. The locals thought in terms of castle and other secure locations, which wasn’t too surprising. But she knew that modern warfare was targeted on the enemy’s army. “I want you to target their patrols.”

She tapped the map. “How many of them could you attack at once?”

“Some,” Paren said, doubtfully. “Maybe more if we didn’t worry too much about coordinating it. What do you want us to do?”

“You hit the patrols and try to pin them down,” Emily said. “The soldiers will scream for help from the castle. I think the duke will have to send out additional soldiers to back them up, or risk losing his men to us.”

“Drawing down the defenses of the castle,” Paren said. “And how do you plan to sneak in through the wards? There’s only one way into the castle.”

That
settled one thing that had been bothering Emily; Paren
didn’t
know about the tunnel network running under the city. She’d considered using it to sneak into the castle, perhaps leading a small assault force, but the wards would make that difficult. Lady Barb’s warnings rang in her ears. It would be quite possible for them to walk in and lose themselves in the catacombs, never to be seen again.

“I’ve had an idea,” Emily assured him. She didn’t go into details. “But the fewer guards in the castle, the better.”

“I can enchant some mirrors to allow us to communicate,” Imaiqah said. “They won’t last for more than a few hours, but we’d be able to coordinate our actions.”

Paren nodded. “But tell me,” he said, “what do you intend to do once you’re inside the castle?”

“Rescue Alassa,” Emily said, simply. “And then try and take down the wards, allowing you to walk into the castle.”

“The wards aren’t the only defenses,” Paren reminded her. “Do you think we can take out enough soldiers to allow us to break into the castle, even without the wards?”

Emily frowned. “How many magicians do you have who are willing to help?”

“Not many,” Paren admitted. “Most mages stay out of politics here. They don’t entirely trust the council.”

Emily looked at Imaiqah, who shrugged.

“There was an accusation that a magician who specialized in mental magic had used magic to convince people to vote for him,” Paren said. There was a dark tone in his voice. “The magician eventually had to withdraw from the council chamber, which didn’t sit well with the other magicians. Most of them are likely to side against the council if they have to make a choice.”

“Even a handful of magicians could make the difference between success and failure if the wards were completely gone,” Emily pointed out. She looked over at a large grandfather clock perched against one wall. “How long will it take you to get organized?”

“Perhaps an hour or two,” Paren said. “Night will have fallen by then, Lady Emily…”

“Good,” Emily said. She tried to project a confidence she didn’t feel into her words. “It will make it easier to remain unseen.”

“I’ll have food brought in for the pair of you,” Paren said, standing up. “And I’ll let you know when we are ready.”

He left the room, followed rapidly by the other councilors.

Imaiqah cast a privacy ward in the air as soon as the door had closed behind them. “Are you sure that you can get into the castle?”

“Yes,” Emily said, and prayed that her friend wouldn’t ask for details. “I think I can.”

“Most of the magicians they have seem to need to use wands,” Imaiqah said. “But the crow-faced magician who took Alassa didn’t need one. Do you think he’s a full-fledged sorcerer?”

“More experienced than me,” Emily muttered. The bird-magician hadn’t
felt
as powerful as Void or the grandmaster, but he could easily have been concealing his magic. But then, if he
was
that powerful, all three of them could have been taken prisoner easily. “And I don’t think he will be holding back the next time.”

“If he was,” Imaiqah reminded her. “He came very close to killing me.”

Emily nodded, silently promising herself that the bird-magician was going to pay for that.

“I could come with you,” Imaiqah offered. “Or surely there must be someone else…?”

“No one we can call,” Emily admitted. “If we had Jade here…”

She thought–again–about trying to contact the grandmaster and asking him to pass a message to Void, but it wouldn’t be fair to him. And besides, it would take time for the message to reach her guardian even if the grandmaster forwarded it without hesitation. It was just another reminder that instant communications were very rare in the Allied Lands.

“You should have accepted his offer,” Imaiqah said. She stuck out her tongue at Emily’s expression. “If he’d been engaged to you, he might well have come with you to Zangaria, just to make sure that a handsome prince didn’t sweep you off your feet.”

Emily made a threatening gesture with her hand, then giggled.

“We’d better eat,” she said, as a woman appeared with a large tray of food. “Tonight–victory or death.”

Or death even if we win
, she added, in the privacy of her own mind. There
was
one way to break through a set of complex wards, but it came with a price. And an automatic death sentence in some parts of the Allied Lands. If they’d worried about what she’d done to Shadye, they’d be completely horrified if they ever found out what Emily had in mind to break into the castle.

“You’ll win,” Imaiqah said. “I have faith in you.”

Too many people have faith in me
, Emily thought, grimly.
When will it stop
?

E
MILY HAD ONLY BEEN DIMLY AWARE
of the stars on Earth. She’d lived in a city, after all, and even the poorer districts had had enough streetlights to make it hard to see the stars. If there had been a space program worth a damn, maybe she would have been interested, but as it happened she had rarely looked up at the night sky. It had only been after coming to Whitehall that she’d learned how to use the stars to navigate and by then she remembered almost nothing about the stars that shone down on Earth. She had no idea if the constellations that shone above Alexis were anything like the ones visible on her homeworld.