Firewalk (13 page)

Kayli nodded, understanding. Lord Kereg and Lady Tarkas and possibly others on the council were loyal to the High Lord of Agrond—but Randon was not yet confirmed as High Lord and his claim as Heir could still be challenged unless he produced an Heir of his own. They were loyal to Agrond—but they might believe that Terralt would better serve the country than Randon.

“Then we will find a way to convince them that you are not only the legal, but also the sensible choice of High Lord,” Kayli said at last. “As Ministers of Agriculture and Trade, Lord Kereg and Lady Tarkas are in the best position to see the benefits of the alliance between Agrond and Bregond. Have they examined the trade goods my mother and father sent?”

Randon shook his head.

“There’s been such a bustle since the night you arrived that the stuff’s been sitting in storage. I’ll have the goods released to Lady Tarkas tomorrow. Maybe the possibilities there will sway her, as you say.”

Kayli nodded and poured her dose of High Priestess Brisi’s fertility potion, trying not to make a face as she swallowed it.

“What’s that?” Randon asked, frowning. “I thought you were done with potions and fasting.”

“I am done with fasting,” Kayli corrected. “This is a potion to aid in conception.” She raised an eyebrow. “Unless you would prefer I not take it.”

“No, no,” Randon said hurriedly. He handed her a cup of wine to wash away the taste, his fingers lingering against hers, his eyes warm. “But I know a better way to induce conception.”

“As my potion is of no use without your method, I could hardly disagree,” Kayli said with a smile. “Even if I were inclined to do so.”

After pleasure, Kayli lay awake, rubbing her palm thoughtfully over her belly. How long might it be before she conceived, even with the advantages of her fertility potion and Randon’s apparent enthusiasm for the task? Endra had warned her against too immediate hopes.

“Potions and purification are all well and good,” the midwife had said, shaking her head, “but any girl’s workings would be set a bit awry by such upheavals in their life as you’re having. I’d not expect you to hold your lord’s seed for at least a month or two, when your body settles. And fretting about it will only worsen the matter.”

But Kayli could not help but worry as she lay there in the dark, and a pang of guilt followed. Although she’d known how important it was to Randon’s claim to the throne of Agrond that she conceive, she had not worried unduly until she learned that
her
future as much as his relied upon that conception—just as on their wedding night she had worried about her own Awakening more than all the concerns weighing on Randon. Why, she’d hardly left the Order, and already she was becoming spoiled and selfish. In the Order, merely another novice, faced daily with menial labor to humble her and a regimen of rituals and tasks to instill self-discipline, she never forgot that she was but a single strand in the web of the Order, the country, the world. As a noble lady and wife to the High Lord presumptive, it was easy to see herself at the center of that web. She was becoming a disgrace to her teachings.

Randon’s hand closed over hers, startling her; she turned her head to see him gazing at her in the dim light from the moon and the hearth.

“It’s too soon to worry about it,” he said gently, patting her belly. “Nobody expects you to conceive overnight, not if you were as fertile as Ynea. Even Terralt took a month or two to put Ynea’s belly up; he can hardly deny you the same courtesy. Now, forget about it for tonight, at least, and get some sleep.”

Kayli sighed again and closed her eyes obediently, mentally reciting a calming chant. The old habit was comforting in its familiarity, and at last she slept.

Chapter Five

“Kayli by the Bright Ones what do you think you’re doing?”

Kayli glanced up, absently robbing her sweaty forehead with the back of her wrist, leaving a smear of black soot behind.

“Good morn, Randon. I thought you would still be with Terralt, sorting your father’s documents.”

“I had to stop. My eyes were twisting up.” Randon glanced around the forge. “Couldn’t you wait for the boys I hired?”

Kayli laid down her scrub brush and sat back on her heels.

“I felt the need to do this work myself,” she said awkwardly. She could well understand the astonishment in Randon’s eyes—there was Agrond’s High Lady-to-be dressed in Anida’s roughest gown, covered nearly head to toe in soot, on her knees scrubbing at the stone floor of the forge with a brush. He would never understand that by her labor, a sort of self-imposed penance, she was cleansing not only the grime from the forge, but the emotional “grime” from her spirit.

When Randon said nothing, Kayli continued, “I hope you will forgive my appearance. I am accustomed to work and activity. It is difficult for me to be idle as I have been.”

Randon squatted down next to Kayli, frowning slightly.

“I can sympathize with your restlessness,” he said slowly, “but, Kayli, do you have any idea what Terralt would make of this, if he stood before the ministers and told them their future High Lady was scrubbing the floor in the forge like the lowliest menial? We can afford that sort of muttering when we’re confirmed, but not now. Can you understand?”

Kayli swallowed a surge of irritation—who was he to tell her she couldn’t clean the very forge he’d just given her? Of course, she answered herself, he was her husband and, in this country, perhaps her only ally. And, little as she liked to admit it, what he said was true. Kayli laid down the brush and stood, waving aside the hand Randon offered for assistance.

“Bad enough that anyone should see
me
in such a state,” she said wryly, “much less the Heir. You are right, of course. Please forgive my thoughtlessness.”

“It’s my fault,” Randon said generously. “You new here, and me locked away with Terralt, of course you’re bored. But what I’m doing is no more interesting. Perhaps you’d like to take advantage of Terralt’s absence to visit Ynea.”

Kayli flushed with guilt as she remembered her concern for the frail woman, her intention to make Endra’s services available to her—all forgotten in her own selfish boredom.

“I will visit her this very afternoon,” she promised. “As soon as I have bathed and dressed presentably.” She hesitated. “I know you are busy, Randon, but would there be time soon to show me your city? I saw so little of your country when Terralt brought me here.”

This time it was Randon’s turn to hesitate.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” he said at last. “You know that this marriage, the alliance with Bregond, isn’t widely favored. I don’t think it would be wise to present you to the public before we’re confirmed High Lord and Lady, while Terralt is still a threat. Even in a closed carriage, an angry crowd could become dangerous.”

Kayli was keenly disappointed, but she said nothing. Was she indeed a prisoner in this place? For a moment the stone walls seemed to close chokingly about her as the walls of the Order never had—at least in the Order no one actually prevented her from venturing outside.

Then she wondered whether Randon might not have another motive for his refusal. He would not be confirmed High Lord until his wife conceived, and until then, there was no guarantee that Kayli would be his High Lady. Randon might consider it safer to refrain from displaying a bride he might later have to set aside.

That sobering thought kept Kayli pondering as Endra prepared her bath and helped her wash the soot from her skin and hair. Randon had been so considerate that it was easy to forget that he had other concerns beyond their marriage, and that the young man who had fumbled for conversation at their first breakfast was the same lord who had played a very shrewd game of honor with his half-brother and manipulated a roomful of ministers. She could not afford to trust him too completely.

Clean and presentable, Kayli found one of the palace maids and got directions to Ynea’s rooms. When Ynea’s personal maid announced her, she was shown into the room immediately; she was dismayed, however, to find Ynea in bed, still as pale and wan as she’d been at Kayli’s wedding.

“I beg your pardon,” Kayli said quickly. “I had no wish to intrude if you are ill—”

“Oh, no, please don’t go,” Ynea said quickly. “These days I fear this is as well as you will find me. Please stay.”

A little doubtfully, Kayli sat down in the chair at the side of the bed. Ynea was obviously all but an invalid; Kayli had had no notion the woman was in such poor health.

“I came to visit with you and to offer my friendship,” she said slowly. “But I also came to offer you the services of my maid Endra. She is a highly skilled midwife, and my family has relied on her for many years. She is not a mage like Brother Stevann—but neither is Brother Stevann a midwife.”

“I’d be most grateful for her help. My parents, too, kept a midwife, for the women of our family always bore with difficulty.” A faint flush crept into Ynea’s pale cheeks. “I’d prefer Terralt didn’t know. If you’d allow, I could send my maid for Endra from time to time.”

“Of course.” Once again, Kayli found the whole idea ridiculous. “Lady Ynea—”

“Just Ynea, please,” the lady interrupted.

“Ynea,” Kayli corrected. “Why would Terralt deny you the aid of my midwife? Randon said that Terralt has no faith in healers, but even so, what harm could such treatment do? Surely he does not believe Endra would do you some ill simply because he and Randon disagree politically.”

“I’m sure he would never believe such a thing,” Ynea said quickly. “But neither could he gladly accept aid from Randon—or his wife, either.”

Kayli nodded slowly. “Beliefs are powerful things,” High Priestess Brisi had told her. “We build great towers of them, one atop the other. When we wish to believe a thing, we find every possible reason to do so—and when we cannot find enough reasons to suit us, we create more. It is important to question your beliefs, but even more important to question the foundations on which you have built them, for there may be weak blocks which will crumble with time or shatter under pressure, and when the tower falls, you may well fall with it.”

It suddenly occurred to Kayli that perhaps Terralt’s pride and ambition were the foundation on which he had built most of his life. He had accepted the humbling role of assistant to his father only so that he could eventually gain the throne of Agrond himself, but what would become of him under Randon’s rulership? He could never accept a position subservient to his brother; nor could his pride bear the humiliation of being a hanger-on in Randon’s court. So for him there was only one possible choice—he must find a way to keep Randon from becoming High Lord, leaving his own way clear. Perhaps he truly believed that Randon’s politics were dangerous for Agrond and that he himself was Agrond’s best hope, or perhaps that was merely a block that he himself had created to support his pride and ambition.

“My father told me you and Terralt had several children already,” Kayli said, glancing around curiously.

“Derrin is four years old, Avern is three, and Erisa is almost two,” Ynea said with a tired smile. “They’re with their nurse. Terralt hopes this child will be another son. Stevann thought it likely. If so, Terralt said I need bear no more.”

Kayli kept her peace, but looking at Ynea’s thin, pale face, she knew that any midwife in Bregond would have agreed that Ynea should not have borne this child, much less any others.

“Randon said you were something of a scholar,” Kayli said, deciding that a change of subject was the tactful course. “I have only studied subjects related to magic myself. In what area of knowledge did you direct your attentions?”

“Plants,” Ynea said rather shyly. “I know, Terralt said it was a foolish subject for a woman of noble birth to clutter her time with, but my mother’s sister was an herbalist, and she told me so many interesting things that before I knew it I was counting petals and pressing leaves. Do you see those books there?” She gestured at several thick volumes on table across the room. “They are part of my collection.”

“Only part?” Kayli stepped over and touched one of the books, glancing at Ynea. “May I?”

“Please,” Ynea said eagerly. “Bring it here if you like.”

Kayli picked up the top volume and carried it over. Flipping through the pages, she inhaled softly with amazement. The front of each page was covered with neat, skilled drawings of a plant, detailing petal tip to rootlets, with a pressed leaf and blossom, seemingly preservation-spelled, affixed to the page. The back of the page was covered in a fine, neat script, describing the plant, its growing habits and uses.

“How many such volumes have you done?” Kayli asked, awed. Even a single book represented an incredible amount of work, a marvelous eye for detail, and an amazing talent.

“Fourteen.” Ynea flushed faintly again. “I’m ashamed to say my work has been neglected since Derrin was born. They are in order, you know,” she said hastily, as if to excuse herself.

“Order?” Kayli leafed through the book, wrinkling her forehead. She had some knowledge of the more common flora of Bregond, but these Agrondish plants were strange to her.

“Order of blooming,” Ynea explained, showing Kayli the blooming dates. “Flowering plants are grouped in order of blooming; there are separate volumes for spring bloomers, then summer, then fall. Trees are classified the same way, and vines, and brambles. Nonblossoming plants and grasses are grouped by their habitat and leaf shape.”

Kayli shook her head again. Sages and herbalists had studied the plants of Bregond, but surely they had no cataloging system as impressive as this.

“Once when Second Circle Priestess Vayavara said that my concentration was wandering,” Kayli remembered, “she took me out onto the plains and bade me count all the different grasses which grew there. I found forty-one different grasses in those hours, and though I had walked or rode across those grasses a thousand times, it was as if I had never truly seen that land before in my life. It makes it all magical, somehow—so much hidden from my eyes by my own blindness.”