Wulfyddia (The Tattersall Trilogy Book 1) (2 page)

Spencer
shrugged. “Why would I mind?”

Daphne’s
smile was far too sweet. “Thank you! Books are my great love.”

He had
assumed that she would select a volume from the bookshelf across the room, but
instead she reached into the folds of her gown and produced a small item from
some unseen pocket. Lorna shifted in her seat, catching her breath in what
sounded like dismay.

Despite
himself, Spencer leaned forward curiously. It was a small book, no taller than
his hand but surprisingly thick. The volume was bound in blue leather and
closed with a fine metal clasp. There was no title stamped on the spine. Daphne
held it gingerly, and with both hands, as though it were heavier than it
looked. She must have felt his gaze on her, but she did not look up as she
smoothed her hand over the cover lovingly.

“What
book is that?” He really hadn’t meant to ask.

“It’s my
favorite.” Daphne looked up and her eyes were glittering almost black in the
flame light.

“What’s
the title?” He asked, slowly standing.

“It
doesn’t really have one,” she answered softly.

In her
chair closer to the fire, Lorna had moved, put down her knees and shifted to
face her sister. Her fingers were digging into the armrests. 

“It must
have a title.”

“But it
doesn’t,” Daphne answered simply. “Come see for yourself.” She was still
stroking the cover with her long fingers. He should have sat back down and gone
back to brooding silently. Instead he crossed to her side, trying to keep a
respectful distance and get a closer look at the book at the same time.

“Here.”
Much to his surprise, she handed it to him. It was heavier than he had
expected. It felt more like a book two or three times its size, and he too
needed two hands for it. “Have a look.”

The
cover was truly beautiful. At a distance it looked blue, but now that he had
come closer he could see threads of many colors woven into the fabric. “Open
it.”

The
clasp was shockingly cold under his fingers, and when it finally came undone
the click was surprisingly loud. It startled his cat; she stiffened suddenly,
fur bristling, and yowled loudly before darting from the room. Daphne stood,
taking a few steps back, and Spencer slowly looked up at her. His vision
rippled strangely, so that for a minute Daphne’s head was oddly distorted, but
he could make out her encouraging smile, so he raised the front cover and
opened the book to a page in the middle.

Later,
he would remember, as if from a dream, that the book was not full of words, but
rather
illustrations
. Later he would squint, trying to recall the
details of the pictures, of the images that had so consumed his mind, blocking
out all else. From the moment he opened the book, Spencer was lost to the world
around him, adrift in a sea of images, fingers glancing over the page as if he
sought to draw himself into it and become one with the tome. Daphne watched him
unblinkingly, ignoring the accusatory gaze of her sister. When it was clear
that he would not be able to extricate himself from the enchantments of the book,
the two girls pressed past him with soft, guilty giggles, vanishing into the
darkness of the hall, the only sign of their presence the sound of footsteps on
the stairs.

Then there was another presence, this one not
so much in the room as part of it. It seemed to skirt around the edges of the
air, as though reluctant to engage directly with the space around Spencer.
There was a soft sound, like a lady clearing her throat, and then a whisper
that might have been a person sighing or might have been the swish of a sleeve
through the air. It seemed to hesitate, to duck shyly out into the hall and
then, on second thought, peek back into the room once more, taking in Spencer’s
still figure with wide and invisible eyes. After drinking its fill of his
image, it did not leave, but rather just
faded
.

And still Spencer sat by the fire, hunched
over the book in his lap, his gaze riveted by images that seemed to ripple and
shift sinuously beneath his eyes.  

***

The
flame was being difficult. Thunder crashed outside the walls of the castle as
Melisande lit the torch anew. She was in her mistress’s study, a dimly lit room
decorated with thick furs and dark velvet. The desk and cabinets were carved of
ebony, and the tall paintings that adorned the high walls were shaded in rich
tones of red, purple, gold and black. It wasn’t a cheery room, but they were
lucky to have windows. Most people in the castle relied on candles and torches,
but for the Court Witch natural light was a necessity. Today the view from the
prized windows was decidedly dismal. Though it was just past noon the sky looked
like night, and rain spat against the glass as if the heavens held a grudge.
Melisande had not seen the sun since it first rose that morning.

From the
chamber next door she could hear the agitated tones of the Royal Librarian as
he argued with Felunhala, the Court Witch and Melisande’s mistress. Felunhala’s
voice, when it was audible, was slow, soothing, and carried the faintest
undercurrent of annoyance. She successfully hid her temper from most people,
but Melisande had seen the witch’s naked rage often enough to know when her
mistress was feigning calm.

Slowly,
with the utmost gentleness, Melisande cupped her hands before the torch, and
tenderly, like a mother beckoning to a child, tried to coax the flame into her
hands. It wobbled a little, unsteady on the torch, and then slowly, like a drop
of water winding circuitously down glass, it began to slide towards her. She
could feel the heat on her fingertips but she willed it not to harm her and it
capitulated to her command. The nest of flames settled easily in the palms of
her hands, just barely warming them, crackling and feeding on no fuel but her
force of will.

This was
when most beginners panicked, fearful at the sight of flames on their bare skin
even though they felt no pain. Once they panicked, loss of concentration was
inevitable, and then the flame would begin to burn them. But Melisande was not
a beginner, and her difficulties were not the usual first-time tribulations.
The flame did not burn her and sustaining it was easy, almost too easy. But
then it began to grow. The flames reached higher and higher, until they were
almost touching her chin, almost caressing her face, until she had to stretch
her arms farther out to give it space to grow and breathe. The fire leapt still
higher then, climbing and climbing until it was a great crackling column as
tall as a man, obedient save for the fact that it would not stop
growing
.

A door
slammed in the hallway, and Melisande heard heavy footsteps in the corridor.
She glanced frantically over her shoulder, knowing that the flame was now far
too large for her to hide. Felunhala would know that something was wrong
immediately. The doorknob turned and Melisande stifled a gasp as the flame,
seizing upon her distraction, began to tingle painfully in her palm. She
dropped the flame on instinct and the fire fell from her hands. The flame
seemed to feed on the rush of wind as it fell, but as it neared the ground the
air proved too much for it and it went out, little more than a ball of smoke
and ash as it landed on the thick furs that covered the floor.

Melisande
sighed in relief as the door behind her opened, admitting the Royal Librarian,
with Felunhala just behind him, her left eye twitching. But the sigh caught in
Melisande’s throat as the faintest stirring of movement drew her stare back to
the pile of ash at her feet. There was a soft chattering sound and then from
within the ash, five or six tiny reptilian creatures, each no larger than her
little finger, emerged and shook off the dust. Melisande reared back in
astonishment as the miniscule creatures looked up, snapped tiny scaled jaws,
and then scattered in different directions. One made a run for a pile of furs,
another vanished behind a bookcase, and a third darted under the foot of the
advancing Royal Librarian and escaped down the hall. Melisande stared at the
remains of the ash in wonder. She’d had plenty of spells go wrong, but nothing
like that had ever happened before.

“This is
a disgrace,” the Royal Librarian practically exploded in a whirl of overlong
sleeves and cheeks ruddy with anger. “In the olden days anyone who dared to
trespass against the sanctity of the Royal Archives would have been caught and
killed before he so much as crossed the threshold with one of those precious
books. These days it doesn’t even look like I’ll get my book back, let alone
see the thief punished like he deserves.” Melisande noticed that there were
tiny three-toed tracks visible in the ash, and she surreptitiously ground one
velvet slipper into the mess until no sign of the little creatures remained.
There were few secrets she trusted her mistress with, and this would not be one
of them.

“You
will have justice, Librarian,” Felunhala said. “But this issue must be handled
through the proper channels.” She was a tall woman in her mid-thirties, with a
long, bony face and a commanding manner. Melisande had been her apprentice
since she was twelve.

“You are
the proper channel!” The Librarian argued, “Your wards are the ones that failed
and allowed the thief inside the library. Mine remained intact.”

“My
wards did not fail,” Felunhala responded, her voice steely, “they were
overpowered by someone very strong and very skilled. And the wards may have
been for your library, but that does not mean that I am under your command. The
Queen commands me in this, and any actions taken against the thief, any
inquiries into the event,
must
come through the throne room. You cannot
circumvent the Queen in this. If I take any action it must be because she
orders it.”

“But she
does not care! She is absorbed with prophecies, with whispers of traitors in
the castle. It may be months before she has the time to attend to this. And we
do not have months. This is not a book that you want in the wrong hands.”

“What
book is it?”

“That is
my affair, not yours,” the Librarian snapped.

“And
witchery is my affair, not yours. In a case like this I must observe protocol,
which dictates that I must receive a direct order from the crown. I have
received no such order. I’m not about to start tossing spells around randomly,
trying to catch a thief who may be long gone by now.” Felunhala had begun quite
calmly, but by the time she finished her chest was rising and falling a little
faster than usual, and Melisande knew that only the Librarian’s status as
Keeper of the Royal Archives protected him from experiencing the brunt of
Felunhala’s wrath.

“As you
wish. I’m leaving.” The Librarian announced unnecessarily as he flung the study
door open. It led out into the antechamber, and from there he had access to the
network of corridors that could carry those with an excellent sense of
direction from one end of the castle to the other.

 “Take
care,” Felunhala bid him, without the faintest trace of emotion in her voice.
Her lips were pale from being pressed together. The slam of the door was her
only answer.

“What an
unpleasant little man.” Felunhala said.  Her tone was tight with controlled
anger. Melisande nodded. In truth she had not spent enough time with the Librarian
to form her own opinion of him, but it paid to agree with Felunhala when she
was in a mood.

“What’s
that?” The Witch’s sharp voice drew Melisande’s attention to the furs, where
the ashes were still piled incriminatingly at her feet.

Melisande
glanced down silently at the evidence of her misadventure. “Fire spell,” she
murmured.

Felunhala’s
eyebrows shot up her forehead. “That was clumsy.” She didn’t know the half of
it. “Clean that up. Then get back to work. You’re not here for your looks.”

Melisande
obediently went to fetch the broom, and mercifully while she was fumbling
around in the closet Felunhala left the room. Melisande found the broom and
worked quickly with her head down, fearful of seeming idle if her mistress
returned unexpectedly.

But when
she finally glanced up it was not her mistress who was watching her. Rather, in
the open doorway leaned the nightmarish figure of the court Jester. Most of his
face was powdered or painted white, but a mosaic pattern of reds and greens and
blues spread out across his cheeks and temples in a butterfly pattern, with his
black-rimmed eyes the center of each wing. His hat and shoes were black and
adorned with bells, and his garb was brilliantly colored with a metallic sheen.

“Melisande.”
The voice was silky, and sounded slickly intelligent, but when she met his
gaze, his expression was vapid, his face paint garish and almost vulgar. His
gaze flicked to her wrists, and without looking down Melisande knew what he was
staring at. She had pushed her sleeves up while she cleaned, exposing the two
slender black rings tattooed in delicate but permanent circles around each of
her wrists. Against the white of her skin and the blue of her veins the tattoos
were as livid as bruises. It made her nervous when people looked at them, but
Melisande resisted the urge to pull her sleeves down. It wasn’t as though he
could possibly know what they meant anyway.

 “The
Fool is here!” She shouted as she straightened up, her dislike of him making
her bold. 

He was a
young man, no more than a decade older than Melisande’s seventeen years, and he
might have been attractive. He certainly lounged about like he was, but who
could say under all that face paint? Then again, Felunhala obviously saw
something in him. For weeks now the Fool had been dropping by every couple of
days and vanishing into Felunhala’s private rooms. Melisande was still
surprised by it. As far as she knew this was Felunhala’s first affair in the
five years since Melisande had first come to the castle.