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Flying South Chapter 8
Here is chapter 8 of my novel Flying South plus gossip on what the Rat has been doing lately. I took the weekend off last week to go to Fandomedia so very little online time happened at all. Usually at cons I get to talk to other writers and be inspired and fired up to do more work but this con was pretty quiet, not much catching up of that kind.
I also spent the weekend in a state of semi-exhaustion and pain, not because of the con but because I was also caring for my landlords' rodent horde while they were away and some of the little charmers are, shall we say, not gentlemen. [all the rats who bit me or tried to bite me were males!] They're rescue rats and my friends don't have time to socialise so many. So I was nursing a few rat-bites and wondering whether tetanus was imminent and if my shot was overdue [according to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
chaosmanor yeah, it is]
The weariness was having to do quite a bit of cycling in sudden hot weather and dealing with Transperth suddenly deciding not to run trains between the city and the last-but-one stop to the city, involving trudging over long high bridge to crowded bus. I'm not very good at starting conversations with people so felt rather on the edge of the good times everyone else seemed to be having at the con.
Anyway, enjoy the chapter!
FLYING SOUTH
Chapter 8
I started my story from when we had set out for the coast and my vague feelings of being hunted. Mariel was silent throughout my awkward, halting account of my kidnap in the dragon's jaws and our flight over the bright sea, in the burning sun, of Boorlo Island, Asherley’s dream visit and Yukungadak's people.
"They're sorcerers, Mariel. Yukungadak made a net of sun to trap me, and his creature was . . . was nothing that should have lived, a blend of lizard and bird and I don't know what, but then he let me go."
"Why? Were you too strong?"
"No, but he said he knew he'd have to kill me to stop me and he wouldn't do that."
She breathed out slowly and for a moment said nothing else. Then she asked, “And he drew on the younger people for his power? Their life force?”
“Well, yes, but I don’t think they were badly hurt. I got the impression they had to be of his family, but I’m not sure about that.”
Mariel thought that one over, then said, “And the children rode the dragons. Did you learn nothing more of the dragons, then?"
Now I felt as though I'd failed to memorise a lesson. "The dragons’ home was over the water. I couldn't go there."
"Did the people not tell you?"
"Well, yes. The dragons protect them. They have a pact. I think Yukungadak and the others shield the land so ships won't find it and the dragons must help them do that, give them the power or something."
"Shield the entire land? Dozens of sorceresses can barely raise the energy to shield Harp Island, which is quite small. From what you say, this land is much larger. Do you realise what you're saying?" I thought I did, so I nodded. "Amber, do you not realise that people have wanted to learn of dragons for hundreds of years? Why do they fly north and then go south again? Where do they go when they pass our lands? What is their southern land like? You didn't get any of these answers."
"I wasn't exactly thinking of all that." My own anger was rising against hers. Before I left, I'd been too wary of Mariel's sharp tongue and powers to challenge her. Now, though, my natural sense of caution seemed to have cut out. "He saved my life because I saved his. No one there wanted to answer my questions and why should they?"
Mariel took several careful breaths. "That's by the by. If you had these answers . . . they could have been very valuable, that's all. Perhaps valuable enough to change the Queen's mind, which would help all of us."
"Oh," I said.
"Now, who is this Lord of Cairenor? I gather you're
acquainted?" Her old sarcastic tone was back and somehow I felt immensely relieved.
"Do you remember when I was sent to Dampenrook to get rid of their raven plague?"
"Only too well."
"Warwick Asherley, Lord of Cairenor, was the Wizard Lord responsible for calling the ravens." I spoke very carefully, knowing she'd have a hard enough time accepting this without mumbles. "The wizard lords aren't all dead like people think. He called the ravens to plague Dampenrook for practice. He said he'd been looking for me ever since I broke his spell. He told me to come to him and he'd help me discover my powers, but I had to come to him quickly before it was too late."
"Four months ago he said this to you," Mariel murmured. "It may well be too late." Mariel this defeatist was scary.
“He promised to help me increase my powers – he said I would lend him my power and we would both achieve our dreams. Something like that.”
Mariel looked afraid now, her face tense and unsmiling as she looked at me, as though trying to decide how much she should say. “Amber,” she said at last, “the wizard lords stole power, thirty years ago. There was only one way they could take enough and that was by murder. Warwick Asherley led them and they sacrificed five small girl children so that they could get into the royal palace and murder all within. They nearly succeeded.”
“Murder who?”
“Queen Catherine’s consort and her Royal Brother. If Asherley had the power to spirit travel and speak to you in your dreams, that means he is killing again.”
“So he – he would kill me?”
“You’re a full sorceress, almost adult. You don’t have the huge magical potential those children had. He could still use you, but you would not be his first choice.”
"He can’t know we're here, can he?"
"Not our precise location, no, I don't think so. I shielded this room last night, I’d better refresh those shields soon, but I don’t think anyone travelling in dream could have tracked us. It’s not impossible, but I don’t know anyone strong enough to do it.”
He found me, I said, not saying the words aloud. I looked at Catri, who had been so silent throughout that I had forgotten she was there until she made a small movement, then at the blanket-wrapped lump that was two children. “Mariel,” I said, “what happened? Why are you and Cat here?” I wanted to ask about Nick but something stopped me, saying: not yet.
Mariel hesitated so long that tension began to cramp my stomach again, but finally she spoke. "About three hours after you left, close to dusk, the Queen’s Guard came back to the House and arrested Audryn. They had an Inquisitor with them. I had never seen him before – I think he was from the Throne City – so there was nothing she could do, even if she had chosen to defy them and I don’t think she would have. I sent a message to Geofrey and he came back that night.” Her voice was crisp and cold as winter. "Geofrey was in disarray; I’ve never seen him scared, I didn’t think he could be scared but he was. He told me that this visiting Inquisitor had sent him off on another errand to keep him out of the way and that he had only now learned what had happened. After I told him all I knew, he said not to despair, he would ride to the Throne City immediately and do what he could to secure her release because his orders had indicated only disbanding and dispersement, not arrest unless any sorceress challenged the order. Nicholas Harnage rode with him. That is the last I heard of either. At Geofrey's suggestion I left the Order House immediately. There was no longer a chance to slip through the soldiers and inquisitors to get to Harp Island, he said they would be watching for any sorceress. So I came to Gartree, taking a very long and circuitous route to avoid main roads and towns. I knew if I could get here, I would find help.”
“The inn-keeper woman?” I blurted.
Mariel regarded me coldly. “Her name is Isa and she is my aunt. So far, no one here knows I am a sorceress, I’m simply Isa’s niece come to live with her and help manage the inn since her husband’s death six months ago.”
Somehow the thought of Mariel having family was as much a shock as anything else she had told me.
“This morning I woke from a dream directing me to the beach, as I told you,” Mariel continued. “Catri and I walked along the coastal road for some time until we found myself hours away from the fishing boat harbour. Then we found Erlina and Kieran plodding northwards, with no supplies and no idea where they were headed. At first they told us only that they’d been thrown from their horse. That turned out to be the truth. When we identified myself, they told us who they really were.”
“So your dream wasn’t about me?”
“Goddess, no. You were an accident. At least I thought so – maybe the Goddess is still looking out for you. She better had; you don’t seem able to do it.”
“Thanks,” I said.
Mariel ignored this. “When Erlina told me why they had run, I had no choice but to take them along, even though our enemies won't hesitate to use this."
I didn’t ask why the children had run. Mariel would tell me when she was good and ready.
"You mean they'll say we kidnapped the children for some awful purpose of our own?"
"Well, I would say that," Mariel said and I started to laugh, before seeing her look.
"Time to sleep," she said after a long silence. "We need what rest we can get and maybe we can come up with a plan tomorrow."
“But you haven’t told me what happened to Mother Audryn – where did the Guard take her? What did they say she – we – had done?”
Mariel’s voice when she replied was cold and hard as winter itself. “The Queen’s edict had been updated. Sorceresses are not to be permitted to disperse, but to be arrested and killed if they resist. The Grey Shadows have their orders to enforce this. So far as I know now, which isn’t much – only bits of rumour Isa’s heard – Audryn is in prison in the Throne City and has been the whole time you were gone. We never had a chance to reach Harp Island, which Catri left to search for us a week ago.” Her tone indicated her low opinion of this strategy. “I speak with those on the Island once a month by the skry-water and they told me Catri was on her way and where to find her. We met yesterday.”
"Can't Geofrey do anything?"
I saw the face of the Chief Inquisitor in Skarrel as though it was yesterday; gray-haired, features sharp, elegant, eyes clear and kind. Geofrey, who loved Audryn and who was not allowed to; sworn to stamp out black magic and the evils it brought. He would not have stood by and allowed this to happen, not to Audryn.
"He risks the fires himself if he does,” Mariel said, her voice bitter. “Word has it he was called to the Throne City to be rebuked by Master Inquisitor Vidar, who's chief of the Star-Brother’s Order. If Geofrey objected, Vidar wouldn't listen to him."
There was someone else I needed to know about, but when I tried to ask, my throat dried up. I was too scared at what the answer might be. Finally I managed, "Nick?"
Mariel shrugged, so I looked at Catri, who shook her head.
"I haven't heard anything more than what Mariel has said, Amber. I'm sorry. There's no reason he shouldn't be all right. Vidar didn't know of any link between you, so Nick was only another trainee to him."
"Not trainee," I said. "He made full Inquisitor shortly before we rode to deal with the dragon." I can't see you, he'd said, breaking off our friendship and anything else which might have come about, because I was a sorceress and he was the enemy. Why should he even remember me? My head whirled as though I rode dragonback, the winds trying to tear me away. This no longer felt like home. To take my mind off me, I looked at the sleeping children, who were definitely not where they were supposed to be. Mariel and Catri wouldn't kidnap them, so why? I looked back at her.
"She's the problem," Mariel said at last, nodding towards Erlina, whose face was half-visible above the coarse gray blanket. "She's thirteen. A few days ago, she found that she could start little fires by thinking about them. She panicked and ran away.”
Erlina's eyes opened. She looked wide awake, but she didn't move. "I had to," she whispered. "It doesn't matter who you are, if you use magic he gets you. And the rest of them." Vidar and the Inquisition, I translated.
"What about your brother?" I said.
"He followed me."
"So what happens?" I asked. "Do they stay with us?"
Mariel didn’t answer me and I was glad to see that Erlina had fallen asleep again. Catri shivered a little, though the room was not too cold. Mariel didn’t want to make the decision, I realised, any more than I did. She was older but she didn’t want another thing to happen to her today.
“Sleep,” she said, confirming my guess. “We’ll talk tomorrow.” She stretched out on the other bed and appeared to go to sleep at once, leaving Cat and I the cushions of the windowseat, lying head to tail.
“Cat,” I whispered, “why did you leave, if you got to Harp Island? Wasn’t it safe there?”
“As anywhere. I don't know why I came, really. There wasn't any way I could help Audryn. The Harp sorceresses didn’t even tell me they’d been in contact with Mariel until I was on the point of leaving and then they told me to come here. I didn't want to stay on the island. They've hidden it, no boat can find it, but that means they're going to let whatever happens on the mainland go ahead. That's not for me." Catri shook her head slightly and I thought she seemed older, more than the few months that had passed since we'd seen one another. " I think the excitement's over for the day, though, so let's get some sleep while we have the chance."
"All right."
A moment later, her voice again murmured out of the dark. "Good to see you again, Amber. I was certain you were dragonbait."
*
In the morning, very early in the morning, Mariel woke Catri and me. I’d hoped for breakfast but she produced none, simply sat down on the bed and told us what was going to be. “I’ve had a talk with Isa and she suggests we put it about that you two are another set of nieces come to visit. She’s got a couple about the right ages, so you will use their names. Catri, you are in luck, there is a Catriona among the horde, but she uses her full name to sound important. Amber, you’re Lily.”
Catri snorted with laughter so I must have looked dumbstruck, but in the end I only shrugged and accepted it. “What about the children?” I asked.
“They don’t exist,” Mariel said curtly. “We’re close enough to the capital here that they might be recognised by locals and certainly will be if the Royal Guard come here searching for them. Isa told me that the Guard are searching villages closer to Netone and will probably be here during the day. Each of us will be working about the inn; if word gets out that we’re all huddling up here, that’s as good as admitting we’re up to something. Erlina, Kieran, did you hear that?”
I’d thought the children asleep, but when Mariel’s voice snapped out like a whip crack, Erlina whispered, “Yes,” in stunned answer.
“Sit up and look at me.”
They did, rumpled from head to foot in those expensive clothes, now showing a bit of dirt and wear. Erlina’s long hair was tangled.
“Erlina, we’re going to try to find out about your situation,” Mariel told her. “I hope you’re in no danger, that you panicked and ran without finding out what the real reaction would be. I find it very hard to accept that your mother would harm you for fire-lighting. That’s a minor talent; quite a few witches can’t do anything else but that. You might have to undergo purification at a nunnery, perhaps. That’s not pleasant to say the least but it’s not fatal. However, we are not going to betray the fact that you’re here until we’re sure you aren’t in danger. This means that any questioning on my part must be very slow and very careful or we will all be discovered. And while you may only face purification, the rest of us face something much worse.”
Erlina nodded but said nothing.
“Kieran, you wouldn’t be in any danger, but if you go back now, they will have out of you where your sister is. If we had to leave here, we would be in a great deal more danger on the open road. Sanctuaries are few. So you must remain with her.” She stared at one child, then the other. “You must stay in this room and stay quiet at all times. You’ll be extremely bored and neither the food nor the accommodations will be anything like what you are used to, but if you do not do exactly what you’re told, these two girls and I are all dead. Do you understand?”
They nodded, still speechless. Mariel waited and finally Erlina said in a ghost of a voice, “We understand.”
“Kieran?”
“Yes,” he said. “Uh, I need to . . .”
“The bucket is on the landing outside. I’ll pass it in as we leave. Don’t empty it out the window, it’ll attract attention. When one of us comes up here again, we’ll take it outside.”
This seemed to flummox Kieran more than anything else, but he only nodded again.
“Get dressed, cousins,” Mariel told us. “We have a day’s work to get done.”
As we did, she told us a bit more about the duties necessary to keep an inn running. There was stable work, but she wanted to keep us out of sight of the customers as much as possible, so we would work mostly in the kitchen. When the inn became busy in the evening, we’d have to serve drink, but by then the customers would be past noticing and the light would be bad. When Catri and I were ready, Mariel led us downstairs to our fate. In the kitchen, her aunt was waiting for us. Isa’s face was serious, but she didn’t look as though she resented us.
“I’ve told Isa who you are,” Mariel said to me, but before I could blurt anything out, she continued smoothly. “You’re her niece Lily and this is your younger sister Catriona, daughters of Isa’s sister Fiora who married a northern man, so she hasn’t met you before. Fiora is glad to send you along here to help run the place and learn some useful skills.”
“And I’m glad to have two good strong girls to help me,” Isa said and managed a brief smile. “I’m told you two know your way around a kitchen and there’s much to be done.”
We followed her into the huge kitchen, where Isa pointed to a long wooden table along one wall. “Break your fast quickly,” she said and left to continue her tasks while we bolted chunks of bread and honey under Mariel’s eye. Mariel then left to do the rooms and we were left to Isa’s direction.
I also spent the weekend in a state of semi-exhaustion and pain, not because of the con but because I was also caring for my landlords' rodent horde while they were away and some of the little charmers are, shall we say, not gentlemen. [all the rats who bit me or tried to bite me were males!] They're rescue rats and my friends don't have time to socialise so many. So I was nursing a few rat-bites and wondering whether tetanus was imminent and if my shot was overdue [according to
chaosmanor yeah, it is] The weariness was having to do quite a bit of cycling in sudden hot weather and dealing with Transperth suddenly deciding not to run trains between the city and the last-but-one stop to the city, involving trudging over long high bridge to crowded bus. I'm not very good at starting conversations with people so felt rather on the edge of the good times everyone else seemed to be having at the con.
Anyway, enjoy the chapter!
FLYING SOUTH
Chapter 8
I started my story from when we had set out for the coast and my vague feelings of being hunted. Mariel was silent throughout my awkward, halting account of my kidnap in the dragon's jaws and our flight over the bright sea, in the burning sun, of Boorlo Island, Asherley’s dream visit and Yukungadak's people.
"They're sorcerers, Mariel. Yukungadak made a net of sun to trap me, and his creature was . . . was nothing that should have lived, a blend of lizard and bird and I don't know what, but then he let me go."
"Why? Were you too strong?"
"No, but he said he knew he'd have to kill me to stop me and he wouldn't do that."
She breathed out slowly and for a moment said nothing else. Then she asked, “And he drew on the younger people for his power? Their life force?”
“Well, yes, but I don’t think they were badly hurt. I got the impression they had to be of his family, but I’m not sure about that.”
Mariel thought that one over, then said, “And the children rode the dragons. Did you learn nothing more of the dragons, then?"
Now I felt as though I'd failed to memorise a lesson. "The dragons’ home was over the water. I couldn't go there."
"Did the people not tell you?"
"Well, yes. The dragons protect them. They have a pact. I think Yukungadak and the others shield the land so ships won't find it and the dragons must help them do that, give them the power or something."
"Shield the entire land? Dozens of sorceresses can barely raise the energy to shield Harp Island, which is quite small. From what you say, this land is much larger. Do you realise what you're saying?" I thought I did, so I nodded. "Amber, do you not realise that people have wanted to learn of dragons for hundreds of years? Why do they fly north and then go south again? Where do they go when they pass our lands? What is their southern land like? You didn't get any of these answers."
"I wasn't exactly thinking of all that." My own anger was rising against hers. Before I left, I'd been too wary of Mariel's sharp tongue and powers to challenge her. Now, though, my natural sense of caution seemed to have cut out. "He saved my life because I saved his. No one there wanted to answer my questions and why should they?"
Mariel took several careful breaths. "That's by the by. If you had these answers . . . they could have been very valuable, that's all. Perhaps valuable enough to change the Queen's mind, which would help all of us."
"Oh," I said.
"Now, who is this Lord of Cairenor? I gather you're
acquainted?" Her old sarcastic tone was back and somehow I felt immensely relieved.
"Do you remember when I was sent to Dampenrook to get rid of their raven plague?"
"Only too well."
"Warwick Asherley, Lord of Cairenor, was the Wizard Lord responsible for calling the ravens." I spoke very carefully, knowing she'd have a hard enough time accepting this without mumbles. "The wizard lords aren't all dead like people think. He called the ravens to plague Dampenrook for practice. He said he'd been looking for me ever since I broke his spell. He told me to come to him and he'd help me discover my powers, but I had to come to him quickly before it was too late."
"Four months ago he said this to you," Mariel murmured. "It may well be too late." Mariel this defeatist was scary.
“He promised to help me increase my powers – he said I would lend him my power and we would both achieve our dreams. Something like that.”
Mariel looked afraid now, her face tense and unsmiling as she looked at me, as though trying to decide how much she should say. “Amber,” she said at last, “the wizard lords stole power, thirty years ago. There was only one way they could take enough and that was by murder. Warwick Asherley led them and they sacrificed five small girl children so that they could get into the royal palace and murder all within. They nearly succeeded.”
“Murder who?”
“Queen Catherine’s consort and her Royal Brother. If Asherley had the power to spirit travel and speak to you in your dreams, that means he is killing again.”
“So he – he would kill me?”
“You’re a full sorceress, almost adult. You don’t have the huge magical potential those children had. He could still use you, but you would not be his first choice.”
"He can’t know we're here, can he?"
"Not our precise location, no, I don't think so. I shielded this room last night, I’d better refresh those shields soon, but I don’t think anyone travelling in dream could have tracked us. It’s not impossible, but I don’t know anyone strong enough to do it.”
He found me, I said, not saying the words aloud. I looked at Catri, who had been so silent throughout that I had forgotten she was there until she made a small movement, then at the blanket-wrapped lump that was two children. “Mariel,” I said, “what happened? Why are you and Cat here?” I wanted to ask about Nick but something stopped me, saying: not yet.
Mariel hesitated so long that tension began to cramp my stomach again, but finally she spoke. "About three hours after you left, close to dusk, the Queen’s Guard came back to the House and arrested Audryn. They had an Inquisitor with them. I had never seen him before – I think he was from the Throne City – so there was nothing she could do, even if she had chosen to defy them and I don’t think she would have. I sent a message to Geofrey and he came back that night.” Her voice was crisp and cold as winter. "Geofrey was in disarray; I’ve never seen him scared, I didn’t think he could be scared but he was. He told me that this visiting Inquisitor had sent him off on another errand to keep him out of the way and that he had only now learned what had happened. After I told him all I knew, he said not to despair, he would ride to the Throne City immediately and do what he could to secure her release because his orders had indicated only disbanding and dispersement, not arrest unless any sorceress challenged the order. Nicholas Harnage rode with him. That is the last I heard of either. At Geofrey's suggestion I left the Order House immediately. There was no longer a chance to slip through the soldiers and inquisitors to get to Harp Island, he said they would be watching for any sorceress. So I came to Gartree, taking a very long and circuitous route to avoid main roads and towns. I knew if I could get here, I would find help.”
“The inn-keeper woman?” I blurted.
Mariel regarded me coldly. “Her name is Isa and she is my aunt. So far, no one here knows I am a sorceress, I’m simply Isa’s niece come to live with her and help manage the inn since her husband’s death six months ago.”
Somehow the thought of Mariel having family was as much a shock as anything else she had told me.
“This morning I woke from a dream directing me to the beach, as I told you,” Mariel continued. “Catri and I walked along the coastal road for some time until we found myself hours away from the fishing boat harbour. Then we found Erlina and Kieran plodding northwards, with no supplies and no idea where they were headed. At first they told us only that they’d been thrown from their horse. That turned out to be the truth. When we identified myself, they told us who they really were.”
“So your dream wasn’t about me?”
“Goddess, no. You were an accident. At least I thought so – maybe the Goddess is still looking out for you. She better had; you don’t seem able to do it.”
“Thanks,” I said.
Mariel ignored this. “When Erlina told me why they had run, I had no choice but to take them along, even though our enemies won't hesitate to use this."
I didn’t ask why the children had run. Mariel would tell me when she was good and ready.
"You mean they'll say we kidnapped the children for some awful purpose of our own?"
"Well, I would say that," Mariel said and I started to laugh, before seeing her look.
"Time to sleep," she said after a long silence. "We need what rest we can get and maybe we can come up with a plan tomorrow."
“But you haven’t told me what happened to Mother Audryn – where did the Guard take her? What did they say she – we – had done?”
Mariel’s voice when she replied was cold and hard as winter itself. “The Queen’s edict had been updated. Sorceresses are not to be permitted to disperse, but to be arrested and killed if they resist. The Grey Shadows have their orders to enforce this. So far as I know now, which isn’t much – only bits of rumour Isa’s heard – Audryn is in prison in the Throne City and has been the whole time you were gone. We never had a chance to reach Harp Island, which Catri left to search for us a week ago.” Her tone indicated her low opinion of this strategy. “I speak with those on the Island once a month by the skry-water and they told me Catri was on her way and where to find her. We met yesterday.”
"Can't Geofrey do anything?"
I saw the face of the Chief Inquisitor in Skarrel as though it was yesterday; gray-haired, features sharp, elegant, eyes clear and kind. Geofrey, who loved Audryn and who was not allowed to; sworn to stamp out black magic and the evils it brought. He would not have stood by and allowed this to happen, not to Audryn.
"He risks the fires himself if he does,” Mariel said, her voice bitter. “Word has it he was called to the Throne City to be rebuked by Master Inquisitor Vidar, who's chief of the Star-Brother’s Order. If Geofrey objected, Vidar wouldn't listen to him."
There was someone else I needed to know about, but when I tried to ask, my throat dried up. I was too scared at what the answer might be. Finally I managed, "Nick?"
Mariel shrugged, so I looked at Catri, who shook her head.
"I haven't heard anything more than what Mariel has said, Amber. I'm sorry. There's no reason he shouldn't be all right. Vidar didn't know of any link between you, so Nick was only another trainee to him."
"Not trainee," I said. "He made full Inquisitor shortly before we rode to deal with the dragon." I can't see you, he'd said, breaking off our friendship and anything else which might have come about, because I was a sorceress and he was the enemy. Why should he even remember me? My head whirled as though I rode dragonback, the winds trying to tear me away. This no longer felt like home. To take my mind off me, I looked at the sleeping children, who were definitely not where they were supposed to be. Mariel and Catri wouldn't kidnap them, so why? I looked back at her.
"She's the problem," Mariel said at last, nodding towards Erlina, whose face was half-visible above the coarse gray blanket. "She's thirteen. A few days ago, she found that she could start little fires by thinking about them. She panicked and ran away.”
Erlina's eyes opened. She looked wide awake, but she didn't move. "I had to," she whispered. "It doesn't matter who you are, if you use magic he gets you. And the rest of them." Vidar and the Inquisition, I translated.
"What about your brother?" I said.
"He followed me."
"So what happens?" I asked. "Do they stay with us?"
Mariel didn’t answer me and I was glad to see that Erlina had fallen asleep again. Catri shivered a little, though the room was not too cold. Mariel didn’t want to make the decision, I realised, any more than I did. She was older but she didn’t want another thing to happen to her today.
“Sleep,” she said, confirming my guess. “We’ll talk tomorrow.” She stretched out on the other bed and appeared to go to sleep at once, leaving Cat and I the cushions of the windowseat, lying head to tail.
“Cat,” I whispered, “why did you leave, if you got to Harp Island? Wasn’t it safe there?”
“As anywhere. I don't know why I came, really. There wasn't any way I could help Audryn. The Harp sorceresses didn’t even tell me they’d been in contact with Mariel until I was on the point of leaving and then they told me to come here. I didn't want to stay on the island. They've hidden it, no boat can find it, but that means they're going to let whatever happens on the mainland go ahead. That's not for me." Catri shook her head slightly and I thought she seemed older, more than the few months that had passed since we'd seen one another. " I think the excitement's over for the day, though, so let's get some sleep while we have the chance."
"All right."
A moment later, her voice again murmured out of the dark. "Good to see you again, Amber. I was certain you were dragonbait."
*
In the morning, very early in the morning, Mariel woke Catri and me. I’d hoped for breakfast but she produced none, simply sat down on the bed and told us what was going to be. “I’ve had a talk with Isa and she suggests we put it about that you two are another set of nieces come to visit. She’s got a couple about the right ages, so you will use their names. Catri, you are in luck, there is a Catriona among the horde, but she uses her full name to sound important. Amber, you’re Lily.”
Catri snorted with laughter so I must have looked dumbstruck, but in the end I only shrugged and accepted it. “What about the children?” I asked.
“They don’t exist,” Mariel said curtly. “We’re close enough to the capital here that they might be recognised by locals and certainly will be if the Royal Guard come here searching for them. Isa told me that the Guard are searching villages closer to Netone and will probably be here during the day. Each of us will be working about the inn; if word gets out that we’re all huddling up here, that’s as good as admitting we’re up to something. Erlina, Kieran, did you hear that?”
I’d thought the children asleep, but when Mariel’s voice snapped out like a whip crack, Erlina whispered, “Yes,” in stunned answer.
“Sit up and look at me.”
They did, rumpled from head to foot in those expensive clothes, now showing a bit of dirt and wear. Erlina’s long hair was tangled.
“Erlina, we’re going to try to find out about your situation,” Mariel told her. “I hope you’re in no danger, that you panicked and ran without finding out what the real reaction would be. I find it very hard to accept that your mother would harm you for fire-lighting. That’s a minor talent; quite a few witches can’t do anything else but that. You might have to undergo purification at a nunnery, perhaps. That’s not pleasant to say the least but it’s not fatal. However, we are not going to betray the fact that you’re here until we’re sure you aren’t in danger. This means that any questioning on my part must be very slow and very careful or we will all be discovered. And while you may only face purification, the rest of us face something much worse.”
Erlina nodded but said nothing.
“Kieran, you wouldn’t be in any danger, but if you go back now, they will have out of you where your sister is. If we had to leave here, we would be in a great deal more danger on the open road. Sanctuaries are few. So you must remain with her.” She stared at one child, then the other. “You must stay in this room and stay quiet at all times. You’ll be extremely bored and neither the food nor the accommodations will be anything like what you are used to, but if you do not do exactly what you’re told, these two girls and I are all dead. Do you understand?”
They nodded, still speechless. Mariel waited and finally Erlina said in a ghost of a voice, “We understand.”
“Kieran?”
“Yes,” he said. “Uh, I need to . . .”
“The bucket is on the landing outside. I’ll pass it in as we leave. Don’t empty it out the window, it’ll attract attention. When one of us comes up here again, we’ll take it outside.”
This seemed to flummox Kieran more than anything else, but he only nodded again.
“Get dressed, cousins,” Mariel told us. “We have a day’s work to get done.”
As we did, she told us a bit more about the duties necessary to keep an inn running. There was stable work, but she wanted to keep us out of sight of the customers as much as possible, so we would work mostly in the kitchen. When the inn became busy in the evening, we’d have to serve drink, but by then the customers would be past noticing and the light would be bad. When Catri and I were ready, Mariel led us downstairs to our fate. In the kitchen, her aunt was waiting for us. Isa’s face was serious, but she didn’t look as though she resented us.
“I’ve told Isa who you are,” Mariel said to me, but before I could blurt anything out, she continued smoothly. “You’re her niece Lily and this is your younger sister Catriona, daughters of Isa’s sister Fiora who married a northern man, so she hasn’t met you before. Fiora is glad to send you along here to help run the place and learn some useful skills.”
“And I’m glad to have two good strong girls to help me,” Isa said and managed a brief smile. “I’m told you two know your way around a kitchen and there’s much to be done.”
We followed her into the huge kitchen, where Isa pointed to a long wooden table along one wall. “Break your fast quickly,” she said and left to continue her tasks while we bolted chunks of bread and honey under Mariel’s eye. Mariel then left to do the rooms and we were left to Isa’s direction.
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My brother was bitten by a wild rat years back and ended up with rat-bite fever which came back over and over and over again for years.
I hope those naughty little guys aren't putting you at risk.
Chain-mail. :)
Yay! that you have posted another chapter. Boo! that I can't read it till I've finished writing my NaNoWriMo story. I'm on my second last chapter. Wow! It has been such a long haul. I don't know what possessed me to attempt such a thing. I tell you, it gives me renewed respect for people like yourself who simply do it without a NaNoWriMo goad.
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I don't write anything like as much as the NaNoRiMo thing but then, I think that is probably so much as to leave no time for editing and I like to take it slowly :-)
"Dropkick" is possibly one of the words to fit a couple of Don and Lena's rats. I'm giving them attention, I'm being nice to them and....CHOMP! My fault, I was warned to wear oven gloves. I'm used to mine who are very well socialised and would never dream of biting the Big Rat.
I know several people doing the Nano thing and afraid I haven't read the stuff except for a quick look. I'll probably read the stories when they are finished!
Ratfan
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I finally finished my novel. Of course now I'll have to go through and fix it, but oh well... that's what happens with what amounts to a speed-write event. Grief! I don't know if I'll let myself in for another of those. Although maybe it'll be like childbirth. Every woman I know who's had a kid has said that if they could truly remember how painful childbirth is they'd never let themselves in for another. Maybe I'll forget and become blasé, thinking sure, I've done it once, how hard can it be? Not remembering the near-death experience this one was. (Of course I over-dramatise -- it was just very, very hard and exhausting.)
Wow, rats that bite the Big Rat are just asking to be left out of the next round of feedings. I wonder if that would improve their manners or make them more feral. If they're like humans it would probably make them worse. I don't know a lot about rat society, but however social ranking is organised, perhaps that would be a way to get them to defer to you. Or maybe they are just unsettled by the big change in their lives and feeling vulnerable, like ummm... cornered rats.
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Yeah, I've heard that about childbirth too. I think writers do forget - I've had some really bad times with novels and trying to get 'em published and getting the run around and I'm still doing it again with Edge, a publisher that asks for only a few chapters at a time. They've just asked me to send the last five. The long agonising rip school of publishers.
No, not feeding badly behaved rats wouldn't do a thing. You have to monster them right back before they'll have any respect for you. They are quite fearless and don't care about the size difference at all. That's why we've got the saying about fight like a cornered rat. He will. He doesn't care that he's six inches off the ground and you might be 5 to 6 feet.
I've had quite a few disagreements with dominant rats and you have to do things like knock them sideways and off their feet which sounds like animal abuse - it's really only light cuffing! - when they bite. They're smart, it only takes a short while before that rat will stop biting the hand that has just backhanded him. That's how you convince a rat that you rank him.
Unfortunately the rats I was caring for at the time I mentioned weren't mine. They shouldn't have been that traumatised; they didn't move home or anything and I should add, they're not any nicer to their owners. Who rescued them from probable death, I might add!
Sue