The Magic Council (The Herezoth Trilogy) (35 page)

“My preference would be not to,” the king
agreed. “That just doesn’t seem possible.”

“We can dilute the references, if nothing
else. Weaken the impact.”

“If you have an idea, I’m all ears.”

“No one knows where Vane’s spent the last
few years, do they?”

“Of course not. Link a sorcerer to
Traigland and it’s as good as a direct reference to your family, you know
that.”

“Thank the Giver. Listen, this should be
enough to take some heat off him when you give the first interviews about the
council….”

Zacry made his case, and Rexson listened
without interrupting him once. “That should be sufficient,” the king agreed,
when the sorcerer had finished. “As long as Vane won’t be annoyed.”

“He’ll be livid we didn’t tell him
beforehand. But if we do, he’ll try to put a stop to it, so keep this
close-chested. Vane will get over himself soon enough.”

CHAPTER
FOUR

Of
Necklaces and Newspapers

Vane next had to suffer Amison three weeks
after Kansten’s birthday, like he had told Zacry. The encounter proved less
intense than the first and left Vane feeling more secure, if only temporarily,
thanks to his knowledge of what lay ahead. He truly thought that without the
council to cause further ruckus, his transition into court would have
progressed smoothly from there on out.

A new diplomat from Traigland had arrived
in Podrar, and Amison came to the capital to assist in the business that
brought the man. Vane was unsure what that business was. The duke was young as
well as a new presence, and knew next to nothing of foreign affairs, so he was
glad to be omitted from the small number of nobles Rexson asked to assist him
as to the political aspects of the visit. Amison was included because his family
had always been stalwarts in the realm of international relations.

Vane attended a handful of social
functions held in the diplomat’s honor, and it was at these his path crossed
with Amison, who would greet Vane civilly and then pay him small mind. Only the
crushing strength of Amison’s handshakes marked the odium he held for Ingleton.
At dinners, Yangerton’s eyes did wander in Vane’s direction, and the youth was
under no misconception that Amison asked questions of his peers about
Ingleton’s comings and goings, awaiting the chance to create bad blood between
Vane and Rexson or to soil Vane’s reputation with the commoners, preferably
both. Vane, however, had taken the king’s advice and kept his life transparent,
every aspect of it but August. He knew Amison would learn nothing dangerous,
but still wished the man gone.

At one last welcome reception for the
Traiglandian ambassador, while Vane listened to Carlina describe the wedding
she and Thad would hold in five months’ time and thanked the Giver that August
would never want a large wedding—while Vane half-prayed, in fact, that
Bennie’s elopement might set August a precedent to imitate—Bennie herself
was checking on a pot roast in the kitchen. The rest of the house was filled
with boxes again, this time of Gratton’s things, but her kitchen was clear of
clutter and the mess elsewhere did not bother her. The overflowing and
half-spilled crates were proof she was not dreaming, evidence of a glorious
beginning to what she judged was her real life, real living, finally arrived; a
part of her wished they would never be unpacked.

Her roast was coming nicely. Clad in her
apron, she was slicing carrots to throw in the pot with the meat and its broth
when Gratton arrived home. He had been at the Palace all day, and threw what
looked like a sealed letter on the wooden counter before he kissed her.
Bendelof kept chopping.

“How was the shop today?” he asked.

“Busy. I was running around all morning
between the storage room and the front…. What’s that?”

“A letter for you. From Rexson.”

That brought Bennie to lay down her
knife. “From Rexson?”

“I told him about the elopement a few
days ago.”

The sun was setting, but the single large
window in the kitchen faced west, so Bennie had sufficient light. Curious, she
unfolded the missive, which felt strangely heavy, and read:

Dear
Bendelof:

Congratulations
on your marriage, and best luck to you.

I
realize certain circumstances have barred us from keeping as close contact as
we would have liked. I always considered it an unspoken agreement that if you
needed my help, you would have found a way to ask, in the same way I trusted
that you understood I never sought you out because I knew you well enough to
assume you would want nothing more than to leave all reminders of the past to the
past—or at least, as many as possible, and the Palace more than others. I
was livid when Hayden involved you in the fiasco of late, and I’m overjoyed to
learn of the recompense you received therefrom.

I’ve
enclosed a wedding gift, because elopers receive few, and you deserve at least
this one. This necklace has been passed down from mother to daughter in my
family—my mother’s family—for generations. You and I may have
different blood, but from the day we met I considered you the little sister I
always wished had been born to receive it. I salvaged one or two other
heirlooms for Melinda that somehow escaped Zalski’s purge of the Palace, so
don’t feel as though you rob my daughter of something that should be hers. You
don’t, and it’s my wish that you have this.

“He signed it Lanokas,” she told Gratton,
and removed the first sheet of the letter to find an empty one behind with the
necklace fastened to it. This was a thin gold chain with a single charm, a
porcelain rose as red as Bennie’s hair and as small as the nail on her pinky.
It was simple but elegant, and much to her taste. She undid the clasp, prepared
at first to hang it about her own neck; she still wasn’t used to living with
someone else. She held the charm out for Gratton to see.

“It was his mother’s,” she explained.
“The old queen’s. I can’t believe….”

“It’s beautiful.”

“Would you mind?”

He kissed her neck as he fastened the
clasp, then spun her around to see the finished product. She asked what he
thought, and he said, “The apron really sets it off.” She had not, in fact,
removed the apron she had first put on to handle her roast, and walloped him
with a wooden spoon before she went back to chopping carrots.

“In all seriousness, it looks stunning on
you. The king chose a nice piece. And does he love you, my God! It must have
been a full quarter hour he spent threatening me on your behalf when I told him
we eloped. Only calmed down when I told him eloping was your idea and I know
just as well as he does you’re too good for me.”

“Did you tell him you’ve stopped
drinking?”

“He swore up and down if I started up
again and caused you grief, he would have me framed for some theft or other and
lock me away ‘til there was nothing but a pile of bones in my cell. I told him
not to worry, Hayden Grissner would have an arrow in my back long before he
arranged a charade like that.”

Bennie groaned. “Did Hayden tell you
something too?”

“He doesn’t need to. His looks are
enough. The man killed Zalski’s general with a shot aimed through a shattered
window.”

“That was Hayden’s cousin. Hayden slew
one of the guards outside the building.”

“How’s that different? By the Giver’s
flute, I remember exactly where I was when our lieutenant told us Alten
Grombach had died.”

Bennie clicked her teeth in disapproval
of the swear. “How did the army explain his death?”

“Heart attack, but only the newest
recruits believed that. I thought Zalski poisoned him, but no, turns out it was
little Hayden.”

Bennie laughed. “Little Hayden? You’re a
whole three years older.” She stroked Gratton’s hair and kissed him. “He does
lack your distinguished gray, though.”

“I don’t care about his hair. It’s his
bow I’m worried about.”

“Don’t be. He’s got nothing against you,
you know that. The king doesn’t either. The boys are just a bit…. They’re
protective of me. We went through a lot together.” She smirked up at Gratton
from her cutting board. “My silver fox isn’t scared of those mean old hounds,
is he?”

“The king’s had me disconcerted since
that little chat, actually. He was dead serious about my skeleton.”

“That was just him making sure you know
he’s a brother to me. Gracious, Rexson trusts you enough to have you rescue his
children. He’s far from your enemy.” She threw an unpeeled carrot at her
husband, which he caught and tossed aside. “And even if he were, your reflexes
are fine, see? You could take him. So grow a spine, soldier!”

Gratton grinned with false menace.
“That’s quite enough lobbed produce for one day,” he said, and chased her into
the living room, where she dodged boxes and swatted him with a chair cushion
before she let him catch her.

“I’ve got dinner on the fire,” she
protested.

“Let it burn,” he said, and made to kiss
her before she smacked him again with the cushion. He knocked it to the floor.
“I’m serious,” he said. “Let dinner burn.”

Gazing into his eyes, she decided she
still would not let him kiss her. She kissed him instead. Forget the roast.
That evening would bring them a child at the end of the year; she was sure it
would.

                                                    
*
* *

The next two months were a blur for Vane.
He was able to meet with August once or twice a week, sometimes three or four
if he had an engagement at the Palace after which he could send his carriage
off empty, head invisible to August’s quarters, and pass an hour there before
the princess’s nurse made some excuse to exit the building through the
servants’ door so that Vane could follow and transport back to Oakdowns. Vane
tried not to assess the risks. He had no idea what he would do if someone
discovered him sneaking around the Palace, and invisible at that, but his luck
held for once. No one caught them.

August continued to live and work in the
Palace, not because she needed employment—she didn’t, not after Ursa’s
gift to her—but because she was horrified at the thought of returning to
live in her sister’s mansion. She had nowhere else to go if she stopped caring
for Melly, and just then was not the time to be looking for lodging elsewhere
in Podrar, not with the million cares Vane was juggling.

Vane, August, and the royal family knew
the first papers would print news of the Magic Council soon after the king
invited their representatives to the Palace for a private interview on that
account, though the
Podrar Bugle
would hold the story so that Yangerton and the capital could learn of it
together. That was customary for non-urgent information. Rexson scheduled a
meeting with reporters for March twelfth, and planned a dinner with his nobles,
including Carson Amison, for the sixteenth, to address their concerns the day
the story broke.

The morning the articles came out, Vane
rose at four a.m. by his clock. He put on what he had chosen to wear that
evening, intending to keep his best clothes on all day, and at half past five
transported to the Crystal Palace. An hour later found him pacing the library
there while the queen sat with a sleeping Melly in her lap and the king tapped
his foot repeatedly. Valkin, Neslan, and Hune slept on the settee: a “camp out”
their father had called it. Gratton was on duty in the courtyard, but Vane and
August had asked Bennie to join them at the Palace, so she stood near the
room’s spiral staircase. Her eyes, heavy with sleep, followed Vane’s agitated
steps; one of her hands ran up and down the chain around her neck where her
rose charm hung. Teena, who had fallen ill the previous day with a low-grade
fever, aches, and chills, was resting in August’s rooms, where she had slept
the night before because Vane refused to leave his aunt at Oakdowns on that of
all days. August herself had gone to grab a copy of the
Podrar Bugle
from the servants’ quarters, and no one said much of
anything while they awaited her return. As she slipped into the library,
breathless, her cheeks red, Vane rushed to the chestnut double doors. Gracia
laid her daughter aside.

“I didn’t read it yet,” August whispered.
“I didn’t dare. Oh….”

Gracia, Bendelof, and the king joined the
youths; Vane took the paper from August, and crowded around the library
threshold, they read the first article all at once.

KING
ANNOUNCES ADVISORY COUNCIL TO BE COMPOSED OF MAGICIANS. SEEKS APPLICANTS.

The king has announced to a select
group of reporters his plans to institute a new council on magical affairs by
the end of June. The council is to consist of five to seven members who will
choose among themselves which of them is to serve as the council’s spokesman.
Like all existing councils, this newest will have no powers beyond an advisory
capacity.

The council’s membership remains
largely to be determined, as the king is seeking applicants to fill at least
four spots. What is sure to cause controversy is his decision to limit the
applicant pool to magicians, whether with active or passive powers or full
sorcery. The council, to convene monthly, will exist alongside other councils
already formed, none of which has a magical focus or will take a secondary
place to the newest advisory group.

The idea for the council of magicians
was inspired in part by Zacry Porteg, whose essays explore why the magicked, as
a community, lack the voice given to Herezoth’s guilds since the collapse of Zalski’s
regime, soon to reach its fifteenth anniversary. It is for that milestone that
the king has chosen this year to implement the council, saying the vast
majority of magicians never supported the dictator and have lived as
part-pariahs since his death. Those who did lend the sorcerer brutal support,
he reminded, paid for those crimes long ago. In the words of the king, “The
time has come to integrate the magicked back into society. It is my hope that
this council, working with various other councils formed by members of the
nobility as well as workers’ guilds, will allow us all to heal what wounds
still gape this long after the dictatorship.”