The Magic Council (The Herezoth Trilogy) (38 page)

She laid her head on his shoulder with a
sniffle. “I love you so much.”

“You feeling tired yet?”

“I’m starting to.”

“Well, good. Let’s get you to bed, then. You
need your sleep.”

* * *

The clock in the sitting room of August’s
quarters had just chimed midnight when Vane transported in. August was still
clad in her work dress. Darning socks to pass the time, she sat in the rocking
chair she used to calm Melly when the young girl fussed. The door to the
bedroom, which she usually kept open, was shut so as not to disturb Teena.

“How is she?” Vane asked.

“Loads better. Her fever broke, and she was up
and about earlier. Ate a good amount of vegetable soup and bread, and she drank
some tea the doctor recommended. We talked about you for a good half-hour. I
told her Zacry was here, and she was so relieved at that you could just about
see the tension melting from her face. She wanted to stay up to see you, but I
told her you’d want her to rest. She tried to hold out, of course. You know how
she is, but she went back to bed about two hours ago. Val, how was it? Did
anyone cause problems?”
 

“Openly, only Amison. Most others just settled
for warning glances. I was able to sit by Thad at dinner, at least. That meant
Carlina too, but….”

Vane’s cheeks, already flushed with wine, grew
an even deeper red as he recalled Carlina’s opinion of Tara Grissner. And
Thad…. He had been hoping that Thad, if no one else, would understand about
August, but that had been more of a wish than a probability.

Perhaps it was the wine, perhaps the cumulative
effect of the strain of the last six months, and the last twenty-four hours in
particular; perhaps it was the anger that enveloped him each time he remembered
Carlina and Thad’s comments about marriage, an anger that urged him to act out
of spite towards them and the entire establishment; perhaps he was exhausted to
the point that delirium was setting in; but all of a sudden, an idea Vane had
only contemplated half in jest he now considered in seriousness. A concept that
had always seemed absurd became not only a viable option, but perhaps the best
one. He walked up to August and took her right hand. “Tomorrow’s your day off,
isn’t it?”

“Like always,” she said. “I didn’t really watch
Melly today, so I offered to take this as my free day for the week, but the
queen wouldn’t let me do that.”

“August, let’s get married,” he said.

She blinked in confusion, and told him, “We
will, eventually.”

“No, let’s elope. Tonight.”

“What!?”

“Elope to Partsvale. There’s always a minister
at the Shrine. All the priests in the village take turns staffing the sacristy
late. Whoever’s there will marry us.”

Vane had never seen August look so startled. She
made to raise her free hand to the side of her head, but Vane grabbed it too
and held it alongside the other.

“I realize I’m not the safest person to be
associated with right now. Hundreds of protesters could have overrun my estate
mere hours ago without the protective spells I’ve set up. In the last thirty
minutes, Amison took his threats against me from latent to clearly voiced. I’ll
think nothing of it if you say you’d rather wait, because frankly, I have no
business asking you to marry me on this of all days. The timing’s beyond
dreadful. But August, I realized tonight there’ll never be
a decent time. I’m a sorcerer and of Zalski’s blood, and whenever
I get married, married will mean kids, won’t it? Kids mean more sorcerers, and
there’ll be people who don’t want that, whether we marry tonight or five years
from now.”

“I’ll
give you we’ll never find an ideal moment. But there’ll be better times than
this, surely!”

“God
help me if there aren’t,” he responded.

August pulled away from him and started pacing
the floor. Her stomach felt tied in knots; she was amazed she could move and
was not doubled over from all the tension in her gut. “Val, waiting makes more
sense, doesn’t it? It’s certainly the practical thing, the safe and proper
thing. If we’re honest with ourselves, the proper thing would have been never
getting involved in the first place, but since that’s over and done with, we’re
left with….”

Vane felt his heart drop, and prayed his
disappointment wouldn’t show. “We’re left with waiting,” he said. “So we’ll
wait. That’s settled, we’ll wait.”

But August kept on pacing.

“Propriety, now…. There’s more to consider than
propriety. Val, I…” She stopped moving, which Vane appreciated, because he had
started to feel dizzy following her with his eyes. “I’ve been thinking the last
few hours, about us. We’re sure of our emotions. We’re agreed on what we want
for the future. Yes, we could wait until things calm down a bit, but I know the
both of us fairly well by now, and I’m convinced that if we don’t face this
mess together—openly, unabashedly, undividably together—we’ll
regret it as long as we live.”

“So we’re doing this?” asked Vane. “We’re
getting married?”

“We’re getting married,” she confirmed. Her
voice shook with excitement. She kissed him and held his shoulders. “Gracious,
we…. We’re getting married! Val, how will this work?”

“Pack your things,” he said, and kissed her.
“I’ll go grab mine, and change….” (She kissed him this time) “…and I’ll be back
in half an hour.” (His turn again.) “I’ll leave a note in my room for Rexson,
so don’t worry about that, all right?” (Her turn.) “August….”

“All right,” she said, and kissed him one last
time, hanging on his arm as though to prevent him leaving. “Have we gone
insane? Val, what will the king say?”

“I’m trying not to think about that right now.”

“And Oakdowns? What if the crowds are larger
tomorrow? What if they turn destructive?”

“Let them burn the place to the ground. No one’s
inside. Listen, I’ll be right back, I promise.”

“Hurry,” she said, and squeezed his hand. He
said he would and transported to the room where he had planned to sleep. He put
on fresh clothing, something less formal so as not to attract attention in
Partsvale, and scribbled a quick note for Rexson explaining where he and August
had gone. He hardly had a clue what he was writing.

Ten minutes later, Vane found himself in a dark,
deserted Oakdowns. He entered directly to his chamber and lit no lamps or
tapers; he knew exactly what he was looking for, and an ominous red glow from
the window gave just enough light to navigate the familiar terrain.

The first place he went was to look outside,
invisible. He dared a peek around the curtain to the grounds and the fence,
where ghostly, nondescript, motionless figures held at least seventy torches in
a mark of solidarity with one another, in defiance of the Duke of Ingleton and
his rumored future involvement with the Magic Council.

They’re
still here. Good Giver, they’re still here.

There was a bowl on Vane’s nightstand where he
usually poured water to wash his face before bed; he reached it just in time to
vomit. Then he took a few deep breaths, cleaned his mouth with fresh water from
the pitcher next to the bowl, and vanished the sick with a spell.

Damn
them all!

Keeping his back to the window’s glow, he made
his way to the desk and removed an envelope from the top drawer, then wasted no
time in transporting out. When he made it back to August’s rooms, she had a
small bag ready and had put on her favorite lace-lined dress.

“We’ll need rings,” he said, handing her the
envelope he had taken from Oakdowns. She slid a diamond ring as well as a man’s
gold band onto her palm.

“That was my mother’s wedding ring,” Vane told
her, indicating the diamond. “She left it at the Crimson League’s last camp,
but Rexson recovered it later. And that was my father’s: at least, his initials
are etched on the inside of the band. I don’t know why he wasn’t wearing it
when he died, or how it made it back to Oakdowns if he was. It was fixed to the
back of my parents’ portrait in the attic.”

“The one someone hid with a blanket?”

“That one. I hadn’t intended to use these,
August. I was planning to have new ones made for us and just keep these as
heirlooms, but since there’s no time for that, we can slip them on and I’ll
size them before we go.”

Vane’s father’s ring was a bit too large, while
August could not slip hers over her knuckle. A few words muttered under Vane’s
breath were all it took to adjust their diameters. Then Vane stuck the rings in
his pocket and asked, “Are you sure you want to do this?”

“I am, Val.” Because she knew what would happen
if they waited. They would find another excuse to postpone announcing an
engagement or a marriage, and then another, until one or both of them began to
question how deep their attachment ran.

I
can’t let that happen. I can’t lose him like that. I’ll face anything with him,
anything at all, but I won’t lose him for want of a backbone.

“It won’t be easy, August. The nobility….”

“I can follow Tara Grissnser’s lead, can’t I?
Not make appearances. I’d be fine with that, as long as you are.”

“That’s your decision. You’re the one they’ll
snub, so if you want to keep to yourself, keep to yourself. You’ve every right.
If you’d like to join me now and then in company, that’s fine too. I’d be proud
as any fool to have you with me, and to hell with the rest of them. There will
be functions I’ll have to attend, though, with or without you. Rexson’s in
particular.”

“I understand that, and I’d never grudge you
going. That comes with the title, doesn’t it, and I know why you took the title
up. It wasn’t to stoke your ego, or make your name known, or something like
that. You felt obligated, obligated to undo at least some small part of your
uncle’s legacy. Val, I know how that is.” It was the same sense of duty she had
struggled with after her sister kidnapped the princes.

“Good God, I love you,” he said, and kissed her.
“August, I… Why did we never say that before today?”

She kissed him back, and said, “I think both of
us knew deep down that when we did, something like this would happen. So let’s
go,” she urged. He made to kiss her again, but she pushed him away. “Let’s get
married before we lose our nerve.”

CHAPTER SIX

Visiting Ursa

The newlyweds returned to August’s rooms the
next evening arm in arm holding their light luggage, but August dropped her bag
and drew back from her husband when she found the king waiting for them with a
horribly stern (and frighteningly paternal) glare in his eye. He gave the bride
not even a glance.

“A word, Ingleton.”

“I’ll be in the library,” August whispered in
Vane’s ear, and darted off.

“Before you start….” Vane pleaded.

“Oh, I’ll speak first. Valkin Heathdon, I have
never….”

The absolute worst ten minutes of Vane’s life
followed. Rexson had the air of an angry and injured father. What had Vane been
thinking? After all Zacry had done to limit the backlash against him, he had
repaid the man by doing the one thing that was sure to make those efforts ineffectual.
Perhaps Vane didn’t care about the increased dangers to himself, but what about
August? Had he thought of that? He might as well have thrown August in the
midst of ravenous beasts. He was a
sorcerer.
If August were to conceive right away, the Giver help them all! Vane said
he loved her? Then his priority was her security, her protection above all
else, most especially above any thought of sexual gratification. He’d been
noble enough to marry the girl, at least, and not go fathering bastard after bastard
like Carson Amison, but to marry then of all times….

Love meant sacrifice. Vane’s mother leaving her
infant son with Teena for his safety when that baby was all she had,
that
was love; his father running
through the Palace to warn his friends of danger when he might have saved
himself heading for an exit,
that
was
love. If Vane loved this girl, he’d more suitably have exiled himself from her
presence than marry her when he had. Was he so puerile and impatient that he
couldn’t wait a year? A mere year? By the Giver’s band of harps, he’d only met
the girl seven or eight months before!

Not to mention the fact Vane had deserted his
estate and his servants. No one occupied Oakdowns at present, but what if
protesters had tried to torch the manor? Magical protections aside, what if
they’d succeeded? The crowds remained where they’d been for two days now,
tensely motionless. Suppose their restless energy had broken: every one of the
men and women who worked for Vane would have lost a livelihood. He had a
responsibility to those people, and he had shirked it as though it were
nothing. Eight-year-old Hune cared better for his dogs. His dogs!
   

A duchy and a title meant responsibilities, responsibilities
Vane had tossed aside as though he hadn’t a care beyond which destination to
choose when he trekked halfway across the kingdom at his leisure. Just so Vane
was aware, Carson Amison had barged into Rexson’s office that very morning,
incensed about the council, convinced (and rightly) that it had already
inconvenienced him and his affairs; the man understood that funding marked for
the council’s use was the reason the king had refused to grant the full amount
he’d requested in January for public works in Yangerton. As everyone assumed
Ingleton was lodging in the Crystal Palace for a day or two until the situation
outside Oakdowns improved, he demanded the king call Vane to join them. Rexson
had refused, under pretense of demonstrating that Amison had no standing to
demand a thing of the crown. The king stood firm in his insistence that the new
council was his project alone and had already annoyed Ingleton more than was
just. What Amison had to say concerning recent developments he could address to
Rexson himself. What if Amison, instead of storming off to his own property,
had grown suspicious and investigated around the Palace to find out where the
hell Vane was? What if he’d discovered him gone?

At last Vane could take no more. “You know full
well you’d never have summoned me to meet with Amison. You wouldn’t subject me
to that, not in a million years. And how dare you accuse me of using August?
How dare you! Do you know me at all? Rexson, I would die for that woman without
a second thought. I’m sorry if that’s trite, but I can think of no plainer way
to say it. I know love means sacrifice, and so does August, come to that. Look,
we could have stayed away longer. We could have left no note and not come back
at all. God knows we wanted to! We knew the sooner we returned, the more you
and Gracia, and Zacry and Teena would appreciate it. I wouldn’t leave you in
that bind or hurt my aunt that way. I wouldn’t walk away from the council after
Zacry got involved for no other reason than for my benefit. See? Sacrifice!”
Rexson’s expression grew a hair less severe, and Vane demanded, “Is that all?
Or do you have something else to tell me?”

“I do, in fact,” said Rexson. He smiled, if
tensely. “Congratulations. And many blessings on you both.” He embraced the boy
as though Vane truly were one of his sons.

Vane asked, “How long will those protesters stay
outside Oakdowns?”

“Until you give word about whether you’ll join
the council, is my guess. They hope to sway your decision.”

“They’ll be there two months then. I’m not
speaking a word about the council until my interview. I’m set on that.”

“Your servants?”

“Paid leaves of absence. What else could I do?”

“Well, you and your aunt are, in no uncertain
terms, as welcome as you ever were to lodge here, though August will have to
move to a guest room with you.”

Vane knew what Rexson was thinking. August’s
current rooms were for the baby’s nurse, and if August were Ingleton’s wife….

“She won’t make a stir, Rexson. She won’t appear
in any official capacity.”

“That’s a wise decision, but she’s nonetheless a
duchess now. She cannot work for Gracia.”

“If the protesters keep calm, I’m thinking to
return to Oakdowns tomorrow—just August, Teena, and me. I can transport
the three of us home, and transport out again if it comes to that. I don’t want
anyone having the impression I’ve run scared, and as for the people with the
banners and the torches, they’ll just get frustrated if I deprive them much
longer of the opportunity to address me face to face, so to speak. We don’t want
them frustrated.”

“That’s a safe enough arrangement you’re
proposing,” agreed Rexson. “You have Oakdowns well protected, and I agree, no
one wants those protesters acting out of frustration from not being heard.”

“Being seen, rather. As long as I make clear I
know they’re there, without offending them…. Opening some curtains that look
out that way should be enough. I won’t have to physically confront the lousy….”

“Not the demonstrators,” remarked the king. “You
will, however, speak with Ursa.”

Vane could have kicked himself. He had not once
thought of August’s sister, had not realized that reporters would find her when
they snooped into the life of Ingleton’s new duchess.

“I’ll take August tomorrow. Thank the Giver,
it’s been three weeks since her last visit.”

Rexson informed him, “You will take your wife
this evening.”

“Or we can go tonight,” said Vane. His elopement
would send ambitious scribes directly to Ursa. Himself and August aside, the
havoc that woman could wreak on Rexson’s life if she so chose, and on Kora’s….

“I forgot about her,” Vane said. “I wouldn’t
have….”

“Just fix this,” Rexson ordered, and left the
room.

Vane transported to the library, where August
sat tugging at her hair. Before she could rise from her chair or say a word,
Vane told her, “We’re going back to Partsvale. To your sister.”

August gasped. “Good Giver, my sister.”

“Tell me you two have been getting along.”

The girl’s face lit up with white-hot guilt. “I
don’t know if I’d say that, but there’s no hostility, Val. There’s no reason
she would…. You don’t think she’d have Kora killed?”

“She’ll have the opportunity. We need to speak
with her before reporters do, and they won’t want to wait. I’d guess whoever
gets her story is guaranteed a post for life with the Duke of Partsvale.”

“Right. Of course you’re right. We’ll go this
instant. Val, how should we sign the register?”

August had always signed with her real name.
Vane, who had never spoken with Ursa in Partsvale, had never needed to put his
signature on any document at the prison.

“We’ll sign as ourselves. They’ll figure out who
we are soon enough, and if we put down an alias, it’ll only raise suspicions.”

Five minutes later they walked into Partsvale’s
prison, a two-storied building fronted with brown brick. Luckily for them, the
warden on duty was a former member of Rexson’s guard, one the king had
personally appointed to the post when he expressed a desire to move up north
and work shorter hours because of his age. He was a lanky man by the name of
Samson Denwood, with a noticeable bald spot and unreadable eyes. He had spoken
with Vane during one of August’s past visits, and thus showed no surprise when
the duke signed the log “Valkin Heathdon.” Despite the visit’s urgency, August smiled
at her husband as she signed her married name for the first time. That did
make Samson jolt, but he was
professional enough to make no comment; he simply summoned one of the female
guards as an escort for the duke and duchess, as protocol mandated, since they
would be entering the female sector of the prison.

That guard led the newlyweds down a wide and
well-lit corridor to one of the visiting rooms, furnished with two wooden
benches. A second woman brought in Ursa, and when the prisoner was alone with
her sister and brother-in-law, she slumped onto the bench opposite them. Her
once glorious red hair had been cropped per prison regulations. Her pale skin
was wind-burnt and her muscles toned from her work in the rock quarries.

“What is this?” she demanded of August. “What’s
he doin’ here, and why’d you come so late in the day?”

August usually visited in the morning. She
couldn’t seem to find her voice, so she lifted her left hand and pointed to her
ring. Ursa shook her head in disbelief.

“You did not. August Hincken, you did not….
Don’t you realize the king’s announcin’ the council this month?”

“He did yesterday,” said Vane.

“An’ when did you two marry?”

“Yesterday,” he told her.

“The Giver’s bloody flute,” said Ursa.

“Listen,” said Vane, “we married at the Shrine
here. It’ll take ten days for news of the council to reach Partsvale, or for
the marriage to reach Podrar. After that, they’ll start investigating. They’ll
find out August has a sister, and they’ll find out where you are. The king had
the sense to draft three sentencing contracts, one for each of you, so there’ll
be nothing to connect to you to Dorane and Arbora, nothing to connect you to
sorcery or the Fist
unless you open your
mouth.
”

“You tellin’ me not to talk to the papers?”

“No, you’ll have to. They’ll just imagine you’ve
something to hide if you don’t, and they’ll go digging, and who knows what
they’ll discover. If you talk to one, just one, that should be enough to
satisfy their bloodlust where I’m concerned. Just be discreet.

“I remember exactly what your sentence says:
you’re here for inciting tax evasion, and for the murder of Crale Bendit. We
can go from there and think of an explanation that doesn’t involve magic, one
you can feed to reporters.”

Ursa began, “Well, Arbora told….”

“I know Arbora told the Fist some cover story
about how the crown allots tax revenue. How no money goes to programs for the
magicked. There’s no official record of that, so we can say something
different, say anything we’d like. The Fist will assume you’re protecting the
organization. Listen, Ursa, you can’t mention magic, and if you say a word
about the king, or the kidnapping, or Kora Porteg, I swear I….”

“It’s no secret down in Carphead I had magic,
you know.”

“That’s fine. That’s fine, because August
doesn’t. As long as they don’t learn the Enchanted Fist exists, that you were
politically active, that my sister-in-law—my wife’s sister, of all
things—threatened the king’s sons in an attempt to blackmail….”

Ursa smirked. “You got relatives enough working
against you already, is that it?”

August spoke for the first time. “Ursa
Hincken….”

The prisoner retorted, “Don’t you dare act
superior ‘round me, not this time. What is wrong with you? You marry him, of
all people? Zalski’s nephew, the day the king makes his Magic Council public?
You have a death wish or somethin’?”

August’s gaze turned cold. “There’d be far less
controversy about the elopement if you and your cohorts hadn’t forced the king
to found that council in the first place.”

Ursa retorted, “An’ you’d never have met the boy
without me, would you?”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” said August.

“Of course you didn’t. You lost your everlovin’
mind, you did! By the Giver’s harp, woman, you deserve whatever hell breaks
loose around you. An’ you told me
I
destroyed
my
life? Perhaps I did,
August. Perhaps I did, kidnappin’ them boys, but just the same you brought this
on yourself, an’ they’ll drag me in the middle of it, an’ that won’t make
things no easier for me. Not one damn bit. You have any idea what kind o’
vultures these women are? What they’ll do when they figure out who my sister
married? Damn the both o’ you! You ain’t got the brains to see maybe you
should’ve waited some? It don’t take no genius to avoid a mistake like the one
you made!”