The Master of Heathcrest Hall (98 page)

Neither had the author of the note, for it was written quite hastily, explaining that matters had taken a sudden turn, and expressing a fervent hope that Rafferdy would be in the city.

Well, by chance or fate, he was. Quickly, Rafferdy penned a note of his own, laying out a place and time of meeting he was sure would be agreeable. After that, he composed a note for Lord Coulten. There was no need to resort to magick, for the post would do as well in this case.

Thank you for the message that appeared in my black book
, Rafferdy wrote.
I hope it hasn’t been too much of a burden to drive down Vallant Street each day, but I now release you from that duty. I may not have a chance to meet with you and the others of our order while I am here, depending on how things proceed, but I am certain I will see you and the rest of our little Fellowship soon enough
.

Rafferdy folded and sealed both notes, and gave them to his man to deliver. It would have been amusing to arrange a clandestine meeting of the Fellowship of the Silver Circle while he was in the city. He would have written the meeting place in his black book, a room in the Silver Branch perhaps, along with the runes to speak to be granted entry.

Of course, there was no real need for them to meet in secret anymore. The general ban upon occult orders had been lifted by the king. That was not to say that many magicians hadn’t been tried and imprisoned, for they had. But each magician had been treated like any man, and had been judged upon his own actions during the war.

He supposed the Fellowship might have disbanded altogether,
had it not been for the influence of their newest member. True, ten was not so propitious a number for working magick as was nine, but when it came time for a vote, it had been unanimous, and Lord Farrolbrook had been admitted to their order.

That Farrolbrook had survived the visitations which the Elder One had subjected him to was both a relief and a wonder. At first, the physicians had given him little prospects of recovery. Yet just as those who doubted the fair-haired lord’s wits had been proven wrong, so were those doctors who doubted his strength. As the months progressed, his health improved, to the point where he was now significantly recovered. All the same, it was a certainty that the length of his life had been shortened by some great amount, and he was aged beyond his years.

Perhaps it was this realization which had given Farrolbrook a wish to put what years did remain to him to good use. He had returned to his painting. And it was he who had proposed a new purpose for the Fellowship. He reminded them that, while the threat brought by the approach of Cerephus had been removed, that did not mean there did not remain relics of the two wars against the Ashen scattered throughout the world, or gateways opening to strange worlds, and some magicians might be tempted to use them for ill.

Indeed, Trefnell had heard rumors of just such an artifact, and was already on the hunt for more news of it. In which case, perhaps it was best if they did meet in secret when next they gathered, depending on who else might be searching for this thing.

Well, that would be soon enough—the next time Assembly was in session. For now, Rafferdy put on his new blue silk coat, took up his new mahogany cane, and called for his carriage.

H
E ARRIVED at the house on Vallant Street a quarter hour later. As he was shown into the parlor, Mrs. Baydon looked up from the puzzle she was fitting at a table.

“Mr. Rafferdy!” she exclaimed, her blue eyes bright. “What a pleasant surprise!”

He gave a smart bow. “I understand you are just returned from your recent trip to the West Country.”

“Indeed, we arrived in the city just yesterday.” Her face formed into a pretty frown. “But I am astonished to see you here so soon after Mr. Baydon and I have returned. We hadn’t sent a note to anybody yet. I would almost think you had heard the news by magick or some such thing.”

“I am sure you know, Mrs. Baydon,” he said, affecting a solemn look, “that we magicians only ever use our arcane abilities for the most important of purposes.”

“Well, then perhaps you can use a spell to help Mrs. Baydon finish her puzzle,” Mr. Baydon said from behind his broadsheet. “For she has complained incessantly for the last hour that there must be several pieces missing.”

“But there are, Mr. Baydon!” she exclaimed. “I am sure of it.”

Rafferdy sat at the table, and he spent the next little while picking up pieces of the puzzle, turning them this way and that as if utterly confounded by them, and then setting them down, as if quite by chance, right next to the place where they belonged—a fact which Mrs. Baydon would soon discover. In this way the scene quickly filled in, revealing a painted scene of wild moorlands and a manor upon a distant hill.

“So,” he said, turning another piece around and setting it back down, “did you enjoy your time in the West Country?”

“Yes, very much. Lady Marsdel was the most engaging company on the journey, as you can imagine. Mr. Baydon was ill the entire time with sneezing and coughing, of course, and said he could not bear the odor of gorse. I think he simply had a cold, but he was very cross the whole time. Indeed, Lord Baydon was in far better health and spirits throughout it all. I can hardly conceive how ill my father-in-law was a year ago, given how robust he is now. He assures me that he will one day be the oldest and fattest man in Altania, and I begin to think he may well be right.”

“I am happy to hear you had a pleasant time,” he said, turning a piece of the puzzle in his hand.

“Are you going to fit that?” she said, and then plucked it from
his fingers before he could answer, and set it into place in the puzzle. “You never wear your medals, you know.”

He blinked. “Pardon?”

“Your medals,” she said. “The ones you were awarded for valor and courage and all that. I am sure they would look very handsome on your new coat, but you never wear them.”

No, he didn’t. Why that was the case, he wasn’t entirely certain. Perhaps it was that he still didn’t think of himself as a soldier. Yet he had been that day at Pellendry-on-Anbyrn. They all of them had.

“I am no longer in the army, Mrs. Baydon,” Rafferdy said. “I don’t think it would be appropriate to wear my medals.”

She looked up at him. “Dear Mr. Rafferdy, of course it would be appropriate. The war may be over, and for that I am very glad. But while you are no longer a soldier, you will be a hero forevermore. I’m afraid there’s no altering that, so you might as well become accustomed to it. And don’t think I haven’t noticed the way you’ve been leaving pieces for me to fit.”

She picked up a piece to set into the puzzle. The picture was nearly complete now. On its hill, the manor beckoned above the gray-green moor.

“Well, are you going to ask me, then?”

He looked up at her, startled. “Ask you what?”

“What you came here to ask me, the very moment you learned I had returned from Heathcrest Hall. Aren’t you going to ask me about Lady Quent?”

At last he managed to speak the words. “And how does she fare? Is she very well?”

“You know, Mr. Rafferdy, a picture is very nice to look at.” She set the final piece into the puzzle, then brushed a hand over the scene. “Yet in the end, it is far better to see a place for yourself, don’t you think? For no matter how well a picture is painted or a scene is described, you can’t really know what something is truly like, not unless you go there yourself.”

For a moment he gazed at the landscape on the table before him. Then suddenly he rose to his feet.

“You are right, Mrs. Baydon,” he said. “As you ever are. There is but one thing I have to do in the city this evening. I will leave for the West Country first thing in the morning.”

“Very good.” She looked up at him, her blue eyes alight. “And when you go, do wear your medals, Mr. Rafferdy.”

E
LDYN STOLE OUT the back of the Theater of the Moon just as the curtain was rising. A familiar temptation came over him to draw the shadows in close like a cape. Instead he turned up the collar of his charcoal gray coat and drew down the brim of his hat. These actions served well enough to keep him from being easily noticed in the gloom, and no one accosted him as he made his way through the streets of the Old City.

It seemed strange not to be at the theater that night. After all, this was just the second performance of their newest illusion play, which had premiered only the evening before. What’s more, it would be Miss Lily Lockwell’s first night at the theater without the guiding hand of Madame Richelour there to aid her.

Not that Eldyn had any doubt Lily would do anything except manage the proceedings with zeal and confidence. After all, it had been some time since Madame Richelour had truly been running affairs at the theater. She had spent much of her time over the last year taking Master Tallyroth on excursions into the country, so that he might be near the Wyrdwood.

Eldyn, Dercy, and Riethe had gone with them on their first trip to the Evengrove, and they had feared the frail illusionist might not withstand the journey. Only he had, and Dercy and Riethe had carried him up to the grove each day, and laid him in a makeshift bed by the wall, beneath the overhanging branches.

And then, on the fifth day, Master Tallyroth opened his eyes.

Once they were assured he was no longer in immediate danger, they returned to the city. But since then, Madame Richelour and Master Tallyroth had been out to the Evengrove with great frequency. In time, Master Tallyroth regained his ability to speak in a faint voice, and even to stand and walk a few short steps. He was frail, but his eyes were bright and lively, and he remained himself.

Yet he remained ill as well. The mordoth had come exceedingly close to claiming him, and it would never fully give up its grasp. So it was that Madame Richelour had finally purchased a cottage within sight of a grove of Wyrdwood, and just that day she and Master Tallyroth had left the city for the last time, to live in peace in the country.

Over the course of the last year, Lily had assumed more and more of Madame Richelour’s duties, until she had become madam of the theater in all but name. And now she was so in fact. All of the papers had been signed that morning, and the final transfer had been made. Despite her youth, she was no longer Miss Lily.

Rather, she was Madame Lockwell now.

To be madam of a theater on Durrow Street at such a young age was certainly unusual. All the same, no one Eldyn spoke to believed she did not merit it. Besides, it was generally acknowledged on Durrow Street that she had benefited from very favorable connections. Not only did she have the affections of a madam willing to sell her a charter, she also had—through her family—the wealth to pay for it.

Indeed, there had been more than enough regals, even after accounting for the theater charter, to pay for extensive renovations these last months. As a result, the Theater of the Moon, while not the largest house on Durrow Street, was now the most graceful and opulent. In addition, there were funds to hire more illusionists. That meant they could produce not only the story of the Moon Prince and the Sun King, but a second play as well.

The subject of the new play had been entirely Lily’s idea. There was a book she wished to bring to the stage, she told them one night at rehearsal. And when she read from it aloud, all of them
had grown excited. While they had been deprived of their master illusionist, Eldyn had worked with Lily to devise the staging for the play. Together, they had labored long hours, discussing ideas while Lily sketched madly in her folio, and then bringing the actors onto the stage to rehearse, trying this arrangement of figures or that color of light, until everything was just so.

At last, they had been ready to unveil the play. Last night, the theatergoers on Durrow Street had gotten their first look at the new production of
The Towers of Ardaunto
. And this morning, several of the broadsheets had printed stories about it, hailing it as much more than an idyll or a burlesque, but rather as a work of real art. Tonight, a large crowd had gathered outside the theater as evening fell, just as Eldyn imagined there would be for many more nights to come.

If he had any regret in all of this, it was that there was no part in the new play for himself. Not that Lily wouldn’t have offered him a role had he asked; she would have. Yet while they did not speak of it, they both knew it was for the best that he didn’t take to the stage. If he was ever to work illusions again, it could only be in the most sparing fashion.

True, when he looked in a mirror these days, he appeared well enough. His face was perhaps a little thinner. Faint shadows lingered beneath his eyes, and here and there was a fleck of silver in his hair. Anyone passing him on the street would have thought,
Now, there is a young man who must have been very pretty as a youth, and who still carries himself well as a man of thirty-five
.

Only he wasn’t thirty-five. He was twenty-six. And if he looked at his hands, he could still easily trace the blue veins beneath his skin. Indeed, the longer he stayed in the city, the easier it became to see them there.