Reader And Raelynx

CHAPTER 11

IF Cammon had had to describe his emotional state during the next week, he would have called it sublimely content. Justin was back-the others had not yet departed-Amalie wanted to see him every morning-and Jerril was coming to the palace to practice magic. Nothing was missing from his life; every ingredient that he considered essential was solidly in place.

Three more suitors arrived that week, so Cammon had little chance for private conversation with Amalie. Instead, he and Valri and assorted Riders spent an aggregate of hours lurking behind the false walls and eavesdropping on three varieties of wooing. This should have been tedious in the extreme, but somehow it was not. Valri had had a couple of chairs and a small table hauled in, all of them just narrow enough to fit in the secret corridor, and she and Cammon sat there during every interview and silently played cards. When part of the conversation caught their attention, they would look up from their game and either laugh silently, or show their surprise, or roll their eyes and grimace in distaste. This made the hours pass in an entertaining fashion and kept Cammon from thinking too hard about the cold reality underlying the whole exercise: The princess was trying to pick her husband. He didn’t know why he so much disliked the idea of her getting married.

One reason, perhaps, was that none of the latest crop of beaux seemed remotely worthy of her. The first one was quite young, rather tongue-tied, and extremely nervous. Amalie was gentle with him, but Cammon didn’t need her critique afterward to know she had not considered him appealing. The second was older, very polished, and superficially agreeable, but Cammon found something about him to be repulsive. Maybe it was that Cammon sensed cold calculation in his admiring compliments and honeyed phrases. Maybe it was that Amalie laughed a great deal during their extended and playful conversation.

“You seemed to enjoy your visit with the Tilt lord,” Valri remarked once the suitor had gone off to change for dinner.

“He’s a toad,” Amalie said calmly. “He kept looking around the room as if wondering what it would be like to own the whole palace. And looking at me like-well. Like he was wondering what it would be like to own me.”

Valri seemed amused. “You’ve become rather an expert at concealing what you’re thinking, then. I couldn’t tell you disliked him.”

“I find it easier to pretend when I don’t like someone,” she said. “I might be more nervous when I do.”

She was not nervous in the presence of the third suitor, a Nocklyn man old enough to be her father. The noble had seated himself, accepted a glass of wine, and traded trivialities for a few moments before he broke off his speech with a laugh.

“I cannot believe a nineteen-year-old girl looks at me and sees a potential husband,” he said. “I am here because Mayva Nocklyn asked me to make a case for myself, not because I expect to win your hand. So let me enumerate all the advantages of my rank and station, and you can listen politely. Once that is all out of the way, we can talk of other things. I imagine that will be a much more pleasant way to pass the day.”

There was a smile in Amalie’s voice. “I imagine it will.”

Valri, who had been contemplating her discard when the lord started speaking, paused long enough to listen to this little interchange. Now she glanced at Cammon with her eyebrows raised, as if to ask, Is he sincere? Cammon, whose own hand was unplayable, nodded back. There was no lust for power, no lust for a young girl’s body, hovering over this middle-aged swain. Cammon saw Valri’s face sharpen with interest; she started weighing the advantages of an unpretentious, settled older man who treated his young bride with kindness.

Cammon frowned at her and mouthed, Too old. Valri shrugged and pointed at herself. Look at me, she meant, married to a man in his sixties. Cammon’s frown grew more pronounced. Different, he said silently. She gave a half-smile and shook her head. Not really. Cammon disagreed, but it was impossible to explain why, given the circumstances.

Amalie seemed to be enjoying her conversation with the amiable Nocklyn lord, which didn’t particularly cheer Cammon. The visitor was describing the crops his lands yielded and the markets where he sold them.

“Do you trade with foreign merchants?” she asked, as if she was really interested.

“Sometimes with Sovenfeld,” he answered. “I’ve been looking toward Arberharst, but I’m not sure what they produce there that would be worth the exchange.”

Honey spice, Cammon thought, imagining those great fields heavy with bright red flowers.

“Honey spice, perhaps?” Amalie said in the most natural voice.

Cammon laid down his cards and stared at the partition as if he could see right through it. Did she know that? Or had she picked up the thought in his head? Valri looked at him curiously, but he was too focused on the dialogue on the other side of the screen to glance in her direction.

“I’ve heard of it,” the Nocklyn man admitted, “but never tasted it. What’s it like?”

Amalie hesitated for a second. Cammon thought, Richer than cinnamon, and a little rougher. Amalie said, “It’s a little like cinnamon, but the flavor is a bit stronger.”

Cammon felt his hands contract into fists.

“So, it’s used in baking? Sweets and pastries, that sort of thing?”

And some meat dishes like chicken.

“I believe some people also use it when they’re cooking poultry.”

“Might be a market for it in the four corners,” the Nocklyn man said. Fortunalt, Gisseltess, Brassenthwaite, and Danalustrous were the four Houses on the “corners” of Gillengaria and widely regarded as the most sophisticated of the Twelve.

You can buy it in Ghosenhall, Cammon thought, but it’s expensive.

“There are a few specialty shops here in the city that carry it, I believe,” Amalie said. “If you wanted to try it. You might ask them where they get their supplies and if they would be interested in another source.”

There was a smile in the man’s voice. “I’ll do that-if I decide I want to expand my trading circle over the ocean.”

“My father likes the idea of more foreign commerce,” Amalie said, and they were off on a topic that she knew better than Cammon did. He took a deep breath, relaxed his shoulders, and turned to look at Valri again.

The queen was watching him closely, her green eyes narrowed to slits. She did not look happy. He wasn’t sure what to tell her. But it was clear that, no matter what kind of magic Valri was conjuring to keep Amalie safe, it only worked in one direction. Amalie’s thoughts and emotions might be cloaked from the world, hidden so expertly that even a reader like Cammon could not uncover them. But he could communicate with her. He could cast his magic like a net and let it settle invisibly over her shining hair-and Amalie welcomed its arrival, tilted back her head as if to absorb it through her skin. He wasn’t sure which Valri would find more alarming-that Amalie was susceptible to enchantment, or that she delighted in it.

The instant Amalie accompanied the Nocklyn lord out of the room and the door shut behind them, Valri clutched Cammon’s arm. “What did you do?” she demanded. “Were you putting thoughts in her mind? How can you do that?”

He didn’t know how to play this. “I’m not exactly sure,” he said cautiously. “She did seem to be picking up on some of the things I was thinking.”

Valri shook his arm. “You shouldn’t be able to do that. She shouldn’t be able to hear you.”

“Well-”

The door opened again, and Amalie came bouncing through the concealed opening into their secret corridor. “Cammon!” she exclaimed. “That was so much fun! I could hear you!”

Valri’s face grew even more set. “Hear him? How, exactly?”

“It was as if he was standing right beside me, talking in a normal tone of voice,” Amalie said blithely, while Valri’s expression grew blacker. “But I knew he was speaking just to me.”

Just then, the two Riders came around the corner of the narrow corridor. There were too many of them bunched inside this tiny space; it was beginning to feel ridiculous. “Majesty, do you have further need of us?” one of them asked.

Valri waved a dismissive hand. “No, thank you, you may go.” They bowed, retraced their steps, and disappeared. Valri said, “We need to discuss this. Come back to the parlor with us.”

Amalie led the way out, but spoke over her shoulder. “Discuss it? Why? What’s wrong?”

“I don’t like the notion that people can just-just-put thoughts in your head! Convince you to say any kind of crazy thing!”

Amalie laughed. “Valri, it’s Cammon,” she said. “There’s nothing to worry about.”

And as they paraded down the gilt hallways to Amalie’s favorite room, Cammon had time to reflect on that. Was that a compliment of the highest order, or the worst possible insult?

Inside the rose-and-cream parlor, Valri turned to face the other two as if they were erring children and she a wrathful parent. But Cammon thought her expression owed more to fear than fury, and he lost the irritation that had built up along the way.

“Amalie, it disturbs me that you are open to magic-anyone’s magic-even someone as benign as Cammon,” she said. “It is what I have given so much of my life to protect you from.”

“I can’t hear her thoughts, if that’s what concerns you,” Cammon said. “She’s still cloaked in whatever spell you’ve put on her.”

“That’s a relief, but only a small one,” Valri retorted. “I want her immune from magic. I don’t want it to touch her at all.”

“Is that what you’ve been protecting her from all this time?” he asked curiously. “Why did you allow Senneth to accompany her last summer, then? Senneth used fire more than once to keep Amalie safe, and you didn’t seem worried then.”

“Princess Amalie,” Valri said sharply.

Cammon felt like he had been slapped. “Princess Amalie,” he corrected himself after a moment. “She has been touched by magic more than once already.”

Amalie cast him a sympathetic glance but came close enough to put an arm around Valri’s shoulders. Amalie was not particularly tall, but she still was bigger than the queen, and she bent her bright head over Valri’s dark one as if to offer desperately needed solace. “Valri-don’t worry-I just heard a few words he spoke,” Amalie said. “Cammon’s voice. As if we were talking. Nothing more frightening than that.”

Valri was shaking her head, quick little hopeless motions. “It’s all frightening,” she said. “And it’s only going to get worse.”

Amalie glanced at Cammon again over the top of Valri’s head. “Maybe I should take myself off for the rest of the day,” he said.

“That might be best,” Amalie said gravely, but her eyes asked for another favor.

Carefully, in case he had misunderstood, he sent a tentative question her way. Are you angry with me? A small smile crossed her face. She hugged Valri more tightly to her and shook her head in the negative. Can we talk about this more later? Her smile broadened and she nodded.

So it was with a relatively light heart that he left the room, though it had been such a strange afternoon.

HE repeated the entire story that night to the others as they gathered in Senneth and Tayse’s cottage after the evening meal.

“I don’t know what she’s so upset about,” Kirra said, unimpressed. “Cammon can make anyone hear him. Over great distances. Why is that so terrible? I would think it would be useful, actually, to have a way to communicate with the princess without anyone being able to overhear.”

“Valri’s afraid of magic,” Senneth said.

“No, she isn’t,” Cammon objected. “Last summer, she was happy enough to have all of us guarding the princess on the road! Donnal took owl form and sat outside Amalie’s window almost every night. Valri wasn’t afraid then!”

“Maybe she’s just afraid of you,” Justin said with his usual sarcasm. “You’re the one I’d pick if I had to be afraid of a mystic.”

“People don’t like the idea that someone else can be inside their minds,” Donnal said. “I’m not sure I’d like it, either, if it wasn’t Cammon. Someone I trusted.”

“Yes, but she does trust me.”

“I’m not sure a princess can ever trust anyone that much,” Donnal said.

“Donnal’s right,” Senneth said. “All the rules are different with Amalie.”

Princess Amalie, Cammon thought with some bitterness.

“I have an idea,” Kirra said, eyes sparkling. “You say you can’t pick up anything from Valri-can you send her thoughts? Maybe if she hears your voice inside her own head she’ll realize how unalarming you are, and she’ll relax.”

This was clearly designed to be nothing more than mischief. Tayse gave her a reproving look and said, “I think Cammon has other kinds of magic to spend his energy on. Have you and Donnal had time to work with Ellynor to try and penetrate her shadows?”

“Not yet. Amalie has needed me every day. But Jerril comes tomorrow and we’ll practice then.”

Kirra said, “I want to watch this.”

Tayse looked amused. “Good. All of you. Work out with your magical weapons the way the Riders work out with their blades.”

Senneth sighed elaborately. “If only it were that easy.”

THE following day was sunny and extremely cold-except where all the mystics had gathered, in a neglected garden overgrown with rustling brown winter vegetation. Kirra, who had been complaining loudly about the chill during the whole walk from the cottage, now pulled off her cloak and threw it dramatically to the ground.

“I love being in Senneth’s entourage!” she exclaimed, for of course it was Senneth’s magic that had warmed the air around them. “I’m like a cat that always wants to sprawl in the sun. I’m not happy in the cold.”

Ellynor laughed softly. “I thought maybe we were just sheltered from the wind, and I was grateful. I didn’t realize.”

“Best winters of my life were the ones Senneth lived with us,” Jerril said, smiling in his dreamy way at the memory. “Never had to chop a cord of wood, and the house was warm no matter what the temperature was outside.”

Senneth had dropped to the ground and used her own cloak to make a cushion against the stone wall. “I’m just here as a spectator,” she said with a grin. “I may as well pay for my entertainment somehow.”

“Well, let’s get started,” Jerril said, nodding his bald head. “Who is participating today?”

Donnal, who had padded to the garden in the guise of a black hound, wagged his tail and offered a short bark. “Donnal. Ellynor. Me,” Cammon said. “Kirra?”

She shook her head and settled on the ground next to Senneth, her back to the wall. “Maybe later. First I want to watch.”

“We should have brought snacks,” Senneth said. “It’s like watching a troupe of actors.”

“Even more fun, I hope,” Kirra said.

Jerril didn’t even throw them a look of annoyance, as Cammon did. “Ellynor, forgive me, I don’t yet know what you’re capable of,” the older mystic said. “Why don’t you go out the gate, wait a few minutes, and then enter at your leisure-circle the garden once-and see how quickly we’re able to spot your presence?”

Ellynor was trying not to smile. “All right.”

“Oh, I was wrong,” Kirra said. “That doesn’t sound fun at all.”

Ellynor disappeared through the gate, though she left it standing wide behind her. “We shouldn’t watch her entry point,” Jerril said. “After all, if she were to come upon us unawares on the street, we would have no idea which direction she would be approaching from.”

Cammon obligingly turned his back to the gate but said, “I have a feeling it won’t matter.” Donnal, who had also faced the other direction, thumped his tail against the ground.

“Should we try to distract them, you think?” Kirra asked. “Tell jokes, sing bawdy songs?”

“I don’t know any bawdy songs,” Senneth said.

“Oh, I know plenty.” Kirra lifted her voice and proceeded to offer what sounded like a sailor’s ditty. “I knew five girls in Fortunalt / Lived by the sea and loved the salt. / One had bosoms flat and thin / Throw her in the water, she couldn’t swim-”

“Why are they always about women, these bawdy songs?” Senneth asked. “Why aren’t there awful little melodies about men?”

“Wait. Give me a minute,” Kirra said. “I knew five men from Forten City / Three were dumb and one was pretty. / One said, ‘Girl, won’t you give me a lick? / I’ve sprinkled saltwater on-’ ”

Senneth slapped her hand over Kirra’s mouth. “Just when I think it’s safe to introduce you to my friends-”

Jerril, of course, was not offended. “She’s a serramarra?” he asked. When Cammon nodded, he added, “She doesn’t exhibit the behavior I would expect from the aristocracy.”

“Kirra never really does what anybody expects,” Cammon replied.

“She has a lot of power, though,” Jerril said. “I can sense it. Full of a wild magic.”

“ ‘Wild’ about covers it,” Cammon agreed.

“But I’m having a hard time getting any sense of Ellynor,” Jerril added.

“You can when she’s in a room with Justin,” Cammon said with a grin. “But when Justin’s not around-” He shook his head. “She might as well not exist. I can’t feel her at all.”

“No,” Jerril said. “I can’t even tell if she’s entered the garden yet. I feel certain she has, and yet I cannot pick up any telltale traces of her.”

Cammon nudged Donnal with his foot. “Can you scent her?” he asked. Donnal lifted his black nose and sniffed the air, then quirked his ears back. Nothing. “Maybe she’s still outside the gate. Maybe she just walked away.”

And then it was as if there was a rent in the air-as if the sky itself blinked-and Ellynor was standing right before them. Jerril was so surprised he took a step backward. Donnal yelped and scrambled to his feet, then frisked around her knees, snuffling at her skirt.

“Now that was entertaining,” Kirra called out.

Cammon was smiling and shaking his head. “How do you do that? I’m looking for you, and I can’t tell you’re there.”

She was smiling, pleased with herself. She bent down to stroke Donnal’s head. “I used to be able to conceal myself only at night. But now I’ve found that the magic works in daylight, too.” She shrugged. “I don’t know why.”

Cammon glanced at Jerril. “And I have no idea how to countermand her magic,” he said. “How can we even practice?”

Jerril looked intrigued. “This will take some experimentation,” he said. “Ellynor, will you indulge us? Can you assume your cloaks as we’re standing here watching you?”

She tilted her head to one side. Her long dark hair was braided and wrapped around her head, but here and there Cammon could see the blonder markings of her clan pattern dyed into the black. She looked very neat and compact and serious. “I think so.”

“Cammon, focus on her,” Jerril directed. “Ellynor-disappear.”

Before their very eyes, Ellynor seemed to drop into a well of shadows, which smoothed away and left only ordinary sunlight behind.

“I want to do that,” Senneth exclaimed. “Next time I’m invited to dinner at the king’s table.”

Cammon was staring at the place where she’d been but was completely unable to tell if she was still there. Donnal, however, had grown alert. His pointed nose swung in a slow circle as if he tracked a particularly tasty piece of game.

“Donnal, can you find her?” Jerril asked in a quiet voice. “Show us.”

Donnal bounded forward and made a low leap, and suddenly he and Ellynor were tussling on the ground. Ellynor was laughing as she tried to dodge his tongue. “That’s not fair! I can’t outrun him.” She pushed Donnal aside and rose gracefully to her feet. “I thought the dog might be more difficult to trick than the mystic.”

“But we want Donnal to be able to pick you out even when he doesn’t know where you are,” Jerril said.

“I can’t pick her out even when I do,” Cammon said gloomily.

“Concentrate on the spaces around her,” Jerril suggested. “When she takes a step, she disturbs the shrubs, the vines-the birds, the squirrels. See if you can sense the disruption she causes in the world, if you can’t sense her.”

Cammon widened his eyes. “That’s awfully subtle.”

Jerril smiled. “It’s a delicate magic.”

They spent the next two hours hunting for Ellynor. Donnal experienced significantly more success than Cammon did, and even he could only find her three times out of seven. Jerril had Ellynor increase her magic by stages, gradually becoming less and less perceptible to the others, and that was a fascinating exercise. Like lifting weights that were successively heavier, Cammon thought. The last round had been possible, so surely the next one should be as well-but there was a point at which he could discern her, and a point at which he could not, and not all his straining changed that.

All of them were exhausted by the end of two hours of effort. Well, not Senneth and Kirra-they had stayed comfortable and lazy against the wall, calling out derision or encouragement as the mood took them.

Jerril finally said, “I think we’ve had enough for the day. I’ll come back tomorrow and the day after that, and we’ll work on this some more.”

“I want to try one more thing,” Cammon said, and he pulled Ellynor over to whisper in her ear. Three minutes later, the Lirren girl had crept invisibly over to the wall and dumped a canteen of water on the other two women.

Kirra shrieked and melted into lioness shape, leaping straight through the dead shrubbery for Cammon. He ran, of course, but she caught him in three steps, and they tumbled on the ground together until she stilled him completely by standing with her great golden paws heavy on his chest. She stared down at him with liquid blue eyes-Kirra’s eyes even in the cat’s shape, or maybe it was just that Cammon still saw her as Kirra-and yowled in triumph.

“Bite him!” Senneth was shouting. “Have him for dinner!” But, instead, Kirra just dropped her head and ran her rough tongue across his face, practically lifting off his skin. Then she jumped down and loped to Donnal’s side.

Jerril helped Cammon up. “She is impressive,” he said. “One hears stories about Kirra Danalustrous, but to see her up close like that-well.”

Cammon brushed off his clothes and grinned. “No one quite like her.”

Jerril’s eyes wandered thoughtfully over the whole group: Senneth still lounging on the ground, Ellynor now corporeal and kneeling beside her, Kirra and Donnal chasing each other across the width of the garden and back. “It’s quite a group of friends you’ve gathered,” the older man said. “With an astonishing array of powers.”

“Senneth gathered us,” Cammon said. “And Justin and Tayse.”

“Yes,” Jerril said, “Senneth was always good at knowing what was valuable. She just didn’t used to be so good at keeping the things and people that mattered to her. I am glad to see that she has learned to hold on.”

Cammon laughed. “Or maybe we’re the ones who’ve learned to hold on to her.”

Jerril smiled. “The result is excellent, either way.”