Bring Down the Sun (19 page)

“A certain spell,” Timarete answered dryly, “and a much increased burden on the temple, now that one of our priestesses is gone.”

“Train Attalos,” Myrtale said. “He's got the mind for it, and he has enough magic to manage. He can do as much as you need until you find a woman fit to be Nikandra.”

Timarete arched a brow. “You care what we do?”

“No,” Myrtale said, snapping off the word. “If you've come to drag me back there, you can disabuse yourself of the notion. I won't be forced into it by guilt or grief. This is where I belong. I was never meant for Dodona.”

“You were not,” said Timarete. Strange to see that name attached to that face, so unlike the gentle woman who had held it before. “Maybe I had hopes. I am human, as difficult as that may be to comprehend. But I haven't come for that.”

Myrtale refused to be taken aback. Always expect the unexpected—that was Philip's maxim. “Then why have you come?”

“May I not visit my kinswoman?”

“In the dead of winter? With all that's happened in your temple?” Myrtale clenched her fists at her sides to keep from clamping them around that smooth white throat. “We can dance around the truth until the earth rises and swallows us. Isn't that what you've done since the day I was born?”

Timarete's face had gone still. “Can you say for certain that I was wrong to have done it?”

“Yes!” said Myrtale with sudden heat. “You left me open to
that.
”

“Did I?”

“If I had known what I was,” she said—barely able to get the words out; her throat kept trying to close—“I would never have fallen into the witches' trap. I would never have—”

“You don't know that,” Timarete said.

Myrtale had done her utmost to face her aunt with a steady heart and a calm mind. But that blank face and those useless words tore to shreds all her noble ambitions. “You blinded and deafened me and made me live with a fraction of the senses I was born with. You taught me nothing, showed me nothing, did nothing. I was ripe for the first hunting beast that came upon me.”

If Timarete had asked another of her damnable questions, Myrtale would have killed her. But she was silent, sitting up in the borrowed bed, offering no more with face or glance than she ever had.

Then she said, “The omens of your birth were so black there were those who argued in favor of giving you to the wolves. I fought for you, because you are my own blood and because we needed you in the temple. Did we truly teach you nothing? Did we raise you so badly?”

Myrtale shook off all but the part that mattered. “What were the omens? What did you foresee?”

She held her breath against another prevarication. Timarete startled her with as straight an answer as she could have asked for. “We saw the sun come down and the world end in fire.”

“Ah,” said Myrtale as the words sank in. “Is that all? You saw my foolishness with the oracle, then. Now it's over. There was somewhat to fear, and a good woman died. But the world is still here; the rest of us are still alive.”

“Maybe so,” Timarete said, “but I think not. There's worse to come.”

“Only if you will it into being.”

“You've grown,” said her aunt, “and grown almost wise, but you're no less a fool than I ever was. Do you think the Fates will let you be simply because you've decided you'll not play their game?”

“No,” Myrtale said, “but I do think a strong enough will and a wise enough heart can persuade them to alter one's destiny.”

“Even the gods aren't as wise or as strong as that.”

“Maybe,” said Myrtale. “Maybe I'll dare to hope.”

“After what you've seen, you can say that?”

“Would you rather I flung myself down, wailing in despair?” Myrtale stood over the bed. She knew she was looming; she hoped it gave Timarete at least a moment's pause. “If I don't hold to hope, I'll have no courage left. Will you help me? I know I have no right to ask it. I do not want my fate to unwind as you've foreseen it.”

“No one does,” Timarete said.

“Except Erynna,” said Myrtale.

Timarete arched a brow. “The witch? She threatened you?”

“In her way,” said Myrtale, “she challenged me.”

That caught her aunt's attention. “Did she threaten you?”

Myrtale shrugged, but after a moment she judged it wise to answer. “She did imply it.”

“Of course she did,” Timarete said. “Did she name any names? Speak of anyone else who might be conspiring with her?”

“No,” Myrtale said.

“Pity,” said Timarete. She rose briskly. “You'll sleep here tonight. And you
will
sleep. You've a child to think of.”

“That's what they want,” Myrtale said, and shuddered. “They want him. Not to kill him but to rule him—to make him their creature.”

“That may be,” her aunt said, “but you're no lesser prize, either.”

“They only want me for what I can give them. Him they can shape as they please. Since,” said Myrtale, “they failed with me.”

Timarete's eyes were unreadable. “Come now. Into bed. This room is safe; there's nothing to fear here. But don't pass the door again until morning.”

A good part of Myrtale resisted. She was not a child any longer, to be ordered about so. But Timarete was wiser than she, and better trained, too—no matter whose fault that was.

Myrtale curled in the bed that was still warm from her aunt's body, arms circling her middle, guarding the life that grew there. The walls enclosed a singing silence. Even the howl of the wind was faint and far away.

*   *   *

For once in her life, Timarete's niece was choosing to be obedient. Timarete wondered if she should be suspicious. Probably; but she had more pressing concerns.

She laid words of guard on the door, strong enough that they left her dizzy and stumbling, but she found her feet again soon enough. She passed through the palace like a shadow and a shimmer, searching for the stench of the darker magics.

She found her fair share of those, but the youngest was a day and more old. More than one power had cast them, but they all had a scent of the witch whom she knew.

Erynna was not in the palace. If she was still in Pella, she had hidden herself well. That was no more than Myrtale had found, but Timarete looked farther and deeper than her niece had been able to.

By the time Timarete made her way back to the room in which she had left Myrtale, the palace was warded from top to bottom. A powerful blast of magic could still pierce those walls, but anything less would rebound like an arrow from a fortress wall.

She was lightheaded with exhaustion. That was a dangerous state to be in, but it was also a peculiarly magical one. If she could keep a grip on what strength and skill she had left, she might succeed in learning something she had not known before.

It was profoundly tempting to take that magic, find the enemy and wield it against her. But Timarete's heart was uneasy. She had to be sure that Myrtale was safe—that nothing that could do her harm had hidden itself inside the wards.

Timarete could appreciate the irony of that. Time was when she would have been glad to have this troublesome child taken off her hands. But the call of blood was strong. She did not want to destroy the girl; only to keep her from destroying everyone else.

Myrtale was asleep, drawn into a knot under the coverlets of silk and fur. She had guardians: the largest house-snake Timarete had ever seen raised its head from beside Myrtale's, eyes glittering in the lamplight. A second, much smaller and darker shape coiled against the girl's back.

Timarete bowed to the Mother's children. Nothing would touch Myrtale while they watched over her.

She stayed there nonetheless, sitting close by the brazier, drinking in its warmth. Visions woke in the coals, a world of shimmering fire that dissolved into chill reality.

Twenty-four

Winter broke with supernatural suddenness. One evening the cold rain fled before a colder blast of wind. The next morning the crack of cold gave way to a lingering warmth. By afternoon even the old folk who had shivered all winter beside the fire had put aside their swathings of wool and fur and hobbled out to bask in the sun.

Myrtale emerged with them, standing on the portico above the black and tumbled waters of the lake and letting the wind blow the darkness out of her spirit. No one came near her; at first she barely noticed, but as the wind died down and the warmth rose, she realized that everyone who had been coming and going down or through the portico had walked wide of her.

Her days of seclusion had done nothing to soften their hostility.
Witch,
they called her, not even trying to hide the signs and gestures against the evil eye. Whatever Erynna had done, they ascribed to Myrtale, and they hated her for it.

She stayed where she was, defiant at first, and then determined. They would come to see who had laid this curse on them, after Myrtale had dealt with it.

The child, who had been quiet within, stirred and kicked hard. She caught her breath and pressed her hand to her middle. For a long moment she floated with him in a warm, dim sea. The power that would fill him was not even a spark as yet, only a dream and a promise.

When she opened her eyes to the mortal world again, the sun was notably closer to the western horizon than it had been. The men she had seen departing from the palace were loping back in, flushed and filthy and full of their own splendor. Whatever they had been doing—running or fighting or racing with chariots—had pleased them well.

Those who caught her gaze on them turned away sharply; one or two even drew up a fold of mantle. Myrtale had vowed to herself that she would not give way to temper, but she had reached the edge of endurance.

She set herself in front of one who had tried to hide behind his cloak. He was a man of middle age, with grey in his beard and a look about him that spoke of a long sense of grievance with the world. Myrtale had seen him in the hall, sitting midway down the ranks of nobles, neither the highest nor the lowest of them.

Clearly he felt he should have sat higher, and that rankled in him. It was all too easy for such a man to look for blame to cast, and easier yet if he could blame a woman.

Myrtale bestowed on him her most brilliant smile. “Good evening, my lord Kleitos. Would you be so kind as to escort me to my rooms?” As she spoke, she swayed slightly, as if to belie the smile's bravado with womanly weakness.

She felt his shudder in her own skin, but he had been well and ruthlessly trained. However he might loathe her, she was the king's wife. With eyes flat and lips a thin line, he bowed stiffly and tilted his chin toward the door.

He was not going to gratify her with a word or a glance. She pretended not to notice. When she leaned on his arm, he went even more rigid than before, but he stopped short of flinging her off. She leaned more heavily, until he was almost carrying her. “Truly the gods have sent you to my aid,” she said, taking several breaths to do it.

People were watching. Her reluctant protector must have been outspoken about the witch from Epiros: eyes widened, heads shook. Men muttered to one another, but she could not both play her game and catch the words.

Their expressions were clear enough, and their eyes flicking from the manifest beauty of her face to the king's child growing beneath her girdle. It was harder to hold to fear and hate when the object of both was female and young. That she was also royal and beautiful confounded them utterly.

She wanted that confusion, if it forced them to think past the curse to the truth. When Kleitos left her at the door to the women's quarters, his relief was palpable, but the worst of his loathing had passed. She thanked him as prettily as she knew how, and left him as gratefully as, she had no doubt, he left her.

She shut the door and leaned on it. This time her weakness was not feigned. She had spent a great deal of strength in that working.

It was worth the price. The greyness in the air was perceptibly less. The hatred that battered against her defenses was slightly less potent.

After a few dozen breaths, she was able to stand again and walk. She had not been thinking on anything past the men and their follies, but her mind had made itself up.

*   *   *

Timarete was nowhere to be found. Myrtale quelled the quick anger: if her aunt had gone back to Epiros, she would have known it. Either Timarete was away because she chose to be, or—

Myrtale would have known if she had been abducted, too. The web of power within the palace would have screamed with it.

As she thought of that, she searched through the interwoven strands of magic both good and ill, and the spirits of the human creatures who lived within it. Then at last she found Timarete, well away from the women's quarters, deep among the men, still and quiet behind the hall.

It was harder to find her in the flesh than in the spirit. Most of the men had gone in to dinner, but the corridors were full of slaves and servants. Their constant movement and chatter rattled Myrtale's skull.

She nearly lost the skein of Timarete's magic, and had to struggle to keep her grip on it, stumbling and groping along the wall. None of the servants spared her a glance. She detected no malice there, but no interest, either.

That suited her admirably. She paused to gather her wits. Men's voices in the hall were growing louder: the wine had begun to go round.

Thinking of wine made her dizzy. She was too far down in the magic, but she dared not rise higher, lest she lose the quarry. She walked slowly, picking her way as if blind.

The babble of voices faded from her awareness. All that was left was a sense, as near as her skin, of Philip's strong fierce presence. He was not the one she hunted, but it comforted her to know where he was.

The hunt ended much more swiftly than she had expected. She found herself in front of what at first seemed a blank wall, until she saw the outline of a door. It was cleverly hidden, but it was not locked or barred: it opened easily to her touch.