Irons in the Fire (28 page)

Aremil looked at Lyrlen, who was waiting by the door, stony-faced. "Wine for our guest, if you please."

Branca raised her unladylike hand. "Small beer would be more welcome."

"Of course." His nurse reluctantly withdrew.

Aremil gestured towards the note he'd just read. "Mentor Tonin doesn't tell me your particular field of study."

"In the beginning, I studied the history recorded in the University Annals. Latterly I've been seeing how those records tie up with more informal history." Branca studied the books on the shelf closest to her. "By which I mean those tales told by the fireside and retold in ballads. Mentor Tonin tells me you are a scholar, though not as yet sealed by the university."

"My infirmities prevent it." Aremil was surprised Tonin hadn't forewarned her of his crippled state.

"So you've gone from discipline to discipline, comfortable in the knowledge that your income is sufficient for you to indulge yourself." She turned dark, sceptical eyes on him. "There are a great many books here on all manner of subjects."

"As you see, I'm unable to do much besides read," Aremil said with mild exasperation.

"Now you're interested in studying aetheric magic?" Branca angled her head. "Why?"

Aremil hadn't expected to have to justify himself to this bluntly spoken, blunt-featured young woman. Though Master Tonin couldn't have told her much. Given Charoleia's insistence on secrecy, Aremil hadn't told the mentor anything beyond claiming an interest in learning more about Artifice.

Which was true enough. The more he had read of such lore since the Spring Festival, the more Aremil was resolved to master this arcane art himself. He wasn't merely going to find those versed in aetheric enchantments. If he couldn't travel the highways and byways like Tathrin or Failla, or wield influence and coin like Charoleia and Gruit, he could at least make this contribution to their undertaking.

"You're of Lescari blood?" If she wasn't, there was no point in continuing this conversation. He could only hear the lifelong accents of Vanam's lower town in her words.

"My father was born in Triolle. My mother's people came from Marlier." She raised her dark brows. "What of it?"

At that moment, Lyrlen returned with one of the kitchen tankards incongruous on a polished silver tray.

"Thank you." Branca took it with a pleased smile. "You're not having something, Master Aremil?"

"Not just at present."

"On account of your infirmities?" As she drank, her dark eyes teased him over the pottery rim.

"Because I dislike ale." He looked at his nurse, who was bridling at such impertinence. "Thank you, Lyrlen."

She withdrew with a disapproving sniff.

Branca set the tankard down on the table. "To return to my first question, why do you want to study aetheric magic?"

"I have a good friend who is travelling in Solura. Given how erratically letters make their way through the Great Forest, I'd like to be able to know how he's progressing." He tried to sound casual, though after fifteen days' silence, he was just as impatient for news as Gruit. "Mages can only bespeak other mages, so wizardry's no use to me. Then I recalled Mentor Tonin saying that these older enchantments enable him to contact fellow adepts over unimaginable distances."

Branca looked thoughtfully at him. "How good a friend is he? Are you lovers?"

"What?" Aremil was startled. "No."

The unmistakable sound of Lyrlen choking on her outrage on the other side of the door was hastily followed by the patter of her shoes on the kitchen tiles.

Branca rose. "It's a lovely day. Shall we take some air?"

Aremil stared up at her. "I am hardly accustomed to casual strolls."

"My father has half an arm and barely a quarter of one leg. He's never let that hold him back." Branca fetched his crutches from the corner where Lyrlen had stowed them. "Ask your mother mastiff for permission if you must, but if we're to continue this conversation, we'll do it outdoors."

Aremil could tell she would leave without a backward glance if he refused.

"Bear with me," he said through gritted teeth.

He managed to get to his feet and Branca calmly handed him first one crutch, then the other. "Where shall we go?"

"My lord!" Lyrlen was in the doorway.

Now that Branca had planted the image in his mind's eye, Aremil could see how his nurse might resemble a watchdog. "We're just going to take some air." He tried to hide his own qualms.

"I'll bring him back safe." Branca's eyes were teasing him again.

"Lyrlen, if you please." He held the old woman's gaze until she yielded and opened the front door.

"Do you like the physic garden in Hellebore Lane?" Branca tucked the stray wisp of hair under her linen cap.

"I don't know it." Aremil squinted as he negotiated the doorsill. Outside the sun was surprisingly bright. At least the flagstoned path was smooth and dry after a run of fine days.

"You should get out more." Branca curbed her pace to his slower progress. "You're very pale."

"You're very pink," he retorted.

"I often am." She nodded.

Aremil concentrated on getting to the end of the short street. He wondered who was watching his ungainly progress from the shadows of their windows, amused by his clumsiness. When they reached the junction, he had to stop to get his breath back. "Is this some kind of trial?"

"Of sorts." She was unabashed. "You really should get out more. Exercise might ease your aches and it'll keep your breathing clearer. But we can find you a chair for the rest of the way."

Aremil stiffened as she plucked a silver penny from the leather purse belted at her waist. "I came out without any coin."

"You can pay me back." Unconcerned, Branca waved the penny at a boy leaning on his broom until someone wanted to pay him to sweep a crossing free of horse muck. He came running.

"We need a carrying chair." She held the coin out of his eager reach. "Quick as you like."

"Quick as spitting, Mistress." The urchin darted away.

Branca studied Aremil as he rested on his crutches. "I take it your condition stems from birth?"

"It does." Aremil decided to turn the conversation on her. "I take it an accident crippled your father?"

"A bolting team of brewer's horses." Branca grimaced. "The dray's wheels crushed both limbs on his right side. The surgeon had no choice but to amputate."

Aremil winced. "He must have been a strong man to survive. I imagine you despaired of him."

"He was only in his nineteenth summer." Branca slid him a sideways glance. "Long before he met my mother, and I am the second of seven children. He's never seen any reason not to lead a vigorous life."

Aremil coloured and cast around for a less awkward topic. "So what can you tell me about ancient enchantments?"

"What do you know of aetheric magic?" Branca countered.

"Let's assume I know nothing." Aremil saw the youth approaching with two chair-men hurrying behind him.

"You know something of elemental magic, I take it?" Branca paused as the open carrying chair arrived.

"Wizardry stems from an inborn ability to perceive and to influence the four basic elements of air, earth, fire and water." Aremil didn't want her thinking he was a complete fool. The crossing-boy tried to help Aremil take his seat. He waved him away peevishly. "The mageborn have a particular affinity with one such element. Through study and training, a wizard learns to wield magic involving them all."

"In rare cases a mage might have a double affinity." Branca handed the boy his penny and smiled at the chair-men. "We're going to the physic garden in Hellebore Lane, if you please."

As the men took Aremil up, she walked beside the chair, quite relaxed. "Magecraft requires magebirth and it's a magic of the physical world. Artifice is a magic of the mind. In some instances, of many minds. Aetheric enchantments depend on the adept's mental resilience first and foremost, but an advanced practitioner can draw on the strength of those close by, sometimes irrespective of their willingness. Ancient scholars concluded that something must link us all, some medium that an adept can use to take thoughts from another's mind, to see through another's eyes, to hear with their ears. They called this 'aether'."

"You can do such things?" Aremil wondered what the chair-men were making of all this. Their pace hadn't missed a step. Were they even listening?

"An advanced adept can. In theory, anyone can learn the secrets of Artifice, but doing so requires rigorous mental discipline. Crucially, only a certain amount can be achieved by reading enchantments aloud. Those who cannot memorise incantations reach a point where they simply cannot progress further. Other things can hinder proficiency. Emotion for one."

Aremil nodded. "Wizards risk losing control of their affinity if they're angry or grief-stricken, or in raptures." Everyone knew how mageborn youths and maidens were shipped off to Hadrumal after they'd set a chimney on fire or brought down a hailstorm on a hay crop.

Branca smiled. "It's hard to wreak inadvertent havoc with aetheric enchantments." She looked at him more seriously. "You may be a worthy scholar but this may be beyond you. Extremes of emotion and sensation, pain, or even the mildest fever make Artifice impossible. An adept must rise above all physical discomfort."

Aremil refused to be deterred. "I have spent my life doing that."

Branca acknowledged that with a nod. "There are other hindrances. Those deaf to music are incapable of Artifice, since even the most minor charms must be spoken with precise timbre and rhythm."

"I like music a great deal," Aremil assured her.

"Good. So do I. But however fine your feeling for pitch and melody may be, the hesitation in your speech may present problems," she mused.

"Let's not assume that before I've made some attempt," Aremil said curtly.

"Indeed." Branca nodded. "Do you play runes?"

"Seldom." The triangular bones were too cursed difficult for him to pick up. "I prefer white raven." Aremil wondered at the change of subject.

"I should have guessed that." A half-smile lifted the corner of Branca's generous mouth. "Can you at least tell me the set of runes that symbolise weather?"

So now he was being treated as a student. Did that mean she was going to teach him? Aremil cleared his throat. "The Storm; the Calm; the North Wind from the mountains; the South Wind from the sea."

"Good. The runes are an ancient collection of symbols," she continued. "The Forest Folk have used them for divination since time out of mind and the Mountain Men believe they were devised by their own gods, Maewelin and Misaen."

She could treat him like a student but not like the dullest pencil in the box. "The Mountain Men still have practitioners of aetheric magic among them."

"Who told you that?" Branca's eyes betrayed the intensity of her interest.

"A Mountain Man." Aremil permitted himself a carefully controlled smile. "Who's travelling with my friend. I can let him know you'd welcome an introduction. What have runes to do with any of this?"

Branca looked thoughtfully at him before continuing. "Those for wind and weather also symbolise the four aspects of aetheric magic. We find such images woven into many incantations and they consistently relate to the different uses of Artifice. We also find the runes for music cropping up--the Horn, the Drum, the Chime and the Harp--but those relationships are less clear cut. Let's stay with the weather runes for the moment.

"Much aetheric magic is concerned with the power of the mind as it relates to the physical world. Imagine stormy gusts, all unseen, nevertheless shaking trees, raising waves, stirring fires. Aetheric enchantments can be used to move things, to break them, to affect them in all manner of ways. By contrast, the Calm symbolises the adept's ability to remain unaffected by physical forces--to stay warm in the depths of winter, for example." She looked up at the clear blue sky wryly. "Or to stay cool, however hot the sun."

"And the North and South Winds?" Uncomfortably hot, Aremil wouldn't have minded a cooling breeze. "What enchantments do they relate to?"

"The other half of Artifice pertains to the influence an adept can have on another person's mind. Someone need have no understanding or even knowledge of aetheric magic to be susceptible to it. Though it seems that a common background or some other shared understanding makes it easier to work enchantments on another person," Branca observed. "The harsher these magics are, the more obvious, the more they're tied to the North Wind."

Aremil saw how this might be so. "The cold, dry winds that roll down from the mountains can be most destructive."

"While the South Wind is seen as benevolent, bringing rain and good harvests." Branca was looking serious again. "All the enchantments woven around that rune are subtle and not necessarily benign. The ability to read another's thoughts, to sift through their memories and desires, even to plant ideas in their mind? Such enchantments could be horribly abused without the victim even knowing what had happened."

Before Aremil could think how to respond to that, Branca halted. "And here we are."