The Cup and the Crown (17 page)
Soren met her gaze and held it as long as he could. Then, with a shudder, he turned back to Molly. But he was trembling now, and it seemed that he might drop the platter of orange slices, so she reached out to take it from him. As she did, their fingers touched, and a jolt ran through her as from an unexpected blow. She struggled to catch her breath, but already the vision was rising before her: the Great Seer, sitting behind a gleaming desk in a beautiful room with tapestries on the walls.
There was no doubt it was Soren—he had the same handsome, angular face, the same aristocratic nose, the same close-cropped silver hair—but in her vision he wasn’t smiling and he didn’t look pleasant. He was talking to his ministers, and he was angry.
Molly seemed to be floating above the scene, watching everything that happened and hearing every word that was spoken in that room. When the vision finally faded away, she felt fried in the middle, as though she’d been struck by lightning. For a moment she just sat there, blinking stupidly, wondering why there was a broken platter lying on the table with half-moon slices of orange scattered around it, and why everyone was staring at her. Maybe she
had
been struck by lightning.
Then her mind cleared. Sucking in a ragged breath, she swung around to face the Great Seer. “You—” she howled. “You arrested my friends. You signed their death warrant!”
A ripple of silence moved across the room. Soren’s face went ashen.
“You even locked up poor Master Pieter, who was so kind to me. And then, just now, you dared to
smile at me
?”
The Great Seer rose, trembling with rage, and looked down at her with the same cold fury she’d seen in her vision.
“Be careful what you say and who you say it to,” he said. Then as he turned to leave the room, “I really would be a lot more careful.”
AND THEN EVERYONE
around her was gone, scattered like sheep in a thunderstorm. Soren had stormed off in one direction, the rest of the Council in another, deep in whispered conversation. Molly remained, alone on the bench, sick with fear and embarrassment.
Then, from behind her, “Lady?”
His voice was soft, hard to hear over the scraping of benches and the scuffling of feet as the other Magi rose and left the hall. He’d had to say it twice: “Lady?”
Molly turned and saw a small, plain man with a kind face. “Excuse me,” he said. “My name is Mikel. I’ve been asked to serve as your teacher.”
She was still too dazed to speak.
“Come,” he said gently. “They’ve given us a room downstairs to work in. We’ll discuss it there, in private.”
“You heard, then—what happened?”
“Yes.”
Well, of course, everyone had. Her voice was loud at the best of times, and she’d been shouting.
“Please, lady? They need to clear the tables now.”
The room was bright and spacious, equipped with a large desk, two chairs, and shelves filled with scrolls and books. Across from the entrance was another door, which led to a balcony with a view of the northernmost mountains and beyond them, the sea. Mikel opened it, letting in the cool morning air. Then he urged her to sit at the desk and—just as Master Pieter had done two days before—took his place across from her.
“I understand you had a vision,” he said.
She nodded.
“Our visions are deeply personal, the gifts of our spirits and meant for us alone. So when you and I are working together, I shall
never
ask what you’ve seen or experienced. But in this case, as you’ve already shared it and as it clearly troubled you, I wonder if you’d like to discuss it.”
She nodded again.
“Sometimes, especially with those who are young and inexperienced, visions can be unreliable. You might see the thing you fear the most, or something you deeply long for. I don’t mean to discount what you saw, but I have to tell you, it’s contrary to everything I know about Soren and the people of Harrowsgode.”
“What do you mean?”
“Our people abhor bloodshed. We have no murders here, nor any other violent crime. We don’t execute people. As for Soren, though I don’t know him well, he’s been our Great Seer for many years; and he’s always held the good of Harrowsgode very close to his heart.”
“That may be, and I hope you’re right. But, Mikel, I’ve been having visions since my seventh year. That first time, I was chasing a playmate in a game. I touched him on the shoulder, and suddenly I saw him dead of the plague. Everybody laughed when I screamed and ran away. But the next day it happened exactly as I’d seen it. The neighbors started talking, saying I was a witch, so Father sent me away.
“Then I had a vision of my mother’s death, and after that they started coming thick and fast, one after the other. I saw my grandfather murdered. I saw evil people plotting against the royal family. I saw the horrible death of a king. And I saw my cousin Jakob, who lives here in Harrowsgode, before I even knew that I
had
a cousin or that this city existed.
“Mikel—I have never had a vision that didn’t turn out to be true. So I can’t just dismiss it. I
really believe
that Soren is planning to execute my friends . . . and I don’t know what to do!”
She was blinking back tears now.
“I understand,” he said. “Let me see what I can find out. The Council is meeting this morning; and while their deliberations are secret, their final decisions are not. They’re our elected representatives, after all. We have the right to know what’s being done in our name.”
“How soon will you know?”
“Not till this evening, I would guess. They have a lot to discuss; they’ll probably be at it most of the day. But even if you’re right and your vision
was
true, warrants issued without consent of the Council are invalid. Your friends should be safe, for the moment at least.”
Molly took a deep breath and let it out. “Good,” she said.
“So perhaps while we’re waiting for more information, we could pass the time with a few lessons?” It was a dark little joke, and it actually made her laugh.
“Why is everyone so dead set on giving me
lessons
? I’ve gotten along quite well without them all these years.”
“You have a great gift, lady, and it would be a crime to let it lie fallow.”
“What—you mean that bloody Gift of King Magnus everyone’s always talking about?”
“Yes, the very same.”
“I don’t even know what it is.”
“Would you like me to
tell
you?” Something about the slow, calm way he said this, and the little twitchy half smile at the corners of his lips, made Molly laugh again.
“Yes,” she said. “I would.”
“Good. To begin, then, all Harrowsgode folk have a touch of the Gift, to a greater or lesser extent. But some, like you, have visions; they can see the future and look into the past. Such people are chosen to be Magi Mästare.”
“So
you
have the Gift of Magnus, too? And all those people in the hall?”
“Wait. I’m not finished. Even among the Mästare there are differences. Most are like me: useful and talented, but nothing more. Then there are great ones; they are very powerful and are often elected to the Council. And finally there are the rare few with truly prodigious gifts. Magnus was the first. He saw this valley in a vision, you know, and led his people to it, though he’d never been here before. And when he was old and near death, he rose up from his bed and summoned his powers one last time. He split open the side of the mountain with the force of his mind and caused the very stone within to be changed to silver. It’s been a blessing to us ever since, the source of our great wealth.
“Of course that was a special case since it was done by the king himself. But the Magi have done amazing things too. We have harnessed nature so that the rains come only when we want them to, watering our fields in spring and summer, though never so often as to rob the growing crops of sunshine. We never have floods, or droughts, or hailstorms. You will have noticed, I’m sure, how green the fields are. It’s done by magic.”
“What else?”
“We’ve kept our city safe from invasion for hundreds of years.”
“The stone figures?”
“Yes. That’s just a few examples. There are many others.”
“Did
you
do any of those things?”
He smiled. “No. Those feats were all done long ago by great sorcerers of the past. We still make use of their enchantments—Master Soren continues directing the rainclouds, for example; but he’s just using the same old spells. We’re no longer capable of anything that ambitious, and with each generation we grow weaker. No one knows exactly why.”
He drummed his fingers on the desk.
“But every now and then someone comes along, quite unexpectedly, who is blessed with the powers of the ancients.
That’s
what we call the Gift of King Magnus. Your grandfather had it; and when we lost him, it was a terrible blow. Who could tell how many years would pass before we saw his like again?”
“And you think
I . . .
?”
“Yes. Claus Magnusson has assured the Council that it was so, and Dr. Larsson confirmed it.”
“By grabbing my hands? And taking my arm?”
Mikel sighed. “I’m sorry. That was unspeakable. But they felt it was so important, they had to be sure. We’ve been waiting a very long time for someone like you—since William left us, never to be seen again. But he carried with him the seed of his greatness, and it’s found fertile ground in you, lady: the Gift of King Magnus.”
“Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you. I possess no powers at all.”
“Surely—”
“
They
possess
me
, Mikel
.
I can’t summon them. I can’t make them go away. And I certainly can’t make stone turn to silver or summon the rain.”
“That’s because you’re a beginner,” he said. “It’s the same for everyone. But if you’re willing to do the work—and I shall help you—your powers will grow, and you’ll learn how to bend them to your will. Right now they’re carrying you, like a runaway horse or a ship blown off course in a gale. But soon you’ll grab the reins, take the helm—then you will truly possess your great and powerful gift. Don’t you see?”
She thought back to the previous night, how she’d forced herself to probe the hidden depths of her spirit—not waiting to receive but reaching out her greedy hands to grasp the thing she wanted. She’d called up the shadow of the bold, relentless, swaggering, ignorant, savage little beast she’d once been, back in the days when she’d roamed the streets, slinging insults at her playmates, wrestling in the mud with the boys, laughing when she got the best of them, picking herself up when they got the best of her, always ready for another go: tough, hard, brash, resilient, joyful little Molly—her own true self.
She
had
grabbed the reins then, taken the helm of just the smallest fragment of that which pulsed within her, yet to be tamed.
“Yes,” she said. “I do see.”
“Good. Then here is what I propose: we will work in the mornings on reading and writing. In the afternoons we’ll do the spirit work: learning to develop your natural gifts. What do you say? Will you give it a try?”
“On one condition.”
“And what is that?”
“Please stop calling me ‘lady.’ I’m Molly to my friends.”
24
The Tale of the Prince of Chin
“JUST AS A MASON BUILDS
a wall,” Mikel said, “by piling up stone upon stone, so we make words by putting one letter after the other. But while the mason needs hundreds and hundreds of stones to build the simplest wall, we only need twenty-six letters to write any word in our language.”
“I already know how to write most of them,” she said. “I copied them out of books up in my room. But I don’t know their names—except
W
for
William
and
M
for
Martha
.”
“
M
is also for
Molly
, you know. Look.”
Molly
, he wrote. “That’s you.”
She stared at the word, enchanted.
“Now you write it—you’ll want to do it several times, till you have it down by heart.”
Molly
, she wrote.
Molly Molly Molly Molly
How often had she said, with defiant pride in her own ignorance, “I can’t even write my own name!”? What a load of horse flop! Why be proud of that?
Suddenly she understood fully, and for the first time, the power of the written word. It could bridge the gap that separated her from her friends outside the tower. Once she’d learned how to read and write, she could say anything she liked to anyone she wanted, even though they’d locked her up and the others were far away. And they in turn could tell her things: whether they were safe or not, what plans they might be hatching, or simply that they missed her. As long as she had a window—and a raven to carry her letters—Molly would be able to speak to the world.
She threw herself into her lessons with a passion that astonished her teacher; and by midday, when a servant arrived bringing their meals on a tray, she’d mastered all the letters, and the sounds they commonly made, and had moved on to writing easy words.
After they’d finished their bread and mutton stew and the trays had been cleared away, Mikel sketched out his plans for the afternoon. “You’ve crammed a lot of new things into your head this morning; now you should give them a chance to settle in. Practice a bit in the evening if you like, and we’ll start again tomorrow. But there is such a thing as overdoing.”
“I’m not tired. I could work all day.”
“I have no doubt of that. But if you’ll indulge me, I’d like to show you a few things. I believe they’ll help you see your task from a broader perspective. Our work this morning was like kneeling down and gazing at a single blade of grass. Now let’s stand up and take a look at the whole meadow.” When she seemed reluctant, he added, “It’s interesting, I promise.”
