The Innocent Mage (30 page)

He was impressed with the juggling, even though he didn’t want to be. Glimfire was unchancy stuff. Useful if your candle snuffed out, to be sure, and you were Doranen and able to conjure it, but in the last year he’d seen more than one nasty burn when some humour in the air ignited a flare-up.

She was her mother’s daughter in some things, Fane, and could read in his face what he was feeling. ‘Now who’s jealous?’

‘Of parlour tricks?’ he retorted, and thought ha as her eyes sparked fire. She hid the lapse quickly, smoothed over the annoyance with a spurious, friendly smile and leaned a little closer to him, confidingly.

‘Come now,’ she encouraged him. ‘You can confess to me, Asher. I won’t tell. Have you never been tempted, even the tiniest bit?’

‘To try my hand at magic?’ Deep-sunk memory surfaced, flashing like the belly of a breaching fish. Timon. He felt his expression freeze. ‘No.’

She leaned closer again and lowered her voice. ‘I’ll bet you have.’

‘Yes, Fane?’ ‘I need you!’

Gar excused himself and threaded his way through the i talking, laughing, eating throng to stand a cautious pace i from her side. ‘What do you want?’

Fane’s eyes glowed with anticipation. She leaned closet to her brother. ‘Did you find one?’

‘Yes,’ said Gar, ‘but —’

‘Excellent,’ she replied. ‘Fetch it.’

‘This is ridiculous,’ muttered Gar, but he went to his official chair, dropped to one knee and groped beneath it. A servant paused and offered help; Gar waved her away and came back a moment later clutching a dead brown stick.

‘Show me,’ said Fane. Took the stick, inspected it, and handed it back with a glowing smile of approval. ‘Perfect.’

‘For what, exactly?’ Gar said, exasperated. ‘I wish you’d stop being so mysterious and just tell me —’

‘If I told you,’ said his sister severely, ‘it would ruin the surprise.’ She unfolded gracefully from her chair, wrapped her skilful fingers around his wrist and tugged him after her. ‘Come on.’

As brother and sister cleared a path to their father, Ashet stepped further into the fernery and chewed his lip, Whatever she had planned, he wanted no part of it. Bad enough he’d have to cope with Gar afterwards. The prince always came off second best in Fane’s little schemes. Why Gar allowed himself to believe she’d ever mean him anything but hurt, he never knew. He’d long since given up arguing about it.

With one overhead sweep of her arm Fane ignited a starburst and effectively silenced the room. Every eye fixed itself upon her, and she smiled. ‘Your Majesties. Master Magician Durm. My lords and ladies. On this day of celebration my brother and I would honour the king with a special gift. Gar?’

Bemused, Gar stared at her. Asher watched the assembled nobility, searching for the expressions that were too still, for lips that twitched or eyes that shone with sudden, undimmed hilarity. Noted faces, and names, and held his breath as his friend trembled on the brink of a new disaster.

Gently, Fane prompted her brother. ‘Our gift, Gar. You’re holding it.’

Gar stared at her. At the stick. No escape. ‘Happy birthday, Your Majesty.’

Borne took the offered stick. ‘Thank you, my son. I don’t quite know what to say.’

‘Please,’ said Gar, cheekbones sharp beneath the skin, ‘don’t say anything.’

Fane broke the anguished silence. ‘That stick, Your Majesty, represents our lives without you. Dead. Dry. Lifeless. Gar chose it himself. Now, if I may?’ She took the stick from her father. Held it between her hands, closed her eyes and concentrated.

At first nothing happened. Then the stick shivered. Rippled once along its dry, brown length. Rippled again. A flush of green rolled along it, as though someone had upended an invisible beaker of paint and poured it from end to end.

‘Ah,’ breathed her spellbound audience, and crowded a little closer.

Gar curved his thinned lips in the semblance of a smile and kept his unclenched fists forcibly relaxed by his sides. Asher groaned under his breath and closed his eyes briefly.

The dead brown stick, now green and supple, swelled with buds. The buds blossomed. Delicate leaves unfurled. One end of the stick swelled, larger and larger, until it exploded into petal and drenched the room with a glorious perfume. Silver and gold and shimmering, it glowed with vibrant life and bloomed in perfect symmetry.

As Fane’s audience erupted into wild applause she held out the living miracle to her father and curtsied. ‘And this sweet rose, Majesty, represents all that we have with you as our king.’

Borne took the vibrantly alive flower, his green eyes dad with emotion. ‘Well. Now I truly am speechless. Thank you, daughter. And you, too, Gar. Thank you both.’

‘It was nothing, sir,’ said Gar. And stepped back as Fane entered their father’s embrace, trembling with triumph.

‘I was so afraid it wouldn’t work!’ she exclaimed, watching as the rose was passed from hand to eager ham and the gathered nobility chorused its admiration. ‘Dunn I and I have been practising for weeks, haven’t we, Durm?’ :

The Master Magician was smiling, his habitually stem expression softened into something more approachable, 1 never doubted your skills as a student, Highness.’

Borne punched him lightly on one elaborately robed shoulder. ‘Or your own as a teacher, you old rogue! Thank you! It is the most beautiful gift.’

Under cover of exclamation, Fane turned a little in the proud circle of her father’s arm and smiled at her brother, Then she caught sight of Asher’s face. He couldn’t have said exactly what she saw there but it killed her smile stone dead. For a moment an unfamiliar blush of shame stained her cheeks. Then her chin lifted, her eyes cooled and she turned her back on them both. The voluble crowd closed in around her, around the king and Durm, and mercifully hid them from sight.

Asher made a move towards Gar then, his own breath painful in his lungs. The prince held up a hand, sharp as a blow.

‘Don’t,’ he said. His voice could have shattered ice.

After more than a year, Asher was impervious. ‘Smile she wins,’ he said, barely above a whisper.

‘She’s won already,’ Gar replied distantly. He was very pale. ‘As always.’

‘Only if you let her. Only if you show that it matters.’

Gar shrugged. ‘It does matter. Pretending otherwise only makes me look more foolish.’

‘And not pretendin’ makes her happy!’ Asher retorted.

Gar looked him up and down. ‘A churlish brother I would be, to begrudge a sister’s happiness.’ ‘Gar —’ ‘Enough,’ said Gar. ‘You don’t understand. I doubt you ever will’

Scowling, Asher looked elsewhere for help. Captured the queen’s stricken gaze with his own. She understood. Dana took a step towards her son, her eyes stormy — and was halted by a cry.

‘Help here! The king! The king!’

It was Durm’s voice, almost unrecognisable in its dismay. The clustered nobles staggered backwards, aghast, to reveal Borne, ashen-faced and swaying on his feet. Clutching at his chest. With the stunned room watching he collapsed at Durm’s feet. ‘Majesty.’

As Gar leapt to his father’s side and Durm fell to his knees to take Borne in sheltering arms, Dana turned to Asher.

‘I’ll find the pothecary,’ he said.

Her eyes were enormous, and brilliant with fear. Her voice was faint. ‘Quickly.’

He looked back once from the door of the royal pavilion. Borne was unconscious, grey and slimed with sweat. Durm held him in a close embrace, furious with fear. Fane wept on her father’s still chest. Gar supported his mother, or she supported him. They were too closely entwined to tell. The servants clustered together against one ‘1, wide-eyed and horrified. Their expressions were rored in the faces of the noble guests. Well. Most of them anyway.

And abandoned on the floor, crushed and trampled and broken, the beautiful birthday rose.

Asher let the heavy curtain drop down behind him and ran.

The palace runner caught Wilier as he was going out to lunch.

‘A message for His Highness,’ piped the child. ‘From the Master Magician.’

Wilier snatched the rolled letter from the boy’s hand and waved him away. Curse it, now he’d be late, and if you didn’t get a luncheon table at Fingle’s within the first ten minutes you might as well not bother getting one at all.

He cast an unenthusiastic glance up the Tower staircase, Even worse, he’d have to go and disturb His Highness with this missive, which doubtless meant he’d have his head bitten off for daring to put his nose across the library threshold. There’d been shouting and banged doors already this morning, and Darran disappearing into their office in a secretarial huff. For a whole week now, ever since the poor dear king’s collapse, His Highness had been a positive bear to live with.

Not that one could complain, or would. His Highness was beside himself with worry for the king, which he supposed was only to be expected. But the gloom and despair were infectious. Even the Tower maids kept dashing into linen closets to cry. And if he tripped over one more snuffling boot-boy he really was going to scream. Or take off his belt and give someone a thrashing. Or both. Really, was so unnecessary. Hadn’t Pother Nix announced officially that the king would make a full recovery? Yes, he had. So what was the point of all this temperament? There wasn’t any, but it had Darran in as fractious a mood as the prince. Really, between the pair of them life was hardly worth living.

Wilier heaved a put-upon sigh. He did hope the king would make his full recovery soon, so that life could get back to normal.

Behind him the Tower’s heavy oak front doors banged . open. Swallowing a startled shriek he whirled, the message clutched protectively to his velvet-swathed chest.

Asher grinned as he sauntered into the lobby, stripping off his sweat-stained gloves as he came. ‘What’s that then, Wilier? Not another love letter? Does Darran know?’

Hot with dislike and humiliation, Wilier uncrumpled the rolled parchment. ‘Yom,’ he said with awful disdain. ‘And where have you been?’ As if he didn’t know. Carousing. Gallivanting. Prancing about on personal business when his duty lay at the feet of their prince. Reprobate.

Asher tucked his gloves into the waistband of his disgusting leather britches and looked down his crooked nose. ‘Out.’

Wilier sniffed. It was beneath him to rise to such obvious provocation. Instead he held out the Master Magician’s message. ‘This has just come from the palace for His Highness. Take it up to him.’

Insolence informing every grubby line of his face, Asher snorted. ‘Take it yourself, Wilier. I ain’t your servant.’

A gentleman never resorted to violence, no matter how justified it might be. With rage thick in his throat Wilier retorted, ‘No, you’re his, and more’s the pity for it too! I swear you’d know the meaning of good manners if you were answerable to me. If that were so you’d no more dream of entering His Highness’s official residence dressed like — like a highway rider than you would of flying over the Wall! Barl save us! Couldn’t you at least have before coming in from the stables? You reek of sweat and horses!’

Asher smirked. Oh, how Wilier longed to wipe that look from the upstart’s face! ‘Better than reekin’ of lavendei water,’ was the insufferable reply. ‘Or rosewater or old tea leaves or whatever it is you douse yourself in every mop™ No wonder you’re gettin’ love letters, eh? Or is it jus; smelly recipes they’re after?’

With a restraint that nearly caused his veins to burst, Wilier swallowed his instinctive reply. Darran had made himself abundantly clear on many, many occasions: the prince would brook no disrespect to the kingdom’s Assistant Olken Administrator. So instead he clung to his precious talisman, Darran’s promise: give him enough rope …

Such dreams he had, such pleasant dreams, of a stretched brown neck, and feet vainly kicking the indifferent air! ‘

‘I am very busy with work for Darran,’ he said through stiff lips. ‘Be so good as to take this message to His Highness immediately. It’s from the Master Magician.’

A little of the arrogance seeped from Asher’s face. Even his monumental pride faltered before the mention of the kingdom’s second most powerful magician. ‘Fine,’ he muttered and held out his hand. ‘Give it here then.’

With silent contempt Wilier handed the message over, waited till Asher was round the first bend of the Towet staircase, then hurried out of the side door. If he walked very fast, he might just reach Fingle’s in time after all.

Asher took the winding staircase two treads at a time, scowling. He’d happily live with the honest stink of sweal and horse in his nostrils, but leave him for five minutes ir that prissy sea slug Willer’s company and he was itching foi hot water and soap.

Gar was working at his library desk, surrounded b; towers of ancient books, piles of yellowed and crumb!’

edged parchment and pages of notes. Ink-stained and brassed, he muttered under his breath and streaked his blond hair blue with dragging fingers. Asher paused in the doorway and frowned. This was getting beyond a joke.

Without looking up from his jottings Gar snarled, ‘Darran! For the love of Barl, man, I said I didn’t want to be-‘

‘Mind now,’ Asher interrupted mildly, entering the room. ‘You’ll hurt my feelings, and we wouldn’t want that.’ As Gar sat up, blinking, he threw himself into the nearest comfortable armchair and slung a leg over one side.

Gar pulled a face. ‘Sorry. He’s been pestering me all morning.’

‘Try tellin’ him to turn into a bug and beetle off then.’ ‘I did in the end,’ Gar admitted. ‘Although not quite in those words. Look, amuse yourself for a moment, would you? I just need to finish this …’

Asher sighed. Books, books and more books. Ever since the king’s collapse Gar had buried himself in parchment and ink pots. Fool that he was. At this rate he’d work himself into a bed right next to his ailing da, and then three guesses who’d get the blame for it? By his reckoning, Gar hadn’t set foot outside in six days. Ballodair was so short of work he’d bucked Matt off that very morning; the bruised and limping stable meister wasn’t amused.

And Gar was looking short of work too, or at least fresh air. His thin face had grown thinner and there were lines of temper and worry engraved around his eyes and mouth. All this time and he’d still not seen his father. The strain was wearing him down, winding him tight as a lute string ready to snap.