The Shape-Changer's Wife (12 page)

Aubrey laughed again. “Very good I can understand, but very bad?”

“If he sent you away from him because you could not learn.”

“No. In fact, I learned a great deal from Cyril. He thought I would benefit from other teachers, however, and sent me to Glyrenden.”

“That is just a little surprising,” Sirrit said dryly.

“Why?”

“Cyril and Glyrenden were never”—Sirrit shrugged—“allies.”

“You do not have to like a man to respect his abilities,” Aubrey said calmly. He was certainly learning that for himself.

Sirrit smiled. “Even so. Cyril is usually more discriminating.”

“You don't like Glyrenden, either,” Aubrey said. “But you must admit he has awesome power.”

“That does not make me like him any better,” Sirrit said.

Aubrey smiled and spread his hands. Professional ethics prevented him from inquiring too deeply into that remark. “Glyrenden is my master now, and I learn from him,” he said. “I cannot malign him to you.”

“And I would not wish you to,” Sirrit said graciously. “So, tell me, are you enjoying our festival?”

“Very much. I wanted most especially to compliment you on the perfection of the weather.”

Sirrit smiled again. “Has it been so obvious?”

“No, it has been magnificent. I understand we are to have a ceremony of some sort tonight, but I am from a kingdom far from here. I do not know all your rituals.”

Sirrit settled back in his chair. “Well, this is a ceremony not often observed here, either, but Faren has developed an intense interest in some of the ancient customs of the country folk, and this is one of them. Back in more primitive days, people believed in the universal living soul. They worshipped the earth for its bounty, the sun for its warmth, the corn and the wheat and the growing things. They believed all animals had souls, so when they killed deer or quail or rabbits, they praised the spirit of the animal which had died to keep them alive. Their lives were a constant struggle to strike a balance with the other creatures—entities—who shared their world. Everything was amazingly alive to them—trees, stones, eagles, the stars and the moon. Each had its own identity, its own personality, if you will, and they accorded each entity the respect and courtesy they would accord a fellow human being. More, in fact, when you consider that they feuded with each other on a regular basis,” Sirrit concluded with a smile.

Aubrey was fascinated. “And so this ceremony tonight—”

“Oh, well, it's highly corrupted. A thousand years ago, it would be a celebration to ensure a bountiful harvest—there would be prayers, songs of praise, an offering of the fruits of the fields. Although I have always thought it strange,” Sirrit continued, turning philosophical, “that a burnt offering was considered acceptable in any culture. Haven't you? That is to say, if you are honoring the spirit of the wheat for being a living thing, possessing intelligence and a soul, why would you want to burn it? Wouldn't that just be another way of killing it? How would a killing propitiate the wheat gods, assuming there were wheat gods?”

Aubrey laughed. “But the question is invalid, isn't it? I mean, there are no wheat gods. Wheat has no soul. Does it?”

Sirrit spread his hands. They were heavily veined and powerful; a wizard's hands, used to magic. “Wheat—I don't know. Probably not. But animals? Yes, absolutely. Rocks? My guess would be no. The earth itself? Sometimes I think yes, sometimes no. Trees? I am certain of it. The moon? I don't—”

“Trees?” Aubrey interrupted. “Animals, maybe—I might grant you that—but trees? Living spirits? Like men—like thinking, breathing creatures? That does not seem possible to me.”

Sirrit looked at him long and consideringly. Aubrey had the distinct impression that he was debating whether or not to say something, which he decided against. “Have you ever walked alone through the forest? Haven't you felt surrounded by a presence much more ancient and much more informed than your own? Have you ever wandered through an acre of redwoods—among trees so large you could not span them, not you with your hands linked with the hands of four other men? Do you know how old some trees are? Do you know what cycles of human life they have watched, and outlived, and forgotten?

“Do you understand how they grow, with their roots drawing up the substance of the earth itself and their limbs stretched almost to the sun? What is a tree made of—water and air and earth and the fire of the sun? Those are the elemental components of the world, my friend. If a tree is not alive, then men are not alive, for we are nothing more than water and air.”

For a moment, Aubrey could not speak, and then he took in his breath on a quick laugh. “Almost, you convince me,” he said.

“Believe it,” Sirrit said, and his eyes were the enigmatic, weighing eyes of a veteran magician. “One day, I promise you, you will know I speak the truth.”

 

 

DINNER WAS LATE that evening, and informal. All of Faren Rochester's guests had dressed in the fashionable version of peasant clothes—leather breeches and vests for the men, simple skirts and blouses for the women. The food suited the attire, plain and hearty; they all drank ale instead of wine, and laughed at the novelty of the meal.

When they were done eating, Faren Rochester led them to the hallway, where servants were lined up waiting. One by one the guests took wax tapers from the hands of footmen, lit them in a small brazier burning near the doorway, and stepped out into the velvety dark. When all hundred were standing on the flagged courtyard, candles cupped in their hands against any vagrant breeze, a woman began singing a simple melody. One by one the others joined in. It was not a song Aubrey recognized, though most of the others seemed to know it. There in the open air, under the huge arching bowl of the black sky, the erratic light of the candles seemed feeble and inconsequential; the hundred voices made a thin, plaintive sound against the overwhelming quiet of the night.

There are not enough of us,
Aubrey thought suddenly, drawing his own candle closer to his chest and wondering where Lilith was in this crowd.
There are not enough of us to beat back the darkness and subdue the spirits of the otherworld.
And although he did not believe, as Sirrit did, that the inanimate world around him was alive with individual souls, still he felt suddenly small and watched and at risk.

Continuing with a new song, the crowd slowly uncoiled from the courtyard and formed a processional down one of the flagged pathways that led toward the wooded sections of Rochester's land. Aubrey, one of the last to fall into place, watched the parade unfold ahead of him, the single-file line of torches winding through the twisting pathways of the forest, half obliterated by tree trunks and low-lying branches. The fire flickered; the hands holding the candles seemed disembodied; the singing voices floated back to him, wistful and eerie as the voices of the dead. He followed, caught up in a backlash of primitive superstition—enjoying the feeling, but a little disturbed nonetheless.

After the procession snaked through the woodland for half a mile or more, Aubrey began to be aware of a great light glowing before them, defeating the dark. A bonfire, he guessed, and discovered he was right as he came through the final weave of trees into a wide clearing. The other guests were bunched around the fire, which was huge, as big as one of the bedrooms in the Rochester mansion. They still clutched their candles, although a little less tightly in the welcoming blaze of the firelight, and they were still singing. The heat from the immense fire was suffocating. Aubrey felt it on his face from three yards away, and stepped back.

The movement brought him up against another guest hovering far back in the shadows. He turned with an easy word of apology, to find himself practically stepping on Lilith's toes.

“Oh! You're here,” he said foolishly, and just as foolishly smiled. “I didn't see you before.”

She nodded and did not reply. He leaned closer, inspecting her face by the fitful fire. It was hard to tell, for she rarely showed much expression, but her face seemed set and strained. The very posture of her shoulders seemed unbearably tense. She carried no candle; she had wrapped her arms around her body and appeared to shiver.

“Lilith,” he said, concerned. “Are you cold? Come closer to the fire.”

She shook her head violently. “No.”

“But you're shaking—are you ill?”

“No.”

He could not help himself. He touched her cheeks with his fingertips to find them marble-cold. But he remembered something from his first full day at Glyrenden's house: Lilith did not care much for fire. “Here,” he said, slipping off his cloak, which he had worn despite the warm night. When she did not take it from him, he settled it over her shoulders. “Is that better?”

“Thank you,” she said.

She had not looked at him all this time; her eyes seemed fixed on the fire, and their expression was hopeless. “Perhaps I should take you back,” he said, growing seriously alarmed.

She shook her head again. “Glyrenden wanted me to come.”

“Perhaps he didn't know you were ill.”

She spoke so softly, her reply was inaudible. Aubrey thought she said, “He knew,” but surely he heard her wrong?

She continued to watch the bonfire and tremble. Aubrey moved behind her and put his arms around her, adding the warmth of his body to her insubstantial heat. She neither thanked him nor moved away, and so they stood that way while the singers finished one pretty carol and began another.

Soon there came the noise of booted feet thrashing through the undergrowth, and a party of house servants broke into the clearing. They were carrying a whole tree, one of the tall cedars that were so plentiful in this forest. By its smell and the raw look of its severed trunk, it had been cut only a few hours ago. The partygoers parted with a murmur of approval as the servants came closer; the big tree would burn half the night. Braving the extreme heat, the footmen positioned themselves on either side of the fire, the log hanging between them, and then they carefully lowered it into the waiting flames.

The shriek that rose instantly upon that act seemed to come from the fire itself. It was full of such agony and despair that dread swept the whole crowd; people drew back from the fire, clutching each other's arms and staring fearfully about. A few women cried out. Several of the men laid their hands upon their weapon belts. Lilith sank to the ground in a dead faint. Aubrey fell to his knees beside her.

“What is it? Who screamed?” Faren Rochester's words rose above the general hubbub.

“The tree—” came a woman's hesitant voice, and two or three other voices echoed her.

“Nonsense, the tree didn't scream,” Rochester said testily. “It must have been an owl or some other night creature. Are we all safe? Are we all recovered?”

“Someone swooned,” a voice said, and a few moments later Aubrey looked up to find Faren Rochester standing over him. He had taken Lilith's head upon his lap and drawn his cloak more tightly about her. He could not tell if she was still unconscious or merely too exhausted to open her eyes.

“What happened? Did she fall?” the lord demanded.

“I think the scream—the noise—frightened her, and she tripped—or something,” Aubrey said, improvising, and not too well. “Maybe she hit her head. I'm sure she'll be fine.”

“I'll have some of the servants take her back to the house.”

“No, I'll take her,” Aubrey said, and rose to his feet with Lilith in his arms. Faren Rochester eyed him uncertainly for a moment, then nodded, and turned his attention back to his other guests.

“Everything's fine, she just fainted from the heat,” the lord said, seeming, by the force of his personality, to shepherd the whole group back toward the fire. “Lady Calcebray, would you lead us in the next hymn? And Lady Millson, will you help her—?”

Aubrey heard the high, sweet strains of music lift behind him as he hurried down the unlit path back toward the house. Lilith lay in his arms as lightly as a pile of brittle leaves; she had no weight at all. He had no hand free to carry his candle, but he spoke an absentminded spell and called forth a blue witchlight to illuminate the way. Enough of this nonsense, anyway—strange old rituals in the forest, educated men and women parading around in peasant dress. What slumbering gods was Faren Rochester trying to wake? What ancient magic did he hope to invoke? Aubrey increased the strength of the witchlight till the path before and behind him glittered under its sapphire glow. The exercise of his own skill gave him back a measure of security.
This
was the magic he understood;
this
was the way the world was meant to run. In his own powers he had belief. He did not want to meddle with the fey, forgotten spirits of the earth.

Lilith did not stir in his arms until he had carried her into the fortress and up to her room. Glyrenden was nowhere in sight. He had not been at the bonfire, either, and Aubrey took a moment to wonder where he was. Only a moment, though: As he placed Lilith on the white satin coverlet, she murmured once and opened her eyes.

The room was dim, lit only by a branch of candles on the dresser at the far end of the room. Nonetheless, he could see her face clearly enough. What color she normally possessed had returned; her expression was as masklike as ever.

He bent over her still, his hands resting lightly on her shoulders. “Are you better?” he asked. “I brought you back.”

Her eyes traveled over the walls and across the ceiling, as if she wanted to ascertain for herself where she was. “Thank you,” she said. “Let me sleep now.”