The Shining City (15 page)

The key squealed in the lock, and she leaped to her feet, looking eagerly towards the door. The guard looked in, gesturing to her to keep back, his sword at the ready. He was a tall, gangly young man with blue eyes and very fair skin marred with an angry outcrop of pimples on his forehead. Rhiannon sat obediently on the bed as he stepped back, allowing the two people behind him to come in hesitantly.

Landon came in first. He was a thin boy around sixteen years of age, with lank fair hair and the beginnings of a scholar‟s stoop. Loose black robes hung off his shoulders. A dog-eared notebook protruded from one pocket, and his fingers were stained with ink.

Behind him came Fèlice. Her long dark hair was drawn back from her face and secured with a clasp set with seashells, the rest of it hanging in a shining sheet down her back. She was dressed in the same long black robe as Landon, but it had been altered to fit her slim figure becomingly.

She carried a bunch of spring flowers, which filled the air with their delicate scent. As she passed the guard, she smiled at him warmly and said, “Thank ye for letting us both come in. We do appreciate it!”

The guard blushed and nodded, shutting the door behind her.

“Landon! Fèlice!” Rhiannon cried. “Ye look so different!”

“We‟re students o‟ the Theurgia now,” Fèlice said, swinging around so her gown billowed out.

“Do we no‟ look frighteningly stern? I swear, I hardly recognized myself in the mirror this morning. I look so dreadfully grown up.”

“Your hair is all different too,” Rhiannon said. The last time she had seen Fèlice, her hair had hung in thick, unnaturally regular ringlets. She had had to tie her hair up in hard little knobs every night to make the ringlets but had declared the pain and discomfort was well worth the result.

Fèlice smoothed back her glossy brown hair complacently. “Straight hair is all the rage now,”

she said. “The Banprionnsa Bronwen‟s hair is straight, ye ken, and black as night. Edithe is cross as cats, for she‟s quite out of fashion now with her blond curls. Even if she irons it in the morning, it‟s all frizzy again by lunchtime, while look at mine, still dead straight by evensong.”

“How do ye iron hair?” Rhiannon said, feeling both bemused and amused, which was the effect Fèlice usually had on her.

“Same as ironing a skirt,” Fèlice said. “Ye canna do your own, o‟ course. I ironed Edithe‟s and she ironed mine this morning. I swear she almost scorched it! All the lassies in our dorm iron their hair. Unless, o‟ course, ye‟re a real curly mop like all the NicCuinn girls. They havena a hope o‟ ironing out their curls. Happen that‟s why the Banprionnsa Olwynne wears it back in such a tight plait, to hide her ringlets.”

“I doubt she cares,” Landon said dryly.

Fèlice opened her eyes wide, as if to say how could she not, but she said nothing more for Landon had turned to Rhiannon and was asking her awkwardly how she was. Rhiannon wished he had not. She had almost forgotten her prison cell, listening to Fèlice chatter away, but now her situation rushed back upon her, and she felt her gloom and fear and frustration with greater force than ever.

“Och, I‟m grand,” she said lightly.

“How‟s the food?” Fèlice asked. “It canna be any worse than the slops they serve us up at school.

I‟ve had naught but porridge and stew since I‟ve arrived.”

“We must share the same cook,” Rhiannon responded.

“At least ye get a room to yourself. I‟m sharing a room with six other girls and I swear they all snore. I havena had a wink o‟ sleep.”

Rhiannon stared at her. She looked fresh enough. “I‟m sure ye slept better than me,” Rhiannon said coolly.

“Better than I,” Fèlice corrected her.

Rhiannon scowled.

“That‟s the right way to say it. „Better then I,‟ no‟ „better than me.‟ ”

“Me, I, me, I—who cares?”

Fèlice said defensively, “Ye said ye wanted me to teach ye to speak properly.”

Rhiannon‟s scowl deepened.

Landon said quickly, “Rafferty and Cameron would‟ve come to visit ye too, Rhiannon, but ye‟re really only meant to have one visitor at a time. They‟ll come another day, they said.”

“I‟m surprised no‟ to have seen Edithe,” Rhiannon said sarcastically.

Fèlice giggled. “Edithe has her nose completely out o‟ joint. She‟s a country clodhopper compared to all the lairds and ladies all over the place here, no‟ to mention the prionnsachan and banprionnsachan. And after the last few days o‟ school, well, she‟s realized she‟s not the powerful sorceress she thought she was.”

“But what happened to her nose?” Rhiannon asked, puzzled. “Did someone punch her?”

Fèlice pealed with laughter. “Nay, ye gawk! I mean she‟s disgruntled.”

“She‟s grunting?” Rhiannon was more puzzled than ever.

“Nay, nay! She‟s peeved. Cross. Miserable. Because no one pays her any attention.”

“But what about her nose?”

“It‟s just an expression,” Landon said. “It doesn‟t mean her nose is really dislocated.”

Rhiannon frowned. It was a constant struggle for her to decipher the language of these apprentices. They had so many odd phrases and figures of speech. She wondered if she would ever come to know them all.

“I wouldn‟t be surprised if someone did end up punching her in the face,” Fèlice continued. “The airs and graces that girl gives herself! Just because she‟s a NicAven o‟ Avebury. Just about everyone here has some famous witch in their background, and half o‟ them are related to the Rìgh somehow. And the way she licks the boots o‟ anyone she thinks is important—”

“Does she really lick their boots or is that just another expression?” Rhiannon demanded.

Fèlice giggled. “Och, ye are a clown. O‟ course she doesna really lick their boots.”

“Then why did ye say . . . ?” Rhiannon gave up.

“I think it‟s going to be an awful lot o‟ fun, being here at the Theurgia. Did ye ken the students are given passes to go out into the city at night? I‟ve never been allowed to go into town by myself afore. I‟ve always had to go with my maid and groom. And we share classes with the boys! And eat with them! I‟ve already had three very nice-looking lads stop and welcome me to the school, and one has asked me to go to one o‟ the city inns later tonight to hear this new singer they say is really something special.”

“Ye aren‟t going, are ye?” Landon was scandalized.

Fèlice pouted. “I do no‟ see why no‟. I willna go by myself, o‟ course. I thought I‟d see if Maisie wants to go, or maybe one o‟ the other girls in my dorm. They all seem awfully nice.” She recollected herself and turned to Rhiannon with all the warm impulsiveness that was so endearing and yet so exasperating. “I wish ye were in our dorm too, Rhiannon, and could come with us. I‟d feel totally safe if ye were there.”

“Are ye no‟ afraid I‟d say something to embarrass ye?” Rhiannon said, trying to speak lightly but not entirely succeeding.

“O‟ course no‟,” Fèlice answered. “I like the things ye say, I think they‟re awfully funny. I‟m no‟

easily shocked, ye ken.”

Rhiannon said nothing.

Luckily Fèlice did not require too much encouragement to keep a conversational ball rolling.

“Besides, I do no‟ reckon anyone here would be too badly shocked by ye,” she went on

cheerfully. “They‟re all frightfully sophisticated, ye ken. There are all sorts o‟ faeries here, even a Celestine! She‟s the daughter o‟ the Stargazer, which makes her a kind o‟ banprionnsa too, I suppose. And there are corrigans and tree-changers and cluricauns everywhere, and someone told me there‟s a company o‟ satyricorn soldiers among the Greycloaks, so really ye would no‟ be so odd. And the witches are much less stuck-up than normal people. Even the Banprionnsa

Olwynne is no‟ allowed a maid or any ladies-in-waiting while she‟s at the Theurgia; she has to look after herself like we all do. It‟ll take some getting used to, I tell ye what! I keep looking around for someone to frown at me and tell me to sit up straight and mind my manners and what degree of curtsy to make, but there‟s no one!”

She laughed in glee. “And I tell you what else! During class everyone seems absolutely deadly serious. My heart quite sank. We had mathematics, alchemy, history, and basic spell-work, all on our first day! Ye‟d think they‟d have given us a chance to settle in. And everyone with these long serious faces, scribbling down every word the teachers say. I was quite dismayed. But then, once school was over, well! We had some fun then. After dinner everyone played games, and there was an impromptu dance in the hall, and some o‟ those lads and lassies can sing! We had a ball.”

Rhiannon thought about what she had been doing while Fèlice danced and flirted, and felt rage rise in her like nausea. She gritted her teeth and clenched her fists and said nothing, though it hurt her badly to think Fèlice could have been so carefree while she was caged up in Sorrowgate Tower.

Fèlice did not notice her silence, though Landon regarded her with keen, anxious eyes and a deepening look of trouble. After a while, he said, “Have ye heard any news, Rhiannon? About your trial, I mean.”

“No‟ much,” she said just as abruptly. “I have to wait two moons or more afore they even have it. Two moons, locked up in here!”

“Och, that‟s terrible,” Fèlice said, sobering hurriedly. “Two whole months! I thought it‟d be a day or two, and then ye‟d be coming to join us at the Theurgia.”

“Unless I‟m hanged, drawn, and quartered,” Rhiannon said coldly.

“What? I mean, ye‟re joking, aren‟t ye?”

Rhiannon shook her head, feeling an easing of her unhappiness at the obvious shock and horror on Fèlice‟s pretty face.

“That‟s the penalty for treason, I‟m told, and apparently killing a Yeoman is treasonous.”

“But it was self-defense, or something, wasn‟t it?”

“No‟ exactly,” Rhiannon answered, then, mindful that Fèlice might well be called as a witness, said with a show of deep regret, “He was going to kill my mother. If I had no‟ shot him, she‟d be dead now.”

“Och, well, that has to mean something, hasn‟t it?” Fèlice said, quite innocent of the fact that Rhiannon had always hated her mother.

“But why do ye have to wait so long?” Landon said. “Two months is a long time to be kept locked up without a trial.”

“They do all the trials together, once every quarter,” Rhiannon said. “The high courts sit only four times a year.”

“Och, ye poor thing,” Fèlice said. “Didna Nina tell the Rìgh how ye saved Roden?”

“It made no difference,” Rhiannon said, and was suddenly overwhelmed by tears. She stopped, cleared her throat, and went on rather unsteadily, “I do no‟ think he cared, really. He insists the courts have to hear all the evidence and decide what is to be done with me.”

“I‟m sure they‟ll find ye innocent and let ye go,” Fèlice said uneasily.

“Are ye?” Rhiannon answered.

“I‟m writing a ballad about ye,” Landon said suddenly. “I‟m calling it „Rhiannon‟s Ride.‟ I‟ll print it up, and then everyone will ken about how brave ye were.”

Rhiannon did not know what to say. She had already seen just how little everyone thought of Landon‟s poetry. The girls had laughed about him behind his back, and the other boys, Rafferty and Cameron, had done so to his face. Even Iven, who loved to sing and tell jokes and stories, had rolled his eyes at some of Landon‟s efforts. The young poet was looking at her with such earnest and worshipping eyes, however, that she managed to say some kind of thanks.

“Once they ken the whole story, everyone will say ye must be freed,” Landon said solemnly.

“I‟m sure o‟ it.”

“Well, that would be grand,” Rhiannon said and found herself wishing they would go and leave her alone again. She felt sick and weary and perilously frail.

Landon understood her sigh. He stood up, saying unhappily, “We‟ve upset ye. I‟m sorry. Fèlice, we should go.”

“But why? I havena finished cheering Rhiannon up,” Fèlice said indignantly. “I wanted to tell her all about Maisie and what the healers said about her face, and I ken she‟ll want to hear all the gossip about the Banprionnsa Bronwen—”

“Another day,” Landon said and rapped on the door.

The young guard opened it.

Fèlice gave Rhiannon a warm, sweetly scented hug and kiss, and told her to keep her chin up, an odd piece of advice that puzzled Rhiannon but was accepted without comment by everyone else.

Fèlice then turned to the guard and asked him, very sweetly, what his name was.

“Corey, miss . . . I mean, my lady,” he answered bashfully.

“Well, Corey, ye‟ll take good care o‟ my friend here, won‟t ye, and no‟ let her mope too much?”

Corey glanced at Rhiannon and looked away, scarlet mounting his cheeks.

“Sure,” he answered after a moment.

“Thank ye so much. I‟ll see ye again soon, Rhiannon, dinna ye fear!” And Fèlice went smiling out of the room, leaving her bunch of flowers on the table to spread its faint sweetness into the air.

Landon nodded his head at the guard and went out, looking awkward and unhappy.

The guard hesitated at the door for a moment, then said curtly, “I have a message for ye. Lewen MacNiall came to see ye, but the captain wouldna let him in, seeing how ye had so many visitors already. He . . . Lewen . . . he said he would come again tomorrow, if he could.”

Rhiannon jerked her head in response, determined not to let him see how disappointed she was.