Tyrant Trouble (Mudflat Magic) (26 page)

“Of
what did you speak?”

He
glared at Nance. “That is not for your knowing. It was nothing, just, um, talk.
She said she would prepare my evening drink. I was on the far side of the room
beneath a lamp looking at a finger ring she had handed me. She said the ring
was her gift to me. She said it had belonged to Erlan and asked if I knew what
the markings on it meant. But I could not see the markings in the shadows and I
looked up to tell her so.

“That
is when I saw her open her locket and shake powder into my cup.”

“You
saw her add powder but you drank it?” I asked.

“Some
of the women, umm, I know they still believe in love potions. I thought she had
got something like that. Those powders are harmless.”

“But
why would you drink it at all, no matter what you thought it was? Tarvik, I warned
you about Ober. Did you think I was joking?”

“This
wasn't Ober, it was Alakar. A love potion could not hurt me. And Alakar was
promised to me.”

Nance
giggled and cried out, “Oh, I see! Do you not understand, Stargazer? Tarvik
thought he would drink the harmless love potion and then throw himself at the
beautiful Alakar and let the silly girl think it was her own potion that had
roused his passion. She could only blame herself.”

I
thought in another moment Tarvik might throw himself at Nance, with passion,
all right, but not the kind she meant.

To
change subjects, I hoped, I said, “But where was your guard Artur?”

“He
has a family. I gave him the night free to visit them.”

“No
fun being alone with Alakar if Artur is watching,” Nance teased.

Tarvik
growled at her and I said quickly, “When did you figure out Alakar had tricked
you?”

He
glared at Nance, then turned to me. “I knew last night. Soon after I drank, the
room grew larger, then smaller around me. I could see Alakar watching me.
Inside I turned to nothing. My strength left me and I could not stand. I fell
into a corner and even then she watched and did not reach out a hand to help
me. When I woke in the temple I knew Alakar had drugged me and in some way you
and Nance had saved me.”

As
there were parts of the previous night I preferred not to explain, such as how
I had spied on the women from the secret passageway where I was not supposed to
be, and saw Ober mix the powders, I spoke quickly. If my words left him with
the idea that my knowledge of Ober came from my magic star circles, that
shouldn't backfire.

“Ober's
stars show evil, Tarvik. That's why I had to talk to the magician. He told me
Ober knew how to mix poisons. Nance and I came to warn you, but we were too
late. So we had to trade the magician his freedom for a potion to save you.”

In
one circling of the sun, Tarvik had been poisoned by his promised love, woke in
a forbidden chamber of the temple, cast out his uncle's family, and learned
Nance and I had set free the captive magician. As I hoped, it was so much
information he didn't go back to pick out the gaps in my explanation, didn't
even ask how I learned about Ober's treachery or how Nance and I entered his
room to find him. How we managed to carry him to the temple, or even how we
managed to get the magician out of prison, all that stuff went unquestioned.

Instead
he went straight to what hurt and asked, “Why should Alakar wish to poison me?
Am I so terrible? Did she think it pleasanter to murder me than to wed me?”

Poor
baby, what a blow to his ego.

I
said, “The magician said it was probably a potion to make you sleep for several
days. I don't think she wanted to kill you.”

Nance
added, “Ober believed Stargazer's powers could protect you. I think what she
really wanted was time to get rid of Stargazer. Then when you woke, she would
wed you to Alakar and take over the rule of the city.”

“Take
the city from me? I would not allow that!”

“You
watched Alakar put a potion in your cup and then you drank it,” Nance said,
smiling sweetly at him. “Anyone else would only have pretended to drink, clever
cousin.”

“I
should have banished you with Alakar,” he sputtered. “Besides, what you say
cannot be so. How could Ober plan to rule when she knows my father will return
by springtime?”

I
wondered about that, too. Plus I'd had a vision of Kovat in some strange place,
unconscious or dead. No point telling Tarvik about that. Still, I had a few
questions. “Would Erlan turn against his brother?”

Nance
sucked in her breath.

Tarvik
stared at me, eyes wide. “He could not! Kovat is a far greater warrior than
Erlan!”

“Erlan
won't need to fight if has Ober's poisons.”

Tarvik
jumped to his feet and stood over me. I resigned myself to being grabbed by the
arm and dragged somewhere. Instead, he only shook his fists in the air and
shouted, “You lie, Stargazer! Your circles and your stars lie, also!”

“The
stars don't say Erlan wants to kill Kovat. They only show Ober has a whole lot
of wicked in her. I don't know what's coming.”

He
paced at the edge of the fire glow, where his pale hair caught the light. He
wouldn't look at us or speak to us. Even Nance didn't want to taunt him now. If
I was right, and Erlan poisoned Kovat, Ober's banishment had gained us a month
or two longer to live, no more. We all knew Tarvik's guards were no match for
Erlan's army. If Erlan wanted to capture the city, its only defense was a small
number of faithful temple and castle guards.

Unable
to find a reply, Tarvik stopped his pacing and ran out of the courtyard.

“He
will not sleep tonight,” Nance said.

“No.”

“But
I will. Erlan or no, I would have to stick my fingers in my eyes to keep them
open. And if I judge my cousin rightly, he will be pounding on our gate again
at daybreak.”

Nance
was wrong. Tarvik didn't wait for daybreak. A short time after she went to her
room to sleep, while I stirred the last embers of our fire and tried to figure
out what to do, Tarvik returned. He spoke as though he had never left, without
greeting or explanation.

As
soon as I closed the gate behind him, he said, “Tomorrow you must draw your
circles and find a way for me to save my city.”

“Me?
Why do you think I can do that?”

“You
drew your circles and knew what Ober planned and how to save me, did you not?”

“The
magician knew how to save you, Tarvik.”

“Yes,
but you knew to seek the magician. There. And you were right. You will look
again and your stars will show you what I must do,” he insisted, frowning at
me.

“Okay,
I'll look, but I can't promise to find an answer.”

His
agitation rose. “My father knew your powers were greater than the powers of
Thunder or Ober. I know he was right about you. If your stars tell me how to
save my city, I will reward you with more than gifts. I will build you a castle
and you will have your own guards and slaves.”

I
was too surprised to reply. He pivoted on his heel and marched back out of the
courtyard. As I pushed the gate closed, I saw his guard waiting for him. Artur,
who always acted as though I was invisible, gave me a quick smile, completely
unnerving me.

A
castle, power, and my own army of quaking servants and all I needed to do was
figure out a way to defeat Erlan's army. Otherwise, we would all very probably
be dead.

This
nightmare just didn't want to stop.

CHAPTER
16

With
a flaming stick from the fire I burned a circle into Nance's largest wooden
table.

“Scream
away, child,” I muttered as I worked. “If I paint my circle, you forget and
wash it away. If I mark it in the courtyard soil, you forget and run through
it, rubbing it out. Order the servants to build you another table. This one is
mine.”

“But
it belongs to the temple! It is sacred!”

As
I had already told her what I had to do, I didn't bother to argue. The
difficulty of my assignment helped shut out the noise of her complaints, until
she gave up scolding and wandered off to clean her temple lamps.

Next
to the circle I burned rows of straight lines I could use to set up new charts.
Couldn't believe it myself, that I was trying to chart stars from their
remembered placements last summer, without the aid of an ephemeris or even the
simplest of writing materials.

I
sighed and settled to the task. Throughout the past month I had thought I could
miss nothing more than I missed the city and my own little house. Now all I
wanted was a supply of ink and paper. I'd even be happy with a cup filled with
crayolas like they give kids in restaurants.

I
stretched my arms above my head to relieve the tension in my back. Nance
watched me, frowning.

“Nance,
tell me this. Why has Tarvik's guard Artur suddenly decided to smile at me?”

“You
saved his life and he knows it.”

“What!”

“Artur
knows we hid Tarvik here in the temple, saving him from Ober. He doesn't know
how we managed it and may not care. What matters to Artur is this. If Kovat returned
and found his son dead, Artur would be dead, too. Painfully.”

The
more I heard of their customs, the more my head ached. I bent again over the
charts, had another idea.

“How
old is the castle?”

“I
don't know. It's always been here.”

“What
about the temple?”

“Ah.
It was built by Kovat's grandfather for the god of Thunder and I do know how
old it is because Kovat said he was cleansing away sixty years of false gods
when he dedicated it to the Daughter of the Sun. That was fifteen years ago.”

“So
he didn't build the temple for the Daughter?”

“No.
He added on my rooms. Actually, he originally built them for the Daughter and
her consort to live in. And he had those paintings done on the wall. He
probably did other things, but that's all I know.”

Toss
in a chart for one seventy-five year old temple, remodeled fifteen years ago, I
decided.

“How
long has Kovat's line ruled?”

“You
sound like Kovat. He asks questions like that, to see if Tarvik and I are
paying attention.”

“And
the answer is?”

“About
two hundred years.”

I
moved a pebble backwards around Tarvik's horoscope 200 degrees. He was the last
of the line and so it might give some small hint. As Erlan and Kovat would be
under the same influences, I did the same with their charts. And, oh, yes, I
added Alakar, the only other direct descendant.

And
then, after painful hours of concentration, did that ingrate Tarvik thank me? I
drew all those horoscopes, did recessions rather than progressions, studied the
incomplete information from which I had to work until my head pounded, and
finally saw a pattern.

I
told him what I saw.

“You
wish me to do what?” His low voice was more terrifying than Kovat's roar.

If
only I could have delayed the magician long enough to learn a few of his tricks.
Nothing less than a magic circle bursting into yellow smoke would impress
Tarvik.

I
said, “I can only tell you what the stars say. I can't change their messages.”

“Then
you have heard them wrongly.”

Talking
to illiterates did odd things to my vocabulary and left me with even odder
images. No point telling him I read the charts because the word read had no
meaning for him. So instead, I was left with this image of myself standing
outdoors in the dark of the night chatting with stars.

He
had sent for me and had me escorted to Kovat's private courtyard, one of many
tucked between rooms and wings of the sprawling castle. He ordered his guards
to wait outside its walls. I wondered if he did that so they would not overhear
us or so they would not see him sit on Kovat's raised chair. He hunched
forward, his elbows jammed into the fur-padded arms of the chair, his chin
propped on his joined hands. Was that how Kovat would have looked with twenty
years of battle scars removed?

I
asked him, “What other choices do you have? You don't have enough guards to
make up an army. You can't stop Erlan's army.”

“We
can defend the castle.”

“And
let Erlan's men march through the city murdering all those people who live
outside the castle walls? What good is that? You would have no one to rule.
More than that, with all your servants dead, do you plan to learn to shepherd
your flocks and scrub your floors yourself?”

Tarvik's
lower lip jutted out. He blew a sharp breath that lifted his yellow hair from
his forehead.

I
continued, “Nance is angry because I drew circles on her table and you are
angry because I told you what they say. I think I am going to confine my tasks
to templekeeping until Erlan enslaves us all.”

His
expression turned from anger to doubt to sorrow. I waited. He did not want to
ask and I did not want to answer.

“Do
your stars say my father is dead?” he asked softly.

I
wished I was a better liar. No matter what I or anyone else thought of Kovat,
it was clear Tarvik loved him.

“I
have bent over Kovat's circle until my head aches. All I know is this, his
stars and those of his brother cross violently in the House of Death at the
winter solstice. It looks like only one of them will return alive.”

“He
should have taken me with him.”

“And
what could you have done? If Erlan can poison Kovat, he can poison you,
Tarvik.”

“So
instead, your stars tell you I must move my whole city.”

“Yes.
If we leave while Venus aspects your sun, Jupiter will help. You can settle
your people in a far valley. If your father returns, you can bring everyone
back safely. If it is Erlan who returns, he needs to find an empty city and
empty storerooms.”

“Am
I to run and hide forever from my uncle? The water supply here is good and the
winter grazing, too. And these are my lands. No, I will not leave. Search your
stars for another answer.”