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“Isn’t he a very powerful magister?”
His tone sharpened. “Naturally he is. And for another thing, don’t sound foolish, Catherine. Just say nothing. Don’t embarrass me—” He broke off. After a pause, he finished. “Don’t embarrass your people.”
The carriage slowed as we turned off the main road onto a gravel road that crackled beneath hooves and wheels. My pulse outraced the leisurely pace of the horses. I wondered if it was actually possible to faint from fear as the sensational tales we read in the almanacs and saw on the stage would have it. I must endure this, just as my father had endured the wars and had written of his hatred for all that made life a misery for ordinary people. I must endure, because I must. That was all. It had to be done. It was already done.
oked as surprised as if I had leaned over to kiss him. “Weren’t you tired? Anyhow, I had certain—necessary offerings—that I had to attend to.”
The steps were raised; the carriage shifted as the footman leaped onto the back. I braced myself as the wheels ground over gravel and bumped up a ramp; then we made the road, the constant road, running east into a brightening day.
“We are almost home,” he added, although it was difficult to tell whether the words were spoken with joy or perturbation.
In the misty dawn light, he kept the window open. I huddled in the warm furs and stared at the land outside, dense with spruce or pine and the occasional stand of birch and here and there warmwood like oak and beech on south-facing slopes protected by the configuration of the land. Forest opened to pasturage, and in the distance rose a village of round houses set in a precise ring. Here and there, flocks of goats and sheep probed for the remnants of summer’s grass. The mist burned off; the sky was cloudless, a wintry blue the color of Brennan’s eyes. What had become of Chartji and Godwik and Brennan and Kehinde? When they reached Adurnam, would they guess the truth about who had destroyed the airship?
We passed other villages. Every field was plowed under against winter’s freeze. Orchards, tree trunks packed in straw, raised skeletal arms.
He watched the landscape, and I watched him sidelong. He had trimmed his beard and mustache. It was a masterpiece of subtle sculpting, highlighting the strong line of his jaw. Had he no body servant to tend to his clothing and toilette? I tried to imagine the coachman wielding razor and scissors but could not, and decided that among those employed at the inns, there must be men specializing in this service for preening young bucks like Andevai. Yet then why would he not travel with his own body servant? To the Houses, it would be an insignificant expense; they had entire families and clans and villages bound to them, what Brennan and the law called clientage, which might extend unbroken for generation after generation with little hope for change. I was fortunate, really. When my father and mother had died, the Hassi Barahal clan might have done anything with me they wished, according to the law, but the Kena’ani valued their children too much to sell them away.
Aunt and Uncle’s hand had been forced. Their anguish had been real. So I had to ask myself, Why? What did they owe Four Moons House, and why would a mage House possibly want a daughter of the Hassi Barahal clan in its keeping? Did the Hassi Barahals hold some secret that might damage the mages, and by taking me, had the mages therefore bound my family to silence, with me as an unwilling hostage?
It simply made no sense.
Andevai grabbed the edge of the window, his body tense as he gazed over the landscape. What did he see that was hidden to my eyes? Harvested fields making an expanse of white stubble. A double ring of stockade, an outer palisade surrounding gardens and byres and sheds and an inner man-high fence surrounding a village of blocky, mazelike compounds. A slope fenced for pasture with a stream glittering along one side. A pond skinned with early season ice, as fragile as if it were spun of sugar. A grove of black pine with one towering giant in its midst.
A man, stiff and slow with age, was leading an ox toward the village.
Andevai watched for a long time, leaning out to keep the houses in view as we trundled east. When at last he sank back onto the seat, he covered his eyes with a hand.
Had I seen a tear? Or was that only a trick of the light?
15
After a while, he lowered his hand and slid shut the window, leaving us in the dim confines, ripe with the smell of our sweat after so many days.
I had begun to shiver, despite the smothering furs. “I… I wanted to ask if there is anything I should know. Proper greetings? Words or gestures I should not use?”
“Do what I tell you, and don’t speak. There’s far too much for you to learn to start now. Afterward there will be time.”
“After what?”
“We must be purified to pass onto the estate. Then you’ll be brought before the head of Four Moons House and accepted into the house.”
“Isn’t he a very powerful magister?”
His tone sharpened. “Naturally he is. And for another thing, don’t sound foolish, Catherine. Just say nothing. Don’t embarrass me—” He broke off. After a pause, he finished. “Don’t embarrass your people.”
The carriage slowed as we turned off the main road onto a gravel road that crackled beneath hooves and wheels. My pulse outraced the leisurely pace of the horses. I wondered if it was actually possible to faint from fear as the sensational tales we read in the almanacs and saw on the stage would have it. I must endure this, just as my father had endured the wars and had written of his hatred for all that made life a misery for ordinary people. I must endure, because I must. That was all. It had to be done. It was already done.
The carriage stopped. Andevai drew in a breath. The door was opened, the stair lowered. He got out.
As I made ready to follow him, he gestured like an ax striking. “It’s forbidden to bring cold steel into the gatehouse. Leave it in the carriage.”
The sword already felt like a part of me. I hated to leave it, and yet when he frowned, I knew I had no choice. Swordless, I followed him onto a wide fan of raked gravel fronting a massive white stone gate with four arches. Each archway was fitted with massive iron-clad wood gates, and above each arch was carved one phase of the moon. Walls stretched out to either side as far as I could see, high enough that I could discern nothing on the other side except the crowns of trees. To our right, built out from the wall, stood a spacious lodge, the gatehouse. Its walls were decorated with bright geometric lines and patterns. It was set off from the road by a low garden wall, behind which lay a desiccated garden, oval in shape and notable for pruned evergreen hedges, a single unremarkable stone pillar as tall as a man, and an elaborate tiered fountain. Water ran down this excrescence of stone to splash into twin basins formed like the halves of melons. On the rim of the fountain rested several bowls.
Andevai halted at the gate with hands extended, palms up. I copied the gesture, so afraid I would do something wrong that tears blurred my vision.
A pair of men in servants’ livery came running from the lane beside the house to take up stations within the garden. The door of the lodge was opened. Four women, wearing indoor slippers, hurried down the steps to stand on either side of a brick path that led by a circuitous route, not a straight line, to the square vestibule. Two young men dressed in fashionable clothing came out, smirking and nudging each other. I could not see Andevai’s face, but his posture became more rigid and he seemed to be breathing faster. As people took up positions on either side of the steps, they started calling to one another in a rhythmic way. Others took up this chant and began to clap and sing. My ears burned.
As if summoned by the song, a woman emerged from the interior and stood on the threshold. She was tall and robust, older than my aunt but not elderly, and dressed in a long robe made of a black cloth marked with white patterns. Her complexion was lighter than Andevai’s, her brown skin dusted with freckles, and her hair was tied up in a scarf that had pulled back just enough to reveal tightly kinked dark red hair. She raised both hands, as if giving permission.
