She excused herself politely to the courtiers and wandered away with relief. How many times in one day can a person curtsy or bow without tripping over their own feet? she asked herself. It gives me a headache, and I don’t have to live at court.
She wandered down the back halls of the castle, pretending to ignore the servants who edged away from her. Word about the river repairs at Pofkim had spread in the last three days.
Forget it, Tris ordered herself as she passed through the kitchen, a cook stepping away from her. When I have my Lightsbridge credential, I’ll be able to work in a way that won’t make people nervous. Nobody shrinks from the village healer or the woman who sells charms in the marketplace. I’ll be able to keep to small magics, and people will stop looking at me as if I had two heads.
Her steps carried her down a corridor where the store-rooms were located. A stair at the end led her down into the cellars. There she found a light shining through the open door of the room nearest the stairs. She poked her head inside. This was a cold room, spelled to hold winter temperatures all year long. Here the castle stored things that would spoil. In the outer room, they stored meat, butter, eggs, urns of milk and cream, and large cheeses. In the room off the main one, Tris saw the silver bloom of magic. Briar was working with household medicines.
She sent a pulse down their hair-thin magical connection so she wouldn’t startle him, then entered the smaller room. Briar had a series of small bottles in front of him, each holding a seed of magical fire. Three, off to one side, held more than a seed. Standing with his hands around one bottle, Briar was waking up the green power of the plants that had gone into its contents.
“You’ll freeze down here in that dress,” he said without looking up. He wore heavy woolen clothes. “Why are you bothering me, anyway? I thought you had Zhegorz to teach meditation to, and Gudruny’s kids for their letters.”
“Zhegorz is hiding in the wardrobe in your room,” Tris said calmly. She was starting to shiver.
“Now why in the Green Man’s name is he doing that?” Briar inquired absently. The magic in the bottle flowered into bright strength.
“He’s afraid your friend the empress will realize all he has overheard and decide to execute him for the realm’s safety,” Tris continued, her voice even. “He’s convinced she knows every scrap he’s ever picked up.”
“What a bleat-brain,” Briar replied. “Even if she could do such a thing, and she can’t, she’s never laid eyes on him.”
“He’s convinced she might, what with her being in the summer room right now,” said Tris. “That’s an aid to digestion you’re fixing, isn’t it?”
Briar’s head snapped up. He stared at Tris. “Here? She’s here?”
“I thought that would get your attention,” murmured Tris. “She’s here and she’s asking for you. Perhaps you should change shirts.”
Briar raced out of the room. Shaking her head, Tris went to the medicine he’d just finished working on and marked the label so the castle staff would know it had been strengthened. She took her time about leaving, making sure the other medicines he’d handled were also marked, and returning the neglected medicines to their proper shelves. Despite the cold, she was in no hurry to rejoin the hustle and bustle upstairs. The drafts upstairs had been filling her ears with the courtiers’ babble since their arrival.
Too bad I can’t hide in a wardrobe like Zhegorz, she thought as she casually renewed the cold spells on the rooms. But no, she added with a sigh, I’m a mage. Mages are supposed to take such things in stride.
Briar hardly noticed Zhegorz when he yanked his wardrobe open and grabbed the first decent-looking shirt and breeches he saw. He closed the wardrobe, then remembered he’d need an over robe. This time when he opened the doors he noticed Zhegorz huddled in the farthest corner.
“She’s no mage,” he told the man. “She can’t see what you’ve heard, even if you could sort out anything she wanted kept secret from the whole mess of things she doesn’t care about.” He left the wardrobe open as he stripped off his work clothes.
“Easy for you to say,” snapped Zhegorz. “You don’t hear all the bits and pieces that make a single damning whole.”
Pulling on his breeches, Briar asked, “And have you patched one together? A single damning whole that makes sense?”
“I could,” Zhegorz insisted, “if I put my mind to it.”
Briar did up the buttons on his long shirt cuffs. “Old man, your mind is in a thousand places. You lost it in a swamp of words and visions,” he said, not unkindly. “Nobody can use them to harm you until you put them together and tell someone. Do you even want to do that?”
Zhegorz straightened slightly. “No,” he replied slowly. “There’s too much, and it’s all a mess.” He rubbed his bony nose. “You don’t think someone could torture me to speak it all and put it together out of that?”
“They’d be as overwhelmed as you,” Briar said, tugging on his boots. “Lakik’s teeth, Zhegorz, you’ve been like this for thirty years. It’s all swirled together inside your poor cracked head. Only another madman would want to fish for something real in there.” He took out his handkerchief and gave the boots an extra wipe, shining the dull spots. “If you think she’s so powerful, just leave Namorn.”
“Just leave Namorn?” Zhegorz repeated, straightening even more.