LITMIR.BIZ

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stern but scrupulously fair human ruler that they unwisely handed over to him their most cherished relics – a set of inactive moonstone amulets or sigils that became known as the Seven Stones of Rothbannon. These things were nothing less than physical channels of Beaconfolk sorcery. They gave tremendous power to the human user at the price of pain – and sometimes his very soul.

      I do not have to reiterate the depressing history of Rothbannon’s descendants. They lacked his prudence and wielded the sigils in ways that often called down the wrath of the Lights. Your natural father’s paramour, Conjure-Queen Ullanoth, used moonstones to aid the establishment of the Sovereignty and further her own lust. The accusations made by Didion and by Cathra’s Lords of the South against Conrig and Ullanoth are shamefully true: the union of High Blenholme was built upon a foundation of unholy magic and adultery.

      This was made possible by the fact that Conrig himself has inherited a small and nearly indetectable portion of magical talent, which gave him a fatal affinity with the beautiful Mossland witch. Even more dire, Conrig holds his Iron Crown under false pretenses: by law, no talented man may be Cathra’s king.

      You, my dearest son, have no stain of talent whatsoever. I was assured of this by both Ansel Pikan and the sea-hag Dobnelu. Thus you are the rightful Sovereign of Blenholme, and no one – human or inhuman – may deny you’ your heritage…if you should choose to take it up.

      There is one credible witness who may attest to your freedom from talent and to Conrig’s attainting. He is the same Deveron Austrey who resigned from his post as Royal Intelligencer after his conscience was sickened by Conrig’s treatment of me. I am told that he was convicted of treason but escaped to the Continent, where he has lived in obscurity for long years. Whether you seek him out and use his testimony to your advantage is up to you.

      My beloved child, your future is in your own hands. If some day you ascend to the throne of Cathra and I still live, I hope we may be united on this earth. If this is not to be, I look forward to our eventual reunion in paradise and assure you of my prayers.

      I am your mother,

      MAUDRAYNE, Princess Dowager of Cathra

      She sanded the parchment, took scissors and trimmed the sheet to its smallest possible compass, folded it, and sealed it with three tiny drops of unstamped wax. It was now a thing scarcely an inch square.

      From her jewel case, filled with valuable baubles bestowed upon her by Tinnis Catclaw, she took a flat golden locket just large enough to contain the letter. Her desk yielded a small tin of cement, a sticky substance that dried hard and waterproof, used by the lodge’s guards to refasten loose fletching on their arrows. She had begged it from one of the kinder men, saying she wished to use it in binding a book. But instead, she carefully daubed a thin line of the black stuff around the edge of the locket, sealing it shut. No harm would come to the letter now, no matter how wet its messenger became.

      Rusgann would decide where to hide the locket on her person when they met at breakfast and completed plans for the escape.

      Maudrayne snuffed the candle on the desk and slowly rose. The only light now came from a low-burning oil lamp on a night-table beside her tester bed. Outside, the wind moaned and sleet rattled faintly against the heavily shuttered windows.

      She began to disrobe for bed, standing before a long pier glass. The doughty noblewomen of Tarn scorned the hovering bodyservants of more effete southern ladies, and she was accustomed to deal with her own garments and hairdressing except when some special occasion necessitated elaborate attire.

      She was two-score-and-four years of age, tall but fine-boned, and of unusual strength thanks to her love of walking, riding, and bow-hunting. The skin of her face was still creamy, unlined save for a faint crease between her brows. This imperfection, together with her dark-circled green eyes, like forest pools forever shaded from sunlight, were permanent legacies of her suffering.

      She unfastened her opal necklace and golden plait-clasps and put them on the dressing table, then doffed the myrtle-green wool surcoat and girdled gown of apricot silk, arranging them neatly upon wooden perches. After removing low-cut houseshoes and gartered stockings, she let slip to the floor her sleeveless linen underkirtle and drawers and stood naked before the mirror, unbraiding her abundant copper tresses. Her breasts were still high and firm and her belly was unmarked by the stress of childbearing. Her shield of womanhood was as blazing bright as the hair of her head.

      ‘You are still comely, Maude,’ she whispered, gazing upon herself for a long moment before the reflection was blurred by an upwelling of tears as sharp as acid. ‘Your besotted gaoler adores you and showers you with every gift save liberty. So why does the memory of him, and him alone, still heat your blood, even though you try to crush and deny it? Is there no way your heart will ever escape his thrall?’

      She went to the bed, drew up the covers, and pinched the lamp’s wick with moistened fingers. In the darkness, warm beneath a swansdown comforter, she found no comfort.

      She thought: The letter will bring an end to it. Surely it will! I’ll be rid of this perfidious bond, this shameful yearning that should be revulsion, this love for him that should be hatred. It’ll be over. Dear God, let me forget Conrig and be at peace…else I’ll have to go to him.

      And do what I must do.

       TWO

      Ansel Pikan, Grand Shaman of Tarn, who lay dying from injuries suffered in the Battle of the Barren Lands, started up from his pillow with a loud groan. Sweat poured from his body and his heart thudded as though it would leap from his chest. ‘Thalassa…Wix…Come to me!’

      The door to his chamber flew open. A buxom woman of impressive mien, wearing threadbare robes that had once been rich and costly, swept inside. She was followed by a sturdy little old man with eyes like jet beads and bushy white hair. The pair hurried to the bedside and ministered to the stricken shaman, assisting him to swallow two kinds of physick and a beaker of water. Then, working deftly together, the two of them changed Ansel’s damp nightgown and bed linen, and replaced his down comforter with another that hung warming at the hearth on a wooden rack. As they bent over him, checking the dressings on the terrible injuries to his hip and left side that would likely be the death of him, Ansel tried to relate what he’d dreamt. But his speech was nearly inaudible.

      ‘The Source…a dream of deep import…might endanger our great plan for Conrig.’

      ‘Wait until the medicines ease your pain and we have made you comfortable again,’ the sorceress Thalassa Dru urged him. ‘Be still for a few minutes, and you’ll make more sense.’

      ‘A strange thing,’ Ansel murmured, falling back onto the freshened pillow. ‘So strange.’

      ‘Your feet are like ice,’ said the man called Wix. ‘Let me put these wool booties on you. You should have a warming stone as well. I’ll get one from the kitchen.’

      ‘I’ll need you to bring something else.’ Thalassa fingered the pulse in Ansel’s emaciated neck for a few moments. ‘Fetch the phial of aqua mirabilis from my stillroom, along with a cup of warm milk.’

      ‘Yes, my lady.’ The old fellow trotted out, closing the door.

      She found a chair, put it next to the bed, and took Ansel’s skeletal hand in her own warm, plump one. The candlelight showed her how sadly the Grand Shaman had declined since she had visited him earlier that evening. He would not live much longer. God only knew how he’d reached the Tarnian mainland after traveling from the Barrens in his small boat, finally finding help at Cold Harbor. The local magickers bespoke Thalassa when Ansel cried out her name, and she had spirited him away through subtle magical corridors to her secluded retreat in the western foothills of the White Rime Mountains.

      ‘Now, my old friend,’ she said to him, ‘save your breath. Use windspeech to tell me what the Source revealed in your dream.’

      ‘He conferred with the Likeminded

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