Juliet McKenna - The Swordsman's Oath

It never ceased to amaze Temar that someone as persistently disorganized as Vahil could be born of two such efficient and capable parents. He grabbed the ewer and took possession of the washstand with scant apology.

“Find some clean linen, will you?” he demanded.

“Yes, Messire, at once, Messire, anything else Messire?” Vahil pulled open a drawer and tossed a couple of shirts onto the bed.

Temar shivered, bare-chested as he reached for one of them. He pulled it on and grimaced at his reflection in the inadequate glass; he’d have to wear his work-soiled jerkin to hide the fact the shirt was both too short in the body and too wide in the shoulder. At least it was clean and, with luck, the quality would be more noticeable than the fit.

“Come on.”

Vahil was sorting through a tray of oddments with unhurried good humor. “Just a moment, where did I put the cursed thing? Ah!” He pulled a scrap of leather thong out of his hair and snapped a rather florid gold clasp into his wiry, chestnut locks. “The perfect gentleman!”

Temar smiled, shaking his head. Vahil took great pleasure in assailing the heights of fashion, unbothered by his incongruous stoutness or the pockmarks pitting his cheerful face.

A bell rang and they hurried downstairs to find Messire Den Rannion enjoying a quiet glass of wine by the fireside with his guest.

“This is Guinalle, Demoiselle For Priminal.” He rose and bowed to her, Temar and Vahil doing the same with the instincts borne of childhood training. Guinalle answered with an elegant curtsey, spreading her flame-colored skirts in a rustle of silk.

“I gather you have already met, D’Alsennin?” Den Rannion passed Temar a fine glass goblet of richly fragrant red wine.

“We have.” Temar was heartened to see a friendly answering smile oh Guinalle’s face.

“I don’t see much point in Imperial ceremony when we’re eating in the parlor; do sit yourselves down.” Maitresse Den Rannion swept in ahead of several servants with laden trays; for all her claims to informality, she was splendid in a full-skirted sapphire gown, silver combs glinting in an immaculate coiffure.

“Demoiselle.”

Temar watched with some irritation as Vahil managed to offer his arm first and escort Guinalle to a seat at a comfortable distance from the hearth. Temar took the chair across from her, despite the warmth of the fire on his back.

“So, my dear, you are recently arrived from Sarrat, I hear?” The Maitresse’s eyes were wide in her plump, powdered face.

“Two days since.” Guinalle smiled politely as she reached for a dish of spiced beans and served herself a modest portion.

Temar passed her a plate of cheeses lightly fried in herbs and noted that the table bore an unusually wide choice of meatless delicacies. The Maitresse had always enjoyed a reputation among other women for being remarkably well informed, although at the cost of being dismissed as an inveterate gossip by men such as his grandfather.

“Your uncle and I are extremely grateful that you agreed to leave your studies and join us.” Messire Den Rannion regarded a glazed onion tartlet with some suspicion and took a slice of bloody beef instead. “We are sorely in need of expertise in the higher techniques of Artifice.”

Temar managed not to drop the plate of baked beets he was trying to offer Guinalle but it was a close run thing. He cleared his throat and tried not to stare at her as he took a drink of water.

“I thought you’d said you had plenty of message-takers and the like?” Vahil commented as he skewered a couple of slices of peppered lamb with his knife point.

“Indeed?” Guinalle’s attention sharpened slightly. “What manner of people are they, Messire?”

“Oh, mainly clerks, stewards and the like, people with sufficient instruction to send messages to another trained mind, but little beyond that.” Messire began pouring everyone more wine. “Many of them have been displaced as the Empire draws in and, frankly, there is less need for such accomplishments these days.”

“Just how far can one send a message using Artifice?” Vahil looked expectantly at Guinalle.

“As yet we have discovered no limit in terms of distance,” replied Guinalle easily. “The attainments of the practitioner are what determine how far and with what clarity he or she can reach another’s mind.”

“We will have people with the expertise to send messages across the ocean, won’t we?” A faint shadow of concern flickered in the Maitresse’s eyes as she looked to her husband. “We shan’t be cut off from home? That’s what you told me, Ancel.”

“That is one thing that my uncle has requested I ascertain.” Guinalle smiled with serene confidence as she reached for a tray of stuffed apples.

Temar passed her a bowl of onion sauce. “You’re not actually joining the colony, then?” Of course, it would be stupid to expect such a well-connected and evidently well-educated girl to give up all her advantages.

“Oh, I am,” Guinalle assured him. “It’s a tremendous opportunity for me.”

“How so?” Vahil looked intrigued.

Guinalle wiped her fingers on her napkin before continuing. “These days, Artifice is mainly used to send messages, to find those lost or absconded, for truth-saying in the Justiciary, things like that. All of this is essential work and in recent generations has been vital in maintaining the Empire. Don’t think I don’t value those trained in such skills, I do, but there are far more uses of Artifice that we simply have no need for in the present day. Joining your colony should give me opportunities to test their efficacy.”

Temar got the impression this was a speech she had given before.

“What sort of thing are you talking about?” Vahil leaned his elbows on the table, intrigued, waving away his mother’s offer of a portion of chicken.

“Well, for instance, there are ways to understand the speech of people who don’t know your tongue; how are we to try those when everyone this side of Solura speaks Formalin? Even the Forest Folk and Mountain Men use it as the language of commerce and learning these days.”

“There has been no trace of people living in Kel Ar’Ayen, the land across the Ocean.” Messire Den Rannion looked up from his plate, faint concern in his eyes.

Guinalle smiled demurely. “That’s merely one example. Would you find it useful if I could tell you exactly where game was hiding in a thicket? If we find predators there, wolves and the like, would you like me to hide your trail from them, set wards to keep them clear of your stock?”

“You could do that?” Temar began to feel Vahil was overdoing the keen interest just a little.

“Talagrin granting,” Guinalle nodded confidently. “There are ways to request that Saedrin open the way between the worlds and to travel from place to place or to move goods, covering many leagues in little more than a breath. One can request Maewelin to quit her rights of decay in food, to purify water, to hasten the rotting of waste to put fresh heart into soil. The correct incantations to Ostrin can staunch mortal wounds or fell a beast painlessly in its stall for the butcher. Drianon’s care can keep women from conceiving and then ease them into child-bed at the time of their choosing; Larasion’s mercies will keep frost from tender crops or send rain in time of drought. Artifice gives us the means to call upon such bounties.”

She looked at the awed faces around the table and Temar saw a faint blush on her cheekbones as she helped herself to some salt.

“I had no idea.” Maitresse was plainly astounded, social graces notwithstanding.

“These days medicine and good husbandry mean we have practical remedies for such things,” shrugged Guinalle. “In many ways that is preferable.”