Mercedes Lackey - The Gates of Sleep

It was far easier to build the common shields and disguise her special shield within them—and for some reason she had mastered the ability to camouflage the common shields as the random and chaotic patterns of a perfectly normal person almost immediately. Why that should be, she couldn’t begin to imagine, but it seemed to make her guardians happy.

In spite of the fact that she no longer had formal schooling, she was working harder, and she had less leisure, than ever before. During the best hours of daylight, she posed for Sebastian; the morning and late afternoon and sometimes even the evening belonged to Elizabeth Hastings. There were no rest days for her, and she found herself almost looking forward to the second week of December, when Elizabeth would leave them for Christmas, and not return until after Boxing Day. Almost, but she enjoyed Elizabeth’s company so much…

But the work was so hard. It wasn’t just physical work, either, it involved everything: mind, body, spirit—

And now she wasn’t just sitting there when she posed for Uncle Sebastian, she was practicing those shields; not the full and strong ones that she practiced in the work-room, but wispy little things that were easier to bring up.

Yet Elizabeth was working just as hard, and for no personal gain that Marina could see. When Marina was posing, Elizabeth would either be down at the village making good her pretense of collecting folk ballads, or in the workroom doing—

—well, Marina wasn’t quite sure what she was doing. It obviously had something to do with magic, but she couldn’t tell what it could be.

She was tempted, more than once, to cry halt to all of this. She was so tired that she fell asleep without being able to read in bed as she liked to do for an hour or so at bedtime, and she hadn’t a single moment to herself when all was said and done. But there was some palpable tension in her guardians that made her hesitate whenever she considered asking for a respite. They weren’t saying anything, but for some reason, she sensed that they were extremely anxious about her progress, and she couldn’t bear to increase their anxiety with any delay.

It was, after all, a small enough price to pay for their peace of mind. After all the years that they had given to her, it was something of a blessing that she could finally give something back to them.

The faun tapped his hoof on the floor, and shook his shaggy head. “ I am sorry, Lady. It is a Gordian Knot, and there is no sword or Alexander to cut it.” His slanted eyes—normally full of mischief in a faun—held regret, and his mobile, hairy ears drooped a little. Margherita had an extraordinarily good relationship with the fauns; normally around a woman they were ill-mannered and lewd, but they called her Lady, and seemed to consider her as a sort of mother-figure.

Margherita sighed, and dismissed the little goat-footed faun with her thanks. He bowed to her, sinking down on his heels, then continued sinking, sinking, into the stone floor of the workroom, until he was gone. She looked to Elizabeth, who shrugged, and spread her hands wide.

“I had no better luck than you,” her friend said, grimacing. “The curse is still there, and I can neither remove it nor change it further. What about Sebastian?”

“In this case, a Fire Master is no use to us.” Margherita rested both her elbows on the workroom table and propped her chin on her hands. “It’s the inimical Element, remember? His Elementals refuse to touch her for fear of angering their opposite numbers in Water. If he pushes his own powers much further trying to get rid of that horrible curse, he could hurt her.”

Elizabeth massaged her own temples, unwonted lines of weariness creasing her forehead. Margherita had the distinct feeling that she herself looked no better. “I wish we had an Air power here. I wish Roderick were still alive. Or that I could get any interest out of Alderscroft.” The expression on her face suggested that she would like very much to give the latter gentleman a piece of her mind.

“We’re small potatoes to the like of Lord Alderscroft,” Margherita said with some bitterness. “He only bothers with things that threaten the whole of Britain, not merely the life of one girl.”

Elizabeth’s jaw tightened. “Pray do not remind me,” she said shortly. “I plan to have a word or two in person with Lord Alderscroft over the holidays. Not that I think it will change his mind but at least it will relieve my feelings on the subject. Still—” Her expression lightened a little. “—the curse hasn’t re-awakened, either. The—relative—still hasn’t made any moves, magically or otherwise. And even if she actually traced where Marina is and sent someone to find her instead of coming in person, at this time of year, any stranger to the village would be as obvious as a pig in a parlor.”

Margherita nodded. “That’s true enough,” she agreed, once again taking comfort in their surroundings; not a great city like Bath or Plymouth, where strangers were coming and going as often as one’s long-time neighbors, but a tiny place where nothing was secret.

Strangers did come to the village, but unless they were taking the rare permanent position as a servant that wasn’t immediately filled by a local, they rarely stayed. Temporary harvest help arrived and left again; travelers in the summer and spring, sometimes; people on walking tours, for instance. Peddlers came through, of course, and the booth-owners and amusement-operators for the fairs. But that was only in the warm seasons—not in winter. Never in winter, and rarely, once the cold set in, during the fall.

The moment a stranger entered their village at this time of year, people would take note and the gossip would begin. If the stranger stayed, well—he’d have to find a room somewhere. The pub wasn’t an inn; he’d have to find someone willing to let a room to him—not likely, that. In summer, the gypsies and tramping sorts could camp on the common, but he could hardly do that now.

To have any plausible reason to stay, he’d have to find a job somewhere nearby. According to Sarah, there were no positions available in the village or the surrounding farms, or even the two great houses. Of course, if Arachne sent a spy, she might arrange an “accident” to create a position for her hireling, but that itself would cause talk.

People talked a great deal about anything or anyone new in a village this small. And old Sarah, bless her, heard everything, and would faithfully repeat everything she heard to the people she considered as friends as well as employers.

“There are many advantages to being in a small village,” Elizabeth observed, with a faint smile. “Even though we have the disadvantage of being gentry, and people don’t talk as freely to us as they would to someone like you.”

“Oh, the villagers don’t talk to us directly,” Margherita admitted. “We’re newcomers—why, we haven’t a single ancestor buried in the churchyard! But Sarah tells us everything, and everyone talks to her.”

“Watchdogs without ever knowing it—and something you-know-who would never think of. Although I must admit that I never thought of it either, when we decided you should take Marina with you.” Elizabeth tactfully did not mention the third reason—that she had already known that Margherita couldn’t conceive, following a terrible bout with measles a year or two before Marina was born.

Taking care of Marina had filled a void that Margherita had not even known was within her until the baby had been in her arms.

“Well, Sebastian should be finished for the day by now,” she said, shaking off her somber mood. “And both of them are probably starving.”