The walls of Deese House were finished by second harvest, freeing the work gang for labor in the fields. Harvest was better than average, which the Ashkell folk attributed to the beneficent magic of the new wizards, and in a sense that was true; scythes kept their edges longer, crops fumigated with "magical" herbs were less plagued by moulds and insects, people and livestock suffered fewer ailments thanks to washing ointments and herbal baths provided by Deese's consort Kula.
Attendance at Yotha's temple services dwindled steadily, although the House of Deese provided no public ceremonies to replace them. Still, requests and donations came steadily to Deese House, and enrollment in the Wizardess Eloti's school continued to increase. Biddon the blacksmith built a shrine to Deese within the villa's walls, and local folk made offerings there every day, of which Biddon took only a small share before giving the rest to Eloti to carry back to Deese House. The priesthood of Deese, after giving the matter long thought and much discussion over several dinners, agreed to cast a man-sized statue of the god—and, another of Kula—for the shrine. Omis proposed casting the statue in iron, swearing that with the new furnace and bellows he could actually melt iron to liquid. Sulun complained such heat was too dangerous. The argument was still going strong at harvest time.
No further actions were taken by the priesthood of Yotha, save the oft-repeated warnings in the sermons that magic could be dangerous, the "wizards of Deese" were too careless with it, that the gods were displeased by such carelessness and would eventually make their displeasure felt.
Wotheng counted his trade coins and his produce taxes, and smiled at his new prosperity. Gynallea totted up the household accounts and bought new winter clothes for everyone in Ashkell House. Even the weather was good—sunny days, light winds, rain frequent but light and usually well after sunset. No bandits raided from the woods, no cattle went missing, even squabbles between neighbors were few and slight.
Altogether, it looked to be a very good year.
"Too good," Zeren worried, peering down at the moonlight on the diverted millstream. "Forgive my gloom, Eloti, but I've learned never to trust too much in good luck."
Eloti hitched closer to him, tugging her cloak about her, for the wind up here on the wall could be chilly after dark. "Think, then: what direction could trouble take? What should we watch for, and guard against?"
"Gods, anything." Zeren shrugged, sliding an arm around Eloti's shoulders. "Some seasonal plague we're not accustomed to, mould in the food stores despite our care, anything going wrong with this iron-casting Omis is so determined upon . . . and Yotha's priests may not be done with us, remember. Or our good friend Wotheng may worry that we've grown powerful enough to undermine his rule, unlikely though that is. . . ."
"Gynallea's a good friend to me. I'd know soon enough if her husband's mood changed."
"And I worry about the children. Ziya spends too much time playing with the bombard: raising and lowering the muzzle, turning it, sighting it, even cleaning it. Tamiri runs in and out of the workshop too much, and her little brother tags along; they may be seriously hurt, fooling with the tools, one of these days. . . ."
"Zeren, my love, I think you've been so long at war that you've forgotten how to enjoy peace." Eloti interlaced her fingers with his. "Or do you regret asking to marry me?"
"No!" Zeren pulled her close, as if fearful someone would snatch her away. "I'll never regret it! Set the date sooner, if you doubt me."
"No, spring is the proper time, and solstice is best for publicly announcing the intent. I'll wait to do it properly, for I've no doubts of you."
Zeren rested his cheek against her forehead. "Thank you for that, I . . . suppose I'm only being the nervous bridegroom, and with too much soldiering to remember. I imagine threats to us, to you, around every corner. And must you go every day to the villa? When can we bring the school here? That's so long a ride, and anything could happen—"
"Oh, hush." Eloti silenced him with a finger across his lip. "We'll bring the school here in winter, once the snow makes riding difficult. As for the ride to Ashkell, don't you always send two of your best trained guards with me? Besides, for policy's sake, not to mention friendship, I prefer to see Gynallea whenever possible."
"Wotheng's guards . . ." Zeren looked down at the millstream and brooded again. "I've gone through all of them by now, teaching them everything I can think of. Gods, it's strange; I've fought the Armu and the Ancar all my life it seems, and here I am teaching the sons of settled-down Ancar soldiers how to fight."
"I doubt if they think of themselves as Ancar twice a year. They call themselves Ashkell Vale folk, if asked, and sometimes remember that Ashkell Vale sits in the lands of Torrhyn. The years of peace seem to have mellowed them."
"That and more. They've never faced an enemy worse than a handful of sheep thieves. I can teach them, drill them, 'til they do the proper moves in their sleep—yet I've no idea how they'd fare in battle. These aren't warriors; they're sheep wardens in armor."
"Let's be grateful for that, love, and pray none of them—or us—need ever be more."
Zeren heaved a sigh that seemed to come all the way from his boots. "And what shall I be, then? A warrior in priest robes? Perhaps I'll end my days as door warden to the House of Deese. The gods know, I'm poorer at metal-working and mechanics than the least of the apprentices!"
"Ah, so that's it." Eloti snuggled into his arm. "There are worse fates, love. Look: here you are, come through Kula knows how many wars, with a whole skin, and now a wedding before you. You could live out your days at far worse tasks than being . . . land warden of Deese House."
"Land warden . . . ?"
"Who else? Doshi knows a bit about farming, but we'll be raising goats and small gardens here. Who else knows anything of that? Did you not begin as a landholder's son?"
"So I did . . ." Zeren frowned with the effort of remembering those long-gone days. At length he laughed. "I recall too, when I was a landholder's son, I wanted to be a natural philosopher!"
"Then here's your wish, granted at last." Eloti smiled. "You've come far to get it."
"Gods, almost clear around the midworld sea!" Zeren hugged her, laughing softly. "And across nearly twenty years. The gods took their own time answering my prayers."
"They often do," said Eloti, grinning to herself. "And if you've no pressing duties tomorrow, come reassure yourself by riding with me to Ashkell Villa. Sit by while I teach, and you'll hear as much natural philosophy as your ears can bear."
"My ears," he said, kissing her, "could bear . . . your voice . . . forever."
After that, their lips were too busy for talk.
High Priest Folweel burned the candle late, grimly reading over reports. He'd saved the ones dealing with Deese House for last, wanting to chew them over in uninterrupted privacy. It had become his chief pleasure of these past few moons: studying, planning, measuring crumbs of opportunity, storing bits of useful knowledge, imagining their ultimate effect. Most often, recently, he slid into sleep cherishing a vision of Deese House wrapped in blue and yellow flames. His fingers rubbed hungrily on the parchment as he pored over Duppa's last missive, a meticulously detailed recital of the latest lessons taught at the Wizardess Eloti's school in Ashkell Villa: geometry, mechanics, drawing of mechanical devices . . .
Wait, that might be something.
Folweel interlaced his fingers and meditated upon the usefulness of drawing. Drawing of tools, drawing of devices, drawing of . . .
Yes!
Folweel sat up straight, smiling like a wolf as he set a few more plotted details in place. At length he got up and went to the bell pull. He paused there a moment, grimacing as he remembered how long it had taken both Oralro and himself to find and remove the focus of the Deese priest's curse (a chip of black glass, shoved under the edge of a rug, no more), and resolutely rang the outside bell. Unconsciously he scratched at the scars of long-healed wasp stings as he waited. The soft-footed servitor came soon and quietly to the door.
"Send Duppa and Quazzil to me," Folweel said, still faintly smiling to himself.
"Father," the house servant almost whispered, "I believe they have retired."
"Fetch them anyway. This word they will want to hear."
The man bowed, turned, and padded away. Folweel shut the door behind him and stalked to his cabinet, chuckling to himself at the appropriateness of this new-wrought tactic. Time indeed to use his long-hidden weapon.
How very fitting it would be, to strike down Deese House through the very witch who had dared place a curse inside the House of Yotha.
Losh, the wheelwright's son, had his hand up again. An enthusiastic boy, that: fit to travel, hopefully, to one of the great universities someday—provided any still existed now. Eloti nodded recognition to the boy, wishing she could provide better for his educational future.
"Mistress," Losh said, waving his sketch of a gear train, "if its all right to draw pictyoors of mechanical parts, is it all right to draw other things too?"
"All right?" Eloti blinked, puzzled by the silly question. "Of course it is. You will have to draw pictures of many things in order to understand them properly."
"Even trees? And sheep? And . . . other things?"
Losh's neighbor, Duppa, gave him a discreet elbow in the ribs.
"And . . . people too?" Losh finished, beginning to blush.
Eloti thought she understood. She smiled knowingly. "Losh, if you wish to draw pictures of naked women for your amusement, that is a private matter between you and the woman concerned."
The class, nearly a score of them by now, erupted in a storm of laughter. Losh, blushing red as a beet, scrunched down in his clothes as if trying to disappear into the earth.
"In truth," Eloti continued as the laughter sank to a breachable level, "those of you who intend to study medicine must study detailed drawings of the human body, including all its muscles, bones, veins, and internal organs. I assure you, you will see enough pictures of the human body to become heartily tired of them before you finish your course of study. Since medicine will be the next class, any who wish to see evidence of this may attend. Now, your assignment in this class for tomorrow is, using the pictures you already have, to make a model—in clay and sticks, or whatever else you may have ready to hand—of a 'gear train.' You may go now. The class in medicine will assemble here at the next bell."
The class shuffled to its assorted feet and scattered, most students heading out of the main hall for a few minutes of leg-stretching in the courtyard. Eloti rolled and set aside certain scrolls, and hunted in her carry basket for others.
Duppa strolled out to the well, where a slight man in nondescript dark clothing had just hauled up a dripping bucket and was tugging a horn cup free of his belt.
"May I have some?" Duppa asked politely.
The other nodded and handed over the cup. "Losh takes the bait," he murmured, very quietly.
"Follow him, watch well for chances," Duppa whispered. Then he drank from the horn, handed it back, nodded politely, and walked away.
The jeweler's wife watched, fascinated, as the blue fire shot up on the altar. The yellow tips of the flames reflected in her wide eyes and gilded her faintly quivering jowls. She loved fires, was utterly entranced by them, and was fiercely loyal to Yotha. She paid well for private audiences and prophecies.
In return, Yotha granted her clear messages. His fire sketched letters, sigils, and simple images across the altar, plain as the writing of a quill pen. She never doubted his advice, which was always accurate.
And that takes no small doing, Folweel considered, recalling reams of observers' reports that he studied before telling the woman what she needed to hear. Still, so loyal and generous and . . . useful a worshipper deserves the best.
A line of blue flame ran out of the great fire bowl and ran to the far left of the altar. From there it scurried rightward, writing recognizable letters in square northern script. The jeweler's wife gasped as she recognized them.
"L . . . O . . . S . . . H. Losh! My son's name!"
"Indeed?" Folweel placed a comforting hand on her shoulder, and watched the flames finish their message.
After the letters, the fire skipped into a neat circle crossed with a vertical bar, an ancient and ominous symbol of negation.
"Death sign," the woman moaned. "Oh, gods, is my son doomed to die?"
"Peace, peace," Folweel soothed. "Remember, goodwife Nima, the sign may also be interpreted to mean only 'fatal danger.'"
While he spoke, the fire sketched one last sign—the outline of an anvil in a circle—and stopped there. The completed message burned tranquilly on the altar, plain to read.
"Anvil? What means that?" Nima couldn't pull her eyes away from the fire even long enough to glance beseechingly at the high priest. "Will my son be killed by an anvil?"
"I think not," Folweel murmured smoothly. "Note that the anvil is encircled, which adds much to its meaning. Not an anvil so much as one who uses it. Has your son anything to do with blacksmiths, Goody Nima?"
"No, nothing whatever . . ."
Folweel waited, letting her make the connection herself.
"Except . . . Oh gods, he goes to that school the Deese woman teaches! Could that be the danger? You've warned your herd so often that those folk are dangerously careless and profligate with magic—and my son will insist on going to them, learning their magic, no matter what I say to him. Oh gods, there's been no controlling him since he came of age, and he simply won't obey me, and his father thinks there's no harm in it, no matter how often I warn him it's dangerous. Gods, gods, oh beloved Yotha, is Losh going to do something dangerous with the magic they teach there? Is that it?"
The line of blue fire, its fuel exhausted, sank and died away as if on cue. The timing was perfect.
"I think your question has just been answered, Goody Nima." Long practice kept the triumph out of Folweel's solemn voice. "Say nothing of this to anyone, for you know how ill Yotha and his warnings stand in the favor of the faithless mob. Nonetheless, I should watch your son carefully, were I you. See what he does, where he goes, what he has learned, and what he does with it. Perhaps vigilance can avert the danger."
"Yes. Gods, yes," said the jeweler's wife, her heavy jaw set. She fumbled in her purse for more coin, determined to show her gratitude for the warning—and the welcome advice.
No, Folweel smiled to himself. The danger will not be averted if I have anything to do therewith.
He bowed to the altar, to Yotha's flame and Yotha's image, with more sincerity than he'd felt in many a long moon.
"Having finished with diseases and injuries of sheep, we proceed to the study of diseases and injuries of men, their causes and cures." Eloti unrolled and hung from a lamp hook on the wall an elaborate drawing of human anatomy. It was a splendid illustration, done in several different colored inks, copied over nearly a moon from a smaller version in her best medical text. The assembled students gasped in awe, and a few of them gagged. "Be not dismayed by its complexity, for we shall learn the parts one at a time. Also, you will soon note similarities to the bodies of those animals which we have already studied."
"We're nothing like dumb animals," one of the older students grumbled.
"No?" Eloti arched an eyebrow at the woman, the daughter of a prosperous freeholder and perhaps a bit set in older ways of thought. "When injured, do we not bleed the same as they? Do our bones not break much as theirs, nor our bellies not gripe like theirs at bad food? Do we not sicken and die of disease or pests, like them? Therefore, let us learn what we can from such similarities."
"But we have speech and thought and spirit," the woman mumbled, covering her retreat. "That makes us different."
"Even so." Eloti took that in stride. "Let us begin, then, with those differences which are readily apparent in the body. Here." She pointed her long staff at the detailed drawing of the head. "You will note the brain: the seat of wisdom, home of speech and thought and spirit, master of the body. Observe that it is much larger and more detailed than that of a sheep, cow, or horse, as compared to the size of the body. Here is the true difference between man and beast most clearly visible. You will note how the nerves descend from the brain through the spine, and from there to every limb and organ. . . ."
The students duly bent over their tablets and drew rough copies of the human nervous system,
Duppa glanced at Losh's meticulous drawing, and smiled.
It was easy work for one with Quazzil's skills to follow Losh through the villa to his parents' shop and house, only a little less easy to find a secure and comfortable listening post in the alley behind the house. An old and fruitful chestnut tree grew there, its boughs wide enough to afford a secure rest and its foliage still thick enough at this season to conceal a listener. Best of all, from one well-concealed branch Quazzil could hear clearly through the upper and lower rear windows as well as watch the house and yard below. He folded and set his dark cloak for a mattress, stretched out on the branch, and observed.
First came warm and dutiful greetings exchanged between the father and older sibs. Then came a dutiful and less warm greeting between the boy and his mother. Next, hurried footsteps as the mother hustled the son into the back of the house, where Quazzil could hear more clearly. After than came a long, nagging interrogation with increasingly irritable answers. Finally the son's temper snapped.
"For the gods' sake, Mother!" he shouted. "It's nothing but Natural Philosophy! She hasn't taught us a bit of magic, only stuff like mathematics and medicine and mechanics. It's harmless and useful, and nothing to be afraid of. In fact, I have to go make a model of a gear train as my assignment for tomorrow, so I can't stay here and argue with you anymore. I've got to go off and get some clay and sticks to make the model, so good day, Mother. I'll be back in time for dinner."
The rear door slammed and the boy could be seen stamping his way across the alley.
Smiling, Quazzil slid out of the tree and followed the boy, at a safe distance, down the alley.
Behind them, Nima's voice echoed out the door: "What in the nine hells is a 'geer trane'?"
Patrobe smiled openly as Folweel read over the report from Quazzil, knowing the high priest would find the news as useful as he could wish. Sure enough, by the time he finished reading the scrap of paper, Folweel was grinning from ear to ear.
"So," the high priest purred, leaning back in his carved chair, "Losh has a sweetheart, the daughter of a poor farmer, of whom the mother does not approve."
"His father doesn't care," Patrobe pointed out. "He wouldn't disapprove of the match."
"Which no doubt makes our dear Nima all the more irate." Folweel tapped a finger on the report. "So if the girl falls . . . ill, shall we say, Nima would do all in her power to insist her boy had nothing to do with it."
"Which means she would strive to erase any link between the boy's studies and the girl's bewitchment."
"Therefore, the link must be forged beyond any doubt. The boy has made sketches of her, and he copied on good parchment that drawing from school. The drawings must be found together, and with some definite smear or mar across the anatomy drawing."
"How fortunate," Patrobe grinned, "that Lady Eloti pointed out that particular body part first. Otherwise we might have had to wait long, or damage some other portion of the wench."
"Read good Duppa's hand in that." Folweel smiled. "He knows the other students well enough by now to plant the right suggestions in the right ears."
"Most clever, Brother Folweel. But even so, Nima will try to hide that evidence."
"As I said, it will be found—and announced to all the vale—by another party. Losh will appear guilty. Nima will struggle, with all her considerable will, to shift the blame elsewhere."
"And we can guess where."
"Precisely." Folweel smiled as if happy with all the world as he took up fresh parchment and ink. "This goes to Quazzil, as soon as possible."
"And Duppa?"
"Another for him, less urgent. He is only to continue observing, and to drop the proper words in the proper ears at the proper time."
As a small tenant farmer's eldest daughter, Irga had duties that made her waken early. Papa would rise at dawn to take the sheep out to pasture, usually with her brothers help. Brother Wenn would build up the fire and pack lunch for them. Mama would rise later, clean house and wash clothes, make preparations for dinner, tend the household garden, and mend or sew or knit clothing for the winter. Irga had the unloved work of cleaning out the sheep barn, after which she would help Mama about the house. No one could face such a task on an empty stomach, especially not in the cold morning, so Irga would first brew a small pot of herb tea to fortify herself for the wretched work.
On this particular morning, as Irga fumbled her way down from her bed in the loft, she thought she saw someone leaving through the door. She paused to blink sleep from her eyes, guessed she had only seen the tail end of her brother leaving late, and went to put her tea on the fire. The water warmed to boiling while she washed her face and struggled into her clothes.
Perhaps she'd thrown in a bit too much of the last herbs, Irga thought as she drank the brew, for it tasted strong and a trifle bitter this morning. Perhaps she could gather some blackberry leaves to put in the new mix, if there were any good ones left so late in the year, and if she could get away from chores long enough to seek them.
And perhaps, if she went berrying late enough in the day, she could meet Losh a good way from the house and Mama's too inquisitive eyes.
Well, best get the other chores done first. Making a face, Irga pulled on her shawl and went out to face the dismal prospect of a barn full of sheep droppings.
The fouled straw stank, and the cart was heavy, and the reeking load steamed in the cold—and the cold seemed harsher than the clear bright weather would account for. Irga shoved the steaming cart to the compost heap, tilted and pulled it, letting the reeking load tumble out and spread on the pile. Gods, how it steamed in this shadowed corner of the barn wall. So thick, it seemed to form shapes of mist.
And then it did form a shape. A grey, shifting form—something like a bat and something like a monstrous toad—arched up over the manure pile. At its heart, too low for any natural face, formed vague eyes, a squat beastlike snout, a gaping mouth.
Irga let go the cart and scrambled away, shaking with cold to her bone marrow. She bumped into the barn wall behind her.
The wall moved. Only a slight shivering, maybe a squirming, but the wall moved. Irga whirled to stare at it, and saw that the rough texture of the field stones was changing, shivering, crawling, forming patterns like . . . like faces, evil faces, all snarling and leering at her.
Devilry! Witchcraft! Irga thought, scrambling away from the barn, the compost heap, the forgotten cart. She turned to run back to the house.
The ground under her feet undulated, rippled like water on a pond.
No, not the earth too! Irga staggered, fell, landed on the hard ground, and felt it wriggle as though a thousand worms fought a war just under its surface. She whimpered in terror, feeling her belly cramp. Her vision smeared, but there was no release from the horror in that, for now she could hear sounds—whisperings full of malice, just under the noise of the wind in the grass.
Gods, is the whole farm cursed? "Mama!" Irga screamed. "Mama, devils! Where are you? Mama!" What if the curse has already caught her? "Mama!"
But no, there, hurrying out of the cottage with a shawl just flung over her nightgown, there came Mama running toward her.
"Irga! What's wrong? What's happened?"
The words came distorted through the evil voices in the air, on the ground, but they sounded amazed more than alarmed. More, Mama ran surefooted over earth that rolled like the sea. How could that be? How could it be that Mama couldn't see the horror unfolding all around them?
Only if the curse weren't on the farm, or the barn, not anything else. Only if the witchery had fallen on Irga alone.
"Oh, Mama, I'm bewitched!" Irga struggled forward, reaching for her mother. "Help me! Send for the wizards! I've been bewitched!"
Wotheng sneaked a quick pull from his beer mug as the last supplicant—a tenant asking permission to cut estate wood for the winter—plodded out of the hearing room. With luck, he'd have time to finish the cup before the next petition or complaint came in. Truth to tell, he'd had far more petitions than complaints this year: let me borrow more scythes, m'lord; let me hire more for harvesting, m'lord; let me expand my orchard, m'lord; and so on. Sure signs of a good year—along with the fine sales of wool and other items in the north. Vona grant it would go on this way.
No, there came the knock on the door; no time to finish the cup.
"Come in," Wotheng called.
A woman traipsed in, middling young, well fed and well clothed, somewhat prim-faced. Wotheng tried to place her: that freeholder's daughter, but damned if he could remember her name. "Yes, mistress?" There, polite and neutral enough.
"M'lord." The woman held out a grubby handful of small parchment sheets. "One of my fellow students dropped these. I don't know who it was." Her tone implied that she could guess, though. She also glanced back toward the door as if looking for someone beyond it.
Wotheng took the sheets and looked at them, puzzled frown deepening. Two of them were not bad representations of a young girl's face, quite a pretty girl, even recognizable: Irda? Irga? The daughter of one of the tenants, that fellow who'd been plagued with sheep lice last year, but hadn't that trouble gone away recently?
The third sheet showed a carefully drawn outline of a human body, and within the outline a pattern disturbing and strange. It took Wotheng a moment to recognize it for a diagram of certain human organs: there the spine, clear enough, and that must be the brain, and those lines coming out to all directions must be the nerves. Strange stuff: must be from Eloti's class on medicine. But why had the woman brought it to him rather than to Eloti?
And what meant that damned clumsy smear across the top of it, obscuring much of the carefully drawn brain?
"This is schoolwork," he said. "Why not take it to the schoolmistress?"
The woman fidgeted, glanced toward the door again. "Well, m'lord, that's what I wanted to ask y'about. Is't right to be doing such things if one isn't yet a proper master of the trade? I mean, that's making an image of a real person, m'lord, which I think isn't right, and here, y'see, it's been rolled together with that . . . picture of a body, and a body's hidden parts—and look how that's marred. It seems, well, wrong somehow. Mistress Eloti seems to think nothing of that, so I doubt me that she'd worry o'ermuch on it, so I come to ask you, m'lord, if this be proper work for a student."
"I see." Wotheng kept his expression distant, showing nothing, as he peered at the drawings. It could all mean nothing, of course; some fool boy making pictures of his light of love, happening to roll them together with a doctor's drawing with the ink smeared or some such. Most likely, that's all it was: pure accident, no intent whatever. If there was intent, it could be no more than a boy's silly attempt at a love charm: addle this girl's wits toward her swain. In either case, as he'd seen cause to believe, it took more than a picture and a bit of will to make magic.
But if the magical power were there, and the intent, and the image . . .
"Is it true, m'lord, as I've heard, that there be some law against making pictures of living folk?" The woman laced her fingers together and squirmed a bit. "There wouldn't be any, ah, trouble at law for Lo—for whoever drew them, would there?"
Oho! Wotheng glowered at the woman. "Goody, you'd best tell me who drew these pictures."
She didn't turn pale; she blushed, and squirmed further. "I . . . I think it was Losh, the jeweler's son. It looks like his way of drawing. Besides, everyone knows he's silly over that chit Irga, and I'm sure that's her picture. The gods only know why he's so mad for her, she being just some poor shepherd's girl and not educated at all nor with any wits for it either, but he would go running after her like a fool, though his mother could tell him there be much better prospects at the villa and all . . ."
"Enough, thank you." Wotheng could place the woman now: Pado, Hass's daughter. Rumor said she'd been hoping for a match that would tie her family to the jeweler's, but nothing had come of it. "Isn't Losh a bit young for you, Pado? Wouldn't you do better to seek another match?"
Pado blushed bright crimson. "Why-why of course he is, m'lord," she stammered. "I wouldn't have him if he were the last man in the vale!"
But you'd gladly make him sorry for refusing you. Wotheng set the three grubby parchments down on his table. "I'll see to this later," he said. "I thank you for fetching them to me. Now go send in the next petitioner."
Flustered, not sure if she wanted to complain further or escape with some shreds of her composure, the woman got up and hurried off to the door. She paused on the threshold for a moment, but couldn't think of anything fitting to say. The door thudded to behind her.
Wotheng took a hasty gulp of beer and waited for the next guest. With luck, he'd finish with this lot before noon and could talk to Gynallea before he caught up to Eloti. Of course the Sukkti wizardess couldn't have known about that old obscure Torrhynan law—few of even the local folk did—but still, she should have been more careful about possible mischief among her students. He could silence Pado easily enough, make certain no more would be said of the matter; Gynallea would help with that. A few words in private to Eloti should account for the rest. After all, drawing or no drawing, no harm had been done.
There was a noise outside the door, thudding of footsteps, yelps and growls of complaint, a voice shrilling urgency.
Gods, what now? "Come in!" Wotheng bellowed.
The door flew open and a farm wife, hastily dressed in dishevelled clothes and reeking of hard-ridden mule, almost fell into the room.
"Lord Wotheng," she panted. "I pray you, fetch a good wizard quick, oh quick! My daughter Irga, she's been 'witched!"
Behind her, in the corridor, Wotheng could see Pado watching. A malicious smile spread across her face from ear to ear.
"Vona's clanging shit!" Wotheng groaned.
There'd be no silencing the wretched business now.
Gynallea first heard the news when her husband, looking thoroughly out of his depth, hauled a weeping and wailing tenant shepherd's wife into the still-room to talk to her. Gynallea poured some brandy into the woman, took Wotheng aside, and got the rest of the story from him. Next she dispatched some discreet house servants in a light cart to go fetch the afflicted girl and bring her to Ashkell House by the back doors. She also sent a rider on a fast horse to take the news to Deese House. Then she went quietly down to the hall where Eloti held her school and waited for the class to finish and depart.
Zeren happened to be present at the time, and after Gynallea's quiet explanation of the problem he refused to leave Eloti for so much as a minute.
The afflicted girl and her mother, and the delegation from Deese House, arrived at the villa almost together, and the whole howling problem wound up in the little-used guest rooms on the top floor. By dinnertime—a discreetly quiet meal, held in Wotheng's library—they had collected enough facts to discuss the situation calmly.
"It's poison again," said Gynallea, around a healthy mouthful of mutton. "I'm sure it is. The girl's eye centers were open so wide they looked all black, and her skin was flushed and hot. I'd swear 'twas delirium from a fever, save there's no other sign of sickness and no one else in the family has it. No, 'tis poison, sure as snow."
"But what kind?" Eloti nibbled indifferently on a wing of roast duck. "I don't know of any that leaves such tracks, never mind what the antidote may be."
"Is there nothing you can do for her, then?" Sulun asked, crumbling his bread small.
"We gave her willow bark tea, also beans and herb tea to wash the blood; there's nothing else we can think of, save to keep her warm and quiet."
"She was resting when we left her," Gynallea added. "At least she's no longer so frantic, and her eyes look a trifle better. Whatever it was, it hasn't killed her yet and doesn't seem likely to."
Eloti relaxed a trifle. "With any favor of the gods, the wretched stuff will pass from her in a day or so—unless she gets more of whatever it was."
"That's one of the reasons I wanted her brought here." Gynallea grinned. "No one will sneak poison into my kitchen, thank you. Hmm, and once she's calm, we must ask the girl what she ate or drank before the fit came on."
"If it's poisoning again, I think we may guess who did it," Zeren growled, attacking his slab of meat as if his eating knife were a short sword. "They might be clever enough to leave no poisoned food or drink lying about to be found, not after last time."
"Still, it's worth searching the house," Sulun considered. "But how long before we know what to search for?"
"Too long," Wotheng rumbled, refilling his cup. "You're sure, sweet cow, that it's poison—and not magic?"
"Utterly sure!" Gynallea snapped. "What magic would make the girl's eyes change like that? Or give her fever without griped guts and phlegmed lungs?"
"No curse is so specific," Eloti added. "One well-wishes or ill-wishes a person or an object or a space of land. Had the girl been cursed, everything she touched or approached would have . . . gone wrong. She would have fallen into that manure pile, banged her elbow on that barn wall, stubbed her toe and stumbled on that ground—and doubtless torn her dress in the bargain. Furthermore, everyone who touched her would also have stumbled, dropped things, and so forth, for as long as she was in contact with them."
"And what if . . ." Wotheng studied the depths of his cup. "What if somebody placed a curse specifically on one part of the girls body—say, her . . . brain?"
Eloti stared at him, eyebrows rising. "I doubt if it could be done at all," she said slowly. "I've never seen nor heard of any wizard who could narrow the range of a curse on a living person so tightly as that. The skill, ability, knowledge, and concentration required for that . . . Well, no. No one I've ever met nor heard of, ever, could do it."
"We haven't met everyone in Yotha House," Zeren snarled, "nor observed any of them at magical work. They've had time enough to plot a work like this."
"Besides," Eloti added quickly, "a curse placed on a person's brain would affect the entire organ—and the symptoms would be utterly different. The girl would not be able to see, speak, or walk at all. Most likely, she would be rendered idiot—or dead. No, Lord Wotheng, we are not dealing with a curse here."
"What on earth gave you that idea, anyway?" Sulun asked. "Cursing a specific organ is rather a bizarre notion."
Wotheng sighed, reached into his belt pouch, and pulled out the grubby sheets of parchment. "What else," he said, "should one make of these?"
The other four bent over the sheets, studying them.
"That's a rather poor copy of one of my anatomy diagrams," said Eloti. "Rather dirty, too. These are clearly portraits of Irga, done by a talented but totally untrained beginner."
"What connection do you see among them?" Sulun asked, turning a puzzled eye on Wotheng.
"They were found together, and brought to me by one of your lady's students."
"Oh, ho," murmured Gynallea. "Oh, ho. Which student was that?"
"'Twas Pado," Wotheng sighed. "She said Losh made the -drawings."
"Pado? That spiteful little sow?" Gynallea snorted. "I'd not put it beyond her to make the drawings herself, then tell that tale, purely to make trouble between Losh and the girl he plainly prefers."
"Losh?" Eloti wrinkled her brow in puzzlement. "He's in my class on medicine, yes. The anatomy drawing could well be his. Indeed he asked me but a day ago if there were any reason not to . . . draw pictures of people."
"So he drew some pictures of his sweetheart," Sulun puzzled. "What's the trouble with that?"
"More than you think," Wotheng admitted, "seeing that the drawings were rolled together—put in contact, d'ye see—and there's a distinct smear across the brain in this one."
The others looked at each other as that sank in.
"It means nothing whatever," Eloti said firmly. "Items put in contact have no power outside their own natures, none -whatever—not unless the deliberate, concentrated will of a trained wizard is aimed at them—no more than logs piled together will catch fire of themselves."
"And . . ." Wotheng shuffled on his chair, but kept his eyes on Eloti " . . . if the deliberate will were applied?"
"You can't be accusing—" Zeren started.
Eloti tapped his hand, silencing him. "I've seen no sign whatever of magical ability in Losh," she said. "Neither has he had any such training, so far as I can see. Finally, if he loves the girl, he would certainly not harm her."
"Could it be done by accident?" Wotheng insisted. "Say, he tried to put some sort of love charm on her, something that would . . . 'turn her head,' and got it wrong?"
Eloti actually laughed. "No, no impossible. Magic doesn't work that way. One can well-wish or ill-wish, and nothing more. All love spells are frauds, as I have reason to know." A flicker of some old anger darted through her eyes; passed away quickly. "And last, curse or blessing, magic done wrong simply doesn't work; one wastes one's power, nothing more. It is like—to return to that pile of logs again—trying to strike sparks in a tinderbox, and the tinder doesn't catch. One may tire out one's hands trying, but nothing else is accomplished."
Wotheng looked as grim as they'd yet seen him. "I have . . . only your word for that, m'lady, much as I wish to trust it. And I did see friend Sulun, here, make magic with the fire in my dining hearth, the first night we met."
"That was a simple trick with firepowder!" Sulun retorted. "A chemists trick—just like Yotha's fire fluid."
"And the words you spoke then?"
Sulun blushed. "A bit of showman's trickery, I admit. On our travels, we've found that folk prefer their worldly marvels with a bit of show. Besides," he added with a shrug, "Deese had been good to us, and it never hurts to give him a bit of gratitude."
Wotheng chuckled briefly. "No wonder you guessed that Yotha's fire was likewise a showman's trick. One actor recognizes another, eh?"
"So it is." Sulun grinned lopsidedly. "We have real skills and goods to sell, but folk prefer to call such marvels magic. We've been, hmm, obliged to oblige them."
"Do you claim, then," Wotheng asked, very carefully, "that you have no magical powers among you?"
"No," said Eloti. "There are two of us—myself and Arizun—who have the ability, and the training. Neither of us, I assure you, had either the power or the wish to do what was done to that poor girl upstairs."
"Then who did?" Wotheng leaned back in his chair. "Before you ask: no, Pado spent all yesterday and the day before here in Ashkell, for she stays with her aunt during the days when you have your classes. Other days, she stays with her family, off at the other end of the vale from Irga's house—better than half a day's journey, at best. I had my men go speak to her relatives and whatever servants they could find. Further, Pado has never been to Irga's house, would have had to ask the way there, and no one I could find recalls her ever so much as asking. And if this is indeed a case of poisoning, where would Pado find a poison that no one else in the vale knows aught of?"
"Maybe from our friends at Yotha House," said Zeren. "They've been outside the vale."
"Ah, but so have you." Wotheng grinned. "Stop spluttering, man; I only say it's possible. None of you has any reason . . . hmm, none that I know of, to harm the girl."
"None of us even knew her before this," Eloti pointed out. "She was never one of my students here."
"Nor did she ever come to Deese House," Sulun added. "I doubt if any of us ever laid eyes on her, or heard of her, before today."
"Just so." Wotheng raked his eyes around the room. "I've never heard that any of Yotha's people had aught to do with the girl, either. None of her family were worshippers, nor often went to the ceremonies in Yotha House."
"Then this might have nothing to do with our . . . religious rivalry," Sulun offered. "It could be pure accident."
Wotheng interlaced his fingers and rested his chin on them. "That, I think, we'll learn soon enough."
"How so?"
"If nothing further comes of this incident, if Irga recovers and goes about as before, if nothing changes between her and Losh, if Yotha House does nothing to involve itself in the clamor to follow, then we may believe it was an accident. Now—"
"Clamor to follow?" Zeren caught that immediately. "What clamor? What do you expect here, Lord Wotheng?"
Wotheng hunched his shoulders and looked honestly apologetic. "I expect that Pado has yattered the tale all over the villa by now, saying that Losh magicked Irga with spells he learned at school. I also expect that Losh's mother, who opposed her son's courtship of Irga, will be doing her best to claim her son innocent of wrongdoing. I hope those two will come to blows in front of half of the villa, over the accusation. 'Twould be a disaster were they to join forces."
"Disaster? Why? Two women nattering that one boy did not accidentally bewitch his sweetheart—"
"I don't think you quite understand," Gynallea cut in, glancing daggers at her husband. "Lady Eloti did say, before her whole class, that there was no harm whatever in drawing pictures of living persons. I heard gossip of that in the kitchen, before this happened. Wager well, there'll be more such gossip now."
"Pictures?" Sulun caught that. "Whatever is wrong with pictures, for the love of the gods?"
Wotheng sighed, avoiding his wife's eyes. "Only that it is old Torrhyn law that pictures of living persons are forbidden, lest they be used for cursing."
"What?" said Sulun, Zeren, and Eloti together.
"'Tis true." Wotheng looked from one to the other. "An old law, and one I've never enforced. I'd not enforce it now, given choice. Still, this has happened: a picture was made of a living person, and then that person fell mysteriously ill. Do you see what may happen? This the perfect answer, should those two fool women join forces over Losh: blame his teacher."
"And through her, the school—and all of Deese House," Zeren fumed. "Now I know Yotha's priests did this!"
"What proof, lad?" Wotheng asked mildly. "Give me proof no man can ever doubt, give me what aid you can, and I'll go clean out that snakes' nest. Without such, I needs must take care."
"Gods!" Zeren slammed a fist into his palm.
"Lord Wotheng," said Eloti, "surely this law can be abolished on grounds of its illogic. Should a wizard choose to curse someone, a picture is unnecessary. A thread from the victim's garment, his footprint, knowledge of where his house lies, even a glimpse of his face seen once and remembered—any of these will do as well, or better than, a picture. Forbidding such images is senseless."
"Much like the sword law in Sabis." Zeren laughed sourly. "The city made a law forbidding common subjects to own or carry swords, blithely thinking this would end bloodshed in its streets. Robbers and bravos shed blood enough with knives, bludgeons, and common tools. For that matter, robbers could get swords anyway, law or no law. And they faced a citizenry disarmed."
"Sabis?" Wotheng arched a bushy eyebrow at him. "You've lived there?"
Sulun and Eloti held their breath. Zeren merely shrugged. "Among many others. I'm a soldier, as you know; I've been a hired sword halfway round the Midworld Sea. Many bizarre things I've seen, too—including cities full of wizards and images of the living, and no great harm done thereby."
Wotheng shrugged. "A good argument. Remember it, if this miserable business does come to a trial."
"Why not simply abolish the damned law, then?"
"'Tis a bit late for that." Wotheng looked to his wife. "Sweet cow, you'd best explain it."
Gynallea snorted and rolled her eyes heavenward. "Politics, my dears, all politics. Had we known this might happen, my lovey would surely have abolished the fool law right then. Now, what with an actual case, he dare not. 'Twould look to all folk as if 'twere done solely to protect favorites. D'ye see?"
"I think so," Sulun murmured. He looked sidelong at Wotheng. "You . . . can't afford to have your subjects in the vale too resentful, can you?"
Wotheng didn't precisely shrink in his chair, but he looked older and wearier than he had a moment before. "You've guessed, lad. Your friend Zeren can tell you how few men-at-arms I have, and how trained."
"Not many," Zeren agreed, "But well-trained enough to handle a mob of disgruntled shepherds, if not to storm Yotha house. You don't expect a revolt over this business, do you?"
"Pshaw, no." Wotheng laughed. "'Tisn't that I fear; 'tis the neighbors."
"Neighbors?" Eloti asked. "What neighbors, and what of them?"
"Good lady, I'm but a small lordling compared to others." Wotheng's eyes strayed to the fire. "Vona knows, there are other sons of war captains—aye, and some present war captains as well, fresh from taking the river cities—who have far more land, wealth, men-at-arms, and gear for them than do I. There are lords to the north, up where the trade caravans go, who might cast a coveting eye on my lands did they think the vale worth taking."
"With the wealth you've brought us," Gynallea said gloomily, "it just might be worth the taking now."
"Oh, they'll not give me trouble without cause." Wotheng shrugged. "They'll be needing some excuse. 'Come, me loyal boys, let's go rob another Ancar fellow of his land' isn't enough reason, and the troops would not marshal for that. But then, 'Come, me boys, Wotheng's own people rumble against him; let's go relieve them of a bad lord and put a better in his place'—now, that might get some fellows to assemble with sword in hand and hopes of good loot. If I can't keep on looking poor, and I can't raise a sizable armed host, I look a tempting target, tempting enough that any excuse will do. D'you see where my trouble lies?"
"Gods . . ." Zeren breathed, sagging in his chair. "How many could we levy? How soon?"
"Not enough," Wotheng said shortly. "The vale has few folk, being poor land, and most of those are needed for tending the sheep. Sheep are easily lost, strayed, stolen."
"And we thought we were safe . . ." Sulun muttered.
"Tell me," said Eloti. "How would it serve to discourage such greed if it were known that you consort with powerful wizards?"
Wotheng gave her a long, unfathomable look. "'Twould have to be proven publicly, Lady Eloti: something strong enough, and witnessed well enough, that the . . . neighbors would think it not worth their while to come troubling me."
"There was Yotha, before we came."
"Aye, and now there is Deese." Wotheng glanced into the fire again. "You've brought health, wealth, and wisdom—but that may be more bait to the greedy than cause for restraint."
There was another long silence while Sulun, Eloti, and Zeren looked at each other, considering how they might have already endangered their patron.
"What can we do?" Zeren finally asked.
"I don't know," Wotheng admitted, "but it must be something that shows strength as well as your other virtues. Think on it, my friends. Pray Deese sends you a revelatory dream."
By next morning, everyone in the vale had heard the news.
The first evidence of this was Losh himself reeling, ashen-faced, through the door of Ashkell House and demanding to know where Irga was. Gynallea got to him first, and fairly dragged him off to face Wotheng. The Lord of Ashkell only pulled out the damning pieces of parchment and shoved them under the boy's nose.
"Did you draw these?" he demanded.
"Yes, I did! Oh, I did!" Losh wailed, beating his hands together. "I swear I didn't know it would do her any harm!"
"Then you did not attempt the use of magic to . . . affect the girl's mind?" Wotheng kept his voice stern, but a smile lurked under his moustache.
"Attempt? No, never! I don't know anything about magic, and I'd never do anything like that to Irga. Oh, where is she? I have to see her!"
"In a moment, lad. First look closely at this drawing, and tell me: did you deliberately draw that smear there?"
"Smear?" Losh looked closer, frowning in puzzlement. "No, that's not my doing. It's messed my schoolwork. It must have happened after I lost it."
"Ah. And where did you lose these drawings?"
"Somewhere at home, I think. When I looked in my schoolbag at class yesterday, they weren't there. Please, please, may I see Irga?"
"Hmm, of course, lad. Come this way."
Wotheng led the dithering boy up to the tower room, then watched the reunion with a thoughtful eye. Irga was indeed much better this morning, only a little pale and weak, and looked ethereally beautiful. Losh practically fell all over her, sobbing apologies and protestations of love and more, most of it incoherent. Irga, understanding none of it, only wanted him to hold her. Wotheng shut the door and tiptoed away, wondering how soon those two would marry. He hoped this wouldn't curtail the boy's schoolwork; from what he'd seen and heard, Losh was quite a bright young fellow when not silly with love.
Certainly there'd been no sorcery, intentional or not, on Losh's part.
Wotheng went back to his morning audiences, thinking much on the incident.
After that, the news came thick and fast, usually brought in by the morning's petitioners. A guard reported that Nima the jeweler's wife had assaulted Pado the landholder's daughter with a market basket in the middle of the villa market square; the resulting knockdown, hair-tearing brawl had overturned a pushcart and spilled several weights of fish into the street, with a total cost of two silvers and seven coppers in damage. The vintner's wagon boy reported that the high priest of Yotha had delivered a furious sermon about the dangerous carelessness of Deese's wizards, claiming—without mentioning names—that this had already led to the bewitchment of an innocent girl, and that worse would follow if such wickedness was not stopped. Biddon the blacksmith, trembling with outrage, came to report that persons unknown had thrown cow manure all over the shrine to Deese and scribbled "nasty words and wild accusations" on the stones.
Wotheng treated each of these separate tales with calm, tolerance, and quiet common sense, sending their tellers away with some satisfaction. To himself, he tallied and weighed and made his own plans.
Finally, another guard came in to report that a small but -growing and noisy mob had gathered outside the gates of Ashkell House, shouting accusations, demanding to be let in, threatening the Lady Eloti and her students.
"Aha," said Wotheng, getting to his feet. "Tell the rest of the guards to quiet the crowd. I'll be there directly. Oh, and dispatch a messenger on a fast horse to take word of this to Deese House."
The guard saluted fast, and departed faster.
Wotheng paused a moment, fixing his eyes on the sigil of Vona painted on the near doorpost.
"Lord Vona, make this work well, and I promise you a whole ox on your next feast day," he said quietly.
Then he strode off to deal with the mob at the gate.
"Good Brother Oralro," Folweel enticed, "you know it cannot be done any other way; those Sukkti wizards are an affront to Yotha and a danger to the public morality. Already our herd of the faithful has shrunk notably." He stopped himself just in time to keep from saying: and the donations likewise. Let Oralro think of that for himself.
The plump Second Priest of Yotha paced back and forth across the abused rug. "I'm not sure, Brother Folweel," he muttered. "I'm not sure. Certainly this obscene magicking of a young virgin must be punished, and certainly the law is plain. Why, then, may we not openly give our support to Goody Nima's charge against the wizards? Why must we let that good and faithful woman stand alone in her hour of need?"
"Because the fickle crowd has withdrawn from us," Folweel intoned, trying not to tap his fingers with impatience. Oralro might be a splendid wizard, but he was incapable of seeing, let alone handling, matters of politics. "They regard us with suspicion and even contempt."
"Never!" snorted Oralro, pausing in mid-stride.
"'Tis true, Brother. And worse: that fool Wotheng is likewise swayed by the pretty magics of these newcomers. Do we appear publicly in support of Goodwife Nima, Wotheng will assume we speak only out of jealousy, not righteousness."
"Yet if we speak with righteousness, we shall be heard and answered by Him whose hearing matters." Oralro thrust out his jaw, and prominent lower lip, in solid defiance. "I say, we shall be reticent only in this, Brother; we shall say nothing if not asked, but if asked, we shall answer fully."
Folweel sighed acquiescence. He had the agreement of all the others on this present bit of strategy, and this was as much agreement from Oralro as he was likely to get.
Still, best make some contingency plans in case some questioner did get to Oralro and asked him questions he was all too liable to answer.
"What is your complaint?" Wotheng roared at the sullen crowd. Goody Nima, he noted, was in the forefront of the lot, looking harassed but purposeful. "What brings you to clamor at my door in such unseemly fashion?"
"Vile wizardry!" howled an anonymous voice.
"Let us come in and clean out that nest of vipers!" yelled another, carefully distant from the first crier.
"Lord Wotheng, you have harbored serpents under your roof!" screeched a third. Clumsy, that one: "harboring serpents" was a phrase often used in sermons at Yotha's temple. Someone might notice, and make good guesses.
"Words full of wind," Wotheng snorted. "I doubt that any of you has a true charge of crime to bring me. What harm has been done, what crime committed? Have any of you a true and plain accusation?"
"I do!" Nima darted forward, waving a rolled parchment in her hand. "I have a charge of crime committed by that witch who teaches wizardry right inside your walls."
Wotheng waved the near guards aside and let the woman come to him with her scroll. He opened it in front of the expectant crowd and read the crabbed writing. Oh yes, the woman had been careful and thorough.
"I charge the wizardess Eloti," Nima announced to the crowd, straight from the words on the scroll, which she'd no doubt memorized. "I charge her with the crime of encouraging others to break the law against vile and harmful magic, to wit: the forbidden making of images of living persons, so as to allow the working of curses and similar evil magecraft. I further claim that such harm has in fact been done through such means—by an accidental agent—to one of your lordship's tenants." She paused, panting, triumphant at having got through the whole speech without a slip.
The crowd cheered raucously.
Wotheng raised an eyebrow, noting how quickly and neatly Nima had passed over Losh's involvement in the "vile and harmful magic." It was clear enough what direction her argument would take.
"Very well." Wotheng rolled up the parchment and shoved it in his belt purse. "Accusation of crime has been duly brought forward. I will sit in hearing on this case tomorrow, in the great hall, at second bell."
The crowd cheered wildly, with something of that undertone often heard at dogfights.
You'll have your show, Wotheng promised, casting his eyes over the now jolly mob. At the crowd's edge he saw Sulun, just riding up, looking bewildered and horrified at the scene. The man must have been on his way back here, to arrive so quickly. Too late, anyway. The game is set and moving, my poor friend. Wotheng stepped back in the doorway to avoid meeting Sulun's eyes. No choice now but to play to the finish!
Half the vale, it seemed, came crowding into the main courtyard of Ashkell House for the trial. The baker did a fine business selling smallcakes to the crowd, and the brewer would have done better if Gynallea hadn't bluntly ordered him to stop; clear heads, she explained, would be needed for this business.
Sulun, from his seat on a bench at Wotheng's left, looked about in dismay. Here, ranked behind the accused, sat Eloti's friends and household; ranged behind them, in merry disorder, were students from her school, plus their friends and some of their families. They munched smallcakes, chattered with each other, compared notes, and cheered when Eloti came out and sat in the Accused's chair—more of an arena cheering section than an audience at a trial.
Losh was not among them; he sat, looking miserable, close to his tight-lipped mother in the Accusers' seats, several rows of benches to the right of Lord Wotheng's tall chair, the official Judgment Seat.
The rest of the crowd sat or stood piled in rough ranks before the three official zones, held back by a line of Wotheng's household guards. Some of them wore ribbons or bits of cloth in Deese's familiar colors: iron grey and brass yellow. A few others, arranged closer to the Accusers' side, wore scraps of orange and red.
"This is a game to them," Sulun groaned quietly. "An amusement! Nobody sways an arena crowd with sweet reason. What shall we do?"
"Hush." Vari patted his arm. "We can amuse folk better than that lot."
Wotheng stood up, pulling his best cloak around him, and intoned a brief prayer to assorted gods. The crowd stayed respectfully silent until he sat down, glanced at a parchment list on the table before him, and summoned the first Accuser.
Nima stood, rustling in her starched best finery, and repeated—almost word for word—what she'd said the day before at Wotheng's gate. She would have sat down then, but Wotheng stopped her and insisted she tell her whole tale, as a witness, right then. Somewhat flustered, she related how she'd heard from the housemaid just the morning before how Pado—she flashed a veiled look at the landholder's smirking daughter—had been telling everyone that Losh had gone and bewitched Irga.
" . . . So I went to see her and asked what she meant by such, and we argued somewhat." The whole crowd snickered at that, which made Nima blush furiously but didn't stop her recital. "She told me how she'd found Losh's . . . school drawings . . . and brought them to your lordship, and how she saw . . ." a brief sniff. " . . . Irga's mother come report her daughter's bewitchment. So I went to talk to Losh, and . . ." Nima paused for a deep breath, then said the rest in a rush. "He hadn't known anything about it. He was terribly upset, he was; ran right out of the house, for all I called him to wait. So then I didn't know what to do, so I talked to, er, some neighbors, and they told me to write up a Bill of Accusation, m'lord, and bring it to you, which I did." She fell silent and looked around her, as if for support.
"I notice that you didn't come alone to bring your petition," Wotheng commented. "Why was that?"
"Er, well . . ." Nima glanced about her again. "I was fearful of witchcraft, m'lord, so I asked some, er, friends and neighbors to come with me. For protection, you'll know."
"Protection?" Wotheng's expression was bland, mildly curious. "Against whom? And why?"
"Why, against that Deese witch that corrupted my son!" Nima shrilled, voice cracking as she pointed to Eloti. "He said she'd told him it was all right to draw pictures, spreading evil magic about . . . Who knows what else she could do? I wasn't safe—none of us are safe—with that sort running about, doing whatever magic they please!"
She paused, gulping for air.
Eloti raised an elegant eyebrow, turned to the crowd, and spread her hands wide. "I'd never even met her before," she murmured, just audible in the moments near silence.
"Has the Accused any questions to ask of this witness?" said Wotheng.
"Just one." Eloti turned back to face Nima, who squirmed under her gaze. "Goodwife Nima, before you wrote your Bill of Accusation, while you were still asking neighbors for advice, did you not also ask advice of your personal priest?"
The crowd rumbled knowingly.
Nima paled. "I-I suppose so, among so many others . . ." she admitted.
Eloti leaned back in her chair and made a polite gesture of dismissal.
"You may sit down," said Wotheng. "Let the witness named Pado step forth and tell her tale."
Pado clasped her hands primly as she told of finding the three drawings, guessing whose they were, being disturbed by them, and taking them to Lord Wotheng.
"As for telling folk about what I saw and heard of Irga's mother," she finished, "well, why shouldn't I? I knew Losh had done wrong."
"What?" said Wotheng, looking most innocently confused. "You mean, in not marrying you?"
Now it was Pado's turn to blush furiously. "That was last year!" she snapped. "No, I meant in making drawings. That's forbidden by law, you know, no matter what Mistress Eloti said."
Wotheng turned to Eloti asked if she had any questions for this witness.
Again, Eloti had only one. "Precisely where and how did you find these three drawings?" she asked, a carrying note in her voice.
"Why . . ." Pado blinked, confused. "In truth, I didn't find them. One of the other students did. That clerk, Bubba? Duppa? He gave me them, said he'd found them in the courtyard, and did I know whose they were. I thought I did, so I took them."
"Lord Wotheng," said Eloti, turning toward the Judgment Seat, "I request that we summon the clerk Duppa and ask how he came by those drawings."
The crowd rumbled again; knowing laughter and -speculation.
"Quite a good idea." Wotheng got to his feet, rang a handbell, and announced to all and sundry, "Clerk Duppa, stand forth."
Nobody stood up.
The crowd rumbled louder.
Sulun, glancing over the small sea of faces, noticed a shuffling movement toward the rear, by the wall. Who was that? A scattering of figures, robed and hooded in nondescript dark cloth, faces muffled and shadowed: who could they be?
Yotha's priests, I'll wager!
Wotheng made the summons twice more, with no result except more noise of speculation from the audience. "Does anyone here know the whereabouts of Clerk Duppa?" he shouted.
"Try Yotha House!" shouted a brawny youth, one of Biddon's apprentices.
The crowd roared agreement, with some dissent.
Wotheng gave an odd, grim smile. "Be there anyone here from Yotha House?" he asked loudly.
At the back of the crowd there was a brief argument; someone grabbed at someone else's sleeve, which was roughly tugged free. A portly man cried, "Here!" and jostled his way to the front of the throng. "I am Oralro," he announced, "Second Priest of Yotha. I know of no clerk Duppa in Yotha House."
The assemblage muttered and hitched away from him.
"We shall make search for this Duppa," said Wotheng. "Meanwhile, let Ilna, mother of Irga, stand forth."
Irga's mother stood up among the rightside benches and duly gave her stark and pathetic account.
On the leftward benches, Yanados and Doshi conferred in whispers.
"That's done it. That's brought Yotha into it," said Yanados. "Now we'll start getting at the truth."
"Maybe good guesses, but nothing proved," Doshi said gloomily. "You can wager they blotted out their tracks. I'd say this Duppa is probably at the bottom of some well by now."
Ilna finished her tale, recounting how she'd taken her afflicted daughter to a neighbor wife and then come to ask help of Lord Wotheng. "The rest you know," she said, clasping her hands.
Wotheng scratched his chin and asked if the Accused had any questions.
"I do," said Eloti. "Goodwife, did you ask your daughter what she had eaten or drunk before this fit came upon her?"
The assemblage fell silent, surprised by that.
Ilna was clearly surprised too. "Why—why, no. I thought nothin' of that, but only of gettin' her safe. Why?"
"And did it occur to you, at any time, that there might be any other cause than magic for your daughter's fit?"
The crowd muttered, chewing that over.
"Nay, m'lady," Ilna answered. "She said she was bewitched. What else could it be?"
"Poison," said Eloti.
The whole audience gasped, then broke into raucous argument
Wotheng clanged his bell until the noise stopped, looking oddly satisfied.
"But who'd want t'poison my daughter?" Ilna cried. "What harm'd she ever done t'any?"
The crowd rumbled again, tossing up names like flotsam on an unquiet sea. Pado and Nima looked daggers at each other. Losh put his head in his hands. Only Oralro, standing with arms defiantly crossed in the forefront of the throng, seemed untroubled.
"Huh, he knows he didn't do it," Zeren muttered at Sulun's elbow. "Could be he doesn't know who did. I'll wager the high priest doesn't tell him everything."
"Goodwife!" Wotheng thundered, loud enough to make everyone shut up and listen. "Know you if this mysteriously missing clerk Duppa ever showed an . . . interest in your daughter? Ever spoke to her? Admired her from a distance? Showed any anger toward her? Anything?"
Ilna only spread her hands and shook her head in bewilderment. Not that it mattered; the uproar from the crowd would have drowned any spoken answer.
"What's he doing?" Omis whispered to Zeren. "Is he trying to accuse this Duppa in his absence?"
"I'm not sure," Zeren admitted, rubbing his eyes. He'd spent the night sitting, armed and armored, in front of Eloti's door; he hadn't slept much or well, and that gave no edge to his wit. "Howsoever, he's opened an interesting line of thought. Did Duppa steal the drawings, magic the girl, then try to hide it by passing on the drawings to Pado?"
"Not likely, you know."
"True, but this mob will wonder about it."
Wotheng quelled the chattering horde again, and summoned forth Losh.
"Damned little we'll get out of him," Arizun muttered.
True enough, Losh had little of substance to add to the trail. Yes, he'd made the drawings, seeing that his teacher had told him there was no harm in it. The one sketch was for his class on medicine, the other two, well, simply to have pictures of Irga to look at when he couldn't be with her.
The crowd snickered. Goody Nima looked grim. Pado glared daggers at the lad.
And no, Losh went on, he hadn't tried to bewitch Irga through the drawings. Why should he, knowing she loved him as much as he loved her? How could he, when he'd never in his life studied magical arts? Besides, he'd never do anything that could possibly harm her, since Irga was the dearest, sweetest, loveliest, and so on. No one could have doubted his weepy, hand-wringing sincerity.
This time the chuckles from the audience were fewer, accompanied by sighs from the younger set and indeed from anyone who remembered the silly giddiness of first love. Only Nima and Pado looked as if they'd bitten sour apples.
"Why," Wotheng asked, "did you place those three drawings together?"
"I didn't intend to!" Losh wailed. "I just stuffed them in my schoolbag, along with everything else."
"And how came that dark smudge to be smeared across the anatomy drawing?"
"I've no idea! I didn't put it there. Why should I? It's spoiled my schoolwork."
"Hmm," said Wotheng, significantly. "Has the Accused any questions?"
Eloti did. "Goodman Losh, when and where were the drawings lost?"
Losh had to stop and think about that. "I . . . saw they were gone just the day after I made them. I opened my schoolbag at class, and they weren't there. I thought I must have lost them at home, since that's where I saw them last."
"How, then, did they come to be found at school?"
"I don't know. Maybe they fell out on my way into the hall, but I don't see how, since I don't recall that I opened the bag."
"Could anyone have light-fingered them out of your schoolbag, at home or on the way to class, or even after you'd arrived?"
Losh scratched his chin and looked blank. "Well, I suppose so. But why?"
"Why indeed?" said Eloti, leaning back as if she didn't expect to be answered.
The crowd speculated in a low grumble.
Smiling tightly, Wotheng called Irga to stand forth and give her story.
Irga stood up in a halo of sunlight, still a trifle pale, dressed in the prettiest gown her mother could find for her. Her dark red hair was braided loosely down her back, and her eyes looked dark and huge in her drawn face. The whole assembly sighed rapturously at the sight of her.
"She's so pretty, they'll believe anything she says," Ziya whispered.
"Let's hope she doesn't say anything against Eloti," Arizun muttered back.
Irga seemed at a loss for what to say. Wotheng urged her to begin with when, where, and under what circumstances Losh had drawn her pictures.
Irga made a few false starts, blushed slightly, and admitted it had been late afternoon of four days ago, and she was out berry-picking when Losh met her. She didn't mention, though it was obvious, that the meeting had been arranged. Yes, they talked a bit about Losh's schoolwork, besides this and that. Yes, Losh had said he wanted to draw pictures of her, and yes, she'd consented. No, she didn't feel any danger or distress while he'd done so—only love.
This time the crowd sighed and crooned instead of snickering.
Irga blushed again and went on. Losh had left her at about sundown. She'd gone home for supper. Nothing had happened that night. In the morning she'd wakened as usual, built up the fire and put the kettle on, dressed, and went to rake out the barn. It was while she was dumping the manure cart that the fit struck her.
She paused there, shivering. Wotheng gently urged her to continue.
Irga did, describing in chilly detail the horrors she'd seen and felt.
The listening throng groaned in sympathy.
"Bad tactics," Zeren growled. "They'll be wanting blood now, and it just might be ours."
"That would hardly suit Wotheng's purposes," Vari whispered back.
"Then why is he allowing all this . . . detail to her story?"
"I don't know, but the man's no fool. He has something in mind that will be served hereby."
Irga told how she'd cried for help, thinking the whole farm was bewitched, but when her mother came running to her showing no such distress she'd guessed that the curse lay only on herself. After that she remembered little save for her mother bundling her off in the donkey cart to the neighbor's farm, hours of huddling under blankets and seeing horrors crawl the walls, then being brought to Ashkell House and tended by Lady Gynallea, after which the curse slowly wore off. Yes, she was well now. No, she was certain that Losh couldn't have done that harm to her. Yes, Lady Eloti had helped care for her and had been very kind to her. No, she didn't think the Lady Eloti had done anything to bewitch her.
"Lass, whom do you think might have bewitched you?" Wotheng asked.
"I don't know," Irga insisted. "I didna' think I had any enemy so cruel."
"Try Pado!" one of the students in the audience yelled.
"Or Losh's mother!" called another.
The crowd roared with unkind laughter. Pado and Nima shrunk in their seats. Wotheng rang for silence, then asked if the Accused had any questions.
"Yes," said Eloti. "Irga, did you at any time think that there might be any other cause for your distress besides magic?"
"Nay," Irga admitted, "but then, I was no' thinkin' well at all."
The audience laughed gently in sympathy.
"Now think carefully," said Eloti. "Between the time you woke and the time the fit came on you, did you have anything to eat or drink—anything not taken by anyone else in your household?"
"Why . . ." Irga thought on that for a long moment. "Just a cup of herb tea, as I always do."
A quiet ripple of gasps went through the crowd.
"Aha!" Eloti pounced. "And was that herb tea in any way different, on that morning?"
"Aye," Irga nodded, remembering. "A trifle bitter, now do I think."
The assemblage rumbled angrily.
"And is there any of that herb tea left in your house?" Eloti asked, leaning forward.
"Nay, that was the last in the jar."
The crowd sighed disappointment.
Eloti paused to think for a long moment before speaking again. "Tell me, Irga: how is your house locked up at night?"
The audience rippled with new excitement as Irga considered the question.
"Why, we but put up the door bar, with the latchstring out on chance that Papa may have to get up and tend the sheep, and aye, he might be too sleepy then to remember to put out the string by himself. I do recall a time—"
"Then anyone could have crept into the house while you slept?"
"Aye . . . they could."
The crowd was chattering loudly now, trading guesses on whom the supposed night creeper might have been. The name of Duppa kept coming up.
Eloti, eyes bright and fierce, plunged into the next question. "Have you or any of your family ever gone to the ceremonies at Yotha's temple?"
The throng hushed, all ears. Oralro flushed with anger.
"Aye, once. We all went to see the flames dance at midsummer rites."
"And were there many people there? Did many of the priests and under-priests and assistants have chance to lay eyes on you?"
The crowd howled understanding, making the connection.
"I resent that question!" Oralro shouted furiously. "That has no bearing on the crime under consideration, which is image-making. This is foul slander, m'lord! Yonder witch is trying to disguise her own guilt by flinging manure—"
"Quiet!" Wotheng roared, clanging his bell. "Witness Irga need not reply to that question. Has the Accused anything further to ask?"
"Only this: Irga, have other swains come courting you, and been turned away?"
"Aye, many." Irga blushed fetchingly again. "The lads always hoot and holler at me when I come to town for marketing."
"Any in particular? Any who have been especially . . . -insistent?'
"Too many to remember," Irga admitted.
The crowd laughed knowingly.
Eloti shrugged. "I have no further questions, m'lord."
"Then—" Wotheng started.
Right there the tower bell clanged for the hour of noon, startling the listening throng.
"Then let us halt these proceedings for lunch, and reassemble at next bell," said Wotheng, rising from his seat.
The assembly cheered, and disassembled. Those who had been sitting got up to stretch and rub their cramped rumps. Those who had been standing sought dry and comfortable seats. The baker went back to selling his wares at a good rate, and the brewer—under Gynallea's watchful eye—sold pint crocks of small beer.
Assorted political factions gathered to exchange views and share lunch. Sulun's party, guessing that they'd not be dining with their judge today, sat in a rough circle at their benches, surrounded by Eloti's students. They had little chance to discuss the case among themselves, since the faction of scholars insisted on plying them with good wishes, questions, and suggestions—a few of which were useful.
On the other side of the court, Losh avoided his mother's frantic clutchings at his sleeve, and went to talk to Irga; in a moment they were holding hands and murmuring at each other as if they were all alone in the world. The passing crowd had the decency not to interrupt them.
Pado glanced once at Nima, shrugged apologetically, and went off to dine with her family.
Nima glared furiously at Losh and Irga, stared sourly at Pado's retreating back, then picked her way through the crowd to the nearest visible priest of Yotha, who happened to be Oralro.
At the back of the crowd, draped in his nondescript muffling cloak, Folweel made some fast notes on a waxed board and conferred quietly with Patrobe.
"'Tisn't going well," Patrobe was muttering. "They've suggested a fine case against Duppa."
"Did you get him safely away?" Folweel whispered without looking up.
"Aye, Brother. He must be halfway down to Gol-port by now. But what shall we do now? There'll be no muzzling Oralro, not after that witch's questioning."
"If we can't silence him, we use him. We'll go to our second plan once the Questioning of the Accused begins." He glanced up, noted Oralro pushing toward him with Nima in tow, and smiled. "And here come our two best tools for that. Step away, Brother."
"Oh, Father, may I speak with you?" Nima gushed, drawing a few startled eyes.
"Certainly, Daughter," Folweel soothed, setting a comforting arm around the flustered woman's shoulders. "Come, let us go outside and away from the ears of the ungodly. Er, Brother Oralro, do keep an eye on that witch and her friends, lest they plot mischief."
With that, he swept Nima outside the court to put a few words in her ear. They stayed there for perhaps half the noon hour, after which Nima came back alone, smiling grimly. Folweel strolled quietly into the court a moment later, and went to find Oralro.
The tower bell rang again, the crowd reassembled, and Wotheng formally took his seat. "Let the Accused stand forth," he announced.
The throng fell so silent that distant bird cries could be heard from beyond the walls.
Eloti stood up, hands clasped loosely before her. "I have little to tell of events," she said, "but much of facts. Yes, Losh is one of my students—and an excellent student at that. He should, in time, go to some great university."
On the far bench, Losh blushed and squeezed Irga's hand tighter. She gave him an admiring look. Nima glowered at both of them.
"Yes, I use pictures as teaching devices—indeed, it would be almost impossible to teach medicine and mechanics without them. Yes, I have said to my entire class, including Losh, that there is no harm in making pictures of living persons—and indeed, there is none."
Both Nima and Oralro, back to their former places, opened their mouths to protest. Eloti went on, giving them no time for it.
"It has been said that drawn or graven images can be used as substitutes for actual persons in operations of magic—and yes, this is true."
The whole crowd gasped, including the Deese faction.
"But then, anything can be so used. The mere sight or memory of a person can be used to make him, or her, target for a curse—or a blessing. Should we then blind everyone's eyes, or blot out everyone's memory?" Eloti turned to face the assembly. "Pictures are necessary tools, and no tool is evil in itself. Objects have no will, no power, no purpose of their own, save what people give to them. Good and evil, help and harm, reside in the will and action of the user, not in the thing used."
"Blasphemy!" snapped Oralro. "Objects have power that—"
"Silence!" Wotheng retorted. "Wait until the Accused has finished speaking."
"Magic," said Eloti, "requires a most special and concerted use of will and knowledge. It requires great concentration, long study, much practice, and great knowledge of Natural Philosophy. To be quite honest, I have met no one in the vale—" she flicked a glance toward Oralro "—save in the various temples and shrines, who has the knowledge and skill needed to even begin the study, let alone the practice, of magic. No, not even among my students."
She turned an apologetic glance toward Losh, who blushed further.
"Certainly I have not taught magic to any, neither have I found any who are capable of practicing magic without such a course of study. Therefore I have told my students, when asked, that indeed there is no harm in making images—since none of them could use such images for anything but ordinary learning." Eloti cast a narrow-eyed look around the assembly. "Therefore, also, I conclude that Irga's affliction was not caused by anything done in my school. As you have heard, there is reason to believe that either the drawings were stolen by someone else—someone trained and capable of working magic—who then used them, for his own reasons, to ill-wish the girl—"
The crowd racketed with speculation on whom that might be. Oralro purpled with indignation.
"—or, more likely, that someone deliberately poisoned Irga and then made effort to give the impression of witchcraft, even unto casting suspicion upon Losh."
Nima squirmed on her bench, suddenly undecided. The dull-robed figure beside her patted her arm and bent close to whisper in her ear. Her face tightened again. Losh paled and gritted his teeth. Irga clenched her hand in his. Pado pursed her lips and looked vaguely elsewhere. Oralro stamped from foot to foot in steaming frustration. The rest of the throng muttered angrily.
"No," Eloti continued, "I did not know there was any law against making images of living persons, not until I was accused."
Wotheng rolled his eyes skyward. Technically, he supposed, his first questions to Eloti might in fact be called accusations. It wasn't a lie.
"Nonetheless, I maintain that this law should be more honored in the breach than in the observance, seeing that it is useless—as useless as forbidding bows in order to prevent poaching. If the law must be enforced, then let its punishment be altered to better suit the nature of the crime—such as paying a fine of, say, one flower or pinch of grain to be placed on the nearest altar of Kula, along with a prayer that one's work will not be misused."
The student faction broke out in a cheer at the elegance of her solution. They could see in it the beginning of a pretty, romantic custom. Two old grannies who regularly tended the villas shrine of Kula cheered likewise, thinking of the free bread they might collect from such a tradition. Wotheng smiled and rubbed his beard. Gynallea laughed outright. Eloti sat down amid the growing applause.
Wotheng quelled the noise with his bell. "Do any wish to question the Accused?" he announced.
"Me! Me!" Oralro and Nima yelled simultaneously.
Wotheng clanged his bell for order. "Let the Accuser speak first," he said.
Nima shot to her feet. "Stories!" she snapped. "Pretty tales! No shred of proof to any of this! We've only your word for it—and maybe your friends'—that your advice was harmless. You've admitted yourself that anyone could have stolen the drawings and used them to bewitch the girl. Who can tell but that was what you intended?"
The crowd rustled with surprise.
"Who can say," Nima plowed on, "that it wasn't yourself who stole the drawings and magicked them? 'Twould be a clever way to strike down a rival, and punish my son for preferring Irga to you!"
The assembly roared. Eloti's eyebrows shot up to her hairline; this was the last thing on earth she'd expected. Behind her, Zeren swore sulfurously and struggled to his feet through restraining hands.
Wotheng clanged for silence. "Let the Accused answer!" he bellowed.
"Well," Eloti marveled, "this is news to me."
Her class laughed in appreciation.
"First, though I admit Losh is a handsome and clever boy, I've never had any, hmm, romantic interest in him. For one thing, he's a trifle young for me."
Pado, who'd been staring at Eloti in wide-eyed horror, now ducked her head and squirmed furiously on her bench.
"For another, I never so much as knew that Irga existed, nor knew her name or face, until she was already afflicted. I will submit to truth spell upon that." Eloti smiled sweetly out at the audience, knowing full well that there was no such thing as a "truth spell." There was only ill-wishing and well-wishing, nothing else; but let the crowd—and Yotha's wizards—believe what they liked.
"No one can truth spell a wizard!" Oralro shouted from the front of the horde. "Everyone knows that!" He glared around him defiantly, as if daring anyone to contradict him. Of course, no one did.
"For a third," Eloti continued, "I already have a lover, whom I intend to marry at spring planting."
She turned to gesture at Zeren, who got to his feet and glared daggers alternately at Losh and his mother. "That's me!" he thundered, hand visibly clenching the grip of his sword. "Does anyone want to challenge the Lady's word on that?"
No, nobody did. The throng buzzed with speculations and comparisons. A mere boy's appeal, against that of an obvious warrior-magician—and handsome, to boot—seemed very little.
"You're going to marry Eloti?" Doshi gaped, while Yanados tugged warningly at his sleeve.
"I hadn't intended to announce it this way," Zeren admitted.
The surrounding students laughed.
"For yet a fourth," Eloti went on, "when would I have the opportunity to filch Losh's drawings—assuming I even knew they existed—and place a curse on the girl? Irga was afflicted only a little after dawn; Losh did not come to school until much later. I could not have stolen the drawings when he left class the day before, since he did not make them until much later that afternoon, at Irga's farm. Neither could I have gone secretly to Losh's house to steal the drawings—again, assuming I knew he had made them, and how could that be?—because I spent the rest of that day and all the night here at Ashkell House, in the company of the Lady Gynallea."
"True," announced Gynallea, glaring around the assemblage as if defying anyone to doubt her.
Nima took a half-step back, still frowning. "Who knows what your magic can do?" she grumbled. "Who knows but you might have used it to spy on Losh, see where he went, whom he met, and what he did. You could have used magic to fetch the -drawings—or even curse the girl without them and make him look guilty. We've only your word for it that you can't!"
Eloti rolled her eyes, but answered patiently. "When could I have done this? Losh claims that he went to meet Irga after school, and stayed with her until sundown. During all that time I was quite busy discussing uses of herbs with the Lady Gynallea, as well as various other members of her household, who might also be called as witnesses. After sundown, I was at dinner with all of Ashkell household—and such dinners, as many can attest, tend to run late."
Various servitors of Ashkell House laughed agreement at that.
"Afterward, as usual, I went to the wash house with several others of Ashkell house, and thence to bed. By such time Losh was surely asleep, with his drawings safe in his schoolbag. Thus, even if I could use magic for scrying—which, I dare say, nobody in the vale can do—just when was I to spy upon Losh and discover whom he met? When, for that matter, was I to ill-wish the girl? Such things do take time, you know."
"You could have done it that night, or next morning, when no one else was awake and about," Nima insisted. "You could have scried into his schoolbag—"
"But the drawings weren't there!" Losh shouted, jumping to his feet. "I remember, I put the pictures of Irga under my pillow, so I could dream about her!"
The crowd laughed. Irga blushed prettily.
Nima glared briefly at her son. "You could have scried on his dreams, then. Or you might have scried him long before, found the girl, and waited for a good time to make your revenge. You could have done it! We've only your word to say you couldn't, or wouldn't!"
Eloti sighed loudly with impatience. "Why, then, when Irga was first brought to Ashkell House, did the Lady Gynallea's medicines ease this 'curse,' long before I heard anything of it?"
"Do you dare to say I'm a witch?" Gynallea shouted. "Or that I connived with Eloti on such a fool's venture? No, woman! That girl was poisoned, or I've never seen it."
Unnoticed, Wotheng shook his head. The crowd buzzed, enjoying the juicy fight.
"She could have set the curse to look that way," Nima grumbled, retreating. "She might have deceived you."
"Hardly," Gynallea snorted.
"You've invented a pretty tale yourself, Goodwife," said Eloti, "and with no shred of proof. From what facts we do know, 'tis far more likely that someone crept into Irga's house and poisoned the herbs she used next morning."
"Even that could have been some agent of yours!" Nima retorted.
"Who?" Eloti shot back. "Someone at Ashkell House? Ask the household if anyone stole out that night to go all the way to Irga's house, or if any were missing from the house all the night and didn't reappear until the next day."
"Someone from Deese House, more likely! Anyone there would tell tales to protect you!"
"And how would I have sent word to them, ten leagues away, that now was the time to go to Irga's house and poison her drink?"
"Magic! Magic again!"
"And would magic tell them also where to find Irga's house, which none of us ever visited? Would magic carry someone there, unseen and unheard by man or beast across all the farms in between? Woman, if I had magic like that, I wouldn't bother with such petty stuff; I'd have magicked Irga and Losh and you yourself straight to the bottom of the Midworld Sea. I certainly wouldn't waste time sitting here arguing with you."
The throng roared with laughter at that. One of the laborers who had worked on Deese House's walls commented loudly that with that sort of magic the wizards of Deese wouldn't have needed his help to restore their house—and could have saved themselves a good bit of money. Students speculated that, with that kind of power, Eloti wouldn't have had to spend so many moons teaching them; she could simply have magicked the knowledge into their heads.
"Sure as nine hells," Zeren roared above the clamor, "she could have magicked your stupid mouth shut!"
That set everyone bellowing with laughter. Wotheng rang repeatedly for order, finally gave up, and let the crowd laugh itself tired.
Nima, blushing red as a ripe apple, looked about her for help. No use: nothing could have been heard in that din anyway. At length she sat down, muttering bitterly to herself. Her husband huddled down in his robes and looked elsewhere.
As the noise dwindled, Wotheng rang again for silence. This time the crowd obeyed. "Has anyone else questions for the Accused?" he asked.
"I do!" snapped Oralro, striding forward. "Lady, if I dare use the term, I truly do resent the slanderous suggestion you have made against this goodwife here and against the House of Yotha besides. Slanderous, I say, to accuse any in our herd of most vilely and lecherously bewitching a young virgin!"
Several in the crowd snickered. Irga blushed furiously, and didn't look.
"Worse still to accuse us of any dealings with poison—and this is not the first such vile accusation! Nay, nor the first instance of harm come to the innocent through the careless witcheries of Deese House and its wizards. Was not our own stonemason crushed to death while working upon their walls?"
"His own damned fault!" yelled one of the workmen in the crowd.
Oralro went on as if he hadn't heard. "And more slanders: when their own workmen were poisoned with bad food, did not these Deese wizards hasten to blame our brotherhood, even though the baker's carter confessed to the deed?"
"He named one of your under-priests, too!" shouted a peeved guardsman.
Oralro sailed on, blithely unheeding. "All this harm has come to the vale with the presence of these Deese wizards! Has not Yotha warned and warned his faithful herd, repeatedly, of this danger? Have we not done our best to warn others, though they, being blinded with greed for petty wonders, have not heeded us? Have we not warned the folk of the vale that these wizards of Deese are careless in both magic and morals—allowing male and female priests to sleep under the same roof—"
"Is this your question?" Eloti snapped, spots of color showing in her cheeks.
"No it isn't, and I'm not finished!" Oralro stamped a heavy foot. "We have maintained, as Yotha bids us, that the gods are troubled by such proud carelessness. We, m'lord, are troubled also by such immoral quickness to slander others for the harm done by Deese's wizards. We are also appalled, as all good folk should be, to hear from this witch's very lips her contempt for the law! Did she not boldly admit to breaching the law against image making? And did she not blatantly claim before you all that the law itself was wrong, and should be abolished? What can we expect of those who have such contempt for law itself?"
"Common sense," Eloti answered. "Next question?"
The crowd brayed with laughter.
Oralro purpled slightly, took a deep breath, and preached on. "More, she claims, as you heard, that drawn or graven images have no power—more, that objects in themselves have no power, nor even purpose. I say before you all, this is a most blasphemous lie!"
The audience rumbled to itself, wondering.
"Of course objects have purpose! Anyone who looks at them knows that. A sword, for example, has no purpose except to kill people."
"Bull turds!" Zeren bellowed, springing to his feet. "I've used my sword to chop wood, make fire, and stir soup!"
"A wagon," Oralro continued fiercely, "has no purpose save to draw loads."
"Or to burn for firewood, or rot and feed wood ants!" Zeren retorted.
Wotheng wearily clanged his bell, but said nothing.
"I do not say objects cannot be put to other uses than their obvious purpose," Oralro conceded, glaring daggers at Zeren. "But they rarely are. When one sees a shovel, one may safely claim that it is to be used for digging."
"Or for clanging an enemy over the head!" yelled Zeren.
"When one sees the image of a god, one may safely claim it is used for prayer and worship."
"Or for scaring money out of the gullible!"
"And when one sees an image of a living person, one may surely claim it is to be used for purposes of magic!"
"Or for kissing and sticking under one's pillow!"
Wotheng clanged the bell repeatedly, quelling both the shouting match between Oralro and Zeren and the appreciative laughter and cheers of the assembly.
"Sir Priest," he insisted, "get to your question for the Accused."
"Why, 'tis only this. Witch, does or does not the House of Deese bear ill will toward the House of Yotha?"
The crowd hushed, listening.
"Certainly," said Eloti, "and for good reason."
"Oh, indeed?" Oralro smirked. "Such as our complaints against your careless use of magic? Such as our warnings against your blatant immorality? Such as our thwarting your attempts to ill-wish our priesthood? We could say much about those reasons."
"Not at all," Eloti replied calmly. "We have but one reason: you attacked us first."
"You've no proof of that!" Oralro shouted, stamping again. "You've nothing but your own vile slanders! Only your word, against that poor innocent woman whose son you endangered, saying there's no harm in images! You expect folk to trust in that, do you, when all knowledge and even legend say otherwise? Do you—"
"Certainly not," Eloti snapped, rising to her feet. "I can put that to proof before all this gathering. Lord Wotheng, bid Losh come forward."
The crowd hushed in shock. Wotheng rubbed his jaw and gave her a long look. "Losh, come forward," he said at last.
"Lord Wotheng, please hand him a pen, some ink, a piece of blank parchment, and a board upon which to brace it," said Eloti.
Wotheng raised both shaggy eyebrows, but handed over the requested items to Losh. "Hope you know what you're doing," he murmured.
"Now, Losh," said Eloti, smoothing down her dress, "I pray you, draw a picture of me."
The whole assembly drew its collective breath. Gynallea waved frantic signals to her husband, who ignored them. Sulun and his friends looked at each other in bewilderment. Eloti smiled prettily.
"Go on, Losh. As I've said, things have no power—not until people give it to them."
With shaky fingers, Losh sat down and did as he was bid.
The minutes crawled. The audience crept closer, trying to peer over Losh's shoulder at the growing image. Those who could see any of it agreed that Eloti's passing judgment was right; Losh did indeed have great skill at drawing. There, that was surely the line of Lady Eloti's skirt, real as life; and there, yes that was the very angle of her wrist. Slowly the form took shape, and then the face, smiling confidently. The crowd murmured softly in appreciation. Losh drew on, sweat beading on his forehead and trickling down his neck.
Oralro tapped his feet and jittered with impatience. Sulun and company sat quietly, sweating nearly as much as Losh. Gynallea shot puzzled glances at her husband. Wotheng alone was calm, smiling serenely, hands clasped on the table before him.
At length Losh heaved a deep sigh, set down the pen, got up, and handed the drawing to Eloti. He put the board, pen, and inkpot back on Wotheng's table and trudged off to his seat on the benches without a word. Irga took his hand again, radiating sympathy.
"Very good, Losh," said Eloti, studying the drawing. "Quite flattering, in fact. Now—" She turned to Wotheng. "Would you please ask Goodwife Nima to step forward."
The crowd buzzed like troubled bees as Nima bustled to the center of the courtyard.
Eloti calmly handed her the drawing. "Lord Wotheng," she said, "if, as certain parties have claimed, things have power in themselves which any person can use for ill purposes, then let Nima prove it. Let her turn her back on me, look only at the drawing, and curse me if she can."
The audience gasped in concert.
On the rightward bench, Folweel caught his breath in furious hope. Gods, if only he could signal to Oralro, if only the man would face him for a moment, they could use this chance to quietly cast their own curse. It would have to be something simple, done without tools or preparation—but then, a simple curse could more effectively be disguised as something Nima herself might do. Once the curse struck, everyone would think Nima had done it and that Oralro had been right. So perfect! But Oralro wasn't looking at him, couldn't be signalled. He'd have to do it himself, and wait for just the theatrically proper moment.
On the leftward bench, Arizun had just come to the same conclusion. "Gods, this is madness!" he whispered. "We don't know how many wizards they have, or what power. . . . Nine hells, I'll have to help her alone." He closed his eyes and began silently chanting the meditative formulas while Ziya watched him, fascinated.
None of this was lost on Eloti. She was aware of the prickling, nonphysical pressure behind her, with that characteristic tone/color of Arizun's mind. Clever of the boy to think of it so soon, and she could certainly use the protection if this ploy failed. She silently recited the formulas herself while carefully keeping that utterly confident smile on her face, keeping it turned toward Nima. Much depended now on that silly woman's character.
Nima stared for a moment at the drawing, then glowered at Eloti. If mere target and malice were sufficient to cast an effective curse, everyone in the assembly could see that she would have done it then.
Arizun softly chanted, Folweel held his breath and waited, Eloti smiled.
Nima's assurance broke. "What nonsense is this?" she shouted, her voice noticeably shrill. "How should I put a curse on a skilled sorceress? Surely she knows means to prevent me, ward off the curse, turn it back on me, gods know what. It isn't fair, it isn't the same at all."
The crowd rumbled disappointment, speculation, contempt.
"Aughhh!" bellowed one of the former work gang. "A pigeon just splattered me! It must be the curse, deflected on the innocent. Ey, witchcraft!"
"Oooeee!" One of Eloti's students took up the game, tumbling to the ground and kicking theatrically. "I've gas pains from the beer. She must have bewitched my belches downward! Magic! Magic!" In the middle of the performance he cut a loud fart. His neighbors flinched away, holding their noses. "Praise be to all the gods," the student improvised merrily. "I've been cured!"
The audience roared with laughter. Wotheng tried quelling it with his bell, but was shaking too much with ill-held guffaws to ring properly. Oralro purpled again, stamped his feet, and stuck out his petulant lip. Folweel silently cursed the lost opportunity, and bitterly hoped for another.
"It's not fair!" Nima shrilled in fury, her headdress slipping in disarray. "I'm no wizard! Let some real wizard do it!"
She spun on her heel, turned to the nearest of the Yotha priests—which happened to be Oralro—and thrust the parchment into his hand.
"You do it," she snapped. "You'd be a match for the likes of her."
Oralro was startled for only a moment; then a broad smile spread across his face. He glanced warily at Eloti, then set to studying the parchment.
The crowd roared, argued, railed, and stared.
Folweel sat up straighter, struggling to keep his grin of victory from showing.
Eloti kept smiling, but it wasn't easy. She concentrated on the formulas, driving her mind up the levels to the plane where magic could be released, feeling her wave front spread and link with Arizun's. She hadn't, she fleetingly admitted, expected this to come so soon.
"Halt!" Wotheng roared, startling everyone. He lurched to his feet, swinging his handbell like a club, looking as ferocious as anyone had ever seen him. "I'll have no wizards' duel in my court! No, nor in my villa, either—nor anywhere on my lands. By the gods, my land's suffered too much from wizardry already."
He glared around him, ignoring his wife's amazed look. The guards, with no signal given, snapped to attention. Everyone else stared in silence.
Wotheng smiled grimly and rang his handbell three times. "Here's my judgment on this case," he thundered. "Since this matter cannot be proved nor decided save by methods of wizardry, let it so be proved. This case shall be decided in trial by combat."
Everyone gasped at that. Folweel threw caution aside and waved frantically at Oralro. Nima turned around and around, looking dazed at the sudden change. Eloti's students cheered. Sulun's coterie looked at each other and all started talking at once.
Wotheng clanged his bell once more for silence.
"I hereby decree," he announced, "that at noon tomorrow this assemblage shall gather on the field outside the walls of Deese House, there to witness said combat. The wizards of Deese shall stand before their walls and the wizards of Yotha shall face them at not less than fifty paces. Upon given signal both shall duel with their respective skills until one or the other is defeated. Upon the victory of one or the other shall this matter be decided. So be it known and written." He clanged his bell three more times, and added, "This gathering is now adjourned."
With that, he drew his robes around him and marched back toward the doors of Ashkell House, not glancing to either side.
Gynallea gaped at his retreating back, then ran to gather up his assorted parchments and tablets and hurried after him. The two nearest guards looked at each other, shrugged, and went to pick up the table. Other guards hurried to carry in the other furniture.
"M'lord, m'lord!" Oralro was howling. "What's to keep yonder wizards from stealing a march and bewitching us, to their advantage, before combat tomorrow?"
"You have my picture, do you not?" Eloti snapped, nimbly hopping to her feet as a guard came to pick up her chair. "Keep it in surety, then. I'd advise you, nonetheless, not to try ill-wishing me beforetime."
"Witness!" Zeren bellowed at the guards, snagging their attention. "If any harm—any harm—comes to the Lady Eloti before the combat tomorrow, you'll all know that the priests of Yotha are guilty beyond doubt!"
Oralro snorted disgust, rolled up the parchment drawing, and shoved it firmly in his belt pouch. "No one shall so much as see this image beforetime," he announced, ignoring Folweel's flailing hands. "That I vow, by Yotha's flame."
Arizun ran to Eloti and clutched her arm. "Will you be safe until then?" he whispered.
"Once inside our walls, I will be," Eloti hissed back. "Let's get there with all haste."
The milling crowd was roaring with delight and anticipation at the coming duel, splitting into factions within factions, and already the bet makers were offering conflicting odds. The brewer pulled out his better bottles, and did a lively business. Several students formed a protective honor guard around Eloti and her friends and helped push through the throng to the gates, the wagon, and escape.
Sulun grabbed at Zeren's sleeve, utterly bewildered. "Why did he do it?" he asked, as if the brawny soldier would know. "Why did he throw us into this? I thought he was our friend."
"He planned it so," Zeren growled, glancing back toward Ashkell House in mingled fury and admiration. "That wily old wolf—he planned for this all along."