The Fire Mages' Daughter (2 page)

The inside of the Keep was just as busy as the town outside. Around the inner wall squatted stalls and low buildings – bakeries, stables, shops, board houses, craft workshops, taverns and other places I couldn’t identify. I caught glimpses of gardens in the centre of the Keep, with flowers in straight lines, shrubs trimmed into balls and even the trees in neat rows. That was promising. I would have to explore when I was settled, and feel the earth on my fingers.

As soon as we pulled up outside the Drashona’s Tower, hordes of servants emerged to receive us. To receive
me
. There was a chair contraption, with four men to carry it, so that I didn’t have to walk at all. It was rather pleasant to sit in my chair and be lifted up the many stairs and along wide corridors, while the others scuttled along in my wake. I’d not thought much about the benefits of high rank, because in truth nothing at all had changed, but if I were forced to swear by the Moon God, I’d have to admit that I liked it.

The Drashona was at some kind of formal reception with ambassadors or some such, so we were taken to a room to wait for her. The chairs were hard and uncomfortable, covered with a slippery kind of silk. I’d never seen such elaborate furniture, all carved and decorated and painted in washed-out blues and greens. Even the ceiling had a picture on it. Another horde of servants brought out food and drink for us, so we sat and nibbled and gazed around in awe. Nobody spoke, except the waiting woman, who was used to it all, I supposed.

Eventually, the Drashona came. She wasn’t what I’d expected. Even though I knew she had children younger than me, still I’d imagined her quite old, grey and stooped, like the two sisters who came every spring to help with the festival cleaning, who called me ‘dear one’ and gave me sweeties one sun, and shouted at me the next, for unfathomable reasons. In the stories I’d read, rulers of realms were always elderly. The Drashona was not elderly at all. She wasn’t much older than Mother, although slimmer, with fair hair smoothed away under a lace cap and a silk gown trimmed with a lot more lace.

“Axandrina! Here you are at last,” she began, but as I slithered off my chair and stood, her face changed, hands lifted to her mouth. “Oh, my poor child! You are so like your father.”

I was so taken aback that I forgot to make my bow. I only remembered when I saw the others bobbing down.

“But how are you, my dear? Are you exhausted? We will take great care of you, be assured of that.”

“I’m fine, thank you… um, Most Powerful.”

She turned to the waiting woman. “Marshalia? How has she been on the journey?”

“Quite tired, Highness. She seems a little better just now.”

“Good, good. Jayna? Have you examined her?”

Jayna was the mage. She had indeed examined me, more than once, and tried to heal me, too, muttering incantations over me and touching me here and there. As if that would help. My mother was the most powerful mage in the whole of Bennamore, a natural mage, with magic inside her, and if she couldn’t heal me, no ordinary mage would help.

“I have a confession to make, Axandrina,” the Drashona said. “I sent Jayna to accompany you because she has the power to detect when a person is lying. I wanted to know whether your illness is real or not.”

“It’s real,” I said, outraged. How horrible, to trick me like that! I’d thought Jayna was so nice, too.

“Jayna?”

“She certainly is not lying, Highness. When she says she feels weak or tired, that is the truth. I could not find any abnormality that would account for it, but I hardly expected to. If Lady Mage Kyra could not find the root of the problem, no one could.”

I warmed to Jayna again. But it was still insulting to suggest that I’d been malingering all these years and had even fooled my own mother.

“Of course,” the Drashona said. “So, Axandrina, you will have a sun or two to settle in and recover before you go to the mages’ house for testing.”

That sounded ominous. “Testing?”

“Of course, child. You are the daughter of two Fire Mages. Naturally we want to find out what powers you have inherited.”

Well, that was promising. If I failed the mages’ tests, perhaps she would send me home again.

The testing was very tedious. One mage after another came and poked and prodded me, gave me objects to hold, or asked me to do impossible things – as if I could make fire! Then they shook their heads and tutted and muttered together and shook their heads some more. But in the end they agreed that I had no innate magical ability at all.

The Drashona took it well when the mages had to go to her and admit defeat. “It is not important. No doubt you have other talents, Axandrina.”

“So you aren’t going to send me home then?” I couldn’t keep the disappointment out of my voice.

She laughed merrily. “By no means. It would have been useful… but you are here because you are a possible heir for me. Kingswell is the only place where you can be properly trained for such a role, and where I can get to know you and you can get to know your family.”

That stung. “But you’re
not
my family! You aren’t my mother, and my father is dead. It isn’t fair to take me away from my real family.”

“It must indeed seem strange,” she said equably. “But in this case, the law is being fair to me, if not to you. Claiming my husband’s children allows me many more potential heirs. Women would be greatly disadvantaged otherwise, and we would have male rulers constantly.”

“What if I don’t want to be your heir?” I said. “I could never run the whole realm, like you do.”

She wasn’t deterred. “Not yet, of course, but in ten years’ time—”

Ten years! I didn’t hear the rest of what she said. It was too appalling for words. I had to find a way to make her see I was quite unsuitable so she would send me home.

~~~~~

I had a grand apartment all to myself. There was a bedroom bigger than the one Mother and Cal had at home, with its own bathing room and separate water bucket room, some rooms for the servants, and a huge sitting room with a big table and comfortable chairs – much softer than the slippy ones in the Drashona’s formal rooms. There were bookshelves, too, but they were all empty.

“Where can I get books to read?” I’d asked Marshalia, as she was showing me round.

“Oh – I have no idea. I expect your tutors will give you books to read.”

“Isn’t there a library? I’m sure there must be one somewhere in a great building like this.”

“Oh, of course, but… you should ask your tutors.”

Not a great reader, Marshalia.

My apartment – what fun to say that! A whole apartment to myself! My apartment was on the very top floor of the Drashona’s Tower. Actually, she had two of the eight towers in the Keep all to herself, but one was only formal rooms for receiving petitioners and visiting dignitaries, and the other was for her and all her relations to live in. The Drashona’s own rooms were very grand, but up there near the sky, the rooms were smaller and plainer.

All the children lived there. They were brought to meet me one at a time, a sun apart, so as not to tire me out. None of them said a word to me. The two I’d had such hopes of, Zandara and Axandor, who had the same father as me, were plain, wilting little things, stick-thin and so pale you’d never know we were related at all. The other three were babies, and as yellow-haired as a cornfield. So that was a disappointment.

But one afternoon, when I was supposed to be resting, the bedroom door creaked open and a head peeped round. Pressing a finger to her lips, she crept in and quietly closed the door behind her.

“I knew you would not be sleeping! I am not disturbing you, am I?”

I shook my head. In truth, I could hardly be more glad to see her, for here at last was someone like me, someone else who was an oak amongst the birches. Although, to be honest, she was more delicate than I was, and prettier, with sparkling chestnut eyes and plump lips.

“Who are you? Why haven’t I met you before?”

“My turn is supposed to be tomorrow, but I could not bear to wait! I am Vhar-zhin, and we are cousins. Well, in a way. My father is the Drashona’s brother.”

“But who is your mother?” I blurted. “Is she Icthari, like my father?”

“No, no, she came from the
Nyi-Harn
. Do you know of them?”

“Of course. The hill tribes to the north of the sun-blessed lands.”

“Oh. No one else knows where it is. You must be very clever. My father travelled from one coast to the other to find a wife, but he chose my mother,” she said proudly. But then her face filled with sorrow. “He was so sad when she died.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I expect everyone was sad about my father. He’s dead, too.”

“I know,” she said, looking at me oddly for a moment. Then, jumping onto the high bed beside me, she picked up the book I’d been reading. “ 
‘The History of the Plains of Kallanash: Volume 2’.
” She flicked through the pages. “This looks very dull. Have the tutors been setting you work already?”

“No, I wanted to read it. It’s all about the Petty Kings and their wars. It’s very exciting.”

She stared disbelievingly at me. “Really? Tell me something exciting from it, then.”

“Very well. I’ll tell you the story of Prince Ronnard and Princess Callinnia. That’s my favourite.”

She rearranged the pillows so she could sit beside me, and settled down happily to listen.

~~~~~

Once I was deemed well enough, I was allowed to join in the normal activities of the King’s Keep. It was an odd thing, but as soon as I’d arrived, almost the instant the carriage had driven through the archway under the walls, I’d begun to feel more energised. I’d expected to fade away to nothing, as I had every other time I’d been separated from Mother, but it didn’t happen, and I felt better than I had for an age.

I was to take lessons each morning, then a nap after the noon board, and the afternoons I spent with Millan and Tisha and, sadly, Lathran. We went to the gardens in the centre of the Keep, which was wonderfully restful, or wandered around the many stalls and shops lining the walls. When it was wet, we went to the mages’ house, and played games of stones or bones, or calling games. Lathran was very bad at all of them. He hated sitting still.

On rest-suns, we went out into the town beyond the Keep walls. Millan was river-born, but Tisha had hordes of kin at Kingswell, so we went to see a different branch of her family each time. They were fun, and there were generally enough fidgety boys to scoop up Lathran for some pretend fighting, and leave me with the girls. They didn’t play games much, but I kept them quiet by telling them stories.

All my lessons, I discovered, were to be held in the children’s library. This had me very excited, until I saw it. A single room, not much bigger than my own sitting room, with the centre filled with individual desks and two walls lined from floor to ceiling with books.

“Is this all there are?” I said, on my first morning there. “I thought there would be a lot more books than this.”

“This is more than enough for now,” said Magister Abranda. She was quite young for a tutor, about Mother’s age, but stern-faced. She had a nasal voice, and breathed through her mouth, which made her gape like a fish. “You can read any of these that seem interesting to you. Would you like to choose one to read now, Lady Axandrina? Then you might read aloud to us, so that we can assess your current level?”

With my old tutors, I would no doubt have accepted that for the time being, and wheedled what I wanted out of them later, when I’d softened them up a bit. Tutors were easy enough to manipulate, if you were good at the work they set. But here I could be as rude as I wanted. With luck, they would report to the Drashona that I was obnoxiously uncooperative, and she would send me home in disgust.

I pulled a few volumes at random from the shelves. “These are children’s books.”

“Well, of course.” The Magister tittered. “This is the
children’s
library.”

“At Zendronia, I had access to the Kellona’s library. It was quite small, though. You must have a bigger library somewhere. Can’t I use that?”

“Children are not permitted in the Keep library,” she said repressively. “No one is, without demonstrating a need. We cannot have just anyone looking at the books, you know.”

“Why ever not? And how do I demonstrate my need?”

She looked me up and down, and I could see her mind scratching round for a way to deny me, without an outright refusal. Then she smiled. “When you have read every volume of
‘The Child’s Complete Description of The World’
in this room, then you may ask to use the Keep library.”

“Where may I find these volumes?”

“In the appropriate sections, naturally.”

“Which are— Oh, it’s a game! Excellent!”

I would have rushed off at once to begin the search for these mysterious volumes, but that would have been too much fun for Magister Abranda to allow me, so I had to read out loud, and then do number work for the rest of the morning.

It didn’t take me long to work out the system. There were more than twenty children being tutored, aged from seven or eight up to twelve, and only three or four tutors at any one time. Each of us would be set some work to do, the slate examined by one or other of the tutors, and then we’d be given another problem to work on. But inevitably there were periods of inactivity waiting for a tutor to be free. In those times, we were allowed to read, or to choose a book.

Naturally, I tore through my work and then dashed off to search for the volumes that would give me the key to the wonderful library for adults.
Vhar-zhin
was my enthusiastic aide in this enterprise, either helping me search, or keeping the tutors occupied to give me more time. I suspected that one or two of the other tutors were furtively assisting me, too, when they could, by distracting
Magister Abranda
, or, once, actually pointing to one of the volumes lurking on a low shelf. It would have been an easy task if I could have searched the room at other times, or taken the books away to read, but perhaps that would also have spoiled the fun somewhat.

I don’t suppose Magister Abranda intended it that way, but setting me such a challenge was exactly the right way to help me settle in. If I hadn’t burned with the desire to win the game, I would have been desperately unhappy for those first few moons at Kingswell. I’d never been so far from home before, or away for so long, and I missed my family with a passion. I even thought fondly of Markell and Sallorna, which shows how bad things were. Mother and Cal both wrote to me regularly, and several of Cal’s family, too, and I wrote back, filling sheet after sheet with trivial details that must have cost a fortune to send.

Vhar-zhin was my saviour, a friend who listened uncomplainingly to every whiny rant of mine, and there were a lot of rants. She explained Keep customs to me, showed me the secret ways to get about or to hide, taught me how to manage the supercilious servants and often crept into my bed at night and hugged me when I cried myself to sleep. I don’t know what I’d have done without her.

~~~~~

It was well into autumn when I finished reading the final volume. I went triumphantly to Magister Abranda. The whole room fell silent, a score of faces turned to watch, like sunroses following the sun.

“And how many volumes did you find?” she asked sweetly.

An easy question. “Nineteen, Magister.”

“I think you will find that there are twenty volumes in the set, Lady Axandrina.”

“That is correct, but the volume on languages and scripts is missing.”

Her eyes narrowed. “If it is missing, how do you know what is in it?”

“It is referenced more than once in the two volumes on societies and customs.”

“Well, then, you still have one more book to read, I believe.”

“But it is not in this room, Magister, and you only said that I had to read every volume that was in this room.”

“How dare you answer back!” She caught her temper quickly, and gave me a sickly smile. “But I suppose we must make allowances for one with your background. The matter is closed. When you have read all twenty volumes, you may raise this subject again.”

With a look of exultation, she turned away.

I could hardly breathe. It was so unfair! But she was not likely to be swayed by tears or pleading. Perhaps there was another way?

I cleared my throat, and said loudly, “I wish to appeal to a higher authority.”

She turned back to me with a face like a storm-cloud. “Only criminals have that right.”

“And petitioners, Magister. I am a petitioner whose petition has been denied. I claim the right of appeal to a higher authority.”

“I believe that
I
am the highest authority there is, Lady Axandrina.”

“Higher than the Drashona?”

She laughed harshly, like a frog croaking. “You may appeal to the Drashona, for all the good it will do you.”

So I decided I would do just that.

All six of the Drashona’s legal children spent an hour with her most suns, after her afternoon duties were over and before she dashed off to prepare for some grand banquet or ceremony or other. She was always busy, but for that hour she made it seem as if she had all the time in the world for us.