A Dragon In the Palace Page 6

  I made a disgusted face. I had heard this before. Even though she was not looking at me, the book snapped closed as she said, “there’s no need for that expression, boy.”

  I wondered if she had been using a spell to keep me under observation or whether she was just guessing or whether it was simply that she knew me well enough to know what I was doing. “If you think about what I’m saying, you’ll see that I’m trying to tell you something important. Don’t try to say anything smart. Don’t feel sorry for yourself. Think! Use the brain I know you have. Once you learn to do that, you’ll have a smattering of the understanding it takes to become a wizard.”

  She took the volume, sat down at her desk and opened it again. She had quite obviously finished speaking and was going to study something herself. I could tell from her posture that she did not want to be interrupted so I did what she suggested.

  After a time I thought I saw the purpose of all this repetition. It was not just visualising the glyph that was important. It was the way that you did it. There was a way of putting things together that would summon the power when done properly. Perhaps all I was trying to do was repeat the spell until I stumbled upon a formula that worked for me. Perhaps the important thing was simply doing it till I found what I was looking for.

  I was tempted to blurt my insight out. Instead I kept thinking. Perhaps Mistress Iliana had given me a key. I thought about the times I was close to casting the spell. I tried to remember how I felt. I tried to remember the frame of mind I had been in. I tried to remember whether I had conjured up the glyph fully formed or had imagined it coming into being one line at a time.

  My memory was not that good. Perhaps I remembered something but I could not be certain. I needed to observe my process for invoking the glyph and recollect what I was doing at the same time. If I felt I was close to being able to work the magic I would try and repeat that.

  It was easier to come up with this theory than to put it into practice. I tried to watch my thoughts as I cast the spell. It was like trying to do two difficult things at once, much harder than simply visualising the glyph itself.

  I did not let that discourage me. I kept trying to conjure up the glyph, to summon the light as I had once done. With my first efforts, I never got close but I did not expect to. Determined not to give up, I sat there as the afternoon light died, trying and trying again. I did not stop until I felt Red’s claws scrabbling at my ankles, and his hungry mewling assaulted my ears.

  When I looked up I found Mistress Iliana standing over me, studying me. I was so caught up in what I was doing, I had not even noticed she was there.

  “You have been unnaturally quiet,” she said. “And there has been a distinct lack of bothersome questions all afternoon.”

  “I was attempting to do what you said, mistress,” I said. “And I have been trying to cast the spell, to no avail, as you can see.”

  Red tugged at the cuff of my trousers. He wanted food. I picked him up absent-mindedly and began to feed him a small scrap of sausage. That quieted him a little.

  “You do not sound quite so troubled about that as you did a few hours ago,” she said.

  “I think I understood what you were saying. That it’s going to be a matter of attempting the thing until I get it right and then repeating that until it becomes second nature.”

  “Very good, boy. You are capable of thinking for yourself when you have to. I do not doubt for a moment that you will be able to cast that spell.”

  “Thank you, Mistress Iliana,” I said.

  “It will just be the first step on a road you may be walking for the rest of your life.”

  “But first I have to learn to walk, don’t I, mistress?”

  “That you do and you can try again tomorrow. It’s time for you to return to your chambers now. Tomorrow I must return to my normal duties around the Palace and I have arranged for you to have different teachers.”

  My heart leapt at that statement. Red’s head rose and he glanced around as if looking for someone. “You mean for reading and such.”

  “Yes. You must continue with those lessons and many others.”

  “Who will teach me to read, mistress?” I was hoping that she would say Lady Alysia. After all that was what had happened when we were travelling. It was as if Mistress Iliana read my thoughts. She shook her head and said, “your new teacher will not be as pretty as your last. Now run along. I have work to do.”

  I had to go down two flights of stairs to reach my room. I was very self-conscious every time I passed a servant or any of the guards. I felt as if I was pretending to dwell within the Palace and that at any moment someone was going to shout at me or point out that I should not be there and I was not going to have any answer for them.

  I passed my door and then took another flight of stairs and went out into the courtyard that I had walked through with Frater Jonas. It was early evening. A couple of guards marched towards the gates. I wondered what would happen if I followed them and tried to go through. I had never dared wander too far from my room.

  I walked as slowly as I could, hoping I would see Lady Alysia although I did not think that there was much chance that she would come to this part of the building.

  I strode into the courtyard with the orange trees and much to my surprise she was there, talking with two other girls. They must have been her age and they certainly belonged to her social class, judging by the dresses they wore.

  After days of wanting to talk to her, I froze. As soon as I saw her my heart raced. My palms felt clammy. Sweat ran down my back and stained my tunic. That thought was enough to make me want to run away.

  I stood torn between the urge to flee and the desire to walk up and speak and I could not make myself move. I felt like an idiot. I cursed myself and still I could do nothing.

  Alysia noticed me and she said something to one of her friends. Doubtless they were sharing a joke about me. She was telling them that I was a peasant had somehow found his way into the Palace.

  All of them giggled and started walking towards me. Red clambered onto my shoulders and flapped his wings. The breeze stirred my hair and cooled the back of my neck. The girls paused when they saw him, looked at each other and laughed again.

  Lady Alysia stretched out her hand and my little dragon flapped into the air and landed on her arm. She hugged him close like he was a treasured pet and I wished I was in his position. That just made me feel even more self-conscious.

  She leaned forward and whispered something into Red’s ear and then she fumbled inside a purse that she carried and produced something that Red snapped into his jaws and gulped down as if he had not seen food in days.

  Lady Alysia looked at me and said, “have you not been feeding this little monster?”

  “Yes,” I said. Suddenly my mouth was working again and we exchanged smiles that way we used to when we travelled together. The distance between us vanished. I was suddenly not aware of the giggling girls and only of her and I walked towards her and stretched out my arm and Red hopped from her to me.

  “How have you been?” she asked.

  “Studying,” I said. “With Mistress Iliana.”

  Both of her attendants seemed a little shocked by this and backed off. Either that or they were just being tactful and giving us space.

  “Magic?” Lady Alysia spoke so quietly that I was the only one who could hear.

  I nodded. I didn’t mention my many failures. I wanted to impress her. “What have you been doing?”

  “Accompanying my father, sewing, reading, all of the things expected of me,” she said it as if it were some sort of tragedy. Perhaps for her it was. I remembered seeing her standing in the Glass Wing, and that made me think of a caged bird.

  “Reading,” I said, hoping to remind her of our lessons together on the road.

  “I asked if I could take up my old job teaching you. Everyone forbids it. Even your mistress.”

  Remembering Mistress Iliana’s speech on the subject I understood w
hy, but it did not seem like a good idea to bring that up. “I am sorry to hear that. You were my favourite teacher.”

  Her cheeks flushed in a way I could see through the thin veil. She tilted her head to one side and moved a strand of hair back beneath her headscarf. “I miss being on the road.”

  “You miss being hunted by assassins?” It seemed best to remind her of the dangers.

  “At least life was not dull.” She was trying to sound brave, but I thought I heard a note of nervousness beneath the bravado.

  “You find palace life dull?”

  “Don’t you?”

  “It all seems very new to me and very strange.”

  “It’s all I have ever known, aside from the journey to Tarnheim and back.”

  I smiled at her. She noticed. “Why are you smiling.”

  “I have missed talking with you.”

  “And I with you. When I heard you took these walks in this courtyard I thought I would try picking some oranges.”

  “I am glad you did.”

  “Me too.” She laughed and then her hand went to her mouth. “I need to go now before anyone thinks to look for me here.”

  I was disappointed but then behind her I saw the old stone-faced chaperone who had accompanied her the last time we spoke was approaching.

  “I would like to talk with you again.”

  “I’ll try and arrange it,” she said. “Goodbye.”

  “Goodbye.” She turned and scampered away, quick as Red on the trail of food. I took a seat on the edge of the courtyard and remained there until it grew dark and my mistress came looking for me.

  Despite all of her warnings of the dangers, I could not help thinking about Lady Alysia and daydreaming.

  Chapter Seven

  Next morning there was a knock on my door. I was up and dressed and shouted, “Enter.”

  The door opened and much to my surprise Frater Jonas was standing there. Fear twisted my stomach. I wondered if he had come to take me back to the cellar and interrogate me. I stared over his shoulders and saw that there were no guardsmen there.

  “Good morning,” he said. “Blessings of the Holy Sun upon you.”

  It was not the greeting I expected from an inquisitor and I was suspicious. “And you.”

  “May I come in?”

  “Of course.” He stepped inside and looked around, taking in the shuttered window and the four-poster bed with the gauzy mosquito curtains.

  “You have a nice room.” I thought about my mistress’s chambers. They were the only thing in the palace that I had to compare this to and mine suffered by the comparison. “Of course, it would look even nicer if you opened the window and let the Holy Sun’s light in.”

  “Be my guest,” I said. He walked over and threw the shutters open. I had not even known they were unlocked. The room did look better in the light.

  “You have come to resume your questioning?” I prepared myself for the worst.

  He shook his head. “I have come to teach you.”

  “To teach me? I am not an inquisitor.”

  “And you don’t want to learn to be one?” He laughed. “I can’t say as I blame you.”

  “Then what are you supposed to teach me?”

  “Solari. Reading, writing. Master Lucas asked Frater Franco if I would be willing to do this. Your mistress and he agreed upon this between them.”

  “And it lets you keep an eye on me,” I said. The words just slipped out before I could stop them.

  Jonas raised an eyebrow. “What makes you think you are so important?”

  It was a good question and one to which I had no easy answer. I thought I was the hero of my own story. It was hard to imagine that I did not hold the same significance to these others. Jonas waited to see if I would answer. I suspect he understood my embarrassment. “Come,” he said. “Walk with me. I have been learning to find my way about the palace.”

  Red scuttled over to inspect Jonas, but was disappointed to find he bore no food. The dragonling hopped onto my shoulder and ignored the Inquisitor’s attempts to pet him.

  “You should have brought some sausage as a bribe,” I said.

  “I’ll remember that in future,” said Jonas. “Shall we go?”

  He led me out into the courtyard through a door I had often passed by never entered and up a long cool flight of stairs that lay within a very thick wall.

  We emerged on the battlements. I looked out over the red-tiled roofs and white-washed tenements of a city. The buildings stretched almost as far as I could see and ended in another set of walls. A maze of streets twisted and turned below us, filled with people. There were date palms here and there. The heat of the day already shimmered in the air. I smelled woodsmoke, and spices. Dogs barked, and vendors touted their wares.

  Jonas tugged at my shoulder and pointed. I looked north. A massive white-walled tower rose there, dwarfing all the buildings around it. A golden cupola tipped it. Elder signs were worked in its side. Something brilliant glittered at its tip. When he saw it, Red gave a long happy shriek. At least that is what it sounded like. He started to wriggle out of his sling.

  “The Lighthouse,” Jonas said, and added a word I did not recognise.

  I stared at him. “The Lighthouse?”

  “The word I just said means Lighthouse in High Solari.” He pointed at the buildings and said another word.

  “And that means house?”

  “It means tenement, which is what those are,” Jonas said. He turned and walked along the wall. Sentries nodded to him as we passed, and glanced curiously at me and Red who by now had clambered onto my shoulder. It was quite clear that Jonas was well known here, and that we were being introduced. “Custodes,” he said. “Watchmen.”

  I repeated the words. “Is this part of my lesson?”

  “I am reminding myself as much as I can tell I am impressing you.”

  “You are impressing me. You are the only person I have heard speaking High Solari aside from the priest in Khorba during church services.”

  “Your mistress can speak High Solari, read and write it too. Almost every educated person can. The nobility speak it. It is practically a requirement among them. It is the language of their ancestors after all.”

  There was a bitterness in his voice that reminded me of the way Mistress Iliana spoke. “But not yours.”

  “No, not mine, but I have had the privilege of being taught the Blessed Tongue, among several other languages.”

  “I don’t know what to say.”

  He gave me a rueful look. “You don’t have to say anything. And I am sorry. I am supposed to be teaching you, not complaining in a way that boasts of my erudition.”

  Gulls swept by overhead then descended towards the street. I guessed they had spotted something they could eat. Red’s head tracked them curiously. He flexed his wings and shifted his weight as if he was considering going down to investigate himself. “Boast away. You have obviously been more successful with your lessons than I have been with mine.”

  “I have been learning for years. You have been learning for weeks at most. Let us discuss the success of your lessons after a dozen moons have passed. You may be surprised by how much you have learned.”

  “I’ll take your word for it.”

  “High Solari is a useful thing to know.” said Jonas. “Not as much as sorcery perhaps, but still. It’s one of the two great languages of scholarship in the world. And every educated person in the West reads and writes it, or at least pretends to be able to.”

  “One of two? What is the other?” I already had my suspicions but I wanted them confirmed.

  “Eldrim, the day to day language of the Old Ones and their functionaries, of many sorcerers too.”

  “You know that tongue as well?”

  He nodded. “It is one of the two great languages of international diplomacy as well. The Children of the Old Ones speak it, as do their satraps and servants.”

  “Both Solari and Eldrim are the languages of empire th
en.”

  “That is so.”

  I nodded. “I think there is a kind of magic in being able to speak another tongue, in being able to read and write as well.”

  “You are probably correct. It’s certainly a useful skill.”

  I looked at him. “Why are you really here?”

  “To teach you.”

  “Why would the inquisition want one of their own to teach a sorcerer?”

  “You really have no idea?” He seemed genuinely baffled. Red’s head tracked from side to side, looking first at Jonas and then at me as we spoke. It was almost as if he was trying to follow the conversation.

  “None.”

  “Master Lucas asked us to do it.”

  “So you have already said.”

  “He is a great ally of the Church. He thinks you have the potential to be the same.”

  I stared at him. It seemed very foolish to deny this. “Does he?”

  “He said you are devout and that your power could be used in service of the Holy Sun.”

  I began to get a sense of what was going on here. I was not sure why the Inquisition wanted me, but it appeared they did. Jonas waited expectantly and once again it struck me that I would be very foolish to do anything other than agree with him and yet…“I believe in the Holy Sun.”

  It was the very least I could say, or so it seemed to me. Jonas waited and in that waiting I felt a compulsion to speak on, to pledge allegiance or at very least justify myself. I resented it but at the same time I felt I was standing on the edge of a very dangerous precipice. I looked out over the battlements and studied the rooftops once more. “I am apprenticed to Mistress Iliana.”

  “Of course,” said Jonas smoothly. “And you feel that her teaching better suits your talents.”

  There was no judgement in his voice, just curiosity. I wondered how much of that was an act. “I don’t know and I am not in a position to know. Yet.”