Chapter Seventeen #3
I wasn’t sure how to respond. The idea of Patrick—calculating, clever Patrick—living such a simple life should have been absurd. But watching him entertain two frightened children with sleight of hand and soft words—it didn’t seem entirely impossible.
“I think you would have to abandon your fine manners and clothes,” I said with the ghost of a smile. “A market magician doesn’t wear velvet cloaks lined with fur.”
“They would only add to my air of mystery.”
“Oh you have that in spades, all right.”
“And I have my charm to fall back on.”
I tilted my head, studying him theatrically. “Perhaps.”
He placed a hand over his heart. “You wound me.”
“No, I’m sure many a village maid would find the illusionist remarkably charming,” I said.
“But not you?”
“A man of magic tricks and sweet words? Any good mother would have warned me against someone like you.” My smile faded a little as I thought about my own mother.
She had warned me against magicians, affinities, and even Patrick himself, obliquely.
What would she think of my traveling in his company?
I’m sorry, I said to her silently. I need his help to find you.
“That’s fair,” said Patrick, interrupting my thoughts. “Though I might have tried to win your favor all the same.”
The wistfulness in his voice caught me off guard. I tried to laugh it off.
“I don’t think I would have trusted your intentions.”
“And would you have been right?”
“Oh, undoubtedly,” I said. “You are very good at making people see what you want them to see, and no more. Although … You were very sweet. With the girls.”
He looked into the fire, a bitter twist to his smile now. “I’ve had a lifetime of practice,” he said. “When one is the smallest piece on the board, one learns quickly how to move unnoticed—or appear larger.”
Gisane’s voice broke the silence that followed. “The fire is burning low,” she said. “We will need more wood if we are to make it last the night.”
Patrick stood, brushing the dust from his breeches. “Allow me,” he said with a shallow bow.
I stared into the fire, letting myself be drawn in by its dance. The glow, the sinuous curves, the way the flames came together like hands in prayer and then parted reminded me of the shapes of the Temple motifs. Gisane sat beside me, halting my reverie.
“You’ve a good man there,” she said gently. “Charming. Clever.” She nudged me in the side. “Handsome.”
I sat up straighter, startled. “Charming and clever, certainly,” I said, with a little acid in my tone. “But he’s not mine. We are just traveling together. Temporarily.”
“Oh. I’m sorry, my lady. I thought …”
“It’s all right,” I said hurriedly, hearing the sounds of Patrick returning.
He stepped into the clearing with an armful of wood and a faint smile on his lips.
Was he handsome? I studied him. His features were pleasing, if sharp, and his green-brown eyes were arresting.
He had a presence, there was no doubt about that—despite being a small man, he seemed to be able to shape the world about himself, taking up more space than was his due.
“Plenty of kindling out there, if a little damp,” he said, setting it down near the fire. His eyes flicked to me. I turned my gaze back to the fire, my cheeks burning, and he crouched to add wood to the flames. His expression remained calm, almost amused.
“Have I missed some profound exchange?” he asked lightly, arranging the kindling with care.
“No,” I said quickly. I kept my eyes on the flames, avoiding both his gaze and the knowing look I could feel from Gisane.
“Just the idle chatter of women,” she said.
We managed to get some sleep that night, at least. Neither of us relished the thought of being pressed together in the saddle for another day, but we still had a little way to go before we reached Spire, and we could not linger.
Before we left, Patrick crouched beside the little girls to show them one last trick—making a pebble disappear from his hand and reappear behind Mari’s ear.
The younger girl squealed with delight, clapping her small hands, while Lina fixed her wide eyes on his every movement.
“Again!” Mari cried, giggling as she reached for his hand.
“I’m afraid not, my lady,” Patrick said as he ruffled her hair. “We’ve a long road ahead.”
“Don’t go,” she pleaded, her small hands clutching at the hem of his cloak.
“I’m afraid we must,” he said, straightening. Lina sniffled but nodded reluctantly. Mari clung to him a moment longer before stepping back, tears brimming. She glanced at her sister, then at me, and then back at Patrick with sudden determination.
“When I grow up,” Mari declared, her voice small but firm, “I’m going to marry you.”
Patrick blinked, momentarily caught off guard. Then he laughed, a warm, rich sound.
“Are you now?” he said.
Gisane laughed. “You’ll have to forgive her, my lord,” she said, placing a hand on Mari’s shoulder. “She’s never met anyone so grand before. We’ll not forget your kindness.”
With a final wave and farewell, we turned to leave, leading Fane (and Baldbeak, who was perched on her flank) back to the road.
“You made quite an impression,” I said.
“I suppose I should start planning for my wedding,” he said soberly.
“She’s six,” I said flatly.
“Then I have at least twenty years to ready myself.”
“And your bride-to-be is half your height and missing both her front teeth. An impressive conquest indeed.”
We rode a little way, then stopped to transform ourselves into the people we needed to be at Spire.
Patrick wedged a little mirror into the crook of a tree branch and worked a bar of soap into a lather.
I watched as he shaved his neat beard carefully and shrugged on his impeccable black coat.
The motley one that I had repaired went back in the saddlebag.
“There is a dress for you in my pack,” he said. “So that you look the part when we reach Spire.”
“A dress? How on earth …”
“I had it made in Quell. I had hoped I would persuade you to travel with me, and I like to be prepared.”
“How do I know it will fit?”
“I have an eye for measurements.”
“And what am I to make of that statement?”
“Make of it whatever you will. Just try it.”
I ducked into a patch of bushes to change.
To my eternal annoyance, he was right. The dress fit almost perfectly.
When I emerged, he watched as the Hair dressed itself, twisting and folding until it had created an elegant updo, without any interference from me at all.
It took longer than usual and was more sluggish, with the dye, but it still managed to arrange itself into an approximation of respectability.
“Remarkable,” said Patrick.
Showing off, the Hair loosed one tendril to fall along my neck and collarbone, curling slightly. It caught the morning sun and gleamed like a pint of dark beer, a little of its red shining through the black. Patrick reached out and took it gently, giving it a tug.
“So lovely,” he said. Then, glancing quickly at my face: “The sunlight.”
I made a face. “It looks like someone emptied a bucket of pitch over my head.”
“Well,” he said, businesslike again, “no one will recognize you, from a distance at least. Yes”—he took a step back to examine me—“I think we have done rather well. You look the very picture of a scholarly young lady.”
He turned to Baldbeak. “There’s not much we can do to make a giant raven look respectable,” he said. “We’ll have to aim for ‘amusingly eccentric accessory.’ The rich often have such things.”
“You speak as if you aren’t one of them.”
“I wasn’t always,” he said. “But I have studied them for a long time. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some ravens to talk to.”
Patrick lifted his hand, and the air changed.
I felt it before I saw anything—like a ripple beneath the skin of the sky.
Then came the beating of wings. At first, just one raven swooped down.
Then another. And another. A dozen of them came in a rush, gathering from every direction.
Within moments, he was surrounded: the ground around him alive with them, the air churning as more spiraled down.
Flock, said Baldbeak happily.
Patrick turned in the midst of them, and the birds wheeled with him.
His lips moved—words too low for me to catch.
The ravens listened, their glossy heads tilting.
One by one, he touched them lightly—on the wing, the breast, the beak—his voice changing with each touch, as though giving a different command. Then the whole mass took flight.
Patrick lowered his arms slowly. For a long moment he stood there, still as stone, the faint wind tugging at his cloak. Then he glanced back at me. His hazel eyes were unreadable. “Where are they going?” I asked.
“Oh, here and there,” he said evasively.
We reached our destination in little more than an hour after that. The farmland gave way to little hamlets, which started to run together the closer we got to the town. Spire itself was a gracious town of yellow stone, the monastery at its outskirts ornate, but not ostentatiously so.
“This monastery is home to the largest and most prestigious scriptorium in Virelith,” said Patrick, bringing Fane to a halt.
“The books inside are immensely valuable. Among the most valuable artifacts in the kingdom, in fact. The Temple keeps them under close guard. Ostensibly, the Temple and the royal family are hand in hand on this matter, but the king would prefer these books to be out of the monasteries and safe in a palace vault.”
With my ear against his back, half asleep, I felt his voice rumbling through me.
Any self-consciousness about our close proximity had long disappeared, replaced by saddle sores, aching legs, and simple gratitude for having something to lean against while I closed my eyes.
I raised my head now to look more closely at the monastery.
“Then how will we get in?”
He looked over his shoulder with a smirk. “A wealthy, knowledgeable patron and his assistant? I imagine we won’t have much trouble.”