CHAPTER FIVE #2
“I’m dying to know what Edgard thinks all this will accomplish,” Sabina was saying.
“Other than provoke the neighboring countries, I mean. My theory is the last war was so unpopular, he’s trying to goad another nation into starting one.
Preule in particular. Their land is very coal rich, you know.
My brother says lumber’s the ticket, with shipping being what it is, but I say, what’s powering all the machines making those things they’re shipping?
At any rate, they’ll be livid when they hear.
His majesty has all but sworn off marriage, and they’ve been pushing their princess on him for years, saving her for him. She isn’t getting any younger.”
“She might want to get in on this venture, then,” he said, pulling his eyes back to the dais where Edgard’s clerk would give his speech.
“But phoenixes are just in storybooks. Aren’t they?” Her forehead wrinkled. “Perhaps it’s a metaphor.”
Sy’s shoulders tensed as somehow, over all the din, David’s laugh landed in his ear. “Never let it be said complete transformation is impossible,” he said, adjusting his gloves. “Evidently, Terrence has spontaneously become interesting.”
Sabina stifled a very unladylike snort with a cough, covering her mouth with her hand.
Suddenly, the prospect of a night alone was not so welcome as it had been. And Sabina was not one to linger in the mornings or wear his robes, and, to his knowledge, had never once read his mail.
Knowing he would sound desperate however he framed it, he abandoned all pretense. He leaned closer to her and spoke in a low voice. “Tell me, are you free this evening? Alone?”
She flushed and smiled slyly, but shook her head.
“That would be lovely,” she said, bobbing her head, “but I really can’t.
I’ve too many affairs to sort before I set off for the country next week.
My brother’s wife won’t let us stay a moment longer than necessary.
Hates the city air in summer. I told her it won’t stink any more after the solstice than it does now.
But, the country is refreshing.” She brightened.
“I can set you up with some of my clients for the summer, if you’d like.
Merchants, mostly. They’d be thrilled to have you. ”
“Thank you – that’s very kind,” he managed, deciding not to mention he had every intention of being in the forest by week’s end. Nor that he anticipated, one way or another, having no need of any further affluent clientèle.
A trumpet’s sound called their attention, and a hush settled over the room as all eyes turned upon the dais. The trumpeter hurriedly slipped away.
Edgard, in full red and blue military dress uniform, complete with multiple ribbons and medals for wars in which he had not personally served, stepped up to the dais. A far more modestly dressed clerk stepped up beside him, unrolled a scroll, very quietly cleared his throat, and spoke.
“Most Honorable King’s Wizards, Honored Guests, Friends to the Crown and the Kingdom of Gescany:
“My request is not simple, but it is straightforward. I want our kingdom of Gescany to live forever. No kingdom, no nation has ever lasted more than a few centuries. I posit this is because a nation needs stability. Your king provides stability. What if your king could provide stability for all ages hence? Never again would Gescany need to worry about marriage alliances or producing heirs. We would be truly independent like no nation has ever been! Though there are many spells to prolong my life, there are none to extend it indefinitely. While such magic is not unheard of, there is only one creature capable of such a thing.”
“The phoenix,” Sabina whispered with faux gravity.
“The phoenix. I have spoken to the priests and the sages, and they all claim it is impossible to channel this magic. But I know the best innovations come to us not from the priests and the sages, nor from the old and stubborn, but from the enterprising, the young. And I know the promise of riches fuels the greatest innovations. Think, if you will, of our fabulous gunpowder factories, or our grand lumber mills, growing in number by the very day and showering our streets with gold.”
“Some of the streets,” Sy corrected under his breath.
Sabina lightly kicked his ankle. “Don’t start.”
“And so I promise vast riches to whoever can accomplish my dream. I don’t care how it is accomplished, so long as it is.
If I can in fact be made into a bird, that would be ideal.
I have always liked the idea of flying, almost as much as I like the idea of never dying or being reborn when I do die. ”
Beside the clerk, Edgard nodded, mouthing these words along with him.
“But the most important task is ensuring Gescany has her king, forever. The first to bring me the most suitable spell will receive the promised sum of fifty-thousand gold sovereigns. I hereby excuse all King’s Wizards from royal service, so long as they extend their newfound free time in the pursuit of this goal. ”
The spell on Sy’s palm seemed to tingle in relief, and he rubbed it absently. So he would be spared that concern, at least.
“Happy hunting.”
With that, as suddenly as he had appeared, Edgard left the throne room, the clerk trailing behind him. The room immediately erupted in noise.
Sabina watched him go. “That’s it?”
“What more would there be? Didn’t you hear? We’re to do all the work for him.” Sy suppressed the bitterness in his voice. “He demands, we provide.”
“He provides,” she protested, sounding almost wistful. “It is a lot of money.”
It isn’t as if you need the money, he’d said to David, and that was as true of Sabina, of anyone in this room, as it was of David. But it wasn’t true at all. They all needed money, even Edgard. That was the thing with money – it demanded to be spent.
“It is,” he agreed, turning to face David, who was approaching with Terrence in tow. “But only if you win.”
Sabina, to Sy’s immense gratitude, tucked her arm through his, smiling her feline smile at the pair. David raised one eyebrow so slightly it may have only been a twitch. He broke the silence. “Well, that was a waste of time.”
Sy adjusted his gloves. “Not enough to power the gossip mill?”
“Plenty,” David contradicted, glancing around. “Look at them. Half of them have gold coins in their eyes, the other half look ready to tear that half in two.” His voice became introspective. “I didn’t suspect there was so much interest.”
“Interest, but no sense,” Sabina said, twirling her curly fringe around one finger, her arm still in Sy’s.
“Say I scour the libraries, find the perfect spell, if it existed. There’s no immortal magic in my blood.
No blood is that powerful. Not even the king’s own. And no spell uses another’s blood.”
Almost none, Sy thought.
As if he’d spoken aloud, David’s eyes shot to Sy’s, and he frowned thoughtfully.
“Did you see Bertrand?” Terrence put in. “What’s he doing here?”
Sy bristled. It had always astonished him that this man had survived Sangfeder and Bertrand hadn’t.
But then, Terrence came from a long line of spellscribes, back to Sangfeder’s founding itself.
Bertrand’s grandfather had been a vintner from Preule, Sy thought.
He resented being expected to remember every respectable person’s family tree. Better to spend his memory on glyphs.
“He was at Martin’s last week,” Sabina informed Sy, naming the club their party frequented. She tutted. “Has to have someone cut all his meat for him, poor dear.”
“He isn’t a child,” Sy protested.
“He’s studying to become a physician,” David provided. “He’s quite knowledgeable.”
Sy started to question how David knew how knowledgeable Bertrand was, but Terrence was not finished adding his invaluable input. “It’s a travesty. If I had to walk around useless like that, I’d tell them to crush my skull instead.”
At that, David shot Sy a prescient glare.
And Sy ignored it. “Would that be an improvement, I wonder?”
“As I said, this evening has been a waste of time,” David said, tugging on Terrence’s arm as he tried to work out whether he’d been insulted. “Will you two join us for drinks at Martin’s?”
“Can’t,” Sabina said, wrapping her arm tighter around Sy’s and smiling at him sweetly. “Sy has a new portrait to show me.”
Sy smiled back, barely containing his surprise.
David, on the other hand, could not contain his. “Well,” he said stiffly. “Pondering is not all that kept you busy this week, then.”
“I am a man of many talents.”
“Indeed. Happy hunting,” David said, turning to go.
Sy frowned at the specificity of that parting shot, but let it go.
David was only sour about Sabina. It was the way of things; he and David quarreled, David ran to someone else, Sy took whoever was interested – sometimes Sabina, sometimes someone he met at the club – to bed.
After a week or two, David’s fit of angst would pass, and everything would lock back into place.
It wouldn’t, though, would it? Not this time. He felt the sudden urge to run after David, to tell him goodbye. Whatever happened, for perhaps the last time. As if he could sense it, David turned back to look at them.
“You’re welcome,” Sabina purred in his ear, interrupting his thoughts.
“Thank you,” he whispered, lowering his mouth to her ear in what appeared, from a distance, a flirtatious gesture.
Smelling the bit of amber-scented perfume she’d dabbed behind her ear, he successfully wrestled away an urge to plant his lips on her slender neck then and there, or to find a curtain behind which he could pull up her skirts.
“It’s boorish of him to parade around with Terrence that way,” she whispered back, then covered her mouth and giggled loudly for effect.
He’d always thought, in another life, with an upbringing more like his, she may have made a name for herself in the theater.
“I’ll walk you as far as the Wryneck Colonnade. ”