‘They’re as generous as ever any people could be,’ Rhodorix said, ‘and our prince strikes me as a man more noble than any I’ve ever met. But ye gods, they look peculiar!’
‘Even the women?’
‘Especially the women. Now, here, I don’t mean to insult your friend Nalla, but her eyes make me uneasy, and those ears! Like a donkey’s.’
‘Oh, they are not! How mean!’
‘Very well, then, not as bad as a donkey’s.’ He reached out and touched the side of her face. ‘But she’ll never be half as lovely as you are.’
‘Come now! You’re just flattering me.’
‘And why would I do that?’
Before she could answer, he bent his head and kissed her, just a quick brush of his mouth across hers, but she felt as if he’d touched her with fire. He grinned, took the white crystal from her, and left without another word. She stood by her doorway and watched him disappear around the corner before she went inside.
That night she dreamt about Rhodorix. When the dawn gongs sounding on the priests’ tower woke her, she lay abed for some while, smiling and remembering the dream.
After the morning meal Hwilli went to the herbroom. The day before, the apprentices had cleaned several bushels of plants and set them to dry on wooden racks. They would need turning so that they’d dry evenly. When she came in, she saw Paraberiel perching on a stool and reading from the unnamed brown book. When he looked up and saw Hwilli, he said nothing, just ostentatiously put the book into a cupboard and made sure that the door stayed shut. He caught her watching him and gave her a bland little smile. You swine! Hwilli thought. Master Jantalaber hurried in from the corridor.
‘Ah, there you are, Hwilli, good,’ Jantalaber said. ‘If you’d finish working with those herbs? I’m afraid the prince has summoned me for some reason. The servant didn’t know why, so I have no idea how long I’ll be gone.’
‘Of course, Master.’
‘Thank you. Par, come with me.’
Paraberiel hesitated, turning toward the cupboard.
‘You can leave the book there,’ Jantalaber said. ‘Hwilli can look at it if she wishes.’
Paraberiel opened his mouth as if he were about to protest, but Jantalaber was striding out of the room. Reluctantly he followed the master. Hwilli waited until they were well and truly gone, then went to the cupboard and took out the little brown book. As soon as she opened it, she realized why the master had been so casual.
Although it was written in the usual syllabary, and the language seemed the usual language of the People, she had no idea what anything meant, simply because the scattered notes – mere jottings, really, in Jantalaber’s familiar script – contained a welter of unfamiliar words. Astral, convoluted, etheric, a long list of what seemed to be names, a variety of words marked with various verbal forms, another list of what seemed to be places – dweomer terms, she realized suddenly, referring to things that she’d never be judged fit to know. The master had drawn a few sketchy diagrams here and there of something he seemed to be planning on building, but she understood none of them. She shut the book with a snap and shoved it back into its cupboard.
Had the master been mocking her, when he’d told his other favoured apprentice to let her see the book? While she carefully turned each leafy plant on the wooden drying racks, that question tormented her. Jantalaber returned alone just as she’d got about half-way through her task.
‘My apologies for letting you do all that,’ he said. ‘Par resents you, you know, because you’re smarter than he is, so I knew he’d hinder rather than help you.’
Hwilli nearly dropped the rack she was carrying. Jantalaber smiled, then picked a stalk of eyebright from the tray and sniffed it.
‘Yes, you can put those back,’ he said. ‘They’re not quite ready. Did you look at the book?’
‘I did. I understood none of it. Of course.’
‘Of course?’ He quirked a pale eyebrow.
‘Isn’t that why you let me look at it? Because you knew I couldn’t make sense of it?’
‘That wasn’t it at all.’
Hwilli felt herself blush. She hurriedly turned away and carried the rack to the drying room, lined with shelves to hold the wooden racks. The scents of over fifty different herbs seemed to thicken the air, as if she’d walked into a foggy day. The master followed her.
‘I’ve often got the impression,’Jantalaber said, ‘that you’re very much interested in dweomer workings.’
‘I know they’re forbidden to me.’
‘By tradition, certainly. By common sense, not at all.’
Her hands started shaking. She slid the rack into its place on the shelves before she did drop it and disgrace herself.
‘I’ve learned as much from you as you have from me, Hwilli,’ the master continued. ‘All our traditions say that your folk cannot learn dweomer, simply cannot. I suspect that those traditions arose because none of the People ever bothered to get to know your folk.’
‘I –’ She spun around to find him smiling at her.
‘Now, I’ve taught my apprentices to put any guesses and surmises about healing to the test, haven’t I? I’d like to put my suspicion to the test. Do you want to share Nalla’s lessons?’
‘I’d like naught better in the world!’
‘So I thought. If you hadn’t bothered to look at the brown book, I never would have offered, by the by. But I felt that you’d be curious enough, and you were.’
‘Thank you, I don’t know how to thank you enough –’
‘You’re very welcome. Now, about that book. Doubtless you noticed that it only contained notes in my hand.’
‘I did.’
‘They’re notes toward an idea that lies near to my heart, a special place we could use for healing and naught but healing. This fortress exists to serve death. We healers exist to serve life, and we need a place free of death to study healing, somewhere that possesses healing in its very nature. You won’t understand all this at first.’ Suddenly he laughed, and his eyes took on an excitement she’d never seen there before. ‘I don’t truly understand it all myself. For now, let me just say that other masters in the healing arts agree and are planning on helping me build such a place.’
‘It sounds splendid.’
‘It might well be splendid, when we’re done.’ He let the smile fade. ‘Assuming, of course, that we can finish the work now, with the Meradan raiding and killing. Ah well, who knows what the gods have in store for any of us?’
‘Or what our destiny will be.’ Hwilli felt abruptly cold and shivered. ‘And perhaps that’s just as well.’
Jantalaber laughed again, but his normally silvery voice took on a hard edge. ‘Perhaps,’ he said. ‘For now, though, I want you to look at the first three pages of that book again. I’ll wager there are words there you don’t know. Memorize them, then ask Nalla or me what they mean.’
‘I already have. Memorized them, I mean. I never thought I’d be allowed to ask.’
‘Well, you are.’ He paused, turned toward the door, and listened to a noise outside. ‘Ah, yes. Nalla, come in. Hwilli’s agreed.’
Laughing, Nalla rushed into the herbroom. She caught Hwilli’s hands in both of hers and squeezed them. ‘I know it,’ she announced, ‘I know you can do this!’
‘Thank you.’ Hwilli was thinking, I