The Innocent Mage Read online

  An open fireplace roaring in the chamber’s far corner billowed heat into the shuttered, curtained room. Something scented had been cast into the flames; the stifling air hung heavy with perfume. Glimfire cast fuzzy pools of light from sconces on the walls. Seated on a chair by his side, the queen demurely embroidered some folderol stretched tight in a sewing hoop. She looked up as Asher entered and bowed, and gifted him with a smile. Then she put aside her amusement and her stitching, kissed her husband and stood.

  ‘There, now. I’ll leave you fine gentlemen to your plottings. Don’t tire yourself, my dear. Remember what Pother Nix said.’

  Borne pulled a face at her. ‘How could I forget, beloved, when his words are engraved upon my liver?’

  They exchanged a private smile, then Dana turned to her son. ‘Come see me in my parlour when you’ve finished, Gar. It seems an age since we’ve talked.’

  Two paces from her side, Gar stood and stared at his father as though at a stranger. Asher could see the shocked dismay locked safe and tight behind his eyes and the small half-smile that curved his lips. Stirring, the prince turned away from the altered man in the bed and reached for his mother’s hand to kiss it. ‘Of course, Mama. I’ll be with you shortly.’

  In return she kissed his cheek. Smiled again at her husband, gathered her silk skirts about her and left. As the door was closed behind her, Gar moved nearer to the bed. Asher drifted sideways, to conceal himself in shadows.

  ‘You sent for me, sir,’ said Gar.

  ‘I certainly did. Sit, sit.’ Borne patted the arm of the chair by the bed, then glanced into the shadows at the foot of the bed. ‘And how are you, Asher?’

  Asher cleared his throat and stepped forward into flickering light. ‘Very well, thank you, Your Majesty. It’s a great relief to see you looking better.’

  ‘Rubbish,’ said Borne. ‘I don’t look better, I look like the walking dead. Or I would, if Nix would let me walk. But your kind dishonesty is appreciated nevertheless. I’ll talk with you in a moment. First I must speak with Gar.’

  ‘Yes, Your Majesty.’

  He returned to the shadows as Gar slid into his mother’s chair and laid the back of his hand briefly against his da’s forehead. ‘How are you feeling, sir?’

  ‘I’m fine. Really. This is naught but a storm in a teacup.’

  ‘That’s not what Durm says.’

  Borne pulled another face, deepening the newly mined hollows in his cheeks. ‘Durm’s as bad as Nix. I am fine. Or I would be, if it weren’t for the pills and potions I’m made to swallow.’

  Gar hesitated, frowning. ‘Durm says there’s nothing I can do to help you while you’re convalescent, but I don’t believe that. There must be something. I wish you’d tell me.’

  ‘It’s funny you should ask,’ said Borne after a small pause. ‘There is one important thing I can’t do. It would ease my mind considerably were you to do it for me.’

  ‘Name it,’ Gar said promptly. ‘I’ll do anything.’

  ‘You can take a trip to the coast.’

  Asher twitched. The coast? Why the coast? And why now? Then he saw it. Damn. Of course. Borne was going to send Gar south to Westwailing for the annual Sea Harvest Festival. Well, well, this was going to make things tricky. He’d thought to go home via the festival himself. All those thousands of people. They could hide him from his brothers. Let him find Da and smooth things over without trouble from Zeth and the rest of them.

  Well, damn.

  Gar was frowning. ‘The coast, sir?’ Then his expression cleared. ‘Oh. I see. It’s coming up to Sea Harvest Festival time, isn’t it? But surely you’ll be—’

  Borne shook his head. ‘I am forbidden to put so much as a toe out of bed for another week. And it’s to be a full three weeks of naught but gentle strolling after that. Someone needs to go to Westwailing in my place, Gar. I thought you might enjoy the experience. Besides, it’s past time the Olken of Lur’s south met you.’

  Asher bit his tongue. Gar? Sing the festival? Was the king mad? Gar couldn’t sing an uncracked note to save his life. Fever must have addled Borne’s brains.

  To be fair, Gar was looking just as surprised. ‘I don’t know, sir. I’m not sure I’m the right person for this. Surely Fane is the obvious choice. Especially since—’

  Borne’s lips thinned in displeasure. ‘Magic has nothing to do with this, Gar. Sea Harvest isn’t a ceremony of power. It’s a symbolic event honouring the ancient pact between the Olken and ourselves. Celebrating the ocean’s bounty, Barl’s reward for the dutiful observance of that pact. A royal presence is what matters, not whether your voice is good enough for public display. Or whether you have magic. You couldn’t possibly—’

  ‘Spoil things?’ Gar finished for him, his expression twisted. ‘Of course not. You wouldn’t be asking me to do this if there were any danger of that. Would you?’

  The king’s face flooded with hectic colour. ‘Gar!’

  ‘Forgive me,’ Gar said distantly. ‘But we both know it’s true.’

  ‘What’s true,’ the king snapped, ‘is that I thought to have you take my place in Westwailing. You are the Olken Administrator, Gar. Important in your own right. You should be seen by—’

  ‘And Fane is Lur’s next WeatherWorker.’

  ‘Your sister is full occupied with her studies,’ said Borne, plucking at his blankets with impatient fingers. ‘And even if she weren’t I’d still want you to do this. I don’t understand your attitude. What makes you so prickly? Has something happened I should know about?’

  Asher sighed quietly. Had something happened? Only his father seemingly at death’s door, his sister poised to be made WeatherWorker and Durm barring the king’s only son all access to his grievously ill parent.

  Hardly anything really.

  Gar shoved out of the chair and moved to stand with his back half turned to the bed. ‘I’m sorry if I appear ungrateful. It isn’t my intention. You must know, sir, this has been a trying week.’

  In the king’s face was all the anguish that his son, prideful to the marrow, would never willingly show. ‘And I’m sorry, too, for worrying you with this foolish fever. Truly, it looks much worse than it is. I’ll be up and about in no time, I promise. Please, Gar. Sit. Let us discuss this matter like men of good sense.’

  Put that way, by a man who looked to have his left foot planted firmly in the grave, refusal was impossible. Gar resumed the chair by the bed and managed to unknit his brow. ‘Of course, sir.’

  ‘I would not force you to do anything you mislike,’ Borne said, his hand reaching out to rest on Gar’s knee. ‘If the idea of representing me in Westwailing displeases you so greatly, just say so and—’

  ‘It doesn’t.’ Gar’s voice was unsteady. ‘It shames me to think I’ve given you that impression. When do I leave?’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  Gar nodded. ‘Sure. As well as humbled, and honoured.’

  ‘Good. I’m glad.’ Borne’s tired eyes sparkled with vicarious excitement. ‘You’ll leave next week. I suggest you meet with Darran on this, and be guided by him. He knows to the last detail what’s involved in the festival. In fact I think it would be best if you took him to Westwailing with you.’

  Gar grimaced. ‘Must I?’

  ‘Oh, come,’ Borne said. ‘He’s not so bad as all that.’

  ‘Of course he’s not,’ agreed Gar, faintly smiling. ‘After all, you loved him so well that on the morning of my majority you gave him to me as a gift.’

  ‘He knows his business, my boy, and was exactly what you needed in setting up your own affairs. Admit it. Your office runs like clockwork, doesn’t it? You never miss an appointment or find yourself unprepared for a meeting or at a loss when important men come to call?’

  Gar sighed. ‘I know. I know. But he fusses. And he hovers. And he refuses to wear anything that isn’t black.’

  ‘And he’ll tell you all you need to know about the Sea Harvest Festival,’ Borne added, ‘and the part you’
ll be playing in it. Including all the words to the Sea Harvest Hymn.’

  ‘Can’t Asher do that? He used to be a fisherman, after all. Who better to teach me what I need to know than him?’

  Borne’s gaze flickered to the shadows, then back again. ‘I have no doubt Asher will be of invaluable service to you during your journey and time in Westwailing. Indeed I’m counting on him to be your strong right arm, as usual. But Darran knows the protocols and procedures from our perspective, Gar. Trust me, you will need him.’

  Gar sighed. ‘Oh, all right. I’ll take him with me.’ And added, uncertain, ‘Tell me. You are sure about this? If I should give you cause to regret your offer, sir, I—’

  Borne lifted his hand. ‘Never,’ he said, voice thickened with emotion. ‘You could never make me regret, Gar. You’re my son, and I love you.’

  Gar nodded. Took his father’s hand and tightened his fingers. ‘I won’t let you down, sir. I swear it.’

  ‘I know.’ The king cleared his throat and adopted a bright smile. ‘Now run away and visit your mother while I have words with your assistant here. She misses you.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Gar, and withdrew from the chamber, giving Asher a hard glance in passing. Don’t tire him. Be polite.

  Asher rolled his eyes and stepped out of the shadows to meet with the king.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Borne indicated the chair by the bed, inviting Asher to sit. ‘The queen tells me you were a great help to her the day I fell ill. I wanted to thank you.’

  Perching on the edge of the comfortable armchair, Asher shrugged. Politely. ‘I didn’t do much, Your Majesty.’

  ‘I think the queen would disagree. She says you—’ Borne broke off, squinting with pain.

  Asher leaned forward, alarmed. There was a sudden sweat on the king’s brow and his pale face had turned a sickly yellowish green. ‘Majesty!’

  Weakly, Borne indicated the crystal jug of water on his bedside table. Asher poured him a glass. Slipped his arm around the king’s shoulders and held him off his pillows to drink.

  ‘Thank you,’ Borne whispered after three sips. Asher laid him gently back against the pillows and put the glass aside. ‘If you could stir up the fire for me, Asher? This cursed fever – I’m afraid I feel the cold.’

  Asher’s shirt was sticking to him in the heat, but he lumbered another huge log into the fireplace and stirred the flames to bolder life, choking a little at the cloying wave of scent that wafted around the room.

  That done, with fresh rivulets of sweat pouring down his spine, he sat down again and waited for Borne to say whatever else it was he wanted to say. A year in the service of this family had taught him one important thing: there was regular time, and there was royal time, and it did a body no good at all to get the two confused.

  Eventually Borne stirred, and sighed. ‘I love my son, Asher. Not a day passes that I don’t regret …’ He stopped. Folded his thin fingers in his lap. ‘I love my daughter, too, misunderstand me not. If there has been any good arising from Gar’s affliction it is that I have her to love as well. Fane will make a strong WeatherWorker when I am gone. The Wall will hold fast, never fear, once it comes within her care.’

  ‘Aye, sir,’ said Asher. And added, riskily, ‘But Gar has the love of the common folk.’

  ‘Fane is young, yet,’ Borne replied, smiling gently. ‘Just sixteen. She will learn. Gar has had six more years than she to polish his manners.’

  Asher kept his expression unremarkable. Six years, six decades, six centuries even. He doubted it would make any difference. Fane might be a magical prodigy but there was more warmth in an icicle than the whole of her regal little body. And there were no point at all in telling that to Borne. Fathers could be strangely blind to the faults of their children. Hadn’t he grown up seeing it first-hand for himself?

  ‘Aye, sir. As you say.’

  ‘I will confess, Asher,’ said the king, lightly frowning, his thin fingers smoothing the blankets, ‘it caused his family no little surprise to learn that Gar had hired himself a champion.’

  Asher blinked. He’d been summoned to the king’s bedside to chat about things a year and more old? ‘Aye, sir. Reckon it might have done, at that. But you know, I ain’t really his champion. He only calls me that to rile me up.’

  The frown became a smile. ‘And does it “rile you up”?’

  Another polite shrug. ‘Not really. Not any more. But I let him think it does. Gives him a laugh.’

  That made Borne laugh, but his amusement ended in more coughing and another sip of water. When he could speak again: ‘Making no bones about it, Asher, I wasn’t sure Gar hadn’t made a mistake, in the beginning. But I’ve been watching you, perhaps more closely than you know, and he was right. You’ve done an admirable job as his assistant. And, moreover, you’ve been good for him.’

  ‘Oh, aye?’ said Asher cautiously. Something was coming, he could smell it like rain in the wind. ‘That’s good to hear, Your Majesty.’

  Borne nodded. ‘My son is less solitary now than once he was. Less inclined to live inside duty and books. He smiles more. I think you’ve shown him that a life lacking magic can still be a life filled with joy. In your company he forgets he is a cripple.’

  ‘Barl bloody save me!’ snapped Asher, unthinking. ‘He ain’t a bloody cripple!’

  Melted with fever, wan and reduced, Borne stared at him in silence.

  Appalled, Asher stared back. ‘Your Majesty,’ he added, wincing. Then thought, sink it. He was leaving, wasn’t he? When would he get another chance to put Gar’s father straight on a few things? ‘He ain’t a cripple, Your Majesty,’ he said again, this time remembering his manners. Keeping his tone moderate. Suitably deferential. ‘I know there’s folk think he is. He thinks he is. But he ain’t. He’s a good man who works hard for you and everybody else in Lur. He’d kill himself for this kingdom, I reckon, if he thought it’d do any good.’

  ‘I know that,’ the king said quietly. ‘He is my son. Do you think I don’t know that?’

  Asher gestured helplessly. ‘Well, then …?’

  ‘Well then, Asher, you may say he’s not a cripple. And so, in the privacy of my bedchamber, may I. But the truth remains that he is without magic. And a Doranen without magic is no true Doranen, just as a bird without wings is not truly a bird. If you accept that the base property of birds is the ability to fly. Do you?’

  Asher stared at the carpet. ‘Aye,’ he muttered. ‘But I still reckon it ain’t fair.’

  ‘You say it’s not fair? You say? He sprang from my seed, Asher! He is the fruit of my loins. And yet you sit there and say you think it’s not fair?’

  ‘Codswallop to that!’ retorted Asher. ‘It ain’t no more your fault than Gar’s, Your Majesty. It ain’t anybody’s fault. It just happened. And sayin’ otherwise, thinkin’ it even, well that just adds more grist to the mills of folks like Conroyd Jarralt. And what bloody fool would want to do that, eh?’

  With a grunt of effort, Borne sat himself more upright against his raft of pillows. His lips twitched. ‘Well. Not this bloody fool, certainly.’

  Asher put his head in his hands. ‘Sorry, Your Majesty. I’m sorry. I’m so used to Gar, we shout and we brangle and we call each other names and I forget—’

  The king’s hand brushed against his knee in a brief benediction. ‘Gar told me once that above all else he treasured your honesty. He said he could trust you, as he trusted nobody else, to always tell him the truth. Whether he particularly wanted to hear it or not.’

  Slowly, Asher lifted his head. The king’s eyes were kindly and his lips were curved in a smile. ‘Don’t see the point of tellin’ him anythin’ else, sir.’

  The smile faded. ‘Can I trust you’ll always do the same for me?’

  ‘Of course, Your Majesty.’

  Borne slumped a little. Let his head fall back against the pillows. ‘He also told me you’d said you wouldn’t be staying in the City above a year. That you had plans beyond
that.’

  Mouth dry, Asher nodded. ‘Aye. I said that.’

  ‘But it’s been more than a year now, and you’re still here. Have your plans altered?’

  It was hard, but he made himself meet the king’s gaze squarely. ‘No, Your Majesty. In fact I were thinkin’ on it just this mornin’. How I’d have to be makin’ arrangements in the next few days for getting’ back home to Restharven.’

  Borne stared at his lacklustre hands. ‘What can I say, what can I do, to make you change your mind? There must be something you want …’

  ‘I want nowt, Your Majesty. Except my home.’

  With his tired gaze still averted the king said, ‘I could command you to stay.’

  Asher felt his heart leap. Ignored it. ‘Aye, sir. You could.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’ Borne looked up again. ‘Are you unhappy here? Have you been mistreated? Are your duties as Assistant Olken Administrator no longer to your liking?’

  ‘No, Your Majesty. I like ’em just fine. I like every-thin’ about bein’ here. And that’s the truth.’

  ‘Then why leave? You must know it will make Gar unhappy! If you are truly his friend you would avoid doing that at all costs. He depends upon you daily to help him with his work. In truth, I depend upon you in that regard. As do your fellow Olken, in the City and beyond it. You aren’t a fool, Asher. You must know you’ve become a man of influence. What does a small life in a small fishing village have to offer that your current life here in the capital does not?’

  Helplessly, Asher stared at him. ‘My da lives in that small fishing village, Your Majesty. And he’s waitin’ for me to come home.’

  Borne stared. Sighed. ‘I see.’

  ‘I made him a promise,’ said Asher, leaning forward. ‘And I aim to keep it. I know it’ll hurt Gar but I ain’t got a choice. This is family. D’you think I’d hurt him for anything less?’

  ‘No,’ said Borne. ‘And if your father needs you then of course you must go.’