Chapter 10

The low-bellied clouds contrived to be pouring forth their worst as Siska and Keeley neared Phillip's house. Oilskin only stopped so much, and even Siska's shielding spell stopped working after the massive sky-burst of magic. Cold runnels of water ran down Siska's back and Keeley's teeth chattered as they reached the door.

Siska's hand touched the bronze door handle and she brushed her thumb over the latch atop that. She seemed unable to open the door.

A look of sympathy formed on Keeley's face. "You have to go in," she said, her hand touching Siska's back. "The players must be paid."

With an immense sigh, Siska thumbed the latch and pushed the door inward. The entry area was illuminated by light from the common area but she saw no one in either.

She pulled off her cloak and hung it on the pegs just inside the door. Keeley followed her motion and, if anything, looked more fearful than Siska did herself.

Siska's powder blue robes were darker where rainwater had penetrated her oilskin and she brushed at the spots, as if her hands could eradicate the moisture. Keeley grunted in humor when the spots vanished under the touch. Of course she can, she thought.

"Siska, a word?" came a voice from the study. It was Phillip's voice, but it held a coolness that caused Siska to cringe and the moisture erasing ceased immediately. Keeley again touched her shoulder and watched her cross the common area. "Keeley, have a seat, there is tea on the sideboard."

Keeley swallowed and moved toward where the teapot sat on it's pewter tray. Only one cup of the fine porcelain sat beside the teapot and there were three small muffins on the tray.

Her feet dragged as she walked through the arched entry to the study, both the double doors folded back completely to rest against the wall. Siska kept her eyes downcast and studied the tiled floor. She squeaked and jumped slightly when the doors slammed shut behind her. A rapid and complex torrent of magic surrounded the room, forming a sphere the contained Siska and Phillip within it.

Lifting her eyes enough to see him, Siska saw that Phillip was sitting at his massive desk. "What you did was inexcusable," he said without preamble. He was not yelling, and suddenly Siska wished that he would. "I fear I have given you too much leeway for an apprentice, and now see that I was negligent in doing so."

Siska began to say something, but he silenced her by lifting his eyes to hers and glaring. "You will not speak until I say," he said in a harsh whisper. She had expected coldness in those eyes, but what she saw there cut more deeply than any measure of anger. He was disappointed in her.

"The guard informed me of your - incident," said Phillip. "Seems they regarded it an event large enough to attempt to summon me to aid in your arrest. They sent a mounted squad to me and tried to get me to go with them, in case you needed to be put down."

Siska gaped at him, her face adopting the expression of one who hears of another's death.

"I only just managed to talk them into letting me handle the matter," said her mentor. "And I do mean barely, there are still guardsmen who will make you arrest if they see you right now."

Siska opened her mouth again. "You will remain silent!" shouted Phillip and she found she did not prefer his anger to disappointment. Her teeth clicked as they came together.

That scream seemed to sap something from Phillip and he slumped in the armchair behind his desk. "You will not be going out into the town for a week - except to attend the ball for your friend, Mannis," he said. "You will be repaying Master Gelorinni for the cost of removing your - addition - to his common room. Lastly, you will pay the sum of a hundred marks to each of the girls you assaulted, the four customers who were trapped behind your wall until a section of the inn's wall could be removed, and another two hundred to Master Gelorinni for his discomfiture."

Eleven hundreds? thought Siska as he glowered, looking at a piece of parchment. "Those moneys will be accompanied by a personal apology, delivered in public, to each of them, along with accepting penance, if they so wish to administer it."

A long moment passes as Siska studied the top of his desk.

"Do you accept my judgement as fair and reasonable?" asked Phillip.

"I do, Mentor Phillip," said Siska, her voice barely higher than a whisper. "It is fair and reasonable."

An air of formality hung over everything, but that shattered when Phillip said, "Just what in the One's eyes did you think you were doing, girl?"

"One of the girls used magic to attack Keeley, I tried to defend her," said Siska.

"You did no such thing, girl!" shouted Phillip. "You attacked the girl. There is no defense in that. She is had to be healed of a concussion and several cracked ribs, did you know that?"

Siska eyed the mottled red stain on the sleeve of her robe and the cut flesh beneath. "A scratch!" growled Phillip, following her eyes with his own gaze. "You could have easily killed her. She is frightened half out of her wits."

"She didn't seem frightened when it was happening, Mentor," said Siska, defensiveness stiffening her posture.

"The gel had little choice to but put her back up, now did she?" asked Phillip, his tone moderating slightly. "So far as she knew, you meant to kill her and was doing her damndest to not let that happen. Did you expect another wizard to simply roll over for your blue robe and let you pummel her unconscious?"

Siska's eyes dropped. The girl had only knocked over Keeley's wine mug and splattered wine over her friend's dress. "I am ashamed," she said.

Phillip growled deep in his throat. "Not only you. You shamed me and more importantly, you shamed the Blue Order. The penalties I have set are only those of a Mentor to an apprentice. There may well be repercussions from the order to come. You are a sworn member, even if you let that slip your mind. Your role is to DEFEND Tressen's people, not assault them in bar brawls! Even the other magi of the city are your responsibility." A moment passed as he let that long line of words soak into her mind. "You are held to a higher standard, and you are to prove yourself worthy of that esteem in the future, else it will not be in your future."

Tears were rolling down Siska's cheeks. In her mind, she had single-handedly brought low a proud group of fine people. In a moment of anger, she had harmed the Blue Order, who had been held in esteem by the people of Tressen, even if that esteem was accompanied by some measure of fear. Fear, she realized, that she had fed well.

Phillip looked down at his writings again and picked up his steel quill. "You and Keeley have potatoes to finish peeling," he murmured. "She will not be coming over for a week, either - nor will Mist or Leetha."

"Thank you for letting me attend the ball, still, Mentor," said Siska in a hoarse whisper as she opened one of the wide doors back into the hall from the common room.

Phillip never raised his head. "What you did was not bad enough to merit ruining a special day for young Defender Mannis. I did not allow your attendance for your own benefit. He has worked hard for years for this moment. I'll not let you ruin it for him."

Siska nodded and left the study.

Tatyana walked across the courtyard in her gray doublet, bearing a large sack of flour. She served but one owner in her years, and now two in under a month. Her new owner eyed her oddly, and she felt sure that he harbored demands she had yet to be called to make.

This struck her as more than passingly strange, for there were younger and prettier slaves in this estate's stables. Tatyana was into her forties and had borne two children. While she might be considered an attractive woman, for her age, she was far from a blooming young beauty.

Her new owner, Master Tornadin was kinder to her than the last. The last had been a middling merchant with a very demanding wife. The wife had switched her almost daily for some perceived slight or slowness in performance of her duties. She was the only slave in the house, as well, which meant all attention was focused upon her.

Here, she was amid dozens of slaves. Even more than she had been as she had lived with Mistress Tomasino. Her duties were light, as a kitchen helper, and she had a nice, clean room to herself.

All of this would have pointed to a nice, quiet end of years to her, except for the attentions of young Master Tornadin. He had yet to touch her, but when she passed by him, his eyes watched her closely and he wore an odd expression that spoke of a deeper desire.

She thought of giving herself to him, or at least offering. She had found, with Tomasino's more demanding guests, that it made the act much easier if she at least pretended to desire the contact. Tornadin was not an unattractive young man, either, a matter that would aid in the pretense of desire.

If she were wrong in her assessment of his looks, though, her approach may well insult the young, good-looking noble. She sighed as she dropped the flour onto the table beside the large bowls that were being mixed for the evening's grand meal.

"He was watching you again, eh?" asked Lirivni, one of the few slaves that she already considered a friend.

"Yes," whispered Tatyana as she picked up one of the knives on the table and sliced the top off the sack of flour. "If I weren't a dried sack of prunes, I'd swear he desires me."

Lirivni was several years her junior, in her middle thirties. She was a pretty woman, with long brown hair and soft blue eyes. Lirivni was also an indenture, not a full slave. The difference hardly mattered while she was in service, especially for the length of time Lirivni would be owned - more than twenty years, of which only seven had been served.

"Master Tornadin has expansive tastes," said Lirivni, grimacing and taking the knife from Tatyana to slice open another sack of flour. The older woman poured her flour into a massive bronze bowl and began mixing it with the contents already within with a massive wooden spoon. "It is considered bad form to make use of indentureds, but he is quite free with his - affections."

Tatyana widened her eyes at the taller, younger woman. "He has made demands of you?" she asked.

Lirivni gave her a look of much patience. "He makes use of all the women slaves, Tatyana. All of them. He considers anything not illegal to be within his rights. If you didn't have an attraction to his eyes, you would be one of the field slaves."

One of the other kitchen slaves, a woman younger than Lirivni, with strong features and a well-rounded belly, nodded. "He will eventually get around to you," she concurred, stroking her belly with an idle hand in the manner women with child tended to. Tatyana wondered if Tornadin was the sire of that child.

Then I'll go to him this night, thought Tatyana. I hope I'm correct. Already, she steeled herself for what would likely happen later, either if she were right or wrong in her assumptions.

Varan looked down at himself in his dress uniform, only today brought up from the sewing shops at the other end of the Defenders' compound. No silk for Defenders, but the black dyed cotton was highly polished to nearly gleam like silk. He picked a piece of imaginary lint from the stark black surface, then touched the sword on his hip.

That sword had been his for four years, but it was a bronze-hilted trainee's sword. Tonight, he would be presented with his Defender's silver-hilted blade. Though they were shaped the same, the Defender's blade would be better wrought, and crafted of the finest steel available, likely Gendise. Folded and hammered hundreds of times, a Gendise steel sword blank cost more than the home he grew up in.

It would give his blade a distinctive look, that Gendise steel, almost like wood, but in silver and black rather than browns, where the grinding of the edges cut through the layers of grain in the steel. In his eyes it would be the most beautiful of swords, even if the rudest pot-iron.

His roommates bustled around him. Mannis was pulling his belt around his waist and cinching the buckle tight. Giordino was still pulling on his boots, looking at them with a critical eye to ensure not the slightest scuff marred their mirror-like black finish. Lastly, Cherofski, clad only in his smallclothes, was polishing the blade of his trainee's sword, running an oiled cloth down it's length.

"Keeley says that Siska is fortunate to be able to attend," said Varan, looking over his shoulder at Mannis, still fidgeting with his sword belt.

"So I've heard," said Mannis with a grimace. "Something about dueling in pubs. I've not been allowed to visit her. Her mentor sent me away without comment, other than to say that she isn't free to receive guests."

Varan nodded. "But still, she will be at the ball, and you'll be able to talk to her to your heart's contentment," he said.

His words seemed to act as a cue, Cherofsky leaped up and began pulling on his pants. Varan and Mannis both blinked at the shorter man, wondering why he had put off dressing for so long. Even Giordino, a notable procrastinator, eyed his roommate with a impatient glance.

Both Cherofsky and Giordino had been able to secure escorts at short notice for their graduation ceremony. Defenders were highly romantic figures in Tressen society, and few women, unless solidly spoken for, would refuse one accompaniment to one of their few public functions. Their escorts, however, were more settled upon than sought out, and Cherofsky wondered, in truth, if he would have to pay his companion for the honor later.

Giordino sidled up beside Mannis, peering into the mirror on it's heavy wooden stand. "I understand that your Siska nearly got herself arrested from that duelling," he said, shaking his head. "A temper on that one, mark my words."

Mannis sighed. "Does everyone know more of Siska's business than I do?" he asked. "She made a small mistake, excusable I think, under the circumstances." He glowered at the shorter and much darker young man. "She was defending her friend, or at least thought she was. Something you and I should well understand, no?"

It took Giordino several moments to speak. "I hear you brother," he said, his voice quiet and earnest. "You know I am ever on your side, in battle and out."

A grudging smile came to the tall redhead's face. "And I am on yours, brother," he said, putting his hand on the shorter man's shoulder. "I suppose we must remind ourselves of that from time to time."

Though only paying attention to the exchange partially, Varan nodded approval as the two Defenders made their peace. In a few hours, they would truly be full Defenders - full men. It was good to see them behaving as such now, even while still in the trainees' quarters.

Keeley bustled around Siska's room as if her backside were ablaze. "Why are they not here yet?" she demanded, a panic in her eyes that made Siska think of a cornered rabbit.

"They are coming," said Siska in as calm a voice as she could muster. "Mistress Maureen knows when the ball is to begin and won't be late."

The shorter girl, twisting her brown hair about her finger, pulled back one of the heavy curtains that covered one of the two windows that stood on the room's outer wall. "I've never been to such a fancy event," she said. "What if I make a fool of myself?"

"Follow Varan's lead," said Siska, pulling a brush through her long, golden hair. "He'll know the proper behavior."

Keeley let the curtains go and turned toward Siska. "You could at least pretend worry," she snapped.

A soft smile formed on Siska's lips. "Keeley, I have been cooped up in this house for five days," she said. "Mannis tried three times to visit me and was sent away. I intend nothing - and I emphasize nothing - to mar it. Do you think that I've many grand balls in my history?"

That abashed Keeley more than enough, and the girl lowered her eyes. "I would think not," she said.

In truth, Siska had attended more than a score of fancy dress balls. However, she had attended them as a servant, not as a guest. She might well know, better than Keeley, how to behave in such rarified company. Siska was a kind enough friend not to say anything of it.

"Come, rub this on my shoulder, to cover that bruise," she said to Keeley. She pointed to a dark spot marring the fair skin of her shoulder, just to the right of her neck.

Phillip had been true to his word, and she found herself under the tender tuteledge of Madam DeSandiago. Madam DeSandiago had introduced her to Weaponsmaster Larken.

Her first lesson with Larken had been a learning experience for Siska. She discovered that there were ways to be hurt by other people she had never imagined. He was teaching her to fight with sword, knife, and staff.

At first, she had protested the need for training in such combat skills. Surely a wizard would not need them.

Larken had disabused her of that notion in short order. He commanded her to cast to stop him and before she could even fully focus her energies, he had rapped her on the arm with one of those bound bundles of bamboo strips, delivering a stinging blow.

After that, she had tried to apply herself to the training he offered.

He was a patient man, and good humored. She came, quickly to enjoy the lesson and now eagerly awaited her next lesson on the morrow. However, her newfound interest had exacted a price in bruises from her. Most of them had faded to faintly yellow spots on her arms and legs. However, this one was darker, an ugly blue. A result of stave training, he had clouted her on that shoulder purely by accident. An attempted dodge had led her to put herself straight into the path of his backswing.

Keeley gently rubbed the peach-colored makeup onto the discoloration, though it was impossible to hide every hint of the blue bruise. When she stepped back, it was only noticeable if one looked very hard. "I can't believe Phillip has you conducting arms training, like you were bound to become a merchant's guardsman."

"It isn't like that, Keeley," said Siska, wincing as the shorter girl rubbed the make up over the wound, smoothing the edges. "Phillip has decided that I need to know how to protect myself in a fight, without magic. He says that it will teach me discipline."

Keeley murmured something under her breath that Siska could not make out, though she did hear the single word - 'paddle'.

Siska shook her head. "Phillip said he would send me away before taking switch, paddle, or strap to me," she said. "He says that I've already paid more price in that regard than he can collect." It seemed that she was not sure she wished him to have that particular order of precedence in punishment of her.

A soft rapping on her chamber door snapped her out of the morbid thoughts just before it opened. Salira peeked in, smiling. "They're here," she said after ensuring both young women wore their slips. Opening the door wider, she entered, followed by two of Mistress Maureen's assisting seamstresses. Each of those two bore long thick bundles folded over their arms. Salira carried a small box.

Siska barely managed to stifle a squeal, and Keeley found herself short of even that control, making a high-pitched keen in her throat before regaining her composure. Their obvious excitement caused Salira's grin to widen.

With practiced speed, the seamstresses hung the dresses on an opened door of the wardrobe, unfolding the oilcloth that was wrapped about another layer of cheap wool. Then they removed the wool, one of them actually giving the motion a bit of a flourish.

Siska, Keeley, and, admittedly, Salira all gasped. The seamstresses allowed one another a small nod at that sound and bowed out, muttering good wishes on the two young women's night out.

"It makes me wish I were young again," said Salira, eyeing the long gowns of silk. The longer, made for Siska, was of shimmering blue silk, shaped to conform to her with alarming precision. Narrow sections had been cut out and filled with pleated velvet in sky blue, the color of the order. It was sleeveless and had a narrow but deep neckline. The back swooped down to where it would scarcely be at the small before the sides rejoined.

At first Siska feared it would not stay put when she donned it, but once the fine strings at the back had been drawn, it seemed to disappear from her sense of touch. It became weightless on her and moved with every bit of ease as her own skin might. From her hips the skirts hung in narrow strips, she noted, and were not of a piece. When she walked lighter blue velvet gleamed beneath the steadier shimmer of darker blue silk. Siska moved before the long standing mirror and made a twirl, craning her neck about to see herself as she did so.

"It's a lovely dress, Siska," said Salira with Keeley nodding in agreement alongside her.

Siska turned toward them. "Keeley, put yours on," she said excitedly.

It took the three women a few moments to divine the manner of donning the wrapping garment of a dress. Salira, having visited at some point in her past Abia, finally managed the trick, beginning at Keeley's shoulder and walking about her, unwinding the dress onto the girl. Small buttons attached the layers to one another in critical locations, though Keeley would surely need help to remove it later, as well.

When finished Siska and the older woman stood back and admired the confection of green silk and fine wool. "I said to spare the silk," said Keeley, fretting with one of the wide panels of silk that made up large portions of the dress.

"You'll learn that seamstresses will do what they like," said Salira sagely. "Ask a man of swordsmiths, and they will happily point out the same sort of breed."

Keeley gave the mirror a critical eye and turned halfway about. "Well, it is pretty," she said. It hugged her form, if anything, more tightly than Siska's gown, the wrapping actually being snug at points. A few shifts and plucking from the three released a binding point or two and ensured it hung correctly, if the dress could be said to hang at all, it seemed more to cling.

"Be glad you don't have a mole on your backside," said Siska, grinning. "I fear it would show clearly in this dress."

"I only hope I need carry no coin," said Keeley, nodding. "Else one could tell which side were face up."

Salira giggled, almost like a girl the other two's ages. "And divine the maker's mark at three paces," she added.

The green silk was interrupted by black wool, of a matte finish, making the dress seem a mass of emerald and night. Against Keeley's olive skin, it gave her an air of mystery that Siska could virtually touch. She said as much and Keeley widened her eyes. "I am one of the most unmysterious folk in Tressen," she pronounced.

"As you say," said Salira, moving toward the door, "but she is correct. You look as if you might know dark secrets that aught be left in shadows - or bedchambers."

Keeley contrived to don an expression of sultriness and cool aloofness. "Perhaps I am more than I seem, then," she said, narrowing her gaze as she looked upon the two wizards.

Salira turned to open the small box on the corner of Siska's writing desk. "I note that neither of you seems to have brought jewelry, so I have brought mine. I hope it shall suffice." Generously, she neglected to point out that neither likely owned any jewelry of real worth.

Both Siska and Keeley ooh'ed at the contents, impressed with the gemstones and precious metal settings within. A few minutes digging through the small chest and both were bedecked with fine bracelets and a single ring on each hand. "Earrings used to be all the rage, but no one wears them today," said Salira, looking at her small collection of pins with a sad shake of her head. "You two don't even have piercings to your lobes."

Keeley and Siska grimaced at her description of the process of piercing one's ears and covered their own theatrically, as if Salira had proposed doing so on the spot.

Finally, the older wizard reached under her dress and pulled a necklace free. On it hung a dragon pendant. "As you don't have one right now," she said, unclasping it. She hung the chain and pendant around Siska's neck, the dragon feeling oddly heavy as it rested between her breasts. Siska noted a faint blue shimmer to the silver and the dragon seemed to move as she looked at it.

"It is mithril," said Keeley, as if noting Siska's interested look. "Not enchanted, but well wrought, all the same."

"Thank you," said Siska. "Keeley's father is crafting a new one for me, but it is days from complete, from what Keeley says."

"Dad is obsessing about it," said Keeley, pretending impatience with her father. "He says he wishes it to be the finest of his works, something I don't rightly understand about recompense." The narrowing of her eyes as she looked at Siska told Salira that this topic had never been satisfyingly discussed between the two friends.

As Salira began to close the little box, a gleam caught Siska's eye. "What is that?" she asked, pointing to the glow, emanating from beneath a wide bronze cloak pin.

The older wizard lifted the pin. "Ah," she said, smiling. "It's my manastone ring." She lifted the ring, quite a plain one, from the box. It was a plain band of gold with a mounting that held the glowing shard of gemstone. "Only a small one," she pointed out, slipping it onto her finger.

Siska could not take her eyes from it. "The glow," she said. "It feels - different."

"That's because it's charged with my own energy," said Salira, speaking in her lecturing voice again. "It isn't free mana, as you pull from the air and carries a bit of my own - spirit - if you will."

It took the apprentice a moment, but she did see a similarity in the colorations of the mana, the way it pulsed, or gleamed, to the aura around Salira. There were differences, as well, though. "When did you charge it?" asked Siska.

Salira looked at her oddly. "Oh, I don't remember," she said. "Surely months ago, if not over a year. I rarely have use for it these days."

Siska flicked her fingers in the pattern of divining, muttering a hasty incantation. It was not strictly polite to cast divining spells upon people without asking first, but Salira had said they were friends, and friends were allowed limited liberties with one another.

"What is it?" asked Keeley, giving the two wizards a blank smile, very curious as to what was passing.

"You're pregnant," said Siska.

The older wizard blinked at her. "I'm what?" she asked, forcing a smile onto her face.

Siska smiled broadly. "You're pregnant, and your baby will have the gift."

"How can you know that?" asked Salira.

With a small shrug, Siska said, "Your baby, I know not if boy or girl, is causing a small shift in your aura - your mana aura. It no longer is the same pattern as the aura you possessed when you charged that ring. It's similar, very much so, but not identical."

Keeley simply smiled. "Congratulations," she said. She understood nothing of the talk of magic, mana, and auras, but she knew that blessings were in order for a child conceived.

Salira just blinked a few more times before donning a hesitant smile herself. "Well, thank you, Keeley," she said, though she eyed Siska a moment longer. She wondered just how fine-tuned must be one person's senses to sense a shift so tiny in a person's auras.

"You should seek a midwife to be certain," said Siska

A moment passed as the older wizard absorbed this information. "I shall," she said, though she felt more certain from Siska's pronouncement than she would have from a mere midwife's.

Recovering her wits, Salira helped them with a few more pieces of loaned clothing. A narrow belt of silver links for Keeley and a wide one of bright blue woven leather for Siska. Slippers had been provided the day before from a cobbler two doors down from Mistress Maureen's shop. They had been commissioned by Mistress Maureen to go to with the dresses and were dyed matching blue and green, for each girl's dresses.

Hair in worn loosely was the current fashion, though the two spent several minutes under the brush to burnish their long hair to shimmering before weaving small, discreet plaits into the four strands of their friends' colors.

Siska had enquired with Madam DeSandiago about the acceptability of the plaits and, as the woman seemed to be a font of knowledge of propriety and fashion, her decision was regarded as final. It was allowable, and fashionable in many circles, an interesting phenomenon, in her eyes; A fashion that seemed to transcend classes.

Even as their last plaits were woven, Phillip knocked and informed them through the door that their carriage had arrived. Keeley opened the curtains to gasp at it. "I think, maybe, Phillip is not as angry as he sounded, Siska," she whispered. Siska looked out at that point to see the carriage, as well.

It was a long, black laquered carriage, suitable for the transport of nobility, with gilded accents and pulled by a team of eight sleek black horses. Even the driver and two footmen on it seemed buffed and polished, wearing matching livery with powder blue dominating their colors.