“You can see that far ahead now?”
“No. No, I can’t ever see tomorrow. Just . . . Just a feeling. Nothing.” He bit his lip uncertainly.
Shadows had fallen over the happy gathering. Why should Inos’ son have seen a vision of the next imperor? What was wrong with tomorrow? Evil take it! The world would be a much better place without sorcery.
“Well, I’m famished!” she said firmly. “Ring the bell, someone. I could eat a whale.”
“Me, too,” Rap said.
Gath smiled sadly. “We don’t eat for a long time yet.”
Rap frowned. “No? What can you possibly foresee to keep me from eating? A Nordland invasion?”
“The bishop.”
There was a tap on the door.
“God of Torment!” Rap exclaimed. “How long have you known about him?”
“Oh . . . Since you went in the bathtub, I suppose.”
“I shall speak to you later, young man! Enter!”
Young Pret peered around the door. He was the shortest jotunn in the kingdom, with a heart weakness that kept him from heavy labor. When sober he was a passable footman.
“His Holiness, Sire.”
“Show him in,” Rap said, glaring at Gath’s satisfaction. Inos sent her husband a warning frown. She knew exactly what he was thinking: I don’t mind the old man getting long in the tooth if he would just stop getting long in the wind. Rap regarded that as one of his better jokes, but the only person he could tell it to was Inos and she had threatened to have him beheaded if he did so just once more. He wouldn’t say it in front of the children, anyway.
Bishop Havermore was elderly, gaunt and stooped. He wore a halo of white curls and he blinked a lot. He offered blessings and accepted a chair.
“We were just about to eat, Holiness,” Inos said sweetly. ”Won’t you join us?”
The bishop said he had eaten, would not stay long—and Kadie rolled her eyes disbelievingly behind his back. He had merely come to suggest a special service of thanks to the Gods for the town’s deliverance.
“Very good idea,” Inos said, smiling more warnings at Rap. ”Thanks, especially,” the bishop said, blinking, “to the God of Winter, for staying Their hand so long, and of course to the God of Storms . . .”
Rap caught his wife’s eye, bared his teeth, and did not point out that the God of Storms had caused all the trouble in the first place.
Once started, Havennore could never stop. He was immune to hints. An hour later he had not run out of Gods and was rehearsing his proposed sermon verbatim, addressing it to the candles. The children were fretting, Inos could hear Rap’s stomach rumbling louder than the blizzard outside, and she kept having to unclench her fists.
She saw that Rap had had enough—and Gath had been fighting a grin for some time. Oh, no! Before she could think of a suitable intervention, Rap rose and reached for the bellrope. She eyed him anxiously.
“You have missed someone, your Holiness!” he said. The aged cleric blinked up at him in dismay. “I have?”
“Four people who made our deliverance possible. Without them, Krasnegar would be facing certain starvation this winter.”
Now what? Everyone in the room was staring up at him in puzzled silence—except Gath, of course, who was turning bright red with his efforts not to laugh at whatever was coming. Inos’ fists had clenched again.
“I think,” the king said, “these gallant helpers should be mentioned by name in your sermon. In fact, I think you should invite them to sit beside you, so that you can present them to the congregation and thank them in person.”
“Oh, I agree!” Havermore bleated. “Who are these men?” The door squeaked as the footman opened it and looked in. “Two men and their wives,” Rap said. “I don’t think you have ever met them. Pret, conduct his Holiness downstairs and find the royal rat-catchers for him. The root cellar might be a good place to look first. They were there earlier.”
“Rat-catchers?” said bishop and flunky and queen in harmony.
“Rat-catchers!” Rap said firmly. “Most winters we lay away about twice as much food as we have this year. This year is different. What we have will suffice now, but only because the vermin used to eat half our stocks! So you go thank our gnomes on behalf of the people, Holiness. And perhaps you should also thank the God of Hospitality for inspiring me to offer them a home here.”
Inos carefully did not look at either Gath or Kadie.
5
The Bishop had departed, very much on his pathetic dignity, the spoiled meal had been eaten, and the children had been put to bed. King and queen were back in their parlor again. This time they were both in the same chair.
Rap was nibbling Inos’ ear, but he wasn’t very serious about it. She demanded to know more about Gath’s vision. Between toothwork he told her, but there was very little more to tell. The figure had been standing in that peculiar position and had seemed to be in darkness, or perhaps moonlight. The incident had happened late in the day, which would have been long after sunset in southern lands, at that time of year. By the time all that was said, he had lost interest in the ear-nibbling business. She gave him a hug. Maybe tomorrow.
“It could have been Shandie, I suppose,” she said. “Are there any pictures of him in Krasnegar?”
“Not that I know of. We could ask around.” She pondered uneasily. ”Kadie might make up such a tale. Not Gath.”
“Never. Not Gath.”
Worried silence. The peat hissed softly. It was hard to think of the spindly ten-year-old she had once known being a famous soldier now. Fighting? Killing people?
“The only thing I can suggest,” Rap said, glowering at the fireplace, “is that Shandie looked through a magic casement. The illusions work both ways. Remember we saw a vision of a dragon? When that prophecy was fulfilled, I thought I caught a glimmer of something . . . but that was months later! Why would Gath standing on a shingle beach matter to Shandie? It makes no sense.”
“You think Gath is the one, don’t you?” she said softly. “The one the God mentioned.”
Rap set his teeth and said nothing.
She kissed his cheek. “Come to bed, love. You’ll think better in the morning.” Tired as she was, she thought she had better do some ear-nibbling herself tonight. He needed to unwind.
Rap shook his head. “I’ve shilly-shallied too long, Inos! I keep pretending it’ll all go away, and it won’t. I should have told Shandie of the God’s warning.”
“Nothing you can do tonight. And anyway, this causeway thing . . . ”
“I’m going to go upstairs first. I won’t be long.”
Upstairs probably meant Inisso’s chamber. “Tomorrow!” she insisted. How oddly Gath had reacted to that word!
“I won’t sleep. It won’t take long. Just a quick look.”
“I’ll come with you,” she said.
“No.”
“Yes!” Fauns were not the only stubborn people in Pandemia.
“One real word and three ghost words, you said once. Rap, how much of a sorcerer are you now, anyway?”
“Large sparrow size. Don’t worry! I shan’t do anything to attract attention.”
“Then what?”
He sighed. “I’m going to come out of my mundane shell and take a peek with premonition, that’s all. A two-minute sorcery, very unobtrusive.”
“Those comets? Do they mean anything?”
“That’s one of the things I want to discover. I should have done this months ago. If I’d known about Shandie . . .” He stood up. “You going to sit there and freeze, woman?”
The only reason to go all the way up Inisso’s Tower would be to escape the occult shield that enclosed the castle. That one topmost room was excluded.
“I have never seen my husband use sorcery,” she said whenever the subject became unavoidable, which was rarely. The words were true only so far as they went. She had seen Rap use sorcery, but not since they were married. She had enjoyed miraculously easy births for her children and guessed why. He did not like to discuss the matter, so she never did.
Bearing lanterns and swathed in thick white furs, king and queen made the long climb up the curving stairs within the walls. Their breath smoked. The stones still held some of the summer sun, the killer cold of midwinter had not arrived, and yet the rooms were already chill. The tower was unused now, the first two or three chambers cluttered with things put away until needed and then forgotten. Remembrance crouched in the shadows.
Halfway up, they paused to catch their wind in the Withdrawing Room, which was especially infested with memories. Inos flopped down on a spindly-legged chair, the only one left of Aunt Kade’s set. The others Rap had smashed on Darad’s head or the jotnar had burned.