They climbed back over the paddock fence, Macurdy first, to round up their men. As Wollerda watched him go, he flexed his right hand, then felt it tentatively with his left, and wondered if Macurdy had any idea how strong he was.
When they were ready to leave, Macurdy asked another question. “Kithro told me the Kullvordi had shamans in the old days. Is that right?”
“Yes, they had shamans. Why do you ask?”
“After I got back from the Tuliptree, my guide told folks what happened there—what he knew of it. And of course, they already knew I start fires with magic, and that my teeth are growing back. Now they talk about me as a shaman/warrior.”
“I’m not surprised. What are you getting at?”
“You don’t happen to have a shaman in your ancestry, do you?”
The question introverted Wollerda for a moment. “My great grandfather was the last chief of the eastern Kullvordi,” he answered, “and his mother was the daughter of the greatest shaman they’d ever had. But the blood was lost by the time I came along, or thinned beyond all virtue.” He cocked an eyebrow. “Why do you ask?”
Macurdy shrugged. “Till Varia worked with me,” he said, “I didn’t know I had the talent. And even a little helps.”
Wollerda grunted. “You’ll have to be shaman enough for both of us,” he said. “I’ve never shown the slightest talent.”
Then grinning, he put out his hand. They shook and parted, Wollerda thinking he should say something to Macurdy about his handshakes. The man would injure someone, someday.
On his ride back to camp, the afternoon felt more like mid-October than early September, lacking only haze and the smell of autumn leaves. As he rode, Macurdy mulled over things he hadn’t adequately considered before. Most particularly Sarkia’s policy of marrying kings to Sisters. With any luck at all, Wollerda would replace Gurtho, and Wollerda was eligible, a widower.
Varia had said it was difficult to spell most people against their will, if they suspected what you were up to. It was also difficult, she’d said, to get someone to do something strongly against their principles, even when they’d been spelled.
It seemed to him that Pavo Wollerda was not someone who’d be spelled easily, but if he married a Sister, could Sarkia manipulate him through her?
Varia had said that the person with significant talent was hard to spell without willing cooperation; if their talent had been trained, it was pretty much impossible. He’d asked her then why she’d been able to spell him, that first night. Her reply was, she hadn’t. His will, his self determination, had been unimpaired. She’d gone to him leaving her body behind, and even though he’d been untrained, his talent had helped him see her spirit, or actually the image it projected. And because he knew her so well, instead of being frightened, and rejecting her, he’d accepted. Later, when she’d spelled him to help his training—spells not so different from hypnosis—she’d had his cooperation.
So. Say Wollerda married Liiset. Beautiful intelligent Liiset, who could no doubt turn on the sex appeal. Turn it on and back it up. How much could she influence Wollerda to do things against his own interest, and that of the Kullvordi or Tekalos?
A man was always being influenced by people around him: wife, friends—enemies as far as that was concerned. The real question was, if Wollerda married Liiset or some other Sister, would she be able to spell him? Wollerda’s aura said he had significant talent, but it was untrained. And like himself at first, resisted it.
He decided that when he got back to his tent, he’d take a quill, inkwell, and paper, and reconstruct, as best as he could, what Varia and Arbel had done to free and train his talent. Maybe he could free up Wollerda’s, maybe even to the point of seeing auras clearly and consciously.
32: Coronation
Once she had a covert agreement with them, Macurdy and Wollerda were astonished at how quickly Sarkia moved—quickly if not subtly.
But if her moves were quick, they’d been well prepared. Gurtho assumed he had a representative at the negotiations—Queen Idri. He’d already signed a secret alliance with the Sisterhood, and had appointed her his representative at what he considered three-cornered negotiations between himself, the Sisterhood, and the rebels. His understanding was that the Sisterhood would use his authority, and their influence and presumed sorceries, to get an agreement that would end the rebellion. An agreement giving the Kullvordi virtual autonomy.