Telmaine

One hand pressed to the door, one fist to her lips, Telmaine strained to hear through the heavy doors. They were taking him away. She could hear it; she could almost feel him on the other side of the door, that banked-ember spirit, the rough wisdom she had come so much to rely upon, that had started to tempt her to forget all proprieties, loyalties, and vows.

<Go to Vladimer! You must help him!>

And after the voice, which sounded like a shout from far away, all she knew was sudden, scourging pain, followed by an even more sudden, scourging absence. She seized the door handle two-handed; she had the door open and was in the corridor before Merivan’s shocked, “Telmaine!” reached her. On the top of the stairs, a huddle of men grappled with a fallen Ishmael, whose unconscious weight threatened to spill them all down the stairs. He lay draped back across their arms, his own bound beneath him, his exposed face frighteningly spent and lax, except where the scars pulled it.

“What is this?” she said, fear lending her voice the ring of imperiousness.

Men’s faces turned toward her, men caught going about men’s justice and embarrassed at being witnessed doing so. Justice, like all the other worldly affairs of men, was kept out of the sight of women, lest knowledge offend their modesty.

“What are you doing, manhandling one of the archduke’s guests so!” she said, her voice piercing.

“This man is no guest of the house,” Casamir Blondell said.

She ignored him, the peasant, turning her sonn on the tall, aged man with the distinctive nose of the archducal line, whom she knew slightly as the superintendent of public agents. “What is this, pray tell me?”

Ishmael groaned as the guards settled his awkward weight onto the stairs; the sound, pitiful as it was, weakened her with relief for the indication of life. She braced herself on the lintel; she would not be dismissed as vaporish.

“Lady Telmaine,” said the superintendent, “please forgive us for disturbing you, and the peace of the household.”

“Disturbing me! It is him you have rendered senseless.”

“It was not our doing. It was a sudden collapse,” he said, and gestured with one hand. Obedient to the gesture, his men hefted Ishmael’s sagging form and began to lug it down the stairs. “We will have a doctor attend him at the prison.”

“How could it not be your doing? I heard him cry out.”

“I am sorry, again, that you have been disturbed,” the superintendent said, his tone polite, a little chill. “I wish you a pleasant night.”

“Wait!” she said. “Why are you arresting Baron Strumheller? I demand to know. He is a friend of my family.”

She thought he would appeal to propriety, to charges not fit for a polite lady’s ears. He surprised her, saying, “He is charged with murder and sorcery, Lady Telmaine.”

At the word, sorcery, spoken aloud to her face, her courage left her. She stood gripping her arms as she listened to them carrying Ishmael down the stairs to the next corridor. Their footsteps were faint and hard on the tiling of the vestibule, their passage through the door prolonged. She heard words exchanged below, and then the heavy door closed.

“Telmaine,” Merivan said, “have you utterly lost your mind? What do you mean making such a spectacle of yourself, and in defense of an accused sorcerer?”

Telmaine found her voice. “This is a vile and baseless accusation. You heard him say we must help Vladimer! That’s not the assertion of someone who’d mean him harm.”

“I heard no such thing,” said Merivan sharply. “You are imagining things.”

“I am not imagining things. I distinctly—” And as she felt Olivede Hearne’s sonn wash over her, she stopped, with the instinct that had let her keep her secret so long. “I thought he said something,” she said in a shaken voice. “I must have imagined.” She remembered the strange sense of distance in those words, though only a door separated them, and the conviction, before and after, that she had felt him. Had he found a way to speak to her without words or touch? Could mages do that? Could he do that? Would he do that to her, knowing that she felt as she did? Had he ordered her to act? She shuddered.

“Telmaine,” she heard Merivan declare, “you are not yourself.”

Even as she let herself be led back into the guest room, she reached desperately and clumsily out after the vanished footsteps, the vanished sound of wheels on paving, the vanished sense of a presence like a banked fire.

“Tend to your child,” Merivan ordered, though Amerdale, exhausted, was unstirring. Merivan swung into Balthasar’s room. Telmaine, following, blocked the closing door with an outstretched hand, so that it jarred against her palm. Olivede, who had trailed after them, stood back, seemingly dazed.

“I need to talk to your husband alone,” Merivan said.

“He’s my husband. Leave him be,” Telmaine growled. “Or so help me, I will remove you from this room myself.”

Balthasar cleared his throat. “I heard most of it,” he said. “Baron Strumheller has been taken on suspicion of Tercelle Amberley’s murder, and suspicion of sorcery directed at Lord Vladimer. You don’t think he did either of those things, Telmaine, and you, Merivan, do not think Telmaine should be speaking in his defense, regardless of her convictions, because of the nature of the accusations.”

Merivan recovered with her usual swiftness. “I request that you permit Telmaine and Amerdale to come home with me.”

“We stay together,” Telmaine said. She wrestled a moment with her guilt, but urgency prevailed. “Balthasar, Baron Strumheller needs a lawyer. He had servants here, in his quarters, just down the hall.”

His smile was a gift she did not deserve. “Then hopefully they should know his lawyers. We should arrange bribes for the guards to ensure he is well treated in prison. Telmaine, I’m afraid I am going to be talking to your banker.”

Merivan said sharply, “Collingwood’s will not permit it.”

“Everything you need is yours,” Telmaine said, ignoring Merivan.

“Then we must find out what ails Lord Vladimer. If we could establish that there was nothing magical about Lord Vladimer’s affliction, it would exonerate Baron Strumheller then and there.”

“But surely the archduke’s physicians would be better able to tell,” Telmaine protested, rejecting the memory of that faint mental voice.

“I would like an independent opinion, preferably by someone who knows magic. If this is magic or poison, then someone is out to deprive the state of certain protections. Think of this as if it were all of a piece,” he said to Telmaine. “Think of all the people involved, and what it might mean to have them at odds with one another, dead, or otherwise unable to act.”

Merivan pulled Telmaine close to her. “We must summon the physicians. He’s delirious.”

“He’s not delirious,” Telmaine said. “A lot of things have happened, Merivan. A lot of things . . .” She cast a wisp of sonn over Bal. If he were right, if Tercelle Amberley’s sighted children, her murder, the burning of the Rivermarch, Lord Vladimer’s sudden illness, and Ishmael’s arrest were all part of some terrible conspiracy—to who knew what end—what new danger was Bal bringing down upon them by marshaling forces against it? He was not a powerful man, physically or politically. All he had was his supple scholar’s mind, his ability to reach daring conclusions from scattered information, his potent sense of public duty and the respect of other men who shared it. He was such an innocent, compared to herself.

“Merivan,” she said. “I have to talk to my husband, alone, if you would.”

Her sister hesitated, clearly unsure which one of them was the more unreliable. Balthasar stirred himself to lend his male authority with a quiet, “Please, Merivan.”

Breathing through her nose, Merivan left.

Bal said, “She’s vexed that she isn’t allowed to hear.”

“Don’t cozen me, Bal,” Telmaine said in a low voice. “Please, just arrange for the lawyer. Don’t try to do more. You’re too weak, and it’s too dangerous.”

His tone was as gentle as his words were merciless. “You’re now asking me not to defend a man we both believe is innocent, against charges that could destroy him socially, if not lead to his execution?”

“Bal,” she whimpered.

“I know.” He reached out his hand, and she took it, and knew at once what lay behind his words: the fear of a gentle man who knew he had only his wits to serve him and knew they might not be enough. The fear of a man who doubted his own courage—it was not fastidiousness alone that had made him ask her to pour away that marcas-root elixir. And the old fear of a man who had once let justice pass undone that he might do so again.

He had not the least idea that she knew about the girl whose ashes had scattered to the winds.

“You are such a good man,” she whispered, withdrawing her hand before she betrayed such knowledge.

“No better or worse than most,” he said sadly, “though I am . . . comforted to hear you say it. You understand why we must help Baron Strumheller.”

“I understand,” she said, resigned.

“I have to speak to Strumheller’s servants, find out who his lawyer is,” he said, moving his head on the pillow. “And I think . . . I do think you and the children should go with Merivan. Strumheller’s arrest has proven that we are within reach even here. I think you would be better protected in Merivan’s house, with her husband a judge and a lord, and with your own family’s resources to call on—at least better protected from any legal or material threat.”

His stipulation made her think, as he was no doubt thinking, of Lord Vladimer’s mysterious illness. Her thoughts shied from recollection of Ish’s last cry, unheard by anyone but herself.

“I was the one who took Tercelle Amberley in. I—and Olivede—know about her children. There is no reason that you should; in fact, most people will assume that I would not have told you. Delicacy will likely preclude anyone from pressing you—particularly if you are amongst your own social circle.”

“Balthasar,” she said. “I went with Baron Strumheller to interview Tercelle Amberley the morning before she died.”

He had caught his breath as soon as he realized what she was saying. His brow drew with worry and discomfort. “That was not wise, Telmaine.”

“I was searching for our daughter,” Telmaine said in a low growl.

His lips parted; then he released the small sip of breath he had taken. She waited; he did not speak. She gathered up his hand and kissed his curled fingers lightly, feeling his fear for her and their daughters. It was not scruple that prevented him from using them in this argument, but the apprehension that there was truly nowhere safe from the evil that had touched them all.

She welcomed the knock on the door.