Darkborn Part 19

She pushed herself up, dismayed; she seemed hardly to register his involuntary grimace of pain. "I have never been unfaithful to you, Balthasar! Never!"

He had his answer. "But there was, nevertheless, something between you. Something that will burden your spirit if you do not admit it, at least to yourself."

"Bal," she said in a voice thick with sobs. "Bal, don't."

He wondered if he had a right to go on. As her physician, he would have. As her husband . . . "I won't, then," he said quietly. "I don't need you to tell me anything. But promise me you will be honest with yourself. I've known too many people damaged by the guilt of losing someone whom they had unresolved feelings for. I don't want you to be one."

He was proud of the steady compa.s.sion in his voice. Quite unlike his conflicted feelings as he took the measure of the intensity of her grief. Immeasurable grat.i.tude for his own life and Florilinde's; admiration for the man's competence and selflessness; curiosity about and appreciation for Ishmael's complexity; a sense of inferiority, less to the breeding than the stamina, courage, and resolution. Guilt: for surrendering Ishmael to Lysander's blackmail, even though it had likely made no difference, and for being, in some small part of him, relieved at the pa.s.sing of a rival.

"Bal," Telmaine wept. "Bal, I think I killed him."

He took her face in his hands, lifting it so he could brush it lightly with sonn. He smelled smoke on her hair, smoke on her skin, the scorched fabric of her petticoats. She had simply lain down in them, shedding the soiled outer garment, but otherwise too exhausted to change. Despite his grief, and despite the knowledge of the price Gil and Ishmael had both paid, he found himself angry at both of them for the way they had exposed her to danger. It was unconscionable. And even more unconscionable that she should believe herself in any way at fault.

"No, Bal," she said before he could speak. "You don't understand. I . . . Oh, sweet Imogene, I can't . . ." She caught him behind the neck and pulled his lips to hers in a desperate kiss. He felt a sudden shock of lightness, a sudden release of pain, a sudden surge in well-being. He recognized the sensation. He knew it was impossible.

His sonn rang against her face, revealing for an instant the fine bones beneath the skin. She rolled away from him and lay curled up, gasping, with her back to him. her mental voice said, sweet and clear as the sound of a knife on fine crystal.

If he thought the realization that she had been falling in love with Ishmael di Studier had tested him, he had been much mistaken. This was the test. She was a mage. She knew, she always had known, everything he felt. He rolled toward her, the painlessness of the movement a revelation, rested his forehead against her back. "I did wonder, once or twice," he breathed. "But I . . . I could not be certain."

He drew a deep breath and slid his hand down to cover hers-a more intimate touch seemed an imposition-and yielded himself up to her. Yielded up his shock, awe, disconcertedness, satisfaction at the confirmation of odd moments of half suspicion, the fierce debate between defensiveness and rationalization. Yielded up the triumphant, "She knows knows me," of the lover, vying with, "She knows me," of the lover, vying with, "She knows everything everything," of the man, and a quick, scrambling turning up and pressing down of all those embarra.s.sing or venal impulses, thoughts, and memories that burden every man's conscience. She rolled over and clung to him, whispering, "I love you, I love you, I love you." And finally, he yielded up Lysander and the memory of his own crime.

"I knew," she whispered. "When I came this morning, it was all you were thinking of. That was why-"

Why she went after Florilinde, alone except for Ishmael di Studier. Now it was his turn to be pierced by guilt, and hers to say, "Don't."

"Who else knows?" he said.

"Only Ishmael," she said, and began to weep anew.

He knew she felt that ripple of jealousy from him, jealousy, remorse, and relief that his rival was gone before Balthasar had learned anything. Sweet Imogene, this was harder than anything he'd done before. She flinched back from him.

"Bal, I'm sorry. I never wanted to deceive you-"

"Yes, you did," he said. He was not going to let her lie to either of them. "Anyone who deceives themselves cannot but deceive others. And I think you did deceive yourself, all these years. With good reason; this must have been a terrible burden." His hand started toward her cheek, and hesitated. He s.h.i.+ed from new self-exposure. It had not taken long. He had reacted as bravely as he could, but he could not but admit to himself that he needed time to reconcile himself. She was not the woman he thought she was, and he was trying not to condemn her. He was not the man he thought he was, and he was ashamed.

"Say . . . what you're thinking," she whispered.

"I'm going to need . . . a little time to find my balance, Telmaine," he confessed. "We're going to need time to find a new balance, in our marriage."

She pressed a hand to her lips. "I have so dreaded this happening, ever since you asked me to marry you."

"Was that it?" Bal said, remembering. In her beautiful young face, he had sonned dismay undercutting a palpable joy. He strove for transient lightness, though it had been deathly daunting at the time. "I thought I'd offended you and was about to be horsewhipped down the drive."

"I know," she said with meaning. Before she answered, she had leaned in to kiss him, her lips soft and uncertain on his, her elegantly gloved hand sliding hesitantly behind the nape of his neck. She would have felt all the uncertainty of the young suitor reaching high, the young man committing himself irrevocably to that state that young men uneasily disparaged as the end of their freedom, the young lover whose senses were nearly overset by her nearness, her softness, her fragrance. He'd been too nervous for physical arousal, at least then, but there had been other times when he had not been so inhibited. And she had known. As she had become surer of him, she had teased teased him with it, the vixen. him with it, the vixen.

Her sonn washed over him, finding him in the best of all possible states, with a reminiscent smile on his lips. She let out her breath and rested against him, careful that only their clad bodies touched. The smoke lingering around her was acrid in his throat, but he did not draw away.

She whispered, "I thought . . . how could I marry you, when you did not know? I thought, How could you marry me if you did know? I wanted you, Bal; I wanted you as much as you wanted me. When I kissed you . . . when I kissed you and felt you offering up that gentle heart of yours, I knew I could not bear to lose you."

"It was your magic, as well as Ishmael's, that saved my life," he said.

She nodded.

"You will not lose me," he said quietly. "That I can promise. I grew up with a mage for a sister; I can get used to a mage wife. I've already learned some of the advantages."

She gave a choked, exhausted chuckle.

"Although with my sister it was a little different: With training, Olivede did learn to cloak her touch-sense."

"Cloak her touch-sense?" she said, lifting her head. her touch-sense?" she said, lifting her head.

He remembered how Telmaine had maintained a studied ignorance and studied dislike of all aspects of magic-protective coloration, he realized, along with her "phobia" about microbes that let her remain gloved. He wondered how else she had sustained her masquerade-and laid aside the questions, lest a chance touch expose her to the wondering and the resentment. He, after all, well knew what it was to keep a secret rather than risk losing her regard. She had merely been much more successful at it than he.

"She's a third-rank mage," he said. "Lower-rankers are involuntary touch-readers. Upper-rankers can control the sense. It takes considerable practice; she told me it's like learning to ignore one's skin."

She gasped, started to laugh, and started to weep once more. "He never told me it was possible! That rat b.a.s.t.a.r.d!"

He was, absurdly, shocked at hearing his genteel wife express herself so.

"It takes a certain strength-"

She propped herself up on her arm. "Balthasar, I have have that strength. He told me I might be a fifth- or sixth-rank mage." The terrible, stricken expression came over her again. "He that strength. He told me I might be a fifth- or sixth-rank mage." The terrible, stricken expression came over her again. "He warned warned me about my strength. He me about my strength. He warned warned me that I might kill if I drew on him too hard-and I did. Bal . . ." She was s.h.i.+vering violently. "I want to die. And if the Lightborn find me, I will die, or be driven insane." me that I might kill if I drew on him too hard-and I did. Bal . . ." She was s.h.i.+vering violently. "I want to die. And if the Lightborn find me, I will die, or be driven insane."

He had her in his arms, an instinctive reaction, before he fully appreciated what it was she had said. She cried more wildly as she sensed his alarm, all self-control abandoned. That self-control must be quite formidable to have enabled her to conceal her reactions all those years. "I think," he said, "you must tell me everything you remember."

"Why?" she sobbed.

"Because I know quite a bit more about the practice of magic than you do, unless you have been studying it in secret. I suspect, rather than you overdrawing him, that Ishmael di Studier sacrificed himself for you and Florilinde. And that is a n.o.ble gift, Telmaine, not a crime." With his cheek resting against her head, she would know how much he believed and how much he simply, desperately hoped was true.

She eased out of his arms and curled up beside him. In a quavering voice, she told him of the psychic conversation in the coach, and the plan she and Ishmael had formulated. Which made him unfairly furious with the dead man all over again; the plan was insane insane. Ishmael must have loved her beyond all reason to believe that with no training she could safely approach the warehouse and rescue Florilinde. Her description of her walk through the flames left his heart hammering with terror. She told him of the momentary distraction and fatal collapse of her s.h.i.+eld, and how she had felt Ishmael hold back the flames for an instant, and then . . . go out like a snuffed candle.

"It is as I thought," he said softly. "He offered up his life freely. I think, from what I know of the man, he would consider it well given."

"That makes it so much worse," she whispered, and wept again.

"As to why he never told you about the cloaking of touch-sense," Bal said, drawing her to him again with care, "two possibilities come to mind. He had too little time to teach you much beyond what was necessary to survive the moment. Or, because he never had the strength to master the touch-sense himself, and learned to live with that, it didn't occur to him that it was a skill you could could master." He paused, then said mildly, "Calling him a 'rat b.a.s.t.a.r.d' seems a touch strong, my dear." master." He paused, then said mildly, "Calling him a 'rat b.a.s.t.a.r.d' seems a touch strong, my dear."

She snuffled a laugh, still trembling. "Oh, Bal, you have no idea. He has-he had-the idea that there are Shadowborn involved in all our troubles, and that Vladimer is in danger. He wanted me me to go to Vladimer, to help him." to go to Vladimer, to help him."

Balthasar's immediate impulse was vehement and protective rejection. He controlled that, recognizing that the woman s.h.i.+vering in his arms was in some ways beyond his protection. Fifth- or sixth-rank mage; there might be only ten or twelve Darkborn mages as powerful. It was a profoundly unsettling realization.

"Why do-did he think that?" he asked.

"Because of what I sensed outside your parents' town house. He said that was Shadowborn magic."

"And a very little while later," Bal said slowly, "Lord Vladimer becomes desperately ill." Her hair tickled his chin as she moved her head. He moved his, very slightly, to prevent their skin from touching. She seemed unaware. "Telmaine, what did di Studier have time to teach you?"

"Some healing, but a lot of that I already understood from you. Oh, Bal, Gil di Maurier-I did what I could for him, repaired the bowel damage and cleared out the infection."

He jerked his head backward involuntarily and sonned her. That casual description, even more than the fire, shocked him. He knew about the efficacy of magical healing, and how it far exceeded the present capabilities of physicians such as himself, but to hear her so blithely . . . They had had to, he thought, suddenly and pa.s.sionately, they to, he thought, suddenly and pa.s.sionately, they had had to break magic free of the stigma that was smothering it, of the barriers placed around it. He'd had such arguments with Olivede, where she had pointed out that mages were too few and in the main too weak to work routine miracles, but in alliance with physicians' scientific understanding, surely . . . to break magic free of the stigma that was smothering it, of the barriers placed around it. He'd had such arguments with Olivede, where she had pointed out that mages were too few and in the main too weak to work routine miracles, but in alliance with physicians' scientific understanding, surely . . .

"I don't know whether I did enough," she said. "I knew they'd not accept my healing-"

"Telmaine," he said, realizing what she meant. "Don't tell me." Cowardly of him, perhaps, but he knew Guillaume di Maurier's horror of magic was as deep-rooted as the survivor's guilt that had so nearly destroyed him. Perhaps had destroyed him. If Gil died, that, "Tell Balthasar . . . he saved me for a better death" would haunt him for a long time.

"I should not have, I know. I just couldn't . . . He'd found found Florilinde." Florilinde."

He tucked her hair back. "I know. I understand. Gil would not." He paused. "If we leave soon," he said quietly, "we can catch the day train to the coast. The ducal station is underground, and there's a courier's entrance to the house itself from the concourse, as well as the main guest entrance. I delivered a few messages there myself, when I was acting as an amateur courier in Flo-Lightborn-business. We could be in the house itself by midafternoon."

"Bal, I can't-"

"Lord Vladimer is failing, Telmaine. The superintendent told me so. If his affliction is not magical, you can do something about it. And if it is . . . Do you remember what I said just before we left the town house: that we were the ones who must resist this evil? If not ourselves, then who?"

"What . . . what about the children?" she pleaded.

"We must leave them here, in the nursery," he said, his voice thin but resolute, "under guard by the household agents, who are already aware of the risk to us. I will send an urgent note to your mother to come. If all goes well, we will be back before tomorrow's sunrise. If the worst happens, to both of us, our wills are in order; she will stand as guardian, and they will not want for love or comforts."

"Bal, we cannot leave them like this! What about Flori? I've dealt with the food poisoning, but she's been horribly used. And Amerdale, what she's witnessed . . ."

He hesitated: It was another unconscionable act to desert children as traumatized as theirs. She sensed his wavering. "We're ordinary people, Bal, ordinary parents with little children who need us. Surely there's someone . . . Casamir Blondell. The mages. Even the Lightborn."

"Casamir Blondell chose to sacrifice Ishmael to keep the peace. The mages . . . this accusation of magical sorcery will have terrified them, and they'll be overspent in healing survivors of the fire. As for the Lightborn . . . I fear they may be as beset as we are. I have not heard from Floria. The light breach in my house may not have been a trap for us, but the result of an attack on her." His voice shook; he'd not fitted it together before this moment. Telmaine's anguish over Ishmael di Studier found new resonance in him.

"The archduke!"

"And say what to him? You know Seja.n.u.s Plantageter; would he believe even a quarter of this farrago?"

"Ferdenzil Mycene then!"

"Had Ishmael di Studier not been accused of murdering his intended, then yes. But we don't have time to overcome his resistance."

"Balthasar," she said, palpably angry now, "Floria White Hand might have encouraged you to play at being a courier and agent as a child, but you are a grown man now, and it is time to put away those boyhood games."

"Do you really think this is a game?" he said, knowing it an unfair answer: Her point was that he he did not belong in this, not that the conflict itself was a game. He was aware of her struggling to recognize his tactic, despite her tiredness. did not belong in this, not that the conflict itself was a game. He was aware of her struggling to recognize his tactic, despite her tiredness.

She said in despair, "If you insist, husband, I will go, but you have have to stay. You're barely healed, and the children need you." to stay. You're barely healed, and the children need you."

Now it was his turn to struggle. He might be physically healed from the beating, but he was emotionally far from ready to confront the men who had beaten him, or their masters. She would know that. If fear paralyzed him, it could be the death of them both.

"If there were anyone else I could ask, I would," he said shakily. "If I could reach Olivede in time, I would. But Lord Vladimer may not have time time. And someone must go with you, to watch your back." He was at the end of his words and, knowing that, reached out, laid the back of his fingers against her cheek, and, through that, poured all his understanding, conviction, and fear-for her, for himself, for their children, and for their world. She recoiled with a cry. They crouched in shared silence, and then she rolled off his bed and stumbled out of the room, leaving him aching with remorse.

She returned just as he finished writing the letter to her mother, washed and dressed in a plain traveling outfit and cloak, precariously composed, gloved, and perfumed to cover the lingering scent of smoke. He should have warned her against the perfume, he thought too late, but likely the small disadvantage it placed them at would have no effect in the end. He said nothing; there was no sense to it. He held up the letter for her; she shook her head, refusing to read it.

"I've told the maid that I am taking you out for a short drive," she said. "She will call the nursery staff to attend to the children. They will a.s.sume when we do not arrive back that we were caught short by the sunrise bell and took shelter."

He said, "Since I'm not sure how much we can trust Lord Vladimer's other agents to help rather than hinder us-never mind what our enemies might do-I think we should time our arrival at the station as close as we possibly can to the doors being closed for the day."

She tugged his collars straight and held his jacket for him, just as though they were embarking on an ordinary late outing. "You'd better not seem too spry outside," she said with a brittle briskness.

He leaned on her arm as they went along the hall, walking slightly hunched and slowly as an invalid, and letting her sonn guide them. They pa.s.sed the rooms so briefly occupied by Ishmael di Studier. He did not need to be a mage to know she knew it; the catch in her breathing told him as much. Down the stairs, across the hall, where she gave a few orders to the staff, as her role required. To his ears she sounded strained and unnatural, but perhaps to people who knew her only as one of the archduke's many visitors, she did well enough. It was still a relief for them to be in the carriage.

At his murmured direction, she instructed the coachman to take them to the botanical gardens. "Why there?" she said.

"We'll get off at the west side of the fountains, run over to the stand on the east, and catch a carriage to the station. That should be literally moments before the sunrise bell begins to toll. We should take anyone following us by surprise, and the traffic flow around there is such that they won't be able to follow us in a carriage."

"There won't be any carriages there this late, and they won't take us."

"They will, for a surcharge and the surety that we're going somewhere they'll be able to safely overstay the day and pick up a profitable fare right after sunset. But anyone who transfers to follow should have trouble, not knowing where we're bound."

Her expression was skeptical, but she confined the skepticism to: "Can you run?"

"I'll have to," he said. "Be ready." He leaned forward and lowered the carriage window, calling up to the coachman to stop at the fountains. The carriage stopped with a sudden and unnecessary lurch that nearly landed him on Telmaine's lap and reminded him that his healing was still very fresh. He opened the door and half slid down the stairs. Telmaine followed with ladylike grace. She pa.s.sed the coins for their fare to him, and he took her hand firmly in his, while he reached up to pay the coachman. To his left, he heard the slowing clop of a horse and the creaking of an undercarriage. His heart rate surged. "Now!" he said, and cast sonn before them, outlining the s.h.i.+mmer of falling water from the huge fountain, the scatter of starlings and pigeons, the empty seats set in a wide curve.

They ran, she s.n.a.t.c.hing her hand from his to be able to hitch up her skirts, he holding his side. Birds scattered around their feet. Someone said, in a woman's voice, "Well, really!" as he skipped over a shape that he realized belatedly was a small dog. Sonn laced around them, but thin sonn, as from a very few people. At this hour, the fountain square would be nearly deserted, and in the quiet Bal could hear running footsteps behind them. He cast sonn wildly ahead, trying to visualize the standing coaches and guess from the postures of the coachmen who would be most curious, least wary. Telmaine did not hesitate; she dashed for the nearest. "We're just going to Bolingbroke Station," he heard her gasp out, keeping her voice from carrying. "Please, quickly. That's my guardian behind me; he's trying to stop our wedding." Then, without waiting for any a.s.sent that Bal could hear, she hitched up her skirts and scrambled up into the coach, stooping to help him heave himself aboard. The coach started with a lurch, pulling out and gathering speed. Bal lay half-on and half-off the seat, his side searing with every heaving breath. Telmaine crouched beside him. He felt her gentle fingertips on his forehead, and the pain eased. "Do you think he heard where we are going?" he asked huskily.

"I don't think so," she said, and risked leaning out of the window to call up to the coachman: Were they being followed? He thought not. She slid up onto the worn bench facing him and sonned Bal. "Whom do you suppose?"

"Let's a.s.sume foe. Friends you can always apologize to later."

"Can you?" she said dryly.

He decided to let that pa.s.s. He pushed himself upright, s.h.i.+fted across the carriage to her side, and slipped an arm around her. "I never knew you had a secret hankering to elope," he remarked.

She made a noise of disdain. "Every girl reads the same silly novels. What do we do when we get to the station?"

The sunrise bell began to toll. They felt the coach pick up its pace. Balthasar said with relief, "We'll be in time. Buy the tickets, get on the train."

"A day train," she said. "Bal, if we're right about these people, day will not stop them."

"I know," Bal said. "I hope that we can outrun them."

"Why? If . . . Ishmael and I could speak at a distance, why not them?"

The thought chilled him; he had no answer for her.

They arrived at Bolingbroke Station without further incident, pulling in as the sunrise bell stopped tolling and the station attendant called a warning for the closing of the doors. The coachman received their ample payment, saluted them with a knowing grin, and wished them good fortune. He flicked his horse into a trot, bound for the closed garage and its amenities. Balthasar followed Telmaine with all haste, but paused inside the door to wait on its closing.

"That's it," he said. "You realize we are quite a cliche. Two decamping lovers traveling by day train."

Telmaine sniffed. If one were to believe the melodramas of the day, the sealed trains that traveled by day were full of spies, conspirators, jewel thieves, and eloping or adulterous lovers, all das.h.i.+ng to meet their deserved ends in fiery crashes and immolation by daylight. The reality, as experienced by Bal in his student days, was usually more prosaic. The Lightborn ensured that the Darkborn's day trains traveled safely along cleared tracks, because they must of necessity travel sealed. In the twenty years since the first day train, there had been only one disaster, resulting from unantic.i.p.ated mechanical failures.

Upper cla.s.s of the coastal route, at the safer rear of the train, was occupied by ducal couriers, civil servants, and n.o.bility on urgent business. Lower cla.s.s, at the front, was occupied by students, servants, and other holidaymakers taking advantage of the cheap fares. The journeys were sometimes raucous, with drunkenness and the occasional brawl, but each carriage had one or more public agents present to impose order, and penalties for reckless conduct during daylight hours were high.

He had never before traveled at the rear of the day train, and as soon as they were shown into their luxurious private compartment, he realized that it would be a very different experience from his student days. He sank gratefully into the soft seating.

Telmaine said, "Are you all right?"

"Too much excitement," he said, more lightly than he felt. He did not want her expending herself on him any more. She settled herself in, deploying skirts, hat, and reticule with her usual grace, leaned her head back against the plush headrest, and sighed.