The Magicians of Night - By Barbara Hambly Page 0,39
wave, Shavus dismissed the Archmage of the Black Ebiatics. “His creditors were behind that arrest, most like.”
“I would not be certain of that,” Gyzan said. “There has been unrest everywhere, like a pervasive malaise. In every city of the Forty Realms one sees posters and broadsides denouncing wizards and workers of magic, depicting us as seducers, liars, and thieves. Even those people who have spoken with us, who know the untruth, are uneasy.”
Tally was silent, thinking about her own coming out to the market this morning. Last night at dinner in her father’s hall there had been strawberries for the last course, cool and heart-breakingly sweet, and all night, it seemed to her, she had dreamed of them, dreamed of wanting more. Shortly before dawn the unreasonable conviction had grown upon her that she could find more strawberries like those in the market outside the gates—she no longer even recalled the train of reasoning that had led her to this conclusion—but the craving had grown in the predawn darkness to obsession. Perhaps had she slept in the same room with her husband, Marc of Erralswan, that lazy young nobleman would have talked her out of it, but they had never shared a bed, having married to scotch the scandal of her affair with Rhion. In any case, Marc was God knew where with God knew what woman...
At last, unable to stand the desperation any longer, Tally had risen, dressed in her plainest gown, and ridden down to the market by the gates, only to be met by Shavus, Gyzan, and the Gray Lady of Sligo and to come to the realization that the strawberries and the dream-inspired yearning had been part of a spell to bring her outside the gates to meet then.
And despite all the years she had known Rhion, despite her friendship for his master Jaldis and her understanding of their wizardry, her first emotion had been one of extreme resentment, of violation. They had tinkered with her freedom, tampered with the secret chambers of her dreams.
And she understood suddenly how easy it would be to fan this kind of distrust to consuming flame.
“That was why we called you here, Tally,” the Gray Lady said gently, almost as if the Lady had read her mind—or at least, Tally thought wryly, her expression. “To ask you if it is safe to be seen entering Bragenmere—to ask how things stand with your father the Duke—and so that it would not be seen that you had had a message from us, if it so befell that it is not.”
“Of course it’s still safe,” Tally said, a little uneasily. “Father has been under pressure from a number of people—merchants, the priesthood of Darova, and especially the priests of Agon—to ban wizards from the Realm, but he’s never gone back from his stand that they do no more harm than apothecaries or knife-smiths or rope spinners or anyone else whose wares can cause harm... or, he’ll add, for that matter, priests and lawyers. The rest of it he says is all silly rumors.”
“Silly rumors,” Gyzan murmured, his scarred hands shifting on the smooth shaft of the bow. His hairless, ugly face broke into a grin. “I like that.”
“Like the silly rumor at the turn of the spring that a Blood-Mage’s spells were responsible for the latest seizures suffered by the High Queen’s son?” Shavus demanded, his pale eyes glinting under the coarse shelf of his brows. “That was when the Queen locked Gyzan up, though no complaint was ever made and no trial would have been held... nobody even knew where that rumor had started, any more than they know who’d been putting up those broadsides and posters.”
“Was that what happened?” Tally remembered vividly the cold of that bitter spring night, standing in the black shadows of the gateway watching the procession of masks bob away into rain and mist, while she huddled in her ash-colored cloak, waiting for a man who never came. She still remembered the leaden awfulness of hearing the tower clock strike midnight and knowing that Rhion was gone.
Rhion was gone.
“But why would you have done such a thing?” she asked, turning to Gyzan. “That’s what those rumors never say. Why! You aren’t even in the employ of one of the Lords...”
“People believe anything of wizards,” Shavus returned dourly. “The Earl of March believes I can fly—that I just travel horseback, when I can afford it, to confuse people. Silly bastard. They call the Lady Nessa ‘Serpentlady’ because her