A Sudden Wild Magic

Zillah very much did not like the way Herrel’s face turned mechanically to Lady Marceny’s, allowing his mother to stare into his eyes. Like that, the lady seemed to drink him in, quaff him, in great drafts. He shriveled slightly with it. Zillah did not like that at all. “No,” he said. “Not gualdian — a slightly similar strain, but without the power, and no training at all.”

Marcus picked up Zillah’s uneasiness. “Bilo god?” he demanded again. The treatment of Philo was really worrying him — as well it might, Zillah thought.

“It’s all right, love!” she whispered protectively, and swore to herself— probably, she thought, in her usual far too belated way — that, whatever happened, Marcus was not going to come out of this damaged in any manner whatsoever. That was top priority now, even above Herrel.

Herrel turned away, swung his legs to the dais, and crouched there. He fetched out a handful of smooth pebbles with which he began to play a game somewhat like jacks, throwing from his palm, catching with the back of his hand — his left hand, Zillah noticed: Mark was right-handed. Herrel was very good at the game, no doubt from long practice. It was as if his mother’s quaffing reduced him to childhood. I have just seen, Zillah thought in a sort of weak, angry horror, a kind of vampire at work. She faced Lady Marceny again, eyes and all, feeling implacable.

“So if you come from that far away,” Lady Marceny said, “I don’t understand what you were doing in my grove—either of the groves — with a gualdian and a centaur.”

Go on with the nearly-lie. No help for it. The eyes tried to quaff from her too. “I came to this country,” Zillah said, “to look for Marcus’s father.” She felt Herrel flinch, although he did not drop a single pebble. “I knew he came from this — the Pentarchy, but I didn’t know any more. The king was very kind to me and said of course I must look for him, and he gave me — Amphetron and Josh for guides and let me use the grove.” She kept a corner of her eye on Herrel, in case this was an unlikely thing for the king to have done — and it probably was, she thought. He’d have to be a king like King Arthur to do that. But Herrel never paused in his smooth throwing and catching. Maybe it was all right.

To her relief, Lady Marceny seemed to accept this story, although with a certain irony. “Far be it from me to go against the king,” she said dryly, “but the dear man ought to know better than to interfere in Leathe. But then perhaps our beloved king didn’t know he was. I take it the Goddess obliged, dear, by sending you here. Have you seen the little boy’s papa at all?”

I have not seen Mark, Zillah told herself, looking into those searching, searching eyes. “No. I told you. I think there must have been a mistake.”

Again her uneasiness communicated to Marcus. He shook her leg and raised a booming shout. “BILO GOD, Dillah?”

Lady Marceny frowned, a gracious crimping of pearly maquillage. “What does that little beast keep shouting about?”

Marcus might have been a dog. There was no doubt Herrel led a dog’s life. Anger fired up in Zillah. “He’s reminding me that the god of my country is here with us, my lady.”

Lady Marceny turned her eyes to Marcus, who glared up at her resentfully. “Oddy dady bake Bilo god,” he told her frankly.

“Dear, dear!” said the lady. “Whatever that means, child, you’ll have to learn to put those powers of yours respectfully to the service of ladies, or you’ll find yourself being punished. I really can’t be bothered with your god. Leathe can always speak to the dark side of him if necessary.” Her eyes returned to search Zillah again. “My dear, I can see you’re full of wonderfully strong feelings for this man of yours. I’m so sorry he seems to have let you down and run away. He must have quite a strong antipathy for you, if he went against the Goddess and got you sent to the wrong grove. But I understand why the dear king took up your cause. He’s a sentimental man, of course, but he must have seen as plainly as I can that your child has the most interesting potential. How very sad. Naturally we’ll make every effort to find your man now you’re here — I’ll lead the search myself.”

Zillah thought that this was the least reassuring assurance anyone had ever made her.

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