Mage Heart. Jane Routley
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had smelled of unwashed students and old, old dust. This room smelled faintly of lavender. Despite my mistrust, I felt something inside me uncurl and relax, especially after I saw that there was a lock on the door and a key in the lock.
After the housekeeper had gone, I let myself go. I ran my hand across the smooth fabric of the quilt, inhaled the lavender smell of the sheets, took off my shoes and wriggled my toes into the thick pile of the rug. This room was positively luxurious. And so pretty. I had never lived anywhere so pretty before.
I drew aside the fine, white curtain and opened the window. I was high above the ground, so high that I could see the tower of the cathedral and the spires of the city through the trees. I could almost imagine myself up in a castle like a princess. I could see now that the wrought-iron lace around the roof made it very hard for anyone to climb up to my window. I leaned against the windowsill for some time, dreaming and feeling the cool evening breeze blowing on my face, till the soft chiming of bells made me jump. It was quarter to eight by the cathedral clock.
I scrabbled round in my luggage for the magical apparatus. Praise God it was all there. Hastily I set up the candlestands and drew out the chalk symbols, smudging them in my hurry. I cursed myself for having left it all so late. I could imagine what Michael would have said to my dreaming instead of setting up the spell. Magery is an ascetic art. As Michael was always pointing out, a mage cannot afford to become too involved in his surroundings lest he be distracted by them. It seemed as though I had just proved this point. Seduced by the luxury of my new room, I had almost forgotten about the ritual. I resolved to be more on my guard.
After the incantation, I sat on my bed wondering what to do next. It was way past my dinnertime, and I was hungry. At this time of night the corridor outside my room would be echoing with the sounds of students coming back from dinner, sounds that had always made me feel so lonely. Here all was still. The silence wasn't much better than the noise had been. I was just trying to get up the courage to ring the bell for a servant when there was a knock on the door.
It was a crisp little woman dressed in the brown robes of a healer. She held out her hand and I shook it, a little mystified. It was a small hand, but surprisingly hard and callused.
"I'm Genevieve Appellez, Madame Avignon's personal healer. She sent me to welcome you to her house. She apologizes for not being here herself. She attends upon the Duke most evenings."
This, then, must be Madame Avignon's woman companion. I had not heard she was a healer. Oh dear. Here was trouble. Mages and healers traditionally got along very badly. She looked very serious, in the way healers always did. Her light brown hair was scraped severely back from her thin face under the usual brown cap. I was sure her hair never escaped in little wisps like mine did. She didn't look the type. Her face was quiet and watchful, not unfriendly, but her quick definite movements suggested a forceful personality. She was the sort of person who was certain to disapprove of me. Michael's housekeeper had been just such a one. The best way to deal with such people was to avoid them.
I bobbed my head awkwardly and murmured my thanks.
"May I come in?"
I nodded.
"Do you like the room? Do you have everything you need?" She looked about her with sharp eyes as I mumbled my thanks.
"So this is the protection spell," she said, going over to the table. "Do the candles have to be constantly alight?"
"No," I said. "They merely serve as a focus." Here was a healing woman prying into my magic just as Michael had said they did; I blew the candles out quickly, before she could learn anything.
We looked at each other across the table.
She looked wholesome. Not at all as if she lived in the house of a courtesan. This relentless wholesomeness everywhere was beginning to unnerve me.
"I will call you Dion and you must call me Genny," she informed me. "Come. You must be hungry. Let's go and have dinner."
As she led me down the stairs Genevieve explained that it would just be the two of us at dinner most evenings.
"Kitten usually dines at the palace."
The food was wonderful. Instead of watery stew, there was fish in a delicious sauce and crisp, bright vegetables arranged on elegant white platters in beautiful combinations of color and shape. After I had eaten, I realized that I had probably gobbled and sat embarrassed in front of my empty plate, watching Genevieve eating carefully. Guiltily I refused a second helping.
The meal was strained. Since I was bent on not revealing too much, conversation did not flourish, though Genevieve did her best to keep it going. The big dining room with the sound of the clock echoing in the silence and the impassive butler didn't help. For the first time, I missed the noisy, smelly dining room at the college.
Genevieve asked me about my studies, how I had liked the college and the various masters. Apparently she knew some of the healers there, but since mages tend to keep themselves separate from healers, this line of questioning didn't get us very far.
Then she asked me if I was at all interested in healing.
"I have studied it a little," I said, "but I've no vocation for it."
"I spend most of my days at St. Belkis' nunnery, where Kitten maintains a charity clinic."
I was astonished. It was such a peculiar thing to say. Why should Madame Avignon keep up a clinic and at a nunnery, too?
"A clinic?"
"Yes, a free clinic for the poor."
She must believe that it would cancel out her sins. It seemed a ludicrous superstition to an agnostic such as myself, but probably very common here as it had been in Moria, especially among uneducated people. Perhaps it was not so surprising in a courtesan after all. One of the well-known facts about Madame Avignon was her popularity with the lower classes. Michael and I had seen it for ourselves when we'd first come to Gallia. Rumor had it that Gallia's aristocracy feared Madame Avignon for this reason.
"That must make her popular," I said.
Genevieve looked at me sharply.
"With the poor," I said.
There was silence for a moment, and then she said, carefully, "The clinic is always in need of more people to do healing. I don't wish to offend you, but I thought to ask if you would be interested in assisting me there."
"I don't think so," I said as politely as I could, embarrassed by her asking and guilty for saying no. It was unheard of for a mage to lower himself to being a healer, a gross loss of dignity, almost like being a servant and cleaning up after people. Michael would have been horrified to think of it. In fact, why should I feel guilty? I'd done well to say no. Maybe I should have been ruder and put her in her place.
But no seemed to be the answer she'd expected, so I did not get the opportunity to be rude to her. I was secretly relieved and then annoyed at myself for being relieved. "For Seven's sake, stand up for yourself, Dion," said Michael's voice in my head.
After dinner Genevieve asked me if I would like to see her still room, but I could see it was just a politeness. I made my excuses and went back upstairs. I opened the window of my room and stood at it, breathing the chill night air and looking at the lights of the town through the treetops. The incident with Genevieve had depressed me and left me once again thinking sadly about my inability to make friends. Up here in the attic, the whole world seemed to be only me and my candle. Was it some failing in me that meant I was all alone in the world? Yet nobody could claim that Kitten Avignon was a virtuous woman, and all kinds of people seemed to be concerned over her.
It wasn't fair. I closed the window quickly and began unpacking my books. Maybe I should have said yes to the healer, I thought. It hardly mattered what they thought of me in this house, and it would have been something new to do.
At the bottom of the book box I found my diary of hazia dreams. I began to flip through it, dreaming back to some of those dreams. I had not written up that one on the beach of bones. I would have liked to have explored it more. I began reliving it in my mind, the