Ysetta nodded and started crying again. "We were betrothed," she said between sobs, "but he wanted to wait to tell my father until he had completed a great spell he was working on. He was almost done when he died—but he isn't really dead, is he?"
The girl was quick, Amber realized, at least about some things. Too bad she doesn't have the mage Gift; she might be a good one.
"Do you know what the spell was?" Amber asked. As she had expected, Ysetta shook her head. Marius wouldn't have told her directly, but Amber was sure that Ysetta knew more than she thought she did. She tried another tack. "Did he know you were with child?"
"Yes," Ysetta said. "I told him as soon as I was certain. He was happy about it!" she added defiantly. "He said he was going to make me a potion to take care of the baby as soon as he finished his spell."
Amber had enough experience with potions intended to "take care of" unborn babies to know that the phrase did not mean what Ysetta obviously thought it did. So he needed her pregnant with his child for the spell and then planned to have her miscarry.... That narrows it down a bit. He was doing something that required an anchor, something to tie him to the physical world.
"Who found his body?"
"I did," Ysetta said, her lip quivering. "It was Midsummer morning. He was lying on the rug in front of the hearth, and I thought he was asleep, but the fire had burned out, and I couldn't wake him, and—"
Amber cut off what was threatening to become an attack of hysteria. "So there were no marks on his body or signs of disturbance in the house."
"No."
"Were there any books lying open anywhere?"
Ysetta frowned in thought. "Yes, there was a book on the table and a flask with a potion next to it." She bit down on her lower lip to keep from crying. "I thought the potion might be the one he promised me, but it wasn't. It had pennyroyal in it, and that's bad for babies, isn't it?"
Amber nodded. "Very bad. If you had drunk it, you would have lost the baby."
"So it must have been something Marius was using for the spell. Perhaps a restorative for afterwards;"
Amber shrugged, careful to keep the distaste she felt from showing in her face. Marius ought not to be earthbound, she thought angrily. He should be in the deepest hell, with demons tormenting him! Aloud she said only, "Can you find me the book that was out that morning?"
Ysetta rose and went to the bookshelf, dragging the stool she had been sitting on. Standing carefully on it, she removed a book from the far side of the top row. "I put it up here," she explained, returning to the table with it, "in case it was something dangerous."
"That was well thought of," Amber said approvingly. "You would have made a good mage."
Ysetta looked startled. "Marius said I hadn't the Gift."
"You don't," Amber agreed, suddenly realizing what she had been seeing every time she looked at Ysetta lately, "but your daughter does."
Ysetta sat down suddenly on the stool, her hands going to her belly in a protective gesture. She smiled, and Amber realized it was the first time she had seen the girl smile. It transformed her from a pretty girl into a radiantly beautiful young woman. No doubt this was what Marius had seen in her.
If her father casts her out when he finds out about the baby, Amber thought, I'll take her home with me. She can study herbs at the school, and we can probably find her a suitable husband. Or if she doesn't wish to marry, she can stay at school and raise her daughter there. The masters will allow it; that child is going to be a strong mage.
Amber drew the book to her. It was an old grimoire, a motley group of spells some doubtless long-dead mage had collected for his personal use. "I don't suppose you remember what page this was open to when you found it."
Ysetta, still staring in wonderment at her unborn child, absently shook her head.
Amber balanced the book on its spine and allowed it to fall open where it would. Luck was with her; it fell open precisely, like a cookbook falling open to the recipe most often used, She repeated the process three times, getting the same page each time. "I think this is it," she said, shoving it toward Ysetta. "Does this look like the page it was open to when you found it?"
"I think so," Ysetta said. "I didn't look closely, but it certainly could be that page."