Kellen thought about it. “Nothing happened. We were in my pavilion, drinking tea—Armethaliehan Black. I drank it, and so did Kardus. He was fine then. We went to eat. He was sick by the time we got there, I think.”
Idalia shrugged. Vestakia looked baffled. “Well, he swears his head does not hurt now,” she said.
“We can’t just knock him over and have a passing Knight-Mage sit on him every time he develops a headache,” Idalia retorted. “It wouldn’t be convenient—and you might start to like it, Kellen.” She tapped her lips with one finger, thinking. “I’ll make up a cordial for him to take if his head starts hurting again. If it doesn’t work, bring him back. Oh—and you might want to see about getting him something warmer to wear. What he’s got is good enough for Stonehearth, or for camp, but if we have to go any further north, he’s going to freeze, and he must be cold already.”
Kellen sighed—he seemed to be doing a lot of that lately. But when had he been appointed Cilarnen’s nurse? Still, proper Mageborn like Cilarnen were small and slender. They might even be able to fit him from the clothing the dead had left behind.
It was a gruesome thought, one he wouldn’t have had a moonturn ago, but it came to him now with simple matter-of-fact practicality.
“I’ll see to it,” he said. In fact, he’d tell Isinwen to see to it. That way, Cilarnen’s clothes would not only be warm, but suitable.
Idalia went to see to the making of the cordial, taking Vestakia with her. Kellen went over to Cilarnen.
He really did look better. Whether it was the sudden shock, or just because the headache had run its course, he seemed to be fully recovered.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt her feelings,” Cilarnen said quietly. “I didn’t think…”
No, Kellen thought. They didn’t teach any of us to think in the City, did they? But you started thinking there—or trying to—and that’s what started all your problems.
Just the way it started mine.
“The fault was mine,” he said. “I didn’t think, either, and as a result, I gave you a terrible shock, and she was upset. Let it be forgotten.”
“If I will not be needed here,” Kardus said, “there are matters elsewhere that require my attention. Follow the Herdsman’s Path, Cilarnen. Kellen will be your friend.”
“I have kept you too long already,” Cilarnen said, with automatic courtesy. “Go with the Light.”
The Centaur trotted quickly from the tent, leaving Kellen and Cilarnen to share an awkward silence. A few moments later Idalia came back with a bottle of amber liquid and a horn spoon.
“Here you go,” she said to Cilarnen. “It’s not the same thing you were taking in Stonehearth, from what Yatimumil says, but if your head starts hurting again, take two spoonsful of it. If that doesn’t work, come back here.”
“Yes,” Cilarnen said. “Thank you.” He was regarding Idalia curiously, as if there were questions he longed to ask her, but didn’t quite dare.
Kellen felt—strongly—that those questions had better go unasked just now. Cilarnen might have been able to repair his lapse with Vestakia, but Vestakia had an essentially forgiving nature. He wasn’t quite sure how Idalia would react to any questions along the lines of how she—a mere female—had managed to learn magic.
“Come on,” he said, giving Cilarnen a quick gentle shove toward the opening of the tent.
—«♦»—
“NOW,” he said, once they were outside. “We are going to see Redhelwar’s adjutant, whoever is on duty. He may offer us tea. Drink it; believe me, it is an honor to be offered tea. Do not tell him it tastes like boiled grass. Do not even think that it tastes like boiled grass. Elves have very sharp hearing. And—”
“Don’t ask them any questions?” Cilarnen suggested.
“Right,” Kellen said, relieved that Cilarnen had figured out that much. “They may ask you questions. Don’t be surprised. It’s called War Manners, and this is an army in the field, so in an emergency, the forms of etiquette are relaxed. But generally questions are considered incredibly rude. Like—” He groped for the proper comparison. “Like barging into someone else’s house and making yourself at home, I guess.”
“You lecture like Master Tocsel,” Cilarnen grumbled, shivering. “How long did it take you to figure all this out?”
“I didn’t figure any of it out,” Kellen told him honestly. “Fortunately Idalia— my sister—had lived with the Elves before, and she told me so I wouldn’t make, well, too many mistakes.”
“Sister?” Cilarnen said, blankly. He might not have noticed the last time Kellen had mentioned having a sister, but he did now.
Just too late Kellen remembered that Cilarnen would have known perfectly well—along with everyone else in the City—that Kellen Tavadon was Arch-Mage Lycaelon’s only child. For a brief moment, he wondered how Lycaelon had managed that. Cilarnen was Kellen’s age, or near it; certainly he wouldn’t have known about Idalia any more than Kellen knew about Cilarnen’s family. But there was Volpiril—or Cilarnen’s mother, who might actually have known Idalia… Kellen wondered for a moment how many other nasty little secrets the Mageborn families shared.
“She’s my older sister. Lycaelon’s firstborn. Banished for practicing the Wild Magic ten years before I was,” Kellen said.
“You never mentioned her.”
In all the intimate conversations we had at the Mage-College?
“Lycaelon made sure I didn’t remember her,” Kellen said briefly.
“I don’t think that’s right,” Cilarnen said, a new, hard note in his voice. Then a few moments later, he spoke again. “Kellen?”
“Yes, Cilarnen?” Trying very hard not to sigh.
“If she was Banished ten years before you were, you would have been seven, and I would have been eight. Was it a full legal Banishing?” His voice was full of a sharp urgency. “Did she appear before the High Council? Did she wear the Cloak? Did they send the Hunt?”
“Yes, and yes, and yes, and yes, and why does it matter?” Kellen said, beginning to get irritated despite his best intentions.
Cilarnen swallowed audibly. “It matters because of a course at the Mage-College you never took: Jurisprudence of the City. They taught that there hadn’t been any Banishings for over a century, that it was an ancient custom from the Dark Times, fallen into disuse now.” And now there was yet another note in his voice—one that said the bottom had fallen out of his world. “They lied, Kellen!”
Kellen stopped and turned around. “Yes, Cilarnen, they lied,” he said patiently. “About the Banishings, about Wild Magic being evil, about the so-called Lesser Races, about—too many things to go into right now. The entire City is built on lies. We’re going to save it anyway.”
I hope.
—«♦»—
DIONAN was not there when Kellen and Cilarnen arrived, only Dionan’s assistant, who was tidying the tent and setting out the tea service. After a moment, Kellen dredged up his name. Alenwe.
“I See you, Kellen Knight-Mage,” Alenwe said, bowing courteously.
“I See you, Alenwe,” Kellen said. “I make known to you Mage Cilarnen of Armethalieh.”
“I See you, Mage Cilarnen,” Alenwe said, bowing again.
“I See you, Alenwe,” Cilarnen said, following Kellen’s lead.
“Perhaps, if you are not called elsewhere, it would please you to enter and take tea, for I know you have been welcome in Dionan’s tent many times before,” Alenwe said.
“To be welcomed into Dionan’s tent is always an honor, each time as much as the first,” Kellen said.
There was no need for Alenwe to send anyone in search of Dionan; even if Dionan weren’t planning to return immediately from whatever errand had called him away, the Elven gossip-chains that ran faster than a bolt of summer lightning would ensure that he knew Kellen was here.
And in fact, before the tea-water had boiled, Dionan came walking into the tent, as unhurriedly as if he’d been out for a morning stroll.
“I do thank you for your patience with me, Alenwe, and your hospitality to my guests. Let us find something new for Kellen to try, and to honor the visitor from Armethalieh. I think perhaps Golden Pearl would be suitable. It is an excellent warming tea.”