Love-in-a-Mist Read online

  “She’s the Lady of Alinor first,” Violet replied shortly.

  I remembered the dark-skinned woman Mr. Dart and I had encountered in the Lady’s Pools in the Coombe, my first weekend back in Ragnor Bella, when Violet had been haunting the barony (so to speak) with a red herring pie. That woman had laughed merrily on seeing us nearly fall into the Lady’s Pool before her; and who was she meeting there, if not her daughter the spy?

  “Still,” I said. “Will you tell me, please, if your heart cannot incline in my direction? I will not belabour it if it belongs to another—or to none at all, of course.”

  Violet sighed. “Oh, Jemis, you know it doesn’t.”

  We looked at each other. I smiled at her resigned declaration, hardly the stuff of romantic legend but still—but still!—

  “For yourself, Violet, disregarding all the rest, may I write to you?”

  “I can hardly disregard all the rest, and neither can you, my lord viscount! But—” She reached out her hand to me, and I took it as gently as I could with both of mine. Her Crimson Lake ring and mine flashed in the sunlight coming in some high window behind us. “Oh, Jemis, yes, you may write to me.”

  And she smiled, so my heart turned quite over.

  Never letting my eyes stray from hers, I lifted her hand to my lips and kissed it.

  “And here I had thought that only the mountains and Ariadne nev Lingarel’s poem would show me the way back to that other country of our souls,” I said.

  “Oh, Jemis,” said Violet, laughing. “You are such a romantic.”

  Chapter Three

  It was a gorgeously beautiful day, golden sunlight illuminating the yellow larches and striking the grey-brown bark of winter-bare trees into tender magnificence. Over the mountains white clouds were starting to pile up, but they were nothing like the dreary close fog of Orio City.

  I would have dearly liked to go for a long run through the countryside, exploring the wooded slopes, but alas, that was not to be. Instead Jullanar Maebh, Hal, Mr. Dart, Violet, and I gathered in the stone-paved court in front of the hunting lodge to say our farewells.

  The invalid Ruaridh had already been settled into the carriage. He was so swaddled with blankets and hot bricks that I could see nothing much of him but a dim blur of sallow features. He did not look well, as might be expected of someone recently rescued from six years a prisoner in an oubliette, abused for his magic as well as his political capital.

  Violet stood with her hand on the door of the carriage. “Thank you, Marcan,” she said gravely, curtseying politely to him. She nodded to Hal and Mr. Dart, smiled at Jullanar Maebh, and gave me a long look. “Safe travels, everyone. Thank you for your assistance.”

  I bowed, unable to stop the smile from creeping onto my face. She shook her head, sighing, and said, “Oh, Jemis,” but before she turned to enter the carriage I saw the dimple at the corner of her mouth make its appearance, and did not mind in the least.

  Our cart was nothing like the smart gig Violet and Ruaridh had borrowed from Marcan. It was a hefty beer wagon, in fact, drawn by four heavy horses with blue roan colouring and dramatic white feathers. The carter was an older man, careworn and careless in his clothing, who held the reins with a negligent hand and disdained more than the most basic of greetings.

  “In t’back w’ye,” he slurred, though that might have been his accent.

  We clambered in, Jullanar Maebh with some visible discomfort, and settled our best on lumpy piles of dusty sacks sandwiched between barrels. Marcan had said something vague about replenishing supplies from down the valley before his father the king arrived. I was glad, withal, that there was a purpose in the carter’s journey besides simply depositing us at Finoury’s Inn. He did not seem the type to relish pointless journeys on behalf of the gentry. Not that I could blame him for that in the least.

  The carter clucked to the horses, which set off at a steady plod. The first part of our route took us through a heavy forest, mostly evergreens mixed with the yellow larches. The air was crisp, promising the coming season, but still just barely autumnal rather than wintry. It was hard to believe it was barely three weeks until Winterturn began with the solstice.

  I settled back on my sacks and tried to think about all the things that might come about as a result of our adventures in Orio City, but they were on the other side of last night’s miracle, and remote as a book I had read some time ago. Violet’s smile when she said I might write to her was much more present, and I could not help but fall into daydreams of what I would say to her on our next meeting.

  Hal and Mr. Dart and Jullanar Maebh started talking about their various areas of study—Mr. Dart was embarrassed at the report of Marcan’s enthusiasm for his scholarly prowess—which was a conversation I did not feel a strong need to participate in. They already all knew what I had studied, and though I didn’t know Jullanar Maebh well as of yet, I was sure there would be plenty of opportunities to hear more about the scientific properties of water at some point.

  We descended steeply through the trees. The spruces and larch gave way to holly and oak and bare-branched ash, and the air, still crisp, grew richer with the scent of decaying leaves. I watched various small birds flit across our path, not able to identify more than the most obvious sparrows and robins, enjoying the songs filling the air.

  As the track levelled out and joined another, wider one, the horses picked up their pace and began a steady smooth trot. I eyed the speed with which various elements of the landscape passed us and decided they were now going faster than my walking pace, but still slower than my running speed.

  Would it be tremendously rude of me to leave them to the ride and run ahead on foot?

  Hal caught my eye and shook his head silently, but with amusement on his features. I sighed, then grinned at him—I probably was that obvious—and entered into the conversation, which was now on the subject of Winterturn holiday traditions.

  Jullanar Maebh’s account of Outer Reaches traditions was somewhat wistful. Mr. Dart was very attentive, asking questions about specificities, but it did not seem to occur to his newly-discovered relative that he might wish to ensure that her first holiday with her father’s family was not entirely alien.

  I thought her account of a candle-lit carolling ceremony one that sounded splendid and well worth adopting in our region. It did not seem unlikely that my father could be persuaded to participate in it. As a child we had gone to Arguty Manor for the feast-day meal itself, and otherwise decorated our cottage with greenery and candles in honour of the Lady of Winter according to my mother’s Woods-Noirell customs.

  Mr. Buchance, my stepfather, was from Chare, and had brought mostly food-related traditions. Not that I could say anything against the spiced cookies and festival pies he had introduced to our family (and by way of his second wife’s brother, the town baker, to the town at large).

  “My Winterturn this year will be focused on the coming-of-age ball,” Hal said, almost glumly, but he brightened when he went on. “We have a family meal in the morning of the solstice, and there’s always a great feast in the evening for all the surrounding gentry, with carolling and bonfires outside for the tenantry, and usually several roast deer. Before the Fall we used to have a full winter fair, with entertainment and booths and people coming from all around. I decided to start that again—we’re going to have so many guests for the ball, I thought we might as well give them something to do besides send their sisters and daughters to woo me.”

  Jullanar Maebh gave him a doubtful glance. “Are you so very eligible, then?”

  Hal grinned at her, realizing a moment before I did that she evidently had not yet discovered his rank. “I am, alas! I see I have somehow managed not to introduce myself properly—Halioren Leaveringham,” (pronounced Lingham), “Duke Imperial of Fillering Pool, at your service, Miss Dart.”

  She stared at him, nonplussed. “You’re the Duke of Fillering Pool?”

  “In the flesh,” Hal replied.

  “I’
ve read about you in the New Salon. I had no—we’re sitting in a cart!”

  I glanced up at the carter, who did not appear to be paying the slightest bit of attention to us and our conversation. He was slouching with a distinct sideways tilt on his bench, and at some point while I’d been daydreaming had pulled out a large flask. The horses, thankfully, seemed to know where they were going, and went along smartly with little direction from their driver.

  At least I hoped they knew where they were going. The road was fairly well-travelled, at any rate, if the increasing number of ruts were anything to go by.

  Hal laughed. “I did go to Morrowlea, you know. And Jemis is not the only one who finds his name in the New Salon with regularity.”

  “Alas,” I muttered.

  Jullanar Maebh shook her head in amazement. “And they didn’t know?”

  Hal gave me a speculative glance. “Jemis, did you? Tell us honestly, now! I know Marcan didn’t—I knew of his name, and he mine, of course, but we’d never met, and neither Marcan nor Hal are such odd names as to make us think immediately of each other.”

  Jemis, on the other hand, was very unusual in our part of the world, although until recently only my father was famous.

  I thought back to my first encounter with my new roommate. I had been so grateful for his friendliness, barely regarding how his accent and colouring and general demeanour all betokened ‘good breeding’. Albeit I had noticed how he had treated the simple act of picking up a tray with his meal on it, in the college refectory, as an adventure of the highest order.

  “I knew he was well-bred,” I replied. “Obviously of good wealth and standing—but did I ever for a moment think to myself, ‘Ah yes, this must be the Duke of Fillering Pool’?—no! It never crossed my mind. After about the first week I honestly didn’t think about what his people might be. I didn’t want to talk about mine, not if I didn’t have to, and it was against the rules besides.”

  Hal gave me a brilliant flashing smile, relief and pleasure evident in it.

  He had told me at some point that he had chosen Morrowlea because he wanted to know who he was without all the trappings of rank. He had been seven when he became the duke, surrounded his whole life by privilege and wealth.

  (I had chosen Morrowlea to get out from the shadow of my father’s name, whom I loved and mourned and respected, and who was considered once one of the greatest heroes, and then one of the greatest traitors, in late Astandalan history.)

  “Morrowlea sounds much more interesting than Tara,” Jullanar Maebh said.

  I agreed, but it was hardly polite to say so, so I offered, “I don’t think we had anyone teaching about water. It’s landlocked, of course.”

  “The department of Natural Philosophy is excellent,” Hal opined. “Of course, I’m biased as Botany falls into its demesne, but I am considered a reasonable judge, I’ll have you—oh!”

  The right front wheel of the cart crashed suddenly down into a hole, jolting us all out of our seats and knocking half the barrels out of the wagon. The carter swore and dropped the reins. One of the barrels bounced forward and knocked against the rearward horse. It squealed and lunged forward, scaring the others into bolting.

  We lurched. The carter swore. I grabbed the side of the wagon and nearly swallowed my tongue when with a loud tortured whine the harness snapped and the whole front of the wagon dropped.

  The carter swore some more. More barrels fell out. Jullanar Maebh had to scramble not to be tumbled out with them. I grabbed at her even as Hal fell towards Mr. Dart, whose stone arm seemed to be caught between the side and another barrel, but this movement unbalanced everything and with another crack the whole wagon tilted up and over and tumbled us unceremoniously out onto the ground.

  Something clouted me on the elbow, and I swore breathlessly before remembering the presence of Jullanar Maebh. She herself was uttering a series of words in what I took to be Outer Reaches slang, and did not appear to notice my transgression.

  “Well,” I said, catching my breath and sitting cautiously upright. “Is everyone in one piece?”

  “More or less,” Mr. Dart said. “Cousin, are you sound?”

  There was a pause as Jullanar Maebh seemed to realize she had been voicing her thoughts in a less than ladylike manner. She flushed and accepted Mr. Dart’s outstretched arm to stand up and brush herself off. “I confess this is not at all how I had expected my journey to my father’s home to go.”

  Mr. Dart nodded in sympathy. “I should probably not have embroiled Mr. Greenwing in my affairs.”

  I brushed fruitlessly at my mud-spattered coattails. “I would hardly have let you go on your own.”

  He sighed gustily and began searching around for his hat, which was underneath a distant barrel. “I feared what would happen if I left you alone.”

  Hal uttered his surprising whoop of a laugh. “The mind boggles! We’re only missing the Fair Folk now.”

  I raised my eyebrows at him even as I clambered to my feet. “I would not speak so loud, even this side of the mountains. Also, I suppose you have forgotten my grandmother’s coachman and his six Ghiandor horses, which made the run from Ragnor Bella to Orio City without a change and barely a rest.”

  “I stand corrected. No harm done?”

  My elbow seemed likely to bruise, but otherwise was sound. “Only to my clothes.”

  “They can be mended later. I am less certain about our conveyance.”

  It was not so long ago that I had had precisely one set of good clothes, and feared they would be the last. I still actually only had one good winter-weight suit, the much-abused items of clothing I was currently wearing, but at least I had more on order from the haberdashers of Ragnor Bella, and money to come from my stepfather’s bequest to pay for them.

  The wagon was decisively overturned, the front wheels worryingly aslant from each other and their common axle. The load of barrels and sacks were scattered widely around and down the trail, and the horses were nowhere in sight.

  I was closest to the carter, who was sitting akimbo on the ground. “Are you all right, sir?” I asked him, offering him my hand. He brushed it aside with a muttered oath, groping for his flask instead. Once that was in his grip he took a long swig, belched, and lumbered upright without affording us the least bit of attention.

  “Excuse me,” I tried, touching his shoulder, but he shook my hand off.

  “Bloody horses,” he said, staggering off into the woods.

  This left the four of us and the wrecked cart. We waited a few minutes, but neither the horses nor the carter came back.

  Hal shook his head and bent to examine the axle. “It’s snapped,” he announced after a few minutes. “We could right the wagon but even with the horses we wouldn’t be going anywhere fast.”

  Jullanar Maebh set one of the barrels upright and sat down on it, wrapping her arms about herself. Mr. Dart had retrieved his hat and set another barrel next to her. “Any bright ideas?” he asked the air.

  I rose up on my toes and down again. “Marcan said it was about fifteen miles to the inn at the crossroads. I reckon we’ve come seven or eight.”

  “Is that all?” Jullanar Maebh asked in dismay.

  “Those horses were going a steady three and a half miles an hour on the flat,” I informed her. “Less on the uphills. I judged against my pace running.”

  I peered up at the sky through the trees. The clouds were getting larger and darker and with strange shapes and protuberances to them, evidence of crosswinds at high altitudes, I guessed. Not enough to be an immediate cause of concern, I didn’t think, but a little ominous. “We don’t have any baggage here, and the carter didn’t seem the most trustworthy. What do you think? Shall we start walking towards the crossroads inn? We should get there before dark easily enough, even at an easy pace. We’re about the same distance from the hunting lodge, and there’s not much point in returning there if we don’t have to.”

  Hal, I knew, walked a goodly rate when not distracted by in
teresting plants, and Mr. Dart was well accustomed to wandering about on excursions picking mushrooms and other intriguing nighttime activities afforded by our barony. Jullanar Maebh seemed fit enough to ramble at least an hour or two.

  “You might run ahead and bespeak us rooms at the inn,” Mr. Dart suggested. “And supper. Perhaps a bath.”

  “If they’ve got a carriage or even a better-sprung cart to send back to us, that would be useful as well,” Hal put in. “You can ask them to send a messenger back to Marcan at the lodge so they know what happened to the carter.”

  “If there’s more than just the inn there, you could see if there’s a cartwright, too,” Jullanar Maebh added.

  “Or send for our own Cartwright,” Mr. Dart said wistfully, straightening his sling.

  “Cartwright’s your man, isn’t he?” Hal asked. “Do you think he will have left Orio City, or stayed in the hopes of your escaping or being released?”

  Mr. Dart pondered a few minutes. “The duplicitous Violet was of the opinion that while the Indrillines would hardly want our escape noised abroad, the necessary efforts at finding us are sure to have been noticed. So … we can hope they left. Next time I will know to provide a rendezvous for unexpected adventures.”

  “We could send a message on to his mother outside Yrchester,” I said.

  That met with approval. Hal had a notebook and a new-style fountain pen in his waistcoat pocket (for taking notes on the interesting botanical specimens he encountered, he claimed), so Mr. Dart wrote a note for his valet, and Hal, after a bit of thought, one for his mother at home in Fillering Pool, as well as one back to the hunting lodge for Marcan. “She’ll be worried at the news,” he said laconically. “We need to start gathering our allies again now that Ruaridh is no longer a hostage.”

  “He didn’t seem … well,” Jullanar Maebh said.