She had scrounged the kitchen for anything that might burn, found little, and tried the tinder again. But the sparks wouldn’t set the fire. She struck the flint harder, creating more and more intense sparks. Nothing worked. She wished she had a few leftover red coals or even a flame from a candle. Her tiny room was across the open courtyard and up stone stairs, but there were no candles there, not even discarded stubs, but her mind pictured a candle flame.
There were some in the main eating hall, but she was not allowed to go there or use them, let alone try to light one with sparks. Candles light others, or they light from existing fires in stoves or fireplaces. They are for people of higher rank, and those with money.
Scared and alone, she had heard the clop, clop of the wooden heels approaching, and she wished intensely for fire. She struck a new barrage of sparks from her flint. She needed fire desperately, and she needed it before the footsteps arrived. She looked around in near panic, searching for anything that might help. The footsteps moved closer as they echoed down the long hallway.
A dim glow in the morning gloom drew her attention. She looked down, thinking a spark had finally ignited the tinder. Instead, a tiny flame existed at the end of her index finger. It was smaller than a candle flame but burned steadily. Her finger was burning! She shook the finger to put the fire out before it hurt her, but she realized when it didn’t go out with the violent shaking that it was not hurting. Hannah quickly moved the damp tinder she held in her other hand above the flame. It caught, and she fanned it into a larger fire as the little finger-fire extinguished itself.
As the first cook arrived, Hannah had already placed the tinder under the kindling and was watching the fire grow around the cedar. She removed a few sticks of the burning kindling and placed them in the next stove, ignoring the cook as Hannah blew the next fire to life and repeated the process on the third oven. The cook used a brand from Hannah’s fire to light a candle stub she carried. But she was the Head Cook of the morning kitchen and awarded such privileges. She glared at the meager fires, not mentioning how late they were.
Hannah tried to look innocent and busy while ignoring the cook, as the cook ignored her as was her norm. But inside, Hannah could hardly breathe, and she kept looking at her cold, trembling finger where the fire had been. Not a blister or red mark on it. Only a Mage can create fire. She knew that. Everyone knew that.
They also knew that only men could be a Mage. Women, a very few special women called sorceresses, performed healings, or predictions, or other magical processes that dealt directly with people, spells, and incantations, but no woman had ever made fire from nothing. Women dealt with the living. Mages transformed elements, changing the physical properties of the world.
Hannah’s confused mind would not release the subject. She inserted another split of wood into each oven and stood aside, thinking. Women do not deal with the basic elements or transform an object from a solid to heat, like wood burning and becoming hot air. Transformations from one form to another are the sole property of top-level mages. Some mages cannot even make fire with their finger; not even the Mage-in-training, she had heard.
When all was said and done, Hannah, a girl, had made fire by using her finger and mind. At least, she believed she had. A simple kitchen girl, not even a woman or sorceress, had made fire. She tried making the flame on her finger the following morning and failed. Each day after that she tried again and again until she believed it had been a dream--and then one cold morning the flame reappeared by its own accord while she started to light the tinder. She snuffed it out and tried again. The tip of her finger sprang to light. On. Off. She repeated it over and over. The finger did not feel the heat, but afterward, it felt cold.
Since then she had done it a hundred times on a hundred different mornings. The act became second nature. Hannah didn’t have to pause and concentrate as she had in the beginning. Instead, the opposite was true; hiding the fire that sometimes appeared on her finger unexpectantly.
However, The Old Mage, who might be her father, had arrived at the palace after several years absence. That changed all things and spurred Hannah to develop a vague plan. She would manage to work her way near him tonight. She didn’t know the method or the outcome of her audacious act, but she would be there at his side, her index finger ready to display fire.
CHAPTER TWO
True to her word, Hannah followed the skinny Cook, drawing more than one angry look from her along the way. Hannah just smiled her responses as if she had no idea of why the cook might be irritated. With the banquet in mind, the kitchen stirred with the overflow of people. Meat rotated on spits, soups bubbled in cauldrons, and dough baked in hot ovens to become rolls and loaves. Cakes, pies, and candies filled two full tables against a wall. Wine, imported from beyond the far corners of the kingdom, overflowed shelves; some already unstopped so the wines could breathe, whatever that meant.
The cooking fires in ten ovens burned hot, and at least three fire tenders, all older than Hannah, carried wood and placed it beside the ovens, stoves, and open pits. But Hannah looked for the tall man called Bracken. He managed the servers and table settings. Tonight she wanted to serve, move among the guests and somehow get close to the Old Mage. That was her plan. Simple, straight forward, and dangerous.
After spotting Bracken in the center of a myriad of activity, she strode up and stood directly in front of the busy little tyrant. He snapped orders at the servants like a general to troops before a battle. As he paused to take a breath, Hannah, lifting her chin, said, “Sir, I would like to learn how to serve. I am old enough to do more than tend fires.”
Bracken didn’t lower his head, but he allowed his eyes to drift down until they stopped at her face. “Can you smile?”
She showed her teeth.
“Are you clumsy, girl? Fearful of powerful people? Shy?”
“I am not clumsy, but only a fool would not respect the power of a king or his royal court.”
He raised his eyes again and looked around the room from his small height, far too short to duck under the low, blackened beams of the kitchen as so many other men did. Then he looked down at her again, “That is a very insightful answer for one so young. But accurate. There is a woman named Ella, do you know her?”
“I know of her, and what she looks like.”
“Good. Find Ella and tell her I said you are to attempt to learn serving sweets. She’ll know what to teach you, and in the future, I will remember you volunteering to help me and reward you in some small way. Not many do offer, and I appreciate it. If you have problems with the other servants over . . . well, over your family situation, come see me.”
Hurrying off, Hannah realized she had somehow made an adult friend and protector. That was a total of one. No, that was not true, there was the old woman who couldn’t always remember her name, and the washerwoman with the burn scars on her face. There were a few more who were not exactly friends, but didn’t pick on her or gossip about her; at least not to her face. She spotted the woman called Ella and headed in her direction.
Hannah found that standing directly in front of the tall woman called Ella to draw her attention did no good. Ella looked over Hannah’s head and spoke to any others who came within earshot, ignoring Hannah as if she were a ghost. Hannah examined the older woman as she waited. Up close there were tiny lines and wrinkles in her face, making her older than Hannah believed her to be. Her waistline and hips were equal in size and a few touches of gray streaked the brown hair. But overall, she spoke to each person in equally pleasant tones and seemed well-liked by all. All but Hannah.