There was the dry draught coming under the door, heavy with the tang of stone in the dust it carried Tight-fitted as the windows were, faint breaths of the rain-rich air outside eased through the casements and swirled around the room. The draught from the stairwell curled around the furniture as the air from outside brushed along walls and ceiling. Both currents were inexorably drawn to the fireplace as the heat from the coals sucked at the air in the room. The fire drove away the volatile moisture but had less success banishing the implacable touch of stone. It lost interest, settling for driving the warm air up the chimney, throwing it to the mercies of wind and weather above. Released, the air rushed away, exulting, mocking the fire, revelling in its return to the endless dance that encircled the world.
The air around Velindre crackled with eagerness. She felt its desire to be gone, to join that dance. Pure sapphire light surrounded her, bright even through her closed eyes. Brighter than the crisp chill over Inglis. Pale as icy dawn over snow-capped peaks on that far horizon, where the blue-white of the glaciers melted imperceptibly into the sky. As she drew ever more air to her, pressing it to the service of her spell, Velindre remembered the room where she had stood to see that view. Not the most prized room the Flower of Gold could boast, but luxurious enough for her and Otrick. She pictured the frame of the window, the wide-eaved roofs beyond, every detail of the distant mountains.
Now the elemental air was shaking her to her very bones, desperate to do her bidding, to carry her wherever she wanted. Velindre gripped the handles of her bag, the ridges of the stitching digging into her palms. Blue light blinded her. Its touch was a shiver on her skin. It rang in her ears on the very edge of hearing. Cold breath filled her lungs, invigorating, cleansing. Eyes snapping open, she gave the magic its freedom and the room vanished in a burst of sapphire fire.
A woman screamed. Velindre raised a hand and scrubbed at her eyes to drive away the disorientation of working the spell over such a long distance. The woman paused to refill her lungs with a shuddering gasp and screamed again.
Still dazzled, Velindre saw that she had arrived in the bedchamber she’d envisaged to find a balding, middle-aged man and a matronly woman staring at her, mouths open. What they were doing abed in the middle of the afternoon was immediately apparent from the clothes strewn haphazardly around the floor. The woman was too astounded to think of covering her pendulous breasts but the man was clutching the brightly embroidered counterpane to his nether regions, a furious blush staining his jowls. He glanced with wrathful frustration at a sword belt hanging from a chair by the merrily crackling fireplace and Velindre realised that the overriding urge for modesty was all that was keeping him from the weapon. ‘I apologise for the intrusion. Forgive me. I’ll leave you to your . . .’ Gritting her teeth against the belated realisation that scrying ahead might have been advisable, she unlocked the door with a snap of magic and slid through it. As she secured it behind her with another instant spell, she heard the frantic jangling of a bell down below.
Curse the aging lecher and his fat, foolish paramour. Didn’t they have better things to do with their time? She certainly did. Velindre managed to get half-way down the hall before a wave of exhaustion overwhelmed her. She leaned against the polished wooden panelling of the corridor and fought the dizziness shivering down from her head to her toes.
‘Madam?’ The blurred figure of a chambermaid appeared. ‘Are you all right?’
‘I am, thank you.’ Velindre forced her leaden feet down the stairs as the maid hurried onwards to answer the insistent bell’s summons. Her knees felt weak and treacherous and the bag she carried seemed twice as heavy as it had in Hadrumal. Stiffening her spine with sheer determination, Velindre reached the inn’s spacious hallway before shouts up above turned curious faces to the painted ceiling. She slipped out of the main door and hurried away down the sloping street. No one raised any hue and cry before she vanished from sight
The cold outside was biting. Velindre’s fingers ached with it and she realised her gloves were buried deep in her luggage.
‘Carry your bag for you, lady?’ A hopeful youth hopped over a trampled gap in the thigh-high ridge of grubby snow swept into the gutter between the high road and the flagway. Bright as the sun was, the winter’s chill was far too well established for the heaps to melt. Lines of soot marked successive snowfalls. ‘Where are you headed?’ He wore fur-trimmed hide boots and thick chequered wool breeches beneath a sheepskin jerkin with long sleeves and a high upturned collar that almost reached the knitted cap pulled low over his ears.
‘Can you recommend a quiet inn?’ Velindre tried to curb her shivering as she surveyed the boy. Blond brows hinted at the Mountain blood that so many shared hereabouts. He had a round, honest face and an engaging smile, which probably meant he was a complete rogue. Honest and dishonest alike made a living serving the traders who were always coming and going in a city like Inglis.
‘Don’t even think of running away with that.’ Proffering her bag, Velindre surprised the boy by winding bonds of clinging air around his feet and knees. ‘I’m a mage of Hadrumal and if you rob me, you’ll regret it to the end of your unfortunately curtailed days.’
He looked down, wide-eyed. Velindre curled a single tendril around his waist and pulled it tight to cut short his startled gasp. She smiled and let the magic go with a momentary flare of magelight. ‘On the other hand, if you help me with intelligence and discretion, I’ll reward you handsomely. Do we understand one another?’
‘Yes, my lady,’ the lad said with a rush of apprehension and excitement.
Seeing honest greed outweighing the guile in his eyes, Velindre let him take the bag. ‘Take me to the closest inn that caters to guests of reasonable quality.’
‘There’s the Rowan Tree, my lady. Will that do?’ he offered hesitantly. ‘I’m Kenin, my lady.’
‘Are you?’ she replied with little interest. ‘If that’s the closest suitable inn, it will do.’
Abashed, the youth didn’t say anything else, simply ushering Velindre towards a wide crossroads where trampled snow gleamed, treacherous as ice, in the interstices of the cobbles. She followed him towards a prosperous-looking building fronted by dark marble steps. It took all her resolution to climb the short flight of stairs, her hand shaking as she gripped the cold iron balustrade.
‘A private parlour.’ Velindre fixed a supercilious hall lackey with a piercing glare. ‘Hot water and herbs. Quick as you like.’
The lackey stood his ground. ‘I’m not sure we can accommodate you, my lady.’
Velindre reached inside her cloak and fumbled with the strings of her purse with numb fingers. She tossed a couple of coins on the polished stone floor. ‘I think you’ll find you can.’
The lackey wasn’t proof against Tormalin gold crowns. ‘Of course, my lady. Forgive me. Ametine!’ He scrabbled for the coins, trying to bow and to indicate the door of a private parlour at the same time. ‘Hot water, if you please,’ Velindre repeated to the startled maid shooting out of the kitchen. ‘And herbs for a tisane. Now, if you please.’ She handed the girl her cloak.
The boy Kerrin shoved open the parlour door and Velindre went in. Her eyes fastened on a lavishly cushioned day bed beneath a window opening on to a quiet, snow-covered yard.
‘What now, my lady?’ The boy dropped her bag on the neat carpet with a dull thud.