He was a tall man, thin as a whippet, and quiet where Lorelia chattered and laughed. Stress marked his pale face—the skin around his eyes tight, the lines around his mouth deeply scored. Havelock Gance was the chief counselor to the Lord Mayor of Haven, a man used to power who had been weeks watching power bleed away.
Were she to paint him, Usha would paint a man trying to staunch a wound.
“Thank you, my Lord Counselor.” She smiled, he returned it, and his eyes lighted in a way that reminded Usha of the glint in the eye of the young Solamnic knight he could not see. “Your sons were admirably robust subjects.”
Comfortable laughter applauded the tactful description of the rowdy sons, and Loren came to stand beside Usha. His eye kindled, but his cheek was pale. She thought of Havelock Gance, a man trying to keep a balance between the needs of his city and the demands of Sir Radulf. It was borne in on Usha that their discussions in the garden had not been casual conversation between friends, or the uninformed wondering that made much of Haven’s conversation these days. The two men had been debating a point, perhaps a strategy toward a goal they shared: the survival of Haven and her people.
“Loren—”
He hushed her with a gesture, in his eyes a plea to soften the abruptness of it. “Walk with me. Later, when this is over, walk with me to your inn.”
Around them, the voices of Lorelia’s family rose and fell, but the conversation was ebbing. Outside, the shadows grew long. People must leave soon, for curfew was coming.
“You won’t be able to do that and return home in time.”
She said so without knowing where he lived. He shook his head. “It’s not a problem. My carriage will take Tamara home, and it will be waiting by the Ivy for me before we return.”
His gray eyes grew dark. Usha thought of storms. But she didn’t think of anger, not his toward her, and she didn’t imagine that he commanded her, though his stern look could be misunderstood that way. And so she agreed. She would let him walk her home.
Usha walked in silence beside Loren in the long shadows and the russet light of sunset. The street was quiet, carts and most carriages gone back to their stables. Dogs ran in small packs, more of those than used to be when the streets of Haven were filled with people day and night.
“It’s like a different town,” Usha said, her voice low, as a knight rode by.
She knew him by his mail shirt. They didn’t go in full armor anymore. They had no fear of a populace willing to do what it must to keep peace. Now and then, they hanged the luckless who tried escape, but Sir Radulf had no real fear of Haveners.
The knight looked at her, slowed his mount and sat to stare. His frank regard made Usha uncomfortable. His eyes reminded her of Sir Radulf’s, the eyes of a man who possesses all he sees. Loren took her hand and placed it in the crook of his arm. The knight smirked and moved on.
“He knows you,” Usha said.
Loren shrugged. “We’ve seen each other before.”
“If I’d been walking alone?”
“Who knows?” Loren lifted a hand to pat hers. She almost smiled to see his expression as he thought better of what would have been a condescending gesture. “But you aren’t alone, and you’re safe.”
The knight met another at the intersection of two streets. They stopped, talked, and rode on. The watch was setting up.
Her hand on Loren’s arm, Usha kept pace with him, and they didn’t stop until they were three or four blocks from the Ivy. The knights were gone, only the sound of their horses hooves to say they’d turned each down a separate street.
Loren looked around and said, “Usha, the portrait of Lorelia’s boys is lovely. Your work is remarkable.” His voice dropped lower for emphasis. “But you will want to be careful.”
She tilted her head a little, to question.
The storm grew stronger in his eyes, some emotion he wasn’t ready to act upon. “Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about. That portrait is dangerous.”
A little thrill raced along Usha’s arms. He had seen the magic in this painting as well as in “Silver Flight.” She stopped, turned, and took his hands in her own. The gesture surprised her. When she began to move away, he closed his hands around hers.
“Loren, what do you see when you look at the portrait?”
He frowned, puzzled now. “You know what I see.”
“In truth, I don’t. I know what I see, and I’m fairly sure I know what others see. But, what do you see?”
Again his voice was low, and he glanced along the street. “You’ve painted a ghost into that portrait.”
“A ghost? Of a dead person?” Usha shook her head. “I certainly don’t see that.”
He did not smile. “Don’t quibble. You know what I mean. The knight. You painted the shadow of the knight.”
She did not argue, and when she realized she was dangerously close to flirtation, her laughter sounded brittle. Usha removed her hands from his. She continued toward the inn, and it seemed to her that the evening air had grown chill.
“Loren, your cousin doesn’t see ... it. Havelock doesn’t. I’m fairly certain your daughter doesn’t either.”
This gave him pause. He was silent and she knew he was trying to understand how some could see one set of images on the canvas while others saw differently.
“I know,” she said. “It’s my magic, but ... it belongs to itself.”
“Are you certain Sir Radulf won’t see a ghost in the painting? Are you sure we are the only two who can see it? And for that matter, why can I see it?”
“I don’t know.”
Again, the sound of a horse, but this came from ahead. Loren’s carriage waited at the mounting block near the inn’s dooryard. He took her hands again, his eyes sharp, his expression earnest.
“Usha, can you fix the picture?”
“Fix it?” The idea was strange to her. “It isn’t broken. Loren, it is what it is. Who is meant to see all of it, will.”
“Kalend himself didn’t see it.”
“Not yet. Perhaps he isn’t meant to.”
“And if Sir Radulf sees it?”
She couldn’t answer, she didn’t know, and so she said, “I trust my magic. You must trust me.”
His hands still held hers. He pressed them now, palm to palm, and covered them both. “I don’t understand you, Usha Majere. In a time when magic is dying, you fling paint onto a canvas and create wonders.” He shook his head. “In this dangerous place, you ask for trust. I don’t understand you.”
He was not taller than she. Usha could meet him eye to eye. She did, looking into the eyes of this man who spoke of putting his hope in the promise of a conquering knight, and at the same time sought the company of the woman who had painted a work he was afraid could destroy his family.
Usha felt a rush of sympathy for him—his struggle to do what was best for his child, his kin, and the city he loved. Traps lay on every side. Sir Radulf could betray his trust, destroy his daughter ... Loren played a dangerous game.
In that moment she wanted to answer him and say, “I don’t understand myself.”
But she did not, for if he’d asked her for a better answer, she’d have to look closely at what that answer could be and admit that she liked the way Loren’s hand felt on her arm. She liked the way he looked at her—gravely from gray eyes as though he had something he wanted to say but had no words for the saying.
She would have to admit that when she was with Loren she could not remember much about Palin Majere that didn’t call up the ghosts of passions that had burned brightly in the years of their marriage—and dwindled to sorrow and loss in these years of his absence.
Shaken, Usha bade Loren good night, freed her hands, and slipped away, running the last half block to the inn.
11
Usha woke suddenly from uneasy sleep, not sure if the sharp rap on the door and the whispered urgency was real or the clinging shred of a dream. The rap was not repeated, but the whisper was, in Dezra’s voice, rough and hoarse. “Usha!”