Magic's Pawn

foundering to be put off with a'too damned busy!' Now where in hell is she?'

Savil, with Lissa at her side, strode across to the door, flung it open, and stood facing Withen with her back poker-straight, feet slightly apart, arms crossed over her chest.

'What do you want, Withen?' she asked flatly, narrowing her eyes in mingled annoyance and apprehension.

'What the hell do you think I want?' he growled, ignoring Lissa and Donni as if they weren't there, placing his fists on his hips, and taking an aggressive, wide-legged stance. 'I want to know what the hell you've been doing with the boy I sent you! I sent him down here for you to make a man out of him, not turn him into a perverted little catamite!' His face darkened and his voice rose with every word. 'I - '

'I think that's more than enough, Withen,' she snapped, cutting him off before he could build up to whatever climax he had in mind. 'I, I, I - dammit, you blustering peabrain, is that all you ever think of? Yourself? Vanyel almost died four days ago, he almost died again three days ago, and he could die or go mad in the next candlemark, and all you can think of is that he did something your back-country prejudices don't approve of! Gods above and below, you can'i even call him by his bloody name, just 'the boy'!'

She advanced on him with such anger in her face that he actually fell back a pace, alarm and surprise chasing themselves across his eyes. Lissa moved with her, and stood beside her with every muscle tensed, and her fists clenched into hard knots.

'You come storming in here when we've maybe - maybe - got him stable, without so much as a 'please' or a 'may I,' you don't even ask if he's in any shape to put two words together in a sensible fashion! Oh, no, all you can do is scream that I 've made him into a catamite when you sent him to be made into a man. A man!' She laughed, a harsh cawing sound that clawed its way up out of her throat. 'My gods - what the hell did you think he was? Tell me, Withcn, what kind of a man would send his son into strange hands just because the poor thing didn't happen to fit his image of masculinity?'

Savil ran out of things to say - but Lissa hadn't.

'What kind of a man would let a brutal bully break his son's arm for no damned reason?' the girl snarled. 'What kind of a man would drive his son into becoming an emotional eunuch because every damned time the boy looked for a little bit of paternal love he got slapped in the face? What kind of a man would take anyone's word over his son's with no cause to ever think the boy was a liar?'' Lissa faced down her father as if he had become her enemy. 'You tell me, Father! What right do you have to demand anything of him? What did you ever give him but scorn? When did you ever give him a single thing he really needed or wanted? When did you ever tell him he'd done well? When did you ever say you loved him?'

Withen backed up another two paces, his back against the wall beside the door, his expression that of someone who has just been poleaxed.

Savil found her tongue again. 'A man - may all the gods give you what you deserve, you fathead! What kind of a man would care more for his own reputation than his son's life?'' She was backing him into the corner now, unleashing on Withen all the pain and frustration and anger she'd been keeping bottled up inside her over the past week. He had gone pale - and started to try to say something, but she cut him off.

'Let me tell you this, Withen,' she hissed. 'Everything that Vanyel's become, you had a hand in making - and mostly because you didn't want a son, you just wanted a little toy copy of yourself to parade around so that people could congratulate you on your bedroom prowess. You helped make him what he is - gave him a set of values so distorted it's a wonder he even recognized love when he saw it, and taught him that he had to keep everything he felt secret because adults couldn't be trusted. And now I have one boy dead, and one a hair from dying, and all you care about is that somebody might think you weren't manly enough to father manly sons! Oh, get out of here, get out of my sight - '

She turned away from him before he could see the tears in her eyes. Lissa put a steadying hand on her shoulder and glared at her father as if she would be perfectly happy to take a piece out of him if he said one wrong word.

'S-s-savil - I - I - ' he stammered. 'They said - but I didn't believe - is Vanyel - '

'One wrong word, one wrong move, and he will die, Withen,' she said flatly, her eyes shut tightly as she reestablished control over herself. 'One wrong thought almost killed him. He slit his wrists because he discovered that someone he trusted believed that his love was the reason Tylendel died. Are you pleased with what you made? It was certainly the honorable thing for him to do, wasn't it?'

'I - I - '

'I am very gratified to be able to tell you that he isn't yours anymore, Withen, he's mine. He's been Chosen - if he lives that long, he'll be a Herald-trainee, and as such, he is my charge. You've forfeited any claim on him. So you can have what you've always wanted - little Mekeal can be your heir-designate, and you can wash your hands of Vanyel with a clear conscience.'

Withen flinched at her pitilessly accurate words, and seemed to almost shrink in size.

'Savil - I didn't mean - I didn't want - '

'You didn't?' She raised an ironic eyebrow.

He winced. 'Savil, can I - see him? I won't hurt him, I - dammit, he's still my son!'

'Lissa, do you think we should?'

Lissa looked at her father as one looks at a not-particularly-trustworthy stranger. 'I don't know that he can behave himself.''

Withen's face darkened. 'You ungrateful little - '

Lissa shrugged, and said to Savil, 'See what I mean?'

Savil nodded. 'I see - but he has a point. Maybe he ought to see his handiwork.' She nodded toward the door to Vanyel's room. 'Follow me, Withen. And keep a rein on that mouth of yours, or I'll have you thrown out.'

He stopped dead at the garden door, and pressed his hands and face against the glass in stunned disbelief. 'My gods - ' he gasped. 'They said - but I didn't believe them. Savil, I've seen men dead a week that looked better than that!'

Lissa snorted. Savil pushed him away from the door impatiently, and opened it, flinching a bit as the cold air