Four and Twenty Blackbirds

She cast him another sharp glance, but an ironic smile softened her expression as the fire died down again. And although she had no reason to answer him, she chose to indulge his curiosity. 'Well, I actually joined because I convinced my father that it was more—economical—to send me here. I was sixteen and betrothed to a man who was forty, and not at all looking forward to my coming marriage.'

Tal winced. 'Not exactly a pleasant prospect for a young woman,' he ventured.

'Oh, itcould have been; there were people in my father's circle—older men—who were quite attractive and clever. I was a precocious child, audacious enough to be amusing, intelligent enough to be worth educating; many of father's friends found me charming and several said outright that if they were not already married, they'd have snatched me up as soon as I was of legal age. Marriage to one of them would have been no hardship—but not the man my father had chosen.' She made a little face of distaste. 'He wasn't one of my father's intimate circle, rather, he was someone my father had wanted to cultivate. Boring, interested only in his business, and convinced that women were good only for bearing and caring for children and being ornamental at the occasional dinner. He'd already buried two wives, wearing them out with multiple sets of triplets and twins, and I was to be the third. He wouldn't hire a proper overseer for the little ones, and not one of his children was older than twelve.'

'You were supposed to shuttle from his bedroom to the nursery and back, I take it?' Tal asked. 'Sounds as if he expected you to be a nursemaid as well as an ornamental bed-piece.'

'Well, what heexpected and what he would have gotten were two different things,' she replied tartly. 'I already had plans—but as it turned out, around the time when the wedding would have been scheduled, the old goat lost his political influence through a series of bad choices. Since political influence was the reason father had arranged the marriage in the first place, it was fairly easy to convince him that he would gain more by sending me to the Church instead. He was skeptical, until I proved to him I had what it took to become a mage. Priest-Mages arenever without influence in the Church, and it didn't take him a heartbeat to realize how much good it would do him to have one of his own blood saying whathe would say in closed Church conclaves.' She grinned. 'So,he told the old goat I'd discovered a genuine vocation; the old goat didn't have so much influence now that he was willing to fight the Church for a promised bride. My father told the Justiciars that I had mage-talent, and the Justiciars didn't give a hang if I had a vocation or not, so long as they could make a Justiciar-Mage out of me.'

'And you?' Tal asked.

'In the Church I would get things I wanted: education, primarily, and eventual independence. Bless his heart, Father never intended for me to act against my conscience or against the Church itself—what he wanted is essentially what I have been doing, especially with regard to softening the Church's hardening attitude towards nonhumans. It was a good enough bargain to me.' She shrugged. 'If I didn't have a vocation when I entered, I discovered that there was pleasure in using my abilities to the utmost, pleasure in being of service, and yes, a certain pleasure in piety. Not the kind of piety-for-show that makes up most Church ceremonies, but—well— belief.Belief, and living what you believe.'

'I see,' Tal said, though he didn't really understand that last. Perhaps he just didn't believe enough in anything to know how it felt. 'Then what?'

She chuckled. 'Then, after several years of fairly pure service, I discovered that my father's talent for politics hadn't skipped my generation. I found myself in the thick of politics, lured in by my own sense of justice—or injustice, perhaps. Eventually that led to a rift in the Kingsford Brotherhood, which led to one faction allying itself with enemies of the Grand Duke, which led in turn to the Great Fire. That essentially hastened a purge that would have been inevitable, though less immediate, costly and dramatic than it was after the Fire.' Her smile turned a trifle bitter, a trifle feral. 'To be plain-spoken, it was a little war, a war of magic and of physical force. It was a war I didn't intend to lose, not after seeing the Fire raging across the Kanar. In a way, the worst mistake they ever made was in helping to set the Fire. Everyone here knew it had to have been set by magic, and that brought many of the Brotherhood over to my side who might otherwise have remained neutral or helped the opposition. So I won the war, and won it in hours, and I willnever permit its like here again.'

He took in her expression, and decided that he didn't want to be involved with any faction opposing this woman. If she was opposed, and was certain to the depths of her soul that she was right, she would never relent, never admit defeat. 'And what happened to the old goat?' he asked, changing the subject—or rather, returning the conversation to the original subject.

'He found another bride within a month; he still had money, even if he didn't have the influence he'd once possessed. His political star had set, and he knew it, so he found a pretty little kitten with no more brains than a duck. Two more sets of twins, thenhe died, somewhat to everyone's surprise.' She shook her head. 'The girl managed to hold her looks, so now she had beautyand money, and needed to answer to no man for what she chose to do. She hired an army of tutors and nursemaids to care for the children, and has been working her way through a series of lovers unencumbered by offspring, scruples, or husband. And there are plenty of my former set who envy her.'

Her gaze wandered off elsewhere, and he thought that perhaps she was wondering what she would have been like, had she tamely allowed the wedding to take place.

She might have been able to prevent having children entirely until he died. She would have had the old man's money, and as a widow, she'd have been able to do whatever she chose. She could have bought that education she craved, helped her father politically, traveled, had freedom she doesn't have now. He wondered if she had thought of that at all.

'Was there anyone you would have rather married?' he asked curiously. 'Your own age, I mean. You were sixteen, that's a pretty romantic age, after all. At sixteen, every pretty girl hadme ready to pledge my all.'