not to kill Raclin, and unsettlingly, Nora found herself being equally brusque with him. There was no logic to it, she knew. She should be angry at Raclin, but it was Aruendiel who had taken the ring off her finger—to show that he could do what Dorneng couldn’t, really—and then failed to save her from the consequences. What if he had refused, at the last minute, to put the ring back on her finger? He had certainly hesitated.
She had more time to brood about this because her lessons were suspended, and suddenly there was nothing in particular to do, after the rush of last-minute cooking: smoked fish dumplings, pickled eggs and vegetables, meat cakes, lard buns, beet pudding, barley soup to stay warm on the back of the stove. Far too much food for the castle household to finish in five days, but much of it, Nora quickly saw, was intended for the visitors who arrived in a small but steady trickle. It was evidently the custom during the Null Days to present one’s host with branches cut from fir trees.
The sight of the evergreens displayed in the great hall like trophies, the hum of mingled voices, the platters of food—they were familiar cues; it was more like Christmas at home than she would have imagined. Despite herself, her spirits began to rise.
Oen Lun, one of Aruendiel’s vassals, rode over from Broken Keep, wearing a rusty breastplate. He looked very much the way Nora had always imagined Don Quixote. Some of the farmers who worked Aruendiel’s more distant holdings came, including Peusienith, the young widower whom Aruendiel had once suggested that she marry. He was pleasant-mannered, with a solid, successful air, but Nora could not bring herself to be very friendly. She made a point of introducing him to Morinen, who came calling with her mother and her brothers, and they discovered that they were third cousins twice removed.
Nora was more interested to meet another of Morinen’s cousins: Ferret, the boy who had gone up before Aruendiel for assault and horse theft at the last assizes. Contrary to expectations, Ferret had not been hanged. He seemed to regard his near execution as a good joke. “His lordship said I’d lied about some things, and the other bastards, he said they lied about everything,” Ferret recounted. “He wasn’t going to hang me on their say-so. He gave me the lash instead. Said it was because I’d been fool enough to steal horses with worthless scum who sold me out the first chance they got.”
“He also said this was your first offense,” Morinen added warningly. “And that next time it’ll be your hand.”
“There won’t be a next time,” Ferret said confidently. “Either I won’t steal horses again, or I won’t get caught, because I’ll steal them with boys that I can trust, you see?”
“His lordship is right, Ferret, you’re an idiot,” Morinen said.
The Toristels’ daughter and one of her teenage sons were staying in the Toristels’ quarters. It was cramped over there; Aruendiel had said that the guests could stay in the manor house, but Mrs. Toristel thought that it wouldn’t be fitting and said that she didn’t want to impose on the master. Which was ridiculous, Nora thought, because Aruendiel was clearly pleased to see Lolona and her son. A plumper version of her mother, Lolona had spent her childhood in the castle, and she was one of the few people—Hirizjahkinis being another— who seemed to have absolutely no fear of either the magician or Mrs. Toristel. Aruendiel listened to news of her children and her brewery with courteous attention, and promised a charm to rid one of her vats of a rope infestation.
Nora liked Lolona’s cheerful, no-nonsense air, although she was slightly alarmed by the way Lolona kept remarking that her mother’s housekeeping had declined with age and that, if not for the Null Days, she and Nora would have a grand old time cleaning the castle from top to bottom. There, Nora found it hard to respond. She thought she and Mrs. Toristel had done exactly that.
But by the afternoon of the third day, the Null Days were living up to their name. A new snowstorm had discouraged visitors. The woolly gray light outside hardly penetrated the windows; inside, the big Null Days candles, made for endurance, not luminosity, barely interrupted the gloom. Nora took a seat by the fire in the great hall and wondered morbidly where Aruendiel would have put her statue if he had not been able to remove the Faitoren spell. When he came in, she said peevishly: “You know, I don’t worship the sun. I don’t see how he could be offended if I did some magic or some reading—or
Aruendiel, warming his hands in front of the fire, looked at her thoughtfully, as though measuring the bile in her tone. “You have been talking to Mrs. Toristel,” he said. “She is very much attached to her sun god. In this part of the world, it is the Lady Ewe whom we honor during the Null Days. And in Stone Top, they will tell you that the holiday is for Erkin Sheafbearer.”
“Right, the god of beer.” Nora had learned this fact only yesterday. Lolona had a shrine to him next to her vats. “Do you believe in this religious—stuff?”
“Me? I prefer to have as little truck with gods as possible. I have never found them to be very reliable allies.”
She snickered, but he seemed to be quite serious. “You’re talking about actual gods,” she said. “You believe in them?”
He shrugged. “They exist, whether I believe in them or not.”
Nora pondered this for a moment. In a different tone, she asked: “Is that where your magic comes from? Some kind of gift from the gods?”
Aruendiel rounded on her. “Have you learned nothing at all, that you could ask such a ridiculous question? Do you have no understanding of the nature of magic at all?”
“Well, I’m still learning,” she said defensively.
“Painfully slowly, I see,” he said. “You should know from your own experience that real magic comes out of what is around you, it is born from the long conversation, negotiation, fellowship that human beings have with the things of the world. A god would never give us such a valuable gift. Humans had to learn it for themselves.” He flung himself into the chair opposite Nora and frowned at her again, but there was an expectancy in the cool gray eyes that she had not seen for some days.
“Well, then, how did
“Hmm.” Aruendiel looked away, into the fire. “Your time would be better spent learning actual magic than in listening to that tale.”
“I can’t do magic now, because of the holiday,” she said. “And I’d like to know, because it might help me understand some things better. Why
“I don’t know the answer to that question,” he said, twisting his mouth dismissively. “But it is less important than the fact that you
“You mentioned a couple of possible reasons once. I thought of another one. This,” she said, holding up her finger with the gold ring.
“Absurd.”
“It might somehow have influenced me—or
Aruendiel was shaking his head. “No, that cursed ring, no matter what evil it contains, has nothing to do with your ability to practice magic.”
“But how can you—?”
“Nora, I am sure of it,” he said with some intensity. “If I thought there was any chance at all, I would not have taught you a single spell, nothing.” She knew that was so. Of course, he still might be mistaken about the ring’s influence, but she felt a little better.
“It’s far more likely,” Aruendiel went on, “that your capability for magic comes about because you are an observant, intelligent woman, a scholar—”
Nora was strangely moved by the compliment, but she could not quite bring herself to show it. “Hirgus Ext is a scholar,” she observed.
“Hirgus!” Aruendiel snorted and sank back in his chair, a little stiffly. His back appeared to be more painful than usual, Nora thought. Had he not even worked the owl transformation since the Null Days began? When she asked him, he admitted snappishly that it was true.
“Are you worried about offending Lady Ewe?”
He snorted again. “No! I mind my own business, and I expect the gods to mind theirs in return. The Null Days, though, can be an unlucky time of year,” he added in a more thoughtful tone. “Magic is more likely to go
