is all this? A spell to make iron float . . . a letter—no name, just an initial M, a woman’s writing . . . hmm, obviously on very good terms with Aruendiel . . . Holy Sister, I see why she did not sign it.”
“I read that, too,” Nora confessed. “Is she talking about an actual spell that he did, or does she have a very vivid erotic imagination?”
“Well, you could achieve the same results without magic, perhaps. It would take more time. . . . I think I know who M is. I treated her for gout, years later. She had burned three husbands by then. The only client I’ve ever had who said she liked a female magician better than a man.” Hirizjahkinis laughed a deep, rumbling chuckle. “Maybe Aruendiel could tell us why.”
“
“Wait, I may not need to. Here is another letter from M, even longer. . . . She is not very happy with him now . . . terrible, terrible, Aruendiel, if that’s true! But she is so vicious, I am sorry for him, too. . . . What else? . . . A spell for being in two places at once. I know this one, it gives me a headache. . . . Who is this? Another crazy mistress?”
Hirizjahkinis had fished out another portrait, this one a painting, a miniature the size of her hand. The head of a woman, not young, not yet into middle age. Her dark hair was coiled beneath a crimson headdress, and she wore a necklace of small silvery pearls. Straight, prominent, rather bony features: the sort of face that could have had an avian, exotic beauty if it had not looked so strained, even fearful. Her gray eyes looked out warily beyond the borders of the painting, not meeting the eyes of the spectator, as though she hoped to escape notice.
“I thought at first it might be his wife—” Nora began.
“Oh, no! She was a blonde with a face like a bowl of milk.”
“—but then I realized that this woman looks a bit like a picture of Aruendiel’s sister that I saw once. It’s got to be someone in his family—the coloring, the eyes.”
“Yes, I think you are right. I never met his sister, so I cannot say if this is she. His mother? An aunt? One thing I can tell you, this is an old hairstyle—when I first came to Semr, there were only a few old ladies still wearing it.” Hirizjahkinis touched the painted headdress gently. “Or,” she added suddenly, “it is his daughter!”
“He has a daughter?”
“He has never mentioned one, but it stands to reason!” Hirizjahkinis said with a laugh. “She would have been born on the wrong side of the blanket—so he hid her picture away with these old papers. Yes, look how she is dressed like a noblewoman, but with no emblem on her necklace, anywhere, to indicate who she is. I have looked at many, many pictures now, and I can tell you, when peers sit for their portrait, they do not wish to be anonymous. They always have a crest or a signet ring, or they pose with a falcon on their hand, because the symbol of their house is a falcon, or some such thing.”
“Whoever she is, she doesn’t look very happy, does she?” Nora said. “She looks as though she’s had a hard life.”
“Why don’t you ask her about it?” said Hirizjahkinis. Holding the portrait at arm’s length, she addressed it directly, her tone half-commanding, half-cajoling. “Madame? Madame? I beg a few minutes of your attention. Madame! I call you!
“It is better if you know the name of the person,” she added to Nora, in an undertone. “But the spell works without it, too. They cannot ignore you for very long.”
“This might be a shock for her,” Nora murmured. It occurred to her that Hirizjahkinis’s casual remark about the crazy mistress might have been at least partly on target: There was something about the woman’s face that made you wonder if she was wholly sane.
“No, no, I have done this spell a dozen dozen times now. I know how to handle her.” More loudly, Hirizjahkinis spoke to the picture again: “Madame, we wish to speak with you. Just for a few minutes, and then you will go back to having your picture made. We are standing right here, Madame, my friend and I.”
The face in the frame turned slightly, toward Hirizjahkinis’s voice. “Good afternoon,” she said, in a formal tone.
“Good afternoon, my name is Hirizjahkinis, and this is my friend Nora. And you, Madame, you are—”
She frowned slightly, as though the question discomfited her. “You would like to know my name?”
“Yes, Madame.”
“I am called Wurga.”
“We are pleased to make your acquaintance, Wurga. We have been admiring your portrait. For whom are you having it painted?”
“No one,” Wurga’s image said dully. “It was Lady Aruendian Fornesan’s idea. She is having her portrait painted, too, and her children’s.”
Nora looked questioningly at Hirizjahkinis, who nodded confidently. “His sister,” she mouthed. To the portrait she asked: “Lady Aruendian?”
“Yes, my kinswoman. I am visiting her here at Forel, from my home in Sar Lith.”
“Sar Lith! That is a long way to come to visit kin.”
“It was a long journey,” the portrait agreed, without any sign of interest.
“I am acquainted with one of Lady Aruendian’s brothers. I wonder whether you know him?”
Wurga’s face was suddenly alert. “Her brother? Which one?”
“It is Lord Ar—”
“What is this?” Aruendiel’s voice said, beside Nora. He looked over Hirizjahkinis’s head and saw the live portrait. A pained, startled expression came over his face.
“You!” The portrait of Wurga had seen Aruendiel, too. Its small features contorted and its voice rose to a shriek. “Is that you? Yes, you are changed, but I know you! What are you doing here? It’s you who—you have—” She broke off with a moan, panting, then tried again: “I—you—what you did to—?”
“Did what?” Hirizjahkinis said sharply.
“Oh, I cannot bear it, oh no. You destroyed—you stole—no, no, no—”
“Enough of this,” Aruendiel said, his fingers closing on the portrait. Wurga’s wailing stopped immediately. When he took his hand away, she was back in her original position, staring slightly to one side, her mouth tightly closed, the same as before, except that Nora thought she looked crazier than ever.
Aruendiel’s eyes were freezing, but Nora forced herself to meet them. “Who is she?” she asked in a small voice. “She recognized you.”
“What did you do to the poor woman, Aruendiel?” Hirizjahkinis asked.
“Nothing, nothing at all,” he said curtly.
“But you know who she is.”
“An old family connection. She mistook me for an enemy.”
“Why would she do that?”
He gave a crooked shrug. “She was a poor, distracted thing, who had had troubles in a distant land. My sister gave her refuge for a time.”
“What sort of troubles?”
“I do not remember.”
“What happened to her?”
“She left my sister’s house and disappeared. That was a very long time ago.” He said to Hirizjahkinis: “I am sorry now for teaching you that spell, if you can do nothing better with it than torment the shade of a long-dead madwoman.”
Hirizjahkinis’s mouth twitched with what appeared to be a mixture of abashment and impatience. “She was perfectly calm until you appeared!”
“Let the dead stay dead, Hirizjahkinis.”
“Yes, yes, I understand. They will never forgive you, otherwise,” she said, biting the words off. “They are very ungrateful, the dead.”
“Your impertinence grows tiresome.”
“So does your rudeness, Aruendiel. I am sorry now for ever thinking your life was worth saving.” Hirizjahkinis flung the miniature into the wooden box. Immediately the nest of papers exploded into flame.
The fire rose quickly, cheerfully from the box. No one moved. It devoured the parchment, then chewed through the portrait of Wurga. Her face charred and crumbled.
Not until the box itself began to burn did Aruendiel rouse himself to pick it up and deposit the remains in the
