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The brother closed the door sullenly as the two women sized eachother up. The sister towered over Marigold, though her manner suggested she very much disliked doing so. Her fingers were hooked together just underneath the curve of her breasts.
“We do not often receive guests,” blurted the woman. “I am sorry, I do not know the proper protocol.” She pressed her lips together in deep thought. “Though, I believe I must offer you tea?”
“No, please, don’t worry about that,” insisted Marigold. She put out her lantern, the candles in the great hall providing plenty of light. “I’ve had lots today. And I don’t need to stay long.”
The brother came to stand by his sister; wary, but not threatening. They both waited for Marigold’s cue. She gave the only sensible one.
“My name’s Marigold. Baker.” She extended her hand towards them. They studied it with identical befuddlement.
“Ah!” said the sister suddenly. “Yes, I have seen this!” She took Marigold’s hand, fingers, thumb and all, and wiggled it up and down. Marigold did not try to correct her. It would have taken a cruel person indeed to dim that excitement.
“My name is Vicemerys,” said the woman. “My brother is called Blasz.”
“Oh,” said Marigold, trying not to stare. “My. It’s very nice to meet you both.”
Try as she might, she had not been able to hide her consternation. Vicemerys looked puzzled.
“Were my introductions made in error?”
“Oh, no! No, not at all, I…I’ve just never heard those names before. They’re so…beautiful!” managed Marigold. Vicemerys beamed at her. The young witch continued. “Are they, er…Aldochian? Maybe?”
Sister looked to brother for help, then back at Marigold. “What does that mean? Al-do-sheen?”
“It’s a country. Aldoch. Small? Mountainous? Keep mostly to themselves?”
Vicemerys gasped. “Like us!”
“Names,” cut in Blasz, “do not come from human constructs. They are Given. Is that not how you came to be called Marigold Baker?”
“Well, my parents gave me that name, yes. Just as your parents named you…right?”
The siblings looked at eachother, long and hard.
“Our names were Given,” said Blasz, as they both glanced sidelong at Marigold, “by the powers that be. Is that not normal?”
“It’s not common,” said Marigold diplomatically. The siblings appeared in the midst of a revelation.
“Then…Given names must be unique to sorcerers,” said Vicemerys. “Is that true, Marigold Baker?”
“I don’t know,” said Marigold, and that certainly was. “I’ve never met a sorcerer before. Unless, er…it seems like you two…”
“Oh, er, yes, we are,” said Vicemerys. “Both of us. That much we know is strange.”
Before Marigold could reassure her, Blasz spoke up.
“How did you know to find us here? We do not speak of our gift outside these walls.”
“Actually, I wasn’t looking for you, specifically. I didn’t know what to expect, to tell the truth.”
“Still, you knew to find one with the gift. How?”
“Blasz,” said Vicemerys, pleading. “They all know of the mad old woman in the hills. Do not pretend that you do not understand that.”
He glared at his sister, but stayed silent. Marigold cleared her throat.
“That’s…partially true,” she admitted. “I did hear stories, but I heard them from someone I trust. Someone who said she’d been here before and had met a sorcerer.”
The twins both riveted on her, one skeptical, one merely curious.
“Like I said, I’m a witch…in training. I’m learning from an old woman who’s been a witch her whole life. She told me she’d been called to this castle many years ago to help deliver a baby. Only, there were two. A boy and a girl. I imagine that was you.”
“I should think so,” said Vicemerys. “Our mother never told us that she had been attended at our birth, though, I have no reason to doubt it.”
“How would the witch have known to come?” demanded Blasz. “Mother kept to herself.”
“She told me a man came to her door to ask for her,” said Marigold cautiously. “That was all.”
The siblings had no immediate response to this. A radiating chill stole over them; not quite sadness, not quite shame.
“Mr. Slater,” whispered Blasz. “Yes, I suppose it’s possible.”
“I’m sorry,” said Marigold. “I hope I haven’t—“
“No, please, do not apologize,” interrupted Vicemerys. “We asked, did we not? But, Marigold Baker, you are not here to learn about us. You wish to know more about…the town.”
Marigold wanted to know everything they might have to tell her, but she had come here for a specific purpose, after all. She nodded.
“If it’s not any trouble,” she insisted. “I know it’s getting late and I wouldn’t want to impose on you.”
“I do not feel imposed upon,” said Vicemerys. “I, too, would like to learn from you.” Her brow furrowed as a thought struck her. She turned back to her brother. “Have we a sitting room?”
“Hmm.” It was a deep rumble in his chest. “The laboratory?”
His sister nodded eagerly. “Yes, yes…there were some settees in there. Come, Marigold Baker!”
Marigold was led up the flight of stairs to her left, following in Crone’s footsteps all those years ago. Instead of diverting to the bedrooms, she followed straight along the narrow landing. Vicemerys fell back beside Marigold, letting her brother lead the way.
“I apologize for our lack of parlours,” she said graciously.
“No need,” assured Marigold. “I’m the one who showed up without any warning. I should be apologizing to you.”
Blasz disappeared through the door straight ahead, where the landing turned a sharp corner to the right. He left it hanging open for his companions. Through it, Marigold could see faint coloured lights shifting like sunbeams underwater. Vicemerys stood aside, allowing her to pass through first.
“We would only ask that you be cautious of what you touch,” said the sorcerer quietly. Marigold stepped into the siblings’ laboratory.
Two things dominated the landscape; copper and glass. Worktables laid out in otherwise neat rows were just as overgrown as the gardens outside, only with tubes and stills in place of vines and shrubs. Most of the vessels Marigold could see were full of liquid - purple, green, blue, some a shimmering silver, one orange and frothy. Some had miniature fires burning underneath them in small stone bowls, others seemed content to bubble and steam on their own. Laid out on the tables under this canopy were tiny villages of rock and crystal, just as varied in colour and size as the liquids above. Many members of this quartz rainbow sat in puddles of powder, small hammers and chisels laid out nearby. Marigold twisted her head this way and that as she walked down a row of tables, awestruck by the metropolis of chemistry. Vicemerys paused once as she shepherded the witch down the aisle, to adjust a stone bowl of flame a bit higher in its cradle under a ball of glass.
At the end of the row, Marigold found Blasz, and a fireplace, just off to her left. Blasz was pulling the armchairs and chaise longues away from the wall, where they’d been shoved unceremoniously to make room for sorcery, and arranging them around the hearth. Evidently he did not like the way that the couch closest him had been set down; he corrected it from a distance with an impatient flick of his wrist. It scooted into place, scraping quietly on the stone floor.
Marigold took up residence on a small brocaded divan, setting her satchel down beside. She watched Blasz as he knelt down before the fireplace, stacking it with long-ignored logs from the cradle beside. He reached into the hearth and wrapped his hand around one end of a log. A flame erupted in the centre of the log sculpture, quickly catching the surrounding wood. The sorcerer withdrew his hand without the usual panic of a man trying to get his fingers out of the way of a burning match.
“I get the feeling,” said Marigold quietly, “that your mother is no longer with us.”
Blasz did not look at her, patting his robe to shake off the dust from both wood and floor.
“She is not,” he confirmed. Neither offended nor melancholy. “She went peacefully, many years ago.”
“I thought she might be the one to tell me about Steadney,” said Marigold. “But it seems like you two know something about it.”
“We were there.”
Vicemerys had emerged from the jungle of glass and copper, standing behind Marigold’s divan. Once more holding her hands before her chest, she scuttled over to sit beside her brother, who had settled on a similar couch across from Marigold.
“We saw it happen…not the exact moment, but, just before. And just after. You were correct, Marigold Baker; we were acquainted with a very old sorcerer. Thousands of years old. He had seen the rise and fall of civilizations. He spoke languages that no one else remembered. Skylanimir was his Given name, though he had come to be known as Old Skull by the time we met. A pet name. He really was a nice man.”
Vicemerys took a quiet moment to mourn.
“Solitary, however, as sorcerers are. As it has always been. We would meet infrequently to discuss certain experiments where we thought one might be of use to the other, though we never became friends, only colleagues. For years at a time we knew nothing of eachother. That is why we did not notice his condition.”
She did not seem able to look up, or to continue. Blasz slowly reached his arm across her shoulders, pulling her close. She leaned her head against him.
“He was ill?” guessed Marigold. Blasz made a noncommittal bob of the head.
“In a sense,” he said quietly. “You understand that sorcerers are not like others. There is…more. More energy, in body and mind. A person may be still like a lake, or flow like a river; a sorcerer is always churning, like the sea in a storm. Sometimes that storm becomes too powerful. The mind overflows, and spills out the last of one’s humanity. The power remains, but control is lost. Given over to the darkness of the brain where animals rule. There is no reasoning with that darkness. It does not even have a concept of reason.”
Vicemerys sat up, looking at Marigold. Not crying, but teary-eyed.
“We were trying to be normal.” She whispered it like a terrible confession. “We would go to the village to learn how. We would speak with others. Eat with them. Celebrate with them. They always knew we were strange. They felt it as other sorcerers do, though they did not bring attention to it. The people of Steadney treated us as if we were part of the village even though we made them nervous. And that’s how we repaid them!”
Her brother wrapped his other arm around her, hugging tight.
“But, you did nothing to hurt them…did you?” asked Marigold warily. Blasz sighed.
“Old Skull, in his madness, was drawn to us like a hawk to a mouse. A wolf on the scent of meat. All he knew was to find a source of the gift. There was no thought to it. His mind was free of any human concerns. All of his faculties became those of sense. Instinct was his only guide. We knew something was wrong, could feel it as he felt us, but we did not know quite what it was until he was upon us.”
“If only we had been here,” whispered Vicemerys. “He could have destroyed this awful castle instead. They would all be alive if I hadn’t been so selfish!”
Blasz squeezed his sister, silencing her. He held her there a moment before he spoke.
“Old Skull attacked us at the market,” he told Marigold. “There were people all around. We wanted to draw him away, but some of the crowd had noticed what they thought to be a sick old man. They wanted to help. By the time they realized what was in their midst, it was too late to reach safety. We thought we had a chance to put him down before he could cause any more harm, but he was already breaking apart. I was able to seize Vicemerys and jaunt out of range of his destruction. But only her. She was close enough. I couldn’t have saved anyone else.”
Marigold believed she understood most of what had been said. There was one phrase she couldn’t quite place.
“Breaking apart?” she asked. Blasz thought very carefully about his wording.
“His mad sorcery,” he said, slowly, “tore apart the energies in his body. There is much power in a human, even one small and frail. When the bonds that contain it break apart…nothing is quite so powerful as that. It destroys all within a certain area. It lingers long, harming that which might have survived the explosion.”
Marigold thought of the deer with two heads. The dying trees and their overgrown cousins.
“We watched the cloud rise from a nearby hill,” continued Blasz. “I knew that a jaunt might kill us in that maelstrom of sorcery, but I had no choice. We would have died down there anyway. We landed roughly on a hilltop, and…Steadney was shadowed under a column of smoke and ash. It was as if a wildfire had been dropped from the sky. A village gone in less than an instant. I still don’t understand it well; though I hope to never see it again,” he finished quietly. A log in the fire snapped as if to punctuate his words.
“I’m so sorry you had to go through that,” said Marigold. “I can’t imagine.”
Blasz sighed. “Which raises an interesting question,” he said. “Why would you seek to hear of it? Merely to feel sorry? It serves no other purpose.”
“I don’t know for sure that it will serve a purpose,” said Marigold. “But, it might, if I can show other people that it happened. There are some, er, not-very-nice people saying that witches are the ones responsible. I’ve never heard a good explanation why a witch would want to do something like that, but the council - Blankston town council, that is - kept insisting, and the townsfolk started to believe it. People have always been a bit wary of their witches; they get medicine and magic confused easily, and unfortunately they don’t trust magic. The council decided to take that line of thought and exploit it for their own benefit. Witches’ medicines are curses, they steal souls, they commune with devils…nothing new, really, it’s just being said louder now. Some out there haven’t fallen for it, but enough did. Enough that the council started to round up witches - or any person they felt like calling a witch, really - and put them in prison on suspicion of being involved with the ‘Steadney Massacre’. And then, well, there was a witch that did try to cause harm. She planted gunpowder under town hall, and was going to set it off while quite a lot of people would have been inside. Thankfully she was caught before she could carry it out, but the damage to our reputation was done. The council took it as proof that witches had been behind Steadney, had done it with gunpowder, and people had no reason not to believe that. Even people who were skeptical have started to think twice. It’s…getting really bad out there,” she sighed, thinking of the thing under construction in the square. “So I wanted to find some way to prove them wrong. If I can show that it was all an accident, just a sick old man, I might be able to shut down that prison, at least.”
“How?” asked Vicemerys. “How might one prove such a thing?”
This was met with silence. The dying fire popped away to itself.
“I don’t know,” said Marigold. “I guess that’s the next thing to think about.”
“I would speak for you,” said Blasz, suddenly bright-eyed and forceful. He looked down at his sister. “I believe we both would. Though…I do not know that two such strangers would be taken at their word,” he added more quietly.
“You’re probably right,” said Marigold, smiling at his eagerness. “Though I’ll certainly keep it in mind. Thank you.” She was caught off guard by a sudden unstoppable yawn. “I suppose it’s too late to be trying to change the world. I should head back home and sleep on it. Thank you both for…”
Vicemerys pulled out of her brother’s grasp, standing in time with Marigold.
“Please, Marigold Baker, you do not have to make the journey home tonight. We have many beds that go unused. Would you like to stay? We could escort you safely in the morning.”
The protest was on Marigold’s tongue, summoned there instantly by years of ingrained politesse. Practicality seized it before it could escape. She had only promised to check in with Alfaen by the late afternoon. She would have plenty of time. And there would be fewer wolves on the prowl in daylight.
“That’s a very kind offer…” she began. Practicality tipped the scales, but just barely. “If it’s not too much trouble.”
“Certainly it is not,” said Vicemerys. “I would feel much better knowing you were safe until daybreak.” A thought struck her, and she smiled. “Why, I could even make you a breakfast! I’ve always wanted to try that!”
Marigold once again had to acknowledge that she would rather die than diminish that enthusiasm. She smiled and nodded.
“You really don’t have to,” she said, “but, well, I won’t object.”
In one of his better moments of judgement, Sir Roger left Lucy’s tower bedroom early, and through the door instead of the window. He didn’t have too much to fear from Auntie should she notice him, but he’d already poked that hornet’s nest once and wished to stay as far from it as possible. He and Lucy shared a goodbye kiss, and then a few more, and then it turned out it wasn’t quite time to leave yet. Eventually, he found his way into his trousers and out the door.
When he arrived at Blank Manor, someone was waiting for him on the front steps. Normally, Sir Roger would have been confused and slightly annoyed to see Cedric Balmoral lurking about his house; this morning, nothing could have mattered less. He grinned sleepily at the scowling doctor as he mounted the steps.
“Good. Morning. Cedric,” he said cheerily. “What can I do for you?”
“Where were you?” snapped Balmoral. He turned to follow as Sir Roger brushed past him, digging a key out of his pocket.
“Where was I supposed to be, is the better question.”
“You know precisely where. Council was in session all morning waiting for you. We have an entire list of—“
“Oh, that,” sighed Sir Roger. He nudged the door open and replaced his key. “Sure, just send it along.” He finally granted the doctor some semblance of attention, meeting his eyes across the threshold. “Have a nice day, Ced—“
Balmoral shoved past him into his own front hall, slamming the door as he went. Sir Roger stopped just short of raising his hands in surrender. He stared, frozen, unsure where all this brooding fury might lead. The doctor turned on him like a panther ready to spring.
“I will leave,” said Balmoral quietly, “when I’m done.” He reached into his vest pocket and pulled out a folded page. “And I will not be sending anything along to get lost in the post. I’m putting this list into your hands myself, and if I have to check in on you every day, I will. You’ve been slacking off lately and it will not continue. I want ALL of these women brought in by this time next week, do you understand?”
Sir Roger studied him levelly.
“Women, eh?” he observed. Balmoral took a strange, shuddering breath, catching himself.
“Witches,” he corrected. “I meant…criminals. Suspects. It doesn’t matter what you call them! What matters is that you bring them in before they stack gunpowder under another building!”
“If that’s really all that matters,” sighed Sir Roger, “then someone else can do it. I’m not special. I can’t be the only one in this town with a bow and time on their hands.”
“If you’re going to get smart about it,” spat the doctor, “no, perhaps we don’t ‘need’ you. But justice is always served more quickly when the public calls for it. A familliar face that the people can trust is exactly what we need to keep things moving. If you disappear now there’s no telling how many of the guilty might escape us!”
Sir Roger thought about this for a long, long time. Then he thought about Lucy. About Auntie. About how similar they were to the guilty he’d been told to hunt down.
“It’s been a year, Cedric,” he said plainly. “More than. There hasn’t been a single trial. There hasn’t been a single bit of evidence that anyone in Seagate had anything to do with Steadney, even the one that tried to blow up a building. It’s just…starting to look odd.”
“You doubt me?” said the doctor, low and deadly.
“I’m starting to doubt the inquisition,” said Sir Roger. “It’s turned up absolutely nothing.”
“You want to talk about ‘absolutely nothing’,” sneered Balmoral, “let’s talk about the lordling living off the backs of his townsfolk. The one they would have hardly recognized had he passed them on the street last summer. Now he’s got all the attention and love and respect he could ever want, and he talks about abandoning the people who gave it to him?”
“I’m not abandoning anything,” said Sir Roger, more calmly than he felt. “I’m just asking questions.”
“That is not your job and you know it. You’re meant to smile and wave and sign trinkets and that’s the end of it. If you want someone else to do the hard work, fine, we can find another man with a bow as you so eloquently said. But you made a commitment to us and I expect you—no, I demand that you uphold it. An unspoken promise is still a promise!”
“You made a promise once, didn’t you, Cedric?”
The voice made them both jump, riveting instinctively on its source. They looked equally unsure how to proceed in the presence of the Crone, standing in the doorway, both hands leant forward on her cane.
“When you took your coat,” she continued. “‘First, do no harm’. Isn’t that the physician’s oath? Yet here you stand, givin’ orders to steal young women away to a run-down prison.”
The doctor had gone red to the back of his head.
“Tell it to Guinevere van Allen,” he spat. “I didn’t see you preaching at her to do no harm.”
“No, you didn’t. You were lookin’ elsewhere. At the gallows you’re building in the square, I imagine.” She paused to shake her head. “Have you thought that through, Cedric? Are you really ready to watch them swing? It’s not as easy as you’d think, even when they’re guilty.”
“Are you trying to frighten a doctor with death? I’d be hanged myself before I showed those monsters any pity. And yes, I’ll watch every second, whatever you might think.”
The shake of Crone’s head was this time accompanied by a small smile.
“Bald, cranky, naive…you haven’t changed in the least since I first met you.” When Balmoral looked baffled, she added: “Oh, I do remember your hair, dear, but you had none when you were born. Bless your poor mother, you were stubborn even then.”
“I don’t recall asking about my mother,” snapped the doctor. “Keep your senile ramblings to yourself, old woman.”
She walked forward, then, and nothing more. Simply walked in a straight line towards Dr. Balmoral. Sir Roger watched his entire frame stiffen, preparing for a fight, yet knowing there couldn’t be one with one so frail. The conflict in his eyes was clear. Crone stood close to him; though slightly bent, she was near his height.
“I don’t recall his lordship inviting you in,” she said quietly, “so let’s not talk of who shouldn’t do what. Just know that some of us aren’t fooled, Cedric. Some of us can’t be distracted by the feather in Roger’s hat. And we’re much more patient than the folks who believe you. It can’t last forever, and the sooner you give it up, the more we’ll be willin’ to forgive.”
She took his hand then, with surprising speed. Held it in her own as if she were his kindly aunt.
“I’ll always welcome you back. Rare’s the person that I won’t pardon. Others may not be so kind to you, including yourself, if you ever come around. Just be careful, Cedric. I’d hate to see you harmed. And I know yer mam would too, soul at rest. I still remember how she looked at you the first time. That was a woman who loved her baby.”
Balmoral pulled his hand out of hers, stepping nimbly backwards out of her reach. He was stony-white and staring, wanting to glare, but found himself unable. He looked to his lordship without a word, back to the witch. Then he turned and made for the door in a hurry, once more slamming it as he left.
Sir Roger, in a near-perfect imitation of the doctor, turned wide eyes on Crone. She kept her gaze on the door.
“What’s changed?” she asked aloud.
“How do you mean?”
“All that talk of givin’ up on yer witch hunt. Where’d that come from?”
“It didn’t ‘come from’ anywhere. I’ve just…been thinking.”
“What’s her name? Anyone I know?”
If someone else had asked, Sir Roger would have been surprised. As it was, he simply closed his eyes, and sighed in resignation.
“Lucy Templeton,” he breathed, and the mere sound sent his skin crawling. “Her aunt owns Four Meadows Farm.”
“Ah, dear old Violet.” Crone looked knowingly at her lordling. “Don’t imagine a woman like that is a fan of yours.”
“No, no, I don’t think she is,” said Roger, with no elaboration. Crone didn’t need any.
“Whatever you decide to do,” she whispered, “I’d advise bein’ honest about it. Keepin’ secrets is no way to start a life together.”
She began to walk away; Roger stopped her by speaking.
“Who said we’re starting a life together?” he said indignantly. “We just met.”
Crone turned to look at him, ever so briefly, ever so skeptically.
“Anyone who can make Roger Blank change his mind is not someone who’s just been met,” she said, as she hobbled away. Left alone, Sir Roger sighed again. He slung the empty pack off his back and let it fall to the floor. He tossed his hat atop it, and let himself slouch into his favourite chaise. He stared at the ceiling, and thought, for real this time.
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