She snapped awake to the sound of a maid screaming down the hall. It was not a single screech, but a series of screams that came again and again, followed by running footsteps. Marigold rose, still weary but on the alert. Dressing in haste, she could hear more people moving about in the corridors of the manor, speaking to one another in words both frantic and hushed.
Outside her chamber she saw a servant rushing in the direction of Lord Marcus’s rooms. She followed him and arrived outside the manor lord’s open door, where a gaggle of serving people clustered around, peering in and whispering to one another. Marigold pushed her way through them into the bedroom; none challenged her doing so. Lord Marcus’s elderly steward sat on the edge of his master’s bed, head bowed and eyes tightly closed. When he felt Marigold’s presence in the room, he looked up and his wrinkled face was wet with tears. He opened his mouth, only to shakily close it. At Marigold, he shook his head and then bowed it again over his master.
Lord Marcus lay under his blankets, with his hands composed atop them, still and serene. In death, he looked as if he could merely be asleep, but for the sunken state of his cheeks and the pallor of his skin. His thinning hair was plastered to his scalp, much as it had been the evening before when she’d watched him fling his wine glass against the wall.
“His heart gave out, I believe.” The quiet words came from the steward, though his mouth hardly moved. “He ate and drank to excess last night, long after you and Lord Widald had both retired to bed.”
Marigold nodded sadly to herself. She thought back. He had looked unwell the night before. The stress from the queen’s visit, and the unleashing of his anger on his wife, combined with an overindulgence in rich food and drink ... these were enough to put an unhealthy strain on any man. She clenched her eyes against the sting of emotion. In many ways, Lord Marcus had been a lofty and inflexible man, but he had always treated her fairly, the same as he had treated the people of his hold, from farmer to merchant to tradesman. She mourned the man.
“Where is Lord Widald?” she asked softly. It was all she could think of to ask. The remaining guests would need to be informed, as would the crown. In a way, it was fortunate Lord Widald had lingered behind an extra day, for word could go swiftly with him when he left to catch up with the queen’s retinue. Iris could then be confirmed as the sole Lady of Black Crux and of Hold Draffor. Where was Lady Iris? As soon as she had the thought, Marigold dreaded that she also must be informed of her husband’s death. Losing her spouse would be bad enough, but the fact that she must forever live with their final interaction being one of their fights ...
The steward stood up and straightened his coat. “He departed before dawn this morning.” His voice brought Marigold back to the present and it took her a moment to understand he spoke of Lord Widald. That didn’t bode well, the advisor leaving without so much as a farewell to the lord and lady of the household. The steward looked past Marigold at the gathered servants and spoke stiffly. “Be about your duties.” They scattered at his command. To Marigold, he said, “I will make arrangements to contact Lord Marcus’s extended family, and begin to put his final affairs in order. Someone must wake Lady Iris and tell her.”
Marigold knew that someone was her. She nodded and the steward swept past her, issuing orders as he went down the hall. She looked at the still form of Marcus in his bed and sighed. Time enough later there would be to reflect on how this man’s influence had changed her own life so drastically, and upon how it would change further now that he was gone.
Down the hall was the door to the separate sleeping chamber reserved for Lady Iris’s use when she must Slumber. In recent years, it had nearly as frequently been the place she was banished to whenever she and her husband had had a heated disagreement. When Marigold knocked on the door, there was no answer. She tried the handle and found it unlocked this time. Letting herself in, she sensed something amiss right away. The window curtains were drawn, casting the room in dim shadow, but a single candle burned on the table by Lady Iris’s bed. Iris slept still. No. She did not sleep. She Slumbered. Marigold came to stand by her bed, looking down on her apprentice. It was unmistakable. She Slumbered. She had been casting magic, directly against Marigold’s instructions. While she puzzled over this, one of Iris’s maids entered the room. She startled when she saw Marigold.
“Oh! I ... you startled me, Mage-Matron,” she stuttered. “L-Lady Iris said no one was to disturb her. If you’ll kindly—”
“How long has she been in Slumber, girl?”
“I ... I ...”
“How long?”
“She woke me—”
“She woke you herself or sent another servant to do it?”
“Herself, ma’am.”
“When?”
“Sometime after midnight,” she answered meekly. She was not supposed to be divulging this, it was clear by her hesitant words. But she could no more disregard Marigold’s questions than she could disregard the commands of the lord and lady of the house. “After the change of the wall patrol, I think it was.”
“Keep talking,” Marigold pressed her. “Out with it.”
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The maid took a breath. “Lady Iris said I must attend her in her Slumber, but tell no one of it, and let no one into her chambers. I only stepped away to—”
“Enough,” Marigold cut her off. “I don’t care. Go make yourself useful somewhere else.”
“But, Mage-Matron.”
Marigold raised her brows and turned her steel eyes upon the girl in such a way that she turned and fled the room without another word. When she was gone, Marigold turned back to Iris. Supine in a nightgown of black, her face was peaceful, her long raven tresses uncharacteristically braided and pinned up. Marigold watched the steady rise and fall of her breast as she breathed. She recalled the flash of magic in the night and, slowly, raised a shaking hand to her mouth.
“How could you? ...”
She left the room quickly, pausing only at Lord Marcus’s door to look in on him a last time. A single one of his house guards now sat beside his bed in vigil. He nodded to her and she moved on. She bypassed her own chambers until she came to a boy replacing candles in a side hallway.
“You,” she said, pointing at the boy. “You’re new here, are you not? Do you know who I am?”
The boy nodded. “You’re the wizard. The magic teacher.”
“And do you know where my chambers are?”
He shook his head.
“Go find someone who does, tell them to have a couple porters sent to Mage Marigold’s rooms. Then, go into town and hire a carriage for me. Tell them to wait for me at the first gate. Go, and after you’ve done all that, there will be a silver or two waiting for you.” The boy nodded and ran off.
She went back to her chambers then. Such a coward she had been. For the better part of a year, and possibly longer, she’d had thoughts of leaving, doubts about her apprentice, and about hitching so much of her own life to this castle and to a student whose clashing perspective on magic made Marigold fear to teach her more comprehensively.
“Coward of an old woman,” she scolded herself as she pulled books from her shelves and rammed them into a travel trunk. Had not her own Mage-Matron impressed upon her the perils of ignoring one’s own misgivings when it came to magic? How many years had she ignored that lesson? And why? Because her life here was comfortable? Because she was well paid, and this was the type of position master mages dreamt of holding?
But as she packed her things, the other question came: if she had left sooner, could not this have happened sooner?
Ugly black clouds were moving across the sky by the time she had packed up all her things and begun having the porters carry them down to the waiting carriage. Black Crux’s serving people were much too busy dealing with the ramifications of their lord’s passing to question what their resident master mage was up to, and the gate guards hardly gave her a second glance as she passed by them on her way down to the road.
She didn’t go hurriedly. She told herself she wasn’t fleeing, not for fear of anything. It was simply about being decisive. If she thought too much about all the kind people she knew here, or what she was giving up, then she might hesitate again. Hesitation had no place in the heart of a mage. She had made her decision, at last. No point in delaying it even a day more. She hoped Black Crux Manor would find its way into worthy hands once everything was settled. But she would not be there to see if it did.
“Mage-Matron!”
Marigold had one boot in the carriage. She could ignore it, step in, and tell the driver to go. She closed her eyes. “Spirits damn everything,” she muttered, and waited. Upon opening her eyes, she saw Iris—no, Gilliana—marching down the bridge from the castle to the road, where the carriage and Marigold stood ready to depart.
“What is this? What are you doing?” Gilliana demanded. She was barefoot and still in her nightgown, though she had taken down her hair. The long black tresses whipped about in the winds that always seemed to course and shift across Black Crux Manor’s bridges.
“I am leaving, Gilliana.” Marigold spoke plainly, refusing to raise her voice. Raindrops began to fall sparsely.
“Leaving? Leaving for where?” Her black nightgown fluttered about her legs. For any other woman, standing barefoot in her nightgown in the street might make her appear mad or destitute. To Gilliana’s credit, her countenance cut a powerful figure still. She had learned over the years to hold herself in such a way that her classical beauty made others take heed of her importance. “I thought we would have lessons today.”
“There will be no more lessons, girl. Never again. Not after what you did.” Gilliana went to speak, but Marigold cut her off. “The Casting in the night. Lord Marcus. I don’t know how you did it, and no one will ever be able to prove it, but I know you did it.” She steeled herself to speak her next words. “I hereby release you from your apprenticeship. You will learn no more magic from me.”
From confusion, Gilliana’s face shifted to indignation. “How dare you accuse me like that! I am a woman in mourning!”
“You don’t look it. Goodbye, Gilliana.” Marigold turned and stepped into the carriage. Gilliana grabbed the door to prevent her from closing it.
“Don’t you dare turn your back on me. I command you to get out of this carriage and return to your chambers!”
“Driver,” said Marigold. The man lifted his reins.
“Driver, stop!” Gilliana commanded. She raised one hand, as if to cast a spell.
Marigold matched the motion, quicker than her apprentice. “Don’t test me, girl!”
They stood seemingly at an impasse. The carriage driver sat frozen, while his horses shifted and nickered nervously. Only the two mages knew just how great of an advantage the elder Marigold had. Anger suffused Gilliana’s eyes and face, the muscles in her neck standing out. Time stood still. The wind swirled past them. The rain strengthened. With a tormented growl, Gilliana finally released the carriage door. She let both her arms drop.
“You are mine!” she spat. “Bought and paid for! It is not for you to say when you stop teaching me! Return to your quarters this instant!”
“Driver,” Marigold said again, and yanked the door shut. The driver gave the reins a shake and the carriage lurched forward, turning down the road toward town.
“I will raise your pay! You cannot leave! You belong to me! You belong to me!” The rain began pouring down as Gilliana stood in the road before the first gate, watching the carriage go and venting her vitriol at her former teacher.
Marigold folded her shaking hands in her lap. She closed her eyes and closed her ears off to the hateful words as they faded behind. Not a coward, she told herself. Not a coward. Not for this. The horses’s hooves clipped steadily down the road, taking her away from Black Crux.