novelnext 53. The Conclave
53. The Conclave
On the morning of her fifth day in the capitol, Liv recast her new spell while Thora was laying out her dress. The feeling of her intent settling into the mana-stone brought a smile to her lips, though she still wanted to figure out a way to adjust the form of the spell so that she could open it easily.
That, however, was a problem for another day. "We're off the colors, then?" Liv asked Thora. One of the gray dresses that she'd brought from Whitehill waited for her.
"Lady Julianne - through Sophie - let me know that it would go over better for your meeting with the mages' guild," Thora explained. "Something about apprentices fading into the background. Your dress for the masque will be delivered to Witley House, and your young man's servants will keep it for us there."
"He isn't my young man," Liv protested. "Not yet, anyway. I've only bought a few votes with my time. Anything else is up to him to earn."
At breakfast, she sat next to Master Grenfell while Baron Henry, Lady Julianne and Matthew huddled around the other end of the table discussing the great council. A plate of mana-enriched crab, tossed with fried eggs and melted cheese, went a long way to helping Liv recover the four rings of mana she'd used on her first casting of the day. "What do I need to know?" she asked her teacher.
"For the most part? To be seen and not heard," Master Grenfell answered. "There are one hundred and forty-two barons in Lucania. About a third of them maintain court mages, as do the two dukes and King Roland himself. Add to that at least a portion of the Masters at Coral Bay, and then however many people bring personal apprentices, and this is going to be the largest gathering of the guild in memory. Stay with me, follow my lead, and speak only if spoken to. No doubt word of your duel will have gotten around, so you may be asked a few questions. But once we begin, apprentices are expected to be silent unless called upon. Which, for the most part, they won't be."
Liv nodded, slathering fresh butter on toasted bread. There was no mana in it, but it was tasty all the same. "I can do that," she said. "I need to leave by the fourth bell of the afternoon."
"And that will happen whether we are finished or not," Grenfell promised her. "Your carriage is already arranged. You'll simply slip out. I recommend bringing a book, quill and ink to take notes."
In the end, Liv brought a satchel filled with three quills, two bottles of ink, her spellbook, a few sheets of extra parchment folded up inside, and a bit of smoked jerky wrapped in cheesecloth. She assumed the guild would be serving food of some kind partway through the day, but she decided she would rather take along a snack she didn't end up needing than be starving and wishing she had.
They saw the family off, Baron Henry, Lady Julianne and their son all dressed in their finest, and then clambered into their own carriage. The ride wasn't very long, and took them to a wide, squat hall in the same part of the city where the waystone rested atop a hill. In contrast to many of the other buildings around, it didn't look to be more than two stories.
"The Watchful Guild of Magim?" Liv read aloud from the sign out front, which displayed a black shield painted with blue sigils just beneath the name.
"It was part of getting the royal charter, I'm told," Grenfell grumbled. "That we needed a formal name to match the other guilds. Come along, then."
The foyer of the guildhall wasn't nearly as large as the building suggested, taken up mostly by a tall desk at which three or four people at once could work. It faced the door, and there were a few wooden benches along the walls of the room, presumably for people to wait in. At another door, which obviously led into the building, a harried looking young man waited with an open book and ready quill. A woman with iron gray hair was just moving past him as they entered.
"Names?" he asked.
"Master Kazimir Grenfell, Court Mage to Baron Henry Summerset, with my apprentice, Liv Brodbeck," her teacher responded.
"Apprentices stay with their master at all times," the young man said, with the air of repeating a phrase he'd used so many times already that it had nearly lost all meaning to him. "On into the hall, Master."
Liv followed Master Grenfell through the inner door, up a staircase, and then into a very odd looking hall. The room where the mages' guild met was rectangular, perhaps twice as wide as it was long, with tiered stands at each side that reminded her of those at the fencing club. At the head of the room, five chairs had been arranged on a raised dais, of which only three were occupied at the moment. The stands and the empty center of the hall were filled with a milling crowd of men and women, talking in small clusters.
It was easy to pick apprentices out from their masters by sight: they were uniformly young, all looking to be close to Liv in age, if a touch on the older side, and hovering just a step behind an older master or mistress. Whether apprentice or master, every person in the room wore a ring like Liv's, so far as she could see from a glance. Most of them carried a wand or staff of some kind, but she was surprised how many rapiers there were.
"I hear you've only been in the city five days and have already managed to get up to trouble," a man's familiar voice broke in on Liv's thoughts, and she spun around with a smile. "Master Jurian!"
The man who had stalked into the great hall at Whitehill to save her nearly twenty years ago had aged a great deal. Liv knew that she shouldn't have been surprised by the white in his hair and beard, or the lines in his face, but it was still something of a shock.
"Liv Brodbeck," Jurian said, shaking his head and looking her over. "That Elden Blood is strong. I'm glad to see we made a good estimate on your age. You'll be at college soon enough."
"Do they know about the cult?" Liv asked, having to lean close to Master Grenfell's ear to be heard.
"The Archmage? Almost certainly," Grenfell told her. "But let's not get out in front of your Eldish friends. They'll be speaking at the great council, and we don't want to undermine their efforts. Settle in, my dear: we're going to be here for a long time."
☙
In the end, despite the arguments of Mistress Arundell's faction, it was decided to send two teams of journeymen to Varuna, with orders to learn all they could about the source of the mana-wave and report back.
It wasn't nearly so simple as that, of course. More mages than Liv could keep track of rose to speak on one side or the other, or merely to hear the sound of their own voice, in some cases. Luncheon settled things a bit, and by the time she left the haggling was over who, precisely, would make up the teams. By that point, Liv was thankful to escape, and even more thankful that the topic of discussion had apparently been so divisive that no one paid any attention to an apprentice like her.
Thora was waiting in the carriage that picked Liv up from the guild hall, carrying a wooden jewelry box on her lap and with a travelling bag on the seat next to her. "What's all that?" Liv asked, once she'd settled in and the driver had gotten them moving.
"Makeup, hair brushes, perfume-"
Liv groaned, slouching back and closing her eyes. The ride back was quick enough, and the street on which Acton House sat even becoming familiar. Witley House, as it turned out, was built of red brick, and set with modern windows and none of the castle-like pretensions or vestiges so many of the homes in the neighborhood displayed. When the carriage rolled to a halt, Liv could see Cade waiting alongside a tall man to which he bore a striking resemblance.
The driver came around to open the door, and Cade was there to offer Liv an arm out of the carriage. "Thank you for coming," he said, with a grin, and led her over to his father. "Liv, this is Gerold Talbot, my father. Father, this is Liv Brodbeck - or if you prefer, Livara."
"Liv, most of the time," she said, doing her best to smile. Cade's father took her hand and inclined his head, but his eyes never left her, and she had the feeling that she was being examined for flaws.
"A pleasure to welcome such a lovely young lady," Baron Talbot said, releasing her. Liv wondered if he had left the great council early to be here, or whether it had already ended for the day. With the king's masque in the evening, perhaps they had given everyone time to get ready.
She was ushered inside to a parlour, with Thora trailing behind her until she was collected by the Talbots' servants. Liv gratefully accepted a cup of tea: it gave her something to do with her hands. She found herself sitting on a cushioned bench with Cade at her side, and his father opposite them in an armchair.
"Now that I see you, your Eldish descent is clear," Baron Talbot said, and Liv was suddenly very conscious of her ears. "Cade tells me your father is of House Syvä."
"That is correct, my lord," Liv said. Lady Julianne would have been proud of her for avoiding the contraction.
"Mmm." The baron took a sip from his own cup. "You understand, young lady, that a striking appearance may have been enough to catch my son's interest, but I require substantially more than that in a match. I need you to bring something to the house. There is precedent for a common-born girl, so long as she has money, but you do not."
"Liv is an exceptional magical talent," Cade said, from her side. "Which you would know, father, if you'd have seen her duel the princess."
"While I don't mind seeing a bit of humility knocked into that girl - it will do her some good - bringing enemies to our family is not exactly a selling point," Gerold Talbot argued back, and Liv could feel Cade tense on the bench next to her. Without thinking about it, she reached out and put a hand on his.
She immediately wished she hadn't, both because Baron Talbot's eyes locked on the place where their hands rested together, and because Liv hadn't wanted to give Cade the impression that she was falling for him. Still, there was nothing to do but press forward.
"With all respect, Baron," Liv said. "I believe that you're thinking about this all wrong."
"Oh?" Talbot raised his dark brows. "Go on then, young lady. How should I be seeing this proposed arrangement?"
"You're acting as if I seduced your son, my lord," Liv said. "Or caught him in a snare, like a rabbit. But I didn't go looking for this. Your son asked to court me, and I set my conditions to allow it. The question isn't what I bring to your family, it's whether you will keep your son's word and fulfill your obligations. To put it plainly," she finished, "what do you offer me?"