8 Maggie

It was the dull, repetitive rapping of knuckles at his skull that brought him from the confused murmurings and visions of sleep. Aggrieved, head heavy, and tongue dry, he threw off the cream comforter and answered the door.

            The subtle scent of her perfume preceded her into the room and washed away the fatigue and disorder of his thoughts. Her dark hair was pulled back and emphasized the sharp angles of her olive complexion, and her scarlet bodice, sharply contrasting with the navy gown, emphasized her narrow waist. He closed the door and they stood facing each other.

            “Did you find the secret the Magister sent you after?” she asked, her voice imperial, gaze direct.

            Poe gave a resigned sigh and shook his head as if flinging some distressing gnat from his brow. It was this attitude that was pushing them farther and farther apart. “There is no secret, Maggie, only others’ hidden agendas and suspicions.”

            “And what is your hidden agenda, my love?” She reached out a hand to gently stroke his cheek.

            He briefly caught her hand against cheek and jaw, inhaling deeply of her scent before her hand slipped from his grasp. She moved to take a seat at the circular table, her back to him.

Poe’s room was larger than most with an anteroom and bed chamber. But the reason he had taken the room was the oaken mantle and the intricate designs of acorn and pinecone, crabapple and buckeye carved into its face. It reminded him of home.

Rugs woven in somber hues of green and brown, with dazzling threads of argent and yellow worked into the design draped the walls. They depicted woodland settings of stags rutting and bears feasting on fat salmon. While the mantle recalled the warmth of his mother’s hearth, the rugs hid the terse cold of mountain stone.

            Poe took a burning twig from the fireplace and lit oil lamps to brighten the room and beat back the flickering shadows.

            “Thank you. This place needs some light,” Maggie said.

Poe responded with a crooked smile that she could not see.

            “I’ve no secret agenda, Maggie. It is real, and it is apparent. I do not hide behind subtle word play or maneuverings for privilege or power. That is too dangerous a course for a blunt speaking person like myself.”

Poe walked up the back of the chair, desperately wanting to reach out and gently caress her shoulders, and as he drew closer, she sat straighter and her shoulder rolled back willingly, waiting to accept his touch as if that would bridge the divide growing between them, the gap that was becoming and chasm. Resisting her invitation and his own temptation, he moved to sit across from her.

            “The Magister cannot gainsay hundreds of years’ of tradition with but a belief and an ideal. He cannot stand against the Academe, the Guild, or the Great Houses. It is only the Charter that has kept things from exploding into open discord,” she said.

            It was an old argument between them, between many.

            “They all have their factors, watching what passes on the road, what duties are taken, contracts met. That is the business of the Free City and the Administrative Wing. The game is amongst them,” he said with some exasperation.    

“But there are tensions in that body. Tensions acerbated by secret emissaries, intriguers, and spies. It will only be so long until we are drawn in,” she replied heatedly.

            Poe gave a wry smile. Her lips pursed in vexation. She took his smile as dismissive, though it was not. The truth was his smile was the only defense from the measure of her hazel gaze.

            Placing his elbows on the table he leaned in toward her. “We are neutral in policies of commerce, business, or politics. Neutrality serves the settlers coming to this new land, protects the School and the City from the machinations of private and princely interests. As long as the roads stay open and no one attempts to abridge its access, there will be no conflict. We do not say who can or cannot use the road. We do not level duties for passing through the City. The City built and maintains the road. It is their right to request recompense for that maintenance.

            “We aid in keeping the road safe and free from banditry and act as advocates for those who bring charge against another. All benefit from this.”

            “It sounds reasonable.”

            “It is reasonable.”

            “For whom?”

“For the City, the Guilds, those fleeing tyranny.”

“Ah. We are to the truth of it now. It is a trickle now, but when it becomes a flood, what will happen? Will tyranny compromise? Will it give way? Has it ever. And when they make it to roads we police, we keep safe for all to pass, what will happen then?”

“People are not chattel to be herded—“

“Yes, they are.”

“That is where you and I differ. Besides, trade over the mountains is too lucrative for even a flood to staunch its flow.”

“Some may accept such . . . loss to maintain control in a world they perceive they are losing control over.”

Poe recognized the daggers edge on which they balanced. They all did. The machinations of trade, the greed of the Guilds and Great Merchant Houses balanced beside the iron grip of repression a prince or sovereign could bring to bear to maintain their estates.

“Those are possibilities, but that the Academe may come in to place interdiction against the School, it is not practical since it was the who negotiated the Accord.”

Suddenly weary of the tension that hemmed them about, Maggie reached across the table top to grasp his forearm, to bridge the physical and emotional distance separating them “They may have no choice. The Academe may pretend to be neutral in things political, but they are not neutral in the things of power.”

            “You should not have come,” he said, forearm trembling from her touch.

            “But I had to.”

 “Only to take up an argument that has put distance between us.”

            “I came last night and waited, but you stayed late with the Magister. I came back today—

“I did not want it to be like this.” Her gaze was measured, and there was sadness in her winsome smile.

            “But it is,” he said sliding his arm beyond her reach.

            She stood and closed the distance between them. She bent over so that their faces were only inches apart and pressed a finger to his lips as if to ward a kiss. “I do not want it to be like this. Be wary, Poe, of going down paths from which there will be no coming back.” She parted his lips as she slid her finger away and stole a wet, soft kiss. She left him with the taste of her warm breath lingering on his lips.

The baths were located in a huge, underground cavern beside a large lake of naturally heated water that welled from an underground reservoir. The cavern’s height was hidden in darkness, and its walls retreated into shadows that no glowing lamps could penetrate. Once some energetic individual had taken a lantern and sought to trace the circumference of the pool. She had been gone near half a week and only returned because the path she followed had abruptly ended at stone prominence beyond which she could not proceed.

There were already students in the pool when Poe arrived, playing and splashing in the water; the lucky ones who had no duty or chores to consume their early hours. Most of them were fourth years.

Poe went to one of the bath houses constructed on peers and pylons so that it jutted out over the surface of the lake. There were vents and valves that moved the flow of water through the pools and tubs within. He nodded to the Masters he saw as he entered. Disrobing, he covered his body in the hot oils by the pool and scraped them off with s strigel before stepping into the pool. Rubbing his face with pumice and paste he  rooted the grime of his travels from his face. The waters of the lake replenished themselves in some manner so that the muck sloughed from the bodies of the bathers never seemed to foul its waters.

Refreshed, he made his way to the Great Hall. There were few people there when he arrived, most having already gone to their studies or seeing to other duties and responsibilities. That was just as well. He still did not have the taste for conversation and wanted to commune with his own thoughts. However, the few people there gave him prying greetings and probing stares which he ignored.  From a table laden with fruits, cheeses, breads and smoked meats, he plucked some grapes, probably from Rumbole, took a wedge of cheese form Dunfrey, and a slice of lamb form the foothills below.

            “How was your sojourn?” The question came over his right shoulder. He recognized the dry nasally voice of Charles. They were same years’ and there had always been discord between them for reasons Poe was never able to fathom. If one said veer left the other said right. Over the years they had learned to be cordial, but enmity coated every word and derision, every gesture between them.

            “Wearying,” Poe said, continuing to sift among the bounty.

            “So, did you find any answers to the rumors?”

            He debated what to say, how far he could push, or mock. He knew what he and the Magister had agreed to, but, still, he wanted the pleasure of irritating Charles—just a bit. He wavered a moment before deciding to forgo the pleasure.

            “I’ll let all the Masters know in due time, Charles. For know if you seek answers you must find them with the Magister,” he said and walked away.

“Ever the well-trained dog,” Charles said mockingly. Poe ignored the jibe and went to one of the tables at the outer perimeter of the hall. Picking at his thoughts while satisfying his hunger, it took him a moment to realize that he had a visitor—the one he should have been expecting.

            The boy’s intent expression and direct stare from across the table were as well worn as his faded pants and patched-at-the-sleeve tunic. He said nothing at first, only picked at a few grapes and buttered his bread.

Poe knew Malcolm was waiting for him to begin. What could he say to not set Malcolm against the other boy, to rouse doubt and mistrust from the outset. The wild boy of the wood was connected to the unusual events of the past thirteen years. He would not lie to Malcolm, but he could not give him the entire truth, what he suspected.

“What have you learned?” Malcolm finally asked.

“Much as we had guessed. There is an unknown, untapped force in the region that seems, in some way, to be coupled to the boy that you and others in the region have spoken of. How the boy and this force are connected I am unable to tell, but they are related.”

            “Is he tied to what happened to my family?”

            Poe placed knife and fork on the table before answering. “I do not know,” he said truthfully because he had no proof otherwise.

            “I still have dreams of that night. Dreams that jolt me from the sleep, drenched in sweat, shivering in cold, writhing.”

            Nightmares that had left the boy weeping in despair, drowning in self-pity and hopelessness. Poe remembered. Malcolm had been apprehensive and nearly unreachable in those early days. He still did not give trust freely nor allow many to get too close.

            “There is so much we do not know of this land, Malcolm. So much that amazes and stuns. In my travels I have seen wondrous things: a waste that sings a somber song when the winds passes across its expanse; a place where at night the sky shimmers and dances with all the hues and colors of the rainbow; the Dine in their huge rolling homes moving across the plains; and now this boy and the power that has attached itself to him. I have no answers for the questions these sights rouse, for the uncertainty they enclose. But I do know that if we meet them with suspicion and doubt those misgivings will taint who we are and what we try to do.”

            “Some things follow a course beyond our understanding,” was Malcolm’s reply.

            “That may be true, but first we must make an attempt to understand the unknown before trying to control it. If we do not, then we would be no different than the Guilds or Great Houses that try to control the results of another’s toil.  what we would shape with our own hands from this land.” Poe, worn down by the turn of conversation, much the same as he had had with Maggie of things left unsaid, that he could not say, sought to change the subject. “How have your lessons been going?”           

“They progress,” Malcolm replied around a mouthful of bread and beef, letting himself be lead from troubled musings.

“How do you like the histories of the Protectorate?”

“It was a bloody period before the Academe was founded. Alliances made and destroyed, armies decimated, citizens bloodied. All in the quest for power.” Food forgotten, Malcolm became lost in the subject. “A horrible time when the pursuit of power was the only rule, and Magi, or what passed for Magi, abused their power for personal gain.”

 “I always found that period to be an intriguing era in our history. Power with no regard and no challenge becomes a pleasing feast.”

“Many of the current Great Houses came into being in that time.”

“And much lore was lost, vanished from memory, abilities from the Source and ways of using ki.”

“I am curious about that also,” Malcolm said, eyes bright. “Much knowledge was lost, the accumulated lore and skill of many Magi and Brethren. It was the first Interdict, set by those men and women who would later come to found the Academe, to battle the misuse of power. I often wonder what compacts were made, what agreements made between those two disparate groups.”  

“We will never know. Legend say that whatever compact made did not last long. But I understand your curiosity, Malcolm. I have often wondered at the same question. We ponder and speculate what were the motives that caused those women and men of disparate ideals and beliefs, some who were even rivals, to come together.  That compact is nowhere recorded, the words nowhere taken down. All we know is that The Four began hunting down other Magi and rogue Brethren, placing wards and bindings on their powers and killing those others who were too strong to be bound. Who discovered the making of those seals and wards and why were they originally only known by those four? Little is known of why they did what they did, and even less is spoken of the two Brethren that made up The Four.”

“It is a question that can never be answered,” Malcolm said.

“Who can know, but it is that era that ushered in all we have become.”

“From chaos order.”

“Is it so easily summed?”

“I do not believe it was easy for those who lived through those times. The pain they experienced; the loss they experienced.”

“I do not have the arrogance to believe that I can know their pain and sorrow. Only mine. Anyway, These are conjectures more suited for Master Lisa.”

“Yes, they are,” Malcolm said pensively, head falling to his plate. Head bent his words were just barely heard. “But I have followed those paths, and they have resolved nothing.”

“Maybe you have not followed them long enough.”

Malcolm’s head rose and his gaze entreated Poe for understanding. “But there are other sources of knowledge as well, sources which only a few of the Magi seek to understand.”

“Many believe such sources of knowledge heretical, and there is no reason for them in your case.”

“Must there be a reason?”

“At least one that I may understand.”

“Power, understanding, release. That is three. Is that not enough?”

Poe could not help but laugh.

The spontaneity of the response surprised Malcolm, made him frown. It was out of character for Master Poe.

“Why do you make light of me? How can knowledge and the quest after it be wrong? How could understanding the warp and weave that comprise all that we are and all that we hope to become be wrong?”

Poe wiped the tears from his eyes. “Calm the furrows on your brow and smooth the frown on your lips. I do make light of you. It is my own trenchant resolve that I make light of, my own certainty, and doubts, in the face of your clarity.”

Matching Malcolm’s earnest stare across the breadth of the table, Poe wryly realized that the selfsame points were recently made to him.

“I will teach you what I know. But it must be a compact between  you and I. No one else must know.”

“Not even the Magister?”

“Not even Giles.”