Part One
EVERYONE, or nearly everyone, from the surroundings estates and farms had come to the village for the festival. The streets were loud with music and singing as well as the tinkling of bellsand the pounding of homemade drums as lovers found their way to each other and were cheered on by amused crowds.
The market was packed with stalls painted as blue as the spring sky, and everyone who passed Owin bore some token of the same color. Ara was a fest for springtime, for the end of gray skies and the start of blue. A day to dance and spend coin foolishly, to eat cakes or drink too much, and to ignore the work to be done—at least until morning. But other people’s hangovers were not Owin’s business. He had only to avoid his own.
He was reaching the age where a night of drinking affected him more the next day than it used to, and he was due to rise early, so he was content to sip the ale he was offered as he made his way to the public house where his friends were no doubt already enjoying the sunshine. The Duke was to ride in the morning to look over some of his land, which meant that, although the danger would be minimal, a guard or two would still be required. Owin was tired, but he had volunteered knowing perfectly well his comrades would be worse for the wear by daybreak. His Grace would appreciate Owin’s clear head nearly as much as Owin would.
The Duke himself was not in the village. He did not, in his words, celebrate peasant, pagan sorts of things, but recognized that not even the Church could fully stamp out this tradition. All across the farmlands of the south, people were occupied with planting and sowing, hard work that would hopefully lead to plenty. Except for today. For one day, they would stop and celebrate the end of winter, and wear capes or hats of spring sky blue, or trinkets of pale blue polished stone, or mark designs in blue dye on cheeks and arms bared to the warming sun. The dye took a few days to fade, but no one would mind. And if a bottle of dye was too expensive, it was easy enough to steal a few aras blooms from the fields and crush them to keep some of their brightcolor for yourself. A smear across the lips was to welcome kisses, but the flowers could also be worn about the face and head to indicate reception to more. Some lovers found each other for the day, and others for much longer than that. The bells would chime for all, at least until sundown, when the celebrations would slowly turn more private.
A day for sowing, the Duke had once said, years ago when Owin had been new to the area and the Duke’s service. A jest Owin understood now, and appreciated as he sidestepped a couple wrapped around each other in order to enter the sheltered alcove and garden in front of the Black Dog.
He regretted not taking the time to do more than splash water on his face to wash away the dirt from his travels when he spotted five or six of the Duke’s other guards lounging around the tables in front of the pub, all of them in freshly laundered tabards, with ribbons of blue around their arms or feathers of blue stuck in their caps.
Owin sighed, although a moment later he was smiling again. He would rather be here than still in his shared room, trying to make something of his face.
Aubrey hailed him first, sharp-eyed even with emptied cups in front of him. “So His Grace has returned?” he called out, causing several of the others to turn to Owin and greet with him with cheers. “Where is Isaac?”
“He’d rather sleep, he says.” Owin sank gratefully onto a bench near Aubrey, and exchanged his cup of ale for another, this one half-full. Isaac was a good guard, but older, and often laid abed with the effects of past injuries. But the Duke rewarded loyalty, and Isaac refused proper retirement, so Isaac continued to ride with the Duke. Owin had not minded doing the majority of the work, but the journey had been long and they had pushed hardto be back in time for the festival; the Duke was expected to be in residence, even if he did not participate. Then Owin had walked most of the way to the village before getting a ride from a farmer’s family going in the same direction.
His hair was damp on his forehead and beneath his much dirtier tabard, his shirt was sticking under his arms. He took a generous drink of someone’s ale before turning to lean against the table and look over the crowd.
Denys, Aubrey’s second-in-command, was in a chair with his hat over his face, perhaps sleeping already. Bartlemeo was at another table, grinning at a server who was pretending to ignore him. Next to him was Margaret, one of the Duke’s more unusual choices, younger than Owin but steady in a fight. At the end of that table sat a group of three; poetic Dahl, the ever-calm Wolfe, and one who was not a soldier at all, Maschi, in his mage’s tunic of black and his brown priest’s cowl, with not a speck of blue on him.
It was not unheard of for a priest or a priest-mage to attend the festival. It was, as the Duke might point out, not a sin to enjoy the sunshine, or even to exchange kisses, though some priests might frown. It was, however, unusual to see Maschi out with them, a cup in front of him, even if he did not drink from it.
Owin quickly moved his gaze to his ale then over to Aubrey. “The little mage is with us?”
“Wolfe and Dahl bullied him.” Aubrey grinned slightly at the words, as if he had witnessed it. “They have no fear of him, which means they are fools or very wise.”
Owin looked again in their direction. Wolfe was instructing Maschi on how to plait his long hair, and Maschi was frowning but attempting it, frustrated sparks of magic in the air around him as he did. That Owin could identify them as sparks offrustration was telling, but he kept it to himself. He loved his friends but their teasing could be endless.
“I think they are wise,” he said at last, watching Maschi’s nimble fingers pick up the task, and the glimpses of Maschi’s skinny wrists as his sleeves fell back.
At first glance, there was nothing about Maschi to make anyone wary. He was little, as Owin had named him, although most people were little to Owin. Maschi had mussed, dark brown hair, chopped short, that tried its best to curl but settled into waves unless Maschi forgot to let one of the older priest-mages trim it for him. His face was little. His nose was little. His eyebrows were thin, though often drawn together in a frown over his eyes, which were intent, always, like a hungry falcon’s.
Maschi was young, somewhere between twenty and twenty-three, but seemed both younger and older depending on whether he was asked to discuss theoretical magic or something as earthy as this festival. He ought to have been a proper priest by now. Owin was fairly certain of that, if not the reasons for Maschi’s lack of vows. Despite his age, Maschi was still under the tutelage of the Duke’s priest-mages, which made him a lower-ranking mage, Owin estimated, without knowing much of the distinctions between mages, or priests, for that matter. He was lower-ranking likely because of his manner. Maschi held no modesty when it came magical abilities and training—his, or anyone else’s—and spoke the truth when a craftier person might have kept silent.
In his defense, peopledidask Maschi his opinion before he voiced it. But even the Duke had learned by now to only ask if he wanted an uncompromising answer.
For all that his judgement was valued by the Duke, Maschi himself was forever at odds. The three priests who saw to thesouls of those in the Duke’s domain, two of them mages, were decades older than him. He spoke of no family. A handful of the guards were near his age, and of those, it was mostly Wolfe and Dahl who sought him out and dragged him along with them from time to time. There he would sit, awkward and serious, on the edge of their circle, and frown in confusion at the ribbing and jests that flew back and forth among the guardsmen.
Maschi was not a soldier of any description, and Owin suspected he was not a priest at heart either, because he did not speak of the Lord as other priests or postulates did. It was more likely that there had been no other path for Maschi with his lack of family, and the mid-country accent still to be heard in his voice, and his stiff manner. He would not be the first priest to quietly go his own way, and if Owin knew the Duke—and he did—the Duke was more than aware of it and was turning a blind eye, as he often did so long as the sins committed were not unforgiveable. And when it came to sins, even murder was often smiled upon by the Church.
Not that Owin would say so aloud. Not even while safely in the service of a powerful man like the Duke, who was fond of Owin for his battered face and easy humor, and of course, for his sword.
Dahl was leaning in, and whatever his whisper was about darkened Maschi’s cheeks and made Wolfe fall forward to laugh, ruining the efforts with his hair. Maschi stiffened, as he usually did when he was the subject of a joke, but after a glance at the other two, he exhaled and merely sat, silent, with a slight curve to his lips. Combined with his frown, it made him look lost and a bit lonely.
Dahl took care of that, picking up one of Maschi’s hands and placing it back in Wolfe’s hair. Whatever he whispered this time made Maschi blink rapidly.
Recalling where he was, and Aubrey’s sharp attention, Owin finally looked away, concealing his surprise to find Steph next to him, pushing forward a basket of small cakes.
Owin took one. He was ravenous, but had wanted to rest more before seeking out a meal.
“The trip to see the King,” Aubrey began, and Steph groaned.
So did Denys, not asleep after all. “Not on the day of the festival,” he complained. “Tomorrow.”
Aubrey gave in with a sigh, as though he wasn’t still thinking over their assignments. “Tomorrow.”
