Magic Can Be Murder

Page 9

"Yes."
"And Alan was...?"
"At that point," she said, hoping not to contradict anything Alan or Brinna had said earlier, "I didn't know." Hurriedly she continued, "I heard..." Galvin had asked where she was when lnnis had cried out. Was that a trap? Had Brinna told him she heard lnnis, or was it the box crashing to the floor that had brought her running? Nola had to trust that the hints she gathered from him were true, or she would end up being so vague and evasive that he would start suspecting her. All in a rush she said, "I heard a cry, and Alan and I came running, and we got co the door, and opened it, and there was Master Innis lying on the floor, bleeding."
"Who arrived at the door first?"
"It happened so fast." She could see Galvin wasn't going to settle for that. She had half a chance of giving the same answer Brinna had this morning. "I think I did." Alan? she thought again. Why was he suspecting Alan? Because her answers kept shifting? She didn't want to cast suspicion on Alan, but she didn't want Galvin suspecting her, either. "I'm sorry I'm so confused. Everything happened so fast, and I was frightened. People in the market kept having me repeat everything, and then - by saying ic over and over - I remembered some things I hadn't even realized I'd noticed before." Not likely, but possible. And where was all this going to leave the real Brinna when she came back?
And it was just as ?ola thought chis that she looked up and saw Brinna through the open shutter, carrying her marketing basket, coming through the courtyard toward the kitchen door.
Chapter Ten
NOLA JUMPED TO her feet. "I must go back to the market," she cried, "before someone finds my basket and decides to keep it! Master Kirwyn will be so vexed with me."
Even while Galvin opened his mouth to explain, "I'm sorry, but I have a few more questions," he got his foot down from the bench and took a step back as though suspecting she was about to trample him on her way out. It was a nice thought, bur she didn't dare go any farther: If she went past him and he turned to follow or even to watch, he would be able to see out the window as clearly as she could.
So, instead, she hurriedly turned the other way, to face the table.
He said, "This doesn't have to cake long, and I can explain to Master Kirwyn - "
"Only, let me put this pot on the fire first so it can start to simmer and be ready by supper," she blurted all in a rush, talking over his objections, trusting once more that Brinna's good looks would let her get away with being a dithering fool. She hoped Galvin didn't know enough about running a household to be aware that any beans she started heating now would be a sodden mush by suppertime.
"Brinna," Galvin said, still sounding patient, "really, I must insist - "
Ignoring Galvin and his protests, she picked up the pot in which the beans had been soaking. Then she let it slip through her hands. It hit the edge of the table, flipped over, and sent beans and water flying all over the floor. And over Galvin's leg.
"Oh!" Nola cried. "How clumsy of me! I'm so sorry." She grabbed a cloth and went toward him, but he wisely stepped away before she could inflict more damage, which showed a quickness to learn on his part chat Nola had to admire. Nor did he yell at her, but she tallied that as one more benefit she owed to Brinna's appearance rather than as any credit ro Galvin.
"Stay here," he ordered her, quietly though firmly, as if recognizing that her clumsiness might be an attempt ac a diversion.
"Yes," she said, in a tone meant to indicate she'd never suggested going anywhere else. "Just getting out of your way." She stepped toward the window so that if he looked up now, she would block most of the view, Brinna was within five strides of the door. There was no way Nola could ever get out of here without transforming in plain sight of either her or Galvin.
There was only one other choice that Nola could think of: Transform Brinna.
But then, of course, Brinna would explain that she was the real Brinna, no matter how she looked.
Except, again of course, chat the story would sound mad - at least at first.
How could Nola ensure that everyone would immediately and steadfastly take Brinna's claims as a sign of lunacy, so that they wouldn't listen to her long enough to realize she made sense and knew things only the real Brinna would know?
Unless...
With a pang of guilt for being a treacherous friend and a faithless daughter, Nola whispered the words to make Brinna cease to look like herself. And she concentrated, very hard, on picturing her mother's form.
The kitchen door flew open and Brinna strode in, her face bearing the features of Nola's mother, her hair gray and wild and off in all directions, her hands blue-veined and spotted, her shoulders slightly stooped. As soon as Brinna saw Nola - as soon as she saw someone in her own home, wearing her own face - she stopped as though she'd found her feet suddenly rooted to the ground.
For Galvin's benefit, Nola tried to sound a balance between friendly and cautious. "Hello, Mary. What are you doing back here?"
"Who are you?" Brinna demanded. Her voice, bounded by the restraints of Nola's mother's appearance, came out thin and creaky. Of course she heard the difference. Her hands flew up to her mouth, but that made matters worse, for she could see her old woman's hands. She gasped. "Who are you?" she repeated, sounding truly frightened now. "What's happening?"
Nola was aware that Galvin had stopped trying to make his breeches presentable and that he was watching Brinna as she alternately touched her face and stared at her hands. He was ready, she guessed, to move quickly if this visitor gave any indication of being dangerous.
Miserably, hating what she was doing to someone who had shown her only kindness, Nola forced herself to say in a quizzical tone, "Mary?"
"I'm not Mary," Brinna said, her voice cracking so that it sounded querulous. "I'm Brinna. Who arc you, and what have you done to me?"
Galvin asked Nola, "You know this woman?"
She was going to be the death of herself, Nola was sure of it. But somehow she managed to get her voice working. "She and her daughter came here the other day, seeking employment. It didn't work out." The last thing Nola wanted co do was bring up the business about foretelling Innis's death. "She's a very sweet woman but..." Nola touched her head. It was a gesture she often had seen people do in her mother's presence. But when she saw Brinna's horrified expression, she had to soften it, to pretend that she had just been adjusting her hair. But Brinna and Galvin both knew what she was doing.
"No!" Brinna cried. "Lord Galvin, we met and spoke this morning before I left for market."
Nola couldn't afford to give Brinna time to make an appeal to reason. So she asked Brinna, "Where's your daughter? Where's Nola? She should know better than to let you wander about on your own." And she spared a thought for wondering what reckless situation her true mother might have wandered into.
"I'm not Mary," Brinna cried, frustration putting a hint of hysteria into her voice that didn't hurt Nola's cause. "I'm Brinna. And you, even though you look like me, are not."
Galvin moved to put himself between Nola and Brinna. "Madam," he said gently, "why don't you sit down and we can try to sort this matter out - "
Brinna smacked the hand with which he tried to take her by the elbow. "Don't call me madam," she said, "and don't cake that let's-talk-calmly-to-the-crazy-woman-and-maybe-she'll-leave-us-alone tone with me."
Actually, Nola thought he'd done a good job of not sounding condescending, such a good job that she felt a prickle of panic. Not now, she warned herself. Panic would eat away at her concentration, and if her concentration slipped, so would the spells that held herself and Brinna to these false appearances. So knowing what a cruel thing she was doing, she said firmly, "I am Brinna, you are Mary. Look." And she held up a silver plate so that Brinna could see her reflection.
Brinna screamed and covered her face and began to cry.
Footsteps came running down the hall.
Halig was first into the kitchen, closely followed by Alan, with Kirwyn lagging behind. If there was to be trouble, Kirwyn was obviously willing to leave it to others.
Just as Galvin had placed himself between the two women to protect Nola, Halig now stepped between Galvin and the weeping Brinna.
"Mary," Alan said. "Has something happened to Nola?"
Brinna pulled her marketing basket off her arm and flung it, spilling peaches and carrots, and narrowly missing his head. "I'm Brinna!" she shouted.
"All right," Alan agreed soothingly. "Brinna. Has something happened to Nola?"
By then Kirwyn was in the room, and he said, "Is that crazy old woman back?"
Brinna looked around as though searching for something to throw at him.
"Should I arrest her, sir?" Halig asked Galvin.
"No!" Nola cried. Besides the fact chat that would be extremely cruel to poor Brinna, who had been kind with them and done nothing worse than return home at the wrong time, putting her in a cell would mean that she would be surrounded by people when Nola let the transforming spell drop. Already Nola couldn't think how she'd ever be able to fix this situation without everybody involved knowing that witchcraft was at work. Her vehemence had obviously surprised Galvin, who was watching her appraisingly. She tried not to sound as though her life depended on it, and repeated, "No. Don't put her into prison. She's just a poor, confused old woman. She doesn't mean any harm. She doesn't  do any harm."
Just when things were looking up - just when Galvin shook his head at Halig to agree that Brinna shouldn't be arrested - Kirwyn came in with his opinion. "No?" he said with a snort.
He looked about to elaborate when Nola said emphatically, "No." She planned to talk over the objection he made. She knew he was going to tell how the very day of the night Innis was killed, this same woman had pointed at the silversmith and shrieked, "Death!" But Nola was not used to talking back, and her mind had gone blank with fear. How could she have been so stupid not to have realized that, of course, Kirwyn or Alan would mention this? She couldn't think over the thudding of her heart. Frantically she searched for something, and in the interim she realized that, for whatever reason, Kirwyn had obeyed her stern look and had stopped talking.
So she spoke instead to Brinna. "Please think calmly before you get yourself into trouble." It was good advice for herself, too. "You can only hurt yourself by persisting in this delusion. Do you want to end up in prison?" For Halig certainly still looked ready to carry out this threat.
Brinna had stopped crying. She was probably still afraid, but now she was mostly angry. "You're behind this. You switched bodies with me."
Obviously she assumed Nola was Nola's mother. The fact that she was wrong about that wouldn't prevent her from saying the one thing Nola least wanted said out loud; she was about to use that dreaded word, "witchcraft."
So Nola once more pictured her mother. With all her concentration - using much more energy than she needed to change someone's form - she pictured her mother cradling her arm, humming a lullaby to the baby in her forefinger.
Brinna hugged herself as though she was cold or distressed. She opened her mouth to accuse Nola of witchcraft. No words came out, only a hum. Slowly she began to rock from side to side, cradling her arm. The hum became a snatch of melody. Nola could see the panic in her eyes. She could see Brinna trying to hold still, to let her arms drop to her sides, to stop humming.
Hating herself for what she was doing, Nola told Brinna, "I'm sure this fit won't last. It won't last long at all." This was all the comfort she dared offer, something she hoped the others would take as her simply humoring a crazy old woman. It WONT last long, Nola assured herself. Just long enough to finish what needed doing here - which was to get downstairs without anybody noticing, disrupt the spell going on in the bucket, and be back at the market by noon so the firmer who had driven her into town would return her co the road co Saint Erim Turi. What would happen after that - how she could possibly right things without admitting all to Brinna - she had no idea.
Brinna was fighting the spell, fighting to get words out.
Nola pictured her mother on the step of the silversmith's house that first evening, when Innis had hired them because he would be getting married within the week.
"Congratulations," Brinna blurted out. Her hands fluttered to her mouth as though to push the word she had not meant to say back in. But, "Congratulations," she repeated, just as Nola's mother had, in the voice of one of the others who lived in her head. Brinna sucked in her lips and bit down on them. She couldn't help herself, and the word escaped yet again, in a third voice: "Congratulations." She began to cry again.
Nola felt like crying, too.
And in that moment of sympathy, Nola's concentration slipped. "You're all blind," Brinna told the others. "Look at me."
Once more Nola drew the mental picture of her mother rocking the baby, and Brinna resumed humming, although it was obvious she didn't want to.
Galvin picked up the marketing basket she had flung. Did he recognize it as the one with which Brinna had left the house earlier? Probably not, Nola reassured herself. Men didn't notice things like baskets. In any case, he put the spilled items back in, then held it out to Brinna. She snatched it out of his hand before turning and stamping her feet every step of the way out the door, angry and frustrated and frightened all at once.
Though wishes by themselves accomplished nothing, Stay safe, Nola wished after her, by which she meant, among other things, Don't do anything to get me in worse trouble.
To herself, she asked, What have you done? Gotten everyone looking suspiciously at your mother. THAT was very clever. A few more plans like that, and they'll burn you both at the stake.
Alan said to Lord Pendaran's men, "She's harmless. Truly. I had an old aunt whose wits wandered for years, but she never caused hurt to any and - "