The Seeker - Isobelle Carmody [13]
I looked at my brother. I had never known what motivated him. But perhaps he thought of more than just himself as he weaved this tissue of lies. After all, it would go easier for me, too, if the Council thought I was a Misfit only by accident.
“Talk to them,” Rosamunde urged Jes, but he shook his head. “You are no Misfit!” she cried.
“No,” Jes agreed. His eyes were sad. “Leave us,” he said to Rosamunde gently.
She burst into noisy tears. “No. I will come, too, if they take you. I could pretend—”
“Be wise,” Jes said. “We don’t know what the keeper will do, or what happens at Obernewtyn.” He paused, and I sensed the struggle taking place within him. “If things had been different …,” he began, and then stopped. He fell silent, his face troubled.
Rosamunde seemed to understand and dried her tears. Her face was wretched with unhappiness. “They might not take you,” she said. “The tainted water is to blame.”
I looked at her, and a plan came to me. I would have to be wary and delicate.
Carefully I directed my ability to manipulate thoughts into her reeling mind, seeking to create the chains of thought and action I needed, joining them carefully onto her own half-formed notions. I had not used my coercing ability so directly before, and I was curious to see how well the thoughts and decisions I had grafted would hold.
“You must go,” Jes told her. “I want you to go. Never speak of this—or us—again. It is bad enough that we have been seen together. I will not let you be dragged into this mess.”
“Oh Lud, no,” she sobbed, and ran inside.
Jes and I looked at each other, neither of us having the slightest idea what the other thought.
“Elspeth Gordie.”
I trembled at the sound of my name, though I had been waiting for it. At that last moment, there was a flare of hope that I had been wrong after all.
I waited, still trembling, as those around me drew back. The head of Kinraide went on to say that I had been affected by tainted water and was to be sent to the Councilcourt in Sutrium for sentencing. I knew then my plan had worked. I looked at Jes and caught his amazed look. He did not understand how the lie he had devised had come to be believed by the guardians. I prayed I knew him well enough to guess he would not protest or ask who had reported me. My eyes sought out Rosamunde, who would not look at me, and I hoped she would not be too badly affected by what I had willed her to do. I felt a self-loathing for having burdened her with a betrayal she would never have contemplated without my coercerthought.
Her denouncement had come too late to stop the proceedings under which I would be bonded to Obernewtyn, but it had saved Jes from any trouble and had categorized me as a very ordinary sort of Misfit. I prayed the knowledge that she had saved Jes would be enough to salve Rosamunde. I did not want her to suffer.
An awful lethargy filled me as I sat in the punishment room, where I would remain until the Council coach came for me at dawn. I could have picked the lock, for I had recently discovered that by concentrating fiercely I could exert a small amount of physical force with my mental powers. But were I to open the door, where would I go?
Maruman came to my prison window that night. I tried to explain that I was going away, but he was still under the sway of his fit, and I could not tell how much he understood.
“The mountains have called at last,” he said dreamily. “Last night I dreamed of the oldOne again. She said your destiny is there.”
“Oh, don’t,” I begged, but Maruman was merciless in his fey state.
“I smell the white in the mountains,” he told me with drifting eyes that reflected the moonlight. I found myself trembling after he had gone and wished that now, of all times, Maruman had been his grumpy,