Crown of Renewal(193)

She dismounted and turned to Marshal Pelis. “Let’s go inside, Marshal. My head’s had enough of this sun.”

“Yes, Marshal-General.” He led the way to the door. Arianya glanced back; the stubborn part of the crowd had taken a step nearer but been blocked by the mounted knights. She hoped everyone would have sense. She was sure someone wouldn’t.

Grainmarket’s interior held the group of accused mages: men, women, youths, children, one a babe in arms. Arianya ignored them for the moment, following Pelis to the platform, where she bowed to the relic in its niche.

“Gird’s grace on this grange and all who enter,” she said, turning to look at the group. She recognized a woman she’d seen the previous year selling dyed yarn, evenly spun. “I remember you,” she said, approaching; the woman shrank back a little, pushing a child only hip-high behind her. “You’re a spinner and dyer, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” the woman said, looking down. “Please … don’t hurt ‘im.”

“I’m hoping no one will be hurt,” Arianya said. She looked at the others, sure she must have seen some of them at the fair in previous years. Yes—that man—he’d brought a lathe and turned legs for chairs and smooth rounds for other uses. And that one, who’d had furls of cloth. “Are you all from Hoorlow?”

“Not all of them,” Marshal Pelis said. “Some are from the vills about. Came here for sanctuary, some.” He cleared his throat. “See here, Marshal-General, I know what you’ve wrote—you don’t want childer killed, and I’m with that, but what about adults?”

“Adults?”

“Felis over there. Seen using magery to lift a stone.”

Felis, skinny and tall, hunched his shoulders as Arianya looked at him. “You have the lifting magery?” she asked him. “When did it come?”

“Just after last year’s fair, Marshal-General. I’d gone down in the back, couldn’t work, and my old mother, she’d gone blind; she couldn’t do much. So one night I said, like anyone might, too bad I’m not a mage, so’s to lift stone another way, and next mornin’ a half loaf of bread come to m’hand. I dropped it, bein’ so startled, but then … I tried it again and it worked. Could move stone up to this size—” He held his hands apart. “And anything else that weight. Went back to work that day, and no trouble to anyone until a mage-hunter spied on our vill.”

“It was that Haran,” a woman said, and two others nodded. “Said she was on the way to see her sister’s youngest, who’d just had a babe and sprained her ankle. Doby took her in, let her stay a day or so …”

“Haran?” Arianya said. “Where did she say she was from?” Haran, the Marshal who had been angry with Paks for “weakness” and whose relative had defended killing children with mage-powers and died in the trial of arms he demanded.

Shrugs, glances back and forth. Finally the first woman said, “Somewhere sunsetting or summerwards, I think, but I don’t recall she gave a name.”

“She’s here,” another said. “She and the other mage-hunters. It’s them yelling for stoning and burning.”

Marshal Pelis held up a hand, and the group fell silent.

“I don’t think Gird wants anyone killed who hasn’t done wrong,” Arianya said. “I don’t see that using magery is any more wrong than using a tool to make work easier. So, Marshal Pelis, you did right to bring these people into the grange and give them sanctuary. But we still have to convince the people outside.”

“You know this area holds by traditions,” he said. “They don’t like change, and they believe magery is evil.”

“It’s not as evil as murder,” Arianya said. “Unless it’s used to murder. And I’m sure you’d have told me if any of these had used theirs to murder.”

“Indeed I would. And they haven’t. But I don’t know how you’re going to convince that mob in the square. They’re convinced it’s magery that’s kept the rain from falling and the river from running. Made the marshes dry enough to walk across dry-shod.”

“I must hope Gird gives me the words,” Arianya said. “Perhaps he’ll send rain—that might help.”

“I doubt it,” Pelis said. He sighed. “I reckon this is the day we’ll all get our heads bashed in, but better that than giving up.”

The people outside probably felt the same way, Arianya thought. “Is there a way out the back?” she asked. “Can these escape while we talk to the crowd out front?”