What worried her more was her guess that fear made the Prelate less willing to support the Master. Perhaps more willing to…what? Was she imagining it that he spoke rather too much to the Overlord’s agent, Deager, when he came to Willowlands? She was sure neither of these men was the Master’s friend. Was there a direct cause and effect between fear of the Master and the amount of time any Circle member spent chatting with the agent? (Sardonically she thought, By that reckoning, I am not afraid of the Master at all. I wish that were true.) How many more of the Circle would she have to count as against the Master? And herself in his favour—and the Grand Seneschal? How would he vote? She had no idea. The only thing she knew about the Grand Seneschal was that he had written to the priests of Fire after the death of the old Master, and that could have been no more than a final desperate gesture before accepting the inevitability of—and the havoc of—an outblood Master. Was the Grand Seneschal weary of his gesture yet?
Who else might she count for? Clearseer, who spoke to her occasionally when he didn’t have to? Talisman, who spoke to no one? Weatheraugur, whose only contribution to the oblique conversations about adaptations for a Master who was also a priest of Fire was to ask the Master what he wanted to do? She saw none of the others outside the Circle meetings, spoke to them rarely in anything but ritual words.
The little breeze coming through the window was sweeping away the morning fog and in the few moments she stared dumbly at the Master standing by the hearth his figure seemed to brighten, although more as if some fire in him was burning more strongly than that the daylight was increasing. He still wore his long hooded cloak, but after the first day he’d folded the edges of the hood back till it only framed his face. She still didn’t know if he had hair; the blackness of his skin and the blackness inside the hood made either hair or not-hair invisible. She knew that he’d sent his aides and his coach away three days after they’d arrived, so she assumed that he’d—what? Regained some little of his human strength, his human responses?—enough for him to move around on his own, to dress himself, to eat, to wash.
One of the rumours about the Fire-priests was that they neither ate nor washed: that they bathed in the Elemental Fire, which cleaned and nourished them. She doubted that plain, homely fire on an ordinary hearth would suffice. She hadn’t heard any rumours of other helpers being assigned to him—not even a body servant, to help with the dressing and the eating and the washing. And she would have heard, with the mark of his touch on her hand. And while the Master ate little in public, she had seen him put food in his mouth, chew and swallow: there had been a plate at his elbow during his inaugural banquet, for example, and she’d seen servants refilling it. Clearseer had told her that the Master never ate in his dining hall; he had food sent up to his rooms, and the trays returned empty to the kitchens.
“And the only ash in his fireplace is wood,” he added. “Although he gets through a lot of wood. There’s a story that he chose the rooms he did—you know he didn’t go into his brother’s rooms?—because of all the private rooms in the House, they have the biggest fireplaces. Even the bedroom has one you could roast a bear in, and the sitting room’s is big enough for a party.”
The Master was alone now.
She was so startled that it took her much too long to come to her feet and bow. “Master, I give you first day’s greeting.”
“First day’s greeting I return to the Chalice,” he responded, correctly. He was always correct—had always been correct as far as she knew what the Master’s actions and responses were supposed to be. She wondered what the Fire-priests said to each other, and whether he remembered the old demesne usages, or whether he had to study for his new role as she did for hers. Did he stay up nights cramming as she did? Did he read the old chronicles not only because he had to, but because he could not sleep? At least she did not have to fear scorching the pages when she turned them. But she burnt more firewood now herself, from sitting up late.
“Sit,” he said. “I am sure you grow tired of standing.”
She couldn’t quite bring herself to sit, even at his suggestion; no one sat in the presence of a standing Master. As if reading her mind he said, “While I grow weary of sitting. At least this morning we are declared for Dawnspan, so we know it will be over in two hours.”
This was so like what she had been thinking she laughed, and turned it into a cough. As Chalice she probably did have rank enough to laugh at something the Master said, but she would not have had the privilege in her old life, and she was still caught between her two worlds.
As he was caught between his.
The dawn breeze, still blowing through the open window behind her, now felt cold, and she shivered. She didn’t know if he saw her shiver—would he remember what a shiver was, or was a Fire-priest always cold away from his Fire?—but he turned to the fireplace. She was watching him intently without realising she was doing so, and so she saw his chin drop, and a faint smile turn up the corners of his mouth, as if he were addressing a friend. And the ready-laid logs burst into flame.
She went to the fire and stood beside him without considering if this were permitted or not; she couldn’t help herself. The fire looked and smelled and gave off heat like any ordinary fire; it did not burn too fiercely nor were the flames the wrong shape or colour. The rumour about Elemental Fire was that because it was the living fire of the living earth and air it both protected and aroused, it was nothing at all like the fire produced by flint and dry wood—except that it was hot, and it burned.
The day would grow warm later, but it was early enough in the morning now that the heat of the fire was pleasant. She held only her left hand out to it, and turned the back of her right hand away from it.
“Your hand does not heal,” he said.
“It is in an awkward place,” she said quickly, ashamed, snatching her left hand back as if she had done something discourteous.
There was a pause only long enough to register as a pause, and then he said, “I guess…it does not heal because it does not heal, and not because it is in a place where the skin is too thin and too flexible.”
He held out one of his own hands toward the fire, and she saw that he wore no glove. She tried to remember—as she had tried to remember if he walked silently—if she had seen his hands since the day he had burned her, and she could not remember that she had. All she remembered was that he kept his hands hidden in his cloak when he could. At the banquet following his investiture, he had been wearing gloves—that was when she had first noticed they were tied instead of laced—and when he had to handle anything during the Circle rites, he wore gloves, and yet he still touched even stone and steel cautiously. When in the course of any meeting she held a cup to his lips, he let her do it, but he did not raise his hand to direct her. That was not unusual; many people believed that the binding work of the Chalice was more effective if only the Chalice’s own hands touched the cup; and whatever the cause it was a compliment to her as Chalice. The other members of the Circle, before the Master’s coming, had always firmly grasped the cup with her. She made it easy for them by always choosing among the long-stemmed Chalice cups, because it was forbidden to touch the Chalice herself if you were so fortunate as to be receiving a cup at her hands. To her surprise a few of the Circle, since the Master’s coming, no longer held the cup with her. The Grand Seneschal was one of these, which was the greatest surprise of all.