A/N: Yea! We're back again. I'm sorry about the HUGE gap between chapter updates. It's almost done, and I'll try to have this done before the end of the year. Oops…..
Thanks: Lady Sabine of Macayhill – Thanks for reviewing, especially because you have been reviewing basically since chapter one! I'm glad you liked it!
Francesca peered around the Chapel of the Ordeal with vague curiosity. Even though many years after the death of Joren of Stone Mountain and Vinson of Genlith's confession and punishment both given by the Chamber, people gathered every year to watch anxiously to see if this year's group of squires would survive. Seeing the plain furnishing of the room, Francesca was mildly surprised.
"What," Alan asked her, seeing her look around the room curiosity.
"I'm just surprised," she told him with a shrug.
On her other side, Francesca's knight mistress heard her words. "People are still afraid because of what happened to Joren and Vinson." The knight told the two squires plainly. "It will likely be a few years yet until it calms down."
"Not that my lady," Francesca told her. "I expected, I dunno," she shrugged again, looking around the room. "More decoration or something."
Knight and squire stared at her.
"You say that like you've never been in here." Alan said slowly, staring incredulously at his friend.
"Yes," Francesca told him patiently. "That's because I haven't."
Alan opened his mouth to reply, but the Chamber door opening halted whatever he was going to say. Everyone leaned forward and Sir Nealan rushed to help his former squire as Fianola stumbled out of the Chamber. The entire room seemed to sigh in relief. Francesca glanced to the front of the room, where her friends' family sat. A young woman, who had to be Francesca's younger sister Yvenne, who had wanted to be a page, stared at her sister with a mixture of worry, envy and pride.
Francesca, Kel and Alan left the Chapel in a crush of other people. Remembering his earlier question, Alan rounded on Francesca.
"Why did you never visit the Chapel," he demanded. "All squires visit the Chapel!"
Francesca raised her eyebrows. "I just did," she pointed out.
"You know what I mean," he snapped.
"I do," she grimaced at her friend, "and I know I've mentioned before my dislike of explaining myself. You'll just have to live in ignorance," she told him without sympathy.
Later that evening, Francesca found herself in conversation with Lady Alanna, the newly knighted Lady Knight Fianola and her own knight mistress. They were at a small party that Lord Raoul and Buri had thrown together, keeping a vigil of their own, as Alan now kept one in the Chapel of the Ordeal.
The three lady knights were sharing the stories of how they had convinced their families to let them try for their shields – or in the case of Lady Alanna, hidden her sex for eight years.
"At least my parents didn't insist I go to convent school for a year or so," Fianola was saying. "Some of my friend's parents did, and poor Francesca spent three years there."
The other two knights looked at the squire in mild surprise.
"It's part of the reason I didn't start my training until I was fourteen," Francesca explained. "The shipped me off to the convent the day after I first mentioned wanting my shield – I think they would have sent me off that very day, but I waited until evening."
"I've always wondered," a new voice said. "How you got that horrid mother of yours to agree." Francesca turned to find Aisha with her brother; she smiled at her oldest friend.
"Mother never agreed, but when she kept on about my reputation, I told her that if she was so worried about me earning a false reputation then I'd become a prostitute for a year or so, then try for my shield – that way any reputation I earned would be true."
Aisha stared at her for a moment, and then stamped her foot. "Gods! Why didn't I think of that?" Her brother seemed torn between laughing and staring at the two young women in abject horror.
Lady Alanna and Fianola were laughing so hard they were both bent double. When their laughter had subsided slightly she responded to her friend's question.
"Because your parents didn't harp on reputation, only your chances of death in a war," Francesca reminded her. "Also you actually get on with your parents."
"After that they let you try for your shield," Kel questioned.
"No," Francesca corrected. "After that my mother stopped speaking to me and I had to convince my father. It took a while and my grandmother's help, but," Francesca shrugged and frowned at the floor. "My father is a good man, but he's a weak one too. He'd rather bow before mother's demands than argue with her – I don't really blame him, after all, he's the one who has to live with her. Ultimately it was my grandmother who convinced my father. She told him that if they disowned me like they threatened, then she would fund my knighthood training herself, so the result would be the same anyway."
She glanced up, as if just realizing she'd been rambling. Francesca flushed, finding their eyes on them. She looked away from the other women and spotted Master Numair across the room, Francesca bit her lip. She had an idea, and who better to answer her question about magic than the black robe mage? Mentally bracing herself, Francesca excused herself and walked over to the mage. Her mind raced, thinking of something, anything, but the truth to tell him to get information that may just save many lives.
He was speaking to Alan's brother and the Wildmage. It was Daine who noticed her first, and smiled in greeting. Francesca bowed as Daine said hello and asked after Rain.
"He's around here somewhere, my lady." She assured the Wildmage, glancing nervously at the other two mages. They seemed to have finished their conversation – a debate on some spell or another – drawing a deep breath Francesca turned to look fully at Numair.
"Master Numair, I … was hoping to ask a question." The mage blinked at her but smiled agreeably.
"Of course, Squire Francesca, isn't it?"
Francesca bowed again, "Yessir, I – I was reading and came across… Is there a spell that could force someone to do things against their will? Hurt people, they never normally would?"
That gained her all three mage's full attention.
"Why do you ask," Numair questioned, brows furrowed.
"I… I remember you mentioning in some of our classes when I was a page, about a trick a mage can do to capture the mind with a shiny object – a coin or even something more elaborate. But I was reading and I came across mention of a similar spell, only it could be cast without the person even being aware of the casting mage. And – well, the though is… a disturbing one." She smiled weakly.
Numair was tugging on his bottom lip thoughtfully. "Such spells can be done, usually with a focus – though the chances that the person being spell being completely unaware is unlikely, but possible."
Francesca frowned, that didn't sound right. She nodded slowly; maybe she was asking the wrong question. "What about," she began very slowly. "A spell that causes another mage's power to… surge out of control?"
She looked up to find Numair staring at her sharply; it took all her courage not to shrink back.
"Do you have the Gift," he demanded.
"No," Francesca blurted quickly, frightened both by the tone and the intensity with which the three mages were staring at her. He stared at her for several moments longer before nodding.
"One such spell does exit, but it can only be used by a Master level mage, and those are very uncommon. Besides that, the spell has no effect on those without the Gift."
Francesca nodded and thanked the mages before bidding them goodnight, deciding she'd had more than enough of the party. Francesca returned to her room, Rain was there curled up on her bed; she sat gingerly next to him, softly stroking the bobcats fur. He looked up at her after a moment.
"Well," she said quietly, "I think I know what type of spell is used, and …maybe…"
When she had been silent for a long time, Rain made a questioning cat sound. Francesca looked at him. "Maybe," she continued, "I found the answer to the riddle."
The next morning Francesca was once more sitting at the back of the Chapel, this time it was Fianola who sat next to her, as they waited for Alan. Since they had met at the Chapel doors that morning, Fianola had been shooting Francesca worried looks, Francesca had decided to ignore her, Fianola would say what was on her mind sooner, rather than later.
"Are you alright," her friend asked, causing Francesca to give her a confused look.
"Perfectly, why?"
"You look like you haven't slept all night, and you left early," Fianola began, and then stopped as a horrifying thought had just occurred to her. "Alan," she began.
"Will be fine," she hissed realizing what her friend was worried about. "Remember that you are both around in," Francesca stopped and cleared her throat. "Anyway, why would you ask something like that?"
Fianola frowned, "You're keeping something to yourself again," she determined. "What is it?"
"Later," Francesca told her glancing meaningfully towards the door to the Chamber just as it swung open.
That evening, as they celebrated the newly knighted Alan, Francesca became aware of a feeling. It wasn't a vision or a prophecy, but a sense of knowledge. She knew – in the same way she had known that Joren of Stone Mountain was a person to be avoided, and that she wanted to earn her shield – that she would not see her friends again for two year, when she would have to stop the spell before it was cast and her Ordeal of Knighthood.