Page 36 of A Sorceress Comes to Call
“They can?” Cordelia’s eyes went wide.
“If they can make a broken-down horse look like a champion long enough for money to change hands, they ought to be able to make us all look twenty again.” Mrs. Green glanced at Cordelia, then grinned ruefully. “No, I’m not really serious. Illusions are all that most of them can manage. If you’re looking for a sorcerer to change your hair or your horse’s coat, I’d advise against it, though. A rinse with lemon water is more effective on your hair, and you’re better off buying a new horse.”
“Not to mention that such things always fail at the wrong time,” said Lady Strauss. “Like that silly girl last week who had one turn her hair blond, and then of course it failed in the middle of the wedding.”
“Water, wine, and salt to break the spells,” said Cordelia, repeating what her mother had said about weddings.
“Yes, exactly.”
“Hmm.” Hester tapped her fingernail against her teeth. “Was a fellow came through the village a while back, as I recall. Sold a load of ewes to one of our shepherds, and then as soon as he was out of town, most of them suddenly grew b—”
“Hester,” said Lady Strauss.
Hester coughed. “Sorry. I forget that not everyone follows animal husbandry as I do. At any rate, they were, uh, boy-sheep. Culls, by the look of them. Not fit for anything but mutton. He was furious, but of course the fellow was long gone.”
Cordelia’s heart sank. Illusions, making a shepherd think rams were ewes… was that really the only kind of sorcery people believed in? “Is that all that sorcerers do, then?”
“Pretty much,” said Lady Strauss, laying down a line of cards. “I’ve gambled with a couple of them. One was pretty good at muddling the cards, but he still wasn’t a great player.” She pulled a face. “One, though… he walked away with the whole table’s money. I had an inkling that he must be cheating somehow, though I couldn’t catch him. I wasn’t in deep, thank god. Two days later I hear that he tried it with a fellow from the southwest, where they still take these things seriously. This man had been wearing a ward and it went off when the first fellow went to lay down his first hand.”
Cordelia stared at her embroidery and wondered if it had flashed green and smelled like burning hair.
“Anyway, the fellow with the ward took offense and pinned the sorcerer’s hand to the table with a knife.” Lady Strauss’s lips curled in a feral smile of satisfaction. “And that’s why if you’re going to cheat, you had best be smart enough not to get caught.”
“I’m surprised there aren’t wards like that in every gambling club,” remarked Hester.
“Too hard to come by,” said Lady Strauss. “I looked into getting one myself after that, but they want a fortune for the things. High-end horse traders keep them, and racetracks, but other than that, how often does it really come up?”
“Can’t they just use water, wine, and salt in the gambling club?” asked Cordelia. “If it works at weddings, wouldn’t it work somewhere else?”
“Only on holy ground,” said Lady Strauss with clear regret. “That’s the fourth part.”
“Well, then Cordelia’s come up with a brilliant solution!” Mrs. Green ducked her shoulder and nudged it into Cordelia’s arm, almost as if they were friends. “Imogene, when you build your gambling hall, you simply must do it on holy ground, that’s all.”
“I’m sure the Archbishop would love that,” said Lady Strauss dryly.
“Why not? He’s always complaining that not enough people go to church.”
Cordelia let out a shocked giggle at that, and Mrs. Green laughed herself, winking at Cordelia.
“What makes something holy ground?” Cordelia asked, when the room had fallen quiet again.
Lady Strauss played another line of cards and scowled down at them. “The Archbishop would say that the Church consecrating a patch of ground makes it holy.”
Mrs. Green arched an eyebrow. “You say that like you disagree, Imogene.”
“Not in public I don’t. But I do think… oh, I don’t know what I think. Not really.” For the first time since Cordelia had met her, Lady Strauss seemed indecisive. “The Church isn’t so old, you know. Not compared to some places I’ve seen. In the old country, there were ruins from a thousand years before anyone like the Archbishop was around to bless them. But I still felt that those ruins were on holy ground.”
“Because the people who had lived there had consecrated the ground?” asked Hester.
Lady Strauss shrugged helplessly. “Maybe. Maybe what we call holy ground is only holy because I believe it and you believe it and hundreds of other people have believed it, and all that belief builds up like snow on a patch of ground and makes it holy.” She looked back down at her game. “Don’t ask me. I don’t know how the world works, just how cards work.”
It was an interesting idea. It tugged at Cordelia’s brain and made her think about things she didn’t usually think about. The needle moved over and under her piece of fabric, and her thoughts moved over and under each other, and for a minute or two, Cordelia almost forgot that her mother was somewhere in the house, only a few closed doors away.
CHAPTER 14
Cordelia first saw Lord Evermore as the party assembled before dinner. He was a tall dark-haired man, so thin that it made him look taller still, with bony wrists and deep-set brown eyes. He stood beside Lady Hester’s chair, his head bent as he listened.
What struck her most strongly, however, was that he was old. There was silver at his temples and threading his hair. Fine lines had etched the skin around his eyes and bracketed his mouth.
