by Andre Norton
“What she learns she will learn with Ssssaaa’s aid, and Ssssaaa shall report it to me,” the Lord Chancellor replied composedly, and Willadene felt that warm fur stir against her neck and cheek as if the creature was assuring her this was so.
14
The many halls and antechambers of the castle were as confusing as the city alleys, and Willadene tried hard to remember her way back to the High Lady’s tower. But her concern with the footman who had seemed to be following her had interfered with her concentration, and twice she was sure she had taken somehow a wrong turn.
In these lower passages there were no statuelike footmen beside the doors, and she decided that was a sign she had left the quarters of the nobles and the high officials. But she gave up in despair when she blundered into a room of looms on which several maidservants were busily at work, managing to dodge back into the shadows before anyone glanced away from the task beneath her hands.
Leaning against the wall in the duskiest comer she could find, she pushed away panic and tried to force memory to her command. There was a strange niggling of fear that she should certainly not be found wandering about without direction.
That warm band about her throat moved and flowed, still under the covering of her shawl, so that the pointed head now rested on her wrist. She flipped up the edge of the covering Halwice had given her and looked into those small, seemingly pupilless eyes.
Though she did not speak aloud, her lips shaped words—"You know!” And she was as sure of that as if she had heard an answering voice. Daringly she smoothed the silky fur with the forefinger of her other hand.
“The High Lady’s tower,” she shaped a thought with care.
Ssssaaa’s head moved under her light touch. It was plain that that head was swinging to a left-hand hall, dim as twilight, for it had only one or two wall-set lamps and those were flickering, though she could feel no breeze. But Willadene was willing to accept her guide, strange as she might be.
There were doors along the hall on either side, but all were firmly shut and that small nose still pointed straight ahead. That is until—
Willadene nearly staggered she had stopped so short, and she heard a low angry hissing from Ssssaaa. Evil— old—Willadene had a sickening thought of a pool nearby in the dark in which something was rising, a slime of ages of hate and pain, and delight in both.
That nauseating smell came from the door to her right. Ssssaaa’s head was higher, swinging to look to her and then the door. Surely the creature which she had accepted in perfect faith as being an ally was not urging her in that direction?
Only now she caught a second scent, this of the physical and not the spiritual world. She recognized it—from overseas. Halwice had had a single shipment of it and had really only acted as agent, for it had been ordered beforehand—a half year it had taken to reach Kronengred—by the High Lady Saylana.
There was sound now, very faint, for the door must be a thick one, and it followed a pattern as if someone recited in a hoarse and croaking voice some verse of ritual.
Willadene could stand it no longer. She felt the evil rising about her to entrap her, as if she had floundered into some sewer near filled with glutinous refuse which would cling to pull her down.
With one hand she fumbled out her amulet pomander and held it quickly to her nose, though its scent did little to stop that sucking. By the Star—the Star—
Holding up her head, she tried to visualize the Star, brilliant and clear, clean and cleansing, as it appeared in the Abbey. And with that held in mind she took one hindered step and then another.
Warmth seemed to be spreading from Ssssaaa’s small body, feeding her Star blaze. Then, somehow, they had won to the end of the corridor. However, Willadene felt as if she had tramped most of the streets of the city below without rest.
She was only faintly aware of the directions from Ssssaaa, but at length she did come into an anteroom she recognized and from it made her way back to the High Lady’s tower. What foulness she had stumbled upon she could not guess, save it was from no world she knew.
Again she passed footmen as she climbed to the floor where she had first met Mahart and her small court. But it was the bedchamber above which she must seek now. The door was a little open, and she could hear no sounds from within nor could she pick up the scent of either of the men who had been at work there earlier. A limited attempt had been made to return the room to its regular order—though the freshly finished wall was still uncovered. She approached that, letting the shawl slip from her shoulders and holding out the hand on which Ssssaaa’s head now rested.
As far as she could see all marks there were uniform, left by the plasterer’s tools. Ssssaaa’s head came forward, as if Willadene were aiming a spear at that surface, and swung a little back and forth. Starting as high as she could reach—Ssssaaa could rear, with her support, nearly to the ceiling—she began to sweep back and forth.
In spite of her earnest efforts the girl could herself not pick up any more than the usual odors one might find in a room undergoing repairs. There was no hint of evil.
Yet Willadene could sense that the creature she held was dissatisfied. Her faint hissing now held a frustrated note as if she were baffled. Back and forth they examined the wall clear down to floor level. Willadene could pick up no suggestion of strange evil, nor did Vazul’s creature show any signs of discovery.
At last Willadene was sitting on the floor, staring at that expanse of plaster, baffled. She could only believe now that her guess was wrong and that taint had been carried by Jonas himself and not by any material used here.
Ssssaaa uncurled from her wrist and dropped to the floor, scuttling along the baseboard with sharp nose held close to where that met the floor. Suddenly the creature paused and her head swung up and around. No longer was her attention fastened on the wall. Instead she leaped in a series of whirling springs straight for the wardrobe where Willadene had left her bag.
The girl was after her guide at once. Though she had brought nothing noxious into this chamber she had left the bag here, and who knew what might have been added or subtracted from its contents since?
She had the bag out as swiftly as she could and opened it. Ssssaaa reared up on the other side of the carrier so her forepaws also pulled at the edge. Willadene grabbed for the first bottle of cream, her hands shaking a little as she unscrewed its lid. To all appearances it was both untouched and the same container she had earlier shown Mahart—the ball which split in halves to reveal the creamy contents.
Her nose gave her quick reassurance. This was nothing more or less than it should be. But Ssssaaa’s actions caught her full attention now. The creature was making no attempt to draw forth or touch any of the other offerings in their strap loops. Instead, she had poured about a third of her slim body over the edge of the bag and was picking with claws at the bottom of the carrier.
Quickly Willadene followed that action by plunging her own hand into the bag, groping along the bottom among her clothes, Ssssaaa’s warm fur near entwined with her hand again. Then her fingers caught in something and she jerked free that book which Halwice had put into the bag as an afterthought.
The minute Willadene had it to hand Ssssaaa settled back in a hunched ball on the floor, though those gem eyes were still fast on the girl. Willadene sneezed, for the ancient leather of the binding was flaking into dust at every movement of her eager fingers.
Handling it with all the care she could Willadene searched for that special find she had made—the too-thick page. Were two so fastened together? Or perhaps it could be three? At any rate they were so tightly set that neither her fingernails nor the point of her belt knife could find any opening by which they might be pried apart.
So many of the edges of the pages had flaked away through the years she was afraid of destroying the very thing she sought by too careless handling. Ssssaaa had drawn closer, nose to that thick page. Suddenly, before Willadene could withdraw her find to safety, a long red tongue was busy, r
unning along the edge.
One flick down, a second up before Willadene could pull the book firmly out of her companion’s reach. There was now a slight discoloration along the path that tongue had taken, though no stains of moisture spread very far.
Once more Willadene tried the point of her knife. She always kept it sharp, for it could be put to many duties— chopping, paring, skinning stems, sawing roots, and the like.
She was perhaps halfway down the page when the point actually sank in, and when she moved it back and forth with the greatest of care, the stiff old parchment reluctantly yielded to that prying steel. The gap showed her that it was truly more than one page made up this place of hiding. But the page in between the two she worked on had been neatly sliced out to give room to conceal finely scraped bits of parchment.
Its concealment so must have preserved it, for the markings on it were far darker than the writing on the two enclosing pages. Only it was no recipe such as Willadene had expected—rather a series of irregular lines which followed no pattern at all with a dot or cross here and there to vary the general disorder. Perhaps it was some code which Halwice would be able to decipher—though it meant nothing to her apprentice.
She searched quickly in one of the pockets of her bag and brought out a small square of soft, fine gauze. The find allowed itself to be folded and refolded. Wrapped in this, she bestowed it for safekeeping within her bodice, where it lay soft between her breasts. So they had made one find—and that not expected—but still they had not searched the whole of the room. Ssssaaa appeared to be of the same mind, as her black-furred length now looped up the dais of the huge bed and was running across the covers, tunneling under the cloths laid to protect the fine fabric from the workmen.
Willadene climbed up also, aware of where her companion in the search was by the movement of the cloth. Ssssaaa had headed toward the tall head of the bed, and now the mound which marked her body was in the center of one of the pillows stacked there.
The girl threw aside the cover and faced those sharp eyes. They swung from her to the pillow and back again. Pillows were often repositories for herbal remedies, as she well knew—stuffed with plants which might give uninterrupted sleep, or surcease from headache or tooth pain. She bent and sniffed the pillow Ssssaaa had indicated.
Yes, more than soft feathers stuffed this. And the herb she could locate was surely an odd one to find here and now.
It was not, as she knew it, a noxious or dangerous substance. In fact, a very carefully distilled liquid drawn from it could be given to fretful and feverish children to good purpose. Only, she was certain the High Lady had never asked for such from Halwice, or she herself would have been so advised.
Willadene brought the pillow into the open and inspected it closely. Beneath its finely embroidered cover it was plainly stuffed with feathers near as soft as down. It took her only a moment to find that one edge had been recently whipped together. With her belt knife she cut enough of those lately added stitches to be able to work her hand into the soft lump, but Ssssaaa was before her and the black head emerged, several small feathers rakishly adorning the slender muzzle, with a small packet in her mouth.
Willadene reached swiftly for a belt pouch and brought out her sewing box, stitching closed again that opening before she examined the packet. It would never do to be caught in the middle of Mahart’s bed taking her pillows to pieces.
She took up that small, soft roll so uncovered. It was about the size and shape of her forefinger. The material of its making was common white linen but that had been patterned with faint tracing as if from a pen denied a full carriage of ink. Yet, as she weighed it in her hand and drew several breaths to identify its contents, she could find nothing of the faint nastiness which she had been sure she would scent. Pure herbs only. Still this was for Halwice’s judgment, not hers. One thing she did know, though her talent and Ssssaaa had picked up no evil here, she did not intend to leave her own bag of remedies in the wardrobe—to perhaps be tainted. How easy it would be to introduce some one of half a dozen ingredients—and Halwice undoubtedly knew more than a dozen or so more—into a cream already seen and accepted by the High Lady. There were things which would sear the skin, or worse—cause even death!
Ssssaaa had left the bed in one of those arching leaps, one long enough to deposit her coil of body on the still-covered bench of the dressing table. She burrowed under the second wide cloth which had been draped there to completely cover the mirror and the counter below that. Willadene swung from the bed to follow and dared to pull away the covering.
There was an array of splendid bottles and jars, all fashioned as if to further display the treasured scents within. She recognized having seen the equivalent of several in the shop. In fact, it was most of those which had come to a crushed end under the boots of the intruders. The special rose bottle was not there. In a place of prominence, where such might have stood, was a flagon fashioned in the form of tight-bundled ferns.
Fern fragrance arose from it. That was aspen from the north forests, worth far more than its weight in gold pieces were its principal ingredient to be measured in some delicate set of scales. As far as Willadene was aware, Halwice had not had any of that for almost a season—since the territory from which it came was today insolently patrolled by outlaws. Perhaps now that Prince Lorien had put down the Wolf they might be given a chance to secure such a rarity again.
She carefully lifted the small bottle. It was stopper full and by the power of her nose, fresh. Turning it slowly around, the girl hunted for some identifying mark. There it was, staring at her boldly—the cipher of the High Lady Saylana. A birthday gift? Doubtless, but a very costly one & indeed and one Mahart had not seen fit to open yet. Willadene set the bottle back in the same place from which she had taken it.
Ssssaaa reared, lifting nose toward the bottle. When she hissed Willadene stared at it again. It had only the appearance of a precious and beautiful treasure; she could scent nothing about it save the fern odor. Now she was truly disturbed. She had come to believe so strongly in her talent that perhaps she had become overconfident. This might be a puzzle only such as Halwice could unravel.
Yet she dared not take it with her. It was too noticeable among the other jars and bottles and might be instantly missed. To make any explanation was to negate the plan of which she was now a part.
Reluctantly she shook her head at the flagon. It would seem that Vazul’s creature had also lost interest in it now, for the lithe black form made one of those sudden flying leaps to the floor. Though she headed toward the nearest wall she did not seem interested in that barrier itself, but rather, with another soaring leap, caught at the end of a curtain and wriggled up to the open window there.
Before Willadene could move she slipped through that window and by the time the girl managed to reach the spot and collect a footstool to stand on for a good view, Ssssaaa had completely disappeared.
Only a rustling drew Willadene’s attention to the point that she leaned far enough across the sill to see what might be below. Though she had not seen such covering on any of the other walls, outside she found here an upgrowth of vine which she recognized for a particularly hardy and thick-stemmed ivy, one which, despite winter winds, kept tassels of green here and there all year round. There were mats of dead and dried leaves also, and it was through these Ssssaaa had plowed to a point on the left, from which the creature made another spectacular leap to a jut of roof below.
Willadene had not the least chance of summoning her back. In fact, the sooner she removed her bag of simples from the wardrobes and got out of the High Lady’s bedchamber the better. That Julta or the workmen had not yet returned was as much good fortune as she could expect in one day.
With the strap of her bag over her shoulder Willadene made a quiet exit, peering through a small crack of the door before she ventured out. Since she had not been summoned by the High Lady, only told to follow Julta to her assigned quarters, she might have a breathing space there.
There had been folded coverings left on the edge of the second narrow bed of the room above, so she made it up for sleeping and then shook out and laid aside the second livery dress and underclothing Halwice had provided.
Ssssaaa undoubtedly knew the castle far better than perhaps most now living there. Willadene had a suspicion that she might go roving on missions for the Chancellor, though how could the creature communicate with Vazul?
It must have been that her abrupt departure had signified that she had learned what she had been sent to discover and was on her way with the news. Now what had they supposedly discovered? Willadene sat down on the cot and somehow the small shrine to the Star caught her eye. But instead of feeling that renewal of spirit which such sighting had always brought before, she instead was whirled back for an instant of sickening vertigo to that underpassage and the door from which the scent of evil had issued so strongly.
She had heard enough to realize that the Duke was not secure in his rule—but what force threatened him? There had been gossip in the town about the rights of the High Lady Saylana, and there was the fact that she had produced a son—though certainly Barbric in power would mean no good to Kronen.
The thick edge of the old book she had brought with her dug into her side as she leaned against her bag. Reminded of the find Ssssaaa had made, Willadene brought out of hiding the very thin old leaves. They were old, of that she was sure, but their edges were not a-crumble as had been other pages of the book; rather they seemed of some very tough skin even time could not attack.
Skin—she ran her finger across their surfaces with the utmost care. This was a far different texture from any parchment she had ever handled. She slipped along the side of the cot until she was in the full light of the window and held up into the strongest bar of that light one of the two narrow strips.
No, she had not been mistaken—not parchment! What she saw marked there was a faint veining such as might appear on a leaf. But no leaf could so withstand time!
