A Dirge for Sabis

by C. J. Cherryh

  Well, best get the other chores done first. Making a face, Irga pulled on her shawl and went out to face the dismal prospect of a barn full of sheep droppings.

  The fouled straw stank, and the cart was heavy, and the reeking load steamed in the cold—and the cold seemed harsher than the clear bright weather would account for. Irga shoved the steaming cart to the compost heap, tilted and pulled it, letting the reeking load tumble out and spread on the pile. Gods, how it steamed in this shadowed corner of the barn wall. So thick, it seemed to form shapes of mist.

  And then it did form a shape. A grey, shifting form—something like a bat and something like a monstrous toad—arched up over the manure pile. At its heart, too low for any natural face, formed vague eyes, a squat beastlike snout, a gaping mouth.

  Irga let go the cart and scrambled away, shaking with cold to her bone marrow. She bumped into the barn wall behind her.

  The wall moved. Only a slight shivering, maybe a squirming, but the wall moved. Irga whirled to stare at it, and saw that the rough texture of the field stones was changing, shivering, crawling, forming patterns like . . . like faces, evil faces, all snarling and leering at her.

  Devilry! Witchcraft! Irga thought, scrambling away from the barn, the compost heap, the forgotten cart. She turned to run back to the house.

  The ground under her feet undulated, rippled like water on a pond.

  No, not the earth too! Irga staggered, fell, landed on the hard ground, and felt it wriggle as though a thousand worms fought a war just under its surface. She whimpered in terror, feeling her belly cramp. Her vision smeared, but there was no release from the horror in that, for now she could hear sounds—whisperings full of malice, just under the noise of the wind in the grass.

  Gods, is the whole farm cursed? "Mama!" Irga screamed. "Mama, devils! Where are you? Mama!" What if the curse has already caught her? "Mama!"

  But no, there, hurrying out of the cottage with a shawl just flung over her nightgown, there came Mama running toward her.

  "Irga! What's wrong? What's happened?"

  The words came distorted through the evil voices in the air, on the ground, but they sounded amazed more than alarmed. More, Mama ran surefooted over earth that rolled like the sea. How could that be? How could it be that Mama couldn't see the horror unfolding all around them?

  Only if the curse weren't on the farm, or the barn, not anything else. Only if the witchery had fallen on Irga alone.

  "Oh, Mama, I'm bewitched!" Irga struggled forward, reaching for her mother. "Help me! Send for the wizards! I've been bewitched!"

  * * *

  Wotheng sneaked a quick pull from his beer mug as the last supplicant—a tenant asking permission to cut estate wood for the winter—plodded out of the hearing room. With luck, he'd have time to finish the cup before the next petition or complaint came in. Truth to tell, he'd had far more petitions than complaints this year: let me borrow more scythes, m'lord; let me hire more for harvesting, m'lord; let me expand my orchard, m'lord; and so on. Sure signs of a good year—along with the fine sales of wool and other items in the north. Vona grant it would go on this way.

  No, there came the knock on the door; no time to finish the cup.

  "Come in," Wotheng called.

  A woman traipsed in, middling young, well fed and well clothed, somewhat prim-faced. Wotheng tried to place her: that freeholder's daughter, but damned if he could remember her name. "Yes, mistress?" There, polite and neutral enough.

  "M'lord." The woman held out a grubby handful of small parchment sheets. "One of my fellow students dropped these. I don't know who it was." Her tone implied that she could guess, though. She also glanced back toward the door as if looking for someone beyond it.

  Wotheng took the sheets and looked at them, puzzled frown deepening. Two of them were not bad representations of a young girl's face, quite a pretty girl, even recognizable: Irda? Irga? The daughter of one of the tenants, that fellow who'd been plagued with sheep lice last year, but hadn't that trouble gone away recently?

  The third sheet showed a carefully drawn outline of a human body, and within the outline a pattern disturbing and strange. It took Wotheng a moment to recognize it for a diagram of certain human organs: there the spine, clear enough, and that must be the brain, and those lines coming out to all directions must be the nerves. Strange stuff: must be from Eloti's class on medicine. But why had the woman brought it to him rather than to Eloti?

  And what meant that damned clumsy smear across the top of it, obscuring much of the carefully drawn brain?

  "This is schoolwork," he said. "Why not take it to the schoolmistress?"

  The woman fidgeted, glanced toward the door again. "Well, m'lord, that's what I wanted to ask y'about. Is't right to be doing such things if one isn't yet a proper master of the trade? I mean, that's making an image of a real person, m'lord, which I think isn't right, and here, y'see, it's been rolled together with that . . . picture of a body, and a body's hidden parts—and look how that's marred. It seems, well, wrong somehow. Mistress Eloti seems to think nothing of that, so I doubt me that she'd worry o'ermuch on it, so I come to ask you, m'lord, if this be proper work for a student."

  "I see." Wotheng kept his expression distant, showing nothing, as he peered at the drawings. It could all mean nothing, of course; some fool boy making pictures of his light of love, happening to roll them together with a doctor's drawing with the ink smeared or some such. Most likely, that's all it was: pure accident, no intent whatever. If there was intent, it could be no more than a boy's silly attempt at a love charm: addle this girl's wits toward her swain. In either case, as he'd seen cause to believe, it took more than a picture and a bit of will to make magic.

  But if the magical power were there, and the intent, and the image . . .

  "Is it true, m'lord, as I've heard, that there be some law against making pictures of living folk?" The woman laced her fingers together and squirmed a bit. "There wouldn't be any, ah, trouble at law for Lo—for whoever drew them, would there?"

  Oho! Wotheng glowered at the woman. "Goody, you'd best tell me who drew these pictures."

  She didn't turn pale; she blushed, and squirmed further. "I . . . I think it was Losh, the jeweler's son. It looks like his way of drawing. Besides, everyone knows he's silly over that chit Irga, and I'm sure that's her picture. The gods only know why he's so mad for her, she being just some poor shepherd's girl and not educated at all nor with any wits for it either, but he would go running after her like a fool, though his mother could tell him there be much better prospects at the villa and all . . ."

  "Enough, thank you." Wotheng could place the woman now: Pado, Hass's daughter. Rumor said she'd been hoping for a match that would tie her family to the jeweler's, but nothing had come of it. "Isn't Losh a bit young for you, Pado? Wouldn't you do better to seek another match?"

  Pado blushed bright crimson. "Why-why of course he is, m'lord," she stammered. "I wouldn't have him if he were the last man in the vale!"

  But you'd gladly make him sorry for refusing you. Wotheng set the three grubby parchments down on his table. "I'll see to this later," he said. "I thank you for fetching them to me. Now go send in the next petitioner."

  Flustered, not sure if she wanted to complain further or escape with some shreds of her composure, the woman got up and hurried off to the door. She paused on the threshold for a moment, but couldn't think of anything fitting to say. The door thudded to behind her.

  Wotheng took a hasty gulp of beer and waited for the next guest. With luck, he'd finish with this lot before noon and could talk to Gynallea before he caught up to Eloti. Of course the Sukkti wizardess couldn't have known about that old obscure Torrhynan law—few of even the local folk did—but still, she should have been more careful about possible mischief among her students. He could silence Pado easily enough, make certain no more would be said of the matter; Gynallea would help with that. A few words in private to Eloti should account for the rest. After all, drawing or
no drawing, no harm had been done.

  There was a noise outside the door, thudding of footsteps, yelps and growls of complaint, a voice shrilling urgency.

  Gods, what now? "Come in!" Wotheng bellowed.

  The door flew open and a farm wife, hastily dressed in dishevelled clothes and reeking of hard-ridden mule, almost fell into the room.

  "Lord Wotheng," she panted. "I pray you, fetch a good wizard quick, oh quick! My daughter Irga, she's been 'witched!"

  Behind her, in the corridor, Wotheng could see Pado watching. A malicious smile spread across her face from ear to ear.

  "Vona's clanging shit!" Wotheng groaned.

  There'd be no silencing the wretched business now.

  * * *

  Gynallea first heard the news when her husband, looking thoroughly out of his depth, hauled a weeping and wailing tenant shepherd's wife into the still-room to talk to her. Gynallea poured some brandy into the woman, took Wotheng aside, and got the rest of the story from him. Next she dispatched some discreet house servants in a light cart to go fetch the afflicted girl and bring her to Ashkell House by the back doors. She also sent a rider on a fast horse to take the news to Deese House. Then she went quietly down to the hall where Eloti held her school and waited for the class to finish and depart.

  Zeren happened to be present at the time, and after Gynallea's quiet explanation of the problem he refused to leave Eloti for so much as a minute.

  The afflicted girl and her mother, and the delegation from Deese House, arrived at the villa almost together, and the whole howling problem wound up in the little-used guest rooms on the top floor. By dinnertime—a discreetly quiet meal, held in Wotheng's library—they had collected enough facts to discuss the situation calmly.

  "It's poison again," said Gynallea, around a healthy mouthful of mutton. "I'm sure it is. The girl's eye centers were open so wide they looked all black, and her skin was flushed and hot. I'd swear 'twas delirium from a fever, save there's no other sign of sickness and no one else in the family has it. No, 'tis poison, sure as snow."

  "But what kind?" Eloti nibbled indifferently on a wing of roast duck. "I don't know of any that leaves such tracks, never mind what the antidote may be."

  "Is there nothing you can do for her, then?" Sulun asked, crumbling his bread small.

  "We gave her willow bark tea, also beans and herb tea to wash the blood; there's nothing else we can think of, save to keep her warm and quiet."

  "She was resting when we left her," Gynallea added. "At least she's no longer so frantic, and her eyes look a trifle better. Whatever it was, it hasn't killed her yet and doesn't seem likely to."

  Eloti relaxed a trifle. "With any favor of the gods, the wretched stuff will pass from her in a day or so—unless she gets more of whatever it was."

  "That's one of the reasons I wanted her brought here." Gynallea grinned. "No one will sneak poison into my kitchen, thank you. Hmm, and once she's calm, we must ask the girl what she ate or drank before the fit came on."

  "If it's poisoning again, I think we may guess who did it," Zeren growled, attacking his slab of meat as if his eating knife were a short sword. "They might be clever enough to leave no poisoned food or drink lying about to be found, not after last time."

  "Still, it's worth searching the house," Sulun considered. "But how long before we know what to search for?"

  "Too long," Wotheng rumbled, refilling his cup. "You're sure, sweet cow, that it's poison—and not magic?"

  "Utterly sure!" Gynallea snapped. "What magic would make the girl's eyes change like that? Or give her fever without griped guts and phlegmed lungs?"

  "No curse is so specific," Eloti added. "One well-wishes or ill-wishes a person or an object or a space of land. Had the girl been cursed, everything she touched or approached would have . . . gone wrong. She would have fallen into that manure pile, banged her elbow on that barn wall, stubbed her toe and stumbled on that ground—and doubtless torn her dress in the bargain. Furthermore, everyone who touched her would also have stumbled, dropped things, and so forth, for as long as she was in contact with them."

  "And what if . . ." Wotheng studied the depths of his cup. "What if somebody placed a curse specifically on one part of the girls body—say, her . . . brain?"

  Eloti stared at him, eyebrows rising. "I doubt if it could be done at all," she said slowly. "I've never seen nor heard of any wizard who could narrow the range of a curse on a living person so tightly as that. The skill, ability, knowledge, and concentration required for that . . . Well, no. No one I've ever met nor heard of, ever, could do it."

  "We haven't met everyone in Yotha House," Zeren snarled, "nor observed any of them at magical work. They've had time enough to plot a work like this."

  "Besides," Eloti added quickly, "a curse placed on a person's brain would affect the entire organ—and the symptoms would be utterly different. The girl would not be able to see, speak, or walk at all. Most likely, she would be rendered idiot—or dead. No, Lord Wotheng, we are not dealing with a curse here."

  "What on earth gave you that idea, anyway?" Sulun asked. "Cursing a specific organ is rather a bizarre notion."

  Wotheng sighed, reached into his belt pouch, and pulled out the grubby sheets of parchment. "What else," he said, "should one make of these?"

  The other four bent over the sheets, studying them.

  "That's a rather poor copy of one of my anatomy diagrams," said Eloti. "Rather dirty, too. These are clearly portraits of Irga, done by a talented but totally untrained beginner."

  "What connection do you see among them?" Sulun asked, turning a puzzled eye on Wotheng.

  "They were found together, and brought to me by one of your lady's students."

  "Oh, ho," murmured Gynallea. "Oh, ho. Which student was that?"

  "'Twas Pado," Wotheng sighed. "She said Losh made the -drawings."

  "Pado? That spiteful little sow?" Gynallea snorted. "I'd not put it beyond her to make the drawings herself, then tell that tale, purely to make trouble between Losh and the girl he plainly prefers."

  "Losh?" Eloti wrinkled her brow in puzzlement. "He's in my class on medicine, yes. The anatomy drawing could well be his. Indeed he asked me but a day ago if there were any reason not to . . . draw pictures of people."

  "So he drew some pictures of his sweetheart," Sulun puzzled. "What's the trouble with that?"

  "More than you think," Wotheng admitted, "seeing that the drawings were rolled together—put in contact, d'ye see—and there's a distinct smear across the brain in this one."

  The others looked at each other as that sank in.

  "It means nothing whatever," Eloti said firmly. "Items put in contact have no power outside their own natures, none -whatever—not unless the deliberate, concentrated will of a trained wizard is aimed at them—no more than logs piled together will catch fire of themselves."

  "And . . ." Wotheng shuffled on his chair, but kept his eyes on Eloti " . . . if the deliberate will were applied?"

  "You can't be accusing—" Zeren started.

  Eloti tapped his hand, silencing him. "I've seen no sign whatever of magical ability in Losh," she said. "Neither has he had any such training, so far as I can see. Finally, if he loves the girl, he would certainly not harm her."

  "Could it be done by accident?" Wotheng insisted. "Say, he tried to put some sort of love charm on her, something that would . . . 'turn her head,' and got it wrong?"

  Eloti actually laughed. "No, no impossible. Magic doesn't work that way. One can well-wish or ill-wish, and nothing more. All love spells are frauds, as I have reason to know." A flicker of some old anger darted through her eyes; passed away quickly. "And last, curse or blessing, magic done wrong simply doesn't work; one wastes one's power, nothing more. It is like—to return to that pile of logs again—trying to strike sparks in a tinderbox, and the tinder doesn't catch. One may tire out one's hands trying, but nothing else is accomplished."

  Wotheng looked as grim as they'd yet seen him. "I
have . . . only your word for that, m'lady, much as I wish to trust it. And I did see friend Sulun, here, make magic with the fire in my dining hearth, the first night we met."

  "That was a simple trick with firepowder!" Sulun retorted. "A chemists trick—just like Yotha's fire fluid."

  "And the words you spoke then?"

  Sulun blushed. "A bit of showman's trickery, I admit. On our travels, we've found that folk prefer their worldly marvels with a bit of show. Besides," he added with a shrug, "Deese had been good to us, and it never hurts to give him a bit of gratitude."

  Wotheng chuckled briefly. "No wonder you guessed that Yotha's fire was likewise a showman's trick. One actor recognizes another, eh?"

  "So it is." Sulun grinned lopsidedly. "We have real skills and goods to sell, but folk prefer to call such marvels magic. We've been, hmm, obliged to oblige them."

  "Do you claim, then," Wotheng asked, very carefully, "that you have no magical powers among you?"

  "No," said Eloti. "There are two of us—myself and Arizun—who have the ability, and the training. Neither of us, I assure you, had either the power or the wish to do what was done to that poor girl upstairs."

  "Then who did?" Wotheng leaned back in his chair. "Before you ask: no, Pado spent all yesterday and the day before here in Ashkell, for she stays with her aunt during the days when you have your classes. Other days, she stays with her family, off at the other end of the vale from Irga's house—better than half a day's journey, at best. I had my men go speak to her relatives and whatever servants they could find. Further, Pado has never been to Irga's house, would have had to ask the way there, and no one I could find recalls her ever so much as asking. And if this is indeed a case of poisoning, where would Pado find a poison that no one else in the vale knows aught of?"

  "Maybe from our friends at Yotha House," said Zeren. "They've been outside the vale."

  "Ah, but so have you." Wotheng grinned. "Stop spluttering, man; I only say it's possible. None of you has any reason . . . hmm, none that I know of, to harm the girl."

  "None of us even knew her before this," Eloti pointed out. "She was never one of my students here."