Mistress of Ambiguities

by J F Rivkin

  “I’m real,” he said hoarsely, taking a few steps toward her. “That is, I think I am.” His heart raced, pounding in his throat, and he felt that he could barely breathe. In her eyes he saw what he had been vainly seeking in every face for two years’ time. Recognition. And something more.

  So softly he barely heard her, she whispered. “There the heart and spirit bide,” and swayed giddily as if about to fall.

  Without thought he reached out quickly to catch her, realizing only too late that the dog would take this action for an attack upon its mistress. The guard too started forward, but the dog had sprung at him even before his hand could close upon her shoulder to steady her. The beast’s great weight threw him to the floor as it seized his wrist in its jaws, growling savagely, but it released him at once, on the lady’s command, and sat back on its haunches, panting and looking pleased with itself. Blood soaked his shirt and seeped between his fingers as he clutched the wound, but he scarcely thought about his torn arm as he struggled to sit up. This woman knew him-he was certain of it-and nothing in the world mattered except that.

  She was kneeling beside him now, laughing and crying at once, while she gripped his upper arm, squeezing at it desperately with both hands. “Lie still, love, don’t try to rise. Hold your arm up now, to slow the bleeding. Oh, ’Ben, you should know better than to move like that before a strange guard dog!”

  “You know me!” he gasped. “Tell me!”

  But she only kissed him quickly and said, “Hush! We’ll talk later-let me see to this wound now, I don’t mean to lose you again the very moment I’ve found you!”

  Turning to the guard, she ordered, “Press hard-right here-and don’t leave off till I bid you.”

  There were so many questions he must ask her! But when he tried again he found that he was too weak and dizzy to make the effort. And why was he suddenly so cold? He let his head fall back again and closed his eyes, the better to occupy himself with the task of breathing, which seemed to require all of his attention.

  In a moment the woman had slit the length of his sleeve with her quill-knife and bound the cloth firmly about his biceps. “Good,” he heard her say. “Give me that blanket, then run to Teissa and tell her to fetch me hot water and clean cloth as quick as she can.”

  He felt her lay the blanket over him and put something beneath his feet, then she sat beside him and gently raised his arm again, holding his hand against her face. With her free hand she unlaced his shirt at the collar and lightly felt for the throb of blood in his throat. It must have satisfied her, for she sat back with a sigh and said only, “You’ve still the most beautiful collarbone in all creation. My poor ’Ben, what a welcome for you, after all this time. First you’re locked up like a common thief by Corson, then all but murdered by my watchful hound, and the both of them only trying to protect me. You know I’ve always been fortunate in finding loyal servants.”

  She doesn’t know, he thought, and opened his eyes to look anxiously up at her.

  But before he could speak he had already forgotten what it was he had to tell her. She stroked his cheek and brushed her fingers across his lips. “Don’t try to talk yet, my dear. Rest. Words will wait, cares can keep. I shan’t leave you.

  Rest, love. Sleep.”

  He slept fitfully for a time, drifting in and out of dreams, dimly aware that the pale, delicate lady-she who had called him by name-was still tending to him, watching over him. The others came and went, following her orders. She seemed to be mistress of the household, and a healer. She had washed and bandaged his wound with her own hands, then had him lifted carefully onto the cot. He was warm now, swathed in quilts and coverlets. She’d said, “You lost a good deal of blood, but you’ll soon be well, I promise you.” But what was the name she had called him?

  “A dogbite wound never mortifies or brings on disease,” she’d said, “unless the beast itself is ailing. And yet the bite of a healthy human being may be deadly, so I’ve read. It’s a thing I’ve never understood.” But she was no longer speaking to him. Someone else answered her, and both had spoken in low, hushed tones, so as not to waken him. He turned to them and said quite clearly, “I’m not asleep.”

  “No?” she said, smiling. “Then have a little more broth, if you will.” She took up a copper mug from a small brazier and tasted it, then tempered its heat with liquid from a pitcher and blew on it to mix it. She was alone.

  More broth? He hadn’t had anything to eat. And what had become of the other woman, the servant who’d said, “There are many things the leeches don’t know, my lady, for all their grand airs”?

  And what was the name she’d called him?

  But when she raised his head and held the cup to his lips, he recognized the rich, salt, wine-spiced taste of the broth at once, and remembered that she had indeed given him sips of it from time to time during the night. The fragments of talk he’d heard must have been spoken some time ago. She had been sitting at his bedside for hours, he realized. Each time he’d opened his eyes to see if she was still there, she’d smiled at him and caressed his hair or his brow, sometimes just touching the pulse at his temple. Her hands were like a child’s.

  She’d fed him the warm, savory broth a few drops at a time, and when he’d tried weakly to question her, she’d put him off, murmuring soothing endearments and promises. “Later, my dear. Don’t worry.” Had she called him by name?

  It occurred to him fleetingly that she might be his wife. Or his sister? But that was not likely-she was so fair-skinned, nothing at all like him. Perhaps now she would tell him who she was-who he was. He turned his head toward her again, but she was no longer beside him, and he saw to his confusion that he was in a different room altogether. This was a large bedchamber with fine furnishings, tapestries, carpets, and a glowing hearthfire. Broad windows in the far wall let in a faint grey light and the sound of waves breaking on the rocks below. She was standing at a window, looking out to sea, motionless, a statue silhouetted against the half-light of early dawn. She had changed her roadworn tunic and breeches for a long white robe that looked soft and silken where the firelight touched it. She was barefoot. Her silence was like a shell about her, pearl-like, perfect, inviolable.

  Somehow reassured, as if his questions had been answered, he slept again, deeply, lulled by the sound of the sea.

  She had come to the sea to put the troubles of the city behind her for a time, Nyctasia thought wryly, and she had succeeded-vahn knows!-far beyond her expectations. Since she’d set foot in the Smugglers’ House, she’d not had a thought to spare for Rhostshyl or anything else save ’Ben alone. When she’d arrived without warning, and unescorted, her people had assumed that she’d come on his account, and when she’d called for only a bath and a cold supper, her steward had naturally inquired if she had any orders concerning the Lady Corson’s prisoner.

  Nyctasia had been outraged. Another of Corson’s childish pranks! It was inexcusable! After the affair of ’Malkin’s arrest, she’d made Corson promise not to misuse her authority in such a way again, yet here she was up to the same game at Nyctasia’s Chiastelm residence. This sort of irresponsible behavior could not be permitted to continue. It would reflect badly on Nyctasia if one whom she had chosen to distinguish with a title should prove herself unworthy of the honor.

  Nyctasia decided that she would first see to this prisoner of Corson’s, then go directly to the Hare and demand an explanation-or rather, she would send someone to fetch Corson to her, later, after she’d bathed and eaten. As a citizen of the Alliance, Corson was not obliged to obey such a summons, but as a Desthene of Rhostshyl she was very much obliged to do so, and if Nyctasia’s messenger had to roust her out of bed, so much the better!

  She was already planning the exact terms in which to express her displeasure to Corson as she hurried after the guard to attend to the unfortunate victim of Corson’s malicious humor. The barbarian virago must be made to understand, once and for all, that she could not carry on in this way! Nyctasia had h
ardly looked up when she’d walked into ’Ben’s room, uttering apologies, but still intent on the recriminations she meant to make to Corson.

  When she’d seen him standing before her, she’d felt her lips grow cold with shock, and her first thought had been of the demonic spirit that had appeared to her in his guise, amidst the ruins of the Cymvelan temple. He might be a ghost, a revenant-it would not be the first time the dead had communed with the living at the haunted Smugglers’ House, She’d stood stunned, as if thunderstruck, and for a moment the floor had seemed to shift beneath her feet. How desperately anxious ’Ben had looked, uncertain of his welcome, uncertain of her love.

  But Greymantle’s attack had left little enough doubt as to his mortality, and there had been no moment, from then to this, to think of anything but keeping him alive. Precious minutes had passed while she’d frantically tried to remember-and apply-what she knew of stemming the flow of blood. She’d learned from books that one should force the flesh of the upper arm against the bone, but her books had not told her how to go about it while ’Ben’s-’Ben’s-lifeblood was flooding from him before her eyes, when she had not yet recovered from the shock of seeing him! She had thought she would never find the right part of his arm to press, that he would be dead in another moment, that it was already too late.

  Then had come the long vigil beside him, waiting for the Balance to tip toward life or death. She had been ready to take up arms against death at any cost, ready, if need be, to throw herself into a healing trance from which both of them might emerge, or neither.

  But in time the vital heat had rekindled in his flesh, and the beat of his blood had begun to quicken, little by little, and grow stronger. Only when she was certain he was out of danger had she dared to have him moved to her own quarters-orders which had aroused much speculation among her guards and attendants. They’d had no idea who it was Corson had left in their custody. Some of Nyctasia’s people in Rhostshyl would have recognized him, but her retinue at the Smugglers’ House were mostly folk of Chiastelm, hired by her steward, and they had not even seen Nyctasia herself very often. She had rarely made use of the place since her return to Rhostshyl, though she’d seen to it that it was kept in readiness for her, in hopes that she would find time to visit the oceanside.

  She’d bought the house years ago, when she’d first come of age, and even then she had thought of it as a haven from the burdensome duties of the Rhaicimate, as well as an ideal place to try her hand at sea-spells and the Discipline of the Legacy of the Heirs of Ocean. Even its reputation as a haunted house had appealed to her, since such places were often sources of Immaterial Influences.

  But there had been another reason she had wanted the property, then, and she remembered it now as she looked from her window out to the steep cliff with its sheer drop to the rocks and the surging tide. It had seemed such an easy escape, if she should need it, as swift and free as flight… She had taken comfort, at times, from the knowledge that the waters waited, and would always wait, to receive her. But what she saw now, when she gazed out to sea, was a Manifestation not of a Consolation Toward Death, but of an Influence Toward Life.

  She turned from the window to look at ’Ben again, to reassure herself that he was still resting quietly-that he was still there, indeed, truly returned to her, and not some passing dream. Noiselessly, she crossed to the bed to watch him sleep, as she had been doing without pause all through the night. Yet she had hardly satisfied her need to look at him, She could never have her fill of studying the dark, sharp planes of his face, the sweep of his black, hawk’s-wing eyebrows, his curving lashes and chiseled lips. She longed to touch him, but would not risk waking him, for she saw that he was sleeping soundly at last.

  There was no need to hover over him any longer; she would do better to get some sleep herself.

  Very cautiously, she laid herself beside him on the wide bed, taking care to make no jarring motion or noise. If she slept here, she reasoned, she would wake if ’Ben should stir or speak.

  He gave no sign of doing either, however, even when she reached across him and drew the bedcurtains, to protect him from the morning light. Nyctasia settled beside him again, confident that he would sleep undisturbed for some hours yet.

  She too had always slept well in this room, within sound of the ocean.

  12

  he dreamed of the spell-haunted Yth Forest again, though he did not know if he had ever really been there, or if the Yth was in any way like his dreams of it.

  He was wandering through the Forest, listening to a distant singing, and though he knew he should turn back before he lost his way, the singing drew him on irresistibly. In a grassy glade, he stopped to rest beside a deep, clear pool, and at once he felt parched with unbearable thirst. It would be folly to drink the waters or eat the fruits of the Yth, yet he leaned over the pool, tempted, driven by the maddening thirst.

  The sight of his reflection troubled him, for he had forgotten what he looked like, and he was reluctant to recognize himself, to be reminded that he belonged with his own people, not among the Yth-kind. He broke the image with his hand, then made a cup of his palm and tasted a few drops of the bright, cold water, but it only seemed to increase his thirst. Then, abandoning his misgivings, he bent down to the pool and drank freely and for a long while, yet when he rose his thirst was still unsatisfied.

  But he could hear the singing more clearly now, near at hand, and he set off again in pursuit of it, forgetting all else, and unaware that his reflection still remained in the forest pond, It rose from the water, laughing without a sound, and followed, unseen and unheard, not running but crawling through the tall grass like a serpent, as swiftly as water flowing downstream, as silently as a drifting fog.

  At a branch in the path he stopped, uncertain which way to take, and he thought someone called to him, but try as he might, he could not make out the name. And as he stood listening, his reflection came from behind and fell upon him like a savage animal, bearing him to the ground in a grip of iron and tearing at him with teeth as sharp as knives. He fought to escape, but it was like struggling against a raging torrent that carries off all in its path. The inhuman strength of the creature overpowered him easily, snapping his bones like brittle twigs and slowly crushing the life from his chest. Yet, dying, defenseless, he was somehow unafraid at the last, and even content to surrender to the deadly embrace of the reflection.

  It devoured him, flesh, blood and bone, leaving nothing, not a shred of sinew, splinter of bone or drop of blood on the path to show that he had ever existed.

  And when its feast was finished it stood upright, graceful and unhurried, and went its way on foot, choosing a path without hesitation.

  He woke in a panic terror, his heart racing, his mouth dry with fright. The dream was always different, but each time it left him with the same mad fear-that he remembered no past because he had no past, that he was no one, a creature in man’s form, somehow called into being two years before, for a purpose he could not even guess at…

  But with wakefulness came clarity as he remembered where he was and how he’d come there. The curtains had been drawn about the bed, but sunlight filtered through them and pierced between them, and he recognized his surroundings in triumph. Of course he was someone, for the lovely, grey-eyed woman knew him; she had told him, “I don’t mean to lose you again.” His memory of the past night was confused and cloudy, mingled with dreams, but surely she had said that? She had recognized him…? Had he not woken once, for a moment, and seen her lying beside him, or had that been only another dream? No-for the other pillow showed the hollow where her head had lain. He touched it gratefully, and his heart grew calm, his breathing steady. He would go find her at once, and put an end to this torment of uncertainty.

  He sat up slowly, supporting himself with his left arm, and leaned back against the headboard to rest. The dizziness brought on by this effort passed quickly, however. He was still weak, but no longer fell helpless and enfeebled.

 
Determined to go on, he drew back the bedcurtains-but she was there, perched on a high inner window-ledge, waiting for him to wake.

  Today she had dressed with some care, he noticed. Black knee-breeches with silver buckles, and a close-fitting sleeveless tunic of the same finespun wool, trimmed in silver, covered a silvery, silken shirt with trailing sleeves, and matching hose. Her close-cropped hair was damp, shining in the sun, and a silver earring caught the light with a burning gleam as she turned to face him. She had been eating a pear, and feeding the peel to a greedy gull, but now she tossed the rest out to the bird and dropped down from the windowsill, landing lightly on the balls of her feet, with her knees bent and her arms held out for balance.

  “A rope-dancer taught me that,” she said, laughing. “How do you feel now?”

  His mouth was still so dry that he answered, half-choking, “Thirsty!”

  She nodded. “I should think you would be, indeed. You’re to drink a dozen cups today, of water or broth or what you please. And I hope you’re hungry as well, because I want you to eat a good deal of meat.” As she spoke, she took a silver pitcher and mug from a cupboard in the stone wall and poured out a measure of a pale golden liquid. “Still chilled from the cold-cellar,” she said, watching as he took it, to see if his hand was steady.

  It was only barley-water, with a scent of mint about it, but it seemed the most refreshing drink he had ever tasted. He eagerly drank the second mugful she gave him and sighed with relief. “I was dreaming of spell-waters that never slake the thirst,” he said, dismissing the rest of the nightmare.

  She frowned slightly, but said only, “It means nothing. The flesh has its dreams as well as the spirit, especially in illness. But you’ll soon be whole.” She arranged the pillows behind his back and took the empty mug from him. He could smell the fresh-crushed mint on her fingertips.

  “Whole…” he breathed. “Yes, tell me now, in the vahn’s name, tell me everything! Who are you, what do you know of me-?”