by Paula Guran
“Falcon feather!” Urgell’s much harsher voice cut across the smooth tones of the bard.
“You are well learned, good sirs,” Meg returned, and her hand hovered over the bouquet. “Those are names not common in these parts.”
Osono’s gaze might be aimed at the flowers, but yet it was as if he saw beyond them something else—as might grow in a meadow under that full, warm sun, which never even in summer seemed to reach into these stark heights.
Meg’s fingers plucked and brought forth a stem on which swung two white blooms, star-pointed. She held that out to the bard, and he accepted it as one in a dream. Then she snapped thumb and forefinger together with more vigor and freed a narrow leaf, oddly colored so that it indeed resembled a feather.
“For you also, warrior.” And her words held something of an order, as if to make sure he would not refuse. Then she spoke to Almadis:
“Meadowsweet, yes.” She swept up a bundle of leaves and wrapped them expertly in a small cloth. “But something else also, is it not so?”
“Red-rose,” Almadis said slowly. “My mother strove to grow a bush, but this land is too sere to nurture it. Red-rose—”
The flower Meg handed her was not full opened yet, and when Almadis held it close to her, she could smell a perfume so delicate that she could hardly believe such could come into the grayness that was l’Estal.
“Herbwife,” she leaned a little forward, “who are you?”
“Meg, my lady, a dealer—a friend—”
Almadis nodded. “Yes, of a certainty that.”
She brought out her purse. “For the meadowsweet”—she laid down one of the coins.
“Just so,” Meg agreed. “For the meadowsweet.”
Osono was fumbling at his own purse with one hand, the other carefully cupping the starflower. Then he caught Meg’s eye, and flushed. Instead he bowed as he might to the lady of some great hall where he had been night’s singer. “My thanks to you—herbwife.”
Urgell’s bow was not so low or polished, but there was a lightening of his harsh features. “And mine also, mistress—your gifts have a value beyond price.”
There were others who sought the herb dealer after the castle’s lady had departed. But few of them were favored with a gift of bloom. Perhaps six in all bore away a leaf or flower, but still the bouquet appeared to grow no smaller. When Meg, in the beginning twilight, gathered up her wares and repacked them, two small figures appeared.
Behind them still ambled their horned and bewiskered companion. For the second time Nid touched noses with Mors, who was hardly taller than he. And Kaska voiced a small hiss.
“Help you, mistress?” Tay shuffled a bare foot back and forth in the straw which strewed the market square in marketing days.
“But of course. Many hands make light of work.” Meg swung one of her cord-tied bundles to the boy, and he hurried to fit it into the panniers, which his brother had already placed on Mors.
“You are not out with the herds, youngling?” she added as she picked up the last of her supplies, that bouquet.
Tod hung his head. “They will not have Nid now—he fought with Whrit, and they say he has too bad a temper—that any of his get are not wanted. They—set the dogs on us and Nid savaged two, so—so they talk now of—” He gulped and his brother continued:
“They talk of killing him, mistress.”
“But he is yours?”
Both small faces turned toward hers, and there was a fierce determination in the chorus of their answer.
“Before times, he was herd leader, mistress. When Lan, our brother, was herder. But”—now their voices faltered—“Lan died of the green-sick. And the herd went to Finus—they said as how Lan had told him so—that we were too young. And Finus—he said as how there was much owed him by Lan, and that he had the rights. Only Nid would come with us, and he stayed. But—” Tod stopped as if to catch breath, however Tad’s words gushed on:
“They won’t let us to the pasture anymore. Finus, he lives in our house and says it is his.”
“What have you then as shelter?” asked Meg quietly. She was holding the flowers close to her, beneath her chin, as if she breathed in for some purpose the faint scents.
“Inn mistress Forina—she lets us in the stable—but they say that Nid is bad for the horses.”
“Not for this one,” Meg nodded to Mors. “Let he and Nid bed down together, and we shall see what can be done.”
They made a small procession of their own out of the marketplace. Meg carried the flowers and humped Kaska’s basket up on one hip with the familiar gesture of a countrywoman bearing burdens. Mors trotted after her, no leading rein to draw him on, and he was matched by the goat, the two forming a guard, one to each side.
There were those who watched them go, narrow-eyed and sour of face. It would seem that just as there were those who had been drawn to the stall during that day, so also there were those who shunned it. Now a darker shadow moved forward to stand beside the stall which had neighbored Meg’s.
“You have kept eye on her, goodman?” it hissed a question.
“I have, priest. There is that about her which is not natural right enough. She is weaving spells, even as a noxious spider weaves a web. Already she has touched some here—”
“Those being?” The voice was hot, near exulting.
Now the stall keeper spoke names, and those names were oddly companioned—lady, bard, soldier, smith, scholar, needlewoman, a laborer in from one of the scanty hill farms, a gate sentry off duty, a washer-woman, the wife of a merchant and her daughter—
And with the speaking of each name, Thunur nodded his head. “You have done well, Danler, very well. Continue to watch here, and I shall search elsewhere. We shall bring down this slut who deals with the Dark yet! You are a worthy son of GORT, the Ever-Mighty.”
Within the keep the ways were dark and damp as always. Though in some of the halls there were dank and moldy tapestries on the walls, no one had made any attempt to renew them, to bring any hint of color into those somber quarters. Even candles seemed here to have their halos of dim light circumscribed so that they could not reveal too much of any way.
Almadis tugged at her heavy-trained skirt with an impatient hand. She had but little time, and this was a way which had not been trodden for long. She could remember well her last visit here, when rage at all the world had seemed to so heat her, she had felt none of the chill thrown off by the walls. The loss of her mother had weighed both heart and spirit.
Now the pallid light of her candle picked out the outline of the door she sought. But she had to set that on the floor and use both hands in order to force open the barrier, which damp had near sealed beyond her efforts.
Then she was in, candle aloft, looking about. No one had cared—there had probably been no one here since last she left. Yet the mustiness was still tinged with a hint of incense. The room was small, its floor covered with the rotting remnants of what had once been whortle reeds, which trodden upon, gave back sweet scent.
There was a single window, shuttered tight, a bar dropped firmly in place to hold it so. Beneath that stood a boxlike fixture which might be an altar.
That was shrouded with thick dust, a dust which clouded the round of once-polished mirror set there, gathered about the bases of three candlesticks.
For a long moment Almadis merely stood and looked at that altar and its furnishings. She had turned her back on what this stood for, told herself that there was nothing here beyond what she could see, touch, that to believe in more was folly—a child’s folly. Yet her mother—
Slowly Almadis moved forward. There were still half-consumed candles in those sticks, grimed, a little lopsided. She used the one she carried to touch the wicks of those into life. Then, suddenly, she jerked her long scarf from about her shoulders, and, in spite of its fine embroidery, she used it to dust the mirror free, dropping its grime-clogged stuff to the floor when she had done.
Lastly she turned to the window. St
raining, she worked free the bar, threw back the shutter, opened the room to the night, in spite of the wind which wove about this small side tower.
For so long it had not mattered what rode the sky; this night it did. And what was rising now was the full moon in all its brilliance and glory. Almadis returned to the altar. She could not remember the forms. Those other times she had merely repeated words her mother had uttered without regard for their meaning. There were only scraps which she could assemble now.
But she stationed herself before that mirror, leaning forward a little, her hands placed flat on either side. On its tarnished surface she could see reflected the light of the three candles—but nothing else. There was no representation of her own face—the once-burnished plate was too dim.
Nor had she that learning which could bring it alive. Yet she had been drawn here and knew that this had meaning, a meaning she dared not deny.
Tucked in the lacing of her bodice was that rose Meg had given her. Dried it might be—with great skill—yet it seemed to have just been plucked from a bush such as her mother had striven to keep alive.
The girl moistened her lips.
“One In Three,” she began falteringly. “She who rules the skies, She who is maiden, wife, and elder in turn, She who answers the cries of her daughters in distress, who reaches to touch a land and bring it into fruitfulness, She who knows what truly lies within the heart—”
Almadis’s voice trailed into silence. What right had she to ask for anything in this forsaken place, return to a faith she had said held no meaning?
There was certainly another shadow of something on the mirror—growing stronger. It was—the rose!
Almadis gasped, for a moment she felt light-headed, that only her hold on the altar kept her upright.
“Lady”—her voice was the thinnest of whispers—“Lady who was, and always will be—give me forgiveness. Your messenger—she must be one of your heart held—Lady, I am not fit—”
She raised her hands to that flower caught in her lacing. Yet something would not let her loosen it as she wished, to leave it as an offering here.
Instead there was the sweetness of the rose about her, as if each candle breathed forth its fragrance. She looked down—that flower which had been yet half a bud was now open.
Quickly, almost feverishly in her haste, Almadis reached again for the altar. There had been something else left there long ago. The dust had concealed it, but she found it— Her fingers caught the coil of a chain, and she held it up, from it swung a pendant—the flat oval of silver (but the silver was not tarnished black as it should have been) on it, in small, raised, milky white gems, the three symbols of the Lady in Her waxing, Her full life, Her waning.
It seemed to Almadis that the candlelight no longer was the illumination of that chamber, rather the moon itself shone within, brighter than she could remember it. She raised the chain, bowed her head a fraction, slipped those links over it, allowing the moon gem-set pendant to fall upon her breast. Then she did as she remembered her mother had always done, tucked it into hiding beneath her bodice, so that now the pendant rested between her breasts just under the rose. Though it did not carry the chill of metal to her flesh, it was rather warm, as if it had but been passed from one who had the right to wear it to another.
Now she gathered courage to speak again.
“Lady, you know what will be asked of me, and what is in me. I cannot walk my father’s way—and he will be angry. Give me the strength and courage to remain myself in the face of such anger—though I know that by his beliefs he means me only well.”
She leaned forward then, a kind of resolution manifest in her movements, to blow out the three candles. But she made no move to bar away the moonlight before she picked up her journey candle to leave the room.
Though it was day without, the guardroom was grimly dusk within.
“Three of them we took,” a brawny man in a rust-marked mail coat said to one of his fellows. He jerked a thumb at a rolled ball of hide. “Over the gate to the west, he says.”
The older man he addressed grunted. “We do things here by my Lord Jules’s ordering.”
“Don’t be so free with words like that hereabouts, Ruddy,” cautioned the other. “Our Knight-Captain has long ears—”
“Or more than one pair of them,” retorted Ruddy. “We’ve got us more trouble than just a bunch of lousy sheep raiders, Jonas. While you’ve been out a-ridin’, there’s a stew boilin’ here.”
The bigger man leaned on the edge of the table,
“Thunur, I’m thinkin’. That one came at dawn light a-brayin’ somethin’ about a witch. He’s a big mouth, always yappin’.”
“To some purpose, Jonas, there’s more an’ more listen to him. An’ you know well what happened below when those yellin’ ‘GORT, come down’ broke loose.”
“Gods,” snorted the city sergeant. “We be those all gods have forgot. Perhaps just as well, there was always a pother o’ trouble below when priests stuck their claws into affairs. There are those here who are like t’ stir if the right spoon is thrust into the pot, too. Thunur is gettin’ him a followin’—Let him get enough to listen an’ we’ll be out with pikes, an’ you’ll remember outlaw hunting as somethin’ as a day’s good ramble.”
“Well, I could do with a ramble—over to the Hafted Stone to wet m’ gullet an’ then to barracks an’ m’bunk. His Honor is late—”
“Right good reason.” A younger man turned from the group of his fellows by the door and leered. “Hear as how it was all to be fixed up for our Knight-Captain—wed and bed the lord’s daughter—make sure that he is firm in the saddle for the time when m’lord don’t take to ridin’ anymore. They have a big feastin’ tonight just to settle the matter, don’t they?”
There was no time for an answer. Those by the door parted swiftly to allow another to enter. He was unhelmed, but wore mail, and over that a surcoat patterned with a snarling wolf head. His dark hair was cropped after the fashion of one who wore a helm much, and it was sleeked above a high forehead. The seam of a scar twisted one corner of his mouth, so that he seemed to sneer at the world around.
He was young for all of that, and once must have been handsome. His narrow beak of a nose gave him now the look of some bird of prey, an impression his sharp yellowish eyes did nothing to lighten. Otger, Knight-Captain under the Castellan, was no man to be taken lightly either in war or council. Now he stalked past the men who crowded back to give him room, as if they were invisible, even Jonas pulled away quickly as his commander fronted Ruddy face-to-face.
“There is trouble, Town Sergeant?”
Ruddy had straightened. His face was as impassive as that of a puppet soldier.
“Sir, no more than ever. Th’ priest of GORT is brayin’ again. Some are beginnin’ to listen. This mornin’ he came here—”
“So!” Otger turned his head but a fraction. “Dismissed to the courtyard.”
They were quick to go. Only Jonas and Ruddy remained. The Knight regarded them with the hooded eyes of a predator biding time.
“He is still here?”
“Sir, he spilled forth such blather that I thought it best you hear. He speaks of those above him in a manner which is not fit.”
Otger moved past him, seated himself on the single chair behind the table, as a giver of justice might install himself in court. His hand went to his cheek, the fingers tracing his scar. Jonas edged backward another step. That was always a trouble sign. Young as Otger was, he had gained such influence here as to be served swiftly.
It was the Castellan who had advanced him swiftly—and in a way, who could blame Lord Jules? The years spun by only too swiftly, and a man aged with them. The lord had no son—but there was a daughter. One wedding her would surely rule here. Those of the east plains would take no notice, if all was done properly, and there had been no exile of high blood now since Otger himself had ridden in as a gold-eyed youth five seasons back.
“Bring the priest,” he
ordered now. And Jonas went to fetch Thunur.
The man did not cringe as he came. Instead, he was bold at this fronting, his head up, and eyes blazing with the fire of the rage that always burned in him.
“I hear you wish to see me,” Otger’s gaze swept the fellow from head to foot and back again. Just so had he looked two days before at that wounded outlaw they had taken.
“Witchery, Sir Knight. Foul witchery has come by the Way Wind into l’Estal. It must be routed out. Already it has ensorcelled many—many, Sir Knight. Among them”—Thunur paused for a moment to make his next statement more portentous, “The Lady Almadis—”
“And who is this dealer in witchery?” Otger’s voice was very calm. Ruddy hitched one shoulder. This priest would soon learn his lesson by all the signs.
Thus encouraged, Thunur spoke his tale, so swiftly that spittle accompanied the words he spewed forth. He ended with the listing of those who had borne away tokens of Meg’s giving. And at the saying of some of those names, Otger’s eyes narrowed a fraction.
“It is laid upon all true men and women to deal with witches as GORT has deemed right—with fire. This—this sluttish whore, and those brutes she brought with her—they must be slain; and those whom she has entoiled must be reasoned with—’less they too are tainted past cleansing.”
“You name some who are above you, priest. Tongues that wag too freely can be cut from jaws. I would advise you to take heed of the need of silence for now—”
“For now?” Thunur repeated slowly.
“For now.” Otger arose. “You seem to have an eye for such matters. Out with you to use that eye, but not the tongue, mind you!”
Thunur blinked. And then he turned and went. But Otger spoke to Ruddy. “Have the patrol keep an eye to that one. I have seen his like before—they can be well used if they are handled rightly, but if they are not under rein, they are useless and must be removed.”
The market was alive. Though some of the sellers noted that there were more men at arms making their ways leisurely among the booths. However, since the border patrol had just returned, that might be expected.
