Door in the Sky

by Carol Lynn Stewart

  This story copyright 2000 by Carol Lynn Stewart. Published by Hard Shell Word Factory.

  8946 Loberg Rd.

  Amherst Junction, WI 54407

  http://www.hardshell.com

  Electronic book created by Seattle Book Company.

  eBook ISBN: 0-7599-1902-X

  Cover art copyright 2000, Mary Z. Wolf

  All electronic rights reserved.

  All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author, and have no relation whatever to anyone bearing the same name or names. These characters are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

  * * *

  There are so many people to thank.

  I could not have written this without the loving support of Christopher and Daniel Stewart, Keith and Ginny Mattison, and the help of my readers; Kathryn Crabtree, Marty Wofford, Madeline Archer, Karen Stewart, Karen Rice, and Susan Williams.

  I also want to thank the members of Paul Cohen's Writers Workshop, with thanks to Jane Cullinan and Anne Friedman.

  A special thanks goes to the late Diogenes Angelakos and Ruth Tobey of the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department at Berkley, who gave me the time necessary to finish the first draft.

  Finally, my fondest thanks goes to my Editor, Christine and to Mary Z. Wolf, Publisher of Hard Shell Word Factory.

  * * *

  Chapter 1

  THE NIGHTMARE woke her, jolted her into awareness. Maríana de Reuilles sat up in her bed and pulled the blankets to her chin, clenching the heavy woolen fabric so tightly her hands tingled. When her heart slowed and she could breathe without wheezing, she listened for Alys, her nursemaid. All she could hear was a gentle snoring.

  Good. This time, she had not screamed. Usually when she had the nightmare, she cried out in her sleep and Alys awakened. The priests had told Alys to plaster Maríana's chest with garlic paste when she had the dream. The smelly paste sat ready in a pot on the shelf. It did not matter to Alys that the garlic had grown mold; the priests told her to plaster her lady's chest and so she would.

  Maríana put on her shoes and drew a woolen mantle over her gown. She could not risk slipping back to sleep, to the nightmare. There was one place where she could prove to herself that she was not afraid, that it had only been a dream. Meadow rushes were strewn across their chamber's worn stone floor, but she still felt the chill of granite through the shoes' thin leather soles.

  She listened at the entrance to their chamber. No sound came from above where her father's guards patrolled the tower ramparts. She crept down the curving staircase, her hand trailing along coarse and jagged stones. Torches set along the staircase wall were guttering. Someone would be along soon to replenish them. No time to waste.

  At the bottom of the stairs, she pushed aside the bolt that sealed the massive door, cringing at the creaking howl of iron against wood. She waited a moment longer, listened again, and heard only the rustling whisper of torch flames. Slipping through the doorway, she emerged into the moon-washed shadows of the inner bailey.

  The night was old. Perhaps only a short while till dawn. She noted the position of the moon and morning star, then looked back at the brooding hulk of the tower behind her. It was the donjon, the oldest structure of the château fortress. It should be locked until sunrise, but she couldn't lock it from out here. She could only pray she got back before anyone noticed.

  It was a small thing, surely, leaving the door unlocked so close to dawn. In her thirteen years, she had never witnessed a real battle, though her father and his vassals fought for the King of Navarre and the squires continually practiced their battle skills. She stopped on the top step, her foot tracing the smooth, worn surface at the center of the next step. Rumors from Toulouse spoke of siege and death.

  There was always a war somewhere. Anyway, Reuilles-le-château had stood for five hundred years and she heard that even the priests were blessing the war in Toulouse. She drew her mantle more tightly against the early morning chill and raced across the uneven stone surface of the inner bailey, past the stables, around the corner of the wooden pens that housed cows and pigs, and finally to the low stone wall that enclosed the château garden. Her mother's garden.

  THE WALL stretched one hundred paces on either side of the garden's entrance. The back of the garden was bordered by the outer wall that surrounded the entire fortress, although trees within the garden obscured this. She peered into the tree shadows. People told her this garden was haunted. No one would go there before the sun peeked over the horizon.

  She squared her shoulders and walked past the row of hawthorn trees that stood in solemn and holy guardianship of the entrance. She could see no more than their shapes now, but she knew these trees, knew the shade of their trunks was the gray of cold hearth ashes, knew that the early spring flowers just starting to appear among their leaves were the pink of a baby's ear.

  This was her mother's garden, after all. What could harm her? She came there often enough in daylight. She followed a twisting path toward the garden's center. Along the way, she greeted every plant she could name, squinting at their silhouettes in the dim moonlight. She curtseyed to the spike-leafed henbane; waved at the feathery meadowsweet, nearly as high as her shoulder; smiled at the barberry, flowering now, the scarlet berries would come later. Dropping to her knees, she ran her fingers along the soft leaves of eyebright, while she breathed in the carrot fragrance of caraway, newly budding, and the earth spice tang of mugwort, now blooming.

  Alys had told Maríana that her mother knew all the names, all the uses of the plants that grew there. But Maríana could barely remember her mother, Thérèse, Baroness de Reuilles, daughter of Iranzu Jakintza. Thérèse from Canigou, mountain that could not be climbed. Thérèse, who had paced the worn stone floor of their bedchamber, thick braids of her ebony hair hanging down below her waist, swinging in time to her restless motion.

  Thérèse, who had disappeared when Maríana was hardly more than a baby.

  Maríana shuddered. She was only delaying, avoiding what she knew she must do. She had been kneeling too long in front of the eyebright. Her legs and feet were prickling and the damp ground made a wet blotch across the middle of her skirt. It was time to face her fears. She stood and brushed bits of earth and moss off her gown, then continued down the path to the center of the garden.

  To the pool that had no bottom.

  As she moved past flowering bushes and silvery birch that arched in a graceful curve over beds of prepared earth, she clutched her mantle to still the shaking of her arms. The pond was not large -- in daylight it was easy to see the opposite bank and would take little time for a strong swimmer to cross it. Yet no one would go into it. They would draw water from it for the garden, yes; they would dip a bucket into it and use the water to rinse off the sweat of work during the hottest part of summer. But swim in it? They would not even drink from it.

  Last year a young boy, just barely old enough to leave his mother's breast, had wandered into its icy embrace. Her father's men had used their tall oak staffs and long branches to sweep into the waters, leaning as far over the edge of their sturdy wood and bark boat as they dared. She had watched from the shore, had seen the grief and resignation upon the mother's face. The boy's body was never found.

  Such water must have power, great power. Her steps slowed. She smelled it now, the chill, green fragrance of floating weeds, and could see the scaly burdock bushes that hugged its banks. It was darker here -- a mourning blackness swallowing all hope. The flowering brush and birches formed a thick stand around the edge of the pool. Clouds had danced across the moon and were lingering there. Her eyes strained to catch a glimpse of the surface
. Until the moon emerged, the pool was hidden. If she was not careful, her feet would take her straight into the water.

  She dropped to the ground and reached out to feel through the thicket of burdock for the pool's edge, thrusting her hands into the tangled mass to find the earth. The wind was rising and leaves shivered above her head. If she could find the surface of the water, she could dip her fingers in and anoint her brow, her shoulders, her chest with it. The château priest had told her to do this, to make the sign of the cross upon her body with water from the bottomless pool. Only last week she had crept out to the garden before the donjon door was locked. It had been daylight then. She had knelt at the edge of the pool, quivering when the frigid water trickled down her forehead, between her breasts. Blessed Mary, mother of God, deliver me. But the nightmare still came.

  Well, she was here again and she had better find the water. Then she could leave the murky shadows, leave the rustling and grieving sighs of voices with nothing human in them. She could go back to her chamber and draw the blankets up around her face and pray for the nightmares to cease. Maybe this time it would work. She dug her hands deeper into the brush and leaned forward.

  Her fingers touched something smooth and warm, something that trembled. She snatched her hand away and bit back a yelp as the brush before her parted. A shape emerged and loomed over her. Strong hands grabbed her arms from behind. She was lifted up off the ground and held there, dangling.

  "Not a ghost." A voice spoke close by her left ear. "A girl!" The accent was cultured, but clipped, with a nasal quality that was unlike speech from Navarre. This one was from the north, Paris, maybe. But the voice held a grating whine. She knew this voice, yet when the hands upon her arms pinched, the name fled. She turned toward the speaker and struggled to see his face, her heart tripping and fluttering in her throat.

  "How can you tell?" The figure in front pulled free of the burdock, branches snapping and cloth ripping. "I cannot see beyond my nose." His voice was breathless, had he been running?

  "My hands can tell," the first speaker said. His fingers caught in her hair and then followed the line of her back, while his other hand still held her arm in a tight grasp. Were they bandits? She had heard of rebel knights who had taken to the road, but how had these men gotten across the lake and over the high walls surrounding the château fortress without the guard spotting them?

  "Well, let's move her back onto the path so we can see her better." Another voice spoke from her right side. Three of them, then. No one knew she was here. If she screamed, would anyone come?

  The man who held her pulled her away from the pool. When they reached the path, clouds bid the moon farewell and its silver light touched the trees, the bushes, the ground, and her captors. She squinted at their faces, and her body sagged in relief.

  "Whoa! Is she fainting?"

  She stared at the long nose of Jean-Pierre Rhomboid, the unruly curls of Arnaut Vaillancourt, the straight black hair and thoughtful gaze of Richard de la Guerche. Three of her father's squires -- boys, not men. Not bandits. "What are you doing here?" she demanded, shaking her arm free of Arnaut's grasp.

  "What are we doing here?" Arnaut recaptured her arm, his fingers digging into her skin. "I might ask you that! Don't you know that this garden is haunted?" He leaned forward. His breath moved strands of her hair. The honeyed scent of mead tickled her nose.

  "This is my mother's garden." Her heart started tripping again.

  "So you say." Mocking laughter ran beneath his words. "Will she come out of the bushes to scold me?"

  Richard stepped forward and placed a hand on Arnaut's arm. "Enough, Vaillancourt. You were the first to reach the pool -- you have won your dare. Leave the girl alone."

  But Arnaut tightened his grip on her. Bile rose in the back of her throat and outrage stiffened her back. She shook her arm again and slammed her heel on Arnaut's foot. He fell back. Richard's hand stopped him from tumbling into the bushes.

  "Yes! Leave me alone," she said. "All of you must leave. This is my mother's garden and my father's château."

  "Wait!" Arnaut shrugged off Richard's hand. "I know you -- the girl who lives in the donjon!" He leaned toward her. "If Baron Louis-Philippe de Reuilles is your father," he said, "then why don't you live with the rest of the family in the palais instead of in the donjon?"

  "That is my father's concern," she countered, meeting his eyes steadily. His words brought hollow anguish into her chest, but she would not show any of them her sorrow. Lifting her chin, she stared back at him.

  Arnaut laughed and took her face between his hands. "I think you are lying," he whispered, then, "I think we will throw you in the pool!" His voice rose to a shout as he released her face and grabbed her by the waist, lifting her into the air and starting back toward the bottomless pool.

  "No!" She shook so hard her protest was no more than a squeak. Bushes passed in a blur.

  Jean-Pierre said, "No, Vaillancourt..." But Arnaut was already ahead of them, nearly to the edge, now.

  "Well, what do you think? Will you float? Will you sink?" He held her close and spoke into her ear. "If you float, what does that make you? A demon?" The still surface of the water glimmered through twisted branches.

  "My father will have you whipped," she said, twisting her head and grabbing at his tunic with her teeth. "Let me down!"

  "Ha!" He lifted her higher and swung her from side to side. "So you say."

  She could not seem to catch her breath, and the taste of acid coated her mouth. If he threw her in, she would join the small boy at the bottom. But who would cry for her? She lifted her feet to her chest and threw her weight back. He stumbled and crashed to the ground, pulling her with him.

  "Bloody bitch!" he roared.

  She rolled away from him and leaped up, sprinting toward the path. The moonlit space beyond the thicket of birch beckoned, but her feet took her directly into one of the other boys who caught and held her fast.

  "Enough of this jest, Arnaut." It was Richard. She knew his voice now, remembered its timbre, darkly rich. He held her face crushed against his chest. She could smell the evening meal of roast goose and bread custard on his shirt. "The girl is terrified, and we must get back to our quarters before Guillaume finds that we have gone out."

  Arnaut cursed at the mud on his breeches. "Vascone! Just like her mother," he grumbled, then "Jakintza whore." His voice dropped so low that she was not sure of his words. "Why don't you join your mother? We can arrange..." The last words were bitten off.

  "Quiet," Jean-Pierre whispered, then, "We will meet you back at the stables."

  "We can't leave him here with a Jakintza!" Arnaut said.

  "Come on, will you!" Jean-Pierre again.

  Her back stiffened again, but she stayed where she was, listening to Arnaut's grumbling complaints and their footsteps fading away.

  "They're gone." Richard's voice rumbled in his chest.

  She lifted her head.

  "Really, you can let go now." There was an undertone of laughter in his voice, but she did not mind. His laughter did not mock. He released her and she backed away.

  "He wouldn't have thrown you in, you know."

  The sky was pale gray. He was visible now, the faint gleam of his teeth and his brown-black eyes, the smooth line of his black hair as it fell forward over his face and the motion of his head as he shook it back. She knew the exact shade of his hair in the sun, a warm black that shines deep burgundy in the light. His eyes were also warm, the color of dark old wood that had been polished and rubbed to a fine sheen, with an amber glow.

  Her fingers twisted in her mantle and she pulled it forward to cover the damp spot on her skirt. "He has pulled my hair often enough. Tripped me, too." And called her Jakintza whore.

  Richard shook his head and started down the path toward the entrance. "Well," he looked back, "that is Arnaut. He dared us to come here in the dark." His shoulders lifted. "What were you doing out here, anyway?"

  Her throat closed and she
fought to make her speech even. "A nightmare."

  He stopped, turning to face her. "Indeed! What did you dream?"

  Could she tell him? Would he mock her, too? But he had never laughed at her. Richard stood watching her, not speaking, not moving. Drawing in a shuddering breath, she spoke, "I dreamed my mother left her grave and came to my chamber. She was trailing dirt and ooze and mud. I could see the marks from her feet on the floor. Weeds from the pool were hanging everywhere on her body -- from her neck, from her fingers, from her legs." Maríana wrapped her arms around her middle and continued softly, "She reached out for me, to hug me. I left my bed and ran to her, but when I got close all her skin and muscles sagged and peeled away from her face and skull."

  "A horrible dream!" His hand rose and nearly touched her. "But why come out here?"

  "I am not sure. The same dream has come to me often. Every time I have it I feel drawn to come here. To prove I am not afraid," she mumbled the last words. This was the first time she had ventured to the pond in the dark. But she was not afraid. She had come out here, hadn't she?

  "Well, anyone would be frightened by that dream." Richard looked away, toward the edge of the garden where birds in the hawthorn trees were starting to awaken, their trilling making the leaves shudder.

  "You don't understand! I would give anything to see my mother again, anything. But in the dream I push her away. I reject her." It was not fear that drove her to the garden. Not fear.

  He watched her in silence again. "It was a dream," he finally said. "Father Gregory says we have no control over what we do in dreams."

  A strangled laugh broke into a sob. "He also says that God speaks to us in dreams." She rubbed at her eyes and walked away from him toward the entrance. "If that is so, then what is God trying to say to me?"

  "Perhaps your dream was the result of the onions at supper last night?" He had reached her side. His eyes glimmered in the growing light and crinkled at the corners.