"Such a pity Count Xebo could not attend his own funeral." The speaker, a stout matron in an enormous powdered wig, seated herself on a low cenotaph and lifted her gauzy black veil. "He left town on some business, you know (his estates in Spagne are sadly encumbered), and what was the poor Countess to do with the invitations already sent, and all the arrangements made?"
"A great pity," agreed her companion, a middle-aged dandy in high leather boots like a cavalry officer. Except for the boots there was nothing military about him. He wore his hair unpowdered and neatly clubbed at the back, but the front hung loose in dark golden lovelocks; his garments were laced, fringed, and be-ribboned to a remarkable degree; and he carried a tiny black fan. To many a susceptible maiden, he was a perfect figure of romance.
He spoke, moreover, with a foreign accent and a slight hesitation, which lent weight to his words, creating an impression that everything he said, no matter how trivial or commonplace, was the product of deep thought. "But we may comfort ourselves with this thought: that at some future event, the Count will be beyond concern for his estates, and shall certainly be present."
"Very true," replied the lady, accepting a crystal goblet filled with red wine from one of the servants. "'Tis unlikely that a man of such venerable years will disappoint us a second time.
"But do tell me, my dear Jarl: what do you think of my daughter, Elsie?" she asked, nodding in the direction of a stand of dark yews, where two young women—one of them slight, pale, and golden-haired, the other a statuesque maiden with glossy dark brown curls—were strolling arm in arm.
"Your daughter is exquisite," Jarl Skogsrå replied warmly. "And yet there is something—I do not know how to say it—a quality of fragility, perhaps, that while it enhances . . ."
"My Elsie has never been in the best of health. She suffers dreadfully from a number of mysterious complaints." The lady spoke complacently, as though she believed she gained consequence by the possession of a sickly daughter. "However, we may see an improvement very soon. The dear Duchess has recommended a new man and a new course of treatment, and I am certain it will do poor Elsie good."
The Jarl murmured a few words expressive of sympathy, and the fond mother, apparently satisfied, sipped her wine and turned her attention to the delicacies offered her by a footman in black and silver: quails' eggs, boiled snails, cheese tarts, pickled samphire, and other dainties, all tastefully arranged on a bed of dandelion leaves.
"But I am curious about this other young woman I see always in Miss Vorder's company," said the Jarl. "Her cousin, I believe?"
The lady selected a pigeon pasty. "A distant relation only. The orphaned daughter of a profligate kinsman; my husband insisted on bringing her into our household as a companion for Elsie. An obstinate, headstrong girl, but my daughter is so passionately attached to her that it would be cruel to separate them." Mistress Vorder selected another pasty and swallowed it at a gulp. "To do her justice, she takes great care of Elsie, and after all, she is more convenient than some wretched gin-swilling nurse, and entirely presentable besides."
The Jarl heaved a soulful sigh; he took her hand (it was a little greasy after the meat pies) and kissed it. "And this toleration of an interloper in your home is but one of many sacrifices, I believe, which you have made for the sake of the precious ailing child."
The lady turned pink, flattered by his air of sympathetic respect. "I could not begin to list them all. You little know what I have suffered on Elsie's behalf. I believe we have seen every doctor, apothecary, herbalist, and chirurgeon in Thornburg, and the torments they have inflicted on my poor child are truly heart-breaking—the bleedings—the vile medicines—the horrid diets. I vow, I am a woman who has endured much."
On the other side of the cemetery, in the shade of the trees, the object of Mistress Vorder's motherly concern relinquished her companion's arm and seated herself, with a weary little sigh, in the long grass.
The dark-haired girl sank down beside her. "Shall I send a servant for your powder?"
Elsie shook her head. "Please, Sera, no. I don't feel ill, only a little tired and breathless. Let us sit here in the shade for a time, until I feel stronger." She allowed Sera to remove her hat for her, an elaborate affair decorated with black velvet roses and a vast quantity of spotted black tulle, and set it down on the grass.
"I was thinking . . ." Elsie added dreamily, as she stripped off her black net mittens and dropped them into her lap, "that when I die, I would like to be buried in an old graveyard like this. So very peaceful, don't you think? And the statues in the new cemetery are so—so immense and ugly, they frighten me a little."
When her cousin spoke so, Sera found it difficult to answer, difficult to speak around the painful constriction in her throat. Yet she forced herself to reply briskly. "I don't approve of these morbid fancies; I wish you would not make these 'death-bed declarations.' You are two years younger than I and shall most likely live to bury me."
Elsie smiled her sweet, fragile smile. "Your death is something even I daren't contemplate. You are so strong and so stubborn, dear Sera, I almost believe you will live forever."
The other girl's dark-browed face softened. "Then learn to be as strong and obstinate as I am, my darling, and spend eternity with me. How could I bear the prospect in any company but yours?"
Sera untied the black ribbons under her chin and removed her own plain, flat-crowned straw, which she immediately proceeded to use as a fan to cool both herself and Elsie. As Elsie's natural delicate coloring returned, Sera felt a cold wash of relief. I am the one growing morbid, she scolded herself. Elsie has only to sigh, or turn pale, or say she is faint, and I am instantly convinced that the awful moment has come, that her doctors have finally succeeded in killing her. But I must not allow myself to think such things—must not allow myself to dwell on them—or else I shall grow so foolish and wicked there is no telling what I might do.
"I certainly don't care for the company here," she said aloud. "Or for the occasion—so precisely calculated to encourage sick fancies. I can't imagine why Cousin Clothilde insisted you attend." She fingered the skirts of her black bombazine gown. "And these ridiculous weeds, so warm and uncomfortable on a day like this. Why should either of us wear deep mourning for Count Xebo, who is no kin of ours, and rather more to the point, is not even dead?"
"Mama insisted that I come because she knew Jarl Skogsrå would be here," said Elsie. "I believe she is match-making again. I see you frown, and I don't blame you. He was perfectly charming to me, and I confess I liked him, but not when I saw how rude he was to you—not even asking Mama for an introduction, when we all rode in the same carriage together!"
Sera made an airy little gesture, dismissing the Jarl's discourtesy. "His rudeness to me is nothing; I am accustomed to these slights. I don't regard it, and neither should you. In general," she added thoughtfully, "I believe I prefer a man who is at least honest in his in his imagined superiority, to the sly insinuating sort who hints at all kinds of horrid familiarities and supposes I must be flattered by his attentions simply because I am poor."
As she spoke, Sera chanced to encounter the glance of a pasty-face youth in a preposterous wig, a certain Mr. Hakluyt, who, on the occasion of a previous meeting, had whispered a vulgar piece of impertinence in Sera's ear and then slithered off before she was able to reply. He was watching her now with what could only be termed a speculative gaze. Sera returned his stare with a scorching glance of her own and hoped that would be sufficient to wither his pretensions.
Elsie remained innocently unaware of this little exchange. It was plain that she was strongly attracted to Skogsrå, but her loyalty to Sera was even stronger. "In general, you say . . . yet it is easy to see you have conceived a violent dislike of the Jarl. Well, I won't like him, either—though he is so very handsome and speaks with such a delightful accent—for you see people more clearly than I do, and your judgement of character is better than my own."
Sera experienced a sharp pang of remors
e, for she knew she had a deplorable habit of conceiving strong prejudices, sometimes on the strength of a word or a gesture. "No, no, you mustn't say so," she protested. "Indeed, I know nothing against the man. Any animosity I may feel toward Jarl Skogsrå is purely personal and . . . rather puzzling, for I haven't seen or heard anything to make me doubt his intentions or his character.
"Perhaps I am only jealous because you were so instantly and so strongly attracted," Sera added softly, smoothing her cousin's disheveled golden curls with a gentle hand and a fond smile. "I am so selfish that I am bound to resent any man who appears to be a serious rival for your affection—but you must not reject the Jarl on that account, indeed you must not."
Elsie took her hand and squeezed it affectionately. "Perhaps I will allow myself to like him a little bit, but that is all. I could not love any man who didn't value my Sera as much as I do."
The afternoon grew warmer. Sitting in the long, sweet-smelling grass, the two girls began to feel drowsy. Sera continued to wave her hat in a desultory manner. Elsie stifled a yawn and looked around her for another topic of conversation.
Mistress Vorder still sat perched on a marble slab, deep in conversation with the Jarl. The other picnickers were scattered about the cemetery in pairs or small groups, seated on the ground, or strutting among the gravestones, like a flock of crows come to feed among the crumbling mausoleums and mournful statues: Countess Xebo, Lord Vizbeck and his aging mother, two barons and their baronesses, the pale Mr. Hakluyt with his eternally roving eye, the Duchess of Zar-Wildungen, representatives of a number of wealthy but untitled families—
"How odd," said Elsie, with a mischievous sideways glance at her companion. "I made certain he would be here. It's just precisely the sort of occasion to appeal to a gentleman of—of a poetical sort, don't you think?"
"I really couldn't say," replied Sera.
She felt her face suddenly grow warm and an uncomfortable fluttering begin in the region of her heart. "That is . . . I suppose you must be thinking of Lord Skelbrooke. But he is such a will-o'-the-wisp, always appearing and disappearing when one least expects him, it is virtually impossible to determine in advance where and when one is likely to meet him."
As evening approached, the servants began to pack up the baskets and the hampers, and a long procession of sable-draped carriages and sedan chairs lined up outside the cemetery gates.
"And so it is arranged," said Jarl Skogsrå, as he escorted Mistress Vorder to the carriage which had conveyed them from Count Xebo's town house earlier. "I shall call on you and your so charming daughter tomorrow morning."
"Indeed, I depend on you." Mistress Vorder leaned heavily on his arm, for she had eaten and drunk more than was good for her, and the combination of too much sun and too much wine made her head buzz unpleasantly. "I am delighted you have taken a fancy to my Elsie, sir, for I believe you are just the sort of man who can make her happy.
"But it is not my opinion alone—or her father's—that Elsie will consult in choosing to accept or reject you," she added, as the Jarl handed her up into the carriage. "You must exert yourself to please elsewhere. I hope you are not too proud to do so?"
The Jarl smiled a curiously feline smile. "I understand you. It is for me to win the favor of Miss Sera as well, to court her friendship as ardently as I woo the beautiful Elsie. It is not beyond my power to win her, madam, I do assure you. I have had some acquaintance with young women of her sort in the past—poor but proud, yet not immune to the persuasions I know how to exert."
Mistress Vorder tittered obscenely. "Use what blandishments you will to win over young Sera. But as for those other young women . . . you will have to give them up, you know, if you are going to marry my Elsie. I won't permit you to break her heart."
"I am a passionate man, a man of single-minded purpose," said the Jarl, putting one hand on his heart, clicking the heels of his high, military-style boots, and bowing deeply so that the loose golden curls obscured his face. "And I take leave to assure you that the woman I marry shall have no cause to complain of any neglect!"
CHAPTER 4
In which Jedidiah falls in with Respectable Company.
Early one morning, when the shadows were long and the street lamps on every corner burning low, Jedidiah left his ramshackle lodgings by the river wall and set out at a brisk pace. It was that weird, plastic hour when night mutated into day, and the town of Thornburg took on a whole new character: when the prostitutes, footpads, and assassins who freely roamed by night returned to their back-alley hunting grounds or their ill-lit dens; when shop-keepers unshuttered the windows of their shops, and bakers, butchers, and greengrocers drove their rattling delivery wagons through the narrow streets of the town. It was that hour when the river scavengers tied up their little boats and headed for the nearest tavern to dine on peas-porridge, herring, and ale.
But Jed's habits had drastically altered during these last eight weeks. Without explanation, Uncle Caleb abandoned the river and went to work for Gottfried Jenk. "Find another partner, or find other work—ain't that what you always wanted, anyways?" the old man insisted. "You never did care for the river, and that's a fact. Think you'd be grateful I finally cut you loose to do exactly as you please."
Which was all very well and good, Jed countered, except for one small thing: he knew no trade but the one he'd been born to—supposing you could dignify it by the name of trade—and he was years too old, at the age of seventeen, to offer himself as a 'prentice and learn anything new.
Six weeks later, Jed was still looking for work. Finding it increasingly difficult to live on the wages the old man earned at the bookshop, Jed and Caleb had long since been reduced to a diet of gruel and hard-tack. This morning, Jed headed for Antimony Lane, where a colony of dwarves had settled and opened up shop, as glassblowers, potters, and purveyors of fine porcelain. He had heard that one Master Ule, a prosperous dwarf who owned a bottle factory, wanted a boy to sweep up and run errands—menial work, better suited to a lad much younger, but by now Jedidiah was willing to take any job that would enable him to pay his rent and buy a little salt pork to go with his morning biscuit—any job that did not involve a return to his former occupation and his old disreputable way of life.
The Thornburg Jed knew best was unmistakably a riverside town: a town of docks and bridges, ships and sailors; of crooked streets with wet-sounding names, like Dank Street, Tidewater Lane, and Fisherman's Alley. But to reach Antimony Lane on foot, Jed left that Thornburg and ventured into the "respectable" part of town, where thatched roofs gave way to slate, stone chimneys to copper chimney pots, and the architecture revealed a tendency toward antique columns, decorative stonework, and wrought-iron gates.
Jed followed Tidewater for about a mile, until it became Church Street and climbed Cathedral Hill. Even at that early hour, the traffic was dreadful. Jed felt something bump up against his knees and glanced down to see a self-important gnome, in a tall black hat adorned with an immense silver buckle, glaring up at him.
"Beg your pardon," said Jed, stepping to one side—gnomes were terribly careful of their dignity, as Jed well knew, and like to take serious offense when taller folk blundered into them. But in doing so, he put himself directly in the path of a stout dowager in a goat-drawn vinaigrette, who pulled up just in time to avoid running him down.
Jed decided to escape the crowd by ducking down Mousefoot Alley, but he soon lost himself in a bewildering maze of narrow streets and tiny squares and courtyards, where the buildings were all of stone and brick. By this, even though he had lost all sense of direction, he knew that he was in the dwarf quarter; no respectable dwarf consented to live inside wooden walls. Jed was debating whether to stop a passerby and ask for directions, or enter into a china shop and inquire; when a familiar voice called out his name.
Glancing back over his shoulder, Jed spotted an open carriage on the other side of the square, parked outside a goldsmith's establishment. There was no driver in evidence, only a page-boy in a powd
ered wig and scarlet livery to hold the heads of the horses. Jed did not know the boy, but he did know the passengers. One of them, a dark-haired girl of about his own age, in a gown of dull green poplin and a countrified bonnet tied with primrose ribbons, nodded at him and gestured imperiously.
Jed heaved a sigh, thrust his hands into the pockets of his old frieze coat, and walked across the square with dragging feet and a dim hope that some distraction might present itself and claim the young lady's attention before he reached the carriage.
The hope was a vain one, as Jedidiah might have known. Sera Vorder's fingers were doing a brisk, impatient dance on the side of the carriage when Jed finally arrived.
"Fine morning for a drive," he said, ducking his head sheepishly, and studiously avoiding the gaze of Elsie, who looked prettier and more fragile than ever, in a big leghorn hat and a gown of white muslin figured with cabbage roses. "You ladies lost your coachman? Why don't I scout around and see if I can find him?"
To his relief, Sera's frown vanished and she burst out laughing. "Don't be nonsensical, Jed—and don't you bow and scrape to me! Our `coachman' is Jarl Skogsrå, and he and Cousin Clothilde are inside the shop. I expect they will return at any moment, so don't be difficult—just offer me a hand down, because I have something particular to discuss with you and I won't tolerate interruptions."
Goblin Moon Page 3
