A Strange and Ancient Name

by Josepha Sherman

  “Hugh.”

  “M’lord?”

  “Look you, I . . . know you mean well.”

  “Please, m’lord.” Hugh’s tone was embarrassed. There was a long silence, then he added softly, “Heard you sing in the Hall.”

  “Ah?”

  “It . . . isn’t my place, and all, but I just wanted to say . . . it was beautiful, m’lord. Made me think of . . . oh, I don’t know. Springtime, maybe. Moonlight.”

  “Did it?” Hauberin smiled into the darkness. “Good night, Hugh.”

  “M’lord?” The quelled tension swirled up anew.

  “What now, Hugh?”

  “Heard you talking to m’lord baron. M’lord, I . . . know something of the Lady Melusine.”

  “What!” Hauberin sat bolt upright.

  “Ah . . . yes, m’lord. Please, you’ll not be telling anyone, they don’t like folk talking about her—”

  “No, no, I won’t tell anyone! Come, out with it!”

  “Well, I don’t know too much. But it seems she’s an ancestor of the family, some three, four generations back. She’s supposed to have been a witch.” A rustling of the pallet indicated Hugh had probably just crossed himself. “And they say one night she was carried off by a d-devil in the shape of a tall, fair man.”

  My father! “Go on, Hugh! What else?”

  “I’m sorry, m’lord. That’s all I know.” He added apologetically, “I told you, they don’t like to talk about her.”

  “So you did. Thank you.” Hauberin slid wearily back down onto the bed. An ancestor of the family. Powers above, that made Baron Gilbert his kinsman. All the more reason to pay the man a visit!

  But he still couldn’t act until Hugh was asleep. With the tension eased, that shouldn’t take too long . . .

  Not long at all . . .

  All he had to do was wait . . .

  ###

  Once again he was walking down a chill, all-too-familiar corridor, further now than he had ever been. Once again he was forced to go on and on, sick with horror and his own helplessness. And soon he would have to see—

  “No! Ae, no!”

  “Wh-what? M’lord?”

  Hauberin blinked, dazed, suddenly aware that he was clinging to the room’s narrow window—though how he’d gotten there, he didn’t know—as though he had been clawing for fresh air, shuddering with cold but drenched with perspiration.

  “M’lord?” Hugh was sitting up on his pallet, staring. “Are you all right?”

  The prince couldn’t answer, the darkness still held him, he could feel nothing . . .

  After an uneasy moment, Hugh got to his feet, fumbling with flint and steel till he had gotten the oil lamp burning. “There, now. That’s better. M’lord?”

  “Yes,” Hauberin gasped. “Yes, I’m here.”

  “It was only a dream, m’lord.” The human shook his head. “Must have been one hell of one, begging your pardon.”

  “Ah, yes.”

  “Uh . . . m’lord? It’s cold out here. Don’t you think you’d better get back to bed before you take a chill?”

  Hauberin agreed, glad to huddle under the warmth of the fur coverings. Hugh eyed him warily.

  “Shall I . . . uh . . . leave the lamp burning, m’lord?”

  “No. I’m well enough now. Truly. It was, as you say, only a dream. Go back to your own bed.”

  Still shivering, Hauberin waited in silence for the man to settle down, thinking, two nights of peace and now this! Oh, fool, to dare believe he was free!

  But at last the dream’s grue was forced away by anger at this stolid, nearly magickless Realm and the weariness it gave him, anger at Himself for having yielded to it. Hauberin turned his head, listening. Hugh’s breathing had slowed to a gentle snoring. Asleep again, no doubt of it.

  The night, by the feel of it, was very late, somewhere near the dawn. At least, Hauberin thought darkly, Serein’s timing had been off, allowing him a fair amount of sleep before the dream. And there was still some time in which to act.

  Softly the prince got to his feet and dressed, making a good job of it since he doubted he would return to bed this night, softly stepped over Hugh, who never stirred, and left. He found himself standing on the edge of a narrow, curved stairway in darkness deep enough to tax even Faerie sight, but he was reluctant to start a light lest it attract suspicious guards.

  Now to locate the baron’s chambers. Thanks to Hugh’s solicitations, Hauberin hadn’t been able to watch which way the man had gone after leaving his guests. He was fairly certain the baronial rooms weren’t in this quarter, but to be positive, touched a cautious hand to the chill stones of the wall, relaxing his senses, and received scattered and confusing hints of practically everyone who had recently passed this way. There wasn’t much trace of baron or baroness. Silently Hauberin descended, planning to return to the Great Hall and track his quarry from there.

  Wait . . . the light up ahead might be muffled and uncertain, but it was Deacon-bright to his darkness-adjusted eyes. Guards? No . . . surely someone who didn’t want to be seen. A thief, perhaps. Or thieves, from the sound of their careful whispers, two of them.

  They were blocking his way. Hauberin stole carefully forward, wondering if he could slip past the two cloak-shrouded humans . . . No. The hallway was too narrow. The prince frowned. Could one of them be the baron?

  It couldn’t. The voice belonged to a younger man, and the wisps of dark blond hair escaping the cloak’s hood were untouched by gray. Raimond, then. And his partner was surely that little human sorcerer! Now, what mischief might be here?

  “. . . but he mustn’t be slain!” That was Raimond’s fierce hiss. “I don’t want his blood on me.”

  “It won’t be, my lord.” The other voice was calm.

  “But will it work?”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  “Are you sure? If you fail, and he learns I’m behind this—can I trust you?”

  “Well, that’s for you to decide, my lord, isn’t it?”

  “Damn you, don’t get bold with me! I’m paying you good gold, and you’ll not trick me or I’ll turn you over to the Church!”

  “Oh, I don’t think so, my lord. You don’t want the holy fathers”—mockery dripped from the words—“to know you’ve been calling on the Dark Powers. Not even your loving brother could save you then.”

  The frustrated fury blazing from Sir Raimond was dazzlingly plain to the watching Hauberin, but the little sorcerer was unmoved. “My lord, we’re wasting time. Anyone might stumble on us here. What you will shall be done, but I must have time.”

  “Time, time! All right, then: two days. No more.”

  “That should be sufficient.” The sorcerer paused. “But, my lord . . .”

  “What now?”

  “Those strangers, in particular that small, dark young man . . .” For the first time, a touch of uncertainty quivered in the human’s voice. “My lord, there’s something about him . . . While he was singing, I sensed . . . I’m not sure what I sensed. My lord, watch him.”

  “Never fear.” Raimond’s voice was suddenly cool and quiet, tinged with such bitter hatred that Hauberin stared. “I shall see to him.”

  “My . . . lord?”

  “No, man, don’t touch me!” It was Raimond’s normal, hot-tempered voice once more. “Just see that you do your part. Now, get back to the Hall before you’re missed!”

  As the two humans went their separate ways, Raimond passed so close to the shadow-hidden prince that the folds of the dark cloak brushed against him. And what was that all about? Hauberin wondered. Are you plotting against Duke Alain, or your brother? Either way, my dear Raimond, you’ll “see to me” at your cost!

  But these dark human plots had nothing to do with him. The corridor was once again open, and Hauberin put the conspirators from his mind and started forward—

  Only to stop short with a silent oath because here came footsteps behind him, and the wavering light of a torch.

  “Following m
e, Hugh?”

  “Sweet Jesu!” The human nearly dropped the torch. “I—m’lord, I didn’t see you standing there in the dark!”

  “And were you following me?”

  “Well, I . . . uh . . . woke up and found you weren’t in your bed—thought you’d gone to answer a call of nature or something, and gotten lost.”

  The baron’s creature, no doubt about it, keeping a watchful eye on the stranger-guest. “I wasn’t lost. Why don’t you go back to bed, Hugh?”

  He was all set to focus more than a little will behind the words, but—Ae, what now? Guards. A whole troop of them, evidently the predawn patrol preparing to go on duty, laughing and joking softly. A happy lot. And in his frustration, Hauberin could have cheerfully blasted the lot. He clearly wasn’t going to reach Baron Gilbert this night. But if not now, when? He would have no excuse for lingering past the morning.

  “It is nearly morning, isn’t it?”

  Hugh blinked at him. “Lacking less than an hour to sunrise, I would guess, m’lord.”

  Sunrise. Ah, there was something. How could he stay angry when there was such an alien wonder to come?

  Hauberin accepted what he could of the situation. “I’ve a whim to watch the sunrise. This stair will take me to the ramparts?”

  “Uh, yes, m’lord, but—”

  “I shall go alone.”

  “But—”

  “Alone.”

  He stared into Hugh’s merely human eyes. And all at once there was no argument at all.

  ###

  It was cold and damp up here. He should have thought to bring a cloak. The sky was heavy with the promise of yet more rain—

  Hauberin bit back a laugh. By all means, let it rain! A downpour would give him a perfect excuse for lingering here another day.

  But the east was slowly brightening from gray into color, and the prince forgot everything else to stand, silent and wondering, at the ever-growing radiance. The eastern clouds were blossoming, shell-pink, rose-pink, carmine, gold—beautiful, so beautiful with the patches of vibrant blue behind them! Ah, and the terrible, wonderful splendor of the rising sun! Helpless with awe, Hauberin gasped and nearly wept for beauty, and at the last turned away only because the fierce, brave light had grown too painful.

  He wasn’t alone. Tense, sun-dazzled, Hauberin blinked blindly at a vague, dark outline. “Alliar?” he said doubtfully.

  “No, my lord.”

  A woman’s voice . . . “Ah, my Lady Baroness. What, were you up here all this time?”

  “Yes. I dared not speak. You . . . looked like a man seeing his first sunrise.”

  “Did I?”

  “Please, don’t be embarrassed. I often come up here at dawn myself. There’s a—newness to the air then, a freedom.” For an instant, staring out at the morning, she looked so young and fierce that Hauberin wondered. “At times,” the woman continued, so softly it was almost only to herself, “I think there’s more of God out here than behind all the cold chapel walls—”

  She broke off, plainly shocked at herself, finishing lamely, “My lord husband tolerates my whims.”

  Hauberin wasn’t interested in her lord husband just then. He was far too intrigued by that almost Faerie cast to her features, all the more clearly revealed in open sunlight. And what a pleasure for once not to have to stare up at someone! They really were almost exactly of a height; humans, he guessed, probably considered her short. Her braids were bright in the morning light, not yet masked by ribbons, and the prince exclaimed in sudden delight: “You shouldn’t hide your hair! It’s lovely, like the very soul of flame.”

  “My hair,” she said flatly, “is red.”

  “Why, what’s the matter?”

  “Please. Don’t mock.”

  He stared amazed at the hurt in her eyes. “Believe me, I meant no mockery. Did I just overstep one of your customs?” When she hesitated, the prince continued with a touch of impatience, “Come now, I really don’t understand.”

  “I don’t know how it is in your land, but here everyone knows red hair is unlucky. Ugly. Sir Judas’ hair, they say, was red.”

  Hauberin had no idea who this “Sir Judas” might be. But he knew the pain his so-different coloring and lack of height had caused him, and in sudden understanding said gently, “In my land, such hair is a wonder, the rarest and most precious of shades.” An image of Ereledan flashed through his mind—yes, curse him, Ereledan’s hair was the very same hue.

  “Your people are all dark, then, my lord?”

  “No. They’re fair. Golden-haired. And tall.”

  “Oh. I know how that feels, being the odd one out, believe me.” Her smile was a brief, lovely thing. “You miss your folk, though, don’t you?”

  Was it that obvious? Hauberin drew back slightly. “I have my reasons for being here.”

  The smile faded slightly. “And you’ve sworn an oath not to speak of them.”

  “Why, lady, you heard our good Aimery. Are you doubting him?”

  “We both know Aimery’s good-heartedness. And his gift for clever words.”

  The prince tensed ever so slightly. “I’ve sworn I mean no harm to any here. Are you doubting my word as well?”

  “Oh, no.” If she had heard the faint purr of warning in his voice, she chose to ignore it. “But you must admit, my lord, it does all sound like something out of a minstrel’s romance.”

  “It does,” Hauberin agreed, and left it at that. He met her stare, and saw the dark gaze drop.

  “Forgive me,” the woman said. “It’s not my place to question what my lord husband has accepted.” She glanced back over her shoulder as though expecting to find the baron waiting. “I shall be late to chapel. I must go.”

  “Ah, wait.”

  “My lord?”

  “Why are you so ashamed of your kinswoman, the Lady Melusine?”

  “Oh, again!” Sharp terror flared up in her eyes. “Didn’t you hear my husband? We don’t know—”

  “Forgive me, but you do.”

  The woman stared at him. “Why is it so important to you? A stranger, a foreigner—why should it be so very important to you?”

  How could he answer? Because the lady was my mother, long years before you were born. Because I am of Faerie, and there’s a curse on me. “I . . . cannot say.”

  “Your oath again?” But she couldn’t help but be aware of his very real distress. And at last the baroness sighed. “I do owe you a debt for that wondrous music last night.”

  “I wasn’t looking for reward.”

  “I know that.” She hesitated, as though all at once torn between laughter and tears. “You wouldn’t understand. How could you, since song comes so easily to you? I . . . I can play the harp, somewhat, and sing, somewhat. So can little Lisette. But my husband has no ear for music at all, and so we seldom . . .” She turned aside, looking out into space. “Thank you, my lord.” It was barely more than a murmur. “Your music was food and drink to a starving soul, and—ah, I sound like a fool.”

  “No.”

  “As for telling you what you want to know . . . what harm can there possibly be in it?” She glanced nervously over her shoulder again. “But I can’t speak now, not here.”

  “Where, then?”

  The baroness smiled, a little too brightly: Two of her ladies had appeared, hunting their mistress. “I must go now, to chapel, with my husband. Will it please you to join us?” When Hauberin hesitated, unsure of her meaning, the woman added, “The chapel is a quiet, tranquil place. After mass, I might linger there alone in the holy silence for a few moments.”

  She gave him a charming curtsey. He bowed, then straightened slowly, watching her retreating back.

  So be it, lady.

  ###

  “Li?”

  “I’m here, my prince, just outside the door. You . . . don’t want me to go in there, do you?”

  “No. I wouldn’t inflict that on you. Just stand watch. The last thing I want is to be surprised by a suspicious human.”


  Hauberin danced about at the chapel. Its ceiling was high and arched, its walls richly painted with scenes that meant little to him. And it reeked of hatred for any such as the Faerie kind, sharp as the scent of iron. The prince winced at the tormented wooden figure on its cross, fighting down a fit of coughing from the not-quite-dissipated swirlings of incense, his spirit burdened by the weight of humorless human piety.

  “My lord.” The baroness was standing half in shadow, half in candlelight, nervous as a cat.

  “Don’t be afraid,” the prince told her. “I won’t hurt you. And I’m not planning to use”—with a wry glance about the chapel—“the . . . ah . . . Black Arts.”

  “God’s mercy, I should hope not!” She licked dry lips. “We have only a few moments. What would you know?”

  “Whatever you can tell me.” He hesitated. “I already know the Lady Melusine was called a witch.”

  “She was a witch. At least, she had . . . certain powers.”

  “You couldn’t have met her.”

  “Oh, no, that was some three generations back! Besides, the lady vanished while she was still a young woman.” She added with a defiant flash of dark eyes, “But I’ve never heard she used her powers for ill. I can’t believe it was a devil that carried her off, either.”

  “It wasn’t,” Hauberin muttered, and the woman stared at him.

  “How could you—”

  “Lady, please.” The lack of free air was beginning to wear at his patience. “What of her parents? That’s what I really want to know.”

  She drew back, alarmed by his intensity. “I can only tell you of her mother, the Baroness Alianor, wife to Baron Gautier, who built the first stone keep on this site.”

  Hauberin sighed. Pleasant though it might have been under other circumstances to hear about his grandmother, this was hardly the information he needed. “I already know the Lady Melusine wasn’t the baron’s child.” He fought to keep his voice level. “Who was her father?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Impossible!”

  “I’m not lying, my lord!”