Rosa looked at me. “Child, do you know why you are here?”
I twisted my hands in my skirts. “Am I supposed to be learning something?”
“Yes. Has N’tombe told you what you are to learn?”
I should be so lucky. “No, Madam.”
“I’m to teach you magic, child. Look at me.” When I stared at wrinkled fingers resting on the table, Rosa shook her head. “No. At my eyes.”
She passed like a breeze through my memories: my parents, the forest around the Castle, N’tombe, my lessons, the festivities, the dancing. My dreams. Will. She was like an inquisitive visitor, someone who meant no harm.
“She’s not been far afield,” said Rosa to N’tombe.
“Had you, at her age?”
“True.” Rosa gestured to a brown leather case set on a shelf between two of the great windows. “Fetch me that case, child.”
Exposed to the sky and the sun, the four great windows gave a view across the island. Far, far below, the forest sighed, breathing in the wind, but it was the endless blue of the sky and sea that drew my eyes to the curved line of the horizon. I felt like a bird about to fly.
The wooden shelf held a glass globe, a brass candlestick and the brown leather case. Cracked with age, it must once have been valuable, for faint traces of gold were etched onto the leather. Gently, I picked it up. It rattled as something moved within. My fingers tingled as I touched it. Carefully, I set the case on the table in front of Rosa and she slipped the catch.
Light burst from the box, blazing like a beacon to the roof. The interior was lined with red velvet. A necklace lay inside, curled upon itself, a fantastic snake resting on a velvet bed. I heard a whisper of sound, a sigh of welcome. A shimmer of song.
“I don’t wear it all the time,” Rosa said to N’tombe.
N’tombe gazed at the glorious thing. I felt her fascination and repulsion. “It is very powerful.”
“Which is why I am cautious about wearing it. I want to be me for a little longer. Is that wrong, do you think?”
“How can I tell you what is right and what is wrong?” N’tombe’s voice was gentle. “But it calls for you.”
“I know,” Rosa’s mouth twisted. “My heart knows this thing; it wants it. It’s like a drug. When I wear this, I see far, know so much. The walls of the Castle don’t hold me in. Like flying on the wind, I travel far.” She turned to me. “You know this necklace, child?”
“Yes.” The light from this glorious thing blew cobwebs from my mind. A boy, a girl with brown hair, an old woman with her heart torn out. “I’ve seen it before. In a dream.”
“Do you know what it does, Dana?”
I stared at the gleaming stones and remembered Daddy telling me long ago about a tower and a necklace. “It’s special. It keeps us safe.”
“Aye,” whispered Rosa, “Aye. That it does.” She closed the box. The room seemed dimmer. “We’ll leave the necklace for another time.”
My body ached for it.
“Plenty of time, child. Now. See, on the shelf ? A glass globe? Pass it to me, will you?”
“I’ll leave you,” said N’tombe, turning to the door. “Dana, you will have two hours a week with the Lady Rosa. You may make your own way back when the church bell chimes four. Do you understand?”
Distracted by the globe on the table, I didn’t hear her leaving. The glass contained an upside down reflection of the entire room. Behind me, the four windows hung upside down in the glass. If I looked closer I could see the world, reversed.
“It’s got the whole Kingdom in it,” I said, surprised.
Rosa smiled at me. “Put your hands on it, child. Tell me what you see.”
I cupped my hands over the top of the globe, staring into the glass. My reflected fingers blocked the light, dulling the image. I had the entire island cupped in my hands.
“That’s enough,” said Rosa. Blinking, I took my hands from the globe.
It seemed strange to see Rosa, upright and normal-sized in this room of sunlight. The church bells struck a distant chime. “How long was I looking?”
“Long enough. What did you see?”
I rubbed my hands across my face. “The sky turned dark. The wind changed. Papers blew across the room.” It was like rousing from a dream. “But now, look! All is still. And outside it is sunny.”
“It is easy to get lost in that tiny world. The first time I tried, I sat for a day. I only came out of the trance when it grew dark.”
“What is it? What does it do?”
“In one sense, it’s just a glass globe. If you drop it, it will break. Look.” Rosa pointed to a faint line on its surface. “Where I banged it. I’m more careful now.” She put it down carefully, rubbing her hand across it like a rider quieting a pony. “It’s a tool, an agent that allows your thoughts to focus. When I look into it, like you, I see the Kingdom. As you get better at it, you can push your vision out of the window, see things that are happening further away. Sometimes you can see the past, sometimes the future. I think you’ve seen the future.”
I made a face. It hadn’t looked very promising.
Rosa shrugged. “Don’t rely on this too much. It’s a bit of an uncertain guide; at the end of the day it is only a glass globe.”
I jumped at a SQUARK! from the window ledge. Rosa laughed, breaking the tension and I breathed again. “Don’t worry. It’s only Finegal.”
“Finegal?” Time enough to worry about the future when it happened.
Digging into her pocket, she pulled out a small box. Was this more magic? She passed it to me, and I took it nervously.
“It’s just bread,” Rosa pointed to the window behind her. “You can feed him. He’s friendly. Not harmless, but friendly.”
The crow stirred, tipping his head to one side as he stared at me from a bright black eye.
Rosa twisted stiffly in her chair. “And how are you this sunny day, Finegal? Have you news?”
“Caw,” The bird took the bread from my fingers. His beak was long and pointed. A circle of darker feathers rimmed his eye, making him look masked. Could I stroke his head? No, probably not a good idea.
“Cawk,” agreed the crow and nibbled another piece of bread.
The church bell rang four times.
“I should go,” I said.
“I’ll see you out,” Rosa clutched the table, awkwardly lifting herself to her feet. The top of her gown opened. There was a red stain on her chest, directly over her heart.
“Doesn’t that hurt?”
“A little. I guess I’m used to it.” Her gown dropped into place as she straightened. “But it’s one reason I don’t wear the necklace as much as my predecessor.”
“What do you mean?”
“Ask your father,” Rosa went over to the door and opened it. “It’s time you knew. He can’t keep you in ignorance forever.” She sighed. “Men! Now, be careful how you get down the steps. My guards have lit torches for you, but it’s still steep.”
I paused at the top of the stairs. A cold breeze whispered up the tower, wound about my neck and I shivered.
“Dana, you’ll be back next week, won’t you? Promise?”
“I promise.”
She smiled. “Good. Now listen. You can only come when the clock chimes two, for I will lift the wards. At any other hour you will not be able to find the door.”
“What do you mean?”
“Just what I say, child. And remember, careful down the stairs. You’ll find this is steeper than you’re used to.”
I wound my way slowly down the tower, running my hand across cold stone for balance. Torches, set in iron holders, guttered and flared. When the enormous guard met me at the bottom I caught my breath, tried not to scream.
“All right, Miss?”
“Don’t scare the little lady,” a deeper voice. “It’s just us, Miss.”
Two large men in chain mail squeezed out of the passageway.
“Hello, Miss,” said one. “I’m Gregor. This here
is Reginald.” He chuckled. “Greg and Reg. Easy to remember, Miss.”
“Hello,” I said hesitantly. The men were smiling – or at least, I hoped they were. All I could see was torchlight glinting off teeth. Like patting boarhounds: the dogs might be well behaved, but you could never be sure.
“It’s nice you’ve come, Miss. We don’t always get a chance to meet the Guardian before her time.” Gregor turned the iron handle on the door and it opened with a creak. “Next day you visit, just knock three times and me and Reggie will know it’s you.”
The door closed with a click, and I stood on the step, staring at its battered, ancient wood. What did they mean, “before her time’?
Chapter Eighteen
What Do I Tell Her?
Ask your father,” Rosa had said. But what could I ask him, when I didn’t know the question?
Telling Nurse I was tired, I took to my chamber and started a diary entry – “I went to see Aunt Rosa’ – and stopped. How to convey the strangeness of the meeting? The power that crackled about the room, the call of the strange gems. I wanted to see them again, to stroke them, to know their names. What was I thinking? Gems don’t have names.
I remembered my mother pointing at an etching of a woman wearing a sparkling stone. “That’s the Light of the North.”
“The lady?”
“No, silly,” she laughed. “The diamond. It’s the biggest in the world. Isn’t it beautiful?”
I banged the diary shut. I had to see Daddy.
Outside my chamber all was quiet with the special hush of night. Thinking of the necklace seemed to have swallowed time. Not wanting the soldiers to see me, I cut through the side door, into the long gallery. The great chamber was empty, the portraits staring blankly at the moonlight that stroked white lines across the floor. I huddled into the blanket I’d wrapped, cloak-like, around my shoulders and wished I’d worn my slippers.
The stone floor was icy cold.
Portraits of elaborately gowned ancestors flowed by as I hopped from rug to rug in an effort to keep warm. I seemed to be traveling back through my forebears: here was my mother, my father. Then my grandfather, red-faced and corpulent.
“He was a magnificent dresser,” Mother had said, as though good clothes were a virtue.
He didn’t look that wonderful in the portrait. He wore impractical high heels and a sword that would have been no use in a fight; it would tangle in his cloak if he tried to draw it. And here was my great-grandfather, who loved pipes and water and heating. Here was his wife.
I passed backwards through time, looking at faces progressively more distant. Had their lives been different from mine?
The faces began to change. Mother didn’t talk about these people, these fine-featured women, the men with the rich cloaks, but sometimes, when she thought I wasn’t watching, I saw her staring at the paintings as though measuring their clothing and jewelry.
The older paintings were created on wood, decorated icon-like in gold leaf so they gleamed. The figures in the paintings wore necklaces. It was hard to see the colors in the bleached white light of the moon, but I could still pick out the shapes, the rich red of the pendant. The necklace looked different in each portrait, yet the ruby was a constant. Despite the cold I paused. What was it? There was something about the necklace, the ruby. I stared at one portrait then another. They looked similar, but not the same. I turned, walking back along the empty gallery, ignoring the chill, reviewing the faces one by one, eldest to present day.
There it was – it was so obvious. With each successive wearer, the necklace grew longer.
At first, the strand was simple; just the ruby encased by two beads on a silver thread. Then a few more beads, strands of gold and pearls, a longer string, becoming heavier and more elaborate with each wearer. Why did the necklace change?
“Here’s a puzzle,” I whispered. My voice echoed in the empty air, rustling along the gallery. It almost seemed that my ancestors stirred in the moonlight, joining me in conversational fragments: uzzle, ule, z.
* * *
Upstairs in his study my father was speaking in rough, angry tones. Catching my name, I pressed my ear to the door. If it was about me, I wanted to hear what was being said.
“You took her where?”
N’tombe answered. “You asked me to teach her.”
“I meant sums, dammit. Languages, weaving, embroidery. The usual things young ladies learn.”
I peeped through the keyhole. Daddy paced across the room. Four steps, then he was baulked by the wall. “Knife fighting and wrestling is bad enough. But I draw the line,” he thumped on his desk, “at magic.”
“She won’t be a girl forever, sir.”
“Well, she is one now. And I say no. No.” He shook his head. “My little lass, she’ll be terrified. And what about Cyrilla? What do you think she’ll say?”
“Is this about your daughter, Your Majesty? Or is it about you?”
Shaking his head, my father sat. “You’re right,” he whispered, his voice so soft I could hardly hear. “What sort of a man am I? Locking her up in a tower, wasting away while her heart dissolves?”
Suddenly, I was angry. Rosa. How could he do this to his own sister?
“Your Majesty,” N’tombe’s tone was conciliatory.
I pushed hard at the door. I misjudged the force; it flew open and banged on the stone wall.
“Daddy!” I stood on the threshold. I hoped I looked accusing. “What did Aunt Rosa mean?”
“Dana! Are these the manners you’ve learnt from your tutor?” My father scowled at me, then at N’tombe, like I was her fault.
“She said that you would know the reasons she doesn’t wear the necklace as much as her predecessor. She said you can’t keep me in ignorance forever. What don’t I know, Papa?”
N’tombe stirred. “Your Majesty. She needs to know.”
Daddy jumped to his feet. The air between them seemed to twist and crackle. “What do I tell her?” he shouted. “How can I tell her?”
“Tell me what?” I stepped into the room. “Daddy, I need to know.”
“Dana,” said N’tombe, “I will be in your tower when you return.” She left the room with a rustle of skirts. Her boot nails clattered on the stairs.
Daddy?” I was suddenly terribly, terribly afraid. “What don’t I know?”
Daddy sat back in his chair and motioned to the seat on the other side of the desk. “You’d better sit down.” He waited until I sat, then jumped up again and began his marching to and fro across the study floor, hands in his pockets. There would be a groove in the rug at this rate. “You know about the necklace?”
“Aunt Rosa showed it to me.”
My father stopped in mid-stride. “She did?”
“She keeps it in a box. It’s really beautiful.”
“In a box?” He seemed startled. “That’s sensible, I suppose. But how can she use it if she’s not wearing it?”
“She has a terrible sore on her chest.” When I rubbed at the skin over my heart he shuddered.
Daddy looked at me, and resumed walking to and fro across his study floor. I wished he’d stop this pacing. It was hard to concentrate with all this moving about.
“The necklace,” he said, finally. “It’s the most important thing in the Kingdom. You remember me telling you about it?”
I nodded.
“And did I explain why it was important?”
“It protects us?”
“Yes. Well, not quite. As I understand it, the necklace generates a force that surrounds the Kingdom, stopping bad things entering. Illness and so on. It protects us from bad weather, crop plagues and so forth.” He rubbed his nose. “That’s what I was told when I was a little older than you. The necklace is the reason we have enough food in our bellies, and why we don’t have the sicknesses that so many other places do.”
“Like the plague? Will’s parents died of the plague.”
“Like the plague.” Daddy leant against the doorway.
“It can stop bad people entering the Kingdom; people who want to hurt us.”
“It must be very powerful.”
“Yes. But,” he held up a finger, “only one person can use the necklace. That’s the Guardian. Your Aunt Rosa.”
“So why doesn’t she wear it?”
“I’m sure she does, sometimes.”
I was suddenly angry with him. “How would you know? You never go near her! And she’s your sister!” I pulled the blanket tight across my shoulders and slouched in the chair.
“I do see her sometimes.” His voice sounded weak. “She visits me in dreams.”
“Dreams aren’t the same.”
Daddy sighed. “No, they’re not.” He perched himself on the edge of the desk. “You want to know why she doesn’t wear it? Beware of precious gifts, Dana. There’s always a catch. The necklace wounds the Guardian, Dana. You saw the sore over her heart? It sucks away her soul. Eventually it takes her heart.”
I think I called out. I don’t know what I said. My only thought was the dreamscape: an old woman, weeping guards, a heart that slowly stuttered and stopped. I felt sick. “Will that happen to Aunt Rosa?”
Daddy nodded. “But not for a very long time, I hope.”
What would it be like to be shut up in a tower, with only crows and guards for company? I remembered something about the guards. “The guards said something to me. “It is nice to meet the Guardian before her time.” What did they mean by that?”
He looked away. “I don’t know.”
He was holding something back. “Daddy. You need to tell me.”
He lifted a strand of my hair with a finger. “Fire-filled.” His breath stirred my cheek. “It suits you. We were so happy when you were born.” He smiled sadly at me. “I suppose that Enchantress is right. You have the right to know.”
“To know what?” My voice was shaky. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.
“The Guardian is the oldest daughter of the King. It’s an hereditary role, passed from aunt to niece. An unbroken line. When the necklace is removed from the old Guardian and handed to the new, the old one dies. Dana, honey, you will be the next Guardian.”
The SoulNecklace Stories Page 15
