A Branch of Silver, a Branch of Gold

by Anne Elisabeth Stengl

  Nevertheless, she embroidered with great care, working the curled petals in lovely detail. If allowed to work with good threads and good needles, she might indeed become a talented needlewoman, her skills far beyond those required of a farmwife.

  “Heloise,” said Evette in a voice that was almost sharp, or at least as sharp as Evette’s voice ever got. “Your cap!”

  Clotaire, released from his big sister’s grip, gave a great gasp of relief and ran on ahead with his brothers. Evette, meanwhile, took the cap from Heloise’s hands and placed it back on her head. “Your braids are already coming undone,” she sighed. “I should have used more pins.”

  “There weren’t any more,” said Heloise.

  “We’ll get Claude to make us some then.” Her sister set to rights, Evette looped her arm through Heloise’s, and they continued on their way together, following their parents. Meme had lapsed into an angry silence and was pointedly not looking around at her oldest daughter.

  “Evette . . .” said Heloise slowly. Her voice trembled, and she realized that she was almost afraid to ask the question on the tip of her tongue. She didn’t know if she wanted to learn the answer, because she suspected that whatever Evette said in response would suddenly shift her out of the shape Heloise had always allowed for her in her mind. She would no longer be Evette as Heloise had always known Evette. What she would be, Heloise could not guess.

  The unknown was a frightening prospect. But she couldn’t not ask now that she’d come this far.

  “Evette, if you could do anything at all in the world, what would you do?”

  Evette laughed. Only one who knew her well would sense the tension behind that laugh. Heloise almost missed it, for she didn’t know her sister as well as she thought. “What sort of a question is that? I can’t do anything in the world. I can only do what I do.”

  “But if you could,” Heloise persisted. “If you could be a . . . a . . . a great lady, for instance. Or a queen.”

  “That’s mad,” said Evette.

  “It’s just a game.”

  “We’re too old for such games.”

  Heloise made no answer to this. She stared down at her bare, cold feet trudging along down the dirt track. Maybe it was just as well. Just as well to let Evette remain the shape she’d always been in Heloise’s head.

  But then Evette said, “I would make tapestries.”

  “What?” Heloise glanced up at her sister, who wasn’t looking at her but gazed out across the eastern flax fields, away from the setting sun.

  “I would make tapestries. Like the great ladies of the great houses make. Tapestries telling of our times and times of the past. Histories forever set down in needle and thread. Imagine! Imagine being a part of a work that will last through the ages, letting people a hundred years from now know who we are and what we did, and what important events transpired in our time!”

  Evette sighed. There was a look in her eye, a look Heloise didn’t quite understand. A look that saw beyond the flax farm, beyond even the great boundaries of Canneberges. It was not the sort of look one ever saw in the face of a peasant girl. How unnatural it seemed to Heloise, as unnatural in that moment as talking winds and singing shadows.

  “I would like that,” Evette finished, her voice low and tremulous. “I would like to be part of a work such as that, a work of the ages. If I could do anything.”

  They said no more, neither questions nor answers. But before they came in sight of Centrecœur’s single tower, Heloise slipped her hand into Evette’s and gave it a quick squeeze. Embarrassed immediately thereafter, she let go and fell several paces behind her sister, her head bowed to hide any thoughts that might be too apparent on her face.

  TEN

  Le Sacre Night was the most important night of the year. The night when every man and woman and child, be they serf or nobly born, must come together to make the great petition: the plea to Winter, the prayer to Spring. O Winter! Will you relax your hold upon the earth? O Spring! Will you gently rise in glorious rebirth?

  This appeal rang in the hearts of all who passed over the drawbridge into the courtyard of Centrecœur to assemble before the oncoming dusk. Well, in most of their hearts anyway.

  Heloise couldn’t honestly say there were any prayers in the whole of her—heart, head, or stomach. Even the newly sprung ideas concerning her sister were crushed away as she and her family stepped onto the drawbridge, crossed the soggy ditch that had once been a proud moat, and entered the heart of Centrecœur. On the green lawn the serfs of Canneberges gathered, waiting, surrounded by the majesty of the Great House which, rumor had it, boasted more than seventy rooms and twenty chimneys. More impressive still were the many glass-paned windows.

  Heloise stared up at those windows, dark and empty, leading to dark and empty rooms, for everyone came out on the lawn that evening, even the household staff. No one remained inside to look through those windows upon events transpiring below.

  Yet Heloise couldn’t help the strange feeling in her gut, the feeling that someone—many someones—watched her.

  With a shudder she slid between her two older brothers, Claude and Clement, who were broad enough to provide a sort of shield around her. From this barricade she gazed out upon the crowds, nodding and offering weak smiles if she inadvertently caught the eye of someone she knew. Evette was soon surrounded, both by young men (whose pride still smarted at her rejections) and by young women (who would happily catch the eyes of those rejected young men).

  But a break in the crowd offered Heloise a momentary glimpse of someone far more interesting.

  Tradition would have it that the Marquis and Marquise de Centrecœur must sit up all night to observe Le Sacre, doing their solemn part to help usher in the Spring. But the marquis was rarely home these days; he spent most of his time at other estates or at the king’s court. And many months had passed since Madame the Marquise was last in Canneberges; she preferred to live with her own people at Bellamy House on the other side of the kingdom.

  In fact, it had been so long since any of the lord’s family had graced Le Sacre Night that Heloise couldn’t remember one instance. But tonight, through that break in the throng, she saw a great chair (not a throne, since the Cœurs weren’t royal, but throne-like enough to Heloise’s eye) out on the edge of the green lawn. There sat Master Benedict, wrapped in a thick jacket and a thicker cloak.

  At the same moment Heloise spotted him, Master Benedict lifted his gaze to meet hers. At first she did not think he recognized her. He looked right at her, but with an absolute blankness about his eyes that revealed no comprehension. What a vapid dullard! Heloise scowled at him.

  Benedict blinked. His forehead wrinkled. Then a light dawned on the horizon of his brow. He sat up straighter, opened his mouth, and raised one hand.

  Heloise ducked behind Clement and allowed herself to be lost in the crowd. She couldn’t help it. The scowl was gone and she was smiling. Just a little, a very little smile. A very foolish little smile, and she knew it.

  He’d recognized her! Even in her cap. Her heavy braids tugged painfully at her scalp, and she felt the string under her chin ready to give way. She didn’t care. She wondered . . . did she look like such a little girl to him now?

  There was no time to pursue this interesting speculation, however. The shawm sounded, its voice rising above all others in a long, mournful note. Just one note—the music of Le Sacre was yet to begin. But it was the summoning, and all must hasten now to their places.

  Heloise felt a knot form in the pit of her stomach. She heard young women gasping and talking rapidly as they grabbed each other’s hands and ran. All of the maidens newly turned eighteen in the last year, five altogether including Evette, hastened away from the rest of the crowd and stood along one end of the lawn.

  There was no need for rehearsal. All knew their places on the night of Le Sacre. They knew this even as they knew when to sow, when to harvest, when to leave the field fallow. They knew like the geese on the lakes knew
when to fly south and when to return. Le Sacre was the very heart of Centrecœur, the heart of Canneberges.

  Heloise joined the other women and children on the opposite end of the lawn. Her two older brothers had gone to stand with other boys of their age holding torches to light the lawn. But Clovis and Clotaire waved her over, so she took a seat beside them to wait and to watch. Until this year Evette had always sat beside her. But Evette would now play her part, the most important part of the whole night.

  Heloise felt her palms turn sweaty with nerves. She could still see Evette; there was just enough sunlight on the horizon. And Evette was as calm, as tranquil as ever, smiling sweetly at something the girl beside her whispered in her ear. She felt no concern whatsoever about her upcoming role—perhaps because across the way she had Heloise dying a thousand deaths for her.

  Oh, great Lights Above! If she was this nervous for Evette, what would she ever do when in four years it was her turn to stand across the field? Her turn to answer the call of the shawm?

  Clotaire reached a sneaky hand up and pulled at the string of her cap. Viper-fast, Heloise smacked his hand away, and he giggled, pleased with himself, and wrapped both arms around his upraised knees. Heloise started to retie her cap . . .

  The sun set.

  The night rose up.

  And in that very moment of darkness spreading across the sky, the shawm began to play. One long, long, long note. A note of sorrow. Of cold and of binding. A note of Winter’s icy hold.

  The note dipped, twirling like a wind down from the mountains, like a gale blown up from the sea. It returned to the first note, held it again. Then once more it dipped and whirled. Other instruments joined their voices to its song: the sighing pipes, the offsetting beat of tabors, the gut-churning groan of ceterone and bandora.

  Over all, the shawm danced its own tune, waxing more extravagant, flinging out wild notes to the sky. Just as it reached its highest, most fevered pitch—

  Boom!

  The copper timpani shuddered through the night, down deep into Heloise’s soul. She cringed and shut her eyes, though there was nothing yet to see and she could not shut her ears. Even had she stuffed wax and rags deep into each ear, the voice of that timpani would resound through her bones.

  Boom! Boom-boom!

  The reverberations hung in the air long after the blows were struck. Then silence.

  Heloise dared to open one eye. She saw the five maidens of proper age—just on the verge of marriage but maidens still—step into the center of the lawn, their arms outstretched, each hand touching the shoulder of another. They moved with slow steps never practiced but observed each year from the sidelines until known by heart.

  It was impossible to misstep at Le Sacre. This was all part of the mystery and magic of that night.

  The shawm began to play a variation on its original tune. The girls stepped in time and then out of time, forming a small circle as they moved. In a pattern of steps Heloise tried but failed to understand, she saw one girl separated from the next. This was done without forethought—this was the part of Le Sacre known as the choice.

  Once the choice was made, the Chosen One stood in the center of the lawn. The other four girls backed away, leaving her standing there, head bowed, arms at her sides.

  It wasn’t Evette. It was Fleur Millerman, of all people. Heloise observed this with some surprise. For some reason she had always assumed her sister would be Chosen to begin Le Sacre song. But no. Though Evette would have her turn to dance and sing, it was Fleur who, when the shawm beckoned, raised her voice to the deepening night and sang the familiar lines:

  “Cianenso

  Nive nur norum.

  Nive noar-ciu, lysa-ciu.”

  No strange new words filled Heloise’s head. Only the same incomprehensible language she had heard on this night every year of her life. Fleur’s voice quavered and dipped out of tune on those soaring high notes of the third line. Heloise smiled, pleased that she wasn’t the only one who couldn’t quite sing Le Sacre.

  But the life and spirit of the music moved beyond the abilities of the singer.

  When Fleur began the next verse, her voice was nearly lost in the growling roar of Canneberges men suddenly throwing their voices into the song.

  “Nivee mher

  Nivien nur jurar

  Nou iran-an.”

  With another boom! from the timpani, twenty men stepped into the field and began to dance, forming three circles, the middle circle around Fleur. In each hand the men carried long canes; sometimes they clashed these together as they danced, and sometimes they smashed them on the ground. In the center circle, Fleur danced. Her steps did not match those of the men, and her movements went against the beat of the drums, following instead the pulsing call of the shawm.

  Heloise shuddered as she watched and as the music of Le Sacre surrounded her, the solemn darkness working its way into frenzied darkness. This was an important dance. Without it, would Winter ever go? Would Spring ever come?

  Fleur began to tire, more quickly perhaps than she should have. It did not matter. One of the other girls, seeing her footsteps begin to flag, slipped through the clashing, violent dance of the men and into that center circle. She took Fleur’s hands, whirled about with her through one progression of steps, then Fleur ducked away, back to the edge of the lawn where there was water and food, where she could rest herself for a while. The second girl took her place and danced alone in the middle of the lawn.

  All this Heloise beheld by the glow of the surrounding torchlight. Every year she had watched it, and every year it was the same. Strange, sad, beautiful, dangerous . . . and always with that sense of violence she never understood.

  It seemed to her as she sat now upon the edge of the lawn—with the memory of the shadow’s voice tugging at her consciousness down in that corner where she’d shoved it, hoping to forget it forever—that she understood something as never before. She saw the second girl dancing in the circle, her feet pounding out the steps, her hands waving, her body contorting.

  Heloise thought, She is meant to dance all night.

  But that was impossible. No one could dance this wild dance all night long. As each maiden tired, a new one hastened to her relief. To dance Le Sacre all night through would be . . . it would be suicide!

  It would be a sacrifice.

  The sick feeling in Heloise’s gut redoubled. She understood. She understood now what this dance meant, what it symbolized. She didn’t know if anyone else in Canneberges knew, but it made no difference. She knew. Perhaps others knew as well, and they simply didn’t care. After all, it was only a symbol. They didn’t really sacrifice anyone. They didn’t kill the girls.

  The shadows of the dancing men clashing their canes together seemed to take on life of their own, moving in wild gyrations between the pools of torchlight. The second maiden began to tire now. Heloise strained her eyes to see who the third girl would be, who it was that even now prepared to duck into that circle.

  But instead she saw . . . No, she couldn’t be seeing that. Not that. Anything but that. The shadows were merely those cast by the dancing men. They weren’t . . . they weren’t alive. They couldn’t be.

  Evette stepped into the circle. She took the hands of the other girl, and they danced around together. Then the other girl, gasping hard to catch her breath, slipped out of the circle and left Evette alone.

  Heloise felt her brothers on either side of her tugging her skirts. She realized vaguely that she had risen to her feet. Indeed, she was taking a step. “Heloise!” Clotaire protested in a hissing whisper.

  The shawm soared. The timpani roared.

  Evette danced in the center of the lawn, in the center of the night. In the center of the turning between Winter and Spring, the center of sacrifice.

  Around her the rings of movement whirled. The men. Their shadows.

  “Evette,” Heloise whispered, her voice lost in the shawm’s wail.

  Around Evette, moving in exact mirror-image o
f her movements, were eleven other figures, all within the center circle. They wore white—they were white. The opposite of shadows, they were nothing but an impression of whiteness and motion.

  Heloise squeezed her eyes shut and rubbed. She must be sick. She must be dizzy. She must be seeing things.

  She opened her eyes, and the white figures were solid. All young women. All like Evette. As one they moved in perfect unison with her sister, in faultless, enslaved obedience to the commanding music played.

  The song swelled. Heloise felt it grow far greater, far more impassioned than it had ever been before. It surrounded her even as those shadows and those phantoms surrounded Evette.

  “Heloise!” her brothers cried.

  She didn’t hear them. She was running. Out from among the women and the children she sped. Two tall lads bearing torches blocked her way, and she ducked between them, leaping into the ring of light.

  The dancing men, intent upon their performance, did not see her. But their shadows turned. She felt the eyes of those shadows fixed upon her. Above the music, the shawm, the pipes, the tabors, she heard the shadows laughing.

  A crash of canes in her ear. How close she came to being struck! She didn’t care. She fell forward to avoid the whirling of the Canneberges men, darting through the center of the first circle. The gathered crowd, seeing her, began to murmur, and the musicians, for the first time anyone could recall, faltered in their playing. But the music went on without the musicians. It didn’t need them, mortals that they were.

  Heloise burst from the first ring and made for the center. The white phantoms were moving now, not in time with Evette but faster by far, so fast that no mortal feet could keep pace with them. Evette, unaware, continued to dance.

  For the first time Heloise saw the sorrow in her face. The deeply scarring sorrow which she had never bothered to notice before.