by Andre Norton
She gestured to the other side of the room where there was set up, stretched and fastened smoothly on a frame, a length of fine, silvery cloth. The two ladies curtsied with elaborate flourishes which led Willadene to believe that there was little liking between them and the High Lady. However, Mahart had already beckoned her other companion to pull her stool closer.
“Now.” She was truly excited, Willadene saw, as might be a child before an array of toys from which she must make a choice. “What new things has Halwice concocted with that fabulous skill of hers?”
Willadene undid the cover of her bag. She felt more at ease, for she was sure of the products she had brought and she did know well their uses.
From the first pocket she withdrew a round bell of opaque opalescent glass which fitted well into the cup of her hand. A quick twist separated it into two. On one side was a paste of palest pink, while facing it was a supply of lily-white cream.
“It is not yet the season of flowers hereabouts, Your Grace. But my mistress has those who bring her scents from other lands. This—” She advanced the pink half a fraction “—comes from the far south—that is dried petals which scents it so—but it is a cream to be used when the sun is high enough to burn the skin exposed to it. Its companion cream can be used nightly to leave the face and hands smooth and clear—”
Thus she spread out those results of Halwice’s blending and brewing, giving a clear explanation for each, its use and the care which must be followed in that using. She had drawn out the last of those Halwice had apportioned to her—a small flask fashioned in the form of a tiny, fully opened fan (one of the few treasures which had fortunately escaped that brutal attack at the shop).
“This—” she held it up “—works so.” She pressed the small pearl-centered lid and from beneath that spot there came a mist of spray.
Unlike the heavier scents of the other jars and bottles which now were displayed, this was a much lighter fragrance. Willadene herself had been unable to identify its ingredients, though she had been able to tell one from the other.
The High Lady drew a deep breath. “That—! What might it be? Flowers"—her eyes were half closed—"and the fields—the free wind—” It was as if she saw beyond them, this room, out into a place which was hers alone.
“This is Velvet Vine, Your Grace. It is from overseas and Halwice says that this is the last of that she had sent her five seasons past. The vine flowers but once in three years, and the flowers must be harvested within the dawn hour before the night dew has left their petals. It takes, Your Grace, a full cartload alone of flowers to press for a few droplets of oil.”
Mahart caught it from her eagerly. As delighted as she had seemed with all else Willadene had displayed she appeared most excited with this. Yet the lady who had shared all her interest in the former wares, examining each as Mahart had passed it to her, looked at what her mistress now held with a faint surprise.
“It is very faint—other scents within a room would quickly overpower it, Your Grace,” she commented with the freedom of one to whom the Duke’s daughter must have at least offered a measure of friendship.
“Think you so?” Mahart appeared openly surprised. “But—” She cradled the small bottle in her hand as if the warmth of her flesh might release even more of the scent she craved. “But to me—” She now shook her head determinedly. “I cannot agree, Zuta. Herb girl—no, it is Willadene they call you, is it not? Can you tell me more of this?”
“Nothing except what my mistress said—that with certain other bindings and fragrances, the velvet vine flowers blend well. There is none other of it now left in her shop—”
Mahart looked down almost dreamily at the bottle. But Zuta hitched her stool forward a fraction.
“There is another fragrance even rarer.” Her voice held an impatient note, Willadene thought. “What had you heard of Heart-Hold?”
There was an odd moment of silence in the whole chamber, as if Zuta’s voice had been raised enough to also catch the attention of those at the embroidery frame.
“Heart-Hold?” It was Mahart who laughed. “A legend—” Then she suddenly glanced sharply at Willadene. “A legend surely,” she repeated, and her tone of voice suggested that she expected agreement with that.
The girl hesitated. “Your Grace, what I would learn of the trade my mistress has mastered so well, comes from constant study. And one thing is always clear—that at the heart of any much-repeated tale there is a core of truth. However—” Her foot touched the bag from which she had been pulling forth Halwice’s work and she remembered that book. But there was no reason to share with the High Lady an account which merely repeated all the old details threadbare by time. “However, in whoever practices an art there lies a deep wish—to find a new treasure, to bring it to fruit and display it. The story of Heart-Hold might well have been born from such a desire.”
The Lady Zuta stirred. “They say it was on the high altar of Ibarkuan Abbey when the northern barbarians broke the fort line in the long ago. To such it would have no meaning and they might only have crushed it into nothingness.”
“That is as many versions of the tale report,” agreed Willadene. “So to us now Heart-Hold is the unobtainable which those who aspire to deeper depths of knowledge will always seek.”
The High Lady had raised her hands, which cupped the fan bottle, to the height of her chin. She looked, Willadene thought, now as one who dreamed, but when she spoke softly it would seem that she knew very well of what they spoke.
“Who would hold a heart,” she mused as if to herself, “by something as fleeting as a scent? A heart must be held by what is within one. But"—now she looked to Willadene as if for a moment or so she had been unaware of her presence—"what the Herbmistress has sent us is treasure indeed, this most of all.” And she continued to hold the fan bottle. “Zuta, if you will summon Julta, I would have all these riches taken to my dressing chamber, and you"—she smiled at Willadene—"can show us when the time comes how best they can be put to use.”
Hurriedly Willadene returned the boxes, bottles, and jars to their pockets in the bag. So this much of her task was accomplished. She was now, indeed, at least a temporary member of the High Lady’s household, even as Halwice wished.
When she held out her hand for the fan bottle, Mahart shook her head. “Not this—as yet. I have a fancy to keep this with me.” She carefully set her forefinger to the pearl button on the bottle and breathed deeply as the answering mist must have dampened the bodice of her dress close to her throat.
“Tell me,” she continued, “how do you harvest your herbs, Willadene? Is the countryside outside the walls of Kronengred well supplied with the flowers and plants you need?”
“Your Grace, that I cannot tell you. This is not yet the season of flowering and I have only been with my mistress for a short time. How or what she harvests when it comes to its peak I do not know. There is a garden behind the shop, but the herbs grown there are for cooking and healing, and when I have seen the Herbmistress concoct such as these’’—she indicated the last of those she was packing away—"it was always from her own supplies. Some are dried and not taken from their stems for grinding until they are needed, others are preserved in oils, some come as packets of powder. But how they look in the fields as they grow—of that I have only seen the pictures in my mistress’s books. I have never been beyond the walls of Kronengred.”
“So it is with me also,” Mahart returned. “Tell me— were you always with Mistress Halwice? I know that often herb lore runs in families. Was it so in your case also?”
She seemed to be genuinely interested in Willadene’s past. And perhaps it would be better for all concerned that the girl supply at once details which could be easily checked should any find a reason to wish it.
“No, I am no kin to Mistress Halwice. Though she knew my mother who was midwife for the fourth sector. Even when I was little I had heard of her potions and healing powers. But that was before the plague—”
Willadene smoothed the skirt of the finest dress she could now remember ever wearing and thought of how just a short time back she had gone meagerly covered with ragged castoffs.
“I was one of the homeless children. My father was Hakroine, Second of the Rangers’ First Squad. He was away—mother nursed those plague-stricken until she also was taken. Then they said my father had been killed by outlaws and I had no family remaining. So I was brought to the Reeve for assigning.” She wanted to squirm away from the result of that and she paused.
“And he assigned you to the Herbmistress?”
Willadene shook her head. “There were so many of us and there was so much for the Reeve to be doing. He placed us at the first asking of any who wanted our services. I went as scullery maid to a distant cousin Jacoba of the Wanderers Inn.”
She fell silent. How could the Duke’s daughter understand such a person as Jacoba or a den as foul as her inn?
Willadene looked down at her hand and the bag she had just finished refilling. What was one who had been a scullery maid to Jacoba doing here, talking with the High Lady as if they might be neighbors? But the sight of the bag stiffened her. So things might have been in the past but they were no longer so. She was Halwice’s chosen apprentice and trusted enough to be here for more than one purpose.
“But you have the Herbmistress’s favor and are her right hand now,” Mahart continued. “Thus things are better for you—even as they are—for me,” she ended in a lower voice.
“Your Grace—” The Lady Zuta now stood behind Mahart’s chair. “Julta waits to show this one her place of duty and her lodging.” There was a coldness in that, and Willadene could see the distinct frown on the lady’s face. Undoubtedly her free speech with the High Lady was not to the favor of her attendant, but Willadene had only answered the questions Mahart had asked.
She arose from the cushion and curtseyed again. Zuta might be frowning and forbidding, but the High Lady herself was smiling and when she did that she was far more attractive than the dark beauty behind her.
“You must continue to tell me herb lore,” Mahart announced. “I do not have the right to demand the attendance of your mistress—especially when the Chancellor needs her superior skills. But you can explain to me little things, and that in itself will be a new form of learning.”
She was to share Julia’s quarters, Willadene discovered—leaving her clothing bag beside a second narrow bed in a rather stark room, though there were curtains at the window and a strip of hand-hooked carpet as a runner between the two beds. Over one of which there was a shelf which had been made into an impromptu shrine with a small tinsel Star symbol, such as were sold to raise money for alms.
Julta indicated the basin and jug on a small side table and the way to the necessary from the landing without. Then, with Willadene still lugging her bag of cosmetics, they descended to the chamber directly below which was Mahart’s own bedroom.
At present that was in disarray. Though covers had been drawn over the bed to protect its rich hangings, and most of the rest of the furnishings treated so also, there was a musty smell and dust sifting through the air, as well as such sounds as Willadene would not have expected in the High Lady’s own private place.
Two men were busy at the far wall, which had been stripped of its hangings, and they were apparently applying a thick coating of plaster, the dust of which made Willadene sneeze, over the ancient paneling.
“Yur lady, she won’t get no more cold wind through this.” The older of the two men slapped another dollop over the wood. “Takes a lotta doin’, it does, to keep up this here old pile of stones. Watch what yur a-doin’, lump, the young wench don’t want none o’ that stuff spottin’ her skirts, now do you, missy?”
Willadene had carefully avoided the somewhat wide swing of the laborer’s assistant. He had been distracted, she saw, by their own entrance and flushed a dull red when Willadene looked in his direction, leaning quickly over the pot for another load on his trowel.
Julta sniffed. “What a muck you be makin’ here, Jonas. Will take us half a seven night to be clearin’ it. Mistress"—she spoke directly to Willadene—"now you just set that there bag of yourn in this wardrobe. Ain’t no clumsy-footed man a goin’ to kick it over when in there.”
Willadene obeyed instructions. Certainly in this hubbub there could be no unpacking of her wares at present. Then—she took time to straighten from putting her bag into the dark cupboard Julta had indicated.
Evil! At first she thought that trace came from the interior of the wardrobe. But no, the source was somewhere behind her. She turned to shut the door on her possessions and used that action to give a quick glance about the room.
The room—no, it came from— She made herself look inquiringly at Julta as if waiting further instructions. But she was sure. Just as the evil had touched and clung to Figis from the inn so did it lie here under the sweat and body odor of the red-faced boy. Yet there was nothing about him to suggest the same sly waywardness Figis had always shown.
13
This was not so strong and sickening as had been the assault upon her senses when she had been in that other tower room. And Willadene found it very hard to believe that this Jonas could have anything to do with that hand which had loosed blackness upon them. His hand was not that of a woman nor could she conceive of his being akin to what small sight she had caught of their menace then. Yet she could not be mistaken.
“Lay it on smooth, boy—” The master workman had drawn aside a little when he saw that they still lingered to watch the ongoing labor.
Knowing that a too-quick or unthinking move might reveal her, Willadene somehow produced a look of slight interest.
“Are all the walls to be served so?” she asked. “It is well away now from the Great Cold, which ought to give you time—”
The man laughed, showing stubs of blackened teeth. “All these walls, young miss? ’Twould take a full army of us to do that. No, we put a patch here an’ a patch there as we-uns have done, an’ our dads a-fore us, an’ it serves for a while.”
She had managed to take a step or two closer to the bucket of plaster. The odors which arose from that—she would take oath that, unpleasant as they might be, none were what she sought. No, her faint warning came from the young man. But what could she do—denounce him here and now? With what proof? It would avail her nothing except to uncover the very secrets she had been sworn to keep.
Before she could make any decision the matter was taken out of her control when the master sent his assistant off for more supplies. As he passed her Jonas did not glance in her direction but slouched out, seemingly intent only on the near empty bucket in his large hands.
‘‘Faugh.’’ Julta spat out what might have been a mouthful of the all-pervading dust. “Stay here, girl, and this stuff will give you a powdering far from any your mistress would contrive.”
So Willadene followed on the maid’s heels again from the disarrayed room. Halwice had provided her with one way of communication. By the resounding boom of the city bell she could make use of that now and she would, even if she had only a wisp of evidence to offer.
Julta did not seem surprised when she asked the way to the Lord Chancellor’s suite where her mistress was supposed to be in attendance. Since the High Lady had dismissed her, Willadene was entitled to at least the freedom of the tower and the chamber she would seek beyond that.
Listening carefully to complicated directions concerning this corridor and that door, Willadene hoped she was memorizing Julta’s words correctly.
“It is near noon time,” the maid ended. “If you would eat, do so now. You can seek out your mistress after, for Her Grace has not definitely summoned you back.”
Willadene’s empty middle (she had not been able to finish her bowl of porridge that morning with such an ordeal before her) urged her to follow the maid’s advice, and
Julta’s spare figure, down two flights of stairs, along a corridor, and at last into a room where there was a great deal of noise and confusion.
All the servants of the castle did not eat together, Willadene gathered. Those of the upper class, who dealt directly with the Duke or either of the ladies, had their own trestle table set up at one end of the room, and it was to that Julta beckoned her, making her known, in a perfunctory fashion, to the Duke’s head footman and a herald who moved down the long bench enough to let them be seated.
The babble of talk was loud enough to make regular conversation impossible without shouting, thought Willadene, used as she was to the quiet of the herb shop. It rivaled that clamor which hurt the ears of all who served wayfarers in the inn when one of the big merchant trains had just arrived in time for a meal.
After the first few words she had been able to sort out, Willadene gathered that the subject engaging those about her was a single one—the arrival of Prince Lorien and his guardsmen. And her present table companions were certainly loud in their agreement concerning the effect of such a visit on Kronengred.
She broke the crust of a meat tart with the edge of her spoon and sniffed with pleasure. Here was not any too-old meat or second-day vegetables. The food was good and the portions hearty, though a single sip of the ale in the tankard at her place warned her it was far too strong and bitter for her liking.
“They say he brought down the Wolf with his own hand!” declared the footman. “I heard as Sergeant Henicus has said he is like his grandfather—old King Wansal— no hanging around the court, playing the pretty for the maids for him!”
The herald grunted and then swallowed so he could speak more clearly. “They say as how there are them at the court that could do with less soldiering. The High Prince Ranald takes only to the field for the spring maneuvers—”