by Tanith Lee
Presently, the man and girl went on. Reaching the door, and finding
this did not widen of itself, the man rapped with the knocker. It was shaped like a child's head, this knocker, with the ears of a rabbit - a silly yet rather unnerving object, especially when you saw the face of the child properly, and its malevolent grin of unherbivorous pointed teeth.
The girl rested her head on the man's shoulder, as if she were very weary. The man waited stolidly for an answer to his knock. He was quite unremarkable, except for his bigness and his obvious strength.
He had an overall wind-tanned, weather-beaten look that seemed to have washed his skin and his clothes and his hair in the same brownish-grayish uncolor. His eyes were large and pallid, and appeared not as strong as the rest of him, for he stared at things in a dim, uncertain way. The girl was another matter, for though she also was clad in the drab garments of the poor, her fair skin was beautifully clear, almost transparent, like that of some rich man's daughter kept much from the sun. And her hair was a wonderful soft pale shade of reddish blond.
The door was opened abruptly.
Inside the doorway loomed a large, black-bearded man in a suit of dark scarlet velvet, with rings and chain of gold, and a pearl in his left ear. He laughed aloud at the two visitors.
'Come, don't be startled. You expected a servant, no doubt, not the master of the house. I am Count Fedesha, and you are welcome to my home on this night of Midwinter's Eve.'
'We are unlucky travelers, my lord,' said the man outside. 'We were on our way to the city for the festival, but a strange thing happened to us. As the sun turned to the west, we passed between two old dead trees on either side of the road, and no sooner had the shadow of the western tree fallen on us than our poor little horse dropped dead in the shafts. Of course, a wagon is no use without a horse to draw it, and we were forced to leave it where it stood, and come seeking help.
Yours is the first dwelling we have seen on the road, and such a fine one I hardly dared approach. Yet I thought perhaps, out of your generosity, you might send a groom to aid us. My sister's a cripple, sir,' he added, almost as if in excuse; 'I have carried her all this way.'
'But tell me,' said the Count, still extraordinarily jovial, 'did no others pass you on the road who might have helped you?'
'Indeed yes,' the man replied, with a slow, puzzled air. 'Many that we called out to, though none of them stopped. Perhaps they thought us robbers, yet it seemed they never saw us, almost, you might say, as if we had grown invisible - a carriage nearly rode me down. But there's no telling. It was most odd, my lord.'
Count Fedesha laughed again, or rather, he giggled. He reached and chucked the tired beautiful cripple girl under the chin.
'Such pretty hair,' he said, 'should not be out in the cold.'
He led them inside.
Within was a vast hall, pillared in stone, and hung by tapestries that winked with gold thread in the firelight of the tall hearth; a thousand candles lit the room where the fire did not. Before the hearth lay a white bear fur with a head, and rubies in the eyes. Just beyond that, near the room's center, a mosaic was set in the floor, a curious design of circle and star, and the twelve shapes of the zodiac.
'Please, put your sister in the chair beside the fire, sir. You take the other,' cried Count Fedesha.
'My lord, you are too kind,' faltered the big man.
'Not at all. Tonight is the night of the festival, the turning away of the Old Beast, Winter. If we can't be kind to each other on such a night, why, God help us. There, put the maid down, and I'll bring you wine.'
Count Fedesha waved his ringed hand at a table near the hearth. 'Will you have the white wine in the silver jug, or the rose wine in the gold? Or would you prefer the red rum of the Westlands? Or maybe some apricot cordial, in that yellow bottle there? You must be surprised that I wait on you,' added the Count, 'but it's our custom, the Countess's and mine, to send our servants away to the city on Midwinter's Eve. So they may enjoy the festival, you understand.'
The big man had placed his burden in the chair. The girl sighed, and smiled at him, and at the Count, who handed her a goblet of cordial.
Her eyes, the Count observed, were an amber shade, like her hair. It really was a great pity… but it was foolish to speculate. Even though her innocence and grace appealed to him, there could be no leisure to dally.
Count Fedesha gave the big man rum, and made him take the other chair.
T'm sorry we can send no one to retrieve your wagon until tomorrow, when the servants return,' the Count went on, 'but you shall be our guests tonight, eat well and sleep soft.' The big man gaped at him.
They always did, and sometimes the women did too, but usually the women were more trusting than the men, and more greedy for a brief taste of good living. Some had smiled winningly at the Count, hoping to prolong their stay.
Count Fedesha watched the two of them drink from their goblets.
Everything was going most smoothly, and would go more smoothly now than ever, because of the black herb Mirromi had mixed ready in the cups. But it had gone smoothly for six years. This was the seventh year, and this the seventh occasion - the last occasion, if his clever Mirromi was right, and when had she ever been wrong? - and this the seventh pair of travelers brought here by the spells Mirromi had left on the road to waylay them. Count Fedesha remembered the first time, seven years before. How afraid he had been, eaten alive with terror. But Mirromi had gone up to the Tertiary Tower, and when she had come back, she had been smiling. Before dawn of Midwinter's Eve, she had slipped out and marked the occult symbols on the two dead trees half a mile off, next, left her potent magics on the highway, the track, the walls of the house, the gates. And ever since, each year on this dreary night of Midwinter's Eve, Mirromi had reactivated the spells. Cunning, uncanny spells they were, that would select only two travelers, a man and a woman, cause them some accident - a loosened wheel, a dead horse - that would then exert a drawing influence to pull the elected two toward the great house, rendering them the while quite invisible, inaudible, intangible to any passers-by who might otherwise aid them. Indeed, Mirromi and he, thought Count Fedesha, they were an ingenious and wondrous couple; they deserved their victory.
Still, a shame this girl was so pretty; she did not look so common as the rest, not a peasant type at all, though the brother was as rough and ready as they came. The Count giggled again, softly, into his wine.
Odd to recall how afraid he had been at the beginning, those seven years ago. And here he was, almost complacent.
And now came the naming of names.
Neither of his guests had offered him their names as yet, the girl too timid, the man too bemused. If they had tried, Fedesha would have
forestalled them. It was important that their own names be set aside, and thus, until the moment when the atmosphere must be altered, Fedesha would give then nicknames. Having drunk the sorcerous herb, overawed in any case and eager to please, the travelers always accepted these titles. And there had been some wicked ones he had invented in the past: 'Primrose' for the woman with the sallow yellow skin, and 'Camel' for the man with the humped back, and 'Biter' for the man with but three black teeth in his head. Now the Count looked his guests over and said: 'I'm going to call you "Quick," my fellow, because you move so fast. I hope you won't mind my eccentricity.'
The big man gave a slow sheepish grin. Obviously he took the point of the joke with the true yokel's lack of resentment. For the girl, the name was easy, and for once complimentary. 'The pretty lady I shall call "Amber," for her hair and her eyes.'
The girl lowered these eyes. She seemed to blush, but it might only be the firelight shining on her pale face. The Count wondered idly if she had been crippled from birth, or in some mishap. Probably her spine was weak, a frequent enough ailment among the poor, the result of childhood malnutrition.
A door opened behind a drapery.
The Count heard the step of his
Countess on the mosaic floor, and turned to see her glittering there in her black-and-gold gown, and with her raven's-wing hair poured in a net of jewels. At the center of her white forehead hung a scarab beetle of black jade on a silver chain. Fedesha recollected how she had sent a demon to rob the tomb of a dead queen for it.
'Ah, the stranded travelers,' cried Mirromi. At this point no one had ever questioned, and did not now, that the Countess apparently knew everything, without having been told. 'How pleasant to have guests on this night, though with our servants all away.'
It had been very convenient that it had been this night, of all the nights of the year, on which the trouble had begun. What better excuse than to say their servants had been sent by a benign master and mistress to the festival in the city? When in reality, of course, their servants fled the house and neither promise of reward nor threat of pain could persuade them to remain here on Midwinter's Eve.
Suddenly, Fedesha heard the sound. Despite his complacence, what
he had boasted of to himself, he became for a moment icy with returning fear. Even Mirromi stood motionless as a stone, her eyes darting. As for the big man, the man Fedesha had nicknamed Quick, he raised his shaggy slow head, and gazed about in puzzlement. Then the amber girl cried aloud.
The big man lumbered to her.
'Don't be frightened.'
The girl clung to his hand, but it was at Fedesha she stared.
'It was a fly, a great black fly.'
She had not spoken before. Her voice, Fedesha thought, was not as pleasing as the rest of her - thin and breathy, and rather flat, even in her fright.
'Oh, there are sometimes flies here, even in winter,' he coaxed her.
'They sleep in the crevices of the house, and the warmth of the fire draws them out.'
Buzz. Buzz. The fly, large as the scarab ornament Mirromi had stolen from the queen's tomb, crawled along the hearth, the flames glinting on its poison-coloured wings. It seemed oblivious of the season, the heat. Oblivious of the lunge the traveler made to stamp on it.
'No!' Fedesha shouted. He dragged the big man back from the hearth, and the monstrous fly droned up toward the shadowy rafters of the hall, its noise going with it.
Mirromi spoke sweetly, reasonably.
'You must forgive us. We consider it unlucky to kill flies upon Midwinter's Eve.'
When they had drunk together, the Countess and the Count, unsparing hosts, led them upstairs into another story, and into a passage where a series of splendid bedchambers were to be found behind mahogany doors.
'This room shall be yours, mistress Amber,' said the Countess, beckoning the brother to carry his sister inside.
Again, as ever at this juncture, there was fresh staring. The girl's face was full of marvel as a child's.
The fat white candles shone on the silk hangings of the bed; the coverlet was of velvet trimmed with ermines' tails. You could not see through the oval window, for it was a picture done in colored glass of a maiden plucking red fruit from a green tree - she had a disturbing girdle, like an elongated golden rat. Here and there, pomanders of blue and lavender pottery sent up a rare fragrance.
'Here is a silver basin, and the water is yet warm in it and scented with violet petals,' said the Countess. 'And here,' she flung open an upright closet, 'here is a dress that you shall wear tonight.'
Then the brother and sister saw another unlikely thing. For in the closet were hung six or seven dresses of black velvet embroidered over a thick tracery of gold. Each dress was in a different size - some would fit buxom women, and some would fit skinny ones, and one was just right for the slender cripple girl. And each dress, moreover, was an exact replica of the dress the Countess wore.
'Madam,' whispered the girl, 'it is too fine. And surely -'
'Nonsense,' said the Countess. 'As for the resemblance to my own garment, you are quite correct. You must permit us our eccentricities, my dove, really you must. And what harm will it do for you to be a Countess for one night? I will even give you my jewels to go with the gown, even my black scarab to wear on your forehead.' Though the big man had set his sister on the fur stool before the bedchamber hearth, she shivered now, but she did not argue. The Countess smiled, and smiled. 'I will even dress you myself.'
'No, lady,' said the girl's brother, 'I can do it. I'm used to helping her.'
He came near to the Countess and spoke low. 'She does not like others to see her. She's shy, being crippled.'
'Oh, very well,' said the Countess, granting him a vast favor. 'But don't forget, your own chamber is next door to this, and there are red velvet suits laid out there, one of which will fit you. For if your amber sister is to be a Countess for our Festival of Midwinter's Eve, then you are to be a Count.'
'Why must that be?' asked the big man, hesitantly.
'Why not, pray?' inquired Mirromi. 'Come,' she added to her husband, who had begun to giggle again. 'Give master Quick your chain and your rings, and let us leave our guests their privacy. I shall be back to fetch you to supper in one half of an hour,' she murmured, putting
Fedesha's jewelry into Quick's unprotesting wooden hand.
The Count and his lady adjourned outside and closed the heavy door.
At the far end of the passage a flight of fifty steps led up into another room, hung this time with black silks and with a window of blue and cochineal glass - the eastern window of the Tertiary Tower.
The Countess drew aside a silk hanging on the wall to reveal two round spy holes equipped with magnifying lenses. By means of skilfully angled tubes and the strategic mirrors placed in them, these spy holes gave a view into the rich bedchamber Countess Mirromi had allotted the cripple girl. A similar tube, once Mirromi had twisted open its amplifying valves, rendered audible any conversation which took place in the room. The Countess and the Count applied their eyes to the lenses, looked and listened.
The girl and her brother, in drugged obedience, had already dressed themselves in the velvet reproductions of their hosts' clothing. Now Amber sat on the bed in an attitude of dejection. The brother, Quick, stood before the fire.
'I'm afraid,' said the girl. 'Could we not leave, before they come back?
Such a great lady, but to act this strangely. Oh, I am afraid.'
'Yes,' said the brother. 'I don't care for it. Yet, perhaps, as they said, it's merely some prank, some jest to celebrate Midwinter's Eve -
though the mighty are not usually so liberal to such as we. Then, again… if they mean us harm, we should not get far, I having to carry you. And though I am strong, I'm not fast, my sister, nor very clever.
And suppose they have guards here after all, hidden somewhere? It is a large mansion. Who knows?'
The girl buried her face in her hands, and her shoulders shook. She whispered: 'Go without me then. I know I should slow you. I would rather suffer myself than see you hurt.'
The big man knelt by her and patted her with gentle awkwardness.
'Hush, don't cry. How could I leave you? You're all my life, little sister. Besides, truly, I believe I must remain. I think we may be under a spell.'
The black action of a large fly flickered over the rooms, the corridors,
the staircases of the great house, the air vibrated with its buzzing. But the Count and Countess paid it little heed as they clad themselves in homespun and rags for supper.
Quick carried Amber into the hall, preceded by the Countess, who now wore, in sharp contrast to the finery of her guests, a shapeless gray gown, rough wooden shoes and knitted stockings. Her black hair was bound in a tattered scarf. Amber's hair glowed under the net of gems the Countess had confined it in, and the black jade scarab rested on her forehead.
A long table had been set near the hearth over the design of the zodiac. At one end of the table, two places had been laid with plate of silver and fine cut-glass goblets. Close to these were a variety of generous roasts, vegetables and hot pastries, piles of costly winter fruit, candi
es and sweetmeats, and many jugs and bottles of liquor. At the opposite end of the table were a couple of earthenware plates and mugs, a jar of beer and an ewer of water, a loaf of coarse black bread.
The Count, in laborer's garments, waved Quick to the elegant portion of the table, seated the Countess and himself before the earthenware dishes.
'Now, no protests,' said the Count. 'This is how it is. My wife and I are able to enjoy luxury on every other night of the year. On this one night, we choose to live humbly and let our guests play our parts, don our velvets and jewels, eat of our fare and sup our wine.'
The brother and sister sat down. They gazed uneasily at the rich food, the laden plates. Perhaps they were pondering, if all the servants were supposedly gone to the city, who it could be who had prepared this dinner. Surely not the Countess? Despite her improverished clothes, her hands were white and her nails dyed flawless crimson. The Countess broke off a piece of the coarse bread and ate it, drank some water. She did not require cooks to provide an elaborate meal. She could summon up others who could do as well as a human cook, and better.
'Eat, drink,' encouraged the Count. He rose, carved meat for the visitors, heaped their silver platters, poured them wine. There was no pearl earring in his ear now, just a small hole where it had been.
The brother and sister began to pick at their food.
The darting of a fly, the intermittent buzz it made, had become so familiar now, it was scarcely remarkable, like the ticking of a clock.
Then, abruptly, the darting buzzing stopped.
The Countess glanced up, the Count paused over his mug of beer. An instant's silence in the wide and well lit hall.
The amber girl moaned, and shrank back in her chair.
Something was hopping on the table.
It hopped between the silver salt cellars, the gold cellars of spice. It hopped into the mound of fruit, setting the apples and the peaches rolling. It was like a warty, shiny, gray-green fruit itself. It hopped, this warty fruit, into the dish of the cripple girl, and its upraised round eyes, the color of yellow sourness, glittered and glared at her. It froze to the immobility of marble, still glaring.