by Andre Norton
Thus, as had been perhaps ordained long before by a Power beyond both, the Red became White, and heart sworn to one Cross found service beneath another which was, in truth, the same.
Sow’s Ear—Silk Purse
30th Anniversary DAW: Fantasy Anthology (2002) DAW
It is an accepted fact that, if a maiden is to prosper in this world, she must possess the gift of beauty. If she can claim that blessing, then fortune, fame, and illustrious marriage will surely follow in due time. This “fact,” however, is seldom true.
And if a young lady is not born with a mien of exceptional comeliness—a treasure more precious than the silver-spoon-in-the-mouth of proverb—then ways exist, albeit laborious ones, whereby she may acquire at least a modicum of the desired appearance. No one turns willingly away from the chance to show a radiant face. Or does she?
In the fifteenth year of the reign of King Karl the Sluggard, the town of Yerd boasted several families whose wealth was considerable enough to make them the equals of minor gentry. These prosperous folk were fully aware of the importance of their standing: the Sorens, the Wassers, the Rhinebecks, and the Berdmans had hats doffed and curtsies made to them whenever they chose to go abroad.
Marsitta Wasser had recently made a most fortunate marriage with a knight who held a position (albeit very minor) at court. That he was both threadbare of cloak and empty of pocket mattered not in the slightest when his shield bore the quarterings of four noble families. The young woman’s dowry would soon repair any lack in her fiancé’s fashions and fortune, and, in any event, the title “my lady” discreetly covered such embarrassments.
Some weeks after this world-altering event, Master and Dame Soren were returning from a visit to the home of the knight and his new bride. Not only had the Wassers still been very full of the wedding—they were now projecting a visit to Court. The Sorens felt thoroughly out of sorts and made their way home in silence and dark thought. Not until the maid, Jennie, had opened the door and Master Soren had stepped inside the hall did he speak.
“You have a daughter—” he barked.
Ingrada Soren bristled and caught him by the sleeve to pull him into the parlor, away from listening ears.
“WE have a daughter!” She spoke with the firmness born of many years’ peacemaking in small family wars.
Margus Soren made a sound close to a grunt. “We have a milkwater miss with a body as skinny as a darem bush when the leaves are gone, a face as freckled as if one of the carriage team had blown bran at her, and a fat-pudding brain so dull it cannot tell madras from silk!”
Dame Soren was stung by this sorry litany. Certainly Feliciana was no great beauty, but she was biddable and deft with her needle—both desirable traits in a wife—and one lone mistake in the cloth-mart did not mean she was lacking in wit. True, she had to be watched lest she dawdle away hours with those books the rector’s wife had lent her. Perhaps it would be best to see soon to breaking off that particular friendship.
With a shrug of his shoulders, her husband moved to one of the long windows that fronted the square. Sweeping the heavy drape to one side, he glanced out as the thunder of the iron-shod wheels of a traveling coach abruptly drowned out the usual street noise.
“The Boroughmaster’s nephew must be in trouble again.” Margus continued to watch the activity below and did not turn to his wife as he spoke. “Here he comes once more, to wait time out until Rhinebeck mends matters with Lord Gargene.”
The arrival of Yerd’s most notorious—but well-connected—rascal was hardly of great consequence. Such was Dame Soren’s first thought, but it was swiftly followed by another. All knew that Hilda Rhinebeck had chafed at the amount of attention paid to the Wassers’ wedding, being always eager to promote her nephew—no matter his reputation as a good-for-naught. Of course, he was grandson to a baron, and he did rub shoulders with the noble youths—the ones fond of gaming, at least—at the court. (Dame Rhinebeck reveled in the bits of scandal he reported and would arrange her entertaining accordingly.)
“ ‘Tis near the beginning of the hunting season,” Ingrada said slowly.
“Aye,” replied her husband, his voice still gruff, “and then half the lay-lazies of the shire will roister in our streets! Rhinebeck will be well out of pocket paying extra constables before the end of the month. That gangrel of a nephew will have to be watched. For has he money or no, depend upon it, a flock of fools will crowd about him to bet their sires’ silver—money already owed to honest guildsmen. We could do without that!”
Dame Soren made no answer; her mind was already busied adding this new information to its picture of Feliciana’s future, like a thread of gold added suddenly to a drab weaving. Men, she reflected, never really understood the finer points of marrying off a daughter to be a credit to her family.
Ingrada began listing the names of a few prospects as she headed for her chamber upstairs to lay aside her visiting finery—elegant clothing donned all too rarely, as Yerd was sadly lacking in festive occasions. She continued to be thus absorbed as she passed the closed door of the chamber where the object of her musings sat sewing, but the heel-clicks of her best shoes gave her away.
Feliciana’s head jerked up. Swiftly she made sure that the letter she had been reading was safely stowed in her work-box. As she heard the door of her mother’s chamber open, then close, she gave a sigh of relief—no visit, with the inevitable scrutiny of her limited charms, seemed likely now.
The girl rubbed her eyes tiredly, wishing that she might as easily escape from the mocking memories that had been with her ever since Marsitta’s wedding. Ingrada, she knew, would be spurred on by that social slave-auctioning to market her own daughter. Feliciana had no hope of escaping more of those nightmarish, shaming hours of sitting uncomfortably to one side of a ballroom, waiting until one of the “gentlemen” present was drunk enough to ask to partner her in a dance. At such times, she invariably either stumbled or committed some equally-unpardonable offense that she would hear about for days afterward.
She gulped, feeling physically ill with such remembrances, but she forced herself to set another stitch in the linen stretched over the frame before her. In the distance a door opened. Her mother was coming, after all! It had been too much to hope that she would not come in—she had been at the Wassers’ that morning, and what she had probably heard there would not be such news as to leave her in a good mood.
As Dame Soren entered the sewing room, Feliciana rose awkwardly to curtsy, but Ingrada waved her impatiently back to her seat. She herself remained standing, the better to view her daughter from head to foot, then back again.
The girl, she observed, was dressed well enough, her gown of that rather odd hue of red that was neither copper nor rust but a shade between, and one that truly suited her. There was no denying that she was plain, for her angular body lacked womanly curves. However, at least her eyes were stronger than those of the Berdman maid’s and, for all her foolish preoccupation with books, she did not squint. But her hair had always been straighter than a string—
“You have not used the curl-rags!”
With a guilty gesture, Feliciana pulled at a typical lock of lank, dull-brown hair. “The knots hurt so I cannot sleep,” she said miserably, “and when I comb it in the morning, it all just goes straight again.”
Ingrada set her lips. “Then Jennie must bring the iron.”
Feliciana forced herself not to shrink back. Jennie and iron meant burned ends and nasty smell—and, again, curls that did not last long.
Dame Soren strode toward a large chest set to one side of the chamber and opened the coffer with such force that the lid banged against the wall. She began to pull out lengths of linen, satin, and patterned silk—the finest such stuffs to be found on the shelves of the Soren shop. As she held up each in turn for inspection, Ingrada glanced from the cloth to her daughter with no lightening of countenance.
“We shall have Dame Roslyn in—and we had best see to that at once, as her work will
be in demand.”
Then, closing the chest, she was gone.
No—no—and no! The denial Feliciana dared not utter aloud rang in her head. She clasped her hands together until her fingers cramped. They would dress her in milk-and-water colors, as became a maid, choosing a modest style of gown, as suited the daughter of a Guildsman of the Council. But, as ever, she would be the object of smirks and titters.
Resolutely, she forced herself to concentrate on her needlework. Sometimes when she bent her mind wholly to her labor, she could, for a time all too brief, forget what lay ahead.
Jennie arrived, bearing not the curling iron but rather a tray of food; Feliciana was, then, to eat her noon meal in private. There was a plate heaped with gluttonous servings of several dishes; beside it stood a tall mug of milk and an after-sweet of rich cakes. This was her regular fare in double portion! So her mother was going to try to stuff her in the hope of producing curves where Nature had shaped her form with a miserly hand.
“Th’ Rogue do be back.” Jennie had put down the tray, but she was lingering.
“Is he?” Feliciana had little concern for this development; everyone in Yerd was used to Master Rogar’s comings and goings.
“There’s goin’ t’be mighty merrymakin’,” the maid continued, ignoring her mistress’s lack of enthusiasm in her own excitement. “Dame Rhinebeck—she’s been lookin’ to outshine th’ Wassers. An’ th’ hunters’ll be comin’ soon!”
When Feliciana still showed no interest, Jennie smoothed the edge of the tablecloth with elaborate care. Plainly, there was more she wanted to say.
The girl indicated the cakes. ‘Take one, Jennie,” she urged. “I’ll never eat so many, but I’ll hear about it if they are not all gone.”
“Thank ye, miss.” The servant bobbed her version of a curtsy and picked up a sweet but showed no sign of leaving. At last she burst out:
“Th’ Mistress—she’s a-makin’ plans again!”
To this ominous statement Feliciana said nothing. Jennie, however, took her silence for encouragement. Dropping her voice to a dramatic whisper, she revealed, “That Wasser girl, ‘tis said she went to the Green Hag and got her luck there.”
Now Feliciana did take notice. “Why would Marsitta need to do that?” she mused, bitterness edging her voice. “She was born with all the bounties.”
The maid frowned with the effort of unaccustomed thought. “Sometimes one wants t’ make sure,” she said slowly. “Maybe she just wanted to make real sure. Though I’m a-thinkin’ maybe she’ll find as how she didn’t do so well for herself—that knight o’ hers, he had him a mean-lookin’ mouth.”
“I don’t want to get married!” The protest wrenched itself from Feliciana, strident as a battle cry.
“Maybe not,” said Jennie sadly. Then she shrugged in resignation and repeated, “But th’ Mistress—she’s got plans.”
Feliciana drew a deep breath. Too true, but—no! She set down her fork, feeling the familiar wave of nausea at the idea of being exposed yet again to humiliation. In fine clothes that made her thin, awkward body look even more clumsy . . . with hair curled by force but too soon straggling down raggedly . . . powdered . . . painted. . . . She would feel a perfect fool, yet to some man, the girl knew, she would still be acceptable. The only way to escape would be to become so utterly ugly that no buyer would offer a beggar’s bit for her in die marriage mart.
Feliciana tensed. Ugly—grotesquely hideous. Could she bring herself to such a fate? She glanced toward her sewing box, in which rested the leaflet that Dame Kateryn, the rector’s wife, had given her.
Places existed, the broadside told, where an unsightly or crook-shanked maid could find refuge out of sight of the family to whom she was a source of shame. There she could do fine needlework, learn herbcraft for cooking and healing, or freely read and write. The women who lived in the haven of which Dame Kateryn knew taught the daughters of even the high nobility.
“The Green Hag,” said Feliciana suddenly. ‘Tell me about her, Jennie.”
Pleased at being invited to such an intimate confidence, the serving girl leaned close and spoke in a hushed voice. “They say as how she comes with th’ full moon, an’ she’ll give ear to the maid or man what takes her a gift she fancies. Them as is brave enough can seek her out near the Ghost Trees—”
Feliciana forced a laugh. “I fear I would never be so bold,” she said with careful indifference. “But thank you, Jennie.” Reaching out to draw her embroidery frame closer, she turned away from the barely tasted meal—and from her recent confidante. The servant hesitated a moment longer, then ducked a curtsy and left.
At the full of the moon—that was only two days hence. As she resumed her needlework, the young woman considered the perilous path of invoking the Wild Magic and the dire fate that might befall one who did so. It would be easy enough afterward—always supposing the tales were true—to say that she had fallen afoul of the Hag and thus had been undone. Feliciana did not like to think of the pity and scorn she now endured being multiplied a hundredfold if she were given a repulsive appearance, but—she stabbed at the fabric viciously—nothing could be worse than to have her mother try yet again to marry her off.
So far had she speculated when a sharp knock sounded on the door. A moment later, her father tramped in to plant himself before her with only the needle frame between them.
“Got news for you, girl.”
Feliciana scrambled up and curtsied. “Yes, sir?”
“Received an offer for you—most respectable one.” Margus Soren cocked his head to one side in a gesture of triumph and waited for his daughter’s reaction.
Suddenly the girl was truly afraid. She cast her eyes down, as was modest and fitting, and asked no questions, but her father was watching her closely, and she was sure he could see the pounding of her heart beneath the bodice of her gown. Who . . . ?
“Big a surprise as I ever had, mind you,” Master Soren went on expansively. “The Boroughmaster himself sent the offer. He would have you wed with his nephew—the grandson of a baron, no less! True, that House has had a run of bad luck—lost most of their holdings, they did—but naught can take away their standing.
“Yes,” the guildsman concluded with satisfaction, “Fortune has certainly smiled upon us. Be getting at your bride clothes now, for it’s a soon wedding they want. Marsitta Wasser can be a lady, but you’ll be a greater one—your dowry will be the Panfrey estate as came to me for debts five years agone. They’ll do well by you, girl, and so will we.”
Feliciana’s father was smiling benevolently at her, but his eyes were narrowed as he waited for her reaction. The young woman forced a shaky smile. “You have done all a daughter could wish, sir,” she said. That reply was the only one she could manage, but it was the truth by the standards of Yerd.
He nodded, satisfied, and left. The bride-to-be sank once more into her seat before the embroidery frame and stared at it, unseeing. The Rogue! His conduct had ever been ill, and many lurid stories were told of his exploits. He was rumored to consort with the red-wigged women on the north side of the town, and he was known to be a gambler, a liar, and a taker of pleasure in the evil plight of others.
The girl wanted to scream. Now the only hope left was to acquire an ugliness so appalling that it would outweigh the promised dowry.
For the next two days, Feliciana somehow bore the burden of her parents’ joy and the congratulations from members of the household and friends. In a hand that she forced not to shake, she signed the marriage contract under her father’s boldly written name. As yet, her betrothed had not made his appearance, and to that fortunate fact she clung, for if he saw her with her present homely-but-not-unwholesome face, any change would be laid to the meddling of Master and Mistress Soren.
For the next two evenings, the Rogue’s unwilling fiancée endured the twisting of her hair in the ritual of torture with the curling iron. But if by night the torture was inflicted with fire, by day it was performed with water,
or at least an unending flow of speech from her mother, mixing instruction and admonition. There was also a sticking with pins, as though she were a curse-poppet, though this pain was not intentional: it was the byproduct of long sessions of gown fittings. The girl felt added guilt at the cost of these rich garments that would never be used.
At last the night she awaited came. Wearied by the tryings (and tryings-on) of the day, but more than ever determined not to enter the life her parents envisioned for her, Feliciana crawled into bed. Jennie drew the curtains, shutting her off from the unwanted world.
When she was sure the maid had gone, the girl pushed off the covers and sat up. She feared to close her eyes, not only because she must not sleep but because her dreams had become nightmares that showed a death dance of ghastly faces. Finally, she could wait no longer.
Wriggling off the tall bed, Feliciana moved once more into the room. By the feeble light of its night-lamp, she dressed in the simplest gown and the oldest cloak she owned. Before Master Soren had risen in the Mercers’ Guild and prospered in the world, the family had lived with far less show, and she knew the town well from walking a number of its cobbled streets.
Yerd had not been threatened for many generations; in consequence, the city gate had stood open for so long that perhaps now it could no longer be closed. A constable was supposed to be on duty after dark, but he seldom stirred out of his shelter.
Keeping to the shadows, Feliciana slipped into the outer world. The Green Hag, she had learned, held rule not far from the ruins of the old Illet Abbey in a pocket-sized wood, the remains of a once-great forest. The way to the forsaken holy place was nearly grown over. She pulled her cloak about her as closely as she could, but every few feet she walked it was caught by a thorny claw from the walling brush.
Too soon, however, she reached the open ground about the abbey ruins. There the moon shone very bright. The girl felt for the small bag held in the breast of her chemise. She had no way of knowing what the Wild Witch would want in payment, but she had brought the only treasure that was truly hers: the pearl necklet given by her godmother at her christening.