by Tanith Lee
Sophisticates of the towns marked such stuff only as nonsense is marked. And as for Marsineh’s father, though he himself, in his youth, had been wont to play a childish game known as ’Ware the Claws of Kolchash, he was convinced that the Kolchash of the rumors could not be the Kolchash of the chests and boxes. One should not get in the way of such ardent and generous love.
Time began to pass swiftly in the house with preparations for the great lord’s advent.
Marsineh was caught, as a tender fly in a sticky web, and with as little chance of escaping. As she drifted through her pre-nuptial tasks and duties, listless with anxiety and unhappiness, she could not help but sometimes imagine how differently she would have flown along the path of days and nights toward a marriage with Dhur. (Of that young man nothing at all was said in the town, save that he was handsome and fond of diversion—and that his spurs might have fed a poor family for half a year.)
At first, Marsineh partly believed that Dhur would send some word to her, to convey what she was not certain. When no word came, she thought him as blindly grief-stricken as she was, as hopeless. There was nothing he might do for her, any more than she might do anything to assist herself. Delicately reared and, until now, never seriously at odds with parental decree, she could not envisage any alternative to obedience. Besides, she was surrounded continually by members of the household, by her maids and attendants, by female relations who had come to congratulate her, with bright nervous speculation in their glances. Never was a prisoner more zealously jailed.
But, if Marsineh could not visualize disobeying or evading her parents, neither could she picture her wedding to the peculiar Lord Kolchash, let alone what might follow.
There came then a night, scented by the jasmine that flourished under the young girl’s window, when, exhausted and wan, she fell asleep in her bed and experienced this dream:
The marriage had taken place. It was done. She was borne, with a faint memory of it—of burnished vessels, aromas and spices, fireworks and drums—inside a curtained litter, along an unknown highway. On every side rode or strode a vast company, the servants and soldiers of a lordly household, while a little ahead of her, on a coal-black horse, was he, her husband, Kolchash.
Now in the dream it seemed to her suddenly that, though wed to him, she had not yet seen Kolchash. Somehow, throughout the long ceremony, he had been obscured from her, as she at the beginning had been obscured from him, head to toe, by her beaded and embroidered bride’s veil. How this should be she could not guess—for surely, when he had lifted up her veil, if not before, she, too, must have caught a glimpse of him—yet she remembered nothing of it. She could not even have said if he were tall or short, slender, thick, or bowed with age. The black horse alone came to her mind, and that only as if someone had warned her of it.
Accordingly, Marsineh felt compelled to part the curtains of her litter and to look out after him, after Kolchash.
It was a night journey, for the marriage itself had not begun until the hour after sunset, when the new moon lifted. By now it would be well past midnight. The procession of her lord moved through the black night world, glimmering like moving water in its materials and metals, for its ranks supported many lamps on ebony poles. They swayed overhead, these lights, rosy moons-at-the-full, and now and then night moths dashed about them and fell away.
But stare as she did through that progressing, nearly silent throng, Marsineh could make out nothing of her husband. Then she did notice another thing, which was that the vast procession was about to enter a forest that had come sweeping in on the road. It had such an appearance, this forest, of smothering darkness and enclosure, that Marsineh, who was already frightened in the dreary enervating fashion to which the months of her betrothal had inured her, now turned cold with a special fear. Unable to prevent anything that might happen, she let go the curtain of the litter.
After a space, the litter’s motion stopped.
Marsineh gripped her hands together in dismay. And sure enough, in another minute, a shadowy figure parted the curtains, bowed to her and said, “Madam, the Lord Kolchash desires that you alight. We are to take rest, for the remainder of the night, in the shelter of this wood.”
He assisted her to leave the litter, to do the very thing she wished for least. And there on the lawns of the forest she found herself, in a clearing afloat with the procession’s lamps. All around the trees had closed their wall. She had entered, but there was no way out.
“Now, madam,” said the shadowy servant, “I will conduct you to your lord’s pavilion.”
And again Marsineh must do what she wished for least, and over the night grass she went on her dream-feet that felt and seemed as real as feet of flesh—or clay. A great shining tent already stood apart, the far side of a slight running stream with one flat stone at its center. By this they crossed but too easily, and on the farther bank other shadows raised the flap of the pavilion’s entrance, and Marsineh passed through.
To be within the tent was to be within a globe of nacre. Its draperies were seamless, and like the wall of trees offered entry but no exit point. The tent was furnished with objects of luxury, while on a gilded perch crouched a bird like a fire, with fountains of flames for crest and tail. But it looked at her with a cold eye like a snake’s. Near the back of the tent stood an icon of black and gold. Marsineh’s fearful gaze took this for the statue of some foreign god. Then the golden hands quivered on the black robe sewn with golden suns and stars, and the black mask turned a little under the golden diadem. There were eyes in the mask, watching Marsineh as the fiery bird watched her, but she could not tell their shape or shade.
“Now you are my wife,” said a low deep voice from out of the mask. “Can you deny this?”
Marsineh faltered, “No, my lord.”
“Be seated then. Eat and drink.”
Marsineh sat trembling on the cushions. She took up a cup of black jade which stood ready, raised it, but could not bring herself to taste the wine. She crumbled wafers of honey on a plate of the rarest transparency, and cut open a fruit with a silver knife.
“Where is your appetite, my bride?” said Kolchash then, out of his mask. “Can it be you are afraid of me, your own husband? Is it my facial covering which frightens you so? Shall I remove it?”
At these words, Marsineh was seized by a terror worse than any she had ever known.
“No, no, my lord,” she protested. “It is not necessary that you reveal yourself to me.”
“Yes, yes, dear wife,” said he, “for long ago I spied your charms, albeit imperfectly through the mists of a magic glass. In courtesy I will display to you, in turn, my own visage.”
Transfixed she sat then, the young bride, in that shining pavilion. She beheld how two gloved hands were put up, two gauntlets of gold to which nails, long as claws and enameled black, had been attached—or else, could it be?—they were the true nails of Kolchash which pierced through. And the blank, black mask wavered and began to shift. It separated away and dropped down upon the carpets— And there: Her husband’s face.
Marsineh awakened screaming.
• • •
It happened that the foremost among Marsineh’s women, a beautiful girl by the name of Yezade, had elected to sleep that night in the antechamber, in order to be near her lady. These two maidens had been brought into the world within a year of each other, and dwelled under the same roof, constant companions all their lives. And although Yezade was not so well-born as her playfellow-mistress, yet she had been daintily raised and educated at Marsineh’s side. And as they grew, like a double blossom on one branch, perhaps seated on either side of a harp and sounding it together in the alternating phrases of a tune, or stitching each of them one half of a single flower upon a scarf, so they had sworn often enough that they would never be parted. But next they grew up, and either one turned to her own affairs, although Yezade remained the chief among Marsi
neh’s ladies. Yezade, too, had plainly kept enough in sympathy with Marsineh to see her horror at the proposed wedding-match. And Yezade, while saying nothing of it, had all this time been brooding on Marsineh’s plight.
Hearing her mistress shriek, Yezade therefore ran into the bedchamber.
It was the last hour of the old moon (for the evening of the marriage was almost at hand). There in the window lay the lunar scarecrow, over on her back, thin and curved like a sailless boat. Marsineh, whiter and fairer far, was sobbing beneath.
“Dear mistress,” cried Yezade.
Marsineh exclaimed:
“Oh, I have had such a fearsome dream—and I believe it to have been not solely a figment of sleep, but a true prophecy of what lies before me.”
“Tell it, I beg you.”
So then Marsineh, between her sobs, recounted all the dream. And Yezade sat by, her wide eyes fixed on Marsineh, hearing of the procession, the night, the forest, the clearing and the lighted tent, of the masked icon which bade the bride sit, eat and drink, and then asked her if she would see its face, the visage of Kolchash.
“And though I entreated he would not, he raised his golden hands, with the huge long black claws on them, and pulled off the mask—and so I saw—I saw—”
“Oh my dear mistress, what?”
“That he had the face of a beast.”
And Marsineh hid her own countenance in her hands.
After a brief interval Yezade, perhaps pedantically, inquired, “Of what sort was this beast?”
“Oh, I do not know—cannot tell—it was ghastly, beastly. The eyes glared on me and the teeth glittered—I screamed and woke myself up screaming. But there is no safety. This is to be my fate.”
Then Marsineh fell on her bed and wept copiously.
Yezade sat by, as if in solemn thought, and seeing her do this, you might have deemed her unusually callous, until at length she spoke again.
“Sister,” said she, “you may recall that my mother, before she died, was sometimes called ‘the witch.’ And it is a fact, she had some skills, whose secrets I have inherited—though never flaunted, for we know, you and I, it is generally more sensible for a woman to pass unnoted. Now you, who have always been kind and loving to me, have also a sweetheart, the young man you had wished, and supposed, you would wed, doubtless-broken-hearted Dhur. But I have no one who would miss me, and indeed, if I am to be parted from you, no one will care for me, and I for no one on the earth. Therefore, let me take your place at this marriage. We are much alike, and of the same height and slenderness, and in the bridal finery and veil, I think wicked Kolchash, who only spied you—as he said in your dream—in a misty magic glass, shall be fooled and never think for an instant I am anyone but yourself. Later, by employing my mother’s arts, maybe I can protect myself. Or if I cannot, then I shall encounter whatever trouble was to have been yours. And if he has a beast’s face, I say all men are beasts and monsters, whether they look the part or no. I fear him not a jot. And if you, meanwhile, can fly to liberty with your lover, that will be for me sufficient.”
Now Marsineh had, throughout their life together, in some ways grown accustomed to taking the advice of Yezade, who was demonstrably the bolder of the two. Marsineh was besides now in the situation of one drowning, and inclined to clutch at any reed or straw in the torrent to save herself. Therefore, although she deplored the idea of her childhood companion undergoing this horrible trial, yet Marsineh could not help thinking that brave and resourceful Yezade could contrive in the ordeal better than she. In fairness, Marsineh imagined, too, that the ruse might be uncovered before the fatal night journey was begun. The resemblance between the two girls was remarkable (nor improbable, for they had had the same father), but surely Kolchash, who had so explicitly demanded one maiden, would be able to tell the difference. Thereafter Yezade would be absolved as her mistress’s dupe—Marsineh in the arms of Dhur, and safe.
For all these reasons then, Marsineh was persuaded to the scheme of Yezade, and the rest of the night spent in the polishing of plans.
• • •
Dawned the wedding day, the wedding noon and afternoon. And as it wore, the watchmen on the town wall descried a great yellow plume of dust rolling at the horizon. “It is the procession of Marsineh’s bridegroom. Look how he hastens! Yet he is miles off. He will not reach the gate before sunset.” And then they touched various amulets they had put on that morning.
The dust-plume rolled slowly nearer as the day shrank into the west. The plume turned to white, to red, to purple, as the sky flushed, until over the road to the town gate poured a host, the substance of the dust, which itself rose against the curtain of sunfall.
On the streets, from the windows and over the garden walls, the town looked a little slantwise, to see Lord Kolchash, the successful wooer. It was a strange thing; his company played no music, as was customary. Stranger still . . . men and horses, litters and carts went by, there were lamps, and the jewelry the lamps set light to—and yet, no one could afterward be exactly sure of the nature of the procession. Of the position of things, the garments, banners. And any who foolhardily gawped after Kolchash himself, they did not pick him out. They murmured that perhaps he had not come, in the end, but delegated his place, as before.
As the last color was bled out of heaven, with a swirl and hiss as of some boiling cloud settling to ground, the host arrived before Marsineh’s father’s house. And on the door of it fell a loud knocking, one, two, three. “Open!” boomed a voice, “Lord Kolchash is here to claim his promised wife!”
Then the doors were flung wide, and a crowd of the host rode in. Musicians struck up in the house as if in gladness. On the threshold of the inner court, where the marriage was to be, priests made offerings at the household altars, to the gods, who, as always, paid no attention. Maidens crowned with flowers came forward to welcome—what? Some tall swathed creature, crowned itself with a headdress of sheer gold.
In the east, pale and emaciated as if sick, the new moon was rising.
Petals and perfumes and notes of melody—and down the stair came the bride, veiled close under a web of spangles, which concealed all from her amber hair to her painted toes.
And so there were cries of delight and calls of goodwill and priestly chantings, firecrackers and tabors, bells and harps, birds let out of cages and incenses burning blue.
What a very fine and proper wedding.
2. The First Night: Lovers’ Meeting
A messenger stood before the house of Dhur’s father. The messenger was elegantly arrayed, though not mounted, and indeed he seemed but a boy. The porter of the house looked askance upon him.
“My young Lord Dhur is from home. He went off this very morning.” The messenger turned pale in the dusk. A harsh master then must have sent him, one who would exact punishment for a message undelivered. “But my young lord will return in three days at the most. He has merely gone to hunt in the woods.”
“Oh, heartless,” breathed the pretty youth. His eyes, lustrous in any case, had now blossomed with bright tears.
“Is your master impatient?” inquired the porter. “Tut. We servants have a harsh life.”
“Either I must impart to the Lord Dhur my most urgent news,” whispered the messenger, “or perish.”
The porter roused. He supposed Dhur had fallen foul of some debt or irked some vengeful husband, and that this might be a caution from some friend. Having himself a soft spot for Dhur, and not wishing either to expose him to danger or to alert his father in the matter, the porter now took it on himself to save the day—besides, the winsome youth might prove winsomely grateful.
“Now see here,” therefore said the porter, “in the stable is a fine riding-ass, of which I am allowed the use, and which no one will miss. This I shall lend you so you may follow Dhur. The way is simple enough. You have only to go out of the town’s gate—which is tonight
to be kept open in honor of an exiting bridal procession (and a strange one, I hear!). Beyond the town, ride along the highway and enter the woods, but do not stray from the road there. The Lord Dhur and his companions will be at their lodging in the Inn of the Turtle Dove, which lies against the road. It is a journey of only three or four hours.”
If the porter hoped for an instantaneous display of appreciation, he was much disappointed. The lovely youth leaned wanly on the gate, approached the ass when it arrived, mounted it inexpertly and, sprawled on its back with a gaze of pain, thanked the porter only in a faint voice, nor offered him either a coin or a kiss.
“And such is the rank ingratitude of the young,” grumbled the porter. And too late fell to wondering if the ass would ever be seen by him or his masters again, and if it was not, what excuse he had better proffer.
• • •
The winsome youth—Marsineh, disguised—rode through the town, with which she was not greatly familiar, out of the town gate, which she had never done before, and along the unknown highway. The new moon was rising, and she could not but be aware of a wedding about to begin. . . .
At the middle of the afternoon, before the women flocked in, Yezade had gone alone to tend and dress the bride. Thus the bride—Yezade—had dressed herself. She had also dressed Marsineh as a messenger. It is an interesting reflection upon the closeness of this household and parents to their children, that Marsineh and Yezade anticipated the veiled surrogate should be able utterly to convince in the remaining time before the nuptial, while the true victim should find no difficulty in flying the house. Needless to say, both adventures were achieved without a single challenge.
Yet reaching the gate of her lover and learning he had gone hunting, Marsineh’s resolve had almost failed her. Then it came to her that he, too, had fled, to muffle his piercing heartache in exercise. Why, he could not even bear to stay in the town where she should be joined to another. So fortified, on to the ass kind skittish fate—and the porter—provided, Marsineh had climbed. And, though she had never ridden in her life, she bore the acute discomfort of it, and urged the animal to an unwilling lollop, which caused her worse anguish than before. What were four hours to the escaping heart of love? Hours were as naught, when their cessation should see her in her beloved’s protecting arms.