From a High Tower

by Mercedes Lackey

  “Well, I never found any, and neither did Joachim, and we both looked,” Giselle protested. “Not a copper coin or a—”

  She stopped short at the odd expression on Rosa’s face. “What?”

  “That chest next to the chair you’re sitting on,” Rosa said. “What used to be in it?”

  Giselle glanced at the old, beautifully carved chest of dark wood, decorated in typical Schwarzwald ornamentation. “Just my hair. Whenever mother cut it off, she’d put the braids in there. Why?”

  “Because . . . when I went to pay the dwarves for their work on the abbey, the Head Workman told me that ‘he’d taken the pay already from the usual place’ and that ‘he’d left payment for the surplus where I’d expect it.’ I never looked in that chest until I went to move my things out of the room to make way for Cody. Then, it was empty.”

  Now Giselle was truly puzzled. “You mean, he took the payment in my hair? But—”

  “Hush,” said Rosa, and got up from her seat to run her hands around the fireplace surrounding the iron stove. And when she got to the hearthstone, she exclaimed “Aha!”

  Her hands glowed a golden yellow for a moment. Then the crack around the hearthstone glowed an answering yellow.

  And the hearthstone lifted up, all by itself, and shifted to one side. And there, lying in the cavity, was a stout iron box.

  “I don’t suppose you have a key to this, do you?” Rosa asked, as Giselle stared in astonishment.

  “Mother didn’t leave many keys to things, and I think they’re all on the ring in my room,” she replied, and without waiting for an answer, she ran to the tower and up to her room. There in a keepsake box on her mantelpiece was the key ring Mother had always worn on her belt. Giselle took it and ran back down, handing it wordlessly to Rosa as the men watched in astonishment.

  Or rather, Fox and Kellermann watched in astonishment. Cody was already well on the way to seeing two hats, and just blinked in amusement.

  There was only one key on it small enough to fit the lock in the top of the strongbox. Rosa put it in, and then paused.

  “I think you should be the one to open this,” she said. “If there is anything in there, your Mother left it to you. There might not be anything but air—but perhaps there will be a keepsake or—something.”

  At this point Giselle was quite past any expectations of anything. She hadn’t expected them to get off so lightly in this fight, she hadn’t expected to get off at all for using her powers to take down Johann. So, without really thinking much of anything, except that perhaps Mother had some letters or special books in there, she knelt down beside Rosa, turned the key and lifted the lid.

  And found her breath entirely taken away. “Oh dear Virgin Mother,” breathed Kellermann. Rosa could only gasp. And even Fox’s eyes had gone big and round.

  “What?” demanded Cody. “What? What is it?”

  Rosa and Giselle moved aside so he could see.

  “Jumpin’ Jehova!” Cody gasped. “Gold!”

  There was . . . a lot of gold. And a lot of silver too. The strongbox was almost full. If one didn’t know any better, one would have been certain these were genuine thalers and goldmarks, from the proper German mints. But they did know better, of course. These were dwarven counterfeits, made so that their bearers could easily spend dwarven silver and gold. They were absolutely the proper weight and the proper value of precious metal, and every one had been stamped with a perfect copy of the actual mold, probably taken from brand new coins; the dwarves never did anything having to do with gold and silver shoddily. They were meticulous craftsmen. But the only “mint” these coins had ever seen were . . . well, wherever it was that dwarves had their forges and workshops.

  “How?” Giselle said, finally. “Why?”

  Rosa sucked on her lower lip. “Well, I would have to guess, but I think I’m right. Your Mother had bargains with the dwarves as many Earth Masters do, but before she brought you here, her bargains were nothing special. Very likely she supplied them with exceptional vegetables, and probably amazing cheese and butter, all things that dwarves do not make and cannot get enough of. The bargain was good enough to purchase an old house in a bad neighborhood and abandon it, certainly. But nothing like this. No, I think that bargain changed entirely after you came to live with her, and your hair started to grow.”

  Giselle wondered if she had gone mad. “What has my hair got to do with this?” she demanded.

  Rosa chuckled. “Giselle . . . where, and how, is a dwarf, who is wholly and completely of Earth, going to get his hands on something so full of Air Magic as your hair? You told me yourself: sylphs and pixies play in it, all the Air Elementals love to touch it. It’s as imbued with Air Magic as anything material can be! She’d put the cut hair in that chest, call them when she needed money, and they’d leave payment in here. That’s what that dwarf meant. He’d taken their payment for all the construction they did on the abbey in the hair that had built up in that chest over the years, and left what he considered to be proper overpayment in gold and silver.”

  Giselle’s mouth formed a silent “o.” She thought about that, about how careful Mother had been when she cut it, and how the sylphs had been like cats in catnip when she burned the bits in the vardo. “But—what would they use it for?” she asked.

  “Probably the strings for stringed instruments,” Rosa replied, after a long moment of thought. “The dwarves are well known for their wonderful instruments, but using your hair for strings would make every instrument into a masterwork. Possibly bowstrings. Wrap it with real beaten gold and make embroidery thread? There are probably hundreds of things I can’t think of because I’m not a dwarf.” She closed the lid on the strongbox, because they were one and all staring at the bounty. Giselle felt as if the closing of the lid woke her from what had almost become a spell of avarice.

  Now she could think again, instead of stare.

  “Well,” Rosa continued, still kneeling, and laying her hands in her lap. “You’re rich. The treasure was real, after all. What are you going to do with it?”

  All manner of ridiculous ideas flew through her head. But one stayed, lodged, and became a conviction. There was one wrong that had not yet been put right, and she actually had the power to do that.

  She looked up and met Leading Fox’s eyes, then Captain Cody’s, then Fox’s again.

  “Why, it’s simple,” she said, quietly, suddenly flooded with joy. “I’m going to send you all home as rich as you came here to become.”

  It was spring before the much-shrunken company left. “We are not going to get out of here before all this snow melts,” Leading Fox had observed, once their initial excitement had died down. “And I am told that winter travel upon the great salt water is exceedingly disagreeable and even dangerous.”

  Since both these things were true . . . and since the company was, quite frankly, greatly enjoying their comfort, Elfrida’s cooking, and their leisure, it seemed a sensible plan. Kellermann let it be known, just about Christmas, that a second and more careful accounting had revealed to him that all the money they were saving by staying at the abbey was going to enable every man and woman to go home in the spring with tidy sums in their pockets—as much as they had expected to when they had set out from America. There would be no need for a second tour, after all. They could all go home as prosperous as they had hoped to become.

  When one is told that one has not less money than one expects, but very much more, one is not inclined to question the accountant, or the source of the money. Only Kellermann, Cody, the girls and the Pawnee were aware that Cody, Kellermann and the Pawnee were . . . going back considerably richer than their wildest hopes. There would be enough to buy Cody that cattle ranch he had talked about, and enough to buy the Pawnee several thousand acres of land in their ancestral home on the Platte River in Nebraska.

  And that still left Giselle with a tidy sum
to take care of her expenses, plus a ready source of money for the future.

  And now, in the lovely spring sunshine, with the meadow full of flowers and no sign that anything terrible had ever taken place here, she and Rosa were saying goodbye to their friends.

  The cavalcade had been reduced to a few luggage and passenger wagons. No show-tent wagons, no equipment, no sideshow. They were keeping the smaller tents and camping on their way to Freiburg and the railway, then taking the rail all the way to Italy and the ship that Kellermann had booked for them. Kellermann had already disposed of all of the show equipment; a circus had come to get it a month ago.

  The horses, the cattle, and the four buffalo were staying with Giselle. Even Lightning, the Wonder Horse, was staying. He had taken a liking to both Giselle and Lebkuchen, and Cody declared that he could not bear to break up such a loving couple. Truth be told, Lightning was not as young as she had thought, and she suspected Cody had both a sentimental and an utterly unsentimental reason. He didn’t think Lightning had good odds of surviving a second sea voyage . . . and he was going to need good cattle-horses, not a trick horse.

  Kellermann had arranged for the cart horses that they needed to take them as far as the railroad to be bought by a trusted gypsy friend at the railhead. Gypsies could always use horses for their vardos.

  “Well,” said Cody, standing beside the wagon he was going to drive. “I guess this’s goodbye. Sure you don’t want t’come to America? Iffen I don’t make you a star, somebody sure will.”

  “But I don’t actually want to be a star,” Giselle said patiently. “The only reason I went along with the show was for the money. I didn’t care for fame before, and once I got a taste of it, I cared for it even less.”

  Cody laughed. “Suit yerself, darlin’,” he said, getting up into the wagon seat. “Like we say back home, takes all kinds. Iffen I get tired of ranchin’ I might try that there vaude-ville I hear tell ’bout iffen I get too bored. Or I might hook up with Buffalo Bill. Let him do all the work of runnin’ the show, an’ I’ll get me all the purdy girls. Try not t’get inta more trouble’n y’all can handle, gals. Write to me!”

  “We will!” Giselle promised, and he tipped his hat to her.

  “Wagons! Ho!” he shouted, and they were off. The much shorter caravan snaked out of the meadow and down to the road, while the girls watched and waved until they were gone.

  “Well. Now what?” Rosa asked Giselle as they walked back to the abbey.

  “Kellermann asked if he could come back,” Giselle said, as two sylphs and a zephyr zoomed by her, playing a game of “chase.” “He has the idea that the abbey could become a sort of lodging for young men on hiking trips through the Schwarzwald.”

  “That is not a bad thought,” Rosa observed. “Many artists, musicians and writers go on walking tours through the Schwarzwald. They don’t have much money, and they’d be perfectly happy to pay a little for a bed in one of the dormitory stalls and a meal or two from Elfrida.”

  “That is what Kellermann said. He also said that many artists, musicians, and writers were Elemental Magicians.” She exchanged a look with Rosa.

  “I think that Kellermann fancies you,” said Rosa.

  “I think . . . I would not discourage that,” she replied, blushing. “But regardless of that, I think you are of the same mind that I am. This could be . . . perhaps another Brotherhood Lodge, of sorts?”

  “And it would be a good Brotherhood Lodge in a sort of disguise, and no one questioning the coming and going of young men.” Rosa looked around, at the mountains, the meadow, and finally the abbey. “You and I still have our vardos. With Kellermann in charge, and Elfrida to manage housekeeping, if we were needed, by the Graf or by the Bruderschaft, we could go at a moment’s notice.”

  That gave Giselle an unreasonably happy feeling. “So, you think I am up to the job of joining the Brotherhood?”

  “I think we would be idiots not to ask you to join, and so does Papa Gunther. Not as a Hunt Master just yet—let’s get a few more Hunt’s worth of experience in you first.” Rosa smiled. “But yes. And I cannot wait for you to meet Markos.”

  “The good werewolf?” Giselle grinned. “I shall be delighted!”

  “That’s excellent, because I expect him here within two days,” Rosa replied, with a laugh at Giselle’s expression. “Maybe sooner if he runs fast enough!”

  “You had better run fast enough, or I shall certainly make you regret not telling me sooner!” Giselle replied. In answer, Rosa took off. Giselle gave her a head start.

  “Run, Rosamund von Schwartzwald!” she cried, then called up Flitter, Luna, and Sparrow. “Go get her, my friends,” she said, “And make sure there is not a hair on her head that is not in tangles when you do!”

  Giggling madly, the sylphs dashed after Rosa. With the wind in her own hair, she paused for a moment to take a long look around.

  Somewhere there might be someone who is happier than my friends and I are today, she thought. But . . . I doubt it.

  Then she laughed, and ran after Rosa.

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