by Andre Norton
“For me?” Willadene put out a hand but did not quite touch finger to the dress Halwice was still holding.
“For you to wear in honest pride. This—” she plucked the bodice closer so the girl could see the violets “—will serve you as a house badge and none can say you are an intruder. Now, let us see how well all fits.”
Not only did the Herbmistress see Willadene into the wealth of clothing, but she took thread and needle and made some tucks here and there so at last the girl could almost believe that these had come to her straight from the seamstress. Their labors were interrupted by calls from the shop, and she heard from behind the curtain Halwice deftly explaining to several visitors that the disaster of the morning had been the result of drunken folly. There was much agreement that something should be done to curb such actions, but there was also the undercurrent, the suggestion, that the Duke had truly not the strength to enforce the law even within Kronengred.
Leaving Willadene to turn up the last hem (luckily her hands had softened enough under the nightly creaming that rough skin did not fret the fine cloth) Halwice brought out from a far cupboard a bag not unlike that she herself carried when she was summoned to a healing except larger.
She opened it to display the many pockets inside, and in each she placed a small jar, packet of oiled skin, or a thick-sided bottle. As she worked she talked, and Willadene listened with care, for this would be for use of the Lady Mahart and must, if it were at all possible, please her.
There was a second row of pockets, near hidden behind the first, and into these Halwice tucked away certain remedies for minor ills—headaches, sleeplessness, agues and the like. The extra clothing had a section of its own.
Such medications Willadene had already dispensed in the shop and knew well. Halwice was reaching for a packet of well-dried leaves when she near knocked a book from the tabletop. Picking it up she looked at it closely and then shot a sharp glance in the girl’s direction.
“You have been searching—?” That was not an accusation but rather a question.
“Yes, mistress. It is the story of the Heart-Hold—there has been such talk of it I would know more.”
Halwice smiled. “How we dream when we are young, child. I think in the heart of every Herbmistress, since this tale was first told, there has abode a faint hope that she, too, might be the Star-favored one to chance upon such a treasure again. Take it with you— Perhaps you may find something within to catch the High Lady’s interest. It is said she is one who likes books and has spent many hours reading.”
She placed the ancient book in the bottom of the bag to Willadene’s relief, for she had feared a scold for prying.
This time Willadene’s entrance into the castle was not made a secret to be hidden by night shadows. Instead, one of the senior pages in full uniform came to escort her, though she refused to surrender her bag to his hold, knowing that Halwice would not have done so. However, to walk forward in her new livery, for such she was sure she could consider the clothes the Herbmistress had supplied, was an experience to bring her chin up, her eyes light with pride. Halwice’s trust in her was less tangible than a green dress, but the latter gave Wiladene confidence in herself and armed her for what she must do.
However, when the climb up the castle mount was behind her and she entered the small posten gate her escort held open, memory stirred and she looked carefully around for that tower of dark tales. It seemed that they were bound in that very direction, and she took firmer grip upon her bag.
She was so intent on what lay before her that she was hardly aware of those passing, nor did she note the stares which fastened upon her or heed the murmur which trailed behind her as they went.
The Black Tower was not their goal; instead, she was ushered to another, united to that place of ill omen by a wall, to be sure, but fashioned of lighter stone. The narrow windows were all open to the sun and air, while doves fluttered on its roof. It had every appearance of vibrant life, whereas its neighbor was a finger of gloom pointing skyward.
Willadene was ushered into the lower room, where there was a bustle of servants, and then steered up the stairs to a second and much richer and quieter chamber—-though the thin notes of a hand harp not too well plucked could be heard and she caught the scent of some of the pure-the-air preparations such as she herself had fashioned.
Not only were the windows well opened here, giving one side of the room a dazzle of sunlight, but the walls between those windows were bannered with strips of brightly colored ribbons twisted here and there into the form of flowers.
The girl with the harp struck a false note as Willadene came in, and the three others in the room centered their attention on the newcomer.
Willadene sank down in the curtsey Halwice had rehearsed her in, fearful of losing balance as her heavy bag pulled her a little to one side. One waited for the High Lady to speak first, that had also been the Herbmistress’s instructions.
“You are apprenticed to the Herbmistress?” It was the girl seated near enough to the pool of sunlight that seemed to put flecks of gold in her hair even though it had been braided in such tight coils, one over each ear, and there were flashes from the jeweled heads of the pins which held it so.
“Yes, Your Grace.” Luckily her voice sounded as usual. “I am Willadene, if Your Grace pleases.”
The High Lady was certainly not as striking looking as another who sat on a stool nearby, but she far outshone the other two—one being a beanpole with a sourish face, and the other bulging out of her clothes, cream powder ill applied to cover a rising spot on her chin.
“You may be seated—here.” Her Grace beckoned Willadene toward her own chair and pointed to a thick floor cushion not too far away.
Somehow Willadene was able to curtsey again and subside as decorously as possible on the place indicated.
“I have long enjoyed your mistress’s products,” the High Lady continued. “Lady Famina and Lady Geuverir"—now she was speaking to the two other ladies, the plump one having set aside her harp—"we have promised the Abbey the new altar cloth before Prince Lorien arrives. He will undoubtedly go there to give full thanks for his victory. Since your needle skills are indeed to be praised, you may work on that now.”
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 smal
l 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—”
“Yes—the plague.” Mahart nodded. “That changed many lives—for the worse. Did it for you?”
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 Willa
dene 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.