by Andre Norton
There was no sight of Julta, and the girl had little liking for the increasing freedom of manners in progress about her. So, with supplies in hand, she went back to her own tower chamber, substituting water from the pitcher there for any of the mind-clogging ale.
She ate slowly as she tried to solve the problem of Hettel and Figis. How had the latter managed somehow to insert himself into the ranks of the palace servants (which in itself was usually impossible—the servants were the sons and daughters or other kin of those who had gone before them, and seldom if ever was a stranger admitted to their closed circle)?
Even more strange that someone such as Figis had achieved such a rise in status. Willadene needed a chance to relay this information, as trivial as it might turn out to be, to either her mistress or the Lord Chancellor.
Halwice, she was sure, must spend some time in the shop once again and perhaps Willadene could go there on the pretext of restoring supplies. It was the best resolve that she could come to at the moment.
Wearily she undressed and drew on her thin night rail. Luckily her bed was well blanketed, as she had discovered earlier the single panel of glass in their own narrow window could not be entirely closed. The vines which were fast covering the wall about the High Lady’s chamber just below had found good holds now on the upper stones as well. She discovered as she looked out into the night that there was indeed a cloudy mass of growth between her and the small balcony of Mahart’s chamber.
Her hand sought her amulet, and the familiar feel of that was soothing enough so her eyes closed and she was asleep.
Willadene awoke to utter darkness. The night lamp which was always set to burn through the night had somehow been snuffed out. There was something else, a warm band across her throat, a soft hissing in her ear. While about her—yes—the stench of evil was strong.
“Julta?” she called and was answered from the other bed by a thick snoring. Steadying Ssssaaa against her with a tight hold, Willadene slipped her feet from under the covers and felt with her toes for her slippers.
Now that her eyes had adjusted, she could see that there was the faint oblong of dim glimmer which marked the window. With that as a guide she moved out into the room.
It was easy enough to feel her way along the wall now to the door, though she had one pain-filled encounter with a stool. But the latch did not lift to all her tugging. At last she had to accept the fact that she was locked in by some means she did not understand.
Now she crossed to Julta’s bed. The woman had not even undressed but lay as Willadene had never seen her, a sodden lump still clothed and with no coverlet over her.
Drunk—or drugged? In any case the maid would be no help. And she had located the source of that aura of evil now—from under her feet as if it arose from below—from the High Lady’s chamber!
Ssssaaa hissed in her ear again, and she realized that the creature was urging her to the window. She shivered in her night rail as she balanced on the stool and looked out.
This was a moonless night, but from the castle below there arose a faint haze as if not all the festive lamps and torches had yet been extinguished. She reached out and caught at what seemed to be the thickest loop of the ivy, pulling at it. It gave for only a small tug and then held. She was so sure now that her only way to reach Mahart’s threatened chamber was down that crude ladder and onto the balcony a floor below.
Perhaps it was just as well she had to depend more on her sense of touch than her sight, for Willadene had never had any easiness with heights. Ssssaaa slipped from her, down her arm and into the mass of ivy. Skirts were not meant for such action. She swept her hands back into the gloom of the room until she found her bed and rooted out from beneath her pillow there her girdle. Having clasped it and its tools for daily use about her waist she used her table knife to rip up the lower part of the night rail until she had two strips she could wind about her legs from the thighs down.
So prepared, she jammed the window open to its furthest extent and somehow forced herself out, clinging desperately to the ivy, fighting for finger- and toeholds. Bits of long-dead leaves and the sharp ends of stems made it far from easy.
What was worse was her knowledge that some dark danger waited below that was even more terrifying. There was light shining out on the balcony as her bare feet thumped on the icy stone. Nor was the room beyond empty.
She could not catch any words, but she could see at least four dark shadows looming up beside the platform bed. One swung suddenly around so a faint touch of lamplight showed her Halwice’s face. With a cry of relief Willadene staggered into the room.
Suddenly she saw Halwice do something which startled her and halted her mad rush toward the Herbmistress. For Halwice had simply pointed a finger at a candelabra on the dressing table and the wicks of four waiting candles had burst into instant flame, giving much fuller light to the scene.
She saw Ssssaaa’s body humped on Vazul’s shoulder which was barely covered, as his dressing robe had slid under the animal’s squirming ascent to her usual perch. There was no mistaking that most of this company had been hurriedly summoned from rest, though the light glinted from the bared blade of a short sword arming one of the figures clothed, even masked, in tight black garb.
It was the sudden quick movement from Nicolas, for her talent had put name to that black night skulker, which drew her attention to the bed—or rather the wreck of the bed!
Where mattress and covers had lain smooth she now saw a tangle, with a hole in the center into which the furnishings of the bed dangled downward as if they had been sucked from below, while from that hole came the stench of evil.
Halwice moved away from the other three by the bed. Her hands now dropped on Willadene’s shoulders. “You have been much with her these past days—you know her!”
Shivering, trying hard to fight against the sickening stench, Willadene understood very well. Mahart’s personal scent was well set in her mind. Even evil could not erase the traces of it now from the bed.
“So—here is your hound and one which can be well trusted.”
Willadene could see Nicolas’s mouth set tight above his stubborn jaw, and she wondered how much he agreed with her mistress’s serene recommendation. Vazul was smoothing his creature the while, watching the girl with narrowed eyes. She, however, could read no doubt in them. Then the third person who had been standing at the foot of the destroyed bed came into better light.
Though he had also thrown off his finery of the ballroom, Prince Lorien’s measuring stare was centered on her.
“I know nothing of such things.” His voice was harsh and he was frowning.
It was Halwice who replied. “To each his own talent, my Lord Prince. Yours is rooted in steel and the use of it. But there are others of equal power. Tell me, why are you here?”
His frown had faded and he stared about him as if he suddenly realized where he stood. “I— There was a need—a dream—”
Halwice nodded. “Just so. To every act there is an answer. Something was wrong here tonight—a troubling such as even we who are steeped in the Old Laws do not understand. I think, my Lord Prince, that you were also meant to be prey—but that those who play this game are still only students. They loose powers they do not fully understand—which no sane mind can deal with.”
“Me—prey! For whom and why?” His face flushed and his fists grasped at the bedpost by which he stood as if he would use it as a weapon.
This time Vazul made answer, but in a roundabout fashion. “Your Highness, if in the morning your officers found you gone—and perhaps also clues that you were in danger—what then would they do?”
“They would take Kronengred apart stone by stone,” he returned simply.
“Just so. But there would be a period of desperate searching, of hatred sown. You have delivered us of that monster the Wolf. But there are others behind him and they want no part of you and your well-trained men. They would sow discord and Kronen would bleed because of it. We do not kno
w just how their plan failed to be fully realized, but that they have the High Lady there is no dispute.”
Ssssaaa hissed and the Chancellor turned quickly to Halwice. “Time is again our enemy, Guild Mistress. We had best be on the trail.”
Halwice’s hand lay warm and comforting on Willadene’s shoulder. “There are preparations—one cannot go off a-searching without what may be needed the most.”
With that Nicolas placed one hand as if he were making ready to vault into that hole in the bed, but Vazul spoke first.
“You do not hunt without your hound,” he said.
Nicolas shot a glance at Willadene, and, though she could not read his masked face, she was well aware of how little he liked that order.
But Halwice had already pulled her to one of the great wardrobes and jerked the door open just far enough so it could afford a screen. She pulled and pushed at the array of gowns and finally came forth with a divided skirt such as ladies might use for riding in the country, which, by its looks, had never been worn. There were other garments made to fit with it and when Willadene had pulled them on, the Herbmistress helping with laces and ties, she found this new clothing far less confining than ordinary dress. It was richer than anything she had ever worn and Halwice used her scissors to snip off a shoulder and breast badge so that the pearls and small gem beds forming them fell heedlessly to the floor. Nor did she stop there but gathered an untidy bundle of other clothing which she stored in a pack.
Willadene did not dare object even when Halwice caught up her coil of hair and sawed away until in length it merely brushed her shoulders. The Herbmistress had been silent throughout, but now she pushed forward the pack with her foot.
“Yours,” she commented. “There are aids that you know in there—use them well when you have to. But remember this, only your nose can bring aid to Mahart and perhaps safety to all Kronen in the end.”
17
Mahart was dreaming, of course, yet it was a dream which seemed very real, and frightening. For she could not see, and when she tried to raise a hand to her blinded eyes, it would not obey her command.
She was not alone either, for she could hear now and then a muttering of voices and she was certainly not in her own bed into which she had remembered crawling already dazed with the need for sleep.
There was a smell also, or at least a warring of smells. Some remnants from her choice of spices still seemed to cling to her, but there was also a sourish, musty odor and something else she could not have put name to but which made her shiver.
The dream drifted into the deep dark again. It was pain which aroused her the next time, the grating of her shoulder against harsh stone. But even as her eyes and hand, her voice would not obey and she was captive of this complete dark. When she tried to sort out one sensation from another the dull pain over her eyes became sharper.
Now—a spell of what she sensed was swinging in the air? And her helpless state of body made her icily afraid. Once more she struck against something—this time with her already spinning head and it was darkness and forgetting.
Sound awakened her, sound and a new smell, one she had once been able to identify.
“Fool!” The voice snapped and it was followed by a similar sound but no word, and she heard a sharp cry in answer.
“Highness—not there—only her—” The words slipped and slid away from her before she could force meaning from them.
“Hold him, Jonas.” Somehow that voice was able to penetrate and make full sense. “What you are sent to do, you do!” Again that slapping noise and then a shrill scream of pain. ‘ ‘Do you understand? If we can save anything from this bungled night’s work we must move fast. How long have we, Wise One?”
Fingers touching her, girdling her limp wrist. They believed her helpless, Mahart began to understand. Therefore, until she learned more, that was just what she must be.
“Another sniff—” That was not the sharp voice. Mahart nearly cried out as a grip tangled in her hair, jerking up her head at an angle which increased the band of pain. Then there was some wad of cloth pressed across her mouth and nose so willy-nilly she inhaled and straightway was again in the mindless dark.
Only, the dark was not empty. She began to sense that through it other things moved, if she did not. Mahart strained to hear any sounds which might give her the knowledge of where she was and—why.
Perhaps it was something in that mixture of scents which had clung to her body and hair after the herb girl’s efforts which kept that dark hold from being so intense. Once more she was aware of her own body, of the strangely slow beat of her heart, of breath which her lungs fought to capture. The sensation of other things in motion about her was gone. Did that mean that she had been abandoned, helpless to await some fate for which the darkness was normal and had no hindrance?
Though the dull pain in her head persisted, Mahart began to try to piece together the few bits of information her hampered senses could bring her. It seemed easier to breathe as the moments passed and her heart resumed its steady beat.
She concentrated on a finger—the smallest portion of her body she might reasonably hope to control. And—it moved! Only a fraction, yet still it moved. So she was encouraged to continue her battle for returning self-control.
In the end her slight body was slick with sweat and the pounding in her head was so much she could no longer endure it. Fearing one more slide into nothingness she added up swiftly what she had learned.
Though she could move her fingers, lifting her hands was beyond her power. She believed that she had not been struck blind but rather that a blindfold half masked her. Yet how had she come from her safe bed to this place? Who had brought her—?
Sound—those were surely footsteps, heavy, suggesting a large body. There was a puffing of breath also, and she caught the fumes of strong ale. Never had she wished more for anything in her life than at this moment that she possessed the talent Willadene had willingly demonstrated to her, to assess by scent alone much which lay about her. The heavy-breathing foot stamper brought with him smells enough to keep a squad busy snuffing—old grease, unwashed body— But he was not coming straight to her as she had first feared. Rather, she heard a sort of squeaking sigh as if he had settled some bulk in a protesting chair.
Seated himself only to rise again as two other pairs of footsteps sounded for Mahart.
“Give you fair day, Wise One,” rumbled a thick voice.
There was no answer save for the light patter Mahart realized was now approaching her. Scent again but this—this was something she had known before. Into her mind swung a hazy picture of a graceful glass bottle in the form of a cluster of fern leaves, some drops of oily green liquid moving sluggishly as the bottle tilted a little. Aspen! Once the odor had enticed her; now she found it sickening.
There was another odor also, but far from fragrant—musty, earthy, as if it arose from delving in sour sod such as the blighted castle garden possessed.
Pain struck suddenly as a blow sent her head rolling aside.
“Well, leader of rats"—the voice was a cackle like that of a raven relishing some jest—"now you have her. What do you think to do?”
“Master"—there was a third voice now from some distance away and she had heard no footsteps—"the hunt is up! That thrice-damned dabbler in potions—”
“Ah, boy, you’d better not ill-speak your betters. Them as does sometimes finds themselves in a worse state"—that was the cackling voice. “This must I tell you, rat master, she has had all the potion I can give her—the next will mean her death. For all of that—she may be mind dead now—the girl has no training nor has she been given any antidote. I would say if you would find her biddale by these street scrapings such as serve you you had best move her soon.”
“Out of the city—the fourth way!” It seemed to be an order. “Get you Jonas and Orthon and move! Or your back’ll be raw liver for a week. Think you, the High Lady’s lash was no love tap—your eye does not look so good to me—
it is nothing compared to what you will feel if you don’t get on the move—and now!"
There was a period of confusion. Mahart was so afraid of revealing that she was conscious of much about her that she spent her will on trying to remain utterly limp and unmoving. Hands pawed at her after a short space. Her body was lifted and she felt the harsh edges of metal—perhaps a mail coat—against her cheek.
They had reached a lower level. One of her hands bumped painfully against a railing and once caught, to nearly bring a cry out of her as that was snatched with an oath and slammed across her body. Once more she had the feeling of being in a confined place, perhaps underground, and then was heartened by the sight of a dim light nodding up and down before her. So in spite of her blindfold she could see that much, or perhaps that potion they had used on her was wearing off.
Twice she was dumped painfully on an uneven surface, and she could hear the heavy breathing of him who had carried her. At the second of these occasions they were joined by another man.
‘‘An’ jus’ where is we to take ’er?’’ he demanded when the orders of her disposal were repeated. “We ain’t takin’ no one to th’ Raven’s tower—not less I hear that from th’ master hisself. Didn’t get that gormal of Prince, did he now, wi’ all the stir up. Now he we’d takum gladly—knife in his gullet an’ ‘im throwed out where those bullyboys of hissen could find him in a day or so. No, you brings us this here slut—”
“The master may think as how he can bargain with her in his hand—” suggested the younger voice.
“Well, he ain’t gonna plant her where we’ve gone to earth. You want your head on a spear—or does ’e? We ’ad a good plan go’ until the master got hooked up with th’ idea of playin’ lords’ games. I say we lay low an’ wait an’ see what them high-ups is gonna do.”
“Where so we take her then?” The third voice must be of the man who had carried her here as it was much closer, as if he was crouched not too far away.