Plenilune

by Jennifer Freitag

  “Very good, sir.” The blue-jay man fluttered aside and waited for them to pass, Skander first and then Margaret on Dammerung’s arm, but he caught Margaret’s eye in passing and looked down on her in that faintly mocking, smiling way he had, as if he were sharing some secret with her.

  They went round the end of the house and down the short stair between the stunted wayfaring trees to the courtyard. There was always a bit of flurried activity in the background. Margaret noticed it mechanically: a boy with two dogs, a servant sweeping the spring’s shedding from the trees that kept their leaves on through winter. A grackle purled on the curtain wall, etched against the blue-bottle sky, but it was the foreground she noticed most, putting up her hand to thrust her blowing hair out of her face while her skirts whirled in the wind: the lonely, shaggy, ancient pony, the small, bent figure on its back, the bundled length of something wolfish and grey in its arms…

  “Why, it is old Hobden!” she cried. She had not thought of him since the autumn day on the earthworks. “Of all people!”

  It was old Hobden, of all people, wizened and crumpled on the back of the old odd-job pony, with something long and wolfskin-bound clasped in his arms. He must have come the whole journey on the ancient pony—which might have been born dun-coloured or was dirty beyond washing—and seemed unable to get off it, for he sat it like some forlorn knight-errant whose hope of honour and life has been lost. But when he looked round at them and saw them through the sloe-berry sharpness of his eyes, his old walnut face creased into an easy smile.

  Dammerung slipped out of Margaret’s grasp and strode forward, jaunty black sleeves fluttering, the dancing lightness in his feet. “Hobden, you old reprobate!” he cried heartily. “What—not dead? I gave you up a year since! Well met—well met, old friend.”

  The odd-job pony ruckled and swung its head around angrily at the tone of Dammerung’s voice, but old Hobden, unruffled as ever, shifted sidewise in the saddle and put out a hand toward his old master. Dammerung took it without a second thought and pressed it firmly, light and laughter and a boyish joy breaking up and chasing each other on his face.

  “Na, not dead,” said old Hobden in his slow, pleasant drawl. “I come up from Marenové ’Ouse on ye’s count, for seemed to me the ’Ouse told me ye was among t’living still.”

  “Did it so?” said Dammerung. His voice had turned soft. “It would, rum thing. It would. And you have come up on my account and left Marenové House without its gate-ward?”

  But there was no real reproach in Dammerung’s voice, and old Hobden wagged his walnut head. “I come up to give ye summat. ’Twas given away, I think, in spite, and I took it upon my soul to reclaim it. So I come up from Marenové ’Ouse to give it back t’ye.”

  As he said it he held out the thing in his hands to Dammerung, very tenderly and a little shakingly, for his hands, Margaret realized, were freckled with sun-spots and old, with the veins standing out sharply and blue where the skin had sunk in around them. With an air of ceremony the War-wolf took the long wolfskin-bound thing into his own hands and looked long at it, long and quietly, without the piercing in his eyes. Skander was there, standing back with his manservant just behind them, giving his cousin room, and it seemed Margaret and old Hobden himself were removed for a few moments from the oddly frantic, quiet look that was in Dammerung’s face…

  At last he said, “The road up from Marenové is a long one—a longer one still from where I think—I think—this thing has lain. So come you in, good dog,” he tossed a once more laughing look into the servant’s face, “and wash the road-dust out of your throat.”

  There was a gesture from Skander and the blue-jay man was suddenly foremost, one arm under old Hobden’s shoulders, helping the walnut-shrivelled figure down from the odd-job pony’s back. Margaret, stepping aside, caught the eye of a passing stable-hand and clicked her fingers for him to come care for the dusty beast, which would, itself, have many miles of road-dust in its throat. Then they were turning back into the house, an odd and motley group, with big fair Skander leading them and the heron-striding blue-jay man with the little walnut groundsman, Dammerung in darkness and white mystery, holding the wolfskin-bound thing as closely as ever old Hobden had, and Margaret following slowly after, watching them, feeling inexplicably the fierce pang of being an outsider which she thought had gone away. But it came again, without warning, striking hard and upward under her breastbone, hard enough to knock the breath from her, and it hurt as it always hurt, throat-catchingly, leaving behind it a long cold wave of desolation.

  They disturbed Aikaterine in Skander’s study. She had been tidying, assuming they would be out for at least an hour yet; she rose from the hearth where she had been sweeping, a dust-pan and a brush in her hands, a smudge of soot on her chin, and looked faintly surprised at the gathering that was filing in. Skander shook his head at her as if to say, “It is nothing. You may stay.” And she knelt again on the hearth-stone, her brush moving quietly, her eyes upturned to Dammerung.

  Dammerung pulled himself apart from them. The blue-jay man got a glass of yellow wine for old Hobden—the glass glowed as if it held southern sunshine—but it was not until the old man had drunk and they had all fallen silent, waiting, that the War-wolf stirred out of whatever memories were making his cheeks pale and his eyes burn. He looked round at them like someone just waking, displaced and confused, but when his eyes passed over Margaret’s face they hung there a moment in recognition. She smiled helpfully, coaxingly—though it hurt her chest to do it—and something in his eyes called to her as surely as if he had spoken.

  She crossed the room to his side, standing in a pool of drenching sunlight—the wind whirled the shadows of bare branches over them—and put her hands on the tough leather knotwork of the cord that bound up the wolfskin. Dammerung tipped the thing toward her, holding it as she worked, until finally she had tugged the last length of cord free from the cold furry object and stood back, the roughness of the leather in her palm, the light and shadows dancing, the stark, unfamiliar look on her companion’s face.

  He held it a moment longer, then gently began to turn back the folds of wolfskin as if he were unwrapping a babe. The grey ticked skin fell back: as it came loose the thing seemed, suddenly, half-living in his hands. Margaret’s heart began to quicken and the blood-rush of it helped the pain in her chest.

  Why did this hurt so much?

  At last the thing was freed entirely, naked and splendid-shining and half-living in Dammerung’s hands. It was a sword. She had always known, without thinking about it, that it was a sword, but staring down at the bared thing she felt a new pang—of fear this time, for the thing was fierce and bright and made for war. It had been quenched and quiet, though still soaked with potency, while wrapped in its smothering wolfskin. Bare in Dammerung’s hands, the genius of the thing was almost overpowering.

  She suffered that for a moment, though it seemed a long moment, and then she looked beyond the clear shining to the thing itself, the thing which weighed so much and was so long, the physical weapon in Dammerung’s hands. To her surprise it was unlovely, a serviceable but battered thing, the sheath plain hard leather casing, its chape and locket of half-heartedly decorated metal; the cross-guard was plain, the pommel sported a mere unimaginative sunburst which seemed mockingly incongruous for a man who might have been Overlord of Plenilune. But the potency had been there—was still there—and the shining of it which Margaret could not see but could feel was glinting on it yet. The thing half-lived, whether by Dammerung’s will or the life-blood it had drunk, she did not know. She felt the genius of it, and almost imagined it felt her own, and in some way that she did not understand she felt akin to it.

  Skander had come closer, though none of them, perhaps Skander included, had been aware of it. He looked down with Dammerung on the sword in his cousin’s hands, laughter and high surprise warring with each other at the corners of his mouth. “Widowmaker!” he said at last, softly, huskily. “I had not thought—”<
br />
  “I had,” said Dammerung, not lifting his eyes from the blade. “I had thought, long and bitterly, but no word did I have until today.”

  Old Hobden’s voice, cracked and wrinkled and like a walnut after the full-blooded, husky tones of the two young men, came from behind them. “Aye, ’twas in our hearts, the ’Ouse’s and mine, that ye’d want word after we’d had word o’ ye.”

  “You old reprobate!” said Skander, rounding happily on the old man. “What bee-skeps have you kicked up to fetch this for your master!”

  The old man smiled bashfully, but Skander did not wait for an answer. He crossed to the fireplace, set his foot on the grate over Aikaterine’s back as she knelt to dislodge a bit of burnt stick from underneath it, and, reaching up, swung down the sword that had hung over the mantelpiece. It was as long as Widowmaker, but perhaps even more battered, sheathed in a hard leather casing and decorated in bronze, its grip wrapped in black sharkskin. He drew it out and tossed the sheath away onto a sofa.

  “A fine hour it is,” he said gustily, “that my Gram should have your Widowmaker beside her once more.”

  Dammerung, too, jerked his sheath off and flung it down, baring the grim steel that had earned him his title. Seeing it gleaming fitfully in the sunlight, Margaret knew she had been wrong: it was beautiful. “There now, my pretty!” he told it warmly, running his finger down the blood-groove. He added thoughtfully, “I haven’t put this in someone for almost three years. Why, it’s practically virgin.”

  “There will be occasion for that later, no doubt. An’ sure I will want you on the Capys border helping me when the tribes take to harrying my folk.”

  But Dammerung shook his head and kept his thoughts to himself.

  Margaret stooped and picked up the discarded sheath. It was cold and hard under her palm. “The sheath could do with new lacquer,” she remarked. Her thumbnail found a place where the wooden casing had been split. It had been given away in spite. She heard the thump and crack of Rupert’s boot against the fox’s ribs. Her stomach clenched. “It has seen better days.”

  “And darker nights.” Dammerung held out his hand for the sheath. “The blade needs a burnishing too. Where do you keep such stuff, Skander?”

  The blue-jay man was sent off for oil and a rag. Ely Jacland, Skander said, was a good hand at woodwork and could probably be persuaded to touch up the scabbard.

  “Who kept it? He kept it in a moist kind of place, the fool.”

  “’Twas Malbrey o’ Talus Perey,” old Hobden spoke up. He had been quiet on the outskirts. “An’ aye, he kept it in a dampish place. Tha’ too, I reckon, was o’ spitely thinking.”

  “Hmm!” Dammerung’s tone was derisive. “It is too lean a grip for Malbrey. He will never have used it. Not a superstitious man, not like Rupert—who would not use this for fear it would turn against him—very practical man, Malbrey: he won’t have used it.”

  Skander turned from murmuring something about coffee to Aikaterine. “Please, have a seat,” he told old Hobden. “You must be tired.”

  Old Hobden tugged respectfully at his forelock. “Nay, sir, not tired. A bit stiff in the limbs is all, from t’pony. Ift is not presumptuous—” he made many syllables out of the word “—I’ll put myself to a bit o’ work in t’yard. Tha’ll suit me fine.”

  “Good man. I won’t stop a fellow who wants to work decently. Tabby will show you the way.”

  When the blue-jay man returned with the oil and cloth he was sent off again at once to escort old Hobden to the yard and show him about. Dammerung displaced Gram’s sheath, sat down on the sofa, and began cheerily to burnish his sword, lean hands running down and down the milky blade, his teeth fashioning an idle whistling tune as he worked. Margaret watched him putting his life back together, piece by piece, and felt the sting of lonesomeness again.

  The third thing came five days later. With nothing better to do Margaret had been helping Aikaterine oversee preparation of the guest rooms for the Green Table. She stood in the doorway to one of the rooms, a pile of folded linen in her arms. She had been working hard, harder than a woman of her standing probably should, but she did not want to admit to herself that she was doing it to stave off the ache in her chest so she pushed herself even harder, running from the pain, running from the knowledge of the pain.

  “If there is anything blooming in the gardens,” she told Aikaterine, “we can put the flowers in vases. But only one vase to a room: it is only April.”

  “I’ll be sure to leave some blooms for the gardens,” replied Aikaterine. She disappeared behind the bedstead to thrust a fold of sheet beneath the mattress.

  “Margaret!” Dammerung’s voice came up from below. “She-e-e! Margaret! You got a package!”

  I got a package? Bewildered, she started back along the passageway toward the nave. She dropped a pillowcase and had to fetch it, so that by the time she arrived on the walkway over the nave she was looking down to see Dammerung crouched on his heels, inquisitively poking at a large trunk. The preconceived vision of something small—a bundle of brown paper and string, perhaps the size of some books—vanished at a glance: the trunk looked big enough to stuff a body in to, with some delicate folding.

  “What is it?” she asked as she trotted down the stair. “I didn’t buy anything. Who is it from?”

  “Damned if I know,” replied Dammerung. He thrust the heels of his hands against the lip of the trunk and rocked it over so that he could see the bottom. “The messenger didn’t say and I didn’t know him. What are you carrying about? Grave-clothes?”

  “They’re bed linens. Is there a lock?”

  “No.” Dammerung dropped the trunk on the floor again. “Should I give it a spring?”

  “I suppose you had better.” Margaret worried irrationally that it might be something nasty, and worried even more that it might be something pleasant. Who had sent it? Perhaps Lord Gro, who respected her? Or Centurion, who was unmarried and had a pleasant disposition toward women?

  Dammerung drew his knife and knocked the butt of it against the latches until they sprang open. Then, planting his foot on the floor and his fingers underneath the lip of the old trunk, he pried the top off. A heavy scent of lavender rushed up in a cloud. Waving it off, he stepped back beside her, looking down at the trunk’s contents.

  Framed in the casing was the chinaberry dress.

  “By all the improbable stars,” hissed Dammerung. Then, admiringly, “The bastard!” and thrust his hands into his pockets. “This beats all.”

  Margaret dropped the linens in an unceremonious heap and bent down, fingers hesitant, to touch the dress’s crisply-folded skirt. It was as beautiful as she remembered—more so now that she did not have to wear it to Rupert’s coronation. The pearly silk shone with clusters of rich golden bead-work and, covering an underskirt of taffeta, rustled like a wind in an autumn wood with the slightest movement.

  “How I hate him,” she murmured. “Yet he is strangely great.”

  Dammerung smiled ruefully. “Isn’t he? A noble salute to a noble lady. You must wear it to the Green Table.”

  “If I do, and I think I will, my salute will have something of mockery in it. He does not take mockery well.”

  “So much the pity for him. What lies beneath…?”

  He stooped to peer among the folds of her other dresses neatly packed beneath, but at that moment Skander came in off the yard, caught sight of them at once, and called, “Dammerung! Whose horse?”

  “Whose horse?” Dammerung straightened, dropping the lid of the trunk shut. “Whose what horse?”

  “The big brown agouti that is driving my Blue-bottle mad. Did someone come? What is that?” he added, seeing the trunk.

  “No!” cried Dammerung. “By all the—no! It can’t be! Oh, what a week this has been!” And he took off toward the stables. Margaret took one look at the trunk and linens, picked up her skirts, and ran after him. Askance, Skander followed her.

  After the bluster of March it had been a dry
spring. Margaret emerged into blazing sunlight, losing sight of Dammerung in the glare for a moment. Cupping her hand over her eyes she spotted him, ducking into the darkness of the stable. With Skander behind her she ran across and slipped into the coolness behind him, smelling an air thick with the scent of horses and hay, and full of little points of light that filtered in through the open eaves. There was a horse turned loose at the other end of the aisle: a dark body with the wizened figure of old Hobden going round and round it. At the sound of Dammerung’s footstep the horse put up its head and snorted, pulling to the end of its lead as the young man approached.

  “Sure it is me, cousin!” cried Dammerung. His voice had gone thick. “Shee, shee, all’s better now. We’re better now.” He folded the bronze-and-black muzzle into his hands. “I thought for sure he had given you away, or done for you. He tried to do for me. See? It’s me. It’s me. Swef, my heart, my Rubico. It is only Margaret. You know Margaret, surely…”

  He crooned to the great leggy beast like a girl. Margaret stole closer and saw the flush of red-gold come out in the animal’s coat as it shivered with delight, its dark hide skipping under its master’s hand. A ruckling like a cat’s purr began in its chest. Closer, so close she could almost touch it, she saw bars of silver in the brown where it had taken blows and healed over.

  Another piece of his life put back into place.

  She almost turned to go—it was a horse: of what great interest was a horse?—when Dammerung, slipping under Rubico’s neck, caught her hand and raised it to the horse’s muzzle. “There, see?” he said triumphantly to it. “You know Margaret. She’s got a softer hand than I. You like that?” The enormous black lashes fluttered over the eyes. Rhea had eyes like that, Margaret thought. She cringed, but Dammerung’s hand was firm on her own and the soft peach-fuzz skin beneath her palm was warm and questing and she did not have the heart to pull away. “You are getting soft, you brute. You will be having naught to do with me now that you have Margaret. Hmm?”