by Andre Norton
He did not feel that his errand would be successful. This lady obviously liked very much to be in command. Her lord still lived, though ill and weak, and she had her way in everything but the discipline of her son, the heir to the throne.
The very shape of her face told him so, with its square, determined jaw and its beauty that was owed somewhat, he suspected, to the cosmetics jar. He found himself noting irrelevant details just to fill the time. She had turned herself out well; she wore a splendid, deep-green dress powdered with tiny golden oak leaves. The Oak badge was represented in paintings throughout the Hall—one of a bear standing erect against a background of oak leaves, and in a circle, the motto, "Strength prevails."
With her dress, the Queen wore an elaborate coif, to which was pinned a brooch representing her own badge. It was a circle of yew leaves, surmounted by a crown. Over the leaf circle was a bow, and the handgrip was set with green stones over which was laid a ribbon bearing the motto, 'This ever I defend."
The Queen might or might not be truly past her prime; it was difficult to tell in the dim light of a few carefully placed candles. Bjauden had a feeling that the lighting at the Queen's table was no accident. The Hall itself was dim, for the windows were still curtained to keep out the early spring chill, and candelabra were set everywhere. Overhead, vast chandeliers hung, adding their own pale and flickering glow.
Did he really want to bring his people to this land? Would he not serve them better if he sought sanctuary elsewhere?
His musings were interrupted by a question from the Queen, a question he had not heard. "Forgive me, fair lady," he said. "I was momentarily distracted by your beauty, and by your great hospitality. I can truly say that this has been a unique experience for me."
"I was inquiring after your lady, and why she does not grace our gathering."
"I am widowed, alas—"
Something splatted on Bjauden's plum-colored surcoat, the best garment he had with him. He turned only to have an entire mouthful of wet, chewed sweetmeats strike his face. His hand went automatically to his dagger, a gesture he could not call back. Prince Florian laughed openly.
"That's for you and your stupid old northerners," the Prince said. "I wish you'd go away."
Bjauden could feel the blood draining from his face. Carefully, he wiped his cheek with a napkin. "Your manners are worse than those of the lowest churl," he said, keeping his voice low and pleasant, "and if I had but an hour and a little privacy, I would mend you of them to your mother's rejoicing."
Queen Ysa's face reflected no official notice of the shocking breach in her son's manners, nor of the way Bjauden had answered. She got to her feet, signaling that the festive activities were finished.
"Go to your room at once, Florian," she said in a quiet, dangerous voice. "I will deal with you later. Really, you have gone too far." She turned to her guest. "My apologies. It is true that the Prince is a little spoiled, but he is young. You had no call to reach for a weapon."
"Your apologies are unnecessary beside the one I owe you for my unacceptable reaction. I moved before I could think. I am not accustomed to being spat upon,"
Bjauden said, his voice strained. "I fear that this puts my petition in full jeopardy."
Queen Ysa smiled, not pleasantly. "It would have, if your petition had ever had a chance of being granted. I will not permit you any land from any of the four provinces for you to build a city on." It was as flat and insulting a refusal as the Queen could proffer and still remain within the bounds of courtesy.
"I see. Forgive my intrusion. Indeed, Madam," Bjauden added through gritted teeth, "I will take my leave now and not impose on you further, not even for as much as a night's lodging." He bowed, turned his back—for all he knew or cared, a sign of disrespect—and left the royal Hall.
Later that evening, the Prince's whipping-boy received a thorough flogging, and even Florian, to his surprise, endured a tongue-lashing from his mother, the likes of which he had never before known.
Still smarting from it, Florian sent for one of the house servants, a man called
Rawl, who had the reputation of being an assassin. Indeed, as Florian stared at him by the one candle he dared keep alight, Rawl did have the very look of a ruffian.
"You know the nasty Count Bjauden, who dined with us tonight?"
"Aye, m'lord. I was servin' th' bread. I marked him well."
"Good, for I want you to mark him again. He tried to pull his dagger on me, and all for nothing. Just a little prank."
"How hard a mark, m'lord?"
"I'll leave it to you, but if he never comes back, I won't be sorry."
The man stood silent. Then he rubbed thumb and fingers together, and Florian realized he wanted to be paid. The Prince rummaged in a chest, took out a pouch heavy with gold coins, and handed it to him.
Rawl hefted the pouch and nodded, satisfied with its weight. "This will buy quite a mark that won't rub out. He wanted land, didn't he? Let me give him land not to his liking."
"Yes?" The Prince tilted his head, interested. "What do you mean?"
"There be in the Bog-lands an ancient town, once fair and now all to ruin.
There's many a one who has wound up there, where creatures in the night quickly eat their flesh, and in time, even their bones disappear so there's no trace they ever lived."
"Really? How do you come to know of this?"
"Sometimes we goes a-hunting Boggies. It's good sport but not a trophy to parade through Rendelsham streets, so we leaves our kill there where others doesn't go.
When we come back, all is as I said. No body, no bones, nothing left behind."
Florian grinned. "That sounds very nice. Very nice indeed. This fellow should be taken out and left there, by all means." The Prince had no real idea of life or death, or even of pain that was his own. He might as well have been discussing getting rid of a toy he had tired of. "But be careful, because Mother mustn't learn of this. And beware of that big dagger of his."
Rawl grinned in return, showing dark, snaggled teeth. "Never fear, m'lord. I've been in and out many times with no worse to show for it but a few insect bites, and I know how to keep my mouth shut when need be."
'Then go, and follow the nasty Count, for he has gone out of our home all unmannerly—he who would teach manners to me, the Prince!"
"It shall be as it shall be," the man replied. Then he glided into the shadows, and as far as Prince Florian could tell, vanished.
Four
Though Ashen's constant explorations in the Bale-Bog, always aimed to follow
Zazar, provided her with some faint idea of direction, she clung to a tangle of small brush limbs. Such support was, she told herself, to help her keep her balance. Striving to regain control, the girl looked around for possible landmarks to point her a safe way from the creature she was sure was behind her, whose unhurried leaps forward propelled it faster than a man could walk in the open.
Again she became aware of the buzzing of insects. There were no more cries—only the general Bog sounds could be heard. She drew a deep breath; she could not yet abandon caution. At least for the moment, there was no sound of pursuit.
Unfortunately, to seek out a path other than that which had led her here might angle her once more in Tusser's direction.
Moving with care, the girl rounded the side of a high-reaching bush the small ones had led her to and came out into an open space. The partial gloom produced by the interlaced vegetation was lightened here. And she confronted a scene she had not expected.
The Bog was composed largely of stretches of islands and marsh linked together.
Bog-folk lived on the largest areas of firm land they could find. There they anchored their huddles of clan villages, each a part of that land itself, not buildings able to stand for long against winter storms. The straggly huts were mud-and-brush walled; moored close to each was a clumsy craft with which the inhabitants could reach possible safety if the waters and wind scoured over the land they knew.
The giant lupper! It had circled around to wait in ambush for her! She pushed back against the tall brush, her hand to her mouth as she sighted the thing. But even as she drew in a shuddering breath, she realized that it was made of stone and, like the pavement, possessed no life.
It must have been here for many, many years, but now it was only a time-worn image of the thing she had half seen at the pool.
Ashen squatted down on her heels, her mud-splashed legs trembling, unable to look away from that carven monstrosity. It was indeed akin to the Bog- luppers, yet it did not stand here on all four feet. Rather, it reared up on the more powerful hind ones, while the forelimbs rested on the huge swell of its belly.
That gigantic mouth, which on the living creature had been ready to engulf anything it caught, was closed. A green growth like pond scum half veiled it.
But it was the eyes—large, bulbous, situated well up on the skull—that made her shiver.
Yes, she knew that this was stone—no living organism, but something wrought for a purpose. Nevertheless, those eyes, so large she did not think she could cover them, even one at a time with her hand, gleamed brightly yellow. In each was a pupil the shade of welling blood. Ashen could not believe that they were not real and meant to be used for some threatening purpose.
She clung desperately to vestiges of sense, yet certain that those eyes had marked her arrival. It was only rock— rock! Indeed, it had been planted there for so long that the scanty grass around it had fringed the body with yellow-green spears that rose high to curtain the powerful hind limbs.
Scolding herself for being so gullible, Ashen forced herself to her feet once more. She held the power-stone on the cord tightly in one fist. Very slowly she began to relax, realizing that the longer she stared at the figure, the more she was sure that the life of the eyes had to be a trick. This, this artifact, could not have life, no matter how knowingly it seemed to regard her.
However, in all her years as Zazar's pupil, in all her journeys made both with her mistress and alone, Ashen had never visited such a place fashioned of stone.
Bog-folk made pots and bowls of clay, fired hard for use. She had never heard of any tool being applied to the working of stone. Then she remembered. There were those stepping-stones, so conveniently laid—those were not natural, either.
Perhaps they had been placed by the same folk who had wrought the giant lupper.
Stone could not leap, rend, or tear. Slowly the girl advanced step by cautious step. As she grew closer, she became more certain that this was a thing of the far past. Who had fashioned it, and for what purpose, was a mystery. But perhaps this discovery would please Zazar better than any bundle of reeds would.
Besides, the reeds were lost, dropped in her flight.
As she stepped from the mire out onto the stone pavement, her hand jerked up by no will of hers and in answer to no purpose of her own. The fist holding the power-stone rose in half salute to the figure.
From between her fingers there flickered a series of sparks, and she could feel growing heat from her odd weapon. Nevertheless, she made no attempt to once more swing the stone overhead. Somehow, she was certain that its warning—or protection—was not necessary here.
Emboldened, Ashen came to a halt before the looming stone figure. The eyes—had there been some subtle change in the eyes? Had they glowed more brightly as the stone warmed in her hand? Again she felt as if she were being viewed, but from a long distance. Ashen opened her fist, to find that the stone she held was also glowing. It was almost too hot to wrap her fingers around, as if she had picked up a blazing coal from a fire-pit.
It could have been her imagination, but a tenuous flame seemed to rise from it.
The flame flickered once, twice, and was gone. With it vanished the feeling of being under observation, and all the mysterious aura of this strange carved creature disappeared as well. Now she faced only a piece of worked rock, which had never held life. Save for the buzzing of the insects, there were no more sounds, no cries or croaks; nor did the ground shake beneath the shifting of any great weight, as she had half expected.
One step at a time, Ashen circled the monstrous statue, viewing it from head to foot. Vines of bindweeds had looped themselves about its hindquarters, as if such fragile ties had grown to hold it prisoner. When she returned to stand directly before it, she saw that the forepaws, even though placed across the rounded belly, did not hide a series of markings incised there.
Bog-folk were not scholars. In every generation there was a Wysen- wyf such as
Zazar, among but not of the Bog-folk. Each Wysen-wyf, it was claimed, had lived twice or more the length of an ordinary life. All of their strange kind had always kept in trust strange records, as Zazar did now, and from these, Zazar had taught Ashen to read. Ashen had spent long hours mastering markings that recorded events the various guardians had thought necessary to be remembered.
She could make these signs as clearly as her mistress, and she had even read notes on what Zazar decided would be added when the time came.
But never before had the girl seen such columns of dots, straight marks, and wriggling lines as existed here.
She hunkered down, her power-stone clasped in both of her hands. It had cooled, but nevertheless Ashen was sure that it would give her warning of any peril to come. She might not be able to truly read the inscription she examined, but she could at least memorize it.
Queen Ysa was dissatisfied with the way her plans were progressing—or more accurately, the way her plans had ground to a halt. Over the years, she had repeatedly tried summoning the little invisible servant, and each time, she had failed utterly. After the first few attempts, her efforts grew farther spaced.
She discovered that each trial had drawn heavily upon her store of beauty.
Always pale, with the fox-eyed look so many with aubum hair endured, she had become expert in the application of cosmetics.
The last time, half a year ago, had been the worst.
Spell-making had to be done with the person in as natural a state as possible, artifice removed, garments plain. After that last terrible attempt, when she went to repair her appearance, she was shocked. Without any of the cosmetics she ordinarily wore, hers was a face that would not keep any woman long before her mirror. The eyebrows, untouched by the pencil, were threaded with silver hairs.
They loomed over deep-set eyes not a warm brown, as might be expected, but the cold color of a sword blade.
Her unpainted mouth had become a thin slit, the lips tightly pressed together, seeming to echo the ever-present anger that was carving wrinkles across her high forehead. Bracketed with more wrinkles, her jaw was square and heavy, more like one to be seen under a war-helm frame than a lady's coif.
She couldn't bear looking at herself. She had married at fifteen, borne Florian at seventeen. Only now a little past thirty, she looked fully two- score years older. Shuddering, she reached for the jars and bottles, and with their help, managed to concoct a mask that hid the worst of the ravages. Or so she hoped.
With the depredations of chronic ill health. King Boroth had begun a steady decline. At first, she was inclined to put it down to the drink with which he plied himself night and day. But gradually she began to see that it was more than that. It was as if some kind of strength upon which he had long relied was being withdrawn.
Not knowing what else to do, Ysa hid this ongoing weakening of the King as much as possible, putting it down to a slight infirmity, a chest cold, a touch of joint-ache. But she couldn't expect to hide his growing helplessness forever.
When the mountains began to awake and belch forth fire, shaking the very ground beneath the city, Boroth's condition deteriorated even more rapidly. At last he took to his bed, and only the most deluded maintained that he would ever
leave it again.
This produced mixed feelings in Ysa. She welcomed the finality of the King's withdrawal from the day-to-day matters of the Kingdom, for it put even more power into her own hands. And yes, she even welcomed the fact that Boroth no longer dallied with the palace maids, despite her own lack of any real affection for him. She was well past jealousy these days. However, she did not wish him ill. Rather, she hoped that he could last long enough for Florian to come into his own without her having to battle for the Regency. Ysa knew that her greatest strength lay in being influential behind the throne, rather than openly wielding the power that had become hers by default. This, however, would take time, as
Florian was still too immature to be trusted to rule without a panel of regents.