‘It is nothing,’ she said, making light of it. ‘It’s the way of things here. I have moved on and so have they.’
He thought that she was hurt by their desertion for all she dismissed their peculiar absence so carelessly. He tried to make it up to her by being extra attentive through their small but elegant wedding feast. Later, when they were alone, he presented her with his personal wedding gift, a magnificent emerald necklace. ‘To match your eyes,’ he told her.
Elaine was enchanted and stared into the mirror for a full minute without saying a word. She touched each stone, then looked up, and into his eyes in the mirror. Her lips parted and she pulled at the bow that held her nightgown closed. With a shrug the fine gown dropped to her feet and she turned, smiling, and went to him, naked save for the emeralds.
That night, that passionate, wonderful night, had been the happiest of his life.
In his sleep, the tormented old man cried, tears emerging from closed eyelids. No! he shouted in his mind, knowing that he had once again visited and left behind the single most joyous night he had known, and knowing what pain and suffering was to come.
The trip home had been as comfortable as he could make it, but Elaine was not a good traveller. His relief as they came into the harbour of Land’s End was enormous, for he had begun to fear for her health. She had been sick at almost every stage of their journey and he was resolved that she should see a chirurgeon as soon as possible.
As he stood beside her at the ship’s rail, his arm curled protectively around her slender shoulders, Bernarr could sense the disappointment that her smile hid. For the first time in his life he saw Land’s End in comparison with Rillanon, Salador, and Krondor, and it did not compare well. It was a small, work-a-day place, shabby, plain and ordinary.
‘You will make it beautiful just by being here. My people will love you,’ he promised.
Elaine smiled dazzlingly and embraced him and his heart lifted. She was wonderful, everything he had thought she would be and more. If only she were not so often ill.
He took her to his estate in the country, thinking the air would be more pure there. Elaine seemed bored and listless, but her colour was better and he thought she seemed stronger.
They had been home less than three weeks when a ship came to port carrying a number of Elaine’s friends. And they came carrying evil tidings. Her father had been murdered in a tavern brawl. To his horror, Elaine fainted dead away. Bernarr ordered the servants to carry her to her room and then turned his fury on her friends.
Zakry, the squire’s third son of whom Elaine was once so fond, seemed overcome with astonishment. His handsome features slowly turned from amazement to anger under the Baron’s blistering attack. ‘I would never try to hurt the Lady Elaine!’ he exploded. ‘She is very dear to me.’ For a moment Bernarr was certain the boy would draw his sword, and found himself anticipating the confrontation with pleasure. Then, Zakry seemed to come to himself and gestured behind him to where his friends stood. ‘To all of us. I apologize for being insensitive to your lady’s delicate nature. We should have anticipated what a shock the news would be.’
They all nodded and curtsyed and murmured their agreement.
Bernarr looked at them, his nostrils pinched with disapproval and his face white with rage. ‘Because my wife has such regard for you, and because you meant well by coming here I will, of course, extend to you the hospitality of my house. But I warn you, at the slightest hint that you are upsetting her, I will order you to leave.’ With that, Bernarr spun on his heel and followed the servants to his lady’s quarters, to sit by her bed until she woke.
Indeed, it seemed to Bernarr that Zakry’s estimation of Elaine’s feelings for her father was correct. For, although she should have been in deep mourning, after recovering from her faint, she showed no signs of distress: rather, she spent all of her time with her old friends, laughing and gossiping and even dancing and singing. Bernarr didn’t approve; it was unseemly. And yet, he could deny her nothing. Especially since he’d met her wretched father and could well understand her lack of concern. It must have been a horror being raised alone by such as he. Still, after several social galas Elaine organized and many forays into the city to shop, the local squires and rich merchants could barely hide their disapproval of her frivolous manner. He felt embarrassed. Yet he forgave her everything, accounting her actions to her youth and the influence of her callow friends.
He wanted to stay by her side every moment, but the duties he’d left behind had piled up over the months he’d been away and there was always work to be done. Often he was called away to the city, or away at nearby villages, conducting the business of the barony, and was gone for two or three days. The old castle overlooking the city was garrisoned, but it was otherwise empty, lacking even a pretence of occupation. Other than soldiers and his personal secretary and the city officials who visited, Bernarr was alone. On those occasions, he burned with jealousy and hated himself for it.
He knew her friends were leading her into unseemly behaviour. Elaine meant well, but she was so innocent that she truly saw no harm in their silly play that in this time of mourning bordered on the debauched. Not in Rillanon, perhaps, but certainly in Land’s End.
He must do something! At the very least he must do something about Zakry. He was the instigator, the one who led them all astray. Get rid of him and the problem was all but solved.
Yes, something must be done, and soon.
The old man’s pain did not lessen in his sleep, but the thin lips with their deep vertical grooves pulled back from yellow teeth. There was little strength left in his face, but for a moment an observer might have seen him as he had been in youth and anger, a cold pale rage the deadlier for coming from the mind as much as the heart.
But there was nobody to see; no one at all. Outside the door stood two members of the household guard. Hand-picked, they followed orders, and the orders were the same tonight as they had been every night since they had taken duty with the Baron: no matter what they heard or thought they heard from within the Baron’s chamber after he retired for the night, they were never to enter unless called for by name by the Baron. Both men on duty were used to cries and moans and curses. Both men ignored the piteous weeping they heard at that moment.
Images cascaded, one on top of the next, and Bernarr gripped the sheets as a drowning man would a lifeline.
He was hunting, and Elaine’s friends were with him. An arrow flew, killing a boar, and Bernarr turned in rage. The impudent whelp had robbed Bernarr of his kill!
Suddenly he was near the cliffs, the pounding surf on the rocks below, as he sat listening to Zakry shout, ‘Sir! You will listen to me!’
But Bernarr could hear nothing over the pounding of the waves on the rocks, and while Zakry’s lips moved, Bernarr could not make out the meaning of his words. Bernarr pulled up, waved his boar-spear in rage, and Zakry’s horse shied, and suddenly Bernarr sat alone on his horse.
A ride, and suddenly he was back in the castle, his guests dismounting as a chirurgeon hurried forward, glad tidings on his lips. He was to be a father!
Then he was at Elaine’s side, and she wept, her shoulders shaking and he couldn’t remember why. Was it the news of Zakry’s disappearance? Or tears of joy?
Then he saw carriages as her friends from Rillanon left, eager to depart by ship before the winter storms prevented them.
Now the old man lay still, the only motion the rapid rise and fall of his chest, and the movement of his eyes behind the closed lids.
For a brief moment, he remembered peace. He remembered the quiet joy he felt in anticipating fatherhood. Elaine was quiet in her confinement, saying little to him or the maids who attended her. Occasionally a woman of the barony, a squire’s wife or the wife of one of the more prominent merchants, would visit and she would brighten for a bit in the company of another woman while sipping tea or strolling through the gardens, but mostly she seemed sad in a way he didn’t understand.
Then
came the night Elaine went into labour. A storm had sprung up out of the sea: hills and walls of purple-black cloud piled along the western horizon, flickering with lightning but touched gold by the sun as it set behind them. The surge came before the storm, mountain-high waves that set fishermen dragging their craft higher and lashing them to trees and boulders, and to praying as the thrust of air came shrieking about their thatch. When the rain followed it came nearly level, blown before the monster winds.
Whips of rain lashed the manor too, and lightning forked the sky while thunder rattled the windows. Bernarr had bribed the midwife to stay at the manse the last two weeks and given the dreadful weather was glad he’d done so.
The storm blew in a traveller and his servants who begged shelter, which Bernarr granted gladly—hospitality brought luck, and at this moment he wanted his full share. The house was so still these days he welcomed the company and was delighted to discover that his guest was a scholar who cared far more for the books in his coach than for either his horses, his servants or himself.
‘Lyman,’ the old man said in his sleep, his lips barely speaking the name.
Bernarr could not see the man’s face. He stood in shadows and no matter how hard Bernarr tried, the memory of the man’s face eluded him. In his fever-dream, the old man remembered, he had shared wine with this man, he had seen him in daylight, yet at this moment, reliving this terrible night, he could not see the man’s face in the shadow.
Then the scream came, and he could hear Lyman’s voice, as if coming to him from a great distance, carried by the storm, ‘You should go to her, my lord.’
Bernarr rushed from the room even as another cry rent the air, terror lending wings to his feet. Yet as he hurried, his feet refused to carry him. The hall was impossibly long and each step was a struggle. He felt as if his body was encased in armour, lead boots clasped around his feet, and terror rose up within as he fought to reach his chambers. Then he was at Elaine’s door in moments, throwing it open—
The midwife stood there, her face at once showing joy and fear. The baby was coming, but Elaine was in distress.
‘You have a son, my lady!’ the midwife said a moment later. She handed the babe to one of the maids and that one rushed the child over to another who tended a bath.
In his dream Bernarr stood unable to move, and then he watched himself approach the bed, stand at its foot and stare in horror at Elaine. Bernarr saw himself look down at his pale, lovely wife, her face drenched in perspiration, her dark hair plastered to her head. Her night clothing was hitched up over her stomach, and everywhere below he could see blood.
Elaine’s eyes sought his, and in them was a silent pleading, and suddenly there was a presence at his side.
‘My lord,’ said a quiet voice at his elbow.
Bernarr saw himself turn to stare at his guest. ‘What are you doing here?’ he asked Lyman.
‘There may be something I can do.’
Then came a rush of images. Lyman raised his hands and the room plunged into darkness.
The midwife tried to hand him his son, but one look at the child and Bernarr shouted, ‘Get rid of it! I never want to see it again.’
Suddenly a monk was in the room, a healing priest from the order of Dala, and then he was accompanied by the chirurgeon. Then he heard the monk’s voice. ‘I am sorry, my lord. She is moments from death, there is nothing I can do.’
Now he was outside her room, and Lyman was chanting. Bernarr again stared at the figure, but could see no face under the broad-brimmed hat.
At last he saw the face of his wife, lying in agony on her bed, her face white and her eyes filled with blood. ‘Let me go!’ she pleaded.
Bernarr woke with a gasp, his heart pounding and tears in his eyes, his head lifted painfully from his pillow. He fell back with a sigh and closed his burning eyes.
He’d had this dream before. Too often in fact. But the ending was new; he’d only dreamed that she spoke to him once before.
‘I won’t let you die,’ he whispered to no one.
He turned his head toward the doorway to her room. The candles had burned down. Even though time moved slowly in her room, it did pass. Seventeen years had come and gone since that dreadful night. Each day Lyman had renewed the spell and every day he tried to find a spell that would save Elaine.
At first they had tried only white magic: seeking healers from across the land, even once, at great expense, sending to Great Kesh for one they’d heard could work miracles. Then they’d tried healing spells, none of which seemed to affect her in even the slightest way.
Each time they lowered the spell that preserved her he feared she would slip away, but each time she’d lived long enough for them to fail and then renew the spell.
Of late, they had turned to darker magic, a spell found in an ancient tome Lyman had secured from a trader from Kesh. There was something evil about that book, but Bernarr had exhausted all other options. He must try this terrible and bloody thing, or he would finally go mad.
Lyman assured him that soon they would succeed. They must succeed; or Elaine would be lost forever.
ELEVEN
Discovery
Lorrie awoke with a start.
There were the usual morning sounds; cockerels crowing, birds singing, but the smell was wrong; dusty emptiness around her, and under that too much smoke and too much dung and nothing green. And the floor beneath her was hard board, not the straw-stuffed tick she slept on.
Where—? she thought.
It crashed in on her, dazing, like a horse’s kick in the gut: I’m in Land’s End. I’m here looking for Rip. Mother and Father are dead.
It was late morning, by the look of the yellow light that filtered in through the shuttered window, a column full of dancing motes of dust. She was alone, alone enough to lie still for a moment with the tears leaking down her cheeks.
Mother! she thought. I need you, Mother!
But she would never see her mother again, and their last words had been a quarrel. Never again would she see her father coming in from the fields to smile and rumple her hair, or sit by the hearth on winter evenings and tell the old stories in his slow deep voice.
She felt like crying, but tears wouldn’t come. Instead there was a dull, aching void. She sat, scrubbing at her face. Rip is alive, she scolded herself. She had to concentrate on that. And I will find him!
But when she concentrated, she sensed something else: that Rip was no longer in Land’s End. She flung aside the cloth she’d been using for a blanket, jammed her shoes on her feet, then rose and went to the window.
She couldn’t see anyone below and though there were windows in the surrounding warehouses she couldn’t see anyone moving behind them. She’d just have to take the chance that they wouldn’t see her either. She gave one glance at the rumpled cloth she’d meant to rewind onto the bolt and shook her head regretfully. There wasn’t time to do that. Rip came first. She put one leg on the window-sill, turned and felt for the roof behind her with her free leg. The window was offset the shed roof below. She remembered Jimmy cautioning her to reach up with her left hand while using her right to steady herself on the wall, the swing to the left a little, and pull up. She determined to reverse the procedure and get to the shed roof. From there it was a short leap to the alley below.
‘What the hell do you think you’re doing!’
The man’s shout seemed to come from directly behind her. Lorrie gasped and almost lost her grip. She slipped down and grabbed hard on the window-sill. For a long moment, she held motionless, her chin barely above the still, clutching the window, for her life in fact, because there was nothing below her but hard cobbles, twenty feet down. Glancing fearfully over her shoulder she saw no one. No one was looking out of one of the windows opposite either.
‘What do ye mean?’
The voices came from the main street, just beyond where the alley below joined it. Right about where the main doors of the warehouse were.
‘I mean those
crates are due on the dock in less than an hour if the Crab isn’t to lose the tide. Why aren’t they on the wagons? What have you been doing all morning, standing there with a thumb up your arse?’
‘I just got the order a few minutes ago! ‘S not my fault!’
Her relief that the shout hadn’t been directed at her caused Lorrie to drop a few inches. She was going to try to swing a few feet to her right and reach the tile roof. As she tried to swing a little to the left, she felt the pain; a sudden, violent burn that was colder than winter ice at the same time, and beneath it all the ugly slicing feeling of being cut.
She’d had accidents with tools and sharp branches before. Not like this. Something very sharp was digging deep into her leg. The hot trickle of her own blood down her leg made her shiver and she gasped at the increased pain even that small movement caused.
That made her want to scream and twist around to grab her leg at the same time; but either of those would mean that she would die.
And Rip will have nobody.
Her head swam a moment, but she fought down dizziness and panted through her mouth. Don’t let go! she commanded herself. She glanced down and saw a seemingly innocuous shard of glass wedged in between the stones. Some glazier had been sloppy in his work and the long piece had fallen from a broken window to wedge hard between stones. Like a crystal dagger it had cut up into Lorrie’s leg. She forced herself to take a deep breath and knew she would have to use every ounce of will and strength to regain the window.
Her hands firmed on the ledge, driving her fingers painfully into the splintery wood. But she couldn’t stay like this: the fall from this height would be a lot more painful than what she was feeling now. Lorrie took a deep breath and hoisted herself up on the window frame. The shrill of agony as her wound was savaged further almost made her lose her grip, rendering her too shocked to even cry out. Once the surprise was over she kept herself from crying out by gritting her teeth and remembering Rip.
If she was caught she might be gaoled, and if she was gaoled she couldn’t help him. I can’t let them catch me, she thought. I have to be strong.
Jimmy the Hand Page 19