Cygnet

by Patricia A. Mckillip

  “How can I find out? I barely know they exist! I’m not like Nyx to know sorcery, or Calyx who has read everything in Chrysom’s library twice—”

  “You know they’re dangerous. The witch came to you.”

  She stared at him, wordless, frustrated. “Hew, what do you expect me to do? Stand at the gate and ask her name when she enters? That’s for you to do.”

  “It’s for me,” he agreed tautly. “And by then it will be too late. You must help me. You grew up in this house. You have ancient memories in your past. The witch came to you.”

  “She crossed my path. She said my name.” She was shivering in the rain; rain rolled down his face like tears. Wind dragged torchlight over them, pulled apart the cloak of darkness they stood wrapped in. She saw them suddenly as from another angle in the yard, a cottager’s window, the alehouse doorway, a tower casement: she gripping his cloak, he her hands; his face, an inch or three higher, inclined slightly, the hard spare lines of it dark and fire, reflections of the pale Delta river in his eyes.

  She whispered, “Gatekeeper.”

  “Lady Meguet.”

  “I must go.”

  “Say my name again before you go.”

  “Hew.”

  “Meguet.”

  Five

  THE Holder sat late with her family that night in Chrysom’s library. Meguet, who had shed her drenched, muddy riding clothes for black velvet and pearls, sat on a stone seat against the stone wall. The chill kept her awake, the stones kept her upright; demands beyond that, she felt, were unreasonable. Yet the Holder made them.

  “What blind woman?”

  “I don’t know,” Meguet said.

  “Tell me again what the witch said. Tell me exactly.”

  She was pacing back and forth in front of the fire, the swing of her heavy, wine-colored gown mesmerizing. Iris, looking perplexed, was doing some needlepoint. Calyx sat in the shadows listening intently, looking, in white velvet and diamonds, like something carved out of frost. Rush was frowning, his eyes lowered in concentration; he was, Meguet thought, about to snore.

  “Beautiful,” Meguet said for what seemed the third or eighth time, “as beautiful as night, and blind.”

  It was then Calyx spoke. “That’s simple,” she said. “It’s the constellation. The Blind Lady who wears the Ring of Time. The Silver Ring of Withy Hold.”

  The Holder stared at her. She was not prone to throwing things besides her voice, but she did then. The poker struck the hearth with a snarl of stone and iron that brought Rush upright, feeling for a weapon that he had taken off hours ago. He froze under the Holder’s glare.

  “Another Hold Sign.”

  “Strictly speaking,” Calyx began, “the Blind Lady is not—”

  “How could a constellation walk through the gate?” Iris asked.

  “The tinker did.”

  “The tinker is not—”

  “If we guard the gate,” Rush said. “If the Gatekeeper watches, she can’t enter.”

  “The tinker did,” the Holder snapped.

  “We weren’t warned.”

  “The Gatekeeper let him in.”

  “He wasn’t warned either,” Rush argued reasonably. “This time, Meguet told him.”

  The Holder paced a step, whirled. “The Gatekeeper is responsible for whoever enters or leaves this house.”

  “But, Mother—” Calyx began.

  “He should have known. As he recognized himself Gatekeeper, he should recognize anything this dangerous to Ro House. The Blind Lady. The Silver Ring. The Dark House. The Gold King. Something is gathering against this house—” She turned again, for Meguet had made a sound. The Holder gazed at her, waiting, her eyes hardened already against what Meguet would say.

  “The Wayfolk man,” she breathed. “Corleu. He spoke of these things. The Dark House. The Dancer. The Warlock.”

  “The Dancer is guarded by the Fire Bear,” Calyx said wonderingly. “The Warlock is the Blood Fox’s shadow. Berg Hold and the Delta.”

  The Holder’s arm swept impulsively toward the mantel, where Chrysom’s crystal jars and boxes and cut stones gleamed like jewels in the shadows. Meguet closed her eyes. But Rush spoke a moment later. She had checked her gesture; they were all still alive.

  “We’ll bring him here. The Wayfolk man.”

  “No,” the Holder said harshly. “Not into this house.”

  “Under guard, bound, locked away—what more could he do?”

  “I will not have him anywhere in this house.”

  “Then elsewhere,” Rush said bewilderedly. “In the city, somewhere—”

  The Holder, her mouth tight, picked up the poker, sent a small avalanche of coals rattling through the grate instead of answering.

  “Somewhere safe from Nyx?” Iris asked. “Where might that be, Rush? If Nyx wants him with her, she has the power to keep him. Against you, against Meguet, against anyone.”

  “Thank you,” the Holder said icily.

  “I’m being sensible, Mother. Someone has to be.” She flushed suddenly under the Holder’s gaze. She continued with a stubborn, curious dignity. “All I can see is what is obvious, and that is what most of the people of Ro Holding see. You all see through the confusion in flashes of magic and learning. I can’t. I just recognize the simple things. If Nyx is doing all this, none of us can stop her. If she is innocent, then she’s bound to be in danger.”

  The Holder set the poker down with a sigh. She said nothing for a moment; her fingers worried at her elegant hair, but for once the pins were too skillfully hidden. She folded her arms instead; her eyes went to Meguet.

  “You thought the Wayfolk man was not the danger.”

  “I think,” Meguet said carefully, pulling together the dreamlike scraps of his tale, “he is trying to rescue someone. The dark house fell unexpectedly into his life. The tinker is the danger. Part of it.”

  “And the tinker is here.”

  “If we guard against the Blind Lady, keep her from entering—”

  “I think we should bring them both here,” Rush said implacably. “Nyx and the Wayfolk man.”

  “Oh, Rush, use your head,” Calyx said impatiently. “You weren’t listening to Iris. If she is dangerous, do we want her in the house with the tinker? And if she is not, she is much safer being away from here. And what I think—”

  “If she—”

  “What I think,” Calyx said, raising her delicate voice as much as she ever did, “is that if Nyx and the tinker were working together, this is where she would be. Here, in this house, with him. I think we should guard the house against the blind woman. The tinker is doing nothing; maybe he can’t, without her.”

  “What I want to know,” Iris asked, “is: Are they sorcerers? Or something to do with the Holds?”

  The Holder touched her eyes. “Iris, how can you say such things so calmly?”

  “Well, we do have to know.”

  “I know.” She consulted Meguet again, with her eyes. “You’ve seen more of this than anyone. What do you think? What are they?”

  They all turned to her expectantly. She answered after a moment, softly, reluctantly. “The Wayfolk man spoke of waking the Dancer on the last day of winter. That is not sorcery. That is a tale out of Berg Hold, as old as Ro Holding.”

  She stood in her chambers later, staring out at the night. Rain and wind gusted across the yard. She could not see a single light on the sea. The only light in the world was in the Gatekeeper’s turret, and the torches he kept lit beside the gate to guide travellers in the dark. She saw the brazier light obscured a moment, reappear. He was still there, at the cold, late hour, still watching.

  She reached for her cloak.

  She felt, walking through the storm, as if she walked the surface of Wolfe Sea, with all the spindrift flung about her, and the small, high fire pulling her like the moon pulling tide. He did not hear her mount the stairs; he could only have heard the booming tide, the wild wind. She stood, darkly cloaked, hooded, at the top
of the stairs, at the edge of his light, and as he turned his head, she wondered if he could see her face at all, or if he would speak some name other than hers. He looked at her. Wordless, rising, he stepped into the rain. He slid her hood back with both hands, slipped her long, pale hair free until it streamed with the torch fire in the wind. She took his face between her hands, drew it down and down until she tasted the Delta river currents running in his mouth.

  The wild rain wore them apart finally. They huddled close to the brazier, dripping, blinking in the light. The Gatekeeper watched Meguet; she watched the shimmering heat, too weary to think. He said finally:

  “So green, your eyes. Not a Delta green. Nothing under these mists is that green.”

  She raised her eyes. There were threads of silt and gold in his hair she hadn’t noticed, a line along his mouth, a scar high on one cheekbone, near the eye. He waited calmly, undisturbed by her silence; his eyes, far paler green than her own, had flecks of white in them. She said, “My great-grandfather was of Withy Hold. His eyes got so, looking at the corn, they said. He liked to wander, too. He was a strange man… Do you mean to stay here all night?”

  “Yes.”

  “The blind woman must not come into this house. Calyx says she is a Hold Sign.”

  He blinked, as though her words had flicked like rain across his face. “Then I must be careful,” he breathed.

  “Yes.” She leaned back against the wall, all her weariness roiling through her, all her fears. She slid her hands over her face, felt the sting of tears in the back of her eyes. She felt his hands follow her hands, slide down her wet hair, unpin her wet, sodden cloak.

  “All in velvet, you came out,” he marvelled. “In pearls. You’re soaking.”

  “I wanted to hear your voice.” He smiled his tight, slanting smile. She added, “I don’t know why.”

  “The world’s a wild place beyond Ro House. You’ve known a good deal of it. You’re not content with what’s bred within walls.”

  “So it seems.” She drew breath as he leaned into her cloak, caught her pearls between his teeth. “Hew.”

  “Meguet.”

  “Could you be content, in the late hours some night, watching the gate from Chrysom’s tower? You must sleep sometime.”

  He lifted his head; her hands were in his hair. He drew them down, kissed her fingers. “Will you help me watch?”

  “I will.” She laid her face against his hair. “From my chambers you can see the swans, you can see Wolfe Sea, you can see the barred gate and the turret where the Gatekeeper sat tonight with all the house asleep, but for one woman watching him. Watch until you can no longer watch alone. Then come to the black tower, and I will keep watch with you.”

  He waited until she thought he would not come. And then he came one night, unexpectedly, in some dark, lost hour adrift between midnight and dawn. She was dreaming of swans, gliding on the lake, white and black, shadows and reflections of one another, elegant, proud, secret. One black swan lifted a wing; she felt the chill of the air it had disturbed, then a play of feathers across her mouth. She lifted her hands, shaped and molded the feathery dark until a man moved under her touch and she finally woke.

  He rose after a while, to stir the fire and light candles. He opened a casement to look across the yard at the gate. A mix of rain and snow tumbled past him; he stared down the hard bitter wind without flinching. He shut the casement finally, slid into bed beside Meguet, smelling of winter and cold as iron.

  She rolled on top of him; slowly he stopped shivering; the warm firelight lay over both of them. He slid the furs down, fanned her hair across her back.

  “Is the gate still closed?”

  “Closed and barred.” He went on with his task, separating the rippling strands to his liking. “Lady Meguet. Do you remember the first time you left the house on Holder’s business, all in black, with the swans flying at your back and side and shoulder?”

  “Yes.”

  “You took my breath away.”

  “I don’t recall you looked overawed.”

  “I was trying to stay on my feet, not topple over in your wake. You rode through the gate like night itself. I had only just come; I was overawed by anything. You looked at me and thanked me. You wouldn’t remember that.”

  “I do,” she said, smiling. “You caught my eye. Brown and hard and half-wild, like you knew all the secret places of the backwaters. I wanted to say more, but you looked so stern and solemn.”

  “So did you. You scared me silly.” He began weaving strands of hair like a net. “Ten years ago, that was. Now you have been all over Ro Holding, and I have seen only as far as I can see from the gate in any direction.”

  “Don’t you miss the river?”

  “How can I? My heart is nailed to that gate. I had to come here to find it.” She bent her head to kiss him; his net unravelled.

  “I could never leave this house either,” she said.

  “Why so? You’ll marry, you’ll leave—”

  “Do you think so?” she asked, gazing down at him out of her cool, clear eyes. “No matter how far I go, I always come back here. Rush Yarr says that in a place as old as Ro House, and among such old families, more than faces and names are handed down. Memories, he says, echoes of the past. Sometimes I can see it…”

  “See what?”

  “Back. Far back. As if I’m seeing through a long history.” His hands were still now, his breath barely stirring her hair. “When I watched Nyx in secret, inside her house, I felt it then: that others were watching out of my eyes, evaluating what I saw, showing me what to see…”

  He made a soft sound, drew her hair back from her face. “Swamp’s like that,” he said. “Layering year after year, bone on bone; if you dig deep enough, you’d find the beginning of things. And the gate.”

  “The gate?”

  “Watching, I lose time, now and then. A thousand years passed through that gate. A thousand years of names spoken, shadows riding across the threshold. Sometimes I wonder if a few of those whose names I know are ghosts, riding into another century that still exists somewhere inside the house.”

  She pushed her face against his chest. “Don’t talk of shadows.” She slid her arms around him, watching her shadow on the wall hold his shadow. “Just once, here, let’s leave trouble out in the cold.” He turned, easing over her, sliding his hands through her hair as he kissed her, drawing it out along the pillow, like wings.

  She was half asleep when she felt him pull back the furs. She reached out, but he was already up.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Just to the window.”

  This time she went with him, stood wrapped in furs while the rain blew into her hair. The torches beside the gate still burned; the bar across it had not shifted. Beyond the wind-whipped pools of light, only a tower light or two, a cottage light, broke the wild dark.

  “Nothing could be out on a night like this.”

  “Someone’s always up, always thinking, even in a storm like this.”

  “Not tonight. There’s no world left out there. Only Ro House, in an ancient night before there were stars.”

  “You must be right,” he said, his eyes still drawn to the gate. “Before people. Only you and I and the swans on the lake…” He turned to her, so quickly his eyes still carried some reflection of the dark. He pulled the fur away from her and lifted her naked in his arms like an offering to the wind and rain and the ancient night. Cold took her breath away, and then he did, head bowed over her body, drinking in the hard rain.

  Asleep finally, she felt him loose his hold of her, draw back the furs. She groped for him, murmuring. The winds were singing madly around the tower. “Don’t,” she pleaded, her eyes closed. “Nothing is out there.”

  “I must watch.” He sounded still asleep.

  “Stay with me. Don’t leave me yet. Not even dawn is at the gate.”

  “The gate moved.”

  “It’s only wind at the gate. Only rain.”
/>   “I must watch.”

  “I’ll watch,” she said, and felt him sink back. She pushed against him; he wound his hand into her hair. “I’ll watch,” she whispered, and drew his other arm around her.

  “You watch, then,” he sighed, and she felt his body ease back into sleep. “You watch.”

  He was gone when she woke again. She rose, went to the casement, and saw familiar movement within the turret. She watched him, wondered if he were watching the black tower. Something strange hit her hand, spilled over the stones, down the wall; blinking, she saw her own shadow. She raised her head, and saw the sudden light fall over the sea.

  She dressed quickly, ate something she did not taste. The morning lured her: a taste of spring, though the air was still brittle with cold. She went downstairs, watching for the Gatekeeper’s turret in every southern window. Walking outside, between the towers, she saw him again, framed in every archway she passed along the wall. Turning into one, finally, she found her way blocked.

  An old woman stood within the archway, half in shadow, half in sunlight fanning over the cobbles. She seemed to be seeking the sun with her face; her heavy eyes could not lift to see. She was dressed oddly, layered with old clothes. A cottager, Meguet thought, someone’s ancient kin wandered away from the hearth.

  “Are you lost?” she asked. “May I help you?” The face swung toward her, strong and hard, mottled like an apple. For a moment, Meguet felt that she was being scented.

  “Ah. Meguet.” The old woman lifted her hand to the ragged edge of lace trailing out of a hole in what looked like a skirt made out of sacking, over a longer gown of stained velvet. Her fingers pulled at the threads, twitching. “Lost? No. I found my way here. I came out to smell the spring.”

  “How did you know my name?” Meguet asked curiously. “You must remember voices. But I don’t remember you.”

  “Your name is here.” She held out the threads her restless fingers had woven together. “I have all the names.” She pulled up the worn velvet; beneath it was a skirt of tapestry edged raggedly with muddy cloth of gold. Beneath her motley layered skirts, Meguet glimpsed strange boots covered in peacock feathers. “Here they all are. All of Ro House.” On the hand that wove she wore a tarnished silver ring.