Witch Of Rhostshyl s-3

by J F Rivkin

  Corson knew that if she chose to settle down in Chiastelm she’d have a secure home, and a steadfast friend in Steifann, yet she could not bring herself to make that choice, for all of Steifann’s urging. That same unchanging dependability that she valued in him was also what drove her away from him to seek the unknown and untried. “And when I was with Lady Quicksilver, I was missing Steifann all the while,” she thought glumly. “What ails me? I must be under a curse, that I can never be content.”

  It did not improve her mood when Destiver came by to pass the time and cadge a late meal. Corson had seen a good deal more of Destiver than she liked, over the winter, and she made no secret of her displeasure, but she could see for herself that Destiver was no rival for Steifann’s affections. Indeed, Destiver seemed far more interested in carrying on a long-standing flirtation with Annin.

  “We’re closed to custom for the night,” said Corson. “Go away.”

  Destiver ignored her and poured herself some ale. Pushing Trask out of the way, she sat down next to Annin and kissed her hand.

  “Don’t mind Corson,” said Annin, grinning. “She’s just jealous of all my swains, aren’t you, pet?”

  Corson was in no humor for games, but she did her best. “Of course I am,” she said heavily. “Who wouldn’t be?” She drank deeply of her ale and tried to look less wretched than she felt.

  “So am I,” Destiver declared. “Wildly, desperately jealous. It drives me mad.”

  She pulled Annin closer and nuzzled her bare shoulder.

  “So am I!” Trask mimicked. He threw himself at Annin’s feet, exclaiming, “Annin, my beloved, let me carry you away from-”

  Annin kicked him. “Spurned!” he cried, crawling hastily out of reach. “I die.”

  He collapsed with his head in Giniver’s lap. “Console me, fair maid,” he suggested.

  Corson suddenly strode to the door and threw it open. She stood in the doorway with her back to the others, drawing deep breaths of the cold night air and staring out over the roofs of the town at the limitless black sky. Trask’s antics usually amused her, but now she was heartily sick of them, and of all the rest. She felt trapped by everything familiar.

  “Corson, you rutting idiot, close that door! You’ll freeze us all.” Steifann came over and kicked the door shut himself. “You’ll catch a chill,” he said, wrapping his arms around her. “And then you’ll have to drink that foul, scalding brew you gave me. Here, I’ll keep you warm.”

  “There’s not air enough for a sparrow in here,” Corson complained, pushing him away and immediately regretting it.

  “Ah, you’re just looking for a fight,” said Steifann. “What you need is a job.

  She’s bored,”‘ he explained to the others. “She hasn’t killed anyone for weeks.”

  Destiver looked up. “I could take you on for a few days. I’m shorthanded just now.”

  “What did you do, keelhaul someone?” Corson sneered.

  “Not yet-but I will, as soon as I get my hands on that drunken bastard Hrawn.

  It’s not the first time he’s played us this trick. I warned him I’d have the skin from his back if he let us down again.”

  No one asked why Destiver did not simply rid herself of such an unreliable crewman. They all knew that her evasion of the trade laws left her little choice as to the sailors she hired. The wonder was that she managed to control her crew of outlaws and outcasts at all. “What do you say?” she asked Corson. “It’s only a short run up the coast to Eske, to pick up some cargo.” Destiver considered Corson a demented and dangerous animal, but she thought the same of most of her crew, so this did not deter her.

  Corson so desperately wanted a change that she was almost tempted by the offer, but the prospect of being under Destiver’s command for even a few days was intolerable to her. “Try at the Crow’s Nest, why don’t you? Isn’t that where you get most of the scum you sail with?” The Crow’s Nest was a cheap dockside inn which was not choosy about its guests. Criminals and fugitives of every sort could usually be found there.

  “High and mighty, aren’t you? You were glad enough to get onto my ship, not so long ago.”

  “And gladder still to get off of it! I don’t need-”

  “Oh, our Corson’s a favorite with the gentry nowadays, didn’t you know?” Annin interrupted. “She hasn’t much time for common rabble like us. Rhaicimes and wealthy Midlanders seek her out, to hear her tell it.”

  Corson flushed angrily. “It’s true! I could better myself if I chose.”

  “And what’s wrong with that?” said Trask. “I was meant for better things myself than serving in an ale-house. Why don’t you get me a position in a noble household, Corson, since you consort with gentlefolk? I could be a page, a squire, a herald!” He pictured himself in silk doublet and hose, a jeweled dagger swinging at his hip as he hurried-in a dignified way-through halls of pale marble, bearing an important message from His Lordship to the chamberlain.

  “You!” snorted Steifann. “You’d still be selling your skin on the docks if I hadn’t taken you in. You don’t even know your parents, you misbegotten foundling.”

  “Well then, I might be an earl’s son for all you know,” Trask pointed out. “You should treat me with more respect.”

  “Asye, first it’s Corson getting above herself, and now this ungrateful little guttersnipe,” Steifann said indignantly. He turned to Annin. “I suppose you think you should be lady-in-waiting to the Empress now.”

  “Not I. I should be Empress myself.”

  “You’re my Empress,” said Destiver. “And I your slave.”

  “Fool,” said Annin complacently.

  Steifann drained his tankard and poured himself another. “I know how people better themselves, and it’s hard work that tells, not currying favor with a lot of Rhaicimes. Who,” he added, glaring at Corson, “probably don’t exist anyway.”

  Corson only shrugged disdainfully, somehow resisting the temptation to hit Steifann with a chair. It was almost as if she could hear Nyctasia admonishing her, “Now, Corson, don’t be so hasty.”

  Warming to his subject, Steifann took a long swig of ale, sat back, and began to tell everyone for the thousandth time how he, a lowly sailor, had become the owner of a prosperous tavern, all thanks to his own wits and sweat. But before he was very far into the tale, he was interrupted by a loud, insistent knocking at the back door.

  Trask, who was already half asleep, roused himself and sat up. “Shall I-?”

  Steifann shook his head. “It’s some drunk, that’s all.”

  “The house is closed,” called Annin. “Try at the Flagon and Embers.”

  The knocking grew to a pounding, and they heard someone shouting against the wind, something about a message. Steifann cursed and got up to unbar the door.

  “Come in, then, and be quick about it. What’s your business at this Hlann-forsaken hour?” His manner grew more courteous, however, when he saw that their visitor was sober and well dressed, and that he wore the livery of the Ondra, the most influential of the powerful merchant families of Chiastelm. “Er

  … will you have a drink?” Steifann offered. “Did you say you’ve a message for me?”

  “No,” said the man curtly, glancing around the kitchen. When he saw Corson he advanced and made her a bow. “Do I address Corson brenn Torisk?”

  Corson hesitated. She was either in a great deal of trouble, she thought, or she was about to make a great deal of money. But since there was only one messenger the prospects were favorable, so she stood and returned his bow. “At your service, sir.”

  “I have the honor, madame, to serve Ioseth, son of Ondra. He desires an interview with you, Mistress Corson, on a matter of some importance, which will not admit of delay. I’m to bring you at once, if you would be so obliging. You will find him most appreciative, I assure you.”

  Definitely money, Corson decided. “I shall be with you directly, sir,” she said grandly. “Fetch my cloak, Trask.”

&nbs
p; “At once, milady,” Trask muttered, but he did as he was bid. With a triumphant look back at the others, Corson swept out of The Jugged Hare, at the invitation of the head of the house of Ondra.

  6

  “welcome back, we’d almost despaired of you,” said Diastor, teasing Jenisorn, his younger son. An Edonaris by marriage, Diastor had become one of the heads of the family, and between them he and Raphe bore much of the responsibility of managing the estate and vintnery.

  “The both of them were buried in their books, Father-Nyc’s gone for her harp,”

  ’Deisha explained, settling herself on the hearth between her two dogs. They belonged in the kennels by rights-as Mesthelde frequently reminded her-but these were ’Deisha’s favorites and rather spoiled. They were fine watchdogs, nevertheless, and Nyctasia encouraged the one which seemed to have taken her under its special protection. Accustomed to the company of an armed escort, Nyctasia felt safer with the massive wolfhound following her about the house by day and guarding her chamber by night. Mesthelde disapproved, but tacitly allowed it after ’Deisha confided to her something of Nyctasia’s nightmares.

  Mesthelde judged that Nyctasia was growing easier with her new life and her new family’s ways. She no longer went about armed, after all. No doubt she would leave behind her fears at last. She ought to be discouraged, of course, from shutting herself up with those bothersome books-it was such a bad example to set the youngsters. Mesthelde smiled with satisfaction when Nyctasia came in with her harp.

  Nyctasia returned her smile, taking it for a welcome. Mesthelde must be warming to her at last, she thought, and she was not far wrong.

  She next greeted the matriarch, Lady Nocharis, a frail, white-haired woman seated in a warm corner of the enclosed hearth, well provided with cushions and shawls. Nyctasia kissed her cheek. “Mother ’Charis, how good to see you here.”

  The matriarch did not often leave her own rooms, yet she was in many ways the guiding spirit of the family. Her experience and her wise, gentle nature made her counsel much respected. It was she who had persuaded Nyctasia to remain with them in Vale.

  “With so many of us gathered together, I couldn’t stay away. Even ’Clairin home at last, and Alder, my wandering children.” Diastor’s wife Leclairin-the mother of five-and her brother Aldrichas were away much of the time, traveling to markets in all parts of the Midlands to deliver the wines and deal with merchants and patrons. They exchanged an amused glance, upon hearing their mother’s epithet for them.

  “After all, a family gathering cannot be complete without the two of us, my dear Nyctasia,” Lady Nocharis continued. “Are we not the oldest and newest members of the family?”

  Nesanye looked up from the half-finished toy cart he was carving. “A family gathering’s not complete without song, that’s certain. Nye, give us ‘The Queen of Barre’.”

  Nyctasia sang every ballad and catch the others asked for, and a few of her own as well, when they called for more. Trained at court, she was at her ease playing or singing or composing verses-all necessary accomplishments for a person of her breeding. Her voice was high, clear and confident, and she accompanied herself deftly enough on her small lap-harp.

  But to the others music was a rare luxury, especially in the winter, when traveling players and songsters could not visit the ice-bound valleylands. They could not have enough of Nyctasia’s minstrelsy.

  “Sing something from the coast,” begged Tepicacia, “something we’ve never heard before.”

  “You must always have novelty, ’Cacia,” Nyctasia chided her young cousin. “Very well, here’s a wayfarer’s song for you, a song of those who are far from home, of those who have no home to return to. I learned it in Chiastelm, a town full of travelers:

  “Paved roads lead us to the city,

  Earthen roads lead us away.

  To the north are roads of diamond,

  So they say.

  Village roads are dirt and ditches,

  Mud by night and dust by day.

  Kings once rode on roads of silver,

  So they say.

  Roads of water are the rivers,

  Flowing between roads of clay.

  Pearl roads run beneath the ocean,

  So they say.

  Forest roads are plagued with dangers,

  Beasts and bandits haunt the way.

  Roads of sorrow are the stranger’s.

  So they say.

  Freedom is for those who journey,

  Safety is for those who stay,

  Border roads are most uncertain,

  So they say.

  Pathways in the wilderness

  Have I traveled, lost and lone,

  And unyielding, twisting, treacherous

  City streets of cobblestone.

  Roads of clover, roads of favor

  Follow ever, you who may.

  Homeward roads are never-ending.

  So they say.”

  When she finished, there was a solemn silence, except for the whispering of the children, and the snowstorm raging against the high, narrow windows. Nyctasia busied herself at retuning her harpstrings with the silver key. Finally she raised her head and said lightly, “Hark to the wind. I have a good song for such a night, and it should please you, ’Cacia-no one’s ever heard it before.”

  Smiling, she sang,

  “Harvest is over,

  The fields are shorn.

  No longer the wind

  May court the corn

  Where lovers shelter

  Among the grain,

  Where you and I

  Have often lain.

  Not in the season

  Of wintry weather

  May the wind and I

  Go a-wooing together,

  But he shakes the shutters

  To let me know

  Of his new romancing

  With the dancing snow.

  Though the wind be fickle,

  You’ll find me true

  In every season,

  My love, to you.

  And in the springtime

  Let him carouse

  With the beckoning, blossoming

  Apple-boughs,

  For the spring shall see us

  Renew our vows.

  Harvest is over.

  The year complete.

  No longer the wind

  May woo the wheat

  Where lovers sheltered

  Among the grain,

  Where you and I

  Shall lie again.”

  This merry love-song met with a murmur of approval from the company. “Why has no one heard that before?” asked ’Cacia. “Did you just make it up now?”

  Nyctasia grinned. “Do you like it?”

  “Surely,” said ’Cacia politely.

  “Quite charming,” Raphe assured her, and the others agreed.

  “I’m most gratified by your favorable opinion,” said Nyctasia, “but I didn’t write this one. It’s one of Jheine’s.”

  Her announcement caused a sensation, especially among the youngsters, who lost no time in taunting Jenisorn about his secret love.

  “Tell, Jheine, who’s it for?”

  “No one,” he protested, blushing. “It’s just a song.”

  “Who is it, boy or girl?”

  “Desskara? Nolinde?”

  “Eivar brenn Glaos?”

  “No!”

  Nyctasia intervened on his behalf. “It’s an exercise in composition, on a seasonal theme,” she explained. “But it’s incomplete, Jheine. You’ve left out the summertime.”

  “Well, I had another verse, but I’m not sure it will do. Can ‘faithless’ be rhymed with ‘nameless’?”

  “Not on a dare,” said ’Cacia, who felt that she’d been tricked into admiring her cousin’s handiwork.

  “I didn’t ask you. You couldn’t spell ‘nameless’.”

  “What about ‘scatheless’?” someone suggested, setting off another round of debate.

  ’Deisha got up f
rom the hearth and stretched. “The song’s well enough, little brother, but I don’t care for the way your friend the wind is carrying on tonight. I’m going out to see that the horses are well bedded.”

  The dogs jumped up too, eager for any activity, and one of them looked back at Nyctasia expectantly. “Wait for me,” she laughed. “Grey thinks I should stretch my legs, and he’s right. I’ve been sitting all the day.”

  “Be careful!” Mesthelde called after them. “That storm could swallow the two of you like pebbles down a well.”

  “Don’t worry, I won’t let the mooncalf wander off,” said ’Deisha. At the door, she took two long fur cloaks from their pegs and draped one over Nyctasia’s shoulders. “We’ll take lanterns, but they won’t be of much use. Just remember, don’t take your hand from the guide-rope for a moment. Aunt Mesthelde’s right about these storms-folk have frozen to death just a few paces from shelter because they couldn’t see what was before them. We don’t have many blizzards as bad as this in the valley, but we do have to be prepared for them.”

  Nyctasia had never known such weather. The climate of the coast was a good deal more temperate. Her cloak was whipped about her legs, and the blowing snow was so dense that she could hardly see ’Deisha walking just ahead of her. When she looked back toward the house, it had already vanished in the blinding white darkness that surrounded her. Without the rope that had been stretched tight across the yard, she’d have had no idea which way the stables lay. The dogs stayed close beside them all the way.

  Not until they could feel the door beneath their hands did they release their grip on the rope. ’Deisha laughed, fighting the wind to push the door fast behind them. “That’s better! We might have been at the bottom of the sea, out there!”

  “Neither earth nor air,” said Nyctasia absently. “Neither shore nor star.” She stood motionless and intent, as if trying to listen to some distant sound.

  “What did you say?” asked ’Deisha, pushing back her hood and brushing snow from her cloak. “Nyc, what is it? Don’t stand there dripping like a candle.”