I shook my head at my foolishness and slipped it into my pocket, hoping that its return would win me some kindness in the form of food and a chance to wash and tend my grazes and cuts. At the very least I would be free to pass through this property unhampered once I had brought the carved ring to its mistress. There was no question in my mind that it must be done, for the giving of the ring had begun the strangeness that had taken me over, and so to end it the ring must be delivered. This was absurd reasoning, but I was trying to hold belief and unbelief in my mind at the same time. Even as I planned to fulfil my promise to the turquoise-eyed Ranulf, I strove to convince myself that all I had endured was a vivid hallucination brought on by a fall or perhaps some sort of bite or fever that had come on me when I fell asleep under the hedgerow.
Certainly I had no intention of speaking of wolves and mountains or strangler trees and huge red birds to the lady of this house, or to whomever answered her door. I meant only to say I had hurt myself passing through her garden, in an effort to deliver the armlet as I made my way to an appointment. That missed appointment with the fussy archivist seemed to have occurred long ago in another life, and I longed to return to that rational life. I felt that delivering the armlet would deliver me back to it, to normality.
I gazed at the enormous door and hesitated. It was so ornate and imposing that I found myself afraid to knock. I was about to turn away and seek some less intimidating door at which I might humbly present myself when rain began to fall with the same sudden violence as in the moments before I had passed through the Wolfsgate. Even as I wondered at the coincidence, I heard the rumble of thunder. I told myself it would not matter if I got wet. The rain would wash off the fetid reek of the bog. (What bog, my mind asked fiercely.) But thunder rumbled again and the rain seemed to grow heavier, hammering down on cobbles, walls and roof with a cacophonous racket that extinguished any possibility of thought. I knocked at the door, but no one came, and I was forced to accept that my knock had been too feeble to be heard. Reluctantly I turned my attention to the great beast head that was the door’s knocker and discovered that the only way to lift the brutish thing seemed to be to put my hands inside its maw.
I might have baulked at that, but now the wind was blowing icy rain into the alcove. Gritting my teeth, I reached into the maw of the metal knocker and encountered a smooth grip. With a grunt of effort I raised the head of the beast high and withdrew my hand to let it fall. A sharp pain made me gasp as a single dolorous thud shook the door and the step under me. I had a vision of the sound reverberating though endless shadowed halls and tapestry-hung rooms with cold stone fireplaces. Looking down at my hand, I saw several long jagged scratches welling beads of blood. Only when I bent down to peer into the maw of the knocker to see what had cut me did I notice that the beast’s teeth had been sharpened to razor points.
Appalled, I stepped back, wondering uneasily what sort of person had a doorknocker with sharpened teeth. It did not occur to me that I had entered a world where it was mandatory to offer blood when one first seeks entry to any house.
I heard a sound from within and imagined a plump, kindly housekeeper who would take pity on my wet and bedraggled state and sympathise in broken English. She would tell me that her mistress was out for the evening, or better still, had gone abroad for some time. Then she would usher me into the kitchen to dry myself. It would be a vast, warm, cavern of a chamber smelling of fresh-baked bread and hot stew and she would press a thick towel into my hands and cluck over my wetness as she sliced bread and bade me eat. So enthralled was I in imagining the housekeeper that I could almost see her plump motherly face creasing into a smile as she insisted I try some lemon tea cake she had made – the sort of face I had wished my own mother had offered to the world and me, instead of her thin intelligent face with its small, wary blue eyes.
The door opened suddenly to reveal a ravishingly beautiful woman in an old-fashioned but clearly ruinously expensive evening gown, under the hem of which bare, pale feet peeped out.
‘Yes?’ she said languidly.
‘Ah . . . it is raining,’ I said, stupidly dazed. She was, after all, the first faerie woman I had ever seen and I had not yet learned to defend myself from the natural glamour of her kind. She made no response to my absurd pronouncement, save to open the heavy door enough for me to slip through the gap. I hesitated only a second, and stepped through into an entrance that could have served as a hall for meetings, it was so large. The roof was too high for me to see it, for the only light in the place seemed to be candles in holders set along the walls. Blackout, the rational part of my mind suggested, or perhaps the owner of the mansion was eccentric enough to prefer a less modern form of lighting. Certainly it gave the place atmosphere.
The barefoot beauty led me from the hallway along a passage, the milky white marble floor of which was softened by a beautiful plush oriental runner. Her bare feet made no sound but I did not dare to walk on the rug in my filthy shoes, so I flapped awkwardly along beside her. The hallway brought us to a large chamber where a magnificent tapestry hung. It was the only thing in the room and it was exquisite. I embroidered myself, and despite everything that had befallen me, longed to examine it closely, but my guide had drawn ahead of me, and so I made haste to catch her up.
I had it in my head that she was leading me to a kitchen or perhaps a laundry where I could wash, but instead she opened a door to a small, exquisite parlour where a very beautiful older woman sat working at a tapestry draped over an antique wooden frame. The woman gave me a searching look, and if I had not been shivering with cold, I would have trembled at the way that haughty, pale blue gaze seemed to peel away my skin and look inside me.
‘You have come,’ she said, peculiarly.
I could only nod and this seemed to be enough, for the older woman turned back to her embroidery, bidding the young beauty bathe my hurts and my person. I thought she meant I should be taken to a bathing room, but the young woman bade me wait, saying that she would return with water and ointments. Then she drifted away leaving me standing there, dripping on the flag-stones. The older woman flicked a look of irritation at me and bade me stand by the fire so that my clothes could dry. I flushed, for her tone told me she had decided I was a fool.
There was a deep, comfortable chair before the hearth, but I could not sit in it, wet and filthy as I was. Instead, I drew out its wooden footstool and sat gingerly on that, facing the flames and trying to marshal my wits so that I could make some sensible responses when she began to demand some answers. But her whole attention was bent on her tapestry. I watched her needle stab in and out swiftly, half hypnotised by the rhythm until my eyes began to close.
I started awake when the other woman returned wheeling a trolley. She set a large bowl on the flagstones by the fire, then began to fill it with steaming water from jug after jug. When the bowl was half full, she bade me bathe and she would go and get me some dry clothing. I ought to have been embarrassed at the discovery that I was expected to strip off my filthy clothes and stand naked in this room, with its mistress working at her tapestry, but since her cold blue eyes had already stripped my skin off, I simply took off my outer clothes, hesitated, and then stripped off my sopping underthings, all the while keeping my eyes on the older woman. She did not lift her head.
I stepped into the hot water with a shiver and used a sponge to lave water over myself. It was not nearly so satisfying as a long hot shower, and yet there was a medieval poetry in the sound of the water trickling into the bowl, the reflection of flames on my wet limbs, the lavender scent of the steam, which soothed me profoundly. Even so, by the time I was drying myself, my knees stung fiercely and my hand had begun to throb again.
The young woman returned with a white lawn nightgown that seemed to me fine and lovely enough to be a bridal dress. She slipped it over my head and the soft whisper of its movements over my skin gave me gooseflesh. When she commanded it, I sat obediently on a stool as my filthy, tangled hair was washed and combed,
and finally she put a soothing salve from a little enamelled pot onto all of the cuts and bruises I showed her. The pain of them began to fade at once, making me wonder what was in the miraculous ointment. Some of the gashes were ugly enough that I had feared they ought to have been stitched, but neither woman suggested calling a doctor.
I submitted to all these intimate ministrations with docility, partly out of exhaustion and partly because I sensed they were part of the strangeness I had entered. When the trolley was wheeled away, I was so weary I could have curled up on the chair by the fire and slept, content as a cat, but a shawl was brought and wrapped around my shoulders and the mistress of the house rose to announce in her cold, high voice that supper would be served in the adjoining chamber. She led me there, where a cold repast was laid out on a long, beautiful table made of the same pale wood as the armlet in the pocket of my wet clothes. I sat salivating with hunger while the meal was served, but before I could touch a morsel, my hostess asked if I would go back into the tapestry room and see if I could find a golden needle that she must have dropped by the tapestry stand.
It was a strangely timed request, and menial, but her young companion had withdrawn for the moment so I nodded and went back through the door to the other room. The fire had begun to burn down and, as the candelabra had been carried to the room we were to dine in, the chamber was now full of shadows, which seemed to gather more thickly about the tapestry stand. I searched among my wet clothes for the lighter, at the same time retrieving the carved armlet so I could present it to my hostess, then I set about searching for the needle. It did not take me long to see the flash of gold, but retrieving it from the crack into which it had fallen took some ingenuity. But at last I carried it triumphantly back to my hostess, who still sat at the table, palms flat upon its surface, as when she had asked me to fetch it for her.
When she held out her hand, I laid the needle upon it and then I gave her the carved armlet.
Remembering my own testing has brought me to the very edge of sleep, but all at once a realisation flashes in my mind like a gleam of flame on a golden needle! Heart yammering, I throw back my covers, pull a shawl about my shoulders and hasten out into the halls until I come to the doors of the Princess Chamber. I take the cold doves in my hands, turn them and throw open the doors. The dazzle of white petals fills my eyes, blinds me with relief so overwhelming it is like a blow to the head, and I stagger against the doorjamb and cling to it, trembling and gasping for a long, giddy moment.
He lives and the hunt is still on.
I feel the approach of the third dusk as a quickening in my blood, and in that moment, I decide I will assay no test if my son’s chosen comes safe through the Endgate. It is my right and I have no doubt that she has been tested hard and well in the Wolfsgate Valley. But it is less that than the knowledge that she came when my son hunted her, though he is a beast almost wholly now, and she and her dog fought to protect him, that convinces me she is worthy. Unlike my mother-in-law, I will not hide my joy at seeing her come safe through the Endgate, in case she fails to satisfy the Princess Chamber. I will kiss her and call her daughter and daughter she shall be to me, I am suddenly sure of it. In that glad moment all things seem possible.
Cloud-Marie appears at the door, and I see by her expression that she knows the time as well as I. I sign my requirements to her. I do not know what expression is on my face, but she looks at me for a long moment with one curious eye, before she lopes away. It takes time but at last she comes up to my chamber bearing a laden basket and my cloak. I have dressed myself but I turn to let her drape my cloak about my shoulders and turn again so she can reach up to tie it at my throat, panting open-mouthed as she struggles to make her thick fingers perform the delicate task. I do not twitch myself away or sigh impatiently, but simply wait until she has managed it.
Finally she kneels before me to slip on my outdoor shoes and I touch her wiry golden hair and feel a stab of love for her. Perhaps I made some sound, for she looks up at me from that position and gabbles an enquiry. Her words are gibberish, but I know what she wants. I bid her get her own cloak and she gives me a gaping smile of delight before running to fetch it. As often before, I am struck by her capacity for joy in the smallest things. Perhaps the vacancies in her allow more space for joy, while the rest of us have little space for it and less and less as we grow older.
I shall not be like that, I vow. Not now and no matter what happens in the Princess Chamber. Though I grow old I will open myself to joy. For some reason, I think of Yssa and my heart aches for her. If only she had stayed and opened herself to the pleasure of her daughter’s sweetness she might, like me, have learned joy from her.
In my gladness at knowing my son lives, my love for Cloud-Marie and her mother grows more intense, for aside from my son and my husband, I have loved no one better in my life than these two, the sister and daughter of my heart.
Cloud-Marie returns, struggling into her cloak. I tie her ribbon for her and then I take up the basket and we set off, hand in hand. We make our way through the palace to the front door of the west wing, and come out into the beautiful fountain courtyard. Cloud-Marie gives a crow of excitement as she lollops alongside me.
My mother-in-law awaited my arrival within the house, but I will not be niggardly in my welcome. I am too impatient to behold the face of my son’s chosen. I know that I may not speak to her of the testing she has undergone, or of the Princess Chamber ere she enters it, but I need not treat her coolly. I will pretend to believe whatever tale she decides to tell me, until we are free to speak truthfully to one another.
I glance up and see clouds of darkness gathering overhead. It is always so at the beginning and end of a testing, I now know. Cloud-Marie senses my tension, rocks a little, so I take her big rough hand and kiss it and clasp it in my own. It flutters like a bird and then is still.
The sun kisses the horizon and we sit on the edge of the fountain together and wait and wait until the gate from the lane that leads to the Wolfsgate Valley opens. The silver-haired woman I saw in the scrying bowl comes stumbling into the fountain yard. She does not stop and gaze around her as I did, coming here that first time, for her head is bent low over the body of the red dog she carries in her arms. As she staggers closer, I see that there is red blood all over the hands that hold the beast so closely and tenderly.
My heart aches and I start towards them.
The woman looks up at me and all strength seems to run out of me, for I know her.
It is Yssa, and now I see the few strands of fire amidst the silver grey.
‘Quickly, Rose,’ she gasps. ‘The pack attacked as we were running for the Endgate. She was hurt defending me. We must get her to the Princess Chamber before it is too late.’
I am utterly confounded, but her command is so urgent and authoritative that I can do no more than obey. Instead of bringing her through the doors, I lead her around the house to the mist garden, and up steps that will bring us to the hall outside the Princess Chamber. She knows the way as well as I, but when we reach the closed doors of the Princess Chamber she stops and looks at me expectantly. The dog’s blood is dripping through her fingers onto the white marble floor and questions crowd my mind.
‘You must open the doors for her!’ Yssa cries.
I grasp the doves and throw open the doors and Yssa runs into the room, scattering and crushing white petals that spin in a fragrant blizzard in her wake. Heaving the dog over her shoulder, she climbs awkwardly up on the edge of the bed to lay the dog there as gently as she can. Immediately blood stains the pure white silk of the coverlet.
‘What are you doing?’ I gasp, but she only leaps down and catches my hand, dragging me after her from the chamber, slamming the door closed behind us. Then she heaves a great sigh and leans back against the doors.
‘I don’t understand,’ I whisper.
But Yssa’s eyes have found Cloud-Marie who has come after us, and she answers me almost absently, without taking her eyes from her d
aughter. ‘She is his chosen and we will see soon enough if the princess spell is wide and kind enough to encompass her. If not, she will die.’
‘But . . . she is a dog,’ I stammer.
‘And your son is a wolf,’ says my friend.
‘My son must wed one with mortal blood,’ I say.
‘My niece is half mortal like your son, and of royal blood besides,’ Yssa answers.
‘How . . .’ I begin, but now she is holding out a filthy, bloodstained hand to Cloud-Marie. To my astonishment, both of the girl’s eyes fix on the woman that she cannot know is her mother and she is smiling, her expression radiant.
‘Sweetling,’ Yssa sighs, and gathers her daughter to her in her strong brown arms. Cloud-Marie sighs as deeply as her mother, as if some long, hard task is at an end, and closes her eyes.
Tears fill my eyes and spill down my cheeks at the sight of them clasped together, but I think of my son and I do not understand. How can he have chosen a dog for a bride and how can a dog be the niece of my faerie friend and royal and half mortal besides? The questions in my mind pile one upon another until I cannot stand under the weight of them. I lean against the wall and then find I must slide down and sit on the floor in a billowing puddle of silk and satin.
Hearing the rustle of cloth, Yssa looks down at me, and there is love and regret in her face. ‘My dear friend, I knew your kindness and capacity for love would encompass even my poor girl. Had you not endured my resentment and bitterness with such patient grace that they were stilled in me and I came to love you?’
‘I don’t understand what any of this means,’ I say. ‘Where is my son?’
Metro Winds Page 29