She remained in the chair, with her head drooping and slightly to one
side, so he could see only the angle of cheek and chin. “The bed,” he
said. “I am so weary,” said she, “that it’s not needed. Do you take it
and let me rest here. I’ll turn my back if you wish to undress.”
(The thought went tingling through his mind that after this afternoon—so
long ago, now—they needed no more be modest with each other.) It almost
reached his lips, but instead; “No, you shall have the bed; you need
it,” and held his hand to help her up, but she hardly touched it, on her
feet with a sweep of skirts, to take one stumbling step to the towseled
bed, where she flung herself down in her cloak, and as he could tell
from her breathing, was asleep almost at once.
He, wakeful as an owl-bird with excitement and having slept earlier, sat
in a chair with the ice-cold jewel unfamiliar around his neck—bodily
contact had not warmed it at all—half daydreaming, half thinking. A high
destiny? Not with a witch and through witchery. All he thought revolted
against that, it was cheating, if witchery should rule, there was an end
of free choice where choice meant most, all hopes were then fled.
There’s no new day if this rules, we may as well make our beds under the
old Queen’s rule, and that of Florestan, the Laughing Chancellor.
Remigorius. The doctor would say this was not what he thought, but what
he had been taught; they had quarrelled on this issue before, and
Remigorius would say how Rodvard’s reasoning led straight as a line to
the support of all the things that both desired to throw down; how it
was precisely the rejection of witchcraft as devilish and unclean that
Episcopals and Queen stood for. If there were a good God, as the Church
said, He could not allow a free choice that might be turned against
Himself and so deprive Him of godhead.
Mathurin would chime in at this point to say that no man under tyranny
would by free choice choose freedom, the generality preferring rather to
have a chance of rising to the tyrant’s seat. They must be compelled to
take the better way to their own betterment, so that even in the secular
affair free choice was a dream—and then he, Rodvard, would be overborne
by the whirl and rush of their arguments.
A high destiny? Let us, Sons of the New Day, compel them, then; ride the
stormwind to greatness by setting men free. Oh, it would be noble to be
acclaimed as one of those who had brought about the change. But no; no;
that honor would go to those of the High Center, the leaders now hidden
in shadow, whose forms would stand forth in granite with the dawning of
the New Day—while the name of Rodvard Bergelin was never heard.
A high destiny? He thought of battle, the close combat where steel bows
flung their sharp messengers against the double-locked shields and
horsemen went past, while the trumpets shouted. The war-tune rang
through his head—“Lift the star of old Dossola, brave men rise and
tyrants stare . . .”
No. The star would never rise in this time. Dossola, defeated and dead
to honor, bound down by treaties which Queen and Florestan upheld merely
to keep their own place. Shame—no high destiny could come from serving
such a cause. For so much, what could Rodvard Bergelin do in war, even
if the cause were better? There had been Dagus of Grödensteg, to be
sure, the archer, the great hero who sprang from night and nowhere when
Zigraners were a terror to the land—Rodvard thought of his statue in the
Long Square, one arm aloft to hold the deadly bow, the star-badge in his
cap. But that was in the far-off glorious times, when one could clap on
a hat and run forth to adventure instead of a day’s toil over yellow
documents at the Office of Pedigree. What could one do in this modern
war, where noble birth and twenty years of service were needed to make a
commander? He’d lay some captain’s bed, no doubt, and clean his tent; or
enter for a ten-year man, learn the halberd, how to shoot the bow and
form square—a dull depressing life, with a cold lone grave at the end of
it; “stupid as a spearman” said the proverb, and all he had known were
stupid enough. No; no destiny. “The destiny of all is to service, for
only so can happiness be won.” Who had said that? Some priest; member of
what Mathurin called the conspiracy against poverty. Yet if it were not
true, one must save one’s services for oneself and be false as hell to
all the world beside. Let conscience die . . . and dawn began to poke
behind the gray window at the sound of the doctor’s entry returning.
4
DAYLIGHT; REFUGE
Lalette sat up sleepily and sipped a little wine; there was nothing to
eat but the end of a loaf, most of which Rodvard devoured, surprised to
find that he was hungry, (and a tingle running down his veins as he
thought of the evening under the cedars). Remigorius did not even wait
for the end of the meager breakfast before breaking out with; “Hark, the
provosts are already forth. This must be hurried, and you two must
leave. I have arranged matters to the least peril. There’s an inn on
King Crotinianus’ Square, at the north end, called the Sign of the
Limping Cat, where the north-going coaches halt to pick up travellers
from that side of the city. Go there; you can wait on the bench outside
and had better, to avoid talking with someone who might be a spy. I
trust you, demoiselle, to keep your face as much covered as possible;
Rodvard, you shall use that devil-stone to know the purpose of any who
approach.
“There will be a blue-painted coach which goes to Bregatz by way of
Trandit and Liazabon. The driver’s name is Morsens; inquire. Before
Trandit you should make an argument for the benefit of others in the
coach, you being a young couple just wed, so joyous in the bridal that
the new dame’s trunk has been forgot. At Trandit, then, Ser Rodvard will
descend to return for it, while Demoiselle Asterhax rides on to Bregatz
in the care of Morsens the coachman and reaches those of the Center
there. Are you players enough to play these parts? . . . It will thus
not be strange when Morsens protects her, which he will gladly do. But
you must give him a gold scuderius, for he is not one of ours, and his
danger is very great.”
Lalette, who had begun to take down her hair with fingers swift and sure
in order to do it up into the bridal braids, stopped with pursed mouth.
“But I do not have a scuderius,” she said. “I have hardly any money at
all.”
An expression of furious indignation held the doctor’s face as it turned
toward Rodvard. “You?” But the young man, flushing, reached in his
jacket-pocket for a handful of coppers and one single silver spada.
“Perhaps we can make it up together,” he said. “They are so deep in
arrears of pay at the office where I’m employed . . . or if we can find
a Zigraner with his shop open early, I might pledge my wage . . .”
“Or if we find a kind-hearted provost with scudi instead of bilboes for
those he pursues!” cried Remigorius. “Madam, you will need all the
witchcraft you can muster, for you are surely the most improvident fool
that ever tried an evasion with what did not belong to her. I’ve no
money, either.” He tugged at his beard, looking at her from anger-filled
eyes, but before Lalette could more than begin the sound of a hot
retort, changed expression, shrugged, and spread his hands:
“There’s a night’s work gone glimmering, then. But I’ll not send you
back to Cleudi and the Deacons’ Court, even though you were other than
friend Rodvard’s mistress.” He mused (and Rodvard, catching his eye as
the head turned, saw in it a flash of deadly acquisitiveness for the
Blue Star, no real interest in Lalette’s fate whatever). The young man
started as from a blow; Remigorius spoke again:
“You must hide in the city, then, till somehow transport’s found. Would
be welcome to this abode, but too many come here for physic; the matter
would be bruited about. Nor your place, neither, Rodvard. The Queen’s
provosts will not be long in finding your connection with this
demoiselle, no. Your mother know of it?”
Said Lalette; “If you mean of Rodvard, I—I do not think so. We met
always while she was at the Service. He never came to the house and
there was only my gossip, Avilda Brekoff, who was ever with us.”
“Then we may have a few days before they come on the scent. Were you
seen coming here last night?”
“Only by a watch of two from a distance, and by the doorman where I
live,” said Rodvard, but Lalette; “I had to give the man a silver spada
to call Rodvard and there was some slight bargle over whether I might
enter. I fear I was not only seen, but noted. I regret.”
“You may well. Here’s the few days lost again. If the matter’s pressed,
they will surely question the doorman of every pensionnario in the
city.” Remigorius swung knit brows to Rodvard; “You had best go to your
working place today, for the absence might be noted. But I will let you
return to your pensionnario for only the once, and then to bring away
nothing but your most intimate needs. Stop for no meal, where there’s
talk—at least, till we can be sure of this doorman. What’s his name?”
“Krept or something like it, I do not know for sure. We call him Udo the
crab. I have one or two books I would not willingly lose.”
“Would you rather lose your life?” The doctor scrabbled for a piece of
paper and began to write. “This is more dreadful than you know of.
Demoiselle, you can be secure for a little time with a friend of ours, a
certain Mme. Kaja, who used to be a singer in the opera. She lives on
the top floor of an old goat’s nest in the Street Cossao and has young
girls visiting her all the time for instruction in music, so there’ll be
no comment at your appearance.” His pen scratched, he stood up, threw
sand on the paper and let it slide to the floor. “This be your passport.
Your lover—” (the word was accompanied by a lip-turn that made Lalette
shiver) “—can join you there this twilight. But wait—you may be known in
the street.”
He bustled into the shop-room and returned with a pair of quills. “Up
your nose, one on either side. So. I’d like it better if there were
another cloak for you, but leave the hood of this one down; with your
hair changed, and your face . . .”