Under Remigorius’ order, Rodvard did not go home to the pensionnario at
sun-turning as usual, but took his repast for a pair of coppers on small
beer and cheese at a tavern near his labor. He had been there not often,
but it seemed to him that the place bubbled with talk beyond custom, and
he wondered if the cause were some tale of Count Cleudi’s witching and
Lalette’s escape, a speculation dispelled on his return, for there came
to him young Asper Poltén from the next cabinet with:
“Did you know that girl you squired to the harvest festival turned out
to be a witch? She has witched Count Cleudi, and stolen all his money;
they say he’s going to die. They have closed the city gates and set a
price on her. Your fortune that you carried matters no further with one
like that.”
Rodvard shuffled papers. Some reply was necessary. “Why are they so
urgent over a foreigner? People have been witched before without having
all the paving stones in Netznegon City torn up about it.”
“Do you forever live in dreams? He’s the new favorite—named director of
the lottery only yesterday. Perhaps that’s the reason the witch rode
him—for jealousy more than the scudi. She’s not to be blamed if, as I
hear, he’s more than a proper man in the parts that matter most to
women. They say Cleudi and the Florestan held an exhibition for Her
Majesty and the Tritulaccan was longer. Speaking of which, Ser Rodvard,
you are not far from fortune yourself. I saw the Demoiselle of
Stojenrosek here again today. She’ll have a shapelier body than Cleudi
will ever press, and bring you a fortune in addition.”
(“Did you see her indeed, curse you? and what business is it of yours?”
Rodvard wanted to cry; or “Mine’s the high destiny of the witch.”) But
aloud he could only say; “There’s nothing in that. She’s only searching
out some old family records. I must go to Ser Habbermal’s cabinet; he
has a project forward for me.”
He stood up with a trifling stagger, leg tingling with the pain of the
position in which he had cramped it. Asper Poltén made offended eyes.
“Ah, plah, you are too nice for anything but priesthood!” He turned
away, flung open the door to the next cabinet, and could be heard
uttering to the three within; “Bergelin again; this time pretending he
does not know what women carry between their legs or what it’s used
for—” with a whoop of merriment from the rest.
Rodvard himself, before they could all come in and begin their usual
sport of baiting, walked to the outer door, through it, and without so
much as pausing at the garderobe for his cap, straight down the corridor
to the street and away, the last steps running. If there were stares at
seeing him without headgear or mark of condition, he did not return
them, but hurried on to his own living-place. The pensionnaria was at
the foot of the stairs, the little black hairs on her upper lip
quivering as she administered some rebuke to a maid who held a trayful
of dirty dishes, but her eye lighted as she turned to perceive a new
victim.
“You are too late, Ser Bergelin. If we make a rule good for one, it must
stand for all, because it is only so that I can keep up a place like
this, as cheap as it is, and I simply can’t have you bringing girls here
late at night, I have told Udo. . . .” The end of it he did not hear, as
he broke past her up the stairs, bounding.
The extra set of hose must come, of course, but his best jacket would
not go on over the other, so he had to make a bundle with underclothing
and wrap it in the cloak that it was too fine a day to wear. The
festival-cap must stay behind, even though it might bring some coppers
from a dealer; also the pair of tiny southern-made health-goblets for
carrying at the waist on feast days, of whose acquisition he had been so
proud. At the last moment he added the volume of Dostal’s ballads; of
all the books, he could spare that one least. There was a moment of fear
when a glance through the glass-windowed door showed callers closeted
with Udo the Crab, but side vision registered the fact that they were
only a pair of rough fellows in leather jackets, not blue-and-green
provosts.
He had been to Mme. Kaja’s only once before, and then at night, for a
meeting of the Sons of the New Day. Under this more vivid light the
Street Cossao showed as a dirty courtyard with a running sore of gutter
down the center, garbages piled in the corners, yelling children
underfoot and somewhere among the upper stories a hand that practiced
the violon monotonously, playing the harvest-song, but always going sour
on the same double-stop passage. Rodvard elected the wrong house first,
the doorman did not know of Kaja, but the next one at the back angle of
the court was it; he went up a narrow dark winding stair smelling of
yesterday’s cabbage and knocked at the topmost door.
Mme. Kaja herself answered, clad in an old dressing-gown, pink silk, and
dirty gray where it dragged along the floor, with her hair packed
untidily atop her head. Past her a space of floor was visible, with
light coming through a pair of dormer windows, a keyed musical
instrument and chairs. “Ser Rodvard!” she squealed, her voice going into
a high musical note. “You are sooo welcome. We did not expect you this
early. The dear girl is waiting.”
A door against the slant of the garret opened and Lalette came out,
unaffectedly glad it was he, and this time not avoiding as he ran
forward to kiss her on the lips. The older woman; “I leave you to your
greetings, while I make myself beautiful.” She passed through the door
from which Lalette had come; the girl sat down. After the door had
closed behind Kaja, “Rodvard,” she said, very still and looking at the
floor.
“Lalette.”
“I have given you my Blue Star. Whether to marry you now I do not know.
I think not—it seems to me that you are not altogether willing; I feel
you are holding something back from me. But this I say, and you may look
into my heart and find it true—” she raised her head in a blaze of grey
eyes “—that I want to be a good partner to you, Rodvard, and will
honestly do all in my power never to fail you.”
From the inner room came the sound of Mme. Kaja, running scales in what
was left of her voice (and what could he say? thought Rodvard, who had
won this loyalty for Remigorius’ reason and not his own desire. Let
conscience die, but not with a tear at the heartstrings.) “I will do as
much,” said he, and as her lip quivered at his tone, “if we ever pass
this peril with our lives.”
She lifted a hand and let it fall beside her. “It is life without
account of peril that I have offered,” she said. “I do not—”
“How do you know? Lalette, look at me. Will you lie with me this night,
in peril or whatever?”
But she would not meet the questioning eyes now (and he thought, she
thought, they both knew there had been somehow a lack of communication).
Lalette said; “You have come before time.”
He shuddered slightly. “They picked at me till I must leave. You will
hardly believe how—how base—”
The inner door sprang open and Mme. Kaja emerged with almost a
dance-step, dressed to the eyes in withering finery. “For a little while
I must go forth,” she said, “but you will hardly miss me, he, he. I’ll
bring sup from the cook-shop, is there a delicacy you desire or any
other way I can lighten captivity for my two caged birds?”
She beamed on them fondly. Rodvard thought of the cap left at the office
and prayed her for a new one, with the badge of his condition, which
took more of his slender store of coppers. The door closed; and now they
two had not much to say to each other, having agreed that all that
mattered should be left unsaid.
The end of it was that Lalette in all her clothes lay down on the bed in
the corner to make up for some of the sleep lost last night, while he
undid his parcel and set out to lose himself in Iren Dostal’s harmonies
and tales—but that did not do very well either, the poems he had always
loved seemed suddenly pointless. He fell into a kind of doze or waking
dream, in which the thought came to his mind that if he were really
ready to let conscience die in exchange for high destiny, he had only to
give this witch back her Blue Star, call for the provosts, and claiming
the price set on her, seek out Maritzl of Stojenrosek. A destiny not
high by the standards of the Sons of the New Day, no doubt. But love and
position, aye. Remigorius would approve; would call it the act of a
great spirit to seek an inner contentment, no matter what others thought
of how it was achieved, no matter if others were hurt during the
achievement. But Remigorius thought the struggle more important than its
end—and it might be that the reason he, Rodvard, could see no high
destiny, was that he did not possess such a spirit, immune to scruple,
willing to serve any cause.
Now he fell on to wondering what was the tangle of ideas and thoughts
that made up himself, Rodvard Bergelin, where they came from and how
they were put together—could they be altered?—and so drifted deeper into
his daydream till it began to grow dusk and Mme. Kaja came back with a
covered dish of fish and red beans.
5
NIGHT; GENEROSITY; TREASON
She was less cooing than before, having learned of the closing of the
city gates and the price on Lalette. (For the first time she knows what
it is to be a conspirator, Rodvard thought.) There was a
self-sacrificing debate over where to sleep, for the singer had only the
one bed and tried to insist that the pair use it, or at least share it
with her. In the end Rodvard composed himself across a pile of old
garments on the floor. They smelled, he felt ill-used, and went to sleep
wondering rather desperately what to do about money.
That problem became no easier with the morning, when Mme. Kaja said her
own funds were very low and she could not receive her pupils while the
two were there. As she was going out Rodvard gave her his last silver
spada, whose breakup would keep them nourished for a couple of days.
Lalette added that she was much concerned over her mother; could the
singer obtain news?
Hardly had the receding footsteps left the first flight when Rodvard,
burning inwardly with anxiety, suspense and the thought of another
do-nothing day, which combined to translate themselves into desire,
swung the girl off her feet in his arms and bore her toward the bed
without a word. She struggled a little and the Blue Star told him she
was not very willing, but the contact of their bodies soon caught her,
she only asked to be careful of her dress as she pulled it off—and Mme.
Kaja’s voice said; “Oh.”
Rodvard rolled over, blood running hot through his cheeks. “I am so-o-o
sorry,” the older woman said. “I was going to the Service and found I
had forgot my Book of Days. But you must not mind, really you must not,
when I was in the opera, His Majesty used to make three of us attend him
together and when the heart speaks . . .” rattling like a broken
music-box in terms that Rodvard scarcely heard, as she crossed the room
to take the Book of Days and left again without looking at them
directly.
Lalette (feeling as though she had bathed in a sewer and never wanted to
touch anything clean again) took her dress to put it on. When Rodvard
touched her shoulder, she shook his hand away and said, simply; “No.”
“It was my fault,” he said, “and I regret—”
“No. I am the one most to blame. It does not matter now for any reason.”
Her mouth moved and she looked down, tieing laces. “Dear God, what your
fine friends will think of me! I should have accepted Count Cleudi’s
offer; at least I would have been well paid for the name I’ll have.”
He felt himself flush again. “Well, if they call you any name you do not
wish to have, it will be your own fault,” he said. “I have offered you
marriage—”
“Ah, yes, indeed, with me furnishing the priest’s spada for the
ceremony.”
“—and I will hold to the offer. Demoiselle, you are not just.”
She turned and sat down, (feeling suddenly weary, bitten with the edge
of concern about her mother, so that it was not worth while to quarrel).
He made one or two beginnings of speech, but could settle on nothing
worth saying; moved about the room, clanking the coppers in his pocket,
and looked out the window; picked at one or two keys of the music in a
manner that showed he had no training with it; found a book of Mme.
Kaja’s and standing, skimmed a few pages, then set it down; resumed his
pacing; abandoned it; walked to where he had placed his few belongings
on a chair, took his own book and settled himself purposefully to read,
in a position where his face was mostly in shadow from her.
(The angry shame had run off Lalette now, she could only see that he was
truly unhappy.) After a little while she ran across the room, put her
arms around his shoulder and kissed the side of his face. “Rodvard,” she
said, “I really meant it all. If you want me, you may have me any time
you wish.”
He swung her down to his lap, but (now afraid of interruption) would go
no farther than kissing her and holding her close, so for a long time
they remained thus lip to lip, speaking a little to exchange memories of
things pleasant in their few meetings and not noticing they had missed a
meal, until they heard Mme. Kaja’s step outside the door, which this
time she made firm enough to give them warning. The singer began to talk
at once about the Service and how as the chanters intoned the celestial
melody and the violet vestments fluttered among the flowers that fell
from the galleries to crush fragrantly beneath the worshipers’ knees,
she could feel every power of evil roll from her mind—“though the second
baritone was flat in the _musanna_. Oh, if only the court would have
religion in its heart, as the poor people do, who sat with tears in
their eyes.” She smiled suddenly on Lalette:
“I spoke to my own priest, too, for you. I know you must have a
confession to make by now—” she held up outspread fingers before her
face and tittered through them “—so I made up a story for you, about a
jealous husband, and he will hear you after dark, when all’s safe, and
you won’t have to pay but a copper or two.”
Lalette looked up. “But there’s no confession to make. . . . Did you
find out about my mother?”
Rodvard saw Mme. Kaja’s eyes open wide, and felt the cold stone (she was
not believing Lalette at all, and for some reason was desperately
frightened that the girl should lie). “Oh, you poooor child,” she said.
“It was so unthinking of me to forget to tell you. I did not find out
much, but I know the provosts have not taken her, and Count Cleudi is
not as ill as pretended, that is only a story.”
She set down packages of food, a dish of lentils with bread and wine;
began to make ready the table, keeping her eyes averted, so Rodvard
could not read her thinking (it came to him that he would not be the
first Star-bearer she had met) as she talked rapidly, about the Service
once more. The priest had said that when anyone admitted evil to his
heart, peril lay upon all persons approaching the lost one. “For these
powers of evil increase like mice in a granary, running from one soul to
another, and as farmers will often burn an old grain-bin to keep the
vermin from spreading, so it is lawful and even necessary to destroy the
body of one infected by the powers of evil. He was talking about this
poor child here, it was easy to see.”
Rodvard (to whom this was interesting, if somewhat questionable
discourse) would have inquired more as she paused for breath, but
Lalette (who found it more than tiresome) broke in to ask what of the
city? what of the hunt for her?
“Oh, they have opened the gates again, though I did not go to see, and
put guards everywhere. But it will be all right. Have I ever recounted
to you, friend Rodvard, that I was in arrest once myself? It was because
of that Oronari, who was so jealous because I could carry the high note
in ‘The Mayern Lovers’ while she could not, and had me accused of
stealing some of the jewels that were loaned for the spring festival
performance. I felt very badly about it, because she was a friend of
mine, but it’s just as the priest said, the power of evil had gained
control over her, and there was nothing I could do but complain to the
Baron Coespel, who was my protector then, and he had her banished
the . . .”
She stuffed food into her mouth, masticating noisily as she babbled.
Rodvard caught a flash of Lalette’s eye (and knew she was thinking how
thin the veneer of half a lifetime around the court was over someone
with a peasant’s background). To change things he asked; “Madame, is
there any word of the doctor?”
“He did not send the fruiterer from his street?” She sighed and turned
to Lalette. “Then it is likely that he has no money as yet. He is so
good and kind and works for so little that it is often so. Dear child,
have you no funds at all?”
Said Lalette; “Only two spadas. But I took all the money in the house
when I left, and my mother—”
“Dear child, of course we all love our parents and do all we can for
them, but after all, they are only our relatives by accident and not the
choice of the heart—” she smote her breast in the gesture Rodvard
remembered “—and when the heart speaks, God dwells in us to drive out
the powers of evil. Then we are grateful to those who speak to us
through the heart, and if we have anything we give it to them. I denied
the heart once—”
“Your pardon,” said Lalette, and stood up to leave the table. Her face
was a little white.
Mme. Kaja finished the last of the wine and wiped her mouth. “I know it
is hard for you, being of the witch-families, dear child,” she said.
“But Uncle Tutul, who is the priest we are going to see tonight, says
that even a witch may save herself if she gives up everything to those
she loves, and oh, my dear, I really do not mind missing my pupils,
but—”
Lalette’s mouth strained. She stood up and plucked from her waist the
tiny purse. “Here,” she cried, “are the spadas,” and flung them ringing
silvernly against the plates. “Take them; I am going to the provosts
myself. To be seduced, I will, it was my fault. But I will owe no
obligation for it.” She turned to the door so fast that Rodvard barely
barred the way before her.
“No,” said he, as she tried to push him from the way. “You shall not go
like this.” Their hands caught and she struggled for a moment. “Or if
you’ll say you do not love and never will, go; and I will join you
before the Deacons’ court. But it was another tale that you told
lately.”
Said Mme. Kaja; “Oh, dear child, you must not resist such love.” She
tittered (and the nerves of both the others jangled).
Lalette sat down. “I am at the mercy of you two,” she said.
“Mercy? Mercy?” The singer’s bracelets clanked. “Ah, no, we are at
yours, and seek to help you at our own risk. Not so, friend Rodvard?”
She swung to face him for an unguarded moment (and he was staggered till
he must grip the table-edge at the blast of hate for Lalette behind her
eyes. There was a strange mother-thought in it too, he could not make
out the detail.) Kaja’s glance went restlessly on across the room. She
stood up in her turn, saving; “I do not know the hour, my watch is being
repaired, but I am sure by the dimness outside it must be late, and
Uncle Tutul is waiting. Demoiselle Asterhax—no, I shall call you
Lalette, it is so much more friendly—will you come?”
(Rodvard thought; if I let her go, everything will arrange itself to my
utmost advantage.) “Maritzl,” he said, “do not go out this evening.
There’s no—”
Mme. Kaja tittered once more. “Ah, friend Rodvard,” she said, “if you’d
have women kind to you, you must remember their names. Will you come,
Demoiselle Lalette? Even if there’s no confession, it will be a joy to
hear Uncle Tutul’s discourse.”
Rodvard; “Lalette, I beg you, by all you have said this day and all we
hope for in the future, do not go out now. I have a reason.” He reached
one hand and took hers, as she looked at him (wondering why he was so
vehement in such a small matter); a child’s look, with trust in it.
“Well, then,” and she sat down again. A glassy smile appeared on Mme.
Kaja’s face, and she shook one finger at Lalette as she hurried to the
door. “You naughty Rodvard; she will certainly have a confession to make
before I return,” and her steps were audible, going down.
Lalette’s hands lay listless in her lap. For a minute there was silence,
in which she rose, walking slowly to the window to gaze out and down,
not turning around. “What is your reason and who is Maritzl?”
He had begun to make up his bundle with quick fingers, the volume of
Iren Dostal inside. “We must leave here forthwith. The Blue Star—she
will do you a terrible harm if she can.”
“You have told me nothing I did not know without that bit of witchery. A
pattern would be useless against her, though, she is too close to the
Church. . . . Rodvard.”
“What will you have?” He pulled the edge of the cloak tight.
“I am sorry I said what lately I did . . . about being seduced. Will you
forgive? I do not wish to be a shrew, as my mother said, and I will say
that I do not regret—what we did.”
He dropped the knot half-made and ran over to her, but she shifted in
his grasp, pointing. “Rodvard!”
Down the line of her finger he saw hurrying figures pass the lantern at
the gate of the Street Cossao. Impossible to miss Mme. Kaja or the
priest, or the provost with bare alerted sword. Said Rodvard; “I did not
think her so quick in her grimness. Is there another stair?”
“Not that I know. I am sure not. No escape. Oh—”
“That cannot be true. Life is to those who struggle for it, says Dr.
Remigorius.” He threw the latch and pushed the window outward; not a
foot down lay a broad rain-gutter, which being proved solid by
foot-weight test, he went three rapid steps across the room to sling his
bundle over one shoulder, stepped out cautiously, caught a grip at the
edge of the dormer with his right hand (not daring to look down into the
dizzy dark), and stretched the other to Lalette. “Come.”
“Oh, I—”
“Come!”
He could feel her shiver dreadfully as she took the step, she almost
tripped over her dress on the sill, but once out, it was she who
stretched to the limit of his restraining hand to swing the window
closed. By good fortune it was a suave spring night; Rodvard could see
stars past the rim of the house as they edged rightward, free hands
pressed against the slates of the mansard, until contact was made with
the second dormer, the one in the dressing room. He gripped at that
edge, sliding foot against foot, the bundle almost pulling him off
balance where he came against the projection. “Hurry,” whispered
Lalette. “I can hear them.”
Ahead and beyond the roof turned; one might work round that backslope
but it would only lead to the opposite side of Mme. Kaja’s garret.
Rodvard halted his sliding progress and looked over his shoulder to see
the loom of the house at the back of the court, fortunately of the same
height. A glance down showed another gutter, with something more than a
thigh-length of black space in separation. He turned again, face
brushing slates, to make out that Lalette had seen it, too.
“Shall we try it?” he whispered, and then, incontinently, “I love you”
(which was for that enchanted moment true). For answer she disengaged
her hand from his and began to tuck up her skirt, leaning with cheek
against the roofslope. He swung and tossed the bundle to the other
gutter; set foot on the edge where they were, teetered, and with
perspiring palms, pushed himself into the long step, almost going down
when the lip of the opposite gutter proved higher. But it was wider as
well, it held, he was able to reach a hand out and pull her across.
There were no windows on this side of the other house, they found it
easy to slide along leftward to the corner, and by the especial grace of
heaven, there was a drain at the angle, in which Rodvard’s foot caught
to keep them from tumbling where the gutter ended suddenly, with the
back of the building going down sheer. They both stood breathless as a
window in the building they had just left cracked open, a voice said;
“No, not along the gutter there. Perhaps they jumped.” Mme. Kaja’s
titter was raised. “We must get more men and search—”
Lalette pressed Rodvard’s hand; the window closed, and they stood mute
on the roof-edge, finger laced in finger, for it seemed a long time.
From below in the court, voices floated up, clear as though they were
only a few feet away, except that one could not make out words, only
that Kaja’s tone was among the rest. Lalette drew him to her and
whispered; “We must go back through before she returns,” and began to
lead to where they had crossed the gap. She was clearly right, they had
no future there, the roof where they were had no break, was only the
side of the building, which went to its peak at the front as well as the
back.
The return, with its repetition of peril already overcome, was worse
than the passage. Rodvard had to stand on the very edge of the gutter to
swing back. Lalette followed lightly. By the time he had reached the
window of the dressing-room, worked it open with one hand, and had a leg
across the sill, he dared look down—and saw what might have made them
earlier hesitate about making a return, namely a blue provost standing
watchfully under the lamp at the street entrance, while two or three
figures more were moving about. But like most searchers, they never
looked aloft.
“Where?” whispered Lalette as they stood in the room, and he:
“We dare not leave the building now. Even if they were not below, the
doorman will be awake. Have you seen anyone else here?”
“I have been a prisoner.”
“Then we must try at random whether it is true, as the priests say, that
not all men are evil.”
Crossing the outer room, hand in hand in the dark, Rodvard stumbled
against a chair, swore softly, and they both laughed under breath. A
board creaked, so did the hinges of the outer door, and they were going
down, each in turn tripping a little at the short end of the steps where
the stairway turned. By unspoken mutual agreement, they tiptoed past the
door of the outer apartment of the fifth and to that at the rear of the
house. Rodvard gathered his breath and knocked.
6
NIGHT AND DAY; THE PLACE OF MASKS
No step sounded, but as they stood close to catch any stir, a clear,
childish treble came muffled through the wood:
“What is it?”
Rodvard squeezed Lalette’s hand. “I cannot tell you from here,” she said
with her mouth close to the door, “but we need help. Will you let us
in?”
Pause, in which a chain rattled. “In the name and protection of the God
of Love, enter,” and the door melted before them into a darkness
different because it held shapes. “Stand there till I make a light,”
said the young voice. “You must be careful not to break things.”
There was a small sound of fumbling, flint and steel clicked and the
candle came slowly into light on a scene that made Rodvard and Lalette
both almost cry out, for the small room seemed crowded with people;
princes and queens with coronets, richly and gaily dressed, beggars in
rags of silk, yellow warriors with ram-horn helmets, Zigraners with
want-chins and sliding eyes and all other fantasies of human shape, so
life-like in the uncertain gleam that it was an eye-flick before they
could be recognized as festival masquerades. In the midst of them a
smooth-haired boy of it might be anywhere from twelve to sixteen stood
bowing gravely in his night-hose, candle held at arm’s length.
“I am glad to see you,” he said. “My name is Laduis Domijaiek.”
It was a good name for them, from the northwestern provinces, where
Queen and Florestan were least popular. Said Rodvard; “We are pursued by
the city provosts because a court lord wishes harm to this lady. Will
you help her get away?”
The boy looked at Lalette, cocking his head on one side, as though
listening to a distant voice. “Yes,” he said. “My heart says it is right
and we must always listen to the heart. Besides, we don’t like the
provosts.”
“Thank you,” said Lalette. “Where are your parents?”
“Father is in another world, and mother’s at the Marquis of Palm’s
palace to make the costumes for the spring festival. She’s going to stay
all night and she told me I must go to bed. But this is more fun.” He
looked at Lalette again, and his eyes widened suddenly. “Oh, are you the
witch? Witch something for me.”
In spite of her situation, Lalette smiled. “Aren’t you afraid it would
hurt you?”
“Oh, no. We are Amorosians, and so witches can’t hurt anything but our
outsides. I’m not supposed to tell anybody that, only the provosts are
after you, too, so it’s all right.”
From outside came the sound of feet, tramp, tramp, on the stair, and
distant voices. “They are going to search,” said Rodvard. “Laduis, the
lady will come back and witch something for you another day, but just
now we must get her away from the provosts. Is there any way out of this
house except by the main stair?”
The boy was all seriousness. “Not from this floor, Ser. I used to go
down the drain-pipe from Ser Tetteran’s quarter, but that was when I was
thirteen and it isn’t dignified.”
“Then we must hide her.” Rodvard’s eye darted round the small room, took
in the door to that still smaller, where beds must be. “The masks; can
you help us into some of these?”
Laduis Domijaiek clapped his hands, and they set to work—for Lalette a
Kjermanash princess, whose billowing imitation furs would hide the
trimness of her figure; a hunchback Zigraner moneylender for Rodvard,
with a bag of brass-plated scudi. Her dress had to come off, but the boy
took it to hang with his mother’s and came back to help Rodvard adjust
the face-mask as furniture was moved overhead. The thumping came to an
end, there was the sound of feet on the stairs once more, Rodvard and
Lalette squeezed past the ghostly figures at the front of the assembled
masks, and the boy blew out the candle.
Bang! “The Queen’s warrant!” said a voice outside. “Open!”
Rodvard could hear the boy’s feet go pad, pad, on the floor from the
bedroom, acting his part in all detail. “What is it?”
“Queen’s warrant; we’re looking for an assassin.”
Chain rattled. Through the eye-peeps of the mask, Rodvard could see the
priest in the light of the provost’s lantern, and held his breath.
“My mother is not here.”
“We don’t need her. Stand aside.” Rodvard stood rigid, cursing himself
for a fool to have put on this Zigraner guise with its bag of false
coins that might jingle. “By the Service, the whole assembly’s here.”
The priest held high his amulet; this was the moment of test, but it
passed so lightly there might have been no test at all. The provost
raised his lantern; “Anybody call on you tonight, sprout?”
“I was asleep, ser provost.”
The man grunted, light flickered as he went into the bedroom, there was
a thud as though he might be kicking something, and he came back into
the sweep of sight, a naked shortsword showing in his hand. “Not there,”
he said. “Ah, bah, she’s a witch and has spirited herself to the Green
Islands. But I’ll have my revenge.” He swung his sword at the neck of a
yellow-armored Mayern fighting man, and Rodvard heard the head crack to
the floor as the boy cried; “Oh, no.” The provost; “Three scudi reward
for a foeman down. Tell your mother I saved you from a villain. Hark,
now; open your door this night to none more; an order in Her Majesty’s
name.”
The door banged to leave it dark for those within and feet retreated
beyond. Rodvard stirred cramped muscles. “Will they come back?”
Lalette’s voice whispered.
The candle lifted slowly into light. Laduis Domijaiek was on one knee
beside the fallen head, whose nose was broken off. The eyes that looked
up held tears.
“That man killed Baron Mondaifer,” he said, fiercely, “and I would like
to kill him, too.”
Lalette slipped off her head-mask and ran a hand across her hair,
looking very princess with her dark head against the white Kjermanash
fur. “A true sorrow and it is our fault,” she said. “Do you have names
for them all?”
“Oh, yes. You are the Princess Sunimaa, and she’s always getting into
trouble because it’s cold where she comes from, and her heart is all
ice, and the others don’t like her except for Bonsteg the beggar, who is
really a prince in disguise, only she doesn’t know it yet. But Baron
Mondaifer was one of my favorites. He’s from Mayern, you see, and he’s
always lived in the forest, even if he is in favor of Prince Pavinius,
and thinks he’s still a good prophet.”
Said Rodvard, undoing laces to get out of his Zigraner dress; “Your
mother will get someone to fix him and bring him back to life.”
“No. His spirit’s gone away to another body, like father’s and now there
isn’t anything left but dust. If mother has a new head made, I shall
have to give it a different name.”
The boy looked at Rodvard solemnly, and though the Blue Star was cold as
cold upon his breast, he could not somehow draw quite clear the thought
behind those young candid eyes—something about a place shrouded in
clouds, an old house somewhere, with a diffused golden light. Weariness
slit his jaws into a yawn. “There is a place where we can sleep?”