She was fat and one eye looked off at the wrong angle, but Rodvard was
in a state not to care if she had worn on her brow the mark of evil. He
flopped on the straw-bed. There was only one window, at the other end;
the couple whispered under it, after which the housewife set a pot on
the fire. Rodvard saw a big striped cat that marched back and forth,
back and forth, beside the straw-bed, and it gave him a sense of
nameless unease. The woman paid no attention, only stirring the pot as
she cast in an herb or two, and muttering to herself.
Curtains came down his eyes, though not that precisely, neither; he lay
in a kind of suspension of life, while the steam of the pot seemed to
spread toward filling the room. Time hung; then the potion must be
ready, for through half-closed lids Rodvard could see her lurch toward
him in a manner somewhat odd. Yet it was not till she reached the very
side of the bed and lifted his head in the crook of one arm, while
pressing toward his lips the small earthen bowl, that a tired mind
realized he should not from his position have been able to see her at
all. A mystery; the pendulous face opened on gapped teeth; “Take it now
my prettyboy, take it.”
The liquid was hot and very bitter on the lips, but as the first drops
touched Rodvard’s tongue, the cat in the background emitted a scream
that cut like a rusty saw. The woman jerked violently, spilling the
stuff so it scalded him all down chin and chest as she let go. She swung
round, squawking something that sounded like “Pozekshus!” at the animal.
Rodvard struggled desperately as in a nightmare, unable to move a muscle
no more than if he had been carved out of stone, realizing horribly that
he had been bewitched. He wanted to vomit and could not; the
cottage-wife turned back toward him with an expression little beautiful.
Her grubby hands were shaking a little. She grumbled under her breath as
he felt her detach the belt-pouch with all his money and then slip off
his shoes. The jacket came next; but as she undid the laces at the top,
grunting and puffing, her hand touched the chain that held the Blue
Star, and she jerked out the jewel. In all his immobility Rodvard’s
every perception had become as painfully sharp as an edge of broken ice.
He thought she was going to have a fit, her features seemed to twist and
melt into each other, her hand came away from the stone as though it had
been a red coal. “Oh, nonononono,” she squealed, backing away. “No. No.
No. Ah, you were right, Tigrette; you were right to stop me.”
The cat arched against her. As though the small act had released some
spring in herself, the woman bustled to the invisible end of the room,
where Rodvard could hear wood click on earthenware, then some kind of a
dumb low-toned chant she raised, then became aware of a different and
aromatic odor. He was wide awake now and hardly sick at all any more;
could see how the mist in the room was clearing a little, then heard the
door creak open and the mule-driver’s voice, saying:
“Did you get it done, ey?”
“Not I, you old fool, you rat-pudding, you dog-bait.”
“Old fool yourself.” Rodvard heard the sound of a slap. “Call me old
fool. You weren’t so dainty with the last one. Taken with the pretty
lad, are you? Now go do it, or I’ll slice his throat myself and never
mind mess. What’s one runaway servant more or less, ey? This is real
money, hard money, more nor you ever seen.”
Now she was whimpering. “I tell you you’re a fool. He has a Blue Star, a
Blue Star, and his witch will know what’s put on him and recoil it back
to us, double, triple. Worms that never die crawling under your skin
till you perish of it. All the hard money there is is not worth it.”
A sound of steps. The scratchy face looked down at Rodvard, he felt the
man palm the jewel. “Blue Star, ey? Ah, fritzess, this is some piece of
glass.” But the tone was little sure.
“It is a Blue Star and nothing else, the second one I see. They are
wedded with the great wedding.”
The man turned, and though his own head did not, Rodvard could see how
the expression of craftiness had come on back to him. “Blue Star? Now
you witch it for him, wife, witch it for him, so it will be no longer
good. You can witch anything. Then I’ll take him away from here.”
The whimper became a sniffle. “I’ll witch, ah, I’ll witch, mumble,
mumble, mumble.” Rodvard heard her tottering shuffle go and come, the
fat face was over his again, all filled now with oily kinks that held
little beads of sweat. She looked at him closely and then flung over her
shoulder; “Go out, old man, and leave us. There’s something not healthy
for you to see,” and began plucking at her garments to undo them, at the
last moment pausing to throw an edge of stinking blanket over Rodvard’s
face. His heightened senses caught the stiff rustle of clothes sinking
to the floor; the aromatic smell declared itself over all others, her
fingers sought his burned chin beneath the blanket and applied a
relieving unguent.
“Mumble, mumble,” came her voice, and he understanding not a word.
“Meowrrr-row!” shouted the cat, as it raced through the narrow cot from
end to end. He could have melted with relief as the fingers soothed his
chest, but then his mind went off on a picture of Lalette become old in
the manner of this one and he would have shuddered if he could have
stirred. The crooning mumble ended, the witch-wife’s ministrations at
the same time. There was a silence set with small sounds, over which the
continued mewling of the cat. He heard the woman at the door summon her
husband, then the two of them speaking in voiceless sibilants, a
contention going on, which terminated with the man’s strong arms around
Rodvard, heaving him up like a sack of meal.
Exterior air came through the edge of the blanket; step, step, he was
borne, and with a grunt, dumped in what must be the mule-cart. A pause;
the blanket was twitched from his face and he was looking up into the
disparate eyes of the woman.
“Nice boy, nice boy,” said her voice. “You tell your witch now how I do
good. You tell her I respect the great wedding. Not him; he keeps your
hard money.”
She patted his still unmoving cheek, a touch that made his senses creep;
and the Blue Star was suddenly, shockingly cold over his heart, (he
could see beyond any question that there was in the woman’s mind a great
fear, but also the great longing kindness of two joined against an armèd
world).
From where he was leading the mule to hitching, the man’s voice came;
“Wife, get that badge we took from the last one, the mechanician. I say
to you, you hurry now.”
12
NETZNEGON CITY; A ZIGRANER FESTIVAL
After he had gone, Lalette cried a little, but the widow pretended not
to notice, busying herself with sewing on one of the festival masks, a
task at which the girl was presently helping, so far as she could, for
she was no great artist with the needle, nor wished to be. When they
began talking again it was about the robe they were working on, grey
silk velvet which had been artfully torn here and there to a pretense of
raggedness, through which the slashes were being backed with
flame-color. Lalette passed her hands across the lovely fabric (longing
to be gay and courted in such a gown, though it left so much of the leg
bare that she would have felt a little shame to wear it). Who was it
made for?
“The Countess Aiella of Arjen, for the festival ball at Sedad Vix. The
younger Countess, that is, the unmarried one. I designed it especially
for her. The mask is there.” She nodded.
It hung on one of the standards, empty of eye and mouth, but no one
could mistake the provenance of the high-bridged nose and the cheekbones
from which the full rumpled beard flowed down. “Why,” said Lalette, “it
is Prince Pavinius when he was Prophet of Mancherei; I thought you
were—” and stopped.
“Amorosians?” The widow Domijaiek smiled. “I am a follower of that
doctrine, though not yet perfected in it. But in spite of what you have
been told, it is not one of gloomy reverence. It does not prohibit joy,
nor even keep us away from the world, only declares that the joys of the
world are false beside those that come to us when we learn how we have
been deceived by the flesh. You, who are newly married, have the other
kind of love now, and will not know what I mean, but in the end you will
come to see that kind of love as sin.”
“I am not married,” said Lalette, letting her needle fall (but doubting
that her feeling toward Rodvard were indeed the love the poets carolled,
and of which Dame Domijaiek spoke), “except in what we who have the Art
call the great marriage.”
“I would as soon not speak as to that,” said the widow, “but in our
church we are taught that to love a person is to love the world, which
is a deception due to the God of evil.”