But her woman drew a step closer to me, all the time studying my face as if I bore there in bright paint some sign of who or what I truly was.
“It is the truth, my lady,” she said slowly. “The Lord Elyn has said little save that his father and mother were dead, and he had a sister who dwelt among the people who sheltered them from childhood. However—I believe now that he might have said far more and yet not told all.” Again she made a certain sign and I answered it with deliberation, but added somewhat that she might know I was of no low level in her learning. Then she nodded as one come to the solving of a problem.
“The far-seeing it must have been then, my lady. So you must also know where he now ventures—”
“It is sorcery of the Old Ones.” I addressed her rather than Brunissende. “And of the Black not the White. It began with this—“
I pushed past the Lady Brunissende who still looked at me with a lack of full understanding to that window at which I had seen my brother labor with bars and bolts long rusted into place. It was close shut now as if he had never worked upon it. But when I laid hand to the lower bar I heard a choked cry and turned my head.
The Lady Brunissende cowered against the bed, both hands to her mouth, with nothing but witless terror in her eyes. She gave another muffled cry and swooned back into the tumbled covers.
5
The Curse of Ingaret
The wise woman went to her quickly, then looked to me again.
“It is but a swoon, and she is better not hearing what you would say, for she is frightened of such things—the learning.”
“Yet you serve her.”
“Ah, but I am her foster mother and she does not reckon what I do. But from her childhood she has feared the Curse, for it has lain heavy on her House.”
“The Curse?”
“What lies beyond that—waiting—” She pointed to the window.
“Tell me, for I am not one who swoons. But, first; Wise Woman, what is your name?”
She smiled and I smiled in return at what we both knew, that she had one name for the world and one for the inner life.
“No, you are not one unable to bear the worst which may be told or shown you. As for my name—here I am Dame Wirtha—I am also Ulrica—”
“Dame?” For the first tune I noted she did not wear the rich-colored robes of a Lord’s household, but rather gray, and that the wimple of one of the abbeys covered all but her face. Yet I had heard that the Dames and the Old Knowledge did not meet. Also that those of the abbeys did not go beyond their enclosures after their final vows were taken.
“Dame,” she repeated. “War upsets all. The House of Kantha Twice Born was overrun by the Hounds this year past. And since I escaped I came to Brunissende—as I took vows only after she was handfasted. Also Kantha Twice Born had the Old Learning herself in her time and her daughters are of a different thought than those of other abbeys. But we have shared names—or do you have another?”
I shook my head. There was something of Aufrica in this Dame, but more which was herself alone. And I knew I could trust her.
“I was Blessed at my first naming, given after the custom of my mother’s people—”
“The Witches of Estcarp! Would you had now what they can control, for your need will be great if you think to do what brought you here.”
“Tell me of this Curse, for it must be that which has taken Elyn.”
“There is a record that the First of the House of Ingaret, from whom my lady is descended, had a taste for strange knowledge, yet not the patience nor the discipline to follow the known roads. Therefore he took risks such as no prudent men would think on.
“By his lone he went into the places of the Old Ones and from such a journey he brought back a wife. It was in this very chamber that they lay together, but they had no children and the lord began to fret, for he would have a son to follow him. He took steps to prove that the fault was not his—siring a son and then a daughter on women he kept in secret. Could any man be greater fool than to think he could hide such matters?
“He came hither one night to take his pleasure with his lady wife and found her sitting in a great chair, like that in which he sat when he gave justice in the hall. Before her on stools sat the women he had used to beget the babes, and they were as if dazed, staring straight before them, while on their knees rested their children.
“When he faced his lady, blustering, demanding to know what she did and why, she smiled at him very sweetly, and said that she but saw to his comfort that he might not have to journey forth in night and ill weather to seek those to satisfy his body—she had brought them under his roof.
“Then she arose and he found he could not move. She put off the fine robes he had given her, and the jewels he had set upon her, all these she tossed to the floor. Straightaway they became torn and tattered rags, broken base metal and glass. Then, with her body bare and beautiful in the moonlight, she walked to this very window and drew herself up on the sill.
“Thereupon she turned to look once more on Ingaret and she said words which down the years have never been forgot:
“ ‘You shall desire, you shall seek, and in the seeking you shall be lost. What you had you threw away, and it shall call through the years to others, and they shall also seek, but that seeking shall avail no one.’
“Then she turned and leaped through the window. But when the Lord Ingaret, released from the spell which had held him, raced to look down—below there was nothing. It was as if her leap had carried her into another world.
“He gathered together then his chief men and he acknowledged on a raised war-shield the boy as his son, gave a daughter’s necklet to the girl. Of their mothers—after that night they were ever maze-minded and did not live long. But the lord did not wed again. In the tenth year following he rose at night and rode out of Coomb Frome, nor was he seen again.
“Through the years other men, some lords, some heirs, some husbands of heiresses, all close to the rule of Coomb Frome, looked from this window at full moon, and then rode out—to be seen no more. Until the window was tight-barred and the family would come no more to this Keep. So that in the latter days none vanished so—until your brother.”
“If it had been many years—then perhaps this which waits is the greater hungered. You have the needful for far-seeing?”
“You would try that here? The Dark Powers must have potent rooting within this very room.”
Her warning was apt. I knew what I attempted would be highly dangerous. Yet it was needful.
“Within the moon-star—” I suggested.
She nodded, then hurried into an inner chamber. I turned to the saddlebags I had carried with me and brought out the cup. Almost I feared to drop its wrappings lest I see it black. But, although the dark tide had grown higher on the bright silver, yet there was the space of two fingers’ breadth untouched at the top. Seeing that I had hope.
The Dame came forth with a wide basket in which were small jars and bottles. First she took up a finger of white chalk and, stooping, she drew, in sharp, sure lines, the five-point star on the floor in line with that barred window. At each point she set a white candle.
That done she looked upon the cup I held. And she drew a startled breath.
“Dragon scale—where got you such a thing of power, Lady?”
“It was fashioned by and for my mother before my birth. From it I was named, as was Elyn, from it we drank farewell, so that it now bears the stain of his danger.”
“Power indeed had your mother, Lady, to bring such as that into being. I have heard that it could be done, but the price is high—”
“One she paid without question.” And I knew pride as I answered.