That was what the men were saying, too, down in the courtyard and in the stables and the barn. The grooms were saying other things, how the barley sheaves above the stable door had fallen down in the wind, the doors had come open, and something had scared the horses last night, the same maybe as had scared the scullions.
Or maybe the wind had been what had them all upset. The old man smelted smoke and heard lost babies, rumors of it traveled from village to farmstead, and you could stay in the kitchen listening to tales until all the world outside seemed dark and evil.
But Nikolai had a lonely walk out to the tower tonight to reach his quarters, and on the way up the twisty, narrow tower stairs, where the light he carried up from the doorway made rippling giant shadows on the stones, he found himself thinking about the upstairs shutters and wondering if he'd left them latched or open on the night.
Foolish notion. An open window had never bothered him before. There was nothing to fear—nothing that wouldn't have a better chance at him tomorrow night, when they were sleeping under the stars. But there was something about old piles of stone like this, that had seen lords and servants come and go, that they accumulated shadows and odd sounds, and creaks and sighs of wind; you could well expect to meet the lady gran or old lord Ladislaw on the stairs—and it was no good thing to think of, on the eve of going troll-hunting and wizard-shepherding: the lady gran might be safe in her grave these last ten years, but he had to open the door of his room and probe the shadows, a grown man, for shame! who did not like to find the shutters open on the night and the light blowing precariously in his hands.
He went and pulled the shutters closed. In that instant the lamp blew out and the door slammed shut, thump! plunging the room into dark and echoing through the tower like doom. It actually took courage to turn again and calmly latch the shutters, to remember his way blind through the dark of his own chambers, feel after the door, and open it.
A very little light came up from below, not enough to light the steps. He found the lamp on the table and felt his way downstairs again to light it—not the first time the door had played that rotten trick, with the wind coming out of the south; not the first time he had trekked down the steps to relight the lamp—but he had never had a heart-thumping panic like this, god, not since he was nine years old, and he'd dared me bogle in the hay-loft that the neighbor boys refused to face.
It had known better than to meddle with him, and fled with a great rustling of straw and a clap of wings.
He lit the lamp. He climbed the stairs and on that last turn half-feared that the shutters in his room would be open again, or that something would be waiting in the shadows, or behind the door. That was the price of listening to stories, and he was a fool to think about them. Zofia was probably snug in her own bed, forgetful of all her notions.
But he thought not. He somehow thought not, tonight. And even with the shutters shut and the lamp burning bright, he longed for the morning, when they could be under the sky and out from under vaults of stone and memories.
Trolls and wolves isn't all that's wrong, he thought to himself, suddenly, for no good reason. He remembered over-mountain, at least the glimpse of it he had had from the heights, the year of the troll. He remembered a green land under a strangely golden sky, and a feeling he had had then of secrets beneath that green and witchcraft thick as leaves in that country. He had come from the north, followed the soldiers at fifteen, through wars and famine and the doings of wizards and witches—but that place had had a spooky feeling to it even that long ago. He had closed his mind to it, then: put away the memory until it was nudged by a rattling shutter and talk of the lady gran.
Karoly? Karoiy was a dabbler, a pot-wizard, a weather-witcher. Think of Karoly and you thought of wheaten charms and jars and jars of powders for toothache and the gout. Karoly was sunny fields and winter firesides—
(But in the lady gran's day Karoly had gone off for days on end, that was so. One wondered where. Or why. Assignations with some sunburned country lass? Karoly was a man. And the lady gran—)
The lady on the stairs, dreadful in the lamplight—she had not been old. Her hair had been black. He remembered it as black, the year he had come to Maggiar. "Whose are you?" she had asked. "Whose are you, pretty? And what are you doing on my stairs?"
Shutters rattled with the wind. Forget the pretty cook, her pastries and her stories. Forget the lady gran, the stairs and the long-ago dark. Lord Stani's master huntsman longed for sky above him, for the sighing of leaves—the forest had no memory such as stones acquired, when men piled them up and dwelled in them and made walls and bolts to keep themselves safe from each other inside.
2
THE WHITE BITCH HAD WHELPED IN THE NIGHT—SOFT nosed, was nudging the newborn pups against her belly to nurse in the morning chill.
No few of them were yellow. Yuri was quick to point that out; and Tamas rubbed the ears of the gawky yellow hound that thrust its head under his arm to have a look at the puppies: Zadny, they called the ugly stray, who desperately wanted to please, who was good-tempered and keen to do what a body wanted. Somebody had lost a fine dog, in Tamas estimation, the day Zadny had slipped his leash: he had arrived in the ice wind, starved and foot-sore, refusing every hand but Tamas' own, from which day he was Tamas' dog, and fastest of all the dogs Tamas used. In case wanderlust took him away this spring, Tamas was delighted to see the puppies.
But Tamas came to the kennel in armor this dawn, with grandfather's third best sword bumping at his side, breakfast uneasy in his stomach, and the stark realization in his mind that he could not be here, that Yuri must inherit the puppies— to see them walk, and tumble, and play. Yuri had run up looking for him and Bogdan as if nothing else were going on in the yard: Bogdan was busy at the stables, in the deepest throes of packing; but lamas had excused himself and come for Yuri's sake; and, laced with changes that would pass without him, was suddenly beset with apprehensions.
Yuri lifted up a puppy and showed him the face. "It has to be his, doesn't it?"
"No question,' * Tamas said, rubbing the blunt puppy nose that had Zadny's yellow fur. "Only lighter. But puppies are, you can't tell yet." He had come here to mollify Yuri's offended sense of importance; now he felt unease, and a sense of loss he could not define. It prompted him to say, "Take care of them. If anything should happen—"
"It won't happen!" Yuri scowled and set the puppy down against its mother. "No reason I can't go, I'm only two years behind you, but no one sees that."
It was three. But shading on two. " 'Anything can always happen,' " Tamas quoted Karoly, and reached out to squeeze Yuri's sullenly averted shoulder. "Maybe it's nothing, all this business, maybe it's just a bad year and it's a foolish goose chase, over-mountain. It might be. It's not what goes on there that I'm worried about, it's what happens here."
There was a wet-eyed angry look from Yuri. "Nothing happens here. Nothing ever happens here!"
"So it's your job to see it doesn't. Hear me?" His brother longed after importance. Tamas offered what romance he could. "Noises in the stables, scratches at the windows ..."
"Birds," Yuri said sullenly. "That's all, it's birds. It's springtime, master Karoly says so, what do they expect?"
"Just take care. And don't go off alone in the woods and don't let your friends go. There could be a troll, and I don't want you to find it."
"I thought there was a troll. I thought you were supposed to kill it on your way."
"If we meet it on our way. We're supposed to ride over-mountain and back, that's all we're supposed to do. Master Karoly isn't happy with things here, that's why we're going to talk to his sister, isn't it? It's no good if we get there and something dreadful's happened back here, if the house has burned down or something. So watch out for things. Keep an eye on every thing—don't let your friends be stupid, don't go into the woods. Don't let something go wrong. You're . taking Bogdan's place in the house. —And take care of Zadny for me. All right? The houndsmaster doesn't like him; he threatens to lose him in the woods, and I want you to watch out for him and see he's all right while I'm gone. Promise me."