There were elements of strangeness about these two mounts now prepared to defend their own quarters against any invasion. They were dappled gray and black, the markings not well defined, but so intermingled that perhaps in the wooded countryside, their shading would produce a cover to confuse any who searched for them. Longer of leg than most were they, also, and slimmer of body.
Now they swung their heads toward the man who had come running, and whinnied in combined complaint and greeting. The stranger pushed past the men from the Keep without a word and went to the mounts. At his coming, they stood quiet, only blowing and snorting. Their master passed his hands down the arch of their necks and over their flanks. They made no further sounds as he urged them toward the opposite end of the stabling.
There he put them together within one wide stall and for the first time spoke:
“There will be no trouble, but keep to your own end—” His words were curtly delivered, carrying a tone of order. The commander of Lady Heroise’s escort scowled. That such a common-appearing fellow dared speak to him so before his men was an insult, which, in another place, he would have been quick to answer.
However, this was the shrine of Gunnora. Here no man dared test what might happen if blades were drawn—weapons of death bared in a place dedicated to life. Still, the glance he shot after the stranger promised no good at any future meeting.
There was one among the men of Car Do Prawn who continued to stare at the stranger standing between his mounts, a hand lightly laid upon the neck of each as they inclined their narrow heads toward him, one nibbling at his hair. Pergvin had served the Lady Eldris in years gone by, she who had borne the Lord Erach and his sister Heroise. Deep in him memory stirred, yet it was a memory that he would not share with any here. If what he half suspected might indeed be true, what a wild chance of fate had brought this meeting at this day and hour? He wanted mightily to confront the stranger, call him a certain name, see if he made answer. Only there had been an oath sworn in the past after an exiled one went out the Gates of Car Do Prawn never to return.
“Pergvin!” A sharp summons from the commander brought him to the task of helping with their own horses for this was a gale that was like to crush utterly any puny human creature.
So heavy was the rain that they could not see the shrine from the door of the stable, though that building lay only a short distance away. Wind swooped upon them, driving in a lash of icy rain, until they pulled shut the door and barred it. While the stable itself shuddered around them in warning.
The stranger left his horses, went to lay hand upon the door bar. However, Cadoc, the commander, stepped quickly before him, interposing his body between that uplifted hand and the latch.
“Leave well enough alone!” He had to raise his voice to a near shout as the howl of the wind outside deafened them. “Would you let in the wrath of the clouds?”
Again the stranger’s fingers dropped to his belt, slipping back and forth, searching. He wore a short sword, but the weapon—closer to a forester’s all-purpose tool and clearly no battle arm—was tight sheathed.
Cadoc, in spite of his anger, shifted from one foot to another under the stare the stranger turned upon him. Still he held his ground while the other, after standing so for a long moment, gave way and returned to the far stall where once more he stood between his mounts, a hand on each. But Pergvin, stealing a look when he could, saw that the man’s eyes were closed and his lips moved to shape words, which he could not, or dared not, voice aloud. Also, when he watched, Pergvin had an uneasy—nearly shamed—feeling, as if he intruded upon some man who was engaged in that which was very private. He turned away quickly, to seek out his own unhappy fellows who jerked their heads and hunched their shoulders with every blast of wind that struck upon what now seemed a very flimsy shelter.
Their own horses, unlike those of the stranger that now stood quiet, showed signs of panic. So the men needs must work to soothe the beasts. Thus they forgot some of their own fear as they dealt with the animals.
Within the shrine the Lady Heroise was unaware of the fury sweeping beyond the walls. But Ursilla, watching by the Lady, harkened to those gusts and wails, felt the beat of wild nature’s force reaching her through the very substance of the ancient building. In her there grew a fear and wonder, for she could not expel from her mind that this was a portent. She longed to be able to use the Power, to perhaps read the meaning behind the fury that now enfolded them. But she dared not distract any of the energy that she kept centered on the Lady Heroise so that their mutual desire be safely accomplished.
In the other chamber, the woman on the couch half stirred out of the drowse Gunnora had sent. She frowned and put out her hands as if to ward off some threat. The Wise Woman, who watched by her, took the hands in hers, willing peace and comfort to return. Not possessed of any great Power was she. Beside that which Ursilla could summon, her talent was the feeble striving of a maid as yet much untutored in the ancient learning. Yet the peace and goodwill in her flowed through her hands and stilled the fear that rose in the half-conscious woman. The dun shadow that had touched her fled.
It was at the height of the storm that the birth cry sounded and from each chamber did it come, one being like to an echo of the other. Ursilla looked down upon the baby she had received into her hands. Her face twisted, her mouth was a wry grimace.
The Lady Heroise’s eyes opened, she looked about her as her mind awakened. Her struggle was over, all she had planned and worked for was won.
“Let me look upon my son!” she cried.
When Ursilla hesitated, Heroise pulled herself higher on the couch.
“The baby, what is the matter with the baby?” she demanded.
“Naught—” Ursilla replied slowly. “Save that you have a daughter—”
“Daugh—” It was as if Heroise could not force the whole of that word from her quivering mouth. Her hands grasped so tightly on the covering of the divan that she might be preparing to rend the stout cloth into strips.
“It cannot be! You wrought all the spells the night that—that—” She choked. Her face was a twisted mask of rage. “It was in the reading—that you vowed to me.”
“Yes.” Ursilla wrapped the birth cloth about the baby. “The Power does not lie; therefore, there must be a way—” Her features set, her eyes stared straight at Heroise. Yet in them there was now no intelligence. It might be that Ursilla’s spirit had left her body, sought elsewhere for knowledge she must have.
Heroise, watching her, was tense, very quiet. She did not spare a single glance for the child now whimpering in Ursilla’s hold. All her attention was fixed avidly on the Wise Woman. She felt the Power. Enough of her early tutoring remained for her to recognize that Ursilla now wrought some spell of her own. But, though Heroise’s tongue uttered no more reproaches, she twisted and tore at the covering with crooked fingers she did not try to still.
Then intelligence came back into Ursilla’s eyes. She turned her head a little, pointed with her chin to the wall at their left.
“What you would have lies there. A boy child, born at the same moment as this one you bore—”
Heroise gasped. A way out—the only way out!
“How—” she began.
Ursilla gestured her into silence. Still holding the baby within the crook of her left arm, the Wise Woman faced the wall. Her right hand rose and fell, as with the tip of her finger, she drew signs and symbols on the surface of that barrier. Some of them flared red for an instant, as if a spark of hearth fire glowed in them. Others Heroise could not follow for the swiftness of those gestures.