The same awe that I held for Ursilla touched me now. It was as if some hero from the Chronicles had stepped from the parchment rolls to front me. That Pergvin could remember the Exile from the South was such a marvel.
“I remember too much,” he said harshly and drank his cider. Such was his air of withdrawal, I dared ask no more.
Then there was an interruption to our evening. A horn cried beyond the Keep Gate, and we recognized its summons as that which announced the arrival of a wandering merchant trader—doubtless come to set up a booth at our Harvest festival. Our welcome to the man who rode within was warm and ready, for traders were widely traveled men who brought with them much knowledge of places our own people seldom if ever saw.
Our visitor was plainly a man of high standing among his fellows, for he did not lead a single packhorse. Instead, he commanded a party with several outriders and a number of goods-carrying animals, among them not only the horses we knew, but several stranger beasts that were long of leg and whose bodies were humped upon the back so that the packs hung lashed on either side of the lump.
By Lord Erach’s order the nearer paddock outside the walls was assigned for a camping space, and there the men of the trader’s caravan quickly set up a picket line for the beasts, separating the horses from the humped ones, and then tents. Their master was pleased to accept the hospitality of the Keep and a seat at our table for the night meal, with the ladies and their waiting women, eager also to hear any news, occupying their feast chairs.
He was not a tall man, the trader, who introduced himself as one Ibycus (a name that had a new ring, not akin to any we knew). However, though he lacked inches perhaps, he did not lack presence. His manner was easy, with all the polish of a high House, the air of command upon him as surely as it rested on my uncle.
The longer I watched him, the less I believed he was one of our own folk. In spite of his youthful appearance (for in his outward seeming he might as well count not many more years than did Maughus who had not yet returned from his last mission), Ibycus gave a deeper impression of not only age, but of wisdom well controlled. I was led to wonder if he were not perhaps more than trader, perhaps some one of the Wise Ones using his present employment as a useful cloak.
If that was the truth, he was one favorable to us, for there was a lightsome, happy feeling to our dining. The shadow, that always seemed to me to hang within the Keep, was for a time dispelled. We listened to his flow of talk, and he had much to say of the lands he had recently passed through, giving several personal messages from our kin and accounts of how it fared within their holds.
At first I watched him only. Then, as if by chance, I caught sight of Ursilla and the expression that lay on her features. That she had come to meet our guest was a concession on her part, for she seldom visited the Great Hall, keeping to her own chambers. And now—
Yes, there was an uneasiness about her as she watched and listened, as if in this stranger she saw some faint menace. I was sure I saw her fingers move once or twice in a complicated gesture half-hidden by her plate. She might be bringing to bear the seeking of her sorcery to uncover some danger. Yet if that was what she sought, I knew suddenly that she failed. And her failure in turn was a rising source of dismay within her.
It was when the table was cleared that the trader summoned one of his men to bring in a stout chest. After it had been set down before him, he slapped its lid with his open palm, saying, “Wares have I in plenty, my lords and ladies. But the pick of what I carry lies here. With your goodwill, I shall make a show of them.”
Eagerly the ladies urged him to do so, their voices rising shriller above the deeper voices of the men who were not backward in such encouragement either. And the chest was opened.
From it Ibycus brought out first a length of cloth, black and much folded. This he spread out and smoothed upon the board before he lifted out divers small bags and boxes, some of silk, some of wood, others of carved bone or crystal. From each he shook its contents, to be flattened out upon the cloth in a display of such wealth I had not believed existed outside some ancient tale of a Firedrake’s treasure horde.
There was gold there and moon silver, even the ruddy copper, wrought into very ancient settings for gems. And of the gems—I do not think any of us looking upon that show could have named near the half of them.
We were silent, as if we all at one time together held our breath. Then came cries of astonishment. Also, those farther away left their seats and crowded closer, to feast their eyes on all the brilliant glitter. None stretched forth a hand, a finger, to touch. The display was too overpowering. We must all have had the feeling that it was too rich for our owning, that we must look, but we could not hope to possess.
I was one of those who had moved closer, bedazzled by all that lay there. Then somehow my eyes made a choice, and I centered my gaze on the article that lay closest to me.
It was a belt made of golden fur, so sleek and gleaming that, even among the riches heaped about it, the fur retained a brilliance, or so it seemed to me. The clasp was a single large gem—yellow-brown in shade—the like of which I had never seen. The gem had been wrought into the likeness of a cat’s head. Still, studying the buckle much closer, I saw that the cat was not intended to resemble a small, tamed one, but perhaps one that was akin to the dreaded hunter of the heights, the snow cat—more deadly a fighter than any other beast we knew.
“This interests you, Lord Kethan?”
At that moment it did not seem strange that Ibycus addressed me by name, or that he stood beside me. The others were intent still upon what lay there, and now they were venturing to touch this piece or that, all talking at-once about their preferences.
But it was the trader himself who took up the belt and held it out to me.
“A goodly piece of workmanship, my Lord. The clasp—it is a jargoon, a stone that is of the more common sort. But it has been most cunningly cut by one who knows the art well.”
“And the skin?” something prompted me to ask.
“The skin—ah, that is of the pard. One sees them seldom nowadays. They are as fearsome hunters as their cousins of the snow—though somewhat smaller.”
My fingers itched to take the belt from his grasp. At the same time my will denied that gesture, for I had the belief that if I did I could never relinquish it again. And I had no wealth with which to make it my own.
Ibycus smiled and nodded, as if he had asked some question and had it answered. Then he turned to answer some question Lord Erach called to him.
But I drew back, out of the circle of light about the table, away from the Great Hall itself. For the fierce longing that was in me to possess the belt was such that I was frightened at my own wavering control. Thus I stood in the dark, wondering if it were such a madness as this that forced a man to thievery.
4
Of the Gift of the Lady Eldris and the Coming of the First Full Moon Thereafter
I sought my own chamber, disturbed by the strong emotion the belt had aroused in me. Though I stretched out upon my narrow bed, I was far from sleep. The moon, which was new, was not strong enough as yet to beam in the windows above my head, so I lay in darkness as I had for many seasons within this same somewhat bare chamber.
The belt! I need only close my eyes to see it in my mind, gleaming as it had in the hall. A curious fancy that the strap had a kind of life of its own haunted me.
I wanted fiercely to run my hands along the furred surface, to take into my hold the carved head, gaze deeply at the jewel of its fashioning, as if I could read therein some foretelling of the future, as the Wise Ones do.
At length I could lie still no longer, so distraught did my craving for that length of fur render me. I arose and went to the window, resting my arms upon the sill, for the opening was set so high that the sill was at shoulder height for me. There I lingered, looking out into the night.