The Jargoon Pard (Witch World Series (High Hallack Cycle)) (5 page)

I knew the action custom demanded, though reluctance to carry that out grew in me. However, having no choice, I reached forward to clasp her hands, draw her close enough to kiss her cheek. I could feel the tension of her body and understood well that there was no response from her, except perhaps a quickening of dislike.

“Very pretty!” My betrothed had said nothing, not even my name as a greeting. It was the Lady Eldris who made the comment.

“Well, girl.” She spoke directly to Thaney. “You will not do so ill after all. He is presentable—”

With that she paid me no compliment. I was keenly aware of a mutual contempt they might well have shouted aloud. Still I was firm in my resolve that neither of them would I allow to know that. Betrothal—solemn as that ceremony might be—was not marriage. To that thought I clung now, for there moved in me the knowledge that never could I take Thaney to wife. There must be some way to gain my freedom.

The Lady Eldris waited for no answer from either Thaney or me. Instead, her hands dropped to her lap to pluck at the strings of a silken bag resting there. Those loosed, she drew out—

The pard belt!

Again the moment I saw it, I experienced the same fierce and rending need to make it mine, the need I had somewhat forgotten since the time I had last seen it.

“A goodly token, girl, for your future. This forms a tightly closed circle, such a circle as your marriage must be. Give it—with your vow—to your future lord!”

Thaney did not at once reach for the length of fur, dangling from the hand her grandam held out to her. Did she fear if she did complete the gesture the Lady Eldris demanded of her she would be irrevocably pledged to a future she disliked? Apparently, she dared not completely defy the order, however.

Taking the belt at last, she turned to me, her voice as sullen in tone as her mouth looked while she uttered those words:

“My Lord, accept from me this symbol of our future unity.”

I had only half an ear for her words. The belt was all that mattered. Yet I restrained myself, so I did not actually snatch it from her hold. I had enough presence of mind to thank her and the Lady Eldris.

Thaney did not even nod as my words died into a somewhat embarrassed silence. I saw that the Lady Eldris was smiling derisively.

“See that you guard it well, Kethan,” she said. “It is a very great treasure, indeed it is. Now you may go. We have fulfilled the bargain and I am weary—”

Her dismissal was so abrupt as to make me angry. But such words and actions were only a scratch across my pride. In truth, I was well pleased to be out of the hot, perfumed room, my treasure looped about my arm. As I returned to my own quarters, I ran my fingers continually across the fur, reveling in touching such silky warmth. Also, I did not put it away in my coffer as I laid aside my festival clothing, but had the overpowering fancy to fasten it about my bare waist under my jerkin. To me there was no strangeness in what I did. There it felt right It seemed needful that I wear it so.

That night when I sought my bed I did not lay it aside, but kept it on. Again, it was a night when I could not sleep. Gazing from the window into the dark was not enough. Rather, as the full moon rose, I knew that I must be out—free—away from this pile of time-pitted stone.

Though I had never done so before, I pulled on breeches and boots, taking time for neither shirt nor jerkin. I slipped out of the Tower, through the Gate that in this time of peace had no sentry on duty. Once in the open, I began to run. There was a headiness and wildness in me that possessed by body, urged me on and on.

I crossed fields to enter the screen of bushes forming the outer fringe of the woodlands. There I kept along the banks of a stream, so that the moon-dappled waters sang at my side, until I at last reached a glade where there was the full silver of the moon and a pool reflecting it. There I ripped off my clothing and leaped into the shallow water, cupping it in my hands and splashing it up over me. The belt formed a darker line about my body, while the gem of the pard's head took fire from the moon in a way I had never seen any gem burn before. It blazed up, more and more. I was caught in a fiery cloud. There was nothing now but the wildness alive in me, the flashing of the pard's snarling head before my dazzled eyes.

Of the Warning from Ursilla and
the Cloud over Arvon

When I awoke with the coming of morning, birds twittered in the trees above me. The fire of the moon had left the pool, though a dwindling silver disk still rode in the west. I blinked and blinked again, bemused at what lay about me, for in my mind there was a memory—a memory of wild, exultant life enclosed within the night. I had seen more, heard more, scented more of a strange world, vividly alive, than I ever had in my life before. This was the freedom that something long buried inside me craved. To return to the Keep was like forcing myself back into a cage, yet I had no alternative.

Some instinct also warned me that, were my night's adventure known, I would be prevented from repeating it. I must regain my own chamber unseen. I sat up quickly, reached for the breeches and boots, which lay an arm's distance away, to pull them over my dew-moist skin. The belt about me now was just a belt. Even the gem buckle appeared duller, as if half-consumed by the fire that had blazed under the moon's touch. Still I ran my hands lovingly along the furred loop where it cinched about my middle.

The hour was still very early. I hoped to reach my chamber before there was any stir in the Keep. Again, some caution I did not understand led me to take a way along which there was cover. Thus I skulked, in the fashion of a scout approaching some enemy camp. I reached the Gate and slipped through to run for the Tower door. In doing so, I must pass the entrance of the Tower wherein the ladies dwelt. Someone moved out from the arch's shadow there to front me.

Ursilla!

There was no avoiding a meeting with her. She had turned to face me and her hand beckoned, drawing me to the arched doorway as she retreated into that more private place.

When she did not speak, I fidgeted from foot to foot. Then she pointed to the belt where it showed against my skin, only half-concealed since I was not wearing a jerkin.

“Where got you that?” Her voice was a harsh whisper, meant to compel the truth from me.

Again by instinct my hands were at my middle, cupping over the gemmed buckle. I had a queer feeling that I was threatened. Also, I was angry with myself for being so submissive to her, Wise Woman or not.

“It was a gift,” I returned with scant courtesy. “The Lady Eldris and Thaney gave it into my hands as a betrothal pledge.”

Ursilla's features sharpened, her lips pulled away a little from her teeth. Just so had I seen one of the great hounds snarl in soundless rage.

“Give it to me!” Her fingers stretched out, curling to resemble talons, as if she would tear it from my body. “Give it to me!”

By the very force of her emotion, she released me from the spell of obedience she had cast.

“No!” I denied her with a single word. Then turned and ran, unmindful now of anyone sighting me. It was not until I reached my own chamber and stood there, panting, that I regained control over the panic that had taken me out of Ursilla's reach. I dropped down on the edge of my narrow bed and tried to sort out my own mixture of emotions to learn, if I could, what had brought me racing here like a frightened child.

The sense of freedom with which I had awakened had gone. In its place arose a frustration, mingled with fear. I was in a cage—and Ursilla threatened to keep me therein. She would see that I did not repeat this night. I was aware of that as if it were written in flaming runes upon the wall before me. The belt!

I unhooked the buckle, held the gem head on a level with my eyes, examined it closely. Yes, in the day, it was dimmer. But there was no way Ursilla would get this from me—no way! It was truly mine in a manner that nothing had ever belonged to me before. I had known it instantly when I first saw it laid out among Ibycus's treasures. That the belt had been used by the Lady Eldris for her own purposes, intended to bind me to those purposes, mattered nothing. All that did was that I could now fasten it about my body. This I again did, checking the buckle well to be sure it was surely closed.

Ursilla might be mistress of potent spells, but get this from me she could not. I do not know why I was so certain of that fact, only that I was.

However, I was not to escape the Wise Woman so easily. It was midafternoon when the message came. I had been at swordplay with Pergvin and had won from that expert a certain measure of approbation. Since he was always more critical than commending, I felt new triumph. Perhaps that sense of being more alive, which I believed the belt afforded me, would now work to give me prestige among my fellows. So I was in a good-humored mood, which was not even dashed by a peremptory summons to my mother's bower.

As I crossed the courtyard I was sure that this must be some ploy of Ursilla's and that within the influence of the rooms where she had her own center of Power, it behooved me to go very warily indeed. Only I was no longer a small boy to be ordered about; at this moment, I felt all man grown, the master of my own destiny and life.

There was no sign of either the Lady Eldris or Thaney as I passed by their chambers, ascending to the floor where my mother ruled, with Ursilla ever at her shoulder. The cloying scents were gone as I climbed. Also, the room into which the waiting maid ushered me had no enwrapment of tapestry about its walls. Rather, it possessed uncovered windows through which came the light of day and the smell of the drying hay on the fields below.

Still there was richness here, also. My mother's chair-of-state was as highbacked, as well cushioned, with its red mantle of House draped across it, as that of the Lady Eldris. And, in place of the tapestries, the harsh stone of the walls framed strips of parchment on which were painted uncanny-looking birds and beasts quite unlike those I had ever seen, the colors brightly laid on to make their scales, feathers, claws, horns and the like, brilliant and as near glittering as gems.

My mother sat with a lap table before her on which was spread just another such painted strip, where, within dark outlines, she was pointing a brush with care, filling it with small flecks of scarlet, and then, taking up a second brush, outlining each of these with a speck or two of gilding. She did not raise her head at my entrance, nor bid me any welcome.

I was used of old to such treatment, since she would not take her eyes from her labor until she had completed the particular portion of the picture she worked upon. That she was alone surprised me, for I expected Ursilla to be present, yet of the Wise Woman there was no sign.

The Lady Heroise placed the two brushes in a narrow tray upon her table and pushed it away from her. She surveyed me, coldly and critically.

“You are a fool!” She spoke at last.

Since that reception also I had had before, it raised no resentment in me, only a desire to have her come more quickly to the point and explain in just what fashion I was foolish.

“You have let them bring you to heel as if you were any hound from my Lord's pack,” she continued coldly. “Why I should have a son so wit-lacking that he cannot even see when he is being leashed to another's purpose—” She shrugged. “What is done—at least it can be undone.”

Still I waited. It pleased her to approach the subject in this involved fashion. When I was a child such maneuvers had some influence on me, so that I grew uneasy the longer she was inclined not to state my fault directly. Now, after years of this, I was able to curb any emotion her words aroused until she reached the heart of the matter.

“The Lady Eldris is—” she began and then hesitated. I had early learned that between her and her mother there was no love and very little liking, though when they met, their formal manners were well controlled, and they displayed the united front that custom demanded of them. That my mother had replaced the Lady Eldris as mistress here was sure and established, but I had never, through the years, caught any hint that this state of affairs caused any resentment. It was rather as if her mother had been content to relinquish the cares and duties of chatelaine to her daughter.

“You have been caught in her net,” the Lady Heroise now stated firmly. “If you do not break that influence early—” Again she hesitated. Then, at length, she apparently decided upon the blunt truth.

“The belt is cursed.”

That she believed what she said, I had no doubt. But that Ursilla had put that thought into her mind I was also certain.

“In what manner?” For the first time I broke silence with that question.

“It is a thing of the Wererace. Ursilla knew it for that when first she saw it. That the Lady Eldris must also have known it is our misfortune. For she saw in it a chance to get what has long been her will.”

“That being?” I asked again. In my early dealings with my mother, I had been very manageable. Now for the first time in my life, I could think my own thoughts and be myself. Perhaps this was because it was less than a full day's time since I had tasted freedom such as I had never known before.

“To bring Maughus to the heirship.” Again my mother stated simply what must long have lain at the core of a silent struggle of will. “She gives to you this cursed thing in such a manner that it cannot be refused, setting upon it the symbol of betrothal. Already the belt has begun its work— Where ran you last night and in what form, Kethan?” She leaned forward, and her eyes seemed to blaze as they stared at me, in a lesser blaze perhaps, but not unlike the glitter the moon had drawn from my belt.

“I slept beside a woodland stream. I ran nowhere. And I am no shape-changer, my Lady.”

This was the result of Ursilla's meddling. At that moment, however, another face flashed into my mind, that of the shrewd, pleasant, trader. What had he said to me at our private meeting? “Be guided by what you most desire and not the demands others would lay upon you. You shall be given a gift, cherish it.”

Now I added my answer, a question:

“How knew the Lady Eldris that her gift carried this Power?”

There was more than annoyance in my mother's face. There was a flash of pure anger.

“From the trader, how else? Ursilla scented Power in him. He can only be one of those set to stir up mischief and strife. In other days there were such, traveling among our people, striving to influence them this way or that. Ursilla has read the stars. They are not well positioned for Car Do Prawn, perhaps even for this land.”

“You say that the Lady Eldris favors Maughus, that I know. But custom is custom. She cannot pass over the fact that I was born your son, thus am heir.” I was feeling my way cautiously, again as might a scout in forbidden territory, but here I must deal with words and not patches of shielding shadow among fields.

“Fool!” My mother arose to her feet, giving an impatient shove to the table that sent one paintpot to smash upon the stone. She paid no attention to the breakage. “A shape-changer is always vulnerable. Unless he is a trained Were, he has no control over such changes. Do you think that any within Car Do Prawn would accept your lordship if they knew that was your failing? It was tried here once before. There was an heir true born before Erach, of a different father. He was half Were, and when that was known, his mother, all within these walls, exiled him. You are not even half Were. Wear the cursed belt and you will not be able to control shape-changing. One moment a man—the next an animal! Do you think Thaney—any maid would wed with you? You would be hunted out from these walls. And—the longer you cling to that thing of horror—the deeper will become its hold on you! Give it to me!”

She held out her hand in imperious command.

What she had said, she believed. But the fact remained, I did not. To me this was a brew of Ursilla's making. I had not forgotten her gaze turned upon the trader, the way her fingers had covertly moved as if she tried to spin some spell against him. I had no liking for the Wise Woman; in fact, during the past days, since my meeting with Ibycus, my feeling toward her had moved from awe and uneasiness close to detestation.

“This is Ursilla's bidding,” I said slowly.

My mother's hand dropped to her side. Her tongue tip showed between her lips, moved back and forth as if licking away something that lay there and was not to her liking. Her eyes had narrowed, and now her face was devoid of expression.

“You will obey me!”

I did not know until that moment that I possessed the strength to set my will against hers. And, as I found that possible, a frail wisp of the exultation I had known upon my waking brushed my mind. What did I care about their intrigues?

When I made no answer the Lady Heroise suddenly smiled, as if she had controlled the anger she had let me see.

“Very well.” The change in her tone was so abrupt that I was unable to adjust to it at once and was caught off guard. “Cling to your toy, child. You shall learn and when you do, pray that it is not too late and you have not lost all through your stupidity. Get out of my sight until you learn your duty and come back to it in the proper spirit.”

She seated herself composedly, drew her lap table once more into position, reached for her brush. It was plain that to her I no longer existed. But she had accepted a small appearance of victory on my part that heretofore would have been unthinkable.

I left the Tower with much to consider. Was Ursilla's story the truth? Had the trader for some hidden purpose given the Lady Eldris a tool to use against me? Opposed to all my mother said, what did I have as arguments? The impression the trader had made upon me, the sense of complete lightness and confidence the belt had given me and the memory of a short part of the night free under the moon. All small, almost shadowy things, still they held me back now from believing that my mother—or Ursilla—might be totally right.

I knew that the Lady Eldris bore me no goodwill, and doubtless Thaney agreed with her. Who within the pile of Car Do Prawn, I wondered then, did have any friendship for me? To my mother and Ursilla, I was to be a tool. I had realized that since the time I had first knowledge. Lord Erach showed me no favor, only a kind of tolerance. Maughus, I was sure, hated me. Who else—Pergvin? Only perhaps.