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  Still keeping his tight grip on her he had begun a careful survey of the whole room, which ended by centering on the Herbmistress.

  “What have you wrought here!” He had jerked the girl’s head back and forth by that hold in her hair, and those steel eyes had been sword points to strike her.

  “Let be!” Halwice had straightened on her stool. “You are always too ready to leap for answers—1 thought you had learned the folly of that, Nicolas. Loose Willadene! Had it not been for her aid—yyHow long does a man last in the Deep Sleep?”

  “What does she here?” he had demanded, but he had loosened his grip and she was able to pull her head back and away from so close a vicinity so that he could not so seize upon her again.

  “The Will of the Star.” Halwice had the sharp tone of an adult dealing with a child. “Had it not been for her provident coming to the shop, we would both be deep in that she-serpent’s net.” Swiftly she had outlined what Willadene had discovered, and her efforts on their behalf thereafter. The girl had longed to interrupt that it was Halwice’s welfare she had been concerned with and not that of this boor.

  “I brought the packet from Arwa—as usual. He met me at the Fork’s Border Inn and showed me the seal upon it, knowing I was coming to Kronengred. It was no different—” Then he had paused and scowled. “So they used me, did they—Arwan—” His hand had gone to the belt where rode a sheathed knife longer than any ever intended for an eating tool.

  “Arwan’s part in this we shall learn in due time.” Halwice still had a note of impatience in her voice. “The important thing is here and now. You came over border with a message. You have already been delayed since well beyond First Bell in the delivery of it. I suggest that first things be met in the proper order. And this, I believe—” her hands had groped among her bodice lacings to bring out the coin-shaped seal Willadene had found on the floor “—is yours. Best be on your way.”

  But it had seemed that he had not been ready to yield to the authority Halwice used.

  “The girl—” Now he had looked once more at Willadene.

  “She is my affair, Nicolas. I warn you, one does not meddle with the moves of fate. Now go.”

  And go he had, not through the shop but out back to traverse the herb garden, clearly in search of the same entrance which had brought Willadene there earlier.

  “Nicolas serves his master well,” the Herbmistress had begun when he was gone. “Now—you will forget him!”

  Willadene had blinked and then nodded. Curiosity might be alive in her, but she had had good reason to sense that this was no time for questions. Halwice had surveyed her up and down, and once more the girl had been aware of the grubby appearance she must have presented at that moment.

  “Get the kettle, the largest one"—Halwice had gestured toward the hearth—"and set a fire for it. So Jacoba would take bride price for you from Wyche? That can be speedily taken care of. For your own sake, girl, you must be under my hand. There is this much true—good gold would be paid for noting what had passed here when repeated to the right person.”

  Willadene had stiffened. Nicolas might well have been a spy—perhaps even so Halwice—but she was no talebearer and never had been. She knew—knew by the aid of her gift—that there was no evil in the woman facing her, and whatever she had done earlier she might truly confess to the Star and go unchided.

  “Yes. We know—for, girl, we are of the same breed, only I have been forged like a fine smith’s weapon, and you are but raw material. I know you have long wanted to come to me, but there was a reason that I should not arouse Jacoba’s malice fully against the two of us. Today has changed all that.

  ‘‘Bring me now one of the small measures and the third bottle from the left on the second shelf near the window of the shop.”

  When Willadene had returned Halwice had tried to take both objects from her, but the woman’s hands had been shaking so hard she had not been able to manage to hold either safely.

  “Age comes to all of us,” she had said bleakly as if she spoke the thought aloud. “Take this, pour you from the bottle into the measure until it reaches this line graven in the glass—do it!”

  The girl had nodded emphatically, and with the care she had always seen the Herbmistress use in putting together any mixture, she had allowed a green liquid to fall hardly more than a couple of drops at a time into the measure. Around her had wafted a fresh, clean scent she could not have put name to but which she wished would wash every smirch, every bruise, every scar from her body, for she had a strong feeling it might well be able to do just that.

  Halwice had taken the measure in both shaking hands and held it to her lips. She had drunk steadily until the last green drop was gone. For another moment she had sat quietly and then she was on her feet moving as briskly as Willadene had always seen her do.

  “Well enough.” She reached out to take the bottle from the girl’s hand. “Now the immediate affairs are our own.”

  Setting the bottle carefully on the table, she had moved to a chest so old that time had scrubbed away nearly all the painted patterns from its wood. When she had lifted the lid there had been another rush of scent which Willadene recognized came from herbs laid up to preserve clothing from moth and mildew.

  Halwice had brought out a bundle tied together with a length of narrow cloth. She had set this on the table and then pointed toward a very large basin, nearly as tall as Willadene herself, where it leaned against the back wall.

  “I have no scullery maid,” Halwice had announced. “Those who serve me from time to time go in better guise. Take the kettle water to warm that from the bucket and let us see what lies under all that which plasters you now. Then dress yourself in these.” She had thumped the bundle. “In that box is soap. See that you use it well on both body and hair. No one with the nose can wish to remain as you are now. I shall be in the shop. It has been closed too long. We are very near the time of the noon bell, and when I go out on errands I am seldom gone past that.”

  She had looped aside the curtain, and Willadene had set about obeying orders. Though the basin was no bath such as a noblewoman could soak herself in, the girl had found she could crouch in its water warmed by the supply from the kettle, and she had set about such a scrubbing with the soft soap scooped from the box as she had not been able to do for years. Though as she’d bathed, washed her hair, and washed it yet a second time, she had begun to remember times when she had been as free with water and soap as she was now.

  There had been a rough towel; and she had moved closer to the small fire as she’d rubbed herself dry, ashamed of her hands where the skin seemed still cracked with gray lines in spite of all her efforts. The bundle had yielded a chemise which had not been too large that she could not pull it snugly about her. Then there had been a shirt with short sleeves, made for a worker who needed full use of her hands. It had had a line of green braid, which Willadene had caressed with a loving finger. Last had been a skirt, full and a little too wide for her waist, but she had been able to belt it in with the same piece of material which had held the bundle together. And they’d all been clean, fragrant from dried flowers which had fluttered in the air as she’d pulled free each garment.

  So had begun her life in Halwice’s shop and home. And Willadene found that to be equal to that life in brightness and beauty which the Star promised the faithful.

  Of course, the Reeve’s messenger appeared and with Halwice she had been summoned to face all the majesty of the law which had been indifferently placed on Jacoba’s side. But to the girl’s astonishment the innkeeper was subdued, her roaring anger hidden—if it still existed. She had tried to bring up the point that Willadene was a bespoken bride, but two or three skillful questions had dismissed that, since it had been apparent the girl had had no say in the matter.

  That was the last of Jacoba, Willadene had thought, with a great feeling of being free of a smothering burden, as she had left with Halwice, her apprenticeship duly countersigned by two Reeves n
ow—that of Jacoba’s quarter and that who kept the Duke’s peace in Halwice’s.

  It certainly had been plain at this meeting that the Herbmistress was of consequence in Kronengred and that her word was accepted without question.

  However, during the days which followed, questions she hardly spelled out even for herself troubled Willadene from time to time. The trade in the shop was brisk, and, yes, strange merchants or their assistants came from time to time to deliver products from far beyond Kronen.

  Among these were what Willadene came to consider special ones. Two had been delivered once after nightfall by the back alleyway and those who brought them had been given a number of coins which they promptly hid about their persons. Most of these visitors hardly ever seemed to even realize that the girl was there, and she kept mouse still, busying herself with some task of sorting, labeling, or generally setting the shop in order.

  However, as much as she tried to efface herself, their quarters were cramped and there was little chance for any true privacy, so she listened. What passed between Halwice and many of these visitors was cryptic, making no sense to Willadene, but about none of them ever clung the cloying, rotten smell of evil.

  Twice Nicolas had turned up—once openly in the shop, wearing a fine dark-red jerkin bearing the Chancellor’s arms on both shoulder and breast, with an ordinary request for a product which calmed nerves and allowed sleep. He scowled when Halwice directed Willadene to make up the dosage. It was plain that he had no trust even yet in the girl.

  “I hear,” Halwice said, “that Her Grace did well for herself at the court. She is comely enough and appears to carry her position well.”

  Nicolas made a sound which was not far from a snort.

  “Yes, it made a fine show. Even the High Lady Saylana could find little fault, I understand. But this is true, mistress: the Duke may have come to his rule cross-sidely but he will make every effort to hold it. And what is in a father may also lie in a child.”

  “The Lady Zuta still stands at her right hand?”

  He was frowning now. “How else can it be? His Highness kept all others from Her Grace. But it is with that Lady Zuta as it is with my Lord Chancellor—only if His Highness remains in position to grant favors will she herself prosper.”

  “There are some strange tales from over the border—” Halwice continued placidly. “It would seem that the royal family there also has its problems.”

  “That is none of the business of Kronen.” Nicolas shrugged. Then suddenly he changed the subject. “Is it indeed true, mistress, that there be scents which can ensnarl a man—not blast him, mind you, as was attempted here—but weave him to the purpose of another without his knowledge of what is happening?”

  “There are said to be such—woman’s weapons—” Halwice replied.

  His teeth showed in a very unpleasant smile. She regarded him steadily until that smile faded. “Well you should know what it means to fall even to the lightest of such traps. I would consider such a subject with care if I were you.”

  He grinned again, this time like the youth he seemed to be. “Well enough—there are rumors aplenty always flying about to mystify a man—Who needs to believe such? My lord’s thanks for your services—”

  Willadene had carefully stuffed the small pillow she had been busied with, now sealing it with a paste which would unite that opening past all forcing. She slid it across the counter to him.

  His next visit was three days later and this time after nightfall, heralded by a soft knocking at the back door. Willadene looked to the Herbmistress, and at her nod slipped out the bar latch. This time Nicolas wore no well-cut and fitted clothing, certainly no identifying tabard of the Lord Chancellor. Instead, a long black cloak muffled him from chin, with rolls of a thrown-back cowl, to his booted ankles.

  Halwice, without a word, went to a cupboard and brought out a pouch too rounded certainly to carry much wealth and giving forth no clink as she handled it. Nicolas caught it and it vanished beneath his cloak.

  “The border?” That was no statement, rather a question.

  “Mistress, no one can track well a night flyer.” He laughed, almost the joyous laugh of one about to engage in mischief. “If this one succeeds you will soon hear strange news—”

  With no more farewell he was gone. Halwice sat down slowly on the chair they had dragged back from the shop, the former seat of her imprisonment. She was shaking her head, not at Willadene but at something perhaps only she could see.

  “May the Star light him through! One can take such risks against fate but not forever.” She sighed and then spoke directly to Willadene. “Bring me the book which stands at the far end of the knowledge shelf and take care; it is so old that someday it may turn to dust in one’s hands.”

  Willadene obeyed quickly. There was an odd smell to what she held—the decay of ancient leather and parchment, and beyond that a medley of scents she did not have time to identify before Halwice had it from her, laid on the table between two lighted lamps so that the full glow was turned on the pages she so carefully turned.

  “One can only try,” she muttered as she searched. “Oh, get you to bed, Willadene. I may be half the night about this business.”

  And again, though questions nearly choked her, the girl obeyed.

  6

  “Were she younger I would have my cane across her back.” Duke Uttobric snarled. “Making a show of herself before the whole of Kronengred, and I can well believe that most of the city was there to gape at her doing it!”

  Vazul pursed his lips as he faced his master, and his black-furred companion made the faintest of chittering sounds from where she hung in one of her favorite positions around the man’s neck. Sometimes—mentally Vazul hoped for patience and firmly banked down his impatience—Uttobric tried a man near to the far limits.

  “Highness"—he picked his words now with care as he answered—"instead of Her Grace proving a barrier to your wishes, she has, on the contrary, played her part as well as if she had been trained to it from youth. With her own hands she has fed the hungry, standing with those pious Sisters of the Star. Not a task, I will grant you, that many of her blood have ever done in the past, but one which made all who watched it believe that she has the good of Kronen in her heart.”

  The Duke scowled, that dark twitch of skin and eyebrows fading slowly. “What say the court?” he then demanded. “Do they mutter behind their hands that one of the Old Blood so forgets her place as to mingle with beggars?”

  Within himself Vazul sighed, but his tone was conciliating as he replied. “Highness, have we not been gathering rumors for more than a year now that those who oppose you are secretly building their own net to bring you down? And where is any army they can summon? Who can raise enough coin to import even one company of mercenaries? And, as all know, those are apt to turn upon their employers if their pay is not forthcoming as promised. Therefore any support your enemies could hope to gather would be from the dissatisfied, the unruly, the night flitters, of Kronengred itself. In every city there are those who will rise at the thought of loot.

  “So far we have sifted very carefully all strangers coming into the city. The majority are honest merchants. Those, we wish to encourage, for our very life depends upon trade. But—” he leaned forward a little and drew from his belt a roll of paper he proceeded to pull taut enough to be read “—we also know that there are others who find their way through and out again our gates, that there are ties rooted within this city itself which lead to the outlaws. In the past year five small caravans have disappeared entirely as if the earth swallowed them, and attacks on two well-guarded larger ones were beaten off only with loss of life, and, what is more, of merchants’ confidence that we are strong enough to protect them.

  “We must hold the city. Just as you have graciously made concessions to the most powerful among the merchants, accepted—at least outwardly—suggestions from the Reeves, so must the people themselves believe that their welfare is a matter of hear
t interest for you. Thus—Her Grace’s act at the Abbey—news of which, I assure you, has already spread through the city and even grown in the telling—is such which will serve you now as well as a full corps marching down from the castle. I repeat, Highness, Her Grace Mahart is one of your best weapons at present and must be well used. Twenty days hence is her birthday—to make such a holiday this year, Her Grace appearing perhaps to give thanks for the generous recognition of your pleasure in it—”

  The Duke’s gaze had gone from the narrow face of his Chancellor to the wall where a particularly drab stretch of tapestry celebrated a victory won long before his own birth.

  “Very well—a feasting—alms—all the usual, I suppose,” he said grudgingly. “Her Grace and I will proceed to the Abbey to give thanks—Do you realize what a hole this will leave in my purse?” he ended snappishly.

  “But it shall be done with all propriety—” promised Vazul. If he was going to add to that promise, he was stopped by his furred companion, whose chittering now reached the point it could be well heard by the Duke also.

  The animal had slewed around on Vazul’s shoulder and her whiskered snout was now pointing to the wall. With a speed which was out of place in him usually, the Chancellor was on his feet and at that wall, his hand outstretched so that the fingers pressed there in a certain pattern.

  With no sound—the latch was too well oiled for that—a panel slid back and presented an opening through which a full-sized man could come only if he were bent double as the newcomer was.

  He straightened to his full height, which was more than the Duke’s and a little less than Vazul’s. His cloak swept back a little as his hand came free to sketch what might be a salute of sorts, but he showed no other formal deference to the company in which he now found himself.

  “Prince Lorien,” he reported, “has reached the lodge. Two nights ago a shepherd was slain just within the borders there. His flock was all killed, an act which will arouse the country people—on both sides of the border. It seemed that the Red Wolf held high feast for a comrade.”