IV
Light and shadow interwove in the room where the Lady Kallystine sat at her evening adornment. Candles burned everywhere, their flames reflected in endless succession by mirrors lining the walls. All the fiery sparks danced restlessly: no amount of silken hangings, drawn however close, could shut out the fitful breath of the south wind called the Tishooo, which had risen within the past half hour. In the farther reaches of the large chamber, black-clad Kendar maids moved silently, ceaselessly, among the banks of candles, relighting those which the wind had extinguished. They had no need to approach their lady's dressing table, however: the candles there had a trick, after a moment's hesitation, of rekindling themselves.
By their light, Kallystine admired her reflection. Here in her own chambers, she wore no mask but a delicate lace-work of leaf gold, dusted as lightly on her face as the iridescence on a jewel-jaw's wing. Carmine brought a warm glow to high cheek bones and full lips. Powdered sapphire traced the veins of throat and snowy breast. Her personal maid, a young Kendar-Highborn half-breed, was brushing her long, black hair with slow strokes. Kallystine basked in the sensation, watching herself in the mirror through half-closed eyes. She was twenty-five years old, at the height of her power, and used to getting everything she wanted. What she wanted most at the moment, however, seemed perversely to have abstracted itself.
"Would it be too much to inquire," she asked the room at large, in her most languid voice, "if the Lady Jameth has yet been found? Can it really be that every spare guard is searching?"
"No, my lady; yes, my lady."
No expression colored the handmaid's voice or face. A winter in M'lady's service had taught her to keep her thoughts to herself. Kallystine noted the tone. She picked up a long, handsome braid of hair from the table, ran it through her fingers once or twice, then carelessly tossed it to the maid.
"Here. I shan't need this after all," she said, and smiled to see the girl receive back her own hair as woodenly as she had hacked it off earlier, so that her mistress could experiment with it as a fall. It was a Highborn's duty continually to remind others who held the power. Her father, Lord Caineron, had taught her that.
He had also commanded that she reduce the Knorth Jameth to a similar state of submission. "Break her into pieces," his last correspondence had abruptly concluded, "then grind them into powder."
Kallystine wondered what the creature had done, to make her father so angry. As always, she had tried to carry out his orders, with little success. Oh, the girl obeyed her, but with such cool reserve that Kallystine hadn't been able so much as to scratch her composure. Worse, despite the matriarchs' apparent indifference, she had found herself hesitant to use her usual, more direct methods: after all, the wretched girl was a Highborn Knorth, and a strangely intimidating one at that. Oh, it had been maddening.
Ah, but now, finally, she had something to work with.
"Describe to me again that deplorable episode in the classroom," she said, selecting a candied tadpole from an alabaster bowl.
The handmaid again described in a perfectly flat voice all that the Caineron spies had been able to learn. However, no amount of coaxing or threats had induced the little girl who had been closest to say what she had seen, the moment before the instructress's sampler had fallen to shreds. She was an Ardeth, and the Ardeth Matriarch had sworn her to silence.
That blind bitch, thought Kallystine, biting off the tadpole's head. Why should she queen it here at Gothregor, over the Highlord's own consort? As for the cool way Adiraina had dismissed her plan to occupy the old Knorth quarters—
"Oh, no, my dear. That would hardly be appropriate."
Impossible, explaining to her father why she hadn't carried out that particular order regardless. Hard enough to understand it herself, or the Women's World at all, kept as she was at its lowest level—more of Adiraina's work, surely, as though she couldn't be trusted with their stupid little secrets!
(Not that Father wouldn't probably find them fascinating. If he should ask, well, the first rule of the Women's World was obedience, wasn't it?)
Secrets . . . .
The Knorth's hands and those perpetual gloves, hiding (oh, delicious thought) what monstrous deformity?
Kallystine's attention focussed sharply on her reflection. Was that a wrinkle? No, of course not. Just the same, her skin had been more radiant two years ago, when she had first become Torisen's limited term consort. She knew that he had consented only to stave off her father, but she had still managed to dazzle him. It had seemed inevitable that he would agree to a half-Caineron heir. Now, however, that contract had almost expired. She still didn't doubt her charms, but in order for them to work he had to be here. Somehow, it was that wretched Jameth's fault that he wasn't. But the man had to come home soon, and she must prepare for that day.
Kallystine's mirror reflected most of the room behind her, including a basin set on a tripod. She regarded it with discontent. The matriarchs (those meddling cows!) had forbidden her to experiment directly on the Highlord, but Great-aunt Rawneth had suggested an alternative. If only it worked, she could at least greet Torisen on his return with the same fresh complexion that had captivated him against his will two years ago. The potion lacked only the proper activating agent, which Great-aunt said she must discover for herself. The Kendar had proved useless. As for her half-breed servant . . . .
"Show me your hand."
Stony-faced, the maid obeyed. Her right hand was oddly withered, with blue, protruding veins, discolored spots, and swollen joints, the result of repeated immersions. What a pity that its lost youth had not proved transferable to the next person who had used the basin. Science was such a imprecise art.
Kallystine repeated these observations out-loud, adding over her shoulder, "Make a note of that."
In the dark corner by the bed, knitting needles began to click.
Ah, thought Kallystine suddenly, but what if she were to use a pure-blooded Highborn—the purest in Gothregor, by all accounts? That would be poetic revenge indeed, to make the one pay who was responsible for this long winter of lost opportunities; and afterward, given those omnipresent black gloves, who would ever know?
The Tishooo caught its breath. Hangings swayed backward out the first story windows, then in again as the wind exhaled—"Whoo!"—extinguishing a quarter of the candles. Maids hastily relit them. The room seemed surrounded by walls of moving air, as cut off by the growing storm as by the Caineron guards. Tonight, this was like a corner of Restormir, sovereign, inviolate, where a child of the house might amuse herself as she chose. So thought Kallystine, smiling at her reflection with half-closed eyes as she savored the other two pieces of information that she had gained tonight: a story and a fact which to her was the most exciting news of all: someone had actually slapped the Knorth Jameth, and gotten away with it.
Muted voices sounded by the door.
". . . tripped right over one of our search parties," a guard was saying. "No, we didn't see the ounce."
What a pity, thought Kallystine. She'd had such amusing plans for that cat. Still, one shouldn't be greedy.
"Lady Jameth," she said sweetly, turning. "How kind of you to pay this visit."
The Knorth stood motionless, a slender, dark form surrounded by candles. Her skirt spread out around her, its lower edge merging with the room's shadows, its folds concealing her gloved hands.
"Leave us," said Kallystine to her servants.
They went, all but the indistinct figure by the bed and the handmaid, who slipped aside at the door and remained in the room, concealed by a hanging, the severed braid in her withered right hand, the frozen expression still on her face.
Kallystine had risen and was slowly, languidly, circling the Knorth. Her train, iridescent as a peacock's tail, wound around the other's plum dark skirt. The jewels in her hair mocked the other's archaic simplicity.
"So," she said, regarding the Knorth's dusty hem. "You've been for a stroll in the abandoned halls . . . perhaps even in the Ghost Walks? Gone to visit the scene of past familial glories, hmmmm? What a pity the future will hold so few of them, but then there are so few of you Knorth left, aren't there?"
The answer to this apparently being self-evident, the Knorth didn't reply. Like the handmaid, she had learned to say as little to M'lady as possible.
"Well, perhaps there's one more of you than you think," Kallystine snapped, annoyed enough to play her main card before she had intended.
The other's poise broke. "What do you mean? Who else could there be?"
"Ah, someone in the shadows," said Kallystine, still circling, beginning again to enjoy herself. "Have you ever heard of a girl named Tieri?"
"The ghost in the Walks?"
"That childish story. Properly fooled we all were by it, too. Well, it seems that Aerulan hid the brat in the empty halls, where the Ardeth Matriarch later found her. A ghost she may be now, but she lived for twelve years after the massacre. The last Knorth lady, an Ardeth prisoner in her own halls—much good it did that blind hag in the end. Tieri died, you see. In the moon garden. Giving birth to a bastard."
"Poor Tieri."
"Rather pity yourself. She was your father's youngest full sister, your aunt."
"So the child was my first cousin . . . or is it still alive?"
"Who cares? The point is that there is, or was, a Knorth Bastard. Three of you left, my dear, and one a . . . a thing, that calls into serious question whether you yourself will breed true. I needn't tell you how damaging even the whisper of this could be to your prospects. But the secret needn't go outside this room, if we stay friends." Unexpectedly, her voice grew husky. She reached to touch the other's hair. "Such very, very good friends . . . ."
The Knorth pivoted away. Her hair slid like black water over Kallystine's white hand. Her heavy skirt, swinging, clipped the tripod, splashing some of the basin's contents on the floor. Oblivious, they stared at each other. The wind died between them. In the corner, for a moment, the knitting needles were still.
Kallystine sighed and withdrew her hand. "Then again," she murmured, "perhaps the other way is better. We needn't disagree, my dear, not if you serve me well. As a gesture of our . . . understanding, perhaps you will help me with a pet project." She faced the Knorth across the basin, smiling again with a sleepy, almost benign malice. "Such a small thing, my dear. Just stir this mixture for me. With your bare hand."
The girl stared at her. "Why on earth should I?"
A noise drew their attention downward. The ounce Jorin had emerged from under his mistress's full outer skirt to sniff at the puddle on the floor. Now he was scratching around it.
"Ah," said Kallystine. "I wonder. Is it true that ounces have special glands which produce the most exquisite perfume? Shall we find out?"
"Ah . . . oooo!" said the wind, and sucked the drapes out the embrasures into the night. The candle flames leaped and died. In the sudden, rushing darkness which followed, a strong hand grabbed Kallystine by the hair and thrust her downward into icy liquid. She reared back, sputtering, clawing at her eyes. Her face felt strange.
Then the candles on the dressing table flickered back to life and she saw herself in the mirror.
M'lady Kallystine began to scream.