Andre Norton: Amber out of Quayth

Bees droned in the small walled garden, working to store their harvest before the coming of the Ice Dragon. Ysmay sat back on her heels, pushed a wandering tendril of hair from her eyes with an earth-streaked hand. Her own harvest lay spread behind her on a well-cured hide. Those herbs would be dried in the hut at the other end of the garden.

But when she stooped to cut and pull there was no answering clink from her girdle. She was not yet used to that loss. Sometimes she would find herself feeling for the keys she no longer wore, afraid (until she remembered) that she might have lost them during her digging and delving, pulling and cutting.

She had lost them indeed, those weighty responsibilities of the Uppsdale chatelaine, but not because they had left her belt by chance. No, they swung elsewhere now, Annet was lady in this hold. As if it were possible to forget that ever—though here in this one small place Ysmay could still claim sovereignty.

For five years, she had worn those keys. They had been at first frightening years, during which she had to learn much that was more demanding than the lore of herbs. Then the years had brought pride. She, a woman, so ordered life within the Dale that people lived with a measure of content, though the sharp edge of hunger’s sword, the shadow of fear’s mace, were ever over them.

In the end news came that the war in High Hallack was done, the invaders driven into the sea, or hunted like winter wolves to their snarling deaths. Men returned to their homes—some men. Among them not her father, nor her brother Ewald—they were long lost. But Gyrerd had ridden home with a ragged tail of the hold’s menie. And with him Annet, who was daughter to Urian of Langsdale, now his bride and lady. Ysmay’s tongue swept across her upper lip to taste the salt of her own sweat. But that was not as bitter as the salt of her life with Annet.

Now Ysmay truly lived under ill-faced stars. From ruler in the hold she had become a nithling, less than one of the kitchen wenches—for such had their duties, she none, save what lay within this garden—and that only because for Annet seedlings would not grow. Though Annet resented this with a bitterness she showed to Ysmay when she had opportunity, those with ills to be cured still came to their lord’s sister, not to his lady wife. For Ysmay had the healing hands.

Healing hands, yet she could not heal the ache in her heart, her emptiness. Pride she still had, and that stubbornness which faced defeat shield up, sword ready. Bleak indeed might the future stretch before her, but it would be a future of her own devising. At that thought a shadow smile curved her lips. Ha, Annet had thought to send her to the Ladies of the Shrine. But the Abbess Grathulda was a match for the Lady Annet. She knew well that Ysmay was not of the stuff of a Shrine Daughter. Passive she might school herself to be, but there was an inner fire in her which could not be quenched in prayers and ritual.

Sometimes that fire blazed high in her. But not even her own waiting wench knew the night hours when Ysmay paced her cramped chamber, thinking or trying to think of some way out of the trap.

Had these been normal times, had her father survived, she might have followed custom, gone to rule by marriage another hold. It could be that she would not even see her lord before their marriage day, but that was proper. As a wife she would have certain rights which none could gainsay her, those same rights which Annet held here.

But she had no father to arrange such a match. And, what was worse, no dowry to attract a suitor. War had cut too deeply the resources of the dale. Gyrerd, being what he was, would not lessen what he had left. His sister could go to the Ladies, or remain on grudging sufferance, which Annet could make as cold as winter.

The rebellion so hot in Ysmay was gaining strength. She willed it under her control, breathing deeply of the strongly scented air, making her mind consider what lay directly before her. She examined the plants she chose with deliberate care, when she wanted to tear and destroy in her frustration.

“Ysmay—sister!” Annet’s sweetly reasonable voice was a lash across her shoulders.

“I am here,” she answered tonelessly.

“News—most welcome news, sister!”

What, Ysmay wondered. She edged around, her dun-colored skirts kilted in a sprawl about long limbs which Annet’s daintiness made seem so clumsy and out of proportion.

The Lady of Uppsdale stood just within the gate. Her skirts were the deep blue of the autumn sky. At her neck the silver beads winked in the light. Her hair, braided and looped high, was almost as silvery. In all she gave the impression of comeliness, if one did not note the thinness of those ever-smiling lips, or see that the smile was absent from her eyes.

“News?” Ysmay’s voice was harsh in her own ears. It was ever so. She need only sense Annet near and she became what the other thought her—as if those thoughts produced some shape-changing magic—clumsy, loutish.

“Yes—a fair, sister! Such a fair as they had in the old days! A rider from Fyndale brings the news.”

Ysmay caught some of Annet’s enthusiasm. A fair!

Dimly she could remember the last fair in Fyndale. Through the mist of years, that memory had taken on a golden glory. Her reason told her that was not so, but her memory continued to trick her.

“A fair, and we shall go!” Annet made one of those pretty and appealing gestures which so enchanted any male in sight, clapping her hands together as might a little maid.

We? Did Annet mean Ysmay too? She doubted that. But the other was continuing.

“My lord says that it is safe now, that he need only leave a token force here. Ysmay—is this not fair fortune? Hasten, sister, you must come and look through the chests with me. Let us see what we can find that we shame not our lord.”

I know what I can find in any chest of mine, Ysmay thought without pleasure. But it would seem that she was indeed to be included in their party. And she knew a swift rush of excitement which was akin to pleasure as she gathered up her morning’s harvest.

Though she knew Annet was no friend to her, Ysmay could not fault her during the following days. Annet had a clever eye for dress and, from the few pieces of old finery of her own mother’s time which Ysmay possessed, she pieced out two robes of more subtle cut than any Ysmay had ever owned. When she faced the burnished shield which served as her mirror, on the morning of their going, she thought she looked well indeed.

Never had Ysmay any pretense of the soft prettiness of Annet. Her face narrowed from cheekbones to a pointed chin, her mouth was far too large for her face. Her nose—there was no denying it was too high in the bridge. Her eyes were merely eyes, their color seemed to vary, being now green, again darkly brown. Her hair was thick enough, but it was not golden, nor richly black, just brown. Her skin, not properly pale, was also brown from her labors in the garden, the more so this season when she had been driven to spend more and more time there.

She was too tall for a woman, she had always known that. But in this robe—well, she looked more as a woman should look. It was made of an odd shade of tawny, just like—Ysmay turned to the small box which had been her mother’s and took out a small amulet. Yes, it was the hue of this robe, was her amber talisman. The small piece she held was old and so worn she could barely distinguish the carving, but it was a warm, beautiful color. She found a cord to string it on and knotted it as a pendant.

For safekeeping she tucked it within the neck of the laced bodice. Her dress was made with divided skirt for riding, but to Ysmay it held all the enchantment of a court gown.