Andre Norton - The Jargoon Pard

“What do you see?” he asked.

I ran my tongue tip over my lips. What he wanted of me I could not guess, but that there was some deeper meaning in this encounter I was now very certain. Obediently, I gazed upon the ring.

There was a kind of shimmer across the stone. The dull surface appeared to move as might the surface of a pond when one tosses in a stone, rippling—

Then—

I think I must have exclaimed aloud, my surprise was so great. For an instant or two I had seen the head of a cat thereon, a snow cat, its fangs exposed in a snarl of warning! So much life was in that picture I did not believe it was any carving resembling the one of the belt buckle.

“What do you see?” So imperative was the order in his repeated question that I answered with the truth.

“I—I saw the head of a snow cat!”

Now Ibycus held his hand before his own eyes, peered intently into what was once more the dull gray of the stone. He nodded abruptly.

“Well enough, Lord Kethan, well enough.”

“Well enough for you perhaps,” I was embolded to say then. “But what is the meaning—”

The trader did not allow me to finish the question. “In due time, my young Lord, all shall be made plain. Just as it is plain to me now why I came to Car Do Prawn. I make mysteries you think?” He laughed. “When you were a small lad did you not learn your runes by beginning with the simplest combinations? Would you have been able to read any Chronicle then put into your hands without such preparation?”

I shook my head. I wanted to be angry at his usage of me, indeed at his hinting and his mysteries. However, there was that about him which kept my tongue discreetly silent.

“This I leave with you as a thought to hold in mind, Lord Kethan—be guided by what you desire most, not the demands others shall try to lay upon you. Even I cannot read some runes. They must be revealed properly in due time; and sometimes time marches but slowly. You shall be given a gift—cherish it.”

With that he turned away abruptly before I could speak, though I stood, mouth half-open, like a fish gasping above the water of its safe pool. Nor did it seem that I might follow him to demand an explanation of his words, for something outside myself kept me where I was and silent.

He went directly to the Ladies’ Tower. Apparently he was awaited there, for the door swung open at his first knock. I remained where he had left me, chewing over the words of his speech.

I did not have any private meeting with Ibycus again. By nightfall he had gathered his train of men and pack animals to depart from the Keep. That he had made some sales of his wares was certain. My mother and the Lady Eldris had kept him long while they decided over what they might afford. But I believed that not much of his treasure remained behind when he rode out. And I deeply regretted the belt.

However, I told myself repeatedly, I could never have hoped to purchase it. In addition, there were none within Car Do Prawn to whom I would appeal to aid me in acquiring such a thing. Though I might be Lord Erach’s acknowledged heir, yet I had no purse into which I could dip.

Three days later, came the day of my birth anniversary. When I had lived with the Lady Heroise and Ursilla, this had not been made an occasion for any feasting. Rather, it was celebrated as a solemn time when Ursilla had worked some spell or other, my mother assisting her, aiming at me the force of their Power, always, as they explained, to strengthen and protect my small self.

But, after I moved to the Youths’ Tower, if they still carried on such a ceremonious marking of the day, they no longer required my presence during it. So the date became like any other, save that, by record, I was deemed a year older, and more would be demanded of me in wisdom and strength.

Therefore, I was surprised when there came a message that the Lady Eldris wanted my attendance, the reason being given that it was that date. The night before, Thaney had returned, escorted by Maughus and a suitable train of waiting women and outriders. As I put on the best and newest of my feast tabards (the one stitched with the device of my heritage), I wondered if they planned this day to make some formal announcement of our coming marriage.

It was late afternoon when I crossed the courtyard to the other Tower. Within, the light was dim, so already the waiting maid who admitted me held in one hand a lamp that burned well, emitting a scented vapor. Following her, I climbed the first flight of the old, worn steps to the apartments wherein my grandam had her rulership, though memory almost sent me higher, toward the portion that had once been my home.

Within the presence chamber, there was no daylight at all, for the walls were close hung with tapestries, the colors of their patterns muted. Yet here or there, the light of one of the lamps would catch the face of an embroidered figure or grotesque beast and bring such to life. Lamps there were in plenty, others hanging from chains suspended from aloft.

These were all ablaze, giving forth heat as well as scented vapor, so that the room, after I had been within it but a moment or two, was stifling. I longed to pull aside one of the hangings and find a window that could be flung open for fresh air.

The Lady Eldris sat in a high-backed chair between two of the pillar lamps. There was no silver in the thick, dark braids that swept below her waist when she arose and that were interwoven with threads of soft gold, interset with green and pale yellow stones. She, too, wore the tabard of ceremony, enclosing her body stiffly from throat to hip. A single great green stone, like a third eye to watch me, rested in the middle of her forehead.

Like Pergvin, she had aged little, her appearance was that of one in early middle years. And, while she did not wear my mother’s openly displayed arrogance and need for dominance, she had authority in her person, underlying her every gesture.

I made my manners carefully, going to my knees and putting my lips briefly to the hand she held out to me—a hand chill to the touch in spite of the concentrated heat of the chamber. Though my head was bent in courtesy, I was keenly aware that she eyed me up and down, not with the satisfaction she always turned in Maughus’s direction, but with the aloof and faintly hostile withdrawal she had ever shown me.

“Greetings to you, Kethan—” she said, making the words by her tone merely words, without warmth and welcome.

“Good fortune, sun bright and lasting to you, my Lady.” I gave the proper answer.

“Stand up, boy. Let us see what the years have made of you!” Now there was a hint of testiness in her voice.

It meant she was constrained to this meeting for some reason and she did not propose to make it an easy one for either of us.

Arise I did. Now I saw that, though two of her waiting women hovered in the background, neither my mother nor Ursilla were present. But another advanced at the Lady Eldris’s beckoning. That this was Thaney, I had no doubt.

She was the Lady Eldris over again, as her grandam might have been those untold years ago when the Were-rider had set a love-spell to ensorcell her. As tall as I she stood, the stiff formal folds of her tabard and robe hiding but still hinting at the curves of the body beneath, a body ripe and ready for marriage. She had the same dark hair of her grandmother, but looped and arranged into a great coil on the back of her head, secured in place with gem-headed pins and combs.

Her face was as I remembered it, regular of feature, but there was a petulant twist about a mouth that appeared proportionately too small, and already a faint frown line between her dark brows. She was not smiling, but rather looked sulky, as if she clearly desired to be elsewhere at this moment.