Andre Norton - The Jargoon Pard

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 rightness 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.

And to him I could go with no questions about the belt. I knew what his reaction would be—give it up so I might not be more unpopular than I now was. As I recrossed the courtyard, I felt very much alone in that hour. Again in my room I unlaced my jerkin, pulled loose my shirt, and sought the clasp of the pard head.

It would not yield to my fingering!

I worked more and more furiously, striving to loose the buckle. It remained as stubbornly closed as if it had never opened before. In growing panic, I now believed that it was a thing of Power and perhaps it had come to possess me.

Staggering to the window, I leaned against the sill, drinking in cool air. My heart labored and my hands shook a little as I rested them on the stone, fighting for control. I—must—not—let—myself—open the gate to fear. Calmly, rationally, I must find the catch, loose this—

I rubbed my sweating fingers on my breeches to dry them, made them move slowly, not convulsively tear at the buckle. One pushed—thus—

The pard’s head released its grip, the belt loosed, would have looped free to fall to the floor, had I not caught it.

I held the strap up into the full light of the window, angry with myself. See how they could play upon me—make me believe their tales. A catch sticks a little and I am condemned to wear a curse about me! “Fool,” my mother had named me. Looking upon the belt I knew I was not that. I would be the greater fool if I let myself be ruled by their desires.

The wonder the belt had held for me from my first sighting flooded back. It was a precious thing! There was no harm in it. Instead, when I cherished it, I was nearer the free man I dreamed of being. If Ursilla would chain me again, she must have this. And she would not. I clasped it about my waist with determination, hid fur and gem once again with shirt and jerkin. I was lacing the last when Pergvin came with a word from my Lord that I was to attend him in the Great Hall at once.

There was truly a gathering of authority awaiting me there. Not that I had any standing or could voice an opinion, but, as my Lord’s acknowledged heir, I must be present at his decisions. Cadoc, who was his Commander and Marshal, Hergil, a quiet, older man whose passion was the keeping of the records and who was reputed to know much of those who practiced the Were Power, were there. Hergil had been on a month-long absence from the Keep. But so unobtrusive a person was he that one did not miss his presence much. Neither did he speak often. But, need any reference be made to some event of the past, and it was to Hergil one applied for confirmation.

Maughus was very much to the fore. The years between us seemed to grow more instead of fewer as the seasons slipped by. Where he used to torment and belittle me, he was now wont to ignore me entirely. That I did not mind. Now he sat hard by his father, a goblet in his hand. This he turned around and around in his fingers as if admiring the time-blurred design embossed upon its sides.

I slipped into a place beside Hergil (none of them acknowledged my presence), subdued as always by the atmosphere of age and austerity that formed my impressions of the place.

“It is true then”—Erach spoke heavily, as if whatever news he must make plain to the rest of us was not of a favorable kind—“that there will be a muster of forces. We stand with The High Lord Aidan as does Bluemantle and Gold.”

“But Silver?” pressed Cadoc, as my uncle lapsed into silence.

“No man knows. There has been coming and going between the Keeps of the western marches and the Inner Lands.”

“Silver ever had a liking for alliance with the Voices of the Heights,” Hergil commented. “It was they who held the Hawk’s Claw for nigh half a year in the days before we took the Road of Memory out of the Dales. Their blood is half of the Oldest Ones under the moon.”

“But who meddles?” demanded Maughus suddenly. “I have been messenger to some twenty Keeps. I have ventured clear to the Whiteflow. Everywhere men are uneasy. They have taken now to riding armed when abroad. Yet there is no reported foray of the Wild Ones from the Higher Land, no war horn has sounded.”

I thought of Pergvin’s talk of how tides of trouble ebbed and flowed in Arvon, and that it was near time for our time of peace to be overset. But not to know the enemy for what he was—that was to loose upon us an unease greater than certainty might produce.

“We do not know,” his father replied then. “Yet such is our heritage that we can sense a storm ahead. It is said that the Voices read the star charts and so can foretell. If this they have done now, they have sent forth no warnings. It may well be that one of the Gates shall open and some terror long ago expelled through it return, strengthened and armed, to confront us.”

“There is this,” Hergil said in his quiet voice. Low though his tone was, we all turned our eyes to him. “There has been a great warring throughout our world. The Dales have battled ruthless invaders and, after a long term of years, driven them forth again. Overseas those of our cousinhood have also been embroiled in a struggle that has left them near beaten into the ground. This war they won, but in the winning, they made such an effort with the Power that for generations they will not be able to summon much to their service again.