Andre Norton - The Jargoon Pard

When I issued forth from my chamber, it was near midmorning, so long had that drug kept me in thrall. The courtyard, in contrast to the activity of the past few weeks, was almost slumberous. I could hear voices from the stables, but no one moved in the open. Though my stomach had earlier troubled me, now I felt a great hunger and made my way to the buttery hatch where one could obtain a serving of bread and cheese upon demand.

As I rapped upon the sill one of the cook boys bobbed into sight. His own chin was sticky and he was licking crumbs from his lips as he eyed me, flushed of face, as if I had caught him out in some petty pilfering.

“Your wish, Lord?” he squeaked and near choked in the process from some ill-chewed lump he had swallowed in far too great a hurry.

“Bread, cheese—” I told him shortly.

“Cider also?” I shook my head. “What I have said, no more.”

Perhaps my words were a little too forceful, for he looked surprised as he went. I was annoyed by my small self-betrayal. Care and care—that I must take now.

He reappeared with a coarse napkin for a server. In that was a thick portion of bread that had been raggedly slit open and a lump of cheese pushed in. Since the bread was still warm enough to melt the cheese a fraction, I thought I could accept it as trustworthy.

I gave him thanks and, with the napkin in hand, I straightway made for the gate and so came out into the open of the day. The sun blazed overhead with hardly a trace of cloud to be sighted. At this hour the dew was well sucked away from grass and bush, and the mown fields were dusty brown, almost withered looking. I turned my back upon them and went along an ancient path of moss-grown blocks into the garden where herbs and flowers were grown, both for their scents and their healing virtues.

However, here too was company. I heard the higher voices of women, saw three who moved among the late-season roses, harvesting those full-blown blooms that would be rendered into cordials or sugared for sweetmeats. Having seen the maids before they saw me, I slipped into another path, bordered by high-growing berry bushes, now nearly stripped of their fruit burdens.

It was the sound of my own name that made me pause. Though I had no intent of listening to the chatter of those busied with their rose culling, yet to hear oneself spoken of is bait few, if any, can resist.

“It is true—they sent old Malkin to the Youths’ Tower in the night—to the Lord Kethan’s chamber. She came shuffling back, sniffling as if she feared to have her ears boxed near off her head. I would not wish to run errands for the Wise Woman. She—”

“Best bridle your tongue, Hulda! That one has eyes and ears everywhere!” There was a stern warning in the rebuke.

“I reckon there are eyes enough on our young Lady. She has sulked for days and her temper rises with the sun and does not set with it. Yesterday she threw her mirror at Berthold and cracked it side to side—”

I heard a sound like a breath sucked forebodingly. “That is an uncanny thing.”

“So the Lady Eldris told her,” retorted she who had reported the happening. “Also our Lady pointed out that mirrors are not commonly come by, and there may be no more traders this season from whom Thaney can get another. Then Lord Maughus came in and they put on smooth faces and sent all from the room that they might talk in private.”

“Yes. That was when Malkin was on the stairs so long. I say she is one of the ears you spoke of.”

“If she can hear through door and wall, her ears are far better than most. She is so old I wonder that she can still creep around.”

“Have you ever thought—” And now the voice asking the question dropped to a tone hardly above a whisper, yet it came clearly to me. “Have you ever thought that Malkin might be—different?”

“What mean you?”

“She serves the Wise Woman, but no other. I heard old Dame Xenia once say that Malkin came with the Wise Woman and that, even in the days that are longer ago than any of us are now old, Malkin looked the same, like a worn old shadow barely able to creep about. You know she never comes into our solar, nor has she ever spoken, that I heard tell of, unless someone asks her some direct question. There is a strangeness about those eyes of hers, too.

“Though she keeps them most times cast down in a way that veils them from anyone who looks upon her, yet, I tell you, when she goes into the dark, she never takes up candle or lamp to light her way, but walks straightly as if dark still be light to her.”

“The Wise Woman seems to trust her. I wonder why she was to seek out the young Lord. Ralf saw her on the stairs, and then he watched her lift the latch of the Lord’s chamber. Nor did he hear any sound of voice within as if she brought some message. He wanted to learn more but his lord summoned him straightway and he did not have a chance—”

“Peeking, prying—you and Ralf—would you get the Wise Woman to turn her eyes upon you , Hulda? You are very unwise if you chance that!”

“Yes. And do not tell us your tales, either! I have no wish to gain either her notice or her ill will! It is enough that we must live with the changes of spirit our young Lady shows, or the sometime full angers of the Lady Eldris. Let those who serve above have their own worries. Let me see the baskets—ah, we have enough for the first drying. And do you both watch your tongues and think no more of what Malkin does or does not do in the night!”

I heard the swish of their skirts as they moved from me. But what they had said fully confirmed my suspicions that it was Ursilla’s hand and mind that lay behind my night of unconsciousness. Well, her servant had not gotten what she had been sent for, though I could not count that as any triumph on my part. As I found a bench at the far end of the garden, one sheltered by two walls of shrubs, I. chewed my bread and cheese, more mindful of my thoughts than the food I swallowed.

Upon one thing I was determined, that come nightfall this eve, I would not be any prisoner of Ursilla’s. Should I stay apart from the Keep, here in the open? The memory of that wondrous night upon my first putting on the belt was enough to make me long for another. Yet perhaps, were I missing, my mother might well summon out a force to hunt me down. It would be better that aught I did be done secretly. Though she might have set them to watch and spy upon my coming and going.

The sun did not reach in to me here, and there was a drowsy contentment in the garden that began to lull me. Fat bees, about their harvesting with the same vigor as we had shown these past weeks, blundered heavily laden from flower to flower, and birds sang. It was very hard here and now to believe in intrigue and danger.

Slowly, I became aware of something else, that my own senses seemed heightened in a way I had never before noted. When I looked about me colors were brighter, the outlines of plants and flowers sharper, more distinct. The scents caught by my nostrils were richer, my hearing keener. I do not know why I was so sure that this was so, I accepted it as the truth.

There grew in me a need to be one with the growth about me. I dropped from the bench to kneel upon the grass, run my fingertips among its blades as if I lovingly combed the fur of some giant placid beast slumberously well content. I bent my head to sniff at the faint, delicate perfume of some tiny flowers that hung bell-fashion from a stem as thin as a thread, to tremble a little in the air displaced by my movement. The wonder of what was happening filled me until I forgot all that threatened, was content to just be in this place at this hour.

Such a moment could not last. As it faded slowly, the old doubts and lacks of my life returned stronger than ever. In this place, I now felt like one who disturbed peace, a brash intruder, so I left.