Andre Norton - The Jargoon Pard

Heroise gasped. A way out—the only way out!

“How—” she began.

Ursilla gestured her into silence. Still holding the baby within the crook of her left arm, the Wise Woman faced the wall. Her right hand rose and fell, as with the tip of her finger, she drew signs and symbols on the surface of that barrier. Some of them flared red for an instant, as if a spark of hearth fire glowed in them. Others Heroise could not follow for the swiftness of those gestures.

While she signed so, Ursilla chanted, her voice rising and falling as she recited words, spoke Names. Still never was it louder than a whisper. Yet it carried to Heroise’s ears through the rumble of the storm. At the sound of one or two of those Names, she shivered and shrank, yet she did not protest. Greedily she watched, her fierce hunger for what she wanted most alive within her.

Then Ursilla had finished. “It is done,” she told Heroise. “I have raised a spell of forgetting. Those within now sleep. When they awake they will have a baby who shall seem to them the rightful one.”

“Yes! Do it quickly, quickly!” Heroise urged.

Ursilla was gone, the Lady lay back upon the divan. This she had done—borne an heir for Car Do Prawn. In the years to come—her eyes shone—she— she would be mistress there! And with the resources of all the hold land—the lordship—behind her, the heir her creature, and Ursilla to aid her—what else might she not achieve in due time! She laughed aloud as Ursilla returned, a baby wrapped in a birthing cloth once more within her arms.

Coming to Heroise, she held out the child. “Your goodly son, Lady.” She used the old formal words of the birthing woman. “Look upon him, name him, that he may have life well set before him.”

Heroise took the baby awkwardly. She peered down into his face where eyes dark-lashed were tightly closed, one small fist pressed against his mouth. He had dark hair. Well, that was right. Her own was near the same shade. She pulled away the cloth to inspect the small body critically. Yes, he was properly fashioned, with no mark upon him that could afterward be raised to question his identity.

“He is Kethan,” she said swiftly, as if she feared someone to dispute her naming and her owning. “He is my true son, heir to Car Do Prawn, so do I swear before the Power.”

Ursilla bowed her head. “I will summon your women,” she said. “Once the storm is spent, we had best be on our way.”

Heroise looked faintly uneasy. “You said they,” she nodded toward the wall, “would never know.”

“That is true, for now. But the longer we linger, the more chance may upset our plans, even though I have used mighty spells to further them. She—” Ursilla hesitated. “The one who is the mother yonder, there is something about her that I find strange. She has some of the talent—”

“She will know then!” Heroise clutched the baby to her so tightly that he awoke and gave a little cry, waving his fists in the air as if willing to do battle for his freedom from that grasp.

“She may have talent,” Ursilla countered, “but she is not my equal. You know that we can judge another of our kind.”

Heroise nodded. “But it is best to be away. Send my women to me—I would they see this baby, know him in the first hour for Kethan, who is mine alone!”

In the other room, the mother stirred. The shade of uneasiness, which had been upon her face earlier, had returned. She shifted her head upon the pillow and opened her eyes. The space of a pointed finger away lay the baby. And over her bent the Wise Woman.

“Aye, m’lady, this be a proper little daughter. She do indeed! Your goodly daughter, Lady. Look upon her, name her, that she may have life well set before her.”

The mother gathered the baby into her arms joyfully. “She is Aylinn, my true daughter and that of my Lord. Oh, go and bring him quickly, for now that I am out of Gunnora’s care, I feel uneasy. Bring him quickly!”

She held the baby close and crooned lovingly. Aylinn opened her eyes and then her mouth, giving voice to a small cry as if she were not quite sure she found the world entirely pleasant. The woman laughed joyfully.

“Ah, little daughter, welcome are you, thrice, four times welcome. Indeed life shall be better to you than it was to me when I was young. For you have my arms about you and my Lord’s strength to guard you—and both our hearts to hold in your two hands!”

Outside the storm began to die. The stranger fought his way out of the stable to meet, at the door of the shrine, the Wise Woman. As he hurried to his wife, he heard a stirring in the other chamber, but it held no interest. Nor did he even watch when, in the morn of the following day, those from Car Do Prawn rode away, their mistress in her horse litter, her son in her arms.

For the three left behind, there was also a faring out some time later. They turned their faces northward to the wilds of the forest, which to them meant home.

Car Do Prawn is not the greatest of the Keeps that gave allegiance to the Redmantle Overlord, nor the richest. But what it holds within its boundaries is satisfying to look upon. There are orchards of cherry and apple, from which come not only fruit in due season, but also cider, a cherry cordial for which we have no small fame in Arvon. There are also fields of grain, always yielding abundantly at Harvest tide. And there are flocks of sheep and a goodly herd of cattle. Centermost in this smiling and fruitful country sits the Keep itself, and about that a small village. The village lies open under the sun, its cottages possessing sharply gabled roofs, the eaves of which are carved with fanciful shapes. Their walls are all of a light gray stone, the roofs of slate, while those carvings are entwined with runes painted green and gold.

But the Keep itself, while of the same stone, has no such lightsome embellishments. There is always about the Towers a seeming of shadow. It might be that some invisible cloud keeps it so. Within the walls, even in the depths of summer, there abides a chill that none save I ever seemed to note. There I had often the sense that things moved along its very old corridors, in the corners of its shadowed rooms, which had little in common with the ways of mankind.

From the time of my first understanding, my Lady Mother made plain to me that, in the future, I would rule here. But that promise gave me no feeling of pride. Rather, I oftentimes wondered whether any man could claim full sovereignship within such a haunted place. Perhaps my own reticent nature was my protection, for I never spoke to her nor to Ursilla (of whom I was greatly in awe) of those strange and disturbing fancies concerning Car Do Prawn.

Until I reached the age of six, I lived in the Ladies’ Tower, where my only companion in age was the Lady Thaney, she who was Lord Erach’s daughter and my elder by a year. It had been told me early that our destinies were designed to be one, that when we came to a suitable age, we would be wedded, thus fast locking together the House fate; though at the time this meant little or nothing to me, or perhaps to her.

Thaney was tall for her age, and very knowing, also somewhat sly. I early learned that were we in any mischief together and discovered, the blame would fall wholly upon me. I did not like her or dislike her. I accepted her presence as I did the clothing on my body, the food on my plate.

With her brother Maughus, the matter was far different. He was some six years my elder and dwelt in the Youths’ Tower, coming only at intervals to visit his grandam, the Lady Eldris, his mother having died of a fever shortly after Thaney’s birth. I say his grandam, though by descent, I was also a grandson. However, the Lady Eldris made plain her preference, and either ignored me, or found fault whenever I was in her sight, so I kept away from her apartments.