Mercedes Lackey - Wintermoon

By the time she paced into the hall, as the first bolts of lightning flashed outside the windows and the storm winds screamed at the stones, she was as taut as a harp string with tension.

But there was no one on the dais, and she took her seat with as much outward calm as she could manage. Already it was much colder in the hall than last night, and servants had set shields made of paper-thin slices of mica around any open lamp. Not that there were many of those; the one thing Highclere never ran short of was drafts, and most lamps were shielded.

The onset of the storm made no difference to the folk of the keep, except for those who would be manning the storm beacons. In this sort of weather, they would not be taking the path that clung to the cliff—that would be courting death. There were ways out to the two nearer beacons which cut through the cliff itself from the keep. The passages were narrow and claustrophobic, but better than trying to inch along the path with rain and wave striving to tear you from it. Those two near beacons marked the site of dangerous current and rocks, and were the reason the sea-keep had been built where it was. The further beacons, showing only where the coastline was, were built on the top of the cliff, much like watchtowers, and the men manning them stayed there for a week at a time.

Moira felt the stone of the keep shiver under her feet as the storm waves outside began to pound against the cliff side and the keep itself. Now the roar of the waves penetrated even the thick stone; it would be a hard night, and the storm might last two or three days altogether.

Then a bolt of lightning flashed down somewhere very nearby, for the crash of thunder that shook the entire keep came simultaneously with the flash that lit up the hall more brightly than daylight.

Moira was not ashamed that she jumped and smothered an involuntary scream. Half of the people in the hall did the same, and the other half started and clutched at something.

Her heart was pounding and one hand was at her throat as she forced calm onto herself, just as the Prince of Jendara and her father came in. She had barely gotten her heart under control. Kedric followed a few paces behind. Moira was secretly pleased that Massid was visibly shaken, wide-eyed and, she thought, a little pale under his tan.

Her father seemed to be assessing the Prince as they took their seats, and Moira thought he made up his mind about something as he gave the signal to begin the serving.

“You told me your weather was—formidable, Lord Ferson,” Massid said. To his credit, his voice was steady. “I did not grasp quite what you meant. This is an order of magnitude greater than I had thought.”

Moira looked down at her soup, but concentrated on every word, and especially, the nuances of expression in their voices.

“I have never known an outsider who had any grasp of what a winter storm could be like before he came to a sea-keep, Prince Massid,” her father replied, and there was an interesting inflection in his voice, something Moira could not quite grasp. “Nevertheless, this is an unusually strong storm, even for this time of year. I think it is a very good thing that your ship is safe in the harbor.”

The Prince of Jendara and her father exchanged a wordless glance. Moira could not see her father’s expression, but Massid looked like someone who was harboring a very satisfying secret. She felt the back of her neck prickle. “As my father told you, my lord, we have never lost a ship to a storm, though our enemies have—often.” He smiled then, a smile that called to mind the grin of a shark with a seal in its jaws.

“Depending on who was caught in this weather, what kind of ship and pilot they have, we may be gathering our winter harvest when the storm ends,” Lord Ferson replied, and he did not trouble to hide the satisfaction in his voice.

Moira shivered. Fortunately her father’s attention was on his guest, and to a man from Jendara, a woman was too unimportant to take note of. She knew very well what he meant. At a sea-keep, the “winter harvest” meant the salvage cast up on the rocks after a wreck.

“In a storm this strong,” her father continued, “any ship that’s been hugging the coastline had better have a sharp pilot and a good lookout to avoid the rocks, or she’ll be driven straight onto them. Even with the beacons, you need luck on your side when the Winter Witch comes in, because if you don’t make your turn, you’re on the teeth, and there’s an end to you.”

He was gloating. She knew it—she knew that tone. He was gloating, and she didn’t know why—

“So unfortunate.” Massid shook his head, and added, silkily, “And I suppose that turning out to sea and beating away from the coast is no better?”

“You’d better be provisioned for a double fortnight. The Winter Witch can take you a long way from where you ought to be, if she catches you away from the coast. And then, of course, there’s pirates.” Ferson’s voice took on a sly note.

Yes, and you both should know about pirates, Moira thought.

“Ah, pirates. A terrible scourge. I am told they often follow along behind one of these storms as if they knew where it was going,” Massid replied—but out of the corner of her eye, Moira saw him straighten, and abruptly his tone took on a lighter cast, with no shades of meaning. “Ah, what is this?”

“Fish baked in a salt crust, my lord,” replied Ferson, as if they had been discussing no more than food the moment before. “It is one of my cook’s specialties. This fish, baked in this way, leaves no bones in the meat, and the herbs it is stuffed with permeate the flesh, while the flesh itself remains moist. We make a virtue of necessity, having plenty of fish and no lack of salt. The salt sticks to the skin and never touches the flesh.”

“Interesting!” As the server laid a portion before the guest, he leaned over and sniffed it. “Thyme, bay, and basil, I think. How very pleasant!”

Moira knew some sort of secret dialogue had been passing between the two of them, but she simply did not have the key to understanding what was going on under the surface. It was exceedingly frustrating.

Kedric played quietly throughout the meal though his presence was not in the least soothing. At least, she didn’t find it so. The time or two she took her attention off Massid and her father, she found the fool staring at her with a strange intensity, which was as unnerving as the unspoken conversation going on between Ferson and his guest.

Once again, the announcement she had dreaded never came, and she excused herself as soon as she could.

She didn’t feel completely easy until she was in the semidarkness of the passage and out of sight of the High Table. As a child, during storms, she used to run through the passages as quickly as she could, because the lamps would snuff out seemingly by themselves. Strange currents of air would whisper or whine in corners, and all she could think about were the stories of how all those who had drowned when their ships ran up on the Teeth of Highclere followed the wind and the sea into the keep when the Winter Witch blew.

Now, as an adult, she knew that strange behavior of wind and sound was usual in a storm. No matter how well shielded the lanterns were, not all remained lit; drafts were so unpredictable that servants went through every passage at intervals, relighting the lamps that had blown out. And there was no way to keep drafts out of a place like this in storm season.

She felt sorry for anyone who had to take the passages to the beacons. There was no hope of doing anything except making your way in the darkness. No lamp flame could survive the blast that traveled along that tunnel, which was the source of the uncanny moan that signaled the beginning of a storm and didn’t end until it was over.