Poul Anderson - A Midsummer Tempest

She turned, regarded his twilit countenance, and finished contritely: “I’m sorry that my heart has run away.”

Her hands reached to give his a brief embrace. And the ring exploded into light.

He lurched back with a cry. A lifted arm sought to shield his eyes. And yet the many-colored radiance which poured forth was not fiery. It filled the room like a benediction spoken in rainbows.

“The kindled sign—O Rupert, art thou nigh?” Even as she whispered, Jennifer muffled it in a fold of her dress. Fearfully she scanned out the opening. If anyone stood beneath, the flash had been too short to notice. She hastened into a far corner. “Keep silent, friend, dear friend, call not for help.”

He had drawn blade. “The sigil’s come awake,” he said wildly. “What may it mean?”

“No harm. Thou suffered’st none today. Not so?” A quaking went through her. She fought it down, lifted her head and beckoned. “Come hither to me, Sword-of-the-Lord,” she said in a strange tone. “Fear not.”

He let his steel sink and walked stiff-legged. She spread her skirt to screen off the glow. Her ankles shocked him out of his first dread of witchcraft. Slowly, her left arm rose. When she pointed straight at him, the jewel rioted.

“Thou art my luck,” she said. “The fire-gem shines for thee. I’ll lay it on my breast beside thy name.”

Cautiously she slipped the ring off her finger and down the front of her dress. The least light seeped out through cloth, up past bosom, to make throat, eyes, tumbled tawny hair stand forth against a dusk which seemed to have become nearly full night though sunset tarried still above roofs.

“I—thy fortune?” His weapon clattered to the floor. “How? I’ve tried and failed. I’d spend this penny life of mine to buy the gold of one hour’s joy for Jennifer, but thou’rt too steadfast in thine angry grief.”

“I think the ring’s reflecting from thy soul,” she said. This time she took his hands. They lay big and helpless in hers. “And here at last a chance has come for thee.”

“To do what thing, my lady?” His voice cracked across.

“Set me free.”

“Nay!” He seemed to make an effort to break loose. She held him. “That’s impossible. Mine oath, my duty—”

Then she did let him go. “Indeed.” Her words grew regretful, almost caressing. “I ought to understand a pledge. Believe me that I do, and care for thee, and merely wish that we might both have stood on one side of the wall they’ve built between us. Goodnight, dear Sword-of-the-Lord. Remember me.”

“What dost thou mean?” he asked, terrified.

“Thou, being loyal, must know loyalty,” she explained as if to a well-loved child. “Wouldst thou be gladly made into a thing that hunts its master down the selfsame link of plighted faith which binds them? Nor will I.”

“What canst thou do?”

“This world has many doors, and resolution is their single key.” (He uttered a noise. ) “A sudden leap o’erboard, with emptied lungs; a poniard snatched for briefest borrowing; self-strangulation on a bit of food”—Jennifer smiled—“though that’s not pretty—better, some dark night, to bite my tongue in two and then wait quiet… Should one way fail, there’s hundreds more to try.”

He stood appalled. She stroked his cheek. “Do not think ill of me for this, my sweet,” she said.

“Someday, when thou hast had thy fill of earth, it may be we shall meet in Paradise and shake our heads and share a moment’s laughter, half jesting and half sad, at this night’s youth.”

“No heaven for self-murderers, but hell,” wrenched from him.

“I think not in this case—”

“Thou’rt wrong, forever!”

“Where’er the door may lead, I’ll open it.” Jennifer sighed. “ ’Tis true, the key is cold and hard to lift.

Therefore goodnight. Go. Leave me here to pray.”

“To pray for strength in sin? I could not stir.”

She said like a slap: “If thou must cumber me, at least keep still.” In a few steps she crossed to the narrow cot and knelt beside it. Straw ticking rustled at her touch.

He stood for a moment, stumbled about for a moment, until he cried: “Nay, cease it, stop this horror, Jennifer! I’ll aid thee—oh, I will, I will, I will!” He fell likewise to his knees, buried face in hands, and wept with unpracticed roughness.

She came to him, drew his head onto her breast, smoothed his hair, and murmured. He clung to her. “I knew thou wouldst,” she said after a while, “less from the ring than thee.”

“It is… the lesser sin… to save thy soul,” he hiccoughed.

“Speak soft,” she warned.

He withdrew to hunker before her and ask forlornly, “How can I bring thee past the watch?”

Her speech flew sharp. “I’ve thought on this, as prisoners are wont. Go out and tell the sentry that it seems I’m near repentance—’twill explain thy tears—and thou wouldst fetch thy Bible for its power. Bring back as well, though hidden, from thy chest a suit of thine own clothes; I’m near thy size. I’ll don it. Then—oh, quickly, ere the moonrise!—let me down from this window to the court. Its guard, I’ve seen, stands not below the house but at the portal. Given ample gloom, I can be lowered nigh invisibly. But hasten!”

His mind set, he sprang up. “In thy service, lady mine.” The words were bombast; the readiness wherewith he took back his sword and left the room were not.

From the floor, Jennifer gazed after him. The ring-light glinted off tears of her own. “Oh, hard it is to use him heartlessly,” she mourned, “and from its grave call forth knight-errantry.”

Bells began pealing. She started. The Angelus, she thought. Here in thy land of France wilt thou hear my confession, Mother Mary?

She bowed head over close-locked hands. “I marked him for mine own. I know not how. Some fisher lads who paid some timid calls, a London’prentice winking in the street: what more knew I of men, or they of me? I thought I saw a glint in Rupert’s glance, then dared not think it of the prince, the prince. But this poor chick—My skill affrighted me. I widened eyes at his vast earnestness, then shyly fluttered them, and sighed a bit; let fingers linger when he helped dismount; drew breath and held it for to flush my cheek and swell my bosom… whilst I crouched alert. Tonight the ring has said there is a chance, and so I hauled him in, struck home the gaff, and mean to leave him gasping on the strand… Is it a deadly sin if done for Rupert? I fear it is. My sin, my sin, not his.”

She crossed herself, and remained for a time huddled silent.

The door opened. She glimpsed her guard outside, then Sword-of-the-Lord closed it again. His lungs labored but he moved fast. A moment he took to kiss the Book he bore and lay it on the bed. Jennifer had jumped erect. “I wear two suits of clothes, one’neath the next,” he told her. “Be not alarmed when I take off the first.”

She had to giggle.

After he had removed shoes—drawing from his wallet a pair for her—and the outer tunic, shirt, breeches, stockings: he swung about and threw an arm across his eyes as if this were a game of hide-and-seek.

“Upon mine honor, lady, I’ll not look,” he said, hoarse with embarrassment.

She laughed low and touched lips to his, which almost felled him. “Why, in this darkness I’m a simple blob.” she said. He held his stance.

As she undressed and reclad herself behind his back, she continued: “I’ve bethought me of thy safety—”

“Will I not join thee?” he asked, dismayed.

“ ’Tis better not. Truly. We’d have to set a rendezvous, and who knows how I must dodge about? Besides, thy disappearance—ye men share a room, don’t ye?—’twould rouse quick suspicion and chase. Nay, come forth churned—thou’rt no actor—to say I refused thy ministrations after all, as if my possessor had twinned. Take to thy bed as if in sorrow o’er it. They’ll question thee in the morning, of course. Say what thou wilt—the truth may be best—but declare I bewitched thee till none could ha’ known what went on. They like thee well, I’ve marked, no matter how they bait thee. Fain’ll they believe, and take the blame themselves for leaving an innocent boy thus alone with a sorceress.”