Jane Feather: The Silver Rose

Even when he dismounted, tethered the piebald to the fence, and started up the path, he hadn't formed his opening words.

But his feet took him up the narrow path running between orderly rows of winter cabbages and root vegetables. At the door he hesitated. Then he raised his hand and knocked.

Almost immediately the door was opened. Sarah stood on the threshold, a coarse apron wrapped around her gaunt frame. Her hands were stained with some kind of greenish dye, and she wiped them on her apron as she regarded him gravely.

"Good morning." The conventional greeting spoke itself. Her expression didn't change, but she stepped back, holding the door wider in invitation. He felt a stab of relief. She knew why he had come and she was not denying him entrance.

Simon stepped into the square room. He knew immediately that Ariel wasn't there. "You're alone?"

Sarah nodded again and closed the door. She gestured to the settle by the fire and went to lift off a cauldron of green bubbling water from the swinging hook above the flame.

Simon reached to help her with the heavy pot. "Is that dye?"

She smiled and set the cauldron down away from the fire. He watched as she prodded the contents with a pair of wooden tongs, then lifted up a length of woven cloth to the light. Simon glanced interrogatively to the spinning wheel and loom in the corner of the cottage and again she smiled. The cloth was ad her own work.

It was astonishing, he thought, how she managed to communicate. It was almost as if she threw her thoughts at him. He remembered again the uncanny moments in Ariel's bedchamber when she had touched his face. She had that same look in her eye now, questing and yet full of a deep knowledge.

Something flickered at the periphery of his vision and he turned his head to the table. Slowly he rose from the settle and went over. He picked up Ariel's bracelet, holding it in the palm of his hand. Absently he rubbed his thigh, which had been aching like the devil since Ariel's departure had brought an end to her ministrations.

"She is with you, then?"

Sarah nodded and fetched down a bottle from a shelf above the range. She uncorked it and poured a glass of some dark liquid, which she handed to Simon.

It had a strong medicinal smell, reminding him of some of Ariel's less pleasant tasting potions, but he drank it anyway. He was in the house of a trio of leechwomen, and presumably Sarah was aware of his discomfort. She was aware of so many things.

Simon sat down on the settle again, then stretched out his leg to the fire as he poured the bracelet from hand to hand, watching the glow of the ruby nestling within the furled silver petals of the rose, the deep fire-shot green of the emerald swan.

"I have come to fetch her," he said, his eyes still on the bracelet. "Her place is with me. She cannot run away from that." Now he looked up, across at Sarah, who was seated on a low stool on the other side of the fire.

Her eyes seemed to look right into him.

"I would like her to come back of her own accord… because she wants to… but…" He paused, returning his attention to the bracelet. "But whether she wants to or not, she must come back."

Sarah watched him play with the bracelet as he talked. And she remembered again how the child had played with it for hours, babbling his baby talk, sucking the charm, cutting his teeth on the fine gold links. The man was frowning down at the jewel as he tossed it from hand to hand, running his fingers sensuously over the curve of the serpent's head, the smooth roundness of the pearl apple.

"Will you support me in this, ma'am?" He looked up sharply, his sea blue eyes both candid and determined.

Sarah rose from her stool. She came over to him and bent to take his face between her worn hands. She looked deep into his eyes and a strange shiver ran down Simon's spine. Her fingers moved over his face as they had done once before, gently tracing the scar, the etched lines of suffering, the crow's-feet, the laugh lines around his eyes and mouth.

He sat still, mesmerized by her touch, by her all-seeing gaze. "Do you have the sight?" he asked, his voice barely above a whisper. "I feel that you know so much about me."

Sarah smiled and shook her head. Slowly she released his face and then took his hands, running a finger over his palms, turning them over to play with his knuckles as if she was learning him in some way. Learning him almost like a lover, he thought with another shiver.

Then she released his hands and moved back to her stool, where she sat very still, looking at him with that same intensity. But he felt only warmth and strength flowing from her.

"Am I right about Ariel?" he asked into the silence. "I believe you know her almost as a mother. Am I right to insist that she comes back?" He steepled his fingers and regarded Sarah ruefully. "She has a touch of the wild about her, and I don't want to destroy it. I want her to trust me enough to know that I won't hurt her."

Sarah's face was again grave. To his deep disappointment he could read no answer in her eyes, and she gave nothing away in her quiet stillness.

"Since she's not here, then I'll come back later." Simon rose to his feet. It was only when he was standing that he realized that the ache in his thigh had faded and his leg was moving more easily. These leechwomen had powerful medicines.

Sarah remained seated, her haunted blue eyes bright as they watched him.

He replaced the bracelet on the table, not hiding his disappointment at her lack of reaction. "I can't read your silence, ma'am."

Suddenly she rose and walked over to a narrow ladder leading up into the loft. She gestured that he should go up. Puzzled but obedient, Simon climbed with difficulty up the rickety narrow rungs and hauled himself into the small loft area. Ariel's presence was in the air, so strong he could almost imagine she had left her spirit behind. Her nightgown was thrown over the end of the simple straw-filled pallet where she slept. Her hairbrushes were on a wooden chest, and a pair of shoes had been cast carelessly into a corner.

His heart seemed to jump in his breast and his blood was pounding in his head. On the pillow stood the bone horse, glowing in the light from the round unshuttered window. He limped the two steps necessary to reach the pallet and picked up the horse.

A smile curved his mouth as a deep and glorious certainty slowly infused his blood. He was a blind, stupid fool. He had understood himself no better than he had understood Ariel. Gently he placed the carving back on the pillow.

He negotiated his way back down the ladder. Sarah was waiting for him, standing immobile by the table.

She smiled.

"You knew what I didn't know myself," he said wonderingly. "It never occurred to me that I could love another woman other than Helene… let alone a Ravenspeare. And I don't suppose it ever occurred to Ariel that she too could love against all the forces of history and reason."

Sarah's smile didn't waver. She came toward him and, taking his hands, kissed his cheek. He pressed his lips to her soft, parchmendike cheek and inhaled her scent and was filled with an immeasurable sense of comfort.

"I'll return later, ma'am."

Sarah picked up the bracelet as the door closed behind him. The bracelet had been the only thing she'd had time to give her baby when she'd sent him away to his uncle. The lords of Ravenspeare, their knives pressed to her belly, had given her time to make provision for her son before they'd taken her away, and she remembered now how pathetically grateful she'd been for that consideration. As grateful as a victim to his torturer for some unhoped-for leniency. She'd arranged for the child to be taken to Geoffrey, and she'd enclosed the bracelet… in pitiful payment, in gratitude… for what she begged him to do for Owen's son.