In Camelot’s Shadow: Book One of The Paths to Camelot Series (Prologue Fantasy) (2 page)

“I thank you, Sir. We will bear her here directly.”

He started up the stairway again. He felt Whitcomb at his back, bursting to say something more.

“Here is hope for Jocosa, Whitcomb,” he said softly. “What more am I to care for?”

“I fear here may be more peril than hope,” muttered Whitcomb. “If she dies now, at least her soul and yours are safe.”

Despite the close quarters, Rygehil whirled around. “Speak so again, Cein Whitcomb and I will have your heart out of your body. Jocosa will not die. She
will not
die.”

He hurried up the remaining stairs to the darkness of the upper chamber. His company received him without a word. They had doubtlessly heard his outburst, but he did not care.

“We have met the master of this house. He is a philosopher and may be able to aid my lady. We shall take her to his chamber.”

It was impossible to fit the litter down the narrow stairway, so Rygehil scooped Jocosa tenderly into his arms. Her maids had wrapped her in Una’s dry shift and found a cloak that was still dry inside. Despite this, her skin was damp from her own perspiration and far too cold for a living being. She made no sound as he lifted her. Her head fell back against his chest. He bent to press his lips to her brow and felt the heat of the fever like a fire beneath her skin. The only sign of life inside her was the all too infrequent rise and fall of her breast.

He carried her down the stairs with Whitcomb and Una at his heels.

Euberacon had moved from his place at the fire. Now he stood beside one of the trestle tables that had been cleared of its instruments and flotsam and covered with a clean, bleached cloth. Rygehil laid Jocosa down and stepped back.

Euberacon looked first at him, then at Whitcomb, then at Una.

“Send the dross away.”

Rygehil faced them. “Return to the upper chamber. I will send for you if there is need.”

“My lord …”

“But my lord …”

“Go!” Rygehil ordered sharply. “All will be well. I will attend to all that is needful.”

They did not protest anymore, but Rygehil could tell they wanted to. When the sound of their footsteps had vanished, Euberacon looked down at Jocosa once more.

For a time he examined her closely. He bent his ear to her mouth and listened to her shallow, sparse breaths. He laid a hand on her brow and measured her fever. He touched her hands and feet and felt the coldness of them. He lifted first one lid and then the other and peered into her blind and staring eyes. He laid a hand on her belly and stood as if listening to some far away voice.

At last, Euberacon straightened up. “Death has almost found her. There is none of man’s physic that will save her from him.”

It seemed to Rygehil that the world split in two. “There is nothing you can do?” he heard himself ask.

“I did not say so. There are things that may be done, but for them, I will demand a price.”

Whitcomb’s remark about souls came echoing back to Rygehil. “What price?”

Euberacon smiled his thin smile. “Compose yourself. I am not the Devil. I have no interest in souls in that way.” Rygehil wanted to bridle at that, but he looked again at Jocosa, pale and still in the firelight and did not dare.

“Your wife carries a daughter in her womb. I claim the life of the child in return for the life of the woman.”

Rygehil opened his mouth to say ‘How do you know? How dare you? What manner of man are you?’ But he looked again at the room with its jars and mortars and nameless shadows. This stranger who asked for the life of his child. His child who waited within his wife …

His wife who would die, and presently. He felt it as he felt the blood and fear roaring through his veins. What was one child? They would have a dozen. One girl to be given in years to come? There were many solutions that could be found before then. This man, this sorcerer, might be satisfied with gold or land or some servant woman. It was nothing, this promise now. It was everything. It was Jocosa’s life.

“If that is the price, I will pay.”

Euberacon’s dark eyes glittered. “Very well then.”

The sorcerer melted into the shadows and returned with a piece of parchment. He spread it out on one of the work tables. From overhead, he selected a gourd and untied the thong that held it to the roof beam. He unstoppered the gourd and instantly the room filled with the scents of myrrh and rich resins. He poured some of the powder out into a shallow dish.

Euberacon picked up a small knife from the table. With one sharp stroke, he scored his own palm. Rygehil gasped. The other man gave him a look bordering on contempt and held his wound over the dish. Bright blood dripped into the powder. From a bundle of plumes on the table, Euberacon plucked up a crow’s ebony feather. With delicate strokes, he mixed the blood and powder into a dark ink. He laid by the crow’s feather and selected the feather of a white swan. With the same knife that had cut his hand, he trimmed the quill into a point. He dipped the pen into the ink Despite the blood, its point came out blacker than Euberacon’s rich robe. The sorcerer bent over the parchment and began to write.

Rygehil tried to see what words Euberacon laid down, but he could make no sense of the waving lines and dots. He had seen some Hebrew written once and thought it might be that, but it did not look quite right.

Whatever he wrote, Euberacon was soon finished. He sprinkled sand over his work and brushed it away. Then, he blew gently across it. Apparently satisfied, he reached for a glass beaker that seemed to contain nothing but the purest water. As he stretched out his hand, Rygehil saw his palm. The wound was completely gone.

Rygehil resisted the urge to cross himself.
It is for Jocosa’s life. Her life
.

Slowly, carefully, Euberacon poured the water from the glass across the words he had written. He tilted the parchment so the liquid flowed down into a brass bowl. When all the water had crossed all the words, he set beaker and parchment down and picked up the bowl.

“Hold her head,” he instructed Rygehil. “Open her mouth.”

Rygehil cradled Jocosa’s head in the crook of his arm, and as gently as he could, prised open her mouth with two fingers. Euberacon set the bowl to her lips and tipped it forward. The liquid ran into her mouth. Euberacon stroked her throat.

Jocosa coughed, once, and then again. Her eyelids flew open. Euberacon clamped her mouth closed. She stared wildly up at Rygehil for a moment and then he saw her throat move as she swallowed. Almost at once the fear left her as she looked at him, and recognized what she saw.

Euberacon withdrew his hand.

“My lord?” whispered Jocosa. “What day is this? How long have I lain asleep?”

“Lady!” Rygehil fell to his knees. His hand trembled as he touched her brow. The fever had departed and her skin was once again warm and dry. “Oh, my love.” He bowed his head to her hand and could not speak another word.

Above him, Euberacon’s voice spoke.

“You and your people may rest the night here. Be on your way in the morning. And do not forget your promise. When the child is of age, I will come for her.”

“I …” Rygehil looked up.

Euberacon was nowhere to be seen.

Rygehil swallowed hard. Jocosa touched his hand. “What was that?”

“Nothing.” Rygehil embraced her. “Nothing at all, my love.”

Risa of the Morelands was in the yard when her father told Vernus to remove himself from the hall. Normally, she would have been lurking around a corner or in the shadows of the gallery, but this time she found she could not bear to hear the pre-ordained reply.

So, she stood in the grassy yard with the fresh spring sun warm on her skin. Around her, vassals drove geese and goats to pasture and pigs to root in the forests. Servants toted bales and baskets into the hall and the outbuildings. In the distance she could hear old Whitcomb berating one of the new squires for being slow, or slovenly, or both. All was busy life and full activity.

Except me
. She twisted her fingers together. Her handmaid, Aeldra, stood a respectful distance behind her, but she could feel the woman’s quiet disapproval. She should be at loom or spindle. She should be down in the cellar helping with the brewing, or seeing how Gwyneth and her new baby were getting on. She should be doing any of a thousand things.

It is like a verse from a country ballad.

She stared at the cloudless sky.
Mother Mary, I beg you. Soften his heart
.

“Lady Risa.”

The sound of Vernus’s voice turned Risa around. He emerged from the doorway and crossed the yard to her, sidestepping a cluster of squawking chickens. When Risa saw his shoulders set square and level, she felt her heart rise, but in another moment he was close enough for her to see his face. The lines of bitterness on his brow and around his broad mouth showed clearly.

“It would seem I have failed in my suit to your father.” He squeezed his riding gloves in his hands and spoke to the tips of his boots. “I am to take myself away and not return.” He looked up at her. “Especially not with an offer of marriage.”

Risa felt tears sting her eyes even as anger drove the blood to her cheeks. Cruelty. Sheer miserable cruelty. All the worse this time because Vernus was not just some faceless stranger who had sent a letter and gifts. He was a friend from her childhood, who had grown into a tall and handsome young man, well worth the position he would hold in the world. He had even been to Camelot and been presented to the king.

But no. She was not to have him.

“My father seems determined I should die unmarried and go to run with the apes in Hell,” she sighed. “Vernus, I’m truly sorry.”
And sick and sad and burning with fury. Perhaps I shall burst my heart with grieving and that will be an end to it
.

“Could you speak to your mother? Your father sets much by her counsel, perhaps she could persuade …” his words trailed away as Risa shook her head.

“Not in this, she cannot.” Tears threatened again. Risa dropped her gaze to the ground and blinked hard. “My father has been turning away my suitors for five years now, and for five years my mother has tried to persuade him of the worth of each of them. But he will not hear of it.” The heat of her anger dried up her tears. She stared hard at the window of the hall. “He will not hear anything from any of us.”

“I will speak to my father. Perhaps he can persuade Lord Rygehil to part with you.”

Risa felt a weak smile form. She wanted to touch his hand but decided she had better not. “Thank you, Vernus. Perhaps he can.”

Your father will marry you to Melina of White Hill whose father is not insane, and we both know this. Please go away, Vernus. I cannot stand here trading empty words anymore
.

“I must go, Risa.” He bowed to her. “But I have not abandoned you.”

“Thank you, Vernus.” She dropped a curtsey. “God be with you.”

“And with you.”

His cloak swirled as he turned away and marched toward the stables, cutting a straight line through the myriad activities of the yard.

Risa watched his back for as long as she could stand it. She dropped her gaze and caught sight of her reflection in the horse trough. Her eyes were a pleasant blue and since she the age of fifteen, her figure had been rounded and full. She had seen the stablehands and foster boys casting glances at her so she knew was not uncomely. Her hair was her crowning glory. It was red-gold in color and even tightly braided as it was, it fell to the backs of her knees.

But it seemed she would have no use for what beauty she might have if her father continued to have his way.

“Aeldra,” she said to her maid. “Fetch my bow and arrows, and send a boy for my hounds. Meet me at the gate. I expect I shall soon want to be elsewhere.”

She lifted the hem of her skirt and strode into the hall.

It took her eyes a moment to adjust to the dim interior after the bright daylight, but her ears immediately caught the sound of preparations for the midday meal.

He did not even let Vernus stay to eat
. Risa’s teeth clenched together. She stood aside for the servants setting up the trestle tables and bringing the benches away from the walls. Kettles of fragrant stew hung over the fire pits and a sheep’s carcass turned on a spit tended by ancient Cleve.

Her father, Lord Rygehil of the Morelands, sat slumped in his carved chair at the end of the hall. A wooden goblet dangled from one hand. He looked up when she came to stand before him and dropped the curtsey that respect demanded.

“Yes, Risa?” he said in a tired voice.

But she would not beg. Not this day.

“Why?” she asked instead.

He sighed and straightened his back a little. His features fell into the hard lines she had come to know so well. “Because I did not choose to give you to him.”

As if that were not evident.
“Lord Father, may I know the reason?”

He looked into the depths of his cup. “More ale!” he called out and one of the servants hastened forward with a pitcher. Risa wondered how much of that pitcher he had already drained.

“Lord Father …” she began again.

He pointed to her with his free hand. “Your place is not to question me, Risa, it is to be silent and obey.”

He downed a prodigious portion of his drink, and when he lowered his cup, Risa saw something unexpected in his face. Regret, as plain and full as the resentment had been earlier.

She opened her mouth, but all her earlier thoughts had fled her. “If you would just tell me what I have done, Lord Father, to merit this treatment.”

He shook his head heavily. “Nothing, Risa. You have done nothing.”

He turned his attention back to his cup.

I have lost. I am lost
. Risa curtsied reflexively. When she lifted her eyes, she saw her mother, Jocosa, standing in the threshold between the great hall and the living rooms. Jocosa gestured to her. Risa set her jaw again and followed her mother as she walked up the stairs of the stone tower and into the sun room.

“Now then,” said her mother, sitting herself down on a cushioned chair. “I suppose you will run away and shoot at birds and hares until dark to ease your disappointment.”

Risa felt her cheeks heat up. “That was my intention. What else should I do?” she threw open her hands. “My father consistently denies me other employment for myself.”

“I know.” Jocosa took her daughter’s hand. “You will forgive your foolish mother. I fear one day you will run off and not come back to us.”

Risa squeezed her mother’s hand. It felt as worn by years as her face appeared worn by care. In a chest in the treasury Risa had once seen a miniature of her mother as a young woman. She had been lovely. As a girl, Risa had wondered where all that beauty had flown. Now, she thought she knew.

“On my soul, I would never leave without telling you, Lady Mother.” Risa let herself smile. “Where would I go, in any case? What neighbor would take me in knowing my father?”

Her mother pulled her gently down until Risa sat upon a footstool. “I know, I know, my dear. Perhaps if one of your brothers or sisters had lived, he would not guard you so jealously. Perhaps …” she stopped herself. “Go off to your woods. Shoot what you may. Come back before dark. Then you can amuse yourself with your other skill. Lurking in doorways.” Risa opened her mouth to protest, but her mother patted her hand. “Do not attempt to beguile me, my lamb. I know in Aeldra you have had an excellent tutor in such matters.”

As hard as she tried not to, Risa fidgeted. “And why, Lady Mother, should I give way to that practice this evening?”

For a moment, her mother’s gaze drifted over Risa’s shoulder and she seemed to be studying the grey stones of the wall. “Because tonight, I mean to have your father announce to you he has reconsidered the suit of Vernus of White Hill.”

Risa’s heart leapt into her throat. “Mother, how?”

Jocosa’s shoulders slumped. “Tears, extortion, hysterical fits, threats to bar him from my bed if necessary.” Her voice sounded drained and dull. “I have never, never had to work upon him thus before. Such gross artifice is to be despised. But in this matter, I am afraid your father’s reason has failed him.” Her gaze came back to Risa’s face. “So now, mine must fail me.”

Risa said nothing for a moment, she just squeezed her mother’s hand. “But,” she licked her lips. Her mouth had gone unaccountably dry. “Forgive me, but why would you want me to witness this … conversation?”

Her mother smiled and some life returned to her voice. “Firstly, so you do not hear about it through the general gossip. Secondly, because if nothing else, I am going to force my Lord to give his reasons for forbidding you to marry. I want you to hear them from him, whether he knows he is giving them to you or not.”

Risa let go of Jocosa’s hand and walked across to the window. She stared out across the yard with its people and animals strolling to and fro.

“I do not like this, Lady Mother.”

“No more do I,” said Jocosa. “And if you can tell me what else can be done, I am willing to hear you and act.”

Risa had no answer for her. “I will be back before dark.” She gathered up her skirt and left.

The whirling in her mind did not clear even when she reached the gate in the wooden wall that surrounded the hall and its yards and buildings. Her three long-legged grey-haired hounds leapt to their feet, wagging their tails and baying and straining at their leashes. The boy, Innis, struggled to hold them in check. As she approached, they thrust their noses into her skirt and against her hands. She patted them absently. Aeldra frowned at her, but Risa did not say anything. She just took her bow and quiver from her maid’s hands and slung them over her shoulder. Innis, bowed until his scraggly forelock almost touched the ground.

“Let us go then. I would see if there are any partridge we can catch unawares today.” Risa nodded to Innis and again to the guards who saluted her from either side of the gate. She tucked her skirt into her belt, set her gaze on the meadow past the earthen outer wall and followed the boy through it.

The dogs loped happily forward through the knee-high grasses towing Innis behind them.

“Let them loose, Innis.” Risa unslung her bow and tested the string. “Let us see what they find.”

“Yes, my lady.” With some difficulty, Innis hauled the dogs to him so he could unfasten their leashes from their collars. With yelps of pure joy, all three sprang into the grass, free to run where they pleased. As she nocked an arrow into the string, Risa found it in her heart to envy them.

In the next heartbeat, a great flurry of wings sounded from the burgeoning grass. Three brown partridge shot up toward the sky. Risa drew her string back to her nose and sighted along the arrow’s shaft. She loosed and was rewarded by the sight of one of the birds plummeting back to earth and landing with a loud thud.

“That one is for Vernus,” she whispered. “And the next is for Aelfric, and the next for Daffydd, and the next for Shanus, and the one after that is for me.”

“If my lady is thinking of counting her disappointments with arrows, we will be out here all the rest of the year,” said Aeldra, puffing up behind her.

“What would you have me do then?” Risa watched Innis crouch over the bird and pull out the arrow.

“It is not for me to say, of course, my lady,” said Aeldra with the false modesty that irritated Risa so easily. “But there are ways to ensure your father must say yes to your suitor.”

Risa rolled her eyes and sighed. “And don’t think I haven’t considered them Aeldra. But I would have to face my mother also and I’m not yet certain I could.”

All at once, one of the hounds bayed at the edge of the woods. Something flashed white and immediately there was a great crashing of underbrush and bracken as the creature, whatever it had been, fled into the forest. All three hounds barked and howled. They dove forward into the trees. Risa ran after them.

What is it? A deer? No, it is too white for that …

She broke the tree line and was engulfed in the sun-dappled twilight of the forest. She saw the dogs’ brown backs plunging on ahead of her and again glimpsed the fleeting white form.

The dogs ran into a thicket of fern fiddleheads and Risa lost sight of them. The wind blew through the forest, rustling the greening underbrush and confusing her further.

“Orestes! Orion! Orpheus! Here, boys!” she called dashing forward. Somewhere behind her she heard Aeldra calling her name. Risa ignored her. She wanted to find her dogs. She wanted to see that mysterious white quarry they had flushed.

All at once, she broke into a sun-soaked meadow. The sudden light dazzled her and Risa stumbled to a halt, blinking hard.

When her gaze cleared, she looked around to take her bearings, but then found herself gawping in surprise.

In the center of the clearing stood a broad, gnarled stump. On it lay a flat board covered with red and white figurines of extraordinary delicacy. Not one of them was taller than Risa’s hand was long.

To one side, on a fallen tree, sat a gigantic man all of a sparkling green color, as if he’d been fashioned out of a monstrous emerald. One of his hands could have engulfed Risa’s waist. The crown of his head brushed the leaves of the oak tree he sat under. Skin, hair, eyes, all shone greener than the sea. His plaited beard might have been grown from dewy meadow grass. His jerkin, mail and hose were so green the fresh leaves paled next to them. Beside him on the ground lay a battle axe of the same brilliant color.