“Games?” asked the Colonel.
“Games—with a purpose. But a game Lord Imbert will remember, for I shared it with him. It was when he came to me after my father was newly dead. He had taken me to his Lady Ansla—she who was High Lady of Kross in her own right—for the King would have me away from the Court as he ailed. Lord Imbert liked the old tales. He has ordered many of them collected from the Tork singers and copied out that they may not be forgotten. And one was of the Lost Lady of Innace. The geas which was laid on that lady was broken by leaf and hair. Yes, he will remember and listen to your man.”
The Princess had been searching through the vegetation around and now made a swift pounce, catching up, earth-covered root and all, a plant with long narrow leaves. The largest of these leaves she twisted free, wrapping her knotted hair about it.
After their messenger departed, mounted on the duocorn Imfry judged their best, they headed on at a much-curtailed pace. Here, dose to the heights where they had crossed the border, the country was wooded, so that they had to turn into one of those overhung, branch-roofed lanes. And this brought them to a bridge which was more ornate and even wider than the road they had come, as if the latter had once been a more important thoroughfare than it now was. On the opposite side of that arch was a small single-story tower, built in the form of a triangle firmly wedded to the bridge. Even the two very narrow windows in it were wedge-shaped.
“Have you any way money?” Ludorica asked the Colonel. “I see this is a vow bridge.”
“An old one. The vow must have long since been fulfilled.” “How can we know that? Have you money for the alms slit?” He brought a small bag from the front of his tunic, passed it back to the Princess.
“Be sparing with that, Your Highness. I had no time to gather a fortune before we left.”
She loosened the drawstring, felt within the bag, and pulled out a round of metal.
“A plume will suffice. We travel with clean hands and no malice at heart.”
As they came to the three-cornered building, the Princess leaned from her pillion and tossed the coin into the open window near to hand.
“For the good of him who built the way, for the good of those who walk the way, for the good of the journey, and the good, surely, of its final ending,” she intoned as if speaking some formula.
“His name”—she moved her forefinger through the air, tracing
83 the curves and angles of some weather-worn carving on the wall —”was Niklas and he was lord of— The stead seal is too badly worn to read. But it is a good omen that we ride by one Niklas’s favor!”
The road ahead was not concealed by drooping tree branches, but rather edged with hedge walls. It was wider, also, and the dust of its surface was slotted with wheel ruts and hoofprints, as if the road which joined from upriver brought more traffic.
No longer could the duocoms be kept to a steady trot. When their riders stopped urging them, they fell into an amble. The morning they had met in the pass was now well advanced. They had broken their fast in the hills but Roane was hungry again. And it seemed to her stiff body that they had been riding or walking for half a lifetime. Those with whom she traveled seemed to need little rest.
Suddenly Imfry reined in his mount, held up his hand. One of the duocorns blew and then was silent. Far off Roane heard it now—the sound of a horn, clear and carrying.
8
Roane stood at the window. Between her fingers she held caressingly the soft folds of the heavy curtain. She loved the feel of that, the strange luxury of the room behind her—it was like coming out of the cold to the warmth of a welcoming fire. As yet it was early morning, and no one seemed to stir in the great house. But there was life in the street before its tall courtyard gates. A boy had come out of a shop, sprinkling down the cobbles before the door from a holed can which he sloshed back and forth without care, nearly sending its spray on the wide skirts of a passing woman. Those skirts were gray, with scarlet flowers bordering them, to match in vivid color the bodice of her dress. She walked with a free, swinging step, one hand raised to balance a basket on her head, its contents hidden by a covering of leaves.
She was only the first of a small procession of such wayfarers, their gray and scarlet almost a uniform, each with a basket aloft. The boy with the sprinkler cried out something and they turned smiling faces to him. It was all like watching a live tri-dee.
Roane remembered her impression of the house as they had come to it the night before. It was large, three stories high at least, all of stone, the windows on the lowest level being very narrow. There was no growing thing to break the drabness of the courtyard pavement, and the only spot of color was the symbol on the house face—she could see an edge of it from here—facing the gate, representing the might of Reveny.
She had not met the ambassador on whom Ludorica relied so much. In fact she had not even seen the Princess since they had entered a side door and been shown almost furtively through dark hallways by a single servant. Though she could not complain about the room in which she stood, nor the willing serving maid she had sent early away. Only—Roane felt uneasy as well as somehow charmed by her surroundings.
All of it had a dreamlike quality. Though in the beginning it had been more of a nightmare when that horn blast had sent them into quick hiding. There had been a troop of horsemen, and the identity of two of the riders had disturbed the Princess and the Colonel, though neither had explained why to Roane. Instead of pressing on themselves after that other party had passed, they had waited until nightfall. Then they had ridden hard, across fields many times, to reach a crossroads. There they were overtaken by a carriage, curtained at the windows, with four of the large draft duocorns to draw it.
Their messenger rode on the box beside the driver, and the letter he delivered to the Princess banished the shadow from her face. She waved it triumphantly before the Colonel.
“Did I not say so? Lord Imbert gives us good welcome—and certainly softer travel. Ah, I feel as old as the hills with every bone in my body aching to tell me so!”
The interior of the carriage was dark, but no one raised its curtains. Roane found it hardly more comfortable than riding, in spite of Ludorica’s words. The swaying of the body on a sling of straps—which took the place of any springs—made her queasy. But her companions settled back against the cushions as if this
86 were the height of comfort, and the Princess went to sleep, her head against Roane’s shoulder.
Twice they stopped for fresh animals, and the second time a basket of cold but good food was handed in. Only Roane, hungry as she might have been under other circumstances, could but nibble and wish herself back in normal life.
They had come to Gastonhow in the middle of the night. And she had fallen half-dazed into the great curtained bed behind her. But for all her fatigue she had awakened early, as if she had been alerted by some inner alarm.
Now she turned from the window to view the room again, seeing much more than the limited lamplight had shown her. The bed, which dominated the room, was extremely large, almost a quarter the size of a camp bubble. Having most of her life fitted into very narrow spaces, in camp, on board ship, she was not used to such freedom. It stood on a two-step dais and had four posts carved with flowers and leaves to support a canopy with curtains that Roane had not suffered the maid to draw about her, tent-fashion, the night before. Both the curtains and the cover on the bed were fancifully patterned by needlework.
All the colors were bright, almost too strident for her taste. The walls were boldly painted with designs in the same shades. There was a table with a wide mirror, a backless stool set before it, to her left. On her right stood a tall cupboard with double doors. And there were chairs, stools, and a smaller table or two scattered around.
She moved before the mirror to gaze at her reflection. The white folds of just such a night robe as the captive Princess had worn hung about her slim body. Against that her weathered hands and face looked very dark and brown. Her short hair had grown enough since she had left Cram-brief to form a fluff on her forehead and behind her ears. And that too was odd against her deep tan, for the locks were a pale yellow-brown which sometimes held a hint of red when the sun touched them. By the standards of her own civilization Roane had no beauty