Healing hands, yet she could not heal the ache in her heart, her emptiness. Pride she still had, and that stubbornness which faced defeat shield up, sword ready. Bleak indeed might the future stretch before her, but it would be a future of her own devising. At that thought a shadow smile curved her lips. Ha, Annet had thought to send her to the Ladies of the Shrine. But the Abbess Grathulda was a match for the Lady Annet. She knew well that Ysmay was not of the stuff of a Shrine Daughter. Passive she might school herself to be, but there was an inner fire in her which could not be quenched in prayers and ritual.
Sometimes that fire blazed high in her. But not even her own waiting wench knew the night hours when Ysmay paced her cramped chamber, thinking or trying to think of some way out of the trap.
Had these been normal times, had her father survived, she might have followed custom, gone to rule by marriage another hold. It could be that she would not even see her lord before their marriage day, but that was proper. As a wife she would have certain rights which none could gainsay her, those same rights which Annet held here.
But she had no father to arrange such a match. And, what was worse, no dowry to attract a suitor. War had cut too deeply the resources of the dale. Gyrerd, being what he was, would not lessen what he had left. His sister could go to the Ladies, or remain on grudging sufferance, which Annet could make as cold as winter.
The rebellion so hot in Ysmay was gaining strength. She willed it under her control, breathing deeply of the strongly scented air, making her mind consider what lay directly before her. She examined the plants she chose with deliberate care, when she wanted to tear and destroy in her frustration.
“Ysmay—sister!” Annet’s sweetly reasonable voice was a lash across her shoulders.
“I am here,” she answered tonelessly.
“News—most welcome news, sister!”
What, Ysmay wondered. She edged around, her dun-colored skirts kilted in a sprawl about long limbs which Annet’s daintiness made seem so clumsy and out of proportion.
The Lady of Uppsdale stood just within the gate. Her skirts were the deep blue of the autumn sky. At her neck the silver beads winked in the light. Her hair, braided and looped high, was almost as silvery. In all she gave the impression of comeliness, if one did not note the thinness of those ever-smiling lips, or see that the smile was absent from her eyes.
“News?” Ysmay’s voice was harsh in her own ears. It was ever so. She need only sense Annet near and she became what the other thought her—as if those thoughts produced some shape-changing magic—clumsy, loutish.
“Yes—a fair, sister! Such a fair as they had in the old days! A rider from Fyndale brings the news.”
Ysmay caught some of Annet’s enthusiasm. A fair!
Dimly she could remember the last fair in Fyndale. Through the mist of years, that memory had taken on a golden glory. Her reason told her that was not so, but her memory continued to trick her.
“A fair, and we shall go!” Annet made one of those pretty and appealing gestures which so enchanted any male in sight, clapping her hands together as might a little maid.
We? Did Annet mean Ysmay too? She doubted that. But the other was continuing.
“My lord says that it is safe now, that he need only leave a token force here. Ysmay—is this not fair fortune? Hasten, sister, you must come and look through the chests with me. Let us see what we can find that we shame not our lord.”
I know what I can find in any chest of mine, Ysmay thought without pleasure. But it would seem that she was indeed to be included in their party. And she knew a swift rush of excitement which was akin to pleasure as she gathered up her morning’s harvest.
Though she knew Annet was no friend to her, Ysmay could not fault her during the following days. Annet had a clever eye for dress and, from the few pieces of old finery of her own mother’s time which Ysmay possessed, she pieced out two robes of more subtle cut than any Ysmay had ever owned. When she faced the burnished shield which served as her mirror, on the morning of their going, she thought she looked well indeed.
Never had Ysmay any pretense of the soft prettiness of Annet. Her face narrowed from cheekbones to a pointed chin, her mouth was far too large for her face. Her nose—there was no denying it was too high in the bridge. Her eyes were merely eyes, their color seemed to vary, being now green, again darkly brown. Her hair was thick enough, but it was not golden, nor richly black, just brown. Her skin, not properly pale, was also brown from her labors in the garden, the more so this season when she had been driven to spend more and more time there.
She was too tall for a woman, she had always known that. But in this robe—well, she looked more as a woman should look. It was made of an odd shade of tawny, just like—Ysmay turned to the small box which had been her mother’s and took out a small amulet. Yes, it was the hue of this robe, was her amber talisman. The small piece she held was old and so worn she could barely distinguish the carving, but it was a warm, beautiful color. She found a cord to string it on and knotted it as a pendant.
For safekeeping she tucked it within the neck of the laced bodice. Her dress was made with divided skirt for riding, but to Ysmay it held all the enchantment of a court gown.
Though she was wary, she found little to worry her as she rode with Annet. Gyrerd was ahead with his marshal, the body of the household straggling behind. Those who had mounts rode them at an ambling pace, others walked, for the promise of the fair gave good cheer above aching feet.
They left Uppsdale at dawn. At nooning they were at the south gate of the dale where they feasted on cold food. That night they reached the outer rim of Fyndale itself and camped in company with another party, the Lord of Marchpoint, his lady, daughter and their following. There was much coming and going with exchange of news and rumors.
Ysmay listened, but talked little. One thing she heard gave her a thought to dwell upon. The Lady Dairine, daughter of Marchpoint, coyly confessed her hopes to Ysmay. One of the great advantages which might be found at the fair was a future husband.
“My lady mother,” Dairine offered as final evidence, “in the days before the war, of course, went to the fair at Ulmsport—which was a far greater gathering than this, sought by the highest of the Lords. It was there my father first saw her. And before he rode thence he had talk with her father. The matter was so settled that their betrothal was held at Midwinter Feast.”
“I wish you the same luck,” Ysmay answered, her thoughts busy. Was this why Annet and Gyrerd had brought her? But without a dowry what match could she attract?
A proper match? With half the lords and their heirs dead in the war, there could well be many maids never wifed. So—what then of those who had been shield-less men, newcomers without family names for kin blood? They had heard tales of masterless men who would now be master, men who had taken over abandoned holdings, calling themselves lord, with none to challenge them.
But such would be shrewd enough to drive hard bargains when it came to taking a wife. They might want kinship with old names, but they would also want a dowry. Would all do so? Ysmay felt a stir of a new excitement. What if—what if the most unexpected could happen?
She thought of Uppsdale which had been her world. It was not her world any longer, it was Annet’s. She believed now and was sure this was true, that she could turn her back on Uppsdale if the future offered her a place of her own.
The fair was where it had been before, in the view of the gray stone pillar. The pillar remained from earlier days, when the men of High Hallack had not yet come to Fyndale. An older people had vanished before the coming of the Dalesmen.
Their traces held power of a sort—which troubled the Dalesmen. To pry too deeply might unleash that which could not easily be controlled. So there was awe and respect for old monuments. And at Fyndale all who were the heads of households went directly to the pillar, laying their bared hands upon it and swearing peace, so that no feuds or old rivalries could disturb the fair.