Crossroads and Other Tales of Valdemar

She came terribly close to asking him questions she should never even think about asking. “Is it true the last Lady but three used to take a monthly bath in infants’ blood? Are there really creatures of darkness in the caves below the Keep? Why has there always been a Lady but never a Lord, and how is it that she never marries but always adopts an heir?” Not to mention, “Why did she choose me? There are four Keeps between hers and ours, all of which have surplus daughters. What do I have that those ladies don’t?”

But she kept her questions bottled up inside as she always had, because her mother had told her to trust her instincts, and instinct told her not to speak of such things. On the surface it was all ordinary, dull, dry facts and ancient history, and so many gowns she would need an entire train of pack mules to carry them all.

Late the second day, as Merris dressed for dinner, Mistress Patrizia entered without knocking as she always did, and dismissed the maid. Merris looked at her in what she hoped was innocent surprise. “Mistress! What a pleasure to see you at this hour. Will you be joining us for dinner?”

“That would not be proper,” Mistress Patrizia said. She was a tall, thin, forbidding person at the best of times. Tonight she was ramrod-stiff. “I have a gift for you from our Lady.”

Merris’ brows went up. Such gifts were not uncommon, but usually it was a messenger from Darkwall who delivered them. As far as she knew, no such messenger had come.

As if in answer to her unspoken question, Mistress Patrizia said, “I have kept this at our Lady’s behest. It is a small thing, but she values it. She would be most pleased if you would wear it.”

She raised her hands. There was a small wooden box in them, such as jewels were kept in.

Merris took it slowly and opened it with fingers that for some reason wanted to tremble. She had had gifts like this before, but only on birthdays.

It was a pendant on a silver chain, a drop of dark amber in a spiral of silver. It felt warm in her hand and strangely alive, and the flecks in it seemed almost to move, swirling slowly around one another inside their prison of waxy stone.

It was a beautiful thing, but strange. The other gifts had been much more mundane: a book, a gown, a tutor. This made Merris’ skin prickle.

She made herself smile and be as polite as she had been trained to be, speaking words of thanks that she was not at all sure she meant. Mistress Patrizia watched her with peculiar fixity. She was supposed to wear the thing, that was clear.

She let Mistress Patrizia fasten the chain around her neck, trying hard not to shudder when the stone touched her skin. She resolved to get rid of it as soon as she was out of sight.

She had a moment of breathless fear that Mistress Patrizia would decide to go to dinner after all, but she was much too proper a servant. Merris stopped in the passageway to the dining hall, fumbling with the clasp. Her hands were shaking and the clasp was stiff. It would not come off.

She almost gave up and let it be, but her peculiar revulsion was growing stronger rather than weaker. She gritted her teeth and pulled hard. The chain broke. She thrust the stone into the pocket of her sleeve, where a lady might keep small and discreetly useful items.

Amber was as light almost as air, but this weighed her down out of all proportion to its size. Merris stopped thinking and acted. She turned aside to the garderobe and let the thing fall out of her sleeve into the odorous darkness. If and when she was asked, she could answer honestly that she had lost the pendant.

She took a deep breath, barely even gagging on the effluvium of the privy, and went to dinner with a lighter heart.

After dinner, at last, Merris had an hour to herself. Her maids were still at their own dinner, and her tutors were wherever they disappeared to when their duty to their Lady was done. She shed her voluminous skirts in favor of much more practical ones. With no one to stop her, she ventured out of her rooms.

It was a bright night, warm and moonlit. The garden her mother had made, that her father had kept up in Beatrice’s memory, was in full and fragrant bloom. Merris went on past it to the stables.

Companions had somewhat different needs than horses, according to the stories, but Forgotten Keep’s stables seemed to suit them well enough. Their stall doors were open so that they could come and go, and they were well bedded in clean straw, with full mangers and fresh water drawn from the Keep’s deep clear well.

The younger Herald was perched on a stool between the two stalls, cleaning bridles. They were ordinary bridles, belonging to the Keep’s horses; not the lovely, bitless ones ornamented with silver bells that she had seen on the Companions. Merris squatted beside him and reached for one of the many scraps of leather that he had spread around him, and started working soap into it with her fingers.