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PART II: VENTURE OF VERLAINE

I

AX MARRIAGE

The sea was dull and gray, the color of an ax blade which would never take on a sheen no matter how much one polished, or a steel mirror misted by moisture one could not rub away. And above it the sky was as flat, until it was hard to distinguish the meeting line between air and water.
Loyse huddled on the ledge beneath the arrow-split window. She dreaded the depths, for this turret, bulging roundly from its parent wall, hung directly over the wicked, surf-collared rocks of the shoreline, and she had no head for heights. Yet she was often drawn to this very seat because when one stared straight out into the emptiness, which was seldom troubled save by a diving bird, one could see freedom.
Her hands, long fingered, narrow of palm, pressed flat against the stone on either side of the window as she did lean forward an inch or so, making herself eye what she feared, as she made herself do many things her body, her mind shrank from. To be Fulk’s daughter one must grow an inner casing of ice and iron which no blow to the flesh, no taunt to the spirit could crack. And she had been intent upon that fashioning of an interior citadel for more than half the years of her short life.
There had been many women at Verlaine, for Fulk was a man of lusty appetite. And Loyse had watched them come and go from her babyhood, cold-eyed and measuring herself. To none had he given wifehood, by none had he sired other offspring—which was Fulk’s great dissatisfaction and so far her own gain. For Verlaine was not Fulk’s by blood, but by his one and only marriage, with her mother, and only as long as Loyse lived could he continue to hold it and its rich rights of pillage and wreckage, ashore and afield. There were kinsmen of her mother’s in Karsten who would be quick enough to claim lordship here were she to die.
But, had Fulk sired a son by any of the willing—and unwilling—women he had brought to the huge bed in the lord’s chamber, then he could have claimed more than just his own life tenancy for the male heir under the new laws of the Duke. By the old customs mother-right was for inheritance; now one took a father’s holding, and only in cases where there was no male heir did the old law prevail.
Loyse cherished her tiny thread of power and safety, held to it as her one hope. Let Fulk be chopped down in one of his border raids, let him be sought out by some vengeful male of a family despoiled, and she and Verlaine would be free together! Ah, then they would see what a woman could do! They would learn that she had not been moping in secret all these years as most of them believed.
She drew back from the ledge, walked across the room. It was chill with the breath of the sea, gloomy with lack of sun. But she was used to cold and dusk, some of both were a fast part of her now.
Beyond the curtained bed she came to stand in front of a mirror. It was no soft lady’s looking glass, but a shield, diamond-shaped, polished through patient hours until it gave back to the room a slightly distorted reflection. And to stand so, facing squarely what it told her, was another part of Loyse’s strict self-discipline.
She was small, but that was the only feminine characteristic she shared with the blowsy women who satisfied her father’s men, or with the richer fare he kept for his own enjoyment. Her body was as straight and slender as a boy’s, with only shadow curves to hint she was not a lad. The hair which lay in braids across her shoulders, and then fell below waist level, was thick enough. But it was lank and of so pale a yellow that except in direct sunlight it was white as a beldame’s, while lashes and brows of the same colorless tint made her face seem strangely blank and without intelligence. The skin pulled tightly across the fine bones of her face and chest was smooth and also lacking in any real color. Even the line of her lips was of the palest rose. She was a bleached thing, grown in the dark, but a vitality within her was as strong as the supple blade a wise swordsman chooses over the heavier hacking weapon of the inexperienced.
Suddenly her hands flew together, gripped tightly for an instant. Then she as quickly snapped them apart and to her sides, though under her hanging sleeves they were still balled into fists, nails biting palms. Loyse did not turn to the door, nor give any other outward hint that she had heard that rattling of the latch. She knew just how far she dared go in her subtle defiance of Fulk, and from that limit she never retreated. Sometimes she thought despairingly her father never recognized her rebellion at all.
The door slammed back against the wall. Verlaine’s lord always treated any barrier as if he were storming an enemy fortress. And he tramped in now with the tread of a man who has just lifted the city keys from the sword point of a vanquished commander.
If Loyse was the colorless creature of the dark, Fulk was lord of sun and flamboyant light. His good body was beginning to show traces of his rough living, but he was still more than handsome, his red-gold head carried with the arrogance of a prince, his well-cut features only a little blurred. Most ofVerlaine worshipped their lord. He had an openhanded if uneven generosity when he was pleased, and his vices were all ones which his men understood and shared.
Loyse caught his reflection in the mirror, brave, bright, turning her even more into a night taper. But she did not face about.
“Greetings, Lord Fulk.” Her voice was toneless.
“Lord Fulk, is it? Is that the way you speak to your father, wench? Come show a little more than ice in your veins for once, girl!”
His hand slid under one of the braids on her shoulder, and he forced her around, gripping with strength which would leave her bruised for a week. He did it deliberately, she knew, but she would give no sign of feeling.
“Here I come with news as would send any proper wench leaping with joy, and you turn me that cold fish face of yours with no pleasure,” he contemplated jovially. But that which looked out of his eyes was not born of good humor.
“You have not yet voiced this news, my lord.”
His fingers kneaded into her flesh as if seeking to find and crush the bones hidden there.
“To be sure I have not! Yet it is news as will set any maid’s heart to pounding in her. Wedding and bedding, my girl, wedding and bedding!”
Purposely Loyse chose, but with a fear she had not known before, to misunderstand him.
“You take a lady for Verlaine, my lord? Fortune grant you a fair face for such an occurrence.”
His grip on her did not loosen, and now he shook her, with the outward appearance of one playfully admonishing, but with a force which brought pain.
“You may be a wry-faced nothing of a woman, but you are not stupid of wit, no matter how you may think to befool others. You should be properly a female at your age. At least you will now have a lord to make trial of that. And I’d advise you not to play your tricks with him. By all accounts he likes his bedfellows biddable!”
What she had long feared most had come upon her and it brought with it a betrayal of feeling she could not bite back in time.
“A wedding needs free consent—” She stopped then, knowing shame for her momentary breaking.
He was laughing, relishing having torn that protest out of her. His hand moved across her shoulder to vise upon the back of her neck in a pinch which brought an involuntary gasp out of her. Then, as one moves a lifeless puppet, he whirled her about, pushing her face toward the mirror shield, holding her helpless there while he pelted her with words he believed would hurt worse than any beating his hands could inflict.
“Look upon that curdled mass of nothing you call a face! Do you think any man could set his lips to it without closing his eyes and wishing himself elsewhere? Be glad, wench, that you have something besides your face and that bone of a body to lure a suitor. You’ll consent freely to anyone who’ll take you. And be glad you have a father who can make a bargain as good as I have for you. Yes, girl, you’d better crawl on those stiff knees of yours and thank any gods you have that Fulk looks after his own.”
His words were a mutter of thunder; she saw no reflection in the mirror, save certain misty horrors of her own imagining. Which one of the brutes who rode in Fulk’s train would she be thrown to—for some advantage for his lord?
“Karsten himself—” There was a sort of wonder underlying Fulk’s rising exultation. “Karsten, mind you, and this lump of unbaked dough squeaks of consent! You are lacking in wits!” He released her with a sudden push which sent her flying against the shield and the metal rang against the wall. She fought for her balance, kept her feet, and turned to face him.
“The Duke!” That she could not believe. Why should the ruler of the duchy ask for the daughter of a shore baron, old and proud as her maternal lineage might be?
“Yes, the Duke!” Fulk seated himself on the end of the bed, swinging his booted feet. “Talk of fortune! Some good providence winked at your birth, my girl. Karsten’s herald rode in this morning with an offer of ax marriage for you.”
“Why?”
Fulk’s feet stopped moving. He did not scowl, but his face was sober.
“There are a bristle of reasons like darts at his back!” He held up his hands and began to tell off the fingers of one with the forefinger of the other.
“Item: The Duke, for all his might, was a rider of mercenaries before he set his seal on Karsten, and I doubt if he can rightly name his dam, let alone his sire.
“He crushed those of the lords who tried to face him down. But that was a good half-score of years ago and he no longer wants to ride in mail and smoke rebels out of their castles. Having won his duchy he wishes now some easy years in which to enjoy it. A wife taken from the ranks of those he opposed is a gift offering for peace. And while Verlaine may not be the richest hold in Karsten, yet the blood of its lords is very high—was not that often made very plain to me when I came a-wooing? And I was no blank shield, but the younger son ofFarthom in the northern hills.” His lips twisted as if he remembered certain slights out of the past.
“And since you are the heiress of Verlaine you are very suitable.”
Loyse laughed. “It cannot be true, lord, that I am the only marriageable maid of gentle birth in all Karsten.”
“How right. And he could do very well elsewhere. But as I have said, my dearest of daughters, you have certain other advantages. Verlaine is a coast holding with age-old rights, and the Duke has ambitions which run in more peaceful lines now than sword conquest. What say you, Loyse, if there was to be a port here to attract the northern trade?”
“And what would Sulcarkeep be doing while such a port came into being? Those who swear by Sul are jealous of their holdings.”
“Those who swear by Sul may soon be able to swear by nothing at all,” he returned with a calm certainty which carried a note of conviction. “They have troublesome neighbors who are growing more troublesome yet. And Estcarp, where they might look for aid, is a hollow shell eaten out by its preoccupation with witchery. One push and the whole land will fall into the filthy dust which should have buried it long ago.”
“So, for my blood and a plan for a port, Lord Yvian offers marriage,” she persisted, unable yet to believe that this was true. “Yet is the mighty lord free to send his ax hither for a wedding? I am a maid close kept in a hold far from Kars, yet have I heard of a certain Aldis who issues orders, to have them promptly obeyed by all who wear the Duke’s sign.”
“Yvian will have Aldis, and, yes, half a hundred of her ilk, and it is no concern of yours, girl. Give him a son—if your thin blood can form a man, the which I doubt! Give him a son and hold up your head at the high table, but trouble him not with any mewling calls upon him for more than company courtesy. Be glad for your honors and if you are wise you’ll speak Aldis and the others fair in their time. Yvian is not said to be a patient or easily forgiving man.” He slid down the slope of the bed and stood up, ready to be gone. But before he went he detached a small key from the chain at his belt and tossed it to her.
“For all your ghost face, girl, you’ll not go to your wedding without your due or gauds. I’ll send Bettris to you; she has an eye for pretties and can help you pull out enough for robes. And veils for your face, you’ll need them! And keep an eye to Bettris, don’t let her take more than she can carry in her two hands for herself.”
Loyse caught up the key so eagerly that he laughed. “So that much of you is female—you want gauds as much as any wench. Give us another storm or two and we can make up what you drag out of the storehouse anyway.”
He strode out, leaving the door wide open. As Loyse followed him to shut it once again, she treasured that key tight in her hand. For months, years, she had schemed to get that same bit of metal into her holding. Now she had been given it openly and none would dispute her rummaging for what she truly wanted in the storehouse of Verlaine.
Rights of wreckage and plunder over wave and shore! Since Verlaine Keep had risen on the heights between two treacherous capes, the sea had brought its lords a rich harvest. And the storehouse of the pile was indeed a treasure room, only opened upon its lord’s orders. Fulk must believe that he had far the best of the bargain with Yvian to allow her unsupervised plundering there. For the company of Bettris she did not fear. Fulk’s latest bedfellow was as greedy as she was fair, and she would not cast any eye on Loyse’s choices, given a chance to hunt on her own.
She tossed the key from right hand to left, and for the first time a thin smile curved her pale lips. Well might Fulk be surprised at her choices from the treasure of Verlaine! Also he might be astounded at other things she knew about these walls which he accepted as such safe barriers. Her gaze flickered for a moment to the one where the shield mirror hung.
There was a hurried rap at her door. Loyse smiled again, this time with contempt. It had not taken Bettris long to act upon Fulk’s orders. But at least the woman dared not intrude upon her lover’s daughter uninvited. Loyse went to the door.
“The Lord Fulk—” began the girl who stood without, her plump beauty as full and vivid as Fulk’s virility.
Loyse held up the key. “I have it.” She named no name, gave no title to the other, but glanced at those well-rounded shoulders bursting out of the robe which strained over every luxuriant curve the other advertised. Behind Bettris were two of the serving men, a chest between them. Loyse raised her eyebrows and the other laughed nervously.
“Lord Fulk would have you select your bride-clothes, lady. He said there was no need to be timid in the storehouse.”
“The Lord Fulk is generous,” returned Loyse tonelessly. “Shall we go?”
The women avoided the great hall and the outer chambers of the hold, for the treasure room lay at the foot of the tower in which were the private quarters of the family. For that Loyse was glad; she kept well away from the central life of her father’s house. And when they came at last to the door opened by the key she bore, she was very pleased that only Bettris dared follow her within. The serving men pushed the chest in after them and left.
Three globes set in the ceiling gave light to show chests and boxes, bales and bags. Bettris smoothed the robe over her hips in the gesture of a keeper of a market stall settling down to a spate of bargaining. Her dark eyes darted from pile to pile, and Loyse, putting the key into her belt purse, added fuel to that avid hunger.
“I do not think that the Lord Fulk would deny you some selections for yourself. In fact he said as much to me. But I would warn you to be discreet and not too greedy.”
Those plump hands fluttered from hips to full, only half-covered breasts. Loyse crossed to a table cutting down the center of the room, lifted the lid of a casket resting there. Even she blinked at the massed wealth within. She had not truly realized until that moment that Verlaine’s rapine over the years had yielded so well. From a tangle of chains and necklets she freed a great brooch, gaudy with red stones and much chasing, a bauble not to her taste, but one which in a manner matched the overblown comeliness of her companion.
“Such a piece as this,” she suggested and held it out.
Bettris’ hands crooked to hold it, then she snatched them back. The point of her tongue showed between her wet red lips as she glanced from the brooch to Loyse and back again. Conquering her repugnance, the girl held the massive gem-set thing to the deep V-throat of the other’s robe, mastering the impulse to jerk back when she felt the softness of Bettris’ flesh.
“It becomes you, take it!” In spite of her wish Loyse’ words were a sharp order. But the bait was taken. With attention only for the gems, the woman moved to the table, and Loyse was, for that moment and perhaps others, free to do as she pleased.
She knew what to look for, but how it might be stored she was unsure. Slowly the girl moved between piles of goods. Some were stained with salt rime and from one or two came a faint exotic scent. Having put a small barrier of boxes between herself and Bettris, she chanced upon a chest which looked promising.
Loyse’s fragile appearance was deceiving. Just as she had disciplined her emotions and her mind against this day, so had she trained her body. The lid was heavy, but she had it up. And knew by the smell of oil, the sight of the discolored cloths on top, she was hot on the scent. She pawed aside those cloths gingerly, fearing to stain her hands and so reveal the nature of her search. Then she lifted out a shirt of mail, holding it to measure against her shoulders. Too large—perhaps she could find nothing fitted to her slight frame.
She delved deeper. A second shirt—a third—this must have been part of the stock in trade of a master smith. At the bottom was one which must have been made to order for the stripling son of some overlord. For against her it needed very little change at all. The rest were bundled back into the chest while she folded her find as small as possible.
Bettris was trapped by the casket of jewels and Loyse did not doubt that more than one piece from that coffer was now hidden about her person. But it gave her a chance to make her own raids, moving almost openly now between the box she had brought with her and her sources of supply, adding lengths of silk and velvet, a cape of fur, as topping concealment.
To please Bettris and forestall suspicion, Loyse chose from the jewelry also and then summoned the men to carry the chest back to her chamber. She was afraid Bettris might urge unpacking on her, but the bribe had worked well, the woman was in a fever to examine her own spoils privately and did not linger.
In a fury of speed, tempered by caution and the precision of careful foreplanning, Loyse set to work. Those hastily selected lengths of fabric, those packets of lace and embroidery, were dumped on her bed. Then she was on her knees clearing the coffer where her present wardrobe lay. Some things were long ready, fashioned long ago. But here were all the rest. With a care she had not granted the fine stuffs Loyse placed together the dower she intended to take from Verlaine, on her back, in her purse, in the saddle bags which were all she dared carry.
Mail shirt, leather underclothing, weapons, helm, gold trade tokens, a handful of jewels. Over those she threw once more her own garments, patting them smooth, with the care of a good housekeeper. She was breathing a little fast, but she had the coffer closed and was spreading out the other loot when she heard that tread outside—Fulk returning for his key.
Impulsively she caught up a veil bordered in silver thread, a dew-hung cobweb of a thing, and pulled it about her head and shoulders, seeing that it became her vilely, but generous enough now that her purpose was gained to allow her father his chance for a jeer or two. With it on she stepped once more to pose before the shield mirror.

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PART II: VENTURE OF VERLAINE

I

AX MARRIAGE

The sea was dull and gray, the color of an ax blade which would never take on a sheen no matter how much one polished, or a steel mirror misted by moisture one could not rub away. And above it the sky was as flat, until it was hard to distinguish the meeting line between air and water.
Loyse huddled on the ledge beneath the arrow-split window. She dreaded the depths, for this turret, bulging roundly from its parent wall, hung directly over the wicked, surf-collared rocks of the shoreline, and she had no head for heights. Yet she was often drawn to this very seat because when one stared straight out into the emptiness, which was seldom troubled save by a diving bird, one could see freedom.
Her hands, long fingered, narrow of palm, pressed flat against the stone on either side of the window as she did lean forward an inch or so, making herself eye what she feared, as she made herself do many things her body, her mind shrank from. To be Fulk’s daughter one must grow an inner casing of ice and iron which no blow to the flesh, no taunt to the spirit could crack. And she had been intent upon that fashioning of an interior citadel for more than half the years of her short life.
There had been many women at Verlaine, for Fulk was a man of lusty appetite. And Loyse had watched them come and go from her babyhood, cold-eyed and measuring herself. To none had he given wifehood, by none had he sired other offspring—which was Fulk’s great dissatisfaction and so far her own gain. For Verlaine was not Fulk’s by blood, but by his one and only marriage, with her mother, and only as long as Loyse lived could he continue to hold it and its rich rights of pillage and wreckage, ashore and afield. There were kinsmen of her mother’s in Karsten who would be quick enough to claim lordship here were she to die.
But, had Fulk sired a son by any of the willing—and unwilling—women he had brought to the huge bed in the lord’s chamber, then he could have claimed more than just his own life tenancy for the male heir under the new laws of the Duke. By the old customs mother-right was for inheritance; now one took a father’s holding, and only in cases where there was no male heir did the old law prevail.
Loyse cherished her tiny thread of power and safety, held to it as her one hope. Let Fulk be chopped down in one of his border raids, let him be sought out by some vengeful male of a family despoiled, and she and Verlaine would be free together! Ah, then they would see what a woman could do! They would learn that she had not been moping in secret all these years as most of them believed.
She drew back from the ledge, walked across the room. It was chill with the breath of the sea, gloomy with lack of sun. But she was used to cold and dusk, some of both were a fast part of her now.
Beyond the curtained bed she came to stand in front of a mirror. It was no soft lady’s looking glass, but a shield, diamond-shaped, polished through patient hours until it gave back to the room a slightly distorted reflection. And to stand so, facing squarely what it told her, was another part of Loyse’s strict self-discipline.
She was small, but that was the only feminine characteristic she shared with the blowsy women who satisfied her father’s men, or with the richer fare he kept for his own enjoyment. Her body was as straight and slender as a boy’s, with only shadow curves to hint she was not a lad. The hair which lay in braids across her shoulders, and then fell below waist level, was thick enough. But it was lank and of so pale a yellow that except in direct sunlight it was white as a beldame’s, while lashes and brows of the same colorless tint made her face seem strangely blank and without intelligence. The skin pulled tightly across the fine bones of her face and chest was smooth and also lacking in any real color. Even the line of her lips was of the palest rose. She was a bleached thing, grown in the dark, but a vitality within her was as strong as the supple blade a wise swordsman chooses over the heavier hacking weapon of the inexperienced.
Suddenly her hands flew together, gripped tightly for an instant. Then she as quickly snapped them apart and to her sides, though under her hanging sleeves they were still balled into fists, nails biting palms. Loyse did not turn to the door, nor give any other outward hint that she had heard that rattling of the latch. She knew just how far she dared go in her subtle defiance of Fulk, and from that limit she never retreated. Sometimes she thought despairingly her father never recognized her rebellion at all.
The door slammed back against the wall. Verlaine’s lord always treated any barrier as if he were storming an enemy fortress. And he tramped in now with the tread of a man who has just lifted the city keys from the sword point of a vanquished commander.
If Loyse was the colorless creature of the dark, Fulk was lord of sun and flamboyant light. His good body was beginning to show traces of his rough living, but he was still more than handsome, his red-gold head carried with the arrogance of a prince, his well-cut features only a little blurred. Most ofVerlaine worshipped their lord. He had an openhanded if uneven generosity when he was pleased, and his vices were all ones which his men understood and shared.
Loyse caught his reflection in the mirror, brave, bright, turning her even more into a night taper. But she did not face about.
“Greetings, Lord Fulk.” Her voice was toneless.
“Lord Fulk, is it? Is that the way you speak to your father, wench? Come show a little more than ice in your veins for once, girl!”
His hand slid under one of the braids on her shoulder, and he forced her around, gripping with strength which would leave her bruised for a week. He did it deliberately, she knew, but she would give no sign of feeling.
“Here I come with news as would send any proper wench leaping with joy, and you turn me that cold fish face of yours with no pleasure,” he contemplated jovially. But that which looked out of his eyes was not born of good humor.
“You have not yet voiced this news, my lord.”
His fingers kneaded into her flesh as if seeking to find and crush the bones hidden there.
“To be sure I have not! Yet it is news as will set any maid’s heart to pounding in her. Wedding and bedding, my girl, wedding and bedding!”
Purposely Loyse chose, but with a fear she had not known before, to misunderstand him.
“You take a lady for Verlaine, my lord? Fortune grant you a fair face for such an occurrence.”
His grip on her did not loosen, and now he shook her, with the outward appearance of one playfully admonishing, but with a force which brought pain.
“You may be a wry-faced nothing of a woman, but you are not stupid of wit, no matter how you may think to befool others. You should be properly a female at your age. At least you will now have a lord to make trial of that. And I’d advise you not to play your tricks with him. By all accounts he likes his bedfellows biddable!”
What she had long feared most had come upon her and it brought with it a betrayal of feeling she could not bite back in time.
“A wedding needs free consent—” She stopped then, knowing shame for her momentary breaking.
He was laughing, relishing having torn that protest out of her. His hand moved across her shoulder to vise upon the back of her neck in a pinch which brought an involuntary gasp out of her. Then, as one moves a lifeless puppet, he whirled her about, pushing her face toward the mirror shield, holding her helpless there while he pelted her with words he believed would hurt worse than any beating his hands could inflict.
“Look upon that curdled mass of nothing you call a face! Do you think any man could set his lips to it without closing his eyes and wishing himself elsewhere? Be glad, wench, that you have something besides your face and that bone of a body to lure a suitor. You’ll consent freely to anyone who’ll take you. And be glad you have a father who can make a bargain as good as I have for you. Yes, girl, you’d better crawl on those stiff knees of yours and thank any gods you have that Fulk looks after his own.”
His words were a mutter of thunder; she saw no reflection in the mirror, save certain misty horrors of her own imagining. Which one of the brutes who rode in Fulk’s train would she be thrown to—for some advantage for his lord?
“Karsten himself—” There was a sort of wonder underlying Fulk’s rising exultation. “Karsten, mind you, and this lump of unbaked dough squeaks of consent! You are lacking in wits!” He released her with a sudden push which sent her flying against the shield and the metal rang against the wall. She fought for her balance, kept her feet, and turned to face him.
“The Duke!” That she could not believe. Why should the ruler of the duchy ask for the daughter of a shore baron, old and proud as her maternal lineage might be?
“Yes, the Duke!” Fulk seated himself on the end of the bed, swinging his booted feet. “Talk of fortune! Some good providence winked at your birth, my girl. Karsten’s herald rode in this morning with an offer of ax marriage for you.”
“Why?”
Fulk’s feet stopped moving. He did not scowl, but his face was sober.
“There are a bristle of reasons like darts at his back!” He held up his hands and began to tell off the fingers of one with the forefinger of the other.
“Item: The Duke, for all his might, was a rider of mercenaries before he set his seal on Karsten, and I doubt if he can rightly name his dam, let alone his sire.
“He crushed those of the lords who tried to face him down. But that was a good half-score of years ago and he no longer wants to ride in mail and smoke rebels out of their castles. Having won his duchy he wishes now some easy years in which to enjoy it. A wife taken from the ranks of those he opposed is a gift offering for peace. And while Verlaine may not be the richest hold in Karsten, yet the blood of its lords is very high—was not that often made very plain to me when I came a-wooing? And I was no blank shield, but the younger son ofFarthom in the northern hills.” His lips twisted as if he remembered certain slights out of the past.
“And since you are the heiress of Verlaine you are very suitable.”
Loyse laughed. “It cannot be true, lord, that I am the only marriageable maid of gentle birth in all Karsten.”
“How right. And he could do very well elsewhere. But as I have said, my dearest of daughters, you have certain other advantages. Verlaine is a coast holding with age-old rights, and the Duke has ambitions which run in more peaceful lines now than sword conquest. What say you, Loyse, if there was to be a port here to attract the northern trade?”
“And what would Sulcarkeep be doing while such a port came into being? Those who swear by Sul are jealous of their holdings.”
“Those who swear by Sul may soon be able to swear by nothing at all,” he returned with a calm certainty which carried a note of conviction. “They have troublesome neighbors who are growing more troublesome yet. And Estcarp, where they might look for aid, is a hollow shell eaten out by its preoccupation with witchery. One push and the whole land will fall into the filthy dust which should have buried it long ago.”
“So, for my blood and a plan for a port, Lord Yvian offers marriage,” she persisted, unable yet to believe that this was true. “Yet is the mighty lord free to send his ax hither for a wedding? I am a maid close kept in a hold far from Kars, yet have I heard of a certain Aldis who issues orders, to have them promptly obeyed by all who wear the Duke’s sign.”
“Yvian will have Aldis, and, yes, half a hundred of her ilk, and it is no concern of yours, girl. Give him a son—if your thin blood can form a man, the which I doubt! Give him a son and hold up your head at the high table, but trouble him not with any mewling calls upon him for more than company courtesy. Be glad for your honors and if you are wise you’ll speak Aldis and the others fair in their time. Yvian is not said to be a patient or easily forgiving man.” He slid down the slope of the bed and stood up, ready to be gone. But before he went he detached a small key from the chain at his belt and tossed it to her.
“For all your ghost face, girl, you’ll not go to your wedding without your due or gauds. I’ll send Bettris to you; she has an eye for pretties and can help you pull out enough for robes. And veils for your face, you’ll need them! And keep an eye to Bettris, don’t let her take more than she can carry in her two hands for herself.”
Loyse caught up the key so eagerly that he laughed. “So that much of you is female—you want gauds as much as any wench. Give us another storm or two and we can make up what you drag out of the storehouse anyway.”
He strode out, leaving the door wide open. As Loyse followed him to shut it once again, she treasured that key tight in her hand. For months, years, she had schemed to get that same bit of metal into her holding. Now she had been given it openly and none would dispute her rummaging for what she truly wanted in the storehouse of Verlaine.
Rights of wreckage and plunder over wave and shore! Since Verlaine Keep had risen on the heights between two treacherous capes, the sea had brought its lords a rich harvest. And the storehouse of the pile was indeed a treasure room, only opened upon its lord’s orders. Fulk must believe that he had far the best of the bargain with Yvian to allow her unsupervised plundering there. For the company of Bettris she did not fear. Fulk’s latest bedfellow was as greedy as she was fair, and she would not cast any eye on Loyse’s choices, given a chance to hunt on her own.
She tossed the key from right hand to left, and for the first time a thin smile curved her pale lips. Well might Fulk be surprised at her choices from the treasure of Verlaine! Also he might be astounded at other things she knew about these walls which he accepted as such safe barriers. Her gaze flickered for a moment to the one where the shield mirror hung.
There was a hurried rap at her door. Loyse smiled again, this time with contempt. It had not taken Bettris long to act upon Fulk’s orders. But at least the woman dared not intrude upon her lover’s daughter uninvited. Loyse went to the door.
“The Lord Fulk—” began the girl who stood without, her plump beauty as full and vivid as Fulk’s virility.
Loyse held up the key. “I have it.” She named no name, gave no title to the other, but glanced at those well-rounded shoulders bursting out of the robe which strained over every luxuriant curve the other advertised. Behind Bettris were two of the serving men, a chest between them. Loyse raised her eyebrows and the other laughed nervously.
“Lord Fulk would have you select your bride-clothes, lady. He said there was no need to be timid in the storehouse.”
“The Lord Fulk is generous,” returned Loyse tonelessly. “Shall we go?”
The women avoided the great hall and the outer chambers of the hold, for the treasure room lay at the foot of the tower in which were the private quarters of the family. For that Loyse was glad; she kept well away from the central life of her father’s house. And when they came at last to the door opened by the key she bore, she was very pleased that only Bettris dared follow her within. The serving men pushed the chest in after them and left.
Three globes set in the ceiling gave light to show chests and boxes, bales and bags. Bettris smoothed the robe over her hips in the gesture of a keeper of a market stall settling down to a spate of bargaining. Her dark eyes darted from pile to pile, and Loyse, putting the key into her belt purse, added fuel to that avid hunger.
“I do not think that the Lord Fulk would deny you some selections for yourself. In fact he said as much to me. But I would warn you to be discreet and not too greedy.”
Those plump hands fluttered from hips to full, only half-covered breasts. Loyse crossed to a table cutting down the center of the room, lifted the lid of a casket resting there. Even she blinked at the massed wealth within. She had not truly realized until that moment that Verlaine’s rapine over the years had yielded so well. From a tangle of chains and necklets she freed a great brooch, gaudy with red stones and much chasing, a bauble not to her taste, but one which in a manner matched the overblown comeliness of her companion.
“Such a piece as this,” she suggested and held it out.
Bettris’ hands crooked to hold it, then she snatched them back. The point of her tongue showed between her wet red lips as she glanced from the brooch to Loyse and back again. Conquering her repugnance, the girl held the massive gem-set thing to the deep V-throat of the other’s robe, mastering the impulse to jerk back when she felt the softness of Bettris’ flesh.
“It becomes you, take it!” In spite of her wish Loyse’ words were a sharp order. But the bait was taken. With attention only for the gems, the woman moved to the table, and Loyse was, for that moment and perhaps others, free to do as she pleased.
She knew what to look for, but how it might be stored she was unsure. Slowly the girl moved between piles of goods. Some were stained with salt rime and from one or two came a faint exotic scent. Having put a small barrier of boxes between herself and Bettris, she chanced upon a chest which looked promising.
Loyse’s fragile appearance was deceiving. Just as she had disciplined her emotions and her mind against this day, so had she trained her body. The lid was heavy, but she had it up. And knew by the smell of oil, the sight of the discolored cloths on top, she was hot on the scent. She pawed aside those cloths gingerly, fearing to stain her hands and so reveal the nature of her search. Then she lifted out a shirt of mail, holding it to measure against her shoulders. Too large—perhaps she could find nothing fitted to her slight frame.
She delved deeper. A second shirt—a third—this must have been part of the stock in trade of a master smith. At the bottom was one which must have been made to order for the stripling son of some overlord. For against her it needed very little change at all. The rest were bundled back into the chest while she folded her find as small as possible.
Bettris was trapped by the casket of jewels and Loyse did not doubt that more than one piece from that coffer was now hidden about her person. But it gave her a chance to make her own raids, moving almost openly now between the box she had brought with her and her sources of supply, adding lengths of silk and velvet, a cape of fur, as topping concealment.
To please Bettris and forestall suspicion, Loyse chose from the jewelry also and then summoned the men to carry the chest back to her chamber. She was afraid Bettris might urge unpacking on her, but the bribe had worked well, the woman was in a fever to examine her own spoils privately and did not linger.
In a fury of speed, tempered by caution and the precision of careful foreplanning, Loyse set to work. Those hastily selected lengths of fabric, those packets of lace and embroidery, were dumped on her bed. Then she was on her knees clearing the coffer where her present wardrobe lay. Some things were long ready, fashioned long ago. But here were all the rest. With a care she had not granted the fine stuffs Loyse placed together the dower she intended to take from Verlaine, on her back, in her purse, in the saddle bags which were all she dared carry.
Mail shirt, leather underclothing, weapons, helm, gold trade tokens, a handful of jewels. Over those she threw once more her own garments, patting them smooth, with the care of a good housekeeper. She was breathing a little fast, but she had the coffer closed and was spreading out the other loot when she heard that tread outside—Fulk returning for his key.
Impulsively she caught up a veil bordered in silver thread, a dew-hung cobweb of a thing, and pulled it about her head and shoulders, seeing that it became her vilely, but generous enough now that her purpose was gained to allow her father his chance for a jeer or two. With it on she stepped once more to pose before the shield mirror.

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