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II

SEA WRACK

The very circumstances which she hoped would set her free worked against Loyse during the next few days. For while Yvian of Karsten did not ride himself to Verlaine either to inspect the bride he had bargained for or the heritage which would come with her, he sent a train proper enough to do her honor. And she was called upon to be on show, so that underneath her outer shell she seethed with impatience and growing desperation.
At last she pinned her hopes to the wedding feast, for then, if ever, there would be muddled heads within the keep. Fulk wanted to impress the Duke’s lords with his lavish open-handedness. He would produce the liquid treasures of the hold and it would be her best chance to follow her plans.
 
The storm struck first, such a wild blast of wind and raging sea water as Loyse, familiar with that coast since her birth, had never seen before. For the spray reached high enough to spatter the windows of her tower room with its salt foam. And Bettris, and the maid Fulk had sent to help with the sewing of her robes, shivered and shrank with each bat of the wind’s fist ringing through the stones of the walls.
Bettris stood up, a roll of green silk tumbling to the floor, her dark eyes wide. Her fingers moved in the sacred sign of her forgotten village childhood.
“Witch storm,” her voice came small, overridden by the scream of the gale until Loyse heard only a thin whisper.
“This is not Estcarp,” Loyse matched a length of embroidery to satin and set even stitches. “We do not have power over wind and wave. And Estcarp does not move beyond her own borders. It is a storm, that is all. And if you wish to please Lord Fulk you will not tremble at sea storms for Veriaine knows them often. How else,” she paused to draw a new length of thread through a needle-eye, “do you think our treasure is gathered?”
Bettris turned on her, lips strained over her sharp little teeth in a vixen’s snarl. “I am coast born, I have seen storms in plenty. Yes, I have coursed the shore with the gleaners afterwards. Which is more than you have ever deigned to do, my lady! But this is like no storm I have seen or heard tell of in all my life! There is evil in it, I tell you—great evil!”
“Evil for those who must trust to the waves.” Loyse put down her sewing. She crossed to the windows, but there was nothing to be seen through the lace of spume which blotted out the dark of the day.
The maid made no pretense at work. She was drawn in upon her self close to the hearth where sea coral burned fitfully, rocking back and forth, her hands pressed against her breast as if she would ease some pain there. Loyse went to her. She had little of pity or interest in the wenches of the castle—from Bettris and her countless predecessors to the slatterns in the guardroom. Now against her own inclination she asked: “You ail, wench?’ The girl was cleaner than most. Perhaps she had been ordered to tidy herself before being sent hither. Now the face she turned to Loyse drew the attention of Fulk’s daughter. This was no village girl, no peasant dragged in to pleasure a retainer and then become a work drudge. Her face was a mask of fear which had been so long a part of her that it had shaped her as a potter shapes clay. Yet under that something else struggled.
Bettris laughed shrilly. “ ’Tis no pain in her belly that eats at her, only memories. She was a sea wrack herself once. Weren’t you, slut!” Her soft leather shoe struck the girl’s haunch, nearly turning her into the fire.
“Leave her alone!” For the first time Loyse flashed her hidden fire. She had always kept aloof from the strand after a storm, since there was nothing she could do to dispute Fulk’s rule—or rather Fulk’s license there—she would not harrow herself with sights she could not forget.
Bettris simpered uneasily. With Loyse she was uncertain of her ground, so she did not rise to the challenge.
“Send the mewling idiot away. You will get no work from her as long as the storm rages—nor afterwards for a while. ’Tis a pity for she is clever with her needle, else she would have been sent to fatten the shore eels long ago.”
Loyse went to the wide expanse of the bed where much of her gear had been spread about. There was a shawl there, plain in the welter of brilliant silks and fine fabrics. Catching it up she took it back to the fireside and threw it about the shuddering maid. Disregarding Bettris’ amazement, Loyse dropped on her knees, put her hands to cover those of the girl, and looking into that drawn face, tried to will away from them both the grisly customs of Veriaine which had warped them in different ways.
Bettris pulled at her sleeve.
“How dare you?” Loyse blazed.
The other stood her ground, a sly grin now on her full lips. “The hour grows late, lady. Would Lord Fulk take it well that you nurse this slut when he meets with the Duke’s lords to sign the marriage contract? Shall I tell him why you do not come?”
Loyse regarded her levelly. “I shall do my lord’s bidding in this, as in other things, wench. Do not think to lesson me!”
She broke hold with the girl’s hands reluctantly, saying:
“Stay here. No one shall come near you. Understand—no one!”
Did the other understand? She was rocking back and forth again, racked by old pain cut into her dulled mind even after the scars had faded from her body.
“I do not need you to robe me,” Loyse turned on Bettris, and the other flushed. She could not face the younger girl down and she knew it.
“You would be the better for some knowledge of the kind of sorcery any woman knows, lady,” she replied sharply “I could show you how to make a man look at you full faced as you pass. If you would but put a little dark stain upon your brows and lashes, some of the rose salve on your lips—”Her annoyance was forgotten, as her creative instinct aroused. She surveyed Loyse critically and impersonally and the other found herself listening in spite of her scorn for Bettris and all she represented. “Yes, if you would listen to me, lady, you could perhaps draw your lord’s eyes away from that Aldis long enough for him to see another face. There are other ways, also, for the charming of a man.” Her tongue tip worked along her lips. “There is much I could teach you, lady, which would give you weapons to use for yourself.” She drew nearer, some of the glitter of the storm flashing in her eyes.
“Yvian has bargained for me as I stand,” Loyse replied, rejecting Bettris’ offer, all that Bettris stood for, “and so must be satisfied with what he gets!” And that is more true than Bettris can guess, she added silently.
The woman shrugged. “It is your life, lady. And before you are out of it, you shall discover that you cannot order it to your liking.”
“Have I ever?” asked Loyse quietly. “Now go. As you have said, it grows late and I have much to do.”
 
She sat through the ceremonies of the contract signing with her usual calm acceptance. The men the Duke had sent to fetch his bride to Kars were three very different types, and she found it interesting to study them.
Hunold was a comrade from Yvian’s old mercenary days. He had a reputation as a soldier which reached even into such a backwater as Verlaine. Oddly enough his appearance did not match either his occupation, nor his reputation. Where Loyse had expected to see a man such as her father’s seneschal—though perhaps slicked over with some polish—she found herself fronting a silk clad, drawling, languid courtier, who might never have felt the weight of mail on his back. His rounded chin, long lashed eyes, smooth cheeks, gave him a deceptive youth, as well as the seeming of untried softness. And Loyse, trying to match the man to the things she had heard concerning him, wondered and was a little afraid.
Siric, who represented the Temple of Fortune, who tomorrow would say the words while her hands rested on the war ax, thus making her as much Yvian’s as if he clasped her in truth, was old. He had a red face and there was a swelling blue vein in the middle of his low forehead. As he listened or spoke in a soft mumble, he munched continually on small sweetmeats from a comfit box his servant kept ever in reach, and his yellow priest’s robe strained over a paunch of notable dimensions.
The Lord Duarte was of the old nobility. But in turn he did not suit his role very well. Small and thin, with a twitching tic which pulled at his lower lip, the harassed air of a man constrained to some task he loathed, he spoke only when an answer was demanded of him. And alone of the three he paid some attention to Loyse. She discovered him watching her broodingly, but there was nothing in his manner which hinted of pity or promise of aid. It was rather that she was the symbol of trouble he would like to sweep from his path.
Loyse was grateful that custom allowed her to escape that night’s feasting. Tomorrow she must sit through the start of the wedding banquet, but as soon as the wine began to pass—yes—then! Holding to that thought she hurried back to her room.
She had forgotten the sewing wench, and it was with a start that she saw a figure outlined against the window. The wind was dying now as if the worst of the storm had blown out. But there was another sound, the keening of one who has been hopelessly bereaved. And salt air bit at her from the opened pane.
Angry because of her own worries, tense over what was to come and to what she must nerve herself during the next twenty-four hours, Loyse sprang across the room and seized me swinging window frame, pulling at the girl that she might slam it shut. Though the wind had ceased, the clouds were still slashed by lightning.
And in one such revelation Loyse saw what the other must have watched for long moments.
Driving in upon the waiting fangs of the cape were ships: two . . . three of them. And such ships as dwarfed the coastwise traders she had seen pulled to their deaths there before by that treacherous onshore current which enriched and damned Verlaine. These could only be part of a proud fleet of some great seafaring lord. Yet in the continued flashes of light which gave only seconds’ viewing, Loyse could sight no activity on board any of the vessels, no attempts being made to ward off fate. They were ghost ships sailing on to their deaths and apparently their crews did not care.
The lights of the wreckers, of the shoreline scavengers, were already moving in clusters from the high gate of Verlaine. For a man on the spot might just conceal some rich picking for himself in the general confusion, though Fulk’s weighty hand and a quick noose for those caught had cut down such thievery to a shadow. They would cast nets to bring in the flotsam, turn to tasks they had long practice in. And for any who went ashore still living! Loyse exerted her strength and dragged the girl away, shut and barred the window.
But to her surprise the face the other now turned to her was no longer troubled by ancient terrors. There was intelligence in the depths of the girl’s dark eyes, excitement, a gathering strength.
She held her head slightly to one side as if she listened for some sound she must sort out of the brazen clamor of the storm. More and more it was apparent that whatever had been her place in the world before the sea brought her to Verlaine, she was no common soldier’s wench.
“That which has been long in the building,” the girl’s tone was remote, she spoke as if from the core of some experience Loyse could never know. “Choose, choose well. For this night is the fate of countries, as well as that of men, to be made and unmade!”
“Who are you?” Loyse demanded as the girl continued to change before her eyes. She was no monster, put on no shape of beast or bird as rumor whispered could be done by the witches of Estcarp. But that which had lain dormant, wounded almost to death, within her struggled once again for life, showed through her scarred body.
“Who am I? Nobody . . . nothing. But one comes who is greater than the I who once lived. Choose well, Loyse of Verlaine—and live. Choose ill—and die, as I have died, bit by bit, day by day.”
“That fleet—” Loyse half turned to the windows. Could it possibly be that some invader, reckless enough to sacrifice his ships to win foothold on the cape and so a path to Verlaine, sailed out there? That was a mad thought. The ships were doomed; few if any of their crewmen could win the shore alive, and there they would find the men of Verlaine had prepared the grimmest of welcomes.
“Fleet?” echoed the girl. “There is no fleet—only life—or death. You have something of us within you, Loyse. Prove yourself now and win!”
“Something of you? Who are you—or what?”
“I am nobody and nothing. Ask me rather what I was, Loyse of Verlaine, before your people pulled me from the sea.”
“What were you?” the other asked obediently as might a child at an elder’s command.
“I was one of Estcarp, woman of the sea coast. Now do you understand? Yes, I had the Power—until it was reft from me in the hall below us here, while men laughed and cheered the deed. For the gift is ours—sealed to our women—only while our bodies remain inviolate. To Verlaine I was a female body and no more. So I lost what made me live and breathe—I lost myself.
“Can you understand what it means to lose yourself?” She studied Loyse. “Yes, I almost believe that you do, since you move now to protect what you have. My gift is gone, crushed out as one crushes out the last coal of an unwanted fire, but the ashes of it remains. So do I now know that one greater than I had ever hoped to be comes in on the drive of the storm. And she shall determine more than one of our futures!”
“A witch!” Loyse did not shrink; instead excitement flared. The power of the women of Estcarp was legendary. She had fed upon every tale which had come out of the north concerning them and their gifts. And she smarted now with the realization of opportunity lost.
Why had she not known of this woman before—learned of her—
“Yes, a witch. So they name us when they understand us but little. But do not think to have anything of me now, Loyse. I am only the charred brands of a long quenched fire. Bend your will and wit to aid the other who comes.”
“Will and wit!” Loyse laughed harshly.”Wit I have and will, but no power here, ever. Not one soldier will obey me, nor stay his hand at my bidding. Better appeal to Bettris. When my father is in humor with her, she has some slight recognition from his people.”
“You have only to seize opportunity when it comes.” The other allowed the shawl to slip from her shoulders, folded it neatly, and laid it on the bed as she passed it on her way to the door. “Take your opportunity and use it well, Loyse of Verlaine. And tonight sleep sound for your hour has not yet come.”
She was out of the door before Loyse could move to stop her. And then the room was curiously empty, as if the girl had drawn after her some pulsing life which had watched and waited in shadowed comers.
Slowly Loyse put off her robe of ceremony, replaited her hair by touch, rather than with the aid of the mirror. Somehow she did not wish to look into that mirror now, for a pricking thought that something else might stand behind to peer over her shoulder lurked in her mind. Many foul deeds had been done in the great hall of Verlaine since Fulk became master there. But now she believed that perhaps the one which would bring him to judgment had been wrought with the woman of Estcarp for its victim.
And so intent was she upon her thoughts that she did not remember this was her wedding eve. For the first time since she had hidden them there, she did not bring out the garments resting at the bottom of her chest, to examine them and gloat over the promise they held.
 
Along the shore the wind whined, though it did not toss the spray mountain high as it had earlier. And those who sheltered, waiting for the harvest of waves and rocks were eager. The fleet, which had looked so fine from the tower of Loyse’s chamber, was even more imposing from the shore.
Hunold gripped his cloak tight at his throat and stared through the gloom. No ships of Karsten were those, and this wrecking could only serve the duchy. He was firm in the private belief that they were about to witness the last moments of an enemy raiding force. And it was equally good that he could keep an eye upon Fulk under these circumstances. Rumor had built very high the harvest of plunder Verlaine took. And when Yvian wedded that pale nothing of a wench, he could demand an accounting of all treasure in his wife’s name. Yes, Fortune smiled when she set Hunold on the shore this night to watch, and list, and gather a report for the Duke.
Certain now that the doomed ships could not possibly claw off the cape, the wreckers from the hold boldly set out their lanterns along the strand. If fools from the vessels tried to come ashore at those beacons, so much the better, they would only save the plunderers the time and bother of hunting them down.
So it was that those beams, reaching out over the heaving of the waves, caught upon the first prow swinging inward. It loomed high, buoyed up by the combers, and there were shouts from the watchers, wagers hurriedly offered and accepted as to the place of its crashing. High it lifted and then slammed forward, the rocks under the forepart of its keel. Then—it was gone!
Those on the shore were men confronted by the impossible. At first some of the more imaginative were certain they sighted the wreckage of a broken-backed ship, sure that it was tossing near to their nets. But there was nothing but the froth of wind beaten water. No ship nor wreckage.
None of them stirred. At that moment they were held by their disbelief in the evidence of their own eyes. Another of the proud ships was coming. This one pointed to the patch of rock upon which Hunold stood with Fulk as straightly as if some unseen helmsman set that course. In it came stoutly. No men clung to its rigging, no living thing could be sighted on deck.
Once again the waves raised up their burden to smash the vessel down upon the teeth of the reef. And this time it was so close to shore that Hunold thought a man could leap to where he himself stood from the deserted deck. Up and up the prow rose, its fantastically carved figurehead showing open jaws to the sky. Then down—the water swirling.
And it was gone!
Hunold threw out a hand, seized upon Fulk, only to see in the shocked paleness of the other’s face the same incredulous terror. And when a third ship came in, boring straight for the reef, the men of Verlaine fled, some of them screaming in panic. Deserted lanterns lit a shore where nets trailed into foaming water empty of even one floating board.
Later a hand caught such a net, caught and held with a grip which was a last desperate clutch for life. A body rolled in the surf, but net held, and hand held. Then there was a long crawl for shore, until a beaten, half-dead swimmer lay prone on the sand and slept.

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II

SEA WRACK

The very circumstances which she hoped would set her free worked against Loyse during the next few days. For while Yvian of Karsten did not ride himself to Verlaine either to inspect the bride he had bargained for or the heritage which would come with her, he sent a train proper enough to do her honor. And she was called upon to be on show, so that underneath her outer shell she seethed with impatience and growing desperation.
At last she pinned her hopes to the wedding feast, for then, if ever, there would be muddled heads within the keep. Fulk wanted to impress the Duke’s lords with his lavish open-handedness. He would produce the liquid treasures of the hold and it would be her best chance to follow her plans.
 
The storm struck first, such a wild blast of wind and raging sea water as Loyse, familiar with that coast since her birth, had never seen before. For the spray reached high enough to spatter the windows of her tower room with its salt foam. And Bettris, and the maid Fulk had sent to help with the sewing of her robes, shivered and shrank with each bat of the wind’s fist ringing through the stones of the walls.
Bettris stood up, a roll of green silk tumbling to the floor, her dark eyes wide. Her fingers moved in the sacred sign of her forgotten village childhood.
“Witch storm,” her voice came small, overridden by the scream of the gale until Loyse heard only a thin whisper.
“This is not Estcarp,” Loyse matched a length of embroidery to satin and set even stitches. “We do not have power over wind and wave. And Estcarp does not move beyond her own borders. It is a storm, that is all. And if you wish to please Lord Fulk you will not tremble at sea storms for Veriaine knows them often. How else,” she paused to draw a new length of thread through a needle-eye, “do you think our treasure is gathered?”
Bettris turned on her, lips strained over her sharp little teeth in a vixen’s snarl. “I am coast born, I have seen storms in plenty. Yes, I have coursed the shore with the gleaners afterwards. Which is more than you have ever deigned to do, my lady! But this is like no storm I have seen or heard tell of in all my life! There is evil in it, I tell you—great evil!”
“Evil for those who must trust to the waves.” Loyse put down her sewing. She crossed to the windows, but there was nothing to be seen through the lace of spume which blotted out the dark of the day.
The maid made no pretense at work. She was drawn in upon her self close to the hearth where sea coral burned fitfully, rocking back and forth, her hands pressed against her breast as if she would ease some pain there. Loyse went to her. She had little of pity or interest in the wenches of the castle—from Bettris and her countless predecessors to the slatterns in the guardroom. Now against her own inclination she asked: “You ail, wench?’ The girl was cleaner than most. Perhaps she had been ordered to tidy herself before being sent hither. Now the face she turned to Loyse drew the attention of Fulk’s daughter. This was no village girl, no peasant dragged in to pleasure a retainer and then become a work drudge. Her face was a mask of fear which had been so long a part of her that it had shaped her as a potter shapes clay. Yet under that something else struggled.
Bettris laughed shrilly. “ ’Tis no pain in her belly that eats at her, only memories. She was a sea wrack herself once. Weren’t you, slut!” Her soft leather shoe struck the girl’s haunch, nearly turning her into the fire.
“Leave her alone!” For the first time Loyse flashed her hidden fire. She had always kept aloof from the strand after a storm, since there was nothing she could do to dispute Fulk’s rule—or rather Fulk’s license there—she would not harrow herself with sights she could not forget.
Bettris simpered uneasily. With Loyse she was uncertain of her ground, so she did not rise to the challenge.
“Send the mewling idiot away. You will get no work from her as long as the storm rages—nor afterwards for a while. ’Tis a pity for she is clever with her needle, else she would have been sent to fatten the shore eels long ago.”
Loyse went to the wide expanse of the bed where much of her gear had been spread about. There was a shawl there, plain in the welter of brilliant silks and fine fabrics. Catching it up she took it back to the fireside and threw it about the shuddering maid. Disregarding Bettris’ amazement, Loyse dropped on her knees, put her hands to cover those of the girl, and looking into that drawn face, tried to will away from them both the grisly customs of Veriaine which had warped them in different ways.
Bettris pulled at her sleeve.
“How dare you?” Loyse blazed.
The other stood her ground, a sly grin now on her full lips. “The hour grows late, lady. Would Lord Fulk take it well that you nurse this slut when he meets with the Duke’s lords to sign the marriage contract? Shall I tell him why you do not come?”
Loyse regarded her levelly. “I shall do my lord’s bidding in this, as in other things, wench. Do not think to lesson me!”
She broke hold with the girl’s hands reluctantly, saying:
“Stay here. No one shall come near you. Understand—no one!”
Did the other understand? She was rocking back and forth again, racked by old pain cut into her dulled mind even after the scars had faded from her body.
“I do not need you to robe me,” Loyse turned on Bettris, and the other flushed. She could not face the younger girl down and she knew it.
“You would be the better for some knowledge of the kind of sorcery any woman knows, lady,” she replied sharply “I could show you how to make a man look at you full faced as you pass. If you would but put a little dark stain upon your brows and lashes, some of the rose salve on your lips—”Her annoyance was forgotten, as her creative instinct aroused. She surveyed Loyse critically and impersonally and the other found herself listening in spite of her scorn for Bettris and all she represented. “Yes, if you would listen to me, lady, you could perhaps draw your lord’s eyes away from that Aldis long enough for him to see another face. There are other ways, also, for the charming of a man.” Her tongue tip worked along her lips. “There is much I could teach you, lady, which would give you weapons to use for yourself.” She drew nearer, some of the glitter of the storm flashing in her eyes.
“Yvian has bargained for me as I stand,” Loyse replied, rejecting Bettris’ offer, all that Bettris stood for, “and so must be satisfied with what he gets!” And that is more true than Bettris can guess, she added silently.
The woman shrugged. “It is your life, lady. And before you are out of it, you shall discover that you cannot order it to your liking.”
“Have I ever?” asked Loyse quietly. “Now go. As you have said, it grows late and I have much to do.”
 
She sat through the ceremonies of the contract signing with her usual calm acceptance. The men the Duke had sent to fetch his bride to Kars were three very different types, and she found it interesting to study them.
Hunold was a comrade from Yvian’s old mercenary days. He had a reputation as a soldier which reached even into such a backwater as Verlaine. Oddly enough his appearance did not match either his occupation, nor his reputation. Where Loyse had expected to see a man such as her father’s seneschal—though perhaps slicked over with some polish—she found herself fronting a silk clad, drawling, languid courtier, who might never have felt the weight of mail on his back. His rounded chin, long lashed eyes, smooth cheeks, gave him a deceptive youth, as well as the seeming of untried softness. And Loyse, trying to match the man to the things she had heard concerning him, wondered and was a little afraid.
Siric, who represented the Temple of Fortune, who tomorrow would say the words while her hands rested on the war ax, thus making her as much Yvian’s as if he clasped her in truth, was old. He had a red face and there was a swelling blue vein in the middle of his low forehead. As he listened or spoke in a soft mumble, he munched continually on small sweetmeats from a comfit box his servant kept ever in reach, and his yellow priest’s robe strained over a paunch of notable dimensions.
The Lord Duarte was of the old nobility. But in turn he did not suit his role very well. Small and thin, with a twitching tic which pulled at his lower lip, the harassed air of a man constrained to some task he loathed, he spoke only when an answer was demanded of him. And alone of the three he paid some attention to Loyse. She discovered him watching her broodingly, but there was nothing in his manner which hinted of pity or promise of aid. It was rather that she was the symbol of trouble he would like to sweep from his path.
Loyse was grateful that custom allowed her to escape that night’s feasting. Tomorrow she must sit through the start of the wedding banquet, but as soon as the wine began to pass—yes—then! Holding to that thought she hurried back to her room.
She had forgotten the sewing wench, and it was with a start that she saw a figure outlined against the window. The wind was dying now as if the worst of the storm had blown out. But there was another sound, the keening of one who has been hopelessly bereaved. And salt air bit at her from the opened pane.
Angry because of her own worries, tense over what was to come and to what she must nerve herself during the next twenty-four hours, Loyse sprang across the room and seized me swinging window frame, pulling at the girl that she might slam it shut. Though the wind had ceased, the clouds were still slashed by lightning.
And in one such revelation Loyse saw what the other must have watched for long moments.
Driving in upon the waiting fangs of the cape were ships: two . . . three of them. And such ships as dwarfed the coastwise traders she had seen pulled to their deaths there before by that treacherous onshore current which enriched and damned Verlaine. These could only be part of a proud fleet of some great seafaring lord. Yet in the continued flashes of light which gave only seconds’ viewing, Loyse could sight no activity on board any of the vessels, no attempts being made to ward off fate. They were ghost ships sailing on to their deaths and apparently their crews did not care.
The lights of the wreckers, of the shoreline scavengers, were already moving in clusters from the high gate of Verlaine. For a man on the spot might just conceal some rich picking for himself in the general confusion, though Fulk’s weighty hand and a quick noose for those caught had cut down such thievery to a shadow. They would cast nets to bring in the flotsam, turn to tasks they had long practice in. And for any who went ashore still living! Loyse exerted her strength and dragged the girl away, shut and barred the window.
But to her surprise the face the other now turned to her was no longer troubled by ancient terrors. There was intelligence in the depths of the girl’s dark eyes, excitement, a gathering strength.
She held her head slightly to one side as if she listened for some sound she must sort out of the brazen clamor of the storm. More and more it was apparent that whatever had been her place in the world before the sea brought her to Verlaine, she was no common soldier’s wench.
“That which has been long in the building,” the girl’s tone was remote, she spoke as if from the core of some experience Loyse could never know. “Choose, choose well. For this night is the fate of countries, as well as that of men, to be made and unmade!”
“Who are you?” Loyse demanded as the girl continued to change before her eyes. She was no monster, put on no shape of beast or bird as rumor whispered could be done by the witches of Estcarp. But that which had lain dormant, wounded almost to death, within her struggled once again for life, showed through her scarred body.
“Who am I? Nobody . . . nothing. But one comes who is greater than the I who once lived. Choose well, Loyse of Verlaine—and live. Choose ill—and die, as I have died, bit by bit, day by day.”
“That fleet—” Loyse half turned to the windows. Could it possibly be that some invader, reckless enough to sacrifice his ships to win foothold on the cape and so a path to Verlaine, sailed out there? That was a mad thought. The ships were doomed; few if any of their crewmen could win the shore alive, and there they would find the men of Verlaine had prepared the grimmest of welcomes.
“Fleet?” echoed the girl. “There is no fleet—only life—or death. You have something of us within you, Loyse. Prove yourself now and win!”
“Something of you? Who are you—or what?”
“I am nobody and nothing. Ask me rather what I was, Loyse of Verlaine, before your people pulled me from the sea.”
“What were you?” the other asked obediently as might a child at an elder’s command.
“I was one of Estcarp, woman of the sea coast. Now do you understand? Yes, I had the Power—until it was reft from me in the hall below us here, while men laughed and cheered the deed. For the gift is ours—sealed to our women—only while our bodies remain inviolate. To Verlaine I was a female body and no more. So I lost what made me live and breathe—I lost myself.
“Can you understand what it means to lose yourself?” She studied Loyse. “Yes, I almost believe that you do, since you move now to protect what you have. My gift is gone, crushed out as one crushes out the last coal of an unwanted fire, but the ashes of it remains. So do I now know that one greater than I had ever hoped to be comes in on the drive of the storm. And she shall determine more than one of our futures!”
“A witch!” Loyse did not shrink; instead excitement flared. The power of the women of Estcarp was legendary. She had fed upon every tale which had come out of the north concerning them and their gifts. And she smarted now with the realization of opportunity lost.
Why had she not known of this woman before—learned of her—
“Yes, a witch. So they name us when they understand us but little. But do not think to have anything of me now, Loyse. I am only the charred brands of a long quenched fire. Bend your will and wit to aid the other who comes.”
“Will and wit!” Loyse laughed harshly.”Wit I have and will, but no power here, ever. Not one soldier will obey me, nor stay his hand at my bidding. Better appeal to Bettris. When my father is in humor with her, she has some slight recognition from his people.”
“You have only to seize opportunity when it comes.” The other allowed the shawl to slip from her shoulders, folded it neatly, and laid it on the bed as she passed it on her way to the door. “Take your opportunity and use it well, Loyse of Verlaine. And tonight sleep sound for your hour has not yet come.”
She was out of the door before Loyse could move to stop her. And then the room was curiously empty, as if the girl had drawn after her some pulsing life which had watched and waited in shadowed comers.
Slowly Loyse put off her robe of ceremony, replaited her hair by touch, rather than with the aid of the mirror. Somehow she did not wish to look into that mirror now, for a pricking thought that something else might stand behind to peer over her shoulder lurked in her mind. Many foul deeds had been done in the great hall of Verlaine since Fulk became master there. But now she believed that perhaps the one which would bring him to judgment had been wrought with the woman of Estcarp for its victim.
And so intent was she upon her thoughts that she did not remember this was her wedding eve. For the first time since she had hidden them there, she did not bring out the garments resting at the bottom of her chest, to examine them and gloat over the promise they held.
 
Along the shore the wind whined, though it did not toss the spray mountain high as it had earlier. And those who sheltered, waiting for the harvest of waves and rocks were eager. The fleet, which had looked so fine from the tower of Loyse’s chamber, was even more imposing from the shore.
Hunold gripped his cloak tight at his throat and stared through the gloom. No ships of Karsten were those, and this wrecking could only serve the duchy. He was firm in the private belief that they were about to witness the last moments of an enemy raiding force. And it was equally good that he could keep an eye upon Fulk under these circumstances. Rumor had built very high the harvest of plunder Verlaine took. And when Yvian wedded that pale nothing of a wench, he could demand an accounting of all treasure in his wife’s name. Yes, Fortune smiled when she set Hunold on the shore this night to watch, and list, and gather a report for the Duke.
Certain now that the doomed ships could not possibly claw off the cape, the wreckers from the hold boldly set out their lanterns along the strand. If fools from the vessels tried to come ashore at those beacons, so much the better, they would only save the plunderers the time and bother of hunting them down.
So it was that those beams, reaching out over the heaving of the waves, caught upon the first prow swinging inward. It loomed high, buoyed up by the combers, and there were shouts from the watchers, wagers hurriedly offered and accepted as to the place of its crashing. High it lifted and then slammed forward, the rocks under the forepart of its keel. Then—it was gone!
Those on the shore were men confronted by the impossible. At first some of the more imaginative were certain they sighted the wreckage of a broken-backed ship, sure that it was tossing near to their nets. But there was nothing but the froth of wind beaten water. No ship nor wreckage.
None of them stirred. At that moment they were held by their disbelief in the evidence of their own eyes. Another of the proud ships was coming. This one pointed to the patch of rock upon which Hunold stood with Fulk as straightly as if some unseen helmsman set that course. In it came stoutly. No men clung to its rigging, no living thing could be sighted on deck.
Once again the waves raised up their burden to smash the vessel down upon the teeth of the reef. And this time it was so close to shore that Hunold thought a man could leap to where he himself stood from the deserted deck. Up and up the prow rose, its fantastically carved figurehead showing open jaws to the sky. Then down—the water swirling.
And it was gone!
Hunold threw out a hand, seized upon Fulk, only to see in the shocked paleness of the other’s face the same incredulous terror. And when a third ship came in, boring straight for the reef, the men of Verlaine fled, some of them screaming in panic. Deserted lanterns lit a shore where nets trailed into foaming water empty of even one floating board.
Later a hand caught such a net, caught and held with a grip which was a last desperate clutch for life. A body rolled in the surf, but net held, and hand held. Then there was a long crawl for shore, until a beaten, half-dead swimmer lay prone on the sand and slept.

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