The Catswold Portal (3 page)

“Betrayed by one of our own,” Mag said. “And if those captured men are tortured into talking, our plans could be destroyed.”

“Where are the captives?” she asked casually. “In—in the dungeons of Affandar Palace?” And the Lamia's voice filled her thoughts,
The Toad sleeps
—
in the dungeons of Affandar Palace.

“Where else would they be but Siddonie's dungeons?”

She stared at her plate. “Who was captured? Are they men I know?”

Mag looked hard at her. “You have never asked rebel secrets.”

“If they are captive, they are no longer secret.”

“The queen will not learn their names easily. What you don't know, you can't be forced to tell.”

They ate in silence until at last Melissa, too tightly wound to sit another minute, rose and picked up her plate. At the
stove she heated water and did up the dishes while Mag took the piglets out to the sow, meaning to guard them while they nursed. Melissa worked idly at the spinning wheel while she made plans, her mind filled with the imprisoned rebels.

Rebellion had been building a long time against Queen Siddonie's increasing enslavement of other Netherworld nations. And Siddonie's rule within Affandar itself was crueler and more constricting each year. She had conscripted workers by enchantment, to go into the mines, and to serve in her growing army. She had torn families apart, and destroyed many of the traditional ways of making a living, destroyed people's will to work. As a result, villagers were starving.

When Mag came in and knelt before the cookstove, getting the piglets settled in their basket, Melissa climbed into her cot and pretended sleep. Not until hours later did she rise again and, in the near-dark, pull on her dress, pack some bread and ham, and take up a waterskin and lantern.

B
raden, barefoot and wearing cutoffs, set his coffee cup on the terrace table. The garden was barely light, the dawn air cool and smelling of wet leaves. He stood idly studying the tangle of flowers and small trees and bushes trying to get awake, trying to shake a faint but depressing hangover. The three houses up the hill were still dark. The studio behind him was dark, though if work had been going well it would be a blaze of light. He would already have set up a canvas, poured out turpentine and oil, and become lost in the painting.

When Alice was alive they used to walk at dawn on Sun
days, Alice striding out fast but seeing every leaf and change of color, every bird, every animal in every yard. They'd end up at Anthea's in the village for breakfast, get the papers, read the reviews of the new exhibits. And when they were remodeling the house, they'd had breakfast out here on the terrace among the sawhorses and lumber, before the carpenters arrived. The front of the house had been torn out waiting for a new glass wall, gaping open to the garden like a bombed-out war casualty. They'd nailed canvas drop cloths over the forty-foot hole and Alice said that ought to be a big enough canvas for him to work on. Some of the inner walls had been torn away, too; they'd lived for ten weeks among bare studs and sheetrock dust. He could see Alice sitting here at the terrace table, her head bent, her long pale hair catching the light as she studied the blueprints. She'd been so happy to have the studio finished at last, to have her own place to work. The living room, dining room and entry hall had been turned into one forty-foot studio with rafters supporting the roof, and a skylight in Braden's work area. Alice liked the softer light of the windows. She had taken a week to get her half of the studio set up, installing shelves, arranging the printing plates and handmade papers and etching and litho inks. Thinking about her was still like digging into a fresh wound.

Above him up the terraces a sound jarred him—the snip, snip, snip of garden clippers. He stared up at the dark, thin gardener who was hunched over a bush methodically trimming away. Vrech was a greasy, unpleasant man. And what the hell was he doing here so early? Waking up everyone else in the garden houses. The snap of the clippers was like gnashing teeth.

The six houses that circled the garden shared Vrech's salary, but Olive Cleaver had hired him, years ago. The man did his job all right, kept the hillside tangle in just enough order to make the garden interesting, but he put Braden on edge; there was a cloying quality about him. Braden watched him, annoyed, pushing aside his sketch pad and pencils.

He had meant to plan a new painting this morning—as much as he ever planned, a rough start, some direction to give a model—but nothing stirred him. Nothing wanted to come to life, to make the light glow in his mind with the brilliance of a finished painting. Nothing he had considered lately had that brilliance. He felt as dull as if mind and spirit suffered from a toothache.

Sometimes he could jack up his lagging spirits by reading the reviews of his past shows or by recounting the frequent museum awards, a stupid ritual that meant nothing but would jolt his ego and get him started. He had less than two months to get the show together for Chapman, and he had only ten paintings and none of them meant a damn thing. Dull, uninspired. It would take twenty-five pieces to fill the gallery. He had thought of canceling the show—that would be the final admission of failure—but you just didn't cancel a show with Chapman, a show you'd had scheduled for over two years, not unless you were ready to admit total defeat.

He wasn't ready to do that. But it was nearly impossible to get himself to work. He'd done everything to avoid work—had gone sailing, climbed Mount Tam half a dozen times, even ridden a couple of times at the local stables as he used to ride with Alice, trying to make himself enjoy being out on the yellowed summer hills, maybe make some facet of the landscape come alive enough to want to paint it. But even going to the stables, glimpsing Alice's favorite mare, had thrown him into depression.

He'd made every excuse to avoid Chapman seeing the few dull paintings he had produced since his last show—he'd gone out of town, gone down the coast to Carmel. He had remained filled with defeat, feeling like he might as well be painting soup cans.

Maybe he should be, maybe someday they'd all paint soup cans—flat designs done with a mind as flat as that of a store mannequin, passionless, sexless.

But this was 1957 and the world of painters was filled with passion: the exploding passion of Still, of Kline, the in
flamed vision fostered by Picasso, and echoes of the Bauhaus, and with his own kind of painting, with the work of the Bay area action painters, their colors the glowing hues of California, opulent as stained glass.

He dumped his coffee out, looking absently up the terraces. The gardener had moved to a hydrangea bush. Snip, snip, snip—an annoying, suggestive sound. Braden stared at his sketch pad thinking of excuses to do any number of unnecessary chores in the studio: stretch more canvases for more dull paintings, make a list of supplies, sweep the floor. The garden grew lighter, the hidden sun sending a blaze of gold along the top of the redwood forest. Halfway up the terraces a yellow cat came out from beneath a fuchsia bush and slipped warily away from Vrech; the cat's distrust of the gardener stirred sympathy in Braden even if it was only a cat.

There were five or six cats living in the garden. He ignored them and they ignored him; cats made him uneasy. Cats watched people too intently, and they weren't loving like dogs. He glanced up the hill to Olive's two-story house; its age-darkened siding blended into the dark forest behind it. There was a cat on Olive's front porch, crouched, watching the gardener. To the right in Morian's gray, two-story frame, a light had come on in Morian's bedroom behind her bamboo shades. He could see her moving around, caught a glimpse of her dark arm reaching just behind the shade. She would be getting ready for an early class. To the right of Morian's, nearest to the dead end lane, Anne Hollingsworth's one-story, white Cape Cod was still dark. Three neighbors, three single women—Anne divorced, Olive a dry old spinster, and dark-skinned Morian with plenty of men in her bed. The three were the most unlikely of friends, as different as three women could be, but they were close friends; and they had looked out for him tenderly since Alice died. In weak moments he admitted he needed them in the casual, secure context of neighbors. Though Morian was more than neighbor, gracing his bed occasionally with offhand pleasure and tenderness.

As he picked up his shoes and bent to put them on, the gar
dener came slouching down the terraces. Vrech looked straight through him, didn't acknowledge him, then turned and went into the tool shed, shutting the door. The action stirred a memory without any connection: he'd dreamed of Alice last night, the same nightmare he'd had a thousand times, Alice lying unconscious over the steering wheel. The flames of the cutting torches. His helpless rage. He had waked shouting and lashing out at the car in which she lay trapped.

Vrech came out of the tool room wearing a Levi jacket and carrying a brown paper bag. He shut the oak door, not turning to look at the carved cat faces that protruded from the old, darkened planks that formed the door. He headed across the garden to the lane, and quickly crossed the lane, heading toward the village.

The man usually drove a green Ford, but it wasn't there today. Strange that he'd come to work so early and stayed such a short time. Maybe his car was in the shop, maybe he'd left to pick it up. Braden stood looking after him idly, then on impulse he went up the garden to the tool shed and, despite his repugnance at touching the door, he opened it to look inside.

He didn't know what he'd expected to see. The dark little room contained only a wheelbarrow, the ladder, the work table, and some scattered garden tools. The table was littered with seed packets, and with clay pots to which dry earth clung. A hoe and shovel leaned against the dirt wall beside some bags of manure. He studied the stone wall that formed the back of the room, keeping the hill in check. Overhead, heavy timbers held the earth solidly. Someone had taken a lot of trouble building this hillside cellar. It had been in the garden longer than Alice's Aunt Carrie could remember. Carrie had played here when she was a child, as, later, Alice did, and then Alice's little foster sister. The cave seemed a depressing place for a child, though usually they had played on the brick pad in front of the door, making up games that included the carved cats, and talking to the cats. He breathed in the smell of raw earth, and backed out of the cave. A tendril of the cup of gold vine that framed the door
slid across his neck, startling him. He grabbed the offending limb and broke it off. Why didn't the gardener keep the damn vine trimmed? The vine's ancient, twisted limbs were so old and thick they formed a heavy, rough frame for the carved door. Suddenly, watching the medieval cats' faces, he felt chilled. He turned away abruptly and headed down toward the studio; he could almost feel the damned cats watching him.

M
elissa wrote the note in a thick layer of dust that she made appear on the supper table. Around it she wove a tangle of spells which would confuse Mag and make her laugh; the old woman was less likely to follow her if she showed some style. She didn't like hurting Mag, but it couldn't be helped. She dared not tell her where she was really going—Mag would come storming after her and with harsh words, maybe with spells, would force her home again. She pulled on her cloak, shoved her knife in its sheath, and fastened on her trinket bracelet for trading. With the pack, a lantern, and the full waterskin she quit the cottage, slipping out into the dark green night.

The way up the cliffs was precarious in the dark, with drop-offs and loose stones. But when at last she topped the cliff and started down the other side, the path was easier. Where the stone sky was lowest, white bats darted and squeaked overhead, skimming along after insects. She tied
her hood to keep them out of her hair, though they stayed away usually, unless someone had laid a spell. Bat-spells were a prank children played, or feuding village women. When the sky rose again, black cliffs loomed against it, and on her right a precipice dropped. She didn't light the lantern but brought a spell-light; it could be doused faster in case of night-traveling horsemen who would surely be queen's soldiers. She thought it must be near to midnight when she turned onto a path between cliffs too narrow to be traveled by horsemen. She didn't want to happen on a band of rebels, either, going about some secret business. Too many of the rebels knew her and would tell Mag they had seen her. Soon she was skirting the ice caves, shivering with cold.

She had no notion how she would proceed when she reached Affandar Palace, except to ask for work in the scullery. She shivered with more than cold when she thought about descending into the palace dungeons to search for the Toad and for the captured rebels.

Soon she was in the labyrinth of the ancient, dry riverbed. She and Mag had sometimes come this way. The pot-holes and basins and thin arches were rimed with ice, and she laid a spell before her feet to keep from slipping. The Affandar River had flowed here until Queen Siddonie's powers changed its course so it brought water nearer the palace. That change had destroyed the economy of half a dozen villages which depended on the river's power for fulling cloth and for milling grain, but the queen cared nothing about that.

All night she followed the riverbed. As dawn began to seep down from the frozen arches above her, she scraped ice from a saucer of stone and curled up in its hollow, wrapping her cloak around her, and slept.

She woke at mid-morning filled with a fleeting dream, she could remember vast spaces reeling above her as if the stone sky had vanished, endless space filled with harsh white light. She lay puzzled, trying to understand what she had seen.

She rose finally and found a spring among the sculptured stone. Breaking the ice, she drank and washed. From the
small pool her image shone back at her surprisingly clear. She looked away from it guiltily, but soon Mag's cautions faded and her curiosity overcame her fear of images. She looked at herself and laughed, forgetting caution.

All images were forbidden in Affandar and in most of the Netherworld. Everyone knew that an evil soul would cast destructive images and bring disaster.

But all souls were not evil. She didn't think she was evil; she didn't understand why all images should be avoided. And no one ever talked about what she had found in Mag's spell book, that images made with love were beneficial and that such images could heal. In Affandar there was no distinction between good images and evil; all images were forbidden by order of the queen.

There would be no mirrors in Affandar Palace. Or none that she would see. She had heard that the queen kept one small mirror for dressing, locked within her wardrobe where no eyes but her own would see it, and no spell could be cast upon her.

For a long time she knelt beside the spring looking down at her own reflection. Mag would have been furious, but Mag wasn't there. She liked her green eyes and dark lashes, and she felt happy to like what she saw.

 

Toward noon she came up out of the labyrinth onto rolling green pastures. The sky dropped close above her, radiating warmth. She could see ahead the village of Sesut. There was a rebel camp there. She had gone there with Mag, and she had learned to swim in the icy Sesut River with the daughters of a rebel leader. Now, she stayed behind a ridge, regretting the warm welcome she would miss and the good hot meal.

Soon she turned onto an animal trail through a woods, then followed a spring until it ended in a thin fall of water dropping into a ravine. Beyond the ravine she entered country she hadn't seen and knew only from hearing the rebels describe it. She knew she was passing caches of weapons and food hidden in scattered caves. Ahead the land was un
stable, and she stepped lightly among shattered stone thinking of boulders imploding, of faulted, cracked caverns collapsing in landslide. Families, whole villages had died, buried in such implosions.

She came out of the faulted land at dusk to a place of firestones. As she knelt to pick up the darkest, oiliest rocks with which to cook her supper, pebbles fell from above her and a small blue dragon slid out of a cleft. It was the size of a pony, too small to be dangerous, but it snapped its forked tongue at her. She was startled by her sudden desire to kill it, an inexplicable need to leap on it and tear at it. A desire so intense she caught herself moving stealthily, stalking it. Only when she was very close did she freeze and draw back, alarmed, not knowing what was wrong with her.

She had killed game, had hunted doves for Mag when meat was scarce, bringing them down with a simple spell. Even that killing had upset her unbearably. She had never liked cleaning the birds; they hung too limply in her hands. She didn't want to admit that she had been unpleasantly stirred by the dead birds, that they awoke a horrifying desire to eat raw meat. She was deeply ashamed of such bizarre feelings.

And now, this night, sleeping beside her fire in a cleft of stone, she dreamed of killing dragons and of shaking and teasing dragons, and she woke sick with shock at herself.

Around her the first green of dawn was seeping from the stone sky and cliffs. She drank some water, and set out walking fast, trying to escape her dream. She didn't feel like eating. When at mid-morning two winged lizards soared over her, she started guiltily for no reason. The lizards' thin shadows slid along the roof of sky, but their ruby eyes looked down directly into her eyes. Well, so she was journeying to Affandar Palace. If they told the queen that, what difference?

Toward evening she crossed pastureland again, approaching a herder's cottage. She could see by the bales of reddish wool in the shed that he kept long-coated russet sheep. She thought he was likely on the high ridges where the russets
preferred to graze. Entering the cottage, she found cold mutton packed in peat and ice, and some bread and onions and dried peaches. She took a small amount of food as was the custom, leaving an opal from among the dangles on her bracelet. Some said it wasn't right to trade for food since the queen gave the common folk much of the food they needed. Mag said pay for what you get. Mag wanted nothing from the queen.

Queen Siddonie had gained her throne by marrying Affandar's child prince when he was twelve. She had come originally from Xendenton. She had been a little girl when Xendenton fell and her father and two brothers were killed. She and the one remaining brother had escaped the battle and were not seen again in the Netherworld for many years. When they returned, they quickly rallied an army to win back their kingdom. Siddonie herself killed its ruler, and she put her brother Ithilel on the throne.

Soon after, Siddonie married the boy king of Affandar. Once she was queen of Affandar, she set out to conquer other nations. At present she controlled five of the fourteen Netherworld nations, plus Xendenton and Affandar. She had taken the thrones not with war but with lies, with spells, with intrigue. It was said that Siddonie enjoyed toppling rule from within by forming alliances that turned against the true rulers.

Mag said that few Netherworlders would fight hard enough to preserve their own freedom; she said folk had grown too weak. She said the spirit of the Netherworld was dying. Surely the powers of protective magic had weakened. Spells failed, sometimes crops wouldn't grow. Too many babies were born dead, and many children sickened and died. Even the queen's own child was so ill no one expected him to live long. The rebels hoped Prince Wylles would die. Without an heir, Siddonie's rule would be weakened and she would more easily be dethroned.

 

Melissa came to the main road in late afternoon and crossed the Affandar River on a narrow bridge. Below her the wide
water ran green and clear. She was startled to see, halfway across, three selkies swimming upriver, their dark horse heads poking up out of the fast water. She watched them with surprised pleasure, for seldom did the stocky, broad little horses show themselves. They turned in the water to look up at her with wide, dark eyes, friendly and shy. Then they swam to shore and came out of the river, galloping up the bank. And on the bank they shape shifted suddenly into stocky men—broad faced, dark eyed, their beards streaming water. She felt graced to witness such a sight.

The selkies were one of the few shape-shifting peoples left in the Netherworld. They were secretive; they clung to their own kind, their ways untouched by human concerns. When trouble boiled through the Netherworld, they disappeared into the rivers and buried seas, returning when peace was restored. She had no idea why these three would show themselves to her. They said no word, only looked at her, then the three stocky men dove back into the river and disappeared. Soon, far downriver she saw the three horses' heads pop up and move swiftly away.

At dusk she left the main road and settled in a shallow cleft between boulders, hoping she would not have nightmares again. She ate some ham and bread, and was nearly asleep when she heard hooves strike stone.

Saddle horses approached, moving at a controlled trot. She slid deeper down between the stones, thankful she had made no fire.

Five mounted soldiers passed close above her, their uniforms red against the darkening stone sky. Queen's soldiers. They were nearly past when suddenly the lead stallion snorted and stared behind him, sidestepping as if he had detected her scent. His uniformed soldier wheeled the horse and leaned down from the saddle, staring into the cleft straight at her.

“Come out of there! By the queen's order, come out!”

There was nowhere to run. She came out facing drawn swords.

The five men snickered when they saw it was a girl, and
glanced at one another. Her fingers itched for her knife, but it was in her pack. Three were older men. The captain was round faced and fat, his gray hair shaggy, his belly hanging over the saddle. One sergeant was dry and thin, the other a half-elven man, stocky and square faced. The two younger soldiers were Melissa's age, one a pasty boy, the other squat and freckled, full-blooded elven.

The captain's voice was thick and unpleasant. “Where do you travel? Why are you alone? What have you there? A pack? Where would a young girl travel alone in this wild country?”

“I come from Appian to seek work in the palace.”

He looked her over with too much familiarity. “Why did you leave Appian? Why would you want work in the palace? What kind of work?” he said, snickering.

“We were too many in family,” she said, keeping her voice calm. “My mother sent me to find work.” She wanted to run, and she suspected she knew no spell strong enough to turn aside this crude man's attentions. Watching his eyes, she remembered every ugly story about the queen's guard.

He dismounted and jerked her to him. “How old are you?”

“Seventeen.”

He stared at her stomach. “Are you with child? Is that why your mother turned you out?”

“I am not with child. I left home because there were too many to feed, nine sisters and brothers.”

“There are never too many to feed. The queen gives food to all families.”

“There are several big families in Appian. The queen's stores didn't stretch so far. And our cottage was crowded. Most of us slept on the floor. I am the oldest and they sent me to work.” Why didn't he believe her? It was common practice to send a child to work at the palace or to apprentice in some wealthier village. Surely the two younger soldiers were apprentices.

The captain glanced up at the sergeant, licking the side of his mouth, then pulled her closer. He started to say something, then he looked at her more intently, grasping her chin, turning her head to left and right.

He lifted her hair, looking so closely she wondered if it needed dying again. Mag kept it dyed with spells and snake root, she was very particular about that. He looked intently from her hair to her eyes, then looked up again at the sergeant. Then, abruptly, he pulled his horse around, loosing her as the others drew close. He mounted heavily, off-balancing the horse. His look had changed, the lust had vanished. “Get on behind.”

She thought of breaking away between the horses and running, but they would overtake her. The captain leaned from the saddle, snatched her arm, and pulled her up against the horse. “Get on. You want to go to the palace, you will come with us.” He laughed. “You will go to the queen in style.”

She had no choice. She got on, putting her foot over his in the stirrup, and sat behind the saddle clinging to it, not touching him.

Through the night they traveled, stopping only to water the horses. No one asked Melissa if she was thirsty. She fought sleep; she didn't want to doze and lean against the captain's fat back. She was tense with fear of what he might decide to do if they stopped to rest. It was nothing to rape a village girl—there was no law prohibiting it, not under Siddonie's rule. She didn't know why they hadn't tried already. Soon she heard a fox cry out in the dark woods, then they were skirting the Affandar River; in the darkness she could hear its waters gurgling over stones. They passed through a sleeping village, and another. She was relieved when morning began to gather misty green overhead.