The Catswold Portal (4 page)

They came out of the woods quite suddenly, and she sat up straighter. The meadow before them was very green, the road broad and smooth. Beyond the meadow lay rich orchards and vegetable gardens, and between these rose the pale towers of Affandar Palace. She stared at the huge, delicate structure, feeling uncertain again, and afraid.

T
he soldiers kicked their horses to a trot, moving fast toward the palace. Five pale towers rose, the tallest reaching nearly to the stone sky. The curtain wall wandered in pleasing curves, and all around it lay the orchards and vineyards and vegetable gardens. Behind the palace were fenced meadows, then two small villages, then the ancient forest.

She had never before seen windows made of real glass. She could see the road clearly reflected, could see the large oak they were passing. But she could not see horses or riders beneath the broad branches, the road appeared empty. The windows were spell-cast; neither man nor beast would reflect in them.

The captain trotted his horse through the palace gates into a courtyard crowded with villagers working at the day's tasks. A smith pounded hot metal, vegetable carts drawn by small, stocky ponies stood at a side gate. A carpenter was mending a table, some scullery girls were husking corn. In a corner against the palace wall, six pages skirmished at sword practice.

She had thought to approach the palace at a servants' wing, unnoticed. Now the entire courtyard stopped work to watch the soldiers, and folk stared at her, too, and smirked as if they thought the captain had a new companion for his bed. Two scullery girls looked so knowing that Melissa wanted to smack them.

But then she was forgotten as heads turned toward another gate, and suddenly folk were kneeling and there was no sound but the soft thud of approaching hooves.

Through an archway beneath the palace a large group of mounted soldiers entered the courtyard. They were led by a dark-haired youth no older than she, dressed in a red and purple uniform pointed with ermine. “King Efil,” she heard the captain mutter as, bowing, he reached back to nudge her. She bowed, looking up under her lashes.

The king was slim, dark haired, and very handsome. He rode directly past her, and he was looking at her. As his dark eyes seared hers, she felt her face go hot. He smiled intimately, and then with amusement, and then he was past. She glanced around to watch him move out the gate at the head of his uniformed troops.

“Get off,” the captain said, shoving her. She slipped down and fell under the horse's legs, and breathed a quick spell to keep the stallion from kicking her. When she crawled out, red-faced, a soldier, the pasty one, pointed his sword to direct her ahead of him.

He guided her across the courtyard to a jutting stone wing of the palace, and flung open a door, shouting. She could hear the clang of pots and the cacophony of girls' voices. She stepped into a huge, cluttered scullery. A woman, uniformed in white, turned away from a stove of steaming saucepans, and the young soldier pushed Melissa toward her. “Village girl. Wants work.” Quickly he was gone again, whether from embarrassment at herding women, or from boredom, she couldn't tell.

The big woman inspected her without expression. She had a fat, lined face. “I am Briccha. I am the Scullery Mistress. If you are allowed to stay, you will answer to me.” Her braids were so tight they pulled her scalp. Her bodice clung tightly over ample breasts and belly. When Melissa didn't answer, Briccha grabbed her shoulder and jerked her through the scullery, shoving other girls aside.

They entered a small chamber with whitewashed stone walls. It held a chair, a table, a pitcher of water and a bowl, a towel and a crock of soap. “Wash yourself. Comb your hair. You
do
have a comb?”

“No.”

The woman fished in her pocket and handed her a dirty comb. “And sponge your dress. Make yourself acceptable for the queen.”

“I do not seek audience with the queen. I want only to work in the scullery.”

“The queen sees all who seek scullery work. Don't dawdle.” Briccha gave her a harsh stare, and left her.

Angrily Melissa spell-locked the door, then dropped her dress and scrubbed thoroughly and slowly, luxuriating in the soap and clean washcloth and clean towel.

Soon, refreshed, she washed the comb, scrubbing it with the washcloth then the towel, then she combed her hair.

She was left in the room for hours. She paced, then sat down and closed her eyes, trying to keep her temper in check. She loved idleness on her own terms. She detested idleness enforced by others. She was nearly asleep when the door rattled but didn't open. Hastily she removed the spell that locked it.

A thin serving girl entered bearing a plate of bread and a mug of milk—a bone-thin girl, maybe thirteen, with a bluish cast to her skin. She looked Melissa over shyly. “You are another,” she said softly. “Do
you
know why you were brought here?”

“I wasn't brought. I came on my own. To work.”

“But I saw you ride in behind the captain.”

“I met the soldiers on the way. What do you mean, brought? Were you brought here by soldiers?”

The girl had gray smudges under her eyes. Her hair was lank, her eyes the color of mud. She was a valley elven child. “We all were brought here or summoned. Surely the soldiers brought you at the queen's orders.”

“I told you, I met them by chance. Why would anyone want to bring me here?”

“The queen summons many girls. Some stay to work. Most are sent home again.”

“Why would she summon them then send them home again?”

“I don't know why. But many of us are glad to be allowed
to stay. The palace food is good, and this life is better than herding sheep.”

Melissa wondered if that was true. At least herding sheep, you were your own boss.

“What is your name?”

“Terlis.”

“What if I refuse to talk to the queen?”

Terlis stared at her. “You wouldn't dare to do that. No one would dare.”

 

A long time after Terlis left her, a woman soldier came for Melissa—a sturdy creature with a scar down her neck. She herded Melissa through passages and up two flights of stairs, then down a main passage to a black door. She knocked, pushed Melissa through, and shut the door behind her.

The huge chamber was nearly dark. She could see quantities of black furniture that crouched like waiting beasts. Splinters of green light pushed in through the far shutters. Across the room, five spell-lights began to glow, circling a black throne. Within the throne's dark embrace sat the queen of Affandar.

At first all that was visible was the white oval of the queen's face suspended in blackness, then slowly, as Melissa approached, she made out the queen's elaborately coiled black hair against the black throne, her black robe. When suddenly the queen moved, she revealed white hands flashing with jewels. “Kneel! You are to kneel!”

She knelt, feeling awe and fear. She thought that her own small powers of magic had likely been stripped away, that if she tried to use any spell to protect herself from this woman she would fail.

“Look up at me.”

She looked up into the queen's black eyes, wary as a caged beast. The queen gave her a cold smile, but then her eyes widened, and her pale mouth twitched. She lifted her white hand and brought a spell-light bright across Melissa's face.

Queen Siddonie studied her for so long that Melissa, kneeling, felt her legs cramp. She could see no expression in the queen's black eyes. The power of the woman's stare made her weak and angry. Stories of Siddonie's cruelty filled her. She felt her heart pounding, and only with great effort did she keep her face blank.

At last the queen sat back and folded her hands. “You may rise. What is your name?”

“I am Sarah.”

Rage flashed in Siddonie's eyes. “What village do you come from—Sarah? Tell me why you have come to Affandar.”

“Appian is my village. My father could not keep us all. I came to find work in the palace.”

“What work does your father do?”

“He mines a little,” Melissa said, forcing quiet into her voice, counting on Appian to be so far away and so crowded that the queen would not bother to investigate. And why should she? What difference where she came from? “He makes some jewelry, and grows barley and pigs.”

Another long silence as the queen watched her, a look that made her stomach twist with fear. But then suddenly in the queen's eyes something almost vulnerable shone: Siddonie's face softened, for an instant her smile was almost gentle. “You will start in the kitchens, Sarah. You will report to Briccha. If you are a good worker there may be other chores.” Then suddenly her fists clenched and she half rose. “You are dismissed. Rise and get out.
Now!
”

Alarmed, Melissa backed quickly to the door. And her anger rose so fiercely she had to restrain herself from hissing curses or from striking out at the queen. She fled, enraged—and shocked at herself.

Outside the door she stood, regaining her breath, almost more frightened of her own fierce reactions than of Queen Siddonie.

B
raden was parking the station wagon after a pointless drive up the coast when he saw his neighbor, Olive Cleaver, come down the garden and go into the tool room carrying a camera and notebook. Olive was in her seventies, a skinny woman with parchment pale skin made more sallow by her garishly flowered house dresses: Woolworth designs of raw color so terrible they were wonderful. This one featured giant orange and yellow nasturtiums on a black ground. Its garishness shocked all color from Olive's bare legs and wrinkled arms and face. As she entered the tool room, she smiled and waved at him. He wondered what she was going to shoot in there with the Rolleiflex. Olive, strictly an amateur, did some passable work. He opened the back of the station wagon and retrieved his duffel bag and paint box. He'd packed extra shorts and socks and his razor, but he hadn't stayed anywhere, had turned around again and come home.

He had driven north toward the wine country and Russian River on a sudden whim, wanting to get away, but something—boredom, a sense of uselessness—had made him head back again. He had felt as confined in the car as he had felt in the studio; the same stifled sense of captive panic he'd had after the war when he marked time in England for three months without any action. Driving north, he had changed his mind about going to Russian River—the place stirred too many memories. He'd wondered why the hell he had thought he could go there, and he had cut off 101 suddenly onto the narrow road to Bodega Bay.

He and Alice had gone to Russian River before they were
married, in the middle of winter, and pitched a tent. They had had the place to themselves. They'd cooked on a campfire and had swum nude in the icy river. The first night, Alice spilled chocolate syrup in the sleeping bag, and for a week afterward they had made love and slept engulfed by the smell of chocolate.

Heading for Bodega Bay, passing green pastures where dairy cows grazed, he had let his mind stay numb and blank. At the shore he'd walked along the beach for several hours not thinking, watching the sea, trying to become a part of whatever it was out there—the rhythm of the waves pounding, the emptiness of sky and sea meeting unbroken, hinting at some kind of meaning he couldn't touch. Alice had loved the sea, she would have been running out in the cold water picking up shells, would have sat on a rock shivering, drawing the gulls and plovers.

Now as he carried his bag and unused sketching things across the terrace to the studio, he glanced up the hill again toward the open tool room, trying to focus on Olive Cleaver, get his mind off Alice. He was aware of flashes of light from inside the tool room as Olive worked with her flashbulbs, likely shooting still lifes of the garden tools, arranging earthy little studies.

He went into the studio, dropped his bag and paint box, and made himself a sandwich and opened a beer. When he came out of the house onto the terrace again, Olive was crouched before the oak door, taking pictures of the cats' faces. This should have amused him, but suddenly he wanted to tell Olive to stop it, stop taking pictures of the cats, stop fooling around with the door. He wanted to tell her to leave the cats alone, that they could be dangerous.

He didn't like that kind of thought in himself; he didn't like these crazy notions. Why the hell did he focus on cats? Everywhere he looked, his attention was drawn by cats; he'd gotten his mind fixated on cats. Even on the beach before he left Bodega Bay he'd seen a cat trotting along the sand, hunting among the seaweed, and he had to stop and stare at it. Black-and-white cat. It had stopped, too, and looked at
him. Alice would have coaxed it to them, petted it, talked to it, given it part of their lunch. Watching the stray cat, he had imagined Alice there so clearly—her pale hair blowing in the sea wind, her fine-boned face concentrated as she talked to a stray cat. Alice had needed animals around her, had been more at home with animals than with people.

Annoyed with himself but unable to stop brooding, he got some stretcher bars and a roll of canvas and set to work stretching canvases, working on the terrace where it was cooler. Above him at the door of the cats, Olive was still at it. After a quarter hour of photographing the different cats' heads, Olive let her camera hang idle around her neck, and knelt by the door's lower hinge. She took a little knife from her pocket, and some envelopes, and began working the knife at the hinged edge of the door as if prying loose a splinter.

She dropped the splinter, or whatever it was, into an envelope, then pried out another from the next plank higher up, and put this in a second envelope. She stood up and took a third sample.

When she had five samples, one from each heavy oak plank that formed the door, she turned and saw him looking up at her. She smiled and waved to him again, went up the garden, and disappeared inside her dark-shingled house. He wanted to go up to the tool room and look at the door where she had cut into it; he wanted to figure out what the hell she had been doing.

But what difference? Anyway, it was her door. The way the lots were laid out in pie shapes joining in the center of the garden, the door was on Olive's land. If she wanted to pry off splinters, that was her business. Maybe she meant to send her splinters for a carbon-14 test. Maybe Olive suddenly burned to know how old the door was.

As Alice had longed to know.

Alice said if it was genuinely medieval, it shouldn't be in the garden but in a museum. She had thought it amazing that the door was in such good shape and not rotting. He thought the damn thing was a copy. Who would put a valu
able antique in a garden? He had been singularly annoyed by her interest. She never had found out who built it into the hill, though she had gone over old land records and written to several families. Olive had been in on that little investigation—the two of them spending useless hours in the county tax office, complaining afterward because the office was not only cold but stunk of cigarette smoke. The whole thing was an exercise in wasting time, and after Alice died Olive had seemed to turn to other projects. A retired librarian, Olive had retained all her energy and interest in the world; she pursued with singleminded intensity the projects she undertook.

He finished the stretcher bars and began to cut canvas, anticipating four new canvases, pristine white and waiting.

For what? Waiting for what? Waiting for four new, dull, lifeless attempts which would be as unsatisfying as his drive up the coast.