The Phantom Queen Awakes (14 page)

The dun’s servants normally slept out in the
stables or in front of one of the hearths in the great hall.
Considering how frail Evy was, Lovyan decided that she should sleep
in a little storeroom off the women’s hall on the second floor of
the main broch, a tiny wedge-shaped space, but it would do. A page
carried up a straw mattress; one of Lovyan’s serving women gave the
girl an old dress of hers. Nevyn found a big earthernware pitcher
and filled it full of fresh water to place beside the mattress on
the floor.

“I want you to drink as much water as you
can,” he told Evy. “There’s a chamber pot over in the curve of the
wall for you to use when you need to.”

The lass nodded to show she’d understood. She
was sitting on the mattress, with the faded blue dress billowing
around her, her legs crossed, her arms tight over her chest, as
crumpled and crouched as if she expected him to suddenly turn and
strike her. Nevyn glanced around the chamber, which smelled of dust
and mildew, and saw a narrow window covered by an ox hide pegged to
the wall. He took down the hide to let in fresh air and a sliver of
sunlight.

“Thank you.” Evy’s voice took him by surprise.
“For everything you’ve done for me.”

“Most welcome.” Nevyn left the window and
knelt at the foot of the mattress. “Will you tell me how you came
to be in the water?”

She considered for so long that he assumed
she’d say nothing, but at last she caught her breath with a gasp
and spoke. “They threw me in for a sacrifice.”

“Because of the storm?”

“Yes. The waves grew so big, and the sky ― oh,
it looked like night, so dark and close the clouds were. The
captain said the ship was doomed, but some of the sailors, they
said they could turn the Veiled Lady aside if they gave her a
sacrifice.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “A bone for the bitch,
one of them said.”

“And they chose you for the sacrifice because
you were a slave.”

“Yes.”

“I saw where they branded you, on your back
where it wouldn’t spoil your face. They used you as a whore, didn’t
they?”

Her eyes filled with tears. “Please don’t tell
the archon,” she whispered. “She’ll throw me out.”

“You mean Lady Lovyan. Don’t worry. She
understands what men do to the women they own, and she’d never
blame you. They were going to sell you to a brothel in
Abernaudd?”

“No, in Cerrmor. But the storm drove us
off-course. I was so ill by then, with the ship tossing around and
the waves ― oh, they came right over the deck, and so cold! I
thought it would be better to die than to go ― to go where they
were taking me.”

“You’d never been in a brothel
before?”

“I was, yes, in Myleton. But this one in
Cerrmor ― I was born there.” She raised her head and looked
straight at him. Her eyes flickered briefly with defiance and life.
“A man killed my mother there. I didn’t want to go back. So I
thought, better I go to the goddess now.”

“I see. Did they do some sort of
ceremony?”

She nodded, looking away wide-eyed, as if she
saw it all again, the careening deck of the ship, the sail flapping
helplessly in the wind, the waves breaking and foaming as they ran
across the fragile planks, the terrified men chanting what spells
and charms they knew. Nevyn could imagine the scene all too
well.

“One of the passengers said he knew how to do
it. They were going to drag me up to the bow, but I walked. Do you
see? I wanted to die, just then. I walked with them, and I lay down
where they told me to lie.”

“I understand.”

“They were going to bind my hands, but then
this big wave came and just swept me away. I thought I was going to
sink and die, but the waves kept tossing me up into the air.” She
paused, trembling, and raised her hands to clasp her face. “That’s
when I saw her.”

“The Veiled Lady?”

She nodded again. “She came walking on the
water, so big her head touched the sky, and she was turning and
turning like she was dancing. All her veils spun around her, and
they were black.”

A cloud? Nevyn wondered. A waterspout,
perhaps, off at a distance? Or had the terror of the men onboard
and the lass in the water evoked the image of the Bardekian death
goddess?

“And that’s when I saw the wood floating
toward me,” Evy went on. “It was old and gray, part of a broken
ship. I didn’t realize that till later, you see, when I had time to
look at it. But she brought me the wood, so I climbed onto it. She
went away then. And so the storm passed, and I drifted, and days
and days went by, I think.” Her voice trailed away. “Maybe only
three days.”

“It couldn’t have been many more than that, or
you’d have died of thirst.” He smiled and turned his voice
soothing. “But you didn’t, and now you’re safe.”

Behind him something rustled, something moved.
Nevyn looked over his shoulder and saw birds settling on the
windowsill, three big ravens, their black plumage glittering with
blue in the summer sun. He felt his blood run cold.

Evy cried out. “Safe? No, never that, never
again!”

Nevyn got to his feet and turned to face the
Three.

“You can’t have the child,” he said. “It
wasn’t dedicated to you.”

The answer came to his mind without sound. We
know.

Nevyn turned so cold that he shivered and
swore under his breath. With a cascade of croaks and caws that
sounded like laughter, the three ravens leapt from the sill and
flew, still shrieking. As they climbed into the sky they seemed to
merge into one huge raven, then vanished. Behind him Evy began to
weep in great gulping sobs.

“She sent her birds,” she stammered. “I belong
to her, and she’ll never let me go.”

“We’ll just see about that! There must be a
way to break the curse. Maybe she’ll accept a horse
instead.”

She choked back her sobs. Next to her on the
floor lay her old rag of a dress, still crusted with salt in odd
patches. She picked it up and began wiping her face on a
sleeve.

“I’ll have to think about this,” Nevyn went
on. “I’ve learned some strange lore over the years.”

Evy smiled, though her eyes stayed so blank
and lifeless that he knew she doubted him. Since he doubted
himself, Nevyn said no more, merely left the chamber to let her
sleep.

That night he consulted with other
dweomermasters he knew, scrying them out for mind-speaking through
the fire in his chamber, but no one knew how to break such a ritual
spell. When Nevyn contacted Nesta, a dweomerwoman who lived in
Cerrmor, she told him that as far as the guilds knew, no ship had
gone down in the recent storm.

“If one had,” Nesta said, “the guild would
have heard of it, especially one bound for Cerrmor. News like that
travels fast.”

“So the goddess accepted the sacrifice. Or so
the crew of that ship’s going to believe.”

“There had to be a man of some power onboard
that ship,” Nesta went on. “Ordinary sailors can curse and pray and
beg all night in a storm, but their ship goes down despite it
all.”

“That’s true spoken. The lass mentioned a
passenger.”

“Huh! I wonder what sort of man he was. Not
one of us, I’ll wager.”

“Just so. He seems to have worked some sort of
rite with power behind it, for a certainty. I was wondering if the
priestesses in a Moon temple could undo it.”

“I doubt if they’d want to. Once their goddess
has spoken, they wouldn’t dare interfere.” Nesta hesitated, and he
could feel her thoughts scurrying this way and that. “The goddess
isn’t known for letting anyone out of a bargain.”

“Unfortunately, you’re right. And the lass
went willingly enough at the time. Hence the ravens, I
suppose.”

“I’d say so, truly. I doubt me if there’s
aught anyone can do, though it aches my heart to admit
it.”

It ached Nevyn’s as well. He found himself
remembering a Moon-sworn priestess he’d known back in the years of
the civil wars that had once torn the kingdom apart. Nothing that
he’d said or done back then had changed her mind and her grim wyrd
one jot. Yet, he reminded himself, perhaps things would be
different with this lass. He had four or five months, he reckoned,
until the baby was born, to figure out a remedy.

Late into the night he consulted his books of
dweomerlore but found nothing to help. He did string some beads and
little packets of herbs onto leather thongs. If she believed that
they’d turn aside evil, the belief would give her strength to
resist the curse upon her, even though they had no dweomer power of
their own. What counted now was bringing her mind back to the land
of the living. In the morning, when he gave Evy the charms, she
accepted them as politely as she’d accepted everything else, but
from her flat little voice he could tell that she didn’t believe in
them.

“Once we go back to Aberwyn in the autumn,”
Nevyn told her, “I’ll consult with the priests and priestesses
there about lifting the curse.”

Evy sighed and looked down at her handful of
charms. “When I die,” she said, “will someone take care of my
baby?”

“Of course, but I’m not going to let you
die.”

She merely smiled. Before he left her chamber,
he insisted she wear the charms. She slipped them over her head and
let them dangle with all the enthusiasm of a dutiful child
swallowing a bitter medicinal.

Over the next few days, Evy grew stronger,
thanks to decent food and rest. At that time, a lord who supported
a great many servants gained prestige. Gwerbret Tingyr had many
faults, but miserliness was not one of them. Lovyan had so many
servants at Dun Cannobaen, her summer residence, that none of them
worked very hard. All of them took an interest in the lass so
miraculously saved from the sea, particularly when her pregnancy
became common knowledge. Their small kindnesses acted as further
remedies, giving Evy reasons to want to live, or so Nevyn could
hope.

The little town of Cannobaen had heard her
tale as well.

One foggy day Nevyn came out into the ward to
see Rhodry lounging against the wall by main gate and talking with
Olwen, the soapmaker’s daughter. Rhodry was smiling at her in a way
that boded ill for the lass’s virtue while she giggled and glanced
at him sidelong. With a sigh Nevyn strolled over to speak with
them. Rhodry straightened up and arranged a solemn expression.
Olwen looked modestly at the ground.

“Come for news of little Evy?” Nevyn
said.

“I have, my lord,” Olwen said. “My mam was
wondering how she fared, and so is half the town.”

“Ah, I see. Well, she’s doing very well,
remarkably well, in fact, considering what she suffered. I have
hopes that her baby will be healthy enough to live despite it
all.”

“That’s splendid, my lord.”

“So it is. Now run along, and tell your mother
that I’ll give her any news the next time I ride down to town. No
need for you to walk all the way up here.”

“My thanks, my lord, I’m sure.” Yet Olwen
looked bitterly disappointed.

Nevyn waited until she’d left, waited in fact
until she’d got out of earshot, then turned on Rhodry.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Rhodry said
with a squeak in his voice.

“Do you?” Nevyn said. “Then I suggest you
remember that a common-born lass like that has little to look
forward to in life but a good marriage, and if you trifle with her,
it’s not likely she’d ever get one.”

“I do know that. I ― uh ― I’ll take it to
heart.”

Rhodry made him a bob of a bow, then turned
and hurried away, breaking into a trot, then disappearing around
the side of the broch at an all-out run. Nevyn made a mental note
to speak with Olwen’s mother next time he went to Cannobaen about
more than the state of Evy’s health.

****

With the first chill of autumn, Lovyan packed
up her retinue and returned to the gwerbretal dun in Aberwyn.
Although Evy and most of the other servants stayed behind, Nevyn
travelled with her ladyship. He wanted to ferret out information
about the ritual that had bound Evy to the dark aspect of the
goddess. She of the sword-pierced heart, she who sees the world
with the eyes of night ― at times she seemed to look out of Evy’s
eyes as well.

By that time Aberywn had grown large enough to
shelter several holy temples. Nevyn visited them all. The priests
of Bel told Nevyn that they knew nothing of such women’s matters.
The priest of Wmm did know of the ritual, but he assured Nevyn that
its details lay hidden, even from the scholar-priests on the Holy
Isle of Wmmglaedd. Nevyn could practically smell the fear oozing
from the various holy men when they spoke of the Dark Goddess. The
priestesses of the Moon, who most likely knew a great deal, sent
him brusquely away for daring to question their goddess’s
doings.

“No help, no lore, naught,” Nevyn said to
Lovyan. “A useless lot, these priests.”

“So it seems.” Lovyan paused for an
exasperated sigh. “I’m shocked at those sailors, I truly am. Most
Bardekians are such civilized people.”