The Blue Star

BY FLETCHER PRATT

NEW YORK : TWAYNE PUBLISHERS, INC.

COPYRIGHT 1952 BY TWAYNE PUBLISHERS, INC.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. NO PORTION OF THIS BOOK MAY BE REPRINTED WITHOUT PERMISSION EXCEPT BRIEF QUOTATIONS EMBODIED IN CRITICAL ARTICLES OR REVIEWS. FOR INFORMATION, ADDRESS TWAYNE PUBLISHERS, INC., 34 EAST 23D STREET, N. Y. 10.
MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Contents

[Prologue] 225 1 [Netznegon City: March Rain] 230 2 [April Night] 236 3 [Escape] 243 4 [Daylight; Refuge] 250 5 [Night; Generosity; Treason] 257 6 [Night and Day; The Place of Masks] 264 7 [Sedad Vix: A New Life] 271 8 [High Politic] 278 9 [Spring Festival: Intrigue of Count Cleudi] 285 10 [Prelude to the Servants’ Ball] 291 11 [Kazmerga; Two Against a World] 297 12 [Netznegon City; A Zigraner Festival] 306 13 [Farewell and Greeting] 314 14 [The Eastern Sea; The Captain’s Story] 321 15 [Charalkis; The Door Closes] 329 16 [The Eastern Sea: Systole] 337 17 [Charalkis: The Depth and Rise] 345 18 [Decide for Life] 353 19 [Two Choices] 360 20 [Inevitable] 366 21 [Midwinter: The Return] 372 22 [The Law of Love] 380 23 [Netznegon: Return to Glory] 387 24 [Speeches in the Great Assembly] 393 25 [Interview at the Nation’s Guest-House] 399 26 [The Court of Special Cases] 403 27 [Winter Light] 407 28 [Embers Revived] 413 29 [No and Yes] 418 [Epilogue] 422

Prologue

Penfield twirled the stem of his port-glass between thumb and finger.

“I don’t agree,” he said. “It’s nothing but egocentric vanity to consider our form of life as unique among those on the millions of worlds that must exist.”

“How do you know they exist?” said Hodge.

“Observation,” said McCall. “The astronomers have proved that other stars beside our sun have planets.”

“You’re playing into his hands,” observed Penfield, the heavy eyebrows twitching as he cracked a nut. “The statistical approach is better. Why doesn’t this glass of port suddenly boil and spout all over the ceiling? You’ve never seen a glass of port behave that way, but the molecules that compose it are in constant motion, and any physicist will tell you that there’s no reason why they can’t all decide to move in the same direction at once. There’s only an overwhelming possibility that it won’t happen. To believe that we, on this earth, one of the planets of a minor star, are the only form of intelligent life, is like expecting the port to boil any moment.”

“There are a good many possibilities for intelligent life, though,” said McCall. “Some Swede who wrote in German—I think his name was Lundmark—has looked into the list. He says, for instance, that a chlorine-silicon cycle would maintain life quite as well as the oxygen-carbon system this planet has, and there’s no particular reason why nature should favor one form more than the other. Oxygen is a very active element to be floating around free in such quantities as we have it.”

“All right,” said Hodge, “can’t it be that the cycle you mention is the normal one, and ours is the eccentricity?”

“Look here,” said Penfield, “what in the world is the point you’re making? Pass the port, and let’s review the bidding.” He leaned back in his chair and gazed toward the top of the room, where the carved coats of arms burned dully at the top of the dark panelling. “I don’t mean that everything here is reproduced exactly somewhere else in the universe, with three men named Hodge, McCall and Penfield sitting down to discuss sophomore philosophy after a sound dinner. The fact that we are here and under these circumstances is the sum of all the past history of—”

Hodge laughed. “I find the picture of us three as the crown of human history an arresting one,” he said.

“You’re confusing two different things. I didn’t say we were elegant creatures, or even desirable ones. But behind us there are certain circumstances, each one of which is as unlikely as the boiling port. For example, the occurrence of such persons as Beethoven, George Washington, and the man who invented the wheel. They are part of our background. On one of the other worlds that started approximately as ours did, they wouldn’t exist, and the world would be altered by that much.”

“It seems to me,” said McCall, “that once you accept the idea of worlds starting from approximately the same point—that is, another planet having the same size and chemical makeup, and about the same distance from its sun—”

“That’s what I find hard to accept,” said Hodge.

“Grant us our folly for a moment,” said McCall. “It leads to something more interesting than chasing our tails.” He snapped his lighter. “What I was saying is that if you grant approximately the same start, you’re going to arrive at approximately the same end, in spite of what Penfield thinks. We have evidence of that right on this earth. I mean what they call convergent evolution. When the reptiles were dominant, they produced vegetable-eaters and carnivores that fed on them. And among the early mammals there were animals that looked so much like cats and wolves that the only way to tell them apart is by the skeleton. Why couldn’t that apply to human evolution, too?”

“You mean,” said Penfield, “that Beethoven and George Washington would be inevitable?”

“Not that, exactly,” said McCall. “But some kind of musical inventor, and some sort of high-principled military and political leader. There might be differences.”

Hodge said: “Wait a minute. If we are the product of human history, so were Beethoven and Washington. All you’ve got is a determinism, with nothing really alterable, once the sun decided to cast off its planets.”

“The doctrine of free will—” began McCall.

“I know that one,” said Penfield. “But if you deny free will completely, you’ll end up with a universe in which every world like ours is identical—which is as absurd as Hodge’s picture of us is unique, and rather more repulsive.”

“Well, then,” said Hodge, “What kind of cosmology are you putting out? If you won’t have either of our pictures, give us yours.”

Penfield sipped port. “I can only suggest a sample,” he said. “Let’s suppose this world—or one very like it—with one of those improbable boiling-port accidents left out somewhere along the line. I mentioned the wheel a moment ago. What would life be like now if it hadn’t been invented?”

“Ask McCall,” said Hodge. “He’s the technician.”

“Not the wheel, no,” said McCall. “I can’t buy that. It’s too logical a product of the environment. Happens as soon as a primitive man perceives that a section of tree-trunk will roll. No. If you’re going to make a supposition, you’ll have to keep it clean, and think in terms of something that really might not have happened. For example, music. There are lots of peoples, right here, who never found the full chromatic scale, including the classical civilizations. But I suppose that’s not basic enough for you.”

For a moment or two, the three sipped and smoked in the unspoken communication of friendship. A log collapsed in the fireplace, throwing out a spray of sparks. McCall said: “The steam engine is a rather unlikely invention, when you come to think of it. And most modern machines and their products are outgrowths of it in one way or another. But I can think of one more peculiar and more basic than that. Gunpowder.”

“Oh, come,” said Hodge, “that’s a specialized—”

“No it isn’t,” said Penfield. “He’s perfectly right. Gunpowder destroyed the feudal system, and produced the atmosphere in which your steam engine became possible. And remember that all the older civilizations, even in the East, were subject to periodic setbacks by barbarian invasions. Gunpowder provided civilized man with a technique no barbarian could imitate, and helped him over the difficult spots.”

McCall said; “All the metal-working techniques and most of chemistry depend on the use of explosives—basically. Imagine digging out all the ores we need by hand.”

“All right, then,” said Hodge, “have your fun. Let’s imagine a world like this one, in which gunpowder has never been invented. What are you going to have it look like?”

“I don’t know,” said McCall, “but I think Penfield’s wrong about one point. About the feudal system, I mean. It was pretty shaky toward the end, and the cannon that battered down the castles only hurried up the process. There might be a lot more pieces of the feudal system hanging around without gunpowder, but the thing would be pretty well shot.”

“Now, look here,” said Hodge. “You’ve overlooked something else. If you’re going to eliminate gunpowder and everything that came out of it, you’ll have to replace it with something. After all, a large part of the time and attention of our so-called civilization have been spent in working out the results of the gunpowder and steam engine inventions, If you take those away, you’ll have a vacuum, which I’m told, nature abhors. There would have to be a corresponding development in some other field, going ’way beyond where we are.”

Penfield drank and nodded. “That’s fair,” he said. “A development along some line we’ve neglected because we have been too busy with mechanics. Why couldn’t it be in the region of ESP, or psychology or psychiatry—science of the mind?”

“But the psychologists are just operating on the ordinary principles of physical science,” said McCall. “Observing, verifying from a number of examples, and then attempting to predict. I don’t see how another race would have gone farther by being ignorant of these principles or overlooking them.”

“You’re being insular,” said Penfield. “I don’t mean that in another world they would have turned psychology into an exact science in our terms. It might be something altogether different. Your principles of science are developed along the lines of arithmetic. The reason they haven’t worked very well in dealing with the human mind may be because they aren’t applicable at all. There may be quite a different line of approach. Think it over for a moment. It might even be along the line of magic, witchcraft.”

“I like that,” said McCall. “You want to make a difference by substituting something phoney for something real.”

“But it might not be phoney,” insisted Penfield. “Magic and witchcraft are really pretty late in our world. They began to be talked about at the same time and on the same terms as alchemy, everything surrounded by superstition, lying and plain ignorance. In this world we’re imagining, somebody might have found the key to something as basic in that field as gunpowder was to the physical sciences. Some people say we almost made the discovery here. You know the story about this house?”

McCall nodded, but Hodge said: “No. What is it? Another ghost story?”

“Not quite. The old part of the house, the one where the bedrooms are now, is supposed to have been built by one of the Salem witches. Not one of those they hanged on false charges, but a perfectly genuine witch, who got away before she was suspected—as a real witch probably would. The story is that she came here and set up business among the Indians, and as they weren’t very expert at carpentry, she helped them build that part of the house with spells, so it would be eternal. The old beams haven’t a bit of iron in them; they’re all held together with pegs and haven’t rotted a bit. There’s also a story that if you make the proper preparations at night, something beyond the normal will happen. I’ve never done the right thing myself, apparently.”

“You probably won’t,” said Hodge. “The essence of the whole witchcraft business is uncertainty. Haven’t you noticed that in all the legends, the spells never quite come off when they’re needed?”

“That’s probably because there isn’t any science of witchcraft, with predictable results,” said McCall.

Penfield said: “It may be for another reason, too. Have you ever noticed that magic is the only form of human activity which is dominated by women? The really scary creatures are all witches; when a man becomes a magician, he’s either possessed of a devil or is a glorified juggler. Our theoretical world would have to start by being a matriarchy.”

“Or contain the relics of one,” said Hodge. “Matriarchies are socially unstable.”

“So is everything,” said McCall. “Flow and change from one form to another is a characteristic of life—or maybe a definition of life. That goes for your witchcraft, too. It would change form, there’d be resistance to it, and an effort to find something to replace it.”

“Or to remove the disabilities,” said Hodge. “The difficulty with any power we don’t really know about is not to define the power itself, but to discover its limitations. If witchcraft were really practical, there would be some fairly severe penalties going with it, not legally I mean, but personally, as a result of the practice. Or to put the thing in your terms, McCall, if there weren’t any drawbacks, being a witch would have such high selection value that before long every female alive would be a practicing witch.”

McCall carefully poured more port. “Hodge,” he said, “you’re wonderful, and I love you. But that’s typical of the way you put things. You cover up a weak point by following it with one that attracts everyone’s attention away from the feebleness of your real case. Penalties for everything? What’s the penalty for having an electric icebox?”

“A pampered digestive system,” said Hodge, readily. “I doubt whether you could survive the food Queen Elizabeth ate for very long, but she lived to be well over sixty. If there were witchcraft, or ESP or telepathy running around in the world, there couldn’t but be defenses against it and troubles for the practitioners. Had it occurred to you that even a witch couldn’t spend all her time stirring cauldrons, and might want to lead a normal life, with a husband and children?”

Penfield got up and stepped to the window, where he stood looking out and down at the midnight Atlantic, throwing its surges against the breast of the rocks. “I wonder if it really does exist,” he said.

Hodge laughed; but that night all three men dreamed: and it was as though a filament ran through the ancient rooms; for each knew that he dreamed, and dreamed the same dream as the others; and from time to time tried to cry out to them, but could only see and hear.

1
NETZNEGON CITY: MARCH RAIN

It was raining steadily outside. The older woman’s tears and words fell in time, drip, drip. Cold, for the tall window at the room’s end would never quite shut close, bottom and top not nest into the frame simultaneously. Lalette in her soutane felt goose-pimples and tried to shut out the sound by thinking of a man with a green hat who would give her a handful of gold scudi and nothing asked, merely because it was spring and she put a small spell on him with a smile, but it was not quite spring, and the voice persisted:

“. . . all my life—I have hoped—hoped and planned for you—even before you were born—even before you were born—daughter of my own—” (Yes, thought Lalette, I have heard that before, and it would move me more, but the night you drank the wine with Dame Carabobo, you told her how I was the product of a chance union in a carriage between Rushaca and Zenss) “—daughter—and after I saved and worked so hard—you miss the only chance—the only chance—don’t know what I’m going to do—and Count Cleudi’s not like most—”

“You told him what he offered was frightful. I heard you.”

(Sob) “It was. Oh, it was. Oh, Lalette, it isn’t right, you should be married with a gold coach and six horses—but what can we do?—oh, if your father had left us anything before the war—all I sacrificed for him—but that is what all of us must do, make sacrifices, we can’t have anything real without giving something away . . . Lalette!”

“Madame.”

“You will be able to employ the Art and have everything you want, you know most of the patterns already, he does not go to the Service often . . . and after all, it’s something that happens to every woman one way or another, and with the Art, even if he doesn’t marry you, he’ll find you a husband you won’t mind, it’s only men like Cleudi who want to be the first, a man who marries would really prefer a girl to have a little experience, I know . . . Lalette!”

Lalette did not answer.

“All the young ones come to the ball after the opera, Lalette. Count Cleudi will present you, and even if you don’t bring—”

(He would have not only a green hat, but southern-made lace at wrist and throat and a funny-looking man who spoke in a Mayern accent, thick as cream, and carried the purse because it spoiled the fit—)

“. . . as though he were just one of those . . . so considerate . . .” (I suppose we cannot control how we come by our parents) “. . . your father, like an angel out of heaven, and I could have taught you so much more if he—” (Now she is waist-deep in the past again, I’m going to hear it all over) “. . . really, for it is more like one step up than a leap down from a high place, which is always what we think before the first time . . . Lalette!”

“Yes, mother.”

Someone knocked at the door.

Lalette’s mother hastily daubed at her cheeks, heaved herself heavily from the chair, looked sidewise, saying; “We could sell the stone.” But before the girl could reply, the tap again. The older woman waddled across to the door and opened it a crack; a long jaw and long nose under a wet turn-down hat poked in.

“I was just saying to my daughter—” began Dame Leonalda.

A pair of thin shoulders pushed past her as though not hearing, the man stood in the center of the room, sniffed and wiped his nose on his sleeve. “Listen,” he said, “no more stories. I have heard too many.”

Dame Leonalda gave him a doleful look and bustled back to her seat. “But I assure you, Ser Ruald—”

“No more stories,” he said again. “I have charges to meet and taxes.”

She put her hands to her face. (Lalette thought: her only device; I hope I shall not grow like that.) Ruald said; “But I do not wish to be hard, no, and I know you have no money just now. So I will be fair, and if you render me a small service, why then, it is not beyond me to forgive the whole four months’ arrears.”

Dame Leonalda took down her hands again and said; “What is the service?” (Her voice had something like a tinge of dread.)

Ruald sniffed again, darted a glance at Lalette, another at the door, and stepped close. “I have heard that you belong to one of the families of the Blue Star.”

“Who told you that?”

“It does not matter. Is it true?”

The dame’s lips worked. “And what if it is?”

“Why this, dame: it will not peril your soul to place a small witchery—”

“No, no, I couldn’t do such a thing. You have no right to ask me.”

The man’s face sneered. “I have a right to ask you for my money, though.”

“No, no, I tell you.” Her hands waved the air. “That Dame Sauglitz, they punished her with five years and stripes.”

“They will punish nobody for this; utterly private between you and myself. Is not your skill enough so that no suspicion of witchery will fall on you? Come, I’ll do better. I’ll more than forgive the arrears, I’ll give you quit-rent for four other months to come.”

“Mother,” said Lalette from the corner.

Dame Leonalda turned around. “This does not concern you,” she said, and to Ruald; “But how am I to know that having done as you wish, you’ll not denounce me before the episcopals?”

“Why as for that, might I not want your help another time?” She put up a protesting hand, but he; “Come, no more stories. I’ll—”

There was another tap at the door. Ruald looked annoyance as Dame Leonalda crossed the room in another rustle of skirts. Her voice was almost gay. “Come in, Uncle Bontembi.”

Rain shook shining from his cloak. “Ah, charming Dame Leonalda.” The paunch hindered his bow. “The greetings of the evening to you, Ser Ruald. Why, this is a true evening gathering.”

“I was just leaving,” said Ruald, tugging at his jacket. “Well, then, Dame Leonalda, bear in mind what I have said. I’m sure we’ll reach accommodation.”

She did not get up as he went. When the door was closed she turned to Uncle Bontembi. “It is such a problem, dear Uncle,” she said. “Of course the child is perfectly right in a way, and it would be different if her father had left her anything at all, but with such a man as Cleudi—”

“The Count is a splendid gentleman,” said the priest. “I have seen him lose fifty gold scudi on a turn, but never his composure. And he is in high favor. Is there a problem relative to him? Not that his eye has fallen on our little Lalette? I would call that a matter for consent and rejoicing.”

“Ah, Uncle, it is this, if men only behaved as nobly toward women as they do to each other! He has set his eye on this dear child indeed, but not his hand, and says he will pay all our debts and give her a hundred gold scudi besides, if she will only accompany him to the opera and ball of the spring festival.”

Uncle Bontembi plucked at the button of his chin, and the smile left his face. “Hm, hm, it is certainly on the face of matters a proposal . . . You are certain you have not been employing the Art, Dame Leonalda?”

“Oh, no, never, never. And my dear little girl, how could she?”

The priest glanced sly-eye at the girl. “Yes, yes, she has her first confession to make. Well, well, let us think this out together. I will say the Count Cleudi is highly held in other circles beside the political. There was some theological discussion at the Palace Bregatz lately, and the Episcopal was of the opinion that he had never heard sounder doctrine or better put than by Cleudi. Wherefore he cannot be very far from the laws of the good God and right moral, can he? And so his plan may be of greater benefit than first appears.”

“I do not want such benefits,” said Lalette, (but thought: then I should have the Art!)

“Oho! Our junior niece resists; this is not the true humility. Come, Demoiselle Lalette, let us look at it this way: we can only truly serve good and vanquish the eternal forces of evil through the happiness of others, for if it is our own happiness we seek, then others doing the same will make all unhappy, and so give victory to evil.” He signed himself. “Thus to bring joy to others is the true service of religion and moral, no matter what the appearance may say. Now in this case there would be three people given happiness. Yes, yes, the doctrinal point is somewhat delicate, but I cannot find it in my mind to disapprove. There is a technical violation of moral law involved, and I am afraid the Church will have to assess a certain fine against you, but I will make it as light as possible. Enough to remind that a good action should be done for moral gain and not material.”

“I do not love him,” said Lalette.

“All the more unselfish, all the more.” The priest turned to Dame Leonalda. “Have you not made it clear to our niece that the true love which puts down evil in the name of the major glory of God is something that rises out of and after union? Why, if she talks so, I will have to lay church-duty on her for approaching the doctrines of the Prophet.”

“Oh, I have told her, I have told her.” (The mother’s voice began to cloud toward another rain of tears.) “But she is so romantical and sensitive, my little daughter, just like those poems by Terquid. When I was a girl—”

Lalette let her face smooth out (as she thought about the opera ball and what it would be like), but even that was not much use, their voices kept picking at her until she went behind the curtain to her bed in the corner, where it was even colder beneath the blanket at first, so that she curled up tight. (If I were really married, the Blue Star would belong to me and my husband, and . . .)

II

“But is it a genuine Blue Star?” asked Pyax. He turned toward Dr. Remigorius, who should know if anyone.

“Ah! Of that I cannot say. We have been deceived before. It is certain that the old woman has practised veritable witcheries; the Center of Veierelden found a record of a conviction against her in the church there. The only surety is in the test; and that is a test that only Friend Rodvard here can make. If it should be genuine, our game’s won.”

The lower lip of Pyax hung open among his pimples and Mme. Kaja’s ravaged face changed line. “It would be wo-onderful to have it,” she said, drawing out the long sound, and Rodvard felt the blood run warm beneath his skin as they all looked at him. “But I do not think her mother would permit a marriage,” he said. “How will you have me do?”

“Do? Do?” said the doctor, the little white planes at the corners of his mouth shining against the black fantastic cut of his beard. “Shall we school hens to lay eggs or rats to suck them for you? Do what is most natural for a lad with a willing girl in his arms, and the Blue Star is ours. Will you have Mme. Kaja to teach you?”

The flush warmed Rodvard, and he said; “I—will you—”

Mathurin in the background opened his thin, tight lips. “Our friend is lapped in the obligation of the Church. Hey, Rodvard Yes-and-No, what moral do you follow? If it’s to be that of the priests, you have no place with us. You are engaged as a soldier to the overthrow of all they stand for.”

“O-o-oh, you are so wrong, friend Mathurin,” said Mme. Kaja. “I understand. There is the heart—” she pressed a hand to a pendulous right breast “—but as my old friend, the Baroness Blenau used to say, hearts do not guide but to sorrow. Ah, friend Rodvard, believe me, if one is to have the great peace, one must deny the heart’s message and seek the good of all beyond what gives pain at the moment.” She slapped her breast again and turned to the others; “I know; he is in love with another.”

Without reason, Mathurin said suddenly; “When I went to the court service with Cleudi last night, the old hog was drunk again. Fell on the floor at her royal prayers and had to be helped—”

Dr. Remigorius; “Will you still distract us, Mathurin? There is but one present question before this Center—the bidding of the High Center that friend Rodvard here obtain the Blue Star from Lalette Asterhax. Can we report to them that the task is undertaken?”

Pyax spoke, running his tongue across lips; “If he will not, I can offer through marriage and lawful lease. My father would be willing to give a dower—”

Rodvard burst into laughter with the rest, over the thought there could be enough money in the world to buy a Dossolan bedding for one of Pyax’ Zigraner birth. (But the laugh ended bitterly for the young man at the thought that because they could see no better way he must give up his ideal of honor and true love. He tried to imagine how it would be to live with someone who did not love one again, but whom for honor’s sake he must have married, and for a moment the intent candle-lit faces dissolved away; he felt a momentary strange sweet painful thrill before the picture in his mind changed to that of his father and mother quarreling about money, and she began to scream until his father, with contorted face, reached down the cane from the mantel . . . Oh, if one gives in love, it should be forever, ever, love and death—)

“—still place him,” Dr. Remigorius was saying, “but that will be a matter for the High Center. No, there’s only the one thing, and we’ll have the answer now. Rodvard Bergelin, we summon you by your oath to the Sons of the New Day and your desire to overthrow the wicked rule of the Laughing Chancellor and the old Queen, to take your part.”

Pyax smiled nastily. “Remember Peribert? We know how to deal with those who fall away.”

“It is not good to be hard on those from whom you seek help,” said Mme. Kaja.

“Be still,” said Remigorius. “Young man, your word.”

(One more effort.) “Is it so vital that we have this jewel?” said Rodvard.

“Yes,” said Remigorius, simply; but Mathurin; “This is the only true Blue Star of which we have record, and even this one may not be true. But if you will not make the effort to win it, as ordered, there’s still an escape. You are a clerk to the Office of Pedigree; find another Blue Star that we can have, and you’re excused. But with matters so approaching a crisis at the court, we must have one; for we are the weaker party.”

Rodvard saw Pyax touch his knife-hilt and once more wetly run out his tongue, so like a lizard’s. Beaten; had he not himself in those long conversations until daybreak, maintained that among free men the more voices must make the decisions? With a sense that he was assuming an obligation to baseness, he said:

“I will do as you desire.”

Dr. Remigorius’ face cracked into a red-and-black smile. “Pfo, young man, you’ll make a witch of her and she will gain her fortune.”

Mme. Kaja came over to take both his hands as he left. “The heart will follow,” she said.

2
APRIL NIGHT

Lalette looked up through branches to the purpling sky, then down from the little crest and across the long flat fertile fields, reaching out toward the Eastern Sea, where night was rising. “I must go,” she said. “My mother will be back from the service.” Her voice was flat.

“Not yet,” said Rodvard, lifting his head from arms wrapped around his knees. “You said she would stay to talk with the fat priest. . . . In this light, your eyes are green.”

“It is the sign of a bad temper, my mother tells me. She looked in the waters for me once, and says that when I am married, I will be a frightful shrew.” (It was almost too much trouble to move, she was glad even to make a slender line of conversation that would hold her immobile in the calm twilight.)

“Then you must be fated to marry a bad man. I do not see—if you really loved someone, how could you be shrewish with them?”

“Oh, the girls of our heritage cannot marry for love. It is the tradition of the witch-families.” She sat up suddenly. “Now I must absolutely go.”

He placed his hand over hers, where it rested on the long green moss under the cedars. “Absolutely, I will not let you go. I will bind you with hard bonds, till you tell me more about your family. Do you really have a Blue Star?”

“My mother does. . . . I do not know. My father would never use it, that is why we are so poor. He said it was wrong and dangerous. My mother’s father used it though, she says, before she got it from him. It was he who told her to choose my father. He was a Capellan in the army, you know, and was killed in the war at the siege of Sedad Mir. My mother’s father could read through the Star that my father wanted my mother for herself and not for her heritage. It was a love-match, but now there is no one that can use the Star.” (Lalette thought: I really must not tell stories like that that are not true, it only slipped out because I do not wish to go back and hear her talking about Count Cleudi again.)

“Could not you sell it?” asked Rodvard.

“Who would buy it? It would be a confession that someone wanted to practice witchery, and then the priests would come down and there’d be a church trial. It is a very strange thing and a burden to have witchery in one’s blood.” She shuddered a little (attracted and yet depressed, as always when it was a question of That). “I do not want to be a witch, ever—”

“Why, I would think—” began Rodvard, (really thinking that in spite of her beauty, this was the reason she more than a little repelled).

“—and have people hating me, and those who want to like me not sure whether they really do, or whether it is only another witchery. The only real friend my mother has is Uncle Bontembi, and that’s because he’s a priest, and I don’t think he’s a real friend either, but keeps watch of her so that when she makes a witchery he can collect another fine for the Church.” Rodvard felt the small hand clench beneath his own. “I’ll never marry, and stay a virgin, and will not be a witch!”

“What would happen to the Blue Star then? You have no sisters, have you?”

“Only a brother, and he went overseas to Mancherei when the Prophet began to preach there. Somebody said he went beyond to the Green Isles afterward, when the Prophet left. We do not hear from him any more. . . . But he couldn’t use the Blue Star anyway, unless he were bound with a girl from one of the other families, who could witch it for him.”

Overhead the sky was deepening, with one faint easterly star agleam, a long slow smoke rose in convolutions from the chimney of a cot down there, (and Rodvard thought desperately of the lovely light-haired girl who had come so many times to search witch-family records at his clerk’s cabinet in the Office of Pedigree, but she was a baron’s daughter by her badge, and even if he did obtain the Blue Star from this one, and used it to win the light-haired girl, then Lalette would be a witch and put a spell on him—oh tangle!). The hand within his stirred.

“I must go,” said Lalette again. (He looks something like Cleudi, she was thinking, but not so old and hard and a little romantic, and he had eye enough to catch the wonderful tiny flash of green among the blue when the sun dipped under.)

“Ah, no. You shall not go, not yet. This is a magic evening and we will keep it forever till all’s dark.”

Her face softened a trifle in the fading light, but she pulled to withdraw her hand. “Truly.”

He clung the tighter, feeling heart-beat, vein-beat in the momentary small struggle. “What if I will not let you go till lantern-glass and the gates are closed?”

”Then Uncle Bontembi will expect me to make a confession and if I do not, he will put a fine on me, and it will be bad for my mother because we are so poor.”

“But if I kept you, it would be to run away with you, ah, far beyond the Shining Mountains, and live with you forever.”

Her hand went passive again, she leaned toward him a trifle, as though to see more surely the expression on his face. “Do you mean that, Rodvard Bergelin?”

He caught breath. “Why—why should I say it else?”

“You do not. Let me go, let me go, or I’ll make you.” She half turned, trying to rise, bringing the other hand to help pull loose his fingers.

“Will you witch me, witch?” he cried, struggling, and his grasp slipped to her wrist.

“No—.” She snatched at the held hand with the other, catching the thumb and crying fiercely; “I’ll break my own finger, I swear it, if you do not let go.”

“No. . . .” He flung her two hands apart. Lithe as a serpent, she wrung one and then the other from his grasp, but it was with an effort that carried her off balance and supine asprawl. He rolled on his hip to pin her down, hands on her elbows, breast to breast, and was kissing her half-opened mouth till she stopped trying, turning her face from his and whispering: “Let me go. It’s wrong. It’s wrong.”

“I will not,” and he released one hand to feel where the maddening sensation of her breast came against him and the laces began. (The thought was fleetingly seen in the camera obscura of his inner mind that he did not love her and would have to pay for this somehow.)

“Let me go!” she cried again in a strangled voice, and convulsing, struck him on the side of the head with her free hand. At that moment the laces gave, her hand came round his head instead of against it, drawing his face down in a long sobbing kiss, through which a murmur, softer than a whisper; “All right, oh, all right, go on.” (There was one little flash of triumph across her mind, one trouble solved, Cleudi would never want her now.)

Afterward, he knelt to kiss her skirt-hem. Her lips were compressed at the center, a little raised at the corners. “Now I understand,” said she; but he did not, and all the way home was eaten by the most dreadful cold fear that she would revenge herself on him with a witchery that would leave him stark idiot or smitten with dreadful disease. And the other, the other; his mind would not form her name, and there was a cry within him.

II

All three of them were waiting, with that man of Count Cleudi’s—the olive-skinned one with such intense eyes—what was his name? Lalette curtsied; Uncle Bontembi smiled. Said Cleudi; “Mathurin, the baskets. I commenced to think we should miss the pleasure of your company tonight, charming Demoiselle Lalette, and my heart was desolated.”

“Oh,” she said, (thinking—what if they knew?). “But here is Uncle Bontembi who will tell you that to be desolate of heart is to serve evil and not true religion, since God wishes us to be happy; for since he has created us in his image, it must be an image of delight.”

“You reason like an angel, Demoiselle Lalette; permit that I salute you.” She moved just enough to make his kiss fall on her cheek. Dame Leonalda simpered, but there was, flick and gone again, a frown across Cleudi’s high-cheekboned face. “What a lovely color your daughter has!”

Mathurin laid out the table with napkins which he unfolded from the baskets. There were oysters packed in snow; bubbling wine; a pastry of truffles and pike-livers; small artichokes pickled entire, peaches that must have come from the south, since it was only peach-blossom time in Dossola; white bread; a ham enriched with spices; honeyed small sweetmeats of dwarf fruit. (If he were only more to me and less for himself, thought Lalette, he might be possible; for he does not stint.) They sat down with herself and her mother opposite each other and the two men at the sides of the table, so small that knees touched. Mathurin the servant stood beside her chair, but flitted round to give to the rest as occasion demanded. Cleudi discoursed—a thousand things, eating with his left hand and letting his right now and again drop to touch the fabric over Lalette’s leg, which, laughing with talk and wine, she did not deny him. (An aura, like a perfume of virility and desire and pleasure, emanated from him; Lalette felt as though she were swaying slightly in her seat.)

“Lalette Asterhax; the name has fifteen letters,” said Cleudi, “and the sum of one and five is six, which fails by one the mystical number of seven. Look also, how you may take it by another route, L being the twelfth letter of the alphabet, so that to it, there is added one for A, another twelve for the second L and so on, the sum of all being eighty-seven.” (He has prepared this in advance, she thought.) “Being itself summed up again this eighty-seven is fifteen, so it is evident that you will be incomplete and thus lacking in happiness, until united with a man who can supply the missing figures.”

“I am not sure that the Church would approve your doctrine,” said Uncle Bontembi. He had moved his chair around to place his arm over the back of Dame Leonalda’s, and she had thrown her head back to rest on the arm.

“You are clearly wrong, my friend,” said Cleudi. “The Church itself takes cognizance of the power of numbers, which are the sign-manual of enlistment under God against evil, rather than being the protection itself, as some ignorant persons would make them. Look, does not the Church in Dossola have seven Episcopals? Are there not seven varieties of angels, and is it not dulcet to make seven prayers within the period? Whereas it is the heretical followers of the Prophet who deny the value of numbers.”

“Then,” said Lalette, “I must never complete myself by union with you; for you have five letters and the seven of my first name being added to them, make twelve, which is three by your manner of computation, and an evil omen.”

Cleudi laughed. “All, divine Lalette, your reasoning is unreason.” He poured more wine. “For it is clear that man and woman are each incomplete by themselves, not to be completed until they are united; else we were not so formed. Now such union is manifestly to the pleasure of God, since he arranged it thus, so that if anything prevent true union, it must be contrary to the ordinance of God. Is this not exact, Uncle Bontembi?”

Through Dame Leonalda’s giggle the priest smiled, his face curling in wrinkles around the fat. “Your lordship lacks only the oath and a drop of oil in the palm to be an Episcopal. I resign in your favor my chance of preferment.”

“But I’ll resign no chance of preferment.” Cleudi reached to squeeze Lalette’s hand, where it lay on the table. “A stroke of fortune. I happened to fall in with His Grace the Chancellor only this morning. He spoke of the difficulty in finance, which is such that—would you believe it?—there is even some question whether Her Majesty will be able to take her summer holiday in the mountains.”

Dame Leonalda raised her head. “Oh, oh, the disgrace!” she sighed.

“I do not see the stroke of fortune,” said Lalette simply.

“A disgrace, yes,” said Cleudi, his mobile face for a moment morose. “But I was happily able to suggest to His Grace that the matter of taxes be placed in the hands of the lords of court, themselves to be taxed an amount equal to that due from their seignories, and they to collect it within their estates.”

“Again—the stroke of fortune?” said Lalette, not much interested, as she dipped a finger in the wine and drew arabesques on the table-napkin in the damp.

“His Grace was so much charmed with my plan that he offered me a place in the service, with the directorate of the lottery, so that I now am happy enough to be no more a Tritulaccan, but Dossolan by service of adoption.” He lifted his glass to Lalette. “I shall drink to your grey eyes, and you to my fortune.”

The glasses touched. “I do wish you good fortune,” she said.

“What better fortune could there be than to have you attend with me the first opera-ball of the season, and make the drawing of the lottery as its queen?”

Said Uncle Bontembi, in a voice as rich as though he were addressing a congregation; “Spring is the season most calculated to show forth the victory of God over evil and the beginning of new growth and happiness. Not only do we celebrate the return of the sun, but the rejection of darkness, as the former Prince and false Prophet.” Lalette did not look at him.

“I will send a costumer to make you one of the new puffed bodices in—yes, I think it must be red for your coloring . . .” began Cleudi, and then stopped, his eyes seeming to jut from their sockets, as he stared at the wet design under Lalette’s finger. Her own gaze focussed, and suddenly she felt tired and very old and not wine-struck any more, for without thinking at all she had traced the witch-patterns her mother taught her long ago, and now they were smoking gently on the table-cloth.

“Witchery!” croaked the Count, but recovered faster than the shock itself, and slid in one motion to his feet, with an ironical bow. “Madame, my congratulations on your skill in deception, which should take you far. You and your precious mother made me believe you pure.”

“Yes, witchery.” She was up, too. “It would have been the same in all cases. I don’t want your filthy costume and your filthy scudi. Now, go!” Before he could sign himself, she splashed him with a spray of the dazzling drops from her fingertips. “Go, in the name of Trustemus and Vaton, before I bid you go in such a manner you can never rest again.”

Off to one side Lalette heard her mother sob; Cleudi’s face took on a look of dogged blankness. Without another word he let his hands drop loose to his side, trotted to the door and through it. Cried Uncle Bontembi; “We’ll see to her later. I must release him,” and rushed after, his fingers fumbling in his robe for the holy oil, his flesh sagging in grey bags above his jowls.

Lalette sat down slowly, (her mind devoid of any thought save a kind of regretful calm now she had done it), as her mother raised a face where tears had streaked the powder. “Oh, Lalette, how could you—” (the girl felt a wild flutter of being trapped again), but both had forgotten the servant Mathurin, who stepped forward to grip urgently at Lalette’s elbow. “Rodvard Bergelin?” he demanded, and she recoiled from the temper of his face, then remembered her new-won power, and touched his hand lightly as though to brush it away, saying:

“And what business of yours if it was?”

“He is the only one can save you. The Blue Star, quickly! Cleudi will never forgive you. He’ll have you before the Court of Deacons; he’ll—” He ran round the table to Dame Leonalda. “Madame, where is the Blue Star? It belongs to your daughter, and she must leave on the moment. You will not know her if she has the torturers to deal with.”

The older woman only collapsed into a passion of alcoholic sobbing, head on arms across the table. “I suppose I must trust you,” said Lalette. “I think I know where it is.”

“Believe me, you must. He is as cruel as a crocodile; would strew your grave afterward with poems written by himself, but not till he has the fullest pains from you. . . . Is it in that?”

Lalette had pulled aside her mother’s bed, beneath which lay the old leather portmanteau with the bar-lock. Mathurin tried it once, twice; it would not give. Before the girl could protest, he whipped a knife like a steel tongue from beneath his jacket and expertly slashed around the fastening. The portmanteau fell open on a collection of such small gauds and bits of clothing as women treasure, Mathurin shovelling them onto the floor with both hands until at the back he came on an old, old wooden box, maybe a handsquare across, with a crack in the wood and a thin slab of marble that might once have borne an inscription set in its cover.

“That must be it,” said Lalette, “though I have seen it only outside the case. I cannot be certain now.”

“Why?”

“A witchery is needed, and—”

“Get your cloak and what money you have. Rodvard lives in the Street of the Weavers, the third house on the left as you turn in, the one with the blue door. Do not wait; I must attend my master.”

3
ESCAPE

There was a moon to throw black shadows on passing cat and man; Lalette’s little sharp heels clicked so loud on the pave that she almost changed to tiptoe. The Street of the Weavers was known to her; at its gate she had first met Rodvard, amid booths gay with bunting for the autumn festival. He slapped her with a bladder then, and challenged her to dance the volalelle among the reeling violins and sweet recorders . . .

“Fair lady,” said a tentative voice. Not even looking round, she pulled the hood closer and hurried her steps until those behind her sounded irresolute and then died away.

One, two, three; moonlight showed a door that would be a worn blue by day, clearly a pensionnario. Lalette caught her breath at the loud flat rap of the knocker through the silent street, held it for a long minute and was just wondering whether she dared strike again, when there was a sound of fuzzy disturbance within, and a wicket window beside the door came open on an ill-tempered face, with a long, drooping, dirty moustache.

“What do you want?”

“I—I must speak with Rodvard Bergelin.”

“This is a respectable house. Speak with him in the morning.”

“It is—a matter of life and death—Oh, dear God!” as the wicket began to close. “Here.” She reached in her purse and recklessly thrust at the face one of the three silver spadas that were all the money she had in the world (What will mother do tomorrow morning?). The face expressed a sour satisfaction; an inarticulate grumble came out of it, which she interpreted as a command to wait where she was. (The musicians’ booth had been where the shadow of a turret split the corner in particular shapes.)

A sound of footsteps approached the door from within and it opened upon Rodvard yawning, hair awry, hose wrinkled at the knees, jacket flung around unlaced.

“Lalette! What is it? Come in.”

The moustached face hung itself in the background. “She cannot come in this house at night.”

“The parlor—”

“I say she cannot come in so late. This is a respectable house. Go down to Losleib Street.”

Face closed the door; Rodvard, all anxious, came down the single step, pulling his jacket together (with the fine brown hair curling on his chest in the form of a many-pointed star). “What is it?”

“Can you help me? I do not want to be a burden, but there is trouble. Truly, not meaning to, I set a witchery on Count Cleudi, and they said he would have me arrested to the Court of Deacons.”

He was all wideawake and grave at once. “Is there no legalist or priest you could—”

She stamped. “Would I come here, to your respectable house?”

“I did not mean—I only asked—forgive, this is to be thought on. . . . Attention; I have heard of an inn by the north gate where provosts never find anyone who pays. I will go with you.”

“I have hardly any money.”

Even in that uncandid light, she saw his face frown and alter, almost as Cleudi’s had, another resemblance. (That is what he imagines I am like, the quick thought crossed her mind, bitterer than the doorman’s suspicion.) “Wait; I think I know where you’ll be safe for tonight, with a friend of mine who is no friend of provosts or court lords, either. But I must get my cap and knife.”

She was quick enough dodging his kiss to make it seem she was only missing the intention. He went round on his heel and up the stair, back in a minute with the feathered cap he had worn that afternoon, and properly belted with his knife. “This friend of mine is a Dr. Remigorius, have you heard of him? A great man to roar at you like a lion, but of good and generous heart. For the poor he has always a kind word, and often physics them or delivers their children without ever asking payment.”

They passed into the night city. “How did it happen?” questioned he at a turning.

“In the beginning an accident—ah, do not ask me.” She gestured impatient, then put the hand that did not hold his arm up to her face. “And now I am a witch, and I swore I never would be.”

“It is my fault. I am sorry. Will you wed with me?” (The words were out; he felt a thrill of peril run up his spine.)

“Do you wish—no you do not, I know it. Beside, how would we find a priest who’d make a marriage without episcopal license—and for a witch?”

“But I do truly desire it. I swear—”

“Oh, spare me your false oaths. Since you ask forgiveness, I’ll forgive anything but those.” She gripped his arm suddenly so hard it hurt. At the corner of the next street was a watch of two, one with halberd and helmet, the other sword and lantern, but the sight of late-walking couples would be less than novel to them, they only gave a glance in passing.

Rodvard brought her round another corner and before one of those houses built with jutting overstoreys in the Zigraner fashion. Small-paned windows were beside a door, where a stiff stuffed lizard hung to show that someone within practiced the art medic. The bell tinkled crackedly; Rodvard’s arm came nervous-tight around the girl. “It will turn to a happy issue,” he said. “No harm can touch us, now we have—found each other.” She did not try to draw from the warm sweet pressure, and it endured until a second ring brought the man out, with a fine beard ridiculously done up in a sleeping-bag to hold its shape, and a robe like a priest’s hastily corded round him.

“This is the Demoiselle Asterhax,” said Rodvard. “Can you help her? She has put a witchery on one of the court lords, Count Cleudi, and is searched for by the provosts.”

Sleep fell from the older man’s eyes. “A witchery? The Tritulaccan count? He has enough favor to be deadly if he will, and it would involve me in the overthrow. . . . But I am sworn by the practice of the healing art to refuse help to none who come in distress. Enter from the cold.”

Lalette caught a darkling glimpse of shelves lined with jars in glass or stone as they passed through. Rodvard half stumbled against a stool and they were at an inner door, where Dr. Remigorius said; “Halt,” struck flint and steel to a candle and stood in its light beside the untidy bed, pulling off his beard-bag. “Now you shall tell me a true tale of how this came about,” he said, “for a physician must know the whole nature of the disease he is to cure, ha, ha. Will the demoiselle sit?” He swept the pile of his own garments from the only chair to the bed.

The wine in her limbs and the long double walk had left Lalette tired and safe and not caring very much now. She sat down slowly. “It was only that Count Cleudi came with some baskets of supper and was trying to persuade me to go to the opera-ball with him, and I was toying with my fingers in some spilled wine on the table. You know how one does—” she made a little gesture of appeal. “I accidentally drew witch patterns and when he saw what they were, he—he—he would have had me against my will, so I witched him. That’s all.”

Not a line changed in Remigorius’ face. Said he; “I see—all but one detail. What made you flee so fast by midnight to my friend Rodvard? What do you know about this Count Cleudi?”

“It was his servant, a man named Mathurin, said I must instantly take my mother’s Blue Star and go. Because he would have had me killed.”

She saw Rodvard flick up his eyebrows as he glanced at Remigorius. (The expression round his mouth might have been triumph, which was incomprehensible); her brow knit, but the doctor’s voice was smooth as ice; “It is not your mother’s Blue Star, but your man’s, while he is your lover, and I think this must be the case, or you would not have witched this southern Count. You have Ser Rodvard’s bauble safe, then?”

(A faint perfume of suspicion—was it to herself or to this Blue Star that he was offering kindness?) Lalette said; “I have it here,” and took the box from under her cloak.

The doctor, gravely; “Then you will have the provosts much the hotter on your trail, since the lords temporal and spiritual are not desirous to have these things in hands they are not certain of. I think you must fly from the city as fast as you can, perhaps even beyond the Queen’s writ, up to Kjermanash. Not Mayern, because of the Prince and his prophecies. But before that it would be well to provide this Blue Star with the needed witchery and let Ser Rodvard bear it. When you are not easily found, be sure they will set spies out for you, and with this tool you may be sure of people you meet.”

Lalette frowned, but looked at Rodvard. “Is this your word also?”

“How could it be other? I think we may need the protection.”

“Very well.” She lifted one palm to her forehead. “This witching is, I think, something that leaves one without force or will, and I have performed one tonight. But I will do it. I would be private.”

“There is the shop. Do you require materials, demoiselle?”

“Only a little water—though wine would be better.”

Remigorius produced a bottle half-filled with wine from a tall cabinet against the wall, lighted a candle-stub, and swung the shop-door open with a bow. When it had closed behind her, Rodvard said; “I do not see how, if she is to be taken instantly from the city, I can use this Blue Star for our purpose.”

The doctor glanced sidelong and whipped a finger to his lips. “Tish! Matter for the High Center. But who said you would go with her?” They were quiet; a small sound, like the mewing of a kitten, came from the shop, then it stopped, and Lalette came back in. The hood was on her shoulders, and her face was white to the hair-roots; the wooden case stood open in her hand, and in it, lying on a bed of white silk so old it had faded to yellow, the Blue Star, the witch-stone, smaller than might have been imagined, barely a finger-joint across, but seeming to have depth, so that even in the candlelight all the sapphirean fires of ocean and cold hell were in its heart.

Rodvard shivered slightly. Lalette said; “Open your jacket,” and when he had done so, hung the jewel round his neck on its thin gold chain.

“Now I will tell you as I have been taught,” she said, “that while you wear this jewel, you are of the witch-families, and can read the thoughts of those in whose eyes you look keenly. But only while you are my man and lover, for this power is yours through me. If you are unfaithful to me, it will become for you only a piece of glass; and if you do not give it up at once when I ask it back, there will lie upon you and it a deadly witchery, so that you can never rest again.”

She came forward to take his face in both hands and kiss him on the lips. The stone lay like a piece of ice against his bare chest. Rodvard felt no different, unchanged, but as he looked deep into the girl’s eyes before him, he knew without words but beyond any doubt that a black shadow had closed round her mind, she would never witch him, she had decided, but was hating all this and Remigorius and him too, for the moment. He turned his head, the thought flashed away, and the doctor said, with a twist at the corner of his lips:

“Now we will see if this star is a true marvel or only another of the bogey-tales made up by the lords of court to keep men in submission. Look in my eyes, Ser Rodvard, and tell me what I am thinking.”

Rodvard looked. “Why, why,” he said, “I do not altogether understand, but it is as though you were saying in words that you would try on a living person whether an infusion of squill in vinegar is useful in a stoppage of the passages.” (It was not the complete thought, there was a formless shadow at the back of his mind, something about a treason.) Remigorius shook his head and turned from the gaze with pressed lips.

“God’s splendor! You are become a dangerous man, Ser Bergelin,” he said, “or a cleverer one than I think.” Then; “I count the night more than half gone, and you will need rest, having far to travel in the morning. I leave you two my bed while I arrange for your journey.” He picked up his clothes and bowed himself into the shop to dress. Rodvard and Lalette were left alone.

II

She remained in the chair, with her head drooping and slightly to one side, so he could see only the angle of cheek and chin. “The bed,” he said. “I am so weary,” said she, “that it’s not needed. Do you take it and let me rest here. I’ll turn my back if you wish to undress.”

(The thought went tingling through his mind that after this afternoon—so long ago, now—they needed no more be modest with each other.) It almost reached his lips, but instead; “No, you shall have the bed; you need it,” and held his hand to help her up, but she hardly touched it, on her feet with a sweep of skirts, to take one stumbling step to the towseled bed, where she flung herself down in her cloak, and as he could tell from her breathing, was asleep almost at once.

He, wakeful as an owl-bird with excitement and having slept earlier, sat in a chair with the ice-cold jewel unfamiliar around his neck—bodily contact had not warmed it at all—half daydreaming, half thinking. A high destiny? Not with a witch and through witchery. All he thought revolted against that, it was cheating, if witchery should rule, there was an end of free choice where choice meant most, all hopes were then fled. There’s no new day if this rules, we may as well make our beds under the old Queen’s rule, and that of Florestan, the Laughing Chancellor.

Remigorius. The doctor would say this was not what he thought, but what he had been taught; they had quarrelled on this issue before, and Remigorius would say how Rodvard’s reasoning led straight as a line to the support of all the things that both desired to throw down; how it was precisely the rejection of witchcraft as devilish and unclean that Episcopals and Queen stood for. If there were a good God, as the Church said, He could not allow a free choice that might be turned against Himself and so deprive Him of godhead.

Mathurin would chime in at this point to say that no man under tyranny would by free choice choose freedom, the generality preferring rather to have a chance of rising to the tyrant’s seat. They must be compelled to take the better way to their own betterment, so that even in the secular affair free choice was a dream—and then he, Rodvard, would be overborne by the whirl and rush of their arguments.

A high destiny? Let us, Sons of the New Day, compel them, then; ride the stormwind to greatness by setting men free. Oh, it would be noble to be acclaimed as one of those who had brought about the change. But no; no; that honor would go to those of the High Center, the leaders now hidden in shadow, whose forms would stand forth in granite with the dawning of the New Day—while the name of Rodvard Bergelin was never heard.

A high destiny? He thought of battle, the close combat where steel bows flung their sharp messengers against the double-locked shields and horsemen went past, while the trumpets shouted. The war-tune rang through his head—“Lift the star of old Dossola, brave men rise and tyrants stare . . .”

No. The star would never rise in this time. Dossola, defeated and dead to honor, bound down by treaties which Queen and Florestan upheld merely to keep their own place. Shame—no high destiny could come from serving such a cause. For so much, what could Rodvard Bergelin do in war, even if the cause were better? There had been Dagus of Grödensteg, to be sure, the archer, the great hero who sprang from night and nowhere when Zigraners were a terror to the land—Rodvard thought of his statue in the Long Square, one arm aloft to hold the deadly bow, the star-badge in his cap. But that was in the far-off glorious times, when one could clap on a hat and run forth to adventure instead of a day’s toil over yellow documents at the Office of Pedigree. What could one do in this modern war, where noble birth and twenty years of service were needed to make a commander? He’d lay some captain’s bed, no doubt, and clean his tent; or enter for a ten-year man, learn the halberd, how to shoot the bow and form square—a dull depressing life, with a cold lone grave at the end of it; “stupid as a spearman” said the proverb, and all he had known were stupid enough. No; no destiny. “The destiny of all is to service, for only so can happiness be won.” Who had said that? Some priest; member of what Mathurin called the conspiracy against poverty. Yet if it were not true, one must save one’s services for oneself and be false as hell to all the world beside. Let conscience die . . . and dawn began to poke behind the gray window at the sound of the doctor’s entry returning.

4
DAYLIGHT; REFUGE

Lalette sat up sleepily and sipped a little wine; there was nothing to eat but the end of a loaf, most of which Rodvard devoured, surprised to find that he was hungry, (and a tingle running down his veins as he thought of the evening under the cedars). Remigorius did not even wait for the end of the meager breakfast before breaking out with; “Hark, the provosts are already forth. This must be hurried, and you two must leave. I have arranged matters to the least peril. There’s an inn on King Crotinianus’ Square, at the north end, called the Sign of the Limping Cat, where the north-going coaches halt to pick up travellers from that side of the city. Go there; you can wait on the bench outside and had better, to avoid talking with someone who might be a spy. I trust you, demoiselle, to keep your face as much covered as possible; Rodvard, you shall use that devil-stone to know the purpose of any who approach.

“There will be a blue-painted coach which goes to Bregatz by way of Trandit and Liazabon. The driver’s name is Morsens; inquire. Before Trandit you should make an argument for the benefit of others in the coach, you being a young couple just wed, so joyous in the bridal that the new dame’s trunk has been forgot. At Trandit, then, Ser Rodvard will descend to return for it, while Demoiselle Asterhax rides on to Bregatz in the care of Morsens the coachman and reaches those of the Center there. Are you players enough to play these parts? . . . It will thus not be strange when Morsens protects her, which he will gladly do. But you must give him a gold scuderius, for he is not one of ours, and his danger is very great.”

Lalette, who had begun to take down her hair with fingers swift and sure in order to do it up into the bridal braids, stopped with pursed mouth. “But I do not have a scuderius,” she said. “I have hardly any money at all.”

An expression of furious indignation held the doctor’s face as it turned toward Rodvard. “You?” But the young man, flushing, reached in his jacket-pocket for a handful of coppers and one single silver spada. “Perhaps we can make it up together,” he said. “They are so deep in arrears of pay at the office where I’m employed . . . or if we can find a Zigraner with his shop open early, I might pledge my wage . . .”

“Or if we find a kind-hearted provost with scudi instead of bilboes for those he pursues!” cried Remigorius. “Madam, you will need all the witchcraft you can muster, for you are surely the most improvident fool that ever tried an evasion with what did not belong to her. I’ve no money, either.” He tugged at his beard, looking at her from anger-filled eyes, but before Lalette could more than begin the sound of a hot retort, changed expression, shrugged, and spread his hands:

“There’s a night’s work gone glimmering, then. But I’ll not send you back to Cleudi and the Deacons’ Court, even though you were other than friend Rodvard’s mistress.” He mused (and Rodvard, catching his eye as the head turned, saw in it a flash of deadly acquisitiveness for the Blue Star, no real interest in Lalette’s fate whatever). The young man started as from a blow; Remigorius spoke again:

“You must hide in the city, then, till somehow transport’s found. Would be welcome to this abode, but too many come here for physic; the matter would be bruited about. Nor your place, neither, Rodvard. The Queen’s provosts will not be long in finding your connection with this demoiselle, no. Your mother know of it?”

Said Lalette; “If you mean of Rodvard, I—I do not think so. We met always while she was at the Service. He never came to the house and there was only my gossip, Avilda Brekoff, who was ever with us.”

“Then we may have a few days before they come on the scent. Were you seen coming here last night?”

“Only by a watch of two from a distance, and by the doorman where I live,” said Rodvard, but Lalette; “I had to give the man a silver spada to call Rodvard and there was some slight bargle over whether I might enter. I fear I was not only seen, but noted. I regret.”

“You may well. Here’s the few days lost again. If the matter’s pressed, they will surely question the doorman of every pensionnario in the city.” Remigorius swung knit brows to Rodvard; “You had best go to your working place today, for the absence might be noted. But I will let you return to your pensionnario for only the once, and then to bring away nothing but your most intimate needs. Stop for no meal, where there’s talk—at least, till we can be sure of this doorman. What’s his name?”

“Krept or something like it, I do not know for sure. We call him Udo the crab. I have one or two books I would not willingly lose.”

“Would you rather lose your life?” The doctor scrabbled for a piece of paper and began to write. “This is more dreadful than you know of. Demoiselle, you can be secure for a little time with a friend of ours, a certain Mme. Kaja, who used to be a singer in the opera. She lives on the top floor of an old goat’s nest in the Street Cossao and has young girls visiting her all the time for instruction in music, so there’ll be no comment at your appearance.” His pen scratched, he stood up, threw sand on the paper and let it slide to the floor. “This be your passport. Your lover—” (the word was accompanied by a lip-turn that made Lalette shiver) “—can join you there this twilight. But wait—you may be known in the street.”

He bustled into the shop-room and returned with a pair of quills. “Up your nose, one on either side. So. I’d like it better if there were another cloak for you, but leave the hood of this one down; with your hair changed, and your face . . .”

II

It would be the morning after his wedding breakfast on new wine and old bread with fear for a sauce, that she should come to the Office of Pedigree again—with her bands of light hair, fine chin line and cheekbones, and the pointed coronet badge in her hat that showed her a baron’s daughter. All morning Rodvard had been dozing and drowsing; she greeted him gaily; “Have you found more of this matter with which the stem of Stojenrosek is to confound Count Cleudi, or has the weather been too fine for work indoors?”

“No, demoiselle.” (There was a twist in his chest, he could barely get the words out.) He passed the chair where she showed a turn of ankle, to one of the tall dark wall-files, and took out a parchment. “One of the recorders lighted on this—see, it is from the reign of King Crotinianus the Second, the great king, and bears his seal of the boar’s head, with that of his Chancellor. It is a series of decisions on inheritance and guardianship for the province of Zenss. At the eleventh year of the reign there is one here—” he handled the pages over carefully “—giving the son of Stojenrosek leave to wed with one Luedecia and pass the inheritance to their daughters, though she’s but a bowman’s daughter herself, there being no heiresses female to take the estate, which would thus have fallen to the crown.”

She had stood up to look at the old crabbed chancery hand of the document where he spread it on the table and her shoulder brushed his. Said she; “Did they wed, then?”

“Alas, demoiselle, I cannot tell you.” (Shoulder did not withdraw.) “So many of the records of that time were destroyed in the great fire at Zenss a quadrial of years ago. But I will search.”

“Do so . . . I cannot read it,” she said. “What does this say?” Her fingers touched his in a small shock, where they were outspread to hold the parchment, and the contact rested as she bent to look, in the spring light filtering through the dusty panes. The inner door to the cabinet adjoining was closed; down the corridor outside, someone was whistling as he walked, she turned her head to face him slowly, he felt the witch-stone cold as ice over his heart, and to shut out what he feared was coming, Rodvard croaked chokingly;

“What is your name?”

“My name is Maritzl.” (No use; it came over sharply—if he kiss me, I will not stay him, I will marry him, I will take him into my father’s house, I will even be his mistress if he demands it . . . this disappearing in the lightning-flash of Lalette saying, “If you are ever unfaithful—” and flash on flash what would happen if he lost the Blue Star for which he had sacrificed so much. Sold, sold.)

She caught her breath a little. He disengaged the parchment from her hand. “I will have it copied for you in a modern hand,” he said.

III

Under Remigorius’ order, Rodvard did not go home to the pensionnario at sun-turning as usual, but took his repast for a pair of coppers on small beer and cheese at a tavern near his labor. He had been there not often, but it seemed to him that the place bubbled with talk beyond custom, and he wondered if the cause were some tale of Count Cleudi’s witching and Lalette’s escape, a speculation dispelled on his return, for there came to him young Asper Poltén from the next cabinet with:

“Did you know that girl you squired to the harvest festival turned out to be a witch? She has witched Count Cleudi, and stolen all his money; they say he’s going to die. They have closed the city gates and set a price on her. Your fortune that you carried matters no further with one like that.”

Rodvard shuffled papers. Some reply was necessary. “Why are they so urgent over a foreigner? People have been witched before without having all the paving stones in Netznegon City torn up about it.”

“Do you forever live in dreams? He’s the new favorite—named director of the lottery only yesterday. Perhaps that’s the reason the witch rode him—for jealousy more than the scudi. She’s not to be blamed if, as I hear, he’s more than a proper man in the parts that matter most to women. They say Cleudi and the Florestan held an exhibition for Her Majesty and the Tritulaccan was longer. Speaking of which, Ser Rodvard, you are not far from fortune yourself. I saw the Demoiselle of Stojenrosek here again today. She’ll have a shapelier body than Cleudi will ever press, and bring you a fortune in addition.”

(“Did you see her indeed, curse you? and what business is it of yours?” Rodvard wanted to cry; or “Mine’s the high destiny of the witch.”) But aloud he could only say; “There’s nothing in that. She’s only searching out some old family records. I must go to Ser Habbermal’s cabinet; he has a project forward for me.”

He stood up with a trifling stagger, leg tingling with the pain of the position in which he had cramped it. Asper Poltén made offended eyes. “Ah, plah, you are too nice for anything but priesthood!” He turned away, flung open the door to the next cabinet, and could be heard uttering to the three within; “Bergelin again; this time pretending he does not know what women carry between their legs or what it’s used for—” with a whoop of merriment from the rest.

Rodvard himself, before they could all come in and begin their usual sport of baiting, walked to the outer door, through it, and without so much as pausing at the garderobe for his cap, straight down the corridor to the street and away, the last steps running. If there were stares at seeing him without headgear or mark of condition, he did not return them, but hurried on to his own living-place. The pensionnaria was at the foot of the stairs, the little black hairs on her upper lip quivering as she administered some rebuke to a maid who held a trayful of dirty dishes, but her eye lighted as she turned to perceive a new victim.

“You are too late, Ser Bergelin. If we make a rule good for one, it must stand for all, because it is only so that I can keep up a place like this, as cheap as it is, and I simply can’t have you bringing girls here late at night, I have told Udo. . . .” The end of it he did not hear, as he broke past her up the stairs, bounding.

The extra set of hose must come, of course, but his best jacket would not go on over the other, so he had to make a bundle with underclothing and wrap it in the cloak that it was too fine a day to wear. The festival-cap must stay behind, even though it might bring some coppers from a dealer; also the pair of tiny southern-made health-goblets for carrying at the waist on feast days, of whose acquisition he had been so proud. At the last moment he added the volume of Dostal’s ballads; of all the books, he could spare that one least. There was a moment of fear when a glance through the glass-windowed door showed callers closeted with Udo the Crab, but side vision registered the fact that they were only a pair of rough fellows in leather jackets, not blue-and-green provosts.

He had been to Mme. Kaja’s only once before, and then at night, for a meeting of the Sons of the New Day. Under this more vivid light the Street Cossao showed as a dirty courtyard with a running sore of gutter down the center, garbages piled in the corners, yelling children underfoot and somewhere among the upper stories a hand that practiced the violon monotonously, playing the harvest-song, but always going sour on the same double-stop passage. Rodvard elected the wrong house first, the doorman did not know of Kaja, but the next one at the back angle of the court was it; he went up a narrow dark winding stair smelling of yesterday’s cabbage and knocked at the topmost door.

Mme. Kaja herself answered, clad in an old dressing-gown, pink silk, and dirty gray where it dragged along the floor, with her hair packed untidily atop her head. Past her a space of floor was visible, with light coming through a pair of dormer windows, a keyed musical instrument and chairs. “Ser Rodvard!” she squealed, her voice going into a high musical note. “You are sooo welcome. We did not expect you this early. The dear girl is waiting.”

A door against the slant of the garret opened and Lalette came out, unaffectedly glad it was he, and this time not avoiding as he ran forward to kiss her on the lips. The older woman; “I leave you to your greetings, while I make myself beautiful.” She passed through the door from which Lalette had come; the girl sat down. After the door had closed behind Kaja, “Rodvard,” she said, very still and looking at the floor.

“Lalette.”

“I have given you my Blue Star. Whether to marry you now I do not know. I think not—it seems to me that you are not altogether willing; I feel you are holding something back from me. But this I say, and you may look into my heart and find it true—” she raised her head in a blaze of grey eyes “—that I want to be a good partner to you, Rodvard, and will honestly do all in my power never to fail you.”

From the inner room came the sound of Mme. Kaja, running scales in what was left of her voice (and what could he say? thought Rodvard, who had won this loyalty for Remigorius’ reason and not his own desire. Let conscience die, but not with a tear at the heartstrings.) “I will do as much,” said he, and as her lip quivered at his tone, “if we ever pass this peril with our lives.”

She lifted a hand and let it fall beside her. “It is life without account of peril that I have offered,” she said. “I do not—”

“How do you know? Lalette, look at me. Will you lie with me this night, in peril or whatever?”

But she would not meet the questioning eyes now (and he thought, she thought, they both knew there had been somehow a lack of communication). Lalette said; “You have come before time.”

He shuddered slightly. “They picked at me till I must leave. You will hardly believe how—how base—”

The inner door sprang open and Mme. Kaja emerged with almost a dance-step, dressed to the eyes in withering finery. “For a little while I must go forth,” she said, “but you will hardly miss me, he, he. I’ll bring sup from the cook-shop, is there a delicacy you desire or any other way I can lighten captivity for my two caged birds?”

She beamed on them fondly. Rodvard thought of the cap left at the office and prayed her for a new one, with the badge of his condition, which took more of his slender store of coppers. The door closed; and now they two had not much to say to each other, having agreed that all that mattered should be left unsaid.

The end of it was that Lalette in all her clothes lay down on the bed in the corner to make up for some of the sleep lost last night, while he undid his parcel and set out to lose himself in Iren Dostal’s harmonies and tales—but that did not do very well either, the poems he had always loved seemed suddenly pointless. He fell into a kind of doze or waking dream, in which the thought came to his mind that if he were really ready to let conscience die in exchange for high destiny, he had only to give this witch back her Blue Star, call for the provosts, and claiming the price set on her, seek out Maritzl of Stojenrosek. A destiny not high by the standards of the Sons of the New Day, no doubt. But love and position, aye. Remigorius would approve; would call it the act of a great spirit to seek an inner contentment, no matter what others thought of how it was achieved, no matter if others were hurt during the achievement. But Remigorius thought the struggle more important than its end—and it might be that the reason he, Rodvard, could see no high destiny, was that he did not possess such a spirit, immune to scruple, willing to serve any cause.

Now he fell on to wondering what was the tangle of ideas and thoughts that made up himself, Rodvard Bergelin, where they came from and how they were put together—could they be altered?—and so drifted deeper into his daydream till it began to grow dusk and Mme. Kaja came back with a covered dish of fish and red beans.

5
NIGHT; GENEROSITY; TREASON

She was less cooing than before, having learned of the closing of the city gates and the price on Lalette. (For the first time she knows what it is to be a conspirator, Rodvard thought.) There was a self-sacrificing debate over where to sleep, for the singer had only the one bed and tried to insist that the pair use it, or at least share it with her. In the end Rodvard composed himself across a pile of old garments on the floor. They smelled, he felt ill-used, and went to sleep wondering rather desperately what to do about money.

That problem became no easier with the morning, when Mme. Kaja said her own funds were very low and she could not receive her pupils while the two were there. As she was going out Rodvard gave her his last silver spada, whose breakup would keep them nourished for a couple of days. Lalette added that she was much concerned over her mother; could the singer obtain news?

Hardly had the receding footsteps left the first flight when Rodvard, burning inwardly with anxiety, suspense and the thought of another do-nothing day, which combined to translate themselves into desire, swung the girl off her feet in his arms and bore her toward the bed without a word. She struggled a little and the Blue Star told him she was not very willing, but the contact of their bodies soon caught her, she only asked to be careful of her dress as she pulled it off—and Mme. Kaja’s voice said; “Oh.”

Rodvard rolled over, blood running hot through his cheeks. “I am so-o-o sorry,” the older woman said. “I was going to the Service and found I had forgot my Book of Days. But you must not mind, really you must not, when I was in the opera, His Majesty used to make three of us attend him together and when the heart speaks . . .” rattling like a broken music-box in terms that Rodvard scarcely heard, as she crossed the room to take the Book of Days and left again without looking at them directly.

Lalette (feeling as though she had bathed in a sewer and never wanted to touch anything clean again) took her dress to put it on. When Rodvard touched her shoulder, she shook his hand away and said, simply; “No.”

“It was my fault,” he said, “and I regret—”