She gazed at him, wide-eyed. "You made a pact with—" She could not even summon the nerve to say it.
"I made no pact!" he said abruptly. "That is done with. It was a human devil I spoke of merely. This is what I do in my library, my lady: I read. I study. I am no foolhardy mage, who imagines he can command Hell itself. I have not the disposition of a priest, that I grant. I’m no meek sheep in the holy flock. It is the natural powers in the world I would divine. Come and I’ll show you, if you will. If you won’t, then go back to your snug bed and your prayers."
He turned sharply, his cloak sweeping wide, and strode across the dais to the top of the stair. He ducked into it and went down two steps, then paused for an instant, looking back at her. The faint blue illuminated his cheek and jaw, the frowning wing of his black eyebrow.
If he had tried to force her; if he had threatened or tempted, she would not have gone. He was a pirate. And a wizard, it now came clear—a real one.
"Do you think I should not be afraid of you?" she asked suddenly. "It seems to me that I would be a fool if I were not."
He stared back at her for a long time. She could not see the expression on his face, only the shadowy planes of it. "Yes," he said. "You would."
"Very well," she said. "I am afraid. But I will come down."
He stood straight and still. The blue light outlined his figure in the stairwell, the black sweep of his shoulders and cloak. The scepter that he held seemed to sparkle like starlight.
"Come, then," he said quietly. "I will go before you, my lady, for your safety on the stairs. Put your hand upon my shoulder."
* * *
The strange sapphire illumination in his library came from flasks of glass set about the room, some on shelves, some on the floor, gleaming like bog-fire. Elayne had happily hunted beside springs and moats as a child, chasing frogs and salamanders in pure defiance of Cara’s disgusted admonitions, but that had been long ago; she drew in a sharp breath as she made out the skins of snakes dangling from a rafter. Still, those were mere snakes.
"For mercy!" she gasped, gripping his shoulder as she halted on the last stair. Against the far wall, a stone furnace glowed red with burning charcoal, lighting the white underbelly of a monstrous lizard, longer than two men, that hung suspended overhead by iron chains. Its tail was thick and scaly, and its huge mouth opened on fangs such as Elayne had imagined only in her nightmares.
"It is a crocodile," he said.
Eleanor stared at the hideous beast. It lay stiffly in its chains, dead and dry, the clawed feet dangling and the great mouth propped open by a stake, but still it was fearsome.
"A small water-dragon, of Egypt," he said. "As you see, it has no wings."
"Did you slay it?"
He chuckled. "Not I. I leave that work to noble knights. I merely paid a large heap of gold to obtain it, my lady."
"Why?" she asked in amazement.
"I find such things useful, from time to time," he said.
Elayne realized she was clinging to his shoulder. She let go, but the glossy feel of his cloak seemed to cling to her hand. She brushed her palms together.
"I have read of them in a book of beasts," she said.
"Is it so?" He turned to her. "I have not met before a maiden who reads of beasts."
"Nor have I met before a gentleman who collects them as serviceable goods!"
"You read much, madam?"
"Yes, I read the Latin, Tuscan and French, and English, too." The moment the words left her mouth, she regretted the pride that had engendered them. It was hardly the education of a simple maid.
He made no comment upon it, though she did not hope that he took no notice. "Sit down," he said, indicating a round table at the center of the room. It stood inside a circle painted upon the floor, a golden star drawn inside it. "You need not mind the pentangle," he said, as she hesitated. "It is the sign of Solomon, and betokens truth spoken within the margins of its power." When she still paused, he said, "By hap truth is not to your liking."
Elayne could think of no clever reply. Unquestionably telling any truth was not to her liking at this moment.
"Also it protects from demons, should I conjure any by mischance," he said. "By whiles I have done it, I will confess, and so it is the safest place to stand."
"You said you did not invoke the Devil!" she cried.
"I do not," he answered calmly. "But—" He shrugged. "Sometime, a smallish imp has appeared. It is a hazard of my inquiries. So I take care to stand inside Solomon’s five points, my lady, as I advise you to do."
She looked about at the vials and flasks and bizarre vessels that lined the room. There were scrolls laid neatly in racks; mortars and pestles of all sizes, the skulls of unknown creatures. His tranquil mention of demons made the hairs stand along her neck, but she felt a curiosity dawning that was the equal of her fear. He was a magician. He had mastered what she had only attempted to learn. "What is in them?" she asked. "The parchments."
"You would like to see?" He nodded, as if she satisfied him. "Then sit down."
Elayne wet her lips and stepped over the golden lines. She sat in the chair he pulled out for her, and watched him bring a box to set upon the table. He made no special sign or bow as he crossed into the circle, which eased her mind a little. She did not think a demon would come, even by mischance, unless particular words and signals invoked it. Still, she was not so certain of it as to stand outside the pentangle at this moment.
The box, beautifully carved and polished, had a scent of myrrh that wafted stronger as he opened it. He lifted out a stack of cards and spread them, all painted with figures, men and women like something from a moral tale, carrying suns and moons and scythes, some showing devils and some monks. Each was named and numbered in Latin: The Beggar, The Artisan, The Emperor; Grammar, Music, Logic, Poetry.
"These are the Triunfi," he said. "The emblems of the Taroc."
She had heard of the Taroc. Libushe had mentioned it, but Elayne had never seen the cards. Before she could discern many of the figures, he turned their blank sides upward and stacked and cut them apart, then stacked them again. The rare odor of myrrh filled her nose. He wore no rings. His hands moved with simple grace, as if he had done it many times, touching the cards lightly, reverently, as a man would touch living things that he loved. His silver sleeve gleamed like light sliding up and down a sword blade as he moved.
He set the deck before Elayne and reached into the box again. This time he opened between them a parchment adorned by the figure of a naked man, the arms and legs spread wide, the body enclosed in a wheel of astrological signs. She was determined to show as little as possible of her emotion, but her cheeks flamed at the immodesty of the drawing.
The Raven glanced up, as if he had sensed her abashment. His dark, beautiful eyes rested upon her. He smiled with one corner of his mouth and reached across for the cards, placing them in the center of the figure as if they were a loincloth. "Haps that pleases you better, my lady," he murmured. "Take off some cards, and keep them with you."
"Why?" she asked. "Is this a spell?"
"We are philosophers. It is purely contemplation and study"
"Study of what?"
"Of you."
She stared at him warily across the table, realizing belatedly that he had lured her into his pentangle of truth. "I do not think you will find that there is a great deal of me to contemplate."
"So it may be. Gentle young ladies often lead dull lives, and have characters to match."
"As you say," she murmured, dipping her head briefly.
He grinned, a dark flash of humor. "Take up the cards, madam," he said.
* * *
She grew weary of breaking the stack and handing him one card after the other from the top, over and over, while he placed them in a pattern over the points of the human figure. It seemed to go on for hours, although she had no way to keep the time. Her neck and shoulders ached. Night and lack of sleep were overcoming her resolution to remain vigilan
t.
If the Raven were fatigued, he gave no sign of it, but seemed to be deep in thoughtful meditation as he examined each card, placed it, and then studied the evolving spread. At some cards he seemed to smile a little, and when she handed him The Pope, he even laughed and shook his head as he laid it across the unclad figure’s private members. At another he lifted his black-winged eyebrows, whether in surprise or incredulity, she could not say. Finally she came to the last two cards in the stack before her.
"Take the one from the bottom," he said.
Elayne offered it to him. He turned it up and laid it down facing her, in the center of the figure.
"The Knight," he said. "From the first decade, the stations of humanity. I do not think you are a humble maidservant, my lady Elena. Your birth is much higher than you tell me. But you need not look so alarmed." He leaned upon his elbow lazily. "The degree of your nobility is not what I wished to discern."
She had grown wide awake in an instant. The elegantly dressed Knight posed before her mockingly.
"Here—" He spread apart two cards that lay at the lowest part of the wheel. "Your establishment interests me more. The Duke and the muse Clio, the giver of fame. But you see... here at her feet, this herb. Do you know it?"
Elayne peered at the card in spite of herself. "It seems to be a rose?"
He looked surprised. "No. Perchance it might appear so, though for myself I cannot see it, but the plant is not so noble. It is only the poor gith flower."
"Oh," she said.
"Haps you know it by another name. I have heard it called melanthy, too." He smiled at her, and suddenly Elayne saw her danger.
"Is it?" she asked stupidly.
"Yes. Does it not grow near Bowland Castle?"
She blinked. "I know not. I have never been there."
"But you are in the household of my Lady Melanthe, the Countess of Bowland."
He spoke with simple assurance. Elayne answered nothing. She thought that someone must have told Amposta, but she kept a careful silence. There were any number of minor handmaids in the household of Lady Melanthe.
"You see, a little study of the details reveals much," he said. "Here in the ninth house, we can see more—in your childhood you made a great journey out of danger…recovery from a morbid illness?" He tilted his head, turning over another card and considering. "Nay, I think not. The Emperor in the sixth position. Your health has always been superb."
He glanced up at her, as if to confirm this. She could not deny it; she had never been seriously ill. Even the measles had treated her lightly.
"A journey in truth it was," he said. "Over land and water. A vital cusp. Everything in your life changed at that turning. I don’t think you would have lived long if you had not traveled so young." He frowned at the cards before him. "From the south to the north. Was it winter? Was there snow? And a fortification—a castle—a woman with child."
Elayne stared at him. He could not know of her childhood journey from Monteverde to England; Lady Beatrice could have told him nothing of that. Elayne recalled it only dimly herself. But in her mind, even as he spoke the words, a memory stood clear, of arriving at Savernake in a snowfall, of Cara’s bulky form, nearly to term with little Maria, of being swept up into a joyous welcome.
"You called out," he said. He rested his forefinger on a female figure named Melpomene, a singer holding a double flute. He smiled a little, as if remembering it himself. "A horse foundered in the drifts. You made a ball of snow and threw it."
She sat frozen, stilled by the strange precision with which he described her own memory. She could see the horse struggling, the empty, snowy road that led away from Savernake Castle. "How know you these things?" she whispered.
"Some I read on the cards," he said. "Some seem to be—given to me. But look now, the last card. That represents your future. Turn it up."
Hesitantly she lifted the card, holding it so that she alone could see its face. It was exquisitely painted like all the rest, but here the artist had traded the bright colors and landscapes for a darker hue. On a background of midnight blue, the winged figure glowed: an angel arrayed in robes of sable black and silver, resplendent against a sky of infinite stars. Elayne felt her breath fail her.
It was her own dark angel. Beautiful and powerful, radiant with mystery, a perfect rendering upon the artist’s card. And as she lifted her eyes, she saw the same face alive before her, watching her, in the person of a nameless pirate.
She sprang up, sweeping the card away and knocking over her chair as she escaped from his circle of Truth. "It is a trick! It is some artifice with the cards!" She stood breathing quickly, angrily. "He can’t be you."
The Raven never took his eyes from her face. He tilted his head a little, as if he too were doubtful. "Do you remember me, Lady Elena?"
"Nay—remember you? Have we met?" She shook her head helplessly. "I don’t understand this! It’s not—I don’t mean—not in life! Remember you from where?"
He smiled. "It is merely a card, as you say. I only wonder why it disturbs you so."
"It is not merely a card, as you well know!" she cried. "It is you! And he can’t be you. I don’t know how you have discovered this, or made it come about, but he is not you."
He lifted his eyebrows. "You confuse me greatly, Lady Elena, I do concede. The card is me, and I am not him? Who is ’he’?"
She set her jaw and reached to pick up the card, slapping it face-up on the table. "I am quite sure this is some prank you play with your victims, as it must be known to you that this card is a perfect rendering of your person."
His mouth worked, as if he were subduing a smile. "I confess, you are correct in that point."
She hesitated, taken aback by this easy admission.
"It is a little game. I delight in games. It is a pursuit of mine to observe the human character. Your response has been the most interesting of all so far. Tell me, who is this ’he’ that I cannot be?"
"No one," she said, truthfully enough. " ’Tis naught but a resemblance to a...a statue I used to gaze on during mass."
"Of a saint?"
"Um, an angel," she said.
"Ah, that would account for it," he said placidly. "I’ve oft been told I resemble an angel."
Elayne blinked at him. He did not appear like any angel she had ever seen, except her own.
"I expect it is my cherubic expression," he said, and gave her a smile so wicked that her throat shrank.
"You are very frightening," Elayne breathed.
"I mean to be," he said. He riffled through the cards and spread them in a fan upon the table. "And yet...you do know me."
"No." She shook her head, twice. "I don’t know you."
"I’m in no mood to harm your lovely face, Elena," he said. "None at all." His lip curled slightly. " ’Tis your good fortune that you remind me more of Melanthe than of your sister."
Elayne felt herself frozen. She answered nothing.
"Ah, the house of Monteverde. Do they either of them suppose that I would forget those night-flower eyes? Your half-sister’s are only brown, but you have that infernal Monteverde tint of blue and purple in yours. Foolish of Melanthe, to be so careless. But better for you in the end, as I don’t hold the timid Madame Cara’s visage very dear."
If he had only spoken names, or even of faces, she might not have believed he could be speaking true. But when he called her sister timid, Elayne knew that he must have some close and vivid knowledge of her. "You have met my sister?" she asked faintly.
He made a short nod. "Aye," he said, "and hated her as she despised me."
Elayne stared at him. She could not even imagine her fainthearted sister in the same room with this man, far less that they knew one another enough to have hatred between them.
He turned his full gaze on her again. "Either you dissemble well, or your education in your family heritage has been sadly neglected, Princess Elena Rosafina di Monteverde. I am of Navona, and you have no greater enemies on earth."
She stiffened in her chair. "Nay," she whispered. "That is all gone now. Lady Melanthe told me!"
"Oh, did she!" He laughed. "And how did she convince you of this fantasy?"
"She only said—there were once three families, Monteverde, Riata, and Navona—but I need not study deeply on Navona, for they are finished."
"Finished! And that is all? I am stung."
"I’m sorry," Elayne said, ducking her head. "But in truth she made no mention of a pirate."
"Pirate!" he exclaimed languidly. "What a low opinion you have formed of me, my lady, on such small acquaintance!"
"A very princely pirate," Elayne said, giving a shaky wave of her hand about the chamber.
"Grant mercy!" He bowed his head in mockery. He picked up the angel card and glanced at it. "Finished," he said, tossing it down. His beautiful face became a devil’s mask as he narrowed his eyes. "Indeed."
"Haps she only meant—that we are not enemies anymore. I have no hate for you myself."
His dark eyebrows lifted. He looked at her as if she must be lying, and he would kill her for it. Elayne tried to hold his gaze.
"How should I?" she asked earnestly. "I don’t know who you are."
After a moment he lifted the angel card again between two fingers, turning it to examine the shadowy figure. A faint curve appeared at the corner of his mouth. "Alas, you make me smile too easily. I fear things will go hard for you here."
He did not appear amused. Elayne knew not what to make of him. "You object to smiling?"
"Not at all," he said. "Only I find that I do not do it often—so it may be I will decide to keep you with me longer than you find convenient. Should you object?"
Elayne looked away uneasily. "I do not comprehend you."
"Oh, you will, my lady Elena," he said. He pushed himself to his feet, standing over her. He did not touch her, and yet as he looked down, his eyes seemed to move over her face with the depth of a caress. "I promise that you will."
Somewhere very far away, at the outermost edge of hearing, a trumpet called three notes. It called again, and was gone, dreamlike in the silence.