381
There was a doorman in his coop, who directed Hinze down a hall, whereupon the girl clutched Rodvard’s arm and said; “I do not like this. I—”
(A silly remark, he thought.) “We cannot run away now,” he said. “It is the only chance”; and Hinze was back to say that the protostylarion would entertain them at once, there could be only a moment of waiting. They looked at each other apprehensively3; Lalette leaned against a wall and closed her eyes, and a man came down the hall to call them in.
Rodvard led the way into a room where a little man sat behind a desk with lines of disobligingness set round his mouth. He said; “You wish to leave the dominion4 of Mancherei for the barbarous Green Islands?”
“It is because of a family matter,” said Rodvard. “My wife and I—”
The protostylarion looked at Lalette’s hair, down in the maiden-sweep, then quickly at Rodvard and back to her face. Wrinkles shot up the middle of his forehead. “Wife? Wife? What is your profession? Where is your certificate of employ?” He came up out of his seat (like a small bear, Rodvard thought), peering the more intently at the girl. “Ah, I have it! I know! You are the one I registered for the Myonessae. The Dossolan; and a witch, too. Guards! Guards!” His voice went treble; two or three armed men tumbled into the room.
“An inquiry5!” said the protostylarion, flinging up his arm to point at the couple as Hinze shrank back. “These two for an inquiry! I accuse her of being a runaway6 Myonessan!” The face was distorted (the thought behind it one of the purest delight and triumph). “Be careful with her; she is a witch!”
Rodvard was gripped above the elbow and jerked stumbling to the door, catching7 only a glimpse of Lalette’s despairing face. Outside, people stopped and goggled8 as the two were hurried along and into a carriage, with a guard beside each. “I am sorry,” began Rodvard, but one of the guards said; “Close your clack; no talking among prisoners.” (His eyes spoke1 a brutality9 that would have taken pleasure in a blow.)
They came to a structure with a battlemented gate, like a small fortress10; an odor of sewage emanated11 from it. A pair of guards brought forward bills in salutation to those entering. Rodvard and Lalette were swung into a gate-house, where a man lounged at a window—an officer by his shoulder-knot. One of the guards said; “These two are in for an inquiry. Authority of the Protostylarion Barthv?di. He says to be careful of the woman, she’s a witch.”
382
The officer looked at Lalette appreciatively, then seated himself at the desk and drew out a paper. “Your names and professions,” he said.
Rodvard gave his; Lalette checked over the profession (wishing to cry out that she would not give it, wishing to defy the man). The officer looked at her. “You are warned,” he said, “that I am diaconal, and your witchery will be wasted on me.”
“Oh,” she said, and half-choking; “Myonessan.”
“Which couvertine? . . . The more trouble it is to obtain the information, the harder it will be with you.”
“Lolau.”
The officer turned to one of the guards. “Go to the couvertine of Lolau and inform the mattern that she is to come here tomorrow morning at the fourth glass for an inquiry in the matter of Demoiselle Lalette.” He addressed the other guard. “You wait here while I draw the proclamation calling for information on this Bergelin, then take it around.”
(Rodvard thought of Leece, and wondered what she would say in answer to the proclamation), (Lalette of facing Dame12 Quasso again.) Another pair of guards came in to take them to stone cells, set in the wall of the fortress. Rodvard saw Lalette vanish into one and heard the door clang behind her, then was himself thrust into another. There was a stool and straw on the floor, an archery-slit for the only lighting13. The place stank14, the origin of which odor was a bucket beneath the archery-slit. He sat on the stool and tried to think, but the turmoil15 of fear held him so that he could do little more than run around back and over his own conduct like a mouse, to ask where he had stepped wrongly and what else he could have done to make things come out other than they were. This was the morning when Leece . . . and he would have been bound to her for life. . . . No, that could not have been the right path. Farther back, then? When he asked that, he went off into a train of reminiscence in which thought almost ceased.
His throat was dry, there was no water in the cell. Nor did he seem to have near neighbors, all being silence around, save that somewhere a tiny drip of water increased his thirst. Would he be able to hold anything back tomorrow morning at the inquiry, where an Initiate16 would surely question? Round the circuit of his failure his mind ran again, and slid off into a consideration of present circumstance. He rose, going to the iron-bound door, but even the small trap in it would not open from his side. Alone.
383
Not for the first time. How like the imprisonment17 on the ship this was, and how dark the prospect18 had loomed19 then! Out of that he had risen, but to what? A choice between Leece and this. A wave of misery20 swept across him, and then he thought of Lalette, and her misery equal to his own, and maybe more.
But this was no help either, and he began to examine his prison, finger-breadth by finger-breadth, for something that might take his mind away from this procession of regrets and anxieties toward a future he could not know. There were only accidents of the wall at first, in which he tried to see pictures and carvings21, making up a tale for himself, like those in the ballads22. This had not gone far when he came to a trace of writing which looked as though someone had tried to wipe it out, for there were only a few words to be read:
“Horv . . . in the month . . . only for lov . . . God.”
A cryptic23 message, indeed; he tried to imagine the tale behind it, and how the love of which these Amorosians forever gabbled had brought someone to this cell. This caused him to ask himself whether it was really love for Lalette that had brought him there; for that matter whether he loved her, and what love was; and to none of these questions could he find a satisfactory answer, because he kept comparing her with Maritzl and wondering whether the emotion were the same. But this in turn brought a deep weariness; he flung himself on the straw to rest and work the matter out; and so doing, fell into an uneasy slumber—product of his sleepless24 night—in which he dreamed that the world was ruled, not by the God he had been taught to believe in, nor disputed by the two gods of whom the Amorosians spoke, but by three demons25, who sat in a closed space with smoke pouring from their mouths, and decided26 what penalties should be exacted for witchery.
A key grated; he woke to see the trap being pulled back from without, and a voice said roughly:
“Here’s your banquet, my lord. The sweetmeats come with the dancing girls.”
A plate was thrust through, with a pewter mug of water. On the former were some vegetables, cold and sticky, and no table utensils27, but Rodvard was in a mood of hunger that forbade him to be over-nice and he ate, saving part of his water to cleanse28 his fingers after the meal. It was hardly done before the trap opened again, and the outer voice demanded; “The tools, pig-face. The administration doesn’t give souvenirs to its guests.”
384
Rodvard passed the dishes through and seated himself again. Time ticked; the light that had been fading when he woke was all gone, he had slept so much that he could do so no more and the uncertainty29 of his lot held him from consecutive30 thought. Somewhere outside there was a thin cry and a sound of feet. Then quiet again, but for the briefest space; and now another key grated, in the main lock of his door. It was flung open; in the space stood a small man and a dark, with no cap. Behind him, a smoky torch held by another showed this first visitor to be holding a naked sword, that dripped, plash, plash, on the stone.
“You are Bergelin?” he said. “I call myself Demadé Slair. The revolt has begun. Have you the Blue Star safe?”
II
Questions whirled in Rodvard’s mind, but the larger of the pair said; “Hurry,” and gripped him by the elbow like the guard who had brought him in, dragging along the corridor.
“Wait!” said Rodvard, resisting. “There is another—”
“We must hurry,” said Demadé Slair. “You do not know how desperate a business this is. We have had to kill.”
“No. I will not leave her. She is my sweetheart; my witch.”
“You have her here? Of the two of you, she is the more important! Where is she?”
“At the third cell here, I think.”
Without another word Slair counted off. “The torch, Cordisso,” and began to try keys from a chain of them. The big man advanced the torch, but the place held only some babbling31, furtive32 creature with white hair and idiot eyes. The next cell was empty. Slair swore furiously. “You are sure your doxy’s here?”
“She was brought in with me.”
He tried another door. It was she, rising surprised from the floor in a whirl of dresses. Rodvard pushed past the small man to grip her by the hands. “Come, and quickly.”
She made small uncomprehending sounds. Rodvard put an arm around her and drew her toward the door. Reverse of the stair by which they had been brought in; in the torchlight Rodvard saw a pair of feet at the base. A dead man, one of the guards. In spite of the hurry, he paused to unbelt the fellow’s dag, and rushed with the rest, feeling more a man again now the lost knife was replaced.
385
At the outer gate stood two more men, hoods33 pulled over their faces. They saluted34 Demadé respectively and led across the street to where a carriage stood, pushing Lalette into the back seat. There were three horses, one in front of the pair, according to the Mancherei fashion. One of the hooded35 men cracked his whip, and they were off at a bumping pace, as Demadé Slair said; “It is as well you were placed in arrest and proclaimed this afternoon. We should not have known how to find you otherwise.”
“Who sent you—Dr. Remigorius?”
A shadow winked36 across the man’s face, even in the dark. “The High Center; I say the revolt has begun and they are in rule. But you shall be told everything soon.” He would say no more; the carriage bumped across cobbles, and they were at the dock, with a man holding a candle-lantern by its side. Slair leaped down without offering a hand to Lalette and sprang across the plank37 of a ship with “Hurry!” Already, as she and Rodvard reached the deck a whistle was blown, and men were moving rapidly among the ropes. They followed their guide’s beckoning38 down a ladder to a cabin; he set the lantern on a table.
“Let yourselves be placed, and hear me carefully,” he said. “It is of the utmost moment to the cause and everything that you are not caught or even held back. If the guards come aboard, if we are stopped by a galley39 as we leave the harbor, you are strictly40 to go down the ladder leftward of this cabin. At its base is a pile of bales of goods, of which one is hollowed out to take a man, with a flap at the edge that can be pulled to from inside. Insert yourself and pull the flap.”
(A thrill more of excitement than apprehension41 shot through Rodvard; the thought of being as important as this to the great enterprise.) He said; “If this ship’s invaded, they will likely have an Initiate or at least one of their diaconals with them, and from the mind of anyone aboard, he will be likely to know where the hiding place is.”
Slair grinned. “That has been thought of. No one knows of this hollow but me. I made it and can take care of myself.”
Lalette said; “And I; what shall I do?”
Slair frowned. “You are a problem, demoiselle. We came for friend Rodvard and his Blue Star, imagining you were still in Dossola, and there’s no preparation.” He put an index-finger on his chin. “You have the Art. Could you not—”
She raised a hand. “Ah, no. Never.” (In the flash of her eye Rodvard saw how she was thinking of some witchery on a ship, something terrible and sickening connected with it.)
386
“Of course,” said Slair. “Against an Initiate, it would miss nine times out of ten. And concealment’s a weak resource. No, the problem is one of hiding you in plain sight; that is, to let them look but not know your identity. . . . Ah, I have it; let your hair down and the hem2 of your dress up to show an ankle; be one of those travelling strumpets who call themselves sea-witches.”
Lalette said steadily42; “How will this deceive one of the Initiates43?”
Demadé Slair made a twisting with his mouth. “Why, demoiselle, these Initiates are not magicians; they can read no more than thoughts and not all of those. All women have in them a trifle of the strumpet; you have but to think yourself one, be one with your mind. It would be a rare Initiate to tell the difference.”
(Lalette’s mind beat frantic44 wings; the bars were there again, whatever route she took led to the same cage); (and Rodvard caught enough of her thought to know how deep was her trouble.) “Is there not some better plan?” he asked.
“No time; see, the ship is stirring.” Demadé Slair stood up. “So now I must leave you.” The door banged behind him.
Lalette said; “This is a second rescue—from one prison to another, each time. I thank you, Rodvard.” (Her eyes flashed a dark color of anger, he knew what was stirring in her mind, but also that if he mentioned it directly, there would be a flash.)
He said; “Lalette, let me implore45 you. I will not quarrel with you about whose making this trouble is, or how we seem to go from one difficulty to another. But if we can work together, this escape shall be better than the last. I did not leave you at the couvertine.”
“Oh, I am grateful,” she said, in the tone of one who is not grateful in the least, turning aside her head. “If you had only—”
(He had wit enough not to carry this line on.) “Do you know anything of this revolt?” he asked.
She turned again. “Ah, I cannot bear if that I should never have a thought of my own while I am with you. Will you give me back the Blue Star?”
“No! It is all our lives and fortune now, and the fate of many more important than we.”
“I am not beautiful and brilliant like those girls of noble houses; but even so, would like to be wanted for myself, and not what I can bring.”
Outside, the first harbor-swell caught the ship; she turned her face again, queasy46 at her stomach. They slept in shut-beds on opposite sides of the cabin.
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1
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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hem
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| n.贴边，镶边；vt.缝贴边；(in)包围，限制 | |
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apprehensively
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| adv.担心地 | |
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dominion
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| n.统治，管辖，支配权；领土，版图 | |
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5
inquiry
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| n.打听，询问，调查，查问 | |
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6
runaway
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| n.逃走的人，逃亡，亡命者；adj.逃亡的，逃走的 | |
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7
catching
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| adj.易传染的，有魅力的，迷人的，接住 | |
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goggled
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| adj.戴护目镜的v.睁大眼睛瞪视， （惊讶的）转动眼珠( goggle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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brutality
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| n.野蛮的行为，残忍，野蛮 | |
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fortress
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| n.堡垒，防御工事 | |
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11
emanated
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| v.从…处传出，传出( emanate的过去式和过去分词 )；产生，表现，显示 | |
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12
dame
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| n.女士 | |
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13
lighting
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| n.照明，光线的明暗，舞台灯光 | |
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14
stank
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| n. (英)坝，堰，池塘 动词stink的过去式 | |
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15
turmoil
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| n.骚乱，混乱，动乱 | |
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initiate
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| vt.开始，创始，发动；启蒙，使入门；引入 | |
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17
imprisonment
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| n.关押，监禁，坐牢 | |
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prospect
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| n.前景，前途；景色，视野 | |
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19
loomed
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| v.隐约出现，阴森地逼近( loom的过去式和过去分词 )；隐约出现，阴森地逼近 | |
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misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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21
carvings
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| n.雕刻( carving的名词复数 )；雕刻术；雕刻品；雕刻物 | |
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22
ballads
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| 民歌，民谣，特别指叙述故事的歌( ballad的名词复数 )； 讴 | |
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cryptic
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| adj.秘密的，神秘的，含义模糊的 | |
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sleepless
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| adj.不睡眠的，睡不著的，不休息的 | |
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demons
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| n.恶人( demon的名词复数 )；恶魔；精力过人的人；邪念 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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utensils
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| 器具，用具，器皿( utensil的名词复数 )； 器物 | |
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28
cleanse
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| vt.使清洁，使纯洁，清洗 | |
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uncertainty
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| n.易变，靠不住，不确知，不确定的事物 | |
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consecutive
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| adj.连续的，联贯的，始终一贯的 | |
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31
babbling
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| n.胡说，婴儿发出的咿哑声adj.胡说的v.喋喋不休( babble的现在分词 )；作潺潺声（如流水）；含糊不清地说话；泄漏秘密 | |
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32
furtive
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| adj.鬼鬼崇崇的，偷偷摸摸的 | |
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33
hoods
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| n.兜帽( hood的名词复数 )；头巾；（汽车、童车等的）折合式车篷；汽车发动机罩v.兜帽( hood的第三人称单数 )；头巾；（汽车、童车等的）折合式车篷；汽车发动机罩 | |
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34
saluted
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| v.欢迎，致敬( salute的过去式和过去分词 )；赞扬，赞颂 | |
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35
hooded
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| adj.戴头巾的；有罩盖的；颈部因肋骨运动而膨胀的 | |
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36
winked
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| v.使眼色( wink的过去式和过去分词 )；递眼色（表示友好或高兴等）；（指光）闪烁；闪亮 | |
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37
plank
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| n.板条，木板，政策要点，政纲条目 | |
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38
beckoning
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| adj.引诱人的，令人心动的v.（用头或手的动作）示意，召唤( beckon的现在分词 ) | |
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39
galley
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| n.（飞机或船上的）厨房单层甲板大帆船；军舰舰长用的大划艇； | |
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40
strictly
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| adv.严厉地，严格地；严密地 | |
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41
apprehension
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| n.理解，领悟；逮捕，拘捕；忧虑 | |
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42
steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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43
initiates
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| v.开始( initiate的第三人称单数 )；传授；发起；接纳新成员 | |
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44
frantic
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| adj.狂乱的，错乱的，激昂的 | |
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45
implore
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| vt.乞求，恳求，哀求 | |
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46
queasy
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| adj.易呕的 | |
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