"Come forward to the pool," a voice called.
Marishka walked forward, but it was only when she stood on the very edge of the milky water that she saw an old woman sitting on a rock just to her left.
Her hair was white, long and soft, hanging in thin wavy strands over her shoulders. Her gown was also white. Her skin was just as pale, parchment-thin with age but unblemished. Marishka wondered if she ever sat outside in the sun or if this cave-the source of her power, it was rumored-was also her prison.
"Marishka Obour, you would see your future?" Seeing her shock, Sagesse laughed, not the cackle of some old crone, but the beautiful voice of a woman who has known decades of wisdom. "I know your name because I shared your vision. Even without it, I might have known you. Visitors have spoken often of the beauty of your face and hair. Come, sit beside me, and we will seek your fate together."
Marishka did as the woman asked, and stared into the milky waters of the pool. Afternoon turned to evening. The light that shone on them from some hidden place far above changed from white to pink to mauve and slowly faded. Sagesse lit torches, and they stared into the pool, waiting for some great revelation.
"There is nothing," Sagesse finally declared.
Marishka shuddered. "What does it mean?" she asked.
"I believe that your future was decided in the moment your father died. No matter what your course, you cannot change it." She took Marishka's hand, holding it as she added, "It may mean something else as well-you will not live a long life. But at least you may do as you like and take comfort from the happiness you find in what is left of it. Now go, your companion is growing anxious."
Marishka turned to leave. At the edge of the cavern, she turned back and saw that Sagesse had vanished as mysteriously as she had appeared.
As Marishka walked down the path, she saw extra horses tethered beside their camp, and the dark forms of men against the flames. If there had been another way down, Marishka might have considered fleeing, but with no choice but to face them, she put her hand on the hilt of her knife and went more quickly on.
As she moved closer, she saw the black-and-gold livery of Sundell and Baron Peto waiting for her.
"They told me I must not follow you to the cave," he said, then held out his hand as if uncertain she would take it. When she did, he moved closer to her, pulled the cloak off his shoulders, and wrapped her in it. It smelled of smoke from the fire and of sweat from his long ride. "Can you share what you learned?" he asked.
She shook her head. "The Seer said that I should follow my heart."
She tilted her head up for him to kiss her. As he did, she felt such a terrible presentiment of doom that she wondered if Sagesse had lied, then shuddered at the sacrilege of even the thought.
"Is it possible for me to go up?" Peto asked.
"I'm sorry, but you must come here seeking her, and travel as any common man would."
He seemed to consider. "She has already answered the question I would have asked. Now we must talk."
He led Marishka into his tent and had a servant bring her food and wine. Until it was set in front of her, she hadn't realized how hungry she'd become in her hours on the mountain. She ate feverishly while Peto sat, content to watch her and say nothing.
When she'd finished, he took her hand again. "When you turned up missing, I realized how much I cared for you. I've asked your brother for permission to wed you," he said. "He has pledged you to me. He said that arranged marriages are your custom. They aren't mine. So I ask you, will we wed?"
Yesterday, she would not have known how to answer. She did now. "Of course," she said. "At summer solstice. The priests will have no choice but to see the union as a hopeful sign."
TEN
Jorani's house, called Argentine because of its white stone facade, was far smaller than Nimbus Castle, but far more beautiful. As the elixirs Jorani had sent with Ilsabet slowly brought her old strength back and added to it, she roamed the estate gardens where early spring flowers poked their heads through the frost-covered soil. At her request, the marble fountain was turned on during the day. As she stared into its swirling water, she contemplated revenge. At night before she went to bed, she would unwrap her father's clothes. The first time she did so, she shuddered, recalling the terrible vision she'd had before. But there was no repeat of it. The blood on the cloth had all dried, and it would flake off in her hands and dust the thin white cotton of her nightdress.
As the days grew longer, her isolation grated on her. "Is there a library here?" she asked her maid.
"In Lord Jorani's private chambers."
"Take me to it," Ilsabet ordered. When the girl hesitated, Ilsabet added, "I was told to treat this estate as my home. Am I not allowed in every room of it?"
"Of course, Baroness. Come this way."
Ilsabet followed her to a small room, well-lit and warmed by the sun streaming through the windows. The books were not at all the sort to further her education.
As she idly occupied her time with a book of statesmanship, her knee bumped the bottom of the table, and she felt the board move. She knelt and looked up at it, discovering a hidden drawer. Inside it she found a written journal. There, in Jorani's precise hand was a guide to the cultivated plants in the garden, and to the wild ones that grew in the woods around the estate. Some of these were starred, devil's cup among them, she noted with interest. In the back of the book, she found a listing of the starred plants, each followed by a series of letters that she soon understood meant the part of the plant to be used as a drug.
Her body shook with excitement. This was why Jorani had sent her here. Here she could learn without any need for more than the most rudimentary caution.
"Thank you, Jorani," she whispered as she noted the place on the shelves where books on botany were kept.
Soon the sight of the little baroness in knee boots and leggings became familiar to the servants. Ilsabet found the land a marvelous source of poisons and cures. Devil's cup grew in the marshy soil of the forest, along with castor trees, monkshood, poisonous yew, and an assortment of deadly berries much prized for their more mundane use as a bright red dye. Rilca, the cook, would sometimes see her digging in the garden or in the woods beyond it and think with some amusement what an odd hobby it was for a girl of noble birth. Nonetheless, she found herself pleased to be questioned in such depth about every herb and spice on her shelves.
"Why do you keep this dried black nettle in the back of the cupboard?" Ilsabet asked one day.
Rilca, absorbed in thickening a stew, glanced down at the jar. "I wouldn't want anyone to mistake it for a cooking herb."
"What happens if you brew a tea from it?"
"A tea?" Rilca put down her spoon and stared at the girl. "When I was young, I was told to never eat black nettle."
"But why?"
"I asked a healer the same question. He said the power of the nettle is in its sting. You've seen the effect of its poultices often enough, I suppose, since your father was a fighter. The wound reddens and blisters, then begins to seep as the poultice draws out the poisons. But if you drink it, a difficult matter if black nettle tastes half as bad as it smells, your stomach is burned on the inside in much the way your throat was from devil's cup poison. Eating becomes painful, and the food does not nourish. If you drink enough of the tea, you will die in great agony the way a fighter might from a stomach wound."
"Is there an antidote?" Ilsabet asked.
"I don't know. I've only heard how poisonous the plant is from just one person, never anywhere else, so the man may have been wrong. But to be on the safe side, I keep it in the cupboard rather than on the shelf with the other herbs, where someone might use it to season a dish by mistake."