A second voice said: "Come in, come in! Perhaps you will do a kind service, to earn our blessings and our rewards."
On the table Suldrun saw a green glass bottle of a size to hold a gallon. The mouth fitted tightly about the neck of a double-headed homunculus, so that only its two small heads protruded. These were squat, no larger than cat-size, with wrinkled bald pates, snapping black eyes, a nose and oral apparatus of tough brown horn. The body was obscured by the glass and a dark liquid, like strong beer. The heads craned to look at Suldrun, and both spoke: "Ah, what a pretty girl!" "And kind-hearted as well!" "Yes, that's Princess Suldrun; already she is known for good works." "Have you heard how she nursed a little sparrow back to its health?" "Come a bit closer, my dear, so that we may enjoy your beauty."
Suldrun remained where she stood. Other objects claimed her attention, but all seemed curious and items to excite amazement rather than functional equipment. An urn exuded the colored light which like liquid flowed down or drifted up to its proper level. On the wall hung an octagonal mirror in a frame of tarnished wood. Farther along, pegs supported a quasi-human skeleton of black bones, slender as withes. From the shoulder blades protruded a pair of curving pinions, punctured with dozens of sockets, from which might have grown feathers, or scales. The skeleton of a demon? Looking into the eye sockets Suldrun felt an eery conviction that the creature had never flown the air of Earth.
The imps called out in hearty tones: "Suldrun, beautiful princess! Step forward!" "Give us the benefit of your presence!"
Suldrun moved a step farther into the room. She bent to examine a plumb-bob suspended over a dish of roiling quicksilver. On the wall above a leaden tablet displayed a set of crabbed black characters which altered as she watched. a remarkable object indeed. Suldrun wondered what the characters portended; they were like none she had seen before.
A voice issued from the mirror, and Suldrun saw that a lower section of the frame had been shaped to represent a wide mouth curled up at the corners. "The characters read thus: ‘Suldrun sweet Suldrun, leave this room before harm arrives upon you!'
Suldrun looked about her. "What would harm me?"
"Let the bottled imps clamp your hair or your fingers and youl will learn the meaning of harm."
The two heads spoke at the same time: "What a wicked remark! We are as faithful as doves." "Oh! It is bitter to be maligned, when we cannot seek redress for the wrong!"
Suldrun shrank even farther to the side. She turned to the mirror. "Who is it that is speaking?"
"Persilian."
"You are kind to warn me."
"Perhaps. Perversity moves me from time to time."
Suldrun came cautiously forward. "May I look in the mirror?"
"Yes, but be warned: what you see you may not like!"
Suldrun paused to reflect. What might she not wish to see? If anything the concept twitched at her curiosity. She slid a three-legged stool across the room and climbed upon it, so that she looked into the mirror. "Persiiian; I see nothing. It is like looking into the sky."
The surface of the mirror moved; for an instant a face looked into her own: a man's face. Dark hair curled down past a flawless complexion; fine eyebrows curved over lustrous dark eyes; a straight nose complemented a full supple mouth.. .The magic faded. Suldrun again stared into a void. In a thoughtful voice she asked: "Who was that?"
"If ever you meet him, he will pronounce his name. If you see him never again, then his name will serve you no purpose."
"Persilian, you mock me."
"Perhaps. From time to time I demonstrate the inconceivable, or mock the innocent, or give truth to liars, or shred the poses of virtue—all as perversity strikes me. now I am silent; this is my mood."
Suldrun climbed down from the stool, blinking at tears which had come to her eyes. She felt confused and depressed . The two-headed goblin suddenly stretched one of its necks and with its beak seized at Suldrun's hair. It caught only a few strands which it snatched out by the roots. Suldrun stumbled from the room. She started to close the door, then remembered her candle. She she ran back into the roorn snatched the candle and left. The jeering cries of the two-headed goblin were muffled by the closing of the door.
Chapter 5
ON THE DAY OF BELTANE, in the spring of the year following Suldrun's eleventh birthday, occurred the ancient rite known as Blodfadh, or "Coming into Flower." With twenty-three other girls of noble lineage, Suldrun stepped through a circlet of white roses, and then led a pavanne with Prince Bellath of Caduz for a partner. Bellath, at the age of sixteen years was spare rather than sturdy. His features were crisp, well-shaped if somewhat austere; his manners were precisely correct and pleasantly modest. In certain qualities he reminded Suldrun of someone else she had known. Who could it be? She searched her mind in vain. As they stepped the careful measures of the pavanne, she studied his face, to discover that he was giving her a similar scrutiny.
Suldrun had decided that she liked Bellath. She laughed selfconsciously. "Why do you watch me so intently?"
Bellath asked half-apologetically, "Shall I tell you the truth?"
"Of course."
"Very well, but you must control your anguish. 1 have been told that you and I are eventually to marry."
Suldrun could find nothing to say. In silence they performed the stately evolutions of the dance.
Bellath finally spoke in anxiety: "I hope that you are not disturbed by what I said?"
"No... I must marry one day—so I suppose. I am not ready to think about it."
Later that night, as she lay in her bed considering the events of the day, Suldrun recalled of whom Prince Bellath reminded her: it was none other than Master Jaimes.
Blodfadh brought changes to Suldrun's life. Despite her inclinations she was moved from her dear and familiar chambers in the East Tower to more commodious quarters on the next floor below, and Prince Cassander moved into Suldrun's old rooms.
Two months previously, Dame Maugelin had died of the dropsy. Her place was taken by a seamstress and a pair of maids.
To Dame Boudetta was given supervision of Prince Cassander. The new archivist a wizened little pedant named Julias Sagamudus became Suldrun's instructor in orthography, history and calculation with numbers. For the enhancement of her maidenly graces Suldrun was given into the charge of the Lady Desdea, widow of Queen Sollace's brother, who resided permanently at Haidion and performed genteel duties at the languid behest of Queen Sollace. Forty years old, without prooerty, large-boned, tall, with overly large features and bad breath, Lady Desdea had no prospects whatever; still she beguiled herself with impossible fantasies. She primped, powdered, and perfumed herself; she dressed her chestnut hair in high style, with a complicated bun at the back and twin sponsons of crisp curls confined in nets over her ears.
Suldrun's fresh young beauty and easy absentminded habits rasped the most sensitive fibers of Lady Desdea's disposition. Suldrun's visits to the old garden had now become generally known. Lady Desdea automatically disapproved. For a highborn maiden—or any other kind of maiden—the desire for privacy was not only eccentric; it was absolutely suspicious. Suldrun was somewhat too young to have taken to herself a lover. And yet... The idea was absurd. Her breasts were but nubbins. Still, might she have been beguiled by a faun, who were known to be partial to the tart-sweet charms of young maidens?