The Duke’s Ballad
Andre Norton and Lyn McConchie
I
The girl sat mesmerized by fear in the big chair. She would have been a good-looking woman of some eighteen summers were it not for the fear that lit her face. Kirion, sorcerer to the duke of Kars, eyed her with mock sadness.
“Silly child. You won’t be able to move until I release you from my spell. Silly twice over to reject the duke of Kars quite so firmly. You annoyed him, you know. He isn’t used to not getting something he wants. But he’ll have you to spend time with. You’ll be besotted, infatuated, and before all the court too.”
The captive gasped defiantly, and Kirion snickered. “No, no. You will, I assure you.” He ignored the girl after that as he gathered his ingredients. Kirion laid out a pentacle and spoke the rolling incantations while watching his victim closely. At some stage in the proceedings the girl lost consciousness. Kirion finished and spoke softly.
“The duke is waiting. Will you sleep all day when your love looks for you?”
The blue eyes seemed blank, but behind them a trapped spirit struggled for freedom. It failed. The girl looked at Kirion for a moment, then her face lit adoringly. “My lord wants me. Where is he? I must go to him at once.”
“You must go to your beloved?” Kirion prompted.
“Yes, of course. I must go to the duke. I love him and he loves me. We shall not be parted.”
Kirion politely opened the door from his tower in the oldest part of the duchy palace. “Do not allow me to keep you then.” He watched as the girl trotted off in search of the man who had demanded her affections.
Shastro should be careful, Kirion thought. The duke had ordered his sorcerer to change the mind of a would-be lover a few too many times of late. The court was beginning to mutter. There’d been no problems when it was young women of the Old Race. Kars city didn’t care what happened to them, not as long as it wasn’t too blatant.
But with Shastro turning his attentions to the girls about the court, the daughters of merchants and lesser nobles, instead of the young women partly or wholly of the Old Race, not all appreciated the honor. The girl who’d just departed had been of a minor noble family. Duke Shastro of the Duchy of Kars had desired her. She’d rejected him in no uncertain fashion, and Shastro had come running to his tame sorcerer to demand that the object of his desires desire him in turn—and at once.
Kirion had obliged, but it took power. Since he’d learned the way of stealing it from others who had it, he could do many things, but all such magical thefts leeched the power. Kirion remembered how his sister, Aisling, had escaped him, and he cursed. If only he’d been able to get his hands on her. Of the three of them, him, his younger brother, Keelan, and his sister, Aisling, it was she who had the widest, deepest powers.
She’d escaped him though. Despite much searching, he had not been able to find her—until now. Last night he’d used blood to spark another mind-search. The result had been interesting. Where she was he did not know, but he knew she was about to return. She was filled with power that could be stolen, drained, and her body cast aside to Kirion’s greater glory. His mouth curved in a hungry smile.
He’d wait. It was said that all things came in time to those who waited with patience.
Aisling squealed, catching the ball tossed to her as her eyes lit with laughter. She tossed it back, and the graceful Kro-gan girl caught it neatly.
Aisling sighed softly. “I’ll miss it here.”
“Then why leave?”
“I’m homesick,” Aisling said simply. “I’ve been here three years. I love this place, but I miss Aiskeep.” The Krogan girl nodded.
“I too have yearned for my home water. I have much yet to learn, so I will stay.” She turned away, the ball held absently in one hand as she slipped into the nearby stream and lay full length. Aisling smiled at her and walked toward a small rise. Atop it she stared down along the landscape lying before her.
She liked Escore. She liked her teachers and those she had met in Estcarp. But Aiskeep called more strongly each season as she remembered what the seasons were like in the great gray keep where she’d been born. She missed her grandparents and her brother. She missed her friends in Karsten. And most of all, she worried about her elder brother, Kirion, and what evil he might now have learned.
Three years back she’d fled to keep Kirion from draining her gift for his own sorcery, and to prevent his crony Ruart from marrying her against her will. Ruart had died in his pursuit of Aisling, struck down by a man whose fiancee he had murdered some years ago. Only Kirion remained as a danger. Unless, she added ruefully to herself, you added half of the Karsten population. Her country was still taking seriously the admonition “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.”
She gazed down the valley again. It had been so warmly welcoming, so kind and generous to a lonely half-breed from an enemy land. Its residents had not cared that half of her was from the new race that had taken over much of Karsten. The other half was of their ancient blood; that had been enough. Yet kind as they had been, their land was not her home.
A lithe form bounded up the hill and sat smirking at her through slitted eyes. She dropped to sit beside him as the big cat nudged her. She looked down… into understanding eyes. A picture formed in her mind of the high walls of Aiskeep with Shosho, her furred companion’s mother, standing by the door. Behind Shosho stood Aisling’s grandparents and her brother, Keelan. Then through the scene came longing, heart-hunger. The amber eyes that held hers blinked, and the scene was gone, but the question remained. She reached out, and he climbed into her lap. He was overly conscious of feline dignity and rarely did this, but at the moment they were alone.
She held him, his warm massive purring weight. She spoke into one furred ear as homesickness flared within her.
“Yes. I’ve worked so hard these three years since Neevor found us. Now Hilarion says I’ve learned much of what can be taught. The rest is practice. I’ll never be an adept, but I’m a much better healer.” Her hand went up to touch the pendant hidden in her bodice, then slipped down to grasp the hilt of the sheathed dagger at her waist.
“I had these and other gifts, and he has trained me well, I believe. I have added much to my store of knowledge. But it is time, Wind Dancer. Time I returned home.” She hugged her friend. “And you. You are homesick too!” His yowl was emphatic agreement; she laughed. “Then we leave in a week, my brother-in-fur who dances with the breeze. But I’ll have to sew a larger carrysack for you before we go.”
Her hand smoothed soft fur. Wind Dancer had grown in three years. He’d been only eighteen months when they had risked their lives to cross the mountains to freedom here. He’d always given promise of being a big cat. In the years since, that promise had been fulfilled. Now he was knee-high to Aisling, some thirty-five pounds of bone and muscle. His claws and strength could bring down one of the small hill deer without difficulty. Though small was a relative term as they stood three feet at the shoulder.
Through the last years he’d often been away from her, hunting, roaming, enjoying life in a new land, always returning to see that she was well, to renew their ties and stalk about the valley as if he ruled there. Aisling hugged him, asking the question all who knew him asked sooner or later.
“Your mother, who did she find in the hills in Karsten?” Wind Dancer purred, slitting his eyes mysteriously. She laughed again. If he knew, he wasn’t telling.
Together they strolled down the rise. When they reached her dwelling and she’d finished preparing the evening meal, Aisling ate alone save for Wind Dancer, and when she was done and the scraps and dishes cleared, she lay down to sleep. For the past two nights she’d not slept well, the unmade decision to leave or stay keeping her from true sleep. Her choice made, now she could sleep. She did so, feeling the warmth of Wind Dancer, who was cuddled into one hip.