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"Can we transpose the new lines your pendulum has drawn onto a tracing of this
map? It might be useful, on my coming journey."
"Oh then you are going?"
"Do I really have any choice?"
Pierrette traced the original map onto thin-scraped vellum, carefully labeling
features of terrain, rivers, and towns. Then, again using strings stretched
between the marked points on the sand basin's rim, she transferred the
curving, intersecting lines in the sand onto her chart.
"Look at that!" exclaimed Anselm when he examined her work. "See those four
lines that intersect just below the mountainous spine of the land of Armorica?
How strange. An old friend used to live near there. I wonder if he still
does?"
"Master, you haven't left the vicinity of your keep in seven or eight
centuries. Your friend is surely long gone."
"Oh no Moridunnon was a sorcerer of no mean skill. I once believed him an old
god in mortal garb, so clever was he. Besides, whenever he fell asleep, he did
not wake for years, even decades and while he slept, he did not age. Will you
stop there, and see him? I'll write a letter of introduction and . . ."
"Master ibn Saul has planned a more southerly itinerary for us, I think. We
will follow River Rhodanus, then cross to the headwaters of the Liger, and
thence downstream to the sea, where we will take ship to search for . . . your
homeland."
"Surely a little excursion will not delay you much. And see? Not far from the
mouth of the Liger, an earth-line marks the way. You'll have no trouble
following it. I'll square it with the scholar."
"You'll do your old friend Moridunnon? no favor, introducing him to the
skeptical ibn Saul."
"Then you go, while he makes arrangements for a ship. You'll have a week or
so."
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"Write the letter to Moridunnon, master. If I can deliver it, I will."
"Oh there's something else. For you. Now where did I put it?"
"For me? What is it?"
"Your mother left it for you or, rather, she gave it to you, when you were
little, and you brought it here . . ."
"I did? I don't remember."
"Of course not. I put a spell on it. Ah! Here it is!" He pulled a tiny object
from between several scrolls.
"Your mother's pouch."
Suddenly, Pierrette did remember. She remembered a winding line of torches on
the long trail from
Citharista to the Eagle's Beak, and the terrible humming notes, sounding to a
child like a dragon on the prowl, that was the Christian chant of Elen's
pursuers. Elen: Pierrette's mother, a simple masc, a country-bred witch of the
old Ligurian blood. She was the gens
' scapegoat for a failed harvest, a drought . . . for whatever sins festered
in them, which they would not acknowledge.
She remembered Elen shedding the spell she had hidden behind until Pierrette
and Marie appeared on the trail ahead of the mob, and she remembered being
taken in her mother's arms for a brief, desperate moment. "Go now!" Elen had
commanded them, handing Pierrette a little leather pouch. It held something
small, hard, and heavy. "Go to Anselm's keep. There, that way!" Those were the
last words Pierrette's mother ever said to her.
A shadow hovered in front of Pierrette's face. She took the pouch from Anselm.
Her eyes were blurred with the tears she had never before shed. Marie had wept
when it was clear that their mother was gone, but not Pierrette. Little
Pierrette instead made a secret vow, that she would learn all that her mother
knew, and more. She would be not just a masc, but a sorceress and then, she
would have her revenge on the murderers. Only after that would she weep.
Now she understood that she would never fulfill that vow. The townspeople had
created their own revenge: they walked always in the shadow of their guilt,
dreading the day they would die, for Father
Otho had not absolved them from their great sin. Would he do so if on their
deathbeds they asked? Who knew? No, she desired no revenge, and now,
remembering, she allowed the tears to course down her cheeks.
She tugged at the leather drawstring. A seam broke, and a single dark object
fell in her lap. It was a ring.
Her mother's ring. She held up her left hand and spread her fingers, blinking
away tears, gauging where to put the ring . . .
"No! Look at it but, don't put it on!" said Anselm with great urgency. She
looked. It was dark, heavy, and . . . and cold. An iron ring? There was no
rust, but it could be no other metal. Now that her eyes were clear, she saw
the pattern cast into it the entwined loops and whorls of a Gallic knot, like
a cord that had no beginning or end. A knot that could not be unraveled.
"What am I supposed to do with it?" she asked.
"You're a sorceress. You tell me. I just thought now was a good time for you
to have it, since you're going away." He cleared his throat noisily, to [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]