Jirel of Joiry (20 page)

Jirel
hesitated a moment before she swung from the saddle, her eyes dubious upon the faces around her. She thought she had never seen such brutish men before, and she wondered at the lord who dared employ them. Her own followers were tough enough, reckless, hard fellows without fear or scruple. But at least they were men. These louts around the fire seemed scarcely more than beasts; let greed or anger stir them and no man alive could control their wildness. She wondered with what threats of punishment the lord Alaric held sway here, what sort of man he must be to draw his guard from the very dregs of humanity.

The two who took her horse stared at her under shaggy beetle-brows. She flashed them a poison glance as she turned to follow the purple cloak of her guide. Her eyes were busy.
Hellsgarde
had been a strong fortress in
Andred’s
day; under Alaric it was well manned, but she thought she sensed a queer, hovering sullenness in the very air as she followed her guide across the courtyard, down a passageway, under an arch into the great hall.

The shadows of two hundred haunted years hovered under the lofty roof-beams. It was cold here, damp with the breath of the swamps outside, dark with two centuries of ugly legend and the terrible tradition of murder. But Alaric before the fire in his scarlet tunic seemed pleasantly at home. The great blaze roaring up the chimney from six-foot logs drove back the chill and the dark and the damp a little in a semicircle about the fireplace, and in that semicircle a little company of brightly clad people sat silent, watching
Jirel
and her guide cross the echoing flags of the great hall toward them.

It was a pleasant scene, warm and
firelit
and bright with color, but even at a distance, something was wrong—something in the posture of the people crouching before the blaze, something in their faces.
Jirel
knew a moment of wild wonder if all this were real. Did she really walk a haunted ruin empty two hundred years?
Were the people flesh and blood
, or only the bright shadows of her own imagination that had so desperately longed for companionship in the haunted marsh?

But no, there was nothing illusive about Alaric in his high-backed chair, his face a pale oval watching her progress. A humped dwarf leaned above his shoulder, fingers suspended over his lute-strings as he stared. On cushions and low benches by the fire a handful of women and girls, two young boys in bright blue, a pair of greyhounds with the firelight scarlet in their eyes—these made up the rest of the company.

Jirel’s
narrow yellow gaze summed them up as she crossed the hall. Striding smoothly in her thigh-length hauberk, she knew she was a figure on which a man’s eyes must linger. Her supple height, the pleasant smooth curves of her under mail, the long, shapely legs bare beneath the linked metal of her hauberk, the swinging of the long sword whose weight upon its belt pulled in her waist to
tigerish
slimness—Alaric’s eyes missed nothing of all these. Deliberately she tossed the dark cloak back over her shoulders, letting the firelight take the sleek mailed curves of her in a bright glimmer, flash from the shining greaves that clasped her calves. It was not her way to postpone the inevitable. Let Alaric learn in his first long stare how splendid a creature was
Joiry’s
lady. And as for those women at his feet—well, let them know too.

She swaggered to a halt before Alaric, resting a hand on her sword-hilt, tossing back the cloak that had swirled about her as she swung to a stop. His face, half in the shadow of the chair, tilted up to her leanly. Here was no burly brute of a man such as she had half expected on the evidence of the men-at-arms he kept. He was of middle years, his face deeply grooved with living, his nose a hawk-beak, his mouth a sword-gash.

And there was something oddly wrong with his
features,
a queer cast upon them that made him seem akin to the purple-clad courtier hovering at
Jirel’s
elbow, to the grinning jester who peered across the chair-back. With a little twist of the heart she saw what it was. There was no physical likeness between master and men in any feature, but the shadow of deformity lay upon all three faces, though only the hunchback wore it honestly. Looking at those faces, one would have sworn that each of the trio went limping through life under the burden of a crooked spine. Perhaps,
Jirel
thought involuntarily, with a small shudder, the master and the courtier as well as the fool did indeed carry a burden, and if they did she thought she would prefer the jester’s to theirs. His at least was honest and of the flesh. But theirs must be of the spirit, for surely, she thought again, God in His wisdom does not for nothing mark a whole and healthy man with a cripple’s face. It was a deformity of the soul that looked out of the eyes meeting hers.

And because the thought frightened her she swung her shoulders until the cape swirled wide, and flashed her white teeth in a smile more boldly reckless than the girl behind it felt.

“You must not crave the company of strangers, sir—you keep a discouraging guard before your gate!”

Alaric did not smile. “Honest travelers are welcome here,” he said very smoothly. “But the next robbers who ride our causeway will think twice before they storm the gates. We have no gallows here where thieves may swing in chains, but I think the guard before my castle will be warning enough to the next raiders who come.”

“A grisly sort of warning,” said
Jirel
. And then, with belated courtesy, “I am
Jirel
of
Joiry
. I missed my way in the marsh tonight—I shall be grateful for your hospitality.”

“And we for your presence, Lady
Jirel
.”

Alaric’s voice was oily, but his eyes raked her openly. She felt other eyes upon her back too, and her red hair stiffened a little at the roots with a prickling uneasiness. “We keep a small court here at
Hellsgarde
,” went on Alaric’s voice. “
Damara
,
Ettard
,
Isoud
,
Morgaine
—all of you, make our guest welcome!”

Jirel
swung round with a swirl of her long cloak to face the women, wondering at the subtle slight to their dignity, for Alaric made no effort to introduce them separately.

She thought they crouched a little on their low seats by the fire, looking up with the queer effect of women peering fearfully from under lowered brows, though she could not have said why they seemed so, for they met her eyes squarely. And upon these faces too lay that strange shadow of deformity, not
so
definitely as upon the men’s, but visible in the firelight. All of them were thin creatures with big eyes showing a rather shocking space of whiteness around the staring irises. Their cheek-bones were sharp in the firelight, so that shadows stood hollowly beneath.

The woman who had risen when Alaric said “
Damara
” was as tall as
Jirel
, strongly made under her close green gown, but her face too had that queer hollow look and her eyes stared too whitely under wide-open lids. She said in a tight voice:

“Sit down by the fire and warm yourself, lady. We dine in a few minutes.”

Jirel
sank to the low cushioned stool she dragged forward, one leg doubled under her for instant rising, her sword-hilt and sword-hand free. There was something wrong here. She could feel it in the air.

The two dogs growled a little and shifted away from her on the floor, and even that was—wrong. Dogs had fawned on her always—until now. And the firelight was so red in their eyes…

Looking away uneasily from those unnaturally red eyes, she saw the boys’ features clearly for the first time, and her heart contracted a little. For naked evil was upon these two young faces. The others wore their shadow of deformity elusively, a thing more sensed than seen. It might be only a trick of her legend-fed imagination that put evil there. But the two young lads had the faces of devils, long faces with high cheekbones and
slitted
, lusterless eyes.
Jirel
shuddered a little inwardly. What sort of company had she stumbled into, where the very children and dogs wore evil like a garment?

She drew a deep breath and glanced around the circle of still faces that watched her wordlessly, with
an intentness
like that of—beasts of prey? Her pride rebelled at that.
Joiry
was ever the predator, not the prey! She squared her cleft chin and said with determined casualness:

“You have dwelt here long?”

She could have sworn a look went round the semicircle before the fire, a swift, amused glance from face to face as if they shared a secret. Yet not an eye wavered from hers. Only the two boys leaned together a little, and the look of evil brightened upon their wicked young faces. Alaric answered after the briefest possible pause:

“Not long. Nor will we stay long—now.” There was a subtle menace in it, though
Jirel
could not have said why. And again that feeling of knowledge shared ran like a strong current around the circle, a little quiver as if a dreadful amusement were almost stirring in the air. But not a face changed or turned. The eyes were still eager—almost avid—upon the bright, strong face of
Jirel
with the firelight warming her golden tan and touching her red curls to flame and trembling upon the soft curve of her under-lip. For all the bright clothes of the company around her, she had the sudden feeling that dark robe and dark eyes and dark faces hemmed her in—like shadows around a fire.

The conversation had come to a full stop; the eyes never wavered from her. She could not fathom this strange
interest,
for it was queer Alaric had not asked anything at all about her coming. A woman alone in this wilderness at night was sufficiently unusual to arouse interest, yet no one seemed concerned to ask how she had come there. Why, then, this concerted and deep interest in the sight of her?

To conquer the little tremor she could not quite ignore she said boldly:

“
Hellsgarde
of the Marshes has an ugly reputation, my lord. I wonder you dare dwell here—or do you know the old tale?”

Unmistakably this time that quiver of amusement flashed around the circle, though not an eye left hers. Alaric’s voice was dry as he answered:

“Yes—yes, we know the tale. We are—not afraid.”

And suddenly
Jirel
was quite sure of a strange thing. Something in his voice and his words told her very surely that they had not come in spite of the terrible old legend, but
because of it.

No normal people would deliberately seek out a haunted and blood-stained ruin for a dwelling-place, yet there could be no mistaking the implication in Alaric’s voice, in the unspoken mirth at her words that ran like a whisper around the circle. She remembered those dead men at the door. What normal person could make a joke so grisly? No, no—this company was as definitely abnormal as a company of dwarfs or monsters. One could not sit with them long even in silence without sensing that. The look of abnormality upon their faces did not lie—it was a sure sign of a deformity of the soul.

The conversation had stopped again. To break the nerve-racking silence
Jirel
said:

“We hear many strange tales of
Hellsgarde
”—and knew she was talking too much, but could not stop—anything was better than that staring silence—“tales of treasure and—and—is it true that one can come upon
Hellsgarde
Castle only in the sunset—as I did?”

Alaric paused deliberately for a moment before he answered with as deliberate evasiveness, “There are stranger tales than that of
Hellsgarde
—and who can say how much of truth is in them?
Treasure?
There may well be treasure here. Many have come seeking it—and remained, for ever.”

Jirel
remembered the dead men at the door, and she shot Alaric a yellow glare that would have clanged like the meeting of blades with his stare—had he met it. He was looking up into the shadows of the ceiling, and he was smiling a little. Did he suspect her errand? He had asked no questions…
Jirel
remembered Guy of
Garlot’s
smile as he sent her on this quest, and a murderous wonder began to take shape in her mind. If Guy had known—if he had deliberately sent her into this peril—she let herself sink for a moment into a luxury of picturing that comely smile smashed in by the handle of her sword…

They were watching her. She came back with a jerk and said at random:

“How cold the marshes are after sunset!” And she shivered a little, not until that moment realizing the chill of the great hall.

“We find it—pleasant,” murmured Alaric, watching her.

The others were watching too, and again she sensed that ripple of subtle amusement running around the circle that closed her out of a secret shared. They were here for a purpose. She knew it suddenly: a strange, unfathomable purpose that bound them together with almost one mind, so that thoughts seemed to flow soundlessly from brain to brain; a purpose that included her now, and in no pleasant way. Danger was in the air, and she alone here by night in the deserted marshes, among these queer, abnormal people who watched her with an avid and unwavering eagerness. Well, she had been in peril before, and hewed her way out again.

A slovenly wench in a ragged smock tiptoed clumsily out of the shadows to murmur in
Damara’s
ear, and
Jirel
felt with conscious relief the removal of at least one pair of staring eyes as the woman turned to nod.
Jirel’s
gaze was scornful on the girl. A queer household they kept here—the bestial retainers, the sluttish wench in her soiled gown.

Not even
Joiry’s
kitchen maids went so slovenly clad.

Damara
turned back to the fire. “Shall we dine now?” she asked.

Every face around the fire brightened magically, and
Jirel
was conscious of a little loosening of the tension in her own mind. The very fact that the thought of food pleased them made the whole group seem more normal. And yet—she saw it in a moment—this was not even a normal eagerness. There was something a little horrid about the gleam in every eye, the avid hunger on every face. For a little while the thought of food supplanted
herself
in their interest, and that terrible battery of watchfulness forsook her. It was like an actual weight lifted. She breathed deeper.