The Blue Star by Fletcher Pratt (good novels to read .TXT) 📗
- Author: Fletcher Pratt
Book online «The Blue Star by Fletcher Pratt (good novels to read .TXT) 📗». Author Fletcher Pratt
“Or to remove the disabilities,” said Hodge. “The difficulty with any power we don’t really know about is not to define the power itself, but to discover its limitations. If witchcraft were really practical, there would be some fairly severe penalties going with it, not legally I mean, but personally, as a result of the practice. Or to put the thing in your terms, McCall, if there weren’t any drawbacks, being a witch would have such high selection value that before long every female alive would be a practicing witch.”
McCall carefully poured more port. “Hodge,” he said, “you’re wonderful, and I love you. But that’s typical of the way you put things. You cover up a weak point by following it with one that attracts everyone’s attention away from the feebleness of your real case. Penalties for everything? What’s the penalty for having an electric icebox?”
“A pampered digestive system,” said Hodge, readily. “I doubt whether you could survive the food Queen Elizabeth ate for very long, but she lived to be well over sixty. If there were witchcraft, or ESP or telepathy running around in the world, there couldn’t but be defenses against it and troubles for the practitioners. Had it occurred to you that even a witch couldn’t spend all her time stirring cauldrons, and might want to lead a normal life, with a husband and children?”
Penfield got up and stepped to the window, where he stood looking out and down at the midnight Atlantic, throwing its surges against the breast of the rocks. “I wonder if it really does exist,” he said.
Hodge laughed; but that night all three men dreamed: and it was as though a filament ran through the ancient rooms; for each knew that he dreamed, and dreamed the same dream as the others; and from time to time tried to cry out to them, but could only see and hear.
1NETZNEGON CITY: MARCH RAIN
It was raining steadily outside. The older woman’s tears and words fell in time, drip, drip. Cold, for the tall window at the room’s end would never quite shut close, bottom and top not nest into the frame simultaneously. Lalette in her soutane felt goose-pimples and tried to shut out the sound by thinking of a man with a green hat who would give her a handful of gold scudi and nothing asked, merely because it was spring and she put a small spell on him with a smile, but it was not quite spring, and the voice persisted:
“. . . all my life—I have hoped—hoped and planned for you—even before you were born—even before you were born—daughter of my own—” (Yes, thought Lalette, I have heard that before, and it would move me more, but the night you drank the wine with Dame Carabobo, you told her how I was the product of a chance union in a carriage between Rushaca and Zenss) “—daughter—and after I saved and worked so hard—you miss the only chance—the only chance—don’t know what I’m going to do—and Count Cleudi’s not like most—”
“You told him what he offered was frightful. I heard you.”
(Sob) “It was. Oh, it was. Oh, Lalette, it isn’t right, you should be married with a gold coach and six horses—but what can we do?—oh, if your father had left us anything before the war—all I sacrificed for him—but that is what all of us must do, make sacrifices, we can’t have anything real without giving something away . . . Lalette!”
“Madame.”
“You will be able to employ the Art and have everything you want, you know most of the patterns already, he does not go to the Service often . . . and after all, it’s something that happens to every woman one way or another, and with the Art, even if he doesn’t marry you, he’ll find you a husband you won’t mind, it’s only men like Cleudi who want to be the first, a man who marries would really prefer a girl to have a little experience, I know . . . Lalette!”
Lalette did not answer.
“All the young ones come to the ball after the opera, Lalette. Count Cleudi will present you, and even if you don’t bring—”
(He would have not only a green hat, but southern-made lace at wrist and throat and a funny-looking man who spoke in a Mayern accent, thick as cream, and carried the purse because it spoiled the fit—)
“. . . as though he were just one of those . . . so considerate . . .” (I suppose we cannot control how we come by our parents) “. . . your father, like an angel out of heaven, and I could have taught you so much more if he—” (Now she is waist-deep in the past again, I’m going to hear it all over) “. . . really, for it is more like one step up than a leap down from a high place, which is always what we think before the first time . . . Lalette!”
“Yes, mother.”
Someone knocked at the door.
Lalette’s mother hastily daubed at her cheeks, heaved herself heavily from the chair, looked sidewise, saying; “We could sell the stone.” But before the girl could reply, the tap again. The older woman waddled across to the door and opened it a crack; a long jaw and long nose under a wet turn-down hat poked in.
“I was just saying to my daughter—” began Dame Leonalda.
A pair of thin shoulders pushed past her as though not hearing, the man stood in the center of the room, sniffed and wiped his nose on his sleeve. “Listen,” he said, “no more stories. I have heard too many.”
Dame Leonalda gave him a doleful look and bustled back to her seat. “But I assure you, Ser Ruald—”
“No more stories,” he said again. “I have charges to meet and taxes.”
She put her hands to her face. (Lalette thought: her only device; I hope I shall not grow like that.) Ruald said; “But I do not wish to be hard, no, and I know you have no money just now. So I will be fair, and if you render me a small service, why then, it is not beyond me to forgive the whole four months’ arrears.”
Dame Leonalda took down her hands again and said; “What is the service?” (Her voice had something like a tinge of dread.)
Ruald sniffed again, darted a glance at Lalette, another at the door, and stepped close. “I have heard that you belong to one of the families of the Blue Star.”
“Who told you that?”
“It does not matter. Is it true?”
The dame’s lips worked. “And what if it is?”
“Why this, dame: it will not peril your soul to place a small witchery—”
“No, no, I couldn’t do such a thing. You have no right to ask me.”
The man’s face sneered. “I have a right to ask you for my money, though.”
“No, no, I tell you.” Her hands waved the air. “That Dame Sauglitz, they punished her with five years and stripes.”
“They will punish nobody for this; utterly private between you and myself. Is not your skill enough so that no suspicion of witchery will fall on you? Come, I’ll do better. I’ll more than forgive the arrears, I’ll give you quit-rent for four other months to come.”
“Mother,” said Lalette from the corner.
Dame Leonalda turned around. “This does not concern you,” she said, and to Ruald; “But how am I to know that having done as you wish, you’ll not denounce me before the episcopals?”
“Why as for that, might I not want your help another time?” She put up a protesting hand, but he; “Come, no more stories. I’ll—”
There was another tap at the door. Ruald looked annoyance as Dame Leonalda crossed the room in another rustle of skirts. Her voice was almost gay. “Come in, Uncle Bontembi.”
Rain shook shining from his cloak. “Ah, charming Dame Leonalda.” The paunch hindered his bow. “The greetings of the evening to you, Ser Ruald. Why, this is a true evening gathering.”
“I was just leaving,” said Ruald, tugging at his jacket. “Well, then, Dame Leonalda, bear in mind what I have said. I’m sure we’ll reach accommodation.”
She did not get up as he went. When the door was closed she turned to Uncle Bontembi. “It is such a problem, dear Uncle,” she said. “Of course the child is perfectly right in a way, and it would be different if her father had left her anything at all, but with such a man as Cleudi—”
“The Count is a splendid gentleman,” said the priest. “I have seen him lose fifty gold scudi on a turn, but never his composure. And he is in high favor. Is there a problem relative to him? Not that his eye has fallen on our little Lalette? I would call that a matter for consent and rejoicing.”
“Ah, Uncle, it is this, if men only behaved as nobly toward women as they do to each other! He has set his eye on this dear child indeed, but not his hand, and says he will pay all our debts and give her a hundred gold scudi besides, if she will only accompany him to the opera and ball of the spring festival.”
Uncle Bontembi plucked at the button of his chin, and the smile left his face. “Hm, hm, it is certainly on the face of matters a proposal . . . You are certain you have not been employing the Art, Dame Leonalda?”
“Oh, no, never, never. And my dear little girl, how could she?”
The priest glanced sly-eye at the girl. “Yes, yes, she has her first confession to make. Well, well, let us think this out together. I will say the Count Cleudi is highly held in other circles beside the political. There was some theological discussion at the Palace Bregatz lately, and the Episcopal was of the opinion that he had never heard sounder doctrine or better put than by Cleudi. Wherefore he cannot be very far from the laws of the good God and right moral, can he? And so his plan may be of greater benefit than first appears.”
“I do not want such benefits,” said Lalette, (but thought: then I should have the Art!)
“Oho! Our junior niece resists; this is not the true humility. Come, Demoiselle Lalette, let us look at it this way: we can only truly serve good and vanquish the eternal forces of evil through the happiness of others, for if it is our own happiness we seek, then others doing the same will make all unhappy, and so give victory to evil.” He signed himself. “Thus to bring joy to others is the true service of religion and moral, no matter what the appearance may say. Now in this case there would be three people given happiness. Yes, yes, the doctrinal point is somewhat delicate, but I cannot find it in my mind to disapprove. There is a technical violation of moral law involved, and I am afraid the Church will have to assess a certain fine against you, but I will make it as light as possible. Enough to remind that a good action should be done for moral gain and not material.”
“I do not love him,” said Lalette.
“All the more unselfish, all the more.” The priest turned to Dame Leonalda. “Have you not made it clear to our niece that the true love which puts down evil in the name of the major glory of God is something that rises out of and after union? Why, if she talks so, I will have to lay church-duty on her for approaching the doctrines of the Prophet.”
“Oh, I have told her, I have told her.” (The mother’s voice began to cloud toward another rain of tears.) “But she is so romantical and sensitive, my little daughter, just like those poems by Terquid. When I was a girl—”
Lalette let her face smooth out (as she thought about the opera ball and what it would be like), but even that was not much use, their voices kept picking at her until she went behind the curtain to her bed in the corner, where it was even colder beneath the blanket at first, so that she curled up tight. (If I were really married, the Blue Star would belong to me and my husband, and . . .)
II“But is it a genuine Blue Star?” asked Pyax. He turned toward Dr. Remigorius, who should know if anyone.
“Ah! Of that I cannot say. We have been deceived before. It is certain that the old woman has practised veritable witcheries; the Center of Veierelden found a record of a conviction against her in the church there. The only surety is in the test; and that is a test that only Friend Rodvard here can make. If it should be
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