The Lady of Roch Shan

The Lady of Roch Shan

  by Shannon Phillips

  Originally published in Dragon #207

  reprint and other rights retained by Shannon Phillips

  joshannonphillips.com

  Cover art by Arthur Rackham

  from the illustrations to The Rhinegold and The Valkyrie, 1910

  (public domain image)

  I know a good position when I see one, which doesn't explain how I ended up with Laird Rheagel of Roch Shan, he so tight with the Church and all. Indeed I was surprised that he accepted me. Not that I consider myself impious, mind you. I say the chants regularly and properly, and I wear the Sign. Actually, I am familiar with many signs, which is the problem. These young priests are so uppity. Their knowledge can't simply be best, but it must be only—and whoosh! a thousand years of learning dumped out the window with the bath water.

  But I say a girl has to be careful, especially when she's seen as many winters as I have and is no longer often called a girl. So I try to keep on the good side of all the heavens, although some are more easily satisfied than others. I won't say I was driven out of my previous home, but when the eggs are rotten, I don't stay for the omelet: and when the local priest denounced me as a witch, I left.

  Although as far as that goes, he was right. I have the herb-lore and the star-knowledge, like many a country woman, although I fancy I'm wiser than most in those ways. And there's more in me than weed-cures and old wives' tales, too, not that old wives are anything to discount. No, I'd sooner offend a priest than a wise old wife. It's the choice between risky and worse. But what I am telling you is, I have a touch of the canny.

  So, Roch Shan I mentioned. It's a hard strip of land between the mountains and the sea, and hard are its people and hard is its lord. A pillar of the Church, he is, and I expected no help from him when I came in. But he said he might have a bit of washing to be done, and he offered me a decent living wage, enough to put honey in the tea. Very surprising, in that they say he's been known to geld an ant and make the meat do for a month.

  Anyhow, that's the way I became washer-woman for the laird of Roch Shan. It wasn't many years later that he brought in a wife, a young lady from foreign parts. I turned out to see her ridden in, all in silk and crushed velvet, atop a high-stepping white mare. She was pretty enough, if a bit thin and nervy-looking, but it wasn't the thinness that caught me: it was the wildness in her dark eyes and the way she seemed to move through shadows never cast by earthly light. And I said to myself, she's got it.

  When the ceremony was over and things had calmed down, and she'd taken up plain clothes and plainer duties, I contrived to come up beside her and say a few words in quiet. Everything I mentioned was double-hidden, but recognizable to anyone with fey knowledge. She treated me quite polite but seemed confused, and it was obvious she'd had no training.

  So I thought it would be all right. A mistake, as it turned out, and as I freely admit. But what have I to do with high-born ladies? I did the washing. I kept to my cottage. Her ladyship grew thinner and paler, even her hair turning an ashen sort of color, but her eyes stayed dark and mad.

  It was the next autumn that the laird came to my cottage. Unseasonable frosts had killed most of the late harvests, and the nights were filling with mist. It was through one such fog that he came riding, alone. I heard the hoofbeats before the shrouded light of his lantern came into view. I watched through the slats of the window-shutters as he swung off the horse and strode to my little door. He struck it three times, hard, and I drew back the bolt and let him in.

  Laird Rheagel is a craggy man, heavyset, with pronounced features and a bony nose. A face with character, as they say, and beauty isn't everything. There was something in his expression made me forego the usual scraping; mutely I offered him a chair. It's the only one in the house, so I stood before him.

  "My lady Elin is sickening," he said without preamble. "The night air seems to be doing her harm. Each evening she slips away. I know this, though I cannot prove it, for she has eluded every guard I set upon her, and when I watch her myself I fare no better. Each morning she returns, further weakened. When I suggested she forego her nightly outings, she spoke these words in reply: 'Hold the sunbeam, hold the sea, chain the zephyr, but do not chain me.'"

  He was quiet a moment, watching me closely. I caught myself bunching and unbunching my skirts in my hand, and forced myself to be still. But it was a nice jam! If I did not help him, I would lose my place in Roch Shan, and stars know there's not much further down to go from there. But if I did what I could for him and his lady wife—and that knot would take some untangling—I'd put myself square on the wrong side of the Church again. It was meddling in these matters that nearly ruined me before.

  "I don't know that I'd be all that much help to you, Laird," I told him, though I had faint hope of excusing myself so easily. "I'm but a simple woman, far from blood and breeding..."

  "We are all more than we appear," he said. That earned him a sharp look; he was certainly more than the devout son of the Church he played to. Not so funny, after all, that spot of washing that showed up so timely-like.

  "Listen, he said, leaning forward, his eyes boring into mine. "There is much here at stake—Elin is sick, and winter comes early."

  That reference took me a moment to catch, as I stared back at Rheagel and thought that he was as grim as his land...and then I understood. It's seldom, now, that any of the ancient links between land and ruler are preserved, and more seldom still that the nobles understand them. But in fierce and forsaken Roch Shan, they would long be kept alive.

  There was suddenly little choice to the matter. "I'll do what I can," I said unhappily, "though you might be wishing otherwise when it's seen through. I don't guarantee success, nor rosy endings. And I can't work alone. It's a strange affair, and I'll need some strange sorts of help."

  He nodded and stood. "My resources are at your disposal."

  "Then I'll be at the manor tomorrow night; I've things to gather here." He nodded again. "Good night, sir," I said.

  "Good night, mistress," he replied, and left, stooping a little to clear the lintel.

  I didn't shut my eyes that night. I packed up a bag with clothes and toiletries, then spent the rest of the night dragging out all my old books. I have the letters, though I am not quick with them, and by the time I finished my eyes were as puckered as raisins. My mind also was sore, from too many thoughts about the lady and her situation. Especially her rhyme—that was important, as Rheagel seemed to understand. Uncommon wise of him to pick it out like that to tell me. He has none of the eldritch abilities himself, but my best wager is that his mother was artful that way.

  Since I wasn't certain what I was looking for, it was difficult to find, but by morning I held enough information to be satisfied. Then I slept. In the afternoon I woke, and traveled to the manor to be presented to Lady Elin.

  She looked worse up close—or she had deteriorated since I saw her last. Her skin was all stretched out over her fine bones, and her bruised eyes darted ceaselessly around the room. Jumpy as a grasshopper she looked, and about as strong. She smiled thinly and greeted me.

  "Good mistress, I welcome your company," she said with no hint of irony, though she surely knew I was her jailer and not her companion. "Such a fine day for pleasant conversation."

  "As lovely as you are, my lady," I said, curtsying, "though it seems to have wearied you. You look tired."

  "Truly?" she asked. "It must be the afternoon sun, so harsh on the skin. Do you know any way to defend against it, other than a veil?"

  And so we discussed the benefits of red dock and of balsam root, and for each of my sharp questions she had a deft evasion. Grasshopper I called her, but she was closer to an eel.
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  As evening approached, she suggested it was time for bed. I agreed, though I had no intention of sleep. She began to unbraid her fair hair. As she did so she hummed a low tune, or perhaps sang it under her breath. It seemed to have words, but I could not make them out. As I listened, a drowsiness came over me, and a darkness seeped around the edges of my vision, until only Elin was clear. I watched as she finished brushing out her hair and went to the bed, but did not climb in. Instead she knelt and reached beneath it, drawing out a pair of sturdy boots. Then she turned straight to me, giving me a very level look, and the darkness closed in.

  When I woke up, of course, it was daylight. I didn't need a kettle for my tea that morning; I could have brought the water to a boil just cupped in my hands, I was that angry. But soon it turned to befuddlement. I was sure the girl had known no witchery when she came to Roch Shan. Where had she learned it so quickly? I looked at the bed and there she was, sleeping like a child.

  I went to the laird. He rose to greet me, with a question on his face.

  "This is what I need," I told him, "to hold the sunbeam: a golden chalice filled with the clearest water in your land."

  "You shall have it," he said.

  The chalice was easily procured, but the water was more difficult; even the water in