the windows, though I could see by their motions that the shutters were open to the mild fall day. In a large bed against the unwindowed wall lay a young woman... almost too young, it seemed to me, to be the mother of so big a boy as Rolduth.
Her eyes turned toward me as I entered. Even in the darkness, I could see that she possessed a glory of red-gold hair and large eyes that seemed bottomless, as gray eyes often do. Without speaking, I went to the window and opened the curtains, letting the glow of the noon sun pour into the room.
She turned away with a protesting gesture. I went to her and took her hand. “Lady Felisa, I am a Singer of Souls. I have come to help you determine if the child you carry is or is not what you fear it may be.”
Her breathing eased, and the wild look left her. She stared at me searchingly, and I could feel her relaxing, bit by bit. “Can it be done now?” she asked, and there was desperation in her voice.
“It can. But you know that there is unrest among the people in the village. Would it not be better to go out into the Mother Chapel there, and in the presence of all who can enter to sing the soul of your unborn child?”
“If I were certain of the outcome, I would say yes. If I should, indeed, be carrying a demon-child, I fear for your life and those of my mother and son. The folk are ignorant, though we try to teach them. They cling more to the earth-demons than to the teachings of the Mother and the beings of the gods. When they are filled with fear, they are most dangerous.” Her voice carried away as a weary whisper, but I nodded again.
“Then we must first make a determination here. Do you want your mother and your son?”
“My mother. I fear to have my son...see....”
So, with the Lady Meltha at my side, I stood for the second time in the same day and called upon the Power. My weariness seemed to be no obstacle, for the pulsing tensions built within me to override any failing of the flesh. My long breath, held for a heartbeat, came forth in a note so soft that it was barely within range of hearing. A crooning melody took me, and I sang.
I had never sung the soul of a child. I expected it to be small, but it was not. It was, perhaps, more tender, but there was no difference in the size of the impulse I felt.
On a spot on the wall, a shape appeared. A sad shape, it seemed, tentative and uncertain. Its short history shone within it, from the first pulse of life when it was only a mote of matter within its mother. Shadows appeared and disappeared. I guessed that these were stresses that had troubled Felisa and were conveyed to her infant through her own system. Then a tremendous shadow rose up and engulfed that glow of life, almost extinguishing it. As if a dark hand had twisted it, its shape changed, and a blot of darkness seemed to grow within it.
I reached out my hand and took Meltha’s. She gripped firmly, and her warm strength was added to the Power and my own faltering energies. Again I breathed deeply. Then I sang a note of exultation, of triumph over darkness, of affirmation of life. A song of joy gripped me. As I sang, I saw the dark blot fade, slowly, and the twisted shape grow round and complete again. The glow brightened to glory, and as the song ended it winked out.
I fell at the Lady Meltha’s feet, wrung dry by the exertions of the day. She lifted me to the bed beside her daughter and put a cool cloth to my cheek.
“Well done, Singer,” she said. “So it was a human child, Felisa. You felt its warping by the dark forces of the wood and feared it a demon...and who is to say that the fears of the folk might not have been justified, had it come to birth unhealed?”
Felisa bent over me, her eyes filled with worry. “Have you come to harm, Singer?” she asked.
“No harm,” I breathed. “But I fear I will have no strength for another singing for a time. Will the people wait?” The sound of booted feet moved in the antechamber, and the door was quietly opened. Felisa gasped beside me; then she was up and moving into the arms of a stocky man who gladly received her there.
With admirably few words, Meltha told him what was needful. I asked again, as he digested that strange mixture of tragedy and hope, “Will the people wait?” He looked down at me and made a strange little salute, as from one warrior to another. “The people will wait,” he said.
Chapter Four
The Winter Beast
I was a long time in the house of Rellas. Even after the folk had seen the soul of the unborn child sung upon the polished wall of their own Mother Chapel and had accepted its humanity, the Lady Felisa clung to me. Her mother, her husband, and her son added their pleas to hers, so I stayed well past my time, though I remembered too well the penalty of making my stay permanent.
Still I was not truly idle. Much was to be learned from Rellas, in those lengthening fall evenings, about his journey to the Citadel and the strange manner in which he had been detained there. His summoning had been unnecessary, by any reckoning. His taxes had been properly totaled and paid, and the services of a courier could easily have taken the necessary proofs to the capital city. So flimsy was the pretext upon which he had been taken from his home, so oddly disturbing was the collection of excuses that had been used to keep him in the Citadel, that I felt a frightening unease.
At the risk of seeming to overstep my place, I found an opportunity to talk with him about my forebodings. It was the night before my departure, for I knew the time had come for me to set foot again in the road. Felisa, now heavy with child, had gone to her chambers with her mother to talk with her until she slept. Rolduth was in the stables, currying Cherry. Rellas and I sat alone before his broad hearth, both of us feeling a bit saddened that my task with his family was done.
As a log broke into glowing halves, sending up a thousand red sparks to cling in the soot of the chimney wall, I asked him, “My friend Rellas, were you released to return home or did you come unbidden, knowing that you must be needed?”
He looked at me strangely. “They would have kept me there until spring,” he said. “As it was, I felt much unease, and I resented my time’s wasting, there on the doorstep of the High King. He, having brought many forth from their places, would consent to see none of us. At last I visited Ernethos, the Scholar, who counseled my father before me. Though he is now withered and white-haired, his old head holds more knowledge of the usages of laws and the whims of men than any I know.
“He said to me, ‘Rellas, if you abstain from visiting any of the Ministers, if you send no messages to the High King, for two weeks, they will check to ascertain your presence. After that you may go where you will, for they will assume that you are waiting quietly upon their pleasure. It may be months before you are missed.’
“‘But what if I am missed...what if they seek to trouble me concerning my going home without leave?’ I asked him.
“‘You break no law now or ever upon the scrolls of the Citadel,’ he said. ‘Some mischievous quill-scribbler has taken it in mind to harry honest men. You are in no peril from the law.’
“So I did as he said, and after two weeks I set out for home...not an instant too soon.”
He sighed. “But I would have taken oath that our land was not conducted so.”
Hesitantly, I shook my head. “There are ill things afoot, I am afraid. Others along my road had been summoned to the Citadel. None being as highly placed as you, they were astonished at the summons. Being mostly those who live by their own toil, they sent word that they could not come, for their families would hunger in their absence. But I wonder, Rellas,
