body, Gabrielle's children scurried from beneath their dead father's clothing so that he instantly withered into a foul matting of rags, parchment skin, and brittle bones.
The repellent nest of spiders, hatched within Roger Faure's pitiful corpse, attacked me then, but the change did not come over me, for it was butcher's work I now did, efficient and yeomanlike, hacking them into bits one at a time as they tried and failed to bite through my heavy boots and scuttle up my legs. After I had dispatched the six, I searched the dry well thoroughly but found no more of the creatures.
'Haul away!' I shouted, and looked up to see Jacques's white face high above. I thought he might be tempted to leave this humble lycanthrope at the well's bottom, but he was a man of honor.
At the top I turned and spat back into the hole. 'Another half a year, and six redheaded beauties would have crawled up out of that hole to go their separate ways and drain the men of this domain. But no more. You might fetch that poor fool's body out when you return with soldiers for the cleaning up.'
'You're not riding back to town?'
I shook my head grimly. 'No. Tell them what you will. Tell them you killed her yourself, if it'll advance your rank. I don't care. My work here's done, and there's something ahead of me that will wait no longer.'
I bade him good-bye and rode here, straight to Strangengrad. For I knew that what I feared has come true. When I held that thing in my arms, even before she had begun to transform into her true monstrous self, I felt my own self changing. Had she been what I then thought she was, a true woman filled only with love and passion for me, I know that I would have killed her. I felt the beast escaping, that beast that yearned for hot blood and torn flesh.
And I knew then that I must suffer the cure for my dread disease. I must try to scour this curse from my spirit, whether the attempt drives me mad or kills my body. For I cannot live on knowing that my spirit is corrupted by evil.
So, Hamer, good friend, good priest, I stand before you a sinful penitent, stuffed full with undesired iniquity. You have heard my story. Tonight is the full moon. Lead me into the chapel, bind me, and do your best to drive this curse from me. And if my blood remains impure. .if the change comes…
Well, you have a sword, and it is silver. You will know what to do.
The House of a Hundred Windows
'Three. . four. . five. .' Clarisse Harrowing murmured, counting windows as she wandered through the ancient, dust-dim air of Evenore's grand hall.
It was here that her game always began, in the gloomy, rambling room that sprawled across the entire front half of the manor's first floor. Here the high, narrow windows were easy to count, each opening like a keyhole onto a leaden sky, nestled between smoke-stained beams arching overhead like the ribs of some dread leviathan from the deepest sea. Seven windows on the west side of the hall, seven on the east. Fourteen in all. But that was just the beginning.
The House of a Hundred Windows. That was what the old Vistana woman in the village below — the woman with eyes as small and black as a raven's — had called the manor, even though Clarisse had only ever been able to count ninety-nine. Of course, had it been so simple, it would not have been a game at all.
Clarisse moved into the library, her gown of dove-gray silk whispering across the worn stone floor. Heads of boars, stags, bears, and feral beasts she could not name snarled down at her from high walls, each draped in a shroud of cobweb and dust, as though wearing a funeral veil. She tried not to look at them. She concentrated on the windows. They were smaller here, trickier. Some hid behind the corners of overburdened bookcases, and others were all but obscured by tarnished suits of armor or tapestries whose idyllic hunting scenes had been darkened by years of soot and dust. Carefully she counted each window, making certain she peered into every alcove, every recess. The dreary afternoon light made her game difficult. It looked as if a storm was brewing.
After some moments she nodded. Yes, nine more. That was what she always counted in the library. But then, it might be that there was a window here she had yet to find.
Clarisse sank into a chair of blood-red velvet to consider this thought. She had played the game a dozen times or so — always when Lord Harrowing was away, of course — and at first, each time she searched, she had found more windows than the time before. Many of them were small and obscure, and easily overlooked. But on the last few occasions, Clarisse had counted only the same windows she had discovered before. Ninety-nine of them.
She frowned, a fine line casting a shadow across her smooth, pale forehead. She thought of her encounter with the old Vistana, as she did with curious frequency of late. It was the day Clarisse had dared to tell Ranya, Lord Harrowing's red-faced housekeeper, that she would walk to the village herself to purchase candles and salt. On her way back, in the middle of the village's one muddy street, she had come upon the old woman, clad in shabby rags that swirled on the cold wind like dirty feathers. The shriveled Vistana had gazed at Clarisse with those hard black eyes, and had pointed with a crooked finger toward the manor house, perched like a dark bird on the tor above the village.
A window lets in darkness as easily as light, the old woman's cracked voice whispered once again in Clarisse's mind. Forget that not, child, if you would dare live in the House of a Hundred Windows.
Clarisse sighed, wondering if she should give up her game. Perhaps the old woman was mad. Gareff had often said that all the wandering Vistani were, what with their fate-scrying cards and their magic crystals and their strange, wild music. But no, she couldn't give up. Not yet, at least. The game was all she had to stave off the vast loneliness of this place when Gareff was away.
And he was so often away, doing what she did not know, for he never spoke of it.
Clarisse wondered if this was what her father had meant for her, this desolate existence in a country manor, so far from the bright, candlelit ballrooms and opulently gilded opera houses of the great city of Il Aluk. But no, all that had mattered was that his daughter married a lord of ancient and honorable lineage. Clarisse's father was one of the wealthiest merchants in all of Il Aluk, but he had learned that there was one thing all his gold could not purchase — noble blood. Thus it was that when Lord Gareff Harrowing came to call at their fashionable city redstone nearly a year ago, Clarisse's father had welcomed the suit for his daughter's hand, even though the suitor himself was more than twice her age, and lord of a provincial estate over a fortnight's journey from the city.
Clarisse, of course, had been given no voice in the matter.
'The choice of whom to marry is not ours to make,' her mother had explained as she had basted up the hem of Clarisse's antique lace wedding gown.
'I don't see why,' Clarisse had replied crossly.
'Men are better at making decisions, Clarisse. 'Her mother's voice had sounded flat and weary. A look of resignation had shone in her eyes — eyes that years of meekness and subservience had washed utterly of all color and emotion. 'Men are stronger and smarter than we are, Clarisse. Do try not to forget that.'
Clarisse had only bit her tongue. She knew she was smarter by far than most of the flighty, foppish noblemen who frequented the city's ballrooms and theaters — and most likely stronger than half of them. But there was no use in saying it. Her mother had given up long ago. Now Clarisse supposed she would do the same. It was, after all, what was expected of her.
The next day Clarisse had wed Lord Harrowing in the largest cathedral in Il Aluk. Then, while her mother wept silently, her father had lifted Clarisse into a carriage with her new husband. As the horses lurched into motion, Clarisse had gazed back through the carriage's small, tear-drop-shaped window to see her father smile. With a start, she had recognized the satisfied expression. It was the same smile her father always wore after a profitable business venture. Apparently he had finally bought himself-what he had always desired. A spark of hatred had flared in Clarisse's heart then, so hot and sudden that it frightened her. She had turned her gaze from the window, trembling.
Now Clarisse stood and smoothed her gown, as if the memories could be brushed away like dust. The gloom was steadily gathering in the library. What little light the day had managed would fade to night soon, and then her game would be over. Swiftly she moved through the parlor, the ballroom, and the kitchen, with its cavernous stone fireplace large enough to cook an entire roe deer. She made her way quickly up the great, sweeping staircase to the manor's second floor and there went from bedchamber to bedchamber, pausing to count the windows in each.
