Baron Caidin leered licentiously at her as he finished buckling on his sword belt. He leaned over her, and she felt his moist breath in her ear. 'Farewell,' he whispered.
Sabrinda closed her eyes, listening to her lover's bootsteps retreating from the room. She drowsed for a time in contentment. Then she roused herself from her bed to make her preparations for the morrow. She opened her wardrobe and chose a gown of dove-gray silk with silver brocade, laying it carefully over the back of a velvet chair. She turned to sit at her gilded dressing table, rhythmically brushing her hair with her favorite ivory-handled hairbrush. She paused in midstroke.
'That's odd.' Setting down her brush, she reached out to pick up a lock of hair on the dressing table- her own hair by its length and color-which had been braided into a ring. Her frown of puzzlement gave way to a wicked smile. 'I suppose this is a token left by my lover,' she mused. She slipped it onto a finger. Soon Caidin would be thusly wrapped around her finger as well. Then, one night she would whisper casually into his ear that he should grant a fiefdom to one of his knights-a Sir Beacham by name-and surely the baron would comply.
'Then I can stop pretending to love the loathsome man,' she crooned to herself, 'and you and I can be together forever, my beloved Beacham.' Smiling at her own genius, she reached down to pick up the brush.
Sabrinda froze, staring at the mirror before her. In its reflection she saw the gray dress that she had laid out rise into the air, stretching its empty sleeves toward her. Gasping in horror, the contessa stood and whirled around. Fluttering, as if wafted by some unseen wind, the silk gown drifted toward her.
'Get away from me!' she shrieked, hurling the brush at the animated gown. The dress floated nearer. Its sleeves coiled smoothly around Sabrinda's neck. Screaming, she fought against the gown, feeling its delicate fabric ripping beneath her fingers. Stumbling backward, she fell against the dressing table. There was a sharp crash of breaking glass as she felt something hot slice across the back of her head. Rolling to the floor, she grunted like a trapped animal, clawing at the gown. In moments the dress was reduced to tatters of silk that twitched strangely upon the floor. Sabrinda reached up and touched her head. Her hand come away streaked with blood. She struggled dizzily to her feet, and whirled around. A new wave of fear washed through her.
'No '
She tried to cry out, but her throat constricted, choking her voice to a whisper. From the open wardrobe, gown after gown was drifting out. As if propelled by a cyclone, the gowns swirled around, the contessa, Inexorably closing in on her. This time she did scream, the sound ripping forcefully from her lungs, but it was muffled by a mouthful of cool silk. The dresses clung to her tightly, encircling her arms, her legs, her throat, pressing themselves against her face. She struggled frantically, rending material and tearing brocade with clawing hands, but to no avail- soon she became tangled in the writhing gowns. She tumbled to the floor. The dresses piled on top of her in a soft but excruciatingly heavy mound. Choking, she clawed at her face. She could not breathe. Her lungs burned.
Gradually, the contessa's struggling grew feeble. It was so dark, and so warm. Sabrinda's last thought was of her beloved Beacham, and how they were going to spend eternity together. Then everything went black as the gowns smothered her with their silken softness..
Wort looked up as a lock of cinnamon-colored hair fell from inside the cursed bell. Abruptly, swinging wildly of their own accord, the other bells began to ring out a deafening dirge. Wort scrambled across the moldering straw to snatch up the lock of hair. It was wet and sticky with blood.
'Yes,' he whispered exultantly, letting the throbbing music of the bells swell his soul as he clutched the lock of hair. 'I will be healed my way!'
Nine
It was after midnight. Alys opened her eyes with a start to see the quicksilver light of the moon pouring through the window of her attic bedroom. The cottage was silent. She sat up in bed, wondering what it was that had woken her. In her hands she cradled a small box filled with letters and poems Robart had written her. She must have cried herself to sleep, after she had argued with her father once again.
'We are a respectable family, Alys,' he had thundered. 'I will suffer no more talk of traitors in this house! Do you understand?'
'Robart was no traitor!' she had cried defiantly. Ignoring his shouts, she had climbed to the attic and had flung herself on her bed, sobbing and hugging the box of letters.
Now she carefully set down the wooden box. As if drawn by some irresistible force, she padded to the window. The cottage stood on the edge of the village, facing the fields her father owned and tilled. Beyond the fields was the rippling sea of shadows that was the moor. In the distance, looming atop a rise far out on the heath, she could just make out the jagged stump of the mysterious half-finished tower. Shivering, Alys moved from the window and traded the gray homespun dress she yet wore for a night gown. As she turned to climb back into her bed, her gaze once more roved outside the window.
'It cannot be!' she whispered.
She raised a hand to the open circle of her mouth. Then, without thinking, she threw open the window and climbed out. Quickly, as she had so often as a child, she scrambled down the ivy-covered trellis. Her nightgown flowing behind her like pale wings, she ran barefoot across the barren late-autumn fields.
There! Op ahead. She had not imagined it. Impossible hope flooding her chest, she ran after a tall, lanky figure who marched steadily toward the open moor. In the brilliant moonlight she had caught a familiar glimpse of red hair. She laughed for joy, not knowing how it could be possible, only that it was, must be.
'Robart!' she cried as she neared the figure of the man. 'Oh, Robart, somehow it is you!'
Alys threw her arms wide as the young man turned to greet her. A frown creased her forehead. Did he not recognize her? He shambled forward listlessly.
'Robart, it's me!' she shouted. 'Alys!' There was a strange, earthy scent on the air. 'What's wrong? Are you hurt?'
As Robart neared her, moonlight stroked his face. Crumbs of moist dirt and bits of mold clung to his tattered clothes and bloated flesh. A dirt-caked wound, sewn together with crude stitches, ran all the way around his neck. One of his familiar green eyes stared at her blindly, but the other had fallen from its socket and dangled at the end of its nerve like a putrid grape. The stench of rot radiated from his body in choking waves. Shaking her head in mute terror, Alys tried to back away. Her legs wouldn't move. He reached his arms toward her.
'My love,' he groaned in a slurred voice, as writhing worms dropped from his mouth. Alys felt his spongy flesh press against her own as his arms closed about her in the hideous mockery of an embrace.
A scream of utter madness rent the chill night air. Then the moor was silent, save for the haunting calls of owls.
'Alys!'
The cries rang out across the rolling heath, drifting with the gray mist that swirled along the ground.
'Alys, where are you!'
A stout peasant man stumbled across the moof, calling hoarsely. His wife trudged after him, her broad face swollen from weeping.
'It is my fault, Marga,' the man said despondently. 'I drove her away.'
'I won't listen to such foolishness, Hannis,' she reproached him wearily. He seemed not to hear her.
Urgent shouts pierced the leaden fog. 'They've found her!' Hannis exclaimed.
The two broke into a dead run. They burst through a bank of mist to find several villagers gathered around a pale heap slumped at the base of a skeletal tree. Only after a stunned moment did Hannis realize indeed it was his daughter. He knelt down.
'Alys?'
Gently, he reached out and lifted the young woman's chin. He heard Marga's stifled cry behind him. Alys stared with blank eyes, her skin as gray and clammy as the mist. Bits of moss and earth were tangled through her hair; her nightgown was filthy and tattered. After a moment Hannis realized she was muttering something under her breath, a weird, sing-song rhyme:
'Where is my love?
