Scent of Magic Read Free Page B

her more than her customers. Yet she was ready to serve all, listening to the complaints of those who ailed, mixing cordials and salves which served their purposes so well that all Kronen-bred knew their value.
    She certainly was not noble born. However, though Halwice went plain of dress and quiet of demeanor, Willadene had seen her more than once reduce some fretful or up-nosed housemistress to uneasy deference. She dealt with courtiers as well as stall keepers, and treated both with the same quiet courtesy.
    The girl gave a start now as the Second Bell boomed out the orders for the day. She slipped out of an alley and hurried down the street. There was rising clatter and soundas the merchants unshuttered their shops, calling greetings from one to the other.
    Halwice's shop was the ground floor of a three-story building. And while its neighbors were hung with banners urging this or that product upon the possible customer, her windows were trimmed with boxes—some green and lacy with ferns, others bright with flowers. Even her roof, Willadene knew, had been put to use with racks of shelves each bearing trays of plants, while Halwice's back door gave upon a stretch of well-nourished and tilled land, producing more healthy crops than one might usually find in the heart of a city.
    Willadene slowed. Jacoba could well guess where she would head. And already she might well be reported to the Reeve for straying. Could she be bringing down trouble on Halwice?
    The shop shutters were still up and there was no sign that the Herbmistress was starting her day. Willadene's head suddenly came up. That scent—it had the same evil promise that she knew meant trouble.
    She was at the closed door. Only— The latch cord was out—then why were the shutters closed? With caution, the girl raised her hand to the door. There was something wrong—she stifled a gagging protest.
    Though she had not been aware of it, she had given the door a nudge and it was swinging open. All the crowding scents she loved were loosed—but with them something dark and dangerous she could not name. . . . Halwice?
    The shop was dim with the shutters closed. She could see only the bulk of counter and shelves. And she stepped within as warily as if she were certain some trap waited beyond.

2
    The great bell's first sounding had not awakened the man who had left coverlets trailing behind him from the bed as he had crossed to draw the heavy curtain a little aside and look out on a dawn-grayed city. Uttobric of Kronen had never been an impressive figure even when decked out in the robes of formal ceremony. He was still less so now as he chewed his lower lip, his mind awhirl with the thoughts which had given him very little sleep this past night.
    His scanty stock of gray-brown hair stood on end above a narrow face worn by deep crevices of wrinkles, two bracketing each side of his thin-lipped mouth, others furrowing his forehead. He stared shortsightedly out into the gloom where the twinkle of a few lights below marked the coming of a new day of—
    Of course he had regretted the ravages of the plague, as any just man would; however, he certainly was not responsible for becoming the only male left in the straight line of descent. Now he could acknowledge to himself that he had both feared and envied his predecessor on the ducal throne. Wubric had been everything he was not—a ruler secure enough to be able to turn his attention to other matters.

    Uttobric did not have to turn his head now and look back at the table, where two candles were fast guttering out, to remember what lay there: reports—too many of them. . . . Between them they would pull him to bits if they might.
    Whom could he trust? Sometimes he even suspected Vazul—though that Chancellor, if Uttobric were swept away, would certainly fall with his lord, since he was not of the old nobility but rather the merchant class, a man of keen wit and wily action, all seemingly at the Duke's service.
    It was