Year of the Unicorn Read Free

winning softness-no, her uncle would have her out of this Abbey and off to the first Fold Gather where he could pick and choose wisely among her suitors for good addition to his standing. Sussia-
     
    Sussia-what did anyone know about Sussia? She was older, she kept her own council, though she talked readily about the small concerns of Norstead in company. Perhaps few realized how little she ever spoke of herself. She was of gentle blood, yes, and had, I thought, a good and even quick mind. Her home was in the lowlands of the sea coast, and so she had been exiled from her birth. She had kin with the host, but how close they were...Yes, Sussia was a possibility. And how would she welcome news that such a choice had fallen upon her? Would that outward amicability crack and let us see what lay beneath it?
     
    "Gillan!"
     
    I looked down over the parapet of the tower. There was the sheen of rime, the covering of snow across the gardens. I had a doubled shawl about me against the bite of the wind, yet the sun made a diamond glitter on the cloak of winter and a small, sharp wind tugged at Dame Alousan's coif veil.
     
    To be summoned by my mistress in this fashion was a thing out of daily pattern. And in me stirred a feeling which I had half forgotten since I had so well schooled myself against that which was trouble. The dust of time was being blown upon-Dared I hope for a wind of change?
     
    Though I had learned to walk calmly, with unhurried step according to Abbey custom, yet now I ran down the stairs, round and round the wall of the bell tower, setting a curb on my haste only when I came into the open.
     
    "Dame?" I sketched the curtsy of greeting and she gestured in return.
     
    "There has been a message, and a full convocation is ordered." She was frowning. "Go you and tend the small still. This is not a time when my work should be so interrupted."
     
    She pulled at the flapping ends of her veil and went past me with a firm step as one who would speedily answer some hail that she might the more quickly return to her task.
     
    A message? But no one had ridden through the Dale, past the village. The flapping of wings past the tower when I had first ascended? A bird? Perhaps one of the trained, winged messengers used by the host. Abbess Malwinna had lessoned many of them in her active days. The war-had our belief in peace been only rumour? Did the Hounds now bay on the borders of Norstead?
     
    But these were only thoughts, and come war or lasting peace, if I did not give thought to Dame Alousan's distilling there would be real trouble for me in due time.
     
    The still room was odorous as always, though most of those smells were sweet and clean. And now there was a fragrance, arising from the vessel by the still which was so entrancing that I feasted my nostrils as I obeyed the orders laid upon me. That task was done, the liquid safely bottled, the apparatus washed thrice as was the custom, and yet Dame Alousan returned not. Outside afternoon became early winter evening. I blew out the lamps, latched the door, and crossed to the main hall of the Abbey.
     
    There was the twittering of voices, growing the shriller by the moment as women's voices do when there are no lower masculine notes to hold them in scale. Two lay sisters were setting out the meal for guests on the fable, but none of the Dames was present. By the fireplace gathered all those who had taken refuge, some for years, within these walls.
     
    I hung my shawl on the proper hook by the door and went to the fire. In that gathering I was neither bird nor cat. I do not think that some ever knew just how to accept me: whether as a fosterling of a noble house once on a time and of the rank, say, of a Captain of company's daughter; or whether I was to be counted one of the community though I did not wear the veil and coif. Now, as I joined them they took no note of me at all, and the chitter-chatter was deafening. I saw that some, usually sparing of word, were now