IT WAS IN MY GRANDMOTHER’S jewel box. I found it after she died. Perhaps jewel box is too fine a name to give to the plain wooden cask that held so little. There was a silver ring with the stone long prised from the setting, sold to pay family debts no doubt. I wondered why she had not sold it whole. There were two necklaces, one of garnets and another of polished jasper. At the bottom, wrapped in layer upon layer of linen, was the pendant.
It was a lovely carving of a woman’s face. She looked aristocratic, yet merry, and I recognized in her features some of my own. I wondered which of my female ancestors she was, and why someone had taken such care to make so delicate a carving from such an ugly piece of wood. It was grey and checked with age, and weighed unnaturally heavy in my hand as I examined it. The chain it was fixed to was fine silver, however. I thought it might be worn alone if the pendant could be removed. I heard a footstep in the hall outside her bedroom, and hastily slipped the chain about my neck. The cameo hung heavy between my breasts, concealed by my blouse.
My cousin Tetlia stood suddenly in the doorway. ‘What do you have there?’ she demanded.
‘Nothing,’ I told her, and hastily set the box back on Grandmother’s chest.
She swept into the room and snatched it up, opened it and dumped the necklaces into her hand. ‘Nice,’ she said, holding up the jasper one. My heart sank, for I had liked it best of the three. ‘I’m eldest of the grand-daughters,’ she pointed out smugly, and slipped it over her head. She weighed the garnets in her hand. ‘And my sister Coreth comes next. This is for her.’ Her lips twisted in a smile as she tossed me the despoiled ring. ‘For you, Cerise. Not much of an inheritance, but she did feed and clothe you for the last two years, and kept you in a house that long ago should have come to my father. That is more than she ever did for my sister and me.’
‘I lived here with her. I looked after her. When her hands twisted so that she couldn’t use them anymore, I bathed her and dressed her and fed her…’ My hidden anger pushed the words stiffly out.
Tetlia waved my words away contemptuously. ‘And we all warned you that you’d get nothing for it. She burned through her own family fortune when she was a girl, Cerise. Everyone knows that if my grandfather had not married her, she’d have starved in the streets. And my father has been good enough to let her live out her life in a house that should have come to him when his father died. Now she’s gone, and the house and land revert to my father. That’s life.’ She tossed the plundered casket onto my grandmother’s stripped bed and left the room.
‘I loved her,’ I said quietly into the stillness. Rage burned bright in me for an instant. It was an old family dispute. Her father was the son of Grandfather’s first wife, and the rightful heir to all, as they so constantly reminded me. It counted for nothing with them that my grandmother had raised their father as if he were her own child. It scalded me that Tetlia would claim my grandmother as kin for the sake of being entitled to her jewellery, but deny that I had any right to share the family wealth. For a second I clutched that anger to me. Then, as if I could feel my grandmother’s gentle hand on my shoulder, I let the strength of my just wrath leak away from me. ‘Useless to argue,’ I told myself. In my grandmother’s looking-glass I saw the same defeated resignation I had so often seen in her eyes. ‘It’s not worth fighting for,’ she had told me so often. ‘Scandal and strife serve no purpose. Let it go, Cerise. Let it go.’ I looked at the gaping ring in my hand, and then slipped it onto my finger. It fit as if made for me. Somehow, it seemed an appropriate inheritance.
I left the room and went to my own chamber to pack. It did not take long. I had one set of clothes besides my own, and her old Trader’s robe of soft saffron. I hesitated before I put it in my rucksack. I had never seen her wear it. Once I had asked her about that only unused garment in her chest. She had shaken her head. ‘I don’t know why I kept it. It has nothing to do with my life any more. In Bingtown, Trader families wear them when they go to the Traders’ Council to vote on Trader matters. Saffron was my family’s colour, the Lantis family. But I gave all that up years ago.’
I fingered the soft wool. It was cut in an archaic style, but the wool would be warm, I told myself. Besides, I had no intention of leaving it for my cousins. Now that my grandmother was dead, her little house on the seacliffs and the sheep pastures behind it would go to my uncle. And I, the sole daughter of her daughter, would have to make my own way in the world. My uncle had scowled at me when I had told him last night that I had nowhere to go, and asked his leave to stay on for a week.
He replied heavily, ‘The old woman was dying for two years, Cerise. If, in two years, you couldn’t make a plan for your future, you won’t do it in a week. We need this house, and it’s lawfully mine. I’m sorry, but you’ll have to go.’
So I went, but not far. Hetta, the shepherd’s wife took me in for the night. They were as angry with my uncle as I was, for he had already announced to there that he was raising their rent. In all the years that they had been my grandmother’s tenants, she had never raised their rent. Hetta was older than I, but that had never kept us from being good friends. She had two small children and was big with her third. She was glad to offer me a bed by the fire and a hot supper in exchange for help with her chores, ‘for as long as you want.’ I tidied the house as we talked, while she was relieved to sit down, put her feet up and put the last stitches into a quilt. I showed her both my ring and my pendant and chain. She exclaimed at the sight of the pendant and pushed it away from her.
‘The chain will bring you some coin, and maybe the empty ring. But that pendant is an evil thing. I’d get rid of it if I were you. Throw it in the sea. It’s wizardwood, the stuff a liveship is made from. I wouldn’t wear it next to my skin for the world.’
I picked up the pendant and looked at it more closely. In the candlelight, I could see faint colours on it, as if it had once been painted but had faded. The grain of the wood seemed finer, the features of the face more distinct than I recalled. ‘Why is it evil?’ I demanded of Hetta. ‘Liveships aren’t evil. Their figureheads come to life and talk and guide the boat on its way. They’re magic, but I’ve never heard them called evil.’
Hetta shook her head stubbornly. ‘It’s Rain Wild magic, and all know no good ever came down the Rain Wild River. A lot of folk say that that’s where the Blood Plague came from. Leave magic like that to those Trader folk who are born to it. It’s not for you and me. It’s bound to bring you bad luck, Cerise, same as it brought your grandmother. Get rid of it.’
‘She came from Trader stock,’ I reply stoutly. ‘Maybe that’s how it came to Grandma. Maybe she inherited from the days when we were Traders.’
Hetta pursed her mouth in disapproval as I put the chain back around my neck. I heard Hetta’s husband at the door and hastily slipped the pendant inside my shirt again. I’d always liked Hetta, but her husband made me edgy.
Tonight was no exception. He grinned to see me there, and grinned broader when Hetta said she’d invited me to stay the night. ‘You’re always welcome here, Cerise, for as long as you want to stay. There’s many a wifely chore that Hetta hasn’t been able to do for a time. You could take them on for room and board here.’
I smiled stiffly as I shook my head. ‘Thank you all the same, but I think I need to find a future for myself. I think I’ll go to Bingtown and see what work I can find there.’
‘Bingtown!’ Hetta was horrified. ‘That den of vice? Stay in the country, girl, where folks have hearts. No one will treat you well in the city.’
‘Stay,’ her husband urged me. His eyes decided me as he declared, ‘Live here, and I’ll treat you just like one of my own.’
And that night, he was as good as his word. As I slept on the hearth, I heard the scuff of his big bare feet as he came into the room. His children slept in the loft, and Hetta in their small bedchamber. In the past, he had done no more than stroke my buttock as I passed him, or casually brush my breast with the back of his hand as he reached past me, as if it were an accident. But I had never slept the night in his cottage. I smelled his sweat as he hunkered down beside me. ‘Cerise?’ he whispered in the darkness. I kept my eyes shut and pretended to be asleep. My heart was hammering as I felt him lift the corner of the blanket Hetta had given me. His big hand came to rest on the angle of my neck. I gritted my teeth but could do no more than that. Useless to resist. Hetta and the children might wake, and then what would I say? I tried to be as stoic as my long-enduring grandmother. Let him touch me. If I refused to wake, surely he would leave me alone.
‘Cerise, honey;’ he whispered again, inching his fingers along my flesh.
‘Faithless man!’ a whisper answered him. Every muscle in my body tightened, for it seemed to come from my own throat. ‘Touch me, and I’ll rake your face with scratches that Hetta won’t ignore.’
He jerked his hand back from me as if scalded, so startled that he sat down hard on the floor behind me. I lay still, frozen in silent terror.
‘And that’s how you’d pay back my hospitality, is it? Go to Bingtown, then, you little baggage. There the men will take what they want of you, and not offer you a roof nor a bed in exchange for it.’
I said nothing, fearing his words were true. I heard him get to his feet and then shuffle back to his marriage bed. I lay still and sleepless the rest of the night, trying to pretend that I had said those words. The pendant lay against my skin like cold toad; I feared to touch it to remove it.
I left the next morning, though Hetta near wept as she urged me to stay. All my possessions still made a light load. Bingtown was only two days away by foot, but even so, I’d only been there twice in my life. Both times, I had gone with my parents. My father had carried me sometimes on his shoulder, and my mother had cooked food for us at night. But they were both long gone. Now I walked the road alone, and my heart pounded fearfully at the sight of every passing traveller. Even when I was alone, fear rode with me, dangling from the necklace about my neck.
That night I left the road, to unroll my blanket in the lee of some rocks. There were no trees for shelter, no friendly nearby stream, only a hillside of lichen-sided boulders and scrubby brush. Hetta had given me a little sack of meal-cakes to last me on my way. I was too frightened of thieves to build a fire that might draw them, so as the westering sun stole the colours from the day, I huddled in my blanket and nibbled on one of my meal-cakes.
‘A fine beginning to my new life,’ I muttered when the last dry crumbs of the cake were gone.
‘No worse than what other women of your line have faced,’ whispered a voice. It came from my shirtfront. In an instant, I had snatched off chain and pendant and flung it from me. It caught on a bush and hung there, silver chain glinting in the last of the sunset. The dangling pendant came to rest facing me. Even in the fading light, I could see that it had taken on lifelike colours. It raised tiny eyebrows at me in disdain. ‘It’s a foolish choice you’re making, girl,’ it warned me.
‘Throw me away, and you throw away your inheritance. Just as your grandmother did.’ Frightened as I was, the small voice was so like my grandmother’s that I could not ignore it. ‘What are you?’ I demanded.
‘Oh, come,’ the pendant exclaimed in disdain. ‘I am exactly what you see and know me to be. Let us not waste time on foolishness.’
‘You were grey and still when I took you from Grandmother’s jewellery box.’
‘She had not worn me for many a year. She put me aside, just as she put aside the rest of her life. But you have revived me. You are young and your anma rushes strong as your blood through your veins.’
The pendant had a tiny voice, and despite my fear, I drew closer to hear its words. The eyes that met mine held kindly amusement. A smile bent the mouth. ‘What are you afraid of?’ she demanded. ‘For generations I have been in your family, passed down from mother to daughter. With me comes all the wisdom of your line. You were wise enough to steal me. Are you so foolish that you will fear your fortune now that it is in your hands?’
‘You’re magic,’ I said. ‘You’re alive.’
‘I am. And so are you, if you would bother to find it in yourself. It’s part of your inheritance, and if you are wise, it will be the first part you reclaim.’
‘My inheritance?’ I asked quietly.
The little eyes narrowed. ‘What goes with the empty ring that you wear: that is your inheritance. As you have donned both it and me, I suggest that you reclaim all that went with it. All that your grandmother Aubretia possessed before she chose to set us aside and live quietly.’
It was growing darker. Strange as may be, the little carved face seemed like a companion in the night. I took up the pendant and held the carved face closer to my own so I could see it. ‘Tell me,’ I begged. ‘For all the years that I lived with my grandmother and cared for her, I know little of her past.’
‘Well.’ The small dark eyes, so like my own, flitted about consideringly. ‘Where shall I begin? Tell me what you do know of her.’
I cast my mind back. ‘She told me little. Mostly I have guessed. I think that when she was very small, her family was wealthy. She often warned me against trusting handsome young men. While I lived with her, she would not permit anyone to court me. So I think that-’
‘You think that her heart was broken when she was young. And you are correct. Aubretia did grow up in a family that had substance if not real wealth. Her father died when she was young. The Lantis family had little wealth save their name but her mother was wise, and set aside an inheritance for her youngest daughter. It was her intention that her child need never marry for wealth, only for love. I told them I did not see why the two could not go hand in hand, but they both dismissed it as a jest. When your great-grandmother was on her deathbed, she passed me to her daughter. And she left this world in peace, knowing she has passed on both worldly wealth and a secret counsellor to Aubretia.’
I tugged my blanket closer around my shoulders and leaned back against the largest rock. It still held some small heat from the day. I drew my knees up and set the pendant upon them to listen to her tale. Night crept closer around us.
‘For a time, she lived wisely and well. Then she met a young man, a lovely young man. He was new to Bingtown, come to the great trading city to make his fortune. Howarth was a younger son, with no fortune to his name but rich in ambition. Aubretia would have married him a day after she met him, but he would not take her so. ‘When I have made a fortune of my own, then I will claim you as a bride. I will not have folk say I wed you for your money.’ And so Howarth courted her with bouquets of simple wayside flowers, and sat in her house before her fire and told her daily of how hard he struggled to wrest out a living as a clerk in a mercantile. He often scoffed at the fellow who owned the store where he worked, for he said the man had no imagination in his dealings, and that he might easily be twice as successful if he had but a bit of daring and imagination. Howarth planned that as soon as he had money enough to finance it, he would go on a trading journey to far Jamaillia, and bring back fine goods such as all Bingtown would clamour to buy. On his dreams were your grandmother’s dreams founded.
‘But her dreams and his were a long time in coming true. Your grandmother’s lover saved his coins, true, but Howarth no sooner had one to stack upon two than he had to spend it for new boots or a winter cloak. Your grandmother despaired that he would ever wed her. She begged him to marry her, saying she did not care if he was penniless, that with his job her inheritance would be sufficient for them both. But again he refused, saying he would not wed until he had built a fortune of his own.’
The pendant fell silent for a time, the small face gone pensive. I waited.
The small face pursed its lips in disapproval. ‘Then Aubretia had an idea. I warned her against it. In vain, I tried to persuade her to let this young man go his own way, but she would not listen. She went to Howarth and offered him money. He could take her money off to Jamaillia to buy the trade goods that would make them both wealthy. Half of whatever profits they made would be his, and then they could be married. He quickly agreed. Far too quickly for my liking.