“Believe me, you must. He is as cruel as a crocodile; would strew your grave afterward with poems written by himself, but not till he has the fullest pains from you. . . . Is it in that?”
Lalette had pulled aside her mother’s bed, beneath which lay the old leather portmanteau with the bar-lock. Mathurin tried it once, twice; it would not give. Before the girl could protest, he whipped a knife like a steel tongue from beneath his jacket and expertly slashed around the fastening. The portmanteau fell open on a collection of such small gauds and bits of clothing as women treasure, Mathurin shovelling them onto the floor with both hands until at the back he came on an old, old wooden box, maybe a handsquare across, with a crack in the wood and a thin slab of marble that might once have borne an inscription set in its cover.
“That must be it,” said Lalette, “though I have seen it only outside the case. I cannot be certain now.”
“Why?”
“A witchery is needed, and—”
“Get your cloak and what money you have. Rodvard lives in the Street of the Weavers, the third house on the left as you turn in, the one with the blue door. Do not wait; I must attend my master.”
3
ESCAPE
There was a moon to throw black shadows on passing cat and man; Lalette’s little sharp heels clicked so loud on the pave that she almost changed to tiptoe. The Street of the Weavers was known to her; at its gate she had first met Rodvard, amid booths gay with bunting for the autumn festival. He slapped her with a bladder then, and challenged her to dance the volalelle among the reeling violins and sweet recorders . . .
“Fair lady,” said a tentative voice. Not even looking round, she pulled the hood closer and hurried her steps until those behind her sounded irresolute and then died away.
One, two, three; moonlight showed a door that would be a worn blue by day, clearly a pensionnario. Lalette caught her breath at the loud flat rap of the knocker through the silent street, held it for a long minute and was just wondering whether she dared strike again, when there was a sound of fuzzy disturbance within, and a wicket window beside the door came open on an ill-tempered face, with a long, drooping, dirty moustache.