Read Online The Catswold Portal by Shirley Rousseau Murphy - Free Book Online Page B

Siddonie’s morsels of spite, and she wondered what that meant.
    Idly she watched a dozen horses and ponies grazing the fenced meadow behind the palace. Most of the palace mounts were kept in the stables that were entered by an archway in the courtyard. Beyond the meadows, the far forest looked dense and cold. In that ancient woods bears still roamed, and small dragons. It was the kind of forest where one might uncover the bones of still larger creatures no longer known in the Netherworld, bones that, when touched, moldered into powder. The wildness of the old forest excited her, she felt a hot desire to rove free there. And she felt lonely suddenly, too, and didn’t know what she was lonely for.
    She picked up the tray and went on. She knocked on the prince’s door, then knocked again. When the child didn’t answer, she slipped into the dim, curtained chamber.
    The boy was asleep sprawled across wrinkled covers. She set the tray on the bedside table and brought a small spell-light to look at him.
    His hair was dark, his face the same perfect oval as the queen’s. But the child’s face even in sleep was drawn with pain. Deep shadows stained his cheeks beneath his dark lashes. Everyone knew he was kept alive only by the queen’s spells. No one thought Siddonie protected him because of love; she kept the dying prince alive because without an heir her claim to the throne would weaken. As Melissa turned away she saw an image on the wall, and started, shocked.
    She had never before seen a picture, except those that children drew before their parents forced them to stop such practices. Why would there be an image in Affandar Palace, when every effort was made to avoid images? The windows were spell-cast, and it was said that even the horse trough was covered with a wooden lid before Siddonie came to the stables.
    The picture was rich with smeared colors forming hills and trees. It showed a boy standing before a wood, and surely it was the prince, though in the picture he was not as thin.
    Maybe this image was a charm meant to make the prince well. Such was not an accepted practice, and she knew of no one in the kingdom who would dare make such an image, or who would know how. Yet as she touched its rough surface, a sense of recognition filled her—a strange shadow of memory. But when she tried to bring the memory clear, it faded, was gone.
    She straightened the tray on the bedside table and refolded the napkin. She had turned away from the sick boy’s bed when suddenly the child spoke.
    â€œWhat are you doing to my breakfast? What spell did you lay on my breakfast?”
    She turned to look at him.
    â€œOr were you eating it?”
    â€œI’d thought of it,” she said, amused. “It seems a waste, if you only send it back. How can you get well if you don’t eat?”
    He lifted an eyebrow. His pale face was regal in spite of the darkness under his eyes and his drawn look. A regal face, but emotionally empty, cold. His silk pajamas were rumpled and sweaty, and his dark hair was tangled. He said, “I don’t want to get well. I don’t like porridge and I detest pig meat. Throw it out.”
    She studied his black eyes, so like his mother’s. He was pale to the point of grayness. “I can’t imagine wanting to be sick.” She looked at him for so long he began to fidget. She said, “You don’t go out of this room at all? You don’t ride? There are ponies in the pasture.”
    â€œOf course I don’t ride anymore. I’m too sick. Horses are stupid beasts.”
    â€œYou don’t get tired of being in bed?” she said more softly. “You never want to be outside?”
    â€œWhy should I want to be outside? I’m too weak to go out. What business is it of yours?”
    â€œIt is none of my business.” She looked him over severely. The little boy deeply angered her.
    She had left him and was hurrying past the deep bay