The Bell at Sealey Head by Patricia McKillip Page B

ask who takes the lantern back to its hook beside the door, puts it out, and hangs it up again.

    Just do it.

    Go to the armory near the practice yard. No one will be there at that time of the day. Take the sword with the single red jewel in the bronze hilt out of its scabbard, and leave it lying across the arms of the wooden chair with the cracked leather seat, the worn back where the figures stamped into the leather and painted have become pallid ghosts of themselves. Rest the scabbard against the wall beside the chair.

    Leave the room. Quickly.

    Climb up the stairs of the east tower, and unlock the door you locked earlier. Go into the room at the top of the tower. Turn one page of the book on its stand in the middle of the room. That page will be no different from the one you turned the day before, and the day before, and the day before that. A blank book of days. Lock the door when you leave.

    Don’t ask who unlocks it after you have gone, who reads the blank page.

    Cross the parapet walk to the west tower, where, this morning, you fed the crows. Put on the apron someone has left there. Take the bucket of water and the brush. Scrub the leavings of the crows off the stones, their discarded scraps, stray feathers, acrid droppings. Ignore the crows when they line the walls and watch you. They approve. They like a clean house. And with them there, you won’t be tempted to lean over the battlements and watch the wood for a flash of armor, a flow of color through the trees, whose lengthening shadows portend the waning of the day, the return of the knights, the bell.

    Go to your chambers, take off your soiled clothes, bathe, and dress for supper.

    Wait for it, the ringing of the bell.

    When you hear it, open your door to the sounds of the knights’ voices welling and booming up from the great hall, the sound of stray pieces of armor clanging on stones, dogs barking welcome, musicians beginning to play.

    Hurry down to place their chairs, fill this cup but not that, to see which pair of eyes might linger on yours.

    Hurry down to meet your fate.

    The feast that night began like every other in her life. Four long tables were set end to end down the hall, across the stones where the knights had knelt earlier that day. Cloths of gold and red and blue were spread over the tables. The chairs were lined against the wall, beautiful things with arms and spindles carved of ash and oak and bone, the seats and backs fashioned of brilliant tapestry whose threads never seemed to fade. Goblets as bright and varied as the chairs stood at each place, beside plates round and white as the moon. Sharp, gleaming knives with handles of horn lay across the moons, on napkins red as the blood that would run from the great haunches of meat whose smells of drippings and herbs pervaded the hall. The knights gathered at the two huge hearths, one at either side of the hall. They stood on the hides of deer and soft white sheepskins, telling tales and jesting with one another. Dogs milled around their legs, stirred by the heat and the deep voices as the knights waited for the servants to place their chairs. Ysabo moved among the servants, watching for those they left untouched. The chair with the griffin tapestry she pushed to the place at the table with the goblet whose stem was a griffin rampant, its wings opened to enfold the cup. The chair with the mermaid tapestry matched the mermaid whose uplifted arms carried the cup. The lion tapestry, the unicorn tapestry, the tapestry man with his enigmatic eyes and rack of horns, these she shifted to their proper places. Chairs done, she filled the cups: griffin, lion, mermaid, horned man, with red, spiced wine.

    A horn sounded. Ladies entered, Maeve and Aveline among them. The knights moved to greet the ladies, led them to their places, where they would mostly be ignored for the rest of the meal. Ysabo, finished with her ritual chores, looked for her own chair.

    Someone took her arm. She started. A