A Mischief in the Snow - By Margaret Miles Page 0,93

a closer view of the niches full of weapons and spiders, and the tapestries above.

At the top, they came upon a long gallery. Clear glass in small, high panes let in enough of the noon sun for them to admire portraits of several gentlemen and their ladies, in two long rows that faced one another. Most seemed very well done.

Charlotte felt especially drawn to one whose etched plate identified its subject as Ermengarde Fischart, wife of Johan. This, then, was Catherine's mother. It strongly resembled the young woman in the larger painting below them. Yet this woman had been more slender, and seemed resigned to an unhappy fate—no use to her a gown enriched with a fortune in pearls, embroidered in thread of gold.

“Here is old Johan himself,” said Longfellow, coming to stand a few steps away.

Next to Ermengarde, they saw a man whose face showed great force of will, and a contempt for the world he took no trouble to hide. Something of him, too, had been given to the young woman below, though here was a more sensuous set to the forward lips, and a gleam of appetite in the eyes. He appeared to be dressed for the hunt. Thick leather straps ran over a heavy doublet, and on his head perched a hat made with small curled feathers, which Charlotte suddenly recognized.

“It's the hat Alex wore, isn't it?” she asked. “On his last day.”

“In the cellar now, rotting with the rest of him,” Longfellow returned cruelly, moving away. His voice, she thought, had sounded like that of someone else—someone frightening. “Carlotta,” he ordered. “Come here.”

She did as he asked, and felt as if fingers of ice had penetrated her skirts, chilling her legs and thighs. With a shocked gasp she stepped back, and found herself as she'd been before.

“You felt it, then.”

“Oh, yes!” she assured him. “How do you explain it?”

“A draft seems improbable, and could hardly account for the strength of the cold,” he said in his usual voice. “Actually, I have no idea what has made it.”

“None at all?”

“Well, it is a stone house. Perhaps a magnetic force, from embedded ore, has set itself up in a column, with its center here in the building's core. I may come back one day, with tools for measuring the drop in temperature. Or I may not,” he finished with more assurance.

“It does seem oppressive, doesn't it?”

“Worse, even, than below.”

“You felt something there, too?” she asked in surprise.

“Didn't you?”

“You didn't say—”

“And just what, I wonder, did you find so special in an old mirror?”

Finally she told him.

“I see. Or rather, I didn't—but there was an oppressive smell, I supposed, that grew more horrible as one neared the hearth. Possibly from the burning… but was that something you noticed?”

“No,” she admitted.

“Perhaps we should finish our business. I wouldn't want to keep Lem waiting too long,” he added, giving them yet another reason to move on. “Miss Knowles?” he called out. “Will you show us the bed chambers?”

No one asked for more time to examine the considerable number of portraits. Instead they moved off in a close group, each glancing to the left and right as they moved on to a corridor that was smaller, and darker.

Chapter 33

MAGDALENE'S CHAMBER WAS of a more pleasant than Charlotte had imagined. Beside an ample bed sat a chair with bright cushions; others lay along a wide sill that formed a seat by a window. Here, it seemed, the curtains were often shaken, and they appeared to be less dilapidated than those below.

By a small hearth, enough wood was stacked to ensure a comfortable fire, the next time one might be wanted. There were no candles, but it would matter little, for there were no books in evidence. Yet the needlework on the cushions was lovely, shining in the window's light. Had some of the metallic threads of silver been carefully plucked from old garments? Several colors, too, had been used to create patterns depicting ferns and spring flowers, which Magdalene might well have seen in the island meadows during her daily walks. These, thought Charlotte, were especially pleasing, and something of a relief in a house that held little else of softness. While their maker had a troubled mind, her eye, at least, was subtle and imaginative.

Without a word, Magdalene took a few simple robes from a clothespress that stood against a wall. She picked up a silver hairbrush, and two pairs of silk slippers, their worn soles replaced with felt. A chest