"Be still, you won't even notice me," a downy purr from the white witch. She took Paulus's hand in hers, her touch dry and delicate as vellum. Her eyes shut, showing fine blue veins in translucent skin. They opened again, looking at him so kindly. "Thank you." She touched the back of his hand with her fingertips before letting go. They called her the white witch, but she seemed perfectly pleasant to him. Gregoire's pet Konti, she vetted every man who entered his service. What she saw, the applicants never knew. Her whispers were only for powerful ears. Gregoire was leading her away by the arm. Her white furs were falling off her shoulders, fading into her dove colored hair. She leaned into Gregoire, her whispering lips almost touching his skin. Throughout, she was glancing bewitchingly at her latest subject over Gregoire's shoulder. "He dragged his wife down the stairs by her hair then jumped on her chest until she stopped saying his name." As Gregoire's guard dismissed Paulus, the white witch was still looking at him with that sweet smile. Among the sacred cloister of Gregoire's trusted, the white witch's appraisal was law. She had lied only once in his service, only one knew when. Gregoire's other pet Konti, Vera, was young and her divining was sporadic, even with a willing subject. But when clarity found her, she sifted truth from lie. Like every hopeful member of the house, Vera had her hands held by the white witch: The white witch opened her eyes and answered, "She has a pure heart and will work no harm." Vera smelled the witch's lie, and said nothing. The guards left Vera with her pale sister at the dinner table, who leaned in and cautioned, "Beware the head guard, Damire. His hands also seize what they should not." The white witch batted her eyes to the broth before her, but added, "Past sins do not always tell the future. Have a care. I know you need this position, Vera." Five winters later, when the accused white witch stood before Vera and said Gregoire and his lover had killed one another, Vera smelled a lie again. But she only nodded and told the men of Gregoire's house the white witch spoke true. The sisters had seen the raw need of each other and sinned to comfort it. Among women, among sisters, their crimes might be justified, but these furred northern men would cast them weighted and bound into the icy rivers. They would breathe but slowly freeze. Vera would never lie again and the white witch fled all the house's comfort, for neither had been able to call her sin sacred. |