The Cabin of Silence

In a silence like a mausoleum heaped with stone coffins, Kasvren wondered what role Isolde was meant to play. Was she the pitiable woman in her white dress, doomed to stand forever in a chapel where everyone had collapsed coughing up blood, mourning that death eternally with a wilted bouquet in her hands? Or was she the mad murderess who, after everyone had died, flung out lavish cheers and kisses of joy and danced a dance with no music at all?

With a curiosity that was tightening around his chest like a fist, he drew near the firmly shut door. Judging by its position, this had to be the Cabinet — the head of the house's study and informal reception room — yet the moment his hand touched the doorknob, a jolting stab of pain, or something like it, shot through him, and he snatched his hand away in alarm. Unable to believe it, he stared down at his palm, then flexed his fingers open and shut a couple of times. What in the world had that been? It had felt as though a thousand tiny needles had sprouted at once and pierced his skin.

"That can't be it."

Kasvren murmured the words as though hypnotizing himself, then laid his hand on the doorknob again. This time there was no pain. And if there wasn't — good. Needles? What a ridiculous notion.

Click.

The door was locked. It showed not the faintest sign of opening. Hoping for a stroke of luck, he worked the handle up and down a few more times. And that was when it came.

"What do you think you're doing there?"

Ridiculous as it sounds, this time too he was badly startled — just as he had been when Rad Dat had appeared without warning. Isolde's sharp voice was not merely a sound. It was the sensation of a dagger driven deep between his shoulder blades. Frowning, Kasvren looked at her, then pointed at the locked doorknob.

"What is this place?"

"I told you, didn't I. Never open a locked door."

"Which is precisely why I'm asking you."

"It's a place you have no need to know."

"Can you not explain anything at all?"

"I have no desire to explain anything. There's a great difference between the two."

Isolde's voice was imperious, bordering on insolent. Her whole bearing seemed to say: I am the master of this house. If you want to break the rules, go anywhere else in the world and smash them like so many windows.

Kasvren obediently released the knob, raised both hands like a soldier surrendering after a lost battle, and let his gaze drop for a moment. Then he looked at Isolde again. She was still regarding him steadily, her expression frozen cold, and it was obvious she intended to keep staring until he left the door behind.

"Understood."

Kasvren said. Isolde gave no answer. True to form, he sidled a step or two away from the door with his hands still raised, and it was then he noticed that the fingertips hanging slack at Isolde's sides were stained green. What was that? Had she been crushing leaves into them, playing at housework like a little child with her dolls?

"Let me say it once more. Never, ever enter a locked room. If you sneak in and I catch you, I will throw you out of this house on the spot."

"I shall remember, my lady."

"Drop that tone of voice, too."

At Isolde's icy rebuke, Kasvren couldn't suppress a dry laugh.

"Then how would you have me speak it? What tone of voice might satisfy your exacting palate, my lady? Shall I be courteous and solemn, like a gentleman of society?"

"Not necessary."

"You are truly an unfathomable woman. If being treated like a gentleman offends you, then how about I carry on like some common street ruffian? Would that please you more?"

Deliberately, Kasvren thrust his hands into his pockets and sauntered toward her, a loose, swaggering walk. As the tall man tilted his head and looked down, his shadow fell across Isolde's face — as if it had swallowed up half of her.

"Does this please you better, Lady Isolde?"

Unexpectedly, Isolde did not react to his provocation at once. No — she could not. At least, that was how it seemed to Kasvren.

Bewilderment, perhaps? Shame? Crooking one corner of his mouth into a smile, he brought his fingertips to the very tip of her chin and, before she could push him away, lightly caressed the skin there, smooth as cream. In that instant, a thrilling shudder he had never once tasted in his entire life swept through him, and inwardly he reeled.

"Did you long for someone's touch?"

That was the moment. Crack — the sound rang out, and Kasvren's head snapped slightly to the side. It was his cheek that had taken the blow, but the pain would be far worse on Isolde's side. When had that little hand of hers ever struck anyone before?

Without turning his stinging face back, Kasvren gave a bitter smile.

"It seems I've badly misjudged the situation."

"Lay a hand on my body again, and it will be the last time."

Isolde ground out the words through clenched teeth. Her expression hardened further. But Kasvren did not want to retreat just yet. That shudder he had felt moments ago — he wanted to know what on earth it was. Fear? Or desire?

He tilted his shoulder closer to her ear and whispered:

"If I refuse to obey you, what happens then? Do I die, like your family did?"

Before his words had even finished, Isolde flung herself backward, clapping her palm over the ear his breath had touched as though in horror. Her black eyes gleamed as though filled with embers.

"Perhaps. Always be careful."

After Isolde vanished upstairs, leaving behind that frigid sneer, Kasvren stood in place for a while. He was mortified. He could not stop the self-reproach, the self-mockery.

What on earth had he just done? He had behaved like an absolute ruffian. Forcing his way into a strange woman's domain! Hadn't he all but threatened her? Had the decency he once possessed evaporated entirely, like a fistful of smoke?

And yet, even in the midst of it, Isolde's fragrance lingered at the tip of his nose. She had smelled of herbs. That bitter-green scent laced with a faint sweetness had seemed, for a moment, like the perfume of some drug that bathed a man in euphoria. How could that be? If she truly was a murderer, as everyone said — could even a killer soaked in blood carry a scent that ensorcelled the living? Rather than the stench of the gallows, the smell of death's final breath caught in the moldy muslin hood of an executioner's shroud?

I've gone mad. Thoroughly, hopelessly mad. Perhaps I've already taken this damp land's curse upon myself. Reverend Father — what have you entrusted to me? What burden have you laid upon my shoulders?

He left the locked door and went into the study. It stood open. Though he could see no traces of Isolde's frequent comings and goings, Rad Dat's handiwork was apparent everywhere. The bookshelves were arranged without a speck of dust, and unlike the parlor with its funereal air, the curtains here were drawn open, the pale, sickly sunlight of Dravenmoor falling in a rounded half-circle across the carpet.

When he ran his hand along the shelves crammed with books, he felt dampness. As an experiment he pulled one out and opened it, and a puff of dust billowed forth. The pages, too, had soaked up moisture — many were wrinkled or stuck fast together. Rad Dat might have kept the study immaculately clean, but tending so many books was another matter entirely.

Gazing up at the aging books, Kasvren felt a strange mood settle over him. Just as with Isolde, just as with Rad Dat, just as with this entire mansion — the conviction seized him powerfully that here, what met the eye was not the whole of the truth.

Quite suddenly, Kasvren felt the impulse to draw out the books of this study one by one and breathe life back into them. True, gray days outnumbered clear ones here, and soon the full force of winter would descend and the blizzards would howl — but before that, he wanted to carry out as many books as he could and dry them in the sun. To smooth the crumpled pages, to hunt down the tiny worms gnawing at the letters within. If he occupied himself so, the days would pass safely by. And a safe passage of time was, at present, all that Kasvren needed most.

In another sense, it was also his first act of penance toward Isolde. Though the Kasvren of that time did not yet understand it as such.

When the dinner hour arrived, he responded to the bell and made his way to the dining room. His shoulders ached from hauling the books out of the study and piling them up, so he sauntered in with a casual stretch — and there, unexpectedly, was Isolde. Seated at the table with lamps and candles lit in profusion around her, she looked far paler and smaller than she had in the light of day.