A Princess of the Chameln Read online

  A Princess of the Chameln

  Rulers of Hylor trilogy Book 1

  Cherry Wilder

  Mashup Press™

  AIDRIS SAW NOTHING UNTIL HER MOTHER SCREAMED

  Two young men in dark clothes flung themselves upon Racha Am Firn and his wife and child. Racha was struck to the heart. At the same moment Hedris was flung backwards, the knife of the second assassin raking at her body. Aidris cried out, everyone was crying out; there was blood, bright blood on the sand of the pathway and a thick gasping sound in her ears.

  The noise and violence did not stop. There was a continual shouting, the cries of women, the tramp of feet. She was led through broad, sunlit corridors to the dark bedroom. Hedris lay covered to the neck, her face whiter than the bed linen. Hedris smiled thinly at her daughter; her eyes were wide, as if she strained to see through a mist.

  “Quickly,” said her mother. “There is a treasure. A secret. Feel the bed frame . . . the carved snake, then the three figures of the Goddess, then the flower . . .”

  A small hollow opened two finger breadths from the carved flower in a circle of leaves. Aidris drew out a long, fine chain of bronze; the jewel or medallion on the chain was hidden in a pouch of soft green leather.

  Chapter One

  I

  When she was ten years old the chancellor Nazran, from her father’s court, gave Aidris a bow and arrows. They practised together in the birch grove beside the palace. Nazran was old, rather scholarly in appearance, with no reek of horses or the countryside, but he handled the bow very well, speeding the small arrows into the chosen tree.

  She remembered his explanations of her life more clearly than any she heard from Racha, her father, or Hedris, her mother. When she rode out with her father and her uncle to the Turmut, the meeting of the northern tribes, the wonder of the time was underscored by Nazran’s quiet voice:

  “There are two rulers in the lands of the Chameln; they are descended always from two ancient royal houses, Am Firn and Am Zor. Together they form the Daindru, the double sovereignty, the two . . . it is a word from the Old Speech. The line of each house goes back unbroken for more than a thousand years. The blood of these houses is precious; it is linked to the earliest inhabitants of this part of the world, this whole wide continent of Hylor. We of the Chameln, though our lands are shrunken now and threatened, we are those who have always been, the true children of the Goddess.

  “We are of two races, and this can be seen in our rulers, the Daindru. The Firn are a short, sturdy, dark-complexioned, dark-haired people, with broad faces, eyes brown or hazel or green, colors of the forest. The Zor are a blond race, fair-skinned, taller, more delicate, with eyes grey or blue, sky-colored. To be sure, the rulers do not always show this coloring, but the true features always return. You are your father’s heir, Dan Racha Sabeth Aidris Am Firn; you show the blood royal most perfectly, and your father’s co-ruler, Dan Esher, your uncle by his marriage, has the young heir Dan Esher Sharn Kelen Am Zor, and he is similarly blessed. You will succeed your father, and he will succeed his; eventually you will rule together. You will each found families, and the Daindru will continue.

  “The line of the Firn is at this moment hanging by a single thread, as they say. You are an only child; the next heir is your father’s sister, Micha Am Firn, a childless widow since her husband Count Ledler died. We should not worry too much just yet.

  “Your duty, your trust, is to serve the Chameln, to love the lands and the people, to be a light for them in darkness.”

  The three mounted figures came on slowly across a vast plain of silvery grass. A wind sprang up, ruffling the surface of the small lakes, unfurling the long tresses of human hair upon the tall “spirit trees.” There was a forest of these long poles, stripped of bark and branches and decorated with paint, fabric, shells, animal pelts, claws and teeth, topped always with the tresses of hair.

  A sound like the wind grew and grew; the plain was dark with people. They murmured at first, then sang, then shouted aloud, long rhythmical cries that echoed away into the tree groves and the distant mountains. Other riders broke out from the waiting crowd and circled about the three riders and the standard-bearers who came far behind them. The riders from the northern tribes were young and fearless, balancing upon their saddles, flinging themselves sideways, whooping aloud. They wore leather breeches and short cloaks, fantastically decorated in blue, green, dark yellow, purple-red. The colored streamers from their cloaks spun out about them; one sailed through the air, and Aidris caught it easily across her saddle.

  She rode in leading strings; it was an ordeal even for her well-trained pony; he shuddered as the riders came by. Her father, on her left, smiled; she saw herself in his smile. On her right Esher Am Zor smiled too, blue-eyed, ruddy-faced in the cold. She saw that the red streamer across her saddle was made of papery dried flower heads, dyed red and threaded upon reeds.

  They came to the Turmut camp, to the inner ring of birch lodges, tall structures decorated with round motifs in the same colors as the cloaks of the riders. Aidris saw that the people, running between the lodges or waving and swaying with linked arms, were of the two races. Many were of the Firn: sturdy, short, broad-faced, dark; yet rising among them were the Zor, with pale hair, taller, with skin so clear, matte and white that it seemed to glow.

  Her father and her uncle, the Daindru, were lifted from their saddles and set on a high platform. She was lifted even higher than the rest, she rode above the crowd and was set down, laughing, on a tall, rickety stool of undressed timber, between the two rulers. The cheers rang out for the Daindru and then briefly for “Dan Aidris,” for her alone. She held up her hands acknowledging the cheers and balanced easily upon the rough stool.

  Aidris recalled every detail of the three days of the Turmut; it was a supreme test of her composure, as it was for her poor dappled pony. She knew that she was passing the test. The approach, the presentation, the speeches of fealty, the dancing—all without fidgeting, crying, yawning, growing sullen. Then the relief and strangeness of her own lodge, strewn with reeds, the big bed covered with furs and fine leather.

  She was attended by Tylit, her own young nursemaid, and by two highborn women of the northern tribes. One was very tall and old, the other broadly built, handsome, with black eyes and a massive braid of black hair, escaping in curls and tendrils from its embroidered bands. They handled her with brisk reverence, reefing off her fine clothes to replace them with others equally fine but strange. The water for washing was icy cold and scented with floating handfuls of wild flowers. They dressed her as a doll is dressed, and the tall chieftainess snapped her fingers: two young women, still dressed in the colored cloaks in which they had ridden out to welcome the Daindru, came through the lodge carrying a tribal treasure. It was a full-length mirror made of thin polished bronze, smoothed over a wooden frame. Its border was finely worked with figures of animals, trees, warriors with sword and spear, all in relief.

  Aidris saw herself, in white buckskin breeches, red boots, a tunic quilted in blue, furred at the neck and sleeves. She saw her own solemn face: high cheekbones, short, crimped black hair, green eyes. Her mother called her “my little cat.” The northern women, watching, thought her perfect, and she understood their judgement. She was Aidris, her father’s child; she was of the Firn; it showed in every lineament. She realised, as the younger women moved a prop on the bronze mirror, that it was in fact a shield, a “ground shield,” so called, that gave shelter to advancing foot soldiers.

  There was a man’s voice at the doorway; the black-eyed lady glanced around the lodge and gave permission to enter. None of the fuss, the rustling and simpering of her mother’s ladies in the palace dressing rooms. Then in cam
e a friend, someone she had always known and always liked. He was often at her father’s court: Bajan Am Nuresh, Count Bajan. He was dressed in his blue cloak still . . . he had been another who welcomed the Daindru.

  He bowed as she cried out:

  “Bajan!”

  They smiled at each other. He was nineteen years old; she was eleven. Aidris thought of him as a man, a grown-up; she was proud that he bothered with her, played games, helped with her lessons, took her riding. She was aware of a distinct pleasure in the ceremonial lodge; all the women were smiling. Bajan, a high chieftain of the Nureshen, was the son of the black-eyed lady who had helped Aidris to dress. Bajan had come to lead the princess to her place at the feast table.

  The Turmut seemed much further back in her memory than the events that followed it by no more than three months. Early summer in the capital; Achamar was filled with green boughs, and the first fruit was in the orchards. The town was made of wood; she rode out with Nazran in the mornings, and they admired the bridges, the broad streets, the marketplaces, the tall houses. The two royal palaces were wonders of the world, enormous buildings, grounded upon buttressed logs, thick as the oaks of Ystamar, then spreading and soaring into spires and balconies and into domes roofed with ancient shingles, thin and fine as silver leaves.

  Before and behind, on their morning rides, trotted the bodyguard of kedran, mounted upon small grey horses with darker manes and tails: the Chameln grey, a rare, tough breed. They followed the outer ring-road; a red pennant flew over the South Hall, a place for distinguished guests. Two warriors of Mel’Nir stood guard in the outer court. They were the largest men Aidris had ever seen, tall and broadly built with reddish hair and blunt features. They were so tall that they might have been face to face with the battlemaids of her bodyguard, mounted on their small horses.

  “The giant warriors of Mel’Nir are incomers,” explained Nazran. “They are not native to the lands of Hylor. They came from the southeast, over the mountain passes, not more than two hundred years past. You will find many maps and chronicles where the land of Mel’Nir is divided into the Southland, the High Plateau and the Dannermark: now these are all provinces of Mel’Nir. I have heard it said that they took, besides the land, the language and the religion of the places they conquered. This is not quite true; they spoke some variant of the common speech; only the Old Speech of the Chameln and the Chyrian Speech of Eildon and part of the Southland were completely foreign to them. As for religion, they have none, or a very simple one to do with streams and groves. They have some gifts of prophecy; their wisest men and women practise a healing magic.

  “Their days of conquest are not past; they exact tribute from the Mark of Lien and from our own lands. Let us pray to the Goddess that they take no more than our goods, at least during your lifetime, child.”

  She stored up his words; they were a study guide for her battle with the scrolls. Her life was sheltered; the groves and high stockades of the palace grounds were all her territory. It was a treat when she went with her father and mother to the White Lodge on the shores of the Danmar, the inland sea. She remembered the pearl divers and the distant wooded shore that was part of the land of Mel’Nir.

  She roamed the pebbled beaches with Racha and his four Torch Bearers, his honored friends, and learned their names like a chant: Bajan, Gilyan, Lingrit and Wetzerik. Tall Jana am Wetzerik was the kedran general; she taught Aidris to swim. Lingrit am Thuven, Nazran’s son, was a silent young man who went to Lien as envoy. Only Gilyan was within hail when Racha came to need him, and then not close enough.

  A great deal of the gossip and foolery of palace life passed right over Aidris’s head. Her mother, Hedris, and her aunt Aravel, wife of Esher, were two sisters from the ruling house of Lien. They had brought their own ladies-in-waiting, beautiful, arrogant persons who found all the uses of Achamar utterly barbarous.

  Hedris of Lien was of middle height, a soft, shapely woman with masses of dark gold hair. She would sing to her only child and tell her tales of Lien, of magic, of journeys on the rivers and over the seas. The stories Aidris liked best were of four children, a brother and three sisters, who lived in a country house. Their father had died when they were very young: only the two eldest, Kelen and Hedris, could remember him. Their mother was heart and soul to them: quick-tempered, loving, full of play. She came riding back to them from the city as often as she could and brought marvellous presents. Aidris was eager for more stories about Guenna of Lien, her grandmother, but sometimes the telling stopped. Aidris remembered a cold, a distant look on her mother’s face.

  “Trust no one,” said the queen. “You are of the Chameln. The House of Lien is no friend to you. Mel’Nir is a place of violence and death.”

  Then in a moment Hedris was smiling again, as the ladies returned. There came Aravel, the younger sister, a more striking beauty, leading the young prince, Sharn Am Zor, while a nursemaid saw to his baby sister. There was kissing and cooing; the five-year-old prince was bored and devilish, in spite of his golden curls. Aidris seized his hand and escaped to the garden. She caught a glance from her mother and understood: Hedris did not trust her waiting women, her own sister.

  The memories were no longer a continuous stream, as they had once been. Everything was wiped out and returned hazily. Everything sloped away from the deed as if it stood on a high hill of time. She was walking between her parents, Racha, her father, on her left; Hedris, seven months pregnant, wore a flowing robe. They walked in the garden before the palace, a formal garden after the manner of Lien, planted as a gift from Racha to his queen. The round beds were bright with flowers, but the paths were too sandy and soft and the young trees could not be coaxed into a formal shape. The garden was a hybrid, a blending of Lien and Achamar. There were gardeners, some members of the court at a distance, and the guards at the lower gate.

  Aidris saw nothing until her mother uttered a scream. Two young men in dark clothes flung themselves upon Racha Am Firn and his wife and child. Racha was struck to the heart; he fell, half-covering Aidris. At the same moment Hedris was flung backwards, the knife of the second assassin raking at her body. Aidris cried out, everyone was crying out; there was blood, bright blood on the sand of the pathway and a thick gasping sound in her ears.

  As the first assassin freed his long, curved knife and, kneeling, came after Aidris, he gave a thick gasp himself and fell forward heavily. The kedran officer from the lower gate had run in, taken aim and felled him with an arrow. A pair of gardeners beat at the second man with rakes, beat him almost to death. People came. Someone drew the body of Dan Racha aside. Aidris, uninjured, was lifted and carried very fast into the shelter of the palace.

  The noise and violence did not stop. There was a continual shouting, the cries of women, the tramp of feet. She was almost flung down in her bedroom with guards rushing to the balcony and crowded in the open doorway. Tylit, the young nursemaid, was terrified; she and Aidris sat shivering together on the end of a padded settle. The Lady Maren, wife of Nazran, came in and shut the door against the soldiers. She wrapped Aidris in furs and had Tylit boil water on the nursery stove. Aidris drank tea, sweetened with honey, asked no questions and leaned against Lady Maren, sleepy and limp.

  Then there was a woman at the door, one of the palace midwives, hiding her blood-stained hands under a dark apron. Maren shook Aidris firmly and made her stand up.

  “There is no help for it,” she said. “You must do as I tell you, child. Dan Racha has gone; your mother was not spared; her child could not live. She has a few breaths of life remaining, then she too will go to the halls of the Goddess. She has sent for you, to know that you are safe, and you must go to bid her farewell.”

  Still Aidris did not speak; she was led through broad, sunlit corridors to the dark bedroom. Hedris lay covered to the neck, her face whiter than the bed linen, her hair spread out. Her sister Aravel had been summoned; she knelt by the bed together with four ladies in waiting. When Aidris was led to stand beside her pillow, Hedris
smiled.

  “I have had a dream,” she said in a clear voice. “I have seen our dear sister Elvédegran and her child.”

  “Her child?” asked Aravel, hoarsely.

  “A male child,” said Hedris, “and she placed on its breast this Swan of Lien that we all wear, sister. Surely, surely I will come to her. Let Aidris wear my amulet now . . .”

  Aravel nodded to the youngest of the women, Riane, and she came trembling to the head of the bed, took the medallion of the silver swan from around the neck of the dying woman and slipped it over Aidris’s head.

  “Let me . . .” said Hedris in a fading voice. “Let me be alone with Aidris.”

  The women did not move at once, then Aravel rose up and stretched out her hands to the others.

  “Come, we will go to the end of the room.”

  “Leave us!” said Hedris more sharply. “Sister . . . I charge you!”

  “Come then!”

  Aravel bowed her golden head and shepherded the women out of the chamber.

  Hedris smiled thinly at her daughter; her eyes were wide, as if she strained to see through a mist.

  “Kneel by me . . .” she said. “Have they gone?”

  Aidris cleared her throat, coaxed out a reply.

  “Quickly,” said her mother. “There is something else. A treasure. A secret. Feel the bed frame . . . the carved snake, then the three figures of the Goddess, then the flower . . .”

  Aidris did not look away from her mother’s pale face.

  “The flower?” she asked, as her searching fingers moved over the dark, polished wood.

  “Press its center!” The voice was growing weaker.

  A small hollow opened two finger breadths from the carved flower in a circle of leaves. Aidris drew out a long, fine chain of bronze; the jewel or medallion on the chain was hidden in a pouch of soft green leather. She closed the hiding place.