A Princess of the Chameln Read online

  “Hide it well!” said Hedris. “It is all my legacy, all I have to give. Guard it. Tell no one that you have it.”

  “I promise.”

  Hedris lay exhausted; her voice had faded completely, but her lips still moved. Aidris crumpled the treasure in her hand and thrust it down into the pocket in her right boot. These were her favorite boots, red leather, from the northern tribes; the long pocket was meant to sheath a dagger. She drew out the scrap of leather for polishing that stayed in the sheath, stowed the treasure far down, then replaced the leather.

  “Mother,” said Hedris again. “Mother, protect my dear child. It was well done . . . do not blame yourself . . . he was kind and good.”

  She moved a hand out from under the bedclothes and reached blindly towards Aidris. Then there was a sound in her throat; her hand was still. Aidris saw that it was bandaged; her mother had clutched at the assassin’s knife. She saw that the bed beneath its embroidered coverlets was soaked with blood. She screamed aloud, and the women tumbled into the room. Riane led her to the lighted doorway while the others knelt round the bed again, keening softly.

  “Aidris . . .”

  Aravel stood in the sunlit corridor and held out her arms; Aidris was guided to her aunt’s embrace.

  “Poor mouse! Poor minikin!”

  The sweet voice rang out above her head; the strong delicate hands held her tight. Once Aravel laid a palm on her niece’s tightly curling black hair then withdrew it hastily. Aidris looked up into her aunt’s lovely face, pale but unmarked by tears; she saw a new vision of herself, undersized, ugly. For the first time she glimpsed a whole world, looming close at hand, where she was not loved and cherished.

  Aravel’s hands moved to the child’s throat, fingered the silver swan on its chain and the fastenings of her tunic.

  “What else did your mother give you?” she demanded softly.

  Aidris could not answer; she shook her head. The strong hands tightened a little; a ring grazed her chin.

  “Where is it?” said Aravel.

  “The swan . . .” faltered Aidris. “She gave me only the swan. You saw . . .”

  Aravel took her by the shoulders and shook fiercely.

  “Where is it? Where have you hidden it?”

  “Danu Aravel!”

  Lady Maren stood in the corridor; she let fall a heavy bunch of keys which clanged dismally on the polished wooden floor. Her face was heavy and still; two bright circles of color burned in her cheeks. Her voice was threatening. Behind her, like a bodyguard, stood three elderly servant women carrying white linen. Aidris ran or stumbled to clutch at her robe. Aravel threw up her arms. She began to cry and keen aloud, swaying away from the restraining hands of Riane and the guard captain from the Zor household.

  Maren directed the women, then led Aidris away, walking so briskly that she almost had to run to keep up. Outside the palace walls a restless crowd grew and grew all through the night, raising the keen, but Aidris was not shown to them.

  II

  Dan Esher Am Zor rode out to hunt in the Hain, the royal grove, by Lake Musna. The sole ruler of the Chameln and regent for the Firn rode at the head of a large cortege, and it seemed to Aidris, trotting behind on her new grey, that his melancholy grew less with every furlong. The city, the palaces, were far behind.

  The nine-year-old prince, Dan Sharn, rode at her side, suffering, because he had not been well taught and neither had his pony. He allowed Aidris to reach out and steady the contrary little brute as they rode quickly, down and up again, through a wide, shallow ditch, full of leaf mould.

  The season was high summer. They rode between fields of ripening grain then up a gentle slope, where the ranks of nobles and the outer ring of archers and hunters could spread out from the road. Thick grasses, untrodden, stirred into silver waves by the wind, covered the downward slope to the trees. A mighty head of cloud, a cloud palace, reared up in the endless summer blue, to the east, over the hidden lake. The wood was of oak, birch, elm, planted in ranks and aisles, but in places so old that Aidris felt the breath of the true forest, the urwald, in its deep shades.

  The hunt reined in on the long crest of this grassy rise. Dan Esher and those who rode nearest to him must go down first. Below, at the entrance to that broad aisle, the Royal Ride, were the hunt servants, including Tilman Loeke, the hunt master, holding four deerhounds, as many hands high as Sharn’s white pony. On the king’s right hand rode the envoy from Mel’Nir, Baron Werris, no giant but a handsome, dark man with a peculiar carriage of his head, as if he spent his life talking to giants. On his left Dan Esher had placed a family visitor from Lien, Bergit of Hodd. She was a tall, tough, jolly woman, more than forty years old, widowed and well-connected . . . to the ruling house of Lien for instance. She was the cousin of Kelen, the Markgraf, and his surviving sister Aravel.

  In the stableyard that morning she had reacted with a strange “Lienish” delicacy to the timid suggestion from Aidris that she ride astride. No, no it would never do, the sidesaddle it must be.

  “All very well for you breeched gals from this wild place . . .” she panted at the mounting block, hitching her sturdy booted leg over the pommel and watching while Aidris arranged the billowing skirts of her habit.

  Then she peered closer with shortsighted blue eyes and saw who it was acting as her groom.

  “Oh is it you, Dan Aidris? Well, I’ll tell you a thing . . . as a gal I rode astride, too. Secretly on the estate at Hodd, flying through the summer meadows. Now this does well enough. I’m used to it. Never missed a season in the hunting field.”

  The royal party began to descend the slope to the wood; halfway down grew a solitary young oak. Aidris saw the movement at the same time as the archers; she checked and reached for Sharn’s rein. An elderly man in a dark cloak limped out from behind the tree, a woman and a child came to stand beside him. They all held up green sprays of leaves, the sign of a suppliant. They looked peaceful enough, but the suddenness of their appearance was uncanny: the tree did not seem wide enough to have hidden them. What kind of folk rose up so recklessly in the path of the royal hunt?

  The archers swung out with a soft whoop, circled the tree even as Dan Esher and his guests drew rein. The ranks of nobles and huntsmen all fanned out and checked admirably. Bajan came up in a breath on the left hand of Aidris.

  “Steady . . .”

  “Bajan, who are those fools?” demanded Sharn Am Zor in a shrill voice.

  He looked the very picture of a Zor princeling, a young boy of surpassing physical beauty, golden-haired, blue-eyed, well-made . . . a being so bright and perfect in his blue tunic and red cloak that he might have ridden out on his white palfrey from an illuminated scroll. Aidris knew two things: the poor wretch was abominably spoiled, and he had great spirit. He was fighting back tears from his trouble with the ill-mannered pony.

  “A petitioner, Highness,” said Bajan, watching keenly.

  He murmured to Aidris; “The old man serves the Lame God! See his staff . . .”

  Aidris felt a shadow pass between her and the sun. She urged her dear new grey, Telavel, forward so that she could hear the suppliants address Dan Esher. A band of white woven stuff was crisscrossed around the old man’s staff and nailed into position with large thorns. Aidris had been stalking Inokoi, the Lame God, and his followers for years now. She had the same morbid interest in this cult as she had in the lands of Lien and of Mel’Nir.

  The murderers of her parents had been named as followers of Inokoi; it was also said that they were set on to the deed by the powerful neighbors of the Chameln. She could not penetrate the mystery; even Nazran was reluctant to speak. Yet the deed had such a dreadful power, it cried out so loudly, she wondered how it could remain a mystery.

  Could Dan Esher and Danu Aravel come and go however cautiously with the demanding realm of Mel’Nir or with the patronising friends and relations from Lien if they believed one word of the rumors? Could the followers of Inokoi love humility and seek truth without rid
ding themselves of this accusation? She stared at the old man addressing the king, at Dan Esher answering briefly, at the clouded face of Baron Werris and at Bergit of Hodd, impatient, anxious for her hunting.

  “Justice,” the old man said, “for the lake village of Musna, threatened by the enclosures of a new estate.”

  Then the child ran forward with a scroll for Dan Esher and returning gave Lady Bergit a spray of oak leaves. The woman, who wore a long drab cloak, seemed gaunt and plain; she looked out from under her straw hat with a half-smile. The old man had a blank, pale face; his eyes were in shadow. Now the child, who wore a close brown hood, suddenly ducked under the neck of Bajan’s horse and thrust a spray of green leaves at Aidris.

  “Dan Aidris,” it piped, “see the truth!”

  She took the spray and the child sprang back nimbly. Sharn cried out, and she clutched his rein as the hunt moved on, stifling a cry herself. She had seen that it was not a child who had given her the spray but a child-sized creature with wrinkled hands and bright eyes under its hood.

  Having seen this, she doubted every one of the suppliants. The plain woman was clearly a young man in a long cloak. The old man was not old and his cloak was two-sided, one rough, one richly embroidered. She could not look back, the going was too steep and she had to take care of the young prince. As they came down at last to level ground, she saw that the tall thunderhead had spread out, darkening the sky. She looked back and could see only the “old man” under the tree, staff uplifted, as if he called down a blessing or some other working upon the hunt as it passed him by.

  “Bajan!” she called.

  The young Count Am Nuresh looked at Aidris, head on one side. He never showed impatience with her, but she had learned to see a line grow between his black brows. All around them there was laughter, a jingle of bridle bells, as the hunt reformed; the young men were a brave sight, the young women, in the habits of Lien or in the tunic and breeches of the Chameln, were beautiful. She was fourteen years old, and Bajan was not her esquire.

  “Those people frightened me,” she said. “How did you see them?”

  “The priest is right, Princess,” said Bajan. “The lake village is threatened . . . by a Mel’Nir landlord. But there is no need to be afraid.”

  His bay stallion, dancing, seemed to betray his own eagerness to get away.

  “Good hunting, Bajan!” she said.

  “Aidris!” cried Sharn Am Zor, an edge of tears in his voice, “they’re going!”

  She turned and smiled at her cousin.

  “Here,” she said. “Cheer up!”

  She handed him part of her spray of oak leaves.

  “Now you are the Summer’s King!”

  They rode off side by side, galloping at the pace of Moon, the contrary white pony, down the royal ride after Dan Esher. The horns blew up at last: the silver horns of Lien and the curled wooden trumpets of the Chameln. It was a part of the royal hunt, perhaps the only part, that Aidris enjoyed. She liked to be in the wood, under the majestic trees, bouncing along on the thick turf with the quarry and the kill far distant.

  Two kedran of her own household rode as their bodyguard; a band of even slower riders, almost hunt followers, came after them at a distance, in the ride, and on either side, in other paths, the bolder spirits crashed and shouted. The horns sounded: Old Loeke and the hunt-servants had done their work well. A stag, a fire-crest stag, sang the horns, and the king’s party, far ahead, plunged after him.

  Aidris and Sharn came through the first clearing and checked to let by a stream of riders cutting back into the ride. They found their way past the roundhouse of undressed logs decorated for the hunt. Maith, the younger of the two kedran, reined in her grey gelding with an oath.

  “Taken a stone!” she called. “I’ll catch up.”

  Eri Vesna, the older captain on Aidris’s left, barely slackened her pace; she shouted something to the young officer and they rode on. Moon, the pony, was going well, it was not a time to check. The path narrowed, and they took a right-hand path at the heels of a brightly clad party; she recognised old Lord Hargren and his new wife on her skittish roan. Aidris thought that this play-hunting at a child’s pace might be no more than a disagreeable duty for the kedran and their horses. The small greys could ride all day, untiring.

  The horns called a view, a view, far off. The wood had become very dark; up ahead they saw only two blue riders. They rode at a tall thicket, an unexpected wall of green across the path; the blue riders had vanished from sight. They turned into another path of untrodden moss and grass; up ahead thick yellow sunlight slanted down between the young elm rows. The going was smooth, but Moon was beginning to lag. The horns sounded a confused call that none of them could read. They listened for the movement of the hunt, but heard nothing. The shafts of sunlight died and went out, one by one, as the storm cloud covered the wood; they had reined in, almost involuntarily, to watch the sight.

  Vesna gave a sigh.

  “Must get back into the ride, my dears,” she said.

  “We have lost them,” said Sharn.

  They rode on into the place where the sunlight had been and found no way out except a small leafy path, very dark. Aidris felt a twinge of anxiety; she was glad when Vesna took the narrow path at a good pace. They came into a round clearing with a stone drinking trough in the center. They listened again, but the wood was absolutely still. Even the sounds of insects, the whisper of the leaves, were hushed.

  Telavel pricked her ears when a bird gave a loud two-note cry and was answered by another, further off. Vesna was looking about at the three paths leading out of the round.

  “Let’s give a hail!” she said.

  They called with the wildness of children who had not much opportunity to shout aloud. The hallooing sank without an echo; there was a distinct and distant burst of shouting, far away, not an answer to their call. Then horns were blowing, and this time they read the sounds: nothing for the hunt, but three harsh notes, repeated. The alarm. The kedran call to arms. Vesna’s grey mare reacted before she did, flying towards a certain path.

  “Come! Follow!” cried Eri Vesna to the children.

  There was a thick sound, dull as a knock on wood, and Vesna fell backwards from her horse. Aidris tugged at Telavel’s rein, as if she half knew what had happened, and urged Sharn’s pony towards the trees. Moon whinnied and pecked; Sharn slid backwards to the damp ground over her rump. Aidris leaped down, eyes still on Vesna, and pushed Sharn towards a sturdy oak. She saw at last, across the clearing, the arrow shaft in the kedran’s throat. The poor grey mare, riderless, dashed along a different path.

  “Get behind the tree!” said Aidris to Sharn.

  His mouth was open to protest, but he obeyed, crawling across the grass.

  Telavel trembled, but stood still. Then there came a sound that froze the blood, the shriek of a horse, surely Vesna’s grey, hidden from sight. Even Telavel could not stand still; she reared up. Aidris let go the bridle, then boldly seized it again, turned the mare towards the third, the widest path. It was the path nearest them, the one she thought must lead out of the wood, to the lake shore. She slapped at the grey rump, and Telavel galloped away with the pony after her.

  “Aidris . . .”

  Sharn was halfway round the oak, his boot heel caught in a tough loop of grass. She went two paces, bent down to release him; an arrow thwacked into the tree trunk above her. She stayed down and crawled. She pushed Sharn before her and he went as fast as a weasel. They crawled like two terrified animals into the thicket, deeper and deeper in. Then close together, in a space no bigger than a fox’s lair, they paused, panting, smeared with earth, torn by the undergrowth, and listened.

  The earth-smelling darkness was lightened, suddenly; then came the thunder. The storm broke over the wood. Rain came roaring down all around them; Aidris took Sharn’s short cloak and spread it over their heads. The noise of the storm frightened her more than ever: it must drown out the sounds of their pursuers.

>   “I can fetch help,” she whispered in Sharn’s ear, “but you must promise never to tell.”

  “Tell what?”

  “Promise never to tell!”

  “I promise!”

  Without hope she fumbled the bronze chain out of her boot pocket. She had sent every year to the northern tribes for new boots, with the long dagger sheath; they had been pleased to serve their princess. Now she drew off the cloth covering and the large oval stone, rimmed with silver, glowed like a blue-green eye in the darkness of their hiding place.

  “Help us!” she said.

  The stone cleared; it burned red at the edges; in the center was a streak of light, it was a candle flame. The candle stood in some kind of chamber; she could see the covering of a table, the tall pewter candlestick. There was a movement in the stone; the Lady was half visible behind the candle flame. Aidris had never seen her clearly. Sometimes she was not in the picture at all.

  “See us,” she said, teeth chattering. “See us. Help us. We are in the wood by Lake Musna.”

  There was no sound in the world of the stone; the flame wavered as the candlestick was wrenched aside, and for a few seconds she saw the Lady’s face. It was distorted a little because it was so close, like Sharn’s face, cheek to cheek with her own. The Lady was neither old nor young; she had a fine fair skin and strong, handsome features. She was, as Aidris appraised people, neither of the Firn nor of the Zor; her hair was brown-black, her eyes a deep blue with dark brows and lashes.

  She was already gone; the stone showed a tree, another oak, old and gnarled, and beyond it lake water. The scene widened a little and she beheld the grey horse and the white pony, Telavel and Moon, sheltering beneath the tree, cropping grass. The stone went back to its normal blue-green color; it was a stone, nothing more, a beryl from the mines of Mel’Nir, polished but unfaceted. Aidris put the chain over her head and felt the stone slip down, cold between her breasts.

  She led Sharn to the left; they rose into a crouching position and threaded their way between young broken saplings. The rain had eased off, yet the wood was full of the sound of water pouring from the leaves, running away into the crevices of the ground. They heard for the first time running footsteps, a single voice, then the bird calls repeated, dreadfully close. Two notes, then again two.