A Princess of the Chameln Page 4

  “I have seen the pit under the barn where the villagers are keeping him,” said Bajan.

  “See that he lives!” she ordered. “See that he lives and tells what he knows. See that he is not tortured.”

  “Trust me!” said Bajan Am Nuresh.

  He was on the stool beside her high resting place, watching her, not impersonally as the healer had done, but with a more cautious look.

  “Princess,” he said, “you are wounded; I think you are in pain. You must not take the pursuit upon yourself, questioning and casting about in this fashion. You are not the commander of an army. Leave it, I say. Leave it to me, if you will . . . I beg you . . .”

  She lay back and let out her breath in a long, shuddering sigh.

  “Tell the healer,” she said. “I do have some pain . . .”

  She watched him stride away down the hall; her ladies were never tired of saying he was the handsomest of men, but she had never been able to see it. She did admire the set of his shoulders; he had a new brown beard now that contrasted with his black brows and the hair of his head. She remembered how he used to come to the palace gardens, the big boy who let her ride on his back.

  Aidris was engulfed by a wave of despair, of utter hopelessness. She was accursed, a heavy doom had been pronounced upon her: it was her royal blood. All the evil that had come upon her could be laid to its charge.

  When Bajan rejoined the hunting party, feasting on roast swan and pickled eels down the hall, a relay of ladies descended upon Aidris. They brought cool cordials; she received them graciously. Jalmar Raiz the Healer, sent one of the kedran with a draught, measured for her journey, but did not show himself.

  Aidris rode home from the hunt on a farm cart, padded with hay and featherbeds and the embroidered dowry coverlets of the women of Musna, which they gave willingly to their wounded princess. For some of the way Sharn Am Zor rode in the cart with the white pony, Moon, hitched behind, but his father had him mount up as they approached Achamar in the twilight of the long day.

  For Aidris the journey was very long, and the draught from Jalmar Raiz, which eased her pain, sent her into a thick, unpleasant sleep. Once she had a nightmare: she was pursued through a clawing thicket. She could not come out of it, but then she did and found Telavel lying in a ditch with a broken foreleg. She had a bright evil-looking knife and knew she must kill the beloved grey. Then, with a painful jolt of the cart, she woke up and saw Telavel close by, led by a kedran officer.

  III

  From this time forward she was ruled by fear and mistrust, which Nazran and Maren, those closest to her, could not reasonably dispel. The attack in the wood was hushed up; it was given out, vaguely, as some kind of hunting accident.

  “A kind of accident,” said Nazran, “to which kings and other rulers are prone. And certain commanders in battle. We may not come to the truth of this. Old Tilman Loeke and his hunt servants have combed the Hain and the countryside, but they have found no trace of your miscreants. The blue, that hard midnight color, is a color out of Mel’Nir; Baron Werris quarters it on his banner. Yet who would presume the man so stupid as to clothe assassins in his own colors! I have questioned the good old Lord Hargren and his new-wed lady. They rode close to the blue riders and remembered one man, red-bearded. We will search for him and see what else Bajan brings us.”

  Aidris was conscious of the prisoner, her assassin, in the dungeons of Achamar; she felt his presence like an ache in her wounded shoulder.

  She lived with her shrunken household in ten rooms of the palace of the Firn. While her wound healed, she came and went like some noble prisoner between her bedchamber, a large workroom, and later the exercise paddock beside the stableyard. Here, in the workroom, made fine but stuffy with the best hangings, she received her Aunt Aravel, who came reluctantly, ten days after the hunt.

  Heavy rain met the queen consort and her ladies as they crossed the city. They burst in, scolding the servants, shaking water from their light cloaks and from their headgear, leaving their wooden pattens in a heap at the door. Aidris sat in a heavy, thronelike chair, with cushions for her back. Her wound had been drained and dressed by one of the city doctors who served the Daindru. She had sent to Jalmar Raiz, summoned him to Achamar, but she had received no reply.

  Aidris remembered a time when it had been painful to look at Danu Aravel because of the resemblance she bore to her mother. Now she did not feel this pain. She knew of the likeness in features and in coloring between the living queen and the dead one, but the small shock of recognition for a remembered look or gesture had faded completely. Aravel was more than ever a beauty, the last swan of Lien, only a shade less supple now because she was tight-laced, following the birth of her third child, another prince.

  Now she swept in and halted, while to right and left her four ladies, Grisel, Madalen, Brizengar and Hurta, sank down in their deepest curtsies. Aidris felt the company drawn up like two battlelines: behind her chair the Countess Maren and on either side, also sinking down in a welter of fine clothes, her two remaining ladies of Lien, Riane and Fariel, together with a newcomer, Nila, a round, dark, shy girl from the northern tribes.

  The queen consort did not speak; her head was on one side in a listening attitude; her gaze wandered about the room, but she would not look Aidris in the face. It was her place to speak, but Aravel remained silent, moving her hands in vague smoothing gestures over her hair and her clothes. The sun had come out after the heavy shower of rain, and beams of light from the balcony caught the queen’s rings so that they flashed fire and sent points of sunlight scurrying over the tapestried walls and the dark ceiling.

  Aravel was silent for an uncomfortably long time, and Aidris caught the anxious eye of Grisel, the oldest of the queen’s waiting women. She knew at this moment that her Aunt Aravel was mad. Her behavior was not merely cruel and strange to Aidris, but to all those who came close to her. More than that, everyone in the room, herself included, was involved in a conspiracy to hide the queen’s madness from the world.

  “The streets are dirty!” said Aravel in a loud voice. “They should be swept clean. Do you always sit in darkness?”

  “I hope you are well, Danu Aravel,” said Aidris. “Pray sit with us.”

  There was almost a scramble for the chairs and settles. The queen was led to a place beside Aidris, and they touched hands. Aravel wiped her fingers and sat rigid. The visiting waiting women broke into a chorus of good wishes for the health of the princess and the healing of her wound.

  “Thank you,” said Aidris, “thank you all.”

  She was suddenly overcome by tears, real tears, and pressed the flowing sleeves of her linen bed gown to her eyes. Lady Maren and her own women, who had scarcely seen her shed a tear, were shocked.

  “Dear Goddess help us!” said Lady Maren, “She must be feverish . . . Aidris, dearest child. . . .”

  Aidris had been stricken by nothing less than hope. If her Aunt Aravel was mad, she might become sane again. She might become kind and loving, the evil spell might be broken. While the women tried to comfort Aidris, Aravel sat watching, her face a mask, her eyes hard as gemstones. She spoke at last.

  “Don’t weep! It will spoil your beauty!”

  Then she laughed, a ringing peal of cruel, childish laughter that raised not one echo from any of the women. Grisel said in a low voice, “The queen is not herself. . . .”

  Aidris, with new found pity, reached but and took Aravel’s hand.

  “Dear Aunt,” she said, “I am ever your friend.”

  The queen stared at her, nibbling a thread of her golden hair that had escaped from a braid, and seemed to come to a decision. She gestured to her ladies.

  “The music!” she said. “Is there a cup of sweet apple wine for me?”

  At once the four visiting waiting women went about the room glancing into alcoves, patting the billowing hangings to the wall. Then they set themselves up some distance from Aidris and the queen, and drew all the others, Lady Maren included, into
this group. They had brought a pair of recorders, a miniature Lienish harp made of bone and a small drum. Nila joined in, strumming upon her tarika, a big five-stringed instrument.

  The music was sweet, and under cover of it Aravel said hoarsely to her niece, “He has failed twice. He will try again. You will not survive a third attempt.”

  Hardly breathing Aidris asked, “Who is it?”

  “Fool,” said Aravel, smiling dreadfully. “Firnmouse! Why should I bother with you? You are ignorant as well as ugly!”

  “I saved the life of Sharn Am Zor,” said Aidris.

  “The prince will not be harmed. He has promised that. It is part of his plan.”

  “Tell me . . .”

  “I know only one of his names and one of his faces. He is the scaly beast, the eater of souls, the night-flyer. He comes to the most secret places, to the bedchambers of women, low-born and high.”

  The queen’s voice sank to a terrible whisper; and Aidris, sipping the wine to steady herself, felt her whole body turn to gooseflesh.

  “The name you know . . .” she persisted.

  “Rosmer of Eildon,” breathed Aravel. “My father’s scribe, my brother’s chief minister. All, all has been his doing from the first to the last. He commands the powers of earth and air. Only our mother stood against him. She did her best to save us, even if it meant a lifetime spent in these barbarous Chameln lands. Then she was humbled and thrust aside. . . .”

  “But surely Guenna, my grandmother, has retired to a holy place,” said Aidris. “She lives among the Moon Sisters.”

  Aravel shook her head impatiently.

  “She is out of the world. Blind, feeble. The sisters care for her. You never saw her, little toad; she never stood by your cradle. She was proud and beautiful as the morning, but he brought her down. Elvédegran, her youngest, our sweet sister, was sent into Mel’Nir. She died giving birth to a monster . . . a misbirth ripped from her body and destroyed by the minions of the Great King. That too was Rosmer’s doing, I swear it!”

  Danu Aravel lay back in her chair, her fingers clutched about the medallion of the silver swan that lay upon her breast.

  “So you have heard all . . .”

  Aidris was unable to speak. She had made a bid for love and sanity and found a madness more terrible because part of it might be the truth.

  At last she said, “I will leave Achamar till I come of age. I will save myself.”

  “Do as you please,” said Aravel. “And keep the scrying stone. I know you have it. It is a poor dead thing by this time. What did you see in it? Reflections of the forest trees?”

  Aidris made no answer, but she felt a glow of encouragement, small as a candle flame. She had not expected Sharn to keep the secret, but in some way the stone had kept its own secret.

  They sat side by side until the last song came slowly to an end, then Aravel rose up and took her leave.

  Riane said when the noise and bustle of the departure had subsided, “The queen comes and goes as if she were pursued by demons!”

  “A woman’s sickness,” said Lady Maren, forbidding comment or gossip. “The queen has strange fancies. She has not recovered from the birth of her child.”

  Aidris sat in the high-backed chair, pale and shivering. Maren drew up a fur rug to cover her and said under her breath, “Ten days and now this. What did that distracted woman say to you?”

  Aidris shook her head and could not answer. She was put to bed before sundown. She lay in the half darkness of the bedchamber trying to shut out Aravel’s words: “. . . the eater of souls, the night-flyer.” Her string of rooms in the vast wooden building had been specially chosen for security. The long windows of her bedchamber opened on to a wide gallery above one of the inner courtyards, and the women of her bodyguard patrolled there, day and night. She could just see the young kedran on duty outlined in the twilight.

  Lamps had been lit in the outer rooms. She dozed a little, and then Nazran stood at the doorway with a candle.

  “Princess? Aidris? Are you awake?”

  Drops of rain gleamed on his white head; his face was strong and brown, the skin round his dark eyes netted with wrinkles.

  “Bajan Am Nuresh sends greeting,” he said. “He has gone to the north. His lands are flooded. He made a report.”

  “I am awake!” She eased herself higher in the bed.

  Nazran set down his candle on the press at the bedside; he sat in a chair, bending forward so that he could take her cold hands.

  “The man who attacked you and Dan Sharn was a guard officer dismissed from the service of the Zor for theft. He was recruited in the city here by mercenaries out of Lien, Redbeard and two others. They carried gold. Two were trained archers.”

  “What was their plan?” whispered Aidris.

  “Some evil working,” he said, “some ceremony within the wood, in that clearing with the stone drinking trough. Sharn was to be wounded, lamed, and by an arrow of the Firn. You were to be killed. When you managed to come out of the wood, so the wretch claimed, the other assassins became desperate, shooting to kill lest you should reach Musna Village. They were afraid of some dark master. The leader, Redbeard, swore that you two escaped by magic. . . .”

  “We did,” said Aidris. “I have told you . . . the oak tree sheltered us.”

  “It may be,” said Nazran, shaking his head. “What has your poor Aunt Aravel been saying to you?”

  She told him as best she could, but the words were cold, they had lost their power.

  “Is it true?” she asked. “Why would that old Councillor of Lien so set upon the house of the Firn, to do us ill?”

  “There might be reasons.”

  “And has he so much power?”

  “Has anyone?” asked Nazran drily. “Does the master of earth and air need to hire assassins? Dark magic is like fear, it grows and festers in our own minds. I have more trust in the magic of the earth itself, the benign powers of the Goddess . . . the magic of hidden Ystamar, the Vale of Oak Trees.”

  “Nazran,” said Aidris, “what became of my Aunt Elvédegran in the court of Mel’Nir? No one will tell me.”

  “She died in childbirth,” said Nazran. “There is no mystery here. She bore a deformed child to Prince Gol of Mel’Nir and it died or was put to sleep at birth. This may have been a kindness.”

  “She bore a son,” said Aidris dreamily. “She held the child in her arms and placed on its breast a silver swan of Lien like this one I wear. . . .”

  “Who told you that, child? Was it Aravel?”

  “No,” she said, “it was my mother. As she lay dying, she saw Elvédegran with the child and thought she must come to her sister in the Halls of the Goddess.”

  “In those bright halls,” said Nazran sadly, “we are all made whole and sound. Take my blessing now, child, for what it is worth, and sleep.”

  “Send to Ledler Fortress, to my father’s sister, Micha Am Firn,” she said. “I will come to her when my wound is healed; I will go out of Achamar.”

  “After that you can come to Thuven Manor,” he said. “We have often thought of it as a haven for you.”

  He made no argument at all, and Aidris knew that her plight must be serious.

  The summer weather had broken. Oakmoon, the midsummer month, went out in showers, and Applemoon was no better. Throughout the grain basin of the Chameln lands, from Achamar south to the inland sea, the harvest came in with bone-breaking haste, and some of it was lost. The freakish weather continued with storms and whirlwinds, and in the north the smaller lakes spilled over with floodwater until the land became like the sea. Word came out of Lien, to the southwest, of terrible flooding in the land between the two rivers; there the harvest was entirely lost, and poor folk came over the border into the Chameln lands at Nesbath and camped along the highway.

  It was in these days that Aidris first saw the giant warriors of Mel’Nir going about in some numbers in the city. They were peaceful enough; it was like the old riddle: “Where does the Great
Grey Bear lie down to sleep? Anywhere he wants to.” They were young men, not veterans, and they were the housecarls of the southern landlords. As autumn came, after the poor ending to the summer, Dan Esher called off the Dainmut, the council meeting, for fear of street fighting between groups of vassals.

  On the day that she left the city there was still one debt to be paid. Baron Werris answered her summons and brought with him a certain Hem Rhanar, his countryman, proprietor of a newly gathered estate by Lake Musna. Rhanar was a middle-aged junker with a tawny beard; he had to stoop down to enter the workroom. Their business was simple: it had been arranged that Aidris would make him a gift of forty acres of best bottom land from one of her estates bordering his own, and he would give up all claim to the lake shore. The Village of Musna would be saved.

  She received these two men of Mel’Nir with little formality; Riane sat at her embroidery frame listening to their palaver; Nazran stood in the shadows, letting his pupil conduct the interview. Rhanar reared up in the midst of the quiet room like a rock or a tree. His rumbling voice, his muscular shoulders, his enormous hands, were overpowering.

  When she looked at him, Aidris thought of the High Plateau of Mel’Nir, where the wild horses rode free in their herds. She imagined the raw life on his estate: cold water, stone floors, loud voices, a life shared with horses and dogs. It was a life she had sometimes envied when the ladies of Lien pressed too closely upon her. By contrast with Hem Rhanar, Werris, the Envoy, was a courtier.

  She could see that Hem Rhanar found her a puzzling figure, half a child still, dressed in the Chameln style with a fine linen tunic over soft leather breeches and boots. There was a jocular note in his voice, which showed that he found it difficult to defer to any half-grown girl. He cast admiring glances at pretty Riane, a true woman in a flowing robe.

  “Have you obtained your estate by purchase?” asked Aidris.

  “No, Highness, not all,” answered Rhanar, “for my mother was a lady of the Chameln. I inherited a manor from her brother.”

  Aidris smiled.