A Princess of Sorts

by Wilma van Wyngaarden

  “Ha, you and me both!” The king brayed a laugh that held no humor. “He is planning something, I know he is!” he repeated viciously. He hunched his shoulders and urged his horse on even faster. “Aaaahhhhhh!” he yelled and the sound was swirled up with the dust and dispersed on the wind.

  The horses ran across the rolling plains as if a predator was chasing them. Ryall and the others sat tall in their saddles, hoping that this would not be the time one of their mounts tripped and flung its rider headfirst to the ground. King Joff would not have cared if it happened – to himself or his captain or any of the other members of his Guard. He hunched forward in the saddle and let his hair whip out behind.

  They pulled up at last, the horses blowing, and trotted down into the hollow that held the old horseman’s wagon.

  “Halloo!” called out Captain Ryall. He was a hard-faced, hard-eyed man about twice the age of the young king. The king now was silent, his brown eyes darting about the hollow.

  There was no response from the wagon.

  “The door is open,” said a soldier unnecessarily.

  “Halloo,” Ryall tried again. He looked around. “Look in the stable,” he ordered one of the soldiers, with a jerk of his head.

  “There’s the boy,” said the soldier, who had begun to ride up the bank. “Sitting in the shade... Boy! Where’s your master?”

  The boy said nothing but pointed at the wagon.

  “Cat got your tongue?” jeered the soldier. He rode back down, vaulted to the ground in front of the wagon and hammered on the side of it with his fist. Again, there was no response.

  With a look back at Captain Ryall, he climbed the steps and looked in. He dropped the horse’s reins and ducked into the open door.

  “Hey!... Hey!...” they heard his voice from inside. Then he was back at the door and jumping down to the ground. “Send for a priest!” he jeered, his voice rough. “The old man’s dead!”

  “No priest will come out here,” came the captain’s harsh response. “What’s he dead of?”

  The soldier shrugged and caught up the reins of his horse, which had been content to stand with the others.

  “Boy! How has your master died?”

  The boy sitting in the shade gave an expressive shrug.

  “He never talks,” said another soldier. “Not any time we’ve been here, anyway.”

  “Looks like a sickbed.” The soldier who had gone into the wagon was back in the saddle. “Stinks too. Old man took a fit and died, looks like. My grandfather did the same.”

  “Is that what happened?” Ryall demanded. The boy nodded.

  “Well, where are my horses?” The king spoke up in a demanding, childish whine. “I rode out here to inspect horses!”

  The boy got up and gestured around the shelter. The riders crested the ridge. Still on horseback, they inspected the two horses tied in the stable, who were now alert, wide-eyed and snorting.

  “Well, the bay mare may be a good prospect,” the king declared after some minutes. “The other too, but it’s a gray. I do not care for grays.”

  “Are there more?” Ryall demanded.

  The boy shook his head. He pointed across the plains and shrugged again.

  “There are no more,” the captain told the king. “The herd is out on the plains, it seems.”

  “I will ride the bay mare,” snapped the king. “Tell that boy to ride the other.”

  Ryall nodded at the horseman’s boy. “Ride the gray. Get the bay ready first.”

  The boy went into the shelter and saddled the bay, although it was restive. He bridled it and brought it out, handing the reins to one of the soldiers. Then he untied the gray, led it out in its rope halter and line, and waited.

  King Joff slid from his horse and stalked across the ridge. He was of middle height and narrow build and dressed in fine leathers. He twisted his long hair into a rope and stuffed the end down the back of his tunic. He ignored the gray and the horseman’s boy, taking the other horse’s reins from the soldier. Despite his agitation, he was able to calm himself and mutter soothingly to the bay horse, which did not take offense to him. Instead, it sniffed his proffered hand and then nuzzled along his forearm. He threw the reins over its head, put his toe in the stirrup and swung aboard. The horse, as it had been taught, stood still.

  The horseman’s boy vaulted aboard the gray, bareback, and settled himself. When the king rode the bay out, he followed. For the next several minutes the king tried out the bay at walk, trot, circles, and turns. Then he struck out across the plains in a wide fast loop. The gray accompanied it, the boy riding with one hand on the withers, the line in his other hand, and an easy balance.

  “Wish I could ride like that,” one of the soldiers grunted.

  “You’d have to drop a hundred pounds,” another jeered.

  “Hey, Captain!” a different voice piped up. “While the Puppet’s out there...” He gestured at the king, riding too far away to hear. “I heard yesterday the court’s sending a proposal of marriage to our western neighbor!”

  Ryall’s attention came around to the speaker with a snap. “Rellant? Where have you heard that?”

  “Gossip in the village... the Rellant king’s been murdered and the young princess is crowned queen.”

  “They say she suffers from madness and has been shut away for years,” one of his companions offered.

  “Mad or not, she’s the only royal left alive in Rellant and she’s queen.”

  “Good match for our Puppet. The pair of them can pound their heads against the wall together!” There was a ripple of laughter.

  Ryall shut them down with a cold glare. “One more word and every one of you will report for guard duty tonight ... all night!”

  Silence dropped. The wind picked up, whistling past the stone shelter and raising dust devils along the ridge.

  The king came back and nodded abruptly to Ryall. He vaulted to the ground, handing the bay’s reins to a soldier, and remounted his horse.

  The ragged boy swung his leg forward over the gray’s withers and slid lightly to the ground, holding the line.

  “Do you want the gray too, your majesty?” Ryall asked.

  He got an irritated headshake in reply. “I do not care for grays!”

  Ryall hesitated, his eyes going to the wagon. Then he reached inside his tunic, pulled out some coins and held them out. The boy put out his hand and accepted the coins without meeting his eyes.

  “Why pay the servant?” the king sneered. “The master’s dead and rotting!”

  “The old man has been sick for a while,” Ryall answered without expression. “The boy’s been doing the training this past year. Do you want me to hire him to come and train for you?”

  King Joff spat violently on the ground and wheeled his horse away. Most of the soldiers went with him. The one holding the bay took the saddle off and dumped it on the ground, and quickly switched out the bridle for the halter and line handed to him by the horseman’s boy.

  “He don’t look you in the eye neither, that boy,” he said to Ryall. “Must be something wrong with him.” Then he got back on his own horse and trotted away, ponying the bay.

  Ryall gave a final hard-eyed glance around the yard and turned his horse around. “Are you sticking around here, boy? If you have more horses, send a message to me and me only – Ryall, captain of the King’s Guard!” he tossed over his shoulder.

  The boy, who had picked up the saddle, gave him another silent shrug. The gray’s head was high, watching the other horses depart. With a soft word, the boy calmed him as he led him back into the shelter and began to give him a quick rubdown.

  But Captain Ryall was already gone after the others and didn’t hear it.

  By nightfall, the boy had wrapped his departed master’s remains in a blanket, hauled the corpse out of the wagon and across the plains to a nearby ridge, and piled a cairn of stones over it. He had done his best to clean up the wagon, packed a bag with his sparse belongings, and put everything el
se with any suspicion of usefulness into the stone hut.

  Life in the old horseman’s lonely yard had not been bad at all – but it was over, at least for now. When the wild herd of horses turned up at the waterhole early next morning, he scattered the last of the grain in a line along the ground and said a few words of farewell to the ones he had been taming.

  “Don’t know when I’ll be back... or if... Well, I’ll see you when I see you!”

  After the horses had picked up the last of the grain, had given up sniffing for more and began to wander away, he watched them go. Then he tied his bag across his back, brought the gray horse out of the shelter and bridled and saddled it. A few minutes later he and the horse were heading south, and he didn’t look back.

  ***

  River was sitting in an old oak tree after sunset, high up on one thick branch with her back against another. She had climbed up earlier before anyone had turned up at the feral boys’ camp under the tree. The tree had a hollow section just above her and she was still small enough to crawl inside the hole and curl up for the night.

  The boys were arriving. There was a skinny one called Tag who was the oldest. He came first, sniffing. Tag was always sniffing. He started a small fire in the stone-lined grill pit and, shortly after, put a rabbit on it to roast. River knew it was a rabbit because the smell of it began to waft upwards.

  Next came Nard. He had a previously broken leg that made his foot drag a little, so she knew him by the scuffing sound. Not long behind was the youngest one, Trickit, who was almost always muttering to himself about something. They were all older than River – older, bigger, and stronger – but no one climbed trees the way she could.

  “Any food?” she heard Tag ask when the others turned up and jumped down the bank. They had built a roof over their camp and thatched it with twigs and grass to keep the weather out.

  “Food, food, food,” chanted Trickit. “Yes, I do – baker threw out some bread – see. Stale, but.”

  “Carrots.” That was Nard. “Snatched ‘em off a farmer’s cart – pop ‘em on the grill with the bunny.”

  Tag grunted. “Did you hear the news today? The priests are dead or burnt up, I heard. Safer – it’s safer.”

  “Huh, maybe... servants might be on the prowl yet. All gone by the time the soldiers got to the priests’ house. Soldiers didn’t catch ‘em, they don’t know ‘em,” Trickit muttered. “But I do! They almost got me once, but I bit one right on the hand and he let me go.”

  “You was lucky.”

  “I was, I was, I was. I was, I was, I was! I was, I was...”

  “Shut up, Trick,” Tag said without heat.

  “Mmmmmm,” Trickit hummed. If he didn’t hum or chatter, he would start to rock.

  River listened to the mumbling voices below her. These three stuck together. There were a couple of others who sheltered elsewhere. Also, there was the girl who carried two pet rats everywhere. She was fast and vicious with her fists and feet and the rest of the ferals gave her a wide berth. River herself carried a small sharp knife and made sure they all knew it. She knew of a few other children living rough around the village, but some of them seemed to have disappeared.

  “Hey!” River called out suddenly.

  A sudden silence fell below. She could hear the sizzle of the rabbit searing over the fire.

  “Who’s up there?” hissed one of them.

  “Don’t worry, it’s just our little treetop baby.” That was Trickit. “Whatcha doin’ up there, Gabby?”

  “What’s that magic thing?” she demanded.

  “Gabby’s talking,” jeered Nard. “Why you talking, Gabby?”

  “What’s the magic stuff the priests did?”

  Silence. Then... “They broke the wall with magic. The priests threw magic.”

  “What’s magic?” she asked again.

  “Sorcery! The priests turned evil – the Goddess didn’t like it – now the priests are dead!”

  “How’d they do that?”

  “Do what?”

  “Make the lightning fly.”

  “Why you asking us? The soldier saw it, we didn’t.”

  There was a mumbled conference below.

  “Come down here, Gabby!”

  “Eat sheep shit, Nard!” she answered rudely. “I wanta know, what’s this magic thing?”

  “The magic’s back,” one of them replied after a moment. “The sorcerers looked in books and woke up the old magic. That’s what they say in the market.”

  “What’s in books?”

  “Writin’.”

  It was River’s turn for silence. Then she asked, “What’s writin’?”

  “It’s in books.” There was a chorus of snickers from below.

  “Ha ha,” she echoed coldly. “What’s writin’?”

  “You read it. It’s words. Words made into marks,” said Tag.

  “Marks...” she repeated. “What do you mean, marks?”

  “Go look in a book, Gabby!”

  “Go look in a book! Look in a book! Look...”

  “Shut up, Trick,” said Tag. “What you want to know about magic for, Gabby?”

  “I wanna know how they did it.”

  “Magic’s only for sorcerers. You ain’t gonna be no sorcerer.”

  “Don’t be a sorcerer, Gabby, the Goddess won’t like it!”

  “Maybe she’s a witch! Are you a witch, Gabby?”

  “She can’t be a witch, she’s just a little wild baby.”

  “I’m not a baby!” said River, incensed. “Climb up here and I’ll cut your fingers off!”

  “Oooh, I’m scared!” Trickit sneered.

  “Shut up, Trick. You want some food, Gabby?”

  “I wanta know how that man made the lightning fly.”

  “It was magic!” Trickit jeered, then said in a mock little girl’s voice. “What’s magic? It’s in books! What’s in books? Writin’! What’s writin’?...”

  “Shut up, Trick. ‘D you see that priest throw the magic, Gabby? Was you sittin’ in the tree?”

  “ ‘Course not!” she snapped.

  “She prolly was,” said Nard. “Now she wants to be a sorcerer too!” They all laughed again.

  “Don’t be a sorcerer, Gabby – the Goddess won’t like it!”

  River climbed into the hollow in the tree and put her fingers in her ears to shut out their voices. She had her small sharp knife at the ready, but she knew they wouldn’t climb the tree. She would make sure they had left in the morning before she went back down.

  One of the vendors in the market had some books. Tomorrow she would go and see if she could look inside a book.

  | Chapter 15 |

  The next morning was cool with a mix of sun and cloud. For the short trip outside to see the wall, Scylla had Minda tie the long raven’s wing of hair back and coil it into a bun at her neck. The left side was pinned back. Scylla said when Minda was done, “I like the raven’s wing, but I do not find it entirely convenient.”

  “No, but it can look quite striking,” Minda replied. “I wonder whether we shall see some of the district ladies with asymmetrical hairstyles soon!”

  Six soldiers carried Scylla in an ornate and gilded chair litter down the stairs and out into the courtyard. She wondered where Mako had unearthed it, as she had not seen it previously. Perhaps it had been stored in one of the king’s barns but if it had, it showed no signs. It was clean, the gilding had been polished, and the embroidered cushions had been dusted and plumped.

  Accompanied by Mako and a full troop of soldiers both on foot and on horses, she was carried out through the castle gates. It was the first time in several days that Scylla had been outside at all and she took in a deep breath of the fresh morning air.

  She turned her head and met the eyes of a woman standing near the gates. The tall woman looked familiar, and Scylla realized it was the healer, Corobit. A chill went down her spine, but her procession moved on through the street and left the gates and the woman behind.

&
nbsp; Some minutes later, they arrived in the vicinity of the northeast corner of the castle, overlooking the wide sloping field where new graves had been dug. Two lay open and empty, with a temporary barricade around them, while another was obvious due to its mounded earth and yellowing turf.

  The group halted facing the castle wall and the soldiers lowered Scylla’s chair to the ground at the edge of the horse games field.

  “Halloo, Queen Scylla! Chancellor!” A cheerful voice hailed her and Scylla turned her head to see Orwen and several others approaching the soldiers. “I have come to inspect the castle before shipping out to Gryor! What do you think of it?”

  Scylla tipped her head back to view the cracked wall.

  “Impressive.” The corner had been damaged, with stones having been thrown to the ground below, and a deep gouge extending from the top to almost halfway down. Black soot coated parts of the damaged area.

  “Those are the stonemasons beginning the repairs.” Mako indicated a group of workmen near the wall. “It is the northeast corner near your old quarters, as you know, Princess. They have reported the structure is not too badly damaged... Scaffolds will be built and repairs will soon be underway. Most of your garden beds are undamaged, and the cat has been seen, also undamaged.”

  “What about the tower?”

  “What tower?”

  “Coltic suggested a tower at the corner, as a lookout.”

  “This may not be a good time to build a tower, Princess,” said Mako.

  “I want a tower,” Scylla said, turning a sharp glance on him. “It does not need to be overly large. Perhaps a partial tower, like the blind turret my father had built onto the hunting lodge.”

  Mako heaved a sigh. “I will call over the stonemasons,” he said and left the group. A moment later, two men approached. They bowed, giving her a quick, curious inspection. They were of middle age and both big and wide; they may have been brothers.

  “Queen Scylla. We are the builders of the turret at the king’s hunting lodge.”

  Orwen stood by, his interested gaze traveling from the gap in the wall to Scylla and back.

  “Excellent,” said Scylla crisply. “Please build a similar one here. No more than six or eight feet across. At the top third of the wall, just like the folly you built at the hunting lodge. But this one will be a real lookout, not just an exterior whimsy.”