A Beinarian Princess in King Arthur's Court (Princess Anyu Returns)
This story was originally written as chapter two for book three, “Princess Anyu Returns.” After completing the chapter I discovered it took key characters in completely different directions than the overall story needed to go, mandating this lovely story rooted in the history of the Society for Creative Anachronism in Pennsylvania be scraped outright. In this scene Princess Anyu, having just concealed the star craft Liltaél in a cave in central Pennsylvania, encounters her first Earth humans: a baron and baroness of the court from Philadelphia.
Princess Anyu walked through the wilderness until the sun set. Looking at her time piece she was shocked to discover this sun setting after only 390.56 xiao-shirs. What kind of strange place was this for the planet to spin so quickly on its axis? She barely arrived in this place! Uncertain what to do, she headed for a small grove of trees located on what looked like the other side of some sort of paved ground. A road? Could traffic actually run on the ground instead of through the atmosphere like on civilized worlds?
As if in answer, a blue four wheeled craft with some sort of internal combustion engine roared noisily on the road in front of her, taking her by surprise, its exhaust spewing an unfamiliar gas, startling her. Two, three, four such craft with different exterior configurations thundered past her. Carefully, she crossed the road. A land craft slowed and stopped next to her piloted by a gentleman wearing a strange golden coronet with six silver-white pearls spread across its six equal high points. Next to him sat a richly dressed lady with long auburn hair braided into a single braid down her back, her hair covered with a translucent white cloth over which she wore a similar coronet.
Rolling down the window, the lady called out to Anyu, “Are you going to the event, milady?”
Anyu blinked at the odd, harsh-sounding speech. Though she wore a translation device, the translator could not yet decipher the lady’s language. In Anyu’s ears, she heard a rasping, guttural jumble.
Puzzled by the lack of the response, the lady tried once more, “Are you okay, milady? Do you need help? Where are you going?”
The gentleman wearing the coronet opened the vehicle door, “Perhaps we should bring her with us, Cindy. She seems disoriented. She may be hurt.”
Cindy nodded to her husband Geoffrey, “Agreed. Clearly she is dressed for the event – where else can she be going? And look, she carries camping gear. Her car must have broken down somewhere, forcing her to walk the rest of the way to the camp ground.” Gently, Cindy beckoned and nudged Anyu until she entered their strange craft, sitting on the back seat and squeezing her pack next to her. Satisfied the princess sat secure, Cindy secured the back seat door before sliding back in her seat, closing the door, and fastening her seat belt. With a turn of a key, the land craft roared to life and drove away.
Cindy and her husband drove down winding mountainous roads for twenty-six xiao-shirs, barely perceptible to the young princess. Finally they pulled their land craft into a lush green camp ground. From a distance, eighteen tents and pavilions bubbled off the land. Pulling into the nearby parking lot, they opened the four doors to their land craft and started unloading. Understanding their intent, Princess Anyu gathered her belongings and stood near the land craft. Noticing Cindy’s struggle lifting a heavy suitcase, she laid her own pack on the ground and helped her lift it out of the trunk. Despite weighing almost as much as Cindy, it felt rather light to the princess. Was gravity here less intense than she was accustomed to?
“Thank you,” smiled Cindy with a polite curtsy.
“Baniha,” smiled Anyu in return, still having no clue exactly what Cindy said to her. Startled at the odd language, Cindy jumped back with her eyes and eyebrows. Still holding the luggage with her right hand, Anyu offered an exaggerated look of puzzlement regarding direction, “Aba?”
“Are you asking me where I want that?” asked Cindy.
“Aba?” repeated Anyu.
Guestimating Anyu meant something in the affirmative to her question; Cindy picked up a basket and started down a mulched path towards the pavilions. Anyu followed. After three xiao-shirs their path opened into circle of pavilions, including a purple, yellow, and white tent with a heraldic banner on it featuring a gold crown over a wreath of green laurel leaves. Cindy bowed deeply before the man who came to greet her, his golden coronet blooming with fleur-de-lys, “Your majesty!”
“Your excellency! Glad you made it!” smiled King Gavin. Gavin’s eyes met Anyu’s from behind Cindy, “Who is this?”
“We don’t know. We found her wandering near the road on the way here, about forty minutes ago. Her car must have broken down near where we found her. In light of all the camping gear she’s carrying and her beautiful bliaut, we both figured it would be best to bring her. She doesn’t seem to understand what we are saying to her yet.”
“If she was in a car accident, she’s probably in shock and may have internal bleeding. Lord Stephen arrived a few minutes ago and is finishing setting up his pavilion. Go get your things and we will help set up your pavilions. Then I think Lord Stephen should take a look at her, make sure she doesn’t need an ambulance,” suggested King Gavin.
“I agree. If she’s hurt, she may not be able to talk, though she did babble something after I thanked her for helping me lift that suitcase out of the trunk,” reported Baroness Cindy.
“That sounds promising. Let’s go see what Lord Stephen thinks,” smiled King Gavin.
Twelve xiao-shirs later, Baroness Cindy and Baron Geoffrey efficiently pieced their round canvas pavilion together, pulling at ropes, knotting, and staking the infrastructure into the nearby soil. Uncertain what to do, Anyu stood nearby, watching and listening. With exposure to their language, an occasional translated word spiked through Anyu’s ears as the translator slowly worked out individual words.
Fifteen xiao-shirs after the first intelligible word came through to Anyu, the pavilion stood ready for Cindy and Geoffrey to begin moving their remaining belongings into it, “Lady … want … with us? We … room.”
Anyu bowed graciously, “Baniha,” then picked up her pack, choosing an unoccupied corner to begin unpacking her tightly compressed camping mattress, sleeping bag, a white kirtle, and a violet bliaut that appeared bright red to Cindy and Geoffrey. Hidden close to the bed she slid her computer out, concealing it behind her folded bliaut. Surely these primitives would not recognize her computer as such; they lacked even portable telecommunications devices, after all! As she scanned her benefactors she noticed an odd reading: a small quantity of a solid nirlar-natrium compound. Quickly she searched her belongings for a small grey box with a series of buttons on the bottom. Pressing the center green button, the box opened, revealing a cylindrical center basin. Just one quentchen of this nirlar-natrium compound would be enough to activate the box, electrolyzing out the natrium and releasing breathable nirlar in an adjacent radiant cloud at a radius of five cun 寸.
But what to do with the pure natrium produced? Surely unsealing the box near anywhere near this encampment would be lethal to these humans; natrium tended to explode when exposed to atmospheric arnile-bilast. For a xiao-shir, Anyu’s scientific nature took hold as her scans detailed to her the nearby chemistry. It would seem both natrium and nirlar functioned best in this chemically stable compound on this world, a compound her scans showed also flowed throughout these humans’ bodies.
Abruptly in Anyu’s mind, Cindy came over to her, “Ready dinner?”
Keeping her sword close to her as she walked, Anyu followed Cindy compliantly. In the center of camp stood many portable chairs and a series of camping dining tables. Next to one such table sat Lord Stephen wearing a dark blue tunic over black trousers with a sash crossing his chest featuring a red and white round badge. With the expert eye of a trained healer, Lord Stephen watched the princess enter, his mind looking for evidence of injury. Cindy motioned for Anyu to sit near Lord Stephen. Smiling, Steph
en touched Anyu’s wrists, looking for her pulse rate. His eyes widened as he felt nothing. Anyu understood at once, “I no hurt, healer.”
Lord Stephen bowed his head politely, “They said you could not speak, Lady...”
“… Anyu. I call Anyu.”
“Where are you from?” asked King Gavin. Anyu understood him, but blinked blankly at him to avoid the question.
“She’s from the shire of Vielburgen of course; does anyone here speak German?” asked Geoffrey.
“Of course!” concluded King Gavin. “That is the only answer that makes sense. She heard about our event this weekend and flew out to join us. You probably found her wandering after something happened with her transportation here. The campground is not exactly on a commuter rail line!”
“Well then, let’s make a special effort to help her feel welcome to the shire and the beautiful mountains and caves around us,” beamed Cindy.
“Agreed,” nodded Queen Tamara, “Welcome to Nithgaard, Lady Anyu.”
Anyu curtsied politely, uncertain as to the actual ranks of those around her, “Baniha.”
The chatter and gossip Anyu’s translator could not understand filled the evening meal. At Baron Geoffrey and Baroness Cindy’s table Anyu timidly tried the local cuisine on tableware loaned to her by her hosts. As people wearing elaborate coronets and crowns rose to their feet to offer toasts to people and events that came out garbled through the translator, Anyu found herself feeling very much alone and homesick. The clothing worn by these people looked similar enough to what she and other Beinarians wore, yet there was also something different about it and these people she could not quantify, much to her disorientation. New fires bloomed as the last rays of the local star dissolved from view, filling the sky with unfamiliar stars. From north to south flowed the local D425 galaxy, its loose ribbon of stars dancing from horizon to horizon.
As twilight flowed into evening, the sky seemed to explode with alien stars; it was a sight Anyu never experienced from a planet’s surface before. Even in the north polar city of Olos-Mir where the Beinarian atmosphere was thinnest and most translucent, most stars fainter than magnitude three were indiscernible to the naked eye. The black velvet of this night sky was terrifying and intoxicating to Anyu all at the same time, the first time her eyes gazed on such blackness, even from the Liltaél thanks to the brightness of the quantum gravity well through which the star craft traveled.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” asked a strange young man 55.7 cun tall with well-groomed dark hair, grey eyes, fair porcelain skin, and a strong, vigorous, athletic build from behind Anyu’s back.
Anyu turned to face him, “Yes! I have never seen so many stars in my life!”
“You must not be from around here then.”
“I am from the shire of Vielburgen.”
“If you are from Vielburgen, then raks only have six legs!” retorted the young man playfully.
“W-what?”
“An ocean creature.”
“I know that; how do you know about them?”
“Because I used to see them on the beach – on the isle of Ben-Ar,” smirked the young man.
Anyu drew her sword defensively, “Who are you!”
“A friend. You have not been gone long enough for your enemies to find you. No doubt her majesty concealed your destination well enough that it will take at least a yen-ar to realize where you went. Certainly the queen of Beinan I knew was prudent enough for that,” answered the young man casually.
Anyu sheathed her sword, “I don’t know what you are talking about.”
“Of course you don’t. Except you do. Do not worry. As I said, I am a friend.”
“How can you be my friend? You do not know me.”
“True, but that will change with time. You will depart with me when this medieval fantasy of theirs concludes in 3.52 shir-ors.”
“Why would I do that? Why trust my safety to you?”
“Because you have no other viable choice.”
“I could leave with one of them. This Cindy and Geoffrey seem nice enough.”
“They are. But they will never understand nor are they in a position to help you beyond bringing you to their city of residence, a place where there is ample public transportation but much danger.”
“You traveled to this place before?”
“Yes.”
“You still have not given me a reason to trust you, not even your name.”
In what felt like a blink of an eye, Lord Stephen approached them, drawn to Anyu’s rising voice. The young man responded quickly, kissing her passionately. Lord Stephen melted back into the fireside gathering. The young man lowered his voice, “You were drawing too much attention to us; if we are to survive in this place, these creatures must believe we belong here. They must not even speculate near the truth.”
Anyu panted, shocked by the kiss, “Who are you?”
“Here in Nithgaard they call me Lord Christophe de Chartres or simply Christopher. For now, that name must suffice. Giving you my real name among our people is perhaps even more a danger to me as it would be to you.”
“Back home they call me Lady Engineer Anyu of the engineers of house Xing-li.”
“You are not born to house Xing-li. No Xing-lian would carry that sword.”
“You noticed?”
“Of course.”
“It was my mother’s father’s sword.”
“King Kendric’s sword?”
Anyu tried to avert his gaze, “Yes.”
“Then I stand before none other than the future queen of our people.”
“I doubt that. I am the youngest of my mother’s children and the daughter of a queen.”
“The law persists, I assume.”
“Yes, how do you know my grandfather’s name, but not that?”
“I left Hejing long ago,” remembered Christopher.
“But…”
Christopher kissed her again to silence her, “Not everything is as it appears to be. I will say no more ere the shir-or endures.” Caught breathless by the kiss, Anyu could not speak. Christopher smiled, “Come, let us dance. The shawm plays.” Anyu nodded compliantly, and then followed him back to the fire.
The Lost Tales Page 25