The White Hart (The Book of Isle 1)

by Nancy Springer

  He would gladly take his fair cousin to wife when they had regained her, even if she were dishonored. As he rode, Cuin envisioned her: a tawny sunlit thing, like a forest bird or a fleeting dappled deer. Her ways were free as the wind, headstrong indeed, but she never failed in the courtesy that comes from the heart. They had been good comrades for many years, and though she had not said him ay, still she had not said him nay. Indeed, the whole world expected that they would wed; it might be said that she was his birthright. Cuin's clan still cleaved to the old fashion of reckoning lineage through the woman. Thus he, the sister-son, was heir to his uncle's estate. But by his wedding Ellid, the uncle's child also might share; it was very just. And though Cuin was one who took direction ill, in this thing he was all obedience.

  For Ellid born of Eitha had a face like a flower for loveliness and a body like a doe for grace; her mind was steadfast as a sword and her spirit was bright as its skylit blade. Cuin pressed on toward the tower of Myrdon with anguish in his heart, for he loved her well, as he would love her till he died.

  2

  Ellid awoke to find herself dappled in sunlight, lying beneath a ragged blanket on a thick bed of leaves. Not far away burned a campfire with an iron kettle hung above it. Overhead was a rude roof… Ellid sat up to look around her, and gasped involuntarily as pain gripped her. The black-haired youth strode toward her from behind a wall of stone.

  "What is it?" he asked.

  "I ache, that is all." Ellid could see now that she was within a circular building, ruinous and half-open to the weather. Trees waved beyond; more she could not tell. Her rescuer brought her a tin cup of steaming liquid from his kettle. It was good meat broth spiced with herbs. Rabbit meat; she noted the skins stretched for drying nearby.

  "The cure for your aches is close at hand," the youth said when she had finished "Lady, let me carry you once again." He lifted her up, blanket and all, and took her outside with graceful ease. Ellid's eyes widened. Before her rose towering spires of chiseled stone, ramparts and parapets and all the halls and chambers of a kingly court and keep: all silent, ravaged by fire and weather and half-hidden by living green. The chamber whence they had come was but a tiny gatehouse, dwarfed by the wall beyond. In some past age this had been a castle such as Ellid had never seen; nay, a city must have peopled these walls. Ten of her father's fortresses would not have made it up.

  "What place is this?" she cried.

  "Eburacon," the other replied. His soft voice vibrated with the word.

  The lost home of the High Kings. Tales of that golden time were but fireside chatter to Ellid. She had paid them small mind, she who lived so ardently in her own era: What did it gain her that the land had not always been beset with petty war? But still the name rang through her like a half-remembered song. She hung silent with the wonder of it as the dark-eyed youth bore her rapidly through the vast and crumbling courtyard.

  Presently they came to smooth stone steps descending to a walled grove of silver beech; great boulders of white stone tumbled among the trees. At the bottom of the dell they rounded a corner of stone and came upon a strange, bubbling pool of water in a smooth-worn basin of stone. Wisps of steam rose from the surface. Ellid's companion set her down on the brim and plunged in his fine-molded hands.

  "There's marvelous power of strength and healing in this spring," he remarked, "and even were it foul the heat would bake the ache from you. Stay in as long as you like, my lady. There are no eyes to see you here, for this place is well guarded by the shades of the past. And when you are done, call me; I shall be about."

  Ellid waited until his footsteps had faded well away before she took off her blanket and baggy tunic. The water was tingling-hot. She eased into it cautiously, but in a moment she had relaxed in delighted comfort. On a shelf below the surface she sat as securely as in a chair, and the water rippled up past her feet from some hidden vent below. Of all works of nature, Ellid had never known any so marvelous. She soaked in the warmth until beads of sweat formed on her face. Then she climbed out, slipped into her tunic and started gingerly back up the path.

  She found her companion gathering deadwood in the courtyard. "My lady!" he exclaimed as he hastened toward her. "You should not be walking on those feet!"

  "I do not know your name," she told him primly, "and could not summon you."

  "Call me what you like!" he grumbled.

  "Come, my lord." She faced him, smiling but quite serious. "What is it?"

  For the space of ten breaths he probed her with his eyes that were deep and dark as wells. "My name is Bevan," he said at last. "Son of Byve High King in Eburacon. Born of Celonwy and fostered by her brethren under the hollow hills. Argent Hand, they called me."

  "Then have I titled you too humbly in calling you lord," Ellid said in a small voice, "for you are one of the gods."

  "Gods!" He laughed bitterly, but not, she sensed, at her. "Godlings. All are dwindled now, to the stature of mortals or less and to a span of some few hundreds of years. In the days of the glory of my father's kingdom, weeks of festival and sacrifice scarcely sufficed to do them honor. Now the miserable peasants scrape and starve to bring some small token to their altars. Greatly have washed the tides of time since the children of the mother goddess Duv gave up the sunlit lands to the Mothers of men."

  He picked up Ellid then and strode with her back to their camp, he whose height was scarcely more than hers, and though he was slender he bore her lightly. He sat her down and fetched a basin of water for her feet, bathing them carefully and rubbing them with crushed herbs. Ellid watched the movements of his bare shoulders and his marvelous deft hands, and found no word to say to him.

  "Nay," Bevan broke silence at last, "I am no more a god, my lady. I have cast in my lot with my father's folk. I who walk in the light must live quickly and die soon, as a man will."

  "But why?" she gasped.

  "Perhaps Duv knows. I do not know, except that my heart burned within me to go home to a people and place I had never known… to go home to die."

  "Likely it will seem a short time to you," Ellid mumbled, somewhat discomfited by this talk of death, "but you must have many years left to you of a man's span. Though I dare say you are not as young as you seem."

  "I scarcely know. Time moves differently in the torchlit castles of inner earth; indeed, it hardly seems to move at all." Bevan fronted her whimsically. "How long has it been in years of man since my father walked this way?"

  "Some hundred years and more," she told him promptly. "Longer than the life of any man."

  "Yet he was well in health when I left, though somewhat stooped. And I was born but lately in his age. Among my mother's people I am considered young, my lady."

  "The High King Byve of Eburacon yet lives?" Ellid exclaimed. "Folk would have it that he died—"

  "At the burning siege. Ay, dark are the powers of Pel Blagden, but that night he missed his prey." Bevan paused a moment, and his eyes took on a hard sheen. "That is another one who yet lives, my lady."

  "Pel Blagden?" she whispered. "The mantled lord?"

  "Ay. There are gods and there are gods, lady. Pel Blagden is one who did not set his finger to the Accord."

  "Then no vow binds him, that he may not walk in the light…"

  "Ay, even so. He walks in many forms and bears many names. He feeds on strife and the blood of man, and he gathers treasure with dragon greed. He shames the memory of the great and gracious time—" Bevan shook himself. "Enough! It is sufficient evil that I have no bandaging for your feet." He smiled at her, the first smile she had seen on that pale, grave face, and well it became him. "Will you eat, my lady?"

  They ate rabbit meat cooked with wild onions and wild carrot roots; Ellid could not wish for better. Then she had nothing to do but sit in the sun of the courtyard while Bevan scavenged amongst the ruins. He returned with iron spearheads and blackened swords, but no scrap of cloth; all had rotted away years since. He took a sword and chopped down a sapling, whispering to it in some st
range tongue before he touched it. He made shift to fit it tightly to a spearhead, lashing it on with his sandal-thongs. Then, wordlessly, he wandered off into the Forest which spread all around. Ellid lay down where she was and went to sleep.

  She awoke to a feeling of strange, suspenseful peace, so tangible that she could almost float in it, like still water. The white hart stood watching over her no more than ten paces away. Its eyes were large, wide-set and smoldering-dark, like coals. The antlers on its head were silver and curiously bent in the shape of a radiant crown. Ellid looked and looked as if the sight would have no ending, and the hart met her gaze. There were apple trees growing in the courtyard, remnants of what had once been a royal orchard in the gardens of Eburacon. The stag turned regally and slipped away between the fragrant boles; white petals scattered over it. Ellid stirred and found that Bevan was standing beside her.

  "It is spring," he murmured, "and the apples of Eburacon are in blossom."

  "Folk say that the fruits are golden," Ellid said absently, "and that it is death to eat them."

  Bevan arched his brows. "No folk can come here, but I wonder why they say that! Such apples would seem the best of food to me."

  The white hart stood beneath the snowy blossoms of the largest tree, and Ellid met its eyes with love.

  They stayed at ruined Eburacon for several days. Ellid's feet healed quickly, and she went about in slippers of rabbit skin to fetch firewood and water for cooking. The place was running with fountains of sweet water. They plashed into deep pools where fat, lazy fish scarcely moved from a human shadow; Bevan went in after them with his bare swift hands. He gathered rabbits from his snares, and on the second day he slew a dappled deer; Ellid wore a kirtle of the skin. They ate well, for there were plenty of greens and tender sprouts for one who knew them. Bevan gathered great delicious bunches. He brought mushrooms, too, and Ellid had no fear of poison in what he gave her.

  "I pluck them by smell, mostly," he explained. "Indeed, I often close my eyes to choose better. You know I have small need of light. My mother's people gather their food in moonlight and shadows—"

  "And plait the horses' manes," she teased him, "and ride the cows dry."

  He smiled sourly. "All things that chance amiss for man fall to the account of the children of Duv! But in truth, many folk walk abroad in the dim night that would wither in the light of day. There is a frail and perilous beauty in the night."

  Ellid knew that Bevan often roamed the dark. He was feral as a cat, companionable through the day but leaving with lean grace to prowl the night. She did not wonder: Was not his mother the beauteous deity of the moon? Probably it was from her that Bevan got his own fine-sculpted beauty, his face of moonlight and shadow. Ellid watched him often; she knew the lines of his chiseled nostrils, the consummate shading of his temples and grave mouth. His eyes were deep and wide as night skies, and sometimes as aloof. When he sat silent and withdrawn, it seemed to her that he had left himself and gone to a place that was closed to her, some secret realm… She fancied that he refreshed himself thus, and had no need of sleep. His face brightened with the coming of nightfall, and there was no sleep in his sparkling eyes.

  Once, waking from her own slumber, Ellid heard him nearby, speaking in a tongue that was strange to her; to whom or what she did not know. "Do you often see your mother's people in the night?" she asked him the next day as they walked together.

  "Never," he replied quietly. "I shall see my mother and her folk no more, unless they should choose to die as I have."

  "Nor your father?" she asked, astonished.

  "Nor he. I am quite apart now from that world."

  "Then you are very much alone," Ellid said slowly. "Indeed why did you come, my lord? To rescue fair maidens from towers?"

  "Will you not call me Bevan?" he rebutted.

  "When you call me Ellid," she smiled. "Come, my lord: What brings you to the world of men?"

  "By my troth, I know not!" Bevan looked not at her, but far off into the trees as he spoke. "The strange, strange world of men. The first day I came, the rising sun smote me like swords. But by noon I was better, and I traveled to a place where men toiled, setting seed in the earth. I watched them from the shadow of the trees, and I wished nothing better than to toil with them, touching the warm earth. I went to them at last…"

  "What happened?" Ellid asked softly.

  "They stared. Then a fat one came, and asked my business there, and seemed to take it ill that I had none. They took me to that same vile tower of Myrdon, my lady, and chained me by the kitchen door like a dog, stripped me and pelted me and offered me scraps to eat. When all was quiet, that night, I took off the chain and found some clothes and went away. Some soldiers traveled north the next day, and I followed them to see what they might be about, but I showed my face no more. Men are strange folk."

  Ellid floundered for words. "Could you not—teach them better courtesy?"

  "Nay." Bevan smiled ruefully at her. "Many things are amenable to my touch and my word, lady; stone and steel and fire will yield to me. But over men I have small power, unless they freely allow me… Men are of all things most stubborn."

  They walked a while in silence. "Yet men were not always so churlish," Ellid ventured at last.

  "Ay, so I have heard." Bevan stopped his wandering feet and sat to face her. "When the Mothers ruled, like the Great Mother Duv who had granted the land to them, then was there peace for the most part, is it not so? For women are wont to nurture, not to destroy. I cannot understand why they ever gave the rule over to men."

  "When men guessed that they, too, were makers of the children," Ellid said, "all fell to ruin. So my mother tells me, though that was long ago."

  "Ay, what man would wish to leave his land to his sister's son over the child he himself has got?" Bevan stared before him, speaking as one who perceives with present sight. "Those were evil times! Cousin warred against cousin and brothers were wedded to sisters to share the heir. Even fathers turned against daughters… And now the great wheel has turned indeed. Women's ancient arts of nurture are forgot; bards glorify only feats of war. The son names himself from the father, and his mother has become but a servant to him. Women are married away from their kinfolk, traded and thieved like so many cattle."

  "Not in my father's house!" Ellid spoke up with pride. "We cleave to the old ways."

  "Do you." Bevan came back to her with a wrenching effort. "Yet Pryce Dacaerin is a strong-fisted lord. Many are the soldiers he keeps in his hire."

  "As he must. But you'll find no torturers in my father's house. Nor are the old courtesies forgot. No stranger goes away empty from my father's door, and honor is given where it is due, to the gods and to women. In all my father's business my mother's blessing goes with him."

  "Then Pryce Dacaerin is a man to be honored as his wife." Bevan could not quite hide his amusement at her earnestness. "Where was he when you were taken?"

  "Far away in Wallyn to the west," Ellid said stiffly, "as I am sure Marc knew well."

  "I doubt it not." Bevan's dark eyes were sober now. "You love him well, your father."

  "Ay." She could see him before her inward eye: a lean, craggy man, taller than other men; his hawk-red hair bristled like a living thing. Riding his blood-bay horse she saw him, but where? She reckoned the days. Five for the messenger to come to Wallyn bearing news like a slap in the face. A week or more for her father to return to his strongholds and muster his people. Even now he must be scarcely started on the ten days' journey to Myrdon. Ellid's heart yearned for him.

  "You will be back to him within the week," Bevan told her, and meandered off into the Forest. Ellid sat and watched him go without comment; already she was accustomed to his unceremonious ways.

  Bevan returned to their camp hours later, bearing some grouse for their supper. "The news has it," he remarked after he had helped her pluck the birds, "that your noble father set out from Caer Eitha three days ago, marching long and late. Already, it is said, he has come
to the crossroads."

  Ellid gaped at him, utterly taken aback. Bevan answered one of her questions before she could ask it. "Tree-spirits told me, for one," he explained quietly. "They do not travel, of course, but they hear all the chatter of the birds. And days ago I sent out shades—bodiless folk, they pass like the wind for speed. They bear out the report."

  "My father must have ridden hard!" Ellid murmured.

  "Could he think of you and do less?" For a moment Bevan's eyes on her were soft as twilight. Then he sighed. "I had hoped to wait until your feet were fully healed, and rightly shod, and until you were well in strength. But now we must go at once. There will be ill faring if Dacaerin should come to Myrdon without news of you."

  "My feet will be well enough," Ellid stated, "as long as I can see the stones!"

  "We must go by day then." Bevan looked at her with troubled eyes. "I dare say Marc of Myrdon still hunts for us, and there are ruffians about aplenty even if did he not! It will be no lark, my lady."

  "Even so," she said.

  "Even so. We will start tomorrow, early. Now come beside me here, and attend."

  He drew a map in the dust of the floor. "Caer Eitha—the Wildering Way—Myrdon tower. We are here, to the east. We will go north and west, thus, to keep wide of Marc's haunts and yet hope to meet your father. If you keep a line between the setting sun and the constant star, you will cross the road sometime…"

  "But my lord," Ellid whispered, "will you not be with me?"