Tale of Elske

by Jan Vermeer

  No, it was Beriel’s army that had won the victory. The number of dead exceeded the number of those left alive, including the wounded.

  No, King Guerric had set an ambush for his ambitious sister, and trapped her and all of her royal guard, too. Thus the battle ended in victory for Guerric.

  No, the Queen had found and slain her brother and enemy. She rode now at the head of those who had survived her victory. She carried the severed head of Guerric on a tall pole, that all might know her power and her right.

  All the messengers agreed that many lives had been lost. Most reported victory for Beriel so Dugald and Elske moved forward with hope.

  Their way led them now beside the river, and they set up their camps in the sweet spring evenings, the army around them. “You have not taught me to swim,” Dugald reminded Elske, who by then knew enough propriety to answer, “When we are alone, my Lord. When we are alone and by one of the lakes, for didn’t you promise me that I would have a house at the lakeside to be my marriage gift?”

  “I did, and you will.” They were watching night settle gentle as falling snow down over the silver river and the green land. “Let Beriel be Queen,” Dugald said, then, “and I will ask no more for my perfect contentment. And did you ever think you would be an Earl’s wife, Elske?”

  “No,” she said, for she had never thought of being any man’s wife.

  Dugald was in a robust pride that evening. “Has another man—any other man—asked to give you the honor of his name?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  This surprised him. “Who was he? One of the Wolfers?”

  “The men of the Volkaric have no wives,” she explained, meaning to tease him. “Besides, I was the Death Maiden, and belonged to the Volkking.”

  This reminder drove the pride from Dugald, who took her naked hand in his own bare fingers to say, “Then who was this other man? Must I be jealous? Or were there many men, and I must be jealous of them all?”

  “Be jealous of none,” Elske reassured him.

  The river nuzzled into the long grasses at its shallow banks, and Elske’s skirts swished in echoing sound. From behind them came the voices of their soldiers. “In two days’ journey,” Dugald told Elske, “we’ll be at the King’s City and know what fortune awaits the Kingdom.”

  “I’ll be glad when the cheering’s done,” Elske admitted.

  But when the two armies met together and joined into one on the jousting field outside the walls of the King’s City, the cheers of the citizens for their soldiers and their Queen, and the cheers of the soldiers for their victories and their Queen, for Northgate’s heir, and Elske, too, choked the air. Beriel stood on the King’s pavilion, where all might see her, tall and high-shouldered, one arm bandaged close to her chest, this being one of the deep wounds she had taken in battle, and leaning on a carved wooden stick for the other. She turned and turned, showing her face to all in the crowd that surrounded her. Her eyes shone blue, and her bandages shone white as she stood before her people. She wore no crown, not yet having been anointed; but Beriel had never needed any crown to be the Queen.

  The soldiers of Dugald’s army, both those of his father’s house and those of Sutherland’s, lifted Elske up onto the platform, that she might stand with Beriel, but the two could not say any words to one another, for the roar of voices. They clasped hands, once, before the voices called them apart. “Beriel!” the people cheered, and the soldiers, too. “Long live the Queen! Long life to our Warrior Queen!” Voices of men and women and children, Lords and people, all mingled together. “Elske!” they cheered, “Elske of the deathless battle, Elskeling!”

  At first, Beriel and Elske stood back-to-back, like Wolfguard. With Elske to balance against, Beriel could drop her stick and raise her good arm up into the air.

  Louder cried the crowd, in its joy at the double victory and in honor of these two. The two were filled with the cries of the people as the sails of a ship fill with wind, and Elske, too, raised an arm in answer to the people’s joy in Beriel, and honor to them both.

  When they turned to face one another again, each with her own name and the other’s ringing in her ears, Beriel stepped back. She held out her right hand to Elske, palm down. She wore on that hand the royal signet. Her eyes were like the blue sea when it reflected back the light of the midday sun.

  This was Beriel in her full power. This was Beriel, Queen.

  Elske took the hand in her own, and when the crowd saw that it cheered more loudly, and gladly, “Elskeling!”

  Beriel’s hand pressed hard down on Elske’s. “Kneel,” she commanded. “Kneel to me.”

  But why should Beriel need Elske kneeling before her? Still, Elske sank down to her knees before her Queen, and pressed her forehead to the hand which she held, to show loyalty, to give honor, in servitude, and all gladly.

  Now the crowd cheered Beriel’s name, over and over, tirelessly.

  Before Elske could rise, Beriel signaled to five men who stood close by the pavilion’s steps. They were richly dressed, and two were also bandaged; they came forward to surround her. This guard, with the Queen in their midst, descended the steps and stepped into the crowd, which parted to give the Queen passage.

  Win was not one of this close guard. Left on her knees on the pavilion floor, Elske wondered what had befallen the young man, wondered if he lived. She had just stepped back onto the ground, when one of the guard returned to tell her, “The Queen requires your attendance, my Lady. With no more time lost, my Lady. That is the Queen’s will.”

  “I obey and follow,” Elske assured him, and he was away to rejoin the Queen.

  WIDE WOODEN DOORWAYS OPENED TO let Elske enter the reception chamber where Beriel was holding court. A tall-backed throne, with carved arms and legs, stood on a raised dais at the far end of the room, and there Beriel sat.

  Beriel saw Elske enter, but made no sign; she was giving public thanks and praise to the captains and Lords of Northgate’s army, who were called up one by one to receive her hand and swear their allegiances.

  Elske looked around her, while she waited her time to be called forward. The wooden floors in this hall gleamed with polish, each plank fitted tight against its neighbors. The long windows were unshuttered, letting fresh, sun-warmed air fill the hall. But Elske did not see Win among the courtiers gathered in this room, nor among the soldiery.

  Beriel called for Dugald, heir to Earl Northgate. He knelt before her and she thanked him for driving the Wolfers out of her lands, and she proclaimed him first among her loyal Lords. Then she rose up from the throne and asked him for his arm so that he might escort her through a doorway behind the dais, thus ending the ceremony of thanks.

  At the opened door, Beriel sent one of her hovering Ladies-in-Waiting to Elske, to tell Elske that she, too, was required in this private conference with the Queen. Elske followed the woman’s broad skirts and stepped through the door held open for her. Elske hoped to find Win waiting within. But Win was not there in the small paneled room. Dugald and Beriel sat across from one another at a table, and there was no one to occupy the fourth chair.

  “Be seated,” Beriel told Elske. “Now, Dugald, give me your report. Tell me how we stand with the Wolfers.”

  “We stand free of them,” Dugald told her. “They think they were met by the Death Maiden and her army of the deathless dead. That at least is our guess, my Queen, and if that is so, Elske tells me it will be many years before they dare the Kingdom again, and maybe forever.”

  “I don’t think you should promise us forever, Elske.”

  Elske protested, “I have promised nothing, my Lady.”

  “I can offer you no honors that would equal your worth,” Beriel said to Dugald.

  Dugald answered her. “I seek no honors.”

  “Sought or unsought, you have gathered honors about you,” Beriel answered. “Rumors unsaddled their horses in my courtyards before you dismounted your own, tales of a bloodless victory, of a naked maiden before whose bright
ness Wolfers flee. My own wars don’t make such a pretty story.”

  “Nor such an easy one,” Dugald agreed. “What of Guerric, what of the battle? For we, also, have dined on rumors.”

  At the question, Beriel leaned towards Elske with a mischievous smile, as if they were back in Trastad and she the Fiendly Princess again. “Guerric put a price on my head—a fortune in gold coins and land rights, which he offered for my capture alive. If dead, then only coins. But many coins,” Beriel announced, as if that pleased her.

  Her next thought did not please her. “He would have suborned his own soldiers into murderers. He hoped to corrupt those who had pledged their swords to me. He was a fool.”

  “Ah, he was?” Lord Dugald asked, seizing on the clue, but Beriel would tell her own story in her own way.

  “I had an army to defeat, trained and weaponed, led by experienced captains. I had my own men to use—and not to waste. Our battle plan was to attack at three points, in three equal parts, two at their flanks—where they were spread thin, not expecting attack there; and I led the third part of my soldiers into the waiting center of their line.”

  “On horseback?”

  “At first, but after the first clash I dismounted. Sideseated is a weak position from which to wield a sword. So I fought among my soldiers, beside my own men. Elske, I think I am more of a Wolfer than you.”

  “I think you are,” Elske agreed.

  “I have walked into battle,” Beriel told Elske proudly. “I have had soldiers ready to follow me to their deaths, and many did die in my cause. I have had a man’s heart at the end of my blade, and watched the life leave his body, and pulled my sword free for the next enemy. And my courage did not fail me,” Beriel announced. “I have had my revenge,” she told Elske.

  “On Guerric?” Dugald asked.

  Beriel told Elske, “I was too late to be the man who slew Ditrik. But I watched him fight, and lose, and lie open-eyed as the sword came down into his throat. He knew I watched. He died bravely, which I will be able to tell my uncle, the Earl Sutherland, that harmony may grow between our houses. And I return Aymeric to his father, his honor restored as much as it can be, earned back to him by his sword. So that is finished.”

  “What of Guerric, the crowned King?” Dugald asked again.

  “The usurper,” Beriel corrected him, then told him, “Guerric surrendered his sword to one of my captains. Of course, when he saw he could neither defeat me nor escape me. He was ever a coward—what was the word, Elske? The Wolfer word, like spitting.”

  “Fruhckman,” Elske said, and could wait no longer for her own question. “But where is Win? I would have thought to find him here. Is he dead?”

  “Not dead,” Beriel answered. “Win was at my side throughout the battle, and took wounds—although none deep. He was at my side afterwards, when I visited the wounded and walked among the dead of both armies. And Win was at my side when they brought Guerric to me, my wounds freshly bound and my cheeks still wet with grief. Guerric offered me the ring, and the throne, and asked in exchange for his life. He asked only for his own life. The lives of all the others he gave into my hands. He offered me only what was mine by right, and my lands still wet with the blood of our soldiers.”

  “Where will you send him for his exile?” Dugald asked.

  “I took our father’s ring. I had already won the throne. What need to treat with him? Guerric ever hated me as much as I learned to hate him, and he knew I wished him dead.” She stood up from her chair and went to the window, leaning heavily on the stick, to look out over her city before she turned to tell them, “So then he thought to make my men doubt me. He accused me of being possessed by insatiable appetites for the men around me. To have them in my bed— Why do you smile in that insolent way, my Lord?” Beriel demanded.

  “Anyone who knows you must know the falseness of that charge,” Dugald answered. “I know you from childhood, and you have ever been more quick to quarrel than to kiss—and if ever you did kiss any man, even as a willful girl, it was not me. And yet,” he said, “I’d swear you were my fond cousin.”

  “As I am,” Beriel smiled. “As you are mine, I hope. But Guerric claimed to know of his own experience men I had called to my chamber, and claimed to be one of those himself, and he said he could prove by his knowledge of my private body that he spoke the truth. He called me unworthy, and would have said worse, except that Win cut his throat and silenced him forever.”

  Nobody spoke in the little room. Almost, they might not have been breathing.

  “Knowingly,” Beriel said slowly, as if they could not understand it spoken otherwise, “Win slew the anointed King.”

  “High treason,” Dugald said.

  Elske didn’t understand them. “Can it be treason to defend the honor of your Queen?” she asked. “Can it be treason to slay a traitor? Guerric was the usurper, wasn’t he? And he had sought your life, Beriel, in battle and before, also, as Win told us.”

  Dugald and Beriel spoke as if Elske were not present. “The Priests will have to read the law over him. My Queen, will you lose your throne?”

  “I gave no order for Guerric’s death,” Beriel answered.

  Elske cried, “Will Win die for taking your revenge?”

  Beriel told Dugald, “Guerric’s death Win’s own loyal heart offered to me.”

  “You will speak to the Priests for him?” Dugald asked.

  “Can your Kingdom’s law condemn the man who defends his Queen?” Elske protested.

  “I cannot speak. The Queen cannot. The Queen must not attempt to influence the Priests, as they apply the law.”

  “What will happen to Win?” Elske demanded, and at last they looked at her.

  “She wouldn’t let him be hanged,” Dugald said.

  Beriel answered precisely. “If I could lawfully save him, I would. He has given me the only cheer I have found in all of this bloody claiming of my throne. If I can lawfully save him, trust me, I will.”

  “You must,” Elske told her.

  “There is no must for a Queen,” Beriel answered sharply, and this silenced them all. After a time, Beriel rose. “You may leave me, now.”

  Disregarding the command, Dugald said, “My Queen, I ask your blessing on my marriage.”

  Beriel asked, with royal displeasure, “You are wed?”

  “Not wed. Promised,” he answered, and looked her steadily in the eye.

  “Promised,” Beriel echoed him. “To whom promised?”

  “I have offered and I have been accepted,” Dugald said, with unconcealed happiness.

  Beriel lost patience. “Name her.”

  “My Queen, she is Elske.”

  “Elske? Of course it is Elske.” Beriel sounded apologetic when she said, “But, Dugald, you are to marry my sister—whichever sister you prefer—and thus join Northgate’s house as close to the throne as is Sutherland’s,” she said. “Elske will go with my brother Aidenil to Trastad. There you must help Aidenil, Elske, to establish a merchant bank so that he can trade, as the Trastaders do, and accumulate wealth for our royal house as well as make commercial connections in whatever cities and lands the bank does business. Var Jerrol will aid in this, Elske, for your sake. Undoubtedly, he will offer hospitality to my princely brother. You will be there to help Aidenil make our way in this new world, with your connections to the Council, and to Var Kenric’s family. You will be my Ambassador to Trastad, Elske,” Beriel announced, then turned to Dugald. “So you see, Elske cannot be your wife. I have need of her.”

  Dugald warned her, “I know you, Beriel. We have been children together, and I know how your heart is.”

  “Do you contravene my will? Do you seek to rule me?” she demanded.

  Dugald did not shrink from her anger. “I seek to remind you to rule yourself. If you will make your two truest supporters into a meal for your pride, then your reign promises ill.”

  “You count yourself one of my truest men?”

  “I speak of Win,” Dugald said
. “You have nothing to fear from Elske, Beriel.”

  “Have you forgotten that she is Wolfer?”

  At that, Dugald laughed, then at the look on Beriel’s face, answered more diplomatically, “Let us add her wild blood to our own, then, to give ours new strength.”

  “Dugald, you know my house. We have had new blood, my grandfathers both gave new blood to the house, and my grandmother, too, and look what it has brought—”

  “Beriel, it has brought us you. I have known you from a child, and you were ever worthy to be my Queen,” Dugald answered her, and she turned from him.

  She said to Elske, “I had thought you would be my voice in Trastad, and my watchdog over all of my many interests there. I thought to honor you.”

  Once again they kept silence, until Beriel broke it. “Leave us, Lord Dugald,” she ordered. He hesitated, with a glance at Elske, but obeyed.

  Beriel sat down again. Into the quiet she spoke as if her heart wept. “How can you betray me so?”

  Elske knew that it was fear that dug long fingers into her neck. “My Queen, how have I done that?” she asked.

  “You have allowed my Earl to give you his heart.”

  “How is that betrayal?” Elske asked.

  “You have been a servant in Trastad, and you would marry my Earl? You have gone naked before soldiers, and all have seen you naked, and you would marry my Earl? You are a Wolfer, and you would marry my Earl?”

  All of this was true. But it was not the whole truth of her, as Beriel must remember.

  Beriel said now, more quietly, “Why will you not go to Trastad, where honors will be showered upon you?”

  There were no words in Elske’s throat waiting to be spoken.

  “I know Dugald,” Beriel said. “We were children together, and I know his nature. It must be you who refuses him, for he will not give you up. If you were my sister, and I forbade the match, you must obey me. If you marry him, his mother—I know her—will hate you.”