In the Shadow of the Bear

by David Randall

  Clovermead heard a faint clamor. She walked to the window, wincing and slow, and saw the first two-score servants arriving at the town walls. They ran heavily and awkwardly in their just-donned chain mail and kept on tripping over their swords and spears. The Yellowjackets they replaced began to run toward their waiting horses in the town square. Clovermead saw a little man who had to be her father hurry another hundred servants through the streets. She smiled to see him herd the straggling mob like a sheep dog.

  Lady Cindertallow staggered to her bed and fell down. “There’s wine in the cupboard,” she said to Clovermead. “Bring it to me.” Clovermead opened up the oak drawers, took out a half-empty bottle and a glass, and brought them to her mother. Lady Cindertallow tried to uncork the bottle but could not. Clovermead loosened the cork for her mother, then poured some wine into the glass. Lady Cindertallow took it in a shaky hand, brought it to her lips, and gulped. “At least I can still do this by myself,” she muttered. She gulped again, and now half the wine in the glass was gone. Her face began to flush. “Wine puts me to sleep,” she explained. She closed her eyes. “Thank you, Clovermead.”

  “I’m glad to help, Ma’am,” said Clovermead awkwardly. She paused a moment. “Ma’am, who is Mallow Kite? Can you tell me now?” His lonely eyes still called out to her for pity. His bitter laugh of dead bones, which moved bears like puppets on a string, echoed in her still.

  “The man I almost married,” said Lady Cindertallow. She shivered. “Lady, Lady, I thought our sorrows ended at death. How can he hate me still?”

  “What happened?” asked Clovermead.

  Lady Cindertallow took another, smaller drink. “I was hunting,” she began.

  Chapter Six

  The Huntress

  It was winter in the Lakelands, and we were hunting wolves. My cousin Athanor came with me. He loved the hunt as much as I did, though he had excused himself from hunting the winter before, in order to dote on his newborn babe with his wife, Meadowlark. Lord Mallow Kite came hunting too. Mallow was Meadowlark’s brother and Athanor’s best friend. He was a handsome man with hair like copper rings, he was high-spirited and daring, tall and strong. I liked him very much. I thought perhaps I more than liked him; certainly I had let him fall in love with me. We had been so for some months. It was cruel of me to leave him in suspense so long—but, truly, I was undecided.

  Ambrosius Beechsplitter came with the Yellowjackets who accompanied me. I pretended it was because he was from the Lakelands and knew the woods as a native, but there was more to it than that. He had half-stolen my heart the first time I saw him, and it had never come back to me entirely. He had lovely light-brown hair that turned to gold when the sun shone on it, a downy beard, and eyes as blue as the summer sky. He was a slender man, almost dainty, but he could joust as well as any Yellowjacket in Chandlefort, and he had won his fair share of prizes in their races and games. We had spoken to each other often enough over the years that I knew the sound of his voice and the shape of his smile. I told myself that it was only the pleasure of admiring his features that led me to keep him in my guard.

  Bugles blared and dogs howled as we chased a pack of wolves over the ridge between Elkhorn Lake and Marten Lake. The land was clear enough for horses to ride but broken enough that we had to part from one another to make our way through the snow-clad forest. I galloped alone over fallen trees with a wolf-spear in my hand. My companions had fallen away when my horse leaped a frozen stream in one bound. I heard the howling of wolves, and my blood quickened. I hoped I would be first to reach the pack.

  I heard hoofbeats come up behind me, and I turned to see Athanor. I was disappointed but not surprised. My cousin had always been an excellent horseman. Indeed, I had learned to ride from him. The trees thinned out at the ridgetop, and we rode side by side for a while. “Hello, cousin,” I said, “where have you been?”

  “Off to Chandlefort and back again,” he said with a smile. Athanor was a pale man with black hair, pockmarked skin, and a long nose. “I’ve kissed Meadowlark, petted the little one, and now I’m back for the hunt. Where is the rest of our merry band?”

  “Far behind,” I said. “Only Cindertallow blood can ride this fast.” I laughed, but I meant it. No one ever rode faster than we two cousins. I was better in sprints, but Athanor surpassed me in long-distance riding. I enjoyed competing with him.

  “You must take pity on your men, Melisande,” said Athanor. “Let them catch up. How will they ever reach you otherwise?”

  I looked sideways at Athanor and wondered if there was a double meaning in what he said. The wind whipped at his black hair, and he grinned at me. There was a moral there, all right. I’d heard it often enough, and would again until I was married. Chandleforters are anxious when the Lady Cindertallow has no husband and no heir.

  “The Lady Cindertallow should never condescend,” I said fiercely. “I will not shackle myself to soothe their pride. If any of them are able, they will reach me without help. If not, I’ll kill the whole pack of wolves myself and leave the men to skin them.”

  “Tush, you’re selfish,” said Athanor. “You must learn to share.”

  “Only with a man who’s earned his portion,” I said.

  There was a sudden howling ahead, and two wolves broke from the underbrush. They ran forward and to the right, seeking to slip behind a ridge of rock. I turned one way to check their advance while Athanor whirled behind them to close the trap. The wolves screeched to a halt, saw no escape—and leaped! The first wolf flew straight toward my face. My horse reared, my spear was already up, and I skewered him in midair. He slid down the shaft, his jaws snapped at me as he died, and his body slammed into mine and almost jolted me from my saddle. I turned to look for the second wolf, but Athanor had already chopped her down.

  We left their bodies for the huntsmen behind us to find and skin, and continued riding. Now Mallow Kite had caught up with us. He saw that my cousin and I had already killed, and chagrin crossed his face—petulance, almost. It made him less handsome. But it was gone quickly as he heard more howling ahead, and he spurred his horse the harder. Athanor and I slowed down. Now that we had slain, we were required in due courtesy to leave the other huntsmen a chance for glory.

  The three of us came to a stretch of flat, bare rock at the top of the ridge, and I watched Mallow as he sped after a wolf. He was bareheaded—vanity, perhaps, but it showed his ringlets off beautifully. He strove with all his might to catch the wolf, kicked hard into his horse’s flanks, but the wolf was too fleet of foot. It had nearly disappeared over the ridge into the far forest when Mallow threw his spear. He was marvelously strong; the spear flew fifty feet and struck the wolf through the heart. The creature whimpered, fell, and died. Mallow turned to me and smiled. I confess I smiled back at him. It was a pretty feat and he was a pretty man.

  Just then we heard yelping growing louder from the trees ahead, and we turned to see what caused the sound. Suddenly half a dozen wolves burst out of the forest toward us—and behind them was Ambrosius. He was—oh, it was the funniest thing. He herded them, spanked them with his wolf-spear so that they yipped with terror, and made sure none escaped as he drove them back toward us. I laughed with delight, Athanor guffawed, and I realized Ambrosius had outridden us all, outsped the wolves, galloped so fast that he could play with the wolves like a cat with mice.

  “Insolent rogue,” said Athanor, but he said so admiringly.

  “Excellent rogue,” I said, and I could not help smiling at Ambrosius. He saw my smile and returned it in a way that was friendly, deferential, and something more. He bowed as best he could as he passed us, then rode on and out of sight, still herding the wolves toward the oncoming huntsmen. Some of them had just come into view and seen what Ambrosius had done. Word of it spread quickly among the hunting party.

  And Mallow, whose moment of triumph had been completely undone, who had seen me turn my smiles from him to Ambrosius—Mallow scowled, and he looked at Ambrosius with envy and hatred.
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  That evening we stayed at Aurhelia Hall on Marten Lake. The Hall had been built for Queen Aurhelia to rest in between campaigns during her wars against the Tansyards. It is a palace of pink marble and buttery limestone, an airy edifice suited for the warm clime of Queensmart in all save the high-pitched roof tacked on to ward off Linstock snow. Queen Aurlinde had pawned it to my grandmother in return for enough gold to wage war against her sister for a summer. The gold was never repaid, and my grandmother kept Aurhelia Hall as her hunting lodge. She had hung furs and antlers over the frescoed walls and made the palace’s southern splendor more homey and familiar.

  That night, as Athanor and I read the latest letters of news from Queensmart in a second-story room, I heard raised voices. Curious, I turned to the door. “What is that noise?” I asked.

  Athanor went to the hallway and peered down. After a moment he returned and shut the door again, shaking his head. “Mallow’s drunk and picking a quarrel with your rogue. It promises to be a vulgar scene. Pay no attention, Melisande.”

  My heart pounded oddly. “A quarrel?” I asked, more lightly than I felt. “I don’t think I’ve seen one of those before. I’d like to watch.”

  Athanor gave me a queer look. “You should not be seen at such an event.”

  “Then I will watch secretly,” I said. I was giddy and smiling and no longer thinking of anything beyond the Hall. “Come along, Athanor. This is too good to miss.” Athanor gave me another look, shrugged his shoulders, and stepped out of my way.

  I crept into the hall. The balcony on the second floor was wide and dark with shadow, and Athanor and I were invisible from the floor below as we peeped out from behind a pair of marble busts. Mallow faced Ambrosius in the open space between the wooden tables laden with food, drink, and snoring lords. Behind Mallow sprawled some of his lordly friends in fine hunting clothes; behind Ambrosius sat a pair of Yellowjackets. Mallow’s cheeks were flushed with wine.

  “Tell me about making furniture,” said Mallow. “What’s it like to work for a living?” He had a cup in his hand and downed another gulp.

  “I was a very bad furniture-maker, Lord Kite,” said Ambrosius amiably. “The legs fell off my stools, and the varnish peeled. I’m sure if I’d gone into business for myself, I’d have starved to death.”

  “But you worked,” said Mallow. “You put your hands to wood so you could sell the stuff. I can’t imagine being so degraded.” He flung the last word at Ambrosius, and his hand twitched toward the knife at his belt.

  “My Lord, these last few months I have come to think of you as a friend,” Ambrosius said more quietly. “I have enjoyed sparring with you on the Training Grounds. Must you say such things?”

  “I have no choice now.” Mallow laughed with desperate, loud bitterness. He swayed forward as he stood, so that he almost touched Ambrosius. Ambrosius took a step backward. “Dishonorable. That’s what it is. There isn’t a speck of honor in woodworking. Do you hear me, Beechsplitter?”

  “I hear you, My Lord,” said Ambrosius. His smile had drained from his face. “Your Lordship is most nobly stationed,” he said after a moment. “I cannot claim to be your equal in honor. Still, Your Lordship is unjust to my former profession. It is a most reputable and worthy calling, however much I have fallen short of giving it its due. I could wish Your Lordship to condescend to speak more charitably of it.”

  A hush fell across the Hall, because Ambrosius had disagreed with Mallow. He had done so very respectfully, he had done so under great provocation, but he had disagreed. Mallow could choose to make a quarrel of it.

  Mallow did. “Speak well of your trade, Ambrosius? I cannot, little Yellowjacket. It’s filthy and degrading work, no better than cleaning sties. I say that you and your father and your whole family all did filthy work.”

  “I say you’re a drunken, lovesick fool,” said one of the Yellowjackets as he stepped up to Ambrosius’ side. “Quarrel with me if you’ve lost Milady’s favor.”

  “Hold your tongue, Hob,” Ambrosius hissed. Hob looked surprised and hurt, and Ambrosius’ look was suddenly gentle again. “We must not sully Milady’s name by saying we quarrel over her. We are disputing my family’s honor. Do you understand?” Hob reluctantly nodded and so did the other Yellowjacket.

  Ambrosius turned back to Mallow, and there was a flash of real anger in him now. “I must differ with Your Lordship. My father loves his craft, and he is a master of it. He has tramped all through the Lakelands to find timber suitable for proper furniture. He has spent days smoothing the surface of a chair leg, passed more days mixing varnish properly, and he sells to men who have no conception of what effort he makes for them. Only old men understand, who come to him and say, ‘You made me a chair forty years ago, and it’s as sturdy and handsome today as the day you sold it to me.’

  “My father is a reputable merchant. He can come into any town in the Lakelands with empty pockets and buy cartloads of wood. He does not even need to swear to Our Lady that he will pay in due course. The timber merchants know that his word is a surety worth gold. He has been elected an Alderman of Elkhorn Lake seven times because his fellows know that he is an upright man. He has been the town’s treasurer ten years, and he renders accounts accurate to the last penny. His honesty is unimpeachable.

  “My father is an honorable man, Lord Kite. He may not be the equal of a lord of Chandlefort, but he is an honorable man. On that I must insist.”

  Mallow was still angry, still bitter and drunken, but now there was regret on his face. I think at that point he would rather not have quarreled with Ambrosius, but it was too late. I stole a glance at Athanor. There was terrible sadness on his face. “You poor fool,” he whispered to Mallow. He looked at me with tear-bright eyes. “Please, Melisande, go back into the room. You know what will happen.”

  “I will stay,” I whispered back. My stomach coiled oddly, and I was short of breath and terribly excited. I knew indeed what would happen to Mallow, but I felt no pity for him. All my affections were elsewhere.

  “You lie,” said Mallow wearily. He drew his knife from his belt, drank the dregs of his wine, and let the cup fall to the floor. It clanged and rolled under a table. “You lie as vilely as your father lives. Deny it!” He jabbed his knife toward Ambrosius.

  “I cannot agree with you, Lord Kite,” said Ambrosius. He drew his knife, and the fight began.

  They were more evenly matched than I had expected. Mallow was drunk, but he was a strong man with a long reach, and he had fought many knife-duels. In the first seconds Ambrosius barely avoided having his stomach sliced open. Mallow struck and struck, so powerfully that any blow would have killed Ambrosius had it hit home. As it was, his blade twice grazed Ambrosius and left him bleeding from his left arm and right leg. Ambrosius retreated steadily from his hammer-blows.

  Then Mallow swung so hard that his knife lodged into a table. In the second it took him to wrench the blade free, Ambrosius attacked. Now Mallow had to jump back from Ambrosius’ knife, and the fight was evenly balanced. Both jabbed and feinted, sidestepped and ducked. Their limbs were flecked with blood. It was nothing like the swordplay of the Yellowjackets, where armor and shield can defend you, but a dreadful, naked violence, with their soft flesh perpetually vulnerable to each other’s knives.

  Mallow struck with all his might, and Ambrosius cracked down with the hilt of his knife on Mallow’s wrist. Mallow cried out as his knife skittered across the marble floor. Ambrosius slammed his knife toward Mallow—and stopped, with the knife tip touching Mallow’s chest. “My father is an honorable man,” he said quietly, in a silent room. He let the knife stay long enough for Mallow to know what could have happened, then wiped his blade on his sleeve and returned it to its scabbard.

  “Why don’t you kill me?” asked Mallow. His tongue was thick with shock and drink. “You won. What is there left for me?”

  “You are mistaken, Lord Kite,” said Ambrosius. “We have never fought. I quarreled with you, but then I was afraid to fight. I
fled into the night, to Chandlefort, to resign my commission in the Yellowjackets out of shame.”

  “I don’t understand,” said Mallow. “Your knife touched my chest.”

  “Of course it did,” said Hob. “What are you blathering about, Ambrosius?”

  Ambrosius lifted great blazing eyes to Hob, to Mallow, to all the huntsmen in the room. “Lord Kite, I regret that I forgot my place at the hunt this afternoon. I should not have provoked you. I daydreamed, hoped for the impossible, and I made myself conspicuous to gain her smile. A furniture-maker’s son should never do such things. It is folly to seek her smile when her hand is destined to be yours. And since it is destined to be yours, I think my duty to Chandlefort requires that I relieve Milady’s future consort of all embarrassment. The world must be told that you were the victor in our fight, and I must be gone before I am tempted to further folly.” He turned to Hob. “Hob, accompany Lord Kite until he returns to Chandlefort. If anyone should ask him about tonight, relieve Lord Kite of the necessity of telling the story himself. Speak for him and say how I fled.”

  I could not stay still any longer. He was discretion itself, as gentlemanly as he was strong and beautiful, and I was in love with him to the full of my heart. I could not let him exile himself from me. There was more love in the way he said the word folly than in any sonnet I had ever heard. I began to rise—and Athanor’s hand caught me.

  “If you speak, you must marry him,” he whispered to me. His grip was like iron. “As he says, he is only a furniture-maker’s son. The lords of Chandlefort will not be pleased to bow to him.”

  “What do I care for the lords of Chandlefort?” I asked. “Let me go, Athanor.”

  “You will kill Mallow,” said Athanor. “He is a fragile man and he will break. When he breaks, Meadowlark will too. She loves her brother dearly, and her soul is bound up in his. I can see it already, Melisande. In Our Lady’s name, I beg you not to do this.”