The Summer's King

by Wilder, Cherry;

  He rides out of the stableyard and follows the hawkmasters down a broad path. The palace stands in a gentle landscape: grassy slopes, ponds, flowering groves. Apart from an orangery and a display of roses in stone urns, there are no formal gardens. The attempt to plant a garden in the manner of Lien was made at the palace of the Firn, and it was not a success. The king does not know it, but the lovely Chameln park that lies about him is a memorial to his mother, Aravel of Lien. The queen complained long over her exile in the barbarous Chameln lands, but before her mind clouded, she showed an instinctive appreciation of their beauty. The rare conifers, dwarf maples, ash trees and every sort of birch were brought at her command from the far corners of the realm to enhance this park of the Zor and its ancient oak trees.

  Now the king sees below him, by the old elm, a little knot of ladies and gentlemen . . . the “good company” hunted up by Denzil of Denwick. Indeed, Zilly, who knows his master’s habits well, might be accused of advance strategy. How else did Count Zerrah and the Countess Sabeth happen to be prepared to ride out in Athron hunting dress, following an invitation to dine at the Zor palace? There is of course a great deal of invitation and counterinvitation between the two palaces. On this day General Zabrandor sits at the left hand of Aidris in her banquet hall. Sharn notes the Zerrahs with approval and sees that dark Veldis of Wirth, Iliane’s waiting woman, is there, and the handsome widow, Lady Hargren, and Engist, the king’s master at arms. Zilly has done well. As Sharn rides down to join the company, which is well prepared with two packhorses, bearing food and drink, all that is necessary for a picnic, he sees that they are staring into the park.

  “Sire!” exclaims Engist. “Your tree of doom . . . look there . . .”

  In an open space there stands a stockade and a shallow ditch; in the midst of the enclosed plot, on a hillock, there grows a solitary dark tree. It is gnarled and spiny, but not unshapely, and about fifteen feet in height. Its trunk is black and grey; the smooth black patches of bark seem to absorb the light. The leaves are of a papery texture, resembling just a little the leaves of a plum tree, and in color they vary from deep purple to midgreen. Queen Aravel’s call for rare trees had an unexpected success; the seedling that the gardeners thought was a wild flowering plum was instead the rarest of trees. Harts Bane is one name for it or Wanderers Bane or Blackthorn, Killing Thorn; in some tales it is the Morrichar, the tree under which unwanted children were exposed. Its best-known name is Skelow. Leaves, bark, flowers and the very exhaltations of the tree are held to be deadly poison; and if this were not enough, the tree is credited with magic powers. Danu Araval would have uprooted the thing as soon as it was identified, but this was held to be a dangerous provocation of the tree and the Dark Huntress to whom it was sacred. It was, after all, an honor to have such a tree. The stockade and the ditch were set in place to keep children away from the Skelow, the black tree.

  Sharn sees that now, after years of slow growth, a change has come to the tree. The leaves are turning to their autumn color, a coppery purple-brown, and as they fall it is clear that for the first time the Skelow has brought forth fruit. Two gardeners with long-handled rakes and a basket on the end of a long pole are scraping away fallen leaves and taking up a few of the long black fruit.

  Sharn Am Zor has a special relationship to this tree; it haunts his dreams and is woven into the painful memories of his childhood. He bids the gardeners take care of the Skelow and burn its fruit and leaves upon the stone altar by the long pond.

  He is still in high good humor and leads his party of good companions out of the park into the countryside. They follow the hawkmasters, the cagers and the dogs sedately along a road through the cornfields. They can look to the northeast and glimpse the Hain, the royal hunting grove, and the blue waters of Lake Musna, but their way lies to the south. They leave the road and climb a low hill; before them lie broad slopes of grassland and a long valley, a deep grassy ravine, dotted with trees. A brook pushes through reeds and sedges in the valley floor. It is a place that must teem with birds and other small game.

  The king rides to a chosen spot, a natural platform on the side of the valley. The party dismounts and the ladies and gentlemen turn to and set out their own comforts; blankets to cover the grass and baskets of good things. The king is already engrossed in his hawking: the blue-black wanderers have been set free to fly high, the dogs are off with their handlers into the thick grass. The two great hillfalcons have been uncaged. The dogs point at once and their handlers begin to flush out the hurtling grouse and woodcocks. Sharn, whispering to the bird perched on his gauntlet, removes its hood, meets its dark eyes, raises his hand. The hillfalcon soars away.

  All eyes are on the young king. Engist, the burly master at arms and Gerr of Zerrah join the hunt, running to retrieve game. As a wanderer hurtles down upon a grouse and the male hillfalcon takes a woodcock, very high, the ladies cry out in admiration. Sharn Am Zor is in his element, striding about on the hillside. And in the minds of those ladies watching—Sabeth of Zerrah or Veldis of Wirth or the Widow Hargren—perhaps this autumn day, the wide sky, the rich, sheltered valley, the king, with his bright head uplifted, smiling at last, remains as an image of a golden time.

  Yuri, who has been sound asleep on a fur rug beside the fireplace in the king’s bedchamber, wakes up with a start as the lamplighters raise up the candlerack. Late, late, and the king will be back from his hawking and the bath not yet hauled . . . There is a laugh from a settle by the window. The king sits there in his dressing gown, and Prickett is going about gathering up bath towels and muddy boots. They have allowed the boy to sleep. Through the open doors onto the balcony comes the sound of the guard changing in the palace gardens; lanterns glow in the dusk.

  Sharn Am Zor, fresh and tireless, quaffs off a drink of apple brandy and changes his clothes for the third time. Now he is garbed in the manner of Lien, with satin doublet and hose, all in pale gold, splashed with white, and a short cloak of dark gold and apricot. Prickett brings out the tray of jewels from their locked press, thinks of the pearl ring he rescued and fishes it from his pocket. The king chooses this ring and another with a topaz set in gold and a round pin for his cloak with faceted diamonds in the manner of Lien.

  There is a light tapping at the inner door, and Jevon Seyl looks in, resplendent in blue and white.

  “Ready for your evening stroll, my King?”

  “Ready!” says Sharn. “And hungry. I can’t eat while I’m hunting. At least Aidris has good food at her country dance . . .”

  The two young men, preceded by the same commotion of guards and trumpets as at breakfast, turn up another way that brings them into the entry hall of the Zor palace. A procession of ladies and gentlemen in evening dress awaits the king, and he receives their greeting. He marches off, with Seyl and his lady to his right and the Countess Caddah and her son to his left. The evening stroll takes the glittering company clear across the city to the palace of the Firn for an evening of dancing. The pace is gentle, but many ladies of Lien have their maids carry a change of shoes. The people of Achamar, not yet worn out with feasting, cluster along the way to cheer the king. Music reaches out to Sharn and his courtiers: fiddles, bagpipes, flutes, the music of Achamar with a touch of Athron.

  In the palace of the Firn, all is ordered in the manner of the Chameln lands, and even the king has to admit that it is well done. In a beamed hall the size of the meeting house, decked for autumn with maple leaves, the fires burn brightly. The dancing floor is polished and well swept, and there are pleasant bowers of greenery where the guests may disport themselves between sets. Aidris Am Firn and Bajan Am Nuresh, her husband, come forward smiling to greet the king and his court.

  They are a fine-looking couple, and the king suddenly envies them, envies Aidris for having married, and wonders, almost for the first time, who will walk at his side in this way.

  Then he has fresh grounds for envy: the young Prince Sasko, allowed to watch the dancing, breaks away from Nila, his nurse, and c
omes sliding and running across the dancing floor crying out; “Sharn! Sharn! Sharn!”

  There is a burst of laughter, quickly hushed, for this is no way to address the king even if he is a cousin. Sharn Am Zor greets the little prince with delight: how fine it is to be singled out and recognized by a child. They smile at each other, king and prince, and Sharn sees that Sasko is tall for his age with loose brown curls, his mother’s green eyes, his father’s sturdy good looks; though both his parents are of the Firn, he will grow taller than Bajan. The king reaches down and picks up Sasko, at the same time nodding to Denzil of Denwick, who gives a series of high signs. Two liveried servants from the Zor palace run up with a tall shrouded object: the prince’s present.

  “What can it be . . . eh?” whispers Sharn to the child.

  Aidris, the queen, has a look, for a moment, that asks, “What indeed?” Presents for a little prince too often run to bejeweled weapons, savage pets, or fragile, elaborate toys meant only for ornament. Bajan, smiling, comes forward and removes the cloth. There are cries, and among them a few shrieks. The prince’s expression of wonder as he is set down to look at the gift is Sharn’s reward. In a high and airy wicker cage of many compartments, with nests, swings, mirrors, wheels—in a palace of a cage—there are several generations of white and parti-colored mice. They swing and run and twirl, oblivious of the godlike beings about them.

  “Oh Sharn!” says Aidris.

  “I always wanted one,” says the king.

  “A house of mice, my King?” asks Bajan, grinning.

  “A mouse,” says Sharn Am Zor. “Even one.”

  Sasko sits open-mouthed before the marvelous cage and presently is led away by his nurse, with the mouse-palace carried by the servants, in close attendance.

  Now the music strikes up, after a round of ceremonial greeting, and Sharn leads out with the queen; the Daindru dance together. There follow the courtly dances of Lien, the tripping and leaping measures of Athron, and the dances of the Chameln land with many simple figures. The king spends some time stilling his hunger in his elaborate bower beside the bower of the queen. The wine makes his eyes bright. He dances with Iliane Seyl, with Sabeth of Zerrah, with the Countess Barr and the Countess Caddah, and all these partners are carefully noted by the court gossips. The king is not neglecting his duty.

  When he come to Queen Aidris again, she begs to be excused and introduces him to one of her attendant ladies. He leads out a young girl in Chameln dress, a tall, pale girl with grey eyes and short dark hair in a kedran’s cut: Lorn Gilyan, the Heir of Chernak, granddaughter of the late Lord Gilyan, a torch-bearer of Racha Am Firn. Here is something for the gossips at last: a girl who must be on the list of chosen maidens, who may even be the queen’s choice.

  The dance is a Chameln round called “The Maids of the North.” The king speaks to his partner, who answers, smiling, a pretty flush rising in her pale cheeks. But the dance has many figures and after the first three, there is a longer pause. By accident or design, the king is distracted. The dancing floor is crowded now and certain courtiers who have been enjoying the wine indulge in horseplay round the edges of the floor. The king catches a flung fir cone, hurls it back to Zilly of Denwick, and turns aside, leaving Lorn Gilyan alone upon the dance floor when the music strikes up again. So she stands among the dancers, uncertain whether to go or stay, for who knows if the king will return? Iliane Seyl, passing in her set of dancers, brushes against Lorn Gilyan, her silken gown whipping over the girl’s leather boots, and says loudly enough for all the world to hear:

  “Why do you wait in the middle of the dance floor, my dear? Has your partner grown tired of you?”

  Then Lorn Gilyan, with no sign of tears of confusion, walks from the floor and returns to the queen’s bower. The dancing goes on. The king begins to dance again, this time with Lady Hargren. The queen, frowning, presses the hand of the young girl.

  “It is nothing, my Queen,” whispers Lorn. “It was an accident, nothing more.”

  She is soon dancing again. The queen’s ladies, bonny Chameln girls and the beautiful Countess Zerrah, do not lack for partners.

  There is the king, drawing all eyes as he leads the set of dancers. There is the king, and Aidris sees him as beautiful, proud, high-bred and high-spirited as her white stallion Tamir . . . and with as much sense of responsibility. The whole world must wait for him to grow up and try vainly to keep his attention. Her sigh of reproof draws a chuckle from the shadows of the royal bower. Bajan is off drinking a round with the chieftains of the northern tribes and now Nenad Am Charn sits beside the queen. He is a round, Firnish man, middle-aged, and one of her most trusted advisors. Sometimes, indeed, he can read her thoughts.

  “The king,” he whispers, “is in his own way very disciplined. We have heard of the ceremony of the court of the Zor, which in some way outruns our own.”

  “Tomorrow we have called a rest day,” says Aidris. “The Dainmut will drag on for many days because we cannot hold long meetings. The king must swim and go hawking . . .”

  “Long meetings are for the olden days,” says Nenad Am Charn. “The work of government is done in small gatherings of the land’s leaders, in local courts and moots. You must not fret, my Queen. We are at peace, and the harvest is good.”

  Aidris smiles again and sips her apple wine.

  “I have glanced at the scrolls and books,” pursues Nenad, “and given some thought to the list that must be prepared. I find some most interesting names upon it . . .”

  “Tell me . . .” says the queen.

  “Let me keep my thoughts to myself for a while, my Queen, until you have prepared your own list.”

  “I must find a husband for the Princess Merilla Am Zor, as well as a wife for the king,” says Aidris.

  “Is she . . . headstrong?” asks Nenad.

  “She has had the spirit to quit the land of Lien,” says Aidris, “but perhaps this shows good judgment!”

  Nenad Am Charn chuckles at this revealing comment by the queen. The dance goes on. The king leaves the set and takes a tour of the hall with Lady Seyl and her waiting women, then settles in his bower and allows them to feed him dainties.

  The long day is not done. Sharn Am Zor leaves the ball two hours after midnight and returns to his palace in a closed carriage, a long, lurching, unsprung vehicle, in spite of its gilding and royal crests. At the king’s couching, a number of the gentlemen are the worse for wear and take the opportunity to soak their heads in the bathroom. Prickett has had hot tea brought in. Sharn settles into his great bed again, dressed in his silken bedgown, and speaks a blessing to his attendants in this last ritual of the day.

  When the courtiers have gone, he swings out of bed impatiently, takes more tea, and seats himself at a leather-topped writing desk. He gives a sign to Yuri, and the boy runs to the press where the jewels are kept. He brings out a chased silver coffer, which he carries reverently to the king. The servants lower the candlerack and snuff the candles; the only lamp still burning is a silver oil lamp on the king’s writing table.

  Now only Prickett remains, a thin, elderly man bowing to his master in the gloom. He approaches the circle of light.

  “My King . . .”

  “I won’t forget to lock the press,” says Sharn.

  The valet holds up a piece of ribbon on which hangs yet another key. The king shakes his head impatiently. Prickett bids the king good night and slips away.

  Sharn Am Zor is alone. He bends forward and unlocks the silver coffer with the small gold key that he wears about his neck. He dips into the papers and documents it contains and drinks his tea. The papers in the silver box are all so well-known to him that he hardly needs to read them; he fingers them like jewels or amulets.

  He sets two small eight-fold pages side by side: both bear the crest of a swan and are written in black ink in a flowing Lienish variant of the merchants’ script called ladies’ round. The page on the left bears the words:

  “Give this cap and the belt of green
leather to Prince Sharn, for I know he would have them. And thereto my love and care.”

  The signature is bold and simple: Aravel.

  The paper on the right is torn and stained; the writing slants and shakes, and the pen has often pierced the paper. Some words are blotted out, some illegible because they are so ill-written. It is apparently a part of some longer letter.

  “. . . to send help but they were waylaid and killed by fiendish (or the word could be firnish) traitors I would do very well if I could sleep sound but the dreams, pains, beasts, guardians (words illegible) that He sends will not let me rest. Let him spare the child, the first-born, the prince. He may kill the other in the womb and have the maid and myself to his will, to be his creatures. Only spare the prince. Bring this to him before new moon when he is not so angry (or the word could be hungry)

  The signature, sprawled and trembling, is written twice. Aravel.

  Sharn Am Zor stares at this dreadful document calmly. There is nothing to show for whom the letter was intended, and certainly it was never sent. Grisel Wyse, the queen consort’s chief attendant, gathered up and burnt such outpourings, all save this page, stolen by Sharn: the first-born, the prince. Sharn does not reflect on the contents of the letter nor on the question of Aravel’s madness. Was it in fact a sending from Rosmer, the magician, or, as many would have claimed, a natural womanish affliction?

  He folds the letters together and takes from the coffer a scrap of parchment inscribed in clumsy straight-letter:

  “To my son Sharn Am Zor, this ivory bow and quiverful of arrows. Grow straight, ride well, hold to yr. right.”

  Esher Am Zor.

  He lays the letter aside, thinking of the bow, engraved with scenes of the hunting of the narwhal, which he still possesses in some chest or cupboard. The next letter, in fine bold straight letters, addressing him with all his titles, makes him smile. It came from Aidris Am Firn, in her exile in Athron, and bade him hold to his right if any tried to break the Daindru. The young queen gave no hint of her whereabouts but some proof of her identity: