The Summer's King

by Wilder, Cherry;

  Achamar, mired in two feet of the sudden early snow, is in a slow, numbed state of chaos. Distress builds slowly in the clogged streets, among spoiled market stalls and collapsed balconies, slowest of all in the royal palaces. Merilla Am Zor, dreaming by her fire with a book of new songs and Carel’s lurcher pup, seems to wake suddenly. She sees that the Countess Caddah has dozed off in her winged chair.

  Without waking the good woman, Merilla wanders the cold corridors, passing the common room where servants are clustered by their fire and the room where Nerriot is practicing his lute all alone. She comes to that anteroom with the round window. She looks down at the snow and is delighted with it. Snow in Lien is uncertain. She still recalls the snow houses built for the royal children in the palace grounds and lit with red candles for the Winter Feast.

  Merilla Am Zor sees the Skelow tree, bare and black as if the snow could not settle on it. Beyond the snow-filled ditch is a patch of whiteness, for all the world as if a figure is lying crumpled beneath the tree. She screws up her eyes, knowing it is a trick of the light, but the image will not fade. Her breath catches in her chest; she is filled with a paralyzing fear, half-formed. She springs up from the window seat and sees the king, her brother. He stands across the room before a wall of pale rushes woven in a diamond pattern. There is a snowy brightness about him; she can see the snow on the shoulders of his brown cloak and on his golden hair. He has an expression that is soft, pleading, rueful—an expression that she has never seen upon his face.

  Merilla does not speak but mouths the name of her brother: “Sharn!” The king passes to the right, out of sight in the corridor. Merilla cries out, knowing what she has seen and what she fears.

  She rushes to the empty corridor crying out, “Where is the king? Where is Prince Carel?”

  The servants come tumbling out of their room. Merilla goes running headlong down the gallery from the west wing to the head of the grand staircase. The guards in the hall are clustered about one of the doors to the courtyard dragging a stone urn with a rose bush into shelter. A lord and his lady, in their furs, are standing with their servants exclaiming at the snow. Seyl of Hodd and his wife Iliane look up at the princess.

  “The king!” cries Merilla. “Seyl, where is the king? Where is Prince Carel?”

  “Are they not returned?” echoes Jevon Seyl cheerfully. “I have seen Denwick, and he was with the king.”

  Merilla comes down the stairs, still crying out.

  “The king is in danger! Seyl, Iliane, we must send out!”

  Iliane Seyl is shocked and frightened by the princess, her wild air, her undignified shouting.

  “Be still, Highness,” she says smoothly and contemptuously. “Who has brought you word?”

  At that moment far off in the reaches of the palace a trumpet call rings out. The guards in the hall recognize their call to arms. It is repeated over and over again, discordant and shrill together with shouts and cries, the tramping of feet. The wave of sound comes nearer and from the darkness of a corridor bursts a party of men: Britt, Captain-General of the Guard, his two lieutenants, a red-faced trumpeter, then Esher Am Chiel and young Caddah supporting a pale, damp, gasping boy! Prince Carel.

  Merilla runs to her brother, and he gasps out his news again.

  “Sharn is lost in the snow. The king is lost upon the plain, beyond the Beacon Head . . .”

  Britt salutes Seyl.

  “Mustering,” he says. “First party has ridden out. The sleighs will take some time to prepare!”

  Iliane Seyl slips to the ground in a dead faint. Merilla Am Zor has pressed her hands to her brother’s face to warm him. She speaks to Caddah, then confronts Britt and Lord Seyl.

  “How will you come to this place, the Beacon Head, Captain? What will serve best in the snow?”

  “There are pack sleds at the garrison in the South Hall, Dan Merilla!”

  Britt is a man of Lien, almost out of his depth, suddenly, in the snowy wastes.

  “Send for them!” orders Merilla.

  Britt exchanges a glance with Seyl before he sends off a lieutenant.

  “We must not alarm the city,” murmurs Seyl. “Merilla, care for your brother.”

  “Seyl, care for your wife!” snaps Merilla. “Captain, we must send out across the city at once to Queen Aidris Am Firn!”

  Again there is a shade of hesitation, the vain hope that this can be kept within bounds, a household matter of the Zor.

  “By the Goddess!” cries Merilla, “will you obey, Captain?”

  A new voice sounds from the stairs.

  “Do you not hear the Heir of the Zor?” calls the Countess Caddah.

  Merilla’s title strikes fear into everyone. The captain shouts into the darkness of the corridor, and troopers come forward leading their horses. The growing crowd presses away from the steaming beasts. The palace has thrown off its Lienish decorations: it is the old oaken hall of another king where horses are commonly led through the lower floors in winter or in time of war.

  “Build up the fires,” say Merilla. “Let food and drink be brought here to this hall! A watch will be kept until we have word that the king is safe.”

  The bustling, the muffled cheers, cannot ease her painful anxiety. Carel is being borne off by the Countess and her son. Merilla sees a face in the crowd that she can trust.

  “Esher . . .”

  “Come, Princess,” says Esher Am Chiel. “Here is a place by the fire.”

  “Esher,” she whispers when he has settled her before the broad hearth in a tall golden chair that is too big for comfort, too much like a throne. “Where is the king? How can he be lost?”

  Lost indeed and cold, yet with a burning in his fingertips, a pulsing ache in his head. He cannot believe what he feels, his wits are clouded. He is conscious of an enormous discomfort. The world has turned upside down, all is very white and cold. A horse is plodding through a winter landscape carrying a heavy burden. He hears groaning, and a voice that might be reassuring if he could understand the words. The horse stumbles, he feels the jolt through all his bones, and the mists clear for an instant. He is slung across a horse’s back, moving through thick snow.

  “. . . not far, my King!”

  The voice brings no name with it, but an image of the downs, another easy slope with a flash of red: a red bonnet, a maple tree. What has happened? Did he cry for help? If he can reach the bridge, only stay on long enough to reach the bridge. The air is full of swans, swansdown, white feathers, and he comes into the shelter of an archway over the road. But that was long ago. He sinks into his cold dream again and is brought out of it by the noise of bells and voices. He sees a dark face suspended sideways, a young man in a red hat.

  “My King! My King!”

  “Tazlo?”

  Many hands fasten on him. As he is lifted down from his horse, Sharn Am Zor cries out in pain and loses his senses.

  He comes to himself again in a room that is strange to him, a warm, spacious chamber with russet hangings. It is night; a fire glows on the hearth; there are old-fashioned candleracks. He lies in a warm bed with constricting bands around his chest. His head aches intolerably, his back and limbs burn with pain. He hates the bed, he will not have it, they must do better than this.

  He is gathering strength for a furious complaint when a voice whispers, “My king?”

  She stands at his bedside bearing a silver cup between her hands. She is all softness, a slight, dark-haired girl, prettily flushed, clad in a grey bedgown furred at neck and wrists.

  “Lady,” he says, “I should know you. What place is this?”

  “Sire, you have come to my house, to Chernak Hall. I am Lorn Gilyan, the Heir of Chernak.”

  She bends down and gives him drink from the silver cup. The potion it contains is thick and sour; he thinks of striking the cup aside but does not do so.

  “You will sleep, my King.”

  “Pray you, lady, tell me how I came here. My head aches . . .”

  She has a
cloth wrung out in icy water that she lays across his brow.

  “You went riding near the long valley, Dan Sharn. You were caught by this sudden snowstorm that has fallen upon the countryside about Achamar.”

  “Snow!”

  “It is thought that you were thrown by your horse,” she says warily.

  “No,” he says. “No, Redwing is a good fellow. More likely I fell off. I remember nothing.”

  He closes his eyes trying to remember, but nothing comes.

  “Am I badly hurt?”

  “No, Sire, praise to the Goddess! You have two broken ribs; you will be bruised and you have a slight brain-shaking. We will heal you.”

  “Healers?”

  He fears and distrusts them.

  “This is my healer,” says Lorn Gilyan.

  A middle-aged woman in a green coif sits on the side of the bed, gazing steadily at him.

  “This is Granja Am Gilyan, my cousin, and a member of my household.”

  “My King.” The woman bows her head briefly. “Have you much pain?”

  She presses her fingertips to his wrist and gazes at him with a considering look.

  “Not much pain. The drink—”

  “Sleep, Dan Sharn.”

  “My people,” he says, fighting sleep, “are they safe? Engist and the escort? Who brought me in?”

  “Count Tazlo Am Ahrosh brought you in on one of the garrison sleds,” says Lorn. “The search has been called off.”

  “Carel, was Carel lost too? Merilla will worry.”

  “The prince is safe.”

  “The search has been called off.” It was as prompt, far-reaching and courageous a search as could be expected. Parties of the palace guard of the Zor came on their heavy chargers to the Beacon Head and found Engist, half-mad with anxiety, at his post. The king was lost indeed, and the two ensigns had not returned, only Tazlo had ridden back, found that the king was missing and ridden out again. The sleds from the garrison and two sleighs from the palace of the Firn came from the city to join the search. The freakish snowfall continued far into the night, lying wet and slippery on the downs, drifting deeply in the hollows. The search went too wide: there were none of the original escort to tell where the king had ridden. A riderless horse was found, but it was not the king’s horse.

  At last, in among the sheepfolds and small trails to the southeast, the kedran in the second garrison sled heard a thin hail and came upon Tazlo Am Ahrosh leading Redwing with the king slung over his back. It seemed that Sharn had fallen from his horse and rolled down a bank, there to be covered with snow. Redwing, trained to stand, had come into the shelter of an old windbreak beside his master. So the sled brought the injured king swiftly to Chernak Hall and sent out riders from the hall to spread the good news and call off the search.

  Many of the searchers, in a desperate state themselves, found their way to Chernak and were revived and warmed by the Gilyan household. There were injuries among the searchers: Engist, the king’s master-at-arms, was brought back to Achamar nearly dead from cold and exhaustion. The Ensign Bladell, the tall southerner, never returned. It was his horse that had been found riderless upon the plain. The palace guard sent out parties in the days that followed, when a thaw set in as bad as the snow itself. The body of Bladell was found in a ditch and brought back for a soldier’s funeral.

  The searchers brought back strange tales of lights in the snow, visions of the king and riders upon dark horses moving through the upper air. The power of the Goddess was abroad. A woman in a green cloak, glowing with unearthly light, had pointed the way to Chernak and had told the weary searchers that the king was safe. Some took this to be the queen, Aidris Am Firn, working her magic, but others swore it was not so.

  In the aftermath of all this magic and misadventure, it was difficult to get a clear report of what had happened. Britt, the Captain-General of the Palace Guard of the Zor, did his best and gave it out that Engist had handled well from first to last. Seyl of Hodd and Denzil of Denwick, working as closely as they dared with Princess Merilla and her adviser the Countess Caddah, rewarded the searchers and declared, more or less, that all was well that ended well.

  It was plain that the early snow was most to blame in the matter, the early snow and the king himself, urged on by his reckless young friend Tazlo Am Ahrosh. Tazlo had redeemed himself; he had found the king and brought him to safety. He was now, Seyl murmured to Denwick privately, more firmly entrenched than ever. Probably sleeping like a faithful hound across the threshold of the king’s door in Chernak. All that the king’s Heir and the king’s torch-bearers and the palace guard could do was to guard his person more carefully in the future, even at the risk of his displeasure.

  Yet there was one who could do more. Queen Aidris Am Firn, torn between relief and anger when the tale was told, was the first to take a sleigh and come to Chernak. She was not displeased at the thought of Lorn Gilyan caring for Sharn Am Zor. She hoped some good would come from all this foolishness. She saw the king alone, bruised, docile, and so far as those clustered at the closed doors could tell, she upbraided him fiercely. The king was told his duty in no uncertain terms; he was scolded like a child. Then when the doors were open, the king, somewhat pale, and the Queen, with tears in her eyes, sat holding hands. The Daindru were one and would always remain so.

  The queen found occasion, at Chernak, to speak with Tazlo Am Ahrosh. The charm and modesty of the young man from the north did not cut so much ice with Aidris Am Firn as they did with others. She questioned him about his life in Vedan, his family of proud and warlike chieftains, perpetually on the verge of quarrelling with their neighbors, the Oshen and the Durgashen. His view of the world was narrow; it reached no further than Achamar and contained no one more perfect than King Sharn Am Zor. He took in all her entreaties concerning the king’s safety with lowered eyes; he swore to protect the king’s life with his own and never to lead him into danger again.

  Back in the city, Aidris could not let the matter rest until she had spoken with Engist, the king’s master-at-arms. She had never cared for this hardy veteran from Lien, but the sight of him, still grey faced from his ordeal, aroused her pity. He had brought along the young Ensign Fréjan. She received the two soldiers in her workroom at the palace of the Firn, where years before she had recovered from the arrow of an assassin. So the tale of the king’s ride was told again, and when it was done Engist nudged his companion.

  “You must tell the queen!”

  “There is no proof,” said Fréjan miserably.

  “Speak,” said Aidris Am Firn. “Anything you say is safe, Ensign.”

  “My comrade, Ensign Bladell, rode off to the southeast,” said Fréjan. “We had been searching far out over the downs, but then we had returned almost to that first group of maple trees. So Bladell rode out, and I remained to show the way for other searchers. Count Ahrosh came by at a distance and shouted to me and then set off to the southest himself. The searchers did appear, and Captain Engist. Dan Aidris, I believe that Ensign Bladell found the king.”

  “But Count Ahrosh . . .”

  “I believe that Bladell found the king and set him across his horse, Redwing. Bladell was found dead in the snow by the wall of an old sheepfold and his head was broken as if from a blow. I believe Ahrosh struck him down from horseback, to have the honor of bringing in the king for himself alone. He could not have lifted the king onto Redwing’s back by himself.”

  “Is that all you have? This suspicion?”

  “I came to it first through the king’s leather bottle,” said Fréjan. “It was carried first of all by Bladell, but at the Beacon Head the king gave us all a drink. I swear that he did not give it back but kept it himself. Yet Bladell had it in his hand when he was found. He took it from the king’s saddle to revive Dan Sharn as he lay in the snow.”

  “Engist?” murmured the queen.

  Engist shook his head.

  “I remember the flask going round but nothing more.”

  They were
all silent, thinking of this strange deed of blood. Was it possible? Was the young man from the north so mad, so tenacious of “honor”?

  “There is no proof,” said the queen. “We must keep silent.”

  The king lies safe and warm in Chernak Hall and is tended by Lorn Gilyan and her healer Granja. He sees no one else at first save for Queen Aidris and then Tazlo, who tells him all that has passed. Sharn is puzzled by the Lady Lorn: she has such a straightforward Chameln way with her, like a kedran. Yet she is attractive, even beautiful, and he believes that she has come down with a familiar sickness. He sees that she is in love with him. He has seen it happen in an instant to all kinds of people: men and women, old, young, noble or humble, they have looked at him, and in their own way been stricken with love. To have his will with the young women of the court in Lien, he had only to turn the light of his presence upon them: a smile, a word. Now, almost for the first time, he feels sympathy and tenderness for one so afflicted. For hours together they are happy as two children, reading old tales, playing Battle.

  After ten days, near the end of the Aldermoon, the king has another ordeal. He has promised to submit to an examination by the Queen’s Healer before he returns to Achamar. The Healer comes riding on a tall horse through the icy sludge on the Chernak road, a pale-haired fellow with dark almond eyes who goes by the name of Jaraz. The king knows him as Jalmar Raiz, a man of magic and intrigue from Lien, a man who struck at Sharn Am Zor’s sacred right, who set up the False Sharn and the False Aidris, those two sorry pretenders, in the city of Dechar. The sight of him entering the sickroom fills Sharn with hatred.