Chance

by Nancy Springer

  He plaited her hair in braids thin as bluebell stems, only a wisp of hairs to each braid, one after another with both his deft hands as if each was as easy as a caress, making them stay with merely a touch of two fingers at the end, until all her hair lay in a silky cascade of them, catching the light and glimmering and swaying like a rich drapery when he made her move her head. Some of them he gathered and looped and tied up with the ribbons which matched her dress, blue edged with gold. But most of them he left hanging to her bare back and shoulders. He surveyed his work with just a whisper of a smile when he was done, then turned and left without waiting for the lady’s nod, and she sat as if under a spell and watched his thin back as he walked away. Then she tossed her head at his lack of deference. But the swinging of her hair pleased her.

  She had him back to dress her hair the next day, and the next, and many days thereafter. And so that they would not have to be always bathing him, her tiring-women found him a room within the manorhouse doors, and a pallet and clean blankets, and a change of clothing, plain coarse clothing, such as servants wore. They trimmed the heavy hair that shadowed his eyes, also, but he looked no less the oddling with his thin, thin face and his calm, burning glance and his mouth that seemed scarcely ever to move. He did as he was bid, whether by Wald or the lady or some kitchen maid, and every day he plaited Lady Aelynn’s hair differently. One day he shaped it all into a bright crown of braids atop her head. On other days he would plait it close to her head so that the tendrils caressed her neck, or in a haughty crest studded with jewels, or in a single soft feathered braid at one side. He always left her tower chamber at once, never looking at the lady to see if he had pleased her, as if he knew that she would always be pleased.

  Always, she was.

  Things happened. The tiring-woman who had taken smallpox died of it, and Lady Aelynn did not care, not for the sake of her cherished hair and most certainly not for the sake of the woman herself. Lord Robley went away on a journey to discipline a debtor vassal, and Lady Aelynn did not care except to be glad, for there was a sure sense growing in her of what she would do.

  When even her very tresses were enthralled by the touch of this oddling boy, longing to embrace him, could she be otherwise?

  When next he had plaited her mane of honey-colored hair and turned to leave her without a glance, she caught him by one thin arm. His eyes met hers with a steady, gathered look. She stood—she was taller than he, and larger, though she was as slender as any maiden. It did not matter. She took him by one thin hand and led him to her bed, and there he did as he was bid.

  Nor did he disappoint her. His touch—she had never been touched so softly, so gently, so deftly, with such power. Nor was he lacking in manhood, for all that he was as thin and hairless as a boy. And his lips, after all, knew how to move, and his tongue. But it was the touch of his thin hands that she hungered for, the gentle, tender, potent touch that thrilled her almost as if—she were loved.…

  He smiled at her afterward, slightly, softly, a whisper of a smile in the muted half-light of her curtained bed, and his lips moved.

  “You are swine,” he said, “all of you nobles.”

  And he got up, put on his plain, coarse clothing and left her without a backward glance.

  It terrified Lady Aelynn, that he was not truly a mute. Terrified her even more than what he had said, though she burned with mortified wrath whenever she thought of the latter. He, of all people, a mute, to speak such words to her and leave her helpless to avenge herself.… Perhaps for that reason he would not betray her. She had thought it would be safe to take a mute as her lover.… Perhaps he would not betray her.

  In fact, it was not he who betrayed her to her lord, but Wald.

  Her tiring-women suspected, perhaps because she had sent them on such a long errand. She had not thought they would suspect, for who would think that such a wisp of a beardless boy could be a bedfellow? But perhaps they also had seen the wild glow deep in his gray-green eyes. They whispered among themselves and with the kitchen maids, and the bold kitchen maid giggled with the grooms, and Wald heard.

  Even though the boy who plaited manes did all the work, Wald considered the constant plaiting and adorning of manes and tails a great bother. The whole fussy business offended him, he had decided, and he had long since forgotten the few words of praise it had garnered from the lord at first. Moreover, he disliked the boy so vehemently that he was not thinking clearly. It seemed to him that he could be rid of the boy and the wretched onus of braids and rosettes all in one stroke. The day the lord returned from his journey, Wald hurried to him, begged private audience, bowed low and made his humble report.

  Lord Robley heard him in icy silence, for he knew pettiness when he saw it; it had served him often in the past, and he would punish it if it misled him. He summoned his wife to question her. But the Lady Aelynn’s hair hung lank, and her guilt and shame could be seen plainly in her face from the moment she came before him.

  Lord Robley’s roar could be heard even to the stables.

  He strode over to her where she lay crumpled and weeping on his chamber floor, lifted her head by its honey-gold hair and slashed her across the face with his sword. Then he left her screaming and stinging her wound with fresh tears, and he strode to the stable with his bloody sword still drawn, Wald fleeing before him all the way; when the lord burst in all the grooms were scattering but one. The boy Wald had accused stood plaiting the white palfrey’s mane.

  Lord Robley hacked the palfrey’s head from its braid-bedecked neck with his sword, and the boy who plaited manes stood by with something smoldering deep in his unblinking gray-green eyes, stood calmly waiting. If he had screamed and turned to flee, Lord Robley would with great satisfaction have given him a coward’s death from the back. But it unnerved the lord that the boy awaited his pleasure with such mute—what? Defiance? There was no servant’s bow in this one, no falling to the soiled straw, no groveling. If he had groveled he could have been kicked, stabbed, killed out of hand.… But this silent, watchful waiting, like the alertness of a wild thing—on the hunt or being hunted? It gave Lord Robley pause, like the pause of the wolf before the standing stag or the pause of the huntsman before the thicketed boar. He held the boy at the point of his sword—though no such holding was necessary, for the prisoner had not moved even to tremble—and roared for his men-at-arms to come take the boy to the dungeon.

  There the nameless stranger stayed without water or food, and aside from starving him Lord Robley could not decide what to do with him.

  At first the boy who plaited manes paced in his prison restlessly—he had that freedom, for he was so thin and small that the shackles were too large to hold him. Later he lay in a scant bed of short straw and stared narrow-eyed at the darkness. And yet later, seeing the thin cascades of moonlight flow down through the high, iron-barred window and puddle in moon-glades on the stone floor, he got up and began to plait the moonbeams.

  They were far finer than any horsehair, moonbeams, finer even than the lady’s honey-colored locks, and his eyes grew wide with wonder and pleasure as he felt them. He made them into braids as fine as silk threads, flowing together into a lacework as close as woven cloth, and when he had reached as high as he could, plaiting, he stroked as if combing a long mane with his fingers and pulled more moonlight down out of the sky—for this stuff was not like any other stuff he had ever worked with, it slipped and slid worse than any hair, there seemed to be no beginning or end to it except the barriers that men put in its way. He stood plaiting the fine, thin plaits until he had raised a shimmering heap on the floor, and then he stepped back and allowed the moon to move on. His handiwork he laid carefully aside in a corner.

  The boy who plaited moonbeams did not sleep, but sat waiting for the dawn, his eyes glowing greenly in the darkened cell. He saw the sky lighten beyond the high window and waited stolidly, as the wolf waits for the gathering of the pack, as a wildcat waits for the game to pass along the trail below the rock where it lies.
Not until the day had neared its mid did the sun’s rays, thrust through the narrow spaces between the high bars, wheel their shafts down to where he could reach them. Then he got up and began to plait the sunlight.

  Guards were about, or more alert, in the daytime, and they gathered at the heavy door of his prison, peering in between the iron bars of its small window, gawking and quarreling with each other for turns. They watched his unwavering eyes, saw the slight smile come on his face as he worked, though his thin hands glowed red as if seen through fire. They saw the shining mound he raised on the floor, and whispered among themselves and did not know what to do, for none of them dared to touch it or him. One of them requested a captain to come look. And the captain summoned the steward, and the steward went to report to the lord. And from outside, cries began to sound that the sun was standing still.

  After the boy had finished, he stood back and let the sun move on, then tended to his handiwork, then sat resting on his filthy straw. Within minutes the dungeon door burst open and Lord Robley himself strode in.

  Lord Robley had grown weary of mutilating his wife, and he had not yet decided what to do with his other prisoner. Annoyed by the reports from the prison, he expected that an idea would come to him when he saw the boy. He entered with drawn sword, But all thoughts of the thin young body before him were sent whirling away from his mind by what he saw laid out on the stone floor at his feet.

  A mantle, a kingly cloak—but no king had ever owned such a cloak. All shining, the outside of it silver and the inside gold—but no, to call it silver and gold was to insult it. More like water and fire, flow and flame, shimmering as if it moved, as if it were alive, and yet it had been made by hands, he could see the workmanship, so fine that every thread was worth a gasp of pleasure, the outside of it somehow braided and plaited to the lining, and all around the edge a fringe of threads like bright fur so fine that it wavered in the air like flame. Lord Robley had no thought but to settle the fiery gleaming thing on his shoulders, to wear that glory and be finer than any king. He seized it and flung it on—

  And screamed as he had not yet made his wife scream, with the shriek of mortal agony. His whole hard body glowed as if placed in a furnace. His face contorted, and he fell dead.

  The boy who plaited sunbeams got up in a quiet, alert way and walked forward, as noiseless on his feet as a lynx. He reached down and took the cloak off the body of the lord, twirled it and placed it on his own shoulders, and it did not harm him. But in that cloak he seemed insubstantial, like something moving in moonlight and shadow, something nameless roaming in the night. He walked out of the open dungeon door, between the guards clustered there, past the lord’s retinue and the steward, and they all shrank back from him, flattened themselves against the stone walls of the corridor so as not to come near him. No one dared take hold of him or try to stop him. He walked out through the courtyard, past the stable, and out the manor gates with the settled air of one whose business is done. The men-at-arms gathered atop the wall and watched him go.

  Wald the master groom lived to old age sweating every night with terror, and died of a weakened heart in the midst of a nightmare. Nothing else but his own fear harmed him. The boy who plaited—mane of sun, mane of moon—was never seen again in that place, except that children sometimes told the tale of having glimpsed him in the wild heart of a storm, plaiting the long lashes of wind and rain.

  THE BARD

  How did it happen that I am here, in this strange garb of female flesh and in this most strange place and time? I will tell you how it chanced:

  “Think of a horse,” I said.

  The evenings were long, around the autumn campfires. There were no bards in the company, and not talk enough to beguile the hours. I had small knack for singing myself, though I loved it. So I said, “Think of a horse.”

  And then I said, “All right, Bellory, what is yours?”

  “A black,” he replied promptly. “A stallion, over sixteen hands high, with darting hooves and eyes like flame. Would that I had him when we meet with Merric!” For it was to war that our King had us marching.

  “That was soldierly spoken, Bellory,” the next man laughed. For Bellory wore gold armbands and tended to strut. But he took no offense with his comrade this night, not with Merric’s holding little more than a day away. We all huddled for warmth of more than the fire. “What is yours, Breca?” Bellory asked.

  “Bay gelding with black points,” the older man growled. “Not flashy, but a stayer.”

  “Loren?” I asked.

  “A sorrel mare,” he replied quietly, for he was a gentle lad. “Sunny flanks and a mane like cream.” Some men smiled, thinking of his fair-haired bride, but no one saw fit to jest. Others joined in unbidden. A gray, one said, with a fine dark eye. A piebald, said another grimacing, for that we must play the fool. An old roan, tired from the plow, said one who was tired from the march.

  “And you, Gage?” Loren asked me suddenly. “What is yours?”

  What was I to say, I who had started the diversion indeed? I had no answer ready, but all unawares one sprang from me. “A white,” I said.

  Silence worse than screaming burst from the group; I could have strangled in that silence. “It is an ill time for omens of death,” Breca said at last.

  “The sacred steed of the Goddess?” I chided with dry mouth. “Of the one who mothers us all upon the bosom of this land?”

  “Blood serves to quicken that bosom,” Breca answered stonily. Bellory’s face was as pale as if he were already a corpse. Loren lay back stunned.

  “Think on it no more,” I told them grimly. “The omen is mine, and to myself I keep it.” I rose and departed from the light of the fire, and no one followed me. Aimlessly I wandered through the camp, keeping to the shadows, beckoned by no one. The night was cold, but I felt doubly chilled by the strange and sudden turning of my fate. I tried to argue it away; ’twas but mischance—white was the only color that the others had not named. And indeed it was dreaming of a white horse that was the surest omen of death.… Therefore I would not sleep, lest I dream.

  Other men wrapped themselves in their cloaks and lay down restlessly, spears at the ready. The fires retreated into ashes and the shadows spread. Bitterly I thought then of home and my saucy sweetheart Mindy. I had been loath to leave her, but when the King called.… All depended on his courage and honor, our King. Seasons and rainfall and crops and all wellbeing of folk and realm rode on him, and he bore it splendidly. I loved to watch him ride at our fore, golden on a golden steed, crowned and braceleted and with his long braids free to the wind—he scorned a helm, he! I feared death in his service, but I had been named as one who keeps his pledge, and above all I would keep my faith with the sacred King.

  So I did not intend to leave the camp. Certainly I did not mean to run away. But I scarcely knew any more where my weary feet were carrying me. Without trying to, I made my way between the dozing guards and trudged across the grassy countryside.

  For a long space of blackness I wandered along, not caring when I fell over stones or ragged turf so long as I did not sleep. Ever so slowly at last the blackness turned to gray and I began to wonder where I was. The land had turned steep; trees clung to the sides of slopes that stooped to deep rocky clefts. The camp was nowhere in sight. I must have left it miles behind. Fool, fool, a triple fool I berated myself, for I was more likely now to be slain as a deserter than killed in battle—thus had I given myself over to the Goddess! But I spied a glint of water amidst the rocks of the nearest gorge. Groggily I reached the stream and was kneeling to souse my head when I saw a woman further up the bank. She was shadowed by the looming land, but already in this twilight before the dawn she was at her washing. There is one who labors late and long, I thought.

  I went to ask her where I was, for I yet hoped to slip back to my camp. I came up behind her, and she did not hearken to the sound of my footsteps. Then I caught my breath and stood still as the stones; I could not have moved if the King h
imself had plucked my sleeve. For it was Bellory and Breca and Loren that she washed. Their faces were pale and peaceful, but red tinged the stream.

  The woman turned to face me. There was nothing fearsome in her aspect; indeed she seemed mild as the lover who lays her love to rest, and very fair. Yet I trembled at the sight of her eyes. Green they were, as green as grass.

  “You are welcome, Gage,” she greeted me, “for you spoke me well last night.”

  “These—my friends,” I whispered. “How can they be already gone?”

  “Nay,” she laughed, with a laugh that gave no comfort, “the battle is not yet. These are but semblances, these and many others, to set the reckoning straight. You see I care for them well—I will do yours now, if you like.”

  My blood ran cold. Desperately I turned the talk away from her latest words. “And you—are you also a semblance, and no Goddess?”

  She laughed again, but more gently. She was amused at my challenge, I think. “My form is true,” she told me, “as are all the forms I take. I am mother and maiden and ancient hag, ancient as these stones. I am hill and stream and the bride of the sacred King. I am swan-white steed and blood-red stag, and today I shall be the black battle-raven. Which do you prefer?”

  “I like well the stag and the steed,” I answered wistfully. “But I like best your present form, Blessed Maiden. You are as fair as high grassland in the sunlight.… Grant me a boon, Goddess, since I seem doomed to die. Lie with me, fearsome lady.…” I stood quaking at my own boldness, yet I had made the venture with all my heart, for I had not lied when I named her fair.

  She regarded me gravely, but she did not seem affronted. “Gage, they call you,” she remarked. “One who will keep a pledge. Make me a pledge, then.”

  “Name it.” I was reckless with a strange recklessness made of lust and despair.