Chance

by Nancy Springer

  “Surely you don’t really want me to kill you, Ward,” Hal remarked. “What is the matter? Why have you come to see me?”

  “I—Lord, I am so ashamed. I must make amends somehow.”

  “Why? That row we had?” Hal paused as he pulled down fodder, looked at the youth. “It was nothing. We can forget it, we have both grown since then. Alan tells me that everyone hates his father one time or another, that it is part of the love.”

  Ward winced. He had lately left his father with a harvest to get in, all for no better reason than his own uneasy ache. “I feel as if I’ve done nothing right in all my life,” he said.

  Hal snorted, blanketing a horse. “Let go of shame for a while, Ward, and think! Turn and face the thing that is chasing you.”

  The youth stood stiff with fear again. “But that’s just it,” he whispered. “The shame.”

  “Not a certain dream in the night?”

  Ward shook and sweated as if the fever had hold of him at last. “I knew it was real,” he said hoarsely.

  “I gave you strong herbs,” Hal said. “You should have been fast asleep. You should never have seen.”

  “I was a coward, I would not move to help you—”

  “Help me!” Hal exclaimed. “Even Alan could not help me much that night. I could scarcely help myself. I could scarcely stand.”

  “I am a coward!” Words burst out of Ward. “I saw your power, you defeated Death himself, you are—you are a wizard, or a god, I don’t know what you are, you saved us all and I hated you for it, I am such a wretch! I am terrified of you, I wish you would strike me so I could hate you—” Ward covered his quivering face with his hands. “Liege, help me,” he choked.

  Incredibly, he felt arms around him. “It is all right, truly it is,” said Hal softly. “Those were dark days, dark years. You were filled with bitterness, and I—after that night with Arawn I was so tired I had no patience, no strength to befriend you. I must always struggle to befriend. Your fear is the price Arawn mentioned, the price I pay.”

  Ward stopped trembling and glanced up, startled. Hal nodded at him, his face bleak, his gray eyes unnaturally bright.

  “It is not just you.… Ward, whatever gave you the notion that you are a coward, that you do nothing right? You are here, are you not? Here, inches from me? Why?”

  “Amends.…”

  “Then you are honorable as well as brave.” With a small smile Hal released him. “There is no need for amends. Just seeing you here is enough.”

  “It is not enough,” said Ward with a daring that surprised him. “Lord, there must be something I can do.”

  “A penance?” Hal grumbled. “No need.” But Ward did not hear; a thought had taken hold of him.

  “You say my fear—people’s fear—is the price you pay for—being what you are?”

  Hal only nodded, watching him.

  The youth felt as if he was risking his life. All wary instincts made him feel that way. Nevertheless, he squared his shoulders, straightened himself with a long indrawn breath and met the bright gray eyes. It had to be done, even if he should die for his temerity—

  “Why, then, Liege, if it pleases you, I for one will no longer be afraid,” he said, unwavering. And he saw with delight that for once in his life he had done something exactly, ineffably right. Joy touched those shining eyes.

  “Amends are made,” Hal said.

  THE DOG-KING OF VAIRE

  I am Fabron, speaking to you from the reaches of the wind. I was king of the canton of Vaire in Vale when I was alive. I came to my throne by virtue of threats and greed, but I tried to be a good king. I wanted to be well remembered. I rode the rounds of my canton yearly, hearing my people’s concerns, and every horse and retainer of my entourage wore ornaments of my own making, most of them gold. I had been a smith, and smiths were honored people; we worked magic with metal, and metal conferred its own ancient magic on us: we were healers, smiths and the sons of smiths. At least, some of us were.… For myself, I wore a breastplate all in chain links, and a chain belt to my sword, and the staghound—the emblem of Vaire—leaping on my helm. I dressed in sober velvets to set off my artistry. Jewels and brooches show better thus.

  But it was not in such array that Frain first saw me—Frain, my son, who did not know me. Spring had come and was turning into summer, but I was not holding court or preparing to ride through my domain. Mela, my wife of many years, lay ill with a wasting fever, and I stayed constantly in her chamber, seeing no one. She did not ask for me. Indeed, she had turned dead to me many years before, after we had sold Frain. Not that she was cold or disobedient—she was ever an obedient wife—but something had died within her. I did not understand; I thought we would have many babies, and what matter was one the less? High King Abas had had need of a child to prove his continuing fertility and to keep his vassals content. He had paid me dearly for it, first in gold, and later in power when I threatened to expose him. But I had paid dearly, too, over the years. Frain was our first child and our last. I had not reckoned, perhaps, on the anger of the goddess who abides in all women. So Mela lay moaning and did not speak to me or cry out my name, and I could not help her. I felt somehow to blame—I always felt to blame for any ill in her life since I took Frain from her.

  The door opened. I looked up wearily, expecting another officious servant, but it was Wayte, my captain of guards, with an iron dagger at his throat. Other guards were milling about outside the door like beleaguered sheep. They were armed, of course, and so was Wayte, but they risked his life if they drew a weapon.

  It was Frain who held the dagger on Wayte. I knew him at once, for I had made shift to see him a few times during the years, standing behind a buttress and watching him in the courtyard at Melior when he was too young and careless to notice. He was a sturdy youth now, with auburn hair and high, freckled cheekbones, and an earnest, open look about him. He seemed hardly more dangerous than the toothless baby I had given for gold. Yet there he was with his arms locked around Wayte’s shoulders and the dagger at his throat. The captain stood almost a head above him.

  “I beg pardon, my lord,” he said to me. “They told me I could not see you, but my business could not wait.”

  His voice was clean and courteous, like his looks, but there was nothing crawling about it, no anxious entreaty. He is a prince, I thought, and I longed to go to him and embrace him. Instead, I kept my place and spoke gruffly through my beard. “Let that so-called captain of mine go,” I said.

  He did not move. “Your word, my lord, that I will not be harmed.”

  I nodded, waving the other guards away. Frain loosened his grip, and Wayte bowed and left without a word, his face angry and white. The fellow was expecting my wrath; he did not know the joy he had brought me.

  “Prince Frain,” I asked as collectedly as I could, “what brings you here?”

  He whistled softly. “I had not expected, my lord, that you would recognize me! Have you heard of the events in Melior, then?”

  “No, I have had no news from Melior. I know your face, that is all. What has happened to bring you here with your fine linen half torn from your back?”

  He glanced down at himself ruefully. “Your guards would never have admitted such a vagabond. Have I your lordship’s leave to seat myself?”

  “Of course, of course!” I exclaimed hastily, suddenly aware of the poor account I was giving of myself. I was in a lethargy of despair from Mela’s illness, roughly dressed, scarcely washed or combed, and now scant in courtesy. I bustled to clear a space on my cluttered couch. “I beg your pardon. Please sit and tell me what news you will.”

  Such a tale he told me. His so-called brother Tirell had rebelled against his mad father at last, it seemed. Abas had done murder, and Tirell had led Frain on a wild ride into Acheron itself—Acheron, where no sane man will set foot. And then fighting, and a strange, ominous black beast—I gaped in amazement, but Frain’s voice was so careful and modest that I believed every word he told me. Finally,
in canny desperation, Tirell had sent Frain to me.

  “Tirell hopes—no, expects—that you will help us overthrow Melior,” Frain explained.

  “He is mad, you have said,” I remarked dryly.

  “Aye, so he is. Though perhaps”—Frain cocked a clear eye at me—“not in that regard.”

  “How is he mad, then?”

  Frain sighed, thinking, and for the first time I saw real pain in his fine brown eyes; he had kept away from emotion before. “He has taken his love and grief,” Frain said slowly, “and turned it all to hard hate and vengeance with a cutting edge. He hardly moves or speaks except for vengeance. There is no human warmth in him these days, not toward any being of human kind.”

  “But he fends for himself well enough day to day?” I asked.

  “All too well,” he wryly agreed.

  “And you, Prince Frain—” How I yearned to call him Frain, my son. But I would not do that. Long silence is not lightly to be broken.

  “You need not call me prince,” he put in. “I have never been ‘princed’ much. Tirell is the prince in Melior.”

  “And you, Frain,” I said softly, “do you accord with Prince Tirell in this bid for the throne?”

  “I have followed him since I was old enough to walk.”

  “And now that you are old enough to think,” I returned sharply, “will you follow a madman?”

  “Thinking is the least of it,” Frain replied slowly. “To be sure, he is brave, and comely, and honorable in his way, and there is vision in him, perhaps even some wisdom. But I believe I would follow him even if he were a wretch. Because of something in me; I don’t know what.”

  I could not say a word.

  There was no replying, in any event, for a long, anguished moan filled the room. Mela had awakened from one of her brief sleeps. I hastily crossed the room to be at her side, taking her dry hand in my own. But she looked through me and past me, as always, seeing nothing to help her. Frain stood beside me, and I caught my breath; her vague gray eyes flickered onto his face. But then she turned away her thin face and tossed her head to and fro in a sort of weak, distracted protest against her own misery. Her red hair lay snarled on the pillow, angry and unkempt. I placed a hand on her brow to still her.

  “I could try to heal her,” Frain whispered. The words seemed dragged from him. “Tirell says there is healing in me.”

  “Prince Tirell may speak truth,” I said roughly, trying to hide my sudden hope. “Though I know more of healing than he is ever likely to learn.”

  “I know you were a smith.” Frain turned to me with his steady, questioning gaze, and I could scarcely meet his eyes. “Can no one, then, heal those who are dearest to them?”

  “Perhaps not, Frain,” I said quietly, for that was truth, “but I lost my gift for healing years ago, when I grew too fond of wealth—wealth and power.”

  “My baby!” Mela whispered, and her frail hands moved on the bedsheets.

  “Try, Frain,” I told him, “but do not take it too hard if you fail. She is far gone.”

  “But what should I do?” he asked.

  “What do you think?” I asked in turn.

  “There is something to do with metal,” Frain said slowly, as if the fact puzzled him. Of course, he did not know who he was, what he had come from, that he should be a healer. “I used a knife last time. But I hate to touch her with such an ugly thing.”

  “A knife can cut away blight from the stem,” I said. “Clean pain can heal. Use it.”

  He did not tell me that he had hardly eaten for days, nor that he had ridden far, in haste, and with little rest. I learned that later, much later, when we were at Melior. He stood by Mela’s bed with his back straight and his head bowed, like a hostage for her, and laid a hand on her hot brow. She stirred beneath his touch and whispered again. He curled his fingers around the iron knife blade, sheathing it with his own skin, and moved it over her heart, over her hands and head. He trembled, and I knew what he was feeling, remembered it well. The power moves in you and through you from depths beyond knowing or from some place beyond being; I never understood which. It carries you out of self and you shrink in fear. But I don’t think Frain was afraid. He stood with Mela in her own dark place, bent over her, embracing her, struggling to lift her, to free her. Her whole body trembled and strained with the effort, though he had not actually moved; every sinew of his spirit was taut. For the space of countless heartbeats he fought for her, with her, against her—

  And for an instant I thought he had succeeded. Her bleary eyes met his and cleared. “My baby!” she breathed. Then an awful tumult of feeling surged into her eyes—love and rage—and the rage snapped her away from him. I saw it happen. Frain swayed as if he had been struck. His knife clattered to the floor, and he clutched at a bedpost for support. He clung to the heartless wooden thing and sobbed.

  I went and put my arms around him. He let go of the bed and cried against my shoulder, cried like the child I had never known. “Easy, lad,” I murmured, swallowing, patting him clumsily. “Stop your shaking, now.”

  He raised his wet face. “She is trapped in a tangle of rage and despair,” he said wildly, “roots and strength-sucking vines, anger—I tugged and tugged—”

  “I know,” I told him.

  “The knife would not cut her free. Knives are like water in that place. I—I was a drifting thing, I didn’t know who I was, I couldn’t remember my name.” He gulped for breath. “I—there was something—if I had only known.…”

  If you had known she is your mother, I thought with a pang, it would only have increased your heartache. He had given everything, down to the last dram of his strength; he could scarcely stand. I had never seen such courage. I know that such had not been my courage in my day.

  Mela lay quite still. “Is she—dead?” whispered Frain.

  I reached out and touched the pulse of her neck. “No, but she is beyond knowledge or pain, and I am glad of it. She will die soon.” I guided Frain toward the door. “Come.”

  He was still trembling. “I am sorry …”

  “I told you she was far gone,” I said more gently than I had ever heard myself speak. “You did no harm, and more good than you know. Come.” I took him down the corridor, half supporting him. The guards watched us pass in barely concealed astonishment. I led him into my own bedchamber and laid him down, took off his boots and covered him and pulled the curtains around him. “Sleep,” I ordered, and left him there.

  My wife died two nights later. I did not see Frain in the interim, though I often thought of him. I ordered the servants to extend to him the fullest hospitality: bath, clothing, food, whatever he needed. I knew he would feel weak and drowsy for a few days after what he had done for Mela, so I was not really expecting him as I sat with her. In fact, I suppose, he avoided the sickroom, for he was still very young. Death makes grim company. But it came easily enough for Mela. She slipped away without a movement or a word to me. I wept a bit, and then I slept for a good while.

  By the sun, it was past noon of the next day when I awoke. I immediately went looking for Frain, and found him readily. He was in my chamber, dressed but resting. He winced when he saw me, so I knew he had heard the news.

  “I am sorry about Queen Mela, my lord,” he said.

  “There are some who cling to their ills,” I replied. I felt calm, almost dreamy, but he had started me crying again even so; I could feel the tears on my face. I let them run. Kept within, sorrow turns to poison.

  He had started to rise when I entered, and I had waved him back. Now I sat beside him. “I have never seen courage to match yours in a healer,” I said.

  He shrugged. “Tenacity. Dogged pertinacity, if you will. In Melior, people call me Puppydog behind my back because I can’t be put off.” A note of bitterness crept into his voice, even though he tried to speak lightly, and my tears abruptly stopped. I sat straight up in indignation that anyone could speak of him so.

  “Because you are faithful, you mean?
But it seems hardly fair—”

  “Faithfulness is not too highly regarded in Melior.”

  “Well, it is here,” I said warmly. “And I wish people would remember that the dog is the emblem of honor and fidelity.” I leaned forward, my elbows on my knees, gesticulating. “Have you heard the legend of the Dog King of Vaire?”

  He shook his head, settling himself in willingness to hear. So I told the tale.

  “On the night in which Nolan of Vaire was born, his sister, the magical she-dog Vlonda, birthed two pups, and they were called Kedal and Kedur. They lay with Nolan in his cradle. One was black and one was white, and the baby was red as fire. In seven short years he grew to be a tall man, and the pups grew to be giant hounds, each big enough to fell a stag by itself. They were all constant companions to each other, and the dogs served Nolan as well as if they had been men.

  “Now in those beginning days, dogs were not yet heard of. That is why Aftalun had bedded and then transformed Vlonda, the warrior maiden: to give this gift to man. Wherever Nolan went with his hounds, people watched in envy and awe. The dogs fought beside him in battle, guarded his sleep, kept his possessions safe from thieves, provided meat for his table, and helped him, and in course of time his children, through danger of every kind. They fought with fierce animals, ran through fire, swam through floods, climbed towers, and jumped pits in his service, and neither of them ever mouthed a complaint. Nolan, their master, was the best king Vaire has ever known, and no one in the realm lacked anything during his reign.

  “Nolan lived for two hundred years. Before he was an old man, every great lord had a dog; wars were fought for the stealing of dogs. But the most faithless followers were put to shame by the faithfulness of the dogs, for it is in the nature of a dog to be constant, and in the nature of a man to be willful. That is why each can help the other. But petty men came to envy the dogs, and hate their nobility, and kick them for spite, and use their name as a name of reproach.