“Then you are of Chameln blood. I will make a new bargain with you. I will extend the gift of sixty acres if you will take it as a feoff from my hand and give me your allegiance.”
Baron Werris was not amused; Nazran gave no sign of what he felt; Riane delicately smothered a yawn.
Rhanar slapped his thigh loudly and said, “Agreed! I will do it!”
Nazran hovered as she altered the deed and the map. She wrote well in the common or merchants’ script, but not in runes or the straight-letter. Aidris rose up and drew from its silver sheath the short bronze sword, a treasure of the Firn. When Hem Rhanar knelt before her, his eyes were almost on a level with her own. He was enfeoffed of the land and swore himself her liegeman in respect of the land.
The audience was over. When she was left alone with Nazran, he said, “It was well done. Musna is saved.”
He opened the tall wooden shutters onto the balcony and let in the fitful sunshine of an autumn day. Thornmoon, the month of sacrifice, was just beginning.
“Has it occurred to you that this might have been the plan?” he asked. “Jalmar the Healer was determined to save the village. Musna rendered an unexpected service to the Daindru.”
“Jalmar Riaz hired the assassins? I cannot believe it!” said Aidris.
Nazran sighed and looked out into the streets of the city. The maples around the distant Zor palace were turning blood red and gold.
“Look there!” he said, his frown lifting.
Aidris came to stand beside him at the window, and he moved the shutter so that she remained in shadow. He pointed into the street beyond the palace stockade, and there was a young man, a soldier in elaborate strip mail, mounted on a tall white stallion. He wore a shining helmet with a plume, and behind him rode a kedran, a battlemaid, with a banner showing a white tree. Their two horses were picking their way through drifts of red leaves and patches of mud.
“Ah, I can read those two,” said Nazran with a chuckle. “A knight questor and his esquire, come out of Athron. That banner is for the Foresters.”
“But what does the knight seek?” asked Aidris.
There was something ridiculous about the young man, his fine trappings, his plume, his banner.
“He is looking for adventure,” said Nazran.
She rode out at nightfall through the northern gate of the city with a troop of nine kedran. Esher Am Zor came with the kedran of his own bodyguard to bid her farewell. Two of the Torch Bearers, her father’s companions, were present: Gilyan and Wetzerik. She thought of the lights going out in the palace of the Firn; in all its hundred rooms, its galleries and corridors, only darkness and silence.
She travelled to Ledler Fortress on its high hill and stayed almost to the year’s end with the quiet, dark widow woman, Micha Am Firn, her closest relative. Then, before the snow became too deep she rode westward with only two kedran, the officers Kira and Maith, to the distant manor of Thuven, near the border range, on the edge of the forest. Nazran and Maren were already there to welcome her. She remained at the manor house for more than two years, undisturbed.
Chapter Two
I
The manor house had been rebuilt out of an old water fortress. A shallow lake spread out before it, and behind rose a man-made hill, low and grey. It was a barrow for the dead; no one knew who had made it, but the bones that came up to the surface of the long mound were small, almost child-sized. Aidris once found a small dagger made of polished bone, golden with age, twisted into the roots of the grass.
The house and the lake were enclosed in a ring of trees, poplar and birch; on the eastern side there was a windbreak of spruce and pine. Beyond these darker trees the plain swept away; the road east could be seen crossing the plain. She used to watch the traffic on the road, coming from distant Achamar and the towns that lay between. A smudge of dust became a solitary rider, a moving scrap of yellow among the wild flowers grew into a laden wagon with a bright hood. They came on, wagon and rider alike, and passed by on the road.
Looking westward from the manor house she could see the plain come into the shadow of the forest. Here, where plain and forest met, the deer came out to graze, and she saw or imagined hunters stalking the deer. Oak mingled loosely with dark firs here on level ground; there were pleasant glades and woodland pools. Then the forest closed its ranks. Massed dark trees covered the world farther than eye could see and clothed the knotty slopes of the border mountains. The road ran on out of sight, cutting through the forest to the town of Vigrund. Beyond the town by several leagues the road crossed through a mountain pass into the land of Athron.
Aidris learned to study alone while Nazran was absent in the capital. Lady Maren’s household was very small; there were few visitors. When riders or vehicles struck out from the road towards the manor, there was always a moment of tension until the newcomers were recognised. When pedlars came in spring or autumn or the Pilgrim Brothers in any season, she did not show herself. If they caught her out in the open air, she kept her distance or rode Telavel up onto the barrow.
One evening in late summer, the Hazelmoon, after she had been at Thuven half a year, Lady Maren came to her in Nazran’s study.
“You had better come down,” she said.
Lady Maren half frowned, half smiled; as they walked onto the landing, she put her finger to her lips. Aidris peered through the railing and looked down into the hall. Two hunters stood below holding the carcase of a young white deer. They were both bearded men, well-proportioned and muscular, their hair dressed in shining curls and tresses; they wore deerskin tunics and sturdy boots. They were tiny men; they stood little more than waist high to Maith, the kedran on duty; they were hunters of the Tulgai.
Aidris walked slowly down the stairs, unable to keep from smiling, and the hunters smiled back at her, teeth flashing in their dark, snub-nosed faces. The older man, whose beard was streaked with white, spoke up.
“A gift for the heir of the Firn!” he said in the Old Speech.
They laid the deer on the flagstones of the hall, and stepping forward, they knelt down at her feet. Aidris felt a rare moment of pride and delight.
“Rise up,” she said. “I thank you from my heart, brave hunters of the Tulgai.”
They stood before her, blinking a little in the lighted hall.
“My greeting to the Balg,” she said. “Let me send a gift to him in return for the white doe.”
As they heaved up the deer again and headed for the kitchen, Aidris called after them, “Did the birds tell you I was here?”
The younger hunter smiled over his shoulder, shy and fierce.
“We have heard . . .” he said.
“What will they be given?” she asked Maren.
“Honey,” she said. “Salt. A firkin of apple brandy as your gift to the Balg. They come in about once every two years.”
At Thuven she began to sleep peacefully; her nightmares went away. She began to think of her fear as a childish thing she had outgrown. In spite of reading, riding, caring for the horses, apple picking, her life seemed pleasantly empty. She waited eagerly for Nazran and for the dispatches he sent. She treasured up the news from Achamar, from Lien and Mel’Nir, and the stories of Athron and its delights, which were common in this border country.
Bajan came in her sixteenth year and stayed for the year’s end: for the Ashmoon, the month of changes, the five days of the Winter Feast, and the Tannenmoon, Old Man’s month, the first month of the new year. It was a time of so much rejoicing that she became anxious. Could this be herself, Aidris Am Firn, who woke every morning, eager and unafraid, and looked from the window only to see if more snow had fallen?
She began to work her own magic. On the day that Bajan took his leave, the snows of a mild winter were still patchily covering the ground. She rode out with Bajan and his northern escort beyond the pines of the windbreak, far on to the plain. Parting he leaned from his horse and kissed her formally on both cheeks; they clasped gloved hands. She wheeled Telavel and galloped bac
k again, then turned up the path to the top of the barrow. She did not look at the small cavalcade heading northward across the plain.
On the summit she dismounted and sat on one of the large boulders that crowned the barrow. She pulled her snow-colored cloak of lynx and fox, Bajan’s gift, around her, right to her toes, and felt herself invisible. After digging a place in the half-frozen ground with the bone knife, she planted an acorn wrapped in warm earth from the seed boxes in the cellars. “Let it grow,” she said in her mind, firmly, reverently, using the Old Speech. “Let it grow for my deliverance and for the good of the Chameln and their lands.”
She looked about for a sign, but there was nothing particular to be seen except the beauty of the winter day. Telavel, covered almost to her hocks in a quilted blanket, nibbled at a twist of cold grey grass. Aidris drew out the stone from under her cloak and warmed it in the palm of her hand, under her glove.
She thought of her long involvement with the stone. She had learned first of all to hide it skillfully, moving it from place to place so that it was never found. Then she had learned not to approach it too often, not to question or weep, not to expect messages or miracles.
She felt the stone warm on her hand and drew it out and looked into it. There were two tall red candles in gold candlesticks and sprays of evergreen. It looked like an altar for the Goddess at the Winter Festival. There was shadowy movement, the sleeve of a robe came into view, the whole scene blurred, breaking into sparkling points of light, then cleared again. Three objects lay between the candles; a hand, the Lady’s hand, moved each one forward for her to see. A small bound book in the style of Lien, with purple-brown leather cover and a silver fastening; a dagger in a green sheath; a cluster of yellow stones on a long gold chain. The three objects were tapped, each one, with a forefinger, then the two hands opened in an offering gesture.
“Oh the book!” said Aidris, pointing. “I will choose the book!”
There was a gesture, hands together, of greeting and farewell; the picture faded. She was schooled by this time to feel no disappointment. It was like a game played on New Year’s Eve, with coins and charms in the fruity-bread. She hoped the book meant “good fortune in the coming year.”
II
A day at the end of the Willowmoon, the month of planting, she was sky-larking in the stableyard with Maith and the grooms. Kira, the senior kedran, looked out of the topmost window of the manor house.
“Something to be seen!”
Aidris ran indoors, panting, wet from the water fight, and began to climb the kitchen stairs. She ran onto the second landing and into Nazran’s study. As she stood at the window Kira came down from the attic and presently Maith and the Countess Maren came to stand behind them. A troop of cavalry were crossing the plain: thirty warriors of Mel’Nir mounted on their battle chargers.
“If they turn off the road?” said Aidris.
“Goddess help us!” said Lady Maren.
“No sense in taking chances,” said Kira. “If they turn off the road, those draught horses will give us a few moments grace. Dan Aidris and Maith will go on foot through the orchard and into the near forest.”
The mounted warriors moved like a ponderous war-engine; one could almost hear the beat of their hooves, the harness of men and animals jingling as they went along. They passed the point where they might have turned off towards the manor house and rode on until they were hidden by the trees.
“Something afoot!” said Maith. “Countess, shall we send into Vigrund town and try for news?”
“Tomorrow,” said Lady Maren.
Aidris knew that this tomorrow meant “a day like today,” another peaceful spring day at Thuven. She was restless and wished they might send for news at once, but she said nothing.
Tomorrow did not come. The next day she was awakened very early, before sunrise; Lady Maren stood there in her nightgown holding a candle.
“I have brought your milk posset,” she said. “You must dress quickly and go down to the hall. Nazran is here. I have to tell you . . .”
“What? What has happened?”
“Dan Esher is dying . . . dead . . .”
“An attack?”
They were speaking in whispers. Lady Maren sat on the end of the bed and wiped her eyes.
“No,” she said. “A wound-fever. Lockjaw. He took a small, deep wound in the foot from his own boar spear.”
“Sharn Am Zor? My aunt Aravel?”
“Danu Aravel has taken the children and gone into Lien.”
Nazran stood at the foot of the stairs; he looked older than ever, but full of vigor. His white hair stood up in peaks, the hand gripping his saddlebag was gnarled like an old tree root. He was driven by a frantic haste; he drew Aidris to the end of the long refectory table. She saw a shadowy group of followers at the end of the hall.
“Werris has claimed the double regency for yourself and Sharn Am Zor,” he said. “There has been fighting in the city, in the north. Gilyan stood up as regent and Esher’s Torch Bearer Zabrandor . . . nothing served. There are a thousand warriors of Mel’Nir in Achamar, more have crossed the border. The Chameln lands are in the power of Ghanor, the so-called Great King.”
She uttered a low cry and stifled it quickly.
“What must I do?”
“You must not come into the hands of Baron Werris,” said Nazran. “You must go at once into Athron, to the house of Nenad Am Charn, the trading envoy in Varda.”
“Yesterday we saw a troop of warriors.”
“They have gone to close the border at Rodfell Pass. You must take another way, through the forest. I have brought a guide, from Vigrund, a man who is loyal to your house. You should leave within the hour.”
She gave a sharp intake of breath, and he waved a hand with frantic impatience.
“Princess, they have that poor widow woman, Micha Am Firn, shut up in Ledler. They will find out this place soon enough.”
“I am ready,” she said.
Nazran led her down the length of the hall; it was just daylight.
“Here is your guide, Dan Aidris,” said Nazran formally.
She had seen Nazran’s two elderly esquires; the third man was much younger, well-built with a short brown beard. His face was familiar.
“It is Master Ric Loeke, the son of the master huntsman. He will bring you safely into Athron.”
Ric Loeke strode forward, solemn-faced, and knelt before Aidris.
“Ever the faithful servant of your house, Princess!”
The formality was not so reassuring to her as it was to Nazran. It did not suit the man; she thought his face must have another expression, but could not picture what it might be. She gave him her thanks; he sprang up again, brisk and businesslike; she thought all might be well.
“It is a simple journey for anyone who rides well,” said Ric Loeke. “We will come into Athron in eight days at the most.”
Maren beckoned to her; she had a saddlebag and the new fur cloak.
“It is cold in the forest.”
She drew Aidris aside and made a business of swathing her in the cloak.
“Take care, dearest child,” she said in a low voice. “You are going into a strange household, in Varda. You are a young girl. Guard your chaste treasure, Aidris.”
Aidris embraced the old woman fiercely.
“I will take care.”
Ric Loeke came up with Nazran giving him instructions. He handed the guide one of the locked and sealed state pouches that were used for carrying jewels, coin and state papers. He handed a scrap of paper to Aidris.
“Contents of the pouch,” he said. “The few jewels may be kept or sold, as you wish.”
“Lord Nazran,” said Ric Loeke, “I had promised to take other travellers into Athron by this way.”
“Other travellers?” snapped Nazran.
“I am yours to command,” said the guide, “but it would do no harm if these ladies came along. I know they are ready to ride at once. The widow of a fellow guide and her d
aughter. It would lend us some disguise, and it is more fitting that Dan Aidris travels with attendants.”
Nazran had received a nod of assent from Lady Maren.
“Agreed!” he said. “But remember the oath of secrecy. We have put all our trust in you.”
They went directly to the stableyard; Telavel stood ready. Aidris embraced the two kedran, Maith and Kira. The spring sun was rising over the forest; fresh green shone out among the dark conifers. Nazran came and stuffed a small package into her saddlebag.
“A New Year gift,” he said. “It belonged to your mother. A servant brought it to me in Achamar.”
She waved once and did not look back, but followed Ric Loeke’s tall black gelding along the outskirts of the forest to the road.
He turned his head and said, “We’ll go some way towards Vigrund then move into the South Ride. You had better wait while I go into the town.”
He was unsmiling but not awkward.
“What will you say to the ladies?” she asked.
He shrugged and rode on. They crossed the road into the South Ride, a wide grassy bay in the sea of forest trees. She hated to be left alone; when Ric Loeke had galloped away, she rode further in and stood behind a tumbledown brushwood shelter, in a place where she had a clear view of the road.
She did not have long to wait, although it was long enough to awaken her old fear, running over the back of her neck like a cold breeze from the depths of the forest. Loeke’s black horse came pounding down the road with one companion, a woman in an enveloping green cloak beside him, mounted sidesaddle on a broad-rumped brown mare. Aidris came out of hiding expecting introductions, but Loeke spurred past her, shouting for her to follow. He whipped the horse of his companion, and the three of them went thundering down the South Ride. Then the guide turned off to the right, and they went more slowly but still at a good pace down a well-trodden path. He drew rein suddenly; the woman began to speak, but Loeke held up a hand for silence. They heard the sounds of the forest.
“Were you followed?” asked Aidris.
A Princess of the Chameln Page 5