A Princess of the Chameln

by Cherry Wilder

  “I expect so,” said Aidris. “What was the sum?”

  “Fifty silver dumps,” said Sabeth promptly. “Five gold gulden or four gold royals from Lien.”

  “Did you pay so much?”

  “Mother Lorse was his friend,” said Sabeth. “A friend to all the forest guides. I travelled free and bore him company.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “To a lady’s house in Varda,” said Sabeth very precisely, “to be her waiting-woman.”

  “Break the seal,” said Aidris, “and you will find in the treasure pouch gold and at least two strings of pearl beads and a golden apple on a chain.”

  Sabeth went to work, breaking the seal, which showed the double oak trees of the Daindru, without examining it. She poured out gold and silver onto their table stone and held up pearls, three strings, and the apple on its chain.

  “It is yours then,” she said with a pout.

  Aidris packed the money away. She took a string of the pearls and slipped them over Sabeth’s head.

  “Yours,” she said. “And we will share the gold.”

  Sabeth fingered the bubbled, milky pearls in wonder.

  “They are freshwater pearls,” she said, “from the Dannermere. A string like this is worth a lot. I thought you meant mother-of-pearl beads, as they sell in Balufir. Your house is richer than I thought.”

  “Hush,” said Aidris. “I am going into exile.”

  She turned reluctantly to Ric Loeke’s saddlebags.

  “Master Loeke had kin in Achamar, that I know,” she said, “but did he have friends in Vigrund?”

  “His fellow forest guides,” said Sabeth. “He lived in their guild house.”

  “I will take out all the food and any maps,” said Aidris. “The rest should go back to the guild house, with his horse.”

  “How?” exclaimed Sabeth angrily. “You are mad. We are lost. We will be robbed and murdered. We will never find our way.”

  Aidris set her teeth and picked over Loeke’s excellently neat and ordered possessions. She took out the maps and a letter, sealed with a butterfly in pink wax; Sabeth snatched it away, but not before Aidris had read the address in a fat sprawling merchant’s script full of curlicues: At the sign of the dove, Fountain Court, Varda.

  “It is from Mother Lorse to the lady of the house, the household, where I am going,” she said.

  There were no ornaments, no mementoes, only the well-kept equipment of a guide. She was a carrion crow picking out a dead man’s eyes. She found a purse of gold and added five gulden to it. Perhaps Nazran had already paid for her journey . . . she did not know. All had hung on Ric Loeke, and he was gone.

  “I can get help,” said Aidris, “but you must be brave.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Sabeth.

  “You must wait here, alone, with the horses. I will go round the lake, on foot, and find the fairy-folk, the Tulgai.”

  “No!” said Sabeth. “No, I must come with you. Why will you leave me? I cannot guard the horses. Please, please don’t leave me here alone in this place, with the dead so close . . .”

  “You don’t understand,” said Aidris. “The Tulgai are a very shy and secret people. Even I cannot be sure of finding them, although I speak their language. But I must ask them to help us. It is our only hope.”

  It was a bleak prospect, yet she could think of nothing else to do. They crept about the camp and packed up all their belongings. Sabeth had not even a tent to shelter in if it rained. She looked so woebegone, shivering by the miserable fire. The green cloak was too thin and had rents in it from the journey. Aidris took her new fur cloak, Bajan’s gift, from where it lay on her saddlebag and put it around Sabeth’s shoulders.

  “You will be cold, later . . .” whispered Sabeth.

  Aidris took up Ric Loeke’s short riding cloak of dressed russet leather. It fitted well enough; she had already buckled on her sword.

  “I will hurry,” she said. “Keep up the fire.”

  Chapter Three

  Before Sabeth could answer, Aidris ran off down the path. She dared not think of their helplessness. She turned aside to go round the head of Lake Tulna; the pointed spruce grew right down to the water’s edge. There were no shallows, only a bed of sharp stones, shelving into icy depths. Aidris pushed into the trees, fought through their ranks and was driven out by bundles of thorns set between the trees. She crawled and scrambled around the barricade of trees on the very edge of the water.

  Beyond lay a wide clearing where the forest had been thinned. The trees grew in clumps among the forest grasses, and there were thickets of berries: blackberry, blueberry, cranberry, beside a path. She was certain that this was the land of the Tulgai; there was an enclosure of undressed logs beside the path, but it was empty.

  “Where are you, brave warriors?” she called.

  There was no answer, not even a rustle in the trees ahead. She hurried on down the path and came to a second rustic enclosure where six milch deer were grazing, with their fawns.

  “Warriors of the Tulgai—I need your help!” she cried again.

  There was a flurry of movement in a tree, a burst of sound: bird-calls echoing over the quiet lake. She passed the second enclosure and saw ahead a grove of trees curiously shaped. Before she could call again, Aidris was surrounded. A ring of Tulgai warriors, swart and strong, appeared in a breath. Their long curled manes of hair glistened; they advanced with very long metal-tipped spears held shoulder high by two men.

  “Stranger! Keep out!” cried a voice in the common speech. It was a gnarled old woman with a milk pail.

  “I need the help of the Tulgai,” said Aidris keeping to the Old Speech and holding her ground.

  A warrior laughed, and with his companion brought his spear very close.

  “You are a longshanks woman!” he shouted.

  Aidris felt a thrill of righteous anger; she struck the spear aside.

  “Receive me in peace then!”

  “Why should we?” shouted the little man. “You must fear us in this place. You have invaded our sanctuary.”

  He gestured, and the ring of warriors began to grimace and to jump up and down. It was ridiculous and frightening.

  “Stop!” cried Aidris.

  She drew her sword and flourished it. A beam of watery sunlight caught the blade, and it flashed fire.

  “Do you read these runes? I am Aidris, Heir of the Firn!”

  The movement stopped in mid-bounce; the Tulgai reacted, always, with a swiftness that was unnerving for a kizho, a longshanks. The hideous grins were frozen on their faces for a split second, then wiped away or transformed into timid smiles. The leader who had taunted her ran up to Aidris, glanced at the sword and stared into her eyes.

  “Forgive me!”

  He fell on his knees, but she quickly raised him up.

  “Forgiven,” she said. “No ceremony.”

  She held up the sword to the ring of warriors and said, “Dear warriors of the Tulgai, I come in an evil hour, travelling into exile. I will have no rejoicing, only help for my journey. I will sheath the sword until a happier day when I return.”

  She returned the sword to its sheath, and a ripple of sound, a sorrowful murmur, was drawn from those watching.

  “What shall I call you?” she asked the leader.

  He was a youngish man, about thirty years old, so far as she could judge, with hair of rusty black confined by a bone clasp then falling in long curls to his boot heels. He had a broad, handsome brow and light hazel eyes.

  “Akaranok!” he said. “First Watcher.”

  “Good Akaranok—have you heard that a dead man lies by the lake shore, just beyond your barricade?”

  “No such thing reported, Dan Aidris,” he said. “Who is this man?”

  “Alas, it is Ric Loeke, a forest guide, who was leading another lady and myself into Athron.”

  “Princess, how did he die?”

  “By accident. In the night or early morning he stumbled into a p
itfall. He had drink taken and could not come out of the trench again. He lay in water and drowned.”

  The telling made her sick; she swayed on her feet and shut her eyes. There was a burst of concerned chatter. Many hands fastened upon her gently; she found herself urged forward and settled upon a pile of logs up against the fence of the deer pen. The old woman with the milk pail and another, sturdy and young, with red cheeks and hair fantastically braided, were tending her. They held a cup with fresh water to her lips and crushed a leaf of lemon balm for her to sniff, against faintness.

  “Akaranok?” she asked.

  “Here, Princess.”

  He stood before her again, their eyes on a level.

  “You know what help I need. The poor man must be buried, his horse and gear returned to the guild-house at Vigrund town. Then I need a guide to bring me and my friend through the Wulfental Pass into Athron.”

  “We will do all of this . . . all that we can,” he said.

  “My poor companion, the lady Sabeth, sits alone in our camp, near the lake. Our horses and baggage are unguarded . . .”

  “We will set a watch at once!”

  “Akaranok,” she said. “Sabeth knows nothing of the forest or of your people. Do not frighten her, I pray.”

  He gave one of his ferocious Tulgai smiles.

  “Not a leaf will stir . . .”

  “Then, let me go to the Balg, if he will receive me.”

  “He waits . . . he waits . . .”

  Akaranok gestured, and there was a bustling high and low, bursts of bird-calling, strange drum music and the music of Tulgai voices. She stood up, thanking the little women, and there was a carrying seat for her. A dozen warriors had made a frame with their spears. She sat on this platform, and they lifted her shoulder high.

  “Feather light!” cried one. “Light as a true Tulgai!”

  So she was borne through the sunlit woods past the tilled strips, the flowering apple trees, the low, reeking smokehouses of this most secret people. They came to the shaped trees, and Aidris saw that the tops of the trees, which were sturdy mountain beech, grew through a wide canopy of basket-work and thatch. Their trunks were the living pillars of the hall of the Balg, and between the pillars were walls of short dressed logs, polished and engraved with runes in bright colors.

  There were similar buildings clustered around the hall, and the earth was trodden bare and smooth between them. She was set down on a deeply trodden path. The forest trees, the dark conifers, ringed the settlement closely, so that there was not much light. It was as if the Tulgai lived here always under cover, in a huge tent.

  The place teemed with people, but they were hardly to be seen. Dark faces looked down from the very tops of the trees; there were rustlings all over the roof of the great hall. A bush at her side suddenly became overladen and spilled out before her six or seven creatures . . . little children, the littlest children, plump, brown, half-naked, with their hair scraped up into bunches on the tops of their heads. She half-screamed, half-laughed, and one, bolder than the rest, scrambled up her cloak and sat on her shoulder.

  She took the climber between her hands and held it before her face. It stared at her with huge brown eyes. As it was opening its mouth to roar, she gave it a kiss on the cheek and set it down in the bush again.

  There were guards before the hall, but Akaranok would not step aside for them; he was determined to lead Aidris into the Balg’s presence himself. They came into a corridor lined with painted bark where it was impossible for Aidris to stand upright. Ahead there was a greenish light; they came out into wide airy spaces. The roof overhead had panels of the thatch lifted off or rolled back so that sunlight came in through the leaves.

  The hall had been made beautiful for spring. It was like a glade, with the tree-trunk pillars painted white, fur rugs upon the earthen floor of a surprising yellow-green, and a fountain playing in the center, from a gilded tree stump. Behind this fountain rose a wooden screen carved with slender young trees, their branches interlaced.

  Akaranok was received at the screen by an old man in a green robe. His beard was snow white and carefully divided into two long forks that fell past his knees. He bowed to Aidris, then took her hands tenderly and stared up into her face.

  “Dear child . . .” he said in a deep cracked voice. “I have seen none of your house since I brought tribute once to Charis, your father’s mother. I am called Rognor; I am the Balg’s Runemaster. I cast the runesticks yesterday for the Balg’s lake journey, and there it seemed to say: Death brings an honored guest . . .”

  “It is very plain, good Runemaster,” said Aidris. “My forest guide is dead, by accident, and I have come to you for help.”

  Akaranok was impatient. He whispered to Rognor, peered round the screen.

  Is this a feast day for the Balg?” asked Aidris. “Have I intruded upon some festival?”

  “You were awaited,” said the Rune-master. “The royal household hoped for a sign. Now they can embark. It is that day of the year when the Balg sails across the Tulna water.”

  He took up his painted staff and struck a long wooden drum that lay by the screen; it gave off a sweet, hollow note. He led the way into the presence of his master, Tagnaran, the Balg of the Tulgai.

  The ruler sat upon a carved wooden throne, set not on a platform but on a small hill, roughly stepped in places and covered with pelts. Clusters of servants waited around the base of the hillock, and Aidris saw that they were prepared for the Balg’s feast. They carried baskets of food, garlands of leaves, even long netted fish-poles and hanks of rope.

  Aidris had it fixed in her mind that the Balg was old and fat. A description of some earlier Balg glimpsed by a chronicler had given her the image of a spreading white-bearded King Toad, somewhat taller than his subjects. It had never occurred to her that the Balg might be a young man.

  Tagnaran had short up-curling hair of coppery red, a royal color not found among his subjects; even his skin was red-brown. His smooth face, with wide-set yellow-brown eyes, had the startled beauty of a forest creature. He wore a short tunic of creamy linen and laced high sandals; on his head was a circlet of bronze set with jade and pearls. He was at least four feet in height, much taller than Akaranok or Rognor, but of a height with those who shared his hillock, an older man and two women.

  At his side, wearing a pearl crown and a short dress of iridescent feathers, was an exquisite young girl, springtime itself. Her hair, feathery and short, was red-gold, Sabeth’s color. When Aidris entered, she hid her face behind a feather fan and gave her hand to the second woman, dressed in a tunic of spotted fur, who sprawled below the throne. The second man stood behind the throne and sipped from a drinking horn, his auburn mane falling into his eyes, his gaze hard and penetrating.

  Akaranok ran forward at once and prostrated himself at the base of the hillock. Tagnaran came slowly from his throne, raised up his officer and spoke urgently with him. They looked several times at Aidris, where she stood or towered, and Rognor at last touched her arm. She went forward and knelt before the Balg.

  “Royal Tagnaran,” she said, “I am sorry to disturb the peace of the Tulgai.”

  He raised her up, keeping his place on the hill so that he remained taller than Aidris. His hand was strong, with pointed nails and finger rings of silver and gold.

  “You are in flight!” said Tagnaran in a high voice.

  “I must go into Athron,” said Aidris, puzzled by the sharpness of his tone.

  “You have lost all,” said the Balg. “You have no land, no throne, no hall, no sanctuary.”

  Aidris shook her head.

  “No, cousin,” she said. “I have none of these things.”

  “You have been ill-served then, ill-advised,” said Tagnaran. “You are half a child, wandering in the forest, begging for help.”

  “This is my native land,” said Aidris, “even if I never come to rule over it. I am a traveller. I am not without means. I have asked for a guide to the Wulfental Pass. Will
you give me one?”

  “Stay here!” said the Balg abruptly. “You are Heir of the Firn. We pay tribute to the Daindru. Let this be our tribute. You will stay here in the sanctuary.”

  “No!” said Aidris. “Pardon me, Tagnaran, but I cannot do it. I have a companion waiting. Besides I would endanger the Tulgai . . . the giant warriors of Mel’Nir are searching for me.”

  “Oh, we are used to giants!” The Balg laughed. “Stay with us, Aidris Am Firn.”

  “Alas, I cannot, for my honor. Pardon me again for disturbing your feast day.”

  Tagnaran stared at her for a long time with a hard, imperious look. He was more than ever like a creature of the forest, but made fierce, ungentle, a stag no longer at bay, a lynx ready to pounce. Aidris knew with a thrill of fear that she could be kept against her will. She lowered her gaze deliberately and murmured, “Royal Tagnaran—I would be poor indeed if I offered you no gift.”

  She brought out the hastily assembled package from the pocket of her borrowed cloak and offered it on her open palms. The Balg picked it up himself and, turning, carried it to the two ladies of his court. The lovely feather-clad maiden, his consort, had it unwrapped quickly and made birdlike sounds of delight. Aidris saw the Balg’s slow, indulgent smile. She knew that she had been saved by two new silk scarves from Sabeth’s pack and the golden apple of the Firn on its long gold chain.

  “We stay too long,” said Tagnaran. “Our days are ordered, cousin Aidris. We must cross the lake.”

  He waved a hand; there was a burst of music, and the court began to move towards wide double doors across the hall between tree pillars. He came to the foot of the hillock and said briskly, “Akaranok will guide you. He may choose his own helpers. As far as the Lylan River, hard by the Wulfental.”

  Then he strode lightly from the hall in the midst of his people, giving his arm to the bird princess. Aidris stood with Akaranok and Rognor until the hall was almost empty. The Runemaster touched her arm.

  “We must see them set sail.”

  So they came out onto wide grassy lawns sloping down to the lakeside. The Balg and his family were embarked in a gilded shallop, its painted sails already taking the wind. Aidris felt a sudden regret, a longing, as the pretty boat began to move away from the shore. A shoal of smaller craft streamed out to follow: the fishing boats of the Tulgai, no bigger than cradles.