A Princess of the Chameln

by Cherry Wilder

  “A watch-post of Athron,” he replied.

  “Will we be questioned?” asked Aidris.

  “I am known there,” said Gerr of Kerrick. “Courage, my ladies. One more ride and all dangers are passed.”

  He urged Firedrake forward and led them down into the ravine. Aidris let Sabeth go down next, thinking of poor Telavel, encumbered with a ridiculous blanket and a sidesaddle. She followed with the brown mare, broad-beamed but certainly surefooted.

  They came down into the Wulfental, and the place itself was enough to make Aidris ride very fast. She felt again that evil, icy cold that had seeped out of the ground at the witch-hold, far away in the foothills. They rode quickly: trot, canter, then Firedrake galloped away with the two mares following. There was a wild hail behind them; they were pursued by the horses and riders of Mel’Nir.

  It was no contest from the first. Firedrake went faster and Telavel, even with the unaccustomed harness, flew up alongside. Aidris, trailing, dug her heels into Imba, who responded with an unexpected burst of speed. They rode like the whirlwind through the dark maw of the Wulfental, and the lights grew and grew.

  The watch-post had a low square building of grey stone and rosy brick and the lights shone through its windows. They clattered into a cobbled yard, and looking back, Aidris saw three troopers come up and draw rein, hidden in shadow. She wondered if there was another who waited, Hurne the Harrier, on his dark horse.

  The yard was alight with torches and loud with drawling Athron voices.

  “Who rides so late?”

  A big man, struggling with a helmet, rose up beside her, taking her rein.

  “Gerr Kerrick of Kerrick Hall,” cried their knight proudly, “riding escort to a cousin of my house. That is my esquire you have there.”

  “Why are those danged Melniros wearing out hoof-iron,” grumbled the big man. “Captain Rolf at your service, Sir Gerr.”

  He strode out of the yard and shouted back down the pass in a voice of thunder:

  “Here are three Athron folk come home. You’ve nothing to seek, troopers.”

  The mounted men were silent. The captain bowed to Sabeth.

  “Please to step down, your worships,” he said. “Take an early bite with us in our common room . . . it is near day.”

  “I think we can do that,” said the knight cheerfully.

  He smiled at his companions.

  “It is a pleasanter way when the sun has risen.”

  As they trailed into the common room, a young man at arms spoke to the captain, and Rolf, revealed in the warm light as bushy-bearded and stout, said again, “Danged Melniros. Nothing but trouble here at the pass since they came. We have a man here under guard . . . tried to cross earlier this evening, but I did not like the looks of his safe-conduct.”

  “What sort of a man?” asked the knight.

  They were in a comfortable well-worn place with old hangings on the thick winter-fast walls and broad settles.

  “Who knows?” said Rolf. “Red-bearded. Thought he might cross with gold.”

  Aidris said, “Sir Gerr?”

  When the knight turned to her she whispered to him, “I think I know this man.”

  “Let my kedran get a look at him,” said Gerr in his lordly fashion.

  He turned and helped Sabeth to a place. Aidris went after the captain, trying to still the beating of her heart, and they came to a door with a grating.

  “Must everyone have a safe-conduct?” she asked.

  “Bless you no,” said the captain. “We let poor folk state a reason or name a friend or sponsor in Athron. This fellow overreached himself. His paper was signed by a dead man, old Elam Goss, Councillor of Prince Flor, but dead these six moons. We might still have let him through, but he tried to give us gold.”

  He held up the torch to the wide grating, and they saw a man sitting on a bunk, staring at them sharply. It was Redbeard, trim and fierce as he had been that morning in the stableyard, yet she knew that his luck had deserted him.

  “I know him,” she said. “His name is Hurne. He is some kind of hired bravo out of Lien. He’s an evil man who hunts down exiles for the Melniros, for gold, for a bounty. He should not cross into a peaceful realm such as Athron.”

  “By dang, we’ll send him back, then,” said Rolf, grinning. “Thanks good esquire. Come have a bite . . .”

  The way led out of the pass from the watch-post, bathed in the blue light of early morning. To the south, they saw the mountains with a tall, snowcapped peak, Mount Coom, rising close at hand. To the north, the mountain wall was just touched with light, the forest and the last snow fields beginning to glow rose and gold. Gerr of Kerrick led them over a last rise, through a swirl of mist. Sabeth cried out, and Aidris echoed her cry.

  Spread out below them was the land of Athron, its green fields, hedgerows, neat villages red-roofed; its streams and groves and lush meadowland, all newly green for the spring. It was as if a burst of song came up to them, borne on the morning wind. The knight led Sabeth down the path, his plume lightly tossed, his banner flying out.

  Aidris looked back the way they had come. She looked into the rising sun, sent out her spirit, in longing, over all the lands of the Chameln, then turned away and rode down into the magic kingdom.

  Chapter Four

  I

  Gavin, the Waker, found her bed empty, met Aidris coming back from the stable.

  “Early up!” He grinned. “Here’s the runt of the litter. Mucked out your little jade? Good. You have an hour or more before first breakfast and saddle-up. Where are you off to, Venn? Running? Shining your gear? Saying your prayers?”

  “I’ll be about,” she said, passing off the question.

  The waker was a limping, sallow man, one of Lady Aumerl’s lame ducks. He was a busybody, who carried tales and spread gossip. She walked between the barracks and the barn and came upon the low house of sand-colored stone, which cast a graceful shadow over the path. Its pointed gables and fretted balconies still gave her that pleasant shock: “I have come to another country . . .” She rose early to have time for herself; there was a festival, and the kedran would get no rest.

  Aidris came past the new north wing of Kerrick Hall and cut through the north court. She came suddenly, as one did in Athron, into an enchanted place. The courtyard was piled with spring flowers: snowdrops, mooncups, bluebells, shepherd’s bounty, yellow bonnets and tall sword lilies, planted in boxes or standing in tubs of water. Four women in green aprons were weaving a huge garland of living flowers that stretched almost from end to end of the courtyard. They sang as they worked and sang instructions to their young assistants, a boy and girl who ran about from one to the other with more binding, more flowers, more armfuls of greenery.

  “Dearest love, bring me a fairing,

  Silken sash or silver chain . . .”

  sang the women.

  Aidris ducked under a wagon and pushed through the sweet vines that hung from it.

  “Here with the twine . . . the red weed, a little more . . . more mooncups and some o’ that lovers’ bane . . .” sang the women.

  She went through the kitchen gardens and a corner of the orchard. No one saw or marked her. It was early, she was invisible, a young kedran passing by in the colors of the house. The ballad the women sang had a plaintive melody; it was a tale of unrequited love. She found herself finishing the verse as she climbed the hill behind the house.

  “Flowers of Birchmoon to deck my bride bed

  Sang the Fair Maid of Stayn.”

  It was a hill she climbed, not a barrow, but Kerrick Hall did have a hint of Thuven Manor, that other safe house. She remembered the first time she had set eyes on the place, after the ride through Athron, in the springtime of the year. Now it was Birchmoon again. Coming up to the grove of trees that crowned the hilltop she murmured another verse of the song.

  “Long she waits in wind and weather,

  Ere her love comes home again,

  For another wears his token,
>
  Not the Fair Maid of Stayn.”

  It was a song of Athron, simple and bittersweet, without a hint of wildness. The trees on the hill were alder, whitethorn and holly. There was a small, hedged graveyard for the families of Gerr and of Kerrick: Lady Aumerl’s parents lay there, and two of her stillborn children. A little way off, in its own white-painted railing, grew a single Carach tree, the magic tree of Athron.

  It was beautifully shaped, with a smooth white trunk and palmate leaves of green and silver. The Carach always seemed to be on the point of defying nature: it was in full leaf before the snow had left the ground, and its leaves did not fall until the first snows came again. The leaves, when they did fall, were gathered up and treasured for magical purposes. Wishes and pledges were written upon Carach leaves; a Carach leaf in among the down of a featherbed ensured sound sleep; crushed Carach leaves were a charm against melancholy, woodworm, false promises and colic in horses.

  Aidris squinted up at the tree and found it, like all its fellows, a little too self-conscious. This day she must work her own magic. It was the last day of Birchmoon; she had been in Athron a year and twelve days. Her birthday had come round again; last year, so soon after her arrival, she had almost forgotten the day. This year, a long and painful time having passed, she was eighteen. She had come of age; she was Queen of the Chameln, and Regent for Sharn Am Zor. Upon this day, in far-off Achamar, her proclamations, written out fair on vellum and parchment, would be nailed about the city, under the eye of the ruling power. The northern tribes would cry out her name and raise new spirit trees in her honor.

  She sat on a wooden bench by the yew hedge of the graveyard and could only summon up a quick blessing for her land and her people. She had no magic left in her. She sat drowsily in the light of the new-risen sun and drew out her book. She kept it still in its cloth wrapper. She remembered opening it for the first time at an inn on the outskirts of Varda called the Owl and Kettle. Her New Year’s gift, a bound book in the style of Lien, with a cover of purple-brown leather and silver fastenings, just as she had chosen it from the world of the scrying stone. Two worlds suddenly impinged upon each other, without warning, in the quiet bedroom of the inn.

  She unlocked the book, that first time, as she did now, with its small silver key, and read its title page: Hazard’s Harvest: A book of delights, conceits and strange tales for the lady’s bower, the fireside and the nursery.

  She had never seen the book before, but there stamped upon the cover was the Swan of Lien, the badge of her mother’s house. She turned the pages quickly, hoping for a message, then more slowly, examining the capitals, illuminations and pictures of this exquisite book. Sabeth came back from the window embrasure where she had been gazing out at their new world.

  “Your present!” she said. “What . . . only a book?”

  “I might have had a dagger,” said Aidris, “or a yellow jewel. But I chose the book.”

  She imagined some scene at the fireside, in a lady’s bower or even in the nursery, where the Lady, warm and real, offered her these gifts. Yet she had been alone on the barrow in the winter’s cold, peering into the world of the stone.

  “Let me see!” said Sabeth. “It is a fine book.”

  Then the strangeness of the gift began to reveal itself, for Sabeth could not open the book. The key held fast; she could not turn it. They decided that it had stuck in the tiny lock; Aidris took the book again, and the key turned for her at once. She opened it up and showed some of the delights and conceits.

  When Sabeth had turned away to the window again, she noticed that a first page of the book had been tucked away under the leather slipcover. She prized it out carefully, and there was her message. A single name, bold and fresh, in straight-letter, with the serifs of the letters laced into a pattern. A name that explained and added to the mystery. Guenna. So she whisked the page back to hide this name, and she knew at last who lived in the world of the scrying stone. She felt warmed and comforted, as if she had indeed been sitting with this lady at her fireside.

  Later that day she had gone alone into Varda, walking invisible through the cheerful streets. Sabeth had primmed up her mouth when Aidris asked if she had any message to send. She had, she declared, torn up the letter from Mother Lorse and was not expected in Varda.

  The Trading Envoy, Nenad Am Charn, had a tall stone house, wonderfully foreign like all the houses she gaped at. The ground floor was an elaborate shop for goods from the Chameln lands. When a young Vardan came to wait on her by a table of beadwork she sent her sword in its scabbard to the master of the house. He came out, a round Firnish man, and kissed her hand, his black eyes darting about with apprehension.

  “Come . . . Come Highness . . .” he whispered.

  He led her into a storeroom beside the shop and fell on his knees.

  “Ah, Dan Aidris! I had word, roundabout, from Lingrit Am Thuven, the Envoy in Lien. Nothing has come through the mountains . . .”

  “I have come, good Envoy,” she said, smiling and raising him up.

  They sat knee to knee on two bales of cloth, heads together like conspirators.

  “My house is yours,” he said. “I will give it out that you are my sister’s child. The Varda princes are flirting with the might of Mel’Nir. I must be very correct; I am watched. I have goods in this house that could be claimed by the usurpers in Achamar . . . you understand me?”

  “How will you live?” asked Aidris. “You have no more goods coming from the Chameln lands, and you cannot trade except by treating with the Melniros.”

  “Princess,” he said, “my loyalty to the Daindru is unswerving, but I cannot lie to you. I will delay and parley with everyone, the princes, the agents of Mel’Nir . . . then in a year or half a year, I will treat with Regent Werris and the usurpers. It is not so much that I need the trade to live . . . I could do well enough by trading elsewhere . . . but we must have an open border to the Chameln lands and a flow of news and goods. Better that I should remain envoy than that some bravo of Mel’Nir should take the post.”

  He looked at her seriously.

  “You are right,” she said, “but you must admit that it is dangerous for me to remain in your house.”

  Nenad Am Charn nodded, lips compressed.

  “I have had some misfortune on my journey,” she said, “but I have found help and protection.”

  She told of Ric Loeke’s death, of help from the Tulgai and from Gerr of Kerrick. The invitation to Kerrick Hall impressed the envoy and pleased him, but he could not shrug off his responsibility.

  “You are very young, Dan Aidris, to go about alone.”

  “Athron is a safe place,” she said. “I know I will be well cared for at Kerrick Hall. Besides I have my travelling companion, Mistress Delbin.”

  “I will write a letter of introduction, using your new name, to Huw of Kerrick,” said the Envoy.

  “Put in Mistress Delbin too,” she said, “for she will go with me.”

  Nenad turned away to a cluttered desk and wrote neither more nor less than was required:

  To the noble Lord Huw of Kerrick, at Kerrick Hall, from Nenad Am Charn, Trading Envoy of the Chameln lands, at the sign of the double oak, Tower High Street, Varda.

  I recommend to your care and hospitality Kedran Venn and Mistress Delbin, two ladies from my own country, seeking refuge from war and civil strife. May the Goddess send us in time that peace that ever abides in the land of Athron.

  Then Aidris yielded to a vulgar curiosity.

  “Good Envoy,” she said, “do you know who lives at the sign of the dove, in Fountain Court?”

  Nenad Am Charn flushed a little.

  “I know,” he said, “but in heaven’s name, Princess, you should not!”

  “Tell me!” she ordered.

  “A certain Count Porell and his Countess live there,” he said. “Most disreputable people. It is a house of assignation, if you understand me, for the young gentlemen of the court. How do you come to know of such a place, High
ness?”

  She had the answer ready.

  “Ric Loeke, our poor guide, had those words written on a paper in his pack. I wondered if he might have friends or family in that place!”

  “Tush!” said Nenad. “He had not, depend upon it. You have done all that you could and more.’

  So she went back to the Owl and Kettle and set out on that first magic journey across Athron, with Sabeth, looking beautiful as springtime, and Gerr of Kerrick, their true knight and rescuer. They came to Kerrick Hall and were received with warmth by Lord Huw Kerrick and his lady, Aumerl. Sabeth went to the great house as a waiting woman and Aidris to the barracks as a kedran; and now a whole year had passed.

  A bird flew up, and she came to herself on the hill; for her birthday she drew out the scrying stone. Her relationship with the Lady had changed subtly; now she was to be seen at once, smiling, in the world of the stone. On the table or altar lay a bunch of oak leaves in honor of the day. The Lady set down a thin-shaped circlet of gold beside the leaves . . . a crown or coronet.

  “Oh, will I come to this estate?” sighed Aidris.

  The Lady nodded, seemed to counsel patience. Then she smiled again, and the stone was filled with a sparkling mist, which cleared suddenly. Aidris beheld a garden with clipped trees, neat paths and rose bushes . . . a garden in Lien? Three children sat beside a round pond watching the gold fishes. The eldest boy, well-grown for thirteen, was Sharn Am Zor. His sister Rilla, brown-haired, was eight years old and not a beauty; she was strapped into an elaborate Lienish gown and held the leading strings of the four year old Prince Carel, who had golden curls and was as devilish as his brother had been. Aidris watched them intently; she knew this was all her birthday, all her presents and festivities.

  The bird shrilled again, just as the stone clouded, and she hastily tucked it away inside her tunic.

  “Good morrow, Kedran Venn!”

  He had come over the hill, through the grove, a dark, loosely built young man. He was not so handsome as his younger brother but in certain moods she liked Niall of Kerrick’s face better; he would never come to look like a wooden warrior.