A Princess of the Chameln

by Cherry Wilder

  A terrible screaming cry rang out at her very elbow, and she pressed back against the wall. Then she went on, step by step, past the second landing. She could look across to a hoist platform on the opposite wall, and it seemed that a man stood or hung there, she could make out his pale face and dark clothes. Still she went on and the last flight of steps was very dark, leading up to the room in the dome, which was filled with light.

  Then the darkness gathered itself together into a heap, a shapeless clump of black in which there burned two points of light. The fetch reared up before her on the stair, but she mastered her fear because she had sensed its nature. It was less than human; it was a poor half-made thing.

  “Let me pass!” she ordered.

  She made a light movement with the peeled willow wand, which she still carried. The black shape bowed down, flowing away over the side of the stairs into nothingness. She ran up the last few steps into the dome of the mill.

  There were three small windows letting in the light, and under the central one was a grey-haired, heavyset man collapsed like a sack of meal, his head bloody. Sergeant Wray. She ran to him, chafed his cold hands. He opened his eyes and gave her a dazed look.

  “Sergeant!”

  “Kedran?” he whispered.

  “Come,” she said. “We must go out!”

  He raised slow hands to his aching head, licked dry lips.

  “Schnapps . . . in m’poke . . .”

  She felt in his pouch and there was a leather bottle. She gave him a taste, no more, then damped his kerchief and wiped his face.

  “Holy Mother of us all,” he whispered, “this is a fearful place. Venn is it? Venn, how came you here?”

  “Can you walk?” she asked. “We must go out.”

  “The other fellow,” he said. “Yonder. Some young fool from the city . . .”

  She saw that a youngish man lay in shadow under the window on her right, the western window. She went across to him, avoiding a gaping hole in the floor. He was richly dressed, about thirty years old, with fine, pinched features and long, curled, perfumed silky hair, chestnut-brown, falling over his face. She lifted up a jeweled badge, a stag’s head, that hung round his neck, and saw among his rings a signet with the same device and another with the monogram T. M. Terril Menvir, Prince Terril of Varda, younger brother of Prince Flor, who was expected that day: a cousin then, but not of the kind who rescued her in dreams. She did not understand his presence in the old mill; she slapped his royal face with a certain good will.

  “Highness!”

  His eyes were dark, they made him almost handsome; he smiled at her dreamily, then came wide awake.

  “Highness, we must go out. The place is bewitched.”

  “Worked too well,” he murmured. “Worked like a charm.”

  Prince Terril began to laugh, then choked.

  “The place is deadly,” he said. “How came you here, green-eyes? Who are you?”

  “Kedran Venn of Kerrick Hall,” she said. “We must go out!”

  “It . . . it will not let us!”

  “It is quiet now,” she said.

  “You are a witch, Kedran!”

  He snatched at the blue scrying-stone, then drew back his hand as if it had burned his fingers.

  “I may be,” said Aidris grimly. “What were you doing in the mill, Highness?”

  “Oh it was a stupid trick, nothing more. Did Fantjoy send you in, my man?”

  “No,” she said, “we missed the signal flag at the hall. Come . . .”

  “Look out of the window, Venn,” he said. “Look out of all the windows!”

  He laughed unsteadily. She stood up to help him to his feet and looked out of the western window. She saw, in place of the bright countryside and the bridge where the kedran company were posted, a desolate place that she hardly knew. Yet there was a bridge. The season was autumn still. Garth was a shrunken brown village. There among a few bright autumn trees was a plain old house of sand-colored stone with no avenue, no barracks, none of the larger outbuildings. Four riders came over the bridge: an old man, a dark man and a woman with tawny hair. The fourth man was familiar, he had a look of Niall of Kerrick. Their horses were strange; the old man had a tall roan, the others rode shaggy, spotted coastal ponies.

  Aidris tore herself away from the strange scene and helped Prince Terril to his feet. He staggered a little and then stood pressed against the wall.

  “We were . . . three . . .” he murmured.

  Aidris felt her heart miss a beat.

  “Sergeant,” she said, “where is Simmen?”

  Then Sergeant Wray gave a cry of pain.

  “O Goddess!” he said, gasping. “O Simmen, boy . . . I remember . . .”

  He had clambered up onto his hands and knees, and now he crawled towards the hole in the flooring. Aidris went forward and so did the prince. They looked far down into the pit, and Aidris could see the young soldier lying spread-eagled, on his back.

  “He ran mad,” sobbed Wray. “I was half-stunned, I could not hold him. He ran mad . . . he went through . . .”

  “What happened?” demanded Aidris. “Prince, what magic have you worked in this place?”

  “A simple spell of binding,” said Terril. “Fantjoy had it from some damned mountebank. Worked passing well in Varda, in the gardens.”

  Aidris was still mystified.

  “What was your plan?”

  Prince Terril frowned and shook back his lovelocks.

  “A jape,” he said. “A trick to be played on my brother, Flor, and that smooth-faced model of a prince, Ross of Eildon. It was a good plan. This mill overlooks the crossroads. We cast our circle from here, at moonrise, naming the concurrence of the victims . . . then zim-zala-bim, the princes meet when the sun is high and vanish from sight. They are held in the charmed circle until we release them, together with whatever is closest to them in the way of toadies, horses, whores . . .”

  “You burst in upon us!” cried Sergeant Wray. “Prince or whatever you may be . . . you have done this thing, brought down this curse. We were up here, minding our business, sweating it out a little in this spooky place with a few uncanny sounds. Then in comes this fine young gentleman making passes, muttering spells. We were all overwhelmed: dark shapes, terrible noises, a rushing wind. I was flung against the wall; the very boards and timbers of the place rose up and fought with us. Then poor young Simmen. . . .”

  Aidris bent down to comfort him and eased him back to the wall under the southern window. She looked out and saw the bright autumn day, the banners at the crossroads, men and women at the roadside, where the procession would pass. Something in the way these watchers behaved nagged at her. She could not see the sun. Once again she forced herself to look away.

  “The charm rebounded on the mill,” she said. “I do not understand the full working. You chose a bad spot for your jape, Prince Terril. The mill is bewitched; it has a fetch; your clumsy magic waked it into life. You are vanished away and held here inside a charmed circle. Do you have the word of power to release the spell?”

  “Why, of course,” said the prince eagerly.

  “Hush!” said Aidris. “Do not speak it on any account until we are free. Do you have it written?”

  “Here somewhere,” said Terril, fumbling in his velvet sleeve. “It is only in runes though . . . I have learned of the sound.”

  “I can read it,” said Aidris, taking the scrap of parchment from his hand.

  “A witch indeed,” said Terril with a wan smile, fixing her with his dark eyes. “A green-eyed witch maiden, among the kedran of Kerrick Hall . . .”

  He turned to Sergeant Wray.

  “Sergeant,” he said, “I will pay for this foolishness all my life long, I think. I will also pay my debt to the young kern’s family. If we come out, please try to forgive me.”

  “Well said, at least,” growled the Sergeant. “But Venn, how do we come out?”

  “I have tamed the fetch,” said Aidris. “You must follow me.”<
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  “But Simmen?” he whispered. “He is gone for sure. How will we bring him out?”

  “Wait!” she ordered.

  She went to the dark place where the stairs went down and struck the topmost stair with her willow wand. There was a furry movement of the darkness where the fetch waited. She felt a thrill of power because it would do her bidding; she understood the temptation of the fetch.

  She went down two steps and said in a low voice, “Bring out the soldier’s body from the pit. Lay him outside the mill.”

  There was a horrid whimpering in the darkness, a damp, soft sound. She knew the fetch begged for reward, its only reward, release from the mill, freedom.

  “Very well,” she said. “You may come out with us, but you must do my bidding exactly. If you do not, the power from this stone will find you out and destroy you or wall you up forever in some dark place!”

  There was a change in the old mill; the air was soft and pleasant with a smell of meadow flowers. A thread of melody, a little song, lived in the old timbers. The fetch was docile, but she did not trust it completely. She went quickly up into the dome of the mill again, and as she passed by the eastern window, she was caught and held by the strangest scene of all.

  She saw a windy autumn day, the sky full of mares’ tails. A party of riders were setting out on the road to Varda. Their clothes were rich but somber; she thought some were armed. In the midst of the riders was a figure in white upon a white horse. It was too far away for her to tell if this mysterious rider was a young man or a woman. For a moment she thought of Sharn Am Zor, but she doubted if he would ever learn to sit a prancing steed so well. As she watched, the white rider waved a hand, slowly and purposefully, then the whole company was out of sight behind the hedges of the Varda road.

  “Come then,” she said to the two men, “we will go out. Take my hand, Sergeant, and you, Highness, take the sergeant’s hand. Be careful on the stair.”

  They followed her like sleepwalkers; the mill was sweet and quiet. At one turn of the stair, they heard weeping; and at another, there was a globe of light that danced about over their heads. They went down and down, and Aidris led the way out of the dark door. The sun was covered by a thin film of cloud, and they could see the boundaries of the spell, the charmed circle that lay around the mill, like a mist. The prince’s horse stood some way off, and now it was afraid, trembling; it gave its master a nervous greeting when he appeared. The cause of its fear lay close by the door: the dead body of the young kern, Simmen, pale and unmarked. Aidris guessed that his neck was broken.

  “Bring the mare, Highness,” said Aidris firmly. “She must carry out poor Simmen.”

  The prince moved cautiously through the grass and led the mare closer, then he held her head while Sergeant Wray lifted up his young comrade and laid him across the rich saddle. There came again that windy clattering from inside the mill, which struck fear into all of them. Aidris took the sergeant’s hand again, and then came the prince, leading his horse. They took the same track that Aidris had made in the dew-wet grass, now warm and dry underfoot. As she walked along, Aidris became aware of a little track that grew in the grass at her side, as if some animal walked beside her across the meadow.

  So they came at last to the bridge, and Aidris walked on boldly into the mist itself, feeling the firm boards under her feet. She stared ahead and saw shapes form in the mist: men and women standing stock still, like figures in a dream. For a moment she was afraid, but then she saw that these were watchers of flesh and blood, waiting for their return. For a few paces she saw them as uncanny, dwellers in another world, and yet she knew most of them. Niall of Kerrick, Ortwen, Mother Mora and the miller himself, and Dickon, the young lad. Megan Brock stood there with an officer in strange livery, and a fair-bearded man, fancily dressed, whom she took for Fantjoy, the prince’s servant. There were children come to gape, and Gavin, the lame waker, from the barracks.

  Aidris came out of the mist completely and stood aside at the entry to the narrow bridge to let the sergeant, the prince and the mare with its burden go past her. The watchers came forward as if a spell was broken and gathered round the sergeant and the prince.

  Aidris glanced down at the grass by the bridge and said quickly, “Go to Niall of Kerrick in the brown and yellow robe. Serve him faithfully. In his service is your freedom.”

  There was no sign that she had been heard; she might have been muttering to the air. People were coming towards her. She flung up a hand and spoke the word of unbinding given her by Prince Terril. A wild wind sprang up, whirling about the mill, catching at the hair and clothes of those watching, bending the poplar trees. Hats flew off, geese ran honking along the river bank, dogs barked, the horses plunged and reared. Then the wind was gone, as suddenly as it had arisen, and with a harsh grating sound like a long sigh, part of the old mill fell away as they watched, a wall crumbled and fell in, raising a cloud of dust.

  “Venn,” said Megan Brock, “did you do that?”

  “No, Captain,” said Aidris, “not entirely.”

  The kedran captain smiled at last, watching Aidris very keenly.

  “It was well done,” she said. “You brought out Wray and the prince. We have heard something of the business from that damned courtier, what’s his name, Fantjoy.”

  “It was too late for poor Kern Simmen,” said Aidris.

  She saw that the sergeant and a company of men-at-arms were preparing to take their young comrade’s body back to the hall.

  “Captain,” she said. “I am uneasy about the whole tale. Where was this Fantjoy all night long?”

  “Knocked silly behind the mill,” said Megan Brock. “Or so he says. This spell or charm flung him some way when it was set down, and he came to himself after you had gone to the rescue. What are you saying, Venn?”

  “The whole working was directed against the visitors, the two princes at the crossroads,” said Aidris. “Oh, I am sure Terril meant it as a prank, no more; but if the charm had been set at the crossroads, the working might have been much worse than here. It was pure chance that the old mill had a fetch and the charm rebounded.”

  “I am not up in magic,” said the captain, “but I accept your judgement. You must write a full report.”

  “I still don’t know the time of day,” said Aidris.

  “Past four o’clock,” said the captain. “There was no other hitch, Goddess be praised. Grey Company lacked two horses, but the whole thing went off . . . like a charm. The princes came safely to the hall. This little sideshow has been hushed up. You and Cash are excused from duty until the morning.”

  She saluted, cocking an eye at the prince and his servant who now approached.

  “This is my witch-maiden,” said Terril. “You see, Fantjoy . . . Kerrick Hall is full of surprises.”

  Fantjoy was subdued and weary, all his curls wilting. He had obviously been badly frightened. He snatched up Aidris’s hand nevertheless, and she saw Ortwen grinning as he kissed it.

  “Ch-charmed,” he stammered. “You saved my master, Kedran Venn.”

  “You have put me in your debt,” said Prince Terril. “Ask something, my dear. What will you have?”

  “Nothing at this time, Highness,” said Aidris steadily. “Perhaps when I ride home, one of these years, I will need something.”

  “Ride home?”

  “The kedran surely comes from the Ch-chameln lands,” put in Fantjoy softly.

  “That explains a lot,” said the prince airily. “They are all witches there!”

  She escaped from the pair of them and came to Niall of Kerrick. The whole crowd of watchers had dispersed and were walking or riding away, some to the hall.

  “You must tell me the tale one day,” said Niall.

  “It was a bad business,” said Aidris. “They play at magic in Athron, Master Kerrick.”

  “I know it,” he said, “but you have done bravely. Perhaps some good will come of this sorry jest. Look . . . I have found a friend!”


  There at his side, tongue lolling, trotted a curly black dog, not as large as a lurcher but bigger than a terrier. Niall bent down and ruffled its poll.

  “A stray,” he said. “I’ll call him Crib, I think, for an old dog I had once as a boy.”

  “It is a good name,” said Aidris. “Here, Crib!”

  The dog seemed to know its name already. It danced about, and she patted it and gazed into its yellow-brown eyes.

  “I am sure it will serve you faithfully,” she said.

  Niall seemed about to speak again, but then he lowered his eyes and walked off in silence with the black dog gambolling at his heels. Aidris was left alone with Ortwen and their two horses.

  “I’m wrung out,” said Ortwen, “and Goddess knows how you must feel.”

  “It has been a long day,” said Aidris, “but longer for you than for me. In there the time passed more quickly.”

  “Trouble,” grumbled Ortwen, as they led the horses along the road. “You draw it to yourself, Venn, like honey draws the bees and wasps. Now it’s more than house folk, it’s a prince. And that sweet-smelling hand-kisser, F-f-fantjoy.”

  “Don’t nag,” said Aidris. “At least we’re off duty and can sleep or go watch the dancing.”

  As they passed the mill, Mother Mora stood on its bridge. Aidris returned the little cloth-wrapped charm that she had carried up her sleeve. She thought of the mill and shuddered.

  “What is in the charm, good mother? Can you tell me?”

  “Carach leaves,” said the old woman, “powdered fine and mixed with . . . certain other things. Our good Athron magic. You have laid the fetch. You have the power and the spirit for such things.”

  “I did not seek this power,” said Aidris.

  “It is a gift,” said Mother Mora. “Give thanks for it.”

  Aidris mounted up, feeling a pleasant sense of the end of the adventure. She rode back with Ortwen through the cool evening, and when they came up the avenue to the hall, the lamps were already lit and they could hear the musicians tuning up for the night’s festivities.

  “The honeymooners came safe home?” she asked, “Lady Sabeth and Sir Gerr?”