“Good Huntsman,” she asked, “who is Mistress Quade’s partner? Can you tell me?”
“What, has that beanpole caught your eye, little witch?”
“Of course not.” She laughed. “But I have seen the lady before, and I believe it was in my homeland.”
“Come, we will walk back to them,” said the Prince. “You dance marvellously well, do you know that?”
“Only as well as my partner!”
They walked the length of the hall, and Aidris saw that the tall man, Mistress Quade’s partner, had taken off his mask. She knew him at once. Sunlight after rain, drifts of maple leaves, blood red in the streets of Achamar. Nazran laughed sadly and arranged the wooden shutter so that she remained in shadow. There in the street was a young Knight Forester upon a white horse, accompanied by a kedran . . . the first knight questor that she had ever beheld.
“Poor devil!” said Prince Terril unexpectedly. “They have a somewhat tragic history, those two.”
“Should I hear it before we meet them?” she asked.
“We should not spoil the pleasure of the time,” said Terril. “They cannot marry, that is the heart of it. A matter of inheritance.”
So they came to the netted bower of the birds again, and she was presented to Sir Jared Wild of Wildrode.
Mistress Quade curtsied to the prince and said in a particular voice to Sir Jared, “The kedran comes from the Chameln lands . . .”
“Sir knight,” said Aidris, “I am certain that I saw you riding once in the streets of Achamar, upon a white charger.”
“That was long ago, I think,” said Sir Jared.
He was very handsome in the manner of the Zor, with thick fair hair, cut in a round knight’s crop, and pale skin. She contrasted him with that other handsome knight, Gerr of Kerrick, and thought of them riding side by side. Sir Jared lacked his right eye, he wore an eye-patch of white leather; a disfiguring scar held down the corner of his mouth on the right side. His speech was halting; his right hand twitched upon the table top. Aidris wondered what adventure he and his kedran had found upon the High Plateau of Mel’Nir, searching for the ruined city.
“I will always owe the Knights of the Foresters a special duty,” she said, “for it was Gerr of Kerrick who helped me to come out of the Chameln lands into Athron.”
“We met Gerr, did we not?” said Sir Jared. “We met him by Vigrund, when the border was first closed.”
“Yes,” said Mistress Quade, soothing. “Yes, you are right.”
The next courses of the banquet were being ushered into the chamber, and it was the sign for more foolery, for all the maskers must now be accommodated at the table of the young women. Aidris was glad to find herself between the Prince and Fantjoy, who ate neatly and drank moderately. The splendors of the Varda Benefit continued to unfold: jugglers, sword-dancers, favors and candies for all the guests. Before the next remove, when the dancing became general, the Princess Josenna had excused herself and sailed off with her women, leaving Prince Flor with his boon companions.
The lights burned lower; it was close to midnight. Prince Terril led Aidris out again into the rank of the dancers. As they came to the open doors, he danced her out into the north court where a sprinkling of other couples danced or sought the shadows. The night air was delicious. The prince took off his mask, and they strolled in the north walk, a cool covered way under the balcony of the long gallery. Terril tightened his arm about her waist, drew her aside between two pillars and kissed her.
She had not been kissed in this way in her life before, but it seemed a thing that could be learned quickly. They kissed again and sank down on a convenient bench built into the pillars. Terril’s breath upon her cheek came less gently, but just as she became afraid, remembering Loeke, the forest guide, his reek and roughness, the Prince drew back, smiling, his fine dark eyes fixed upon her.
“Green-eyes,” he whispered, “what a spell you have put over me . . .”
She could not look at him, but bent her head upon his shoulder.
“Sweetheart,” said the Prince, “listen well to what I say, do not answer at once. I need you . . . come to Varda with me, be my kedran, my rune-mistress, what you will. Exile is long. I think I know your state. You are of decent birth, the daughter of some Chameln lord. You are not a child, but, by your kissing, still a maid . . .”
She wondered how to let him down lightly. She found herself reckoning with dreadful clarity that whether she went home or spent her whole life in exile this might be the pleasantest offer she would receive; a proposal that was dishonorable, certainly, but not unthinkable.
“Prince,” she said, “you are indeed such a man as I might love, but I cannot do it. For one thing, I am betrothed.”
“Ah, who is betrothed?” he whispered. “The kedran or the lord’s daughter?”
“In Varda, I swear to you, I might be in danger and bring danger upon others,” she said. “Besides, I have been well treated in this place, in Kerrick.”
He stared at her, lifted a hand to smooth the hair from her forehead. Torchlight from the courtyard showed his face, sad but not petulant. His own care, his life as a prince of Athron and a younger brother, showed in his face. She felt a moment of real tenderness for Terril of Menvir.
“The years are long,” he said gently. “There is always a place for you. You did me a service, and I still have a favor to grant you.”
“I will remember.”
“I will tell you something,” said Terril, “and you must believe it, for love and friendship. You have a friend who is no friend, who would be glad if you left the hall and came to Varda in my service.”
She said nothing, did not say the name that first came to mind, and heard him with a kind of relief.
“I mean Gerr of Kerrick!”
“But why?”
He smiled, an intriguer’s smile that she had seen often in the courts of Achamar, and it made her feel foolish, a child again.
“He is jealous of all those close to his new wife,” said the Prince. “He will break all her former ties and guide her by himself.”
She could only shake her head sadly, thinking of the long way through the forest, all the perils she had passed, with Sabeth, and how Gerr had saved them both.
“I count them both as my friends,” she said.
There was a particular cheerful whistle from the darkness, and inside Hot Commons the musicians began to play “The Golden Stag,” a kind of anthem for the house of Menvir.
“Drat!” said Prince Terril. “It is time for the toasts, and Fantjoy is calling me. Let us go in . . .”
“I will stay here,” she said.
They kissed again, quickly and lightly. He was gone. She sat alone, breathing deeply, feeling that the world was full of leave-taking, of lying tales and false friends. She felt sick and stifled at the thought of the banquet room and so stole into the north court and crossed before the lighted doors of Hot Commons. A few huntsmen were reeling and laughing in the middle of the court. She came to an outside stair and climbed swiftly to the balcony overhead.
The long gallery, in the manner of Eildon, linked the new north and south wings of the Hall, but in Athron’s mild climate, a balcony was also possible. Aidris liked it as well as any place in that fine house. It was long and broad and still, with blue fir trees that smelled of the Chameln lands and the winter festival. She looked up to the hill and wished she might speak to the Carach tree. She might have taken out her scrying stone, but it was tucked away in her locked press in the barracks.
She walked to the second tree and perched upon its stone urn, leaning on the balustrade. There were lights burning in the upper rooms of the hall where the “house folk” and their guests were still watching or feasting more decorously than those below at the Varda Benefit. She thought of Sabeth and Gerr, and wished she might come to them as a friend, as she had done in past winters. Where would she go in the New Year if they did not welcome her in the hall? She fell into a long waking dream in
which she quit Kerrick Hall and went home to her own land, all alone except for Telavel. She slipped through the Grafell Pass or the Wulfental and went into the forest and accepted whatever doom she found. Perhaps to come to the northern tribes, to Bajan, wherever he was hiding himself. Perhaps to be captured and pent up by the Melniros in Ledler Fortress, where Nazran might still be alive. Perhaps to die in the forest, alone, but in her own country.
A door opened far away at the southern end of the balcony; she vaguely saw three, four dark figures come out. She remained still, in her shadow; soft voices drifted through the night air. She realised that the language was strange to her. It was not any variant of the common speech, the drawl of Eildon or the richer burr of Athron, and it was not the Old Speech. There was only one other tongue that it might be, and she could guess at only one group of persons who might speak it familiarly. This must be Chyrian, the old speech of Eildon; and those speaking it must be those mysterious messengers who served Prince Ross.
Her first thought was to escape by running down the stairs again and hiding herself in the crowded banquet. She moved lightly to the shadow of another tree and heard a change in the tone of the voices. She had been seen. There was a soft hail, a woman’s voice calling “Who is there?” Aidris was a long way from them; she stepped out boldly from behind the tree and began to walk briskly to the stairway. There was a command in Chyrian, and then they descended upon her, all three, their long cloaks billowing.
“Stay! We command you!”
She saw them over her shoulder quite clearly in the autumn night: the woman, the old man, the dark man. There was a quick gust of wind, a sound of bird wings high in the air above her head, and she saw only two figures. The dark man was ahead of her, blocking her way to the stair.
“Come, lady,” he said gently, “the Prince would speak with you.”
Aidris saw that a tall figure stood waiting. She lifted her head and walked towards Ross of Eildon. The messengers drew back and came slowly in her wake. She walked directly into his light. His strangeness did not diminish as she came closer. He was as tall as a warrior of Mel’Nir, yet without the hulking presence of the young giants. His face was very smooth and pale; his eyes were a luminous grey. She thought of the eyes of the huntsmen gleaming through their gilded masks.
“What do you call yourself, child?”
The voice was muted, soothing.
“Kedran Venn, Highness.”
“You are the Heir of the Firn. What are your given names?”
“Racha Sabeth Aidris Am Firn. But I am called Aidris.”
“You have hidden yourself very thoroughly. Yet you walk about in the night dressed in fine Chameln raiment . . .”
“I have been attending the Varda Benefit.”
They smiled at each other.
“I begin to understand,” said Prince Ross. “You were the kedran who came over the mountains with young Kerrick and his Golden-Hair. She is your waiting woman. Why did they not bring you to me in Eildon?”
Aidris could only smile and shake her head. Old magic, it seemed, was no protection against prejudice.
“Sir Gerr and Lady Sabeth are the friends of Kedran Venn,” she said. “They know nothing of my state. I have told no one. I would remain unknown.”
She turned her head towards the messengers. He summoned them with hardly a gesture; they flowed silently along the balcony, creatures of Eildon, strange as the prince himself.
“Dravyd,” said Prince Ross, indicating the old man, “Nieva and Gil. The messengers of the Falconers. Servants of the houses of Eildon and of their kindred throughout the lands of Hylor.”
Her servants then, or at least loyal to her house. The old man was thin and tall as a shaman, the woman, Nieva, held in her silvery hands a small stringed instrument, the dark man, Gil, looked at her with bright bird’s eyes. She inclined her head and they bowed, smiling.
“Come, Aidris Am Firn,” said the prince. “We will sit together.”
She laid her hand in his cool hand, and he led her across the long gallery into a rich and pleasant chamber where a fire burned low. The messengers did not follow, there were no other servants. They sat in two cavernous chairs by the fireside, and Prince Ross poured wine into glass beakers set in silver holders.
“You are tired of waiting,” he said; “but it is because of your youth. Exile must be borne.”
“I will bear it!”
“You have chosen a comfortable place—Athron. I was exiled once upon a rock in the ocean, hardly an island.”
“When?” she asked. “For how long?”
“Six years,” he replied, “seven . . . I have forgotten. Ages past. I look strange to you, child, because I mask my years with spells.”
He stretched out a hand upon the velvet cover of the table between them; the hand, well-fleshed and strong, wavered before her eyes. It became a gaunt, knotted hand, incredibly old, the rings hanging loose upon the fingers and the skin flecked brown and white. The transformation passed quickly, the prince’s hand was well-formed again; the aged hand might have been the illusion, not the one she saw now.
“Your houses of the Daindru are bayed about with enemies,” he said. “I cannot do much. In fact, I will not. But a touch upon the web can help. What will you ask of me?”
She thought, sipping the wine.
“My cousin, Sharn Am Zor, is in Lien,” she said. “His mother, Aravel, is mad, his Uncle Kelen is no friend to the Chameln lands. Sharn needs guidance and protection. There is an old councillor there at the court of Lien, one Rosmer, whose evil workings have pursued us. Do you know of him? He came out of Eildon.”
“Prince Sharn can find a friend,” said Ross of Eildon. “You think of him before yourself. Have you become too self-effacing in this Carach-shaded spot?”
“Rosmer . . .?” she persisted.
“He will run his course!” said the prince with a touch of heat. “He is not unassailable.”
“You know him then?”
“Let it be, child, let it be,” said Prince Ross with a sad tremor in his voice. “I know him. I should know him. He is my bastard son.”
They sat in silence, and when she dared to look at the prince again, he gave her a long smile.
“Choose for yourself,” he said.
She bent forward, staring into the dying fire and considering.
“The messengers,” she said. “They must fly into the Chameln lands and bring comfort to the people. They must tell it far and wide: the Heir of the Firn and the Heir of the Zor are not dead; they will come again, and the Daindru will be restored. And the messengers must visit Ledler Fortress and bring greeting and succor, even rescue, if this is within their power, to Nazran Am Thuven and his wife, the Lady Maren, who lie there imprisoned.”
She said, as an afterthought, “If they still live.”
“You choose very modestly. Is that all?”
“I would send a ring to my betrothed, Bajan Am Nuresh.”
She was cold and sad. It was painful to be known after so long and to send these few poor tokens.
“It will all be done, so far as it lies within the power of the messengers,” he said, “and word will be brought to you.”
“No!” she said. “I must remain . . . invisible, here at Kerrick. I will wait until my own people come to bring me home again.”
She began to tug from her hand a silver ring with a yellow stone, the only one she wore beside Bajan’s gold band with the turquoise stones. It was a gift from Lady Maren; she remembered how she had given a similar one, Nazran’s gift, to the old woman, the horse doctor, by Aldero, the forest village.
“Wait,” said Prince Ross.
He spoke in Chryian, and the woman, Nieva came in at once. At the prince’s word she brought a leather box from a press and went away again like smoke and left them alone. Prince Ross opened the box, and the firelight blazed on the jewels, jewels of Eildon with heavy settings of dark gold, with rubies, sapphires, sea pearls, cairngorms and garnets.
&n
bsp; She thought of the jewels of the Firn and of the Zor, treasures that she had never cared for or coveted, the ancient square crowns of gold and bronze lit with huge yellow diamonds and round emeralds, the lake-pearls, beryls, zargons, sardonyx and turquoise, the opals, jade, and lazulite woven into garments, all her birthright of jewels fallen into the hands of Werris and the rulers of Mel’Nir.
“Choose for yourself and for your betrothed,” said the Prince.
“Only for him,” said Aidris, tenderly. “These are jewels too fine for a kedran.”
She stared into the box and found a ring with a band of oak leaves worked in silver set with a black pearl. It fitted her thumb and would be large enough for Bajan.
“You are gifted,” said Prince Ross. “You choose well. That is the ring of Tamir, the Sea Oak Prince, and has a strong link to the Chameln lands.”
“Will you spare me such a treasure?” asked Aidris.
“It is yours,” said the Prince. “It will be sent into the Chameln lands to Bajan Am Nuresh before the new moon. I will charge the messengers.”
The fire burned blue and green. She wondered if time had altered as it had done in the old mill, if she would leave the fireside and find that the whole night had gone. They walked out again onto the balcony and she was glad to see that it was still dark. They were alone; down in the courtyard a few determined revellers still reeled and sang.
“Go well, Aidris Am Firn,” said Prince Ross.
He raised his hands and gave her a blessing in Chyrian.
She ran down the stairs again and came back to Hot Commons. It was the scrag end of the banquet; guests lay about, the tables were disordered, the princes had gone and so had the musicians. She gathered up cold capons, fruit and an unopened stone bottle of good wine and carried them back to the barracks in a cellarer’s basket. She put this offering by the pallet where Ortwen snored away and woke in the morning to find that the Varda Benefit was already a legend, a byword for drunken horseplay, rich food, lost maidenheads and every kind of scandalous behavior.
A Princess of the Chameln Page 17