A Princess of the Chameln

by Cherry Wilder

  “My Queen . . .”

  It was Lingrit, prompting her to answer some question. Her attention had wandered just as the king’s had done.

  She bided her time. The Morrigar rode off to drill with the king’s army camped about Radroch Town. She went down to the hall with the young officer Gefion from her escort and found Sansom, the warden.

  “I will see your prisoners,” she said.

  Since his ill-mannered reception of the queen, Sansom had worked hard to make amends. She tried to see what manner of man he was; he looked solid and commonplace.

  “Come, my Queen,” he said. “This is a good time for it. Come and take a look.”

  He led the way down a winding stair in the inner bailey, at the base of the tower. A landing ran off unexpectedly like a shelf. He led Aidris and the ensign along it and into a round room with a few padded settles as if it had been used by gentlefolk. There was a stone grille set low in the wall; between the ornamental leaves and flowers of the stonework, the watchers could look down into two large cells, whitewashed, windowless, lying about four feet below the round room.

  “The true dungeons are lower still,” explained Sansom. “They are no longer used. This place is the menagerie where Lord Zabrandor kept strange beasts. He had a black bear once, from the northern mountains, and a lynx and a white deer.”

  Aidris looked with numb foreboding. In one cell the false Aidris lay asleep on a bed of straw. There was a large mirror in her cell and a high-backed chair tied with bedraggled red ribbons.

  “She has a pretty face,” said Aidris. “What do you think of this poor false queen, Master Sansom?”

  If she thought to trap the man into some heartless words, she failed for he answered, full of pity, “Someone has filled her head with all this mummery and pretence, my Queen.”

  In the neighboring cell Raff Raiz sat quietly reading a book. He wore a suit of Lienish satin, ill-kept, in bright spring-green and yellow.

  “And the false king, Master Sansom? What of him?”

  “He knows what he has done, poor devil,” said Sansom. “He expects . . .”

  “What?”

  “The punishment for high treason. It can only end one way . . .”

  His voice trailed off as if he recollected that he was speaking to the queen.

  “Take me down,” she said. “I will speak to the false king.”

  The warden and the young ensign stood at the door of the cell, but she went in alone and pulled the door to behind her. Raff Raiz stood up, as if his joints were painful, then he knelt down at her feet. She experienced the death of love, an unreasoning bitterness that made it difficult for her to speak.

  “Jalmar Raiz did this,” she said. “Has he left you to your fate?”

  “He came out of Dechar with my brother.”

  Raff did not raise his eyes.

  “Who is the false queen? Where did he find her?”

  “I do not know her true name,” he said. “She is a player, a player’s wench, out of Balufir. She is innocent. She should be spared.”

  “And you?”

  He sat down on the floor of the cell and stretched his legs. He still did not look her in the face.

  “The plan worked,” he said. “Dechar was held. Sharn Am Zor rose to the challenge. I risked my life. I risked . . . your displeasure.”

  She had nothing to say to him. She knew what must be done and done quickly, but she could not consult with him. She said, with an effort, “I will do what must be done.”

  She went out of the cell, her face stiff with disgust.

  “Fetch the prisoners a change of clothes, Master Sansom,” she ordered. “Plain soldiers’ dress. Their royal raiment has grown foul. Wait upon me in my chamber when it is done.”

  Then when they had climbed out of the menagerie into the courtyard, she said to Ensign Gefion, “Send Sergeant Lawlor to me as soon as the Morrigar return from their drill.”

  There was a need for haste because the king was coming that night. Zabrandor was entertaining the Daindru in his lodge; his servants were already busy in the kitchens. Aidris sat in her chamber and plotted like a witch.

  Outside, the sky over the plain had grown white; the first snows of winter had begun to fall. She looked out at the whitening plain and saw the snow covering a heap of evergreen, far off by the old sheepfold. The kedran had buried Telavel and laid pine branches upon the grave. She thought of the forces of Hem Allerdon marching south, harried by the tribes, and wondered if he had had word of the disaster at Adderneck.

  Sansom, when he came to her, already had a gleam in his eye that she recognised. He was afraid; he did not know what the queen was planning.

  “Master Sansom,” she said, “the prisoners give me no rest. I must take care of them.”

  He stared at her, moistening dry lips.

  “My Queen . . .”

  “I mean to set them free.”

  He shook his head in unbelief.

  “The king,” he said, “the king brought them here!”

  “I will answer for the king,” she said. “You must deliver up the keys of the menagerie and of their cells.”

  “My Queen . . . I dare not . . . the king . . .”

  “You must give me the key of that secret stair,” she said. “The one that the poor false queen used to come to your bedchamber, Master Sansom! Would it please the king to hear of that, I wonder?”

  He had been standing before her, awkwardly; now he forgot himself and sat down on a stool by the fireside. He was sweating.

  “She tempted me,” he said. “It is not as bad as you think . . .”

  “Do not blame that poor girl for what you have done,” she said.

  “I am not a gaoler!” he burst out. “I am . . . I was an honest man. I did not hurt her. I helped both prisoners, to food and comforts. She is some kind of singing-girl—the king himself, the king . . . talked to her privately . . .”

  His voice trailed away. Aidris sprang up angrily, and Sansom fell to his knees before her.

  “The keys, Master Sansom,” she said, controlling her anger. “Get up, sit on the stool. I think I have a commission for you that will take you far from the keep for the rest of the day.”

  “Yes, my Queen,” he said thickly, “a commission . . .”

  He was fumbling the keys from the iron ring that hung at his belt.

  “You must ride into Radroch Town to the cloth merchants there who were given the work and bring back the new hangings and rugs for this chamber. I wish to be fine when the king visits me this night after the feast.”

  It was a most royal commission . . . the kind of hasty demand that kept servants working while others sat down to feast. She watched from the south window of her tower as Sansom galloped away with two of the garrison, headed for Radroch. The Morrigar were already riding back to their quarters; she received Sergeant Lawlor before she ate her midday meal.

  Her officer from Grey Company had caught wind of the queen’s strange humor. Aidris had a longing, as she saw Lawlor’s homely face, for the security and order of the kedran barracks. Now she was carried by events, by the movements of armies, like a leaf on a stream, or she set intrigues in motion, like this one. Yet she must see it through to the end, and the end was good.

  “Sergeant,” she said, “you must help me. It is a matter of the highest secrecy and trust. Take three or four kedran from Athron.”

  Through the long wintery afternoon, the queen was sociable and kind. She walked upon the battlements of the keep with Lingrit and Gerr of Kerrick, listened to music with a merry company of her two waiting women, Yvand and Lorn Gilyan, and Master Carless, her lute player, borrowed from the king. The court of the Zor arrived at dusk from Radroch Town; there was a great coming and going throughout the keep, and at last the Daindru sat down to feast. The talk was all of preparation for the next encounter with Mel’Nir; the king’s generals, Seyl of Hodd, Anke of Caddah and Old Zabrandor, felt victory very close.

  The hour was late when Aidr
is and Sharn left the hall and went up to the queen’s chamber. The new hangings and rugs were in place, and even the king found them very fine. The fire was pleasant; Yvand had brewed tea.

  “Can you talk of a matter close to my heart, dear cousin?” asked Aidris.

  “What would you have?” he asked, smiling.

  “The prisoners, the false Aidris and the false Sharn. They will not let me rest.”

  “What, have you not seen them yet?” he cried. “Come . . . we’ll wake them . . .”

  “No,” she said. “I have seen them. I have spoken with them. I know who or what they are and who set them up.”

  Sharn gulped a mouthful of tea; he stared at her, still flushed and bright-eyed from the Lienish wine at the banquet.

  “You know more than I do, cousin,” he said.

  “I doubt that,” she said. “Could you forget a man who saved my life at least? Do you know nothing of Jalmar Raiz the Healer, the turncoat Lienish spy, and his son Raff?”

  “Oh, it is the false king you know,” said Sharn.

  “Not half so well, dearest coz, as you know the false queen . . .”

  “Tush,” he said, flushing darkly. “Is there backstairs gossip even in this wretched keep? What ails you, Aidris? Will you teach me my duty? The false queen is a poor poppet.”

  “She is Hazard’s friend . . .” said Aidris in a moment of intuition.

  Sharn Am Zor turned pale; he went from red to white and was completely sober on the instant.

  “What do you want?” he asked. “What will you have me do with these creatures?”

  “They have played their part,” said Aidris. “They must trouble us no more.”

  “You mean to kill them?” he snapped. “To have them put down, secretly or openly?”

  He struck out at her, she knew, for that one word . . . Hazard.

  “No, cousin,” she said. “I mean that we must set them free.”

  He sat in silence, drinking his tea, and looked so young, a child at the fireside, his silks and satins some player’s dress worn for the winter festival.

  “They committed high treason,” he said. “They struck at our sacred right. The man, Jalmar Raiz, who went about with them in Dechar, is a notorious intriguer, a creature of Kelen’s, a thief.”

  “Dechar was held,” she said. “Our right is secure. I do not know what Jalmar Raiz really planned. He drew you out of Lien to uphold the Daindru. I believe he knew where I was hidden and did not betray me. He had our lives, both our lives, in his hand that day at Musna and had no thought of ‘putting down’ those two children, the Heir of the Zor and the Heir of the Firn. Now he tests our feelings, cousin. We are each bound in friendship to those pretenders. If we kill them, we kill ourselves. We kill the mercy of the Goddess that should live in the heart of every ruler.”

  “You speak like a Moon Sister,” said Sharn. “There is no mercy . . . for us, for anyone. You can have your wish. The pretenders . . . Hazard’s light o’ love, and Raff Raiz, the magician’s son . . . they can be released from their captivity.”

  He smiled at her.

  “Let us send for Carless, the lute player,” he said.

  He walked to the door, and she heard him talking to his escort, the King’s Guard, tall mercenaries of Lien, for he no longer seemed to trust the traditional royal guard of kedran. He was gone for only a few seconds, and then they waited until Carless came in. He was a beaming, pleasant little man with a warm, sweet voice, and he sang a song that Aidris recognised from her book, a song by Robillan Hazard.

  “O Taranelda, my true love,

  I love you better for this pain,

  This absence from your presence, sweet,

  This silence in our love’s refrain.”

  Sharn relaxed, dreaming by the fire; the candles burned low. When he moved a hand to brush the hair from his eyes, the firelight caught his rings and sent points of light scurrying about on the new hangings. Aidris remembered Aravel, his mad mother, in the palace of the Firn, at Achamar.

  “Come harp and lute and lovely flute,

  With lilting flight of harmony,

  To render all my longings mute

  And bring my dear love back to me.”

  The song was sweet, but she was far away from any thoughts of love. If she longed for anything, it was for peace. As the last notes faded into silence, there were heavy steps and raised voices outside the door, and she heard Ensign Gefion shouting angrily. Engist, the king’s master-at-arms, burst into the room with a drawn sword.

  “Remember where you are, man!” said Sharn Am Zor.

  The old soldier did not even sheath his sword.

  “Majesty,” he said, “the prisoners are gone! The cells are disordered . . . their clothes lie there . . .”

  Sharn sprang up. His rage would have been more frightening to Aidris if it had not so perfectly resembled the rage of Sharn the child.

  “Treachery!” he said hoarsely. “Firnish treachery . . .”

  “Get your henchman out of my chamber!”

  She raised her voice, and the man slunk away. Sharn continued to rave and swear.

  “You talk of mercy? Are they dead then? You have done this thing, Aidris. They say you are a witch. Must I rule with a damned Firnish witch queen? Did I suffer all my life to be crossed and cozened by a woman now that I am king?”

  “You are found out, cousin,” she said. “You sent Engist to kill the prisoners!”

  “To fetch them!” he said angrily. “To bring them up the secret stair to this chamber.”

  “Engist . . . your master-at-arms?”

  “Believe me,” he said. “Aidris . . .”

  He sat down again, his whole body shaking. She did not know the truth; she would never know it. She stood beside him and put her arms about him.

  “They are safe,” she said. “We are safe. Your suffering must have an end. You have come home again, Sharn. You are king in the Chameln lands, and I am queen.”

  She thought she saw those two, Raff Raiz and the nameless girl, the players’ wench, wandering about in the snowy night. Yet this was only her cruel fantasy; Lawlor told her a different tale.

  “It worked like a charm, Dan Aidris. We went down to the cells, muffled up that precious pair a little and came out with them. The yard of the keep was full of soldiers and house servants . . . who counted heads? The false queen was frightened at first, but we told her to be a good girl and go into exile like a true queen. No shortage of horses—we set her up behind the false king on a big charger captured by Adderneck. We brought them past Radroch Town, as you said, all the way to the shore of the Danmar, within the king’s territory.

  “There was some magic in all this, I think, for they were awaited. We stood with them on the strand, and a man hailed us from a boat. He had a child with him, or perhaps it was a dwarf. The boat drew into shore, and the young man put the poor false queen aboard, then stepped in himself. The man in the boat, who had the look of a scholar, thanked us for our trouble and commended himself to the queen. Then the boat put out into the inland sea.”

  Sergeant Lawlor squinted at Aidris, smiling.

  “The false king,” she said. “I had the feeling I had seen him once before. He had a look of that tall, yellow-haired tumbler that Grey Company met in a village way to the north of Athron, coming home from the wedding by Wildrode.”

  Next day, when the snow lay thick, there came word of a large force approaching from the northwest over the plain. The army of Hem Allerdon, Mel’Nir’s best and most resourceful commander in the Chameln lands, had left the encampment before Vigrund and set out to meet the Red Hundreds. When they learned that their reinforcements were destroyed, Allerdon’s proud warriors moved on over the wintery plain like an army of ghosts. The northern tribes followed, harried the army on the plain and moved into the hills of the center. Zerrah was already recaptured.

  The other generals of Mel’Nir had waited confidently by the Danmar for the next encounter with the king’s horde. Now shake
n by the disaster that had been left for them to discover, some of their numbers were tempted to fly the field, by land or by sea. Yet they would not abandon their countrymen. They moved out to join Allerdon, and their retreat was cut off. The time of pitched battles was over. The forces of Mel’Nir were mauled by the Chameln and turned to seek for winter quarters in the hills of the center.

  So it was that a force of the Nureshen and the Oshen who had pursued Allerdon’s men arrived at Radroch. Aidris watched them come from her tower and, at last, mounted the new grey colt Berith and rode out to meet Bajan and Jana Am Wetzerik. There was great rejoicing. She saw Nenad Am Charn, Millis, his daughter, mounted upon Tamir, and one Athron knight, the indefatigable Sir Jared Wild of Wildrode, who had determined to see the adventure through to the end.

  “But Queen Aidris,” he trumpeted, “where is your sweet grey mare, Telavel?”

  She bent to stroke Tamir and hid her tears so as not to spoil the pleasure of the meeting.

  The winter pressed upon all the armies and upon the Daindru and their personal followers. Radroch and the towns of the plain were garrisoned as far east as Dechar and Winnstrand. Old Zabrandor led out the Morrigar once more and came swiftly to the old walled town of Nevgrod, nearby in the hills, and held it so that the men of Mel’Nir could not take refuge there. The Daindru were brought through to winter in the Old Palace, which rose above the town. This ancient monument had served none but a small garrison of Mel’Nir in the past seven years, and they had quartered their horses in the great hall. It was made fast for winter, cleared of rats and old swallows’ nests; and by the time of the winter feast, Sharn Am Zor confessed himself at least half satisfied.

  At Nevgrod Aidris learned to sit still and play the queen. Bajan went about and saw to the quartering of the troops; Lingrit came to her with affairs of the kingdom. She had named him her Chancellor and Nenad Am Charn her new Torch Bearer and his son Racha Am Charn the new trading envoy. She had her nobles with whom she dined, her waiting women and the kedran of her escort who knew her tastes, and the hours when she ate and slept. She saw that her court, the court of the Firn, would always be, like Athron, warm, rich, but not glittering like the court of the Zor, which resembled Lien.