The Book of Isle

by Nancy Springer

  “When we could, we fed the widows and orphans that the King had created,” said Hal bitterly, “and provided for the care of the poor, maimed wretches that emerged from his Dark Tower. Certainly he knew what we were doing, but he said nothing. It is not his way to speak—only to torment.

  “So, on my sixteenth birthday, my mother died. I was out practicing in the yard when Rhys shouted for me, and I ran in to find her in writhing torment. She grasped for me, and tried desperately to speak, but could not. She died in my arms. Obviously she had been poisoned, but no one could say by whom. The next day, with little ceremony, she was buried. The King did not come.

  “The following day, Rhys was seized in order to be flogged, then killed by the bowmen for target practice. I swallowed my pride and went to the King, begging for his life. He flew into a rage at what he called my insolence, and I was taken to the Tower. I am sure now that poor Rhys's death was only for this purpose, to torment me. The condition of my release was that I should sign a writ of obedience to the King. Even he knew that I would not break my word. When I refused to sign, I was hung in chains by my wrists and flogged. There was no daylight in that hole, but I think this went on for two days and nights. From time to time they varied the treatment with canes, or clubs, or burning irons, but the effect was the same."

  Alan looked sick, and Hal reached out to him. “Indeed, it was not as bad as it could have been. I was the heir to the throne, and the King had need of me if his vassals were to serve him. So he could not have me blinded, or castrated, or maimed.... They simply flogged me. After a while it became apparent that I was growing indifferent to the flogging and that they would have to try something else, so they took me down."

  Hal paused to steady himself before he continued. “What they did next could only have come from the mind of the fiend himself. They brought before me a goodly man, handsome, near middle age but powerful and trim of body. They told me that he was to be tortured, slowly, to the death, unless I put a stop to it by signing the King's writ. At this he cried out, “Do not heed them, my Prince!” They hit him across the face to silence him, and the blood ran down from the corner of his mouth. I stared, for to my knowledge I had never seen him before.

  “They started the tortures. After a while it seemed that he was senseless, and they left the room. He spoke to me at once, urging me never to give in to the King, but to escape him and fight him if I could. For, as he said, I was the only hope of the people of Isle. In wonder, then, I asked him his name, and he told me: Leuin, seventh lord of Laueroc."

  Alan gasped sharply, and Hal faced him with pity in his eyes. “Your father, Alan?"

  “Ay,” Alan managed to say. “Is he—is he —” He could not say the word.

  “Ay,” replied Hal softly. “He is dead."

  Alan groaned and lay back in the grass, breathing hard. After a few minutes he spoke. “In my mind, I knew he was dead. But in my heart, I always hoped that by some chance he was yet alive."

  He sat up. “Tell me what they did to him,” he demanded, fists clenched.

  “Oh, by any god, Alan, nay!” Hal pleaded. “Remember him as he was! This much I will tell you: never once did his courage fail him. For five days and nights, as nearly as I can tell, they tortured him with every fiendish machine in that dark place of horrors, but always he was steadfast in his endurance.” Hal spoke like one who, in spite of himself, must yet relive a bad dream. “If I cried out with him in his agony, or turned away my head, I was flogged. But the worst of it was that they tortured him even more cruelly then, thinking I would weaken. So I learned, for his sake more than for mine, to sit, and watch, and make no sign, though my blood ran cold. They let him keep his tongue, hoping that he would plead with me for his life, and they sometimes left us alone together for this purpose. But instead he always encouraged me. He told me that he was ready to die, that any life the King granted him would not be worth the living. He urged me, as before, never to yield to the King. And he spoke often of you, Alan. ‘I have a son,’ he would say, ‘just your age, born on the day of your birth. His name is Alan, and you and he are much alike in many ways, I think. I have sent him to safety with kinsfolk in the north, and I hope he may strike a blow for my people someday. He is a bold lad, and great of heart. I do not mind dying, so long as I know he is alive.’”

  “He spoke of me thus?” said Alan shakily.

  “He spoke of you thus, more than once.” Hal was silent a moment before he went on. “When they saw he would soon be dead, they put him to death in a way that they hoped would break my spirit. They tore him limb from limb on the rack. His last words were to me, and they were these: ‘All good go with you, Hal. Be brave. And if ever you see my son, tell him that I love him.’”

  Alan choked and turned away, hiding his face with his hands. Hal put his arms around him, and at last Alan gave in to his grief, weeping long and hard, as he had not wept since he was a child. When he could speak, his words were as bitter as his tears. “We parted in wrath on my side, sorrow on his,” he said. “He would not tell me why he was sending me north, and I did not want to go. It was not until I had arrived that I learned he had been taken by the King. I never had a chance to tell him....” His voice broke, and he could not go on.

  “He knew your love,” comforted Hal softly. “He needed no telling. Always he spoke of you with great joy and pride."

  Alan got up and went to wash his face in the stream. Hal put more sticks on the fire. When Alan returned, he looked as pale as if he had himself been through torture. “How did you get out?” he asked in a low voice.

  “When they killed him on the rack, I fainted—not for the first time. This time, when I awoke, I was alone, curled up on some filthy straw in a little cell. I suppose they had not yet decided what to do with me next. In the cell wall was a small, barred window. Looking out, I saw the full moon rising, shining on the ivy that covered the tower walls. In that instant I knew what I must do.

  “I was very weak, but my worst weakness was not of the body. I felt that my spirit was almost gone, that I could not hold out much longer. And so, although I could scarcely stand, I somehow managed by strength of desperation—perhaps by some good sorcery, from where I do not know—to force apart the bars enough to let my body through. I climbed down the Tower wall by grasping the ivy. Once down, I stumbled to the stables; Arundel broke his halter to come to me. I somehow got on his back, and we were off. I think we traveled for three days, but most of the time I knew nothing. I had no idea where we were until we came to the Forest, and to Trigg, one of the outlaws with Craig the Grim."

  Hal smiled, remembering that lucky meeting. “Trigg is a slow country fellow, but he has a heart as big as the sky. He was nearly in tears with coaxing Arundel when I came to myself. After I spoke to Arun, he got me to camp at last, and the outlaws cared for me well.... But it was a month before I could stand, and late autumn before I had regained my full strength. So I stayed through the winter with them, and finally left them early this past spring."

  Hal and Alan were walking up and down the banks of the stream, talking softly, arms around each other's shoulders. Though they had not rested since Hal's capture, neither had any thought of sleep.

  “I had been traveling about a month when I met you,” Hal finished. “But how did you come to be wandering?"

  “Some of my father's retainers took me to my mother's kinsfolk, near Rodsen,” replied Alan. “Then they went their ways, to find service where they might. But my mother's people feared the King's wrath. They shunted me from one household to another throughout the winter, until I was glad enough to relieve them of my presence, with the coming of spring. I had some notion of going back to Laueroc for revenge, though I did not feel really ready to get myself killed.... But the robbers interrupted my journey before I was much farther south than Gaunt.

  “Tell me, Hal, when did you suspect who I was?"

  “When you told me your name,” Hal smiled. “For I knew before then that you were brave, steadfast in
suffering like only one man I had ever met—and you look like him, Alan. And Leon Aleron, whose sword you wear, was your cousin, was he not? And Alfie, Alf Longshanks, was your great-great-grandfather, who won himself a willful bride —"

  “Ay, the lady Deona, fair as gold and stubborn as steel. Lauerocs since then have all looked like her, folk say."

  “So I could have asked you your birthday weeks ago,” Hal went on, “and discharged my duty to your father. I told myself I would not, for you were not yet well. But in truth, Alan, I did not speak because—because I was afraid."

  “How so?"

  “Afraid that you would hate me,” admitted Hal, with lowered eyes.

  “And why would I hate you?” asked Alan dryly.

  “For two reasons. First, because the blood runs in my veins of the vilest man, the greatest ill-doer, in all of Isle. Second, because I could have saved your father's life, and did not."

  Alan snorted. “Even supposing that the King kept his word, what sort of life would he have given my father? The width of a cell for pacing? He would have pined like a caged eagle. He felt pent even in Laueroc, roaming oftener than he was home.... And as for your tainted blood,” Alan continued warmly, “I tell you what I have often wished in the past weeks, and still do: I wish that Ket and the others were right, and that you were my brother in truth. For I tell you, I love you well, and I would be proud if your blood, of which you speak so poorly, ran in my veins."

  Hal ducked his head, unable to speak for emotion. Finally, softly, he asked, “Is this truly your wish, or but a manner of speaking?"

  “This is my wish."

  “Then,” Hal said slowly, “there is a way."

  “How?” Alan demanded.

  “My mother, as you know, was Welandais. She taught me the language and customs of the west land. Indeed, Welas is the home of my heart, though I have never been there. It is the law there that, if two men wish to become brothers, they settle this between themselves through a ceremony they perform. They are then forever afterward considered to be brothers, in law and in love."

  “What is this ceremony?” asked Alan eagerly.

  Hal took a deep breath. “Each man takes a sharp knife, and nicks the vein of his comrade's left wrist, here, where the heart's blood flows nearest the surface. It must be skillfully done, or one might die; therefore great trust is required of those who undertake this ceremony. Then the wrists are pressed tightly together, so that the two bloods mingle and are one, and oaths are taken, such as are seen fit. Thus the two men are made brothers. The word for it in Welandais is belledas, meaning ‘blood brother,’ whereas the word for ‘natural brother’ is mollendas. Blood brothers are held not only in equality to natural brothers, but in an honor of their own."

  Alan read the longing in Hal's eyes, and he knew that the same desire brightened his own. “Let us do it, Hal,” he said.

  In a few minutes they knelt on the bank of the stream, with bandages and hunting knives at hand. They bared their left arms to the elbow and laid the wrists side by side as Hal directed. Each grasped his knife with his right hand, and faced the other in the moonlight.

  “I am loath to hurt you,” whispered Alan.

  “Of all my wounds, I shall have one that I cherish,” answered Hal. “Fear not for me. Are you ready?"

  Alan nodded. In one moment each tapped the stream of the other's life, and at once they pressed their two wrists tightly together, so that their blood ran down and dripped from their elbows.

  Hal spoke huskily, reciting words dimly remembered from his study of Welandais lore. “As our blood mingles in our veins and becomes as one, so let our thoughts and our lives mingle and become as one."

  “Let us be brothers,” responded Alan quietly, “in blood and in love and in law."

  “So let it be written,” Hal said as if speaking to himself, “in Dol Solden. Even unto the closing of the Age."

  “So let it be written,” said Alan firmly, “in our hearts. Is there any more need of words between us, brother?"

  Hal looked into those brave blue eyes which gazed at him in joyous affection, and suddenly he knew that seventeen years of loneliness were at last over. He wept, and as Alan held him in a one-armed hug, his tears moistened the drying blood on their clasped arms.

  Later, they bandaged each other in matching white wristlets, smiling, aware of their absurdity but not embarrassed between themselves. They talked for hours, lazily, of Alan's loss and Hal's burden. It no longer hurt to speak of these things.

  Dawn was breaking before they unrolled their blankets and lay down. Hal fell asleep at once, like an exhausted and happy child, but Alan lay for a while looking at him. Much of the mystery of Hal was unfolding to him. So his comrade was a Prince! Hal's moodiness, his air of command, his self-possession and sense of purpose were all understandable in light of that fact. Moreover, he was of the royal Welandais blood! Even to Alan, pragmatist that he was, the name of Welas rang with a mystic summons. The Blessed Kings of Welas spoke with elves, folk said. Alan smiled, as he always did, at the ignorant superstitions of the peasantry. Still, he knew that the rulers of Welas were credited with a kind of second sight, an almost eerie wisdom. And their folk were something of a marvel. The Welandais were peaceloving, tuneful people; yet when war was forced upon them there were no fiercer fighters. Only by treachery, and by the use of armies ten times their force, did Iscovar at last succeed in subduing them.

  Alan felt sure that something of the peculiar Welandais temperament was involved in a portion of his conversation with Hal—a tiny detail, yet it was often on his mind. He had asked Hal the meaning of that strange phrase, Dol Solden, that he had used in his oath of blood brotherhood.

  “The Book of Suns,” Hal had explained. “It is a concept, like that of fate. In it are supposed to be written the events of men's days, their lifetimes, the ages of their history. One could call it the book of life."

  Alan had always been impatient with the esoteric, and this bordered on the nonsensical. “Well, if it is the book of life,” he had retorted scornfully, “then why is it called The Book of Suns?” A slightly pained look had washed across Hal's face, and Alan had said at once, “Never mind; forget it.” But Hal had stared with knit brows, eyes puzzled and distant, like someone trying to recall a dream lost with morning's rising. “I don't know,” he had muttered at last, more to himself than Alan. “I don't know.” It had taken minutes to bring him out of his trance. Remembering the incident, Alan sighed, thinking of the strangeness that flickered behind the misty veil of Hal's eyes.

  Indeed, he should have guessed before now that the blood of Welas ran in Hal's veins. And now in his own, Alan reflected with sober joy. He, like Hal, was an only child, and though his youth had been filled with family and companions there had been something missing. Now he had a friend and a brother such as come to few men in a lifetime, and he was glad. He knew that he loved Hal even more than he had loved his father. Still, even now he did not entirely know who it was that he loved. Was it a warlock, whose spells froze enemies and bent prison bars? If it was, Hal himself did not know his own power, Alan believed. But he felt that Hal was something more than sorcerer, something more than Prince, comrade or brother, and that something made him sigh. Something in those cloudy gray eyes saddened him. Hal had said that he would hold no secrets from his brother; but there was a secret in him, nevertheless.

  Chapter Five

  It was early afternoon when they awoke and eyed each other with half-humorous smiles. “I have not yet thanked you for saving my life,” Hal remarked.

  “Forget that.” Alan was surprised to find himself reddening. “There is no need of such words between us, brother."

  “There never was, even before yesterday.” Hal knelt, fussing with the fire. “But nevertheless, Alan, I am ashamed. You freed me from a stronghold at great risk to yourself, and all I could find to say was, where is my sword."

  Alan had to laugh, hearing his own sentiments so neatly mirrored. “Well, you hav
e need of a noble weapon,” he conceded. “How were you taken, Hal?"

  “Dreaming,” Hal admitted with a grimace. “Or thinking more of Corin than of the road.... Arundel tried to warn me, but I blundered right into the lordsmen. They knocked me down before I had a chance to draw a weapon. Then they tied me up and knelt to cast lots for my horse and gear. I had told Arundel not to fight; the odds were too great. But one of them held him slackly, like a palfrey, and I shouted at him to go. He broke away easily. And that,” Hal added, grinning, “is when they started beating me."

  “I thought as much,” Alan said. “I thought you could not be taken knowingly. Well, I suppose we shall have to be off after your sword."

  “Not today. I am exhausted, and the day is half spent."

  Alan felt the same, utterly fatigued, though more from emotion than from exertion. So they tended their horses and hung their blankets up to air, and ate the meat that Corin had left them.

  “What is the lineage of the sword?” Alan asked. He was still trying to understand Hal's recklessness in taking them onto the Waste.

  “I don't know. Trigg gave it to me.” Hal smiled sheepishly. “I am loath to lose his gift."

  “And also,” Alan ventured, “you had some plan in coming north?"

  “At first I rode north to put more distance between myself and Nemeton.... Now I am worried about Corin. And I need to explore, to find friends and learn to know my land.... But my plans are more like dreams, Alan."

  “Tell me."

  “I thought to circle Isle from east to west ... and of course I must go to Welas,” Hal added with a faraway look in his eyes. “I have kinsfolk there, whom I have never known."

  “And Iscovar?"

  Hal sighed. “Well, I shall not have to be a father-slayer, Alan. The One be praised, that nightmare at least is kept from me. Within four years, the King should be dead of the disease that feeds upon lust. When I was not yet sixteen I knew this from my mother, who knew it from the royal physician. He told her then, five years, and one of those has gone by while I lived with Craig the Grim. So if I am to be King—and make my people some amends for the horrors of my forebears—I must have my bid ready in time.