“Someone has already come this way,” said Jewel. “Did you not see him?”
“I did not!” exclaimed Galiene in astonishment.
“A man walked right by us.”
“Well, I saw nothing,” said Galiene. “Wait! Mayhap I missed seeing him when I was looking across the field toward some rowdy hubbub that broke out over yonder.”
“There you have it,” said Earnán. “But think no more on’t. ’Tis in the past, now,” he added soothingly to Jewel. “Let naught be marring this moment. For I am so glad to see you, a muirnín, that my poor heart overflows.”
“Mine also!” affirmed Jewel. “Our meeting is both happy and sad together. And now we must say farewell.”
They took their leave of one another, with many a fond embrace, before going their separate ways once again. Earnán returned to the campsite of the marshfolk, while Jewel and Galiene went into the city, to spend the night at a reputable inn.
A shadow trailed them, but they were unaware of it.
As they passed through the streets the two damsels could see the lighted windows high in the palace walls, and they played a game of guessing which embrasure might overlook Arran, dining therein.
On the other side of the window the meal, accompanied by the strains of a ballad, was drawing to a close.
“Madam, send that yowler away.” Uabhar’s words were directed to his mother. Turning his face away from her, he shot a conspiratorial look toward his guests, smiled wearily and shook his head, as if to insinuate that the queen’s folly was exorbitant, but as a good son he must endure it.
“Begone, Luchóg,” the dowager queen bade her minstrel. Luchóg broke off in the middle of a verse, quickly bowed, and made himself scarce.
“We enjoy the services of a far superior strummer,” the king-designate informed his guests, widening his mouth in a benevolent smile. “My lady wife cherishes music, and since our only wish is to please her, we have obtained the best in the land.” To the liveried page who stood behind his shoulder, Uabhar said, “Tell the ditty-man to enter forthwith.”
The lad ran through a doorway, and returned in the company of a grave fellow clad in the crimson, vermilion, and carmine of the king’s household.
“Ho, Master Bard,” Uabhar said as the fellow bowed, “you are to entertain us with song.” He turned to the young woman at his side. “What’s your favorite, my dear?”
Saibh lifted her eyes. Her face was pretty, fine-boned and well shaped, if perhaps rather wan. Her subdued demeanour and pallid countenance might have been due to the fact that she had borne her first child not four weeks earlier, after a difficult lying-in. Frequently she turned her head in the direction of the palace’s nursery, where a wet-nurse and a bevy of matrons had charge of the infant prince. “I am unsure, my lord,” she said quietly. “Would you prefer to choose?”
Laughing, her husband proclaimed to the gathering, “See what a dutiful wife she is! A paragon! Every day of wedded bliss reminds us of the wisdom of our choice, and our sole aim is to pander to her every whim. Madam, it is for you to choose, not I.”
“You are gracious, sir,” she said. “May we hear ‘The Swan Bride’?”
“A song unknown to me.” Uabhar turned to the minstrel. “Your queen has issued her command. Now, play!” He settled back in his chair, folding his arms across his chest.
After performing a second genuflection, the minstrel took up his lute and sang:
“They linger long, those mellow summer days
When o’er the country roads a golden haze
Of dust hangs thick, unfanned by breath or breeze,
And shadows lengthen, late, between the trees.
“The muffling dust drifts deep, and dulls the sound
Of clopping hooves. A rider, homeward bound
Most leisurely along the roadway passes,
Between the hedgerows and the powdered grasses.
“Scarcely a sound disturbs the evening air.
Hushed are the footfalls of his weary mare.
Gray moths and bats flit, as he draweth near
The leafy, wooded banks of Langorse Mere.
“Then to his ears a lilting laughter chances.
The bold young horseman lifts his head and glances,
Beholding that which fills his thought with awe—
Nine graceful damsels dancing on the shore.
“But oh! Such damsels! Ne’er the like was seen
By this brave youth—unless within a dream.
Like flowers their rare beauty, like fine silk
Their hair. He doubts if they’re of mortal ilk.
“In silence he dismounts and stealeth nigh,
The dancers all the better to espy,
Then softly gasps, amazed, for he hath found
A gleaming cloak of feathers on the ground.
“This mantle gathers he with eager arms,
Just as the swan-girls rouse, crying alarms
At lurking mortal presence by the lake.
And snatching up their feather-cloaks they take
Their flight into the sunset-painted sky—
All save for one, who can no longer fly.”
“Enough!” interrupted Uabhar, clapping his hands so suddenly that his young wife flinched. “Let the sweet pastries be served and we shall be regaled with the rest of the jingle anon.”
Saibh made as if to speak, but relapsed into silence, then bent down to caress the ears of a spaniel that sat by her feet. As servants bustled around, the druid Clementer, who neighbored Arran, leaned toward him and said softly, “She was a reluctant bride, you know.”
“Who?” said Arran, momentarily taken by surprise. “The swan-girl of the ballad?”
The druid shook his balding head, and in a flash the weathermaster understood.
He nodded. “I comprehend.”
“In confidence,” continued Clementer, “I tell you this. She was in love with a youth who had been her companion from childhood, but Uabhar saw her and desired her for his queen.”
“And had she no say in her betrothal?”
“Who shall gainsay a royal decree?” Clementer murmured sadly. “Such deeds entail harsh penalties.”
“Indeed,” acknowledged Arran. He pitied the young bride. Her fragile loveliness reminded him, in some way, of Jewel.
In the Fair Field the night-wind threw itself against the covered wain of Cathal Weaponmonger and chivvied uselessly at the iron bolts securing it. Within, the cutlery clattered as fallen blades slid and clashed together. Saffron lantern light painted the faces of two men, their heads close together, conversing in low tones. One of them was the fellow who had hailed Earnán, calling him “water-man.” He looked as lean and tough as cured cow-hide, and his shoulders sagged in a habitual stoop. The other was older, middle-aged. Beneath a flared nose his short, black beard covered a heavy jaw and pock-marked slab cheeks. His eyes drooped downward at the outer corners, as though his face were beginning to melt. His thick hair was cropped half an inch from the scalp.
“He will be interested,” the bearded man was saying, in a guttural voice. “You have done well, Sohrab.”
“Gaspar’s ruse worked well, and the timing was perfect. At the exact moment, their watcher looked away, I passed.”
Weaponmonger chuckled. “Some saucepan-seller will have a fiend of a job repairing his broken barrow!”
“Our years of watching have at last paid off,” murmured the other, grinning like a crab.
“Not so fast. We have nothing in our grasp as yet,” returned Cathal Weaponmonger. “But if aught comes of this, you both shall be well rewarded.” The lantern-flame reflected twice in the facets of his eyes, and the wordless wind moaned beneath his wagon as if being tortured by the chassis-mechanisms. “Come,” he said abruptly. “There is to be a cock-fight under the walls tonight, and I want to be sure and place my bets.”
High in the upper levels of the palace, at the royal dinner table, Secundus Clementer was saying to the company at la
rge, “’Tis the task of my assistant, Agnellus, to oversee the keeping of the carrier pigeons at the Sanctorum. He is keen on pigeons, you know. He used to live on an outflung farm owned by the druids, where novices are trained. He looked after the carrier pigeons there, and indeed the birds became a hobby. It was his habit to buy and sell unusually colored ones, breed them, and race them. Agnellus invented a bird-feeder that worked this way: whenever the pigeons pecked a lever, a grain rolled down a chute into their feed-tray. Thus, if a pigeon pecked six times, for example, it received six grains.”
Stifled by boredom, Arran made a polite gesture he hoped would be interpreted as interest. Part of his mind was in the palace, another part extended out into the elements. He could sense, in the distance, the last remnants of the violent winds losing their power, writhing ever weaker, like water-eels cast onto dry land, asphyxiating. A third portion of his thought dwelled in the field beyond the city walls.
“Being an enterprising chap,” Clementer droned on, “he wished to experiment with avian behavior. He next invented a device that dispensed food when the pigeons pecked first one lever, then another, in sequence. The birds learned quickly, and as time went on Agnellus’s feeding devices grew more and more complicated, but the pigeons managed to master most of them eventually.”
“Pigeons are pretty birds,” Saibh contributed politely.
“Indeed they are, madam,” agreed Clementer, bestowing on the queen-in-waiting a seated bow and a warm smile. “When Agnellus was called to serve the Fates at the Sanctorum here in the city,” he said, “a new pigeon-keeper took over at the farm. He was erratic in restocking the feeders, and inept at repairing their mechanisms, so that they were forever jamming. Sometimes the pigeons had to peck many times to receive their reward; at other times they must peck only once or not at all. The grains rolled down the chute at random. Whether they would appear or not was entirely unpredictable. The pigeons had no idea what they must do in order to be regularly supplied with food.”
“Poor creatures!” exclaimed Saibh.
Her husband grunted, his mouth filled with sweetmeats.
“Then a fascinating thing happened,” said the druid.
Privately, Arran hoped he was right.
“The birds began bobbing their heads, pivoting on the spot, dancing, pecking at various things, and, on the whole, acting very strangely.”
A flicker of interest illumined Arran’s ennui. The Ambassador for High Darioneth, who had been listening attentively, said, “Whyfor?”
“Agnellus theorizes that they were trying to influence the feeding mechanism by their actions,” expounded Clementer. “Sometimes the grain popped out for no reason at all, and they must have deduced that the set of actions they had performed in the previous instant caused the grain to appear. Thus, they repeated the actions. When this failed to produce results, they added more behaviors to their repertoires until they were hopping and ducking as if insane.”
Several guests laughed.
“Queer rituals indeed,” commented Arran.
“What’s that you say? Rituals—but of course!” The druid’s expression cleared as if he had just thrown back a curtain to reveal, unexpectedly, a wondrous sunrise, or else had at last comprehended the solution to some riddle. “Superstitious behavior!”
“A comic spectacle!” chuckled one of Uabhar’s brothers.
“But tedious, you’ll admit,” Uabhar cut in, having swallowed his food. He laughed abundantly, as if he had made a great joke. “Bard, come hither! Your queen would hear you play again. You are not being paid to stand about, my good fellow!” From under the table there issued a yelp, as Uabhar kicked the spaniel that had wandered too close to his boot. “Finish that ditty you were playing before,” the king said, with apparent geniality, to the musician.
Grave-faced, the minstrel obliged, his fingers lightly leaping on the lutestrings. His voice was true and resonant as he launched into the second portion of the ballad of the Swan Bride:
“ ‘Give back my cloak!’ she begs him piteously,
But though it grieves his pounding heart to see
Her weeping so, he keeps it from her reach
No matter how she pleads and doth beseech.
“Instead, on bended knee he makes his vow.
‘Oh, fairest swan-maid, this I promise now—
I’ll honor thee and love thee all my life,
Protecting thee. Say thou shalt be my wife!’
“ ‘Alas!’ she moans. ‘Alas, alackaday!
I only wish that I could fly away
To join my sisters, soaring on the wing!
I have no wish to wear a wedding ring.’
“But when at length she sees he’ll not relent
She says, ‘You hold my cloak, so I’ll consent
To be your servant, sir, if not your bride.’
And with those words he must be satisfied.
“She serves him well, while morning, noon, and night
He woos this beauteous maid, this earthbound wight
Until at last, convinced by his addresses,
She yields unto his love and acquiesces.
“Their marriage vows are sealèd with a kiss,
And then begin three years of wedded bliss.
The young man’s house with happiness she fills,
Until the day she finds her cloak of quills.
“With high delight she wraps it o’er her shoulder
And flies away before the hour is older.
For no amount of mortal love and praise
Can keep a swan-girl from her eldritch ways.
“Beside the casement wide, the young man sits.
Sore grief threatens to drive him from his wits.
As evening draws in and the cold wind sighs,
He cranes his neck to gaze up at the skies.
“He strains his ears to catch a plaintive cry
And tries to glimpse the wild swans passing by.
Sad, lonely, and bereft he weeps in pain
And hopes, fruitlessly, she’ll return again,
While knowing, as he yearns, his hopes are hollow.
For where the wild swans go, no man can follow.”
As the melody ended and the last notes faded, Saibh smiled wistfully.
“By the Fates, ’tis a wretched, dolorous song,” observed Uabhar. As if astounded, he gazed around at his guests, apparently convinced they must agree. “Will you choose a merrier one next time, madam?”
“Surely,” his wife replied, calm and demure.
“Alas, I perceive you are weary, my dear,” Uabhar said in tones of concern. To all and sundry, he suddenly announced, “Your queen wishes to retire. Her wish is my command; therefore, good night to all.”
Without further ceremony he rose to his feet, which was the signal for all those present to do likewise. Watching the king-designate conduct his wife from the dining-room—she evidently still weak from the travails of childbed and walking laboriously—Arran was relieved to have endured to the conclusion of the occasion. He looked forward to the morning, when Jewel and Galiene would rejoin him for the flight back to High Darioneth.
Before sunrise Arran and the purser were aboard the reinflated sky-balloon and away. Like a plum of palest marble, Windweapon arose from the palace grounds out of a sea of mist. Summoned by weathermastery from their usual purlieu at the head of the Rushy Water, the coiling vapors enveloped the city’s southwest perimeter. The obscurity allowed two figures, exiting early from the city gates, to melt and vanish before they had walked thirty feet from the walls.
Jewel and Galiene glided unerringly through the fog, until they reached the meeting place. The balloon dipped into view out of the haze, they were helped aboard, and soon Windweapon was climbing above the weltering mists into a pellucid sky.
As soon as they reached cruising altitude the travelers began to converse, exchanging tidings of all that had eventuated in Slievmordhu. Eager and animated, Jewel told of her happy meeting with Earnán, after
which Arran recounted his story of dining with the royal family.
He did not neglect to emphasis the irksomeness of the affair. “Our destined monarch threw out one of the minstrels and had another dragged in. Having done so, he proceeded to cut off this second chap in mid-song, calling for sweet pastries!”
The purser dabbed at his eyes with his handkerchief. “Sain me!” he said, gasping for breath. “I though it not so comical at the time, young master, but the way you relate those events makes them seem surprisingly amusing!”
“And then Secundus Clementer began to expound upon the feeding habits of pigeons,” Arran said, warming to his task, encouraged by the mirth of passengers and crew.
“What joy!” exclaimed Galiene. “How I wish we had attended!”
“Pigeons,” said Jewel, clasping her hands ardently. “My favorite topic.”
They went on in this merry manner for some time, while the balloon bowled across the countryside and the ascending sun threw stripes of gold across the landscape far below. At length Arran said, “We are in danger of drifting off course unless I turn my attention to navigation.”
Jewel peered over the side of the basket. “Where are we now?” she asked. “Are those the Border Hills?” Lowering her voice, she whispered to Arran, “Would it matter if we drifted off course a little? Let us veer somewhat to the east, so that we may fly right over the Dome of Strang. What grand entertainment that would be!”
“Jewel,” he whispered in return, “you know full well these flights are not for the purpose of sightseeing. If the crew suspected I was deliberately misdirecting this craft they would deeply disapprove. It is not meet for a weathermaster to do thus.” After a pause he added, “My father informed us about your family’s connection to the Dome. I cannot help but suspect that the real reason you wish to behold the fortress is more serious than mere divertissement, and the notion makes me uneasy.”
The Well of Tears: Book Two of The Crowthistle Chronicles Page 20