The White Hart

by Nancy Springer

  “Some ill must have chanced,” muttered Alan. He and Corin shot off before the others could express their concern.

  They rode far apart, zigzagging in search, whistling to each other now and then to stay abreast. They had not gone a mile when Corin heard Alan's frightened cry. The sound came from a tree-lined knoll, and Corin hastened to the spot. He found Alan bending over Robin, listening to his chest “He is not so badly hurt,” Alan said, trying to sound sure. Wrapping the still form in his cloak, he gently lifted it to the saddle before Corin. “Take him to the castle,” he said. “I must find Hal.” Cory left at the fastest pace he dared with his precious burden.

  The other two bodies were those of kingsmen. They stirred and groaned. With averted eyes, Alan ran his sword through each. Then he mounted Alfie and set off at top speed on the plain trail that ran through the Forest, following the prints of horses’ hooves. How many sets? Eight? Ten? Even a dozen? He could not tell. From time to time the Forest mold was splashed with great clots and dashes of blood. Fiercely Alan told himself that it was not Hal's, but relentlessly the truth contradicted his hopes. Why else would Hal not lose his pursuers in a fox's maze of twisting tricks, as he had done so often before? Because the blood trail made all such devices useless. The spoor led straight as an arrow toward Whitewater. What lay there? No friends outside the walls, though the kingsmen did not know that. In his time of need, Hal's concern had been only to lead the enemy away from Robin, and Celydon, and from Ket's men, so exposed in battle. Bad luck, or worse than bad luck, that he had been attacked when there were none in the Forest to aid him! Alan cursed that luck bitterly as he sent Alfie at merciless speed along the trail.

  By dusk, Alan had regained some measure of calm. He stopped Alfie at a stream and let him sparingly drink as he forced himself to consider. Now that night was falling, what would Hal do? Alan knew his tactics almost as well as he knew his face. Darkness would hide the blood trail. He could almost see Hal lifting Arundel out of the tantalizingly labored gallop to which he had held him all afternoon, letting the Kingsmen know at last the speed of the dweller in the Eagle Valley. Like a gray ghost they would disappear into the darkness of the Forest; and then? Surely Hal would make a wide circle and ride back toward Celydon, hoping that his enemies would continue on the straight line he had laid out. To circle to the north would be to trap himself against the Rushing River. Surely he would circle to the south.

  Unless he had already died, or been captured. Unless he no longer had strength to ride Arundel at his full speed. Alan pushed the thoughts from his mind. Though he felt he had gained on the kingsmen, they were still hours ahead. He could do nothing to hinder them. But if Hal still had the strength to play the fox ... there was a chance.

  When he rode on again his pace was easier, and he bore to the right, leaving the trail he could scarcely see. After he had ridden a couple of hours into the night, he began to pause from time to time. He would whistle a long, low tone, listen intently for a full minute, and then ride rapidly on.

  It was not yet the mid of night when his whistle was answered by a distant neigh. He raced toward the sound, and tears of thankfulness and agony wet his face when he saw them. Arundel stood still, his silver flanks darkly blotted with blood. Under his nose lay the crumpled form that was Hal, fallen when his great strength had finally given out.

  Alan fetched the flask, and soon Hal's head stirred in his lap. “Alan,” he whispered, knowing even through the darkness who it was. “By the sweet Lady, I have missed you.” Then his head fell limp again. “Hal!” Alan cried in panic, and felt frantically for his wrists. The flutter of life was still there. “Mireldeyn!” Alan called desperately, and felt Hal's body painfully respond. “Ay,” Hal breathed through clenched teeth. Alan made him drink again from the flask before be spoke to him, and his voice shook.

  “Mireldeyn, for the sake of the love I bear you, I beg you—don't leave me!"

  “Elwyndas,” Hal breathed from afar, like the spirits of the barrow, “I am wounded to the death, and my life is torment in me."

  “Try to live!” urged Alan, as sobs tightened his chest. “If you love me—try!"

  It was a long moment before Mireldeyn spoke. “As I love you, I will try my best. I give you my word."

  With every pace of the long ride back, pain shot through Alan like that which filled the body he held before him. Arundel limped behind, for he had taken a deep cut in the shoulder. Alan had spoken to him, telling him to fall behind and make his way to Celydon at his own pace. Still he would not leave his master.

  The long night hours stretched themselves out into a black tunnel of pain which, somehow, had to be traversed.

  Chapter Four

  Celydon castle was full of dead and wounded. Too many were friends, but most were from Lee. As Rosemary moved from bed to bed, wiping brows, giving water, she did not see the one she dreaded to find there; nor was he among the dead. Why, then, did he not come to her?

  A gentle voice behind her shattered her troubled silence. “Are you the lady Rosemary?"

  She spun around to face a towheaded stranger crouching beside a slim dark youth. Quickly he answered her puzzled glance. “I am Corin. I have been traveling with Alan. He has gone to find Hal, who has seen battle, it seems, along with Robin here."

  Robin was unconscious with a deep cut on the head, and his shield arm was smashed at the shoulder. It took both of them to set it. Rosemary was as pale as Cory before they were done, for Robin writhed and moaned in his pain, though he did not wake. To distract both of them, she asked Corin how he had come to know such comrades. The story he told made her long more than ever to see her gentle warrior.

  Far into the night she labored, and till the dawn she waited, walking quietly but restlessly from place to place. The servant girls rested, nodding, against the walls. Robin slipped into the deep sleep that comes after pain, and Corin slumbered, exhausted, beside him. Rafe dozed in the gatehouse, and the wise, sure-fingered old physician slept on a straw tick in the midst of the wounded, ready to rise at an instant's notice should there be need. Now and then a man stirred or moaned in his pain, but none woke. In all the world, it seemed to Rosemary, only she kept vigil. She had never felt so alone.

  But then a clatter of hooves roused Rafe, and Rosemary shook the physician into wakefulness. In the hour before dawn Alan came, bearing his burden before him.

  The physician's face grew grave as he peeled off blood-stiffened clothing and gently probed Hal's weakened body. The wounds were many, but one was deadly. In the break of the mail beneath the arm a sword had pierced deep, through muscles, ribs and vitals. Incredibly, Hal had wrenched himself away with such force that the sword had broken off in the hand of his foe. Yet he had kept his seat and fought and fled, with the point of the sword buried perilously near his heart.

  Hal stirred at the first touch, and his eyes searched the many who stood around him, holding candles, holding his hands and feet. “Robin?” he whispered.

  “He will be well,” Corin hastened to assure him. “He is sleeping."

  The healer's probe opened Hal's wound, and he stifled a cry by biting his lip so that the blood flowed in yet another place. His eyes went to Rosemary's. “Love,” he panted when he could speak, “pray go from me."

  She started to protest, but the healer stopped her with a sharp glance. She kissed Hal, and went, but only as far as the next room. She knew that Rafe held down his shoulders, that Alan placed the biting stick in his mouth. She knew that Hal panted and trembled as the knife cut into his side, and she could see in her mind's eye how he willed himself to keep still. Then she heard him struggle, shouting, “Fiends! Bloody, bloody fiends!"

  “He thinks he is in the torture chamber!” choked Alan. “Hal! Hal —” With gentle words he brought him back to himself for a moment as the knife bit deeper yet. Then the castle rang with the terrible, racking scream of a strong man in unbearable agony. Rosemary rushed into the room. Corin leaned against the wall; Alan looked pale and sh
aky. Hal lay still. “By the gods, he is dead,” Rosemary breathed, but the old physician shook his head. “Fainted, praise be. Hold the basin, my lady."

  The knife moved delicately, warily; one slip could mean death. The healer pulled out the shard with cautious fingers, then wiped the sweat from his brow with a sigh that was more like a groan. They washed and dressed the wounds, and the still form did not move. But as Alan and Rafe laid him in the lord's own bed, Hal stirred and thickly spoke. “You can cage and torture the body,” he grated, “but the soul flies free as the eagles."

  Alan touched his forehead with cool fingers and called pleadingly, “Hal!” His distant eyes focused slowly and painfully on Alan's face.

  “Brother,” he whispered, “if I die, will you carry on what I have begun?"

  Rosemary felt a chill like ice grip her heart, and she swayed on her feet. Alan's face went as white as the blood-drained one he faced. “Hal!” he exclaimed. “Do not say that!"

  “My soul is weary within me, and longs for escape,” murmured Hal. “As you love me, will you not do this thing for me?"

  “But I am not you, Hal!"

  “Alan!” Hal pleaded.

  But Alan had risen to his feet, his face awesome. “Mireldeyn!” he commanded, and Rosemary wondered at the strange words she now heard. “I charge you, by the love we bear each other, to give over such thoughts!"

  “Elwyndas,” groaned Hal, “let me go!"

  “For the sake of those who have suffered under seven generations of oppression, I will not! Only you can save them!” Alan's voice was as compelling as a trumpet call; then it gentled. “Let us see your innermost strength, Mireldeyn. Look at me."

  Eyes met and embraced. Like dawn, or moonrise, Hal's flickered into tentative light.

  “Say it,” Alan commanded.

  “I promise you, Elwyndas.” The words were dragged out from under an immense weight of pain, but they came.

  “Promise me what?"

  “To carry on the fight."

  “By what do you swear?"

  “By the love between us."

  “What more?” Alan was merciless.

  Hal knew what Alan wanted. Under that adamant gaze he summoned the last shred of strength in his soul. “By the burden of my birth,” he gasped, his face glistening in agony of spirit.

  In deepest love and gratitude, Alan did what he had never done—he knelt and kissed Hal on the brow. Then he turned and spoke in a low voice to Rosemary, who stood stupefied by this strange scene.

  “The shadows of black memories lie on his soul,” he told her. “Sit by him and talk to him; remind him of every moment of love you have ever shared, every ray of light in his life, every reason to live. I have done all I can for him. Now I go on a fool's journey—to seek Veran's balm for his heir's ills."

  Like the wind of war Alan swept across the land. He did not ride Alfie, spent in spite of his great heart, or the wounded Arundel. Instead he rode Rafe's giant black charger, Night Storm, and sat like blond lightning on his back. He bore neither shield nor helm, nor even blanket, but rode on the lightest of saddles and carried only water, sword and a little food. His cloak spread in the wind of his passing like the wings of an eagle. Folk who marked his going blessed themselves, as if they had seen an omen.

  The little jar at Firth marked “Bloome of Veran's Crowyn” was as far beyond his reach as the moon. The elfin gold which flowered in the Eagle Valley was farther yet. For unspoken reasons, he and Hal had never carried with them any of the precious plant; it was not fitting, somehow, to pluck the lovely remnant of the legendary past and hoard it in concern for self. But now, in direst need, Alan fiercely prayed that Hal's strength would hold out as he urged the black steed toward a little valley he remembered, where an old woman worked at her loom, where time stood still and the blight of warlike greed had, some way, not yet entered.

  He left Celydon in the early day. Two long days and two nights passed, and still he rode. He used no caution and sought no cover, but set his course like the bird who flies before the gale, as straight as the fields and roads could take him. Though he galloped through a lord's meadow or past a manor gate, men had scarcely time to shout before he was gone from view.

  Late in the second night he stopped. Stormy lay flat, but Alan could not rest, though his eyes were bloodshot and his face twitching from lack of sleep. He paced impatiently through the dark hours. At the first faint light of dawn, he spoke to the steed in the Old Language, and Night Storm rose trembling to his feet. “By my troth, you are worthy of your master's love,” Alan praised him.

  He cast about the countryside, searching. As the first rays of the morning sun struck the tops of the trees, he found what he sought. But his lips parted with a groan of the deepest despair he had ever known. Some nameless battle of a petty war had raged across the little valley. The turf was torn and scarred, the stream muddied and stained with blood. Bodies of men and horses mingled with the bloated carcasses of sheep. The stench of death and war lay on the place. No trace of the indefinable fragrance of timelessness remained.

  Eyes clouded by tears of helpless wrath, Alan turned to leave. Then he stopped. There was no need to hurry back and watch Hal die, he told himself, taking a perverse satisfaction in the agony of his failure. Stubbornly he went to the ruined cottage and found the charred body of the old woman lying near her loom. He wrapped her in his cloak and took her to a spot less denied than most, by the stream and under an old willow tree. From the forested slopes he carried stones and raised a cairn over her. Finished, he knelt and commended her to Aene, though he eerily felt that it was not her grave that he had made. But as he knelt, an inexplicable feeling of peace stole over him, and the mist cleared from his eyes. His left knee rested against a root of the great willow. Just beyond the ridge of the root, and almost hidden in its sheltering curve, shone a single tiny golden flower....

  Rosemary sat by Hal's bedside as Alan had told her to, and spoke of the good things in life, of flowers and green growing plants, furry creatures, warmth after winter, food after hunger, cool water in the heat. She spoke as best she could about dreams, deeds, friendship and fellowship. But most of all she spoke to him of love, her memories and dreams of their love.

  She could only hope he heard her, for he gave no sign. He lay burning with fever both of body and spirit. His wounds did not heal, but remained raw and open, and he wasted away day by day, even minute by minute, until she could plainly see that no strength of body kept him alive. His eyes were open, bright and staring, but he saw only scenes of horror. He whispered his defiance, and sometimes cried out in agony. At such times the sweat stood out on his forehead and his every muscle strained, though she knew he had not bodily strength to raise his head.

  Sometimes, at her father's bidding, she took a few hours’ rest while Pelys or Rafe sat by the bedside in her stead. But her sleep was as troubled as Hal's waking nightmare, and when Pelys saw it did her no good he no longer insisted on it. From time to time, when her mind grew blank of things to say to Hal, she took the plinset and played the songs he loved the best; happy songs, songs of sweet sadness, love songs. As the haze of her tiredness and despair thickened, she said and sang whatever came to mind, scarcely realizing anymore what passed her lips.

  She sang, without thinking whether it would help or harm, one of the old jingles that had lately become prophecies of hope for the people of Isle. She had heard it from one of Ket's men in the Forest.

  Bearing balm of Veran's flower,

  Man born blest with elfin dower.

  Eye to make the evil cower.

  Breaker of the darkest tower.

  Silver is the springtime shower,

  Rids the land of wintry power.

  Elfstone green on chain of gold.

  Bright dawn forged in Veran's mold.

  Sword in sunlight blazing bold

  Drives the wolves from out the fold.

  Each his own to have and hold.

  Rising sun has conquered cold.

/>   Rosemary stopped, not sure what she had done. Hal spoke in the language that was strange to her. Though suffering still strained his face and the sinews of his body, his eyes no longer stared at present horror. Instead, they looked far away and inward, at a place where he longed to be.

  Veran's balm.... Rosemary clung desperately to a hope of which she scarcely knew the meaning, and she begged for Alan's swift return.

  Alan had plucked the little plant tenderly, even in his frantic haste, and with a whispered apology he stowed it carefully in his pouch. But he rode Night Storm away at breakneck speed. It was midmorning, and precious hours could never be regained.

  “The single hope of Isle depends on you,” he told the steed in the Old Language.

  Night Storm ran through the day on numb legs that moved under him by the force of a will scarcely his own. Alan's skillful hands guided him around the obstacles that the exhausted horse no longer noticed. The night was harder yet. Stormy plunged and stumbled, and Alan talked to him constantly, encouraging him through almost every stride. Not too far ahead, a normal three days’ ride from Celydon, he knew that Corin was waiting with Alfie. Night Storm had to make it that far.

  But the horse did not think he could. Never had he been so pushed to the limits of his strength. If it had been Rafe who lay on the sharp edge of death, perhaps he would have discovered by himself the strength that lies beyond the limits. But love of Hal or Alan was not in him, and there came a time when the authority of the Old Language no longer moved him. He stumbled, fell and lay still.

  Alan jerked his leg out of the way in time. He said nothing. He loosened the girth and tugged the saddle clear. He poured his remaining water over Night Storm's head and down his throat. Of his own gear he threw aside water flask, food, boots—everything except his sword and his precious pouch. Then he went to the horse's head.

  “Now,” he ordered, “up!"

  Stormy did not even twitch an ear.

  Desperation had made Alan ruthless. He straddled the inert body, drew his sword and deliberately struck the horse on the flank with the flat of the blade.