Then Dan Aidris and Lorn Am Zor moved aside, making way for the Chancellor of the Zor, Lord Seyl of Hodd, a handsome man, his dark hair barely streaked with grey. He spoke out in the common speech:
“Behold the Celebrants for this holy rite!”
It had been a subject for speculation: a marriage ceremony could be performed by a shaman or by a priestess or priest of any religion, also by a man or woman of high rank. Now Seyl led forth an older woman in a robe of blue, covered by a healer’s cloak, and it was Gradja Am Gilyan, the cousin of Danu Lorn and the young queen. Then he led forth a man from Eildon, in the dress of a Druda, from the college of Priests. His name, Druda Aengus of Wencaer, was whispered. about—he was the half-brother of the bridegroom, Count Liam. The choice was very seemly and pleasing—these two would perform the rite next day. There was a discreet ripple of applause throughout the large array …
Gael Maddoc was in the line of seven mounted kedran captains who stood behind the massed array of the princes from Eildon and other lands. They were on a small strip of lawn, and it was trying for some of the riders—a captain of the Falconers on a high-strung roan had nearly gone down the bank. Ebony, despite his skittishness, knew how to stand, and Gael rewarded him with tidbits. Far away, before the Hall of Mirrors, the young pair stood hand in hand, too far for Gael to see more than the blue and white of the queen’s flowing dress, the smudge of burnished orange that was the color of Liam of Greddach’s house. At long last, when the horses were past restless, the music changed. Doors opened behind the bridal couple, and the queen led her betrothed into the banqueting hall.
Now was the time for a long leisurely feast for the noble guests—they began to drift indoors while their escorts waited to leave the field. Gael picked out a number of persons she knew—there was Blayn of Pfolben, handsome as ever, with his bride from Rift Kyrie. Was that Lord Malm, looking jolly and in his right wits? She saw that her old comrade Wennle was not in attendance on the master he had served so faithfully, and she believed that his service had ended one way or another. But there was one person at least that she could call a friend, Yolanda Hestrem, assisting an aged lady of the Falconers, and there was Lord Auric Barry, one of the few attendees from Lien.
A beautiful woman, richly dressed in sea green and black, with a coronet of pearls, came out alone from the nearby group of the Fishers and walked directly to Gael Maddoc. Gael could see this was a magic being: her hair ash blond, her eyes deep grey, her skin almost shining silver in the day’s dying light, and silver in her voice. This was the Princess Merigaun, a child of the Lyreth Lords of the Sea. Gael gave her best salute.
“Captain Maddoc …”
“Highness!”
“You have something from my cousin Sir Hugh McLlyr!”
With these magic beings, it seemed to Gael, such things never came as surprises. She reached into the place for gifts on the front of Ebony’s saddle and handed the princess the small soft package Sir Hugh had trusted to her.
“Highness,” she said in Chyrian, “I have something else! A message from a great scribe who serves in the household of the duchess of Chantry!”
Her guess that the princess would understand Chyrian was correct.
“You must mean Brothers Less!” said Merigaun. “Tell me …”
“He had a foreboding about this wedding—it concerned a portrait, pretending to show a face from the past.”
“I will consider this message,” said the princess, returning to common speech. “My dear nephew’s happiness—” Gael knew she meant Liam Greddaer, Queen Tanit’s new husband. “It is precious to me. I will not see it lightly set asunder. Thank you, Captain Maddoc. My greetings to those you serve at beloved Tulach.”
With this last salute, she went off to join her retainers, Lemaine and Sallis, in the measured approach to the banqueting hall.
The mounted captains, set free from a troublesome duty, rode down from the upper lawn in good spirits. The horses, also set free, were provided with hot horse apples. Down among the pavilions, trestles were set up and the ale was flowing. Gael sat down with the Kerry sisters and with another friend who had come home from the Burnt Lands, Ensign Dirck, the good kern now a captain with the Fishers’ infantry.
Gael learned first of all what soldiers of Chernak had duties at the palace—she had seen the Tall Oaks of the Palace Guard and some of the household kedran. All finely drilled but friendly enough to the visiting escorts. But beware of the Companions! The queen’s “personal bodyguard,” were hard as rock—seldom mounted but lurking about, tall as Melniros, even the kedran, and dressed in dark clothes …
There was plenty of other comment and gossip, which Gael saved up for Tomas: Who was not at the wedding? Why not the bride’s aunt, the widowed Princess Merilla Am Chiel, and her handsome, lordly-grown twin sons? It was said the young willow-boned queen, Tanit Am Zor, was in a fair way to bear twins herself, poor lass—they ran in the family of the Zor—or was it the Vauguens of Lien? Gael listened for anything concerning a picture or portrait but heard nothing. She took care not to get drunk—though there was no duty for her until the morrow.
After seeing to Ebony in the Pavilion stable, she went early to bed and enjoyed a long kind sleep, with dreams of the Chameln lands, stretching to the horizon. Next day the young queen was married to Count Liam on the balcony over the Hall of Mirrors, in view of noble guests and the folk from Chernak. There was a certain amount of crowd control for the kedran; after the ceremony, the folk and some visitors went westward to another green meadow to watch acrobats—including the Fareos—jugglers, minstrels, perform.
There were more exacting duties on the day following, when the bride and groom did their marriage walk, first in front of the palace, then down to the lower lawns. There, fine open carriages were waiting; the marriage walk became the royal progress. With the personal escorts of the princes riding before and behind, the procession drove to Chernak New Town to receive the greetings of the reeve or attaman, then on down the White Way, almost to Folgry. There were one or two incidents when citizens tried to get close to the royal pair with presents or flowers; they were intercepted by tall Companions in dark clothes, who flung them to the ground.
This was the wedding celebration. Many nobles had dispersed already. After two more days helping to dismantle the Pendark pavilion, Gael bade farewell to the Pendark delegation and to her friends. She retraced her steps—first to Folgry town, then to the Adderneck Pass, now full of horse and foot traffic, going both ways. She rested and made camp twice on the way and came at last to the Palace Fortress of the Kings of Mel’Nir, where banners showed that the king and his queen had already come home. Then she rode on to the city of Lort, and home to the Swan Inn. Ebony was pleased to come home to his stablemate, an old mule; she asked a new groom after Master Forbian Flink, and the boy pointed up to the loft.
“He is sleeping, Captain—after long nights in his tower with scribe work!”
It was afternoon of a Midweek, as the days were counted in Mel’Nir. The Swan was quiet—she received a warm welcome from Demira Beck and gave out small gifts and tokens from the Chameln lands. Rolf Beck was off at the markets—she knew he would want a good report on the wedding of Queen Tanit Am Zor. Tomas was at his archives in the city; she waited in the dear and familiar tower room until he returned. When she saw him come in, wearing his dusty scholar’s gown, Gael Maddoc was filled at last with the happiness she had been promised everywhere, for the wedding duty. “And how was your task?” he asked her.
She replied from the shelter of his strong arms.
“It was a fiddling, uncomfortable escort duty. But on my way I met a friend from Lien!”
“Do we have many friends there?” asked Tomas.
“We have Brother Less!”
He gave a whoop—showing what pleased a scribe.
So, free from care at last, she slept late, made reports to Tomas and Innkeeper Beck and to Brother Robard and his wife Terza. It turned out that Forbian Flink was po
orly with a chest rheum. Mistress Beck had brought him indoors and was feeding him possets. Gael visited him once, and he seemed bright eyed and cheerful already, but she gave him only a few snippets of the wedding at Chernak. There was no talk of Yorath Duaring in the northeast, where the great wall was being built.
Only a few days into the Birchmoon, the second moon of spring, Gael was summoned to return in haste to Tulach. The old servant Hurlas arrived by magic on his horse, just outside the ancient Ox Gate, one fair morning. He rode into the yard of the Swan, and Gael was brought down to him at once.
“Thanks to the Goddess, Captain,” he panted. “Here—here is the summoning.”
In the leather bag he pressed into her hands was a mirror. When she held it up, Luran looked out of the glass.
“Come at once, Gael Maddoc,” he said. “Hurlas will show you the place to stand, near the Ox Gate. Fion Myrruad cannot stay … she has a task for you!”
CHAPTER XI
LIFTING A CURSE
When they alighted in the courtyard Luran and Ethain were waiting, their faces grave. Gael had arrived in the brightness of a beautiful spring morning, but Tulach was shadowed and dark.
“My Lady—my Lord Luran … ?” cried Gael.
“Come, Gael Maddoc,” said Ethain, taking her sleeve and moving swiftly with her toward the inner hall. “Myrruad’s light is fading.”
Other servants were in the courtyard, attending to Ebony. As they went through the mighty oaken doors, Luran said:
“Myrruad will pass into the sunset. Yet before she goes, she will speak with you and give you a special task.”
Only a few candles were burning in all the reaches of the great hall and the corridors. At the grand staircase Luran touched her arm before she set foot upon the first step. Ethain made an impatient gesture, and they were transported with a rapid gliding motion up and along to a vast shadowy chamber where Myrruad lay in a bed with golden hangings.
Gael hardly marked the other ladies and Sir Hugh McLlyr, who sat in the shadowy reaches of the chamber. She hurried to the bedside where Myrruad lay in a cloud of draperies. Her face seemed to glow with its own golden light and her eyes, very old and bluish green, burned like flames. She held out a hand and clasped the hand of Gael Maddoc.
“Thank the Goddess of us all, light and dark, who has sent me a messenger!” she said in a cracked voice.
“Fion Myrruad,” said Gael, “I will serve you faithfully!”
“It is an old tale,” said the lady of the Shee. “I will tell you, and then Luran can give you further instruction.”
She gestured feebly, and Ethain gave her drink from a jade goblet. Her voice was stronger—she had become a storyteller:
“It seems but yesterday to one of my race,” said Myrruad,
“though the dark folk will have found it longer. I was a young maid in the distant fields and woods of beloved Eildon and in the beautiful island of Eriu before I was betrothed to my Lord Eilas of Tzurn, in a bonding of two Eilif families, the Helevelin and the Tzurn, I led a carefree life, and I fell in love with a mortal, one of the dark folk, a man of Eriu so handsome and strong he was like a godson. I will not say his name—he is long dead.
“In that far off springtime of my life, I bore a lovechild, a daughter. I have heard that the dark folk set great store by maidenhood and ill treat children born out of so-called wedlock. With the Shee it is not so, especially if the child is of the half-blood. I went off with my ladies to the kingdom of the princes, to Athron, and there bore my daughter, sweet Veelian. I loved her with all my heart, but I did not remain with her after I had nursed her—it is so in great houses—children are not always reared close to their parents. Veelian remained in the care of a true companion of mine, a woman of the half-blood who raised her as her own, in her own great house at Wennsford, not far from Varda. Athron was not a rich or magical land in those days, but the manor houses and domains of the great families were places of peace and protection.
“I returned to Eildon and was married to my dear Lord. I bore him two sons and a daughter. My sweet Veelian was their elder half-sister, who came to visit us very often in our house on the Grantoch Burn, among the border mountains.
“Alas, time has passed, and now I am the last of all my line, the Helevelin, and of my Lord’s house, the Tzurnu. Yes, it is hard to be rid of the light folk, but there were battles in those days with the Eildon clans, and magic was used, and my eldest son fell victim to a bolt of magic. My other children lived on and wedded and had children themselves. I never thought to outlive them all—some were taken in battle, others by that melancholy which sometimes afflicts our kind.
“My dear lord and I lived on as comfortably as we might, being of the Eilif folk, and the move to this high ground made our many years easier. But I must speak to you tonight, Gael Maddoc, of the fate of my daughter of the half-blood, lovely Veelian. She lived in Athron, that was her true home, and in time she was betrothed to an Athron knight, a great lord in his own land. Then we were parted by a time of battles and unrest in Eildon—finally, I went to Athron myself and was faced with another dreadful sorrow. My dear friend, Veelian’s foster mother, had hardly dared to tell me what had happened in what for her had been the year since I had sent troth gifts and blessings for my dear child.
“She was the third wife of the Athron lord, though he was still in the prime of life—it seemed that his two young wives had died in childbirth. Now Veelian was dead, not a year after her wedding day. But her foster family, being of the half-blood themselves, had some magic—some ways of finding out the truth. Her lord was a cruel tyrant, who took pleasure in women’s pain; I cannot speak of the torture my sweet child had suffered in his keeping.
“I was filled with rage and sorrow. I remember it very clearly even now. I went out alone under the crescent moon and stood on a wooded hilltop, above the river Wenz. I summoned up all the magic I had learned and the most intense power of my own nature. I cursed the man who had killed my daughter, I set a powerful curse upon his house for all succeeding generations. I cried out for these folk to beware their marrying and giving in marriage; their happiness would be blasted and their lands barren.
“I know that the cruel tyrant himself died mad, but I did not follow all the working out of the curse—Luran may be able to tell you more. All that I can say is this: now that I must pass into the sunset like so many others of my race and my family, I will remove this grievous curse. There are some of this family who still live. You, Gael Maddoc, must journey into Athron, to the far northeast beyond the Ettling Hills, and remove the curse that I, Myrruad, placed upon the Wilds of Wildrode. Do you accept this charge?”
“I accept the charge, Fion Myrruad,” said Gael firmly.
“Then it is well—” said the ancient lady. Her voice sank to a dry whisper.
She released Gael’s hand and fell back upon her pillows. At a glance from Ethain, Gael rose up and left the bed chamber. She saw all the others draw in closely about the bed. She knew the way through the corridors to Little Hearth, the room for her briefing. The dog Bran rose up from the hearthrug, overjoyed to see her again, but even he was subdued by the sad time.
Presently Luran joined her and summoned to the table a huge map of Athron worked upon ancient leather, like the map of Silverlode. He was very brisk, like an officer instructing his troops.
“By the reckoning of your people, the Curse was set down by Myrruad some one hundred and sixty years past,” he said, “but the land has changed since then. Athron will always be a rustic kingdom, but now it has its own magic, and it remains always at peace.”
They concentrated upon the town marked Wennsford, to the west of the city of Varda. There was a hill where the river Wenz rose up from a spring and curled around the base of the hill; Luran traced its course southwest to the sea by the harbor called Westport. He explained that the river, once no more than a stream, had been widened, with a canal system and a river haven near the town of Wennsford. Further north, the river Fl
ume flowed down to the Western Sea through sea-oaks and salty marshes; there was a picture of the wild white horses, the Shallir, who roamed there.
Luran moved his hands over the map familiarly and said that he knew Athron well.
“There are true friends of the Shee in that land,” he said. “Some of the half-blood, some dark folk—you might call them our watchers, who send us intelligence of the sort that still interest the folk in Tulach Hearth.
“The family called Wenns were nobles in Athron,” he went on. “Veelian Ap Helevell, Myrruad’s daughter, was raised there in the great house and given the name of Wenns. Myrruad’s friend of the half-blood was the Lady Elfridda of Wenns, who did not marry and remained head of the house. Later the estates passed to a male cousin, but there has always been a strong tradition of women who ruled this domain—much later there was a battlemaid, Frieda of Wenns, who fought against the troops of King Ghanor of Mel’Nir, in the Chameln lands.
“There is a sacred grove with a Carach tree, the magic tree of Athron, on the top of this hill … I think this is where Myrruad uttered the curse—it would be a fitting place for you and your good Ebony to set yourselves down.”
The magic trees, each with its own blessed piece of ground, were marked upon the map. Luran pointed out that the curse had best be lifted at dawn or at dusk, and the ritual should be done in the presence of someone who still lived in the old keep.
To the northeast of Wennsford, Gael traced with her hand more hills, the Ettling Hills, and a barren, brownish expanse marked like the Burnt Lands. The estates of the Wilds of Wildrode ran right up to the mountain border with the Chameln, although there were no passes marked through the mountains.
The Wanderer Page 28