Thornspell

by Helen Lowe

  Sigismund took a deep breath as memory flashed, followed by a searing image of a blue jewel extended to him by a fair, slender hand. He had reached out for it through the iron bars of the gate, but something had gone awry—a cloud of sparrows had risen up, out of the ditch, and the jewel had spun to the ground. He shook his head as the memory slipped away again. “But I still don’t understand why she is my enemy?”

  “She hates all human rulers and their kingdoms.” Syrica’s reply was soft. “But she works against your House in particular, because your great-grandfather placed the interdict on the Wood. She feels that it has buttressed my spell and helped keep her from the kingdom she desires.” The soft voice paused. “And you, Sigismund, will come of age in the hundredth year of the enchanted sleep. This means that you, more than any other, are likely to be the chosen prince.”

  There was silence beneath the lilacs. A breeze riffled leaves and hair, whispering of the leagues of wood it had wandered through, but Sigismund remembered the absolute stillness beneath the trees. And he heard Auld Hazel telling him to keep away—for now. Sigismund shivered, feeling a mixed sense of excitement and danger, and wondered if this was how Parsifal had felt, riding forth on the Grail quest.

  He forced his mind back to the present. “And the Margravine knows,” he said slowly. “That’s why she tried to give me the ring.”

  Syrica nodded and took a step toward him. “No faie spell is ever certain once the magic has been set in motion. But the Margravine and I are both tied to this spell. We know its terms and how the magic is likely to work itself out. And in one respect, at least, the magic is specific: the chosen prince is the only one who can undo the spell. So she will want to make sure that you serve her will before that day comes.” She traced the outline of his face with gentle fingers. “You are related to the Margravine through your mother, whose own mother was a zu Malvolin. But it will not save you, unless you become her puppet.” The silver voice was sad. “It did not save your mother when she would not raise you to serve the Margravine’s will.”

  Sigismund turned away so they could not see his expression. He had only just learned that his mother had been poisoned, and now Syrica was saying that it was because she had defied the Margravine zu Malvolin to protect him. Sigismund shook his head, and counted every shadow on the moon’s face until the tightness in his throat eased. When he turned back, both Balisan and Syrica were watching him.

  “So is that why both of you are here?” he asked. “To keep me safe?”

  “In part,” Syrica said. “But this place too has power, in a small way, and it has allowed me to remain hidden all these years, holding the threads of my counterspell intact.” Her face turned, pale, toward Balisan. “And you?”

  “I am here for the boy,” the master-at-arms replied, without hesitation. His voice was resonant, sure. “The King sent for someone out of the Paladinates and I am kin to his House, although at some remove.”

  To Sigismund’s surprise, Syrica laughed. “Is that it?” she asked, amusement shimmering in her voice. But there was a remote expression in her dark eyes, as though she was looking at something beyond the lilac walk and the castle walls. “I doubt the Margravine will have any success trying the wards again, now that you are here.”

  Balisan bowed. “So do you come into the open now, or remain hidden?”

  Syrica shook her head. “The Margravine is stronger than I am—and the only way the spell can be undone before the hundred years are up is to kill me. If she finds me she will certainly try, which is why I have stayed in hiding—and only acted when there was extreme need,” she added, with a glimmer of a smile for Sigismund, “to save you from the Margravine’s ill-wishing.” She looked back to Balisan. “It is vital that my presence here continues to remain secret, even from the King and his steward.”

  Balisan bowed again, his palms pressed together. “As you wish,” he said, “so shall it be. You will reveal yourself when the time is right. Meanwhile, we shall not do anything that would draw attention to your hiding place.”

  They waited as the white figure faded back into shadow, leaving them alone in the night. Sigismund wanted to ask why Syrica was so sure that Balisan’s presence would keep the Margravine at bay, but something in the quality of his companion’s silence daunted him. He waited, this time without fidgeting, until the dark figure beside him stirred.

  “Farsighted,” Balisan murmured, as though thinking aloud. “And patient as well, to maintain such a vigil. All the same,” he added as they walked back to the castle, “even allowing for the lady’s presence, I think I will continue to ward you against dreams.”

  Lessons

  Sigismund lay awake for a long time that night while the events of the day chased each other through his head: a master-at-arms who could walk in dreams and who spoke openly of magic, a faie hidden within the castle walls—and another who was his enemy because, like Syrica, she believed he was the prince who would undo the hundred-year sleep.

  “And I want to,” Sigismund whispered to the night. It was the sort of quest he had always dreamed of, like those pursued by Parsifal and Gawain and the rest of King Arthur’s knights. But gradually his thoughts turned to his mother. He had been so young when she died that all his memories of her were blurred, and now he found it impossible to call up a recollection of her face or voice. Had she been kind and beautiful, like Syrica, or grave and formal, like his fading memories of his father? In his heart Sigismund felt sure that she must have been like Syrica, only less remote.

  They say it was poison that killed her. Again the whisper out of childhood memory, overlain by Syrica’s voice, soft and sad in the twilit garden: It did not save your mother when she would not raise you to serve the Margravine’s will.

  Did she know? Sigismund wondered again, staring into the night. Did my mother know that defiance would mean her death? He rolled over, punching the pillow into a new position. She must have been brave, Sigismund thought, and felt his throat close. He wished he could remember her face.

  He thought he might lie awake until dawn, mulling over everything that had happened and been said, but tiredness crept in and he fell into a heavy sleep. He woke to early sunshine filtering through the faded rose of the bed curtains with their pattern of briars worked into the brocade with heavy silver thread. Sigismund reached out and touched one of the flowers, studying his safe, familiar world through half-open eyes. Annie said the bed curtains were shabby and old-fashioned and should be replaced, but Sigismund liked them. Sometimes, when he lay close to the fabric, he could smell the faintest hint of rose perfume, like a memory of summer caught in the weave.

  This morning the elusive drift of rose mingled with the sunshine and when Sigismund closed his eyes there was a flash behind them—a sharp image of bare, scratched legs and a flock of sparrows rising from a thorny ditch. He groaned and rolled away from the memory, wondering what the day would bring. He suspected that his life was going to be a great deal busier, as well as considerably more interesting, with Balisan here. But Sigismund couldn’t help feeling trepidation as well, because now he knew he had an enemy, one who had brought about his mother’s death.

  “Not just your mother’s,” said Balisan, when they met again later that morning. They were in the room immediately below the roof of the topmost tower, which Balisan said would do for their studies together—when they were not on the roof itself or in the castle’s training hall. The tower room was large and pleasant, with windows that looked out to the four winds and the ladder to the roof fixed against one wall. Sigismund noticed that there was already more furniture than there had been yesterday, and that the whole place had been swept and dusted clean.

  “You can breathe up here,” the master-at-arms said, going from one window to the other. “More importantly, we are out of everyone else’s way—as you have already discovered for yourself.”

  Sigismund thought that sounded promising, because he was full of questions: about the Margravine and Syrica, the power of dre
ams, and what, exactly, Balisan could teach him. He was also eager to know why his father had chosen Balisan to protect him, and if it was mainly because the Margravine had caused his mother’s death. It was at this point that Balisan held up a hand, checking the tumble of his words, and told him that it was not just his mother’s death that could be laid at the Margravine’s door.

  “There are many,” he continued, “who whisper that your line must have been cursed, for every generation has seen fewer of those born into your family survive to have children of their own.” He was taking books out of a bag as he spoke and stacking them on a long table set in the center of the room. They all looked old to Sigismund, with dark leather bindings and illuminated lettering down the spines. “It has not all been poison and daggers in the back, although there has been plenty of that, but there have been many accidents—too many, people whisper, for the ill luck to be solely chance. Belief in a curse has grown so strong that your father had difficulty finding any princess or noblewoman who was willing to marry him.”

  “Except my mother,” Sigismund put in. He was sitting cross-legged on a stone window seat and could see the green Wood and a patch of wind-feathered sky.

  Balisan glanced up from one of the books. “I wonder,” he said softly. “I suspect she may not have been willing at all, if she knew anything of the Margravine and her plans, which later events suggest she must have done.”

  Sigismund frowned. “Are you saying that the Margravine engineered the marriage?” His voice came out taut and a little too high.

  “I consider it quite likely.” Balisan placed the book on the table and this time Sigismund could read the title: Of Faie and Their Ways. “Think. Why was your great-grandfather able to place an interdict on the Wood so powerful that it has never been broken, not even by the Margravine?” Sigismund shook his head, uncertain, and an expression that could have been exasperation crossed the master-at-arms’s face. “It would take more than a royal decree scratched on parchment to keep that one out. There is power in your family line, Sigismund, an ancient bond to the land itself.”

  Sigismund leaned forward. “Like the king in the Castle Perilous, the one Parsifal heals on the Grail quest?”

  “Something like that,” murmured Balisan, weighing another book in his hand. It was the largest yet and Sigismund eyed it uneasily, wondering exactly how much he was going to have to read.

  “So why, if the interdict’s so powerful,” he asked, “haven’t we been able to fight back against the Margravine? Why have so many of my family died?”

  The bronze eyes held his, cool and level as a blade. “Like all human aptitudes, the talent for power does not necessarily appear in every generation. You are the first to inherit it with any strength since your great-grandfather’s time, although so far it has only manifested as visions and dreams.” He put the heavy book down and pushed it along the table toward Sigismund. “But even without the power of your inheritance to call on, your kin have not bent to the Margravine’s will. She has been trying to gain the same control over your House as she has over the zu Malvolin, but each generation has resisted her wiles.”

  “So she killed them instead?” whispered Sigismund. “Is that what happened?”

  Balisan nodded. “That way there would be fewer to stand against her when the hundred years are up. And it is possible, probable even, that she engineered the marriage between your parents in order to have a greater chance of controlling you.”

  Sigismund drew a deep breath in. “So that’s why my father sent for you when Sir Andreas wrote that the Margravine had been here.”

  The master-at-arms nodded again. “Yes. The old secret of the Wood has been passed down from king to king—and he would very much like you to be your own person, and to live to grow up.”

  An image flashed across Sigismund’s mind, a vision of his father sitting in a drafty campaign tent with the lantern light flickering over piled maps and reports. He recognized Sir Andreas’s seal, stamped in wax on the topmost scroll, and saw the bitter set of the King’s mouth. Then the tent flap stirred, lifting on a gust of wind, and Balisan stepped through.

  Sigismund shook his head and the vision cleared. He frowned at the spine of the book that Balisan had pushed toward him, tilting his head to one side to read the elaborate script: Coats of Arms and the Codes of War: A Guide.

  “But that’s heraldry,” he said, a little indignantly. “I’ve already begun learning that with Master Griff. I thought you were going to teach me the arts of war, and how to protect myself from the Margravine.”

  Balisan slanted an eyebrow upward, in a way that made Sigismund feel like a small child crying for sweets. “I am,” the master-at-arms told him, “but both these things require training and discipline. You have fallen easily into the way of dreams, but without knowing what you were doing or what dangers lurked there. That must be remedied. But,” he added, nodding at the tome in front of Sigismund, “knowledge too is a form of power, and when you know that book you will know the colors and emblems of every noble house in this kingdom, as well as the alliances they represent. You will be able to tell friend or enemy at a glance, even in the heat of battle, simply by reading their coat of arms. And that,” he said, turning to look out over the Wood in a way that forbade further questions, “is a beginning.”

  As the next few days slipped into weeks, Sigismund began to wonder if his expectations of a more interesting life had been misplaced. The only new practice that Balisan introduced was getting Sigismund to meditate at dawn and dusk on the roof of their tower, or in the chamber below if it was raining. The master-at-arms claimed that it was a routine followed by all the hero-knights of the Paladinates: it taught them to become fully aware of both the detail and totality of their surroundings, without being distracted by either.

  “A paladin must become indivisible from all things,” Balisan told Sigismund in the first dark predawn, “just as he is one with the blade he wields.”

  Secretly, Sigismund thought the meditation was more about endurance than awareness. He would sit cross-legged and straight-backed in the center of the tower roof and try to rise above the jangle of his thoughts and the heat or cold of the air. But there were times when he wanted to yell at Balisan and tell him that he was a prince and didn’t have to do this, even if it was part of knightly training in the Paladinates. But that would have meant giving in, and Sigismund was not prepared to give in.

  So he gritted his teeth, persevering, and occasionally, as the weeks passed into months and autumn into winter, there would be a moment when the cycle of his breath seemed one with the wind or the first light glimmering on stone. But it was only ever a flash, and then the moment would be gone.

  The best thing during this time was that Balisan took over Sigismund’s training in weapons—the lance, sword, and dagger, the long-and crossbows, and the harquebus. They spent most afternoons in the training hall or practicing archery at the castle butts with the other men from the castle, because the use of weapons, Balisan told him, must become second nature. If you had to think about your next move, then it was already too late. This at least Sigismund understood, because he had heard it from Sir Andreas and other teachers since he was old enough to pick up his first sword. So he didn’t complain when Balisan made him repeat every exercise until he felt his feet and hands could have moved on their own, without his eyes or mind to guide them.

  To underline this point, Balisan would make him train blindfold while guards attacked from different parts of the hall. Sigismund had to rely on his other senses to detect when an attack was coming and from which direction. At first he found this as frustrating as the meditation, but after a time he began to feel as though the air itself was coming alive around him: he could detect the shift and movement of its currents as much as hear an attacker move.

  Sigismund was good with all weapons, but Sir Andreas and the off-duty guards would often come to watch his training and agreed that he had a gift for the sword.

  “And althou
gh that is important for any knight,” Sir Andreas observed one afternoon, “it may be vital for a prince who has enemies.”

  It was late, and only he, Sigismund, and Balisan were left in the training hall. The day had been hard as iron and their breath smoked on the chill air.

  “Because they might try and mob me in battle?” Sigismund asked, placing his sword back on the weapons rack.

  Sir Andreas rubbed at the stubble along his jawline. “Yes, although that is why princes and generals have honor guards in battle—to protect them against that sort of thing. I was thinking more of a challenge to single combat, since no knight sworn to the code of chivalry, not even a crown prince, can refuse such a challenge.”

  “It is a time-honored way of disposing of an inconvenient enemy,” Balisan said softly. “To refuse is to be branded a coward, and no knight will follow a man with that reputation.”

  “But, of course,” Sir Andreas added, “murder disguised as single combat only works against an inferior swordsman.” He clapped Sigismund on the shoulder. “So that’s why it’s fortunate that you have a gift!”

  By the time Sigismund had been training with Balisan for a year, his natural ability had lifted to a higher level. The sword felt as much a part of him as his hand or arm, and he absorbed new cuts and moves as though he had been born knowing them. He found too that he could read an opponent’s body without conscious thought, knowing what they were going to do almost before they did it. This could have been simply repetition and unrelenting practice, but Sigismund did wonder if the meditation might also be having an effect. But gift or no gift, he could never best Balisan, no matter how hard he tried.