A Strange and Ancient Name

by Josepha Sherman

  “My—my lord?”

  “What happened to you?”

  “I—”

  “I thought I could trust you to return in good speed and in good order! How dare you appear before me late—and in such disarray?”

  The boy stared, plainly too taken aback by the unexpected attack to defend himself. It’s not my affair, Hauberin told himself. It’s really not my affair. But he found himself interjecting, “Aimery is hardly to blame for his appearance. He was attacked by bandits in the forest, and very narrowly escaped with his life.”

  Hot brown eyes flashed to him. Hauberin could practically hear the thought behind them: Who’s this? A threat? “And how would you know that?”

  What, no words of courtesy? “I was there,” Hauberin said flatly.

  “Oh, my lord, he saved my life! He—”

  “I have not given you leave to speak, Squire.” Tall Sir Raimond moved one sly step forward, just enough to force the prince to look up at him. But Hauberin was well used to looking up at taller folk; Hauberin was not impressed.

  “As you can see, Sir Raimond, the boy is injured. Give him leave to retire if you won’t let him speak.”

  “So now! You give orders freely for a stranger.”

  Why, Chaos take you, you insolent . . . “No order. Merely a suggestion.”

  Behind those words glimmered the subtlest of persuasion-spells, reaching gently out to ensnare—

  Nothing!

  But that was impossible. The man was human, no sorcerer, he couldn’t be blocking—

  Off-guard in his astonishment, the prince heard himself finishing, “A better idea by far than abandoning a boy placed in your charge.”

  Damn! He hadn’t meant to say that. And oh, the delighted buzzing from their audience.

  “Polite?” came Alliar’s wry comment as the human’s eyes blazed up in fury.

  “This boy, as you call him, is a full squire. And if he cannot defend himself, why then, he has no right to that rank!”

  He locked glances with Hauberin, plainly intending to put this insolent stranger in his place. But the cold, alien anger glinting in those slanting black eyes would have shaken any human. The young man turned away, not without a muttered, “You go too far—”

  The sudden blare of trumpets cut into whatever else he might have said. Sir Raimond froze. “The hunting party. You are my brother’s guest, not mine.”

  With that, he whirled with a melodramatic snap of cloak, and vanished back into the Great Hall, followed by a small swarm of worried, excited retainers.

  “Why, what a spoiled child it is!” Hauberin murmured. And just then his smile held nothing at all of humanity.

  Aimery was staring at him in horror. “Oh, my lord, please forgive him, he’s s-so quick to anger sometimes, but he means nothing by it. He doesn’t know who you are, he didn’t mean . . .”

  The prince glanced at Bertran, who was wild-eyed with confusion, bewildered by his fellow squire’s panic, wondering just how powerful these strangers might be. And there was still that fascinated audience of castle folk, delighted at the chance of watching their betters’ quarrel.

  Your entertainment is over, Hauberin told them silently. “No, Aimery. The man is in no danger from me. Yet,” he added softly. The prince turned at a wild clamor of voices and hoofbeats against stone and dogs whining and yelping till his head rang. “Here, I would think, comes your baron.”

  Ae, what a confused tangle! Servants hurried here and there, holding bridles or stirrups or running off on mysterious errands. The richly dressed hunting party dismounted, laughing, the men in their tunics and hose and swinging cloaks slapping dust off their clothing, the women in their long, full gowns—wide enough to drape decorously over both legs as they rode, like their men, astride—slipping to the ground so neatly they showed not the faintest hint of ankle, men and women both butterfly-bright in reds, blues, yellows. The cheerful hounds, tails wagging, panting, intrigued by the alien scents of Hauberin and Alliar (or non-scents, in the wind spirit’s case) swirled about in parti-colored canine circles, yapping, thrusting cold noses into Hauberin’s hands, darting off, getting underfoot and sworn at by the humans till taken in hand at last by their keepers.

  The prince drew back, overwhelmed by the noise, the sheer number of lives, the new assault on his psychic senses, and met by chance the deep brown eyes of the man who, judging from the aura of matter-of-fact power surrounding him, must surely be Baron Gilbert himself.

  A boy in livery—Denis, presumably, the third squire—leaped from his own horse to hold his lord’s stirrup. The man dismounted with practiced ease, still studying Hauberin with those somber, humorless eyes. No longer young, this baron; there were no drastic signs of human aging as there had been with the innkeeper, but the dark gold of hair and beard that seemed to be a baronial family trait was faded and streaked with gray. And there was a certain . . . brittleness about the man that reminded Hauberin of the ancient Faerie sage, Sharailan. The baron was as tall at least as his hot-tempered younger brother (Hauberin couldn’t resist a plaintive: Is every adult I meet in this Realm going to be tall?), but with a hundred times the cool self-control evident in every proud line of him. Too much self-control, perhaps?

  “A man who doesn’t laugh very often,” Alliar summarized neatly. “Now, what? Does their custom demand we speak first, or must we wait for him?”

  Hauberin hadn’t the faintest idea. But Aimery was already limping determinedly forward, leaning on Bertram’s arm, to bow before his lord, who was staring at him in astonishment.

  “Aimery! God’s name, lad, are you all right?”

  At least someone cared about the boy’s well-being!

  “Yes, my lord,” Aimery said quickly. “A broken arm, a wrenched ankle, nothing worse. (“‘Nothing worse,” mimicked Hauberin. “The little hero!” and felt Alliar’s silent laugh.) “I was set upon by bandits in the forest.”

  “Bandits,” the baron muttered. “My Lord Thibault sends all his sweepings to us. We shall need to do some serious hunting by and by! But how is it that you escaped?”

  “That’s due to these two gentles.” Aimery gave them a smile radiant with hero worship. “They saved my life.”

  The baron regarded Hauberin and Alliar with new interest. “My gratitude, my lords. It would have been a sorrowful thing had the good squire been slain.”

  “Indeed.” Hauberin was bemused by the calm, precise voice. If someone told the man his castle was burning, he’d probably just murmur, “A pity.”

  “Aimery,” the baron said, “go to your quarters. You may join us in the Great Hall after, but you are excused from waiting at table. Bertran, go with him; I see he needs your help.” The man turned back to his unexpected guests, inclining his head a polite fraction. “Your pardon for this delay, my lords. My lady wife will see that you are rested and given clean clothing.” A hint of curiosity was struggling to surface in the cool brown eyes, but the baron’s smile was quite formal and proper. “In God’s name,” he said without any real warmth, “welcome.”

  X

  GUESTS

  Hauberin eyed the Baroness Matilde in some delight. At last: an adult human who wasn’t so ridiculously tall! She was his own height, perhaps even a touch shorter, a lithe, slim young woman in quiet blue, her long braids wound about with so much ribbon he couldn’t be sure of their color.

  A handsome woman, too, at least to Faerie eyes. Despite the ruddy skin that seemed a human characteristic (the result, no doubt, of living under that garish sun), her face was nicely high of cheekbone, with an intriguing slant to those intelligent dark eyes, though for all he knew, human standards of beauty were different enough to find her too exotic to be attractive.

  But . . . odd. After her first open glance at him, honest curiosity in her eyes, the baroness had looked hastily away, never quite meeting his gaze again, almost as though he somehow frightened her, or at least made her uneasy. Puzzled, the prince sent out a delicate mind-touch, but met nothing save th
e blank wall of the totally magickless.

  “Welcome in my husband’s name,” the woman said, and there was the warmth of courtesy, if nothing more, in her voice. “Forgive me. I must go now to oversee the dinner.” Hauberin thought the glimpse of weary harassment that flickered in her eyes was genuine; the lady of the household, if he remembered his mother correctly, was in charge of every aspect of castle life. “My ladies and servants will see to your comfort.”

  With that, the baroness fled.

  ###

  “I don’t understand it,” Alliar said plaintively in the Faerie tongue. “We’ve been bathed—”

  “Our feet, at least.”

  “—and fussed over and pampered by those pretty little servants—”

  “Ladies, Li. The baroness’ ladies-in-waiting.”

  They hadn’t made too much of an impression on him, other than a faint, easily ignored sensual stirring at their blatant flirtations; Hauberin preferred intelligence to bland prettiness and vapid giggling. Besides, he didn’t find their round eyes and silly little human shells of ears particularly appealing.

  But he had quite liked what little he’d seen of the Baroness Matilde. A pity she was so unnerved by strangers. And human. And, for that matter, married; Hauberin had never considered adultery a sport. Ach, stupid. This ridiculous quest was taking long enough as it was. He had no intention of endangering it with any human complications.

  “Ah, my prince . . . ?”

  “Oh. Sorry, Li. You were saying?”

  “Only that I think some of those ladies had more than a polite interest in you.”

  Hauberin laughed. “And in you, my so apparently human friend.”

  Alliar shot him a look of sheer, stunned disbelief. “You mean . . . for those . . . gendered sports?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Ae.” The being grinned ruefully. “The poor things are in for a sad surprise if they think they could—I could—there’s a limit to what I can imitate, after all! But what I started to say was: with all the attention that’s been showered on us, no one has so much as asked our business here. Now we’re about to sit down to dine with the baron—and he doesn’t even know our names! Oh, my prince, I don’t understand your humans at all. Don’t they have any curiosity?”

  “Curiosity has nothing to do with it, Li. Don’t you remember what Aimery told us earlier? Noble manners forbid the asking of questions before guests have had a chance to refresh themselves. After dinner, we’ll probably face more questions than we can answer. I just wish I knew what story our Aimery has concocted.”

  “Indeed.” Alliar eyed Hauberin’s small harp in dismay. “You don’t expect us to sing for our suppers?”

  Hauberin grinned. “Hardly. I only thought music might make a pleasant thank you gift for this hospitality.” The prince glanced down at himself. The deep red, ankle-length, richly embroidered tunic seemed proper enough (it had better be; he was rapidly running out of changes of clothing), particularly after he had added to it a simple coronet of Faerie silver and an intricate silver neck-chain of dwarven craft. “Well? Do I look convincingly human?”

  “Convincingly, if a touch exotically.” Alliar glanced at him in sudden sympathy. “You’re nervous all over again, aren’t you, my friend?”

  Hauberin sighed. “Nervous. And impatient. And eager to be done with this charade.” Switching to the human tongue, he added, “Come, my friend. The Great Hall awaits.”

  ###

  As they entered the Hall, Hauberin froze, stunned by a combination of smell—smoke, cooking, and too many not too clean humans—and a wall of noise so thick it was nearly tangible.

  Can I possibly get away with saying, Thank you, I’ll eat in my room?

  But of course there wasn’t any such easy way out, so Hauberin, feeling the equally shocked Alliar gritting mental teeth beside him, marched forward with desperate regal courage. They were seated at the linen-covered High Table on its dais, as guests of obvious—if still unspecified—rank. The steward must have noted Alliar’s subtle deference to the prince, because he gave Hauberin the place of honor to the right of Baron Gilbert, who sat straight-backed and dignified in his canopied chair.

  To the baron’s left was the Baroness Matilde, of whom all Hauberin could see without rudely leaning around his host, was a hint of that high-cheekboned face framed by braids so thickly wound with metallic thread he still had no idea of their color. But seeing her beside her husband for the first time, the prince realized with a small shock just how young she was, possibly his own age or even less. These weren’t his own Faerie folk, to whom the concept of time was all but meaningless; he couldn’t help but wonder at seeing human youth wed to age, even if the baroness’ mien was every bit as sober as her husband’s.

  But then, married to that grave, proper man, with such a gap of mortal years between them, how could she be anything but weighed down by his sobriety. Odd, odd, that she should have chosen such a mate . . .

  It wasn’t his business, Hauberin reminded himself.

  To the baroness’ left sat her brother-in-law, the silently brooding Raimond, and Hauberin frowned slightly. Matters between them had hardly been improved by their formal introduction. When the baron had learned how they’d already met, he had subjected his furious younger brother to a lecture on courtesy all the more painful for its lack of temper.

  And in front of everyone, as well. Hardly tactful. Hardly a way to ensure brotherly love, either.

  “My prince? Our Raimond’s not at all happy about your occupying his rightful place, is he?”

  “He’s not happy about anything to do with me.”

  Hauberin grinned, enjoying what he admitted was a petty satisfaction. But the baron’s cousin, Lisette, very young, very pretty, and very, very shy, sat between him and Alliar, and the prince quickly softened his grin to a polite smile, and received the faintest smile and small dip of the head in return. The lady, it seemed, wasn’t much of a conversationalist.

  Hauberin turned to look about the vastness of the hall again, trying in vain to inure himself to the noise and smell. The windows, set high in the thick walls, were little more than the usual arrow-slits, but the wide fireplace and many torches fought off some of the stone building’s chill and provided, along with clouds of smoke, more than enough fight for even human eyes—and there were a good many human eyes in that hall. All the folk of the castle seemed to be crowded in there, seated at trestle tables (easily assembled, easily removed), gossiping and joking and calling to each other, and the prince hastily raised a psychic mind-wall in self-defense, wondering how long it would be before his mental strength gave way.

  He was not at all happy with the way the humans kept staring at him. As though I were some bizarre creature in a cage.

  Eh, but wait . . . he had suddenly sensed—vaguely, through his protective barriers—a most curious aura. Hauberin looked over the throng more slowly, hunting . . . There: the tantalizing emanations seemed to be coming from that dark-robed little man at the back of the hall.

  Well now, a human magician!

  A petty one. One without even enough Power to react to Hauberin’s presence. A conjurer, nothing more, probably here to entertain the nobles. It might prove amusing to see his tricks, the prince decided, and dismissed him.

  Denis and Bertran were serving those at the High Table (an odd custom, to turn nobly born youngsters into servants), but the temporarily disabled Aimery was seated at a table just below the baronial dais. Hauberin watched him a moment, then chuckled.

  “I see our Aimery has already found himself a young lady to fuss over him,” he murmured to Lisette.

  “Of course, my lord.” Her pretty blue eyes were wide and innocent. “Even a page must have a lady to revere.”

  “And to revere him, eh? Have you a lad, then?”

  How the girl was blushing! “My lord, I am betrothed.”

  “What, a child like you?”

  “I am fifteen, my lord. Next spring I shall be a wedded wife.”r />
  Powers, they wed young in this land! Hauberin bowed from the waist. “I stand corrected.”

  Lisette seemed to shrink into herself. “I m-meant no offense, my lord.”

  “None taken, my lady.” Studying her, he had to smile. “And you’re looking forward to next spring, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, my lord,” she murmured so softly that even Faerie ears had to strain, blushing an even deeper pink. Lisette looked in confusion down at the table before her, and would say no more. Hauberin honored her embarrassment and glanced instead down the white linen length of the High Table.

  No forks, of course. He hadn’t expected any; he could remember his mother describing her surprise at the Faerie folk’s use of such “effete and luxurious” tools. Well, the lack of forks wasn’t a true handicap, not if one’s hands were clean and one was a neat feeder. There weren’t any plates either, save for thick and presumably impervious slabs of hard bread. The rest of the setting was elegant enough: heavy linen napkins and wrought silver drinking cups; the baron was making a good showing for his guests. The floor was thickly covered with rushes—Hauberin had expected that, too, from his mother’s tales—and if they weren’t exactly fresh, at least some considerate servant had strewn the area about the High Table with armfuls of fresh flowers and herbs, which mercifully masked unpleasant aromas. Hauberin grimly shut his mind to thoughts of what might be living in the layers underneath, and turned his mind instead to finding an explanation of his presence.

  Just in time. During the second course of venison, rabbit, and pork, the baron turned to Hauberin with his precise, formal smile, and asked, “You’ve come far, my lord Hauberin?”

  Aimery, it seemed, had already spoken with the baron. “Far indeed,” the prince agreed.

  “From your words earlier, you would seem to have travelled up from the south. Would you chance to have news of Arle or Tramount?”

  “Alas, my good lord,” Hauberin said, “we’ve been wandering through so much forest of late . . . When I look back, all I seem to remember are branches and leaves and that dusty, dusty road.” He smiled charmingly. “We are not, of course, used to foot-travel.”