The Oddling Prince

by Nancy Springer

  He turned to look at me, questioning. I reached out, and with a silent grip of our hands, we agreed; we would risk the venture.

  “Troth for both,” I remarked as I loosened my belt, passed it through Albaric’s and fastened it again, binding us together. “Would that there were a way to bind both of us to the horse.”

  But there was none.

  “Bluefire,” Albaric addressed him whimsically, “can you not turn into a blue coracle with a prow carved in the shape of a stallion’s head?”

  “You’re daft,” I told him. Both of us laid our hands on the horse’s shining slate-blue flanks for a moment in a kind of blessing or an appeal. Then Albaric said, “Hold on tight, my brother.”

  “You also.”

  We both hung on—Albaric to Bluefire’s mane, I to Albaric—and like a three-headed beast, we leapt over the breakers into the sea.

  CHAPTET THE SEVENTEENTH

  GIVE ME ANY FATE, any I say, but death by drowning. Such a betrayal, that nose and throat will perforce accept the fluid that does not belong there, liquid that burns, sets lungs on fire for air, only to breathe nightmare instead. . . . He followed his Prince—and walked into that sea? I could never do it. Were I not bound tight to Albaric, I think I would have deserted him when, no matter how I tried to cling to him with my arms and Bluefire with my legs, the first sideward slam of brute water knocked me over. Alas, Bluefire had not turned into a boat, and seawater made the horse as slippery as an eel. And the strength of seawater is like that of a halfwit giant. It pushed me down and pulled me up again and battered me about, filling my ears with the ringing of harebells, blinding my eyes, threatening to suck me under the horse’s churning, cutting hooves—for Bluefire swam so savagely, he was nearly as dangerous to me as the sea. Somehow, Albaric stayed with him, while I hung like a dead weight from my brother’s belt. I must have caught a breath of air from time to time, or I would not have survived, but I do not remember. I recall only banging my head against rock, and being dragged over gravel, and the salt water stinging in wounds I didn’t even know I had as I wobbled up to my hands and knees, as I retched and coughed and gasped and heaved, ribs aching.

  “Here, Aric. Here, my brother.” Albaric laid me face down in something dry and rough, and I felt him rubbing my ribs hard with the same stuff until I stopped vomiting and enough water had run out of me. Then I rolled over, he dropped beside me, and we both lay gasping for breath in a patch of coarse seaside grass. Along with a mouthful of gravel, I managed to spit out words. “Bloody hell!”

  “Quite.”

  “Bluefire?”

  “Left us here, went back. . . . You had the worst of it, Aric. I clung to Bluefire’s neck with arms and legs, and even so I barely—Aric, I could not help you.”

  All friends fail. “Whoever—made that song—”

  “Knew what he was talking about. Yes.”

  We lay side by side, panting, a while longer, until our breathing calmed, until my eyes had cleared and my sight at last returned. Night had fallen, or nearly so. I gazed up at a tall, tall moonlit tower against a deep indigo sky curdled with stars.

  The King’s Tower. Behind the window at the very top, we might find my mother alive, whole, and—dare I think it—somehow able to help us free Father?

  It would have been good to lie in the dry grass much longer. But I lurched to my feet.

  “There is no fear anyone will see us,” I answered Albaric’s question before he spoke it. “The walls of Dun Caltor rise sheer above this cliff, without battlements, crenellation, or guard posts, for the builders gave no thought to fighting the sea.”

  “Which, I have come to agree with you, Aric, is quite fearsome enough to serve as fortification upon its own.” Albaric rose to stand beside me. “More fearsome, to my mind, than yon tall tower. Shall we?”

  “We must.”

  “Then here.” Pulling the coil of his mother’s hair from its sanctuary by his heart—in the night, it glimmered the color of hot embers—Albaric told me, “Find a good rock for throwing, my brother.”

  “I?”

  “Yours is the arm most devoted to flinging them.”

  Already bending and feeling along the cliff-shingle at my feet, I had found a sea-washed stone of an inviting shape and heft. I held it out toward Albaric, and he wound the uncanny filament tightly around it several times, then knotted it.

  “Now, Prince of Caltor,” he instructed softly, “take careful aim, and throw the stone directly at the queen’s window.

  “Albaric, I cannot possibly throw so high!”

  “Tonight you can. Remember, it is my mother’s hair you fling. It will soar as high as it must. Only be sure of your aim.”

  I needed to stand a few minutes, inhaling the night, making myself stop exclaiming within my mind, stop thinking of anything except the strength and direction of the sea breeze and how it might affect the stone’s flight. Then, coiling, I hurled the stone and its light burden as high and true as I could.

  Somewhere far above, I heard it strike. But what if it had merely bounced off the side of the tower and hurtled into the sea?

  “Can you tell where that went?” I whispered.

  “Beautiful,” Albaric breathed.

  “What?”

  “A spire glimmering as dim as rushlight, one thread for you and one for me.”

  “I can’t see them.”

  “Here.” He took my hand and guided it to something that felt no thicker than spider web. “Climb; I’ll be right beside you.”

  Pushing away thoughts to the contrary, I obeyed, climbing quickly, guided by touch, allowing my sore and weary body, now weightless, to lie spread out upon the air, resting—although I took care neither to look down nor to contemplate what I was about, floating upward by means of a filament and my fingertips. Should I lose my hold on Queen Theena’s hair, my mortal weight would return, and I would plummet to the seaside rocks and my death.

  Another dire thought struck me. I blurted, “What if the thread has only caught on some projection in the tower’s stone, a beam, a coign—”

  “Hush. You are on your way directly to your mother’s window,” answered Albaric, his face turning to me, a pale oval in the night.

  “But what if I missed—”

  He shook his head at me. “You believe in Elfland, so why can’t you believe in yourself, Prince Aric? Your stone flew true. Were it not for the shutters, you would have shattered the precious glass. You will see.”

  And within a few moments, I did see. Unmistakably above my head, I could make out a rectangular shape illuminated from within by the dim golden flutter of candleglow.

  Within a few moments, I reached the window, its aperture the thickness of the castle wall, making a ledge three feet deep. There on the ledge lay my stone. And it would appear that the sound of its impact had aroused my mother, for there she stood with shutters and windows flung wide open, standing straight and pale as a statue. In a moment, I realized what great courage she displayed.

  “Spirit of my son Aric,” she addressed me in a low, controlled voice, “why come you here?”

  Startled at first, then I understood how I must look seemingly floating on air in the darkness outside her high window. Doubtless Lord Domberk had taken pleasure in telling her his henchmen had ambushed me to kill me. And if I were dead, she had every right to be terrified of me, because only those who have died unjust and evil deaths return to haunt, and their spirits are vengeful. Even though I had been her loving son in life, she could no longer trust me.

  “No, Mother, no, I’m not a haunt,” I told her with my heart in my voice. “I am alive! I am flesh and blood. I used an Elfin device to get up here, that is all.” Reaching the window ledge, I crouched there, offering her my hand.

  Her mouth opened like an oval, and after a slight hesitation, she took my hand, and when she felt my warm and solid fingers close around hers, she gasped, gripped me by both arms as if I were a toddler, and hauled me inside, tears running down her face. I h
ugged her—not as tall as I had thought, she stood with her head tucked beneath my chin. Stroking her hair, which was plaited for slumber, I noticed serpentines of silver woven into the braids. When had her hair started to gray?

  “No handwomen?” I sensed we were alone in the shadowy room—except that Albaric now crouched on the window ledge, gathering his most precious remembrance of his mother into a coil.

  She shook her head—a movement against my collarbone. “They took them away.”

  “To leave you alone with fear.” My feelings for her squeezed my chest and choked my voice.

  “With despair. Oh my son, I never expected to see you again alive.” She clung to me.

  Kissing her, then holding her by the shoulders, I studied her, trying to assess how much harm she had suffered, but in the wavering candlelight, I could tell little.

  “I am as strong as a sword now that you are back,” she told me, guessing my concern, “and you, Albaric,” she added, turning to the window. Then she gasped. “Oh, Albaric, they scarred your face!”

  He gave her a smiling glance. “It was hard battle.”

  I said, “But they were not expecting so swift a sword, or so fierce a horse.”

  With her head high, gazing at both of us, somehow she managed to look every inch a queen even though she stood barefoot, clad only in her shift. It was her strength that gave me strength to question her. Taking her hand, I led her to her broidery-chair, seated her there, gave her a blanket off the bed and knelt to gather it around her feet, then forced myself to ask, “Mother—what has that pig named Brock done to you?”

  “Nothing!” She straightened her spine, defiant. “He has not laid a hand on me. He can take away my clothing and my baldric and my dirk, he can lock me in this room, but he cannot set a foot inside it. Nor have I let him harm so much as a hair on your father’s head, Aric, for all that he’s shut him in the dungeon.”

  “Let him?”

  “I should not boast, lest I be bested.” Her voice lowered, sobered. “I know not what may happen next. We are prisoners, and the ring is a tricksome thing.”

  CHAPTER THE EIGHTEENTH

  THE RING!

  The wayward ring of Elfin power. No longer, I realized, did Mother wear it on a long golden chain around her neck.

  Albaric came in the window, another sort of Elfin ring—the glimmering red-gold coil of his mother’s hair—in his hands. He tucked it back into his tunic and sat on the floor beside me, his silence asking many questions.

  As did mine. But before I could settle on one, Mother said simply, “It was like this,” and she told her tale.

  Clash of metal on metal, sword upon sword. Screams of men in rage or mortally wounded. Those were the sounds that had awoken her and her handwomen from sleep two mornings ago. At first, Queen Evalin had remained calm, albeit dressing quickly, for it was not the first time Dun Caltor had been assailed—but this time was different. Frightened servants ran in to tell her that the wall was overrun, King Bardaric unhorsed and unhelmed, his warriors leaderless and in disorder, the keep itself under attack.

  “I could scarcely believe it,” she said, her face bleak as bone with words unsaid.

  Nor could I say the words. I could barely bring myself to think them: Father, hauled down from Invincible and captured without a wound? Without a wound? This was not the Sire I knew.

  “Yet, even when the mind is stunned, one must prepare for the worst.”

  Mother had taken the Elfin ring of power off its gold chain and carried it concealed in the palm of her hand.

  The ring. I should have known.

  “The quirky thing was very pink,” she recalled, “and merry. During the past month or so, I’ve become well acquainted with that ring,” she confided to Albaric and me, “and begun to feel a certain understanding with it, and I resolved that if I had a chance to make use of it, I would do so.”

  The chance came all too soon. Hearing sounds of battle near at hand, Queen Evalin issued forth from her chamber to meet whatever fate awaited her. “I would not have them take me in my hidey-hole like a mouse.” Soon enough, it was all over; Domberk’s men seized her by the arms and hurried her to the great hall, where Brock of Domberk slouched on the tall throne carved of Calidon stone. Stripped to his smallclothes, Bardaric knelt before him. Rough hands forced Queen Evalin to kneel by her husband’s side.

  “What has happened to you?” she whispered.

  “Courage, my Queen,” was her husband’s reply. “They say Aric will not return.”

  “Silence!” roared Brock of Domberk, glorying in victory. “Do you swear fealty to me, Bardaric, as my vassal?”

  “Never shall Caldor bow to Domberk.”

  “But you do bow!” Gloating glee oozed from the conquering lord like slime. “Why not face defeat, swear to obey me, and spare your life?”

  “Never.”

  “You would rather die and leave your widow at my mercy?”

  “Lord of Domberk,” Mother cried out as if in great agony of emotion, “I beg you, spare my husband’s life!” She bowed her head and raised her hands as if begging for pity.

  “Evalin, where is your pride?” protested my father.

  But she ignored him. “I cry upon your sovereign grace for our lives, conqueror!” she appealed to Lord Brock, inching closer to him on her knees until she clutched at his robe.

  Domberk, quite enjoying this, told Father, “Behold, your once-so-haughty wife knows the next king when she sees him. Bow your head, Caldor!”

  “Never!

  “Bow, or you die!”

  “Never.”

  “Oh, mercy, please, great my victorious majesty, spare him!” Almost in Brock’s lap by this time, Mother heightened her frenzy, grasped his left hand, and drew it toward her as if to smother it with kisses. Much flattered, he allowed this—but as her head bowed over his hand, she rammed the ring of Elfin power onto the finger closest to his heart.

  “You shall kill no one!” she shouted as she sprang to her feet. “You shall harm no one in my household!”

  At the same time, but with far less dignity, Lord Brock sprang up also, jumping and jigging as if wasps were stinging him, flailing his left hand and clawing at it with the other. Bellowing curses, he managed to snatch the ring off his hand, but he could not keep hold of it; it flared scorching orange, and as if it were a fiery ember, he flung it away.

  Then greatly Mother feared that her ploy had failed. “What have you done?” Domberk roared. “What have you done to me? Witch!” he cried, striking at her with his fist. Leaping to his feet, my father lunged to stop him—too late—but it mattered not: Domberk struck only air. As if a wall of invisible stone stood between the angry lord and Queen Evalin, he could not touch her. The power of the ring protected her.

  “But where is it now?” I exclaimed.

  “I do not know.” In the dim candlelight, I imagined more than saw Mother’s rueful smile. “It flew off into the shadows of the great hall, no one knows where. My victory was partial and short. Lord Brock cannot harm any of us here at Dun Caltor or order us harmed—it enrages him constantly that he cannot ravish or torture or slay us, enrages him all the more because he cannot comprehend what prevents him, and while his rage seemed amusing at first, I like it less and less with each passing hour. How long will he imprison us thus? What is to become of us? What if they turn the power of the ring against us?”

  “First,” said Albaric softly, “they would have to find it.”

  “Surely, if Brock is no fool, they have already done so.”

  My brother smiled up at her and shook his head. “The ring is particular about the company it keeps. You are greatly honored, Queen Evalin, that it has befriended you. I think it will not allow Lord Brock to lay hands upon it if he is as porcine as I understand him to be.”

  “But you could find it,” I said to Albaric, for I knew him.

  “Yes, and I should do so.”

  “How?” Mother asked.

  “Just go padding abo
ut. I will feel it.”

  “But my dear, we are locked in this chamber.”

  She called him “my dear” as if he were a beloved child. Getting up, I had to smile. Shuffling in the darkness, I made my way toward the chamber door.

  Mother asked, “Aric, what are you doing?”

  “Didn’t someone lock me in my chamber as a punishment on occasion when I was a child?” I teased. “And didn’t I generally get out?” With the tip of my dirk, I probed the keyhole of the clumsy old lock, and sure enough, they’d left the key in it on the outside; I felt it give way and heard it clang on the floor. Then I took my sword and slipped it under the door. I tried to sweep the key inside the chamber with it, but the sword grated against the stone, sticking. I muttered something that made Mother tsk her tongue at me.

  “Try my sword,” Albaric offered.

  More slender, it did nicely, coaxing the key under the door until I could seize it. Standing, I warned, “Shush, everyone,” and waited until Mother had blown out the candle before I turned the key in the lock and eased the door open.

  For several minutes, I stood listening with weapon at the ready, in case some Domberk guard had been alerted by the scrape of the sword or the clack of the lock. But no sounds of alarm disturbed the silence. Finally, I stepped forward.

  Albaric whispered, “First we must find the ring.”

  “I must go to Bard!” Throwing a dark shawl over her linen chemise, Mother pattered forward, on her bare feet as noiseless as a spirit.

  Standing with my arms spread across the doorway, I blocked them both. “How will you see where you are going? And first, before anything, we must capture Brock Domberk. Once we have him, we can do what we like. Mother, do you know where he sleeps?”

  There was a moment’s silence as they accepted my leadership.

  Then Mother said, “I think behind the throne.” She meant in a small chamber where kings slept during travails when they might be needed at a moment’s notice—although I had forgotten there was a bed behind the throne; in my lifetime, that chamber had been used only as a repository for royal paraphernalia.