The SoulNecklace Stories

by R. L. Stedman

  He grinned. “Where?”

  “The balcony. It’s cool there.”

  The heavy curtains, drawn to protect the candles from errant breezes, shielded us from Mother’s sight. Leaning on the stone balustrades, we stared out at the gatehouse. Below us the moat sparkled, little chips of light caught in the ripples.

  Owein stared out at the night. “It’s not a bad view from here, is it?”

  Lanterns set into iron holders for the Festival flared in the darkness, lighting up the faces of the servants who held their own dances in the courtyard below. It sounded more fun than the ball; accordion and drums and much laughter and passing of ale cups. The night breeze was gentle, the air mild. A lovely midsummer’s night. I sighed.

  “So, who is he?” Owein asked.

  I lifted my hair from my forehead. Ruth had piled it in a great lump on the back of my neck, telling me that it was a French style, considered very elegant, but my scalp hurt because she’d pinned it so tightly.

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s pretty obvious. There’s someone, isn’t there?”

  “There’s no one,” I looked for the evening star.

  “Falling in love isn’t a crime.”

  “It’s not a crime,” I agreed. “But it’s pointless, isn’t it?”

  “What do you mean?”

  I pointed up at the tower behind us. A lamp gleamed in the topmost room, Rosa’s room, but it wouldn’t be a light of celebration, dancing or music. It would be because she was concentrating on her globe, and using the necklace to build defenses about this little island.

  “One day,” I said, “I will be up there.”

  He said nothing.

  “You know,” I added, “you’re the best off of all of us.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You can be whatever you want. You’re not stuck being the King, like Alden, or being the Guardian like me. You can be yourself.”

  “Alden loves the idea of being King,” his voice was bitter.

  “Does he really? Or is it just that he’s making the most of fate?”

  “He loves it. Look.”

  Through the window, Alden, blond and handsome in crimson velvet, danced with a brunette. The dance concluded and the dancers poured back to their seats. Alden bowed to his partner, a graceful dip and bend of knees, and smiled graciously at the young ladies who came to cluster about him, fluttering their silk like butterflies seeking the warmth of the sun. He smiled, laughing with them.

  “He’ll be a terrible king,” said Owein. “He’ll be like Grandfather.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Owein patted the seat at the base of the window. “You’re not cold?”

  I shook my head, sat next to him on the bench.

  Owein looked out at the night, at the stars and the candles. “Grandfather came close to ruining the Kingdom. He never paid attention to the crops. He only worried about appearances, about looking magnificent. Father says he spent money as though we had a well full of gold.”

  I remembered my first true dream; the dancers with their stupid, sinister faces and the King and Queen on their bright thrones.

  “He wanted the best of everything,” Owein said. “Food, furniture, musicians, books. Wanted the Kingdom to not only be the best place to have a party, but the most exclusive venue for learning, for trading. Merchants from all over the world visited here.”

  Daddy discouraged merchants, issued licenses infrequently. He preferred the tinkers, who went from place to place and treated all people equally. They provided, he said, better value.

  “How do you know all this?”

  “The barons tell me. They remember.” Owein looked over his shoulder at Alden, still smiling at his attractive audience. “He’ll be just the same. He doesn’t care at all about crops and food and budgets.”

  * * *

  The Castle became crowded with a raucous medley of servants, villagers, farmers and all manner of entertainers. Covered stalls were set up in the courtyard for the sale of iced drinks, spiced wine and other sweetmeats and, overnight it seemed, a tiered stand grew in the parade ground. This was to be the site of the main festivities: tournaments during the day and a flame-lit circus at night. And not only the castle; the entertainment spilled over into the village below.

  “There’s a man with a little dog that does tricks,” said a chamber-maid excitedly. She bobbed a curtsy like an afterthought. “And a carousel that plays tunes as it turns. It has horses on it that go up and down. Never seen the like, Princess. Do you want your green silk?”

  “No,” I said. “Tell me about the little dog.”

  “Oh, it’s ever so cute, Lady. It wears a skirt! And the man has a little whistle and when he blows on it the dog dances on its hind legs. And it rides a little cart and jumps through a hoop.”

  How I wished I could go to the village.

  “There’s a rope set into the topmost windows of the houses and if you can walk across it, a man will pay you two shillings,” she said. “And there’s a tent with a bearded lady, and jugglers who can throw fire and knives and,” this last was breathless, “a naked man who can make a snake dance!” She dropped another curtsy. “Do you need anything else, Lady?”

  “No,” I said and as she turned to leave I added, “Thank you.”

  She looked surprised and then smiled. “You’re welcome, I’m sure.”

  So I decided to go to the fair. I’d make my way down to the village. I’d never seen a performing dog before. Besides, the timing couldn’t be better. The banging of all-night carpentry and the shouts of the guards as they wrestled with flags (and chambermaids) had been too much for Nurse. Yesterday’s argument with Ruth was the final straw; not only was she uncomfortable from the heat and unable to sleep with all the noise, here was the Queen thinking she wasn’t able to dress the Princess’ hair. Overnight her fabric-swaddled face turned an alarming puce.

  I persuaded her to rest quietly in her quarters. “I’ll be fine, Nurse. Don’t worry.”

  Such luxury to be unattended! I pulled on my training hose, twisted my hair into rough braids. I would hide them under a cap.

  “Give us a lift?” I called to a mustached carpenter. His cart was laden with tools and lumps of sawn-off wood.

  He looked at me. “Going down to the village, are you?”

  “Aye. To the fair.”

  He grunted. “You’ll have to climb up yourself, mind. Fair beat I am. Up all night building that thing.”

  I clambered up quickly and settled beside him on the roughly padded seat. He jerked his thumb at the wooden stands as we passed. The tiered seats rose, it seemed, to the heavens. I must have looked impressed, for he pulled a strip of dried meat from the box under his seat. “Here.”

  “Thank you.” The leather-like strand didn’t look very appetizing.

  He yawned, a great gape of his mouth that showed all his teeth and part of his gums.

  “Aren’t you going to the fair too?”

  “Too tired,” he mumbled. “I’m waiting for the fireworks.”

  “They were getting them ready this morning.” I’d watched them putting the wooden and cardboard tubes on the west and south towers, lining up the fuse wire so it traveled over the gatehouse.

  “You don’t say! Are there Catherine Wheels?”

  “I think. At the end there’ll be great rockets that shoot up into the sky and burst into stars.”

  He breathed in deeply. “Ah! Well, that will be something.”

  I pulled my cap low over my eyes as we passed under the gate.

  “Being right particular, they are,” grunted the carpenter as we clattered over the drawbridge. “Searching everyone. Never seen the like at Festival before.”

  I slumped on the seat beside the carpenter, trying to look like an exhausted apprentice. Two guardsmen, sweating under their metal helms, gave us a cursory glance and waved us onward.

  Up the hill came Ruth, followed by the strangest group of people. Two shr
unken old people sitting awkwardly on small horses. After them was a tall, straight-backed man who neither touched the reins nor turned his head, as if the crowd at the gatehouse were beneath his notice. Strangest of all was the man at the rear; slumped and unkempt, he stared up the castle as a starving man watches food.

  I tipped my cap back to see them better. Why did these strangers seem familiar? Just then, Ruth looked at right at me. Oh no!

  I ducked back into my seat, bent toward my shoe as if there was a stone in it. The carpenter clucked to his horses and we headed down the road, the carpenter with one hand on the brake, for the hill was very steep. I held my breath. Would she call the guard?

  Ruth stopped, turned her head as though searching for something. The crowd at the gatehouse was noisy, and jostled her horse and eventually she turned, shrugged and continued her way through the crowd. But the dirty man twisted in his saddle, stared down the hill as though he’d heard something.

  “Be very careful.” A faint whisper, a thread of sound on the air that somehow carried above the laughter of the crowd and the shouts of the guardsmen. Rinpoche. “That one, he is evil.”

  “A magic worker?”

  There was no response, just a feeling I was right. Then: “Remember your dreams, Princess.”

  The carpenter sat beside me, his head nodding. I closed my eyes. Mother had said she was waiting for merchants, and the old people had had something of the look of people who trade goods for a living. But what of the straight-backed man in the metal hat and the chain-mail vest? I considered him and, as Rinpoche had taught me, shaped his image; the saddle decorated with images of deer, the spiked helmet and the long black plait of hair that hung to the middle of his chain-mailed back.

  The image stirred, turning. He looked right at me from slanting eyes and I knew him, I knew him, for I had been him as I’d ordered my soldiers to lift their curved swords and remove the heads from the singing villagers.

  Whatever the man was doing here, it couldn’t be good. Rosa needs to be warned.

  The carpenter said nothing as I slipped down from his lumbering cart; I hoped he hadn’t fallen asleep.

  I ran up the hill to the guardhouse.

  “Stand!” said the guard. “State your business.”

  I took my hat off and shook out my hair. “It’s me,” I said, truthfully and ungrammatically. “Let me pass.”

  The guards exchanged glances. “Begging your pardon, Lady.” They looked at each other: you first, no you, and uncrossed their spears.

  “Are you running away, Lady?” asked one.

  “She can’t be running away, stupid,” said the other. “She’s coming into the Castle. Not leaving. Pass, Miss.”

  I tucked my hair back into my cap and darted across the drawbridge before a crowd could form. What would it be like to run away?

  I needed Rosa. I huddled into the shadows of the gate to the inner keep and stared up at the tower

  “Not like that,” the wind whispered in my ear. Rinpoche.

  “What do you mean?”

  “The wards are up.” No sound, just a sigh, tripping around the corner like a piece of paper blown from a stallholder’s stand.

  What did he mean? And then I realized: there was no doorway at the base of the tower. Just a blank, well-crafted wall of stone. These strangers were in my home! I need to talk to an adult: Rosa, my father or N’tombe. Could I just knock on the stonework?

  An image of my practice arena passed through my mind.

  “Sometimes the shortest route is not the fastest’, whispered Rinpoche.

  Why did he have to be so obscure? “Knocking would be easier.”

  “She wouldn’t hear you.”

  * * *

  In the pleasure wood I sat against an oak, its thick trunk hard against my back. “Now what?”

  There was no answer this time, but I hadn’t expected one, for I already knew what I had to do. Breathing deeply, in and out, calming the center, soothing my thoughts. Threads of gold spilled from me, into the forest, leaping from my head, my heart, connecting with fountains of light from the trees. Like strands of wool, gold tangled about the birds and animals that lived in this tiny, controlled woodland. And when I closed my eyes, warmth enfolded me.

  I didn’t have to open my eyes to know that he was there; I could feel him, a nexus of joy.

  “Is this real?” As I spoke the wonder-filled light flared, then faded with my disbelief.

  He laughed. “What is real?”

  I churned with the need to hurry.

  “Calm, Dana. Time is not as it seems.”

  He was always so cryptic. But I tried to ignore my fear, tried to think only of breathing; deep sigh in, releasing out. And then, like a key turning in a lock, reality expanded.

  “Well done,” said Rinpoche.

  Where was Rosa, though? I turned my head, trying to see her, which made him laugh again. Searching for someone in this golden maze of energy was not like looking in the world of the everyday; for appearance is not always what is. I had to think not of the wizened woman in the tower, with her white robe and stringy hair, but the Princess with a ruby at her heart. Rosa.

  Golden lines wreathed the tree trunks, leapt in fountains from their leaves, arched from one to another. Under the soil too, the energy spread; a living net of light. Entwined in its cables, I felt its warmth. When she came, speeding through the ether like a tidal wave, the forest quivered, the trees bowed toward her. She stopped when she reached me: a golden goddess of light.

  “Dana,” she said.

  Rinpoche, all light and air, called to her. “He has come.”

  “The enemy?” she said.

  I sensed incredulity, chagrin. How could she have missed this?

  “A servant only,” Rinpoche replied, and she relaxed.

  “Tell me,” she took my hand, so our thoughts became one.

  I showed her the group of people riding with Ruth; the merchant riding like a warrior, the old people and the ragged one that reeked of evil.

  “Ah!” she said. “You have done well, Dana.”

  She disappeared like smoke from a doused fire, and I sat alone in a forest of gold. Tired, my mind slowed and I dropped, falling like a stone from this vision of rippling light into the gray world of the everyday.

  I sat against a tree. Above, birds chirped and clouds brushed against the sky. Had I fallen asleep?

  But when I stared at the tower I saw a black speck leap from its highest point and fly, like a seeking arrow, to my father’s study.

  I clambered stiffly to my feet and staggered when I stood, as exhausted as though I’d had a morning’s training session.

  * * *

  “I hope you had a reason for your journey,” said N’tombe.

  I pulled my hose off, rolling them into a bundle under my bed. “You remember my dream?” Quickly, I told N’tombe what I’d seen. “I told Rosa.”

  She nodded. “I know. You did well. The fool of a chambermaid told me you wanted to see a performing dog.” N’tombe breathed rapidly, puffing like a kettle under steam, but her voice was calm. Ominously calm. “And did you not think that this may not be the wisest thing to do right now?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Why do you think I sent Will away?” she said. “Young people! The same everywhere! You never stop to think.”

  “I thought you sent Will away because I was growing ...” I swallowed and she supplied the answer. “Too fond of him?”

  I nodded.

  “I sent him because I had a task that needed doing.” She pricked up my crumpled hose from floor. “You’d better keep this out of your Nurse’s way. What’s wrong?”

  It must have been the anxiety that made me cry, for normally I would never have done so. I couldn’t answer, but shook my head while I tried to control the tears. “Is he well, N’tombe? You’ve never told me.”

  She nodded slowly. “He is fine, Princess.”

  Patting my pocket, I found a handkerchief wadded into a b
all. Probably not that clean, but who cares? I blew my nose. “Rosa said something about an enemy.” My voice was muffled.

  N’tombe nodded. “Their intentions are not kindly. You saw how they deal with the weak.”

  Remembering again the dream of the villagers and the swords, flashing in the morning sun, I felt ill.

  N’tombe clapped her thighs. “So, thanks to you, the King will take them into custody. And we can ask them some questions.”

  “Will they answer?”

  She smiled, hooked her fingers into claws. “I think so,” she said softly. “Oh yes, I think they will.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  A Dream of Death

  That night I dreamed.

  I stood on a stone path that angled steeply through a wood. The whine of the wind merged with the sound of men shouting.

  I knew that voice. Will!

  I ran up the track, panting. If only I had my knives. Ah, but it was a dream, wasn’t it? Like an answer, my arms felt suddenly heavy. Knives, one in each hand. The track turned a corner, into a canyon and suddenly, there was the battle. A melee of sound and horror: rocks slippery with blood, soldiers screaming, dying.

  Above men with drawn bows stood, outlined against the gray sky. Find shelter, Dana! I darted into the shade of the rocks, stumbled on a corpse. An archer, blank eyes staring. Flies buzzed about the stab wound in his chest. He still had his bow with him.

  My fingers shook. Be still, hands. I pulled the bow from the dead man. It was finely crafted from layers of shiny wood, its ends tipped with brass. I nocked an arrow to its string, aimed at an ambusher above, and drew back the string. Above, a man screamed, arching backwards. I paid him no attention for he was a dream, a figment of my imagination. Instead, I shot the man beside him.

  A horse whinnied, a terrible call of fury and pain. A man shouted. Will! Watching for archers, I ducked around an overhang and headed up the track. And there he was, him and another man. Jed. Just then, their packhorse put down her head, bolted off the track, up the hill into the forest. Her hooves clattered, sliding on the stones.