“If you’d ever bothered to learn to read or write or do sums, instead of forcing me to do your lessons for you, you wouldn’t have to put up with me,” Tristan retorted. “In fact, you could just hire a seneschal to write your letters and collect your rents and keep your books.”
“You know some stranger’d try to cheat me,” Dunstan seemed as though he could barely stand. “You mus’ pr’tec’ our kingdom from thieves.”
“You’re not half so worried about dishonesty as you are about people finding out that you know nothing and have to have someone else do everything that matters.”
Dunstan planted a fist in Tristan’s side. The pain was extraordinary. Tristan shoved as hard as he could and suddenly Dunstan was in the river, barely clinging to the bank, the current tearing at him.
“Tris! God’s mercy, help me!” Tristan flattened and seized Dunstan by the shoulders. Dunstan scrabbled for him in complete panic, seizing his brother’s shirt and pulling it wildly. Tristan felt the cloth wind around his throat and realized Dunstan was likely to strangle him. Something in his side where Dunstan had struck him seemed to tear as he struggled with his brother’s weight.
“Get your feet into the bank!” Tristan gritted. “Duns! Help yourself!”
“I can’t!” Dunstan shrieked. “Cloak … weighs a thousand pounds! … Slipping!” Tristan sawed at the cloak’s neckcord with his small eating knife.
“… Bastard!” Dunstan wailed into his ear. “… Did it … on purpose. Tryin’ t’ steal my kingdom!” Ignoring him, Tristan managed to pull the cloak off Dunstan. But it wrapped itself around Tristan’s arm and leg on his weakened right side. Dunstan vaulted himself up onto the stones, and at the same moment, Tristan found himself in the Brenget. It snatched him like a giant hand, and the weight of the cloak was like its iron fingers dragging him underwater. As he went down he saw Dunstan’s horrified face, his arm reaching out toward Tristan. The spring-swollen current swept him downstream. He felt almost paralyzed with cold and the agony of Dunstan’s blow. Dunstan’s real and imagined shouts rang in his ears till the roaring water made it impossible to hear anything else. How far the river carried him he couldn’t tell. He tried several times to swim to a bank but it was impossible. He choked and went under, slammed into a fallen log, felt himself dragged beneath it, surfaced gasping and struggling, felt a low-hanging branch slap his face, went under again. The sequence repeated itself in varied form until he simply did not know anymore what forms of punishment the river meted out. He finally hurtled against a bank on a curve in the river. Briers tore at his hands as he seized anything to get a purchase, to get up onto the ground. Boggy mud sucked at his boots, roots tripped him over and over. Thorns shredded his clothes. He walked, stumbled, staggered, freezing, sodden, starving, utterly lost, wondering if the woods ever came to an end, or just dropped off the edge of the world. Dimly he was aware that some degree of light faded and returned at intervals, and that two days seemed to have passed. Each time he grew too exhausted to walk or stumble or crawl anymore he rolled himself in Dunstan’s cloak and slept. It hardly even disturbed him that the walking periods got shorter and the sleeping periods got longer.
Chapter Two
O my dove, that art in the clefts of the rock, in the secret places of the stairs, let me see thy countenance, let me hear thy voice; for sweet is thy voice, and thy countenance is comely.
Song of Solomon 2:14
“Mama, here is my prince, asleep under the tree. It is Prince Tristan, isn’t it? You said he was the tall one.” Tristan opened his eyes to see a beautiful blue-eyed girl with shining black hair holding his right hand in hers and twirling his ring around on his finger.
“You! Get back over here.” It cost a ridiculous lot of effort for Tristan to shift his gaze to a road, where some pairs of legs wavered beside a wagon wheel, broken, lying beside a wagon. The legs kneeling beside the wheel belonged with hands working to repair it. Tristan looked back at the beautiful girl.
“Who are you and what are you doing here?” Tristan saw a soldier approach him, wearing a yellow tunic emblazoned with a black dragon.
“Mayra, get away from that man!” an anxious woman’s voice cried. A pretty older woman with the girl’s blue eyes and hair not quite as dark or shining came up beside her. Tristan was dimly aware that he was not seeing things quite as they ought to be, that it was hard to focus his attention on what people were saying, that the girl’s little soft fingers were caressing his hand and trying to push his tangled hair from his face.
“Husband, it is the royal ring of Parangor!” The woman gasped as a round-faced man with bright dark eyes and a cloud of black beard also appeared in Tristan’s view. “See? Bronze, with the gold wheat field and the silver badger peeking out of it?”
“Mama, he’s hurt!” the girl exclaimed. “See? His face is all bruised and cut.”
“He’s probably just a drunk who got in a fight and passed out here,” one of the soldiers growled. “The prince of Parangor is not likely to be lying under a tree in rags, beat to a pulp, three hundred miles from home. You, get up on your feet. I told you people to get away from him.”
Tristan attempted to get his knees under him, was surprised to succeed, and then lifted his right leg to put his foot on the ground, reaching out his right hand to support himself on the tree. His right side sent a jolt of pain through him that knocked him flat on the ground again. He lay there, trying to gasp, to speak, to do anything.
“What’s wrong with him?’ one of the soldiers cried out. “Is there a spirit in that tree that went after him?” Anger flared in Tristan’s breast in spite of everything at the thought that he had still not escaped the influence of those who could fear a river god and spirits in a tree.
“I have some medical knowledge,” the woman said. She touched Tristan’s side and he sucked in a breath. “Let me see to him, please. This rib is broken.” Tristan heard cloth tearing and gasped as someone began wrapping fabric tightly around his midsection. It hurt tremendously at first, but somehow the worst of the pain in his side faded off into the distance after a few moments.
“If he’s the prince of Parangor, maybe they’re at war,” one of the soldiers ventured as the woman began to examine Tristan for other injuries. “It would explain the state he’s in.”
“Heard rumors there might be war between the brothers after the old king went,” another soldier said. “Something about gods and shrines and such. Didn’t understand it. People will believe what they believe. Why fight about it?”
The girl, Mayra, had left him. Tristan missed her. She had seemed like a light in a confused, murky mist. She was back, suddenly, and she knelt beside him and poured a little water from her hand between his lips. It was the first moisture his mouth had felt since the river. He coughed and the pain surged anew, but he sucked greedily at her hand. She drew more from a bucket, and he drank all she gave him.
“My brother and I were in the woods near the castle. He fell into the Brenget. I fell in getting him out,” Tristan croaked. “It carried me a long way. And I walked in the woods. It’s been at least two days, probably three. I don’t know where I am.”
“You fell into the Brenget?” the woman She looked up at the soldiers. “The Brenget. That’s what they call the Lahina in Parangor. Do you understand why he looks like this? The river carried him all the way from Kenborana to here.”
“It’s true. That way it would be less than a hundred miles,” one of the soldiers stated.
“He couldn’t have lived through that,” the other snorted. “He’s mad, or a liar.”
“This ring doesn’t lie,” the man said. “My wife was born in Kenborana. She saw the princes in a procession not long ago. She’s told our daughter about it a hundred times. This man must be Prince Tristan. You must see that he’s cared for, and get him back home.”
“You aren’t in any position to give orders,” one of the soldiers said. “Our job is to escort you to Gregor’s vineyard. We’re late as it is, with
this wheel breaking. As for getting him home, if he is Prince Tristan, he’s not going back the way he came, and any way home is a journey beyond anybody’s ability with these mudholes passing for roads. We’ll carry him into Larcondale and get someone to take charge of him. That’s all we can do.”
Somehow they got Tristan into the wagon on top of some bundles. The woman cradled his head and shoulders in her lap, trying to spare him some of the jolting. He was comforted most by fixing his eyes on the girl, Mayra, who tried to steady him with one small hand, holding fast to his right hand with the other. Tristan heard the family’s voices from time to time, the father walking alongside the cart, the woman and her daughter close to him. They sang, or prayed, or spoke the words of Scripture, and Tristan was sure God had sent them to keep Dunstan’s river god from winning the battle he had just fought against death and the end of all his hopes for Parangor. But he could only endure so much of the jouncing and faded in and out through the journey. Tristan saw next a balding man in plain sky blue and white garb, the cut of the garments and the tiny bronze cross clasp on his right shoulder similar to the garb worn in his own country by a minister of the true God. The man said something to him, but someone seemed to be making an infernal noise, rasping breaths, sobs, groans and the like, and he couldn’t hear. Then Tristan realized the someone was himself. Other men appeared and began to lift Tristan off the wagon. Then came the final burst of pain and nothingness.
Chapter Three
Those that be planted in the house of the LORD shall flourish in the courts of our God.
Psalm 92:13
Tristan awoke on a straw pallet not far from a fireplace in the corner of a small room. Dimly he had been aware of a baby fussing, meals being prepared, prayers spoken, wood brought in, all the indications that this was the main room of a very small cottage and he was a very out of place item in it. A woman, still slender and handsome, with golden hair and pitying gray eyes, tended him and cared for an infant in a sling at her breast. He was aware as well of the balding man, whose hair was almost completely gray, what there was of it, and whose eyes were a kind but anxious brown. There was also at times a small, wizened man, with untidy gray hair, who gave him nasty, stupefying things to drink, and therefore must be some kind of herbalist. A few times the balding minister tried to speak to Tristan but it seemed to be a long time before he could attend sensibly or reply usefully. He had heard the woman clucking pityingly over all his scratches and bruises, his blistered feet.
Finally he got to the point where his head was clear. Tristan sat up on his straw mat with his back against the plastered wall. The minister sat on a low stool between Tristan and the fire. He had introduced himself as Thomas and his wife, the handsome gray-eyed woman, as Ilesa. Tristan learned that the nursing baby’s name was Kiri. Thomas explained that Tristan had now been there a week. Tristan told him his name and explained to him the circumstances of his departure from his father’s funeral.
“I’m going to have to go back. God bless you for your kindness, and I would surely pay you for all your care if I could. I’m sorry I came away with no money, but I didn’t expect to come away at all. When we reach Parangor I’ll make certain whoever can take me will be amply repaid and brings you payment as well.”
“It’s impossible,” Thomas snorted. “There’s no one here who can take you to Parangor, even if it is true that you are who you say you are, which I doubt anyone will believe.”
“Wait, I have proof,” Tristan said hastily. “My ring – only the royal family wear it. I – “ He stopped dead. The third finger on his right hand was empty. “My ring! It’s gone. Where –?”
“You didn’t have any ring when you arrived here,” Thomas said. “I’m sorry, but after having been through what you described you should thank God if all you lost was a ring. I didn’t say I don’t believe your story, friend, or that I needed proof. The question isn’t whether you speak the truth, but how you can possibly get back to your city of Kenborana.”
“What do you mean?” Tristan demanded.
“Can you walk a little way outside with me?” Thomas asked. “Thank the Lord it isn’t raining at this moment.” Tristan got gingerly to his feet and followed the minister slowly outside. A wan moonlight peeked out of a clear space in the thick clouds, and Tristan gathered the coarse wrap Thomas had given him more tightly around the billowing nightshirt he had on beneath. He looked round the surrounding countryside as Thomas spoke.
“Larcondale is part of Tarraskida, the country that’s Parangor’s southern neighbor,” Thomas explained as Tristan gazed around at the swelling mountains to the south and the dense forest to the north. The mountains trailed away east and west as far as he could see, lesser or greater.
The forest, too, seemed to go on unendingly.
“This valley’s almost completely cut off from every other settlement by the forest, which is here called Kinran, and that mountain range, called the Neskiras. In the forest is a river – You called it the Brenget, I believe, and here we’ve named it the Lahina. It’s true that it’d probably be less than a hundred miles between here and Kenborana if you could travel in or along the river. As far as I know it’s utterly impassable and unnavigable. And since it doesn’t emerge from the forest for another hundred miles westward, where it dumps into the West Nilsan Sea, it isn’t used by anyone here as a means of transit to Parangor.
“If you wished to go to Parangor, you would probably head west perhaps a hundred and fifty miles. I’m told there’s a road that skirts the edge of the forest. In a month or two it should be relatively free of mud. But at that point you’ll discover that a large part of that region suffered a massive flood about two years ago. There were once productive salt mines out there, but the water filled the caverns and then spilled over the countryside. The place is a salt flat and wasteland and there’s hardly any way to pass through there now. If you were able to do so by the most direct route it’s perhaps another hundred miles to get to Parangor, and I honestly do not know how much farther to the capital city.”
“Three days before those people found me I was in the capital city,” Tristan exclaimed.
“You came by a route no sane man would travel,” Thomas replied with a wry smile. “There’s no road to the river, the woods are thick, boggy, choked with briers. I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you this. You came through it. For the time being, you must remain here.”
“I wonder if my brother will come searching for me?” Tristan mused.
“He’ll encounter all I’ve described,” Thomas shrugged. “Perhaps he’ll think you’re dead. I know it’d be sensible to assume so. He might search a little way into the woods, but for him to come all the way here – He’d have to carve out a road. You can’t imagine how difficult and unlikely it is for anyone to do what you’ve done, to have survived what you say happened to you. Again, I don’t say I doubt your story, but most likely your brother will quickly decide that you were killed in the river.”
“So the river god wins,” Tristan murmured.
“What?” Thomas asked. “River god? I understood the people of Parangor worshiped the same God we do. What is the river god?”
“My brother found a pavement from old times by the banks of the Brenget behind the castle at Kenborana,” Tristan explained. “It has some carvings and mosaic work that led him to believe people once worshiped the river, and he’s trying to create a shrine there.”
“You mean he’s invented a god?” Thomas showed his horror plainly. “And people have accepted this?”
“He’s only begun,” Tristan sighed. “But no one seemed willing to fight him on the subject except me, and I can’t beat Dunstan on any front. Even the river seems to have taken his side and removed me from his shrine-to-be. What can I do?” Tristan asked helplessly.
“Stay here,” Thomas said firmly.
“Stay here?” Tristan repeated. He glanced back at the minister’s tiny cottage. “I’ve already been a great burden to you and your family. Y
ou have no room or resources to keep housing me.”
“Prince Tristan, if it’s your purpose at some time to return home, this village is closer than any other place to your goal,” Thomas said bluntly. “Your brother cruelly used you and vexed your soul with his river god and yet you’re willing to go back to his court and continue to aid him in running your kingdom. You’re no ordinary man to wish to return to such a brother. I can see that you acknowledge that the kingdom of Parangor is the place where God put you, this river god notwithstanding. You’ve already suffered for duty’s sake, and it’s your brother’s fault you’ve suffered all that’s brought you here. Perhaps it’s the hand of God trying to help you.”
“Do you mean I shouldn’t go back?” Tristan narrowed his eyes. It seemed like Thomas was the fourth person to tell him the same thing.
“I didn’t say you shouldn’t go back,” Thomas said. “For now you have no way to go back. Here you’re removed from the scene of the wrongs done to you, and I don’t deny that if your words are true your brother was wrong, and wicked. But you’ve left on the throne of your kingdom a brute, a drunkard, a man who can’t read his own laws and who seems determined to become the high priest of an abomination.”
“I tried to tell my father what he was like so many times,” Tristan said bitterly. “So did other people. Mischnal, Gladring – Father doted on Dunstan. He loved the game he brought him, his jokes, even his brawling and the images he made of his river god, drinking cups, pipe stems, cloak-fastenings– And he didn’t believe that I’d done Dunstan’s lessons for him or any of the rest of it. He wasn’t a well-educated man himself, but he demanded that we be. Yet when it came to understanding that Dunstan wasn’t being educated, had no intention of becoming educated – “ Tristan blew out an exasperated breath.
The Baron's Ring Page 2