The Baron's Ring

by Mary C. Findley

  “My ring?” Tristan interrupted. “But I lost it. Thomas said I didn’t have it at his home. You saw my ring? When? Where?”

  “It was on your finger when we found you,” Vancus responded. “Oh, but you must have had it. What could have happened to it?” Suddenly his face went very white.

  “What is it?” Tristan asked.

  “My daughter Mayra,” Vancus said unsteadily. “You don’t remember. She held your hand and helped care for you in the wagon. She talked and talked about the prince we rescued. She called you her prince – forgive me, my Lord, she is very young – and she kept saying one day you’d come back for her and make her your princess. We thought she was just being silly, but – she has a little box of things she treasures, and every time she looks in it she speaks of you. Oh, my Lord – please come to our house with me. Come quickly.”

  Tristan followed him to a tiny hut in the slave compound. Vancus’ wife and their daughter, the beautiful girl Tristan had seen first when he opened his eyes in Larcondale, were preparing a meal. Tristan was stunned at how clear the image of Mayra was in his mind, considering how little he remembered about the rescue or his rescuers. He had to force himself to look away from her.

  “This is my wife, Josena,” Vancus said. “You remember Prince Tristan, my love?” wife curtseyed deeply.

  “Of course I do, your highness. I’m so glad to see you well. You are kind to call on us. Please share our meal, won’t you? It will be ready very soon.”

  “I’m very grateful to you, Josena,” Tristan said. “Thomas the minister said that someone with considerable skill must have looked after me before I came to his home. He copied your wrapping of my rib, and showed me how it was done, and it’s all that enabled me to survive the first day I thought I was well enough to do some work. I confess I hardly remember anything about meeting your family, but I want you to know I realize am in your debt.”

  “It was my honor to serve you,” Josena said humbly. “God gives the skill, my Lord Prince. It is always my joy to use it for Him.”

  “Mayra, Prince Tristan has lost his ring,” Vancus said gently to his daughter, who had lit up like a ray of sun peeking out of a black cloud when Tristan had entered. She seemed to have no qualms about staring at him, and her face positively glowed. “Do you know where it is?”

  Immediately Mayra’s expression changed from joyous to devastated. “I am so sorry,” she said, dropping onto her knees. “I found it among our things in the wagon after we came here. It was my prince’s ring, and I thought if I kept it he would have to come back for me.” She glanced up at Tristan and blushed scarlet. Tristan felt his own face grow hot.

  “Go and get it at once, foolish girl,” her mother ordered. “How could you keep a thing that is not yours?” Mayra scampered away, through the patched drapery that hung across the middle of the one room hut. “My Lord Prince, I cannot say how sorry I am. She shall be punished for this. Her fancies make her do strange things, but never before anything like this.”

  “Please, don’t punish her,” Tristan begged, deeply embarrassed. “ She surely kept it safe for me. It’s not as if I needed it.”

  “But, my Lord,” Vancus said, “you might’ve convinced someone to help you return home if you could’ve shown it, if you could have proved who you really are.”

  “Oh, no, papa,” Mayra cried as she came back into the room. “Did I keep the prince a prisoner, like the bird? Will he die because he couldn’t go free?” She collapsed, weeping hysterically. Josena took her quickly out of the room, after giving Tristan his ring.

  “What does she mean?” Tristan asked.

  “A few years ago Mayra caught a bird and kept it in a box,” Vancus explained. “She fed it worms and seeds but it would eat nothing. We told her she had to let it go or it would die. She hid it from us, though, and one morning found that it was dead. How she wept over that. She is such a fanciful child, my Lord. We will explain to her that you are not like the bird.”

  “I need to talk to her, please,” Tristan begged. “I know she’s upset, but tell her to come here.”

  Josena brought Mayra, head resolutely down. Tristan took her by the chin and lifted her face up toward his. It pained him more than he had thought reasonable or possible to see tears streaking her face.

  “Thank you for keeping the ring so carefully,” Tristan smiled as he slipped it onto his finger. “Mayra, I’m in no danger of dying. I’ve found a whole new life here. Perhaps I’m not in such a hurry to return to Parangor after all. In a little while I’ll be starting a school.”

  Mayra had been slipping her eyes first one way, then the other, trying to avoid looking at Tristan. But when she heard the word school she fixed her gaze directly on him.

  “You will be the teacher?” she asked with surprising intensity.

  “Yes,” Tristan answered. “I’ll be the teacher, and you must come.”

  “But we are slaves,” Mayra murmured, casting her eyes down again.

  “I’ve talked to other slave masters, and they are going to let their workers come,” Tristan responded. “And your father is going to help your master make his grapes better, so I’m sure he’ll let you come. Do you want me to ask him?”

  “Mama, I can go to the school, can’t I?”

  “It would be a wonderful thing,” Josena replied.

  “I just wish I had more books,” Tristan sighed. “It’s hard to think of starting a school with three books.” Tristan had been scrounging the town and pestering traders for books. There were few enough to buy. He managed to get his own copy of the Scriptures, a book of maps, and one about mathematics.

  “Three books?” Vancus echoed. “We have a few books, my Lord Prince. I have one about growing grapes, and another about farming and soil.”

  “And I have one about caring for the body, and different medicines,” Josena added. “I’m not sure how helpful they would be teaching children, but please make use of them if you can.”

  “I have two books of stories,” Mayra said shyly. “The children could learn to read them.”

  “This is wonderful,” Tristan exclaimed as they gathered up the books they had and showed him. “I didn’t know there was a lending library here at Vancus’ house. How God works things out. I have been looking for books for a month or more, and now I find them when I’m not even looking.” Tristan ate with Vancus and Josena and Mayra. The food was plain but plentiful. Mayra didn’t seem to eat anything, though. She just stole looks at Tristan whenever she thought he wasn’t looking. And Tristan caught himself more than once looking at her.

  “Thank you, Josena,” Tristan said as he left. “And you, Vancus. Thank you for everything. Thank you again, Mayra, for taking care of my ring for me. I’m very glad it was safe.”

  Chapter Eight

  So that they cause the cry of the poor to come unto him, and he heareth the cry of the afflicted.

  Job 34:28

  Finally, spring planting came to an end. Thomas had given him two more books, one a history of the Realmlands, a large, well-made book of surprising value, and a worship book containing spiritual poetry and short services, which also seemed to be a very costly book, chased in gold, of fine leather. With the ones Vancus and Mayra and Josena had lent him he had a full eight, though they were an odd assortment for a school. Thomas gave him the use of the church building during the week. Many parents and masters had agreed to send him pupils and he was surprised beyond measure when some gave him money or produce or offered to make or do something in return for his teaching their children.

  Tristan still kept up being Mickle’s farrier, as well as preparing for his lessons, and working at various jobs resulting from his “cloak bartering” arrangements. Tristan found that a good many of the students seemed to come to school hungry and he tried always to have something to share for breakfast. He got fresh produce by helping mend a farmer’s fences and bread from the baker in exchange for a stray kitten he had nursed back to health who proved to be an excellent mouse
r. Tristan was sorry to lose his friend the kitten but soon he found the cat which had mothered the supposed orphan with her two other youngsters. One day the cats went sniffing around the church and Tristan discovered that they had mice there, too.

  One of the young cats went into the storeroom and insisted he had to get between two of the cases stored there. Sure enough, as soon as Tristan picked one of them up a tail wriggled into view and the cat went after its owner. Tristan felt the lid of the case come loose in his hands and saw that inside the case were rich vestments. He understood something about the organization of the main church that served the Realmlands and recognized the robes as belonging to an official of high rank, though the names varied in the different kingdoms. Tristan found bookstands, lampholders, gold-leafed and jeweled, that would have furnished a grand minister’s study. Books, bound in gold, on theological subjects, prayerbooks, hymnals – Tristan wondered greatly at the contents of these cases being wet by the spring rains and nibbled on by the mice.

  The three cats appeared at the storeroom doorway, swishing their tails in satisfaction, each with proof of mousing skills, for which Tristan praised and petted them and received much contented leg-rubbing and purring. When he took the remains outside to dispose of them the cats flitted off to the forge, where Tristan had placed some fish scraps ready for them, but Tristan paused, seeing Thomas loading his donkey with some comforts, spiritual and physical, for parishioners around the valley. Thomas waved, but saw something in Tristan’s expression that brought him over.

  “Something troubling you?” Thomas asked. “Too many mice for your exterminating crew? No, I see it’s something more serious. What is it?”

  “I think I just learned that I’m not the only one who found a new life in Larcondale,” Tristan said. “A very different life. I was wondering if he found his change as happy as mine.”

  “Oh, those cases,” Thomas nodded. “It wasn’t, at first. I haven’t looked in those things for years. When I first came here I used to go look at those cases every day and fall down on my knees and beg God to let me die. You may have noticed that Ilesa is much younger than I am, and that my children also are a bit young for a man my age. I lived in Gannes and Lord Drokken’s father, Lord Kimlan, was my patron. I married his daughter, Misla, and I became Bishop of Gannes as a result of my father-in-law’s influence. I had a huge church, parishioners of the noble and royal families, and those things in the cases were wedding gifts from Misla’s family to fit up my study and make me able to appear worthy of being Bishop of Gannes.

  “I was a merchant’s son, reasonably well-to-do, but I was so unprepared for the wealth, the power all around me that came with my marriage. I married Misla because I loved her, and because she wanted to use her influence to spread the truth. But her father and her brother did not quite agree with my style of preaching, and often took exception to the content as well. Those people were just pagans. Misla’s brother’s name, Drokken, is a corruption of dragon, and the emblem of Tarraskida is the dragon. In Gannes there are dragon images everywhere. Like your brother, they pretended they weren’t idols but it was clear they preferred that god to the one I preached about. They wanted to have a god of their making, on that condoned their sin. I argued with them, secure in my just cause, and there were terrible scenes. My wife was torn between her family and her husband, and it proved too much for her physical strength. A year and a half after we were married she died.

  “To the end she was hopeful that there would be peace between her family and her husband, and that her dream of the truth freely proclaimed would be realized, but it was not to be. Lord Kimlan was ailing himself, and all of Gannes blamed me for this destructive discord that was literally killing their noble family. As soon as his father died, within a month or two of Misla’s death, Drokken took the lordship and brought in a new bishop. He sent me here, telling me nothing about my next posting. He wanted to be sure I was somewhere out of his sight and never likely to see my hope fulfilled. I came over the mountains alone, with a cart and this donkey, and those cases in the storeroom, having no idea what Larcondale was or what I would be here.

  “There was no church building at that time. There was no one interested in building one. Drokken had given me money but the carpenter Gringus had no proper tools to build a real building. Mickle was such an infernal, impossible beast it was months before he got around to making any. I stayed with Brentin at the inn until I bullied and begged my way into a hut of my own, which is the one I still live in. Next I had to bully and beg a church building out of Larcondale. I hadn’t preached a sermon in over a year by the time work was started on the church. I worked at odd jobs, like you have done, but not with such a gracious spirit. Somehow I thought I was meant for better things. I could have just used Drokken’s money. It was a generous enough allowance, meant to support me for some time and to build the church, but I didn’t want to live on his support. You see I was in a fine shape to feed people’s souls, going downhill faster than a runaway cart toward despair and bitterness.

  “Pinkmak, the harnessmaker, was one of the people who gave me work. His daughter’s name was Ilesa, and she talked to me sometimes while I was at his shop. But I’d had a wife, and I had loved her, and I knew what had come of that, and besides, Ilesa was so young. But she kept asking me questions, about God, about the Scriptures, and I found I had to go back to studying to answer some of them. I had been letting the Word slip away from me. Ilesa made me go back to it. She wanted to know everything. Her parents were hungry too. They were the only people besides Brentin in Larcondale who had shown any interest in my ministry. Brentin kept telling me he was praying for me. Ilesa would ask me how far along the church was when anybody could see it was going up at the rate of about one nail a day. Finally I remembered God had called me, and called me here, and I began to pray and study in earnest again. I began to visit people, helping them if I could, praying for them if I couldn’t. Some of Drokken’s money went to feed the hungry, or clothe the naked. Healing the sick often couldn’t even be done with money, and I thank God Josena has come here. Jerez does what he can but he’s only a self-taught herbalist and he knows his limitations better than anybody. Still, little things happened to give me encouragement.

  “Finally the church was done, and for my first service I preached to Brentin, Ilesa and her parents, and one other family who had somehow heard from across the valley that we had finished the church and walked parts of two days to get here. It was Janos, whom you know, of course, and his wife and little boy. Afterward I got down on my knees in front of those two crates, which I had just carried over from my hut the night before, and I wept, and thanked God for bringing me here. And when I got up and looked around, all the people I had just preached to were still there. Pinkmak was very embarrassed at having come upon me like that, but he said they wanted to have a fellowship dinner together, since Janos’ family had come so far, and they had a long way to go back. We scraped together some apples and bread and cheese and milk and I opened up a bottle of Larcondale vintage that Gregor had sent to congratulate me on the new church – of course he’s never actually come to a service – and we had a love feast I will never forget.

  “Afterward Pinkmak came to me again. ‘You need to perform a wedding,’ he said to me, ‘but I think it’ll be awkward.’

  “‘Who wants to be married?’ I asked.

  “‘My daughter,’ Pinkmak replied. My heart sank, in spite of everything I’d decided about Ilesa, it didn’t make me want to see her happily married to someone else.

  “‘Who is she marrying?’ I asked.

  “‘You,’ Pinkmak answered.

  “‘Me?’ I felt dizzy all of a sudden.

  “‘Sit down, Minister,’ Pinkmak said kindly. He put me down on a bench. ‘Yes, she’s decided, and we’re sure she won’t be happy with anyone else. So if you can do it at all, you should do it today. You’ve got your house, and you’ve got your church, and at least a few people to come. A wife is the only other thi
ng you need, so you should get that taken care of right away before you start coming up with excuses. Ilesa will have an answer for all of them, so don’t bother thinking them up in the first place.’

  “‘I can’t support a wife, Pinkmak,’ I said. The rest of the money from Drokken I had basically had to pay out in bribes to get the work on the church done. It was gone, and this church building should look like more for what it cost.

  “‘Well, that is a good one,’ Pinkmak admitted. ‘But the people are supposed to support the minister, and God is supposed to look after Him too, so I believe it’ll work out.’

  “It was awkward,” Thomas said to Tristan with a smile, “but Ilesa became my wife five years ago. And now, yes, my new life here is a very happy one.”

  Tristan quickly realized that Mayra was beyond question his most eager student, and probably his brightest. Alex came, of course, and a dozen or more others, not everyone every day, but Mayra came early, stayed later, asked questions, seemed to want to know so much more than just reading and figuring. He drew maps of Tarraskida and Parangor and Pencarosa in the sawdust behind the blacksmith’s shop. The river and the woods, of course, had to be included on the maps and Mayra always drew in the spot where she thought “their” tree lay.

  Mayra had apparently learned a great deal about healing from her mother. She talked intelligently with Jerez and sometimes helped Tristan with difficulties about treating the animals he looked after. Tristan kept catching himself looking into her great blue eyes, marveling that since he had come to himself in Thomas’s cottage, there had been in his mind that beautiful face, those enormous eyes. He wondered how old she really was. Sometimes she seemed like a small child, spinning fairy tales, sometimes like a wise little woman. Vancus had indeed begun to work closely with Gregor, and seemed likely to gain management of the vineyards. Josena had set up a practice with Jerez in his little shop next to the tavern. Two years had passed quickly since the time Tristan had dragged himself through the woods to collapse beneath a tree and be found by Mayra.