A Princess of the Chameln (14 page)

They came out onto the road below the hospice within the hour. The gibbous moon had set; they were in the midst of Birchmoon, the young girls' month, and if Aidris could remember rightly the day was Mid-week. All the dressing up of horses and riders had made the three of them more hilarious than anything else. They straightened their faces and came out on to the quiet, dark, empty road winding upward. A dim light burned at the entry to the stableyard of the hospice. They kept to the sandy edges of the road, which was a good broad expanse of packed earth, spread with gravel in places where the way was too soft in winter.

The loghouse of the brothers was unlit and silent; then came the challenge from the stableyard.

“Who goes there!”

He came under the archway, a solitary, sleepy young giant.

“We are returning to Athron, trooper!” said Gerr of Kerrick haughtily. “Do you read this banner?”

Aidris was afraid still; her heart hammered in her chest. She was afraid of a chase, afraid of a fight. She saw the young trooper pierced with a lance and a hundred warriors pouring out of the hospice. She was afraid all her flimsy disguises, with names and half answered questions, would be destroyed in a moment.

“A Forester,” said the trooper. “And these are your companions, out of Athron?”

“My esquire and a member of my house,” said Gerr. “What is all this? Are we at the border that you question honest travellers this way?”

“Pass along, sir knight,” said the trooper. “You're not yet at the border.”

They passed by, not daring to quicken their pace. A hen began cackling as they passed the farmyard, and Sabeth had to stifle a fit of laughter. They came to the place where Aidris and Sabeth had crossed the road to safety and turned the corner, heading for the pass. There, further on, was the finger rock on their left, and beyond it the path or network of paths taken by the deer and the horned sheep.

Aidris took the lead and urged Imba into the trees. The going was steep but straightforward, then the path became very narrow, against a cliff. She got down and led the mare. It was not dark; they were not shadowed by the trees, and the path itself was of light stone and clay. They went up and up and came to a place where the path divided, one way leading steeply down to the south, where the deer went to leap over the ravine of the Lylan, the other leading upward still, towards the Wulfental. She mounted up again and pushed through scrubby bushes, then checked at last and let Sabeth and the knight draw level.

They were well within the long dark ravine that formed the pass, high up on a bluff with a good but steep path running down at their feet.

“Look back!” whispered Gerr.

Aidris could see the glow of a fire in the pass, the way they had come. She watched and listened; horses stamped; a man hawked and coughed. The troopers of Mel'Nir had closed the pass at its narrowest point, but they had not reckoned with the sheep path.

“We must go down,” said Gerr, “and ride like the whirlwind to those distant lights.”

The lights were more faint than the stars, the red star of the Hunter at the horizon and the star of the Queen higher in the heavens.

“What are those lights?” asked Sabeth.

“A watch-post of Athron,” he replied.

“Will we be questioned?” asked Aidris.

“I am known there,” said Gerr of Kerrick. “Courage, my ladies. One more ride and all dangers are passed.”

He urged Firedrake forward and led them down into the ravine. Aidris let Sabeth go down next, thinking of poor Telavel, encumbered with a ridiculous blanket and a sidesaddle. She followed with the brown mare, broad-beamed but certainly surefooted.

They came down into the Wulfental, and the place itself was enough to make Aidris ride very fast. She felt again that evil, icy cold that had seeped out of the ground at the witch-hold, far away in the foothills. They rode quickly: trot, canter, then Firedrake galloped away with the two mares following. There was a wild hail behind them; they were pursued by the horses and riders of Mel'Nir.

It was no contest from the first. Firedrake went faster and Telavel, even with the unaccustomed harness, flew up alongside. Aidris, trailing, dug her heels into Imba, who responded with an unexpected burst of speed. They rode like the whirlwind through the dark maw of the Wulfental, and the lights grew and grew.

The watch-post had a low square building of grey stone and rosy brick and the lights shone through its windows. They clattered into a cobbled yard, and looking back, Aidris saw three troopers come up and draw rein, hidden in shadow. She wondered if there was another who waited, Hurne the Harrier, on his dark horse.

The yard was alight with torches and loud with drawling Athron voices.

“Who rides so late?”

A big man, struggling with a helmet, rose up beside her, taking her rein.

“Gerr Kerrick of Kerrick Hall,” cried their knight proudly, “riding escort to a cousin of my house. That is my esquire you have there.”

“Why are those danged Melniros wearing out hoof-iron,” grumbled the big man. “Captain Rolf at your service, Sir Gerr.”

He strode out of the yard and shouted back down the pass in a voice of thunder:

“Here are three Athron folk come home. You've nothing to seek, troopers.”

The mounted men were silent. The captain bowed to Sabeth.

“Please to step down, your worships,” he said. “Take an early bite with us in our common room . . . it is near day.”

“I think we can do that,” said the knight cheerfully.

He smiled at his companions.

“It is a pleasanter way when the sun has risen.”

As they trailed into the common room, a young man at arms spoke to the captain, and Rolf, revealed in the warm light as bushy-bearded and stout, said again, “Danged Melniros. Nothing but trouble here at the pass since they came. We have a man here under guard . . . tried to cross earlier this evening, but I did not like the looks of his safe-conduct.”

“What sort of a man?” asked the knight.

They were in a comfortable well-worn place with old hangings on the thick winter-fast walls and broad settles.

“Who knows?” said Rolf. “Red-bearded. Thought he might cross with gold.”

Aidris said, “Sir Gerr?”

When the knight turned to her she whispered to him, “I think I know this man.”

“Let my kedran get a look at him,” said Gerr in his lordly fashion.

He turned and helped Sabeth to a place. Aidris went after the captain, trying to still the beating of her heart, and they came to a door with a grating.

“Must everyone have a safe-conduct?” she asked.

“Bless you no,” said the captain. “We let poor folk state a reason or name a friend or sponsor in Athron. This fellow overreached himself. His paper was signed by a dead man, old Elam Goss, Councillor of Prince Flor, but dead these six moons. We might still have let him through, but he tried to give us gold.”

He held up the torch to the wide grating, and they saw a man sitting on a bunk, staring at them sharply. It was Redbeard, trim and fierce as he had been that morning in the stableyard, yet she knew that his luck had deserted him.

“I know him,” she said. “His name is Hurne. He is some kind of hired bravo out of Lien. He's an evil man who hunts down exiles for the Melniros, for gold, for a bounty. He should not cross into a peaceful realm such as Athron.”

“By dang, we'll send him back, then,” said Rolf, grinning. “Thanks good esquire. Come have a bite . . .”

The way led out of the pass from the watch-post, bathed in the blue light of early morning. To the south, they saw the mountains with a tall, snowcapped peak, Mount Coom, rising close at hand. To the north, the mountain wall was just touched with light, the forest and the last snow fields beginning to glow rose and gold. Gerr of Kerrick led them over a last rise, through a swirl of mist. Sabeth cried out, and Aidris echoed her cry.

Spread out below them was the land of Athron, its green fields, hedgerows, neat villages red-roofed; its streams and groves and lush meadowland, all newly green for the spring. It was as if a burst of song came up to them, borne on the morning wind. The knight led Sabeth down the path, his plume lightly tossed, his banner flying out.

Aidris looked back the way they had come. She looked into the rising sun, sent out her spirit, in longing, over all the lands of the Chameln, then turned away and rode down into the magic kingdom.

Chapter Four

I

Gavin, the Waker, found her bed empty, met Aidris coming back from the stable.

“Early up!” He grinned. “Here's the runt of the litter. Mucked out your little jade? Good. You have an hour or more before first breakfast and saddle-up. Where are you off to, Venn? Running? Shining your gear? Saying your prayers?”

“I'll be about,” she said, passing off the question.

The waker was a limping, sallow man, one of Lady Aumerl's lame ducks. He was a busybody, who carried tales and spread gossip. She walked between the barracks and the barn and came upon the low house of sand-colored stone, which cast a graceful shadow over the path. Its pointed gables and fretted balconies still gave her that pleasant shock: “I have come to another country . . .” She rose early to have time for herself; there was a festival, and the kedran would get no rest.

Aidris came past the new north wing of Kerrick Hall and cut through the north court. She came suddenly, as one did in Athron, into an enchanted place. The courtyard was piled with spring flowers: snowdrops, mooncups, bluebells, shepherd's bounty, yellow bonnets and tall sword lilies, planted in boxes or standing in tubs of water. Four women in green aprons were weaving a huge garland of living flowers that stretched almost from end to end of the courtyard. They sang as they worked and sang instructions to their young assistants, a boy and girl who ran about from one to the other with more binding, more flowers, more armfuls of greenery.

“Dearest love, bring me a fairing,

Silken sash or silver chain . . .”

sang the women.

Aidris ducked under a wagon and pushed through the sweet vines that hung from it.

“Here with the twine . . . the red weed, a little more . . . more mooncups and some o' that lovers' bane . . .” sang the women.

She went through the kitchen gardens and a corner of the orchard. No one saw or marked her. It was early, she was invisible, a young kedran passing by in the colors of the house. The ballad the women sang had a plaintive melody; it was a tale of unrequited love. She found herself finishing the verse as she climbed the hill behind the house.

“Flowers of Birchmoon to deck my bride bed

Sang the Fair Maid of Stayn.”

It was a hill she climbed, not a barrow, but Kerrick Hall did have a hint of Thuven Manor, that other safe house. She remembered the first time she had set eyes on the place, after the ride through Athron, in the springtime of the year. Now it was Birchmoon again. Coming up to the grove of trees that crowned the hilltop she murmured another verse of the song.

“Long she waits in wind and weather,

Ere her love comes home again,

For another wears his token,

Not the Fair Maid of Stayn.”

It was a song of Athron, simple and bittersweet, without a hint of wildness. The trees on the hill were alder, whitethorn and holly. There was a small, hedged graveyard for the families of Gerr and of Kerrick: Lady Aumerl's parents lay there, and two of her stillborn children. A little way off, in its own white-painted railing, grew a single Carach tree, the magic tree of Athron.

It was beautifully shaped, with a smooth white trunk and palmate leaves of green and silver. The Carach always seemed to be on the point of defying nature: it was in full leaf before the snow had left the ground, and its leaves did not fall until the first snows came again. The leaves, when they did fall, were gathered up and treasured for magical purposes. Wishes and pledges were written upon Carach leaves; a Carach leaf in among the down of a featherbed ensured sound sleep; crushed Carach leaves were a charm against melancholy, woodworm, false promises and colic in horses.

Aidris squinted up at the tree and found it, like all its fellows, a little too self-conscious. This day she must work her own magic. It was the last day of Birchmoon; she had been in Athron a year and twelve days. Her birthday had come round again; last year, so soon after her arrival, she had almost forgotten the day. This year, a long and painful time having passed, she was eighteen. She had come of age; she was Queen of the Chameln, and Regent for Sharn Am Zor. Upon this day, in far-off Achamar, her proclamations, written out fair on vellum and parchment, would be nailed about the city, under the eye of the ruling power. The northern tribes would cry out her name and raise new spirit trees in her honor.

She sat on a wooden bench by the yew hedge of the graveyard and could only summon up a quick blessing for her land and her people. She had no magic left in her. She sat drowsily in the light of the new-risen sun and drew out her book. She kept it still in its cloth wrapper. She remembered opening it for the first time at an inn on the outskirts of Varda called the Owl and Kettle. Her New Year's gift, a bound book in the style of Lien, with a cover of purple-brown leather and silver fastenings, just as she had chosen it from the world of the scrying stone. Two worlds suddenly impinged upon each other, without warning, in the quiet bedroom of the inn.

She unlocked the book, that first time, as she did now, with its small silver key, and read its title page:
Hazard's Harvest: A book of delights, conceits and strange tales for the lady's bower, the fireside and the nursery
.

She had never seen the book before, but there stamped upon the cover was the Swan of Lien, the badge of her mother's house. She turned the pages quickly, hoping for a message, then more slowly, examining the capitals, illuminations and pictures of this exquisite book. Sabeth came back from the window embrasure where she had been gazing out at their new world.