A Princess of the Chameln (26 page)

“Henrik the Fire-Eater,” said Raff Raiz. “What is it this time?”

“A large crystal from the fortune-teller's tent,” said Aidris.

“Who says so?” demanded Mother Storry. “Why should we believe that poor crazed witch-girl from the mountains?”

“He was seen,” said Aidris, “by the chief's wife. Would they leave their Blessed Maid unattended? Your Henrik is a fool as well as a thief. I believe these people.”

“You would, wouldn't you!” said Mother Storry. “You are their kin, for all that you are a kedran.”

“Let it go,” said Raff Raiz, “let it go Storry, my dear. I'll warrant Henrik has the crystal.”

He turned and shouted suddenly. There was a scuffle. Ortwen and Nedda, the two kedran nearest the pond, moved their horses and seized a man, literally by the hair of his head.

“Wait!” said Sergeant Lawlor.

“Little bastard,” said Mother Storry, “to bring this trouble upon us. I'll give him fire to eat.”

They waited while Lawlor and the ensign, Hanni, dealt with the unhappy Henrik, who squealed now and rolled on the grass. Presently Lawlor came striding back carrying a leather pouch.

“Phew . . .” was all she said.

“Where did he have it?” asked the reeve.

“In his codpiece,” said the sergeant.

“Might have been worse,” said Mother Storry.

She held out an open palm; Lawlor emptied the pouch. The crystal blazed in the sunlight, and Ark gave a satisfied grunt. Mother Storry, with an ironical curtsey, handed the stone back to Ark, who bowed with a similar irony.

“Surly old devil,” said Mother Storry.

“Sluttish old witch!”
said Ark.

“The stone is returned with thanks on both sides,” said Aidris in one language after the other.

“Thank the Goddess that's over,” said the reeve. “Mother Storry, I'll trouble you to clear the duck-pond before your people leave.”

She walked back with Ark to the Children of the White Wolf. He held up his hand with the stone, and they gave a ragged cheer.

“Where do you live?”
she asked. “
Is there a secret pass over the mountain?”

“We live in the distant north, where it is called the Roof of the World,”
said Ark.
“We come by small trails down here into Athron to sell our hides. We make a bit of silver here on the fairgrounds with wrestling and fortune-telling. Sometimes we have a dancing bear.”

“Do you pay tribute to the Daindru?”

“Not lately.”
He grinned.

“They will come again,”
said Aidris.
“Ask the Blessed Maid.”

He thanked her solemnly, and they clasped hands.

“Oh, take my love to the Chameln lands,”
she said. “
I long for the time when I will go there.”

She took Telavel from the young girl and gave her a few coins for holding the mare. As she walked away, she hardly dared to raise her eyes; she knew Raff Raiz stood waiting for her. The kedran troop were already mounted up; they had only a few moments together. He held her stirrup.

“Where is your father?” she asked.

“About in the world.” He smiled. “I am not with him this season.

“You are a kedran now,” he said again. “At Kerrick Hall?”

“In Oakmoon I go on leave,” she said. “To Spelt Manor Farm on the west coast. To see the ocean.”

“I know the place,” he said. “It is near Westport.”

They smiled again; Telavel turned aside to take her place in the company. Aidris could hardly see where she rode. As they began to climb the hill, she turned her head but could not see him in the crowd of tumblers and village folk on the fairground.

“Trouble!” said Ortwen. “Talking foreign tongues. And now you're all of a flutter. That tall yellow-haired mountebank? Is he the one?”

“He is an old friend,” said Aidris.

II

The first days of Oakmoon were very hot and clear. Aidris and Ortwen rode together as far as a crossroads north of Stayn.

“You are bidden to Cashcroft for the feast days and the New Year!”

“And your wedding!”

“If it comes to that!”

They leaned from their saddles and embraced. Aidris took the road to the west, and Ortwen went on northwards to her home.

The ride through Athron in high summer was like an old tale told over and over. She saw the same trees, the same ripening fields, the same brightly clad cheerful folk in the fields. Around every turn of the round, there was another vista of this lovely sheltered land, another high house in its park or another village dreaming in the shade of the Carach, the elm and the sycamore. By day she sometimes rested Telavel in a lane off the high road until the sun went down and then rode on at night, under the stars, with a few dogs barking from the farmyards as they passed by. Sometimes she was entranced, unthinking, simply breathing in the scented air, tasting the sweet wellwater, eating the fresh bread that she bought from the farm wives. Sometimes at night, as she came over one of the downs and saw a sleeping village, she felt alert, watchful, a traveller in a foreign land.

Nothing really prepared her for that late afternoon when she felt a strangeness in the air, a feeling that rain was about although the sky was cloudless. There was an unfamiliar smell, and she looked about for a smokehouse or a tannery. Telavel was restless. They rode over the brow of a hill, and it was the last hill. Before them lay the broad strand and the boundless sea.

Aidris felt her spirit leap out towards the far, misty horizon; it was not as if the vastness of the ocean made her small . . . rather she shared its greatness. She took in the nearness and the distances of the sea: the shadings and undulations far away, and the waves upon the shore. The long curve of the bay began with a rocky promontory that tumbled down into pools and shallows where the incoming waves boiled and spouted foam. The dunes and sea swamps flowed back to the north.

On her left was the manor farm, a typical Athron croft but made wonderful for her by its sea oaks and swamp alders. She saw where a road ran from the farm to another headland; beyond it lay Westport, the largest harbor of Athron, almost as large now as Port Cayl. Ships sailed from Westport to Eildon and the Chyrian coast of Mel'Nir and to the lands below the world.

Telavel pricked up her ears. There was a flurry of movement in the dunes. Ten white horses plunged into view, small fine-boned, long maned. Their beauty was dreamlike, at a first glance unearthly, but the children of the sea, the Shallir, were of flesh and blood. The white stallion poised and reared on the crest of a dune and called to his mares. Telavel reared up and answered his call. Then they were gone, leaving a drumming echo of their hooves. Aidris saw that the beach was not deserted. There were nets being hung to dry at the south end and below her a solitary figure rose up off the sand.

She rode on down and dismounted when the sand became too deep. Then she and Telavel were right down, on the firm, damp sand, with shells and sea wrack in heaps. The solitary bather girded himself in a blue tunic and came on steadily. The dream did not end; perhaps it would never end. She saw that his skin was burned golden brown by the sun and his hair had bleached to that flaxen color she remembered. She ran a few steps and so did he, then they drew back, drew breath, not bold enough to run into each other's arms.

“Is that you?”

“I have been waiting . . .”

Who spoke first? Who answered? Raff Raiz bent down and picked up a turret shell and gave it to her. They walked to the very edge of the sea, and when a wave came, they ran back laughing. Behind them Telavel whinnied in excitement; she stood shivering in the foam of the breaking wave, stamping her feet.

Aidris was not lodged in the farmhouse; she slept in a little low cott with the Widow Mack and her grandchild, Edda. There was a pen outside and a stall that Telavel shared with an old grey donkey. The whole four-roomed cottage reeked of the sea. Widow Mack was the relict of a fisherman; her daughter and her daughter's husband had been lost at sea in a storm when Edda was a tiny child. The widow was not poor and not rich; she went every day to work in the fields of the farm or at the kelp works near Westport, and the child went with her, leading the donkey.

There was rivalry between the farm people and the fishers; when Aidris was invited to the farm for supper, they laid out their best linen and richest food . . . not a scrap of fish . . . to show that they were land-dwellers and proud of it. Her news from Kerrick was highly prized; they craved every detail of the royal visit, the marriage of Sir Gerr, and the state of the harvest.

Yet Aidris was always left to her own devices when she wished. She was allowed to sleep late: a bowl of milk and a piece of bread were left out for her breakfast. She went out, blinking in the bright sunlight, fed Telavel and groomed her, and then the pair of them ran down upon the sands, and Raff came to join them. He had a bunk at the south end in a humble lodging house for young fishers that had been made from the hulk of an ancient ship. There were no other persons at the beach making a holiday; now and then a few women would come and bathe for medicinal purposes. They saw only one beachcomber, and he came with his dark sack morning and evening at low tide.

She was struck by the absolute novelty of having no duties. Raff was much better at holiday-making. He knew the times to swim, the times to lie in the sun, the times to catch the sweet crabs that lived in the rocks and boil them up for a midday meal. He taught her not to sleep in the sun and found two woven reed hats, one for herself and one for Telavel, who looked as much like a donkey in it as she ever could. They took turns riding the mare along the water's edge and off into the dunes. The Shallir were very shy and quick. She never saw them again in such numbers, but their hoofbeats echoed sometimes around the sandy hills and through the brackish waterways.

They climbed up to the top of the rocky promontory which was called Nim's Head. Here, between sky and ocean, they began to talk of the world and of those they knew in the world.

“Werris has troubles,” said Raff Raiz. “He has put himself too much in the hands of certain Mel'Nir landlords in the south. They harass the people. The rising will come there . . . the flame will rise there, to be fanned into life.”

“You speak like my partisan,” she said.

They sat side by side on the rounded summit of the rock; he bent and kissed her cheek lightly.

“
I
was always that,” he whispered. “Since the day I saw you, so young and brave, stung by the arrow. Now I speak like my father. He has changed sides; it is a sign that Mel'Nir will lose the Chameln lands.”

“Is he so changeable?” she asked. “Did Jalmar the Healer really have to do with those who attacked me and Sharn Am Zor in the wood?”

“No, but he knew Hurne the Harrier from Balufir, from Rosmer's service. He turned the knowledge to his advantage. He was out of favor with Lien at the time and almost hiding in Musna.”

“Did he know . . . does he know . . .” she said in a low voice, “anything of my parents' murderers?”

“No more than is generally known,” he said solemnly. “Violence is not my father's style, though he has had resort to it. The assassins were what they seemed to be: two fanatical young followers of the Lame God, Inokoi. Even Rosmer's hand in the game could hardly be traced. He remains suspect, for he is one, with the Markgraf Kelen, who would see the Daindru broken, for his reasons, just as Werris and Mel'Nir would have it broken for theirs. My father had the wounded Heir of the Firn under his hand, and the Heir of the Zor, a child, within his reach, and I know he would not have dreamed of harming either of you.”

“I sent for him to come to Achamar . . .”

“I know,” he said. “I begged to go. I begged to be allowed to bring you word. I sulked and ran away, and he had me brought home again to Musna. He would not go because he knew the Daindru were in eclipse and must go into exile. He wanted to keep his irons in the fire with the rulers of Lien.”

“How can he be . . .”

She wanted to say “so bad and so good” but did not dare speak so of the healer to his own son.

“My father has been dogged all his life by the success . . . if you call it that . . . of one man.”

“What . . . of Rosmer?”

“Of course not. No, he suffers because of his elder brother. He has never come close to him in healing or magic or in breadth of soul,” said Raff. “Our family comes from Nesbath; my grandmother and grandfather were both healers and lived by the healing springs. They had two sons, and the elder one was their favorite. He excelled in everything but was always something of a dreamer. When he was still young, he became bound in love and friendship to a maid of very high degree who visited the place to take the waters. He knew he could never be more than her servant, her healer. Yet he followed her to her home and served her faithfully, served her whole family, though they leave much to be desired in the way of honor or fine feelings. There he remains and does what he can to bring light into a very dark place. Meanwhile my father tried to find the same success. He went whoring after every ruler and every chance to gain power. He is a gifted healer. I am sure you understood that. But he cannot sit still. He married first of all a maid of Nesbath, and she died giving birth to Pinga, my brother. Then he wed again, a lady with connections in Lien, and I am her son. She died too. I hardly remember her. As a father Jalmar Raiz is as kind as any could wish; I feel love for him and for Pinga, too, although my father has always favored him. But we have led a strange unsettled life, driven on by his demon.”

“Your uncle . . . who can he be?”

“His name is Hagnild.”

She sat upright on the rock with a cry.

“He serves Ghanor . . . Ghanor, the King of Mel'Nir!”

“He has spent his life at the Great King's court,” said Raff. “He serves the Princess Merse, his daughter, and his son, Prince Gol, and the terrible old man himself. They say he is the only one not afraid of the vile old tyrant. My father swears that Hagnild will bring down the Great King in good time. But who knows?”