A Princess of the Chameln (31 page)

“Aidris!”

Niall of Kerrick stood by the stairs looking up and with him old Gavin the Waker. She stared at them and was afraid of the way they looked at her.

“Riders,” Gavin was saying. “Riders have come . . .”

“Riders from the Chameln lands!” said Niall of Kerrick.

She felt something that was close to panic. She ran just as she was out through the stableyard towards the front of the Hall. A crowd had collected at the end of the avenue. She pushed her way through. Ten riders were dismounting; there were tall banners.

Bajan stood in the courtyard. A tall man, Lingrit Am Thuven, had approached the steps of Kerrick Hall, and Nenad Am Charn stood beside him. The trading envoy was the spokesman, and he cried out in a loud voice to Gerr of Kerrick, who waited before the doorway.

“Good Sir Gerr . . . we have come out of the Chameln lands with this worthy company of noblemen and servants of the double throne. We are seeking that lady who came through the mountains with your help some seven years past and who has been sheltered at this your noble father's house. We are seeking our queen, to bring her home again.”

Then Sir Gerr, smiling, as if he might be puzzled by this display or simply modest said, “Good Envoy, the lady who came with me to safety is now my wife . . .”

There was a slight hiss of unbelief from the newcomers, and Aidris saw Bajan lay a hand on his sword. Before Nenad Am Charn could speak again, Sir Gerr reached a hand into the darkness of the portal and led out the Lady Sabeth, blushing, in her long robe.

“Here she is,” said Sir Gerr. “The Lady Sabeth, whom I brought to safety . . .”

This time there was a murmur of impatience. Lingrit and Nenad bowed to Sabeth, and the trading envoy said, “We are pleased to know your lady wife, but she is not . . .”

Aidris walked steadily out into the courtyard and stood before Bajan. A young girl in a fine red tunic uttered a glad cry. Bajan smiled. He knelt down before Aidris in the dust of the courtyard. All the riders turned towards her and knelt down: she saw Jana Am Wetzerik and old Zabrandor, who had been Esher's Torch Bearer. A kedran had sprung up again to give a signal: the wooden trumpets of the Chameln lands blew a wild blast, and a herald began to cry out in a mighty voice. She heard nothing but a string of names, and they were all her names.

“Keeper of the Keys of Achamar, Lady of the Groves, Countess of Vule, Lady of Shorr, of Grunach and Ez, Landgravine of Ringist, Ruler of the Chameln lands, the Queen who shares the double throne, Dan Racha Sabeth Aidris Am Firn . . .”

She raised up Bajan: he led her quickly through to the steps of the hall, raising up the others as she went. She pressed the hands of Lingrit and of Nenad; she was urged up two or three steps, and the company cheered aloud. She put up a hand for silence and turned to those above her: Gerr and Sabeth, Lady Aumerl, Niall of Kerrick.

“Aidris, dear child . . . what is this?” cried the Lady Aumerl.

“Hush, Mother,” said Niall. “She is their queen.”

“Queen Aidris,” he said, so that those waiting could hear, “you have lived among us in a humbler estate, but now we welcome you and all your followers to enter Kerrick Hall and accept our poor hospitality.”

Aidris came up and stood beside them.

“Nothing in my life is sweeter than this hour,” she said. “I see loved faces again, and I promise that all your steadfastness will be rewarded. Let me express my love and duty still to the master and mistress of Kerrick Hall and to Niall of Kerrick, who has welcomed us.”

The Chameln cheers were loud. They were, she perceived, a noisy folk who cried out and wept and sang and shouted more readily than Athron folk. She had been too quiet, but it was often a queen's part to remain quiet in the noisy throng, to raise a hand . . . as she did now . . . for silence.

“Before we go in,” she said, “I will perform my first action as your proclaimed queen. I can never repay all that I owe to these two dearest friends who brought me to safety in Athron, but I will beg them to accept what I have to give, straightaway, in the way of honors. Let Sir Gerr of Kerrick, that true knight of the order of the Foresters, and his lady Sabeth, my dear friend, be Count and Countess of Zerrah, and enjoy forever, with their heirs, the possession of the manor of Zerrah, in the mark of Ez, in the Chameln lands.”

Under cover of the cheering, as she led them forward, Sabeth whispered, “Oh, what have you done to us . . . there I am all unprepared and pregnant too, in an old gown . . .”

“Well, you have your manor house,” said Aidris, smiling, “and can rebuild it finer!”

“I can only believe it of
you
,” said Sabeth, smiling all the while and acknowledging the cheers. “A girl who could keep quiet about her own betrothal. Is he that handsome one with the brown beard who looks at you so warmly?”

“Yes, that is Bajan.”

Aidris turned her head at last and dared to look at Gerr of Kerrick. He smiled, too, but in his eyes she read a hint of bitterness.

The chambers in the south wing, hastily aired, smelled of thyme and rosemary. She was bathed before the fire with three waiting women and Sabeth sitting nearby with her embroidery frame. It was like the lodge of the Nureshen at the Turmut, for all her dusty kedran gear had been taken away in a heap. Her two women from the Chameln lands were Millis Am Charn, the young girl in red, and a thin dark woman whose name was Yvand, and the third was Therza, who had returned with Gerr and Sabeth from Eildon. Yvand was the only one who knew how to serve a queen, and she directed her two companions in whispers.

When Aidris was dressed from head to foot in fresh Chameln raiment, Millis and Therza fetched a long glass, just as two girls of the northern tribes had fetched the brazen shield. The long tunic of green velvet and brown doeskin was beaded with jade and lake pearls and embroidered with gold thread. Her breeches were of darker brown leather, and her boots were green, with gold tassels. The air of Athron had changed the texture of her hair; it curled more softly. Her skin was pale, with cheeks lightly flushed. She held herself very straight, always, but she had hardly added an inch to her stature in seven years. She was a woman of the Firn, just over five feet in height.

“If the countess would come . . .” beckoned Yvand.

Sabeth came and stood behind Aidris, and all four women looked approvingly at the picture the queen made in the glass.

“Green is your color,” said Sabeth. “What must I call the queen now, Mistress Yvand?”

“She is your close friend, Countess,” said Yvand, “so you may say simply ‘my Lady.' Others will say ‘my Queen' or ‘Dan Aidris.' We have no usage such as Majesty, but foreign persons do use this word.”

Yvand held out a leather case to Sabeth. She reached in and took the circlet of gold, set it on Aidris's head and adjusted the fine strap of plaited horsehair that held the simple coronet in place.

“Yvand,” said Aidris, “who had my measure for these clothes?”

“The women of the northern tribes, Dan Aidris.”

“Where have I seen you before, Yvand? In Achamar?”

The dark woman smiled at last.

“I was a seamstress, Dan Aidris, assisting Lady Maren Am Thuven, as Keeper of the Robes.”

“Of course. And have we news of Lady Maren?”

The young girl, Millis, began to speak, but Yvand gripped her arm.

“There is nothing certain, my Queen,” she said. “It will come from one of the Council lords.”

Therza who had been standing at the door called softly, “The Count! Count Bajan!”

“Great Goddess!” murmured Sabeth in the ear of the queen, “We are all counts and countesses now!”

The room was cleared in an instant. Only Sabeth remained at her embroidery frame, a most blooming young chaperon. Bajan came in and strode impatiently the length of the chamber, as if he would take up all the years in this distance. She strained to see him in the candlelight, to find a man that she knew in this heavily muscled, middle-sized, dark-browed Chameln lord.

As he passed through some shadow and then came into the light of the fire, she saw the tilt of his head, his smile, and was able to give that old, glad, cry, “Bajan!”

He took both her hands. They kissed gently on both cheeks. He looked at her, as Sabeth had said, warmly; then took her in his arms, and they kissed for so long that Sabeth gave a discreet cough. They drew back and stared at each other, half-amazed. Aidris saw that she had grown beautiful in his eyes. She was twenty-four, and he was thirty-three, and they had been long betrothed.

“Lady,” said Bajan, “I have found you, and I will never let you go far from my side again. But the way to Achamar is long, and I fear it will be stained with blood.”

“You have my ring,” said Aidris. “How did it come to you?”

“Mysteriously,” said Bajan. “Three strangers found me out at a mountain camp. Where did you conjure up such creatures?”

“They are the messengers of Prince Ross of Eildon,” she said. “Come, sit down and tell me the state of the lands.”

“The councillors are waiting.”

“Then tell me only two things. First, where is the king? Where is Sharn Am Zor?”

“He has landed at Winnstrand on the Danmar and taken command of a large horde of the folk, risen against their Mel'Nir landlords.”

“Good news. But tell me now . . . what is known of Nazran Am Thuven and the Lady Maren?”

Bajan put an arm about her.

“The Lady Maren is long dead,” he said. “She died in Ledler Fortress in the first year after you had gone into exile, from an ague. Nazran survived in Ledler for two or three years; now it is believed that he is dead. He would be far gone in years . . .”

She bent her head. They had gone, both of them, to the halls of the Goddess, and were more certain to find peace because of the pain of their going. She remembered Nazran speaking to her in a darkened room: “In those bright halls we are all made whole and sound . . .” Yet in that memory was a perverse hope, for he had spoken of Elvédegran's deformed son and it seemed that this child had lived and flourished.

“I will go to the Council!” she said.

She led Bajan to Sabeth and presented the new Countess of Zerrah.

Old Zabrandor unrolled a map as large as the table and weighted its edges with wine beakers and candlesticks.

“Werris holds the center and Achamar,” he said. “The Melniros are hard-pressed in the southeast where the folk have risen. I will not say how this has come about, but it has happened, and the king has come to lead them.”

“You saw him?” asked Aidris.

“I did,” said the old lord. “He is a most brilliant king, proud and wise beyond his years. He bade me come to meet the northern tribes because my lands lie about the plains by the Nesbath road and I know the best way to come through this country even when it is thick with the Melniros.”

“See here, my Queen,” said Jana Am Wetzerik, taking up the tale. “I have been keeping a troop of my battlemaids and housekerns together in the north at a camp of the Durgashen. When word of the rising came, all the tribes took up arms; Count Bajan, together with Ferrad Harka of the Durgashen, led them to Thuven, then captured Vigrund. We hold the mountain passes into Athron. The plain lies between us and the army of Sharn Am Zor. Lord Zabrandor came through alone with some difficulty. Werris in Achamar and the King of Mel'Nir will try to bring in new warriors and keep our two armies parted. I use the word armies, it is not a good word. These are folk hordes who need a greater stiffening of trained soldiers.”

“There is some danger from Lien,” said Bajan. “If the Markgraf Kelen allows Mel'Nir to come in along the forest border or to hire mercenaries to seize the Adz . . .”

“Lord Lingrit,” said Aidris, “how stands Kelen with Sharn Am Zor?”

“They have no love for each other,” said Lingrit. “The Markgraf has done all he could over these past years to win the love and the loyalty of the prince. He has failed. His bullying did not serve and neither did his kindness nor his seductions of various kinds. The young king, once come to his majority, pretended to be more reasonable, went about at court and so on, but when the news of the two pretenders came from Dechar and the countryside flocked to their banners, he escaped. He sent word to me, and I travelled through the Adz and came to Vigrund. The king came secretly out of Lien and landed at Winnstrand with a small band of followers.”

“Pretenders . . .?”
said Aidris softly.

The councillors looked rueful.

“If it please you, I will tell the queen,” said Nenad Am Charn.

The trading envoy had been sitting quietly during the talk of armies, but now he bent forward across the table and poured himself some more wine at the eastern end of the map.

“In past years, Dan Aidris, there have been many legends and tales come out of the Chameln lands concerning the fate of yourself and of the king, Sharn Am Zor.”

“I have heard some of these tales even here in Kerrick Hall,” she said.

“I noted them all,” said Nenad Am Charn. “I was one of the very few privileged to know the true whereabouts of our queen, and I could judge if anyone had stumbled upon the truth. These sightings of a princess or a prince were mainly the wish dreams of a simple folk. At Midsummer, six years past, a young maid clad all in green and wearing a golden crown appeared to a group of poor miners in the Adz. She cried out in the Old Speech: ‘
I am the Oak Maid
!' and disappeared into the forest.

“More than once the royal children appeared together: a golden-haired boy and a dark-haired girl, sometimes wearing fine clothes and golden crowns, sometimes poorly dressed, asking for succor. In the Hain by Achamar, the royal hunting preserve, a huntsman of Mel'Nir and his Chameln servants saw a bright light in a glade where they had a stag at bay. When they came up, a young dark-haired girl in a white tunic with an arrow protruding from her left side bade them stop and let the stag go free. This last, though a very striking vision, was not a hopeful one for those who remained loyal. It seemed to say that the Heir of the Firn was dead and walked as a ghost in that wood.