A Princess of the Chameln (36 page)

“There go the gleaners!” cried the kedran.

The runners caught the horses or turned over the fallen riders. A pair of them caught up one who still lived and ran back. A runner was shot down by a solitary archer of Mel'Nir mounted upon the earthen rampart. Lingrit gave a shocked exclamation.

“It is a tribal custom,” she said. “They make it a test of speed and strength.”

“Other folk wait until the battle is over,” he said.

Before the gleaners had done their work, a second wave of riders rode at the earthwork a little further south, and behind them came a mass of foot soldiers. Aidris watched with her teeth gritted and felt a kind of relief when the battle was joined, when the riders whirled away again, leaving the two groups of foot soldiers locked in combat upon the earthwork. Far down the line, she saw the banners of the Athron knights retiring.

“They need more cavalry in there,” she said, “to secure this damned earthwork from the south.”

Slowly a white wall moved across the road in the center. It began to move forward, just as slowly, then with a quickening pace and at last the earth shook and with a noise like thunder the mounted troopers of Mel'Nir charged down upon the horde of the Durgashen. The noise of their coming together was thick and metallic. All those watching upon the barrow rose and cried out. The Durgashen, horse and foot, flowed out and round the heavily armed warriors on their warhorses. Soon there was little to see, a dust cloud had arisen, yet she knew what was hidden by the cloud. She felt the deaths of those who died beneath the hooves of the horses, of the rider unhorsed and gored by the spears, of those packed sweating and bleeding in a narrow space.

She turned aside and went forward a little on the barrow and looked down into the camp of the Nureshen. She looked for Bajan's standard. She felt another surge of anxiety; she was angry with Bajan because he did not send word that he was unharmed. Lingrit came after her and pointed down into the ruins of the manor house.

“We can go down, my Queen. There is shelter there.”

“Would it not cause you pain?” she asked. “It is a sad place.”

“I have hardly lived in Thuven,” he said, “and I do not believe in ghosts.”

“You have lived in Lien,” she said.

“Yes, I have lived in Lien almost as long as I have lived in the Chameln lands,” said Lingrit with that wise look that reminded her of his father. “It is more civilised than any other place, even old Eildon, and it is more cruel and savage.”

“Was there a change in your estate when Mel'Nir seized the Chameln lands?” she asked. “Did Kelen receive some envoy of the protectorate?”

“He despises Mel'Nir,” said Lingrit, “but he did receive their envoys, and he made much of Prince Gol.”

“Has he forgotten the sufferings of his own sister, Elvédegran?”

“He has other marriage plans for the prince.”

She stared at him.

“The Princess Merilla Am Zor,” he said, “sister of King Sharn, is well-grown and accomplished.”

“She is a child!” cried Aidris. “I cannot believe this even of Kelen and his foul shadow Rosmer.”

“The Princess is fifteen, and Prince Gol a widower for the second time at forty-four. Ghanor will die . . . in his bed at the Palace Fortress, I would say, and not by the hand of any grandchild. Your cousin could be a queen.”

“May the Goddess preserve her!”

There was a shout from the kedran watching; the dust had been laid, on the plain, by a cold light rain. In among the Durgashen the troopers of Mel'Nir could be seen now as a solid body. They were steadily gaining the advantage, pressing the tribes back along the road to Vigrund. Some of the Durgashen, hard-pressed, had begun to fly the field.

Nearer at hand the cavalry of the Nureshen had reformed, and they charged again, a last charge, at the earthwork, which their foot soldiers had almost been able to hold. Now they were bringing out those who were left, saving what could be saved.

Aidris said to the young kedran officer whose name was Gefion, “The battle is lost!”

“Not so, my Queen,” she replied seriously. “Undecided. Mel'Nir have their flank unprotected . . . see there, can you see?”

Aidris could see the beaten horde of the Durgashen and the Ingari flow away from the southern flank of Mel'Nir. The kedran charged at last. It was too far away for the watchers on the barrow to see clearly. The kedran, fresh and disciplined, came down upon the troopers, tired from the close combat. The white ranks of Mel'Nir bulged and heaved, trying to turn and reform. Those who had pursued the Durgashen too far along the road to Vigrund were surrounded and brought down. She saw the great battle horses for the first time running riderless upon the plain. When one broke down to its knees, the gleaners rushed in at once and killed it with axe and sword, then ran back to their lines drenched in dark blood. She watched still, lips drawn back in a grimace. The troopers did reform and rode back to their lines. The kedran charged at their flanks again and again, then they came under a rain of arrows covering the retreat of Mel'Nir, and the action was broken off.

She stood aching in the rain and cold and drank apple wine that the kedran handed to her. Riders came up onto the barrow. Before she could cry out for news, Old Zabrandor had flung himself from his horse and come to her side.

“Count Bajan sends greetings, my Queen. He will come to the inn at Vigrund.”

Aidris felt relief so keen that she could have sunk down on the cold hillside. She put a hand on the old lord's arm and thanked him. The cavalry of Mel'Nir had drawn back behind their barriers. Far away at the very southernmost end of the field, there was a last skirmish between riders of the Ingari and a band of archers from Lien with a war machine, a wooden platform, which they pushed forward for a shelter.

“There is not much more to be seen, Dan Aidris,” said Zabrandor.

“My lord,” she said in a low voice, “after what I have seen today, I am not hopeful of coming to meet Sharn Am Zor. Mel'Nir will drive the tribes back.”

“I fear it,” he said. “It goes better with the king's army, but there is the risk that Mel'Nir will bring in fresh troops over the Danmar.”

There was shouting and laughter behind them where three Athron knights, elated with battle, were planting captured banners of Mel'Nir inside the enclosure. She was pleased to see that they had come back unharmed from their joust with the young nobles of Mel'Nir. She tried to smile and receive them pleasantly.

“Yes,” she said to Sir Jared Wild, “I planted the oak myself. But I know you heard a strange lying tale that the Heir of the Firn lay buried here on the barrow.”

“Queen Aidris,” he said gallantly, in his big untuned voice, “I fear we all serve the queen very ill to let her stand here in the rain and the cold.”

“Majesty, ride with us,” cried Sir Berry Stivard. “Ride with us to our Athron tents now, on your way to Vigrund.”

“We will give you and Lord Lingrit and your kedran here a cup of mulled Athron wine to keep out the cold,” said Gerr of Kerrick.

She saw their handsome Athron faces and felt a sudden longing for Kerrick Hall with the lamps lit. The orders were given and the whole party mounted up and rode down off the barrow. It was not much past midafternoon, but the late autumn day seemed already far spent; fires were being lit along the edge of the battlefield.

They rode back behind the lines of the Nureshen, and she saw sights and heard sounds that could not be borne. She spoke to many of the tribesfolk, but could not remember afterwards what she had said to comfort them. She looked about for Bajan, but could not see him and wondered if they had lied to her and he was among the fallen. It seemed to her that the Heir of the Firn, that green girl,
was
dead, dead long ago and buried upon the barrow, by the oak tree. Now there was a woman who passed by on a white horse, a woman in whose service others died and were maimed; now there was only the queen.

Chapter Nine

The cold rain did not stop. In the night after the battle, a strong wind sprang up and the opposing armies were lashed by the storms of autumn. Aidris had forgotten how hard it could rain, how hard the winds could blow in her native land. Both camps became a morass; tents were blown away; there was no thought of fighting. The queen sat in her warm room at the inn, and Bajan came every day to join her at the fireside. She began to recover from the shock of her first battle, her first battlefield.

There were things that could not be borne, yet all must bear them. Lieutenant Yeo was dead, killed in the first kedran charge; Megan Brock, as the kedran said, had been wounded and widowed in one day. Bajan's young brother was sorely wounded, might not recover. The losses, everyone cried at the council board, were light. The prospect was hopeless. Winter would come down, the forces of Mel'Nir would become more and more restive in their exposed positions on the plain and would press the tribes closer.

There was a hectic spirit abroad; the tribesfolk and the kedran found themselves a warm fire or a billet in the town and got drunk. Aidris heard the Athron knights, come up from camp, roistering in the dining room of the inn. She came upon Nenad Am Charn and Old Zabrandor the worse for wear over a game of Battle. She came unheralded to call upon Lingrit Am Thuven, whose servants and baggage had lately come out of Lien, through the Adz. That pale and melancholy man sat by his fire in a silken robe; one handsome young man played upon a dulcimer, another served Lienish wine and dainties. With the charm of Lien still upon her, she followed Yvand up the stairs again and found Bajan sunk in gloom by her fire. She dismissed Yvand and prowled the room and cried out, “This is mere foolishness . . .”

She went to Bajan and kissed him. She smoothed back the thick brown hair from his brow and found a long healing scar where he had been grazed by a spear.

“Lady,” he whispered, beginning to understand, “what would you . . .? I should ride back to camp.”

“No!”

“It
is
a rough night . . .”

They kissed again, kissed and clung until they were robbed of breath and fumbled their way to the big welcoming curtained bed.

“
I have thought of you . . .”

“Now I am here!”

The maids' gossip was all wrong; perhaps the Lienish wine was a specific. She felt no pain to speak of and no fear. A strong magic bound them together, a magic of the Chameln lands. The dark huntress sought through the forest and found her hunter who lay with her; the young men and maidens lay down together in the fields at midsummer. They were nameless lovers; they were Count Bajan and the queen. The night drew out; they fell asleep, and Aidris woke when Yvand came in to make up the fire. She put a finger to her lips; Bajan was still asleep. Yvand, who had been twice wed, raised her eyes to heaven and blushed, and smiled.

The storm continued; the weather was so rough they did not take out the horses, and the Shamans predicted that it would continue so for at least five days more. Yet on this third night, past midnight, they woke with strange voices crying out in the street below and sounds of a crowd gathering, in spite of the foul weather. Still the voices howled for the queen, the queen.

Bajan rose up cursing and put on his breeches. He went to the far window overlooking the street and cried out, “Look! Come love, here is a sight to behold!”

She came in her furred bedgown and peered through the shutters. In the street stood ten, twenty, a whole troop of warriors, long-haired and ferocious, with the rain streaming from their leather cloaks. The leader of the Tulgai stood proudly in the light that shone out from the inn door. Aidris flung wide the casement and leaned out into the rain.

“Akaranok, my good friend!”

Then Akaranok cried out in joy, and all the Tulgai shouted for the queen.

“My Queen!”
cried Akaranok, “
I bring greeting from Tagnaran. Speak with me, I pray, though the hour is late. I have important news!”

The inn woke up again and received the warriors of the Tulgai, who feasted until dawn. So many of their kind had not been seen in Vigrund since the coronation of the Daindru, Esher and Racha, years before. The queen was dressed again and received Akaranok and two of his followers by her fireside.

Count Bajan was presented and a health drunk, but Akaranok came swiftly to his news.

“My Queen,”
he said,
“this man is called Beregun, and he lives far to the southeast. He is a hunter of the Kelshin, the dark ones, our blood brothers who have their home in Nightwood in the kingdom of Mel'Nir.”

Beregun was like and unlike the true Tulgai. He was more lightly built and in fact fairer of complexion, though his hair was black. He said in a firm light voice,
“Queen Aidris, I hunt between the great forest and Nightwood, and in the hunting preserves of King Ghanor. I hunt the high trails, as we say, and I can travel swift as a bird through the treetops. I came from the woods by Nesbath in one day and a half . . .”

“Truly, good Beregun, you travel like the wind,”
said Aidris.

“Armies are gathered in Nesbath, and they are the Red Hundreds of Ghanor, the King.”

“So they are coming,”
said Bajan.
“We have feared as much. Will they take ship from Nesbath?”

“No, Count Bajan,”
said Beregun.
“They come by land. I believe they will ride tomorrow, and in three days they will reach the Adderneck Pass on the Nesbath road into the Chameln lands.”

Aidris put out a hand to Bajan. It seemed afterwards that the whole fateful outcome was in their minds at this moment. She did not see the way clear, but she knew there must be a way to turn this knowledge to advantage.

“Beregun,”
she said, “
I thank you from my heart for bringing me this news. I pray you stay here and eat and drink your fill. You must speak this news again.”