A Princess of the Chameln (33 page)

“Trouble,” she whispered, trying to smile.

“Forgive me,” said Aidris. “I told no one. Not Sabeth. Not Sir Gerr or the lord and lady. Terril of Varda did not know, although he is my own kin. Only Niall of Kerrick guessed, I think, and Prince Ross of Eildon knew me because of his magical powers.”

“It was plain from the first that you were some lord's daughter,” said Ortwen with some of her old humor. “The book-learning. The queer fine clothes . . . linen underdrawers!”

Then they laughed aloud, and Aidris said, “How we will laugh and cry when we think of these seven years!”

“The barracks is in an uproar,” said Ortwen. “Nothing to match it since the Carach came back. Lord Huw has spoken with your tall general, Brock's old comrade. A company of volunteers will follow you home. It is all settled.”

Aidris stared at her friend.

“Ortwen,” she said, “dear Ortwen Cash . . . will you do one thing for me?”

“Surely,” said Ortwen, wondering.

“Do not ride with me,” said Aidris earnestly. “I pray you . . . do not ride to battle. Go home to Cashcroft and be married to Han the Smith.”

“But why . . .?”

“I am the queen; I must go,” said Aidris. “But I cannot lead you to blood and death. I would be a false friend indeed.”

“Others will go,” said Ortwen stoutly.

“No, they will not,” said Aidris, making the decision. “I will not have them. If the veterans, the true kedran and kerns . . . Brock and Yeo and Wray and Lawlor and the rest . . . make up companies I will not object; but no untried soldier of Kerrick Hall will ride with me, I swear it.”

Ortwen sighed.

“They will never believe, back home, that I rode seven years long with the Queen of the Chameln lands.”

“My friendship lasts forever,” said Aidris. “We will meet again and ride together and speak of old times. You will have all that remains of my soldier's pay to buy that south field your father likes.”

“Would you do that?” said Ortwen. “Truly, it is a good field, but you have no need . . .”

“Let me,” said Aidris.

When Ortwen had gone, Aidris stood at the window in her nightgown looking at the gardens of Kerrick Hall, which she had never seen from the south wing. The women were waiting to dress their queen. Bajan and the councillors were waiting. The queen's horses were waiting to be exercised. She looked at a few of the tokens that had sustained her during her time in exile: the sword of the Firn, the beloved book
Hazard's Harvest
. Unexpectedly Yvand gave a loud sob: She was holding up the white tunic, Aidris's good white that she had worn perhaps nine times in seven years.

“It is still good,” said Aidris. “Hardly a bead has been shed.”

“We sewed it together,” said Yvand, “the Lady Maren and myself.”

Aidris slipped under the rail and knelt beneath the Carach tree.

“
Carach
,” she said, “
the time has come. Give me your blessing once again for my journey back into my own country.”

“
Oak maiden
,” said the Carach tree. “
Your own trees will give you that blessing.”

“
Carach, we speak in the Chameln lands of lost Ystamar, the Vale of the Oak Trees. Is there such a place?”

“
No one knows where it lies
,” said the Carach, “
except the wild creatures, the wolf and the wild swan.”

Three leaves of the Carach, just turning to gold, dropped down upon her, softly as bird's feathers. She gathered them up and bade farewell to the Carach tree. She had come alone to the top of the hill, but when she turned, Niall of Kerrick and his dog Crib stood waiting.

“The Carach honors you,” he said. “Go well, Queen Aidris.”

“Watch over me, I pray,” said Aidris. “You are far beyond me in magic, Master Kerrick, since you went into Eildon.”

“My brother rides questing to help regain your throne,” he said.

“It is not a quest!” she said.

Niall of Kerrick smiled at her, but his eyes were solemn. For a moment, holding the Carach leaves, she knew what he had wished to say to her for so long, which now could not be said. They clasped hands, and she went down the hill to the point where her kedran were waiting.

There was a brief leave-taking. Lord Huw and his lady stood at the door of Kerrick Hall, but Sabeth stood at her chamber window, her golden hair unbound, holding the child Imelda. She called a farewell to Gerr and to the queen.

“See there,” said Millis Am Charn, riding in the escort, “the Countess of Zerrah is lovely as a princess from some old legend!”

Ten kedran and ten mounted men-at-arms, all veterans, rode with the escort of the Chameln. Sir Gerr, in the panoply of a knight Forester, led them down the avenue. Sergeant Lawlor led a second horse, Telavel, skittish and excited by the presence of six other Chameln greys.

As they came through Garth and turned to the east, Aidris looked up and saw that the sky was covered with mares' tail clouds. She rode in the midst of a company of Chameln lords in dark cloaks. She was dressed in white and mounted upon Tamir, the white stallion. Turning her head, she saw the hulk of the old mill looming among the trees. She waved her hand to Kedran Venn, watching through the eastern window; then the mill was lost to sight behind the hedges of the Varda road.

Chapter Eight

The news of the Queen's coming ran ahead of them through the autumn countryside. The people of Athron came to wave and cheer; the maple, ash and Carach blazed scarlet and gold beside the strange banners from the Chameln lands. Those who saw the queen riding past, a young girl, dark-haired, sitting her magical white horse so well, swore that she was beautiful, her complexion delicate as a wild rose, her eyes green as oak leaves. It was clear to them and to the bards and storytellers that this was how a queen was meant to look.

As they came to Varda, there were many banners hung out, and the gates of the city had been shut but only so that they could be ceremonially opened at the queen's approach. When the trumpets had spoken to each other, the gates parted, and there before the assembled citizens and the lord mayor was a solitary horseman in green and gold, upon a roan mare. He came out of the city and doffed his plumed hat to the queen. They touched hands.

“Dearest cousin,” said Terril of Menvir, “welcome to Varda.”

“Dearest cousin,” said Aidris, “I thank you for this fine welcome!”

They smiled at each other most warmly and rode side by side into Varda.

“I was forewarned,” said Terril. “There was word that the Queen of the Chameln had been living at Kerrick Hall.”

“And this told you all?”

“I swear it!” said the prince gallantly.

The ceremony went forward. It was a clear cool autumn day, and the queen's party and their escort rode right through Varda to the palace where it stood among the gardens of the city. Riding down Tower High Street, they drew rein at the sign of the double oak, hung with more flags, and Aidris gave a friendly greeting to Lallian Am Charn and her younger daughters and to Racha, the envoy's son. The young merchant of Varda looked more worried and disapproving than ever.

As they came through a certain quiet square, Aidris sent word to the heralds, and the whole procession turned into a quarter of Varda with large, old-fashioned houses that had seen better days. They came to a rambling mansion, somewhat decayed, but now hung with banners and evergreen from all its musty turrets and crumbling balconies. There in its garden was raised a spirit tree, a totem of the Chameln lands, crowned with long tresses of human hair.

The inhabitants of House Imal to the number of forty or fifty persons, mostly of humble estate, came streaming out cheering loudly when they saw the queen. The front door of the house flew open and down the path came the old Countess Palazan Am Panget in all her finery, accompanied by the elderly minstrel and her two waiting women.

Here for the first time Aidris saw green branches raised in almost every hand; these were not only her poor subjects, they were petitioners. She would be whipped to death by their green branches; she shrank away from such a tide of human wishes. She said to Nenad Am Charn who had come up to her left hand, “What can we give them?”

“Silver, for their feast,” he said. “Their exile is not yet at an end.”

So she rode forward and addressed the crowd saying:

“Good people of the Chameln lands . . . take a gift in my name! But you must wait with your green branches till I rule again in Achamar with the king, Sharn Am Zor!”

The cheers redoubled. The old countess held out her arms on either side, her two waiting women took hold of her by the arms, lowered her into a curtsey, then hoisted her up again. The elderly minstrel came forward and bowed. He was proud and unsmiling as before; she could not tell if he recalled their last meeting.

“My greetings to the countess,” she said, “I hope she is well.”

“The countess greets the queen,” intoned the bard, “and begs for news of the king, Sharn Am Zor.”

“King Sharn leads an army by Winnstrand.”

He bowed his head.

“The countess begs the queen to accept a humble gift.”

He held it up for her upon his tarika: a large unpolished gemstone, dark red in color, with flashes of hidden fire. It was not pierced but hung in a net upon a simple plaited thread. Aidris took the stone and stripped off a large, new ring with a pearl, and had a kedran bring it to the countess.

“Good minstrel,” she said, “to celebrate my return pray sing your song again . . . of the Winter Queen and the King of Summer.”

Again he bowed gravely, struck a chord, and began to sing. Aidris spoke the words in the common speech to Prince Terril, and those listening so treasured up the words of the queen that they sang the song again with these words. It became a riding song for the kedran, and they carried it back into the Chameln lands:

“Far off, far off in Achamar

The fires are lit,

The King and the Queen have come home.

O let me live till that moon!”

They were received at the palace entry by Prince Flor and his Princess and their son and heir, the young Prince Joris. From a dropsical infant this child had grown into a healthy and handsome little prince with chestnut hair and blue eyes. His mother, Princess Josenna, had become pretty and agreeable from sheer relief. She smiled warmly at Aidris, gave her a cousinly embrace, laid on ceremony, enough and not too much, for the royal party.

They rested briefly from their journey and then went in to dine. The palace was refurbished with a new front of white stone and a wide terrace before the chamber where they dined.

“Well, dear cousin,” said Terril, “I have some notion that you will ask a favor. I promised to grant you one when we first met.”

“Cousin,” she replied seriously, “I will not ask you or your noble brother to send troops with me. If you own that I am the queen and Sharn Am Zor the king, that will be favor enough.”

The prince looked relieved.

“Certain knights and battlemaids will go along anyway,” he said cheerfully. “You have persuaded Gerr of Kerrick, the new Count Zerrah. The Foresters are always ready for a quest.”

She held her peace. The idea of questing still seemed frivolous to her and to have little to do with the perils that lay ahead.

“Tonight there will be fireworks in the gardens,” put in Terril. “Green-fire out of Lien, dear cousin.”

Aidris looked out into the gardens of the palace and beyond them the public gardens of Varda.

“Cousin Terril,” she said, “I have never heard the name of that mountebank who taught you and Master Fantjoy a certain spell.”

“Oh, he passes through,” said the Prince. “He is a healer too, and a herbalist. His name is Jallimar.”

“Does he travel alone?”

“No, with a poor greddle, of all things. Some say it is his own son.”

“Where is he now?”

“I think I know that too,” said the prince. “He is far off in your Chameln lands, in the service of the young king.”

After three days and nights in Varda, the queen and her escort rose to the Rodfell Pass in bright sunshine and crossed into the Chameln lands. With the queen, besides her Chameln lords and kedran, there rode certain knights of the order of the Foresters. Gerr of Kerrick, the new Count Zerrah, rode in the van, and with him, Sir Jared Wild of Wildrode and his cousin by marriage, the battle-maid, Baroness Ault, and Sir Berry Stivard of Blane, who had married the fair Amédine, and Frieda, the Lady of Wenns, and all their kerns and kedran to the number of a hundred and ten.

The Rodfell was a low-lying, easy pass, which rose up gently, with the mountain wall to the south and the peaks of the Four Sisters to the north. Aidris rode at the head of the company, behind the kedran general and Captain Brock and a pair of officers. She rode Telavel, and far back, behind the proud display of the Foresters and the dark cloaks of the Chameln lords, Sergeant Lawlor had the task of leading Tamir into his new homeland.

So they came to the top of the pass in midmorning and looked down a long, gentle slope to the border town of Vigrund. Mist still shrouded the valley and swirled around the lower branches of the trees. The road ran through the midst of the forest. Just over the crest Aidris called a halt. On the south side of the road was a clearing with a pair of spirit trees; she dismounted and walked alone into the clearing, with Bajan and the Herald of the Nureshen following at some distance. She knelt by the taller spirit tree, then stood still observing the signs of the forest. She summoned the herald, a tall man with white-blond hair, and said to him, “They will hear you!”

So the herald lifted up his mighty voice and cried out in the Old Speech,
“Tell Tagnaran, the Balg of the Tulgai, that Aidris, the Queen, has come home again. She will have her lands and her throne, the double throne that she shares with Sharn Am Zor. She will reward the Tulgai for their help and receive their fealty at Vigrund. Tell Tagnaran! Hold high the Daindru!”