A Princess of the Chameln (35 page)

“He misses you, Dan Aidris,” said the sergeant. “This ride will settle him a little.”

The sergeant mounted Telavel, and with the escort of six kedran from Wetzerik's troop, they rode out of Vigrund down to the South Ride. A few townsfolk saw the queen go by in the morning mist. A kedran rode on ahead, and when they came to the wide grassy bay in the sea of trees, larger by far than the exercise paddocks at Kerrick, a few old friends came up from the kedran camp. She saluted Captain Brock and Lieutenant Yeo, then began to put Tamir through his paces and show him the Ride.

He was baulky at first, but she knew the reason. It was not only the nerve-wracking ride over the pass, the hordes of shouting people, that had upset him.

“Ah, my dear,” she said, coming back up the ride. “The trees will not harm you. You must learn to know the forest and the plain. This is your mother's country . . . you are Telavel's child after all. See how well Telavel goes, close to the trees!”

Tamir allowed himself to be persuaded to come closer to the forest trees; he began to enjoy the South Ride, plunging through its open spaces and wisps of low-lying mist. In the center of the Ride, Aidris took him through the very beginnings of dressage, all that he had been taught. He walked, he turned, then before he was asked to trot, Tamir pranced off into his own parody of the difficult groundwork of steps that Telavel and Yeo's splendid black mare Nightbird were performing nearby. The kedran laughed at his antics, and he rocked delicately for them, acknowledging their laughter. Aidris realised that she was happy, as happy as she might be, as queen, in the midst of an armed host, preparing for battle.

Tamir checked nervously just at the entrance to the forest, beside that broad path she had followed, with Sabeth and Ric Loeke riding ahead, years before. With a thump of fear she saw that there was a dark figure standing in the shadow of the mighty trees.

She swung away, and Sergeant Lawlor cried out, “Who's there? Come out, damn you, and show yourself!” She said to Aidris, “Get further back, Dan Aidris!”

A wild and desperate cry came from the forest.

“Queen! Queen Aidris Am Firn! O save me . . .”

They both saw the man, if it was a man, hold out empty hands and fall down upon the path. Captain Brock rode up with some of the escort.

“Stay back, Queen Aidris,” she said. “We'll have this prowler out in the daylight or drive him away.”

She rode off down the path with three other officers, and the man fled away before them. Again he cried out, “The queen! I must speak to the queen!”

Then the kedran and their quarry were lost to view. Aidris watched, thinking of treachery, of the arrows that might fly from every bush and tree. Was it some trap? Could that lone suppliant harm his pursuers?

“It is some mad hermit,” said Lawlor. “Everyone seeks to come to the queen.”

They waited, and soon Captain Brock and the others rode back empty-handed.

“Truly,” said Megan Brock, “I have seen some strange sights since I came into the Chameln lands, Queen, but this beats all. The man was a scarecrow in ragged clothes and animal skins, ill-cured and stinking. Yet I swear he spoke in the accents of Lien.”

“What did he want of me?”

“He begged for you to step into the shade of the trees to speak to him. He said that he cannot leave the forest. He has wandered there for seven years; his master had him under a spell. If he once goes beyond the boundaries of the woods, he will die.”

“Did he give no name?”

“When we refused to bring you into the woods, he ran off, but first he bade us bring you a token.”

“What is it?” asked Aidris.

“The maddest thing of all,” said the captain. “He plucked out a great handful of his own long beard. Here it is!”

The bunch of hair that she laid in Aidris's hand was fine and silken, twined with a scrap of fern. It was of so bright and unmistakeable a color that it glowed in the pale autumn sunlight: a hard, foxy red. Aidris felt a thrill of terror and then of pity. Seven years! She rode Tamir at once to the path and peered into the shadows of the forest.

“Hurne!” she cried out. “Hurne!”

There was no answer; the wild man had gone. She turned aside, ready to toss away the handful of bright hair, but then thought better of it and stowed it in the pocket of her tunic.

“I know him,” she said to Captain Brock. “He was a mercenary out of Lien. He twice was sent to kill or capture me and twice failed.”

“And his master?” asked Megan Brock.

“I know him too,” she said. “But I will not speak a name of such ill-omen on this day.”

They heard the sound of trumpets and drums.

“What does that mean, Captain? Will Mel'Nir give battle?”

“The tribes are mustering, Dan Aidris. Will you return to Vigrund?”

“Not I,” she said. “I will watch from the barrow with certain council lords. But first . . . let me breakfast at the kedran camp.”

The captain smiled. Her hard blue eyes could still see into a kedran's soul even if that kedran had become a queen.

“I have never watched a battle,” she said, “but it is as difficult as any duty. I am sure you will learn much, Dan Aidris.”

Aidris bade Sergeant Lawlor bring Telavel back to Vigrund, and she followed the escort down a bridle path that led to the kedran camp. It was well placed on a mound before the trees on the south side of the road, in the midst of the camp of the Durgashen. There was movement all through the tribal camps, and far away by the barrow she saw a body of dark riders. A party of Athron knights came down the road and hailed the queen; Frieda, the Lady of Wenns, a stout old “battlemaid,” came to join the kedran, but the Baroness Ault rode out with Sir Jared as his shield-bearer.

There was movement too in the camp of Mel'Nir. Thick ranks of mounted troopers could be seen behind the barriers in the center. Aidris remembered the sound they made, like a mighty war engine. Jana Am Wetzerik sat at the open doorway of her tent at a table with her officers, and they gave the queen and Lady Frieda a hearty welcome. There was a most comradely time spent eating and drinking and watching the weather and making scornful comments on the arrangements of Mel'Nir. Yet she looked at all the women with a cold knot of fear in her chest and knew that they were all afraid, as she was.

The horde of the Durgashen and the Ingari were massing all around them, more than a thousand, with banners. They wore padded leather greaves and breast plates of bronze, and they carried long spears. There were mounted archers among them, young men and women in small companies.

A prolonged and strange trumpet call rose up out of the din and the general said, “They will come to parley. They know the queen is here.”

Two riders broke out from the barriers and came up the road; one was a herald with a long pennant, and under it a flag of truce. The herald of the Nureshen rode out and met them midway between the lines and brought them in. Aidris saw them dismount among the bristling warriors of the Durgashen; she stood at the front of the mound waiting until Ferrad Harka led up the two men of Mel'Nir.

The herald was a model of his kind, a huge man, fair-haired and blunt-featured, whose cheeks drooped a little from blowing his own trumpet.

The officer with him was shorter, thick-set and dark with a handsome open face and fine teeth. Aidris was impressed by their heavy boots and strip mail, the herald's painted, the officer's a plain, polished grey. They both covered their armor with a long, belted cotton robe that reached to mid-calf.

The officer saluted:

“Brond,” he said. “Marshal of the Army of the Protectorate. I come under truce to bring a message from our commander, Hem Allerdon, to the queen.”

“I am listening, Marshal Brond.”

He smiled and drew himself up.

“Hem Allerdon bids Queen Aidris of the house of the Firn to yield herself up and go with his escort to Achamar to the Protector Werris, who rules in the Chameln lands for the Great King, Ghanor of Mel'Nir. She will be kindly treated and restored to her kingdom under the continued protection of Mel'Nir. Hem Allerdon commands the northern tribes of the Nureshen, the Durgashen, the Ingari and the Oshen to get themselves back home again before the winter comes. The northern tribes cannot stand against the forces of Mel'Nir. They will be cut down, be they as thick as swine grunting about our feet. We will spurn them out of the way.”

Ferrad Harka allowed himself to be drawn. He gave a roar and moved towards the men of Mel'Nir. She saw that Lingrit Am Thuven and Old Zabrandor had joined the watchers; now Lingrit laid a restraining hand upon the chieftain's arm. Brond did not flinch.

“It is the custom in Mel'Nir to let an envoy speak,” he said. “And to understand that he brings a message from another.”

As it was her turn to speak, she found that she was able to look about, see her listeners, control her words and gestures like a player in a masque. She was conscious of all that had gone into her brief reply: the helpful phrases that Lingrit had written out for her to study, the speeches of other rulers that she had learned from Nazran, even the poem, “Queen Negartha Hurls Defiance at Her Enemies,” from
Hazard's Harvest
. The ringing tones of her voice she owed to Megan Brock.

“Marshal Brond,” she said, “hear my words. My herald of the Nureshen will bring them to Allerdon, Commander of the invading army of Mel'Nir. There is no Protectorate of Mel'Nir in the Chameln lands. Lord Werris is no protector but a usurper, and he serves a foul master, Ghanor of Mel'Nir, no Great King but a tyrant grown old in deeds of blood, who will die by the hand of his own kin. Werris is too proud. If he comes before me, he will have to answer for the deaths of my two trusted friends, Nazran Am Thuven and his wife, the Lady Maren.

“I charge Hem Allerdon and all the men of Mel'Nir and the mercenaries of Lien under his command to take themselves hence, to get themselves back home again before the winter comes. Because they may be sure that for them, for those who invade our Chameln lands, a terrible winter is coming. The power of the Goddess is in my Chameln warriors, and they will hurl back the might of Mel'Nir. The Daindru rules in these lands, as it has done for a thousand years. I speak this in my own name as Aidris, the Queen, and in the name of my cousin, who shares the double throne, King Sharn Am Zor.”

When the cheering had died down, the Marshal bowed low to her.

“Majesty!”

She gave an encouraging word to the herald of the Nureshen, then the three men mounted up again. She watched them riding at a rolling gallop towards the Mel'Nir lines. The Marshal and his herald, on either side of the herald of the Nureshen on his tawny mare, rode monstrous chargers with plumed hooves. The long banners of the heralds snapped in the wind. The day was grey now, with a weak radiance where the sun was shining behind the clouds. A kedran cried out, “See there, my Queen! The Athron knights have engaged the knights of Mel'Nir!”

“Come, my Queen,” said Lingrit, “let us make the ride to the barrow.”

So she mounted Tamir again, and the men and women of the Durgashen cheered her round about. She saluted the general and the ranks of the kedran, and came with Lingrit and her kedran escort along the road. She saw how three Athron knights rode against three noblemen of Mel'Nir, midway between the opposing hosts.

“The Melniros wear crests and armor like the Foresters or the Questors,” she said to Lingrit, “but you have said they are not knights.”

“They have no history of knighthood,” he said. “It comes from Eildon. Those are young nobles, sure enough, their fathers the war-lords of Ghanor, the king.”

As they watched, an Athron knight unhorsed his opponent and gained a cheer from the Chameln camp. She saw that it was Gerr of Kerrick. She turned off the road now and rode along the front of the camp, close to the ranks of the Nureshen. She came to Bajan and his lesser chieftains, all armed and fierce; the whole host of the Nureshen cheered for the queen.

They leaned from their saddles and embraced. Bajan clasped her gloved hands tightly. They could do no more than this; she was stifled with pain and fear.

“My love . . .”

“Come back safely
. . .”

There was a flurry of trumpet calls from the camp of Mel'Nir, and the escort called for her to make haste. She bent low on Tamir, and they rode round the massed riders of the Nureshen and the Oshen and sped on towards the barrow.

The way had not changed. She looked at the ruined manor house and the untended orchards with the trees bare. The wind was from the north and blew over the barrow with an icy breath, stirring the long grass. A stockade of logs and brushwood had been freshly built to shelter the queen and her attendants. As she came round it, she gave a glad cry. There in the shelter stood a young oak tree; in seven years it had grown waist high.

“An oak tree is a good omen,” said Lingrit with his wan smile.

“I planted it myself,” she said, “in the year that I went into exile.”

The kedran were pleased and said that it would be called the Queen's Oak. She got down and let Tamir graze on the hilltop with the other horses. There was a sudden movement near at hand, and the riders they had just passed of the Nureshen and the Oshen gave their battlecry and rushed down upon the earthworks of Mel'Nir.

Watching was more terrible than she had imagined. She saw the arrows fly out in a cloud and saw the foot soldiers taking the charge. There was a dull noise of bodies hitting together. Horses screamed and fell down; a horse ran out of the mass dragging a rider by the stirrup. The foot soldiers of Mel'Nir were not broken, but she saw them fall, thought she saw blood even at this distance. Then the riders wheeled away, in a movement worthy of kedran cavalry, and went back to their lines. The plain was covered with dark clumps; horses ran riderless. Then a score of runners hurled themselves on to the field, half-naked runners shouting to each other.