The Ravens of Falkenau & Other Stories (19 page)

Ride
, something whispered in my ear.
Ride as though the fate of Britain rode with you…

Behind me, the great hounds bayed. The rain flew at my face with a thousand icy claws. The lightning split the sky.

Rosamund
went up on her hind legs with a whinny of pure terror. I pitched from the saddle, and I fell hard against the muddy grass, half hauling myself to my feet as she plunged away into the night.

The hounds bayed, and I ran through the forest, hearing them always behind me, now closer, now farther. I suppose the rain put them off the scent somewhat. But where should I find shelter? Behind me, they were tireless, and it was hours until dawn.

I blundered into a dense thicket of evergreens, then out again into a clearing. Something glimmered whitely before me, a well half overgrown with climbing vine. I seized a broken branch from the ground, turned to face the dogs, and as I grabbed it I knew what it was, rowan.

"Back!" I yelled, brandishing it before me. It gleamed blue silver in the lightning's crack, and in the sudden flash I saw it rightly, a sword in my hand.

"Back!" I yelled again, and the dogs halted. Light ran down the blade, as though it had been dipped in moonlight.

The leader of the dogs snarled, but came no closer. Then, with a last growl, the pack turned and fled into the forest.

I sank to my knees in the muddy grass, my chest heaving. I could think of no words. I bent my head to the ground.

"Water for you, swordsman," she said.

I raised my head to see her holding out a cup for me, a maiden dressed in white, her hair pale as silk across her shoulders and her lips as red as berries. Her gown was white, and there was no touch of rain on her face or her dress, though I was sodden through.

I looked at the cup she held for me, and some bit of mother sense penetrated. "What's in it?"

"Nothing that will hurt you," she said, and a smile flickered across her lips. "Water from the well."

"I would not drink from death," I said. I should fear her, but I could not, though my whole body shuddered.

"This is not from that river," she said and held the cup for me.

I drank. It was clear and cool and sweet, as water that springs from deep underground on a summer's day. I drank deep, and it seemed I had never tasted anything so rightly, so completely, as though my entire self were knitted whole.

"Thank you, Lady," I said. "If by your power the dogs were called off."

She shook her head a little sadly. "Not by my power, swordsman, but by yours. I fear I have but little power outside this grove, away from the well. You see, no one believes in me anymore." She glanced at me again, and beneath her smooth maiden face I thought for a moment I saw something much older, something in her eyes.

I shook my hair out and tried experimentally to stand. "Still, you have my gracious thanks," I said.

She took a step away from me, one hand reaching down to caress a broken bit of worn marble. "This was once a shrine on the Great North Road. Kings worshipped here, and lords out of Spain and Africa, men who brought their horses and their vines, their loves and their dreams." She looked back at me. "And their nightmares too. But they are gone, and I am here." She glanced up at the trees that arched above, and the sadness in her voice made me ache. "I can still be here."

The sword was still real in my hand, steel hilt wrapped with leather. I looked at it with less wonder than I should have. "How did I do that?"

"Turn a stick into a sword? Face down the dogs of the hunt?" She sounded amused. "Because you are a servant of this wild magic that runs through the land, older and stronger even than tales of the hunt. That magic was old when the Normans came to these shores, when
Northmen
and Saxon raiders plied their
longships
, old when the Romans came with their vines and their gods, older and stranger, a wind through the world that cannot be commanded." She half turned from me and then looked back, her face framed between her hair and her shoulder. "A thousand years have passed since that wind last swept through Britain, since the last echoes of that song faded with blued blade slipping into blue water, to sleep in the lake."

"Or sleep in the hollow hills," I whispered. "Is that what has happened, that those knights have slept a thousand years?"

She laughed, and her voice was like the ring of steel. "Do you think they have nothing better to do?"

"I don't know," I said, but I did know, even as I said it. I could see the plunging ships and the wide ocean of the north, swan
prowed
ships cutting through gray waters, ever westward. I could see the walls of Ascalon Outre Mer rising in sunset while I stood, red cross blazoned on my chest, coming home. Too fast to name, too many visions, the queen of the troubadours with her amazons about her, and the virgin warrior heaven sent, too many others.

Before that, a swift Arab mare beneath me, I gazed on the city of my dreams, her streets half ruined and her temples gone while my song of victory turned into ashes in my mouth. I had wandered her streets then, looking for I knew not what, and in the turn of a corbel, in the shape of a stone had suddenly known her, had embraced her as a man who has traveled the world and come home to find his family in poverty will reach for his mother and lift her from the gutter.

She was smiling at me.

"What was that cup?" I asked.

"Not the river of death," she said, and smiled again with her mouth like cherries.

I shivered then. "And what should I call you?"

"
Nimue
will do," she said.

I thought a moment, then phrased my question carefully. "Why would you help me? If, as you say, this magic is outside your touch."

She turned, and her eyes met mine, dark as the blackness between the stars. "Because the tide of blood is rising. The Templars could not stop it, nor Joan, nor the lords of Grenada in their power and beauty. Soon that tide will wash over this England, the tide that has turned sacrifice to misery and love to pain, and this new world will die
aborning
. This wild magic is our hope, this wild tempest through the world that has no remedy. In this fatal thing must we place our trust." She raised her chin, and for a moment looked nothing more than a young maiden, uncertain in her pride. "And I do trust in you, Dickon, whatever face you may wear. Bear that message to your princess, Knight Companion of the Round Table."

I did not ask how she knew what I carried. But as she leaned toward and put her lips to mine, I fainted and I knew no more.

I woke when a shadow fell across me. I lay among the roots of an oak tree, and
Rosamund
stood beside me on the wet grass, her long horsy nose snuffling at me a little anxiously.

Cautiously, I sat up. I was soaked through, and lay where I had fallen when she had thrown me the night before, or at least I supposed it the place, as little as I could tell in the storm. I should have felt ill. A man cannot take a bump to the head and lie all night in the rain otherwise, but I felt as hearty as ever in my life.

Rosamund
whuffled
at me, and I hauled myself to my feet against her side. "We had a run, didn't we, girl?" I said. "Such runs as stories are made on. Now let us see if we can walk."

She nickered softly, and turned to drink from a well half choked by the greenery around it. I bent, and pushing away the tendrils of plants, cupped my hands in the water. It was no more than a small, cool spring, but in the stones I thought I could make out still some worn letters — RPINA. I shook my head. I had not then come far from the Great North Road. I must find it and be on my way. If I poured the water from my cupped hands with a thought, that was no more than country superstition, which is allowed to such as I.

I reached Hatfield House before noon, though
Rosamund
took up lame a half mile from the gates. So I arrived hat in hand, leading a lamed horse through the mud, and no doubt looking more like a beggar and less like a mythical knight in disguise. I had half convinced myself that it was no more than mad dreams. I had ever loved the stories of King Arthur, and no doubt my mind ran wild, with the storm and the fall and all. A foolishness, but not harmful. Nothing of which I should ever speak to anyone. I had resolved it all a dream.

"I have a message for the Princess Elizabeth," I said boldly. "A privy message, and I can give it to no other."

The men at arms looked suspicious, but they did at least send for a groom for
Rosamund
, and escort me into the solar, where a somberly dressed woman looked up from her needlework.

"I am Mistress Ashley," she said. "You say that you have some message?"

"I am to give it to the Princess Elizabeth," I said. "I have risked my life in wind and storm to carry it now, and I must place it in her hand."

"From what man has this message come?" she said, a wrinkle between her brows.

"That I may not say," I said, trying to stand straighter and look less like a stable boy and more the sort of man who might be entrusted with the fate of nations.

Her brows rose. "The Princess does not receive messages from unnamed men. You will give it to me."

"Your pardon, Mistress, but I will not."

I do not know what she might have said, had not the door opened.

She had come from the garden, and a few strands of red gold hair escaped from her cap. There was color in her cheeks, and her slight form swayed like a bell in her heavy skirts, rose and cream together. "Kat, what is this?" she asked, and her eyes when they fell on me were brown, not pale as one might expect.

Mistress Ashley was exasperated. "A messenger, My Lady. Naught but a stubborn boy who says he will give his letter to no hand but yours, and will not tell me who sent it."

She gave me a quizzical half smile, crossing the floor to me. "Then give it to me, man. I am the Princess Elizabeth."

"With all good will, My Princess," I stuttered, trying to draw it forth from my chest. It was a little damp, but I thought it was still readable. I put it in her hand, trying not to touch her fingers. To touch her would be like touching fire.

She took it, and spread it open. I saw the color rush to her face, and then she paled, reading it once, twice. Wordlessly, she handed it to Kat Ashley. Her eyes snapped to me.

"Do you know what this says?"

"Yes, My Princess," I said.

"And you know who wrote it," she said.

"Yes, My Princess," I said.

"And who gave it to you?"

"Cecil, My Princess."

She turned and walked away, stopping halfway across the room before the windows, bright lit with summer sunshine, then pacing back. "Are you Cecil's man?"

"No, My Princess," I said. "I was to hand, I think, and he did not want to make a great fuss. My mother serves the king."

Her brows rose again. "In what capacity?"

I felt a furious blush rising to my face. "She's a cook, My Princess."

She did not laugh. Instead her eyes met mine, as though looking for something there. "And who do you serve?"

"You, My Princess," I said.

In one movement I sank to one knee, my hand reaching out to her. "I, Dickon son of Robin do swear to you with my life's breath, to be your own true man in all things, waking and sleeping, in war and in peace, in prosperity and doubt, to obey your word and hold your honor above all else, guarding you with my body and soul while life and breath last!"

I thought that Mistress Ashley looked aghast, and perhaps she should, muddy boy of sixteen on his knees to the witch's daughter, this girl scarcely nineteen who could hardly expect to live out her brother's funeral. And yet I felt no doubt at all.

She took my hand between hers, and her long fingers were cool against my wrist. "Then I do accept your service and your sword, Dickon son of Robin, that you shall be my true man and that I shall stand as your liege in all things, and be as generous as I may. For I will have need of you, and do accept your service most gratefully, while life and breath last."

The sunlight slanting through the roses outside touched us like a benediction.

There is a full novel about the Persian princess Artazostre the daughter of Darius, Lioness, which I hope to sell in the future.
 
Alas, this scene will not be part of it, as it takes place long after the end of the novel!
 
And yet this story ties books together.
 
The young naval officer, Artontes, will one day be the grandfather of Artashir in Stealing Fire.
 

This story is for Rachel Barenblat, who has faithfully and helpfully reviewed so many of my books before publication!

"The Most High and Noble Princess Artazostre, widow of General Mardunaya, First Among the Thousand. The Most Noble Captain Artontes son of Mardunaya of His Gracious Majesty's Navy. The Most Noble Lady Epyaxa daughter of Mardunaya. The Most Noble Lady Stateira daughter of Mardunaya."

The Greeter called forth his words in a clear voice, rapping the butt of his staff twice on the floor at the end, bronze ringing. We walked between rows of nobles live and carved, the faces on the wall echoing the courtiers before them, a riot of colored silk and rich perfume, oiled curls and glittering jewelry, myself in front with Artontes just behind and to the side, the girls following. Stateira's eyes were huge. She was eleven, and this was the first time she had been presented. Children are not, but she was a woman now, and in her first grown up dress she walked beside her sister, her chin so high I doubted she could see anything besides the ceiling.