The Summer's King (15 page)

“But she is beautiful?” asks Merilla rather gruffly.

“Yes,” says Esher Am Chiel, “very beautiful. Not to my taste, of course, but perhaps the king . . .”

Two birds burst noisily from a tree, just over Merilla's head, and her well-trained mare takes fright, shies, is brushed by a spray of briar, and bolts away. Merilla, a good horsewoman, is surprised and can only cling onto Rondella's neck and bend low to avoid the overhanging boughs. She hears Esher thundering after her, calling her name. Then there is a twist in the path the mare has taken, a tall thicket and one last branch. She cries out, and as the mare checks, she comes off, sliding sideways to the ground in a heap, and for a few moments the breath is knocked out of her. She has never fainted in her life, and the fall does not make her faint, but she comes close to it soon afterwards. Esher Am Chiel is beside her, taking her in his arms, calling her name still in a voice that trembles with anxiety.

“Merilla . . . my dear love . . .”

“Esher . . .”

“Are you hurt?”

“No, not hurt.”

She clings to him.

“Oh I have missed you, Esher!”

They kiss and kiss again in the heart of the grove. Merilla says in a wondering voice,
“Oh Goddess
. . .
what will we tell the king?”

A good question. They tell the king the truth; and at once, without any consultation, coming before him hand in hand like two children, still with leaves in their hair. They have plighted their troth; they will marry; they ask the king's blessing. Sharn Am Zor takes it badly. He says harsh and destructive things to his sister and heir, Merilla, worse things to his cousin Esher Am Chiel. No one overhears except Nerriot, the lute player.

The cloud of the king's displeasure hangs over the palace of the Zor; the Countess Caddah is distracted with anxiety; even Queen Aidris is vaguely displeased, although she quickly sees the suitability of such a match. After days of separation and secret meetings, the two are married, suddenly and with little ceremony in the west wing of the palace, giving rise to unfounded rumors. The king himself performs the marriage and stays only long enough after it is done to suggest that Count Am Chiel take his bride home to his miserable estates until such time as he is summoned to court again. In short the young pair are banished from Achamar, and they ride off happily with a very small number of attendants.

Merilla has knelt before her brother Sharn, subdued her will, which is as strong as his own, and humbly begged one favor: that Prince Carel will not suffer any evil consequences of this rash marriage. She goes off into exile believing that the king has given her some brusque assurance on this point. But Sharn Am Zor is not yet satisfied, and the brunt of his unreason falls upon poor Carel. The Caddahs, mother and son, are sent home to their estates, too, and Carel is not permitted to accompany them. When he tries to ride after Count Caddah, his friend, he is brought back in disgrace by Engist and the palace guard.

Yet when all this excitement has died down, there is another wedding to look forward to, one of which the king approves. At Midsummer, Denzil of Denwick is married with great pomp to Veldis of Wirth at the Zor palace. The bride's family is an old one, distantly connected to the royal house of Lien; the bride's father, Sir Berndt, and her two young sisters, Mayrose and Fideth, attend upon her. One thing is unusual: the pair are not married by a shaman, a moon sister or even by the king himself, but by a housepriest of the Wirth family, a follower of Inokoi, the Lord of Light. The seat of the Wirths happens to be at Larkdel, not far from the First Hermitage of Matten. The long summer festival for this wedding seems a fitting rehearsal for the wedding of Sharn himself in another summer not far distant.

CHAPTER V

LINDRISS

Sharn wakes in the dawn and hears the lap of water: the great adventure is beginning. He looks out at the river Bal and sees that his flagship, the
Golden Oak
, has come to a mooring, while the smaller caravel, the
Nixie
, sails on downriver. They have moored at Larkdel, that pretty, unpretentious town upon the Bal, west of Balufir.

The king's ship has come to bear a bridegroom of less than a year away from his bride. Sharn rings impatiently for his valets. Ceremony is reduced on board ship: he is sparing of his linen and wears few jewels. But today he must be fine to receive Zilly of Denwick, his bride and her family. The king has once again chosen Chameln dress; he is proud to have overcome his distaste for it.

Presently Gerr of Zerrah and Tazlo Am Ahrosh attend the king in his cabin, brimming over with that excitement that has carried them all the way from Achamar. After a first breakfast of new-baked ship's bread, Sharn goes on deck with his two companions. The spring sunshine, the simple beauty of Larkdel, the keen sweet air are fitting accompaniments for this marvellous journey. Now the procession is approaching from the manor house. There is the good, old knight, Sir Berndt, all in the panoply of the Falconers, for he is the last member of this order in the land of Lien. There are the new-wed pair, Zilly and his dark beauty, the Lady Veldis. The king receives Sir Berndt upon the after deck of the
Golden Oak
and exchanges many civilities with him. He embraces Lady Veldis and begs her forgiveness for taking her husband across the western sea.

Times presses; the wind is freshening, and Captain Dynstane is eager to take advantage of it. The ship's trumpets are sounded to call back the crewmen who have gone to light candles at the sanctuary for a safe voyage. Zilly, his honest, freckled Denwick countenance dark with emotion, draws his lady aside, kissing her and drying her tears. At last her old nurse takes her ashore. The last sailor scrambles aboard after the gangway has been shipped. To a burst of song the
Golden Oak
sails off from Larkdel, westward to the sea.

Zilly can no longer contain himself. He bursts out with a piece of good news. His brother, Duke Hal of Denwick, is no longer a suitor for Princess Moinagh.

“What was the reason?” asks Sharn. “Was the Land Pledge too much for him?”

“Maybe,” says Zilly. “I think he loves another. Tall red-haired girl from over the river. Nothing to look at, but she rides well.”

“From Mel'Nir?”

“Dame Brond, a soldier's widow. Owns half of Balbank. I think he will have her.”

“Good luck to him,” says Sharn.

It is vaguely troubling, upon the Bal, to look into the rough green hills and pastures of Mel'Nir, stretching away from the distant south bank, and think of the civil war still raging. There are tales of dead men and dead horses fouling the fishers' nets, of deserters and fugitives swimming over to Lien.

The king is glad to have Zilly aboard. Zerrah and Tazlo are the best of men, but he has known Denwick much longer. His little court lacks balance: There are no women aboard, and Sharn misses the presence of women. He misses poor Iliane Seyl, now definitely an ex-mistress, and he misses even more his good friend Lorn Gilyan. She has proved a true and forthright companion during the year just past, ready to give advice or simply to listen to his plans and dreams concerning Eildon. He cannot think, as he once did, that his good friend is in love with him. She is much too good-humored and clear-eyed to be that yearning maid in a knightly tale who “loves on though hope is gone.”

Lack of entertainment has not really been a problem on the journey. When Sharn Am Zor arrived at Balufir, where his caravels were waiting, he was welcomed by his uncle, the Markgraf Kelen and by fair Zaramund, who had always had a tender regard for her handsome nephew. Rosmer presented himself, urbane and quiet, for his ritual snub from the young king, then made himself scarce. The king was royally entertained at the palace for several days. It was just like old times: The ball that became a revel, the gaming tables, the billowing featherbeds of Lien, the masques, dawn breaking while the candles still burned.

There was an old flame, beautiful Zelline, betrothed to the Duke of Chantry, more than twice her age and confined to his estate with an attack of gout. Somehow the king and Zelline managed to be locked into the Wilderness, the rose park, for one whole night, consoling each other against the approach of marriage. There, shivering in their fur cloaks in the spring dawn, they stood on the humped bridge, and Zelline begged her old friend Sharn to forgo a small part of his journey. He should not do it, she said; nothing would be served, no one would think ill of him, if he did not visit Swangard.

The king would not be persuaded. He sailed off with his fleet and dropped anchor again by a little river that ran into the Bal. The swans were returning from their winter in The Burnt Lands, settling upon the water and the sedgy meadows. Swangard, the royal folly, sat very square and white upon its plot of ground. Sharn Am Zor was rowed to the landing place with a small escort; he went into the white central tower alone.

He returned after some hours, frowning, pale, utterly unapproachable. Even the valets, Prickett and Yuri, had never seen their royal master stricken in this way. It was feared, as he sat silent in the bow of the ship, that the sight of Queen Aravel in her madness had stolen away her son's wits. Yet Sharn recovered his composure and his good humor. The journey to Eildon was physic enough; the caravels sailed on, and now after some days they had collected Denzil of Denwick from the arms of his bride at Larkdel.

After dinner there is sword practice on deck. The king does not like to be reminded that Effrim Barr did, in fact, make an error in the reading of the invitation to the Tourney of All Trees. When the king himself came to read the illuminated scroll, there it was plain for all to see: not seven champions but four. Gerr will fight in the lists; Tazlo will ride at the ring and in any horse races; the king himself will show off his prowess with the bow; Zilly will be the king's esquire and take part in the sword play.

The king retires early to his cabin, reads Hazard's verses and daydreams of the Princess Moinagh. He does not quite delude himself into thinking that he is in love; he has recognized long ago that his capacity for love has been injured. Yet he feels an odd stirring in his cold heart;
she
may awaken his true feelings.

King Sharn does not dream as much as other people. Fearful nightmares, sent by Rosmer, heralded his mother's madness; in his exile he experienced a few bad dreams and blamed the old Scorpion for them. Now he has controlled his dreams, he believes, by the exercise of his strong will. Yet sometimes he suspects that he does dream and simply fails to recall his dreaming.

Now, aboard the
Golden Oak
he has one sweet dream, puzzling, warm, often repeated. He lies in bed in his old room at Alldene, the royal manor where he spent his exile, and a lady in a Lienish gown brings him a cup of milk. He is a child, yet not a child. The lady is not his mother yet she speaks to him in a motherly voice, calls him by name.
“Sharn . . . Little Sharn . . . Sharn Kelen, my Prince, how you have grown
. . .”

So the journey continues: The weather is good, the winds favorable, and with only a brief mooring at Balamut for the lashing of the cargo, the two caravels and the pinnace set out over the western sea in the dark of the Willowmoon in the year 1174 since the laying of the sacred stones in Achamar, also called the year 2223 of the Annals of Eildon.

The difference between a sea and a river journey is apparent at once. Even before the winds freshen and the sea becomes choppy, there are those who turn green about the gills. Some of the Chameln folk are so sick that Captain Ruako, the healer of the guard escort and his assistants fear for their lives. Yuri, the young boy, is unable to lift his head and prays for the Goddess to cast him into the waves. Even Gerr of Zerrah is not quite himself. Denwick lies with his face to the wall, groaning; and Nerriot's lute falls silent. Only the king, Sharn Am Zor, is unaffected and not quite able to understand what all the fuss is about. He strides about on deck in wind and weather and eats heartily with the sailors.

The journey lasts ten days, and one by one the king's champions gain their sea legs. Tazlo, who was never very ill, is first to stand beside the king, then Gerr, then Zilly. They laugh and drink schnapps like old sea dogs, and at last, far in the sunset troughs of the waves there grows a long shadow like a cloud: the coast of the magic kingdom.

II

The wind drops as they come to the mouth of the river Laun, and the pinnace breaks out its oars. The caravels must wait until two long galleys come to draw them up river between the green fields. Sharn stares at the countryside: it is the same as anywhere else; but no, it is not. A softness about the short grass, an old and gnarly quality about the trees, elm and oak and willow, curious effects of mist and sunlight.

He sees Nerriot, the lute player, wrapped in a dark sea cloak, staring out over the pleasant landscape with an expression of intense and stony sadness.

“What do you see, Master Nerriot?” asks the king in alarm.

“The towers of Wencaer, Sire.”

“Your old home?”

“If beggars have a home, Sire,” says Nerriot gently.

“By the Goddess, man,” says Sharn, “you must not be the prey of cruel memories. You have bettered your estate!”

Long before the grey walls of Lindriss come in sight, the river winds among villages and towns, closely following one upon the other, with tall warehouses and silos at the water's edge. The houses, dark with age, are strange and crooked; here and there the tall tower of a keep rises up, grey or red or white, with banners flying from its narrow windows. The river winds on and on; three or four mighty watergates are passed; the city lies all about them, offering bright vistas then snatching them away as the mist closes in.

The wharves are less strange, only a larger version of the harbor at Balufir, with a dozen frowning stone roundhouses as dark as the Blackwater Keep. As the
Nixie
and the
Golden Oak
are brought to their moorings, Sharn Am Zor and his companions go down into the saloon and peer through the portholes to appraise the landing arrangements without being seen. Tazlo is sent to reconnoitre, and the young man from the north soon comes back with good news.