The Summer's King Read online

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.

  Effrim Barr, whatever his success with the nobility of Eildon, has done his work well elsewhere. The livery stable he engaged has provided decent horses for the guards as well as three or four well-mannered and docile steeds for the king to inspect.

  “A herald?” asks Sharn. “A brace of knights?”

  “Not yet, my King,” says Tazlo, his spirits dampened, “but all is in readiness . . . see there.”

  The young men peer through a different porthole and behold a large carpet, red and white like a Battle board, laid down below the gangway and beyond it some kind of striped barrier like the lists of a tournament. The king is uncertain whether or not to go on deck. Perhaps his appearance will touch off a satisfactory welcome as it has done so often in the past.

  “Come then,” he says impatiently, “let us put ourselves to rights and stand in the waist of the ship. Tell the escort on board to stand close about the gangway.”

  The king and his champions are then “put to rights,” their gorgeous attire checked by the valets. As they emerge behind the backs of the escort to see better, still without being seen, a herald has appeared on the gaudy checkerboard, together with a trumpeter. After the trumpet sounds, the herald roars out a welcome in the common speech: they must all strain to catch the words in his Eildon dialect.

  “Shennazar,” says the king. “Shennazar of Kemmelond.”

  “Two gifts,” says Zilly. “Begs you to accept two gifts, Sire.”

  The king nods to his own herald, mounted on the bridge, and the man bellows in his turn. King Sharn Am Zor gives thanks for the herald’s welcome and deigns to accept the gifts.

  The scene is still eerily deserted. The guardsmen at the next mooring, some already mounted and looking very fine in their green and gold uniforms, stand stock still. Suddenly, to a burst of harp music and the jingling of bells, a figure clad in motley, red and white, bounds on to the mat and cartwheels about.

  “A fool! A fool! A fool!” cries the fool in a loud, brazen voice. “A fool for Shennazar! Half of a fool and the other half of a fool!”

  A strange figure in a long black mantle teeters onto the mat and stands towering over the fool, who is an undersized man about four and a half feet tall with thick dark red hair twisted up into three peaks like a fool’s cap. Now he prods the “giant” at his side, and the black mantle billows out. Three very tiny creatures, dwarfs or midgets standing on each other’s shoulders, fall about on the checkerboard then group beside their leader, making their music. Sharn Am Zor feels his lips drawn back in disgust; he remembers an old fear he had of dwarfs and little people. In any case he has never liked fools.

  “Great King! Mighty Shennazar, come from afar,” cries the fool. “Here is the second gift.”

  Another trumpet call sounds, and a young kedran in white livery leads onto the carpet a splendid white horse caparisoned in green and gold. It is, happily, not the kind of fiery steed that the king would have to reject out of hand. It is in fact a heavy, aged charger, well-mannered, docile. The kedran has it gently stepping from square to square of the mat, and now she feeds it a tidbit. The horse waits patiently with its head held up.

  “Well, what d’you think, Sire?” asks Gerr of Zerrah. “It looks a remarkably suitable beast. Their best horses come from the island of Ariu.”

  “Yes,” nods the king. “Yes, I like the horse. It has a look of my good Redwing.”

  “Wait, my King,” says Tazlo Am Ahrosh. “Let me go down with an officer and examine the horse.”

  “Well, we have time,” says the king. “Have a round of schnapps sent up from the galley.”

  Tazlo and the second officer of the escort march down the gangway and examine the white horse upon the red and white carpet.

  “Strange welcome,” says the king. “When will we know where we are lodged?”

  Tazlo and the officer lead the white horse about and it responds with perfect docility. At last they return, and Tazlo says to the king, “Sire, I do not trust the horse. Perhaps it is the strangeness of this place. It would be better to have someone of your own weight try out the beast.”

  “All seems quiet enough down there,” says Zilly of Denwick. “Let me go down and try this gift horse, my King.”

  The king nods to his old friend. Denzil of Denwick, clad from head to foot in gold satin of Lien, with a white and green short cape, strides briskly down the gangway with an officer. The fool and his group bow low and play a musical accompaniment. As Zilly climbs into the saddle and the kedran adjusts the stirrups, Sharn Am Zor becomes aware of a murmur of sound, beyond the music and the sounds of the common day here upon the wharves.

  Zilly sits firmly upright in the saddle, and the kedran, unexpectedly, springs away several squares of the mat. The big gentle horse flings up its head, bears its huge yellow teeth, rolls a wild eye and begins to buck with the agility of a mule. Zilly is thrown almost at once and comes down heavily. There are shocked exclamations from the guardsmen on land and on the ship; Tazlo and the officer run to help Denwick who has scrambled to his feet.

  The fool dances about on the mat crying out in his harsh, loud voice, “Fell down! Fell down! Shennazar fell down and lost his crown!”

  And behind the low barrier, there are suddenly knights and ladies, mounted upon noble steeds or seated in graceful open carriages. Banners wave and snap; the sun comes through and blazes upon patterned stuff, jewels, gilded armor, painted tissue and gauze threaded with gold and silver. The denizens of the courts of Eildon laugh and clap their hands.

  Sharn knows instinctively, and with a quiver of revulsion for the magic of the thing, that the Eildon lords and ladies were watching all the time, although the newcomers could not see them. Now they have played a cruel trick on him, struck at his right, threatened him with injury, injured his trusted friend instead. But the painted fools of Eildon have laughed too soon. Can they really believe that it is the
king who has fallen from the gift horse? The fool still dances about, but his horrid little companions have run to Denzil of Denwick and are crouching at his feet in attitudes of submission. Three knights have dismounted and are striding across the checkered carpet in Denwick’s direction.

  The king says quietly to Captain-General Britt, just in front of him, “Full flourish, Britt. And stand away.”

  The signals are given, the silver trumpets of the king, three on the ship and three on shore, sing aloud their full flourish. Sharn Am Zor stands forth at the head of the gangway in Chameln dress of white, the long jeweled tunic panelled with gold, a gold circlet just visible upon his golden head. He does not acknowledge the presence of the Eildon nobility at all. He walks a few steps down the sloping planks, in the silence following the trumpet calls, and speaks to Denzil of Denwick.

  Zilly, looking shaken but sound, replies, “No great harm, my King.”

  The spectators, acknowledging perhaps that the jest has not found its mark, cheer and applaud the appearance of the king. The fool summons his followers and bows lower than ever at the foot of the gangway.

  “King Sharn,” he cries in his rasping voice, “in these days we celebrate the Feast of Fools. Your forfeit has been paid, and you have the fool’s leave to enter the kingdoms of Eildon.”

  Sharn meets the eye of the fool and finds the man’s gaze as hard and full of anger as his own.

  “Is the white horse bewitched?” he asks quietly.

  “No, my King,” says the fool. “It is a clod-catcher, a yokel trap from the fairground. It bucks when a certain weight is on its back.”

  “What is your name, Fool?”

  “I am called Farr the Fool, Majesty, and these are my three farthings.”

  The little creatures, apparently two men and a young girl, are muscular, well-proportioned midgets with long tresses of glossy black hair caught back with bone clasps.

  “You may attend me, if you will,” says Sharn with a first hint of a smile, “though I am sure there are many fools in Eildon.”