The Summer's King Read online

  “Yes,” said the king. “Yes, Carel. I do it for a memorial, you know. For my father.”

  He took her hand and was silent.

  CHAPTER IX

  OUTLAWS

  The three riders came on steadily across the plain of silvery grass; there was no wind, the tresses of hair on the spirit trees hung limp and still, not a thread stirring. Prince Sasko looked to his left at his mother, Aidris, and saw himself in her smile, in her smiling green eyes. He looked right and saw Sharn, his cousin, the very model of a king of the Zor, and riding better than ever on Redwing.

  “They are coming . . .” murmured Sharn.

  Sasko gripped Morrah’s rein more tightly and told him to hold firm. The outriders from the northern tribes came on very fast, uttering their strange cries and hanging perilously from their saddles. Aidris lifted a hand, caught a streamer of dried flowers and gave it to her son. A rider in a blue cape came wheeling in close, and Sharn laughed and raised a hand to Tazlo. Sasko watched, as they came among the lodges and the swirling crowds, until he saw his father, in his tribal dress as High Chieftain of the Nureshen. Bajan lifted his son to the platform, and he stood between the Daindru, hearing the cheers, hearing the cheer for Dan Sasko, Heir of the Firn.

  The Turmut, the second since the restoration of the Daindru, was remembered as another great success; even the quarrelsome Aroshen were gentle as lambs. It was an hour of triumph for Tazlo Am Ahrosh, son of old Kall, the High Chieftain. He proved that his years in the capital, far from his tribal home, had not been ill spent. He was the trusted servant and friend of the King of the Zor, and Sharn showed many marks of favor towards the Aroshen of Vedan.

  Between the king and the young man from the north there had grown a coldness, a distance that neither of them cared to acknowledge. It was not simply that Sharn had married and had a family to claim his duty. As Merilla wisely said, the king had grown up and Tazlo’s hectic vigor was no longer so much to his liking. Yet at the Turmut they were close as ever, and even Aidris was persuaded that the friendship had helped the Daindru to a new peace among the tribes.

  When the folk-moot was done, the Daindru went separate ways, for there was work to do in which Aidris would have no part. Her last warlike expedition, she said, had been the Great Ambush at the Adderneck Pass. She returned with her son and the kedran of her escort to Achamar. Sharn went on with Bajan Am Nuresh and a troop of chosen riders from the northern tribes. They rode to the east, passing through the lower hunting grounds of Vedan and through the rich grazing land about Lake Oncardan, still the subject of a dispute between the Durgashen and the Aroshen. So they rode on, turning south, and followed the course of the river Chind, a thin foaming stream that fell through the gorges with a noise of thunder. After five days they camped by a ford, not far from the remote town of Threll, on the edge of the territory of the Inchevin, and there Zabrandor came to meet them with his own southerners and a troop of guardsmen from Achamar.

  They had not come with any particular secrecy and were planning no ambush, but what followed worked like one. Scouts came back at nightfall from across the river; a large band of the Skivari were approaching Threll from the east, through the foothills. The scouts swore there were five hundred of the devils, some mounted on their hill ponies, some running. Rugal himself was their leader.

  There followed a slow ride through the ford, then through the dark trees of a larch forest growing down to the banks of the Chind. At the gates of Threll, a knot of men with torches whispered, “Where is the king?” and when they saw him, tall and golden-haired, they smiled and gained heart. Sharn was led to a wooden watch tower in the stockade with his bodyguard; he took a short bow and his favorite black-feathered arrows.

  The attack came, as expected, promptly at dawn. Rugal and his Skivari were creatures of habit, savage-looking men in pointed hats whose only tactic was to roar and hack and press on. They were soon defeated. A horseman at the tower’s base sounded a horn for the retreat: Rugal’s trumpeter. Sharn saw the terror from the east at last, seated upon a fat, shining little horse, brown and white. Rugal was a youngish man, very short and broad, with his black hair shaved in patches and a string of human skulls decorating his saddle. The king let loose another arrow, and again it found its mark.

  “Winged him, by the Goddess!” cried Tazlo, who had come to bring word of the victory.

  Rugal bore the arrow in his shoulder as if it had been a bee sting. Sharn shot again, but the chieftain was out of range. When the king and his guards came down from their eyrie, the town was littered with dead Skivari; a troop of riders from the northern tribes was pursuing the fugitives.

  Sharn went about examining the dead brigands with Zabrandor and the Athaman of the town.

  “Are they all Skivari?” he asked.

  Many showed the features of this tribe or race: they were short, smooth-skinned, yellow-brown, with coarse straight black hair. Others were more ordinary, they could have been men of the Chameln lands. They came to a man of the Zor, tall, pale-skinned, yellow-haired, without a pointed hat. He had the look of one of the palace guards, a trumpeter. The man’s right hand was tightly clasped around a small leather pouch.

  “I will see that,” said the king, pointing.

  He glanced up at the sky and the oak tree in the town square while the town elder brought his boot down on the dead hand. The pouch contained an eagle’s claw, mounted in silver, together with a lock of white-blonde hair. On the mount were runes for good fortune and the device of a double star, the arms of the Inchevin.

  “An amulet, my King,” said the Athaman. “He might have stolen it.”

  They followed a guard officer to the hall where there was food and drink for the defenders of Threll.

  Zabrandor said wearily, “Is this proof, Dan Sharn?”

  “Almost,” said Sharn. “When Bajan and the northern tribesmen return, I will ride for Inchevin Keep.”

  “Let me send a herald . . .”

  “No, I will go myself,” said the king. “This lord is my uncle, my father’s sister’s husband. The Chameln lands are wide, and it is easy for a man to feel forgotten, here at the end of the world.”

  “Inchevin was too proud,” said Zabrandor. “When he bore all the debt in that ill-fated trading venture, he might still have remained in Achamar. He could not bear to live in the palace as a pensioner of his wife.”

  “And my mother?”

  “She made it clear that both of her sisters-in-law were out of favor,” said Zabrandor. “A king or queen will have an inner circle of friends and courtiers.”

  Sharn Am Zor sighed, remembering a king who had upbraided his sister cruelly and banished her. He bent his head and went into the smoky hall of Threll. There he found the women of the town in their best clothes, smiling, after a sleepless night, offering him breakfast. So he sat down at the high table and accepted their hospitality graciously. He kissed and blessed any number of little children, brought to see the king, and Lieutenant Dann, who carried his purse, ran out of gold and silver coins.

  Then, before the pursuit of the raiders was ended, before the king rose from table, there was a trumpet call at the gates of Threll. The Lord of Inchevin had come. The king kept his place and had Zabrandor clear the hall.

  Presently the lord came in; Sharn saw him approach through the smoky haze in the big airless room, a dark halting figure. Ilmar of Inchevin was about five and fifty years old, somewhat above middle height and strongly built. At a short distance, with his dark hair and stiff carriage, he looked well-preserved, young for his years, although he limped and walked with the aid of a staff. Then he came closer, and Sharn saw that his lank, ill-kempt black hair was heavily streaked with white, his wedge-shaped face was wrinkled, the skin of a yellowish pallor; his teeth were long and decayed. He stood, panting a little, below the high table on its platform, and cried out, “Dan Sharn! So I have brought you here!”

  “Uncle Inchevin,” said the king, raising his voice as if speaking to a deaf person, “
Uncle Inchevin, sit down with me!”

  Ilmar of Inchevin heaved himself up on to the platform and took the proffered seat. When the Athaman’s wife came forward, bowing, to draw tea from the silver urn, he struck at her absently with his staff.

  “The runes do not lie!” he panted. “What great news have you brought? How fares the Starry Maid, my daughter and heir, in Achamar? How fares young Ilmar, my son? How will the Daindru make amends?”

  “Your children do very well,” said Sharn. “I hope your health is good?”

  “I am sound as a gold piece,” said the lord. “They say, King, that you were in Eildon.”

  He lowered his voice and leaned across the board. The king, who had gone hunting and campaigning in the Chameln lands where the soaps and perfumes of Lien were unknown, had never been close to a man who stank so vilely as his Uncle Inchevin.

  “Do they practise the true and noble art there?” he whispered. “Do they have great adepts in Eildon, wizards and star callers?”

  “You mean the art of magic?”

  “The art that is the end of all magic,” murmured Inchevin. “The turning of base metal into gold!”

  Sharn Am Zor could not help but meet the eyes of Lord Inchevin, black and glittering, with red rims that told of sleepless nights. He knew that the man was mad.

  “I have heard that some magicians in Eildon and in Lien have tried to do this,” he said, “but none have the secret.”

  “Yet hear me,” said the lord, grasping the king by the sleeve, “there are wizards and great sages beyond the mountains, far to the east. They have tamed the spirits, have climbed to the topmost bough of the jeweled tree of life and plucked the golden bird from its nest. This Rugal has a wizard in his tent city. If I could but take this yellow devil and force him to raise spirits for me . . .”

  “Is that why you dally with these brigands?” demanded Sharn. “Is that why you have Rugal in your keep?”

  Inchevin drew back and slapped the table with the flat of his hand.

  “Don’t talk to me of loyalty,” he said. “We are here at the world’s end. Yet our day will come!”

  “I am your king!” said Sharn Am Zor, not loud but firm. “We have taught the raiders a sharp lesson with only this small force. Hold yourself far from them, Ilmar of Inchevin, I command it!”

  The lord writhed and scowled on his chair, but not as if he rejected the king’s sovereignty. Rather he was a man feeling the pricks of conscience.

  Sharn pressed on. “You will need gold,” he said, “if you are to defend the frontier against Rugal and the Skivari . . .”

  Inchevin’s face lit up like the face of a child seeing the raising of the tree. Sharn spoke aside to Lieutenant Dann, who hurried out of the hall.

  “Mind you,” said Sharn, “it is a hard task, perhaps too much for even the greatest lord in these parts.”

  “No!” said Inchevin. “No, by the stars, I can raise men and weapons. With gold I will do great things, my King!”

  The Lieutenant came back with Tazlo helping him to lug the small coffer that had been brought all the way from Achamar. Inchevin waited, the tip of his tongue showing between his teeth, as it was placed upon the table. Sharn Am Zor broke the seal of the Daindru and flung back the lid, then pushed the coffer across to the lord. Inchevin drew out reverently a goblet of pure gold and began to count gold pieces, stacking them neatly before him.

  “There are forty new gulden,” said the king, “and forty gold royals of Lien.”

  Inchevin went on stacking and counting as if entranced, then seemed to recollect himself and swept all the treasure back into the coffer.

  “My King,” he breathed, “we begin to understand one another. I will drive out the Skivari, never fear. Rugal will not show his face again. Ha! I will build a great wall across the mountain passes . . .”

  He laughed aloud. The king presented Tazlo Am Ahrosh, who sat down with them, and Inchevin called for spirit to seal the bargain. Gold had indeed worked on him like a charm. The king turned the conversation to hunting, and Inchevin told tales of the grey bear who lived beside the river Chind, further south, and the fish-otters and wolf-cats that were still trapped in this part of the world. Yet he could not long hold back from his obsession.

  “The runes have told me that my daughter, the Starry Maid, will marry one who is blessed with gold,” he announced. “How stands your noble brother Prince Carel, my King? Could a match be made pleasing to the Goddess and the race of men, as the saying goes?”

  Sharn was proof against embarrassing questions.

  “In these matters I let Aidris Am Firn mediate,” he said firmly. “Carel has no great estates, although he is a prince of the blood. I will commend your daughter, the Lady Derda, to the care of the Queen of the Firn, who shares the double throne.”

  The taming of Inchevin was complete. A day-long feast followed in the town of Threll, for the miserly lord would not entertain the king at his keep. Bajan Am Nuresh returned, having chased Rugal and his brigands almost to the mountains. As they rode away back to the river, Zabrandor confessed himself well pleased with the king’s diplomacy; but both the king and his general agreed that Inchevin was a madman, hardly to be trusted.

  Bajan bade farewell to the king and returned to the north, leading home the raiders from the northern tribes. The losses had been slight, but there were men and women from the north and the south who did not come safe home. The king continued on with Zabrandor and his southerners and the men of his escort down the river Chind. Sharn Am Zor, weary with campaigning and disgusted by the encounter with Ilmar of Inchevin, was soothed now by the countryside.

  It was a sweet, wild country between the plain and the mountains; the river was now a broad stream. Once, at dawn, Captain Kogor of the escort came to the king’s tent, whispering. Sharn rose up, just as he was, and wrapped himself in his cloak. There, directly across from the camp, were two grey bears fishing in the river: an old bear, taller than a man, and another, half-grown. Tazlo appeared at the king’s side as he peered round a tent and urged the king to try a shot with his longbow. Sharn Am Zor refused, smiling. The bear was a noble animal, under the special protection of the Goddess.

  So the king came to that hunting lodge upon the river Chind that he had visited long ago with his father, King Esher Am Zor. There it stood, a sturdy six-roomed loghouse, fallen into disrepair but still used by hunters and trappers.

  Sharn wondered whether he should send a party from Achamar to repair the lodge, but Zabrandor said, “Only a few days more, my king, and we come within sight of Chiel Hall. Your aunt, the Lady Parn Am Zor and Am Chiel, will gladly send out a party to repair the lodge.”

  The king came, as he had planned, to Chiel Hall and experienced with some relief a return to civilization. His Aunt Parn kept a good house, full of comfort and good humor, even though she was not rich. Having spent gold upon the vile Lord Inchevin, the king felt doubly beholden to the Chiel. His Aunt Parn, a plump and bustling woman, soothed her nephew.

  “I have never wanted land,” she said. “Since my dear lord’s death, this is as much as I can manage. I have been granted great riches. My dear Merilla brought, you may recall, a decent dowry, and now she has given us those two rascals, Till and Tomas, twin sons. If you would make me any gift, dear Sharn, let it be simply your continued love and favor, and maybe some new hangings from the city looms. Our old ones are getting shabby.”

  So the king’s hunting lodge on the Chind was rebuilt, and it was called Greybear. Every second year or so the king rode down to North Hodd and from there struck out across the plain with a few chosen companions and spent a moon in spring or late summer in the east of the Chameln lands. He put the lodge in the hands of old Engist, his former master-at-arms, now in good health again, and other veteran soldiers and huntsmen. They spent a good deal of time in that marvellous countryside and did not mind that the young sparks at the court called the place “grey-beard” instead of Greybear.

  The news from Lien was u
nsettling as ever, but it did not touch the Chameln Lands directly. The Grand Design went forward. Now Lien laid claim to a great part of Balbank, the finest land in Mel’Nir, this through the Duchess of Denwick, widow of Hem Brond, a nobleman of Mel’Nir, who had brought large estates to her marriage. Other Balbank estates lay untenanted following the civil war, and in the year 339 of the Farfaring, as dates were measured in Mel’Nir, King Gol agreed to the Balbank purchase. He sold off a tract of land to the Mark of Lien, and Rosmer came to a holding he had coveted far many years.

  Within Lien itself, tales were told of the Green Riders who came swooping down by night upon the justices and tax collectors as they went about on the highways. The great house Grayholm, by the Ringist, tenanted now by bailiffs out of Balufir, was an empty shell, stripped of its treasure so that none of it fell into the hands of the state. Garvis of Grays, leader of the Green Riders, had become an outlaw, living in the woods and in the border forest, over the river. He went about with a price on his head, and none would betray him. Disaffected young nobles and commons, a growing band, ran off to join him. Songs and ballads told of the Green Riders and their dashing young leader. Some said that he had a lady-love, a young woman of high degree, fled to the woods to join him. In Larkdel, the thriving town of the Holy Sanctuary, the old knight, Sir Berndt of Wirth, had become reconciled to his youngest daughter Fideth, the Markgrafin. He mourned now the loss and the dishonor of his second daughter: Mayrose of Wirth; that wild girl was nowhere to be found.

  II

  On an evening in late summer in the year 1183, Aidris Am Firn rode across the city to the palace of the Zor. She came unheralded with only a kedran officer, and found Sharn Am Zor seated in his garden with Lorn, his wife, and his sister, Merilla. The yearly ritual had altered. Chernak New Palace would never be quite complete; there would always be some work going on to amuse the king and his master builder; but in fact it had been habitable for several years. The court of the Zor went there in the summer, and their children used the children’s wing. Now there was a delightful breathing space at the Zor palace when the adults had come back but the children were still at Chernak. Servants were ladling out cool drinks; Nerriot played a country dance.