Part 3 (1/2)
”Possibly so,” said King Casmir without interest.
”King Audry has instructed us,” said Sir Milliflor. ”His anxieties are similar to yours, but he is wary of your notorious ambitions. He suggests that you would like Dahaut to engage the Ska, thereby allowing you to attack Troicinet.”
King Casmir sat silent a moment, then stirred and spoke. ”Will Audry agree to a joint effort against the Ska?”
”He will indeed, if the armies are under his command.”
”Has he no alternate proposals?”
”He notes that the Princess Suldrun will soon arrive at marriageable age. He suggests the possibility of betrothal between Princess Suldrun and Prince Whemus of Dahaut.”
King Casmir leaned back in his chair. ”Whemus is his third son?”
”That is true, your Majesty.”*
*The honorifics of the time are modified by a hundred special cases. It is impossible to translate them into contemporary terms with both crispness and accuracy; they will therefore be rendered in more familiar, if simplistic, terms.
King Casmir smiled and touched his short blond beard. ”Let us, rather, unite his first daughter, the Princess Cloire, with my nephew Sir Nonus Roman.”
”We will dutifully convey your suggestion to the court at Avallon.”
King Casmir drank from the chalice; the emissaries courteously drank as well. King Casmir looked from face to face. ”Are you then merely messengers? Or in truth can you negotiate?”
Sir Milliflor said: ”We may negotiate within the limits set by our instructions. Would you care to rephrase your proposal in the simplest way, without euphemism?”
King Casmir picked up the chalice in his two hands, held it to chin level, and turned his pale blue eyes over the top. ”I propose that the a.s.sembled might of Lyonesse and Dahaut, under my command, attack the Ska and drive them back out across the Atlantic, and that next we subdue the Celts. I propose that we join our kingdoms not only through cooperation but also through marriage. Either Audry or I will die first. The survivor shall thereupon rule the joint kingdoms, to be known as the Kingdom of The Elder Isles, in the old fas.h.i.+on. My daughter Princess Suldrun shall marry the Prince Dorcas. My son Prince Ca.s.sander shall marry-suitably. So much I propose.”
”The proposal has much in common with our position,” said Sir Lenard. ”King Audry prefers that military operations conducted on the soil of Dahaut be commanded by himself. Secondly-”
The negotiations proceeded another hour, but only emphasized the mutual inflexibility. Since nothing more had been expected the conversations ended on a polite basis. The envoys departed the Hall of Honors, that they might rest before the evening's banquet, while King Casmir remained brooding alone at the table. In the back room Suldrun watched in fascination, then in panic as King Casmir picked up one of the candelabra, turned and with heavy steps walked toward the back chamber.
Suldrun stood paralyzed. Her presence was known! She turned, darted to the side, ducked into the corner beside a storage case, and pulled a fragment of old rag over her s.h.i.+ning hair.
The hangings parted; candlelight flickered through the chamber. Suldrun crouched, awaiting the voice of King Casmir. But he stood in silence, nostrils dilated, perhaps sensing the fragrance of the lavender sachet in which Suldrun's clothes were laid. He looked over his shoulder, then went to the back wall. From a crevice he took a thin iron rod, which he pushed into a small hole at the level of his knee, then into another somewhat higher. A door opened, emitting a light quivering and almost palpable, like a flickering alternation of purple and green. Out from the room flowed the thrilling tingle of magic. A pair of high-pitched voices produced a babbling outcry.
”Silence,” said King Casmir. He entered the room and closed the door.
Suldrun jumped from the corner and departed the room. She ran across the Hall of Honors, slipped out into the Great Hall and thence to the Long Gallery. Once more, she went sedately to her rooms, where Dame Maugelin scolded her for soiled clothes and a dirty face.
Suldrun bathed, dressed in a warm robe. She went to the window with her lute and pretended to practice, making such energetic discords that Dame Maugelin threw up her hands and went elsewhere.
Suldrun was left alone. She put the lute aside and sat looking across the landscape. The time was late afternoon; the weather had broken; sunlight glistened on the wet roofs of Lyonesse Town.
Slowly, incident by incident, Suldrun reviewed the events of the day.
The three envoys from Dahaut interested her little, except that they wanted to take her away to Avallon and marry her to a strange man. Never! She would run away; she would become a peasant, or a minstrel girl, or gather mushrooms in the woods! The secret room behind the Hall of Honors in itself seemed neither extraordinary nor remarkable. In fact, it only corroborated certain of her half-formed suspicions regarding King Casmir, who wielded such absolute and awful power!
Dame Maugelin returned to the room, panting in haste and excitement. ”Your father commands you to the banquet. He wishes you to be everything a beautiful princess of Lyonesse should be. Do you hear? You may wear your blue velvet gown and your moonstones. At all times remember court etiquette! Don't spill your food; drink very little wine. Speak only when you are addressed, then respond with courtesy and without chewing your words. Neither t.i.tter, nor scratch yourself, nor wriggle in your chair as if your bottom itched. Do not belch, gurgle or gulp. If someone breaks wind, do not stare or point or attempt to place the blame. Naturally you will control yoursell as well; nothing is more conspicuous than a farting princess. Come! I must brush your hair.”
In the morning Suldrun went to take her lessons in the library, but again Master Jaimes was not on hand, nor on the day after, nor the day after. Suldrun became a trifle miffed. Surely Master Jaimes might have communicated with her despite his indisposition. For an entire week she ostentatiously absented herself from the library, but still no word from Master Jaimes!
In sudden alarm Suldrun sought out Dame Boudetta, who sent a footman to Master Jaimes' bleak little cell in the West Tower. The footman discovered Master Jaimes outstretched and dead on his pallet. His fever had become pneumonia, and he had died with no one the wiser.
Chapter 4.
ONE MORNING OF THE SUMMER before Suldrun's tenth birthday she went to the third floor parlor in the squat old Tower of Owls for her dancing lesson. The room itself she thought perhaps the finest of all Haidion. A well-waxed birch parquetry floor reflected light from three windows draped with a pearl-gray satin. Furniture upholstered in pale gray and scarlet ranged the walls; and Mistress Laletta made sure that fresh flowers were to be found on all the tables. The students included eight boys and eight girls of high degree, ranging in age from eight to twelve. Suldrun judged them a mixed lot: some agreeable, others tiresome and dull.
Mistress Laletta, a slender dark-eyed young woman of gentle birth but few prospects, taught competently and showed no favoritism; Suldrun neither liked nor disliked her.
On this morning Mistress Laletta was indisposed and could not teach. Suldrun returned to her chambers to discover Dame Maugelin lying grandly naked on Suldrun's bed, mounted by a hearty young footman named Lopus.
Suldrun watched in startled fascination until Dame Maugelin caught sight of her and uttered a horrified cry.
”Disgusting!” said Suldrun. ”And in my bed!”
Lopus, sheepishly disengaging himself, drew on his breeches and departed. Dame Maugelin dressed herself no less hastily, meanwhile making jovial small-talk. ”Back so soon from dancing, my dear Princess? Well, then, did you have a good lesson? What you saw was nothing of moment, just a bit of play. Better, far better, if no one knew-” Suldrun spoke in annoyance: ”You've soiled my bed!”
”Now then, dear Princess-”
”Take all the bedding out-no, first go wash yourself, then bring in all clean bedding and air the room well!”
”Yes, dear Princess.” Dame Maugelin hastened to obey, and Suldrun ran off down the stairs, with a lift of the spirits, a skip and a gleeful laugh. Dame Maugelin's strictures might now be dismissed, and Suldrun could do as she pleased.
Suldrun ran up the arcade, scanned the Urquial to make sure that no one watched, then ducked under the old larch and thrust open the groaning old gate. She squeezed through, shut the gate and descended the winding path past the fane and into the garden.
The day was bright and sunny; the air smelled sweet of heliotrope and fresh green leaves. Suldrun surveyed the garden with satisfaction. She had uprooted all those weeds she considered rank and cra.s.s, including all the nettles and most of the thistles; the garden now was almost orderly. She had swept leaves and dirt from the tessellated floor of the old villa, and had cleared detritus from the bed of a little stream which trickled down one side of the ravine. There was still much to do, but not today.
Standing in the shadow of a column, she opened the clasp at her shoulder, let her gown drop around her ankles and stepped away naked. Sunlight tingled on her skin; cool air produced a delicious contrast of sensations.
She moved down through the garden. Just so must a dryad feel, thought Suldrun; just so must it move, in just such a hush, with no sound but the sigh of the wind in the leaves.
She halted in the shade of the solitary old lime tree, then continued down to the beach to see what the waves had brought in. When the wind blew from the southwest, as was often the case, the currents swung around the headland and curled into her little cove, bringing all manner of stuff to the beach until the next high tide, when the same current lifted the articles and took them away once more. Today the beach was clean. Suldrun ran back and forth, skirting the surf as it moved along the coa.r.s.e sand. She halted to scrutinize a rock fifty yards out under the headland, where she once had discovered a pair of young mermaids. They had seen her and called out, but they used a slow strange language Suldrun could not understand. Their olive-green hair hung about their pale shoulders; their lips and the nipples of their b.r.e.a.s.t.s were also a pale green. One waved and Suldrun saw the webbing between her fingers. Both turned and looked offsh.o.r.e to where a bearded merman reared from the waves. He called out in a hoa.r.s.e windy voice; the mermaids slipped from the rocks and disappeared.
Today the rocks were bare. Suldrun turned and walked slowly up into the garden.
She dressed in her rumpled frock and returned to the top of the ravine. First a peek through the gateway to make sure no one watched, then quickly through and a run, hop and skip back down the arcade, past the orangery and once more into Haidion.
A summer storm blowing in from the Atlantic brought a soft rain to Lyonesse Town. Suldrun was confined to Haidion. One afternoon she wandered into the Hall of Honors.
Haidion was quiet; the castle seemed to hold its breath. Suldrun walked slowly around the room, examining each of the great chairs as if to appraise its strength. The chairs in turn considered her. Some stood proud and aloof; others were surly. Some were dark and sinister, others benevolent. At the throne of King Casmir Suldrun surveyed the dark red gonfalon which concealed the back room. Nothing, she told herself, could induce her to venture within; not with magic so close.
Stepping to the side she evaded the purview of the throne and felt more at ease. There, not ten feet from her face, hung the gonfalon. Naturally she dared not enter, nor even approach, the back room... Still, to look would cause no harm.
On soft feet she sidled close to the hanging, and gently pulled it aside. Light from the high windows pa.s.sed over her shoulder to fall on the far stone wall. There: in a crevice, the iron rod. There: the upper and lower lock-holes. And beyond, the room where only King Casmir might go... Suldrun let the panels come together. She turned away and, in a sober mood, departed the Hall of Honors.
Relations between Lyonesse and Troicinet, never warm, had become strained, for a variety of reasons, which, trifle by trifle, acted to create hostility. The ambitions of King Casmir excluded neither Troicinet nor Dascinet, and his spies pervaded every level of Troice society.
King Casmir was handicapped in his program by the absence of a navy. Despite a long coastline, Lyonesse lacked easy access to the sea, with blue-water ports only at s.l.u.te Skeme, Bulmer Skeme, Lyonesse Town and Pargetta behind Cape Farewell. The indented coast of Troicinet created dozens of sheltered harbors' each with piers, yards and ways. There was an amplitude both; of skilled s.h.i.+pwrights and good timber: hackberry and larch for knees, oak for frames, stands of young pinhead spruce for masts and a dense resinous pine for planking. Troice merchant s.h.i.+p: ranged north to Jutland, Britain and Ireland, south down the Atlantic to Mauretania, and the Kingdom of the Blue Men, east past Tingis and into the Mediterranean.