Beyond the Burning Lands

THREE

THE PRINCE’S LADY

NEXT MORNING I SAT WITH Ezzard in his parlor. Not many people were received there but it was still furnished with the trappings of a Seer. Chairs, stools and table, sideboard and bookcase were of dark fumed oak, and the long curtains at the windows were black velvet. From facing walls a stuffed owl, wings lifted, stared with small glass eyes of frozen fury at a stuffed eagle. There were three skulls on the sideboard and a Book of the Spirits thickly bound in white calf. In the center of the table stood the sphere of milky crystal on an ebony base which Ezzard was thought to use in receiving messages from the Spirits, and from the High Seers in the Sanctuary.

The radio transmitter and receiver, through which the messages in fact were passed, was in a small room above this. Ezzard showed me the panel in the wall which, pressed at a certain point, opened a way to the stairs that led to it. I asked him:

“And such things are in all the Seers’ Houses? But how can you trust the workmen not to talk?”

“When a Seer’s House is built,” Ezzard said, “some things are done by the dwarfs, but not all. That which is sacred to the Spirits is left to the Seer and his Acolytes, and the dwarfs accept this. To serve this Order, Luke, requires more than an ability to read books and wear a solemn face and seem to pray: much more. Even the solemnity and the praying are probably less easy than you think, but there are also skills to learn and hard labor in applying them.”

I nodded. “I see that.”

He smiled. “You would never have made an Acolyte, but that is not your part in our business.”

“Do I still have a part? After last night surely your plans for me are finished.”

“Because a woman is with child? It will not even be born till summer.”

“Already it makes the future.”

“And may be a girl.”

“The odds are against it. My father’s family ran to sons, and my brother’s wife was a girl with four brothers, with uncles but no aunts. And even if this one should be a girl there will be others. They will have sons, and I am pledged to aid and serve them.”

“A forced oath,” Ezzard said, “is not binding. It happened once before in this city, in very ancient days, that a Prince was crowned in breach of such an oath, sworn on holy relics.”

I shook my head. “I want no precedents for treachery. I swore the oath and will keep it. My honor requires that. There would be no joy in living if I broke it.”

Ezzard stared at me a moment in silence, blue eyes cold in the craggy white face. He said:

“What joy do you think there is in my life, Luke? Do you think I delight in this blackness that surrounds me? Not just the blackness of furnishings and clothes. My whole life is a cheat, and must be. Every day must be given up to deception, to further lies. What if my honor were to make demands? The cause we serve is greater than small things like one man’s honor.”

I said stubbornly: “I am sorry, sir, but it is something I cannot accept. My mind is different from yours, perhaps. I will serve your ends as far as I can, but my honor comes first.”

“Yes.” He paused. “Yes. And you serve us best by being what you are. I know you, Luke, and know what may be asked of you. It is a great deal. But I also know what may not be asked, and will not ask it. As to present circumstances, we will not worry too much yet.”

He drew breath deeply: a sigh, if one could imagine such a thing from so austere a man.

“We must all be patient. And you and I, Luke, must not see too much of each other. It is known that the Seers protected you, but as was said last night the time for that is past. Men respect the Seers, as is necessary, but are also wary of them. The smell of this black cloth must not cling to you, now that you are back in the palace and a Captain of the Prince’s army. So do not come here again unless I summon you.”

“I shall still see Martin. He is my friend.”

“Yes. That is reasonable. But of him too you will see less. As I have said, an Acolyte has other things to do than study and pray. He will not have much time to spare for idling in that cell beneath the Ruins.”

“He told you of it?”

“No,” Ezzard said. “He did not need to. We have kept close watch on you, Luke. And must do so. You are the piece on which our hopes are pinned. Nothing has changed there.”

• • •

The peddler was a man in his early thirties, of medium build and height. Physically there was nothing unusual to him: he had black hair and beard, keen eyes, the stance of someone who spends much time trudging poor roads. But his clothes were not such as peddlers commonly wore. They were gayer in color and unfamiliar in fashion. Beneath a red cloak, unusually short but having a part, secured with pearly buttons, that could be let down, he wore baggy trousers of a brighter green than I could recall seeing in a cloth, and leather gaiters above his boots. These last were shiny black with silver buckles at the front.

He presented himself to Peter at an assembly of the Captains. He bowed deeply, putting one hand behind him into the small of his back, a gesture so comic that many smiled, and introduced himself in a barbarous accent. His name, he said, was Yews, and he came from the city of Klan Gothlen, in the land of the Wilsh. He offered the Prince a gift for his Lady.

It was a contraption in the shape of a small broken hoop, covered with bright stones. It was to be worn across the top of the head, he explained, and demonstrated this by opening it out and ludicrously pressing it in place for a moment over his own black thatch.

My brother thanked him gravely. He asked him how he had made his way so far, through such hazards. And how had he managed to cross the Burning Lands?

There had been a party of them, the peddler explained. For a long time his people had traded into the countries of the savages. There were risks—he shrugged expressively—but there were also profits. And for years it had been known that the Burning Lands were cooling: there were fewer mountains that spurted fire and the fires themselves, with their flows of molten rock, were smaller. There was a pass and others before had ventured part way in but had been forced to turn back—as his companions this time had also done. He had pushed on, gambling that he would get through before the heat from the ground overcame him. It had been a near thing but he had succeeded.

Peter said, looking at the polish and the shining buckles: “Your boots have stood it well. You must have good leather in the land of the Wilsh.”

The peddler shook his head. “I threw away the ones I wore. They were well-nigh scorched through.”

“And your horse? Did you have spare hoofs for him?”

“No, sire. But I made him boots of leather; and bound them round, as I did my own, with a cloth that we have in my country. It is woven from a stone called chrysotile which protects against heat.”

A cloth woven from stone? But the very improbability made his tale convincing. My brother put other questions to him, which he answered as readily. His city lay in mountainous country and lacked the richness of land we took for granted. Their sheep gave poorer wool and stringier mutton; what corn they had was scant and small-eared. But their craftsmen, he thought, made things which our people might enjoy. He would hope to return another time and bring others.

“Your story is an interesting one,” Peter said. “If we send an embassy to your city, will it be received in peace?”

“How not?” the peddler said. “In peace and with rejoicing. We are a civilized people.”

• • •

Peter dismissed the peddler, with a present of gold that brought a gleam to his eye. He dismissed the Captains also, but asked me to stay. We went together to the little room where my father had liked to sit, away from the noise and ceremony of the court. He sat in my father’s old armchair and turned the ornament the peddler had given him in his hands.

“Copper,” he said, “though more highly burnished than is common with us. And the stones are pretty but not precious. Some are glass.”

I said: “One does not expect a rich gift from a peddler. You were more than generous in return.”

“There was more to it,” Peter said, “than the return of a gift.” He looked at the metal hoop and smiled. “For my Lady, indeed! Can you imagine Ann with such a thing? She will wear no ornaments, though I should have delight in giving them to her. I wish she would. I used to love looking at your mother in all her finery: a bird of bright plumage. I often think of her.”

I was surprised by what he said, but even more by the easy way he said it. The bird of bright plumage had died in fire, after all, and his mother, my Aunt Mary, had paid for it with her own life in the square outside the palace in which we sat. This had been the root of the bitterness between us.

He dropped the hoop on a table and looked at me.

“I am glad to have you back, Luke.”

He had said it before; but there was a different sound to it here in this room with its memories. Margry, the court painter, was dead of a flux, but on the wall opposite hung his finest picture, of my mother sitting in a shaft of sunlight, with puppies at her feet and flowers behind her head. I knew his words to be sincere and with that knew the suspicions I had had—that the scene at the banquet had been designed to trick me—were unfounded, fancies of my own jealous nature. I realized also that he felt no guilt over taking the place which I had looked to have. In earlier days, although the elder, he had accepted inferior rank without complaint. Then, as it must have seemed to him, fate had redressed the balance, restoring the natural order. It was for me to accept this in my turn. The pledges at the banquet had been meant as public affirmations of the renewal of a brotherly bond: no more than that.

“I am well served by my Captains,” Peter said, “and more fortunate in my Lady than I could ever have hoped to be. But I missed you. There were three Perrys in this city; then suddenly one. It is good there are two again.”

He went on to talk of a number of things, in much the way my father used to do, and I was flattered by the confidence he showed in me. The plans of Ezzard and the High Seers seemed remote and unreal. What did their cold science matter compared with this? I was glad I had warned Ezzard that I would take no part in intrigues against my brother. In other ways I would help them as duty required, so far as it lay within my power, but they must accept him as Prince as I did.

The suggestion of sending an embassy to the city from which the peddler had come had not been an idle remark, it seemed, but something closely pondered. Peter discussed the form it should take: a troop of horse, under a Captain. Not a large troop, but picked soldiers who would do us credit in the eyes of foreigners. And which Captain? We discussed their merits. Nicoll or Greene, he thought. I gave my preference to the latter as less impressive physically—Nicoll was a huge, handsome man—but of better judgment. Peter nodded.

“That is right enough. And although courage and strength are enough in a soldier, it is judgment that a Captain needs most. I will send Greene.”

“Can I go with him? I would like to cross the Burning Lands and see this city of theirs in the north.”

He put his hand on my shoulder, smiling, and this time I was glad of its weight.

“Lose you again so soon? No. There will be other expeditions, I have no doubt. For the present, I cannot spare you.”

• • •

Rudi said: “Health, Captain.” He called to one of his apprentices: “Take the Captain’s topcoat. And bring us pots of ale.”

The Armorer’s forge had not changed and nor, so far as I could judge, had Rudi himself, the Master Armorer. His arms were as brawny, his hair and beard as white. His head, it was true, now reached below my shoulder, but that was because I had grown. The pewter pots of hot spiced ale were brought by the dwarf apprentice; as usual Rudi offered me his own seat, carved with the likenesses of past Armorers, and as usual I refused it. We sat together in the warmth of the central fire from which flames leaped toward the high roof. Rudi raised his pot.

“To your return, Captain! And to your new rank.” He smiled. “It seems so short a time since you sat there bemoaning your ill fortune in not being chosen as a Young Captain for the Contest. And now you are Captain in fact, serving your brother, the Prince.”

“Are you making the swords yet for this year’s contest?”

“Not yet.” He nodded toward the sword that hung from my belt. “And I see I do not need to forge one for the new Captain, since he is already provided.”

“The High Seers . . .”

“I have heard of it,” Rudi said. “A Sword of the Spirits. May I look at it, Captain, or is it too holy to be touched by ordinary mortals?”

He was joking, as we both knew. He had never spoken disrespectfully of the Seers or the Spirits but like most dwarfs I do not think he took them seriously. Dwarfs were interested in real things: in goods and victuals and their own craftsmanship. The Spirits, like the campaigns of the army, were affairs with which they did not concern themselves.

“The object of a sword,” I said, “whoever makes it, is to wound or kill. So since it is meant to strike it may be touched.”

I unbuckled the sword from my belt and gave it to him. Rudi drew the blade slowly from the scabbard. He held it up to the light of the fire, one hand under the hilt and the other supporting near the tip. He moved it slightly, tilting up and down, so that the edge gleamed. Then, gripping the hilt in his right hand, he plucked a hair from his beard with the left. He flicked the blade lightly upward and the hair parted.

“Are the Spirits dwarfs?” he asked.

It was not a question to which he would expect an answer. He weighed and hefted the sword, turning it this way and that. I said:

“You approve, Rudi?”

He nodded, his eyes intent. He said:

“We make as good swords here as in any city in the land, and better than in most. This is not boasting; our cousins in Romsey and Basingstoke and Alton would acknowledge it. But we make nothing like this, nor could. The temper of the steel. . . . And the working of it. I would give much to see the forge on which this blade was beaten out.”

I visualized him in the laboratories and workshops of the Sanctuary. I doubted if he would be shocked and confused as I had been when I first saw them. I could imagine him putting questions to Murphy and deeply pondering the replies. There would be no opposition from the dwarfs if the Seers declared the Spirits wanted machines built again. Although lacking the imagination to seek such a thing they would accept it readily enough. But of course what dwarfs thought was unimportant.

Changing the subject, I asked him about his family. He had three sons, two fully grown and skilled metalworkers, though not in armory. The third, much younger than the others, was called Hans and I knew Rudi had hopes that he would follow him—perhaps one day be Master Armorer in his turn.

I spoke of this and Rudi shook his head.

“He does not choose it.”

“I am sorry to hear that. But what would he do instead?”

There was a pause before Rudi said: “He has always been a strange one, and the strangeness has grown. Do you remember once you asked me if I would have wished to be a warrior?”

I remembered it: a cold winter’s morning much like this, with the Contest only a few days off. I said:

“You reminded me that you were Master Armorer. It was a foolish question.”

“Not foolish. Even a dwarf does not smile all day long or every day; and even a dwarf can have vain dreams. But it is true that in the main I am content. If you asked the question of my son, though, there would be a different answer.”

“But he knows such a thing is impossible.”

“True. It does not stop him watching the soldiers with an envious heart. And he will not settle to a trade.”

“He may do so in time.”

“I hope so. He is almost your age.” He hesitated. “Captain, may I ask a favor of you?”

“Any I can grant. I cannot make a warrior of him.”

“I know that. But you will ride out with the army next summer?”

“If the Spirits will.”

“The army takes no polymufs with it even as servants. But once or twice dwarfs have gone, as part of the baggage train. If this could be permitted for Hans . . .”

“You think a campaign might cool the fever in his blood?”

“It is possible. And if not, it would make him happy. Or happier, at least. He is my youngest.”

“I will see to it, Rudi.”

“I am grateful, Captain. I would put my thanks into the making of a sword for you, but it seems you have had the help of greater skills than mine.”

“If this sword breaks I will come to you for my next.”

He watched as I slid the blade back into its sheath.

“If it breaks I doubt if you will need another. But I do not think it will break.”

• • •

I paid my respects to Edmund’s mother, she who had been Lady to Prince Stephen, in her new house. Her elder son, Charles, had won booty from the campaign against Petersfield, and had shared with the other Captains in the ransom money paid by Romsey for its army and its dead Prince’s son. These things had enabled him to take her from the tiny house in Salt Street and put her in a place more fitting to her rank.

It was still not large, smaller than my home before we moved to the palace, but she was not a woman who cared for show. She had no great wit and it was clear she had never had beauty, but her two sons and Jenny, her daughter, loved her dearly. She did not often rebuke them but when she did the rebuke was heeded. She greeted me warmly, embracing me. Jenny said:

“You must show him more respect, Mother, now that he is a Captain.”

Her voice had an edge of mockery which was familiar to me and could still unsettle me. She was a little less thin in the face, I thought, a little more womanly in figure. She was more than a year my senior. I said, trying to match her banter:

“It is not she but you who should show respect.”

She dropped a curtsy to me. “I beg your pardon, sire. And if you could find time to school me in manners, I would promise to pay close attention.”

“Leave him alone, Jenny,” her mother said. “He is not back two seconds before you are provoking him again. And last summer when he was not here we had mopings and gloom and constant wonderings about where Luke was, and was all well with him.”

To my surprise she blushed while making her outraged denials. I was as embarrassed, if not more so, and hastened to find a different topic. I talked of the peddler, as the whole city was doing, and of the supposed wonders of Klan Gothlen in the land of the Wilsh. It was public news now that Peter was sending an embassy there and had hired the peddler to go with them and be their guide and herald.

Edmund’s mother said: “I suppose there is a reason for it, but I cannot see what. Our own land and city are good enough, I would think, without going to look for others. But men are restless creatures.”

Jenny said: “I would go. Gladly!”

“Go where?” her mother asked.

“To the peddler’s city, if I could.”

“It is a day of wonders,” I said. “A dwarf who would be a warrior, and a girl who wants to go hunting for strange cities.”

“And Luke,” she said, “who never changes—being neither dwarf nor girl but a Captain of the army. Being strong and brave and wise and without the tiniest bit of imagination. Lucky Luke.”

• • •

We sat, Peter and I, with Ann in her parlor. This was not the room my mother had used but another. It had much less of ornament and frippery and the pictures on the walls were all to do with her religion. One showed this god of theirs, a thin, melancholy man with a golden saucer behind his head, blessing his followers; while in another his body hung twisted on a wooden cross. They were a gloomy lot altogether, these Christians, and I thought it strange that Ann herself should be so warm a person.

We talked like any family group of family matters. Peter spoke of the child that was to be born. He was full of plans for him—he was certain it would be a boy—and talked almost as though he were already with us. Ann and he wrangled, though gently, about his rearing. To Peter, of course, it was necessary, indeed inevitable, that he should be trained as a warrior. Ann did not quite oppose this—how could she?—but made it plain that she would have her say in all things she thought important: which comprehended much.

I wondered what he would be like, this unborn nephew of mine. Divided between his father’s demands of strictness, the iron rule a Prince must impose upon his son, and his mother’s loving gentleness, would he grow into a weak vacillating man, feeble and indulgent and vicious like James of Romsey? But perhaps—and I thought it more likely—it would be their strengths, united in their love for each other, which would mold him, not their weaknesses: so making him a warrior strong yet noble-hearted, a worthy Prince to succeed a Prince.

Ann looked at the clock on the wall, dangling heavy weights, its massive wooden carapace carved with a representation of a boar hunt in which the boar at bay had tiny gleaming tusks of ivory. She said:

“I must leave you. My bath will be prepared.”

Peter said, teasing her: “I have never known such a one for baths. Every day and sometimes twice a day.”

“It is a weakness,” she said. “I could do without fine clothes, rich food, the trappings of the court, if you were to discard me, but I should miss my baths. I confess my sin of indulgence to the priest, but I cannot break myself of it.”

“Go quickly, then,” Peter said. “Take this bath, that may be your last if I decide in the morning to put you away, and take a new wife who does not make such demands on the palace stoves.”

They smiled and kissed and she left us. He and I talked, as easily but on different matters. There was the question of how the troop would get through the pass across the Burning Lands. The peddler had this cloth which protected against the heat; but there was not enough for one other man and a horse, let alone a score. I had talked about it with Edmund and Martin, and Martin had suggested something. The dwarfs could make boots for the horses, as the peddler had done, and in place of the magic cloth contrive a means of trickling water down over them from a skin fixed on the saddle bow. This would serve to keep them cool.

“Your friend Martin has a good head,” Peter said. “He is wasted as an Acolyte. But I suppose he would not anyway have been a warrior.”

“He will fight when there is need. He fought for me in the Contest.”

“And was soon down.”

“Not until the second round. He brought his man down in the first.”

Peter grinned. “You are loyal to your followers and I am glad of it. Let us talk of the campaign next summer. I would like you to tell me what you think of a scheme I have in mind. . . .”

I do not know how long we talked. It was Peter who broke off. He said:

“She soaks more each day. She will turn into a water nymph or give me a son with webbed feet.” He made a quick gesture of contrition to the Spirits, repudiating his levity and warding off the evil thought. “We will send a maid to hurry her.”

He reached for the bell rope and pulled it.

• • •

It was Janet who attended his call, she who wore her dress very high at the neck to cover the marks the Spirits had left on her polymuf body. My mother had been bullied by her servants and my Aunt Mary had bullied hers. Ann asked little and in a quiet voice, but they did her bidding almost before she could speak the request.

Janet nodded and went. When she returned a few minutes later and stood in the doorway, Peter was talking of maneuvers. Without looking up, he said:

“Well, did you tell her we were waiting? It is almost time for supper.”

He had not, as I had, seen Janet’s face, stricken and bloodless. She said:

“Sire . . .”

It was her voice, broken and failing, which made him turn to her and then, running forward, catch her by the shoulders. I saw his fingers tighten and her face twist with pain.

“What is it?” he demanded. “Tell me, girl!”

She dropped her head. The words were very faint, but one heard them.

“She is dead, sire.”