Lyonesse

Chapter 17

AT THE BOTTOM OF THE OUBLIETTE, Aillas no longer considered himself alone. With great patience he had arranged along one wall twelve skeletons. In days long past, when each of the individuals so represented had walked his term of days as a man, and at the end as a prisoner, each had scratched his name, and often a motto, into the rock wall: twelve names to match twelve skeletons. There had been no rescues, pardons, or escapes; such seemed to be the message of the correspondence. Aillas started to inscribe his own name, using the edge of a buckle; then in a spasm of anger he desisted. Such an act meant resignation, and presaged the thirteenth skeleton.

Aillas confronted his new friends. To each he had assigned one of the names, possibly without accuracy. "Still," Aillas told the group, "a name is a name, and were one of you to address me incorrectly, I would take no offense."

He called his new friends to order: "Gentlemen, we sit in conclave, to share our collective wisdom and to ratify a common policy. There are no rules of order; let spontaneity serve us all, within the limits of decorum.

"Our general topic is ‘escape.' It is a subject we all have considered, evidently without enlightenment. Some of you may regard the matter as no longer consequential; still, a victory for one is a victory for all! Let us define the problem. Simply stated, it is the act of ascending the shaft, from here to the surface. I believe that if I were able to gain the bottom of the shaft I could climb crab-wise to the surface.

"To this end, I need to elevate myself twelve feet into the shaft, and this is a formidable problem. I cannot jump so high. I have no ladder. You, my colleagues, while strong of bone, lack sinew and muscle... Might it be that with a resourceful use of these bones and yonder rope something could be contrived? I see before me twelve skulls, twelve pelvises, twenty-four thighbones, twenty-four shin-bones, and a like number of upper arms and lower arms, many ribs and a large number of accessory parts.

"Gentlemen, there is work to be done. The time has come for adjournment. Will someone make the appropriate motion?"

A guttural voice said: "I move to dissolve the conference sine die."

Aillas stared around the line of skeletons. Which had spoken? Or had it been his own voice? After a pause he asked: "Are there negative votes?"

Silence.

"In that case," said Aillas, "the conclave is dissolved."

He set himself to work at once, disassembling each skeleton, sorting the components, testing them in new combinations to discover optimum linkages. Then he began to build, fitting bone to bone with care and precision, grinding against stone when necessary and securing the joints with rope fiber. He started with four pelvises, which he joined with struts of bound ribs. Upon this foundation he mounted the four largest femurs and surmounted these with four more pelvises, and braced with more ribs. Upon this platform he fixed four more femurs, and four final pelvises, bracing and cross-bracing to insure rigidity. He had now achieved a ladder of two stages, which when he tested it bore his weight with no complaint. Then up another stage and another. He worked without haste, while days became weeks, determined that the ladder should not fail at the critical moment. To control sidewise sway, he worked bone splinters into the floor and set up rope guys; the solidity of the structure gave him a ferocious satisfaction. The ladder was now his whole life, a thing of beauty in itself, so that escape began to be of less consequence than the magnificent ladder. He reveled in the spare white struts, the neat joints, the noble upward thrust.

The ladder was finished. The top level, contrived of ulnas and radii, stood only two feet under the opening of the shaft, and Aillas, with vast caution, practiced inserting himself into the shaft. There was nothing to delay his departure, except to await the next basket of bread and water, so that he might avoid meeting Zerling on his way to feed him. At the next feeding, when Zerling pulled up the untouched food, he would nod sagely and thereafter bring no more baskets.

The bread and water arrived at noon. Aillas took them from the basket, which was then drawn empty up the shaft.

The afternoon waned; never had time passed so slowly. The top of the shaft darkened; evening had come. Aillas mounted the ladder. He placed his shoulders against one side of the shaft, his feet against the other, to wedge himself in place. Then six inches at a time he thrust himself up the shaft: at first awkwardly, with fear lest he slip, then with increasing ease. He paused once to rest, and again, when he had approached to three feet from the top, to listen.

Silence.

He continued, now gritting his teeth and grimacing in tension. He thrust his shoulders over the edge of the low wall and rolled to the side. He put his feet to solid ground, stood erect.

The night was quiet around him. To one side the mass of the Peinhador blotted out the sky. Aillas ran crouching to the old wall which enclosed the Urquial. Like a great black rat he skulked through the shadows and around to the old postern.

The door stood ajar, sagging on a broken hinge. Aillas looked uncertainly down the trail. He slipped through the aperture, crouching uneasily. No challenge came from the dark. Aillas sensed that the garden was untenanted.

He descended the path to the chapel. As he expected, no candle glimmered; the hearth was dead. He proceeded down the path. The moon, rising over the hills, shone on the wan marble of the ruins. Aillas paused, to look and listen, then descended to the lime tree.

"Aillas."

He halted. Again he heard the voice, speaking in a dreary half-whisper. "Aillas."

He approached the lime tree. "Suldrun? I am here."

Beside the tree stood a shape of wisps and mist..."Aillas, Aillas, you are too late; they have taken our son."

Aillas spoke in astonishment. "'Our son'?"

"He is named Dhrun, and now he is forever gone from me... Oh Aillas, it is not pleasant to be dead."

Tears started from Aillas' eyes. "Poor Suldrun. How could they treat you so?"

"Life was not kind to me. Now it is gone."

"Suldrun, come back to me!"

The pale shape moved and seemed to smile. "No. I am cold and dank. Are you not afraid?"

"I will never be afraid again. Take my hands, I will give you warmth."

Again the shape shifted in the moonlight. "I am Suldrun, yet I am not Suldrun. I ache with a chill all your warmth could never melt... I am tired; I must go."

"Suldrun! Stay with me, I beg you!"

"Dear Aillas, you would find me bad company."

"Who betrayed us? The priest?"

"The priest indeed. Dhrun, our dear little boy: find him, give him care and love. Say that you will!"

"I will do so, as best I can."

"Dear Aillas, I must go."

Aillas stood alone, his heart too full even for the flowing of tears. The garden was empty except for himself. The moon rose into the sky. Aillas finally bestirred himself. He dug under the roots of the lime tree and brought out Persilian the mirror and the pouch with the coins and gems from Suldrun's chamber.

He spent the rest of the night in the grass under the olive trees. At dawn he scaled the rocks and hid in the undergrowth beside the road.

A band of beggars and pilgrims came from the direction of Kercelot, east along the coast. Aillas joined them and so came down into Lyonesse Town. Recognition? He feared it not at all. Who could know this haggard gray-faced wretch for Prince Aillas of Troicinet?

Where the Sfer Arct met the Chale a cluster of inns displayed their boards. At the Four Mallows, Aillas took lodging, and, finally heeding the reproaches of his stomach, made a slow meal of cabbage soup, bread and wine, eating with great caution lest the unaccustomed food work mischief on his shrunken stomach. The food made him drowsy; he went to his cubicle and shaking out the straw pallet, slept into the afternoon.

Awakening, he stared around the walls in alarm close to consternation. He lay back, body trembling and at last eased his racing pulse... For a period he sat cross-legged on the pallet, sweltering in terror. How had he held his sanity so dark and deep below the ground? Urgencies now thronged upon him; truly he needed time to think, to plan, to recover his poise.

He rose to his feet and went down to the area at the front of the inn, where an arbor of vines and climbing roses shielded benches and tables from the hot afternoon sunlight.

Aillas seated himself at a bench beside the road, and a serving boy brought him beer and fried oat-cakes. Two urgencies pulled him in opposite directions: a near-unbearable homesickness for Watershade, and a longing, reinforced by the charge laid upon him, to find his son.

A dock-side barber shaved him and cut his hair. He bought garments at a booth, washed at a public bath, dressed in his new clothes, and felt immeasurably better. Now he might be taken for a seaman or a tradesman's apprentice.

He returned to the arbor in front of the Four Mallows, which had become busy with late afternoon trade. Aillas drank from a mug of beer and listened to such scraps of conversation as he could overhear, hoping for news. An old man with a flat florid face, silky-clean white hair and a mild blue gaze settled himself across the table. He gave Aillas an amiable greeting, ordered beer and fish-cakes and wasted no time engaging Aillas in conversation. Aillas, wary of Casmir's notorious corps of informers, responded with simple-minded innocence. The old man's name, so Aillas gathered from the salute of a passerby, was Byssante. He needed no encouragement and provided Aillas information of all kinds. He touched upon the war and Aillas learned that conditions were generally as before. The Troice still immobilized the ports of Lyonesse. A fleet of Troice warships had won a notable victory over the Ska, effectively sealing the Lir from their depredations.

Aillas spoke only: "Exactly so!" and "So I understand!" and "Such things happen, alas!" But this was enough, especially when Aillas ordered more beer and so provided Byssante a second wind.

"What King Casmir plans for Lyonesse, I fear is not succeeding of its own weight, though if Casmir heard my opinion, he'd have me crotch to stock in a trice. Still, the conditions may go even worse, depending upon the Troice succession."

"How so?"

"Well, King Granice is old and fierce but he can't live forever. Should Granice die today, the crown goes to Ospero, who lacks all ferocity. When Ospero dies, Prince Trewan takes the crown, since Ospero's son was lost at sea. If Ospero dies before Granice, Trewan takes the crown directly. Trewan is said to be a fire-breathing warrior; Lyonesse can expect the worst. Were I King Casmir, I would sue for peace on the best terms to be had, and put my grand ambitions aside."

"That might well be the best of it," Aillas agreed. "But what of Prince Arbamet? Did he not hold first claim to the throne after Granice?"

"Arbamet died of injuries when he fell from a horse, something more than a year ago. Still, it's all the same. One is as savage as the next, so that now even the Ska won't come near. Ah my throat! So much talking is dry work. What of it, lad? Can you oblige an old pensioner a stoup of beer?"

Without enthusiasm Aillas called the serving boy. "A measure of beer for this gentleman. Nothing more for me."

Byssante spoke on, while Aillas brooded over what he had heard. Prince Arbamet, Trewan's father, had been alive when he had departed Domreis aboard the Smaadra. The line of succession had been straight: Granice through Arbamet to Trewan, and thereafter Trewan's male progeny. At Ys, Trewan had visited the Troice cog, and apparently had learned of his father's death. The line of descent then became painful from his point of view: Granice through Ospero to Aillas, bypassing Trewan altogether. No wonder Trewan had returned from the Troice cog in a glum mood! And no mystery whatever why Aillas must be murdered!

Swift return to Troicinet was imperative—but what of Dhrun, his son?

Almost as if in response Byssante rapped him with a pink knuckle. "Look you yonder! The ruling house of Lyonesse drives forth for an afternoon airing!"

Preceded by a pair of mounted heralds and followed by twelve soldiers in dress uniform, a splendid carriage drawn by six white unicorns rolled down the Sfer Arct. Facing forward, King Casmir and Prince Cassander, a slender big-eyed youth fourteen years old, rode in the back seat. On the seat across sat Queen Sollace in a gown of green silk and Fareult, Duchess of Relsimore, who carried in her lap, or more accurately, tried to control, an auburn-haired infant in a white gown. The child wanted to climb up on the back of the seat despite Lady Fareult's admonitions and King Casmir's scowling. Queen Sollace merely averted her gaze.

"There you have the royal family," said Byssante with an indulgent wave of the hand. "King Casmir, Prince Cassander and Queen Sollace and a lady whom I don't know. Beside her stands the Princess Madouc, daughter to Princess Suldrun, now dead by her own hand."

"Princess Madouc? A girl?"

"Aye, an odd little creature she's said to be." Byssante finished his beer. "You are a lucky fellow to witness royal pomp so close at hand! And now I'm off to my nap."

Aillas went to his chamber. Sitting on the chair, he unwrapped Persilian and set it on the night-stand. The mirror, in one of its flippant moods, reflected the wall first upside-down, then reversed left to right, then showed a window giving on the stable-yard, then with King Casmir peering balefully in through the window.

Aillas said: "Persilian."

"I am here."

Aillas spoke with great caution, lest inadvertently he phrase a casual remark in the form of a question. "I may ask you three questions, then no more."

"You may ask a fourth question. I will answer, but then I will be free. You have already asked one question."

Aillas spoke carefully: "I want to find my son Dhrun, take him into my custody, then return with him quickly and safely to Troicinet. Tell me how best to do this."

"You must put your requirements in the form of a question."

"How can I do as I described?"

"That is essentially three questions."

"Very well," said Aillas. "Tell me how to find my son."

"Ask Ehirme."

"Only that?" cried Aillas. "Two words and no more?"

"The reply is adequate," said Persilian and would say no more. Aillas wrapped the mirror in a cloth and tucked it under the straw pallet.

The time was late afternoon. Aillas strolled out along the Chale, brooding upon what he had learned. At the shop of a Moorish goldsmith he offered for sale a pair of Suldrun's emeralds, each the size of a pea.

The Moor examined the gems in turn, using a magnifying lens of a sort strange and new. Completing his appraisal he spoke in a studiously flat voice. "These are excellent gems. I will pay one hundred silver florins for each—approximately half their worth. That is my first, last and only offer."

"Done," said Aillas. The Moor laid out gold and silver coins, which Aillas swept into his pouch, then departed the shop.

At sunset Aillas returned to the Four Mallows where he supped upon fried fish, bread and wine. He slept soundly and when he awoke the oubliette seemed a bad dream. He took breakfast, paid his account, slung the parcel containing Persilian over his shoulder and set out along the shore-road south.

By a route remembered from what seemed a previous existence he tramped to the farmstead where Ehirme made her home. As before he halted by the hedge and took stock of the surroundings. As before men and boys worked hay. In the kitchen garden a stocky old crone hobbled among the cabbages, cutting weeds with a hoe. As Aillas watched, three small pigs escaped from the sty and trotted briskly into the turnip patch. The crone gave a peculiar warbling scream and a small girl ran from the cottage to chase the pigs who darted everywhere except toward the sty.

The girl ran panting past the gate. Aillas stopped her. "Would you tell Ehirme that someone at the gate wishes to speak to her?"

The girl looked him up and down in hostility and distrust. She called out to the old woman who weeded the cabbages, then resumed her pursuit of the pigs, in which she now was joined by a small black dog.

The old woman hobbled toward the gate. A shawl thrown over her head, and projecting a little past her face, shaded her features.

Aillas stared in consternation. This crooked old creature: was it Ehirme? She drew close: first a step of the right leg, then a lurch of the hip, and a swing around of the left leg. She halted. Her face showed odd distortions and creases; her eyes seemed to have sunk in their sockets.

Aillas stammered: "Ehirme! What has happened to you?"

Ehirme opened her mouth and produced a set of warbling vocables, none intelligible to Aillas. She made a sign of frustration and called the girl, who came to stand beside her. The girl told Aillas: "King Casmir cut her tongue and hurt her everywhere."

Ehirme spoke; the girl listened carefully, then, turning to Aillas, translated. "She wants to know what happened to you."

"They put me in an underground dungeon. I escaped, and now I want to find my son."

Ehirme spoke; the girl just shook her head. Aillas asked: "What did she say?"

"Things about King Casmir."

"Ehirme, where is my son Dhrun?"

A moment of incomprehensible warbling, which the girl translated: "She doesn't know what has happened. She sent the baby to her mother, out by the great forest. Casmir sent out a party but they brought back a girl. So the baby boy must still be there."

"And how will I find this place?"

"Go up to the Old Street, then east to Little Saffield. Here take the side road north to Tawn Timble, and thence to the village Glymwode. There you must ask for Graithe the woodcutter and Wynes, his wife."

Aillas looked into his pouch and brought out a necklace of pink pearls. He gave it to Ehirme, who accepted it without enthusiasm. "This was Suldrun's necklace. When I reach Troicinet I will send for you, and you will live out your years in comfort and as much content as may be possible."

Ehirme produced a low quacking sound.

"She says that it is kind of you to make the offer, but that she does not know if the men would wish to leave their land."

"We will settle such affairs later. Here I am only Aillas the vagabond, and I have nothing to give except my gratitude."

"So it may be."

Late in the day Aillas arrived at Little Saffield, a market town beside the River Timble, built all of ocher-gray country stone. At the center of town Aillas found the Black Ox Inn, where he took lodging for the night.

In the morning he set off along a lane which followed the River Timble north, in the shade of poplar trees along the riverbank. Crows soared over the fields, notifying all who would listen of his presence.

Sunlight burnt through the early mist and warmed his face; already he was losing the haunted pallor of his captivity. As he walked an odd thought passed through his mind: "Some day I must return and visit my twelve good friends..." He uttered a grim sound. What an idea! Return into the dark hole? Never... He calculated. Today Zerling would drop the bucket with his rations. The bread and water would remain in the basket and the poor underground wight would be deemed dead. Zerling might perhaps report as much to King Casmir. How would the king react to the news? An indifferent shrug? A twitch of curiosity as to the father of his daughter's child? Aillas smiled a thin hard smile and for a space amused himself with possible directions of the future.

The landscape to the north ended at a dark loom across the northern horizon: the Forest of Tantrevalles. As Aillas approached, the countryside altered, to become ever more thoroughly steeped in time. Colors seemed richer and heavier; shadows were more emphatic and showed curious colors of their own. The River Timble, shaded under willows and poplars, wandered away in stately meanders; the road turned and entered the town Tawn Timble.

At the inn Aillas ate a dish of broad beans and drank an earthenware mug of beer.

The way to Glymwode led across the meadows, ever closer to the gloom of the forest, sometimes skirting the verge, sometimes passing under outlying copses.

Halfway through the afternoon Aillas trudged into Glymwode. The landlord at the Yellow Man Inn directed him to the cottage of Graithe the woodcutter. He asked in puzzlement: "What brings so many fine folk to visit Graithe? He's but a common man and no more than a woodcutter."

"The explanation is simple enough," said Aillas. "Certain grand folk at Lyonesse Town wanted a child brought up quietly, if you get my meaning, and then they changed their minds."

"Ah!" The landlord laid a sly finger alongside his nose. "Now it's clear. Still, a far way just to veil an indiscretion."

"Bah! One cannot judge the high-born by sensible standards!"

"That is a basic truth!" declared the landlord. "They live with their heads above the clouds! Well then, you know the way. Don't stray into the woods, especially after nightfall; you might find things you weren't seeking."

"In all likelihood I'll be back here before sunset. Will you have a bed for me?"

"Aye. If nothing better, you'll have a pallet in the loft."

Aillas departed the inn, and in due course found the cottage of Graithe and Wynes: a small two-room hut built of stone and timber, with a thatched roof, at the very edge of the forest. A spare old man with a white beard worked to split a log with maul and wedges. A stocky woman in a homespun smock and shawl tilled the garden. At Aillas' approach both drew erect and in silence watched him come.

Aillas halted in the dooryard and waited while the man and woman slowly approached.

"You are Graithe and Wynes?" asked Aillas.

The man gave his head a terse nod. "Who are you? What do you want?"

"Your daughter Ehirme sent me here."

The two stood, watching him, still as statues. Aillas sensed the psychic reek of fear. He said: "I haven't come to trouble you; quite the contrary. I am Suldrun's husband and the father of our child. It was a boy named Dhrun. Ehirme sent him here; King Casmir's soldiers brought back a girl named Madouc. So then, where is my son Dhrun?"

Wynes began to wail. Graithe held up his hand. "Quiet, woman, we have done no wrong. Fellow, whatever your name, the affair is one we are done with. Our daughter suffered a great anguish. We despise with all our hatred those persons who brought her pain. King Casmir took the child; there is no more to say."

"Only this. Casmir locked me in a deep dungeon, from which I have only just escaped. He is my enemy no less than yours, as someday he will learn. I ask for what is my right. Give me my boy, or tell me where to find him."

"This is nothing to us!" cried Wynes. "We are old; we survive from day to day. When our horse dies, how will we take our wood to the village? Some winter soon we shall starve."

Aillas reached into his pouch and brought out another of Suldrun's possessions: a wrist-band of gold set with garnets and rubies. To this he added a pair of gold crowns. "Now I can help you only this much, but at least you need not fear starvation. Now tell me of my son."

Wynes hesitantly took the gold. "Very well, I shall tell you of your son. Graithe went into the forest to cut faggots. I carried the baby in a basket, and set it on the ground while I gathered mushrooms. Alas! we were close by Madling Meadow, and the fairies of Thripsey Shee worked a mischief. They took the boy and left a fairy-child in the basket. I noticed nothing till I reached to take the baby and it bit me. Then I looked and saw the red-haired girl-brat and I knew that the fairies had been at work."

Graithe spoke. "Then the king's soldiery arrived. They asked for the baby on pain of death, and we gave them the changeling, and bad cess to it."

Aillas looked from face to face in bafflement. Then he turned to gaze into the forest. At last he said: "Can you take me to Thripsey Shee?"

"Oh yes, we can take you there, and should you make awkwardness, they'll give you a toad's head, like they did poor Wilclaw the drover; or give you dancing feet, so that you'll dance the roads and byways forever and that was the fate of a lad named Dingle, when they caught him eating their honey."

"Never bother the fairies," Wynes told him. "Be grateful when they leave you in peace."

"But my son, Dhrun! How does he fare?"