Lyonesse

Chapter 5

ON THE DAY OF BELTANE, in the spring of the year following Suldrun's eleventh birthday, occurred the ancient rite known as Blodfadh, or "Coming into Flower." With twenty-three other girls of noble lineage, Suldrun stepped through a circlet of white roses, and then led a pavanne with Prince Bellath of Caduz for a partner. Bellath, at the age of sixteen years was spare rather than sturdy. His features were crisp, well-shaped if somewhat austere; his manners were precisely correct and pleasantly modest. In certain qualities he reminded Suldrun of someone else she had known. Who could it be? She searched her mind in vain. As they stepped the careful measures of the pavanne, she studied his face, to discover that he was giving her a similar scrutiny.

Suldrun had decided that she liked Bellath. She laughed selfconsciously. "Why do you watch me so intently?"

Bellath asked half-apologetically, "Shall I tell you the truth?"

"Of course."

"Very well, but you must control your anguish. 1 have been told that you and I are eventually to marry."

Suldrun could find nothing to say. In silence they performed the stately evolutions of the dance.

Bellath finally spoke in anxiety: "I hope that you are not disturbed by what I said?"

"No... I must marry one day—so I suppose. I am not ready to think about it."

Later that night, as she lay in her bed considering the events of the day, Suldrun recalled of whom Prince Bellath reminded her: it was none other than Master Jaimes.

Blodfadh brought changes to Suldrun's life. Despite her inclinations she was moved from her dear and familiar chambers in the East Tower to more commodious quarters on the next floor below, and Prince Cassander moved into Suldrun's old rooms.

Two months previously, Dame Maugelin had died of the dropsy. Her place was taken by a seamstress and a pair of maids.

To Dame Boudetta was given supervision of Prince Cassander. The new archivist a wizened little pedant named Julias Sagamudus became Suldrun's instructor in orthography, history and calculation with numbers. For the enhancement of her maidenly graces Suldrun was given into the charge of the Lady Desdea, widow of Queen Sollace's brother, who resided permanently at Haidion and performed genteel duties at the languid behest of Queen Sollace. Forty years old, without prooerty, large-boned, tall, with overly large features and bad breath, Lady Desdea had no prospects whatever; still she beguiled herself with impossible fantasies. She primped, powdered, and perfumed herself; she dressed her chestnut hair in high style, with a complicated bun at the back and twin sponsons of crisp curls confined in nets over her ears.

Suldrun's fresh young beauty and easy absentminded habits rasped the most sensitive fibers of Lady Desdea's disposition. Suldrun's visits to the old garden had now become generally known. Lady Desdea automatically disapproved. For a highborn maiden—or any other kind of maiden—the desire for privacy was not only eccentric; it was absolutely suspicious. Suldrun was somewhat too young to have taken to herself a lover. And yet... The idea was absurd. Her breasts were but nubbins. Still, might she have been beguiled by a faun, who were known to be partial to the tart-sweet charms of young maidens?

So went Lady Desdea's thinking. One day she blandly suggested that Suldrun escort her through the garden. Suldrun tried to evade the issue. "You wouldn't like the place. The path goes over rocks, and there is nothing much to see."

"Still, I think I would like to visit this place."

Suldrun studiously said nothing, but Lady Desdea persisted. "The weather is fine. Suppose we take our little walk now."

"You must excuse me, my lady," said Suldrun politely. "This is a place where I go only when I am alone."

Lady Desdea raised high her thin chestnut eyebrows. "'Alone'? It is not seemly that young ladies of your place should wander alone through remote areas."

Suldrun spoke in a placid and offhand manner, as if enunciating a known truth. "There is no harm enjoying one's private garden.

Lady Desdea could find nothing to say. Later she reported Suldrun's obstinacy to Queen Sollace, who at the moment was testing a new pomade formulated from the wax of lilies. "I've heard something of this," said Queen Sollace, rubbing a gobbet of white cream along her wrist. "She is a strange creature. At her age I had eyes for several gallant lads, but as for Suldrun such ideas never enter her odd little head... Ha! This offers a rich scent! Feel the unction!"

On the next day the sun shone fair among small high cloud-tufts. Reluctantly to her lessons with Julias Sagamundus went Suldrun wearing a prim little lavender and white striped gown gathered high up under her breasts and trimmed with lace at hem and collar. Perched on a stool, Suldrun dutifully wrote the ornate Lyonesse script with a gray goose-quill, so fine and long that the tip twitched a foot above her head. Suldrun found herself gazing out the window ever more frequently, and the characters began to straggle.

Julias Sagamundus, seeing how the wind blew, sighed once or twice, but without emphasis. He took the quill from Suldrun's fingers, packed his exercise books, quills, inks and parchments, and went off about his own affairs. Suldrun climbed down from the stool and stood rapt by the window, as if listening to far music. She turned and left the library.

Lady Desdea emerged into the gallery from the Green Parlor, where King Casmir had instructed her in careful detail. She was only just in time to notice the lavender and white flutter of Suldrun's dress as she disappeared into the Octagon.

Lady Desdea hurried after, heavy with King Casmir's instructions. She went into the Octagon, looked right and left, then went outside, to glimpse Suldrun already at the end of the arcade.

"Ah, Miss Sly-boots!" said Lady Desdea to herself. "Now we shall see. But presently, presently!" She tapped her mouth with her finger, then went up to Suldrun's chambers, and there put inquiries to the maids. Neither knew Suldrun's whereabouts. "No matter," said Lady Desdea. "I know where to find her. Now then, lay out her pale blue afternoon gown with the lace bodice, and all to match, and draw her a bath."

Lady Desdea descended to the gallery and for half an hour sauntered here and there. At last she turned back up the Long Gallery. "Now" she told herself, "now we shall see."

She ascended the arcade and passed through the tunnel ou upon the parade ground. To her right wild plum and larch shadowed an old stone wall, in which she spied a dilapidated timber door. She marched forward, ducked under the larch, pushed open the door. A path led away and down through juts and shoulders of rock.

Clutching skirts above ankles. Lady Desdea picked her way down irregular stone steps, which angled first right then left, past an old stone fane. She proceeded, taking great care not to stumble and fall, which would certainly compromise her dignity. The walls of the ravine spread apart; Lady Desdea overlooked the garden. Step by step she descended the path, and were she not so alert for mischief, she might have noticed the banks of flowers and pleasant herbs, the small stream flowing into artful pools, then tinkling down from stone to stone and into yet another pool. Lady Desdea saw only an area of rocky wasteland, uncomfortable of access, dank and unpleasantly isolated. She stumbled, hurt her foot and cursed, angry at the circumstances which had brought her so far from Haidion, and now she saw Suldrun, thirty feet along the path, quite alone (as Lady Desdea had known she must be; she had only hoped for scandal).

Suldrun heard the steps and looked up. Her eyes glowed blue in a face pale and furious.

Lady Desdea spoke peevishly: "I've hurt my foot on the stones; it's truly a shame."

Suldrun's mouth moved; she could not find words to express herself.

Lady Desdea heaved a sigh of resignation and pretended to look around her. She spoke in a voice of whimsical condescension. "So, my dear Princess, this is your little retreat." She gave an exaggerated shudder, hunching her shoulders. "Aren't you at all sensitive to the air? I feel such a dank waft; it must come from the sea." Again she looked about her, mouth pursed in amused disapproval. "Still, it's a wild little nook, like the world must have been before men appeared. Come, child, show me about."

Fury contorted Suldrun's face, so that teeth showed through her clenched mouth. She raised her hand and pointed. "Go! Go away from here!"

Lady Desdea drew herself up. "My dear child, you are rude. I am only concerned with your welfare and I do not deserve your spite."

Suldrun spoke wildly: "I don't want you here! 1 don't want you around me at all! Go away!"

Lady Desdea stood back, her face an ugly mask. She seethed with conflicting impulses. Most urgently she wanted to find a switch, lift the impudent child's skirt and lay half a dozen goodly stripes across her bottom: an act in which she dared not indulge herself. Backing away a few steps, she spoke in dreary reproach: "You are the most ungrateful of children. Do you think it pleasure to instruct you in all that is noble and good, and guide your innocence through the pitfalls of the court, when you fail to respect me? 1 look for love and trust; I find rancor. Is this my reward? I struggle to do my duty; I am told to go away." Her voice became a ponderous drone. Suldrun turned half-away and gave her attention to the flight of a rock-swallow, then another. She watched ocean swells crashing through the offshore rocks, then come twinkling and foaming up to her beach. Lady Desdea spoke on. "I must make clear: not for my benefit do I clamber through rock and thistle to notify you of duties such as today's important reception, as I now have done. No, I must accept the role of meddlesome Lady Desdea. You have been instructed and I can do no more."

Lady Desdea swung around her haunches, trudged up the path and departed the garden. Suldrun watched her go with brooding gaze. There had been an indefinable air of satisfaction in the swing of her arms and the poise of her head. Suldrun wondered what it meant.

The better to protect King Deuel of Pomperol and his retinue from the sun, a canopy of red and yellow silk, the colors of Pomperol, had been erected across the great courtyard at Haidion. Under this canopy King Casmir, King Deuel, and various persons of high degree came to take their pleasure at an informal banquet.

King Deuel, a thin sinewy man of middle years, carried himself with mercurial energy and zest. He had brought only a small entourage: his only son, Prince Kestrel; four knights, sundry aides and lackeys; so that, as King Deuel expressed it, "we are free as birds, those blessed creatures who soar the air, to go where we wish, at our own speed and pleasure!"

Prince Kestrel had achieved his fifteenth year and resembled his father only in his ginger colored hair. Otherwise he was staid and phlegmatic, with a fleshy torso and placid expression. King Casmir none-the-less thought of Kestrel as a possible match for the princess Suldrun, if options more advantageous were not open, and so arranged that a place for Suldrun be laid at the banquet table.

When the place remained vacant, King Casmir spoke sharply to Queen Sollace: "Where is Suldrun?"

Queen Sollace gave her marmoreal shoulders a slow shrug. "I can't say. She is unpredictable. I find it easiest to leave her to her own devices."

"All well and good. Nevertheless I command her presence!"

Queen Sollace shrugged once more and reached for a sugarplum. "In that case Lady Desdea must inform us."

King Casmir looked over his shoulder to a footman. "Bring here the Lady Desdea,"

King Deuel meanwhile enjoyed the antics of trained animals, which King Casmir had ordained for his pleasure. Bears in blue cocked hats tossed balls back and forth; four wolves in costumes of pink and yellow satin danced a quadrille; six herons with as many crows marched in formation.

King Deuel applauded the spectacle, and was especially enthusiastic in regard to the birds: "Splendid! Are they not worthy creatures, stately and wise? Notice the grace of their marching! A pace: so! Another pace: just so!"

King Casmir acknowledged the compliment with a stately gesture. "I take it that you are partial to birds?"

"I consider them remarkably fine. They fly with an easy courage and a grace far exceeding our own capabilities!"

"Exactly true... Excuse me, I must have a word with Lady Desdea. King Casmir turned aside. "Where is Suldrun?"

Lady Desdea feigned puzzlement. "Is she not here? Most odd! She is stubborn, and perhaps a bit wayward, but I cannot believe her to be wilfully disobedient."

"Where is she then?"

Lady Desdea made a facetious grimace and waved her fingers. "As I say, she is a headstrong child and given to vagaries. Now she has taken a fancy to an old garden under the Urquial. I have tried to dissuade her, but she makes it her favored resort."

King Casmir spoke brusquely. "And she is there now? Unattended?"

"Your Majesty, she permits no one in the garden but herself, or so it would seem. I spoke to her and communicated Your Majesty's wishes. She would not listen and sent me away. I assume she remains still in the garden."

King Deuel sat enthralled by the performance of a trained ape walking a tightrope. King Casmir murmured an excuse, and strode away. Lady Desdea went about her own affairs with a pleasant sense of achievement.

King Casmir had not set foot in the old garden for twenty years. He descended along a path paved with pebbles set into sand, among trees, herbs and flowers. Halfway to the beach he came upon Suldrun. She knelt in the path, working pebbles into the sand.

Suldrun looked up without surprise. King Casmir silently surveyed the garden, then looked down at Suldrun, who slowly rose to her feet. King Casmir spoke in a flat voice. "Why did you not heed my orders?"

Suldrun stared in slack-jawed puzzlement. "What orders?"

"I required your attendance upon King Deuel of Pomperol and his son Prince Kestrel."

Suldrun cast back into her memory and now recovered the echo of Lady Desdea's voice. Squinting off toward the sea she said: "Lady Desdea might have said something. She talks so much that I seldom listen."

King Casmir allowed a wintry smile to enliven his face. He also felt that Lady Desdea spoke at unnecessary length. Once more he inspected the garden. "Why do you come here?"

Suldrun said haltingly: "I am alone here. No one troubles me."

"But, are you not lonely?"

"No. I pretend that the flowers talk to me."

King Casmir grunted. Such fancies in a princess were unnecessary and impractical. Perhaps she was indeed eccentric. "Should you not entertain yourself among other maids of your station?"

"Father, I do so, at my dancing lessons."

King Casmir examined her dispassionately. She had tucked a small white flower into her gleaming dusty-gold hair; her features were regular and delicate. For the first time King Casmir saw his daughter as something other than a beautiful absent-minded child.

"Come along" he said gruffly. "We shall go at; once to the reception. Your costume is far from adequate but neither King Deuel nor Kestrel will think the worse of you." He noticed Suldrun's melancholy expression. "Well then, are you reluctant for a banquet?"

"Father, these are strangers; why must I meet them today?"

"Because in due course you must marry and Kestrel might be the most advantageous match."

Suldrun's face fell even further. "1 thought that I was to marry Prince Bellath of Caduz."

King Casmir's face became hard. "Where did you hear that?"

"Prince Bellath told me himself."

King Casmir voiced a harsh laugh. "Three weeks ago, Bellath became betrothed to Princess Mahaeve of Dahaut."

Suldrun's mouth sagged. "Is she not already a grown woman?"

"She is nineteen years old and ill-favored to boot. But no matter; he obeyed his father the king, who chose Dahaut over Lyonesse, to his great folly as he will learn... So you became fond of Bellath?"

"I liked him well enough."

"It's of no consequence now. We need both Pomperol and Caduz; if we make a match with Deuel, we'll have them both. Come along, and mind you, show courtesy to Prince Kestrel." He turned on his heel. Suldrun followed him up the path on laggard feet.

At the reception she was seated beside Prince Kestrel, who practiced lofty airs upon her. Suldrun failed to notice. Both Kestrel and the circumstances bored her.

In the autumn of the year King Quairt of Caduz and Prince Bellath went to hunt in the Long Hills. They were set upon by masked bandits and killed. Caduz was thereby plunged into confusion, forboding and doubt.

In Lyonesse King Casmir discovered a claim to the throne of Caduz, stemming from his grandfather Duke Cassander, brother to Queen Lydia of Caduz.

The claim, based upon the flow of lineage from sister to brother, thence to a descendant twice removed, while legal (with qualifications) in Lyonesse and also in the Ulflands, ran counter to the strictly patrilinear customs of Dahaut. The laws of Caduz itself were ambiguous.

The better to press his claim, Casmir rode to Montroc, capital of Caduz, at the head of a hundred knights, which instantly aroused King Audry of Dahaut. He warned that under no circumstances might Casmir so easily annex Caduz to his crown, and began to mobilize a great army.

The dukes and earls of Caduz, thus emboldened, began to express distaste for Casmir, and many wondered, ever more pointedly, as to the identity of bandits so swift, so deadly and so anonymous in a countryside ordinarily so placid.

Casmir saw the way the wind was blowing. One stormy afternoon, as the nobles of Caduz sat in conclave, a weird-woman dressed in white entered the chamber holding high a glass vessel which exuded a flux of colors swirling behind her like smoke. As if in a trance she picked up the crown, set it on the head of Duke Thirlach, husband to Etaine, younger sister to Casmir. The woman in white departed the chamber and was seen no more. After some contention, the omen was accepted at face value and Thirlach was enthroned as the new king. Casmir rode home with his knights, satisfied that he had done all possible to augment his interests, and indeed his sister Etaine, now Queen of Caduz, was a woman of redoubtable personality.

Suldrun was fourteen years old and marriageable. The rumor of her beauty had traveled far, and to Haidion came a succession of young grandees, and others not so young, to judge the fabulous Princess Suldrun for themselves.

King Casmir extended to all an equal hospitality, but was in no hurry to encourage a match until all of his options were clear to him.

Suldrun's life became increasingly complex, what with balls and banquets, fetes and follies. Some of the visitors she found pleasing, others less so. King Casmir, however, never asked her opinion, which in any case was of no interest to him.

A different sort of visitor arrived at Lyonesse Town: Brother Umphred, a portly round-faced evangelist, originally from Aquitania, who had arrived at Lyonesse by way of Whanish Isle and the Diocese of Skro.

With an instinct as certain and sure as that which takes a ferret to the rabbit's throat, Brother Umphred found the ear of Queen Sollace. Brother Umphred used an insistent mellifluous voice and Queen Sollace became a convert to Christianity.

Brother Umphred established a chapel in the Tower of Palaemon only a few steps from Queen Sollace's chambers.

At Brother Umphred's suggestion, Cassander and Suldrun were baptized and required to attend early morning mass in the chapel.

Brother Umphred attempted next to convert King Casmir, and far overstepped himself.

"Exactly what is your purpose here?" demanded King Casmir. "Are you a spy for Rome?"

"I am a humble servant of the one and all-powerful God," said Brother Umphred. "I carry his message of hope and love to all folk, despite hardship and tribulation; no more."

King Casmir uttered a derisive laugh. "What of the great cathedrals at Avallon and Taciel? Did ‘God' supply the money? No. It was milked from peasants."

"Your Majesty, humbly we accept alms."

"It would seem far easier for all-powerful God to create the money... No further proselytizing! If you accept a single farthing from anyone in Lyonesse you will be whipped from here to Port Fader and shipped back to Rome in a sack."

Brother Umphred bowed without visible resentment. "It shall be as you command."

Suldrun found Brother Umphred's doctrines incomprehensible and his manner over-familiar. She stopped attending mass and so incurred her mother's displeasure.

Suldrun found little time for herself. Noble maidens attended most of her waking hours, to chatter and gossip, to plan small intrigues, to discuss gowns and manners, and to analyze the persons who came courting to Haidion. Suldrun found little solitude and few occasions to visit the old garden.

Early one summer morning the sun shone so sweetly and the thrush sang such plaintive songs in the orangery, that Suldrun felt impelled to leave the palace. She pretended indisposition to avoid her maids-in-waiting and furtively, lest someone notice and suspect a lover's tryst, she ran up the arcade, through the old portal and into the garden.

Something had changed. She felt as if she were seeing the garden for the first time, even though every detail, every tree and flower was familiar and dear. She looked about her in sadness for the lost vision of childhood. She saw evidence of neglect: harebells, anemones and violets growing modestly in the shade had been challenged by insolent tufts of rank grass. Opposite, among the cypresses and olive trees, nettles had risen more proudly than the asphodel. The path she had so diligently paved with beach pebbles had been broken by rain.

Suldrun went slowly down to the old lime tree, under which she had passed many dreaming hours... The garden seemed smaller. Ordinary sunlight suffused the air, rather than the old enchantment which had gathered in this place alone, and surely the wild roses had given a richer fragrance when first she had entered the garden? At a crunch of footsteps she looked about to discover a beaming Brother Umphred. He wore a brown cassock tied with a black cord. The cowl hung down between his plump shoulders; his tonsured baldness shone pink.

Brother Umphred, after a quick glance to left and right, bowed and clasped his hands before him. "Blessed princess, surely you have not come so far without escort?"

"Exactly so, since I have come here for solitude." Suldrun's voice was devoid of warmth. "It pleases me to be alone."

Brother Umphred, still smiling, again surveyed the garden. "This is a tranquil retreat. I, too, enjoy solitude; is it possible that we two are cut from the same cloth?" Brother Umphred moved forward, halting no more than a yard from Suldrun. "It is a great pleasure to find you here. I have long wanted to talk to you, in all earnestness."

Suldrun spoke in an even colder voice. "I do not care to talk to you, or anyone else. I came to be alone."

Brother Umphred gave a wry jocular grimace. "I will go at once. Still, do you think it proper to venture alone into a place so secluded? How tongues would wag, were it known! All would wonder whom you favored with such intimacy."

Suldrun turned her back in icy silence. Brother Umphred performed another comical grimace, shrugged, and ambled back up the path.

Suldrun seated herself beside the lime tree. Brother Umphred, so she suspected, had gone up to wait among the rocks, hoping to discover who came to keep rendezvous.

At last she arose and started back up the path. The outrage of Brother Umphred's presence had restored something of the garden's charm, and Suldrun stopped to pull weeds. Perhaps tomorrow morning she would come to uproot the nettles.

Brother Umphred spoke to Queen Sollace, and made a number of suggestions. Sollace reflected, then in a spirit of cold and deliberate malice—she had long decided that she did not particularly care for Suldrun—she gave appropriate orders.

Several weeks passed before Suldrun, despite her resolution, returned to the garden. Upon passing through the old timber door, she discovered a gang of masons at work upon the old fane. They had enlarged the windows, installed a door and broken open the back to expand the interior, and had added an altar. In consternation Suldrun asked the master mason: "What are you building here?"

"Your Highness, we build a churchlet, or a chapel, as it might be called, that the Christian priest may conduct his rituals."

Suldrun could hardly speak. "But—who gave such orders?"

"It was Queen Sollace herself, your Highness, for her ease and convenience during her devotions."