Quillifer

CHAPTER NINE

y gasp of surprise was smothered by another kiss. I stared up to see Orlanda gazing down at me, her face softly glowing in the light of a small horn lantern. She bent close to my ear.

“Come now, and quietly. I can’t set all these people free, only you.”

I came to my feet swiftly, my overcoat in my hands, suddenly awake and half delirious with joy. She put a finger to her lips to signal silence, and then took my hand and led me through the room toward the stair.

Around me men snored, the rumbling filling the air. Though some stirred uneasily, none woke as I passed. I wondered if I was still dreaming, if this were all some midnight phantasie.

Orlanda went silently up the steep stairs and I followed, and then we were out of the noisome pit and into the realm of cool, fresh air, heavy with dew. The thick cellar door hung open, and Orlanda turned to hand me the lantern and push the door once again into place. I heard the heavy wooden bar nestle into its home, and then Orlanda took the little lantern and led me out of the castle, toward the camp.

“Where are the guards?” I whispered.

“In their beds. Once the prisoners are locked in, there is nothing to guard.”

“We’re going to the camp? Why?” I pointed to where the stream emptied into the valley below. “Why not to the vale?”

Again Orlanda put a finger to her lips, and I fell silent as we padded among the rough dwellings at the foot of the cliff. To my surprise, the dogs of the camp were silent. My heart gave a leap as she paused at the wicker gate to the bandits’ treasury.

“Nay,” I whispered. “The wyverns will tear you to pieces!”

She ignored me and pushed the gate open, and I readied myself to fight murderous animals trained to tear and roast human flesh. But Orlanda passed into the enclosure unmolested and walked onto the portico of the old temple. I followed, saw the monsters lying together in a corner of the yard, and decided Orlanda must have poisoned them.

I didn’t see what Orlanda did to the lock, but I heard it clack open, and then Orlanda pushed into the temple itself. I followed, and in the dim light of the little lantern saw chests and bags set on tables.

Orlanda shoved a leather rucksack into my arms. “Hurry!” she said.

I opened chests and saw silver crowns neatly and lovingly stacked. I found a small coffer with gold royals, and another coffer that held miscellaneous jewelry, among which I recognized the gold chains of Ethlebight’s aldermen. I first emptied the gold royals into the rucksack, then a chest filled with crowns. Overspilling, silver crowns rang off the stone floor.

“No noise!” Orlanda hissed. I took more care with the next coffer, and shook the contents carefully into the rucksack until it was nearly full. Then I poured the jewelry on top and tied down the rucksack’s flap with its leather cords.

“A pity to leave so much behind,” I said.

“Come.” Orlanda led me out of the old temple, and as I shrugged into the rucksack, she turned to lock the door.

The rucksack was heavy, but I knew it held my fortune, and felt willing to bear it to the ends of the earth. While I was adjusting the straps, I heard one of the wyverns give a kind of snort. There was a brief flash of flame, and I almost leaped out of my boots.

Not dead, then, but sleeping. Drugged, presumably, but not to death.

I still felt as if possessed by a dream, as if freedom and fortune were a fantasy that would vanish with the dawn. Orlanda and I left the enclosure, and Orlanda fastened the gate and led me between the treasury and Sir Basil’s house. I walked with care and held my breath, and I did not hear the outlaw stir. We came to the base of the cliff that surrounded the corrie.

“This path goes up to the rim,” Orlanda whispered. Her light played over the stones, and I saw a narrow path I hadn’t noticed on my previous investigations of the scarp.

“There are no guards on top of the cliffs?” I asked.

“Nay,” she said. “Why would there be?”

I followed her and the bobbing light up the trail. The route would have been easy enough in daylight, but at night it was challenging, the path having to twist around large columnar rocks that stood like sentinels over the valley, and which sometimes had to be climbed directly. Pioneers long in the grave had cut hand- and footholds in the rock, and Orlanda was careful to shine the lantern on the hollows that would help me set my hands and feet. There was only one moment when I nearly fell, as the weight of the rucksack threatened to topple me backward while I edged around a column of basalt. One arm flailed, and vertigo clutched me by the throat as I realized I was about to fall, but Orlanda seized my arm and steadied me, and I recovered and, after a moment to catch my breath, continued the climb.

By the time I reached the top of the cliff, any sense that I inhabited a dream had vanished. My chest heaved, and I gasped in cold air scented with the pines that rimmed the corrie. My legs felt like water, held upright only by a fierce act of will. Orlanda waited, a little impatiently, for me to get my breathing in order, and then led me along the ridge that walled the corrie until she found a trail. Our footsteps were muffled by pine needles, and a gentle wind whispered through the spreading boughs overhead. Ahead of them, a grazing hind raised her head in surprise, then bounded away.

“The moon will rise soon, and we will better see our course,” Orlanda said.

“Let us tarry a while,” I said, and caught her hand.

She turned. “Are you still fatigued?” Starlight glittered in her eyes.

“No, mistress,” I said, and took her in my arms. “I desire only to kiss you, and to thank you for my liberty.”

I kissed her gently, then with greater ardor. Her body warmed mine. Her breath had a bright, fresh taste, like juniper berries, and the earthy scent of her hair swam in my senses.

She gave a gasp, then drew away. “Come.” Taking my hand. “We have a long way to go, and Sir Basil will pursue you to hell itself for the sake of the silver on your back.”

We walked along the ridge above a valley, then down into the vale and across a stream. The moon rose and limned the path ahead with delicate traceries of silver, and Orlanda blew out her little lamp. Night birds called, and deer drifted through the night until they were aware of the humans among them, and then fled, bounding. Agile foxes and grumbling badgers crossed our path.

The path went up, down, left, right. At times, I could have sworn that we were doubling back on ourselves. Yet the chill night was beautiful, and peaceful, and I felt an effervescence filling my veins. I carried my burden lightly, walked with ease on the moonlit path, and viewed the world with unfolding delight.

Hours were spent on the winding route, and as the path dropped from a ridge into a pine-strewn valley, I thought I heard a waft of melody on the air, perhaps a figure played on a viol. “Listen!” I said, and we paused as my ears strained the night.

The sound was difficult to hear over the sough of wind in the pines, but at last I heard it clearly: a viol, tambour, and a fipple flute, all playing a coranto.

“Hear you?” I said. “There are folk ahead.”

“You need not fear musicians,” Orlanda said.

“Musicians are as other men,” I said, “and as greedy for silver. We may not be safe.”

“Perhaps we will join them.”

“In that case, I am heartily sorry that you abandoned your mandola on my account. I will buy you a new one, and a better.”

We continued through the trees, and the sounds of music grew clearer. Other instruments joined the ensemble as the coranto was followed by a galliard, and the galliard by a canario. I fancied I heard laughter and the sounds of clinking glasses.

“For the revels to last so long, they must be celebrating a wedding,” I said. “The charivari runs late.”

Orlanda looked at me over her shoulder. “A wedding indeed.”

She took my hand and drew me forward, and we advanced together. A shimmering, indistinct light flittered ahead, like a bonfire eclipsed by tossing trees. We crossed a small stream, almost dancing along the stepping-stones, and then continued until the forest died away, and I saw before us a steep, bare round hill. The hill seemed to cast off a shimmer, like an aurora, that silhouetted it against shifting spears of white light.

Every detail, every blade of grass, was perfectly visible. The hill itself was crowned by an ancient earthen rampart, and on its summit was a ruined tower of black stone, like a broken fang. The music rang on, like tuned bells tumbling joyously down the slope.

Doors thundered open in my mind, and in a moment of staggering revelation I realized who I was dealing with. I knew why the guards and monsters had slept, and why the temple doors had opened to she for whom the temple was built.

Perhaps I had been a cretinous fool, but I had not till this minute realized that I had walked out of the world and into a song.

I turned to Orlanda in astonishment. She gazed at me expectantly, her eyes dark in the shadow beneath her tranquil brows.

“My lady,” I ventured. “Whose home is this?”

“Mine,” she said, “and you are welcome to abide in it this night.”

“And whose wedding,” I asked, “do those musicians celebrate?”

Her hand tightened on mine. “Ours,” she said, “should you prove willing.”

“O my lady of the fountain,” I said, “you have been toying with me.”

The goddess then put on her full beauty, her perfect face a luminous glory, her hair a flame, her simple clothing now a silken gown sewn with pearls, the skirt embroidered with figures of animals and birds. A diamond necklace cascaded down her breast like a sparkling fountain, and a vaunting ruff framed her head like a halo. A coronet shone gold in her hair.

The radiance of her figure struck me with such weight that it bore me to my knees. For a moment, she imitated the pose of the nymphaeum’s marble statue, one hand lifted to her cheek, her smile a promise of mischief, and then she dropped the pose.

“I am caprice, am I not?” she said. “Yet my deceptions have done you no harm.”

“You have done me nothing but service,” I said. “I owe you my liberty.”

“Shall we go then to our wedding feast?” She helped me to my feet, and began to lead me toward the hill. Yet I found myself reluctant to follow; and as I began to drag my feet, she turned.

“My lady,” I said, “is it true, as the stories have it, that this wedding feast may last an hundred years, and that I will come staggering from my marriage bed into the land, bewildered by a world no longer my own?”

“You need never leave,” she said.

“That,” I dared to point out, “is not quite an answer to my question. Should I desire to visit my friends, my city, the world at large . . . will I find the world I know, or some other, stranger land?”

She regarded me with something like compassion. “Do you know of Benat?” she asked. “Benat the Bear, Benat of the Copper Spear, Benat the Champion?”

“I do not recognize the name,” said I.

“The greatest hero this country has known? Victor in a hundred fights, slayer of beasts and monsters, founder of a kingdom?”

“I know neither he nor his kingdom,” said I.

“A thousand songs were made on Benat. Poets labored to create grand word-pictures for his great shoulders, his flashing eyes, his mighty laugh, his deadly spear. The epic of Benat was chanted by every bard in the land. But where is Benat now that the songs are no longer sung and his kingdom is not even a memory?”

“Under yon hill?” Nodding toward the hill, the rampart, the stone fang.

“Nay. I laid my lover a few leagues from here, in a tomb dug into a cliff, with his bright spear beside him. His monument is the golden rambler rose I planted there, and which, like my love, blooms in all seasons.”

“Did he leave your bed?” I asked. “Did he wander and die in a world that knew him not?”

Orlanda slowly shook her head. “I was different in those days,” she said. “I helped his rise. I aided him in his battles, I advised him in ruling his kingdom, I shared in his glory. When he finally came to my home, he came as a grizzled warrior, unbent but weary, and he left only in death.” Her emerald eyes searched mine. “Death comes to all mortals, and all my aid can only postpone that end. But in my house Benat lived long, and in honor, until I laid him to rest.”

She stepped close to me, her voice low and in earnest. “Hard it was to lose Benat, but harder it was to watch as he faded from memory—to watch the kingdom slip away, the great stone monuments tarnish and crumble, the songs fall from memory. That was a harsh lesson, that all earthly ambition is impermanent, and never in the ages since have I so aided the aspirations of a mortal.” She drew lightly on my hand. “Better to come away from this perishable world when you can, and escape the bitter knowledge that your deeds will fade from memory, that all greatness is dust, that your aspirations were doomed before ever you came weeping into the world. Celebrate youth and joy for all the years I can give you, and avoid all sadness.”

I allowed myself to be pulled forward, but came only a few steps before slowing to a halt.

“My lady,” I said. “I have certain responsibilities—to bear a message from my city to Selford, and to lay my family to rest not in a stolen tomb but a monument worthy of them.”

“Well do you know that Ethlebight is mortal,” she said. “What difference will your message make in ten years, or twenty, when the harbor is sealed? All too soon Selford itself will crumble, and the river carry its glories to the sea. And as for your family, it is no longer in their power to care where they lie.”

“I do not honor my family for the sake of the dead,” I said, “but for my own self-regard, so that I can view myself in the mirror and not feel shame. If I fail them, how can I be worthy of the proposal which you have so generously offered me?”

Orlanda’s eyes narrowed. “I am myself the judge of who is worthy to guest in my house,” she said.

“Yet I would know—”

Orlanda turned on me with green fire blazing from her eyes. “What are these questions?” Orlanda demanded. “What is this lawyer’s artful chop-logic and crinkum-crankum?” She stepped close, and cold fear chilled my blood as I felt her power surge through the air, lifting the hair on the back of my neck.

Orlanda’s angry voice fell against my ears like the crack of a whip. “You spoke very differently not long ago, when you needed my aid to flee the bandits’ den! What of those loving, admiring words with which you addressed me? Were you playing me false?”

Through my terror, I managed to find my tongue. “I loved a mortal girl,” I said. “I loved a mortal girl who climbed trees and played the mandola and left me in burning hope of sweet kisses. Yet now it seems that girl is something different than what I had believed.”

Her anger faded. “I am that girl,” she said. “I may be that girl or any girl whosoever you choose. But,” she conceded, finally, “if you have questions, ask.”

I composed my whirling thoughts, and of the many questions that crowded my brain, I asked the one I deemed most harmless. “Why am I bearing this load of silver?” I said. “What use will you make of it? Is there some great hoard in your house?”

“There must be an exchange,” she said, “that is all. To live in my world, you must bring something of value. The silver was at hand.”

I remembered the story of Menasso, and what part of himself the goddess Sylvia had demanded as a toll in her domaine, and I felt grateful for my brief stay in the bandits’ treasury. I asked the question that was both of greatest import, and perhaps the greatest peril.

“How much time will lapse in this mortal world while our wedding night passes beneath the hill?”

“I hope it will be long,” Orlanda said. “For its duration depends on the strength of our desire, and how long that desire may be prolonged and renewed and protracted and satisfied and re-satisfied before our love reaches its uttermost, if temporary, satiation.” And, seeing me about to ask another question, she pressed her fingers to my lips, and said, “If you leave my house after that night, you will indeed be an exile in whatever world you find. No one will remember you, and no one will believe your story.” She took her hand away, then raised warm lips to mine and kissed me. “Therefore do not go, and stay with me for night after night, for song and revels and dance, for raiment of rich fabrics sewn with gems, for the long span of life I can grant, and for the many long nights of mutual pleasure that will be ours beneath the eternal stars.”

She kissed me again, and the taste of her lips made my mind whirl. But I forced my thoughts into the form of words.

“And if I choose to take up my worldly duties, and decline this sublime offer you have made? Will you curse me, or pursue me into the world on some mission of vengeance?”

Her eyes flashed again, and she took a step back. “I cannot answer your question,” she said, “for no man has ever refused my favors.”

I took her hands and raised them, and kissed the warm, fragrant skin. “I would give you anything in thanks for my rescue,” I said, “anything but spending all my days as your lodger.”

Orlanda’s face blazed with fury and scorn. “It is your ambition that is behind this refusal!”

Against her power I could summon only the truth. “I will not deny it.”

Nor would I put into words my other thought, that I had not escaped slavery at the hands of the Aekoi to become the house-pet of a capricious nymph.

She gazed at me with eyes both cold and magnificent. “Adventure and worldly power you may have,” she said, “but it will be swept away. Love you will have, but it will thrive only in the shadow of death, and the grave will be its end.”

My blood ran chill. “Is that your curse?”

“Pah! As if I needed to expend an ounce of my power to make this augury!” Her lip curled. “You are cursed only as all other men are cursed, to death and misery and futile striving.”

I kissed her hands again, but her fists were clenched.

“I esteem you above all others,” I said, “and I would give you anything but this one thing.”

“The only thing that matters.” She gave me a cold look from her green eyes. “There will be a price for this decision of yours.”

“A dear price it is that I shall not see you again.”

A smile touched the corner of her mouth. “Perhaps,” she said, “that is not quite what I meant.” Orlanda drew her hands away, and pointed toward the trees that rimmed the hill. “There you will find the path that will take you down into the valley. From there, follow the stream until you reach the road. Turn left, and you will enter a village where you can find a horse, and then you may go about your precious, useless, pointless errand. The errand that leads only to the grave.”

“My lady.” I bowed deeply, and backed away from her until I reached the limit of her radiance, and then with a last look at the beautiful figure standing before me, I turned and walked into the woods. Whole worlds seemed to be crumbling around me.

The trail was plain in the moonlight, and I made good speed through the pines, which turned to aspen as I descended the slope, and then to willows as I reached the floor of the valley. A cold stream laughed and plashed alongside the narrow trail, which soon turned to a narrow cart-track. The sky in the east was brightening, and I found my heart surge. The farther I walked from Orlanda’s hill, the greater was my sensation of freedom and release; and after I found the promised village. There, I looked at the contents of my rucksack and was faintly surprised to discover that the silver had not vanished like the morning mist.

I rented a post-horse from the mean, wretched posting inn, and heard the sound of the hooves on the road, and as I felt the surge of the horse beneath me and the breath of freedom in my face, I laughed aloud.

Surrounded by a storm of falling leaves, I rode hard from stage to stage, changing horses at every stop, and paused only for the bread, meat, and beer that were offered me. None of the horses had the gliding gate of my palfrey, Toast, but they all carried me closer to the capital. And by afternoon I had left the steep, winding roads of the Toppings behind, and was in the fertile plain of the Saelle on a good road that ran straight as an arrow’s flight across the country.

I rode all day and through the night, and in the morning, when exhaustion overcame me, I rented a small, light carriage, and slept as the coachman drove through the day. As I drowsed, I realized that I was not scratching, and that Orlanda had given me a parting gift: I was no longer prey to vermin. By late afternoon I was riding again, passing through rich farmland, where smoke curled from the chimneys on every horizon, and workers picked apples from the groves. I paid a penny for a pearmain, and relished the sweet remembrance of home as I rode into the night.

Again I rode on past dawn and into the morning, and passed through villages large and small. At noon of that brilliant day, as the high sun glowed gold on the stubble of the fields, and the sky dappled with silver cloud, I came within sight of the walls of Selford, and on a bluff above the river beheld the white towers of the royal palace. There was a great crowd of people outside the walls, surging under a brilliant array of flags, and on a conical hill in the center of the mass I could see a tall canopy, striped red and gold, and beneath it a throne, and around the throne an array of men and women in silks and gay colors; and at once I knew that I had come to the capital on the day that the princess Berlauda would receive her crown, and reign as Duisland’s new Queen.