Suldrun's Garden

Chapter 16

IN A BELL-SHAPED CELL fourteen feet in diameter and seventy feet underground, days were differentiated by the most trivial circumstances: the drip of rain, the glimpse of blue sky, an extra crust in the rations. Aillas recorded the passage of days by placing pebbles on a ledge. Each ten pebbles in the "unit" area yielded a single pebble in the "ten" area. On the day after nine

"tens" and nine "units," Aillas placed a single pebble in the

"hundred" area.

He was fed a loaf of bread, a jug of water and either a bundle of carrots or turnips, or a head of cabbage, every three days, by means of a basket lowered from above.

Aillas often wondered how long he would live. At first he lay inert, in apathy. At last, with vast effort, he forced himself to exercise: pushing, pulling, jumping, tumbling. As his muscular tone returned, so rose his morale. Escape: not impossible. But how? He tried scratching handholds into the stone wall; the proportions and cross section of the cell guaranteed failure for this approach. He tried to lift the stones of the floor, that he might pile them and so reach the shaft, but the joints were too tight and the blocks too heavy: another program he was forced to discard.

The days passed, one by one, and the months. In the garden the days and months also passed and Suldrun swelled with the child conceived by Aillas and herself.

King Casmir had forbidden the garden to all but a deaf-mute kitchen maid.

Brother Umphred however considered himself, a priest of the cloth, exempt from the ban, and visited Suldrun after about three months.

Hoping for news Suldrun tolerated his presence, but Brother Umphred could tell her nothing. He suspected that Aillas had felt the full weight of King Casmir's wrath, and since this was also Suldrun's belief, she put no more questions. Brother Umphred attempted a few half-hearted intimacies, at which Suldrun went into the chapel and closed the door. And Brother Umphred departed without noticing that Suldrun already had started to swell.

Three months later he returned and now Suldrun's condition was evident.

Brother Umphred made the sly observation: "Suldrun, my dear, you are becoming stout."

Without words Suldrun once more rose to her feet and went into the chapel.

Brother Umphred sat a few moments in deep reflection, then went to consult his register. He calculated forward from the date of marriage and arrived at a tentative birth-date. Since conception had occurred several weeks before the marriage, his date was just so much in error, a detail which escaped Brother Umphred's attention. The great fact was pregnancy: how best could he profit from this choice item of knowledge which seemed known only to himself?

Further weeks passed by. Brother Umphred contrived a hundred schemes, but none gained him advantage and he held his tongue.

Suldrun well understood Brother Umphred's calculations. Her concern grew as her time approached. Sooner or later Brother Umphred must sidle up to King Casmir and, in that unlikely mingling of humility and impudence, disclose her precious secret.

What then? Her imagination dared not venture so far. Whatever might happen would not be to her liking.

The time grew short. In a sudden panic Suldrun scrambled up the hillside and over the wall. She hid herself where she could watch the peasants on their way to and from the market.

On the second day she intercepted Ehirme, who, after whispered exclamations of astonishment climbed over the stones and into the garden. She wept and hugged Suldrun, and demanded to know what had gone wrong with the plan to escape. All had been in readiness!

Suldrun explained as best she coukl.

"What of Aillas?"

Suldrun knew nothing. The silence was sinister. Aillas must be considered dead. Together they wept anew and Ehirme cursed the unnatural tyrant who would visit such misery upon his daughter.

Ehirme calculated months and days. She judged time against cycles of the moon, and so determined when Suldrun most likely would give birth. The time was near: perhaps five days, perhaps ten; no more, and all without a vestige of preparation.

"You shall run away again, tonight!" declared Ehirme.

Wistfully Suldrun rejected the idea. "You are the first they would think of, and terrible things would happen."

"What of the child? They will take it away from you."

Once more Suldrun could not restrain tears and Ehirme held her close. "Listen now to a crafty thought! My niece is a halfwit; three times she has come pregnant by the stable-boy, another halfwit.

The first two infants died at once, from sheer confusion. She is already cramping and presently will deliver her third brat, which no one, least of all herself, wants. Be of good cheer!

Somehow we shall rescue the situation."

Suldrun said sadly: "There is very little now to rescue."

"We shall see!"

Ehirme's niece bore her brat: a girl, according to external evidence. Like its predecessors, it went into convulsions, emitted a few squeaks and died face down in its own discharges.

The corpse was packed into a box, over which—since the niece had been persuaded to Christianity—Brother Umphred intoned a few pious words, and the box was taken off by Ehirme for burial.

At noon of the following day Suldrun went into labor. Close on sunset, haggard, hollow-eyed but relatively cheerful, she gave birth to a son whom she named Dhrun, after a Danaan hero who ruled the worlds of Arcturus.

Ehirme washed Dhrun well and dressed him in clean linens. Late in the evening she returned with a small box. Up under the olive trees she dug a shallow grave into which she unceremoniously slid the dead infant. She broke the box and burnt it in the fireplace.

Suldrun lay on her couch watching with big eyes.

Ehirme waited until the flames died low and the baby slept. "Now I must leave. I will not tell you where Dhrun will go, so that, in all cases, he will be safe from Casmir. In a month or two, or three, you will disappear, and go to your baby and live thereafter, so I hope, without sorrow."

Suldrun said softly: "Ehirme, I fear!"

Ehirme hunched up her heavy shoulders. "In truth, I fear too. But whatever happens, we have done our best."

Brother Umphred sat at a small table of ebony and ivory, across from Queen Sollace. With great concentration he studied a set of wooden tablets, each carved with hermetic import understood only by Brother Umphred. To either side of the table burned candles of bayberry wax.

Brother Umphred leaned forward as if in astonishment. "Can it be?

Another child born into the royal family?"

Queen Sollace uttered a throaty laugh. "There, Umphred, is either jest or nonsense."

"The signs are clear. A blue star hangs in the grotto of the nymph Merleach. Cambianus ascends to the seventh; here, there—see them now!—are other nascents. No other meaning is plausible. The time is now. My dear queen, you must summon an escort and make inspection. Let your wisdom be the test!"

"'Inspection'? Do you mean ..." Sollace's voice trailed off into surmise.

"I know only what the tablets tell me."

Sollace heaved herself to her feet and summoned ladies from the adjoining parlor. "Come! Whim is on me to walk out of doors."

The group, chattering, laughing and complaining of the untoward exercise, marched up the arcade, sidled through the postern and picked their way down through the rocks to the chapel.

Suldrun appeared. Immediately she knew why they had come.

Queen Sollace gave her a critical inspection. "Suldrun, what is all this nonsense?"

"What nonsense, royal mother?"

"That you were pregnant with child. I see that this is not so, for which I give thanks. Priest, your tablets have deceived you!"

"Madame, the tablets are seldom wrong."

"But you can see for yourself!"

Brother Umphred frowned and pulled at his chin. "She is not now pregnant, so it would seem."

Queen Sollace stared at him a moment then swept to the chapel and looked within. "There is no child here."

"Then it would seem to be elsewhere."

Now exasperated, Queen Sollace swung upon Suldrun. "Once and for all, let us have the truth of this!"

Brother Umphred added thoughtfully, "If collusion exists, it can easily be discovered."

Suldrun turned Brother Umphred a glance of contempt. "I gave birth to a daughter. She opened her eyes on the world; she saw the cruelty in which life must be lived, and closed her eyes again. I buried her yonder in great sorrow."

Queen Sollace made a gesture of frustration and signaled a page boy. "Fetch the king; this is a matter for his attention, not mine. I would never have pent the girl here in the first place."

King Casmir arrived, already in a foul humor which he masked behind a face of somber impassivity.

King Casmir stared at Suldrun. "What are the facts?"

"I bore a child. She died."

Desmei's prediction, in regard to Suldrun's first-born son, jerked to the forefront of Casmir's mind. "Girl? A girl?"

For Suldrun deception was difficult. She nodded. "I buried her on the hillside."

King Casmir looked around the circle of faces and pointed to Umphred. "You, priest, with your dainty marriages and mincing cant: you are the man for this job. Bring hither the corpse."

Boiling with fury he could not express, Brother Umphred humbly bowed his head and went to the grave. In the final rays of afternoon, he pulled aside the black mold with delicate white hands. A foot below the surface he found the linen cloth in which the dead infant had been wrapped. As he dug away the dirt the cloth fell open to reveal the head. Brother Umphred paused in his digging. Through his mind passed a swift set of images and echoes of past confrontations. The images and echoes broke and vanished.

He' lifted the dead infant in its cloth and carried it to the chapel and placed it before King Casmir.

For an instant Brother Umphred looked toward Suldrun and met her gaze, and in that single glance conveyed to her all the bitter hurt her remarks across the years had done to him.

"Sire," said the priest, "here is the corpse of a female infant.

It is not Suldrun's child. I performed final rites over this child three or four days ago. It is the bastard of one Megweth, by the groom Ralf."

King Casmir uttered a terse bark of laughter. "And I was so to be deceived?" He looked toward his entourage and pointed to a sergeant. "Take priest and corpse to the mother and learn the truth of this matter. If the infants have been transferred, bring with you the living child."

The visitors departed the garden, leaving Suldrun alone in the light of a waxing moon.

The sergeant, with Brother Umphred, visited Megweth, who gave quick information that the corpse had been given into the care of Ehirme for burial.

The sergeant returned to Haidion not only with Megweth, but also Ehirme.

Ehirme spoke humbly to King Casmir. "Sire, if I have done wrong, be sure that my reason was only love for your blessed daughter the Princess Suldrun, who does not deserve the woe of her life."

King Casmir lowered his eyelids. "Woman, are you declaring that my judgment in regard to the disobedient Suldrun is incorrect?"

"Sire, I speak not from disrespect, but from faith that you wish to hear truth from your subjects. I do believe that you were far too harsh on the poor bit of a girl. I beg you to let her live a happy life with her own child: She will thank you for the mercy, as will I and all your subjects, for she has in her entire life never done a wrong."

The room was silent. Everyone furtively watched King Casmir, who in his turn pondered... The woman of course was right, thought Casmir. Now to show mercy was equivalent to the admission that he had indeed dealt harshly with his daughter. He could discern no graceful retreat. With mercy impractical, he could only reaffirm his previous position.

"Ehirme, your loyalty is commendable. I can only wish that my daughter had given me a similar service. I will not here and now review her case, nor explain the apparent severity of her punishment, save to state that, as a royal princess her first duty is to the kingdom.

"We will discuss this matter no longer. I now refer to that child borne by Princess Suldrun in what seems to have been lawful wedlock, which makes the child legitimate, hence a subject for my dutiful concern. I must now ask the seneschal to send you out with a suitable escort, that we may have the child here at Haidion where it belongs."

Ehirme blinked indecisively. "May I ask, sire, without giving offense: what of Princess Suldrun, since the child is hers?"

Again King Casmir pondered his reply; again he spoke gently. "You are properly steadfast in your concern for the errant princess.

"First, as to the marriage, I now declare it void, null and contrary to the interests of the state, though the child can only be considered legitimate. As for Princess Suldrun, I will go so far: if she submissively declares her wrong-doing, if she will affirm an intent to act henceforth in full obedience to my orders, she may return to Haidion, and assume the condition of mother to her child. But first and immediately we shall fetch the child."

Ehirme licked her lips, wiped her nose with the back of her hand, looked to right, then to left. She said in a tentative voice:

"Your Majesty's edict is very good. I beg your leave to bring these words of hope to the Princess Suldrun, and lessen her grief.

May I just run now to the garden?"

King Casmir gave a grim nod. "You may do so, as soon as we know where to find the child."

"Your Majesty, I cannot reveal her secret! In your generosity, bring her here and tell her the good news!"

King Casmir's eyelids dropped the sixteenth part of an inch. "Do not put loyalty to the princess above duty to me, your king. I ask you the question once more only. Where is the child?"

Ehirme croaked, "Sire, I beg that you put the question to Suldrun."

King Casmir gave a small jerk of the head and twitch of the hand: signals adequately familiar to those who served him, and Ehirme was led from the hall.

During the night Suldrun's sleep, fitful at the best, was disturbed by a periodic mad howling from the Peinhador. She could not identify the quality of the sound, and tried to ignore it.

Padraig, Ehirme's third son, rushed across the Urquial to the Peinhador and flung himself upon Zerling. "No more! She will not tell you, but I will! Only now have I returned from Glym-wode, where I took the cursed brat; there you will find it."

Zerling suspended torment upon the sprawled mound of flesh, and informed King Casmir, who instantly sent a party of four knights and two wet nurses in a carriage to retrieve the child. Then he asked Zerling: "Did the message come through the woman's mouth?"

"No, your Majesty. She will not speak."

"Prepare to cut a hand and a foot each from her husband and sons, unless she passes the words through her mouth."

Ehirme saw the grisly preparations through filmed eyes. Zerling said: "Woman, a party is on its way to bring the child back from Glymwode. The king insists that, in order to obey his command, you respond to the question; otherwise your husband and sons must each lose a hand and foot. I ask you: where is the child?"

Padraig cried out: "Speak, mother! Silence has no more meaning!"

Ehirme said in a heavy croak, "The baby is at Glymwode. There, you have it."

Zerling loosed the men and sent them out into the Urquial. Then he took a pincers, pulled Ehirme's tongue from her head and slit it in two. With red-hot iron he seared the wound to staunch the blood, and such was Casmir's final penalty upon Ehirme.

In the garden the first day went by slowly, instant after hesitant instant, each approaching diffidently, as if on tiptoe, to hurry across the plane of the present and lose itself among the glooms and shadows of the past.

The second day was hazy, less breathless, but the air hung heavy with portent.

The third day, still hazy, seemed sluggish and drained of sensibility, yet somehow innocent and sweet, as if ready for renewal. On this day Suldrun went slowly about the garden, pausing at times to touch the trunk of a tree, or the face of a stone.

With head bent she walked the length of her beach, and only once paused to look to sea. Then she climbed the path, to sit among the ruins.

The afternoon passed: a golden dreaming time, and the stone cliffs encompassed the whole of the universe.

The sun sank softly and quietly. Suldrun nodded pensively, as if here were elucidation of an uncertainty, though tears coursed down her cheeks.

The stars appeared. Suldrun descended to the old lime tree and, in the dim light of the stars, she hanged herself. The moon, rising over the ridge, shone on a limp form and a sad sweet face, already preoccupied with her new knowledge.