A Princess of Sorts

by Wilma van Wyngaarden

  “They would be better to stay here.” Sergeant Brit’s voice was sullen. “There is a stream just over that hill for the horses to drink.”

  “You men stay here then.” Mako urged his horse on after Brit’s. Two horses made less noise than five.

  When he looked back, the three soldiers from his Guard were still on their horses looking after them intently. He waved back with a gesture meant to reassure them. When he followed Brit around the next stand of trees, they were still standing there looking after him.

  Mako’s horse followed Brit’s as he turned up a narrow winding track and followed it for another mile or two. He wondered what sort of a village they were about to enter, and why the inhabitants had stayed when life here could only be difficult and lonely.

  Brit pointed ahead without speaking, and Mako’s eyes followed the gesture, seeing a drift of smoke rising above the trees ahead. They crested the last hill and entered a clearing that held a small number of wooden houses on stone foundations and a few smaller barns and sheds. It appeared deserted. Even the smoke was no longer visible.

  Mako sat his horse calmly and waited for Brit’s next move, looking casually around at the dwellings, counting three small ones barely more than shacks, a two-story log house built into the hillside, and another with a porch and dormer windows indicating a loft under the roof. The last was well kept and tidy, with a stack of wood on the porch. All the others showed neglect, from weeds standing high around them to roofs needing repair. A narrow, rocky stream ran through the middle of the clearing, with a footbridge over it indicating a wider waterway at times. Off to the side was a garden, with a high wattle fence around it, and a sturdy gate.

  Brit gave a loud whistle, waited and then gave another.

  He slid from his horse. “They’re wary of strangers coming up the hill – can’t blame them, can I.” He looked around, waiting.

  The front door of the house with the porch opened. A sturdy woman, dressed in a rough peasant dress and a well-used apron, peered out. Her reddish hair was pulled back under a kerchief. “Is it you, Brit?”

  “It is.”

  “What is it you want, Brit?” Her voice had an accusing tone.

  He ducked his head for a moment. “I sent a message!”

  “It was a senseless message. Now here you are with another soldier. Go back to your soldiering.”

  “Zara,” he said in a wheedling tone. “I need to talk to my pa and my granny.”

  “No one is here. They’re busy making hay... until dinnertime. Go!”

  Brit gave her a look from under his dark brows. “I will not go.”

  “Suit yourself.” She withdrew into the house and shut the door. A moment later smoke began to drift from the chimney again.

  Brit handed his horse’s reins to Mako without comment. He stepped up onto the porch and raised his voice. “Where is my granny, Zara? Not up the hillsides raking hay, I know!”

  “Not here,” came the faint response from inside. “Go away, I’m cooking for those who are working!”

  “The king is dead – murdered. There’s trouble in the land. I need to talk to my granny.”

  The door was snatched open. “Trouble in the land, is there? Do not bring your trouble here, Brit! The king is nothing to us – his kin left these hills several lifetimes ago. Were you not warned?”

  “Warned of what?”

  “Of leaving. When you leave these hills, you leave for good!”

  “I am back. I have brought the queen’s chancellor himself.” He gestured toward Mako, who was still on his horse, without looking at him.

  Zara, rubbing floury hands on her apron, gave Mako a hard stare.

  “We have heard of the new chancellor who has stepped into the king’s place.”

  “He needs to consult with my pa and my granny.”

  “He would not know of your pa and your granny... unless you had told him!”

  “Yes, I told him!” snapped Brit, finally losing patience. “I’ve seen things even you can not spit on, Zara! This is the queen’s chancellor, who is... is...” He looked at Mako for help.

  “The queen’s right-hand officer,” he answered promptly. He addressed Zara. “Not the king. I am here to ask for help.”

  “You will find no help here! Go!”

  “Good Goddess! ... Zara thinks she runs these hills,” Brit said bitterly to Mako. He raised his voice to a roar. “GRANNY!”

  There was a sound from above. Mako looked up. One of the attic windows creaked open and a tiny old woman peered out brightly, leaning with both hands on the windowsill. Her long gray hair hung in thick braids, and she seemed to still have most of her teeth.

  Brit stepped off the porch and looked up. “Granny!” he said with relief.

  With an exclamation of disgust, Zara went back inside and slammed the wooden door.

  “Brit! Is it you indeed?”

  “It’s me. I need your help.”

  “Zara said you sent us a strange message,” she told him.

  “These are strange times, Granny! Can you come down?”

  “Your message talked of magic. Why magic?”

  “It’s the priests. The court priests. They are... were... playing with some kind of magic.”

  “I cannot help you with that,” she said regretfully. “Our Goddess would not like it.” She withdrew and closed the window.

  “Granny!” The window remained closed. Brit gave Mako a frustrated stare. He went back onto the porch and hammered on the door. Zara jerked it open.

  A moment later the two were screaming at each other, their faces a few inches apart. Mako gathered it was not the first time these two had gone head to head.

  “Sergeant! Sergeant! SERGEANT!”

  Silence fell abruptly and both heads turned toward him.

  “Sergeant Brit, have some respect for the lady!”

  Brit’s mouth dropped open in protest. “That’s no lady... that’s my mother!”

  “Soldier!” Mako raised his voice. “Fifteen pushups! Now!”

  Brit, wiry and fit, dropped to the porch floor and performed fifteen pushups in a blur of motion. When he was done he popped back to his feet with one spring-like motion and stood rigid. Zara wore an expression of bemusement.

  Mako’s voice cracked like a whip. “Next time, soldier, it will be a hundred!”

  “Yes, sir!”

  Mako dismounted from his horse, beckoned Brit off the porch and handed him the reins to both horses. “Why is she angry?” he asked quietly, his back turned to the woman on the porch.

  “Because I went,” Brit muttered.

  Mako waited.

  “Only old people are left – besides one other. My two sisters married and left. Their children... and mine if I had some... are not here to...” He stopped.

  “ ‘To’?” Mako repeated.

  Brit dropped his eyes. “... to tend the Goddess’s spring.” He made a small gesture, hidden from his mother, indicating a direction over the hill. “It is only young girls who tend the Goddess’s spring... no one takes care of it now.”

  “I see. Everything has fallen apart.”

  “There is nothing to hold together!”

  “Hmmm,” said Mako. He turned away from Sergeant Brit and looked again around the impoverished village, aware now that the three smaller shacks were probably vacant.

  “Lady Zara,” he raised his voice to the woman who still stood on the porch, an inward and pained expression on her face. She met his glance and raised her brows with a tilt of her chin in a query. Not giving up yet, he noted.

  “How many people live in your village?”

  Her face twisted. “Three others. My husband, an old cousin of his, and another who is sadly foolish but helps with the work.”

  Several brown or tri-colored goats came bounding down the hill, kicking up their heels and bleating. The two horses shied a few steps.

  “Get lost!” Brit bellowed. The goats stopped and stared. He waved an arm at them and sent them leaping away
between the houses to stop in the shade.

  The presence of the goats explained the sturdy garden fence, Mako realized.

  Zara went to the side of the porch and looked up the hill, where three men were now descending in the goats’ wake.

  “Why are you back so early?” she called out accusingly.

  The man who answered had a look of total dejection. “The horse has died,” he said. “We left the cart there. Us three alone cannot bring it back down.”

  A trail of emotions fought their way across Zara’s face. Finally, she said with bitterness, “How did it die?” She stepped off the porch and sat down heavily on the edge of it.

  The man, an older version of Brit, but moving stiffly, shrugged wordlessly. The other, thin, bent and even older than the first, said in a high tone from his toothless mouth, “It just laid down and died, Zara. It be almost as old as we.”

  The third man, who was younger than the others, produced an exaggerated shrug but said nothing. All three eyed Mako and Brit without enthusiasm.

  “Brit,” said the first man and gave him a somber nod. Brit nodded back. “Pa.”

  “Well,” said Mako, attempting to break the mood of utter hopelessness. “I see we have arrived at an opportune moment. I have three more soldiers a mile or two back. Brit, go and fetch them. They can make themselves useful.”

  No one argued. After a moment’s hesitation, Brit swung aboard his horse and left the hamlet at a fast trot.

  “Lady Zara,” Mako began again. “Is this your whole village?”

  “Them and Brit’s granny upstairs. Her mind wanders, but her feet can’t.” She jerked her head in the direction Brit had taken, adding bitterly, “Him and his sisters are gone. There is no one to...”

  “No one to look after the Goddess’s spring,” supplied Mako.

  Zara glared at him. “It is no wonder that there is trouble in the land! Or that sorcerers begin to rise unchecked!”

  Her husband shuffled uneasily, turning away to stare over the valley below.

  “I am here...” Mako began, choosing his words carefully. “I am looking for information. I am not sure what to think when Rellant’s priests betray the kingdom in a bid for power. And when I am told that the realm next to us – Gryor – is already well away on the same path. That the evils growing in Gryor are a danger to our own land.”

  “We have heard that yon wicked Queen Maris sat hand-in-hand with the priests,” said Zara.

  Mako nodded. “The king did not see everything that went on in his castle. In the end, his disregard led to his betrayal.”

  “We also hear our new queen is mad.”

  “There is no madness in our new queen... those lies were put about by the late queen. In fact...” he hesitated, then took the plunge. “Queen Scylla’s life was saved three, possibly four times by a trellet.”

  “A trellet!” Zara exclaimed in sudden shock. She glared at him. “I do not believe it!”

  “I have seen it with my own eyes. It is the trellet who warned of ‘ancient evils swirling through the land’.”

  “You should not keep a trellet!”

  “Believe me, it is not I who is keeping it! The trellet follows Queen Scylla around. One never knows when it will pop up.”

  Zara and the others were all staring at him.

  “You call them sorcerers... My sergeant Brit was on guard and witnessed the priests throwing some sort of lightning at the castle wall. They damaged it... broke the wall. I do not understand it.”

  Zara could not take her eyes off him. “Brit? Brit saw the sorcerers?”

  “He was the only eye witness. I did not believe him at first, but I have come to the understanding that he saw what he saw.”

  “Dear Goddess,” Zara whispered, her gaze going inward. “We are living in dangerous times!”

  “We need to stop the priests’ faction. Several of the priests are dead, and we have seized their house and their books. So far we are unable to make any sense of the books.”

  “Destroy the sorcerers’ books – they should be burned! The sorcerers study ancient books in search of knowledge and power. They do not worship the Goddess, although they may say they do. They worship only power... and power only for themselves.” Zara’s eyes burned with fervor.

  “I am certain you speak the truth. We in Rellant have been warned of the danger spreading from Gryor.” He hesitated, wondering how much to tell her. “Queen Scylla has appointed a War Council, which includes myself and others. We hear the corrupt priests of Gryor’s court have seized power and are acting more openly in that kingdom. We are developing a plan of action... we will not sit quietly and disregard the threats.”

  “And you are here... to ask for advice?” Zara drew a long breath and stared out over the valley.

  “Well... Brit was torn between protecting his family from persecution... and knowing you may be able to help.” He met her eyes blandly.

  “You may be a powerful man,” Zara said slowly. “But against the sorcerers in Gryor, you may find you have no power at all.”

  Mako winced despite himself. “There you have it! I am here to ask for help.”

  “Hmmm.” Zara stood up. “This is something that will have to be considered. Meanwhile...” She glared at him, eye to eye, with some of her previous aggression. “The Goddess’s spring is neglected. There is no one to tend it!”

  “I have been thinking about that.” He gestured at the three smaller shacks. “Who lives in those?”

  “No one.” Her husband and his cousin echoed her words, and the non-verbal younger man shook his head sadly.

  “Let me think on this. May I have a look at the houses?” Mako asked. “Meanwhile, here come my soldiers. Escort them up to your hay cart and see what they can do to bring it down.”

  “I need to get back to the kitchen.” Zara went back into the house.

  The men climbed back up the hill, the soldiers following on horseback. Mako, his horse’s reins over his arm, inspected the houses and opened the doors to peer in. They were small and shabby, little more than shelter from the weather. Dust lay over the sparse furnishings, and spider webs hung from the beams. When he was done, he walked back to the porch and took his horse’s saddle off. From his saddlebags, he took a pair of hobbles and put them on the horse’s front legs. He removed the bridle and set the horse free to graze in the yard.

  “Pssst!” He heard a sound from the window above the porch and looked up.

  Brit’s granny was leaning out of the open window. She beckoned for him to come closer. “Did I hear you have a trellet?” she asked in a loud whisper.

  “Not I,” he returned the whisper. “The queen has one that she is planning to return to the forest.”

  “Can you bring it here?” The bright eyes in the impish elderly face looked down at him eagerly. “It has been such a long time since I saw a trellet! They can not live, you know, unless they are in the deep forest.”

  “So I hear.” And I have heard it over and over, he sighed to himself. And that they are nasty, very nasty! “What is the significance of a trellet?”

  “Oh, it is a sign of very good fortune, very good luck – and beneficial to the person who has one!”

  “Do people try to capture them?”

  Granny’s eyes widened in alarm. “Oh, no! Of course not! But if you have one...” her voice trailed away and she stared off in the distance. She looked as if she were lost in a dream, a very pleasant one.

  “Well, Queen Scylla has one. It has saved her life at least three times.”

  “What a wonderful omen! The queen is likely to have a very long and successful reign ... tell her to do only good – what she does will be returned to her several times over.” Her gray head began to withdraw, but then she poked it out again. “Do tell the queen that she is very welcome to bring the trellet here if she needs a forest in which to return it! It has been a long, long time since I have heard of anyone finding one.”

  “I will remember that,” he said, making a
mental note to tell Queen Scylla that the fewer people alerted to the trellet’s return to the forest, the better. The attic window closed.

  Mako’s gaze dropped to the porch. Zara was standing in the open doorway, eyeing him sardonically.

  “Your new queen will need all the luck she can find... if she is up against yon coven of sorcerers in Gryor!”

  “Then it is an excellent thing she has a trellet, would you not agree?”

  She gave him a thoughtful stare, and then a slow nod. “It is a very good sign.” Her head tilted and she nodded to herself a time or two, pondering it. “Very good... yes. Now, Chancellor...” Her expression hardened. “Why are you inspecting the houses?”

  “I am thinking of sending some homeless children to you. Orphans ... there are a number of feral children living around the castle village.”

  “I do not have the means to feed more hungry mouths!” she snapped.

  “This is how I see it... A home for homeless children. The queen will send up supplies, and a soldier or two will stay here on... say... a weekly rotation. They can help with the heavy work and repairs.”

  “Only young girls can tend the Goddess’s spring,” she said harshly. “My girls outgrew the task.”

  “I will send up both young girls and boys, also a maid or two to help look after them. You may teach the girls to tend the spring. I do not know what it entails. ”

  “I do.”

  “And teach the boys some skills. Perhaps some will stay. If not, I am sure there will be an ongoing supply of homeless children. Put the girls in one shack, the boys in another, and the soldiers in the third.”

  “Well,” she said and skewered him with her sharp gaze. “Well.” It was the most she would give him.

  “Well, Lady Zara – do what you can!”

  Her only reply was a snort. She went back inside the house and closed the door. Some minutes later she returned with a hand pie. “Fresh out of the oven,” she warned him. “Do not burn your mouth, Chancellor!”

  Mako, feeling as if it had been a very long day already and not entirely productive, sat down on the edge of the porch and waited for the pastry to cool off.