The Poet King

by Ilana C. Myer

  The lady greeted her lord with an embrace and a kiss. “You have had a successful venture out, it would seem,” she said as she stepped back.

  “Twenty deer,” he said. “And now, we feast.”

  The air was soon filled with the smell of venison from the kitchen as the cooks prepared the meal. Supper was an even greater affair than it had been the previous night. Once again, the lord and lady chatted politely; the King announcing his intent to ride out again on the morrow.

  So it was startling when the King turned suddenly to Dorn, whom he’d ignored until then, and said, “So how did you find my castle today, Dorn Arrin? Did my lady make you welcome?”

  With effort, Dorn kept his face impassive. He felt like a stone was lodged in his throat. “Quite,” he said. “You are both more than generous.”

  “The duty to honor poets is sacred,” said the King. “Traditions must be observed.”

  Dorn thought of what the lady had meant to do for him that morning in the bedchamber, and thought honor was one way of putting it. He hoped nothing of his thoughts showed in his face. It was hard to believe this ordinary fellow was an immortal King, but it would be deadly to forget.

  After dinner he sang for them again. When it was time for sleep, the same bath awaited in his chamber, scented, steaming as if it had just been drawn. The bed turned down invitingly for the night. This time when he slept he dreamed, a confusion of images from the day. Last he saw was the pendant with the double spiral swinging on its chain.

  He awoke to the sun in his eyes and the lady standing at the window. She had drawn back the drapes to let in the daylight. It shone directly in his face so he had to squint to see her. She wore a dress that seemed studded in its entirety with diamonds, low-cut and revealing every curve. Dorn came awake quickly, alert at once.

  “Good morning,” he said with desperate cheeriness. “I suppose it’s time for breakfast?”

  “It will be a fine day.” She dimpled at him. “And later, a fine night for thievery, don’t you think?”

  “Of course,” he said. “Though perhaps you shouldn’t say that so loudly.”

  “My husband left at dawn for the hunt,” she said. She came away from the window to sit on the bed. “We may plot, and scheme, and do as we like. As loudly as we like.”

  “I’ll sing for you again,” he said. “If you just let me to my clothes.”

  She slid nearer on the bed. “You are a puzzle.”

  “Look,” he said. “I don’t want to die. Is this … is this something you require, for my life?”

  She looked hurt. “We have a bargain. I wouldn’t break my word.”

  “Thank you,” he said. “I’m truly grateful. So please, let me to my clothes and I will sing. We’ll have breakfast. We can play games or walk in the garden. Whatever else you like.”

  “But what about what you would like, Dorn Arrin?” She was looking at him clear-eyed, with earnestness. “There must be something you want. And you know, I can be anything.”

  She had changed in the moment she spoke. Now Etherell Lyr sat at the foot of the bed.

  Dorn could hardly breathe. He pulled the covers to himself. “Stop it,” he choked. “Get out of my mind.”

  The man at the foot of the bed spoke in the voice Dorn knew. “But isn’t this what you want? And why shouldn’t you have it?” He edged nearer, until he was sitting beside Dorn on the bed. He lay a hand on his chest. A move reminiscent of the lady, but this was not her, not in any tangible way. The voice was right. Even the familiar scent. He was dressed finely, like a prince, but not too fine. He looked himself in every way.

  “I shouldn’t have it,” said Dorn, with effort, “because it’s not real.”

  The man raised a hand to play with Dorn’s hair. “Real enough. Trust me,” he said, and flashed the grin that was all too familiar. “You’ll know it well enough, before I’m done with you.”

  He was almost on top of Dorn now, though the covers were between them. “And why should Sendara have all I have to give, and not the person who loves me truly—who has loved me for years?”

  Dorn turned his head away. He was trying not to cry. “I don’t know how you know these things,” he said. “But it’s wrong to use your power this way, lady.”

  And now she was herself again, if there was a self that could be said to be her; she was a woman again, at any rate. Sitting beside him on the bed in her shimmering dress. She reached to touch the corner of his eye, with a look of wonder tasted his tear. She said, “You are so strange. Why would your heart’s desire cause you grief?”

  “Please,” he said, flinching from her. “This is too much.”

  She squeezed his shoulder. “Dress, then,” she said. “Though it pains me to let you go on, so unhappy, without giving you what you wish.”

  Now he could only laugh, albeit shakily. “So you are trying to be kind. That’s unexpected.”

  When he was dressed—this time in white and silver, which again fit perfectly, she said, “Sing to me of love. I know poets have a thousand different ways to describe it. I would hear how it sounds from you.”

  So he chose a love ballad among the many there were, and sang it to her. And then they went out to breakfast, and walked in the garden again. Before he knew it, it was evening and the hounds and horns were announcing the return of the King. Dorn Arrin felt a chill, as if they announced his fate instead. It was, after all, his last evening here, when much would be decided.

  The King came in, sodden and muddy, but pleased. “My dear,” he said when his wife greeted him at the door. “I have had quite a victory today. The white boar that has been about our forest is caught at last.”

  She clapped her hands. “How appropriate for the New Year’s Eve feast. I will have the cooks set to work at once.”

  “Yes,” he said. “And order them to set a fourth place setting. We will have a guest, in addition to our poet friend.”

  She smiled into his eyes, as if to share something private. “But of course,” she said. “On this of all nights. She comes.”

  The words made Dorn’s hairs prickle a warning. But surely…? But no, he was right. That evening, when the table was set for four, a knock came at the door. The lady was playing with the hounds, while Dorn read a book of poetry that was, at last, in words he could read. A loan from the head of the household. The King, changed into clean apparel, was reading from his black book at the desk. In all, the scene was very like the one Dorn had arrived to days before.

  When the servant opened the door a cold wind blew in, a pale winter light shone inside. A rich voice Dorn Arrin knew too well said, “What a delightful place.”

  And then she was there, the White Queen.

  The King had risen from his seat. “Be welcome,” he said with a bow. “Now let’s to our dinner.”

  Dorn’s thoughts were racing. What was she doing here? She did not acknowledge him; she swept by to the dining table. He had forgotten how tall she was, and how she terrified him. It seemed absurd that she was the opponent of this unassuming man who hosted them. But by now he knew appearances were deceiving.

  The boar was enormous, nearly half the size of the long table and served on a gargantuan silver plate. To accompany it there was, as usual, a seemingly endless parade of dishes.

  For the White Queen was brought a special dish on a gold platter, which the servant proffered with a bow. A slab of red meat, raw on the plate. She ate it with her hands, blood dripping from her jaws, eyes agleam. It ought to have been disgusting, but instead seemed to heighten her beauty. Dorn thought of a song he might compose, “Ode to the Huntress,” to capture what he felt as he watched the White Queen feasting, dripping blood.

  Once the plates were set aside and the Queen had cleansed herself with a basin of rosewater, she said, “Now to business. Though first I wish to compliment you on your household. The food is excellent, and the hall quite pleasant. Though I prefer the woods.”

  “Someday perhaps we will dine in your woodland halls to
gether,” said the King, impeccably polite. “Meanwhile. The appointed place and time. It is your turn, this time, to choose.”

  “You know these choices are not arbitrary,” said the Queen. “The stars align in ways that make some places, some times, auspicious. At any rate: the appointed time is the same as ever. Ten days hence. The place—there is a field between the mountains and desert to the east.”

  “I know the place.”

  “Within sight of the tallest mountain is where we’ll meet,” she said. “Your armies and mine.”

  “Done, then,” said the King. “For a beginning.”

  “Yes,” she said. “The start of our campaign. I hope for a bracing one this time. I crave a challenge. Last time we laid waste to the world too soon, it seemed to me, before I’d fully sampled its delights.”

  “There is value to efficiency,” said the King. “We have our differing priorities as ever.”

  She laughed.

  “Shall we have more wine?” said the King. “And then a song, before the final toast. Our drink to the New Year.”

  For the first time the Queen seemed to notice Dorn was there. “A song,” she said. “Yes. Sing, Dorn Arrin.” She rose from the table to approach him, bent to touch her lips to his forehead. He found a strange sensation filling him, like wine, but stronger, more intoxicating.

  She commanded him. “Sing of the end of the world.”

  So on that New Year’s Eve, Dorn stood before the Shadow King and White Queen and for the first time in many months, composed a song. He did so on the spot, words coming to him as the melody spilled from his hands. And as he did, he could not be sure if the words were his, or if they had been instilled in him through the White Queen’s kiss. But he knew one thing. As he sang of forests laid waste, mountains tumbling down, seas washing away the palaces and cities of the world, the grief was his alone.

  When he looked up—when it was over—the King and Queen looked not at him, but at each other. Both impassive. But the honey-haired lady looked his way, and it seemed to him there was compassion in her eyes, though for something distant; as if she contemplated a game animal—perhaps a deer or boar—about to die.

  They remained in the hall, the four of them, seated around the fire until midnight. Dorn was exhausted and alert at once. He and the Shadow King’s lady played a new game of cards. The deck depicted lords and ladies in the hunt. There were animals of the hunt—hawks, hounds, harts, foxes. The king wore black armor and carried an axe; the queen wore white, and bore a long, slender bow that reached the ground. It was hard for him to concentrate on the game; it was intricate, of the lady’s devising, and she seemed to keep changing the rules.

  The White Queen sat, regal in a wing-backed chair, and watched the flames.

  At last the hour of midnight struck, rung by the chapel bells. On this cue, the servant appeared with goblets, four on a tray. “Mead for the New Year,” said the King.

  The Queen raised her cup high in both hands, looking up at it, the lines of her jaw fine-cut. She said, “To victory.” And drank.

  The others followed suit. Dorn tasted gingerly of his, then drank it down; it was powerful and sweet, and he felt wrung of resistance.

  The White Queen made her farewells and left the hall, and the King took the hand of his lady.

  And so Dorn stumbled upstairs to his room, led by the servant that had escorted him twice before. The scent of lavender from the steaming bath, as before. The candle beside the bed, its rich coverlet turned down to reveal the luxury of an eiderdown mattress and pillows.

  But Dorn did not head directly for his bath. He went to the window. In the dark of the new moon he couldn’t see much; he only knew, from daytime, that the landscape was a garden of blossoming trees, and a forest beyond. No sign of ocean, nor the cliff by which he’d entered. When he had walked through that hidden door he’d traveled farther than he knew, stepping into a mystery never to be solved. Perhaps that was what all enchantments were.

  It was his last night here. The lady had promised to steal the amulet for him, to have it on the day. To save his life. But now that the time was nigh, he had begun to think ahead. What happened after he saved himself? He would return to the White Queen. He would never be free. And the oncoming catastrophe stretched its shadow far beyond his life.

  Tonight he’d sung of the end of the world. And in doing so, believed it.

  He might save himself tomorrow from the Queen’s fatal enchantment. But there was worse to come.

  In the end, he went into the bath because he hoped the warmth and lavender scent would soothe him for a time. After, lulled by the bath, worn out by the day, he was soon asleep.

  It was still dark when she woke him. He could see right away that something was wrong. Even in the faint light she looked pale. “Wake,” she said gently. “Would that I had better news.”

  He sat up, feeling as if someone had poured ice water on him. “What do you mean?”

  She was still a moment. Then: “The amulet is gone. I went to where he keeps it and—the box was empty. And I could feel it was nowhere in the room. He must have guessed our plan and made it vanish. Or sent it to another world—it matters not. It’s out of my hands.”

  He was shaking. “I’m to die at dawn.”

  She joined him at the bedside. “From what I know of such things … it will be quick.”

  “How does it work?”

  She shook her head. “To ask that of enchantments is like pouring water onto wind. And the White Queen’s enchantments are of the strongest kind. Only my husband is a match for her.”

  “And you can’t—you can’t plead with him on my behalf?”

  He was certain she looked sad now. There was no need even for her to answer.

  He wrapped himself in the coverlet and went to the window again. It was not yet dawn. He wondered how much time he had.

  It will be quick.

  That was something. Not enough.

  How had it all happened so fast? He thought of the people he would never see again. They would never know what had happened to him. That he’d perished in an enchanted castle, on a fool’s errand.

  A hand on his shoulder. Somehow he knew it before he turned: Etherell’s hand. For once all the mischief in his face had fled. Or so it seemed in the half-light. “This is my fault,” he said. “I found you for her. I didn’t think you’d be killed. I … I didn’t think at all.”

  Dorn didn’t know what to say. He knew this wasn’t the man, and yet. And here were words he’d longed for, without knowing. “Why did you do it?”

  Etherell rubbed at his eyes. “I don’t know why I do anything, don’t you see?” There were tears in his eyes.

  “The man I know would never care,” said Dorn. “Would never cry.”

  “You don’t know me,” said Etherell. “How could you? I’ve hidden behind walls of my own making. From myself most of all.”

  “This is only what I want to hear.” Dorn shook his head. He felt heavy with the sadness he had not allowed himself to feel in a long while. “It’s not true.”

  The other man’s arms came around him. It was so warm there, and the scent enveloped Dorn, and he was powerfully reminded of what he’d wanted for longer than he could remember. “You are going to die,” said Etherell. “Shouldn’t we be together once, before that happens? Unless you hate me too much. That I’d understand.”

  It was hard to speak. “Never,” Dorn said at last. “I couldn’t hate you. I want you more than anything.”

  And before he knew what was happening Etherell had leaned forward for a kiss, and they were locked together, moving towards the bed. Etherell had removed his shirt, his trousers nearly undone, and Dorn found himself moaning with all the longing he had ever felt when their flesh met for the first time.

  It was when they were in the bed, and Etherell was astride him, that Dorn held his face in his hands. With his fingertips caressed his face, cheek to jaw. He said, “I love you so much. I can’t do this.”

&nb
sp; Etherell grinned. “You won’t have to do anything, you know.”

  “No.” Dorn gently slid the other man off him and sat up. “It isn’t you. You’re not the man I love. I want this so much, but it’s a lie. I don’t want my last act in life … to be that. Chasing a shadow.”

  The arms that came around him from behind were unmistakably those of the man he loved, as was the scent. And then in his ear, a murmur that made all of him stir. “Are you sure?”

  Dorn covered his face. “Yes, I’m sure. Please, change back. My lady. Please.”

  She was standing at the window, now, in her diamond-studded dress. She was looking out at the landscape, as if despite the darkness there was something there that she could see.

  “Dorn Arrin,” she said. “You have surprised me.” Then turned his way, and smiled. It was a smile unlike earlier; there was something cold in it. “I would have given you a night like no other,” she said. “And it would have been your last.”

  The room melted away. That was how quickly it happened: one moment he was in the castle chamber, the lady at the window. The next, he was naked and crouching in a forest glade under the night sky. His bones rattling from the cold.

  Etherell came out from the shadows of the trees. Shook his head. “You really did it.”

  Dorn tried to cover himself, to hide. “Get away,” he hissed. “I already told you. What more does it take?”

  “What?” And Etherell looked so confused that Dorn knew, suddenly, that it must be him after all—not the lady. As if to confirm it the White Queen emerged from the trees, her light preceding her.

  Here they all were, then.

  “So I didn’t get the damned amulet,” said Dorn. “Go ahead. Make it quick.”