by Jack Vance
During the slow hours of the afternoon the palace itself seeme to drowse, and the small frail shape moved along the galleries and through the tall chambers like a dream-wisp.
In sunny weather she might visit the orangery, to play pensive games in the shade of sixteen old orange trees; more often she went by unobtrusive ways to the Great Hall and thence to the Hall of Honors beyond, where fifty-four great chairs, ranking the walls to right and left, represented the fifty-four most noble houses of Lyonesse.
The emblem above each chair, for Suldrun, told the innate nature of the chair: qualities distinctive, vivid and complex. One chair was characterized by a shifting sidelong deceit, but pretended graceful charm; another exhibited a doomed and reckless bravery. Suldrun recognized a dozen varieties of menace and cruelty, and as many nameless affections which could not be described or worded, which caused her a churning of the bowels, or thrills along her skin, or erotic sensations, transient, pleasant but very strange. Certain chairs loved Suldrun and gave her protection; others were heavy with danger. Moving among these massive entities, Suldrun felt subdued and tentative. She walked with slow steps, listening for inaudible sounds and watching for movement or shifting of the muted colors. Sitting half-drowsing, half-alert, in the arms of a chair who loved her, Suldrun became receptive. The murmuring unheard voices approached the audible, as tragedies and triumphs were told and retold: the colloquy of the chairs.
At the end of the room a dark red gonfalon, embroidered with a Tree of Life, hung from the beams to the floor. A split in the fabric allowed access to a retiring chamber: a room dark and dingy, smelling of ancient dust. In this room were stored ceremonial oddments: a bowl carved from alabaster, chalices, bundles of cloth. Suldrun disliked the room; it seemed a cruel little place where cruel deeds had been planned and perhaps accomplished, leaving a subliminal quiver in the air.
Occasionally the Halls lacked zest, then Suldrun might go out along the parapets of the Old Keep, where always there were interesting sights to be seen along the Sfer Arct: travelers coming and going; wagons loaded high with barrels, bales, and baskets; vagabond knights in dented armor; grandees with their retinues; mendicants, wandering scholars, priests and pilgrims of a dozen sects; country gentry come to buy good cloth, spices, trifles of this and that.
To the north the Sfer Arct passed between the crags Maegher and Yax: petrified giants who had helped King Zoltra Bright Star dredge Lyonesse Harbor; becoming obstreperous, they had been transformed into stone by Amber the sorcerer: so the story went.
From the parapets Suldrun could see the harbor and wonderful ships from far lands creaking at their moorings. They were unattainable; to venture so far would arouse storms of reproach from Dame Maugelin; she might be taken in disgrace before Queen Sollace, or even into the awesome presence of King Casmir. She had no wish to see either: Queen Sollace was little more than an imperious voice from a billow of splendid robes; King Casmir, to Suldrun, meant a stern face with prominent blue eyes, golden curls and a golden crown on top, and a fringe of golden beard below.
To risk confrontation with either Queen Sollace or King Casmir was not to be considered. Suldrun confined her adventures to the precincts of Haidion.
When Suldrun was seven, Queen Sollace once more grew big and on this occasion gave birth to a boy. Sollace had lost some of her fear, and as a consequence suffered far less than she had with Suldrun. The baby was named Cassander; in due course he would become Cassander V. He was born during the fine weather of summer, and the festivals attending his birth continued a week.
Haidion hosted notable guests from across the Elder Isles. From Dascinet came Prince Othmar and his Aquitanian spouse Princess Eulinette, the Dukes Athebanas, Helingas, and Outri-madax, with their retinues. From Troicinet King Granice sent his princely brothers Arbamet and Ospero, Arbamet's son Tre-wan and Ospero's son Aillas. From South Ulfland came Grand Duke Erwig, with a birth-gift: a magnificent mahogany chest inlaid with red chert and blue turquoise. King Gax of North Ulfland, beleaguered by the Ska, made no representation. King Audry of Dahaut sent a delegation of nobles and a dozen elephants carved from ivory... And so it went.
At the name-giving ceremony in the Great Hall, Princess Suldrun sat demurely with six daughters of the upper nobility; opposite sat the princelings Trewan and Aillas of Troicinet, Bellath of Caduz, and the three young dukes of Dascinet. For the occasion Suldrun wore a gown of pale blue velvet, and a fillet studded with moonstones confined her soft pale hair. She was clearly well-favored, and attracted the thoughtful attention of many persons who previously had paid her little heed, including King Casmir himself. He thought: "She is pretty, certainly, if somewhat thin and peaked. She has a solitary look about her; perhaps she keeps too much to herself... Well, all this can be remedied. She will grow to be a desirable match." And Casmir, who ever more fervently yearned to restore the ancient grandeur of Lyonesse, went on to reflect: "It is certainly not too early to think along these lines."
He cast his mind across the possibilities. Dahaut was of course the great obstacle to his plans and King Audry was his dedicated if covert enemy. Someday the old war must continue, but rather than attack Dahaut on the east, through Pomperol, where Audry's lines of operation were short (which had been King Phristan's grim mistake), Casmir hoped to attack through South Ulfland, to gnaw at Dahaut's exposed western flanks. And King Casmir mused upon South Ulfland.
King Oriante, a pallid round-headed little man, was ineffectual, shrill and waspish. He reigned at his castle Sfan Sfeg, near the town Oaldes, but could not rule the fiercely independent barons of mountain and moor. His queen, Behus, was both tall and corpulent and she had borne him a single son, Quilcy, now five years old, somewhat lack-witted and unable to control the flow of saliva from his mouth. A match between Quilcy and Suldrun could bring great advantage. Much depended upon how much influence Suldrun could exert over a feeble-minded spouse. If Quilcy were as tractable as report suggested, a clever woman should find no difficulty with him.
Such were King Casmir's reflections as he stood in the Great Hall at the name-day of his son Cassander.
Suldrun felt her father's eyes upon her. The intensity of his gaze made her uncomfortable, and for a moment she feared that she had aroused his disapproval. But presently he looked away, and to her relief paid her no more heed.
Directly opposite sat the princelings from Troicinet. Trewan was fourteen years old, tall and strong for his age. His dark hair was cut low and square across the forehead and hung thick at the sides past his ears. His features were perhaps a trifle heavy but he was by no means ill-favored; indeed, he already had made his presence felt among the housemaids at Zarcone, the manor house of Prince Arbamet, his father. His eyes rested often upon Suldrun, in a way she found disturbing.
The second Troice princeling was Aillas, two or three years younger than Trewan. He was slender of hip and square in the shoulder. His straight light-brown hair was cropped into a cap covering the top of his ears. His nose was short and even; the line of his jaw showed clean and definite. He seemed not to notice Suldrun, which prompted in her an absurd little quiver of vexation, even though she had disapproved of the other prince's boldness... Her attention was distracted by the coming of four gaunt Druid priests.
They wore long robes of brown furze, belted and hooded to hide their faces, and each carried an oak branch from their sacred grove. They shuffled forward, their long white feet appearing and disappearing below the robes, and arranged themselves to north, south, east and west of the cradle.
The Druid to the north held the oak branch over the child and touched his forehead with a wooden periapt, then spoke: "The Dagda blesses you and gives you the benefit of your name Cassander."
The Druid to the west extended his oak branch. "Brigit, first daughter of the Dagda, blesses you and gives you the benefit of poetry, and names you Cassander."
The Druid to the south extended his oak branch. "Brigit, second daughter of Dagda, blesses you and gives the benefit of stron
g health and powers of healing, and calls you Cassander."
The Druid to the east extended his oak branch. "Brigit, third daughter of the Dagda, blesses you and gives the benefit of iron, in sword and shield, in sickle and plough, and calls you Cassander."
All held their branches to form a leafy ceiling over the child. "May the light of Lug warm your body; may the dark of Ogma improve your prospects; may Lir support your ships; may the Dagda forever hold you in grace."
They turned and moved on slow bare feet from the hall.
Pages in scarlet puff-pantaloons raised clarions and blew the Queen's Honor. The company stood in murmurous near-silence as Queen Sollace retired on the arm of Lady Lenore, while Lady Desdea supervised the removal of the infant prince.
Musicians appeared on the high gallery, with dulcimer, pipes, lute, and a cadwal (this a single-stringed fiddle apt for the playing of jigs). The center of the hall was cleared; the pages blew a second fanfare: Lo! the Jocund King!
King Casmir addressed himself to the Lady Arresme, Duchess of Slahan; the musicians produced a stately concord and King Casmir led Lady Arresme forth for the pavanne, followed by the lords and ladies of the realm, in a pageant of magnificent costumes of every color, with every gesture, every step, every bow and position of head, hand and wrist ordained by etiquette. Suldrun watched in fascination: slow-step, pause, little bow and swing of the arms in graceful style, then another step, and shimmer of silk, the rustle of petticoats to the careful sonorities of the music. How stern and stately seemed her father, even engaged in the frivolity of dancing the pavanne!
The pavanne ended, and the company removed to the Clod an Dach Nair, and found their places at the banquet table. The most rigid rules of precedence applied; the chief herald and an ordinator had worked with enormous pains, making the most subtle of discriminations. Suldrun was seated directly to the right of King Casmir, in that chair usually occupied by the queen. Tonight Queen Sollace was unwell, and lay in her bed, where she ate to repletion of sweet curd tarts, while Suldrun for the first time dined at the same table with her father the king.
Three months after the birth of Prince Cassander, the circumstances of Suldrun's life altered. Ehirme, already mother to a pair of sons, gave birth to twins. Her sister, who had managed the household while Ehirme was at the palace, married a fisherman, and Ehirme could no longer serve Suldrun.
Almost coincidentally, Dame Boudetta announced that by the wishes of King Casmir, Suldrun must be schooled in deportment, dancing, and all other skills and graces appropriate to a royal princess.
Suldrun resigned herself to the program, which was rendered by various ladies of the court. As before, Suldrun used the soporific hours of early afternoon to wander quietly abroad: out into the orangery, or the library, or the Hall of Honors. From the orangery the way led along an arcade, up to Zoltra's Wall, through a vaulted tunnel and out upon the Urquial. Suldrun ventured so far as the tunnel, and stood in the shadows watching the men-at-arms as they drilled with pikes and swords. They made a gallant spectacle, thought Suldrun, stamping, shouting, lunging forward, falling back... To the right a crumbling wall flanked the Urquial. Almost hidden behind a sprawling old larch a heavy wooden door, dessicated with age, led through the wall. Suldrun slipped from the tunnel and into the shadows behind the larch. She peered through a crack in the door, then pulled at a bolt which held the warped timbers in place. She exerted all her strength, to no avail. She found a rock and used it as a hammer. The rivets parted; the bolt sagged aside. Suldrun pushed; the door creaked and shuddered. She turned around and bumped it with her round little buttocks. The door protested with an almost human voice, and moved ajar.
Suldrun squeezed through the gap and found herself at the head of a ravine which seemed to descend all the way to the sea. Greatly daring, she ventured a few steps down an old path. She stopped to listen... no sound. She was alone. She went another fifty feet and came upon a small structure of weathered stone, now desolate and empty: apparently an ancient fane.
Suldrun dared go no farther; she would be missed and Dame Boudetta would scold her. She craned her neck to look down the ravine and glimpsed the foliage of trees. Reluctantly she turned and went back the way she had come.
An autumn storm brought four days of rain and mist to Lyonesse Town, and Suldrun was pent within Haidion. On the fifth day the clouds broke, and shafts of sunlight struck down through the rents at various angles. By noon the sky was half blue space, half hurrying cloud-wrack.
At first opportunity Suldrun ran up the arcade, through the tunnel under Zoltra's Wall; then, after a precautionary glance around the Urquial, under the larch and through the old wooden door. She closed the door behind her and stood tingling with a sense of isolation from all the rest of the world.
She descended the old path to the fane: an octagonal stone structure perched on a stone shelf, with the ridge rising steeply behind. Suldrun looked through the low arched door. Four long steps would take her to the back wall, where the symbol of Mithra overlooked a low stone altar. To each side a narrow window admitted light; slate tiles covered the roof. A drift of dead leaves had blown through the doorway; otherwise the fane was empty. The atmosphere carried a dank clammy-sweet odor, faint but unpleasant. Suldrun twitched her nose and backed away.
The ravine descended steeply; the ridges to either side assumed the semblance of low irregular cliffs. The path angled this way and that: through stones, clumps of wild thyme, asphodel and thistles and out upon a terrace where the soil lay deep. Two massive oaks, almost filling the ravine, stood sentinel over the ancient garden below, and Suldrun felt like an explorer discovering a new land.
To the left the cliff rose high. An irregular copse of yew, laurel, hornbeam and myrtle shaded an undergrowth of shrubs and flowers: violets, ferns, harebells, forget-me-nots, anemones; banks of heliotrope scented the air. On the right hand the cliff, almost equally tall, trapped sunlight. Below grew rosemary, asphodel, foxglove, wild geranium, lemon verbena; slim black-green cypress and a dozen enormous olive trees, gnarled, twisted, the fresh gray-green foliage in contrast with the age-worn trunks.
Where the ravine widened Suldrun came upon the ruins of a Roman villa. Nothing remained but a cracked marble floor, a half-toppled colonnade, a tumble of marble blocks among weeds and thistles. At the edge of the terrace grew a single old lime tree with a heavy trunk and sprawling boughs. Below, the path led down to a narrow beach of shingle, curving between a pair of capes where the cliffs on either hand thrust into the sea.
The wind had eased to a near-calm, but swells from the storm continued to bend around the headlands and break upon the shingle. For a time Suldrun watched the sunlight sparkling on the sea, then turned and looked back up the ravine. The old garden doubtless was enchanted, she thought, with a magic evidently benign; she felt only peace. The trees basked in the sunlight and paid her no heed. The flowers all loved her, except the proud asphodel, which loved only itself. Melancholy memories stirred among the ruins, but they were insubstantial, less than wisps, and they had no voices.
The sun moved across the sky; Suldrun reluctantly turned to go. She would be missed if she stayed longer. Up through the garden she went, out the old door and back down the arcade to Haidion.
Chapter 3
SULDRUN AWOKE TO A COLD GRAY ROOM and a dismal wet light from outside her windows: the rains had returned and the chambermaid had neglected to build up the fires. Suldrun waited a few minutes, then resignedly slid from her bed and with shanks shivering to the chill, dressed herself and combed out her hair.
The maid at last appeared, and hurriedly built the fires, fearful lest Suldrun might denounce her to Dame Boudetta, but the lapse had already slipped from Suldrun's mind.
She went to stand by the window. Rain blurred the panorama; the harbor was a rain-puddle; the tiled roofs of the town were ten thousand shapes in many tones of gray. Where had the color gone? Color! What peculiar stuff! It glowed in the sunlight, but in the dimness of rain it faded: most pe
culiar. Suldrun's breakfast arrived and as she ate she pondered the paradoxes of color. Red and blue, green and purple, yellow and orange, brown and black: each with its character and special quality, yet impalpable...
Suldrun went down to the library for her lessons. Her tutor was now Master Jaimes, archivist, scholar, and librarian to the ‘ court of King Casmir. Suldrun had at first found him a daunting figure of severity and precision, for he was tall and thin, and a great thin beak of a nose gave him the look of a predatory bird. Master Jaimes was a few years past the first wild urgencies of youth, but not yet old nor even middle-aged. His coarse black hair was cut level with his mid-forehead clear around the scalp, to hang in a shelf over his ears; his skin was parchment pale; his arms and legs were long and as gaunt as his torso; nevertheless he carried himself with dignity and even an odd ungainly grace. He was sixth son to Sir Crinsey of Hredec, an estate comprising thirty acres of stony hillside, and had gained nothing from his father but gentle birth. He resolved to teach Princess Suldrun with dispassionate formality, but Suldrun quickly learned how to charm and befuddle him. He fell hopelessly in love with her, though he pretended that the emotion was no more than easy tolerance. Suldrun who was perceptive when she put her mind to it, saw through his attempts at airy detachment and took charge of the learning process, as when Master Jaimes frowned at her writing and said: "These A's and G's look quite alike. We must do them all over, in a careful hand."
"But the quill is broken!"
"Then sharpen it! Carefully now, do not cut yourself. It is a knack you must learn."
"Oo-ow—oo!"
