The Sable Moon

by Nancy Springer

  “It’s quite peaceable,” Trevyn assured him. “Come, meet my father.”

  As it turned out, Brock had business with Alan. “Folk have gotten together and named me a sort of steward at Lee,” he explained gruffly, “to do for them until ye can name a new lord, Sire, since Rafe left no heir. So I’m to report t’ ye.”

  “So you’re the people’s chosen leader!” Alan said thoughtfully. “Why don’t you just stay on, then, Goodman? Be lord yourself.”

  “I!” Brock protested. “I’ll make no velvet-clad lord, Sire. I’ve no manners, no learning—”

  “I’ll send you a scribe. The velvet’s not required. But stay a steward, then, if you don’t want the title. The work’s the same.” Alan beckoned at him. “Come and help me with these kettles.” The King was hungry, and trying to hurry along breakfast.

  They all ate, finally, porridge and honey and a few boiled eggs, and in the process of dealing with the sticky meal everyone became well acquainted. Brock no longer felt out of place by the time they were done. “Now, then,” Alan asked, “since we’re all here, will someone tell me how these weddings are to take place?”

  “By the old style, I suppose, of consent,” Trevyn answered. “Or you could marry us by royal decree.”

  “Wait a bit,” Rosemary told them. “I believe there’s one person yet to come.” She was the Rowan Lady, and she sensed whatever moved within the Forest. So they waited.

  “Here I am, dears,” a voice said after a while, and with one accord they all rose, though they had seen no one. Then, walking straight and strong, a very old woman came toward them out of the grove.

  “Ylim!” Trevyn exclaimed, though he had never seen her in that form. Alan stared; he had raised a cairn over that body, but he had never known her name.

  “In this place, I am Alys.” She stood, not smiling and yet not unkind, folding her gnarled hands on her muslin apron. “But I must come to you in a form you understand, or partly understand.”

  “In the valley beyond Celydon,” said Rosemary softly, “you would be the ancient seeress, the weaver.”

  “Ay. You are wise, Lady. Ylim is only a servant of Alys.… But here I am all, or nearly all. This is a place of power, my own power and power of my son.… The best of all places for these weddings.”

  “And will you stay now?” Trevyn asked. “Are you truly back in Isle?”

  “Ylim will stay.” She smiled at that, mostly with her deep and glowing eyes. “Alys was never gone.”

  Without much talk or need for thought, all was made ready for the nuptials. In a few minutes, Trevyn and Meg stood paired before the goddess beneath the young and growing tree, he in the whitest tunic the elves had given him, she in her dream dress with a spray of rare white heather in her hand. Ket and Rosemary stood behind them, more soberly clad, but arm in arm. Young Dair lay quietly in Alan’s arms.

  “There’s small need for words,” Ylim said. “Symbols show more.” From her apron pockets she drew yards of lace—of her own weaving, Trevyn knew, and of pattern as intricate as all creation, simple as love, white as the unicorn. With a length of this she encircled Megan’s brow, crowning her like a blossom, then sent a streamer over to Trevyn, weaving her to him.

  She worked quickly, scarcely moving, directing the lacework by gesture rather than touch. When she had finished, Trevyn stood at the center of a pattern that spread to include the jeweled tree, and a stag that wandered by, and everyone present; even the unicorn held a loop of lace with its horn. For his own part, Trevyn felt once again captured and tied, even more entangled now than he had been in Tokar. But Meg stood tranquilly.

  “The bonds will remain only in your mind,” Ylim said. “Kiss your bride, Alberic.” He felt as if he could scarcely move, but he leaned over to comply. His lips met Meg’s smoothly. And as they kissed, the lace parted into bits, fell like snowflakes to the ground. Ever afterward, the most delicate of flowers grew there, flowers found nowhere else in Isle. But Trevyn could never remember what pattern the lace had made; he had forgotten to look. And those who had looked, when he asked, each gave a different answer.

  “All blessings on you, Meg and Trevyn, Ket and Rosemary,” said Ylim the ancient seeress, and turned, and left. Trevyn still stood kissing Meg. Moments after Ylim had gone, he raised his head with a start. “Wait!” he exclaimed, but silence answered him.

  “I forgot to ask her about anything,” he complained. “About Maeve, about Dair!”

  “Wait and see.…” The voice of Alys floated back.

  Epilogue

  On a bright day of the following May, the twenty-first anniversary of Alan’s coronation, all the lords in Isle and Welas gathered at the gentle summit near Laueroc where Adaoun had marked the beginning and ending of an Age by wedding and crowning the Sunrise and Sunset Kings. It was not so many years before, Alan mused, that he had taken Lysse to wife on that spot and Hal had wed Rosemary. But the weight of those years had slowed him, nevertheless, and made him glad of promised rest. He brought the great crown of Veran from the treasure room, the rayed crown like the sunburst emblem of the Elfstone. He took it to the appointed place and waited for his son.

  In the presence of the watching multitude, Trevyn came before his father, scorning heavy robes, clad free as the wind in a soft linen tunic and deerskin boots. He dropped to one knee, and Alan placed the ceremonial burden on his head. Then he rose, and Alan girded him with his own newly forged sword, silver of hue, with a running unicorn for hilt. He presented his son to the assembled lords.

  “Here is your King now,” he told them, “and I am King no more.”

  A great, golden bird circled overhead, scattering the meadowlarks. The lords took up the omen with a shout. “Hail, Eagle King!” they cried. “Hail, Liege King of Laueroc!” They lifted clasped hands in salute.

  “You’re far more than that,” Alan murmured to his son.

  “Ay,” Trevyn agreed without a trace of hesitation. “I might just as well be called Unicorn King.”

  “You’re silver and gold, as Hal foresaw.”

  Four rode out the next day: Alan, Lysse, Trevyn, and Meg on a round little mare she called Bess. The weather was fine, and they went at a leisurely pace, taking four days to pass the settled land. Meg was thrilled by the wilderness beyond. Riding through a changing pattern of slope and rocky tor, thick-woven forest and silky meadow, sunlight and shade and shadow, she drew in beauty with every breath, nourishing the budding life she carried within her—for Meg was with child.

  On the seventh day of their journey, the four came to the Bay of the Blessed, a place of deepest green shade and silvery water, a place meant for moonlight. A boat swam like a dusky swan in the shallows. Alan tethered it and found the plank to board it. Then he and Lysse turned to face their son and daughter-in-law.

  “How do you want to manage this matter of the sword?” Alan asked quietly.

  Trevyn brought the magical weapon out of the wrappings it had worn all winter. It shone as fair as the first flower of spring. Impulsively, he offered it to his father. “You’ve had the most sorrow from it. Will you hurl it away?”

  “Trevyn,” Alan chided. “All you’ve been through, and you still try to meddle with fate? I don’t dare to touch it. Do you want to borrow my boat?”

  Trevyn shook his head. He knew what a pang of longing it would send through him to stand on the deck of an elf-ship. He stood thinking for a moment, then nodded, and pointed at a precise spot on the taut surface of the Bay. “There,” he said.

  The lustrous water broke like a veil, fell apart in fragments. From the rent a sea-drake with scales of dark crimson raised its dripping head, glaring out of flat carnelian eyes. Meg gulped and took a step back.

  “One of Menwy’s people,” Trevyn explained, and he flung the sword with all his strength, sent it spinning through the air like a shining wheel. Fearlessly the dragon caught the weapon in its great mouth, held it as a dog holds a bone, and dove. The watchers on shore saw ripples trail it into the western s
ea.

  “I hope we don’t encounter such creatures on the way,” Alan breathed, somewhat shaken.

  “You’ll never know,” Trevyn answered. “You’ll remember nothing but peace. Go joyfully, and regret nothing.” He embraced Alan and then his mother, kissing them. Alan gripped his hand.

  “I regret many things in my life,” he told his son, meeting his eyes, “and some of those you know, Trev.… But this is not one of them. Farewell, Megan; keep him in charge. Come, Love, let us go.” Alan put an arm around his Elf-Queen, and together they boarded the waiting ship.

  “Go with all blessing,” whispered Meg.

  Trevyn lifted the plank. The quickening ship swam away from the shore. Lysse and Alan settled themselves on the deck, waving in farewell. Trevyn returned the gesture with desolation in his heart. The elf-boat carried away his only kindred in Isle except for the son that stood, four-legged, at his feet.… Trevyn watched the lovely boat until it rounded the headland, then turned to Meg, laid his face in her hair, and wept. His love of this woman was part of the pattern; it was very good. But in spite of her love, hers and others’, Trevyn knew himself to be alone at his core, a naked thing joining earth and sky. Perhaps all men were so at the core. Being so alone, he had no way of knowing.

  “Even that weird white horse,” he muttered.

  The moon-marked steed had left him without a backward glance, once the journey was done, leaping craggy rocks and skimming the grass between, ineffably alone, like a swift spirit blown from the far, dark places between the stars. Trevyn shook his head ruefully at the memory, and Dair sprang up, placed massive forepaws on his chest. Trevyn caressed the smooth hollow between his eyes.

  “Very true, you’re still here,” he said. “And you’ll yet be yourself in human form, Dair; mark it.” He had seen that truth on an ancient woman’s loom in a valley above Celydon. A startling, regal face had looked back at him from Ylim’s web, a face with wide-set, feral, amethyst eyes, brows that met, nostrils that faintly pulsed—yet unmistakably the face of Dair, his son. But how would that youth come to him? When?

  “Trust the tides,” answered Meg, sensing his thoughts.

  Trevyn and his bride spent the night on the shore, clinging together for warmth of more than body. In the morning they started back toward Laueroc, where liegemen and vassals awaited their King. Glancing behind him for one last look at the Bay, Trevyn noted a shimmer of white beneath the deepest green shadows of the firs. A unicorn stood there, watching him go.

  I am the son.

  I am the steadfast son,

  I am the son of earth.

  I am hazel roots,

  I am red dragons,

  I am robin and wren,

  I am strong magic.

  I am the eagle,

  I am the soaring son,

  I am the son of sky.

  I am wings of wind,

  I am a golden wheel,

  I am a warrior,

  I am the circle dance,

  I am the song.

  I am the swan,

  I am the wandering son,

  I am the son of sea.

  I am changing eyes,

  I am green shadow,

  I am between the stars,

  I am the stars.

  I am the star-son.

  I am the son.

  I am a crescent moon.

  I am a rustle of padded paws,

  I am a seed in the earth,

  I am a dewdrop.

  I am a hidden jewel,

  I am a dream,

  I am a silver harp.

  I am a fruit on the Tree,

  I am a beast of curving horn,

  I am a swollen breast,

  I am the argent moon,

  I am soft rain,

  I am rivers of thought,

  I am sea tides,

  I am a turning wheel.

  I am the waning moon.

  I am the mare who rides men mad,

  I am the sable moon.

  I am the howl of the wolf,

  I am the hag,

  I am the flood of destruction.

  I am the ship that rides the flood,

  I am the crescent moon.

  I am the dark, bright, changing moon.

  Turn the page to continue reading from the Book of Isle series

  Chapter One

  I am Frain. I was only fifteen years old when I first heard of Mylitta, and within a few days the doom of Melior had begun. All has changed now; Melior is a memory and I am a swan on the rivers of Ogygia. But I think I am not much wiser.

  Tirell was in the habit of wandering in the night, then as always. We shared a tower chamber, and sometimes when I did not feel too sleepy I joined him. I liked to hear him talk. It was better than dreaming.

  One night, though, I woke up out of a sound sleep to see him on his way out of the window. He was hoisting himself up to the high stone sill by his hands, his feet dangling. I jumped out of bed, naked as a rabbit, and grabbed him by the knees.

  “Are you mad?” I yelled.

  “It runs in the family, does it not?” he snapped as he fell. “Let me up, you great oaf!” I had sat on top of him.

  “Not if you are planning to climb down there,” I told him. “Have some sense, Tirell! It must be a hundred feet to the cobbles, and the ivy is old and sparse.”

  “So what am I to do?” he shouted passionately. “Ride out by the main gates and take the guards to my wooing?”

  “By our great lord Aftalun,” I sighed, “are there not enough maids within the walls that you must woo one without? I think—” But he did not wait to hear what I thought. He threw me off. Tirell was slender, not much heavier than I even though he was five years older, but when he was truly angry I believe no one could stand against him. We grappled for a moment, and then I went flying and hit my head against the wall.

  He could have gone to his wooing then. I heard him pacing around, but I couldn’t move or see. He lit a rushlight, got a soggy cloth, and started dabbing at some blood behind my ear. “Go to,” I muttered, shoving his hand away, and I managed to sit up.

  “If you are all right,” Tirell said quietly, “I will be off.”

  “Then I will be off too, by way of the gates, and you will have me and a troop of guards for company.” I can be angry too, and Tirell knew he was beaten for the time. He cursed and flopped down on the floor where he was.

  “I was going to say, before I was interrupted,” I told him after a while, “that we could get a rope.”

  “If I could get a rope in the middle of the night,” Tirell responded sourly, “I would have tied you up long ago. They’re all over at the armory with the scaling ladders and things.”

  “So we’ll get one tomorrow, and you can go tomorrow night. Surely the girl will last till then?” I looked at his lean, unhappy face and felt my anger melt, as always. “She must be a marvel,” I added softly. “What is her name?”

  Tirell sighed and gave in to peace. “Mylitta is her name,” he answered quietly.

  “Do I know her?”

  “No, I doubt it. She is not such a marvel. She is just a peasant.”

  “Pretty?”

  “No, not even very pretty.”

  I frowned, perplexed. It was not like him to be so modest about his conquests. “Thunder, I am not going to try to take her from you!” I protested.

  “You couldn’t!” Tirell retorted with joy in his voice. “No one could! She loves me!”

  I had never heard him speak so earnestly. Was this my cool, mocking brother? At loss for a response, I turned mocking myself. “Indeed, who could help but love you?” I asked lightly.

  He snorted. “Not like my other maidens, if I may call them that. Bloodsucking whores, every one of them. But Mylitta cares not a bit for throne or torque or wealth or—or any of it. She just—she just loves me.”

  My mouth had dropped open. I closed it and swallowed. “Then she is a marvel,” I replied, meaning it. “May I meet her?”

  “Maybe
.” Tirell shook off the mood and got to his feet. “Go back to bed, young my naked lord.” We sometimes parodied the courtly courtesy between ourselves.

  “And you?” I asked.

  “I don’t know whether I’ll sleep, but I’ll bide; I give you my word. How is the head?”

  “Well enough.” It was thumping like a thousand blacksmiths, if truth be told, but I would never admit that, as Tirell knew quite well.

  Tirell slept, as it turned out, and I lay waking. It was not only my aching head that kept me up. I was worrying about Tirell, as I often did. I sensed trouble to come. No happy endings were likely for Tirell or for me as long as King Abas was our father. The altar awaited him, as it awaited Tirell, or me in my turn. Then our ribs and lungs would be ripped out whole, spread and held up to the multitude to reveal the configuration of the blood bird. Princes of the line of Melior were accustomed early to the thought of this unpleasant death. Perhaps that was why many went mad. Abas was one of those.

  “Father used to sit me on his knee, when I was small,” Tirell had said to me once, “and tell me the strangest things—dreams in dragon colors and the thoughts of stones and beasts.… And then, likely as not, he would smite me. It is no wonder I cannot sleep.”

  “He has never given me anything, either of blows or of dreams!” I had replied, caught between pity and jealousy. The jealousy because our father took no notice of me at all.

  “You came later,” Tirell answered, “when his mood had turned yet darker. Be glad he does not care for you!” But he would not meet my eyes.

  I feared for my brother as he probably never feared for himself, reckless and thoughtless as he was. Where could we run to, where could we take the maiden? There was no place in Vale where Abas could not find us. Abas cared for Tirell, in his harsh way, and his vision was frighteningly sharp. Sometimes his sapience seemed almost divine. He would notice Tirell’s happiness, and Tirell would pay the price; Abas could not abide happiness, or dogs, or wanderings in the night.…

  I remembered one day when we had been digging in one of our secret places (Tirell was only fourteen then and I was nine, but none of our masters could constrain us—we spent our days much as we liked). We had been digging for clams down near the river. That was daring enough, and forbidden. All children were chided not to dig in the earth, lest they loose the flood that is beneath the land. But even we princes did not dare to wash ourselves in the river after we were done, though it ran only a few steps away. Water was greatly feared in Vale. It was used only with many offerings and greatest reverence. So we went back to the castle to wash in water the slaves had brought with all due and proper ceremony. And as bad luck would have it we met Abas in the courtyard. He seldom took any heed of our comings and goings, seldom came out of his chambers at all; I do not know what had brought him out on that day. He stopped where he was and stiffened with an intake of breath when he saw us.