by Tad Williams
Miriamele lifted her cup solemnly. “To your birth-day, Simon.”
“And to yours, Princess Miriamele.”
They sat and drank for a while in silence. The wind pressed the grass sideways, flattening it in changing patterns as though some great invisible beast rolled in restless sleep. “The Raed is beginning tomorrow,” he said. “But I think that Josua has already decided what he wants to do.”
“He will go to Nabban.” There was quiet bitterness in her voice.
“What’s wrong with that?” Simon motioned for her cup, which was empty. “It’s a start.”
“It’s the wrong start.” She stared at his hand as she took the cup. The scrutiny made him uneasy. “I’m sorry, Simon. I am just unhappy with things. With lots of things.”
“I will listen if you want to talk. I’ve gotten to be a good listener, Princess.”
“Don’t call me ‘Princess’!” When she spoke again, her tone was softer. “Please, Simon, not you, too. We were friends once, when you didn’t know who I was. I need that now.”
“Certainly ... Miriamele.” He took a breath. “Aren’t we friends now?”
“That’s not what I meant.” She sighed. “It’s the same problem as I have with Josua’s decision. I don’t agree with him. I think we should move directly to Erkynland. This is not a war like my grandfather fought—it’s much worse, much darker. I am afraid we will be too late if we try to conquer Nabban first.”
“Too late for what?”
“I don’t know. I have these feelings, these ideas, but I have nothing that I can use to prove they are real. That’s bad enough, but because I am a princess—because I am the High King’s daughter—they listen to me anyway. Then they all try to find a polite way to ignore me. It would almost be better if they just told me to be quiet!”
“What does that have to do with me?” Simon asked quietly. Miriamele had closed her eyes, as though she looked at something inside herself. The red-gold of her eyelashes, the minute fineness of them, made him feel as though he were coming apart.
“Even you, Simon, who met me as a serving-girl—no, a serving-boy!” She laughed, but her eyes remained shut. “Even you, Simon, when you look at me, you are not just looking at me. You are seeing my father’s name, the castle I grew up in, the costly dresses. You are looking at a . . . a princess.” She said the word as though it meant something terrible and false.
Simon stared at her for a long time, watching her wind-shifted hair, the downy line of her cheek. He burned to tell her what he really saw, but knew he could never find the proper words; it would all come out as a mooncalf babble. “You are what you are,” he said at last. “Isn’t it just as false to try and be something else as it is for others to pretend they’re talking to you when they’re only talking to some ... princess?”
Her eyes opened suddenly. They were so clear, so searching! He suddenly had an idea of what it must have been like to stand before her grandfather, Prester John. It reminded him, too, of what he himself was: a servant’s awkward child, a knight only by virtue of circumstance. At this moment she seemed closer than she had ever been, but at the same time the gulf between them also seemed as wide as the ocean.
Miriamele was staring at him intently. After a few moments, he looked away, abashed. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” Her voice was brisk, but it somehow did not match the fretful expression on her face. “Don’t be, Simon. And let’s talk of something else.” She turned to look across the swaying grass of the hilltop. The strange, fierce moment passed.
They finished the wine and shared bread and cheese. For a treat, Simon produced a leaf-wrapped package of sweetmeats that he had bought from one of the peddlers at New Gadrinsett’s small market, little balls made of honey and roasted grain. The talk turned to other things, of the places and strange things they had both seen. Miriamele tried to tell Simon of the Niskie Gan Itai and her singing, of the way she had used her music to stitch sky and sea together. In his turn, Simon tried to explain something of what it had been like to be in Jiriki’s house by the river, and to see the Yásira, the living tent of butterflies. He tried to describe gentle, frightening Amerasu, but faltered. There was still a great deal of pain in that memory.
“And what about that other Sitha-woman?” Miriamele asked. “The one who is here. Aditu.”
“What do you mean?”
“What do you think of her?” She frowned. “I think she has no manners.”
Simon snorted softly. “She has her own manners, is more like it. They’re not like us, Miriamele.”
“Well, then I think little of the Sithi. She dresses and acts like a tavern harlot.”
He had to suppress another smile. Aditu’s current style of dress was almost bogglingly reserved in comparison to the garb she had worn in Jao é-Tinukai’i; It was true that she still often exhibited more of her tawny flesh than the citizens of New Gadrinsett found comfortable, but Aditu was obviously doing her best not to outrage her mortal companions. As for her behavior ... “I don’t think she’s so bad,” he said.
“Well, you wouldn’t.” Miriamele was definitely cross. “You moon after her like a puppy.”
“I do not!” he said, stung. “She is my friend.”
“That’s a nice word. I have heard my father’s knights use that word also, to describe women who would not be allowed across the threshold of a church.” Miriamele sat up straight. She was not just teasing. The anger he had sensed earlier was there, too. “I do not blame you—it is the nature of men. She is very fetching, in her strange way.”
Simon’s laugh was sharp. “I will never understand,” he said.
“What? Understand what?”
“No matter.” He shook his head. It would be good to move the conversation back to safer ground, he decided. “Ah, I almost forgot.” He turned and reached for the drawstring bag which he had leaned against the weather-polished wall. “This is a celebration of our birth-days. It is time for the giving of gifts.”
Miriamele looked up, stricken. “Oh, Simon! But I don’t have anything to give you!”
“Just your being here is enough. To see you safe after all this time ...” His voice broke, making an embarrassing squeak. To cover his chagrin, he cleared his throat. “But in any case, you have already given me a fine present—your scarf.” He pulled his collar wide so she could see it where it nestled about his long neck. “The finest gift that anyone ever gave me, I think.” He smiled and hid it again. “Now I have something to give to you.” He reached into his bag and pulled out a long slender something wrapped in a cloth.
“What is it?” The care seemed to slide from her face, leaving her childlike in her attention to the mysterious bundle.
“Open it.”
She did, unwinding the cloth to disclose the white Sithi arrow, a streak of ivory fire.
“I want you to have it.”
Miriamele looked from the arrow to Simon. Her face went pale. “Oh, no,” she breathed. “No, Simon, I can’t.”
“What do you mean? Of course you can. It’s my gift to you. Binabik said that it was made by the Sithi fletcher Vindaomeyo, longer ago than either of us can imagine. It’s the only thing I have to give that’s worthy of a princess, Miriamele—and like it or not, that’s what you are.”
“No, Simon, no.” She pushed the arrow and its cloth into his hands. “No, Simon. That’s the kindest thing anyone has ever done for me, but I can’t take it. It’s not just a thing, it’s a promise from Jiriki to you—a pledge. You told me so. It means too much. The Sithi do not give these things away for no reason.”
“Neither do I,” said Simon angrily. So even this was not good enough, he thought. Under a thin layer of fury he felt a great reserve of hurt. “I want you to have it.”
“Please, Simon. I thank you—you do not understand how kind I think you are—but it would hurt me too much to take it from you. I cannot.”
Baffled, pained, Simon closed his fingers on the arrow. His offering had been
rejected. He felt wild and full of folly. “Then wait here,” he said, and rose. He was on the verge of shouting. “Promise me you won’t leave this spot until I come back.”
She looked up at him uncertainly, shielding her eyes from the sun. “If you want me to stay, Simon, I will stay. Will you be gone long?”
“No.” He turned toward the crumbling gateway of the great wall. Before he had gone ten steps, he quickened his pace to a run.
When he returned, Miriamele was still seated in the same place. She had found the pomegranate he had hidden as a last surprise.
“I’m sorry,” she said, “but I was restless. I got this open, but I haven’t eaten any yet.” She showed him the seeds lined up on the split fruit like rows of gems. “What have you got in your hand?”
Simon drew his sword out of the tangle of his cloak. As Miriamele watched, her apprehension far from gone, he kneeled before her.
“Miriamele ... Princess ... I will give you the only gift I have left to give.” He extended the hilt of his sword toward her, lowering his head and staring fixedly at the jungle of grass around his boots. “My service. I am a knight now. I swear that you are my mistress, and that I will serve you as your protector ... if you will have me.”
Simon looked up out of the corner of his eye. Miriamele’s face was awash in emotions, none of which he could identify. “Oh, Simon,” she said.
“If you will not have me, or cannot for some reason I’m still too stupid to know, then just tell me. We can still be friends.”
There was a long pause. Simon looked down at the ground again and felt his head spinning.
“Of course,” she said at last. “Of course I will have you, dear Simon.” There was an odd catch in her voice. She laughed raggedly. “But I will never forgive you for this.”
He looked up, alarmed, to see if she was joking. Her mouth was curved in a trembling half-smile, but her eyes were closed again. There was a gleam like tears on her lashes. He could not tell if she was happy or sad.
“What do I do?” she asked. “I’m not sure. Take the hilt and then touch my shoulders with the blade, I suppose, like Josua did to me. Say: ‘You will be my champion.’ ”
She took the hilt and held it for a moment against her cheek, then lifted the sword and touched his shoulders in turn, left and right.
“You will be my champion, Simon,” she whispered.
“I will.”
The torches in Leavetaking House had burned low. It was long past time for the evening meal, but no one had said a word about eating.
“This is the third day of the Raed,” Prince Josua said. “We are all tired. I beg your attention for just a few moments more.” He drew his hand across his eyes.
Isgrimnur thought that of all those assembled in the room, it was the prince himself who most showed the strain of the long days and the acrimonious arguments. In attempting to let everyone have his or her fair say, Josua had been dragged along through many a side issue—and the onetime master of Elvritshalla did not approve at all. Prince Josua would never survive the rigors of a campaign against his brother if he did not harden himself. He had improved some since Isgrimnur had seen him last—the journey to this strange place seemed to have changed everyone who made it—but the duke still did not think Josua had grasped the trick of listening without being led. Without that, he thought sourly, no ruler could long survive.
The disagreements were many. The Thrithings-men did not trust the hardiness of the New Gadrinsett folk and feared that they would become a burden on the wagon-clans when Josua moved his camp down onto the grasslands. In turn, the settlers were not certain that they wanted to leave their new lives to go somewhere else since they would not even have new lands to settle until Josua took some territory from his brother or Benigaris.
Freosel and Sludig, who had become Josua’s war commanders after the death of Deornoth, also disagreed bitterly over where the prince should go. Sludig sided with his liege-lord Isgrimnur in urging an attack on Nabban. Freosel, like many others, felt an excursion into the south missed the true point. He was an Erkynlander, and Erkynland was not only Josua’s own country, but also the place that had been most blighted by Elias’ misrule. Freosel had made it clear that he felt they should move westward to the outer fiefdoms of Erkynland, gathering strength from the High King’s disaffected subjects before marching on the Hayholt itself.
Isgrimnur sighed and scratched his chin, indulging for a moment in the pleasure of his regrown beard. He longed to stand up and simply tell everyone what they should do and how to do it. He even sensed that Josua would secretly welcome having the burden of leadership lifted from his shoulders—but such a thing could not be allowed. The duke knew that as soon as the prince lost his preeminence, the factions would dissolve and any chance of an organized resistance to Elias would collapse.
“Sir Camaris,” Josua said abruptly, turning to the old knight. “You have been mostly silent. Yet if we are to ride on Nabban, as Isgrimnur and others urge us, you will be our banner. I need to hear your thoughts.”
The old man had indeed remained aloof, although Isgrimnur doubted it was from disapproval or disagreement. Rather, Camaris had listened to the arguments like a holy man on a bench in the midst of a tavern brawl, present and yet separate, his attention fixed on something that others could not see.
“I cannot tell you what is the right thing to do, Prince Josua.” The old knight spoke, as he had since regaining his wits, with a sort of effortless dignity. His old-fashioned, courtly speech was so careful as to seem almost a parody; he might have been the Good Peasant from the proverbs of the Book of the Aedon. “That is beyond me, nor would I presume to interpose myself between you and God, who is the final answerer of all questions. I can only tell you what I think.” He leaned forward, staring down at his long-fingered hands, which were twined on the table before him as if he prayed. “Much of what has been said is still incomprehensible to me—your brother’s bargain with this Storm King, who was only a dim legend in my day; the part you say the swords are to play, my black blade Thorn among them—it is all most strange, most strange.
“But I do know that I loved well my brother, Leobardis, and from what you said, he served Nabban honorably in the years I was insensible—better than I ever could have, I think. He was a man who was made to govern other men; I am not.
“His son Benigaris I knew only as a bawling infant. It gnaws at my soul to think that someone of my father’s house could be a patricide, but I cannot doubt the evidence I have heard.” He shook his head slowly, a tired war-horse. “I cannot tell you to go to Nabban, or to Erkynland, or anywhere else upon the Lord’s green earth. But if you decide to march on Nabban, Josua ... then, yes, I will ride before the armies. If the people will use my name, I will not stop them, although I do not find it knightly: only our Ransomer should be exalted by the voices of men. But I cannot let such shame to the Benidrivine House go unheeded.
“So if that is the answer you seek from me, Josua, then you have it now.” He raised his hand in a gesture of fealty. “Yes, I will ride to Nabban. But I wish I had not been brought back to see my friend John’s kingdom in ruins and my own beloved Nabban ground beneath the heel of my murderous nephew. It is cruel.” He dropped his gaze to the table once more. “This is one of the sternest tests God has given me, and I have failed Him already more times than I can count.”
When he had finished speaking, the old man’s words seemed to linger in the air like incense, a fog of complicated regret that filled the room. No one dared to break the stillness until Josua spoke.
“Thank you, Sir Camaris. I think I know what it will cost you to ride against your own countrymen. I am heartsick that we may have to force it upon you.” He looked around the torchlit hall. “Is there anyone else who would speak before we are finished?”
Beside him, Vorzheva moved on the bench as though she might say something, but instead she stared angrily at Josua, who slipped her gaze as though he found it uncomfortable. Isgrimnur g
uessed what had passed between them—Josua had told him of her desire to stay until the child was born—and frowned; the prince did not need any further doubts clouding his decision.
Many cubits down the long table, Geloë stood. “I think there is one last thing, Josua. It is something that Father Strangyeard and I discovered only last night.” She turned to the priest, who was sitting beside her. “Strangyeard?”
The archivist stood up, fingering a stack of parchments. He lifted a hand to straighten his eyepatch, then looked worriedly at some of the nearby faces, as though he had suddenly found himself called before a tribunal and charged with heresy.
“Yes,” he said. “Oh, yes. Yes, there is something important—your pardon, something that may be important ...” He riffled through the pages before him.
“Come, Strangyeard,” the prince said kindly. “We are anxious to have you share your discovery with us.”
“Ah, yes. We found something in Morgenes’ manuscript. In his life of King John Presbyter.” He held up some of the parchment sheets for the benefit of those who had not already seen Doctor Morgenes’ book. “Also, from speaking to Tiamak of the Wran,” he gestured with the sheaf toward the marsh man, “we found that it was something that much concerned Morgenes even after he began to see the outlines of Elias’ bargain with the Storm King. It worried him, you see. Morgenes, that is.”
“See what?” Isgrimnur’s rear end was beginning to hurt from the hard chair, and his back had been griping him for hours. “What worried him?”
“Oh!” Strangyeard was startled. “Apologies, many apologies. The bearded star, of course. The comet.”
“There was such a star in the skies during my brother’s regnal year,” Josua mused. “As a matter of fact, it was the night of his coronation we first saw it. The night my father was buried.”
“That’s the one!” Strangyeard said excitedly. “The Asdridan Condiquilles—the Conqueror Star. Here, I’ll read what Morgenes wrote about it.” He pawed at the parchment.
