The White Hart

by Nancy Springer

  “He is fey.” Queen Rosemary proudly raised her lovely auburn head.

  “He is Mireldeyn.” Lysse spoke the name neither in agreement nor in denial. She sat down with effortless, fluid grace. “His ways are not the ways of men. He has withdrawn from men now.”

  Trevyn dipped himself a bowlful of stew, for he was hungry from his ride. No one else ate much; they all sat watching him. “But Uncle Hal has always been a recluse,” he ventured between bites of bread and meat.

  Alan distractedly shook his head. “Not like this. He was only a recluse in body, Trevyn; his mind and vision were focused on Isle and on me; I could feel his love even from afar. But now—his dreams have pulled away, like a sea pulling away from shore. He scarcely speaks to me; it is as if he is already gone. How will I rule without him? How will I live? He is Very King.”

  “But where—how—” Trevyn faltered. Alan looked as if he might weep, and Trevyn had never seen his father weep, even over the tiny bodies of his stillborn sisters. “I don’t understand. I know you were close, but I thought—”

  “You thought I ruled,” Alan snapped, suddenly burying his grief in asperity. “Hal has suffered and labored for Isle, and men think I rule. He longs only for peace, and yet he was the greatest war leader this land has ever seen. Men rallied around his dreams. Likely his dreams will last longer than all my busy devices. And his wisdom in the court of law deserves to be legend. And yet, because I am the one who counts the gold, men think I rule.”

  “You suffered too,” Trevyn protested.

  “We both bear scars,” Alan grumbled. “What of it? Let suffering go, Trevyn.”

  “Hal has never been able to let go of his pain,” Rosemary whispered to her hands. “It has driven him mad.”

  “Nay, Ro,” Lysse said gently, “the truth is cleaner and harder, I think. There will be a ship for him, at the Bay of the Blessed, to take him where the others have already gone. Aene has called him, and he goes as he has lived, in his own solitary way.” Lysse shifted her gaze to include her husband. “You seem to have forgotten the days when he led and you followed.”

  “Why follow where there is no love?” Rosemary asked bitterly, and began to weep. Lysse turned to comfort her. Trevyn was grateful that his mother’s eyes were not on him. She had said, there will be a ship, and his heart had leaped in his chest; it pounded still. We will both set sail, he thought, and strove to hide the thought. Without speaking he stumbled from the room. Then he stopped in the corridor, groping at a wall for support, blinded and dizzied by vision.

  The others who had gone before, taking their magic from Isle … The star-son Bevan, with lustrous hands and lustrous brow, black hair parted like raven’s wings, facing the sea breeze. The long line of Bevan’s brethren the gods riding down to the Blessed Bay, leaving the hollow hills forever … Ylim, the ageless seeress, had lived and finally died in her own peaceful valley, Trevyn knew, but he envisioned her on a white ship beneath a changing moon. And the elves, his mother’s people, setting sail on the swanlike boats Veran had prepared for them with his own magical hands—boats like Bevan’s that went without sails. And now Hal, a Very King like Bevan of a thousand years before …

  “All right, lad?” Alan had come out and stood before him anxiously. Trevyn blinked and nodded, shaking shreds of legend from his head.

  “It’s a hard thing to come home to,” Alan added gruffly.

  Trevyn lowered his eyes to hide a gleam of joy and wonder. Let Alan think he had been sorrowing. But he was learning the elfin Sight at last, it seemed. It had never caught him up so strongly before, except that horrible time when a wolf had given him bad dreams, false dreams.… But these just now had been his own dreams; he felt sure of it.

  “I had better go to see my uncle,” he muttered.

  He climbed the long, spiraling tower stairs, his breath quickened by more than exertion. Hal did not answer the rap on his door, so the Prince pushed it open. King Hal stood staring westward through his window bars, his face haggard, his skin drawn into taut folds over the straight lines of his cheekbones. He did not stir for Trevyn’s presence.

  “Mireldeyn!” Trevyn called him by the sooth-name, and in a moment he trembled at his own boldness. Hal turned slowly and fixed his nephew with a silvery stare. In all the seven ages there had been no one quite like Mireldeyn, and even Trevyn, who had bounced on his lap not too many years before, could not fail to feel his greatness.

  “Trevyn,” Hal remarked. “I am bound for Elwestrand at last. You’ll not try to sway me from my destiny, lad? You are too young for that, I think—and also, in your own foolish way, too wise.”

  Trevyn did not know how to react. “Elwestrand is fair, you have told me,” he said at last. “But my father is saddened, my aunt angry and sad.”

  “I grieve that Alan must grieve.” Hal turned away to his window again, his voice cold and tight. “But the ways of men are strange to me now, and I do not understand his sorrow. Nor can I see any longer what may be in store for him. But as for your aunt—she will find fulfillment that I could never give her. It was not by her fault that we have been childless, Trevyn. Ket can better serve her, he who has loved her all these years.”

  “Ket!” Trevyn’s astonishment left him open-mouthed, and for a moment he wondered if Hal was really mad. Ket, the former outlaw who had never learned to properly ride a horse! He had once been valiant, Trevyn knew, but now he was only the stooping, gravely courteous countryman who taught archery and served Alan as seneschal. That he should so regard the Queen!

  “Do you think he has stayed in Laueroc for want of choice? He could have had any manor or town in Isle.” Hal skewered Trevyn again with his icy stare. “Nay, do not mistake me, young man. Rosemary has always been faithful to me. Indeed, I believe she does not know of Ket’s devotion; she is too modest to credit herself with such devotion. And Ket is a man of honor, and my friend.”

  “But you—has he told you?” Trevyn gasped.

  “He knows there is no need to tell me. I saw his love twenty-some years ago, when he and my lady first met. But she was a lass of sixteen, my betrothed, and he was thirty, with a price on his red head. So he guarded her well, for my sake as well as her own, and he has cherished her all these years.” Hal sighed, still staring into the reaches of the west. “I should have let him have her.”

  Trevyn could think of no answer, and left the tower room, shaken. He had thought himself adult, but in the face of adult trouble he felt very much the child. The more so because his own thoughts would cause his father pain, he knew. In days that followed he tried to give up such thoughts of sailing to Elwestrand. But vision replaced his conscious dreams, taking him at its will, day or night, flooding him like water and leaving him shaking. A silver ship, a silver harp, a winged white steed circling above the highest mountaintop.…

  One vision came often. A woman with skin white as sea foam, hair like living gold, claret lips, and azure eyes—a woman as lovely as any elf, and yet not of elfin kind, for passion moved in her white breasts and wine mouth; Trevyn had felt it, lying limply in his bed at night. Around her hands flew ruddy robins and little gold-crested wrens; at her feet nestled leopards and deer, graceful swans—all manner of creature loveliness, even a kingly silver wolf. Hal had once said that the eagle and the serpent were friends in Elwestrand. Surely this woman was a princess in Elwestrand; could there be another place so fair? Trevyn grew certain that she awaited him there. There would be a ship for him, too, a sign to help his parents see that his destiny lay with the sea. His mother, at least, would understand if there was a sign. But Alan might never understand.

  Trevyn avoided thought of Alan, let himself become lost in the dreams. He no longer worried about the wolves, or about Meg, or his uncle. And when Gwern returned from Lee, several days after himself, he scarcely minded his dogged presence. He moved through his days of lessons and training serenely, almost indifferently, with his mind’s eye on the white-breasted sea.

  Lysse frowned at him. “
Vision is a chancy thing, Trevyn,” she said to him abruptly one day. “Love or pride or sorrow—any one of them will send you astray like a strong wind. It will be years before you can read the Sight aright.”

  But Trevyn would not be lessoned by her, and soon her attention was demanded elsewhere. Before the winter was over, Hal left his window and took to his bed. He lay there day and night, restless at first, but later unmoving, uneating, unsleeping. Alan came to him often, to shout at him sometimes, but also to reason, and plead, and, Trevyn suspected, to weep. Rosemary came often, to sit silently by with averted eyes. Trevyn came uneasily, and as seldom as he could. But the only person to have any speech from Hal those days was Lysse. She sat by his bedside like the others who tried to care for him, but she did not lower her eyes.

  “That son of yours is dreaming of glory,” Hal said once. She could scarcely hear his voice, but the elves do not always need the words of the voice to hear.

  “I know it,” she answered. “Alan and I have expected it for years, and guarded against it, perhaps too well.… Surely you have not forgotten the portent that attended his birth?”

  On Trevyn’s natal morning, great golden eagles had circled the towers of Laueroc, mighty-pinioned eagles from Veran’s Mountain by the faraway western sea. Green-clad Lysse had watched them from her window as she gave her baby his first milk.

  “I have forgotten nothing,” Hal told her sharply.

  “So he is fated to travel ways far and solitary and strange to us,” she said, ignoring the tone. “He will leave the motherhood of earth, at least for a while; sea and sky will claim him. But I hope not yet. He dreams because he is young, and he shrinks from the grief that drapes his life these days. Alan is of no help to him. He is so fogged with bitterness that he scarcely sees beyond his own pain.”

  “I cannot help him,” Hal whispered.

  “I know it.” Lysse spoke with mindful understanding.

  “But the lad,” Hal continued. “He flees from more than sorrow, I think.”

  “You think he flees? From Gwern?”

  “Ah, the wyrd,” Hal murmured. “There is a portent for you, of great weight. I tell you, Trevyn will be more important than any of us, more than King, more than Very King. Of all the Kings of Isle and Welas, I know of none that have had a wyrd.”

  “Why, what is a wyrd?” Lysse asked curiously.

  “More than comrade, more than brother or blood brother, more than second self. Alan was all of those to me.…” Hal floundered. “How I wish I knew. I can only sense dimly that the wyrd is one who will be sacrificed when the time comes.” Hal closed his eyes. “Suffering and sacrifice—they are required of any true king. How much more, then, of Trevyn.… He will blunder into the teeth of suffering soon.”

  “I believe he has already begun. But I don’t understand.” Lysse creased her fair brow. “Who will sacrifice Gwern? And why?”

  “Aene. Or the goddess. For greatness.” He stirred slightly, faced her again. “There are marvels to come, a quickening, new magic, or old magic made new.… There are things I could never do, and they will be done. That mystic sword I found will be thrown in the sea at last; I have seen that. An elfin King must hurl it away, to end the long shadow of Lyrdion on our land. I was never able to do it; ’twas all I could do to touch that weapon once, then walk away.”

  Lysse leaned forward with as much excitement as he had ever known her to show. “What else?”

  “Something about unicorns, and the shape where two circles meet, the spindle shape. And the seeress … Trevyn mounted on a cat-eyed steed. Virgins and dragons … Do you think it might be a girl he’s running from?”

  “It has occurred to me,” Lysse snapped. “What was Trevyn doing on such a peculiar horse?”

  “Bringing the legends back to Isle, from Elwestrand. To travel to Elwestrand and return—I could never do that. It has never been done. But he shall do it. Trevyn shall, the young fool. I have seen.”

  “Mother of mercy,” she murmured, stunned. “You haven’t told him!”

  “I am not a half-wit,” he retorted frostily. “What is the good of a prophecy told? He must work it out himself, or make a hash of it, as the case may be. I’ve written it down among my things, for some scholar to grub up years hence. Then Trevyn shall have his glory, if glory is due.”

  “Mother of mercy,” she said again. “Unicorns stand for wholeness.… What are the two circles that meet?”

  “Gold and silver, sun and moon …” Hal’s voice faded dreamily away. He was tired, and spoke no more, then or in the weeks that followed. He lay in deep stillness. Alan stopped trying to talk him out of his strange trance, though he was full of anger that had no vent. Sometimes he climbed the tower stairs to Hal’s door and looked silently in for a while, then turned and went away. He would not sit by his brother’s side.

  Hal faded into brightness. Though he did not eat or move, his body remained beautiful—frail, scarred from old wounds, but glowing with spirit life. During the first days of spring, when a hint of green began to tinge the hillsides, Hal gradually, carefully ceased to breathe. Power and vision still shone from his open eyes.

  Alan could not grieve anymore; how was he to grieve for one who had not truly died? But Rosemary wept, for she was a woman and she knew her loss. Trevyn clung to his dream. When the trees began to bud and Hal still did not stir, his loved ones prepared to take him to the Bay, where, Lysse’s Sight told her, an elf-ship awaited him. Alan dressed him in the bright, soft raiment of the elves and laid him in a horse litter. Beside him Rosemary placed the antique plinset that had always been his comfort. Alan brought the mighty silver crown that had come with Veran to Isle.

  “Hal does not want the heavy crown,” Lysse said. “He told me so. He will be no king in Elwestrand.”

  Alan looked at the great crown that was rayed like a silver sun. The sheen of it was the same as the tide-washed gray of Hal’s eyes. Alan blinked and turned away.

  “It has no place here without him,” he said roughly. “He is the last of that line. I will throw it into the sea whence it came. Lysse, get him the circlet I made him, at least.…”

  Trevyn came out, leading Rhyssiart, his golden steed, ready to ride with the others. But Alan turned on him brusquely. “Put that horse away. You are to stay here.”

  Trevyn’s jaw dropped in astonished protest, and hot anger stirred in him; he quickly squeezed it down. He watched, motionless, as Alan and the Queens rode off with the horse litter between them. Arundel followed behind, riderless. Meadowlarks sang high overhead as the little procession moved slowly toward the Bay of the Blessed, a seven days’ journey away. Trevyn stood with his disobedience already forming in his mind.

  Chapter Six

  “I am going, too,” Gwern stated.

  Trevyn sighed, gloomily accepting that Gwern knew of his plans even though he had not told him. He scarcely ever spoke to Gwern, though he had not fought with him since the row over Meg. His dislike had not abated, but he had become somewhat ashamed of it. He had decided to be dignified.

  “Very well,” he replied coolly, then smiled grimly to himself. He judged that Gwern would not ride with him more than a few days. Gwern would not be able to pass the haunt that guarded the Blessed Bay.

  After nightfall they were off, with heavy packs of food stolen from the kitchen. Trevyn knew the sentries would be wary of him now, so they had to do some climbing with a rope. The Prince barely bothered to wonder why he trusted Gwern as his companion. Once well beyond the walls, far out on the downs, the mismatched pair called up some horses and set their course by the summer stars that hung low on the western horizon.

  Trevyn had never been to the Bay of the Blessed, but he felt sure he could find the way. He would show his parents whether he was a child, to be so lightly left behind! He rode hard, to be certain of arriving before the slow horse litter. Once he had passed the haunt, the abode of bodiless spirits, he need not fear any pursuit. No mortal could withstand terror of those unresting dead e
xcept a few who still remembered the mysteries of the old order, the sound of the Old Language. Among which few, as a Laueroc, Trevyn numbered himself.

  Within three days Trevyn and Gwern came to the end of the green meadows and tilled land, to the haunt, where the shades of the dead thickly clustered. Trevyn could feel their eerie presence chill the air. Smugly, he turned to watch Gwern shriek and flee. At last he would be rid of the muddy-hued upstart who hounded him! But Gwern only straightened to attention on his horse.

  “Dead people!” he exclaimed, with something like delight. “But why do they not rest? Whence do they come?”

  “How should I know?” Trevyn sputtered, fighting off his astonishment and the conclusions he did not wish to reach. Irrationally fleeing, he spun his mount and sent it springing into the haunt. Gwern followed without hesitation, and the wild terrain soon slowed Trevyn’s pace. He and Gwern picked their way silently between looming gray rocks and dark firs. Once through the invisible barrier, Trevyn breathed easier, knowing he would not be ingloriously escorted back to Laueroc. But Gwern still rode at his side.

  “I think they were gods,” Gwern said with the unreasoning certainty of a child.

  “Gods!” Trevyn snorted. “Only peasants talk of gods, Gwern!”

  “They were little gods, such as can be killed, and they tried hard to cheat death; they still try. But the great gods cannot be killed. There is the goddess my mother; her sooth-name is Alys.”

  Trevyn gaped at him, staggered anew. Gwern had spoken in the Ancient Tongue, which Trevyn had never heard him use before or expected to hear from him. He hazily sensed that Gwern could not have said “Alys” in the language of Isle or any language of men. But he thought more of his earthy companion than of the goddess. There was no escaping the conclusion now: Gwern moved in the old order. He should have known it the first time he saw him touch an elwedeyn horse.