The Wanderer

by Wilder, Cherry;

  “Here comes one who is still going strong!” he said, to cheer her.

  And there, striding down the archery lawn from the mighty wooden palace of the Firn, was a tall, sturdy old woman in kedran dress.

  “My Queen,” cried Ortwen Cash, who had ridden in Athron with the queen. “Have you ever heard of a town on the Chyrian coast called Coombe?”

  “I don’t think so,” said Aidris. “But wait—yes, I have it …”

  They sat at the round table under a spreading ash, and the servants nearby came at once to serve the queen and her friends.

  “Yorath Duaring was in Coombe during the civil wars in Mel’Nir,” said Aidris, “fighting for Krail. He raised a horde of Chyrians to relieve the besieged garrison at Hackestell Fortress. They became the Wesdings—part of the army of the Westmark.”

  “There is a Holy Spring in Coombe,” said Ortwen. “I have this from your own friend, Mistress Vanna, in Hagnild’s house by Nightwood. The Wanderer, this maid of destiny, comes from Coombe. She is of Chyrian blood, yet she is also almost one of the ‘great warriors’ of Mel’Nir, a tall lusty lass capped with tresses of red; they say she has visited the Shee in Tulach Hall.”

  “They are lost,” said Aidris sadly. “A lost race, fading one by one: aged ladies, the Fionnar, fading into the sunset.”

  “Will you find the battlemaid?” asked Raff Masura, with a grin. “I do not think anyone can hide from the pair of you!”

  “Go along with you, Seafarer!” said old Ortwen, giving him a push.

  Aidris watched their interchange and smiled, trying to keep a face of calm, though inwardly she felt new excitement rising. Perhaps—perhaps her fears for Tanit would prove unfounded. Perhaps the girl would be healed … “No,” she said. “If this Wanderer is the one I seek, she will journey this way on her own account.”

  III

  The Lightening

  The days before the wedding were trying—they would not let her see him, and she did not know if the last ice would abate. She grew querulous, and all around her drew back, dark with fear, and her anger rose in its turn, to know they imagined the coldness had returned to her. Just let me see him, her heart was keening. I must know, finally, if I will ever be free of this chill.

  The court of Zor was desperate to improve her mood. Every effort was made to distract her, all of it serving the wrong turn. To soothe her, the aged keeper of the treasures, the ancient serving woman Riane Am Rhanar, even brought her so far as the Gift Treasury, but the sight of all the precious treasures stored up against her wedding day only drove Tanit into a fury.

  “These cold stones!” she cried. “These cold stones are not what I seek from my marriage-pledge!” The piles were all around her, stifling her heart: jewels and gold, encrusted hunting weapons and saddles and cloth-of-gold and everything imaginable for this blessed wedding. She thought—in the one small corner of her mind that was not tied up in all her selfish, frantic passions—of the honor this marriage would bring the Daindru thrones. Then she felt cold and small, and even more diminished.

  Lady Riane, her features still fine beneath the soft wrinkles—as a young girl she had come from Lien to the Chameln, a serving woman to so distant a figure as Aidris’s long-dead mother—in her age and wisdom, she understood a little of Tanit’s despair, and she tried to comfort her.

  “Dan Tanit,” she said, “my beloved Queen. Not all of these are gifts for statesmanship. There is love here also. See—look here, my lady, at this—” She held up a tarnished bronze box, beautifully hammered with leaves and flowers. “This will be stones, perhaps, but as a gift it holds a meaning more lively. They say it is a present from Prince Beren Pendark and his mother, the Lady Merigaun. She is the aunt of your betrothed, I believe—the woman who made suit to free him of the old duke, when his parents so untimely were taken. Surely this is a gift of love?”

  Almost against her will, Tanit found herself looking at the bronze box. She should not have touched it—in a matter of safety, to keep her free from spells, she should have had Mekkin Am Rann, her taster and bodyguard, be the first to hold it in her hands. But Mekkin was not here—she would not stop to have her called, yes, she would open the box—

  It was a shining necklace of graduated blue white stones, uncut but highly polished. They were ice, they were a blue fire that melted ice … Tanit realized she was shaking. There was magic here, a power, a purity. A risk.

  “This gift is mine from this moment,” she proclaimed.

  Riane drew back, alarmed, and glanced anxiously toward the doorway. “Dan Tanit, I did not mean …” She shrank before Tanit’s imperial gaze. “My Queen, these gifts are for presentation after the wedding.”

  “No,” Tanit said, sudden queenly. “The rest can wait. This I take charge of from this moment.”

  The stones were cold to the touch—colder than nature, but Tanit would not fear them. She placed the necklace in Riane’s hands, and her poor lady of treasures, her age-softened fingers trembling, undid the clasp and placed it around Tanit’s lovely young throat.

  “There you are, my Queen.”

  Tanit’s smile, as Riane brought a mirror, was warm. “There I am indeed,” she said softly. “Think you not I will make a beautiful bride?”

  As Tanit turned, and the old woman looked into her face, the breath caught in her throat; she dropped to her knees before her lady. Tanit, shining with newfound wonder and rushing joy, placed her hands on the old woman’s shoulders and raised her up. More than this, the young queen thought, feeling the shudder of the old woman’s heart against her own breast. She felt herself transformed, felt a fresh freeness running all through her, as though she had come, at long last, to the end of an old, cold dream. She looked over Riane’s shoulder into the glass of the mirror and smiled at her own reflection. I will put my childish pain behind me, and I will rule with Aidris as equal queen, upon the Daindru thrones.

  The formalities of their meeting were trying, but they had looked and loved with one burning glance. When Liam took her hand, she was filled with longing. Now that Kirstin, Lady Fayne, the queen’s true friend, was here in person and the watchers, the holy stones, all set in place, Tanit was bold.

  Of course Liam had his own familiar, a valet called Mack who helped him come to the hidden rooms. And there, without more ado, they made love, eagerly, warmly, perfectly, upon an old soft bed, covered with glowing silks and soft linen. Tanit cried out once, very softly, and Liam kissed away her tears, her slightest wounds. She felt wonderfully serene—no one knew their secret—at least not for certain. But then, at one of the ongoing ceremonies she caught her brother, Gerd, looking at her in surprise, and she blushed.

  So it went on, her charmed wedding feast, and sure enough, there came the portrait she had been shown in her dream. Now that the portrait had arrived, she told Liam about her warning dream of the swans and the dark-eyed boy. Tanit kept the picture in their bedchamber until all the revels and ceremonies were done and the vast array of guests and their escorts swarmed away, down the Bal, through Athron, even a few impatient guests from Eildon or the Southland who were carried home by magic.

  Then, in this nowhere time before the life of the court had settled, Tanit and Liam brought the portrait to a small retreat, their smallest audience room, and propped it upon a desk. They sat staring at it. The frame—this much at least they knew—was out of Eildon.

  “Does it look like Prince Carel?” asked Liam.

  “Yes,” she said, “but it is a family likeness. I suppose the age is more or less right. It looks like my father, wearing a beard. Perhaps some Pendark cousin?”

  “I swear it is not Carel, nor a cousin,” said Liam angrily.

  “Some fellow with a chance resemblance, maybe from the Pendark lands. They have a festival in the east, near that Oakhill, in the picture, where there are players in a pageant, picked for their likeness to golden Shennazar, to your royal father.” Shennazar, Tanit had learned without amusement, was the Eildon pronunciation of her father�
�s name. It said much for her newfound love that she had not corrected him—she already accepted he was trying for her sake to repair this “fault.”

  “Old Aidris is fussing about a pretender—there have been many of them over the years,” said Tanit. “She is sending for Emyas Bill, the old Master Painter, to see the portrait before we see the subject himself.”

  “You will have this man come here?”

  “We will have him in our power, to observe him,” said Tanit, clenching her hands. “What d’ye think the plan would be if the man was acknowledged as Carel, my father’s brother, the Lost Prince?”

  “Disruption,” said Liam. “At the very least, a watcher at court, who sends reports to his master. At worst …”

  He suddenly caught her in his arms, where they sat on a velvet settle.

  “I know, I know who would do such a thing,” he whispered. “And you know him, too, and it fills me with shame! I fear it is my priestly half-brother himself. He would break our marriage, my uncle has been working on him. He would not see me raised to power, or to joy—”

  Tanit, who had always believed that she knew the ways of the world, did her best to conceal her shock. Druda Aengus had been one of their marriage celebrants! He had taken his leave very promptly after the ceremony—perhaps this was why. But she thought about the warning the dark-eyed boy had given her in her dreams—the swans, the boy’s brown robes—and she did not think Eildon alone was to blame here.

  Next day, they waited for a visitor in the same room, with the portrait. In she came, a tall, well-made older woman, burning with mad anxiety and the hope of many years.

  “Dear Goddess!” cried Merilla Am Zor. “Bless you Tanit! Bless you too, Count Liam!”

  She gave them each a firm embrace and a kiss, flung down a magnificent sheaf of flowers on the table.

  “Where is the thing? Ah—”

  She sat on a brocade chair and surveyed the portrait. Tears stole down her cheeks, and she wiped them away with her kerchief. At length she said:

  “No. It is a marvelous portrait, but not of Carel. I wonder who on earth it might be?”

  “Aidris posits some distant Pendark connection,” said Tanit. “She will send old Emyas Bill to look oyer the picture. Aunt Merilla, have you heard of a magic battlemaid, called the Wanderer?”

  “Yes,” said Merilla, “she comes from Coombe, in the Chyrian lands of Mel’Nir, where our cousin Yorath Duaring did great things. Now this Captain Maddoc rides about doing good and going errands for the Shee.”

  “She was here, in the escort of Merigaun Pendark,” said Tanit. “A tall, strong red-haired kedran. One of the wedding guides, Auric Barry, suggested I might enlist her services to find out more of this pretender.”

  “Good idea!” said Merilla, in her blunt way. “Maybe she could go into Eildon!”

  She turned away reluctantly from the portrait and said:

  “Did Gerd see the picture before he went off on this study tour to Mel’Nir with my boys?”

  “No,” said Tanit, “they all went rushing away—it is the kind of thing they enjoy!”

  Then both women laughed fondly in a motherly fashion.

  “Nay, come,” laughed Liam, “I have been on many tours—to see ancient monuments, to see my beautiful lake—your lake now, my love, for it is the Troth Gift. Would you have young men all roystering and fighting?”

  “Alas,” said Princess Merilla Am Chiel. “We have had some of that in Old Achamar. My dear Carel ran about the streets with young rogues called the Salamanders—even Sasko, heir of the Firn, joined them on a few escapades.”

  “The Inchevin,” said Tanit bitterly. “A bad branch of the royal houses. And that evil man from the north, Tazlo Am Ahrosh …”

  She reached for the hand of Count Liam, and her deep blue eyes filled with tears.

  “Ah Goddess,” cried Merilla. “We must not mourn over old times and all those who are lost! Come, sweet niece, dearest Queen. Come with your true sweetheart into the gardens, and we will drink kaffee from the lands below the world!”

  She turned back, gathered up her bundle of flowers, and rang the bell for a servant, who carried them away to arrange. Then, stealing another glance at the portrait, Merilla said:

  “Did you read the lettering on the saddle in the portrait?”

  “Yes indeed,” said Liam. “It seems to say A Y V …”

  “For Ayvid,” Merilla said with a rueful smile. “Carel’s horse, which was never found. These tricksters have been very thorough.”

  BOOK III

  CHAPTER X

  THE FIRST TASK

  Ebony was restless, throwing up his head to snuff the spring breezes. It was the appointed time—the twelfth day of the Willowmoon, the Month of Planting, about midday, and they were on the main street of Aird, the village of the Shee, home of changelings of both kinds. Aird was one of the prettiest places Gael had ever seen, not so dear to her as Coombe or the villages in Pfolben fields, but rich with flowers and trees. The houses and cottages rambled a little, as did the roses. She passed an inn called the Two Unicorns and came to her trysting place, the inn called Tzurn’s Haven.

  She tried to ride into the innyard, under an arch twined with reddish leaves, but Ebony started back and would not go into the neat, old yard. No other horses were to be seen in the yard, although there was a heavy old grey with plumed hooves and a plaited tail hitched to a rail outside the inn door. She got down, looking toward a man in brown with the air of a groom, who stood chewing a juicy apple just outside the archway. He made no move to help her, to hold Ebony while she removed her saddlebags. Choosing to ignore him, she led Ebony to the other end of the hitching rail, fed him some apple of her own and urged him in whispers, with her own firm stroking of his shining neck, to stand firm. Then she took her saddlebags and her good lance and went into the inn.

  It was dark after the spring sunshine, but she soon beheld a spacious room with only a few customers. A party of travelers in bright clothes were taking a midday meal at a round table. She set down her load at a smaller table by a window; a man’s voice called harshly:

  “Don’t sit there, kedran! And y’can bring no weapons in here!”

  Gael had not expected a rude reception in Aird—she counted it as an anteroom to Tulach Hearth, the abode of the light folk. Now she sat down deliberately and waited until a heavy dark man came striding across to her table.

  “Are you deaf, soldier?”

  “My name is Maddoc,” she said coldly. “Captain Maddoc, and I am awaited at this inn, on this day. I will sit here, where I can see my horse. Bring me a small ale and buttered bread, if you have it.”

  “Awaited are you?” sneered the dark man. “Get out before you are hurled down the high street! This is Aird you’re in, and you must fear our uses! Awaited indeed!”

  Gael was more puzzled than ever and wondered if this was some kind of test of her resolve or her patience. Could the Shee have all vanished away, forgotten their compact with her? Was it a reaction to the strange comings and goings on the River Bal and in Lienish Balbank—the Eildon Princes coming to the Chameln lands for the royal wedding? She tried to temporize, knowing she had no advantage—she could not name those who awaited her.

  “Good sir,” she said. “I understand your uses well and will not offend any in Aird. In the name of the Goddess, let me wait here and bring a little sustenance for a traveler.”

  She stripped off a gauntlet and let her right hand rest on the table’s edge: her ring flashed in a rainbow of colors. The dark man, far from being soothed, became more angry than ever.

  “You and your trumpery ring! Think you know magic, d’ye? Think you can partake of our heritage, here in Aird! Try one tithe of a working here in Tzurn’s Haven, and you’ll know all about it! Outside, I say! If anyone awaits you they can find you on the bench under the next window. Go quickly! I’ll send out your small ale if I don’t change my mind!”

  “I think you’ll regret being so rude,” said Gael.
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  She got up, loaded up her saddlebags and her lance. As she trailed out again, the guests at the round table laughed and questioned the host. He waved his arms and complained. Some folk never listened. This was Aird, not the kedran barracks.

  Outside she set down her belongings on the bench: Aird was as comely as ever; the sun was shining and the air was full of the scent of flowers. She went to soothe Ebony and saw a carriage in the innyard that had been closed to her, or at least to her horse. She waited as patiently as she could, and presently a buxom young girl with bright brown eyes came out with her ale and bread. Gael found out the name of the host, Master Galdo, and the girl’s name, Bergit.

  “Who’s your tryst, kedran?” the girl said boldly. “A maid or a man?”

  “A fire-breathing dragon from the Burnt Lands!” grinned Gael sourly. She paid her score and added a small tip.

  “There, now,” said Bergit, giving advice. “That’s the kind of reply that puts Master Galdo in a rage. Joking of magic and dragons because this is Aird, supposed to be a magic place. We’ve had too much of it, Captain, in these days before the Chameln wedding!”

  “Bergit,” said Gael, “Master Galdo was harsh and rude. I am a stranger in your beautiful village, and I can say no word of the people who bade me wait at this inn on this day. Please try and soothe your master.”

  Then she was made alert by a stinging from her magic ring and a single bell note that rang faintly in her head. Far away, at the end of the neat white street and its cobbled squares, a figure on a white horse had appeared. The rider wore a pale homespun cloak and a black hood, on which she could soon pick out bands of green. The young girl, Bergit, thumbed her forehead, in a gesture of protection and said in a low voice:

  “O Blessed Huntress … !”

  She ran back inside the inn. Gael barely had time to load Ebony with her saddlebags and couch her lance in its traveling bands before the rider came up to the small fountain in the cobbled square before Tzurn’s Haven. Now she took the rider for a man and wondered if it might be Luran in person. She read the hood as a mark of mourning and was afraid for the last of the Shee. The rider held a lance now, with wisps of drapery upon it, and he beckoned her with this weapon. She mounted up on Ebony, who was pleased to be moving again, and walked him sedately toward the rider on the white horse.