The Wanderer

by Wilder, Cherry;

  “No sign of Gwil Cluny!” said Hadrik.

  Gael drew out her wooden tablet and thumbed its surface briskly. Gwil’s anxious face appeared; he was moving swiftly, with leaves and branches passing before him as he hurried along.

  “Front of the house,” he panted. “Use the other way around, and if needed, the Cloak of Air. When I come, it will be time for Stillstand!”

  “The guards are showing themselves,” said Gael. “Come, we must take this way—”

  They went stealthily around the northern side of the farmhouse just as a strange roaring sound began to fill the air. There were, two, three, four monstrous shapes in the center of the sloping herb garden. Stone Men, grown from the garden figures, who stamped and flexed their arms as they danced around the graven statue of the god. Then the tall statue itself came to life, ripping aside the vines that grew around it and lifting its arms to heaven while its strange companions uttered a shrill, harsh roar.

  Gael and Hadrik stared so hard they were almost overthrown. In spite of her shield, Gael was seized clumsily, crushed in a harsh embrace, and flung sideways to the ground. A fifth Stone Man had come from behind a half-grown oak. Now he was at Hadrik, his shielding pressed, burning under the pressure, so that the loyal kern was surrounded with blue fire. Unable to draw his sword, Hadrik caught up a long board of undressed pine from the edge of a garden bed and hacked at the legs of his attacker. Gael half-slipped, then took hold of her lance again, and she thrust at their adversary and shouted aloud:

  “I name you for a Man, no Stone Man!” she called in Chyrian.

  The other Stone Men, still stomping and chanting below them on the slope, it was too far off to see what they were, but the creature they were fighting was indeed a man. The stony covering was a carnival costume, plastered with some kind of greyish mortar; there were joins and joints in the suit. Now Gael drove at the shoulder joint, and her new lance struck home; a low sound of pain issued from the head of the Stone Man. Still he did not fall but turned to strike at Hadrik with his own pine plank.

  The captain threw his assailant down by tangling his stony legs; he fell heavily within his awkward suit and lay still, senseless. Gael flicked the pine board out of his hand just as Gwil came rushing up, right across the front of the farmhouse. Down the slope the Stone Men began to move up toward them, with a louder sound. Gwil Cluny had his sword drawn, and he shouted to Gael:

  “Stillstand! Stillstand!”

  They faced each other across a bush of rosemary, going straight into the familiar ritual. The herb sellers rushed out at last from a cellar far under the house as the Grand Bewitchment took hold, but they were not in its path. The noise from below by the fountain grew even louder, then stopped; the Stone Men remained in frozen attitudes. It was indeed the Hour of Stone.

  “Who is the rider at the back of the house?” asked Gael. “He must be seen to, with his poor horse!”

  “It is Steward Nevil,” said Gwil. “We’ll see to him …”

  The woman from the herb counter came toward them, holding out her hands to Gael:

  “Oh kedran, kedran,” she cried. “Have mercy on our poor Master Royl!”

  Gael took her hands; she saw a middle-aged woman, fair and fresh faced, and thought of her own mother, older now, going about at the Holywell.

  “Have no fear, good Mistress,” she said. “We will help and protect Master Royl. This strange thing with the Stone Men has been done by others—do you know who might have done it?”

  The woman’s husband had limped over to them, using a stick, and they said their names, Lockyer, Han and Jean, from down the valley.

  “Our good Dan has some work with incomers,” said Han Lockyer, “and they use magic, like the lords and ladies at a ball who will not ‘wear their years.’ What is your name, Captain?”

  “I am Gael Maddoc,” said Gael.

  “She is the Wanderer!” put in Hadrik and Gwil in one voice.

  Gael looked at them in surprise. She felt like a child who gets a sudden word of praise from her parents or teachers. The Lockyers stared and smiled, and Mistress Jean made a sign of blessing on her forehead.

  “I think all these Stone Men are not more than true men in mortared suits,” said Gael. “Gwil?”

  They went swiftly down the hill among the herb beds, and from the very edge of the spell, the Stillstand, which Gael carefully outlined now in blue light; from outside its bounds, they stood and examined the Stone Men. Three had fallen on their backs, but one was standing. It was easy to see they were in costume; there was even a patch of blood on the stony arm of one of the fallen. Gael wondered about their breathing, in these suits, but the openings on the heads, for nose and mouth, were large. The Stillstand would last something under an hour, and she almost wished to stay on, to see how these fellows took themselves away.

  Now Gwil Cluny had gone down further and was examining the statue of the giant garden god, who stood stiffly with his arms flung up. She heard him chuckle as she came closer. The back of the statue, tangled with vines, was flowing now with water, and there were pipes and wheels to be seen. Gwil was at a set of long handles in the grass. He pulled one back and the god lowered his arms with a moist creaking. Gael laughed aloud.

  “Yet it was a frightening show,” she said, as they walked back up the hill.

  She assured the Lockyers that these were real men, not men of stone, and they would not wake for some time. Everyone trooped round to the back of the house except Han Lockyer, who promised to call if anything changed. Once they came to the fallen steward and his horse, Gael quickly unbound them, and they were raised up.

  “Master Nevil,” said Gael. “I think you will stay here while we look inside the house.”

  “What are you then, kedran?” growled the steward. “What are you doing on this land?” Coming free of the Stillstand, he seemed dazed, his voice rising and falling like there was a weakness in his chest.

  “You are a man of Eildon, yet you wear tokens of Lien,” she said. “The land is closely and magically watched and guarded. You must know this!”

  “It is all the priests!” he said, confusion clouding his aged features. “I am only their servant. Is poor Artus hurt then?” he went on vaguely, holding his head, but seeming of a sudden truly concerned. “To cast down a horse …”

  Artus, the big roan, seemed to be doing very well; Jean was feeding him apple, while Gwil rubbed him down with a wad of hay.

  “Master Nevil,” said Gael, concerned at his fading manner. If, as she suspected, the wheat ear had in truth been a leash, perhaps this man was innocent of harmful intent. “I will go up and speak to Dan Royl. These folk will bring you to the kitchen—perhaps there is an ale or cider …”

  Hadrik and Gwil came to help the steward, and he went with them easily—Gael thought he was indeed sick and troubled in his wits. Jean took charge of the big kitchen and was making up the fire under the stockpot, serving bread and ale. Gael took a sup of the brew herself but decided not to question Steward Nevil any further. She signaled Hadrik to take a turn round the farmhouse; then she went back into the cool shadowy hall and walked softly up the stairs, still carrying the golden lance.

  The voice began again as she came to the turn of the stair.

  “Oh cat, Oh Parn, my dear, they will be the death of me! Even little dog Tazlo will not save your poor master …”

  Gael came to a handsome dusty landing and tapped upon the door of the largest room, straight ahead.

  “Come in!”

  The voice was strong and full.

  She went into a beautiful room, full of light and shadow, from the half-drawn hangings that covered the old wooden slatted windows and the few narrower openings mullioned with bluish glass. The original of the portrait sketch, the man who had played the king, Dan Royl, sat at a table piled with books. A large orange cat lay at full length on a heap of parchment; the small black and white dog, Tazlo, yapped at Gael but fell silent when she turned toward him.

  “So you ha
ve come,” said Dan Royl. “A courier from other lands!”

  “Do you know me, Master Royl?” she asked.

  “Not very well,” he smiled, and she thought she saw something in him like hope. “Have you worked your magic with my good lance from happier times? I think you may be the one who dealt so well with the Witchfinder of Lien!”

  “I am the one called the Wanderer,” she admitted, “and I have come here in search of truth, and in the service of Queen Tanit Am Zor of the Chameln lands and her consort Count Liam.”

  “I pray you, sit down with me,” said Dan Royl humbly.

  He rose up from the table and shook up the cushions on a settle. She saw that he was well built and supple under his simple robe—it was hard to guess his age. His eyes were hazel, a greenish brown.

  “Have you had your portrait painted recently, Master Royl?” she asked softly.

  “Oh yes,” he laughed. “I have entered into the spirit of the thing. They will be disappointed if the plan falls through now.”

  “You are not the Lost Prince!” she said.

  “No,” he said. “I am something quite other.”

  He returned to his table and felt among the books, then paused and stroked his golden cat.

  “I want to come into the Chameln, to the court,” he said. “I see now—this must be the safest, the best thing for me. I will do no harm to the queen and her young man.” He stroked again the cat. “I have been promised,” he said, “and beyond that, if the promises that have been made to me are broken, only a bond of magic could force me to act against the Chameln, and I am not afraid of that. You must know, Eildon has its code of honor, and a promise straight made will never be dishonored.” He smiled, and seemed almost amused. “Of course, it is another thing if a Eildon noble writes you a contract. That, you should know, must be proper copied in triplicate, or your purpose would be foiled.”

  Gael knew he was speaking of the illusory magics for which Eildon was famous, but she could not understand the man’s air of confidence, his seeming lack of fear. “Who has made you these promises, Master Royl?” she demanded. “What was the pretender supposed to do if the rulers of the Chameln accepted him?”

  “I was told I would be more fully informed of that in Lien,” Dan Royl said flatly. “Come autumn, I will spend a month there, within the Swangard tower, being taught to parrot words that have as yet no meaning to me. What am I to do? Spy on the royal house of the Zor, I suppose, and on Old Queen Aidris too, if I can.” He loosed a melancholy sigh, and Gael saw, beneath the glamor of his golden good looks, a deep sadness in him. “If you have good advisers,” he said, “you might easily come to the name of the man behind all this. I should not be surprised if young Count Liam might have guessed the answer himself.”

  “Before I came to Eildon, I knew you for a fraud,” Gael told him. “It is that name—or names—I have come to find out. Now—what would you have me do? These conspirators, and even their pretended Stone Men, are carefully directed—they would frighten simple folk.”

  “Give me your hand,” said Dan Royl, moving to the end of his table and reaching out. “I have not heard your name.”

  “Gael Maddoc,” she said, clasping his strong, well-shaped hand.

  “I swear to you, O Wanderer,” he said, looking into her eyes, “that I will not harm any in the Chameln lands and, further, that I will reveal as little as I can of your visit here. But you, Gael Maddoc, you yourself must beware. I foresaw your visit coming—I prayed for it—the visit that may yet loosen the noose that lies upon me. Yet I think—I fear—I am more of a danger to you than to anyone in the Chameln.”

  She saw in his eyes that this man believed he was telling the truth, but could not come to the heart of his secret. Why should this man be a danger to her? “You are telling me very little,” she complained. “You have not even told me the name of your master.”

  “I will give you my book, my journal, which reveals all,” he said, “if you will leave here at once.”

  He moved papers on the table, exposing a book, a well-made leather covered volume, filled with parchment, like a book for a counting house.

  “I will take the offer, Master Royl,” she said, coming quickly to the decision. “Bind up the book for my saddlebag. I’ll carry it away from your farm in a herb basket!”

  “One question, Captain Maddoc.” Dan Royl paused after they had made up the bundle, and she was turning for the door. “If you will. How did you know I was not Prince Carel Am Zor?”

  “Because the riddle of the Lost Prince has been solved!” she grinned at him. Despite the circumstances, she found herself in sympathy with this melancholy-tainted, handsome man, with his garden-hardened hands and steady gaze, and she could not resist sharing a little of her secret. “Master Royl, are you sure you are in no danger from these bear-leaders of yours?”

  “I swear it!” he said.

  “Perhaps not here,” she said. “But what about in Lien? The Brown Brothers claim to disdain magic, but I have seen them use it where it suits their cause. Do you not fear some magic bond to addle your wits and perhaps even send you like a dagger among the Chameln?”

  “In that,” he said, “I am in the Goddess’s hands. I know she will not forsake me.”

  His confidence was eerie; she found that she believed him.

  They clasped hands in farewell, and he smiled again his wonderfully charismatic smile.

  “Goddess grant me that this short meeting itself does not prove a danger to you!” he said.

  Unsettled, she went down the stairs quickly, gathered together her two helpers, Gwil Cluny and Nils Hadrik, then led them swiftly down toward the foot of the hill, where their horses were tied among the willows. They rode away toward the high road, but as they came to a quiet place, Gael decided to go more swiftly still. They drew together, and she cast a magic line about them, and they were carried to the cantreyn, the blessed round, which Hadrik had found hard by their grandstand seats for the Pageant. Amarah, Mev, and Imala were still off galloping about on the downs nearby, so they simply rode on home to their inn and carried their herb baskets up to their own parlor.

  CHAPTER XV

  JOURNAL OF A PRETENDER

  Gael opened the sturdy book and was pleased to see that Dan Royl wrote in a clear large Merchants’ Script. After reading the first lines, she read them again, aloud to Gwil Cluny and Hadrik. They took turns reading the strange document. Presently the others came in, Mev Arun and Amarah still in their riding habits, together with Imala. They were told what the strange document contained and joined the reading circle:

  This is a history of my life. I write it here with no hope it will come to the hands of those who may timely release me from the coil within which I find myself; only with the faint hope that it may be found after all this business has played its course, and then perhaps play some purpose to illuminate matters that are yet unclear to me. If fortune smiles upon me, it will serve as notice to my innocence—at least at the start of these ventures—in many strange actions. If fortune frowns … I have lived so far a humble life. I thought that would always be my fate, but I see now that the roots of this life were shallow. For better or for ill, I have been plucked forth from this pretty garden I have made here in Eildon. My only hope now is that there may yet prove to be a place for me on Chameln soil, though I hold this hope for a small one.

  I am the bastard son of King Sharn Am Zor. I was born before his marriage, got in my mother’s belly before even his journey to Eildon to seek the hand of Moinagh Pendark. My mother was Ellen Thorn, daughter of an herb grower of Lien. She had trained as a seamstress in Balufir. She came to serve Lady Iliane Seyl, wife of the King’s friend and adviser, Jevon Seyl of Hodd; all three were friends together in their young days in Lien. The Seyls came with King Sharn when he reclaimed his throne from the so-called Great King, Ghanor of Mel’Nir, and the Daindru were restored.

  The life of a seamstress was sheer drudgery, and Lady Seyl was a heedless, cruel mistress. She wa
s also the King’s lover. All the women of the court worshipped Sham, the Summer King. He was the picture of manly beauty. It is certain that he lay with other ladies and waiting women at the court in Achamar, though less commonly with the servants. He was headstrong as well as charming, but Sham Am Zor could not truly be described as depraved or lecherous. I believe I am the only child he sired out of wedlock—the herb Ebmorin, called Maid’s Friend, was widely used, and not only by the kedran.

  In the year 1172, from the laying of the stones in Achamar’s city walls, as time is reckoned in the Chameln lands, Princess Merilla Am Zor, the King’s sister and heir, together with his younger brother, Prince Carel, rode out of Lien and came to their own country. On their long journey to Achamar, they met up with a young chieftain of the northern tribes, Tazlo Am Ahrosh, chosen by the King to ride out and bring them safely home.

  Tazlo, as reward for the completion of this task, became the boon companion of the King, though it seems this man had little else to recommend him. He encouraged the King in much foolishness and folly. They hunted together out of season, played foolish pranks at festivals, spent nights roystering in secret places. No one knows whether it was the King’s expressed wish or simply a thing he took for granted, but sometimes Tazlo found a pretty girl or two for their long nights.

  One day Tazlo met my mother in a quiet corridor of the Seyl’s town house and asked her if she might come to supper at a certain house, hardly an inn, certainly not a house of assignation. It was called Three Trees and stood outside the old city of Achamar. A carriage brought her to the meeting, together with a young page who played the lute.

  My mother and I had no secrets from each other on this count, and I have heard the story of this night at Three Trees many times. As she had expected, the King was at this supper, with Tazlo and a dark-haired, dark-eyed beauty whom she never saw again, who gave her name as Emerald. My mother gave her name as Goldine. The King gave no name. They enjoyed a magnificent supper of pheasant, baked fish, sorbets, fruit, fine wines. The lights burned low, and there was music and singing coming from a gallery. At last, she and the King were alone together in another chamber, and they lay together. My mother was not a maid; she had had one lover, a boy in Lien. She admired and loved the King, and the experience of being loved by him she could only describe as the kind of ecstasy felt by mortals wooed by a Goddess or a God. She had no hopes or illusions about this happening again—before she came home alone in the carriage by the light of dawn, a servant brought her a box wrapped in silk. Inside she found a bag of golden royals—she was not insulted. Out of caution, she kept the money hidden, did not spend one gold piece. This turned out to be a caution well warranted.