The Oddling Prince

by Nancy Springer

  Facing the frothing, snorting stallion across a few scant rods of earth, Albaric fingered the harp strings, and notes flew up sweet and swift as honeybees amid larkspur and hollyhocks.

  From everywhere in the castle yard, folk hurried out to see whence came the wondrous music. And the blue steed halted his raging to stand as still as a statue, head high and ears pricked forward, listening, his white-rimmed stare fixed on Albaric.

  Steadily answering the stallion with his own eyes, as if mindful only of the blue steed, Albaric began to sing, and wine of Elfland could have been no finer than his voice:

  Son of the wind, son of the thunder

  Fleet are your legs, son of the lightning

  Son of sky raining, shod with silver

  Son of the dayspring, shod with gold.

  I sensed that he was creating the song as he sang and would have liked to pay better attention to rhyme, but there was no time.

  Your mother the rainbow, your neck arched bold

  Beloved by the rainbow, beloved by the lightning

  Both shine in your eyes, sheen your shoulders

  Cerulean blue, steed of the high sky

  Gasps and murmurs sounded from the crowd that had gathered, for the renegade stallion, ears at a wary angle, began slowly to walk toward Albaric, who stood where he was and sang on, gazing into the great eyes of the steed—uncanny eyes, I saw with scarcely any surprise amidst so much strangeness. No longer ringed with frightened white, the horse’s eyes shone the color of blue violets after rain

  Lapis your hue, and you were born

  With a jewel on your forehead, finest sapphire

  A jewel like a star between your wide eyes

  Indeed, I saw, this was no hammer-headed Roman-nosed war horse. The blue horse’s head, handsome, straight-lined, and small, could fittingly bear a jewel or a star.

  And on your fetlocks the wings of Otherwhere,

  Of rare blue eagles, of—

  The giant steed approached within two paces of Albaric, within one pace, then stopped.

  Everything stopped. Albaric stopped singing, stopped strumming the harp, and I feared for him, although the sympathy that connected us told me he was unafraid, and I could see ease, comfort, in every line of his slim body as he stood looking up at the horse and waiting—but even though he feared not, I scarcely breathed. I think no one did. All sound stopped; I heard not even the chirp of an errant sparrow.

  The stallion’s nostrils quivered, flared, and I could hear them fluttering as it lowered its head to sniff at Albaric’s flaxen hair.

  Cries broke out; the spell was broken, and the stallion retreated with a snort.

  Albaric turned to me, and through the boards of the fence, he handed me the harp. I glimpsed his glowing face, sensed his hope.

  “He should come out now,” Todd blurted. “Prince Aric, please make him come out.”

  “It is not my place to tell him what to do, Todd.”

  My old riding master gave me a startled glance, then turned to study Albaric again, whispering, “What is he?”

  I gave no answer, only watched Albaric watching the horse—no, talking to the horse with his eyes, strange youth and stranger steed conversing without words. At the same time, each took a step toward the other, close enough to touch. But Albaric did not reach out, although he badly wanted to; I knew this, felt it in him as I had felt it myself the many times I had wanted to lay a hand on his shoulder but refrained for the sake of his princehood. Similarly, he refrained for the sake of the great stallion’s pride. He waited, and the steed took the leadership, extending its lapis head, nostrils flared, to explore his face, his ears, his neck, arms, and hands.

  Then and only then, Albaric raised one arm, one hand, to smooth the black mane wildly strewn upon the stallion’s curved neck. He stroked the steed’s massive blue shoulder, and I saw how the sheen of the horse now glimmered on Albaric’s hand. I heard Todd beside me swearing steadily and very softly in sheer wonder. I heard the whispering, nearly silent awe all around me in the many watchers. And I felt no fear anymore, only joy for Albaric’s sake, as he stood beside the tall steed, touched its withers, and waited for permission.

  The blue stallion bowed to one knee in assent. Folk gasped at the beauty, the grace of the odd-hued steed as, gripping a fistful of black mane, Albaric vaulted onto the charger’s back. The horse straightened, snorted, pranced in place, lifted its head, and bugled a neigh of victory.

  “He wants to run,” Albaric called to me and Todd. “He has been tied, chained, hobbled, and haltered for so long that he’s half crazed. Is there a place—”

  “The tourney fields!” I pointed to the stone archway that led thither. “Todd, open the gate.”

  “My Prince Aric!” he cried, aghast.

  “Do it.” And as my command drove him to obey, I shouted to the multitude, “All stand aside!”

  Only just in time. The stallion charged out of the gate and swept past like blue fire, Albaric on its shining back as if he were a part of the horse, at one with it, only his hands gripping its mane to guide it.

  CHAPTER THE EIGHTH

  “WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH ME?” Albaric clutched my shoulder as we made our way out of the stable. “I can barely stand up or walk, my legs hurt so.”

  “Sore muscles are the price a mortal pays for galloping a blue stallion bareback for an hour or two.”

  “An hour, or two? What is the difference? And must the stallion be blue?”

  I could only shake my head and smile as I helped him toward the wooden tub outside the kitchen door, scullery girls filling it with kettles of boiling water as I had ordered. I put my hand in, cautious lest I be burned, but a few buckets of cold water from the well had cooled it enough. “In you go, clothes and all,” I told Albaric, only snatching the boots off his feet lest he ruin the leather.

  “Ai!” he cried more in surprise than pain, for it was the first time he had felt hot water on a body made of flesh. “Bloody blue blazes!”

  He sounded just like my father. Our father. I could not help but laugh at him. “Sit down! You will soon feel better.”

  As his sore muscles soaked in the hot water, he sighed in relief, leaned back against the side of the wooden tub, and grinned at me. “It was worth these, what you call them, sore muscles,” he said. “Never in my world was there ever such a horse.”

  “Or in this world either. He is yours.”

  “Mine? Is that not for our—is that not for the king to say?”

  I felt his pang of longing for the father he could not claim.

  “It is merest sense. You are the only one who can handle him. What will you name him?”

  He shook his head.

  “You don’t want him?”

  “Of course I want him! But he will not be truly mine until I ask the king.”

  “I—”

  He heard me before I spoke. “No, you will not do it for me, Aric. I must be the one to ask him.”

  After he had soaked in the hot water for a while, he was able to walk into the keep, up the stairs to my chamber, and put on dry clothing. And he was able, a few minutes later, to approach Father without hobbling.

  In his crowded court of law, Father sat on his second-best throne—its arms and back draped with the rare skins of white hart and golden bear—wearing his second-best raiment, across his broad chest his heavy silk baldric of the Calidon colors, slate and crimson, and around his neck the ancient golden torc of the White King. Mighty to look upon even while seated, he loomed on the platform that elevated his throne above the table where scribes recorded his judgments. Every weekday afternoon he sat thus, hearing the problems and grievances of his people. While he had been sick, I had done it in his stead, but it had made no difference that I wore the baldric and the torc; I was an untried youth, and looked like one. I think many folk had held off, hoping the king would get better, and since he was well, there was a great press of people in the court of law today.

  I stood at the back of the ro
om unnoticed—no wonder, for all eyes were on Albaric as he awaited his turn. Folk edged away from him, and many were the murmurs of wonder at his beauty and fear of his strangeness.

  In due time, Father’s castle steward beckoned Albaric forward, and then many were those who gasped aloud, for Albaric neither bowed nor dropped to his knees before the king but stood like the prince he was.

  “My Liege,” he addressed Father, “concerning a certain stallion—”

  Father interrupted, although patiently. “Do not call me Liege. You are not my sworn vassal.”

  I had known from the start that there would be more than the matter of a certain horse to be settled. That Albaric approached King Bardaric in public court showed his mettle. He could have spoken to the king in privileged privacy but chose not to do so.

  He answered, “I would willingly swear you fealty. No vassal could offer greater loyalty, my King.” Another gasp, for it should have been “Highness” or “Majesty.”

  But father let it go, gazing quizzically into the eerie gray eyes that met his so levelly. “I would as soon have the birds of the air swear me fealty, Albaric, as you. Is it the blue roan stallion of which you spoke?”

  “Yes. You heard?”

  “And saw, issuing forth to watch you riding him like an eagle riding the wind, for folk could speak of nothing else.” Father’s smile twitched his beard; beneath that concealment, it could have been either admiring or rueful. “You wish me to give you the horse?”

  “Queen Evalin offered a boon, my—my King.”

  Father waved the words away. “This boon is mine. I give the blue roan stallion to Albaric. So let it be written.” A command to a scribe, who dipped his quill and began the document. “Doubtless Prince Aric will wish to ride out with you tomorrow.”

  I stiffened, bitten by the bitterness in those words.

  Albaric protested, “My beloved King—”

  But he had gone too far. Father leaned forward in this throne, and his tone darkened. “Beware, Albaric. I know you only as an unaccountable being come to trouble me.”

  “I beg you, blame not my—blame not your son in my stead. It is for pity of me that Prince Aric cleaves to me, my—King Bardaric, it is because I have no place. His heart is great, and cherishes you, and I have not stolen it from you, Sire.” The forbidden word slipped out. Albaric’s face flamed. “I beg your royal pardon.” He bowed his head and dropped to one knee.

  For a long moment, Father studied him. “So,” he said quietly, “you will bow if you displease me.”

  Albaric raised startled eyes. “Of course! I wish only. . . .” I knew what he was going to say and felt his struggle as he thought better of it.

  “You wish only for what, Albaric?”

  “I wish only to please you, King Bardaric.”

  No lie, but not the entire truth. That for which Albaric wished, for which he yearned on bended knee, was the love of his father.

  Our father.

  Who dismissed him with a flick of a hand.

  That evening, Albaric went early to bed, aching and exhausted by his wild ride on the blue steed and perhaps also by his audience with our father. He affirmed that the king had given him the horse, saying, “I shall call him Bluefire.”

  “A fine name. Simple and sooth. Did you tell Father?”

  “No.” And he said nothing more of his audience with the king. I am sure he did not know I had seen and heard all.

  After Albaric was asleep, I sought out Father and found him in the barracks, quaffing ale with the castle steward and the Captain of Guards and Todd and a few others. They welcomed me, gave me a mug of ale, laughed when I got foam on my face, and said it was a white beard, for I had been wise beyond my years (so they told my father), taking charge and rendering fair judgments while he lay ailing.

  “Well,” Father grumbled, “it’s all playtime for him now that I am back. When did you last ply your sword, Aric, or study your Tacitus?”

  Hardly a fair response, but I smothered the heat in my heart, for if he made a quarrel between us, I wanted to mend it. “I’ll spar with you tomorrow, Father, if you like.”

  “High time you got back into practice, for the Domberks buzz like a hive of wasps, so I hear.”

  Lord Brock Domberk was a vassal of my father’s, but an uncommonly troublesome one, scheming always to take the throne of Calidon for himself. “Truly?” I quipped. “More so than usual?”

  “Certainly. The crops are in the ground; warrior hands do not care to go idle until harvest, and they have heard that I am sick and weak. Did you not think of that?”

  It was unlike him to berate me in front of others. But again I attempted a quiet answer. “I could think of little other than you.”

  “And now you think of me little, but much of another.”

  The listeners laughed half-heartedly. In their unease, I saw a reflection of my own. Trying, I am sure, to turn the talk, Todd spoke of Father’s charger, Invincible, how he was growing lax in his training, how he needed his master’s weight on his back and his master’s hands on the reins again.

  “Ay, well, then, he’s not the only one.”

  A jab at me again. Enough. Finishing my ale, I rose to take my leave. “I will see you tomorrow in the training yard, Father?”

  “So long as you leave that pet goblin of yours behind.”

  I turned to ice. I am sure my face went frost white. Honorably, I could make no defiant reply before the others, and the silence lay like snow upon us, for they also were struck dumb in shame and fear. Shame for their liege lord’s spleen. Fear of his temper.

  I made ice move, walk toward the door. As I spoke to Father over my shoulder, my voice was smooth. “Until tomorrow, then.”

  But what to do on the morrow, I had no idea.

  “Pet goblin?” Albaric was my brother! Albaric had saved our ungrateful father’s life!

  Once well away from the king, I raged through the castle, striding hard, striking the stone walls with my fists. I had thought I was rampaging at random, but somehow I found myself approaching my mother’s chamber, and there she stood in her doorway awaiting me.

  I melted like a spent candle, hugging her, taking comfort in her embrace. Neither of us spoke a word until I stood back and asked very softly, “Mother, does Father seem oddly changed to you also?”

  “Yes,” she said, simply, somberly, but she lifted her chin in defiance of the change. “Perhaps this unaccountable ring”—she gestured toward its hiding place beneath her plaid woolen kirtle—“has harmed him. Or perhaps his life has changed so greatly . . . but I do not blame Albaric. And whatever bedevils your father, Aric, I mean to deal with it.”

  CHAPTER THE NINTH

  WE SPOKE AT LENGTH of Father and Albaric. The queen reminded me that believing in Otherwhere and fey things was not in the nature of a king; indeed, a king differed from lesser men by his lack of fear of ghosts and spirits and midnight shadows. A king dealt in lands held, conflicts won or lost, measures of barley, sides of beef. A king’s power depended perhaps more on strength of mind than on the sword, and if any king said he had encountered Elfin kind—one could scarcely imagine the scandal.

  “Mother says it is easier for her to welcome you than it is for Father,” I told Albaric later that night, for my clumsiness awoke him as I reentered my chamber. “She says a woman learns all her life to accept changes.”

  “Such as her husband’s by-blows,” he muttered.

  “Mother does not think of you that way, Albaric. You’re no mortal brat but a savior from Othergates, and she embraces you as I do.”

  “Queen Evalin believes me, then?”

  “Of course.” Mother’s was a mind that saw clearly, and pondered well, and judged truly.

  “You asked her?”

  “Yes. She knows you speak truth, and if she had her way, you would dine on the dais with us.”

  “But the king—one cannot blame—him—”

  “Your father. Our father. Go ahead and say it.”

>   Albaric shook his head. “Not until he permits it. Perhaps not ever again.”

  A brave truth I could not deny.

  “He was not unkind in granting me Bluefire today,” Albaric added.

  “Yes? Good.” Let him think so if he liked; he did not need to know I had heard and seen. Nor did he know that the “not unkind” king had called him my “pet goblin.” Nor would I tell him. Not ever.

  I lay silent on my side of the great canopy bed, and Albaric slept, but I slept little. My heart hurt. While Father had lain dying, I had desperately wanted him to live. I had not been able to imagine going on without my father who loved me, my father noble and kind. But now, even though he lived, I felt bereft of him.

  Morning dawned as cold and windy and gray as the day before had been sunny and warm. Very early, so as to outwit Father, I dressed for the training yard, inviting Albaric to spar with me; he accepted happily even as he inquired, “More sore muscles?”

  “Ay, but your arms and shoulders this time.” I must be careful, go gently with him, I thought. “Breakfast first, but eat lightly.”

  We passed through the kitchen to filch some bread and cheese. Although the servants avoided us, no one screamed or ran away any longer, I was pleased to note. Perhaps in time they would become accustomed to Albaric.

  We ate as we walked to the barracks, where each of us chose a leather helmet, a leather shield, and a wooden sword. Albaric hefted several swords before settling on a lightweight one such as striplings use. “There’s no use pretending I’m warrior-thewed as you are, Aric,” he remarked as we entered the yard.

  “Many are the folk who believe strong muscle means weak mind.”

  “If they think that of you, then they are badly mistaken.”

  We squared off, and as I raised shield and sword, reminding myself not to knock him about, he sent his weapon darting like a bird through my defenses and gave me a light poke in the belly. First touch for him.

  “Wake up,” he said with a smile.

  “How did you do that?” I exclaimed.

  “Quickly.” As he came at me again.

  I just barely fended him off. Never had I faced so swift a sword. He sparred with the cunning of a serpent and the speed of a viper’s strike. By the fifth bout, I was sweating, panting, and had managed to touch him only once. But I began laughing so hard at myself that he cried, “Hold!” We ceased combat, and as I leaned on my heavy wooden weapon, gasping for breath amidst laughter, he said soberly, “’Tis not honorable to cross swords with an opponent who has lost his wits. Are you weak-minded after all? What’s addled you?”