The Oddling Prince

by Nancy Springer

  “Yes, and the pain in his eyes—it should have broken my heart! Yet I could give him no fair answer.”

  In a sense he had returned to me again, as if from death. I dared to take his war-hardened hand between my own. “Do not blame yourself. You were newborn to life, heedless as an infant. Father,” I added, “look at the ring.”

  The unaccountable thing lay on Mother’s sky-blue skirt, innocent and crystalline, as clear as tears.

  After a moment, Father breathed out. “Well,” he said in a dry whisper, “that is a bit better.”

  “Sire, I must tell you the rest now, while you are fit to hear.” I spoke with difficulty, hating to distress him anew. “The servants brought a surfeit of food, do you remember?” Gazing down on me, he nodded. “In the confusion, Albaric slipped out, and when I noticed he was gone, I went looking for him. At first I feared he had left Dun Caltor, but then a sudden sureness led me up the tower to the very top. I had no torch and I could see nothing in the dark, for Death still hovered there, blocking the stars. Yet I walked straight to him and touched his shoulder. Standing at the edge, he asked me whether a fall to the rocks below would put an end to him.”

  Both Mother and Father gasped, and in the throes of reaction, Father’s hand clenched so hard I had to let it go.

  “And I answered him,” I went on, “that indeed it would, and it would put an end to me also, for his heart was mine and would take me with him. Father, you did not recognize him, but I did, instantly, soul to soul. Please, Sire, can you understand?”

  Silence. Father sat with his head bowed, perhaps thinking of what I had said. I hoped so, although his shoulders jutted hard and still as stone.

  “Albaric would have leapt to his death but for you?” Mother asked me softly.

  “Yes, Mother. And still he is in dire straits, stranded in this world.”

  Father spoke at last, hoarsely, “Wonders and marvels unnerve me.” He cleared his throat to say more strongly, “Aric, I understand a little, for a moment, tonight, but in the morning, I may be testier than ever.”

  “That is why I petition you tonight concerning Albaric. He has one hope: that if he travels someplace where no one knows of wonders and marvels, perhaps he will find peace.”

  Father gave me a piercing stare. “And you will go with him?”

  “Of course I will go with him.” I rose to my feet. “I am all he has.”

  “Folk will think you are a pair of molly boys,” Father muttered.

  “Bard!” Mother sounded more amused than shocked.

  I myself smiled. “No, they will not. Albaric will be a harper. I will be the Prince of Calidon on cavalcade from vassal to vassal in search of a wife. Who knows?” I added as an afterthought. “I might even find one.”

  “That would be nice,” said Mother pensively.

  “I wish I could say I will miss you,” Father muttered, and although his words smote me to the heart, they did not offend. He attested but the simple truth: lately, my presence caused him nothing but misery.

  Such was the manner in which he gave assent to my quest.

  CHAPTER THE ELEVENTH

  SOMEHOW EVERYTHING WAS MADE READY in less than a week. Mother found suitable clothing—plain but not poor—for the harper, Albaric, in the myriad chests of which she was mistress. Also she passed along some regal things for me, tunics and tabards in the Calidon colors that had been Father’s “when he was younger and a bit slimmer.” Albaric and I battled cobwebs searching dusty turrets until we found for him a fitting harp, rosewood inlaid with gold, its tone sweetened by age. Father selected four of the strongest, steadiest, most mature, and humorless of his guardsmen to accompany us and provided them with the sturdiest horses in the stable.

  There was a bit of a rigmarole regarding horses. Albaric insisted that I should ride Bluefire. “A harper on so fine a steed?” he argued. “’Twould defeat the purpose.”

  The covert purpose, he meant, which was to gift him with being seen as just another mortal.

  I retorted, “Yet the harper will not hear of leaving the steed behind, here at Dun Caltor?”

  “Aric, he cannot be parted from me now!”

  True, for the blue horse was likely to break down his stall, or break his own legs trying to do so, or trample anyone from a groom to the king if he became wild to follow Albaric. Still, I teased, “Don’t you have that backwards? Isn’t it you who cannot be parted from him?”

  “I beg you, Aric, stop tweaking my beard, especially as I do not even have one.”

  “But how am I to ride that thundering blue gale of a storm?”

  “On his back.”

  “Albaric—”

  “My brother, as you trust me, you can trust him. I promise.”

  And so it proved. What sort of soundless communication took place between Albaric and his steed, I cannot say, but when the time came, I mounted the saddle, took up the reins, and felt the horse’s assent beneath me. The bridle was made of the finest and softest of leather, with some jingling metal studs and rings at the sides, but anyone who looked closely would have seen that they attached to nothing. No one who knew Bluefire was fool enough to try to put a bit in the stallion’s mouth; the headgear was all for show. Bluefire did what I wanted because he chose to.

  All of Dun Caltor turned out to see us off, a small but colorful cavalcade: I in a crested helmet and crimson plaid mantle upon the blue steed, Albaric fair and bareheaded in a belted green tunic on a bony gray cob he had chosen for its winsome ugliness, and four mounted men-at-arms wearing metal-studded leather tunics with Roman skirts, on their pike heads pennons of the Calidon colors, crimson and slate. Piebald packhorses carried our supplies, plus Albaric’s harp protected within a waxed leathern sack.

  Atop the stone steps of the keep, the king and the queen bade us to fare safely and return soon, Mother in her ermine cloak despite the warmth of the sunny day in late June, Father resplendent in golden torc and golden crown and bold crimson cape lined with slate-colored silk. Our private words of farewell had been spoken earlier; this was a formal appearance, meaning nothing except that their finery plus mine made Albaric in his unadorned green look less awesome in the eyes of the castle folk. Or so Father hoped.

  Once we were out of the gate, I grinned at my brother. “Would you like to borrow my hat?”

  He eyed the metal monstrosity askance. “Not for all the strawberries ripening on yonder hillside.”

  “My Prince, you’re likely to need the helmet before day’s done,” said a deep and dour voice from behind me—Garth, leader of my little troop of guards. “You too, harper.” He spoke the word “harper” with a certain emphasis as if to say that he knew better. “I’ve packed you a leathern one. And where’s your sword?”

  “With my harp.” Albaric spoke courteously. “I’ll strap it on when you give the word, Captain. But a sword is of small use against the arrows of robbers.”

  “True. What would you have us do about them?”

  “Doubtless the same as you would. When we reach the forest, speak not, but pay heed.”

  “Pay closest heed,” Garth agreed in a growl, and for a goodly while he held forth, to his men as well as to Albaric and me, on the significance of bird cries or silences; the shying of horses, which can mean everything or nothing; the proper way to approach a fallen tree, which might conceal an ambush; and so on.

  “We could have gone by sea,” I remarked at one point, soberly tweaking Garth’s beard, for to landsmen the sea was more fearsome than the hounds of hell yelling a death chase in the sky. “There are no trees at sea.”

  “No, only sickness and gales, whirlpools, waterspouts, pirates, whales, and death by drowning! Mock me not, my puckish Prince, but listen to me.”

  I listened meekly, for I sensed that Albaric was listening not at all but riding alongside me as happy as I had ever known him to be, happy with the sun on his shoulders and swaying to the cadence of a horse’s gait and counted as one in the company of others.

  Firs
t we left behind the castle village, then the farmed furrows boxed within hawthorn hedges or stone fences against errant swine, then the pastureland cropped short by sheep, then the higher unfenced meadows where the grass grew tall amid wild blossoms, where barefoot children watched over milk cows, geese, and goats. Then we followed narrow tracks through patches of forest where hogs rooted amid the hazels and rowans and the oak trees. But we did not reach true forest that day, only long shadows and a shambling inn called the Rooster’s Tail. We all ate well enough, but we chose to “roost” like the horses in the cowshed, on straw, because the bedding of the inn heaved with lice.

  “Worse than fleas,” I explained to Albaric.

  “How is that possible?” He had not yet learned to accept the inevitability of fleas in mortal life.

  “Fleas one can see and kill. Lice, not so.”

  “They are invisible?”

  “Not the way you mean.”

  “Harper, go to sleep,” grumbled Garth from the straw of the next stall, “or go lie under the horses’ feet, where there will be worse than fleas or lice either.”

  “Truly? What might that be?”

  “Bah! Be silent and let us rest.”

  We did so.

  The next day, the track we followed entered the primeval forest of outlaw legend, wilderness untamed by pig herders or peasants seeking wood; only deer could find ways through the dense thickets beneath the towering trees—they, and the wild men who lived there, who would wish to rob of us of whatever our pack ponies carried, and of our horses, and if necessary, of our lives.

  The track was just wide enough for us to ride two abreast, and the great trees arched across it entirely.

  “I like not this tunnel,” Garth said even before we had left the sunlight behind. “Enemies drop like catamounts from above. Prince Aric, here your guards should ride before you.”

  Call it foolish pride, but I could not allow that. “Would my Father hide behind guards? Hardly, and neither will I.”

  “But His Majesty bade me—”

  “Silence, Garth.” Although I did not speak harshly, my words bore the force of royal command, partly because of what I sensed in Albaric: more than mere calm, it was utter confidence. He knew something I did not. Yet.

  “Onward,” I ordered, “at the walk, and be quiet.”

  Perhaps an hour passed, slowly. The farther into that wilderness we fared, the darker seemed the shadows of the trees and the narrower seemed the track, twisting around hills and down deep valleys. It was difficult to keep a brave heart, for we were too richly arrayed not to be waylaid; attack menaced as we rounded every bend.

  All this time, Bluefire had carried me steadily without a sign of fear, but suddenly he halted, ears forward, with a snort.

  “Scofflaws in the trees ahead!” shouted Albaric gaily, and then I understood: he had known all along that Bluefire would give ample warning.

  At once I snatched a fist-sized stone from a sack hanging on my saddle and hurled it at a likely clump of leaves. A yelp sounded even as I threw another stone. Not the most princely weapon, perhaps, but effective, for with a howl a rough-looking churl fell down on his rump in the middle of the track, his bow and arrow pointing skyward. At once the others, eight or nine of them, dropped, landing on their feet, to defend him.

  They bent their bows and let fly their arrows at us. But we gave them no time to shoot a second volley. Even before I could think what to do, Bluefire charged, and as I smote enemies with my sword, my steed reared, striking with the deadly points of his forehooves! Nor did the horse and I fight alone, for dimly I grew aware of Albaric and the others beside me doing battle. It was all over in a few minutes. The ruffians fled into the forest, dragging their wounded with them. Bluefire stood again on four feet. We travelers took breath and looked at one another.

  “I was unaware, my Prince,” said Garth soberly, “that you threw stones with such force and skill.” Confound the sour old pickle, commenting on my less-than-royal choice of weapons—yet it gladdened me to see him almost smiling.

  “Nor was I aware,” he added, “that you or any warrior could fight from a horse on its hind legs.”

  “A simple matter of flour paste on the saddle,” I told him, mock serious.

  “Aric,” asked Albaric, truly serious, “is it customary to wear an arrow the way you are doing?”

  “What?” I had not even noticed I was wounded, but there was an arrow indeed, through my upper left arm.

  “No, Prince Aric, don’t touch it. You will only make it worse,” Garth warned as I reached to pull it out. “Wait. I will tend to it.” He dismounted and beckoned for me to do so also. “Where’s the bandaging?”

  Another guardsman was already bringing a bundle of linen strips from one of the pack ponies.

  “Is no one else in need of that?” I asked, looking around, but all my men appeared undamaged.

  “Yon yeomen suffered naught, thanks to your remarkable horse and your even more remarkable missiles, my Prince.”

  “And my remarkable harper.”

  Garth looked at me strangely but said nothing except, “Stand still, Prince Aric,” as he drew his dirk. It speaks for my trust in him that I did indeed stand still. But he did not cut me, only the arrow. Severing its shaft, he let the feathered end fall and drew the arrow out of my arm by its head. At once, blood flowed down my tunic sleeve, but rather than trying to staunch it, he watched.

  “Good,” he said.

  “Good? How?”

  “The blood does not spurt or flood. Yet it washes the wound so that one can trust it will not fester. All should be well.”

  I hoped so. Men had been known to die from the slightest wounds, ludicrous hurts such as a blister on the heel, if the injury festered, swelling and reddening, filling with foul-smelling poison, killing with fever.

  Garth wrapped the wound tightly, had me flex my fingers and my arm, then nodded. “Now you’re a blooded warrior, my Prince.”

  “You’ll not hear me bragging of a skirmish with robbers,” I said. “Let us ride on.”

  As we mounted, Garth asked, “My Prince, what ever made you think to carry a bag of stones?”

  Of course he did not know that all my boyhood, I had played at hurling stones. “They reach farther than a sword, do they not?” I retorted. “Praise be, my throwing arm is not wounded.” A jest—I should have said “sword arm.” “Silence, now,” I added as we left the scene of the outlaw attack behind.

  Nightfall found us still in the wilderness, which was vast. Near a goodly stream, other travelers over countless years had made a clearing by chopping trees for firewood and for safety. We stopped there, bathed in the water of the stream, made a blazing fire, ate dried smoked haddock and oat cakes, but there was little talk and no merriment; we all hearkened to the sounds of the forest. We stood guard two at a time by turns—I for one had no trouble staying awake, for my hurt arm ached like a sore tooth—but night passed with no more than the usual dew and drizzle, and morning dawned peacefully, if a bit wet. Garth changed the blood-stiffened wrapping on my wound, nodding at it in a satisfied manner, and after we had breakfasted on the remnants of the previous night’s meal, I assembled the company.

  “We may reach our first destination today,” I told the guardsmen. “If so, or whenever you find yourselves in the company of strangers, these are my orders: tell no one, by word or glance, anything peculiar of our harper.” Albaric stood nearby; I put my arm around his shoulders. I seldom touched him thus, for the sake of his pride, but I wanted the men to hearken to my heart as well as my words. “Say nothing of a white horse vanishing in the night, or of a dying king miraculously recovered, or of a wild stallion tamed, or of any tales or freakish imaginings that might be flying around Dun Caltor. Heed my command: say of our companion only that he plays superlatively upon the harp.”

  “And that he plies superlatively the sword?” asked Garth. “May we say that also?”

  “Indeed.” He had noticed? This pleased me, but i
t should not have surprised me. “You understand me? Good. Let us ride on. Cautiously.” For we were not out of danger of outlaws yet.

  But late that afternoon, we at last reached the thinning outskirts of the wilderness, and by putting our horses to the canter, by nightfall we entered the palisade wall surrounding the hill fortress called Dun Narven.

  CHAPTER THE TWELFTH

  THIS WAS A TIMBER STRONGHOLD belonging to one of my father’s more humble vassals, Lord Kiffin. Because Father, days earlier, had sent a messenger, a warm welcome awaited us. Lord Kiffin did not appear, as was courteous, for he knew I would be weary and sweaty and grimed with three days’ journey. But his steward and servants provided a late dinner and hot baths for all, most welcome, before they showed us to bed.

  We had but one room in the officers’ quarters over the barracks, one bed none too sumptuous, and some straw ticks on the floor. I shared the bed (and its resident fleas) with Albaric and Garth, wondering why we had not been better lodged in the main fortress.

  All too soon the next day, I discovered the reason: to my discomfiture, seemingly every marriageable aristocratic maiden in the kingdom had journeyed to Dun Narven to meet me.

  “The ladies, as is the privilege of ladies, took over the bedchambers,” explained Lord Kiffin, a florid, jovial man whose excess flesh attested to the good kitchen he kept. Sweet buns and baked eel pie for breakfast, forsooth! Along with us ate his two sons of about my age.

  “You throw stones with great skill, I have heard,” said one with condescension, as if he were the prince and I the minor noble.

  I said nothing and barely wondered how he had heard. Where there are servants, there are few secrets.

  “And I have heard, Prince Aric, that you took an arrow wound to the arm without even noticing it,” added the other hastily and humbly. Whether attempting to shield his brother or appease me, he seemed good of heart. The other, I sensed, would grow to be a bitter and envious enemy even to his own kin. How odd, that brothers could be so opposite and opposed, so unfeeling of their good fortune in each other.