The Oddling Prince

by Nancy Springer

  “I have arranged for music tonight after dinner,” continued Lord Kiffin in high spirits. “There are eleven ladies and you three handsome youths. You like not to dance?” He chuckled at our rueful faces. “But I trust each of you can manage?”

  “Perhaps Prince Aric could bring stones to reduce the numbers,” quipped the bitter-hearted brother.

  I took no offense and made no reply. I had long known that there was something about me less than princely, some boyishness that let servants smile on me even as they obeyed me, that let common folk easily approach me and speak with me, that would make it difficult for me to be feared or revered as a king. I knew this quality in myself, and at times I had rued it, but now I rejoiced in it, as it had let Albaric into my heart. What I saw in my father and even sometimes in my mother, armor of spirit tempered by sad memories and distrust—that could wait.

  After breakfast, the young lordships found business elsewhere as Lord Kiffin showed me around his fortress, jesting about the rigors of courtship—as well he might, for at every turning we “happened” to meet a maiden (chaperoned, of course), blushing and curtseying and chiming, “Good morning, Lord Kiffin! And surely this must be his most Royal Highness Prince Aric?”

  Their fawning embarrassed me, and then introductions had to be made, pleasantries exchanged, and I needs must withstand the most overwrought adulation while finding a way to compliment the maiden, be she bony, freckled, stout, buxom, chinless, long-nosed, foul of breath, or a dried-out spinster nearing the age of thirty. How I envied Albaric, my servant the harper, free to chat with the cooks in the kitchen, watch the soldiers at drill or the smiths at work, wander to the stable and commune with Bluefire. Even from afar, I could sense that my brother felt exuberantly content. What matter if folk saw his beauty and thought he might be a mollycoddle? At least they assumed him to be human. It was as we had hoped; folk here accepted him.

  Then, during the midday meal, he played his harp for Lord Kiffin, and from all who heard, whispers of admiration arose and rippled outward to the others. Wisely, Albaric did not yet sing, only plied the harp strings softly and gaily, butterfly notes darting one moment, drifting the next.

  During the afternoon, Lord Kiffin needs must show me every inch of his estate, prattling of cabbages and turnips and such. The summer promised poorly, he said. Many lambs had been stillborn, the cows were giving much less milk than usual, half the onions had rotted in the ground, and the carrots flourished not. I paid no heed, for I was a young fool uninterested in carrots; I did not understand the significance of what he was saying. I admit I thought the day to be among the most tedious I had ever passed until, as we rode out to view the pasturelands, Lord Kiffin looked over at Bluefire and said, “That is no ordinary horse.”

  I readily agreed.

  “A magnificent steed, and blue, yet. It reminds me of a tale my grandfather used to tell of—oh, blast it, I’m sure to get it wrong, for he told it like poetry and I speak the way I look, as plain as a peat bog.” It was an apt comparison, and indeed I could not imagine a note of poetry to ring anywhere in Lord Kiffin, who was frowning with effort to remember the story. “It was something about the White King and how he and his blue horse came to Calidon out of the sea.”

  “The White King?” I knew him only by the name of the torc my father sometimes wore.

  “I think that was what Grandfather said, but what he meant by it, I have no idea. All I remember is that the fellow, the king, you know, came sailing in a blue longboat in the midst of a gale, the stormwind tearing at the great square white sail, and the prow of the ship was carved like a horse’s head. And it ran right up onto the black shingle of the beach, but as it touched land, it turned to a great blue horse upon which the king rode, and the white sail became his vast white cloak. And he wore a crown of white—white something-or-other. So they called him the White King.”

  “Where did he come from? And why?”

  “That’s the rub and gall of it, my Prince, I don’t recall! All I remember is how the blue horse came out of the sea.”

  “Oh, well.” I reached forward to stroke Bluefire’s black mane. “Perhaps this one is a descendent of his,” I said lightly, although my thoughts hung heavy with wonder.

  With far less than his usual bluster, Lord Kiffin said, “I could well believe it.”

  But once we finished speaking of Bluefire, it became a long day—the peas were not sprouting well, either, I seem to recall—and at the end of it, I had no chance to tell the strange tale of the White King to Albaric.

  In the evening, for the dinner music and the dance, Lord Kiffin had provided three ancient men, one with a viol, one with bagpipes, and one with a wooden flute. To me, their combined scraping and puffing sounded like a corn mill at work, and as for the ladies fair, I would rather have faced outlaws again. Those maidens who favored tradition came all draped in plaids, their hair in two long braids clasped in gold, while those who liked the modern ways wore their hair in curled tresses over dresses fitted to their upper bodies then flaring into skirts with elaborate borders repeated on long, hanging sleeves. But whether sewn into their dresses or modestly draped, all seemed to vie for the most ornate jewelry, the brightest colors, and my attention.

  It was a mercy when the dancing began, for then I could deal with them singly, if at all. There being but four noblemen, including Lord Kiffin, we could dance only in circles or squares of four couples, stepping as lively as we could while the surplus ladies chattered together along the walls, pretending not to watch or mind. The arrow wound in my arm gave me some pain, and the evening became a garish blur to me. Despite gowns of peacock hues, brooches bigger than goose eggs, and hair decked with ribbons of gold, I cannot clearly remember any dance partner except one who demanded of me, “Are you really the Prince of Calidon?”

  Startled, I met the gaze of earnestly shining brown eyes in a thin face that narrowed to a tiny chin. Why, despite the elaborate pile of brown hair on top of her head, my partner was hardly more than a child. Her green frock swept the floor, and I would have wagered that beneath its concealment she wore built-up shoes to make her look inches taller.

  “Yes, I am the Prince of Calidon, for my mother tells me so,” I answered the girl gravely. “Why do you ask?”

  “Because you don’t look like a Prince.”

  “How not?” Secretly, I agreed with her on this galling point sore to the touch, but her honesty amused me more than it pained me.

  “Why, because your eyes scorn nothing, and sometimes you even smile,” she declared all in a rush.

  “Great prickly cockleburs, we can’t have that. Am I smiling now?”

  “Indeed you are. Quite a bit.”

  “What if I were to frown? Would I look like a prince then?”

  She answered doubtfully, “Perhaps a little more so, but your face is too candid and kind.”

  Candid? If she saw me as honest to the point of being a simpleton, she had hit upon another secret sore. The dance had us circling like combatants as I challenged my slender young partner, “Why, then, what does a prince look like?”

  “Like that.” She aimed her small, pointed chin toward someone, I could not tell whom, as we continued to move about the floor.

  “Like what?”

  “The harper.”

  “Ah!” She saw truly! My interest in her increased. “Tell me, what is your name?”

  “Marissa of Domberk.”

  Now this was worth noting. The Domberks constantly raided to steal Caltor cattle, yet they had sent a young maiden—very young indeed, and quite artless—to become acquainted with me?

  “At your service,” she added as an afterthought.

  “Really? Would you marry me?” I teased.

  “I am too young to marry! I’m here because Mama wanted to come.”

  “How old are you? Ten?”

  “Thirteen! Almost fourteen! But why would I want to marry you? I told you, it is the harper who should be prince.”

  I smiled towar
d Albaric perched on the corner of the trestle table, watching everything with catlike interest, his long legs dangling and his harp by his side. “I quite agree with you. He is handsome almost beyond words, is he not?”

  “Yes. But that is not it; you are handsome, too. He seems a prince because—because there is something melancholy and distant about him. Some mystery. I could never, ever speak with him the way I am talking with you.”

  I laughed aloud in delight, and so that she would not take my laughter amiss, I squeezed her hand and kissed her cheek. “Would you like to hear the harper sing?”

  “Yes! Very much!”

  “Then you shall have your wish, my lady fair.” I left the dance, taking her with me by the hand, and like a table with only three legs instead of four, the dance collapsed without us. In mild confusion, the couples halted where they were, the bagpipe and viol and flute ceased playing, and the guests ranged along the wall turned to stare at me.

  Meanwhile, my eyes met Albaric’s, and a wordless understanding passed between us that all was well with both of us.

  “Albaric,” I addressed him, “this is Lady Marissa of Domberk.”

  As she was the noble and he supposedly but a servant, I should have done it the other way around, introducing him to her. Yet without hesitation, she curtsied to him.

  I went on, “Lady Marissa would very much like to hear you sing.”

  “Of course, Milady,” he addressed her gravely. “What sort of song do you desire?”

  “What do you call a song that tells a story?”

  “A ballad.”

  “Yes. One of those, please. . . .” But speaking to him, suddenly she resembled a hollyhock flower bending in the wind, a thin stalk with a pink, pink face. “Thank you, Prince Aric,” she said faintly as she turned and ran across the hall, most likely back to her mother.

  As he turned to get his harp, Albaric told me softly, “Your arm is bleeding, my Prince.”

  I glanced down. “Blast. I should have worn a red tunic, so it wouldn’t show.”

  “Won’t you have someone tend to it?”

  “In a little while.” Turning to the gathering, I announced in my most princely voice, “Ladies and lords, a ballad in honor of Lady Marissa of Domberk.”

  But really Albaric’s song was for me. I knew it from the first touch of his fingers upon the harp strings, the first words of his voice soaring on golden wings.

  He stood, facing them all, and this was the story borne by his song:

  Let me tell you a merry-go-sorry,

  Let me tell you a bittersweet tale

  Of a royal youth and his loyal companion

  Who pledged to him his service and hand.

  “My Liege,” he said, “you are made of legend.

  I will follow you to the ends of the land.”

  “I have a quest to the Mountains of Doom,”

  Said the prince, “that lie beyond the dark tide.

  Will you follow me there?” The other smiled.

  “You doubt it, Liege? How can that be?”

  “The way is long and the crossing strange.”

  “I will follow you if you walk into that sea.”

  What is a friend?

  Troth without end.

  A light in the eyes,

  A touch of the hand—

  I would follow you even

  to death’s cold strand.

  There were no seas or seaside strands in Elfland, I sensed from Albaric’s mind. He had looked upon the cold northern sea that washed Dun Caltor, and he had seen how small looked the coracles of the fisher folk who braved the fickle waves, but mostly he understood what he was singing only with his heart. The words came from the peculiar old book I had given to him, but the melody was his own, and so uncannily beautiful that it laid hold upon me as no song had ever done before. Judging by their breathless silence, it had a similar effect on the others.

  So they rode afar to the kingdom’s sea-reaches

  And came in the end to the sundering strait

  And by that dim shore swam a ghost-gray ship

  Low in the water but nothing within

  Except shivering scent of fear insubstantial

  And mournful voices of folk unseen.

  “That is our vessel.” But the comrade blanched,

  His breath came tight, his knees gave beneath him,

  He could not go on. “Liege, help me,”

  He cried from the stones of that far cold strand.

  “I am not of the stuff of legends,” said he.

  A touch of the hand.

  “I understand.”

  For all friends fail

  All loyalties quail

  When they reach the end of the living land.

  Yet Albaric, my fair, fey brother, while mindful of death, was a stranger to it. He had never known the death of kin or companion, had never shot a stag or slain a hare, had never even to my knowledge seen a chicken’s neck wrung for the cook-pot. Was this song his way of trying to fathom the fate he had chosen for himself, his mortality?

  “I will go alone. Now get you up,

  Go home, be happy, live long and die merry.”

  He kissed him, the kiss of forgiveness and love,

  Then he boarded the gray ship. The vessel set sail.

  His companion stood chill and watched it go.

  In his ears rang a single living farewell.

  And the gray ship sailed on the cold dark tide,

  Heavy and slow on the dim washing water

  Then gone like mist—how could that be?

  The other stood on the land looking after

  Then followed his prince—and walked into that sea.

  What is a friend?

  Troth without end.

  A light in the eyes,

  A touch of the hand—

  I would follow you even

  to Mountains of Doom beyond

  Death’s—cold—strand.

  A silver, shiversome tone had crept into Albaric’s golden voice, eerie, like the ringing of bluebells one can sometimes hear when spirits pass in the wind, when someone is about to die. He put down his harp amid silence as deep as a grave.

  Then it was as if everyone awoke, everyone babbled at once, applauding. Throngs gathered around Albaric, warming him with praise; I could feel it, counterpoint to a shadow the song left in him. But as I stood thinking about my brother, my arm gave me a stab of pain. I made toward Lord Kiffin to ask him if there were a healer in his household.

  “Prince Aric!” he exclaimed, staring at the bright red stain on my tunic. “What is that on your sleeve?”

  “My heart, I think,” I told him.

  CHAPTER THE THIRTEENTH

  ONLY A FEW DAYS THEREAFTER, Albaric became more closely acquainted with death.

  We had left Dun Narven on a day pleasant enough once we got away from endless thanks and wearisome ceremony. With relief in my chest at least, our little cavalcade passed out through the palisade gate, questing toward the next vassal holding. As before, I rode Bluefire, Albaric rode quite inappropriately beside me on his homely gray cob, and the four men-at-arms followed, tending the packhorses. But we had not gone half a day before we left the hillsides close-cropped by sheep behind us, entering the skirts of the forest. All the world from here to Rome so far as I knew was like Calidon in that respect, all the land a great green ocean of wilderness billowing with trees, its scattered islands the pocks of cleared land men had made, where peasants huddled around an overlord’s stronghold.

  As the forest thickened, Garth of course recited his litany of warnings, and we would have been foolish not to pay heed. In the open, we had ridden careless and bareheaded to the breeze, but once in wildwood shadow, we put on our helmets and armored tunics—plates of metal held together by leather, with Roman skirts—over which we belted on our swords, and we hung our shields from our saddles, close at hand. We rode on in silence, our horses’ hooves clopping softly on dirt deep with leaf loam.

  But all went p
eacefully the first day, of course. Robbers and outlaws are not fools; they know that travelers grow weary of watchfulness, and sleepier after each night that they must stand guard; the farther into the forest, the more likely they are to be taken unawares.

  So might we have been taken if it were not for Bluefire.

  The forest track meandered around hills and boulders, narrow and dark beneath towering oaks. Every curve of the way had to be approached with caution, for who knew what lay beyond it, just out of sight? But there were so many bends in the path, so many false alarms, and it was so wearisome walking the horses in silence, that by mid-afternoon of the second day, we were thinking—or at least I was thinking—mostly of when we might stop and what we might then eat—

  Bluefire halted, quivering all over with fury, not fear. He half-reared as if to charge, yet made no sound. I pulled on his mane to restrain him as we all came to a confused stop, snatching up our shields and swords. Ahead of us, the narrow track took a sharp bend, and beyond the bend most likely the robbers had felled a tree too bushy for the horses to jump, while they waited to drop on us from above when we reached it. But this time, Albaric did not cry, “Scofflaws in the trees!” Instead, he whispered, “Listen.”

  Indeed we did listen, with all our ears, for we could see nothing. We listened to the wind soughing in the leaves, the heedless hum of insects, the silence where there should have been birdsong, the—faintly, a metallic clanking sound—and was that the creaking of leather?

  Robbers do not wear armor or shift in their saddles.

  I cupped my hands around my mouth and roared, “Show yourselves, cowards!”

  Echoes joined the shadows under the oaks, and along with the echoes, I heard several startled voices, the whicker of a horse, and a clash of metal as swords were drawn. A moment later, half a dozen men-at-arms in metal helmets and tunics of—of chain mail, forsooth!—rode into sight and ranked to confront us, just a little more than a stone’s throw away.

  “Whom do you call cowards?” bellowed the one at their fore.

  “It is hard to tell,” I shot back, “as your helms shadow your faces and your shields show no device.”