The Oddling Prince

by Nancy Springer

  “Too young in this world, you mean?”

  “How can I ever become old enough for wisdom when I grew up in a place with no time?”

  “Stop. When you talk about time, you give me a headache.” With a pair of clean and shining boots on now, all in royal regalia, I went to Albaric and touched his hand. “Please do not worry about Marissa, brother mine. I intend to take the best care of her.”

  Leaving, striding down the ever-dark stone passageway, I wondered whether Albaric ever worried about himself, or if he realized by now how hopeless. . . . He wanted the love of his father who had raised him. He had my love to the utmost, yet that seemed to make little difference; one’s father is, after all, Father, not to be replaced. Returning to Dun Caltor with me, Albaric had come home to the same sad yearning. Nor, I sensed, would that ever change.

  I had vowed to right that wrong for him. I had made it my life’s most important quest to find him peace.

  But how?

  Formally enthroned, my parents awaited me in the council chamber, and I strode in feeling rather as if I were to be disciplined, which made no sense. They had been told I was dead, but after all, I lived; my return had liberated them from captivity; I had taken that pig Brock Domberk at the point of the sword: one would think my parents should be pleased with me. I had not yet greeted Father properly—the warmth in my heart kept a smile on my face as I walked up to him, but I studied him. He had dressed almost entirely in black; that was unlike him. His smile tried to answer mine and failed. And as I dropped briefly to one knee, bowing my head, I knew my instinct was right; all was not well.

  “Aric, please, be seated.” It was my mother who spoke, warmly enough. “We would like to hear of your travels.”

  I sat on the velvet-cushioned chair a servant had placed behind me, and with all seeming innocence, I asked, “How much has Albaric told you?”

  Father’s stark face hardened, darkened, although he did not scowl.

  “We want to hear it from you,” Mother said, still speaking just as pleasantly. “First, that wound up near your shoulder—is it from an arrow?”

  So I told them of the outlaws, and how Bluefire and Albaric between them had given us ample warning, and how Garth had said I was a “blooded warrior.” But with Garth’s name on my tongue, I had to tell what had become of him, and skipped ahead to describe the Domberk ambush. I was telling of being unhorsed two against one when Father finally spoke: “Cowards!” Leaning toward me, with his eyes smoldering like hot embers, he demanded in wonder, “How is it you are yet alive?”

  So I told how Albaric had saved me, putting his back to mine, and how we had fought “like a two-headed monster,” while Bluefire had unnerved the foe by attacking on his hind legs like giant warrior and had done so much damage that they fled. I told of the aftermath: three men-at-arms dead, Garth’s gruesome wound, and how Albaric and I, hoping to reach Dun Caltor before Domberk did, had left him with who I hoped were trustworthy strangers.

  “Tomorrow, we will ride to reclaim him, be he dead or alive,” Father spoke in tones of command. “You will come to show me the way.”

  “Dear,” Mother interposed, “he’s not yet strong enough.”

  “Nonsense.”

  “But my love, you did not see his wounds; I did. I bound them up, and I implore you to be reasonable: he needs rest. Surely Albaric could ride with you.”

  “Bah!”

  “Fishheads!” she shot back at him. “What ails you, Bard? There’s nothing wrong with Albaric.”

  “There’s everything wrong! We have not yet even begun to speak of what’s wrong!”

  “Then what might that be?” I asked civilly enough.

  Father sputtered. Mother told me, “He hardly knows, dear, that’s half the problem. He’s been like a bear with burrs ever since you got him out of that dungeon.”

  Father reared up like a bear indeed. “My son marrying a Domberk?” he roared.

  “Ah.” I softened my tone. “Father, it’s not yet done—”

  “It should not have been suggested, not thought of, without consulting me!”

  “But Father, surely you will agree the circumstances were extraordinary? In truth, when I spoke to Domberk of marriage, it was not a pledge but a ploy. I hope for a period of peace with him, perhaps even some few years, while his daughter remains at Dun Caltor. But as for Marissa of Domberk, she has already given me reason to think she would not marry me, and I’d never force her or any woman. Although she’s not yet woman,” I added. “She’s barely more than a child. She’s a wee, bold slip of a lassie.” I smiled, remembering how she had told me I did not look or act like a prince.

  “You met her at Narven?” Mother asked. “You like her?”

  “Yes, I like her the way I would like a feisty terrier pup. Nothing more.”

  Mother turned wide, thoughtful eyes to Father. “I wonder why Domberk sent her to Narven.”

  “To set the trap!”

  I said, “Father, I doubt Domberk knew anything about it. His wife—”

  Lady Domberk had seized the excuse for an excursion, I was about to say, but Father interrupted by leaping to his feet and roaring in a tone fit to terrify me, “I will thank you to remember who is ruler here!”

  “Bard!” Mother squeaked, shocked.

  “Father.” His bellow did not entirely unman me, not quite, for I thought I understood its cause. Slipping out of my chair, I dropped to one knee but tilted my head up to meet his angry eyes as I addressed him. “Father, you were imprisoned in your own dungeon, the last place a king ought to be, when in I came looking like a bloody barbarian and slinging orders around. I apologize, my Sire. In the necessity of the moment, perhaps I overstepped.”

  The king glared back at me without speaking.

  I tried again. “Father, surely you must know I’ve no desire for glory, or war, or power, much less your throne. You must know that.”

  In a low and terrible rasping way, he said, “I know nothing of the sort.”

  “Bard!” Springing to her feet, Mother laid her hand on his arm. “You cannot mean it. Aric has bled for you! Why is your proud head as sore as his wounds?”

  He flung away her hand without looking at her, only at me, and his eyes seemed no longer blue; they blazed like black fire. Feeling as cold as if turned to stone, I could not speak, and I could no longer think I was not afraid. “Go,” the king commanded, his voice clotted with fury. “Hence, out of my council chamber, both of you. You and your precious Albaric.”

  There was nothing to be done but leave him alone with his wrath.

  CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FIRST

  I COULD NOT SLEEP but walked half the night away, alone, unable to talk, trying to calm myself. I went late to bed, taking care not to awaken Albaric. Sometime before dawn, clouds sailed in from the sea, bearing torrents of rain, to my relief, the next morning. Father could not possibly set out to look for Garth on such a day and therefore would not be obliged to change his mind. Carefully respectful, I reported to him as usual and found him dealing with delegations of his people: fisherfolk frightened by myriad haddock floating dead on the sea and peasants worried about a blight in the barley; it seemed nothing was going right in Calidon. But instead of keeping me beside him to learn or help, Father gave me a curt “Good morning” and sent me away.

  The rain made it a singularly useless time for a holiday, even had I not felt all the darkness of my father’s shadow. Forlorn, I wandered Dun Caltor looking for Albaric and found him, of course, in the stables.

  He was having one of his silent conversations with Bluefire, and not wanting to interrupt, I did not enter the stall. But Bluefire astonished me, leaving Albaric to stick his head over the railings, nudge me, and snuffle my hair, and lip my ear as if he—

  “He likes you, Aric!” Albaric declared with greatest joy. “He has missed you, and he’s glad you are alive!”

  I hugged the blue stallion around his great muscular neck, for I felt much the same toward him, but then I hid m
y face in his mane.

  “What’s wrong, Aric?” Albaric came out to stand beside me.

  I muttered, “That’s my line of duty.”

  “What?”

  “Asking people what is wrong.”

  “People? Asking me, you mean. What is wrong?”

  I lifted my head to face him. “I don’t know.” This was untrue; I remembered well enough the things my father had said. But I felt within me a new sort of turmoil I had not yet faced.

  “Shall we find out?” Albaric asked, smiling.

  “I suppose we’d better.”

  “How?”

  “The same method I have been using since I could walk.”

  “Which is?”

  “You’ll see.”

  We went to consult my mother.

  The queen’s loom room, usually well sunlit, was only a little less shadowy than the rest of Dun Caltor on that rainy day. Mother had tied a colorful checked wrap around her shoulders and wore ribbons in her hair, as if she were trying to brighten the gloom. She was well pleased to see us, letting her handwomen put away their spindles and leave the wool to be carded another day, sending them away. I seated her in a chair by the hearth, where there burned a small peat fire to dry the damp; and beneath the shadow of the tall standing loom, Albaric and I settled on the thick catamount-skin rug at her feet.

  “Mother,” I said in sober jest, “you’ve known Father a good while longer than I. Could you explain him to Albaric? For I can make no sense of him.”

  “I!” Albaric protested. “’Twas you with the fish face because he spurned your company today.”

  Mother turned troubled eyes to me.

  “A bear with burrs,” I confirmed. “Mother, what is happening to Father? Who or what is he mourning in his black garb? He’s not himself.”

  To my surprise, Mother smiled tenderly upon me. “Aric,” she said. “My amazing Aric.”

  I sat slack-jawed and uncouth, but Albaric said softly, “Hear, hear.”

  “Your father is made in layers like an onion,” Mother told me, “just like every mortal I have ever known—except you, Aric. No matter how I watch for a darker core to appear, the sun continues to shine through you, my son.”

  “I’ve no desire to be an onion, but a glass window instead.”

  “Rare and beautiful.”

  “A marvel,” Albaric said quietly. “I’ve met no one else like you, Prince Aric.”

  While I sat, feeling heat ascend my neck and face, Mother went on, “If you had jealousies and grudges and petty ill feelings like most people, it would be easier for you to understand your father.”

  “A king is not like most people.”

  “True. He is not.” She drew breath, her gaze looking past Albaric and me, distant, misted with thought. It was a moment before she spoke. “A king is a man who wears a crown, but after a while the crown begins to wear the man. A crown, I think, is a trickster sort of ring of power that fate places around a man’s head. And Bardaric’s crown,” she said in a way I’d never heard her speak before, low and bleak and bitter, “is a burden no man should have to bear, weighty with the fates of his father and three brothers, Ardath and Lehinch and Escobar. Like the ring, it is a trickster, and lately I believe it has made him a bit mad. He wishes to spare you from bearing it, my son. . . .” She turned back to me, then grimaced and shook her head. “Bah. I try to deceive myself for love of him, I am so grateful to have him back after he nearly died . . . but since then, the sad sooth of it is that he’s no better than any other king.”

  Stunned and speechless, I sensed more than understood the meaning of her words.

  But Albaric spoke. “Queen Evalin, could you explain, please? For in my native country, there are no kings. Your husband was but a captive there, and I his mongrel son.”

  “How interesting.” Mother reverted to her usual thoughtful tone. “What was he like then, Albaric? When he was no king, I imagine he was quite wonderful.”

  “To me, yes. But to my mother—shadowed beneath his pity for her was great anger. Inwardly, he raged as if in chains.”

  “And he hated the ring.”

  “Yes. He hated that thing he could not remove from his hand.”

  “Mother,” I burst out before I even knew I was going to speak, “why is he turning against me?”

  Pain of saying it cut me like a sword to the face; for a moment, I thought I wore my trouble like Albaric’s scar. For this was definitely the trouble I had not been able to name.

  But she seemed hardly able to answer. She sighed, then spoke more to the sunless room and the shadowy looms all around us than to me. “Aric, you have done such deeds and grown so much that suddenly you are no longer a stripling, his youngster, but you are a man, his equal, a rival, a threat. . . .” Perhaps thinking of what he had done to other such threats in the past, she paled. Her voice quavered and faded.

  “No,” said Albaric strongly. “Aric, you are his mortal son and heir; he loves you. He may not know it right now, but he loves you deeply, and he will never harm you.”

  Chilled, I protested, “He has not harmed you either.”

  Mother spoke once more with words flat and bleak. “I pray he never will. Either of you. But I cannot tell, for I no longer seem to know him, he is so changed. Perhaps the ring hurt him; perhaps . . . I do not understand, but this truth I must face: something has gone wrong with my husband. When he rode forth to fight Domberk, he was not the warrior I know him in troth to be. He should never have been taken alive to be shackled in a dungeon. And he has not been himself since you gave him back to me.”

  CHAPTER THE TWENTY-SECOND

  ON MY GOOD GOLDEN HORSE, Valor, I bespoke the king riding across the fields with me on his black charger, Invincible: “So, Father, what will it take to convince you that I am but a lamb in wolf’s clothing?” I tapped my much-dented helmet.

  As I had hoped he might, Father laughed. He also in his helm, and I in a brand-new tunic of chain mail, so armored in case of outlaws, we were riding out to find Garth. Riding side by side, just the two of us. This was due to my suggestion, and I hoped the few days together might bring him back to me.

  “Wolf’s clothing is comfortable compared to a turtle shell,” Father rejoined, referring to his own Roman-style metal breastplate but not exactly answering my question, as I noticed without comment.

  “All this armor, you mean? Too true. These gloves have to go.” Slipping them off, I turned in the saddle to stuff them into a pack. I felt my father watching me with some amusement. When I faced forward again, he was eyeing the sack of stones hanging from my saddle by my right knee.

  “One can’t throw them properly with hands encased in leather,” I told him, straight-faced. I had brought the stones mostly to remind him how much of a boy I still was.

  “How is it that I had never heard of your skill as a thrower of stones?”

  I shrugged, my chain mail jingling. “I made no report, Sire, as stonesmanship is not listed among the noble arts of war.”

  “Nevertheless, I would like a demonstration. Choose a target.”

  We were jogging the horses across moorland, a wild heathery place where deer grazed along with the cattle and sheep. “Cow or deer?” I asked innocently.

  He rolled his eyes. “Try yon standing stone.”

  The menhir stood almost too near. I struck it squarely, then another farther away, then a third so distant that one could not hear the stone strike, only see the chips fly. Father gave a low whistle.

  “Strong arm,” he remarked, then added, “You should be carrying your shield on the other one, to build it up again. The muscles grow weak after they are wounded.”

  I nodded and obeyed, placing the shield on my left arm. Father was right about the muscles Domberk’s sword had cut. By the time we crested the next rise, my arm was aching.

  Beyond the moor lay forested hills, which I studied. In the distance, they looked random, like green hogs sleeping, but I thought I saw a familiar contour. “Let us ri
de a little more toward the north.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “No,” I said frankly, “I am sure of nothing. That day is a blur to me.” A propitious moment; I told my father, “I’ve sent Albaric ahead of us to scout.” On Bluefire, Albaric could ride in one day what would take us two or three. “He’ll set me straight if I lead you astray.”

  “Ah,” Father muttered. “Albaric. Always Albaric.”

  “He has made a great difference in our lives,” I said, trying for Mother’s thoughtful tone of voice, “and it’s up to us, Father, whether it’s for better or worse.”

  Silence. I disciplined myself to say no more; either Father would respond or he would not. And he was the king.

  Some moments after I had given up on him, he growled, “At least he looks less like a mollycoddle with that scar on his face.”

  I laughed. “Speak sooth, Father; he’s the dashing warrior and turns the head of every serving-maid who sees him.”

  “No more so than you do.”

  I shrugged. “I wouldn’t know. There’s no competition between us.” I waited awhile, then asked, “Do you still find him so hard to accept, Father?”

  “Accept in what way?”

  “Just as my comrade. You know he has foresworn his birthright to anything more.”

  “I do not trust his word,” Father said softly, “and I do not like it that he cleaves so closely to you.”

  Although hard to hear, this was what I had desired, this speaking of truth without the scowling face, the hot blood, the raised voice. Father spoke solemnly, that was all, and I answered him just as calmly.

  “But we love each other, Father. Not in any shameful way. We love as brothers.”

  “I hated my brothers,” Father said.

  For a moment, my breath stopped. How had I not realized; how had I been so stupid? Of course, it was a thing spoken of seldom, and then in whispers, which as a child I was not supposed to have heard, had not understood, had easily forgotten. And even now that I was nearly a man, I still had that childish way—I saw it in that moment—that innocence causing me to regard my parents, the adults, as ageless and unchanging, without any interesting history before I had come along.