The Oddling Prince

by Nancy Springer

  I spoke slowly. “I understand you and your brothers hated one another because you were competing for the throne?”

  “I suppose. I do not remember ever thinking well of any of them. Ardath, Lehinch, Escobar, then me; I was the youngest, of no account when Ardath paid brigands to kill Lehinch and Escobar. Lehinch died, but Escobar escaped into the brawling Craglands and has not been heard from since. I hope he is dead, for his is the throne by right, and all my life I have dreaded his return.”

  “Would you go to war to keep the throne, no matter whose the right?”

  “Yes. You know I killed Ardath to take Calidon and your mother.”

  “But that was a duel. A fair fight.” So I had been told, once, years ago, by Todd.

  “It might as well have been murder,” said Father with that same odd calm. “Ardath was more than half drunk, as always, and he scarcely knew one end of a sword from the other even when he was sober. For him to be king, just because he was the eldest, was absurd. He poisoned our father to take the throne, you know.”

  No, I didn’t know. But I swallowed the information in silence.

  Father went on, “Whenever he was in his cups, he bragged of having slipped arsenic into the ale of our sire. Turnabout is fair play, so I killed Ardath and took his wife, whom I loved.”

  “Mother.”

  “Yes.”

  “And she loved you.”

  “Yes. Her marriage to Ardath had been arranged against her will, but when she laid eyes on me, and I on her—it was like a fated thing. Still, our love was adultery at first. I have sometimes thought—all of our babies dying—it might be a punishment.”

  Never before had Father spoken with me thus, revealing his inmost thoughts. It was the rhythm of riding, I think, that brought the secrets out of him. There is something about swaying atop the stride of a strong steed that stops time and soothes one into a kind of trance. Still, I felt all the honor of his trust.

  Punishment meant he felt guilt. I did not want that for him. Yet I did not wish to quarrel with him.

  “Why did I myself not die, if it was as you say?” I asked at last.

  “We do not know. But you can see why—when Domberk boasted that you could not possibly have escaped his ambush . . . it shattered us.”

  Truly, I had my father again, even more than before.

  I managed to say gruffly, “Domberk boasted wrongly, for here I am.”

  “Yes, thanks to Albaric, and I ought to love him for it, yet I cannot.”

  “Who is to say what you ought to love and what not? It is a thing that cannot be demanded of anyone, much less the king.”

  This truth flew out of me, startling, like a grouse bursting from a thicket, shaking me with every beat of its wings.

  Then silence, during which I eased my shield back to its fastening on my saddle, for my arm ached almost as badly as my heart: Albaric was never to have what he lived for and longed for, our father’s love, and I had just admitted it. Was I giving up my quest?

  Finally, my father said, low, “I did not dare to think you could understand.”

  “I understand only dimly, and partially, and at some times, not at others, alas.”

  Father laughed, a good laugh with harmony in it. “That is much the way I understand you, my son.”

  We rode on into the first forest.

  That night, as my father snored, wrapped in his blanket on the opposite side of the campfire from me, I lay wakeful and troubled. I could not forsake my fealty to my father. Ever. Fealty to a liege is a loyalty even deeper than love.

  It did not appear I could reconcile my father and my brother.

  Was I to be forced to choose between my sire and Albaric?

  But I could not. That would be like tearing myself in half. I had to bite my lip to silence a moan of misery at the thought, and my distress prompted me to pull a constant companion from under my clothing: the ring.

  Like a hollow moon, it glowed white—but no, whiter than the mottled moon. White as swans, white as milk, white as the white Elfin glamour amidst which Albaric had been born or the tiny four-petaled flower called Innocence. Never before had I seen the ring so ardently white. Lying on my side, keeping my body between my slumbering father and the ring’s whispering light, I studied it.

  Today, I had faced a truth: I could not by any means compel Father to love the person I loved. Which made me question, with a queasy feeling in my chest: perhaps I presumed too much, questing for the happiness of another? Perhaps each mortal’s happiness is his own quest and his alone?

  Yet:

  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.

  As I thought, the ring subtly changed, half of its white turning from milk to silver until it flowed around its own circle like two fishes, yet blending with each other, very much at one within the ring.

  I watched it, blinking, entranced, and somehow comforted, until my own drowsiness warned me to put it away before I fell asleep. I lay and looked up at the stars, circling always but so slowly one could not discern—yet tonight I seemed to see them like distant white horses on the move in a magical meadow vast and dark.

  Riding onward the next day, after the morning dew, tears of the night, had warmed away, and also the morning silence, I asked, “Father, was it very hard being a captive?”

  I knew he thought I meant his few days in the dungeon at Domberk’s hands, but I was thinking of the timeless time when he was the captive of Theena, Queen of Elfland.

  He answered promptly, “Insupportable. I nearly chewed off my own beard in pure chagrin.”

  How infinitely worse that other, timeless, Othergates time must have been. How could he not remember it at all? But this fugitive thought fled when Father spoke on.

  “If it were not for your mother’s quick wit with the ring,” he added, “Domberk could have done far worse.”

  “I have often thought that Mother would make a good king were she a man.”

  I heard no mockery in Father’s laughter. “You are quite right!”

  “Sire, was your sire a good king?”

  He turned to me, his face hard, his laughter lost. “Why do you ask?”

  “Because I wonder whether you learned it from him.”

  His heavy eyebrows lifted. “You think me a good king? Despite how I began?”

  He had asked, so it was not flattery to answer, “I have always thought you the best of kings, fair in taxation and in the court of law, mindful of the welfare of your people, helping them prosper, protecting them, merciful to the unfortunate. Was your father also merciful?”

  “No.” He faced straight ahead now, scanning the forest trail, not looking at me. “Your mother taught me the virtue of mercy. Son, you—you honor me. Much I have had to learn on my own, with many mistakes. I have tried to be fair, but I have not often thought of myself as good.”

  “But you are a good king. I can hardly imagine any better. Here you are, King Bardaric of Calidon, yourself riding out to find a hurt yeoman.”

  He shrugged that off. “Garth deserves no less from me. How much farther?”

  “Perhaps half a day.”

  I would not have known if it were not that Albaric was guiding me, for he had already found the way. When Father and I came to the thinning trees at the edge of the forest, then faced a vast expanse of heather and gorse, we halted to seek a landmark, and I could feel the direction as if I were a compass needle and Albaric were north. But to Father I said only, “We should make toward that tall, dead pine atop which the eagle nests.”

  “I can barely see it. You yourself must have the eyes of an eagle.”

  “I’ll race you there.” A small show of youthful daring.

  “And break your horse’s leg in a badger’s burrow? Have some sense, Aric.” A small show of parental authority. Nevertheless, instead of walking on, Father le
d off at a canter, carefully scanning the ground for the sake of his steed. I cantered a little behind, making no attempt to overtake him, smiling to myself: this was not a race, yet he would win. All was going well. I hoped against common sense that we would find Garth alive—but even if it were not so, even if Garth lay dead, then he had served his king and his prince well in death. He had given us back to each other.

  Or so I thought.

  Partway across the gorse waste, Father slowed Invincible to a walk. There was no escaping the sun, which heated that open place like an oven, and sweat ran freely on the horses as well as on us. But as we walked on, we began to see something bright-colored, low to the ground and a little to one side of our landmark. It tweaked our eyes, for we could not tell what it was. Father urged Invincible into a trot, and I, for one, forgot about sun and sweat, trotting beside him, eager to see what that thing might be.

  The sun floated nearly overhead before we reached it: a length of yellow plaid tied to a tree limb next to a narrow trail, perhaps made by deer.

  “We are to go in here?” Father asked.

  “Yes, Sire.” Untying Albaric’s neck kerchief, I slung it around my own shoulders without comment. Father rode in first, but rather than duck beneath low branches, he drew his sword and whacked them off. I think he rather terrified the two peasants who awaited us.

  Surely, Albaric had told them we were coming. In a small sort of glade or clearing they stood as if expecting us, the two good-hearted outlaws I faintly remembered, ducking their heads and tugging at their forelocks. One look at their faces showed that they would be quite incapable of speaking, so Father turned to me. “Aric, is this the place?”

  “I think so. Let me see,” I answered, dismounting. Among the trees at the edge of the clearing stood a low shelter of logs and pine thatch. I strode over there and peered in at the doorway.

  “My King!” a husky voice cried from within.

  “Garth?”

  “Yes, Majesty!”

  Elated that he lived but dismayed by his greeting, I stepped inside quickly, found his cot, and took his hand. “No, Garth, it’s only Prince Aric.” Another figure appeared in the doorway, a broad-shouldered, proud silhouette one would think no one could mistake. “There’s your king.”

  “Garth,” spoke Father’s gruff voice, “my heart rejoices to find you alive.”

  “Your Highness!” As Father also stepped inside the hut. “Majesty, as I live, Prince Aric has grown as tall and almost as mighty of mien as you!”

  “Nay, it’s only the helm and chain mail that befooled you,” I said.

  I made way, giving Father my place by the bed while he asked Garth how he had been treated and whether he was well enough to travel. He had taken fever and had managed to live through it but was yet weak. Still, all was far better than we could have hoped, for a bad wound that swells with fever generally kills. The two outlawed peasants must have nursed him excellently well. I went out to bespeak them, thank them and reward them, and make arrangements with them. They had kept, hidden in the woods, two reasonably gentle horses they had caught after the Domberk ambush. With saplings everywhere to choose among, it would be the work of an hour for them to construct a horse-litter for Garth. We agreed that they would do so and come with us to Dun Caltor the next day. Then, if they liked the place, I told them, they could stay as my father’s yeomen.

  So all was well, excellently well. Yet when my father stepped into the daylight and looked at me, my heart winced, for his eyes might as well have been made of stone.

  CHAPTER THE TWENTY-THIRD

  ALBARIC RODE INTO THE CLEARING a while later, carrying several burlap sacks in his hands, for Bluefire wore not a strap of harness to which he might have fastened them. Nor did Albaric wear clothing above his waist; the day was hot, swarming with midges, and Father and I had long since laid aside our helms and chain mail. Albaric inclined his head to Father with a shy smile, handed me some sacks with a grin, then lithely slipped down off his tall mount.

  “Mortal comfort,” he told me.

  “Eggs!” I exclaimed, opening one sack after another. Rarely did an outlaw lurking in the woods taste proper eggs from a hen, not some wild bird. “And fresh-baked bread, and—what’s in the flasks?”

  “Milk, for health. And just in case anyone wanted it, whiskey.”

  He said this in so droll and sober a way that I laughed, the peasants laughed, even Father laughed. Garth’s face appeared at the door of the hut; he stood bent with pain, clinging to the timber.

  “Ah,” he said, as if the sight of Albaric and Bluefire explained any amount of laughter.

  “Garth!” I hurried to him, easing him down to a seat on the dirt with his back against the doorpost. “Eggnog! I could make you eggnog. Would you like some?”

  “Sooth, why ruin good whiskey with milk and egg?”

  In another sack, the peasants had discovered, with more commotion and laughter, a live hen for our supper. “I thought the meat less likely to spoil if still cackling,” Albaric explained in the same straight-faced way.

  “You have done very well, Albaric.” Father had not smiled on the newcomer, but he tried to be fair, always. I felt his words of praise startle my brother’s heart and swell it with hope.

  And my own heart shrank, knowing there was no hope.

  One of our woodland hosts took the chicken away from the clearing to dispatch it. The other started a campfire by which to cook it. I mixed eggnog for Garth, despite his joking protests, and squatted by him to watch him sip it. Albaric took his neck wrapper back from me and used it to rub Bluefire.

  “If there ever was a horse deserving to be groomed with the finest tartan, that would be the one.” Father spoke again fairly, and whimsically, but with a dark undertone. That darkness had shadowed him since the moment Garth had called me king, even though I had explained it away.

  And just as I thought of it, Garth undid the explanation; indeed, meaning all good and no harm, he was the doom of me. “Prince Aric,” he bespoke me as he finished his strengthening drink, “it wonders me yet how, barring the beard, how quickly you’ve grown to be the spit and image of your royal father.”

  Everyone heard, confound it, including Father. “Spit?” Albaric echoed, puzzled. The old country word for “spirit” was “spit,” but doubtless Albaric was thinking of spittle.

  Father laughed—not a very good laugh in his uncertain mood. “Spitting images spit on the ground. Aric, Albaric,” he ordered suddenly, “Come here. Stand beside each other.”

  We obeyed, facing our sire at a distance of perhaps two paces, while he stood with his fists on his hips, studying us up and down.

  Again, I felt hope beating in Albaric’s heart, for he knew nothing of the king’s chagrin, and he thought Father might at last be seeing us as brothers, almost twins, of the same height, with the same flowing hair—mine golden, his flaxen—and the same straight back and lifted head. The same comely features were ours, except that my brother’s were finer, less blunt and common; the same build, except that, again, his was finer, more graceful. The same frank eyes, mine as blue as Father’s, Albaric’s a bit grayed, as if with distance.

  I felt wary. My father’s gaze, studiously blank to start with, quickly grew hard to hide fear. He burst out, “By all the gods, Aric, he’s like a fetch of you!”

  “I am honored,” I replied quietly.

  “A fetch?” Albaric asked just as quietly, although I could feel the word strike him like a blow. “What is a fetch?”

  “A second self.” I smiled at him.

  “A wraith!” Father burst out. “An unnatural double dogging a living man to—not haunt, exactly, but—”

  “To save your life, and mine, and mine, and yours again until I’ve lost track?” I suggested serenely.

  “Bah! No good can come of a wyrd for long.” Stormily, Father turned away and strode off into the wilderness.

  “Albaric is no wyrd, Father,” I called after him.

  “A wyrd?” Albari
c asked me, troubled.

  “Same as a fetch. A weird double.”

  “But it’s—how can he say it’s weird?”

  Brothers might well look alike, and Father should know it, he meant, and I agreed. But with Garth and two curious peasants watching and listening, I could only shush him with a warning glance.

  After Father returned later in the day, we ate well. Conversation was mostly for Garth, telling him all that had happened in Dun Caltor while he was gone. Or it was about Garth, his wounds, how well the two outlaws had nursed him, how lucky he was to have lived through festering and fever, his strength now returning but not yet great. Or it was for the outlaws, who explained that they had been driven to the wilderness by Domberk’s demands for taxes and were shyly delighted to learn he was presently lodged in Caltor dungeon. Father spoke readily with Garth, graciously to our woodland hosts, little to Albaric or me. But we refused to sit silent, speaking freely to the others.

  At dark, Father ordered that we should take turns standing guard, for so many fine horses might attract unwanted attention. Truth was, with Bluefire about, there was hardly need for human vigilance, but Albaric and I did not say so. We looked at each other and waited. The two outlaws offered to divide the first half of the night between them. Then I volunteered for the next duty, and Albaric the one after, and Father grumbled that he was always stirring before dawn anyhow. So it was settled.

  When a hand shook me awake and I got up to stand guard, Albaric ghosted after me within a few minutes, following me quite stealthily and silently to my post. I hugged him, and he laid his fair head for a moment on my shoulder.

  “Keep your voice low,” I murmured as I released him.

  “Nay, you,” he whispered. “I’ve nothing to say. You tell me.”

  So I did. Leaning against a mighty elm tree, while darkness made shadows of us both and the voices of owls spoke louder than mine, I told him all I had learned on the ride hither: of Father and his feuding family and the bloody way he had acquired his throne. I told him how the confessions had brought us closer to each other until the moment of Garth’s mistake. Now I thought my father watched me with jealousy and stony suspicion, regretting having revealed so much. Indeed, I half feared for my own life, having lately learned that my father was a murderer. Although I could not see my brother’s face, I could feel his shock.