The courtiers blinked and looked at one another. The Crown Prince looked as if he might cry: his master had left him behind. The King turned to his daughter with the closing of that far door, and he saw first her white frightened face; and then his gaze dropped to the round stones of her necklace, and there, for several moments, it remained.
No one of the courtiers looked at her directly; but when she caught their sidelong looks, there was blankness in their eyes, not understanding. None addressed a word to her, although all had seen that she, somehow, was the cause of Aliyander’s anger. But then, for months now it had been considered bad luck to discuss anything that Aliyander did.
Inthur, the Crown Prince, still loved his father and sister in spite of the cloud that Aliyander had cast over his mind; and little did he know how awkward Aliyander found that simple and indestructible love. But now Inthur saw his sister standing alone in the doorway to the garden, her face as white as her dress, and as a little gust of wind blew her skirts around her, and her fair hair across her face, she gasped and gave a shudder, and one hand touched her necklace. With Aliyander absent, even the cloud on Inthur lifted a little, although he himself did not know this, for he never thought about himself. Instead he ran the several steps to where his sister stood, and threw his arms around her; he looked up into her face and said, “Don’t worry, Rana dear, he’s never angry long.” His boy’s gaze passed over the necklace without a pause.
She nodded down at him and tried to smile, but her eyes filled with tears; and with a little brother’s horror of tears, particularly sister’s tears, he let go of her at once and said quickly, with the air of one who changes the subject from one proved dangerous, “What did you do?”
She blinked back her tears, recognizing the dismay on Inthur’s face; he would not know that it was his hug that had brought them, and the look on his face when he tried to comfort her: just as he had used to look before Aliyander came. Now he rarely glanced at either his father or his sister except vaguely, as if half asleep, or with his thoughts far away. “I don’t know,” she said, with a fair attempt at calmness, “but perhaps it is not important.”
He patted her hand as if he were her uncle, and said, “That’s all right. You just apologize to him when you see him next, and it’ll be over.”
She smiled wanly as she remembered that her own brother belonged to Aliyander now and she could not trust him. Then the King came up beside them, and when her eyes met his she read knowledge in them: of what Aliyander had seen, in her face and round her neck; and a reflection of her own fear. He said nothing to her.
The rest of the day passed slowly, for while they did not see Aliyander again, the weight of his absence was almost as great as his presence would have been. The Crown Prince grew cross and fretful, and glowered at everyone; the courtiers seemed nervous, and whispered among themselves, looking often over their shoulders as if for the ghosts of their great-grandmothers. Even those who came from the city, or the far-flung towns beyond, to kneel before the King and crave a favor seemed more to crouch and plead, as if for mercy; and their faces were never happy when they went away, whatever the King had granted them.
Rana felt as grey as Aliyander’s jewels.
The sun set at last, and its final rays touched the faces in the Hall with the first color most of them had had all day; and as servants came in to light the candles everyone looked paler and more uncomfortable than ever.
One of Aliyander’s personal servants approached the throne soon after the candles were lit; the King sat with his children in smaller chairs at his feet. The man offered the Crown Prince a folded slip of paper; his obeisance to the King first was a gesture so cursory as to be insulting, but the King made no move to reprimand him. The Hall was as still as it had been that morning when Aliyander had left it; and the sound of Inthur’s impatient opening of the note crackled loudly. He leaped to his feet and said joyfully, “I’m to dine with him!” and with a dreadful look of triumph round the Hall, and then at his father and sister—Rana closed her eyes—he ran off, the servant following with the dignity of a nobleman.
It seemed a sign. The King stood up wearily and clapped his hands once; and the courtiers made their bows and began to drift away, to quarters in the palace, or to grand houses outside in the city. Rana followed her father to the door that led to the rest of the palace, where the Crown Prince had just disappeared; and there the King turned and said, “I will see you at eight, my child?” And Rana’s eyes again filled with tears at the question in his voice, behind his words. She only nodded, afraid to speak, and he turned away. “We dine alone,” he said, and left her.
She spent two long and bitter hours staring at nothing, sitting alone in her room; in spite of the gold-and-white hangings, and the bright blue coverlet on her bed, it refused to look cheerful for her tonight. She removed her necklace and stuffed it into an empty jar and put the lid on quickly, as if it were a snake that might escape, although she knew that it itself had no further power to harm her.
She joined her father with a heavy heart; in place of Aliyander’s jewels she wore a golden pendant that her mother had given her. The two of them ate in a little room with a small round table, where her family had always gathered when there was no formal banquet. When she was very small, and Inthur only a baby, she had sat here with both her parents; then her pretty, fragile mother had died, and she and Inthur and their father had faced each other around this table alone. Now it was just the King and herself. There had been few banquets in the last months. As she looked at her father now, she was suddenly frightened at how old and weak he looked. Aliyander could gain no hold over him, for his mind and his will were too pure for Aliyander’s nets; but his presence aged him quickly, too quickly. And the next King would be Inthur, who followed Aliyander everywhere, a pace behind his right shoulder. And Inthur would be delighted at his best friend’s marrying his sister.
The dining-room was round like the table within it; it was the first floor of a tower that stood at one of the many corners of the Palace. It had windows on two sides, and a door through which the servants brought the covered dishes and the wine, and another door that led down a flight of stone steps to the garden.
Neither she nor her father ate much, nor spoke at all, and the room was very quiet. So it was that when an odd muffled thump struck the garden door, they both looked up at once. Whatever it was, after a moment it struck again. They stared at each other, puzzled, and because since Aliyander had come all things unknown were dreaded, their looks were also fearful. When the third thump came, Rana stood up and went over to the door and flung it open.
There sat her frog.
“Oh!” she exclaimed. “It’s you.”
If a frog could turn its foolish mouth to a smile, this one did. “Good evening,” it replied.
“Who is it?” said the King, standing up; for he could see nothing, yet he heard the strange deep voice.
“It’s … a frog,” Rana said, somewhat embarrassed. “I dropped … that necklace in a pool today, and he fetched it out for me. He asked a favor in return, that he might live with me in the palace.”
“If you made a promise, child, you must keep it,” said the King; and for a moment he looked as he had before Aliyander came. “Invite him in.” And his eyes rested on his daughter thoughtfully, remembering the change in those jewels that he had seen.
The Princess stood aside, and the frog hopped in. The King and Princess stood, feeling silly, looking down, while the frog looked up; then Rana shook herself, and shut the door, and returned to the table. “Would you—er—like some dinner? There’s plenty.”
She took the frog back to her own room in her pocket. Her father had said nothing to her about their odd visitor, but she knew from the look on his face when he bade her good night that he would mention it to no one. The frog said gravely that her room was a very handsome one; then it leaped up onto a sofa and settled itself among the cushions. Rana blew the lights out and undressed and climbed into bed, and
lay, staring up, thinking.
“I will go with you to the Hall tomorrow, if I may,” said the frog’s voice from the darkness, breaking in on her dark thoughts.
“Certainly,” she said, as she had said once before. “You’re my talisman,” she added, with a catch in her voice.
“All is not well here,” said the frog gently; and the deep sympathetic voice might have been anyone, not a frog, but her old nurse, perhaps, when she was a baby and needed comforting because of a scratched knee; or the best friend she had never had, because she was a Princess, the only Princess of the greatest realm in all the lands from the western to the eastern seas; and to her horror, she burst into tears and found herself between gulps telling that voice everything. How Aliyander had ridden up one day, without warning, ridden in from the north, where his father still ruled as king over a country bordering her father’s. How Aliyander was now declared the heir apparent, for his elder brother, Lian, had disappeared over a year before; and while this sad loss continued mysteriously, still it was necessary for the peace of the country to secure the succession. Aliyander’s first official performance as heir apparent was this visit to his kingdom’s nearest neighbor to the south, for he knew that it was his father’s dearest wish that the friendship between their two lands continue close and loyal.
And for the first time they saw Aliyander smile. The Crown Prince had turned away, for he was then free and innocent; the King stiffened and grew pale; and Rana did not guess how she might have looked.
“I had known Lian when we were children,” Rana continued; she no longer cared who was listening, or if anything was. “He was kind and patient with Inthur, who was only a baby; I—I thought him wonderful,” she whispered. “I heard my parents discussing him one night, him and … me.…”
Aliyander’s visit had lengthened—a fortnight, a month, two months; it had been almost a year since he rode through their gates. Messengers passed between him and his father—he said; but here he stayed, and entrapped the Crown Prince; and next he would have the Princess.
“I don’t know what to do,” she said at last, wearily. “There is nothing I can do.”
“I’m sorry,” said the voice, and it was sad, and wistful, and kind.
And human. Her mind wavered from the single thought of Aliyander, Aliyander, and she remembered to whom—or what—she spoke; and the sympathy in the creature’s voice puzzled her even more than the fact that the voice could use human speech.
“You cannot be a frog,” she said stupidly. “You must be—under a spell.” And she found she could spare a little pity from her own family’s plight to give to this spellbound creature who spoke like a human being.
“Of course,” snapped the frog. “Frogs don’t talk.”
She was silent, sorry that her own pain had made her thoughtless, made her wound another’s feelings.
“I’m sorry,” said the frog for the second time, and in the same gentle tone. “You see, one never quite grows accustomed.”
She answered after a moment: “Yes. I think I do understand, a little.”
“Thank you,” said the frog.
“Yes,” she said again. “Good night.”
“Good night.”
But just before she fell asleep, she heard the voice once more: “I have one more favor to ask. That you do not mention, when you take me to the Hall tomorrow, that I … talk.”
“Very well,” she said drowsily.
PART THREE
THERE WAS A ripple of nervous laughter when the Princess Rana appeared in the Great Hall on the next morning, carrying a large frog. She held her right arm bent at the elbow and curled lightly against her side; and the frog rode quietly on her forearm. She was wearing a dress of pale blue, with lace at her neck, and her fair hair hung loose over her shoulders, and a silver circlet was around her brow; the big green frog showed brilliantly and absurdly against her pale loveliness. She sat on her low chair before her father’s throne; the frog climbed, or slithered, or leaped, to her lap, and lay, blinking foolishly at the noblemen in their rich dresses, and the palace servants in their handsome livery; but it was perhaps too stupid to be frightened, for it made no other motion.
She had seen Aliyander standing with the Crown Prince when she entered, but she avoided his eyes; at last he came to stand before her, legs apart, staring down at her bent head with a heat from his black eyes that scorched her skin.
“You dare to mock me,” he said, his voice almost a hiss, thick with a venomous hatred she could not mistake.
She looked up in terror, and he gestured at the frog. “Ah, no, I meant no—” she pleaded, and then her voice died; but the heat of Aliyander’s look ebbed a little as he read the fear in her face.
“A frog, Princess?” he said; his voice still hurt her, but now it was heavy with scorn, and pitched so that many in the Hall would hear him. “I thought Princesses preferred kittens, or greyhounds.”
“I—” She paused, and licked her dry lips. “I found it in the garden.” She dropped her eyes again; she could think of nothing else to say. If only he would turn away from her—just for a minute, a minute to gather her wits; but he would not leave her, and her wits would only scatter again when next he addressed her.
He made now a gesture of disgust; and then straightened up, as if he would turn away from her at last, and she clenched her hands on the arms of her chair—and at that moment the frog gave its great bellow, the noise that had startled her yesterday into dropping the necklace into the pool. And Aliyander was startled; he jerked visibly—and the courtiers laughed.
It was only the barest titter, and strangled instantly; but Aliyander heard it, and he turned, his face black with rage as it had been yesterday when Rana had returned wearing a cold grey necklace; and he seized the frog by the leg and hurled it against the heavy stone wall opposite the thrones, which stood halfway down the long length of the Hall and faced across the narrow width to tall windows that looked out upon the courtyard.
Rana was frozen with horror for the moment it took Aliyander to fling the creature; and then as it struck the wall, there was a dreadful sound, and the skin of the frog seemed to—burst—and she closed her eyes.
The sudden gasp of all those around her made her eyes open against her will. And she in her turn gasped.
For the frog that Aliyander had hurled against the wall was there no longer; as it struck and fell, it became a tall young man, who stood there now, his ruddy hair falling past his broad shoulders, his blue eyes blazing as he stared at his attacker.
“Aliyander,” he said, and his voice fell like a stone in the silence. Aliyander stood as if his name on those lips had turned him to stone indeed.
“Aliyander. My little brother.”
No one moved but Rana; her hands stirred of their own accord. They crept across the spot on her lap where the frog had lain only a minute ago; and they seized each other.
Aliyander laughed—a terrible, ugly sound. “I defeated you once, big brother. I will defeat you again. You are weaker than I. You always will be.”
The blue eyes never wavered. “Yes, I am weaker,” Lian replied, “as you have proven already. I do not choose your sort of power.”
Aliyander’s face twisted as Rana had seen it before. She stood up suddenly, but he paid no attention to her; the heat of his gaze was now reserved for his brother, who stood calmly enough, staring back at Aliyander’s distorted face.
“You made the wrong choice,” Aliyander said, in a voice as black as his look; “and I will prove it to you. You will have no chance to return and inconvenience me a second time.”
It was as if no one else could move; the eyes of all were riveted on the two antagonists; even the Crown Prince did not move to be closer to his hero.
The Princess turned and ran. She paused on the threshold of the door to the garden, and picked up a tall flagon that had held wine and was now sitting forgotten on a deep windowsill. Then she ran out, down the white paths; she had no eyes for the trees and the
flowers, or the smooth sand of the courtyard to her right; she felt as numb as she had the day before with her handful of round and glowing jewels; but today her eyes watched where her feet led her, and her mind said hurry, hurry, hurry.
She ran to the pond where she had found the frog, or where the frog had found her. She knelt quickly on the bank, and rinsed the sour wine dregs from the bottom of the flagon she carried, emptying the tainted water on the grass behind her, where it would not run back into the pool. Then she dipped the jug full, and carried it, brimming, back to the Great Hall.
She had to walk slowly this time, for the flagon was full and very heavy, and she did not wish to spill even a drop of it. Her feet seemed to sink ankle-deep in the ground with every step, although in fact the white pebbles held no footprint as she passed, and only bruised her small feet in their thin-soled slippers.
She paused on the Hall’s threshold again, this time for her eyes to adjust to the dimmer light. No one had moved; and no one looked at her.
She saw Aliyander raise his hand and bring it like a back-handed slap against the air before him; and though Lian stood across the room from him, she saw his head jerk as if from the force of a blow; and a thin line formed on his cheek, and after a moment blood welled and dripped from it.
Aliyander waved his hand so the sharp stone of his ring glittered; and he laughed.
Rana started forward again, step by step, as slowly as she had paced the garden, although only a few steps more were needed. Her arms had begun to shiver with the weight of her burden. Still Aliyander did not look at her; for while his might be the greater strength at last, still he could not tear his eyes away from the calm clear gaze of his brother’s; his brother yet held him.
Rana walked up the narrow way till she was so close to Aliyander that she might have touched his sleeve if she had not needed both hands to hold the flagon. Then, at last, Aliyander broke away to look at her; and as he did she lifted the great jug, and with a strength she thought was not hers alone, hurled the contents full upon the man before her.
The Door in the Hedge: And Other Stories Page 8
