Moonblood

by Anne Elisabeth Stengl

  Sir Oeric, however, had chuckled and bowed his head. “I am pleased to know that my service is required.”

  Something about the way he and Beana were never far from each other’s company throughout the course of the feast made Varvare pause for some speculation. But not much of a pause, for she scarcely had time to think during the whirlwind of that day.

  Her subjects approached her high seat, knelt, and swore allegiance, and her head spun with their names. Not only they, but also kings and queens of a hundred far-off realms stepped from the Wood Between into Arpiar to meet the new queen and to see this land that had been cut off from all others for five long centuries. There was a man with a fiercely handsome face whose skin was the color of the sea and whose hair was white as ocean foam, and he was the Mherking. There was another, the Lord Who Walks Before the Night (she could not remember his actual name), whose skin was no more than a shadow, though he was clad in yellow silks. A serpent, who sometimes took near-human shape but remained just as much a serpent, bowed before her, and she had to force herself not to draw her feet back when it spoke in its strange voice. A child leading a white lion on a leash, a stag the color of emeralds, and even an enormous one-eyed Tiger . . . all of them presented themselves and brought incredible gifts, and Varvare hadn’t the first idea how she was meant to respond to them.

  Despite her shyness, the Faerie lords and ladies, whispering behind their hands, decided the new queen was quite lovely and so serene, sitting in the wooden throne brought from Rudiobus, a unicorn’s horn clutched as a scepter in her hand. It would be a new age indeed for Arpiar.

  But though the queen searched the teeming throng and allowed her gaze to wander across the petal-strewn grounds, she could catch no glimpse of Lionheart.

  He kept himself out of the way as much as possible. Besides, he was exhausted. Almost dying takes a lot out of a man—or perhaps he had actually died? He couldn’t say for certain now. Either way, he’d received a new chance at life, and he meant to live it.

  But he did not intend to begin by foisting his presence on the young queen.

  So he drifted about the outermost tents, sampling strange foods from strange realms served by still stranger beings. He tried not to think too much about what living a new life was going to mean just yet. Somehow he knew that a task would be given him, and soon.

  He met Eanrin partway around a table of unusually spicy dainties.

  “Hullo there, jester,” the poet said with a bright smile. Lionheart, who had not made himself known, wondered just how the blind poet had known he was there. “I say, it’s a bit discomfiting, isn’t it? Old Ragniprava prowling about the place, I mean. I’ve almost bumped into him once or twice. It’s the most socially awkward situation. I mean, what do you say? ‘Greetings, my lord, sorry about the eye. Shall we let bygones be bygones?’ It’s not as though I can make him the whole eye-for-an-eye offer, can I?”

  “He’d probably settle for your head instead,” Lionheart answered.

  Eanrin put a hand into his pouch and removed something Lionheart couldn’t see. “By the way, this is yours. I’ve been hanging on to it for some time now and just haven’t had a good opportunity for returning it. Go on! Take it.”

  With that, the poet dropped a single strand of hair into his palm. Lionheart frowned, but Eanrin flashed another beaming smile. “Since you’ll likely find yourself wandering these Faerie ways more often than not in the future, you’d do well to remember this bit of advice: Don’t go giving bits of yourself to anybody. Oh, they’ll tell you it’s a fair price, but—” He shuddered, shaking his head. “Do you take my meaning, lad?”

  Lionheart pocketed the hair and thanked Eanrin as solemnly as he could.

  “And now,” said the poet, “I must off and compose a song worthy of this historic occasion. I’ll leave you two to chat.”

  With that, Eanrin whisked away, and Lionheart turned to find the Prince of Farthestshore standing quietly behind him. Dragon’s teeth, how did the blind man sense his Master’s presence when Lionheart hadn’t?

  The Prince smiled and as though reading his mind said, “Cats, you know, have far better senses of smell and hearing than have men.” Then he indicated for Lionheart to walk beside him, and started away from the noise and celebration of the feast. They walked in silence for a while, and it reminded Lionheart of that moment outside of Time, that moment which his memory could not hold but which his heart would always recall—walking on the edge of a swift, dark river in the Realm Unseen. His heart beat fast, for he knew he was about to receive direction. After all, had he not said then on the edge of that water that he would follow the Prince?

  “Lionheart,” said the Prince, “if you will agree to it, I should like for you to commence training for knighthood.”

  Lionheart drew in his breath, and his heart thudded painfully. “It . . . it would be my honor, my Prince.”

  “Will you swear the oath of service to me now?”

  “Immediately, if you wish it.”

  The Prince drew his sword. “Then kneel,” he said.

  It was a much quieter affair than the declaration of Queen Varvare’s rule. There was no audience. Even the sun above seemed not to see, for it was shining all its warmth upon the young queen and the feasters. But the moment was perhaps more solemn for its privacy, and the oath Lionheart made just between himself and his new Master was as binding in his heart as any made before a thousand witnesses. He grasped the shining sword—so different from the bent and twisted thing he had first perceived it as—in both his hands and swore upon its blade. When he rose, he was Childe Lionheart, in training for knighthood in the Order of Farthestshore. Tears gleamed in his eyes, though they did not fall.

  “I have a task for you, Childe Lionheart,” the Prince said. “Are you ready to accept it?”

  “I will do anything you ask of me, my Prince.”

  “I do not pretend that this will be easy for you. But trust me when I say that it will be right, that you will be glad of it in years to come.”

  Lionheart trembled. “Command me, and I will go.”

  “I do not command you,” said the Prince, “but rather I ask that you return to Southlands and the House of your father. There I would have you make peace with him and ease his mind in these twilight days of his life.”

  A shudder ran through Lionheart, fear of seeing his father’s face again. Fear of revisiting that place of his shame where all he knew and loved held him in contempt. But he replied, “I will go at once, my Prince. Only . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “Only, may I take leave of Rose Red?”

  Romantic bards would never have approved the meeting between the newly crowned queen and the bashful squire. Indeed, eavesdropping poets would have liked very much to take both participants, give them a good shaking, and rewrite all their lines for them. But the meeting between Queen Varvare and Childe Lionheart, stolen during the few brief moments she could escape from the crowds and hide behind the shelter of one of the big tents, went something like this.

  “I have come to make my farewells, Your Majesty.”

  Varvare hated that, his calling her “Majesty” and kneeling before her. She still felt like a chambermaid standing before her master, and it was miserably uncomfortable to have the roles reversed. So she said only, “Yes.”

  “I have a long journey before me. And I am told not to seek atonement, only to serve and to trust. It . . . it won’t be easy for me.”

  “Yes.”

  Lionheart got once more to his feet but could not bear to look in her face. Perhaps if he had, he would not have tried to speak. But the words came out in a rush. “Rosie, how can I ever—”

  “Please,” she interrupted. “Please, Leo, don’t say anythin’ more.”

  There is a moment that comes into every life when the right word, the right look even, could change the shape of the world forever. The wrong one could as well, though the resulting shape would be different. No word at all, however, and the moment s
lips by, and things remain unsaid that perhaps should have been said, perhaps shouldn’t, and no one can ever know for sure.

  For Lionheart and the new Queen of Arpiar, that moment came and went with neither speaking and neither looking at the other, and the world’s shape did not change.

  Then Varvare said, “Do you know where you will go?”

  “Back to Southlands first. From there, I don’t know. The Prince has promised me a path. I will walk it and discover where it leads.”

  “That is best.”

  Lionheart nodded, rubbing the back of his neck and grinning awkwardly. “Will you do something for me when I am gone? Tonight, during the festivities.”

  “Yes?”

  Still grinning, he pressed a paper into her hands. “It’s a song I wrote, back in my jester days. To be played to the tune ‘Gleamdren Fair, I Love Thee True.’ Will you see to it that someone sings it tonight? When Eanrin will hear it, of course.”

  She licked her lips, trying not to smile. “I think that might be arranged,” she said solemnly.

  “Good.”

  He turned then, just as though he intended to leave without a salute, without a good-bye, and any spying poets would have strangled him within an inch of his life.

  But Lionheart looked back and said quietly, “Before I go, I have something that belongs to you.”

  The young queen stood stiff as a statue when Lionheart stepped over to her. He bent, and she felt his warm breath on her face. Then he kissed her cheek and backed away, bashfully looking at his feet.

  “That’s from your mother,” he whispered. “She asked me to give it to you. With her love.”

  Were the world a just place and given into Poet Eanrin’s hands to dictate, he would have written things as they ought to be. Lionheart would not have bowed like some wooden puppet and left without another word. He would have acted like a man, taken the silver-eyed queen into his arms, and kissed her! He would have told her all the things in his heart that he himself did not fully understand yet, because, honestly, who ever understands those things anyway?

  But some stories refuse to play themselves out the way poets think they ought.

  In the end, one had to admit that perhaps it was just as well. For Lionheart bowed his stiff bow and turned to go; but as he walked away, he looked back over his shoulder at the little queen, and he faltered, just for an instant, before making those long and determined strides away, kicking rose petals up in his wake.

  So Childe Lionheart took leave of Queen Varvare and set forth on the first of what would be many quests in the name of his new Master. And Poet Eanrin was himself charged with another mission very soon thereafter, for someone must escort Prince Felix back to his father.

  He found the young prince seated beside Dame Imraldera at one of the many feasting tables. “Well, young sir,” said the cat-man, bowing, “are you ready to make your merry way home?”

  Felix blinked and thought through his answer as he finished chewing a large mouthful. “Is it safe for me to go just yet? I mean, don’t I need to return to the Haven? If I wasn’t healed before and that’s what led to all this mess, I’d like to be certain I’m healthy now.”

  Imraldera laughed then, and the young prince experienced many silent ecstasies under the sunshine of her smile.

  “Fear not, dear Felix,” said she. “You who have carried the Prince’s sword and with it slain dragons . . . why, you’ve received more healing than I could ever give you! You may return to your father’s house sound in mind as well as body.”

  Felix grinned a bit uncertainly. “Will I ever come back?”

  “Perhaps one day. When you’re older.”

  “You won’t be any older, will you?” he asked with much more daring than he felt.

  Eanrin’s brows lowered behind his silken eye patches.

  Imraldera smiled. “I have not aged in a long time. But then, Time is not the same in the Wood Between as it is in the Near World.”

  Felix took another bite from his plate, chewing and swallowing thoughtfully.

  Eanrin growled, “Up and at it, boy. We’ve a long journey to make, and I would like to start before the next century. Cheery bye, Imraldera, old girl. Mind you, I’ll be back within a fortnight, and I’ve a whole list of songs that require your scribe’s hand!” He slapped the boy, perhaps a little roughly, on the shoulder. “Up!”

  Felix rose and saluted Dame Imraldera, then cast a last gaze about the company. His eyes lingered a moment on the queen, so small and lonely on her high seat. But the lady sitting beside her took her hand, and Felix thought to himself, She’ll be all right. She’ll be a good queen. Just what this land needs.

  He cast about for the Prince of Farthestshore but didn’t see him, and the blind man, now a cat again, was growling and lashing his tail with impatience. “All right, Monster,” Felix said. “Lead on.”

  They traveled quickly on the Prince’s Paths, out of the gray plain of Arpiar and into the Wood Between. There Felix found himself blinking in great surprise when he recognized the old plank bridge near which he and his sister had once played many games. “I didn’t know we were so close!”

  “So close?” the cat asked as he led the way across the Old Bridge.

  “So close to Faerie all those years! I mean, we always joked about it, Una and I, but . . . Iubdan’s beard, it really does put things in perspective for you, doesn’t it? We even found you here!”

  “I remember,” the cat said. “You needn’t remind me. Come along, Prince Felix.”

  “You know something, Monster?” Felix said as he climbed Goldstone Hill behind the cat. His heart was light as he passed through the familiar grounds once more, full of fond memories. “You know, I think Dame Imraldera is very pretty. What do you think?”

  “I think you’re slower than a slug, prince, that’s what I think,” said the cat, and he darted on ahead up the hill. “Last one to the top carries the other one back down the other side!”

  Felix groaned, rolled his eyes, and puffed on the trail of the Chief Poet of Rudiobus. As he went, his gaze was caught by something lying in the brush a little out of his way. Curious, he pushed through the bracken to investigate and found a sword. It was an ornate weapon with a golden hilt set with jewels, and the blade was etched all over with intricate figures and the name Bloodbiter’s Wrath. Felix liked the looks of it, so he picked it up and carried it with him as he followed the cat up Goldstone Hill.

  Epilogue

  Ah, there you are, Felix. I’d just been wondering where you’d gotten off to.”

  Felix, climbing the path in the wake of the cat, stopped and turned to see King Fidel amid the ruins of Oriana’s gardens. He’d been stooping over a green bush but straightened up as he addressed his son.

  “Father!” Felix cried and loped over to him. He stopped short, not quite daring to embrace the king. Instead he looked at him, openmouthed, and saw his father’s eyebrows bunch into a concerned frown.

  “Where have you been?” Fidel asked. “Out in the Wood?”

  Felix nodded. “How long have I been away?”

  “I don’t know,” Fidel said. “A few hours. I’ve been down in the city inspecting the work being done there. I wondered if I might find you up here.”

  Thunder rolled overhead. The storm blowing in from the sea drew near and would soon release its power upon the shore. Felix stared up at the sky and around at the garden, then back to his father. “A few hours?”

  “It was rather unprincely of you to run off,” the king continued, turning back to the green bush. “The foreman was expecting to meet his future sovereign, and I was obliged to make excuses. But you were in such a foul temper.”

  “I was?”

  “Do you deny it?”

  Felix bowed his head. His memories of recent life were a blur. He felt as though he’d passed into a dream—a dream that lasted for weeks, months, even years!—only to find himself right back where and when he’d started. Nothing was certain. Everything was changed. He d
rew a deep breath and raised his chin once more. He had faced a dragon, and he had won. Suddenly, despite the gathering storm clouds, the world was a brighter place. It was a place he could master and a place he could serve.

  At that moment, he saw what his father was inspecting on the bush. Little knobs and buds sprouted all over in the midst of thickening greenery. And in a few places, the buds were already beginning to unfurl their gorgeous secrets.

  “Roses!” Felix cried. “Those are roses!”

  Fidel, for the first time in many weeks, smiled at his son. “Indeed. After all these years, the roses have at last decided to bloom again. I think perhaps it is an honor paid Parumvir since the marriage of your sister to the Prince of Farthestshore. What do you think?”

  “Maybe,” Felix said, bending to gaze more closely at the delicate pink blossoms, breathing in their sweetness, richer even than the smell of the sea. He thought of the spells he’d seen broken. He thought of all the goblin people unveiled. And he knew that the roses too had been set free.

  Once more, thunder growled. Fidel patted his son’s shoulder, a little awkwardly. “Come, my boy,” he said. “We’d best take shelter up in the ruins until this passes over. I see you found your sister’s cat! Has he been lurking around here all this time?”

  They continued up the path, the cat trailing after them, certainly not following, but as eager as they to escape the coming rain. “I killed a dragon today,” Felix said as they went.

  “What’s that?”

  “Nothing.” Felix smiled to himself. Some stories, he realized, were best left untold.

  The first rain began to fall, landing in his hair, on his face. It felt cool and fresh. It was a rain that might wash away the last of the Dragon’s smoke. Liberated roses bloomed everywhere. Old marble statues, knocked from their pedestals, were gaudy with blossoms. And up ahead, the poor, broken ruins of Oriana boasted curtains of climbing roses, which drank in the rain and nodded their dainty heads at the approaching king and his son.