The Song of Andiene

CHAPTER 20



At dawn, they went in between the dragon’s paws. The guards laughed and did not challenge the small bedraggled group. Andiene walked slowly and looked from side to side. “This is the pattern of my own city,” she said in wonder.

“No,” said Kallan. “This is a wider city than Mareja. They built this more grand. Look at the houses, the palaces we pass.” He gestured to the buildings around them, long and low to the ground, built of many-colored stone. “These lie empty, and there are not people enough to fill them. The old ones built mightily in this southern land.”

“You speak with pride,” Lenane said merrily. “Show us the source of that pride.”

“Did you plan a time like this?” he asked in annoyance.

“What better time? Come, show us what secret you have hid.”

His companions turned to look wonderingly at him. Reluctantly, he drew the gold ring out from under his shirt. “I am blood kin to the king of this land, but you know how worthless that is. I was twentieth heir when this was cut, when I was named, but many have raised fine families since then, and the count has gone beyond reckoning.”

Andiene looked at him with new respect. “Will they know you?”

“No, I left long ago. It is worse than nothing.”

She pulled her own ring out, used her teeth to loosen the knot, and set the circle of gold on her finger. “This will not leave my hand again.”

They walked on, passing few people in the streets, for most had gone to shelter to wait out the day.

The gates of the courtyard were open; the guards let them pass without a question. The smooth stones were clean and white. Andiene looked away from the rings sunk into the stone. What did they use them for, the makers of this city? The same uses that her kind put them to? She glanced at Kallan. He looked away.

Her voice was proud and calm as she spoke to the guards at the gates of the great hall.

“You may pass,” their captain said. “Only put your swords aside.”

Kallan nodded, unbuckled his sword and laid it aside. Syresh and Ilbran followed his example.

Andiene trembled with fear and excitement as she waited in the wide hall, an unfamiliar place. Her life had been spent far from halls such as these. Witless children have no part in affairs of state.

She did not look at the crowd, but only at the king. Taules Reji, the lord of this land, was a small man, his face lined more heavily than his years would warrant, his hair dulled from its silver-metal shine.

His robes were of crimson lanara silk, his fingers, wrists, and neck weighed down with the gold of royalty and of death. His teeth gleamed in the shape of a smile, but his eyes did not smile as he appraised the ragged group before him, all kneeling but one.

When Andiene stepped forward, his smile stayed the same, but his eyes showed wary recognition, and his hands tightened on the arms of his chair. The guards half-drew their swords; she paid them no attention. Her voice was clear and confident. “I am Andiene, rightful Rejin of the Mareja. I ask for shelter and welcome for me and my people.”

There was a murmuring and rustling in the crowd like a beehive on a hot spring night. “What proof do you have?” the king asked.

“That usurper to the north would need no proof. If I called the city it would answer me.”

“You are far from the city you claim. What proof do you have for me, here?”

“Here is the royal ring I wear. Judge for yourself.”

Once again Taules Reji waved back the guards, as Andiene held out her hand. As Syresh had done once, he turned it to read the markings etched into the gold, to compare metal to flesh. It is a great mystery, the making of a ring when a royal child is named, and there are few who know its secrets. He read the inscription, ARNM. The people standing all around were hushed, not willing to miss one word. Though the king’s smile stayed the same through all that long silence, he seemed to calculate endless possibilities.

“You are welcome as a daughter of Ranes Reji, but not as queen,” he said at last. “You may shelter here this summer, but I cannot give you royal rights.”

“That is good enough,” she said deliberately. She pitched her voice so it would carry out to the crowd. “My army waits for me in the foothills. I would not bring them into your lands uninvited. They are a kind that will wait out the summer patiently.”

There was a stir and buzzing then like a beehive that a grasskit had disturbed. The king stared from Andiene to her ragged and unarmed group of companions. Kallan glanced behind him at the crowd. She must be mad. This game is beyond all reckoning.

In the crowd were sure to be some of Nahil’s men, spies or even honest ambassadors to the court. Two men in the crowd were turning to walk away, unnatural behavior, while all the rest of the crowd was staying to hang on every word. He knew—as surely as he knew that his life was forfeit if he returned to Nahil’s mercy—that messenger doves would be flying north, barely enough time for them to go, in these last few days before summer set its teeth truly into the land.

What had possessed her to boast of armies she did not own? A sudden thought chilled his blood. What did he know of armies that she had or did not have? He knew nothing of where she had lived, what she had done, what she had learned. He could imagine an army not of men, waiting patiently in the hills while her plans ripened.

Taules Reji had none of those fears. When he spoke, there was scorn in his voice. “Go then, and clean and dress yourselves as a queen and her servants should be. We have little time for rejoicing before the summer is upon us.”

They were dismissed, and servants and guards led them down the long halls to their rooms. In that listening company, they could say nothing of their thoughts. Andiene was at ease, wearing a secret smile, half-cruel, half-mischievous. For all the folly of what she had said and done, she seemed pleased with herself.

Kare alone spoke freely. She stared around her with huge startled eyes. “Look, Daya, look!” she said as they passed corridor after branching corridor. She reached out and stroked the smooth blue-veined paleness of the walls. “Have you ever been in a cave so grand?”

“This is not a cave,” Ilbran said. “Men built this a long time ago, as they built the house we lived in. This is the same, only grander.”

Kare reached out to touch the smoothness again. “What kind of magic did they use? Was it what she does?”

“We’ll talk of that later,” he said. But the servants and guards had heard, and would remember and report, no doubt.

He looked around him in wonderment also, though he tried not to show it. Palaces were as unfamiliar to him as to his daughter. One of the servants opened the door to a wide chamber. “This is where you will be. The three of you.” Ilbran stood in the doorway and watched his daughter, walking between Andiene and Lenane, go down the long corridor, and out of sight, still surrounded by a crowd of servants and guards.

Then there was no stranger to hear them, so he could speak his mind. “What if there is treachery? This place stinks with it.”

“What did you expect?” asked Syresh. “We are come to civilized lands.”

“Quiet!” Kallan said. “The scars on your face should have taught you not to be insolent.” Then he turned to Ilbran. “Listen, your child is in good keeping. You have not seen what I have seen of our lady. Her power is not only over the creatures of the forest. When she was a child not much older than your daughter, she held a whole company of armed men at bay with her voice and her eyes alone. She is better protection for your daughter than any we could give.”

Ilbran nodded reluctantly. “I still do not like this place.”

“None of us do, to be unarmed in a strange land. I would rather have sheltered in a villager’s cellar. But there will be no treachery, not till a message comes back from Mareja. No matter how swift the sand doves fly, nothing will come before summer; we will have a long respite from fear.

“And if some spy had ideas of his own, our lady Andiene would be our guard. In these seven years she has grown mightier. Mightier than a grizane, I think. We do not know what she has done.”

“And we do not know who is at the door listening,” Ilbran said. These two had no imagination. They spoke no reassuring words. Andiene’s powers were half of what he feared for Kare, powers that might corrupt and draw her down to the darkness of her mother.

Then they were silent, finding nothing to talk about as they bathed, and dressed themselves in the clothes they had been given. They trimmed each other’s hair, and shaved, all but Syresh, grown proud of his beard.

Ilbran looked in the bright-steel mirror to see his face lined like a man twice his age, his eyes troubled and guarded.

Kallan spared no time on studying his face. He pulled on his leather and mail armor, still filthy from long traveling, and put the embroidered robe on to cover it.

“I thought you said there would be no treachery,” Syresh said.

“I would feel naked with nothing between my ribs and a dagger but thin cloth.”

“Why must we wear these?” Ilbran asked, as he looked down in disgust at the court robe he wore.

“They hold Festival here,” Kallan said. “The last joy before summer.”

Ilbran took a tentative step, then, more confidently, another one, too long. He heard the seam tear, and froze, peering to the side to see what he had done.

Syresh laughed. “Take shorter steps. If you are to live in a palace, you must learn to walk like a lady,” and he laughed again at Ilbran’s look of disgust.

Kallan chuckled. “You and the minstrel make a good pair. Our lady will have two jesters.” That silenced Syresh, for the moment.

“Were they so stinted in cloth that they could not make the skirts wider?” Ilbran asked. “I never wished to eat at a king’s table. One more mocking word, and I will put on my trousers and tunic and go and sleep in the stable.”

Kallan broke in. “There would be room enough. The horses will be gone to the mountains. But you’ll come with us, if all you can do is stand loutishly against the wall. Our lady has few enough to follow her.”

Ilbran was silent. The unaccustomed clothes—that was nothing. But the other two had lived this kind of life; they had been born to it; it came back to them like the feel and fit of old clothes. He had never even touched the fringes of it, and he had no desire to. Did Andiene truly long for it, or did she merely want revenge? He looked at Syresh. “You are her liegeman; you should wear her badge.”

“I do not know what colors she has chosen.”

“It would be easy to forget. You’ve worn the badges of two kings already.”

“What do you mean? Who told you?”

Ilbran answered quietly. “It was a long time ago, but it was the last day of my old life, so I remember it well. I remember a soldier picking out stitches from his Festival robe, and making weak excuses for his turned coat.”

Syresh looked at him in amazement. “It was long ago. It seems our lives are knotted together like a net. You, me, Lenane, all five of us were in the city that day.”

“We have chosen our side for the last time,” Kallan said gravely. Syresh nodded. There was no room for mockery when things like that were remembered. And this was a Festival day, the last before summer. They hurried to join the revelry.

***

In the other room, down the long hall, Lenane and Andiene laughed for sheer pleasure as they bathed and dressed themselves. Lenane shook out her long hair, still damp, and coiled and pinned it, winding it with a chain of red metal she had pulled from her pack.

“Where did you get that?” Andiene asked, with a smile.

She needed no answer. Some villager had been taught to be more careful of her treasures. “What of your hair?” Lenane asked instead. “It looks as though it had been haggled off with a kitchen knife.”

“I had no time to fuss and fool with it. I cannot say the word and grow it long again.”

“I know,” Lenane said, “but you can make it seem deliberately done, and not hacked off in penance for your sins.”

Andiene giggled and started to laugh. Lenane had never seen her so foolish-merry. In between bursts of laughter she gasped out, “Whipped and driven out for harlotry, with my skirts cut short and my hair cropped about my ears!”

“Not the regal aura that you wish to show the people,” said Lenane.

“What is harlotry?” asked Kare.

“Nothing that you need concern yourself with,” Lenane was quick to say. She hunted in her pack again, and brought out a pair of scissors. Andiene knew better than to ask where she had gotten them. So the minstrel snipped and sheared until Andiene looked in the beaten metal mirror to see a wavering dark reflection of herself, wearing a silver cap lying close to her head.

“No queenly look,” she said.

Lenane spoke more seriously than she had before. “My lady, you have the manner of one born to power. Dressed in seaman’s rags, you have it. Hair cropped short, worn down to your feet, it would make no difference. The people this morning saw it and trembled.”

“I trembled too,” Andiene said. “I was raised to this life—royal halls and feasts should be familiar to me—but I am afraid. Afraid of what I may say or do. I have not been used to the company of mankind.”

Lenane looked at her in amazement. “Give them an arrogant look and stay silent. They will be in awe of you, and that is all that matters.” She turned and saw Kare picking up scraps of silver-colored hair. “What are you doing?”

The child combed her fingers along the floor, looked at the fireplace. The stones were cold. There would be no fires lit till summer was done. Kare laid the scraps of hair on the bare hearth and watched them silently. The room was filled with expectant tension. Her face grew more pale, drawn taut with her struggle.

Then she turned away, the tension gone, the room quiet again. “You do it,” she said. Andiene held her hands out toward the hearth, and a white flame sprang up on the bare stones. The hair twisted like snakes; the smell of burning filled the room.

“I see,” Lenane said. “Guarding against other kinds of magic than your own.”

Andiene nodded. “Kare, I thank you for your care of me.” The child came to her and she stroked the little one’s dark hair. Excitement grew in her. This child was unlessoned, but she had power, and the will and right to use it. She could be a key to the conquest of a kingdom.

Lenane’s mind seemed to have flickered back to simpler things already, as she looked down at herself. “It has been long since I have worn woven cloth.” Her gown was embroidered around neck and wrists with a vine that branched and bloomed unnaturally with a hundred different flowers. She spun around, and the skirt belled out.

“Is it minstrel garb?”

“Good enough for me. I play the lute, not the great harp that you must straddle like a horse. Shall we wait for a servant to lead us out?”

“No need,” Andiene said. “This keep was built to the same plan as the one where I was born. See, the stairs are here; the music is playing already.”

***

In the dungeons, the fires had not yet been put out. In the cellars of the earth, there was coolness enough for one last night of revelry. Brightly clothed minstrels played the dance tunes of the court, and the dancers paced solemnly up and down the corridors, palm to palm.

Ilbran descended the steps as though he were going to his death. Here were the cells, the passageways, the dark dungeons. All the torches in the world could not make these halls bright. Where have they put the rack, the fires, that these merrymakers will not see them?

He thought of the grizane, with the blood drying on his face, of Giter, rank with the smell of fear. He thought of the loud laughter of the guards, the cold gray eyes of the questioner.

Where have they hidden them?



Then he saw Andiene and went to her with not a backward glance to his companions. She stood alone, watching the dance, and smiling to herself. “Where is she?” he asked.

Andiene understood him instantly. “See, over there. She is playing with the children.”

He looked and saw Kare, in a robe of white, embroidered with bright flowers. He laughed for the wonder of it all. “Rare that she has seen another child! Or a doll. I should have made her a doll.”

Kare held the other child’s plaything like a great treasure. Around them was dancing and laughter, and bright clothes. Andiene was dressed in red silk, weighed down by the gold threads laid on it. Her eyes were huge and beautiful, the pupils wide and dark in the torchlight.

“What are you thinking of?”

He answered truly, though not fully, and not wisely. “That your gown would have bought, ten times over, the house where I was born and lived for all my life. And you, my lady?”

“That at last Lenane has found her lute,” she said lightly. “She plucked it from the wall, and I fear the rightful owner will never get it back.”

In the corner, Lenane bent over the fragile instrument and strummed it softly. She ran her fingers along the shining wood of its body as though she were caressing a living thing.

Then she glanced up and saw Ilbran, and hurried to meet him, her face alive with mischief. “You slighted me once; now is your chance to pay your debt!”

He glanced dubiously at the formal dance steps. “We did it differently. This is like a grasskit’s courting, one step forward and one step backward. It will never quicken your blood or breath.”

“We can dance it the way our people do.”

“Not in these skirts! I have never seen such unrighteousness, to make the women’s skirts so wide, and the men’s so narrow.”

“Excuses will not do!” She giggled, full of a mood like the first time he had seen her. “You’ll not be rid of me so easily.” Then she caught hold of his arm, and pulled him into the dance.

Andiene watched them with a smile, until they disappeared into the crowd. Then she looked around, to see Kallan and Syresh standing apart from the crowd, locked in some dispute. She made her way toward them, staying close to the wall. “Ask her then,” she heard Kallan say.

Syresh shook his head and walked away. “I’ve had enough of good advice,” he said over his shoulder as he left.

Kallan watched him stalk away into the crowd. “There’s nothing more pitiful than a jealous man with no rights in the matter, like someone who’s drunk without ever having tasted a drop.”

Andiene smiled. “Let him play the fool in his own way.”

“He will, whether I let him or not.” He changed the subject abruptly. “Why did you play such a fool’s trick? Announce yourself as though you had an army of ten thousand men behind you?” He seemed more bewildered than angry.

“You said that Nahil lived in fear now. He will have all the long summer to think of me. He will know that I am returning. And he will know other things besides. How great do you think his fear will be, when he hears what took place today?”

The music had stopped; the talking grew louder; the feasting would begin soon. “Guard my back now,” she said, and she walked swiftly to where a juggler spun a ring of balls in the air. Kallan followed her.

The juggler stared and his hands stopped their turning, as his toys sprang away into Andiene’s hands. The wooden balls leaped into the air again, though her hands did not move. They arched higher, higher yet, faster, still faster, merely a painted blur. Then they slowed, but as each one spun separately, flames sprang from them. The crowd was silent and staring.

Syresh rejoined Kallan. “What is she doing?”

“We should have kept our swords. We may have to fight our way to freedom.”

“Not if she is on our side,” Syresh said in simple awe. As the juggling slowed, the flames leaped higher, a ring of fire spinning on her hands. Then her hands slowed still more, and the balls spun through the air to where the juggler stood amazed. He did not try to catch them, but let them roll into the crowd. Though the flames had died, the people stepped aside and let them roll where they would. When Andiene rejoined Syresh and Kallan, there was a wide circle of bare flagstones around the three of them, and people had drawn into little knots, to murmur and whisper.

“Will a messenger dove fly to my land in time that he may hear of this?” she asked.

“Yes,” Kallan said. “Nahil’s summer will not be easy—but what of ours?”

“They will not touch us now—from sheer fear,” she said confidently. “Besides, power is pleasant to wield like a toy. I have never used it so childishly before.”

“You cannot trust this king.”

“I know, I know, but now he will walk wide of me. So full of fear, he will not dare to plot and scheme.” She glanced down the corridor, to where the king sat, his hands clenched white-knuckled tight, his gray eyes watching her with a look of grim appraisal.

“I did not like the way he looked at us this morning, as though we were only barefoot wanderers,” she said simply.

The dancing was over; the tables were being set up for the feast; the benches were being lifted down from their high stacks. Andiene stood and watched and smiled.

Lenane bent over her lute again, with Ilbran standing by her side. Her fingers rippled in many patterns, the deep strings hummed in harmony, until the notes shaped the lilting tune of Iasaprer’s Quest, how he searched for the end of the world.

Then Ilbran sang, and Lenane’s voice was silent, but her fingers wove harmonies and subtle counterpoint for his tune, until it seemed as though a whole chorus of ghosts sang with him. Syresh listened in gloomy jealousy.

“I never realized,” Andiene whispered, when the song had ended, and Lenane tuned and tuned again, a lutenist’s endless task. “I never knew. She is a master. This trip would have been worth our while if only to give her fingers a voice.”

The songs continued, of kings and commoners, and the crowd was more at ease, though Andiene, Kallan, and Syresh still stood alone. Then Ilbran bent low, and spoke to Lenane. She nodded, and plucked the first notes of a prelude that was sad and proud, fit to mourn a king’s passing.

“How did he learn it?” Syresh murmured. “When did she teach it to him?” And then Lenane played and Ilbran sang, the Song of Andiene, of how she went from the city a hunted child, of how she would return in pride and power.

The torches burned lower, smoking in their holders. The crowd was hushed. The children slept, Kare among them. Lenane and Ilbran spun out the story of tragedy, magic, and glorious prophecy.