The Song of Andiene

CHAPTER 4



“There are some in the city, nobles, who’d be glad to have her,” Ilbran said to his father, a few mornings later. “Raise her for two more summers, then marry her and name themselves king. If I were one such as the one I spoke to on Festival day, I would know their names, know who they are, which ones are ambitious.”

“I’ll have no part of kingmaking and politics,” Hammel said softly. “She would be safer outside the gates.”

“Yes, but how will she pass the guards?” Ilbran asked. “Unless we can curl her hair and darken her eyes and broaden her bones?”

Kare looked up from the lace that she was knotting. “Her hair can be curled well enough to pass the guards, and if she keeps her eyes cast down, they will not see their color. This city is full of ones who look enough like her.”

“If we only wait till the hue and cry dies down,” said Hammel, “she could go and take refuge in the forest.”

“What! What kind of refuge … ?”

Hammel smiled at his son. “It is not so bad as that. I brought your mother from out of the forest, once. It is safe if you know its ways.”

Ilbran had known that his mother had been born in the forests to the north, but he had never thought of what that meant. He looked at his father as he had not done before, trying to see him as a young man, wandering for the pleasure of it. How had he kept from bitterness, come to this, to be tended and carried about like a baby?

Hammel smiled, remembering, and went on. “They guard their women well. They do not like them to leave. I could have stayed with her by their rules, but I could not bear to live my life under the shadow of the trees. And the salt sea runs in my veins. I could imagine no other life, for all my joy in wandering.”

Kare’s laughter rang like a bell. “I was glad to follow him wherever he would go. Gladly I would have stayed, but gladly I went.”

“They value children,” Hammel said, not to be distracted. “Any village would take her in, with delight. A safe place for her, and it would, in a sense, repay them for the treasure I stole from them.” He and his wife exchanged glances, long and loving.

“But what of the devils in the forest?” Ilbran asked. “The rissan, the grievers, all the ones I have heard you speak of?”

“There are dangers everywhere,” Kare said. “You fear the ones you do not know; you respect the ones you do know.”

Ilbran nodded, though unconvinced, and went to the curtained-off corner by the hearth that had been his sleeping place. He pulled the curtain aside to look at Andiene. Wild stories were told of her in the marketplace, growing wilder each day. Witless jabbering, he had assumed, of how the king’s daughter had spoken in an unknown tongue, she who had never spoken before, and had forced eight-score men to do her will, and so had walked out unharmed from a charnel house.

He had laughed at that. It had seemed more likely that someone had warned her and she had scrambled out of a window to escape. Now, as he saw the look of power on her face even as she slept, anything seemed possible.

It was foul weather outside, too foul to set to sea, except in times of desperation. There was little work that Ilbran could do. His hands were stiff and clumsy already—useless for the fine work of mending the nets. He watched Fel, where the courser lay on the blanket near the door where Ilbran had slept the night before, and groomed himself, an infinitely occupying task.

Andiene woke and came out from her corner and sat watching Kare knotting lace by the window. After a while, she found a piece of wire not yet bent into a fishhook. She hammered it with a stone to straighten it, then hammered a tiny hook into the end of it.

“What are you doing?” asked Ilbran.

“Lace making, the way my nurse taught me.” Her voice trembled; she half-whispered. “They killed her when they came for me—already I had half-forgotten. Nane. She had dressed me, she was brushing my hair when they came in … ”

Kare laid her work down and clasped Andiene’s hands. “You must forget.”

“But so soon? I feel as though there is a cleft between my life then and my life now. Wider and deeper every time I look back. I look across and that other life was lived by some other person. A little girl that walked here and walked there. They combed her hair and washed her face, and dressed her like a doll.”

Andiene shook her head. Her voice rose higher. “Now I dream. Every night, I dream. Walls of fire and lakes of blood. Sunlight in a wide valley, and the golden-winged birds circling outside the walls.”

She looked blindly around the room, not seeming to see the smallness, the dirt that clung to everything, the curtains imperfectly screening off corners of the room, the smoke stains on wall and ceiling, the only chair always occupied by Hammel, the straw mats serving for all other furniture. She seemed to look past all that, as though she could look through the wall out to sea. “And the calling, always a voice calling me. It is like a rat gnawing at my mind.”

“You will grow older and forget,” Kare said softly. Andiene looked at her for a moment as though she were a grown woman, and Kare but a child. Then she took the roll of thread that Kare offered her and began playing with it, or so it seemed. She twisted it, looped it, pulled loop through loop, catching it on the hooked wire. And to Kare’s amazement, the shape of lace began to make itself clear, a star design, lace made in the air.

“Your nurse taught you to do this kind of work? Where did she come from?”

“From the forests. The forests to the south.”

Kare brought her hands to her forehead, palms out, the old sign to ward off evil. “Do they all know this craft there? I have never seen it. Still, I suppose that not many from there … come back to the city.”

Ilbran smiled in amusement to see that his mother, so soon after her lecture to him, still feared some things. It seemed that there was a difference between the northern forest and southern forest.

“Could you sell this kind of lace?” asked Andiene hopefully.

“Yes. It is fine craftsmanship. But, no!”

“Why?”

“How many in the city know how to do this kind of work?” Kare asked. “Few. Some servant buying goods would see it. And they might guess. The risk is too great.” She took the lace from Andiene, unraveled it. The thread came rippling free.

“Then what can I do? What can I do to help you?” Andiene looked around the bare room again. “What became of my rings?”

“We buried them,” said Ilbran. “They are safe, never fear.”

“The plain gold one I must have. It is my signet. The other two you may take as payment.”

“No.”

She went on, unlistening. “You can crush the settings, and sell them as lumps of gold. Surely there are people who will buy.”

“Enough,” said Hammel. “If we took payment for helping you, we might take payment for betraying you.”

“What do you wish me to do, then?” The look she gave him would have daunted many men.

“Learn patience. Stay here until they have given up searching for you, and until you have learned to put on a peasant’s manners with your peasant’s clothes. Then you may walk out of the city past the guards. We know where you can find shelter.”

“You have no peasant’s manners about you, for all the way you live.”

He smiled slightly. “I thank you.”

“I am rightfully Rejin, the lady of this land. What if I declared myself openly?”

He shook his head. “You would be killed before you had a chance to speak more than a few words. From what I have heard, Nahil planned well, and his men guard the city well. None would dare to help you openly.”

Her gray eyes were unfathomable. “What if he died?”

“You have no hope of that,” he said, answering her meaning, rather than the words. “If you walked ten paces in the streets someone would call the hunting cry after you. Forget the throne.”

“You are wise. Very wise. But it is your wisdom, not mine. And what has it gotten you?”

Ilbran stepped forward, ready to punish her impudence as he had been punished when he was young. His father shook his head slightly, looked at Andiene and waited silently. In a moment, she said, “I ask your pardon.”

“It is given.”

She went back into her sleeping corner. No one spoke. The storm lashed the house, driving water through the roof, here and there, to soak the floor into sticky mud. Autumn storm, Ilbran thought, and another kervissen run to follow it. Enough money to pay for the thatching, maybe.

They heard a loud “Halloo there! Shelter from the storm!” and their door was brushed aside. Giter, the fat butcher, stood on the threshold, the least welcome guest that Ilbran could have imagined. Fel raised his head and growled. “Quiet!” Ilbran said. He knew that a stranger must be welcomed to one’s hearth, whether he was invited or not.

The butcher did not wait for a welcome. He walked across the room, and planted himself by the fire with a gusty sigh. “I give you great thanks, and you, my lady,” he added to Kare. “This is not fit weather for man or beast. My home is far on the other side of the city, and a man could drown before he reached it.” He held his hands to the fire. Water streamed from his fine clothes, and puddled on the floor.

Ilbran frowned. A touch of falseness in the man’s speech. “What brought you down by the seaside, on a day such as this?”

The butcher’s eyes shifted. “Business, just business,” he said. There was silence. He studied the room as though naming the price of everything it contained. Kare knotted her lace, Hammel his net. Ilbran watched the butcher, not knowing what he should do. There was no way to drive a guest away that would not increase his suspicion a thousand-fold, especially such a cunning one as this.

Andiene sighed and muttered something in her sleep. Giter’s eyes sharpened with interest. “I thought there were but the three of you?”

“My brother’s daughter Rile has come to us,” Kare said serenely. “She does not love the city, though. I doubt that she will stay long.” There was silence again. The storm drove against the walls.

Andiene sighed again, and pushed the curtain aside. Her eyes widened as she saw Giter. She dropped her head sharply, after the fashion of country folk, that Kare had tried to teach her, muttered “Greetings,” and pulled the curtain closed again.

Brave girl! Ilbran thought, filled with relief that she had not shown her usual royal arrogance. The butcher’s eyes showed no recognition, no suspicion, but he began talking casually, not seeming to care if he got short answers, or none at all. Hammel showed no disturbance, and Kare was as serene as ever. Ilbran fretted under the strain, the desire to throw the prying intruder out, the necessity to seem unconcerned.

But he told himself that there was no need to worry, even after Giter turned the talk to the palace doings. It was still almost the only thing spoken of in the marketplace. It was natural that he would speak of it. “Did you hear?” he said, “The reward is greater again today? They still search for the young one. ‘Crimes,’ they say, but we know what that means. Where do you think she is?”

“Dead,” Hammel said. “Dead or fled from the city.”

“That’s true, I suppose. With a reward like that, no wise one,”—and he glanced around the room,—“would shelter her. I thought that some noble might have hidden her, for reasons of power, to wait and put her on the throne, marry her and rule for her.”

“That was my thought too,” said Ilbran, glad to have a chance to speak the truth.

The butcher looked at him scornfully. “That was the only reason I could bring to mind, but I suppose there might be other ones. Some people have strange ideas—like honor. I was never able to know what they meant by honor. It certainly won’t feed you—or patch the roof, either.”

That cut too near the bone; there was no mistaking it. Ilbran rose and walked across the room to stand beside the doorway. Fel bristled up his neck hair and growled at the menace in the air. The blood left Giter’s face, and he laid his hand on the hilt of his dagger. “The storm is weaker now; I think I will return home.” His voice trembled slightly. Ilbran did not move.

Giter looked around him doubtfully. Kare had laid her lace aside; she sat quietly. Hammel leaned forward with his hands gripping the arms of his chair. Ilbran tried to seem at ease, leaning against the wall, but his hand lay near his dagger. Giter looked uneasily around the room.

“I know a little of your kind of honor. To kill a guest would be a crime,” he said.

Ilbran watched the butcher in silence. In truth, he did not know what he would do, or what he would be able to do. Giter had made it clear that he knew their secret; he could not be trusted with it. The answer was obvious; the cliff was steep; the tide was full; the authorities would not bestir themselves over the death of a shopkeeper.

But he had never killed a man, and the thought sickened him. In a fair fight it would be possible, but this fight would be too fair, too evenly matched. If I lose, then what becomes of my family?

The butcher might be three times his age, fat and prosperous, but there was strength under his fat. Ilbran had seen him take two ruffians, disarm them both, and beat their heads together, when they tried to rob him. Now he was alert and on the defensive, terrified, by the looks of him, but more dangerous because of it.

Giter’s eyes flickered from the blocked doorway to the far too small window. He spoke coaxingly. “Come now, you know that I would not betray you.”

“Not even for money? We know that you are a poor man.” Ilbran’s voice was filled with heavy sarcasm.

“Poor I may be, but there are a few things that are beyond me, and you have been my friends. I am your guest, and helpless. Tell me, what assurance could I give you, that I would not betray you?”

“What vows do you hold sacred? None,” said Ilbran, but he was filled with a hope that this day might not end in killing. He took a step toward Giter and away from the door.

At that moment of relaxation, Giter sprang for the door. Ilbran leaped to intercept him, and they fell heavily onto the floor. Ilbran landed underneath, his right arm pinned and twisted uselessly behind him. Giter’s foul breath puffed into his face. Stubby fingers pressed into the sides of his throat. His eyes caught a flicker of motion, his mother holding the heavy fire-stirrer ready to strike.

Fel sprang more surely to join the fight, fastening his teeth in Giter’s wrist. The butcher bellowed in pain and let go of Ilbran’s throat to snatch at his dagger. Ilbran tried to knock it away; it gleamed in the firelight; the courser fell away from the butcher’s arm.

Ilbran had no time to think of his own dagger. He had work enough to keep Giter’s hands from his throat again. Though he was taller than the butcher, he had not yet come into a man’s weight and strength, and Giter was far more cunning.

No chance now for Kare to act. Ilbran was tossed back and forth, on top, underneath. In their fight, they rolled nearer and nearer the door. Then Giter heaved and bucked his heavy body, and flung Ilbran free of him for one moment, long enough to bound to his feet and plunge through the door with so much force that the leather tore loose from the lower hinge.

Ilbran sprang after him, brushing the dangling door aside, but the older man was a good dozen pace ahead, shrieking, “Help! Fire! War! Help! Fire!” as people swarmed from their houses.

Andiene ran from her hiding, to stand beside Kare, her face filled with despair. “I could have helped you,” she said.

“Nothing you could have done,” Kare said.

“No, you do not understand! I could have saved you, but I was afraid. Now I must leave, or I will destroy you.”

“Where will you go?” asked Kare.

“No concern of yours,” she answered, with a gleam of her royal manner. “I would not have you die for my sake. Where did you hide my rings? I must have the one.” Kare knelt obediently and began scraping at the floor.

Ilbran pushed the door aside, stumbling back into the room. His right arm hung uselessly. “He’s gone out of my reach—too many around him—but he isn’t telling them what he knows—for fear they’ll share in the reward. He has only to go to the square, and he’ll find soldiers enough, but we can count on a little time.” He wiped the blood out of his eyes, left-handed. He staggered and clutched at the wall for support. “Maya, what are you doing?”

His mother scrabbled up the rings from the ground, for a silent answer. Andiene came forward. “This one I must have,” and she settled a strangely shaped one over her thumb, a ring all of gold, with a knob carved with curving lines in place of a stone. She looked searchingly at Hammel and Kare. “My friends and hosts, will you not leave me as much pride as you allow yourselves?”

Hammel nodded.

“Then take these two rings as gifts. I have no use for them. Strike out the gems, and throw them away, hammer the settings together and they will not betray you.”

Hammel bowed his head in silent agreement.

Andiene took the fire stirrer and struck the two jewels out of their settings. “I will throw these into the sea.”

“You cannot leave alone!” Ilbran said, his resentment suddenly forgotten. “It would be a shame on us. You know nothing of the city. You are a child. I can lead you to a hiding place … ”

“No,” she said. “I know where I am going.”

“With no food?”

“Fare you well, my friends,” she said, looking intently at them, then turning and slipping through the doorway.

“No, do not follow after her,” said Hammel. He turned to his wife. “I should never have taken you from the forest.”

Ilbran turned back from the door. There was time to run; there would be time to run for any who were young and strong and able to walk. Useless. He could not leave them.

Words came in a rush. “Sire, what should I have done?” His question went unanswered. He knelt by the courser’s side—dead with Giter’s dagger through its heart. He took the fire-stirrer, that stick of unburning wood, and brought it down on the two rings, soft gold, unalloyed, easily crushed together. He struck at them as though they were some enemy. When the job was done, and the lump of gold buried again, the dirt packed down hard and smooth, he said, “What now?”

“We wait,” said Kare, “and we choose our story. I think it best that I never had a niece. None of our neighbors have seen her. A brawl, insulting words, and he ran storytelling for spite.”

Her calm imagination did nothing to lighten his dread. He thought of the stake in Traitorsquare, the grizane’s shadow-hidden eyes, the cold look of Andiene when she spoke of Nahil, her enemy, her kin.

“What then?” he asked.

“We wait, to see if they will believe us.”