Elske Read online

  “And if he sees that all is well?”

  “Then he goes back to sleep under the mountain, and is never seen again.”

  Elske laughed. “All of your songs come to the same ending—‘never seen again.’ ”

  Win was merry. “Is that not life’s ending, also?”

  Beriel looked around then. “This singing and chattering,” she said. “It displeases me.”

  Elske asked, “How can it displease you?” but Win said, “I apologize, my Queen,” so seriously that Elske quelled her own high spirits. After that, Win would only hum, the melody repeating and repeating, to pass the time.

  Elske thought of Beriel’s queenly imperiousness, and kept her thoughts her own. Beriel in desperate need in Trastad was not the same companion as Beriel riding to claim her Kingdom. And how could she be unchanged, whatever Elske might wish?

  The air grew murky, thick, purpled with the shadows that were closing in around them. Still Beriel rode on, and even when night cloaked them so they could barely see one another, she did not stop. So at last Win called ahead to her, “My Queen, there is a clearing, with the firestones set and a fire built. We’re a safe distance from Pericol, and it’s not wise to ask the horses to walk on when none can see what lies on the path.”

  Beriel reined in her horse. “Here?”

  “Soon,” Win said, and it was no time at all until he said, “There.”

  In the darkness, the clearing could be felt more than seen, until Win took a tinderbox out of his purse and struck it, to start a fire. When the dry twigs and grasses had infected the sticks and logs with flame, they could see the circle of stones and the tall ring of trees that fenced a flat space, grassy underfoot. Win had hobbled the horses by then and Elske had opened the pack to remove bread and cheese. “There is water in a bucket. On one of the trees—here. I had only half of it, less than half.”

  Beriel had seated herself on a log, her cloak gathered around her. Elske lifted down the bucket and read, in the restless light from the fire, a notice that hung above it. “To who comes after me, Fill this for who comes after you: that none go thirsty.” She carried the bucket over to Beriel, who dipped her hand into it, and drank.

  “Why didn’t you fill it again?” Elske asked Win, as they awaited their turn to drink. Win looked surprised, as if she were asking him some unlikely question, so she explained, “The notice asks you to refill the bucket for whoever comes next.”

  “You can read?”

  “You cannot,” Elske realized.

  “He’s not a Lord,” Beriel explained to Elske. “Only the Lords are taught letters, and some of the Ladies if they ask to learn. As I did,” she said. “Come, sit and eat. There are things I would ask you, innkeeper’s son.”

  Win sat on the ground. Elske cut off chunks of bread, offering them to Beriel first, and then the young man, then she cut hunks of cheese. They kept the bucket of water where all could dip into it. The fire crackled and burned, the horses grazed and stamped, and all around them the forest whispered in the wind. A disk of dark sky above was filled with stars, as thick as daisies scattered in a field.

  “Who are you?” Beriel asked. “Who are you, really?”

  Elske had difficulty remembering that just that morning she had awakened on a ship, on the sea, all the air salty.

  “I am just what I said, my Queen, the youngest son of the innkeeper at the Ram’s Head.”

  And she had long forgotten the smoke-choked air of Mirkele’s little house, and the wide skies that spread out over the treeless land of the Volkaric.

  “Why would a son of the innkeeper at the Ram’s Head be sent to protect me?”

  Elske had no part in their talk. She was content to sit, and chew on the thick bread, and watch the skies, and listen.

  “But nobody sent me, nobody knows—I don’t know what they think happened to me.”

  “Then what have you to protect me against?”

  “A plot. Against you, against your life, if you were to return unwed. He said—”

  “Who said?”

  “The King. Your brother. King Guerric, who was crowned at the end of winter, thirty days after his father’s death.”

  Beriel rose, then, and walked away from the fire to stare into the thick black forest. At last, she turned, and returned to her seat. She asked then, “Said what, Win? What did he say? This King.”

  “It was whispers,” Win answered uneasily. “I do not believe them.”

  “Speak it.”

  “They said, that you had formed a shameful alliance and were with child.”

  “And the man?”

  “He’d been put to death, as would you have been were you not a royal Princess. Guerric said . . .” Win stopped again. “Lady, there is truth in me, even if it angers you to hear what I tell you. There are many of the people who believe you should have been crowned, and I think there must be those among the Lords, also. What I speak is treason against the King, I know, and if you tell me I must die for it, then I will.”

  Beriel waited.

  “The land trembles, my Queen,” Win took up his tale, after waiting for her silence to end. “This is more than fear of change. The new King has taken two cousins for his advisors, making the eldest his First Minister and giving the younger rule over the Priests and laws. The new King keeps the army under his own hand. The soldiers are restless—the King’s courage is untested and they doubt his generalship. The Priests complain that young Lord Aymeric lacks foresight and judgement; moreover, he cannot even read the laws, having lost whatever knowledge of letters he once had. The Lords are angry when Lord Ditrik stands between them and their sworn King, to whom they owe their allegiance, and who owes them honors in return.”

  “And the people?” Beriel asked.

  “The people are frightened. Their few coins are squeezed out of them, like cider from apples, and those who have no coins are set deeper into servitude. The people think of Jackaroo, and some dare to speak aloud of him. They hoard food in their own cellars, for themselves and their families; they begin to look on their neighbors with untrusting eyes. The people say you have forgotten them. Some say you have married the Emperor of the East, leaving the Kingdom to the ravages of your brother, and some say you have blessed the Kingdom by leaving it to its rightful King, and these two factions distrust one another. All agree that you have abandoned your Kingdom. But I knew you would not,” Win said.

  “How would you know that?” Beriel asked.

  “You are our Queen,” Win answered. “You could not abandon us. I saw you once—when you were a girl, a child—”

  “How can that be, when you are yet so young?”

  “My Queen, I have two or three years more than you. Do not mistake me, for all that I look young, and soft. Let others overlook me, but do not you. I saw you the once, at a hanging offered your father and his retinue for their entertainment, when they visited Earl Northgate.”

  “The man did not die well,” Beriel remembered.

  “No, not bravely. And he was a murderer who struck his victim from behind, and we all knew that of him. But his wife asked mercy for him—”

  “I remember.”

  “For the sake of his children. The King refused it.”

  “Do you question the King’s judgement in that?”

  “No. And neither did you, except—”

  “Except?” Beriel demanded.

  “You sent one of your maidservants, with a purse of coins, for the family, so that they would not starve, so that the widow might have a dowry to attract another husband for herself and father for the children. You asked only that the gift be kept secret.”

  “What was the woman to you?” Beriel asked.

  “A woman of the village, only that, but she had made an unthrifty marriage. I have a troublesome heart,” Win smiled, his teeth showing in the firelight, “as my father and brothers will tell you, mother and sisters, too. My heart was troubled for the woman, and her children.”

  “What was the wom
an to you?” Beriel asked again, patient.

  Win lowered his head. “The man was my uncle. None from the inn offered kindness to his wife, because they were shamed by him. He was a villain and a coward, as we all knew. But his deeds were not done by his wife, nor by his children. Were they? You knew that they were not, my Queen, even when you were a child yourself.”

  “So I had sealed you to me, and I never knew your face,” Beriel said, not displeased.

  “So it is with many of the people. You are our hope.”

  “Which is why you came to warn me.”

  “And save you, if I can. He plots your death, this Guerric, whom I will not call my King.”

  “It is not for you to choose who rules,” Beriel reminded him.

  “I choose who I serve,” Win said, proudly.

  “So might you change your loyalty, should you be displeased.”

  “I think I am loyal,” Win said, so simply that Elske knew he could be trusted. “You are the firstborn and the heir under the law, unless you renounce your claim. Do you renounce your claim? If so, let me go with you, to serve you in whatever foreign land you like. If so, let us turn around now, because Guerric will not leave you alive five days within the Kingdom.”

  Beriel brushed aside that danger. “He cannot murder me.”

  “My Queen,” Win said, rising up onto his knees. “You must believe me. Your safety lies in believing what I say. I am a man often trusted with another’s secret joys, or fears. The short of it is that I have friends among the soldiers. They have told me this: The King has formed an escort to meet your vessel when it lands.”

  “As there was an escort to see me onto the ship last fall.”

  Elske didn’t know why Beriel thwarted the telling of Win’s tale, as if she needed to test Win’s loyalty. So although she longed for sleep and rest, Elske kept herself awake, lest her mistress need her.

  Win argued, “This escort will be different. Each soldier will be a stranger to all the others, because each man comes from a different village or city, each serves in a different company. Their orders depend on what they find when you step off the ship. Should you have a child with you, they will bring you back in chains to stand trial for your misconduct; and Guerric has ordered the Priests to prepare a case to try you by. If you have no child, then you must not arrive back in the Kingdom alive; and each soldier will be given a purse of gold. Gold is the prize the King offers to rid himself of this shamed sister. Should you bring a guard of your own hire, then it will be battle, until you and all who are with you are dead, as if by robbery.”

  “This is known?” Beriel demanded.

  “Only by the soldiers of the King’s chosen escort.”

  “No soldier questions the order?”

  “There are enough who say that where smoke rises, there fire burns, and there are those who would save a civil war, and always there are those who wish to continue the gold that flows into their purses while Guerric rules,” Win answered.

  “Having less to lose, in wealth, in lands, in reputation, the people can see farther into the truth,” Beriel said. “The people will support me.”

  “Think you?” Win asked. “Having less to lose, in wealth and lands and reputation, don’t they guard their little more jealously?” But with the dangers defined, Win settled back, leaning against the log on which Beriel sat. He asked, “What will you do, my Queen?”

  “I’ll sleep,” Beriel said. “I’ll consider what you tell me. Then, sleep and waking, I’ll consider further. We leave at first light,” she told them.

  This was the permission Elske had been waiting for, to slip down onto the ground and close her eyes.

  It seemed to Elske that she had barely rested a moment when Beriel was shaking her by the shoulder, dragging her up and away from the comfort of sleep. Win refilled the bucket with water from the river and they loosed the horses. “We’ll eat as we go,” Beriel ordered. They were mounted and on their way before the first yellow beams of sunlight came tumbling down through the trees.

  Once again Win rode behind Elske, his arms around her waist, and Beriel carried their pack behind her. Win rode silently, or sang softly to himself and Elske. There were more tales of Jackaroo, how Jackaroo dressed the bride, and how Jackaroo brought the three robbers to hanging. There was the song of a fisherman, calling to the fish as if he wooed them, and the song of an old woman after her man had died. There were children’s songs in plenty. The Kingdom was a place where stories grew as plentifully as apples on a tree, Elske thought; Tamara would have been at home in the Kingdom.

  On this sunlit day, far from Pericol, Beriel sometimes rode beside them and joined Win in his singing, her displeasure of the previous day forgotten. So the day’s journey, although long, passed pleasantly.

  That second evening, once again Beriel and Win talked about Guerric and his rule over the Kingdom, until Win said, hesitantly, “Also, my Queen. Also, there are tales from the northernmost holdings.”

  Elske pictured the map Beriel had shown her, the northern borders of the Kingdom up against high mountains.

  “Where at the northern borders? The royal lands? Hildebrand’s?”

  “In Northgate’s lands, under Hildebrand, but—it’s cruel, my Queen.”

  Elske wondered what this news could be, if Win was more reluctant to speak it than he had been to tell of Guerric’s plots.

  “I have stomach for the cruelty of truth,” Beriel said.

  “A band of—wild men, thieves, monsters—”

  Then Elske knew the end of his tale.

  “They came out of the forests at the end of summer. They fell upon isolated holdings, one village, too. One boy glimpsed them and he ran home to tell his father of the strangers, but he found his father’s holding in flames and all his family slaughtered, except for the youngest child, a girl of seven winters, and she was gone. Lord Hildebrand sent out his soldiery, and they found a number of holdings so destroyed, but they could find no battle. The enemy slipped away. The soldiers brought back one old woman in jabbering madness, who said it was the northern wind, howling, taking human form. They burn their victims like logs on a fire, while they eat and drink in its warmth.”

  “Do we know what they are?” Beriel asked.

  “At the inn, merchants have told stories which we dismissed as the talk of men who enjoy frightening those they think simple, as fathers like to frighten their children. The merchants spoke of warrior bands, swooping down to take anything of value, gold, silver, food, clothing. They kill for the pleasure of killing and take prisoners—dark-haired women, a few men—only rarely. Although why they keep some men and slaughter others, nobody knows.”

  “For Wolfguard,” Elske explained.

  “Wolfers,” Beriel said. “I thought so. I hoped not.”

  “These wild men speak gibberish,” Win said.

  “They speak Norther,” Beriel told him, and said to him in Norther, “I thought the Kingdom was hidden away, safe from this danger. I hoped.”

  “Lady?” Win asked, uncomprehending.

  “She spoke in Norther,” Elske explained. “I’m Wolfer born,” she explained.

  “No.” The firelight washed over his face like water, making shadows of his eyes, and then revealing his hidden thoughts. He stared closely at Elske, a sudden stranger. He asked Beriel, “How can that be? When you trust her.”

  “With my life.”

  Beriel gave this gift to Elske carelessly, as if to be trusted were the common fortune. But Elske opened her heart to take the gift into her care as if it were a babe.

  Win made his decision. “If my Queen trusts you, then so will I,” he said, and held out his hands to her. “I give you greeting, Lady Elske.”

  Elske took his hands in hers. This was another true servant to Beriel. “I give you greeting, Win,” she said, while Beriel protested, “Elske is my servant.”

  Win’s surprise spoke. “She can read. You trust her with your life. Her dress, hair—this is more than servant.”
r />   “If you cannot be a servant, then who will you be?” Beriel asked Elske but answered herself, “I will think who you must be.”

  Win knew who he was, for Beriel. “I am in your debt for my life,” he said, “so it is I who am your servant. And your soldier, too, if you need me, against your brother, against Wolfers. I am your man against any enemy who offers you harm.”

  “At the moment, you are my eyes and my ears in the Kingdom,” Beriel said, and smiled at Elske, then asked, “But what is this Wolfguard you mentioned?”

  Elske could tell her. “When the Volkking’s warrior bands return in the fall, they must cross lands where wolves roam. So pairs of prisoners are bound together and set out, each night. These the wolves devour, leaving the warriors unharmed.”

  “The prisoners don’t escape?” Win wondered.

  “They’re hobbled,” Elske explained, and at the expression on both of their faces she added, “As we do with our horses.”

  “But they are men, not animals,” Win protested.

  “For the people of the Volkaric, they are human animals who cannot speak and have little courage, Fruhckmen. Would you never stake a goat to draw wolves away from your houses?”

  Win said, “These Wolfers are fearless, the merchants say. They go into battle armed only with long knives, clad only in animal skins.”

  “I do not call it battle to attack an undefended holding,” Beriel said.

  “No human force can stop them,” Win said.

  “They were stopped in Selby,” Elske told them. “My grandmother was a girl in Selby when they fought off the Wolfers, all the men of Selby standing together. The Wolfers can be turned back,” she assured Beriel. “At cost,” she added. “With courage.”