Chapter 21: Peghara
Gilling rode with Lord Gregory in the vanguard of King Fearnon. He had had no choice but to come, but his heart was not in it.
Knowing what was to come in the ensuing weeks he had sent Sintia, together with Elora and the children and Mary, with Lady Hildreth's entourage. They were traveling many days to Caer Aldene, where he would much rather go, and perhaps not return.
It wasn't that he didn't enjoy entertaining the Court, and he and Fearnon had become great friends. Nor was he any longer restless to travel. If anything, he liked Court overmuch. And so did Sintia.
Thank God she had a great native common sense, and was very careful with their money, which Gilling had no head for. Nor was she susceptible to the decadent subculture of many of the courtiers who passed through their lives. It was just that courtly expectations dominated their lives, set their priorities, even compromised their values. It decided who their friends were. It was too comfortable and easy, and Gilling had a hard time picturing the Carpenter of Nazareth in his situation.
Sintia had been sick to leave when on the surface, things appeared peaceful. But Gilling had been in on some conversations about the year's calm seas, about the influx of silks, dates, figs, porcelain, oranges, exotic furs, jades, influenza, lapis lazuli, sandalwood, myrrh, patchouli, holy relics, tropical birds, books, diamonds, papal legates and their mercenaries. The whole South was a roil of excitement, and the Bradmeads were too quiet. Gilling had a dread of this ride, for what they might see or not see.
From King's Leigh, the royal entourage had gone to the mouth of the Briar, where it roared into the sea; after spreading into a lake a mile wide, it funneled between high blackstone headlands and plunged, a deafening cataract, a roaring silver torrent, which silenced the onlookers and wetted beards and manes and fur trim with tiny droplets, and cleared the mind of all but the immensity of the river's movement, down into the white and frothing cloud with its perpetual rainbow rippling among the jetting currents of mist, before the fresh waters roared out down a boulder scree into the White Sea, whose own rushing confluences and laboring crosscurrents only welcomed its turbulence into the fray. One heard its thundering for hours after and felt the drumming in one's chest. No wonder it was named Jehovah Falls.
From there they crossed the great loch on ferry boats and watched the little freshwater dolphins leaping in rafts from the whitecaps. Then they set out along the border from west to east, visiting the string of walled cities and castles that guarded it.
All was quiet, crops unmolested, not so much as a corn-crib overturned. Much too quiet, Gilling was thinking, almost wishing for a confrontation of some kind to relieve his tension.
Sintia would have left for Caer Aldene the day before. Mary would ride with their son, Thomas; Deinn on her little white donkey, Sintia with their new daughter Elorinne. Elorinne was a cranky little thing who had begun colicky; thank God that was past; for in spite of her fussiness, Gilling was smitten with her and filled with longing for the whole noisy bunch of them. Elora would ride erect as ever on a gentle old mare.
Now an outrider was returning from a sortie to report. He rode by the guards, barely reining his horse to explain his message to them; the guards waved him on. Fearnon lifted his head and stopped speaking mid-sentence and gave his attention to the approaching rider.
"I met a refugee from the next hamlet, Verdene. He said he was looking in the pasture land for a lost sheep when he saw his village set afire. He fled from there, but he did see the attacker's device: Blue and gold quarterfields, gold castles on blue."
"Tolebrough, or his knights," said Lord Eldred, next to Lord Gregory.
"There is an empty manor there, belongs to Lord Kendryn. The villager couldn't see it from his sheep pasture."
"How many did he say were with him?" said Fearnon.
"He saw only a dozen, perhaps; four lances. But he had turned and run quickly, I think, to save his own skin. When I talked to him he was crying over his mother and sisters, and thinking to turn back and look after them. I told him to do no such thing, lest he give us away. I did get out of him that there is an entry to a passable hollow just ahead that would lead us closer to the village behind the cover of hills in pasture, and give out on high ground to the south of the village. If we follow this path, we will be visible well before we reach there, and all uphill from there."
"Good. Columns, array! Lances ahead, archers behind!" Fearnon cried to his captains, they turned about calling to their knights.
Gilling turned his horse to join the mounted archers, but not before he heard Lord Eldred grumble to his son, Herrick. "Let's go get our fill of Tolebroughs. The cravens never ride out in small number."
So they rode a sheep-path a mile or so into an emerald valley. Over the crest to their left, smoke was drifting in ragged patches. Then there was a blatting and a drumming of tiny hooves, and hundreds of sheep ran over the hill towards the columns lined out along the sheep track; and behind the sheep, shadows against the summer clouds and drifting smoke: a column of warriors along the ridge, less than a quarter mile away.
The herd broke upon them like a crying, snowy wave around the war-horses' legs. A few hot-blooded horses, trained to run toward a clash, broke the line and charged the leaping sheep and turned back, confused. But the King cried out to hold the line and let the sheep pass, which took several prolonged moments. Meanwhile the column up the hill had arrayed and begun to roar down toward them.
Fearnon cried out and all turned and charged up the other side of the valley, retreating, as the sheep herd swept away down the valley's funnel. The enemy line broke in confusion as some charged ahead to pursue while their captains were yelling to pull back and re-form.
Halfway up the hill, Fearnon called his knights to turn about; now nearly half the Tolebrough lances were charging up the hill and Fearnon swept down from the high ground and they joined in battle under the summer sky.
The archers dismounted and from their vantage point up the hill, loosed their arrows on the second wave of Tolebroughs now bearing down. Gilling called to his drummer to draw his bow; there was too much going on for music.
The Tolebroughs were outnumbered and when a group of them pulled back to re-form, they instead turned and rode away over the crest where they had come from, leaving some few of their number stranded, to throw down weapons and surrender. The emerald valley was a churn of mud, loose and dead horses and men and abandoned weapons, and the smoke and clouds drifted overhead in the sudden peace.
A huddle of mounted and dismounted knights were knotted around the King's horse; he was bent and holding his face, from which even at his distance Gilling could see that blood streamed, and hands were reaching, calling to the beloved King as he crumbled heavily into their arms.
The old keep of Brycelands that was used for an armory had a locked inner room in which were stored treasures from the Vallards, Tamlyn's reward from Lord Gregory. They had not seen the light of day except for Willa's annual rampage of dusting and sweeping the airless chamber. Shields and gilded ringmail were hung in array about the room, and in the lamplight that Tamlyn and Rafert Houseman brought with them, the room glittered like one of Solomon's dreams.
Tamlyn gazed darkly at the swords, one by one, hanging around the room. There were a dozen of them, beautiful specimens, polished faithfully each year and hung separately from their scabbards to thwart rust. He would be content to leave them hang like this till doomsday, to taste no more blood. But his vassals, the farmers and weavers and cartwrights of Bryceland village, needed to see that they had a protector, even if he paid shield-money and let another go in his place while he remained.
He chose a suit of mail with a detached coif, which would be easier to wear. He took a graceful sword and scabbard, scaled gloves which had been new to Ardinéa when the Vallards brought them, and other effects. He had ordered a shield and brooch made bearing the crest he had taken after giving the Braewode name to his brother: fawn and white, very unlike the bold
scarlet and gold of the Braewode arms; but the same burning tree depicted. For now, he took a very ordinary iron buckler.
He and Rafert carried the items back to the stable, where they were dusted and Tamlyn donned them, covering the glorious mail with his long summer surcoat of fawn and white linen. He disliked that there was a pleasure in the weight of it, and grew silent as he awaited the caparisoned old war-horse to be led to him. He mounted, not without effort, remembering how the mail had taken getting used to when he wore his first suit,-- was it near a score of years before? He combed through his beard, which itched with its late thickening, and thought again of shaving it for the first time.
The groomsman led the horse to him and he mounted and rode from the stableyard to the front of the manor hall, where he had promised Margaret he would ride by before going about the village. There she stood, her cheeks blooming in the morning coolness, and holding Ryanh in front of her. She smiled reassuringly, though he read the mixed emotions in her face. He stopped the huge horse, who stamped impatiently as if for a charge, despite its age. He regarded her wordlessly, and she him. Then his new squire rode up behind him and he turned down the lane for a tour about the village and its borders. For the benefit of the Brycelanders, Lord Tamlyn of Brycelands was riding his estate.
He toured through the village at a walk, the clop of the warhorse's platter- size hooves drawing the villagers into their dooryards to see Tamlyn arrayed in his glittering mail. He recalled how delightful the attention had been to him, when he was proud and young and rode, newly knighted, with Lord Clewode. Now he was just as glad the attention was for his gear and not for him.
He rode beyond the village to its limits and turned down for the Briar River, to ride downstream to the limits of Brycelands and up the edges of the fields to the rough pastures.
He arrived at the River and turned south along the banks. The fog still hung over the River near the shaded banks, which between the road and the water's edge, bloomed with a profusion of wildflowers-- gravelroot, boneset, goldenrod and mullein. The selions snaked along the river, the grain going golden-ripe and just now silvered still with morning dew.
He came to the place by the River where he could turn and see his house at the top of the sweep of fields, and he sat his horse a moment, pointing out landmarks to the squire, Faulk. He was a fatherless nephew-or-other of Lord Clewode, a brown-haired, silent young man with a tiny mustache and a large port wine stain up one side of his face. He evidenced amazingly sharp eyesight, and a preference for plucking the mandola with Tamlyn's piping, over any curiosity about the Faerie Realm: Tamlyn wished not to be a curiosity. As they sat in the ragged mist, the sun making splendors in the oats and wheat, the war-horse's skin began to twitch, and its head turned back in the direction from which they had come. Faulk's horse whinnied, and Tamlyn's wheeled to face what they now heard as a brittle faraway thundering that rolled nearer by the moment.
Faulk grimly clenched his horse's reins to keep control, while it fought for its mouth. "Shoan, Shoan, steady now," Tamlyn spoke quietly to the warhorse, who stood, every muscle taut, its ears and nostrils indignant, one hoof canted. The distant report grew louder and resolved into a tattoo. "I have heard that sound before," commented Faulk, before his horse bolted up the shining fields for the manor house, a mile away, Faulk clinging on.
Tamlyn waited, and the taut war-horse waited his command-- a retired favorite of Lord Clewode's, he was showing his worth-- and the horse came into sight.
Full bore along the river road, and one could not have said whether its hooves touched ground or the ground shuddered like a whipcrack along beneath its passing. In his mail, Tamlyn shuddered, his mouth full of sand as he croaked, "Peghara," for the tall mare slowed, eyeing him with recognition; and circled around him, the war-horse frozen, sensing Tamlyn's panic-- and then it leapt away again down the river road, its clatter receding with it as it vanished around the bend of the river and into the forest in a screen of swirling river-fog.
It was several moments after the last of the dying reverberations that the birds rejoined their singing, that Tamlyn was able to breathe, and a sob of relief like laughter escaped his throat, and tears of deliverance wet his cheeks. He felt his aliveness, the sunshower drops lighting on his face and lashes and melting with his tears, the iron burden of the mail, the heat in his gut from the exertion of alarm, the powerful, obedient animal clenched between his mail trews.
"Oh Lord, thank You. Thank You, Jesu," he repeated, crossing himself. Shoan began to circle and he laughed with release, and spurred the horse on down the road to complete his circuit, the horse galloping and whinnying to relieve its own tension. In a few minutes he was rejoined by Faulk on his sweating gelding. After a glance, there was no comment on the event between the men.
Returning hours later to the inner room of the armory, Tamlyn gazed about the glittering room. "Rafert, would these not look better on Ardinéan knights than they now do, hidden in the dark? What need have I of all these...Will this one not fit my brother Coltram well, and this one Barta?"
"My lord, 'f 'I might say so, each one is worth a...well, a dozen proud horses, or a parcel of land, coffers of coronets--"
"My brother's good will is worth that many times over. I'll send him another suit to give away as well. Swords, trews,-- these helms I couldn't bear to wear, but they are brave, he will welcome them. Look at this one, garnets all about the brow! And I say to you, make friends for yourselves by unrighteous mammon." Tamlyn smiled as he looked at Rafert's face in the lamplight.
Rafert tossed his chin with a chuckle. "Aye, My lord. Will you be taking these over to Braewode directly?"
"Not I, but I will send another. Who is a good and trustworthy envoy?. . ."
Margaret was nursing Ryanh in the Hall when Tamlyn returned from the stables, exerted but feeling light from removing the mail. He hung his surcoat and leaned over her, kissing her and then his son. Alone in the Hall, she had been careless in covering herself, and he kissed the exposed flesh as well, a wonder of satin softness, with a distinct scent from the baby's milky sweetness.
"There has been a stir while you were gone, some hours ago. A vision of a pale horse was seen to have passed through here with that peal of thunder that rolled earlier, ere the rain. A handful got excited and were sure that it was a horse of the Apocalypse! The priest and I had a time to show them in the Scriptures that it could not be so. But they went on and on about this horse they had seen. Didn't they, Ryanh, and woke you up, and there you sat crying and just didn't know what was going on!"
She sat the infant up to burp him; he looked at Tamlyn and smiled the unstinting smile of a four-month-old. He smiled and reached for the baby, and she fastened her dress.
"I saw it too." He talked to Ryanh, who pulled at his beard, fascinated. Margaret waited, sensing that it had affected him. He sat down, and took the sweet cider drink that the butler brought. "Thank you. I saw her, and I knew her. It was not just a runaway horse, it was… from the Realm. I myself had combed burrs from her silver tail, and oh God, Margaret, I thought she was coming for me-- but she went on down the road--"
His voice broke off and he held Ryanh close, his eyes closed. Then he leaned over to Margaret and clung to her a moment. She pulled him close.
Ryanh complained and he straightened. "Remember what Gareth said? Something is happening, and quickly, now. Else why...and on what errand. . ." He looked at Margaret, whose eyes were wide.
"Charis," she murmured. Tamlyn gazed at her, nonplused.
"How did you come to know about her? It is not spoken of."
"I saw it in her, when she spoke with me in her bower. Everyone says there is something about her, but no one takes it serious. But I have seen Them, and I knew...I never spoke of it, because-- well, it seemed...sacred. No, ...intimate."
They sat wondering, Tamlyn nuzzling Ryanh's velvet head. "The King was to be riding the borders, starting some days ago, so said the crier. Can it mean…"
Neither
had the heart to say it.
In the bower of the Queen, within translucent curtains stained with sunlight, Charis awoke with a gasp and lay, as if pressed down into her bed, her long fingers spreading. "Fearnon, my own, my Fearnon," she wept, and a hand pressed to her eye, for a moment in sinking agony-- then it was erased. Her body relaxed and simultaneously she sat up in the bed, aware of a sound beyond the open window.
Charis arose, veiled in her golden hair, to the window which overlooked the garden. "Yes, it is time, old friend," she spoke in a strange tongue to the tall horse who stood on the terrace by the murmuring fountain.
She turned and from within the lace curtains drew the sleeping newborn from the bedclothes. "Féarna, come. Our time here is done. Goodbye to the love we have known. Goodbye to my sweet Fearnon."
The Queen was out the window and down to the fragrant garden to the horse who nodded her graceful head and knelt camel-like for her to mount. Then over the wall and into the intoxicating azure of the summer sky did the shimmering horse carry her royal burden, away from King's Leigh, surging through the lonely cumulus regions, while the tiny Princess slept all uncaring of the bright beauty; her mother's bosom Heaven enough.
Part 3: Sword of the Spirit
There are three things which are too wonderful for me
Yea, four I do not know:
The way of an eagle in the air,
The way of a serpent on the rock,
The way of a ship in the heart of the sea,
And the way of a man with a maid.
Proverbs 30:18, 19