The sniffling cook was helped from the room.
Seriddan and Brindalles both looked stunned. The rest of the baron’s followers were equally amazed, and for some time no one said anything. Josua, perhaps sensing the battering that the baron had taken this night, merely sat and waited. Camaris, his identity now confirmed, allowed himself to sit down once more; he, too, fell into silence. His half-lidded gaze seemed fixed on the leaping flames in the fireplace at the table’s far side, but it was clear to Isgrimnur that he was looking at a time, not a place.
The stillness was interrupted by a sudden burst of whispering. Heads turned. Isgrimnur looked up to see Pasevalles walking straddle-legged into the room; something large and shiny was cradled against his small body. He stopped just inside the doorway, hesitated as he looked at Camaris, then moved awkwardly to stand before his uncle.
“I brought this for Sir Camaris,” the boy said. His bold words were belied by his shaky voice. Seriddan stared at him for a moment, then his eyes widened.
“That is one of the helmets from your father’s room!”
He nodded solemnly. “I want to give it to Sir Camaris.”
Seriddan turned helplessly to his brother. Brindalles looked at his son, then briefly at Camaris, who still was lost in thought. At last, Brindalles shrugged. “He is who he says he is. There is no honor he has not earned, Seriddan.” The thin-faced man told his son: “You were right to ask first.” His smile was almost ghostly. “I suppose sometimes things must be taken down and dusted off and put to use. Go ahead, boy. Give it to him.”
Isgrimnur watched in fascination as Pasevalles walked past clutching the heavy sea-dragon helm, his eyes as fearfully fixed as though he walked into an ogre’s den. He stopped before the old knight and stood silently, although he looked as though any moment he might collapse beneath the weight of the helmet.
At last, Camaris looked up. “Yes?”
“My father and my uncle said I may give you this.” Pasevalles struggled to lift the helm closer to Camaris, who even sitting down still towered above him. “It is very old.”
A smile stretched across Camaris’ face. “Like me, eh?” He reached out his large hands. “Let me see it, young sir.” He turned the golden thing to the light. “This is a helm of the Imperium,” he said wonderingly. “It is old.”
“It belonged to Imperator Anitulles, or so I believe,” said Brindalles from across the room. “It is yours if you wish it, my lord Camaris.”
The old man examined it a moment more, then carefully put it on. His eyes disappeared into the shadows of the helm’s depths, and the cheek-guards jutted past his jaw like blades. “It fits tolerably well,” he said.
Pasevalles stared up at the old man, at the coiling, high-finned sea-worm molded along the helmet’s crest. His mouth was open.
“Thank you, lad.” Camaris lifted the helmet off and placed it on the table beside him. “What is your name?”
“P-Pasevalles.”
“I will wear the helm, Pasevalles. It is an honor. My own armor has gone to rust years ago.”
The boy seemed transported to another realm, his eyes bright as candleflame. Watching him, Isgrimnur felt a twinge of sorrow. After this moment, after this experience with knighthood, how could life hold much but disappointment for this eager child?
Bless you, Pasevalles, the duke thought. I hope your life is a happy one, but for some reason I fear it won’t be so.
Prince Josua had been watching. Now, he spoke.
“There are other things you must know, Baron Seriddan. Some of them are frightening, others infuriating. Some of the things I must tell you are even more amazing than Camaris alive. Would you like to wait until the morning? Or do you still wish us locked up?”
Seriddan frowned. “Enough. Do not mock me, Josua. You will tell me what I need to know. I do not care if we are awake until cockcrow.” He clapped his hands for more wine, then sent all but a few of his benumbed and astonished followers home.
Ah, Baron, Isgrimnur thought, soon you’ll find yourself down in the pit with the rest of us. I could have wished you better.
The Duke of Elvritshalla pulled his chair closer as Josua began to speak.
7
White Tree, Black Fruit
At first it seemed a tower or a mountain—surely nothing so tall, so slender, so bleakly, flatly white could be anything alive. But as she approached it, she saw that what had seemed a vast cloud surrounding the central shaft, a diffuse milky paleness, was instead an incredible net of branches.
It was a tree that stood before her, a great, white tree that stretched so high that she could not see the top of it; it seemed tall enough to pierce the sky. She stared, overwhelmed by its fearsome majesty. Even though a part of her knew that she was dreaming, Miriamele also knew that this great stripe of white was a very important thing.
As she drew closer—she had no body: was she walking? Flying? It was impossible to tell—Miriamele saw that the tree thrust up from the featureless ground in one smooth shaft like a column of irregular but faultlessly polished marble. If this ivory giant had roots, they were set deep, deep underground, anchored in the very heart of the earth. The branches that surrounded the tree like a cloak of worn gossamer were already slender where they sprouted from the trunk, but grew even more attenuated as they reached outward. The tangled ends were so fine that at their tips they vanished into invisibility.
Miriamele was close to the great tree now. She began to rise, passing effortlessly upward. The trunk slipped past her like a stream of milk.
She floated up through the great cloud of branches. Out beyond the twining filaments of white, the sky was a flat gray-blue. There was no horizon; there seemed nothing else in the world but the tree.
The web of branches thickened. Scattered here and there among the stems hung little kernels of darkness, clots of black like reversed stars. Rising as slowly as swansdown caught in a puff of wind, Miriamele reached out—suddenly she had hands, although the rest of her body still seemed curiously absent—and touched one of the black things. It was shaped like a pear, but was smooth and turgid as a ripe plum. She touched another and found it much the same. The next one that passed beneath her fingers felt slightly different. Miriamele’s fingers tightened involuntarily and the thing came loose and fell into her grasp.
She looked down at the thing she had captured. It was as taut-skinned as the others, but for some reason it felt different. It might have been a little warmer. She knew, somehow, that it was ready—that it was ripe.
Even as she stared, and as the tendrils of the white tree fell endlessly past her on either side, the black fruit in her hands shuddered and split. Nestled in the heart of it, where a peach would have hidden its stone, lay an infant scarcely bigger than a finger. Eyelids tiny as snowflakes were closed in sleep. It kicked and yawned, but the eyes did not open.
So every one of these fruits is a soul, she thought. Or are they just ... possibilities? She didn’t quite know what these dream-thoughts meant, but a moment later she felt a wash of fear. But I’ve pulled it loose! I’ve plucked it too soon! I have to put it back!
Something was still drawing her upward, but now she was terrified. She had done something very wrong. She had to go back, to find that one branch in the net of manyfold thousands. Maybe it was not too late to return what she had unwittingly stolen.
Miriamele grabbed at the tangle of branches, trying to slow her ascent. Some of them, narrow and brittle as icicles, snapped in her hands; a few of the black fruits worked loose and went tumbling down into the gray-white distances below her.
No! She was frantic. She hadn’t meant to cause this damage. She reached out her hand to catch one of the falling fruits and lost her grip on the tiny infant. She made a desperate grab, but it was out of her reach.
Miriamele let out a wail of despair and horror....
It was dark. Someone was holding her, clutching her tightly.
“No!” she gasped. “I’ve dropped it!”
/> “You haven’t dropped anything,” the voice said. “You’re having a bad dream.”
She stared, but could not make out the face. The voice ... she knew the voice. “Simon... ?”
“I’m here.” He moved his mouth very close to her ear. “You’re safe. But you probably shouldn’t shout any more.”
“Sorry. I’m sorry.” She shivered, then began to disengage herself from his arms. There was a strong damp smell to the air and something scratchy beneath her fingers. “Where are we?”
“In a barn. About two hours’ ride outside the walls of Falshire. Don’t you remember?”
“A little. I don’t feel very well.” In fact, she felt dreadful. She was still shivering, yet at the same time she felt hot and even more bleary than she usually did when she woke up in the middle of the night. “How did we get here?”
“We had a fight with the Fire Dancers.”
“I remember that. And I remember riding.”
Simon made a sound in the darkness that might have been a laugh. “Well, after a while we stopped riding. You were the one who decided to stop here.”
She shook her head. “I don’t remember.”
Simon let go of her—a little reluctantly, it was clear even to her dulled sensibilities. Now he crawled away over the thin layer of straw. A moment later something creaked and thumped and a little light leaked in. Simon’s dark form was silhouetted in the square of a window. He was trying to find something to prop the shutter.
“It’s stopped raining,” he said.
“I’m cold.” She tried to dig her way down into the straw.
“You kicked off your cloak.” Simon crawled back across the loft to her side. He found her cloak and tucked it up beneath her chin. “You can have mine, too, if you want.”
“I think I’ll be happy with this,” Miriamele said, although her teeth were still chattering.
“Do you want something to eat? I left your half of the supper—but you broke the ale jug on that big fellow’s head.”
“Just some water.” The idea of putting food in her stomach was not a pleasant one.
Simon fussed with the saddlebags while Miriamele sat hugging her knees and staring out the open window at the night sky. The stars were invisible behind a veil of clouds. After Simon brought her the water skin and she drank, she felt weariness sweep over her again.
“I feel ... bad,” she said. “I think I need to sleep some more.”
The disappointment was plain in Simon’s voice. “Certainly, Miri.”
“I’m sorry. I just feel so ill....” She lay back and pulled the cloak tight beneath her chin. The darkness seemed to spin slowly around her. She saw Simon’s shadowed silhouette against the window once more, then shadows came and took her back down.
By early morning Miriamele’s fever was quite high. Simon could do little for her but put a damp cloth on her forehead and give her water to drink.
The dark day passed in a blur of images: gray clouds sweeping past the window, the lonely sound of a solitary dove, Simon’s worried face rising above her as periodically as the moon. Miriamele discovered that she did not much care what happened to her. All the fear and concern that had driven her was leached away by the illness. If she could have chosen to fall asleep for a year, she would have; instead, she bobbed in and out of consciousness like a shipwrecked sailor clinging to a spar. Her dreams were full of white trees and drowned cities with seaweed waving in their streets.
In the hour before dawn of their second day in the barn, Miriamele awakened to find herself clear-headed again, but terribly, terribly weak. She had a sudden fear that she was alone, that her companion had left her behind.
“Simon?” she asked. There was no answer. “Simon!?”
“Humf?”
“Is that you?”
“What? Miriamele? Of course it’s me.” She could hear him roll over and crawl toward her. “Are you worse?”
“Better, I think.” She stretched out a shaking hand until she found his arm, then finger-walked down it until she could clasp his hand. “But still not very well. Stay with me for a little while.”
“Of course. Are you cold?”
“A bit.”
Simon caught up his cloak and laid it atop her own. She felt so strengthless that the very gesture made her want to cry—indeed, a cold tear formed and trickled down her cheek.
“Thank you.” She sat in silence for a while. Even this short conversation had tired her. The night, which had seemed so large and empty when she woke, now seemed a little less daunting.
“I think I’m ready to go back to sleep now.” Her voice sounded fuzzy even in her own ears.
“Good night, then.”
Miriamele felt herself slipping away. She wondered if Simon had ever had a dream as strange as the one about the white tree and the odd fruits it bore. It seemed unlikely....
When she awoke to the uncertain light of a slate-gray dawn, Simon’s cloak was still covering her. He was sleeping nearby, a few wisps of damp hay his only covering.
Miriamele slept a great deal during their second day in the barn, but when she was not sunk in slumber, she felt much healthier, almost her old self. By midday she was able to take some bread and a morsel of cheese. Simon had been out exploring the local countryside; while she ate he told her of his adventures.
“There are so few people! I saw a couple on the road out of Falshire—I didn’t let them see me, I promise you—but almost no one else. There’s a house down below that’s almost falling apart. I think it belongs to the people who own this barn. There are holes in the roof in a few places, but most of the thatching is good. I don’t think anyone’s living there now. If we need to stay longer, that might be a drier place than this.”
“We’ll see,” said Miriamele. “I may be able to ride tomorrow.”
“Perhaps, but you’ll have to be able to move around a bit first. This is the first time you’ve sat up since the night we left Falshire.” He turned toward her suddenly. “And I almost got killed!”
“What?” Miriamele had to grab for the waterskin to keep herself from choking on the dry bread. “What do you mean?” she demanded when she had recovered. “Was it Fire Dancers?”
“No,” Simon said, his eyes wide, his expression solemn. A moment later he grinned. “But it was a near thing, even so. I was coming back uphill from the field next to the house. I had been picking some ... some flowers there.”
Miriamele looked at him quizzically. “Flowers? What did you want with flowers?”
Simon went on as though the question had not been asked. “Something made a noise and I looked up. Standing there at the top of the rise behind me was a bull.”
“Simon!”
“He didn’t look very friendly, either. He was all bony, and his eyes were red, and he had bloody scratches along his sides.” Simon dragged his fingers down his ribs, illustrating. “We stood there staring at each other for a moment, then he began to lower his head and make huffing noises. I started walking backward toward where I’d been. He came down the hill after me, making these little dancing steps, but going faster and faster.”
“But Simon! What did you do?”
“Well, running downhill in front of a bull seemed fairly stupid, so I dropped the flowers and climbed the first good-sized tree that I reached. He stopped at the bottom—I got my feet up out of the way just as he got there—then all of a sudden he lowered his head, and ... thump!” Simon brought his fist into his open palm, “he smacked up against the trunk. The whole tree shook and it almost knocked me off the branch I was hanging on, until I got my legs wrapped around good and tight. I pulled myself up until I was sitting on the branch, which was a good thing, because this idiot bull began butting his head against the tree, over and over until the skin began to peel off his head and there was blood running down his face.”
“That’s terrible. He must have been mad, poor animal.”
“Poor animal! I like that!” Simon’s voice rose in mock-despair.
“He tries to kill your special protector and all you can say about him is ‘poor animal.’ ”
Miriamele smiled. “I’m glad he didn’t kill you. What happened?”
“Oh, he got tired at last and went away,” Simon said airily. “Walked on down the dell, so that he wasn’t between me and the fence anymore. Still, as I was running up the slope, I kept thinking I heard him coming up behind me.”
“Well, you had a close call.” Unable to help herself, Miriamele yawned; Simon made a face. “But I’m glad you didn’t slay the monster,” she continued, “even if you are a knight. He can’t help being mad.”
“Slay the monster? What, with my bare hands?” Simon laughed, but sounded pleased. “But maybe killing him would have been the kindest thing to do. He certainly seemed past saving. That’s probably why whoever lived there left him behind.”
“Or he may have gone mad because they left him behind,” Miriamele said slowly. She looked at Simon and saw that he had heard something odd in her voice. “I’m tired, now. Thank you for the bread.”
“There’s one thing more.” He reached into his cloak and produced a small green apple. “The only one within walking distance.”
Miriamele stared at it suspiciously for a moment, then sniffed it before taking a tentative bite. It was not sweet, but its tartness was very pleasant. She ate half, then handed the rest to Simon.
“It was good,” she said. “Very good. But I still can’t eat much.”
Simon happily crunched up the rest. Miriamele found the hollow she had made for herself in the straw and stretched out. “I’m going to sleep a little more, Simon.”
He nodded. He was looking at her so carefully, so thoroughly, that Miriamele had to turn away and pull her cloak up over her face. She was not strong enough to support such attention, not just now.
She awakened late in the afternoon. Something was making a strange noise—thump and swish, thump and swish. A little frightened and still very weak, Miriamele lay unmoving and tried to decide whether it might be someone looking for them, or Simon’s bull, or something entirely different and possibly worse. At last she nerved herself and crawled silently across the loft, trying not to make any noise as she moved over the thin carpet of straw. When she reached the edge, she peered over.