A Princess of the Chameln (11 page)

“Feather light!”
cried one.
“Light as a true Tulgai!”

So she was borne through the sunlit woods past the tilled strips, the flowering apple trees, the low, reeking smokehouses of this most secret people. They came to the shaped trees, and Aidris saw that the tops of the trees, which were sturdy mountain beech, grew through a wide canopy of basket-work and thatch. Their trunks were the living pillars of the hall of the Balg, and between the pillars were walls of short dressed logs, polished and engraved with runes in bright colors.

There were similar buildings clustered around the hall, and the earth was trodden bare and smooth between them. She was set down on a deeply trodden path. The forest trees, the dark conifers, ringed the settlement closely, so that there was not much light. It was as if the Tulgai lived here always under cover, in a huge tent.

The place teemed with people, but they were hardly to be seen. Dark faces looked down from the very tops of the trees; there were rustlings all over the roof of the great hall. A bush at her side suddenly became overladen and spilled out before her six or seven creatures . . . little children, the littlest children, plump, brown, half-naked, with their hair scraped up into bunches on the tops of their heads. She half-screamed, half-laughed, and one, bolder than the rest, scrambled up her cloak and sat on her shoulder.

She took the climber between her hands and held it before her face. It stared at her with huge brown eyes. As it was opening its mouth to roar, she gave it a kiss on the cheek and set it down in the bush again.

There were guards before the hall, but Akaranok would not step aside for them; he was determined to lead Aidris into the Balg's presence himself. They came into a corridor lined with painted bark where it was impossible for Aidris to stand upright. Ahead there was a greenish light; they came out into wide airy spaces. The roof overhead had panels of the thatch lifted off or rolled back so that sunlight came in through the leaves.

The hall had been made beautiful for spring. It was like a glade, with the tree-trunk pillars painted white, fur rugs upon the earthen floor of a surprising yellow-green, and a fountain playing in the center, from a gilded tree stump. Behind this fountain rose a wooden screen carved with slender young trees, their branches interlaced.

Akaranok was received at the screen by an old man in a green robe. His beard was snow white and carefully divided into two long forks that fell past his knees. He bowed to Aidris, then took her hands tenderly and stared up into her face.

“Dear child . . .”
he said in a deep cracked voice.
“I have seen none of your house since I brought tribute once to Charis, your father's mother. I am called Rognor; I am the Balg's Runemaster. I cast the runesticks yesterday for the Balg's lake journey, and there it seemed to say: Death brings an honored guest
. . .”

“It is very plain, good Runemaster,”
said Aidris.
“My forest guide is dead, by accident, and I have come to you for help.”

Akaranok was impatient. He whispered to Rognor, peered round the screen.

Is this a feast day for the Balg?”
asked Aidris.
“Have I intruded upon some festival?”

“You were awaited,”
said the Rune-master.
“The royal household hoped for a sign. Now they can embark. It is that day of the year when the Balg sails across the Tulna water.”

He took up his painted staff and struck a long wooden drum that lay by the screen; it gave off a sweet, hollow note. He led the way into the presence of his master, Tagnaran, the Balg of the Tulgai.

The ruler sat upon a carved wooden throne, set not on a platform but on a small hill, roughly stepped in places and covered with pelts. Clusters of servants waited around the base of the hillock, and Aidris saw that they were prepared for the Balg's feast. They carried baskets of food, garlands of leaves, even long netted fish-poles and hanks of rope.

Aidris had it fixed in her mind that the Balg was old and fat. A description of some earlier Balg glimpsed by a chronicler had given her the image of a spreading white-bearded King Toad, somewhat taller than his subjects. It had never occurred to her that the Balg might be a young man.

Tagnaran had short up-curling hair of coppery red, a royal color not found among his subjects; even his skin was red-brown. His smooth face, with wide-set yellow-brown eyes, had the startled beauty of a forest creature. He wore a short tunic of creamy linen and laced high sandals; on his head was a circlet of bronze set with jade and pearls. He was at least four feet in height, much taller than Akaranok or Rognor, but of a height with those who shared his hillock, an older man and two women.

At his side, wearing a pearl crown and a short dress of iridescent feathers, was an exquisite young girl, springtime itself. Her hair, feathery and short, was red-gold, Sabeth's color. When Aidris entered, she hid her face behind a feather fan and gave her hand to the second woman, dressed in a tunic of spotted fur, who sprawled below the throne. The second man stood behind the throne and sipped from a drinking horn, his auburn mane falling into his eyes, his gaze hard and penetrating.

Akaranok ran forward at once and prostrated himself at the base of the hillock. Tagnaran came slowly from his throne, raised up his officer and spoke urgently with him. They looked several times at Aidris, where she stood or towered, and Rognor at last touched her arm. She went forward and knelt before the Balg.

“Royal Tagnaran,”
she said, “
I am sorry to disturb the peace of the Tulgai.”

He raised her up, keeping his place on the hill so that he remained taller than Aidris. His hand was strong, with pointed nails and finger rings of silver and gold.

“You are in flight!”
said Tagnaran in a high voice.

“
I must go into Athron,”
said Aidris, puzzled by the sharpness of his tone.

“You have lost all,”
said the Balg.
“You have no land, no throne, no hall, no sanctuary.”

Aidris shook her head.

“No, cousin,”
she said. “
I have none of these things.”

“You have been ill-served then, ill-advised,”
said Tagnaran.
“You are half a child, wandering in the forest, begging for help.”

“This is my native land,”
said Aidris,
“even if I never come to rule over it. I am a traveller. I am not without means. I have asked for a guide to the Wulfental Pass. Will you give me one?”

“Stay here!”
said the Balg abruptly.
“You are Heir of the Firn. We pay tribute to the Daindru. Let this be our tribute. You will stay here in the sanctuary.”

“No!”
said Aidris.
“Pardon me, Tagnaran, but I cannot do it. I have a companion waiting. Besides I would endanger the Tulgai . . . the giant warriors of Mel'Nir are searching for me.”

“Oh, we are used to giants!”
The Balg laughed.
“Stay with us, Aidris Am Firn.”

“Alas, I cannot, for my honor. Pardon me again for disturbing your feast day.”

Tagnaran stared at her for a long time with a hard, imperious look. He was more than ever like a creature of the forest, but made fierce, ungentle, a stag no longer at bay, a lynx ready to pounce. Aidris knew with a thrill of fear that she could be kept against her will. She lowered her gaze deliberately and murmured,
“Royal Tagnaran
—
I would be poor indeed if I offered you no gift.”

She brought out the hastily assembled package from the pocket of her borrowed cloak and offered it on her open palms. The Balg picked it up himself and, turning, carried it to the two ladies of his court. The lovely feather-clad maiden, his consort, had it unwrapped quickly and made birdlike sounds of delight. Aidris saw the Balg's slow, indulgent smile. She knew that she had been saved by two new silk scarves from Sabeth's pack and the golden apple of the Firn on its long gold chain.

“We stay too long,”
said Tagnaran.
“Our days are ordered, cousin Aidris. We must cross the lake.”

He waved a hand; there was a burst of music, and the court began to move towards wide double doors across the hall between tree pillars. He came to the foot of the hillock and said briskly,
“Akaranok will guide you. He may choose his own helpers. As far as the Lylan River, hard by the Wulfental.”

Then he strode lightly from the hall in the midst of his people, giving his arm to the bird princess. Aidris stood with Akaranok and Rognor until the hall was almost empty. The Runemaster touched her arm.

“We must see them set sail.”

So they came out onto wide grassy lawns sloping down to the lakeside. The Balg and his family were embarked in a gilded shallop, its painted sails already taking the wind. Aidris felt a sudden regret, a longing, as the pretty boat began to move away from the shore. A shoal of smaller craft streamed out to follow: the fishing boats of the Tulgai, no bigger than cradles.

She was led out of the sanctuary by a narrow winding path that led up a hillside, avoiding the barrier by the lake. Akaranok pointed the way, and she ran downhill, found herself on the outskirts of the camping place. It sprang up before her, dark, cold, rank-smelling as the ashes of the fire, full of images from the world of men. Sabeth, rushing from behind a tree at her call, seemed tall as a bear. Her face was pale and tear-stained.

“Oh, have you found them?”

Her voice wavered into silence as Akaranok marched out into the midst of the glade. She put out a hand, wondering, and the little man kissed it gallantly.

“We are saved,” said Aidris. “They must show themselves. Don't be frightened.”

Akaranok gave a bird-call, and the place was teeming with warriors. The horses began to plunge and fret.

“Loeke?” whispered Sabeth. “Will they . . .?”

“He will be tended to. We must send back Elster and his pack.”

“Mother Lorse will worry when his horse is brought in!”

“Write her a few lines,” said Aidris. “I have a writing case. I will send a note of his death to the guild house and say that his last travellers are going on into Athron. But say no word of the Tulgai . . .”

They were on their way again before noon. Only Akaranok rode with them, perched before Aidris upon Telavel's neck. Three of his chosen companions went along Tulgai fashion, swinging through the tree branches, high above the ground. Even by Aidris and Sabeth, who knew they were accompanied, this escort was hardly to be seen. Now and then at the turn of a path they came into view or gave a sharp bird-note to which Akaranok responded.

The paths that were chosen led steeply upward through trees that were always dark and in some places oddly flattened and twisted by the wind. At last Aidris had some hint of the end of the journey. Through a cleft or rock slide, she caught a glimpse of naked slopes, drifts of unmelted snow and, at last, the summits of the mountains.

Their camping places, also chosen by the Tulgai, were small and secret. Often they had no fire, and wherever a fire must be lit, Aidris and Sabeth must do it. They bent over little mounds of twigs and leaves with Ric Loeke's tinderbox, coaxing out a thread of smoke. The Tulgai brought in a small haunch of fresh meat, about as much as the girls could contrive to stew up or cook clumsily on a spit. When Aidris asked about the rest of the deer, Akaranok laughed and told them it would hang in the trees until the warriors collected it on the way home.

So they came at last, one morning, to the lip of a high gorge. Far below, in the depths of the grey ravine, was a flash of silver—the river Lylan. It had been explained that this was as far as their guides could take them.

“The Lylan is the river of souls,”
Akaranok had told Aidris, at night by a smoky fire.
“It is our boundary in this life and the next. We will bring you to the Litch Bridge, also called the Bridge of Wraiths, Dan Aidris, and there we must leave you.”

Now, as they stood on the cliff above the river, the tradition was harder to grasp. They could see over the river. There was a mountain meadow, bright with rare plants, enzian and snow violets, and a perfect round tarn. The road to the Wulfental wound past this place, and the jagged peaks that enclosed the pass itself could be seen. There was a low building in the meadow, a loghouse; smoke curled up from a hut on the shore of the tarn.

“Dear Goddess!” cried Sabeth, “that
is
some kind of paradise. They have a bathhouse!”

“Who lives in the meadow?”
asked Aidris.

“The brown men,”
said Akaranok.

“I have heard of this place,” she said to Sabeth. “It is a hospice for travellers, built by the Pilgrim Brothers of Inokoi.”

She was afraid again. She could see the road leading up to the hospice on the other side of the gorge, an easier road than they had taken. It would not be difficult to close the Wulfental or to watch travellers who came and went over the pass. She showed Ric Loeke's map to Akaranok, and he was able to mark out another way, a secret way they might take, once the hospice was past.

“There is the longshanks road,” he said, “but if you go on a little and turn up left, past a finger rock, there is a trail . . .”

“Wait!” said Aidris. “How do you know this if no Tulgai, no living Tulgai, has ever crossed the river?”

He said patiently, “Princess, it is the way of the deer and the horned sheep.”

“And they told you about it?”

Akaranok grinned, lowering his thick eyelashes.

“It can be seen from the tops of the trees,” he admitted. “Only a Tulgai can follow it. We can see the place where the animals come through the Wolf Pass in spring or autumn, then leap over the Lylan gorge, higher up.”

She was reassured. Sabeth, dying for the comforts of the hospice, could not understand the delay. They went down the bank of the gorge, and there was the Litch Bridge, of firm, worldly planking, with a good railing.