Spellbreakers (45 page)

Thinking of her old self as ladylike made her chuckle.

“Get this bloody gate open before I come in and give
you one alongside your ear, Rafel,” said Daria. “We’ve been dicing together
since when you still had pimples, and now you go and keep me and the princess
out of the door at night, with the falling damps and all. Move your butt before
I kick it, damn it!”

“Heaven help us, but it’s Daria!
And
the Princess Leal!”

The young guard dropped his keys twice in his haste to
unlock the gate for them, but finally they filed in, leading their tired horses
in the dark of the castle walls. Before they had walked ten steps across the
barbican, bells rang on the gates, a headlong, drumming peal like an alarm. By
the time they had gone across the second drawbridge people were coming out of
every door and looked out of windows, down from battlements, running out of the
stables, the smithy,
the
armory. There were tears and
laughter, cries of joy, wonder, reproach, disbelief. Eventually the high folk
came down from the great hall.

Leal saw her parents and sisters walking out of the
great doors of the keep and froze. She had no idea what they had made of her
disappearance. Did they think she had bolted to escape the royal wedding? What
would they say? For a moment she was too scared to step forward. Then she spied
her uncle’s tall figure among them.

The Master of Enchantments didn’t stand on ceremony.
He ran down the steps two at a time like a boy, and lifted her right off the
ground, with a beaming face.

“You are back! Bless you, you are back! Are you well?
Are you both well?
Daria?
And these ... gentlemen ...
are they, is he...?”

Leal laughed aloud and folded him in a bone crushing
hug. Then she disengaged herself and walked without any fear towards her king
and queen as they stood uncertain at the top of the steps. Every lady and lord
of the court was gathered there, whispering and murmuring hysterically. Broken
bits of dialogue came down to her. Is it her? Is she back then? The nerve ...
What did she do with her hair? Where has she been? Doesn’t she know she was
wanted here? The morals of a cat ... Who are those strange folk? Are they
northerners?
Kalevans?
Hassians?
Friends?
Foes?
Invaders?
What’s up with
his
hair? Is that Daria?
That hussy! She always was a
reckless,
wild ... What
did
she
do with her hair?

“Father, Mother,” said Leal, bowing deeply to the
assembled court, since a curtsey in trousers would look grotesque. Silence
spread like oil, except for some far corners of the courtyard where her voice
had not reached, and a hissing discussion about hair and morals could still be
heard. “Allow me to introduce our very good friend and guide, Ljung Leuksen
Sinkka’a-Reissu, the hardiest scout, hunter and warrior of the Itaanvaelta’a,
and Kjetil Alversen Haukka-Silma’a, Eldest of the Elder-Ring of Elverhjem,
Warlord of the Elverlaen and Kaleva, most renowned archer the northern kingdoms
for a hundred years and more. If you will but ask graciously, I believe he
might accept to champion Escarra at the coming Challenge.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

The Challenge took place on mid-summer day, in the traditional
place, a long undulating pasture in the Val d’Eran, well in sight of Castel
Argell. The first Challenge, three hundred fifty years earlier had been shot
far north, in a meadow under the falls of the Nekkar, in the shadow of the Roca
Entravessada. The blasted gorge had still been smoking, that day. But every
Challenge after that had been shot here, in a bizarre atmosphere of tense
festivity. There were Andalouans from the south, queen’s kinsmen, cheering for
Escarra. There were a few Karelians and the Hassian delegation sitting in the
same pavilion with the Escarran royal family, and cheering for Hristo
Straightaim. King Admund, given his weight and precarious health, had not come,
but several of his ministers were present. They looked rather glum. The
inconceivable news that an elvren champion had accepted to shoot for Escarra
had already reached the Hassian court.

Even so it was an exciting Challenge. Hristo
Straightaim was no elver, but his fame was well deserved. He was a head shorter
than Hawkeneye, but even broader across the shoulders, black-haired and
blue-eyed, extremely determined. Never for a moment did he give the impression
of having given up before the last arrow was shot.

Kjetil Alversen Haukka-Silma’a made a splendid figure
on the Challenge field. In the southern heat he had changed his elvren clothes
for wide trousers of pale Andalouan silk, and a tight leather vest with silver
buckles over bare arms oiled against the Escarran sun. He still wore an
elaborate elvren bracer embossed with a pattern of intricate blooming vines,
and his long silvery hair, braided on top, and streaming free behind, shone in
the afternoon sun like a halo.

All the ladies of the Escarran court simpered and
sighed every time he shot an arrow, in his smooth, deliberate, cool way. But he
wore Leal’s favor, a red silk scarf tied around his belt with a love knot.

When the targets were moved two hundred and sixty
eight yards away, Hristo Straightaim missed the gold. Hawkeneye didn’t. The
destiny of two nations was not to hang on a lucky shot, and the referees called
for a repeat. Both champions hit the gold. The targets were moved back two more
yards. This time Straightaim was beaten twice. Two more yards and he was beaten
three times.

The two champions shook hands in the middle of the
field, among the wild cheering of the Escarran public and the polite clapping
of the Hassian delegation. The Hassian ambassador who had declared the
Challenge was later said to have thrown his hat to the ground and stomped on
it, but in fact he was too much of a court animal to do such a thing. He
clapped with the others and ground his teeth behind a smile.

That night, at the enormous feast in the great hall of
Castel Argell, the troubadours sang in the passionate, tuneful tongue of the Escarran
hills the song of Princess Leal and Kjetil Alversen Haukka-Silma’a.

“...Esperava la besada del sol,

i un vent daurat del sud,

l’or del sol als jardins brunzents ...

I novament podria respirar i cantar,

cantar a les abelles dins les roses intricades,

cantar la cançó d’estiu de juny,

la cançó d'estiu de l'amor...”

But later, i
n a quiet
corner, Hawkeneye was seen talking quickly and earnestly with Hristo
Straightaim. Ljung was also with them, and Straightaim listened very seriously,
nodding all the time.

The next day he rode away for Kareli with an urgent
message for his king.

****

The elvers were riding the next day, after yet another
banquet. They had enjoyed the Escarran hospitality, but the north called to
them and they were needed. Daria had gone out to see Ljung. She had given Leal
a strange look when she announced this.
Challenge?
Worry?
A request for permission, for forgiveness?
Leal
was not sure what the look meant.

She would have liked to see Ljung one last time in
peace, but that look had stopped her dead in her tracks. She knew that Daria
had grown closer to the elvren hunter than she had ever allowed herself to be.
Perhaps it was only fair that Daria should have that last night with him to
herself.

So she visited Hawkeneye in his apartment that night
after the feast. It required some amount of sneaking around because Castel
Argell was not Elverhjem. The virtue of the royal princesses was closely
guarded, however futile that might be after Leal had been gone in the wild for
almost a year.

When she managed to slink to his room unobserved, she
found him folding a blanket in a saddle bag. She watched him packing with a
knot in her throat. She was still wearing the green gown she had worn at the
feast. She felt silly in it, especially since her hair was still short, and she
had become too slim and muscular to fill out even the most flattering gown, but
she had been worried he might go to sleep if she delayed to change into more
sensible clothes. He received her courteously, offered her a seat, and went on
packing.

They had shared too many things to stand on ceremony.
She loved him for it.

Sitting there in his room while he busied himself with
folding clothes and packing cheese, dried figs and apricots, oranges and bread,
she was hit by a terrible final sense of anti-climax.

So this was the end of her adventure. She had brought
back a hero to win the Challenge for Escarra, and the Challenge had been won.
She was free, as was her kingdom, for fifty years at least, but she didn’t feel
that way. The walls of Castel Argell, six foot thick and impenetrable, also
closed her in, perfectly inescapable.

It was her home, sure. She was safe here. Sure.

Free, free. How can I be free, here? On the way to
Dalarna I was free.
With the starry sky above me, and the
horizon as only boundary.
On the
Neversinks
, with the waves singing, and the wind
in the rigging, there I was free.
On the long road, with
Daria, and Ljung, and a good horse under my saddle.
Never
more, now, never more.
Heir to the throne.
Responsibilities.
Duties.

She sighed deeply, and Hawkeneye turned to look at
her.

He came to sit close and took her hands in both of
his. She sniffed, screwing her face around in order to keep the tears from
falling.

“So this is it,” she said in a small voice. She was at
a loss for words.

“I believe it is, princess. We are leaving tomorrow,
as early as it can be correctly arranged. I will not go without the proper
farewells, of course.”

“Don’t call me princess, please.”

“But you are. The princess in the fairytale, remember?”

He smiled at her, but it was a sad smile.

“You remember what I told you, on the Ice Waste, the
first time we spoke in the light of this world?”

Leal stared at him in confusion. It seemed so long
ago, in a different universe.

“I said that you were not bound to me. That you should
bestow your heart as you saw fit.”

She nodded, which made the tears spill, after all.

He took her face between his hands and turned her so
she would look in his pale grey eyes.

“You said it was your destiny to save me and your
kingdom. You fulfilled your destiny, Leal. All choices are yours, now. Choose
wisely.”

He kissed her forehead softly, and then her cheeks. A
shiny tear stuck to his lips, a glittered there for a moment. She almost
fainted with the intimacy of that simple kiss. She remembered now, when he had
told her in the Ice Waste that she was not beholden to him. At the time she had
felt relieved. But it was all different now. She had come to know him, now, and
he was leaving, he and Ljung both, away from her life. She had been in an
enchanted tale of love and wonder for a year, and now she would go back to being
plain Leal, the little princess of a little rustic kingdom in the Llers hills,
where magic was long dead.

This was her place, her home. She had a responsibility.
She was the heir to the throne.

I am
,
I am. I know.
Tomorrow.
Starting tomorrow.
When he’s gone.
I’ll be a responsible princess again.

She put her arms around him and pulled him close.
I
will have him once, just once. Then I’ll forget, and be responsible, and do my
duty. I’ll marry the suitable candidate. I’ll learn to love him. But tonight,
for one night only, I bestow my heart where I see fit.

“One night,” she said. “One night, be mine. Say the
proper farewells, please.”

She pulled his mouth to her lips and climbed into his
lap, straddling his slim hard hips.

The kiss was ice and honey. His lips were cool and
dry, smooth, quivering with suppressed laughter yet full of tenderness. His
tongue was hot and searching and held nothing back.

His hands were cold. They left paths of tingling,
shivering snow as they ran the length of her thighs under her skirts.

Will there always be something icy about him?
she
wondered.

But he grew warmer in her embrace, warm like the
Escarran sun on the stones of Castel Argell.

He could be my home forever,
if only he could stay here with me,
she
thought vaguely as his lips ran down her throat, her breastbone, down to the
narrow space between her breasts, where the bodice held them high and close.
If
only I could leave with him.
She felt his tongue digging in that warm
narrow place, and all thoughts fled her.

****

Leal was trembling slightly in his arms, out of
excitement or some fear, he could not say.

His hands were shaking, too, while he pulled loose the
ties of her bodice, turn by turn by turn.