Authors: Mette Ivie Harrison
Ailsbet had known all her life that her father
would choose her husband for his own reasons, and she would be yoked to a man who did not love her. She would bear it, not for the sake of the kingdom, but for her own dignity. It would be foolish for her to imagine that she would find happiness in her marriage.
She turned away from her reflection and reached onto her shelf for the carved wooden case of her flute. She wished she had time to play it now. Few people with the weyr seemed to appreciate music, but it was the one thing she did well. She meant to bring it to court to remind her father of her rare gift.
Holding the flute in its case, Ailsbet left the inner chamber and walked with Kellin down the steps of the Queen’s House, where all the women of the court lived. They passed through the muddy courtyard, where guards practiced with their taweyr and swords. Ailsbet could smell the anger and sweat in the air, and the sound of the swords rang in her ears like badly played music.
The courtyard was empty of greenery, the mud a dull-grayish black. Small stones were thrown down every few weeks to give some traction, but they quickly disappeared into the mud. In the distance was the river Weyr, and Ailsbet could hear the ships coming into port from the continent, the groan of
the timbers and the shouts of the men. She could see the tops of buildings not far from the palace, though none was higher than the King’s House, which was built from fine black stone and red oak brought all the way from the northern end of the Weyr, nearly at the land bridge to the other island.
At the entrance to the King’s House, Ailsbet and Kellin stopped in front of the guards. They stood in front of the enormous, strikingly white door, twice as tall as any man, carved with the face of King Haikor himself as well as the stag that represented the kingdom of Rurik. The guards nodded as Ailsbet announced herself, then allowed her and Kellin inside.
The Throne Room had a high ceiling and red-and-black stained-glass windows looking out onto the Tower Green. Her father had had the windows made at the same time that he had replaced the old wooden and dirt floors of the palace with marble. On the walls, there were still a few ancient wool tapestries showing the kingdom’s history, but more often the wall hangings were the colorful, new silk imports from Caracassa, a kingdom many days’ journey to the east across the ocean. Her father’s heavy taxes in weyr and gold ensured that his nobles were limited to the less expensive trade from kingdoms on the
continent to the west of Rurik, a few short miles across the water.
The throne was the only object in the room that was original to the King’s House. Too large to move very far, it was made of ash and carved all over with intricate roses. It was the same throne that King Haikor’s father had sat on, and his father, back generations until the beginning of the kingdom of Rurik nearly one thousand years in the past. The legend was that the wood itself had come from a tree that had stood at the juncture between the two islands, and had been the last place where the two weyrs had been held together before the islands split apart. Ailsbet thought that was fanciful, but the throne was certainly impressive. The seat was as high as most men’s shoulders, and upon it, her father towered like a giant over anyone else at court.
Ailsbet approached the throne a step behind Duke Kellin.
“Duke Kellin, my thanks,” said King Haikor as Kellin knelt before him. The king wore a grand black leather robe over top of his elaborately slashed coat. His thin legs, clad in hose, seemed incongruous compared to the rest of him.
Every time Ailsbet saw King Haikor these days, it seemed his girth had increased. He wore the gold
crown of Rurik, with the great black sapphire in the front, surrounded on all sides with rubies, and by diamonds around the back. Underneath, his thinning hair was turning gray.
Her mother, Queen Aske, sat at the side of the king on her own throne, smaller and less impressive than her husband’s. It was carved of white birch, with delicate, spindly legs. She wore a gown of faded red, and while it might once have been beautiful, it was now out of date and stiff at the seams. The queen held her head erect and her back straight. Everything about her posture was perfect, and in her bones there remained the lines of beauty that had been present when she had been crowned queen. She often excused herself from court, but the fact that she was here today seemed to lend credence to Ailsbet’s assumption that she would hear from her father that she was to be betrothed. Edik was too young to be forced to court when there was no need for him there.
“Princess Ailsbet, greetings and welcome to court on this auspicious occasion,” said King Haikor formally.
Ailsbet curtsied, focusing on keeping herself calm. A betrothal would change many things, but it would not change everything. She would still be princess, and still her father’s daughter.
King Haikor gestured to Earl Deiderik of Wilfors, a young nobleman who stood at his side.
The earl was ambitious, thought Ailsbet. He was blond and handsome, with a strong chin and fine eyes. His teeth were straight. But there was nothing else about the man that she found attractive. Whenever Ailsbet had spoken to him in the past, he had always seemed to be hinting at some coarse joke. He was also a man who was known to be continually in debt, and therefore not the first man she would have thought her father would choose for her. King Haikor’s lavish style of living had caused the crown to fall deeper into debt over the last few years, and the king had mentioned several times that a nobleman’s wealth might make him a better candidate for Ailsbet’s husband.
The earl of Wilfors grinned at Ailsbet, leering crudely.
Ailsbet cringed, but her father either did not see it or did not care.
King Haikor nodded, and the earl went down on one knee before him.
“You willingly offer a double tax of the taweyr?” asked King Haikor.
Ailsbet heard an audible murmur throughout the court as Deiderik nodded his assent, and she herself
was shocked speechless. A double tax of taweyr was the stuff of legends, given by the old heroes in the time just after the two weyrs were split, but it had never happened in living memory.
King Haikor officially collected taxes twice a year, in both coin and taweyr. The neweyr could not be gathered in the same way, and he would not have done it in any case. As for coin, tax collectors went about to each district in the kingdom, but the taweyr had to be paid personally by each nobleman. Ailsbet had never seen a man die from the tax, but she had seen men faint and have to be carried from the room.
In this way, King Haikor made sure that his lords were not strong enough to rebel against him, as they had against his father, who had taxed taweyr only once a year. King Haikor’s father had put down three bloody rebellions in his lifetime, each of which had nearly destroyed the kingdom. Haikor had not had the same difficulties, because he had proved himself far more ruthless than his father, and at an early age.
The king leaned down and put his hands squarely on Wilfors’s shoulders. The man jerked suddenly and then let out a slow hiss. The air in the Throne Room grew warm as a bit of taweyr leaked out from
the exchange. Ailsbet could see some of the nobles moving closer.
Vultures, she thought. She felt no particular sympathy for Wilfors, who must have thought her father would reward him for his sacrifice with his daughter’s hand in marriage and a close relationship with the crown. Ailsbet knew her father better than Wilfors did, it seemed. The young nobleman would be dead soon, and then what? She would go back to waiting for her father to decide her future, knowing that at least one man had died for her sake.
King Haikor threw back his head. He looked as if he were in ecstasy.
Ailsbet glanced at her mother. Queen Aske was turned away from the king, as if embarrassed.
Wilfors began to rock back and forth. There was a smell like burned hair that filled the room.
Suddenly, the king pulled his hands away and Wilfors fell to the floor. Ailsbet was surprised to see that he was still alive. He opened his eyes and glanced at her, lips twitching as if to speak. Did he think he had triumphed?
“He overreached himself,” said King Haikor. “And he has his reward. Is there anyone else here who dares to put himself forward to take my daughter in marriage and challenge my son for his place as heir?”
The Throne Room was dead silent. No one breathed or moved.
King Haikor clapped his hands to call for his servants. “Take him away,” he said. “Throw him into the river.”
The tidal river would take away the rest of Earl Wilfors’s taweyr. If by some miracle he survived, he would surely know better than to come back to the court. But looking at his lax body and rolling eyes, Ailsbet did not think he would last a moment.
“Now, onto the true business of the kingdom,” King Haikor said. “Princess Ailsbet.”
Ailsbet stepped forward and met her father’s eyes directly. He liked that in her, though few others in his court could get away with the same.
“I am here at your command, Your Majesty,” said Ailsbet. “But first, if it pleases you, I would like to play my flute for you. I have been working on a new piece, which Master Lukacs left for me before he returned to Aristonne. It was written four hundred years ago on the continent.”
That should prick her father’s pride. When young King Haikor was newly come to the crown, Prince Albert of Aristonne had crossed the ocean to challenge him. With a force of ten thousand men and the claim that the islands had always belonged to
Aristonne, the prince had nearly taken the palace. But King Haikor had used the taweyr against him and the Aristonnians had no magic of their own, though they believed their superior numbers would be sufficient to conquer the taweyr. Twenty years later, King Haikor still delighted in proving that Aristonne was the inferior of Rurik in every way.
“Four hundred years ago?” said the king. “Then I shall hear it. Do you play it well?”
“Listen and you will be the judge,” said Ailsbet. “If it is not well played, you may send me away and tell me never to bring the flute into your presence again.” She thought her father might admire her for daring to suggest this. This was her own game now, and she hoped she played it better than the earl of Wilfors.
“A wager is it, then?” said King Haikor, raising his eyebrows.
“A wager,” said Ailsbet. She knew her father loved to gamble.
“Then play,” said King Haikor.
“If you do not mind postponing the reason you have for requesting my presence in your court,” said Ailsbet daringly.
“Let us see how well pleased I am with your
playing,” said King Haikor. “Though all shall happen according to my own plan, as I am king of Rurik.” Of course, he could not be seen to capitulate to his daughter in matters of state.
Ailsbet opened the wooden case and took out her flute. She closed her eyes. She had practiced this piece a hundred times perfectly, and yet each time brought a new twist. There were many people in this room, and that would change the sound, as would her own fears, which she could not completely hide.
There was no chance for her to warm up. The piece was nearly thirty minutes long, and she could also not afford for a single person in the court to become distracted or bored. It had to be surprising, delightful—perfection itself—to people who cared not a whit for music.
She began, softly, the first note rising slowly like the whispered flight of an owl in the night. From there, she lost all her self-consciousness. The anger she had felt before, with Kellin, slipped away, and she felt only the music. She became sure of herself, her hands moving gracefully, strong and delicate at once.
She let the music lift her, winging her way on the wind, over treetops, over freshwater, looking down on the world of cities and palaces. If the neweyr was like this, she could understand what it meant
to those women who had it in abundance and could feel connections to plants, animals, and other women hundreds of miles away.
She could almost imagine that she could reach all the way to Aristonne, to Master Lukacs, who had been the anchor of her childhood until he had left four years ago. He had been stern with her, had loved her and complimented, chastised, and disciplined her as her parents had not bothered to do. She missed him desperately sometimes, and never more than when she played her flute. Yet she always felt happier when she had the instrument in her hand.
Suddenly, she was at the end of the song, the final delicate notes that had to be played with a haunting quality that would make them ring for days afterward in the minds of those who had heard them. She finished them and held tightly to the flute, her whole body spent and exhausted, her head bowed.
Then she heard one set of hands clapping. She lifted her head just enough to stare into her father’s eyes. He was pleased indeed.
She knew then that it did not matter that the others in the court had not applauded. His reaction was enough. A moment later, the rest of the court joined in, as if they had intended to do so all along.
As Ailsbet curtsied to accept the applause, she saw
Kellin staring at her in surprised pleasure, the first real emotion she had ever seen on his face.
“So, Princess Ailsbet, high musician of the court of Rurik, you shall have your reward,” said King Haikor. “What is it to be?”
Ailsbet bowed. “I thank you, Father. If you do not mind, I should like to spend a few weeks alone this summer, in peace.” A last summer of freedom before she was betrothed.
“Where?”
“Wherever you should choose to send me,” said Ailsbet. She had not gotten that far in her thinking. It only needed to be away from here, from him, and from the thought of marriage.
“Then I shall choose, and you will be informed in the morning,” said King Haikor. A small revenge, this not telling her.
Ailsbet did not care. She nodded.
“Your mother will go with you, with the women she chooses,” said King Haikor.
“Of course,” said Ailsbet, who did not wish the queen and her ladies to go with her at all.
Ailsbet shifted her gaze to her mother. It was not that she disliked Queen Aske as much as she feared she would become like her, insignificant and powerless.