Authors: Nancy Springer
Hal smiled. “Anwyl and I must go to Derek. I'll talk with you later."
“Alan?"
“I could tell you,” he answered, “but I'd rather not.” He turned his back and walked away, for when he looked at Anwyl the pain of remembering Lysse filled his heart.
Derek still moaned softly and tossed upon the soft sickbed, fighting a fever of the mind. For five days he had recognized no one, said no word, touched no food or drink.
Hal placed a brazier by the bed, and on it a pan of steaming water. Into this he put what Anwyl had brought him, and they both sat down to wait.
Anwyl carried two canvas bags full of Veran's golden flower. “Why, Anwyl?” Hal protested. “You must have stripped the valley clean of it, laid it waste."
“Because you will have need of it, Mireldeyn."
“There has always been need,” Hal muttered.
“But now the close of the Age of Veran is at hand. Soon my people will leave the Eagle Valley, and whether we live or die, we can never return. This is no time to think of saving or holding back. In the new Age, whichever way the tide turns, there will be no place for Veran's Crown, or for elves either."
“Much that is wonderful will then be gone from our land."
“But much new and different wonder may yet come into it, that we cannot foresee. Hold fast to hope, Mireldeyn."
On the bed, Derek lay quiet, sleeping peacefully. Hal and Anwyl shut the door carefully as they left.
Hal came to Derek the next day, to find him wide awake and anguished.
“My Prince, my Prince,” he cried in agony, “I have seen my soul and it is black—black!"
“Not one man in a thousand would have realized it, and not one man in a hundred thousand would have remembered it,” Hal said, with admiration in his eyes. “Derek of the Guards, you will make a liegeman yet."
He looked back at him, and the sweat was running down his face. “My Prince, your forgiveness is the burden I must carry the rest of my life."
“Will you eat now,” Hal asked him, “and grow strong again, and serve me?"
“Ay. I must serve you the rest of my life."
That day was the eve of May. At dusk, hilltop fires sprang up to mark the vernal half-day; the great stone that marked the graves loomed in the red glow like a tower of blood. All night, Hal and Alan wandered the grassy uplands between the fires, plucking the spring flowers and tossing them onto the raw earth of the mounds in memory of Leuin of Laueroc, wherever he might be.
In the morning, Alan and Cory left for Laueroc. There Alan would lead the battle to regain the home of his fathers. Anwyl rode with them, bound toward Welas and Veran's Mountain. Cory stood in awe of the elf, but his previous experience with the spirits spared him an ordeal such as Rafe's. Hal and Robin rode with the three as far as the crossroads.
“Happy birthday!” Hal remarked on the way. “Happy birthday, yourself!” Alan retorted. They were both just twenty, but they had moved as men in the world of men for years past.
When they parted, Robin and Cory eyed each other in shy affection, saying little. Each knew that he might not see the other alive again. Hal gave Anwyl the embrace of a brother, though the elf hardly knew what to make of mortal caresses. Then, almost hesitantly, Hal offered Alan his left hand for their own distinctive grip. Alan returned the gesture, but his grasp was hasty, hard and rough, and he would not meet Hal's eyes. “Go with all blessing,” Hal said at last. Cory waved to Robin, but Alan rode away with a stiff back, without another glance. Hal bit his lip, and Robin looked at him with sidelong sympathy, for neither of them knew that Alan turned away his face to hide the anguish in his eyes.
With the aid of old Nana, Hal had ferreted out most of the spies in the castle and sent them packing. Therefore, the great lords knew less than they would like of the doings of the Prince. The best-kept secret in Nemeton was the condition of the King. The healer was a man of peace, physician in the castle not entirely of his own will. He soon allied himself with Hal, and dropped cleverly erroneous hints. Thus, when Iscovar lay glaring at nothing but his own death, talk would have it that he might live a month or two yet. With this information the great lords had to be content.
One May evening, when Alan had been gone a little over three weeks, the physician came and spoke privately with Hal. Days before, Hal had ordered the filthy chambers of the Tower filled with straw and soaked with barrels of oil. Now he said no word to anyone, but, taking a torch from a sconce on the wall, he strode to the main door of the prison that had been the nightmare of Isle for seven generations. He thrust the torch into each of several cells, then threw it down and made his way out to the courtyard, where he joined Craig the Grim and his men. Tongues of flame showed at the barred windows. The soldiery and the castle folk came out and silently filled the courtyard, watching and waiting. Suddenly the blaze streaked up the sides of the Tower and burst from its top like spray from a fountain. A pillar of fire reached hundreds of feet into the air; at its apex, flames spread like the petals of some giant, exotic flowers. There was no shouting in the courtyard, but an excitement that ran too deep for words. The fire lighted upturned faces set in lines of grim exultation. Their time had come at last.
To the south, in Bridgewater manor, the peasants stood watching the glow in the sky with blinking awe, hardly comprehending. But westward, along the Black River, the villagers looked to the sky, and within moments their own giant piles of straw and brushwood were lit, sending the news yet farther westward. Like bright pollen from the giant flower, sparks of light lit up across Isle, on some hilltop in the domain of every lord between the Forest and Laueroc, between Nemeton and Whitewater, and northward through the Broken Lands to Lee, to Celydon, Gaunt, and on to Rodsen.
Alan saw the fires from a cottage near Laueroc, and on a hilltop of his childhood home he lit the pyre that sent the news on to the faithful in the lowlands of Welas, and thus to Galin, Torre and Adaoun in their mountain fastnesses. Pelys saw flames in Lee, lit his own signal, kissed Rosemary and marched his troops toward Gaunt, riding in a litter between two horses. North of Whitewater, the Gypsies poured oil on the waste and set great patches of fire. Looking from his battlements in Firth, Roran knew the siege would soon be lifted. Outside of Rodsen and Firth, a smattering of bonfires carried the news on to the warlords of the far north, and they began to move.
In their strongholds of oppression, the great lords slept a sleep heavy with years of having their own way. On their watchtowers, the drowsy guards yawned and wondered wearily what crazy superstition the peasants were celebrating now. Little did they realize that the entire land was on the move. Armed men issued from the Forest and the Westwood as quietly and relentlessly as ink trickling from the bottle. Blain and his hundreds sped in forced march toward Laueroc. Ket and his men took position around Lee. Smaller bands, and even lone men, emerged to avenge themselves where they might.
There was no sleep for the countryfolk this night, but they did not mind. In Lee, Gaunt, and scores of petty domains all along the rim of the Westwood and the Eastern Forest, men, women, and children toiled through the dark hours until great piles of stolen food and goods arose in hidden Forest places. Then the women and children took a few belongings and went to the Forest to keep out of harm's way, with only a few graybeards to protect them. The men and youths kissed their loved ones and went forth with willingness to die.
Thus it was that Nabon of Lee awoke from his sound night's sleep to find his storehouses empty. His goods were in the Forest, his walls surrounded by outlaws, and many of his own men in their midst. Haughty Gar of Whitewater had to walk around his domain that morning, for his horse wandered on the waste with the Gypsy ponies. His town was nearly empty, and many were the gaps in his ranks where the youths he had forced into his service had slipped away in the night to rejoin fathers and brothers. Margerie laughed to herself in her close-shuttered house, for she knew that of all people she was the last he would suspect of having defied him.
In Weldon and all the petty realms of Welas, lords awoke to stolen supplies and missing men. In Laueroc, guard was strict and rule was harsh, but no one knew the ancient, secret passageways better than Alan. Iscovar's puppet could not march forth to war this day, for almost all of his great stores of food and weapons were gone.
Only in Nemeton, of all the places that knew Hal as friend, no movement took place. All night the courtyard and streets stood packed with ten thousand people, each of them as silent as the stars. The gray light of dawn grew, and still they stood: soldiers, outlaws, servants and townsfolk who had learned to love their strange Prince. But as the rays of the rising sun sprang from the sea at their backs, Craig the Grim appeared beside Hal where he stood on the platform of the keep.
“King Iscovar is dead!” he cried. “Long live good King Hal!"
A shout like a battle cry went up from the waiting multitude, and the courtyard bristled with uplifted fists. “The crown! The crown! The crown!” chanted Hal's people as Robin came forward with the ceremonial cushion. But they fell silent as Hal spoke, and though his voice was low, it was heard by all.
“I will wear no crown of the cursed Eastern Kings,” he said.
“Alan thought as much,” answered Craig, “and therefore made this one for you, and greatly regrets that he could not be here to place it on you. It is a plain thing, but will you not wear it for his sake?” Craig lifted the gold-bordered linen cloth to reveal a circlet of silver with the half-sun emblem graven on the front.
Hal's eyes shone like the crown. “By my troth,” he breathed, “I will wear it gladly.” He knelt. Craig placed the crown on his head, murmuring, “All the gods be with you, Hal.” When Hal rose and faced his people, he gulped, for every knee was bent to him, and beside him Craig and Robin knelt as well. For a moment the silence was intense. Then Craig raised his fist in salute, and led the joyous shouts that followed: “Long live King Hal! Long may he reign!"
Hal flushed under the acclaim, and his lips tightened in discomfort. “King in name only,” he said when at last he could make himself heard, “until the strong lords also bow to the crown. It is time we were moving, as I am certain they are."
Book Five
LAUEROC
* * *
Chapter One
Hal had no intention of being trapped in Nemeton like a fox taken in his hole. Caution would not avail him against far superior force. His only hope was to out-maneuver his foes in open battle.
He marched his men into the heart of the south, the fertile and oppressed Soft Lands, trusting his friends in the north and west to keep Nemeton from attack. On the sixth day, his army crossed the sinuous southern branch of the Dark River and entered on an ancient, eerily level plain. The long, brazen horns of the town trumpeters had bellowed news of the King's death before him, so Hal sent his scouts far ahead on the watch for enemies. Wherever they came, peasants bundled together their few belongings and fled for their lives, for they knew that war was more merciless than the winds of a tempest in sweeping over a land. Hal's men told them to go toward Nemeton, where they would be fed and sheltered. Some were unbelieving. Some scurried like mice toward this unexpected sanctuary. And a few who had heard a whisper of hope knew that the time had come of which the legends spoke—and turned to follow Hal.
News was that from the south Mordri of the Havens was marching, and from the west, Kai Oakmaster. Daronwy, a powerful lord, gathered strength at Bridge-water, not far away. It was no use trying to besiege him, with the other lords hastening to his aid. Hal felt his way to the south and west, watchful for the enemy. Word came that Daronwy had left his stronghold to join his allies for an attack on the new-crowned King.
A few days later, at dusk, the opposing forces met, camping on open fields, facing each other across a space as flat as a chessboard, naked to each other's eyes. The combined armies of the lords made a force almost three times the size of Hal's. Looking over at the dark, fire-flecked mass of their numbers and the glint of their weapons in the twilight, Hal inwardly winced, feeling dread tighten around him.
“Prospects don't look good,” he remarked to the young captain at his side.
Rafe pulled a face at the wry understatement. “Did you expect better?"
Hal sighed. “Not much better. This was a fool's venture from the first, Rafe. Yet, what else was I to do? Nemeton is not built to withstand siege; the Easterners were too proud for that. And a King...” He let the sentence trail away.
“A King must show his mettle.” Rafe completed it for him.
“Especially a new King,” added Hal bitterly, “and no matter whose blood might be shed .... Well, perhaps help will find us."
“If Alan takes Laueroc with dispatch,” Rafe asked carefully, “when might he come to our aid?"
“In a few days, at the earliest. More likely a week.” Rafe watched, without comment, the slight shadow that darkened Hal's face. There was some nameless trouble between Hal and Alan, he knew. And Alan seemed changed, lately .... Rafe wondered, briefly, guiltily, if they could expect help of Alan.