Authors: Nancy Springer
Each of these statements Hal had relayed to the awed multitude that had gathered around. But now Adaoun said something he kept to himself. “If you have read this,” he remarked with mindful pity, “you know many things.” “I have read it.” Hal turned to Rosemary. “And so shall you, my love, and know everything that is in it: the secrets of the elves, and of the elfin part of me. But not yet. Not for a few days.” He tamed and locked the crowns, the rings and the Book once again in their chest.
The following days were spent in feasting, merriment and much talk. Hal was able to check on the welfare of his entire kingdom, and the news was good. Most of the spring planting had been done before Iscovar's death, and Hal's throne had been secured so swiftly that the rhythm of work was scarcely interrupted. Famine, the specter that so often stalks in the wake of war, was not likely to be seen—especially since half of each lord's holding of land had been divided among the peasants. The same had been done with the enormous stockpiles of grain and other supplies, and with each lord's hoard of treasure and gold. Such a spirit of peace lay upon the land that there had been no quarreling over fan shares; the countryfolk rejoiced in their unexpected prosperity. In most of the manors a man who had been a leader among the people was elevated to the position of responsibility, with the assurance of help and advice from the King and his liegemen. Hal offered Ket the manor of Lee, but he refused it, saying he would rather stay by Hal as one of his officers. So Rafe was prevailed upon to accept Lee, and Craig took management of White-water, since Margerie said she was too old for such nonsense.
As the wedding day drew near, neither Lysse nor Alan had been seen. From time to time, Hal raised the hope that they were together, but in his heart he knew they would have come to him if it were so. In his mind's eye he envisioned Lysse as indeed she was: a patient figure waiting and watching the road by a lonely campfire. But try as he might, Hal could not envision Alan. By the eve of the Midsummer festival, the Feast of Bowers, Hal's low spirits had influenced the entire camp. Rosemary could have wept at the despair in his eyes, and only her generous heart kept her from cursing Alan as a graceless, selfish, thick-skulled mule, he who had spoiled what ought to be the happiest time of Hal's life.
For two full weeks Alan lay in the sun on the upland hills, waiting for some unknown succor, foraging for food when he felt the need, seeing no living being except the birds and the furry beasts. After the first few days he gave up consciously struggling with his problem. Its dull ache rose with him in the morning, lived with him through the day, went to bed with him at night. His dreams were colored cruelly with pain and sorrow, leaving him as fatigued as if he had fought a long and losing battle.
On the last day when he could leave and hope to reach Laueroe in time, he rose and saddled Alfie, scarcely knowing how or when he had decided to go. Then the dull ache in his heart was replaced by sharper pangs of fear that he might miss Hal's great day. He set his course as straight as an arrow toward Laueroe, and Alfie ran with all the urgency his master felt. At least there was no longer any fear of lordsmen. Alan sped through the days, rested only a few hours each night, and ate as he rode.
As the afternoon before the Midsummer festival drew on, Alan sighed thankfully and slackened his pace somewhat at last. Laueroe was only a few miles away.
I shall be there in time for the late meal,
he thought,
and that will give me the evening to set things to rights.
Under the golden light of a low sun, he was cantering up the last slope outside of town, smiling with relief, when he looked up and saw the one person who was the cause of all his heart's commotion.
Lysse sat still upon a filly of the
elwdeyn
breed, and she wore a dress of the same dark, sun-flecked green as her eyes. Golden sunset rays made a halo of her golden hair. No amount of resolve could have prepared Alan for this moment. His eyes fastened upon her, and slowly, scarcely knowing what he was doing, he took her hand and held it pressed to his cheek.
“Wherever have you been!” she asked in her sweet, melodious voice. “I have awaited you these many days."
The sound of the Ancient Tongue shocked him out of his trance, and he dropped her hand. “I have come to see my brother, Lysee,” he declared hoarsely, “to bring him something that belongs to him and to wish him joy on his wedding day. I must go to him now.” Dazed, he lifted the reins, but for the first time in years Alfie balked. The horse rolled his eyes until the whites showed, and flapped his ears, ogling impudently. But Alan did not notice; his gaze was caught on Lysse. The pain in her eyes was pitiful. Yet she was an elf, and should, not know such heartfelt pain ....
“Alan,” she whispered, “by the mighty Wheel, tell me now, truly: do you love me still, or not?"
The cruel lie, rehearsed a thousand times, came to Alan's mind, but wrestle with it as he might, it would not leave his tongue. For a breathless moment he struggled, shaken to the roots of his being; then the answer exploded from him. “Ay!” he shouted, and the hills of his native land rang with it. “Sweet Lysse, I do!” Shaking, his voice subsided to a whisper. “Oh, Lysse, I am so sorry ...."
“Why?” She placed gentle hands upon his bowed shoulders. “For you know I love you, too, Alan of Laueroc."
“Because I cannot have you.” He spoke decidedly, with the perfect calm of longstanding pain. “I will not doom you to death, you whom I love, or tear you from your people. Go, Lysse, sail to fair Elwestrand which is your birthright, you and your brothers and sisters. Live there long after I am dead and turned to dust. I cannot kill you, Lysse!"
“I will not go,” she told him with dogged patience, as if she must explain to him the clearest facts of his life, even the rising and setting of the sun. “Nor will my father ask me to; he knows I must be with you. If you ride away from me I will follow, and if my horse fails me I will walk, winter or summer, to be by your side. I love you. Is so simple a thing so difficult for you to accept?” In her eyes, to the deepest reaches of her soul, there was no hint of faltering or sorrow.
Alan gazed into those incredible eyes, and saw there a love as marvelous to him as it was incomprehensible, for he scarcely felt deserving. Breathlessly, he sensed the deepest strength of his soul stirring within hin, surrendering foolish pride and false honor to the love that rules the heart. With tears of relief flowing freely down his cheeks, Alan took Lysse's chin in his hand and kissed her deeply on the lips. All the jagged pieces of his life fell into place, and he was finally at peace with himself and with his world.
Chapter Five
On that last night before the fateful day, the strong stone walls of Laueroc Castle seemed to choke Hal, so that he felt he must move out of doors, under the stars and the full moon. With Arundel for company, he built a little fire in a copse of trees on the town common. Sitting beside it, he bowed his head and thought of Alan, wishing that his thoughts could draw him there.
Lysse and Alan were still deep in talk. “Silly,” she was chiding him fondly. “To think that any good could come to me, without you! My immortal life would have become a curse, for the Ages of the elves are at an end. My brothers and sisters, like me, will find mortal love in Elwestrand, and will die happy that their ancient loneliness is ended. And perhaps a finer race will come out of it all."
“Why did you not tell me!” he cried. “You or Hal..."
“The choice had to be yours, without telling. Though I know Hal has suffered with you."
“Dear Hal,” he murmured, holding her close against him, “For months I have been longing to speak to him."
“Come, let us go to him. The night moves on apace.” He still held her and sighed, but she laughed at him tenderly. “You shall have me the rest of your life!"
They found Hal with his head on his knees beside a dwindling campfire, keeping a dozing vigil, as Alan had often known him to do in times of wounds or sickness. The silver circlet on his head had slipped rakishly over one ear, and Alan knelt to gently straighten it. Hal looked up, scarcely daring to believe he was in the world of the waking, whispering, “Alan!” He reached out to embrace him, but his arms stopped in midair as he remembered that, lately, Alan did not care to be touched.
Alan groaned to himself with aching heart, realizing what distance he had put between them. Lysse kissed Hal on the cheek, then kissed Alan squarely on the lips. “I shall see you on the morrow,” she said, and disappeared into the night. Alan still knelt before Hal, meeting his eyes. He reached into his tunic.
“I have something that belongs to you,” Alan said, “that I have been longing to give you.” He drew out the silver ring he had taken from his father's skeletal hand. He had not worn it since returning to Celydon from Laueroc almost a year before, but evidently he had often polished it; the tiny circle shone brightly even in the moonlight. Alan handed it to Hal, warm from his body beat, and looked at the ground, searching for words.
“I know,” Hal whispered, saying for him the unspeakable. “I know, my brother. I watched my father die in torment on my account, in the Dark Tower."
Alan's head snapped up. “How long have you known?” he gasped.
“Since two days before we left. It was written in
The Book of Suns
, which my old nurse showed to me that afternoon in the garret. But you have known since you went to Laueroc, that first time."
“Ay. My father left a letter for me."
“Then it is that which has been hidden in your eyes since then?"
“Ay."
“Nothing more?"
“Nay. At least, not at first."
Hal was impatient, and his voice echoed the pain of ten months of needless misery. “Oh, Alan, Alan, why did you not tell me?"
“Because of the seven generations,” Alan explained earnestly. “Because of—of that by which I made you swear. You have often told me that, if you were not the son of that fiendish King, no power on earth could make you seek the throne—that you wanted nothing from life but peace and a little love. For the sake of all the poor folk in this oppressed land, I could not tell you, Hal! You were the only one who could save them!"
Hal shook his head. “No power on earth, nay. But an even heavier burden found me after I said that, Alan—heavier, but somehow easier to bear: the burden of prophecy.” A tiny smile played around the corners of his lips. “It was not only your mighty oath that saved my life. It was a song Rosemary sang to me that reminded me of the other burden that came with my birth.
'Bearing balm of Veran's flower, Man born blest with elfin dower.'
Adaoun's image came to my mind, and his eyes upon me compelled me to live until you came with Veran's comfort."
“You mean,” asked Alan with a dry mouth, “that I could have told you?"
“By my wounds, I wish you had!” declared Hal with a bitterness that struck Alan to the heart.
“May I die for it, Hal, I didn't know,” Alan choked, and then he broke and wept like a child with the frustration of almost a year of estrangement. “I didn't know,” he moaned.
Hal's arms went around his shoulders; the brothers clutched each other tightly. “Of course you didn't know,” Hal said fiercely, hating himself, “You did what you felt you must. Oh, Alan, I am sorry. Why did I tell you that!"
“Small blame to you,” Alan gulped, still struggling for breath. “The way I've been acting. I'll warrant you had forgotten I could care.” He flung his head up and faced Hal with a tear-streaked face in which the whole of his soul showed plain and unashamed. “Hal, I love you so .... I had to put some distance between us, or the secret in my heart would have driven me mad.” His head dropped wearily to Hal's shoulder, and Hal held him in silence, swallowing at the lump in his throat.
“I knew my father was unfaithful,” said Alan at last, sitting up and wiping his face with his sleeve. “We quarreled about it. He had married my mother in policy, not in passion, but she was a good, gentle woman, and I loved her deeply. Now I know that your mother was his
mendor
, and he was fated, to love her, despite loss of honor—despite the shadow of death .... But then I blamed him bitterly. Still, when I first knew you, I hoped—I wished like a boy—that you might be my brother. When you told me you were the King's son, it nearly broke my heart, for who could have dreamed that Leuin's lover, all those years, had been the Queen herself? And then to find that my dream had come true, and not to be able to tell you!"
“Did Iscovar know, I wonder?” murmured Hal, changing the subject, for Alan was still close to tears.
“He knew. My father—our father—says in his letter that Iscovar was unable to beget children, due to the same disease of lust by which he died. He knew you were Laueroc's son, but his need of an heir constrained him to keep the secret. For a long time, my father's—our father's—power was great enough to protect himself, the Queen, and you. But little by little, by means too foul to be answered in kind, the King weakened Laueroc, until at long last he had his horrible revenge."
“Horrible, indeed. But no wonder he hated me,” Hal muttered. “The more so because he could not do away with me .... Did you tell anyone else, Alan? Cory perhaps?"
“Nay, no one. I kept my peace most obstinately. But if I had known the needless pain it would cost you, I would never have done it. Dear Hal, I wish you would kick me! It would make me feel so much better."