The Summer Tree Read online

  He was not finished. “I tell you these things, not because I expect to change, but so you will know I am aware of them. There will be people I must trust, and if you are a Seer, then you must be one of them, and I’m afraid you will have to deal with me as I am.”

  A silence followed this, not surprisingly. For the first time she noticed Malka and called her softly. The black cat leaped to the bed and curled up on her lap.

  “I’ll think about it,” she said finally. “No promises; I’m fairly stubborn myself. May I point out, on the original issue, that Loren seems to value your brother quite a bit, and unless I’ve missed something, Silvercloak isn’t a woman.” Too much asperity, she thought. You must go carefully here.

  Aileron’s eyes were unreadable. “He was our teacher as boys,” he said. “He has hopes still of salvaging something in Diarmuid. And in fairness, my brother does elicit love from his followers, which must mean something.”

  “Something,” she echoed gravely. “You don’t see anything to salvage?” It was ironic, actually: she hadn’t liked Diarmuid at all, and here she was …

  Aileron, for reply, merely shrugged expressively.

  “Leave it, then,” she said. “Will you finish your story?”

  “There is little left to tell. When the rains receded last year, and stopped absolutely this spring, I suspected it was not chance. I wanted to die for him, so I would not have to watch him fading. Or see the expression in his eyes. I couldn’t live with him mistrusting me. So I asked to be allowed to go to the Summer Tree, and he refused. Again I asked, again he refused. Then word came to Paras Derval of children dying on the farms, and I asked again before all the court and once more he refused to grant me leave. And so …”

  “And so you told him exactly what you thought.” She could picture the scene.

  “I did. And he exiled me.”

  “Not very effectively,” she said wryly.

  “Would you have me leave my land, Seer?” he snapped, the voice suddenly commanding. It pleased her; he had some caring, then. More than some, if she were being fair. So she said, “Aileron, he did right. You must know that. How could the High King let another die for him?”

  And knew immediately that there was something wrong.

  “You don’t know, then.” It was not a question. The sudden gentleness in his voice unsettled her more than anything.

  “What? Please. You had better tell me.”

  “My father did let another go,” Aileron said. “Listen to the thunder. Your friend is on the Tree. Pwyll. He has lasted two nights. This is the last, if he is still alive.”

  Pwyll. Paul.

  It fit. It fit too perfectly. She was brushing tears away, but others kept falling. “I saw him,” she whispered. “I saw him with your father in my dream, but I couldn’t hear what they said, because there was this music, and—”

  Then that, too, fell into place.

  “Oh, Paul,” she breathed. “It was the Brahms, wasn’t it? Rachel’s Brahms piece. How could I not have remembered?”

  “Would you have changed anything?” Aileron asked. “Would you have been right to?”

  Too hard, that one, just then. She concentrated on the cat. “Do you hate him?” she asked in a small voice, surprising herself with the question.

  It drove him to his feet with a startled, exposed gesture. He strode to the window and looked out over the lake. There were bells. And then thunder. A day so charged with power. And it wasn’t over. Night to come, the third night …

  “I will try not to,” he said at last, so softly Kim could scarcely hear it.

  “Please,” she said, feeling that somehow it mattered. If only to her, to ease her own gathering harvest of griefs. She rose from the bed, holding the cat in both arms.

  He turned to face her. The light was strange behind him.

  Then, “It is to be my war,” said Aileron dan Ailell.

  She nodded.

  “You have seen this?” he pushed.

  Again she nodded. The wind had died outside; it was very quiet. “You would have thrown it away on the Tree.”

  “Not thrown away. But yes, it was a foolishness. In me, not in your friend,” he added after a moment. “I went to see him there last night. I could not help myself. In him it is something else.”

  “Grief. Pride. A dark kind.”

  “It is a dark place.”

  “Can he last?”

  Slowly, Aileron shook his head. “I don’t think so. He was almost gone last night.”

  Paul. When, she thought, had she last heard him laugh?

  “He’s been sick,” she said. It sounded almost irrelevant. Her own voice was funny, too.

  Aileron touched her shoulder awkwardly. “I will not hate him, Kim.” He used her name for the first time. “I cannot. It is so bravely done.”

  “He has that,” she said. She was not going to cry again. “He has that,” she repeated, lifting her head. “And we have a war to fight.”

  “We?” Aileron asked, and in his eyes she could see the entreaty he would not speak.

  “You’re going to need a Seer,” she said matter-of-factly. “I seem to be the best you’ve got. And I have the Baelrath, too.”

  He came a step towards her. “I am …” He took a breath. “I am … pleased,” he managed.

  A laugh escaped her, she couldn’t help it. “God,” she said on a rising note. “God, Aileron, I’ve never met anyone who had so much trouble saying thank-you. What do you do when someone passes you the salt?”

  His mouth opened and closed. He looked very young.

  “Anyhow,” she said briskly, “you’re welcome. And now we’d better get going. You should be in Paras Derval tonight, don’t you think?”

  It seemed that he had already saddled the horse in the barn, and had only been waiting for her. While Aileron went out back to bring the stallion around, she set about closing up the cottage. The dagger and the Circlet would be safest in the chamber down below. She knew that sort of thing now, it was instinctive.

  She thought of Raederth then, and wondered if it was folly to feel sorrow for a man so long dead. But it wasn’t, she knew, she now knew; for the dead are still in time, they are travelling, they are not lost. Ysanne was lost. She still needed a long time alone, Kim realized, but she didn’t have it, so there was no point even thinking. The Mountain had taken that kind of luxury away from all of them.

  From all of them. She did pause, at that. She was numbering herself among them, she realized, even in her thoughts. Are you aware, she asked herself, with a kind of awe, that you are now the Seer of the High Kingdom of Brennin in Fionavar?

  She was. Holy cow, she thought, talk about over-achievers! But then her mind swung back to Aileron, and the flared levity faded. Aileron, whom she was going to help become King if she could, even though his brother was the heir. She would do it because her blood sang to her that this was right, and that, she knew by now, was part of what being a Seer meant.

  She was quiet and ready when he came round the side on the horse. He had a sword now, and a bow slung in the saddle, and he rode the black charger with an easy grace. She was, she had to admit, impressed.

  There was a slight issue at the outset over her refusal to leave Malka behind, but when she threatened to walk, Aileron, a stony expression on his face, reached a hand down and swung her up behind him. With the cat. He was very strong, she realized.

  He also had a scratched shoulder a minute later. Malka, it seemed, didn’t like riding horseback. Aileron, it also seemed, could be remarkably articulate when swearing. She told him as much, sweetly, and was rewarded with a quite communicative silence.

  With the dying of the wind, the haze of the day seemed to be lifting. It was still light, and the sun, setting almost directly behind them, cast its long rays along the path.

  Which was one reason the ambush failed.

  They were attacked at the bend where she and Matt had first seen the lake. Before the first of the svarts had leaped to the
road, Aileron, some sixth sense triggered, had already kicked the stallion into a gallop.

  There were no darts this time. They had been ordered to take the white-haired woman alive, and she had only one servant as a guard. It should have been easy. There were fifteen of them.

  Twelve, after the first rush of the horse, as Aileron’s blade scythed on both sides. She was hampering him, though. With a concise movement he leaped from the saddle, killing another svart as he landed. “Go on!” he shouted. Of its own accord, the horse sped into a trot and then a gallop down the path. No way, Kim thought, and, holding the terrified cat as best she could, grappled for the reins and pulled the stallion to a halt. Turning, she watched the battle, her heart leaping into her throat, though not with fear.

  By the light of the setting sun, Kimberly bore witness to the first battle of Aileron dan Ailell in his war, and a stunning, a nearly debilitating grace was displayed for her then upon that lonely path. To see him with a sword in his hand was almost heartbreaking. It was a dance. It was more. Some men, it seemed, were born to do a thing; it was true.

  Because awesomely, stupefyingly, she saw that it had been a mismatch from the first. Fifteen of them, with weapons and sharp teeth for close fighting, against the one man with the long blade flashing in his hand, and she understood that he was going to win. Effortlessly, he was going to win.

  It didn’t last very long. Not one of the fifteen svart alfar survived. Breathing only a little quickly, he cleaned his sword and sheathed it, before walking towards her up the path, the sun low behind him. It was very quiet now. His dark eyes, she saw, were sombre.

  “I told you to go,” he said.

  “I know. I don’t always do what I’m told. I thought I warned you.”

  He was silent, looking up at her.

  “A ‘little’ skill,” she mimicked quite precisely.

  His face, she saw with delight, had suddenly gone shy.

  “Why,” Kim Ford asked, “did that take you so long?”

  For the first time she heard him laugh.

  They reached Paras Derval at twilight, with Aileron hooded for concealment. Once inside the town they made their way quickly and quietly to Loren’s quarters. The mage was there, with Matt and Kevin Laine.

  Kim and Aileron told their stories as succinctly as they could; there was little time. They spoke of Paul, in whispers, hearing the thunder gathering in the west.

  And then, when it became clear that there was something important neither she nor the Prince knew, they were told about Jennifer.

  At which point it was made evident that notwithstanding a frightened cat, or a kingdom that needed her, the new Seer of Brennin could still fall apart with the best of them.

  Twice during the day he thought it was the end. There was very great pain. He was badly sunburned now, and so dry. Dry as the land, which, he had thought earlier—how much earlier?—was probably the point. The nexus. It all seemed so simple at times, it came down to such basic correspondences. But then his mind would start to spin, to slide, and with the slide, all the clarity went, too.

  He may have been the only person in Fionavar who didn’t see the Mountain send up its fire. The sun was fire enough for him. He heard the laughter, but was so far gone he placed it elsewhere, in his own hell. It hurt there, too; he was not spared.

  That time it was the bells that brought him back. He was lucid then for an interval, and knew where they were ringing, though not why. His eyes hurt; they were puffy with sunburn, and he was desperately dehydrated. The sun seemed to be a different colour today. Seemed. What did he know? He was so skewed, nothing could be taken for what it was.

  Though the bells were ringing in Paras Derval, he was sure of that. Except … except that after a while, listening, he seemed to hear a harp sounding, too, and that was very bad, as bad as it could be, because it was a thing from his own place, from behind the bolted door. It wasn’t out there. The bells were, yes, but they were fading. He was going again, there was nothing to grab hold of, no branch, no hand. He was bound and dry, and sliding, going under. He saw the bolts shatter, and the door opening, and the room. Oh, lady, lady, lady, he thought. Then no bolts anymore, nothing to bar the door. Under. Undersea down …

  They were in bed. The night before his trip. Of course. It would be that memory. Because of the harp, it would be.

  His room. Spring night; almost summer weather. Window open, curtains blowing, her hair around them both, the covers back so he could see her by candlelight. Her candle, a gift. The very light was hers.

  “Do you know,” Rachel said, “that you are a musician, after all.”

  “I wish,” he heard himself say. “You know I can’t even sing.”

  “But no,” she said pursuing a conceit, playing with the hairs on his chest. “You are. You’re a harper, Paul. You have harper’s hands.”

  “Where’s my harp, then?” Straight man.

  And Rachel said, “Me, of course. My heart’s your harp string.”

  What could he do but smile? The very light.

  “You know,” she said, “when I play next month, the Brahms, it’ll be for you.”

  “No. For yourself. Keep that for yourself.”

  She smiled. He couldn’t see it, but he knew by now when Rachel smiled.

  “Stubborn man.” She touched him lightly with her mouth. “Share it, then. Can I play the second movement for you? Will you take that? Let me play that part because I love you. To tell.”

  “Oh, lady,” he had said.

  Hand of the harper. Heart of the harpstring.

  Lady, lady, lady.

  What had brought him back this time, he didn’t know. The sun was gone, though. Dark coming down. Fireflies. Third night then. Last. For three nights, and forever, the King had said.

  The King was dead.

  How did he know that? And after a moment it seemed that very far down, below the burnt, strung-out place of pain he had become, a part of him remained that could fear.

  How did he know Ailell was dead? The Tree had told him. It knew the passing of High Kings, it always did. It had been rooted here to summon them far back in the soil of time. From Iorweth to Ailell they were the Children of Mörnir, and the Tree knew when they died. And now he knew as well. He understood. Now I give you to Mörnir; the other part of the consecration. He was given. He was becoming root, branch. He was naked there, skin to bark; naked in all the ways there were, it seemed, because the dark was coming down inside again, the door unbolting. He was so open the wind could pass through him, light shine, shadow fall.

  Like a child again. Light and shade. Simplicity.

  When had all the twisting started?

  He could remember (a different door, this) playing baseball on the street as darkness fell. Playing even after the streetlights kicked on, so that the ball would come flashing like a comet out of brightness and into dark, elusive but attainable. The smell of cut grass and porch flowers, the leather of a new fielder’s glove. Summer twilight, summer dark. All the continuities. When had it turned? Why did it have to turn? The process changing to disjunctions, abortings, endings, all of them raining down like arrows, unlit and inescapable.

  And then love, love, the deepest discontinuity.

  Because it seemed that this door had turned into the other one after all, the one he couldn’t face. Not even childhood was safe any more, not tonight. Nowhere would be safe tonight. Not here at the end, naked on the Tree.

  And he understood then, finally: understood that it had to be naked, truly so, that one went to the God. It was the Tree that was stripping him, layer by layer, down to what he was hiding from. To what—hadn’t there once been a thing called irony?—he had come here hiding from. Music. Her name. Tears. Rain. The highway.

  He was skewed again, going down: the fireflies among the trees had become headlights of approaching cars, which was so absurd. But then it wasn’t, after all, because now he was in the car, driving her eastward on Lakeshore Boulevard in the rain.

&nbs
p; It had rained the night she died.

  I don’t, I don’t want to go here, he thought, clinging to nothing, his mind’s last despairing effort to pull away. Please, just let me die, let me be rain for them.

  But no. He was the Arrow now. The Arrow on the Tree, of Mörnir, and he was to be given naked or not at all.

  Or not at all. There was that, he realized. He could die. That was still his choice, he could let go. It was there for him.

  And so on the third night Paul Schafer came to the last test, the one that was always failed, the opening. Where the Kings of Brennin, or those coming in their name, discovered that the courage to be there, the strength to endure, even love of their land were none of them enough. On the Tree one could no longer hide from the living or the dead, from one’s own soul. Naked or not at all, one went to Mörnir. And oh, that was too much for them, too hard, too unfair after all that had been endured, to be forced to go into the darkest places then, so weak, so impossibly vulnerable.

  And so they would let go, brave Kings of the sword, wise ones, gallant Princes, all would turn away from so much nakedness and die too soon.

  But not that night. Because of pride, of pure stubbornness, and because, most surely, of the dog, Paul Schafer found the courage not to turn. Down he went. Arrow of the God. So open, the wind could pass, light shine through him.

  Last door.

  “The Dvořák,” he heard. His own voice, laughing. “The Dvořák with the Symphony. Kincaid, are you a star!”

  She laughed nervously. “It’s only at Ontario Place. Outdoors, with a baseball game in the background at the stadium. No one will hear a thing.”

  “Wally will hear. Wally loves you already.”

  “Since when have you and Walter Langside been so close?”

  “Since the recital, lady. Since his review. He’s my main man now, Wally.” She had won everything, won them all. She had dazzled. All three papers had been there, because of advance rumour of what she was. It was unheard-of for a graduate recital. The second movement, Langside of the Globe had written, could not be played more beautifully.

  She had won everything. Had eclipsed every cellist ever to come out of Edward Johnson Hall. And today the Toronto Symphony had called. The Dvořák Cello Concerto. August 5, at Ontario Place. Unheard-of. So they had gone to Winston’s for dinner, to blow a hundred dollars of his bursary money from the history department.