The Summer Tree Read online

  The other man who came in, an armed aide close beside him, was stooped and very old. The King? Kevin wondered, for a brief, disoriented moment. But it was not.

  “Good evening, Metran,” Loren said deferentially to this white-haired new arrival. “Are you well?”

  “Well, very well, very, very,” Metran wheezed. He coughed. “There is not enough light in here. I want to see,” he said querulously. A trembling arm was raised, and suddenly the six wall torches blazed, illuminating the chamber. Why, Kim thought, couldn’t Loren have done that?

  “Better, much better,” Metran went on, shuffing forward to sink into one of the chairs. His attendant hovered close by. The other soldier, Kim saw, had placed himself by the door with Vart. Paul had withdrawn towards Jennifer by the window.

  “Where,” Loren asked, “is the King? I sent Vart to advise him I was here.”

  “And he has been so advised,” Gorlaes answered smoothly. Vart, in the doorway, snickered. “Ailell has instructed me to convey his greetings to you, and to your—” he paused to look around, “—four companions.”

  “Four? Only four?” Metran cut in, barely audible over a coughing fit.

  Gorlaes spared him only the briefest of glances and went on. “To your four companions. I have been asked to take them under my care as Chancellor for the night. The King had a trying day and would prefer to receive them formally in the morning. It is very late. I’m sure you understand.” The smile was pleasant, even modest. “Now if you would be good enough to introduce me to our visitors I can have my men show them to their rooms … and you, my friend, can go to your richly deserved rest.”

  “Thank you, Gorlaes.” Loren smiled, but a thin edge like that of a drawn blade had come into his voice. “However, under the circumstances I count myself responsible for the well-being of those who crossed with me. I will make arrangements for them, until the King has received us.”

  “Silvercloak, are you implying that their well-being can be better attended to than by the Chancellor of the realm?” There, too, Kevin thought, his muscles involuntarily tensing: the same edge. Though neither man had moved, it seemed to him as if there were two swords drawn in the torchlit room.

  “Not at all, Gorlaes,” said the mage. “It is simply a matter of my own honour.”

  “You are tired, my friend. Leave this tedious business to me.”

  “There is no tedium in caring for friends.”

  “Loren, I must insist—”

  “No.”

  There was a cold silence.

  “You realize,” said Gorlaes, his voice dropping almost to a whisper, “that you offer me little choice?” The voice came up suddenly. “I must obey the commands of my King. Vart, Lagoth …” The two soldiers in the doorway moved forward.

  And pitched, half-drawn swords clattering, full-length to the floor.

  Behind their prone bodies stood a very calm Matt Sören, and the big, capable man named Coll. Seeing them there, Kevin Laine, whose childhood fantasies had been shaped of images like this, knew a moment of sheer delight.

  At which point a lithe, feral figure, shimmering with jewellery, swung easily through the window into the room. He landed lightly beside Jennifer, and she felt a wandering hand stroke her hair before he spoke.

  “Who makes this noise at such an hour? Can a soldier not sleep at night in his father’s palace without—why, Gorlaes! And Metran! And here is Loren! You have returned, Silvercloak—and with our visitors, I see. In the very teeth of time.” The insolence of his voice filled the room. “Gorlaes, send quickly, my father will want to welcome them immediately.”

  “The King,” the Chancellor replied stiffy, “is indisposed, my lord Prince. He sent me—”

  “He can’t come? Then I must do the family honours myself. Silvercloak, would you …?”

  And so Loren carefully introduced them again. And “A peach!” said Diarmuid dan Ailell, bending, slowly, to kiss Jennifer’s hand. Against her will, she laughed. He didn’t hurry the kiss.

  When he straightened, though, his words were formal, and both of his arms were raised in a wide gesture of ritual. “I welcome you now,” he began, and Kevin, turning instinctively, saw the benign countenance of Gorlaes contort, for a blurred instant, with fury. “I welcome you now,” Diarmuid said, in a voice stripped of mockery, “as guest-friends of my father and myself. The home of Ailell is your home, your honour is ours. An injury done you is an injury to ourselves. And treason to the Oak Crown of the High King. Be welcome to Paras Derval. I will personally attend to your comfort for tonight.” Only on the last phrase did the voice change a little, as the quick eyes, malicious and amused, flashed to Jennifer’s.

  She flushed again, but he had already turned. “Gorlaes,” he said softly, “your retainers appear to have collapsed. I have been told, in the few hours since I’ve been back from South Keep, of entirely too much drinking among them. I know it is a festival, but really …?” And the tone was so mild, so very reproachful. Kevin fought to keep a straight face. “Coll,” Diarmuid went on, “have four rooms made ready on the north side, please, and quickly.”

  “No.” It was Jennifer. “Kim and I will share. Just three.” She resolutely avoided looking at the Prince. Kimberly, watching him, decided that his eyebrows went higher than they had any right to go.

  “We will, too,” said Paul Schafer quietly. And Kevin felt his pulse leap. Oh, Abba, he thought, maybe this will do it for him. Maybe it will.

  “I’m too hot. Why is it so hot everywhere?” Metran, First of the Mages, asked, of no one in particular.

  The north side of the palace, opposite the town, overlooked a walled garden. When they were finally alone in their room Kevin opened the glass doors and stepped out onto a wide stone balcony. The moon, waning, was high overhead, bright enough to illuminate the shrubs and the few flowers below their room.

  “Not much of a garden,” he commented, as Paul came out to join him.

  “There’s been no rain, Diarmuid said.”

  “That’s true.” There was silence. A light breeze had finally come up to cool the evening.

  “Have you noticed the moon?” Paul asked, leaning on the parapet.

  Kevin nodded. “Larger, you mean? Yes, I did. Wonder what effect that has?”

  “Higher tides, most likely.”

  “I guess. And more werewolves.”

  Schafer gave him a wry look. “I wouldn’t be surprised. Tell me, what did you think about that business back there?”

  “Well, Loren and Diarmuid seem to be on the same side.”

  “It looks that way. Matt’s not very sure of him.”

  “Somehow that doesn’t surprise me.”

  “Really. What about Gorlaes? He was pretty quick to call in the marines. Was he just following orders, or—”

  “Not a chance, Paul. I saw his face when Diarmuid made us guest-friends. Not happy, my friend.”

  “Really?” Schafer said. “Well, that simplifies things at least. I’d like to know more about this Jaelle, though. And Diarmuid’s brother, too.”

  “The nameless one?” Kevin intoned lugubriously. “He of no name?”

  Schafer snorted. “Funny man. Yes, him.”

  “We’ll figure it out. We’ve figured things out before.”

  “I know,” said Paul Schafer, and after a moment gave a rare smile.

  “Oh, Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou, Romeo?” came a plaintive cry from off to their left. They looked over. Kim Ford, languishing for all she was worth, swayed towards them from the next balcony. The leap was about ten feet.

  “I’m coming!” Kevin responded instantly. He rushed to the edge of their own balcony.

  “Oh, fly to me!” Kimberly trilled. Jennifer, behind her, began almost reluctantly to laugh.

  “I’m coming!” Kevin repeated, ostentatiously limbering up. “You two all right there?” he asked, in mid-flex. “Been ravished yet?”

  “Not a chance,” Kim lamented. “Can’t find anyone who’s man enough to j
ump to our balcony.”

  Kevin laughed. “I’d have to do it pretty fast,” he said, “to get there before the Prince.”

  “I don’t know,” Jennifer Lowell said, “if anyone can move faster than that guy.”

  Paul Schafer, hearing the banter begin, and the laughter of the two women, moved to the far end of the balcony. He knew, very well, that the frivolity was only a release from tension, but it wasn’t something to which he had access any more. Resting his own ring-less, fine-boned hands on the railing, he gazed out and down at the denuded garden below. He stood there, looking about him, but not really seeing: the inner landscape demanded its due.

  Even had Schafer been carefully scanning the shadows, though, it is unlikely that he would have discerned the dark creature that crouched behind a clump of stunted shrubs, watching him. The desire to kill was strong upon it, and Paul had moved to within easy range of the poison darts it carried. He might have died then.

  But fear mastered bloodlust in the figure below. It had been ordered to observe, and to report, but not to kill.

  So Paul lived, observed, oblivious, and after a time he drew a long breath and lifted his eyes from sightless fixation on the shadows below.

  To see a thing none of the others saw.

  High on the stone outer wall enclosing the garden stood an enormous grey dog, or a wolf, and it was looking at him across the moonlit space between, with eyes that were not those of a wolf or a dog, and in which lay a sadness deeper and older than anything Paul had ever seen or known. From the top of the wall the creature stared at him the way animals are not supposed to be able to do. And it called him. The pull was unmistakable, imperative, terrifying. Looming in night shadow it reached out for him, the eyes, unnaturally distinct, boring into his own. Paul touched and then twisted his mind away from a well of sorrow so deep he feared it could drown him. Whatever stood on the wall had endured and was still enduring a loss that spanned the worlds. It dwarfed him, appalled him.

  And it was calling him. Sweat cold on his skin in the summer night, Paul Schafer knew that this was one of the things caught up in the chaotic vision Loren’s searching had given him.

  With an effort brutally physical, he broke away. When he turned his head, he felt the motion like a twist in his heart.

  “Kev,” he managed to gasp, the voice eerie in his own head.

  “What is it?” His friend’s response was instant.

  “Over there. On the wall. Do you see anything?” Paul pointed, but did not look back.

  “What? There’s nothing. What did you see?”

  “Not sure.” He was breathing hard. “Something. Maybe a dog.”

  “And?”

  “And it wants me,” Paul Schafer said.

  Kevin, stunned, was silent. They stood a moment like that, looking at each other, not sharing, then Schafer turned and went inside. Kevin stayed a while longer, to reassure the others, then went in himself. Paul had taken the smaller of the two beds that had been hastily provided, and was lying on his back, hands behind his head.

  Wordlessly, Kevin undressed and went to bed. The moon slanted a thin beam of light into the far corner of the room, illuminating neither of them.

  Chapter 5

  All the night they had been gathering. Stern men from Ailell’s own birthplace in Rhoden, cheerful ones from high-walled Seresh by Saeren, mariners from Taerlindel, and soldiers from the fastness of North Keep, though not many of these because of the one who was exiled. From villages and dust-dry farms all over the High Kingdom they came as well. For days they had been trickling into Paras Derval, crowding the inns and hostels, spilling out into makeshift campgrounds beyond the last streets of the town below the palace. Some had come walking west from the once rich lands by the River Glein; leaning on the carved staffs of the southeast they had cut across the burnt-out desolation of the grain lands to join the dusty traffic on the Leinan Road. From the grazing lands and the dairy lands in the northeast others had come riding on the horses that were the legacy of their winter trading with the Dalrei by the banks of the Latham; and though their horses might be painfully gaunt, each mount yet bore the sumptuous woven saddle-cloth that every Brennin horseman crafted before he took a horse: a weaving for the Weaver’s gift of speed. From beyond Leinan they came as well, dour, dark farmers from Gwen Ystrat in their wide, six-wheeled carts. None of their women, though, not from so near Dun Maura in the province of the Mother.

  But from everywhere else the women and children had come in noisy, festive number. Even in the midst of drought and deprivation, the people of Brennin were gathering to pay homage to their King, and perhaps to briefly forget their troubles in doing so.

  Morning found them densely clustered in the square before the palace walls. Looking up they could see the great balustrade hung with banners and gaily coloured streamers, and most wonderful of all, the great tapestry of Iorweth in the Wood, brought forth for this one day that all the folk of Brennin might see their High King stand beneath the symbols of Mörnir and the Weaver both, in Paras Derval.

  But all was not consigned to high and sacred things. Around the fringes of the crowd moved jugglers and clowns, and performers doing glittering things with knives and swords and bright scarves. The cyngael chanted their ribald verses to pockets of laughing auditors, extemporizing satires for a fee upon whomever their benefactor designated; not a few revenges were thus effected in the clear, cutting words of the cyngael—immune since Colan’s day from any law save that of their own council. Amid the babble, pedlars carried their colourful goods about or erected hasty booths from which to display their craft in the sunlight. And then the noise, never less than a roar, became a thundering, for figures had appeared on the balustrade.

  The sound hit Kevin like a blow. He regarded the absence of sunglasses as a source of profound and comprehensive grief. Hung-over to incapacity, pale to the edge of green, he glanced over at Diarmuid and silently cursed the elegance of his figure. Turning to Kim—and the movement hurt like hell—he received a wry smile of commiseration, which salved his spirit even as it wounded his pride.

  It was already hot. The sunlight was painfully brilliant in a cloudless sky, and so, too, were the colours worn by the lords and ladies of Ailell’s court. The High King himself, to whom they’d not yet been presented, was further down the balcony, hidden behind the intervening courtiers. Kevin closed his eyes, wishing it were possible to retreat into the shade, instead of standing up front to be seen … red Indians, indeed. Red-eyed Indians, anyhow. It was easier with his eyes closed. The fulsome voice of Gorlaes, orating the glittering achievements of Ailell’s reign, slid progressively into background. What the hell kind of wine did they make in this world, Kevin thought, too drained to be properly outraged.

  The knock had come an hour after they’d gone to bed. Neither of them had been asleep.

  “Careful,” said Paul, rising on one elbow. Kevin had swung upright and was pulling on his cords before moving to the door.

  “Yes?” he said, without touching the lock. “Who is it?”

  “Convivial night persons,” came an already familiar voice. “Open up. I’ve got to get Tegid out of the hallway.”

  Laughing, Kevin looked over his shoulder. Paul was up and half dressed already. Kevin opened the door and Diarmuid entered quickly, flourishing two flasks of wine, one of them already unstoppered. Into the room behind him, also carrying wine, came Coll and the preposterous Tegid, followed by two other men bearing an assortment of clothing.

  “For tomorrow,” the Prince said in response to Kevin’s quizzical look at the last pair. “I promised I’d take care of you.” He tossed over one of the wine flasks, and smiled.

  “Very kind of you,” Kevin replied, catching it. He raised the flask in the way he’d learned in Spain, years before, to shoot a dark jet of wine down his throat. He flipped the leather flask over to Paul who drank, wordlessly.

  “Ah!” exclaimed Tegid, as he eased himself onto a long bench. “I’m dry as Jaelle’s
heart. To the King!” he cried, raising his own flask, “and to his glorious heir, Prince Diarmuid, and to our noble and distinguished guests, and to …” The rest of the peroration was lost in the sound of wine voluminously pouring into his mouth. At length the flow ceased. Tegid surfaced, belched, and looked around. “I’ve a mighty thirst in me tonight,” he explained unnecessarily.

  Paul addressed the Prince casually. “If you’re in a party mood, aren’t you in the wrong bedroom?”

  Diarmuid’s smile was rueful. “Don’t assume you were a first choice,” he murmured. “Your charming companions accepted their dresses for tomorrow, but nothing more, I’m afraid. The small one, Kim”—he shook his head—”has a tongue in her.”

  “My condolences,” said Kevin, delighted. “I’ve been on the receiving end a few times.”

  “Then,” said Diarmuid dan Ailell, “let us drink in joint commiseration.” The Prince set the tone by commencing to relate what he characterized as essential information: a wittily obscene description of the various court ladies they were likely to meet. A description that reflected an extreme awareness of their private as well as public natures.

  Tegid and Coll stayed; the other two men left after a time, to be replaced by a different pair with fresh wine flasks. Eventually these two departed as well. The two men who succeeded them, however, were not smiling as they entered.

  “What is it, Carde?” Coll asked the fair-haired one.

  The man addressed cleared his throat. Diarmuid, sprawled in a deep chair by the window, turned at the sound.

  Carde’s voice was very soft. “Something strange. My lord, I thought you should know right away. There’s a dead svart alfar in the garden below this window.”

  Through the wine-induced haze descending upon him, Kevin saw Diarmuid swing to his feet.

  “Brightly woven,” the Prince said. “Which of you killed it?”

  Carde’s voice dropped to a whisper. “That’s just it, my lord. Erron found it dead. Its throat was … ripped apart, my lord. Erron thinks … he thinks it was done by a wolf, though … with respect, my lord, I don’t ever want to meet what killed that creature.”