The queen said, “Nesti is beginning to understand the reality of our situation, poor lad, for he’s wise beyond his years. Yet how I wish his childhood could be as carefree as mine was—and yours.”
Honigalus sighed. “It was a simpler age. All we can do is pray that by the time he wears the crown, the old enmities will be forgotten and he will have won the love of his subjects.”
“You have long years ahead of you to accomplish the same thing,” Bryse said gently. “Your reign has only just begun.”
In spite of the day’s warmth, the king felt a sudden chill, but shrugged away the portent with a defiant smile and rose to his feet. “Ah! Look down there on deck—Captain Peel has come to supervise the helm as we breast the rapids. I think I’ll have a word with him. Shall I summon a few of your ladies to keep you company here?”
“Nay,” said the queen. “I’ll join them and our daughter in the grand saloon. My presence will have a calming effect on the fainter of heart. It would be a pity if dear little Casya should be frightened by the hysterics of a few silly women. She’s a brave girl, but some of my younger ladies are as timid as sheep-—and you know how infectious fear can be—even when there’s no good reason for it.”
Prince Bartus knew enough to stay out of the way of the boatmen while they attended to their duties, so he had climbed into the pulpit just behind the bowsprit, where he amused himself by tossing leftover bits of bread roll into the water, pretending they were men overboard and seeing how long it took them to drown or be devoured by some hungry fish.
Then the big thing had come swimming along and finished off the last victim, and he’d pointed it out excitedly to the men and asked what it might be.
“A water-kelpie, I reckon,” said the sailor named Zedvinus, winking at his mate, while the two of them checked the headstay. “My great-great-grandad got dragged off the deck of his lugger by one when he was fishing by Tallhedge. Terrible monsters, they be—ain’t that right, Dagio? Bite a man clean in half.”
“Oh, aye,” muttered the other man, not bothering to glance over the side. “Fearsome critters, water-kelpies. You want to be careful when they’re about, Prince Bart.”
“Really?” The five-year-old prince’s eyes were wide with interest, but the sailors had failed in their attempt to frighten him.
“All deckhands to the mainsheet!” cried an authoritative voice. “Double-man the sweeps! Coxswain, beat to cadence! Secure the waist ports and stow all loose gear!”
The two sailors started aft. As Zedvinus passed the Crown Prince, who was just coming onto the foredeck, he said, “Keep a weather eye on your little brother as we go into the Whitewater, Prince Nesti. Best if you crowd into the pulpit with him and lash the pair of you to the rail so you don’t bounce around.”
The prince said, “Thank you for your advice.” The small enclosed platform would provide cramped accommodation for two full-grown men, but there was room to spare for a couple of small boys.
“I don’t want to be tied in like a baby,” Bartus growled, as his brother joined him. “I’m not afraid. And I’ll hang on tight.” He brightened. “I saw a water-kelpie out there in the water. It’s been swimming right beside the barge ever since we went under the big bridge.”
“Kelpies are fairy-tale creatures,” Onestus scoffed.
“Zedvinus and Dagio say they’re real,” the little boy insisted. “And I saw it myself. It was huge.”
“It’s probably just an old tiger salmon,” Prince Onestus said. “They can weigh seven stone.”
Bartus pointed. “Here it comes again. Look!”
At first the older boy saw nothing because of the reflection of light on the river’s surface. Then, to his surprise, he caught sight of a great dark shadow, only a couple of ells away from the barge’s cutwater and swimming a parallel course. The thing was shaped something like a bull sea-lion, but appeared to be nearly three times the size of the marine mammals common in Didion Bay. Its head was broader and more rounded, too, and while the body was indistinct, Onestus thought he saw some sort of paddlelike appendages or elongated flukes at its hind end that propelled it along at a smart pace.
“Codders!” the Crown Prince breathed, awestruck. “I see it, too! But that’s no kelpie. Maybe it’s a young whale. Sometimes they come up rivers by mistake. The fresh water’s bad for them and they can’t find the right food, so they get sick and die.”
“That one doesn’t look sick,” Bartus said. “And it doesn’t look like a whale. I think it wants to race.”
“No, he’s gone under the barge.” Onestus was disappointed. “Crumbs! I wish I could’ve got a better look at him.”
“Look at what?” asked an interested male voice behind the boys.
They turned and saw their father the king standing on the foredeck. “Papa!” Bartus exclaimed. “A water-kelpie was right beside us!”
“Probably a whale, sire,” Onestus said loftily. “Something large.”
Honigalus glanced over the side. “Nothing there now. Was it white or grey? Did it have a long horn at its snout like a sea unicorn?”
“It was greeny-black,” Onestus said. “More than three ells long. Almost like a monster sea-lion, but without the pointed nose.”
The king’s brow furrowed in puzzlement. “Whales and sea-lions aren’t green. Very few large sea creatures are.” Except one, he thought. But that was impossible. None of them had been seen in the rivers of Didion since the country was first settled, some nine hundred years ago… “It was probably a whale, just as you thought. And the greenish color was just a trick of the light, reflecting off weeds in the water.”
Onestus was gazing at the shore. “The other boats going upriver are tying up at the jetties. We must be getting close to the rapids.”
“Will we tie up, too, Papa?” Bartus asked.
“No,” the king said. “Ordinarily, only a few boats are allowed to breast the rapids at a time. For safety’s sake, they take turns. But our royal barge has precedence. That means we can go on without waiting.”
Honigalus climbed into the pulpit with his sons. Since it was Bartus’s first time up, after having spent the previous voyages in the cabin with the women, the king planted himself firmly behind the little boy, leaving Onestus well braced at his side, with one arm locked nonchalantly about a stanchion.
“I see Boarsden Castle on its hill,” the Crown Prince said. “And here come the rapids!”
One of the royal trumpeters sounded three long warning notes. The coxswain began to beat his drum, so that the sweep of the oars might be perfectly coordinated, and the lookouts assumed their positions fore and aft.
“Whitewater ho!” cried the first mate, and a moment later the barge carrying the royal family of Didion began its cautious ascent of the foaming, rock-choked waters.
Cray the Green Woman showed Somarus the near-invisible path that led from the highroad, along the reedy eastern bank of Boar Creek, to the dike track.
“But there’s a better place to watch boats in the rapids further upstream,” Somarus protested. “We used to go there often as children, when my mother visited her relatives at the castle.”
“Other persons have got there ahead of you,” Cray said. “And the backcurrents in that place don’t suit my purposes.”
“Your purposes?” The prince reined up and turned to regard her. “The time has come to tell me just what those purposes are.”
“No,” she said simply.
“Damn you!” roared the prince. “I’ll know sooner or later.”
“Let it be later,” the small woman said. “And I advise you to ride on without delay, lest both of us come too late to view the dire event we’ve traveled so far to see.”
So they continued as swiftly as they could, and now and then a horse bogged down and had to be pulled to firm ground, but none came to serious harm. By now, all of the prince’s party had a good idea what was about to happen. The knights murmured among themselves and made coarse jokes to cover their nervousness
and rising excitement, while Somarus and Baron Cuva rode on in preoccupied silence. A dirty brownish haze thickened in the western sky, turning the sun orange and casting odd-colored shadows over the stands of reedmace, bulrush, and spikegrass that lined the creek. Some small birds began to sing, as though dusk were falling or a storm were on the way. Far away, three horn notes sounded.
“The barge enters the rapids,” Cray said to Tesk, speaking so low that none other could hear. “It has begun.”
The wizard bobbed his head, licked his overlarge lips, wiped his leaking eyes on his sleeve, and said. “Strange-looking sky.”
“There are wildfires in the Elderwold, below the Lake of Shadows,” Cray said. “They were not extensive when I came to your camp, but they’ll spread until a hard rain beats them out.”
“So you came from Lake of Shadows?” Tesk asked her. “Do your people dwell there? Oh, I hope they’re not imperiled by the flames!”
“Thank you for your concern,” she said, smiling, “but my home lies elsewhere, and glad I’ll be to return to it. I’m not a body who likes to travel. As the saying goes, ‘East, west, home’s best.’”
Her eyes were like emeralds, Tesk realized, and her hair gleamed like white gold. No wonder her kind had bewitched men in days gone by! “When will you be able to go back?”
Cray looked straight ahead. “Soon, when I have that which I came for.”
“Mistress Cray,” the wizard said eagerly, “if there is aught I can do to help you, please ask.”
She tilted her head and pursed her lips, but her frown was not unkind. “And why should a human—and a magicker attending a future king at that— wish to assist one such as I?”
The plain-faced little wizard flushed. “I—I admire your courage, coming so far to fulfil a duty laid upon you by another. And you are very beautiful.”
She gave a soft peal of laughter, reached out, and touched his sleeve. “Beware, Tesk! Many a human male has fallen into the thrall of Green Women, to his doom.”
“You make fun of me. Yet some eldsire of mine must have indeed loved one of you, to have engendered a wizard like me. I ask nothing of you, mistress. But if your appointed task is hard, I stand ready to give you aid.”
“Can you swim?” she asked him, bringing her mount closer. “Running water is inimical to my people. Indeed, some of us are loath even to cross a stream on a bridge, although I am not quite so constrained. This thing I must do could take me into the river, and I confess to dreading it. If a friend were to stand by me—”
“I will,” he declared. “And I swim like a fish.”
“Then stay close, for in a little while I’ll disappear from the sight of this company, and if you would help me, you must vanish as well.”
“Ahead of us!” Baron Cuva called out. “The dike—and the bridge across Boar Creek.” He urged his mount forward, with the prince following, and the knights who rode behind Cray and Tesk were so eager to stay with their masters that they splashed into the creek shallows so they could pass by the Green Woman and the wizard.
The two of them straggled up to the dike track at last, where the others were already dismounted and scanning the turbulent river downstream in search of the approaching barge, the knights shouting to one another in order to be heard above the loud noise of the water. The Malle was almost a quarter of a league wide in this place, and made a slight bend below the creek, where willow and alder thickets obscured the view. Finally a tall red-and-gold-striped sail hove into sight from behind the trees. Then they saw the royal barge with its flashing oars, fighting against the current, constantly altering course to avoid the perilous places where great dark rocks thrust up from the white pother.
Prince Somarus had pulled a little spyglass from his belt pouch and used it to search the boat and the waters surrounding it. “By the Great Starry Goblet— Honigalus and his two sons are perched right above the boat’s prow!” He thrust the slender brass tube at the baron. “Have a look, Cuva.”
“I see them,” the dour nobleman said. “Nothing unusual out on the water yet. But perhaps the ambushers will wait to spring the trap until the barge is above the eddy. If I were running the show, that’s what I’d do.” He lowered the instrument and handed it back to Somarus. “Do the most damage with the least effort expended. Classic tactics.”
Somarus lifted the glass again. “Then we’ve got a bit longer to wait. The eddy’s rather hard to see from here. It lies a bit to our left, just upstream from the worst of the rocks. The river deepens suddenly at that point, and it’s skipper beware! Just when you think you’re free and clear of the rapids, the whorl takes hold and flings you about like a berry basket in a riptide. Of course, experienced river pilots skirt the thing easily enough. It mostly takes small craft coming downstream who happen on it unexpectedly.”
He swung the glass away from the boat and searched the river’s opposite shore.
“What are you looking for, Highness?” Cuva asked.
“A certain sorcerer,” the prince replied grimly, “on whom all my hopes ride. I’m certain he’s out there somewhere, but I don’t think I’ll find him.”
Chapter Seventeen
As the three notes of the trumpet sounded the alert for approaching white water, Queen Bryse took the drowsy baby girl from her breast and handed her over to the nursemaid. “Casya should be quiet enough now. Go sit with her in the forward part of the saloon, where you can get fair warning of bumps and bounces. And hold her in your arms as we go through the rapids, rather than putting her in her cradle. I want her to feel comforting arms about her in case my ladies become affrighted and start a commotion.“
“Yes, Your Majesty.” The maid Dala wore a superior smile. She herself was afraid of very few things now that horrible old King Achardus was dead, and no longer able to threaten her with skinning alive and boiling in oil if she should shirk her duties towards the royal offspring. She took Princess Casabarela from the queen, wiped the baby’s tiny mouth, and patted her back to raise a bit of wind. “That’s a good little madam! Now let’s find a cozy place up front.”
The saloon was a very large cabin, gorgeously appointed with gilded woodwork, damask draperies, and the finest Incayo carpets, raised above the main-deck and situated just behind the stout mast of the barge. Used variously as a sitting, dining, and presence chamber during the progress, it had glazed casement windows all around to provide the best possible view of the passing scene. These were now firmly shut in anticipation of water being shipped aboard, and the external galleries on either side, which allowed the passengers to stand in the fresh air and watch the laboring oarsmen below, were deserted. Most of the queen’s highborn attendants had gathered in the stern of the saloon, where heavy curtains had been drawn to shield delicate eyes from the sight of the tempestuous river. Shrill exclamations and giggles attested to the ladies’ strained nerves, and pages were kept busy passing out scented pomanders, handkerchiefs, and flagons of witch-hazel rosewater to those who already felt faint. A few of the women sipped wine or spirits from lidded drinking vessels. A stack of silver basins stood ready in a corner to accommodate the queasy.
Dala settled herself and baby Casya in a big, cushioned chair facing forward, where she could see not only the expanse of rapids but also King Honigalus and his two sons, perched bravely above the bowsprit in their small, railed platform. Behind her, the court musicians began to play, but after a few minutes the soothing melody was almost drowned out by the growing roar and hiss of the water. To relieve the tension, Queen Bryse commanded all the ladies to sing with her, leading them in a clear soprano through the many long verses of “The Blossom Moon Song.”
Rosebud, spring rosebud, tight and green,
No soft, fragrant rose petals e’er to be seen;
When will you open wide to me?
When shall I my true love see?
In Blossom Moon, in Blossom Moon, it will surely be.
Dala hummed along, rocking Casya gently, and the baby slept even as the barge b
egan to rear and plunge like a rampaging living thing. The noise of rushing water swelled to thunder. Some of the women’s voices faltered, but none of them dared to wail or weep so long as the queen kept singing; and this she did, keeping her back turned resolutely away from the tumult outside. The barge surged on, expertly steered by its skipper and powered by the muscles of the forty valiant oarsmen, evading boulders and monstrous standing waves, skirting each rocky patch and climbing the foaming chutes like a huge homing salmon.
As the last verse of the song began, with only Queen Bryse and two of the bravest ladies still singing, a faint huzza came from the men on deck outside. Dala saw that the Whitewater was ending. Only the eddy, a broad, swift-spinning gyre of foam and floating debris some twenty ells in diameter, now blocked their way. The skipper steered far towards the heavily wooded right bank to take them safely around it, then guided the barge proudly up the deceptively glassy-looking center of the Malle, where the current ran swift and the waters were dark and deep.
The queen’s song ended and the relieved women clapped and cried out for joy. The cheering of the deckhands intensified and was augmented by glad shouts from male courtiers swarming out of the sterncastle and racing forward to call out congratulations to King Honigalus and the two princes for having held steadfast throughout the passage.
“Well,” said Duke Ranwing Boarsden to the Archwizard Fring, “that was mildly exhilarating to watch, but hardly the momentous spectacle you hinted at when you convinced us to ride out here. Just what did you think was going to happen, wizard?”
Fring’s brow was spangled with sweat and his jaws clenched tightly together. His gaze was fixed not on the barge but on the smooth expanse of river just ahead of it, where his talent perceived something moving just beneath the water. In the bow pulpit, little Prince Bartus seemed to see something as well. He pointed at it and gave a high-pitched scream as loud and penetrating as the cry of an eagle.