She wondered if marrying a stranger was to be the consequences of her act of magic. If so, it was perhaps a small price to pay for saving Flan’s poor head from the sword. Yet this knight in black armor seemed so strong, so good, so understanding, so wise. And it mattered not at all that he was a shadow, for she knew that the old meaning of the word meant “protection.” They still said in Solatia that if a man were in the king’s shadow, he was well cared for. And protection was what she most desired now. Too, she could not help feeling, under her fear, excited and even happy by the prospect of wedding such a man. For never in all of Solatia had a woman ever had such a groom. She wondered if a happy wedding could be considered “consequences.”
“What nonsense, Sianna,” she scolded herself, and looked in the mirror that was set in a large iridescent shell. “You fear where there is nothing to fear. You have saved your powers. You are to wed a noble man. You have not capitulated to that wicked king. Smile then, and go out and greet your knight.”
She quickly put her dress back on, pinched her cheeks to coax the color back into them, and braided purple and red anemones through her hair.
Then she walked outside where the first evening star shone down on her and her groom.
8. Blaggard’s Men
ALMOST EVERYONE IN SOLATIA, neighbors and friends, fisherfolk and farmers, craftsmen and kingsmen, came to the wedding. They crowded into the king’s chapel and joined in the wedding feast. But Blaggard did not come, neither to the wedding nor to the feast nor to the wedding dance that would last until the dawn.
Instead, he sent a minister to bid the guests depart early, against all Solatian custom. Then he called his counselors to him.
“This Sianna must be mine,” he said, though he did not tell them why. For to tell them was to halve his power; to show them the extent of his need could rob him of his rule.
“She will not long be happy with a hollow man,” said one minister.
“Remove his armor, which is all that holds him together,” said another, “and he will be blown away by a passing breeze.”
“Then he will drift off like smoke and leave her before morn,” said the third.
Whether they believed what they said did not matter, for they were used to telling Blaggard precisely what they felt he wanted to hear.
“My exact thoughts,” said the king. “And since he must remove his armor to retire, we shall remove it for him for good while he sleeps.”
And they all laughed.
So when all else in the kingdom was asleep, and even the village crier had gone to his rest, the king sent his three strongest guards to remove the armor from the chamber. This they did and reported that Sianna had slept soundly throughout.
“And was there a man by her side?” asked the king.
“My lord, there was nought but a hollow in the bed where her husband ought to have been,” the one called Rolan replied.
Blaggard smiled slyly to himself.
But on the morrow, when Sianna moved about the castle with a bloom in her cheeks, talking and laughing with the shadows that danced around the sunlight, Blaggard was annoyed. By noon, as the girl spoke softly to sunbeams and conversed with empty corners, he was angry. And by evening, when Sianna looked to be as content as any new bride, Blaggard could scarce contain himself.
“Woman,” he bellowed, “you talk to phantoms. You speak to shades. I hear nothing. Therefore there is nothing to hear.”
“My lord,” she said softly, and the very softness of her words was a threat. “You sought to remove my knight from my life as easily as you removed his armor, but it is not done so easily as that.”
“I have removed him,” said Blaggard. “There is nothing there. You mock me, woman. I shall not be mocked.”
“Nay, my lord. I mock no one. You heard him before because you thought he was a man. I hear him now because I know he is one.”
Blaggard could give no answer. And so Sianna continued, “But give us leave to return to my father’s house, and we will trouble you no more.”
“Never!” said Blaggard. For he knew that even though he was not himself wed to Sianna, his magic could still overpower hers as their lives touched day by day. Besides, he had decided upon a new course of action, and he needed Sianna and her shadow man in the castle in order to carry it out.
“You shall remain here with your hollow groom,” he said. “You shall remain until I command otherwise.” He said it slowly and deliberately, his fingers playing silent tunes on the bone flute.
“It is you, my lord, who are hollow. For hatred and fear eat up the insides of a man and leave nought but a hollow shell.”
“Out of my sight, woman!” he shouted. And so great was his wrath he might have struck her, but he feared the silence of the shadows beside her and the magic that she herself contained. So he turned quickly and strode away.
But that night, when all was quiet again in the castle, Blaggard called his three guards to him. “Tonight we shall see what it is Sianna sees,” he said. “I had a potion placed in her dinner wine. She shall not wake until morn. Go you to their chamber, and where the hollow lies by her side, toss a bucket of colored water. When you see the outline of this man, strike for his heart. Strike quick, strike true, and you shall be well rewarded.”
Then the king paid each man the gold coin which kept them in his service, and went to his own chamber to slumber deeply until dawn.
9. The Two Attempts
IN THE MORNING, THE three guards returned to Blaggard. Their hair was disheveled and their clothing torn. There was fear in their eyes.
“Your Majesty, we did as we were told,” reported Rolan. “Past the hour of one, we crept upon their chamber with a bucket of blood-red water. The woman slept as still as death. And by her side was a deep hollow as if some creature lay there. We tossed the water and a form did indeed take place. But it was no man, my lord.”
“No man?” asked Blaggard.
The second guard, Andel, broke in. “It was a mer-creature, a giant fish, a veritable whale.”
“A whale,” said Blaggard. He began to smile. “A whale!”
“Yes, sire,” said the third guard, Bran. “And it so pitched and tossed and leaped about, and blew hot air and cold breath upon us, that we were near to fainting. And when we tried to spear it as you commanded, it broke our swords in two with its terrible teeth.”
“And like to break us, too,” put in Rolan.
“We barely escaped to tell you,” they all three said together.
“A whale!” said Blaggard, and he showed his teeth with such a laugh that the three guards stood amazed. Then they too saw the humor in it and, for the sake of the gold coins they hoped to collect, joined in the laughter.
Blaggard was suddenly calm, but the three guards were caught in their laughs and their mouths shut quickly and they hiccoughed.
“Tell my ministers,” said Blaggard, “that they are to call Sianna a ‘fishwife’ today.”
Quickly the word was spread. And when Sianna arose at last from her drugged sleep and moved about the castle, she heard ministers as well as scullery maids calling her a fishwife. But she held her head high and gave them each such a sweet smile in return that even the bravest amongst them stopped at once and smiled back.
When Blaggard heard this, he was angered anew. He called the three guards to him again and told them that they would have to creep into the chamber once more that very night.
“But the whale, sire,” said Rolan.
Blaggard did not tell them that the whale was but the result of magic. That the water had called to kind, and so the knight had seemed a whale. For in magic, fully a half is seeming. He did not tell them, because he did not want to share his knowledge with them, for he believed that sharing diminished his power. But he swore to them that there would be no fish this time.
“This time,” he said, striking his thigh with the bone flute, “you shall not throw water on the creature. This time carry with you a silken net.”
/> The following morn, the guards returned to the king. Rolan had a great gash in his leg. Andel was holding his arm. Bran had a blackened eye.
“Your Majesty, once more we did as you commanded. Past the hour of one we crept upon the two in their chamber with the net of silken weave. The woman slept in her deathlike sleep, and by her side was the hollow. And though it fair made our blood run ice in our veins to look upon that cursed hollow, we flung the net onto the bed. A form did take place, my lord. But it was no man. And no whale, either.”
“What, then?” asked Blaggard. “What form?”
Andel spoke in a harsh whisper. “It was a creature of the air, sire. A giant bird. A veritable gander.”
Blaggard laughed out loud. “Ha, ha! A gander!”
“Yes, sire,” said Bran. “And it rose up with its wings making broad strokes in the air. The great webs of its feet and the strong bill ripped the weave in a moment. It laid about with such great shrieks, I thought it would call in the whole castle. It fair broke Rolan’s leg and Andel’s arm. And near put out my eye.”
“A gander,” said Blaggard as if he had not heard the rest, or cared. He showed his teeth. The guards laughed with him then, in spite of their wounds, for when the king laughed it was always best to join in.
Again Blaggard quit at once and said, “Tell my ministers to spread the word. Sianna is but a ‘goosegirl’!”
And so the word was spread by morn. As Sianna went about the castle and out of doors and down to the village to visit with her father, she was mocked by friends who, though they might fear her, feared the king’s magic more.
“What does this mean, Father?” asked Sianna when she was alone with Sian.
Sian looked carefully about at the shadows as if to make sure the black knight did not lurk nearby. “Alas, they say you are married to no man at all but a giant bird. They say I will have no grandchildren but goslings that the king will cook and eat for dinner. They say…”
“Then they say foolishness,” said Sianna. “Dear Father, do not fear. For my husband is a man, though I do not know his name or his land. And though he was but a shining shadow at first, each day that I love him he becomes clearer in my eyes. He is tall and bearded, and black are his eyes and hair. There is a strange reticence about him. He will not speak of himself and has cautioned me not to question him. But for all his secrets, he is a good man. And I love him dear.”
“Then why do the people say all these things?” asked Sian.
“I do not know,” she replied. “Except that it be magic. And magic is mostly seeming. Perhaps he seems a bird to those who do not know him. Or perhaps the king would have it seem that way.”
“I do not understand this seeming,” said Sian, taking her hands in his. “Except that you seem content, and that is all that matters to me.” And he kissed her cheek.
Then he looked at his daughter sternly. “Still, if your man is as good as you say, he will tell you what all this seeming is about.”
Sianna looked down. “I dare not ask him anything about it,” she said. “It is the one condition he has laid upon me.”
“But then what is to be done?”
“I do not know that,” she replied. “But this I do know. For two nights I have lain as one dead and have not seen the stars. I fear that I have been made to sleep by a potion too powerful to resist. But tonight I shall wear this amulet upon my breast.” She showed the small stone to her father. “I have blessed it with words the seawitch taught me. It shall keep me awake, though I seem to sleep.”
“Then go with luck, my daughter,” Sian said.
“I will go with whatever is given me,” she replied.
10. The Power of the Flute
THE NIGHT CAME SWIFT and starless. The castle darkened and all within were held in the “little death,” for so the Solatians called sleep. Only in the king’s chamber were four men awake, Blaggard and the guards Bran, Andel, and Rolan.
The king played a languid piping on his flute, and the men listened as if caught in a spell.
Scarce the stroke of one had faded than the king nodded to the three. They got up from the seats where they had rested, reluctant and yet eager to be done with the night’s business. Only Blaggard himself seemed at ease.
“I shall accompany you this time and see that it is done well.”
Then, silent as shadows, they moved down the long, empty corridor to the wedding-chamber door.
The door creaked open, but the chamber was silent as a tomb. Sianna seemed as deep asleep as before, and only she knew that the amulet kept her awake.
The three guards crept to the great canopied bed in the center of the chamber. They stared down at the hollow that mocked their eyes. Blaggard entered behind them and stood by the side of the door, hidden by the shadows and wrapped in some strange dark magic.
“Now,” whispered Rolan, and the other two flung a sack of dirt they had carried up from the ground below.
As the dirt splattered upon the bed, Sianna drew in a quick breath, but in the tumult that followed it was never heard. For as soon as the dirt struck the hollow in the bed, a dark and bearded man, beautiful and fierce of body, took form. For the dust had called to dust, and he became fully man.
In a single leap, the black knight, the man of earth, leapt from the bed and laid about himself with such ferocity that Bran was thrown to the floor and Andel fled to the door. Only Rolan was left to defend himself with arms thrown above his head. Yet strange to tell, once the men had fled, the knight did not follow. He did not seek to press his advantage, but merely stood his ground.
Seeing this, the three guards wondered if they should charge again. Just as they were readying themselves, the king stepped forward from the door.
“Hold,” he called, and raised his flute to his lips. As if caught in a dream, all held still. The king began to blow into the flute. A song piped and snaked out of it, a band of dark music that twined round and round the room like a blind serpent seeking its prey. And then it found him, the black knight standing with his arms crossed before him on the marble floor. The dark ribbon of music wound round and round and bound him fast. And when he was fully bound, Blaggard took the flute from his lips and smiled. He walked over to the black knight and said, “Kneel.”
“I kneel to no man with a heart like yours,” said the knight. “I kneel only through love.”
“Then die,” said Blaggard, and raised his flute like a sword.
As he had taken the flute from his lips, Sianna was released from the music’s spell. She thought wildly that she must pluck the third button from her petticoat and wish upon it. But the petticoat was across the room and she could not get to it in time. All that was left was to take the blow upon her own head, and she scrambled from the bed. But she was not fast enough. For even as her foot touched the floor, Blaggard brought the bone flute down upon the knight’s head and it cut like a sword.
The castle rocked with an invisible blow. Sianna was thrown back upon the bed, the three guards upon the floor. And when the castle was quiet once more, the king was gone. Disappeared. And no one had remarked his leaving.
Rolan and Andel and Bran were weeping near the doorway, for reasons they could not quite say. Noises came from the hall as the castle folk woke to seek the answer to the shaking. Only Sianna was dry-eyed and still.
“Sianna, beloved,” came a cracked voice from the floor where no man could be seen.
She came off the bed and knelt by the side of a shimmer that began to fill the room with its light.
“Do not be sad,” said the voice. “I am returning to my own kingdom where I rule over all who have lived and will live again. It was but for the power of the button that I came at all.”
She looked down at the light that seemed at once so familiar and yet so strange to her. In the back of her mind she heard the three men weeping at their own loss. “Then I shall use the Magic Three and keep you here for good,” she said.
“Nay, for who knows what consequences that would
yet call forth,” the voice replied. “Besides, it is time for me to go.”
“Then take me with you,” Sianna replied.
“Nay, beloved, not yet. For you shall bear our son,” said the voice, becoming stronger as it faded. Or so it seemed to Sianna, though she could not think how this could be so.
“Our son,” she said in wonder, and then in hope: “How I do wish it.”
“And he shall be the one who shall avenge his father, though he must do it with no thought of vengeance but out of friendship and love,” the light said.
“Can such a thing be so?” Sianna asked, trying to hold the light in her hands and yet finding nothing to hold on to.
“It must be so,” the voice went on. “There is no other way, for vengeance destroys those who seek it. Do not teach our son of hatred and revenge. Teach him rather of friendship and love, and he will accomplish it all.”
Sianna felt the light dying as it grew brighter still.
“Call him after the first living thing you see at his birth,” said the voice.
Then with a giant bursting, like a dying sun, the light was gone. The dark was suddenly colder and deeper than any Sianna had ever known. Yet the memory of the light burned within her and kept her warm.
“Come,” she said to the three men as she stood.
They knelt to her first, then rose.
“We did not know, My Lady,” said Rolan haltingly. Andel and Bran were unable to speak at all.
“We know now,” she replied quietly. And they went down the corridor to seek out Blaggard the king.
11. And After
BUT BLAGGARD WAS NOT to be found. Not in the castle or in the village or on the Solatian shore. For days the dogs bayed and howled down the paths of the forest and out toward the New Mountains. After several weeks, the Solatians accepted that he was gone, taking naught but his magic flute and the robes that he had worn that night.
“Did he fear your vengeance, My Lady?” asked Rolan. Since that night he had become Sianna’s self-appointed protector.