Guy Kay - The Summer Tree

From where he stood by the window, Paul could hear a different bird now lifting its voice in song. He supposed it must be getting close to dawn, but they were on the west side of the palace and the sky was still dark. He wondered if the King had completely forgotten his presence. At length, however, Ailell drew a tired breath and, laying the scepter down by the gameboard, moved slowly to stand by Paul, gazing out the window. From where they stood, Paul could see the land fall away westward, and far in the distance rose the trees of a forest, a greater darkness against the dark of the night.

“Leave me, friend Pwyll,” Ailell said at length, not unkindly. “I am weary now, and will be best by myself. Weary,” he repeated, “and old. If there truly is some power of Darkness walking the land I can do nothing about it tonight unless I die. And truly, I do not want to die, on the Tree or otherwise. If this is my failing, then so it must be.” His eyes were distant and sad as he gazed out the window towards the woods far off.

Paul cleared his throat awkwardly. “I don’t think that wanting to live can be a failing.” The words rasped from too long a silence; a difficult emotion was waiting within him.

Ailell smiled at that, but with his mouth only, and he continued to look out at the darkness. “For a king it may be, Pwyll. The price, remember?” He went on in a different voice, “Some blessings I have had. You heard Ysanne in the hall this morning. She said she had loved me. I never knew that. I don’t think,” the King mused softly, turning at last to look at Paul, “that I will tell that part to Marrien, the Queen.”

Paul let himself out of the room, after bowing with all the respect he had. There was a queer constriction in his throat. Marrien, the Queen. He shook his head, and took an uncertain step along the corridor. A long shadow detached itself from the wall nearby.

“Do you know the way?” Coll asked.

“Not really, no,” Paul said. “I guess I don’t.”

They passed through the hallways of the palace, their footsteps echoing. Beyond the walls, dawn was just breaking in the east over Gwen Ystrat. It was dark still in the palace, though.

Outside his doorway Paul turned to Diarmuid’s man. “Coll,” he asked, “what’s the Tree?”

The burly soldier froze. After a moment a hand went up to rub the broad hook of his broken nose. They had stopped walking; Paras Derval lay wrapped in silence. For a moment Paul thought his question would not be answered, but then Coll did speak, his voice pitched low.

“The Summer Tree?” he said. “It’s in the wood west of the town. Sacred it is, to Mörnir of the Thunder.”

“Why is it important?”

“Because,” said Coll, lower yet, “that’s where the God would summon the High King in the old days, when the land had need.”

“Summon him for what?”

“To hang on the Summer Tree and die,” said Coll succinctly. “I’ve said too much already. Your friend is with the Lady Rheva tonight, I believe. I’ll be back to wake you in a little while; we’ve got a long ride today.” And he spun on his heel to walk off.

“Coll!”

The big man turned, slowly.

“Is it always the King who hangs?”

Coll’s broad, sunburnt face was etched with apprehension. The answer, when it came, seemed almost to be against his will. “Princes of the blood have been known to do it instead.”

“Which explains Diarmuid last night. Coll, I really don’t want to get you in trouble—but if I were to make a guess at what happened here, I’d guess that Ailell was called because of this drought, or maybe there’s a drought because he hasn’t gone, and I’d guess he is terrified of the whole thing, and Loren backs him because he doesn’t trust whatever happens on the Summer Tree.” After a moment Coll nodded stiffly, and Schafer continued.

“Then I’d go on to guess, and this is really a guess, that Diarmuid’s brother wanted to do it for the King, and Ailell forbade him—which is why he’s gone and Diarmuid is heir. Would that be a good guess?”

Coll had come very close as Schafer was speaking. He searched Paul’s eyes with his own honest brown ones. Then he shook his head, a kind of awe written into his features.

“This is deeper than I can go. It would be,” he said, “a very good guess. The High King must consent to his surrogate, and when he refused, the Prince cursed him, which is treason, and was exiled. It is now death to speak his name.”

In the silence that followed it seemed to Paul as if the whole weight of the night was pressing down upon the two of them.

“There is no power in me,” Coll said then, in his deep voice, “but if there was, I would have him cursed in the name of all the gods and goddesses there are.”

“Who?” Paul whispered.

“Why, the Prince, of course,” said Coll. “The exiled Prince, Diarmuid’s brother, Aileron.”

Beyond the palace gates and the walls of the town, the depredations of drought came home. The impact of a rainless summer could be measured in the heavy dust of the road, in the thin grass peeling like brown paint on hills and tummocks, in stunted trees and dried-up village wells. In the fiftieth year of Ailell’s reign, the High Kingdom was suffering as no living man could remember.

For Kevin and Paul, riding south with Diarmuid and seven of his men in the morning, the way of things registered most brutally in the pinched, bitter features of the farmers they passed on the road. Already the heat of the sun was casting a shimmer of mirage on the landscape. There were no clouds in the sky.

Diarmuid was setting a hard pace, though, and Kevin, who was no horseman and who’d had a sleepless night, was exceedingly happy when they pulled up outside a tavern in the fourth village they came to.

They took a hasty meal of cold, sharply spiced meat, bread, and cheese, with pints of black ale to wash away the throat-clogging dust of the road. Kevin, eating voraciously, saw Diarmuid speak briefly to Carde, who quietly sought the innkeeper and withdrew into another room with him. Noticing Kevin’s glance, the Prince walked over to the long wooden table where he and Paul were sitting with the lean, dark man named Erron.

“We’re checking for your friend,” Diarmuid told them. “It’s one of the reasons we’re doing this. Loren went north to do the same, and I’ve sent word to the coast.”

“Who’s with the women?” Paul Schafer asked quickly.

Diarmuid smiled. “Trust me,” he said. “I do know what I’m doing. There are guards, and Matt stayed in the palace, too.”

“Loren went without him?” Paul queried sharply. “How…?”

Diarmuid’s expression was even more amused. “Even without magic our friend can handle himself. He has a sword, and knows how to use it. You worry a good deal, don’t you?”

“Does it surprise you?” Kevin cut in. “We don’t know where we are, we don’t know the rules here, Dave’s gone missing, God knows where—and we don’t even know where we’re going with you now.”

“That last,” said Diarmuid, “is easy enough. We’re crossing the river into Cathal, if we can. By night, and quietly, because there’s a very good chance we’ll be killed if found.”

“I see,” said Kevin, swallowing. “And are we allowed to know why we are subjecting ourselves to that unpleasant possibility?”

For the first time that morning Diarmuid’s smile flashed full-force. “Of course you are,” he said kindly. “You’re going to help me seduce a lady. Tell me, Carde,” he murmured, turning, “any news?”

There was none. The Prince drained his pint and was striding out the door. The others scrambled to their feet and followed. A number of the villagers came out of the inn to watch them ride off.