Janny Wurts - The Curse of the Mistwraith

While the company looked on in awed silence, the sorcerer stripped the thorns and tucked the bloom into the steward’s fading hair. ‘Lady Maenalle,’ he said gravely. ‘After this I dare say you’ll need skirts for better occasions.’ He turned her gently, raised her hand toward the rider on the chestnut who sat his saddle like a man born to rule. ‘I give you Prince Lysaer s’Ilessid, scion of Halduin the First, and by blood-descent, your liege lord.’

Lysaer looked down at the steward his kingship would supplant, a woman who radiated command in her own right through every unconscious movement; unsure of his new-found status, he anticipated a reaction of enmity, resentment, even shock. But Maenalle’s hawk-bright eyes only looked stunned for a second before they filled with tears. Then she cried aloud for sheer joy, curtseyed without thought for slushy ground and gave up her hand for his kiss.

‘My royal lord,’ she murmured, looking suddenly fragile beneath the mantling weight of state finery.

Feeling dirty, reminded the instant he smelled her perfume that he reeked of woodsmoke and sweat, the prince set his lips against a palm welted with callouses like a swordsman’s. He mastered surprise at the steward’s mannish incongruities, overcame embarrassment, and belatedly applied himself to courtesy.

‘Your arrival is the light of our hope made real.’ Maenalle smiled brightly, turned, and shouted back to her escort of men-at-arms. ‘Did you hear? A s’Ilessid! A blood descendant of Halduin himself! Lysaer, Teir’s’Ilessid has returned to reclaim the throne of Tysan!’

A mighty shout met her words. Protocol was abandoned. Men leaped from the backs of their horses and closed in ecstatic excitement around the steward and their acknowledged prince.

‘You must forgive any disrespect, your Grace,’ Maenalle shouted over the tumult as Lysaer was swept from his saddle, embraced and pummelled roundly on the back by dozens of welcoming hands. ‘Five centuries was a very long time to wait for your coming and the times in between have been harsh.’

Too breathless to manage even banal reply, Lysaer struggled to recover equilibrium. Accustomed to royal propriety, and formal even with friends, the rough-cut camaraderie of Maenalle’s discipline bruised his dignity. Thrust unwarned into inheritance of a kingdom unknowably vast, he coped with no knowledge of precedence to lend him grace.

The whole-hearted abandonment of decorum permitted no opening for questions, not about the prince’s return from Dascen Elur, nor concerning the demeaning, mishandled raid in the Pass of Orlan. Tactfully reminded by the sorcerer that the storm had kept his party travelling through two nights with scanty sleep, Maenalle called her escort back to order. Quickly, efficiently, her outriders formed up into columns and set off to hustle their prince and all his company to the comforts of the clan lords’ west outpost.

While the needs of royal guests were attended to and tired horses led off to stabling, the crude plank door of the camp cabin appointed as the steward’s privy chamber clicked gently shut behind Maenalle. She had shed the magnificence of circlet and tabard. Shadowy in the fall of her black habit, her feathered hair pale as a halo around her face, she regarded the sorcerer who warmed himself by the hearth across a cramped expanse of bare floor. Although the room functioned as an office, it held neither pens nor parchments, nor any furnishing resembling a desk. A dry wine tun in one corner was stuffed with rolled parchment maps. Past an unsanded table, the only hanging to cut the drafts through ill-fitted board walls was a wolfpelt pegged up and stretched with rawhide.

‘You wished to speak to me,’ Asandir prodded gently.

Startled to discover she had been holding her breath, Maenalle clasped her hands by her hip where her sword hilt normally rested. ‘You can tell me now what you wouldn’t say in public.’

She had always had blistering courage; warmed by air that smelled of cedar and oiled leather, Asandir peeled back damp cuffs and chafed his wrists to restore circulation. When he faced her next, he was unsmiling. ‘If your people wish to celebrate, the festivities to honour their prince’s return must be brief. An outbreak of virulently poisonous meth-snakes has arisen in Mirthlvain. They derive from migrant stock, and if they spread in widespread numbers, our departure could be urgently swift.’

Still sharp from her interview with Grithen, Maenalle said, ‘Dakar already told me: you planned to travel on to Althain Tower in any case.’ She pushed away from the door panel, pulled a hide hassock from the fireside and perched with an irritable kick at the skirts that mired her ankles. ‘Distant troubles in Mirthlvain don’t explain your cagey choice of language.’

‘You’re asking to know if you can shed your office along with your tabard?’ Asandir’s sternness loosened into a smile. ‘The Seven have not yet formally sanctioned Lysaer’s accession to Tysan’s crown, that’s true. But not because the prince is unworthy.’

‘Well, thank Ath for that.’ Maenalle arose and walked the floorboards. Though she wore hard-soled boots for riding, her footfalls out of habit made no sound. ‘If I told the camp they couldn’t celebrate, I’d probably face an armed uprising.’

Moved by her leashed note of hope, Asandir spoke honestly and fast. ‘If Lysaer and his half-brother can successfully defeat the Mistwraith, you shall have your coronation as swiftly as injustices can be put right.’

‘Are the old records true?’ Maenalle seemed suddenly hard as sheathed steel as she propped her back against the chimney nook. ‘Was your colleague who barred South Gate against the mist’s first invasion left broken and lame by his act?’

‘Yes.’ Seeing tension quiver through her, Asandir arose, touched her elbow and gently urged her to take his chair. In contrast with her staunch strength, her bones felt fragile as a bird’s. ‘I’ll not give you platitudes. Desh-thiere is an unknown and dangerous adversary. Dakar’s prophecy promises its bane clearly enough. But no guarantee can be given that the half-brothers who shoulder the burden of its defeat will emerge from their trial unscathed. Lysaer’s official sanction for royal succession must be withheld until full sunlight is restored.’

Outside the nailed flap of hide that shuttered the window, boisterous calls and laughter set a dog yapping over the everyday screel of steel being ground on a sharpening wheel. Maenalle took a moment to recover the steadiness to trust her voice. ‘What will become of my clansmen if our s’Ilessid heir is left maimed or dead?’

Now reluctant to meet her brave scrutiny, Asandir faced the fireside. ‘If Lysaer is impaired, he will have heirs. If he is killed, we know for certain there are other s’Ilessid kinsmen alive beyond the Gates in Dascen Elur.’ To show to what extent he shared her worry, he added, ‘The kingdom of Rathain is not so lucky. Since the Teir’s’Ffalenn now with us is the last of his line, rest assured, Lady Maenalle. The Seven will guard the safety of both princes to the limit of our power and diligence.’

A Return

The journey south from Erdane to the old earl’s summer palace in the foothills ordinarily took three days for a rider travelling light. Though the return dispatches Elaira carried for the Prime were not urgent, she crossed the distance in less. A sudden freeze and the late season’s sloppy mud discouraged caravans at a time when the trade guilds had stockpiled their raw materials for the winter. Left the solitude to order her priorities, the enchantress used her travel allowance for extra post horses instead of lodging. She could hope that a late night arrival might allow her the chance for a hot bath and a rest before she faced reckoning for the Ravens.