The Sable Moon (5 page)

“Rafe's not allowing me in the Forest, either,” he remarked to Meg. “Small fear I shall disobey him in that regard.”

“Nay?” she said slowly. She missed the Forest; she missed the foxes that would come and follow by her feet, the wild doves that would light on her shoulders. She felt hurt by her Forest, betrayed, that any of its creatures could turn against her as the wolves had done. But she could not explain this, and especially not to Trevyn. She didn't want him to think her queer, as so many others did.

Her mother saved her from further response. The goodwife came bustling out, having settled her hair and flung on a shawl. “Come in, young master, have some fresh, hot scones!” she beseeched Trevyn. She did not take it the least bit amiss that Meg had found a prince in the Forest. And Brock, having had his say and been ignored, led his guest to the cottage with dour courtesy.

The scones were very good. Trevyn sampled them that day and many a day to come. He stayed a month at Lee, riding out nearly every day to see Megan. His motive was only partly to gall Brock Woodsby. He would greet the goodman distantly, but he always met the girl with honest delight. Meg chatted with him like a longtime friend, and she was full of questions.

“What's yer name mean, Trevyn?”

“Beloved traveler, or some such.” The youth gestured impatiently. “It's just a baby name. I shall have a sooth-name someday.”

“Ay?” Meg wondered cheerfully. “How so?”

“That is as it comes,” Trevyn countered. “What does your name mean, Megan?”

“Not a thing.” She grinned wickedly. “We're common folk here.”

Trevyn almost flushed, feeling a hint of reproach, but Meg went on unconcernedly. “What brings ye to Lee, Trevyn?”

He laughed. “Arundel! He brought me through the snow straight to the manor gates, and very surprised Rafe was to see me! I would have perished in the storm if it weren't for him. He is a marvelous horse. Twenty years ago he carried my uncle through far stranger perils in this same Great Forest and beyond.”

Bemused, Meg let it pass that he had not really answered her question. “Then was yer uncle an outlaw as well?”

“He joined with the outlaws of the southern Forest after they had saved his life. Arundel brought him to them nearly dead from tortures in the Dark Tower of the evil kings.”

Meg shuddered. “And he met yer father then?”

“A bit later. They did not know that they were brothers. Hal had been raised as King Iscovar's heir, but really his father was the lord of Laueroc.”

“Folk say that King Iscovar killed Leuin of Laueroc and the Queen.”

“Ay, and he would have liked to bend my uncle to his will. Hal roamed the land constantly to elude him, with my father as his blood brother and companion. Your lord Rafe was their friend, too, in those times; they met him and Queen Rosemary at Celydon. And they traveled to the Northern Barrens, and into Welas, the west land, and even to Veran's Mountain, where they met my kindred, the elves.”

“Elves!” Megan bounced excitedly. “I thought that was just—singing, y'know.”

“Nay, the elves are real. But all of them except my mother have sailed to Elwestrand, a land beyond the western sea.” A faraway look filled Trevyn's eyes. “Hal sang of Elwestrand long before he knew it existed anywhere but in his mind.”

Meg grappled in vain for an answer to this. Trevyn had that look sometimes that can make a woman weep, sad eyes and a smiling mouth.… But other times he had the look of eagles. After a moment he went on.

“When Iscovar died, Hal and his followers ousted the evil lords, and my mother gave up her immortality to marry my father. Those were strange times for him; he had never expected to be a King. But when Hal found out they were brothers, he found Father his crown. Hal had never wanted power anyway, though it was fated on him.”

“How so?” Meg sat agape at this matter-of-fact talk of elves and destinies.

“It was written in
The Book of Suns
, the prophecies of the One. The Book made their kinship clear, and told them that Hal would have no heir.”

“I saw him once, and Queen Rosemary, as they rode to Celydon,” Meg remarked. “'Tis a shame they've no children. But ye're lucky ye've no cousins or brothers to fight ye for the throne.”

“I wish I had a dozen,” Trevyn grumbled. “And they could have the throne, and welcome.”

“Why?” asked Meg, not at all disconcerted.

“Never mind.” Trevyn smiled in spite of himself. “Save your breath to cool your porridge, Meg.”

“And let ye spend yers to swell yer wings of fancy? Ye're so bursting with portents and mysteries, how is a poor girl to know the way of it?”

He had to laugh at her. It was a relief to see his forebodings as nonsense, even for a moment. Meg's teasing was a balm on spirits too often darkened since the fight with the wolves.

Meg had long since learned that fellows liked her best if she jested with them. When she did it well, they could forget that she was a skinny, plain-faced maid and treat her simply as a friend. So she had no sweethearts, but at least she had male company at the occasional social affairs of the countryside. Her brave show fooled no one, not even herself. But she made the best of what she had: a quick mind and a droll wit. And when the Prince came, she bantered with him as was her wont.

He had known no such easy companionship from the youths and maidens of Laueroc. They had shied from his rank and his elfin strangeness. So he found it a relief and a delight to be treated with something less than royal respect. Meg's shafts of wit were never cruel, and she aimed them most often at herself. Trevyn had seen her with the wolves; he knew her courage. Her merciless honesty concerning her own shortcomings was a different kind of courage, he thought, and he admired her for it.

“No doubt the bards will sing of how ye pulled the fair maiden from the mud hole,” Meg mused. “They hold forth about everything ye Lauerocs do.”

“No doubt,” Trevyn gravely agreed.

“'Twill be known, of course, that they speak of Molly,” Meg added. “As she is young, and has not yet calved.”

Trevyn never tired of listening to her. He had met many kinds of women in his young life: high-scented foreign princesses, chilly court maidens, flirtatious servant girls. None of them had tempted him to more than a quick conquest. But this fine-boned, birdlike creature, bright and cheeky as a sparrow, drew him back to her again and again. He had felt for her small breast once, wondering what she kept beneath her shapeless peasant blouse, and she had pushed his hand away. “Nay, Trev,” she had told him, not even angrily, only with a certainty he could not question. He did not try again, but he came to see her even more often than before. All his life he had dreamed of finding a friendship such as Hal and Alan shared, or of finding a true love.… But he told himself that this Megan, this homely, comical maid, was nothing more than a diversion to him. He liked to be diverted, and certainly the girl did not mind.

He was thoughtless, as Brock had feared. Otherwise he might have known how his face floated before her inward eye day and night. He should have known how he inspired her love, he who was the talk of every lass in the countryside. But it must be said that Megan hid her love well. Once she had showed fondness for a youth, and it had driven him away. Brave though he thought her to be, she would not risk showing her heart to the Prince. She fed her soul merely on the sight of him and the memory of his lighthearted words. Sometimes, lying in her bed at night, she silently wept.

“When must you be going, lad?” Rafe asked Trevyn one evening at the manor keep.

“Trying to rid yourself of me?” Trevyn retorted. Though he would talk to Meg for hours, he found little enough to say to his kindly host.

“You know that you're welcome to stay the rest of your life.” Coming from Rafe, this was not hollow courtesy. “But surely you must be back to Laueroc by Winterfest.”

“There will be ill cheer at my home this feast-tide,” Trevyn responded sourly. “Nay. I'll stay a while longer.”

Rafe gaped, for Trevyn had told him nothing about his troubles with Gwern, or about Hal's strange behavior, or even about the wolves. But the lord of Lee rose to the occasion with the enthusiasm for which he was famous. “Why, we'll make a royal festival of it, then!” He rubbed his hands in delight, for Rafe was as eager as a boy when it came to a frolic. “We'll have a regular carole, with musicians and everything, O Prince, in your honor. It will be just what this poor country place needs for some waking up.”

Trevyn smiled, knowing quite well that the manor already buzzed with his presence. “I will invite Meg,” he decided.

Rafe cocked a quizzical eye at him, not knowing what to make of the youth's friendship with Meg. The girl was odd, folk said, talked with animals as if they were human.… Of course, the Lauerocs spoke with animals, too, and possessed many stranger powers, and no one spoke ill of them.

“No harm to little Meg, lad,” Rafe asked cautiously, “but why? You could have your pick of many a lass who would do you better credit as a partner.”

“But Meg makes me laugh,” Trevyn replied.

When he made his request of Meg she answered as seriously as she had ever spoken to him. “I'd love to, Trev. But I have no dress, and I wouldn't know how to behave. Ye'd better ask a girl who is better prepared.”

“Act like yourself, and you'll please me well enough. And as for the dress—” He frowned. Rafe was unmarried, so there was no woman to help him. “It's not quite proper, I dare say, but will you not let me take care of it?”

“What? Make it yerself? Ye'll prick yer fingers and cry.…”

“Nay, nay, little jester, I'll pay for it! Humor me?”

“I must ask my parents,” Meg said.

They consented, though not without some argument from the goodman. It took the determined persuasion of both females to get him to agree to the plan. Rafe did not like it much better than Brock.

“Half the country will say you are betrothed!” he sputtered when Trevyn asked him the name of a dressmaker.

“I dare say worse things could happen.”

“Ay! They could say she is your mistress!”

The dressmaker was a terse, tight-skinned old woman, straight and proud. The manor folk stood in awe of her, saying she had Gypsy blood. When Meg shyly presented herself in her baggy frock and heavy peasant boots, the old seamstress looked her up and down without smile or comment.

“What does the Prince like best in you?” she asked. And, although Trevyn had never told her, Meg knew the answer at once. “I make him laugh,” she replied. There was a trace of bitterness in her voice, and the old woman glanced into her eyes. In an instant the Gypsy saw what Megan had so carefully hidden from everyone else.

Without a word she got her tape and carefully measured every part of Megan's slender body. Trevyn had already chosen the goods: a soft silk, dusky rose with a thread of gold, well fit to bring out the color of Meg's thin cheeks and the lights in her muted hair. The old woman held it up, and Meg stroked it speechlessly. “What sort of dress do ye want out of this, now?” the seamstress asked her.

“I know nothing of it,” Meg faltered. “I have never had such a dress.”

“Will ye leave it to me, then?”

“Ay, surely.” It did not matter, Meg thought, what sort of dress she wore. She had never known a dress to flatter her.

“Ye will trust me in this.” There was something gentle in the Gypsy's voice, and Meg looked at her and smiled.

“Ay, indeed I will. But you will have to work hard, Grandmother, to have it done in time.”

“Ay, even so. But 'twill be done, little daughter.”

The evening of the dance, Trevyn rode Arundel out through the frosty night to fetch Meg. The stars glowed clear as a thousand candles, and the night was full of whispering, jostling light. Over the snow the square of the cottage window shone like a beacon, near even from afar. At long last Trevyn reached it, and beams from within picked out Arundel's form, silver as a spirit of the night. Trevyn found the door and stepped inside. Then he stopped, thunderstruck. A shining sprite awaited him.

Meg's dress made no effort to conceal her thinness; quite the opposite. Tiny tucks drew the fabric snug over her small round breasts, then released it to fall in soft, clinging folds over her waist and hips. Her skirt swept the floor, and long sleeves embraced her slender arms nearly to her fingers. Only her neck was bared, and the tender curve of her collarbone below. Somewhere she had got delicate slippers to peep from under her skirt. She was lovely, and she knew it. Her eyes glowed as warm as the firelight. She met Trevyn's stare almost merrily, then turned to fetch her old brown mantle. He stopped her and took off his bright cloak of royal blue, putting it around her shoulders and fastening it with his golden brooch that bore the Sun Kings' emblem.

“Ye must be the hard one to keep in cloaks!” whispered Meg. Trevyn restrained his smile.

“I will have her back to you before midnight,” he told Brock Woodsby, and they departed.

Meg moved through the evening in a happy trance. Any girl in Lee would gladly have taken her place, but their envy could not taint her with foolish triumph; it was Trevyn himself who lit the flame of her joy. He watched her, talked with her, danced only with her, guiding her through the circling patterns of the courtly carole. Megan could not hide her love this night. It glowed in her wide eyes, misty brown as a forest vista. Trevyn looked, and saw, and Megan felt quite certain that something answered her gaze in his. They drifted away from the dancers to the dim reaches of the great hall, and they scarcely noticed at first when the stately notes of lute and viol faltered to a stop.

“What bard is that?” Trevyn murmured.

A dark, feral voice was singing, chanting out a harsh ballad that rang like a blast of wintry air through the warm room.