The Willful Princess and the Piebald Prince (11 page)

All the while Lord Canny clutched his wife’s wrist so tightly that her flesh stood out in bulges between his fingers and her hand went first red and then nearly black. When the king rebuked him for this, Lord Canny replied that she was his wife now, to do with as he wished. Before the king, his face gone black and white, could reply to this, Lady Wiffen spoke. Having stood pale-faced and quiet, suddenly she turned and raked her nails down the side of her husband’s face, shrieking that to be shamed so publicly by him when she had done no wrong was bad enough, but she would not stand silent while he declared her no more than chattel and a possession. When her husband let go her wrist to clap a hand to his bleeding face, she sprang away from him and up the stairs, to take refuge behind the king and Charger spread his arms wide so she could shelter behind him and declared her to be under his protection.

Now the king’s guard had arrived. In a roar like a bear Charger ordered them to remove Lord Canny and his men from the stair. This they did, and while blood was shed, no grievous wounds were dealt; Copper Songsmith was there, at the foot of the stair not far from the Canny nobles, while Redbird was at the top, behind his king and Lady Wiffen, and they both saw all of this and heard every word, so do I swear that every word I write is true. As Lord Canny went, bare swords prodding him along, he vowed vengeance, saying that his wife’s mind had been turned by the Wit-magic and that King Charger had bespelled her. King Charger roared back that Lord Canny spoke of things he could never comprehend, any more than he could comprehend the pain and horror that his cowardly minion Lord Curl of Blackearth had dealt when he slew the piebald horses and thus brought his own grief upon himself.

All there gathered heard King Charger’s rash words of accusation, and it seemed to many—even to Redbird Truthsinger—that the king had said he saw justice in Curl’s little daughter dying to pay for the lives of a dozen horses. Before the afternoon had fled it seemed as if every ear in the Six Duchies had been filled with the king’s wild words. Redbird bade me record that later the king spoke to him in anguish, saying that the words had flown from his tongue without thought, with never the intent of causing scandal or implying guilt. Has any man, great or small, ever been able to say he did not speak rash words in anger? Yet as a minstrel sworn to truth, Redbird said I must record that the king did indeed utter those ill words. By that afternoon, not only Charger’s hasty words had spread to all of Buckkeep Castle and town, but many a wagging tongue added that Lady Wiffen had not just the king’s protection but also the favor of his bedchamber. This they said, even though Charger had not been alone for a moment after the uproar upon the stairs, and Redbird could vouch for the truth of that.

Now all of this befell on the eve of the Solstice.

What have the false minstrels sung, sung so long and so loud and so often, that all believe it true? They have sung that Lord Canny of Buck, grieved at how King Charger and his Witted lords betrayed the Six Duchies, gathered his loyal nobles and planned with them that he would face the king in single combat at noon on the Summer Solstice. They have sung, long and loud and often, that at such times a Witted one’s magic is weakest. They have sung that it was done for Lord Canny’s great love of the Six Duchies, and no other reason.

Yet read what I record here. Their battle was over a fickle woman and a murdered child, over a throne and a man’s pride. No one could have planned such a cascade of events to have been brought to fruit on Midsummer’s Day. I serve a true minstrel and what I write here is as Redbird told me, mouth to ear, and he had no reason to lie even if he had been a man given to untruth.

By the next rising of the sun, Buckkeep was as divided as a single castle could be. The Canny court and their various guards dared to go armed within the walls of the king’s stronghold, and the king’s men likewise. When King Charger announced to all that there would be no charges heard against Lord Elkwin, for there was as little evidence to point to him as there was to point to the man who had slain the piebald horses, he did so not from his audience chamber but from the top of the stairs that led down from his bedchamber, his guard arrayed below him. Perhaps he thought that this declaration would offer peace to both sides, that no one would be held accountable for the killing of the horses, nor for the slaying of a child done in the madness of wild grief. If so he thought, he could not have been more wrong, for each side believed itself the more deeply wronged. It might have been wiser if he had tried to offer each side satisfaction. If he had sent two nobles to their deaths, well, bloody that would have been, yet less bloody than what followed.

No sooner had King Charger finished speaking than the very woman who had sought asylum from him the day before declared herself appalled at “this denial of all justice for anyone!” While his words had been measured and his voice grave, she shrieked out her words, her eyes wild. She spoke in fury, saying that whether Witted or not, no woman thinks a beast, even her own Wit-beast, as precious as the child of her womb, and that “no number of slain horses could be put in the scales and balanced against a child murdered in the muck and straw of a stable.”

Lady Wiffen spoke her angry words in the moment after the king had said his, before anyone could draw a breath. Redbird marked that the king stared at her in horror, his mouth ajar.

In the next instant, she pushed past him and stalked down the staircase, shoving aside any guards who would not make way for her, and so came to the main floor and her husband’s side again. There she took her place and turned to stare up at King Charger. Lord Canny of Buck let her stand there, though he did not deign to give her a glance. A silence like death followed her words.

Then King Charger’s shoulders fell, as if something had gone out of him, the very heart dragged from his body, perhaps. Perhaps he regretted those words that showed so plainly that the Witted heart feels in a way that the wholly human cannot. He did not speak again; he made no effort to defend what he had said. He turned from all, went up the steps back to his bedchamber and he closed and barred the door. His guards heard the bar thud down and accordingly they maintained their vigilance outside his door.

How was it, then, that Charger was seen to walk alone in the Women’s Garden beneath the noonday sun? Some say that he turned into his Wit-beast, a rat or a weasel, and then slipped down to the garden where he resumed his own form. That is not true, of a certainty, for Redbird assured me that neither of those creatures was the Wit-beast of the king. He said also that of his own knowledge no Witted one can transform into a beast of any sort, no matter what the legends may say. As to how the king got out into the garden, Redbird said only that Buckkeep is an old castle, with secrets and ways of its own, and that a boy brought up within those walls might know more than one way out of an apparently locked room. As to why he might do so foolish a thing as go walking alone after aggravating such a man as Lord Canny of Buck, well, a man denied the woman he has set his heart on will do many a strange thing. The truth of that no minstrel needs attest to, for every man and woman knows it is so.

However it was, King Charger was walking alone when Redbird encountered him there. As to why Redbird was there, it was not an arranged meeting: when his king had retreated to the gloom of his chambers, Redbird had gone into the fragrant gardens to try to lift his own spirits. Like all minstrels of that time he enjoyed the protection of his guild and despite any unrest came and went as he pleased. His fingers were trained only to pluck strings, his voice to sing. Neither swordsman nor archer, no one had a reason to fear him..

And there he saw King Charger, head down, hands clasped behind his back, treading the winding paths through the thyme beds toward the old cherry trees. It seemed to Redbird that the king was so sunk in sorrow and so torn of heart that his mind almost was turned. The minstrel told me that he judged Charger to be in great danger, out in the open, unarmed, and with so many of his nobles furious with him, and yet he dared not rush off to summon the king’s guard, for that would have meant leaving him alone. Redbird feared, too, that a sudden summoning of the guard to the gardens might trigger the very sort of conflict that he hoped could be avoided. So he greeted Charger quietly, asked him no questions and strolled with him in silence. The minstrel knew that no song could soothe the king’s sore heart, nor bring wisdom to his confused mind. Silence and time might have helped King Charger to see more clearly. Silence and time might have shown him a way to satisfy all with justice. Silence and time might have done many things, but he was denied both of those things.

For as he walked with Redbird at his side, men began to approach the garden. Suddenly Charger lifted his head and gave it a shake, as if waking from a long dream. He seemed to come a little to his senses. “Assassins come,” he said to his minstrel. “This is no place for a songster. Flee, little brother. And sing ever true.” And Redbird, coward that he was, climbed one of the spreading cherry trees that grew at the edge of the garden and took refuge in its branches. Some will read this and think ill of him, and so he thought of himself, but he earnestly bade me speak exactly the truth of what he did, shameful as he thought it, so that all might know that even in this he spoke true and thus never doubt the truth of the rest of his tale. He had no weapon or knowledge of how to use one. All he had was a voice and a tongue, eyes that watched and a mind that remembered. In the end, those were all he could offer to defend his king.

And in a moment, he saw the truth of the king’s words. How they had known to find him there, Redbird Truthsinger did not know, and no more do I. The killers came in ones and twos, and all bore blades, not sheathed, but carried naked and shining in the Solstice sun. Their faces, too, were naked of artifice and shining with hate, and their intent was as bare as their blades. As they closed upon him, Charger set his feet and waited grimly for them. King Charger stood there alone, his back to the tree, as the circle of men gathered around him. Now these are the names of those who came to that place. Lord Canny of Buck was there, and Lord Fenrew of Tilth, and Lord Tracker of Farrow. Young Lord Locks of Bearns, scarce old enough to raise a whisker, and Lord Scriver of Buck, third cousin to both the king and Lord Canny, and also Lord Holdfast of Rippon. Not one was a rightful duke, and some were second sons and one at least had no prospect of inheriting at all, and yet each was a scion of a ruling family of a duchy. These are the six the minstrels have named, and the truth is that, yes, they were there. But there was another as well.

“You know why we have come,” Lord Canny told the king, and the king, unarmed and surrounded, laughed aloud with despair.

Now many another minstrel will recount a long speech that was made then, or say how Charger hissed like a snake or snarled like a wolf. Often and often was it told, even in those days, how the king drew his blade and slew young Lord Lock, and how then Lord Canny fought single-handed against him, and that the king changed his shape, from wolf to bear to giant serpent, to flame-tongued dragon to giant poisonous toad. Oh, aye, many a valiant song has been sung of that encounter. But the truth was that the king was empty-handed as he stepped away from the tree, and his enemies moved to ring him. Yet he ignored them all except his cousin but walked toward him saying, “You have the heart of the woman I love, and the hands of my nobles. You have my throne in all but name, and that is why you have come. To take from me my crown.” Those are the words Charger said, just as Redbird Truthsinger recited them to me. He drew breath to say something else but what that might have been, none can say.

For Lord Curl of Blackearth was also there, and he stepped forward and without a sound or word of challenge he wrapped his arm about the king’s throat from behind, choking him, then drove his short sword into King Charger’s back and twisted the blade in the wound.

Young Lord Lock it was who cried out in horror at such dastardliness and leaped forward to tear the coward from his victim. Lord Curl, in the redness of his battle fury, snatched his sword from the king’s back and with a swing cut the boy’s throat from side to side so that he fell choking on his own blood. Then all, even the miscreant himself, stood back in horror from what he had done.

Lord Canny cried out to them all, “Blades down! Be still and think! What are we to say happened here?”

Above him in the tree, Redbird muffled his mouth with his sleeve. Terror raced his heart and grief closed his throat and cowardice left him powerless to move, but a raven in the branch above him croaked hoarsely. The king had fallen upon his face in the dirt, yet he was only sorely wounded and not to the death. King Charger stirred then, and rolled onto his side and spoke, almost with triumph, “Traitors one, traitors all, and all will swing for it.” His eyes locked with Lord Canny’s as he spoke his foolish words. All knew what his words did not say: that both crown and woman would be his when Canny had hanged for treason.

Those were the words that sealed his fate, for then it was that they all closed on him. There was no grand challenge and duel, no king assuming the shapes of beasts as he battled Lord Canny. They did not defeat him, and then hang him for his magic. No. There was only a frenzy of swords plunging into an unarmed man on his belly on the earth, and before it was over, not a blade remained clean and honorable.

Only one man saw what had happened. Only one man owned the truth of that moment, and he was a minstrel clinging to the trunk of an cherry tree above them, sick with the slaughter and betrayal, unmanned by his faintheartedness.

Do false minstrels sing of how Lord Canny and his cohorts cut King Charger’s body into four pieces and burned it over water to keep his soul from finding his flesh again? They lie. The reason they hewed it to pieces, swords rising and falling like butchers’ cleavers, was that they wished no man to see the many cruel cuts that had pierced him, and not a few in his back. The blood from their flying blades spattered up even to the lowest branches of the cherry tree, and over them all flew a raven, cawing and cawing in his distress.