“Mistress!” My heart gave a leap, and I doffed my cap. “I count myself fortunate to encounter you.”
“Fortunate?” she asked. “Hardly so. I believe fortune’s wheel has cast you down, sir, and cast you hard upon stones.”
“Then may I rise again?” Without waiting for permission, I tossed my overcoat onto the grass, grasped a tree limb with both hands, then swung my legs up to embrace the bough. In a rattle of falling leaves I pulled myself upright, and soon sat on a bough adjacent to hers, our feet nearly touching.
Her eyes dropped modestly, and she played a short, bright phrase on the mandola. “I had thought,” she said, “that my practice was private.”
“You may play on, if you like,” said I. “And I will pretend that I’m not here.”
Her full lips quirked in a smile. She brushed at a strand of red hair that had escaped her shawl, and looked at me with her brilliant eyes. I felt my breath stop in my throat.
“May I know your name, mistress?” I asked.
Her eyes turned to a corner of the sky, as if she were making up a name on the spot. “I am Orlanda,” she said.
“I am Quillifer.”
She smiled. “I can see that you are.”
I laughed. “Fair Mistress Orlanda,” I said. “How come you to be here?”
Her answer was simple. “I climbed the tree.”
“I mean,” I said, “you seem to be free in the camp. You possess privilege of some kind.”
“If I possess privilege, I also possess caprice,” she said. “It is my caprice to stand on my privilege, and privilege not your question.”
She returned my every volley, the most enticing tennis player I had ever met. I tried again. “You have looked at me, I think.”
“I look at many things.” She played a low trill on her instrument, four strings singing as one. I found the sound strangely melancholy for an instrument celebrated for its joyous voice.
“Are you sad, mistress?” I asked. In answer, she began to sing.
Ah me! as thus I look before me
Along the course of time
Steals tides of pensive musing o’er me
Like sound of sad knell chime
Now many a gentle flower, its race
All run, its sweet breath sped
Its beauty wasted, hides its face
And slumbers with the dead.
The dead of many generations
Of its own frail kindred
The countless dead of tribes and nations
Who once with open lid
Like it looked on the morning’s grace
And saw the noontide glory
And drank life’s joy, but went apace
Ah me! the endless story.
The last chord died away; the grove was still. Orlanda gazed at me in pensive silence. I wondered how old she was, and decided she was a few years older than I.
“A song for autumn,” I said. “But see, we are young, and can kindle summer in our hearts.”
“Do you offer up my heart for kindling?” she asked. “As if it were straw, or twigs?” She gave me a doubtful look. “I hope you don’t mistake me for lightwood.”
“I offer to fill your heart with fire. A fire like that in my own.” I reached for her hand. She struck a dissonant chord on her mandola, and I drew the hand back. She offered an approving smile, and a soft melody rang from the instrument.
“Many summers were kindled in this place,” she said. “And yet all ended. Many were the hopes engendered in the town that was builded here, but all hopes failed when failed the silver.”
“Silver?” I was surprised.
“There was a mine—” Orlanda glanced up at the cliffs, but the limbs and leaves of the trees kept me from seeing where her gaze lighted. “The mine was why the town was built, and the castle. There was a great wooden gallery that carried the ore down to the valley.”
Her fingers drew forth the melody, and somehow the strings sounded like coins ringing. “The silver pennies of the Morcants were famous, and they paid for the war that drove out the Sea-Kings. But the silver ran out centuries ago, and the Morcants faded, and it was the sons of the Sea-Kings who united Fornland, not the Morcants. When the silver failed, local lords remained in the castle, great oppressors of the people, till they too died out.”
The dynasty of the Morcants, I thought, had been eleven hundred years before, great warriors and poets and builders. According to all the histories, they had been rich, and now I know why.
“Is the mine still there?”
“Dark tunnels half-collapsed—no silver.”
“I had thought I might hide there, until the bandits ceased to hunt me.”
Orlanda looked at me for a long moment, and the melody died on the strings. “You wish to flee.”
I looked at her. “I wish to flee with you. We can go to the capital. I have an urgent message to carry to the Queen—my city was plundered and blockaded and is in sore need of aid. I must urge the court to send relief. And once in Selford, I can take up the law, I can make my way in the world. Become a judge, or a courtier, or a Member of the Burgesses. I’ll put my mark on the world! My ambition is enough for the both of us.”
Sorrow touched her face. Her fingers drew out a little refrain: Ah me! The endless story.
“The mine is no refuge, nor the court,” she said, and turned away for a moment. “Speak of fire again,” she said. “The day grows chill.”
“I would set a fire in every part of you,” I said. I reached for her hand again, and this time she allowed me to take it. “The fingers so clever,” I said, “coaxing melody from wood and ivory,” and kissed them, and then I turned the hand over and kissed the palm. I leaned close and brushed the hair back from her face. I slipped the shawl to her shoulders, and inhaled the scent of her hair, rich and earthy as a spring glade. “Your hair,” I said, “on fire already. Your cheeks”—kissing—“smooth as cream.” She looked at me, and I could feel her warmth on my skin. “Your eyes,” I said, “so like—”
“Smaragds?” she said. “Or is that too poetastical?”
I stared at her, words frozen in my throat.
“Do you like ‘poetastical’?” she said. “I just made it up.”
I threw my head back and laughed. “You overheard!” I said in joy.
Answering delight danced in her emerald eyes.
I stared at her. “You saw me naked!” I said.
“I saw nothing,” she said demurely. “I pretended I wasn’t there.”
I laughed again, and pressed her hand. “Mistress, we must flee this place together! Nothing can stop us, an we are together! The world will lie vanquished before us, and offer us sweet wine and Orient pearls.”
“I should want such trifles?” Orlanda asked. “I am caprice and privilege, remember. What is Selford, or the world, to me?”
“A setting for your beauty. A choice audience for your wit. A playground for your caprice. And besides, mistress, will you stay here? In this camp, till Sir Basil chooses to move his band to some other desolate country?”
A cloud crossed her face. “I was content,” she said, “till you came.”
I raised her hand and kissed it. “Content is valued only by those who have already grappled with life, and earned their victory. Content is for old men with their mulled wine, and old women with their grandchildren, and old fat dogs who lie before the fire. Content is not for the young and dauntless, those who wish to brand the world with their mark. Fly with me! You know the country; you must know a way to evade pursuit.”
“You paint a persuasive picture,” Orlanda said.