"You shall run away again, tonight!" declared Ehirme.
Wistfully Suldrun rejected the idea. "You are the first they would think of, and terrible things would happen."
"What of the child? They will take it away from you."
Once more Suldrun could not restrain tears and Ehirme held her close. "Listen now to a crafty thought! My niece is a halfwit; three times she has come pregnant by the stable-boy, another halfwit.
The first two infants died at once, from sheer confusion. She is already cramping and presently will deliver her third brat, which no one, least of all herself, wants. Be of good cheer!
Somehow we shall rescue the situation."
Suldrun said sadly: "There is very little now to rescue."
"We shall see!"
Ehirme's niece bore her brat: a girl, according to external evidence. Like its predecessors, it went into convulsions, emitted a few squeaks and died face down in its own discharges.
The corpse was packed into a box, over which—since the niece had been persuaded to Christianity—Brother Umphred intoned a few pious words, and the box was taken off by Ehirme for burial.
At noon of the following day Suldrun went into labor. Close on sunset, haggard, hollow-eyed but relatively cheerful, she gave birth to a son whom she named Dhrun, after a Danaan hero who ruled the worlds of Arcturus.
Ehirme washed Dhrun well and dressed him in clean linens. Late in the evening she returned with a small box. Up under the olive trees she dug a shallow grave into which she unceremoniously slid the dead infant. She broke the box and burnt it in the fireplace.
Suldrun lay on her couch watching with big eyes.
Ehirme waited until the flames died low and the baby slept. "Now I must leave. I will not tell you where Dhrun will go, so that, in all cases, he will be safe from Casmir. In a month or two, or three, you will disappear, and go to your baby and live thereafter, so I hope, without sorrow."
Suldrun said softly: "Ehirme, I fear!"
Ehirme hunched up her heavy shoulders. "In truth, I fear too. But whatever happens, we have done our best."
Brother Umphred sat at a small table of ebony and ivory, across from Queen Sollace. With great concentration he studied a set of wooden tablets, each carved with hermetic import understood only by Brother Umphred. To either side of the table burned candles of bayberry wax.
Brother Umphred leaned forward as if in astonishment. "Can it be?
Another child born into the royal family?"
Queen Sollace uttered a throaty laugh. "There, Umphred, is either jest or nonsense."
"The signs are clear. A blue star hangs in the grotto of the nymph Merleach. Cambianus ascends to the seventh; here, there—see them now!—are other nascents. No other meaning is plausible. The time is now. My dear queen, you must summon an escort and make inspection. Let your wisdom be the test!"
"'Inspection'? Do you mean ..." Sollace's voice trailed off into surmise.
"I know only what the tablets tell me."
Sollace heaved herself to her feet and summoned ladies from the adjoining parlor. "Come! Whim is on me to walk out of doors."
The group, chattering, laughing and complaining of the untoward exercise, marched up the arcade, sidled through the postern and picked their way down through the rocks to the chapel.
Suldrun appeared. Immediately she knew why they had come.
Queen Sollace gave her a critical inspection. "Suldrun, what is all this nonsense?"
"What nonsense, royal mother?"
"That you were pregnant with child. I see that this is not so, for which I give thanks. Priest, your tablets have deceived you!"
"Madame, the tablets are seldom wrong."
"But you can see for yourself!"
Brother Umphred frowned and pulled at his chin. "She is not now pregnant, so it would seem."
Queen Sollace stared at him a moment then swept to the chapel and looked within. "There is no child here."
"Then it would seem to be elsewhere."
Now exasperated, Queen Sollace swung upon Suldrun. "Once and for all, let us have the truth of this!"
Brother Umphred added thoughtfully, "If collusion exists, it can easily be discovered."
Suldrun turned Brother Umphred a glance of contempt. "I gave birth to a daughter. She opened her eyes on the world; she saw the cruelty in which life must be lived, and closed her eyes again. I buried her yonder in great sorrow."
Queen Sollace made a gesture of frustration and signaled a page boy. "Fetch the king; this is a matter for his attention, not mine. I would never have pent the girl here in the first place."
King Casmir arrived, already in a foul humor which he masked behind a face of somber impassivity.
King Casmir stared at Suldrun. "What are the facts?"
"I bore a child. She died."
Desmei's prediction, in regard to Suldrun's first-born son, jerked to the forefront of Casmir's mind. "Girl? A girl?"
For Suldrun deception was difficult. She nodded. "I buried her on the hillside."
King Casmir looked around the circle of faces and pointed to Umphred. "You, priest, with your dainty marriages and mincing cant: you are the man for this job. Bring hither the corpse."
Boiling with fury he could not express, Brother Umphred humbly bowed his head and went to the grave. In the final rays of afternoon, he pulled aside the black mold with delicate white hands. A foot below the surface he found the linen cloth in which the dead infant had been wrapped. As he dug away the dirt the cloth fell open to reveal the head. Brother Umphred paused in his digging. Through his mind passed a swift set of images and echoes of past confrontations. The images and echoes broke and vanished.
He' lifted the dead infant in its cloth and carried it to the chapel and placed it before King Casmir.
For an instant Brother Umphred looked toward Suldrun and met her gaze, and in that single glance conveyed to her all the bitter hurt her remarks across the years had done to him.
"Sire," said the priest, "here is the corpse of a female infant.
It is not Suldrun's child. I performed final rites over this child three or four days ago. It is the bastard of one Megweth, by the groom Ralf."
King Casmir uttered a terse bark of laughter. "And I was so to be deceived?" He looked toward his entourage and pointed to a sergeant. "Take priest and corpse to the mother and learn the truth of this matter. If the infants have been transferred, bring with you the living child."
The visitors departed the garden, leaving Suldrun alone in the light of a waxing moon.
The sergeant, with Brother Umphred, visited Megweth, who gave quick information that the corpse had been given into the care of Ehirme for burial.
The sergeant returned to Haidion not only with Megweth, but also Ehirme.
Ehirme spoke humbly to King Casmir. "Sire, if I have done wrong, be sure that my reason was only love for your blessed daughter the Princess Suldrun, who does not deserve the woe of her life."
King Casmir lowered his eyelids. "Woman, are you declaring that my judgment in regard to the disobedient Suldrun is incorrect?"
"Sire, I speak not from disrespect, but from faith that you wish to hear truth from your subjects. I do believe that you were far too harsh on the poor bit of a girl. I beg you to let her live a happy life with her own child: She will thank you for the mercy, as will I and all your subjects, for she has in her entire life never done a wrong."
The room was silent. Everyone furtively watched King Casmir, who in his turn pondered... The woman of course was right, thought Casmir. Now to show mercy was equivalent to the admission that he had indeed dealt harshly with his daughter. He could discern no graceful retreat. With mercy impractical, he could only reaffirm his previous position.
"Ehirme, your loyalty is commendable. I can only wish that my daughter had given me a similar service. I will not here and now review her case, nor explain the apparent severity of her punishment, save to state that, as a royal princess her first duty is to the kingdom.