The innkeeper became confused, hopelessly vague, as I questioned him more closely. “You mentioned a Queen,” I said, “a Queen who bore the three daughters. Does she still live?”
“No,” he said uncertainly. He paused to consider it, looking pained with the effort. “There is no queen in Tromsdal.”
“Well, then, what became of her?”
“The Queen?”
“Yes,” I said. “What became of the Queen?” I was long finished with eating, but the innkeeper kept refilling our stone goblets. As I said, it was watery, but it washed away some of my patience.
“There was a queen.”
“I know that.”
“Of course, there was a Queen. She, yet more than the King, wished for children to inherit the kingdom and carry on the royal line.” He finished with a “so there you have it” manner about him, as he leaned away from me, comfortable with the safety of his tale.
“Well, what became of her?” We had been talking quietly, like thieves, but now I spoke aloud. “Is she still alive, my friend? Is she beautiful, as queens should always be? Tell me something about her.” As I watched his discomfort, I laughed suddenly, scarcely knowing what I did. I raised my goblet and tossed back a mouthful. “To the Queen!” Diners in the inn exchanged glances. There were angry looks my way from sealers and prosperous-looking fur merchants.
The youngest daughter, so the innkeeper had said, was of scarcely fifteen years, assuming that she still lived. Even if the Queen had died in childbirth, I reckoned, that was not so long ago, yet this middle-aged man, who (so he told me) had lived in Tromsdal all his life, could not distinctly remember the Queen, nor her fate, nor a time without the current King, or before the Princesses. I shrugged it off as a trick of the mind, for there are men — and women, too — with strange afflictions that way. I went to my lumpy bed, unsatisfied with the tale, but full of zest for the morrow.
As the innkeeper told me, and then a fat-hipped woman next day in the crowded, salt-smelling fish market, the King had sworn a vow — anyone who found the Princesses alive should be granted half the kingdom and choose as a wife whichever Princess he liked.
“They are all very beautiful,” the woman said. There were coarse hairs on her chin, and her mouth curved downward, like a fish’s. “Each is more beautiful than the others.”
I suppressed my barbed retort at so foolish an expression. “And is the Queen beautiful?”
She became as vague as the innkeeper. “The Queen?”
“Is she beautiful? Come now, does she hide her face from her subjects?”
The woman looked baffled.
“What’s wrong with you?” I said.
“She … was beautiful. I think.” She walked to another customer, a boatsman by the look of him, with his front teeth missing. Her back was now toward me.
“What happened to her?”
“I … can’t remember.” She faced me for a moment, but her gnawed thumb and fingers made a small sign to avert witchery. I muttered excuses and left.
When I walked the steep road to the citadel, men at arms challenged me at the gate, but the chamberlain granted me audience. He was old and white-headed, with a thin, whispery voice, his dry hands shaking unless he controlled them. I could see the frustration in his face, the intensity of character and will that told me he was once a man of great presence. He told me the story, the fullest account I heard from anyone. This is how it started.
The King and Queen had been childless. Year in, year out, it wore away at their happiness, like ocean breakers on the cliffs.
One day in early spring, when the sky remained bleak and cold, but the snow had melted from trees and meadows, the King stood high on his keep, the citadel’s innermost tower, with a hooded falcon on his wrist — for he loved all things of the sky. He looked westward over wild ocean, its deep blue water as far as the eye could see, then turned his gaze to the town and fields of Tromsdal, to the long line of coast with its deep fjords, then the untamed forests — and, finally, to the foot-worn road that passed to the east through fields and forests, into a brooding line of mountains. Satisfied in a fashion, but heavyhearted, he released the falcon, watching it climb and dive and wheel in the wide, gray sky. The voice of a crone spoke from behind him. “Why so sad, great King?”
He turned to her — heaven knew where she had come from. How could she have penetrated the citadel’s outer walls and baileys, then entered the keep and climbed its spiral of narrow stairs, without being challenged? The King put such thoughts aside, for he perceived that the crone who stood before him, dressed in beggar’s rags, must be some kind of witch-woman. “You can’t do anything to help me,” he said, “so why should I tell you?”
“I’m not so sure of that. I know your thoughts, my King.”
“Then tell them. But get it right, or you’ll anger me.”
“No fear of that,” she said with a knowing laugh, then closed her eyes, seeming to look inside herself.
“I’m waiting,” the King said.
“You are saddened because you have no heir to your crown and kingdom.”
“You’re a witch. Should I suffer you to live?”
“I am what I am,” the witch-woman said. “Now hearken, to me. The Queen will have three daughters. And yet, great care must be taken with them. See that they do not come out under the open heavens before they are all fifteen years old. Otherwise, they will be taken from you.”
“What nonsense is this?”
“Heed my words.”
In disgust, he averted his eyes — only for a second. When he looked again, she was gone. He searched the sky for his falcon.
My knees hurt on cold tiles. The King remained seated in his high-backed, granite throne.
How do I describe the man, convey his majesty, the vast power that I felt in his presence — power that resided deep in his spirit and body? His hair was like spun gold beneath his jeweled crown. His eyes were deeper gold, set beneath a broad, high forehead. He wore silk robes of fiery red and sky blue, inlaid with runes. When I saw him, I knew straightaway that the King’s veins flowed not merely with the blood of ancient royalty, but with that of the Bright Ones. Well, so we all can say — those beings taught men and women the arts of civilization that made us a match, or more than a match, for the wild beasts. They mingled their blood with ours, lifting us toward the rank of celestials — part of their own strange quest for redemption, which will see them depart one day, to whatever sky they fell from.
Such is the nature of humankind, but that is not my meaning. The King was not like you or me. He was something higher. Yet, even as I wondered at him, I reflected that he could feel loss. “You’re a fighting man?” he said. “You’re a warrior?”
“If you will use me so.”
“Very good.” With a gesture of his palm, he bade me stand, then rewarded me with a smile that left his golden eyes cold, like mountain ice. “You must find my daughters. Your manner gives me confidence.”
“Thank you, my liege.”
“I want to trust you, warrior.”
As we conversed, I kept my gaze to the floor, concentrating upon a scraped tile near his austere throne. But, now and then, I met his eyes directly — long enough to catch his expression or to speak. “Depend on me,” I said clearly. “I won’t disappoint you.”
“I should hope not.” He made a flicking motion, like brushing away a fly. “Many have set out, and failed. None have heard word of my daughters.”
I bent my head further, though my bearing was proud enough.