The Prince and the Pilgrim (26 page)

As it turned out, he ate alone, but for a couple of other travellers on their way to Glannaventa to take ship for Ireland. They were foreigners, speaking only some outlandish Irish tongue, so he could not question them about the royal party, which presumably had supped earlier.

The supper was plain, but good, broth followed by a hot, thick stew with fresh-baked bread, and some sort of fish dish flavoured with herbs. After supper Alexander went to see how his horse fared, and found him comfortably housed, blanketed and busy at a full manger. Sharing the big stable-building with him were three sleek palfreys which must belong to the monastery, along with two span of sturdy working mules. No sign of the other party’s beasts; they were in the other stable – the one normally used for guests – and in the charge of the party’s own grooms and serving men. They had left no room for the young lord’s horse, so said the lay-brother who worked as groom, but the young lord need have no fear; his horse would be as well cared for as the abbot’s own.

This was plainly true. Alexander, thanking him, put a couple of hesitant queries about the other party, but met with no satisfaction. As to that, said the lay-brother, he knew nothing about them, except that one of their number – a young boy destined for noviceship – would stay after the
party
left. They had all, the lady and the rest, attended all the services; it seemed they were devout folks – (devout? the queen-enchantress Nimuë?) – so no doubt if the young lord meant to attend compline, he would have a chance to see them there, and maybe have speech with them afterwards. And no, he could not accept a gift for himself, but if the young lord would perhaps leave something in the offertory, God would bless the gift … And there was the chapel bell.

The chapel was a noble one. A high vaulted roof swallowed the light of the candles. The smell of fine wax burning mingled with the smoke of the incense that could be seen curling up into the shadowed roof. A stone screen, finely carved, cut off the rear of the building from the place where the monks worshipped. Behind this screen were the seats for the lay folk and travellers, the monastery’s guests. Through the fretted carving Alexander could just glimpse the crucifix above the high altar; it seemed to be floating in the smoky candle-light. None of the monks was visible, but the singing rose strong and true into the vaulting.

And yes, the royal party was there, across the central aisle from him, a dozen or so people. Alexander, his head apparently bent in prayer, looked sideways through his fingers, studying them.

First, the lady herself, queen, enchantress, devout or devious; she was there, demurely hidden behind a heavy veil. Her dress was of a rich russet-colour, and over it she wore a brown
cloak
against the chill which could strike, even on a summer evening, in a stone-built chapel. He caught a glimpse of a slender wrist encircled with gold, and the glint of a sapphire on the folded hands. Cloak and veil hid the rest.

Beside her knelt an elderly man, his noble old face lifted towards the high altar, his eyes closed in prayer. He was soberly dressed, but the grey stuff of his gown was good, and the crucifix he held in the fine, thin hands was of silver crusted with some deep red stones that could be rubies. Beyond him could just be glimpsed a slight figure, no more than a child, it seemed, but robed and cloaked like a monk. That would surely be the boy destined for the novitiate. At the boy’s other side knelt a priest. The other men and women, kneeling at a little distance in the rear, must be their attendants.

The office came to an end. A long pause of quiet, then the slow shuffle of feet beyond the screen as the monks filed out. The lady, rising, helped the old man to his feet. The two of them, with the boy between them, left the chapel. The rest followed, Alexander close behind them.

Outside there was a pause, before the party broke up. The lady stood for a few minutes, talking to the other two women of the party – her waiting-women, no doubt. Alexander looked to see her take leave of the old man and go with the women towards the quarters reserved for female travellers, but when at length she turned away, she went, still holding the old man’s arm, towards an imposing building just beyond the chapel. The abbot’s house, presumably; and of course a lady
as
important as Nimuë would be lodged there, not housed with the common travellers … One of the women followed her, the other turning aside for the guests’ quarters. The priest had already vanished, with the boy, through a door into the main monastery buildings. Another boy in page’s uniform ran forward to speak with the old man, then, dismissed, followed the servants who were making for the men’s dormitory. But he went slowly, loitering some way behind the rest of the party, reluctant, perhaps, as one always was at that age, to be sent to bed.

Alexander went quickly after him, catching up with him some yards short of the dormitory door.

“It’s too good a night to be packed off at this hour, isn’t it? Tell me, do they lock the doors once they’ve got us in for the night?”

The boy laughed. “Yes, like hens in case the fox gets us! But at least they don’t wake us at dawn – though the chapel bell does!”

“You’ve been here long?”

“Nearly a week.”

“I just rode in today, from the south. I don’t know this part of the country, at all, but this seems a good place. How long will you be lodging here?”

“I don’t know. Some days, I suppose. They never tell us anything, but it wouldn’t surprise me if the master wasn’t aiming to stay here for a bit longer.”

“And your mistress?”

“Oh, she’ll be all for going home, once she’s seen the prince safely settled in. Why do you ask? Who are you?”

“One who would like to have a talk with your mistress, if that could be arranged? I’m travelling alone, with no servant, but if I sent my name to her tomorrow, would she see me, do you think?”

“Well, of course!” The boy, who had been surveying Alexander in the light from the open door of the dormitory, sounded confident. “She’s a sweet lady, the mistress. No ceremony, anyone can talk to her. If it’s important –”

“To me it is. What’s your name?”

“Berin.”

“Well, Berin, can you tell me more of your lady? Is it true that –?”

“Listen,” said the boy rapidly, “there’s the bell. They’ll be locking up in a minute. I’ll tell you the easiest way to speak with my lady. She goes walking in the orchard first thing in the morning, while the master’s still at prayers. It would be easy then to speak with her … No, no need for that, sir! Look, there’s Brother Magnus now, waiting to shut the hens up! We’d better hurry! Good night to you!”

He took to his heels, and Alexander, returning the second bribe of the evening to his pouch, hastened after him.

So they met at last, Alice and Alexander, in the early morning of a beautiful summer’s day, in the orchard of the monastery of St Martin.

She was sitting under an apple tree. The tree was full of fruit, baby green apples crowding so round and glossy, among leaves and branches so symmetrically pruned, that it looked like a tree in an illuminated missal – the Tree itself, before it ripened to the Fall. Among the shorn, tawny grass at its foot, some poppies and dog-daisies had escaped the scythe, and there were buttercups, and the little low-growing heartsease, and clover already a-flutter with small blue butterflies.

She was wearing blue, the colour of the butterflies’ wings, and, intending to go to chapel later, she wore her veil. She was about to push its folds back from her face, so that she could watch the robin that had just flown down from the apple-tree and was perching within a yard of her feet, on an upturned bucket that someone had left there. Then, as Alexander approached across the grass, the robin scolded and flew, and Alice paused, still veiled, and turned her head.

“Lady,” he said, a little hoarsely, and made his bow.

Looking up through the veil, she saw a handsome young man, with blue eyes bright in a tanned face, and brown hair curling thickly to his shoulders. He bore himself proudly, and his clothes, though worn and serviceable rather than fine, were good. His sword-belt gleamed bright as horse-chestnuts, and the hilt of his sword was jewelled.

“Sir?” said the Lady Alice, and waited.

And now that the moment had come, and the end of his quest for the fabled powers of Macsen was so easily, so magically in sight, Alexander found that he had forgotten all about it. There was some enchantment here that was stronger than Queen Morgan’s, stronger than Macsen’s, an enchantment that the first apple tree of Eden might have been able to account for. He tried to speak, cleared his throat, and said, merely: “If I might see your face? Of your courtesy, if you would put aside your veil?”

“I was just going to,” said Alice. “I only ever wear it for chapel, and I think it was frightening the robin.” And, pushing the fine folds back, she looked up at him, smiling.

Without knowing even that he had moved, he was down on his knees in front of her, taking breath, but only able to stammer, half stupidly: “You – you cannot be a witch! Who are you? Who are you? You are the most beautiful girl I have ever seen in my life! Tell me who you are!”

“I’m Alice, daughter of the duke Ansirus of Castle Rose in Rheged. And I do assure you that I’m no witch, though I’ve sometimes wished to be! And you, sir? You have a name, too?”

She was laughing at him, but he did not notice. He answered, careless suddenly of all concealment, all possibility of danger. “I am called Alexander. My father was Prince Baudouin of Cornwall, brother to King March. My mother keeps Craig Arian for me, in the valley of the Wye.”

“And what brings you here, Prince, to Rheged – and expecting witches here, by the sound of it?”

“I think,” said Alexander, meaning every word of it, “that I came here only to meet you. And I think that I love you.”

In the sharp silence that followed, the robin flew down again to the rim of the bucket, and trilled a loud, indignant song that went quite unheard.

Neither of them, in later years, could ever fully remember what happened next, what was said, or even if anything was said at all for the first long moments while they looked at one another, each knowing that they had been moving steadily through their young lives towards this meeting. To Alexander it was like coming out of mist into sunlight, out of dark water into fresh and glittering air. The Dark Tower had never been. Some day, somehow, its story must be told, its stupid sins confessed, but not now, please God, not yet. Now was the moment when his life as a true prince, a knight, a man, might really begin.

For Alice, the moment was the one where the anxious mariner sees the lights of harbour. Or, more practically – and Alice was always practical
– the
moment of recognising the future master of her beloved Castle Rose, the man to whom she could go not merely in duty, but with joy as a lover; the young and eager sword that would keep herself and her people safe and in peace when their old lord had left them.