A Princess of the Chameln by Cherry Wilder Page A

and light hazel eyes.
    â€œAkaranok!” he said. “First Watcher.”
    â€œGood Akaranok — have you heard that a dead man lies by the lake shore, just beyond your barricade?”
    â€œNo such thing reported, Dan Aidris,” he said. “Who is this man?”
    â€œAlas, it is Ric Loeke, a forest guide, who was leading another lady and myself into Athron.”
    â€œPrincess, how did he die?”
    â€œBy accident. In the night or early morning he stumbled into a pitfall. He had drink taken and could not come out of the trench again. He lay in water and drowned.”
    The telling made her sick; she swayed on her feet and shut her eyes. There was a burst of concerned chatter. Many hands fastened upon her gently; she found herself urged forward and settled upon a pile of logs up against the fence of the deer pen. The old woman with the milk pail and another, sturdy and young, with red cheeks and hair fantastically braided, were tending her. They held a cup with fresh water to her lips and crushed a leaf of lemon balm for her to sniff, against faintness.
    â€œAkaranok?” she asked.
    â€œHere, Princess.”
    He stood before her again, their eyes on a level.
    â€œYou know what help I need. The poor man must be buried, his horse and gear returned to the guild-house at Vigrund town. Then I need a guide to bring me and my friend through the Wulfental Pass into Athron.”
    â€œWe will do all of this . . . all that we can,” he said.
    â€œMy poor companion, the lady Sabeth, sits alone in our camp, near the lake. Our horses and baggage are unguarded . . .”
    â€œWe will set a watch at once!”
    â€œAkaranok,” she said. “Sabeth knows nothing of the forest or of your people. Do not frighten her, I pray.”
    He gave one of his ferocious Tulgai smiles.
    â€œNot a leaf will stir . . .”
    â€œThen, let me go to the Balg, if he will receive me.”
    â€œHe waits . . . he waits . . .”
    Akaranok gestured, and there was a bustling high and low, bursts of bird-calling, strange drum music and the music of Tulgai voices. She stood up, thanking the little women, and there was a carrying seat for her. A dozen warriors had made a frame with their spears. She sat on this platform, and they lifted her shoulder high.
    â€œFeather light!” cried one. “Light as a true Tulgai!”
    So she was borne through the sunlit woods past the tilled strips, the flowering apple trees, the low, reeking smokehouses of this most secret people. They came to the shaped trees, and Aidris saw that the tops of the trees, which were sturdy mountain beech, grew through a wide canopy of basket-work and thatch. Their trunks were the living pillars of the hall of the Balg, and between the pillars were walls of short dressed logs, polished and engraved with runes in bright colors.
    There were similar buildings clustered around the hall, and the earth was trodden bare and smooth between them. She was set down on a deeply trodden path. The forest trees, the dark conifers, ringed the settlement closely, so that there was not much light. It was as if the Tulgai lived here always under cover, in a huge tent.
    The place teemed with people, but they were hardly to be seen. Dark faces looked down from the very tops of the trees; there were rustlings all over the roof of the great hall. A bush at her side suddenly became overladen and spilled out before her six or seven creatures . . . little children, the littlest children, plump, brown, half-naked, with their hair scraped up into bunches on the tops of their heads. She half-screamed, half-laughed, and one, bolder than the rest, scrambled up her cloak and sat on her shoulder.
    She took the climber between her hands and held it before her face. It stared at her with huge brown eyes. As it was opening its mouth to roar, she gave it a kiss on the cheek and set it down in the bush again.
    There were guards before the hall, but Akaranok