Who brings the springtime, when the freshets flow

  And all the world goes green beneath her eye.

  Yet worship is not that which makes me call

  Upon you here, and offer up my heart.

  Although I, mortal, surely cannot woo

  As man to maiden, still, I have seen all —

  No, just a little, but at least a part —

  Of that alive enchantment which is you.”

  And she came to him.

  “— However, speak,” she said.

  He suppressed a shiver. Now he must be as glib as ever in his life. “First, will my lady permit that I resume my cap and gloves and pull my cloak around me? It’s mortal cold for a mortal.”

  Again something like amusement flickered briefly. She nodded. “Then say what is your name, your home, and your errand.”

  “May it please my lady, the caravaneers I travel with know me as poor Jordan of Lorace.” He was clearly from such parts. “But you of the high heavens surely recognize that this cannot be quite so.” Really? Well, anyhow, outright prevarication could be hazardous and should be unnessessary. She won’t deign to give me away. If she chooses to destroy me, she’ll do it herself. Battered to death by hailstones — ? “My motherland is farther west and south, the kingdom of Caronne, and I hight Cappen Varra, born to the noble house of Dordain. As for my errand, I have none fixed, being a wanderer — in spite of the birth I mentioned — who wishes to see something of the world and better his fortune before turning home. Rather, that was my only wish until this happy day.”

  “Yes, I’ve spied the pack train,” said Aiala scornfully. “You hope I’ll grant you better weather.”

  “Oh my lady! Forgive me, but no. Who am I to petition you? Nor am I in their enterprise. I simply took what appeared to be an opportunity to visit their country, of which go many fabulous accounts. Now I see this for the velleity it was.” He made his look upon her half shy, half aglow. “Here I find the fulfillment of my true and lifelong desire.”

  Was she taken a bit aback? At any rate, her manner grew less forbidding. “What do you mean?”

  Cappen gestured from beneath his cloak. “Why, my lady, what else than the praise of Woman? She, the flower of earthly creation, in her thousand-fold dear incarnations, no wine so sweet or heady as her presence, she is the meaning of my existence and my poor verses in her honor are its justification. Yes, I have found her and sung to her in many a land, from the soft vales of Caronne to the stern fjords of Norren, from a fisher hut on Ocean shore to a palace in Sanctuary, and my thought was to seek her anew in yonder realm, perhaps some innocent maiden, perhaps some wise enchantress, how can I know before she has kindled my heart?”

  “You are… a flighty one, then.” She did not sound disapproving — what constancy has the wind? — but as though intrigued; even puzzled.

  “Also, my very love drives me onward. For see you, my lady, it is Woman herself for whom I quest. While often wondrous, no one woman is more than mortal. She has, utmost, a few aspects of perfection, and they changeable as sun-sparkles on the river that is time. Otherwise the flaws of flesh, the infirmities of insight, the narrowness of dailiness belong to being human. And I, all too human, lack strength and patience to endure such thwarting of the dream for long. The yearning overtakes me and I must be off again in search of that prize which common sense tells me is unattainable but the spirit will not ever quite let me despair of.”

  Not bad, Cappen thought. By now he half believed it.

  “I told you to speak in few words.” Aiala didn’t say that quite firmly.

  “Ah, would that I could give you obedience in this as I shall in all else whatsoever,” Cappen sighed into the wind. “Dismiss me, and of course I will depart, grieving and yet gladsome over what has been vouchsafed me. But until then I can no more curb my tongue than I can quell my heart. For I have glimpsed the gates of my goal, loftier and more precious than any bright before me can have beheld, and I jubilate.”

  “And never before have I —” escaped from her. She recalled her savage dignity. “Clarify this. I’ll not stand here the whole day.”

  “Certainly not. The heights and the heavens await your coming. But once you command me, I can relate quite plainly that, hitherbound, I heard tell of my lady. Beyond, perhaps over and above her majesty and mightiness, the tales were of visions, dazzlements, seen by an incredibly fortunate few through the centuries, beauty well-nigh too great to bear and, more than that, a spirit lordly and loving, terrible and tender, mysterious and merry, life-bearing and life-nourishing — in short, Woman.”

  “You… had not seen me… earlier,” Aiala murmured.

  “But I had, fleetingly, fragmentarily, in dreams and longings. Here, I thought, must be Truth. For although there are doubtless other goddesses of whom something similar can be said, and I imply no least disrespect for any, still, Truth is One, is it not? Thus I strove to infer a little of the immortally living miracle I heard of. I wove these inferences into a humble tribute. I brought it to your halidom as my offering.

  “To do worship is an end and a reward in itself. I dared hope for no more. Now — my lady, I have seen that, however inadequate, my verse was not altogether wide of the mark. What better can an artist win than such a knowledge, for an hour of his few years on Earth? My lady, I can die content, and I thank you.”

  “You — need not die. Not soon. Go back to the plains.”

  “So we had decided, the caravaneers and I, for never would we defy our lady’s righteous wrath. Thence I will seek to regain my faraway birthland, but my countrymen too may be enriched by a hint of your glory. If I fall by the wayside —” Cappen shrugged. “Well, as I said, today my life has had overflowing measure.”

  She raised her brows. “Your road is dangerous?”

  “It is long, my lady, and at the outset — I left certain difficulties behind me in the Empire — trivial, but some people overreact. My plan had been to circumvent them by going roundabout through Arechoum. No matter. If the cosmic cycle requires that my lady decree an early winter throughout her mountains, I shall nevertheless praise her while blood beats within me.”

  “It’s not that,” Aiala bridled. The wind snarled. “No! I am not bound to a wheel! This is my will.”

  “Your wisdom.”

  “My anger!” she yelled. The storm in the west mounted swiftly higher. “I’ll show them! They’ll be sorry!”

  “They?” asked Cappen low.

  “Aye, they’ll mourn for that they mocked me, when the waters of Vanis lie frozen past the turning of the springtime, and the earth of Orun remains barren, and the fires of Lua smolder out because no dwellers are left alive to tend them.” Under his cloak, Cappen supressed a shudder. Yes, he thought, human rulers don’t take their subjects much into account either. “Then they’ll come to me begging my mercy, and I will grant it to them for a song.”

  I’m on the track. “But is it not my lady of the winds who sings to the world?” Cappen pursued, carefully, carefully.

  “So they’ll discover, when I laugh at their effort.”

  “I am bewildered. How could any being, divine or not, possibly quarrel with my lady?”

  Aiala paced to and fro. The wind strengthened, the dark clouds drew closer. After a stark minute she halted, looked straight at him, and said, “The gods fall out with each other now and then.” He forebore to mention that he well knew that. His need was for her to unburden herself. His notion that she was lonelier than she realized seemed the more likely when her tone calmed somewhat. “This —” She actually hesitated. “You may understand. You are a maker of songs.”

  “I am when inspired, my lady, as I was today.” Or whenever called for, but that was beside the immediate point.

  “You did well. Not that they could have appreciated it.”

  “A song was wanted among the gods?”

  Locks streamed and tumbled the more wildly as she nodded. “For a wedding, a divine marriage. Your country men must perceive it otherwise, but in these uplands it is Khaisntai who wakens at the winter solstice from her sleep, a virgin, to welcome Hurultan the Lightbearer, her bridegroom, and great is the rejoicing in Heaven and on Earth.”

  On Earth in better years, Cappen thought. Yes, the mythic event, forever new and forever recurrent. A chill passed up his spine. He concealed it as best he was able. “But… the occasion is not always the same?”

  “No. Is one day the same as the last? Time would come to a stop.”

  “So — the feast and —” his mind leaped — “gifts to the happy pair?”

  “Just so. Of us Four, Orun may bring fruits or gold, Vanis a fountain or a rainbow, Lua an undying lamp or a victorious sword — such things as certain to them — while I have given an eagle or a fragrance or — We go there together; for we are the Four.”

  “But now lately — ?”

  Her reasonableness began to break. “I had in mind a hymeneal song, like none heard before in those halls but often to be again. They agreed this would be a splendid gift. I created it. And then —” Elemental rage screamed through an icy blast.

  “And they did not comprehend it,” Cappen proposed.

  “They scoffed! They said it was so unworthy they would not come to the feast in my company if I brought it. They dare!”

  Cappen waited out the ensuing whirlwind. When Aiala had quieted down a grim trifle, he ventured, “My lady, this is often the fate of artists. I have learned how eloquence is meaningless to the word-blind, music and meter to the tone-deaf, subtlety to the blunt-brained, and profundity to be unlearned.”

  “Good names for these, Cappen Varra.”

  “I refer to no gods or other high Powers, my lady,” he made haste to reply. One never knew who or what might be listening. “No irreverence, absolutely never! I speak merely of my small human experience and of people whom I actually pity more than despise — except, to be sure, when they set themselves up as critics. Yet even persons of unimpeachable taste and discernment can have differences of opinion. This is an unfortunate fact of life, to which I have become resigned.”

  “I will not be. Moreover, word has gotten about. If I come lamely in with something else than a song — No!” Aiala yowled. “They’ll learn respect when I avenge my pride with disasters like none since Chaos rebelled in the beginning.”

  “Ah — may that perhaps conceivably be just a minim extreme, my lady? Not that I can judge. Indeed, I am baffled to grasp how your colleagues could reject your epithalamium. The music of the wind pervades the world, lulling breeze, sough in forests, laughter-full rainsquall, trumpeting gale, oh, infinite is its variety, and its very hushes are a part of the composition,” said Cappen with another sweeping gesture.

  She nearly thawed. “You, though, you understand me —” she breathed. “For the first time ever, someone —”

  He intended to go on in this vein until he had softened her mood enough for her to stop punishing the land.

  But she paused, then exclaimed, “Hear what I have made, and judge.”

  “Oh my lady I cannot!” gasped Cappen, aghast. “I’m totally unworthy, unfit, disqualified.”

  She smiled. “Be not afraid.” she said quite gently. “Only tell me what you think. I won’t take offense.”

  Too many others had insisted on declaiming their verses to him. “But my lady, I don’t know, I cannot know the language of the gods, and surely your work would lose much in translation.”

  “Actually,” she said, “it’s in classical Xandran, as we’re wont to use when elegance is the aim.”

  He remembered white temples and exquisite sculptures in the South and West, too often ruinous, yet still an ideal for all successor peoples.

  Evidently the local deities felt that, while their worshippers might be barbarians, they themselves ought to display refinement. “But I also fear — I regret — my lady, I was not very dedicated to my schooling. My knowledge of Xandran was slight at best, and has largely rusted out of me.”

  True enough.

  Impulsive as her winds, she smiled afresh. “You shall have it back, and more.”

  “That would — er, take a while.”

  “No. Hear me. All tongues spoken by men anywhere are open to me.” Yes, so Bulak had said. How remote and unreal the Uryuk hut felt.

  “For the sake of your courteous words, Cappen Varra, and your doubtless keen judgment, I will bestow this on you.”

  He gaped. “How — how — And how can this weak little head of mine hold so overwhelmingly much?”

  “It need not. Whenever you hear or read a language, you will be able to use it like a native. Afterward and until next like, there will be only whatever you choose to keep and can, as with ordinary memories.”

  “My lady, I repeat, I’m wholly unworthy —”

  “Hold still.” Imperious, she trod over to him, laid hands on his cheeks, and kissed him.

  He lunched, half stunned. A forefinger slid into either ear. He noted vaguely amidst the tempest that this was a caress worth trying in future, if he had a future.

  She released him and stepped back. His daze faded and he could pay close heed to what he said. “I, I never dreamed that Woman herself would — For that instant I was like unto a god.”

  Her hand chopped the air, impatient. “Now you are ready to hear me.” He braced for it.

  Gaze expectant upon him, she cleared her throat and launched into her song. Fantastically the Xandran lyrics rang Caronnais — clear. He wished they didn’t. As for the melody, she possessed a marvelous voice, but these notes took a drunkard’s walk from key to key.

  “The universe has looked forward with breath baited,

  Not only Earth but the underworld and the starry sky,

  For this day so well-known, even celebrated,

  When all of us assembled see eye to eye

  About the union of our shiny Hurultan, whose ability

  It is the daylight forward to bring.

  And dear Khaiantai, who will respond walk agility,

  So that between them they become parents of the spring —”

  “Cappen thanked the years that had taught him acting, in this case the role of a gravely attentive listener.

  Aiala finished: “— And thus let us join together in chorusing my song! There! What do you think of that?”

  “It is remarkable, my lady,” Cappen achieved.

  “I didn’t just dash it off, you know. I weighed and shaped every word. For instance, that line ‘Birds also will warble as soon as they hatch from the egg.’ That did not come easily.”

  “An unusual concept, yes. In fact, I’ve never heard anything like it.”

  “Be frank. Tell me truly, could I make a few little improvements? Perhaps — I’ve considered — instead of ‘as ardent as a prize bull,’ what about ‘as vigorous as a stud horse’?”

  “Either simile is striking, my lady. I would be hard put to suggest any possible significant changes.” Aiala flared anew. “Then why do Orun, Vanis, and Lua sneer? How can they?”

  “Sneering comes easily to some persons, my lady. It is not uncommonly an expression of envy. But to repeat myself, I do not propose that that applies in the resent case. Tastes do differ. Far be it from me to imagine how your distinguished kindred might perceive a piece like this.

  Appropriateness to an occasion need have nothing to do with the quality of a work. It may merely happen to not quite fit in — like, say, a stately funeral dirge in a series of short-haul chanties. Or vice versa.

  Professionals like me,” said Cappen forbearingly, “must needs learn to supply what may be demanded, and reserve our true art for connoisseurs.”

  He failed to mollify her. Instead, she stiffened and glared. “So! I’m unskilled am I? I suppose you can do better?”

  Cappen lifted his palms with a defensiveness not entirely feigned. “Oh absolutely not. I simply meant — “

  “I know. You make excuses for them on behalf of your own feelings.”

  “My lady, you urged me to be forthright. I hint at nothing but a conceivable, quite possibly hypothetical reconsideration of intent, in view of the context.”

  Indignation relieved him by yielding to haughtiness. “I told you how I would lose honor did I now give anything but a song. Rather will I stay home and make them sorry.”

  Cappen’s mind leaped like a hungry cat at a mouse. “Ah, but perhaps there is a third and better way out of this deplorable situation. Could you bring a different paean? I know many that have enjoyed great success at nuptial gatherings.”

  “And the gods will know, or in time they’ll discover, that it is not new in the world. Shall I bring used goods to the sacred wedding — I?”

  “Well no, my lady, of course not.”

  Aiala sniffed. “I daresay you can provide something original that will be good enough.”

  “Not to compare with my lady’s. Much, much less exalted. Thereby, however, more readily blending into revelry, where the climate is really not conducive to concentrated attention. Grant me time, for indeed the standard to be met is heaven-high — “

  She reached a decision. “Very well. A day and a night.”

  “Already tomorrow?” protested Cappen, appalled.

  “They shall not think I waver weakly between creativity and vengeance. Tomorrow. In classical Xandran. Fresh and joyous. It had better be.”

  “But — but —”

  “Then I will give you my opinion, freely and frankly.”

  “My lady, this is too sudden for imperfect flesh and feeble intelligence. I beg you —”

  “Silence. It’s more than I think I would grant anyone else, for the sake of your respectful words and song. I begin to have my suspicions about it, but will overlook them if you bring me one that is acceptable and that my winds can tell me has never been heard before on this earth or in its skies. Fail me, and your caravan will not get back to the plains, nor you to anywhere. Go!”

  In a whirl of white, she vanished. The wind shrieked louder and colder, the storm clouds drew nearer.

  * * * * *

  VILLAGERS AND CARAVANEERS spied him trudging back down the path and, except for those out forlornly herding the sheep, swarmed together to meet him. Their babble surfed around his ears. He gestured vainly for silence. Bulak roared for it. As it fell, mumble by mumble, he and Deghred trod forward.