Magic Three of Solatia by Jane Yolen Read Free Book Online

the midwife had asked her to attend.
    Thankful that Sianna did not watch him go, Sian went along the strand. At the foot of the one hundred stone steps that were carved in the cliff’s edge from the beach to the castle, he stopped. Hand on his heart, he lifted his face to the sky and prayed. It was the first time in many years he had addressed himself to his god.
    “I pray you guard my tongue as I would guard my daughter’s life.”
    Then he went slowly up the stairs.
    At last he reached the castle door. Seeing his letter from the king, the soldiers passed him in without a word. Silently he went through the many doors until he paused at the one to the throne room. Through the open door came the high sinuous piping of a flute. The melody was strange, compelling, and dark. Suddenly the flute broke off in the middle of a phrase.
    “Don’t stand there like a gawking bear,” came a voice that for all its youth was unpleasant and oily. “I trust that your tatters and tears signify that you are Sian, my father-in-law to be.”
    And Sian walked in the door.

3. The Four Questions
    “W HY, HE IS BUT a boy,” thought Sian, and his fears began to fade. Sianna must be wrong. For Blaggard was barely five-and-twenty years old. His face was beardless and comely; his gold hair hung down to his shoulders in well-brushed ringlets. In his right hand he held a flute carved from bone. He looked to be the perfect prince, and Sian was soothed by those looks.
    There was a carefulness about Blaggard’s entire person: the silken clothes just so, the legs crossed precisely in the middle. Almost as though he was afraid to be less than perfect.
    “I assume,” said Blaggard again, leaning carefully forward on his throne, “that your answer to my marriage proposal is yes, Duke.”
    “My answer,” said Sian, remembering his rehearsal with Sianna through the long night, “is a question. Four questions, to be sure.”
    “Four questions? What do you mean?” Blaggard made a swift motion with the flute to the guards at the door. They entered and stood silently at Sian’s side.
    Sian was frightened, but not by the guards. He was afraid his voice would betray the lie, for he had never told one before.
    “My daughter follows the Old Way,” he said. “And in the Old Way, the Elemental Questions must be answered satisfactorily or the wedding will never take place. Fire and flood and disasters more terrible than these have attended weddings where the Four Questions were not properly asked and not properly answered.”
    “What nonsense is this?” Blaggard said angrily. He turned to the counselor on his right, while his hand fidgeted a silent tune on the bone flute.
    “It is true, your Majesty,” replied the man hesitantly. “Some of the villagers used to practice what is known as the Old Way. Perhaps, since you were brought up beyond the mountains, you never heard of it. There are tales of great waves and shaking earth swallowing up false brides and bridegrooms, those who did not ask or could not answer the Four Questions. But such tales, perhaps, are not altogether true. The Elemental Questions, though, are purely ritual riddles, riddles about the four elements that make up the world—earth, air, fire, water.”
    “And what are the riddles and their answers?” asked the king.
    “That I do not know, sire. They were part of the secret ceremony known only to the followers of the Old Way. I never followed it. Indeed, the Old Way was stamped out by your gracious grandsire years ago.” The counselor bowed as if to signify the end to his knowledge.
    Blaggard turned to the button maker. “Tell me the riddles, man.”
    Sian stared into the king’s eyes, for only thus, Sianna had cautioned him, would he be believed in his lies. “That I do not know, your Majesty. I am not a follower of the Old Way. Only my daughter in all of Solatia holds to it. She learned it from the seawitch, Dread Mary, when she was but a child.”
    “And four Elemental