The Kingmaker by Nancy Springer Read Free Book Online Page B

fancied, gladly, then restored itself to a perfect circle after I had freed it from the pig and from the rope.
    Still with both hands, as if lifting an offering to the goddess, I held the dirt-caked circle up in the sunlight, looking upon it. Pitted and stained it was, but not with rust. Rather, with antiquity.
    “That’s no ring of iron , fool,” said the complaining clansman to the other one.
    “Some softer metal,” I agreed before they could start quarreling again. And although my heart beat hard, I made as light of the matter as I could, slipping the ring into the pouch of leather that hung at my waist, at the same time feeling for a few coppers. I would gladly have given gold for that ring, but to do so would have excited the jealousy of the other clansman and caused too much talk. So with, I hoped, the air of one settling a matter of small importance, I handed threepence to the sow’s owner and told him, “Get a proper ring to put in her snout. Then she will trouble your neighbor no more.” To the other man, also, I gave a few pence, saying, “If your children grow hungry this winter, tell me and I will see that you have barley to eat.”
    Then I left them, striding home as if important business awaited me at the stronghold.
    In no way could they imagine how important.
    *
    All the rest of that day I closeted myself in my chamber, with the door closed and barred, while I soaked the ring in vinegar, scrubbed it with sweet rushes, coaxed grime from its surface with a blunt bodkin, until finally by sunset glow I examined it: a simple but finely wrought thing made not of iron or copper or silver or gold, but of some metal that lustered even more precious, with a soft shifting green-gray glow, like moonlight on the sea. Some ancient metal I did not know—perhaps orichalcum? Perhaps this had been an armband for some queen of Atlantis? Or perhaps a finger ring of some giant who had long ago walked the heath and built towers of stone?
    Such an ancient thing possessed its own mystery, its own power.
    Or so my mind whispered.
    Was I a seer as well as a soothsayer? The odd sort of recognition I had felt upon seeing the black moon-mottled sow had occurred within me at intervals all my life, although never before had I bespoken it. Or, recognizing the ring in the same way, acted upon it.
    Perhaps I was an oracle. Druids said that the wren, the little brown bird that had fetched fire down from the sun for the first woman, possessed oracular powers.
    I should feel honored to be called Wren, my mother had often told me while she yet lived, for the wren is the most beloved of birds. It is a crime to harm a wren or even disturb a wren’s nest. Except—this my mother did not say, but I knew, for I had seen—once a year, at the winter solstice, the boys would go out hunting for wrens, and the first lad to kill one was declared King for the day. They would troop from cottage to cottage, accepting gifts of food and drink, with the mock King in the fore carrying the dead wren. Then they would go in procession to the castle, and the real King would come out with the golden torc around his neck, the dead wren would be fastened atop an oaken pole, its little corpse wreathed with mistletoe, and a druid would carry it thus on high while the King rode behind with his thanes and retainers in cavalcade. Therefore the wren was called the Kingmaker.
    As I thought this, glad shouts sounded from the courtyard below: “High King! High King!” Gwal Wredkyte and his heir Korbye and their royal retinue had returned from hawking.
    Although I seldom adorned myself, this day I took off my simple shift and put on a gown of heavy white silk edged with lambswool black and gray. I brushed my hair and plaited it and encased the ends of the braids in clips of gold. I placed upon my head a golden fillet. Around my neck I hung a silver lunula, emblem of the goddess.
    For a long time I looked at myself in my polished bronze mirror that had been Mother’s