Balin and Columbine (A Children of the May Novella - Book 1.5b)

Chapter Three: Columbine's Tale (part one)

My cousin Lily and I were raised together in her father’s house (said the girl). It was a happy life. We loved each other as the best of friends, as sisters even. The lands of Vellion are rich in good things, and my uncle is accounted a fine lord by the men and women who work his fields, forests and waters. Many were the days Lily and I would play in the valley, climbing its trees, splashing through rivers. We lived as free and happy lives as any two girls ever did. My uncle’s people would welcome us into their homes, giving freely of what they had gathered for their own tables. They would dress us both in the flowers from which we took our names: Lily wore white and gold blooms in her hair, while I was given strings of the white and grey Columbines that flourish in the cottage gardens of those parts. One winter a miller’s wife gave me this cloak of pigeon-skins to keep me warm; some places know the Columbine as the dove of flowers, but in Vellion they are called pigeon blooms. Each year as I grew, this kind miller’s wife would add to the cloak so it always covered me. The villagers and townspeople knew well the sight of the girl in the pigeon cloak flitting through the rich autumn colours.

As we grew into young women, Lily changed more quickly than I. The roughness of our play pleased her less; she no longer delighted in our games of football with the local lads and lasses. Her thoughts turned to love. She would sigh after imagined knights riding into the valley to be her champion. Such things have never much entered my thoughts. I find my pleasures in the wild life.

As we grew older, suitors came to Vellion seeking Lily’s hand. Two were particularly insistent. One was Garnish, a young man of peasant stock, ambitious of knighthood. He has a great store of stories of beasts and the land, though my Lily found him something coarse for her tastes; Garnish was not what she had she had imagined for herself, though I much preferred him to her other persistent suitor.

The second was older, and has fought with, and killed, many of your knights of the round table, your majesty. I think Lily was impressed with Sir Garlon’s stories of how he had slain Sir Herlews le Berbeus and Sir Perin Mountelbiard in combat. Lily favoured this Sir Garlon over Garnish of the Mount, but I did not trust him. And sure enough, I discovered a secret about him: he is a coward. He does not fight your knights fairly, your grace, but wears a suit of armour in which he rides invisible. I tried to reveal this secret to Lily, telling her that Garlon was not all he claimed to be. But she was in love with the idea of being in love, and I have found that it is impossible to reason with girls who are infected with that disease.

My uncle favoured the match. Sir Garlon is very rich from his murders, and he knows how to conceal his true nature with fine speech. Garlon convinced my uncle that he would be a fine successor as master of Vellion, and that he would treat all the people of the valley with a kindness equal to my uncle’s own.

I began to fear that I would never break Garlon’s hold over my cousin’s affections, and I was quite right in that; there were no means by which I could make a difference. But there was another who could help, one then a stranger to me.

Sometimes, when I was alone in the forest, I would see a young man dashing through the trees on horseback, chasing after one beast or another. A strong youth and very wild. He did not bother any of the villagers of Vellion, but he was a common enough sight to them. He rode and hunted with abandon, with his hair untidy and a great look of joy and purpose on his face. No one knew his name, so they called him the Savage. Lily had seen him too, on one of those now-rare occasions when she joined me on my expeditions. One day we watched the Savage sit upon the roof of an abandoned house in the woods, shooting at game birds with his bow and arrow. She thought him disgusting and ungentle; he was nothing like the image of the perfect knight she believed Sir Garlon to be.

But then one day we saw the same lad riding more gently through the woods; pausing to smell the flowers and sighing deeply at the beauty of the spring. His face was scrubbed; there was not a single hair on his head out of place; his clothes were unstained by mud and toil. It was as if the Savage had been magically transformed into the Philosopher. I thought he looked boring riding along slowly like that, but Lily was enchanted by the sight of him, and dashed from our hiding place to the bridge over the colourful pond, where he had paused to examine an array of gorgeous flowers that bore Lily’s name.

‘Fair knight,’ Lily said, ‘I have seen you in these woods many a day, but truly I have never liked you so well as now.’

The young man had been lost in his thoughts, but the sudden sound of Lily’s voice caused him no alarm. When he turned to see who addressed him, the bond between my fair cousin and this stranger was immediately made. At that moment of first meeting their hearts joined, like two ingots of gold melting together in a fiery crucible. It was the first time I was able to believe any of my pretty cousin’s grand words about love.

It took a long time for the boy to reply to my cousin, but neither of them seemed to mind (though in truth I grew a little bored as the handsome rider and my fair cousin grew together at the eyes). Eventually, however, he managed to speak:

‘Fair lady,’ his said, his mouth expressing his shock at the loveliness that had found him. ‘In truth, I have not ridden in this forest for many a year. I do not believe you could have seen me as I am now.’

‘You speak the truth: I have never seen you as you are now. When I saw you before you were quite another person: a rude hunter, riding after the beasts of the forest all uncouth. You were much less pleasing to my heart than you seem now.’

The boy plucked a lily in full flower and approached my cousin. ‘Indeed, my lady,’ he said, offering her the bloom. ‘I was a different man just moments ago. Now that mine eyes hath fallen upon you I am quite transformed.’

The white flower itself seemed to blush pleasingly as my cousin took it from him.

‘I believe,’ he went on, ‘that when you think you saw me last I was another. It is my brother Balin who loves to hunt in these woods.’

Though Lily was willing to be dazed by love, she was not a simpleton. ‘I think you are too embarrassed by your former appearance to admit to it.’

The boy shook his head. ‘Truly, fair beauty, I would not lie to you; I will never lie to you. I have a brother, my twin, and it is he who rides dangerously, not me. I promise this: I am Balan, son of Brian of the Isles, and if I had seen you before I would never have left your presence without the gift of your name to engrave upon my heart.’

There is little as sickening to me as new lovers in full flow, my king. It was at that point that I began to feel vomiturient. Certain that my cousin was safe in the young man’s company, I left them to converse unobserved and unheard.