Heriot (27 page)

I
n the beginning the ships were little more than flickers along the horizon. The wind was hounding them onward and their sails winked in reflected sunlight. As they moved towards the long wharves at the mouth of the Bramber, a crowd edged out to watch them come in – a crowd made up of Lords and their small courts, men and women of Diamond, and lines of soldiers, the Hero’s own men interspersed among the men of Hoad. They ranked themselves, bringing order out of the confusion, with the men of Diamond looking sideways at the forces of Cassio’s Island, then stepping away from them as if they might contaminate one another.

Out at sea the advancing ships peeled away, swinging right and left, making way so the vessel with the glittering royal sign on its sail would be the first to dock. As it did so the musicians moved forward, coming into their own. The air rang with songs of welcome – both stately and joyous, songs that contrasted strangely with the mood of uncertainty that surrounded the singers. A carpeted gangplank was carried forward in a ceremonious way and laid between the ship and the garlanded wharf. The King of Hoad, crowned and resplendent in blue and gold, appeared on the deck, then crossed from sea to land.

A cry went up, welcoming him, but, once again, it was curiously restrained as if those who cheered the King were uncertain about what would happen next, unsure if a welcome
was appropriate, as if they thought the wrong judgement might bring incalculable retribution tumbling down on them. The King responded, facing his city and holding his arms wide in a formal embrace. For a moment he stood there, looking from Carlyon to Betony Hoad. Then the music made yet another announcement and, as if commanded even though he was the King, he moved forward once more, to place his hands on Betony Hoad’s shoulders and stare into his eyes.

‘Dear son!’ he said, but he said it in an entirely blank voice, entirely free of either dislike or love. Then he looked past Betony Hoad, studying the face behind him. ‘I would have expected Lord Glass to be attending you,’ he said.

‘Now, there’s a warm welcome,’ Betony Hoad replied, as they bent toward each other, the King’s worn cheek touching the cool cheek of his son.

‘And Lord Carlyon. I certainly did not expect to find you here on the wharf,’ the King went on, holding out his hand to the Hero, who clasped it warmly. ‘What a pleasure!’

‘I couldn’t hold back from being here to welcome you,’ Carlyon replied, smiling. ‘Diamond is not Diamond without a King.’

The King’s eyes were running over the guards and soldiers lined up behind them. ‘You have come well escorted,’ he said at last.

‘Very well escorted,’ Carlyon said. ‘These are only a few of the men I have brought with me. Prince Betony Hoad has been most hospitable.’

‘I have rather fallen in love with the kingly function,’ Betony Hoad said, and as he spoke he saw a sudden change of expression in his father’s face.

‘Where is Lord Glass?’ the King asked. ‘Where is Dysart?’ There was something approaching emotion in his voice at last. He looked at Izachel standing behind Carlyon. ‘Where is my
Magician?’ Betony Hoad glanced sideways at Carlyon.

‘Lord Glass and Dysart are both very healthy,’ he said. ‘And well protected. But we can’t discuss all that has happened while you have been travelling, not standing here in this irritating breeze. Let us advance grandly and allow Guard-on-the-Rock to take us in.’

And in due course they stood, just the three of them, in the King’s golden room in Guard-on-the-Rock, where the carved faces smiled slyly down from the high stone arches. The King peered briefly up at them up with a moment of something approaching ease. They, at least, were giving him a welcome he recognised, something he could rely on. Then, his face hardening once more, he turned to his son and the Hero, gesturing at the chairs before the throne. But Betony Hoad and Carlyon were both already seated, staring at him with the confidence of men who know they are in charge of the world.

‘Well, have you enjoyed your time ruling Diamond?’ the King asked Betony Hoad.

‘Not particularly,’ Betony replied. ‘But I have enjoyed undermining the arid tradition we represent. I have indeed felt like a man remaking the world and I thank you, dear father, for giving me the chance.’

‘The world is not readily remade … not against its will,’ the King said.

‘But it longs to be remade,’ Betony replied.

‘And it must be remade,’ Carlyon continued. ‘It is unnatural for any world to stand still. Lord King, I want the Hero to be more than an empty symbol banished to Cassio’s Island, only coming into Diamond to be waved like an old banner. Lord King, I want to be part of the active life of this city. I want to be your true twin … a true King … ruling beside you.’

‘It is not possible,’ the King replied. ‘You must know that. I am the King, first and last.’

‘First but not last,’ Carlyon said. ‘My soldiers are spread throughout Diamond. And Prince Betony Hoad and I have your youngest son, along with Lord Glass and some of your loyal followers, in our power. We would hate to do them harm but …’

‘I wouldn’t in the least mind doing them harm,’ Betony put in. ‘I long for some extreme entertainment, and watching experts harm Lord Glass would certainly have its pleasures.’

‘Your men may be spread through the city,’ the King said, ignoring his son, and looking directly at Carlyon. ‘But I have men of my own. You may even have the support of some of the Lords, but I know I have the support of others. And in any time of rebellion, I don’t think Betony Hoad would make a warrior King.’

‘But I would,’ said Carlyon. ‘I may be older and less skilful, for times of peace don’t encourage my particular talents, but I am still the Hero of Hoad. It is my chosen vocation. Lord King, are you prepared for battle? Are you, the man who forced peace on this city – a city moulded by conflict, a city whose very foundation is war – are you really prepared to give up your dream of an artificially peaceful world and allow a more natural one to flourish?’

‘After all, dear father,’ said Betony Hoad, ‘you knew when you went away that things would be changed. You hoped they would. You challenged Fate, but failed to imagine that Carlyon and I would join against you.’

‘What do you want for yourself, Betony?’ the King asked. He didn’t sound as if he was prepared to consider any proposal, he merely sounded curious. ‘Lord Carlyon has made his position clear.’

‘I don’t know what I want,’ Betony said. ‘But if you were to
step back and allow me to become King in your place I might have a chance to define my own ambitions. Our suggestion is that you go into voluntary exile on Cassio’s Island, which is an easy place to guard. And then Carlyon and I will rule as twin kings in Diamond. He will be set free to marry and one imagines he would not have too much trouble in fathering a dynasty. And me … I would try to become something beyond a King. I might even become a Magician. There must be a way one can learn …’ He looked at Izachel as he spoke.

‘Where is Heriot Tarbas?’ asked the King suddenly.

A silence fell … just for a moment neither Carlyon or Betony had anything to say.

‘He has chosen to leave Diamond,’ Carlyon said at last, speaking rapidly, trying to suggest the moment of silence had been irrelevant. ‘He has deserted you.’

But there was something of a light in the King’s eye. ‘You’ve lost him,’ he said.

‘Not before I put my mark on him,’ Carlyon said. ‘I think he decided the city was becoming rather too fierce for him … I think he decided to retreat. After all he is a Magician, and they’re notable for trickery, not courage.’

L
ooking through the narrow slot of a window, Dysart could just see the ships coming into the port below. He imagined his father disembarking and being received by Prince and Hero, imagined him finding out that Diamond was no longer his own.

They’re going to kill me, thought Dysart. They’re keeping me so they can negotiate with my father. All these years and they still don’t know him. He lives by history … by signs. If it’s a choice between his peace and his son, he’ll find it easier to live without me. Turning away from the window, he didn’t so much pace around his small space as wander around it, pausing to touch the walls every now and then, as if, with a bit of luck, he might find a vulnerable spot, and the stone might crumble at his touch. ‘If I ever became King I’d watch out for the trap of the Hero,’ he whispered to the wall, stroking it as tenderly as if it were the skin of the woman he loved. ‘But then you’d set other traps for me, wouldn’t you?’ he asked, half-believing the stones under his finger tips were in touch with every other stone in Diamond. ‘Wouldn’t you?’ Then he asked, ‘What time of day is it? I know I’ve slept, but for how long? My father’s out there somewhere. Is he worrying about me? Betony Hoad, Luce, me … we’ve never been much more than chess pieces in a game he was forced to play, and the game’s taken him over. Now he’s a chess piece himself. What sort of man was he before
he became King? I don’t know. No one knows. Well, Lord Glass perhaps.’

Then he thought of Linnet. And for the first time in his last hour of distracted thinking, Dysart felt he became fully himself. He stared down at his hands (
my
hands, he thought), flexed his fingers (‘
my
fingers,’ he muttered out loud) and was immediately pierced with an intense sadness and a certainty of doom … a feeling so fierce he had to sit on the stiff wooden chair, propping his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. I can’t betray my father. Of course, if my father was to go along with Carlyon’s wishes … Alien forms of hope kept thrusting up through his thoughts, even when he was trying so hard to face implacable facts.

There was a sound behind him. Someone was unbolting his door. Dysart didn’t turn when he heard that faint hush of the door opening, not wanting to gratify Betony and Carlyon by showing either expectation or hope, not wanting to betray the least interest in what was going on.

‘Dysart,’ said a voice. He swung around furiously, made violent by astonishment, but, even as his chair tottered beneath him, before he had properly faced the door, he smelt wild grass and pine needles and found himself embraced and kissed … found himself kissing back.

‘You’re alive. Alive!’ she cried. ‘I came to warn you. Oh, Dysart …’

‘Linnet!’ he mumbled, but he was already looking across her trembling shoulder, to the shape of a familiar giant looming in his doorway … Heriot.

Heriot came into the tiny room almost shyly, followed by a Wellwisher. And, though Heriot was definitely the man Dysart had known for so many years, yet he was that man transformed. His hair was cut short, his glasses were gone and, just as he used to do when he was a boy, he clapped his hand briefly over
one eye in order to focus properly on Dysart. His clothes were rough and unravelling so he was as shaggy as a bear in the King’s zoo. But there was another, greater change. An unfamiliar power seemed to be spilling out from him, filling the room, almost as if he were giving off heat or light.

‘
She’s
your true rescuer,’ Heriot said, pointing at Linnet. ‘She set off riding all the way from Hagen …’

Linnet interrupted him. ‘It was my father,’ she declared in a voice half-sob, half-sigh. ‘He longs to make Hagen powerful, and it makes him … unreliable. And I had to choose …’

‘There’s a lot to say,’ Heriot put in, ‘but right now we need to act and use our time well. The city is filled with the Hero’s men, but I think there are just as many of the King’s, all uncertain about what’s going on and what to do if it comes to a battle for Diamond. There are the men who normally guard the city, all waiting to be illuminated, waiting to be led … waiting to be told what to do. Your father just came sailing in with his troop earlier today, but so far he has issued no instruction.’

‘Why have they let this happen?’ cried Dysart furiously. ‘Their duty is to protect the Diamond – and me for that matter.’

Heriot put his finger across his lips. ‘Quietly!’ he said warningly. ‘The Hero is the twin to the King, and Betony, who was left in his father’s place, welcomed him. Attack the King’s son and you might be cutting into the King himself. Attack the Hero and, once again, you’re attacking the King’s other self. It’s a finely poised dilemma, and we both know Carlyon wants to escape from the prison that being a Hero has become for him. He wants to be an active King like your father, a married King. He wants to have children.’

The Wellwisher laughed. Dysart couldn’t remember ever having heard a Wellwisher laugh, and looked in some astonishment at the figure behind Heriot. He frowned with puzzlement that deepened into incredulity.

‘Is that your boy Cayley?’ he cried.

‘And he isn’t a boy any more,’ said Linnet.

‘I am what I am,’ Cayley said quickly, in that familiar damaged voice, ‘And right now I’m not boy or girl! I am a Wellwisher, but not the King’s Wellwisher. I belong with the Magician, just like always.’

‘Move on!’ said Heriot, looking at Dysart. ‘Your father hesitates to command his own men, because he knows you and Lord Glass and others are hostages. We’ve already set Lord Glass free, and by now he’s in the Tower of the Swan, as safe as is possible. Defended, anyway. We’ll stroll over there now. And then – why, then we might drop in on Lord Carlyon and Betony Hoad and point out that yet another adjustment has taken place. They’ve pushed things around over the last few days. Now it’s our turn.’

‘But what about Betony?’ asked Dysart. ‘Perhaps he has guards and supporters all the way through Guard-on-the-Rock.’

‘I don’t think he has many supporters, but I’ll deal with Betony,’ Heriot said. ‘Can’t you tell? I’m more than I was. I’m most of the way towards being what I was meant to be in the first place.’

Dysart stared at him, perplexed, half-smiling, half-frowning.

‘I can tell you’ve changed,’ he agreed at last. ‘What’s happened to you?’

‘I’ve become a true Magician,’ Heriot said. ‘I’m the one man now.’

‘A Magician with a broken nose,’ commented Dysart, grinning a little hesitantly.

‘That? Well, I can still sniff out trouble. And anyhow, that’s between me and the Hero,’ said Heriot, grinning too. ‘I’ll probably remind him of it in due course. But come on now!’

‘Heriot, there’ll be guards everywhere,’ Dysart said. ‘I think …’

‘Yes,’ Heriot agreed. ‘But Cayley and me, we walked here past them, didn’t we? Because I have the power to change what they think they’re seeing. So I’ll wrap us around in dreams and we’ll walk by like the servants of Guard-on-the-Rock or attendants to Lady Linnet. Dysart, just tell yourself you are in charge now because Cayley will talk to the King’s Wellwishers, reminding them that their first and only connection is to your father, and as for you – never forget that the straggling old friend at your elbow is the Magician of Hoad.’