The Widow and the King (16 page)

But with each pull the shapes of the horsemen were fading into the mists behind them. The rope began to pulse with a dull, throbbing sound.

‘They're cutting it,’ gasped Wastelands. ‘Hold Stefan.’ He heaved and pulled. For a while nothing changed. Both banks were lost in the mist. It was impossible to tell how far they had to go.

Then the barge seemed to be swinging in the thick, brown current that swirled past them. Behind them, the rope trailed loosely in the water. The horse shifted unhappily.

‘Saved me a job,’ said Wastelands, panting. ‘Now they can't follow us.’ He had stopped pulling, and was trying to loop the unwieldy rope around one of the poles of the raft. ‘What we need is just a bit of luck.’ He stood, staring into the mist. They waited. Ambrose had the impression that the raft was travelling downstream, but also
across the current. The rope ahead was taut. Loosed behind them, the current and the rope between them should bring them to the far bank at a point below the ferry. If only the ground was firm, and the bank could be scaled, they would escape.

‘They've helped us, then,’ he said. He had not thought that the enemy made that sort of mistake.

‘A little. We could have been spilled in the water. They didn't think …’ He tried to rub his face with his glove, but his helmet was in the way. ‘They must have known we were close. They were sweeping the bank to remove any means of getting across. But they weren't expecting to find us. When we gave them the slip they were angry and didn't think. Nor did I. I should have stopped to knife that fellow, and we could have got away with all the time we needed.’

‘I thought you had killed him.’

‘I tried to. He had a chinguard. All the same, I did not expect him to get up again like that. I should have cut his throat. I was in a hurry, too.’ He finished with a grunt that might have been a laugh. It was the only sound of good humour that Ambrose had heard from him in all their days of travelling.

He had not been afraid, Ambrose thought. He had walked among his enemies. He had kept going in the mist. Purpose like that could be a weapon against the Heron Man. As the raft drifted slowly in among the reeds on the far side of the river, Ambrose felt, grudgingly, that it was almost something to admire him for.

hey emerged from the gatehouse into the outer ward of Develin. A high, musical trumpet sounded from the towers above them, and was answered almost at once by another trumpet, blowing from the gate on the far side of the great enclosure. A soldier in a clean, red-and-white-checked surplice hurried on before them, taking news of their arrival to the inner castle. Two more, carrying long pole-arms, walked at Stefan's head.

Ambrose looked around. On either side the white walls of Develin circled about him, closing their great embrace at the gatehouse behind his back. They blocked out all view of the world beyond. Along the foot of each wall ran a village of huts and sheds, with people – many people – busy outside them. There were animals and children running. Men looked up from mending a cartwheel, watched Stefan pass, and went back to work. They were not afraid. Within these walls they had no need to be.

The inner gatehouse was massive, tall and bright with whitewash. There were many people about it – more
red-and-white-checked guards, more children, women arguing as they led out laden donkeys. And again there was music. Just within the gate a small band of men were playing stringed and wind instruments together in a light, jolly tune. They must have been practising, because the man who was their leader suddenly stopped them and spoke to them. Some of the children were watching. When the players started again they began a play-dance, linking arms and skipping in time together.

The inner courtyard towered with buildings. The cobbled spaces between them were alive with movement. People climbed steps that swept up to great doors. Faces peered down from long windows. Serious-looking men in dark green took Stefan and led him towards a trough. Ambrose stood close to Wastelands's side and felt very small. He had never seen so many people before.

Guards at one of the doors were gesturing to them, beckoning them to come up. Ambrose followed Wastelands up the steps. The soldiers spoke to Wastelands. Two of them led the way in. They passed down high-ceilinged corridors that were lit with rushes, even though it was bright day outside. Ambrose hurried along after the others, climbing stairs and squeezing his way past all sorts of people, richly and strangely dressed, who turned to look at him as he went by.

And now there was yet more music, swelling suddenly down the passages. It was a group of men, somewhere close, chanting the same words over and over on a single note. Their voices were as light and sweet as honey. Ambrose gathered his breath with the others outside a big, iron-studded door, and listened to the song as it rose from
a nearby stairwell. The music was utterly strange to him: strange and beautiful and terrifying. He wanted it to stop. And yet he felt that if it did stop, he would yearn for it to go on.

The door opened. Ambrose followed Wastelands into a small, crowded chamber, full of faces and bright cloth. His eyes were caught at once by a broad-faced, broadshouldered woman, seated in the middle of the room.

She wore black from head to toe. Her skin was pale and slightly blotched. Her dark hair was flecked with grey. Her face was round, and did not smile. He knew at once who she was, although he had never seen her before. She was the Widow of Develin.

About her stood a half-dozen men. One was a monk, who was almost bald, in a plain brown robe with a cord knotted around his waist. The others wore rich gowns, furs or doublets, and two were in mail. The chamber was hung with red tapestries; silver candle-sticks stood upon the joined-wood dressers. Here too the lamps were lit, although it was barely noon. The air was thick with a sweet smell, which must have come from the men's clothes or from some oil they had washed in. The sounds of singing still filtered in from beyond the closed door.

Standing before these people Ambrose felt ragged and filthy. Wastelands looked like a brigand, with his mail stained from the weather, his hair lank and the thin coat of whiskers that drooped from his mouth and chin. His voice sounded harsh as he addressed the room, speaking in strange, formal words about their journey.

‘You have proof of the boy's line, at least?’ said the Widow dryly, after Wastelands had fallen silent.

‘I find it in the boy's look, which for me recalls both his mother and his father,’ said Wastelands. ‘Sir Martin, whom I see standing beside you, served in their house once. He will say if it is not so. Also, I found the boy at a house of his mother's friends at Chatterfall, which Sir Martin may know, too.’

The bald priest nodded. His eyes were bright as a bird's and never left the knight's face. He had the most prominent Adam's apple that Ambrose had ever seen.

‘And he carried this.’ The knight drew from his chest a crumpled piece of paper and offered it to the Widow. ‘I do not read. I do not know what it says. But I know his mother's hand and I know the name of Tarceny.’

The Widow looked at the paper in the knight's hand, impassively. She did not reach to take it, but nodded to the priest at her side to accept it for her. Ambrose wondered why she might treat the knight so distantly, when he had claimed to be her friend.

The priest looked at the paper.

‘Well?’ said the Widow.

‘My lady,’ he said. ‘It is her hand, as I remember it. But more than that, what is written here seems to address a matter that concerned her deeply, and me too when I served at Tarceny. I doubt not that this came from her – or that the boy is who Lord Lackmere says he is.’

The Widow shifted in her chair.

‘So, Lord Lackmere – let us suppose that you have indeed brought me the son of the man who killed my man twelve years ago. You ask me for shelter for him, and a place at my hearth. Why should I do this?’

‘Because you can,’ said Wastelands. ‘Because I ask it,
who was once your friend against your enemy. Because this boy's mother would ask it, who did more than anyone to bring your enemy down.’

‘You talk to me of friends and enemies, sir,’ said the Widow. ‘Yet you have been both to me, and now I think are neither. My strength and charity are not endless. Let me ask another thing. News came to me yesterday that the city of Watermane has fallen to the soldiers of Velis. Did you know that?’

‘No.’

Ambrose could tell that the knight was puzzled by the question.

‘It was unlooked-for. Watermane is not a place to be knocked over with rush and a few soldiers. Yet I hear that armed men appeared suddenly within the walls and opened the gates to Velis before the garrison was aware. What do you think of that?’

The knight shrugged.

‘Treachery. Or …’

‘Or?’

‘Or maybe witchcraft.’

The Widow leaned forward. The faces of the men around her were a wall against the man who stood before them.

‘The last I heard of such a thing was in Tarceny's rising,’ said the Widow, coldly. She glanced at Ambrose as she spoke, and he realized that she was talking of his father. ‘Then there was a time when it seemed no strong place could hold against him. His soldiers appeared in Trant, and in Tuscolo, and in Pemini, one after another, and they fell. I never heard that the cause was treachery.’

Ambrose looked at his feet. He felt more uncomfortable than ever.

‘I am told that your son Raymonde came to Velis before Watermane fell, and gave him counsel. I did not know that Lackmere was famous for its wise words. Are you not proud, Baron?’

The knight's face had hardened. Beneath the straggling moss of his beard, the lines around his mouth might have been cut in stone.

‘I did not know that he went with Velis. I thank you for telling me.’

‘I would be surprised at that, but these are surprising times. I recall that when Tarceny fell, certain things were given to certain – trusted – lords for them to guard and see that they never came to light. I remember it was said that by these things or through these things it was possible to work witchcraft. I know that one was a cup. But I heard, too, that one was a book. Lord Lackmere, I ask myself very much where that book is now.’

‘And if I said to you that things given to my charge by the King are of concern to myself and the King, and no one else?’

‘Not even to the unfortunate people of Watermane?’

There was a long silence in the room. Ambrose could hear the
whuff, whuff
of the oil burning low in the lamps. Wastelands and the Widow glared at one another. The counsellors stood around their lady. Their faces were fixed on Wastelands.

This is a crime, their eyes said. And it is your fault. Your fault.

Ambrose wondered if they thought it was his fault, too.

It was the Widow who spoke first.

‘And at this time, sir, you come to me with the brat of Tarceny, as though he were a pawn that might be made – something else. With your enemies hard on your heels, and you ask me for shelter. Well sir, in the past you did draw sword when I had need of it. For that I have listened to you. This is what I say.’ She leaned forward in her heavy, carved chair.

‘I shall have space for one of you – one – in my house, as long as you will it. The other shall leave my gates before night falls, and go where they may, for I will not help them. It is for you to choose who will stay and who will go.’

Ambrose thought, gloomily, that he should not have been surprised. The Widow was his father's enemy. Everyone had hated his father. He wondered why Wastelands had brought him here at all. And he wondered, too, whether Wastelands would now stay here and let him be sent away. Ambrose had little reason to like the knight, and yet in the last few days he and his horse had become all the world he knew.

‘A fair bargain,’ said Wastelands slowly.

‘For myself, I would trouble you no longer than my horse will feed. Take the boy and raise him as a page, until such time comes as he may serve you in another fashion. Or you and I may meet again to decide what is to be done.’

‘If this is your word, then his way will be for me to choose and no one else,’ said the Widow.

After a moment, the knight nodded.

When the Widow spoke again, her voice was less harsh than it had been.

‘I am content. Sir, you may go.’

‘Does my lady not even ask what I will do? I will tell you. First, to Lackmere. Thence, as swiftly and with such force as I may, to Septimus.’

‘A curious choice, sir. I do not remember that you were so quick to take arms for him in Baldwin's rising.’

‘He had been unjust to me after Tarceny's fall. He favoured Baldwin over-much, and reaped what he sowed. That was not my quarrel. This is. And it surprises me, my lady, that you do not see it as yours.’

Now the Widow was angry.

‘Do not presume with me, sir! My house and my people are mine to dispose of. We do not look for wealth or power here, more than we have, but for lasting things that you would not understand. Ride with Septimus, Velis, or stay at home – I care not. But this I lay on you, since you remain to trade words after I have dismissed you.