The Widow and the King (21 page)

She had been different from the other students, not only because she was a girl but also because the cloth she wore had been very fine. Also she had been angry. She had reminded him of the lynxes that roamed the hill forests, scornful and sallow-eyed. A lynx. And it was he who had made her angry. He supposed that if he lived among as many people as this, he would not be able to help making some of them angry, whatever he did.

And the air in scholar's hall had been echoless, as if they had all been sitting in a wide landscape where nothing grew and there was never any wind. He remembered that feeling from before, when the Wolf had disappeared from the chapel at Trant. And somewhere just beyond his hearing he had thought there was a voice, speaking into ears that were not his. He had not heard what it said. And he had looked and looked for the Heron Man. And he had seen nothing.

He reached out and touched the stone again. It was pale in the darkness, like the moon. The moon had been put there by his father. But it meant something else now – something about truth. There had been no sign for a father among the things Padry had listed. That was a piece that was missing.

At last he slipped into a dream.

He dreamed that he heard someone weeping, far in the distance. And as he listened the sound grew, and changed, and became the hooves of horsemen, riding towards him on a wasteland road. He sat, waiting for them on his scholar's bench, knee-deep in long grasses at the road side.

The horsemen passed. Their faces were pale and bright-eyed, and they looked steadily before them as they rode by. Beside him on the bench a lynx turned to look at him, wild with sallow eyes.

The moon will rise tonight, the lynx said.

In a few days it will not rise at all.

nder the high roof of the chapel of Develin Sophia lit a taper for her father. She placed it in the stand before the great banner of Michael, which hung from the full height of the wall to the chapel floor. Above her the Angel stood armoured in the fabric, sword high, summoning all the qualities of courage and war. Ranged around the altar were the banners of the other angels, each with a stand of tapers before them. Under Raphael there was a blaze of lights, set there by those who sought the Compassion of Heaven. There were also many before Umbriel, because in this place men were always wanting Truth. Before Gabriel too there were a few. But under Michael, at this moment, there was only hers.

People did not value warriors in this house, Sophia thought. Even though Father had been one. But she at least would remember him.

The chapel around her was dark and almost empty. She bowed her head.

She had very little to remember. The ribbon, the drawer, and the last time she had seen him – cased in
metal, from head to foot, like a statue of polished iron. She had still been very small, and she had only glimpsed his eyes and cheekbones, through his open visor. Yet she had known him at once, and known that he was smiling at her.

They told her later that he had died in battle against the men of Tarceny. He had been thrown from his horse in the rout of his followers and crushed in the press. She had dreamed and dreamed that it was not true, and that he would return at last to wear the flower-garlands she made for him. He had never come.

Sophia remembered these things. Then she counted to twenty, because even though she couldn't remember any more she felt she should keep standing there for him. Then she lifted her head.

Her maid Dapea was waiting a few paces behind her. There was no one else in the long chapel. The hour for supper was approaching. One by one the scholars and the castle folk would be leaving their chores and duties, deciding that it was not worth starting something new in the time that remained. They would be beginning to gather in the courtyards, where they would loiter idly, gaming or gossiping, until the hall-bell rang.

So the library should be nearly empty, too. And she was already dressed and braided for the evening, so she had time to spare. This was the moment she had been waiting for.

‘Follow me, Dapea,’ she said, and led the way back down the aisle.

Outside, at the top of the chapel steps, she paused. As she had expected, there were a number of people in the
upper court, sitting or drifting around. A large group of scholars was already playing at knuckle-bones near the great hall. She smiled sourly and began to pick her way down and across to the school.

The school was a plain, rectangular building that jutted into the court from one end of the living quarters. It had been a barracks once, but after her father's death, when the Widow had found the world empty, she had installed the school there: to seek, as she said, some path away from the folly of men.

There it stood, that sulky, square block. And everybody – all her mother's people – cried what a great work it was! Within its walls thrived Alchemy, Arithmetic, Astrology, Dogma, Geography, Grammar, History, Law, Medicine, Philosophy and whatever else the Widow thought was a right path of enquiry. The library was as large as any in Jent or Tuscolo. Eleven masters and fortynine scholars lived here, and lived for learning alone. Where else in the land was there the like?

Sixty mouths to feed, thought Sophia. Mouths to bodies that would never grow food, carry burdens or bear arms. And tonight, all the scholars would crowd into the great hall with the rest of the household – counsellors, clerks, craftsmen, guards and stable hands – and everyone would cram together at the trestle tables and sit, longing for their meat, while two of the Masters took turns to stand up and dispute formally with each other about Kingship or the Law or whatever had excited them most in the last few weeks. And barely anyone would listen. And no one might eat until they had finished. And in a month's time it would happen again; and the same the month after. For
the Widow held that the school was a light both to her house and to the Kingdom, and must burn as brightly as she could bring it to.

Oh yes, thought Sophia. And that is why they sit here talking about Kingship while the Kingdom tears itself to pieces, is it?

The hypocrites!

When she's dead, I'll sweep them all away.

‘Here comes lady high-and-mighty,’ said one of the boys sitting on the step of the scholar's hall.

A few yards from them, Ambrose looked up. The girl whom he thought of as ‘the Lynx’ was crossing the courtyard towards the school. She was followed by another girl, who was clearly her servant. The Lynx stalked past him without looking down. Her companion, a dark-haired girl, smiled at Ambrose as she followed. He was surprised, and forgot to smile back.

Their footsteps diminished up the library stairs.

‘Do you think she'll take her meals with us now, as well as her lessons?’ asked the second boy, a shock-headed fellow of about fifteen.

‘What? Stale bread and rotten vegetables?’

‘And the nice rat-meat in the sausages.’

Ambrose knew both the boys by sight. That was why he had sat near them. He wasn't sure if he actually wanted them to notice him. He did not know what he would say if they spoke to him. (He himself saw nothing wrong with the food that they ate here.) But their presence was a comfort. So too were the three white stones he had placed around him – one behind him and one on either side.

The Lynx was gone. Other figures crossed before the school in ones and twos. More people were coming into the courtyard to join those waiting for the supper. Ambrose's eyes flicked warily around, hovering on doorways and patches of shadow. A burst of harsh laughter broke from among the scholars playing knuckle-bones. A man emerged from a doorway carrying a long pipe. He was one of the older scholars: a tall, blond man with his hair tied back into a pigtail. Ambrose had seen him before, standing by himself in a circle of scholars, telling a story while the crowd hung on his words. Now he was on his own. He sat cross-legged by himself and began to play. Ambrose listened.

There was so much music in Develin: chants and dance-tunes and musicians practising their instruments for some performance before the Widow. Ambrose liked some of it, and some of it he could not begin to understand. It took him a moment to realize that this tune was different.

It was different because he knew it.

The man was playing a melody of the hillmen: a lament with long, slow notes like someone stepping downwards on a stair in the sky. It was strange to hear it among these stone courts and windows, all alive with people. It told him once again how far he was from home. For some moments the air of the courtyard ached with memories of the mountains, bitter and sweet all at once. Ambrose felt a lump in his throat, and swallowed against it. He wondered how the player could have learned the tune.

And then it stopped. A group of three men, walking by, had paused to speak with the man. He was answering them. At the other end of the step the shock-headed boy
was whispering to his friend, and pointing at the white pebble beside Ambrose. Ambrose could not hear what he was saying. The second seemed to be laughing at something. Ambrose did not like that.

‘No!’ said a deep voice behind them.

Ambrose jumped.

‘Truth and untruth?’ muttered the voice. ‘No, do not tell me that.’

Someone was approaching from the darkness of the scholars' hall. Ambrose could hear a heavy, sandalled tread upon the rush-covered floor.

He heard it through a gathering deadness in the air – a dull, echoless quality as if the walls of Develin were about to part like curtains and show him a land of nightmare.

He froze.

‘As well say,’ continued the voice, ‘that because the light draws a shadow, we must put out the light.’

A figure appeared in the doorway. It was not the Heron Man.

It was a master whom Ambrose had not seen before: a tall man with a great, hatchet head and a face that sagged in thick circles one below another from his eye-pits. He wore a heavy red gown, and glowered down at Ambrose as if deep in his thoughts. There was a slight flurry as the other two boys stopped sniggering and looked attentive.

‘Who were you talking to?’ said Ambrose urgently.

The door behind the man stood open. The sun struck through the broad arch and lit a few square feet of the long room where the scholars ate and took their lessons. Beyond that, the shadows were empty.

‘I may address myself, if there is no other worthy,’ the
man said. He frowned. Perhaps he was surprised that Ambrose had spoken.

‘I have not seen you before, boy. Are you a new scholar?’

‘Yes – I came three days ago.’

‘Three days ago,

Master Denke
.’… Master Denker,’ repeated Ambrose, unsure if he had heard the name right.

‘And you will stand when you speak with a master or an officer of the house.’

Ambrose got to his feet, risking another glance at the doorway as he did so. Surely there had been someone else?

Through the echoless air he heard the man speak again.

‘Since you are here and idle – and impudent of mood – let me see what you know. What organ is king of the body?’

It was a question. He must answer.

‘I – I don't know,’ he stammered, ‘… master.’

The man towered over Ambrose. He seemed to be waiting for Ambrose to try again. Ambrose did not know what to do.

‘You put your left foot forward,’ said the master.

‘And touch your heart to show that you tell the truth.’

Ambrose's limbs did as they were told.

‘Now breathe, to strengthen the voice.’

Ambrose breathed.

‘Now tell me that it is the heart that is king of the body.’

‘The heart is king of the body, master.’

The man was right, he thought. His voice
was
stronger.
He tried another glance at the doorway, from the corner of his eye. There was still no one there.

‘And why is the heart the king of the body?’

There was no one there. But a thought came to him, as clearly as if a voice had spoken over the man's shoulder.

You cannot answer.

The eyes of the master, ringed with sagging flesh, poured their gaze over him. There was a large wart on the right side of the man's nose. Ambrose's jaw was limp. He could make no sound.

‘Why is the heart the king of the body?’ the master repeated. But his gaze had swung upon the other boys. The scholars scrambled to their feet and placed their hands on their hearts as Ambrose had done. The master stopped in front of the shock-headed scholar and lifted an eyebrow.

‘The heart is king of the body, master, because it is the seat of truth,’ said the boy, roundly and clearly, as if he were speaking to a gathering of twenty men. ‘Truth among men is law, and the King is the Fount of the Law, who gives justice to his subjects.’

‘Indeed, Justice is Truth. How is it exercised?’ The master's eyes were upon the other scholar.

‘Through Punishment and Pardon, master,’ the scholar said.

‘Very good. And which is the greater?’

It was Ambrose's turn again. There was a moment's silence.

The other boys were looking at him. Ambrose saw the muscles on their faces tighten with alarm. Something bad would happen if Ambrose could not answer.