The Widow and the King (25 page)

‘Why did you help me?’ croaked Ambrose.

‘I'm sorry for you. And I said we should stick together. I don't forget that.’

You killed my mother
.

Ambrose knew he should say it. He knew the Wolf was waiting to see if he did.

‘Some of the things he makes me do – I don't like them,’ said the Wolf.

‘If you're going to live, you've got to make the best of things,’ said the Wolf. Then, carefully, he said: ‘I've never been a mother myself. But I don't mind. You need someone to look after you.’

Ambrose felt his mouth move, but no sound came.

‘Maybe a brother would be better,’ said the Wolf. ‘I had a brother, but I lost him. Brothers should look out for one another.’

Ambrose could not say yes; he dared not say no. Saying anything at all would hurt, more than ever.

‘Anyway, you need to keep me on your side. That's your best bet. Then I won't give you to him. If we stick together, we can make him treat with us properly.’

‘… What do you want?’ said Ambrose at last.

‘Oh – there's something you could do.’

Of course there was something. The Wolf had not come just to save him. He had some other reason for working the Heron Man's magic to be here. He was waiting for Ambrose to ask what it was.

But even talking hurt so much now.

‘It's one of your father's things,’ the Wolf said at length. ‘You've got your pebbles. They don't interest me. I've got his book. But there's another thing. Are you listening?’

‘Yes,’ gasped Ambrose.

‘He's shown it to me. I know it's in a big castle, where people still live. It's locked away in a chest in a high room, not guarded. I've searched Velis. It's not there. That leaves just Tuscolo, Bay and here. All those houses had a part in Baldwin's fall. I was passing, so I came to have a look. I might have got it, too, if I hadn't stopped to help you. Now I've used my water for this time and I've got to go on. So you owe it to me, really. If it's here, you can find it for me.’

The man drew closer, speaking in a murmur.

‘It's a stone cup. Find it for me, and I can help you. Understand?’

‘Yes.’

‘You'll tell me if you see it?’

‘Yes.’

‘That's a pact, then,’ said the Wolf. He sounded relieved. ‘Let's make it work. Now lie still and let me put these pebbles out for you. No good letting that thing come straight back the moment I've gone. How many should there be? I've got eight. So, one at the feet, right. Three up each side …’

Go away, thought Ambrose, as the Wolf groped and grovelled in the darkness of the cell. Please go away.

‘You'll have to roll over, so I can get them on your other side,’ the Wolf said. ‘How far apart can they be?’

‘I – don't know.’

He shrank from the touch of the Wolf ‘s hand. The man was kneeling over him, smelling of sour leather, trying to jam the pebbles in between the pallet and the wall.

‘There. That's the best we can do. Now you get better, and look hard around this place when you can. I'll be back
when I'm able. In the meantime, look after yourself. Don't think of wandering off. Winter's coming. If you leave the castle, chances are you'll starve. Don't go talking to those idiot masters either. Or anyone. They'll think you're mad, or possessed, or maybe up to witchcraft. The one thing they won't do is believe you. Stay here. Stay quiet. Keep out of his way. Hear me?

‘And take care of those stones,’ he added. ‘Or he'll pick your pocket before you know it.’

I should have said no, Ambrose thought, when the darkness had swallowed the Wolf.

I should have said no, and I didn't.

ebbles?' said the tall scholar. He peered disgustedly into the pouch. ‘Is that all?’

‘Give them back!’ yelled Ambrose. He tried to reach the pouch, but other hands were holding him. The little sunlit courtyard was full of grinning faces.

‘Pebbles!’ said the leader. ‘Baby's toys! Who said it was going to be money?’

He looked around him at his fellows. No one answered him.

‘Well it was one of you,’ the leader said.

Ambrose jerked in the grip of the boys who had grabbed him, and almost broke free. But another hand caught him by the collar, and he swayed helplessly.

‘These your toys, baby?’ said the leader, dangling the pouch by the long drawstring. He was a lanky fellow, with a long jaw and curly brown hair. Ambrose had seen him and his friends hanging about the courtyards and the halls many times. He had never dreamed that they would pounce on him like this.

‘Give them
back
!' said Ambrose.

‘Baby wants his toys back,’ said the leader, swinging
the pouch.

‘All right then. Here you are.’

Ambrose felt the hands release him. He stood awkwardly. The tall boy held the pouch out to him in his palm. Sullenly, Ambrose stepped up to take it.

As he put his hand out the boy tossed the pouch neatly over his head. Behind him, someone caught it. Ambrose whirled. The gang spread out around him.

‘Here, baby.’

‘Give them back!’

Ambrose charged at the boy who held the pouch. It flew to his right. He lunged for it, but too late. Another scholar had caught it, laughing.

‘Here, Boley!’

‘To me! To me!’

‘Give it
back
!' screamed Ambrose. He charged again. The pouch whirled high over his head. He spun. A boy was standing there, with the pouch in his hand. A boy he knew.

‘Cullen – give it. Please!’ he cried.

But Cullen flung it, laughing.

‘Whoa!’ cried someone, as the pouch thumped into his hands. Pebbles went flying from its open mouth and landed in the dust.

Ambrose screamed and lunged again. Again the pouch disappeared before he reached it. But he carried on his charge and collided with the thrower, wanting to smash him into the earth. The boy staggered with the impact.

‘Hey!’

Thick arms wrapped around Ambrose. His head was buried in the boy's chest. His fingers flailed and found the boy's belt. His knuckles banged against the hilt of a
knife that was stuck there. He was being forced to his knees. Raging, he felt for the knife again. His fingers closed on it. It came free. At once the shouts around him changed.

‘Look out!’

‘Grab him! Grab him!’

For an instant there was space around Ambrose. He brandished the knife, and charged the tall leader. A foot tripped him and he went sprawling. Someone landed heavily on his back. He flailed with the knife, but his arm was pinned.

‘Get it! Get it!’

Fingers were prising at his grip. He could not hold the knife. It was gone.

‘Off there!’ said another voice. ‘Boley, off !’

‘He tried to stick Lex!’

‘Off there! You want to land in the stocks? Get up!’

‘He had a knife, Chawlin. He was knifing Lex!’

‘
Up
, damn you.’

Slowly the weight on Ambrose's back lifted. He got to his knees and looked up into a group of faces. Some of the oldest scholars had appeared in the middle of the crowd. One of them, a man with a pale, stubbly beard and his hair tied back, was weighing the knife in his hand.

‘They're mine!’ Ambrose said fiercely. ‘They stole them. He
made
them steal them.’

‘We'll come to that in a minute,’ said the man. ‘Whose is this?’

The boy Ambrose had wrestled with held up his hand. The man handed the knife to him.

‘Put it away,’ he said curtly. ‘What was stolen?’

‘Nothing was stolen, Chawlin. He just went crazy!’

‘So what was stolen, you?’

Ambrose realized that the man was talking to him.

‘They took my stones.
He
told them to take my stones.’

‘Angel's knees, Chawlin! It was just a game with some pebbles. He went crazy.’

‘Pebbles?’ The man looked around him dubiously. One of the white stones lay in the dust of the courtyard at his feet.

‘All right,’ he sighed. ‘Give him his stones back, whoever has them.’

Wordlessly, they piled stones into Ambrose's open hands. One, two. Three. Four, five. The pouch was added on top. It was empty.

‘Now you all find something useful to do. Or I'll have something found for you. If there's more of this, you will be in the stocks for brawling …’

‘They've still got some!’ said Ambrose, trying not to weep. ‘There's three missing!’

‘Oh, Angels! Would any of you be hiding more of those stones? No? So off with you.’

The group drifted away. One or two of them shot glances at Ambrose as they went. There was a burst of laughter at something one of them said. Then they were gone through the low archway.

‘See they don't hang about, will you?’ said the man to his fellows. They nodded, and followed. Ambrose and the man were alone in the small courtyard.

‘So what is your name?’

‘I'm called Luke,’ said Ambrose.

‘I thought it would be,’ said the man grimly. ‘Well,
Luke, since we will both be late for afternoon study, we had better be out of sight.’

He jerked his chin over Ambrose's shoulder. Behind Ambrose, in the curtain wall, was a small turret with a door facing in to the courtyard. Ambrose felt the man's hand fall on his shoulder.

‘Come on.’

The wall-tower housed a spiral stair that climbed up past arrow slits to the wall-walk, and on to an empty, roofed platform above it. The roof screened them from being overseen from the higher towers along the wall. The man lowered the trapdoor into place, cutting off the stair and the way to the courtyard below.

They stood facing one another on the turret platform. Some of the beams that supported the roof were low enough to make the man bend his head.

Ambrose recognized him. This was the one who told stories to the other scholars, and who had played the hilltune in the courtyard. Now that he was close Ambrose saw that his face was pale and his eyes small. The man had slept badly last night – maybe for several nights. Ambrose knew about that. He had not been sleeping well either.

‘So what was it about, Luke?’ said the man quietly.

‘They took my stones.’

‘And you drew the knife, perhaps?’

‘They weren't giving them back.’

‘Angels! Are you an idiot? You'd have had them back in the end. Why was it worth a knife?’

‘I didn't get them back. Not all of them.’

Who said it was going to be money?

‘He told them to take them,’ Ambrose said.

‘Who?’

The one thing they won't do is believe you.

Ambrose shrugged. There were just too many people here to make sense.

‘So you are an idiot. You go around clutching a set of pebbles as if they're precious, and of course someone wants a bit of fun with them. Is that worth a knifing? Do you know what the Widow's people will do to someone who uses a knife in this house? And what if someone else had drawn a knife? One of you could be dead now, and the other on their way to a hanging. As it is, Lex and his friends will tell the masters enough of this to bring you any trouble you want. But had you even
touched
one of them with it, your life would have changed for ever.’

Changed for ever?

Suddenly, Ambrose shrieked with laughter.

He couldn't stop laughing either. His lungs whooped and shuddered with it. He sensed the man's astonishment, and then his growing anger. But he couldn't explain.

Hands caught him roughly by the shoulders.

‘Enough! You – Luke! Take a hold of yourself !’

He could not. He shook in the man's grip. His throat howled and his eyes misted. Part of his mind could hear himself, uttering cry after cry, jerking against the man who held him. He felt it beginning to hurt – his throat, his shoulders, his half-healed back. He could not stop. The man had shifted his hold. He was not trying to shake Ambrose any longer. He had one arm round Ambrose's shoulders and was bracing him against his own body, as if he were pinning a struggling goat while its coat was trimmed.

Ambrose sobbed and sobbed, for what seemed like a long time.

Gradually he became aware that they had both sat down. He had his face buried in the man's shoulder. He was still sobbing, but more easily, now, and with real tears instead of the fevered laughter and weeping with which he had begun. The grip on him had eased. The man was rocking him, awkwardly, as if he was embarrassed by what he had to do. He wasn't speaking. He had not tried to speak to Ambrose for some time.

At last Ambrose gulped. ‘You're – you're the Piper, aren't you?’

‘What do you say?’

Ambrose tried again.

‘Is it you that plays the pipe?’

‘Yes,’ said the man. Perhaps he was a little surprised. ‘I play a pipe. It is not the only thing I do. My
name
is Chawlin.’

It was another rebuke: a gentle one this time.

‘I heard you in the courtyard, a week ago,’ said Ambrose. He knuckled at his eyes, but his vision was still blurred. ‘You played the Lament.’

‘The Lament? The hill-song? You know it?’

‘Can you – can you play it again?’ He wanted the hills. He wanted home and the clouds massing on the peaks in the evening. He wanted her broth and to see her stirring it, and the way things had been before his life had changed for ever.