The Widow and the King (27 page)

Hervan knew something about Luke that the others did not.

If Hervan knew it, so must the Widow. What was it?

‘It is for Padry to approach me if he thinks a scholar has passed beyond remedy,’ said the Widow. ‘So far, I have heard nothing that might not be improved with a cane.’ ‘My lady will recall that she has sent Padry to Tuscolo in the hope of buying books before the war closes its gates. In the meantime, a serious matter has arisen, for which I have placed the boy in custody.’

‘Very well,’ said the Widow. ‘What is it?’

‘Some scholars took from him a pouch of pebbles, and threw it among them in sport. It should have been a harmless game, but he drew a knife …’

‘His?’

‘I do not know, my lady.’

‘If it is, it should be taken from him,’ said the Widow. ‘Knives may trim pens, but I will not have a scholar carry one if he thinks to use it on a fellow. And certainly he should be beaten for this. Now …’

‘Padry has already had him beaten, and he is no better,’ grumbled Father Grismonde.

‘My lady, if I may?’ said Hervan, the chamberlain.

‘Please, Hervan.’

‘It is of course for the masters to advise on good order in the school,’ said Hervan smoothly. ‘However, if this matter had arisen among the household, I should have asked first if any had been injured, and whether there had been intent to cause injury.’

‘By good fortune, there was no injury,’ said Grismonde. ‘As for intent …’

‘Then,’ said Hervan, overriding him, ‘perhaps the matter is not as grave as it first appeared.’

‘Indeed, Hervan,’ said the Widow. ‘Thank you.’

Sophia relaxed slightly on her makeshift stool. The masters were losing. With luck she would not have to speak in front of the Council after all. She was a little sorry, now, that she would not be able to boast to Chawlin about how clever she had been. But mostly what she felt was relief.

Father Grismonde was looking nonplussed.

‘My lady, I do not know how—’

‘Enough, Grismonde. You may beat the boy, but let it be.’

‘And if the trouble stems from the pebbles the boy carries, the pebbles should be taken from him as well.’

Sophia looked up. Which counsellor had said that? She could not tell. But whoever it was had slipped their point in just as the matter was closing …

‘So be it. But I will not have him turned off. Enough.’

And now it was closed. The Widow had not spoken so firmly all morning.

Sophia's voice almost died in her throat. But not quite.

‘M-madam.’

She craned backwards to look into the Widow's frown.

‘Yes?’

‘May I speak on this?’

The Widow did not let people argue when she had made a decision. But this was the first time Sophia had ever raised her voice in Council.

The Widow sighed. ‘Quickly then.’

Sophia paused. The thought of Chawlin's face, his feeling for this bewildered boy, surprised her with its strength.

‘First, I beg that you do not take these stones from him, madam. I believe that they are all he has left from his family, for whom he is grieving.’

There was an intense silence. She could not see the faces of the counsellors; but there was an air in the room like – like ice. Fury, outrage, surprise: the Council – or someone at least – was staring at the back of her neck. (
Why this? Why you?
She could almost smell it.) The oil lamps hissed and spat thickly. She kept her eyes fixed on her mother.

The Widow shrugged.

‘Very well. Aught else?’

‘It is said – it is said he mislikes his masters,’ said Sophia, astounded at herself. ‘I think it may be because he has not been served justly.’

‘How not?’

‘He was beaten for studying something he had not been set to study. But Padry was mistaken. It was not Luke who was looking at the text, but I.’

There were murmurs around her. Strangely, the worst moment seemed to have passed.

‘Padry is not here to answer you,’ said the Widow. ‘But I had not heard that studying more than one had been set to study was a crime in my house, so long as the texts are not sullied or torn by the careless. What work was this?’

‘The lists of heraldry, madam.’

‘And what did you learn?’

(Boldness, now, because if she lied they would know she was hiding something.)

‘The name of the company of horsemen who came to your gate a month since.’

She saw her mother's face change. And Hervan's beside her.

The Widow, and Hervan. What did they know?

‘They were from Tarceny,’ Sophia said clearly. ‘And, madam, I have a question that I wish to ask you.’

Was she truly going to do this here? In front of all the Council?

‘Ask.’

‘Why you did not have them slain, and so avenge my father?’

There was a moment of silence. Then the Widow sighed again. Perhaps she had been expecting – or fearing – something else. She looked to her counsellors.

‘Grismonde, perhaps?’ she said.

Father Grismonde cleared his throat. For a moment Sophia hoped that the priest would still be cross enough to snub his mistress.

‘My lady, you know that in the school we allow three remedies for evil done. They are Faithfulness, Forgiveness, and Force …’

The Widow nodded. Sophia groaned inwardly. The two of them were going to pretend to be friends again. And it was she who had given them the chance!

‘As with any remedy in medicine, each may apply in its own place,’ said Father Grismonde.

‘And each may be fatal if employed at the wrong time or in the wrong case. Among your masters there is dispute over which is greatest. Some will argue that it is Forgiveness, or Pardon, that should have primacy. I prefer the order in which I have given them …’

This isn't about
evil
, Sophia thought angrily. This is about Father!

‘Yet there is no disagreement among us that Force is the least of the three,’ rumbled the old priest. ‘The most over-used, and the most like to add harm to harm. Each slaying leads to another slaying. If Man never forgave nor forgot, but pursued his enemies and the sons of his enemies and the servants of his enemies, the slaying would not cease until the last of us were slain. Every year, now, it seems to me that more die at the hands of men than are born from mothers’ wombs.’

‘Truth,’ said the Widow. ‘And still it continues. We have heard that Septimus fares at last to meet Velis, to what end we may all guess. And an innocent boy has been beaten in my house … Indeed,’ she went on, with a weariness in her voice that Sophia would only remember long afterwards, ‘I think sometimes that it were better we did nothing at all, for it seems no good comes of anything we do.

‘Well, enough of this. At least I may make amends to the boy Luke. We have agreed that there should be scholars among us when we make our winter progress. Let him be in their number. He is young for it, but if he is grieving still, a change may help him, and also help him to learn more care for his fellows.’

‘… And you were right,’ whispered Sophia, when she met Chawlin afterwards in the darkness of the keep stair. ‘You were right about everything! Even about him coming on the winter progress.’

‘Ah. I thought your mother might want an excuse to keep an eye on him.’

‘So who is he?’

‘I don't know. I have a guess. But as long as it is no more than a guess, it is maybe better not to talk about it. Anyway, you seem to have done well. In fact, you did very well.’

That wasn't flattery. That was honest respect, and she loved him for it.

‘Training,’ she said, trying to sound dismissive.

‘More than training. It's a hard thing to re-open a matter in a debate like that, even when you know they
have ended in the wrong place. I don't think another beating would have done him anything but harm.’

‘I even saved his pebbles for him,’ she giggled.

‘More to the point, you held your own in Council. Your mother will be pleased with you when she thinks of it.’

His praise, and the knowledge that they must part in an instant, lifted her. She stood on tiptoe on the step below his, and put her hands around the back of his neck.

‘I had good help,’ she said.

‘You …’

‘No, I'm going to.’ And she reached up to kiss him. She felt the scratch of tiny stubble-hairs on her lips.

And he did not protest. He did not stammer or back away. She felt the sudden tension in him ease as she released him. He shook his head, unbelieving in the dimness of the stair.

‘So where did
you
come from?' he asked, almost of himself.

Then there were feet on the stair below them. They parted abruptly, Sophia climbing, Chawlin going on down to meet, delay, and talk gaily with whoever it was that was coming up towards them.

Sophia crossed her arms as she climbed, holding her elbows where his hands had caught her for a moment. She could almost feel his fingers still, through the heavy cloth of her council-dress. Something had happened: something new, different, unexpected. It had happened to both of them. They couldn't pretend it hadn't.

And all the blood in her body seemed to be singing.

nd the day you're married, mam,’ Dapea chattered, as she folded another of Sophia's travelling gowns for the trunk, ‘we'll be packing like this and we'll never come back!’

Sunlight filled Sophia's chamber, flooding in from the broad window. The pale walls and plain wood of the bed and wardrobe shone with it. The subtle golds and reds of her wall-hangings retreated in the uniform glow, as if they were embarrassed by the light.

The house was humming. From the courtyard below rose the sounds of people calling, organizing, ordering wagons and bundles for the long winter tour of the Widow's estates. And all through the rooms around them other people were packing too: shouting, quarrelling, excited at the long-expected change of routine.

‘I shall not be married yet a while,’ said Sophia cheerfully. ‘Half the houses they might have matched me with have been broken. And half the rest are beyond forgiving.’

‘The time will come, nonetheless.’

‘I can wait,’ said Sophia. She chose three combs for the trunk, but left her best behind, because the chances of
losing or damaging it during six weeks of travelling around the Widow's manors were too high for comfort. ‘Indeed,’ she said with some malice (because she knew Dapea loved the thought of new places), ‘you may be married yourself by then, and tied to a farm and a row of babies in Develin.’

‘Oh, there's no one for me,’ said Dapea, cheerfully. ‘And I'd have none as would stoop so low as to want me.’

‘No? Not with all these handsome officers and sergeants that we feed here? Or what about …’ Sophia put her head on one side, pretending to think. ‘What about these scholars – merchants’ sons and the like coming to the school from all over the Kingdom? One of them might take you to a fine place.’

‘Same answer again, mam. And they're too young.’

‘Some are, some are not. Have you looked at the older men? There's that fellow Tadle, for one …’

‘Oh no, mam! He's a drunk!’

‘That's hardly fair. But if you don't like him there's …’ Again she pretended to think. ‘What's-his-name – the one you said told stories. Chawlin.’

She tossed his name into the room as lightly as she would toss a cloth into the trunk that Dapea was packing for her. But she thought that Dapea looked at her, and she glanced hurriedly away.

‘Pleasant enough,’ said Dapea. ‘But he's never amounted to much, has he?’

‘That's hardly fair, either,’ said Sophia, cursing herself silently. ‘Well, what about – what about Jehan the gatesergeant? Is he manly enough for you?’

‘Oh, mam – he's
ancient
! Spare me!’

‘You're very cruel to them all, Dapea.’

Had she given herself away? Perhaps not, this time – but only by a hair's-breadth. If she mentioned his name again in Dapea's hearing, her maid would be instantly suspicious. And if she uttered it to anyone in a tone that was the slightest bit wrong, they would know. So Sophia clamped her jaw shut and kept Dapea furiously busy for the rest of the morning, to make sure that the girl did not have time to wonder.

It was one thing to have a secret fantasy about a man. It was quite another to find herself thinking more and more about him, and to spend hours wondering what he thought of her. For it did seem that she was seeing him more often – even if it was just that she was noticing him now when before she had not. She would turn round, and there he would be – in a passageway, or sitting with a group of other scholars, or helping in some household task. Perhaps he would avoid her glance, and she would pass on, fuming inwardly at the impossible gulf of custom and station between them. But sometimes he might look up, and their eyes would meet for an instant, across a courtyard or a crowded room; and she would be sure – sure – that he was pleased that she was there, and would have spoken to her if only they could have been alone. Then they would both turn away, as if other matters drove them.

And what was he? Why didn't people like Dapea see him as she did? Was she deluding herself about him? Surely not. But if he had the quality she saw, why would he be hiding it? Could he be a secret enemy? A spy?