The Widow and the King (30 page)

He slipped quietly up to the scholars' benches, clutching a white pebble in each fist. There seemed to be no space left for him. As he hesitated, the last scholar turned and saw him. It was Lex, the leader of the gang in the courtyard of Develin. He frowned. For a moment Ambrose thought he would call out and give him away. But to his surprise the scholar shifted inwards along the bench, leaving a space beside him.

‘Come on,’ he muttered. ‘For once, this should be worth hearing.’

Ambrose crept in beside him. ‘Why? What's happened?’ he whispered.

Lex looked at him in astonishment. ‘Where've you been? It's been all around the camp since sundown.’

‘What?’

‘Septimus. He fought Velis and was broken. His head's on a spike on Tuscolo's walls.’

Septimus. The King. The man who had defeated his father. So he too was dead.

It seemed to Ambrose that an unnatural stillness had fallen among the people. He felt the back of his neck creep, as if some cold throat had breathed upon it. A damp wind flustered the braziers. The night was cool and echoless.

The King was dead.

And what had happened to Wastelands?

‘Master Denke,’ called the Widow.

A little along the high table, the Master of Law rose to his feet. He wore his heavy red gown and a cap with a long peak. In the half-light he looked like a great, misshapen hawk. His voice was deep and powerful in the open air.

‘You know, my lady, that Father Grismonde and I had already chosen that our dispute should once more address Kingship. With the news that has been brought to us this night, we think it doubly right to do. For in the past we have allowed ourselves to consider only single merits or strategies that may benefit a king, like single jewels upon a crown. Tonight it is the whole crown that I will speak of. I ask only that I may be heard to the end.

‘Let me begin with a tale you all know, of the king of ancient times who sent to a wise man asking how he might
keep his kingdom. And the wise man, without saying a word, turned away from the messenger and began to cut down all the tallest grass stems in the field around him. The messenger carried this sign back to the king, who took it to mean that if he would keep his kingdom he must slay and put down all the greatest men around him, for it was they who might threaten his rule.

‘Now I have debated before with my colleagues the division of guilt between the wise man and the king for the crimes that then followed. Remember, each snick of a grass stem was taken as a sign that a family must perish, down to the youngest child and least of their servants. That is not our purpose tonight. But this fable carries in it a truth about Kingship that we all know in our hearts, and yet dare not speak …’

Because only a third of the full house was present, Ambrose and his fellows were closer to the high table than ever they were at Develin. Because the tables were set out in the open field, and not in the long hall of the Widow's castle, he had a clear view. He looked along the faces, to left and right of the Widow, and he knew every one of them – the Lynx, a counsellor, Denke, another counsellor, and Padry. On the left, Father Grismonde, Master Pantethon … The face he always looked for was not there.

The light and shadows wavered as the words rolled from Denke's mouth.

‘There has never been a king who has not won, or held, or lost his crown without the use of iron to draw blood. There has never been a king who has not purchased the iron of his followers with land he has stolen from others. There has never been a king who has not called
this theft justice. To do anything in his kingdom, a king must have power. To gain power, he must do evil.

‘To keep power, he must do evil. And the evil that any king does to maintain power is greater than any good that power might do …’

Murmurs stole along the benches. Denke was indeed addressing the crown itself ! Without Kingship there could be no hope. And yet there were heads on the high table that nodded as he spoke. The Widow looked inscrutable, and the shadows of the candle were stains upon her face. Had she known he would do this? Surely she would not have allowed it!

The candle reached the first mark; the Widow raised her hand. Denke finished and sat down. Father Grismonde rose to oppose him.

‘It is a dismal vision that my friend Denke has drawn for us,’ Father Grismonde began. ‘Yet it is better that we should now confront such thoughts together than struggle with them each alone. And my friend has gone too far.’

Someone near Ambrose sighed, as if with relief.

‘No, no. Such thoughts are lulling. They deceive. Think of the fable that Denke has told us. Think how much we assume from the image of the grasses. A grass stem causes harm to no one. It bears seed, even flowers perhaps, or has a graceful beauty as it waves in the wind. Had our wise man stood among a pack of wolves and slain or chained the fiercest among them, would we fault him for the message he sent? The wolf is savage. Man is savage. The wolf is treacherous. So is man. The wolf …’

‘The Wolf,’ murmured a voice in Ambrose's ear, ‘is child of the Wasteland.’

Ambrose took a moment to understand. Then he gaped.

‘What?’

It was Lex who had spoken. In the light of the braziers he was looking at Ambrose under low brows. Ambrose stared at him.

Silently Lex turned back to watch the high table.

‘… and man is hungry,’ Grismonde was saying.

‘Who then shall chain the man that is wolf ?’

Wolf ? Wasteland? Why had Lex said that? How had he known?

What was happening?

The last paleness of evening was gone from the sky. The braziers ruled now, yellowing the tables and the heads of the people who sat at them. Before the Widow the candle flickered. Her face was close to it, watching it intently as it burned towards the second mark, when Father Grismonde would cease. Even in the flare of the braziers Ambrose could see the light that it cast upon her, and the darker pits that it threw beneath her chin, above her nose, and in her eyes: light and shadows together as the candle trembled.

‘Look,’ said the voice from Lex beside him. ‘He is here. Look.’

It was not Lex's voice. It was no voice Ambrose knew. When it spoke, his head swam as if he had drunk wine. He could feel the seams of the world loosen. His mind caught glimpses of brown depths that lay behind them.

‘Who are you?’ he whispered.

‘Light draws the shadow. Look!’ said the voice that was not Lex.

‘… and look!’ cried Father Grismonde.

He was pointing to the manor buildings. ‘Look! The roofs of Ferroux are whole! I myself have struggled with doubts, but the roofs are whole!’

He turned, still pointing, and blinked at his audience, as if they must see the tremendous force of his argument.

Men stared at him.

‘The roofs are whole,’ Grismonde repeated. ‘There is rule here. So should there be in the Kingdom!’

Somewhere along the scholars' table, someone tittered. Grismonde looked around at the faces and seemed to realize that his listeners no longer understood him. He faltered.

‘And – and if all this is held too weak to weigh the scales for Kingship,’ he pleaded, ‘then what is the alternative? What of Pardon? Denke himself,’ he exclaimed, recovering his pace. ‘Denke himself has taught us that there must be one to punish wrongs justly, and give pardon where it may be given. Without Kingship, who shall see our quarrels ended? Shall we look to each other? Yet who shall be the last to punish, who the first to forgive? Force would be first. Faithfulness would fail. Our blood would run and run. There must be one who
judges
.

‘So I ask my friend Denke – if what he has said is true of Kingship, what then of Law? Of the very discipline he teaches? For how can Law be, without one who lays it down, one to judge among the strong men, and one to whom the weak may appeal against the strong?’

‘Hah!’ cried Padry at the end of the high table, and his palm banged upon the boards. But no one joined with him to celebrate Father Grismonde's point and his applause died lonely, like a candle in a night wind.

The Widow raised her hand. Father Grismonde sat. Denke rose for the short reply that the marks on the wax stem allowed him.

‘To argue from thatch to Kingship is the thought of a simple mind. It is unworthy of my friend Grismonde.’

The tables stirred. Insults – however justified they might seem – were not permitted in Disputes. Denke lifted a finger, commanding silence.

‘Where a king finds the roofs are whole, he may burn them and so do evil.

‘Or he may leave them whole, and take wealth from under them, to give him the power to do his evil elsewhere.

‘These are the only choices he has.

‘What is the Pardon of such a king worth? In Develin we have told one another that men weary of their quarrels, and the word of a king may bring the peace. And we have lied.

‘We have lied because we have said only what we imagine Should Be. We have shut our eyes to What Is.’

Utter stillness gripped the tables.

‘And so to the Law, and the question he poses me.

‘I must say that there may be Law, somewhere, among the Angels perhaps. There may be Law among some other people, who will one day come across the sea after all our bones are buried. For we were not the first in this land, and it is sure that we will not be the last.

‘But among men as we are it is Law that bends before Power, and not the other way about. Such law is not Law but mist and memory. Our hopes were false, and we must now forget them. From our kings comes not pardon but punishment. It is a punishment that we have deserved.

‘In our three hundred years, we have known no Law that has held, nor hope that has not failed.’

He sat down again. The listeners were still, appalled by what he had dared to say.

‘Indeed,’ said the Widow at last, ‘I had not heard this before.’

Barely a breath was drawn around all the firelit meadow. The Widow lifted the hood from the candle and blew out the flame in front of her.

‘I see that Denke has gained his argument,’ she said. ‘And I see that his words must cost him his place at my table.’

For a moment no one moved or spoke. Then Denke rose once more and bowed to the Widow. As he walked slowly away towards the darkness of the buildings his back was stooped and his head low, as if he were bowing still.

The Widow shrugged. Her face said she had ceased to care about anything. Her voice sounded old and tired.

‘Let us eat now and console our bellies, since our minds cannot be at ease.’

A soft thicket of murmurs rose along the tables. One master had gibbered like an idiot. Another was dismissed in disgrace. All this in the House of Wisdom!

And Law had been denied by the Master of Law!

‘Look,’ whispered the voice in Ambrose's ear.

With the loss of the candle the Widow's face seemed shadowed. Her head bowed towards her plate, as if she found it very heavy.

And the man beside her!

No, that was Father Grismonde, of course, sitting crushed with his hands over his eyes.

But beside him?

Ambrose's eye flicked along the row of masters and counsellors. He saw them. He knew them. Yet, now – now it seemed that beside each one he looked at would be a pale, cowled old man, bald as a nut inside his hood, with eyes that did not fling back the light.

As if in a tunnel of days he saw them – in quiet rooms, in shadowed halls, on paths among dry fields, where each had met unseeing in their turn with the man in the grey robe. They had spoken with him in their minds and listened to the words from his mouth.

He was here. The light drew the shadow. The light was Develin. The shadow was the Heron Man. And the Heron Man had them. He had them all!

‘Ambrose Ulfinson,’ said the voice beside him.

Once again Ambrose jerked around to face Lex. No one knew his name here! No one anywhere knew his father's name!

The thing behind Lex's eyes was looking at him.

‘The father of this house will wait in the garden. He will speak with you. Go and hear him.’

Paigan Wulframson. By the last of your fathers' sons shall you be brought down.

Ambrose gripped the board. Dimly, he heard the talk rise along the benches. Voices were calling for the meat and wine. Scullions carrying hampers were beginning to move down the tables, handing out bread. A cauldron of soup had appeared.

The face of Lex was still looking at Ambrose.

‘
Go!
’ said the Angel within it.

Ambrose fled.

∗ ∗ ∗

In the shadows beyond the firelight, in a garden of vegetables and herbs, were the remains of a cracked pavement. On it there stood an old fountain with a wide, dry bowl, very like one that Ambrose remembered in his mountain home. Here he came, stumbling among the rows of planted roots. He crouched with his back against the ancient pedestal and laid out his five stones around him.

Then he drew his knees up to his chin, and let his mind reel like a world in flight.

Look!

He had looked, and he had seen the Heron Man at the tables.

Ambrose Ulfinson. The father of this house will wait in the garden …

It had not been Lex's voice. It had not been the Heron Man's voice.

The Angels move within us, fleetingly, and do not stay.
He will speak with you.

Ambrose swallowed. He did not know what to think. The one thing he was sure of was that he had been sent here, by a voice that he could not disobey – a voice that had spoken names that had never passed out of his own head.
The Wolf is child of the Wasteland.

It had sent him here to meet someone.

Who?

Ambrose looked around him. There were plants, and bushes, and shadows of bushes. Nothing else stirred. Behind him the firelight played and voices rose, arguing, as wine made its way along the tables. The old knight who held the manor was there, and could not leave while his guests ate. Could he be the father of the house? Ambrose
was not sure if he even had any children. And anyway, the manor wasn't his. It was the Widow's. It was part of Develin. And the lord of Develin was long dead.