The Widow and the King (39 page)

He must be looking out of a window into the courtyard. Ambrose stepped to the door, swallowing hard. He did not want to see what Chawlin could see. And yet seeing could not be worse than not seeing.

Another sound – the softest sigh of a robe – made him turn again. The Heron Man was sitting in the Widow's chair.

A voice was screaming for pity. It screamed, and stopped amid a series of dull thuds that must have been blows. There were more cries from beyond.

‘It is because of you,’ said the Heron Man.

He was plain to the eye. He was not hiding now.

Feet running, and screaming. A bellow that must have
ripped the throat that made it. Metal upon metal. Metal on flesh.

‘It is your doing,’ said the Heron Man.

‘That's a
lie
!' yelled Ambrose.

‘At their noon-tide halt the son of Lackmere went to his King. He said that the Widow kept the heir of Tarceny in her house in secret – the heir of Tarceny, and the bloodline of Wulfram. To this king it was very clear that the Widow was plotting against him. His plans were changed in less than an hour.’

‘Chawlin!’

‘He has done this because of you. His men hunt through every room and corridor for you. And they kill everyone in their path.’

Chawlin was at the inner door, swearing and breathing hard. He started at the sight of the Heron Man, and swore again. The Heron Man ignored him. His eyes were bent upon Ambrose.

‘You could have warned the Widow, and you did not. Now they have cut the Widow's head from her body.

‘You could have spoken with the monk. With the man who helped you. Now they have marched him into the courtyard, and made him kneel, and cut his bald head from his body, too. He lies beside the Widow, and their blood thickens on the cobbles. And the house-people will be heaped around them. Because of you.’

‘You did it! You made him do it!’ cried Ambrose.

‘You could stop it,’ said Chawlin, behind him.

The Heron Man seemed to shrug.

‘I did not like to be chased from this hut of a farmer's daughter, as if I were a stray dog.’

Chawlin lifted his sword.

‘Would you join the Widow then – a head shorter?’

‘Do not wave your stick at me, oaf. Oh, I remember you. Did you think I did not? I remember everybody. You did not reach me in Tarceny. You cannot reach me now. Before you tried, I would be gone. And after that you would do well to walk with one eye over your shoulder. Do you remember what you saw, that day?’

Chawlin drew a long breath. The silence was torn with another scream.

Suddenly Ambrose could smell woodsmoke. There was a low, windy sound, that had not been there before.

‘They've fired the house,’ he said.

‘Every man. Every woman. Every girl. Every pig or dog,’ said the Heron Man.

‘You must stop it,’ said Chawlin.

‘You have nothing to offer me.’

‘For all the Angels – stop them!’

‘You have nothing to offer me.’

There was another scream. It might have been a woman or a child.

‘
There!
’ cried Ambrose. He flung the pouch of white stones at the feet of the Heron Man.

‘That's what you wanted, wasn't it? Now stop them! Stop them!’

The Heron Man did not even look at the pouch at his feet. He leaned forward.

‘The Widow gave space for One in her house. One. So you may take One from it, alive. Choose whom it will be.’

Ambrose stared at him in horror. Names, faces, flooded into his mind: the sprawling, shouting, chaotic
community of Develin; the Masters – Padry, Pantethon, Father Grismonde; the scholars – Rufin, Cullen; the scullions and serving girls whose hands had brought them food.

Who was already dead and who was still alive?

He was helpless.

‘One.’

Suddenly, a name exploded from Chawlin.

‘Sophia! The Widow's daughter!’

The Heron Man paused. His head turned slowly, as if he looked through the walls around him. For a moment Ambrose saw him, perched not on the Widow's chair but on a pinnacle of rock under a dull sky.

Then he said: ‘Go to the hall. Be swift.’

He reached down for the pouch of stones. His finger and thumb closed on the very tip of the cord. When he rose, the pouch dangled from his hand like a dead rat that a man holds in disgust for a moment, before flinging it on a heap.

‘There will be a price.’

He was gone, and the stones with him.

The room was misty with smoke. Ambrose coughed.

‘Come on,’ said Chawlin.

They hurried out of the chamber. There were men at the far end of the corridor, armoured, battering on a door. But the stair was free. They plunged downwards, Chawlin leading, sword held before him.

Ambrose followed. He had nothing else to do. He had lost the stones. He was as naked as a chick out of his shell. The air was full of smoke and the smoke was full of swords. He was going to be hunted. The only thought in
his mind was to keep moving, keep moving. If he was moving they might not catch him. Perhaps he could go on running for ever.

Someone – a king's man in helmet and mail – had seen them, and cried out. Chawlin ignored him. In the hurry and confusion it was impossible to know if they were pursued. Everywhere men were running – chasing, fleeing, stumbling upon a new enemy and chasing or fleeing again to the kill. Chawlin kept ahead, down to the level of the hall and through the doors.

The smoke hung thinly in the great space. Ambrose's eyes were weeping, but he could see that the hall was empty. Chawlin groaned aloud.

‘There!’ cried Ambrose.

There she was. Perhaps she had been trying to reach the river-door. Now she came running blindly out of the kitchen doorway. A man was after her, lumbering in mail. He had a one-handed axe. She was quicker, but was running with her arm across her eyes. They could hear her sobbing – a high, broken sound, as she ran and did not see.

Chawlin lurched forward, bellowing. The pursuer turned on him, calling for help. The sword rang on the helm and the knee, and the man staggered. He did not go down.

‘Sophia!’ cried Chawlin. ‘The river-door – quickly!’

The king's man was coming on again. Chawlin sprang back. He had no armour. Across the hall the Lynx had stopped and was looking at them.

‘The river-door – both of you!’

The attacker roared, and swung clumsily with his axe. Chawlin dodged back again. Other men were crowding in
at the hall entrance. There were swords and pole-arms, dark against the smoky light beyond.

‘Go! Michael's Knees – go!’

The Lynx was moving – back the way she had come towards the kitchens. Ambrose ducked around the fighters and followed her. Behind him there was a crash and a cry. He looked back. The soldier was down on one knee, clutching his axe-hand. The axe lay on the floor. Chawlin stood over him. The short sword swept in to the neck-joint. The man dropped like a puppet with its strings cut.

Beyond him men were swarming inwards, yelling. Chawlin turned and ran for the kitchen door. Ambrose bolted before him.

He did not know the way. The rooms were unlit, and full of smoke. His ears rang with cries. He could not see. He had lost sight of the Lynx – of Sophia. Where was she?

He turned right, and then left. The noises of pursuit were close. Maybe Chawlin was fighting again. Armourless, he had beaten that man with a speed and savagery he had never shown at practice. Ambrose felt feeble, useless. All he could do was run.

Surely he must be close to the river-door now. It hadn't taken this long when they were coming – or had it? He remembered that he had to go down a flight of steps to some cellars. He began to look for them. Maybe he had passed them already. He couldn't go back. If he went back he would run into the swords. He could only go on.

‘Where are you?’ he called. ‘Where are you?’

He was moving in near darkness. If the shadowcreatures came, he had no protection. He must keep going. But he could not help slowing. Where was he?

‘Chawlin! Sophia!’

Even now her name felt strange to him.

And there she was! A great burst of relief came on him. He saw her beckoning, and ran towards her. She seemed to be at the top of a flight of steps. He would be out in a moment. She turned, and he followed, downwards, stumbling. The way was rough. He could not tell where he was. He thought they had passed into the outdoors, but somehow they had done it without going through the postern. The light was dull. The air was dead. He could not see the river. Still he hurried after the woman before him.

His eyes were stinging with smoke. His feet told him that he was nowhere he knew. This was not the riverbank, mossy and slippery. They stubbed and stumbled among rocks. The way was level, when it should have sloped down to the water.

He stopped, and looked around him. The colours had changed. The castle was gone. The sounds of fighting and massacre were shut off, as swiftly as if he had woken from a dream. A deep humming ran through his mind, so low that he felt rather than heard it.

He was in the landscape of brown rocks, bare of trees and grass, under a dim sky. Far away, in all directions, he could see a wall of mountains, sweeping up towards the horizon. To his left two great lights like huge stars seemed to burn on the rim of the world. He looked back. The castle was nowhere to be seen. Nor was the river, or the banks of Develin. He was standing in the Heron Man's country.

The air was thick, as if it were almost water. There
was no smoke in it. Instead it was filled with the deep sound that he could barely hear. He could not see where it came from. It made him feel very heavy.

The woman he had followed was still there, a little way from him, beckoning urgently. She was not the Lynx. She was robed differently, and was slightly taller. She was the only other living thing in all that place.

He made his way towards her, dreading what he was going to see.

‘Come, my darling,’ she said. ‘Quickly. They are already hunting you.’

He reached her, and looked into the eyes of his mother.

ophia moved in evil dreams.

She was waiting by the river-door again. The door was dark and smoking, and she wanted to run away. Chawlin was calling to her from the riverbank to come quickly. She knew that soon the man with the axe, all bloody, would come out of the postern and chase her again. But still she had to wait, while her mind screamed
Run! Run!
and the door fumed and coughed blood. Someone had not come out that should have come, and she must wait for them. Perhaps it would be Hestie; perhaps it would be her mother. Perhaps it would be the man with the axe. And she must wait.

A shape moved in the darkness of the postern arch. It was not Hestie, or her mother. It was Luke. He would have walked past her, but he stopped and looked at her.

I'm sorry
, she said.
I did not know who you are
.

He looked at her a moment more, and then he left her.

She dreamed that she had gone to lie on the riverbank in the sun. Her mother came and stood over her, and told
her crossly that it was time to get up and attend to her studies.

Faith, madam
, she said pertly.
I study the art of sleeping
.

Strange to study a high art in such a low place
, her mother answered.
As well to scoop the river-earth out of your hair and make your cup with that. I declare there is enough of it.

‘You're a dream,’ Sophia mumbled. She knew her hair must indeed be dirty, because she was lying on the bank without even a pillow. Chawlin had offered to make her one from the bundles in the river-punt in which they had escaped; but she had been too tired to wait.

She could hear the river, rippling endlessly a few yards from her ear.

At last she opened her eyes.

Yes, she was on the riverbank, lying in full sun. There was a blanket about her feet. Chawlin must have laid it over her as she slept, but in the gathering heat of the morning she had already thrown it off. She was lying on the ground in the silks she had put on for the King. She saw that they were stained with mud and smoke. She thought there might be blood on them too, but could not see any. She remembered how her feet had slipped for a moment when she had run past someone lying in a passage. That had been horrible.