The Widow and the King (56 page)

If she could find him.

The sound of the stream grew louder. And … yes! Mingled in the flow of the water were the notes of a pipe, broken at first, but more and more clear as she made her way downwards. It was playing the lament-tune that Chawlin had taught and played for her on their journey from Develin to the March. He must be sitting by the streamside down there, alone and remembering, consoling himself with music in his desolation.

The path narrowed, snaking downwards. The trees and bushes pressed close on either side, and ahead of her where the path turned. She could not see more than ten feet in any direction. The pebbles rattled beneath her feet. She was nearly there, now. From around the next corner, she would see the stream.

The music had stopped. She stopped, too, listening. She heard Chawlin's voice.

‘What are you doing here?’

He could not possibly have seen her. And he sounded tired. Ill and desperate. He had come all this way on foot, and alone.

‘What do you want from me?’ Chawlin said again.

‘You know what I want,’ a man's voice answered.

‘I am trying, damn you!’

‘You are not trying hard enough.’

There was something familiar about the second voice, too. It had a shape, a whisper or an echo in her mind that she remembered and did not know from where she remembered it.

‘You want me to charge in, a dozen to one? This isn't a party of peasants or foot soldiers. They're always on the
watch. You know that. I can't get to him. I'll just get my throat cut. How would that suit you?’

‘Him, or her. I am becoming impatient.’

‘You want me to get myself killed!’

‘I do not want. I do not plan. Your debt to me is a life. I will have it by tonight.’

That voice … As in a dream, she knew she had heard it before, speaking to her, coaxing her to do this, to do that, and she had done them willingly. When had she dreamed that? She could not remember. But this was not a dream. A thorn-frond scraped lightly on the skin of the back of her hand. The pale brown pebbles of the path were hard beneath her feet. And a bee, a plain bee, could hum out of a yellow thorn-flower, even now.

Chawlin was silent. He needed help. Making as little sound as she could, Sophia crept down the path towards the last bend. As she reached it, she heard him speak again.

‘Is it me you want? I tell you – I tell you that you can have me. Everything I have. Let them live – I'll bend my neck and give you my knife. Or I'll do it myself.’

No, Chawlin!

‘Him, or her,’ was the answer. ‘That is the only choice there is. Choose now, and swiftly.’

‘Damn you!’

Sophia crouched at the turn in the path, willing herself to go on. But her limbs were frozen. Something deep within her screamed that she must not,
must
not be seen by the one who spoke the Second Voice.

‘I won't,’ said Chawlin at last. ‘He's a boy. I won't.’

‘Him or her. You chose swiftly enough in Develin. One
name from two hundred. Your friends, your teachers, your fellow-scholars. You chose her. Do you choose that she should die, now?’

Horror crept into Sophia's heart. He knows I'm here, she thought. He knows I'm listening.

He wants me to hear what Chawlin says.

‘He will die anyway,’ said the Second Voice.

‘You could still save her.’

‘I choose …’ said Chawlin, as if each word was labour.

‘I choose to do nothing for you.’

‘So now she will die.’

‘Reach her if you can, then!’

‘Do you think she is safe among her friends? She is not. You have called her out. You have chosen that she must die. Live long with your choice, and remember it.’

‘Damn you!’

There was a ring of iron and a clatter among the stones of the streambed. She heard the voice make a sound of contempt. Then feet were floundering in the water. Chawlin must have leaped at his tormentor. He was crying: ‘Come back, damn you! Come back!’

There was no answer.

She heard Chawlin groan. And she heard his feet splashing back out of the stream.

Now, Sophia!

She scrambled around the last corner of the path. Chawlin was leaning against the rock at the streamside, and he was alone. There was no one else in the valley. The sunlight rippled on the surface of the stream, and a breeze stirred the greening branches. The posy of flowers lay undisturbed on the rock at Chawlin's elbow.

‘Chawlin!’ she hissed, urgently.

His clothes were ragged and filthy. His sword, which he must have drawn to leap at his oppressor, hung limply in his hand. His hair was tangled. He looked weak. His eyes, when he looked up, had deep shadows under them, as if he had not slept. And there was horror in them as he looked at her.

‘No!’ he cried.

‘Chawlin, come on. Come with me!’

He had pushed himself upright and was coming up the slope to her.

‘What are you doing here?’ he croaked. ‘Where are the others?’

‘Not far. I came back to speak with you.’

‘Get back to them! Go, quickly!’

‘Chawlin, you've got to …’

‘Go!’ He had reached her. His face was screwed up, weeping. He had his hand on her shoulder and was pushing at her, trying to force her up the hill. She fought him.

‘Not without you!’

‘They're coming for you!’

They
were coming. Still she rallied, and clutched at his shirt.

‘Not without you!’

‘Sophia!’

‘Come
on
!’

Something heavy moved in the bushes. Things were stirring in the streambed, like boulders that had grown limbs. The smell hit her – heavy, dank, like water that had never seen the sun.

They cried out, together, and lurched up the narrow path, twisting left and right among the heavy thorn cover.
She was panting already, but her legs leaped and pushed at the slope with the power of fear. Something blundered among the bushes to their right. The thorns parted. A grey thing the size of a stooping man scraped and shouldered through them. The path twisted again, carrying them away from it. Chawlin cried again, and there was terror in his voice.

‘Help!’ Sophia yelled. ‘Help!’

It was too far to the camp. Her voice would not carry.

There was another of them in the bushes to her left! A ragged, threadbare hood hid a face too long and thin for any man. And it was gone. And it appeared again, yards further on, closer to the path, as if it had leaped unseen or gone around a rock in another world to re-enter into the day.

She could see them clearly. So horribly clearly.

‘Help!’ she gasped, uselessly.

Angels, help us, she pleaded in her head. And she ran.

Together they broke from the thorns. Chawlin was alongside her, still with his sword in his hand. She felt him stumble, and clutched at his arm to steady him. He was gasping – sobbing, she thought. He must be exhausted. Even so he was moving faster than she was. He was drawing ahead of her. She sensed his terror.

She stumbled.

The slopes of the cleft seemed to be full of moving shapes, some lumbering like moving rock, others flitting swiftly like rags upon the wind. There was a space ahead of them.

They don't understand about the path, she thought. They don't see it.

‘Chawlin!’ she cried.

‘Keep going!’ He was well ahead of her. He had not looked back.

‘Chawlin!’

She was falling behind. For a moment she slackened her pace, looking around. And something leaped at her from the bare and sunlit hill.

She shrieked, and twisted. It was clutching her, and she was pulling at it. Fingers like filthy roots wound over her sleeve. Claws or thorns slit deeply into her arm. She shrieked again and backed from it. Up the hill, she heard Chawlin shout. She pulled and pulled again, knowing that the other things would be on her in seconds. The horrible, squat, hooded thing held her and dragged at her, and she felt her heels slip.

Something banged upon its head and bounced away – Chawlin's sword! A hood fell. She saw a face – a face like a huge and tortured bird, gulping, craning round at its attacker. It wore a circlet of gold.

Chawlin was weeping, yelling, striking at it again. It turned silently on him. Iron sang as though it had hit stone.

‘Sophia,’ he gasped. ‘Go on.’

Sophia scrambled on her hands and knees. There was blood on her arm, where it had clutched her and let her go. She got to her feet. The thing had gone – it was crouching twenty yards off, looking at them. To left and right others were closing on them. Chawlin was beside her, sword up. He had come back for her.

He turned to look at her. For an instant he was still Chawlin – just Chawlin, fearful but rallying. Then he laughed. His face changed. A deep light came into his eyes.

‘Go!
’

She hung there, for the voice was not his.

‘Go!
’ it bellowed.

She ran.

She ran, veering uphill to the left, where there was an open space among the things. Something flitted there, hunting for her as though it could not see her well. She dodged, stumbled, and ran on. Behind her she heard Chawlin shouting. She heard the sword strike, and she heard him shout again. The hills rang with his cry, and with the force of thunder. There were no words in it that she knew.

The slope was open ahead of her. She could see to the skyline. It was blue, with a wisp of white silver cloud. Her legs were trembling. She ran on.

There were people up there, shapes against the sky. They were looking down the hill towards her.

‘Help!’ she cried to them. They could not hear her. A hundred yards down the slope behind her Chawlin roared and struck among his enemies. They had left her to get him. They would kill him!

‘Help!’ she called to the men above her.

They were moving, coming down the slope at a cautious jog on the bad footing. There were swords out among them.

They were so slow!

‘Help him!’ she called to them. ‘Help him!’

Behind her the cry came again, rimmed with fire. He was still fighting.

Now the first of the Company had almost reached her. She saw the wild-eyed bannerman, Endor, waving a mace two-handed as he plunged on down the hill. She saw
Orcrim, calling
Close up! Close up!
as they scattered on the slope. Ambrose slithered past, sword in hand, a boy among men. Others were pausing in their career, calling to her – was she hurt?

‘Help him!’ she yelled at them.

Arms caught her.

‘Are you hurt?’ It was the woman who had been waiting at the rocks. The old chamberlain Hob stood on the slope a few yards away, looking at her.

‘No,’ she said.

‘There's blood on your arm.’

The arm was nothing.

‘I – I saw them.’

She had seen its face. The eyes, that had been like water. And yet deep within them there had been something tortured. Something human.

‘It wore a crown,’ she whispered.

The woman nodded. She was still peering at Sophia's arm. She had a pale, calm face. It was almost beautiful, in that place of all places.

‘Have you a knife, Hob?’ the woman asked.

The man drew one from his belt and held it out. Sophia looked at him. He had a sword, armour. What was he doing here?

‘Please – go and help him.’

Hob looked down the slope.

‘They've gone,’ he said.

There was no sound down there, now.

The knife tore gently into Sophia's bloody sleeve. The cloth dragged at the torn surface of her arm. She winced with pain. She was feeling sick.

‘Do you know who I am?’ said the woman suddenly. Sophia knew she was trying to distract her.

‘No,’ she said, and clenched her teeth.

‘Four days ago, on Talifer's Knoll. Do you remember?’ She remembered darkness, and a voice that woke her. And then something had followed her. One of
them
.

‘Why did you leave me?’ she asked.

‘I did not think that thing would attack you, then. But it might well have attacked me, as soon as the enemy knew I was with you. There. I'm sorry if it hurt.’ The sleeve flopped bloodily onto the ground. The woman was lifting Sophia's arm by the elbow, peering at the mass of blood that bubbled thickly from it in three places.

‘Is – is it poisoned?’ Sophia asked.

‘I do not know. But we should wash it. And we must stop the bleeding. Hob?’

Hob had picked up the torn sleeve and was knotting it.

‘It's long enough. Wait a moment.’

They placed the knot in the pit of Sophia's elbow and made her bend her arm to keep it in place. Then they tied it, tightly, just above the elbow. She could feel the knot pressing into her arm, stifling the flow of blood to the wound.

‘Keep it as high as you can,’ Hob said.

‘We'll get you down to the stream. Tell us if you need to rest.’

She was shaking as they led her, one on either side of her, down the slope again. Her knees were weak and her arm throbbed, and she felt sick. There was something strange about the way the woman moved beside her. She seemed to disappear, twice or three times, and for a few
moments it would be only Hob beside her, holding her good arm to keep her steady. Then the woman would appear again, a few yards down the slope, reaching up to her. Sophia wondered if she was dreaming.

Below them, the men had gathered in a group. There was no sign of the creatures that had hunted her.

‘Oh, Angels,’ whispered the woman beside her.

There was something on the ground among the men. They were standing around it, looking down at it, talking. It looked like a bit of rotten blanket. As she came down the slope between her two supporters, Orcrim turned away from the group and took a step up towards them. He saw her, and opened his mouth. But he closed it again, as if he did not know what to say.

The men looked up at her. From their faces, she knew that there was something they had to tell her, but could not. She stepped among them.

The thing on the ground was Chawlin.

He was lying, huddled, by a low rock. His face and body were torn, many times, with long, bloody tracks, and a pool of dark blood was growing sticky on the ground under his body. She knelt beside him, and bent her head close to his, closing her eyes to the terrible marks upon it and begging, just begging, to hear the whisper of breath from his lips.