by Tad Williams
The troll continued to rub distractedly along Qantaqa’s back.
“Binabik, I know you are honorable. You know I am the same. We have a bad choice to make, but it is not right that allies should fight and throw insults like stones at each other.”
The troll still did not reply, but his hands fell from the wolf and into his lap. He crouched unspeaking for long moments, chin on chest.
“I have been disgracing myself, Sludig,” he said at last. “You are right to be hurling my own words back into my face. I beg for your pardon, although I have done nothing for its deserving.” He turned an unhappy face up to the Rimmersman, who took a few steps back into the clearing.
“We cannot afford to search for Simon forever,” Sludig said quietly. “That is a truth separate from love and friendship.”
“You are not wrong,” Binabik said. He shook his head slowly. “Not wrong.” He stood and moved toward the bearded soldier, extending a small hand. “If you can show forgiving of my stupidity…”
“There is nothing to forgive.” His broad palm clasped Binabik’s, engulfing it.
A weary smile flitted across the troll’s face. “Then one favor there is I will ask. Let us be making a fire here during tonight and tomorrow night, and we will call for Simon. If we are finding no trace of him, then the morning after tomorrow we will walk on toward the Stone of Farewell. Otherwise, I will feel as though I have deserted him without proper searching.”
Sludig nodded gravely. “Fairly spoken. Now, we should gather wood. Night is coming on quickly.”
“The cold wind is not lessening, either,” Binabik said, frowning. “An unhappy thought for all who are out of doors without shelter.”
Brother Hengfisk, the king’s unpleasant cupbearer, gestured to the doorway. The monk’s grin was as derangedly fixed as ever, as though he struggled with some monstrous humor only barely held in check. The Earl of Utanyeat stepped through the door and silent Hengfisk scuttled away down the stairs, leaving the earl standing just inside the bell chamber.
Guthwulf took a moment to catch his breath. It was a very long climb up the tower steps and the earl had not been sleeping well lately.
“You called for me. Highness?” he said at last.
The king stood hunched over the sill of one of the high-arched windows, his heavy cloak glinting in the torchlight like a fly’s glass-greenback. Although the afternoon was only half gone, the sky outside was evening-dark, purple and sullen gray. The curve of Elias’ shoulders made Guthwulf think of a vulture. The king wore the heavy gray sword scabbarded at his side; seeing it, the earl shivered uncontrollably.
“The storm is almost upon us,” Elias said without turning. “Have you been this high in Green Angel Tower before?”
Guthwulf forced himself to speak casually. “I have been in the entry hall. Perhaps once to the chaplain’s rooms on the second floor. Never this high, sire.”
“It is a strange place,” the king said, his gaze still fixed on something beyond the northwestern window. “This place. Green Angel Tower, was once the center of the greatest kingdom Osten Ard has ever seen. Did you know that, Guthwulf?” Elias swung away from the window. His eyes were bright, but his face was drawn and lined as though his iron crown were cinched too tightly about his brow.
“Do you mean your father’s kingdom, Highness?” the earl asked, puzzled and more than a little fearful. He had felt only a kind of dread when he had received this latest summons. This man was no longer his old friend. At times the king seemed almost unchanged, but Guthwulf could not ignore the underlying reality: the Elias he had known might as well be dead. However, the gallows in Battle Square
and the spikes atop the Nearulagh Gate were now crowded with the mortal remains of those who had upset this new Elias in some way or other. Guthwulf knew to keep his mouth well shut and do what he was told—at least for a while longer.
“Not my father’s, idiot. For the love of God, my hand stretches over a far realer kingdom than his ever did. My father had King Lluth on his very doorstep; now there are no other kings but me.” Elias’ moment of bad temper faded as he waved his arm expansively. “No, Guthwulf, there are more things in this world than such as you can even dream of. This was once the capital of a mighty empire—vaster than Fingil’s Greater Rimmersgard, older than the Nabban of the Imperators, stronger in lore than lost Khandia.” His voice sank so that it was almost lost in the call of the wind. “But with his help, I will make this castle the seat of an even greater kingdom.”
“Whose help, Highness?” Guthwulf could not refrain from asking. He felt a surge of cold jealousy. “Pryrates?”
Elias looked at him oddly for a moment, then burst into laughter. “Pryrates! Guthwulf, you are artless as a child!”
The Earl of the Utanyeat bit the inside of his cheek to hold back the angry—and potentially fatal—words. He clenched and unclenched his scarred fists. “Yes, my king,” he said at last.
The king was once more staring out the window. Above his head, the great bells slept in dark clusters. Thunder muttered somewhere far away. “But the priest does keep secrets from me,” Elias said. “He knows my power is growing as my understanding increases, and so he tries to hide things from me. Do you see that, Guthwulf?” He pointed out the window. “Well, Fires of Hell, man, how can you see from there?” the king snarled. “Come closer! Do you fear the wind will freeze you?” He laughed strangely.
Guthwulf reluctantly stepped forward, thinking of what Elias had been like before this insanity had begun to creep in: quick-tempered, yes, but not inconstant as a spring breeze; fond of jokes, but with the bluff humor of a soldier, not this mocking and incomprehensible wit. It was growing harder and harder for Guthwulf to recall that other man, his friend. Ironically, it seemed that the madder Elias became, the more he grew to resemble his brother Josua.
“There.” The king gestured across the damp rooftops of the Hayholt toward the gray bulk of Hjeldin’s Tower, squatting along the Inner Bailey’s northern wall. “I gave that to Pryrates to use for his various endeavours—his investigations, if you will—and now he keeps it always locked; he will not even give a key to his king. For my safety, he says.” Elias glared across at the priest’s brooding tower, gray as the sky, upper windows of thick red glass. “He is growing very proud, the alchemist.”
“Banish him, Elias—or destroy him!” Guthwulf spoke without thinking, then decided to press on- “You know I have always spoken to you as a friend, blunt when it was needed. And you know I am no craven who whimpers when a little blood is spilled or a few bones are cracked. But that man is poisonous as a serpent and far more dangerous. He will stab you in the back. Only say the word and I will kill him.” When he finished he found that his heart was racing, as in the hour before battle.
The king stared for a moment, then laughed again. “Ah, there is the Wolf I knew. No, no, old friend, I told you once before: I need Pryrates, and I will use whatever I need to perform the grand task before me. Neither will he stab me in the back, for you see, he needs me, too. The alchemist uses me—or thinks he does.”
Thunder pealed again in the distance as Elias stepped away from the window and laid his hand on Guthwulf’s arm. The earl could feel the radiating cold right through his heavy sleeve. “But I do not want Pryrates to kill you,” the king said,.”—and kill you he would, make no mistake. His courier arrived today from Nabban. The letter tells me that negotiations with the lector are going very well, and that Pryrates will be back in a few days. That is why it was a happy thought to send you out to the High Thrithings at the head of my knights. Young Fengbald was pressing for the command, but you have always been of great service to me, and—more importantly—you will then be out of the red priest’s path until he has done what I need.”
“I am grateful for the chance to serve, my king,” Guthwulf said slowly, several kinds of anger and fear swelling venomously within him. To think that the Earl of Utanyeat had come to such sneaking and bowing!
What if
he were to grab Elias, he thought suddenly, wildly—just grab the king and then fling himself over the window’s low railing, both of them plunging down over a hundred cubits to smash like eggs. Usires the Ransomer, what a relief it would be to end this festering brain-sickness that had crept all through the Hayholt and through Guthwulf himself! His mind reeled. Aloud, he only said: “Are you sure that these rumors of your brother are not just that? Rumors only, the imaginings of complaining peasants? I find it hard to believe that anything could have survived…could have survived Naglimund.” One step, he thought, just one, then the two of them would be gliding down through the heavy air. It would all be over in moments and the long dark sleep would begin…
Elias moved away from the window, breaking the spell. Guthwulf felt chill sweat beading on his forehead. “I do not heed ‘rumors,’ my dear Utanyeat. I am Elias the High King, and I know.” He stalked to a window on the tower’s far side, one that faced southeast, into the teeth of the wind. His hair swirled, black as a crow’s wing. “There.” He pointed out across the choppy, leaden-hued Kynslagh into the murky distance. A flash of lightning briefly illuminated the deep wells of his eyes. “Josua lives, indeed, and he is somewhere…out…there. I have received word from a trusted source.” Thunder came, chasing the lightning. “Pryrates tells me my energies could be better spent. He tells me not to worry about my brother. If I had not seen a thousand kinds of proof of Pryrates’ black and empty heart, I would think he felt sorry for Josua, so strongly does he argue against this mission. But I will do as I please. I am the king and I want Josua dead.” Another lightning flare etched his face, which was twisted like a ritual mask. The king’s voice strained; for a moment it seemed that only his white-knuckled grasp upon the stone sill kept him from toppling. “And I want my daughter back. Back. I want Miriamele back. She has disobeyed her father, joining with his enemies…with my enemies. She must be punished.”
Guthwulf could think of nothing to say. He nodded his head, trying to dispel the terrible thoughts that now surged within him like a well filling with black water. The king and his cursed sword! Even now, Guthwulf felt the blade’s presence sickening him. He would go to the Thrithings and hunt for Josua, if that was what Elias wished. At least he would be out of this horrible castle with its night sounds, its fearful servants and mad, mourning king. He would be able to think again. The earl would breathe unsullied air and keep the company of soldiers once more, men with whose thoughts and conversation he was comfortable.
Thunder rang through the chamber, setting the bells to humming. “I will do as you say, my king,” he said.
“Of course,” Elias nodded, calm again. “Of course.”
Scowling Guthwulf had gone away, but the king stayed for some time, staring out into the cloudy sky, listening to the wind as carefully as if he understood its mournful tongue. Rachel, Mistress of Chambermaids, was beginning to feel very uncomfortable in her cramped hiding place. Still, she had learned what she needed to know. Her mind was full of ideas quite beyond her usual concerns: lately, Rachel the Dragon had found herself thinking thoughts she had never dreamed possible.
Wrinkling her nose against the harsh but familiar scent of polishing-grease, she peeked out of the crack between the stone doorframe and the warped wooden door. The king was still as a statue, gazing off into nothingness. Rachel was again filled with horror at her own transgression. Spying like the most slatternly, brought-in-just-for-the-holy-days servant girl! And on the High King! Elias was the son of her beloved King John—even if he couldn’t hope to match up to his father—and Rachel, the Hayholt’s last bastion of rectitude, was spying on him.
The thought make her feel faint and weak; the odoriferous grease did not help. She leaned against the wall of the bell-ringer’s closet and was grateful for its narrow confines. Between the stacks of rope, the bell hooks and grease pots and brick walls standing close at either shoulder, she could not topple over even if she tried.
She had not meant to spy, of course—not really. She had heard the voices as she was examining the woefully dirty stairs at Green Angel Tower’s third floor. She had stepped quietly out of the spiraling passage-way into a curtained alcove so as not to seem to be listening to the king’s business, for she had recognized Elias’ voice almost immediately. The king had climbed past, speaking as though to the grinning monk Hengfisk who accompanied him everywhere, but his words had seemed like babbling nonsense to Rachel. “Whispers from Nakkiga,” he had said, and “songs of the upper air.” He had spoken of “listening for the cry of the witnesses,” and “the day of the hilltop bargain coming soon,” and of things even less understandable.
The pop-eyed monk followed at the king’s bootheels, as he always did these days. The mad words of Elias washed over him, but the monk only nodded ceaselessly as he scrambled along behind—the king’s grinning shadow.
Fascinated and excited in a way she had not felt for some time, Rachel had found herself following through the shadows a few ells behind the pair as they climbed what seemed a thousand steps up the tower’s long stairway. The king’s litany of incomprehensibles had continued until at last he and the monk disappeared into the bell chamber. Feeling her age and the throbbing of her infirm back, she had remained on the floor below. Leaning against the oddly-tiled stone walls, fighting for breath, she had wondered again at her own boldness. An open workroom lay before her. A great pulley had been spread in pieces on top of a sawdust-mantled block; a sledge lay on the floor nearby, as though its owner had disappeared in midswing. There was only the main room and a curtained alcove beside the stairwell: thus, when the monk suddenly came pattering back down the steps, there had truly been no choice but to bolt for the alcove.
At the far end of the niche she had discovered a wooden ladder leading up into darkness. Knowing she was caught between the king above and whoever his cupbearer might bring from below, she had seen no other choice but to climb upward in search of a more secure hiding place: anyone walking too close to the alcove might brush the curtain aside and reveal her, delivering Rachel up to humiliation or worse.
Worse. The thought of the heads rotting like black fruit atop Nearulagh gate spurred her old bones up the ladder, which turned out to lead straight to the bell-ringer’s closet.
So it had not really been her fault, had it? She had not truly meant to spy—she had been virtually forced to listen to Elias’ confusing conversation with the Earl of Utanyeat. Surely good Saint Rhiap would understand, she told herself, and would intercede on Rachel’s behalf when it came time to read from the Great Scroll in Heaven’s anteroom.
She peered out through the door-crack again. The king had moved to another window—this one facing north, into the churning black heart of the approaching storm—but otherwise seemed no nearer to leaving. Rachel was beginning to feel panicky. People used to say that Elias spent many sleepless nights at work with Pryrates in Hjeldin’s Tower. Was it the king’s particular madness to walk around in towers until the break of dawn? It was only afternoon now. Rachel felt another bout of dizziness. Was she to be trapped in here forever?
Her eyes, wildly darting, lit upon something carved on the inside of the bolted door and widened in surprise.
Somebody had scratched the name Miriamele into the wood. The letters were cut deeply, as though whoever had done it had been trapped like Rachel, fidgeting away the time. But who would be here in the first place that might do such a thing?
For a moment she thought of Simon, remembering how the boy would climb like an ape and get into trouble that others could not even find. He had loved Green Angel Tower—wasn’t it just a bit before King John died that Simon had knocked over Barnabas the sexton downstairs? Rachel smiled faintly. The boy had been a very devil.
Thinking of Simon, she abruptly remembered what the chandler’s boy Jeremias had said. The smile dissolved from her face. Pryrates. Pryrates had killed her boy. When she thought of the alchemist, Rachel felt a hatred that burned and bubbled like quicklime, a hatred quite unlike
anything she had ever felt in her life.
Rachel shook her head, dizzied. It was horrifying to think about Pryrates. What Jeremias told her about the hairless priest gave her ideas, black thoughts she had not known she was capable of thinking.
Frightened by the power other feelings, she forced her attention back to the wall carving.
Squinting at the careful letters, Rachel decided that, whatever other mischief Simon had gotten into, this carving was not his doing. It was far too neat. Even with Morgenes’ instruction, Simon’s writing had wandered across a page like a drunken beetle. These letters were made by someone educated. But who would carve the princess’ name in such an out of the way place? Barnabas the sexton used this closet, no doubt, but the idea of that sour, juiceless, leathery old lizard carving Miriamele’s name laboriously into the door beggared even Rachel’s imagination, and Rachel could imagine men committing virtually any evil or stupidity if freed from the proper influence of women. Even so, sexton Barnabas as a pining lover was too much to conceive.
Her thoughts were wandering, Rachel chided herself angrily. Was she indeed so old and fearful that she must distract herself at a time when she had many important things to think about? A plan had been forming in her mind since the night she and the other chambermaids had rescued Jeremias but a part of her wanted to forget about it, wanted things to just be the way they once were.
Nothing will ever be the same, you old fool. Face up to it.
It was harder and harder to hide from such decisions these days. Confronted with the runaway chandler’s lad, Rachel and her charges had eventually realized that there was no solution but to help him escape, so they had smuggled him out of the Hayholt one day’s end, Jeremias disguised as a chambermaid returning home to Erchester. As she watched the ill-used boy go limping to safety, Rachel had been seized by a revelation: the evil haunting her home could be ignored no longer. And, she now thought grimly, where the Mistress of Chambermaids saw that which was foul, she must make it clean.
