The Widow and the King

by John Dickinson

  A ferry!

  At the foot of the beams, the shape of a man was stooping, sawing at something with a knife. Ambrose could hear the gasp of his breath. The other riders had left him to cut the ropes, and had gone on. As they came up the man straightened and looked up at Ambrose on the horse.

  ‘Heavy stuff,’ the figure said. ‘You got an axe?’ Wastelands struck. Something whisked through the air and crashed loudly into metal. The man-shape disappeared. Ambrose swayed, lost his balance, and found it better to jump than fall. He hit the ground with both feet and stumbled.

  ‘Quickly,’ hissed Wastelands. ‘Take his head.’

  He meant Stefan. The horse backed as Ambrose reached for its bridle, but Ambrose caught it and tugged. From the bankside the knight was grunting at the big animal. It came. Its hooves thumped loudly on the jetty of wooden boards. Slipping and scrambling, Ambrose lugged it on until the boards moved on water beneath his feet, and he realized they must be on a raft. The knight was cutting a mooring.

  ‘Hold him!’ the knight said.

  Ambrose gripped the bridle with both hands and faced the horse, who shifted nervously, and then stilled when it realized the raft was tilting with its weight.

  ‘Hold, Stefan,’ said the knight to the horse.

  The water noise increased. The river was all round them.

  From the bank there came a cry – a wordless sound, full of pain and warning. The rope-cutter had dragged himself to a kneeling position, with his hands on his jaw and the side of his head. He cried again. In the mist ahead there were answering shouts. The raft was no more than a low platform of wood with a knee-high rail. There was a frame of poles at either end, each with a great eye through which the rope ran. The rope made a roaring sound as Wastelands began to pull the raft along it, out onto the water.

  ‘Easy, Stefan,’ the knight grunted over his shoulder.

  There were horses, moving at a canter on the bank behind them. Wastelands heaved at the rope. They were already many yards out into the stream. Behind them, on the bank, the shapes of horsemen loomed – one, two, three. They were looking towards the raft, pointing. One seemed to set his horse at the river, but it baulked. There was a clickity-winding sound, carrying clearly across the water.

  ‘Get round,’ said Wastelands. ‘Get round to his head.’

  Ambrose had no idea what he meant.

  ‘Get round to Stefan's head. Put him between you and the bank. Quickly!’

  The horse shuffled uneasily, and the platform swayed as its weight shifted. Something hissed at him out of the air, and there was a dull, ringing thud from the bank that must have preceded it.

  ‘Drop us in the water and you'll never find us!’ shouted Wastelands at the bank.

  ‘Do I care?’ came the answer. ‘Come back and we'll not shoot again!’

  It was the voice – the big, roaring voice from the woods of Chatterfall.

  But with each pull the shapes of the horsemen were fading into the mists behind them. The rope began to pulse with a dull, throbbing sound.

  ‘They're cutting it,’ gasped Wastelands. ‘Hold Stefan.’ He heaved and pulled. For a while nothing changed. Both banks were lost in the mist. It was impossible to tell how far they had to go.

  Then the barge seemed to be swinging in the thick, brown current that swirled past them. Behind them, the rope trailed loosely in the water. The horse shifted unhappily.

  ‘Saved me a job,’ said Wastelands, panting. ‘Now they can't follow us.’ He had stopped pulling, and was trying to loop the unwieldy rope around one of the poles of the raft. ‘What we need is just a bit of luck.’ He stood, staring into the mist. They waited. Ambrose had the impression that the raft was travelling downstream, but also across the current. The rope ahead was taut. Loosed behind them, the current and the rope between them should bring them to the far bank at a point below the ferry. If only the ground was firm, and the bank could be scaled, they would escape.

  ‘They've helped us, then,’ he said. He had not thought that the enemy made that sort of mistake.

  ‘A little. We could have been spilled in the water. They didn't think …’ He tried to rub his face with his glove, but his helmet was in the way. ‘They must have known we were close. They were sweeping the bank to remove any means of getting across. But they weren't expecting to find us. When we gave them the slip they were angry and didn't think. Nor did I. I should have stopped to knife that fellow, and we could have got away with all the time we needed.’

  ‘I thought you had killed him.’

  ‘I tried to. He had a chinguard. All the same, I did not expect him to get up again like that. I should have cut his throat. I was in a hurry, too.’ He finished with a grunt that might have been a laugh. It was the only sound of good humour that Ambrose had heard from him in all their days of travelling.

  He had not been afraid, Ambrose thought. He had walked among his enemies. He had kept going in the mist. Purpose like that could be a weapon against the Heron Man. As the raft drifted slowly in among the reeds on the far side of the river, Ambrose felt, grudgingly, that it was almost something to admire him for.

  VIII

  The Widow

  hey emerged from the gatehouse into the outer ward of Develin. A high, musical trumpet sounded from the towers above them, and was answered almost at once by another trumpet, blowing from the gate on the far side of the great enclosure. A soldier in a clean, red-and-white-checked surplice hurried on before them, taking news of their arrival to the inner castle. Two more, carrying long pole-arms, walked at Stefan's head.

  Ambrose looked around. On either side the white walls of Develin circled about him, closing their great embrace at the gatehouse behind his back. They blocked out all view of the world beyond. Along the foot of each wall ran a village of huts and sheds, with people – many people – busy outside them. There were animals and children running. Men looked up from mending a cartwheel, watched Stefan pass, and went back to work. They were not afraid. Within these walls they had no need to be.

  The inner gatehouse was massive, tall and bright with whitewash. There were many people about it – more red-and-white-checked guards, more children, women arguing as they led out laden donkeys. And again there was music. Just within the gate a small band of men were playing stringed and wind instruments together in a light, jolly tune. They must have been practising, because the man who was their leader suddenly stopped them and spoke to them. Some of the children were watching. When the players started again they began a play-dance, linking arms and skipping in time together.

  The inner courtyard towered with buildings. The cobbled spaces between them were alive with movement. People climbed steps that swept up to great doors. Faces peered down from long windows. Serious-looking men in dark green took Stefan and led him towards a trough. Ambrose stood close to Wastelands's side and felt very small. He had never seen so many people before.

  Guards at one of the doors were gesturing to them, beckoning them to come up. Ambrose followed Wastelands up the steps. The soldiers spoke to Wastelands. Two of them led the way in. They passed down high-ceilinged corridors that were lit with rushes, even though it was bright day outside. Ambrose hurried along after the others, climbing stairs and squeezing his way past all sorts of people, richly and strangely dressed, who turned to look at him as he went by.

  And now there was yet more music, swelling suddenly down the passages. It was a group of men, somewhere close, chanting the same words over and over on a single note. Their voices were as light and sweet as honey. Ambrose gathered his breath with the others outside a big, iron-studded door, and listened to the song as it rose from a nearby stairwell. The music was utterly strange to him: strange and beautiful and terrifying. He wanted it to stop. And yet he felt that if it did stop, he would yearn for it to go on.

  The door opened. Ambrose followed Wastelands into a small, crowded chamber, full of faces and bright cloth. His eyes were caught at once by a broad-faced, broadshouldered woman, seated in
the middle of the room.

  She wore black from head to toe. Her skin was pale and slightly blotched. Her dark hair was flecked with grey. Her face was round, and did not smile. He knew at once who she was, although he had never seen her before. She was the Widow of Develin.

  About her stood a half-dozen men. One was a monk, who was almost bald, in a plain brown robe with a cord knotted around his waist. The others wore rich gowns, furs or doublets, and two were in mail. The chamber was hung with red tapestries; silver candle-sticks stood upon the joined-wood dressers. Here too the lamps were lit, although it was barely noon. The air was thick with a sweet smell, which must have come from the men's clothes or from some oil they had washed in. The sounds of singing still filtered in from beyond the closed door.

  Standing before these people Ambrose felt ragged and filthy. Wastelands looked like a brigand, with his mail stained from the weather, his hair lank and the thin coat of whiskers that drooped from his mouth and chin. His voice sounded harsh as he addressed the room, speaking in strange, formal words about their journey.

  ‘You have proof of the boy's line, at least?’ said the Widow dryly, after Wastelands had fallen silent.

  ‘I find it in the boy's look, which for me recalls both his mother and his father,’ said Wastelands. ‘Sir Martin, whom I see standing beside you, served in their house once. He will say if it is not so. Also, I found the boy at a house of his mother's friends at Chatterfall, which Sir Martin may know, too.’

  The bald priest nodded. His eyes were bright as a bird's and never left the knight's face. He had the most prominent Adam's apple that Ambrose had ever seen.

  ‘And he carried this.’ The knight drew from his chest a crumpled piece of paper and offered it to the Widow. ‘I do not read. I do not know what it says. But I know his mother's hand and I know the name of Tarceny.’

  The Widow looked at the paper in the knight's hand, impassively. She did not reach to take it, but nodded to the priest at her side to accept it for her. Ambrose wondered why she might treat the knight so distantly, when he had claimed to be her friend.

  The priest looked at the paper.

  ‘Well?’ said the Widow.

  ‘My lady,’ he said. ‘It is her hand, as I remember it. But more than that, what is written here seems to address a matter that concerned her deeply, and me too when I served at Tarceny. I doubt not that this came from her – or that the boy is who Lord Lackmere says he is.’

  The Widow shifted in her chair.

  ‘So, Lord Lackmere – let us suppose that you have indeed brought me the son of the man who killed my man twelve years ago. You ask me for shelter for him, and a place at my hearth. Why should I do this?’

  ‘Because you can,’ said Wastelands. ‘Because I ask it, who was once your friend against your enemy. Because this boy's mother would ask it, who did more than anyone to bring your enemy down.’

  ‘You talk to me of friends and enemies, sir,’ said the Widow. ‘Yet you have been both to me, and now I think are neither. My strength and charity are not endless. Let me ask another thing. News came to me yesterday that the city of Watermane has fallen to the soldiers of Velis. Did you know that?’

  ‘No.’

  Ambrose could tell that the knight was puzzled by the question.

  ‘It was unlooked-for. Watermane is not a place to be knocked over with rush and a few soldiers. Yet I hear that armed men appeared suddenly within the walls and opened the gates to Velis before the garrison was aware. What do you think of that?’

  The knight shrugged.

  ‘Treachery. Or …’

  ‘Or?’

  ‘Or maybe witchcraft.’

  The Widow leaned forward. The faces of the men around her were a wall against the man who stood before them.

  ‘The last I heard of such a thing was in Tarceny's rising,’ said the Widow, coldly. She glanced at Ambrose as she spoke, and he realized that she was talking of his father. ‘Then there was a time when it seemed no strong place could hold against him. His soldiers appeared in Trant, and in Tuscolo, and in Pemini, one after another, and they fell. I never heard that the cause was treachery.’

  Ambrose looked at his feet. He felt more uncomfortable than ever.

  ‘I am told that your son Raymonde came to Velis before Watermane fell, and gave him counsel. I did not know that Lackmere was famous for its wise words. Are you not proud, Baron?’

  The knight's face had hardened. Beneath the straggling moss of his beard, the lines around his mouth might have been cut in stone.

  ‘I did not know that he went with Velis. I thank you for telling me.’

  ‘I would be surprised at that, but these are surprising times. I recall that when Tarceny fell, certain things were given to certain – trusted – lords for them to guard and see that they never came to light. I remember it was said that by these things or through these things it was possible to work witchcraft. I know that one was a cup. But I heard, too, that one was a book. Lord Lackmere, I ask myself very much where that book is now.’

  ‘And if I said to you that things given to my charge by the King are of concern to myself and the King, and no one else?’

  ‘Not even to the unfortunate people of Watermane?’

  There was a long silence in the room. Ambrose could hear the whuff, whuff of the oil burning low in the lamps. Wastelands and the Widow glared at one another. The counsellors stood around their lady. Their faces were fixed on Wastelands.

  This is a crime, their eyes said. And it is your fault. Your fault.

  Ambrose wondered if they thought it was his fault, too.

  It was the Widow who spoke first.

  ‘And at this time, sir, you come to me with the brat of Tarceny, as though he were a pawn that might be made – something else. With your enemies hard on your heels, and you ask me for shelter. Well sir, in the past you did draw sword when I had need of it. For that I have listened to you. This is what I say.’ She leaned forward in her heavy, carved chair.

  ‘I shall have space for one of you – one – in my house, as long as you will it. The other shall leave my gates before night falls, and go where they may, for I will not help them. It is for you to choose who will stay and who will go.’

  Ambrose thought, gloomily, that he should not have been surprised. The Widow was his father's enemy. Everyone had hated his father. He wondered why Wastelands had brought him here at all. And he wondered, too, whether Wastelands would now stay here and let him be sent away. Ambrose had little reason to like the knight, and yet in the last few days he and his horse had become all the world he knew.

  ‘A fair bargain,’ said Wastelands slowly.

  ‘For myself, I would trouble you no longer than my horse will feed. Take the boy and raise him as a page, until such time comes as he may serve you in another fashion. Or you and I may meet again to decide what is to be done.’

  ‘If this is your word, then his way will be for me to choose and no one else,’ said the Widow.

  After a moment, the knight nodded.

  When the Widow spoke again, her voice was less harsh than it had been.

  ‘I am content. Sir, you may go.’

  ‘Does my lady not even ask what I will do? I will tell you. First, to Lackmere. Thence, as swiftly and with such force as I may, to Septimus.’

  ‘A curious choice, sir. I do not remember that you were so quick to take arms for him in Baldwin's rising.’

  ‘He had been unjust to me after Tarceny's fall. He favoured Baldwin over-much, and reaped what he sowed. That was not my quarrel. This is. And it surprises me, my lady, that you do not see it as yours.’

  Now the Widow was angry.

  ‘Do not presume with me, sir! My house and my people are mine to dispose of. We do not look for wealth or power here, more than we have, but for lasting things that you would not understand. Ride with Septimus, Velis, or stay at home – I care not. But this I lay on you, since you remain to trade words after I have dismissed you.

  ‘Sir,
your house is not in order. The blood of one son has been shed. The doings of the other are not to be spoken of, and yet may bring us all grief. This lies at your door, sir, and it is for you to put it right!’

  Once more the two locked eyes across the room.

  ‘I shall do – what is necessary.’

  ‘With wisdom, sir. With wisdom. Act without it and worse may yet fall.’

  Wastelands was about to answer when the monk broke in.

  ‘My lady, if I may, and before the baron departs, I have a question for him.’

  ‘Ask it, Martin,’ said the Widow.

  ‘What of the boy's mother?’

  Wastelands drew breath. Ambrose could see that he was angry – more angry than he had ever known him, because of what the Widow had said about his son.

  ‘He speaks not of her, save to say that she is dead,’ he said slowly. ‘Yet I myself met with her after he had left her, in a place in the mountains. I did not see her come. I did not see her go. But I saw her breath frosting on the air, and she spoke with me. This was no ghost. I will swear it on the Flame of Heaven!’

  He bowed and left the room. His mailed heels clattered spitefully in the corridor outside. At a nod from the Widow, a guard followed him. Ambrose stood on his own, among all those strange people. His legs were trembling. He felt weak. He felt ill.

  The Widow was still looking at the door through which Wastelands had disappeared. Suddenly, she chuckled. The men around her stirred, and some of them smiled.

  ‘In truth,’ said the Widow. ‘We must bite a coin to know whether it is good or not. What shall we say of this penny that has turned up again?’

  ‘That he was indeed bitten, my lady, and felt so when he left your presence.’

  ‘But the taste in my mouth, Hervan. Is it good or not, do you think?’