The Widow and the King

by John Dickinson

  Ando, Anson.

  He was shaking.

  ‘There's a man down there,’ someone said.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘There – he was watching. Then he ducked out of sight.’

  He was pointing at an outcrop of boulders, a little way across and down the slope. Two or three of the Company started to walk over to it.

  ‘Don't go too far …’ Orcrim said.

  There was a movement among the rocks. A man appeared from where he had been crouching and took to his heels across the slope. The leading fighter – it was Aun – shouted, and ran after him. Behind him, Endor hesitated. Then he was running, too.

  ‘Aun!’ Ambrose cried. ‘Aun, stop!’

  ‘Ho, there!’ bellowed Orcrim. ‘Stop. It'll be a trap! Stop!’

  The men did not look back. Already they could not hear.

  ‘It's Raymonde!’ said Ambrose. ‘Aun will kill him. He mustn't do it!’

  ‘They'll have to look out for themselves,’ said Orcrim. ‘You stay here … Hey!’

  But Ambrose was already moving. He heard Orcrim call again, and curse, but the sound died quickly in the air that hummed with the pain of the world.

  His feet skittered on loose rock. He could see the runner ahead of him – Endor, that must be. He could not see Aun. He must hope that Endor still could. If they became lost in this place …

  Next time, stay among your fellows! And already he was on his own again. But he could see the men ahead of him, jinking among the rocks. And he thought someone had followed him. He could hear the shadow of an armoured foot on the stones behind him. He did not look around.

  The ground dropped at his feet. He plunged downwards, into the cleft-valley out of which they had climbed to reach the pool. He could not see where the men had gone, but as the slope grew steeper he angled to his left, along the hill. Ahead of him – he could not tell how far – the shape of a woman sat, weeping with her back to the world. And Ambrose leaped the rocks of her dreams, pursuing the unseen man who hunted his own child.

  Let them eat their sons! ‘Damn you!’ he shouted at her.

  ‘This should be a garden!’

  But that vast grief would not stir for his voice. And another son was about to die.

  XVIII

  Judgement

  e had lost sight of the men. Where had they gone? Behind a rock – into a dip? He must find them quickly, or be lost himself.

  He was not lost. He knew this place, even though his feet had never run or slid or skidded on these brown stones before. The low ridge he was following was like the echo of a voice he had known all his life. He remembered it.

  He reached the end of the rise. The ground sloped away before him. There was nowhere for a man to hide. But there was a thinness to the air – movement, a memory of colour. He plunged forward, ducking his head as though jumping through a waterfall, and stumbled into the light.

  He was out of the Cup. He had escaped from the brown stones. He was on a ridgetop path he knew, in the living world. The air was cool. The mountain-shapes were wreathed with mists. Far to his right the massif of Beyah rose, and her high snowfields gilded with the falling sun. He stood before the low gate-towers of the house that had been his home.

  There were voices and movement beyond the gate-mouth. The men, hunters and hunted, must have gone in. He hesitated.

  The Heron Man was close. He could feel it. Where? An image swam in his mind of the door of the scholars' hall at Develin. Beyond it, the rows of benches, and the hooded enemy waiting to begin his last lesson.

  Open the door?

  The door hung ajar. Somewhere beyond it a man's voice cried out.

  Hob appeared, with a curse and a clatter on the path beside him. He stared about at the mountain evening, understanding that for the first time in hours he was in the living world again.

  ‘There you are,’ he said. ‘Thought I'd lost you. What is this place?’

  ‘It's a lot of things. Come on. They've gone in.’

  With Hob at his shoulder Ambrose plunged into the gate-tunnel. It was empty. So was the courtyard beyond, scattered with the droppings of goats that must have wandered wild on the hillsides all winter. The doors to the storerooms were open. Darkness lurked in them, but nothing moved there.

  Sounds broke from the inner courtyard. An oath. Armoured feet on stone.

  ‘Come on!’ cried Ambrose.

  ‘Careful,’ said Hob.

  They strode through the archway and into the last court of the world.

  The air rasped with steel.

  Two men were fighting between the fountain and the throne. One was Aun, in mail and helm, swinging the bastard-sword of Aclete two-handed against his enemy's guard. The other was the Wolf: Raymonde, Aun's own son.

  He was bare-headed and had no shield. His sword was out-matched by Aun's weapon. His face was drawn in a desperate mask. As Ambrose watched, Aun attacked again, cutting for the head. Raymonde jumped back and stumbled.

  ‘Aun, stop!’ Ambrose cried.

  Endor was there, leaning his elbows on the fountain rim. He was watching, but taking no part. He was waiting for Aun to finish it by himself.

  ‘Stop him!’ Ambrose cried.

  Endor looked round at him, but did not move.

  Ambrose turned to Hob. ‘We have to stop this!’ he shouted.

  ‘Easily said …’ muttered Hob, eyeing the fighters.

  Raymonde lunged at his father, but Aun stepped beyond his reach and struck. The big bastard-sword slammed into the young man's left shoulder. Raymonde howled and dropped a bundle he had been carrying, but his mail must have held.

  Aun attacked again, beating his son's guard away and charging into him. The two men staggered and fell together against the low wall that fringed the courtyard. Ambrose leaped across the paving after them. Twenty feet away the men struggled. Raymonde was pinned beneath his father. He had dropped his sword. Ambrose had seen this before.

  ‘Aun, no!’ cried Ambrose as he reached them. ‘Don't kill him!’

  Aun had his knife out, hovering for its mark. Raymonde's half-pinned hand groped for it. The knife lifted an inch beyond his reach. Ambrose caught it.

  Aun's face was a mask, a beast, snarling. Ambrose couldn't hold the wrist. Where was Hob?

  The knife-hand broke free. Again Ambrose caught it.

  ‘Aun,’ he yelled. ‘Aun, I'm your King! Stop!’

  The man heard it.

  Endor landed heavily on the fighters' backs, grabbing for the knife himself. Aun let it drop, his eyes on Ambrose's face. The four of them were in a tangle. Hob stepped round them. His splintered sword-point hovered above Raymonde's eye as he lay pinned at the bottom of the heap.

  ‘You lie still,’ he said. ‘Up, the rest of you.’

  They rose, Aun last.

  ‘Now …’ said Hob, uncertain.

  ‘Prince Paigan,’ said Ambrose to the fallen man. ‘Your master. Where is he?’

  ‘I am here,’ said the enemy.

  ‘I have been waiting for you.’

  He was standing by the foot of the throne, where no one had been a moment before.

  ‘So you have begun at last,’ said the Heron Man. ‘Now you will hear me.’

  If we rush him, Ambrose thought feverishly, he'll just disappear again. We need to get close. How?

  Behind him he could hear the men beginning to fan out.

  ‘Stay where you are,’ the enemy said.

  The sounds of movement stopped.

  ‘You have named yourself King,’ said the Heron Man.

  ‘Do you know what that means?’

  He stood in his grey robe, with his hood thrown back. His head was small and hairless, his skin was like the bark on a wizened tree. On his brow was a circlet of gold, and in his hands he held a rough-cut cup of stone.

  Ambrose took a step forward.

  ‘One more step and I shall leave you. You will not find me. You will find only those I speak with, until you yourself are ready to listen.’
/>   Ambrose stopped.

  ‘Answer, as you have been taught. What must a king have, to rule in his kingdom?’

  I must let him think he's got me, thought Ambrose.

  ‘Answer.’

  Touch the heart. Breathe.

  ‘Power,’ said his voice, clearly across the courtyard.

  ‘What must a king do, to gain power?’

  Evil, said the ghost of Denke at Ferroux.

  Ambrose opened his mouth, and shut it again. He's playing with me, he thought. I play with him, he plays with me. We're equals, really.

  At his feet Raymonde of Lackmere crawled across the paving, dragging his sword in one hand, like a dog to his master's heel. No one hauled him back. No one behind Ambrose moved at all. What had happened to them?

  ‘You have seen what a king is,’ said the Heron Man. ‘You have seen what a king does. This is what you have chosen. To save one life, you chose it.’

  One of us has got to get round behind him, Ambrose thought. Aun, or Hob, or Endor. They've got to do it. I've got to keep him talking until then.

  Still none of the men at his back had moved.

  ‘Refuse it, and your friend will hunt his cub again.’ That was true. Ambrose knew it. He forced his mouth to move.

  ‘What must I do?’

  It had seemed the easiest thing to say.

  ‘Go to Tuscolo, and you will die. The stronger you are, the more you will suffer. And sooner or later, you will die. You know this.’

  Ambrose knew it. He could not be a king like Velis. He could only be a king like Septimus, and die as he had died.

  He's playing with me, he thought. He knows I'm trying to play with him. And he's letting me try because it suits him!

  ‘You trapped me!’ he yelled.

  ‘You sent him to bring me down here and trap me!’

  ‘Why should I play games? Sooner or later every son of Wulfram traps himself. You have done the same.’

  Ambrose remembered that he was the closest. Why wait for the others? His hand moved to his sword-hilt. But even as he groped for it, he knew he could not get it out and swing it before the enemy disappeared.

  ‘You are showing weakness,’ the Heron Man said.

  ‘I only explain the choice you have already made.’

  ‘What must I do?’ Ambrose repeated.

  Raymonde had levered himself up to stand behind his master. Ambrose could see, clearly across the space, how thin with hunger his face was. His beard was weeks old. This man who had talked so lightly of the Heron Man; who had made a king and talked of making Ambrose king, hovered like a whipped servant at his master's elbow. And his eyes were on Ambrose.

  But he was alert. He would make it much harder to catch the Heron Man from behind. Why didn't the others move?

  ‘Men adore the power that is manifest,’ said the Heron Man.

  ‘Yet the power that is hidden is greater still. The throne in Tuscolo is high and canopied with gold. Great men cut the heads from each other in turn to sit upon it. But it is only a copy. There is only one throne in all the Kingdom that is real.’

  Ambrose looked at the empty throne that stood under the open sky. He had sat in it so many times, imagining himself to be a king of armies …

  ‘From here the fate of the Kingdom has been ruled, for nine generations. You know this now.

  ‘It was mine. It is yours – if you would save a life.’ Was he offering to step aside? To give up being Prince? Could it be true?

  Ambrose struggled. ‘What about—?’ he said, and stopped.

  ‘Ask your question.’

  ‘What about the power?’

  ‘It is already yours.’

  Ambrose did not understand.

  ‘It was your father's. So now it is yours – by right. Come closer, and I will give. I do not fear your sword.’

  Ambrose hesitated. He remembered that he had been trying to get closer. He couldn't remember what his sword had had to do with it. The men around him had faded. They had fallen back in his mind. Their faces were as distant as the mountains that had watched him, unspeaking, all the days of his childhood. Whatever he did, they would do nothing.

  He took a step.

  He looked into the eyes of the Heron Man.

  He looked into those heavy, weary eyes, of the man who had played out his game over and over for three hundred years. Three hundred years of watching hopes shrivel like leaves in winter. He saw the truth in them. He saw the lie that embraced the truth, that coiled its smoky tentacles around it until the truth itself was changed. He knew it was there. But it did not matter, because underneath both he saw something else.

  He saw a recognition of likeness.

  He's my uncle across nine generations.

  He took another step. Prince Paigan lifted the cup, and held it out to him.

  Somewhere far off there was a cry, as if a beast had shrieked in pain. A hand and blade appeared for an instant over the Heron Man's shoulder. They fell. Ambrose saw the eyes jerk whitely in their sockets. The bald head lolled for a moment in its shoulders. Then the Prince was gone, crumpled at Ambrose's feet, and Raymonde stood over him, yelling and sobbing and hacking at the frail body with his sword.

  Cries of outrage exploded from the men behind Ambrose. The cup rolled on the paving. Its rim was chipped from the impact of its fall. Ambrose scrambled for it, and looked up to see Raymonde standing over him, brandishing his sword and still screaming. An armoured figure – Endor – slammed into him, and bore him to the ground. The sword clattered away across the stones.

  ‘You killed him! You killed him!’ shouted Ambrose, cradling the cup in his arms.

  ‘You! Why was it always you?’ Raymonde screamed back.

  He wrestled, but he was weak and Endor had his arms locked.

  ‘Damn you!’ he screamed, and spat.

  ‘That's enough!’ said Hob. ‘Here,’ he said to Ambrose.

  ‘Put that on.’

  He was holding out the circlet of gold that had fallen from the Heron Man's head. Ambrose looked at it, stupidly.

  ‘Put it on, and get up there,’ said Hob, pointing at the throne.

  ‘We'll do this properly.’

  Slowly Ambrose climbed the steps. The weathered stone writhed with carvings, beasts and powers, all dark and familiar to his eye. At the top he settled the gold circlet on his head, shuddering a little at the light press of the metal on his hair. It was awkward to sit with his sword hanging from his hip, so he worked his belt around until he could rest a hand on the hilt and keep the point from between his legs with his shin. Then he sat down.

  The air was cool. The sun had gone. Masses of cloud were gathering along the crests and beginning to drape themselves down the ridges like huge, pale forests. To his right the peak of Beyah punched higher than all the others, and its face was half in shadow. The sky was pale gold, deepening to blue overhead. He had seen a thousand evenings like this in his life. He had forgotten how beautiful they were.

  He was home.

  In the crook of one arm he held the great cup. It seemed to be a plain, strange thing, to be the cause of so much evil. He could see the new roughness where a flake of stone had broken from it when it fell from the hands of his enemy. It seemed very heavy.

  ‘An empty purse, a bit of stale bread, a book and a water bottle, also empty,’ Hob said as he sorted through Raymonde's sack. ‘That's all.’

  ‘The book belongs to Aun,’ said Ambrose. ‘Give it to him.’ He closed his eyes for a moment and felt very tired. He knew what the men wanted him to do.

  ‘Now by Heaven and by the right of the King I declare this court is open,’ said Hob. He was standing by the steps, just as Ambrose had seen the Widow's officers stand before her chair in the manor-hearings. No doubt Hob had done this many times for his father, the Lord of Tarceny. Endor had forced Raymonde to his knees before the throne and was holding him there.

  So it was Aun who was standing behind his son with the drawn sword.

  Don't be clever
. Just tell them what they've decided.

  ‘Who accuses this man?’ said Hob.

  ‘I'll do it,’ said Ambrose, before Aun could speak. He leaned forward, and used the man's name.

  ‘Raymonde.’

  The Wolf glared at him, tense. ‘Don't forget I saved you, in Develin,’ he said.

  Ambrose ignored it.

  ‘You killed your brother for that book,’ he began.

  ‘You know I didn't mean to!’

  ‘You killed a woman at Chatterfall.’

  ‘Damn you! What are you going to do? What are—?’

  ‘You killed a woman at Chatterfall,’ Ambrose repeated more loudly.

  ‘Answer him, rot you!’ roared Endor, and twisted an arm so that the man fell forward.

  ‘Yes or no?’

  ‘Yes – I'm sorry! I'm sorry …’

  Still Raymonde craned to look up at Ambrose, and the cup.

  The Cup.

  ‘You led your King to sack Bay.’

  ‘I know!’

  ‘You led your King to sack Develin.’

  ‘I know! I know!’

  ‘You did this for the cup. And when you saw Paigan offer the cup to me instead, you killed him, too.’

  ‘I helped you! I helped—’ He broke off with a grunt. Endor had kicked him.

  ‘You wanted him to be your father, and you killed him.’

  No one spoke. Raymonde was staring at him in a kind of horror.

  He's wondering how I knew, Ambrose thought. And I knew because I almost wanted that, too. While the Prince was turning everything I was taught on its head, I wanted it, too.

  He drew a breath. They were all waiting for him. Any one of the things that the Wolf had admitted would be enough.

  And the light was going from the sky. The air was full with the moist gloom of evening that would turn swiftly to night. The men before him were becoming outlines, and the clearest thing of all was the tip of Aun's sword.

  Still they were waiting. Four faces, turned up to him. Five faces. Away to his right the peak of Beyah loomed, silent. In this light it could have been a bowed head, too. Maybe even the head of a woman. Ambrose drew breath again, and held it. He could not hear, or feel, the sound of weeping.