"And then you saw my scars and thought what, that hell's fire had burned the poor soul as he clawed his way out of the pit?"
"You do me wrong, my lord. More, you do your father wrong. He was the best of men. There is not a day goes by that I do not mourn his absence from this world. Believe me, it is a lesser place without him. He does not reside with the Devil."
"I am sorry," Alymere said, and found that he meant it. "My mood is foul. Fears press on my mind. You don't deserve the lash of my tongue simply for observing what so many others have. All of my life it has been the same: you look like your father, the apple did not fall far from the tree, the blood ties are strong. There are days when I hate being my father's ghost and days when it makes the living easier, if that makes sense?"
"It does, my lord. Family is the strongest bond of all, forged for us; despite us, oftentimes. You have no need to beg my forgiveness, my lord."
"Thank you, but I suspect you might change your mind once you learn why I have arrived on your doorstep in the dead of night looking for help."
Alymere took a step towards the door, his eyes flicking upwards to look once more at the weathered chalice carved into its wooden frame, then checked himself. He couldn't explain rationally why he didn't want to set foot inside the church, because there was no rational explanation. The priest saw his hesitation and took it as a sign of courtesy.
"Come in, come in," he said, opening the door wider.
Alymere closed his eyes and crossed the threshold. He did not know what he expected — his skin to blister and blacken as his soul burned, his eyes to melt and run down his cheeks, his sins to boil up from inside him and ooze out in the form of corruption and putrescence. Or perhaps the book pressed so close to his skin would ignite when exposed to the air of the sanctuary, scorching through him to the bone in the process?
His skin did not blister, neither did his soul burn.
He opened his eyes, and was three steps inside the church. He had to stifle the urge to laugh. The church was of plain Norman design, a sturdy construction with little in the way of decoration. The one concession to aesthetics was the stained glass window behind the stone altar. In it, Christ was surrounded by every kind of animal the artist could imagine. Each creature was beautifully rendered. During the day every colour of the rainbow must have been scattered across the inside of the church.
It was the first time Alymere had set foot within the place. He had long since ceased praying and had little time for a God who had failed him so consistently, but still the little church was humbling. For the first time in as long as he could remember Alymere felt as though he were in the presence of the divine. Habit, long ingrained, had him genuflect before the altar.
"What can I do for you, my son?" The priest asked, breaking the silence. He had moved silently to stand beside him. "You did not ride all this way without purpose, I am sure."
"A small mercy, father. An act of kindness, and not for me but rather for my uncle. I have come to beg you ride with me, through the night, to the manor. I fear there is little time. We may already be too late."
"Too late?"
"He is dying and would make his peace with God before he goes."
"Oh, sweet Lord," the priest clutched the crucifix at his throat. "How? How could such a thing happen?"
"It is a family curse," Alymere said darkly. His face twisted, on the side still able to betray emotion. "We die young."
The priest shook his head. He looked uneasy; frightened that even in a house of God Alymere would so tempt the fates. "Do not say such things; do not tempt Lucifer's mischievous hand, even in jest, even in this place. The Devil's ears are sharp and stone walls are no protection from his black humour."
If only you knew what I have brought with me into your sanctuary, Alymere thought bleakly, then you would have reason to be afraid. He did not give voice to the thought, but apologised. "Sorry father, but it is difficult sometimes to think of us as anything other than cursed. Perhaps it is a blessing that my ill-fated line will come to an end with me."
The priest was not so easily pacified. "You are maudlin, my son, which is understandable given how this life has treated those you love and hold dear, but look at the people you serve: the farmers, the fishwives, the boys born into a life of scrimmaging and struggling for every mouthful of bread and tell me you are truly cursed, my son. Every day I see true hardships and true heroism side-by-side and thank the Lord for His gifts. And like it or not, to those people, you are one of those gifts."
"There are more ways of suffering than privation, father," Alymere said, and something in his tone struck a chord with the priest, who bowed his head in acquiescence. "If any man should know that, I would have thought it would be you."
"I do not mean to diminish your suffering. Sometimes I forgot how young you are, my lord. I see the knightly garb and the proud jaw and forget the trials you have faced in your short life. My apologies."
"There's no need to apologise. In many ways you are more than right; I have lived a life of privilege, and for most of it have not wanted for anything; not love, not food, nor a roof over my head. No matter my personal hardships, I should thank the stars for my good fortune. All I can say is that it is too easy to be consumed by one's woes. I think too much of the things that I have lost, instead of remembering the things that I have. Despite my best efforts, I am alive, I have my health, my looks," he chuckled a little self-deprecatingly at that, his fingers instinctively moving to touch his ruined cheek, "and in but a few hours the fates will conspire to make me master of the house I was born in, and all that I lost will be mine once more. But, and here is the God's honest truth, priest: I would gladly give up my inheritance if it meant my uncle, my mother, my father — anyone I have ever loved, for that matter — if any one of them were restored to me." He shrugged. "But if wishes were fishes I too could feed five thousand. Debating the relative merits of one sadness over another serves no-one, so rather than grow ever more maudlin, let us ride out if you are willing?"
"Of course, of course. Let me collect a few things and we can leave."
The priest bustled around, snuffing candles and dousing oil burners before beginning to gather the objects of his faith: a small wooden cross from the stone altar, a stoppered vial of blessed water from the font, and his battered Bible from the lectern. He moved with familiarity through the richer darkness once the candles and burners were out, collecting a rough hessian sack. He emptied out the few remaining root vegetables that filled it, and then refilled it with the things he had collected. He slung the sack over his shoulder and stopped as the realisation hit him. "Ah, I have no horse, my lord, only my feet." He looked distraught. "No matter how fast I walk, I fear we won't make it in time; it is days to the manor from here," his voice trailed off helplessly.
"Fear not, father, there is room on my horse for two, and Marchante is more than capable of bearing us both. If we leave now we will be back at the house for dawn."
"Then we must not tarry a minute longer than necessary. With God's speed, let us away."
The priest took a few moments to close up the church, and then, as Alymere untied Marchante's reins from the tree he had tethered him to, mounted up. Alymere swung up, joining the priest in the saddle. Desperately uncomfortable on the horse's back, the priest wrapped his arms around Alymere's stomach and buried his face in the folds of his cloak, clinging to him for grim life as Alymere spurred the great warhorse on.
If the priest felt the Devil's Bible beneath Alymere's shirt, he gave no indication.
Alymere, however, was painfully aware of its presence. He felt the leather binding prickle hotly against his skin as the words churned through his mind. This time the voice was recognisably Blodyweth's.
Do this one thing for me…
Promise me now, make this the one promise you keep.
Or the Devil take your soul…
When they reached the Devil's Tree there was no sign of either the crow or the leather-faced crone. The moon wa
s obscured by low lying cloud, but a sliver of it shone through, turning the road silver.
Alymere spurred Marchante on, willing Sir Lowick to hold on for just a few hours more.
Thirty-Seven
They reached the manor an hour before dawn.
Early morning dew weighed down the tips of the grass. Together with the moonlight it looked as though thousands of gemstones had been scattered across the lawn. Marchante cantered out of the trees, trailing branches pulling at them, and the priest stirred.
"The house is awake," Alymere said, seeing the lamps burning in the upstairs windows.
They rode to the door.
Two servants were there to meet them before they could dismount. The grief was fierce in both of them. No-one spoke; one of the servants took Marchante's reins and led the warhorse around to the stables to see him fed and watered, while the other offered the priest his hand and guided him up the short steps to the house. Horse and priest alike visibly steamed in the pre-dawn chill. He tugged at his vestments uncomfortably, trying to adjust them after the long ride before giving up and following the servant inside.
Alymere raced up the steps behind him and through the door.
He tried to read the house, to prepare himself. Sir Lowick had drummed the necessity of thought into him. Logic and reasoning were the greatest gifts of God, according to the old knight. He believed it was possible to know far more about what you were walking into if only you used your eyes and your mind together. So that was what Alymere did now.
There was an air of mourning about the house. It was obvious despite the lamps in the upstairs windows. Much of the ground floor was draped in shadow.
Bors came down the stairs wearily. The wooden boards sighed beneath his weight. Each step appeared to lessen him until by the time he reached the bottom he was no longer the invincible giant Alymere had met outside of Camelot, but a normal man stretched to the point of breaking. He had never loved the big knight more. There was no doubting the toll the long night had taken on him, both mentally and physically. He looked as though he had not slept for days — which, Alymere realised, was probably the case; he had almost certainly ridden through the one night to bring Sir Lowick home to die, and had then sat his bedside vigil through another — but the worst of it was in his eyes. Alymere recognised the spectre that haunted them for what it was: the ghost of his own mortality.
Bors was a man whose strength defined him; strength of body, strength of mind, of faith, conviction, character. It gave him courage, and in a curious way, cloaked him in immortality; the kind of immortality every knight needed to charge recklessly into battle time and again with only his sword and shield between him and death.
And now his friend was dying an ugly death, robbed of his own strength, and it had hit him hard. Not only that he was dying, but the manner with which death had claimed him. No amount of martial skill, no thickness of armour or swiftness of sword could have saved him from a poisoned cup.
It was no surprise that it would haunt a man like Sir Bors de Ganis. He could just as easily have been the one to drink from the parlay chalice.
"He is still with us," Bors said, seeing the dread in Alymere's face. "But we are talking minutes rather than hours, lad."
They climbed the stairs side-by-side, silently.
Draughts caused the flames to flicker erratically and the shadows to stretch and twist on the walls. The doorway at the far end of the passage was closed, and for the time it took for Alymere to reach it he wished it could stay that way forever. He had no wish to open it and watch someone he loved die, not when, like Bors, he was helpless to change things.
He closed his eyes and opened the door.
His uncle lay on the tangled sheets, fever sweats ringing his weakened body. He looked ten times worse that he had just a few hours before; his breathing came shallow and erratic, each new breath successively more difficult to take. Alymere stood in the doorway, unwilling to enter the death room. The priest rushed to Sir Lowick's bedside and dropped to his knees, then shrugged the sack off his shoulder and began to remove the few things he had brought from the church: first the cross, then the vial of blessed water and finally the Bible. He offered a short prayer from the book. Alymere understood only a little of the Latin, but knew the passage well: the third chapter of Ecclesiastes, speaking of the timeliness of the seasons of a man's life, whether in birth or death, in silence or speech, in peace or in war.
The knight stirred, opening his eyes. He reached out with an emaciated hand, resting it upon the priest's cross. There was no strength to be gained there. He coughed; it came out like a death rattle. There was no recognition in his eyes when he saw Alymere in the doorway and said quietly, "You can leave us now, my son." Alymere didn't correct his uncle. He stepped out of the room and closed the door behind him, affording Sir Lowick a few minutes alone with his God to unburden his soul.
He paced the passage outside the door, walking back and forth, back and forth. He couldn't sit or stand still for more than a few seconds before he needed to be off again, pacing. Bors left him alone to work his way through the conflicting emotions that ate away at him. His body was tired — beyond tired — but his mind was wide awake, and his mind always won out of the two.
Eventually the door opened and the ashen-faced priest emerged.
He looked at Alymere, but couldn't look him in the eye.
"He would see you now. He is very weak, and his mind is gone, I fear; little of what he says makes sense outside his own mind. The poison is robbing him of his clarity, but there are things he needs to tell you, if you are willing to hear them. It is not my place, my lord, but I think it is important you hear what he has to say. For yourself if not for him. I am sorry for your loss."
"He's not dead yet, priest," Alymere said, more harshly than he intended.
He left the holy man stumbling over an apology and closed the door behind him. He settled into the room's only chair and, steeling himself, said, "I am here, uncle."
Thirty-Eight
The deathbed confession took everything he believed about his life and made a lie of it.
"You were always a good boy," Sir Lowick said. "But I could not be prouder of the man you have become." Even those few words took their toll on him. He sank deeper into the sweat-stained bolster and closed his eyes. His lips moved, and for a moment no words came. His breathing became shallow and erratic as he struggled to master it; he was determined to say his piece. "I remember well the day I went to the king and petitioned for the right to finish your training." He managed a smile. "How could I forget the hot-headed boy I found waiting for me in Camelot? You were so determined to believe I intended to kill you…" He chuckled at that. It was a brittle sound. "But why would I kill my own flesh and blood? My own…" he trailed away into thoughtful silence. For a moment Alymere thought he had died, whatever he so needed to say still unsaid, but he opened his eyes again and said, "If only you had known the truth of who you were to me…"
"Uncle," Alymere said, softly. The word barely carried from his lips, and if Sir Lowick heard it, he gave no sign. He was somewhere else, lost inside his confession. Alymere let him talk.
"But why should you know my shame? Five people kept our secret, three of them have been dead for many years now, and the fourth is about to join them. By rights that ought to mean it is a secret easier to keep. The priest knows now, but he will never tell, and I should let it go to the grave with me, lad… but I can't. Won't. You deserve to know." He broke off, his entire body convulsing with each violent cough. By the time the hacking subsided he was too weak to wipe away the spittle from his lips. "Damn this body of mine. I am not ready. Not yet." He reached out, grasping Alymere's hand with surprising strength. It was the final rally; he would be gone soon. "Boy, I have one last lesson. Take from it what you will. All I ask is that you believe me, because you won't want to. Please remember I have nothing to gain from lies, not now… I have lied for too long. We all have."
"I promise," Alymere
said, making another promise with his heart he couldn't keep with his head.
"I can't remember the first time I realised I was in love with Corynn. Your mother was special, lad, a brilliant, beautiful woman. It was certainly before she was married to my brother, though. Long before. Three friends growing up together in this place, it was always going to become two men in love with the same woman. It was impossible for it to be any other way when that woman was your mother, believe me. She was… incandescent."
"I don't need to hear this," Alymere said, but Lowick's grip only tightened and he found fresh resolve. Now was the time; his story would be told.
"I did love her, son, with all of my heart. Did you never wonder why I never took a wife? My heart was already given to another. I tried to stifle it, to kill it, but she was the world to me, and without her my world was nothing more than a broken land. There could be no healing. I didn't mean to do it. I didn't. You have to believe me, son. I didn't mean to do it."
"Do what?" Alymere asked, his heart already sinking. He didn't want to hear the dying man's confession. He didn't want to know. It would change everything. Everything.
"It was the worst moment of my life…" His voice trailed off, barely a whisper now as the last of his strength seemed to ebb out of it. The next few words were lost beneath the rasp-rattle of the dying man's breathing. If not for the fact his lips moved, Alymere wouldn't have known he was trying to speak.
"What are you trying to tell me, uncle?" He leaned in so close he could feel the knight's lips brush against his ear as they moved.
"You are my ghost."
"I don't understand."
"My ghost. You remind me. Whenever I look at you, I see her. See what I did. And remember my weakness. I am sorry, son. I am so sorry. You look like your father," and for a moment that was all he said. Alymere thought he was gone, and felt the sadness of grief well up within him, but before the tears came the knight whispered, "It is my one great regret that you never knew… that you never looked at me and…" another bout of coughing stole his words away. "I loved your mother. I loved my brother. I was weak. He was gone. At war. We were alone. She wouldn't… It should never have happened… I betrayed… myself. It was a mistake… but when I look at you I don't understand how such evil could create such a perfect thing… God forgive me."
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