by Robin Hobb
‘I am going to cross.’
‘No. You are not.’ The man who spoke did not even look at her. ‘You are going to go back to the end of the line and wait your turn. When the tide goes out and the water has receded completely, then we will admit pilgrims in an orderly fashion, two abreast. That is how we do this.’
Dwalia stepped closer and spoke through clenched teeth. ‘I know how we do it. I am one of the Circle. I am Lingstra Dwalia, and I have returned. The Four will wish to hear my report as soon as they possibly can. You should not dare to detain me.’ She gave Vindeliar a sideways glare. I felt him try. His thin magic lapped against the guards.
One cocked his head and looked at her carefully. ‘Dwalia.’ The guard spoke it as a name he knew. He lifted an elbow and nudged the woman next to him. ‘Is that her? Dwalia?’
The other guard grudgingly shifted her gaze from the queue of anxious pilgrims to study Dwalia, the wrinkles in her brow growing deeper as she did so. Then her eyes fell on Vindeliar. ‘She left here a long time ago. Rode at the head of a troop of white horses and riders. Could be her, but she looks different in that dress. But that one? Him I recognize. He is Dwalia’s creature. Vindeliar. He does her bidding. So, if she has him, then, I guess it’s her. We should let her cross.’
‘But now? While the water still runs over the causeway?’
‘It’s not that deep. I can tell. I wish to cross now.’ Dwalia’s tone brooked no argument. ‘Open the gate for me.’
They stepped back from her, conferred briefly. One scowled and seemed to indicate her fine dress, but the other shrugged, and he was the one who unlatched the gate and swung it open. We had to step back to allow its motion and that crowded us into the waiting petitioners. And when the gate was clear, and Dwalia stepped forward with Vindeliar and me following, the crowd moved with us, trying to cross with us. The guards with the pikes moved forward, crossing their weapons and pushing them back. We stepped forward alone.
The causeway was of smooth, cut stone, flat as a table. Dwalia didn’t pause when she reached the water’s edge. She did not lift her skirts or take off her shoes to carry them. She walked forward as if the sea did not still own that space. We followed. The water was shallow at first, not warm but not numbingly cold. As we went forward, it got quickly deeper, soaking my shoes and moving past my ankles to my shins. I began to feel the tug of the ebbing tide. Beside me, Vindeliar was scowling. ‘I don’t like this,’ he said bitterly. Neither Dwalia nor I paid him any mind but I soon began to share his uneasiness. The water got deeper and the pull of the receding waves became stronger. I had waded in creeks and streams, but this was seawater. It had a smell and a stickiness that surprised me. The opposite gate on the far end of the sunken causeway had not looked very far away when we had begun. Now as the water rose past my knees and up my thighs, the safety of the far shore seemed to retreat. Even Dwalia had slowed as she sloshed forward. I fixed my eyes on her back and fought the weight of the water. The tide might be ebbing as they had said, but waves still came and went, and sometimes they wet me to my waist. Vindeliar had begun to make an anxious noise between a hum and a whine. He was falling behind. When I glanced back and realized that, I tried to move faster. The water was colder now and I panted as I pushed my way through it. Leave him behind, I thought fiercely. I think he felt my wish, for his wail grew louder and I heard a splash as he stumbled, and then his hoarse cry as he surged to his feet again. Drown! I arrowed that thought at him, and then shut myself behind my walls.
The sun beat down on my head, scorching my scalp through my short hair, while the water pressed against me and drew warmth out of my feet and legs. I folded my arms high on my chest and hugged my bundled clothing to myself. I pushed my thirst to one side along with my aching muscles. Shipboard life had not prepared me for today’s hike. The sunlight bounced off the water and into my eyes. I lifted my head and tried to see Dwalia but glittering light dazzled my eyes. I began to feel shaky and ill.
Was the water shallower? Perhaps. I took heart and surged on, head and shoulders bent as I fought the waves. When next I lifted my head and looked for Dwalia, she stood at the far gate, remonstrating and cursing the guards who would not open it to her. Beyond that gate, a huddle of people awaited its opening to leave the castle. Their weary stances and aprons of leather or fabric proclaimed them to be servants of the Servants, probably on their way to their homes.
I sloshed up behind Dwalia. She astonished me by swivelling about, seizing me by my collar and near lifting me off my feet to shake me at the guards. ‘The Unexpected Son!’ she snarled at them. ‘Do you want to be the ones who delayed his arrival before the Four?’
The guards exchanged glances. The taller man looked back at her. ‘That old myth?’
Vindeliar came shuddering up beside us. One guard nudged the other. ‘That’s Vindeliar. No mistaking that treacherous little gelding. So she is Dwalia. Let them in.’
Dwalia did not release her grip on my collar as the gate opened and we passed through. I tried not to resist her pulling but it meant walking on my tiptoes. I could not look back to see Vindeliar following but I heard the thud of the barred gate as it shut behind us.
A road of dun sand stretched before us. The sun woke sparkles in it. It was straight and featureless. To either side of it, a barren and rocky landscape spread. It was so flat and empty that I knew that the hands of men had shaped it. Nothing could cross this expanse of ground and not be seen. Never had I seen an area so devoid of small life. The only relief to the eye were occasional stones, and none of them was larger than a bushel basket. Dwalia suddenly released me. ‘Don’t dawdle. And don’t speak,’ she ordered me, and then set off at her distance-eating stride again. Her once-fine skirts were wet and slapped against her legs as she walked. I followed, trying to match her pace. When I lifted my eyes to stare at our destination, it dazzled me more than the sunlight on the water. The white walls of the castle glittered. We walked and walked and seemed to come no closer. Gradually I began to realize that I had greatly underestimated how large a fortress it was. Or castle. Or palace. From the ship, I had seen eight towers. This close to it, when I looked up, I saw only two, and the misshapen heads that topped them looked like skulls. I slogged along, head lowered as the sun pounded down on us and eyes half-closed against the brightness. Every time I lifted my head, the aspect of the immense structure at the end of the long road seemed to have changed.
When we were close enough that I had to crane my neck back to see the tops of the walls, the ornate bas-reliefs on the outside of the walls became evident. They were the only marks I could see on the smooth white walls. From this vantage, I saw no windows, not even arrow slits, and no doors. On this side of the castle, there was no access at all. Yet the road led directly to it. White on white, the etched carvings were many times taller than a man, and glittering even brighter than the walls they graced. I stared for a moment and then had to look away and close my eyes. But when I shut my eyes, there the carvings were again, inside my eyelids, like a climbing white vine.
I recognized it.
Impossibly, I knew what it was. I remembered it, from a life I had never lived or perhaps from a future I had yet to see. That vine had crawled through my dreams. I’d drawn it on the front page of my journal to frame my name. I’d given it leaves and trumpet flowers. I’d been wrong. It was an abstract representation. And there was a thought I’d never had before, that an artist could create a picture of an idea, and I would know what it was. I recognized it as the river of all possible times, cascading down from the present and splitting into a thousand, no a million, no an infinite number of possible futures and every one of those splintered into another infinity of possible futures. And among them all, a single gleaming thread, incredibly narrow, that represented the future as it could, should and ought to be. If events were guided correctly. If the White Prophet dreamed and believed and ventured forth to put that world on the path, time would follow it.
I opened my eyes again, for I
had only closed them for a moment. There it was again, before me, and despite all I had come through, all I had endured to come here and how much I hated the people who had brought me here, I suddenly felt a lift of belonging. I was here at last.
A certainty rose in me, clearer than anything I had ever known about myself. I was supposed to be here. In this place and in this time, this was where I was supposed to be. A dozen dreams I had had suddenly spun and then interlocked with more recent dreams inside me. The vague plan was no longer vague. I’d felt a similar surge of certainty on the day I had freed my tongue. I’d seen the paths with such clarity only once before in my life, on that fateful day in winter when the beggar had touched me and I’d seen how all futures began at my feet. Oh, the great good that I could do, now that I was here. My fate was here and only I could shape it. It stole my breath away. And as I gazed, I felt my heart lift, just as the minstrels described it could happen. I was here and the great work of my life was before me.
I realized I had stopped only when Vindeliar trudged past me. He looked at me with a gaze full of venom and I found I could not care. A smile pulled at my mouth. Walls up.
‘Bee, hurry up!’ Dwalia snapped the command over her shoulder.
‘Coming!’ I replied and something in my tone made her halt and look back at me. I cast my eyes down and bowed my head. This was not a thing to share with anyone. I needed to hold it close inside me. The knowledge was like a glittering stone scooped from a filthy puddle. I saw the shine of it, but I knew that the more I handled it, the cleaner and clearer it would become.
And like a jewel, if I revealed it, thieves would take it from me, in any way they could.
I heard a sound behind us and looked back. The tide was out, and the causeway stood above the water. A snake of people, six or eight wide, now packed the narrow belt of road that ran between the waters. Some were almost across. But even after they reached the island and the waters of the bay no longer hedged them in, they did not spread out but kept to the narrow causeway.
‘Hurry!’ Dwalia urged me again. No wonder she kept us to such a rapid pace. If we did not keep up our speed, they would overtake us, maybe even trample us.
Ahead, where there had been only smooth wall, cracks appeared, startling black against the white. The cracks became the edges of the doors and then they opened wide. A phalanx of guards, clad in gleaming silver armour and pale-yellow cloaks marched out and formed up in two rows alongside our path. I thought they would halt us, but Dwalia glared at them and made a sign with her hand and we strode past without a word.
It was not until we had passed under the arch of the entry and emerged into a courtyard that a man stepped in front of us. He was tall and thin and wore a sword, but even in his armour he looked skinny and weak. His face was pasty and blemished with splotches of pink, peeling skin. Tufts of greying hair stuck out the sides of his helmet. He narrowed his eyes. ‘Lingstra Dwalia.’ He made her name an accusation. ‘You left here with a mounted guard of luriks. Where are they and their fine steeds? Why do you return alone?’
‘Step aside, Bosphodi. There is no time to waste. I must have audience with Symphe and Fellowdy immediately.’
He held his place a moment longer, his gaze wandering over her damaged face, inspecting Vindeliar’s ragged garments and then settling on me. His frown became a grimace of disapproval. Then he stepped aside and made a grand gesture for us to pass him. ‘Go as you will, Dwalia. Were I coming back from a doubtful quest, scarred and stripped of all that had been entrusted to me, I doubt I’d be in such a hurry to report my failure to the Four.’
‘I didn’t fail,’ she replied tersely.
As we hurried past him he muttered, ‘Of all the ones to come back alive, it had to be Vindeliar.’ I heard him spit.
The wide courtyard was paved in patterns of white-and-black stone and was as clean as if it had been recently swept. Lining the inner walls of the outer keep were food-and-drink stalls alongside bright carts with multiple drawers that would, I now knew, hold fortune papers inside nutshells. Pennants and garlands hung nearly motionless in the heat. Open-sided pavilions shaded tables and benches that awaited hungry and thirsty patrons. It looked like a celebration, far larger than Winterfest at Oaksbywater. For one instant, childish curiosity made me forget who I was now, and I longed to wander among the booths and buy sweets and bright gewgaws.
‘Hurry up, stupid!’ Dwalia barked.
These joys were not for Vindeliar or me. I walked away from the child I had been.
She hurried us toward the finest structure within the fortress walls. It was built, apparently, of white ivory. The doors and windows were a filigree wrought in bone or stone. This stronghouse was the base for the four slender onion-bud towers I had glimpsed from the ship. It looked impossible for such towers to be so tall and support such pinnacles. But there they were.
‘Come!’ Dwalia snapped at me, and for the first time in some days, she snapped a slap to my face. I felt the old split at the corner of my mouth bleed again. I lifted a hand to press it closed and followed her.
Double doors stood open beyond a columned portico. We ascended wide steps to reach them. The cessation of sunlight beating down on my head and shoulders was a shock. My shoes were still damp. I tracked grit from the wet causeway onto the immaculate floor. As my eyes adjusted to the light I became aware of the magnificence that surrounded me.
Here the doorways were edged with gilt or perhaps real gold. Brilliant paintings in opulent frames, the subjects many times larger than life, graced every wall. Tasselled tapestries hung on the upper walls. I had never seen white wood, but every wall in here was panelled in it. I lifted my eyes to see that even the high ceilings were painted with incomprehensible landscapes. I felt very small and out of place in such grandeur. But Dwalia was uncowed by any of it.
The woman who blocked our way was robed in fabric of rich yellow, yellower than dandelions. Her sleeves hung slightly past her wrists and her full skirts brushed the floor. The collar stood up to her chin, and her flowered headdress left only the circle of her pale face showing. The red of her painted mouth was shocking. ‘Dwalia,’ she said, and waited, scowling. In the distance, I heard a door open and then shut. Two people walked past us and out of the door. As they exited to the pavilion outside, a roar of voices reached my ears. The crowd had reached the outer courtyard. Then the closing door cut off their sounds.
Dwalia spoke. ‘I must have an audience with Symphe. And Fellowdy. Immediately.’
The woman smiled nastily. ‘This is not a day for private audiences. The Four are in the Judgment Chamber, prepared to hear grievance and assign blame and penalties. You must know those appointments are made months in advance. But,’ and she smiled like a snarling cat, ‘perhaps I can manage to get you an appointment there?’
At those words, Vindeliar’s hands flew to his cheeks and then covered his mouth.
‘No. I wish to see Symphe. Alone or with Fellowdy. Only those two. At once, Deneis.’ Dwalia gave Vindeliar a glare. He dropped his hands and then hunched his shoulders as if expecting a blow.
The woman in yellow folded her lips, leaving her face all but featureless for her eyes were grey and as I stared at her I realized that she had no eyebrows.
‘It can’t be done today. Perhaps the day after tomorrow, I can—’
‘If you make my news wait two days, I think the Four will slowly remove your skin. Or perhaps allow me to perform that task myself.’
I had thought Deneis was as pale as she could get, but her face turned as white as my father’s good paper. ‘I will convey your request to their attendants—’
‘See that you do,’ Dwalia interrupted her. ‘We will await their summons in the Joy Chamber. See that refreshments are brought to us promptly. We have come a long way.’
‘You do not command me,’ the woman said, but Dwalia only snorted.
‘Follow,’ she ordered Vindeliar and me and led us from the circular entry hall down one of the corridors branching
off it like the spokes of a wheel. We walked on spotless white stone past disapproving portraits. Behind us, I heard the outer doors open and looked back to see Deneis greeting a procession of finely dressed folk.
Dwalia moved down the hall with great familiarity and when we came to a door adorned with brass insets of multiple suns, she pushed it open and we followed her in. I trailed curious fingers on the door as I passed it. It looked as if it had been made of large panels of bone or ivory, but what creature would have bones or tusks that large?
‘Shut the door!’ Dwalia snapped and I snatched my hand back from the panel. Vindeliar was behind me and he pushed it closed. How long had it been since I’d stood still inside a room that didn’t shift with the waves? I took a deep breath and looked around me. It was a room designed for waiting and discomfort. Two milky-white windows admitted filtered light but no view. Chairs of hardwood with straight backs lined the walls. A bare table of white wood sat in the centre of the room. There was no cloth on it, no vessel of flowers such as my mother would have placed. The floor was hard white stone, and the walls were featureless white wood panels. Massive white beams crossed the ceiling overhead. With the door closed, no sound came from outside. Dwalia saw me looking around. ‘Go and sit down!’ she instructed me.
I was extremely thirsty and I needed to pee but I knew there would be no opportunity to appease either need. I went to one of the chairs and sat. It was too tall and my feet dangled. Uncomfortable. I tucked my small pack of bundled clothes behind me. It didn’t help.
Dwalia did not sit. She walked slowly around the room like a rat travelling the walls. Vindeliar shuffled along behind her until she abruptly spun about and slapped him. ‘Stop that!’ He caught his breath on a sob, glared at me, and then took the chair farthest away. He sat on the edge of it, his toes on the floor and his heels jiggling soundlessly. She pointed her finger at him. ‘Nothing left? You have no power left at all?’