The Watchers Trilogy: Omnibus Edition

by William Meikle

  The old man settled in the chair and rested his chin on his hand in a gesture that Martin long recognised.

  “I know I’ve been hard on you, boy,” the Thane said. “And don’t try to deny it. You won’t remember it, but when you were young, you used to sit on my knee while I held council, and you came with me, hand in hand when we walked the wall, your mother alongside us. But then that day came.”

  “You do not need to relive it, Father. I know now it was not my fault.”

  There was amazement on the old man’s face. “You blamed yourself? All these years. My poor boy.”

  He went back to stroking Martin’s arm.

  “I could not face you. Menzies berated me mightily for it, and came to take my place in your affections. But you see, it was me who sent her out to look after you two boys that day, and it was me who had her maidservant do errands instead of watching by her side. My fault. All my fault. And everywhere I turned, your face was there, reminding me of my perfidy.”

  Martin once more clasped the old man on the shoulder. Strangely, he could hear Lennan’s song in his head as he spoke.

  “All is well, Father. You have cleansed your soul, and I could never bear you any ill will.”

  His father wiped heavy tears away.

  “I needed to say it anyway. It has hung on my shoulders for too long. Do you forgive me?”

  “There is nothing to forgive,” Martin said.

  “Yes, there is. But let that be an end to it for now. Do you still want to hear how it has gone in your absence? Or have you had enough of an old man’s prattling?”

  “In truth,” Martin replied, “I don’t think you have ever said so much. But I must know.”

  “I don’t know what I would have done without Barnstable this past week,” the Thane said. “He has been a tower of strength, while I, old fool that I am, could only sit at my window and worry that I had sent my boy to his death.”

  There were signs that the tears were about to start again.

  “What has our Constable been doing, then?” Martin asked.

  “He has been preparing for the coming of the Others. He has mobilised the whole town, and, along with Menzies, has come up with some surprises if they come. Oh, he has had to be hard on some shirkers, but on the whole, he has been the perfect deputy.”

  And there is the problem, thought Martin. Barnstable would be more than happy to see the old man out of the way. He had always coveted the Thaneship, or rather the power that came with it. And now he had it, in all but name.

  Another thought struck Martin. If he had never returned, Barnstable could have claimed the position. He realised that the Constable could prove to be a threat, to his father’s well being and his own.

  But he didn’t want his father following that line of thought—not yet—not while he was in his current weakened state. It was time to change the subject again.

  “I have slept a long time, Father,” he said. “And I dreamed of great blasphemies.”

  Deep down in the old man’s hooded eyes, he thought he detected a glimmer of interest.

  “What? Worse than burning down a perfectly fine barn?” the Thane said, and laughed, a thing which seemed to light up his face and lift years from him. “Come on, boy, tell me, does it involve a woman?”

  Martin blushed, and the old man laughed once more, until Martin spoke again, his voice no more than a whisper.

  “Aye. It involves women, and Others too. But the worst of all is, it involves our Lord.”

  He told his dreams to the Thane, while the old man grew ever stiller and quieter, the furrows deepening on his brow once more.

  “It seems that the woodsman’s herbs do more than heal,” he said when Martin was finished. “You have dreamed a tale that few men and only men have ever heard. I myself got it from old Menzies, and he got it from an arcane book locked away in a college in Oxford. But I am loath to tell it, in this place, and this close to nightfall.”

  Martin pleaded with his father.

  “It is important. I feel it. And it has something to do with Sean, and Campbell’s daughter.”

  “Oh yes,” the Thane replied. “I am very afraid that it has everything to do with Campbell’s daughter.”

  And the Thane began to tell Martin a story—a father sitting by his son’s bedside as the light began to fail.

  “I will tell it the way I heard it. But remember, it is only a story, and the Others are renowned liars.”

  “It starts with a Bible story—our Lord being baptised. Except the Others would have it that the Baptist was one of them, and their king no less. A king in blood but a king without an heir. And the Baptist passed on his arcane secrets, there in the sands of the desert, to one who had been born with power, and later, when the Satan came calling with his temptations of everlasting life and dominion over all, the Lord succumbed.

  “And he took to himself twelve disciples, and passed on the teachings of the Baptist. And he took Mary Magdelene to his bed, and a child was conceived. A blood child who was insurance against the line being sundered.”

  The Thane stopped, interrupted by a sudden commotion from the great hall below, but the noise abated quickly.

  “The Constable will deal with it,” the old man said before continuing.

  “You have seen some of what the Others say happened—the supper and the chalice was an occult ceremony to give their dark power to the unborn child, and the crucifixion was a ruse to allow the Lord, or the Blood King as he now was, to escape from the Romans.

  “He and his dark followers went to France. He had gathered a new band, and there were always twelve, and ever he kept Mary Magdelene close, and the day grew closer when the child was due.

  “But the Gauls had magic of their own, the magic of the land and the sky, and they battled with the Blood King. Great was the slaughter, and much blood was spilled, but the Gauls finally prevailed. They burnt the Blood King, and Mary, and the child they had ripped from her belly, on a great pyre on a mountaintop. They say the world echoed with their screams for a year and a day afterwards. The chalice they took, and buried it deep beneath one of their temples where their magic could bind it, and they scattered the Blood King’s ashes to the wind. And so it ended, for a thousand years.”

  The old man was interrupted again by the sound of heavy footsteps on the stairs, and Campbell burst into the room, his face flushed and his eyes wide and staring. Martin realised that the man was afraid.

  “Sir! I beg you to remember your oath to me. Your Constable has my daughter, and he means to kill her.”

  The Thane got to his feet, slowly at first, then with more urgency as the Scotsman propelled him towards the door.

  Martin made to move, to try to leave the bed, but his father turned and pushed him down. “I can deal with the Constable,” he said. “If you would still take commands from your Thane, as an officer of the watch—as a watcher—you are ordered to stay here.”

  “Hurry, sir,” Campbell said. “The mood of your people is ugly.” The Scotsman grabbed the Thane and hurried him out of the room.

  “What of Sean?” Martin shouted, but they had already gone.

  Suddenly Martin was alone, but he could not lie abed—not when his father and his friend might need him. For the first time in his service he prepared to disobey a direct order from the Thane.

  He pushed himself upright, using his good right arm for leverage, but the pain was still almost enough to send him back to oblivion. It was long seconds before he found the strength to swing his legs out of the bed and push himself to a standing position. He swayed alarmingly, and black spots ran in front of his eyes, but he was standing—if he could stand he could walk, and if he could walk, he could get to the hall.

  He realised that he was only wearing a long night-shirt, but he knew that he would not have the strength to clothe himself properly, so he took his officer’s cloak from its peg behind the door, wrapped himself in it, and headed for the stairs.

  Even from the top stair he coul
d hear voices from the hall below, loud voices raised in anger, the loudest of them all from the Constable, Barnstable.

  “…and I say she is bitten, and a spy, and she must be burnt, before she brings doom to us all.”

  Martin descended the stairs slowly, every footstep bringing fresh pain to his arm. Once he missed his footing, and, by reflex, put out his left hand to stop himself from falling. The pain brought him to tears, and he felt new wetness under the bandages, but he kept moving down the stairs.

  He could hear his father’s voice now. There was no tremor in it, no sign of the old man who had sat by his bed and cried such a short time ago.

  “And I gave my oath to this man. You and the whole of Milecastle heard me make it. Would you make me an oath-breaker?”

  Martin could hear the anger building in his father, but if the Constable noticed it he didn’t pay it any attention. Barnstable snorted, like a disgruntled horse. “The oath means nothing if your ward is a spy. The watch caught her trying to go over the wall. She could have contacted them already— they may even now be coming here.” His voice had risen to a shout and Martin heard the fear there.

  “They will come anyway,” Campbell said in a soft voice that still carried to Martin.

  “And you would know that for certain,” Barnstable said. “For surely you are in league with them. If we had not let you enter in the first place, all this might have passed us by.”

  “Passed us by and gone somewhere else?” the Thane said. “Is this Milecastle’s Constable talking? Remember your duty, man—to serve and protect. That means not cringing and hiding like a frightened old woman.”

  “You will take that back, Thane or no Thane!” Barnstable shouted. “Then we will burn the Other and her father.”

  Martin turned the last corner, but stood still in the shadow of the doorway. There was a tension in the air, a precursor of violence, and he wanted to keep his presence secret—it might give his father the edge he needed to get out of this situation.

  He could see the whole scene in front of him. His father, the doctor, and Campbell were standing with their back to him, in front of his father’s great chair. Barnstable and his son were ten feet in front of them, holding the girl between them. She still had that same blank-eyed stare, but she was almost unrecognisable as the girl who had left with Sean.

  Her hair was wild and matted, and her clothes hung in torn tatters, offering glimpses of flesh that was caked with mud and grime. Fresh wounds bled, at her feet and hands, and her face was stained deep red all along the lower half, where blood—whether human or animal it was impossible to tell—had dried and flaked.

  The old man was talking again.

  “But I am still your Thane, and you will still obey when I say that we will not kill her.”

  “You are the Thane in name only. You have grown weak, old man. Who in the town would nay say me if I took the title? Your pet doctor here? Or this barbarian?” Barnstable said, pointing at Menzies and Campbell. “No. I will not have it. She must burn. She will burn.”

  And that was when Martin stepped into the room.

  Five pairs of eyes turned to look at him, but it was the sixth pair that transfixed him. He had a vision in his head, of a rutting body on a stone altar, but the face on the body was not the Boy King’s; it was his own. He forced the image away.

  “Lend me your sword, please, Duncan,” he said, and the sound of metal on leather as the Scotsman’s weapon left its sheath was loud in the sudden silence that had fallen.

  Martin took the weapon with a nod of thanks. He knew he was too weak to wield it properly and he would only be able to hold it for a short time, but that was something Barnstable did not know.

  Martin called out across the room, deliberately raising his voice so that any listeners beyond the hall might hear:

  “My father is the Protector’s appointed one, and anyone who says different is speaking sedition. All know that the penalty for sedition is death. Are you ready to die, Barnstable? I have recently killed a wolf so I should have no trouble with a dog.”

  The Constable went white and stepped backwards. His son was already on his way out of the room.

  “Look at her,” he said, pleading with Martin. “She is bitten, and she has fed. Are we to let such as this go free?”

  “If the Thane wills it,” Martin said, and managed to raise the sword closer towards the man. “You spoke treason. Do you wish to repeat it?”

  “I have only said what many in the town are saying,” Barnstable said, and Martin knew he had already won. There was a cringing, apologetic note in the voice. He realised that Barnstable was, and always would be, a coward who had succeeded through sheer bulk. He also realised that he would never be frightened of this man again.

  “Then send them to me,” Martin said. “And I will re-educate them. Now leave the girl and go—the Thane has questions to ask her that are for his ears only.”

  Barnstable looked like he might protest, but Martin made a step closer to him, his sword extended, and the Constable released the girl. His face showed how little he liked it, but he left to meet his son at the door, both walking backwards out of the hall, their eyes never leaving the sword in Martin’s hand.

  It was only after the great doors had shut behind them that Martin let himself slump. The Scotsman was the first at his side, and Martin fell, exhausted, against Campbell’s shoulder as the Scotsman took the sword out of his hand.

  “That was nobly done, my friend. You are truly your father’s son, and I am once more in your debt.”

  “Aye,” Menzies said. “But if this lad is not back in bed soon, he will not live to see it paid. Help me get him back upstairs.”

  “No. You see to the girl,” The Thane said. “I will see to my son.”

  There were fresh tears in the old man’s eyes as he moved closer to Martin.

  “You have disobeyed your Thane, boy.”

  “I know,” Martin said, “but my father needed me.”

  “That he did,” the old man said, getting hold of Martin under his good arm. “And your father is very glad you came.”

  Campbell and the Thane almost carried Martin back to his bedchamber, but in truth, Martin, although weak, felt better than he knew he should. He should not have been able to even lift a sword, never mind face down a man many years his senior—a man he had feared most of his life. The woodsman’s herbs were potent indeed, and he thought that the arm would heal better than Menzies could ever imagine.

  The doctor followed them up the stairs, leading the girl, who followed him, as docile as a lamb.

  Menzies took charge when they reached the chamber. He stripped the cloak off Martin’s shoulders, and almost cried out when the bandages were revealed—what had been white was now blood red and sodden.

  They got Martin back into bed as quickly as he was able, and started stripping the matted dressings. Fine beads of sweat formed on Martin’s brow as they were removed and he passed out once as the wounds were cleaned. Menzies said nothing throughout this operation, and Martin knew his arm was bad.

  “I had to do it,” he said to Menzies. “You would have thought less of me if I hadn’t tried.”

  “Maybe,” Menzies muttered. “Now hold still. This is going to hurt.”

  Martin only looked down at the wounds once, then had to look quickly away. His arm looked strangely shrunken, as if whole muscles had been stripped out, and the flesh was the colour of raw steak, crisscrossed with the black catgut that Menzies used for thread.

  Fresh bandages were applied and tightened, bringing more sweat and more clenched teeth, and the procedure finally ended with Menzies ordering Martin to stay in bed. The doctor made sure that Martin was not going to move before seeing to the girl.

  She stood in front of him, but did not recognise his presence as he looked deep into her eyes and checked that the blood around her mouth did not come from any major wound. Then he looked over the many cuts and abrasions on her body.

  “She is hurt, but
not badly,” the doctor finally said. “With your leave, my Thane, I will take her next door and tend to the wounds.”

  The Thane nodded and Menzies led the girl by the hand.

  “Clean her up at the same time, as a favour to me.” Campbell said. “She was always a tidy girl, and it pains me greatly to see her in this state.”

  Menzies headed for the door which led to the room where Martin bathed. He was almost through the door when Martin spoke.

  “And what about the child?” Martin said. “Does it thrive?”

  From the sudden quiet that fell, he surmised that his guess had been correct—the others had all known already.

  “It thrives,” Menzies said. “And as far as I am able to tell, it is still man and only man—the ceremony has not yet taken place.”

  At that the doctor left the room, leading the girl by the hand.

  “What ceremony?” Martin asked. “And if she is here, where is Sean?”

  “Your second question I cannot answer,” his father said. “But I fear the worst. As to the first, it concerns the end of the story we began earlier. But it can wait—you must sleep.”

  “I have slept for long days,” Martin said. “And I promise to stay abed awhile. Just tell me the rest of it—I have a feeling that she is very important.”

  “She is,” Campbell said. “But she is also still my daughter. I brought her here in the hopes that she could be kept free from the designs of the Boy King, but look—she has returned—and now she is closer to him than ever.”

  Campbell wiped a tear from his eye.

  “Forgive me. I need a drink. I shall go and fetch some ale—I believe we would all benefit,” he said. Then he too left the room, leaving Martin once more alone with his father.

  “I have raised a son to be proud of,” the old man said. “You are going to have some trouble with the Constable from now on, but even he still respects the Thaneship and the order of its succession. And that is what the rest of our story concerns—the order of succession of the Blood King.”

  The old man settled himself in the chair by the bedside and began to talk. Martin closed his eyes and imagined the story unfolding there in the dark, and at some point the tale became dream, but he could not tell when one ended and the other began.