The Widow and the King

by John Dickinson

  People did not value warriors in this house, Sophia thought. Even though Father had been one. But she at least would remember him.

  The chapel around her was dark and almost empty. She bowed her head.

  She had very little to remember. The ribbon, the drawer, and the last time she had seen him – cased in metal, from head to foot, like a statue of polished iron. She had still been very small, and she had only glimpsed his eyes and cheekbones, through his open visor. Yet she had known him at once, and known that he was smiling at her.

  They told her later that he had died in battle against the men of Tarceny. He had been thrown from his horse in the rout of his followers and crushed in the press. She had dreamed and dreamed that it was not true, and that he would return at last to wear the flower-garlands she made for him. He had never come.

  Sophia remembered these things. Then she counted to twenty, because even though she couldn't remember any more she felt she should keep standing there for him. Then she lifted her head.

  Her maid Dapea was waiting a few paces behind her. There was no one else in the long chapel. The hour for supper was approaching. One by one the scholars and the castle folk would be leaving their chores and duties, deciding that it was not worth starting something new in the time that remained. They would be beginning to gather in the courtyards, where they would loiter idly, gaming or gossiping, until the hall-bell rang.

  So the library should be nearly empty, too. And she was already dressed and braided for the evening, so she had time to spare. This was the moment she had been waiting for.

  ‘Follow me, Dapea,’ she said, and led the way back down the aisle.

  Outside, at the top of the chapel steps, she paused. As she had expected, there were a number of people in the upper court, sitting or drifting around. A large group of scholars was already playing at knuckle-bones near the great hall. She smiled sourly and began to pick her way down and across to the school.

  The school was a plain, rectangular building that jutted into the court from one end of the living quarters. It had been a barracks once, but after her father's death, when the Widow had found the world empty, she had installed the school there: to seek, as she said, some path away from the folly of men.

  There it stood, that sulky, square block. And everybody – all her mother's people – cried what a great work it was! Within its walls thrived Alchemy, Arithmetic, Astrology, Dogma, Geography, Grammar, History, Law, Medicine, Philosophy and whatever else the Widow thought was a right path of enquiry. The library was as large as any in Jent or Tuscolo. Eleven masters and fortynine scholars lived here, and lived for learning alone. Where else in the land was there the like?

  Sixty mouths to feed, thought Sophia. Mouths to bodies that would never grow food, carry burdens or bear arms. And tonight, all the scholars would crowd into the great hall with the rest of the household – counsellors, clerks, craftsmen, guards and stable hands – and everyone would cram together at the trestle tables and sit, longing for their meat, while two of the Masters took turns to stand up and dispute formally with each other about Kingship or the Law or whatever had excited them most in the last few weeks. And barely anyone would listen. And no one might eat until they had finished. And in a month's time it would happen again; and the same the month after. For the Widow held that the school was a light both to her house and to the Kingdom, and must burn as brightly as she could bring it to.

  Oh yes, thought Sophia. And that is why they sit here talking about Kingship while the Kingdom tears itself to pieces, is it?

  The hypocrites!

  When she's dead, I'll sweep them all away.

  ‘Here comes lady high-and-mighty,’ said one of the boys sitting on the step of the scholar's hall.

  A few yards from them, Ambrose looked up. The girl whom he thought of as ‘the Lynx’ was crossing the courtyard towards the school. She was followed by another girl, who was clearly her servant. The Lynx stalked past him without looking down. Her companion, a dark-haired girl, smiled at Ambrose as she followed. He was surprised, and forgot to smile back.

  Their footsteps diminished up the library stairs.

  ‘Do you think she'll take her meals with us now, as well as her lessons?’ asked the second boy, a shock-headed fellow of about fifteen.

  ‘What? Stale bread and rotten vegetables?’

  ‘And the nice rat-meat in the sausages.’

  Ambrose knew both the boys by sight. That was why he had sat near them. He wasn't sure if he actually wanted them to notice him. He did not know what he would say if they spoke to him. (He himself saw nothing wrong with the food that they ate here.) But their presence was a comfort. So too were the three white stones he had placed around him – one behind him and one on either side.

  The Lynx was gone. Other figures crossed before the school in ones and twos. More people were coming into the courtyard to join those waiting for the supper. Ambrose's eyes flicked warily around, hovering on doorways and patches of shadow. A burst of harsh laughter broke from among the scholars playing knuckle-bones. A man emerged from a doorway carrying a long pipe. He was one of the older scholars: a tall, blond man with his hair tied back into a pigtail. Ambrose had seen him before, standing by himself in a circle of scholars, telling a story while the crowd hung on his words. Now he was on his own. He sat cross-legged by himself and began to play. Ambrose listened.

  There was so much music in Develin: chants and dance-tunes and musicians practising their instruments for some performance before the Widow. Ambrose liked some of it, and some of it he could not begin to understand. It took him a moment to realize that this tune was different.

  It was different because he knew it.

  The man was playing a melody of the hillmen: a lament with long, slow notes like someone stepping downwards on a stair in the sky. It was strange to hear it among these stone courts and windows, all alive with people. It told him once again how far he was from home. For some moments the air of the courtyard ached with memories of the mountains, bitter and sweet all at once. Ambrose felt a lump in his throat, and swallowed against it. He wondered how the player could have learned the tune.

  And then it stopped. A group of three men, walking by, had paused to speak with the man. He was answering them. At the other end of the step the shock-headed boy was whispering to his friend, and pointing at the white pebble beside Ambrose. Ambrose could not hear what he was saying. The second seemed to be laughing at something. Ambrose did not like that.

  ‘No!’ said a deep voice behind them.

  Ambrose jumped.

  ‘Truth and untruth?’ muttered the voice. ‘No, do not tell me that.’

  Someone was approaching from the darkness of the scholars' hall. Ambrose could hear a heavy, sandalled tread upon the rush-covered floor.

  He heard it through a gathering deadness in the air – a dull, echoless quality as if the walls of Develin were about to part like curtains and show him a land of nightmare.

  He froze.

  ‘As well say,’ continued the voice, ‘that because the light draws a shadow, we must put out the light.’

  A figure appeared in the doorway. It was not the Heron Man.

  It was a master whom Ambrose had not seen before: a tall man with a great, hatchet head and a face that sagged in thick circles one below another from his eye-pits. He wore a heavy red gown, and glowered down at Ambrose as if deep in his thoughts. There was a slight flurry as the other two boys stopped sniggering and looked attentive.

  ‘Who were you talking to?’ said Ambrose urgently.

  The door behind the man stood open. The sun struck through the broad arch and lit a few square feet of the long room where the scholars ate and took their lessons. Beyond that, the shadows were empty.

  ‘I may address myself, if there is no other worthy,’ the man said. He frowned. Perhaps he was surprised that Ambrose had spoken.

  ‘I have not seen you before, boy. Are you a new scholar?’

  ‘Yes – I came three da
ys ago.’

  ‘Three days ago,

  Master Denke.’… Master Denker,’ repeated Ambrose, unsure if he had heard the name right.

  ‘And you will stand when you speak with a master or an officer of the house.’

  Ambrose got to his feet, risking another glance at the doorway as he did so. Surely there had been someone else?

  Through the echoless air he heard the man speak again.

  ‘Since you are here and idle – and impudent of mood – let me see what you know. What organ is king of the body?’

  It was a question. He must answer.

  ‘I – I don't know,’ he stammered, ‘… master.’

  The man towered over Ambrose. He seemed to be waiting for Ambrose to try again. Ambrose did not know what to do.

  ‘You put your left foot forward,’ said the master.

  ‘And touch your heart to show that you tell the truth.’

  Ambrose's limbs did as they were told.

  ‘Now breathe, to strengthen the voice.’

  Ambrose breathed.

  ‘Now tell me that it is the heart that is king of the body.’

  ‘The heart is king of the body, master.’

  The man was right, he thought. His voice was stronger. He tried another glance at the doorway, from the corner of his eye. There was still no one there.

  ‘And why is the heart the king of the body?’

  There was no one there. But a thought came to him, as clearly as if a voice had spoken over the man's shoulder.

  You cannot answer.

  The eyes of the master, ringed with sagging flesh, poured their gaze over him. There was a large wart on the right side of the man's nose. Ambrose's jaw was limp. He could make no sound.

  ‘Why is the heart the king of the body?’ the master repeated. But his gaze had swung upon the other boys. The scholars scrambled to their feet and placed their hands on their hearts as Ambrose had done. The master stopped in front of the shock-headed scholar and lifted an eyebrow.

  ‘The heart is king of the body, master, because it is the seat of truth,’ said the boy, roundly and clearly, as if he were speaking to a gathering of twenty men. ‘Truth among men is law, and the King is the Fount of the Law, who gives justice to his subjects.’

  ‘Indeed, Justice is Truth. How is it exercised?’ The master's eyes were upon the other scholar.

  ‘Through Punishment and Pardon, master,’ the scholar said.

  ‘Very good. And which is the greater?’

  It was Ambrose's turn again. There was a moment's silence.

  The other boys were looking at him. Ambrose saw the muscles on their faces tighten with alarm. Something bad would happen if Ambrose could not answer.

  It will be a beating, said the whisper in his head. Your first.

  The Heron Man!

  ‘Which, of Punishment and Pardon, is the greater?’ repeated the master, as if he thought Ambrose had not heard him.

  Pardon, thought Ambrose. It must be Pardon. He remembered his mother saying something …

  Did she? Did you ever listen to her?

  The voice in his head teased and confused him, like a bystander jeering as he stood under the eyes of the master.

  You never listened. And then you left her.

  Go away! Ambrose's mind screamed at it.

  ‘Come now,’ said the master sharply.

  You did not listen. And then you left her. Now you cannot answer, and now you will be beaten. They will lay a thornstick across your back and peel your skin. Your flesh will swell, black and aching with pus.

  Go away!

  You deserve it because you left her.

  Ambrose struggled to shut the voice out of his head. The master's face loomed over him. The muscles around the big eyes were hardening with impatience. Ambrose's skin tingled as if it could already feel the cane swishing through the air.

  If you want to answer, ask me. I am all you have now.

  He opened his mouth again. The little corner of the courtyard was still and grey.

  I helped you to answer the Widow. I would do it again – if you asked.

  No!

  Ask me.

  Ask me. You must.

  Seconds passed. His mind was blank. He could not think. And he would not. If he thought he would see her turning in the air. If he thought he would feel the thornstick on his back. The unseen eyes were on him, waiting for him to save himself. And he would not.

  Is that your answer?

  The air thickened with contempt. But he would not think any more.

  At last the master sighed. He began to pace, with a slow, rolling step, before the boys.

  ‘Pardon and Punishment each have their place,’ he said.

  ‘Men may pardon if they choose, and punish where they have the right, as a master punishes a bad pupil.

  ‘Yet men also punish without thought and without law, for wrongs that may be real or imagined. Such punishment is itself a wrong to the one who is punished.

  ‘And what man will pardon one who has wronged him, so long as his enemy is living? For first he is angry, and when he wearies of anger he fears that he would be seen as weak, and preyed upon. This we know as feud.’ He stopped in front of the first scholar. ‘Is it not true?’

  ‘Yes, master,’ said the scholar dutifully.

  ‘And yet,’ Denke went on. ‘If one who has the right – let us say the King – interposes in a feud between two men, and holds the wrong against himself, and yet pardons it – the feud must end, must it not?

  ‘That first pardon – the forgiveness when men are wearied of their quarrel, when all face ruin and yet none have the will to forgive – that is the seed of peace. With peace there may be law, and with law, justice; with justice, pardon and punishment as they are deserved.

  ‘Therefore Pardon is the greater.’ Now he stood in front of Ambrose. ‘Do you agree?’

  The big, steady voice had cleared the mists in Ambrose's mind like wind. Pardon was the greater. He had known it.

  ‘Yes, master.’

  Once more the flesh-ringed eyes looked down on him.

  ‘What is your name?’

  He almost said ‘Ambrose’. But that name had been taken from him. He hung his head and said nothing.

  ‘Three days?’ said the master, with the lift of an eyebrow. ‘In another three days, if I question you, see that you show me you have understood. This is what we teach here.

  ‘But for this reason, this time, I give pardon for your lack of wit. Do not forget again.’

  With a grunt, the master strode off across the courtyard. As he left it seemed to Ambrose that the air lightened, as if something oppressive had passed on with him.

  ‘That,’ said one of the boys softly, ‘was nearly the stick for you.’

  ‘Lucky it was him,’ the other murmured. ‘He can scare the juices out of you, but he doesn't flog half as much as some.’

  ‘And he's got something on his mind this morning, hasn't he?’ said the first.

  Twenty paces away Denke was again speaking as he went, as if someone walked beside him whom the boys could not see.

  Ambrose realized that he was cold. He was clutching himself as if some gust from the mountains had blown over him, heavy with ancient tears. And he knew that he had known the answer the master wanted, and could have given it – if he could have forced his way past the dry, scornful voice in his head, which had been so quick, so right; and so familiar.

  ‘Your name's Luke, isn't it?’ said the shock-haired boy.

  ‘Yes,’ Ambrose mumbled.

  ‘I'm Rufin. This is Cullen. Look – it can be hard starting in this place. We know that. We've all done it. You stay close to us. If you get stuck again, we'll try to give you a hint.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Ambrose said.

  He knew the boys wanted to be kind. Maybe they would be able to help if someone asked him questions again. But they could not help him where it mattered.

  He stooped for his stones. They were still there. His
fingers trembled as he touched them. They could stop the Heron Man from reaching him. But the Heron Man had not tried to reach him. All he had done was to speak to him. And at the sound of his voice Ambrose had felt helpless – helpless like a bird under the eyes of a snake. The only thing he could have done would have been to beg his enemy for aid. And now the Heron Man despised him. There had been no mistaking that. Maybe he had always despised him. Ambrose wondered what he would do next.

  He wanted to get away.

  ‘Suppose the King is the source of forgiveness,’ said Cullen, still watching the master. ‘Then who forgives the King?’

  ‘We all can,’ said Rufin.

  ‘When he's dead.’ They did not seem to be paying Ambrose any more attention. After a little Ambrose left, slipping into the shadow of the School Stair. He did not know where he was going. He did not really care.

  What mattered was getting away from the courtyard.

  At length, on a shelf of the third press in the library, Sophia found what she was looking for. Like the other books and quires it was chained for safety to the iron bar that ran beneath its shelf, so she had to spread it out on the reading shelf immediately below the place where she had found it, some way from the dimming light of the window. Dapea settled patiently on the bench on the far side of the library aisle. No doubt she thought that Sophia had become especially dutiful after her last beating, to be reading at this hour.

  Well, let her. The quire had nothing to do with Sophia's legitimate studies. She had been thinking about it for most of the day. Now she had time, an empty library, and for escort a maid who could not read. She composed herself.

  And then someone else came slipping along the bench to sit beside her.

  Maddening! This was exactly what she had wanted to avoid, and why she had waited until now to come up here. Scholars were always clumping together over the same book, especially when anything up to a dozen of them might have been instructed by their master to consult a single work. Indeed, the fastest way of finding what you wanted in the library when it was busy was not to look along the shelves but to go and snoop at what your classmates were reading, because the chances were that they had found it before you.