The Widow and the King

by John Dickinson

  ‘I was talking of a reward for life-service,’ she said. ‘For a lesser service – say a year, for it may be that long before I am home again – my house might offer the value of a year's harvest – the first harvest from your manors.’ (Your manors. Now that they knew what she was offering, it was time to say it clearly.) ‘I do not know the exact value of all of them. But my family has never counted pennies.’ From her belt she drew a cloth, and unrolled it so that they could see. Men were crowding around her. She held up the pearls of Velis in the palm of her left hand. ‘Here. Your first harvests.’

  Someone drew a long breath.

  ‘A knife?’ She held out her right hand, carelessly. Someone fumbled at a belt, and gave her a knife. Carefully, so that nothing spilled into the darkness, she cut the chain. She held up the pearls, loose now.

  ‘Here,’ she said.

  ‘Stand back a little,’ the leader said to his followers. He drew his hand from his gauntlet and picked one pearl from Sophia's palm. He examined it, then turned away from the fire to hold it out at arm's length.

  Far away to the west the clouds that had shrouded the sky were breaking. The moon, a three-quarter disc of light, hung low over the mountain-rim.

  The man appeared to be trying to measure the size of the pearl against the disc of the distant moon.

  ‘This,’ he said, ‘was what I was not expecting.’

  For a moment more he weighed the pearl in his fingers. Then he dropped it back into Sophia's hand.

  ‘You had better all sit,’ he said. ‘My friends and I will need to talk. Cradey, Endor – stay with them. They can keep their blades for the time being.’

  Sophia sat, carefully gathering the pearls into her cloth again. Ambrose and the knight who was with him crouched by her, gathering their swords onto their knees. Two of the Fifteen stood nearby, wild-eyed men with weapons in their hands. The rest retired to the other side of the fire, where they sat in a circle and talked in low voices.

  Sophia felt exhausted.

  ‘Where is Chawlin?’ Ambrose asked her softly.

  Not How did you get here? Not Why are you doing this? But Where is Chawlin? The question turned a huge stone in her heart, and under it was emptiness.

  He had not come out of the night with her. She had imagined, as she had walked to the fireside, that he would follow a pace or maybe ten paces behind her. She had believed, as she bargained with the old brigand chief, that he might be somewhere close, watching, and she had taken strength from the thought. But he had not come. He had been afraid to come.

  She was safe, for the moment, from the horror that had followed her up the hill. At least, she was as safe as she knew how to make herself. And she had done what she could to help Ambrose when he needed it. But she was alone, and tired, and she had changed her course altogether. She and Chawlin had been travelling, she had thought, to a life of love and plain living in exile. Now, if she was to make good her promises to these men, she must return to Develin, where she would be the mistress. And what of Chawlin?

  ‘Chawlin?’ said Ambrose's companion. ‘A man named Chawlin campaigned with me in this March, once. He became one of Baldwin's people.’

  ‘And then one of ours,’ said Sophia, dully. ‘But I do not know where he is.’

  Until she understood more clearly what Chawlin had been afraid of, she would not say anything that might give him away.

  Ambrose had folded a white pebble into a cloth and was knotting it onto the hilt of his sword.

  ‘They've found us, Aun,’ he said quietly.

  ‘Eh? Who?’

  ‘The enemy – his creatures.’

  ‘There was something on the hill,’ Sophia said. ‘It followed me.’

  ‘Did you see it?’

  ‘No.’

  Ambrose looked at her, and she realized what he must be thinking.

  ‘I'm sorry,’ she said.

  She was sorry for leading them to him. Sorry for never having believed him. Sorry that she had called it a cat in the shadows of Ferroux.

  ‘I think they want me, too, now,’ she said.

  ‘Yes, they do,’ said Ambrose.

  ‘They were going to find us sooner or later,’ growled the man whom Ambrose had called Aun. He was watching the gathering on the far side of the fire. ‘At the moment I'd say we have bigger problems.’

  Two men rose from the group and came over to change places with the guards.

  ‘What are they going to do?’ said Ambrose.

  ‘Who knows? They want those pretty stones she's brought with her. One way or another, they'll have them. They could try ransoming us, if they could find someone to ransom us all to. But they'll want the manors as well. So if they think they can trust your friend here, and if they think that there's a real chance they can get her back …' He was rubbing his chin with his knuckle, thinking aloud as he watched the Company of the Moon. ‘Fifteen fighters, arriving suddenly at a lording that's in chaos … Friends everywhere – doors that will open. It's not impossible. And if life out here is as thin as he said it was … Hah, well, I for one would like to see the manor that could yield the value of one of those little stones in a harvest.’

  ‘Faith,’ murmured Sophia. ‘What appeal was ever without poetry?’

  The man stared at her. She raised her eyebrows at him.

  ‘Angels blight me, if I didn't think you were your mother for an instant,’ he said.

  After that no one said anything for a while.

  ‘All the same,’ said Aun in a low voice, ‘if they call me aside, or rise in a group, you run. Don't wait to find out what they want. Run for the night. And don't come back for anything.’

  ‘I am staying here,’ said Sophia firmly.

  Almost as she spoke, the group on the far side of the fire broke up. Three men got to their feet and came towards them. The white-haired leader, Orcrim, was one of them. The second was a small, round-faced man. The last was another ageing knight with a circular cut of greywhite hair and a face like flint.

  ‘We'll sit with you,’ said Orcrim affably. ‘If we may.’

  The men settled themselves without waiting for an answer. There was a moment of silence.

  ‘We have not made a good start tonight,’ said Orcrim slowly, speaking to Ambrose. ‘I suggest we begin again. And I'll begin roundabout, by doing something I've not done for a long time. I'm going to tell you a story.

  ‘This story is about three knights who served their lord. They served him very well, and very closely, and were rewarded with high offices. One,’ he nodded at the roundfaced knight, ‘even became the lord's chamberlain. One was his war-captain.’ He tapped himself on the chest. ‘And one was his seneschal.’

  Sophia looked under lowered eyes at the third man, and wondered what kind of lord would gladly leave his home in the charge of that gaunt face.

  ‘There is not much that even the most secret of men can hide from his closest servants. They knew that their lord obtained – powers – from one who seemed to be an old man in a priest's coat. Let us call that one the Prince. Since the powers given by the Prince brought success, there was little they thought wrong with that. Perhaps you would fault them. Others in the Kingdom might have slain them, lord and servants and all, or had them burned, if they could. But it did not happen, then at any rate.

  ‘Yet it did not escape our knights that there was a price for power. One day the chamberlain understood that the lord would go to the Prince with his young son, then just a few weeks old. If he had gone, the son would not have returned. Yet our chamberlain warned his friends, the warcaptain and the seneschal, that this thing might happen. And before a crowd of people, including the boy's own mother, they spoke such words to their lord that he did not ride, and the son lived – and no one knew what they had done. Such was their loyalty to their lord – and to his line.

  ‘Nevertheless my story has a sad ending, as you may guess. In less than two years the lord was dead, in a manner that you may know. And his servants were landless, and
remained so from that day to this.’

  ‘So,’ said Ambrose slowly. ‘If you saved my life then – were you really hunting us for revenge last season? Is that what you are saying now?’

  Sophia closed her eyes. Couldn't he see that this man was offering a truce? How like Ambrose to speak bluntly when others needed to talk in hints!

  ‘Best we don't discuss that,’ said Orcrim.

  ‘Things get worse, things get better,’ said Hob.

  The third man said nothing.

  ‘My point was that we understand something of your enemy,’ said Orcrim. ‘That, knowing him, we are maybe more proof against his tricks than any you could find who do not. Also that we may have grounds to make this our quarrel, too.’

  ‘Is it this prince who is sending these – things?’ asked Sophia.

  ‘Yes,’ said Ambrose. ‘And he willed the attack on Develin. And I think he must have given Chawlin the cup …’

  ‘No!’ she said.

  ‘No, I – did that,’ she repeated, looking at the ground. She was tired. Very, very tired. Chawlin had said the cup was dangerous. She had given it to him. And Ambrose was looking at her again.

  ‘This is the proposal that my friends and I have discussed,’ said Orcrim.

  ‘You may travel in the March for a season, the three of you, with our good will, so long as you do us no harm. For the month ahead, twelve of us will ride with you and fight with you, if need be. We will do the same in the mountains, for the footsteps of Tarceny lead there and I think it is right that we should. Mind, I do not promise that we shall kill your enemy for you, or run great risk to do so, for I do not know his strength. But we will do what I think is in reason. For all this, I think it is fair that we take a toll, and the toll shall be the pearls you have shown us – however many there may be. I counted twenty, I think.

  ‘At the same time I shall send three of my friends in secret to Develin's country. There, they will find out how things stand. They may even talk with men who owed service to the Widow, about how it would be if the Widow's daughter returned. I will meet with those three here a month from today. When I hear what they say I will decide if the venture you propose is feasible for us.’ He looked narrowly at Sophia.

  ‘You chose your words carefully a little while ago. You said a manor for each knight. Perhaps you did not know that there are only three knighted men among us. But I think every man who follows me is worth his spurs. So my price will be fifteen manors – if, as I say, your venture seems feasible at all.’

  ‘I said nine were vacant,’ said Sophia. ‘I cannot do more in the first year.’

  ‘I am sure my friends would be patient – within reason.’

  ‘Very well.’

  ‘Then I think we can sleep, and start fresh tomorrow,’ said Orcrim.

  ‘Three more things,’ said Ambrose.

  Orcrim had been in the act of rising. Now he settled again. There was the slightest sway in the way he held his head that told how tired he was. They must all be tired, Sophia realized – as tired as she. How did Ambrose dare beard him again?

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Aclete shall not be taxed by you, or harried.’

  ‘Nevertheless, you wish to take fifteen horses and riders for a week into the mountains, and we must eat. So I shall permit Aclete to make us a gift of supplies at least. They will count it generous if we do not ask them more before harvest. Next season, if we are still here, I may think again. Second?’

  ‘There is a man nearby, I think. His name is Chawlin. He must be found and brought in. You may have to disarm him.’

  ‘He's a friend. He mustn't be hurt,’ said Sophia urgently.

  ‘We will look. Third?’

  Ambrose was looking at her. He had something he wanted to say to her. It must be about Chawlin. But he turned back to Orcrim.

  ‘That you should give up your feud with my mother, and that she should also have your protection in the March.’

  Orcrim's face hardened. But what he said was: ‘In a way, I may already have done.’

  ‘What! When?’

  ‘How do you think we came so quickly? How do you think I knew you carried that pebble? Your mother reached us first, boy. I spoke with her at sundown yesterday. We were on the road to Aclete before Mar had even hit the ground.’

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘Somewhere else, as you said. But she is not dead, despite what someone claimed earlier. She came to me on a pathside in sight of Tarceny walls. I could have lifted her head with my sword in an instant, but damn me, I didn't. I listened. Then I came here, thinking maybe I'd lift yours and be even with her anyway. But damn me, I haven't. And now I think we should all find some sleep, or I'll know I'm already dreaming.’

  Sophia saw Ambrose draw breath to ask another question, and then think better of it. The men got to their feet. The fighter Aun rose with them.

  ‘Chance has put us in different camps until now,’ he said to the old brigand. ‘But I know of no ill that you have done to me or to any friend of mine.’

  ‘Now that is generous,’ said Orcrim, as if to the men beside him. ‘He remembers no ill of us, after all the things that have passed. What shall we say to that, Hob?’

  The man Hob grunted and looked at his feet.

  ‘Hob had a sore jaw to remember you by, from the ferry at Develin's river. But maybe it has mended by now. As for me …’ His eyes narrowed as he looked at Aun.

  ‘… There were some things. One or two quite big ones. But I no longer seem to recall them clearly.’

  Aun grunted. Whatever it was, thought Sophia, they both remembered it.

  ‘So what leads you, then, to follow a child into such a fight as this?’ asked Orcrim.

  ‘An old friendship.’

  ‘Oh, yes. And how will that help you when these things come close?’

  ‘I did not hear that witchcraft was ever proof against iron.’

  ‘Nor I. Sleep well, then. But not too long.’

  The three men left them. The guards settled down by the remains of the fire, nursing their swords and talking to one another in low voices. Sophia threw herself full length on the grass, thinking that she could sleep for a week. Ambrose had lain down, too. But the fighter called Aun just sat, with his cloak around him, looking across the fire to where the Company of the Moon were arranging themselves for what remained of the night. Clearly he was going to watch, too, for whatever might come out of the darkness.

  Sleep was drawing over her swiftly. The man's face hung in her sight, half-lit by the embers of the fire, staring after the enemy with whom he had spoken.

  A child? she thought. That's what you think. But he's made peace between you two, and I helped him.

  And you'd never have thought we could do it.

  XIV

  Chawlin

  hey did not find Chawlin when they combed the hillsides in the early dawn. The waving grasses bore no marks, the wind brought them no news. He had slipped away into the tossing wilderness of trees and scrub that covered the hills of Tarceny.

  When the searchers regrouped at sunrise, Ambrose and Aun went down to Aclete with Orcrim and three others. They rode through the open gates and in among the huts. There they found some of the men who had been at the council the day before, and told them that the Fifteen had agreed to ride away and leave the village unharmed, in exchange for a fortnight's supplies for men and horses, and passage for three of their number in secret across the lake.

  ‘It could have been worse, damn you,’ said Aun, when one of the villagers started to mutter. ‘Did you want to try fighting for it?’

  Ambrose sat unhappily on his mule, waiting. He knew what it would have meant to his mother and himself if a troop of armed men had come to their home in the mountains and demanded a share of their stores. He could hear angry voices behind huts and down alleyways, complaining to the group of elders who were going around making the collection. And he hated the way that men were banging on their neighbours' door-posts and announcing
a ‘lord's tax’ as they went from hut to hut gathering small quantities of meal and bread and dried fruit. He felt that he had betrayed them.

  Orcrim looked at the growing pile of sacks and bundles.

  ‘It's not enough,’ he said to the nearest villagers. ‘Tell them to double it.’

  ‘You can't!’ cried Ambrose.

  ‘Can't I? I say I can.’

  ‘You'll starve them!’ He looked at Aun for support, but Aun glanced at Orcrim and kept silent.

  ‘My lord,’ said an elderly villager. ‘Some houses, this is half what they have.’

  ‘Then I'll have the other half,’ said Orcrim.

  ‘No!’ cried Ambrose.

  He didn't know what to do. He didn't want this man's help if they had to behave like this to get it. For a moment his hand touched the hilt of his sword. Then he realized that was stupid, and took it away again.

  Orcrim must have seen the movement, but all he did was raise an eyebrow.

  ‘Ask for something else,’ said Aun. ‘Something easier.’

  Orcrim looked around. ‘Very well. I want …’ He paused.

  ‘It had better be something useful. Oh, let's say half the horse-collars in the town. Horse-collars, you,’ he said to the villager.

  ‘My lord?’

  ‘Horse-collars!’ bellowed Orcrim. ‘Time was, Aclete had fields all the way for a mile up the river. Don't tell me there are no horse-collars left in the town.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘And pulleys. A couple of damned good, working, double pulleys. And hurry before I think of something more!’

  ‘You can't …’ Ambrose protested again. Aun leaned across and put a hand on his arm.

  ‘Aclete can do it,’ he murmured. ‘They could have done the food, too. Don't argue.’

  ‘But it's unfair!’ Ambrose hissed. ‘He can't keep demanding things like that!’

  ‘Marketplace talk, that's all. I don't know what he needs them for, but if Orcrim comes away with pulleys and horse-collars, then it's pulleys and horse-collars he'll have wanted when we rode through the gate. You've helped. Don't get in the way now.’

  The food was gathered and loaded onto donkeys for the short journey up the hill where it could be divided among the Company. Four shabby horse-collars were produced and added to the pile, with some short lengths of chain. Orcrim looked them over and complained, and then went with his three fellows down to the harbour, talking as though he was going to dismantle half the boats for the rigging and commandeer the rest to carry his men across the lake. Ambrose watched him go, helpless and angry.