The Widow and the King

by John Dickinson

  ‘I am well paid for the present,’ grunted Orcrim from his saddle. ‘What is it you want?’

  They were watching her, with their lined faces set like stone. Two or three had swords out. They had not lowered them. Ambrose could see Aun, at the back of the group, craning for a view. He was too far away.

  She stood among the men she had betrayed and spoke with them.

  ‘I want you to rest, and listen to me.’

  ‘I had not thought to rest here. Why should I?’

  ‘Because from here your road may take a different way.’

  ‘Different?’

  ‘You plan to cross the ridge at the head of this defile and follow the wooded valley that runs west and north into the mountains. If you go that way it may take you another four days to reach your destination, and your coming will be expected. I can bring you by another way, and within what would seem to you a single hard march – if you will listen.’

  ‘What way is this?’

  ‘I think you know it, Orcrim.’

  When he did not answer, she added: ‘Can you not tell me how my father's house fell so quickly to you, the year that I wed your lord?’

  ‘Witch,’ muttered someone.

  ‘We can't stop here,’ another voice said.

  ‘We need shade and water.’

  ‘We can water the horses later,’ said Orcrim sharply. ‘It won't kill them. Get out of my ear.’ He frowned. ‘All right, then. You can dismount. Let's hear what she has to say.’

  ‘Why did you risk it?’ Ambrose whispered to his mother, as they waited in the little shade thrown by a boulder for the Company to peg out their horses. ‘They hate you.’ ‘And I do not love them, although I begged for their lives, once,’ she said. ‘But too many good causes have failed because their people could not hold together. And in truth, as we come closer to the enemy, it is no longer safe for me to make my way on my own. I, too, wish to come inside your ring of steel.’

  ‘I thought you couldn't travel with us.’

  ‘No. But you can travel with me. And that is what I intend.’

  Something must have showed in his face, for she put her hand on his arm.

  ‘My darling, it is a hard place, I know. But it will not be so long a journey as we made from Develin. And there is no other way that we can succeed.’

  ‘Why not?’ said Orcrim, who had come up to stand over them.

  Around them, the Company was gathering, looking down at them. Aun was there. Ambrose looked about him, counting.

  ‘Where is Sophia?’

  Orcrim looked around and scowled. ‘Gone for a bit of woman's privacy, I guess,’ he said. ‘I cannot do everything for her. Cradey – take a walk up the hill and make sure she reappears, would you? Now, mistress,’ he went on, turning to Ambrose's mother.

  ‘I know where you want to take us. Tell me why we must follow you.’

  ‘I have told you about the stones, Orcrim.’

  ‘And I have made some preparations – such tackle as Aclete could afford me; although I still lack baulks and levers.’

  ‘That is good. But if you approach the ring as you plan to, climbing under the sun from the house on the mountain spur, you would need an army of craftsmen and horse-teams with you, for at least one stone has fallen to the very base of the pit beside the pool. And until you could raise those stones, you might wait for your enemy in vain, because he would have no need to come against you when you were strong and prepared for him.

  ‘But within the Cup of the World, the ground is not the same. There, what is a mountain for you, may be a rise in the earth. A lake is a cleft, a castle may seem to be a pile of rocks. I have stood within the Cup and looked at the pool as it appears there. There the cliffs are shallow, tumbled slopes. Coming from within the Cup, we have a chance to raise these stones again, with the strength that we have.’

  ‘How big are these stones?’

  ‘Perhaps of a size with that one.’ She indicated a boulder, larger than a man, that lay a little way from them. Someone swore under his breath.

  ‘Can we bring horses through the Cup?’ Ambrose asked.

  ‘I have known it,’ said Orcrim. ‘But why should we do it now?’

  ‘There is a man following you.’

  ‘A friend who is an enemy, I gather. So?’

  ‘As long as you are still days from the pool, I believe that the real enemy will be content to wait and play his game with our friend. Such devices give him the only delight he knows. But if he cannot stop you that way, he will sooner or later send his creatures against you, as he sent them to kill Tarceny, and Tarceny's father before him. Between here and the pool there are many places where the path can be attacked suddenly, and where horses will be disadvantaged. For these reasons it would be better to move quickly, now, and challenge the enemy on ground of our choosing – by the pool itself.’

  ‘I have not said yes yet. What strength has he?’

  ‘Do you not know?’

  Orcrim scowled. ‘Two men, we think. One behind, one ahead. But also things that are not men. I do not know how many.’

  ‘I think – no more than seven.’

  ‘Seven!’ The riders looked at one another. Ambrose saw a face clear, a pair of shoulders straighten. These men had been marching towards an unknown enemy: shapeless, nameless and uncounted. Now someone had given them a number. Now the odds could be reckoned.

  ‘Seven,’ said Orcrim. ‘Well, if that is true, it is not so bad.’

  ‘How do you know?’ Ambrose murmured to his mother.

  ‘Because I have begun to guess who they must be,’ she said, in a voice that everyone could hear.

  ‘So that is seven, plus two, nine, and the old scarecrow too,’ Hob was saying. ‘Ten at most, against …’ He looked around and hesitated.

  ‘Fourteen?’ said Ambrose, firmly counting himself. He looked around, too.

  There was something wrong. The numbers were wrong.

  ‘Who's that, there?’ barked Orcrim.

  They were one too many!

  ‘Hold him!’ cried Aun. ‘Hold him!’

  There was a scuffle on the far side of the group. Someone yelled and cursed. Swords leaped from their scabbards among the Company. A man broke free from another, stumbling among the thorns. He looked across at Ambrose. Their eyes met.

  It was the Wolf.

  ‘Back to the stream! The stream!’ he snarled. ‘He's killing one of you, now!’

  Men were surging through the thorns to reach him. He turned, and stepped away. For a moment Ambrose saw him, leaping among brown stones while the riders floundered in the bushes. Then he had disappeared.

  Orcrim swore.

  ‘When did he creep up on us? How much did he hear?’

  ‘He was warning us,’ said Caw, standing waist-deep among thorns.

  Ambrose looked about him.

  ‘Where's Sophia? Where is she?’

  Sophia was on the path that led back downhill to the stream.

  The air hummed with the warmth of late morning. All around her the bushes shrieked with the song of grasshoppers. She could see insects busy among the yellow thorn flowers. She could hear the distant rush of the stream water ahead of her. It was hard to believe in nightmares.

  Nevertheless, she took care to walk in the very middle of the path, leaving as much space between her and the thorns on either side as she could. She went warily, looking to left and right for any sign of movement on the hillside. This was the first time in days that she had walked beyond call of the armed men she had drawn about her. And she had slipped away without attracting attention to herself, for she had not wanted them to know where she was going.

  She was on her own. She knew that she might be in danger. But she had to get back to the waterside.

  Down there, on the unseen riverbank, there had been a bunch of white flowers placed so that anyone who crossed the stream might see them. They all had. They had ridden by the rock on which the flowers lay, one after another, and had sneered or chortle
d as they passed. The men had all read the message of the snowfishers, and yet none of them had understood it. They had not understood it, because the message had been for her.

  The flowers had said I love you.

  They were freshly picked. There had been waterdroplets upon the silver-grey leaves. Chawlin had laid them there that morning, knowing that she would pass and see them. He must be close. He would have laid them there, and watched the crossing from hiding, because if it had been important to him to send the message it would have been important also to know that she had seen it.

  He must be somewhere near the stream. He would not know that she was coming. He could not know that the Company had halted, unless by chance he had looked into the cup. She would have to find him. And if she could not find him, she would at least take the snow-fishers, so that he would know, if he passed that way in the next few hours, that she had not only seen his message but had wanted to keep it, because it came from him.

  I love you.

  She had to speak with Chawlin. Ambrose had been right about that. She had to see the truth as Chawlin saw it. And, one way or another – with words, with looks, with all her heart – she had to draw him willingly out of hiding. The Company could not catch him. She could. She would bring him home.

  If she could find him.

  The sound of the stream grew louder. And … yes! Mingled in the flow of the water were the notes of a pipe, broken at first, but more and more clear as she made her way downwards. It was playing the lament-tune that Chawlin had taught and played for her on their journey from Develin to the March. He must be sitting by the streamside down there, alone and remembering, consoling himself with music in his desolation.

  The path narrowed, snaking downwards. The trees and bushes pressed close on either side, and ahead of her where the path turned. She could not see more than ten feet in any direction. The pebbles rattled beneath her feet. She was nearly there, now. From around the next corner, she would see the stream.

  The music had stopped. She stopped, too, listening. She heard Chawlin's voice.

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  He could not possibly have seen her. And he sounded tired. Ill and desperate. He had come all this way on foot, and alone.

  ‘What do you want from me?’ Chawlin said again.

  ‘You know what I want,’ a man's voice answered.

  ‘I am trying, damn you!’

  ‘You are not trying hard enough.’

  There was something familiar about the second voice, too. It had a shape, a whisper or an echo in her mind that she remembered and did not know from where she remembered it.

  ‘You want me to charge in, a dozen to one? This isn't a party of peasants or foot soldiers. They're always on the watch. You know that. I can't get to him. I'll just get my throat cut. How would that suit you?’

  ‘Him, or her. I am becoming impatient.’

  ‘You want me to get myself killed!’

  ‘I do not want. I do not plan. Your debt to me is a life. I will have it by tonight.’

  That voice … As in a dream, she knew she had heard it before, speaking to her, coaxing her to do this, to do that, and she had done them willingly. When had she dreamed that? She could not remember. But this was not a dream. A thorn-frond scraped lightly on the skin of the back of her hand. The pale brown pebbles of the path were hard beneath her feet. And a bee, a plain bee, could hum out of a yellow thorn-flower, even now.

  Chawlin was silent. He needed help. Making as little sound as she could, Sophia crept down the path towards the last bend. As she reached it, she heard him speak again.

  ‘Is it me you want? I tell you – I tell you that you can have me. Everything I have. Let them live – I'll bend my neck and give you my knife. Or I'll do it myself.’

  No, Chawlin!

  ‘Him, or her,’ was the answer. ‘That is the only choice there is. Choose now, and swiftly.’

  ‘Damn you!’

  Sophia crouched at the turn in the path, willing herself to go on. But her limbs were frozen. Something deep within her screamed that she must not, must not be seen by the one who spoke the Second Voice.

  ‘I won't,’ said Chawlin at last. ‘He's a boy. I won't.’

  ‘Him or her. You chose swiftly enough in Develin. One name from two hundred. Your friends, your teachers, your fellow-scholars. You chose her. Do you choose that she should die, now?’

  Horror crept into Sophia's heart. He knows I'm here, she thought. He knows I'm listening.

  He wants me to hear what Chawlin says.

  ‘He will die anyway,’ said the Second Voice.

  ‘You could still save her.’

  ‘I choose …’ said Chawlin, as if each word was labour.

  ‘I choose to do nothing for you.’

  ‘So now she will die.’

  ‘Reach her if you can, then!’

  ‘Do you think she is safe among her friends? She is not. You have called her out. You have chosen that she must die. Live long with your choice, and remember it.’

  ‘Damn you!’

  There was a ring of iron and a clatter among the stones of the streambed. She heard the voice make a sound of contempt. Then feet were floundering in the water. Chawlin must have leaped at his tormentor. He was crying: ‘Come back, damn you! Come back!’

  There was no answer.

  She heard Chawlin groan. And she heard his feet splashing back out of the stream.

  Now, Sophia!

  She scrambled around the last corner of the path. Chawlin was leaning against the rock at the streamside, and he was alone. There was no one else in the valley. The sunlight rippled on the surface of the stream, and a breeze stirred the greening branches. The posy of flowers lay undisturbed on the rock at Chawlin's elbow.

  ‘Chawlin!’ she hissed, urgently.

  His clothes were ragged and filthy. His sword, which he must have drawn to leap at his oppressor, hung limply in his hand. His hair was tangled. He looked weak. His eyes, when he looked up, had deep shadows under them, as if he had not slept. And there was horror in them as he looked at her.

  ‘No!’ he cried.

  ‘Chawlin, come on. Come with me!’

  He had pushed himself upright and was coming up the slope to her.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ he croaked. ‘Where are the others?’

  ‘Not far. I came back to speak with you.’

  ‘Get back to them! Go, quickly!’

  ‘Chawlin, you've got to …’

  ‘Go!’ He had reached her. His face was screwed up, weeping. He had his hand on her shoulder and was pushing at her, trying to force her up the hill. She fought him.

  ‘Not without you!’

  ‘They're coming for you!’

  They were coming. Still she rallied, and clutched at his shirt.

  ‘Not without you!’

  ‘Sophia!’

  ‘Come on!’

  Something heavy moved in the bushes. Things were stirring in the streambed, like boulders that had grown limbs. The smell hit her – heavy, dank, like water that had never seen the sun.

  They cried out, together, and lurched up the narrow path, twisting left and right among the heavy thorn cover. She was panting already, but her legs leaped and pushed at the slope with the power of fear. Something blundered among the bushes to their right. The thorns parted. A grey thing the size of a stooping man scraped and shouldered through them. The path twisted again, carrying them away from it. Chawlin cried again, and there was terror in his voice.

  ‘Help!’ Sophia yelled. ‘Help!’

  It was too far to the camp. Her voice would not carry.

  There was another of them in the bushes to her left! A ragged, threadbare hood hid a face too long and thin for any man. And it was gone. And it appeared again, yards further on, closer to the path, as if it had leaped unseen or gone around a rock in another world to re-enter into the day.

  She could see them clearly. So horribly clearly.

  ‘Help!’ sh
e gasped, uselessly.

  Angels, help us, she pleaded in her head. And she ran.

  Together they broke from the thorns. Chawlin was alongside her, still with his sword in his hand. She felt him stumble, and clutched at his arm to steady him. He was gasping – sobbing, she thought. He must be exhausted. Even so he was moving faster than she was. He was drawing ahead of her. She sensed his terror.

  She stumbled.

  The slopes of the cleft seemed to be full of moving shapes, some lumbering like moving rock, others flitting swiftly like rags upon the wind. There was a space ahead of them.

  They don't understand about the path, she thought. They don't see it.

  ‘Chawlin!’ she cried.

  ‘Keep going!’ He was well ahead of her. He had not looked back.

  ‘Chawlin!’

  She was falling behind. For a moment she slackened her pace, looking around. And something leaped at her from the bare and sunlit hill.

  She shrieked, and twisted. It was clutching her, and she was pulling at it. Fingers like filthy roots wound over her sleeve. Claws or thorns slit deeply into her arm. She shrieked again and backed from it. Up the hill, she heard Chawlin shout. She pulled and pulled again, knowing that the other things would be on her in seconds. The horrible, squat, hooded thing held her and dragged at her, and she felt her heels slip.

  Something banged upon its head and bounced away – Chawlin's sword! A hood fell. She saw a face – a face like a huge and tortured bird, gulping, craning round at its attacker. It wore a circlet of gold.

  Chawlin was weeping, yelling, striking at it again. It turned silently on him. Iron sang as though it had hit stone.

  ‘Sophia,’ he gasped. ‘Go on.’

  Sophia scrambled on her hands and knees. There was blood on her arm, where it had clutched her and let her go. She got to her feet. The thing had gone – it was crouching twenty yards off, looking at them. To left and right others were closing on them. Chawlin was beside her, sword up. He had come back for her.

  He turned to look at her. For an instant he was still Chawlin – just Chawlin, fearful but rallying. Then he laughed. His face changed. A deep light came into his eyes.

  ‘Go!’

  She hung there, for the voice was not his.