The Cup of the World

by John Dickinson

  And they could talk, now, of themselves: of her fears of leaving Trant; of his that he might never do so.

  ‘I had thought of going to Jent, and asking His Grace to let me take the veil.’

  ‘I doubt that your father would give permission. And His Grace would not take you without it. Your move … You push her around too much, you know.’

  ‘She's my best piece. Why should I not? You always use the knights whenever you can.’

  ‘Knights are for taking risks with— Ho, what's that?’

  A trumpet was blowing somewhere in the castle.

  ‘The gate-horn.’ Phaedra stopped with her queen in her hand. When she recovered herself she could not remember where she was moving it to.

  ‘Another suitor?’ said Aun. ‘I thought they had all been scared off by what happened to young Baldwin.’

  Phaedra stared at the board. All the possible squares seemed wrong.

  ‘You're about to lose her, anyway’ said the baron. ‘Shall we go and see who it is?’

  ‘If we must.’

  Outside the baron's rooms a flight of steps led to the flat roof of the tower. It was a cold, windy day. The Sun and Oak Leaf flapped busily overhead. From the parapet they had a clear view over the hall roof to the gate end of the courtyard. A half-dozen riders had come through the gatehouse arch and were dismounting. Stable hands and men-at-arms milled around them.

  ‘That's a royal banner!’

  ‘Is it, by God!’ said the baron, leaning forward and screwing his eyes up to read the device at that distance. She sensed his sudden excitement. Royal messages might well concern him.

  ‘Damn my sight!’ he cursed. ‘That's the Sun, right enough. But is the field not differenced?’

  ‘It is, sir. The banner tail is vert.’

  ‘Septimus.’ He was silent. Phaedra could see his agitation. And she knew he must not allow himself to hope. Nothing from the King's younger son could bring him release. She knew he knew it too; and yet he could not stop himself from hoping. She saw the effort with which he turned from the parapet. ‘Septimus, or one of his people. On his way from somewhere to somewhere else. Nothing for either of us, I guess. Come on down, and I'll take that troublesome queen off you.’

  He played so badly that she forced her first draw. She took no joy in it.

  It was the prince's chamberlain, on his way, as Aun had predicted, from somewhere to somewhere else. He was a funny, round man, bald and bearded, who spoke in an endless wheezy chatter throughout supper. His wit was directed mainly at the Warden, and at Brother David. Some of the time he joked with Phaedra. He seemed not to notice Aun, who sat watching him throughout the meal.

  Prince's man or not, he came from the court, and it was from the court that Aun's release would come. Phaedra watched the baron realize that he was being ignored, saw him sink into himself, eating in silence at the end of the table, drinking, and watching the chamberlain over the rim of his horn. She found, for the first time in almost a year, that she felt real pain on behalf of someone other than herself – pain for the ugly, fierce little man who wore the Wolf Behind the Staff.

  She rose as early as she might, and went to her room. Footsteps sounded on the stair behind her. From her doorway she saw the baron climbing up towards his tower chambers, with his head bowed and a flask of wine in his hand. She closed her door and went to sit on her bed. After a time she rose to her feet again.

  There would be guards at Aun's door, but they would not stop her. She wondered whether they would think it strange, provided she left the door ajar and did not stay long. With her heart beginning to beat at the impropriety of what she was doing, she stole along the corridor to the stair that would lead up to his room. It was as she hesitated with her foot on the first step that the door to the hall opened two flights below. The sound of voices carried clearly up to her.

  ‘I think you may hope, sir,’ said the chamberlain. ‘I think you may. Neither Faul nor Develin will be content if His Highness weds the other's candidate. So we are at a mighty stand-off. His Highness uses this to order matters as it pleases him. And he is tired of the court ladies, and remembers her well. I may tell him that word has exaggerated neither her looks nor her bearing. Nothing is fixed, mind, but I should not be surprised if His Highness finds occasion to visit you himself before long – in passing, as it were.’

  ‘His Highness does us much honour,’ said Ambrose. ‘And more than I or my cross-grained daughter deserve.’

  ‘So far, I would say that a crossing grain has done neither you nor her harm where it most counts in this case. Quite the reverse. It is the stuff of ballads. And if Barius were set on remaining single, as he seems to be—’

  ‘Let us not talk of that. When will he come?’

  ‘I cannot say for sure. If I am right, there is to be a Royal Progress through these lands in the new year.’

  ‘It is not widely known yet, but I had heard so.’

  ‘Then expect His Highness to be one of the party. And do your best to ensure all are well entertained at Trant.’

  ‘I am already giving it thought. One thing – will the King bring news for my guest, do you think?’

  ‘Lackmere? Inchapter has the protection of his lands, and the profit from them. He is one of Develin's men. That party would not wish to see them surrendered, and His Majesty has little reason to anger them. Lackmere should not look for release before that changes.’

  ‘It is not good. He frets like a badly-tamed hawk.’

  ‘I am sorry for him, but he should have chosen better friends – or burned fewer villages.’

  They were climbing the stair towards her. The chamberlain must be retiring early after his journey. And so Father was retiring, too. Phaedra fled.

  Crouching behind the door in her room, she heard the footsteps fade. Doors closed. Other footsteps were on the stair – James the housemaster and his fellows, dousing the lights now that the Warden had gone to his bed. The lamp-glow from under her door disappeared. Only the cracks of moonlight from the window shutters lit the darkness of her room.

  The door was shut. She was trapped.

  She could not go to Aun's room now, with the house in darkness, and the baron probably drunk. And she would not know what to say to him. She did not know what to think. She wished she had not overheard. The chamberlain must have been drunk himself to talk so much. Or did the house of the prince spend all its days in gossip?

  The prince!

  She could not remember much of Septimus: a plain-faced, paunchy young man, unremarkable other than that he was a son of the King. To the rest of the world, no doubt, he was an even better match than Baldwin would have been. To Phaedra he was undoubtedly a worse one. And he lived at the King's court in Tuscolo, at the centre of its frivolities and intrigue and twisted justice. He had smiled at a strange face in the royal chapel, and there had been nothing strange to him about that because his home was forever full of strangers. He would never be master there, nor would his wife be mistress.

  Trapped! She could do nothing but wait until they came to get her, however many months it might be before they made up their minds. She had learned enough since leaving Tuscolo to know that the world would never let her alone. There had to be an end. She had not expected it to be this. She was pacing the little room now, angrily, round and round. Now and again a word or a sound escaped her. She stamped her foot, hard. It hurt. She wanted to scream. Her bed stood against the wall, with its sheets rumpled where she had been sitting. Sleep? How could she sleep after hearing this? Somewhere in Tuscolo there would be another bed, bigger, richer, which Septimus would share with his bride. She had heard that on the wedding night of a prince men stood at the bedside with lit candles, for there must be those who could swear, if it came to it, that the heir of a prince was truly his.

  Oaths and Angels!

  She turned to the window of her room and eased the shutters open. It was a cool winter's night, although this side of the castle was sheltered from the wind that set t
he moon chasing among the cloud-thickets like a lord at hunt. She leaned on the sill, and the cold stone pressed back against her. Down below her the slope fell easily to the water's edge. She could see the clumps of trees within the dyke, the outline of the old buildings and the little grove that surrounded the ruined fountain court. She could see the moonlight on the lakewater, stretching a path from the far hills towards her across the lake: a moon-path away from this place where the walls pressed against her, but out of reach, out of all possibility

  There at the window, she must have slept at last. For it seemed to her as if the walls around her had faded. She was walking among brown rocks, and there seemed to be a low humming from somewhere that was almost too deep for the ear. She knew these things from before.

  The moon appeared again. The brown rocks gave back, and beneath the thin soles of her shoes she felt grass. She seemed to be walking among trees. She was in the grove by the fountain again, with the damp air of night breathing on her shoulders. Oaks whispered as if they were alive. The colonnades were about her. The wavelets lapped and rippled a short distance away. Still that deep sound throbbed in her ear, and her feet turned upon brown stones among the roots of the trees.

  Where are you?

  She had met him here, when she had thought she must accept Baldwin. Now she needed him more than ever.

  Where are you?

  There was water in the fountain, reflecting the moon. The reflection wavered, and would not be still. The shadow of his head appeared beside hers on the water's surface.

  Well met, he said.

  Are you there? I can't see you clearly.

  He kneeled before her and kissed her hand. Her fingers tingled at the touch of his lips.

  You were calling me, he said. I looked, and there you were. What is the matter?

  They will wed me to Prince Septimus, she said. I must leave here, but I know no one and have nowhere to go.

  He was silent for a while, as if he were thinking.

  How long do we have?

  I don't know, she answered. A few weeks. I must be gone before he sees me.

  Choose a number, then. Greater than five.

  Eight had always been her favourite.

  Good. On the eighth day of the new year wait for me in this place at the eighth hour after noon. Can you do that?

  She thought so.

  If I come in that hour, I shall give you what help I can. If I do not, I cannot help you at all.

  Wait!

  He paused.

  Are you … (alive? real? She had known him for seven years. Now he seemed to be speaking as if he could step into the world outside her skin.)

  He seemed to smile. For a moment she could see him clearly, standing before her with his hand on the fountain rim. She remembered how the fountain had become the cup in his hand. His fingers drifted over the water and seemed to pick something from the surface.

  My name is Ulfin, he said, handing it to her. These grow below my walls.

  Then the moonlight faded again, and the vision with it. She opened her eyes.

  She was awake, standing at her window, shivering. The stone of the sill was hard and cold against her. The grove of the fountain court, which the moment before had so clearly been about her, lay hidden in darkness down the hill. Nothing seemed to move there. The light grew as the moon reared clear of the clouds. In her left hand, which he had kissed, lay a four-pointed white rose flower with one black petal. She looked at it closely. She had not seen its like before.

  ‘So I am a witch now,’ she muttered over it. ‘Did you do that to me?’

  Perhaps its silence was a reply. Perhaps it said that he too had changed. Somewhere, he walked in the light of day, under the same sun as Septimus and all the world that hammered at her door. He could help. And his lips had touched her hand.

  Her heart was beating as if she had run all the way up the tower stairs.

  IV

  Steel and Darkness

  he chamberlain left. January came with dark days and drizzle that whipped down the wind. Royal outriders appeared on the lake road and called for entry at the gates. There were four of them, sent weeks ahead of the great progress with instructions for each of the hosting houses along the way. The people of Trant watched them as they crossed the courtyards, and whispered to one another. Kitchen boys scurried down the passageways that they had sauntered along the day before. The stablemaster lost his temper over a detail and beat one of the grooms for it. Trant was roused, and nervous. The King was coming.

  Phaedra noticed that the atmosphere in the castle had changed with the arrival of the newcomers, but she was preoccupied with her own thoughts. Time had gone swiftly. Father had said nothing of his conversation with the prince's chamberlain on the stair. It was as well, for she would not have known how to react. She found it hard to concentrate on the doings of the house, which were becoming more and more unreal to her as time passed. Sometimes, when people spoke to her, she took a moment to respond.

  The flower had lain in a cup of water for a week until it had wasted away. The most real thing left in the castle was the small bundle – a purse and travelling clothes – that she had hidden under her bed some days before. Many times since then she had felt for it to make sure it was still there. It bulked in her mind like stone among shadows.

  On the seventh night of the new year Phaedra retired to bed as she had a thousand times before. She did not sleep. When she closed her eyes and looked up into darkness, she wondered where she would lay her head tomorrow.

  The next morning she attended the Warden's discussions with the King's men. Others from Trant were there too. The visitors spoke in turn. A marshal told them of the size of the King's escort and the accommodation they would need. A clerk wanted details of the complaints that would be brought before the King's justice while he was at Trant. A butler spoke of the personal wants and comforts of the King, and a huntsman about how he might spend his leisure.

  Phaedra said nothing. As she listened, she realized why Trant was already beginning to hum around her. The demands on the household would be enormous. There would be fifty knights – fifty! – wanting board and sleeping room, as well as clerks, jesters, cup-holders and chamberlains – enough to eat three months' worth of Trant's provisions in the three weeks they would stay. Both royal princes would be in the party. It was not yet known which of the barons would join the progress, although it was a safe guess that if Develin came both Seguin and Faul would be along to keep an eye on him. Two princes, three great lords; and the King would not pay a silver piece for the board of his following or theirs for all the season that he was away from Tuscolo. Plainly the crown had good reasons for such a progress, and reinforcing the King's authority in the lands he passed through would only be one of them.

  There would be no women with the King's following. The queen was pregnant again (her seventh child, if it lived). She would not travel. The ladies of the court were to remain at Tuscolo out of respect for her.

  ‘Well you may look pleased,’ said the butler to Phaedra. There were chuckles in the room. Phaedra had to think for a moment before realizing that if ladies of the court had come her work as hostess would have doubled – more than doubled.

  There would be over a hundred horses to be stabled and fed, with tack to be mended and all. Trant's stables would overflow. There would be banquets by night and hunts by day. Phaedra knew that without a miracle that night she would be filling every moment with matters of the King's visit for weeks. Still, she found her attention wandering: to the fountain; to the coming night; to the man in the dream. And the voices of the room would dim around her.

  ‘What of the Baron Lackmere?’ asked Father.

  ‘A matter that touches the King's justice,’ said the royal clerk. ‘But His Majesty is in my opinion unlikely to make any further judgement concerning him in the course of this progress.’

  ‘Therefore,’ said the butler, ‘it would be better if the baron did not meet with the King at any time, nor
did eat at the high table, nor at any table with the King's household. What you do beyond that I leave to you.’

  So Aun's hope of early release was gone, as he had feared it would be. And there would be no other chance as good as this for a number of years. Father was making no protest. Nor did he when the clerk began to enquire about the ins and outs of the Bay knight's claim on Manor Sevel, feeling out how this dispute between the great houses might go when the King tried them. If Bay must have crumbs, then crumbs would be thrown to Bay. Trant was after a bigger prize. She shut her eyes briefly

  I must leave, she thought. I will save him from this.

  Afterwards, when the midday meal was ended, she looked for Aun through the castle, and did not find him. At last she came upon his guards, lurking in the upper levels of the north-east tower to be out of the wind and the threat of coming rain. They pointed her to where the baron paced on the northern battlements above the great hall. She saw at once that he already knew what the King's men had said about him. When she approached he turned away, as though fearing she would try to comfort him.

  ‘It is not a good day, I think,’ she said.

  He grunted, and peered over the battlements. She joined him, looking down the grey and white perspectives of the north wall. It was forty feet from the platform where they stood to the base, and another fifteen to the floor of the ditch. The ditch was supposed to be dry, but there was always a little water in it at this time of year.