The Cup of the World

by John Dickinson

  That a father should be so served … That the royal house should be slighted …

  Father, and the bishop, and the King – it was so wrong that the pillars of the world should fall into outrage, so unthinkingly against her! They thought that custom and a daughter's duty and respect for the royal house were nothing to her. They did not understand. She knew how far she had parted from the accepted way (at least, she did now). Yet if love was an offence against which bishops cursed and knights took up arms in outrage, then she must offend. Her past had nothing to offer. It was as empty as the obstinate road behind her. Their stupidity meant danger, danger for the whole Kingdom. And if there was to be war between Trant and Tarceny, between Tarceny and the King, there was only one side that she could be on; and she must follow it. Love ran deeper than blood, and truer than the Fount of the Law.

  They were the ones who could not see.

  So she rode, and brooded to herself, and rode on in the cold northerly gusts for the first hour of her journey, until her conscience and the manners of her upbringing revolted at last against her own behaviour. Then she reined back to the litter, whose occupant might be entirely innocent, but would certainly have guessed by now that her patroness was sulking.

  ‘These damned winds,’ Phaedra said. ‘It has blown this way for days, and may do so for many more. I dislike what it may portend.’

  It was a day of superficial talk and long silences. DiManey was correct in her speech, and unforthcoming. Perhaps she was offended; or perhaps embarrassed. She showed no sign of wanting to ingratiate herself with the wife of a high noble, as a poor knight's woman might have done. Phaedra rode, and fretted about the daggers of politics around her. The memory of the bishop's red face returned and returned.

  The first night of the return journey was spent at one of Ulfin's manor houses on the southern fringes of the March, where the knight who held it laughed loudly at the table and talked of fighting. Phaedra retired early, leaving him to bore the Lady diManey into the small hours. The man's lights were mere rushes, and the paper, like the pieces that the innkeeper had found for her the day before, was poor stuff, watermarked from a mill in Jent rather than the majestic, smooth pages from Velis that Phaedra was used to. Nevertheless, she needed to write her thoughts down. She wanted to make her case to the Kingdom. There was still one person living east of the lake who might understand.

  Right Dear Madam and Good Friend, I recommend me to you and I pray that you will now rejoice with me, for you have bidden me marry for love, and I have obeyed.

  She began by describing Ulfin's looks, his voice, the deep intelligence behind his eyes. She wrote of her wedding on Talifer's Knoll, so that she could state firmly (and at the same time remind herself) that it had been a true ceremony, however short. She turned over in her mind, word for word, the few things the priest had said to them. Speak the truth to one another. Their lives to be a mirror to one another. She decided that if she had had a hundred bishops preach sermons at her ceremonies, she could not have heard better. Between man and wife there must be truth, first and last, and true knowledge; like mirrors, they must show to each other the other's very self.

  Keep your promises. There had been none, except in their hearts.

  … a marriage both in law and in truth. Yet it is a marvel and a weary thing for me that many seem to hold themselves offended at it, and stir themselves to arms and terrible things, as if iron and custom should come before law and love. Indeed this is a most heavy season for me, for those I love and honour above all in the world, save only my husband, are in this wise set against me …

  She must be careful, now. A letter from Tarceny to the heart of the Kingdom could well be read by others, before or after it reached its destination. Even her own words could be twisted by hostile tongues.

  Truly I honour His Majesty and His Highness Prince Septimus as I do the Sun, who rules the day and without whom nothing would live, but my heart must be with the bright Moon that rises above our nights. For we know that the Angels have given the day for duty, but they have given the night for love.

  She re-read her letter, amended it and, working late by rush-light, wrote out the fair copy. Then she signed it, folded it and added the direction: ‘To My Good Friend Maria, at the House of Sir Hector Delverdis, in Pemini’. Last of all she sealed it with the ring that Ulfin had given her. She looked down at the impression of the letters cPu superimposed upon the moon of Tarceny, in the stiffening wax.

  The royal sun for duty, but the moon for love. It was already too long since she had lain in Ulfin's arms.

  On the road the next morning she brought Thunder alongside the litter and made an honest effort at conversation with Lady diManey She had decided that if her fellow traveller were a friend, she deserved more courtesy than Phaedra had shown her the day before, and that if she were indeed an agent of the bishop or the crown it would do no harm for her to learn how firmly set Phaedra was upon the path that she had chosen, and why.

  The same thought led her to begin talking of Ulfin.

  ‘So much changed for me after we returned from Tuscolo,’ Phaedra said, as Thunder picked his way along the very verge of the narrow track beside the litter. ‘All those wretches wanting me to marry! They made everything different, even Father, even my home. In the end I had to find a way to leave. And it was as if I found some strong under— I mean, undercurrent, bearing me out of there like a leaf on water. There was nothing left but my lord's voice telling me not to be afraid …’

  There was a sudden alertness in Lady diManey's eyes – even surprise. Perhaps she had sensed that Phaedra had changed a crucial word, even as it had left her tongue. Perhaps she was just offended by the contrast that Phaedra had half-intended between their marriages. Phaedra met her look and waited, inwardly daring her fellow traveller to try to follow up what she had said, and at the same time resolving that she would be fifty times more careful over her words in future. Then Lady diManey dropped her gaze, and muttered an apology. They rode on in silence.

  A little while later Phaedra caught the look again.

  And yet with that moment they seemed to cross some threshold of intimacy in Evalia diManey's mind, for now she began to talk more; and of herself. She said that she made the journey to Jent every year, for penitence, and to seek solace from Heaven. She spoke a little of her new husband's manor house below the foot of the lake. She referred to him occasionally, mostly to say that he would be waiting her return; and once or twice she mentioned episodes from her childhood.

  She was considerate too. The further they pushed into the steep hills of true Tarceny, the more trouble the doltish Thunder was having with the roads. Phaedra was tiring more quickly than she had expected. It was proving an effort to ride, to manage her idiot horse alongside the litter, and to keep a conversation going at the same time. Around noon of the third day Evalia diManey insisted, with some grace, that they should change places that afternoon. When they set out again, she somehow fell into conversation with the normally tongue-tied Squire Vermian, so that they naturally rode side by side, and the litter dropped behind. Phaedra found she could do what she really wanted, which, unusually for her, was to curl up among the cushions and have an afternoon's rest. The slow jog, jolt, jog of the litter was peaceful under the bright skies of Tarceny. Even the thought that she had given Vermian no warnings about their fellow traveller was little more than an ugly moment as she plunged beyond the borders of sleep and so out of the world.

  It was the evening of the fifteenth of March: the night of the attack on Trant. Phaedra was sitting with Evalia diManey after supper in the long upper living chamber of Ulfin's lodge at Baer. Each had a bowl of wine to finish. The drink seemed to be on the diManey's tongue.

  ‘… It was horrible. I was sick with it. I could think of nothing but the swords. When diManey appeared, I did not wonder who he was, or why he should risk his life. I don't think I could have done. Only I remember realizing that at least I would not be killed there and then, in front
of everybody. Afterwards I even felt that it would be better to die indeed than to live those moments again.’

  And a cup later, she said, ‘You are very young. You have looks, yes. More, you are happy. You don't yet know that the only happiness worth having is the hope that it will continue. And how will you keep it? How?’

  Phaedra looked into her bowl. She could feel sorry for her companion. She could even like her now. But she did not need lectures on being ‘happy’. Happiness was a blossom that would come and go, but for someone else. For herself, she could see two lives opening before her – one maimed, one whole. She was not one person, she thought. She was a half of two, bound with a link as deep as dark lakewater, for ever. And now the small-boats of Tarceny would be stealing up to the jetty by the ruined court in the olive grove. She felt she could bear anything, any outcome at all, but that Ulfin should be killed.

  She had lost her taste for wine. She turned and turned the remains of her cup around the bowl in a slow swill, praying to the Angels – keep him safe, keep him safe. Send that, for some reason, he does not try to lead his men over the wall. Send that the guard sleeps. Keep him safe, and let him come home.

  When she raised her eyes again her companion was looking away, into the olivewood fire and some thought of her own. Her eyes were shining wetly and blinking as they shone. So Phaedra watched the fire too, for a moment. And when they spoke again it was about other things.

  She was woken that night by a queer sound, close to her bed. She lay and listened for it to come again. The night was still. The moon was up, behind a thin veil of cloud that dulled its light. Nothing moved in her room. But as she shifted in her blankets she heard it once more. It came from somewhere nearby, through the boards of a wall. A voice which moaned aloud, and then spoke. A woman's voice, which cried the name Calyn, and followed it with sounds of weeping. The weeping went on for some time. It pursued her into her dreams, where she climbed a slope of brown, jumbled stones towards a ridge from which the afterglow of the sun was fading. The landscape was scattered with huge boulders that looked like crooked people, all the same. She was losing her way.

  She could not see the skyline now, or the two lights on the rim of the world that had been there so many times. Her feet were guided only by what seemed to be the angle of the slope on this rough ground. Still she stumbled upwards, skirting a double-peaked crag to emerge upon a lip of rock in the last sun. Beside her, Ulfin caught her arm and exclaimed, We have done it, my love! Trant is ours, with not a life lost. And your father is our prisoner.

  Another day's rising, heavy with tiredness, facing another day on the road. But this was different. Today she would finally end days of travelling. They would be at Tarceny by sundown. She would soon say farewell to her fellow traveller, with perhaps a little regret as well as relief. She would be home.

  A great door in the wall around her had opened. Ulfin was safe. Trant was theirs. So was Father, although he must be fit to be tied at this moment: less likely than ever to listen to his daughter's voice. Still, there must be a chance now to solve this quarrel. Somehow she must find a way.

  She rode in silence for much of the morning, thinking round and round her problem. The tiredness of rising did not lift from her, and no answers presented themselves. In the afternoon, as she lay in the litter, a sudden and heavy shower of rain drenched the landscape. Sleepy as she was, Phaedra roused herself and had the whole cavalcade halt while she insisted that Evalia diManey join her in the cramped shelter of the litter. It was not made for two, and her companion's outer clothes were wet. But they laughed at their discomfort, and watched the good rain soak the land while their retinue trailed muddily behind them. By the time they passed the turn for Aclete, the clouds were breaking, and when at last they reached the edge above the olive groves of Tarceny the skies were clear. A cool breeze was in their faces.

  ‘This is the best place from which to see it,’ Phaedra said. ‘And the best time of day – look!’

  ‘Wonderful,’ said Evalia diManey

  They had come in the early sunset of Tarceny. The sun had touched the crest of the mountains. The air was moist. Below them, the olive woods were in shadow. But the castle opposite still stood in light, and its walls and towers glowed the colour of pale amber, floating above the clouds of moon roses upon the spur. There were flags flying from the turrets – long bannerets blown out by the March wind. The armour of the watchers flashed on the battlements with fragments of sun. Phaedra felt her heart lift as she looked out across the valley to her new home. And in that moment she had the answer to the problem that had been troubling her all the day long.

  She would bring Father here. He would be made to give his word not to fight or run away, so that they might keep him in gentle captivity at Tarceny as indeed he had done for Aun of Lackmere. He would be a difficult guest. She would be prepared for that. She could rule him, if she had to. And difficult or not, she knew she had been missing him. She could think of his big, turbulent presence with fondness. She would attend him, read to him, walk with him. She would show him the wide lands of Tarceny and the nobility of the house. She would teach him to see the tragedy of its past not with loathing, but with sadness. And she would let him understand how Ulfin and she loved one another and could only be together. She would win Father round, however long it took. She would beat a path to peace through his heart.

  The litter swayed as the road dipped towards the olive groves. Squire Vermian had the horns blow, and at the same time voices from the bannermen at the head of the cavalcade cried for room on the road. Some fieldsmen from one of the villages had met them on the slope, toiling upwards with their donkeys laden with huge bales of firewood. It was a bad place for the horsemen, and tricky work edging the litter downhill in the narrow way, while the fieldsmen held the donkeys at the very lip of the track to give them room. There were three upturned faces marked with sweat and dust, and a fourth beneath a hood. Phaedra was lost in her mental campaign to win Father, and it was a moment before she stirred, and then started with the memory of what she had seen. She lurched to the side of the litter, craning back through the drapes to catch another sight of the party of fieldsmen as they gained the ridge. She saw the last one turn in the track to look down: at the horsemen, at the litter, at her. In a gleam of sun he stood clear on the path, and his face was shadow beneath his hood. Then he disappeared after the others.

  ‘Vermian! Vermian!’ The litter swayed as she leaned out to shout ahead. The riders checked their horses. The squire lumbered back up the track towards them.

  ‘My lady?’

  ‘That party of men who passed us. The last man in it. Bid him come to me. I want to speak with him.’

  The squire took a second to understand what he was being asked to do. Then he dug his heels into his horse, and the litter swayed again as he pounded past and up the hill, waving to the tail riders. Huge steeds jostled and whickered in the track. Iron clashed. The wet earth shuddered with hoofbeats, fading.

  They waited. Phaedra glanced at Evalia diManey's face, and saw how her skin glowed softly in the light. She had paid no attention to what was going on. There was some thought, or memory, behind her eyes as she looked across the gulf to the castle. The dim echo of the gate-horn came to them. Phaedra remembered that Ulfin would not be at home. It would be the first time she had entered the place without him. She shifted in the litter.

  ‘What is holding them?’

  As she spoke the riders appeared again. One bore a man in front of him. They lumbered downhill towards the litter with their prize. Phaedra muttered an exclamation as they came near.

  ‘Not this one! Not this one!’ she said as they drew rein. ‘I asked for the last man in the party. The last man.’

  Vermian grunted something that must have been an oath. ‘Your pardon, my lady, but there were three, and this was the third.’

  The fieldsman seemed caught in a world beyond his understanding. She found his look almost painful, and wondered whether rabbits stared t
his way at an oncoming stoat.

  ‘Put him down, you idiots. There were four. The last one in a robe and hood, and walking a little after the others.’

  The riders exchanged glances.

  ‘Call me a fool, my lady, but there were three when we came up with them.’

  ‘Angels' Knees, Vermian!’

  They were milling around her, these huge, clumsy simpletons. Big men on big horses, and the fieldsman still pinned to the saddle.

  ‘My lady – what is it?’ asked Evalia diManey

  ‘It's a circus – what does it look like? All right. Put him down, Vermian. And give him silver. You can do that, can you? Send some people back to have another look. I want that man. Promise him whatever you like, but for Michael and Umbriel get him to come to the castle. Now, let's be on our way’

  She turned abruptly in her place and faced forward, so that she need not see the looks she knew the horsemen were giving her and each other. They were idiots.

  ‘He can't have walked fifty yards,’ she muttered to Evalia diManey

  ‘Who, my lady?’

  ‘If it was the man I think it was, he has caused me much trouble,’ said Phaedra grimly. ‘Trouble and embarrassment – albeit unwittingly. It is the priest who wed me to my husband. I am going to find out for myself whether he will not accept a position when I offer it; if not, why not, and at the very least what his name and order is.’

  The litter swayed into motion beneath them.

  ‘What man?’

  ‘The last one in that—’ she broke off ‘You didn't see him either?’

  Evalia diManey was looking at her as one might at a friend or guest who, halfway through an evening, has suddenly become drunk.