The Cup of the World

by John Dickinson

  ‘Boy!’ cried the women excitedly. ‘Boy!’ And someone ran out and down the corridor, calling.

  Phaedra dragged herself to a sitting position on the bed and peered at the bundle. The eyes remained fast shut. There was a thick, black thatch of hair upon its head. She took it gingerly.

  ‘So light!’ she gasped. ‘Is this all there is?’

  Someone laughed. They were all laughing. And outside, voices were calling. A bell was ringing. Horns and trumpets sounded from the walls as Tarceny declared its heir to the world. The purple mouth opened and wheezed. The limbs, like rolled cloths, moved feebly.

  ‘Hush, baby’ said Phaedra, rocking it. ‘Hush, little thing. You can rest now.’

  XI

  Angels and Shadows

  he woke suddenly in the chair in her living chamber. It was deep night. The lamp at her hand had sunk to the merest green spark. The air was close. Some sound had roused her from her dreams. She stirred. She was still fully dressed. In her hands she held the great belt she was making to go with the robe. She had been trying to decide whether it should be re-made with eight precious stones, one for each of the first princes. She must have fallen asleep over it. She remembered dreaming that it had become a great chain of shimmering water, which bound Ulfin and her together as they lay among the brown rocks. Ulfin had wept and pulled at it, but he had remained bound as the shadows of his enemies crawled from the boulders to reach him. Then the dream had changed, or she had moved into another dream; because Ulfin had gone, and the shadows had gathered around the cradle that held her son. She remembered long, clawed fingers which had reached in over the cradle's rim as the baby had squirmed in his swaddles and tried to cry.

  Her heart was lurching, and she felt sick. She listened.

  There had been a sound. It had entered her dream. It had been – it might have been – footsteps in the corridor.

  She got to her feet, and picked up the lamp. The oil was nearly gone.

  People in the corridor, at this hour? Orani, still awake and wondering if her mistress was ever coming to bed? Unlikely.

  Then, unmistakably, she heard the sound of a door-latch lifting. It came from the corridor. It must have been the latch of the library.

  The library was where the baby now slept, with Orani and his new wet nurse. She fumbled her way to the door of her room, drew the bolts and stepped out into the corridor. There was almost no light. She lifted her lamp, but it told her nothing.

  ‘Who's there?’

  There was a movement, she thought, in the darkness by the library door. For a moment she had the impression that the shadows had shapes.

  ‘Who's there?’ she said, advancing with her feeble spark in her hand.

  She reached the library door. There was no one there.

  She thought there might have been a footstep – but only one. Even then, her hearing had been confused by her own movements.

  The library door was slightly ajar.

  She leaned on the door-frame, and peered in. She heard the rumbles and sighs of Orani, sleeping on the floor. There was no sound at all from her niece Eridi, the wet nurse, or from the cot that held the child. There was no one else there.

  Holding her breath, trying to still the rustle of her clothes, she crept forward to the cot. The baby was there – quite still. She bent closer. There was still no sound. She put out her hand, and drew it back. She did not dare to touch him. So she hovered and waited through the long, impossible moments for the breaths that did not come.

  Then, with her head only a few inches above the swaddles, she heard it at last: the faintest sigh. And again. And again. The child lived softly in the little locked world of his sleep.

  Phaedra straightened in the dark room, and lifted her lamp. One of the sleepers had raised her head from her pillow and was looking at her. It was Eridi – the new girl, whom the Orani had brought to the castle when the baby was born.

  ‘Did anyone come in here?’ Phaedra whispered.

  Eridi took a moment to reply. Phaedra crouched at her bedside, holding the lamp so that they could see each other's faces.

  ‘Who came in?’ she asked again.

  ‘You did, lady’

  In Eridi the mixing of hill-blood and Kingdom had produced a big face, with a straight strong nose like a mare's. Her eyes were dark. Now they seemed like black marble as they stared at Phaedra.

  ‘Before that.’

  ‘No, lady’

  ‘You heard the door open?’

  ‘I heard you call, lady’

  The girl was afraid, Phaedra thought. She had seen something, or heard something. Now she did not know what to say. This house must be very strange to her. Even Phaedra herself must be frightening to a hill girl who had only ever lived in a hut.

  ‘It was some watchman, wandering where he should not,’ Phaedra said, as she rose to leave. It was not reassuring, but it was the best she could think of. ‘Maybe he was drunk. Keep your door bolted, anyway. I'll have the man found and whipped in the morning.’

  She went out again, and waited by the door while Eridi rose and slid the old bolt home on the inside. Then she moved carefully up and down the corridor, looking in doorways and the curling stairwell by the chapel entrance. Her light showed her nothing.

  There had been more than one of them; and she did not think they were guards. One might have been a man. The other, she thought, had been shorter. She had heard one set of footsteps. She wished she had heard two.

  There was a dank feel to the air, as though she were walking by the edge of a stagnant pool.

  She was tired – aching with it. And there was no one here now.

  At last she returned to her chamber and slid the bolts home on her own door. She set her useless lamp on the table. There seemed to be nothing she could do. She must speak to Ulfin. It was a comfort to know that he must already be close: camped somewhere on the road up from Aclete. He would be home tomorrow. All she had to do was wait until he came. From the windows drifted the scent of the moon roses, opening in their masses on the slopes below. It must be nearly dawn. She was exhausted. She needed to sleep, if she could.

  And still she had not finished the robe. She had meant to complete it tonight, working as late as necessary, so that it would be ready for him in the morning. But the later she worked, the less satisfied she had become with what she had done. The belt, the bad hem, the lack of colour in the trimmings: it would not be ready in time for his arrival in the evening. She must hide it, and finish it at leisure for the time when he came home for good. He would guess what she was up to, if he looked at the accounts; but to her tired brain it did not matter. Tomorrow her gift for him must be their son.

  Ulfin strode up the steps from the courtyard. His knights followed in a clatter of armed heels. From the shade of the hall door, Phaedra saw, with a suddenness as if she had forgotten, how tall among the men he stood. Her limbs were hollow with tiredness, but she could feel herself smiling and her heart lifting suddenly at the sight of him. He was home.

  ‘My lord.’ She curtsied.

  ‘My lady’

  He seemed leaner than she remembered. There was a hardness about his eyes. She wondered if he was as tired as she was.

  ‘My lord, your son also waits to greet you home.’

  ‘Where is he?’

  She turned to the nurse, who handed her the bundle. The baby was awake and quiet.

  ‘I'm sorry, Phaedra,’ said Ulfin. ‘Give him to me.’

  She felt no fear as he shut his eyes and took the baby. He turned in the hall doorway. She thought he would lift the child high to be cheered by his knights on the lower steps. Instead he paused a further moment, and began to descend. The armed men hesitated. Was he coming down to them, or passing through them? He was passing through. They were letting him through. Where was he taking the child? In the courtyard his horse stood, saddled.

  White-haired Orcrim, Ulfin's war captain, stepped up to meet him, in mail from foot to chin.

  ‘Hail to the
heir of Tarceny’ he said, in a voice pitched to carry to the whole crowd. ‘And he has your brother's look, my lord.’

  Ulfin glanced again at the child. He might have stepped around Orcrim, but now the knights were crowding up to him and he could not move. From the higher steps Phaedra could just see the face of her son, cradled amid the forest of armed men, turning from head to grinning head around him. The strange men with their big voices held no alarm for him, and he blessed them all with his smile.

  ‘Sir,’ she called. ‘I would name him Ambrose Umbriel.’

  Again she sensed his hesitation. Yet there was so little she could do for Father now.

  ‘He has your young brother's look, my lord,’ said Caw clearly, at his elbow.

  Why were these fighters suddenly so insistent about a baby's looks? And it was nonsense. He was round-headed and red-faced, happy for the moment; but in a second he would start to cry.

  ‘Yes,’ said Ulfin at last. There was a queer note in his voice. ‘Yes, maybe he has.’

  Abruptly he passed the babe into the mailed arms around him, and was pushing through his knights and down the steps. Beyond the crowd she heard his voice calling for his horse to be unsaddled.

  The baby began to cry. She prised him from the embrace of an embarrassed knight, rocked and tried to hush him, and felt embarrassed herself with Orcrim and Hob and all the other knights watching her do it. Eridi was at her shoulder, reaching for the child, and Phaedra let him go. As his wails receded she faced the knot of armed men and found words to welcome them back to the home that had been hers for barely a year and that they had known for a lifetime. She led them up the steps and into the hall, where stable-cups were brought to the hearth. In the absence of both father and son they drank to the health of the line. No one seemed to know what to say, so the same things were said again and again. Orcrim was silent: his mouth a short, straight line, his foot prodding absently at the irregular black stones around the hearth. Something was bothering him. Caw was by the door. She saw a look pass between them, as if they were men who had conspired in something and did not know whether it would work. Caw peered out of the door again, pulled a face and gave a half-shrug. Ulfin was not coming in. At least not yet.

  Twenty minutes later, when the last of the knights had bowed and clashed off to their quarters, she went herself to the door. The sun was down. Caw was crouching on the top of the steps. He grunted, and pointed with his chin. A figure was pacing the west wall, high above their heads. It did not look their way.

  Phaedra crossed the courtyard to the wall steps and climbed to the parapet. The sky was clear, a deep blue overhead, brightening to green as it reached down to touch the jagged black line of the distant mountains. The air was thick with the flavour of moon roses. He was standing on the north-west fighting platform, facing out towards the hills and the last light of the evening. She heard him laugh: a sharp, barking sound, as if some restraint had given suddenly before a torrent within him. His hands were flung high above his head. For a moment he stood there. Then he turned to retrace his steps, and she ran to him along the wall.

  ‘I had to think,’ said Ulfin.

  ‘Will you not tell me?’

  They were walking in the fountain court under the moon. The water was still, but lights had been set at intervals along the paths to glow and flicker in the night air. From the hall came the sounds of the supper they had left, with the knights at the long tables bragging to Caw of their exploits and saying how good it was to be home.

  ‘Why the name you chose for the child? Ambrose for your father, but—’

  ‘Umbriel?’

  Gabriel stood for Glory, Raphael for Compassion. Michael, a favourite of knightly families, meant Courage. Phaedra had chosen Truth for her son. Ulfin would know that. He was asking something else.

  ‘I wanted – well, a protector for him.’

  ‘A protector.’

  A deep breath. Even as she began to speak, she did not know quite what she would say.

  ‘I – am frightened, Ulfin. I have a feeling – I think I see things. At first it was not much – loneliness and night-fears. But now I have Ambrose, and I am frightened for him.’

  ‘Fear may show you enemies where none exist.’

  ‘Ulfin, do not play with me! How many times a day do you think I tell myself that? But I am frightened. I thought I would die with Ambrose. I thought you would die in the fighting. I do not see enough of you. If you cannot be at home, even a dream would help. We used to talk long, and drink water together—’

  ‘Hush!’

  ‘Now it is a few words, snatched here and there, and months between!’

  She stared at him, and saw how he looked at her.

  ‘There will be no more dreams.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because – because we have been in dangerous places, Phaedra.’

  ‘I do not know if I have or have not.’

  ‘You bear the mark. What is it you fear? What have you seen?’

  ‘I do not know! I do not know if they are men, or if there are more than two. I have seen two. But I don't know if they are there at all! They are robed. Like—’

  ‘Was there any smell?’

  She shook her head slowly. His eyes held hers. After a moment he spoke again, so softly she could hardly hear.

  ‘We have been in dangerous places, Phaedra. If we had not, we should never have come together across the water. Now, for our own sakes, we must no longer. And as we cease to – to do what we have been doing, then these things, if they are indeed there, may cease too.’

  ‘I want you home.’

  ‘Phaedra, I cannot. I have started something across the water that I must finish, or there will be no peace until they finish with me. I have some bitter enemies now. Develin's widow, for one; some of Seguin's party; Baldwin's sons. And there are others, in the Seabord and elsewhere, who have never loved an overlord and will do their best to see that none arises. It will be a hard time, and it will mean danger for you too. And for Ambrose. Especially for Ambrose. You must guard him well. Are you listening, Phaedra?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said miserably.

  ‘They suspect me, in the Kingdom. They suspect what I – and you – have been doing. But they do not know. They must not. So long as it is just suspicion, then men who wish to ally themselves with me can ignore the talk of witchcraft. Powers like Jent may stay neutral, rather than league themselves against me. If Jent came in against us now it would be deadly. They must not know …

  ‘So. I shall lay – certain things – in the chest in the War Room. Locked, and I will keep the key. I will tell this to no one but you. Not to Caw, not to Orcrim – they guess, but they too do not truly know. It is better if they do not. Therefore do not suffer any to enter the room or to know what lies there. And be careful. Be careful.’

  She nodded. He was talking about the Cup. He was not going to use it any more, because it was too dangerous. And there would be no more dreams.

  He watched her for a moment more, then patted her on the shoulder.

  ‘And the name. There is no wrong in it – not in either of them. But the combination has a significance that you do not seem to have realized. Think of the initials, A and U.’

  ‘It means nothing to me.’

  ‘It will to others, I think. You know that after the Sea Kings – Wulfram and his sons – their descendants became the High Kings. Their rule ran all across the land and under them there was peace. Now we have the War Kings. Their dynasties are short, their strength is diminished, and their rule is marked by rebellion and failure. So. Do you remember the name of the last High King?’

  ‘Aurelian.’

  ‘His seals bore the first two letters of his name embossed upon them. A and U. In the ancient tongue they are the first two letters of the word for gold. The time of the High Kings was a golden age, and after Aurelian was betrayed to his death the crown passed out of direct descent, and that age came to an end.’

  ‘Ambrose is not
going to be King,’ she said quietly. ‘You have already refused the crown, Ulfin.’

  ‘I have. I have also made it plain that the Kingdom must strive to return itself to how things were under the High Kings. So many people still think that the crown is precisely what I want. And’ – he chuckled – ‘and the more aware of them will see proof in the name you have chosen. They'll think you did it on purpose. But then they think— Well, let us not trouble what they think, so long as they cannot show proof. Meanwhile, I have a gift for my son. It may make things easier. Come.’

  He led her back into the hall. The tables were empty now, except for the kitchen boys clearing the dishes. A few knights lounged before the hearth and looked up as they came in. Ulfin crossed to the foot of the gallery stairs, where various bundles had been laid. He took from one a small wooden box, which rattled in his hand, and opened the lid. Inside was a pile of circular white stones, milled smooth, bulging in the centre and thin at the edges, so that they might fit well into a child's grip.

  ‘These will make good playthings, I think. Try not to let him lose any, for I am fond of them. There are thirty-one.’

  ‘I have been wondering what happened to your toys.’

  ‘They were not meant for toys. They were cut by Calyn, my elder brother. We were estranged for years before he died, but when he lay in his last sickness in the Seabord, he had them sent to me. I've carried these with me ever since.’

  ‘They look like chequer pieces.’

  ‘They are not chequer pieces either. But that reminds me. Do you still play chess?’

  At last she smiled slowly, and felt her skin blush. ‘I have been practising. But Ulfin, it is late.’

  ‘One quick game.’

  She smiled again. ‘It may not be as quick as you think.’

  She woke on a grey and dreary February morning, and the pillow beside her was empty. He had warned her that he found it easiest to part while she was still sleeping. Now he was gone, risen before the light came, and vanished into rumours of war.