The Cup of the World

by John Dickinson

  ‘I had expected you at supper, my lady’

  ‘I was tired.’

  ‘A pity since you had gone to such lengths to bring me home. For I have decided to return in the morning.’

  She sat slowly on a stool and looked at him. ‘Will you do nothing about the raiders, my lord?’

  ‘They are not more than Caw can handle. Spies more than raiders, I guess. And I do not think they were the reason for what you have done.’

  She looked at her feet. ‘No one enjoys a sword at their throat, sir. Nor does any wife expect to be ignored when she sends to her husband for protection.’

  He settled in a chair, looking at her. ‘Where is Ambrose?’ he asked.

  Behind her in the bedroom, something creaked. She did not dare turn round. She could not remember if she had even shut the door.

  He was watching her, waiting for an answer.

  Abruptly she leaned forward, took the chess case from its low shelf, and opened it on the table between them. The dust was silver on the black and white squares.

  ‘Will you play, my lord? If you win, I may tell you what you wish to know.’

  His head tilted slightly to one side, as if he were trying to read her thoughts. ‘I will win,’ he said.

  ‘You will find my game has changed, sir. Let me play white.’

  ‘White? If you wish. It will make no difference.’

  They set the pieces on the board before them. Phaedra clapped the white figures into their places, making as much noise with them as she dared without being so loud that he would begin to wonder why. The black pieces went deftly into their rows, with the sound of a cat's footfall. She left one pawn out in the middle of the board. Ulfin had made his move before she had finished setting the rest of her pieces. It was the knight to the queen-bishop third, which she had not been expecting. She had to stop and think.

  In the silence, the rope creaked again. Phaedra wondered if somewhere she could hear the ghost of a leather sole on stone. Ulfin looked up. She clicked her knight forward, and his eye fell on the board again.

  He played quickly, and so did she. She would have liked longer to think, but she must keep his mind on the play. And already she was in trouble. Somehow, in an equal number of moves, he had far more force on the board than she. Now she must bring her queen forward – Aun had always told her not to do that.

  Clip, clip, went the pieces. (Grunt, went the rope in the room beyond.)

  Surely he must hear it now. And she must move again quickly. Her queen was under attack.

  ‘You will lose her,’ he said.

  ‘But you have not seen what I am doing.’ Her hand hovered. His eyes followed it. And ignoring the danger, she pushed a knight forward into his defence.

  It was a wild move. A farce. She saw the disgust on his face. And then his expression changed. His eyes flew to the door of her room. Within, the sound of cloth and boot wrestling on the stone sill. A heavy body landing upon the floor. A man grunting. A step. The door handle turning.

  Aun stood in the doorway, breathing hard.

  Ulfin leaped back from his seat with a shout. The table rocked and crashed to the floor. Phaedra was on her hands and knees, scrambling among the chess pieces. She reached the outer door and slid the bolts home. Then she turned.

  The men faced each other over the tumbled furniture. The swords were out, and held low. Ulfin's eyes flicked towards her. She was in easy reach of the iron in his hand. Aun was a long second away across the room. She crammed herself backwards against the door, snarling. But Ulfin looked back at Aun.

  ‘All right,’ he said, settling into a crouch. ‘Come on.’

  In the bedroom, the rope creaked again.

  Aun came with a rush, beating at Ulfin's blade. The long sword evaded him and slammed into his ribs. Aun staggered and struck. Iron rang in the room, again and again. Aun jumped back, panting.

  ‘Mail,’ he said, patting the baggy doublet he wore. He grinned.

  ‘Ho, there!’ cried Ulfin. ‘Ho, there! Help!’

  Then Aun was coming forward again, feinting, hacking. Ulfin blocked. They did not have room to circle. Aun was trying to get between Ulfin and the door, but again he was beaten back. Ulfin looked to the door too, but the bolts were thrown and he would have to open them while keeping Aun at bay with the other hand. And he would have to cut her down first of all. Phaedra cast about for a chair, a stool, to put between herself and the sword.

  ‘Help, guards, help!’ cried Ulfin.

  The rope creaked. A second man was climbing through the window.

  Ulfin attacked, cutting for Aun's head and immediately his thigh, but Aun went down on one knee into the blow, grunting as the blade struck his elbow and back. Phaedra winced, and winced again and yelped as the short Trant sword caught Ulfin full in the face. He fell without a cry.

  Aun stood over him for a moment, and then fumbled for a knife from his belt.

  ‘Don't kill him!’ Phaedra said.

  He looked at her.

  Another man was standing in the doorway to the bedroom. Beyond him, the rope was creaking again.

  ‘Are you hurt?’ said the newcomer.

  ‘No and yes,’ said Aun. ‘But I'll heal. Did they hear?’

  Phaedra put her ear to the door. There were distant sounds beyond.

  ‘I don't know.’

  ‘How many on the postern door?’

  ‘Two, I think. You go right and down the steps, then right through the storeroom passage. They'll be in the little room at the end, to the left of the door itself. I don't want you to kill them.’

  A third man was scrambling through the window.

  ‘We'll go then. Wave the others round. We can't wait.’

  ‘Chawlin's on the rope.’

  ‘Then wave the others off Chawlin can guard him,’ he said, pointing to where Ulfin lay motionless on the floor. ‘Let's go.’

  They stepped to the door, weapons out. Phaedra saw the long streak of her husband's blood on Aun's blade. She opened her mouth to say something about not killing, and closed it again, knowing the thought was futile.

  The bolts clacked back. The door opened into the dimness of the corridor. No one challenged. One after another the men stepped out silently.

  She was alone.

  She took Ulfin's sword and placed it out of his reach. It was heavy, and cold. She supposed that if the soldiers came up from the hall now she might threaten them with it, but she would do far better to bolt the door again. In fact, she should do so now. But …

  Ulfin lay sprawled on the floor of the room. He was face down, but he was trying to lift his head. It was bloody. She heard him gasp.

  Slowly she stood and went into the dark bedroom, where the rope jerked and creaked to itself. There she tore a long strip from the bale of precious, useless black silk by the bed. As she did so a pair of hands appeared on the rope outside the window, and a head. It was the young man from the forest glade. He was having trouble.

  ‘Here,’ she said, and helped him to scramble over the windowsill. He collapsed in a heap, apparently exhausted by his climb.

  ‘Where are they?’

  ‘They've gone on down. You're to stay here. Come and help me.’

  She took the silk into the outer room, and kneeling beside Ulfin, lifted his head. His face was coated in blood, and there was a widening pool of it on the floor. It seemed to be flowing thickly from his cheek and forehead. She pressed at it with the cloth in her hands, and tried to wipe it away. It was useless. The boy came and supported Ulfin's head, while she wound the silk clumsily round and round and tied it in place. Then they lifted Ulfin's shoulders and dragged him into the inner room and laid him on the bed. They looked at one another. They were both bloody, and there was a long trail of it on the floor.

  ‘We need more bandages,’ he said. ‘And water.’

  ‘Take what you need,’ said Phaedra, pointing to the ruined silks. ‘I'll find a jug. I'm – glad it's you, Chawlin.’

  It was as near as s
he would ever come to thanking him for stepping forward in the camp.

  Hera had left a jug of drinking water on one of the tables in the antechamber. But the table had fallen in the fight. The jug was smashed and its contents had soaked into the rug. Phaedra hesitated, looking around her. She could hear shouts not far away. Someone was blowing a horn – an alarm, she guessed. She could not remember when it had started. Feet sounded in the corridor, coming towards her at a run.

  The door was still open! She had not had time to shut it!

  A figure skidded in the doorway – armed, looking inwards. It was Tancrem. His face hardened when he saw her, but he did not enter.

  ‘How do we come at the hall?’

  He must have come up from the level of the storerooms. There seemed to be others with him.

  ‘Go on along the corridor. Before you reach the tower door there are steps going down to the right. They take you to the gallery. What's happening?’

  ‘The inner gatehouse is ours. But they are holding the hall, and there are more in the outer bailey. Stay here.’

  He turned and clattered back down the corridor with others at his heels. Somewhere someone was screaming, on and on, the sound blotted by the blasting of the horn, and emerging again. Who was in the hall? Men like Caw, like Abernay fighting unarmoured and part-armed for a lord they did not know had fallen? And she needed water. She looked out into the corridor, and it was empty.

  It seemed the shouting increased as she crept along in Tancrem's wake. She could hear metal clashing now, and someone cry out in pain. At the tower door she listened, and could hear nothing beyond it. Either the guards above had abandoned their posts, or they were keeping very still.

  From the hall rose a riot of combat. Men were calling for surrender, others yelling defiance. She stumbled down the wooden steps. The gallery was empty.

  The hall below was chaos. Tables were overthrown, and food spilt across the floor. Here and there men were lying sprawled like drunkards in a scene of orgy. Tancrem and his men were clustered at the door, through which others were flowing in – also Septimus's supporters. They were clearing a table from the doorway, which must have been used as a barricade by the defenders until Tancrem's party had rushed them from the gallery steps. At the far end of the hall a half-dozen Tarceny men had upended two tables and barricaded themselves into a corner. They were hopelessly outnumbered. They had seen her.

  The horn had stopped. For a moment she could think. She saw Caw's grey head among the defenders.

  ‘Put down your weapons!’ she called. ‘Put them down!’

  For a heartbeat's space they stared at her. Then they were yelling at her, curses, defiance, threats. She saw an arm raised, flung forward. Something flew through the air towards her. A knife! It tumbled as it flew, and clattered uselessly against the wall a yard to her left. The men at the door bellowed and swarmed forward – twenty or more of them, hurling themselves at the tables. Iron danced in blood, and from the gallery a woman of nineteen stared bright-eyed at the murder she had unleashed in her home.

  XXII

  The Powers of Shadow

  man lay huddled among the potted mints of the fountain court. It was Vermian, and he was dead. His head and forearms were a ruin of sword-cuts, as if his last act had been to throw up both arms to cover his face. He lay with his mouth open. In the light of Phaedra's lamp his half-closed eye glittered with a sickly fire.

  It was over. The leaderless men in the outer bailey had surrendered. Before the gatehouse Prince Septimus had kneeled and, in his gladness and gratitude, kissed the hem of her bloody robe. She had seen the wounded – Caw among them – carried to a makeshift hospital in one of the dormitories. She had watched the captives being herded into a stout storehouse where they could be guarded. She had seen them look across at her. A man had been kicked and cuffed by the guards for shouting something that she had not heard.

  And now they were gathering the dead. Someone was crossing the court towards her. She rose, and lifted up her lamp. Martin emerged out of the darkness and looked down at the man at her feet.

  ‘He was planning to marry,’ she said.

  ‘It takes blood to stop a war, my lady. And if it is not stopped, then it will have blood anyway. With good luck, this one may now be caged.’

  Phaedra turned her head. She wanted to shut away the terrible images that danced in her mind. She wanted to cry, and being unable to, she felt sick; and tired.

  ‘When did you arrive?’

  ‘A half-hour ago. The postern gate was open, and no one was guarding it.’

  She looked around. ‘Have you seen Hera?’

  ‘She is in the chapel, and the door is locked. I should go back and tell her it is safe to come out. But I wanted to find you. Are you hurt?’

  She shook her head. ‘It is not my blood,’ she said dully. ‘It is Ulfin's.’

  ‘They say he is asking for you.’

  ‘I do not want to see him.’ She knew she would go. ‘… Ambrose?’

  ‘Well, when I left him. When he understood I was coming here, he gave me something for you.’ He fished something from his pouch and handed it to her, seeming to smile for a moment. ‘“Give Mama,” he said.’

  It was one of the white stones, lying warm in her palm. Her fingers closed on it.

  Martin stooped over Vermian's body. ‘I will bring this one in.’

  ‘Will you need the lamp?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Don't forget Hera.’

  He grunted, and she could tell by the sound that he had indeed forgotten, despite reminding himself of her only a moment before. And she remembered that she had been looking for water to wash the blood from Ulfin's face. That had been hours ago. Thought had shattered under the impact of the things they had both witnessed. The mind saw image after image, forgot them and moved on. And she must move on too.

  The courtyard was dark and quiet. The stone bowl of the fountain glowed in the lamplight as she passed it: that place where Ulfin and she had kissed in the sunlight on her first day in Tarceny The bowl was empty. Its waters were silent now.

  Chawlin rose to his feet as she entered the antechamber. The door to the bedroom was open. She could see the light beyond it, and the shape of the man upon the bed.

  ‘How is he?’

  ‘Conscious. He's in pain, of course. I think the bleeding has stopped.’

  ‘Sit down, please.’

  Someone – Chawlin, presumably – had righted the tables that had been upset in the fight. The mess had been cleared. The blood had been mopped away – no, surely not. But he had dragged that rug across to cover whatever marks remained. The room had a subdued and peaceful look. Apart from Chawlin himself, a mild-looking boy with a naked sword across his knees, there was no sign that anything had happened here.

  Phaedra hesitated. Through the window she could see, dimly the shapes of the wooded ridges rolling away to the north of the castle. The night was lighter than it had been. Somewhere beyond the towers and clouds the moon had risen again, paling the overcast sky to a dull, colourless glow. She felt a sudden wish to be out there, moving across the vast floor of the night, and away from this torchlit stone where swords cut flesh and all her deeds were remembered.

  Out there, in the soft darkness. But the night had never been her friend. There was stone under her feet and a lamp in her hand, and beyond the door lay the man she had betrayed.

  She stepped through and set her lamp on a low table. Chawlin – or someone – had been busy in here too. The blood-soaked rugs and sheets were piled into a corner. The silks were pushed beneath the bed. The rope was gone. Ulfin lay with his head heavily wrapped so that only one eye was visible.

  He was looking at her.

  ‘I'm here,’ she said.

  ‘What – happened?’ Speaking seemed to hurt him.

  ‘The castle is taken. Septimus is here. You are his prisoner.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why did I …? Do you not know?’

  ‘
No.’

  His one eye was watching her. It did not look angry, or accusing, but bewildered. That was worse. For a moment she could not look at him. Don't kill him! She might as well have let his throat be cut then and there. For they must kill him. They could not allow him to live. Not after all he had done. In some market square, before a thousand people …

  ‘Why – why do I have to justify myself to you, Ulfin? You would have left me to die in the rocks. You—’

  ‘But you were not – danger.’ Still he was looking at her.

  ‘Was I not? Was I not? Do you misremember, now? Or are you hiding it even from yourself?’ She rose.

  ‘Phaedra!’

  ‘Do not be afraid. I am not leaving.’ She walked to the antechamber door. Chawlin looked up. No doubt he could hear every word.

  ‘Please pass the word for Brother Martin,’ she said. When he hesitated, she added: ‘He is the castle chaplain. You will find him in the chapel below, I think.’

  She closed the door. Chawlin shouted down the corridor beyond.

  ‘Martin found me,’ she said. ‘You did not know that he had been in that place, did you? He will tell you how it was with me after you left. And then I think he should hear what you have to say’

  ‘You want a penitence? I do not. Not to a priest.’

  ‘To me, then.’

  After a long moment he said, ‘If you like.’

  The eye had turned to the ceiling. What she could see of his face was more relaxed now. Perhaps his pain was receding. Or perhaps – more probably – he was learning to bear it.

  They waited.

  After a while his head turned. ‘My men?’

  She cleared her throat. ‘I know nine are dead. There may be more. Abernay was one of them. Caw and Hob are wounded. They are in the hospital with some others. The rest are held.’ She left out the thought that some might be – probably still were – hiding from Aun's hunters in corners of the castle.

  ‘You tell Septimus – kill them.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I wish them no ill. But if any live, they will hunt you. And Orcrim. You must catch him. And—’

  ‘I want no more bloodshed, Ulfin.’