The King's Road

by Cecelia Holland

  *

  “He doesn’t seem to be sick at all,” Yusuf said. He patted the baby’s forehead. “I don’t think he got very wet — he was scared, mostly.”

  Federigo shrugged. “Good. Then we can get going.” Maria said, “But I’m so tired, I didn’t get any sleep at all last night.”

  Yusuf made a face. “There’s a village up ahead, isn’t there, Little Red? Come on, Maria, we’ll go to the village and maybe someone will give us a place to spend the night. Let’s go, up on your feet.”

  “My feet hurt,” Maria said. She stuck out her bare feet, covered with dust. “Look how dirty I am.”

  Federigo danced with rage. Kneeling, Yusuf scrubbed Maria’s feet with his hands. “We can bathe in the village. Now, come on, Maria, we have to go sometime, why not now?”

  Maria sniffed and turned her eyes on Federigo. “I like you better than him,” she said to Yusuf. “You’re nice to me.” She pulled her feet under her and stood up.

  “I really don’t care whether you like me,” Federigo said, “as long as you start walking.” He glared at her, and she glared back. They started down the road, Maria leaning on Yusuf’s shoulder, while Yusuf carried the baby.

  After the storm, the air tasted cleaner and sweeter, and the sky almost glowed, it was so blue. Federigo was hungry again, but now he was used to not eating. He glanced out to sea — he’d seen a ship that morning, and he was wondering if it were Hadji-Mustafa’s. Durante would be learning to make sail, to steer and pull an oar and navigate. Durante’s feet wouldn’t burn and his stomach growl; Durante was safe and warm at night. Except that Federigo didn’t like the idea of being on the sea during a storm. The waves had looked as if they could have broken up a ship in moments, torn it to bits and flung the wreckage on the shore. There’s good and bad in everything, as it says in books, he thought.

  The road slanted down under his feet. He found a long stick lying beside the road and picked it up to use as a walking staff. Walking was boring — he was sick of it. When I am grown up and really King, he thought, I’ll never walk anywhere; I’ll always ride.

  That reminded him of Diepold. They had to be careful in the village; they had to watch for knights, for people staring at him as if they recognized him. He twitched all over. Good and bad in everything. If you weren’t starving, you were hiding and running. He glanced at Maria, who was still leaning on Yusuf.

  They walked down a steep slope and around a bend in the road, and there ahead of them lay the village, only a little way off.

  Yusuf gave a glad shout. “Little Red, look.”

  “I see.” Federigo walked over to him. Putting his mouth close to Yusuf’s ear, he whispered, “Maybe you’d better go in without me, and I’ll meet you on the other side. Can you beg some food?”

  Yusuf frowned, puzzled. “But why — oh.” He glanced at Maria. “Of course. Well, I can try, anyhow. There might be Saracens there, I’ll beg alms from them. Where shall we meet you?”

  “I’ll be on the road just the other... Wait.” He stepped back, looking behind them; a cart was making its way down the slope, piled high with bolts of cloth and bales of wool. The drover walked along beside his ox, guiding it with a long stick. Federigo shaded his eyes to study the man, while Yusuf and Maria sat down in the grass at the edge of the road.

  “Good morning, Master,” Federigo said, when the cart was drawing up abreast of them.

  “Good morning,” the drover said, eying them suspiciously. He called to his ox and yanked on the line that ran to the ring in the beast’s nose, and the ox stopped.

  “Can you tell us the name of this village?” Federigo asked, as politely as he could sound.

  “That’s San Sebastiano.” The drover eyed Yusuf and Maria. “Where are you bound?”

  “There, for now. At least, my friends are. For the mercy of Jesus, could you take them with you? We don’t know this region very well.”

  The drover pulled at his lower lip. His small dark eyes flickered from Federigo to the two sitting by the road. After a moment, he said, “The girl can ride in the cart, if she wants. No sense in making a mother and her child walk. The boy can follow. Where are you going, redhead?”

  “There,” Federigo said, waving vaguely toward the hills behind them. “Thank you, Master. God have mercy on you for having mercy on them.” Turning, he ran off into the field behind the road, as if he actually were going someplace. When he’d gone a little distance, he wheeled and watched.

  The drover and Yusuf were helping Maria into the cart; she settled herself comfortably on the pile of wool and cloth. Talking energetically, Yusuf helped the drover get the ox moving again and walked along beside him, nodding and gesturing with both hands. Federigo grinned. Yusuf would talk the drover into getting them something to eat and maybe even a place to stay. If not, they could always hang around the square.

  He started off at a dogtrot toward the village, swerving so that he could sneak in through the back streets. He knew the name San Sebastiano — there was a village by that name only a day’s journey from Palermo. While he ran, he glanced critically at the sun. The bulk of the day lay still before him. He would wait until dark to go into the village; and when he did, he had some things to find out. After he’d crossed the field, when he was near enough to San Sebastiano to smell the stench of all villages — garbage, cooking fires, the harbor — he curled up under a tree, shaded his eyes from the sun with his arms, and fell asleep. Tonight, he had many things to do.

  Chapter Seven

  TROTTING through alleys, leaping mounds of trash, sneaking around corners, Federigo made his way toward the square. It was full dark. Most of the houses he’d passed were shuttered and locked, and he’d heard someone snoring when he walked under a window. At the edge of the square, he stopped and leaned against the stone wall of the next building; the wall was still warm from the day’s heat.

  In the center of the square, a fountain bubbled and spouted water in gentle arcs into the air. The refuse of a market day covered the cobblestones in orange peels, leaves from vegetables already limp and brown, and patches of hay. Under a palm tree near the fountain, a loose goat was eating whatever it could find; a rope trailed from its neck, chewed through or broken. There was no sign of people.

  Directly across the way stood a large stone church. Federigo ran through the middle of the square and up the short flight of steps to the door, which stood ajar. Easing his way through it, he looked quickly all around. Candles burned before the altar; a huge crucifix hung above them, half-buried in shadow. Two old women were kneeling near the front of the church, but one was snoring. Whatever vigil they kept, it was less important than their sleep. He backed out onto the porch again and walked its length, jumped down to the ground, and loped around behind the church.

  As he’d suspected, there was a stable there. He’d seen no building in the town fine enough to house knights; but wherever they slept, they’d keep their horses here. He groped around the long, low stable wall until he found a window, and stood on his toes to look in.

  All the stalls were empty except one, which held a light palfrey, no knight’s horse. On a pile of straw near the front door two people lay sleeping. Yusuf and Maria. Federigo snorted. If he’d stayed outside the town waiting for them, he’d have waited all night and well into the day. Yusuf was lazy, too. Letting himself down from the window, Federigo looked around for another way to find out if there were knights in the town.

  On another side of the square was a stone building that looked very official; a porch ran its whole front length, covered with climbing vines and flowers. He started toward it, but before he’d gone halfway across the square toward it, he heard soft giggles and the murmur of voices behind the veil of flowers. There were boys and girls in there, courting. Federigo drifted off into the darkness. It was time to find something to eat.

  He walked down a side street, following the information of his nose: someone up that way had baked bread recently. It was darker there than in the square,
the buildings shut off the light from the sky, and the eaves of the roofs overhung the street. He caught the dull gleam of an open window ahead, and walked faster.

  “Federigo.”

  The hair on the back of his neck prickled up, he stopped dead. In the dark alleyway just behind him, there was a laugh as soft and cracked as the rattle of dry leaves over pebbles.

  “Federigo.”

  “Who’s there?” He peered into the darkness, but he saw no one.

  “Come and find out, Federigo.”

  His heart was hammering in his side, and he dried his sweating palms on his shirt. I might go in there and... He thought of knives in the dark, of demons in the gloom of the alleyway. I know there are no ghosts. But his feet wanted to run down the cobbled street to the safety of the square, to the chatter of the voices behind the veil of flowers. Slowly, unwillingly, he crept into the alleyway.

  “I won’t hurt you,” the old, dry voice crooned. “Come and find me, Federigo.”

  A fat furry body scurried away through heaps of rubbish, and something clattered in the dark. He smelled garlic and rotting garbage. Suddenly, a few steps in front of him, a tiny blue light glowed and grew stronger and revealed the seamed, wizened face of a witch.

  Federigo stopped dead. He’d seen a witch only once before — one of the old, old women from the hills who knew which herbs made you better and which made you die, and who cast spells, lifted spells, and told the future. He wasn’t sure he believed in them, but he was very sure he was afraid of them. She grinned at him — she had only one tooth in her lower jaw, like a fang, and her gray hair stuck out in all directions. She stretched out one hand.

  “Come, come. Who could harm the King of Sicily? Are you not an Emperor’s son? Sit down, and I will tell you what you have to know before you reach Palermo.”

  Trembling all over, he sank down on his heels. The old woman put down her lamp between them. She wore black rags, and around her neck hung strings and strings of amulets sewn into little leather pouches. While he stared, amazed, she reached across the lamp and took his hands.

  “Are you afraid of witches, Federigo?”

  “No.”

  “Do you believe in witches, Federigo?”

  “No,” he whispered.

  She laughed. “When you were born,” she said, in her whispering voice, “a monk in the north had a vision during the night. He was a Christian, but still he had a vision of the future. And he said that you would destroy everything that stood against you. But he didn’t know then that your father and mother would die and leave you alone.”

  Federigo said evenly, “Whenever princes are born, people say strange things.”

  “But not what they said of you, Federigo. Before you were born they said that you were the long-awaited child who would bring forth and rule over the new world.”

  All along Federigo’s back, the slain grew cold with an ominous prickling. In the blue light the face of the witch seemed to change shapes, one moment young and smooth, and the next even older than when he’d seen her first, like a skull. He shuddered. In her grip his hands tensed. But she was much stronger than he’d imagined, she held him fast.

  “The lamb torn but not destroyed, the lion among his own, and still, you are a little boy, a ragged little boy with long red hair, running off on adventures. The girl with you, Federigo, and her baby, you must take them home. All the way home, to the Street of the Jars, in Palermo.”

  “How did you know where—”

  “I know what it is given to me to know. I know what I must know.” She laughed so softly he could hardly hear it. “The girl is in your keeping, and you must carry it through, or all your life you will carry nothing through to its end.”

  That made sense. He nodded, his eyes intent on her face.

  “You will live a strange and terrible life, Federigo. You shall sail over the sea, and journey into the dark forests of the north, you shall reign over many peoples. You shall have many women, and many men will seek your favor, even kings. But you shall trust few, and love fewer still, and fewest of all shall be those who will love you. You will never be alone, and yet all your life you will be lonely.”

  “Tell me,” he said, “that I will be a great king, and that won’t matter.”

  “It will matter,” she said. “It will matter. You will walk through the world in such splendor that all those around you will be struck with awe and amazement, but none shall understand you. You will have many enemies, none of them worthy of you. Every time you strike against one, you will defeat him, but a dozen more will attack you from behind. All your life you will be victorious, but when you die they will sweep aside your victories and all you have won and try to destroy it, and not for many, many years will the world understand what you have done. Are you frightened?”

  “No. No.”

  “You shall be more than a great king, Federigo. You shall be a great Emperor; and while you are still in the prime of your life, men will speak of you as The Wonder of the World.”

  He laughed, overjoyed. “I don’t care, then — I don’t care what else happens.”

  “You will.” The voice of the witch seemed to fade, to go out like a candle, and her lamp dimmed. “You will care, much, much later.” Her hand passed over the lamp, and the blue light flashed and vanished. Federigo cried out in surprise and stood up. Stumbling in the darkness, he searched for her, but she was gone, and the lamp was gone, and all that he found was a heap of dusty rags and a cat that yowled at him, leaped up onto a rooftop, and disappeared into the night.

  *

  “Yusuf?”

  “Unnnnh?”

  “Wake up — we have to go.” Federigo thought of telling him about the witch, but just thinking about it kept him quiet. He wasn’t really sure it had happened, somehow. He wasn’t sure how to think about it. He pushed Yusuf until he got to his feet, stretching and yawning. Maria rolled over, comfortable in the straw.

  “We’re only a day’s walk from Palermo,” Yusuf said. “Only a day away.”

  “Are we starting off again?” Maria said, whining. She picked up the baby. “Let me sleep a little more.”

  Yusuf snorted. “I’m so sick of her complaining, Little Red — she can get home by herself from here, can’t she?”

  “No. Come on, Maria, get up.”

  “You’re horrible. You’re the most wretched little beast of a boy—” Maria grunted and stood up, hugging the baby. “You’re wearing me to the bone. Look, it isn’t even light out yet.”

  “Have you eaten?” Yusuf said. “We have some bread and a little cheese.”

  “Somebody left pies out to cool. I ate for half the night.” He thought, I’ll never steal anything else, I promise. Unless I have to, of course. He shrugged. “Did you see any knights?”

  “No, but the drover says they’ve been riding up and down the highroad for days. They are saying that you’re dead. They’re saying Diepold murdered you.”

  “Ssssh.” Federigo glanced at Maria. “Come on.”

  They went out of the stable into the clear, rosy light of the first dawn and walked through the square toward the road to Palermo. Yusuf stretched his arms over his head.

  “I can’t wait to get home. Wait until I tell my father where I’ve been. What are you going to tell Diepold?”

  Federigo sighed. “Nothing. I’ll just take my shirt off and bend over and let him whip me until his arm falls off. Did you hear anything about Walter of Brienne?”

  “No, but the Papal Legate has gone to Rome again.”

  “Good. I’m safe, then.”

  They passed the last houses of the village and walked down the road with plowed fields on one side and the sea on the other. Fishing boats rocked on the water just beyond the surf, with men scrambling around their sterns rigging nets. Yusuf took out his bread and ate some of it, breaking off bits of the soft inside for Maria. In the sling on her hip, the baby slept soundly, his fist pressed against his cheek.

  Yusuf began to sing a Saracen song
; he drew out the end of each note into a flourish and beat time with his hands.

  Federigo thought, the man in the pleasure house who wanted me dead said I should never have been born. The witch said I was born to rule over a new world. Which one is right? He wanted to believe the witch — he wanted desperately to grow up into the man she had spoken of, walking in splendor, the awe of the world. If he wanted it hard enough, maybe it would come true. If he wanted it hard enough that he’d do anything to get it, maybe it would come true. A strange and terrible life, she had said. He shuddered.

  “Yusuf, do you believe in witchcraft?”

  “Of course. Witches know things other people can’t know.”

  Maybe.

  *

  At noon, they came up to a fork in the road, marked by a tall stone cross. Around its foot stood three horses. Federigo hung back, shy, and wished he had a hood to cover his red hair. The man and woman who sat in the saddles of two of the horses were noble — he could tell by their fine clothes and the sleekness of their horses. A second man was fixing the girth of the lady’s horse. Federigo stayed behind Maria, keeping his head down.

  “Good day, my lords,” Yusuf said, bowing. He stuck his hand out. “In the name of God—”

  The man on the horse took a coin from his purse and threw it to him. While Yusuf picked up the coin from the dust, the mounted man turned to the lady and said, “There are beggars everywhere, these days.”

  The lady had been staring at Federigo, trying to make him out behind the bulk of Maria’s skirts. Bending toward her lord, she murmured something, and Federigo tensed to run. But the lord only snorted.