And Alymere understood. How could he not?
But he didn't want to. He wanted to live in ignorance. He wanted to be a child again. This was the truth of his happy family; of why his mother would not live in the manor and died scratching about in poverty; of why Baptiste, his father's man, filled his head with so much hate for Lowick; of why the knight had turned up at Camelot two years ago to claim his stewardship; of all of it. He was his uncle's son. His uncle — this man he had come to admire and adore in equal parts — had forced himself upon his mother.
And now, having watched his father die once before, he was going to have to witness it all over again.
He backed away from the bed.
His mind raced.
It was such a gross betrayal… how could Lowick have lived with himself for so long…? How could… and suddenly an idea struck him. He didn't want to believe it. Couldn't. Wouldn't. But once the thought had taken root it was impossible to dig it out.
But it was idiocy. He'd seen his father die, that slow collapse of the self. It hadn't been self-inflicted. It had been cruel fate. Hadn't it? Could he have poisoned himself? No. Alymere shook his head. He was jumping at shadows now. He couldn't let his imagination run away with things. Roth hadn't committed suicide, but so many things made sense now. Making sense didn't make them better, though.
He pressed his fingers to his temples, feeling the coarseness of the burned skin beneath his fingertips. He turned away. He found himself staring at the door and wishing he could just walk back through it, out into the hallway with its creaks and groans and sighs and pretend his uncle had never made his confession.
His father…
If only he could step back a few moments in time. Just two, three; to the moment before the knight unburdened himself.
He could have lived out his life without ever knowing why his mother had refused to live in the same house as the knight.
It didn't help him to know why she had chosen to live in the filth and squalor of the village hovels and scraped and scrimped for food. It didn't make the humiliation of it all any more bearable. They had lived off the charity of others for years instead of in their rightful home.
He ran his hands down his face, stretching his features like dough.
It was too much.
He knew it would help one day, but not yet. It was all too raw. Too much, too soon. For now, the only person this unburdening of the soul helped was dying and had chosen to pass the knowledge on to him like some insidious canker. It soothed the knight's conscience. Alymere understood that, but he still couldn't bear to look at the man on the bed.
He paced the room, frustration welling up inside him — and beneath it, anger. The intensity of it surprised him. His breathing came harsher and faster, each breath shallower than the last, until he had to reach out to steady himself before he swooned. His vision swam. He clenched his fist, squeezing it so tightly his dirty fingernails dug into his palm and drew blood. It trickled between his fingers and down the back of his hand as he raised his fist. Alymere couldn't feel a thing. He looked down at the blood numbly, walked across to the window and braced himself on the sill. The world outside was unchanged. How could it be so? How could it be that everything inside this room had turned the world upon its head, and yet outside nothing looked in the least bit different?
He desperately wanted to lash out and hit something, to let the rage vent out of him.
He imagined driving his fist through the streaked glass.
Words raged within his mind. So many accusations, so much hatred. He slumped forward, his forehead resting against the cold glass.
Had Alymere been in his right mind he would have recognised the source of the voice — and its bleak nature. It was the same insidious voice the book used to goad him. But he was far from his right mind.
"I have to know," he said, staring out at the world through the window, "did she… were you… was it love… or… did you?" he danced around the word, unable to bring himself say it. Alymere drew in a deep breath and forced himself to ask, "Was I conceived in violence?"
"I am sorry, son."
Alymere closed his eyes. He felt his anger thickening. He dug his fingernails into the wooden sill, not feeling the splinters.
Do it.
He heard it plainly.
Kill him. End his life in violence. Take the pillows from behind his head and smother him. He's too weak to fight you. Do it. Make his death the mirror of your birth. In violence the son is begat, in violence the father is slain.
Alymere felt every bone and fibre in his body sing to the black anger coursing through it. The voice of the book was more than merely seductive, it was empowering. It spoke to his soul in a way that only another creature born out of violence could. They were aspects of the same hate. It went beyond a disembodied whisper, becoming in that moment a distinct voice within him — not of him, but in him. It didn't stroke his fragile ego or stoke his disgust at his own origin, it merely suggested:
Offer his death as a gift to your mother's shade. Let her spectre know vengeance. Let her rest, content that the bastard who raped her is burning in Hell for his sins. You owe her that much.
And it sounded so reasonable.
Thirty-Nine
Alymere stood over his father.
It was true, the familial resemblance was strong. Stronger than it had a right to be, he thought.
"Why?" he asked. He could have been asking so many questions, but what he really wanted to know was why the dying man had chosen to burden him with his crime?
"Love," the old man said. "I loved her."
The voice of the Devil's Bible crooned inside his skull:
The sins of the father shall be visited upon the son a thousand times.
"No," he said, though whether denying the knight or his own fate he neither knew nor cared. "Don't say that. Don't lie. Not now. Don't lie to me."
Fathers shall not be put to death for their children, nor children put to death for their fathers; each is to die for his own sin.
"I want to hear the truth. If you are going to burden me with your guilt I want the whole truth. I don't want you painting yourself as a tortured hero unable to resist the maiden's charms, none of that. I want the truth."
The soul who sins is the one who will die. The son will not share the guilt of the father, nor will the father share the guilt of the son. The righteousness of the righteous man will be credited to him, and the wickedness of the wicked will be charged against him.
Kill him. Do it. Take the pillow from beneath his head and put an end to his lies.
For every living soul belongs to me, the father as well as the son — both alike belong to me. The soul who sins is the one who will die.
Tell me he did not sin, tell me he did not betray the greatest trust of all, and in that act forfeit his right to life. Tell me. No; show me.
"I loved her. Every day of my life."
"Not good enough," Alymere said, not recognising the voice that came out of his own mouth. He reached down and tugged the bolster from beneath the knight's head. He held it between them for a moment, staring down with nothing but hatred and disgust for the man in the bed. Something passed between them, unsaid. Lowick understanding what was about to happen, accepting it, even. Alymere leaned forward and pressed the bolster down over the old man's face, holding it firm as the knight's heels kicked at the mattress. His face twisted as Lowick reached up with frail hands to scratch and claw at him. He felt one of Lowick's fingernails break off in the back of his hand. The scratch wasn't deep. He watched with grim fascination as a single drop of blood broke and ran across the back of his hand and fell, staining the perfect white of the bolster. Alymere didn't stop pressing down until Sir Lowick stopped kicking and clawing at his hands and went still.
And then, with grim economy, he placed the pillow beneath the dead man's head, arranging his body so that it looked as though he had passed peacefully, closed his accusing eyes, and left the room.
It w
as an illusion. There was no peace in the death mask Sir Lowick wore — he looked as though he had just come face-to-face with the Devil himself. The horror of it was wrought plain upon his face for all to see.
And beside his head, that single spot of blood on the white pillow could so easily betray his murderer if any of the household thought to question it.
Alymere met Sir Bors upon the landing. The big man saw his expression.
"He is gone," Alymere said.
"I should pay my respects. Will you be here when I return?"
"I need air."
"That is understandable. I will find you when I am done. Then we must make arrangements for his burial."
Alymere shook his head. "No. It was his wish that he should burn."
Forty
He grabbed a flagon of mead from the dresser in the kitchen, ignoring the protestations of the cook, and uncorked it with his teeth. He took a deep swallow, smacking his lips as the honeyed drink hit the back of his throat and he felt the burn of the alcohol. He took a second and third swallow, swatting the woman away as he drained the bottle dry. Alymere looked around for a second flagon and snatched it up, pulling the cork out of its neck and throwing it at the guttering fire. He turned around and stumbled out of the kitchen, down the long passageway and out into the fresh air.
It hit him hard.
Taking another huge swig of mead from the bottle, Alymere ran toward the old sour apple tree where he had sat so many times with Gwen over the last few months, thinking to drink and lose himself there. His head was spinning, less from the drink than from what he had just done. A few steps from the apple tree's shadow he turned away. He didn't want to contaminate the place with the blackness of his soul. It was the only happy place left to him in this house of lies. Instead, he walked toward the graves of his parents on the outskirts of the estate. Lime trees interspersed with elm formed a long passage that led from the furthest edge of the lawn to the stone mausoleum on the hill. He drained the second flagon before he was halfway down the leafy tunnel, tossing it aside. The alcohol spread through his blood, thinning it and affecting his balance.
The air felt so much colder up here, and the drink offered little in the way of fortification. He looked up at the sky, thinking it really ought to have been raining. He wanted the world to be in mourning, as he was. He shivered again and wished he had thought to grab his cloak as well as the mead on the way out of the house. His throat burned and his eyes itched; he felt the mead churning around in his stomach. But it couldn't soak up the sudden surge of guilt he felt at what he had just done. He tried to justify it by reminding himself that Sir Lowick would have died in a few hours anyway, but that didn't matter. He had snuffed out his life, and in that single act had become a murderer and betrayed every promise he had ever made. He thought of the Oath the king had made him swear, and for the first time in his life couldn't remember all the tenets of it.
He was crying.
He left the tears to stain his cheeks, wearing them like his shame, and walked unsteadily toward the mausoleum. His head felt cloudy, his thoughts muggy. Snot ran from his nose and he smeared it across his face.
"Why?" he shouted at the sky.
The heavens had no answers for him.
The dead house was overgrown with vines, where nature had begun the slow process of claiming it. In a decade or more it would be invisible against the landscape, but for now it was a sinister blend of stone and vegetation. He walked slowly toward the door, not really certain what he intended to do. He could hardly push his way inside and rail at the coffins lined up within, could he?
Alymere leaned against the door and closed his eyes.
His mother and father were on the other side of the door — or so he had thought for years now, but the man buried there wasn't his father.
He pushed at the door, more out of frustration than any hope of it swinging open.
It was locked, of course, but he wasn't about to let that prevent him. He put his shoulder to it, thinking suddenly to batter it down, and rocked back on his heels, steeling himself, but at the last moment thought better of it. He had other options. The lock wasn't complex. It didn't need to be, no-one would rob the dead. Not here. They respected his family too much; they were every bit a part of the land as the mountains or the trees.
Alymere crouched and put his eye to the mechanism. He felt a wave of nausea swell up inside his throat and swallowed it down. He ran his fingers across the seam where the door met the stone wall. There was a thin gap between them, barely wide enough for him to slip the blade of his dagger into. The tip scraped across the wood at first, as he fumbled with it, but, grating against the stone and cutting free splinters from the edge of the door, he managed to work it into the gap. He worried the metal against the lock's latch, trying to pry it free again and again, until, exasperated with his lack of success, Alymere slammed his shoulder against the door, screaming out his frustration, and the metal latch gave way.
The door swung open and he tumbled inside, cursing as he sprawled across the floor. It was a drunkard's entry, lacking subtlety or grace, but he was inside. Alymere pushed himself to his feet and slowly dusted himself off. He looked around the mouldering tomb. It was too dark to see anything but the vaguest outlines of the stone sarcophagi inside. The air smelled dead. He reached out to steady himself on the lid of his mother's sarcophagus, and then recoiled as though he had just laid his hand on her cold dead face.
A thin line of light cut like a sword through the centre of the dead house. Alymere stepped into the light.
"Mother!" he shouted, surely loud enough to wake the dead. He gritted his teeth, turning in circles and listening for the slightest sound, the tiniest indication that she had heard him and was going to answer.
The dead slept on.
"How could you lie to me for so long?" This time there was no strength behind his words. He turned again, facing the stone box where his father's bones mouldered. "How could you pretend like that? How could you look at me and call me son when you knew?" And the question he really wanted to ask, "How could you not hate me?"
The wind called forlornly across the hillside, whispering around the mausoleum's door. It didn't cry his name. There was no answer. No satisfaction.
"Or did you hate me? Did you look at me and see his crime over and over again? Did you see him in my face? Is that why you gave up? Is that why you let yourself die? Was I your shame?" His voice spiralled out of control at the end. He was drunk. He was crying. He felt stupid and he felt angry. He wanted to break something. But even as he said it he realised that was his greatest fear; he couldn't bear to think that he had been a constant source of grief for the man he had idolised. "Father…" he said. Birth had nothing to do with it; Lowick wasn't his father, he never had been. He'd given up every right to fatherhood by his betrayal. Roth was his father and always would be. "I'm sorry." It sounded woefully inadequate once he said it, but it was honest.
He was a child of violence. The hatred of his very conception had imprinted on his soul. He touched the hard skin of the scars on his cheek, recalling the rage he felt trying to wrest the book from the blind monk, and worse, the thrill, the enjoyment that came with it. He was broken in some essential way and always had been, all the way back from before he was born.
He wasn't going to have some sort of revelation here. There wasn't going to be an epiphany where suddenly what had happened was understandable or excusable. And he wasn't going to find forgiveness. Instead of looking for any of that he stumbled over to his mother's tomb and knelt, pressing his forehead against the cold stone. "Sleep well, Mother. Rest easy in the knowledge that after all these years, reckoning has finally been had. He went to meet the Devil full of fear," he breathed deeply, again reliving that moment, recalling how it felt to choke the life out of Lowick. "And now he's burning."
Burning, the voice of the book echoed in his drunken mind. Burning, burning bright, it cackled. There was something manic, almost childish about its delight.
He stayed on his knees for long minutes before finally pushing himself to his feet. He lowered his head again, unable to look at the stone sarcophagi.
"You are avenged," he said, finally, realising why it had been important for him to come here. They needed to know, even if they couldn't hear him. He had to believe that somehow their bones would carry his words to their ears, wherever they were. Finally they had their justice. They could rest now. The lies were unravelled, justice delivered.
And yet he felt hollow inside.
Something in him was broken and no words were going to fix it. Words were empty. All they had ever done for Alymere was hide the truth.
He kicked out at his mother's tomb, spinning clumsily around. His arms windmilled as his balance betrayed him and he pitched backward, stumbling into the wall. He grunted and slumped, sliding down the cold stone until he sat propped up and staring at the two tombs. "I curse you," he muttered. "I curse ever knowing you. I curse ever knowing what brought me into this damned world. I wish… I wish… I…" but what did he wish for? He couldn't very well wish that they were dead, though neither did he wish that they were alive. Could he wish that they hadn't turned him into a murderer with their lies? Well, he could wish, but that wouldn't change the fact that, less than an hour ago, he had betrayed everything he believed in, because his beliefs had been ripped out from under him. It was all just words and excuses and he was tired of both of them.
His own words haunted him: A true man must never do outrage, nor murder… never will a true man stand by idly and watch such evils perpetrated by others upon the innocent, for a true man stands as last bastion for all that is just. He was caught in the contradiction of his own vow. Lowick's evil had been done against his own mother. How could he sit by idly? The man would never have gone to trial, and so would have avoided mortal justice.
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