by Tad Williams
The itching was the least of his problems. Nothing felt right, everything irritated or disturbed or frightened him. Despite the day’s heat and the sweat that dripped off him, he had moments of shivering chills. He could not stop thinking about brandy, wine, even small beer, anything that might ease the pain and numb his miserable thoughts. And on top of everything, he was still hopelessly lost in a strange, dangerous place.
Morgan had never thought much about forests except as places for hunting and the occasional drunken adventure with Astrian and Olveris, like the time they’d gone out to shoot deer in the royal Kynswood and wound up lost, staying out long after dark and only finding their way back with the help of some royal foresters who heard them arguing. But he was beginning to understand that the familiar forest beside the castle was a much different sort of place than this Aldheorte. For one thing, even in the depths of the Kynswood evidence of men was everywhere, hunter’s blinds and signs cut into tree bark, stacks of stones meant to mark a path, even the occasional charred remains of an old campfire. Here in the trackless Aldheorte nothing of mankind existed, and he encountered few other living things, just the occasional red flash of a squirrel in the treetops or the swift flutter of fleeing birds, heard more often than seen. He might have been in a new land that had never known a human footstep, yet he could not escape the sense that something—often more than one something— was watching him. He could not even say precisely what made him feel that way, but the sense of being an outsider, of being an object of interest, perhaps even to the great trees themselves, was inescapable.
He had never felt so lonely.
In the Kynswood and the parts of Hernystir’s great Circoille forest that he had seen, the woods were never entirely empty of people and human habitations. Forest Folk farmed the trees, coppiced or pollarded them, and chopped some down for fuel, leaving only their stumps jutting from the ground like headstones. The underwood was gathered by charcoal burners, the fallen mast eaten by pigs driven into the woods to feed. Everything was bent to some use. Here he walked completely alone through hot, damp, and silent dark.
By the ending of the afternoon every breath Morgan took seemed to fill his chest without clearing his thoughts, and he fought constantly against a growing sense of helpless despair. Several times, as he crested a rise to see, not a glimpse of the forest’s outskirts or a heartening sign of human existence, but only the same apparently endless expanse of trees and tangled brush still stretching before him, it was all he could do not to sink down on his knees and weep.
I can’t do that, he told himself, over and over. I’m a prince. Not allowed.
He managed to hold the tears at bay, but as the day wore down and it became more and more certain he would not reach anything like the edge of the forest before nightfall, his fear began to rise like floodwater.
“That farmer’s son took up his sword
And ran to Greenwade’s bank
Where stood the Holly King’s cruel men
In rank by heathen rank.
“The lad he stopped and raised his sword
Close by the foaming flood
And cried ‘You’ll not take Erkynland
Though the river fills with blood!’”
Morgan had wanted to sing something martial and cheering, but his voice sounded small and pointless, and—worse—seemed to offend the eternal quiet of the forest, so he gave up before he was halfway through “The Dolshire Farmer’s Son.” Soon, though, he could not have sung even if he had wanted to. Instead, it was all he could do to keep picking his way through the undergrowth, to ignore the countless bloody scrapes from thorny shrubs overhanging the few animal paths, to keep putting one foot in front of the other.
He spent what must have been an hour in a dense grove of towering, ancient linden trees, some straight and narrow as guards at attention, others so thick with their own new growth that the original trunks crouched in the center like silent grandfathers nodding by the family hearth. When he finally crossed into more open forest he paused to rest. The sun was setting now in the west—it had to be the west, or nothing meant anything—and the air was finally starting to cool. He was putting his cloak back on when he noticed a particular ash tree with a wide, angled trunk, as though it had grown in the shadows of some earlier, now vanished giant tree and had stretched toward the sunlight. Morgan could not help thinking, it seemed . . . familiar.
He walked a little closer, then from side to side, and could not dispel the feeling. Something pale on the ground near it caught his eye. It was the stem and topmost bit of an apple. Ants had covered it and the flesh had turned brown, but he knew even before he saw the print of a boot heel pressed into the loamy soil beside it that it was his own, the remnants of his long-ago morning meal.
He had come back to the place where he had started.
Morgan collapsed then, kneeled with his forehead pressed against the ground, and finally wept. The sun was a liar and a traitor, trying to murder him as surely as a knife-wielding assassin. The entire forest hated him, and now he hated it as well. He had walked all day and gone precisely nowhere.
* * *
• • •
He slept that night—or tried to—in the same tree that had sheltered him the night before. Things moved in the dark forest all around him, and he could hear the murmur of what almost sounded like voices. When he sat upright, heart beating fast, he saw three pairs of large round eyes catch the moonlight, shining on a high branch as they looked down on him, but whatever they were, they kept their distance. After that, Morgan did his best to ignore the rustling and soft murmurs.
The stars he could see through the trees seemed wrong, too—stretched or even unfamiliar shapes in what should have been familiar skies. Where the bright orb of the Lamp should have smoldered in the firmament hung a constellation like a spider or a crab instead, a central bright fire surrounded by radiating lines of lesser fires. It seemed even the sky had turned against him.
Morgan wept again, helpless to stop, but did his best to do it quietly, not wanting to draw the attention of some predator. He no longer feared any human searchers—he would have welcomed something so ordinary. But small noises escaped despite his most powerful efforts, and in the darkness of surrounding trees the invisible watchers murmured softly to each other, as if discussing what strange thing this alien creature might do next.
2
A Wooden Face
“Is that my mother?” Lillia asked, staring wide-eyed at the effigy atop the casket. The image’s hands were clasped piously against its breast, the wooden face as rigidly serene as that of any carved saint.
Simon wasn’t surprised by his granddaughter’s question. He too found his daughter-in-law Idela’s wooden likeness more than a little disturbing, with its empty expression and painted eyes that stared up at nothing. “No, little one,” he said at last. “It’s a carving. Like a doll.”
“Why did they make a doll of her?”
“To show what she looked like when she was alive.”
“Does she look different now?”
Many days had passed since Princess Idela’s death, so the king did not much want to think about it. “It doesn’t matter. Your mother’s soul is in Heaven. You’ll see her again someday, and she will look just as she always did.”
“What if I don’t go to Heaven?”
“I’m sure you will.” He looked around. Other than the honor guard of soldiers stationed along the walls, the royal chapel was empty. A long line of nobles and important commoners had passed through in the previous two days, but it seemed that everyone who wanted to pay their respects had done so. Simon felt a dark astonishment that a woman as full of lively opinions as Idela should lie so long in a covered box, so still, so silent.
“Murderer!” someone groaned—not loudly, but in the nearly empty chapel it was as surprising as a shout and Simon jumped despite himself.
“A murderer!” said Osric again. He did not even seem to notice his granddaughter Lillia or the king, but stumbled past them and sank to his knees in front of the bier. “A murderer walks among us. Walking free! Killed my only d-daughter!”
Pasevalles’ face was full of both sympathy and distaste. The duke was sweaty, and the stains on his mourning garments suggested he had not changed them in several days. “I’m sorry, Majesty,” he said to Simon, then noticed Lillia and blanched. “By our Lord, I am truly most sorry. His Grace is distraught. He has had too much to drink as well—”
“I can see that,” said Simon, but gently. He had not expected Osric, a bluff fellow with little room for sentiment, to be so badly affected by Idela’s death. Simon looked down at Lillia, who was watching her grandfather’s heaving shoulders with horrified fascination. “But why does he keep saying that word? I do not like to hear such things in front of—” he gestured to Lillia. “Can you help him out again?”
Pasevalles grimaced. “I can only try, Majesty.” But his renewed attempts to get the duke’s attention were not even acknowledged.
“Come along, Lillia,” Simon told her. “Your Grandfather Osric is very sad. Let him be alone.”
“But he’ll see Mother in Heaven too, won’t he?”
“Of course. But he’s still sad that he’ll have to wait. We all are.”
When he got to the doorway of the chapel, Simon left Lillia there for a moment and went back to talk to Pasevalles. Osric was still on his knees before his daughter’s casket.
“Can you watch over him? I fear for him in this mood, Pasevalles.”
“I will do my best, Majesty. His guards will help me, I’m sure. We will not let him do himself any harm. I think it will pass.”
“What does he mean with all this talk of murderers?” Simon spoke softly so Lillia would not hear. “It seems plain that she fell down the stairs. I think it was caused by this terrible custom of wearing such long dresses as the women of this court do. Why they are not all falling down every day, I cannot imagine . . .”
“I do not know where this evil fancy of his comes from, Sire. As you see, my lord Osric is drunk and has not slept well for days. I have sent a coach for his wife, Duchess Nelda, but it is several days travel to Wentmouth and back.”
“God our Ransomer, how I wish his good woman had been here in the Hayholt,” Simon said. “How I wish Miriamele were here too, now that I speak of absent wives. Still no word from her?”
“You will know the instant any word arrives, Majesty.”
“Even if it is the middle of the night.”
“Yes, Majesty. Of course.”
“Good. I have never had to write such a terrible letter. It brought back . . . it brought back such painful memories.” He patted his lord chancellor’s arm. “Bless you, Pasevalles. You have been a great help to me at this dreadful time.”
“Thank you, my king.” Pasevalles bowed deeply. “I only do what any loyal servant would.”
* * *
• • •
Countess Rhona—the Queen’s close friend and the throne’s trusted counsel—asked him quietly, “How is our wee girl today?”
“Asking questions about death,” Simon replied as he watched his granddaughter walk in slow ovals, following the designs on the tiled hallway floor. “I have told her everything I know, that Idela is in Heaven, that she will see her mother again.”
“She needs to think about something else,” said Rhona. “I will arrange for her to play with some of the other children—that will take her mind off things.”
“I’m not sure,” the king said. “I’ve never met a child so hard to distract as Lillia.”
Rhona laughed, but it had a sorrowful edge. “In that way, she is much like her late mother.”
“Duke Osric worries me too. Now he is talking as though Idela was murdered.”
Rhona waved it away. “I would not let that prey on you too much. Hard, strong men like Osric do not bend well when things go wrong. Sometimes the only way they can survive is to break and then try to heal the broken place.”
Simon nodded. “There is something to that, I think.” He shook his head vigorously, as if to free himself from a clinging cobweb. “I have a kingdom to see to, dear, good Rhona. Keep a close eye on the child, will you? I cannot help fearing how clear-eyed and sensible she is being, at a time when her mother has just died.”
“Not to speak ill of the dead—” Rhona looked around to make sure none could overhear—“but her mother was never so close to Lillia in the first place.”
Simon made the sign of the Tree. “Please. Just watch over my granddaughter, Countess, and please do not say anything like that to her.”
Rhona smiled sady. “I would never say such a thing to a child, Majesty.”
When she had taken Lillia away, already fending off the girl’s questions about the decomposition of the dead, Simon made his way back to the retiring room that served as a place of work when he did not wish to brave the usual din of the Throne Hall with its crush of courtiers and petitioners. He was weary and considering a private nap, so he was a little annoyed to find Tiamak, his Wrannaman friend and counselor, waiting there for him.
“How is your granddaughter, Simon? Is she bearing up?”
“Better than I am.” He groaned as he sagged onto a chair. “This has quite unmanned me. And that it should happen the very moment Miriamele is too far away to do anything. And we sent Morgan away as well! My poor grandson does not even know his mother is dead!”
“You sent the prince away to meet with the Sithi, an important task, and the queen agreed—although I admit that it was not with much grace. Do not be too hard on yourself.”
Simon sighed. “And now Duke Osric is staggering around the Hayholt, stinking of wine and raving that Idela was murdered. What next? Will Eahlstan’s dragon come back to life and burn us all? Will Pryrates reappear too, and the lights of his tower glow red again at night?”
Tiamak did his best to suppress a shudder. “Please, Majesty—Simon—do not say such things. I do not believe you can summon bad fortune simply by speaking of it, but I doubt that your god or any of mine like to be challenged.”
The king slumped back against his high wooden chair. Tiamak took up a seat on the far side of the writing table. “In any case,” Simon said, “I do not want Osric crying ‘Murder!’ up and down the hallways of my castle. Nothing good will come of it, and it makes people fearful. That is the last thing we need when we already fear an attack by the Norns.”
“We are preparing for the possibility of an attack,” said Tiamak carefully. “We do not know anything about their plans for certain yet.”
“Now you sound like Pasevalles.” Simon scowled. “Caution, caution, make no assumptions. Am I the only person who remembers what those creatures are like?”
“I do not think so, Simon. Many faced that terror with you. They all remember, I do not doubt.”
The king looked at his counselor with irritation. “Do you mean to shame me, Tiamak?”
Tiamak shook his head, and Simon saw streaks of gray in his friend’s dark hair, something he had not noticed before. “No, truly, I do not mean anything like that. I too am frustrated and worried, I have problems of my own. But I won’t burden you. Instead, let us talk about important matters of the kingdom.”
“Such as?”
“For one thing, Simon, you have requests from both the Northern Alliance and the Perdruinese syndicate to rule on shipping rights in the waters between Erkynland and Nabban. Countess Yis
sola of Perdruin has even demanded an audience.”
He groaned again. “Is she coming here? I do not need such aggravation.”
“So do not invite her.”
“I won’t. Merciful Elysia, people say she’s a hard, obstinate creature, and I need none of that. What else?”
Tiamak pointed to a large stack of parchments on the corner of the table. “All of this, my old friend. Did you miss it? I put it there for you to look at this morning.”
“I woke up to my granddaughter poking me in the chest. What sort of guards I have, I don’t understand—it was plainly an assault of the sort they’re supposed to protect me from. She wanted to go to the chapel and pray that Idela would remember her daughter’s saint’s day even now she’s in Heaven, because she’d promised Lillia a new dress as a gift.”
Tiamak nodded, smiling. “Your granddaughter is a strong-willed child.”
“Isgrimnur had a friend named Einskaldir who loved to kill enemies like most of us love eating supper. He had a weaker will than Lillia.”
Tiamak’s smile slipped a little. “Ah, you have reminded me. I put it off until we had discussed the most pressing matters, but now I need to speak of it. Of Idela’s death, I mean.”
This time Simon’s groan was deep and heartfelt. “By the good God, what now? I confess I did not love her as much as I could have, but I was a good father-in-law to her, I think, and I have done everything I could to treat her with proper respect and mourning. What have I failed to do?”
“It’s not you, Majesty—Simon. It’s only that I have a few questions of my own about her actual death.”
“You too, Tiamak?”