by Jo Walton
“Thanks to you,” he said, “the worst we have to fear is a cold night under canvas! What an adventure! How glad I am that I came out hunting, and how sorry I feel for those of the court who stayed behind in the Golden City with nothing to stir their blood.” For the king was a young man, and he was bored by the weighty affairs of state.
The indispensable counsellor inclined his head modestly. “I was but taking thought for Your Majesty’s comfort,” he said.
Before he or the king could say more, the king’s bard, who was looking off through the trees, caught sight of a gleam of light far off among them. “What’s that?” he asked, pointing.
The company all turned to look, with much champing of bits but not many stamped hooves, for the horses were tired at the end of such a day. “It is a light, and that means there must be habitation,” the king said, with a little less confidence than he might have said it in any other part of the kingdom. The Great Forest had a certain reputation for unchanciness.
“I don’t know of any habitation in this direction,” said the master of the hunt, squinting at the light.
“It will be some rude peasant dwelling, rat ridden and flea infested, far less comfortable than your own pavilions,” the counsellor said, stroking his fine white beard. “Let us set them up here and pay no attention to it.”
“Why, where’s your spirit of adventure?” the bard asked the counsellor. The king smiled, for the bard’s question was much after his own heart.
The king raised his voice. “We will ride on to discover what that gleam of light might be.” In a lower tone, as the company prepared to ride off, he added to the counsellor, “Even if you are right, and no doubt you are, at the very least we will be able to borrow fire from them, which will make our camp less cold.”
“Very wise, Your Majesty,” the counsellor said.
They rode off through the twilight forest. They were a fine company, all dressed for hunting, not for court, but in silks and satins and velvets and rare furs, with enough gold and silver about them and their horses to show that they were no ordinary hunters. The ladies among them rode astride, like the men, and all of them, men and women, were beautiful, for the king was young and as yet unmarried and would have nobody about him who did not please his eye. Their horses were fine beasts, with arching necks and smooth coats, though too tired now to make the show they had made when they had ridden out that morning. The last rays of the sun had gilded them in the clearing, touching the golden circlet the king wore about his dark unruly locks; now they went forward into deepening night. The sky above them was violet, and a crescent moon shone silver like a sword blade. The first stars were beginning to pierce the sky when they splashed across a brook and saw a little village.
“What place is this?” the king asked the master of the hunt.
“I don’t know, sire. Unless we have come sadly astray it isn’t marked on my map,” the master of the hunt said.
“We must have come astray then,” the king said, laughing. “I don’t think the worse of you for it, for we were following a hart through the forest, and though we didn’t kill it, I can’t think when I had a better day’s sport. But look, man, this is a stone-built village with a mill and a blacksmith’s forge, and an inn. This is a snug little manor. A road runs through it. Why, it must pay quite five pounds of gold in taxes.”
The counsellor smiled to himself, for he had been the king’s tutor when he was a prince, and was glad to see he remembered the detail of such matters.
The master of the hunt shook his head. “I am sure Your Majesty is right, but I can’t find it on my map.”
“Let us go on and investigate,” the bard said.
It had been the red gleam of the forge they had seen from far off, but it was the lamplight spilling out of the windows of the inn that the bard waved toward.
“Such a place will not hold all of us,” the king said. “Have the tents set up for us to sleep, but let us see if we can get a hot supper from this place, whatever it is.”
“A hot supper and some country ale,” the bard said.
“There are three white cows in the water meadow beside the stream,” the master of the hunt pointed out. “The country cheese in these parts is said to be very good.”
“If you knew what parts these were, no doubt my counsellor could tell us all about their cheeses,” the king said.
They dismounted and left the horses to the care of those who were to set up the tents. The four of them strode into the village to investigate. The bard brought his little harp, the counsellor brought his purse, the master of the hunt brought a short sword on his belt, but the king brought nothing.
The inn was warm and friendly and seemed to contain the whole population of the village. Those who were not there came in as soon as the news came to them of the king’s arrival. The counsellor negotiated with the innkeeper and soon arranged that food and drink could be provided for the whole company, and beds for the king and the ladies, if the ladies did not mind crowding in together. The master of the hunt pronounced the ale excellent, and the villagers began to beg the bard to play. The rest of the company, having set up the tents and rubbed down the horses, began to trickle into the inn, and the place became very full.
The king wandered around the inn, looking at everything. He examined the row of strange objects that sat on the mantelpiece, he peered out through the diamond-paned windows, he picked up the scuttle beside the fire and ran his hand along the wood of the chair backs, worn smooth by countless customers. The villagers felt a little shy of him, with his crown and his curling black beard, and did not dare to strike up conversation. For his own part he felt restless and was not sure why. He felt as if something was about to happen. Until the bard started to play, he thought he was waiting for music, and until he was served a plate of cold pork and hot cabbage he thought he was waiting for his dinner, but neither of these things satisfied him. Neither the villagers nor his own company delighted him. The villagers seemed simple, humble, rustic; their homespun clothes and country accents grated on him. In contrast, the gorgeous raiment and noble tones of his company, which were well enough in the palace or even his hunting lodge, seemed here overrefined to the point of decadence.
At length the door at the back opened and a girl came in, clad all in grey and carrying a basket. The master of the hunt had called for cheese, and she was the girl who kept the cows and made the cheese. She was plain almost to severity, with her hair drawn back from her face, but she was young and dignified, and when the king saw her he knew that she was what he had been waiting for, not just that night but for a long time. He had been picking at his dinner, but he stood when he saw her. There was a little circle of quiet around the corner where he sat, for his own people had seen that he did not want conversation. The girl glanced at him and nodded, as if to tell him to wait, and went with her basket to the innkeeper and began to negotiate a price for her cheese. The king sat down and waited meekly.
When she had disposed of her cheeses, the girl in grey picked her way through the room and sat down opposite the king. “I have been waiting for you all my life. I will marry you and make you my queen,” he said. He had been thinking all the time she was at the bar what he would say when she came up to him, and getting the words right in his mind. For the first time he was glad he was king, that he was young and handsome, that he had so much to offer her.
“Oh, I know that story,” she said. She took his ale tankard and breathed on it, and passed it back to him. He looked into it and saw the two of them tiny and distant, in the palace, quarrelling. “You’d pile me with jewels and I’d wither in that palace. You’d want me to be something I’m not. I’m no queen. I’m no beauty, no diplomat. I speak too bluntly. You’d grow tired of me and want a proper queen. I’d go into a decline and die after I had a daughter, and you’d marry again and give her a stepmother who’d persecute her.”
“But I have loved you since I first saw you,” the king insisted, although her words and the visio
n had shaken him. He took a deep draft of the ale to drive them away.
“Love? Well now. You feel what you feel, and I feel what I feel, but that doesn’t mean you have to fit us into a story and wreck both our lives.”
“Then you . . .” The king hesitated. “I know that story. You’re the goddess Sovranty, whom the king meets disguised in a village, who spends one night with him and confirms his sacred kingship.”
She laughed. “You still don’t see me. I’m no goddess. I know that story though. We’d have our one night of passion, which would confirm you in your crown, and you’d go back to your palace, and nine months later I’d have a baby boy. Twenty years after that he’d come questing for the father he never had.” She took up a twist of straw that was on the table and set it walking. The king saw the shape of a hero hidden among the people, then the straw touched his hand and fell back to the table in separate strands.
“Tell me who you are,” the king said.
“I’m the girl who keeps the cows and makes the cheeses,” she said. “I’ve lived in this village all my life, and in this village we don’t have stories, not real stories, just things that come to us out of the twilight now and then. My parents died five years ago when the fever came, and since then I’ve lived alone. I’m plain, and plainspoken. I don’t have many friends. I always see too much, and say what I see.”
“And you wear grey, always,” the king said, looking at her.
She met his eyes. “Yes, I do, I wear grey always, but how did you know?”
“When you’re a king, it’s hard to get away from being part of a story,” he said. “Those stories you mentioned aren’t about us. They’re about a king and a village girl and a next generation of stories. I’d like to make a new story that was about you and me, the people we really are, getting to know each other.” He put out his hand to her.
“Oh, that’s hard,” she said, ignoring his hand. “That’s very hard. Would I have to give up being a silver salmon leaping in the stream at twilight?”
“Not if that’s who you are,” he said, his green eyes steady on hers.
“Would I have to stop being a grey cat slipping through the dusky shadows, seeing what’s to be seen?”
“Not if that’s who you are,” he said, unwavering.
“Would I have to stop being a grey girl who lives alone and makes the cheeses, who walks along the edges of stories but never steps into them?”
“Not if that’s who you are,” said the king. “But I’m asking you to step into a new story, a story that’s never been before, to shape it with me.”
“Oh, that’s hard,” she said, but she put her hand on the king’s hand where it lay on the rough wooden table. “You’ve no sons, have you?”
“No sons, but I have two younger brothers,” he said, exhilaration sweeping through him.
She looked around the room. “Your fine bard is singing a song, and your master of the hunt is eating cheese. Your counsellor is taking counsel with the innkeeper, and no doubt hearing all about the affairs of the village. Your lords and ladies are drinking and eating and patronising the villagers. If you really want to give up being a king and step into a new story with me, now is the time.”
“What do I have to do?” he asked, very quietly, then she pulled his hand and for a moment he felt himself falling.
It was a little while before anyone noticed he had gone, and by then nobody remembered seeing the two cats slipping away between the tables, one grey and one a long-haired black with big green eyes.
JANE AUSTEN
TO CASSANDRA
DEAREST CASSANDRA,
We thought to have removed to Winchester by now, but Eliza has taken a chill and so we stay here another week, and you should not expect us to join you until after Whitsun.
Let me explain to you the advantages of remaining longer in this neighbourhood—there are two tolerable walks, one linen draper, with very poor stock, our apartments remain as unsuitable as I explained in my last letter, and Aunt Tilson has not learned the knack of keeping good servants. Nevertheless, these little deficits are made up by the company. Aunt Tilson chatters on with perpetual good cheer, little Anna is learning her scales and should be a fine singer one day since she practices constantly, and the curate does not call above thrice on any usual day.
My only comfort is that you should not have to endure all this, though if you were here to laugh with me I might be more comfortable. Do tell me how you all go on at home.
We saw the gazetted beauty Miss Pelham in church on Sunday, but did not speak. I did not think so much of her looks as they are esteemed, her curls were crimped very tight and the fruit seemed to weigh down her hat sadly. Her manner was very gracious, bowing to left and right. There is no doubt she knows her reputation and means to live up to it, and I dare swear she will have a husband by this day twelvemonth.
The weather remains very dirty, with much rain, varied by high gales. No surprise Eliza succumbed to a chill, it is rather a wonder the rest of us have managed to find health thus far supportable. I did warn Eliza to put on her wrapper, and that she should not linger out of doors on our way home from church, but she paid no attention, and this is the inevitable result.
I should close now so that Iris might get it into the post so it might reach you before you begin to expect us and then be disappointed.
Yours affectionately,
J. Austen
P.S. If you should discover more of that fine white lace at not above 6d an ell, pray purchase three yards for me, for I have a fancy to furbish up all my bonnets.
J. Austen, my dear,
I believe Iris may have played you foul and sent your letter astray. Although it had my name quite plainly on it, I fear it was intended for another.
I do not know you, though you write to me so affectionately. All I can tell you is that your name will echo through the ages beside other poets yet not born: Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, Ford. Once you are dead, your skull will chatter beside theirs in Hades whenever your works are quoted in the upper world. Is it not a charming conceit? Do you not care for that, truly, more than for lace at 6d an ell?
I am sorry things go on so poorly, though I confess I am charmed by your ironic eye. To respond in the same vein, and since you asked, things go quite marvellously here. Troy revels in the tenth year of this delightful siege. Until it ends this autumn, I need not fear the day of my enslavement or death. The weather holds fair for many days now. The clarity of the sky affords us excellent views from the walls down into the Grecian camp. Unfortunately, our besiegers appear to have for the most part recovered from the plague that was raging there until recently and there are no more bonfires of corpses. I will admit I do not miss the aroma.
When taking a circuit of the walls for exercise I watched the Greek heroes polishing up their weapons and chariots for some new assault. When it comes, as we hourly expect, there will be the chance to see much fine athletic endeavour. Some among the Greeks are well-formed men. If you care for the glamour of soldiers at all then you would appreciate the sight of Achilles, for he has a very well-turned leg.
I met my brother Hector up on the walls. He is yet in excellent health, and expected to remain so for several days, though in the course of things he must die when the moon is next full. Our dear father, who was also enjoying the prospect and the only walk the city now affords, reproached me for prophesying wildly, as usual. You are right in noting the pointlessness of such things, and yet, one cannot help from doing it, do you not find?
Coming down to accompany my father to the throne room, we ran into my brother Paris, and with him Helen, formerly queen of Sparta. You talked of esteemed beauties, and you should know that Helen is the most beautiful thing imaginable, far more beautiful than a scorpion, or even a poison frog, for there is human intelligence there. People often say she is like the gods, but it is not so, for I met a god once (Apollo) and he was much more straightforward and did not have such a dangerous glitter. She had no trouble getting a
husband, nor in losing him and getting another when she was tired of him, and her first will take her back without a murmur. She will come away from all this scatheless to sit and trim bonnets for her grandchildren and cluck her tongue with the gossips in the corner about what terrible people we all were. I confess I cannot like her much, and I hope your Miss Pelham is not such another.
That is all for now, so keep well, do good work while you may, and come to rest at last in Winchester.
Yours sincerely,
Cassandra, the daughter of Priam
P.S. I have given you all of my news, though it is no news to you, for you know as well as I do how Troy shall fall and what will become of us all.
Dearest Cassandra,
I had the most extraordinary response to my last letter to you. I shall not tell you of it, for I am absolutely sure that if I were to tell anyone I would not be believed . . .
UNRELIABLE WITNESS
I DON'T know if this is the same tape as last time, because They keep moving things around and stealing them. I don’t know who does it. It may be the staff here, or my own family when they come to visit, or the aliens, but somebody’s always doing it—taking my glasses, my tapes, my TV remote, anything I put down for a second. I don’t think it’s the other residents. I used to think that, but I don’t think they’re that organised. Some of them are a bit senile, to tell you the truth, can’t remember what they’re talking about, never mind that it’s time to go and steal my biscuit. They’re not methodical enough to plague me like that. Still and all, whoever it is, I’ve managed to get a blank tape and the machine at the same time. I tested it and heard my horrible quavery voice, but it works.