The Fatal Child (46 page)

Look after her. The adulterous, treacherous …

Spare none. Not even Puck.

Suddenly something huge had been lost – something she had barely known she had. She hadn’t known it because she had always been so sure he would be around that she had spent her time dreaming about other things. Why did she only see this now? And when these armoured men were done killing each other, they would find Puck somewhere. Confident, capable Puck. Simple, brave, childish Puck. And then they would kill him, too.

‘Sharp?’ whispered the baron.

‘Yes, sir. I think it is.’

He did not speak again.

month later Ambrose’s host was camped at Tower Bay on the shores of Derewater. It was a grey afternoon with low clouds and a low, steady southwind teasing the banners and rippling the surface of the lake. The light was poor. Across the lake the hills of Tarceny showed like clouds, dull shapes with no detail to be seen. To north and south the water reached away and melded colourlessly with the sky.

In a field outside the castle, before a line of willows, Ambrose was sitting in the open. He wore a long, loose robe which fell to his ankles. The crown on his head was new. It had been fashioned hurriedly for him from the coronet of a loyal baron, because the crown of Tuscolo had been lost to Gueronius along with everything else in the King’s treasury. He was reading from a scroll that he held in one hand. His attendants stood at a respectful distance.

Padry limped towards him across the grass. He had been away for three weeks and had spent the last three days of it foot-marching. It had left him very sore. All
the horses had gone either to knights and squires or to the carters. Everyone else was using the legs they had been born with.

‘Greetings, Your Majesty,’ he said, bowing. ‘I bring you fifteen hundred men from Pemini and the river, and promises of more.’

Ambrose looked up. He showed no sign of surprise or joy at Padry’s return. His face was composed. But it was gaunt – very gaunt, as if he had eaten very little for a long season.

‘Fifteen hundred?’ he murmured. ‘You said—’

‘Eight hundred I pledged to you. Twelve hundred I hoped for. But Pemini has prospered and knows to whom it owes its prosperity.’

‘Those who have profited from my kingship take my side,’ sighed the King. ‘Those who think they have not, take the other. Fifteen hundred. I suppose it is good. And my Lady Develin brings us six more.’

‘Six? Six thousand, Sire?’

‘Six hundred, but they are all knights and men-at-arms. She has marched them to the lake and put them in boats. We expect to see her sails this evening. The main part of her host is still assembling under Inchapter and Lackmere.’

‘Good!’ said Padry. ‘So Gueronius may hold Tuscolo but he has lost Baldwin and he is cut from the Queen’s lands in the Seabord. With our force to the north of him, and Inchapter and Lackmere to the south of him, we have him in a vice.’

‘So they say to me. Yet they say also that Gueronius hauls his cannon to Trant. If Trant falls, then we are
cut from the south just as he is cut from the Seabord.’

‘But our strength is greater, if we are given the time.’

‘Have we time?’

There was something sharp in the King’s tone.

‘He that has iron has strength, but he that has gold has time,’ said Padry. ‘I have brought not only pikes but loans. Ten thousand crowns, from the counting houses of Pemini! And more from Watermane, which reached me on the road. I have secured them against the Queen’s estates in Baldwin and other interests and promises it seemed good to me to make. In truth’ – he chuckled – ‘ten thousand may be gone in less than a month. But our soldiers and suppliers – they will not know how fast it goes. They will accept my promises for a full season now, expecting that they will be paid in the end. And they will be, if the Angels permit it.’

‘I have lost count of my debts.’

Padry tapped his head. ‘I have them all here. All your great debts and many of your little ones. I am your conscience, Your Majesty. The carrier of all your sins. And if I am slain before I can write them all down – why, your conscience will be wiped clean, as if the Angels themselves had forgiven you.’

‘Not all debts can be measured in gold.’

The King’s brow was pale. Little beads of sweat had formed upon it. Padry saw how shrunk indeed the flesh of his face had become. He could almost imagine the outlines of the skull beneath it. The hand that held the scroll lay in his lap. The other was turning something small in his fingers.

‘Your wound,’ said the King suddenly. ‘How is it?’

Padry glanced down at his own hand. A big white scar covered the palm, surrounded by little clouds of red beneath the skin.

‘I am healing, although not as quickly as a young man would. If we must fight this month I shall strike my blow for you one-handed. But perhaps it will not come to that. Your Majesty, I have counsel for you, if you will hear it.’

The King nodded slowly.

‘It is that we send an embassy to Gueronius, with terms for peace.’

He expected a protest. None came. The King watched him with dark eyes.

‘We will propose a division of the Kingdom,’ said Padry quietly. ‘The Seabord, the March and the south shall be yours, the lands around Tuscolo his. We shall exchange Baldwin for Trant, keeping Pemini and Bay. We shall say that it is better for all if we part in peace rather than fight in war. If we fight among ourselves, Outland shall surely learn of it. And that might destroy us.’

The King frowned.

‘Gueronius may accept it, Your Majesty. A fortnight ago he would not have done, but he knows now that the scales tilt against him. Part of a kingdom is better than nothing.’

‘You would divide the Kingdom?’

‘To spare the lives and goods of many thousands of your subjects, yes. To preserve your rule across the greater part of your land, Sire, yes. And who is to
say what the future will bring? A division need not last for ever.’

Indeed Padry had started to wonder how long Gueronius could keep the loyalty of his followers after such a peace. They would wake from their hangovers and find that Ambrose was controlling all the wealth-routes from the lake and the sea. And at Ambrose’s side would be cunning old Thomas Padry, wielding his pen, ready to make this deal, that promise, send a letter or two … And there would always be the chance of some monumental act of caprice from Atti or Gueronius to hurry things along. Why, Gueronius might find his supporters leaching from him like sand-grains in the tide!

‘My rule is no matter,’ said the King.

‘Forgive me, Your Majesty,’ said Padry urgently, ‘but it is. It is! You did not take the crown to break heads but to build schools. Not to slay lords, but to give law. I say this not in flattery, my lord, but because in my heart I know it is true. In this you have been the greatest King of all the sons of Wulfram. For the sake of your people—’

‘Thomas,’ said the King, smiling grimly.

Padry stopped. The eyes of the King had fallen to his belt.

‘You still carry the dragon.’

‘Why … Why, yes, Your Majesty.’

‘Tell me then. Why does he bite his tail?’

Padry frowned. He could not see where the question was leading.

‘In the lore of the Kingdom,’ he said, ‘a dragon is a
symbol of Eternity. He bites his tail to signify that the end is only a new beginning. In the lore of the hills … I suppose he takes his tail between his teeth for a better grip, or else the world he holds would fly apart with the folly of all that are in it.’

The King’s skin was pale. The sweat was running off it and into his beard. But his eyes were bright. They were eyes that had seen all hope and love turn to ash. They had seen the future diminish to a tunnel of shadow. They looked steadily into Padry’s face.

‘Both answers are right,’ the King said. ‘Listen, Thomas. The lamp is out and the leaf has fallen, but the dragon does not loose his hold. He binds the world together. Why? Because all that suffers in the world will also be renewed. Every end is also a beginning. So our work, too, will be renewed. It will be renewed, but not by us, Thomas. The child in the furrows, the lord on his throne – they must wait for a little. Only a little. We must leave them for those who come after us …’

He frowned again, as if feeling some pain. His hand was open. In his palm lay the little white stone that he had been holding in the cart the day he had received his wound.

That long robe he was wearing, thought Padry suddenly – long and loose, falling all the way to the ground. He had rarely worn such a gown in Tuscolo. Why now? It concealed his shape. In particular it concealed the wounded thigh and the dressing that he probably still wore on it. And … Padry breathed in. Even in that open air he could smell the sweet
scents that Ambrose was wearing. In a closed space they would be strong indeed. If he was wearing them to hide the smell of a bad wound …

Who was tending the King’s wound? He must find out, and find out how bad it was. And yes, if it was bad, then certainly it must be kept a secret. If the counting houses had known of it, he would never have secured as much as ten thousand from them. If the army knew it, men would start to slip away.

Have we time?
the King had asked.

But there
had
to be time!

‘I have dreamed, Thomas,’ said the King. ‘I dreamed of Beyah, and her face was the face of my Queen. She is no longer weeping. She stopped weeping when I broke the Cup and her world shook around her. Now she is listening. She is waiting for something. Once I heard her cry, “Let them eat their sons.” And I dreamed of Paigan, my uncle across nine generations, who was Prince Under the Sky before me. He told me that the Angels lie. I have not felt the Angels in years. The Angels lie, and I must die. Last night I saw myself dead. And dead, I led an army into a fight. And when the fight was won I gathered the other dead to me and led them from the field.’

‘Your Majesty!’ gasped Padry. ‘I beg that you do not say such things!’ (Dear Angels – one rumour of a dream like this around the camp would do more harm than a volley of arrows! Surely he could see that?)

The King shook his head. ‘There is just one thing for us to do, Thomas. Just one. I do not know how it
will come to us. But we will meet it at Trant, I think.’ He closed his eyes. His fingers curled around the stone.

‘Is it well with you, Your Majesty?’ said Padry, now thoroughly alarmed.

The King did not answer. Padry fumbled for his wrist. The skin was cold, the pulse weak. He turned to wave the King’s attendants over. ‘Your Majesty knows my signs well,’ he said, keeping his voice level. ‘Later, perhaps we shall debate them, and – and my plan, too. But I feel now that it is rest that you need …’

‘I gave them to you,’ murmured the King.

‘Did you, my lord? I do not—’

‘In the library at Develin.’

Padry frowned. He could remember a voice, years ago – yes, perhaps it had been a child’s voice – speaking to him of three signs: the lantern, the leaf and the dragon. It had been the first time that he had considered them together. But…

It had been a child’s voice. One of the Widow’s scholars. So why should it not have been Ambrose himself? The leaf, after all, was the badge of Ambrose’s mother’s house. It
must
have been Ambrose. He had never seen that before now.

And yet the voice had been so firm, so clear! Its words had been almost a vision to him. The man before him now was worn, wounded and betrayed. His face was a mask of pain. How could the three signs have come from him?

‘Don’t you remember? In Develin,’ said the King.

The voice of the grown man was a whisper, all but
lost in the bustle of attendants as they supported him, threw his cloak around his shoulders, brought him wine …

‘Develin,’ repeated Padry. ‘Yes, it was. But…’

In Develin, where he had first looked into the Abyss. In Develin, where a dark-haired, unregarded thirteen-year-old had turned to him and answered his questions with light.

Slowly a smile spread upon his face. ‘Yes, it was. Yes, I remember.’

‘Develin!’ cried a voice across the meadow.

A man in the King’s colours was running towards them from the castle. As he ran, he pointed out across the lake.

‘Your Majesty! Develin!’

From the keep of Bay a trumpet sounded. Men were shouting on the walls, pointing southwards.

The flat grey surface of the lake had changed. Streaks of bright silver-gold lay upon the water where the sun broke through rifts in the clouds. Shapes had sprung into view there, where before there had only been emptiness. Where the water was bright they were dark, like small black-grey insects creeping on a sheet of glass. And where it was shadowed they were pale, thin and curved like the crests of waves frozen in the act of breaking. They were sails. From the shore they spread out to almost half the width of the lake, and from the first, a gentle mile away, they seemed to stretch back to the very edge of sight. A great fleet of the small lake-ships was riding up from the south under the breath of the wind.

‘You see, Thomas,’ said the King. ‘Develin, too, was renewed.’