Heriot (28 page)

T
he golden throne room had changed. A second grand chair had been set up beside the King’s throne, and Carlyon the Hero now sat beside Betony Hoad, looking so much taller, so much more powerful than the slighter Prince. Izachel, dark as a shadow, hovered behind Carlyon, and it wasn’t difficult for those who had known him before to understand that he was a shell of what he had once been … a mere decoration. Once he had radiated force, but now, even though his face was invisible, his hunched shoulders along with his long frail fingers revealed weakness rather than power. The King, displaced, sat in the subject’s chair in front of his son, and the Hero, who leaned forward, was speaking forcefully and eagerly.

‘You see,’ Carlyon was saying, ‘you are without allies here in Diamond.’

‘I knew there were many possible dangers when I left my son in charge,’ the King replied. ‘But for some reason I did not anticipate such a degree of treachery from you, Carlyon. I knew that Betony longed for some impossible glory, and I thought that perhaps, if he took over the role of the King for a while, that the throne, the crown might …’

‘How could you begin to think the crown or the throne would be ever be enough for any man of imagination?’ Betony cried passionately. ‘We live in a world that spins around a
central mystery. And all we can do is dance and fight, gesticulate and parade ourselves like puppets while, up there, the stars …’ He broke off shaking his head. ‘We play like stupid
chil
dren
,’ he cried despairingly. ‘We’re always congratulating ourselves on our own glory and never admitting that, even at out grandest, we’re nowhere near the heart of true wonder. Even grains of dirt have more true glory than we do.’

Not only the King, but Carlyon himself, now stared at him uneasily.

‘We must do what we can within our limitations,’ the King said at last. ‘Do you fancy you could ever break out of your human condition to become a star?’

‘Or a grain of dirt for that matter,’ Carlyon added.

Betony turned his head to one side, sneering at the long images of earlier Kings, stitched into tapestry and hanging on the wall. He twisted a little to look back at Izachel.

‘He’s nothing but a scarecrow these days, but perhaps he could still edge me towards transformation,’ he said, not, however, as if he thought there was any possibility of this. ‘In the meantime you could step back from the throne, and I could play the game of Kings for a little longer. Carlyon would be my brother King, set free from all the rules that have reduced him. We could arrange a wife and probably a war or two for him. He’d be able to ride in true glory once more.’

As he spoke there was a curious change in the room. Its very light seemed to change … to darken a little … to take on a different quality as it stroked the gilded surfaces of the thrones, or sank into rich fabrics. Betony wasn’t looking at the figures in the tapestries or the carved faces above him, but Carlyon must have caught some movement out of the corner of his eye, and turned to stare at the wall, only to find the figures of the Kings, sewn into cloth, had all turned their stitched heads to look back at him.

‘Maybe we could even arrange rebellion out in the counties …’ Betony was saying, and then he broke off, for the altering light was not to be ignored. ‘What’s happening?’ he cried to his father. ‘Don’t think you can …’

He was interrupted. The door of the room of reception sprang open and Carlyon leaped to his feet, like a man preparing to face an enemy. Betony Hoad’s face froze, then he, too, rose, though rather more slowly. The door was swinging wide and Heriot Tarbas, the Magician of Hoad, came into the room. He edged in quite gently, nodded to Betony Hoad and Carlyon, and then stood to one side, making way for Prince Dysart and Linnet of Hagen who, both dishevelled, both alert, crowded in close behind him.

‘Well,’ said Heriot, smiling and speaking into the silence at last. ‘Here we all are. How nice.’

Carlyon, his face twisting with fury, leaped towards him, clutching at his sword, only to find he couldn’t draw it from its sheath. And as he struggled furiously with his recalcitrant blade, he became somehow locked in on himself. He couldn’t release the hilt and found himself staggering around in a ridiculous circle.

‘Lord Carlyon,’ Heriot said. ‘I know you can hear me, and I’ll tell you this. Move back to that throne you were occupying and sit quietly there, because I won’t let you take a step towards me or anyone else. So give up the struggle.’

‘And what about me?’ asked Betony Hoad. His voice trembled a little but it was still mocking. ‘Do you promise to freeze me too?’

Heriot watched Carlyon settling back into his throne, watched his cramped fingers unlocking from the hilt of the sword.

‘You!’ he said, not looking directly at Betony Hoad. ‘I’ve thought about you. I’ve got a plan for you. I promise you’ll love it.’

The King spoke. ‘My son may be a traitor,’ he said, ‘but he is still a Prince of Hoad. I don’t want him to come to harm.’

‘Oh, I’m not going to hurt him,’ Heriot said. ‘I am going to fulfil him. I can’t make a Magician of him, and I wouldn’t even if I could. But I can make a work of art out of him. I can make him King of his own dreams. Now, that really is kingship.’

Betony’s expression was altering. His confident voice was changing. ‘What are you offering me?’

‘I’m not going to offer it,’ Heriot said. ‘I’m going to impose it. But it won’t hurt.’

Carlyon hitched himself around to stare up at the black shape behind his chair. ‘Do something!’ he commanded. ‘Now! Now!’ But as he cried out there was a strangely fluid roar in the air. Briefly a huge image of the broken aqueduct, asking its eternal question by thrusting its curving stream of water into the air, dominated the golden room. And then things changed again. Dysart moved convulsively from Heriot to Betony who now lay entirely collapsed in his chair.

The King sprang to his feet. ‘Magician, if you have harmed my son …’ he began.

‘He’s not dead,’ Heriot said. ‘Be grateful, Lord King. He’s nothing but asleep … a special sleep in which he can examine and fulfil the extremity of his own dream, and you – well, you are released from a trap. After all, if you want a Magician, you’ve got to put up with his magic.’

Carlyon had turned desperately to shake Betony Hoad, and shake him again. ‘He is dead,’ he yelled. ‘You’ve killed him.’

‘He’s asleep,’ said Heriot. ‘Don’t bang his head, now.’

Carlyon released Betony Hoad who flopped back into his chair. Everyone stared at him, and in the profound silence that followed the only sound that could be heard was the sound of Betony’s even and relaxed breathing.

‘He’ll sleep and dream for a long time,’ Heriot said at last.
‘He’ll make a land for himself, a land of the glories and nightmares he’s longed for but a land of exultation too. And then we’ll see, because one day he might want to wake as a transformed and fulfilled man.’

At this moment there was a familiar sound. The doors of the reception room were opening yet again, and a cluster of figures with whitened faces and scarlet braids flowed into the room. Only the last in the line presented a bare face to the world.

‘Lord King,’ said the first of the Wellwishers. ‘We rejoice at your return.’

The King stood. He inclined his head. ‘I am glad to see you,’ he said. ‘As you may know these have been troubled times.’

‘And
I
am the trouble,’ Carlyon announced, his voice filled with confidence and scorn. ‘But remember, according to the tradition of the land the Hero is the King’s equal. My acts are as legitimate as yours, Lord King.’

The Wellwisher with the naked face moved forward.

‘Lord Carlyon, equal of the King, Hero who is anxious to father other Heroes,’ the Wellwisher said, speaking in a curious, damaged voice. ‘Look at me very carefully.’

Carlyon frowned, staring at the naked face. ‘You’re the boy who used to follow Heriot Tarbas,’ he said at last. ‘You’ve moved up in the world.’

‘I’m more than that,’ said Cayley. ‘I’m a forbidden quantity. It was forbidden that I should ever be conceived. It was forbidden that I should ever have been born, but here I am, and damn everything that’s tried to stop me. Because me, I was born in Senlac. Remember Senlac and the brave way you saved it? I’ve been told about it, but more than that, I actually remember Senlac, so that’s you and me both. I was born there nine months after you left it the first time. And, being a child of Senlac, I am challenging you. I am challenging you to a confrontation in the Hero’s Arena on Cassio’s Island.’

Carlyon’s expression was changing. He was looking more and more incredulous, like a man confronted by an impossibility. Then his first incredulity was replaced by an expression totally alien to the Heroes of Hoad. Suddenly Carlyon was terrified. ‘Who are you?’ he now asked, whispering as if he had been confronted by a horror.

Cayley smiled. ‘Look at me closely. Your reflection, perhaps, though twisted a bit, and mixed in with another face you might remember from a long time ago. But forget looking. Did you hear me? I challenge you as Hero.’

Carlyon continued to stare at her as if they were the only two people in the room. ‘I refuse the challenge,’ he said at last speaking thickly. ‘How can I possibly accept a challenge from you of all people? A girl!’

‘Yes, but how can you turn it down?’ asked Cayley. She moved forward to stand over him. She struck him on one cheek and then on the other. ‘Some Hero!’ she said. ‘And some act of heroism that was, back by the gate of Cassio’s Island all those years back. Remember?’ She struck him again. ‘Shall I tell them all?’

‘Did I ever hurt you?’ Carlyon yelled.

Cayley laughed. ‘Through what you did to others you damaged me for ever,’ she cried. ‘And then the world – that city out there – hurt me over and over again, toughening me up. But you’re supposed to be better than the ordinary world, aren’t you? I challenge you.’

Carlyon turned to Izachel. ‘Magician …’ he began, but Izachel suddenly crumpled sideways, collapsing into a pile of blackness at the foot of the King’s grand throne.

‘There’s a Magician finding his limitations,’ Heriot said.

Now Carlyon moved suddenly. Leaping up he tried once more to draw his sword. Once again it remained obstinately sheathed.

‘I’m strong,’ Cayley said as if she were reassuring him. ‘I’ve practised being strong. And maybe being strong is in the family. And I’m not only strong. I’m quick, too. Quick beyond quick!’

Carlyon stepped back, angry with himself for his brief loss of control as much as he was with Cayley. They looked into each other’s eyes, but Carlyon looked away first. When he spoke again his voice was flat and expressionless. ‘I accept your challenge,’ he said. ‘If the King,’ he added, his voice touched now with savagery, ‘if the King of Hoad allows it.’

‘Of course I do,’ said the King. ‘To accept challenges is part of the function of the Hero. To witness and celebrate them is part of the function of the King.

A
nd so, in due course that bright procession wound along he road and across the Hero’s Causeway to Cassio’s Island. Once again Heriot found himself looking around that arena – at its space and its white walls – those pale hands cupped to catch blood. Once again he saw those curving seats ascending like stairs as the men and women of Hoad and Cassio’s Island took their places … the Lords of the Counties and their wives and children … the merchants and bankers from the Second Ring, whole households from Diamond, along with soldiers from both the Hero’s City and Diamond too. Above the crenellated rim of the arena the sky was blue, pure, cloudless and remote rather as if the day was somehow holding itself off at a distance, preparing itself as a witness while standing back from the challenge and from a conclusion that must end inevitably in blood and death.

Dysart took his new place as heir to the throne to the right of the King’s Chair, but on his left sat Linnet, attended by young women and girls from all the counties of Hoad. Heriot stood behind Dysart at first, but then Dysart had another chair carried in so that Heriot could sit, looking over his shoulder and they could easily talk backwards and forwards. There was so much they had talked about already over the last incredible weeks and each discussion made the recent furious and violent happenings more manageable. Little by
little those happenings were being classified and filed as history.

‘Congratulations! You’re fulfilling your dream,’ Heriot murmured to Dysart, smiling rather mischievously.

‘But are you fulfilling yours?’ Dysart murmured back.

‘Who said I had any dreams?’ asked Heriot.

‘I’m guessing,’ said Dysart dryly. ‘Mind you, if the worst looks as if it’s coming to the worst you’ll be able to intervene, won’t you? Freeze the Hero’s arm? Melt his sword?’

Heriot stared out into the arena.

‘It won’t work like that,’ he replied at last. ‘This is the climax of a nightmare that is in her very bones. She has to live through this part of the dream in order to be set free of it. And she has to do it all herself. If I intervene I’ll ruin it all for her.’

‘But why?’ Linnet said, leaning across Dysart.

‘Revenge for an old injury,’ said Heriot lightly. ‘Things she once saw. Something that happened to her as a child and it’s twisted itself through and through her. But she’s never really told me.’

‘She’s tall and strong,’ Dysart said restlessly, ‘but not as tall and strong as the Hero, even though Carlyon isn’t a young man any more. It’s not too late to …’

‘It’s always been too late. And these moments are so much a part of her they have to be lived through so they can be over and done with.’

The trumpets sounded. The great ridged gates on one side of the arena opened and the Hero of Hoad advanced with men on either side of him, one carrying a shield and one a sword. The trumpets sounded again. Doors on the opposite side of the arena opened and Cayley came through alone. She had no shield and her own sword swung at her side. She was dressed in close-fitting clothes that seemed to be made of links of silver. Trumpets sounded yet again, and once again Heriot saw the
King of Hoad, attended by Lord Glass and an elaborately dressed Marshal, ride into the arena.

The Marshal edged his horse beside the King’s. They sat side by side for a minute as the King spoke to both the Hero and his challenger, speaking, Heriot knew, in the language of the past, giving both combatants the blessing of Hoad. Then the King wheeled, retreating in a leisurely fashion. At the watchtower by the main gate he dismounted, climbed the stair and seated himself, staring across the arena at the challengers. The Marshal didn’t speak until the King raised his long hand, giving permission for a declaration. Then the Marshal’s voice boomed out into the arena. All the same Dysart doubted whether those in the topmost benches would be able to make out what he was saying. The words, set free, rang clearly around the lower forms but as they flew higher they seemed to fade and become eternal elements of the arena air.

‘Aligning ourselves with the great history of Hoad,’ the Marshal was once more declaring, ‘following the tradition of King and Hero, we gather here in the arena of Cassio’s Island to witness the fulfilment of a challenge issued to the Hero. Lord Carlyon has accepted the challenge of Cayley Silence. They meet in the presence of the Hero’s twin – his double in power, the King of Hoad – to fight to the death. This is no common confrontation. We citizens of Hoad are assembled here to witness a sacrifice … a sacrifice that will be absorbed by our land, feeding into its hidden power. We are here to immerse ourselves in the limitless mystery of our beloved country. We are here to observe the enigma of Hoad, the re-birth of the Hero – the birth of one Hero burning upwards from the death of another.’

The Marshal stepped back, retreating to stand under the watchtower by the gate. Cayley and Carlyon faced each other. Overhead the sun was inching down a little and Cayley shone like a woman of silver.

Then, at last, the great gong sounded, and before its first echoes had died away Carlyon had leaped into combat. His sword rose and fell ferociously, but Cayley was already spinning away from the blow. Carlyon turned, parried, struck again, but once again she was gone, diving in with her own sword, not to deliver any fatal blow but to cut at his left arm. Amazingly it seemed (for the battle was hardly begun), Carlyon began to bleed. However, he was quick in his own way and was already diving in to strike at her again. She caught his sword on her sword, which sagged under the sheer strength of his blow, as Carlyon whipped out of range, swinging himself away so that, once again, drops of his blood spun away through the air. It suddenly seemed to Heriot that he would never remember Carlyon without remembering those tiny scarlet splashes in the air around him. Cayley began shouting at him. Many people in the arena could hear what that wounded voice was saying.

‘You killed them all,’ she shouted. ‘You killed every man, woman and child in Senlac, just to get me and my brother.’ Carlyon was in at her again, but Cayley had anticipated his next blow. She was already dancing out of reach, then standing briefly back, pointing her sword and laughing at him. ‘Some Hero!’ she cried, as she dived in at him. But Carlyon defended himself almost casually as she struck in under his guard, dashing her blade aside. And suddenly they were truly fighting – striking and defending, striking and defending – the Hero’s blows falling more heavily, Cayley spinning in and out of reach. People in the arena leaned forward, gasping as it seemed some blow must smack home. There was yet another engagement of blades that slid along one another in a steely dance.

‘See! I’ve got your skill!’ she yelled. ‘You passed it on to the wrong one.’ It seemed their two faces were only inches apart. And now Cayley said something to the Hero. What she said this time was inaudible, but, even from the King’s watchtower, even
from the stands where Heriot, Dysart and Linnet sat side by side, even from the benches that rose above up around them, anyone could see something had altered and was continuing to alter. Carlyon leaped back, staring at her incredulously.

Cayley stood still, smiling over at him. Then he thrust in at her, but thrust rather incoherently this time. His sword rose, slashing at her again and, quickly, once again. Again and, quickly, once again, she swung out beyond it only to slide in and further in, though she was moving, of necessity, too quickly to make any truly aimed blow herself. All she could do was defend herself and mime a few distracting blows.

But Carlyon was being betrayed by his own wild impetus – less skilled and more incoherent than his usual, judged movements. He stumbled and fell, then sprawled helplessly at Cayley’s feet. Her sword was immediately at his throat and he braced himself, not even daring to strike back at her.

But Cayley paused, looked over at the King, and then at Heriot. She smiled. She began to laugh. She laughed aloud into the air of the arena – laughed at the sprawling Hero of Hoad. It was possibly the only time laughter had been heard in that white shell.

‘I could kill him,’ she yelled. ‘But I can’t be bothered.’ She shook her head, then lifted her sword and half-turned away, still laughing. ‘Some Hero!’ she shouted. Heriot knew she also was laughing at herself and at her own deep ambition, just as much as she was laughing at the sprawling Hero. She was choosing to close the encounter with ridicule.

Carlyon rolled out and away, before swooping clumsily to his feet once more. His face was twisted with fury. It was as if her laughter had inflicted an injury more profound than anything he had ever suffered – a wound that must be paid for or it would immediately become mortal.

The crowd yelled. Cayley turned. The long blow it seemed
Carlyon was about to make was feigned, and, as Cayley altered her course, he slipped in yet again, to engage at close quarters. Seeing what was about to happen, Cayley shifted her flow, but could not entirely avoid the blow that fell on her left wrist, severing her left hand. A cry went up all around the arena. Carlyon now flung his arms wide in triumph, so confident now he didn’t even step back, flinging his sword for a final blow. But Cayley spun yet again, first away and then in towards him, so that they were almost touching. Within a second she had swung her handless arm in an arc across Carlyon’s face so that her leaping blood filled his eyes. Carlyon staggered to the left, flinging up his own left arm in a wild effort to put distance between them and to wipe his eyes clear, but, as he did this, Cayley, thrusting that handless arm up into his face, also delivered a blow with the sword she still clasped in her right hand. In! Straight into him almost to the hilt. In and then down. Carlyon staggered away from her, dropped his own sword, clapping his hands to his stomach in a curious echo of the way Luce had once done. Cayley jumped back, dropping her sword in order to grasp her own wrist.

Suddenly the crowd was standing and shouting. Suddenly there were people bearing down on the combatants, as Carlyon slowly toppled forward. He was kneeling now, kneeling before Cayley, who hesitated, then squatted down in front of him, still trying to suppress the flow of her blood. Her lips moved. She was saying something to Carlyon as he toppled sideways and lay there, twitching and convulsing.

‘What on earth could she be saying?’ Linnet exclaimed, staring down into the arena with horror.

‘Something like
Goodbye, Daddy
!’ Heriot said. ‘Civil of her really. He was never much of a father.’