The Cup of the World (41 page)

It was a dark night. The moon would not rise for some hours. Phaedra settled herself to wait again. What was a little more waiting, after so long? She should try to enjoy the dark and quiet for a little while. Things would be
moving soon enough, and faster than she would wish. She seemed to herself to be approaching a corner in the passage of her life, not knowing what she would find when she turned it. Some destiny hung only a few moments away. She did not know what. In one future, rippling in the pool of her mind's eye, she saw Ambrose grow to manhood at Chatterfall, and Evalia telling him what sort of a woman his mother had been. It would not be all bad. Evalia had always been generous.

No, Phaedra! There were a thousand chances yet. One way or another this intolerable life would end soon. She thought of the words that had passed on the fighting platform, and sighed.

A door opened in the antechamber.

There were footsteps in the next room. Ulfin's voice called.

Retrieve the rope? There was not time. Close the door and bolt it? The fastenings were old. He would be instantly suspicious.

She took a lamp, and stepped out to meet him. ‘Sir,’ she said.

He was standing in his evening gown, with his fine black silk doublet, traced with gold, and the long sword at his hip.

‘I had expected you at supper, my lady’

‘I was tired.’

‘A pity since you had gone to such lengths to bring me home. For I have decided to return in the morning.’

She sat slowly on a stool and looked at him. ‘Will you do nothing about the raiders, my lord?’

‘They are not more than Caw can handle. Spies more
than raiders, I guess. And I do not think they were the reason for what you have done.’

She looked at her feet. ‘No one enjoys a sword at their throat, sir. Nor does any wife expect to be ignored when she sends to her husband for protection.’

He settled in a chair, looking at her. ‘Where is Ambrose?’ he asked.

Behind her in the bedroom, something creaked. She did not dare turn round. She could not remember if she had even shut the door.

He was watching her, waiting for an answer.

Abruptly she leaned forward, took the chess case from its low shelf, and opened it on the table between them. The dust was silver on the black and white squares.

‘Will you play, my lord? If you win, I may tell you what you wish to know.’

His head tilted slightly to one side, as if he were trying to read her thoughts. ‘I will win,’ he said.

‘You will find my game has changed, sir. Let me play white.’

‘White? If you wish. It will make no difference.’

They set the pieces on the board before them. Phaedra clapped the white figures into their places, making as much noise with them as she dared without being so loud that he would begin to wonder why. The black pieces went deftly into their rows, with the sound of a cat's footfall. She left one pawn out in the middle of the board. Ulfin had made his move before she had finished setting the rest of her pieces. It was the knight to the queen-bishop third, which she had not been expecting. She had to stop and think.

In the silence, the rope creaked again. Phaedra wondered if somewhere she could hear the ghost of a leather sole on stone. Ulfin looked up. She clicked her knight forward, and his eye fell on the board again.

He played quickly, and so did she. She would have liked longer to think, but she must keep his mind on the play. And already she was in trouble. Somehow, in an equal number of moves, he had far more force on the board than she. Now she must bring her queen forward – Aun had always told her not to do that.

Clip, clip
, went the pieces.
(Grunt
, went the rope in the room beyond.)

Surely he must hear it now. And she must move again quickly. Her queen was under attack.

‘You will lose her,’ he said.

‘But you have not seen what I am doing.’ Her hand hovered. His eyes followed it. And ignoring the danger, she pushed a knight forward into his defence.

It was a wild move. A farce. She saw the disgust on his face. And then his expression changed. His eyes flew to the door of her room. Within, the sound of cloth and boot wrestling on the stone sill. A heavy body landing upon the floor. A man grunting. A step. The door handle turning.

Aun stood in the doorway, breathing hard.

Ulfin leaped back from his seat with a shout. The table rocked and crashed to the floor. Phaedra was on her hands and knees, scrambling among the chess pieces. She reached the outer door and slid the bolts home. Then she turned.

The men faced each other over the tumbled furniture. The swords were out, and held low. Ulfin's eyes flicked towards her. She was in easy reach of the iron in his hand.
Aun was a long second away across the room. She crammed herself backwards against the door, snarling. But Ulfin looked back at Aun.

‘All right,’ he said, settling into a crouch. ‘Come on.’

In the bedroom, the rope creaked again.

Aun came with a rush, beating at Ulfin's blade. The long sword evaded him and slammed into his ribs. Aun staggered and struck. Iron rang in the room, again and again. Aun jumped back, panting.

‘Mail,’ he said, patting the baggy doublet he wore. He grinned.

‘Ho, there!’ cried Ulfin. ‘Ho, there! Help!’

Then Aun was coming forward again, feinting, hacking. Ulfin blocked. They did not have room to circle. Aun was trying to get between Ulfin and the door, but again he was beaten back. Ulfin looked to the door too, but the bolts were thrown and he would have to open them while keeping Aun at bay with the other hand. And he would have to cut her down first of all. Phaedra cast about for a chair, a stool, to put between herself and the sword.

‘Help, guards, help!’ cried Ulfin.

The rope creaked. A second man was climbing through the window.

Ulfin attacked, cutting for Aun's head and immediately his thigh, but Aun went down on one knee into the blow, grunting as the blade struck his elbow and back. Phaedra winced, and winced again and yelped as the short Trant sword caught Ulfin full in the face. He fell without a cry.

Aun stood over him for a moment, and then fumbled for a knife from his belt.

‘Don't kill him!’ Phaedra said.

He looked at her.

Another man was standing in the doorway to the bedroom. Beyond him, the rope was creaking again.

‘Are you hurt?’ said the newcomer.

‘No and yes,’ said Aun. ‘But I'll heal. Did they hear?’

Phaedra put her ear to the door. There were distant sounds beyond.

‘I don't know.’

‘How many on the postern door?’

‘Two, I think. You go right and down the steps, then right through the storeroom passage. They'll be in the little room at the end, to the left of the door itself. I don't want you to kill them.’

A third man was scrambling through the window.

‘We'll go then. Wave the others round. We can't wait.’

‘Chawlin's on the rope.’

‘Then wave the others off Chawlin can guard him,’ he said, pointing to where Ulfin lay motionless on the floor. ‘Let's go.’

They stepped to the door, weapons out. Phaedra saw the long streak of her husband's blood on Aun's blade. She opened her mouth to say something about not killing, and closed it again, knowing the thought was futile.

The bolts clacked back. The door opened into the dimness of the corridor. No one challenged. One after another the men stepped out silently.

She was alone.

She took Ulfin's sword and placed it out of his reach. It was heavy, and cold. She supposed that if the soldiers came up from the hall now she might threaten them with
it, but she would do far better to bolt the door again. In fact, she should do so now. But …

Ulfin lay sprawled on the floor of the room. He was face down, but he was trying to lift his head. It was bloody. She heard him gasp.

Slowly she stood and went into the dark bedroom, where the rope jerked and creaked to itself. There she tore a long strip from the bale of precious, useless black silk by the bed. As she did so a pair of hands appeared on the rope outside the window, and a head. It was the young man from the forest glade. He was having trouble.

‘Here,’ she said, and helped him to scramble over the windowsill. He collapsed in a heap, apparently exhausted by his climb.

‘Where are they?’

‘They've gone on down. You're to stay here. Come and help me.’

She took the silk into the outer room, and kneeling beside Ulfin, lifted his head. His face was coated in blood, and there was a widening pool of it on the floor. It seemed to be flowing thickly from his cheek and forehead. She pressed at it with the cloth in her hands, and tried to wipe it away. It was useless. The boy came and supported Ulfin's head, while she wound the silk clumsily round and round and tied it in place. Then they lifted Ulfin's shoulders and dragged him into the inner room and laid him on the bed. They looked at one another. They were both bloody, and there was a long trail of it on the floor.

‘We need more bandages,’ he said. ‘And water.’

‘Take what you need,’ said Phaedra, pointing to the ruined silks. ‘I'll find a jug. I'm – glad it's you, Chawlin.’

It was as near as she would ever come to thanking him for stepping forward in the camp.

Hera had left a jug of drinking water on one of the tables in the antechamber. But the table had fallen in the fight. The jug was smashed and its contents had soaked into the rug. Phaedra hesitated, looking around her. She could hear shouts not far away. Someone was blowing a horn – an alarm, she guessed. She could not remember when it had started. Feet sounded in the corridor, coming towards her at a run.

The door was still open! She had not had time to shut it!

A figure skidded in the doorway – armed, looking inwards. It was Tancrem. His face hardened when he saw her, but he did not enter.

‘How do we come at the hall?’

He must have come up from the level of the storerooms. There seemed to be others with him.

‘Go on along the corridor. Before you reach the tower door there are steps going down to the right. They take you to the gallery. What's happening?’

‘The inner gatehouse is ours. But they are holding the hall, and there are more in the outer bailey. Stay here.’

He turned and clattered back down the corridor with others at his heels. Somewhere someone was screaming, on and on, the sound blotted by the blasting of the horn, and emerging again. Who was in the hall? Men like Caw, like Abernay fighting unarmoured and part-armed for a lord they did not know had fallen? And she needed water. She looked out into the corridor, and it was empty.

It seemed the shouting increased as she crept along in
Tancrem's wake. She could hear metal clashing now, and someone cry out in pain. At the tower door she listened, and could hear nothing beyond it. Either the guards above had abandoned their posts, or they were keeping very still.

From the hall rose a riot of combat. Men were calling for surrender, others yelling defiance. She stumbled down the wooden steps. The gallery was empty.

The hall below was chaos. Tables were overthrown, and food spilt across the floor. Here and there men were lying sprawled like drunkards in a scene of orgy. Tancrem and his men were clustered at the door, through which others were flowing in – also Septimus's supporters. They were clearing a table from the doorway, which must have been used as a barricade by the defenders until Tancrem's party had rushed them from the gallery steps. At the far end of the hall a half-dozen Tarceny men had upended two tables and barricaded themselves into a corner. They were hopelessly outnumbered. They had seen her.

The horn had stopped. For a moment she could think. She saw Caw's grey head among the defenders.

‘Put down your weapons!’ she called. ‘Put them down!’

For a heartbeat's space they stared at her. Then they were yelling at her, curses, defiance, threats. She saw an arm raised, flung forward. Something flew through the air towards her. A knife! It tumbled as it flew, and clattered uselessly against the wall a yard to her left. The men at the door bellowed and swarmed forward – twenty or more of them, hurling themselves at the tables. Iron danced in blood, and from the gallery a woman of nineteen stared bright-eyed at the murder she had unleashed in her home.

man lay huddled among the potted mints of the fountain court. It was Vermian, and he was dead. His head and forearms were a ruin of sword-cuts, as if his last act had been to throw up both arms to cover his face. He lay with his mouth open. In the light of Phaedra's lamp his half-closed eye glittered with a sickly fire.

It was over. The leaderless men in the outer bailey had surrendered. Before the gatehouse Prince Septimus had kneeled and, in his gladness and gratitude, kissed the hem of her bloody robe. She had seen the wounded – Caw among them – carried to a makeshift hospital in one of the dormitories. She had watched the captives being herded into a stout storehouse where they could be guarded. She had seen them look across at her. A man had been kicked and cuffed by the guards for shouting something that she had not heard.