The Eyes of a King (39 page)

And I could not stop myself from dreaming. Perhaps I did not exactly want to. Because while I was lost in these strange dreams, my heart did not know that Stirling was gone.

I
t was growing dark in England, and the wind had risen, but Anna was out in the yard, dancing under the security light. And suddenly Ryan was there, at the edge of the darkness. She stopped. “What are you doing?” he said.

“Practicing. Monica thinks I am in bed. I have no time in the day, and in the evenings she doesn’t let me use the dining room in case I disturb the guests.”

They looked at each other in silence. “I have not seen you for days,” said Ryan then. “I am sorry. I promised to explain, and then my uncle—” He shrugged and sat down on the low wall. “I will tell you now what I was going to. Will you listen?”

“Yes.”

A group of guests, dropping the last ends of their cigarettes, passed them and went in at the hotel entrance. Ryan followed them with his eyes, then turned back to her. “Firstly, about
Aldebaran …,” he said. “Arthur Field, as you know him. He is not in truth my great-uncle.” He paused. “I am going against him to tell you this. I think maybe he is yours.” Anna opened her mouth to speak, but he raised his hand and continued. “His brother, Harold Field, was here in England a long time ago. Do you know of that man?”

“Harold Field? He was my grandfather. I never met him, but I know that was his name.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure.”

“Aldebaran thought so too.”

She turned suddenly. “Where are you going?” said Ryan.

“Let me get Monica’s photograph of their father,” she said.

She ran to the deserted kitchen and took the picture from the windowsill. Ryan was waiting at the door when she got back. “Here,” she said, handing it to him. She stood in silence while he examined it. It was a faded photograph, taken by a passerby on Graysands Beach. Her Nan, in her late twenties, was standing beside Anna’s unknown grandfather, her hand on his arm. The man was looking straight into the camera with a charming grin. One hand held baby Monica casually on his shoulders; the other was in four-year-old Michelle’s hand.

“I see,” said Ryan quietly. “Do you see it? They are so alike. This could be a younger version of Aldebaran himself.”

There was something about this man, her grandfather—that was what Anna had always thought—something about his easy, self-assured expression and the way he looked so directly at the camera, as if he was challenging it, that was different from other people. And that was the same, she realized now, as Arthur Field.

“He knew,” she said. “That was why he hit his head on the car hood when I told him that Monica’s name was Devere.”

Ryan nodded. “He knew that was the lady’s name. But he did not want to tell you about this.”

“Why not?”

“He doesn’t want to be connected with anyone in this country. He wants to disappear without complications. But he does not understand that you may be involved whether or not he wishes you to be. Not just because you are related to him, but because of my history.”

“What is your history?”

“It is difficult.” He handed the picture back to her and turned to look out over the dark water of the lake. “It is difficult to tell you about these things, Anna. I will try to be honest. Can we walk along the road for a while? It will be easier to explain.”

They started out toward Lakebank. “I told you that my parents are dead,” said Ryan. “They were shot, ten years ago. My uncle was the one who arranged it. My real uncle, back in Malonia, where I come from. My mother’s elder brother.”

Anna turned to him, but he went on walking steadily and kept his eyes lowered. “He had them murdered?” she said eventually. “Is he in prison now?”

Ryan shook his head. “It was political. My father was a very important man. My uncle wanted his place.” He stopped in the dark road and looked at her. “Things are serious, Anna, if I go on. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, I understand you.”

“My father was the king, and his father before him. I am the last son in the line of Donahue. I am the heir to the throne. In
Malonia I was a prince. Now I am an exile.” He met her eyes again. “You may not believe me. But will you listen?”

She did not reply, but she went on watching him as they walked on into the dark. “My father came to the throne very young,” said Ryan. “He had already ruled the country for five years when he was my age. About a year later he met my mother. She came from a noble family; they govern a state off the west coast of Malonia.” He glanced at Anna as if to check that she was listening, then went on. “The noble family of Kalitz has always disputed with the family of Donahue. At the time when I was born, this enmity was very bad. My mother and father were young and they loved each other. They were married when they were fifteen and seventeen. They thought that they could overcome the hostility between their families. But my mother’s family used her marriage to get closer to the royal family and further their plot to overthrow the government and seize power.”

Ryan fell silent. “So how does Arthur Field come into it?” said Anna eventually. “Who is he in this story?”

“He was a great man in my country. Second but one in the secret service, and he had great powers. His taken name is Aldebaran; that is how everyone knows him. He was exiled before me, and he took me in when I was sent here to England. So you could say that I owe him my life.”

“What do you mean by powers?” said Anna.

Ryan tried to explain.

“You can’t really believe that!” she said. “That he can read minds, and prophesy. Ryan, seriously—” And then she remembered something. When they had met on the road that day, Arthur Field had known when the fog would lift before it started lifting. And that her real name was Ariana.

“Aldebaran wrote a prophecy concerning me,” said Ryan. “That is part of it too. He wrote that I would not be killed but exiled, and that anyone who harmed me would be punished for it, blow for blow. So no one dared. My uncle had my parents killed; he took over the country; but he did not dare to harm me. He exiled me too. He sent me to England.”

Ryan turned to her then. “But you come into the story, Anna. You are part of this. Because in the prophecy, Aldebaran connected me with the silver eagle, a valuable charm that is very famous in my country. Aldebaran got hold of this silver eagle, and brought it with him to England. It looks like an ordinary necklace, set with silver and blue jewels, the kind of talisman every noble family owns. But it has power locked in it—magic power.”

“Magic power?” said Anna. “Ryan—”

“You have these things here in England,” Ryan said. “Don’t try to tell me you do not. You understand these things as we do.”

When Anna did not reply, he continued. “The silver eagle is part of the prophecy concerning me. Aldebaran took one jewel out of the necklace and kept it, and threw the rest into the sea.”

“The sea?” said Anna. “Where? Near here?”

“Very near.” Ryan watched her steadily.

“Why did he throw it away,” said Anna, “if it was such a valuable necklace?”

“It would have been too dangerous to keep it with him. He believed that the jewel and the necklace would find their way back together. He foresaw that this silver eagle would be restored to us by someone dear to me—someone I loved, even. That was what he prophesied; he thought it would be a sign. But it has been ten years, and nothing. He was beginning to think that he had made a costly mistake and lost the necklace forever. And then—” Ryan
stopped and turned to her. “And then you walked up to us in the fog, and I could tell there was something about you; straightaway I knew. And here you are, with a silver necklace, a charm in the shape of an eagle, with a missing stone. And I can’t help wondering, Anna.”

She took her necklace out from her collar and examined it in the fading light. “What did he say when you told him all this?”

“I didn’t,” said Ryan. “I told him nothing about your necklace. I wanted to speak to you first.”

“That was why you wanted to know where I got it from?” He nodded. She hesitated for a moment, then spoke: “My Nan found this necklace on the beach.” He did not answer, so she went on. “She used to walk there with Harold Field, my grandfather—on Gray-sands Beach. She kept going back there after he disappeared. There was one time she was certain she saw him, but it was so far away that she decided it was a mistake. And then she found the necklace, and she thought it was a sign; she thought so too. She took it to the police but no one claimed it, so they gave it back to her.”

“It was Graysands Beach where Aldebaran threw the silver eagle into the sea,” said Ryan. “I know it was. But how did the necklace come to you?”

“She gave it to me when I was born.” She turned to him. “What happened to Mr. Field’s brother? What happened to my grandfather?”

“He passed away,” said Ryan. “I am sorry. In Malonia he was a soldier. He rejoined the army after he came back. He was killed in action a year later. He never returned to England.”

“But what about the man my Nan saw on the beach?” said Anna. “That was years after my grandfather left.”

“Perhaps he did come back,” said Ryan. “When people die, they
don’t just disappear; I’m sure of it. Perhaps they can move in time and space, between the worlds. Like those with powers, the great ones, can.”

“Between the worlds?” said Anna.

They were at the gates of the big house. The building was dark, except for one second-floor window. They did not go in but stood in the deserted road, the darkness almost complete now. “Have you ever heard of Malonia?” said Ryan. “Is the name familiar? Some people here in England think they have heard it somewhere.”

She shook her head. “I thought my grandfather was Australian. I have never heard of that place.”

“It is strange to hear you say that,” said Ryan. “Sometimes when I wake up in this foreign country, I find it hard to believe that I have lived here ten years. Where I come from, there are rumors of England. Explorers claim to have been there. When people are reported missing and believed dead, legends spread that they may not have died at all—that they have passed through into England by chance or accident. And the great ones, those with powers—they can move into other places. Stories like that are well-known. It is a fairy-tale land, and most of us pass our lives without thinking much about it. It is not part of the real world. When I was a little boy, I did not believe that it existed.”

“How far away can your country be?” said Anna.

He opened the gate and she followed him. “I will try to explain.”

But by the time they reached the house, she was not certain that she understood.

They went in at the side door. Ryan did not turn on the light until they were in the old library with the door closed. “My uncle will hear unless we speak quietly,” he whispered.

Anna laid the picture of her grandfather on the table, and her necklace beside it. “Here,” she said. “Look at it. Does this look like a valuable necklace to you? They are just glass, these jewels.”

Ryan took a chain from around his own neck and laid it next to hers. His own had a single jewel on it—a blue jewel. And it was identical to the largest stone that was set in her necklace. It was the missing jewel, the bird’s right eye.

Anna turned to him but could not speak. Ryan raised his hand to his forehead, startled too. “They are the same,” he said. “They might look like glass to you, but in my country these are valuable jewels.”

“Ryan, stop it now,” she said suddenly. The necklaces were drifting together on the table.

He raised his hands. “I am not touching them. I told you, Anna. There has been a link between them since before we were born. They have great power in them.”

“They must be magnetic,” she said, her heart beating faster.

“The chains are gold.”

At that moment they heard footsteps in the corridor. “Ryan, are you there?” called Arthur Field. They both turned.

Aldebaran opened his mouth, then could not speak. The silver eagle was lying on the table. His dead brother’s photograph was beside it. “This picture is Anna’s grandfather,” said Ryan, standing up. “And this is the necklace that her grandmother found on Graysands Beach.”

There was a silence. Then Aldebaran approached the table. “Of course the necklace would go to a relative of Harold’s,” he muttered, shaking his head. “Of course. There tends to be an order to these things.”

He picked up the necklace and turned it over in his hand, then
looked up at Anna. And then suddenly his face darkened. “Ryan, you should have told me,” he said. “You should not have brought it here.”

“Uncle, I thought—”

Aldebaran looked about, then spoke low, as though people were listening. “In the name of heaven, Ryan! You know that this house is watched.”