The Sword Bearer (25 page)

"Sit down, I say! Be not so foolish!"

John jumped at the queen's unaccustomedly shrill voice.

"What know I of dreams, this boy's or any other's? What know I now? What are you hiding from me, husband? What dreams has the boy had? Do they bear on the safety of our grandson?"

Bjorn sank slowly back into his seat. His shoulders slumped. His face had again grown old. His lightning flash of anger had vanished without a trace. "It cannot be true," he muttered. "It cannot,
cannot
be true."

For several seconds no one spoke. Then Mab said, "It
need
not be true. Where are your nephew and your grandson now?"

Bjornsluv answered him, "I had come to tell his majesty that only tonight I discovered that Goldson has been talking of communing with the Mystery and inviting Rathson to join him."

"And where are they both now?"

"They were commanded to be in their rooms until the dark-ness had passed."

"And are they there, majesty? Are they in their chambers now?"

Wearily Bjorn rose to his feet and walked across the chamber to two doors a few feet apart. Without knocking he flung back the first to reveal a small bedchamber lit by a flickering torch. "Goldson!
Goldson!"

He strode into the room and emerged shaken and pale. At the second door, the door of his grandson's chamber he knocked. There was no reply. Opening the door he strode into the chamber as he had done into Goldson's. Again he emerged, trembling. "They are not there, and the windows are open in both rooms."

His face was now an iron mask of resolution. He clapped his hands sharply together and from yet another door a servant entered the chamber. "My cloak and my sword! Hurry!"

All thoughts of ceremony and propriety were forgotten. Mab and John hurried from the chamber and within seconds were out of the keep. The torches they carried threw light for only a few feet, so thick was the darkness. It reminded John of Pendleton fog. One or two of the more venturesome members of the company, sensing something amiss, followed John and Mab from the keep. Soon a small crowd, including Vixenia, Folly, Poison, John, Mab, Bjorn and Bjornsluv were hurrying to a point on the castle wall John thought he recognized from his dream that was at the southwestern end of the island. It over-looked a narrow strip of turf between the foot of the castle wall and the cliff top.

No one ever forgot what they saw there. A ghosdy white glow illuminated the scene. As John looked at the source of the light he saw the ghosdy Lord Lunacy looking like a corpse—a living corpse. He heard Vixenia gasp, "An angel of light!" But to John the "angel," however beautiful he may have appeared, was glow-ing with the whiteness of death.

"It is no angel. It is the Lord of Lunacy, one of the forms assumed by the Mystery," Mab muttered.

The Lord Lunacy watched in contemptuous silence at the furious battle Rathson and Goldson were fighting with their short swords on the turf below them. "Desist!" Rathson gasped, struggling to fend off his cousin's onslaught "Speak with . . . our king ... if you must... but cease, cease this ... senseless bitterness . . . over a gold bauble!"

But Goldson only pressed him the harder. Rathson tried to shield himself without hurting his cousin. So great was the fury with which they batded that it seemed inevitable that both would be cut to pieces. A sudden shriek from Goldson chilled his blood. "I will kill you! I will kill you! Give it to me, or I will kill you!"

A rope ladder led from the wall to the turf below, and before anyone could stop him Bjorn was scrambling down. The seer acted quickly. "Avaunt, proud spirit! Avaunt and begone! In the name of the Changeless One, get thee hence!"

The creature turned to face Mab. Then raising his long white arm and pointing at King Bjorn he said, "Take care, little ma-gician! I may not harm you, but him I can destroy." His voice was chill with menace.

Mab raised his staff and as he did so several things happened so quickly that John could never be sure afterward which of them happened first. It seemed that almost simultaneously a bolt of blue lightning shot from the prophet's staff toward Lord Lunacy and a broad ray of blackness sped from the finger of the ghost to strike the Matmon king, hurling him to the turf.

But no sooner had the ray left the creature's finger than the bolt of blue light passed through it and it disappeared. With it went everything of the Mystery of Abomination. Only the clear light of the moon remained.

No one moved. No one that is, except for Rathson and Gold-son, and they for only a brief second. They were too close to each other for anyone to see clearly what happened. There was a swift movement, then a grunt, then the soft thud of a body falling on the turf. And as they watched helplessly, Goldson, with a yell of delight, tore the gold chain from around Rath-son's neck. The rest of them remained transfixed.

Then with a laugh Goldson flung his sword aside and ran to the cliff top shouting, "Gold, I will have gold! I go to join the Mystery. Now I shall live forever and hoard more gold than any being who has ever lived."

He leaped over the cliff and vanished from sight In the stillness that followed, a voice from the skies cried, "Henceforth shall his name be Goldcoffln! He will live many ages in a castle beneath the Northern Mountains, surrounded by a lake of death, surfeited with the dead things he has chosen."

At first they moved slowly as though they were waking from a dream. But soon Mab, John, Bjornsluv and several of the Matmon servants were clambering down the ladder. Even before they reached the bottom, the old king had staggered to his feet and was stumbling across to where his grandson's body lay. Rathson was dead Bjorn and Bjornsluv wailed softly over his body while the rest of the company watched in silence. Gently the seer took John by the arm and urged him to go to bed.

They buried Rathson the next day inside the castle walls. The Matmon king and queen bore themselves with dignity, weeping silently, but holding their heads high. John's feelings were confused. One part of him was overwhelmed with grief at the thought of what Bjorn and Bjornsluv were suffering. But another part of him was anxious and guilty.

Why had he not acted sooner? Why had he not spoken to the old king as soon as the council meeting was over? He had clearly seen the hostility of Goldson (or of Goldcoffin, as everyone was now calling him) toward Rathson. Why had he not spoken up as soon as he had seen the glittering chain of gold on Rathson's neck? Was it his fault that Rathson had died?

He talked the matter over with Mab after the funeral, but their conversation left him unsatisfied. Mab felt that it was silly for John to blame himself. Mab was more concerned about the royal succession than about Bjorn's grief. "He has great grandsons to carry on his line," Mab told John. "Rathson has three children of his own. Many of the Matmon people still live in the Northern hills because of the danger here. Rathson would not allow his wife to come to the island." But John could not forget the glow in the king's eyes as he had spoken of Rathson the night before nor the soft moaning in the moonlight.

"Couldn't you bring him to life again—like you did with Aguila?" John asked.

The seer shook his head. "I don't often do things like that And when I do, I know beforehand that it will happen. I
see
it. That's why I'm called a seer. In the case of Rathson, I saw nothing."

John even approached Bjorn, his lip quivering and his voice shaking as he said the only things he could think of. "I'm so sorry. It was my fault. I should have told you sooner."

Wordlessly Bjorn had gathered him into his strong arms and held him. "No," he said at length. "I should have listened to you as soon as you told me. Something in my heart said that you were a messenger from Mi-ka-ya, but I did not want to listen. The fault is mine, and I have paid dearly for my stubbornness."

John marveled at the softness of the Matmon's beard as he clutched John tightly, breathing heavily. He found himself weeping. But he was thinking not of Bjorn nor of Rathson. Or if he was thinking of them, he was thinking more of Grandma Wilson and of a funeral two years before that he never had a chance to attend.

When Bjorn eventually let him go, John made his way to a lonely spot on the castle wall, sat in a corner of the parapet overlooking the lake and wept, quietly at first, but in the end brokenly. He wept until he was exhausted, letting his sobbing subside slowly and his thoughts wander wherever they wanted to. His own world and his own past were with him again. He thought of Salford Grammar School, of his friends there and of his former foes on Ellor Street. He thought of the Smiths and of Nicholas Slapfoot. But most of all he thought of Grandma Wilson and of nestling against her long black skirt as he snuggled on the floor night by night in front of their fireplace where she read "The Phoenix and the Carpet" to him.

Slowly his sobs subsided and his breathing grew quieter, punctuated only by an occasional sigh. It was late in the afternoon. He had not eaten all day, but he felt no hunger. He pulled the chain over his head and opened the gold locket to examine its contents for the thousandth time, staring at the Great War soldier. (He called World War I the Great War because, of course, he knew nothing of World War II.) Then he felt a soft nose touching his knees.

"I would not intrude on your grief, King John—"

"Not King john, Folly, just John."

"I would not intrude on your grief, Just John—"

John snickered. He was about to say, "Not
just
John, just
John,"
but Folly was already launched on a speech.

"Weeping may endure for a night, but better is a dry morsel with quiet... at least I
think
that's how it goes. I am foolish to suppose that I can offer comfort to one so infinitely wiser than myself, but it is my understanding, Just John, that you blame yourself for the tragedy that befell our company last night when all the time it is I who am to blame."

John was startled enough to forget his private sorrows.

"You? How could you be to blame?"

"The winds, Just John, the winds. What a stupid idea they were! How could winds blow evil away? Had I but kept my folly to myself (fine speech is not becoming to a fool—better to meet a she-bear robbed of her cubs than a fool in his folly) the Abomination might never have come. What a fool I am! What a fool, what a fool!" His face took on a woebegone expression. He placed his head on the ground and moaned.

Then John, who a few moments before felt he had no feelings left inside him, smiled. "Yes, Folly, you are—for so am I. And you're the nicest fool I ever met"

He hopped down from his seat, stroked the despondent donkey's neck and continued to laugh in soft, unsteady little spurts."I've never met anyone like you, Folly!" Folly lifted his head and brayed a little uncertainly.

"It is said that weeping may endure for a night but that's where flies go in the winter time... or am I repeating myself?"

John laughed heartily, and warmth began to kindle inside him. Folly studied him carefully for a few moments. Then he said, "You have dropped your chain, Just John. You have also dropped two gold ornaments that were attached to it."

At first John did not hear what the donkey said. His thoughts had wandered again. But eventually, after Folly had repeated himself several times, the words penetrated.

"Oh, yes. Sorry, Folly. I was thinking of something else. It's my ring and my locket. Let me show you."

John picked his treasures from the stone pavement on the castle wall and opened the locket, which Folly studied carefully. He displayed a great deal of interest in the photograph. "It appears to be the head of an adult male of your own species," he said eventually.

"Yes. It's a soldier. A soldier from the Great War. It
might
be a picture of my father."

"But he is small. Very small. In fact one could say that he is tiny. The head, now, is infinitely smaller than your own. I did not know that your species could be as small as that You yourself are much larger. Could so tiny a father produce a son of your size?"

"But it's just a photograph," John said. "It's not a real human being."

"Well, I didn't want to sound offensive, especially if the father in question should be
your
father, but I did, yes, I must confess I
did
think he was rather .. .
er, flat
and ... er,
strangely colored
and
thin."

John smiled. "Folly, a picture is only a picture. It's not a real person. It's just to help you think what the person is really like."

Folly nodded. "The Matmon paint life-size pictures with all the proper colors. They too are flat, but I think I understand. Oh, my feeble brain! I am supposed to look at your father's picture and with my brain, which is a very small brain, I must make the picture larger and fatter and more colored. Then what I see is the real human."

"Yes, that's the idea."

Folly nodded solemnly. "He who walks with wise men becomes wise. Wisdom will yet become an adornment round my neck" He looked at the picture again. "But why did they cut his body in two? Surely they did not have to kill him to make the picture?"