The Widow and the King (34 page)

Where was he?

She remembered his face when she had caught him that morning and told him about Velis. His smile had dropped, deadened all at once, as though the muscles in his cheeks had lost their power.

‘We need to think,’ he had said.

‘We need to think.’ He had thought, and she had seen that his thoughts had led him nowhere. All he had said was: ‘Meet me this evening in the wall-tower above the angle of the upper courtyard. It's a good place. We can talk there.’

It seemed to Sophia that there was not much to think about. Develin could not fight. Velis was too powerful, and the Widow would not do it. If she wed, they must be torn apart. She had thought wildly of poisoning Velis, somehow. But she did not know how. And she could not see
herself doing such a thing. There was only one answer.

At her feet lay a coarse sack that she had brought across the courtyard and hauled up the steep stair. She touched it, as if to make sure that it was still there.

Where was he?

Footsteps sounded, coming up the tower. The trapdoor creaked open. Chawlin's head appeared through the gap.

‘I'm sorry to be late,’ he said, climbing onto the platform. ‘Luke was following me, trying to find out where you were. He truly is crazy, I think, and now it is worse. I had to go and hide in the stables for a bit.’

She scowled.

‘I don't want to talk to him.’

‘I guessed not.’ He cocked his head on one side to look at her, and the lines around his mouth were grim. ‘So, then …’

She waited.

‘So we now must face things as they are, and not as we would like them to be,’ he said. ‘There's no choice.’

‘No.’

‘I should have said this before,’ he said. ‘I am ashamed of myself. But it is useless that either of us should pretend about things that are not going to happen. You owe your mother duty, and I owe her a great debt. Even thinking that you may – step down to where I am … It's a betrayal. I've been stupid. I've liked your company too much. You would be right to hate me now. The only mercy is that we have done nothing but dream …’

He was saying they should give up, and part.

‘… We both know it. You will have to – you will have to do as your mother asks.’ He said the last words in a rush.

Sophia was silent for a moment. He was so obviously wrong that she could not feel more than mildly disappointed in him.
I've liked your company too much.
He was letting his head rule his heart, that was all. She only had to show him the truth.

‘There is a choice,’ she said. ‘We can choose what we want. Or we can choose what we don't, because we're afraid. I know what I want. I need to know what it is you want.’

He sighed. ‘It's no use thinking like that …’

‘You have to tell me.’

‘Sophia! You are – very dear to me. Indeed you are. But you are just at the beginning. For each two years that you have lived, I have three or four …’

‘And I love you,’ she said, for the first time in her life.

It stopped him. When he spoke again it was slowly, as though his words hurt him.

‘Marriage is a big change – all the more so for someone who is young. There must be scores of girls every year who dream of escape when their betrothal is announced. Yet I only know of one who did …’

‘So now it will be two!’

‘Only
one
who did, Sophia. She ran to be the bride of Tarceny. And there was war.’

She stared at him. The Whore – the Whore of Tarceny.
He
was throwing that woman at her, now.

‘Do not use that name to me! Do
not
use it!' she yelled in his face.

‘I don't think you know yourself,’ he said, as she gathered breath again. ‘Running would change your life. It would change mine, too,’ he went on. ‘It's not been much. But it's not been bad either.’

‘Do you like living near something, knowing you can't reach it?’

The sack lay at her feet, but she did not touch it yet.

‘It's better that I do not …’

‘Don't you want me, then?’ (You do, she thought. You do. Why can't you say it?)

His forearms jerked in frustration.

‘I don't think you know what you want!’ he cried.

How silly. Of course she knew.

‘I want you,’ she said deliberately. ‘I love you. I can prove it to you.’

‘That's …’

‘No, look.’

From the sack at her feet she lifted it. She heard him choke.

The large, roughly-cut stone cup lay in her hands. It was heavy and awkward, with its thick stem and a base like a two-handed goblet. Around the rim curled a vague form that might have been a serpent or snake.

‘Michael's Wings! Why … ?’

‘You wanted it.’

‘Michael's Wings!’ he said again. ‘What if you had been caught?’

‘I don't care.’

The council chamber had been empty. So had her mother's anteroom, with the writing desk and the secret drawer. The drawer had opened to the touch of her fingers. The key had been there. It had fitted the lock of the chest, as she had guessed it would. Within there had been boxes and heaps of letters, many of them in a hand that she knew had been her father's. At another time she
would have seized on them and read them, to help her remember him. But she had not come for them. She had come looking for the cup, cut from plain stone, that Chawlin had brought to Develin. She had guessed it would be in the chest, and there it had been, nestling among the papers. She had taken it because she could.

She had taken it, secured the chest again, and was gone in less than a minute, with a sureness as if someone had been telling her that no one would ever know what she had done.

Chawlin turned it in his hands. All at once he let out his breath.

‘I don't know … I don't know …’

‘I thought you might know how it could help us.’

‘I carried it. I never used it, or saw it used. Tarceny used it, and he was torn to pieces. It's dangerous. It must be.’

‘I can take it back, if you don't want it.’

He shook his head. Of course he wanted it.

‘No. No, let me think.’

He stood there, staring at the thing in his hands. Beyond him, the light was fading. The glow of the walls had slipped to a dull orange. It would soon be the hour for supper. The Widow would want to talk with her then, and afterwards, about her duty. This would be her last chance to speak with Chawlin today.

He must decide!

He wanted the cup. She knew that. If he wanted to keep it he would have to flee. If he fled, he might as well take her with him.

Still Chawlin knelt there, thinking, turning the thing at arm's length as if to find some hidden catch or crevice
in it. The deepening shadows of the house settled on his face.

Awkwardly, as if he did not quite know what to do, but was being told by someone else, he put the thing down on the floor between them. Sophia crouched beside him. Chawlin rested one hand on the rim of the cup and then drew it away, palm still inwards towards the bowl. His lips were moving, soundlessly.

‘What are you saying?’

‘Just some words I— Look! Look!’

The bottom of the cup was filling, from nowhere, with water. It swirled brownly in the bowl. A scent of damp stone came to Sophia, recalling – what? She had smelled it before. At night somewhere. She could not remember.

‘How did you do that?’ she asked, shocked at the simplicity of the miracle.

‘It – it came to me. I …’

‘What do we do now?’

‘Look,’ he said at last.

‘What for?’

‘Ideas. Help, perhaps.’

‘Let's look then,’ she urged. ‘We haven't much time.’ Still something about that plain stone bowl – maybe just a memory – made him hesitate. A hiss of impatience escaped her. He must have heard it.

He bent over the water in the dimming light. Sophia tried to peer in, too. She could see nothing. Perhaps it was just the angle at which she was looking at the water. But Chawlin began to murmur again, softly to himself. His eyes were fixed on the bowl. Something was happening, there. What was it? Why didn't he tell her?

‘Rocks,’ said Chawlin. ‘Rocks. What place is that? No trees, grass or houses. It is not the mountains … Ho. Different now. Sunlight …’

Sophia looked at him, and at the water again. It was plain, a little brown and smelly, she thought. He seemed rapt in it. Perhaps the cup was speaking only to him, not her.

‘There – found it! Did you see that?’

‘No. What?’

‘My home – the manor where I was raised at Greyfells. But there's no help to be had there,’ he went on, half to himself. ‘My uncle could not hide us, even if he wanted to. What about … ? Ah, that's how. There, can you see?’

It was just brown water.

‘No,’ she said.

‘My keep, at Hayley in the March of Tarceny. It's all a ruin now. But it's not bad land, and there are few that live there.’

She knelt back, struggling with the suspicion that this was all a trick, and that he was just pretending, to humour her. But why would he be doing that? It was a risk for him even to be here.

Horrible thoughts came in a horrible time. She loved him. She must also trust him. She watched him, trying to guess whether he had made up his mind without saying so. He was intent on the bowl, and did not look at her. Perhaps he was using it as a way of putting off having to decide. Maybe she should not have shown it to him until he had done. But …

Something struck the side of the bowl with a sharp
rap!
and skittered away.

‘What was that?’

‘A twig. Someone threw it in from below!’

Who knew they were there? She jumped up to peer over the roofed parapet into the courtyard. A boy was down there, looking up at her.

‘Luke!’ she hissed, and stepped back out of sight.

They were both silent for a moment, listening for a step on the stair.

‘So he managed to find us after all,’ said Chawlin, still kneeling on the floor. ‘He's clever, no doubt about it. I should have remembered that I brought him here. And he knows we are together. What does he want?’

‘He wants to tell me his nightmares,’ Sophia said bitterly. Why had she shown herself ? At her foot was the twig that had landed on the platform. There was a small roll of paper around it. She picked it up, between a disdainful thumb and finger.

Chawlin was looking into the bowl again.

‘It's changed,’ he said. ‘Why has it done that?’

‘What can you see?’

‘A man and a woman – in a mountain valley. He's a knight … It's not us … Why is it showing me this?’

Sophia's impatience was growing, and with it, the beginnings of fear. Already one person in the castle knew where they were. She did not like the way Chawlin kept poring over the cup. She did not like not being able to see what it showed him. She should have been more careful, she thought. She could have talked to him about it, before giving it to him. What they were doing was witchcraft – real witchcraft! Many people thought witchcraft was worse than murder.

There was so little time!

‘Michael's Wings!’ said Chawlin again. ‘It is him – Lackmere!’

‘Who?’

‘My old captain …’

‘Can he help us?’ (Chawlin! Remember what you are doing here!)

‘Maybe. He is no friend of Velis. He could be anywhere on the edge of the Kingdom. Maybe he is in exile after Septimus's fall. He looks fit enough, whatever. Who is the woman, though? She is …’

Suddenly Chawlin exclaimed and bent forward, as if to force a closer look from the narrow waters.

‘What is it?’

‘I know her – or knew her! Angels above … So
she's
alive, too. Where has she been all this time?’

‘Who?’

‘That's the bride of … That's the mother of our Luke …’

‘He's orphaned.’

‘Apparently not.’

‘So you know his family then?’

Slowly, Chawlin withdrew his gaze from the cup. ‘I guessed …’ He looked at her, then dropped his eyes as though wondering how much to say. ‘It changed – it changed when his twig hit it. It knew him.’

Sophia peered out again into the courtyard. It was empty. Luke was gone. Night was nearly on them. From her vantage point she could see the upper walls of the main courtyard, reflecting the glow of the braziers that had been set by the doors of the great hall. Distantly,
the sound of the house gathering for supper came to her.

She should be down there.

‘What does it mean?’

‘I must think.’

Sophia nearly stamped her foot again.

‘Why don't you
tell
me?’

He looked at her again. ‘What do you want me to tell you?’

After a moment she said: ‘Tell me what you are going to do.’

That was what mattered – not Luke; not the cup; not even that he loved her. What was he going to
do
?

‘I will think …’

‘You've been thinking all day!’

‘Sophia. We're on the edge of a cliff. If we jump, maybe we can fly. But maybe we will kill ourselves. We need to be sure – both about what we want to do, and about whether we can do it.’

‘There's no time! What if the King wants to take me away with him?’

‘It's hardly likely, is it?’

‘He's coming himself, the day after tomorrow. He thinks it's all settled!’

Chawlin pulled at his lip. The shadows of evening had grown about them. She could barely see his face.

‘We could not just set out as we are in any case. It would take a day, maybe two, for me to gather the very least we would need. I may start storing it up by that fishing shelter you hid in the day we met. At the same time I want to think. And you must think, too. If, in two days, we are both sure – and I think we can – we will go.’

Sophia groaned. Two days!

‘What was it Luke wanted?’ Chawlin asked.

She looked at the twig. She did not care what Luke wanted. But she picked at the twine that held the scrap of paper, unrolled it, and lifted it in the last light of sunset. ‘It says:
Please meet me at noon tomorrow on the chapel steps
. That's all.’

‘Better to see him, if you can.’

‘Why?’

‘It will keep him quiet. I doubt he would carry stories of us to your mother. But if he were minded to – well, at least hearing him out will win us time.’