The Widow and the King (42 page)

‘What are we going to do?’ he asked.

‘What do you want to do?’

… Helpless; and angry.

‘I want to fight,’ he said.

‘So do I,’ she murmured. ‘So do I.’

She was looking down the slope, to where the path emerged from the trees. Ambrose realized she had seen something. And there was movement down there – something among the trees, plodding steadily towards them. He could not see it clearly until it stepped into the sunlight and became a pair of horses, and, at their head, an armoured man.

‘At last,’ she said.

Ambrose saw a short figure in a stained white-andblue tunic, who looked familiar – and the horse, that big grey animal that followed him, he recognized at once.

The other beast was new …

‘Mercy of Angels!’ she exclaimed.

‘What's that?’

It looked like a horse, although it was smaller than Stefan, and a muddy brown colour. But its head was the wrong shape, and so were its long ears. It was saddled for riding.

‘It's a mule!’ she said. ‘The foal of an ass! I suppose – I suppose riding horses must be very few in the March, now. He has done his best. All the same …’

The man looked around him, and saw them above him. Then he looped the reins of his beasts around a small tree, and began to climb the slope towards them. Ambrose, trusting nothing, watched him carefully until he was sure.

‘It
is
him,’ he said. ‘It's Wastelands.’

He was the same travelled, ragged figure that he had
been when they had parted at Develin, and his stained armour did not shine in the sun.

‘What did you call him?’

‘Wastelands. Should we go down to him?’

She shook her head.

‘I am not Paigan Wulframson. I have not yet learned to walk in both worlds as he does. If I move, I must set my feet on the rocks of the Cup. Each place in the Cup matches a place in this world, but it is smaller. It is only a dream, after all. So a wrong step might bring me to the other side of this valley, or up to my waist in the stream. It is easier for me to be still. For now, let him come to us.’

‘Does he know about our enemy, and his creatures?’

‘He knows. He and I have spoken much since he fled from Septimus's defeat. And he too has had an evil winter since you rode with him. But you must not call him a wasteland. No man is all wasted inside himself, any more than our poor Kingdom, even now, is all destroyed. His name is Aun. He is, or was, the Baron of Lackmere. Of all the friends who helped me against your father – Martin, Evalia, Adam – he is the last. He will do his best for us.’

Ambrose frowned. After all they had lost, one fighting man did not seem very much. He remembered Aunt Evalia's voice, speaking by the fire at Chatterfall. Even then, she had known what must be done. The problem was that they had never had the strength to do it.

‘Can't we get more help?’

‘Not without risk,’ she said.

‘We should take risks then.’

She seemed to think about what he had said.

‘Very
well … Although a man like Aun is not nothing,’ she added.

‘Are you going to wed him?’ Ambrose asked.

She gave a surprised little laugh.

‘My darling – what put that into your head?’

‘I don't know.’

It had come to him, just then, as he had looked at her watching the man toil up the slope towards them. There had been something in her eyes that he hadn't seen before.

The knight climbed steadily towards them under the sun. Ambrose could hear the
clink, clink
of his mail as he moved.

‘A wolf may watch the moon,’ she said. ‘But neither can wed the other. I am something else now. He knows that.’

Wolf ? Why had she said that?

Oh, because of his badge. Of course. And that must have been why she called his son the ‘young wolf ‘ back home in the hills – because he came from the house with the wolf-badge. That was all. She hadn't been judging either of them.

‘He wants to kill his son,’ he said.

After a moment she answered: ‘That must not happen.’

Butterflies fled wavering before Wastelands's armoured knees as he picked his way up the meadow towards them.

‘It
must
not happen,’ she murmured.

‘You will find that he listens to you, as he did not before,’ she went on. ‘He knows that you know the enemy. You must decide how to fight, and he will help you.’

‘Won't you be with us?’

‘I will not be far away. But I told you that in some ways I am still a babe. I cannot go with you under the sun, and I must be wary how I travel within the Cup. No,’ she said, seeing the expression on his face. ‘The enemy moves in both worlds. Aun can see only this one. And I am forgetting this one, while still learning my way in the other. But you – you see both. I think you always have. Oh, I know. It's too soon for you. But there is no more time. And you have grown this winter, Amba. You have learned as well – perhaps more than you realize. You must find your own way now. And you must help the rest of us to find it, too.’

‘Why do you think I can?’

‘Because you already have done.’

She looked down at something she was turning in her fingers.

‘In the darkest hours of my life, my darling, you sent this to me. You gave it to Martin to bring to me in Tarceny. “Give Mama,” you told him. No, you do not remember. You were less than two years old. But I have treasured this, and when I escaped from the pool and returned to the house, I remembered where I had laid it. I have carried it since, and with it I have managed to hide and to protect myself from the hunters. And now I have it to give back to you.’

It was a white stone.

‘It is, as they all were, a fragment of the bone of Capuu, cut from the broken teeth that stood around the pool. It will not make you a ring to hide in. It will not be enough, I think, to ward off all attack from the creatures of the pit. Nor will it keep you safe from any man who serves the Prince Paigan. But the enemy does not know
where you are, yet, and it may help to hide you. Carry it, and keep watch, and be ready with a weapon. For your enemies are men or creatures. They are not ghosts. They may be wounded by a sure hand. Take care of it, my darling, for it is the very last.’

She looked up as the knight climbed the last few yards of slope to where they sat. He stood over them, breathing heavily.

‘A sure hand,’ he said.

‘And I have a little iron, too. Also I have some hooves, to save our feet, and bread for our bellies. Where are we headed from here?’

Ambrose gripped the last white stone in his palm. He knew she had just given him everything she had to give.

‘We'll go home,’ he said. ‘We'll go back to the pool.’

nce again he was travelling with Wastelands. He slept on lumpy earth and roots, and rose in grey dawns with his clothes all clammy from the dew. His days were straps and camp-meals and the hours of plod, plod, plod as the landscapes shifted slowly by. He remembered it all so well that Develin might never have happened.

Some things were different, and better. The wooded hillsides changed more quickly than the dull, flat lands on the other side of the lake. He had his own mount – the solid, rough-hided mule, with its air of peaceful indifference to all that came. He had not found a name for it and did not think he would. It looked as if a name would be just another indignity for it to endure. Nevertheless he was grateful to it, because riding its broad, swaying back was easier than he had thought it might be.

Better still, Wastelands had brought food for two, whereas before (Ambrose now realized) he must have been sharing what he had planned for only one. And they were both ready to talk, from time to time.

In a valley like any other, Wastelands pointed to a rock.
It had been roughly shaped into a short, square column, and stood where the stream they had been following tumbled over a cataract.

‘The March-stone,’ he said. ‘In law we are now in the March of Tarceny, and therefore in the Kingdom. If we were ordinary travellers we would be under the protection of the King. As it is, I am an outlaw, and so I suspect are you. Therefore everyone we meet would now be our enemy, and the lords would be bound to pursue us, out of the duty they owe to the crown.’

Ambrose slid down from the back of his mule to look at the stone.

‘However,’ Wastelands went on, ‘I do not think we shall meet many who have heard of this King, or will seek to apply his law. The March was ever a land of few people, and the wars and risings of the last years have made it more so.’

‘And who is the lord here?’

‘You, I suppose,’ said Wastelands, as though it had only just occurred to him. He frowned. ‘Tancrem of Baldwin was the last real strength in the March, although he only held the land in stewardship. When he was brought down, Septimus appointed others, but by then the March was war-riven and worth little. One of the stewards was killed by the Fifteen. I did not hear that the rest ever came to see what they had here. Now Septimus is gone. There is no lord. There are not even many manors or farmhouses.’

On the face of the stone was carved a disc, which might have been a moon, with a shape upon it.

‘Who are the Fifteen?’

Wastelands grinned, bitterly.

‘You have met them. It was they who hounded us to Develin – and pressed me close for three days after, until I won to Lackmere and could drop my own portcullis in front of their noses. They were knights of your father. They lost their lands here after your father's rising, but they have crept back to what was left and they wring from it what they can, riding like brigands out of the shell of Tarceny.’

‘Will we meet them here?’

‘I trust not. The March is a wide land. But if we stay in one place too long, then they may come looking for us.’

‘Why did they chase us?’

‘They do not love me. But they were on your trail before I found you. So I guess they thought you carried some treasure of Old Tarceny, or maybe news of where they might find your mother. Her, they would hunt to the death, for her part in Tarceny's fall. I do not know who told them where to look for us. It may have been this scarecrow-priest that is our enemy. It may even have been my devil of a son.’

The mule stood patiently in the narrow track while Ambrose clambered back into his saddle.

‘Your son spared your life,’ he said slowly.

The man shot him an angry glance.

‘Eh? What's that?’

‘He came to our camp last season, when we were sleeping in the old castle. He could have killed both of us, but he didn't.’

Wastelands had half-turned in his saddle, staring at Ambrose.

‘How do you know this?’

‘I spoke with him. He came by under-craft and woke me. He had a knife, but he didn't do anything.’

He realized that the man probably wouldn't believe
him. In a moment he would decide that Ambrose was either mad or a liar, and ride on. It would be difficult to talk to him about anything after that.

Wastelands sat stock-still in his saddle.

‘You spoke with him? You talked prettily and let him go away?’

‘Yes,’ said Ambrose.

‘Why didn't you
wake
me?’

‘I was afraid,’ said Ambrose truthfully.

‘Afraid! Michael's teeth! I could have had my throat slit – would that have made you feel better?’

‘No.’

‘He killed his brother! For witchcraft – witchcraft, you hear? It's the same damned stuff that your father did. There's no other word for it. That's what you were dealing with!’

‘It isn't right to kill your son.’

Now he had done it. Wastelands was staring at him, his eyes dark and his cheeks pale. What now? Was he going to start beating him again?

The fighter leaned in his saddle until his face was nearly level with Ambrose's.

‘What business,’ said Wastelands, ‘is that of yours?’

‘My mother thinks so,’ said Ambrose defensively.

‘
Does
she? And what's it to do with her, either? Listen. What's between him and me is my concern and mine alone. What he did in my house. And to my men and my friends and my King last winter, too. What
right
do you think you have to tell me otherwise?’

Ambrose looked into his eyes, and saw no speaking with them.

‘Now ride on,’ said Wastelands, in a voice that was not quite true.

Obediently Ambrose kicked at his mule, and kicked again until it ambled ahead along the path. Behind him, he heard Stefan follow. He did not look round. He thought the man behind him might be weeping.

After a while Wastelands spoke again.

‘Could you sleep, thinking that I'd sit and chat with the scarecrow and his creatures if they came on us in the night?’

‘No.’

‘Your enemies are my enemies. Mine are yours. That's the way it works. That's why we can ride together, you understand?’

‘Yes.’

‘From now on, neither of us sleeps at the same time. You'll watch, then I'll watch, the night through. And if either of us see anything, we both rouse up.’

‘Yes.’

‘And I'll be sleeping more lightly in future.’

Ambrose heard the choke in the man's voice. And he felt like weeping, too.