The Wilful Eye (7 page)

‘You must show him your value, Moth,' her mother said, suddenly roused. ‘Throw yourself on his mercy.'

‘And if he has none?' Moth asked, thinking of the stories she had heard of the treatment meted out by the king to the horses and dogs and hawks he took a-hunting with him, none of whom lasted long after he had whetted his famous cruelty on them. It struck her with a chill that this test of magic might be another kind of whetting. She had a sudden vivid picture in her mind of Camber, exchanging a gloating look with the handsome, hawk-faced king she knew from the statue in the main square.

Moth went to her chamber and paced back and forth, thinking of the things she had heard people say of the king. He was proud of his reputation for cruelty, and as changeable as the wind. Once he had told the ambassador from Oranda that a king ought to be cruel and capricious in order to keep his subjects properly submissive and apprehensive of his displeasure. ‘And what ought a queen to be?' the ambassador had asked, for his ruler was a queen. This was tantamount to a reproof, but the king could do nothing to the ambassador without provoking a war against Oranda, so he kept his counsel.

There seemed some anomaly in this, and Moth pon- dered it.

Among the important men of the Middle Kingdom, there was sometimes talk of invading the tiny kingdom at the tip of the peninsula, which was said to be dripping with pearls and jewels, and rich from levying taxes on ships from other lands. Aside from the possibility of appropriating the wealth of Oranda, they disapproved in principle of a kingdom run by a woman, where women did the jobs that were supposed to be done by men and thought themselves the equals of men. Their mutterings would result in their assistants and secretaries squawking and fluttering off like chickens with a fox after them to see to sprucing up the army or training more war horses or to the smithy to see about new weapons.

But the king did nothing to advance the plot, although occasionally he would proffer so ambiguous a comment that the ministers would fall silent, no one wanting to say anything that might be construed as a disagreement. The rest of the time, he merely sat listening and watching from his hooded eyes. When judgements and laws were being discussed, he left it to his ministers entirely and sometimes he yawned openly and wandered out.

Was it possible he truly had no interest in acquiring Oranda? As far as Moth had heard, he had never even visited the tiny kingdom, despite invitations from its queen. In truth he seemed almost indifferent to the land he ruled, for he spent most of his time inside his vast black castle. He left it only for his midnight hunting expeditions, always alone and always in the dense forest at the foot of the mountains, said to be inhabited by wolves and ferocious bears and strange misshapen beasts with the faces of men or grizzled children. Moth had heard enough from animals to know the king liked to see things hurt and dying. People said he sometimes brought back strange and dreadful trophies, which he mounted upon the walls of his bedchamber, but that was likely an exaggeration, for few ever got beyond the audience chambers of the castle.

For all its size and complexity, it housed none of the king's staff or servants or ladies-in-waiting or ministers. There were only three mute servants who dwelt within the walls in a hut and had the task of shutting the great gates at night and opening them again in the mornings.

Moth wondered if the queen of Oranda felt uneasy about the ministers' plotting, for although there was little traffic between her land and the Middle Kingdom, there was enough for rumour to go along as a passenger. Despite only having a little fleet of ships with seamen warriors to protect her realm, she had made no effort to build up a land force. Indeed, according to one tale, when it was suggested Oranda might be invaded by the Middle Kingdom, the queen merely replied that the king would be brave indeed to turn his back on the vast and mysterious Mountain Kingdom whose own ruler was a mighty fighter and half giant besides.

No one knew what the Mountain King thought of it all, since few ever travelled there from the other two kingdoms. She thought of the young traveller, who might have had something to say about it, if there had been time to consult him, but her mind dwelt rather irrelevantly on the breadth of his shoulders under the long sleek tail of his black hair, and the muscular strength of his arms. Then she shook her head crossly and gathered her wits.

‘So where has all this thinking got me?' she asked herself briskly. ‘The king is by his own account, and that of beasts, a cruel man who loves his solitude and his castle and his hunting, and who does not think much of women. More- over he has a penchant for cutting the heads off people who vex him.'

‘You must look on this as an opportunity,' her mother said, coming in with a tray of lip salves and skin creams and hair ornaments and curling tongs. ‘If only you had not cut your hair, but the colour is lovely, like butter. And your skin is smooth and delicate as an eggshell. You are too thin but there is fragility in that. Present yourself humbly and sweetly, and the king will surely soften. You must not be bold but neither must you cringe lest you make him despise you. There must be courage but humility so that he can admire and pity you. Only then may he fall in love with you.'

‘The king wants magic from me. If I am fragile as an egg, and fail him, he will think only to smash me,' Moth told her.

‘You must not talk like that,' her mother said. ‘You must not think such things.'

‘You mean I must not think,' said Moth, but not aloud. Suddenly she saw it all. The king was like Camber, only his lust was for pain, not flesh, or maybe both. The wheat farmer had recognised himself in the king and had brought Moth to his attention, relishing the knowledge that his master would do to her what he could not. For, once she failed to demonstrate magic, she would be his to do with as he desired.

That night Moth lay in her narrow bed. She lay very straight with her arms pressed to her sides and legs together as one might lie in a shroud. She imagined her mother bathing her and perfuming her cold skin, weeping tears over the marks that had been made. She watched the passage of the light from the waxing moon move across the floor. She watched the ribboning coils and curlicues of smoke from the candles Dougal had given her. The scent was very strange and she was not sure she liked it. But when at last she slept she dreamed of a vast silvery expanse of water running away to the horizon, heaving up and down and rising to frothy crests that folded in on themselves, and then she dreamed of high jagged mountains clothed in frozen white velvet under the starry sky, a black panther moving quiet as a shadow over the snow.

Day came and Moth did not want to get up, but she must and so she rose and slipped out in the misty dawn in her old clothes, knowing Dougal would be up with his bees. She had made a promise to the old man and wanted to keep it, but also, she wanted to solace herself with his gentle kindness. He gave her his black-gapped grin and a slice of rough black bread hot from the oven smeared with honey.

‘I do not know what other people will make of the scent of those candles,' she said between bites, ‘but you ought to tell the traveller that I would buy them for the dreams they roused.' She told the old man of the shining waves and the white foam peaks and the dark fierce mountains clawing at the sky, and of the panther. He listened wistfully and wished he might smell the dreams as well.

The mist began to melt away and the air went gauzy pink and filled with the scents of flowers and the morning. Moth did not want to go in, but knew she must be readied for her audience. She did not think it would save her, but at least it would comfort her mother. She was a wilfully foolish but warm-hearted woman with no real harm in her. Moth hugged the old beekeeper and he looked surprised and then gratified as he patted her on the back with his gnarled hands. But then he looked troubled.

‘Are ee aright girl? Not being bithered by that sour drake? That Camber, eh?'

Moth was startled to hear him speak of the wheat farmer in such a way, for she had not thought anyone else saw what he was, but she did not want to burden Dougal with her troubles. He was an old man and no match for someone like Camber, who would be swift to cause harm if he thought Dougal was his enemy. So she assured him brightly that all was well, adding that Camber and her father had arranged for her to visit the king. She had meant to impress and reassure him, but Dougal furrowed his whiskery brows and shook his head. Frightened, Moth kissed his cheek and hurried away.

The day had dawned fair and stayed that way, but when it was time to go, Moth's father had the driver get out the closed carriage so that her finery should not be disturbed: her mother had spent hours dressing and combing and arranging her, and she had charged him with ensuring Moth reached the palace unruffled. He seemed quite to have forgotten why they were going to the palace and talked only of the festival of the birds that was to be proposed to the king, remarking that the queen of Oranda held such a festival and since the same birds that came to Oranda also stopped in the Middle Kingdom on their way south, why should they not have their own festival?

Moth hardly listened; a dreariness and dread had fallen over her.

‘You smell sad,' said an old one-eyed dog reproachfully, when her father handed her down to the sunlit cobbles in the entrance yard of the palace. Dogs were very sensitive to the smell of emotions.

‘Here we are,' her father said, smiling. ‘You look like a princess.'

They passed into the shadows under a stone arch and came to a small courtyard where, at the top of a flight of stairs on either side of an enormous set of doors, two sentries stood in red and silver livery. They presented arms without looking at Moth and her father and bade them go in, but made no move to open the great doors. Moth and her father obeyed, and the doors opened easily and smoothly on an entrance hall with a marble floor so coldly beautiful that Moth could feel the chill through the thin soles of her embroidered slippers. There were ornate mirrors with bevelled edges and a faintly golden sheen hung at intervals all along both sides of the hall, but no windows. From the corner of her eyes Moth passed a hundred princesses in cream silk gowns, pale hair all built up into a buttery yellow tower over a fall of false curls, dotted with seed pearls and sprigs of white jasmine. All of them held the arm of their short, stout, dark-clad father: an army of doomed princesses.

At the end of the hall of mirrors was another set of doors, smaller and inset exquisitely with a multitude of tiny enamelled blue tiles and decorated with gold leaf. There were two servants standing before them who swept open the doors as father and daughter entered an enormous red salon. A page ran ahead to announce their coming.

‘The audience chamber,' murmured Moth's father. ‘See all the gold touches and the alabaster and lapis lazuli? One wall alone would cost more than our farm makes in ten years.' His voice was full of admiration. He pointed out several special features, and failed to notice that, other than the shining mosaic panels, the long room was the colour of blood. Here, too, there were no windows. The chamber was lit by banks of fat white candles.

They came into a smaller audience chamber and this too was red, though there were no animal trophies on the wall. The throne was black, and the king sat upon it looking down at them. He was very like his statue, with the same handsome face and beaked nose, but he was thinner and taller, his narrowness accentuated by the austere black clothes he wore. His eyes were hooded as she had been told, so that he looked out from the shadows with glimmering intent. Unlike the statue he wore not a chain nor ring nor bauble. He was all darkness.

‘Here is my daughter Moth, your majesty,' said her father. His voice sounded small in that room, as if it was designed somehow to swallow sound and reduce it.

‘Moth? What sort of name is that?' asked the king in a drawling languid voice. His eyes dwelt momentarily on Moth, but only as a hand would rest on a shelf. They did not see her, she felt, and knew that all of her mother's finery and efforts were wasted. This was not a man who cared for beauty, at least not the beauty of a woman. Was it possible he was a man who loved other men? She had never heard a whisper that the king was such a one, yet neither had she heard he was a man who lusted after women either. Indeed he never left his palace save to hunt. There had been a princess who visited once, from across the sea, but Moth did not know whether she had come to offer friendship or to be a bride. She had not stayed long.

Her father was explaining the significance of her name, telling how, as a baby, she had reached out to the candle and had burned herself before he could draw it away. The king listened, his lips curved in a simulacrum of a smile. Her father stammered to a halt. He was very pale and blinked too much.

At last the king looked at her properly. His eyes crawled over her face, her breasts, her belly and thighs. It felt as if Camber were running his hard hands over her, pressing and pinching and greedy for more. Those eyes watched to see what she would do. She tried to think what was best. He was the king after all, with the power of life and death. She thought of her mother's advice. If she played a foolish doll, would he merely torment her then let her go? She tried to smile but it twisted on her face.

‘So, you would burn to have what you desire, little Moth?' asked the king in a suggestive way that made Moth's flesh creep. ‘Perhaps I will find out. What a pretty sight you would make, all whiteness and flame.'

He rose with supple grace and offered his long white fingers. She put her hand into his. His grip was icy cold.

Moth turned to her father. He looked old and frightened. His mouth twitched and she, fearing what he would confess in sudden remorse and belated courage, and knowing no confession would keep the king from his pleasure, said, ‘Goodbye father. You do not need to wait for me.' She kept her voice serene and there was a flash of wild hope in his eyes.