Beyond the Burning Lands (17 page)

My mind revolved uselessly on possibilities and reasons. It must be something to do with King Cymru, I thought, but could not imagine what. But whatever had been said of me I was confident that I only needed to see Peter to put it right. I knew I was no traitor, and could meet any man who accused me.

Time dragged by and I could not sleep. Yet after I had resigned myself to being awake all night, sleep suddenly overcame me. And when I awoke it was light enough to see my surroundings again, though dimly, and a key was grating in the lock. I struggled up from where I had been lying cramped and cold on the straw, expecting the jailer with more bread and water. It was he who opened the door, but he stood aside for another. My brother Peter looked in at me.

He said: “Well, Luke, I find you poorly housed and bedded. But at least you are back with us. I cannot tell you how bitter a disappointment it was when Greene returned and told me you were lost.”

His voice was calm, even light in tone. I said:

“I would like to know of what I am accused and who accuses me. I was told some nonsense about treason.”

Peter nodded, as though in approval. “I see that a night in the cell has not cooled your spirit. I am glad of that. As to the charge . . . treason covers it but it has another name also, different but no less ugly. The charge is murder, and I accuse you.”

“Murder?” If I had not been shivering so hard I think I might have laughed. “Whom have I murdered?”

“Someone who did you no harm, who loved you even. Your Prince's Lady. And with her your Prince's heir.”

His voice had not changed, was steady still, but as I grew accustomed to the light I could see his face more clearly. There was a look in it, in the eyes particularly, which I had seen before. His mother, my Aunt Mary, had looked like that when she raged at me for supplanting him and afterward when she waited, in a cell much like this, for the burning to which she had been condemned.

So he was mad: he must be. The grief which Ann's death had brought had rankled and turned into this sour lunacy. I felt the chill of fear. I said:

“Will this charge be made in court?”

“It has been made, in your absence. You were found guilty and condemned. All that is necessary is the execution.”

Could he have paraded his madness in open court, and nevertheless got a verdict from the Captains? One had heard tales of crazed Princes enforcing the whims of their derangement, but not in Winchester. Our Captains, surely, were made of stronger stuff. The chill deepened in my belly. I said with what calmness I could muster:

“I was with you when your Lady left us to take her bath; and with you when the maid brought news of her death. I did not part from you in the time between. So how can I be guilty of her murder?”

“You covered your tracks well.” His face had a small, cold smile. “I grant that. But a murderer does not need to be present when his victim dies.”

“Poison, you mean? But Kermit told you she died from drowning. Do you say he was lying?”

Peter stared at me. “You are a better fencer than I thought, but it was to be expected. Shall I tell you a story? After you had gone with Greene's embassy my restlessness grew worse. I missed your company: does it please you to be told that, you who were my brother? And the pain of losing my Lady grew worse also. I could not bear to look at that part of the palace which had been hers. So I gave orders that it should be pulled down.”

He paused and I waited. If not mad then he was mistaken, and given opportunity I could prove it I knew my own innocence.

“Massy, the Builder Dwarf, saw to the work. One of his men found a strange thing and showed it to him, and he showed it to me. A line ran under the floorboards to a small room, fifty feet away, that is used for lumber. The line was made of some black stuff but had metal wire inside. And the wire was joined to the metal foot of the bath in which she died.”

Now my mind was in turmoil, half understanding, half refusing to believe what he was telling me. And yet he could not have made it up. He said:

“I called in Strohan, and asked him what he knew.”

Strohan was the palace butler, in charge of polymufs but himself true man, heavy and solemn and bald of head.

“He spoke freely when he had seen the wire and where it led. Last year his only grandchild died, a girl of six, drowned in the river below the mill. His wife went to the Seer, as women do, and got messages which he said the child had sent from the spirit world. She believed this, and believed it also when the message came that the Seer and his Acolytes needed to do secret things in the palace and to have a certain room kept for them. The poor fool thought it would help the child's ghost return to her, and Strohan did as she wished. So the work was done one day while my Lady was absent, giving thanks to her Christian God for the child she was to bear. And then they killed her, from a distance. With a machine!”

He paused, and again I said nothing. He said:

“Does this surprise you? I think not. But surely it is an incredible thing—that a Seer should use a machine to kill? I do not think the Captains would have believed it, except that when we sent men into Ezzard's house without warning we found the machine, and words written down for using it. It eats oil and spews out something called electricity which is invisible. It is a poison, it seems, that is more powerful when it works through water. That is why the wire led to the bath. The machine struck at her only for a moment and left no trace. It stunned her, her head fell under the water, and she drowned as Kermit said. The plot was cunning and cunningly carried out.”

I said in a dry voice: “I knew nothing of it.”

“So Ezzard said, until we showed him the machines we had found. There were many. I could not understand them all and would not wish to”—his voice cracked with disgust—“but I think it likely they have had many uses. To make voices in the Seances, and crowns of light, perhaps, foretelling a great future for a Prince in Waiting? Ezzard took you with him to the Sanctuary, and brought you back. So you say you knew nothing of this?”

“Nothing of killing.”

He said with contempt: “Lying will not save you. You are the Seers' man and have been from the beginning. They took you away when our father was murdered and I became Prince. Then, when they knew she would bear my son, they killed my Lady. All this was done for you, so that when I too had been slain you would rule in my place.”

“It is not true.” He looked at me and laughed. I thought of some of the thoughts that had come into my mind after Ann died, and of my hopes that he would turn Christian. “I had no part in it.”

“You lie, but it does you no good. Will you beg for mercy next?”

I set my eyes to his. “No, I will not do that.”

He laughed; more loudly and the madness was in it.

“Then you save a little of the breath you have left! You will need it for screaming when you and your friends hang in chains in the palace square and fires are lit under you.”

“My friends?”

“I kept them for your return. When Greene came back without you I had a mind to kill him for his carelessness in losing you. After all, you were my brother and mean more to me than the others. But only you and your Seers kill the innocent, so I held my hand. Then I set a date for their execution. I chose Midsummer Day which the Seers have always called a day sacred to the Spirits. This year I will offer them a fine sacrifice. And on Midsummer Eve itself you return from beyond the Burning Lands to make the sacrifice complete! If that too was the Spirits' doing, I am grateful to them.”

“Martin . . .”

“Your Acolyte friend? You will see him. I will hang him next to you as a favor.”

“He had no part in any killing. I will swear to it.”

“No more than you did?” The words were a sneer and I had no answer. He would not listen to anything I said. “No matter. The time is past for oaths and lies, for words of any kind. There is merely an end to bring about, and this day sees it. You are lucky to spend so short a time under sentence. It is an advantage over your friends. But I will tell the executioner to make up for it by giving you a slower death.”

He stared at me, his hand on the hilt of his sword.

“I thought I might have pleasure in bringing you this news, but you fill me too much with disgust. That you should have plotted her death, who begged me to call you back from exile . . .” He shook his head. “I must not think of it or I would kill you now. And you do not deserve such mercy.”

He turned and went. The jailer slammed the door and their footsteps echoed as they walked away.

•  •  •

The day was gray and warm, heavy with rain that had not yet fallen but seemed as though soon it must. But even if it fell in a torrent it would not quench the oil-soaked pyres of wood and straw heaped at the foot of the stakes in the palace yard. There were nine, and at eight figures hung in chains from the crosspiece: Ezzard and his Acolytes. The ninth was vacant.

A space had been cleared in front and soldiers guarded it. For the rest the square was crammed with people—the Captains and their Ladies on chairs at the front, other citizens of high rank behind them. Behind them again, the mob. They were hurling their derision against those already awaiting execution but as I was brought into the square under escort the jeers and yells rose to a higher pitch. Their faces were white foam on a shapeless sea of hatred, but as I was taken past I saw one I knew. It was old Parr who kept the sweetmeat shop in Leather Lane. My mother had given me halfpennies to buy from him when I first could walk and talk; and when I won the jeweled sword at the Contest he had stopped me in the street and rambled on interminably about old times. His face was different now: a spitting image of loathing.

I was brought to my brother where he sat in the midst of his Captains. There was an empty chair beside him, signifying his lost Lady. He said in a cold steady voice:

“Luke Perry, you stand condemned, by the people, the Captains and the Prince of this city, of murder and treason. The sentence is death by fire.”

He had spoken into silence. At those words there was a cry of what sounded like protest. I learned later that it came from the Christians, who rejected such a punishment even when the victim was one of their own. But the mob drowned this small outcry in their vast roar of approval, and blocked the attempts they made to get through to the Prince.

I said: “I am not guilty of this charge.”

They roared again, with anger. I saw Edmund standing behind his brother, Charles. His face was drawn and white. Even at this moment I could feel sorry for him. He had said he had wanted to aid me against the Bayemot but had not acted because he thought he could do no good. Nor could he now. It might be that he believed the indictment true.

He could not help me, nor could anyone. Ezzard and Martin hung in their chains on either side of the stake in the center which had been left for me. It was higher than the others, for the harder death which Peter had promised. I remembered Edmund's words on the hill above Klan Gothlen: “You have a demon who serves you well.” Now as never before I needed him.

Peter's raised hand quelled the tumult. He said:

“The city finds you guilty. I, your Prince, confirm sentence. Executioner, see to it.”

It was the formula. The executioner stepped forward to take my arm. I shook free and said in a loud voice:

“No Prince but a usurper! I was named as my father's successor.”

If I had wanted to say more I could not have made myself heard for the din. If they could have got to me I think they would have torn me in pieces as hounds break up a hare. But once again they obeyed Peter's lifted hand.

He said: “The Seer named you. Ask him again, above the crackling of the flames. Maybe you will be a Prince yet, in the land of the Spirits.”

They howled with mirth at that. I shouted:

“I name you coward!”

“Burn him!” Peter said. “Burn this traitor, who killed my Lady.”

The executioner's grip was stronger now and one of the guards held my other arm. The crowd was yelling, but I could be heard by Peter and the Captains. I said:

“When Stephen challenged my father, after he had been acclaimed as Prince, he took that challenge and fought and killed him. But he was a true Prince.”

I watched his face. There was no need to take notice of my words. A challenge from a displaced Prince was different from that of a felon, condemned for murder. No one would hold it against him if he did not accept, nor even think it ignoble. But I saw his eyes narrow and knew my shaft, however feeble, had gone home. He got to his feet.

In the new hush he said: “Maybe you think to get a quicker and easier death. Do not deceive yourself. I accept the challenge but I will not kill you. You will smolder no less for having a bloody arm. Bring him a sword!”

•  •  •

He looked a worthy Prince. He was several inches taller than I, broad of shoulder but narrow in waist and hips. His long fair hair was thick, his beard and yellower mustache fierce. He was dressed not in finery like King Cymru but in a Captain's leather jerkin, steel studded at the front, with a simple blue linen blouse underneath. The Prince's sword, forged by Rudi's grandfather and well tried in battle, hung from his belt.

By contrast I was a ragamuffin, my clothes tattered, boots scuffed, skin dirty from the journey and the night I had spent, unwashed, in the dungeon. I was tired, and weak with hunger. There was no sense, the jailer had said that morning, in putting even stale bread into a belly that the flames so soon would shrivel; and his wife kept hens who could make good use of it. And the sword that was given me, whether by accident or design, was more a boy's than a man's: scarcely longer than the one I had won, three long years ago, in the Contest.

We circled each other, and the iron of his boots struck sparks from the cobbles. I had hoped anger might unbalance him, but he showed no signs of it. He smiled, and said in a level voice: