Soulvine 03 A Bright and Terrible Sword (31 page)

‘Perhaps. I … I don’t know.’

Nell, tongue-tied and indecisive! But I had no time for astonishment. ‘What is the sword? What does it do?’

She looked at me, looked away, chewed her bottom lip. Finally she said, ‘We have only conjecture. The sword … It guards death itself. As such, it keeps the ultimate balance. None that I know have ever seen it. But there are reports, very old tales, from
hisafs
of bygone years. When one of the Dead has accumulated enough power, it … it takes him.’

‘Takes him? What does that mean?’

‘We don’t know!’ she burst out, and I glanced around to see if we were overheard. A stupid action, since all I could see was the rock against which we crouched and the empty moor. Nell twisted her hands together so hard that the blood left them and they turned white.

‘In the land of the living, one stroke of a sword can turn life into death. Just so, in the Country of the Dead – we think – the sword turns death into the next stage of life. All the tales report is that sometimes a circle of Dead, a very old circle from the ancient clothes worn, will vanish. There is the light and noise you have mentioned, the grey sky splits as if down a seam, and the Dead disappear. Perhaps it is a … a reward for the patience of the Dead, but we do not think so. It seems more a way to keep the web of being intact, to keep the balance of power. When a circle of the Dead has accumulated too much power, they must be taken away or the Country of the Dead will be profoundly disturbed. You know something of that, Roger Kilbourne – your meddling disturbed it enough once!’

And so I had. I remembered well the storms and the quaking of the ground I had caused in that place. My mind groped through Nell’s words to find something solid to hold on to, something I could verify with my own experience.

‘So you believe that when I brought the Blue army back to the land of the living, I upset the Country of the Dead so much that it called forth this sword? In order to right the balance?’

‘When you next crossed over, wasn’t the Country of the Dead restored to tranquillity?’

It had been, yes. And
I
had caused that, however unwittingly – but when hadn’t I acted unwittingly?

This time. Here and now. For once I was going to affect the balance deliberately, aided by this information from Nell and by the dream prompted by the artless questions of Tom Jenkins.

Nell put her hands over her face. ‘Oh, Roger Kilbourne, the risks you have taken of damaging the very web of being!’

‘We all do,’ I said, ‘every moment of our lives.’

She dropped her hands and glared at me. But before she could retort, a child toddled around the corner of the boulder.

She was no more than two, dressed in a crudely woven gown of undyed wool, barefoot but with a bright ribbon in her hair. When she saw us she stopped, surprise in her green eyes. A small Soulviner, a child of Hygryll, one of those that my father would torture in front of her captive parents to force them to send the old man to the Country of the Dead.

Manipulating the balance in the web.

The child smiled at me.

A woman dashed around the boulder. ‘There ye are, ye naughty girl!’ It was the same woman of The Queendom who had led Charlotte to a stone hut. This woman had lost her own child to the Brotherhood, and now she had been set to watch this small Soulviner. Did she know what was intended for her charge? Surely she could not, and still minister to the little girl. Surely not!

She saw me, started, blushed. ‘Oh, you’re Rawley’s son – I didn’t know before. Beg pardon for intruding, sir. The little one escaped me. Come here!’ She scooped the child up and went back towards the village.

No one crouched beside me. There was only a small grey snake coiled at the base of the rock.

‘Nell, change back,’ I said softly. ‘I have a plan, and there is urgent work for you to do.’

What mattered most was time. But, then, when does it not? Time to live as fully as one can before death claims us. Or, in this case, to concoct a drug before death claims an enemy.

‘I cannot do it,’ Nell said. ‘I have not the ingredients. No honey, no pounded flour, no—’

‘Then do not make little cakes! Can’t you put the drug into some other form? In water, even?’

‘He would taste it.’

‘In bilberries, then! There are some in the hut, I saw them.’

‘Perhaps,’ Nell said. Her eyes sought mine. I saw in them what I had never before seen in any web woman: doubt of herself. Often – very often! – they had doubted me, doubted queens, doubted
hisafs
– but never themselves. ‘Oh, Roger, I don’t think I have enough time! Not if Rawley intends to start the … the torture right away—’

‘I will see that he does not,’ I said grimly. ‘But you have the proper drugs with you?’

‘Yes, I—’

‘Then tell Maggie and Rawnie to come to me, and do your work in that hut.’ Charlotte would neither interfere nor question; she was a little afraid of Nell. But what was I going to do with the other two? By the time they walked towards me outside the hut, I had decided.

‘Listen to me,’ I said conspiratorially to Rawnie. ‘I have an idea for escape.’

She crowded close to me, even though there was no one else in sight. Her eyes shone. Maggie said, ‘Escape? But we are not prisoners here!’

‘No, not yet,’ I said. ‘But who knows what may happen? I think it wise to have means to flee, if we must. Now listen, Rawnie. I saw a herd of ponies on the moor just a moment ago. They are not wild because they wore bridles. They must have belonged to the people of Hygryll and somehow became loose without wandering far. Just a moment ago they went behind that closest tor. You are so good with horses – did you know, Maggie, that she stole a horse once and rode it back to The Queendom from Galtryf? Rawnie, we need those ponies, at least a
few of them. If you could coax the lead pony to you and capture it—’

‘I will!’ Rawnie cried, at the same moment that Maggie said, ‘Have you lost your
wits
?’

Rawnie said, ‘I can do it, Maggie!’

‘Roger, you would send a child out on the moor where there might be another attack, in order to chase ponies she most certainly cannot catch?’

‘Yes, I can!’ Rawnie said. Her freckles stood out dangerously. ‘And I am not a child! I am eleven!’

‘Maggie, there is no danger. You saw the tight ring of guards that Rawley has on the moor around Hygryll, and the dogs. Within that ring Rawnie will be just as safe as in the village. Perhaps safer. Hygryll itself will be the focus for any attack. And on the moor, she will see less.’

Maggie knew what I meant by that, even though Rawnie did not. Anyway, there was no stopping Rawnie now. She said, ‘I saw some rope by that hut!’ and dashed back into it. Maggie pushed her fair curls back from her forehead and gazed at me.

‘Roger, I still don’t think—’

‘Keep watch on her, Maggie. I don’t want her here for … for Rawley’s plans.’

Maggie paled. ‘Is he really going to do it? Now?’

‘I don’t know. But I want Rawnie out of earshot.’

Finally Maggie nodded. ‘I can perhaps keep her on the other side of the tor. Oh, Roger, if it were our Tom—’

‘Go,’ I said, as Rawnie, carrying rope, raced back to us. Maggie had always been able to name hard truths. Sometimes I wish she could not. But she would keep Rawnie away from Hygryll while Nell worked. The indefatigable Rawnie would be a long time searching for ponies that I had invented.

After they had left for the nearby tor, I peered inside the gloom of the round hut. Charlotte lay asleep on the
stone bench. Nell sat on the floor under a rushlight she had set burning in its holder on the curved wall. Around her were spread small packets of powder evidently extracted from her gown. She snapped, ‘Close the flap, Roger, and stand guard so no one comes in!’

I closed the flap but did not stand guard. I must delay my father. Across the open centre of Hygryll lay the largest of the stone huts, where once I had been led to eat …

Do not think of that
.

But as I passed the wide flat rock that sat in the middle of the circle of huts, memory was hard to keep at bay. The circles of the Dead with spinning vortexes in the middle. The circle of stone huts with the killing rock in the middle. Myself and Maggie and my son in the middle of this war I had blundered into.

Rawley emerged from the largest dwelling just as I reached it. His men, quiet and tense, followed. A few glanced towards the hut where the bereaved woman watched at least one innocent child. One
hisaf
, the youngest, was blinking back tears.

‘Roger,’ my father said, not gently. ‘Go back to your hut and rest.’

‘I am rested. And I must talk to you. Now.’

‘You will not change my mind.’

‘I do not intend to try. This is about something else. Charlotte.’

Alarm creased his face. ‘She is not well? More than merely tired, I mean?’

‘She is quietly asleep.’ I did not want him blundering into the hut before Nell had finished.

‘Then I will talk to you later.’ He moved to walk around me. I stepped sideways to block him, and he reached out and shoved me aside. I think that was the moment I hated him the most. He had abandoned my mother and me, he
had sent me into danger at least twice, and now he contemplated an act so terrible my mind shrank from picturing it. Yet it was that dismissive shove –
you are of no matter, get out of my way
– that enraged me most. So do our feelings lack proportion and balance.

Balance. That was, had always been, the key.

‘Rawley,’ I said, unable as ever to call him ‘Father’, ‘I have information that will affect what you do now. Charlotte learned it in Galtryf, from Jago, and she told me. It is crucial knowledge!’

He paused. ‘From Jago?’

‘Yes. She didn’t know if she should tell you, so she asked me just now, in the hut, before she fell asleep again.’

Irresolution appeared on Rawley’s face. Behind him, two more men emerged from the hut. They were probably all
hisafs
, and the men on guard duty and holding Hygryll against attack were the ones recruited from The Queendom. Four, five, six
hisafs
– not very many, and one little more than a boy. Good! The rest of Rawley’s forces must be scattered throughout The Queendom and the Unclaimed Lands, carrying out their part of the covert war. Whatever that part was.

Rawley spoke over his shoulder. ‘I will come soon. Wait for me at the prison.’

The men nodded and started towards the farthest of the stone huts. That, then, was where Harbinger had been taken, along with whatever men and women of Hygryll had been left alive when Rawley took the village. Powerful men and women, made that way by the stolen power of the Dead. But their power was not yet complete, as Harbinger’s was. And it had not kept them from being separated from their own children.

Rawley said to me, ‘Now what did Charlotte learn from Jago?’

‘Not here,’ I said and started towards the large boulder where I had talked to Nell. My breath caught in my throat. Would he follow? He did.

Two minutes used up while we walked to the boulder. ‘Well, Roger? Tell me!’

‘It is difficult to say.’ I tried to look like a man grappling with painful truths. Oh, that I had Leo’s ability to act! ‘Charlotte said … she said …’

‘
What
?’

‘I’m trying to remember the exact words.’

‘I don’t need the exact words – just tell me!’

‘It was when Charlotte and Rawnie were in a ruined courtyard to walk a bit. Every day Charlotte was taken out of her cell for a while under the supervision of either Leo or one of the Soulvine women, although Rawnie had more the run of the keep because Leo—’

‘Roger,’ he said, and now his voice was low and dangerous.

‘I’m trying to tell you! Jago was passing through and he said to her, “It isn’t just dogs any more”.’

Rawley’s face changed. He looked at me hard. ‘This was before you inhabited the moor cur?’

‘Yes.’

‘Had any of the Brotherhood – Leo, for instance – known that you contemplated such a thing?’

‘How would I know what Leo knew?’

‘But you hadn’t told him?’

‘No, of course not.’ Did he think I was stupid? Apparently so.

‘What else did Jago say to Charlotte?’

‘I don’t know. But you could ask her.’

‘I will. Now. Why didn’t you tell me this earlier? If Jago meant that the Brotherhood is training to do what you did … but then why would he tell Charlotte, of all people?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said, truthfully.

‘This is indeed critical, Roger, but if – what is she
doing
?’

He meant Rawnie, who had appeared from behind a large boulder at full run, holding a rope. I shrugged. ‘Playing some game, I suppose.’

‘Well, it’s safe enough this close to the village and maybe it’s best that she not see—’ He broke off, not meeting my eyes.

Had Nell had time to finish her preparation? And how was I going to get Rawley to eat it?

He said abruptly, ‘I will talk to Charlotte,’ and signalled his men to wait where they stood. Was that relief that I detected in his face? Perhaps even he was glad of an excuse to put off torturing the Soulviners. I said, desperate to retain him as long as possible, ‘If the Brotherhood is indeed training to—’

‘I wish to know exactly what Charlotte said. She may have misunderstood. Or you may have.’

‘That is always a possibility,’ I said, but he was already striding towards the stone hut where Charlotte lay. I followed. If Nell had not finished …

She had. Not little cakes, like those which once sent me into such a suggestible daze that I had bedded Fia. Not a potion, such as had once enabled me to watch Queen Caroline burn at the stake without understanding what I viewed. No, this time there was only an array of bilberries, the moor fruit glistening on a crude stone plate. Nell was gone. But the berries sent out an aroma stronger and sweeter than usual, and they glistened more redly, as if still fresh with dew under early sunshine.

Rawley ignored them. He bent over Charlotte, still asleep on the stone bench. She lay on her back, her hands flung palms up beside her head, in an attitude of complete vulnerability. In the flickering glow from Nell’s rushlight on the wall, I saw my father’s face soften. Her helplessness
and dependence moved him. I thought how different Charlotte was from Maggie, and I was glad all over again that I had Maggie.