The Godspeaker Trilogy (50 page)

“I am organised! I just overslept. I had this wonderful idea last night for a new marionette, a shepherdess and her little flock, and I wanted to get her face started. But when I looked at the clock it was past midnight and I still hadn’t packed my goods for today.”

Ursa cut two generous slices of moist plum duff and put them on plates pulled down from a shelf. “It’s always something with you,” she said, handing him one. “You’re a dyed-in-the-wool dreamer and no mistake.”

Hettie used to say that, too, in the same amused and scolding voice. If she had lived he was sure she and Ursa would have become fast friends.

If she had lived …

To distract himself from that melancholy notion he took a big mouthful of plum duff. “Oh, this is wonderful!” he chumbled through Ursa’s delectable cooking.

“I know,” she said, and poured the tea into two chipped mugs. Looking at him through the rising steam she added, “It’s one of Hettie’s recipes. She pressed it on me, asked me to make sure I kept on baking plummy duff for you, not long before …”

She’d never told him that. He’d eaten her plum duff, oh, too many times to count, and she’d never told him where the recipe came from. Oh, Hettie. Hettie. I miss you, my darling. I miss you so much .

Ursa handed him a mug. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have mentioned it.”

“No, no, of course you should,” he said, staring at his tea. “It’s quite all right. No need to apologise.”

“Hmm.” She pulled out another stool and sat. “All right, Jones. About this voice you think was Hettie …”

Abruptly, perversely, he didn’t want to talk about it. All he wanted to do was sit here eating Hettie’s plum duff and drinking ginger root tea, pretending it wasn’t nearly the anniversary of his beloved wife’s death which was also, cruelly, the anniversary of their wedding.

And Ursa wonders why I’ve no time for God.

Around his last bite of cake he said, indistinctly, “I really am worried about Rhian, you know.”

Ursa’s severely disciplined eyebrows rose. For a moment he thought she’d challenge his refusal to answer her question, but she didn’t. She just smiled at him and rolled her eyes.

“Rhian, is it? Dear me, how very cosy. And did the princess kiss your cheek on seeing you, Jones, and beg you to advise her about matters of state?”

Warm-faced beneath his unruly beard he washed down the last of his plum duff with a mouthful of tea then longingly eyed the closed cake tin. Seconds would be lovely but he knew better than to ask. Ursa, secure in her lean angularity, had caustic views on overindulgence.

“That’s not fair,” he said, shifting on his stool so the cake tin wasn’t a direct temptation. “I’ve known the princess since she was a babe-in-arms. Why, I’m more than old enough to be her father! Can I help it if I think of her as Rhian? It’s always Your Highness to her face, you can be assured.”

“I can be assured that if there’s trouble abroad you’ll be the first in line to buy a ticket.”

“I resent that, Ursa!”

She sniffed. “You’d resent the ground for slapping you if you tripped and fell down.”

She was treating him like the fractious children who came to her with their cut knees and sore throats and busy beestung fingers. Briefly, he was cross.

“Ursa, I wish you’d take me seriously.”

“Says the man hearing voices in an empty room,” she murmured.

The kingdom’s in trouble, Dex, and you have to save it.

He thrust the echo of Hettie’s voice to one side. “This is important, Ursa. Things aren’t going well with the king, I’m certain of it. I think—” He swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry. “I think his health is far worse than we’ve been led to believe.”

Ursa inspected her half-eaten slice of cake. “Really? Going into physicking, are you?”

“No, of course not! But—well—since you’re a physick I wondered—you know—”

“Jones, I haven’t a clue,” she said, still eyeing her cake.

He leaned forward, as though her plants might be eavesdropping. “I thought you might’ve heard something. Something other than the official news from the castle.”

“I haven’t,” said Ursa, after a moment. “But I’m not the physick our loftiest nobles call upon for their hangnails, am I?”

No, she wasn’t, more fools them. Ursa had never been fashionable. Her choice of patients was dictated by need, not the size of their purses. Oh, she had her small share of important clients … those rare men and women who judged her on results, not the names she could drop at a posh dinner party. But they were few and far between.

“What have you heard of a Physick Ardell?” he said, sitting back. “He’s attending the king.”

“I know,” she said. Typically, she needed no time to rummage through her memory. “Ardell’s twelve years younger and eight inches taller than me. Bad teeth—he’s far too fond of candied orange. Studied with Physick Runcette in duchy Meercheq. Darling of the nobility despite the fact he’s keen on purges, pistillations and leeching.”

“But he’s a good physick?”

“Why?” asked Ursa, and finally ate more cake. “Is the princess dissatisfied with his services?”

Shadows cast by an uncertain future darkened the bright, whitewashed workshop. Dexterity sighed. “She didn’t say, exactly. But she does look sick with worry, Ursa. I tried to convince her to send for you, but—well, there are complications.”

Again, Ursa’s quirky smile. “Politely put.” She drained her mug in one long swallow and set it on the bench. “And kindly done of you. But even if I did attend His Majesty I doubt there’s any more I could do. Ardell’s a touch too attached to his own self-importance for my tastes but he’s as good a physick as any in Kingseat. In the kingdom, most likely. If the king is gravely ill despite Ardell’s best efforts then … well, I think it must be hopeless.”

“Hopeless?” He felt his mouth go dry again. His heart was pounding. “Do you mean His Majesty’s sure to die?”

“Nothing’s ever sure in physicking, Jones, but I have to say the facts don’t bode a good outcome. The pestilence the princes brought home with them from Dev’karesh killed everyone it infected, poor souls. If the princess hadn’t been out of the capital when her brothers returned I suspect we’d have long since buried her beside them. I’ve never said so but to my mind it’s a miracle the king’s lived this long.” Ursa shook her head. “Thank God the outbreak was contained quickly or we’d likely be a kingdom of corpses by now.”

That made him stare. “You’ve been expecting this?”

“I’m a physick, Jones. Disease is my livelihood. Of course I’ve been expecting it.”

“You never said a word!”

She shrugged. “To what end? What’s done is done. No point stirring people to a panic over what can’t be changed or helped.”

“Oh dear. And all this time I thought there was some hope.” He slapped the bench top. “It’s so unfair ! Rhian’s young and beautiful, she should be dancing at balls, breaking hearts, being courted by some young lord, riding her favourite horse through the woods … not spending every waking moment cooped up in a sick-room watching her father die!”

No-one should be forced to watch a loved one die. If only I could help her through this nightmare . But he couldn’t. He was nothing but a toymaker, the plain, unimportant man who’d made her giggle as a child and smile with fond memory now she was grown. He wasn’t a great lord with the right to speak to her as an equal and offer his shoulder’s strength in this time of woe.

“There’s little point fretting yourself about it,” said Ursa sharply. “You can’t help the princess or the king and that’s all there is to it.”

Moodily, he rubbed the edge of his thumb over a knot in the bench between them. “I know. It just hurts to see her so … wounded.”

“You may be as irritating as a shirtful of ants, Jones,” she said, softening, “but I can’t deny it—you’re a good, sweet man.”

She didn’t often pay him compliments. Any other time he’d tease her for it but his mood was too sombre. “I hate to think what will happen to Rhian if you’re right, and the king dies.”

“What do you mean?” said Ursa, surprised. “You know what will happen. With no prince to wear Eberg’s crown she’ll marry a son from one of Ethrea’s great Houses. He’ll leave his name behind, become a Havrell and take the throne as king. She, as queen consort, will give birth to the Havrell heir.”

He tugged his beard. “You make it sound so simple, but I fear it won’t be. Rhian’s unspoken for. The dukes have sons, and brothers, and nephews. They’ll see the king’s death as a bright opportunity to further their own fortunes. Who knows what kind of pressures will be placed on the princess to choose this man instead of that one? And not for her benefit or even for the kingdom’s, but for the benefit of a virtual stranger.” He slapped his knee. “It’s a great pity she wasn’t matched before the king fell so ill. Now she’s got no-one to protect her from the scheming and the politics and the men who see her as nothing more than a pawn to further their own ambitions.”

“She has Prolate Marlan,” said Ursa. “As the kingdom’s leading man of God he’ll see she’s not importuned or harassed.”

Ursa, so acute in all else, had this one blindness. Like every faithful church-goer she set great store by Prolate Marlan. For himself, he wasn’t so sure. Ethrea’s prolate had always struck him as unctuous and intolerant, an unattractive combination. But it did no good to say that to Ursa.

“I hope so,” he said. “Certainly it’s his duty to protect her.”

Ursa was watching him closely, narrow-eyed and purse-lipped. “You’re taking this very personally, Jones.”

He managed a faint smile. “Call me foolish but she could be my daughter. Hettie and I … we dreamed of a daughter.” The old, familiar ache caught him. They’d dreamed of many things beneath the willows fringing the duck pond at the end of their lane. He closed his eyes. Time to face facts . “I did hear her, you know, Ursa. I just don’t know why. I don’t know what it means.”

Ursa’s hand closed over his. “Jones, my dear friend. Hettie is dead. What you heard was wishful thinking.”

“No,” he said, and looked at her. “It was more than that.”

Instead of arguing, Ursa cleared the bench of plates and mugs and stacked them neatly in the sink under the window. Her face, in profile, looked troubled. When she finally turned to him her eyes were the grey of storm clouds.

“You’ve come to me as your physick and asked for my opinion. Here it is. I don’t believe the dead speak to us. Not unless we’re a prophet like Rollin, and Jones, you are surely not a new Rollin. But I don’t think you’re sick, either. You’ve no signs of fever or wilting or addlement. I say you’re missing your wife more than usual because it’s that time of year again and you should let it rest there.”

He wished he could. He wanted to. But … “I can’t.”

“Jones, what did she say to you? At least—what do you think she said?”

Braced for scorn he whispered, “She said the kingdom’s in trouble and I have to save it.”

No scorn. Only pity. He thought that was worse.

“Oh, Jones . Do you hear yourself? Does that really sound likely?”

Of course not. It was the most un likely thing he’d ever heard. But unlikely or not … “I can’t help that it sounds ridiculous, Ursa. I want to disbelieve it. But I was there. I heard her. Hettie spoke to me.”

Ursa pulled a face. “Then I don’t know what to tell you. I’m a physick, not a devout. If it’s advice on miracles you’re asking for, Jones, put your nose round a church door. It’s been long enough.”

There was more than a hint of censure in her voice and gaze but he refused to be shamed. The day he buried Hettie was the day he and God fell out and that was that. Ursa knew better than to try and change his mind on that score … or should do, after all these years.

Her scolding frown eased and she said more kindly, “There’s no mystery here, Jones. The answer’s staring you in the face. Next to no sleep last night and no breakfast to set you up for a busy day. That’s what’s ailing you. A decent meal and a good night’s rest is the cure you’re after. Go home. Cook yourself a proper dinner and get some shuteye. In the morning you’ll laugh and forget all about this.”

Something tells me that’s easier said than done . He glanced out of the window at the fading sky. “It’s not even sunset, Ursa.”

“Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and unlikely to hear voices coming out of thin air,” Ursa prescribed flatly. “You’ve got my advice, you can take it or leave it. Now stop being such an old hen and leave me to get on with my work.”

He pushed himself to his feet. “You’re probably right.”

“I’m the physick. I’m always right.”

Snorting, he kissed her cheek. “Your modesty overwhelms me. Goodbye.”

She smiled. “Goodbye. Sleep well.”

Outside in the laneway, Otto, his little grey donkey, was lipping at some dusty grass and practising put-upon sighs.

“I did hear her,” Dexterity told him, unhitching the reins from a handy tree branch and clambering onto his brightly painted cart. “I’m not frazzled or addled or underslept. I heard Hettie. And I don’t understand what it means, Otto.”

Otto’s ears indicated that he didn’t understand it either, nor did he much care and could they just get on home to the stable and dinner, please?

“Go on then,” Dexterity said, and rattled the reins. “Shake a leg.”

With Otto-like perversity the donkey shook his head instead. Then he leaned into his harness, broke into a grumpy trot and aimed his long ears towards home. There was no time now to see about the parlour curtains. And given the state of the world, perhaps redecorating the cottage should wait.

The sun was just sinking below the horizon as Otto turned in at the cottage gate. By the time Dexterity had unhitched and tended the donkey and stowed his emptied trunk in his workshop, then smothered his day’s earnings in the kitchen’s flour barrel, lit the lamps, pumped water for his bath, heated it over the flames in the parlour fireplace and filled the tub, stars were pricking the night sky and moths were gathered at his cottage’s glowing windows. He tugged the old green curtains across the glass, shutting out the world.

The flickering lamplight warmed his rose-pink parlour walls, sinking the corners and crannies into shadow so the commonplace was made mysterious. Hettie smiled at him from her place on the mantelpiece, pleased by the buttercups he’d vased beside her that morning. The portrait was fading now, with age and the heat from fires in this little home they’d created all those years ago. The picture frame was cracked in the bottom right-hand corner, the paint chipped on the left. He’d dropped it a week ago, while he was dusting. She wouldn’t like it much, could she see it; neat as a pin and twice as sharp was his Hettie.