The Widow and the King (24 page)

‘And your mother caught me.

‘She caught me in the broken country between the north of the March and the Seabord. By then, Baldwin was dead and Tarceny a smoking ruin. She and some others were on a mission to make peace for the King with Baldwin's brother, in Velis.’ He smiled, grimly. ‘Septimus,’ he added, ‘is ever trusting where he should not, and forgiving where he should not. It will be the death of him. It takes more than a good man to make a good king.

‘I had been on the run for ten days when her horsemen appeared on the track behind me. I was sore, cold, hungry – I was not thinking well. I just kept walking, and they rode up on me, much as that crew of Tarceny did to us the other day. I remember your mother passing me in her litter. “Look up,” she said to me.’ He made a noise, somewhere between a grunt and a chuckle. ‘“
Look up.”
I felt my neck about to leave my shoulders. That is what I expected for failing to surrender when I had the chance. A jerk of her head, and it would have happened. Instead she spoke to me …’

‘Something about filling your mind, and maybe your belly as well?’

‘Very like that. Of course she took … Ah no, it was
as well. I did not trust myself by the end, but I trusted her. At all events, she has been pleased to suffer me here since then. So I have buried myself in books and classes, and people may say what they like of me. Another man might have taken to the church. But knowledge is rarer, I think.’

He looked up, and she saw that the story was finished.

‘Thank you for telling me,’ she said.

‘Thank you for coming,’ he said gravely. ‘And for listening, too. Talk is better than music, in the dark. Though as I say, it's not a story I tell, and I'd ask you not to repeat it to anyone. Your mother—’ He broke off.

There were footsteps, coming down the stair at the far end of the corridor outside the broken door.

‘That may be my relief.’ he said. ‘Now, you don't want to be found here. Go down that aisle into the shadows, and I'll take him on a quick tour of the cellar. As soon as we are off at the back you should get up the stairs. Be careful!’

He might be in trouble too! He would be in far worse trouble than she. Hestie would not forgive a scholar who was caught alone with the Widow's daughter in a dark place – however innocent they both might be.

He must have known that. Yet he had let her stay, and talked, and hatched this plan in his mind as they talked. She had not seen any of
that
on his face. And …

The footsteps were coming closer. She fled.

Ambrose lay in pain. His back ached and throbbed. He could barely feel the pallet beneath his cheek. His eyes were open, but in the dimness of his cell he could see little. He had lain like this for hours. It was getting worse, not better.

He was half-naked. His fingers could not have put his
shirt back on, even if his skin could have borne it. He had been clutching it when they had thrust him into his cell, but it was gone somewhere now. He must have dropped it on the floor when he had collapsed onto his pallet.

He had dropped his stones somewhere, too.

He could not move. He could not think – in his pain, and the darkness.

It was late. But Sophia waited nonetheless. She hung in the lee of the Wool Tower, listening to the sounds of the house preparing for the night. Somewhere around the living quarters Dapea and Hestie were almost certainly searching for her, candles in hand. So long as she was only a little while longer they might keep it to themselves, for her sake and theirs. But if they did not find her they would have to confess to the Widow that she had run out of their control again, and that would mean trouble for everybody.

Still she waited, intent on wringing a few more moments from the evening.

He was handsome. He was brave and experienced. He had been in the desperate battles on the edge of the Kingdom, not for greed but for loyalty and truth. He had rank, and grace. He was as clever as any of the preening, attention-seeking officers with whom the Widow surrounded herself. And yet he was so different from them! He was humble, even. Why did he endure living among the moth-eaten masters and the sons of merchants? None of
them
would have had the wit or the will to keep her out of trouble – twice now.

He had liked it that she had come, hadn't he? And now that she had left him, she wanted to see him again at once.

And if she waited, she would.

The bouncy, fluttery feeling inside her was stronger than ever now, as though she was unusually happy and yet had no idea why. It was because she was doing something that was forbidden, and knew that she would get away with it, if only she kept her head. But it was more than that. It was like the secret glow she used to get from her favourite daydreams, of finding her father wounded and forgotten in some cave, where she would nurse him back to health.

Like that. And it was because of him.

She was beginning to wonder if she might start a private – a
very
private – little fantasy about him. Why not? Life would be so much richer if …

Where was he?

He appeared at last, swinging the lantern thoughtfully as he crossed the upper courtyard towards the school building. She saw him start and look hard at her when she stepped from the shadows to join him, but he said nothing. Perhaps she had given herself away by waiting for him. She did not care.

‘There's something else I wanted to ask you,’ she said.

There weren't nearly enough things to ask him, or to talk to him about, and keep him talking while she stayed with him. But she had managed to think of one – one at least that might show him she was more than the child he had taken her for. And it would help her feel less guilty, too.

‘Yes?’

‘There's a new scholar, called Luke,’ she said. ‘Do you know him?’

‘I think so. Dark hair, about thirteen years old. Arrived a few days ago?’

‘Yes.’

‘What of him?’

They talked in low tones, for other people were moving in the courtyard in the deepening evening. A flare of light marked the brazier at the inner gate. Somewhere on the towers above their heads there would be others, warming the armed watchmen as they began the long pace that would carry them on into the night.

‘I don't think he's finding it easy here. I wondered if you could help him.’

‘Shouldn't you talk to Padry about that?’

‘He's suspicious of the masters. You can tell. He gets nervous if they come too close. And Padry was severe with him today, in the library. I think he may have been beaten.’

‘Beaten? I see. What's his family?’

‘None that I know of.’

‘An orphan, perhaps. Well, since you ask, I will see what can be done.’

He ducked through the side door of the school. The passage within was dark. She knew he expected her to leave him. But she followed him, because she could.

And now he had agreed to watch Luke, and she had made another reason for meeting and talking with him in a day or two's time.
Since you ask
, he had said. And he wouldn't have suggested she talk to Padry if he had thought she was just a child. Nor would he have listened when she told him that Padry would be no good. She hugged these thoughts to herself as they climbed the stairs towards the landing and the door back into the living quarters, where they would part for the night.

∗ ∗ ∗

Something moved in Ambrose's cell. A hand gripped his shoulder. He gasped with the pain of it.

‘Come on,’ hissed a voice. ‘Where are they? Quickly!’ The hand was shaking him – shaking him hard. His shoulder yelped. Maybe he cried out.

‘Wake up, damn you. Wake up – it's coming!’

He rolled on his pallet. The man was crouching beside him.

‘Up! Quick!’

And then there was something else.

Rising, lurching at the foot of his bed! It was big – bigger than a goat, at least. A head like a man's, moaning from an open mouth! An arm like a spider's, horribly long, flicked towards him. His blanket jerked, caught by a sharp claw. Ambrose pulled at it, screaming. He looked into the eyes of the Thing.

The man shouted and threw something. The cell was filled with pebbles that crashed against the wall and rattled upon the floor.

‘Did you hear that?’

Chawlin stopped on the stair and raised his lantern.

There had been a cry – two cries – from the floor above them, and the sound of something hitting wood with force.

Drunks? thought Sophia. But the school should be virtually empty. Most of the scholars would still be in the great hall, with any wine they had managed to save from the meal. The masters would be at council with the Widow, most likely debating the evening's Dispute all over again.

They listened. The building was quiet once more. Cautiously they made their way up to the landing.

Something gleamed for a moment at the top of the next flight of stairs, and disappeared.

‘What was that?’

‘A cat?’ she suggested.

She had seen the eyes of cats glow like that in the light of a lamp, like bright coins or marbles floating in the air, because their bodies did not show up in the darkness.

‘A cat? Maybe …’ He raised his lamp again, and began to climb the next stair, slowly. Once more she followed, realizing that if it had been a cat it must have been further up the stair than she had thought. And if it had been that high, then the eye should have been smaller than it had seemed. And it should have been white, or green. Not
red
.

Chawlin had reached the top of the stair with his light. He was looking around him. She could see from the way he stood that there was nothing up there.

‘It was somewhere here,’ he said. ‘I thought it slipped back up the corridor when we appeared, but …’ He sniffed. ‘Do you smell anything?’

Was he asking her to smell anything out of place in a house of unwashed scholars? She took a long breath through her nose. But – perhaps – there was a scent on the air that she had not been expecting.

‘Yes, I think …’

Chawlin sniffed again, and began to look around him – at the walls, the floor, even the ceiling. Sophia stood a few steps down, still searching for the smell. She thought it reminded her of stone – wet stone, like at the edge of a pool.

‘Damn!’ whispered Chawlin suddenly. ‘Damn!’

The lantern swung in his hand and its light danced on the blank walls.

‘Well,’ he said, sharply. ‘If there was anything, it's not here now.’ He seemed to think for a moment. ‘You should be in your chambers.’

‘I'm going …’

‘I will see you to the living quarters.’

He was coming down the steps, motioning to her to move, as though she would need an escort down the single flight of stairs and the passage to the living-quarter door. All at once he did not want her to be there. He did not want to be there himself. She turned, surprised, and preceded him down the stair towards the landing. She thought he looked behind him more than once as they descended.

‘Damn!’ said the Wolf in the darkness of Ambrose's cell.

His voice shook. He was staring at the blank wooden partition where, a few moments before, the monster had reared out of the shadow. From his pallet Ambrose stared at the wall, too, waiting for it to reappear.

All around the cell his white stones lay scattered. The Wolf must have scooped up the pouch and hurled them at it as it seized upon Ambrose's blanket. Ambrose felt his heart beating with a sick, heavy pulse. His back had begun to smart again, too. He must have jerked around suddenly as the Thing came. Now he was paying for it.

‘Filthy beast of a …’ muttered the Wolf. ‘Are there more like that?’

‘I – didn't see it,’ Ambrose said. But he had.

He had seen it. He could still see it, pulling at him; with eyes larger than a man's and yet horribly human. And the long leg – or arm – and the drooling mouth. And the eyes. The eyes!

‘It's out in the corridor, I think,’ said the Wolf, tightly.

Ambrose held his breath. He knew the Wolf was afraid.

They listened.

Sounds carried dimly through the partition and the dormitory door. A murmur of voices. Feet on the stair, descending, fading.

Silence.

There had been people out there. Surely they would have cried out if they had seen it?

After a little the Wolf said: ‘Maybe it's gone then.’ He drew a long breath. ‘Ugh. Lucky for you I came.’

Ambrose turned and lay with his face on his bolster again. His back was throbbing heavily, each mark beginning to pound its slow rhythm on his skin. His breath was shaking. He knew the man was right. If he had not been so sick and stunned from his beating he would have been more aware. But suffering as he was, he had almost felt that it did not matter whether the monster got to him or not. And it nearly had.

The room reeked with a smell like old water.

‘You've got to take more care,’ said the Wolf. ‘You'd just dropped the pouch on the floor here when you lay down. Any time you're like that he can get you if he wants. And you can't tell what he's going to do. I thought he was going to play with you for a bit. But maybe you've annoyed him somehow. Or he's bored with you. You can't tell, see?’

‘He's here, isn't he?’ said Ambrose.

The Wolf did not answer for a moment. Then he grinned, and stroked his lip with a thumb. ‘Maybe – sometimes.’

‘What's he doing?’

‘I only said
maybe
. And you've managed so far, haven't you? Up to today, anyway. What did they beat you for, as a matter of interest?’

Ambrose tried a different position on the pallet.

‘I was reading something about my family,’ he said, wincing. ‘The Widow doesn't want people to know that I've got any.’

‘I guess they thought you were giving yourself away,’ the man said. ‘So really they were trying to help you. It's ironic of course. He knows exactly who you are, and where to find you. So do I. And if I wanted you I could have you. Do you know I had Develin's own daughter sitting right under my hooves at the roadside, the day you came here? The Widow would have swapped you for her quickly enough, I guess. But those old fools from Tarceny weren't interested. I didn't like them anyway. They'd stopped being useful. They thought they ran me, when I should have been running them. So I've given them the slip. There's no sense in spending months chasing round the south while my King forgets about me. They were so sure you'd gone with my ape of a father. I hope they get him in the end, but I don't think they will. He'll be off to Septimus now …’ He paused, following some line of thought. ‘It doesn't matter. Septimus will have to fight, soon. Then we'll see.’