The Widow and the King (52 page)

‘Best we don't discuss that,’ said Orcrim.

‘Things get worse, things get better,’ said Hob.

The third man said nothing.

‘My point was that we understand something of your enemy,’ said Orcrim. ‘That, knowing him, we are maybe more proof against his tricks than any you could find who do not. Also that we
may
have grounds to make this our quarrel, too.’

‘Is it this prince who is sending these – things?’ asked Sophia.

‘Yes,’ said Ambrose. ‘And he willed the attack on Develin. And I think he must have given Chawlin the cup …’

‘No!’ she said.

‘No, I – did that,’ she repeated, looking at the ground. She was tired. Very, very tired. Chawlin had said the cup was dangerous. She had given it to him. And Ambrose was looking at her again.

‘This is the proposal that my friends and I have discussed,’ said Orcrim.

‘You may travel in the March for a season, the three of you, with our good will, so long as you do us no harm. For the month ahead, twelve of us will ride with you and fight with you, if need be. We will do the same in the mountains, for the footsteps of Tarceny lead there and I think it is right that we should. Mind, I do not promise that we shall kill your enemy for you, or run great risk to do so, for I do not know his strength. But we will do what I think is in reason. For all this, I think it is fair that we take a toll, and the toll shall be the pearls you have shown us – however many there may be. I counted twenty, I think.

‘At the same time I shall send three of my friends in secret to Develin's country. There, they will find out how things stand. They may even talk with men who owed service to the Widow, about how it would be if the Widow's daughter returned. I will meet with those three here a month from today. When I hear what they say I will decide if the venture you propose is feasible for us.’ He looked narrowly at Sophia.

‘You chose your words carefully a little while ago. You said a manor for each knight. Perhaps you did not know that there are only three knighted men among us. But I think every man who follows me is worth his spurs. So my price will be fifteen manors – if, as I say, your venture seems feasible at all.’

‘I said nine were vacant,’ said Sophia. ‘I cannot do more in the first year.’

‘I am sure my friends would be patient – within reason.’

‘Very well.’

‘Then I think we can sleep, and start fresh tomorrow,’ said Orcrim.

‘Three more things,’ said Ambrose.

Orcrim had been in the act of rising. Now he settled again. There was the slightest sway in the way he held his head that told how tired he was. They must all be tired, Sophia realized – as tired as she. How did Ambrose dare beard him again?

‘Yes?’

‘Aclete shall not be taxed by you, or harried.’

‘Nevertheless, you wish to take fifteen horses and riders for a week into the mountains, and we must eat. So I shall permit Aclete to make us a gift of supplies at least. They will count it generous if we do not ask them more before harvest. Next season, if we are still here, I may think again. Second?’

‘There is a man nearby, I think. His name is Chawlin. He must be found and brought in. You may have to disarm him.’

‘He's a friend. He mustn't be hurt,’ said Sophia urgently.

‘We will look. Third?’

Ambrose was looking at her. He had something he wanted to say to her. It must be about Chawlin. But he turned back to Orcrim.

‘That you should give up your feud with my mother, and that she should also have your protection in the March.’

Orcrim's face hardened. But what he said was: ‘In a way, I may already have done.’

‘What! When?’

‘How do you think we came so quickly? How do you think I knew you carried that pebble? Your mother reached
us first, boy. I spoke with her at sundown yesterday. We were on the road to Aclete before Mar had even hit the ground.’

‘Where is she?’

‘Somewhere else, as you said. But she is not dead, despite what someone claimed earlier. She came to me on a pathside in sight of Tarceny walls. I could have lifted her head with my sword in an instant, but damn me, I didn't. I listened. Then I came here, thinking maybe I'd lift yours and be even with her anyway. But damn me, I haven't. And now I think we should all find some sleep, or I'll know I'm already dreaming.’

Sophia saw Ambrose draw breath to ask another question, and then think better of it. The men got to their feet. The fighter Aun rose with them.

‘Chance has put us in different camps until now,’ he said to the old brigand. ‘But I know of no ill that you have done to me or to any friend of mine.’

‘Now that is generous,’ said Orcrim, as if to the men beside him. ‘He remembers no ill of us, after all the things that have passed. What shall we say to that, Hob?’

The man Hob grunted and looked at his feet.

‘Hob had a sore jaw to remember you by, from the ferry at Develin's river. But maybe it has mended by now. As for me …’ His eyes narrowed as he looked at Aun.

‘… There
were
some things. One or two quite big ones. But I no longer seem to recall them clearly.’

Aun grunted. Whatever it was, thought Sophia, they both remembered it.

‘So what leads you, then, to follow a child into such a fight as this?’ asked Orcrim.

‘An old friendship.’

‘Oh, yes. And how will that help you when these things come close?’

‘I did not hear that witchcraft was ever proof against iron.’

‘Nor I. Sleep well, then. But not too long.’

The three men left them. The guards settled down by the remains of the fire, nursing their swords and talking to one another in low voices. Sophia threw herself full length on the grass, thinking that she could sleep for a week. Ambrose had lain down, too. But the fighter called Aun just sat, with his cloak around him, looking across the fire to where the Company of the Moon were arranging themselves for what remained of the night. Clearly he was going to watch, too, for whatever might come out of the darkness.

Sleep was drawing over her swiftly. The man's face hung in her sight, half-lit by the embers of the fire, staring after the enemy with whom he had spoken.

A child? she thought. That's what you think. But he's made peace between you two, and I helped him.

And you'd never have thought we could do it.

hey did not find Chawlin when they combed the hillsides in the early dawn. The waving grasses bore no marks, the wind brought them no news. He had slipped away into the tossing wilderness of trees and scrub that covered the hills of Tarceny.

When the searchers regrouped at sunrise, Ambrose and Aun went down to Aclete with Orcrim and three others. They rode through the open gates and in among the huts. There they found some of the men who had been at the council the day before, and told them that the Fifteen had agreed to ride away and leave the village unharmed, in exchange for a fortnight's supplies for men and horses, and passage for three of their number in secret across the lake.

‘It could have been worse, damn you,’ said Aun, when one of the villagers started to mutter. ‘Did you want to try fighting for it?’

Ambrose sat unhappily on his mule, waiting. He knew what it would have meant to his mother and himself if a troop of armed men had come to their home in the mountains
and demanded a share of their stores. He could hear angry voices behind huts and down alleyways, complaining to the group of elders who were going around making the collection. And he hated the way that men were banging on their neighbours' door-posts and announcing a ‘lord's tax’ as they went from hut to hut gathering small quantities of meal and bread and dried fruit. He felt that he had betrayed them.

Orcrim looked at the growing pile of sacks and bundles.

‘It's not enough,’ he said to the nearest villagers. ‘Tell them to double it.’

‘You can't!’ cried Ambrose.

‘Can't I? I say I can.’

‘You'll starve them!’ He looked at Aun for support, but Aun glanced at Orcrim and kept silent.

‘My lord,’ said an elderly villager. ‘Some houses, this is half what they have.’

‘Then I'll have the other half,’ said Orcrim.

‘No!’ cried Ambrose.

He didn't know what to do. He didn't want this man's help if they had to behave like this to get it. For a moment his hand touched the hilt of his sword. Then he realized that was stupid, and took it away again.

Orcrim must have seen the movement, but all he did was raise an eyebrow.

‘Ask for something else,’ said Aun. ‘Something easier.’

Orcrim looked around. ‘Very well. I want …’ He paused.

‘It had better be something useful. Oh, let's say half the horse-collars in the town. Horse-collars, you,’ he said to the villager.

‘My lord?’

‘Horse-collars!’ bellowed Orcrim. ‘Time was, Aclete had fields all the way for a mile up the river. Don't tell me there are no horse-collars left in the town.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘And pulleys. A couple of damned good, working, double pulleys. And hurry before I think of something more!’

‘You can't …’ Ambrose protested again. Aun leaned across and put a hand on his arm.

‘Aclete can do it,’ he murmured. ‘They could have done the food, too. Don't argue.’

‘But it's unfair!’ Ambrose hissed. ‘He can't keep demanding things like that!’

‘Marketplace talk, that's all. I don't know what he needs them for, but if Orcrim comes away with pulleys and horse-collars, then it's pulleys and horse-collars he'll have wanted when we rode through the gate. You've helped. Don't get in the way now.’

The food was gathered and loaded onto donkeys for the short journey up the hill where it could be divided among the Company. Four shabby horse-collars were produced and added to the pile, with some short lengths of chain. Orcrim looked them over and complained, and then went with his three fellows down to the harbour, talking as though he was going to dismantle half the boats for the rigging and commandeer the rest to carry his men across the lake. Ambrose watched him go, helpless and angry.

‘Your lordship.’

It was the grey-bearded townsman, standing at Ambrose's stirrup.

‘I'm sorry about this,’ Ambrose said glumly.

‘We'll live, sir, I dare say. But if you please, this town has a gift for you.’

‘A gift?’

‘To welcome you home, sir, and to thank you for what you have done for us.’

They handed him a long pole, with a black cloth rolled and tied tightly at one end.

‘It used to stand outside the old barracks, sir. And we've another we can put up when you're gone.’

Ambrose lifted it, puzzled. He was aware of all the people watching him, waiting for him to speak.

‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘But you did everything, not me. And …’ He looked at the pole and its roll of cloth. It was too long for a staff. It wasn't a lance. What was it?

Still they were watching him, waiting.

‘You have to break the ties,’ said Aun at his shoulder.

The ties were knotted around the cloth, with loops that came undone in a single pull.

The big, black banner of the Doubting Moon dropped from the pole to his stirrup.

Sophia watched the warm wind tease the folds of that flag, as it topped another rise at the head of the company. The air made it flap like a huge bird against the sky. They had given it to a man called Endor to carry, presumably because his horse would not shy under such a thing. Endor himself was a hairy, crazy-eyed man, and not one she would readily have thought could be trusted with a standard – let alone one of Develin's manors.

She wondered whether her father was smiling now, at
the grim joke that had cast her as an ally of the house of Tarceny.

She was tired and depressed. The going was bad. The old lake-road into the north of the March was narrow and stony, and the landscape was growing more rugged. The small grey mare she had chosen was a stranger, although clearly better than either of the other horses that Orcrim's spies had left behind when they had taken to their boat at Aclete. She was riding less well than she knew she could. She was more out of practice than she had realized. Also, she was not dressed for it.

The company crossed the ridge. From her saddle she looked back for a moment over wave after wave of hills cresting beside the bright lake-water, fading into blue in the distant south. Then the path dropped again, through pinewoods to another shallow stream. On the far bank there was a clearing. Ahead of her, up the line of horsemen, Sophia saw Orcrim splash through the water, overtaking the bannerman. On the other side of the stream he wheeled his big mount out into the clearing and began to wave the company past.

‘Keep on,’ he was calling. ‘Keep on.’

They poured on under his urging, rider after rider through the ford and up the muddy path on the far side. Her horse checked at the edge of the stream and then found its way into the water after the others. Icy droplets kicked up and splashed on her bare legs. The mare waded steadily across in the wake of the bigger mounts ahead, then heaved itself up the bank. She saw there was a lonely hut under the eaves of the wood at the far side of the clearing.